title
stringlengths 1
200
⌀ | text
stringlengths 10
100k
| url
stringlengths 32
885
| authors
stringlengths 2
392
| timestamp
stringlengths 19
32
⌀ | tags
stringlengths 6
263
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
How Become a Millionairs (Over Night) | Millionaire. It’s a title that a lot of us of America would adore to possess. But,
is that basically feasible? Believe it or not, becoming a have could be a goal which may be achieved this year. In my life, I even am a have repeatedly. Most of the time before my 30s, however, I gambled my cash away on cars, homes and the way of life I had no reason to be living. Despite the prospect that you simply simply just also can blow millions, the tactic for you or anyone to become a have has been consistent over the years.
If you follow these eight valuable items of recommendation , ready to |i’ll”> i will be able to be able to guarantee that eventually, you’ll become a have. Here’s to creating this happen this year! 1. Develop a written finance. one of the foremost reasons why somebody will me’er become a have is that they haven’t written a finance.
Developing a finances forces you to wish action, rather than simply speak. It additionally guides you in creating the proper choices, so on realize all of your dreams and goals.The financial planner Scott D. Hancock aforementioned that, “When designing for a safer future there square measure 2, inputs that square measure indispensable: tons of|what proportion|what quantity} cash you’ve and thus , the way much cash you pay.
The basic purpose, i’d wish to worry concerning these 2 inputs is that they’re fully elementary to any or all monetary designing notwithstanding however giant either of them is,” Hancock aforementioned. “In my expertise, the foremost important distinction between those on the proper path vs. those on the incorrect path was the quantity of a while and energy they place into making an idea for his or her finances.” however taking time to form an idea and see it through “is the one issue all financially winning individuals have in common.” Hancock additional that,
The success experienced by the people that do that happens notwithstanding their relative wealth. Likewise, the failure of these WHO dont follow an idea is unrelated to their wealth.”
When making a monetary plan:Focus on what matters most and don’t obsess over the past. specialize in what you management by listing your best-known expenses initial in your budget, and with the gain left over,
In This Discretionary classes. specialize in your future by anticipating what quantity your future self can got to be compelled to survive. | https://medium.com/@ahmedifti100/how-become-a-millionairs-over-night-7b87549c8a40 | [] | 2020-12-18 09:20:44.369000+00:00 | ['Partnerships', 'Money', 'Earn Money Online', 'America', 'Millionaire'] |
Poinsettia Dreams | The apocalyptic darkness outside aligns with
My blackened soul.
The chilly air brutally cuts through
My breath, and the desiccated earth
Just lies there —
Lamenting burnt foliage. The lake is restless,
Ready to submerge the remnants of
Anything beautiful.
I often dream of that lake, now frozen,
And also of misty hills at the bend of
The freeway,
Twinkling colors on snow,
Trees — some barren, but in others
Leaves braided with light strings
Glowing barks.
Air that smells of vanilla and peppermint
Red Poinsettia warming up
The frosty evening for festivities.
At the end of my dreams, the lake creates
two little pools. Those overflow
as I open my eyes. | https://medium.com/genius-in-a-bottle/poinsettia-dreams-2fa40e3f4d2b | [] | 2020-12-17 21:51:42.972000+00:00 | ['Heartbreak', 'Poetry', 'Dreams', 'Seasons', 'Writing'] |
Training BERT at a University | Training BERT at a University
Machine Learning Models are Enormous.
If you’re reading this post, you’ve probably heard about the remarkable performance of new machine learning models like BERT, GPT-2/3, and other deep learning models for language, image, audio, and video data.
Image by Author
You may ask: Why do these semi-magical machine learning models perform so well? The short answer is that these models are enormously complex and are trained on an enormous amount of data. In fact, Lambda Labs recently estimated that it would require $4.6 million to train the GPT-3 on a single GPU — if such a thing were possible.
Instead, platforms like PyTorch and Tensorflow are able to train these enormous models because they distribute the workload over hundreds (or thousands) of GPUs at the same time. Unfortunately, these platforms require that each individual GPU system be identical (i.e., they have the same memory capacity and compute performance).
Unfortunately, most organizations not named Google or Microsoft do not have a thousand identical GPUs. Instead, small and medium organizations have a piecemeal approach to purchasing computer systems resulting in a heterogeneous infrastructure, which cannot be easily adapted to compute large models. Under these circumstances training even moderately-sized models could take weeks or even months to complete.
If not addressed, universities and other small organizations risk losing relevance in the race to develop newer and better machine learning models.
To help remedy this situation we recently released a software package called HetSeq, which is adapted from the popular PyTorch package and provides the capability to train large neural network models on heterogeneous infrastructure.
Experiments, details of which can be found in an article (available on ArXiV) published at the 2021 AAAI/IAAI Conference, show that base-BERT can be trained in about a day over 8 different GPU systems, most of which we had to “borrow” from idle labs from across Notre Dame.
Before we introduce HetSeq, we first need a little background:
Typical training of a neural network
Training on single GPU
This code shows the training step of a basic supervised learning model in a neural network framework. Given some architecture, this task optimizes the model parameters via SGD on the loss function between predicted instances and ground truth.
The actual training process is made of four individual steps: (1) data loading, (2) the forward pass, (3) the backward process, (4) update.
(1) Data loading
On a single GPU the first thing that happens is that the existing model parameters (which are initially random) and the data are transferred to the GPU. Typically, the dataset includes a large number of training instances which will not all fit on a single GPU. In this common case we split the dataset into multiple batches and load them one at a time.
Forward pass in single GPU (Image by Author)
(2) The Forward Pass
The next step is to compute the loss function. To do this, the data batch is passed over the model (hence “forward pass”) and compared against the ground truth training labels. In the block, the forward pass has two steps: generate predicted label (output) and measure the difference (loss) between output and target.
(3) The Backward Pass
The loss computed in the previous step determines how much to change the model parameters; this is called the gradient, which is applied backward over the neural network architecture (hence backward pass or backpropagation).
Update parameters in a single GPU (Image by Author)
(4) Update
Remember that the goal of this whole process is to optimize the model parameters so that when the data is passed forward over them, then they will minimize the loss. So it is important that the model parameters are updated according to the values of the gradient.
A brief note on training steps
All together, one iteration of data loading, a forward pass of a single data instance, followed by a backward pass, and then the parameter update is called one step. Once all the data batches in the entire dataset are processed, we say that one epoch has been completed. Finally, it has been shown that the learning rate needs to change as the number of epochs increases.
What if we have multiple GPUs?
Since data batches are independent from one another, it is rather straightforward to parallelize this process by sending different data batches to different GPUs. Then, if we can somehow combine the computed loss and synchronize the updated model parameters, then we can make training much faster.
Distributed Data Parallel class
This isn’t a new idea. In PyTorch, we use the torch.nn.parallel.DistributedDataParallel (DDP) module instead of the torch.nn.Module module for the model. Each GPU is an individual process, and the communication between GPUs occurs with standard IPC.
But that’s not the end of it. The four steps need some tweaking:
(1) Data loading with DDP
With DDP we split each data batch over many different GPUs — as many as we have available. In this case it is critical that each GPU has the same model parameters.
This is the core idea of distributed data parallel (DDP): each GPU has identical model parameters yet process different data batches simultaneously.
Forward pass in multiple GPUs (Image by Author)
(2) Forward pass with DDP
Once different data batches are loaded into different GPUs, the next step is to perform a forward pass and compute the loss functions. Unlike in the single GPU case, we now need to compute the total loss of the all data batches, which is the sum of all the losses across all the GPUs. Because our goal is to compute the average loss for the backward step. It is important to output the number of instances (# of ins.) to the final output. We sum up the losses as well as number of instances.
(3) Backward pass with DDP
We use average loss to obtain gradients of the model parameters by backward pass. Before this begins the average loss needs to be communicated to the different GPUs so the model parameters can stay synchronized. Once the same parameters across different GPU obtain their gradients, gradient synchronization is executed to give them the same gradients.
Gradient synchronization (Image by Author)
(4) Update with DDP
Once the gradients are synchronized, we can update model parameters in parallel using the individual optimizers on each GPU.
The next training step can usually begin immediately. However, because nearly all the parameters are in float and because computing error can occur in some GPUs, especially when many training steps are performed, we occasionally synchronize parameters at the beginning or end of a step.
These changes are reflected in the following pseudocode. Notably, the function takes device id (i.e., the GPU id), the Model has to perform parameter synchronization before each forward pass, the loss function has to averaged before the backward pass, and finally the gradients need to be averaged before the model parameters are updated.
Training on multiple GPUs
Scaling Up — Multiple Nodes with Multiple GPUs
So far, we’ve talked about how to utilize multiple GPUs on the single node. That’s great, but it’ll only get us so far. If we want to really scale up, we need to distribute the workload across multiple nodes, each having multiple GPUs.
Fortunately, the same mechanism used to address GPUs on a single node can be extended to multiple nodes. You can simply set the node index, i.e., the rank parameter in the init_process_group function, globally so that each GPU has a unique ID across all nodes.
Communication — Here’s where things get tricky
Intra-node VS inter-node (Image by Author)
When you have multiple nodes with multiple GPUs, communication needs to occur between GPUs on the same node and across different nodes in order to share calculated gradients and parameter updates during the training procedure.
Of course, inter-node communication is muchslower than intra-node communication. And sharing gradients and parameter updates become a complete mess when the nodes and GPUs are not identical — as is the case when you don’t have a billion dollars to spend on a data center with custom compute hardware.
When your parents make you share your toys
At most university-compute centers, various research labs share their computing resources. There are different models for how this is done, but usually the IT administrators take a fair amount of control over the systems and prevent the scientists for installing (or upgrading or downgrading) needed software.
This means that, if a large model needs to be trained, then some poor graduate students need to make the training algorithm fit the infrastructure.
And this is difficult for a few reasons:
Some toys have complicated instructions. The Distributed Data Parallel (DDP) package is a pain to understand and work with. This is especially true for most machine learning researchers who are not well versed in the particulars of distributed computing. In addition to the basic set up of DDP, a peaceful training run over different GPU architectures across many nodes requires careful data splitting and arduous communication between GPUs and nodes. Some toys are better to play with than others. In a heterogeneous system, some GPUs are faster than others and some have more memory than others. This means that some GPUs get more data to crunch than others, which is fine, but it also means that the gradient averages and parameter updates need to be carefully weighted. Our parents won’t let us play with some toys. Most existing distributed GPU training platforms require extra packages like Docker and OpenMPI, etc. Unfortunately, most competent cluster administrators won’t allow users to have the administrative privileges that are needed to set up each node to fit the model. Some toys don’t work well with others. Deep learning packages like BERT and GPT2/3 developed by large companies generally have specific formats for the design model with several logic layers, making it difficult to use and adapt to a custom application.
Because of these problems we created a general system that wraps up all the complicated parts of DDP, data splitting, compatibility, and customizability and deployed this system at Notre Dame.
We call this system HetSeq. It was adapted from the popular PyTorch package and provides the capability to train large neural network models on heterogeneous infrastructure. It can be lightly set up over shared file system without extra extra packages and administrative privileges.
Here’s how to train BERT with HetSeq.
BERT at a University with HetSeq
Let’s get started with Anaconda. We’ll Create a virtual environment and install python.
Then we’ll install packages and HetSeq bindings: we’ll download HetSeq from GitHub, install packages in requirements.txt, as well as HetSeq and bindings from setup.py.
The last step before we train is to download the BERT data files including training corpus, model configuration, and BPE dictionary from this link. Download DATA.zip, unzip it and place it into the preprocessing/ directory.
Train BERT with HetSeq
The cool thing about HetSeq is that it abstracts-away all the details about distributed processing. So the training code for 100 GPUs the almost the same same as 1 GPU! Let’s try it out!
In this case let’s assume we have two compute nodes.
On node 1:
On node 2:
The two blocks of code are run on two different nodes. The TCP/IP address needs be set to one of the node’s IP addresses. Once these get started up, you’ll be able to watch the code run across 8 GPUs on 2 different nodes!
🤗🤗🤗
So how well does it work?
We have done some experiments (see https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.14783 for details) over various homogeneous (hom) and heterogeneous (het) settings.
In total we were able to commandeer 32 GPUs across 8 heterogeneous nodes to reduce the training time for the BERT language model from seven days to about one day. 🤩🤩🤩
Under the hood of HetSeq
HetSeq package layout (Image by Author)
The HetSeq package contains three major modules illustrated on the left figure: train.py, task.py, and controller.py to coordinate the main components illustrated on the right. The train.py module initializes the distributed system and its various components.
The task.py module defines the model, dataset, data loader, and optimizer functions; it also executes the forward pass and backpropagation functions. The controller.py module acts as the main training controller. It executes the actual model, optimizer, and learning rate scheduler; loads and saves the checkpoint; communicates the loss; and updates the parameters.
But I don’t want to train BERT!
No problem. You can extend HetSeq to any other model. But you need to define a new Task with the corresponding Model, Dataset, Optimizer and Learning Rate Scheduler. An MNIST example is given with all the extended classes. Pre-defined optimizers , Learning Rate Scheduler , datasets and models can be reused in other applications. Check out our documentation for more details!
Conclusion
In this post, we introduce the background and actual steps to train BERT from scratch at university by using our released package — HetSeq. It allows us to set up easily on heterogeneous systems with multiple nodes multiple GPUs.
Would you like to learn more?
For more information, please check out HetSeq package (https://github.com/yifding/hetseq) and documentation (hetseq.readthedocs.io). Cheers!
[1] Yifan Ding, Nicholas Botzer and Tim Weninger. HetSeq: Distributed GPU Training on Heterogeneous Infrastructure. Proc. of Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Innovative Application of Artificial Intelligence, 2021. | https://towardsdatascience.com/training-bert-at-a-university-eedcf940c754 | ['Yifan Ding'] | 2020-12-13 19:11:15.882000+00:00 | ['Distributed Systems', 'Distributed Training', 'Deep Learning', 'Bert', 'Open Source'] |
Episode #20: The Return of FOMO Kang w/ Doug Kim | Transcript
Aaron Lammer: Welcome to Coin Talk, Jay, back another week on the upswing.
Jay Kang: Yeah, it is. It is fully now balmy spring, I think. I think we got past the short stay on campus and then it got a little bit cold and then there was one day where you just walk out and you’re like hot. It’s like May and it’s just gonna be warm for a while.
Aaron Lammer: Ultimate team is practicing. Everything is in order. The return of spring, also known as AltSeason of course means that we have lifted the curse and we can have back on our old friend Doug Kim, who we were kind of worried to contact during some low points there, but I think he’s sprung back enough that he should be good to talk to.
Jay Kang: Yeah, we’re like past the point where if we talk to Doug too much about Crypto and then Doug did something to hurt himself that we would feel complicit in it.
Aaron Lammer: Agree,
Jay Kang: [We’re no longer Doug’s stewards now, like Doug is on his own.
Aaron Lammer: He’s free to fly just as we are. We’ll get to that later. I’m definitely interested.
Some people have been asking online, “When will we see FOMO Kang again?” Don’t answer that question. More on that later.
Jay Kang: Yeah, I have a surprise announcement later in the show, so …
Aaron Lammer: You won’t believe which host of the show is experiencing FOMO. More on that after the break. Before this, I am sorry, there’s a couple of stories that have broken. I don’t want this show to all be about ridiculous Blockchain stories, but some of these stories that are coming out have been really excellent this week.
Jay Kang: Oh yeah. I think that if you believe as some in the Bitcoin community do, that there is like a COINTELPRO going on, there’s like a misinformation campaign and that people are disappearing and that fake stories are coming out, this was quite a week of evidence for you.
Aaron Lammer: I’m with you.
Jay Kang: The linkage to all sorts of bad actors in the internet world and in the political world has sort of come all about and if you could script a third act to the death of Crypto and this is all exposed thing, the linkages that are coming out right now are fascinating.
Aaron Lammer: I agree. It’s almost like we were playing news topics of the last year bingo and it’s not Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon at all. It’s like always one to two degrees Crypto story from every news story. This one, the story of Cambridge Analytica, most notably the extractor of data in the Facebook scandal.
Jay Kang: Yeah, the maker of very strange personality tests that somehow end up getting you to, if you believe the mainstream media’s narrative for some of the more conspiratorial people, the thing that got Trump elected.
Aaron Lammer: Okay, you believe that, don’t you? Come on.
Jay Kang: No, no, not at all. But I will say that that is a sort of implicit narrative right now that Cambridge Analytica had all this sort of power to influence the way in which people were receiving information and extracting information from them on Facebook.
And can you tell me how did Cambridge Analytica make it’s way into the Crypto world?
Aaron Lammer: Well, for starters, I wanna set the scene here with a previous appearance which was as the … I believe, the London leader of Cambridge Analytica was going down in flames. I believe it was a British journalist, some sort of a sting operation, filmed a video in which he offers services to a foreign government that I think include framing people or filming them secretly with prostitutes. Really deep, dark, spy world kind of stuff.
Jay Kang: Yeah, it’s like a Raymond Chandler novel where you have like a gumshoe who doesn’t wanna do the bad things, but he still does the bad things.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah, it’s kind of like we’re high tech, but also if you want us to plant some evidence on someone, there’s a price for it. We’re involved in all kinds of shit.
Jay Kang: Yeah, we have an entire portfolio service.
Aaron Lammer: Mercenaries, whatever you want, let’s talk.
So that was kind of why I was like, “Okay, well we’ve probably heard the last of Cambridge Analytica. They’re probably gonna like change their name and come back and it’s gonna be like some Peter Thiel backed Palantir derivative company or something like that. But then, news this week that Cambridge Analytica before, I believe, before David Nix left, had plans to issue their own Crypto currency.
Jay Kang: Okay, so were you surprised or not surprised by this news? Because I think there’s two ways to take it.
Aaron Lammer: Yes, I was surprised a little bit because these are events that took place one to two years ago. So this was like pre-Crypto craze. They were already thinking about getting into their own token.
Jay Kang: Yeah, they’re a little bit before the curve here.
Aaron Lammer: They were before the curve in a lot of respects. Hey, they were the first people who manipulated an election with a personality quiz.
Jay Kang: Okay, so I’m having some, there’s a lot of information, I think Nathaniel Popper and the Times did a pretty good job assembling all of it, but, Aaron, can you tell me what exactly they were trying to do? What is this coin they were trying to do and why were they doing it?
Aaron Lammer: Well, like many things about Cambridge Analytica, at first I thought they were just in it for the money, but then I concluded that it was even darker than it seemed. So at first I was like, “Oh, I guess they were just in some dumb Blockchain venture like every other business tacked a Blockchain, weighing on to whatever they were doing.”
But then at the end of the article, they describe… Do you remember this part, where they describe what one of the plans in Mexico was?
Jay Kang: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We should just go to the text itself. Let me just read it-
Aaron Lammer: Okay.
Jay Kang: And this is Joe Carlson who is a consultant who I think is on Twitter and is an active part of a lot of Crypto conversations.
“She’s worked with a lot of Blockchain companies. She went to Cambridge Analytica and sat in a couple of meetings in which the Cambridge Analytica employees bragged about their success in helping get Trump elected and their ability to carefully target advertising campaigns using data from social networks like Facebook.She also remembers, they spoke about an array of potential campaigns. The most unusual idea involves sending virtual currencies to people in far flung regions of Mexico. The payments would give people incentive to fill out surveys and get data that could then be used to help design campaigns for Mexican political candidates.”
Now, this kind of blew my mind.
Aaron Lammer: This is like when they were trying to hunt Bin Laden and they sent the fake NGO doctors around trying to get blood from people. This is the kind of shit that makes actually doing things kind of dangerous for everyone involved. This is COINTELPRO kind of shit.
Jay Kang: But it’s also like they were just gonna print fake money and give it to people in rural Mexico and say, “Hey, it’s a Crypto currency. It’s backed by so-and-so. You can do x and x.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah.
Jay Kang: There’s no way that this Crypto currency that they were going to make to send to rural areas of Mexico and maybe other countries would have any sort of real backing or value-
Aaron Lammer: [crosstalk 00:08:42] Hey, we don’t know how it’s gonna perform on Crytopia until it gets listed, okay?
There is no reason to talk down on this spyware Cambridge Analytica Mexican currency. It could be a hit.
Jay Kang: So another application that they were talking about, and again this goes into what we talked about Adrian with, what we’ve talked about a lot in the past few weeks which is the nebulousness of this term Blockchain. One of the things that they were talking about was that they were gonna use the Blockchain so that people could protect their personal information and that perhaps they could sell it to people who needed it or people who wanted it through a Crypto currency. I think that was like the second application of it.
Aaron Lammer: It’s kind of like a honey pot. It’s like, “Okay, we want a bunch of identity data so we’re gonna set up a way to secure that on the Blockchain, then we’ll have all that data, then we’ll leave.”
Jay Kang: Only things that seem so devious to me.
Do you understand why a Blockchain would allow somebody to encrypt their information and sell it to different people using Crypto currency? Like why it would be uniquely necessary there? Because one of Cambridge Analytica’s claims seem to be that like, “Oh, well, you can only do this through the Blockchain.” Do you get that?
Aaron Lammer: I mean, I get how their like copying other people’s ideas and then applying the dark Wario version of them, which is basically just like a data trap just the way that like a Facebook quiz is a data trap. None of this seems like that surprising I guess, in the sense that these guys were engaged in every kind of scammy internet activity that was out there and like certainly one of the scammy activities is trying to get a bunch of people involved in your weird coin.
Jay Kang: I don’t know if this is being fair to them, but they had a long history of Cryptos you said, but it wasn’t just like their own Crypto projects. My favorite paragraph I think in this piece or my favorite sentence is that “documents and emails obtained by the New York Times show that Cambridge Analytica’s efforts to help promote another group’s digital token the Dragon Coin, which should not be-
Aaron Lammer: Were you involved in Dragon Coin at one point?
Jay Kang: Wow, very racist.
Aaron Lammer: No, I mean, were you like selling it to me or something? I feel like I’ve heard of it before.
Jay Kang: No, no, no, no, that’s Dragonchain. That is a very different thing.
Aaron Lammer: Okay, okay.
Jay Kang: You’re saying like because dragons are Asians, I was gonna ask you, “Are you involved in Menorah Coins”-
Aaron Lammer: Jay, forgive, forgive me for conflating Dragon Coin and Dragonchain. Obviously those are different projects with their own merits.
Jay Kang: Yeah, like Dragonchain which is only sold on KuCoin, I believe, is very legitimate.
All right so Dragon Coin, not Dragonchain, associated the firm with a famous gangster in Macau who has gone by the nickname Broken Tooth.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah, now who’s racist.
Jay Kang: The back story of this is that in Macau, I guess there’s somebody who has a lot of connections with the gang scene in there, was trying to make a Crypto currency that worked for gambling which is something that you and I talk about all the time.
The reason why I was interested in her, I think it’s kind of funny is that of all the Crypto currency movies that you could make, wouldn’t this be a good one?
Don’t you feel like-
Aaron Lammer: Yeah.
Jay Kang: Crypto currency Macau triads-
Aaron Lammer: Michael Mann kind of production.
Jay Kang: Yeah, yeah, or like even just old school Hong Kong John Woo.
Aaron Lammer: Oh yeah, for sure, sure.
Jay Kang: Where like a whole bunch of people die and there is doves flying around all the time and a man is running with the box full of treasures and trying to get out of there.
Aaron Lammer: It’s inexplicably called A Better Tomorrow Four [crosstalk 00:12:31] even though it’s a different cast of characters.
Jay Kang: Yeah, and it has nothing to do with A Better Tomorrow Three, but anyone who liked three would see four which generally works-
Aaron Lammer: Is John Woo, is he still working? Does he still make movies?
Jay Kang: I don’t know. I have no idea why he would not be making movies because all of his movies are good. Can you name a bad John Woo movie?
Aaron Lammer: No, but I feel like all of those movies came out when I was like 20.
Jay Kang: Yeah, sure, but don’t you think all of those movies would work right now?
Aaron Lammer: Yeah, yeah.
Jay Kang: All right.
Aaron Lammer: All right.
Jay Kang: Let’s head to another Blockchain-based ICO type of thing.
Aaron Lammer: News, news, news.
Jay Kang: And this is right up your alley, and this is from CoinDesk and it is talking about a Yelp for Weed and that it is launching its own Ethereum network. You have said on this podcast several times that as you also host a weed-based podcast-
Aaron Lammer: I don’t know if the podcast is weed-based. It’s not actually made of weed, but it is about weed, yes.
Jay Kang: It is not like Cheech and Chong’s van that they try and smuggle across.
Aaron Lammer: You can’t smoke this podcast, Jay.
Jay Kang: This is sort of right up your alley where it is the actual intersection of weed information, and token technology.
Aaron Lammer: I mean, it’s both right up my alley and deeply emblematic of how sad and unstylish anything about the marijuana business or industry is. So MassRoots, it’s not a success per se, as far as I understand it.
Jay Kang: MassRoots being the company behind this.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah, it’s a little bit of came to like remember how Kick was gonna do an ICO and then Telegram did a giant one?
Jay Kang: Yeah.
Aaron Lammer: I feel like MassRoots is the Kick of the weed Yelp kind of game.
Jay Kang: What is the Telegram or even like the Facebook of it?
Aaron Lammer: I would say probably like Leafly and WeedMaps are probably the biggest companies.
Jay Kang: Oh yeah, I used WeedMaps when I lived in LA a couple times and there are so many dispensers around where I live that it was almost useless because there are so many dots and it was hard to tell the difference between them.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah, just figure it out. Just stop next time you’re driving your car when you drive by one immediately anywhere in that part of Los Angeles.
Jay Kang: Yeah, or just like walk in and be like, “What are your prices here?” Because you could just literally walk another block instead of consulting Leafly.
Aaron, how big is this sort of information business about different dispensaries? Like how necessary is it?
Aaron Lammer: Well, I mean, I think if you think that the future of the marijuana industry is basically a Postmates style of delivery business, then if you win the where people look for weed online, you eventually just sell the weed. So potentially I think the market is enormous, but there’s kind of a misperception as I see it that because the overall weed market is enormous, like if you’re in that business, you’re somehow like, “Yay, you’re in line for some big money.”
For most of these things, like most things in Crypto, if you’re not at the very top, you’re probably gonna be like not around in a few years.
Jay Kang: Yeah, and honest, the way that this token worked, right? It didn’t seem to be that great of an appeal. So like for, it’s pretty easy to incentivize potheads by just offering them weed, right?
Aaron Lammer: Come on, Jay, come on. Come on.
Jay Kang: Now I know who I’m working with.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah, you can use the tokens to purchase products and services within the MassRoots ecosystem.
Jay Kang: Yeah, and the way that you get this, and this is sort of a hell, like it actually reminds me of Toshi, Brian Armstrong’s theory on this.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah.
Jay Kang: Sort of platform that we discussed to provide additional information so that Cannabis consumers can make better informed purchasing decisions, we plan to utilize digital instruments as a form of reward-based currency within a MassRoots platform to encourage high quality reviews, including reviews of new products, which we believe will also incentivize user growth and simulate our platforms overall activity.
What that means is that they’re going to give you a little bit of token if you right a review that different people like, and that if you use the system a lot. So it’s almost like airline miles or something like that for using this platform.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah, I feel like, I can’t even spend like another minute of my life digging into these completely poorly thought out, band wagon jumpy things. The conclusion is always just the same, there’s no real idea here.
Jay Kang: Yeah, yeah.
Aaron Lammer: This is good though, the Cannabis, a marijuana industry news site reports that MassRoots provides a portrait of a negative net worth company that is burning through cash, missing IRS payments, and as you see reporting deadlines, handing out stock based compensation like Candid operating with no external sources of liquidity. Whether these issues effect MassRoots cryptocurrencies ambitions remains to be seen. It’s always these companies that are like early going down and flames that alley and we have a token now.
Jay Kang: Alright. So on to the next one …
Aaron Lammer: Let’s do one more thing I wanna throwout you before we bring on Dough Kim, there is a tweet that caught my eye. It crystallized certain things that I had been thinking about recently. It’s a tweet from Cheefy. Bitcoin Maximalist should happily denounce the word cryptocurrency. It means nothing to 99% of people and does not help them understand what bitcoin is. Other word, Doug is a last scam artist to imply that their MoonShot has bitcoin similar hard money uber return potential.
Is it just infernally provocative idea. I feel a little uncomfortable using the word cryptocurrency sometime. Do you ever feel uncomfortable?
Jay Kang: No, no. Why would I feel uncomfortable using the term ‘cryptocurrency’. Why do you feel uncomfortable, I don’t understand this.
Aaron Lammer: Sometimes I feel like … It’s like a blanket term that’s like come to encompass a bunch of things that I don’t find particularly interesting, while I do find the central idea like bitcoin interesting.
Jay Kang: Okay. But does the term cryptocurrency push you away from Bitcoin? Does it diluted for you?
Aaron Lammer: Sometimes I wonder if … We’ve talked about this before where I’m like, “ Eh, these things that are like pre mind and just like issued, does these things belong in the same bucket?” That’s I guess the question of my mind. Are all these things like each other?
Jay Kang: Oh yeah. I mean there is like I … Well, I think we’ll talk about it in a later podcast, who says that there are only two types of coins, Bitcoin and shit coins, right. And it includes Ethereum, Lightcoin and Monero, all of them are shit coins and they are just distractions. And he is the real Bitcoin Maximalist. Like he doesn’t need vegetables, he doesn’t need bread, he only eats meat. He believes that a hyper Bitcoinization is inevitable. You know, the messaging for him is super important because he feels like all the rest are pretenders, there are all just trying to beat Bitcoin. They all sort of, in their small way take away attention into these things that are ultimately not real and not going to succeed.
So, I don’t know, I don’t think that the terminology necessary … Like what else would you call those things then. Whatever you call them, it’s going to be a different word and so …
Aaron Lammer: Let me ask you a question then. Do you think that once Satoshi came up with the idea for Bitcoin, he imagined that it would be like forked, cloned, taken on as like an entire genre, and iterated upon taken on? I’m curious.
Jay Kang: I don’t think so. Because I can’t imagine that he can see that fore down into what Bitcoin success would be. It’s just theoretical. And obviously even when you are coming up with a theoretical outcome, you’d say, “Well, this would be probably more complicated but this is what I hope would happen.” You would have to be an actual person, who could see in the future to be like. And then, you know, like Roger Ver is going to put this thing after Bitcoin cash and that there is gonna be a whole scammer community that’s created and there’s gonna be this thing called Cryptopia where you can buy like [inaudible 00:20:55]. I’m not saying even specifically, I think it was hard for him to imagine that there would be this sort of blossoming branching out economy associated with cryptocurrencies.
Aaron Lammer: I’m gonna take the other side on that idea. Which is … Well, I agree with you. No one obviously was gonna predict exactly what happened or like how many there would be or of what kind. I think if someone with a background in software, and particularly like open source software and publishing work in that kind of thing would probably be familiar with the idea of forking and that like most important, like programming languages, don’t just follow a linear singular path but eventually become multiple languages and like get recombined and reused in different ways. So I would think, at least in his own Maximalist vision, you would expect that the 21 million tokens were not the end of all of this entire idea and that’s mark upon the world.
Jay Kang: Yeah. But that’s different than what the Maximalist believe. You know, I agree, like obviously he …
Aaron Lammer: This is so religious. I felt like we are talking about like early Mormonism verse of the year.
Jay Kang: Yeah. We have a tent and nobody can see the tablets.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah.
Jay Kang: The Maximalist believe that it should just be the amount of Bitcoin that is produced and it should just be mind and that there should be no other currencies ever out there and that Bitcoin should just be divided up infinitesimally and take over the entire economy. That’s the idea, that’s why their language pleasing people, who use word cryptocurrency, which I find appear ironic as well, give most of those peoples’ politics, but yeah, I don’t know. I mean I think that bitcoin is still king at this point. People generally believe, who know anything about the space would say that there is no world of cryptocurrency where it gets bigger and bigger and expense more without it being sort of well, I’d buy Bitcoin do you?
Aaron Lammer: Yeah. I guess, I’m like … I feel increasingly sympathetic towards Bitcoin Maximalism recently. I don’t know I …
Jay Kang: Oh no, oh no. Are your politics changing?
Aaron Lammer: No. And I’m not gonna anything about … Look, I love all of the brands of crypto phonetic. I love the world of …
Jay Kang: You love the alt right?
Aaron Lammer: No, no, no. I’m just saying, I like all the weird off brand coin, but I also like the central, core ideologies. I like each of the worlds in … for a while, I was very interested in exploring all of these microcap coins. But for some reason, I felt a little full circle recently and just kind of have been interested in Bitcoin.
Jay Kang: Yeah. Well, I mean …
Aaron Lammer: I’ve been off the microcapcoins for a while. Speaking of people who also are not Bitcoin Maximalist. We should call up our old friend Doug Kim here, who is usually hovering at somewhere from 95–100% alts. And usually can’t explain that world view to us. Should we give him a call?
Jay Kang: Yeah.
Aaron Lammer: Alright. Here we go.
Doug Kim: Hello.
Aaron Lammer: On the line, Doug Kim. Hello Doug.
Doug Kim: Yo, what’s up?
Aaron Lammer: Welcome back to the show.
Jay Kang: How are you just doing? We are trying to get in touch with you for the past 20 minutes. What were you doing?
Doug Kim: Oh. I was basically setting up my mic, literally by before you guys called but before that I was also selling weekend two passes to Coachella from craigslist people because I bought both weekend tickets, not sure which one I was gonna go to. I went last weekend so. I was selling my tickets, thankfully that’s over with.
Jay Kang: How was Coachella?
Doug Kim: Coachella was an experience. I mean … I give a little background. I’m 34.
Jay Kang: (laughing). That was actually going to be our question. That’s what we were talking about offline.
Aaron Lammer: Is Doug 25?
Doug Kim: No. I’m like 34 and I feel like I’ve gotten into the whole live music scene, maybe a few years ago and the friends that got me into it, they were kind of like, “Oh, we’re retired from festivals and shit.” And I was kind of like, “Well, I wanna go to a festival and see what it is like.” You know, before, I have to eventually retire.
Aaron Lammer: So Dough. So you gave up your youthful prime to the poker table. Now, you’re coming around for the last swing of the Rock n Roll festival.
Doug Kim: Exactly. I’ve done all the poker shit. Now, I’m like, “Let’s get the other degenerate activities out away, that I haven’t done in my 20s.” I just need the full generate experience, crypto, poker
Aaron Lammer: Did you stay up for the Beyonce performance?
Doug Kim: Oh yeah. I couldn’t miss that. I mean that was just …
Aaron Lammer: How far away from the stage were you at that point?
Doug Kim: I was probably like … I’ll say like, I wasn’t too close. I mean like, if you get too close, there’s probably going to be a problem, I’ll be accused of stereotyping, but women go … They just transform when Beyonce comes on stage and you do not wanna be near a woman if you’re a man. When they get into that transformation.
Jay Kang: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It sounds like you’re talking about, like, fucking werewolves. [crosstalk 00:26:34]
Aaron Lammer: Doug was afraid of getting jumped at the Beyonce concert, so he kept his distance.
Jay Kang: A bunch of hysterical, like, weeping werewolves. Doug, the reason why I asked you this question was because we see crypto currencies and Bitcoins swag in marketing showing up but also it’s a weird places now. Was there a Bitcoin or a crypto present at Coachella, like were they selling Coachella coin or shit like that?
Doug Kim: No. Actually I was surprised, there is no crypto going on there. I actually did really check my Blockfolio or Delta at all that we can be just surprising.
Aaron Lammer: Wow. Your first moment of peace for many years.
Doug Kim: No, no. That’s not true.
Jay Kang: I don’t believe you at all.
Doug Kim: Yeah, no. I checked Bitcoin price. I always check the price of Bitcoin. But I didn’t check my profile, my portfolio or whatever. There was just kind of like a quick glance because, in the venue when you are like among hundreds of thousands of people, your internet just doesn’t even work. You don’t even bother trying to use it.
Aaron Lammer: So Doug, I heard there’s gonna be an announcement by Jay. Jay tell me he … Okay, so let’s just recap Doug. We’ve been talking to Jay through this whole crypto winter and Jay has been saying things like, “I don’t even know what Doug is doing, Doug is crazy.” It’s just gonna [inaudible 00:28:04] there’s a huge altbags into the ground.
Jay Kang: I love that Aaron is, like he was all sound like he was defending you in all these conversations.
Aaron Lammer: No I was like … Yeah. He should totally be hodling a higher percentage Bitcoin, I agree.
Jay Kang: Yeah. If I was Doug, I would by the depth right now. He knows exactly what he is doing. Just for listeners, who don’t know who you are, Doug, I think that we should introduce you a little bit and just say that you are in the Waze token hall of fame, that is certified.
Aaron Lammer: Big Ubiq bags, big Monero bags.
Jay Kang: Huge Monero bag. These are all bags that you bought, at the beginning of 2017 generally, large quantities using money that you had made playing poker and that you then did not sell any of them ever. Which is very different than almost everyone else in the alt market who are mostly day trading them. Is that correct?
Doug Kim: Right.
Aaron Lammer: Are most people day trading them? I feel like most people are sitting on a huge cashes.
Jay Kang: I don’t think that’s true. I think most people are using to day trade. Or just helping from moonshots and when the moonshots don’t hit, they get out and when the moonshots do hit, they also get out. Where’s Doug? Doug, this is not pejorative at all. Doug hits the moonshots and doesn’t sell, and then it doesn’t.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah. But I always think like has Doug get to poker, he is like playing some sort of a hand on higher level than me here. So Doug, we go to a little bounce back here.
Doug Kim: No. There is no higher strategy. It’s just kind of like …
Aaron Lammer: There is no higher strategy. This is it. And what you see is what you get.
Doug Kim: Well, well, no. I mean like, I would say that the coins that I’m holding though are less shit, like I’m not holding like Verge or Chronos or some bullshit like that, you know.
Aaron Lammer: Yes. Now we understand you. You’re respectable.
Doug Kim: Right. I’m not holding Sumokoin or anything like that.
Aaron Lammer: Hey, hey. I’m gonna have to admit that I actually no longer have my SUMO holdings.
Doug Kim: Oh, he sold your bag. That’s fucking horrible.
Aaron Lammer: The SUMO baroncy has been vacated. Well, someone kept trying to hack my Cryptopia account. I don’t wanna keep coins on it anymore. Someone kept trying to reset my password. The only place I can have those, there was a SUMO, it was on Cryptopia and I did not wanna mess with the SUMO desktop wallet. So I’m sorry to say that my … I probably will resume my affair with SUMO. Maybe I wanna move over to a new microcap exchange that happened in my account there. But so, as I understand that after a cold winter of nay saying. Jay, have your feelings started to turn that all here?
Jay Kang: Yes. And I wanted these podcast announce the fact that I think that we have finally seen the return of FOMO Kang.
Aaron Lammer: Oh my god.
Jay Kang: Which was a staple. A staple of the early shows. A staple of the basement tapes.
Aaron Lammer: Mister Buyback.
Jay Kang: Yeah. Buying every single shit coin. Talking shit about every single moonshot. Telling false narratives, incomplete in complete hindsight, whenever a coin went on 10% and he’s like, “I knew that was gonna happen.”
Doug Kim: That guy is back. He is back
Jay Kang: Oh no. He’s back?
Aaron Lammer: Once he start seeing those 20% greens all over Bittrex, you can just set your watch to the arrival of the FOMO Kang trend.
Jay Kang: FOMO Kang, yeah. FOMO Kang, two weeks ago is nowhere to be seen. He was like, “oh man …”
Aaron Lammer: He was like, “I might buy at 3000, I might …”
Doug Kim: We are like come on.
Aaron Lammer: 3000. Jesus fucking Christ.
Jay Kang: Yeah.
Doug Kim: 3000 is a little much.
Aaron Lammer: We are glad to have you back.
Doug Kim: Well, I do have some caveats.
Aaron Lammer: Okay, okay.
Doug Kim: They are complicated.
Aaron Lammer: Asterisk.
Doug Kim: The first being … Yes, the first being that I have not bought any more of these coins. And that’s mostly out of laziness. But-
Aaron Lammer: Your friend have.
Doug Kim: -I have gotten the itch, and I would say that FOMO Kang is not necessarily, either you’re buying these things, is that you’re seeing a sea of green and then you start to feel bad about yourself.
Aaron Lammer: Yup.
Jay Kang: Oh yeah, sure.
Doug Kim: And that is happening.
Aaron Lammer: You got that feeling that pretty much any bet you would have made probably would have been a good idea?
Doug Kim: Yeah.
Jay Kang: I think that’s kind of like the mentality with hodling too, because sure, when everything goes down and like shit, it’s terrible, you feel like shit and you feel like an idiot. But then like you’d know the wave is coming where the sea of green is just gonna shine again and make your life just awesome when you’re like, “Oh yeah, I have the entire time, yeah, that’s right.” You know, I’m like a true hodler.
Aaron Lammer: I don’t understand that the environment you just sell the top and then re-buy the bottom if you can.
Doug Kim: Oh well, I mean like yeah. If I had a fucking like a glass ball, yeah sure. Yeah.
Aaron Lammer: We’re now at FOMO Kang ends like, know which way the Market Kang is, both come back at the same time.
Jay Kang: FOMO Kang is still a dick.
Aaron Lammer: FOMO Kang is still calling a shot.
Doug Kim: I’ve had as much money as the Winklevoss twins if I knew exactly when the top and bottoms come.
Jay Kang: Yeah. Like I don’t know you, that I was gone for 3000 myself. I have no idea what’s happening. I also could see FOMO Kang Going away next week, when everything crashes again, if [crosstalk 00:33:50].
Doug Kim: Oh yeah. I mean like, I don’t think it will crash significantly from here but it’s definitely possible. I mean who knows right? I was just thankful for taxes that it didn’t like die completely. And something I realized just filing taxes this past weekend or day, it was a shit show, but basically like back of the envelope, calculation I did was kind of like you have to outperform Bitcoin by 33% in order to break even on short term for as long term. If you held on to Bitcoin and never sold it and just got like long term capital gains on that, first it’s trading alts, you have to outperform Bitcoin by 33% break even. So that kind of like changed my mindset going into this year in terms of like how much I wanna trade.
Doug explains his tax math on Twitter
Aaron Lammer: Well, why are the alts tax so much higher than Bitcoin? Just because they are less than one year trades?
Doug Kim: Right. Exactly. Like it doesn’t apply any more, I mean not that it really applied before but like people were kind of skirting by before with it. Not to say that I have IRS, I correctly reported my taxes. But yeah. Now, it’s just kind of like the playing field is different I feel like in terms of trading alts and people are kind of like, “Well, that doesn’t make sense.” I mean they should be like … It should have make sense to trade alts as much unless I’m really confident. You know that I’m gonna do better than bitcoin with this.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah.
Jay Kang: But yet, the all much, it is booming, right. Like right now …
Doug Kim: Oh yeah. I have a plenty of lubes that don’t have that much money invested so they are probably evading taxes and skirting by under the radar, or larger fish, I don’t think that’s more of an option anymore.
Aaron Lammer: Even when you say 33%, it’s like, if there’s a huge alt run here, 33% is gonna be like the last couple days of it. There is people who’re still with … Like yeah, I’m still an alts, like yellow.
Doug Kim: If you think about Bitcoin dominance right, it’s sitting around 40% right now and last year was the first year, it really depth below 90%. It’s kind of hard to say like … I always ask my friends like, five years from now, let’s say crypto market cap is $10 trillion, what percent is bitcoin? And they are like … It ranges. Some people say, it’s gonna be 10%, some people say it’s still gonna be 40–50%. So it’s hard to determine, is Bitcoin gonna be the big dog still? And if so, then, maybe it’s not smart to trade into alts, because alts do fall. I mean there still is a following of alts and Bitcoin. They’re still tethered together in terms of price.
Well, we might see changes in terms of like when Bittrex and whatever start opening fiat pairing and what not.
Aaron Lammer: I have no idea what’s gonna happen. That’s why I feel like every single strategy seems about equally good.
Jay Kang: Well, I will say that given the fact, and Doug, I tried to do calculations to in it. It seems like your number is pretty close. And I trust your number above my number, which is like sitting in my head at work. I just reading an article about it and been like hah. So you’d have to outperform it by a lot, and you said 33%, which I was like yeah that seems like a lot, so yeah.
Doug Kim: I mean it depends on what state you live in and what’s your marginal tax rate is and such things. But that essentially if you are going by the highest tax rates, that’s what I came up with.
Jay Kang: It does seem like it’s probably a better solution to just keep bitcoin than right? Because he is just saying about it in gambling terms, right, which is something we are both familiar with. There is 33%, they’re just gonna lose like you’re drying dead.
Aaron Lammer: Wait. Does that apply to your alt holdings that you hold from more than a year though. Like you’ve been holding these bags from more than a year now.
Doug Kim: Right. So like, if you do believe in an alt for more than a year … So you could sell those off. I’m just talking about like you said, “The majority of all traders don’t hold for a year.”
Jay Kang: Is there an alt over the Monero that you would wanna hold for a year Aaron?
Aaron Lammer: Yeah, I think so. I think [crosstalk 00:38:11] no, no, no, no.
Jay Kang: Then Ethereum?
Doug Kim: You can even hold this SUMO [baroncy 00:38:18] for a year.
Aaron Lammer: Well, look. I would not hold SUMO though for multiple years. But what you are saying is that the best tax situation is to hold all through over a year. I think you would put together a portfolio of the alts that you want to make them more than a year bet on and just hold that. That seems like the overall best situation to be in.
Doug Kim: Right.
Aaron Lammer: And yeah. I put money into Zcash for over a year, I put my money to 0x for over a year and now I’ll probably take that back.
Doug Kim: Wait. Zcash and 0x?
Aaron Lammer: Yeah.
Jay Kang: Those kinds. I mean …
Doug Kim: But it guess the problem is that in typical scenarios like stocks, it makes sense with that. What like that one year making that long term capital gains is like a good marker in general. But for cryptocurrencies, shit changes so fast that a month is like a year, pretty much for crypto. Obviously, they are not gonna change the rules for crypto in terms of tax liability, but it almost would make sense if they did. There was like a special rule for crypto. Like if you hold it for a year or a month, then there is more long term gains. And I think that would encourage more trading of alts, but it’s just trade.
Aaron Lammer: Tax helping for a special alt trading exception [inaudible 00:39:35] bags. I think you’re too deep on the alt trading. [inaudible 00:39:38]. I’m asking is, for a special active congress to help out the alt trading industry.
Doug Kim: But I mean, you know what I’m saying like in crypto, the news is just like …
Aaron Lammer: A year is maybe not the right time cycle. Like if it’s a year in the stock market, may be that’s represented by three months and some of these projects won’t even last for whole year.
Jay Kang: Well, that’s why I feel like it’s crazy to say that you should lock into these alts for a year. You have no idea these projects are gonna continue. Doug, I’m gonna say this. I’m a little bit concerned because this does not sound like the Waves hall of fame that we know. But it seems like you are slowly turning into a Bitcoin Maximalist here. Everything that you’ve said has basically been like maybe I shouldn’t have bought all these alts.
Doug Kim: I kind of think that way nowadays. Like, it would have been … I mean I probably would have broke even, if not, I’d perform better if I just stuck to Bitcoin. But also the amount of stress is just, you know … I have a friend who is also trading and he said, he sold of like most of his stuff into Bitcoin and maybe just like a little bit of Monero and all this. Maybe a very tiny amount in ICOs, like an obscenely tiny amount, like upper set or something. So he just says he sleeps a lot better. So I’m just like, maybe that’s the way to go.
Jay Kang: Wait, wait. But you being the guy who is famous for never selling a single alt, have you sold any into Bitcoin?
Doug Kim: I have here and there. Just like project that I definitely wasn’t gonna hold for a year. I’m still in the Waves hall of fame and still have most of my Waves. Actually I never sold Waves actually. But year mark since when I bought it is coming out so that will be the time when I can consider selling it but I still believe in Waves in general. I think it’s got some momentum, that’s gonna come sooner or later. Maybe I’m wrong but hopefully I’m not. Even if I’m not, like I said, “In a month, I’ll have the option to offload some if I want it to.”
Aaron Lammer: Okay. So I wanna talk about, Doug, you are my original alt enabler, which is to say you texted Jay a bunch of altcoins and I did buy them all and I didn’t know what they were.
Jay Kang: Oh god, sorry about that.
Aaron Lammer: And you explain to me what some of them were.
Jay Kang: I also had no idea who Doug was. I was like, “I know this guy Doug, I’ve met him once and he plays poker.”
Aaron Lammer: As like he plays poker. What alt coins does he have?
Jay Kang: Which alts was it?
Aaron Lammer: This was like some class x like Decred, medal.
Jay Kang: So you want me to explain Decred [inaudible 00:42:28] medals.
Aaron Lammer: So Doug, what is staking. Like you stake Decred what does that mean?
Doug Kim: It’s different from coin to coin and it looks different from coin to coin but I guess the idea is proof of stake is kind of like this way of securing the network in a different way than proof of work. I mean obviously, you know, how proof of work works, right. Computers mining using algorithm. You have like a fundamental understanding. So because …
Aaron Lammer: Yes. I have a fundamental quasi understanding.
Doug Kim: Right. So I’m gonna portray this explanation terribly but what I’ve heard from a friend is that the Lightning Network on Bitcoin or the Lightning Network that’s being developed, it’s like this proof of stake thing, where there is gonna be these nodes that validate transactions and they are gonna serve as like they have a bunch of Bitcoins available to trade with different places. They are almost like … So this is why people don’t like Lightning a little bit because it almost resembles centralization a little bit where there these nodes and entities that will have Bitcoin that they can stake it and in return for staking transactions they get out of a wallet, right. But it’s not gonna be as much as the [inaudible 00:43:44].
Aaron Lammer: Yes. Some [crosstalk 00:43:47].
Doug Kim: So that’s kind of like how …
Aaron Lammer: And you do that what Decred like you lend you Decred out to the Decred Network.
Doug Kim: So what Decred is, it’s a little different where you buy tickets. And what these tickets do is they allow you to vote on certain protocol changes. Let’s say I buy a ticket for … I think the going price is around 85 Decred right now or something, which is, I don’t know, it’s a lot I think in terms of money. I think it’s like 5k actually. Back when Decred was really small, it wasn’t that much. But anyway, let’s say you buy a ticket and upon maturation of a ticket, which could be anywhere from like a few days to four months. The average time is around 28 days, I think, they said. Within that time, you get your Decred back plus you get a reward for staking that Decred.
I’m not exactly 100% sure how …
Jay Kang: It’s like bank interest. Like you just …
Doug Kim: Yeah.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah. It’s like you’re becoming a lender on the network.
Doug Kim: You [inaudible 00:44:55] Decred and the price of voting is I guess lending your Decred to the Network.
Aaron Lammer: What are people so juiced on voting on … They’re like willing to pay into the network for democracy say.
Doug Kim: Well, this is actually I like about Decred. Because you know you saw a lot of the political grandstanding of like Roger Ver and everyone, Bitcoin and actually like Decred, some of their core developers were originally core developers of Bit coin, and they split up because they saw this infighting whatever. And so Decred actually is a coin that has a proof of stake and a proof of work mechanism. It’s this thing where minors have control but also these people that actually have Decred, have control over the network. So it’s like a users plus minors can direct where the protocol is going.
Whether they want Lightning Network, whether they want these different improvements or if they want two megabytes, they want four megabytes.
Aaron Lammer: It’s kind of an experiment in governance [crosstalk 00:46:00] as much it is. As it is like a currency. I mean there is a currency but it’s like …
Doug Kim: Exactly. So it’s like trying to improve the Bitcoin model.
Jay Kang: So yeah. It is a system in which people who buy and have some sort of say in decisions that happen and you can buy more influence by lending more Decred.
Doug Kim: Yeah. So you buy tickets as much as you want. I mean I just like load …
Aaron Lammer: It’s bribery on the blockchain.
Doug Kim: Yeah. But you have to buy, say, Decred, which isn’t gonna be … Like you keep on buying and it’s gotta move up the price and people are gonna be incentivized to sell, so it kind of balances out too in that way.
Aaron Lammer: Okay Doug. So did you catch the story this week about noted fellow alt trader in Balina getting hacked.
Doug Kim: I did. I did catch that story. I mean I didn’t look into the specifics particularly the group that I chat in, talked about whether it was a scam to avoid taxes. But I don’t buy into that. I think he just legitimately got hacked.
Aaron Lammer: Jay, what do you think?
Jay Kang: Oh, let’s introduce Ian Balina a little bit. He is an alt trader who specializes in ICOs, he does a YouTube channel in which he rates different ICOs. I have gone through his ratings, I have looked through the ICOs that he likes, the once that he doesn’t like. I can’t tell a difference. I mean some of the ones that he likes are the stupidest ideas ever.
Aaron Lammer: He is a noted crypto personality.
Doug Kim: Without knowing much about his background, I would say that he is generally like an engaging, fun and very transparent guy for crypto. Like he is not a jerk.
Aaron Lammer: And he literally posts his portfolio every day like straight half of Blockfolio.
Doug Kim: Right. That was probably not smart.
Aaron Lammer: Which is I know like, lots of people are saying that they have huge amounts of Bitcoin but he was very specifically exposing exactly what he had in his overall holdings at all times.
Jay Kang: Yeah. So it seems like he got hacked from almost everything, right. Because when he does post this Blockfolio screenshot, it seems like he generally had about $2 million and isn’t that the amount that you get hacked for.
Aaron Lammer: I think he built a hundred thousand dollars into a million dollars and that was a while ago he gone into millions. So I guess, now he gone into $2 million. And he is like live on the air and then someone says, “You got hacked” and then he goes offline and says there is a power outage and he comes back and he’s like, “Oh, and like, I need peoples help,” he said on Twitter, “because I got hacked.”
Doug Kim: I think he actually had $5 million or something at the peak, when Bitcoin was at 20k or whatever. But yeah, I think recently, it was like $3 million or something.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah. At peak Doug. Yeah. Actually says that he got hacked. He says, “I got hacked, my college email was listed as recovery email to my gmail, that email is compromised, blah, blah, blah.” They used his college email to get access to his Evernote, reset his password, his private keys, whatever in his Evernote, which had encrypted text passwords. And he now says that the people who hacked him have hacked a bunch of crypto personalities.
Jay Kang: Aaron, do we count as crypto personalities?
Aaron Lammer: I don’t know. After this happened, Adrianne Jeffries who listen to her appearance on the show. Dian and me was like, “I’m writing a story about all these crypto personalities getting hacked do you ever worry about getting hacked?” I was like, what? No. We’re not crypto personalities. But I do worry about getting hacked just because I’m obviously not using incredibly elaborate OPSEC. Because I have a podcast.
Jay Kang: Are you sure as a crypto personality that you want to be saying that?
Aaron Lammer: I’m just saying, doing this show is not very good OPSEC. Not for me, for you, for Doug Kim who has talked about his large altbags.
Doug Kim: I mean he made so many mistakes. I mean like, first of all, putting all your private keys in your Evernote.
Aaron Lammer: That’s crazy. I mean, even I won’t do that and I’m like the ways this human being.
Doug Kim: That’s just like, you can do that but if you’re doing that, why would you post your portfolio every day. You’re just asking to get wracked. You could do one or the other, but not both. If you are posting your portfolio every day, make sure your shit is fucking locked in some fucking vaults somewhere [inaudible 00:50:40] I think they’re like, they set all these copies and haves of 24 word keys all over the planet or something like Voldemort-style, putting his Horcruxes all over the planet. And it’s just like you have to have that kind of vigilance to protect your shit in crypto.
Aaron Lammer: Jay, we put on your conspiracy kang half for a moment. This is a little strange. It’s a little weird.
Jay Kang: Yeah I mean I’m kind of with the people on your chat Doug. I mean, as much as I enjoy Ian’s videos and as much as I like to see someone who is not sort of a simpering 15-year-old, trolling everyone all the time in crypto. I don’t know how much I believe this. I don’t quite get if you’re hacked for that amount, why you’d also be so public about that? He either was really, really, really, really, dumb about all of this, which I find hard to believe. Or maybe like the whole thing was a lie, which is may be an option. Like maybe, he never had made that amount of money.
Aaron Lammer: Oh wow! Reporter in the room going for the deep conspiracy that away. I like it.
Jay Kang: Yo, maybe he never had any coins to begin with.
Doug Kim: Or it’s like one one-hundredth of what you said it was, or one tenth of you said it was.
Aaron Lammer: The part that feels weird to me about is the part where it happens live on the air. I feel like … It’s a little bit like, “Did you really got hacked but you’re staging yourself discovering yourself getting hacked.” It might seeing an exact verbatim copy of what happened, is always my question.
Jay Kang: Did you watch the video? I haven’t watched that.
Aaron Lammer: I did. He doesn’t seem super freaked out. He is like calm about the whole thing. I don’t know what to think, I don’t like to doubt someone, who maybe just had something horrible happen to them, but strange time. Strange times.
Jay Kang: I guess, my take on it is like if he did … Let’s say he is who he is and he made his money and whatever Diary of a Made man all that is real. I’m just thinking, let’s say, my intention was to evade taxes right. I feel like doing it two days before tax day and in such a way like that, I just feel like that’s just asking the IRS to have a truck load of S.W.A.T. IRS team come up to your house and go through all of your fucking records with the files [crosstalk 00:53:17].
Doug Kim: That doesn’t even make sense. Because it’s not like you pay taxes on your earnings between April 15th 2017 and April 15th 2018.
Aaron Lammer: People also debunked that because they said that he lives in the UK and the taxes have already been done in the UK, so it’s not even when you withdraw. [crosstalk 00:53:37]
Jay Kang: I don’t buy the tax there. I mean it makes … there’s no way.
Aaron Lammer: No I don’t buy necessarily that it’s like a fore private conspiracy, I just always wonder with things like this. Jay, would you say as a journalist, you can’t quite report something that happens on a YouTube show. You can’t say like happened, you can say, “This happened on a YouTube show.” Probably like a Jack Paul video or something.
Jay Kang: Yeah. You would say like, it’s like there is two guys, who are YouTube stars or wine stars, who won on the delta plan and they got thrown out and then there was like … They are claiming that it happened because the Delta agents were racist when in fact they were like gladly doing a stunt or they talked about bombs on the plane before it took off and that why they get kicked out of flight. And then you watch them do it in real time and it’s very emotional, because it seems like it’s real but it was all stunt. They just did it to get attention. Yeah, so it becomes very, very fuzzy. I’m not saying Ian Balina is doing anything like that, but I agree wit Aaron and that is sort of like dips its toes into that sort of bad feeling.
Doug Kim: Okay. I can understand.
Aaron Lammer: Alright guys. Anything else on your mind before we dip out for another week.
Doug Kim: Yeah. I’m just happy alt season seems to be somewhat back. So my whole theory was once tax season is over, maybe we’re gonna rock it back to moon town, but do you guys share any of that sentiment.
Aaron Lammer: I kind of … Jay has been skeptical, but I kind of buy the like, no one’s like feeling particularly great about. They are bank account, when taxes are due, particular people who like put money in and out of a basement. I’m not saying that I expect an instant rocket, but it doesn’t surprise me that just after that we’re starting to see a little bit like a flight and just a little bit of constant up pressure for [crosstalk 00:55:38].
Doug Kim: Well, I was washing the candles. There was a big 30 minute candle at the end of yesterday at midnight. There is like a lot of pots, probably programed to buy out shit right as fact they ended.
Aaron Lammer: Yeah. I still don’t know how that really greatly affect it’s worldwide market though. we’re the majority of people, who are involved in it don’t even live in the United States.
Doug Kim: I guess so [crosstalk 00:56:04]
Jay Kang: I mean haven’t got fair. It’s a small fact that …
Doug Kim: It is a small enough market and a new enough market, that American do make a lot of the money that’s going in and out of it. I guess like, I’m biasing this because I do have friends who are like, “I don’t wanna cash out now because I wanna wait, so Bitcoin goes back, then I’ll cash out so I can pay my taxes whatever.” I guess like anecdotally I know there are some people who are waiting till last minute pay, so we’ll see. It’s fun to speculate like what cause and the factors [crosstalk 00:56:39].
Jay Kang: That’s what we do here. You’re just like speculate and tell hindsight stories that we believe 100%. It seems like a lot of crypto and it’s fun. That’s why we do it. It sells stories to them [inaudible 00:56:50] alright.
Aaron Lammer: And that none of this is ever investment advice, not even if it comes from an extreme poker player like Doug Kim. Doug, I understand that you have a series loosely based on your own life. It is on the Facebook platform. How can people find it?
Doug Kim: You can search just Doug on Facebook or you could search it on DramaFever. It’s now up on that platform, but if you want to catch a screening, I will be in San Francisco next month. It’s playing at CAAMFest. It’s the biggest Asian-American film festival in the country. I’ll be playing on may 12th in San Francisco. So you can meet me or watch the show for the first time yourself, if you haven’t in a big screen.
Aaron Lammer: If you are a Coin Talk fan and you’re at this Asian-American film festival, just go out to Doug, say hi.
Doug Kim: Yup.
Aaron Lammer: Very nice talking to both of you. Let’s do it again soon.
Jay Kang: Great. | https://medium.com/s/cointalk/coin-talk-20-the-return-of-fomo-kang-w-doug-kim-d3a22a4a3d94 | ['Coin Talk'] | 2018-04-23 21:23:36.575000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'ICO', 'Investing', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
How to build Aatmanirbhar Bharat | Recently, I participated in an Economics competition conducted Symbiosis Institute of Management. As part of the competition’s second round, we were asked to send an info-graphic that summarized our ideas on “How to build aatmanirbhar Bharat”. This was our submission for the same
My team mate Aditi Rathor and I made it to the third round and finished 2nd overall in the competition :) | https://medium.com/@kiranganji/how-to-build-aatmanirbhar-bharat-cb2cc59fa219 | ['Kiran Ganji'] | 2020-10-06 18:56:44.399000+00:00 | ['Mba', 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat', 'Infographics', 'Economics', 'Competition'] |
LSTM: Understanding the Number of Parameters | In this tutorial, we will focus on internal structure of Keras LSTM layer in order to understand how many learnable parameters an LTSM layer has.
Why do we need to care of calculating number of parameters in LSTM layer since we can easily get this number in the model summary report?
Well there are several reasons:
First of all, to calculate the number of learnable parameters correctly, we need to understand how LSTM is structured and how LSTM operates in depth . Thus, we will delve into LSTM gates and gate functions. We will gain precious insight about how LSTM handles time dependent or sequence input data.
and how . Thus, we will delve into LSTM gates and gate functions. We will gain precious insight about how LSTM handles or input data. Secondly, in ANN models, number of parameter is a really important metric for understanding the model capacity and complexity. We need to keep an eye on the number of parameters of each layer in the model to handle overfitting or underfitting situations. One way to prevent these situations is to adjust the number of parameters of each layer. We need to know how number of parameters actullay affects the performance of each layer.
If you want to enhance your understanding of LSTM layer and learn how many learnable parameters it has please continue this tutorial.
By the way, I would like to mention that in my Youtube channel I have a dedicated playlist in English (All About LSTM) and in Turkish (LSTM Hakkında Herşey). You can check these playlist to learn more about LSTM.
Lastly, if you want to be notified for upcoming tutorials about LSTM and Deep Learning please subscribe to my Youtube channel and activate notifications.
Thank you!
Now, let’s get started! | https://medium.com/deep-learning-with-keras/lstm-understanding-the-number-of-parameters-c4e087575756 | ['Murat Karakaya'] | 2020-12-16 14:35:52.296000+00:00 | ['Parameters', 'Lstm', 'Keras', 'Learnable Parameters', 'Python'] |
22 discoveries this year changed our understanding of how animals communicate, compete, and defend themselves | In October, researchers figured out how we can get cats to trust us more.
A cat and its owner bond with one another. Photo: Getty Images/Misko Dvasia/EyeEm
One of the best ways to build a rapport with your cat, a study showed, is to narrow your eyes and blink slowly at them.
To cats, slow blinking is a form of smiling, and solicits happy, positive emotions. The researchers found that a cat will respond to a human’s slow blink with a slow blink of their own, and is more likely to approach an unfamiliar person who is slow blinking at them.
Don’t worry, dog people: It was a watershed year for pup-related research. One study found that we’ve probably been estimating our dog’s human age equivalent incorrectly.
A puppy plays with his toy. Photo: Shutterstock
A common rule of thumb for dog owners had been that one year for dogs is equivalent to seven human years.
But the new research showed that young puppies age much faster than young humans do, so that simple one-to-seven year ratio is wrong. A 1-year-old dog is more “like a 30-year-old human,” one of the study authors said.
But as dogs get older, they age more slowly. So the researchers found that a 12-year-old labrador would be the equivalent of 70 in human years.
Dogs also prefer to look at each other, rather than at their owners, an October study found. A dog’s brain isn’t wired to appreciate the beauty of its owner’s face, the research showed.
A dog cocks his head to the side. Photo: Blacknew/Shuttershock
Although humans rely heavily on faces to gather information and social cues — and have specialized brain areas that activate when we look at faces — dogs rely more on body language and vocal cues instead.
Researchers did discover some neurological similarities between dogs and humans, though: One study suggests our pets process human speech in a way similar to people.
A husky shakes “hands” with a human. Photo: Shutterstock
When humans hear someone speak, our brains first parse out a speaker’s underlying tone, then process the meaning of what we’ve heard. Dogs’ brains divvy up the task of speech processing in the same way, according to research published in August.
Our pets process “simpler, emotionally loaded cues” like tone first and then “more complex, learnt cues,” according to a press release about the study.
Dogs also have an uncanny ability to find their way home, and scientists may have finally deduced how it works.
Two wire-haired Fox Terriers. Photo: Alicia Nijdam/Wikimedia Commons
Typically, canines use their sense of smell to navigate. But that’s not the only tool at their disposal: Hunting dogs like terriers and dachshunds can also orient themselves using Earth’s magnetic field, according to a June study.
Birds, dolphins, and some whales may also use this same sixth sense, called magnetoreception, to plot their migrations.
Sometimes, though, following the magnetic field can lead migrating animals astray.
Tourists are greeted by a gray whale whilst whale watching in San Ignacio Lagoon, Mexico. Photo: Mark Carwardine/Barcroft Media/Getty Images
A February study found that during solar storms — which cause temporary disturbances in the magnetic field — gray whales are more likely to get stranded on shore.
The disturbances affect gray whales’ internal compasses, preventing them from navigating accurately.
“We think whales are getting stranded more often during solar storms because they’ve gone blind,” Jesse Granger, lead author of the study, previously told Business Insider. “The impacts of these storms on Earth could be shutting down the animals’ ability to sense the magnetic field.”
More than 200 gray whales got stranded or washed up dead onshore in the northeastern Pacific Ocean in 2019.
One particular species of whale, Cuvier’s beaked whale, made headlines this year after scientists observed it stay underwater for 3 hours and 42 minutes.
A Cuvier’s beaked whale. Photo: Andrew J. Read
That’s the longest any animal has ever been known to hold its breath. According to the researchers, the record dive is almost seven times longer than a whale of this size should be able to do without oxygen.
Cuvier’s beaked whales are among the ocean’s deepest and longest divers, reaching depths of up to 10,000 feet (nearly 2 miles).
Another record-holding swimmer, the Greenland shark, is the longest-living vertebrate on the planet. Genetic analysis revealed new details about these creatures this year.
A Greenland shark seen near the Admiralty Inlet, Nunavut, Canada, 2007. Photo: Hemming1952/Wikimedia Commons
Greenland sharks are found in north Atlantic and Arctic waters and can live for up to 400 years.
An August study determined via genetic analysis that there are two geographically separate populations of Greenland sharks. One group swims near Canada’s Baffin Basin, above the Arctic Circle, while the other occupies waters of the north Atlantic Ocean between Nova Scotia and Svalbard, near Norway.
Waters in the northern Atlantic may be getting more crowded with sharks as waters warm.
A great white shark at Guadalupe Island, Mexico. Photo: Gerald Schömbs/Unsplash
As shark species like great whites expand their ranges, that could mean more fin sightings — and possibly attacks.
Great whites will be “found more commonly in Maine waters in the years ahead,” George Burgess, former director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, told Business Insider in June.
The predators are proliferating in Massachusetts too, which is likely a consequence of ballooning populations of grey and harbor seals off the coast of Cape Cod, Burgess said.
Great whites are the biggest carnivorous sharks alive today, but research has shown how small they are in comparison to megalodons.
An illustration of a megalodon. Photo: Shutterstock
A September study found that megalodons, a type of prehistoric shark, reached lengths of 52 feet. That research also showed that a 52-foot megalodon had a head and tail 13 feet long and a dorsal fin equal to the height of an average woman.
One analysis suggested these extinct predators reached such gargantuan sizes by cannibalizing each other in the womb.
A jellyfish relative broke a record in 2020, becoming the longest animal ever seen.
Three views of the predatory Siphonophore Rhizophysa, a relative of the Man-o-War jellyfish. Photo: Larry Madin/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
In April, scientists discovered a 150-foot-long siphonophore off the coast of western Australia — the longest creature ever observed.
Siphonophores are predators that feed as jellyfish do, dangling long, stinging tentacles that prey swim into.
That wasn’t the only rare tentacled creature caught on camera in Australia this year. Researchers also spotted five bigfin squid.
A bigfin squid spotted two miles underwater in southern Australia’s Great Bight. Photo: Courtesy of Deborah Osterhage/CSIRO
Researchers announced in November that they’d seen the bigfin squid off the coast of Adelaide. The creatures are rarely captured on camera; they’d only been spotted a dozen times since the 1980s, and had never been seen in Australian waters before.
A bigfin squid’s body is only 6 inches long, but its tentacles stretch 6 feet.
Scientists also discovered that platypus fur glows greenish-blue under ultraviolet light.
An adult male platypus named Millsom is carried by his keeper at an animal sanctuary in Melbourne, Australia, May 8, 2008. Photo: Mick Tsikas/Reuters
The discovery may indicate that mammals evolved biofluorescent fur more than 150 million years ago. This glowing fur could help nocturnal mammals camouflage, or it could play a role in mating rituals, according to new research.
Hummingbirds, researchers recently discovered, can see ultraviolet light.
Hummingbirds fly up to the flowers in the flower garden at the faculty of Higher Studies Iztacala on the outskirts of Mexico City. Photo: Carlos Jasso/Reuters
Broad-tailed hummingbirds can pick up on colors in the ultra-violet spectrum that are imperceptible to the human eye, a June study showed. This expanded range of vision helps the animals identify food sources.
Another impressive creature, diabolical ironclad beetle, can get squished under 39,000 times its body weight and make it out alive. In October, scientists discovered how its body does that.
A diabolical ironclad beetle, or Phloeodes diabolicus. Photo: David Kisailus/University of California, Irvine
Imagine a 200-pound man being crushed by the weight of nearly two space shuttles and coming out unscathed. That’s about how indestructible the diabolical ironclad beetle is.
The beetle has hardened casings on each wing that interlock and support its exoskeleton, which enables it to get run over by a car and survive, research showed. Scientists are exploring how to mimic the design of the beetle’s exoskeleton to build better planes and armored vehicles.
Researchers also figured out why locusts swarm, which could help them stop the insects from destroying crops.
A man takes pictures of a swarm of locusts in Allahabad, India, on June 11, 2020. Photo: Sanjay Kanojia/AFP via Getty Images
A study published in August pinpointed a chemical scent that triggers locusts to gather together. The study authors suggested using that same pheromone to lure locusts into areas in which they can then be killed en masse in order to save crops.
Insects can get deadly infections just like other creatures. One parasitic fungus in particular causes male cicadas to lose their minds and go on a mating frenzy.
A male cicada infected by massospora, a parasitic fungus. Photo: WVU Photo/Angie Macias
In West Virginia, some cicadas have gotten infected with a fungus called massospora over the last two summers. According to an August study, the fungus manipulates the male cicadas into flicking their wings in a pattern that imitates females’ mating invitations. That sham siren call lures in unsuspecting healthy males, who then get infected, too. Once the fungus takes hold, the insects’ genitals rot.
Researchers nicknamed the infected bugs “flying salt shakers of death.”
Algae can doom animals, too. That turned out to be the reason more than 300 elephants mysteriously died in Botswana between May and September.
An aerial view of an elephant that has died of mysterious causes in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. Photo: National Park Rescue
After months of investigation, researchers deduced that the elephants had died because watering holes in the Okavango Delta were contaminated with cyanobacteria.
The blue-green algae’s toxins affect both humans and other animals — they can be inhaled or swallowed, or seep through the skin, leading to gastrointestinal problems, paralysis, and even death in dogs, fish, and cattle.
But octopuses have an adaptation that helps warn them if a potential food source is toxic. Special receptors on their tentacles help the sea creatures taste objects by touching them.
An octopus touching a cup. Photo: Lena van Giesen
An October study revealed that octopuses explore their prey using their eight arms.
This ability to “taste” through touch enables octopuses to detect hiding prey, and it can also prompt them to retreat from an object that seems toxic. Octopuses can detect bitter-tasting chemicals emitted as a defense or warning signal by marine animals like jellyfish, sponges, mollusks, and crabs.
Slow lorises have toxic bites, scientists discovered. But instead of using venom to hunt prey or fight predators, lorises use their bites to defend their territory.
A Javan Slow Loris in Sumedang, West Java on January 20, 2019. Photo: Mas Agung Wilis/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Lorises typically reserve their venomous bites for attacks on other lorises, according to a study published in October. Their venom packs a nasty punch: It causes extreme pain and rots flesh.
“It causes necrosis, so animals may lose an eye, a scalp or half their face,” Anna Nekaris, the lead author of the study, told The New York Times.
Researchers documented white-faced capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica eating a dead infant from their group.
A man with a capuchin monkey. Photo: J Pat Carter/AP
The baby was only 10 days old and had died after falling from a tree, the study authors said. Together, a male and female ate the infant’s lower body in half an hour, while the mother watched. Only the baby’s head, chest, and arms were left behind.
Other primates, like bonobos, also eat one another, but this incident was the first recorded case of cannibalism among white-faced capuchins.
Not all primate discoveries this year were so grisly. Researchers also found that chimpanzees get choosier about friendships as they age, just like humans.
Triad of Kanyawara chimpanzees grooming: Kakama, the dominant male (on left) grooms with Johnny (on the right), an older male, and a female in the middle. Photo: Ronan Donovan
Humans tend to cultivate fewer, more meaningful friendships as they grow older. A prevailing psychological theory suggests this is because we recognize our impending mortality and seek to prioritize fulfilling connections in the time we have left.
Chimps, it turns out, do the same thing — but probably not because they understand their own mortality, the study authors wrote. Their changing friendship priorities might simply come about because their behavior becomes less aggressive over time.
For more great stories, visit Business Insider’s homepage. | https://medium.com/business-insider/22-of-the-coolest-animal-discoveries-from-2020-a35897249c71 | ['Business Insider'] | 2020-12-20 19:03:15.011000+00:00 | ['Animals', 'Dogs', 'Wildlife', 'Behavior', 'Environment'] |
[ENGSUB] Family Guy S19 > Ep 9 — The First No L | ➕Official Partners “TVs” TV Shows & Movies
● Watch Family Guy Season 19 Episode 9 Eng Sub ●
Family Guy Season 19 Episode 9 : Full Series
ஜ ۩۞۩ ஜ▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭ஜ ۩۞۩ ஜ
ஜ ۩۞۩ ஜ▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭▭ஜ ۩۞۩ ஜ
Family Guy — Season 19, Episode 9 || FULL EPISODES : When the family fails to help Lois with the Christmas shopping, she walks out on the family and the Griffins must try to save Christmas on their own. .
Family Guy 19x9 > Family Guy S19xE9 > Family Guy S19E9 > Family Guy TVs > Family Guy Cast > Family Guy Online > Family Guy Eps.19 > Family Guy Season 19 > Family Guy Episode 9 > Family Guy Premiere > Family Guy New Season > Family Guy Full Episodes > Family Guy Season 19 Episode 9 > Watch Family Guy Season 19 Episode 9 Online
Streaming Family Guy Season 19 :: Episode 9 S19E9 ► ((Episode 9 : Full Series)) Full Episodes ●Exclusively● On TVs, Online Free TV Shows & TV Family Guy ➤ Let’s go to watch the latest episodes of your favourite Family Guy.
Family Guy 19x9
Family Guy S19E9
Family Guy TVs
Family Guy Cast
Family Guy Online
Family Guy Eps.19
Family Guy Season 19
Family Guy Episode 9
Family Guy Premiere
Family Guy New Season
Family Guy Full Episodes
Family Guy Watch Online
Family Guy Season 19 Episode 9
Watch Family Guy Season 19 Episode 9 Online
⭐A Target Package is short for Target Package of Information. It is a more specialized case of Intel Package of Information or Intel Package.
✌ THE STORY ✌
Its and Jeremy Camp (K.J. Apa) is a and aspiring musician who like only to honor his God through the energy of music. Leaving his Indiana home for the warmer climate of California and a college or university education, Jeremy soon comes Bookmark this site across one Melissa Heing
(Britt Robertson), a fellow university student that he takes notices in the audience at an area concert. Bookmark this site Falling for cupid’s arrow immediately, he introduces himself to her and quickly discovers that she is drawn to him too. However, Melissa holds back from forming a budding relationship as she fears it`ll create an awkward situation between Jeremy and their mutual friend, Jean-Luc (Nathan Parson), a fellow musician and who also has feeling for Melissa. Still, Jeremy is relentless in his quest for her until they eventually end up in a loving dating relationship. However, their youthful courtship Bookmark this sitewith the other person comes to a halt when life-threating news of Melissa having cancer takes center stage. The diagnosis does nothing to deter Jeremey’s love on her behalf and the couple eventually marries shortly thereafter. Howsoever, they soon find themselves walking an excellent line between a life together and suffering by her Bookmark this siteillness; with Jeremy questioning his faith in music, himself, and with God himself.
✌ STREAMING MEDIA ✌
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb to stream refers to the procedure of delivering or obtaining media this way.[clarification needed] Streaming identifies the delivery approach to the medium, rather than the medium itself. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies especially to telecommunications networks, as almost all of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television, streaming apps) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, audio tracks CDs). There are challenges with streaming content on the web. For instance, users whose Internet connection lacks sufficient bandwidth may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of this content. And users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream certain content.
Streaming is an alternative to file downloading, an activity in which the end-user obtains the entire file for the content before watching or listening to it. Through streaming, an end-user may use their media player to get started on playing digital video or digital sound content before the complete file has been transmitted. The term “streaming media” can connect with media other than video and audio, such as for example live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are considered “streaming text”.
This brings me around to discussing us, a film release of the Christian religio us faith-based . As almost customary, Hollywood usually generates two (maybe three) films of this variety movies within their yearly theatrical release lineup, with the releases usually being around spring us and / or fall respectfully. I didn’t hear much when this movie was initially aounced (probably got buried underneath all of the popular movies news on the newsfeed). My first actual glimpse of the movie was when the film’s movie trailer premiered, which looked somewhat interesting if you ask me. Yes, it looked the movie was goa be the typical “faith-based” vibe, but it was going to be directed by the Erwin Brothers, who directed I COULD Only Imagine (a film that I did so like). Plus, the trailer for I Still Believe premiered for quite some us, so I continued seeing it most of us when I visited my local cinema. You can sort of say that it was a bit “engrained in my brain”. Thus, I was a lttle bit keen on seeing it. Fortunately, I was able to see it before the COVID-9 outbreak closed the movie theaters down (saw it during its opening night), but, because of work scheduling, I haven’t had the us to do my review for it…. as yet. And what did I think of it? Well, it was pretty “meh”. While its heart is certainly in the proper place and quite sincere, us is a little too preachy and unbalanced within its narrative execution and character developments. The religious message is plainly there, but takes way too many detours and not focusing on certain aspects that weigh the feature’s presentation.
✌ TELEVISION SHOW AND HISTORY ✌
A tv set show (often simply Television show) is any content prBookmark this siteoduced for broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, cable, or internet and typically viewed on a television set set, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are usually placed between shows. Tv shows are most often scheduled well ahead of The War with Grandpa and appearance on electronic guides or other TV listings.
A television show may also be called a tv set program (British EnBookmark this siteglish: programme), especially if it lacks a narrative structure. A tv set Movies is The War with Grandpaually released in episodes that follow a narrative, and so are The War with Grandpaually split into seasons (The War with Grandpa and Canada) or Movies (UK) — yearly or semiaual sets of new episodes. A show with a restricted number of episodes could be called a miniMBookmark this siteovies, serial, or limited Movies. A one-The War with Grandpa show may be called a “special”. A television film (“made-for-TV movie” or “televisioBookmark this siten movie”) is a film that is initially broadcast on television set rather than released in theaters or direct-to-video.
Television shows may very well be Bookmark this sitehey are broadcast in real The War with Grandpa (live), be recorded on home video or an electronic video recorder for later viewing, or be looked at on demand via a set-top box or streameBookmark this sited on the internet.
The first television set shows were experimental, sporadic broadcasts viewable only within an extremely short range from the broadcast tower starting in the. Televised events such as the 2020 Summer OlyBookmark this sitempics in Germany, the 2020 coronation of King George VI in the UK, and David Sarnoff’s famoThe War with Grandpa introduction at the 9 New York World’s Fair in the The War with Grandpa spurreBookmark this sited a rise in the medium, but World War II put a halt to development until after the war. The 2020 World Movies inspired many Americans to buy their first tv set and in 2020, the favorite radio show Texaco Star Theater made the move and became the first weekly televised variety show, earning host Milton Berle the name “Mr Television” and demonstrating that the medium was a well balanced, modern form of entertainment which could attract advertisers. The firsBookmBookmark this siteark this sitet national live tv broadcast in the The War with Grandpa took place on September 19, 2020 when President Harry Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in SAN FRAFamily Guy CO BAY AREA was transmitted over AT&T’s transcontinental cable and microwave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets.
✌ FINAL THOUGHTS ✌
The power of faith, love, and affinity for take center stage in Jeremy Camp’s life story in the movie I Still Believe. Directors Andrew and Jon Erwin (the Erwin Brothers) examine the life span and The War with Grandpas of Jeremy Camp’s life story; pin-pointing his early life along with his relationship Melissa Heing because they battle hardships and their enduring love for one another through difficult. While the movie’s intent and thematic message of a person’s faith through troublen is indeed palpable plus the likeable mThe War with Grandpaical performances, the film certainly strules to look for a cinematic footing in its execution, including a sluish pace, fragmented pieces, predicable plot beats, too preachy / cheesy dialogue moments, over utilized religion overtones, and mismanagement of many of its secondary /supporting characters. If you ask me, this movie was somewhere between okay and “meh”. It had been definitely a Christian faith-based movie endeavor Bookmark this web site (from begin to finish) and definitely had its moments, nonetheless it failed to resonate with me; struling to locate a proper balance in its undertaking. Personally, regardless of the story, it could’ve been better. My recommendation for this movie is an “iffy choice” at best as some should (nothing wrong with that), while others will not and dismiss it altogether. Whatever your stance on religion faith-based flicks, stands as more of a cautionary tale of sorts; demonstrating how a poignant and heartfelt story of real-life drama could be problematic when translating it to a cinematic endeavor. For me personally, I believe in Jeremy Camp’s story / message, but not so much the feature.
FIND US:
✔️ https://www.ontvsflix.com/tv/1434-19-9/family-guy.html
✔️ Instagram: https://instagram.com
✔️ Twitter: https://twitter.com
✔️ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com | https://medium.com/family-guy-s19e9-stream/engsub-family-guy-s19-ep-9-the-first-no-l-d4974e29dc18 | ['Angga Putra'] | 2020-12-13 10:47:00.931000+00:00 | ['Animation', 'Covid 19', 'Technology', 'Cartoon', 'Anime'] |
Flight or Fight? Shifting responses to fear and anxiety, and the role of workplace culture by Selale Anapa for TraumaVenture | The 2008 recession was extremely difficult for my family. Like so many others and their life-altering stories around this financial crisis, my parents lost the business that was a piece of their heart and soul. My second “home,” the diner they owned, where I spent days and nights while they worked, was suddenly gone. To follow shortly thereafter was our house. As a young teenager, I was confused; I could not understand how something you put all of your time, heart, soul, and money into could just disappear no matter how hard you fight for it.
As the years went on, I realized the profound impact these events had on my life. I was consumed by thoughts of finance; constantly worrying about my parents and unsure how we could change the tide. Research shows that when children are faced with instability, it impacts their development and how the effects of such instability can be mitigated. Family structure, employment, housing, and child care are interconnected; therefore, change in one leads to change in another. It felt like with each step we took, another piece of the road crumbled.
More than a decade after 2008, COVID-19 entered our lives like a whirlwind, stirring up and unearthing fear and anxiety, bringing them again to the forefront. It shifted the domains that lead to the development of instability — for children and adults.
The economic uncertainty I felt as a child watching my parents’ struggle was happening again. I have spent days in an obsessive fog in which I could not wrap my mind around a plan to get out. Everything seemed out of reach and I was frozen. I felt like a kid again, sitting at the counter for the last time looking at the empty space that was my parents’ dream. I felt helpless. A “once in a generation” economic crisis was happening again, and questions swarmed in my mind:
What is happening? Will I be able to continue supporting myself? What will happen to my parents? How can I help them and also support myself? Will our entire lives be a financial-crisis? What will be the lingering effects associated with the pandemic?
What was happening was out of my control and I was afraid. That fear had a hold over me; it dictated what I could and could not do. I closed up and reverted back into my habitual response to fear — to freeze. I dissociated from the here and now and was mentally, physically, and emotionally immobilized. I knew I needed to shift my response and I reflected on past team conversations around fear and how hopeful leadership can role model a way forward, which I discussed in my previous article.
We are all familiar with flight (retreating or running away) or fight (being combative, ready to take someone on) responses to fear and anxiety. However, in a training Dr. Cardesa led for us, I was introduced to other responses: Fog (to disconnect from their body and mind); Fawn (trying to appease or take care of another person): Freeze (unable to move physically or mentally). I freeze and am unable to “thaw.”
These responses are natural; our amygdala, an almond shaped structure in the limbic system of the brain, is responsible for reacting to certain stimuli such as events outside of our control. Essentially, it is trying to protect us; it is just doing its job. So, thank you, amygdala…but, we can shift our responses to fear and anxiety. If one’s habitual response is to fight, instead, they can dance. If you freeze, wiggle or shake your body; if you fog, open your eyes, smile, and bring yourself back to your body. If you fawn, hug yourself and place your hand on your heart — remember you need to take care of yourself too. If someone’s response is flight, they can practice warrior pose or find ways to stay grounded and feel the strength inside them. We are resilient beings.
At TraumaVenture, we dialogue as a team about the pressure to be resilient. We are resilient, and we celebrate the courage to face adversity. At the same time, however, we also reflect as a team on how sometimes we need a moment to experience our emotions and those which are coming up in a time of uncertainty. The long-term implications of COVID-19 on generations are not precise. Still, the pandemic may further exaggerate existing generational inequalities — older generations continue to be impacted by the adverse health effects of the virus, and younger generations experience inauspicious financial outcomes. COVID-19 has triggered a socio-economic crisis that is draining resources from every corner of the world. Financial hardship among families has increased in scale and depth and threatens progress made in reducing poverty.
As I learned more about a workplace culture of care, I recognized that COVID-19 is expanding the connection between our work life and home life. Our work can be a healing method, and a workplace culture of care can create avenues for processing these deep-seated emotions around financial stress — with hopeful, connective leadership, we can shift our responses to fear. The impact of financial stress on productivity and satisfaction is genuine, and the COVID-19 whirlwind is unearthing those concerns to the forefront of our thoughts.
COVID-19 is a collective psychological upheaval shared by the entire world and increases both individual and collective fear. Help with budgeting, managing debt, building emergency savings, and long-term financial planning through group meetings or training, or individual meetings will reduce the isolation of financial stress. A workplace culture of care emphasizes the importance of financial wellness with properly structured wellness benefits to boost productivity and improve employee retention; it is hopeful and understands responses to fear and how to help shift them. Implementation of a financial wellness plan needs to be person-centered with the awareness of each employee’s individual experiences; a “one-size-fits-all” approach is not sufficient.
I also want to recognize that remote work has a beautiful side to it — bringing people worldwide together through virtual meetings that one may not have been able to attend otherwise. Through Zoom and other video conference technology, employers can “bring in” experts to generate conversations around financial stress and management tools. For instance, I recently participated in a virtual conference at Harvard University, which would not have been an option for me before. A financial wellness program should be inspiring; it should motivate participants to create a financial plan and have a brighter outlook for the future. Engaging employees in inspiring financial wellness programs reduces finance-related stressors and inturn, reduces the likelihood of one falling into their habitual response to fear. The act of starting on this path of recognizing financial stressors and working to mitigate them can be overwhelming for many. Therefore a successful, inspiring financial wellness program implements milestones and “quick wins” — such as creating a budget or even canceling that unused subscription and allocating the savings toward paying off debt — to help keep employees motivated and accountable.
COVID-19 is negatively impacting everyone on the socio-economic spectrum and is deepening inequality and inequity. A financial wellness program should be easily accessible to help remove barriers to success. As part of creating a culture of care, employers must be mindful of employees’ experiences and meet them where they are through a program with versatile, attainable tools and goals.
Financial stress is rarely an isolated phenomenon. Workplace culture is a determining factor in overall wellness and is interconnected with personal happiness. Space for employees to address concerns and find resources is not a luxury, but an essential that, regrettably, is not and will not be available to everyone unless there are structures in place. Integrating a financial wellness program is vital in a workplace culture of care; when employees are appropriately informed about the benefits and programs offered to them, feelings of security increase, and stress decreases.
We, at TraumaVenture, recognize the individual and collective unique experience of this pandemic. It has highlighted health, financial, and racial inequalities and inequities. As a consultant at TraumaVenture, I have witnessed how a workplace culture of care mitigates financial stress and opens avenues for shifting the conversation to be inclusive and less isolating. The future of work is a trusting, collaborative environment with a clearly defined financial wellness program and resources for employees. In this environment, we can create a plan to foster hope and hold space for ourselves and our team. Although the 2008 recession and the COVID-19 pandemic are different in character, both have revealed feelings of fear for the self and loved ones, uncertainty, helplessness, and stress. Through compassion, empathy, and deep listening, we can shift our responses to fear and leverage this collective experience of COVID-19 to bring us closer and recognize how we can better care for one another moving forward.
Şelale Anapa
#motivationmonday #cultureofcare #shiftingfear #futureofwork #humancentricleadership #empathymatters #peoplefirst #kadınliderler #TraumaVenture | https://medium.com/@traumaventure/flight-or-fight-ab0892df914a | ['Traumaventure Cecilia M Cardesa'] | 2020-12-16 21:01:51.989000+00:00 | ['Cultureofcare', 'Trauma Informed Systems', 'Future Of Work'] |
Happy Holidays from us at Tatsu! | As the year draws to a close, we would like to wish you a merry holiday & a happy new year! We’d like to thank all of you for believing in us and supporting Tatsu during the past few months! We’re just getting started and we look forward to bringing you more features, content & updates for a long time to come.
Festival Pets
We’ve also added 3 additional event pets to the event shop! Each of the snowy Frostwalker pets will be available for 1000 candy canes each until the 31st of December.
Fret not, players who have already used up all your candy canes; We’re giving everybody 1000 candy canes and have increased the cap on the Greench by 4x. You should receive the extra candy canes in your t!mail shortly.
Feature Voting Results
Thanks to everyone who participated in the vote!
Here are the results of the vote:
Server Administrators
Admins voted for these features
Players
Note: Pet Nursery Building & Private Pet Nursery are the same thing. Just reworded for clarity.
Players who are also Administrators
Results
Based on the results of the vote, we will be working on role reward improvements, server pets & reward drops. However we may work on the other features alongside the winners if necessary.
Starlight Festival
We’ll be taking all the feedback we received and improving on our next event, thank you all for taking part! The event will end on the 31st December with the raffle being decided afterwards.
Whats happening in 2021?
We’ll leave this to your imagination
We are currently working on some exciting core technologies to lay the groundwork for our ambitious plans to bring highly interactive content to servers & players alike. Expect to see our roadmap next year and stay tuned for more news to drop in mid — late January.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! | https://medium.com/tatsuworks/happy-holidays-from-us-at-tatsu-b5282e87d681 | [] | 2020-12-25 09:02:19.998000+00:00 | ['Updates', 'Discord Bot', 'Weekly Recap', 'Events', 'Discord'] |
Coffee, Music & Projects | The coffee shop is open.
Is there anything better than taking some time to yourself to work on a personal writing project, art project or similar?
It’s especially good when backed up by a warm inviting atmosphere, a comfy spot to sit, warm drink, and some nice chill music to listen to in the background; though if you can’t find the music, always make sure you bring some headphones so you can make it happen.
I’m very partial nowadays to being comfortable, I don’t want cold drafts, I don’t want people bumping me or having to walk very close behind me, no exceedingly noisy places, though some background chatter can be inviting. A warm fireplace to sit by with a nice coffee table would be ideal but I can let this one go.
Maybe I’ve gotten too picky but it’s my time and I want it my way, shouldn’t we all have it our way once in awhile?
It’s become exceedingly difficult to enjoy going out to a cafe and having these moments as our current atmosphere is so touched by the pandemic.
I don’t get the same feeling of focus at home that I get when I go out to one of these spaces, they have fond memories for me and while I’m there, I’m not reminded of all the housework and other menial work I’m obviously procrastinating on.
Going out to these places feels very planned, I’m in control, I know what I’m going to be doing, I have the tools to do it, this time, is for myself and my projects.
How are you faring in these pandemic times? Have you taken any time to yourself?
Share your favorite spot to go, favorite drink, and what you’re working on! I’d love to hear from you. | https://medium.com/@chazmilesmuse/coffee-music-projects-a32aa1be3b35 | ['Chaz Miles'] | 2020-12-20 06:38:35.646000+00:00 | ['Comfort', 'Projects', 'Relaxing', 'Personal Development', 'Coffee Shop'] |
Kushner shows up in Morocco with the principal non-stop departure from Israel | The US official counsel, Jared Kushner, will visit Morocco from Israel. He will show up today with the main non-stop trip after the resumption of relations between the two nations. The realm is the fourth Arab nation to settle on this choice as of late under the sponsorship of President Donald Trump.
The resumption of relations between Morocco and Israel will presumably follow the consenting to of a few arrangements. This recuperation likewise incorporates the help of non-stop trips between the two nations and the advancement of relations in the financial and innovative fields, as reported on November 10 by the Moroccan Royal Court. Every year, around 70,000 Jews visit Morocco, the vast majority of them from Israel, however with no-non-stop flights.
A considerable lot of them come to praise strict services in Moroccan Jewish shrines. Kushner’s appearance in the realm of Israel additionally speaks to one of the accomplishments of the Trump organization in the Middle East, not exactly a month prior to his term lapses. In return for the resumption of relations with Israel, Morocco acquired US acknowledgment of its sway over Western Sahara, in a clash with the Algerian-supported Polisario Front.
Trump’s choice additionally incorporated the declaration of the United States’ goal to open a department in the city of Dakhla in Western Sahara. The Western Sahara issue is viewed as a public issue in Morocco, similarly all things considered for the Palestinian reason. The declaration by the US of the acknowledgment of Morocco’s sway over Western Sahara in return for the realm’s standardization of its relations with Israel was a stunner, as indicated by the political theory scientist Khadija Mohsen Fannan in an article on “Orion 21.”
While Moroccans around the globe commended “the Moroccan of the Sahara,” neighborhood specialists restricted two exhibits in Rabat against the standardization of relations with Israel last week. At the worldwide level, Russia, Algeria, and the Polisario Front consider the acknowledgment by the United States of Moroccan sway over Western Sahara unlawful, as it negates the goals of the United Nations Security Council.
Morocco had recently settled discretionary relations with Israel, were somewhere in the range of 700,000 individuals of Moroccan drop live. During the 1990s, they consented to the Oslo Peace Arrangement, before Morocco authoritatively finished up these relations after the Palestinian uprising in 2000. The suspension of authentic relations between the two nations didn’t forestall the continuation of exchange for 149 million dollars, somewhere in the range of 2014 and 2017, as indicated by Moroccan media.
Also, a Franco-Israeli Chamber of Commerce release said Morocco is among Israel’s main five clients in Africa. The proofreader of the Moroccan every day “Al-Ahdath,” known for being near the illustrious family, Ahmed Al-Sharia, said in an article distributed in the Jerusalem Post that the resumption of relations with Israel affirms an organization that has been set up for a very long time, remembering participation for the field of insight and security. | https://medium.com/@brettkinnunen56/kushner-shows-up-in-morocco-with-the-principal-non-stop-departure-from-israel-ebb61c540529 | ['Brett Kinnunen'] | 2020-12-22 12:09:40.746000+00:00 | ['United States', 'Donald Trump', 'Jared Kushner', 'Morocco', 'Israel'] |
A Letter to Survivors: You Deserved So Much Better | My relationship with this colleague was inappropriate from day one, but I thought we were just friendly. He explained to me why he took this new job, which led to him confiding in me about struggles at work, which snowballed into him sharing far too many details of his personal life. Thinking that this person was my friend — after all, he got me this job — I was always there to listen. I should have noticed right away that he didn’t feel the same need to be there for me. Our conversations weren’t those of two people venting about their frustrations, they were comprised of one person complaining, oversharing and threatening others, to a captive audience. Did I mention this guy was also my boss? So, yea, I couldn’t have been more of a captive audience.
Things slowly escalated and he eventually asked me to meet him at the beach on my day off.
I declined and said, “Do you often invite your employees to spend the day with you outside of work?”
I was hoping he would see how inappropriate of a situation he was putting me in.
He got defensive and fired back that I had totally misinterpreted his texts. He was my boss, an authority figure, and much older than me. Not to mention, he was married.
Of course he didn’t mean it that way, I convinced myself. I felt a tiny bit of relief the next couple days without constant texts from him while I tried to pay attention in classes. Maybe he had learned to leave me alone, I thought.
When I returned to work, he invited me into his office and shut the door behind me.
“Oh god, is he firing me now?” I thought, turning red as I sat across the desk from him.
“I want you to know that I don’t think of you as just an employee, as you said in your text,” he half whispered.
I squirmed in my chair and nervously giggled, the way a very timid and uncomfortable 20-year-old does. Truth be told, I don’t remember how that awful interaction ended, and that’s probably for the best.
“I can’t just not go, right? I mean, he’s my boss.”
The next part of this terrible saga was a few hours into one of the country club’s biggest events of the year. I had worked tirelessly on decorations, seating charts, wine specials and more and I was thrilled that the night was coming together exactly as we’d hoped. The general manager even thanked me for my work, which I never thought he noticed. (It might be worth noting here that the GM always called me “kiddo.” Probably half because he couldn’t remember my name to save his life, but I think it also nods to the fact that I didn’t look any older than my age at this time. If anything, I looked much younger.)
I was standing in the back of the ballroom watching the party-goers celebrate when I felt my phone buzz in my pocket.
“Meet me in the loading dock in 10,” it read. I swallowed hard and looked up fast to see if anyone else may have read that text over my shoulder. I can’t just not go, right? I mean, he’s my boss.
Ten minutes later I walked out to the dimly lit loading dock. The smell of the nearby dumpster combined with my nerves swirling around my stomach made me want to vomit. My hands were shaking incessantly. I obviously knew this couldn’t be good, but I didn’t think I could leave.
His car pulled up and he waved for me to join him. For some reason, I remember trying to hide the fact that I was trembling like a leaf as I walked over and opened the passenger door.
“Buckle up,” he said, grinning. “We’re going to celebrate!”
Soon, I found myself alone at an empty beach, late at night with a man I didn’t want to be near, without a ride home. To top it all off, he’d also stolen a “celebratory” six-pack of Coors Light from our mutual employer and said there was no need to worry about my being off-the-clock, because he would add hours to my time card for me. | https://medium.com/4th-wave-feminism/a-letter-to-survivors-you-deserved-so-much-better-22719159fd5b | ['Alexa Nargi'] | 2020-03-02 19:58:42.185000+00:00 | ['Male Violence', 'Feminism', 'Metoo', 'Sexual Assault', 'Abuse'] |
UXDB: Introduction and A Call for New User (Input) Forms | I wrote an essay several months ago, complaining that our database models are insufficient and horrible.
To address this problem, I have been working on a side project that aims to challenge all the current UX, DB and programming approaches as most programmers have come to know them.
Java, I Personally condemn You to Hell, with All Your Friends
Part of it is personal. Since learning to program (it all started with Pascal back in 2001) and being exposed to computers at a rather ‘late age’ of 15, there are very few things that come close to revolting than three things I have observed in the computing world:
A. UX designs that clearly pay little or no attention to the ACTUAL, not the imaginary user. Ever since being introduced to computers, I have always hated companies like Microsoft, and Google. Apple is actually not that much better; it is just that I have not had enough exposure to Apple products to make up my mind. The issue with UX, for me, has never been that it “looks pretty”. It has always been, does it work for ME? Even Job’s matra of ‘design is how it works’ doesn’t fairly capture the concern I have always had with the prevailing UX design approaches.
B. The entire concept of the database. My first experiences with databases was with tools like Microsoft Access. The entire experience was nothing short of brain-numbing. It was probably 16 years ago when I first had an experience with a database. It was appalling. (Let us keep in mind that my love for all things computers, computing, and programming was already on fire back then!) I vividly remember trying out my ‘new’ database table with Names, Surnames, phone numbers, and some other random field. My goal was to ‘test’ the database by scripting some Excel program that imports those Database entries into Excel. Just fooling around, really. The shock and horror of learning that if any of the ‘cells’ in any of the rows was ‘missing’ an entry, the entire ‘import’ script would return garbage! (I began strongly disliking the ‘garbage in, garbage out’ phrase right then and there!)
C. Java! And anything that comes close to looking like it! OO, objects, classes, UML, interfaces, and packages… It appears they were ALL invented with one goal in mind : to dis-empower mere mortals into building the next and better Microsoft, Google, Apple and company. My first introduction to programming was nothing short of happy, glad, and joyful. I built a sizeable number of Mathematics ‘procedures’/functions/methods using ‘lil old Pascal! In came the horrid Java, with all its insane ‘public static void main’ stupidities, and I henceforth refused to aspire to be the next Bill Gates again! In University, I had the most fun doing firmware and embedded code. It made me run away from all the universal madness of OO and its heavily sedated loyalists.
UXDB
Defective Approaches
The truth is, we have several defective concepts that are not helping programmers and computer users to move forward in terms of advancing our UX and DB approaches. Here are several of them:
The MVC architecture. Seriously? Who seriously thought this approach should be made Universal?
The Server-Client approach. C’mon! Is IBM still secretly ‘running’ our computer-terminals that we need ‘servers’ for every single program?
‘running’ our computer-terminals that we need ‘servers’ for every single program? The ‘back-end’/database. See previous.
‘The user should not change the program’. I blame Steve Jobs for this one. Bill Gates never had a single original idea himself…
That’s a wrap in terms of defective approaches.
UXDB Approach
The UXDB approach is NOT a ‘variation’ of the above approaches. It is NOT about ‘UX design’/MVC or ‘Database design’, etc…
It is unfortunately (not yet, anyway), not even a new programming language.
But it comes close…
UXDB is:
About programmatic/database-centric UI
User-centric approaches to database design. Huh? Yep, pretty much.
There have been similar approaches in the past to ‘realise’ this. Programs like MATLAB, and the REPL as experienced in LISP, Python, Clojure, come extremely close to achieving this.
The most glaring omission in these similar approaches is their lack of emphasis on data storage, retrieval and management. Their GUI/UI approaches are fairly primitive as well, but they can be ‘modified’ by the programmer/user as preferred.
UXDB : The Call For New User Forms
UXDB: Views
When it comes to user ‘Views’, a resolution of sorts exists (in my mind at least) as to how a UX can be made adaptive but functional. The Unix/Linux terminal, is, believe it or not, quite effective. The only thing ‘missing’ in the Unix/Linux space is the ability to dynamically launch personalised screens and modify them and their related data or text on the fly using the terminal itself.
That future should not be that hard to imagine or realise. But the Apple’s and the Google’s have made us think thus!
UXDB: Inputs
No one wants to ‘go back’ to the old world of CLI-driven horrid ‘question and answer’ paradigm (qAp) of providing user inputs to a program. But, to be honest, the computing world has surely regressed since qAp was introduced. The qAp system actually has some intelligent things built into it, like checking if the user inputs are valid on the fly as opposed to ‘submitting’ a whole form only to realise an entire 10 pages later than you missed a ‘field’ and now you have to go back and ‘re-fill’ the whole thing AGAIN because the darn stupid web-page didn’t cache your previous inputs!
My ‘UXDB’ project does not yet have a clear resolution to this dilemma of user inputs. The qAp system was clearly a bit too rigid. But our modern user forms are clearly much worse.
We could, however, observe some contextual issues about dealing with User Inputs:
Like my first experience with a database, there is nothing fun about ‘entering’ a form. As db-engineers in most enterprises know, users rarely even bother to ‘double-check’ if they are entering the ‘correct’ data.
about ‘entering’ a form. As db-engineers in most enterprises know, users rarely even bother to ‘double-check’ if they are entering the ‘correct’ data. Because current ‘database’ designs are not user-centric, the ‘User Form’ UX designer is usually forced to ‘comply’ with the database structure, above and beyond whether the User likes that database structure or not, or even whether the User will actually enter the correct data or not.
This provides us with some basic heuristics we could use for dealing with user inputs in an application:
Never let the ‘database’ dictate what the user inputs/form should be or look like
let the ‘database’ dictate what the user inputs/form should be or look like Make the ‘input process’ as painless as possible. Drop-down menus are actually a rather decent innovation. They just don’t work for things like entering a name or one’s favourite dish.
the ‘input process’ as painless as possible. Drop-down menus are actually a rather decent innovation. They just don’t work for things like entering a name or one’s favourite dish. Make the ‘system’ work without any user inputs. The idea that a program is to stop working due to a missing user/system input is frankly ridiculous and should be done away with, immediately . As any experienced programmer would know, this is a language-level problem. If your programming language has a heart-attack every time it sees a ‘null pointer’… the poor programmer will clearly not live long too!
the ‘system’ without any user inputs. The idea that a program is to working due to a missing user/system input is frankly ridiculous and should be done away with, . As any experienced programmer would know, this is a language-level problem. If your programming language has a heart-attack every time it sees a ‘null pointer’… the poor programmer will clearly not live long too! The User should be able to ‘programmatically’ alter the input/form process
the input/form process Data sharing between programs should be made easier. This is a little harder. It involves a bit of security re-design. OS-level ‘user-identification’ systems like FaceID will undoubtedly make this a little easier in the long run.
between programs should be made easier. This is a little harder. It involves a bit of security re-design. OS-level ‘user-identification’ systems like FaceID will undoubtedly make this a little easier in the long run. Program independent user inputs using open data format files like JSON, XML, etc
These are merely ‘structural’ heuristics. We clearly need more refined examples and layouts on how to proceed…
Transactional Anarchist
Related Stories from DDI: | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/uxdb-introduction-and-a-call-for-new-user-input-forms-7347e202fd1d | ['Lesang Dikgole'] | 2019-02-12 10:04:38.652000+00:00 | ['Java', 'Programming', 'UX', 'Database', 'Forms'] |
Here’s what you need to know about AIEDU’s Forum on AI Education | Last week, The AI Education Project (AIEDU) hosted a virtual gathering of more than 100 leaders from government, K12 education, academia, and civil society for a conversation about how we can bring AI education to K12 schools. Our Forum on AI Education and Workforce Readiness aimed to identify concrete steps that these stakeholders can take to equip schools with distinct curricula that addresses the many ways that artificial intelligence will impact students, especially with regard to jobs and the Future of Work. We’ve included recordings of the event, along with an overview of some of the most important points below.
We encourage you to take a moment from your day to watch at least part of the video—but below are some of moments and discussions from the Forum:
Talking Workforce Transformation with Ohio’s Lt. Governor
The meeting opened with remarks from Ohio Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, who leads the state’s InnovateOhio Initiative and also oversees the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation. Lt. Gov. Husted spoke about the state’s work to help people gain the skills they need to participate in the economic success that technology will bring forth.
“There is a huge divide in access, both educationally and in terms of being able to participate in the modern economy, education system, and healthcare system. We have the opportunity and responsibility to help bridge those divides and educate people,” said Husted. “We have to get the proper incentives in place—this is why we are paying our high schools and career and technical education centers to equip people with the in-demand industry credential skills that are needed in the innovation economy.”
Husted pointed to TechCred—an Ohio grant program which reimburses employers for industry-recognized, technology-focused, credentialed training programs and certificates—as an example of what this looks like on the ground. Ohio met its goal to authorize 10,000 industry credentials within the first year of the program’s launch, covering the cost of short-term learning programs across multiple sectors. Educational institutions are responding by setting up learning programs in response to this demand.
Ohio has also allowed high school students to apply Computer Science credits towards their foreign language graduation requirements. Husted says this is one example of the ways states can begin to shift their education systems to adapt to the new demands of the 21st century economy.
A Conversation with Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi
Hadi underscored that we are in a unique moment in time at which it is critical to educate students about artificial intelligence.
“In particular, the rise of machine learning using neural networks enables us to pattern match and do basic recognition tasks much more easily than before. When I was in college, AI used to be a theoretical technology, whereas now you can train a neural network within seconds to recognize a smile, emotions, objects, and more,” said Hadi. “Whether it’s speech recognition, computer vision, natural language processing, weather prediction, medical diagnosis, crop optimization, these are so many different applications of the exact same technology.”
Over the next 10–20 years, the changes that machine learning will bring to society will be as significant as when the internet or the computer were invented—and for each of those technologies, our education system had to give students a basic introduction about how to use the technology. | https://medium.com/the-ai-education-project/heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-aiedu-s-forum-on-ai-education-b68ab23aade1 | ['Alex Kotran'] | 2020-12-17 22:32:44.223000+00:00 | ['Nonprofit', 'Education', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Events', 'AI'] |
What does PR have to do with Organisational Change? | The short answer?
A lot.
Organisational change is imminent for all businesses; new management styles, stakeholders, or even a modified mission statement can make a difference in a work environment.
Altering any business component will lead to an organisational change. It is part of a PR practitioner’s duty to improve internal and external communications to foster a safe and positive change within the work culture.
WHAT IS ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE?
Organisational change is when a significant business component undergoes an alteration or change for any reason. The difficulty with converting a business component is that not every employee within the business will adjust to the modification. A PR practitioner’s role is to ensure that company’s values are being used to promote positive change within the work culture and promote the response externally to the public.
HOW DO PR PRACTITIONERS INFLUENCE ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE?
Influencing organisational change is not an easy feat — communication is one of the most challenging aspects to maintain within an organisation. The change also brings on resistance from employees, so it is crucial to start the idea of change internally before the news is made public.
Open-ended communication throughout the company is crucial from the perspective of a PR practitioner. They have to create a dialogue between the highest executives and the employees working on everyday business functions. Since communication is multi-fold, the role of the PR practitioner is to ensure that the conversation is open for anyone and everyone to participate.
Start conversations by creating, facilitating, and moderating discussions. These discussions can take the form of town hall meetings, live forums, and employee-run committees. Encourage board-level members and other executives to participate.
When employees see that higher-ups are involved and interested in their discussions, they are more likely to be motivated and are receptive to changes. Employees should be aware of these open discussions, as this is one of their best ways to voice their concerns about any difficulties or challenges within the work culture.
DEVELOP SPECIFIC MESSAGES FOR INTERNAL COMMUNICATION
Internal communications are inarguably the essential form of communication within an organisation. Employees may feel untrusting of the hierarchy and need to be reassured that their concerns are still a priority. Whether company values have changed or not, the PR practitioner must evaluate the situation and encourage these values within the employees.
The change will bring resistance, and great PR practitioners are aware of this fact. To prevent this, train team leads, managers and supervisors, to explain the reason behind the upcoming changes. Not only does this make employees aware of the situation, but it also ensures that the message is unified and spreads throughout the organisational body. By reiterating company values, employees will feel more confident and trusting that their company values them.
CHANGE AND IMPACT STARTS WITH INCLUSIVITY
Inclusivity is an empowering way to build trust and confidence amongst all levels of the organisation. Influencing organisational change means maximising the positive impact of the change. PR practitioners must excel at fostering a safe, healthy, and sustainable workforce. Otherwise, the employees are less trustworthy of the executives and management.
Inclusivity can mean supporting employee-run committees, creating a designated space for employees to voice their concerns, and making resources available to employees (such as an anonymous feedback tool, like a “suggestions & concerns box”). | https://medium.com/@koukashconsultancy/what-does-pr-have-to-do-with-organisational-change-ddd8ca3bfeab | ['Emellia Koukash'] | 2021-07-06 13:22:28.786000+00:00 | ['Communication Strategy', 'Public Relations', 'Change Management', 'Communication', 'Professional Development'] |
The Luxury of Sadness | January
The luxury I’m thinking of is to be sad without having to explain — to yourself or to others. To be sad without needing to justify the awareness of a feeling that is always just beneath the surface of other emotions.
Poet Richard Wilbur observed . . .
“When art is morose, we want to know why, but joy requires no reasons.”
And the same is true of everyday life — which is its own kind of art in a way, though we aren’t trained to think of it that way.
So if you seem happy, people rarely ask why. If you seem sad, they will wonder “what’s wrong with you.”
If you seem sad without an obvious reason, and it lasts for more than a day or two, people will begin to suspect that you are “depressed.” And you may begin to worry about that yourself. Depression seems like a dark and slippery slope — easy to slide down, hard to climb up.
If there’s no obvious reason for your sadness, you will likely be alone with it. Socially approved grief is shared, even admired; but unexcused sadness often goes unacknowledged and unrespected.
As with many subtle things, the Japanese have an expression that lends dignity to unexcused sadness: mono no aware. It is sometimes translated as “pathos” or “awareness of impermanence,” but there is no explicit definition, no attribution to a cause. It’s just a quality of feeling that sometimes surfaces, not only in literature but in one’s own sensibility.
The ancient Romans seem to have known such a feeling also. This famous passage from Virgil’s Aeneid has been given many translations, but here is a nearly literal one:
sunt lacrimae rerum
et mentem mortalia tangunt
there are tears of/for ordinary things (rerum)
and human things (mortalia) touch the mind
In part, the passage is about impermanence, the inevitable passing away of all things. So in that sense it is very close to mono no aware. But in the context of the Aeneid , as the protagonist gazes upon the depiction of a historic battle, it is also about the things humans do to one another, in love and in war.
There is much sadness about being human. If you are not grieving something today, that’s lucky — but there’s always tomorrow. And if you don’t grieve something for yourself tomorrow, there’s always the opportunity to share in someone else’s grief.
As Madame de Florac observes in Thackerey’s 1854 novel The Newcomes: | https://medium.com/literally-literary/the-luxury-of-sadness-abfd8c56c2 | ['Cynthia Giles'] | 2020-12-15 05:33:30.298000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Self', 'Philosophy', 'Mental Health', 'Essay'] |
Blurred Boundaries | Blurred Boundaries
Are you the “Yes-person”? In my words, this is the kind of person who says a resounding “Yes!” to everything that comes their way and doesn’t consider the effect that it has on his personal time, and commitments.
Photo by Lance Asper on Unsplash
“Will you be able to help me out with this quiz?” “I am not sure, but I’ll try to squeeze some time out of my schedule.” “Come on, it’s just a matter of an hour. I know you can do that for me. I’ll see you later.” “Well, yeah.. but…”
And the phone beeps, leaving you to figure out how and where are you going to squeeze out that one hour from your overly packed schedule to help this friend out. Lately, I have been debating with myself over my actions where I was the “Yes-person” to everything that came my way.
Here’s what happened when I continuously said Yes to everything that people asked me for.
The expectations rose gigantically. I was supposed to be there for them to help them out, or be there for them for the tiniest of things, some as simple as validating whether they had done something correctly.
As a result, it’s clear that I was setting myself up for being taken for granted. It’s partially their fault for expecting so much from me, but the majority of the blame lies in the fact that I didn’t have the courage to deny them.
My boundaries with the people around me were quite literally non-existent and blurred beyond recognition.
Why saying “No” is a way to protect yourself
Now consider the same conversation, changing the last lines as:
“No, I won’t be able to help you out as I am packed myself. I hope you understand my situation and can figure out something yourself.” “But it’s just one hour! Nothing would happen in an hour. You would probably waste it watching some random show or reading a book! You can help me at least, that’s the least you could do!”
Well, I had a lot of responses to that but all of them occurred to me after the moment had passed. Why do the best arguments pop up in your head when the conflict has already passed?
I realized that by not saying No, here’s what I was saying instead,
“Oh for sure, I’ll help you. It’s because my work and time don’t matter to me and can take second priority right now, because everything on my mind would be focused on your well-being, and how to get your things done. My work can always take a back-seat and well it’s not important to me, so yes I will always be there for doing your work to please you.”
What a bunch of blatant lies and crap. Don’t you see how ridiculous does that sounds? It’s exactly what I was communicating by always saying yes to everything that came my way. People didn’t understand that I tried to squeeze time out for them because they were close and important to me, but that certainly didn’t mean that I was telling them that everything I wanted to do revolved around them.
What happened when I said No?
People were outraged. They demanded a lengthy explanation and a detailed breakdown of my time to show them that what I was doing instead was better than doing their work.
I had brought this upon myself because clearly, I had not stopped them from violating my boundary earlier. I had allowed them to trample, cross the lines and term my work as “not-so-important” and demand me for doing theirs instead. But what was done was done. There was no going back and I wanted to make them understand that my work was important and that I truly didn’t have time to devote to help them out.
What I instead got was a list of fruitless activities that I did and “wasted” my time earlier as a result of which I didn’t have time right now to do their work.
Stop Teaching Me How To Spend My Time
And here’s where I felt they went too far. You are my friend and I respect that, but you are nobody in the world to tell me how should I spend my time.
Writing seems useless to you, but it’s my hobby and so I will nurture it with the time I have. Watching movies seems like a critical waste of time to you, but it’s the one time for me when I am taking a break, appreciating cinema, and enjoying myself. Going for a walk, hanging out with friends, doing things out of work seems like a colossal waste of time to you, but it’s these things that don’t make me lose my sanity.
Think about how sometimes you don’t want to read some messages but just want to scroll through your feed. And if by chance, someone sees you were online but didn’t reply to their texts, they try to guilt-trip you. They make you feel as if you are obliged to reply to them as soon as you get time when you certainly are not in the right frame of mind for a conversation. This is where your personal boundaries are violated because you don’t stand up for yourself.
So, for once and for all, you don’t owe any explanation to anybody over how you spend your time, and what you should be doing instead. Don’t let people preach to you or make you feel guilty for the things you did, just because you could have done their work in the meantime instead.
If you don’t give importance to the things that matter to you, clearly nobody will and they will keep on violating this boundary and teaching you how to spend your time fruitfully.
When should you say No?
Having a boundary is important. It’s the one thing that will not make you feel worthless and drained out at the end of the day after selflessly doing everything for others and expecting nothing in return.
Realistically, it’s difficult not to have expectations from the people close to you. You want them to do certain things for you. But expecting from them and understanding that your expectations don’t govern their actions is one thing, but demanding them to act according to your whims and fancies is completely selfish.
The only way you are going to save yourself from all the guilt of not giving enough importance to your work, or feeling constantly devalued in the relation is by saying “No”, and having a perimeter that protects yourself.
You are setting yourself up for a lot of unnecessary conflicts, explanations and will eventually be taken for granted if you don’t respect your time and are available at the drop of a hat.
When should you say Yes?
Having such tight boundaries might seem that you always have to deny the things that you don’t want to do.
But that’s not it. There is no reason for you to be so selfish that you leave your friend stuck on a desolate road in the middle of the night because you need 8 hours of sound sleep.
You should definitely go out of the way and help others, but only when you know that you are capable enough of doing so, with your time, and other commitments.
You cannot help others until you help yourself.
Being open to experience is a wonderful thing. You get to learn so much more about yourself when you find you’re in an uncomfortable situation. But surely, this experience does not have to be at the expense of compromising the things that matter to you. | https://medium.com/@anurag219tiwari/blurred-boundaries-baf8b4bba2c | ['Anurag Tiwari'] | 2021-09-10 05:32:46.667000+00:00 | ['Self Care', 'Boundaries', 'Setting Boundaries', 'Saying No', 'Self-awareness'] |
Becoming a Winner | If you’re not a winner, you’re a loser. Yep, that’s harsh, but true. Thankfully, however, winners don’t always win — in fact, winners lose 90% of the time. If losers lose and winners also lose, what makes the difference? Mindset.
Winners see life through a lens of optimism and value. Losers see life through a lens of pessimism and fear. Winners win because of how they think — losers lose because of how they think. The common denominator is the way they think.
Everything you do in life first gets initiated by your brain. The sequence of thoughts, patterns, habits, actions and outcomes start first with the way you think. If you change the way you think, you will change the world around you.
Winners face everything in life looking for opportunity — losers face everything in life looking for obstacles. A can do attitude and a can’t do attitude will both lead you down their respective paths. Chase a mindset of greatness and opportunity.
If you don’t know what you want, you won’t win. Dumb luck and consistently winning are very different. Losers float through life without clear direction, winners have a vision and pursue it. Clear goals drive action, which supplies results.
Winners are not afraid to put in the work necessary, while losers look for the easiest path. To do great things requires a tremendous amount of energy. Thankfully, winners don’t just do big things, they do thousands of the right things over and over again, eventually compounding into big results.
When faced with failure, winners learn from their mistakes — losers blame others for what went wrong. No one can fully control you except yourself, so focus on solving your problems and learning from your mistakes. To win big takes self-awareness, the ability to learn and the capacity to grow.
There is a winner in all of us — there is also a loser. The one that champions is the one we decide to feed, play with, learn about and partner with. Who will you be?
For more content and reading, visit www.andrewxpuckett.com. | https://medium.com/@andrewxpuckett/becoming-a-winner-d2a40c12ce56 | ['Andrew Puckett'] | 2020-12-22 14:26:54.936000+00:00 | ['Failure', 'Personal Development', 'Sales', 'Success', 'Business'] |
Understanding Engagement with (Mis)Information News Sources on Facebook | Understanding Engagement with (Mis)Information News Sources on Facebook
Posts from misinformation news sources got six times more engagement than factual information in lead up to 2020 elections Cybersecurity for Democracy Follow Sep 14 · 7 min read
by Laura Edelson, Minh-Kha Nguyen, Ian Goldstein, Oana Goga, Tobias Lauinger, and Damon McCoy.
This summary is based on an upcoming paper which has been accepted by the ACM Internet Measurement Conference 2021, November 2–4, 2021.
Background
Researchers from New York University, the Université Grenoble Alpes, and French the National Centre for Scientific Research conducted a system-level analysis of user engagement with misinformation from news sources on Facebook, in a new peer-reviewed study covering a five month period in 2021, August 10, 2020 — January 11, 2021. The researchers evaluate how Facebook users interact with content from 2,551 news sources, which have been evaluated for their reputation for misinformation and partisanship. They do this by studying user engagement from a number of angles to build a holistic picture of how news (mis)information content performs on Facebook.
Top findings
Across the political spectrum, posts from news sources that regularly traffic in misinformation have a statistically significant and large engagement advantage–by a factor of six–-over posts from news sources that have a record of factualness.
In absolute terms however, engagement with misinformation sources only makes up a majority of overall engagement in the Far Right category, where engagement with misinformation sources made up 68% of overall engagement. This is because in other partisan categories, misinformation sources make up a much smaller share of the number of publishers.
The researchers found no evidence that Facebook’s algorithms reward partisanship or bias by news sources.
Data sources: The study relies on two third-party data providers, NewsGuard and Media Bias/Fact Check, to evaluate news sources by partisanship and by misinformation and factualness. For data on Facebook user engagement, data was drawn from CrowdTangle, a Facebook business analytics tool made available to researchers.
Misinformation: This study defines misinformation as any information that is false or misleading, regardless of the intent of the author or distributor of the information. They consider misinformation to include disinformation which refers to false or misleading content that is communicated with the intent to deceive. False information communicated in error or by ignorance also falls under the umbrella of misinformation. | https://medium.com/cybersecurity-for-democracy/understanding-engagement-with-mis-information-news-sources-on-facebook-8d39bca38978 | ['Cybersecurity For Democracy'] | 2021-09-14 22:31:51.806000+00:00 | ['Disinformation', 'Transparency', 'Facebook', 'News', 'Misinformation Research'] |
Learn & Earn: Creator | Hi Vivian & Chin Ngo, thank you for taking the time to join our AMA! Kindly give a brief introduction about yourself, your crypto experience, and your role at the Creator Project?
Vivian:
Thanks! I’m Vivian from Creator.
About me, I spent more than 10 years working in the Marketing field, developing the overall business MKT strategy for many many projects in different fields such as Blockchain, AI, Logistics, E-commerce.
I was surprised and impressed by the innovation of bitcoin and many crypto innovations lately.
So, I decided to follow the trend of decentralization and started my career here.
Our team’s vision is to bring blockchain closer to everyone in the world.
Chin Ngo:
Thanks for having us! My name is Chin Ngo — CTO of Creator and technical leader of VMO AI.
Having been working in the IT field for over 15 years, I have substantial work experience in blockchains like Etherum, HyperLedger, Polkadot, and many other different platforms.
From that time, I got to know the opportunities in this blockchain world that opens to me and I believe also to you guys new life, new knowledge.
Could you tell us more about your core team members and partners?
Vivian:
Well, I love this question, as I feel proud whenever I mention my solid team!
Creator has a strong team of blockchain experts, design masters, and development talents all of whom have 5–8 years of experience in IT and blockchain. We have more than 20 people in the team including the Development team and Marketing Team. Furthermore, our project is backed by VMO Group — Top 10 IT company in Vietnam and is a company leading in next-gen technology (Blockchain, AI/IOT/ML).
In addition, Creator is forming long-term strategic partnerships with big investors such as Master Ventures, Kardia Ventures and Exnetwork Capital that will definitely support with excellent advice
With the right strategies of backers and a strong team, Creator is a potential project.
Can you please share more details about Creator & your vision?
Chin Ngo:
Creator is known as a Blockchain-as-a-Service Platform to empower the DeFi and NFT world.
Creator is outstanding for 4 main features: No Code Smart Contract, Low Code DApp, Loyalty program, and Defi services.
By these features, Creator provides services and options for everyone to easily integrate blockchain with an economic cost. At the same time, Creator provides Low Code DApp for developers and enterprises that lack blockchain skills to build DApp and leverage blockchain for transparency and cost-efficiency.
Creator aims to create a decentralized infrastructure for peer-to-peer networks. One of the use cases of Creator is providing a platform with a full package of service to help anyone from creators, developers to game-oriented merchants to tokenize any products into NFTs and integrate directly in their own platform.
Creator already has our first use case for the service packages. We are the incubator for an NFT game about dragons, the mythical creature of all time, named “DragonAge”.
Could you give us an overview of tokenomics? How about the IDO plan? Where and when do you plan to launch?
Vivian:
Our token is symbolized as CTR and has 150,000,000 of total supply and has been allocated as the picture shows.
I am also excited to share about Creator IDO date and time! Creator will launch on 2 launch pads: Ignition — Paid network and MoonStarter; both will take place on 8 September.
For the IDO on Ignition Paid, Creator will have a fixed allocation of 3,000,000 CTR tokens to purchase for holders at a fixed price of $0.1. There will be a fixed allocation of 1,000,000 CTR tokens on Moonstarter Launchpad for purchase.
May i ask how much is the max cap for 1 person?
Vivian:
Yes, it depends on the regulation of each IDO’s platform. In this case, it’s Ignition Paid and Moonstarter.
Soon, before the IDO date, we will inform the community of the detailed IDO information and how to buy the CTR token.
Thank you very much for your time Vivian and Chin Ngo!
Thanks to the Krystal team and the entire Krystal community for taking part in this!
Go to the quiz. | https://medium.com/krystaldefi/learn-earn-creator-1986130e01b7 | ['Watson', 'Krystal Defi'] | 2021-09-01 13:01:53.959000+00:00 | ['Featured', 'Features', 'Events'] |
Sustainable Thinking® | Before we can go on to create a sustainable world, we need a way of thinking that is…
COVID-19 has without a doubt shaken and changed our realities. The deaths that have tolled in thousands were all avoidable had the world sorted out its priorities. This was not the first pandemic and it won’t be the last.
In just a few months, we see the world healing itself through the virus. The pollution levels have significantly dropped, and the natural restoration process has begun. At the same time, we see the flaws in the way we live come to our attention. Our economies have taken a hit, educational institutes have shut down, and economies have crashed. The biggest victim of this lockdown is the daily wager. The realities of the so-called progressive nations have been exposed and the average citizen bore the brunt of this global incompetency. Yet, here we are, tackling our first-world issues of not being able to work from home, manage our time and discipline our day. Our privilege has soon gotten us ‘bored’ and not an ounce of worry follows.
More than anything, our thought process, mental weakness and thanklessness has come to light. What has not come to light yet is the realization.
It is not unusual to feel apprehension and uncertainty in these times, don’t get me wrong. Some people have lost jobs, the families of those affected by the disease have taken an emotional toll and the vulnerable have been left stranded. But, if you zoom out for a bit, hasn’t this been the promise of life? Hasn’t history taught us that already? It can be war, storm or a disease, but these are repeating patterns. You can give them creative names and mask them under politics and propaganda, but the uncertainty that governs our lives is not breaking news. It’s our inability to tackle them that is alarming.
Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash
We have evolved with technology and have cars on mars, but our thought process stays the selfish, primitive and thankless as it was millions of years ago. The worries and problems of this world are many. The difference in the value of a life of that of an elite and a commoner won’t go away. The opportunities will always feel like they present themselves to a select few. For as long as you operate with an outdated mindset, you will constantly feel that the world and its plot is against you. YOU. Who even are you other than being a part of the problem?
For as long as we celebrate our wins, we will not be able to get over our losses. They are both the same thing. It’s the same spectrum of imbalanced expression. Our recovery times are pathetic but our ability to mould everything for ourselves is remarkable. Our self-righteousness does not go away and the modern definitions of words keep deteriorating. The definition of ego is so egoistic for the one with ego to bear that they end up going in a delusion of thinking they are free of it. The irony.
Our language has taken a serious dip, our expressions lack grace, we don’t want to take ourselves too seriously, and our views lack depth. All of this is a representation of our thought process. The only logical conclusion for the lot that relies on mindless content consumption throughout the day is that their thoughts lack strength which means their minds lack strength. A sound mind can’t have a weak thought. We were not wired that way. A weak mind will lose composure, will fall prey to boredom and stress, will get panicked…and guess what they do to calm themselves down? They watch more of such content that is killing their brain cells. It is a vicious cycle. One that we do not want to break out of. The Netflix, the Youtube, the TikTok's are the plague of our times. There is nothing known as free content and there is no ‘need’ for it in our lives. If it is free then that means you are the product.
You become what you think — Nabeel A. Qadeer
Such uncertain times are a reminder for us to restore our supreme nature of life. It is a reminder to restore the remarkable nature of our brain. It is a reminder to reflect. It is a reminder to let go of all the unnecessary and extra baggage in your life. It is a reminder that you are nothing and your time is ticking. It is a reminder that this world is sustainable, but you are not. | https://medium.com/alt-op/sustainable-thinking-c0ce528970da | [] | 2020-04-08 14:39:08.599000+00:00 | ['Sustainable Development', 'Crisis', 'Thankfulness', 'Thoughts', 'Covid 19'] |
How to build Alamofire Network Layer with Protocol-Oriented Programming and Combine | Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
What is Protocol-Oriented Programming?
Protocol-Oriented Programming is a new programming paradigm which is used by Swift. In the Protocol-Oriented approach, we start designing our system by defining protocols then the protocol extensions, protocol inheritance, and protocol compositions which allow us to add a new functionality not only to one type, but to a whole collection of types that all conform to the same protocol.
The value types in Swift like struct or enum cannot inherit from other structs or enums which means we cannot use inheritance with value types, but the value types can inherit from protocols, even multiple protocols which is the most powerful feature of Swift which gives us much reuse and less redundancy of the code. Highly recommended to watch Protocol-Oriented Programming in Swift WWDC and read more about Apple Combine.
Let’s say we have a User and the user has an email and we need to check if this email is valid or not, so let’s start by this sequence:
1- Define protocol
Define the EmailValidator protocol and the inputs which the protocol will need like email .
2- Extend Protocol
Extend the protocol and apply all the logic we need to validate if the email is valid or not.
3- Apply Protocol
Then apply the EmailValidator into the User struct and without writing any code to validate the email, the user will inherit that. It’s super easy, huh? 😍
into the struct and without writing any code to validate the email, the user will inherit that. It’s super easy, huh? 😍 We can apply the EmailValidator protocol to any class or struct which need to validate the email without writing any more code to do that. 🎉
4- Test with Protocol
The most powerful thing about using POP is the testing, let’s say that we need for some reasons to return all the time that the email is invalid, all we need is to extend the EmailValidator where is being conformed by MockUser and override the logic of isValidEmail to always return false super easy, I love it!.
That’s how we can use the Protocol-Oriented Programming in Swift, it’s so easy to reuse and test and thence we will apply the same concept on the Network layer. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/how-to-build-alamofire-network-layer-with-protocol-oriented-programming-and-combine-4de005290566 | ['Bassem Qoulta'] | 2020-12-12 10:02:39.224000+00:00 | ['Alamofire', 'Protocol Oriented', 'Swiftui', 'Combine', 'Network'] |
Make Money In ANY Business | In today’s world, you can market and sell virtually anything! People don’t realize how much opportunity is out there to make money.
I remember when I was in college a girl asked what I did for a living. At the time, I was working for my dad’s company, Adams Ice.
After sharing what I did, she said, “Wow, when are you going to get a real job?”
I thought to myself, really? You can make a lot of money in the ice business, and this industry has allowed my dad to live a really great life.
So, yes, you can make money selling frozen water. And yes, I can sell ice to an Eskimo.
I once met a guy at an event that was selling flying pet squirrels for a living. I’m not joking. He sold them for around $600 each and made over half a million dollars a year. It was insane!
You may not have any interest in selling flying squirrels or frozen water, but there are SO many ways to make money.
It’s a big world out there, but you have to do what you really enjoy and feel passionate about. When you enjoy what you’re doing you’re more than likely to go the extra mile and put in the time.
When I graduated in 2012 I was working in the ice business and didn’t think I was going to go onto all of the things I’m doing today.
The following year I was working 110 hour weeks and was burning myself out.
Then, I got into the online world where I did public speaking, marketing, and got into crowdfunding which led me to ultimately doing our event, the Young Entrepreneur Convention, and where I am today.
It’s hard to say where your journey is going to go.
You have to set goals and know that they will change along the way, but at least you know what you’re working towards.
If you’re running an online business, it’s always beneficial to have an understanding of how a brick and mortar business is run. What I mean by “brick and mortar” is any business that has a store or physical location with tangible inventory.
This kind of business is what I grew up in and where I learned a lot of tactics as an entrepreneur.
I love the ice business, but I will pick an online business over that ALL day. It’s not that I’m not willing to do the hard work and manual labor, I just want to work smarter.
I’m thankful for all of the experience and knowledge I’ve gained because it’s given me a different perspective toward running virtually any kind of business.
The opportunities that I’ve found in the online world continue to blow my mind.
My family and friends back home don’t fully understand it, and before I got into it, I didn’t either.
I didn’t know you could make hundreds of thousands — heck, even millions — of dollars online with a domain and offering value and knowledge.
For me, we sell courses, masterminds, books, tickets to events, exclusive consulting, “done for you” services like creating a course, personal brand, or video, and even spots for people to be a part of our show.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve experienced more ways to make money than I’ve ever known in my entire life.
It comes down to this. Whatever the business is if you want to make a lot of money you have enjoy it, add a lot of value to your customer, and give them a great experience. If you can master these areas, you can make a lot of money in whatever you choose to do.
Stay open-minded to all of the possibilities that are out there.
No matter what it is that you’re going to sell to someone, take your knowledge and experience and always be willing to adapt to any changes that come your way. If you apply these things to your next endeavors, you’re going to always have success in what you do.
BTA
LiveToGrind.com | https://medium.com/the-ascent/make-money-in-any-business-610de92b6cf8 | ['Brandon T Adams'] | 2018-01-12 23:00:38.777000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Online Business', 'Money', 'Entrepreneur', 'The Ascent'] |
Minimalist Clinical Review of Pulmonary Hypertension | Thank You For Reading!
Did you find this post helpful? Perhaps even insightful or game changing? If so, please make sure to support my blog. As a small content curator, I am always looking for ways to provide new content.
NAPLEX Resources
Kaplan | Practice Questions | Pharmacy Charts | Naplex Nuggets | Comprehensive Review | APhA | Calculations | Antibiotics Simplified | Calculations Prep |Top 300 Drugs | Pharmacology Made Easy
Books About Advice and Other Pharmacy Essentials (For Pharmacist)
Letters to a Young Pharmacist | Seven Figure Pharmacist | First Time Pharmacist | Letters from Rising Pharmacy Stars | Indispensable | I’m a Pharmacist Not A Magician | Why Your Prescription Takes Do Damn Long to Fill
Clinical Books
Holy Grail Book: Dipiro Pharmacotherapy
Antibiotics Simplified
Study Gear
Minimalist Desk | Minimalist Chair | Minimalist Lamp | Minimalist Notebook
Support Minimalist / Pharmacist
Patreon | Paypal | Square
Social Media
Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr| Google+ | Pinterest | Reddit
Amazon Favorites
Kindle Unlimited | Amazon Fresh | Amazon Music | Amazon Prime | Audible
Prime Student | Fire TV 4K | Amazon Home | Amazon Phones | Car Alexa
Personal Gear
Study Music: Spotify | Amazon Music
Android Phones: Samsung Galaxy A71 | Essential
Bambino | Lunar Tempo 2 | Oblivion | NordVPN
Nike Gear
Nike Flex Running Shoes
Nike Element Running Top
Nike Essential Running Pants
Adidas Gear
Adidas Supernova Shoes
Adidas Own the Run Jacket
Adidas Own the Run Hoodie | https://medium.com/minimalist-pharmacist/minimalist-clinical-review-of-pulmonary-hypertension-33348af6d432 | ['Minimalist', 'Pharmacist', 'Admin'] | 2020-11-19 10:07:17.099000+00:00 | ['Healthcare', 'Therapeutics', 'Naplex', 'Pharmacy', 'Doctor'] |
Black Americans Will Benefit Less Than Expected From Student Loan Forgiveness | US POLITICS
Black Americans Will Benefit Less Than Expected From Student Loan Forgiveness
A look at a policy proposal that will mostly benefit high-income households
Photo by Jane Carmona on Unsplash
The debate about student debt is heating up. Driven by ‘left-leaning’ democrats, the coming Biden administration is already under from fellow partisans.
The message is clear, whether stated by Elisabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or Bernie Sanders. Student loan forgiveness should be a priority.
But forgiving student debt is a highly regressive policy. Regressive means the benefits of imposing forgiveness are skewed toward the top of the income scale.
The broad support for a regressive policy amongst so-called progressive politicians is puzzling
Since most of the student debt is held by high-income households — the top 40 percent earning American households account for around 60 percent of loan balances — it will mainly benefit families with high income. That counts for both universal and capped forgiveness.
The broad support for a regressive policy amongst so-called progressive politicians is puzzling. Also, it is not a desirable stimulus tool.
It’s possible that politicians, knowing their voter demographics, are trying to “buy votes”. But it is also possible they aren’t aware of the effects loan forgiveness would have.
Student debt is distributed amongst those who earn the most. Taking into account many low-income households will never repay their entire balance skews the distribution even more to the right. Since the debt distribution across the income scale is highly progressive, forgiving debt is highly regressive. Picture from Catherine & Yannelis (2020)
A new working paper by two economists, from the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania respectively, shed some additional light on the distribution of student debt and how it burdens debtors.
Further, the authors investigate how different demographics are affected by a broad variety of forgiveness-related policy actions.
The below presents some of the main results regarding the effects of forgiveness across ethnicities. | https://medium.com/an-injustice/black-americans-will-benefit-less-than-expected-from-student-loan-forgiveness-906d2dbc9150 | ['Asger Bruhn'] | 2020-12-18 01:44:14.363000+00:00 | ['Economics', 'Politics', 'Economy', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Government'] |
Bluehost was founded in 2003 and has since grown to become one of the world’s largest providers of… | Bluehost was founded in 2003 and has since grown to become one of the world’s largest providers of reliable and cheap web hosting.
Bluehost offers a range of products and services to help you get started with your website or online shop: from shared and WordPress hosting to website builder tools. They have a special focus on meeting the digital marketing and training needs of small businesses.
Their value-priced hosting packages come with unmetered bandwidth, free global CDN and SSL certificates, and free daily, weekly and monthly backups on a powerful and proven platform that is built to scale and optimized for speed and security. Their cheapest hosting plan is $3.95/mo, FROM HERE.
ENDORSED BY WORDPRESS
If you’re planning to create a website or blog, you’ll want to check out Bluehost because it’s one of only three hosting companies endorsed by WordPress.
Their cheapest shared hosting plan for a single domain costs only a few dollars a month. For a little bit more money, you can add unlimited domains and subdomains.
But Bluehost isn’t solely for beginners. They are staunch supporters of the Open Source community and they provide advanced developer tools like SSH Access, FTP, and a fully-customized Linux kernel.
Their corporate vision is to create “a better safer web for everyone.” Bluehost supports this vision by investing in open source projects, promoting web civility, and making their service easy for people of all ages to use.
Why is it the most popular?
Founded in 2003 in Utah, BlueHost powers more than 2M websites and employs over 750 people. It hasn’t stopped growing since they first started. EIG, a company who owns many more web hosting services, decided to buy it in 2010 — and many say this was when things started going south.
Ease of use
Bluehost offers cPanel-based solutions with a lot of common features (e.g., FTP accounts, a file manager, email accounts and PHPMyAdmin).
You can even enable CloudFlare (a popular CDN) easily with bluehost.
Bluehost’s backend is intuitive and easy to use, it’s a custom cPanel version.
– Hosting features
There are many features you should take into account while checking out a hosting provider. But in my experience these are the most relevant for shared hosting:
Storage — How much space you’ll need?
This is always an essential factor to take into account. You’ll need to choose a hosting plan with enough storage for your project(s), and a little bit extra.
Bluehost
Entry level plan
50GB
Middle plan
Unlimited
Higher plan
Unlimited
SSL & HTTP/2
To enhance security and improve your SEO rankings, having an SSL enabled (https) and running your site over HTTP/2 is a great help. So hosting providers that offer these out-of-the-box, are one step ahead of their competitors.
And Bluehost offers free SSL (via Let’s Encrypt) and HTTP/2.
Bluehost’s pricing page: the promotional price is highlighted here too
· Basic for $8.99 a month: Host 1 website, 50GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth.
· Plus for $11.99 a month: Unlimited websites, unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth.
· Choice Plus for $16.99 a month: Same as the Plus plan with the advanced backup solution.
· Pro for $26.99 a month: Same as Choice Plus and dedicated IP.
ONE-STOP-SHOP FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
Digital marketing services can easily cost five figures per project. There’s plenty of false and outdated information on the web about marketing tactics you should use. Add to the mix the numerous solicitations that small business owners receive and the result can be frustration and lack of progress.
Affordable Results
The good news is that some critical digital marketing services can be commoditized and delivered at bargain costs. That’s a core part of Bluehost’s strategy.
These are some of their services:
· Websites: You can use their easy DIY site builder to create your own or you can get their design pros to build a site for you.
· SEO, advertising, social media marketing, and local business visibility: Bluehost provides professional marketing services, including creating content for your site. You can get monthly consultations with a marketing professional. And they measure progress so you can see your ROI.
· Domains, email, and helpful tutorials: Including how-tos on website management, hosting, and marketing topics.
Additionally, Bluehost boasts of excellent uptime, a clean intuitive control panel (called cPanel) that allows you to create attractive and functional pages for your business.
So, if you have a business website, or need one, Bluehost is a solid web host that’s worth checking out.
Looking for a great hosting deal? You can currently save up to 65% on Bluehost plans. Use our Special discount link to get this deal. Includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.
HOSTING TYPES, FEATURES, AND PLANS
The company provides you with more than what you can normally expect from bargain-priced hosting plans.
Here are the top Bluehost features:
1. Easy-to-use, customized cPanel
2. Dozens of site tool add-ons
3. Free site builders
4. Free domain-specific email addresses
5. 99.99% uptime
6. Technology to support fast page load times
7. Cloudflare integration (speeds your site loading)
8. Free SSL certificate
9. Above-average security features.
10. BLUEHOST SHARED HOSTING COMPARISON
Regular Price
$8.99/mo
$11.99/mo
$16.99/mo
$26.99/mo
Discounted Price
$3.95/mo
$5.95/mo
$6.95/mo
$13.95/mo
Looking for a great hosting deal? Our readers can currently save up to 65% on Bluehost plans. Use our special discount link to get the deal. Remember: Your package includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.
EXTENSIVE ONLINE SUPPORT MATERIALS
But whatever the case, we believe Bluehost more than makes up for its shortcomings with a very helpful user support portal. This portal includes a wide range of how-to-guides, video tutorials, FAQs, and articles on a wide array of web hosting topics.
This extensive knowledge base can be used as a reference to solve a wide range of possible issues that users may experience. Therefore, you’ll not even need to take your questions/issues to Bluehost’s customer support staff.
CONTACTING THE CORRECT BLUEHOST TEAM
One way to ensure that you get the fastest possible response is to contact the correct Bluehost team from the get-go.
· The Sales team helps those with general inquiries, potential customers, as well as customers new to Bluehost.
· The Technical Support team is who you want to talk to if you have any support-related questions.
· The Account Management team handles inquiries related to billing, the terms of service, and account verifications.
MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE
Bluehost offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. It’s vital that you read all terms and conditions because this is not straightforward. When you first sign up, you’ll get a promotional hosting price. But the promotional price only applies to the first term. Then it changes back to the regular pricing.
NO QUESTIONS ASKED
If you cancel within 30 days of joining, you get a 100% refund. If, however, you decide to cancel after that, you’ll only receive a pro-rata rate for what’s left on the term.
The money-back-guarantee only applies to the hosting plans. It does not cover most add-on products, including domains (see below).
Your account has no terms that you commit to following. There are no other penalties or hidden costs if you need to cancel your plan early.
DOMAIN FEES ARE NOT REFUNDABLE
You may get a free domain name with your hosting. If you cancel the hosting, you’ll be charged for it. But you will still own the domain name and be able to do with it as you please. After the obligatory lockdown period, you can transfer it. It remains yours as long as you keep renewing it.
There are no term commitments associated with your Bluehost account. There are no hidden fees or penalties for ending your term early should you elect to do so.
BLUEHOST EXTRAS AND ADD-ONS
Bluehost has several extras. These include:
· $150 worth of credits that you can use for Google Adwords, or Bing/Yahoo advertising.
· Free domain name registration or transfer. This offer allows you to pick from 15 different domain extensions include .COM, .ORG, and .NET.
· Free new drag-and-drop site builder.
· No charges when it comes to upgrading to a better plan mid-contract. (With other host companies, you’ll normally have to pay the difference between the current plan and the new one you want to upgrade to.)
· A few security and management features such as anti-spam filter, shared SSL, and CDN services which are rare to most hosting companies come standard with Bluehost.
WHAT DOES “UNLIMITED” REALLY MEAN?
Bluehost’s policy indicates that the company does not enforce any usage restrictions on plans and packages featuring unlimited websites, domains, and/or email accounts and that customers are free to utilize these features as desired.
However…
Customers must be operating within the Terms of Service set out by Bluehost. The company claims that those who do not abide by the Terms of Service will come up against limits for some of these features.
Translation: there is the potential for some users to exceed the unstated scope of “unlimited,” and they may need to opt for a bigger and more expensive plan depending on how they are using their plan and what they are using it for.
WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS?
Before selecting any hosting provider, do your due diligence to make sure you’re getting the best possible deal to suit your needs. So, is Bluehost any good?
PROS
· Over 2,000,000 sites worldwide are hosted by Bluehost so the company is obviously doing something right
· Offers a wide range of web hosting options
· Easy to upgrade your plan to VPS or dedicated server without having to move your website
· Offers free anti-spam solutions built right in cPanel
· Provides you with integrated Cloudflare support
· Includes several security features such as unique IPs, SSL, & SiteLock protection
· Allows a 30-day (no questions asked) money-back-guarantee for all hosting plans
· 99% uptime guarantee.
CONS
· Does not offer month-to-month shared hosting options
· A few users have complained that tech support wait times are long and that the staff does not give customers much personal attention
· Charges a fee to have your site migrated from a different hosting company to Bluehost. Most hosting companies offer this service at no cost
· Bluehost only offer servers in Linux, Windows hosting is not available
You must do your own daily backups for full security
WHO OWNS BLUEHOST?
One of the 20 biggest hosting companies in the world, Bluehost was founded in 2003. Since 2010, it has been owned by Endurance International Group (EIG). EIG also owns Arvixe, A Small Orange, Bluehost, Dotster, iPage, HostGator to name just a few of its web hosts.
WHAT ARE BLUEHOST NAMESERVERS?
In order to change your web hosts, you must change the nameservers for your website to point to your new host. To manage your domain (not registered with Bluehost) you need to use Bluehost’s name servers. Change your nameservers to: ns1.Bluehost.com and ns2.Bluehost.com.
WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT DO YOU GET?
Bluehost support is available via live chat, toll-free phone calls, as well as email. These are all available 24/7. They provide customer service only in English so if you prefer a different language, you should look for a different host.
CAN YOU REGISTER DOMAIN NAMES WITH BLUEHOST?
You can buy domains from Bluehost through your account dashboard. Domain Who is privacy is also available for a small yearly cost. Also, you can get one free domain name registration for one year with all of their hosting plans. (If you cancel your hosting, you will be charged for it.)
CAN YOU AUTOMATICALLY INSTALL WORDPRESS?
WordPress can easily be installed for free with the MOJO marketplace. There is a range of other web applications that you can one-click-install, such as Joomla, Drupal, Magento, PrestaShop to name just a few. If you opt for Bluehost’s Optimized WordPress hosting, WordPress will already be installed for you.
WHICH BLUEHOST PLAN IS BEST FOR WORDPRESS?
Bluehost offers three different WordPress plans. The cheapest is the regular WordPress shared hosting plan. This will work fine for most people. They also offer WP Pro, managed WordPress hosting for demanding users. And for e-commerce stores, they offer WooCommerce plans.
Bluehost is dedicated to WordPress. They are an official host recommended by WordPress.org. They host over 1 million WordPress websites, support full-time WordPress Core developers on staff, and sponsor WordPress WordCamps worldwide.
Summary
Bluehost makes it easy and quick to get a website up and running, has an easy-to-use cPanel interface that’s ideal for beginners, features a wide array of great features, is generally fast, has reliable servers, and has some pleasantly surprising security features for a budget-friendly web host.
Bandwidth: Unlimited
Thank you for reading. | https://medium.com/@thomasdon/bluehost-was-founded-in-2003-and-has-since-grown-to-become-one-of-the-worlds-largest-providers-of-95fa0f071a45 | [] | 2003-04-03 00:00:00 | ['Best Web Hosting', 'Online Shopping', 'Web Hosting', 'Free Website', 'Start A Blog'] |
how to build a face-tracking with Raspberry and OpenCV | This is my very first project on Raspberry. My motivations come from the article of Leigh Johnson :
It seems simple to start a project on Raspberry, so let’s start.
My github repos for this project : https://github.com/nguyenrobot/palt-tilt-cam
This project is realized in collaboration with Clément COSTE, one of my colleagues.
Part 1 — Build List
Raspberry Pi 4 Model B — 4GB
Pan-Tilt HAT for Raspberry Pi
Pi Camera v2 8MP
Micro-SD Card
Mini-HDMI Cable
Cable for Raspberry Pi Camera — Dimension : 457mm x 16mm (18" x 0.6")
USB-C Charger
USB-C External battery (optional by strongly recommended)
I spent roughly 100€ to get all necessary thing in France where we pay so much of TVA tax.
The choice of Pan-Tilt HAT is quite important. Because you have to find a way to control your Pan-Tilt HAT. I use the Pan-Tilt HAT from Waveshare which I have to spend sometimes to understand how to manually control the servo-motor via HAT by keyboard.
An external battery with USB-C output is highly useful for other projects on Raspberry in which your Raspberry must be mobile. | https://nguyenrobot.medium.com/how-to-build-a-face-tracking-with-raspberry-and-opencv-d449cd1ac282 | [] | 2020-10-30 12:00:16.567000+00:00 | ['Face Tracking', 'Raspberry Pi', 'Opencv'] |
Dating Coach Certification | First dates can be nerve-wracking. When you haven’t gone on a date in some time, you may be anxious about getting back into the dating game or unsure about what to expect during the meetup. If you don’t know what questions to ask on a first date, you’re not alone. It’s not uncommon to feel rusty, and it can even lead to you saying the wrong things to the person you’re interested in. While there are some things that you probably should avoid saying, there are other things that aren’t off the table that you should consider asking. Here are seven questions you can totally ask on a first date.
Read full Article on https://bit.ly/38yV6n9 | https://medium.com/@genosyscs/dating-coach-certification-e58d914d5e17 | ['Genosys Consulting'] | 2020-12-19 13:00:03.141000+00:00 | ['Dating Tips', 'Coaching', 'Relationships Love Dating', 'Dating'] |
Making Data More Familiar with Concrete Scales | As part of their coverage of the Snowden leaks, last month the Guardian published an interactive to help explain what the NSA data collection activities mean for the public. Above is a screenshot of part of the piece. It allows the user to input the number of friends they have on Facebook and see a typical number of 1st, 2nd (friends-of-friends), and 3rd (friends-of-friends-of-friends) degree connections as compared to places where you typically find different numbers of people. So 250 friends is more than the capacity of a subway car, 40,850 friends-of-friends is more than would fit in Fenway Park, and 6.7 million 3rd degree connections is bigger than the population of Massachusetts.
When we tell stories with data it can be hard for readers to grasp units or measures that are outside of normal human experience or outside of their own personal experience. How much *is* 1 trillion dollars, or 200 calories, really? Unless you’re an economist, or a nutritionist respectively it might be hard to say. Abstract measures and units can benefit from making them more concrete. The idea behind the Guardian interactive was to take something abstract, like a big number of people, and compare it to something more spatially familiar and tangible to help drive it home and make it real.
Researchers Fanny Chevalier, Romain Vuillemot, and Guia Gali have been studying the use of such concrete scales in visualization and recently published a paper detailing some of the challenges and practical steps we can use to more effectively employ these kinds of scales in data journalism and data visualization.
In the paper they describe a few different strategies for making concrete scales, including unitization, anchoring, and analogies. Shown in the figure below, (a) unitization is the idea of re-expression one object in terms of a collection of objects that may be more familiar (e.g. the mass of Saturn is 97 times that of Earth); (b) anchoring uses a familiar object, like the size of a match head, to make the size of another unfamiliar object (e.g. a tick in this case) more concrete; and © analogies make parallel comparisons to familiar objects (e.g. atom is to marble, as human head is to earth).
All of these techniques are really about visual comparison to the more familiar. But the familiar isn’t necessarily exact. For instance, if I were to compare the height of the Empire State Building to a number of people stacked up, I would need to use the average height of a person, which is really an idealized approximation. So it’s important to think about the precision of the visual comparisons you might be setting up with concrete scales.
Another strategy often used with concrete scales is containment, which can be useful to communicate impalpable volumes or collections of material. For example you might want to make visible the amount of sugar in different sizes of soda bottles by filling plastic bags with different amounts of granular sugar. Again, this is an approximate comparison but also makes it more familiar and material.
So, how can you design data visualizations to effectively use concrete scales? First you should ask if it’s an unfamiliar unit or whether it has an extreme magnitude that would make it difficult to comprehend. Then you need to find a good comparison unit that is more familiar to people. Does it make sense to unitize, anchor, or use an analogy? And if you use an anchor or container, which one should you choose? The answers to these questions will depend on your particular design situation as well as the semantics of the data you’re working with. A number of examples that the researchers have tagged are available online.
The individual nature of “what is familiar” does beg the question about personalization of concrete scales too. Michael Keller’s work for Al Jazeera lets you compare the number of refugees from the Syrian conflict to a geographic extent in the US, essentially letting the user’s own familiarity with geography guide what area they want to compare as an anchor. What if this type of personalization could also be automated? Consider logging into Facebook or Twitter and the visualization adapting to use concrete scales to the places, objects, or organizations you’re most familiar with based on your profile information. This type of automated visualization adaptation could help make such visual depictions of data much more personally relevant and interesting.
Even though concrete scales are often used in data visualizations in the media it’s worth also realizing that there are some open questions too. How do we define whether an anchor or unit is “familiar” or not, and what makes one concrete unit better than another? Perhaps some scales make people feel like they understand the visualization better or help the reader remember the visualization better. There are still many open questions for empirical research.
mebel-stars.kiev.ua/
profvest.com/
たんぽぽ茶 | https://medium.com/tow-center/making-data-more-familiar-with-concrete-scales-eeccf345def1 | ['Tow Center'] | 2018-07-26 14:30:03.311000+00:00 | ['Research', 'Visualization', 'Data Journalism', 'Blog'] |
Self Identity and the Pull of Public Perception | Pear, Pressured
I am 40% Asian, 40% White, 10% Black, 80% misunderstood, and 100% done with giving into social pressures that try to push my life off course. Also, I can math, but this is a metaphor, so just roll with it.
My parents are Chinese-Vietnamese refugees that fled their homeland during the Vietnam war. They set up a life here and built it from scratch. Because of that I was born as a Calgarian in the great land of Canada. As a naive little kid I did things just because I thought it was fun and engaging. Was lucky enough to grow up with Nintendo and Playstation, had friends to visit and invite over, cable TV, and even good ol’ dial-up internet. The idea of identity and fitting in was not even close to the conscious part of my mind.
I grew up in the ‘ghetto of Calgary’ around Marlborough and Forest Lawn. It is close by to 17th Ave SE, officially called International Avenue, where it is filled with ethnic restaurants and supermarkets, as well as payday loans. Friends I had were White, Muslim, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Chinese, half-Black, Sikh, Aboriginal, and probably some I’m missing (Sorry I didn’t know the White backgrounds and there weren’t many Black kids). During all of this time I merely considered people just people. I just wanted to spend time with people and do fun things, which we did. Played soccer and basketball, Magic the Gathering, Final Fantasy, hung out at the mall and the gas station, had birthday parties. It was great.
I also watched a lot of prime time TV since it was the main family gathering of the day. TGIF was the favourite. Full House, Family Matters, Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Friends became a staple. They were all good fun and that’s all it really was.
My house was also filled with Hong Kong media. Endless ballads and replays of concert tours of HK pop. Chinese New Years tunes on repeat every year. HK dramas from the Asian rental place stacked one after the other in an pre-Netflix binge.
All of this was simply normal. It was part of the day to day experience.
In my teens, I started to distance myself from the Chinese culture. It started when I decided to drop out of Chinese school. None of it really stuck and it took up my Sunday so I sheepishly told my parents I didn’t want to go anymore. The HK stuff never really sat right with me. My music taste was, well, mediocre at the time, but I started getting drawn towards alternative rock (more accurately pop-rock) and hints of rap (ie. Eminem, Puff Daddy). My interest in films went towards Oscar-winning dramas, experimental stuff like Waking Life, and the world of mature anime. Ironically, though, my circle of friends in high school and university became increasingly Asian, but more of the whitewashed kind. Hockey, Thanksgiving turkey, Halloween and Christmas parties.
In university I went to psychology and philosophy when everyone else was in business and engineering. I picked up guitar with a couple of friends, and was the only one who stuck with it. My dreams were to write a book, make a movie, put out an album, give a TED talk, while everyone else seemed to want a stable career and a family. Ten years later, I’ve learned to balance this out with practical career oriented moves, but they are still my priority.
Looking back I was always different in some way. When I was with my Ex I mentioned that I felt different, but she would usually downplay it probably just to make me feel better. She was very social and when she interacted with others it was more natural somehow. They always liked her more than me. The few new friends I found tended to be more drawn to her than me, but since we were always together it wasn’t immediately obvious. Recently, I even started researching Autism more because I felt like there were social cues I was overlooking, and maybe I could relate somehow. It’s probably an insult to the Autism community for me to say that, yet that’s the degree to which I felt out of place.
I’m not Asian and conservative enough for my family. I’m not White enough since I can’t drink beer and am allergic to pets. Definitely not Black. Not even going to go there. In a city that is in love with the mountains, I opt to stay home and create things. As a computer science major I am not techie enough since I like to focus on the psychological impacts of code rather than the code itself. Overall, I’m pretty quiet and serious when a lot of people around me prefer to joke around and keep things lively.
I’ve always felt a pull, a pressure from every side of my life to be more of something, and less of myself. That in order to succeed, to fit in, to find a place, I should conform to some standard that I don’t necessarily agree with.
Take a look at this:
Which line matches the target line? The answer is obviously C. Anyone can see that unless they forgot to wear their glasses or something. Yet in this classic experiment 75% of people chose the wrong answer at least once. That’s stupid. Why would anyone do that? To understand why, let’s try it again.
You’re in a room with 7 other people. At first they all choose the right answer, and the whole thing seems like yet another boring experiment. Then part way through all 7 other people choose A. What do you do? Would you still choose C? According to the results, most people chose to doubt themselves in order to fit in. They questioned their own judgement simply because they of the pressure of those around them. There isn’t any evidence of exactly why, but it would be fair to say they didn’t want to feel stupid, to be wrong, to be isolated.
Humans are social creatures so it is only natural to trust one another to have the right answer or at least take them into heavy consideration. But what exactly happens when everyone around you has the wrong idea?
For most of my life I’ve went along with the crowd. I’ve been a follower, rather than an independent thinker, or a leader. I went along with whatever my friends wanted, with what my family wanted, with what was best for my partner. Whenever I did try to speak up I was filled with doubt, with anger and frustration, and fear of being isolated. It was always nerve-racking to speak in front of others, and my heart starts pounding just putting my hand up in class. But recently things have flipped on their heads. I prefer speaking up when no one else will. I prefer giving the presentations and leading the group. I would rather be seen and heard rather than fit in and be invisible.
At this point in my life, I’ve realized that, hey, maybe I am different, and that is what makes me who I am and gives my identity its value. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet people who have supported this perspective, and given me the chance to shine with the strengths I actually have rather than the strengths I should have. These amazing people are independent thinkers, headstrong, and forge through with their own sheer will. They inspire me to be myself, not in spite of the crowd, but that there is value in standing out from the crowd in and of itself.
I’m still not entirely sure which direction my life will end up going, but what I am sure of is that it’s ok for me to make decisions for myself instead of going with the pull of the public perception. This doesn’t mean I will ignore everyone around me and become a snob. What it does mean is that I have the choice whether or not to take people’s words into account, and whose words mean more than others. So, when everyone else is choosing the wrong line, I prefer to be part of the 25% who would rather pick the right one, because the answer is obviously C. C’mon! | https://medium.com/@jickay/self-identity-and-the-pull-of-public-perception-425286889228 | ['Jacky Tang'] | 2019-02-22 20:07:04.131000+00:00 | ['Identity', 'Isolation', 'Conformity', 'Pressure'] |
Hidden Gems: Event-Driven Change Notifications in Relational Databases | Hidden Gems: Event-Driven Change Notifications in Relational Databases
A powerful non-standard feature that developers should know about
Look! A 500ct diamond just laying on the beach! (Image compliments of Chris Coe).
Introduction
Wouldn’t it be great if we could receive event-driven change notifications (EDCN) when data changes directly from the database without having to poll for updates?
This feature is, in fact, available in some relational databases, but not all, as it’s non-standard functionality and not part of any SQL specification.
In the three examples covered in this article, this functionality is expressed via the implementation of an interface that is then registered with the JDBC driver directly. This opens the door to a myriad of potential use cases that can be expressed without the need to poll and which do not require the developer to write infrastructure code to deal with changes in data and notifying interested parties. Instead, we can interface with the driver directly and listen for changes and, when they occur, execute whatever workflow we have in an event-driven fashion. A few examples where this could be helpful include:
Caching (more on this when we cover PostgreSQL, see also Good Candidates for CQN)
Honeypots for database tables — also see poison records
Debugging problems
Logging changes
Analytics and reporting
There are, of course, some consequences when relying on this functionality. The most obvious implication is that it’s a non-standard feature that ties the application directly to the database.
I was speaking with Michael Dürgner on LinkedIn about an example implementation as it pertains to PostgreSQL, and he commented that:
“[W]hile it’s definitely a great way to do this, one of the big drawbacks is that you move application logic into the RDBMS. Not saying you shouldn’t do it but make sure that you have people with deep understanding of the RDBMS you use on board since it’ll be rather unlikely your average software will be able to trouble shoot. Another huge challenge with this approach is continuous delivery since your RDBMS needs to be deeply integrated with your delivery pipeline.”
I agree with Michael’s position, and keeping business logic out of the database tends to be a good practice.
Projects that rely on object-relational mapping (ORM) tools such as the Java Persistence API (JPA) to generate the database schema directly from one or more object models immediately lose portability and simplicity when developers are required to add logic in the database tier which probably belongs in the application itself. If developers are not careful, they’ll end up having to use the same database for testing as used in production and this could easily lead to pain and regret.
I proffer the following question to any engineer considering using EDCNs via the JDBC driver: can the application still function as intended without the inclusion of whatever it is that you’re building that relies on this functionality? If the answer is “yes” then what you’re doing is likely fine; on the contrary, if the answer is “no”, then this is a strike against using EDCNs and alternatives may need to be considered.
Finally, this feature on its own is not a substitute for well-engineered message-oriented middleware (MOM), which typically provides out-of-the-box solutions for guaranteed delivery, message persistence, at-least-once/exactly-once delivery, delivery via queues and topics, strategies for flow control (see also: backpressure), and addresses fault tolerance and scalability concerns. The presence of these requirements could be a strong indicator that an approach relying on EDCNs needs to be reconsidered.
Below we explore this functionality as it exists in the PostgreSQL, Oracle, and H2 databases; we also include some general comments on MySQL and its fork, MariaDB.
Throughout this article, we rely on Java 13.0.2 and Groovy. 3.0.4 and include links to the various scripts on GitHub which contain extra notes pertaining to how to set up the required dependencies and any other preconditions necessary to run the examples. | https://medium.com/better-programming/hidden-gems-event-driven-change-notifications-in-relational-databases-a87a7bdb02ad | ['Thomas P. Fuller'] | 2020-08-05 19:25:04.401000+00:00 | ['Database', 'Software Architecture', 'Software Development', 'Software Engineering', 'Programming'] |
The Tidal Wave | 12:44pm. A time that is permanently singed into my memory. A stinging pain that overcomes me every time I see it on the clock. A burning scar. My heart skips a beat. A physical ache. A moment of breathlessness. I still hear the nurse’s voice so clearly in my head. “Time of death, 12:44pm.”
It’s been 244 days since I lost her. 244 days since a piece of me left with her. My little sister. My baby sister. I knew it would come, but I wasn’t ready. I know now that I never could have been ready. Never could have been fully prepared for the anguish that comes with loss. The deep physical pain I feel when I remember that she’s really gone. I’ve never felt so wounded. And yet, I’m still standing. How is that possible?
Having a sister with a terminal illness has always been mentally challenging for me. Throughout my life, any time I told someone that my sister had cystic fibrosis, the response was always “I’m so sorry”. I never understood that. Of course, I appreciated the words. But I was never able to fully process that terminal meant death. An unavoidable fate. An inevitable conclusion.
To me, Claire was infinite.
There was nothing that could stop her. I saw her distress and suffering and pain first hand. And it was torturous. But she always pulled through. She always fought like hell. She’s cheated death before. She’ll cheat death again. I could never consider the alternative. My mind wouldn’t allow me to. We’re so close to a cure. One day she’d be freed from the grips of this disease. I couldn’t call it hope, because I knew it. I was sure of it. Until I wasn’t.
They say that grief comes in waves, and I’ve always wondered what that meant. Now I know. And there is no better way to describe it.
At first, you’re lost in a fog. A haze of denial. Like you’re trapped inside of a lucid dream. And all the while, you feel the wave brewing. Little stings of pain churning in your heart. Little moments where you’re able to touch reality, but only for a second. Your body won’t allow you to. Your mind won’t allow you to.
You cling to photos, videos and songs — things that keep her alive. You’re able to block out the world and the future. You’re able to just be — in that moment with her. Like nothing else exists. But the wave is still brewing, even faster than before.
Then, the tidal wave comes. It’s so unexpected. It crashes around you, and you’re unsure if you’ll make it out alive. Drowning in the weight of reality. I never expected the physical pain. The deepest feeling of sorrow, like you got the wind knocked out of you. You can’t catch your breath. Every memory and every word and every reminder comes flooding around you. And all you can do is try your best to survive the shipwreck. All you can do is float.
In the beginning, the waves crash hard and without mercy. I wondered if I’d ever be myself again. I couldn’t talk to people. I couldn’t get out of bed. I questioned my faith. How could God do this to us? To her? A 24-year battle to breathe, to live. For what? Why her? She was too good for this. She didn’t deserve this. This unavoidable fate. This inevitable conclusion.
I was so angry. All of the wasted suffering. I dreaded the future. All of the moments that should be so sweet — family vacations, getting married, having kids. It all seemed so bitter. I never pictured myself being truly happy again. A constant stream of waves crashing into me. I couldn’t catch my breath.
But somehow, as time moves on, the waves become less frequent. They still come, but come further apart. You can function. You can breathe. In some moments I wondered if it was possible to keep going. But you just do. You just keep floating. And that’s what she would want.
I still see her in my dreams. It’s always the same scenario. She and I sitting, just talking. It’s not a moment from the past but a moment from the present. A few months after she passed away, I dreamed that we were hugging. The dream lasted a while, and all we did was hug. I cried into her shoulder. But she wasn’t crying. She was comforting me, saying that “everything is going to be ok.” Just like what she would do if she were here. Always reassuring me that no matter the circumstance, I was going to be ok. It was so real. My mom, dad, brother and countless friends of hers have had the same dream. The same scenario. They are sitting down, in the present, just talking.
Last week in a dream, I told her that I missed her. She responded, “I miss you, too. But we can talk to each other like this.” I woke up, tears streaming down my face. I no longer question my faith. I no longer question where she is. I just know.
Moments like this trigger the waves. But I’m thankful for them. Moments like this serve as a reminder for me.
Claire is infinite.
And she always will be. I know the waves will never stop coming, and, somehow, I don’t want them to. Because it keeps our love alive. Other waves will come, and I’ll survive them, too. And if I’m lucky, I’ll have lots of scars from lots of love. And lots of shipwrecks. | https://medium.com/@kendall-booth/the-tidal-wave-3e21bb12e3e8 | ['Kendall Booth'] | 2021-02-03 18:20:04.334000+00:00 | ['Grief Recovery', 'Cystic Fibrosis', 'Grief', 'Mental Health', 'Grief And Loss'] |
Crossing the bridge of memory | I grew up in Lebanon, less than a kilometre away from a Palestinian refugee camp — one of many that were set up across the country to accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees who were forced into exile in 1948. These camps were supposed to be temporary.
More than 70 years later, tents — which were once pitched across the country — have been replaced with concrete walls and roofs which, in turn, have gradually morphed into a dense and shockingly dire urban space. Generations have since been born into this state, somehow belonging to un-belonging — this flesh of the Palestinian diaspora, a blistering wound of exile.
As a Lebanese who has stood at the border and witnessed the Israelis building settlements on occupied territories, wondering how Palestinians’ homes and lands can be so close yet so unreachable, Mourid Barghouti’s memoir consolidated my perspective on displacement. It also evoked a strangely conflicting set of emotions: joy intermingled with an overwhelming feeling of loss.
I Saw Ramallah (1997) is Barghouti’s personal testament to the cruelty of exile, of living on the periphery of belonging as it synchronously knocks on the door of the Palestinian collective in the diaspora.
This postcolonial work is a riveting rendering of the Palestinian predicament as it presents an experiential account of displacement as a direct and tragic result of the Israeli occupation that caused the mass exodus of Palestinians in 1948, or what is otherwise referred to today as the Nakba.
An Account of Palestinian Displacement
After 30 years in exile, moving from one city to another, and setting roots nowhere, the poet Mourid Barghouti finally returns home in 1967 for the first time since the Israeli occupation of Palestine. As he crosses a bridge from Jordan to Ramallah, he is struck by the changes the city has undergone. His mind drifts to the past as he tries to absorb everything around him but struggles to reconcile this “idea of Palestine” with the one from his memories.
Photo by Ahmed Abu Hameeda on Unsplash
In the book’s foreword, Edward Said praises the book as “one of the finest existential accounts of Palestinian displacement”. Barghouti’s memoir provides an experiential narrative on living outside of borders and existing in fragments of time as he tries to “put the displacement between parenthesis, to put a last period in a long sentence of the sadness of history, personal and public history.” Reading this autobiography is not reading one man’s story, it is an insight into the Palestinian actuality.
Crossing the bridge of memory
The narrative begins on a bridge over the Jordan River as Barghouti prepares to cross over to the West Bank, nothing short of symbolic of the point of return, of entering one’s memories as if teleporting into a timeline of historical events. In this scene, Barghouti is the traveler who cannot interfere with the timeline or geography, or stay for that matter, as the situation is impermanent, and he remains somewhat displaced in spite of his presence in the setting.
Barghouti lets us in on his thoughts as he feels compelled to contemplate his own existence, and to shed light on the ambiguity of his condition like many other displaced Palestinians when he raises these questions:
“Here I am walking toward the land of the poem. a visitor? A refugee? A citizen? A guest? I do not know. Is this a political moment? Or an emotional one? Or social? A practical moment? A surreal one? A moment of the body? Or of the mind?” I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti
This excerpt appears to be a commentary on the conditions of the displaced, who, in relation to their homeland, are overcome with the feeling of loss. Barghouti wrote about this land for decades. She was the subject of his poetry, but now, as she concretized before his eyes, he was struck by a sense of foreignness (perhaps, because of the impermanence of his visit) which intermingled with the disconcerting, albeit familiar, feeling of not having a definitive status.
Painting an Emotional Landscape
In I Saw Ramallah, Barghouti paints a sentimental landscape of his homeland, comparing the Palestine of his memories with the present one as an “idea of Palestine” — one that cannot be materialised in the shadow of the Israeli occupation.
Photo by Jakob Rubner on Unsplash
For instance, his emotional reaction to the chopping of the fig tree, which no longer had an apparent function, shows that Palestinians have been holding on to the symbols of Palestine because they have been forced to leave her. The fig tree was a remnant of the past, the Palestine of writer’s childhood, before it was robbed from him.
However, Barghouti believes the homeland should constitute more than a bunch of symbols in its people’s memory. It is not merely an abstraction or a metaphor as it can be experienced with the senses. “It stretches before me,” the Palestinian author writes “as touchable as a scorpion, a bird, a well; visible as a field of chalk, as the prints of shoes.”
He argues that the Israeli occupation relies on the reduction of Palestine into symbolism, which can fade with time and subsequently dissipate from the mass recollection, as more and more settlements are built on the very soil that is metaphorized in the Palestinian collective memory.
On writing
“Writing is estrangement,” writes Barghouti. Aware of his own work’s vulnerability, he compares writing to the state of being far from home.
Is I Saw Ramallah a tragic telling of the story of Palestine? Probably not. Though he weaves the threads of sorrow throughout the memoir, Barghouti contends that the tragic circumstances of the Palestinian reality does not necessarily result in exclusively tragic writing.
The writing isn’t tragic per se, but he ingeniously merges the poetic and the political in his narrative.
It is this precise convergence of politics and sentiment through first-person narration that makes the book so enthralling. Barghouti is a skilled storyteller, a refugee “hungry for his own borders” who finds shelter in the land of poetry, and a citizen of his memories. I Saw Ramallah is his attempt to build a bridge between the past and present. | https://medium.com/the-open-bookshelf/book-review-crossing-the-bridge-of-memory-in-i-saw-ramallah-by-mourid-barghouti-1812198aa225 | ['Fatima H. Elreda'] | 2020-06-01 18:13:01.779000+00:00 | ['War', 'Books', 'Politics', 'World', 'Palestine'] |
The Unforgivables | The memory of music hits the page
so glorious in grief, unbitter now
while phantoms have the power to assuage
the songs we lost — and, then, you wonder how
a clock might tick in retrograde, repair
the wounds we rent, unswallow poison pills
before the damage settles — only fair!
Who guesses that a heated moment kills
affection so? A love song boils off
and empty winter settles in its place.
Now I regret. The universe, though, scoffs
at any notion of redeeming grace.
And so we live: with scars and cobbled songs,
flesh testaments to all our grievous wrongs. | https://medium.com/sonnetry/the-unforgivables-b8b359a89510 | ['Zach J. Payne'] | 2020-09-15 19:14:33.547000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Friends', 'Relationships', 'Life', 'Love'] |
These Simple Cleaning Techniques Will Make You Happier | These Simple Cleaning Techniques Will Make You Happier
Each can be incorporated into your routine in five minutes or less
Photo by Marcin Galusz on Unsplash
I was in my early twenties when I first learned how to properly sweep a floor.
I was living in Oregon, working for a venture known in the local vernacular as ‘Outdoor School’. The basic concept involved taking large groups of public school children and housing them in the woods for one week each year in the hopes that they would learn about science, citizenship and nature.
There were lots of enjoyable things about my job. I learned how to design lesson plans and teach pre-teens about ecology. I supervised campfires and singalongs. Over the course of two months of employment, I probably ate close to my body weight in s’mores.
But my unexpected favorite work task came each evening after we had sent the children off to their cabins for the night and we swept the dining room floor.
It was the first time I’d ever used a proper, industrial broom and I promptly fell in love.
There was the rhythmic ‘swoosh-whoop-swoosh-whoop’ sound that the thick bristles made as they swept over the worn wooden floors. Also, the feeling of creating a genuine sense of cleanliness in some small corner of the world after days full of dealing with sixth-grade boys that had a colorful variety of hygiene habits.
Overall, the experience gave me a deep appreciation for the meditative benefits of a well-cleaned room. That feeling has stayed with me over the years. Cleaning is a ritual that helps me feel cheerful and at peace no matter where I am. Here are my favorite tips to make cleaning a joyful process.
Photo by Taylor Heery on Unsplash
1. Use a scented oil when you clean
According to The Fifth Sense, a medical organization in the UK:
The sense of smell is closely linked with memory, probably more so than any of our other senses…additionally, smell is highly emotive, with fragrances that seek to convey a vast array of emotions and feelings; from desire to power, vitality to relaxation.
All this means it’s worth the money to invest in a nicely scented cleaning oil. Pick a scent you enjoy and reward yourself with a quick spray each time you clean a room.
2. Develop a cleaning mantra
Marie Kondo likes to thank items before she throws them away. Why don’t you try the same as you tidy up?
For example, when you’re emptying the dishwasher, consider any nice conversations you had with your family at dinner the previous evening. When you’re folding the laundry, take a minute to remember how great you felt the last time you were out for a jog in your workout clothes.
Come up with a phrase you find meaningful that represents all these happy memories and repeat it to yourself as you clean.
Photo by Kowon vn on Unsplash
3. There’s a robot for that
Cleaning technology has developed in leaps and bounds in the last five years. The first thing to buy: a robot vacuum. You can set the cleaning time and the device will start itself. Then, once it’s finished cleaning, the device will dock itself.
All you have to do to keep things looking nice is remember to take your shoes off before you come in the front door.
4. Never tidy things when you could toss them out instead
Your goal in cleaning shouldn’t be to tidy up piles of things that seem to always end up scattered around the house for no reason. Instead, make a goal to toss out any clutter each time you clean. In the immortal words of Marie Kondo:
Keep only those things that speak to your heart. Then take the plunge and discard all the rest. By doing this, you can reset your life and embark on a new lifestyle.
5. Focus on the positive
Find the aspects of cleaning that you most enjoy. Do you love sweeping? Or the look of your bedroom right after you’ve changed the sheets and tidied up all the throw pillows?
Make sure you take time as you’re cleaning to note the parts of the process that you enjoy. Also, appreciate your own hard work. Pause for a minute as you clean each room and congratulate yourself. You deserve it.
Happy cleaning! | https://medium.com/small-steps/these-simple-cleaning-techniques-will-make-you-happier-ee84c1d5fad3 | ['Caroline Schley'] | 2021-01-01 11:38:50.168000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Decluttering', 'Easy Cleaning Hacks', 'Cleaning', 'Cleaning Tips'] |
I know nothing about News Break, but I'll tell you what: I'm sad that you're the slightest… | I know nothing about News Break, but I'll tell you what: I'm sad that you're the slightest stressed about them and about Medium. In fact, I'm sad for all of us who can't get ahead of all the bullshit chatter on this platform where they celebrate mediocrity and we're accused of showing our "privilege" if we complain about the endless typos and bad grammar of successful writers here.
Medium is trying to Twitter us to death, and I guess that makes sense, considering. But fuck them and their asshole algorithm that changes just as soon as the talent figures out how it works.
Write your heart, love. That's where your power lies. 💜 | https://medium.com/@sterlingpage1/i-know-nothing-about-news-break-but-ill-tell-you-what-i-m-sad-that-you-re-the-slightest-d2962f49fb6b | ['Sterling Page'] | 2020-12-01 13:18:01.392000+00:00 | ['Followers', 'Rant', 'Society', 'Writers On Medium', 'Making It Happen'] |
How to design products that make a difference with Cat Noone | On this episode Abadesi talks to Cat Noone, CEO and designer at Stark, a suite of integrated accessibility compliance tools for teams. She is also co-founder of Iris, a modern-day emergency alert system.
In this episode they talk about…
The story behind Stark
Cat was raised by her grandma and says that that experience ingrained in her the drive to create things for people who are otherwise “put aside.” She is a designer by trade and turned out to be an accidental founder. She explains how the project arose out of her earlier work on Iris, which involved creating experiences for older adults. Stark ended up being a product that they built for themselves when they were working on Iris and then evolved into its own standalone product that they now sell to other teams.
Why accessible design matters
“There may be only twenty thousand people on a product using it that have only one arm but what you don’t realize is that there are more individuals that have a broken arm. There are also millions of people that are new parents for the first time and only have access to one arm. So now your 20,000 just skyrocketed to 2 million.”
Cat talks about why designing for accessibility and inclusion is important and talks about some of the other initiatives underway in the tech industry to make the web a more inclusive place for everyone. She explains why it’s important from an ethics perspective, but also why it makes financial sense to do so given the risk of negative PR and potential lawsuits. She says that sometimes compliance can be daunting but they are working to make it easier to be compliant with accessibility regulations through their work at Stark.
Why they are “investing in customers” at Stark
“I’m a huge proponent of investing in customers and so I think a lot of people think about cost of acquisition but we should ask, ‘how do we build a community that give back and in turns fuels our mission to be the gold standard.’”
Cat explains the company philosophy they have at Stark and discusses what it’s like to be a first-time CEO of a “company that’s going somewhere.” She talks about how they think about culture as they grow and the initiatives that they are working on to grow the company, including content marketing, newsletters, and community. She explains what it means to be investing in customers and why they don’t look at customers as an acquisition cost. She talks about why traditional sales don’t work in a company like Stark and why sometimes the best practices for big companies don’t translate well to smaller ones.
How she uses time design to be productive
“I was someone who spent a lot of time working for a long period of time. It’s hard for me to sit here and say you can’t do that, because that’s how I got to where I am now. If I could go back in time, I would probably still work those long hours — but I’d take care of myself.”
Cat admits that she struggled with managing her time in the past but that with some help she’s been able to “design her time” more effectively which has allowed her to get a lot done in the limited time that she has as a new mom. She says that her entire workday is planned out and that she starts by reading for thirty minutes every day, which helps her approach her work with a calm mindset rather than being frantic about all the things she has to do that day. She also says that she works first on the three things that she needs to make sure she gets done in a given day and then starts tackling the rest. She also says that she still makes sure to take care of herself and says that she can be the best mom and businessperson by prioritizing herself.
She also talks about some of her favorite products, including the classics like Twitter, Slack, iMessage, WhatsApp, and Airtable, as well as DuckDuckGo for search. She says that she uses a record player to listen to music and explains what it is about vinyl that makes the music sound so much different from electronic music formats.
We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Big thanks to Knowable and NetSuite for their support. 😸 | https://blog.producthunt.com/how-to-design-products-that-make-a-difference-with-cat-noone-153ea1704ad1 | ['Product Hunt'] | 2020-01-29 14:01:01.546000+00:00 | ['Founders', 'Podcast', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Accessibility'] |
JSON To Flutter Objects | JSON To Flutter Objects
You Can Make Your JSON file in to Flutter Object Very Easily By Using Below Method.
Lets Look At The First Example Of JSON That We Want To Create
{
“data”: {
“_id”: “5bd2a59f4c59de1ac517d7bf”,
“email”: “[email protected]”,
“phoneNumber”: “2417874147”,
“isAddressApproved”: 0,
“unitNumber”: “144”,
“streetAddress”: “sdfsddsf”,
“area”: “asd”,
“zipCode”: “112233”,
“totalOrder”: 0,
“todayOrder”: 0,
“isPauseDelivery”: false,
“vacationStartDt”: null,
“vacationEndDt”: null,
“defaultLiter”: 1
},
“message”: “New User Created”,
“error”: false
}
As you Can See It Is A Little Bit Hard SO Lets Look A the Dart Objects That Match this Json Code
class Autogenerated {
Data data;
String message;
bool error;
Autogenerated({this.data, this.message, this.error});
Autogenerated.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) {
data = json[‘data’] != null ? new Data.fromJson(json[‘data’]) : null;
message = json[‘message’];
error = json[‘error’];
}
Map<String, dynamic> toJson() {
final Map<String, dynamic> data = new Map<String, dynamic>();
if (this.data != null) {
data[‘data’] = this.data.toJson();
}
data[‘message’] = this.message;
data[‘error’] = this.error;
return data;
}
}
class Data {
String sId;
String email;
String phoneNumber;
int isAddressApproved;
String unitNumber;
String streetAddress;
String area;
String zipCode;
int totalOrder;
int todayOrder;
bool isPauseDelivery;
Null vacationStartDt;
Null vacationEndDt;
int defaultLiter;
Data(
{this.sId,
this.email,
this.phoneNumber,
this.isAddressApproved,
this.unitNumber,
this.streetAddress,
this.area,
this.zipCode,
this.totalOrder,
this.todayOrder,
this.isPauseDelivery,
this.vacationStartDt,
this.vacationEndDt,
this.defaultLiter});
Data.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) {
sId = json[‘_id’];
email = json[‘email’];
phoneNumber = json[‘phoneNumber’];
isAddressApproved = json[‘isAddressApproved’];
unitNumber = json[‘unitNumber’];
streetAddress = json[‘streetAddress’];
area = json[‘area’];
zipCode = json[‘zipCode’];
totalOrder = json[‘totalOrder’];
todayOrder = json[‘todayOrder’];
isPauseDelivery = json[‘isPauseDelivery’];
vacationStartDt = json[‘vacationStartDt’];
vacationEndDt = json[‘vacationEndDt’];
defaultLiter = json[‘defaultLiter’];
}
Map<String, dynamic> toJson() {
final Map<String, dynamic> data = new Map<String, dynamic>();
data[‘_id’] = this.sId;
data[‘email’] = this.email;
data[‘phoneNumber’] = this.phoneNumber;
data[‘isAddressApproved’] = this.isAddressApproved;
data[‘unitNumber’] = this.unitNumber;
data[‘streetAddress’] = this.streetAddress;
data[‘area’] = this.area;
data[‘zipCode’] = this.zipCode;
data[‘totalOrder’] = this.totalOrder;
data[‘todayOrder’] = this.todayOrder;
data[‘isPauseDelivery’] = this.isPauseDelivery;
data[‘vacationStartDt’] = this.vacationStartDt;
data[‘vacationEndDt’] = this.vacationEndDt;
data[‘defaultLiter’] = this.defaultLiter;
return data;
}
}
Hope You Get How To Make Dart Objects Out of Flutter Code | https://medium.com/@ranasinhemadushan/json-to-flutter-objects-8361a63bf2d1 | [] | 2021-02-14 05:47:38.457000+00:00 | ['Json To Dart', 'Json Api', 'Flutter', 'Dart', 'Object Oriented'] |
Uber datasets in BigQuery: Driving times around SF (and your city too) | Step 2: Load into BigQuery
Once we have the files on our side, loading the data CSVs is straightforward:
bq load --autodetect \
fh-bigquery:deleting.uber_sf_censustracts_201803_all_hourly \
san_francisco-censustracts-2018-3-All-HourlyAggregate.csv bq load --autodetect \
fh-bigquery:deleting.uber_sf_censustracts_201803_weekdays_hourly \
san_francisco-censustracts-2018-3-OnlyWeekdays-HourlyAggregate.csv bq load --autodetect \
fh-bigquery:deleting.uber_sf_censustracts_201803_weekends_hourly \
san_francisco-censustracts-2018-3-OnlyWeekends-HourlyAggregate.csv
However the geo boundaries files will pose some challenges. They are standard GeoJSON files, but we’ll have to massage them before loading into BigQuery:
Transform the GeoJSON file to a new line delimited JSON file with jq . Load the new .json files as CSV into BigQuery. Parse the JSON rows in BigQuery to generate native GIS geometries.
jq -c .features[] \
san_francisco_censustracts.json > sf_censustracts_201905.json bq load --source_format=CSV \
--quote='' --field_delimiter='|' \
fh-bigquery:deleting.sf_censustracts_201905 \
sf_censustracts_201905.json row
For step 3, we can parse the loaded rows inside BigQuery:
CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE `fh-bigquery.uber_201905.sf_censustracts`
AS SELECT FORMAT('%f,%f', ST_Y(centroid), ST_X(centroid)) lat_lon, *
FROM (
SELECT *, ST_CENTROID(geometry) centroid
FROM (
SELECT
CAST(JSON_EXTRACT_SCALAR(row, '$.properties.MOVEMENT_ID') AS INT64) movement_id
, JSON_EXTRACT_SCALAR(row, '$.properties.DISPLAY_NAME') display_name
, ST_GeogFromGeoJson(JSON_EXTRACT(row, '$.geometry')) geometry
FROM `fh-bigquery.deleting.sf_censustracts_201905`
)
)
Find some alternatives (JavaScript, ogr2ogr) from Lak Lakshmanan and Michael Entin to load GeoJSON data in this Stack Overflow reply.
Step 3: Massage the data for performance and efficiency
Now that we have both tables inside BigQuery, let’s massage the data to partition the main table, create native BQ GIS geometry columns, and join everything together:
Let’s create our main table. This table will contain both weekdays, weekends, and overall stats — and we’ll add some census tract data to make it easier to visualize and understand. For efficiency we’ll partition it by quarter and cluster by the type of stat and travel starting place.
I’ll also calculate some additional stats: Average distance between areas and speed given this distance. Note that having these stats will make the query run way slower than if we skipped them:
CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE `fh-bigquery.uber_201905.sf_hourly`
PARTITION BY quarter
CLUSTER BY table_source, source, destination
-- don't partition/cluster if using BQ w/o credit card AS SELECT *, distance * 0.000621371192 / geometric_mean_travel_time * 3600 speed_mph
FROM (
SELECT * EXCEPT(geo_b, geo_c), (ST_DISTANCE(geo_b, geo_c)+ST_MAXDISTANCE(geo_b, geo_c))/2 distance
FROM (
SELECT a.*, SPLIT(_TABLE_SUFFIX, '_')[OFFSET(0)] table_source
, b.display_name source
, c.display_name destination
, b.lat_lon sourceid_lat_lon
, CAST(SPLIT(b.lat_lon, ',')[OFFSET(0)] AS FLOAT64) sourceid_lat
, CAST(SPLIT(b.lat_lon, ',')[OFFSET(1)] AS FLOAT64) sourceid_lon
, c.lat_lon dstid_lat_lon
, CAST(SPLIT(c.lat_lon, ',')[OFFSET(0)] AS FLOAT64) dstid_lat
, CAST(SPLIT(c.lat_lon, ',')[OFFSET(1)] AS FLOAT64) dstid_lon
, DATE('2018-07-01') quarter
, COUNT(*) OVER(PARTITION BY sourceid, dstid) source_dst_popularity
, COUNT(*) OVER(PARTITION BY dstid) dst_popularity
, b.geometry geo_b, c.geometry geo_c
FROM `fh-bigquery.deleting.uber_sf_censustracts_201803_*` a
JOIN `fh-bigquery.uber_201905.sf_censustracts` b
ON a.sourceid=b.movement_id
JOIN `fh-bigquery.uber_201905.sf_censustracts` c
ON a.dstid=c.movement_id
)
)
Step 4: Query and visualize
I created an interactive dashboard with Data Studio. Note that it runs super fast thanks to our new BigQuery BI Engine. But you can also run your own queries!
For example, the worst destinations in San Francisco and time of the day when arriving to the SFO airport: | https://towardsdatascience.com/uber-datasets-in-bigquery-driving-times-around-sf-and-your-city-too-9ad95baa6bfe | ['Felipe Hoffa'] | 2019-06-06 01:06:29.420000+00:00 | ['Uber', 'Data Science', 'Visualization', 'Bigquery', 'Open Data'] |
Conditionally Checking Existence of a Value in Perl | There are many half-baked methods used for properly testing whether or not a variable is defined. Following are a few examples of some good and not-so-good methods with explanations.
if (exists $opts{‘primary’} || exists $opts{‘secondary’}) {
$some_value = $opts{‘primary’} || $opts{‘secondary’};
}
The above logic is clean and easy to follow at first glance, although it may not be the most efficient way of executing the appropriate decision-making block and more on Bitsdujour.
Considering the above is equivalent to the following block, you may notice a somewhat redundant conditional checking that ensues:
if (exists $opts{‘primary’} || exists $opts{‘secondary’}) {
if ( exists $opts{‘primary’} ) {
$some_value = $opts{‘primary’};
} else {
$some_value = $opts{‘secondary’};
}
}
Another added benefit is that if your value is “0″ or empty, it may actually not get assigned if you use the simple one-line conditional assignment:
$some_value = $opt{’primary’} || $opt{’secondary’};
The “primary option” would be skipped if it is equal to “0″…which is in-fact a completely valid value, and demonstrates the “falsey-ness” and “truthy-ness” of specific values…more on that later or on Classifieds.
Thanks to “Ani-_” in #perl for setting me straight on conditional checking.
So, to some it all up in one bullet-proof conditional block for assignment we write the following, which will also turn out to run faster because there is only one conditional check:
if ( exists $opt{‘primary’} ) {
$some_value = $opt{‘primary’};
elsif ( exists $opt{‘secondary’} ) {
$some_value = $opt{‘secondary’};
} else {
return false;
} | https://medium.com/@pawlanders/conditionally-checking-existence-of-a-value-in-perl-45b8d0c0a6c0 | ['Pawl Anders'] | 2021-03-22 15:03:35.833000+00:00 | ['Checking', 'Existence', 'Perl', 'Values'] |
Solving Challenges with Smart Assets | In late 2018, Waves Platform released Smart Assets on MainNet and launched Tokenomica, a fully compliant exchange for digital assets. This article, centered on use cases for Smart Assets, comes as the first in a series focused on how Waves solutions facilitate building the financial system of the future.
Cryptocurrency Trading
Over the last couple of years, regulated crypto exchanges have faced challenges related to compliance with requirements imposed by regulators. Specifically, those requirements include user identification and quality assurance of assets admitted to trading.
Tokenomica offers a solution to these challenges based on technologies already proven successful on Waves DEX, and centered on Smart Accounts and Smart Assets.
Smart Account is an account with an attached transaction script, which allows to validate every transaction before confirming it. Smart Account allows restricting any outgoing transaction based on multi-signatures and other supplied data.
In Tokenomica, Smart Accounts will be used to allow outgoing transactions only to users that were previously identified and approved, or so called “whitelisted” users, in order to comply with relevant regulatory requirements.
In addition, for compliance or security reasons, transactions could require two signatures: one from the user, and another one from Tokenomica.
Smart Accounts will allow Tokenomica to make sure that any transaction made on the platform is only possible between whitelisted users.
But what about the quality of traded assets? Here is where Smart Assets come into play.
Smart Assets are unique tokens (meaning that they contain a unique set of rules provided in the script) that can be purchased, sold or exchanged as defined by the script, which validates every transaction within that asset.
In Tokenomica, Smart Assets will be used to restrict trading to pre-approved pairs of assets. Pairs will be formed by assets compliant with relevant regulations, based on applicable rules and guidelines provided by the regulators.
STOs
Another promising area for implementation of Smart Assets is Security Token Offerings (STOs). We define security tokens as financial instruments subject to securities markets regulation that are issued and traded with the use of blockchain.
Smart Assets allow issuers to design their security tokens in a customized way, creating a fully compliant asset with attractive features for the investors.
These are benefits that security tokens can bring to financial markets:
Reduction of listing fees for issuers who will be able to access liquidity of secondary markets through security tokens trading platforms instead of going through burdensome and costly process of listing on traditional exchanges;
Automated corporate actions, redemptions and periodical payments processed on the blockchain;
Immediate execution of deals at any time — something that is not available on financial markets, bound by working hours of exchanges, custodians, clearing houses and other financial intermediaries;
Access to new types of investors familiar with the industry, who will be willing to invest in security tokens to support technology based projects.
What elements of a security token can be designed with the use of Smart Assets?
Transferability of instruments and record keeping
Pre-emption rights: there are cases when a company’s shareholders are restricted from selling their shares to anyone except other shareholders. This restriction can be implemented in Smart Assets’ script, allowing the transfer of security tokens only between their holders. Qualification of investors: in some cases securities can be offered only to qualified or accredited investors. Breaching this requirement can lead to negative implications and fines for the issuers. Smart Assets’ script can incorporate a restriction allowing their transfer only to investors classified by the issuer as qualified or accredited. Record keeping: the issuer may be required to keep record of all its shareholders. Issuing a share in form of a Smart Asset creates an electronic database of shareholders on the blockchain, which is updated in real time taking into account every transaction with tokens between the investors.
Convertible instruments
Issuers can establish certain conditions for converting financial instruments into another type of security. For example, if a predetermined date is reached, an equity warrant can be converted into a share in the company. Such conditions can be implemented into Smart Assets and become automatically enforceable by the script, significantly reducing the burden for the administration of the conversion process.
Payments and redemption
A process for periodical payments could be made substantially simpler and cheaper thanks to cutting intermediaries. If securities are issued on the blockchain, payments are made to token holders’ addresses, known to the issuers, which reduces the costs for payment administration.
Also, with Smart Assets, a new payment option can be introduced allowing to calculate periodical payments based on a certain set of requirements. For example, the amount of dividends paid to a specific investor could increase depending on the amount of time for which the token is held by such an investor (so called “loyalty dividends”).
In addition to periodical payments, securities have a redemption price, which can be fixed or calculated upon certain conditions. Those conditions can be implemented in Smart Assets’ script, making the redemption process fully automated for the issuers.
Workable Solution for Financial Markets
Smart Assets represent a perfect solution for business models that require implementation of restrictions, required for compliance or other reasons.
Just about any product to be offered in the financial services industry without breaching applicable laws and regulations, specifically when regulated cryptocurrency exchange or security token offerings are involved, is set to face restrictions.
However, the good news is that Tokenomica offers a workable solution for regulatory challenges in the financial markets. | https://medium.com/wavesprotocol/solving-challenges-with-smart-assets-aee3ab6e1f39 | ['Waves Tech'] | 2019-01-15 12:04:34.213000+00:00 | ['Waves', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Tokenomica', 'Blockchain Technology'] |
I just binged watched The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell and I have a theory as to why it was denied a second season — Technology. | I just binged watched The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell and I have a theory as to why it was denied a second season — Technology. Tracy E. McDowell Follow Oct 10, 2020 · 5 min read
The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell is a delectable morsel of antique manic pixie dream girl meets effortless goth goddess seasoned with delicate confections like gingerbread haunted mansions and candy spiders that seem too good to be true — and I think the too good to be true is the show's downfall.
Let me explain: fresh off completing my Digital Wellness Institute Certification I am seeing everything I encounter through the lens of a tech-ethicist, tech-philosopher, tech-educator. Digital wellness is optimized technology use. My interest in tech-life balance is two-fold. Personally, I struggled, and struggle, with technology addiction. Professionally, as a feng shui consultant with Nested Feng Shui, I saw how digital spaces impeded positive progress in my clients’ homes and that when I incorporated tech-placement for balance + digital space organization (i.e. clearing clutter from home screens, desktops, and email inboxes — in a practice I call “digital laundry”) they began to feel more at ease. As technology is not going anywhere, learning how to live in harmony with both our digital and physical spaces is necessary if we want to succeed.
So, how does digital wellness equate to a TV show being canceled on Netflix before its time?
After blissfully binging the entire first season on Netflix just now, all six episodes in rapid succession, I have an educated guess as to why it was not picked back up.
Success requires engagement, and Netflix does not build engagement. Thus the Curious Confections of Christine McConnell, in my option, died— not by hatchet or arson — but by the “bottomless bowl.”
“The Bottomless Bowl is a term coined by tech-ethicist Tristan Harris that describes a design feature of technology that eliminates stopping cues for people so they consume more content than they naturally would” (Digital Wellness Institute).
I believe, that if McConnell’s show had aired a decade earlier — in that sweet spot just before DVR — the Curious Confections of Christine McConnell would have taken off and carried on for seasons, developing a larger cult following than it already has. Think Barefoot Contessa meets late 90’s cool coven of mall goths who said, “you laugh because I’m different. I laugh because you’re all the same.” Pre-smartphone there was a market for calming cooking shows with stunning slow pans and elaborate spreads, as well as, dark, tongue-in-cheek alternative aesthetics. Most importantly, TVs in the early 2000s had built-in cues to stop consuming after an episode.
Flash forward to 2020, with the 15-second autoplay and tv shows are operating in new territory. Now we are tasked with overcoming built-in “triggers, internal or external causes that make us engage in a particular action” (Digital Wellness Institute). Autoplay is an example of a trigger that leads to more TV consumption. You are not alone if you find it nearly impossible to overcome, it is built that way on purpose. Attention spans are shortening. It reminds me of audiences switching from three-hour operas to an hour and a half plays with no intermission. Now, with TikTok, the average piece of content is 15 seconds long. Christine’s show was made for a bygone era of television viewing — more like the black and white golden girls episodes that she plays on her vintage TV set while embroidering — a time before digital addiction.
“Digital Addiction is a form of problematic behavior that shows symptoms of behavioral addiction, such as dependency and continuous use, despite knowing about the negative effects the technology produces in one’s life.” (Digital Wellness Institute).
Technology companies are capitalizing on getting their “users” “hooked” on their social media platform, app, and interface. “In 2017, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said at an industry summit that his company’s real competitor is . . . sleep. ‘You get a show or a movie you’re really dying to watch, and you end up staying up late at night, so we actually compete with sleep,’ Hastings said (Vanity Fair; Bradley, 2019).
We live in an attention economy, where the biggest commodity corporations are competing for is where we place our eyeballs (thank you for reading this). Even with the exceptional Dita Von Tease making ghostly appearances, even with the Henson Alternative building mind-blowing puppets for the show, even with an incredible set, cast, creative team, and unimaginable amounts of royal icing gluing it all together the problem is that the Curious Confections of Christine McConnell can be consumed in six twenty-minute episodes (presumably back-to-back with Netflix’s autoplay) and only holds viewers attention for about two hours. Sadly, the hours of work, the mind-bending detail, and the exceptional work put into making this midnight-tinted treasure of a show are lost on a Netflix binge.
I came to Christine McConnell through YouTube, and I think her content thrives there. YouTube users are used to engaging and disengaging with creators on YouTube because the platform does not facilitate the single-show- bottomless-bowl consumption like Netflix, to an extent. I hope Netflix sees the error of their ways and invests in Christine and her curious creations again. This time, taking time to release new episodes over long periods of time, with more trailers and teasers so that viewers can engage with the material at the pace that matches a show about creative homemaking and embracing the unknown. That is my wish, for the show to come back as it ought to be approached, over time, unfolding with the literal seasons (like TV shows used to).
One last note, living artists deserve to get paid, because as a deceased artist Pablo Picasso once said, “Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth,” and in 2020 we need the truth that comes from the Curious Confections of Christine McConnell. A show serving good clean escapism in pastels, lace, and puppets while subtly teaching us to slow down, pay attention to the details, embrace our weird, and get creative with the day to day chores of living, cooking, and most importantly sharing a house — with creatures, pets, or even ourselves.
In short, The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell died a premature death, like its villain Evie, at the hands of the actual villain Netflix: and the technology features built into tech to keep us hooked like autoplay, bottomless-bowl scrolls, and most importantly an audience wildly unaware of how digital addiction and the attention economy affects the creation of art we love. | https://medium.com/digitalwellnesscollective/i-just-binged-watched-the-curious-creations-of-christine-mcconnell-and-i-have-a-theory-as-to-why-afbed8d9351e | ['Tracy E. Mcdowell'] | 2020-10-11 17:05:19.923000+00:00 | ['Digital Wellness', 'Technology News', 'Netflix Originals', 'Halloween', 'Television'] |
Executives Do Not Give A Flying Fuck About “Burnout” | I’ve written a couple of times about burnout at work — see here, here, and here — and while I think it sucks and way more people experience it than should experience it, I do not buy the whole thing about how it’s a “crisis,” which was a 2019 theme “from moms to medical doctors.”
Here’s some of my thinking →
Semantically
For something to be a “crisis,” the top people — the “decision-makers” — of an ecosystem need to care about it. For example, climate change has only very recently truly become a crisis, because now some world leaders are like “Oh, this is not looking good.” That’s really only happened in the last 10–15 years, if not less than that.
The problem with burnout and work is that the top people absolutely tend to love work. Building wealth and influence is “the closest thing they have to fun.”
In fact, one of the most popular articles on The New York Times this year was entitled “Why don’t rich people just stop working?” I want you to pay particular attention to this pull quote:
“Once they have no financial need to work — are ‘post-economic,’ as some say in San Francisco — they have trouble shifting into lower gears,” Mr. Ferriss wrote. “They’re like drag racers who now have to learn to navigate the turns and intersections of neighborhoods at 30 miles per hour.”
Yep, that would be from Tim Ferriss. And how douchebag-y a thing to say is “post-economic?”
Anyway, the point is: Burnout is normative for people who come to run companies. They see no other path. Burn the candle at both ends, crush rivals, make money. If you do the same — i.e. create your own burnout — maybe you can get to the perks level. If you choose to leave, usually the narrative is “He/she couldn’t hack it.” That’s how it’s been everywhere I have ever worked, without exception. So, if you want more money and freedom and authority, you essentially need to burn yourself out.
Executives do not care about “burnout” as an issue. They don’t see that as a “crisis.” They see it as the only path up the mountain.
Individually
As much as we do not openly discuss this, work is largely about two things:
We gussy this up in lots of other bullshit, notably:
Productivity!
Innovation!
Mission!
Vision!
Purpose!
That’s all a bit tedious. For most people, if they’ve worked at an innovative, mission-driven place but they lacked all semblance of control and relevance, they’d hate it. It’s the same kind of thing where people have their first kid and say “Oh, I live for this being now” but spend 15 hours/day at work. You need the money to make the kid’s life good. You need the control and relevance to make the work good. The kid matters a lot, sure. The innovation also matters a lot. But without the first bricks in those walls, you’re less happy.
Many people burn themselves out precisely for this reason — it gets you to a greater position of relevance and control because you’re seen as someone who can “always be counted on” and “drops everything for the team” and “runs through walls.” In reality this is a horrible way to spend your 20s, 30s, and 40s, and I know many people who have lost relationships over it. But, it’s common because we want relevance and control, and often to get at those things, we need to burn ourselves out.
The other issue is layoffs. That’s normative in middle-sized to big companies. They happen annually, if not more. The surest-fire way to protect yourself from getting #piped is to be seen as essential, and — see above — the only thing executives view as essential is, basically, people who burn themselves out on work tasks. So, if you want to keep your salaried income, you often need to burn yourself out to avoid layoff cycles.
Unscientific experiment that I would virtually guarantee is true: Find an employee who is insanely productive (not in sales) but isn’t at his/her desk at 6:15pm some nights, OK? Now find an employee who sits on The Gram all day but is sometimes seen at work at 7:30pm. When the layoffs come, the second person will be protected. The first person will be fired. People equate “being physically present” with “dominating work,” which is the dumbest thing this side of “If you make a lot of money, you must be smart.”
(I excluded sales because sales is much more actually number-driven, and #piping layoffs in sales have more objectivity, IMHO.)
We burn ourselves out, then, because it’s often the only path through. Hence, if it’s self-inflicted in many ways, is it a “crisis?”
But Ted, what of bad managers?
Oh yes, they exist. I have been writing about them for over six years now pretty consistently. 8 in 10 managers are typically not good at their jobs. We’ve known this for a hot minute. Despite our best intentions, bad management does not evolve out.
And yes, bad managers cause burnout — so in that way, it’s not entirely “self-inflicted.” In fact, you have enough bad managers in your life and you might die prematurely. Comforting thought, eh?
Bad managers are a part of the equation. Leadership is hard AF! And yes, the hiring market sucks unless you know people or have insanely-specialized skills (fuck this “rise of the generalist” nonsense; hiring managers and recruiters do not think that way. Academics do.) But there are limits. If you have an ass clown of a boss, you can (a) leave, (b) have a conversation with them, etc. It doesn’t have to be work work work Netflix Netflix Netflix work work work meeting meeting meeting, you know? There are, at least in theory, options.
So can we “solve” burnout?
Writ large, absolutely not.
Individually, yes. We just need to adjust our specific priorities.
The mentality of people who “run” companies and organizations in this world is actually driven both by and towards burnout as an ideology. It’s almost akin to a religion in some ways. So no, we’re never going to solve it.
Just do your best to focus on what really should matter to you, while keeping the inputs semi-humming. That should avoid you feeling that you’re in a burnout “crisis.” | https://blog.startupstash.com/executives-do-not-give-a-flying-fuck-about-burnout-9fd91b88b660 | ['Ted Bauer'] | 2021-09-07 05:26:14.174000+00:00 | ['Management And Leadership', 'Burnout', 'Future Of Work', 'Work', 'Stress'] |
Startups: Don’t Waste Your Time Pitching Without a Valuation Cap | Startups: Don’t Waste Your Time Pitching Without a Valuation Cap
What’s Today’s Discount on Your Convertible Note? Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been pitched by a large number of promising startups offering unacceptable terms. After convincing me they have an important new product with a great opportunity and a killer team, we get to the financing.
The deal terms are a convertible note or a SAFE with a 20% discount and no valuation cap. I let out a big groan. I just wasted an hour. I sure hope these uncapped deals I’m being pitched recently are a coincidence and not a trend.
I will not invest in an uncapped note or SAFE. Please consider offering a reasonable valuation cap. If you don’t know what valuation cap to use, I’m happy to work with you on that. But don’t waste your time pitching me on an uncapped note or SAFE.
What Is an Uncapped Note?
A convertible note is legally a loan, with the full amount converted to preferred shares when the startup raises its Series A round. (See my previous article for a detailed explanation of convertible notes and SAFEs.)
As a loan, the convertible note has a maturity date prior, typically 18–24 months, by which time the startup must raise the Series A round, or at least in theory, is on the hook for repayment. (Since repayment is impossible, an extension is almost always negotiated.)
A SAFE is similar: the investor pays her money now and gets stock when the Series A is raised. Unlike a convertible note, the SAFE has no maturity date or deadline, so Series A could be years away.
Both the convertible note and SAFE have 4 options for offering an investor an incentive to invest at an earlier, risky stage:
valuation cap
discount
most favored nation (MFN)
Without a valuation cap or discount, my early investment is converted to equity at the same price as the Series A investors. My only reward for investing before the big boys is that I’m being allowed to invest at all. If Elon Musk offers me this deal, I might consider it. Anyone else, no thank you.
The valuation cap is a limit on the price I pay for the shares. When my investment is converted to stock, I get the same price as the Series A investors up to the limit of the cap. If the cap is $10M and Series A is priced at $20M, I purchase my stock at the $10M valuation. If Series A is priced at $5M, I get the stock at the $5M valuation.
A discount means I pay the same price per share as the Series A investors minus a percent discount, kind of like a Bed Bath & Beyond coupon. A typical discount is 20%. If my SAFE includes a 20% discount and the Series A valuation is $10M, I buy my shares at $8M.
MFN means I get the lowest price per share any investor has negotiated. If investor 1 has a $5M cap, investor 2 has a 20% discount, and the Series A valuation is $10M, if I have a MFN clause, I get a price per share based on the $5M cap.
These terms are not exclusive. A convertible note typically has both a valuation cap and a discount, and sometimes an MFN clause, too.
What’s Wrong With an Uncapped Note?
An uncapped note or SAFE is any option that doesn’t include a valuation cap. For early-stage investors, this is a horrible choice.
At the pre-seed stage where I usually invest, let’s say a startup I’m considering has a valuation of somewhere in the $10M range.
In the 18 months from when I invested in the SAFE until VCs are interested in a Series A round, the product has gone from basic MVP to generating significant revenue. The valuation should jump to something like $20M or possibly higher.
Strictly from a financial perspective, a 20% discount off the Series A price for investing at an earlier stage is hardly a good deal.
Worse, a year later, instead of raising a Series A that would convert my investment at the $20 million valuation, the startup decides to raise another round of convertible notes. Now I’m really screwed. Because another 12 months later, if the company has hit its milestones, the valuation might reach $50M. Even with the discount, I’m paying $40M for a stock that was worth $10M when I bought it. As an investment, that makes absolutely no sense at all.
The one situation where this might conceivably make sense is if the startup is already far along in the process of negotiating the Series A and needs a little cash to tide it over until the deal is done. In other words, 20% might be a fair discount for a 3-month period.
But even in this situation, it puts the risk on me that the startup successfully completes the Series A raise. And if it raises enough money on this “temporary” bridge note instead, it might decide to postpone the Series A for a year or two, leaving me holding the bag.
So even in this situation, I insist on a valuation cap. In fact, in this case setting the cap is easy since it can be a 20% discount from the valuation being offered to Series A investors.
Founders have argued that if the company will be worth $20M in 18 months and $50M in 36 months, why not accept a 20% discount from the $20M valuation now? After all, if someone offered me the right to purchase Apple stock at 20% off its valuation in 18 months, I might consider it.
However, that misses the entire point of valuations in early-stage startups. The valuation is $10M now and $20M in 18 months because with only an MVP and a skeleton team, the company has twice the risk of failure as it will after hitting 18 months of milestones and building customers. Apple has essentially zero chance of failing in the next 18 months.
Despite all the pretty slides on the deck and the wonderful promises of world-changing success, I estimate the odds that even the most promising startups will hit their revenue projections at about 1 in 25 at best. If you do, congratulations! Your startup deserves the higher valuation at that time. But most startups will struggle, and many will fail. The valuation is much lower now reflecting the higher risk.
So if you’re pitching me, either offer me a set price for preferred shares, or a convertible note or SAFE with a valuation cap. Without a cap I’m not investing, so don’t waste your time pitching.
Note: to keep the explanation simple, I’ve ignored the difference between pre-money and post-money valuations. Convertible notes are based on pre-money valuation. SAFEs are now based on post-money valuation. If the startup has raised a large amount in early rounds, the difference between pre-money and post-money valuations can make a huge difference in the price actually paid for the stock. | https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/startups-dont-waste-your-time-pitching-without-a-valuation-cap-361489443454 | ['Dc Palter'] | 2021-09-13 15:02:27.464000+00:00 | ['Venture Capital', 'Pitching', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Funding', 'Startup'] |
Robust Covariance for Anomaly Detection | New technologies like the internet of things combined with artificial intelligence are enablers of interesting applications such as predictive maintenance, i.e., autonomously assessing the condition of equipment in order to estimate when maintenance should be performed. For this purpose, it is important to have mathematical models that can distinguish between “normal” and “non-normal” behavior of the equipment, a task called anomaly detection. Equipped with all kinds of sensors, a machine or device can use this collection of sensor data (e.g., temperature, fan speed, pressure, flow rate, etc.) to assess its state and call for service if necessary; the more its behavior deviates from its reference state just after fabrication, the more it will need maintenance.
In statistics, deviation can be assessed by the Z-score. The generalization of the Z-score for a point x_i in the case of a p-dimensional multi-variate probability distribution with some mean μ and covariance matrix Σ is known as Mahalonobis distance d_i , which is given by:
Equation 1: Mahalonobis distance (image by author).
This metric assesses how many standard deviations σ away x_i is from μ, thereby being dimensionless. An extreme observation has a large distance from the center of a distribution. It is useful in predictive maintenance as it enables finding unusual behavior of a system; upcoming down-times and malfunction can be targeted and identified, which is particularly important since finding faults in equipment, machines, and devices early can reduce the extent of the damage.
Given a data set X with n samples in p variables (i.e, data from p sensors), mean and covariance matrix are easily computed. However, in the presence of outliers, both are distorted and the Mahalonobis distance is rendered useless, hence a robust method, i.e., a method that is little affected by outliers, would be desired. In Figure 1, a Gaussian distribution for some two-dimensional sensor data set X is plotted; just like with the Z-score (e.g., ±1.96σ), an envelope around the data set can be constructed by choosing a critical value of the Mahalonobis distance. Points outside this envelope are considered anomalies/outliers.
Figure 1: Gaussian distribution for a 2-dimensional data set (image by author).
Robust covariance methods are based on the fact that outliers lead to an increase of the values (entries) in Σ, making the spread of the data apparently larger. Consequently, |Σ| (the determinant) will also be larger, which would theoretically decrease by removing extreme events. Rousseeuw and Van Driessen developed a computationally efficient algorithm that can yield robust covariance estimates (Figure 2). Their method is based on the assumption that at least h out of the n samples are “normal” (h is a hyperparameter). The algorithm starts with k random samples with (p+1) points. For each of the k samples, μ, Σ, and |Σ| are estimated, the distances are calculated and sorted in increasing order, and the h smallest distances are used to update the estimates. In their original publication, the subroutine of computing distances and updating the estimates of μ, Σ, and |Σ| is called a “C-step”. They figured out that two such steps are sufficient to find good candidates (for μ and Σ) among the k random samples. In a next step, a subset of size m with the lowest |Σ| (the best candidates) is considered for computation until convergence, and the one estimate whose |Σ| is minimal is returned as output.
Figure 2: Robust covariance algorithm by Rousseeuw and Van Driessen (image by author).
Note that the squared distance d_i^2 follows a Chi-square distribution with p degrees of freedom. To compute a critical distance (threshold) for the envelope, a quantile, i.e., the probability of observing a squared distance as extreme as the threshold — also known as p-value — is chosen, and the critical distance is then computed from the inverse cumulative distribution. (For one variable and a probability threshold/p-value of 0.05, the critical Chi-square value is 3.84, which corresponds to the squared distance; the square root of that is 1.96, which is consistent with the intuition for one dimension, e.g., from statistical tests.)
This algorithm is implemented in the elliptic envelope class of scikit-learn. Its most important hyperparameter is the amount of contamination ν, which is related to the parameter h in the original algorithm, since ν = 1-h/n. This hyperparameter has to be tuned to obtain the desired performance.
# Import libraries.
from sklearn.covariance import EllipticEnvelope # Fit detector.
detector = EllipticEnvelope(contamination=0.10, random_state=0)
is_outlier = detector.fit(X).predict(X)
The figure below demonstrates the ability to detect outliers of a p-dimensional sensor data set X in the principal component space of the sensor data, whereas the first two components are visualized.
Figure 3: Outlier detection with Mahalonobis distance (image by author).
The Mahalonobis distance is a simple and intuitive method that can perform well when the data is close to normally distributed. In other cases, the envelope might be not fitting perfectly around the data, but non-parametric methods such as one-class support vector machine or isolation forest have been developed as well. In practice, different algorithms have to be evaluated — including hyperparameter optimization. Embedding these models in machines and devices can bring a lot of added-value and lead to competitive advantage, now it is up to research and development engineers/managers to spot such opportunities. | https://towardsdatascience.com/robust-covariance-for-anomaly-detection-9c68b1ec4c4b | ['Georgi Tancev'] | 2020-12-28 13:39:20.516000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Algorithms', 'Mathematics', 'Statistics'] |
From combatant to civilian during COVID-19 | MONUSCO has provided food, clothes, as well as masks and sanitizers. The former foreign combatants have also been educated about hygiene practices and other preventative measures that can curb the spread of the virus. “We have received proper care. Despite movement restrictions due to the outbreak of COVID-19 that are not allowing us to go home, we are comfortable and have trust in the DDR system,” says Ndahimana Jean Damascene.
Ndahimana Jean Damascene only heard about the Coronavirus after he arrived at the transit centre. Now, he knows what the consequences would be if the virus were to further spread across his community back home. Thanks to the work MONUSCO is doing to prevent the propagation, he confidently claims that he “doesn’t fear COVID-19 while being in the camp.”
Long before the pandemic, however, he remembers fighting for the FDLR/FOCA (Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda/Forces Combattantes Abacunguzi).
“Life out there, in the bush, was difficult. You were not sure about the next day. […] Anything you needed, whether food or medicine, was a struggle. You were not sure about your personal security. You could not sleep because you never knew: another armed group could attack you at any time,” says Ndahimana Jean Damascene. Their future was sacrificed for a cause they no longer believed in.
In the Munigi transit centre, free from violence and safe from the spread of COVID-19, Ndahimana Jean Damascene, along with his compatriots Tumaini Balthasard and 18-year-old Habinshuti Sadiki, hope to leave their experiences as fighters behind. Though they previously fought in different armed groups, they now all share the same hope: going back home to their families and starting a new life, far away from guns and violence.
Once movement across borders are no longer restricted, Ndahimana Jean Damascene is looking forward to joining the Mutobo demobilization centre in Rwanda. “I expect to engage in a vocational training. I have seen that I will be able to manage and improve my life and the life of my family,” he affirms.
Ndahimana Jean Damascene encourages other ex-combatants not to fear prosecution when attending rehabilitation programmes or upon their return to Rwanda. A path towards peace and rebuilding a life back home is possible, according to him. “It is time to reintegrate back into a normal life,” he declares.
Just like MONUSCO, other missions such as MINUSCA, MINUSMA and UNAMID continue to implement their DDR mandate while adapting to new realities. Every day, their interventions assist former combatants, their dependents and the communities that receive them in their journey towards peace. More information: https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/disarmament-demobilization-and-reintegration
Related article: Ex-combatants in the Central African Republic join the fight against COVID-19 | https://medium.com/we-the-peoples/from-combatant-to-civilian-during-covid-19-f6b9a43fae7f | ['Un Peacekeeping'] | 2020-08-21 14:09:11.821000+00:00 | ['United Nations', 'Reintegration', 'Peacekeeping', 'Disarmament', 'Covid 19'] |
Utah Becomes The Third U.S. Jurisdiction To Offer Blockchain-Based Mobile Voting | Utah County is the latest jurisdiction in the U.S. to implement blockchain-based mobile voting in their upcoming municipal primary election in August. Tusk Philanthropies, which aims to increase voter turnout and participation in U.S. elections, has partnered with the Utah County Elections Division, Voatz, and the National Cybersecurity Center, to offer a blockchain-based mobile voting pilot to active-duty military, their eligible dependents and overseas voters.
The pilot will be powered by Voatz, a mobile elections platform driven by military-grade technology that ensures safety and ease for individuals voting anywhere in the world. Last year in West Virginia, Voatz launched the first blockchain-based mobile voting solution used during a federal election. Voatz was also the underlying technology provider in Denver’s May 7th municipal election.
“Our technology has been used in West Virginia, Denver and is now being applied in Utah across nine different cities. The election in Utah will be smaller than the election in Denver, but the concept remains the same. We aim to make voting easy and safe for overseas citizens.” Nimit Sawhney, CEO and co-founder of Voatz, told me.
According to Sawhney, election officials in Utah County and across the country are recognizing that current absentee voting methods are insufficient, specifically for active military members and overseas citizens. In turn, many individuals living abroad are less likely to vote. Data from the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) reflects this, showing that in 2016 there were 3 million U.S. citizens living abroad whom cast approximately 208,000 ballots. The overseas voter turnout was just 7% compared to a domestic turnout of 72%.
“Election officials in Utah County and across the country are recognizing that current absentee voting methods are not sufficient. Members of the military who are stationed overseas or young people serving missions around the world should be able to take advantage of the latest advances in smartphone hardware, encryption and blockchain technology to cast their ballot. We are delighted that voters in Denver, West Virginia and now Utah County have had an opportunity to evaluate the security and ease of voting from a mobile device.”
The pilot will largely be used by troops serving abroad, who have traditionally had to rely on using absentee paper ballots, making it difficult to participate in elections. According to the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission, nearly 300,000 overseas voters requested ballots, but were unable to return them to their county clerks back home in the 2016 elections.
“Utah’s pilot is another sign that the momentum for mobile voting in our country is very real and supports our theory that when you show people a much better way to do something, there becomes a demand for it,” said Bradley Tusk, founder and CEO of Tusk Philanthropies. “As we enter into a Presidential election year, we have to continue to remove as many barriers and hurdles as possible so a lot more people are able to participate in our democracy.”
Blockchain’s Role
While mobile voting makes it easier for overseas citizens to cast their votes, blockchain technology adds ease, transparency and security.
“Voatz uses biometrics, ID verification and blockchain technology as a unique mechanism for data security and post election auditing. The process begins with overseas citizens applying for an absentee ballot. Once a county clerk verifies users information, they can download the Voatz app on their smartphone. Full identification verification is required, along with a ‘video motion selfie,’ used for facial recognition matching. Once everything is approved, users will receive a mobile ballot, which is fully anonymous and stored on a blockchain network. A fingerprint is needed to unlock it,” explained Sawhney.
The Voatz mobile election platform is powered by Hyperledger Fabric, the enterprise grade blockchain framework hosted by the Linux Foundation. The voting database is distributed across 32 computing nodes on machines hosted by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, all within the geographical bounds of the U.S. Voatz monitors the nodes alongside select nonprofits that act as independent supervisors.
“Just as voters using the platform must go through a vetting process before voting, those who want to run a node, also known as the auditors in this case, must be vetted. In the Denver election, eighteen people signed up to be auditors, which laid the foundation for this,” said Sawhney.
It’s also important to point out that the Voatz platform doesn’t rely on cryptocurrency. According to Swahney, in the case of voting, cryptocurrency shouldn’t be applied as an incentive mechanism in order to avoid conflicts.
“We don’t have cryptocurrency as an incentive mechanism because we want to avoid conflicts of interest and legal complications that might arise in terms of having to pay someone to audit a transaction. Everything across the network is done from goodwill to support transparent democracy, which is all compliant with U.S. regulations.”
Data Security Of Electronic Voting Systems
However, while a blockchain-based mobile application may ease the process for overseas voters to cast their ballots, data security behind electronic voting systems remains questionable.
Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, in which Russian hackers attempted to delete and alter voter data, concerns have been raised regarding data protection. Yet according to Swahney, blockchain ensures data protection much more efficiently than traditional electronic voting systems.
“No voter identifiable information is being stored on the blockchain, just the cast ballots. The public can also access the blockchain as well and do individual analysis without knowing who voted. This is a big step toward creating transparency. The other challenge of electronic voting is the question of how to keep data tamper resistant from the time when the voters cast their ballots to when the tabulation happens. Using blockchain helps with this, plus it has auditing capabilities that adds transparency and verifiability of the whole transaction.”
During the Denver election, The National Cybersecurity Center (NCC) provided an open audit to the public to ensure that voter’s choices were honored.
“On Election Day, a county clerks will receive two sets of keys to unlock the digital lock box that hold the records on the blockchain. They then print those ballots and scan them in. Voters will receive a digitally signed receipt once they submit their ballots and the jurisdiction will get an anonymous copy. Once the election is over, the jurisdiction uses anonymous receipts and compares those with the printed ballot and data on the blockchain,” explained Swahney.
While Voatz is only applicable for overseas military personnel and their families eligible to vote in Utah, Swahney mentioned that next steps are to extend the technology to people with disabilities.
“In a post election survey from the Denver Elections Division, 100% of respondents said they favored secure mobile voting over all methods available to them. Next on our roadmap is to learn from every pilot we do and make improvements. For example, from the West Virginia election we learned how to make the post election audit process more collaborative so that citizens can participate with county clerks. In the future, we want to expand this to those with disabilities and will work on making the platform more accessible.” | https://medium.com/hackernoon/utah-becomes-the-third-u-s-jurisdiction-to-offer-blockchain-based-mobile-voting-2ba89e7fc74a | ['Rachel Wolfson'] | 2019-07-24 23:19:47.881000+00:00 | ['Mobile Apps', 'Utah', 'Blockchain', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Hackernoon Top Story'] |
A Guide to Cryptocurrency and Forex Trading | There are different ways through which people trade forex and other assets in the financial sphere these days. With the introduction of the different cryptocurrency through the use of the blockchain, the trading platforms have taken a whole different outlook.
Traditionally, forex trading platforms have had various difficulties and challenges in the not too far past. The solution, however, seems to be proffered by the different available cryptocurrencies operating on the blockchain technology platform. In order to fully shed more light on this, it is important to consider what the blockchain technology is.
What Is Blockchain Technology?
As the name already states, the blockchain technology is a sequence of blocks which are chained together and made available through a publicly available ledger. This ledger is distributed among the users on the network of this technology. The blockchain network is very beneficial for several reasons:
· Security of data
· Immutable ledger
· Fast transactions
· Worldwide Reach
· Increase financial security
What Is Forex Trading?
This is the decentralized global market where different currencies from different people from around the world are traded. Through the different forex trading platforms, more than $5 trillion is being traded per day. The foreign exchange or better still, currency exchanger, is the most liquid market in the world.
Through forex trading and its different trading platforms, there are investment opportunities that include the profitability of interested parties. You can completely go from a total novice to a professional forex trader in a short period. To accomplish this, you need to trade on the online forex trading platform.
What Are Forex Trading Platforms?
These are platforms through which you can carry out your currency exchanges form anywhere around the world. Through forex trading platforms, you get the pathway to trading your preferred currencies.
There are several platforms through which you can trade. Trading platforms now have different seasoned traders that can direct your trading patterns for the best result. There are numbers of useful top-notch information to improve your knowledge of trading.
Cryptocurrency Trading
Unlike fiats or traditional currencies, the cryptocurrencies are digital currencies which are totally decentralized. They work on the blockchain technology platform for various uses.
These cryptocurrencies are not being controlled by any central administrator. This has made the usefulness of the different cryptocurrencies increases and for different purposes.
The trading of the different cryptocurrencies is quite different from the traditional trading method. Instead of trading with the traditional fiat currency, the cryptocurrency trading platform uses different cryptocurrencies for trading. The cryptocurrency trading platforms also runs on the blockchain technology platform.
Popularly known cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, is one of the world most traded cryptocurrency. Learning how to trade Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is a powerful skill for you. Since making a profit on the forex trading platforms is basically hinged on the difference in prices, the cryptocurrencies and digital assets are well known for their volatility and constantly changing prices. If you can understand which to buy and sell and at what period, you are well equipped to make a profit.
The trading of the bitcoin started as far back as 2009. At that time, the bitcoin was worth about cents and the early buyers are now liable to make millions of dollars if they decide to sell now. Through the cryptocurrency trading, a number of traders have become million dollars rich today.
How to Trade Cryptocurrencies On Trading Platforms?
Similar to the traditional foreign exchange platforms, the cryptocurrency trading platforms are there for the trading and exchange of cryptocurrencies. Between two parties, the cryptocurrency trading could occur by exchanging cryptocurrencies with another cryptocurrency. It could also be carried out by exchanging cryptocurrency with fiat currency. All these depend on the trading platform and the laid down policies.
Another notable way of trading cryptocurrency is through the exchange of crypto contract for difference (CFDs). Trading through this method, you trade through a preferred cryptocurrency broker or bitcoin trade broker. Through the contract for difference method, you do not necessarily have to have any cryptocurrency to trade. There are a number of benefits for trading using the contract for difference avenue. Some of which include a bigger profit on the cryptocurrency trading activities of the trader. Also, you do not get to worry about the security and storage of your digital currency.
Finding the Right Broker Online
There are several top online brokers which you can trust with your cryptocurrency trading activities. Finding the right broker and the right online platform to trade on is the main issue.
Signing up with a trusted and reliable cryptocurrency broker is quite important. You get direct forex and cryptocurrency trading actions through access to a wide range of digital assets and currencies on the secured trading platform.
It is very important that you register with a top broker for the success of your online trading actions. The broker offers you all that you need for effective and successful forex and currency trading activities. The offered advantages include
· Access to charting and analytic tools
· Depth of educational resources on trading
· Less stress banking process
· Unique trading preference and trading methods
There are exchange brokers regulation body which regulates the activities of brokers. You can rest assured of the different activities carried out by your preferred exchange broker. You can get online broker reviews of online exchange brokers that you can trust with your exchange activities.
Wrapping it up
With a wide range of trading exchange platforms and a huge number of registered brokers on these platforms, it is very important that you settle for a trusted online exchange broker. You should always look out for a transparent and secure trading platform. This could also have a multilingual service with a wide choice of tradable assets and currencies.
Also, you must bear in mind that your trading action would bring both profits with a few loses. You should be able to bear these loses and enjoy the profit when it comes.
Happy trading! | https://medium.com/hackernoon/a-guide-to-cryptocurrency-and-forex-trading-af9adcd05db0 | ['Aashish Sharma'] | 2019-06-20 04:33:28.075000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Trading System', 'Forex', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
The Flow | Can you just go with the flow?
When there are things you want, things you’d like to accomplish how will you get them? Remember there are forces around you that you cannot control (ie: people and their actions). This flow is a stream that deviates many times and there is a point where you will have to ask yourself if you trust things enough to just go with them.
The Flow, when you go with it be knowledgeable and trust the steadiness and destination. | https://medium.com/joshhallman/the-flow-dd4267d0032c | ['Josh Hallman'] | 2016-06-12 03:03:20.188000+00:00 | ['Flow', 'Days'] |
Regarder!!British Open golf 2019 En Direct streaming | open championship en direct streaming
US Open Championship — 15 juin 2017
=+?>(`2–0–1–9`)+>*[((!!DIRECT-TV-izle])* The Open Championship 2019 En Direct Streaming Live 18 juillet 2019
regarder gratsi tv ver online broadcast US. GOLF 2019 British Open Direct,,GOLF 2019 00,013 06
Watch US Open Live — 2019 US Open Championship | USGA
=+?>(`2–0–1–9`)+>*[((!!DIRECT-TV-izle])* The Open Championship 2019 En Direct Streaming Live 18 juillet 2019 regarder gratsi tv ver online broadcast US. GOLF 2019 British Open Direct,,GOLF 2019 00,013 04
Watch US Open Live — 2019 US Open Championship | USGA
=+?>(`2–0–1–9`)+>*[((!!DIRECT-TV-izle])* The Open Championship 2019 En Direct Streaming Live 18 juillet 2019 regarder gratsi tv ver online broadcast US. GOLF 2019 British Open Direct,,GOLF 2019 00,013 07
The Open: Watch Live coverage on Golf Channel and NBC | Golf …
Golf Live Extra Now Available
PGA TOUR LIVE coverage of the Dell Technologies Championship
PGA TOUR Live coverage of 2018 BMW Championship
2019 British Open TV schedule, coverage, channel, live stream, watch …
Il y a 8 heures — How to watch every single moment of the 2019 Open Championship on TV or streaming live online.
British Open live stream: How to watch the 2019 Open Championship …
Traduire cette page
Il y a 13 heures — Curious how to watch the British Open? Here is the full TV schedule and all of the ways to live stream the tournament.
How to Watch the Open Championship: Start Times, Live Stream …
Traduire cette page
Il y a 9 heures — The 2019 Open Championship is taking place this week in Northern Ireland. Here’s all your info on timings and getting an Open live stream.
Livestream The 2019 British Open from Royal Portrush | Golf Channel
stream.golfchannel.com/british-open-watch-live-rd1
Traduire cette page
Stream The 2019 Open from Royal Portrush. Follow your favorite players as they compete for the coveted Claret Jug.
How to watch the 2019 Open: live stream the golf championship online …
Traduire cette page
Il y a 10 heures — See the birdies and the (many) bogeys at the 148th Open Championship. Watch the golf with a 2019 Open live stream from anywhere on Earth.
How to stream the 2019 British Open Championship online | CordCutters
Traduire cette page
Il y a 23 heures — This weekend, 152 top golf players will take to Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland for the 2019 Open Championship. (That’s the British …
British Open Live Stream: Watch Open Championship Live Online …
Traduire cette page
Il y a 20 heures — The best golfers in the world will have their last chance to win a major for the 2019 season when the Open Championship kicks off Thursday in …
PGA TOUR LIVE
Traduire cette page
Subscribe to PGA TOUR LIVE on NBC Sports Gold. NBC Sports Gold is NBC Sports’ direct-to-consumer live streaming product that provides sports fans with …
[#]Watch 148th British Open Championship Golf Live Stream Reddit …
Il y a 16 heures — Ready to watch British Open Championship online, check out all options including the Reddit Streams below. In a world full of some of the most …
Recherches associées à open championship en direct streaming
live golf streaming
pga tour live streaming free
pga live streaming
us open golf live
us open golf 2019
us open golf live streaming gratuit
golf streaming live online
free online live golf streaming
Navigation par pages | https://medium.com/@NBALives/regarder-british-open-golf-2019-en-direct-streaming-91a8e0faf685 | ['New Zealand Vs Canada'] | 2019-07-19 00:42:43.882000+00:00 | ['Live Streaming'] |
I made Lorca mundane | σ.
by keeping a copy of him
on my bedpost. I had thought
that this way, having it near my
head, I’d transfigure him
into my dreams,
but now I can’t even remember ‘em.
Perhaps the threefour hours
of insomniac sleep doesn’t gather
as much cells and dust as to liquefy
the dreams, still I were to recall
anything… anything at all!
They are hypocrites — these dreams,
these surrealists
(I made Lorca mundane,
ironic to his movement that aims
to surprise) hypocrites —
with no reason behind them.
They are the traumatized mass,
refugees escaping the pain of reality,
who would rather please the eyes,
their shells with frail aesthetes
than feed the soul.
That is why I slowed down writing
poetry in the hope that something
meaningful will strike to base my
momentary shimmers upon,
and then that will be something
genuine… something breathing!
So I’d flip through the pages
of Lorca again, sniff that
maniac smell, place it back there
and go to sleep, or at least try.
ρ. Objectifying beauty.
τ. blur bird blues. | https://medium.com/lit-up/i-made-lorca-mundane-30df1bb1fece | [] | 2018-02-08 14:52:58.859000+00:00 | ['Art', 'Poetry', 'Philosophy', 'This Happened To Me', 'Life'] |
Career — Spy before you sign. Finding the job offer of your dreams is… | Finding the job offer of your dreams is only the first step, you still need to confirm that the reality behind the job description is what you are looking for…
During the whole process, the information asymmetry is growing in the company’s favour. While they learn much about you by asking questions and proposing tests, you’ll have limited options to gain insights about the company.
How to evaluate the atmosphere of a company from the outside?
Find out all you need about your potential future employer
To research a company and its employees, almost nothing is as powerful as LinkedIn. It is the first you can take to find possible insights of a company. While the information on the company page are rarely relevant (because marketing stuff 🤷♂️), old and current employees are a gold mine of information. By doing a direct search of a company, you can simply rebuild the current organisational chart of the company. It will help you to prepare for an interview, but the most telling part are the employees that used to work for the company. In this guide, we will use ManyChat as an example.
The turnover rate
First of all: what’s the ratio between current employees and the ones that left? There is no magic number, because every situation is different (company age, pivots, internships or permanent contracts, …), but trends are easy to spot. At ManyChat we can find 28 employees and 2 who left. That’s more than okay for a company that has been live for more than three years. The company is growing and not many are quitting the adventure.
To do a search with this filter, enter the name of the company in the search bar, then click on all filters. You can then filter by previous companies. The method shown in the picture below includes people who are still at ManyChat, but changed their position inside the company, so make sure to verify everyone’s profile.
Note: LinkedIn is not exhaustive, but it’s very rare for a person to completely update their experience.
General atmosphere
If you’re contacting current employees, they’ll probably be cautious and not very talkative. It thus does not make much sense. Previous employees on the other hand are usually much more honest and cooperative when you ask them your questions, which might be:
The reasons they left the company
The working conditions
More specific questions that relate to their previous position (the decision making in the tech team for example)
The actual organizational chart — who really takes decisions
If they maintained a good relations with their previous colleagues, mainly the managing team.
It’s up to you to define which questions enlighten your situation the most. The most important thing is to be polite and clear: explain your situation and people will usually be cooperative! For companies that are relatively mature, you can also check (Glassdoor)[https://www.glassdoor.fr/index.htm\].
Even though comments are anonymized, the date and position — crossed with LinkedIn — make it usually simple to find out who was writing. In any case, with salary insights and job interview questions, the information on the site is not completely irrelevant — especially if you plan to continue with the company. The tendencies that can be observed on the site will help you evaluate the dynamics and atmosphere of the company. If there are tensions, it will most certainly be observable in the comments.
Researching the managing team
Before throwing yourself into a startup adventure, it’s advisable to make sure your vision fits with the one of the managing team. It would be futile to give your all for a company which has the solely ambition to be bought, so the CEO can spend the rest of his life on an island. During your interview, these people will sell you the idea of building the next Google, while only trying to build up an image that sells. Nevertheless everything is known for the one looking in the right place.
Look for the CEO’s previous endeavours and try to find out how they evolved. You can even contact some of his/her previous employees and ask them about his leadership qualities.
And as always, don’t hesitate to dig deeper through social media and googling names. It might seem extremely tedious, but it usually worth it if you want to avoid problematic or conflicting situations.
Once the survey is conducted, next to being able to make an informed decision, you will also be well prepared for the negotiation to obtain the conditions and remuneration worthy of your expertise.
Prepare the next step
All the information you will have gathered during your research will be gunpowder for the interview and negotiations after. Never be afraid to dig deep, it shows interest, organisation and a certain attitude of trying to make the best out of a situation. However, do not put all your cards on the table.
Indeed, all this research allows you to create an asymmetry of information in your favour. You will know much more about your potential employers that they will know about you. This way, you will be in a position of strength to negotiate a better salary or more favorable working conditions.
Before it’s your turn to play, we have one last piece of advice, or rather one principle, which is better not compromised: believe only what is written on the contract. Too often, little extras are used to make you accept offers below your worth.
Most often it’s variable bonuses, which are agreed verbally and never explicit, nor written down. For developers, a classic is also the following promise: “one day, you’ll be CTO/Lead Developer.” Be careful, it might be a trap. The people that make the oral promise are often not stakeholders in the impact of it…
In any case never forget: | https://medium.com/guild-by-nexten-io/career-spy-before-you-sign-2541c509fed9 | [] | 2021-03-02 09:46:12.187000+00:00 | ['Job Search', 'Luxembourg', 'Career Guild', 'Nextenio'] |
Samsung SmartThings, Google Nest partnership kicks off | Samsung SmartThings is our current favorite smart home hub, and Google Nest cameras, smart thermostats, and doorbells are among our favorite smart home devices. As was announced in December 2020, the companies behind those products have forged a partnership that brings Nest devices into the SmartThings ecosystem via the Works with SmartThings certification program.
SmartThings users with Nest products can now incorporate those devices into SmartThings scenes and other automations alongside any other Works with SmartThings-certified products. Nest Camera and Nest Hello video doorbell users, for example, will be able to stream video to their Samsung TV or Family Hub refrigerator.
Google joins a host of other major brands in the Works with SmartThings program, including Arlo (security cameras), August (smart locks), Bose (speakers), First Alert (smoke detectors), Leviton (lighting controls), Lutron (lighting and smart shades), Ecobee (thermostats) Philips Hue (lighting), Ring (home security and lighting), Sonos (multi-room audio).
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@steve20060965/samsung-smartthings-google-nest-partnership-kicks-off-ed76adc0e9b1 | [] | 2021-01-27 16:49:25.978000+00:00 | ['Tvs', 'Consumer', 'Home Theater'] |
JAMAICA | JAMAICA
Are you looking for an uplifting , cool, awesome and great music to make your day?, elevate your day through heart warming, cool, amazing music. Kindly listen to this great and awesome song by #Jay Burna&FettyWap
https://music.apple.com/us/album/jamaica-feat-skye-single/1536148395
#applemusic #spotify #tikotkmusic #appleplaylist #popmusic#countrymusic #applemusicpromotion #amazonmusic | https://medium.com/@moraolprince/jamaica-9fb3ddd62437 | [] | 2020-12-17 02:11:35.245000+00:00 | ['Apple Music', 'Spotify', 'Pop Music', 'Pop Culture', 'Music'] |
I Have No Sexual Fantasies Due To Aphantasia | By Neesa Sunar
I only dream in words and feelings.
Aphantasia is a little-known condition that affects the mind’s “inner eye.” While most people are able to close their eyes and have real-feeling sensory experiences (visual, aural, and otherwise), I am without this ability. When I close my eyes, I see only darkness. And while others dream in full color and hear sounds, I only dream in words and feelings.
I used to think that my experience of darkness was like that of everyone else. We often use the same language to describe our thoughts and feelings, with there being no differentiation indicating our individual experiences like that in the mind’s eye. Once I learned about my difference of perception, I had vivid conversations with others who thought that my experience was foreign. For a while I felt broken and incomplete because I was missing out on something that was so basic for others, but these days, I do not feel so bad about it. It’s hard to miss what I have never had, and the idea of suddenly seeing pictures in my mind actually scares me.
Aphantasia exists on a broad spectrum. Although aphantasiacs experience a lack of sensory imagery in the mind, many with the condition still dream with full sensory imagery. Others experience face-blindness, struggling to recognize the most familiar of people. It is estimated that about 2% of the general populace are on the aphantasia spectrum. For me personally, I am 100% sensory-blind when both awake and asleep, but I do not have problems with recognizing faces.
It is widely accepted that aphantasia is a congenital condition, manifesting from birth onward. According to a study by Joel Pearson at the University of South Wales in Sydney, those without aphantasia have more activity in the prefrontal cortex in the brain. “The visual cortex is like a sketch pad; it’s where you create images,” said Pearson in New Scientist.
Given that the prefrontal cortex controls the visual cortex, this allows for what we call the mind’s eye, an ability to create visual images. Pearson’s same study found that electronic stimulation can enhance activity in the prefrontal cortex with technology called transcranial direct stimulation (tDCS), which can potentially allow for an aphantasiac to experience imagery instead of darkness. He posits that science’s ability to manipulate the mind’s eye — increasing or decreasing its strength — could affect everything from learning new ideas and making “moral decisions” to potentially decreasing image-based trauma or hallucinations among those who are schizophrenic.
I am definitely a sexual person, and desire sex in my life. However, due to my complete mental darkness, I am unable to have any visual sexual fantasies about future and/or possible sex. I always have known that my approach to desire is different from others, but could never put my finger on it until discovering I have aphantasia.
In my teens, while my peers began discovering their own senses of their sexuality, I remained — quite literally — in the dark. I always wondered how people just “knew” they were gay, or “knew” what they liked sexually. When people talked of having fantasies, I could not relate because I had none of my own.
As a teen, I had my own crushes and senses of attraction as well — albeit in a unique way. I focused on intellectual capacity and creativity, and found people attractive in the way one would marvel at an excellent work of art. While I many pined after handsome faces, I fell in love with a British theater actor from “Topsy Turvy,” a film about the collaboration between Gilbert and Sullivan, a Victorian librettist and composer duo who wrote famous operettas such as The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance. For me, creative expression and artistry are the bedrock of my sense of romance and sexuality.
Due to my complete mental darkness, I am unable to have any visual sexual fantasies about future and/or possible sex.
Yet as years passed, I still felt extreme anxiety because I had no sexual fantasies. I started to fear that I was gay because I did not fantasize about men, but there were never any thoughts about women either. I felt tremendously insecure in pursuing any sort of serious relationship. What if I choose a person of the wrong gender or gender identity?
Regarding my insecurities with sexuality, I have confided in close friends over the years, trying to gain perspective about what I really am. My friends always reassured me that whatever my sexuality is, it is a beautiful thing to celebrate and express. Yet it did not feel beautiful to me — it felt like a scary, gaping hole.
Beginning in 2015, I began browsing the online forums on the website of the Asexuality Visibility & Education Network (AVEN) to try and find answers for myself. It is a great place for me to visit when I have my questions about sexuality, where people are friendly and able to write without being under the influence of sexual excitement. It was not until 2018, at the age of 33, that someone mentioned that my lack of fantasies may be due to me having aphantasia. After briefly investigating the condition, I immediately realized that this was my experience and reality!
I inquired about aphantasia on AVEN, and some members professed having similar experiences to me. A casual poll in 2017 on AVEN asked members about having aphantasia, and 42.5% of 54 respondents said they were on the spectrum. This is far higher than the purported 2% in the general populace.
I then went on Facebook to join aphantasia groups for additional support, writing about how the condition gives me an experience similar to asexuality. Most people vehemently responded that they are absolutely not asexual, but that they experience sexuality in non-sensory ways. It appears there isn’t a reciprocal correlation — while asexuals may be more likely to have aphantasia, those with aphantasia are not more likely to be asexual.
What if I choose a person of the wrong gender or gender identity?
After discovering that I have aphantasia, I am now investigating ways for me to adapt and adjust. With my boyfriend — whom I find attractive both aesthetically and intellectually — I now keep my eyes open instead of closing them when we’re intimate. Seeing him visually helps me feel in the mood, and now I realize what my sexuality really is. I’m heterosexual, but also feel like I’m on the asexual spectrum by default. The term “demisexual” seems to suit me — I only experience attraction with someone I am profoundly emotionally connected to.
While my experiences are unusual, I do not believe my aphantasia is any sort of deficiency. Instead, I’ve grown to view it as something that makes me unique, and believe that my experience is just as valid as those of others. I also feel that my aphantasia allows for me to have heightened senses in other areas. I find joy in contemplating life and the people around me as philosophical fodder, all describable with florid language. I journal and write constantly, putting these feelings and observations down on paper. I like to imbibe my words with a rhythm and lilt that feels akin to music. I know that I approach writing in a unique way.
As I talk to people about my aphantasia, many people express intrigue about my condition. It can be a mind-bender for non-aphantasiacs to try and fathom my world of darkness, just as their vivid sensory imaginations are equally as foreign to me. Honest conversations allow for us to share our world views with one another, practice empathy, and celebrate our differences.
Imagine that. | https://medium.com/the-establishment/i-have-no-sexual-fantasies-due-to-aphantasia-767a60e61664 | ['The Establishment'] | 2019-03-04 21:15:23.033000+00:00 | ['Sex', 'Sexuality', 'Asexuality', 'Psychology', 'Aphantasia'] |
Aso Villa Reads for Wed. 09/12/2020 | Every day, we bring you the best stories that the Media is reporting about the Government of Nigeria
For the second time in about six months, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has lauded Nigeria’s leadership role in the quest for security in the Gulf of Guinea (GoG). In a letter addressed to the Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh, IMO specifically highlighted the agency’s contribution to the war against piracy and maritime crimes in the region, “including facilitation of the Suppression of Piracy and other Maritime Offences (SPOMO) Act, 2019, and initiation of the deep blue project.” [Vanguard]
Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has scheduled December 10 for the showcasing of innovations by five startups who won $10,000 each from NOGTECH Hackathon. The Nigerian Oil and Gas Technology (NOGTECH) Hackathon opened in July, when NCDMB called on startups, capable of solving crucial challenges facing Nigeria’s Oil & Gas Industry to apply for its $50,000 grant. According to a statement by NCDMB, “630 promising startups applied, and at the end of the screening phase, only 15 finalists were selected to proceed to NOGTECH Hackathon which held in September 2020 and spanned across three days. At the event crowning, five startups won and got $10,000 grant each”. The winners were AirSynQ, Homefort Energy, Gricd Mote, Kiakia Gas and Fuel Intellisense. [Vanguard]
The Federal Government has agreed to slash the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), known as petrol, by N5 from Monday next week. Sen. Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, disclosed this while addressing newsmen at the end of a closed-door meeting with the organised labour on Tuesday in Abuja. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting was necessitated by the increase of PMS from N160 per litre to N170 and the increase of electricity tariff. [Vanguard]
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in partnership with the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), has launched an Unconditional Cash Transfer project targeting the poor and vulnerable in the FCT, with a specific focus on women and youth. With a total contribution of N 264,499,200 million (equivalent to US $694,679.43), the project seeks to alleviate the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on beneficiaries and strengthen the resilience of communities in council areas across the FCT. 15,253 individual households in key hotspot areas across the FCT will benefit from the UNDP cash transfers, while 2,972 MSMEs and start-ups will receive funding for business continuity to help benefit their communities. [Vanguard]
The Nigerian Communications Commission has directed Mobile Network Operators to immediately suspend the sale and activation of new SIM cards to allow an audit of the Subscriber Registration Database. The Director, Public Affairs at NCC, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, in a statement on Wednesday, said it was absolutely necessary for operators to comply until the audit exercise had been concluded. According to him, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, directed the commission to embark on an audit of the Subscriber Registration Database. [Punch]
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Tuesday, met behind closed doors with the nation’s 36 state governors on the security challenges across the country. He explained that the closure of the nation’s land borders was partly an attempt to control the smuggling of weapons and drugs. Although state governors did not speak with State House correspondents at the end of the meeting held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the Presidency issued a statement quoting Buhari as asking the state governors to work more with traditional rulers and community members to improve local intelligence gathering that will aid the work of security agencies. [Punch]
The Federal Government on Tuesday said it would deploy science and technology in the exploitation of solid minerals in order to accelerate the country’s economic diversification. Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, disclosed this when he received the House of Representatives Committee on Solid Minerals Development in Abuja. Onu said the deployment of relevant technology to the solid minerals sector would help Nigeria achieve economic diversification in an inclusive and sustainable way. [Punch]
Five million smallholder farmers are to get fertiliser subsidy from the Federal Government, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sabo Nanono, and the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, announced on Monday. Both ministers spoke in Abuja at the consultative meeting with stakeholders on the development of template for the administering of subsidy to smallholder farmers on sustainable basis. Nanono stated that to support the teeming smallholder farmers across the country, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), approved that an implementation template be developed through consultative engagement. [Punch]
The Federal Government is working to resuscitate the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited and National Iron Ore Mining Company Limited at the same time, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, Oluwatoyin Akinlade, has said. Akinlade disclosed this when she paid a working visit to the two companies to ascertain their levels of preparedness ahead of the arrival of a team from Russia scheduled to technically audit the firms. The permanent secretary said the ministry wants the two companies to begin full operations soon. [Punch] | https://medium.com/@theasovilla/aso-villa-reads-for-wed-09-12-2020-be4cba678c28 | ['Government Of Nigeria'] | 2020-12-09 15:35:02.741000+00:00 | ['Governance', 'Security', 'Mining', 'Nigeria', 'Agriculture'] |
Regulate AI only where required | An Open letter to Pope Francis, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg,
Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Technology Leaders, Legislators and AI Academics
I am writing this open letter to address the ever-increasing calls and initiatives to regulate Artificial Intelligence (AI). Whilst, many are heralding calls for regulation due to often cited impending perils, many others caution that regulating AI will stifle innovation. Indeed, it is critical that safeguards are put in place where necessary, yet at the same time innovation should be allowed to spur.
For the past two years, I have been chairing a national technology regulator (the Malta Digital Innovation Authority) which has put in to place national regulatory frameworks for blockchain and now has also issued regulatory guidelines in regards to AI. During this time I have been monitoring efforts and developments to regulate AI, and I feel it is crucial to raise some concerns so that we do not go off track. Following are a list of recommendations to consider when regulating AI.
AGI and ANI
Many of the calls for AI regulation stem from concerns related to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) — the type of AI that is depicted in movies, the type of AI that can learn to do just about anything (including take over the World). Whilst, we should look into how to go about regulating AGI, the reality is that AGI does not (yet) exist. Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI), the AI which currently does exist, allows for computers to focus on a specific problem and cannot learn to tackle any problems it was not programmed to. Despite its limitation to focus on predetermined problems, ANI is an extremely powerful tool, which indeed should in some cases require oversight and regulation. When ANI are put into the same basket as AGI (which could potentially take over the World), it is no surprise that many call for mandatory AI regulation across the board. However, this would result in over-regulating ANI and putting in place regulation for something that we do not know enough about yet (AGI). Let’s start by focusing on ANI which exists today, so as to be able to define regulation that does not stifle ANI innovation yet at the same time puts into place any necessary safeguards. A recommendation with respect to AGI will be proposed later herein.
Recommendation 1:
Differentiate between AGI and ANI, and start with ANI.
Not all ANI requires to be regulated
One often-cited use case in support of implementing AI regulation is that of ensuring that AI algorithms do not discriminate or introduce unwanted bias. Consider when AI is used in the context of criminal courts — indeed discrimination in this context is unacceptable. Similarly, should banks be allowed to approve or reject loan applications based upon unrelated demographic characteristics? Of course not. Now consider a personal music AI-based recommendation system. Having more bias may well imply that the recommendation system makes better guesses with respect to one’s taste (perhaps based upon other users that have similar tastes). Should such an AI system be regulated? Mandatory regulation of all AI systems will stifle further development and innovation. Clearly, there are some types of AI-based systems that should not be subject to regulation.
Recommendation 2:
Do not regulate AI across the board. Only regulate where required.
Sector specific and safety-critical regulation of ANI
Consider, again, the case of processing bank loan applications. Should there be any difference if a discriminatory decision is made by AI or alternatively by a software algorithm that is not classified as AI? Surely not. The important thing is that the bank application is not processed in a discriminatory manner. Now, what if the application is processed manually by a person? Surely the same rules apply that applications should not be processed in a manner that may be discriminatory. If we were to regulate only AI, in these instances would a loophole be created for non-AI based software? If not, then really we would be regulating software (not just AI). Also, regulation should (already) enforce that loan application processing does not discriminate against applicants — whether processed by a human or via software (which may use AI-based algorithms). Do we really need to replicate regulation to separately regulate AI? There are definitely cases which may require further specific regulation, e.g. autonomous vehicles, however just because regulation may be required to be updated in certain sectors or activities, does not mean that we should regulate AI across the board. The onus should be on the responsible entity to ensure that their systems are law-abiding.
Indeed, we often know what an AI algorithm does, but not what it has learnt, and it is both crucial to ensure such systems function correctly and are trained on adequate data. For such systems, technology audits could be mandated to ensure that adequate levels of behavioural and functional assurances are in place. Indeed, the justice system would need to make strides with respect to identifying civil liabilities in certain cases, however, this does not justify mandatory regulation of AI across the board. We should focus on regulating the sector and activity, for example: put in place surveillance laws rather than mandate regulation of all facial recognition algorithms; focus on data protection and processing laws rather than implement AI data processing regulation; etc.
Recommendation 3:
Do not mandate ANI regulation. Focus on regulating the sector and activity, not the technology.
Recommendation 4:
For regulated or safety-critical sectors and activities, technology audits should be considered for ANI based systems (and others).
Recommendation 5:
To ensure adequate and standard levels of technology audits are undertaken (where necessary), national technology regulators should be set up.
And what about AGI?
As discussed above, we should not stifle ANI innovation just because AGI may one day be upon us. Yet we need to start investigating the various regulatory, legal, ethical and geopolitical questions surrounding AGI. The World needs to be ready for the eventuality of AGI, and its implications. What are the potential implications of an AGI algorithm being deployed in the wild? What if an AGI algorithm was able to operate in a decentralised manner?
Recommendation 6:
A world treaty should be established to ensure that AGI is not deployed until related crucial regulatory, legal, ethical and geopolitical questions surrounding AGI have been answered.
About the Author
As Chairperson of the Malta Digital Innovation Authority I oversaw the implementation of a technology assurance regulatory framework. We started with Blockchain, DLT and Smart Contracts and further added regulatory guidelines for Artificial Intelligence. The Authority vets, scrutinises and authorises system auditors and associated subject matter experts to undertake system audits on innovative technology arrangements. | https://medium.com/@joshua-ellul/regulate-ai-only-where-required-2436a3bef0ef | ['Joshua Ellul'] | 2020-11-26 11:40:31.181000+00:00 | ['AI', 'Regulation', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Law'] |
SEO Tips to Enhance Your Organisation’s Visibility | Image source: PNG All
The best thing to happen to this generation and social work in particular is all what the internet has to offer — visibility for your work. As we said in one of our posts at Impacty, a lot of individuals running social organisations do not know how to use this gold mine. While that cannot be taught in a 5-minutes read, it is on that basis that we saw the need to evince a few tips for better visibility of you organisation through Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
1. Satisfactory content:
Everything rises and falls on the content you put out there. Ensure that your content is satisfactory to your audience. One tip is to use your content to answer a question or questions. Your question(s) should be based on what you hope to achieve through that content. This would direct your content flow and probably go as far as informing a subsequent content release. For example, in this article you’re reading, the guiding question is “what do social organisations need to know about SEO?”
2. Off-page SEO factors:
This includes social media engagement, marketing and links. Social media engagement is a very essential part of your SEO boost journey. Create engaging social media content, and include call-to-actions which may involve links to your website and do so consistently.
3. Mobile-friendly Website:
Most users of the internet use mobile devices. So mobile-unfriendly sites are very difficult to use on mobile devices and consequently affects user experience in the negative.
4. Update Old Content:
Some content are for the season, while others are meant forever; ever relevant and can stand the test of time. Update such old content, change publish date. This informs the world that your content is new and fresh!
5. Consistency:
There are very few things in the world which are greater than the benefits of consistency in any area of life, and it is just as important in your SEO boost journey. Posting helpful and engaging content regularly would do more for you than you think.
6. Keyword Frequency:
Have a keyword(s) and let them flow through your content. Additionally, avoid too many keywords, stick with a few and run with them. This will boost the relevance of your post to search topics. Use these words in your first 100 words and ensure that you use keywords in your images. However, avoid keyword stuffing. Search engines detest keywords in places they do not fit in.
7. Avoid SEO worst practices:
A good example of this is duplicates. Delete any double-posted content as this can affect SEO. Also, avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism is a crime and is not honourable.
8. Catchy Meta Descriptions:
Meta descriptions are the words just below your content title, about 150 or a little more words. It entails the description of your content and it gives the searcher a hint of what is contained in the site. A great meta description will earn you a click and a chance to be seen.
9. Title Tags:
Another key element is the title tag. This is like the title of a web page. It gives the reader a good guess of the content of your web page. For effectiveness, front-load your title tag. This means that you make the keyword you want to rank for prominent in your title tag. For example, if you choose the keyword ‘disability’, let your title tag be something like “Disability: The disguise of special abilities”. Remember that title tags must target your best audience and easily give off what your entire content is about. Avoid complex words and verbosity.
10. Headlines:
Headlines create a lot of magic. It determines whether the reader will start with your content or close the site and move on. Straight-jacketed, mono-sense, common headlines would do you no good. Be creative about your headlines. You headlines should hold some hope out to the readers that your content would be worth the while.
11. Use of ALT Text:
Don’t get worked up with technical language. ALT Text is short for Alternative Text and it simply is the text contained inside the box where the picture or video is supposed to appear. It is descriptive of the picture/video content and it appears while it is till loading. This Alternative Text gives the viewer a clue of what the loading content is.
12. Hyperlinks:
These are especially needful when the content piece contains some well-researched information. It is the link to another site (the source of the information) inserted into the content and directs the reader to the source of information. It makes the user experience more enjoyable and useful for research purposes. This is achieved on Windows by CTRL+K.
13. Local SEO Opportunities:
A ready example of local Google SEO opportunities is Google My Business. Also, add location pages to your website and other contact details. Google is the most used search engine with about 5 billion searches per day. It enhances visibility as it gives you appearance on Google searches and Google maps too. Additionally, it is very cost-effective. Actually, free! It’s something you may want to take advantage of. Google My Business also puts your business in the Local 3-Pack. This is the section after paid promotions and before organic search results. That’s a booster right there!
14. Pictures:
Studies have it that a large percentage of the human brain dedicates itself to visual processing. People prefer to see one picture telling a thousand words than a thousand words in text. This is because humans are visual creatures. Using info graphics can boost visibility.
15. Quality Back links:
Back links are links to your website from another website. Google, for instance, values some authoritative websites, and a back link from such websites to yours can boost traffic to your website. This can be done in many ways; one of which is suggesting your website link to a webmaster as a solution to a broken link. Another way is through creating valuable and insightful info graphics with a sharable link.
16. Stay abreast of SEO trends:
This is not difficult to do. You may subscribe to the RSS feed of the News & Updates, which is part of the Google My Business Community. RSS is simply a web feature which allows its users access to updates. This point also means staying aware of sellable keywords. \
We, at Impacty, do hope these tips are of benefit to you and your organisation. Good luck! Stay visible. | https://medium.com/@heyimpacty/seo-tips-to-enhance-your-organisations-visibility-6d9de61fb86e | [] | 2020-12-19 21:16:17.135000+00:00 | ['SEO', 'Digital Marketing', 'Optimization', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Social Impact'] |
Little Moment#1 — MyBreakupSeries | If i would have known or predicted, I would have never taken small things granted when i was in a relationship.
One day i reached home from work earlier than my girl friend. I started watching Friends on Netflix.
When Joey and Chandler were busy in their own little world, through the windows of living room, I saw a cute girl walking towards the house in a bright outfit. My heart started racing and I had one of those moments: “She took my breath away”. Actually, I exaggerated it. Like they show in movies, my heart did not race and she didn’t take my breath away. It sounded cool when i was writing. But i want to keep this article authentic and I want to write only stuff that really happened 👆🏻
Photo by Adeolu Eletu on Unsplash
So, the truth is when i looked at her, it felt nice and the moment was beautiful. The reason being, I usually go to office early and reach home after her. Most of the time, I got used to seeing her in pajamas and looking at her in work clothes felt really different. She was stylish and had this professional look. I liked it a lot. Okay! I will admit. My heart raced a little bit.
Okay! back to the story, I pretended I didn’t see her. She knocked. I let her in. As usually, I asked how her day was and as usually, she went for 30mins explaining every little thing from morning to evening 😄
Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash
Since then, whenever i come early from work I used to wait for that little moment to watch her walk towards the house in her bright outfits mixed with a funny walk. Yeah! she has a funny walk too 😊
Photo by Timo Stern on Unsplash
It seemed so small back then. But, it was a one of those little moments I remember and cherish forever ❤️ | https://medium.com/@thisisnani/little-moment-1-walking-down-the-road-not-aisle-mybreakupseries-3176d0952c27 | [] | 2021-07-23 05:57:54.277000+00:00 | ['Lovestory', 'Breakups', 'Little Things', 'Love'] |
How to Shield Yourself from the Chaos of the World Right Now | How to Shield Yourself from the Chaos of the World Right Now
Especially when more is coming
Photo by Kyndall Ramirez on Unsplash
2020 relentlessly serves up cause for cynicism. Between a pandemic, political unrest, and division, unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime, I’m having more WTF moments than ever. Considering the fuel the coming election results will add to the societal wildfire, the chaos will likely peak. Despite that, I made a conscious decision to shield myself from it.
Here’s what I’m doing.
Keeping my news intake to a minimum
I curtailed the amount of time I spent watching to 10–20 minutes if I do watch it. I am not equipped to handle all the world’s ills, and I don’t need to continuously remind myself of them.
When COVID-19 hit, I watched the news and read articles to learn as much as I could. I like to stay informed, generally. Now, it’s a matter of having the information I need to protect myself. In the middle of all that, I became a minor news junkie.
Compound that with the Trump administration’s refusal to take any leadership role to slow the spread, I slowly leaned into watching one inept move after another. Then, I found myself scratching my head, wondering why people still defended Trump and his troop of incompetent brown-nosers.
The social unrest of the summer following George Floyd’s murder took me deeper into the abyss. Between the blatant racism of some and the deliberate blind-eye of others, my pessimism grew.
I had to step back. I’m no good to myself or anybody if I stay focused on the negative. And where do you see a lot of the negative? The news.
I like to stay informed but not at the expense of my sanity.
Staying connected to the people in my life
Everyday life can keep us from staying in touch with people. Now, social distancing adds an extra obstacle to keep up communication. I am not the greatest with reaching out usually, but I have stepped it up lately.
I text and call people who make me feel good. I have one friend who I text multiple times a day. I have never done that in my life, but I enjoy maintaining our connection.
Zoom calls still give me pause because I haven’t figured out angles yet that make me look decent. But I enjoy seeing people’s faces when we’re chatting.
Finding joy as much as I can
When I find myself getting pinched, I find the happy.
I get hyper-focused when I’m in work mode. My dog has become an excellent accountability partner to keep me in check. The little monster stares at me with his amber eyes, gets on his back, bares his belly for me to rub, and grins at me until I do it.
He steers me back to joy. The other animals in my neighborhood pull me out of serious mode with their quirky personalities too.
A beautiful feral cat on my block who looks like a lynx sashays around like she owns it. I named her Cleopatra Jones because she’s regal and sassy at the same time. Jiminy sounds like a cricket and is the loudest squirrel I have ever heard in my life. I never even realized squirrels made noise until I heard him. I thought it was a baby bird in a nest at first.
What’s so joyful about naming random animals? It makes me laugh. That’s never a bad idea.
Connecting to myself and nature
I am a firm believer in filling my cup. If I’m not happy, I’m not useful to anyone. My self-care is my daily priority.
I do some form of exercise and meditation daily. I meditate once in the morning and in the evening. The evening is especially important because it helps release all the thoughts I have accumulated during the day. Emptying my mind helps me sleep, which is a primary health foundation we all take for granted.
No matter what the weather is like, I have to get outside everyday. When I take my dog for a walk in the morning, I take in the sky, the trees and focus on the beauty that surrounds me. It calms me and keeps the stress at bay.
Nature is a living example of resilience. After heavy rain, I took a walk through one of my favorite parks by a river. I saw downed trees along different pathways, and the sight reminded me of their steadfastness.
They are present, standing in the same spot for hundreds of years. When one falls, they don’t fuss. The other animals don’t either. Everything keeps going.
People complain about so many things all the time. Where does it get us?
Nature is a constant stream of living examples of presence, the divine in action.
Life takes many twists and turns, generally. In this bizarre time, the state of the world, this country, has been an unending tornado. While we can’t ignore it, we can protect ourselves from the storm.
We can shield ourselves from the chaos. | https://medium.com/curious/how-to-shield-yourself-from-the-chaos-of-the-world-right-now-db6818c3a37a | ['Sameena Mughal'] | 2020-10-30 19:56:38.136000+00:00 | ['Self Care', 'Personal Development', 'Society', 'Politics', 'Self Improvement'] |
How To Make Money From Home? | As the digital age matures, more people are looking to make money from home than ever before. Nowadays, it is possible to make decent money with nothing but your laptop. Because of this, people everywhere are looking to make extra cash. What’s more, those who work full-time from home seem to be more productive than those in the nine-to-five grind.
In 2000, less than 3.5% of the population worked from home. By 2017, that number was over 5%. If you are looking to make money from home, you do not need to work a regular job. There are numerous alternatives, which vary in difficulty, the time required, and convenience.
We will be taking you through how you can make money from home using 3 different ways. The good thing is that you can use all 3 of them in conjunction to earn a significant amount of money. Also, it is possible to use the following methods regardless of your employment status.
Make Money From Home Using Honeygain
Honeygain is by far the easiest way to make money from home. All you need to make money from Honeygain is your phone and/or laptop. Compared to the other options on this list, Honeygain requires the least amount of effort on your part. Simply download the app, turn it on, and get paid.
How does it work? Well, Honeygain sells your excess bandwidth to their partners. Since bandwidth is quite expensive through the normal channels, partners use Honeygain to save costs. Honeygain sources the bandwidth from its users, who make money based on the amount of bandwidth that they share.
Honeygain is completely safe and a legitimate way for you to make money from home. All you need to do is to download their app for your operating system (Windows, macOS, Android), install it, and start making money. Honeygain estimates that you can make up to $50 a month through their app. Add more devices, and you can significantly boost your earnings. What’s more, you can also refer people to make 10% of their total earnings. If you manage to refer enough people to the app, it is possible to make a sizeable amount of money from home while doing virtually nothing. Also, use a code SECRET5 to get 5$ instantly.
Make Money By Completing Surveys
Another method is by completing surveys online to earn a few bucks. Of course, you will need a device to access the internet. On top of that, the amount of money you make will depend on a number of surveys you complete in any given timeframe.
We estimate that you can make a few hundred dollars from home every month through this method. While surveys are easy to complete, you will need to put in a significant amount of time to make a reasonable amount of money from this method.
The good thing is that you do not need to invest any cash yourself. So, if you want to make money through surveys, then Swagbucks and Survey Club are great places to start.
Freelancing To Make Money From Home
Freelancing is by far the most time-consuming way to make money from home. However, it provides the highest returns, and you can make serious money through it eventually.
The amount of money you make depends on your experience, portfolio, and craft. If you have mastery over a particularly tricky skill such as programming or painting, then you can rake in a lot of cash. Mind you, even easier categories of freelancing such as graphic design and writing can net you over $50/hour if you manage to rise to the top of your field.
Those with years of experience and expertise in their work make more money from freelancing than the average worker. Of course, it will take you years to get to that level. Those who are looking to begin freelancing can take a look at marketplaces such as Upwork and Freelancer.
What Is The Best Way To Make Money From Home?
You can make money from home through the app Honeygain, through online surveys, and freelancing. Each of these methods has its pros and cons.
The best way depends on the amount of time you have and the effort that you are willing to put in. However, you can always leave Honeygain running in the background. While you will not make as much money with Honeygain as you will with the other methods, you will not need to do anything on your part, making it a must-have for anyone looking to make money from home. | https://medium.com/@sirenna-rah/how-to-make-money-from-home-c2ce2df67df8 | ['Sirena Harson'] | 2021-01-12 10:48:08.173000+00:00 | ['Make Money Online', 'Passive Income', 'Make Money', 'Money Management', 'Guides And Tutorials'] |
Weird Ski Dream | I am supposed to go skiing with my friend and her family after Christmas. Last night I had a nightmare about it.
A little background info. She has never gone skiing before and therefore has to take lessons for two hours. In my dream, she was skiing like a pro. This wasn’t what was scary about the dream though.
I grew up skiing every weekend because I lived in Utah. So I of course was the 8-year-old-fuck on the mountain that was ripping moguls and leading tourists through the passages in the trees.
Anyway, she was skiing even better than I was. And we were going really freaking fast down this short slope. It was up high but it wasn’t very long so you would gain a lot of speed but you would have to stop yourself before plowing into the tourists at the bottom of the slope.
So her and I are skiing and then there is a wood platform at the bottom that you walk across to get back up to the lift. We are walking on the platform and this guy from our school comes up to us.
He starts talking about how I finished some game and I had no idea what he was talking about until he led us to a photo booth that had a game inside. it was some kind of strategy game and however, you placed in it would determine if you got to live in society or be killed off.
He said that I finished the game so when I asked what that meant he told me I needed to talk to the game masters.
I don’t remember if I ever went and met the game masters but it was a very freaky dream. | https://medium.com/@sophiarobbins/weird-ski-dream-bbfb4a2168c3 | ['Sophia Robbins'] | 2020-12-24 19:17:20.754000+00:00 | ['Crazy', 'Dreams', 'The Thinning', 'Skiing'] |
10 World’s Most Extreme Hotels - | 10 World’s Most Extreme Hotels -
Sometimes luxury isn’t enough for travellers to fit their definition of a good hotel, So often when they wish to spend quality time in hotels as well as enjoy the outdoors. But somehow there are hotels in the world which can fulfil both of the objectives. this is where you can relax and experience nature equally at the same moment. These hotels are located at the heart of the natural wonders.
Seriously, booking a room there means you will be either sleeping in a snow room or watching a sunset while your room is hanging on the edge of a cliff.
Harlingen Crane Hotel, Netherlands
The nothing more exciting to live on top of 150 ft high crane with all the luxuries money can afford. Above all, you have the control of the crane which you can swing into action anytime.
The crane hotel let you shift the direction of the room 360 degrees to the beautiful horizon of Wadden Sea to the busy streets of Harlingen.
The room is good enough for two, it includes internet, a flat-screen TV and audio equipment, bathroom. What’s more, your food is delivered via the internal lift to your bedroom.
Iso-Syöte Hotel, Finland
Amid the arctic paradise lies the Iso-Syöte Hotel. Finland is famous for sub-zero temp and heavy snowfall as deep as 10 feet and Iso-Syöte is one of its Highest hotels built on the tip of a snowy peak.
The hotel spans into 50 rooms, sauna, spa, restaurant, ice igloo and a special two-floor deluxe aurora sweet.
The rooms are 100% eco friendly, their roof material is mud from nearby swamps which act a good insulator for sound and heat, the carpet is made from recycled plastic. Each room has its own balcony where you can relax and breathe deep into natural beauty.
Nonetheless, the biggest secret of this hotel reveals at night, it is home to the earth’s most famous natural wonder Aurora Borealis or northern light, catching a glimpse is remarkable as it is plus this place is uniquely located to exhibit the amazing light show 200 days out of the year.
Moreover, there are external activities skimobile, plastic sled skiing, and a special snow taxi, a vehicle that ensues bumpy snow ride.
Hôtel de Glace — Quebec, Canada
This hotel needs no introduction, the famed Hôtel de Glace opens every January to March, in the most chilling place of north America.
Every year the hotel is being rebuilt and reshaped using 400 tons of ice and 12,000 tons of snow. All of that icy material fill the walls of Grand Hall, chapel, ice slide, rooms and suites, and an Ice Bar.
Everything is made out of ice even small items of daily use such as cocktail glass, teacups, plates, and spoons.
The most luxurious suite includes private spa and fireplace supported with ice ceiling. The mattress on beds sits top of the solid ice block. There are arctic sleeping bags for staying warm and cozy.
The outdoor activities include ice fishing, dog sledding and snowmobiling. In the meantime, when you feel like that’s enough for a day, you can always head to the sauna to revitalize.
Sextantio Le Grotte Della Civita, Matera, Italy
it’s very unlikely you get a chance to stay in one of the UNESCO’s world heritage site, the hotel Le Grotte Della Civita is the remarkable extent of the architecture that thrived over centuries.
The eighteen guest rooms are spread throughout a complex of ancient cave dwellings filled with stone floors and antique furniture, whereas bed sheets linen is made from antique clothing.
Though seems ancient the hotel is modernised to comfort the travellers, every room is air-conditioned, has a candle-lit dining area and free Wi-Fi.
Located in Matera, Italy the structure is still standing and intact since the Stone Age, these rooms provide a unique opportunity for travellers to peek into the lifestyle due to the times of Fred flintstone.
Kokopelli’s Cave, Farmington, US
This one-bedroom cave hotel was originally created as office space for the geologist and former owner, Bruce Black. Believe it or not, it sits 22 m below ground. The luxurious rooms have been carved out of Tertiary Ojo Alamo Sandstone across 1700 square foot space.
The cave consists of a master bedroom, living area, replica Native American kiva, dining area, full kitchen and a bathroom with a waterfall shower and Jacuzzi tub.
Skylodge Adventure Suites — Sacred Valley, Peru
If you ever wonder what is like to sleep in an eagles nest high on the Cliff, you come at the right place. Skylodge Adventure Suites gives exclusive rights for adrenaline junkies to stay in completely transparent capsule, that hangs from the highest mountain in the Sacred Valley of Peru. But first, you must climb a 400 ft Cliff face to sign in your hotel rooms.
The transparent hanging bedrooms can lodge 12 people per night. You can either bring your own food or for few extra bucks get your breakfast & gourmet dinner delivered from the elite restaurant of Cuzco directly to your pod.
No Man’s Fort, Seaview, England
This rare floating hotel is less of war bunker and more of a private island of some Saudi Sheikh combining two helipads, a hot tub, a nightclub and spa facilities. At the top is a private lighthouse with a glass-floored penthouse suite.
The construction is from Victorian-era when it was originally built between 1867 and 1880 to protect the city from an attack by Napoleon III
This man-made fortress has its own lighthouse, as well as cabaret bar and laser tag arena, visitors can also enjoy activities such as boat rides and water sports.
The place is ideal for parties with Nordic Buffet on the roof and fire pit where guests can toast marshmallows. People reach the hotel through boats from Gunwharf Quays.
Gornergrat Kulm Hotel, Zermatt, Switzerland
This could be the one-stop destination for science geeks, The hotel is located at 3,120 metres above sea level and packs two observatories on its north-south tower. As the air is free of any city pollution you can watch stars with absolute clarity.
the rooms are over a century old they were built between 1897–1907. Besides, The hotel also has two restaurants and a small shopping mall. You bet that’s not the end of this luxurious hotel, there are several winter sports you can enjoy here ice climbing, Skiing, Sledge riding, Igloo making, and beyond that you get a front-row seat to witness spectacular Matterhorn, which peaks at 14,692 feet in Swiss Alps.
Reaching Gornergrat hotel is also fun and the only way to get there is through a regular train service, which takes 40 minutes’ through scenic countryside to climb 5000 ft to its destination.
Tree Hotel, Sweden
It’s the experience you get by spending your day in a room that tug along with the nearby trees. Tree hotel offers seven rooms with each unique design, name and entrance.
All rooms are equipped with television, bed, toilet, the rooms sit suspended by the surrounding trees 20 ft in the air, the trees are Scott pines that can grow up to 100 ft and handle 24 tons in weight.
One of the rooms named Ufo House shapes like a giant ufo, another one is birds nest with interwoven branches that serve as camouflage, which no one can spot at a mere 10 feet distance. people enter the bird’s nest via a retractable staircase,
The special one is mirror cube contains six large mirrors on all sides imitating surrounding trees, mountains making it invisible to the naked eye, the roof of which provide a birds-eye view down the valley.
For adventure, the hotel organises Skijoring, (skiing by patching a rope to an animal or a vehicle) it was a competitive sport when it was part of the 1928 Winter Olympic.
Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort, Lapland, Finland
Imagine sleeping in the middle of nowhere on a comfy bed with northern lights shimmering above your eyes. That’s the view which is pretty ordinary for hotel staff at Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort.
The resort specialises in thermal glass igloos that feature a bedroom with a glass roof and luxury beds. Instead, if you want more leisure. They offer traditional wood chalet holding cooking facilities, a seating area and fireplace, bathroom with sauna.
Approx 250 km from the arctic circle, you can easily reach the resort with just 30 minutes ride from the nearest airport. Though one reminder, the northern lights are visible only from late August to late April.
Apart from the facilities, you can enjoy sports such as Nordic walking sticks, cross-country skis on snowmobile, Husky and reindeer safaris, and for wildlife photography, the Urho Kekkonen National Park is just 3.1 miles away from the Resort.
There are 2 à la carte restaurants, which serve Laplandic specialties such as reindeer and char-grilled salmon, Just in case, In à la carte menu you can choose as much as you want from individually priced dishes of each course. | https://medium.com/@blobur622/10-worlds-most-extreme-hotels-d9c764b26fce | [] | 2020-11-05 23:06:48.751000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Hotel', 'Weird'] |
Honeygain: Earn money doing nothing, just using internet. | Honeygain: Earn money doing nothing, just using internet.
If you are reading this is because in some moment of your life you googleed how to earn money with internet sitting in your favourite chair drinking a beer investing $0.
Internet offer to us a lot of ways to earn “A LOT” of money: complete surveys, watching ads, read blogs, etc, etc… By this time we know that all are bullsh*t. The true is which doesn’t exists any way to earn thousands of dollars doing nothing. But… BUTTTT I give to you a method which let us make some money doing, literally, nothing and is safe and trusty.
Honeygain
Honeygain is the first-ever app that allows users to make money online by sharing their internet connection. Users now can reach their networks’ full potential by getting cash back to their wallets! With Honeygain, start making money online in just a few minutes. Simply install the app on your device (Windows, Mac/iOS, Android), sign up for a free account, lean back and watch your balance increase.
Your internet traffic is used by trusted partners and high reputation companies only. All of the connections made through your device are securely encrypted, and the Honeygain app itself will not gain any access to your device’s storage.
Thanks to people who use Honeygain, the internet can be a more accessible place for everyone. Honeygain network is used by companies that fight ad fraud, and keep travel and e-commerce prices fair.
Earnings
Like I said before, there aren’t any way to become millionare on internet doing nothing but in Honeygain our work is almost 0. Just sign up, download the app and start to make easy money.
For Default network sharing you will earn 1 credit for 10MB of traffic that goes through your devices. So for 10GB shared, you’ll earn 1USD. As for Content Delivery (if available in your region) you will earn 10 credits for every hour Content Delivery is ‘Active’ and running (Note that ‘In Queue’ doe not count as Active).
Maximize your earnings!
1)You can maximize your earnings installing and using Honeygain on multiple devices spread throughout multiple networks.
2) Using one device per IP address as this would be the most optimal way to use the traffic.
3) Switching to the mobile network connection in order to spread the traffic itself. 4) Using our referral program. This way you would get 10% of all of your referrals’ earnings!
So….
Honeygain allow us make money safety and without any kind of effort. Is not a LOTTT of money but for me is a fair amount for earn money watching Netflix.
Be smart, anyone that promise you a lot of profits for little work is trying to sh*t on you. Let’s try Honeygain, you loss nothing! | https://medium.com/@matiasc/honeygain-earn-money-doing-nothing-just-using-internet-a6ac75eee84 | ['Matías C.'] | 2020-08-20 02:26:28.377000+00:00 | ['Free', 'Earn Money Online', 'Money', 'Work From Home', 'Saving Money'] |
RL World | RL World
Reinforcement Learning is a very vast list of algorithms. Let's look at this structure of the Reinforcement world and try to understand it.
MDP World:
This is the first division, Markov Decision Process(MDP). These are the algorithms that try to solve the problem, where we have an underlined vision of the world. There are states and rewards (which we get when we move from one state to another).
MDP provides a mathematical framework for modeling decision making in situations where outcomes are partly random and partly under the control of a decision maker.
Bandit World
This is the 2nd type of division for the Reinforcement learning world. In this type of problem, there is no concept of States. There is essentially no such idea about moving from one state to another sequentially and gaining rewards. Here we are more concerned about learning the best decision to take when we are put in a certain type of condition. “Bandit” in “multi-armed bandits” comes from “one-armed bandit” machines used in a casino. In multi-armed bandit problems, the more you play the more you learn about the world, the more accurate we get about the decisions.
Real-world implementations could be a smarter AB Test: Instead of testing one thing on all populations, you will be making decisions based on a particular condition. You can show cat images to people who like cats, dog images to people who like dogs. Contextual Bandits can be used to optimize which algorithms to show on the website, for a higher click-through rate.
Bandits are divided into 2 types: | https://medium.com/@adabhishekdabas/rl-world-3fc4dc38a73d | ['Abhishek Dabas'] | 2020-12-19 22:17:16.490000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'OpenAI', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Reinforcement Learning', 'Unity'] |
Data on the rentals in the Netherlands | It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a rental property in the Netherlands. For my data science exercise, we’ll use Kaggle’s dataset to analyse an overview of the rental market in the Netherlands.
Questions.
Which area is most expensive to live? Compare price and space, what type of property is good value? Which feature have the greatest impact on price?
Prepare Dataset
I searched in Kaggle and found Juan Gesino uploaded 245MB of RentalProperties Dataset in the Netherlands.
There’re 46,000s of data from 2019–07–14 to 2020–03–03
data describe
histgram of modified dataset
Overview of dataset
Which area is most expensive to live?
10 most popular cites overview.
If you want to live in an apartment, Amsterdam is the most expensive city with an average of 1600€/month, followed by Den Haag at 1250€/m and Enschede, Rotterdam and utrecht at around 1100€/m.
For a room, 700€/m in Amsterdam, but the price per square meter will be the highest at 50€/m.
2. Compare price and space, what type of property is good value?
Obviously, the wider the size, the higher the price from this plot.
Rooms are small but the cheapest, while apartments range in size and price.
It is also clear that apartments can have a larger range of price and size compared to rooms.
We will find that renting an Anti-squat is a constant price regardless of the size of property. But Anti-squat is a temporary residence and not linked to any other property, so we will delete this data to create a model.
City is also big factor in the rent price
This is the top 10 number of properties listed per city.
This plot is the rent and distance from the Amsterdam central station.
There appears to be a large city in the area that is divided into several groups.
This plot is from the closest distance and price from the 10 cities above.
Prices for properties within 10km of the center are particularly expensive, and within 25km appears to be within the city area.
The further from the city, the cheaper it gets, but room prices do not drop below a 500euro level.
To find the answer of the second question, let’s look at price per area and area chart.
It is obvious that the price per unit area of the room is higher. The larger the area, the exponentially lower the price per unit area.
If you are a landlord, renting out a smaller room at a higher price seems to be more profitable, but if you are a tenant, renting a larger apartment seems to be a better choice!
Create Model
3. Which feature have the greatest impact on price?
Created LinearRegression model from this dataset.
From this dataset, I created two LinearRegression models with targets Rent and Rent/sq2
Model1 : Target Rent
This model’s r2 score is 0.797.
From this table, we can see that single-person rooms are a -200 euro factor in rent price.
Table blow is only the data related to the city, this is distance(km) from city, so to increase rent need to have distance from Delft and close Amsterdam / Rotterdam
Model2 : Target Rent / sq2
From this model, it turns out that to maximize the rental price per area, it is better to provide a room that is fully furnished and has a shared living room. And far from Delft, close to Rotterdam.
Conclusion
Using 46,000 data about rental properties in the Netherlands, we were able to find the answers, city with the highest rent, the property with the best value for the price per area, and the factors that determine the price.
If you are a lender, you can use this model to set the optimal price.
If you are a tenant, you should be able to find cost-effective properties by looking for properties that outliner from this model.
You can find python code from https://github.com/togawamanabu/DataSciencenND_prj1_netherlands_rental_price | https://medium.com/@togawamanabu/data-on-the-rentals-in-the-netherlands-a202df97be95 | ['Manabu Togawa'] | 2021-12-31 01:00:51.347000+00:00 | ['Netherlands', 'Property', 'Data Science'] |
“Tell me about some of the most difficult problems you worked on and how you solved them.” | The most difficult problems in my opinion do not come from working in an organization or a corporate setting. They arise from having to deal with cultural and social belief systems that set you back decades, no, eras. The concepts that result in the stagnation of humanity vs evolution of humanity — those are the most difficult problems that I have faced.
The modern world is no stranger to the restrictions of religious belief systems especially of those imposed on women in many cultures. I belong to such a religion/culture that does not allow me to even ask the question “why”?
It is considered “blasphemy” a “sin” that is punishable by death. To be educated by such narcissistic belief systems and teachers — If that is not the most serious and the most difficult problem to have faced then I do not know what is.
Which leads me to answer the second part of this question. How I solved it. The simple answer is that I actually got the fuck out of that system and moved.
But that is not the whole truth. It takes a certain level of self sacrifice to challenge such a society. You learn to sacrifice all your friends and even some that you called family. You learn to sacrifice all “respect” (as they call it) and learn to become comfortable in being a “non believer” or where a woman dare challenge, a “slut”. You learn to sacrifice your existence in that world. A form of a (mental) suicide which then leads you to a more liberating after life.
Yes you read that right. A slut. For challenging history, because that is the only way that society will take away what is most dear to you and replace it with what they perceive to be an “insult”. That is the only way that can have the illusion of victory over you — “if we just destroy this person’s self esteem with our self-created demeaning concepts, then no one will ever dare challenge”. and it works for them greatly. Why? Because of our evolutionary need to be socially accepted to gain security (that if we stick to our tribe we will not get eaten by lions rather work together to kill the lion). You can now clearly see why that line of thinking is already redundant. We must not fear the lion that does not exist anymore.
What is a slut anyway? It is a name they called for a woman with a certain need of satisfaction of her sexual desires. That is biology. That is evolution. That is NOT an insult. They create it an insult and then use it against you to make you feel like you have been left out in the cold to fend for yourself against that make belief lion. To distort your reality just enough to make you reconsider your SELF — instilling fear and deriving a flight or flight response.
Oh no, we must not fall for that you see. We must not fall for that illusion for that is merely what it is — an illusion. The lion is not there so chose to fight.
So to sum up the whole truth then, dear friends, I did solve the problem, but for myself only. However this is just the start.
I have yet to remove the problem’s very existence. It is not something I can do on my own, no no. I would be extremely cocky and insane to think that. It is only something we can solve together. Individually yes, but together as a whole!
Ohhh the irony my lovelies…Universe does have a sense of humour after all! | https://medium.com/@iqrasajjad-36800/tell-me-about-some-of-the-most-difficult-problems-you-worked-on-and-how-you-solved-them-f1d661a940d8 | ['Iqra Sajjad'] | 2020-12-19 18:11:17.420000+00:00 | ['Humanity', 'Teamwork', 'Humanitarian', 'Culture', 'Challenges And Growth'] |
Flutter Quick Tip: Changing the Splash Color of ListTile | After seeing a ton of different answers about changing the splash color of different widgets, namely ListTile , here are two quick ways of doing it:
Be sure to check your specific widget, as some (such as RaisedButton and IconButton ) already have splashColor and highlightColor properties you can set without having to modify or add a Theme.
Option 1: Set it in your app’s ThemeData
Caveat: This option will change ALL widgets using splashColor or highlightColor to the colors you set, so if that doesn’t work for you, go for Option 2.
In your main.dart file, add ThemeData to your MaterialApp ‘s theme property (if it isn’t already there). Within ThemeData , add the splashColor and highlightColor properties. The splashColor property is the color that spreads from the tap position. The highlightColor is the color that fills in the ListTile . Change these to your desired colors.
Changing the main theme changes everything
Option 2: Wrap your widget in a Theme widget
This will override the Theme set within MaterialApp and apply it only to its children. If you can’t change the properties of ThemeData in MaterialApp , this method will work better.
Wrap your widget of choice in a Theme widget. The splashColor property is the color that spreads from the tap position. The highlightColor is the color that fills in the ListTile . Change these to your desired colors.
Two themes for two widgets
As you can see above, you can set a whole new theme without altering the main theme set within MaterialApp .
Final note: If your splash effect isn’t looking just right, try adding a level of opacity to the highlightColor :
highlightColor: Colors.blue.withOpacity(.3);
This will accentuate the splash effect better than an opaque color.
That is all — bye now.
Code: | https://medium.com/swlh/flutter-quick-tip-changing-the-splash-color-of-listtile-70ea9bacd773 | ['Rob Jones'] | 2020-11-03 02:09:11.837000+00:00 | ['Dart', 'Flutter', 'Programming'] |
MANAGING EDITOR: Drive a pan-African multimedia newsroom | Positions in: pan-African
Do you want to shape cutting-edge digital storytelling across the continent?
Code for Africa (CfA) has an immediate vacancy for a full-time Managing Editor to steer its new pan-African StoryLab, which co-produces hard-hitting and award-winning multimedia storytelling in partnership with leading African newsrooms and other global media.
The role would preferably be based at any of CfA’s StoryLab’s primary hubs in Kenya, Nigeria or South Africa. CfA has full-time staff in 21 African countries, and is therefore also open to exceptional applicants from elsewhere on the continent.
Candidates must have demonstrable experience in leading high-impact newsrooms, with visionary agenda-setting and robust technical news production skills, and proven success at shaping creative editorial initiatives.
Candidates with a track-record for identifying and nurturing emerging storytellers will have an advantage.
The role will be for an English-speaking managing editor. Proficiency in local African languages and any additional international languages, such as Arabic/French, will be a plus.
The StoryLab is the virtual newsroom for CfA’s Data Academy, which spearheads digital storytelling initiatives and data journalism training partnerships. It also includes CfA communities such as the WanaData women data science/storytelling network, the africanDRONE civic drone community and the sensors.AFRICA sensor journalism initiative, with a network of more than 50 partner newsrooms and 30 partner universities across Africa. The Data Academy is also the custodian of other major CfA public infrastructures, such as the continent’s largest open data portal, openAFRICA, and Africa’s largest census data portal, HURUMap.
The StoryLab will be supported by CfA’s larger pan-African network of full-time data analysts, digital designers and newsroom mentors/trainers, with additional support from CfA’s software engineering and forensic research teams in 21 countries across the continent.
Required minimum requirements include:
Demonstrable newsroom leadership skills honed during at least seven years in a mainstream media or equivalent digital publishing environment.
Strong interpersonal communication skills and demonstrable aptitude for nurturing young talent, and drawing out the best in emerging voices.
Exceptional writing and editing skills which will help set benchmarks for world-class editorial standards.
Robust critical thinking and creative solution aptitudes, with strong research and investigative skills.
Proven track-record for creative problem solving in fast-paced and impact-driven environments, where solutions involve balancing human and technology considerations.
Demonstrable ability to self-manage, creating your own as well as wider team timelines and milestones with clear systems/processes.
A solid understanding of journalistic production systems and workflow methodologies, including how to integrate multimedia and digital storytelling techniques, built around actionable information, to create compelling storytelling.
Digital workplace skill sets, including proficiency in collaborative work solutions such as Google Drive (Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, etc.), Slack (or equivalents such as Teams), and project management tools like Trello (or equivalents).
Preferred candidates who are able to demonstrate the following will have an advantage:
Experience managing/working with transnational teams, across multiple time zones, with diverse cultural backgrounds.
Proficiency in data-driven or investigative journalism, and/or visual (infographic/social media video) storytelling or other multi-platform news production.
A strong track record for peer-to-peer mentoring of young journalists and newsroom teams.
Working knowledge of at least one major regional African language, such as Amharic, Fulani, Swahili, Yoruba, etc.
Language and Location Requirements:
Location: Kenya, Nigeria or South Africa preferred, but open to candidates based elsewhere in Africa
Languages: English primary language
Preferred but not required: Arabic and French, plus major African languages such Fulani, Kiswahili, isiZulu, Yoruba, etc
About the Role:
The successful candidate will work with CfA’s executive committee (ExCo) to transform the organisation’s existing editorial resources into a centralised virtual StoryLab newsroom, to drive pioneering digital journalism projects across the continent.
While the StoryLab will focus on digital and data-driven multimedia reportage, the managing editor’s core ‘superpowers’ will be compelling storytelling and high-impact journalism, as well as building and managing winning teams, rather than just digital expertise. CfA has a strong technical team to support the data/digital aspects of the StoryLab’s mission.
The managing editor’s core team will include a digital-savvy deputy editor, at least two full-time copyeditors, and a number of veteran ‘beat’ or topic editors managing thematic desks focused on everything from health emergencies and gender inequality, to religious extremism and state capture, as well as our ‘Dominion’ portfolio of climate and land-focused projects.
Collaborative field reporting will be undertaken by CfA’s network of 50+ mainstream newsroom partners across the continent, our affiliated innovation partners such as the Oxpeckers Centre and InfoNile, as well as selected journalism fellows from CfA’s WanaData network of 450+ women data scientists/storytellers. The resulting stories will be published by networks of African and global media partners, including major European and North American media.
Journalism projects will be underpinning by sophisticated data/digital resources, such as CfA’s OUTBREAK toolkit for tackling health emergencies, or by support from its in-house investigative forensic research lab, its network of fact-checkers in 13 African countries or its AI/machine learning research team at CivicSignal.
The role will require a combination of editorial agenda/vision-setting skills and charisma, as well as robust journalistic storytelling talent, and strong people/systems management skills to ensure that all the moving pieces sync into polished story packages, on deadline and within budget.
The successful candidate will need to be a culture fit with CfA, and must have a passion for co-creating solutions-driven products, through visual/multimedia storytelling that offers audiences actionable insights or information, underpinned by evidence-based investigative analysis. The candidate must also embrace peer-mentoring, nurturing both their team and partners through collaborative co-production
Key performance indicators will include setting and maintaining international-level editorial standards; growing an award-winning multidisciplinary editorial team; meeting editorial targets and production deadlines; mentoring and growing a pan-African network of reporting partners/journalists.
Responsibilities Your daily responsibilities will include:
You will, in consultation with CfA’s ExCo and with the support of its ManCom, transform the organisation’s disparate editorial resources into a centralised virtual newsroom, as the StoryLab.
You will grow and forge the existing full-time core team of editors and copyeditors into a dynamic newsroom that produces international award-winning content.
You will steer development of a strategic editorial roadmap for the StoryLab, identifying issues and countries for prioritised attention and suggesting storytelling techniques and partners for amplifying our impact.
You will shape CfA’s editorial standards, setting product benchmarks and quality guidelines, as well as creating editorial policies and playbooks.
You will help set and then achieve editorial targets, will establish production schedules and will help ensure the StoryLab delivers on project deadlines, at agreed quality standards, while meeting partner and audience expectations within the agreed budgets/resources.
You will champion adherence to the StoryLab’s editorial standards and methodologies within CfA, and externally with partners and in industry fora, in the pursuit of editorial excellence.
You will embrace CfA’s philosophy of solutions-driven actionable information, and will ensure the accuracy, relevance and quality of the StoryLab’s content.
You will set the tone and pace for peer-mentoring CfA’s storytelling partners, in the WanaData network of 450+ women data scientists/journalists and our network of 50+ newsroom partners.
What We Offer:
A competitive salary, subject to experience, with opportunities for performance-based growth, both in terms of career path and public stature.
A dynamic workplace, with a transnational team, occasional international travel, and generous vacation benefits.
Ongoing opportunities to learn new cutting-edge skills and techniques/technologies to future-proof yourself in a rapidly evolving industry.
A chance to shine on a global stage, writing for international audiences and interacting with colleagues around the world.
How to apply:
Please fill in this form: 30 June 2021
Code for Africa is hiring! Check out our opportunities page. | https://medium.com/code-for-africa/managing-editor-drive-a-pan-african-multimedia-newsroom-78b59ca7d385 | ['Code For Africa'] | 2021-06-17 12:16:28.449000+00:00 | ['Opportunities'] |
How Airbnb uses location data to improve guest satisfaction | How Airbnb uses location data to improve guest satisfaction
Source: Airbnb
What Americanos and Espresso are to Starbucks, New York, and Paris are to Airbnb. Airbnb made an entry into the hospitality sector of the “sharing economy” by arranging/offering a homestay or local experiences for guests. Airbnb is a community marketplace for extra spaces where people having an extra space host and those traveling to those areas book those homes.
Airbnb was born out of necessity. Our rent kept going up. It was born out of a problem. ~ Jeo Gebbia, Co-founder
If you are someone who loves to crunch numbers, you will be amazed to know that Airbnb has more than 3 million listings with 650,000 hosts in over 191 countries. Due to some forces affecting tourism, it is most popular in the United States, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, but travelers can find listings (stays/experiences ) in 98% of the world’s nations.
Let’s have a look at how Airbnb leverages location data for scaling its business and to offer better customer experience.
Location Relevance
How many of us know about Bir Billing?
I myself recently found out about that very recently. A small, yet exquisite village in Himachal Pradesh, Bir is well known for its monasteries and paragliding/trekking activities.
Airbnb bridges these gaps by creatively helping people find the “local” experience they are looking for in places we know very little about. Their search algorithm which combines various signals to list out the experiences guests want to have or the places they want to visit plays a crucial role in this.
To make their search and listing more precise, Airbnb used something known as “listing quality score” to list out places according to proximity to the center of search and guest reviews. It is interesting to note how Airbnb used the voice of their guests to come up with a conditional probability of booking in a location given where the user searched for. [Source]
The density of Airbnb wrt distance from the center of search [ Source ]
For example , a search for Clyde Hill in Washington would thus slide towards neighborhoods where people who also search for Clyde Hill typically wind up booking, for example the Yarrow Point or Evergreen Point .
Better Search Ranking
The factors which determine how the various places or experiences are listed on Airbnb have a high correlation with location data. The search ranking algorithm helps guests find the perfect listing for their trip and hosts find guests who are a great fit for their place. Airbnb has been getting the real estate economics right by adjusting a few signals like smart pricing, visibility, and conversion trigger.
When a listing/place is in a high demand area, then they can benefit from late-stage visibility (i.e your place may appear in search results because all other listings are booked). A good location and a proper optimization of risk preferences can turn out to be advantageous for your stay taking ranking factor into consideration.
Conversion trigger for a specific location [Source ]
Smart Pricing
A large chunk of Airbnb hosts view the site as a supplementary income and not their main gig. 80% of the hosts rent just a room in their home, a guest house or a vacation home. Airbnb has a surprisingly positive impact on local economies since their guests stay 2.4 times longer, they spend 2.3 times more money than hotel guests and this earning stays within the closely bound neighborhood.
An official video by Airbnb which shows how smart pricing actually works:
Airbnb Smart Pricing
The overall profitability of the host (and Airbnb) depends on factors like the time a host can invest, prior market knowledge and relative responsiveness to changing patterns and shifts in demand with respect to the seasonality. To fight this problem of changing prices, Airbnb came up with a game-changing solution known as smart pricing which used predictive analytics to come up with optimal rates for any given day.
This feature changes the booking price as per real-time changing conditions.
Many of the factors affecting smart pricing have a geospatial component. Factors like the location of the stay, proximity to public transit, season and amenities available in an area affect the pricing and booking.
Rome Neighbourhoods. Source: Airbnb
Building Trust
Trust is the fundamental currency of the “sharing economy” and is at the heart of almost everything that we do. Airbnb is building trust for its community by offering three things: safety, transparency, and support.
It is interesting to note how technology plays the role of a lever in ensuring trust among hosts and guests. A combination of predictive analytics and behavioral analytics is used to assess the risk of every listing. The risk could be in terms of location or any previous suspicious activity in the homestay/place. To avoid such cases Airbnb runs many background checks on its guests and hosts to make sure that none of them have any previous records of any kind of criminal offense.
Brian Chesky highlights the importance of trust in a sharing economy. In his own words,
I’m not saying the whole world will work this way, but with Airbnb, people are sleeping in other people’s homes and other people’s beds. So there’s a level of trust necessary to participate that’s different from an eBay or Facebook .
Airbnb for Work gives the travel managers of each registered company a dashboard to keep track of their employees while they are spread across the globe. They can have complete visibility about where each person is currently traveling and will be traveling in the future.
Joe Gebbia in this TED talk speaks about how they overcame the stranger-danger bias and designed a platform to build trust among the community members.
It is a psychological trait among humans that we trust people who show a high degree of similarity with us be it in terms of age, location or geography. As per this case study on Airbnb by Standford University, people (hosts/guests) with diverse demographics backgrounds tend to trust each other only if each of them has good reviews in the past.
Airbnb Maps
People usually find it hard to believe that cartographers at Airbnb are busy mapping the world. Wait, what? Isn’t the world already mapped by Google Maps, Waze, Foursquare (to name a few)? This isn’t false but Airbnb set themselves out on a journey to solve big questions and hard problems by mapping locations on the world to find their relationship with other locations.
With Airbnb Maps, you can track real-time activity at an Airbnb located in any part of the world. Sitting in your room you could actually see someone flying over Australia’s Great Barrier Reef or someone checking in at an exotic homestay Airbnb in Italy or maybe see someone having authentic local experiences in Paris.
There are culturally significant areas or regions that aren’t drawn on maps. They mostly live in the minds of the local community that calls those areas home. Airbnb puts effort in finding and mapping these places so that you know where in the world should you travel so that it makes a perfect trip for you and your loved ones!
Improving Sustainable Tourism
The Healthy Travel and Healthy Destination report show that Airbnb through its platform and community model helps fight mass tourism and promotes sustainable tourism.
Airbnbs encourage geographic diversity and the proper distribution of the guest to avoid over-tourism. Majority guest arrivals at well-known global tourist destinations take place outside of traditional tourist areas, and 72 to 93 percent of Airbnb listings are located outside of areas that are at risk for over-tourism. This ensures that homestays are less concentrated as compared to hotels and results in a homogenous dispersal of guests
Not only that, tourist perceptions about different parts of the city largely affect the inflow of tourists to a particular place/location. A combination of guest reviews and ratings helps people decide on their next homestay/experience.
Host and Guest Acceptance
Airbnb puts a lot of effort to make sure that hosts are equally benefitted. They make it possible by architecting better matching algorithms so it results in an increase in booking conversion.
For each search query that a guest enters on Airbnb’s search engine, their model computes the likelihood that relevant hosts will want to accommodate the guest’s request (as per official data, this resulted in about a 3.75% increase in booking conversion) and it is safe to say that location plays a very critical role in that! | https://medium.com/locale-ai/how-airbnb-uses-location-data-to-improve-guest-satisfaction-cb89c25cefa6 | ['Anubhav Pattnaik'] | 2020-07-07 08:00:34.951000+00:00 | ['Analytics', 'Location Intelligence', 'Geospatial', 'Hospitality', 'Airbnb'] |
Sharks Should Be Respected, Not Feared | Scalloped hammerhead sharks are internationally protected. Photo by NOAA
Sharks have long gripped our fascination and swum in the ocean before dinosaurs roamed the earth. However, such factors as climate change, ocean pollution, overfishing and fin poaching now leave some species of sharks facing extinction in parts of the world.
Why do we need to protect sharks?
Sharks play a crucial role in healthy ocean ecosystems because they are a top predator — they keep prey species populations at a healthy level and prevent algae overgrowth that advances the decline of coral reefs.
Some species of sharks are particularly vulnerable to overfishing because they do not populate quickly. Similar to humans, most shark species are long-lived, slow growing and take many years to reach sexual maturity. In addition, sharks give birth to few offspring at a time, have high juvenile mortality and infrequently reproduce.
As a commodity, there is a legal trade in shark products and the legal shark fishing industry provides an honest livelihood for many. Sharks are also vital to local economies through dive tourism, where humans enjoy observing and learning about these gentle giants underwater.
Why is there a shark population decline overseas?
The United States enforces a science-based fishery management approach that prevents overfishing and rebuilds stocks. However, the overfishing and illegal fishing of sharks solely for their fins is depleting some populations overseas. Most heinously, sharks are de-finned alive, known as “shark finning.” Once its fin has been cut off, the body is thrown overboard where the shark drowns while bleeding into the water, which attracts more sharks. This practice is prohibited by several international tuna treaties, U.S. federal law and under some U.S. state laws. U.S. fishermen must bring a shark to shore with all its fins naturally attached.
Shark fins are dried and then sold to make shark fin soup, and a single bowl may sell for $100 USD. Shark fin soup is considered a delicacy and is mainly served at special events, and can be found in restaurants around the world. The cartilaginous soup is made from ceratotrichia, a keratin-like substance. These long, thin filaments of protein are most prevalent in the dorsal, pectoral, and lower caudal fins; therefore, those fins are the most desirable and most often seen in the illegal trade.
A bowl of shark fin soup. Photo by Andrew Fung/Wikimedia Commons
International protections
Today, several shark species are internationally protected under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES), including thresher, silky, basking, great white, oceanic whitetip, porbeagle and whale sharks; three species of hammerhead sharks (scalloped, great and smooth); and short fin and long fin mako sharks. The most recent additions have been species of pelagic (open ocean) sharks. Many of these protected species have large fins that are traded internationally to meet the market demands for shark fin soup.
What is the Service doing?
As the implementing body for CITES in the U.S., the Service’s International Affairs program provides the scientific basis and oversight to ensure that international trade in plants and animals is legal and sustainable. There are currently 183 Parties to CITES, which include 182 member countries and the European Union. The sharks mentioned above are protected under CITES in a level that allows international trade as long as it is not detrimental to the survival of the species and provides that the specimens were obtained legally, without violating any state, federal or other jurisdictional law, including any measure adopted by a regional fisheries management organization.
The Service’s Office of Law Enforcement (OLE) is committed to enforcing federal laws and international treaties that protect wildlife. Thanks to laws such as the Lacey Act and Endangered Species Act, the OLE has seized approximately 35 tons of CITES-protected shark fins shipped illegally through the United States since 2016.
Working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Service has kept hundreds of illegal shark fins from reaching the shipment’s destination. Photo by USFWS
The Service partners with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other state and federal entities to tackle the unlawful shark trade. Interagency cooperation is essential to uncovering unpermitted, falsely labeled and concealed shipments.
CITES-protected shark fins have been found shipped illegally through air cargo, sea cargo, personal baggage and express freight. Through enhanced targeting, OLE’s wildlife inspectors and special agents have made large in-transit seizures across our country. Examples of shipments and shark species include:
· Seattle, Washington: 4 U.S. tons that contained great hammerhead and oceanic whitetip shark fins;
· Oakland, California: 27 U.S. tons that contained scalloped hammerhead, smooth hammerhead, oceanic whitetip and porbeagle shark fins;
· Memphis, Tennessee: 628 individual shark fins from species that included smooth hammerhead, great hammerhead and scalloped hammerhead fins;
· Anchorage, Alaska: 1,191 pounds that contained great hammerhead shark fins;
· Louisville, Kentucky: 110 pounds that contained silky shark and oceanic whitetip shark fins; and
· Miami, Florida: 1,394 pounds that contained great hammerhead, scalloped hammerhead, and silky shark fins.
In response to the increase of wildlife trafficking activity, OLE initiated an interdiction team that that is composed of senior wildlife inspectors whose focus is to combat wildlife trafficking by exposing criminal pathways, generate intelligence on wildlife trafficking and coordinate national inspection efforts. The Wildlife Inspection Interdiction Team is designed to be efficient, cohesive, flexible, effective, and results driven. A recent success was Operation Hidden Mitten.
“Not on our watch,” said Regional Supervisor Wildlife Inspector Eva Lara. “The OLE is focused and committed to interdict illegal shark fins from transiting through the United States. Across our nation, our wildlife inspectors are trained professionals who know what wildlife species is legal or illegal. We all work hard to conserve wildlife species that are endangered and disrupt the black-market trade.”
Conservation celebrations such as “Shark Week” provide the learning foundation to discover reasons to love sharks and not fear them. They are incredibly important to the health of our planet and the Service and our partners will continue in its efforts to ensure sharks remain on the planet so future generations may benefit from them.
For more information, please go to https://www.fws.gov/le/stories.html
For information on how CITES works: https://www.fws.gov/international/cites/how-cites-works.html and CITES-related protections for sharks and rays: https://www.fws.gov/international/permits/by-species/sharks-and-rays.html
By John Goldman, Wildlife Inspector, Office of Law Enforcement | https://usfws.medium.com/sharks-should-be-respected-not-feared-1138226e82e5 | ['U.S. Fish', 'Wildlife Service'] | 2020-08-17 16:35:58.656000+00:00 | ['Sharks', 'Shark Week', 'Conservation'] |
My Promise to America. | Criminal Justice
In America right now, 37% of the prison population is African-American males, despite African-Americans being 13% of the population. This is wrong, and we must reduce the racial disparities in the prison population, which is why we MUST legalize recreational marijuana. Our current criminal justice system is predominantly focused on punishment, and not redemption. It is my belief that there should be NO mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses and instead there should be mandatory rehabilitation for people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. The government should stop acting as if we have the moral authority to try to control lives the way the War on Drugs has intended to. As President, I will issue an immediate commutation to every American currently serving as a result of a nonviolent drug offense, instead having them serve mandatory rehabilitation. It is time we END the War on Drugs.
The death penalty, in my personal view is morally egregious and a stain on the face of our nation’s criminal justice system; however, I do believe that the states should decide for themselves whether to keep capital punishment. As President, I will issue an executive order immediately placing a moratorium on the use of capital punishment by the federal government.
On a personal note, in my view, young people would not do drugs and harmful substances if the generations preceding us did not create such a miserable excuse for a fair economy. We must make it easier to be happy in America.
Economy
I stand strongly opposed to a nationwide standard minimum wage, instead requiring each state to put in place a minimum wage that adjusts for the cost of inflation since the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007.
Unions are the backbone to our economy, the support system that helped us get protections for workers, and an important voice in keeping workers at the top of our national discourse. It is my view that unions should have the right to organize nationwide, the right to collective bargaining, and a place in our government; which is why when I am President, I will appoint a newly created Organized Labor Adviser to the president.
We need a fairer, more just tax code that works for middle-class Americans, poorer Americans, and small businesses. As President, I will push Congress to legislate a new tax code that lowers taxes for middle-class Americans, and raises taxes for the very wealthy. It is time the wealthy pay their fair share.
While Americans are suffering, CEO's of massive corporations such as Amazon are thriving because certain major corporations have to pay less in taxes then you, the average American. This is wrong. I am proposing a Progressive Corporate Tax Rate, which will lower taxes on smaller businesses and raise taxes on bigger, more profitable businesses. This will help small businesses and help even out the playing field.
The Trump administration has failed this country by failing to have America contribute to global research efforts. As President, in my first proposed budget to the Congress, I will push for more funding for NASA, so we can put the first woman on the Moon, and I will push for more medical research funds, so we can finally solve numerous problems. We must bring our research efforts into the 21st Century.
Foreign Policy
America must remain tough, but humble. I am concerned about our current trade war with China. We must get China back to the negotiating table to make sure Chinese goods and American goods can flow freely into our countries. However, this is not weakness, we must hold the Chinese accountable for their currency manipulation and issue sanctions on the country unless they join a global effort on the climate crisis.
We have become far too entangled in the Middle East. It is a disservice to our troops to have them fight in wars with no clear end in sight. We must REMOVE our troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and instead send limited numbers of advisers and top generals to the region to help train forces we support and advise governments on ways to end the conflicts. Under my Administration, I will push for funds for a new safe zone in the Middle East for refugees and US-supported troops that have been defeated.
It is time we reconcile our relationship with our allies in NATO and the United Nations. As President, I will vigorously fight for American sovereignty in bilateral trade deals, push for multilateral research efforts, and make sure that every member is contributing what they need to contribute.
Israel has been one of our most trusted allies, and we made a wise decision by moving our embassy to Jerusalem, but we must negotiate with the Palestinians. To ensure peace in the region, we must offer the Palestinians a place at the table. I will push congress to officially recognize Palestine as a country and make it clear to Palestine that since they are a sovereign nation, they must act like one and stop their people from attacking Israel. Otherwise, they will face the full brute of our armed forces.
Immigration
Our immigration laws are outdated and we must bring Comprehensive Immigration Reform back to the national discussion, as immigration isn’t a one party matter.
The Trump Administration was wrong- plain and simple, when they rescinded DACA. Children who were raised here their whole life and have become a part of this country should not have to face the emotional and physical threat of being sent back to a country they barely know. As President, I will push DACA through Congress, but not in its current form. The eligibility for DACA will be 3 years after the law takes effect, and after that, the parents must pay heavy fines for each child they brought in illegally to our country.
America is a land of opportunity, but we are a nation of laws. We do not want to criminalize desperation, but we cannot allow people to cut the line. Under my administration, any person who has immigrated to our nation illegally will pay a $3000 fine and be subject to immediate deportation if they commit any violent crime. However, if an illegal immigrant chooses to become a citizen and they have no criminal record after 5 years of residency here, they may apply for citizenship.
We must reform our asylum laws so that when migrants escaping danger flee to our nation, we don’t lock them in cages, we truly show them that we are a nation of opportunity. Anyone coming here on an asylum claim will be immediately put through a background check and able to apply for citizenship. We will increase the size of the Department of Homeland Security so we are able to do this.
Walls are what divides us. The United States welcomes migrants. However, we must protect our border from the few bad apples. As President, my administration will push congress for more sophisticated technology to place on our border to make it a safer and peaceful place to start businesses. The Mexican border could soon be an economic hub, creating jobs and friendships.
Public Health
We have a healthcare system that is both cruel and unfair. The best plans go to the highest bidder, leaving many Americans fearful and trapped with measly healthcare plans. However, many Americans have spent years negotiating good healthcare plans with their Unions. These Americans deserve to keep their plans, and not be told by the Government that their plan is better. I support a public option. The government will provide free healthcare for whoever wants it and will respect the choice many Americans will make to keep their current plans. Our administration will guarantee that people with pre-existing conditions are not denied healthcare.
Other countries have figured out how to make cheap prescription drugs, such as Canada with Insulin. In Canada, Insulin is up to 90% cheaper. This is shameful; diabetics shouldn’t have to choose between groceries or life. As President, I would appoint a special Pharmaceutical adviser to negotiate the prices of prescription drugs with pharmaceutical companies.
Our administration would fight vigorously to ensure that Americans who are trans gendered who are unable to pay for their gender transition surgery will have their surgeries and all other related medical visits free of cost. For young women, who are unable to pay for their abortion, we will work with Congress to finally repeal the Hyde amendment, so that they do not resort to back-alley abortions. Abortions should and will be covered in JacksonCare.
The Climate Crisis
In 21st Century America, we face a crisis like none we have ever faced before. The Earth is getting hotter and hotter by the year, over time leading to a cataclysmic series of events. Climate change is the most serious, existential crisis we have ever faced as a population, and we must act now.
Young progressives across the country have championed the outline for the Green New Deal, showing the intelligence and passion of young people all across our country. As President, not only will I work with Progressives, Centrists, and Conservatives in Congress to pass an economically feasible Green New Deal in Congress, but I will also restructure the Environmental Protection Agency to become the Department of the Environment, appoint a Special Climate Advisor to the President who must be a Scientist of some sort, create an emergency task force dealing with this crisis, and have the United States lead the worldwide effort to defeat this crisis.
A common counterargument against the Green New Deal is that it would destroy millions of jobs in the energy sector. Well, to be frank, this is true. This is why our administration will push for the largest jobs overhaul since the New Deal, called AEWorks, short for Alternative Energy Works. AEWorks will create hundreds of thousands of jobs constructing alternative energy sources all around the country, create millions of jobs working at these sites once they are complete, and create billions of dollars in revenue once the United States switches its dependency from dirty energy to clean energy. AEWorks plus the bipartisan Green New Deal will remove Oil, Natural Gas, and Coal from our economy, encourage a cleaner environment, and replace every lost job. side note: I personally respect the millions of hardworking Americans working in the energy sector currently, but the future of this planet is at stake, and I guarantee and promise a job for each and every single one of you.
As leader of the free world, I will lead the global charge to tackle this issue. At my first United Nations summit I will lead negotiations for a new global climate agreement. I will not rest until every single sovereign nation in the top 50 carbon producers has signed on, and these United States will issue heavy sanctions if necessary to get nations on board. My main goals will be to reduce net carbon emissions to ZERO by the next decade, ensure that every country is economically stable to do this, and to have real, concrete results.
Social Issues
I aspire to live in an America where every American can live true to their constitutional freedoms without unnecessary government intervention. Americans just want to be left alone, without fear of a police state watching their every move, which every President in our modern history has operated.
Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. Abortion is the toughest decision any woman will make in her life and nobody should be shamed for desperation. Republican-led abortion bans will only lead to an increase in unsafe, coat hanger abortions that kill not only the baby, but the mother as well. We must fully protect abortion and make it safe, accessible and free (by pushing Congress to repeal the Hyde Amendment). However, it has been my personal belief that abortion should be a last resort, and we should issue tax-exempt statuses not only to abortion clinics, but Crisis pregnancy centers and adoption agencies. To prevent situations like this in the first place, we must require businesses with 50 employees or more to provide free birth control to their employees, require businesses with up to 50 employees to provide employees paid paternal and maternal time off for 6 weeks, require businesses with 100 or more employees to provide paid paternal and maternal time off for 12 weeks, and require businesses with 51–99 employees to provide employees with 9 weeks of paid paternal and maternal time off.
Guns should not belong in the hands of the wrong people. Plain and simple. As an American, I’m sick and tired of the pathetic politicians in Washington debating and not legislating. In my first 100 days as President, I will use my authority as legislator-in-chief to push a universal background check through Congress. Our administration will close the gun show loophole, establish a hotline for domestic partners who feel as if their relative/spouse/domestic partner is an unsafe gun owner, and establish a mental health competence section of every background check. If the child of a gun owning parent commits a crime with their gun, our administration will allow the victim of said crime to sue the parents for not being a responsible gun owner.
In 2015, the Supreme Court finally and rightfully ensured the right of marriage to everyone, regardless of who you love. Those who are opposed to gay marriage are advocating for the very same controlling, police state that I am advocating against. As President, I will push for a Rainbow Civil Rights Bill at the Federal level. This bill will make discrimination against LGBTQ+ Americans illegal as it relates to employment, housing, public accommodations, schools, and voter registration requirements. I have stated my support for free gender transition operations for transgendered Americans, and will go many steps further in demanding that every federal institution uses gender appropriate pronouns, encouraging schools to establish a single-stall unisex bathroom, reversing the Trump administration’s cruel ban on transgender service members openly serving, rolling back restrictions on service members with HIV serving, and instituting a nationwide ban on conversion therapy.
Many young people question whether the Constitution is still applicable to our modern day government, and my answer would be hell yes. As of right now, the government has the power to oversee everything we do, everything we type, every phone call we make and every text message we send. The government must go after terrorists, and not innocent Americans. The Constitution, in the 4th Amendment, makes it very clear that unreasonable searches and seizures are prohibited without a warrant from a judge. My administration will enforce the 4th Amendment and not the Patriot Act. In my first 100 days in office, I will push for the repeal of the Patriot Act, and introduce a package called the FOG Act (Free of Government Act). The FOG Act will make it illegal for the government to oversee personal information of Americans without a warrant and grant immunity to whistleblowers who expose the government doing this.
Education
Education is the forefront of our nation’s battle against future problems. The next generation must be well-equipped for the problems my generation sloppily leaves behind. The Department of Education should be provided more resources and money so it can do its job. We must set a minimum wage for teachers of all kind, so that teachers can finally have the money they need to provide both a good life for themselves and a valuable classroom experience for their students.
Nationwide testing and standards as implemented in No Child Left Behind has failed. School is no longer about learning, but passing. We must turn this boat before it’s too late. As President, I will push for the repeal of No Child Left Behind, and instead push for a new and revolutionary education package; the Points Act. It has a simple name, and a simple premise. Students, instead of being forced to take one test a year to determine their intelligence, will be required to reach a certain number of points based on assignments and quizzes to graduate each school year. The Points Act will show real growth and development in students, and not just the ability to study really hard one night and pass the test.
Many students living in impoverished areas aspire to go to college and make more of themselves, but the massive costs are a steep hill to climb. Spots in college go to the richest, and not always the most intelligent. This is shameful, as we are eliminating a huge swath of potential from our secondary education class. As President, I would push through Congress a bill to make college tuition-free to anyone who’s household makes less then 75,000 a year. Rich kids can pay at least a little bit of college tuition. In America though, not only does it need to be more affordable to go to college, it needs to be more affordable not to go to college, which is why as President I will push for trade schools to also be tuition free. As President, our administration will forgive every single person’s student loan debts, so young Americans can have a head start in this economy.
Holding Our Government Accountable
As President, I will inherit a broken Washington. Politicians are corrupt and bought and payed for by special interests and lobbyists. It appears as if the Presidency goes to the highest bidder. In the words of Missouri favorite, Harry Truman, “the buck stops here.” I will make enemies in office by executing this plan, and I look very much forward to it.
Senator Elizabeth Warren detailed a very detailed anti-corruption plan, and I couldn’t help but agree with nearly every point she made. Her plan, is my plan. Some of the key points I will look to enforce as President are as follows:
A lifetime lobbying ban for presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress, federal judges, and Cabinet secretaries.
Applying conflict-of-interest laws to the president and vice president, requiring them to place businesses into a blind trust to be sold off. They would also have to place assets that could present a conflict of interest — including real estate — in a blind trust and sell them off.
— in a blind trust and sell them off. Multi-year lobbying bans for federal employees (both congressional staffers and employees of federal agencies). The span of time would be at least two years and six years for those wishing to become corporate lobbyists.
Banning members of Congress and senior congressional staff from serving on corporate boards. The plan would also ban senior administration officials and members of Congress from serving on for-profit boards, no matter if they receive compensation for it or not.
Banning members of Congress, Cabinet secretaries, federal judges, White House staff, senior congressional staff, and other officials from owning or trading individual stocks while in office.
Changing the rulemaking process of federal agencies to severely restrict the ability of corporations or industry to delay or influence rulemaking. Warren’s plan would restrict studies funded by groups with conflict-of-interest problems being considered in the rulemaking process, unless they go under a lengthy peer review.
Broadening the definition of a “thing of value” in campaign finance laws to go beyond money. Under the new definition, it could include opposition research from foreign governments.
Creating a new independent US Office of Public Integrity, which would enforce the nation’s ethics laws and investigate any potential violations. The office would also try to strengthen open records laws, making records more easily accessible to the public and the press.
Banning forced arbitration clauses and class action waivers for all employment, consumer protection, antitrust, and civil rights cases.
Boosting transparency in cases that involve public health or safety, by prohibiting courts from using sealed settlements to conceal evidence.
Prohibiting judges from being able to decide for themselves whether they should recuse themselves from a case due to a conflict. The plan would also require Supreme Court Justices to provide written explanations of recusal decisions when a litigant challenges for recusal.
Beefing up the disciplinary authority of judicial ethics watchdogs, including giving them the power to take away non-vested taxpayer-funded pensions from judges as a penalty for wrongdoing.
Source for Senator Warren’s plan for Anti-Corruption: https://www.vox.com/2019/9/16/20867216/elizabeth-warren-anti-corruption-bill
Thank you for reading, and I hope to earn your support when I run in 2052.
We will fight, and we will win.
Aidan Jackson for President, 2052 | https://medium.com/@aidanjackson2052/my-promise-to-america-da0a4699cbd9 | ['Aidan Jackson'] | 2020-05-20 20:48:13.526000+00:00 | ['President', 'Politics', 'Current Events', 'Writing', 'Progressive'] |
Using of Micro Fibre Cleaners Can Enhance the Cleaning | Floor cleaners come in many different types, including microfiber equipment options. Microfiber floor mops are popular for many reasons, including what we will discuss here alongside considerations to make when doing business with a floor wipers supplier in Dubai, UAE, too.
Reasons to Utilize Microfiber Mops
Clean Better
Microfiber cleaning supplies have smaller strands as compared to their cotton counterparts. This means that the former products can reach less accessible floor areas, unlike cotton mops. It is among the reasons to shop from microfiber cleaning products manufacturers in Muscat, Oman, as well.
Use Relatively Less Water
Mops made of microfiber work effectively with less water as compared to cotton mops. Avoiding the use of too much water to clean hard surface flooring is among the best practices, so microfiber mops are the right option here. Using less water means the mop is not as likely to leave streaks on laminate or hardwood as other cleaning supplies. Your business should consider purchasing microfiber-based mops for more reasons. Nevertheless, assuming that you are convinced about buying the products, we will discuss what to contemplate at the time as a microfiber floor wipers supplier in Muscat, Oman.
Considerations to Make When Shopping from Microfiber Mop Brands
Mops may not be complex cleaning supplies, but there are many things to contemplate when making the purchase, including the following. We are not covering which brands to buy from a floor wipers supplier in Dubai, UAE, as it should be in a longer set of considerations.
Floor Type
Whether it is tile, laminate or hardwood — the flooring type in your business location will help determine the best mop pad type for it. Laminate or hardwood flooring shows dirt and dust, which makes a dry and fringed pad a quality option. With its additional surface area, a microfiber fringe can make some static charge, attracting more dirt, hair and dust with every single pass. Both flooring varieties are vulnerable to too much water too. A mop with a wringable and removable wet pad lets users remove maximum water to safeguard their floor against water damage.
Just because tile flooring does not show the same level of dust as laminate or hardwood flooring does, it does not mean the material is non-existent. A spray-type microfiber mop has a built-in water tank, making it a quality choice for tile flooring. As water damage does not affect tile, a spray floor mop simplifies cleaning trickier messes without multiple forms of pads.
The Size of Mop Head
A bigger mop head allows covering more floor area with every single pass. A smaller one does not cover just as much ground, but it can maneuver in rather tight floor spaces, such as under furniture. When you find it tricky to pick the right-sized mop head for your application, we could help you as a floor wipers supplier in Dubai, UAE.
We have been specializing in such products for a long time now. So, our experience can be useful to you in the shopping stage. | https://medium.com/@asmiseohyienelinks/using-of-micro-fibre-cleaners-can-enhance-the-cleaning-f76b8e7b52d | ['Hygiene Links'] | 2021-11-13 11:19:19.411000+00:00 | ['Cleaning'] |
#VicKat — Vicky Kaushal Katrina Kaif Wedding Photos Will Leave You Awestruck! — Wish N Wed | Intro
And finally Vicky Kaushal & Katrina Kaif puts a full stop to their wedding rumors that have been doing the rounds from past few months. The much awaited wedding of Vicky Kaushal & Katrina Kaif happened on 9th December, 2021 at Six Senses Fort, Barwara. Netizens were so excited about the news of Kat & Vicky wedding that they even kept their wedding hashtag #VicKat. In the year 2021 we witnessed so many Celebrity weddings and at last Vicky Kaushal Katrina Kaif wedding also made to the Celebrity Weddings 2021 list.
Since the couple left for their wedding venue, from that very moment #VicKat fans, paparazzi , every second person was eagerly waiting to have a glimpse of Katrina Kaif & Vicky Kaushal wedding photos. And the moment the newbies posted their wedding pictures on Instagram, it just took the internet by storm. The duo unveiled their pre-wedding festivities pictures slowly but it was worth having glimpse of the Vicky Kaushal & Katrina Kaif grand wedding.
So get ready to inspire by the Sabyasachi Couple Vicky Kaushal & Katrina Kaif dreamy wedding pictures that are filled with endless love, laughter & fun. | https://medium.com/@wishnwed/vickat-vicky-kaushal-katrina-kaif-wedding-photos-will-leave-you-awestruck-wish-n-wed-289bcd4895f4 | ['Wish N Wed'] | 2021-12-14 11:38:48.270000+00:00 | ['Bollywood', 'Vicky Katrina', 'Vicky Katrina Wedding', 'Katrina Kaif', 'Vicky Kaushal'] |
Love, True Love.. | Love, True Love..
I think about it often. What does it feel like? What does it do to a person? When will you know that you’re in Love?
Love is a strong word but when I was younger I used to throw it around without actually understanding the meaning. I’m not sure if I do even till this day because after all, I’ve never experienced True Love..
I’ve only truly cared for one person and it ended horribly, but I know that when I was with this person there was something in my heart.
Almost like a flower blooming, developing over time I spent by this persons side. When I would hear a text it would grow a bit, When I heard his name it would grow a bit more, when he laughed it grew even more, and when he would look at me with a smile the whole world would stop and the feeling would overflow.
But as delicate as a flower is, one sentence tore it all to bits…
…and those baby steps I took towards True Love disappeared with the steps he took to walk away. | https://medium.com/@wmyvstmh/love-true-love-9ae99353f058 | ['Audrey Latorre'] | 2020-12-27 19:05:04.132000+00:00 | ['Drama', 'Heartbreak', 'Teen Romance', 'Romance'] |
Love Smells: Body Odor and Sexual Attraction | Years ago, I worked with a woman that I will call Cassandra. Not only is that a beautiful name, but it is also the name of the mythical cursed prophetess. She knew exactly what was going to happen, but no one believed her.
“Hey, Troy is going to be burned, and everyone is going to die,” she basically said. “Haha! Great joke, Cassandra!” everyone responded and went on their merry way (to be murdered just a couple of days later).
Like the mythical Cassandra, my work Cassandra was wise, but unheeded. Over lunch one day, she described one of the many reasons she left her ex-husband: “He smelled. All the time. It made me want to gag.”
I remember screwing up my face at this pronouncement. I really had no idea what she meant. How could someone always smell bad? I thought of my current husband then. He had a smell I did not love, but it was just normal, right? I mean, who wants to hug or bang someone who has just come back from the gym? Is that not always a mandatory shower-before-intimacy sort of thing?
But then I left that husband and met my soon-to-be second husband. My future husband looks like a Greek god when he is shirtless, and he looks that way because he spends a lot of time in the gym.
He has never once smelled bad to me. I have had zero problems with peeling sweaty clothes off his body and smashing my freshly showered one against his. My nose has never crinkled at the smell of him post-gym or cutting the lawn in 90 degree humidity.
This goes both ways as well. My partner has told me that I do not have a smell. Even when I have come home after a harrowing experience covered with a damp fear sweat, he has said, “I don’t smell anything.”
What is to this difference? Why do I not mind my soon-to-be second husband’s odor while I did my first?
Lindsey Bordone, assistant professor of dermatology at Columbia University Medical Center, has said, “ You might just be more forgiving of [someone’s odor] because you’re attracted to the other person and the overall, underlying scent that is uniquely theirs.”
Animal pheromones have been documented for seals, pigs, and rats, but not for humans. The French physician Paul Broca asserted that monkeys, apes, and humans represent the evolution of sniffing beasts to sight-oriented ones.
Animals smell pheromones through the vomeronasal organ (VNO) located in each of their nostrils. In the mid-1980s, a similar organ was found within humans’ nostrils using microscope probes, though it seems to present a very small role in our mating practices. Not to Prince though, who sings in his song “Pheromone,” “…Controlling my every emotion./…Pheromone. When your body’s wet…”
To be fair as well, a person’s scent today is more a combination of each of the products they use on a daily basis: their body wash, shampoo, deodorant, cologne or perfume, hair product, fabric-softener, and any other scented product they might use. While there is uniqueness to a person’s scent, there are many other things that influence the final ‘product’.”
Bordone also says, “A recurring hypothesis regarding body odor and sexual attraction is that a person’s immune system influences what he or she perceives as attractive, and also influences what their own unadulterated scent would be minus all of the personal-care products.”
A person’s immune system influencing their scent has been studied many times. “Women seem to favor the smells of men who have immune genes that differ from their own,” says one study. The conclusion is that women might be sniffing out “men’s major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a group of genes that effect the immune system” in order to assess whether their offspring would be able to handle a myriad of threats.
Whether this is true or not is inconclusive, but it is fascinating nonetheless.
There is also plenty of research looking into whether men can smell the fertility of women and how that may create a response in hormone levels. A study from Frontiers in Endocrinology had 115 men smell the body odor and genital odor of forty-five women. They found that the men’s testosterone and cortisol levels increased in response to both odors if they came from fertile women.
There is still much to suss out about scent and sexual attraction in humans, which is complicated by how much work we spend on covering up our natural body odors.
Love blinds us to many things, and it may to someone’s unsightly body odors as well. When we fall out of love with a partner, we likely become more aware of their faults and that would manifest in every way.
As for me and my soon-to-be second husband, I am going to continue to enjoy the scents of our love, body odor and all. | https://tarablairball.medium.com/love-smells-body-odor-and-sexual-attraction-6470f5e5fc32 | ['Tara Blair Ball'] | 2019-07-17 15:57:00.517000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Love', 'Sex', 'Psychology', 'Sexuality'] |
Blockchain 101: UNISWAP | Popular Decentralized Exchange on Ethereum
Introduction
Uniswap is a Decentralized Exchange (DEX) built as a decentralized application on the Ethereum blockchain via the use of smart contracts. Uniswap has quickly become a trusted and popular DEX as being decentralized, permisionless (no KYC) and secure financial platform.
In September 2020, Uniswap started to release its UNI token (ERC20) via an airdrop program to its former users (no direct sale).
Uniswap DEX logo
Description
Uniswap is a DEX built on Ethereum relying on an automated market maker (AMM) instead of an order-book (in comparison to centralized exchanges). Instead of matching buy and sell orders with each others, two assets are pooled together in a liquidity pool and traded against, with the price given by a predetermined ratio (AMM) between the two, according to the pool’s balances for each assets within the pool.
The idea of a solution like Uniswap was first proposed by Vitalik Buterin in 2016 for a decentralized exchange (DEX) that could employ an on-chain automated market maker. About 1 year later, Hayden Adams started working on the concept and received several grants including from the Ethereum Foundation and some Venture Capitalists. Uniswap launched its v1 in November 2018 and an upgraded v2 in May 2020.
Uniswap Automated Market Maker profile (price A/B correlation to liquidity)
Pros and Cons
Uniswap solves the problem of high spreads for assets with low liquidity (small caps and/or newly listed assets) which exists on centralized exchanges as relying on an order book (because there is no direct incentive for professional market maker to provide liquidity on low trading volumes assets). Uniswap resolves it by offering a share of the trading fees as incentive for anyone to become a market maker by providing liquidity to the pool.
One inconvenient of Uniswap AMM system is that there is an important slippage for large orders as the price paid increases sharply with the demanded amount. This slippage is amplified when the liquidity in the pool is low and the demand high.
Creating a liquidity pool for a pair of cryptocurrency is open to anyone
Token
Uniswap has released its own token (UNI) both to provide extra incentives for liquidity providers on the platform and to finance and grow the ecosystem further.
The full token distribution and release schedule is available: here
UNI token 4 years release schedule
Storage and wallets
UNI is an ERC20 token and can be stored in any Ethereum wallet.
Technical specificities:
Type: Token (ERC20)
Token (ERC20) ETH contract address: 0x1f9840a85d5af5bf1d1762f925bdaddc4201f984
0x1f9840a85d5af5bf1d1762f925bdaddc4201f984 Total Supply: 1,000,000,000
1,000,000,000 Subunit: NA
Documentation:
TradingBull.io
TradingBull.io
Telegram community: https://t.me/TradingBull_DA
Twitter: @_Digital_Assets | https://medium.com/@tradingbull/blockchain-101-uniswap-515a3299d707 | [] | 2020-12-23 12:32:48.396000+00:00 | ['Uniswap V2', 'Smart Contracts', 'Dex', 'Ethereum Dapp', 'Uni'] |
Cyber pandemics and the future | Back to the future — a cyber pandemic
(Alarm clock ringing, a woman’s voice starts talking). “Good morning Plato! It’s 22nd April, 2171.” Plato wakes up and after having a delicious breakfast, walks cheerfully to his Applesoft computer situated in the luminous corner of his living room. “Good morning Plato.” the computer greets him. He plugs in his biochip to the computer to unlock it and starts his workday.
Plato is a software developer at Badger Insurance company, a market leader in the global insurance industry. His particular focus in maintaining and developing the traffic cyber liability line of business for autonomous vehicles. He has been working for 10 years now for this company, and has mostly enjoyed his workdays, but sometimes things felt a bit too monotonous, as days were passing by feeling all the same. But, today was different. After lunch, with a cup of organic Moon grown coffee in his hand, as every other day, he was adjusting the premium returns. All of a sudden, a video call from a client, Merche Motors, interrupted him. “Hello, Mr. Plato. We seem to have had an accident.” an elegant woman from the German headquarters of Merche Motors somewhat panicky uttered. “An accident?” Plato wondered. “There must be some kind of a mistake. We haven’t had a car accident in the past 90 years.” he added. Just as he was wondering what to do, another video call was ringing. “Plato, we have a situation. Pause the cover in your line of business immediately and turn off your computer, do it now.” his boss, Socrates said with an upsetting high tone.
Socrates was Plato’s boss, but also a friend. Almost 120 years older than Plato, he was a paternal figure to Plato both on a professional and personal level. With a long grey beard, Socrates gave out an aura of timeless wisdom. His advice was always spot-on and Plato was quite happy with the relationship with his mentor.
Plato immediately acknowledged his boss’s warning and as he was walking away from the desk, a notification was directly transmitted to his cerebral cortex. “A cyber virus named the Tiaravirus has penetrated the network of various autonomous vehicle providers. Considering the expected rapid spread of the virus, a cyber pandemic has been proclaimed by the World Cyber Health Organization. All electronic devices will remain in lockdown until further notice. System shutdown will commence in 5 seconds.” The world Plato knew has come to a halt.
Everyone had to adapt to the new circumstances quickly. An amusement museum city-park on the outskirts of the megapolis where Plato lived still had a few thousand vehicles from the 21st century in stock. Various 160+ year old people volunteered to drive the cars and buses as they still knew how to do it. Socrates advised Plato that tomorrow he will need to come to the office building in the museum city. “We need to insure the human drivers now. I’ll inform the team to go to the museum archive to get the old wordings.” Plato was very scared and even cried that night in his bed. When he came to his senses a bit, he thought to himself “Thank God I didn’t upload my brain to that cyborg I ordered a few days ago on the Nile platform.”
And so, day by day, things stabilized in the new environment. People were getting used to the new circumstances, they were commuting to work and offices were full again after more than a century of dust collecting. The world appeared almost the same as it was 150 years ago.
A week into the cyber pandemic Plato was still getting used to the office setting. “What the f**k is Solvency II? How can I decode this mess?!” Glaucon screamed. Glaucon was Plato’s brother but also a colleague from the property cyber liability department. “It’s too bad Actuary 2100 is in lockdown. She would have decoded this garbage in seconds.” Plato replied. “Ah, speaking of which, did you hear that Advocate 2050 is almost functional again? I think his quarantine is expiring on Monday.” Glaucon responded. “Thank God for that. The Head of the maritime cyber liability for autonomous vessels has been reassigned to the newly formed legal department. He’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown.” Plato replied once again.
Few more weeks into the pandemic and Plato was practically depressed. The world has become infested with accidents, legal disputes, pollution, avarice etc. The stupidity and malice of the 21st century came back to haunt humanity. Plato couldn’t stand it anymore. As he was walking outside the office, he ran into Socrates who noticed Plato was not feeling well. “What’s the problem Plato?” Socrates asked. “I can’t believe this is happening. The world has collapsed in a few weeks. How is this possible?” Plato uttered in despair.
“Plato, my dear pupil, you see, people have always been the same. I’m turning 163 in 2 months. I have lived through various misfortunes the world has encountered. I particularly remember the pandemic of 2020. Back then, we humans were at danger and everyone gradually turned to technology for rescue. And this was a good thing. Technological advancements managed to flatten out some of human’s flaws and return to mankind one of its most important assets, time, the same being our most precious possession. Technology also removed some unnecessary burdens from society such as daily commuting, corporate bureaucrats, rent seeking corporations, insane crony capitalists, politicians poisoned with grandiose delusions, and so on. But, being human we’ve managed to repeat the mistakes of our ancestors. We again managed to destroy everything. Why? Because we relied too much on technology. Technology isn’t flawless. It cannot solve every problem. It cannot save us from ourselves. Our qualities and flaws determine everything. Who built the technology controlling the world nowadays? We did. So, my dear Plato, be humble, seek simplicity, virtue and wisdom. Question everything. Wonder. Know thyself. Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others. And hope that one day we’ll wake up in a better world, one in which we do not repeat the same mistakes over and over again.”
(Alarm clock ringing, a woman’s voice starts talking). “Good morning people! Greetings from Radio Limon. It’s 22nd April, 2020.” Plato wakes up and for a brief moment thinks to himself “What a crazy dream! This quarantine is affecting me in strange ways.” After having a delicious breakfast, he walks cheerfully to his computer situated in the luminous corner of his living room. He types in his password and starts his workday. At 12:00h he has a scheduled Zoom meeting with his boss Socrates. After a brief discussion on business matters, Plato tells him all about his dream. Socrates listens to him carefully and responds in a calm voice: | https://medium.com/@josip.malenica/back-to-the-future-a-cyber-pandemic-37b45388ed7a | ['Tximino Mediterráneo'] | 2020-04-23 19:16:46.135000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Future', 'Pandemic', 'Philosophy', 'Insurtech'] |
Live-Show : Tokyo International Film Festival Live, (2021) Full Stream | ❂ Artist Event : Tokyo International Film Festival
❂ Venue : Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, Tokyo, Japan
❂ Live Streaming Tokyo International Film Festival 2021
Conversation Series at Asia Lounge
The Japan Foundation Asia Center & Tokyo International Film Festival
Marking its second installment since 2020, this year’s Conversation Series will again be advised by the committee members led by filmmaker Kore-eda Hirokazu. Directors and actors from various countries and regions including Asia will gather at the Asia Lounge to engage in discussion with their Japanese counterparts.
This year’s theme will be “Crossing Borders”. Guests will share their thoughts and sentiments about film and filmmaking in terms of efforts and attempts to transcend borders. The festival will strive to invite as many international guests as possible to Japan so that they can engage in physical conversation and interaction at the Asia Lounge.
The sessions will be broadcast live from the festival venue in Tokyo Midtown Hibiya every day for eight days from October 31st to November 7th. Stay tuned! | https://medium.com/@b.i.m.sa.la.bi.mp.r.ok/live-show-tokyo-international-film-festival-live-2021-full-stream-d4feadcf4b5f | [] | 2021-10-30 14:07:22.052000+00:00 | ['Festivals', 'Technology'] |
The Best Day | The Best Day
A poem about my wife.
Image by olcay ertem from Pixabay
For me, the best day,
was when you looked my way,
we talked and got to know each other,
I couldn’t help but wonder,
if our relationship would last,
or if this romance would be another one to die fast,
time after time,
I couldn’t help but rewind,
to all the girls that came before you,
but before long I knew,
that I didn’t deserve someone like yourself,
perhaps, I should go back to being by myself,
a few months went by and I started to realize,
staying with you would be wise,
who would’ve ever known,
that a few years later, I’d see you in your wedding gown,
we’d have a baby boy whom we love dearly,
even though at the time I couldn't see all of this clearly,
I’m thankful for you each and every day,
I love you, Sierra Lashay. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/the-best-day-2262a788b149 | ['Brian Kurian'] | 2020-08-21 20:43:00.575000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Poem', 'Love', 'Relationships', 'Life'] |
6 ways to help Dad bond with baby | As you welcome your newborn into your family you may have noticed you’ve had more opportunities to bond with baby than your partner. Perhaps because of breastfeeding, or having a better understanding of all the new baby products in your home — whatever the case, it’s normal for your husband to feel lost (and overwhelmed) in his role as he adjusts into fatherhood.
Encouraging dad and giving him opportunities to take an active role is so important in helping him create his own special bond with baby. But it’s important for you, too. By getting dad more involved, you’ll be able to take some of the responsibility off your own shoulders.
Here are 6 ways to give dad opportunities to become confident in his new role.
1. Bottle feeding
There is such a special bond that happens when you feed your newborn. Giving dad the opportunity to experience that too will strengthen his bond with your new little one.
Whether formula or breastmilk, having dad in charge of a feeding or two a day means an extra few hours of sleep or being able to get out of the house for a few hours on your own, which helps you with the physical and mental load of new motherhood and helps dad get closer to baby.
2. Diaper duty
Don’t let dad talk his way out of this one! This is a great way for dads to help out and get some one-on-one time with baby. Plus, in the first few weeks of motherhood, you have your own diapers to change.
3. Story time
Whether in the morning or at bedtime or both, giving baby and dad set one-on-one time helps them build their bond. Plus, it’s never to early to start reading to your baby. Here’s some story time ideas.
4. Bath time
Have dad in charge of nighttime bath routine. They’ll have fun in the suds listening to some tunes and it’ll help them both get relaxed before bedtime.
5. Bedtime
Here’s another tip that will benefit you both. If you’re always running point on the bedtime routine, you might get stuck as the only one that can get your baby to sleep. Getting dad involved in the bedtime routine from the start will help them bond and ensure that their both comfortable getting to bed without you, so you can sneak off to get some rest for yourself.
Set dad up for success by adding Zen Sleepwear™ to the bedtime routine checklist. It’s gently weighted to mimic your touch and helps babies fall asleep easier and stay asleep longer so dad gets a little extra support and baby gets some extra comfort!
6. Daddy & me groups
Find a local Daddy & Me weekly get together — you can find these at the local brewery, library, or playground meet ups. It gives dad a chance to meet other fathers, build bonds, and gain support.
Remember that no matter how Dad decides to get involved, it’s important to give him space in these activities to really grow into his role — which means you can pour a glass of wine and take a relaxing bath knowing that dad and baby are busy developing a bond that will last forever. | https://medium.com/@nestedbean76/6-ways-to-help-dad-bond-with-baby-337d7c45d6b5 | ['Nested Bean'] | 2020-09-07 09:39:57.111000+00:00 | ['Dads', 'Baby Sleep', 'Baby Daddy', 'Baby Colic', 'Parenting'] |
Upgrade your Strength Training: Stay Strong and Hold onto Muscle at Home | No load? No problem!
When we can train with weights and in gyms, we have an easy way to vary the resistance we are putting our bodies under. Increasing this resistance is a way we can adjust the mechanical tension through our body.
Without equipment such as barbells, dumbbells, machines this can be much harder to do without using whatever you can find around the house (bag of carrots? Children? Books in a rucksack?).
To this end, it will be difficult to provide enough of a stimulus to our body to drive big gains in strength or muscle mass increases.
We have to find other ways to produce a favourable environment to bring about muscular and neurological adaptations behind strength and muscle growth.
Isometric holds
Isometric is a term meaning movements where a muscles length neither shortens or lengthens ie: no movement, or holding a position.
A common reference exercise here would be a Plank and it’s variations, but there are many ways that we can include isometrics into our training with a little imagination and willingness.
Looking at the physiology of isometrics, most of the benefits for strength and muscle growth comes from the metabolic stress (the accumulation of different metabolites in the bloodstream or working muscles) that is induced when we are holding a muscle in a highly contracted state for extended periods.
The effect this metabolic stress has is to initiate different pathways which signal further pathways in a cascade pattern. Eventually, these signals can result in the activation of processes responsible for muscle growth and strength gains.
How to do Isometric training:
Take nearly any bodyweight movement and find a position in that movement where you can feel the most tension. Generally, this will be the point that’s hardest to hold, typically at about the midway point of the movement.
Once you’ve found this position, hold it for as long as you can. Either until you start to lose the position with form breaking down or you can’t hold it any longer.
Rest anywhere from 30–60 seconds depending on how long you could hold it for and repeat for 3–5 sets as a starting point. Over time progress to longer holds, less rest, or more sets.
Some example exercises:
Wall-sits
Planks + variations
Side planks + variations
Split squats
Bear crawl holds
Pullup bar hangs
Push-up holds (Top, Halfway down, Bottom)
Single leg hinges
Static Deadlifts/squats/presses/rows (use a band or towel)
For more ideas of different movement patterns to explore check out this article:
AMRAP (As Many Reps As Possible) timed sets
Using AMRAPs with movements in a set timeframe can be another great way to promote this metabolic stress, as we saw in the isometrics.
Using these exercises on their own, as a finisher to a session or mixed in a circuit you can find plenty of variations and fun to be had here. Between sessions, you could aim to beat your reps from previous as well to add in a competitive element with yourself.
The rules here are pretty straightforward:
Keep the movements simple: Squats variations, push-ups, Bicep curls, Band rows. This is not the place to throw in complex or high-intense movements (Avoid the box jumps, weightlifting movements that require complex patterns or a high degree of cognitive/thining effort)
30–60 secs is a good starting point. Set the clock, press go and get after it.
If it’s burning, it’s working! Keep the rest periods short 30–40 secs and again repeat for 3–5 sets.
Another great way to include these is mixed together with the isometrics from before. Find movement patterns than are similar and pair them up to increase the metabolic stress effects. Try out Wall-sits + Squats, Split-squat holds + lunges, Bear-crawl holds + Push-ups.
Plyometrics for Power and CNS recruitment
Where strength is concerned (top-end strength) neuromuscular recruitment is king. In other words, strength is largely a result of more muscle fibres being used to apply force.
Power is a result of strength and speed. Essentially, the speed/rate that we can apply force (RFD).
In gyms, we can train these qualities by lifting heavy things or lifting moderately heavy things quickly.
Outside of the gym setting our best options are to use the power of Plyometrics/jumps and sprinting.
Plyometric training is an often misunderstood concept and subsequently, get completely butchered and applied poorly to training.
In developing power, movement quality is an absolute priority. As soon as things start to slow down, drop in force or get sloppy then stop. You are not doing better by doing poor quality work here.
Less = More. Specifically, Less high-quality work > More low-quality work.
How to do plyometrics properly:
Choose a jumping based exercise that is easily repeatable (Jumping onto or off of something requires too much resetting between). Exercises like Pogo hops, jump squats, Alternating jumps lunges for example.
Perform the exercise at a max effort for 8–12 seconds, as soon as it slows down/gets sloppy or you lose power STOP. The aim here is to perform the exercise with MAX EFFORT.
Rest for long amounts of time to keep the movement quality high. This should be anywhere from 40–90 seconds between sets of this length, but could easily be longer (90–120 secs) if necessary.
Repeat for 6–10 total rounds, increase only based on your ability to keep the force production quality high.
Aerobic Capacity: build your foundations
Now, this might seem counterintuitive. Surely cardio kills gains right?
Really, it depends (an unhelpful response!)
If your training leans towards that of an endurance runner training for marathons or similar then the volumes you are doing will not be conducive to getting stronger or maintaining muscle.
But the ability to both supply and use oxygen through our aerobic energy systems is a vital underpinning of our recovery and ability to handle stress (the type of stress we create through training). This is something that absolutely benefits our strength and muscle building goals.
If we can recover more effectively, we can handle more training stress and do more training volume.
Aerobic training is simple to implement, but that doesn’t always mean it has to be easy.
Here are some guidelines to follow:
Aim to be working for 20–40 mins. Less than 20 mins and your intensity will likely start to increase and you won’t be getting truly aerobic benefits. More than 40 mins and you will likely be starting to diminish the strength and muscle mass you are trying to maintain.
Choose exercises that are relatively simple, easy and don’t leave you flat out on the floor struggling for breath. Walking, slow jogging, easy circuits (mix bodyweight exercises with walking or carrying objects or short isometrics)
Keep the intensity low and pace sustainable. If you are forced to slow down or rest for long times between reps or exercises then it is probably too high intensity.
For a deeper dive into the Aerobic system and its benefits for health and performance check out this article:
Eat, Sleep, Rest & Recover:
Making sure you are getting sufficient protein and calories in your nutrition.
Aiming for 7–9 hours of quality sleep per night, ideally going to bed 2 hours before midnight.
Ensure that you are getting enough rest and recovery between sessions to let your body adapt to the training you are doing. Too much training without adequate recovery will knock you back a whole lot more than being conservative and doing too little.
This comes down to dialling in all of the big-ticket areas that make the biggest difference to our training, health and strength.
If you implement these things for a few weeks you will see the difference it has on your strength gains. | https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/upgrade-your-strength-training-stay-strong-and-hold-onto-muscle-at-home-a3bbf7e52f67 | ['Kieran Moore'] | 2020-10-17 17:57:20.790000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Health', 'Lockdown', 'Strength', 'Fitness'] |
Starcodes December 25, 2020 Heather Roan Robbins | Starcodes December 25, 2020 Heather Roan Robbins
2020 is almost over and we are so ready for a change. This week Mercury and the Sun both form an engaging trine to change-master Uranus, a planet which acts like a cosmic clutch to help us shift gears for the new year ahead.
We’ll see this promise of difference hover today as the Sun rises a tad earlier, offering us evidence that spring will eventually arrive. That’s how this change in astrological climate may feel, glimmers of hope whisper of a new chapter, but there may be blizzards and lockdowns between here and there.
That’s how this change in astrological climate may feel, we can see the glimmers of hope whisper of a new chapter, but there may be blizzards and lockdowns between here and there. Hang in there and remember the days are growing longer and the opportunities more apparent.
This Christmas Day can be truly uncomfortable if we compare it to past holidays, but these Uranus trines can help us inventively switch gears, warm our hearts, and make the best of what we have. An earthy Taurus Moon helps us find comfort, Our senses need feeding, so we may overeat in a overeating is a real danger but hey it’s one day a year.
Mercury trine electrical Uranus also encourages us to use all the tech available to make this holiday work. Consider saving the long zoom calls for Saturday as the Moon enters verbal Gemini, then reach out and start conversations about future possibilities.
Even with this fresh energy peeking around the corner, politics and tempers will probably stay volatile this week as Mars lingers in its final square to Pluto. If we feel our irritability spike, let’s take ourselves out of the room, throw snowballs or chop wood, burn off steam, and return to the conversation. Those temper spikes dissipate quickly if we don’t take down anything while they’re flashing through.
Midweek a full Moon in Cancer brings both more coziness and moodiness as we review of all the losses and frustrations, gifts and hidden blessings of this last year. Tuck in, stay warm and healthy.
On New Year’s Eve the mood lifts midday as the Moon enters expressive Leo, it would be a great night for a wild party if we can figure out how to do it safely alone, together, at the same time. Find a way to celebrate the end of 2020 and set intentions for a vastly improved 2021 ahead.
Friday, December 25: it is doubtful the kids will let anyone sleep in this morning as Mercury trine Uranus early on. Make this day a mix of old traditions and brand-new inventions, don’t compare it to the normal Christmas day, find a way to make this a one-off, a special day, one that will never happen again in the years ahead. Take the time to feed the senses, delicious foods, the best music, long bath, foot massage as the Taurus Moon trines Neptune later in the day.
Mercury trine Uranus 12:04 AM, Moon trine Neptune 5:09 PM.
Saturday, December 26: This is the day to call everyone, zoom, face time as the Moon enters talkative Gemini this morning and trines Saturn and Jupiter. Begin to talk about the future, brainstorm new ideas, laugh and don’t take anything seriously, let the creative muse have the room to play today and begin to imagine farther horizons and healthier conditions.
Moon trine Pluto 4:31 AM, Moon enters Gemini 4:32 PM, Moon trine Saturn 40 p.m., Moon trine Jupiter 7:53 PM.
Sunday, December 27: Brainstorm or do divination about the year ahead as the Sun trines Uranus. Restlessness can get intense, and if we can’t run around and socialize, we need to take our brains on a walk. Do something completely different. Just watch that mistakes aren’t made in the present moment while distracted thinking about th4e future..
Sun trine Uranus 8:25 PM, Moon opposed Venus 11:46 PM.
Monday, December 28: This could be a lovely day to get involved with our own art projects or enjoy sparks of romance or contact friends we haven’t seen for a while and let it warm the cockles of our hearts. Some old work raises its head as Venus semi-square Saturn. Ego issues act out in the headlines. Lean into what builds through resilience, bring up fond memories.
Moon square Neptune 4:58 AM, Venus semi-square Saturn 9:12 AM, Moon sextile Mars 8 PM.
Tuesday, December 29: The Moon enters Cancer this morning its own sign of Cancer this morning and waxes full at 8:28 PM bringing a high tide of emotions. Pull out the family photo albums and review life, remember the high and low points of this year, and look farther back; your heart will be doing it anyway, you might as well get your head in the game. But let the feelings flow and remember that the Sun is rising, the spring is coming, a new chapter is opening. Expect people to be unusually touchy and defensive. Some people may need to sleep in, reach for comfort foods, have a movie marathon.
Venus semi-square Jupiter 3:26 AM, Moon enters cancer 3:28 AM, Moon sextile Uranus 4:32 PM, Moon opposed the Sun 8:28 PM.
Wednesday, December 30: Strong emotions course through us and we can invent stories to explain them, but this mood may be more existential than accurate as Venus squares Neptune. Our psyches are unusually permeable. Feel the feelings, but don’t follow them down the rabbit hole. Nest and get cozy under this domestic Cancer Moon, do something to make home feel homier, to create more room to live within.
Venus square Neptune 3:18 AM, Moon opposed Mercury 9:03 AM, Moon trine Neptune 2:30 PM.
Thursday, December 31: Feelings may be moody on this morning of the last day of 2020 as the Moon opposes Pluto and squares Mars. Notice any old grudges and write them out, toss them on the fire and let them go; hold people responsible for their actions, but free up your energy for the year ahead. Deal with surprises that weave through the day. As the Moon enters Leo midday and we can start to feel the celebratory part of New Year’s Eve, feel the new year coming. Pour the bubbly safely at home.
Moon opposed Pluto 1:10 AM, Moon square Mars 6:44 AM, Moon enters Leo 11:57 AM, Moon opposes Saturn 2:56 PM, Moon opposes Jupiter 5:05 PM.
www.roanrobbins.com | https://medium.com/@starcodes-heartcodes/starcodes-december-25-2020-heather-roan-robbins-575beb6c62ee | ['Starcodes', 'Astrological Map For The Week Ahead'] | 2020-12-26 00:24:53.237000+00:00 | ['Heather Roan Robbins', 'Astrological Forecast', 'New Years Eve', 'Starcodes', 'Astrology'] |
The gap between education and the industry in Pakistan | Pakistan a country with a high-power distance culture with a population exceeding 212.2 million. The second-largest Muslim country in the world in which one of the biggest problems is unemployment. One of the main reasons for this problem is the gap between education and the industry in Pakistan. Thousands of young graduates are not able to pursue their career in their relevant domain because of the knowledge gap between education and industry.
One of the main reasons for this gap is that we as young graduates are unaware of the latest technologies and tools their functionalities. We have been taught with the same syllabus issued by the Higher Commission of Pakistan in the past decades till the date. We are not aware of Hi-Tech technologies and the courses teach across the globe.
The only strategy of our educational system is still the same (Ratta and Slide system) because of which a lot of young graduates are still unemployed. Only some of the successful individuals who are working and running their own ventures are those who are self-taught or have been graduated from International Universities.
As a Computer Science graduate, I have also gone through this. The only way to fill this gap or to make a bridge between this is to create a platform where we can learn from industry experts where we can learn about the scope of the et or have an active Internship opportunity to pursue our career in our relevant domain. | https://medium.com/@crakkerz-awab/the-gap-between-education-and-the-industry-in-pakistan-afefe2f1ef7a | ['Awab Ali'] | 2020-12-26 08:42:55.791000+00:00 | ['Pakistan', 'Computer Science', 'Internships', 'Education'] |
PixelsMarket Cool Websites #24 | Once again we present you a round-up of beautiful and inspirational website designs.
This is a weekly series of articles we publish on Sunday and includes a selection of amazing website designs created by top designers.
If you know a beautiful website you would like to see in our next round-ups, send it to us via the Submit Inspiration form or via our Twitter.
In case you missed the previous issue: PixelsMarket Cool Websites #23
Today we have for you a selection of these cool websites: Mail Cube, Rise People, Status, Tembit and Zopush.
Mail Cube
An email client to give you more time and peace of mind, capable to turn email from foe to friend again.
Visit website
Rise People
Rise unifies HR + Benefits + Payroll into a simplified, personalized, all-in-one People Platform.
Visit website
Status
Browse, chat and make payments securely on the decentralized web.
Visit website
Teambit
Teambit helps teams create a high performing culture with regular feedback.
Visit website
Zopush
Teambit helps teams create a high performing culture with regular feedback.
Visit website | https://medium.com/pixelsmarket/pixelsmarket-cool-websites-24-9836767a0d17 | ['Alex Ionescu'] | 2018-09-25 18:46:13.505000+00:00 | ['Inspirational', 'Cool Web Designs', 'Inspiration', 'Cool Websites', 'Web Design'] |
Fixing Stuff Around Me | Since I am currently working as well as doing a Fellowship of the Amal Academy, I was given the assignment to fix the environment or any place around me and express my views in this regard.
My Office Table
I have a habit of cleaning at home or in my room for a long time but I have rarely had the opportunity to do so in my office. That’s why I decided to fix my office.
Adjusting the condition of the office, I realized how easy it is to access everything and the whole place feels very clean and nice. And I have to continue this habit in the office.
Thank You Amal. Faisal
#amalacademy | https://medium.com/@faisal-saleem177/fixing-stuff-around-me-cd7a13f27417 | ['Faisal Saleem'] | 2020-12-19 03:29:35.205000+00:00 | ['Faisal', 'Amal Academy', 'Fixing Stuff Around You'] |
Introducing X2D: Ready for Duty — the first Skydio Original Series | From the leading American drone manufacturer selected as a trusted provider for the Department of Defense, comes an episodic web video series about next-gen ISR with autonomous drones. Produced with the participation of combat veterans, all of which are part of the Skydio family.
X2D: Ready for Duty, tells the story of a team of fictional warfighters as they face five different missions, and highlights what happens when ISR is conducted with the support of an intelligent drone capable of working as a trusted teammate.
So please, join us as we follow the team through their missions, starting with the response to an explosion in an urban setting, and ending with a night raid on the responsible bomb-maker. This blog provides a synopsis of the six episodes.
The Blast
In the first episode, an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team uses Skydio X2D to assess the risk, survey the damage, secure the area, and search for survivors of a vehicle borne improvised explosive device (VBIED). With Skydio’s AI-based obstacle avoidance reducing the cognitive load on the pilot, the team is able to fly confidently at low altitude and between obstacles to detect any oncoming threats.
When dedicated manned ISR support is unavailable, having a portable vertical take off and landing X2D that can be deployed in seconds and easy to fly is invaluable to obtain real time situational awareness. During the chaos of conflict, the team depends on AI-powered drones to reduce risk to force and ensure mission success.
3D Scan Evidence Gathering
After the area is secure, the team begins a next-generation Sensitive Site Exploitation technique. This is done using Skydio 3D Scan to create a 3D model of the scene from an autonomous collection mission. The Skydio X2D surveys the scene, generating data that can be turned into an accurate reconstruction. Building a model helps the team make sure they have captured photos of the blast site, which are indexed spatially to make them easier to navigate, and that the after action report can give the viewer a sense of scale. Accuracy and efficiency are paramount so that the unit can effectively provide targetable intel for follow on operations.
Convoy Overwatch
After the EOD team passes intel back to the JOC, a special operations team follows a tip to apprehend the bomb-maker who was responsible for the VBIED in the prior scene. As they maneuver across open terrain, they use Skydio X2D to provide overwatch of their convoy infil route. With Skydio Autonomy the pilot is able to conduct sensor scans for threats on both the thermal and visual feeds without worrying about crashing. The team’s ability to detect nefarious actors before being seen may be the difference between mission success and mission failure.
Daylight ISR
As our SOF team completes infil to the suspected area of the bomb-maker, they are forced to prepare for a raid without the benefit of manned ISR support. From an OP, they launch the X2D to conduct a target recon of two suspected sites. By using Skydio’s autonomous flight capabilities the operators are able to maintain element security and focus on their collection plan. Skydio Autonomy decreases the cognitive load on the operator and in turn reduces risk to force and risk to mission. The intelligence the team gathers will determine whether they have truly closed in on the target.
Night Raid
Under cover of darkness, the team prepares for a raid on the target they have surveilled throughout the day. As the unit moves in, their sniper team uses X2D’s GPS-based precision night flight and 320p infrared camera to keep eyes on the target and provide overwatch. The team advances confidently with overwatch from their snipers and Skydio X2D. Will this be enough to ensure mission success?
How to watch
Want to see how this story unfolds? Follow this link to watch the series for free. We hope you’ll enjoy it and pass it along — and to all those who serve or have served, thank you for your service. This is for you. | https://medium.com/skydio/introducing-x2d-ready-for-duty-the-first-skydio-original-series-8ca744d0d9a | ['Chuck Mcgraw'] | 2020-11-20 02:51:05.090000+00:00 | ['Defense', 'Military', 'Tech', 'Drones', 'Technology'] |
What we got wrong about busing in Boston | In the past two weeks since the second Democratic debate, hundreds of reporters across the country-and dozens in Boston-have written on the issue of busing. They claim that Kamala Harris struck a chord with liberal America by dredging up old battles in her attack on Joe Biden. We have all collectively debated where we are as a country and as a Democratic party today; some have even looked back into the 1970s to reconsider the merits of busing students to school to achieve integration (a seemingly settled issue — it worked).
All of them have missed the larger point. Especially for the city of Boston.
By beginning stories about the school desegregation saga in Boston with the 1974 court-order to bus students to integrate schools, we obscure and ignore the decade of black activism that preceded this moment. How many times have the names of Ruth Batson, Thomas Atkins, and Paul Parks been mentioned in our rehashing of the busing issue? Batson, Atkins, and Parks were NAACP activists-Batson a Boston Public School mother of three, Atkins and Parks determined and accomplished lawyers-who took on the Boston School Committee (BSC) for over ten years on the issue of de facto segregation in Boston.
Their demands in June 1963 did not include busing. While the country was enveloped in crises abroad and at home, Ruth Batson and her NAACP colleagues focused their efforts locally on the academic and mental effects of de facto segregation on African-American children’s education. They asked for equal funding for black schools, the inclusion of black history in textbooks, adequate training for black teachers and principals, and the acknowledgement that the de facto segregation in Boston contributed to inequities in the school system. Nowhere did they mention busing as a solution. During an August 1963 negotiation between the NAACP and the BSC, Batson concluded her statement with the following, “It is impossible for this committee to come before you to discuss the educational problems pertaining to Negro pupils in Boston without first attacking the source of these problems, de facto segregation.” De facto segregation was the foundation of their claims — the original sin from which all other inequities flowed.
The School Committee refuted the NAACP’s claims and refused to give in. How many times have we mentioned Louise Day Hicks and the political career she built on racial fears? Hicks was a central figure in the Boston school desegregation debate long before Judge Arthur Garrity handed down the busing order in 1974. As the chairwoman of the Boston School Committee, she led the white opposition to racial reforms for over ten years. She championed the crusade against the Racial Imbalance Act of 1965, a Massachusetts law that mandated desegregation of schools with over fifty percent black students. Boston housed 45 of the 55 racially imbalanced schools statewide, but the School Committee avoided compliance for years by perpetually submitting integration plans that did not meet the criteria of the law. Hicks’ staunch opposition to school integration and her denial to even discuss the possibility that de facto segregation existed set her on a path to political stardom in among white Bostonians.
She crafted her political career around what she was against, rather than what she was for — a familiar figure in today’s politics — and what she was against was the liberal establishment. She built her persona as an anti-establishment crusader on her opposition to the NAACP’s advocacy against school segregation, framing the issue as a battle over local control, neighborhood schools, and white rights. Hicks’ path took her to the City Council and eventually to run for mayor against Kevin White in 1967. With endorsements from Senator Edward Kennedy and Governor John Volpe of Massachusetts, Kevin White was the next target for Hicks in her crusade against the liberal establishment. She would lose the race, but her anti-establishment rhetoric from the 1960s laid the groundwork for the manipulation of the busing dispute in the 1970s.
Hicks and her colleagues masked their racist opposition to school integration under the guise of neighborhood schools and local control, a point made very well by Nikole Hannah-Jones in her piece, “It Wasn’t About Busing.” In response to the busing decision of 1974, Hicks wrote, “If it is true that ninth grade teachers now have to teach ‘addition and subtraction’ to integrated classed because some of the newer pupils in the system have not been taught basic arithmetic, that is not ‘quality education;’ and such children belong in special classes where they will not impede the learning process for the more advanced students.” Hicks’ argument hinged on the psychological inferiority of black students and their inability to learn the same way as their white peers without ever explicitly mentioning race.
Northern communities across America repeated this tactic time and time again. But the historiographical disconnect between northern and southern desegregation movements is false. A national examination of the 1960s shows that whites opposing integration in the North purposefully deployed tactics from the southern-focused Civil Rights Movement. Boston residents surely understood this dynamic. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited marked in Boston in 1965 in support of the NAACP’s desegregation efforts. Louise Day Hicks had to refute connections between herself and Governor George Wallace of Alabama. Hicks’ defense, “This is not Alabama, this is Boston. I shall not yield.”
Not only has recent reporting on this topic glossed over the more complex and nuanced arguments for school integration that black activists posed during the 1960s in Boston, it has also ignored the concrete steps that black activists took during this period to improve their condition. They staged multiple “Freedom Days” in 1964, when children were encouraged to stay home from school and attend local “Freedom Schools” organized by the black community. They organized Operation Exodus, a self-funded busing program that brought black students to open seats across Boston that white administrators refused to assign black students to. The longest legacy of this era is METCO, the organization that Ruth Batson founded to voluntarily bus black students out to suburban school districts. METCO is still in operation today.
Many people know Judge Arthur Garrity. People can argue whether he was a champion of integration or an uneducated suburban outsider who never should’ve gotten involved in the first place. Most people recognize “The Soiling of Old Glory” and remember the infamous stoning of buses carrying black children to white schools in 1974. But what we need to be talking about is the way that white actors systematically erased race from this debate by disguising their opposition to school integration as a fight against the liberal establishment, a fight we are still enduring today. They warped a debate that began as an effort to improve black schools and the entire African-American community of Boston into a politically weaponized debate over white rights, federal overreach, and the liberal establishment. Beginning the story of Boston’s school integration fight in 1974 is a disservice to people like Ruth Batson, Thomas Atkins, and Paul Parks who fought so hard throughout the 1960s for what every parent wants for their children — an equal opportunity to advance economically and socially through education. | https://medium.com/@lpsteinberg19/what-we-got-wrong-about-busing-in-boston-ff09f156f192 | ['Leigh Steinberg'] | 2020-02-01 18:15:54.471000+00:00 | ['Boston', 'Joe Biden', 'Busing', 'Kamala Harris', 'Desegregation'] |
10 Essential Green Day Songs | The days preceding a new Green Day album always have me abuzz, as if I were a child on the night before Christmas. Ever since I first saw the “Basket Case” video while visiting my late grandparents’ house 26 years ago, I have been a diehard fanatic of the iconic punk band. No matter what style of music I found myself getting into growing up, my love and devotion to this band has remained one of my life’s constants. Any time I’m involved in a conversation about music, everyone who knows me will warn you with a sigh that Green Day will inevitably be brought up no matter how many degrees of separation there are.
As I sit here on the day before the release of the band’s thirteenth album, Father of All…, I wanted to meditate on what I consider some of the most essential songs in the band’s catalog, barring major singles. Choosing a list of my favorite Green Day tracks is a near impossible task, and if you ask me tomorrow, with the exception of one song, I guarantee the list would be almost completely different.
Aside from #1, I assembled them in no particular order in respect to importance or rank. So without further adieu, let’s get on with it!
10. “I Want To Be Alone” 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours (1991)
Throughout their career, music journalists made liberal use of adjectives like “snotty” and “bratty” when describing Green Day and/or their music, particularly when the band’s third album Dookie made them an international sensation.The band would occasionally play around with that concept in kind when writing songs like Insomniac’s “Brat,” but, more often than not, Green Day tapped into the frenetic psyche of teenagers in an authentic way because, well, for two albums and several EPs, that’s exactly what they were.
The band captures that awkward time in adolescence when parents or authority figures harangue you with “What’s wrong?” and/or “What’s going on with you?” Your body’s changing, your hormones are out of sorts, and you’re beginning to establish who you are as an individual. While in reflection, though it all sounds hilariously melodramatic, these questions invade the very progression you think you’re making in terms of who you are. While the stereotypical depiction of a teenager acting out is clearly displayed with the consistent mantra of “I WANT TO BE ALONE” in the song’s verses, the chorus carries an asterisks of unsaid guilt and explanation for lashing out that few teenagers would ever admit: “Please don’t think I’m crazy/I don’t want you to understand/My mind is going hazy/To hell with your helping hand/Why don’t you just leave me alone/This conflict is my own.”
By showing another dimension in the mindset of a teenager, Green Day eschews the stereotype of the “brat” they’re often aligned with, displaying instead an honest portrayal of a young adult detached from the condescension media stereotypes love to assign to the younger generation.
9. “Ha Ha You’re Dead” Shenanigans (2002)
“Ha Ha You’re Dead” revels in the demise of an enemy. It’s the little voice muttering “…good.” when you hear misfortune has befallen them.
This one’s pretty cut and dry. It shoves elements of Dookie, Insomniac, and Nimrod into a blender, and the resulting milkshake sounds ready for the roll of a film’s end credits. Written by bassist, Mike Dirnt, “Ha Ha You’re Dead” perfects the band’s brand of pop-punk in a pointed expression of when after being so wronged by someone, the utter joy that washes over you when their comeuppance arrives.
Its placement as the last track on the rarities compilation, Shenanigans, adds to the song’s function as a pointed punctuation mark. Hence, the end credits feel. Catchy, crunchy, and with just right amount of sardonic sneer, “Ha Ha You’re Dead” excels as one of the band’s best middle finger expressions.
8. “Youngblood” Revolution Radio (2016)
There are more than a few songs written about Adrienne Armstrong, Billie Joe’s wife and longtime muse. However, none contain such pure excitement over her as “Youngblood.” Yes, Green Day has composed starry-eyed love songs, grand gestures, and songs detailing the struggles and compromises that go into a relationship before.
None of that is present here.
Instead, we receive the music equivalent to the giddy superlative nonsense entering your brain the moment you encounter someone you know is special for the first time.
The simple, jaunty, sing-song nature of the track goes hand-in-hand with Billie Joe’s string of exclamations, and maintains a schoolboy energy. Because that’s what this song is. Instead of showing off the maturation that comes with 30+ years of songwriting to create a grand ballad, Billie Joe wrote his wife of 25 years a song that is just as spastically excited about her now as a teenage boy returning to the lunch table with the “Yes” box checked on his “Do You Like Me?” note.
And honestly, what’s a better declaration of love than that?
7. “The Static Age” 21st Century Breakdown (2009)
21st Century Breakdown found Green Day overcompensating under the pressure to follow-up American Idiot. A bit overstuffed, sure, however, the album still contains some real gems.
How the “The Static Age” never ended up as a proper single is beyond me. The modern rock radio crossover sound anchored by a peppy, jingle-esque chorus ties together with lyrical content overstimulated and oversaturated by commercials, social media, 24 hour news cycles, and the onslaught of ignorance inspired by all of the above creates a telling time capsule for the early 21st Century, the effects of which we’re still dealing with today.
Billie Joe’s palpable exasperation when he sings “All I want to do/Is I want to breathe/Batteries are not included” during the song’s bridge encapsulates not just the song, but the underlying feeling of the entire record.
In a world where every single facet of your life becomes invaded by constant vies for your attention, taking a quiet breath for yourself feels revolutionary.
Everything else is just static.
6. “Stuart and the Ave” Insomniac (1995)
Sometimes all you need is a good ol’ fashioned bitter break-up song. Mike Dirnt’s infectious opening bass riff sets up a deceptively upbeat tone for a song expressing such caustic disdain. Billie Joe’s indignant lyrics aren’t solely aimed at the subject, but also himself and the entire situation.
The lack of associated gender with the intended “you” of the song, something Green Day tended to do more often than a number of their peers, brings a universal relatability to the track. Almost everyone who’s ever dated the wrong person or found themselves with a toxic friend can relate to the embittered line: “I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid enough to stay with you.”
Short and sweet, barely clocking in at over two minutes, “Stuart and the Ave” is a pure punk pill of vitriol that allows the listener to exorcise their feelings of hate and anger guilt-free.
5. “Stop, Drop, and Roll!” Foxboro Hot Tubs (2008)
I know. I know. This is kind of cheating, but not enough people know the pleasure of Foxboro Hot Tubs. Formed by the band and a few of their tour buddies between American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown, Foxboro Hot Tubs served as an outlet for Green Day to “be spontaneous and play music” at smaller clubs without the pressure and insanity the Green Day name brings to the table.
The first track of the record, “Stop, Drop, and Roll” switches out the band’s signature pop-punk sound for fuzzy, psychedelic-tinged garage rock.
As with the rest of the record, this song acts as the party after the protest. Everyone just sounds like they’re having the absolute best time. Tre Cool lets loose on the drums, Mike and Billie Joe find themselves legitimately jamming, and Billie Joe tries out a variety of vocal styles and deliveries that wouldn’t sound out of place at a swinging party in the 1960’s.
More than anything, the DNA of the band wanting to fully incorporate genres and sounds outside of their established pop-punk full-time can be traced to this record. Listening to this before their recent “Father of All…” single, you can easily see the band has been waiting to bring this to Green Day for some day. There may be little to read into in terms of the content, but the fun of this song can’t be denied.
4. “Misery” Warning (2000)
I just have to give some love to this weirdo song.
As Billie Joe tells it, Warning was a conscious effort to go against the genre. Pop-punk experienced another explosion at the turn of the century, and the band felt the pull to play against type with a larger presence of acoustic guitars and drawing influence more from powerpop bands like The Kinks over The Ramones.
No song bucked the trend on Warning (and I’d argue their entire catalog) moreso than “Misery.” Until this point in time, Green Day rarely put out a track surpassing three minutes. “Misery” clocks in just over five.
Dropping their energetic pop punk for a methodical Eastern European folk song with electronic organ, mandolin, and accordion added to the arrangement, “Misery” spins a tale of four intertwining characters who continually make bad (and often deadly) decisions with the lyrics occasionally footnoting moral commentary about their actions.
With a tune and progression that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Disney musical, Green Day demonstrates the out-of-the-box genre creativity they employ further on next record, American Idiot. “Misery” remains a criminally overlooked oddball track in their catalog. Outside of soundchecks, I don’t believe its ever been performed live in full, and the band simply don’t get enough credit for doing something more unexpected when following up the album that featured one of the 90’s most defining singles (“Good Riddance,” Nimrod).
3. “J.A.R. (Jason Andrew Relva)” Angus Soundtrack (1995)
“My friend drove off the other day/Now he’s gone and all they say/Is ‘you gotta live ’cause life goes on…’”
Green Day’s penchant for simple expression has always been one of their strengths, and this rumination on a life cut short remains of the best examples.
Losing someone always hurts. Having someone your own age taken away when you’re young and still figuring life out completely upends your world. I vividly remember the aftermath of a friend taking his own life when I was 17. There we were, a bunch of kids, trying to comprehend what happened and what it meant. The entire affair was so confusing and frustrating and unfair. Having a song simply put its hand on your shoulder and say “I get it,” and really mean it, was an invaluable comfort.
Not to discredit other meditations on death, but sometimes excessive flowery language just doesn’t cut it. Sometimes you need to close your eyes, exhale sharply, and just let out “Fuck, this sucks!”
“J.A.R.” succeeds in that due to its conversational tone. Billie Joe’s lyrics carry the feel of a group of young friends like my own, standing around at a wake, trying to come to terms with what’s happened. Always managing to rock out just enough for sing-a-longs and letting out anxious aggression, but never turning into a full-on party track, “J.A.R.” stands out in the Green Day canon as one of their most infectious yet cathartic releases.
Though it was recorded during the Dookie sessions, the sound of “J.A.R.” is caught between albums. A tad too somber to be included on Dookie yet not quite dark and crunchy enough to fit in on Insomniac, the band wisely chose to later utilize this song as a non-album single, eventually finding a home on the soundtrack to the woefully forgotten and overlooked coming-of-age comedy, Angus.
2. “Coming Clean” Dookie (1994)
Dookie’s back half houses the angst-fueled vulnerability of adolescence to a pitch perfect degree. Arguably none more vulnerable than their coming out anthem, “Coming Clean.”
This confessional track details finally coming to terms with one’s sexuality. The anxiety-ridden chorus of “I found out what it takes to be a man/No, Mom and Dad will never understand/What’s happening to me” is a bit of a masterstroke. Separating the line “What’s happening to me” both completes the prior lyric while simultaneously screaming a separate complete question into the ether.
At a brisk minute and a half, Green Day cram three verses and choruses as if tightening the writing on the very last page of a secretly held diary just to scribble down one more thought. The songs that end up saving lives are the ones that ensure to those quietly waging the same war that they’re not alone.
Yes, sexuality was being addressed in rock music in the early 90’s, specifically within the riot grrl movement, and it was monumentally important. However, it was still growing at the time in terms of reach, and the media at large wouldn't recognize the movement properly on a large scale for years to come.
What Green Day did with “Coming Clean” was take their mainstream platform and force the conversation on the boy’s club. They took openly gay punk band Pansy Division on tour, and would refuse to play any show whenever a conservative promoter told the band their tourmates weren’t welcome. Promoters almost always backed down after that.
Dookie enjoys “Classic Album” status, so it’s difficult to argue any song suffers from being overlooked. That said, the importance of the 95 second “Coming Clean” towers over the album’s more radio-worn tracks, and it can’t be overstated.
1. “Letterbomb” American Idiot (2004)
I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard “Letterbomb.” It’s the kind of song that syncs up with your lizard brain and makes it nearly impossible to articulate the why and how it has such a profound effect on you.
But it does.
The very first time I heard Billie Joe finish the first verse with “You better run for your fucking life,” I found tears pouring down my face. I wish I could accurately convey exactly how hard this song hits and what it means to me.
From legendary riot grrrl Kathleen Hanna’s opening taunt of “Nobody likes you/Everyone left you/They’re all out without you/Having fun” to the fading echos of the final chord, Green Day crafts a song filled with disillusion, fear, confusion, hope in the face of hopelessness, and, of course, “rage and love.”
“Letterbomb” distills everything the band aimed to achieve with their rock opera in four minutes and five seconds. Billie Joe said it’s his favorite song on the album, and it’s easy to see why.
This song showcases the band firing on all cylinders. Tre beats the livinghell out of the drums. Billie and Mike tear it up so intensely, the emotion hits you in waves without ever needing to sing a lyric. “Letterbomb” is pure, unfiltered Green Day at its very best. Everything about the song feels urgent, as if its the last thing the band will ever play. This is not only my favorite Green Day song, but one of my favorite songs of all time.
“There is nothing left to analyze.” | https://medium.com/permanent-nerd-network/10-essential-green-day-songs-6d927a3464f3 | ['Myles Griffin'] | 2020-02-07 00:05:32.073000+00:00 | ['Rock', 'Music', 'Review', 'Green Day', 'List'] |
Recipe of the day: JSON to CSV | In this recipe we will use JSON that is returned from Yelp API’s business search endpoint. It has the following structure —
{
"total": 8228,
"businesses": [
{
"rating": 4,
"price": "$",
"phone": "+14152520800",
"id": "E8RJkjfdcwgtyoPMjQ_Olg",
"alias": "four-barrel-coffee-san-francisco",
"is_closed": false,
"categories": [
{
"alias": "coffee",
"title": "Coffee & Tea"
}
],
"review_count": 1738,
"name": "Four Barrel Coffee",
"url": "https://www.yelp.com/biz/four-barrel-coffee-san-francisco",
"coordinates": {
"latitude": 37.7670169511878,
"longitude": -122.42184275
},
"image_url": "http://s3-media2.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/MmgtASP3l_t4tPCL1iAsCg/o.jpg",
"location": {
"city": "San Francisco",
"country": "US",
"address2": "",
"address3": "",
"state": "CA",
"address1": "375 Valencia St",
"zip_code": "94103"
},
"distance": 1604.23,
"transactions": ["pickup", "delivery"]
},
// ...
],
"region": {
"center": {
"latitude": 37.767413217936834,
"longitude": -122.42820739746094
}
}
}
It is nested several levels deep. In this exercise we want all business listings flattened out into a CSV.
Step 1 — Flatten keys under businesses[]
Step 2 — Convert JSON to CSV
Voila! | https://medium.com/@sashavingardt/recipe-of-the-day-json-to-csv-6632423514d | ['Alexander Vingardt'] | 2020-01-14 18:26:57.773000+00:00 | ['Csv', 'Json', 'Jq', 'Pandas'] |
Predicting Online Consumers Shopping Behaviour In 2019 | Client conduct has dependably been a colossal factor with regards to how marks adjust their advertising methodologies. Every year, advertisers consider the patterns and endeavour to see how they may influence their intended interest group’s inclinations, so they realize how to position their item or administration to increase higher incomes.
The market is impacted by various moving factors, and innovation is one of the greatest pointers of how organizations ought to adjust to changes. Current progressions have been changing and improving business forms crosswise over various ventures, which is the reason advertisers should realize how to adjust. With monetary, social, and political changes affecting changes in client conduct, here are a few expectations to foresee this year:
Clients Are Switching Over To Mobile
The condition of retail is viewed as a pull of war among block and-concrete or physical stores and web based business sites. Nonetheless, innovation has ventured in to loan some assistance so organizations can have rise to balance with their online partners.
Since 86% of US retail deals still occur in physical stores and 53% of all purchasing choices are currently impacted by computerized innovation, a developing number of physical stores presently having an online store. Also, with more customers changing over to versatile, it’s vital for any business to guarantee that its e-commerce partner is portable agreeable and completely responsive. Simply take a gander at how American retail chain Macy’s effectively made the progress. They use coupon from coupon site like CouponBirds to get extra facilities.
Clients Want A Seamless Shopping Experience
The ascent of web based shopping has had a colossal effect on client desires, including how buyers find out about a specific item. They currently go to e-commerce sites to find out about natty gritty item data and anticipate a similar sort of administration in physical stores.
To give this to clients, retailers should up their tech diversion and go portable. This would enable their clients to discover items in-store and even skirt the registration line on out. This sort of shopping knowledge is as of now being conveyed by Amazon Go where clients enter the store and take the items they wish to purchase from the racks previously exiting.
The innovation works by utilizing cameras and sensors deliberately put over the store. Each time you take a thing off a rack, PCs monitor them and spot them into your virtual truck. What’s more, when you leave, an application charges your Visa once you cross the checkout sensors. This sort of consistent shopping has grabbed the eye of different organizations, and they’re going to adopt on a comparable strategy this year. When they buy from online they use coupon using coupon from coupon site like CouponBirds.
They’re Going Multi-Channel
Knowing how and where shoppers shop is the thing that retailers need to get some answers concerning their conduct. However at this point, a colossal piece of this conduct includes using different diverts in making a buy. For example, clients may instinctually look into the things they need on Amazon, yet they’ll additionally visit physical stores to investigate costs and peruse other comparative items.
An e-marketer report expresses that 65% of shoppers expect consistency of administration on both advanced and physical stores, with 55% of them anticipating ‘frictionless stream of data between various channels.’ The accessibility of different channels not just opens more potential outcomes for clients to get what they need, yet it likewise supports the income of retailers. As indicated by a National Retail Federation report, multichannel customers burn through $93 more than their single-channel partners over a Thanksgiving weekend. This implies the period of purchasing a thing through a solitary channel is finished.
The Use of Voice Search Is Gaining Popularity
Voice look has gone past curiosity status as buyers are progressively getting settled with the innovation. What’s more, with the developing notoriety of remote helpers both on cell phones and savvy speakers, 60% of all pursuits are presently originating from cell phones with 20%using voice look. This conduct affirms that clients are beginning to lean toward a faster and less demanding shopping background.
To give you a superior point of view, voice look creates US$2 billion in US retail deals. Also, with the rate it’s going, it’s relied upon to reach US$40 billion by 2022. Gartner even predicts that 30% of web-perusing sessions will be from voice-enacted ventures. With these numbers, it will be difficult to overlook what voice pursuit can convey to the table, which is the reason improving for it ought to be a need in 2019.
To adjust to this developing pattern, brands could support their online deceivability through SEO concentrated on conversational pursuit inquiries or semantic hunt as more gadgets offer the accommodation of voice look.
Purchasers Want Personalization from Brands
It’s getting to be evident that customers would go for more extravagant and an increasingly customized shopping knowledge both face to face, on the web or through versatile. Indeed, even research demonstrates they’re willing to give out close to home information expected to convey customized encounters. Truth be told, 54% of them hope to be given a customized rebate inside multi day of making themselves known to the brand, with 71% communicating dissatisfaction in the event that they experience an ‘indifferent’ shopping knowledge.
Research demonstrates that 63% of customers are into customized suggestions and are additionally ready to share their data to get advantages, for example, restrictive arrangements, uncommon offers, and coupons. You ought to likewise incorporate a progressively customized client and specialized help administration when issues emerge to address their worries.
With regards to customized administration, Netflix has it under control. The prevalent media gushing administration indicates film and TV suggestions dependent on substance that you’ve just viewed. It even customizes film covers, giving more noticeable quality to on-screen characters you’re progressively acquainted with.
They’re More Health Conscious and Environmentally Aware
More purchasers are inclining towards absolute prosperity and care for the earth. They are both looking remotely towards their environment and inside into their physical and psychological wellness. An all encompassing way to deal with wellbeing and the antipathy for plastic waste are what drives buyers to belittle a brand more than those that don’t advance wellbeing and the insurance of the earth.
Truth be told, a tweaked eating regimen dependent on an individual’s hereditary cosmetics is speaking to 42% of British customers, with innovative advancements in the medicinal services industry fulfilling purchaser interest for an increasingly customized methodology. What’s more, in the Philippines, a developing number of drive-thru eateries have avoided utilizing plastic straws, speaking to shoppers who bolster ecological mindfulness.
Having a profound comprehension of what shoppers need is the thing that entrepreneurs and advertisers need to accomplish their objectives. This year is relied upon to be increasingly centered around the mix of innovation, especially versatile, to improve online as well as disconnected retail locations to help client experience. Remember that any changes you may need to do ought to be cantered around your clients, so given them a chance to control your choices in developing your business. | https://medium.com/@couponbirds/predicting-online-consumers-shopping-behaviour-in-2019-4ead4e1aa028 | [] | 2019-04-05 06:28:41.933000+00:00 | ['Retail', 'Online Shopping', 'Coupon'] |
Revitalizing, city, life, gentrification | Revitalizing Our Inner-City Neighborhood — Without Gentrification
I didn’t want to simply have a nice house in a bad neighborhood
I bought a little house a couple of years ago. It sits on a mostly quiet street in a mostly Black subdivision, with a good amount of Latinos. The larger area of Houston, of which my subdivision is a part, is called Sunnyside, and it has a reputation for being a tough neighborhood.
I was born and raised not far away, in an area called South Park. Like most people from such neighborhoods, I grew up dreaming of one day being able to buy a big house in the suburbs, and park a European sedan next to a big SUV in the garage.
I’d had an adult life full of speed bumps and false starts. So by the time I was finally able to clean up my credit enough and save a little money to buy a house, I had long since woken up from dreams of suburbia, and escaping the kind of neighborhoods that were responsible for my very existence.
Predictably, most of my friends (including those who were from the same kind of neighborhood) thought I was crazy for buying a house in Sunnyside. I was convinced of my own genius. I had a plan to have a plan.
I wanted a house in the kind of neighborhood where I’d grown up because looking back on my own childhood, I didn’t remember some dangerous war zone where you couldn’t even walk down the street without being shot or robbed. There had been tough times and tough people for sure, but most were hard-working people hoping to make a better life and laugh a little along the way.
I didn’t think these were lesser people. These were people who never quit. They were people who managed, generation after generation, to raise good kids and make a life for themselves in spite of playing with a deck of cards that was often stacked against them. I believed in these people, and I believed in the communities they called home.
I remember the laughter of children who had not yet realized that they were poor. I remember what it was like to watch a father take his wife into his tired arms and dance with her in a cracked driveway as they played something slow on the car radio.
Beautiful young girls would put on shorts and lotion their legs down, and take walks through the neighborhood streets in groups, and drive schoolboys crazy with the discovery of themselves. This was what I wanted the world to see.
To us, the hood wasn’t some generic area with a new name painted over the old one, with newly constructed lofts, a trendy coffee shop, and a yoga studio around the corner. To us, it was home. It was a part of us. It was the garden from which we had all grown. | https://medium.com/better-humans/revitalizing-our-inner-city-neighborhood-without-gentrification-c2b40e822df8 | ['Carl L Lane'] | 2020-10-09 18:07:10.548000+00:00 | ['City Living', 'Housing', 'Gentrification', 'Revitalization', 'Activism'] |
Why I am Thankful When Publications Reject My Work | Why I am Thankful When Publications Reject My Work
I’m honest, I’m not hurt at all
Photo by Dan on Unsplash
I’m still lost
I can’t settle on a style of writing until now. I simply don’t know how to. I keep thinking about what does it take to produce a good story? I want to figure out the answer on my own.
For now, I just have to write. I have to let ideas flow. It's easy to write if only writing would stop there but it's not. It's complicated.
I have another problem – most of the time, my stories don’t sound nice. I edit a lot but still, I end up with a story that doesn’t feel right.
For how long will I wait? When will the story be ready? | https://medium.com/wreader/why-i-am-thankful-when-publications-reject-my-work-e4e402e3e5c9 | ['Olivia Marlene'] | 2020-11-12 07:40:04.735000+00:00 | ['Gratitude', 'Publication', 'Rejection', 'Writing', 'Ｍedium'] |
Why “Yield” Is an Excellent Python Keyword — Generators and Coroutines | Suspend and Resume Execution in Coroutines
Note: It’s important to know that Python is phasing out the use of generators as the basis for coroutines. Check the official documentation. However, the concept of coroutines can be easy to understand if we know that yield has the meaning of “giving way.”
In this usage, it’s applicable to yield ’s second meaning: give way. It’s pretty much like the traffic “yield” sign in real life. You temporarily stop your vehicle such that other vehicles with right of the way can go first. Applying this analog to programming, it’s the basic idea of coroutines.
As you can see, the key to coroutines is that the execution is suspended temporarily and it can be resumed later on when it’s applicable. Doesn’t this sound familiar to you? The generator function runs and yields the element (the execution is suspended), and when the next element is requested, it continues to run from where it was suspended (the execution is resumed).
Actually, we can use the yield keyword to implement a coroutine. Let’s see the following code snippet for a simple example:
We first define a coroutine function using the yield keyword. As you can see, the overall structure is similar to the generator function. However, you’ll notice that the yield keyword appears after the assignment operator (i.e. the equals sign).
keyword. As you can see, the overall structure is similar to the function. However, you’ll notice that the keyword appears after the assignment operator (i.e. the equals sign). The assignment is possible because, in addition to the typical next() function that works with a generator, generators also support the send() function.
function that works with a generator, generators also support the function. In the example, we send a string data (i.e. “Here’s the data that your requested.” ) back to the coroutine. Specifically, the data that we sent is set to the variable x , and we’re able to print the x value as expected.
) back to the coroutine. Specifically, the data that we sent is set to the variable , and we’re able to print the value as expected. The StopIteration exception is expected because the generator function has reached the end, which is consistent with the behavior of a generator (as shown in the last section). | https://medium.com/better-programming/why-yield-is-an-excellent-python-keyword-generators-and-coroutines-d0d9d9403171 | ['Yong Cui'] | 2020-11-04 17:48:37.297000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Technology', 'Software Engineering', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Programming'] |
The Flight Attendant Who Sacrificed Her Life to Save Passengers | The Flight Attendant Who Sacrificed Her Life to Save Passengers
The story of Neerja Bhanot
Neerja Bhanot and the hijacked plane. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Neerja Bhanot was born in September 1963, in Chandigarh, India. Ever since she was little, the girl drew attention because of her beauty, and because of that, she had a brief modeling career. Following the tradition of her culture, still very young, she had to marry the man that her parents chose for her.
However, the marriage didn’t work out and she returned to her parents’ house two months after being wed. However, everything was about to change when, in 1985, she started to work as a flight attendant.
The hijacking
In 1985, Neerja Bhanot applied for a flight attendant job at Pan Am, the company decided to have an all-Indian cabin crew for its routes from Frankfurt to India. After the selection, she went to Miami for training.
On September 5, 1986, at Karachi Airport, Pakistan, four terrorists of Palestinian origin and affiliated with the Abu Nidal organization passed the security guards and prevented the plane from taking off to Frankfurt, where it would make a layover before reaching its final destination in New York.
The aircraft was carrying 380 passengers and 13 crew members. The terrorists wanted to fly to Cyprus to free Palestinian prisoners in the country. Bhanot was able to alert the cabin crew as soon as the hijackers boarded the plane, and when the plane was on the platform, the cockpit crew, comprised of the pilot, the co-pilot, and the flight engineer fled the aircraft through an upper hatch in the cabin. As the most experienced cabin crew member, Bhanot took control of the situation inside the plane.
The intention was to kill all American passengers — forty-four in total — until the requests to send the plane to Cyprus and release terrorist prisoners were granted. The kidnapping lasted almost seventeen hours.
Right at the beginning, the terrorists identified a newly naturalized Indian American passenger, took him to the plane’s door, and shot him in front of everyone — both inside and outside the aircraft. They then threw the still alive man onto the runway. He was rescued but died on the way to the hospital. Then, when the terrorists decided to kill all the American passengers, Neerja put her life at risk by selecting passports from the people but hiding those with that nationality.
This further angered the hijackers, who could not recognize which ones would be their first targets. Neerja took advantage of an oversight and handed passengers sitting near the emergency exit a magazine that had hidden instructions for opening an emergency door and inflating the escape slides.
After several hours of tension, the men opened fire and started to detonate explosives while inside the plane. Bhanot opened one of the plane’s doors, and although she could have been the first to jump and flee the aircraft, she did not and instead began to help the other passengers to escape. According to one surviving passenger, she was guiding passengers to the emergency exit. That’s when the terrorists were constantly shooting for fear of an outside attack by the police. They saw Neerja trying relentlessly to help three unaccompanied children, among others, get out and that was when they caught her by the ponytail and shot her at close range.
Of a total of forty-four American passengers, two died during the hijacking. A child on board who survived is now captain of a major airline and said that Bhanot was his inspiration and that he owes her every day of his life. She was internationally recognized as “the plane hero” and became the youngest to receive the Ashok Chakra Award, India’s most prestigious gallantry award for bravery in times of peace.
The highjackers' trial took place in 1988 – they were sentenced to death, but subsequently had their capital punishment changed to life imprisonment. However, reports indicate that the four hijackers were released in 2009 and later deported to Palestinian territories.
Zayd Safarini, the hijacking mentor, managed to be released in 2001, after years in prison in Pakistan. However, his freedom lasted for a short period of time, and he was arrested once more and sentenced to 160 years in prison.
The brave act of saving the lives of many hostages made Bahanot an unforgettable hero. She posthumously received several awards for her courage from the United States government and Pakistan’s Tamgha-e-Pakistan, an award given for showing great human kindness. | https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/the-flight-attendant-who-sacrificed-her-life-to-save-passengers-a35120599283 | [] | 2020-12-24 18:03:58.222000+00:00 | ['History', 'Life Lessons', 'Culture', 'World', 'Heroes'] |
LGBTQ, Love, Faith, and the Meaning of Life | LGBTQ teens are adolescents who are different. They experience gender identity or sexual orientation differently from their peers, and they often feel alienated and isolated for it. More and more often today, being a member of a gender or sexual minority isn’t a big deal. Some people even claim that the fight for equality is over, but appearances can be deceiving.
Being LGBTQ is often not as stigmatizing as it used to be
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people sometimes find themselves represented in popular culture. They occasionally see themselves on the small screen and the big screen in TV shows, YouTube videos, movies, and more. Even a few country music stars and rap artists are openly gay.
But many of us forget that progress is patchy
Despite popular culture, LGBTQ people suffer disproportionately from family, social, and religious rejection. Rejection often leads to poor mental health. According to the Williams Institute, LGBTQ youth are five times more likely to attempt suicide than straight/cis youth, and their attempts are significantly more likely to result in death.
Faith is strongly predictive of suicide among LGBTQ teens
According to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the more religious an LGBTQ kid is, the more likely they will be to try to kill themselves. I understand this problem powerfully and intuitively, because as a teen, I flirted with becoming a statistic.
My own experiences with suicidal thoughts as a gay teen —
While I grew up in a strictly evangelical Christian family, I never tried to kill myself, but I wanted to and I thought about it seriously. For at least a couple of years in my youth, suicide felt like a rational response to a world that had no place for me. A world where spiritual and religious authorities taught that I was evil or disordered.
I remember one day standing at the top of a winding stairwell, 10 or 11 stories up in a big office tower. Or was it my university? The moment is vivid, but the details are hazy.
I might have been 16. Maybe I was 18. What I remember for sure is clutching the safety railing and whispering fiercely to myself. “Jump! It’ll be so easy. Just climb up on the rail, close your eyes, and let go.”
“No! I’m too scared. It’ll hurt.”
“Coward! It’s not really jumping. You’ll never feel anything. Just let go! It’ll all be over. Nobody wants you, anyway. Life has no meaning. God doesn’t exist, but the people who think he does hate you. Why put yourself through all this? It’ll be so easy. Climb up on that railing and let yourself fall. Stop the pain!”
Religion protects straight/cis teens from suicidal ideation
Faith is usually a source of strength for believers, especially during times of struggle and sorrow. Data indicate that church-going people are happier and more mentally healthy than other people. But a new study suggests that traditional religion has the opposite effect for the bulk of LGBTQ people.
Teens are the hardest hit, which shouldn’t be surprising at all. Adolescence is the period of our lives when the search for meaning can be at its height. Adolescence, identity and spirituality go hand in hand, according to mental health expert Kenneth J. Doka, writing in the Huffington Post.
The search for spiritual identity becomes toxic when spirituality centers on religions that condemn people for who they are and how they’re wired to feel and be.
It’s hard enough to be a teen coping with the tough realities of life — leaving home, facing up to the the mortality of loved family members and friends, struggling for independence, searching for existential meaning. Imagine having to cope with all that without the support of traditional spiritual and religious institutions.
Imagine learning that you’re depraved, disordered, sinful, or an abomination.
All of those words are ordinary religious descriptions of same-sex attracted and gender-variant people. All those words of condemnation are words that many religious teens begin to encounter just as they’re discovering how different they are from their peers.
So, instead of experiencing religion as a haven or sanctum, they often push it away, rejecting it as it rejects them. Some kids find alternative spirituality. Many others never do.
According to Gallup Polls, LGBTQ people count among the least religious of all groups in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, most lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) adults feel that major faiths are unwelcoming. Religiously affiliated LGB adults are much less likely to be Christian than the general public and are more drawn to smaller, non-Christian denominations.
My path to self love and sanity involved rejecting religion
I did not, however, entirely reject spirituality, though perhaps not in a form that religious people would understand or relate to. I’m much more of a materialist than philosopher/author Jack Preston King, who posits that all religions contain core truth, and who willingly invites more mysticism into his worldview than I feel comfortable with.
But in some important ways, Jack and I are on the same page. We both understand that much about the universe is unknown and forever unknowable, and that spirituality is a quest to accept the transcendent, or even to embrace the joy of the ineffable.
I often wonder how my spiritual development would have progressed if I’d fallen in love with girls instead of boys when I was a teen. Would I have embraced my evangelical Christian faith? I suppose I’ll never know. I rejected it because it rejected me. I felt I had no choice.
Christianity is a healthy path for some LGBTQ people
Christian artists, writers, and clergy like Esther Spurrill-Jones, Clay Rivers, and Emily Swan represent a minority of LGBTQ people, but perhaps a growing minority. Organized Christianity, despite some recent setbacks, seems to be slowly accommodating itself to new understandings and new realities.
It’s often difficult for queer people to find Christian congregations that fully accept and affirm them, but it’s not impossible.
I wrote this article after corresponding with Clay and Sam McKenzie Jr. about LGBTQ activism. If we’re working toward full inclusion in society, doesn’t that inclusion have to mean spiritual and religious inclusion? Can any minority group be fully equal if they’re religiously segregated? Even if that segregation is in some sense self imposed?
I don’t know answer to the question, and I don’t anybody can know the answer. IS and OUGHT are seldom in sync. I do know one thing. If LGBTQ Christians are ever to enjoy religious equality, then LGBTQ Christians are going to have to come together and raise their voices up together.
LGBTQ kids attempt suicide in direct proportion to how religious they are
Nobody should feel compelled to kill themselves because of religion. That’s intolerable. No healthy society ought to feature religious ideals that result in minorities suffering.
I remember that safely rail and the seduction of the fall. I remember knowing that dying offered me more comfort than living. I remember I felt that way because of and not despite religion.
Something has to change —
As a gay man and passionate Christian, Clay Rivers raises his voice to invite LGBTQ people to join him at Christ’s table. That’s his answer to the problem, and while it can’t be my answer, I respect his views and love his humanity.
Are there other solutions? Other answers equally valid? I’m sure there must be. I’m waiting on all of you to tell me what they are. | https://medium.com/james-finn/lgbtq-love-faith-and-the-meaning-of-life-4be7aa59df3c | ['James Finn'] | 2019-07-19 06:13:13.300000+00:00 | ['This Happened To Me', 'Mental Health', 'LGBTQ', 'Equality', 'Religion'] |
September 12 in 35mm | In the days following the September 11th terror attacks, I walked the streets of Manhattan with my father’s Olympus OM-2 camera and three rolls of Kodak GC 400–8 film.
This is what I saw. | https://joemiale.medium.com/september-12-in-35mm-aa52f7f3d02d | ['Joe Miale'] | 2018-09-10 18:24:42.041000+00:00 | ['September 11', 'Photography', 'New York', '35mm', '911'] |
>>>Awesome Example of MARKET AWARENESS<<< | Emerging Markets are my thang…
I LOVE the Entrepreneurial Hustle you See & FEEL when you walk around places like…
→ Vietnam🇻🇳
→ Colombia🇨🇴
→ Georgia🇬🇪 (the country)
→ Ghana🇬🇭
→ and large swathes of Eastern Europe
The Energy is palpable!😳😊
The beautiful thing about these Markets is that their Market Awareness is so LOW that there’s little need to “Be Iconic”…
…while you try to SELL Your Stuff!💰
The opportunity to Sell across ALL digital marketing platforms is beyond Exciting and this awesomeness is especially Fascinating to a CopyWriter like myself!✍🏻
For example…
The two pictures I’ve posted are LinkedIn Searches for “Digital Marketing” Groups in 2 different markets.
A Country compared to a City…
→Vietnam vs Chicago← | https://medium.com/copywriting/awesome-example-of-market-awareness-4bb0b9f8d03c | ['Fitness With Animal'] | 2017-08-26 20:52:39.176000+00:00 | ['Market', 'Copywriting', 'Digital Marketing', 'Internet Marketing', 'Marketing Strategies'] |
Global Expansion with Joint Ventures | A joint venture is a form of cooperation between two or more parties. This is possible in the same country or with a foreign country. It’s a business agreement in which two or more parties combine resources on a project or service. In a joint venture parties consciously choose not to merge to maintain their own identity. Most of the time the parties who decide to merge, give up their own identity.
The joint venture is often set up for a special project. It also can be a long-term business connection between the parties. This would be a strategic alliance.
There are a few advantages of joint ventures:
Cost savings. One of the benefits of this type of business relationship centers on the acquisition of (shared) resources without an outlay of capital. Both companies or parties can leverage their production at a lower per-unit cost than they would separately. This is particularly appropriate with technology advances that are costly to implement. Other cost savings could be sharing advertising or labor costs.
Combined expertise. Two or more companies or parties forming a joint venture can benefit from the other’s expertise and talent within their company or party.
Resources. The joint venture can take advantage of the combined resources of both companies or parties.
Global expansion. One of the biggest advantages of joint ventures is global expansion. It’s not necessary to open new offices all around the world. This makes it more efficient. It’s possible to work together all around the world with foreign companies or parties, whereby you don’t need an office.
Joint Ventures and Max Property Group
Max Property Group is always looking to expand by signing up exclusive partners. Max Crowdfund provides the crowdfunding platform with fully automated processes. The platform allows the exclusive partner to concentrate on bringing on projects and investors in their own country. This in turn allows MPG to expand rapidly, without opening offices in several countries. In this way, Max Property Group can work with partners who already have the expertise and knowledge, without spending a lot of time and money.
As part of Max Property Group’s global expansion, we are looking for partners who are willing to run Max Crowdfund as an exclusive agent. Given that they have extensive knowledge of their own real estate market, it of course will be in their own country. Our agents will be responsible for the marketing and listing of investment products on their own platform in their own country. The agents will receive 75% of all the success fees, and 25% of the management fees, which are generated by the fundraisers placed on the platform. Fees charged by the platform can be found on this page and may be subject to change.
Have a look at our platform and create an account for free. | https://medium.com/@maxpropertygroup/global-expansion-with-joint-ventures-4cad6c8bd68 | ['Max Property Group'] | 2021-02-12 13:02:16.484000+00:00 | ['Max Property Group', 'Joint Ventures', 'Crowdfunding', 'Max Crowdfund', 'Blockchain'] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.