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Where to begin….. | Where to begin…..
Okay in 2011,
I was pregnant with my son, I gave birth and 18 days following the birth of my son, I found myself fighting for my life, I had a unexpected traumatic experience which lead me to the first of many near death experiences, my partner had betrayed me with someone I thought to be a friend, I developed a disability, I found myself in chronic pain and fatigue, my mother and myself were always there for one another, all off a sudden when my father returned I found I had been a victim of narrcasistic abuse, they wanted to control me and take over where my son was concerned, lonely isolated and by then sleep walking, crying exhausted collapsing, still fighting, I had been in and out of hospital, I have had 9 critical near death experiences, n here I am. My story continues and I am in a place where I hope the pain i have suffered, i can use it to help and inspire others…..
I think my story and how I found faith in myself, I how I found away when there was no way….
I believe through devine love and light something I never knew off or was aware. Yet after I lost my best friend in 2016 a few months following her death, she had visited me in spirit. Shortly after I had a spiritual awakening, little did I no what I was going through, I hit rock bottom many times and in 2017 I found myself completely hopeless, alone and that I didnt feel I had the will to continue fighting, no one believed in me, all the rejection just broke my heart, the fights and the neglect, the list is endless but through one kind word of someone who lives close by, that I could and would still be able to find my way to reach my dreams. From that day I turned a new corner. My story continues.
still there’s been many many battles and plenty of room for improvement yet im doing great all things considered, I hope to reach others facing some of the struggles and challenges I have over come. I found away when there was no way and I have over come against all the odds many experiences I have been told I was not expected to make it. I dont no what the future holds but i believe I am meant to use my pain to show others that there’s still light in those darkest hours.
I found it all along the brightest light as been within me, I have been working on healing, learning to forgive hoping to find my true place in this world. Where ever that may be I still feel there’s much more and I believe I have so much I can give to those who may be facing, challenging moments, trauma, ptsd, grief, betrayal, loneliness, spirituality, unknown. Healing, loss , disability, the list is endless but what I have is life experience, compassion, empathy, understanding, faith, perservence, strength, wisdom and hope. I hope to inspire others also and I would love a chance to truly open up and tell my story from my heart.
To be continued…… | https://medium.com/@lianzabuller/where-to-begin-a72ab4fff243 | ['Lianza B'] | 2020-12-02 14:55:33.002000+00:00 | ['Pain', 'Spirituality', 'Near Death Experiences', 'Neglect', 'Pregnancy'] |
Obama beats Trump as Gallup’s most admired man in 2017, Hillary Clinton still top woman | By Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS
Source: Wikipedia Commons
Although the sitting president is usually the Gallup poll’s most admired for the year, this year is it is not the case. Former President Barack Obama beat out President Donald Trump as the most admired man in the 2017 edition, while 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton remains the country’s most admired woman. Gallup Poll released on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017, their annual list of most admired men and women for the year with almost predictable results. For the tenth straight year, former President Obama has topped the list of most admired men, with Hillary Clinton topping the list of most admired women for a record-breaking time. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump came in a close second but missed the honor most sitting presidents experience.
President Obama won the distinction of most admired with 17 percent of the vote, down from 22 percent last year, and his “narrowest” margin to date. He has appeared on the top 10, 13 times since 2006 and has been in the top spot for the last ten years. President Obama has the second overall most admired titles besting former Presidents Bill Clinton (1993–2001) and Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) but behind Dwight Eisenhower (1953–1961). Obama becomes the only the second former president besides Eisenhower in 1967 and 1968 to win the year’s most admired. President Trump came in a rather close second with 14 percent; the third time Trump has ranked second in the poll. This year is the president’s seventh appearance in the top 10, in 1988 to 1990 and then again in 2011. Vice President Mike Pence sees his second appearance on the list coming in again at the bottom of the list.
Even as a sitting president Trump cannot eclipse Obama as the most admired man in the country an honor most sitting presidents have enjoyed. It is a tradition for the sitting president always to be named the most admired and has been the case for 70 years since the poll originated in 1946. Now only 13 times did a sitting president lose out on the most-admired honor and usually only happens if the president has a low approval rating. President Trump has the lowest approval rating of any president in his first year of office with only a 37 percent approval rating on his 338th day in office. The last time a sitting president missed the honor was in 2008 when then President-elect Obama edged out President George W. Bush who was seeing extremely low approval ratings at the end of his tenure.
In Gallup’s 71 years issuing the most admired list, sitting presidents have topped it 58 times. Gallup indicates, “Previous incumbent presidents who did not finish first include Harry Truman in 1946–1947 and 1950–1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1967–1968, Richard Nixon in 1973, Gerald Ford in 1974–1975, Jimmy Carter in 1980, and George W. Bush in 2008. All but Truman in 1947 and Ford in 1974 had job approval ratings well below 50%, like Trump.”
Gallup Polls Most Admired Men 2017 Top 10:
1. Barack Obama 17
2. Donald Trump 14
3. Pope Francis 3
4. Rev. Billy Graham 2
5. John McCain 2
6. Elon Musk 2
7. Bernie Sanders 1
8. Bill Gates 1
9. Benjamin Netanyahu 1
10. The Dalai Lama 1
11. Mike Pence 1
Despite losing the election Trump last year, former first lady, New York Senator, 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, former Secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton tops the list of the most admired women for the 22nd time and 16th year in a row more than anyone ever on the list. Clinton has her lowest showing; however, winning only 9 percent of the vote, last year she had 12 percent for the top spot. Clinton only lost the number one spot in 1995 and 1996 to Mother Theresa and 2001 when First Lady Laura Bush took the position. Clinton has appeared on the list 26 times. Former First Lady Michelle Obama is in second place, but with 7 percent. Current First Lady Melania Trump sees her first showing on the list coming in at number 8 but with only one percent of the vote.
Gallup Polls Most Admired Women 2017 Top 10:
1. Hillary Clinton 9
2. Michelle Obama 7
3. Oprah Winfrey 4
4. Elizabeth Warren 3
5. Angela Merkel 2
6. Queen Elizabeth 2
7. Condoleezza Rice 1
8. Melania Trump 1
9. Nikki Haley 1
10. Duchess Kate Middleton 1
11. Beyonce Knowles 1
This year’s list is seeing some record number of appearances for both the most admired men and women. For the men, Rev. Billy Graham has his 60th top 10 finish having been in the top 10 every year since 1955, except for 1962 and 1976. This is the first year former Bill Clinton has dropped out of the top 10; he appeared on the top 10 for 25 years and remained on top of the list throughout his entire presidency from 1993 to 2001. On the women’s side, Hillary Clinton has the most top honors on the list with former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt second with 13 top honors. Queen Elizabeth has the most top 10 appearances of all women with 49, while Oprah Winfrey moved up to the second most of all time with her 30 showings. Gallup does not believe however, Obama and Clinton will hold on to the top spot in future years and believe Trump could attain the position next year.
Bonnie K. Goodman BA, MLIS (McGill University), is a journalist, librarian, historian & editor. She is a former Features Editor at the History News Network & reporter at Examiner.com where she covered politics, universities, religion and news. She has a dozen years experience in education & political journalism. | https://medium.com/@bonniekgoodman/obama-beats-trump-as-gallups-most-admired-man-in-2017-hillary-clinton-still-top-woman-5f47284fdd8 | ['Bonnie K. Goodman'] | 2017-12-27 20:43:19.565000+00:00 | ['Bill Clinton', 'Gallup', 'Hillary Clinton', 'Barack Obama', 'Donald Trump'] |
Clear as Mud | She promised she’d love me
Til we were old and gray
And I vowed my honesty
I said I’d never stray
But I had to tell her
I couldn’t lie to her eyes
I said I have a weakness for
Tryin’ women on for size
Now my life’s as clear as mud
My heart’s cold and numb
I’m ashamed and drinkin’ shots
Cause I’m so stubborn & dumb
I hurt the girl I married
For a girl who wanted an older man
Yeah, my life’s as clear as mud
‘Cause I slept with a devoted fan
I couldn’t say what we did
I couldn’t say who she was
When she asked why I did it
All I could say was “because..”
I couldn’t give her a reason
I couldn’t tell her why
I couldn’t feel anything
Even though she said goodbye
Now my life’s as clear as mud
My heart’s cold and numb
I’m ashamed and drinkin’ shots
Cause I’m so stubborn & dumb
I hurt the girl I married
For a girl who wanted an older man
Yeah, my life’s as clear as mud
‘Cause I slept with a devoted fan
I remember wanting a lasting love
An example for our children
But I’ve fell from grace early
I committed a cardinal sin
I’m payin’ the price for dishonor
Feelin’ like a little boy in a red hood
I fell for a wolf in women’s clothing
And I’m not doin’ so good
Now my life’s as clear as mud
My heart’s cold and numb
I’m ashamed and drinkin’ shots
Cause I’m so stubborn & dumb
I hurt the girl I made my wife
For one who wanted an older man
Yeah, my life’s as clear as mud
‘Cause I slept with a devoted fan
Yeah, my life’s as clear as mud
‘Cause I slept with a devoted fan | https://medium.com/@mkgraylyricist/clear-as-mud-778bba8e495c | ['Matt Gray'] | 2020-10-15 12:18:33.320000+00:00 | ['Songwriting', 'Regrets', 'Infidelity', 'Lyrics', 'Country Songs'] |
8 Beautiful Beaches That Were Destroyed By Beach Pollution Caused By Humans | Beaches are a great place to reduce your stress levels and enjoy the beauty in front of you. But the recent beach pollution that we humans have caused is disturbing. I mean we all are nice and civilised people when it comes to our social lives. What happens to us when we are on a vacation?
We, humans, have destroyed many beaches that were beautiful and clean.
Kuta Beach, Bali
Indonesia is the second biggest marine polluter in the world. It alone contributes to 10% of global marine pollution. Kuta Beach is Bali’s most popular and most visited destination and that clearly is visible since there are huge mounds of garbage on the beach that are collected on a daily basis. Especially during the rainy season, there is garbage awash on the shores.
Authorities declared an emergency after they realised the volume of plastic thrown on the beach was turning into an endangering tourist trade. 100 tons of junk was being cleaned by workers on a daily basis.
The beaches of Boracay Island, Philippines
Boracay Island was closed for six months for tourists when the Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte termed the beaches of Boracay as a “Cesspool”. In those six months, the beaches were vigorously cleaned. The island in the year 2017 entertained 6.6 Million tourists and because of which the island generated 90 to 115 tons of garbage a day. But the infrastructure that they have only allows them to remove 30 tons which is nothing if you consider the input.
Kamilo Beach, Hawaii, United States
The Plastic Beach
Kamilo beach is known as Plastic Beach. It is located on the southeast coast of the island of Hawaii and is known for its accumulation of plastic. From plastic debris to hair brushes, there is no waste that is not found here. The reason for that is that the island is in close proximity to the Pacific Garbage Patch.
Haina Beach, Dominican Republic
Haina Beach is not only full of beach pollutants in the form of plastic but also lead poisoning in the sand which comes from the industrial waste flowing down the rivers. This beach has the highest incidents of lead poisoning in the world. Not only harmful chemicals like lead but also high quantities of ammonium, formaldehyde and sulfuric acid are absorbed by the soil, making the soil and water harmful. I hope that people realise it was a beautiful place and see what they have done to it.
Juhu Beach, Mumbai, India
Juhu beach before cleaning
Pollution is not new to India. Beaches suffer the same. Beach pollution is a major issue in India and waste management is very less established. Now, clean-ups have been initiated and 10,000 tonnes of trash have been removed from Juhu Beach in the last three months. The beach is in better shape now and the work is still ongoing to make the beach a perfect tourist place. After this incident, Mumbai implemented a plastic ban on June 23, 2018. Surprisingly, within a week they had already collected $5,800 in fines.
Freedom Island, Manila
The Philippines has contributed enough to beach pollution in the oceans. There was a recent audit that said that the primary pollutants on this beach near Manila was food sachets and personal care items. Nestle and Unilever are the two companies that provide packaged food whose sachets are found on Freedom Island in Manila.
Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, Australia
Reality check: There are more than 300 drains that empty out in the Port Phillip Bay. Yes! Port Phillip accepts drain from 10 municipalities around it. This is due to bad infrastructure design and stormwater management in Melbourne. Authorities approximately collected 800 million pieces of plastic that wash down the river each year destroying the river and the beach. You can put yourself at health risk if you plan to dive into these waters. It is way more polluted than you think.
Big Major Cay, The Bahamas
This beach is home to a colony of pigs and stray dogs. There are many theories as to how they reached there. Some say it was to boost tourism and others say some sailors dropped them there with an intention to cook them but they never returned. Believing it or not, I’ll leave up to you.
Sadly, last year seven of those pigs died. Tourists were accused of feeding them alcohol and trying to ride on them. If this is what humans do, I think they should learn something from animals and be like them. It is cruel to do such things to animals and I think they are better off without these things.
I am going to ask the same question again. What do we become on our vacations?
Next time you hit a beach you, make sure you don’t leave traces of your visit. Beaches are beautiful and guess what, they keep dustbins on the beaches! And even if they don’t, the least you can do is carry your trash with you and dispose of them appropriately. | https://medium.com/@Travel.Earth/8-beautiful-beaches-that-were-destroyed-by-beach-pollution-caused-by-humans-a61d09d98b6c | [] | 2019-05-15 11:37:19.103000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Traveling', 'Pollution', 'Sustainable Travel', 'Beach'] |
I just now read on Yahoo news, a top CEO in the restaurant business says he expects that 50 to 60… | I just now read on Yahoo news, a top CEO in the restaurant business says he expects that 50 to 60 percent of all restaurants to close!
From this article and others I have read, I think this Virus has accelerated the Tech development by at least 10 years!
RABBITS!
I read of a story where some asteroid struck the earth and wiped out most of the animal species. Only rabbits survived. At first, they multiplied greatly. An Interesting thing happened though. Ten million years went by and now there were carnivorous rabbits, flying rabbits, sea dwelling rabbits. Several species were now ten feet tall! One species stood on its hind legs and walked about and had finger bearing hands. It also walked about with a spear in one hand and a fire torch in the other!
In other words, those Who Can, Do! When something collapses, Alternatives take over and the people who are creators rush in and soon these creators will corner the market.
Our future probably is Tech. Unfortunately there will be a large number of people who will not, cannot, go tech. But suppose “Tech” is not good for the Soul?! We all might soon become in deep doo-doo! | https://medium.com/@freestonew/i-just-now-read-on-yahoo-news-a-top-ceo-in-the-restaurant-business-says-he-expects-that-50-to-60-f9211b1fd0c8 | ['Freestone Wilson'] | 2020-05-06 11:53:14.482000+00:00 | ['Restaurant Business', 'Restaurant', 'Tech', 'Technology'] |
Chance | Do you believe in a guardian angel?
I was about to write my journal this morning when my sister Vonny called.
She told me a story about a kind lady who seemed to have God’s protection in her life.
I know it may sound so cliché, but I believe that every one of us has our own guardian angel.
Think about it.
How can God manage all of his creatures in this universe?
Well...in my opinion, He must have His angels to help Him.
Come to think about it; sometimes, when we were upset about something bad that happened to us, we tend to focus on the problem and it leads our mind to overthink.
Our minds will be very jammed with the unnecessary problems that we create by ourselves.
When we focus our minds on the problem only, it makes it difficult for us to find a solution.
We can’t see the opportunity in front of us.
Our mind is so blurred that we can’t even think about taking the chance.
Some people blur their minds because they wish to get the signal from God for the answer, and they don’t see the chance that God sent them through his angels in the real life.
I heard so many stories about people refusing offers from others to help and by the time they regret it, it`s too late.
‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink’
Nobody can help you but yourself!
To make it simple, you have got a kitchen at home, you have food in the fridge, but if you don’t want to cook, you will be hungry.
The reason why you don’t want to cook is that you don’t know how to do it.
And yet, you refuse to learn.
If you understand how simple it is to have a happy and healthy life, what will you do when you know that you have a problem and you see the opportunity?
Will you take your chance? | https://medium.com/@sylvia-silvers/chance-f349e86aac5b | ['Sylvia Silvers', 'Aka Sylvia Astuti Gunawan'] | 2020-10-10 04:31:51.642000+00:00 | ['Guardian Angels', 'Solutions', 'Problem Solving', 'Opportunity', 'Chance'] |
[LIVE] : SSV Ulm 1846 vs Schalke 04 (Livestream) — Full Match, German DFB Pokal TV Channel 2020 | WATCH Live Streaming (SSV Ulm 1846 vs Schalke 04) Full HD [ULTRA ᴴᴰ1080p]
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Facebook Live, LinkedIn Live, YouTube Live, Periscope, Instagram Live Over the past several years, major social media platforms democratized and commodified live streaming, with YouTube Live launching way back in 2011, and Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others (R.I.P. Meerkat) following suit. Most recently, LinkedIn launched live streaming on its platform, too, so businesses and professionals can reach their network in new and engaging ways.
These free platforms are great for brands and businesses looking to dip a toe in the live streaming pond, but they are not viable solutions for long-term scale and growth of a video strategy. Why? While ease of use is a major draw, for sure, none offer onboarding or customer support. If your team hits a snag with an event, you’re left to your own devices to problem-solve in real-time.
What’s more, streaming is only possible on a platform-by-platform basis. This means if you want to stream to Facebook and Twitter at the same time, you’ll need two cameras to live stream from each device — creating twice as much work (or more) and a less-than-ideal experience for the on-screen talent and viewers alike. ANOTHER POST.
Nobody is ever thrilled to pay nearly $11K for a golfer they probably hadn’t heard of until a handful of weeks ago, but both Zalatoris, along with Sam Burns will be at the top of my list this week on DraftKings.
Zalatoris gets the slight edge with his outstanding play in nearly every metric that’s not near the green. He ranks first amongst players in the field in SG: total and fourth in SG: approach. We also joke about getting the putter hot for a weekend, and if Zalatoris can improve on his SG: putting which ranks 129th in the field, he should absolutely contend yet again. Other Games.
He’s finished no worse than T19 in his last five events, including three top six finishes. His T6 result at Winged Foot opened up plenty of eyeballs, so he’ll be a popular play, which makes him all the more worthwhile in cash at the top.
While I was impressed with the way Will Zalatoris played last week at the U.S. Open, I’m more inclined this week to go with the more experienced Tour pro. Will will (that’s funny “Will will”) be a fixture on the PGA Tour — if not this year than next. He is one of the top players on the Korn Ferry Tour now. However, Corey Connors made the Playoffs and has been playing well last season (this is so weird calling it last season already). I’ll have both in a lineup this week, but my gut has me leaning with the Canadian. MORE POST. | https://medium.com/@ootanori/live-ssv-ulm-1846-vs-schalke-04-livestream-full-match-german-dfb-pokal-tv-channel-2020-e5392ddf5495 | [] | 2020-12-22 09:30:41.265000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Soccer'] |
An Open Letter to My Ex | An Open Letter to My Ex
Raw real and honest ❤
Your love was like looking in a mirror: My soul reflected back to me. Only, I didn’t realize it. That is why it hurt so badly when you didn’t look back. I never chased myself, so why would you? Loving you was work.
When you disregarded my feelings it was just me overlooking myself. I always put others first so why wouldn’t you. You loved me like I loved myself: Not at all.
When you looked at me, I was seeing myself reflected in your eyes. I made it okay for you to devalue and belittle me. I wasn’t worth it in my own eyes, so why would you think differently?
I didn’t respect me. Why would you?
I was living in a false mindset that if I led with sexuality everything else would fall into place. No wonder love was so gut wrenching.
Now I am raw and real. Loving myself.
Take it or leave it because I’ve got me and I am loving me.
I don’t need you to validate me. I don’t need you to complete me. I don’t need you to be the glue that holds me together.
I’ve got me.
If you want to disrespect me, ignore me, devalue me, then brace yourself. I’m not taking that crap anymore. I don’t do it to myself anymore so you surely won’t be allowed.
I am my own true love. I am everything I need all bundled into one awesome package.
It all makes sense now that I’ve been awakened. I will be the one to heal myself. You can do whatever you like but it won’t be by my side.
I yearned to have you back in my life. Sobbed my eyes out hoping you would think of me and miss me. Ask me back. I begged you to talk to me so we could work it out.
Thank God you didn’t call me or text me. Thank God you told me to “move on.”
At first I moved on in the way I always told my girlfriends to: “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone.” I spread my legs and gave myself away to even more men who saw me for the reflection I was projecting: worthless, something to be used.
I drank myself into a stupor. Stopped eating and cried endlessly, longing for your validation.
I even thought about running my car off the side of the mountain. What was the point in living? I couldn’t see beyond the fog of my despair.
Then a sliver of light shined through my darkest of days. It pierced into my heart and soul and slowly started a fire.
Now an untamable flame burns deep inside.
It cannot be smoldered. I see me.
I see me in all my nakedness. I see me in my raw power. I love every scar on my flesh. I love every stretch mark on my thighs. I love every freckle on my body. I love me.
I won’t be tossed aside as a forgotten lover. I won’t tolerate disrespect. I won’t be ignored. I won’t react with hatred or even cause a scene. But when I disappear from your life, you will know why. If you don’t love me the way I love me, I don’t have time for you.
I love me today, tomorrow and always. I am awesomely me. I am loving me.
This blog was written by guest blogger Rachel Johnson ❤ | https://ivaursano.medium.com/an-open-letter-to-my-ex-368d3fc9aa66 | ['Iva Ursano'] | 2019-05-31 01:43:08.909000+00:00 | ['Self Love', 'Relationships', 'Inspiration', 'Love', 'Personal'] |
I Took Pinterest Seriously and Grew to 4.8 Million Monthly Visitors | I Took Pinterest Seriously and Grew to 4.8 Million Monthly Visitors
Photo by Souvik Banerjee on Unsplash
It’s no secret, Pinterest can be a real game changer for companies big and small, helping push loads of traffic to websites and increasing brand awareness.
I first started realizing how powerful Pinterest was back in 2014.
After discovering the platform in 2012, a few years later I started experimenting with driving traffic to my online store and I was shocked at the results.
It worked!
All I had to do was pin my product photos to the platform with a catchy headline and caption. Then, it circulated throughout Pinterest driving customers back to my store.
Today, the Pinterest game is a lot different but it’s still a great traffic driver for your business.
Here’s how I grew my account to 4.8 million monthly visitors (it’s actually 5 million as I write this) once I started to finally take it seriously again.
Pinterest.com
Pinterest.com
My Love Hate Relationship with Pinterest
Like with many platforms, if you pay attention, you can sometimes figure out the secret sauce to get the best results possible.
For Pinterest, first it was group boards.
Next, it was pinning daily.
Then, it was direct pinning to the platform where you upload your image to Pinterest instead of pinning from a site.
And then video pins, then idea pins, on and on.
Through all this, I broke up with Pinterest a bunch of times.
All the changes were getting so frustrating. It really felt like I could not win!
I’d get really amazing results using the current “tactic” to drive traffic, then an algorithm change and boom, back to the drawing board.
They definitely keep you on your toes but if you stay loyal to Pinterest, you’ll definitely be rewarded in the end.
When Things Changed
I’m a fan of Pinterest as a non-business user.
If I stop using it to drive traffic to my business or my clients’ companies, I’ll still continue to use it for myself.
It’s a visual search engine and as a visual person, it’s a great way for me to search online for questions I have like finding a vegan meal recipe for dinner.
Pinterst.com
How I Drive Millions of Monthly Visitors to My Pinterest Account
I pin everyday.
Yes, everyday, including weekends.
I pin video pins mostly.
Following relevant users in my niche is still a part of my growth practice. I try to respond to all comments and questions, the best I can.
And I just continue to stay active.
The biggest thing is consistency.
You may not need to pin daily like me but pinning weekly or monthly, just staying active with the platform will pay off.
You really don’t need to do anything else other than this to have your followers grow but, the best thing about Pinterest is that you don’t need a high follower account to get results.
Pinterest Success Story
One of my biggest successes was taking a brand new Pinterest account and startup business, growing it to over 500,000 monthly visitors on Pinterest and $14,000 in revenue in 45 days. This was under 1,000 followers on Pinterest!
So, as you set out to start driving traffic using your Pinterest account, focusing on your followers isn’t necessarily the direction you need to take.
Key Takeaways
Pinterest can be a huge traffic driver.
Take it as seriously as you would Google for organic traffic and you might start to see your traffic numbers rise.
Here are some more of my best practices:
Get a free Pinterest Business Account (the data, analytics and tools you get with your account are invaluable to help you get true insights on your Pinterest performance)
Set up rich pins (instructions here)
Pin high quality vertical images (with text overlay, if appropriate)
Don’t be afraid to follow all your favorite Pinterest accounts
Do NOT go crazy on the platform from the start, as it might falsely flag your Pinterest account as spam. Start slow with pinning (up to 5–10 per day) and following accounts (up to 5–10 per day).
For pin creation I use Canva (there’s a free version but I have a Pro account)
Practice Pinterest SEO (use their search bar autocomplete feature to see what search terms pinners are using)
Example:
Write a catchy pin headline and keyword-rich caption
These tips will definitely help but, the biggest thing with Pinterest is to just be consistent.
Good luck! | https://bettermarketing.pub/i-took-pinterest-seriously-and-grew-to-4-8-million-monthly-visitors-87f9c65e527c | ['Jenn Leach'] | 2021-09-07 14:33:48.153000+00:00 | ['Social Media Marketing', 'Pinterest Marketing', 'Online Marketing', 'Digital Marketing', 'Pinterest'] |
Der Chronist | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/fantasy-geschichten/der-chronist-72d9342730bd | ['Daniel Weiers'] | 2020-12-27 10:27:57.878000+00:00 | ['Rpg', 'Short Story', 'Fantasy', 'Kurzgeschichte', 'Deutsch'] |
Intel in the Air: October Roundup of the Latest Aviation News | Intel in the Air: October Roundup of the Latest Aviation News
The month of October demonstrated an accelerated push towards expanded and safe travel by airlines ahead of the holiday season. More Covid-19 travel restrictions were lifted, the demand for travel began to pick back up, and new advancements and mandates were made to protect travelers. Anita Follow Oct 26, 2021 · 3 min read
Read on for the latest ‘Intel in the Air’ news roundup, where we keep our users informed with the aviation industry’s latest happenings.
Airline Mandates
Earlier this month, Southwest Airlines announced that their entire workforce of 56,000 employees must be vaccinated against Covid-19 by December 8. This decision followed other major airlines’ moves and the Biden administration’s mandate that requires all federal workers to be vaccinated. The weekend following the airline’s announcement, Southwest canceled around 2,000 of their flights across the country leaving passengers stranded. Southwest blamed cancelations on inclement weather and air traffic control issues, but federal regulators speculated the service disruptions could be due to staffing issues. Travelers are warned to expect more delays and cancelations as the holiday season and federal vaccine mandate deadline approach.
Photo credit: Southwest Airlines
Advancements in Operations:
For the convenience and comfort of passengers, major airlines have partnered with companies to enhance their travels. The demand for travel appears to be rising and several airlines are making major efforts to improve the overall safety and experience of travel from the moment passengers enter the airport, to the moment they arrive at their destination.
Photo credit: United Airlines
United Airlines partnered with PayPal to develop a QR code passengers can use to make in-flight purchases. This move aims to create more contactless interactions onboard planes improving the overall safety of passengers.
Singapore Airlines partnered with Golden Door to curate new spa-inspired meals, in-flight exercises and educational sleep resources to help travelers settle in for long-haul flights.
Photo credit: Singapore Airlines
To ease the stress of airport procedures, Delta Airlines is expanding their partnership with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The airline is implementing a ‘digital identity experience’ at its hub in Atlanta, Georgia. TSA Precheck and Delta SkyMiles customers can now pass through security and board their flights using facial recognition. Travelers will also no longer have to keep track of a physical boarding pass or display one on their phone.
Orlando International Airport is also minimizing wait times at airports with their newest service, ‘Reservation Lane powered by Clear,’ which allows flyers to plan for a timed and expedited entry through security.
New Routes:
Delta Airlines is adding over 100 flights out of John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports beginning in November. As countries begin opening to international visitors, Delta is increasing the number of daily flights from New York to popular destinations in Europe.
Delta Airlines is adding over 100 flights out of John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports beginning in November
A new regional airline, aha!, was born this month for flights launching out of Reno-Tahoe International Airport. The new airline is part of ExpressJet and offers eight new easy west coast routes.
As the busy travel season nears, what’s next for the world of aviation? Find out on our next ‘Intel in the Air’. | https://blog.appintheair.com/intel-in-the-air-october-roundup-of-the-latest-aviation-news-9e82f02dc99a | [] | 2021-10-26 21:45:27.336000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Airlines', 'Aviation', 'App In The Air', 'News'] |
The Complete PPC Account Audit Guide | Your PPC account is never perfect. Hopefully, that doesn’t come as a surprise to you. The truth of the matter is that no matter how hard you work on building an account and optimizing it according to best practices, you will probably miss something. An even truer statement is that the longer you work in an account, the easier it is for things to slip past your ever-watchful eye.
In these situations, you need to take the time to audit your efforts, even if your account is performing well. Even periodically doing a quick 20-minute PPC audit can catch small issues before they become big issues.
What is a PPC account audit?
An account audit is a dive into your account to determine areas that could use further attention or work to improve performance. We’ll outline the actual process of the audit shortly.
When and why should I audit?
There’s never a bad time to audit your account because you’ll typically find something to help improve performance. However, you don’t particularly want to audit your account after a recent strategy change or account update. You could be auditing based on skewed information and nobody wants that.
The most important time to audit your account is if you’re having performance issues. It’s also a good idea to periodically audit an account if it has been managed by the same person or team for a long time.
Who should perform the audit?
This is a tricky question because it really depends. If there is a particular issue in the account that needs auditing, take the time yourself and dig into the areas that may be impacting performance.
However, if you’re talking about a more comprehensive check, it may be better to outsource the project and get fresh eyes. No matter how much you try to deny it, as an account manager you have a slight inability to look at something you uploaded and thought would work and say “Nope, not working, have to stop it.” And as we’ve already mentioned a couple of times, it’s very easy to overlook the “basics” and assume you have everything set up correctly or just skip stuff because there’s no way you’d set your campaign to target the Search and Display networks at the same time, right?
Where should you be looking?
Let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this guide, shall we? The following checklist outlines all the different account areas you can dive in to during an account audit and what kinds of items to look for.
The Basics of an Account Audit
Date Range
First things first as you need to make sure you’re looking at a long enough range of time to analyze relevant data. It doesn’t do you any good to look at 30-day’s worth of conversion data and to make changes based on solely that information. Odds are that data isn’t statistically relevant enough. At the very least, we like to observe at least 3-months’ worth of data. If we’re diagnosing a specific issue, a year’s worth of data is preferable when doing a general audit.
KPIs
Knowing the most important metrics to a client is the best way to ground your audit in success. If it’s an account you’re managing, we would imagine you have KPI’s picked out. It may be worth a quick check with your client to make sure you’re focusing correctly. Also, if you’re helping a fellow account manager whose account you don’t typically look at, determine the key metrics to dive in to.
Settings
This is usually one of our favorite areas of an account to audit because specific settings tend to be something that are set up when a campaign is started and then never looked at again. A big win in this area is if a campaign is targeting Search and Display traffic within one campaign, which we find more often than you may guess. From here you can also check out device bid modifiers, ad delivery method, ad rotation (optimizing for clicks when goals are based around conversions?), location/language targeting, and ad scheduling. Modifiers can sometimes impact performance more than expected. It’s worth double-checking to see if changes were made when performance came into question.
Account Structure
Campaigns
The first item to look at with campaigns is whether the naming structure makes sense and is easily understandable. Essentially, are the campaigns numbered 1–20 or do they have unique names that explain what kind of ad groups I’m going to find? As we talked about before, are the campaigns opted into the Search or Display network only? Are Interest Category or Topics campaigns broken out into their own campaigns or folded into a general Display campaign?
Reviewing campaign structure is where we start to determine if the rest of the account structure is going to follow a sensible method or if the remainder of the audit is going to require some Sherlock Holmes-style decoding on our part.
Ad Groups
Assuming the campaign structure is laid out in a regimented way, the next item to look at is how the ad groups are set up. For instance, if you’ve got general product categories as your campaigns, are the ad groups the subcategories for the main category? Does each ad group have a maximum of 20 keywords in it? You want to make sure you don’t have an ad group that’s too wide-reaching, as it will make ad copywriting to match the terms difficult.
Keywords
When auditing keywords, you want to review the match types. If most of the terms are broad match, some expansion for increased ROI could be completed by adding modified broad, phrase, and exact match terms. If the account is relying predominantly on broad match, is there a logical negative keyword strategy in place to weed out irrelevant traffic? Further, has broad modified match been implemented? Are bids set too high or low to produce results or maintain goals? Finally, we like to take a look at a search term report and see if some keywords that bring a lot of traffic or conversions to the account still need to be added to the account structure to increase profitable reach.
Ads
When looking at ads in any given account, keep the basics in mind at the front end. Are the ads grammatically correct or do they contain spelling errors? Are the ads taking advantage of the punctuation that is permitted by the engines (i.e. do they contain any exclamation points, registered/trademark symbols, etc.)? Are the ads promoting prices or offers that have expired? Is there a different message being illustrated depending on the stage of the buying cycle this ad is intended for? Finally, when was the last time an ad test was performed? Generally speaking, if there isn’t always an active ad test in an account, we try to determine why. No ad copy is perfect so something should always be tested to further enhance performance.
Quality Score
When it comes to Quality Score, you must realize what you may uncover here could take some time to correct. So, unlike settings or some structure issues, there isn’t a single way to begin correcting course. The most important part of this portion of the audit is to pull a few key reports and analyze them.
Historical quality score along with historical quality score factors are available in the interface. Download these segmented by time and you can easily analyze which factors are changing over time, and how they are impacting your quality score.
Extensions
Ad extensions are an important feature of the Google interface, however, they may not all be relevant to every vertical or business. Consider the account you’re looking at when auditing extensions and whether the extension would, in fact, bring anything to the table.
Sitelinks are fairly usable in all verticals, so check to see if those are implemented. If so, do they lead the searchers to more relevant information to the original product/service? Is there a brick and mortar location for the business? If there is, check if location extensions are in use. Is the account running call extensions? Do they have the call extensions turned on only during call center/office hours? Have call metrics been regularly analyzed along with the rest of the account?
Ad extensions are known to help increase click-through rates exponentially, so they are an important aspect of the account audit to pay attention to.
Networks
Hopefully back in the settings section, you already checked to see if individual campaigns were opted into either the Search or Display networks (not both at the same time). Now then, focus on the Display network segments. Are all placements running automatically or are some in the managed placements section? Are the managed placements hitting goals? Are there any auto placements that can/should be moved to managed? Are ill-performing placements being excluded? Have Interest Category and/or Topics-targeted campaigns running? Are there additional campaigns of this kind available? Is the account running image and responsive ads for Display? Are the image ads of varying sizes to fit many placement types?
Remarketing
First things first, are remarketing campaigns implemented? If there are, go to the shared library section of the account and look at the audiences that are set up for remarketing. Are they all collecting members? Is there an audience set up for each abandonment level? Can you find the cookie codes in the website code? Have all the cookies been set up with lengths that make sense?
Analytics
Not all accounts will have Analytics. Yes, this sounds crazy, but you first need to determine if there is an Analytics account (Google or otherwise) and if not, why not. Get one. It’s more than worth it. If there is an account, make sure it’s accurately attached to the paid search account. Has tracking code been placed on the website (ecommerce enabled, if applicable)? Are conversions or goals set up? Does the conversion data in Analytics match the engine interface (or at least close to it)? How are metrics performing (bounce rate, time on site, etc.)? Pull a site search report and see if there are new keyword opportunities to add to the paid search account. Have you looked through multi-channel funnels for any insights?
What happens after the audit?
Throughout your account audit, you likely compiled a list of items that need attention. The first thing you must do is prioritize your list. There are a few different ways to handle the priority piece depending on why you did the audit in the first place. If you had a specific issue, you want to implement what will begin righting the ship the fastest first, then move to the things you may have uncovered along the way that aren’t directly related to the problem.
Assuming you completed the audit for a more overall look into what might be a bit out of whack, then you should prioritize according to what’s going to affect your bottom line the most, or according to the amount of time it will take to complete the particular tasks. You also want to make sure you don’t make too many changes too quickly, as you may do more harm than good. For example, when negotiating a restructure of ad groups or overall campaigns, you want to not move too much too fast or you may shock your performance history and end up making things worse. | https://medium.com/@hanapinmarketing/the-complete-ppc-account-audit-guide-aed3c54fd797 | ['Hanapin Marketing'] | 2019-11-20 15:56:36.114000+00:00 | ['Advertising', 'Marketing', 'PPC Marketing', 'Digital Marketing', 'Marketing Strategies'] |
Orbs Update: May 2019 | Media highlights
Hackernoon features Orbs’ Co-founder on its front page
As fans and regular readers of Hackernoon, we were delighted to discover that the highly influential dev magazine chose to publish Tal Kol’s piece, Blockchain as the Next Evolutionary Step of the Open Source Movement, on its front page!
At the end of the month, Tal was featured AGAIN on the front page of Hackernoon with another article, The Blockchain Dichotomy and an Architecture to Overcome It. We are so thrilled to see that a magazine we follow express such interest in this project.
“The motivation is clear. #opensource is good for humanity. It is making technology more accessible and open — anyone can build anything.” by @koltal @hackernoon https://t.co/XsHPtFs5sB - OpenSourceInitiative (@OpenSourceOrg) April 22, 2019
A bit about the Open Source Initiative, from their website:
For over 20 years the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has worked to raise awareness and adoption of open source software, and build bridges between open source communities of practice. As a global non-profit, the OSI champions software freedom in society through education, collaboration, and infrastructure, stewarding the Open Source Definition (OSD), and preventing abuse of the ideals and ethos inherent to the open source movement. Considering that Orbs has gone fully open-source only a month ago, having already garnered the attention of a firebrand organization like OSI is something everyone here is extremely proud of. We are excited about the possibility of collaborating with a corporation like this, whose work has been a major inspiration to the Orbs project.
CODC Blockchain Trade Mission to Israel
Orbs has been singled out by The Chamber of Digital Commerce and the U.S. Department of Commerce Commercial Service as an example of what blockchain innovation in Israel is all about! The purpose of the mission was to promote greater collaboration and business activity between the United States and Israel’s blockchain communities.
Check out the full press release: Blockchain Trade Mission to Israel.
Global Blockchain Business Council
GBBC Newsletter | April 12th, 2019
This past month, the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) chose to highlight Orbs in its newsletter that goes out to GBBC members, board, founding advisors, government officials and business leaders from around the world. The GBBC is the leading industry association for the blockchain technology ecosystem, which brings together innovative organizations and founding thought-leaders from over 40 countries to advance understanding of blockchain technology amongst global regulators and business leaders.
See the full press release here.
TheMarker article
This month is Tal’s month, apparently! The daily Hebrew business newspaper TheMarker (by Haaretz) interviewed our Co-founder for a monthly special publication on all things blockchain. Israel has been at the forefront of blockchain development for a couple of years now, so being chosen by one of its leading magazines to represent the booming industry is no small feat. Kudos, Tal :)
Read the full article (in Hebrew):
Ongoing collaborations
Yes24
Yes24 Orbs MOU signing last October
A contract has been officially been signed with Yes24 and Orbs: Yes24 has partnered with Orbs with the plan to develop an improved marketplace for digital goods and services, by implementing the technology into its online bookstore. The now finalized deal puts Korea’s largest online bookstore a step closer to transforming it into a blockchain-based ecosystem after the MOU signed in December.
Techstars
We are proud to announce that Orbs has become a technical partner to Techstar’s inaugural Alchemist Blockchain Accelerator! Techstars is one of the top accelerators in the world, having helped in more than 1,200 companies. Their portfolio includes big successes like SendGrid, DigitalOcean, Everledger, and Chainalysis. Techstars is helping to make killer blockchain use cases become reality by launching the accelerator.
All startups resulting from the accelerator receive investment, mentoring and other useful resources including lifetime support from the Techstars network of 1,200 alumni, 10,000 mentors, 2,700 investors, and 180 staff members. Orbs team will take an active role in the mentoring of these blockchain app developers, and we couldn’t be more excited about sharing this valuable knowledge. | https://medium.com/orbs-network/orbs-update-may-2019-16304dd59b18 | ['Nate Simantov'] | 2019-05-07 16:25:26.953000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Updates', 'Business', 'Blockchain', 'Ethereum'] |
How to become a reporter | An exciting and fast career, journalism may be a nice acceptable recent grads UN agency have an interest in current events and captivated with storytelling. If you’re considering a career as a journalist, then you’re most likely speculative the way to start. as an example, is there something you’ll be able to do to hone your writing skills and acquire employers to note you? Absolutely!
Here square measures the steps to require if you wish to become a journalist.
Earn your bachelor’s degree
One of the keys to beginning a career in journalism is earning your bachelor’s degree. looking at the kind of journalism you wish to pursue (for example, investigatory journalism or broadcast journalism), you must choose a serious which will assist you to find out about that specific style of journalism whereas conjointly providing you with a way of the broader print media landscape. Majors to contemplate embody journalism, communications, and English.
Tip: If you’re inquisitive about reportage on a specific subject, like politics or technology, contemplate taking up a double major or a minor. this may assist you to develop specialist data of your subject whereas conjointly giving your the reportage skills you would like to reach the sphere.
Develop your writing skills
In addition to obtaining your bachelor’s degree, it’s vital to hone your writing skills by writing extensively across a broad vary of subjects. There square measure 2 nice ways to try and do this:
By beginning a weblog wherever you’ll be able to develop your voice as an author and By pitching and writing articles on a contract basis. this may assist you to build up your portfolio whereas conjointly serving to you grow your skilled network.
Tip: making a private web site is another great way to showcase your work and establish a web presence. this can be fast and straightforward to line up with templates like those found in WordPress and Squarespace and can cause you to stand out from the gang once it’s time to search out employment.
Establish connections with reporters and editors
Networking is vital in any field and it’s particularly important in communications-focused fields like journalism that consider robust skilled networks. the simplest thanks to approaching networking is by reaching bent to reporters and editors you admire and asking them to line up a time to speak (either on the phone or in-person). Once you connect with them, tell them a small amount concerning your expertise and skilled goals and raise them for any recommendation which will assist you to start.
Tip: perpetually follow up when a gathering or call to let the person apprehend that you simply appreciate their time which you found worth within the meeting. this can be a good thanks to keeping affiliation|the link} going and to develop a long connection.
Intern with a newspaper, magazine, or media company
An important step in any journalism career, AN place can assist you to gain exposure to the sphere whereas conjointly providing you with sorrow what a the day-after-day lifetime of a journalist feels like. As AN intern, you’ll be fact-checking stories, collaborating on story ideas, and perhaps even serving with the ultimate redaction before the piece gets printed.
With new publications continued to appear on AN virtually day after day, the sphere of journalism has several opportunities for recent grads. By following these steps, you’ll make sure to line yourself up for achievement as you start your career as a journalist.
Next, get a lot of career tips for internships and entry-level jobs like the way to Use Social Media to Network on-line and notice answers to common interview queries like wherever does one See Yourself in five Years? | https://medium.com/@saraisthemvp/how-to-become-a-reporter-e7429670658a | ['Sara Bajaj'] | 2020-12-20 16:12:47.307000+00:00 | ['Intern', 'University', 'Newspapers', 'News Channel', 'Reporting'] |
Game Theory, Cryptography, and Artificial Intelligence: A Comprehensive Guide | Navein Suresh & Keshav Shah
Introduction
Machine Learning and all of its incredible capabilities stand stagnantly on their own, but what if there was a way to connect the way we secure personal data with machine learning architectures. Through this article we want to explore the intersection between the fields of cryptography and game theory and how they can be used in the world of machine learning. We first introduce game theory and cryptography and then delve into a summary of machine learning and how it can be used for predictions and labeling of complex data.
Brief Overview of Game Theory
Let’s begin by understanding what game theory is. Game theory is a branch of mathematics which is all centered around the study of strategic interactions during a “game”. We make a couple of key assumptions about this “game”:
There is a certain structure and established set of rules
Individuals participating in the game make rational decisions (pursue the best possible strategy)
For the most part, at least for our purposes, games can either be categorized as sequential or simultaneous. Sequential games are when players make their decision at the same time and the results are represented using a pay-off matrix. On the other hand, simultaneous games involve players making their decisions at the same time and possible results are portrayed using a decision tree. There are a vast variety of executable strategies depending on the specific problem, prominent examples including Pure and Mixed Strategy Nash Equilibriums, Dominant Strategies, and more.
A dominant strategy in game theory is where regardless of what other players in the game choose, your decision will prevail and lead to a better outcome. There are not necessarily dominant strategies for every game.
Nash Equilibrium is another particular area of interest when in Game Theory. Nash Equilibrium for a particular provides a set of strategies such that no player has any incentive to switch his/her strategy. John Nash proved that every finite game (Finite number of strategies and finite number of players) has at least one Nash Equilibrium. Each outcome must be checked (in a pay-off matrix) to ensure that each individual is satisfied with his/her choice. Nash Equilibriums come in two forms: Pure Strategy N.E. and Mixed Strategy N.E. One of these two strategies must exist.
Nash Equilibrium situation demonstrated using a table
Pure Strategy Nash Equilibrium is where an individual has a 100% chance (definite) of choosing a particular strategy such that the individual has no regrets after other players make a decision Rather, in a Mixed Strategy Nash Equilibrium, an individual is presenting probability distributions of specific courses of actions, ensuring that the situation is stable and the other player can choose a strategy without 100% certainty of loss.
One important term that’s introduced in game theory is the “zero-sum” game. Zero-sum games are defined in a way such that whenever an individual wins, the rest of the individuals (whether that be 1 more person or a 100 more) lose. The net change is 0 in this case. Nash Equilibrium Strategies are one way to solve “zero-sum” games. Real-life examples of “zero-sum” games include chess and rock-paper-scissors-shoot. When one individual tries to maximize his or her reward, the other player’s reward is necessarily minimized.
The Minimax theorem is closely linked with zero-sum games. The idea behind the minimax theorem deals with maximizing the utility/gain that when dealt with the worst possible scenario. The formal definition mathematically is stated below:
Minimax Formula
When applying to zero-sum games, it is the equivalent of establishing a Nash Equilibrium (in order to create a stable situation without any regret associated with any of the players).
Introduction to Cryptography
We can now move onto Cryptography. First, let us understand, what is cryptography in the broad sense? Well, cryptography is simply a method of protecting data and information by using specific codes so that information can only be accessed by the person it is meant to be accessed by.
Indistinguishability
The process of using ciphertext indistinguishability is used in the backgrounds of many encryption systems in the real world to prevent cyberattacks from occurring. The idea behind these systems is that an external source cannot encrypt ciphertexts even if they contain specific key words or text within a message. Now let us discuss what this truly means in the broad sense of encryption.
Encryption
Encryption itself is a subsection of cryptography that involves the scrambling of data in order to give information in a safe manner where only authorized personnel can decrypt data and uncover the message behind the encryption. Encryption itself is done with something called an encryption key: a mathematical relationship used between the sender and receiver of the data that is unusable by external sources so that they can safely encrypt methods in a one-way path.
Encryption keys cannot be cracked unless a brute-force (guessing) method can calculate the encryption key using guess and check methods. This is very unlikely as there are millions of combinations of encryption keys which would render it nearly impossible for brute-force methods to accurately guess.
Types of Encryption
Symmetric Encryption: Only one key is used for both encryption and decryption. This obviously depends on both parties having access to the key, and both parties must keep enough security so that there cannot be a third party who can rendezvous with the encryption key and take a hold of the transfer of data between the intended 2 parties.
Asymmetric Encryption: This type of encryption involves distinct keys by both the sender and the receiver in order for data to both be encrypted and decrypted. This means the sender and receiver both use 2 different types of keys in order for this process to occur. This type of encryption is also known as public key encryption as this involves the usage of public key private key pairings which basically deliberates that data encrypted by private key can only be decrypted by a public key and vice versa.
Zero Knowledge Encryption
Zero knowledge encryption involves using mathematical techniques in order to verify attributes of data or knowledge without having to reveal the underlying data or sources used for this verification. This encryption can be heavily implemented into the real world as monetary transactions commonly use this technique as they simply can’t access the balance of someone’s credit card and complete a payment without having to access other related information connected to one’s credit card. Zero knowledge encryption is a completely probabilistic assessment so that means it does not have certainty, but rather it analyzes small pieces of unlinked data in order to prove what can be probable.
A.I. In a Nutshell
Artificial Intelligence can be defined by the notion of giving computers characteristics of humans that cannot be replicated with normal computer science techniques. These include but are not limited to, logical reasoning, creativity, decision-making, language, and social skills. These attributes are passed on to computers using machine learning.
Machine Learning
Machine Learning is a pipeline in which data (both inputs and outputs) is combined with a specific algorithm in order to create many inferences on the data that can be in the form of predictions (supervised ML), patterns (unsupervised ML), or decisions (RL)
Supervised Learning: Given data that is labeled, the goal is to predict the labels of unlabeled data. In other words, it is machine learning with a known outcome, where the best algorithm to reach that outcome is being determined. (Regressions)
Unsupervised Learning: Given a data set, find structures and patterns. The outcome or end goal is not known, and algorithms are created to summarize and group data.(Clustering)
Reinforcement Learning: Here the agent learns from its environment. Through trials it explores the full range of possibilities to determine the ideal behavior to maximize the reward and minimize risk. Input state is observed by the agent.
Decision making function is used by an agent to perform an action. Agent receives reward or reinforcement/feedback from the environment. The action and state information regarding the reward is saved.
Leading from the types of ML, we get into features, labels, and models. Features are simply the input x variables in our data, labels are our output or y variables from the data, and models are simply the relationship that is formed between both x and y. This leads to the difference between classification and regression, two basic types of relationships that can be made between x and y.
Classification vs Regression
Regression is used for supervised machine learning models where the data is prelabeled, so for instance predictions of future house prices based on how old a house is would be a proper application of using regression. On the other hand, classification is putting data into a certain category based on probability. Classification uses logistic regression curves in order to classify data of 2 or more classes so that the model can best match it to where it belongs on a sigmoid curve. Classification simply outputs a categorical style of output, an example being to check if an email is spam. Obviously, every email on the internet cannot be labeled as spam or not, so emails can be classified using some of the words used within each email, and then the machine learning model can create a probability curve based on the likelihood of a specific email being spam or not.
Summary
These basics of the machine learning pipeline express how data is not only used for input and output, but it can be used in the broad sense in order to make justifications based off of the patterns that surround the data. This allows computers to make inferences that are at a much higher level then a simple computer program returning an output that is pre-programmed, hence the name artificial intelligence is justified.
How to These Fields Intersect?
GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks), reinforcement learning, multi-agent AI systems, etc.… have vast applications of Game Theory. In fact, a lot of the online games played today are heavily influenced by both these areas of study. Regulating Traffic with AI-powered self driving cars. When these cars are thought of and represented using game theory tools, the situation becomes manageable. However, without game theory representation, each car makes a decision that is not necessarily beneficial for the entire traffic congestion, causing potential problems. Thus, when employing tools such as Nash Equilibrium we are able to find a solution where each player (in this case cars) has a pathway out of the traffic jam where that car would not otherwise decide to change its decision. In doing so, the optimal algorithm can be employed, eventually dispersing the traffic.
Conclusion
Fields that traditionally were considered highly abstract and isolated are now being brought together to solve modern-day problems. What’s even more inspiring and amazing is that there is active research going on in all these areas, bringing us closer and closer to making our lives better and safer.
“The only thing greater than the power of the mind is the courage of the heart” — John Nash
John Nash, American Mathematician and Nobel Prize Recipient
Sources:
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/what-is-encryption/
https://sectigo.com/resource-library/public-key-vs-private-key
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.javatpoint.com%2Fregression-vs-classification-in-machine-learning&psig=AOvVaw34H2l2QXrgZchHQMMOwucg&ust=1604194027443000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCJC35MrW3ewCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2Fswlh%2Ftypes-of-machine-learning-algorithms-62608e83d709&psig=AOvVaw1JoiDiPuU-Xryb57DJ-qvR&ust=1604193979176000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCKCh97PW3ewCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsaylordotorg.github.io%2Ftext_introduction-to-economic-analysis%2Fs17-02-nash-equilibrium.html&psig=AOvVaw1hTrRXFXUndHhsO26OTRfB&ust=1604935392837000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCKjM8dag8-wCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAO | https://medium.com/@naveinsuresh/game-theory-cryptography-and-artificial-intelligence-a-comprehensive-guide-c0d2fd0f138 | ['Navein Suresh'] | 2021-06-26 22:14:19.460000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Cryptography', 'Game Theory'] |
Apple Won a Battle to Lose the War | Apple Won a Battle to Lose the War
Photo by GR Stocks on Unsplash
It depends on what your definition of a link is. Or really, in some ways, what your definition of the internet is. If it’s all really just a series of tubes, it’s not entirely clear that a link you click to take you somewhere else actually takes you somewhere else versus a link that allows you to pay for something on a page as that’s also essentially taking you somewhere else. It’s confusing, yes. But this is probably what it’s all going to boil down to in the next battle of Apple v. Epic.
Apple says they won. Epic says they lost. That should be cut and dried, no? But maybe, just maybe, both sides are saying what they think they need to say for appearances sake. Perhaps there’s actually quite a bit of nuance and gamesmanship here — surprise!
My read is that Apple did win — exactly what everyone always knew they would win. But in winning that battle, they actually lost something far more important. There is no way around it: the judge’s order to stop App Store anti-steering is a big one. And seemingly one Apple did see coming given the Japanese settlement a few weeks back. But this is still a major blow because it both continues and accelerates the boulder rolling down the hill of real reforms to the App Store.
Apple may think that they’re doing enough in a piecemeal fashion to stave off major change, but they’re not. If anything, they need to make a major change to stanch the bleeding. But they won’t do that. They’re both too proud and too arrogant. They’re so sure that they’re in the right here that they don’t see that it actually doesn’t matter.
Epic, I think, sees that. They’re coy about it, but my suspicion is that they’re a lot smarter about all of this than they’re letting on. And that we’ll only find that out well after the fact. After the App Store has been majorly reformed by Epic’s “losses” here.
As I’ve said before, this is some Sun Tzu shit.
And I’m really not sure Apple sees this. They’re failing to read the room and more importantly, the courtroom. They’re going to interpret this court order in the way that best serves Apple, obviously. But others are going to challenge that, obviously. Regardless of who wins, it just continues the bad vibes yielding bad blood within Apple’s own developer community. And it’s going to keep the pressure on them, politically.
I mean, someone inside Apple must see all of this. It’s obvious. But hubris is blinding those in the position to do something about it, clearly. Apple should just take a look around, see which way the wind is blowing, and make some major changes to appease the courts and to please their developers. End this.
They should open things up to win these arguments on the product side of the equation — something which they’re uniquely situated to do thanks to about two dozen aspects of the iPhone. They should compete on the playing field in which they already have home field advantage.
And that’s the craziest part of all of this. They would undoubtedly still win far more often than not. Both because of those inherent iPhone advantages, but also because their product offerings on the in-app and Apple Pay side are very good! Let them stand on their merits! That, in turn would also likely help Apple in a number of ways!
But they don’t see it that way. And the bigger fear is that they don’t see it at all. Instead, we’re about to battle about what the definition of a link is. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll get into the weeds of MFNs. Appeal after appeal. Delay after delay. Buy time for other revenue to fill in the inevitable gaps. Meanwhile, all of this will just continue the appearance that a $2.5T company is nickle and diming their developers to death. Not a great look. | https://500ish.com/apple-won-a-battle-to-lose-the-war-3ce6c3701918 | ['M.G. Siegler'] | 2021-09-14 06:17:07.685000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Apple', '4til40', 'Legal', 'Epic'] |
Being A Good and Nice Person | When a friend said, “you are such a nice person,”
I wonder if it’s just simpler way of saying that I conform to a certain moral system that he/she believes.
.
When my teacher said, “you are a good pupil,”
Sometimes, I don’t think it means that I’m a brilliant person — it just means that I comply with education system that my teacher follows.
.
The bottom point is, It’s never really impressing (if not confusing) when someone says that I’m a good person or that I’m a good at being a certain role. More often than not, it’s an allegory to a person who fits in a certain system.
.
It’s not being in a system is a bad thing; supra- human entities and human makes system mostly to create order in certain group of people. Sometimes, when being confined to a system, people often fail to see that there’s flaw in every system and sometimes, thinking outside the value box dictated in a system could bring you possibilities that you would never imagine before.
.
And even when a system has tons of flaw, why we tend to run after the ‘good’ than ‘bad’? Is it worth it to be deemed as ‘good’ principle of a system?
.
I suppose different person would have different perspective on why being good is deemed better than being bad. For me personally, I suppose it’s because the benefits of being good in a system outweighs the drawbacks of being confined in a certain system (well this is a given though). Like for simpler sense — being a good lawful person could steer me away from jail which will take several of my life time away; though being a robber could make me rich in instant, its drawbacks overweighs the benefits. | https://medium.com/@p.ayu.fajar/being-a-good-and-nice-person-a202894eabd | ['Putri Ayu F.'] | 2019-08-27 10:36:00.114000+00:00 | ['Morality', 'Anecdotes', 'Life Lessons'] |
Spring Security with JWT authentication. | Spring Security is a framework that provides various security features like authentication, authorization to create secure Java Enterprise Applications.
It overcomes all the problems that come during creating non-spring security applications and manage a new server environment for the application.
This framework targets two major areas of application are authentication and authorization. Authentication is the process of knowing and identifying the user that wants to access.
Spring security is an application framework that is used for application-level security such as
Login and Logout functionality. Allow/Block access to URLs to the logged-in users. Alow/lock access to URLs to logged-in users with certain roles.
→Authorization is the process to allow the authority to perform actions in the application. Authorization in system security is the process of giving the user permission to access a specific resource or function. This term is often used interchangeably with access control or client privilege. (Can this user do this? Yes or No)
NOTE: Only after authentication, you can do authorization
→Authentication is the act of validating that users are who they claim to be. (basically is asks WHO ARE YOU?)
🔸 Passwords. Usernames and passwords are the most common authentication factors. If a user enters the correct data, the system assumes the identity is valid and grants access.
🔸One-time pins. Grant access for only one session or transaction.
🔸Authentication apps. Generate security codes via an outside party that grants access.
🔸Biometrics. A user presents a fingerprint or eye scan to gain access to the system.
Advantages of using spring security:
Comprehensive support for authentication and authorization.
Protection against common tasks
Servlet API integration
Integration with Spring MVC
Portability
CSRF protection
Java Configuration support
HTTP is a stateless protocol. What it means is every interaction in HTTP needs to contain all the information needed for that interaction. Nothing is remembered from before. No state is maintained over multiple requests.
The problem is when the response from the server is dynamic and it depends on who the user is. In this case, the information you send to the server is not just what page you want, you obviously also need to tell the server who you are.
There are multiple ways that web applications manage and remember sessions. The two popular options are:
1. Using session tokens
2. Using JSON Web tokens or JWT.
A JSON Web Token is used to send information that can be verified and trusted by means of a digital signature. It comprises a compact and URL-safe JSON object, which is cryptographically signed to verify its authenticity, and which can also be encrypted if the payload contains sensitive information.
What is the JSON Web Token structure?
In its compact form, JSON Web Tokens consist of three parts separated by dots (.), which are:
Header
Payload
Signature
Therefore, a JWT typically looks like the following.
xxxxx.yyyyy.zzzzz
header:
The header typically consists of two parts: the type of the token, which is JWT, and the signing algorithm being used, such as HMAC SHA256 or RSA.
Payload:
The second part of the token is the payload, which contains the claims. Claims are statements about an entity (typically, the user) and additional data. There are three types of claims: registered, public, and private claims.
Signature:
To create the signature part you have to take the encoded header, the encoded payload, a secret, the algorithm specified in the header, and sign that.
SecurityConfigurer.java
@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
class SecurityConfigurer extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
@Autowired
private UserDetailsService myUserDetailsService;
@Autowired
private BCryptPasswordEncoder bCryptPasswordEncoder;
@Autowired
private JwtRequestFilter jwtRequestFilter; @Autowired
public void configureGlobal(AuthenticationManagerBuilder auth) throws Exception {
auth.userDetailsService(myUserDetailsService).passwordEncoder(bCryptPasswordEncoder);
} @Bean
public BCryptPasswordEncoder passwordEncoder() {
return new BCryptPasswordEncoder();
} @Override
@Bean
public AuthenticationManager authenticationManagerBean() throws Exception {
return super.authenticationManagerBean();
} @Override
protected void configure(HttpSecurity httpSecurity) throws Exception {
httpSecurity.cors();
httpSecurity.csrf().disable()
.authorizeRequests().antMatchers(“/api/authenticate”,”/api/register”).permitAll().
anyRequest().authenticated().and().
exceptionHandling().and().sessionManagement()
.sessionCreationPolicy(SessionCreationPolicy.STATELESS);
httpSecurity.addFilterBefore(jwtRequestFilter, UsernamePasswordAuthenticationFilter.class); } }
WebAppConfig.java
@Configuration
public class WebAppConfig implements WebMvcConfigurer {
public void addViewControllers(ViewControllerRegistry registry) {
registry.addViewController(“/”).setViewName(“forward:/index.html”);
}
@Override
public void addCorsMappings(CorsRegistry registry) {
registry.addMapping(“/**”).allowedOrigins(“
allowCredentials(true).allowedMethods(“*”);
}
@Bean
public ModelMapper modelMapper() {
return new ModelMapper();
} @Overridepublic void addViewControllers(ViewControllerRegistry registry) {registry.addViewController(“/”).setViewName(“forward:/index.html”);@Overridepublic void addCorsMappings(CorsRegistry registry) {registry.addMapping(“/**”).allowedOrigins(“ http://localhost:3000 ").allowCredentials(true).allowedMethods(“*”);@Beanpublic ModelMapper modelMapper() {return new ModelMapper(); }
JwtUtil.java
@Service public class JwtUtil { @Value(“${jwt.secret}”) private String SECRET_KEY ; // private String SECRET_KEY = “secret”; public String extractUsername(String token) { return extractClaim(token, Claims::getSubject); } public Date extractExpiration(String token) { return extractClaim(token, Claims::getExpiration); } public <T> T extractClaim(String token, Function<Claims, T> claimsResolver) { final Claims claims = extractAllClaims(token); return claimsResolver.apply(claims); } private Claims extractAllClaims(String token) { return Jwts.parser().setSigningKey(SECRET_KEY).parseClaimsJws(token).getBody(); } private Boolean isTokenExpired(String token) { return extractExpiration(token).before(new Date()); } public String generateToken(UserDetails userDetails) { Map<String, Object> claims = new HashMap<>(); return createToken(claims, userDetails.getUsername()); } private String createToken(Map<String, Object> claims, String subject) { return Jwts.builder().setClaims(claims).setSubject(subject).setIssuedAt(new Date(System.currentTimeMillis())) .setExpiration(new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() + 1000 * 60 * 60 * 10)) .signWith(SignatureAlgorithm.HS256, SECRET_KEY).compact(); } public Boolean validateToken(String token, UserDetails userDetails) { final String username = extractUsername(token); return (username.equals(userDetails.getUsername()) && !isTokenExpired(token)); } }
MyUserDetailsService.java
@Service public class MyUserDetailsService implements UserDetailsService { @Autowired EmployeeDAO employeedao; public UserDetails loadUserByUsername(String email) throws UsernameNotFoundException { EmployeeEntity employee=employeedao.findByEmailAndPasswordNotNull(email); User user=new User(employee.getEmail(),employee.getPassword(),new ArrayList<>()); return user; } }
AuthenticationRequest.java
public class AuthenticationRequest implements Serializable { private String email; private String password; public String getEmail() { return email; } public void setEmail(String email) { this.email = email; } public String getPassword() { return password; } public void setPassword(String password) { this.password = password; } //need default constructor for JSON Parsing public AuthenticationRequest() { } public AuthenticationRequest(String username, String password) { this.setEmail(email); this.setPassword(password); } }
AuthenticationResponse.java
public class AuthenticationResponse implements Serializable { private final String jwt; private final String name; public AuthenticationResponse(String jwt,String name) { this.jwt = jwt; this.name=name; } public String getJwt() { return jwt; } public String getName() { return name; } }
JwtRequestFilter.java
@Component public class JwtRequestFilter extends OncePerRequestFilter { @Autowired private MyUserDetailsService userDetailsService; @Autowired private JwtUtil jwtUtil; @Autowired UserEmailDTO userEmailDTO; @Override protected void doFilterInternal(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response, FilterChain chain) throws ServletException, IOException { final String authorizationHeader = request.getHeader(“Authorization”); String username = null; String jwt = null; if (authorizationHeader != null && authorizationHeader.startsWith(“Bearer “)) { jwt = authorizationHeader.substring(7); username = jwtUtil.extractUsername(jwt); } if (username != null && SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication() == null) { UserDetails userDetails = this.userDetailsService.loadUserByUsername(username); if (jwtUtil.validateToken(jwt, userDetails)) { userEmailDTO.setEmail(userDetails.getUsername()); UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken usernamePasswordAuthenticationToken = new UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken( userDetails, null, userDetails.getAuthorities()); usernamePasswordAuthenticationToken .setDetails(new WebAuthenticationDetailsSource().buildDetails(request)); SecurityContextHolder.getContext().setAuthentication(usernamePasswordAuthenticationToken); } } chain.doFilter(request, response); } }
SecurityController.java
@RestController public class SecurityController { @Autowired EmployeeService employeeService; @Autowired private AuthenticationManager authenticationManager; @Autowired private JwtUtil jwtTokenUtil; @Autowired private MyUserDetailsService userDetailsService; @RequestMapping({ “/hello” }) public String firstPage() { return “Hello World”; } @RequestMapping(value = “/api/authenticate”, method = RequestMethod.POST) public ResponseEntity<?> createAuthenticationToken(@RequestBody AuthenticationRequest authenticationRequest) throws Exception { try { authenticationManager.authenticate( new UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken(authenticationRequest.getEmail(), authenticationRequest.getPassword()) ); } catch (BadCredentialsException e) { throw new Exception(“Incorrect username or password”, e); } final UserDetails userDetails = userDetailsService .loadUserByUsername(authenticationRequest.getEmail()); String name=employeeService.getEmployeeNameByEmail(userDetails.getUsername()); final String jwt = jwtTokenUtil.generateToken(userDetails); return ResponseEntity.ok(new AuthenticationResponse(jwt,name)); } }
– WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter is the crux of our security implementation. It provides HttpSecurity configurations to configure cors, csrf, session management, rules for protected resources. We can also extend and customize the default configuration that contains the elements below.
– UserDetailsService interface has a method to load User by username and returns a UserDetails object that Spring Security can use for authentication and validation.
– UserDetails contains necessary information (such as: username, password, authorities) to build an Authentication object.
– UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken gets {username, password} from login Request, AuthenticationManager will use it to authenticate a login account.
– AuthenticationManager has a DaoAuthenticationProvider (with help of UserDetailsService & PasswordEncoder ) to validate UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken object. If successful, AuthenticationManager returns a fully populated Authentication object (including granted authorities).
– OncePerRequestFilter makes a single execution for each request to our API. It provides a doFilterInternal() method that we will implement parsing & validating JWT, loading User details (using UserDetailsService ), checking Authorizaion (using UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken ).
– AuthenticationEntryPoint will catch authentication error.
Repository contains UserRepository & RoleRepository to work with Database, will be imported into Controller.
Controller receives and handles request after it was filtered by OncePerRequestFilter .
……………………………… by Disha Saxena and Kshitiz Mohan | https://medium.com/@disha3298saxena/spring-security-with-jwt-authentication-2d0af3f5233c | ['Disha Saxena'] | 2020-12-02 17:13:17.839000+00:00 | ['Security', 'Spring Boot', 'Jwt Token', 'Json Web Token', 'Spring Security'] |
The Two Sides of Charlottesville | by: Kat Martin
This past October, I had the chance to visit one of my close friends in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Instead of dealing with the sequel of last semester’s Zoom university, she was participating in a co-op that was roughly 45 minutes out of Charlottesville. Staying home this semester made me miss college life, so I took a COVID test, waited for the negative results, then headed down for a weekend trip to visit my friend.
I didn’t really know what to expect with Charlottesville. I had been to northern Virginia but didn’t know too much about the western part of the state. I had friends who’d considered attending the University of Virginia, all of whom loved the town, but I was still somewhat skeptical of Charlottesville. I remembered the summer of 2017, when the ‘Unite the Right Rally’ devolved into a white supremacy march in downtown Charlottesville. Seeing clips of white men with torches march together was, and still is, terrifying to me. I also thought about Heather Hayer, a counter-protester who was run over and killed. With all that in the back of my mind, I really didn’t know what type of climate we would be walking into.
Despite our apprehension, my friend and I went into Charlottesville with an open mind. And from the minute we got there, we could feel how tight-knit this community is. The downtown area of Charlottesville is almost completely filled with small businesses. Business owners would ask loyal customers about their friends and family, wishing them good health. People from all walks of life seemed to live in and around the town. When walking in downtown Charlottesville, we saw LGBTQ+ flags flying on the corner of stores, Black Lives Matter signs proudly displayed on business and residual windows, and ‘VOTE’ stickers plastered all over lamp posts and streetlights. This emphasis on inclusivity made me realize that Charlottesville is more than that infamous rally.
Everyone we interacted with was respectful and kind. While eating lunch at a local Italian place in downtown Charlottesville, our server suggested we sightsee the University of Virginia and drive through Shenandoah National Park before we left. Taking her advice, we walked around UVA’s college town, which reminded us of Ithaca.
The center of downtown Charolletsville is blocked-off to cars so that people can walk to the local shops and eat outside, which is especially helpful now that we’re all living in the COVID-era.
Much like in Ithaca, there was a sense of comradery between the local college town businesses and the students. Since neither of us is on campus this semester, it was nice feeling like a real college student again.
After we spent time shopping near UVA, we decided to head back to Harrisonburg via Shenandoah National Park. Part of what makes this National Park unique is that it covers most of western Virginia so visitors can actually drive through the park.
Not too far from Charlottesville is Shenandoah National Park, which has breathtaking views like the one pictured above.
Since it was early fall, we saw the beautiful rolling hills begin to turn from evergreen to vibrant shades of red and orange. Ending our trip with this scenic drive gave us time to reflect on our brief time in Charlottesville.
What I liked most about Charlottesville is that it doesn’t let the Unite the Right Rally define it. Once you visit the town, it seems almost impossible that such a hateful event could’ve happened there. In a lot of ways, it showed me that what happened in Charlottesville could happen anywhere. Even though places like Charlottesville have taken strides to promote inclusivity, the white supremacy march is a constant reminder that more work still needs to be done to address systemic hate and oppression in this country. | https://medium.com/@guacmag/the-two-sides-of-charlottesville-4160fc8c6a8b | ['Guac Magazine Editors'] | 2020-12-03 16:57:09.724000+00:00 | ['Shenandoah Valley', 'University Of Virginia', 'Online School', 'White Supremacy', 'Charlottesville'] |
The Day I Learned the Worst Thing You Can Say to a Guy. | Young Love
The Day I Learned the Worst Thing You Can Say to a Guy.
“I’m going to burn a swastika on your house when your family is sleeping. I hope you all die in the fire!” Ray yells, and I think, ‘That’s a weird idea for a date.’
Ray is my flaxen-haired Macaulay Culkin middle school crush. The first time I see him on the playground talking with my friend George, I am instantly smitten. I find ways to hang out with them, and I quickly discover he isn’t just cute and sweet, but also funny! Gasp. I am in trouble.
I am too scared to tell him how I secretly feel, so in true middle school fashion, I send a message via a friend, and just like that, we are dating. In middle school, this means hanging out at recess and sometimes holding hands. Racy!
I like him so much that I invite him to my Bat Mitzvah. I am thrilled because this means I will get to slow dance with him, and maybe, he will kiss me. Swoon! I am euphoric for what I am sure will be a magical celebration of my foray into Jewish womanhood.
But when I wake up the morning of the big day, I find the skin all over my face is peeling. My acne medication has dried out my skin so horribly that I look like a snake shedding its skin. No amount of moisturizer and make-up will cover it up. I am doomed to endure my big day as a hideous monster! On top of that, my dress makes me look like a Pepto Bismol covered marshmallow. Crushes on boys and suddenly hating everything about myself. It is as if the crazy hormones of puberty hit the exact day Judaism recognizes I transform from a girl to a woman. How appropriate.
My mom somehow manages to convince me my face is fine, and I brave the event. Once I see my friends and family, all the fears melt, and I have a magical time. I even dance with Ray. And after the party, as I wait with him for his ride, we talk. He asks me what is on my face, and I suddenly remember my dry skin. My heart sinks as I realize how I must look. I explain about the acne medicine drying up my skin as his ride pulls up. He gives me a quick peck on the lips, then jumps in the car and rides off. I forget all my problems, and I am elated. He kissed me! He kissed me! I’m the most beautiful woman in the world!
That Monday at recess Ray is not there. Some girl told George and Amy that Ray has a small penis. They think it's hilarious and make fun of Ryan. I am uncomfortable, but despite my protests, they continue. I could be tougher, but I’m too afraid of conflict, so I let them go on with their jokes.
As the week progresses, I realize Ray is avoiding me. I am confused when his friends begin to throw pennies at me. I know, free money is fantastic, right? But it’s supposed to mean I’m cheap. Ironically, I won’t have to be frugal anymore since I have all that free money now, dummy face. When Ray threatens to murder my family and me, I begin to wonder if something is wrong. It all escalates quite quickly before I find out what happened. George had a crush on me and was jealous of Ray this whole time. He saw an opportunity to sabotage the relationship with the one lie he knew would hurt Ryan the most. And obviously, there is only one thing in the history of mankind that makes a man insecure enough to destroy nations, having a small penis. (Insert slide whistle drooping sound.) Way to be a stereotype, Ray.
I try to tell Ray that George is lying, but why would he believe me over his best friend. Ray never forgave me, and since then, has never acknowledged my existence. In high school, a friend informs me he is still referring to me as a bitch and the world’s worst person. To this day, Ray probably still rants and raves about how horrible I am, and to be honest, it still hurts a little.
The significant lesson I learned is you are not others’ opinions of you. I had to learn my self-worth and not depend on it from a guy. What Ray was going through was all about him and his own fears. I just got in the way, or I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I still don’t fully understand why some men are afraid and hateful of women. What’s the worst we can do? Make fun of your penis? Steal your job? No, the worst I’m going to do is steal your fries. If you really piss me off, maybe I’ll trick you into frosted tips. The point is, your fears are lying to you, and you should definitely get frosted tips. | https://medium.com/inspired-writer/the-day-i-learned-the-worst-thing-you-can-say-to-a-guy-6f98ee1e30a6 | ['Susan Sassi'] | 2020-12-02 01:15:48.573000+00:00 | ['Personal Essay', 'Relationships', 'Coming Of Age', 'Young Love', 'Love'] |
Get WHOIS Data for a Domain in Python | WHOIS information is necessary for discovering the entity behind a domain, which can be useful to prevent any threats or to discover potential partnerships. The following API will validate whether a domain name exists and retrieve WHOIS information for the input such as the registration details.
Run this command to install the SDK:
pip install cloudmersive-validate-api-client
Then, you can call the function:
from __future__ import print_function
import time
import cloudmersive_validate_api_client
from cloudmersive_validate_api_client.rest import ApiException
from pprint import pprint # Configure API key authorization: Apikey
configuration = cloudmersive_validate_api_client.Configuration()
configuration.api_key['Apikey'] = 'YOUR_API_KEY' # create an instance of the API class
api_instance = cloudmersive_validate_api_client.DomainApi(cloudmersive_validate_api_client.ApiClient(configuration))
domain = 'domain_example' # str | Domain name to check, for example \"cloudmersive.com\". The input is a string so be sure to enclose it in double-quotes. try:
# Get WHOIS information for a domain
api_response = api_instance.domain_post(domain)
pprint(api_response)
except ApiException as e:
print("Exception when calling DomainApi->domain_post: %s
" % e)
This will return the registrant name, organization, email, street address, telephone number, WHOIS server, raw text record, and the date it was created. You can retrieve the API Key from the Cloudmersive website at no cost and with no commitment. This will provide you with 800 monthly calls across our library of APIs. | https://medium.com/@cloudmersive/get-whois-data-for-a-domain-in-python-3a28fb24e388 | [] | 2020-12-25 17:32:33.439000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Whois Data', 'Tutorial', 'Python Programming', 'API'] |
2021 Is the Year To Go Big With Saving Resolutions | 2021 Is the Year To Go Big With Saving Resolutions
What isn’t best for the American Economy might be Best for your personal financial health
I was always a spender. I never had a saving bone in my body. My Christmas money as a kid went towards more toys and shopping, my mall money allowance was spent in its entirety, and my college money went towards flashy clothes and ski passes.
In my early twenties, I woke up, started saving, and I haven’t stopped. I found there were many things that led me to my savings of $24,000, but part of it was a “spending freeze.”
I am an all or nothing person. But what I loved about this “spending fast” is it changed my spending habits indefinitely. I think the number of times the average American actually needs something desperately is few to none.
For my spending freeze, I wasn’t allowed to buy anything for three months except rent and groceries. I didn’t eat out, buy candles, go to concerts, and I wasn’t even buying my beers for late nights with coworkers. The three months took my spending to a whole new level, and I was able to save a few thousand. The rest of the year, I wasn’t allowed to shop for any new clothing, accessories, or really anything to adorn my body because it was my biggest expense drain.
There are 3 ways to do a “Spending Freeze”:
1. The Extreme Way
This is where you realistically budget for your TRUE essentials and only purchase the things you absolutely need like car insurance, health insurance, rent, and groceries.
2. Your Biggest Financial Drain
I don’t drink. I have a weird esophageal condition that makes drinking uncomfortable for me. I usually can see right through someone’s comment of “I don’t really have a money drain.” Having 6 drinks at the bar adds up; I know because I don’t drink.
Buying a few tech gadgets via Amazon? How about the maids who come to clean the house? What about eating out or ordering in? Yes, even fast food counts.
Find your biggest (most frequent or expensive)financial drain and limit that for a year.
3. A Combination
I chose this way because I didn’t think I could do the extreme way for a whole year. But I knew three months was possible. I also wanted to cut down on other added expenses too. So I chose to not allow myself my biggest money drain: clothing shopping for the year, and only 3 months of the more intense version.
Why I think 2021 Is the Perfect year for A Spending Challenge:
The social pressures to spend aren’t here(Thanks COVID-19…).
We have more time to cook, clean, and organize.
It’s a new year to form new habits and new changes.
The Pandemic allows us time to work on a side hustle.
Gone is the pressure for brunch, nights at the club/bar, or paying for luxury vacations!
You can avoid the awkward “we are trying to save money” conversations!
Why I prefer a Spending Fast
I once was a big “go bold or go home” person. This meant I favored extreme workouts, diets, or habit-forming challenges. The difficulty with these kinds of things is that it’s about how I physically felt in your body. Whereas shopping was a behavior that didn’t impact my sleep, mood, or physical feeling.
A spending freeze is pretty easy with the right motivation. Money is fleeting, and I didn’t realize how much money was going towards little things. A $5 latte, a scone from the bakery, an order from a dinner restaurant, new chapstick and gum from Target, a new Cosmopolitan from the checkout aisle, or a new pair of earrings I saw at checkout. I had to cut everything out to realize how much saving was truly possible.
My savings ended up in the tens of thousands, but it didn’t feel like that was possible when I spent so much every month. It took away from me asking, “Where did all my money go?”
What helped me embark on this challenge:
I Educated Myself:
Anna Newell Jones, Author of Debt-Free Living, saved for an entire year and a half and worked herself out of $25,000 of debt. After reading her book, I was so inspired that I jumped into action!
I watched videos on the importance of an Emergency Fund, the FIRE lifestyle, and “smart” vs. “dumb” purchases; I began to look at money and spending a whole new way. The first and most important piece of turning into a saver is the mental shift and new outlook on money and financial literacy.
I learned about the chemicals that go into new products, the cost of fast fashion, and the harm of consumerism on the environment.
I Looked into Minimalism
Minimalism and the aesthetic is beautiful and calming. I started to force myself to see perfume, deodorant, soap, and house products without the label. The reality is I liked the lighting of the products and the way they were organized in the store, more than the product itself. I rarely thought about how they ended up looking half-used or how I might feel if they came in a dull box with no showy lighting. I started to imagine cheap crappy products in my home. They lost appeal next to my newly organized and freshly painted home, and that helped me turn down new items.
Set Financial Goals
I wanted to save up to max out a ROTH. I am in my twenties, the most important years to save for retirement of them all. The money I put in now will return tenfold. But I can never turn back the clock, so the money has to be put in now and every year if I want to reap the benefits of saving in the future. This was my biggest motivator for the challenge, and it kept me going.
Use a friend or a partner to challenge each other
Honestly, I roped in 4 friends to do this challenge with me, and they all bailed in the first week. But this was one of the biggest teachings for me. It would have been nice to have a friend to do the challenge with me.
But I also learned that very few people are actually willing to clamp down on their budget. So all those complaints we hear about not “having enough money” or being “broke” are often self-inflicted choices. Saving is not a cakewalk and to really commit to financial freedom takes work, and you will set yourself apart from all your friends you think are too strapped for this challenge. The reality is, most people just aren’t willing to commit.
Replace spending with other things
Understanding habits is a very important piece of money management. Habits were why I spent every weekend at the mall. Habits are why I purchase Dunkin Doughnuts once or twice a week. Habits are why I would get Starbucks on my way to work. I had to swap homemade coffee or storebought doughnuts. These were small changes to my lifestyle that satiated my cravings and allowed me to continue to save!
I ended up maxing out my ROTH IRA. I didn’t stop there. I also have also saved in advance for 3/4 of the cost of my Master’s degree. Every dollar that in the past would have been lost is put to work. It took an extreme measure for me to analyze my spending habits. I changed how I used my money, and I haven’t looked back since. I have irreversibly changed my money habits for the better. The year flew by and was absolutely worth it. My go-to is now saving every penny, and I occasionally have a fluke moment where I make a purchase! I went from spending to saving and I wouldn’t change a thing.
This article is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Not all information will be accurate. Consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions. | https://medium.com/makingofamillionaire/2021-is-the-year-to-go-big-with-saving-resolutions-fd21b65b0d7e | ['Sadie Lee'] | 2020-12-27 13:42:50.630000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'New Years Resolutions', 'Saving', 'Money', '2021'] |
After Reading 130+Books in 2020, These Are My Top Choices | Fiction
This year, I didn’t spend much time reading new fiction. Or at least, the ones I did were not of sufficient quality to put on this year end’s summary list, unfortunately.
Instead, the top fiction I’d like to share with you are actually old favorites that I re-read just for fun. Here are my top 3 for 2020:
1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
I’ve read Pride and Prejudice at least half a dozen times in my life at this point, and each time I am delighted by Austen’s witty and hilarious portrayals of the characters in her book.
The conversations, the verbal sparring, the behaviors and relationships of the people in Jane Austen’s world are so true-to-life, perhaps more so than actual human beings. It’s no wonder that this book is a classic, and that Austen is considered by many as one of the greatest writers in the history of the English language!
2. Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frances Hodgson Burnett is more famous for having written the Secret Garden, or A Little Princess, but if you ask me, my favorite of her books is Little Lord Fauntleroy.
The more cynical among us might criticize this story for being overly optimistic, but I think we often underestimate the power that loving, positive, expectations can have on people.
Even though I’ve already read this book multiple times and know what’s going to happen, it still had me close to (happy) tears when I picked it up to re-read it recently. When the world seems like a dark place, being reminded that selfish, unhappy people can change for the better, and that when you deliberately look for the good in others, you can often call out/create that goodness you seek, is more necessary than ever.
So if you haven’t yet read Little Lord Fauntleroy, you’re in for a treat :)
3. …
The third and final fiction recommendation for 2020 will be shared with Brilliant Writers. You can join us and become a Brilliant Writer here :)
Honorable Mentions
1. The Big Short
This book opened my eyes to the financial world, specifically subprime mortgages and the crash of 2008, but ultimately, more than that.
I’ve noticed that many in my generation (and perhaps generations older than mine too) are financially illiterate to a frightening degree. We don’t know what money is, how it works, and how easy it is for a few financial “experts” to pull some strings, manipulate some derivatives, and send the entire system crashing to the floor.
The first step to protecting and caring for those you care about (and those you’re responsible for — yourself, your family) is to know what’s going on. So even though I used to dislike anything having to do with money, I realize more and more that I have to learn more about it, and the economy, and finances in general.
2. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, besides being a mouthful to say, is an epistolary novel. Meaning, it’s written entirely in letters, or telegrams, between the various characters. It’s a rather limiting form, which is the first reason why I felt it deserved an honorable mention. Any writer (or writers, in this case because there were two of them) who can pull off writing a book in such a way deserves respect.
The second reason is the humor. The main character’s correspondence with her suitor, and her correspondence with her friends about the suitor, in particular, are laugh-out-loud funny. You can really see her personality shine through in those letters. Two thumbs up.
But why did it not make it into my top 3 novels for 2020?
I confess, I didn’t completely like the main character and the main-character-who-never-physically-appears (not-a-spoiler alert: the one who is taken away before the story begins), which makes it all the more impressive that I still liked this book, overall. It won’t make my Top 100 list, but I’m glad I came across it this year!
3. …
The third and final honorable mention for 2020 will be shared with Brilliant Writers. You can join us and become a Brilliant Writer here :) | https://medium.com/be-a-brilliant-writer/after-reading-130-books-in-2020-these-are-my-top-choices-62298b9069fe | ['Sarah Cy'] | 2020-12-31 16:22:18.570000+00:00 | ['Inspiration', 'Books', '2020', 'Writing', 'Reading'] |
According to the research and report of the some freelancing sites every American will be working… | According to the research and report of the some freelancing sites every 1 out of 4 Americans will be working remotely in 2021 and by 2025, more than 35 million Americans will be working remotely.
This big change is caused by the pandemic in the world, people lose the jobs in this pandemic and freelancing increase about 87%.
Now this thing is becoming a new norm, industries specially the small one are adopting this trend of freelancing and getting into the pace and protocols of working from home.
Even the bigger firms are in the race of getting into comfort zone. Microsoft is also planning to close its physical outlets and switching to online store so they can manage the store from a single computer by sitting any where. The other big reason of switching from physical to online store is the customers increasing interest in online shopping.
When it comes to the freelancing the reason behind increase in freelancing is not only the current pandemic situation but huge unemployment in every country as well and the statistics shows the way freelancing is increasing it will be the future.
Most of us think that the freelancing means working online but that is not true anyone who provide service on the contractual basis is doing the freelancing. A DJ who come to your party and get paid for providing his services on that event is also a freelancer.
Although the trend of digital freelancing (Selling your skills online) is increasing and lots of websites are providing platform to digital freelancers where they can sell their skills online. Fiverr, Guru, Upwork and peopleperhour are some of the famous freelancing sites where any freelancer can sell the skills.
Basic things to become successful as a digital freelancer are
English Writing skills Portfolio Response time
But the competition in the field of digital freelancing is high, You are not the only who want to sell skill online, after setting your platform on any of the above mentioned freelancing site you have to wait to become successful. You have to get good reviews from your clients by providing your best services so you can be successful digital freelancer.
At the end of the day in the field of Freelancing one thing you have to keep remember. | https://medium.com/@hammadmaqbool/according-to-the-research-and-report-of-the-some-freelancing-sites-every-american-will-be-working-2c842132c769 | ['Hammad Maqbool'] | 2020-12-23 15:19:51.603000+00:00 | ['Freelancing Tips', 'Freelancing', 'Freelance Writing', 'Freelancers', 'Freelance'] |
Why Bill Nye Is Not A Scientist - And Why It Matters | This piece is expanded from a previous article that I wrote, which can be found here:
First Off — Who is Bill Nye, and What Are His Qualifications?
Bill Nye the “science” guy was a favorite of many school children growing up in the 1990’s. He had a hit TV series where he taught scientific concepts to millions of children, and for that he should be applauded, even by those who disagree with him politically.
So it’s not unreasonable that many people are under the mistaken impression that Bill Nye is a scientist. But is Bill Nye an actual “scientist” and what qualifications does one have in order to be considered a scientist?
Let’s start with his formal education. Bill Nye has a mechanical engineering degree, so he would have taken his fair share of physics courses, however, he has not done the work typically required to be considered a “scientist”.
Time and time again, I see Bill Nye brought on national TV to speak as an expert on scientific issues. And amazingly Bill Nye views himself as being qualified to come on such shows! But Bill Nye has no scientific credentials whatsoever, besides being a comedian in a lab coat, and has never contributed any research to the scientific community!
The below clip is a key example of what I am talking about.
Princeton scientist with decades of research experience: Here is what the science says.
CNN Anchor (turns to the actor who played a scientist on a children’s show 20 years ago): Bill, Bill, what do you think?
Bill Nye, Actor/Comedian: He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but take my word for it.
Some random person: Something something Trump something something
The entire thing was like an episode of the Twilight Zone. These people were dismissing an actual scientist in favor of an actor who once played a scientist on TV to protect their political ideologies.
What Qualifies Someone To Be Called A Scientist?
In order to earn the privilege of calling yourself a “scientist” one normally has to have an earned PhD (or at least a Master’s) in the natural sciences. But as one geneticist that I know told me, even after earning his PhD, he still felt hesitant using the word “scientist” to describe himself. To be able to call yourself a “scientist” is a very high honor, and not one that those in the scientific community use lightly.
[Author’s Note: In my original writing of this article, I failed to give credit to scientists who have their Master’s degrees who have done incredible work in the scientific community, and deserve that respect and recognition. And for that, I am deeply sorry. I thought about it, but then honestly failed to mention it, as it was not relevant to the case of Bill Nye. — That said, many of the replies insist that Bill Nye is a scientist, simply because he has spent a lot of time talking about science on TV, and trying to educate people, but this objection simply is not valid.]
I personally have two science degrees, an associate degree and a bachelor degree in biotechnology. (Don’t laugh, I am very proud of that associate degree, as my early college years were incredibly difficult.)
I have done research, in research labs, to further the cause of science. Yet even though I have my degree, and have done scientific research, I have not earned the coveted social privilege of calling myself a scientist, because I do not yet have my PhD.
In order to earn the honor of being called a scientist, by those of us in the scientific community, one usually has to have an earned PhD, or at least a Master’s in the natural sciences.
Of course, there are cases where someone can be described as a “scientist” even if they have no science degrees, such as in historical contexts. Many of the great scientists of past centuries had no scientific degree, in large part because they were the trail blazers. These were people who founded the modern sciences and contributed incredible insight into the natural world.
But keep in mind, that there was a time in history where most medical doctors never went to college. Someone living in a past century might be legitimately called “doctor”, even without a college education, but that would not be true today. Similarly, it would be exceedingly rare, and virtually unheard of for someone in the 21st Century to be legitimately called a “scientist” without an earned scientific PhD or a Master’s.
The one caveat to this would be that it is possible, although incredibly rare, that someone might teach themselves molecular biology through books, and lectures online, and come out with something like a cure for testicular cancer. In a case like that, someone has clearly earned the right to call themselves a scientist, having done an incredible amount of self-teaching, and an incredible amount of research, displaying knowledge and ability that could only be obtained by one with great understanding of molecular biology and related sciences.
So in very very rare instances, someone with incredible ability, and who has contributed incredible research might be considered a scientist by those of us in the scientific community, even without an earned PhD.
But how does this compare with Bill Nye? Does Bill Nye have any scientific degrees or scientific credentials?
The answer is simply no. However, that does not stop Bill Nye or CNN from pretending like he does.
Bill Nye in an interview with Tucker Carlson
Bill Nye’s “Honorary PhDs”
Not long ago, someone that I know called me on the phone to argue with me about Bill Nye’s qualifications. She kept insisting that Bill Nye IS a legitimate scientist because he has not one, but six honorary PhDs.
Originally this person told me that Bill Nye had six doctorates, and my face must have contorted in confusion listening to the phone, because no one — or at least no one that I know of — has six legitimate PhDs in science, let alone Bill Nye. Then a quick Google search revealed that these were honorary PhDs.
Once that little detail came out, things made sense.
I kept trying to explain to this person ad-nausium, that an honorary degree doesn’t mean anything. Honorary degrees are handed out like candy by universities, thanking people that they like for coming to a university to speak.
Honorary degrees, unlike degrees with honor, are handed out by universities to people that they like, and the person does not have to have ever done anything of significance. That’s why some universities (such as MIT, and the University of Virginia) don’t hand them out at all. They cheapen real degrees from people who have done actual work, and create confusion for those who don’t understand what an honorary degree is.
It’s unfortunate, because the original intent for an honorary PhD was to award people who did not have PhDs for contributing excellent work to a particular field. A possible example might be a computer engineer who figures out a new, faster, and better way to sequence DNA — This person would most likely be given at least one honorary PhD in molecular biology.
The practice of handing out such degrees has been criticized by many, because now we live in a world where universities commonly award PhDs to someone who has done no work in the field, simply for showing up to speak at an event, or for donating money to a university.
Oprah Winfrey, for example, has four honorary doctorates.
http://www.businessinsider.com/celebrities-who-have-honorary-degrees-2015-8/#jack-nicholson-has-an-honorary-doctorate-from-brown-26
This is why an “honorary degree” doesn’t mean anything. With an earned PhD, a student has often slaved away for five or six years in a molecular biology lab trying to find a genetic variable in rats that might help lead to a better understanding of why humans get lung cancer. But with an “honorary PhD” one merely has to be a comedian in a lab coat who enjoyed the filet mignon on his flight across the country one afternoon.
Again, don’t get me wrong here, I mean no disrespect to Oprah… but I do mean to disrespect Bill Nye, a man who goes on TV pretending to be a scientist even though he has no clue what he’s talking about, and millions of Liberals believe whatever nonsense falls out of his mouth, over people who have actual science degrees, and over actual scientists.
I pointed all of this out to said person that I mentioned before, but she kept insisting that in science an honorary PhD actually means something different (it doesn’t).
So, let’s take a look at the six honorary doctorates that Bill Nye has, and how he obtained them.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute — Speaker
As far as I can tell, Bill Nye was awarded his “PhD” here simply for showing up at the event to speak. The university website gives no details other than that. No papers had to be published in scientific journals, and no pesky dissertation had to be written. He simply had to show up, and talk to students who earned actual PhDs.
https://science.rpi.edu/itws/news/rensselaer-graduates-1613-208th-commencement
Johns Hopkins University — Speaker
Same as RPI, Bill Nye has never written a scientific paper, or done any research that would qualify him as a “scientist” or earn him a doctorate.
https://commencement.jhu.edu/our-history/honorary-degrees-awarded/
https://commencement.jhu.edu/our-history/commencement-speakers/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHLXRiMWLj4
Willamette University — According to the university website, Nye was awarded an honorary doctorate for his science TV shows. The website also notes his work in engineering. But again, nothing here that would qualify him as an actual scientist.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110312040839/http://www.willamette.edu/news/library/2011/03/commencement_2011.html
Rutgers University — Bill Nye was paid $35,000 to speak at Rutgers, and he was also given an honorary doctorate for showing up. During the speech, Bill Nye attacked man-made Global Warming/Climate Change skeptics. This is not surprising considering that Bill Nye has attacked actual scientists many times before simply for not agreeing with his preconceived ideas.
http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/18/bill-nye-paid-35k-to-tell-students-to-dismiss-global-warming-skeptics/
http://www.nj.com/education/2015/05/rutgers_graduates_class_of_2015.html
Lehigh University — Honorary doctorate in pedagogy. Pedagogy is not exactly science, it’s the art of teaching ideas to students in different ways so that they can learn the concepts. While I will criticize Bill Nye for falsely representing himself as a scientist, and while I will point out that his presentations are often false and misleading, there is a lot of room for praise here, and an honorary degree in pedagogy is definitely appropriate.
Millions of kids watched Bill Nye the science guy growing up, and became interested in science as a result. Personally, I was a fan of the other popular 90’s kid’s show, The Magic School bus, as well as the books. (Fo-shizzle-my-Frizzle)
Despite my criticism, when Bill Nye is teaching about topics that don’t deal with his preconceived political and social ideas, he does an amazing job, and shines like a superstar!
As someone with a passion for science, and for teaching, if I could reach the number of people that Bill Nye has, and get that many people interested in science, I would be very grateful for my life!
But being a comedian in a lab coat, even one with an educational TV show, does not a scientist make.
Simon Fraser University — Again, Bill Nye was given this award for his educational work, not because of any notable scientific contribution. The article on the SFU website does not specify whether Bill Nye spoke at the event, however that detail is not really important.
https://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/stories/2015/bill-nye-receives-honourary-degree-from-sfu.html
So, again, beating a dead horse that some people still will not get, Bill Nye is not a scientist, and has not done the work to earn the privilege of calling himself a scientist. He’s as much a scientist as Rachel Dolezal is an African American.
Bill Nye’s Work for NASA
But…but… Bill Nye did work for NASA!
Yes, Bill Nye has done work for NASA, but so has the person working in their cafeteria, that does not make them a scientist. While it is true that Bill Nye has done work for places such as NASA, his contribution was as an engineer, not a scientist.
What’s the difference? I personally went to a school that was big on engineering. Mechanical Engineering was probably the largest program there with hundreds and hundreds of students at least. My program, Biotechnology and Molecular Bioscience, was substantially smaller, with a few dozen students, and a number of closely related programs, such as Bioinformatics, and good old standard Biology.
While an engineer will use physics and calculus to design machines, it’s the job of the scientist to study the natural world. Both fields are extremely technical, and Bill Nye undoubtedly had to take a lot of physics courses, but that still does not make him a scientist.
If Bill Nye wants to go on TV explaining how a motor works, then great! If Bill Nye wants to go on a kids show and explain the mating habits of the black widow spider, then great! But Bill Nye is not a biologist, or a climate scientist. That does not mean that he cannot have an opinion, but he is not an expert in these areas.
Disturbingly, what we have is Bill Nye going on TV, dismissing actual scientists, and arrogantly accusing actual scientists of not understanding what they are talking about, simply because they don’t buy into Bill Nye’s nonsense.
My interview with Cody Libolt on this article
Conclusions
Over the past few years, Bill Nye has become a political activist, and out of nowhere became popular once again. While many people are under the mistaken impression that Bill Nye is a scientist, he does not have any scientific credentials. His six honorary doctorates were given to him for his work on educational TV shows, and for showing up as a guest speaker, not for any actual scientific research that he’s done.
Unfortunately millions of people do not understand what a scientist is, and will undoubtedly continue to take everything that Bill Nye says as if it were coming from a scientific authority, and not just a comedian with a popular TV show.
Thank you for reading my article. Be sure to subscribe to my electronic Newsletter where I publish exclusive content, and where I let my fans know when new publicly available content is published. I specialize in writing about science, economics, science fiction, and apologetics.
https://greenslugg-com.ck.page/48b7a894b1
Further Reading: Priceonomics-Why Do Colleges Give Out “Honorary” Degrees?
Be sure to check out some of my other articles!
I can also be found at:
GreenSlugg.com -My primary website where I blog and seek to promote Christian intellectual thought, seeking to teach Christians how to witness to others.
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https://medium.com/christian-intellectual | https://medium.com/christian-intellectual/why-bill-nye-is-not-a-scientist-and-why-it-matters-20b6e3fc3fee | ['G.S. Muse'] | 2020-03-30 23:38:24.156000+00:00 | ['Ken Ham', 'Evolution', 'Bill Nye', 'Science', 'Creation'] |
How to Import Your Medium Stats to a Microsoft Spreadsheet | I love the stats that Medium’s stats page provides, but I also like being able to see those stats in a spreadsheet of my own, so I can figure out what kind of stories get the best traction. I have been looking for a good way to do this for a while, and I finally figured how to display the stats on my stories using Microsoft Excel and a simple Medium stats grabbing tool for Chrome. I’ll explain how to do it in this article.
What you need:
The Medium Enhanced Stats Chrome extension
Microsoft Excel
If you don’t already have the Medium Enhanced Stats Chrome Extension, you can download it using the link above. Once you have it downloaded and set up, go to your Medium page and download your stats. The stats grabber tool downloads your stats in a CSV format; this can be difficult to understand because all the information is listed in one column. It looks kind of like this:
Screenshot taken by the author
If you’re at all like me, you probably like being able to see your stats in graph format.
Luckily there’s an easy way to turn this gobbledygook into Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that’s easy to read an d understand:
Open a new Microsoft Excel sheet
2. Go to Data and choose “From Text/CSV”
3. Load the CSV file you downloaded from the Medium Stats Grabber and click “Import”.
4. In just a few seconds, a screen will pop up that shows you what your data looks like. Choose whether you want to show just the first 200 rows, or the entire data set, and then click “Load.”
Screenshot taken by the author
5. You’ll end up with a spreadsheet that looks like this:
Screenshot by the author
Filtering your data
If you want to filter your data before you create a graph, click on “filter” and then choose the column you want to filter. In this example I chose Views:
Screenshot taken by the author.
Creating your graph
Highlight the columns you want to include in your graph. Make sure to include the column headers. In this example, I chose Title, Views, and Reads. To highlight columns that aren’t next to each other, hold down Control when you’re highlighting one column, let go of it, click on your second column, hold down Control again and highlight that column. Repeat this for each non-adjacent column you want to highlight.
Once you’ve selected all the data you want to include in your graph, click on “Insert”, go to “Charts,” then click “Recommended Charts.” Microsoft Excel shows you the charts they recommend and provides information on the purpose of each one. For this article I chose column chart.
After you’ve chosen the chart you want to use and inserted it in your spreadsheet, take a little time to tweak the appearance of it. Depending on the type of chart you’ve chosen, you might want to remove gridlines. You’ll also want to give your chart a title and change the series labels if you need to. Here are a few examples of what your graph might look like:
Graph with gridlines
Graph without gridlines
Line chart with gridlines
That’s all there is to displaying your Medium stats in Excel. I know it seems like a lot of steps, but once you go through them all you’ll have a good representation of how your articles are performing, which will help you write better articles in the future.
Editor’s note: Shortly after I published this article, I learned that the Medium Enhanced Stats Chrome Extension had stopped working. In case it’s not working for a while, you can also use the Medium Stats Grabber Chrome Extension to do the same thing. Just click the extension, download the spreadsheet, and follow the same process outlined above. | https://medium.com/writers-blokke/how-to-import-your-medium-stats-to-a-microsoft-spreadsheet-7939fec68ce8 | ['Erica Martin'] | 2020-11-10 19:53:16.033000+00:00 | ['Ｍedium', 'Analytics', 'Writing'] |
Arab American Heritage Month | Born in 1993 in Madrid to a Moroccan family, Spanish actress Mina el Hammani is best known for her roles as Nadia in the Netflix hit, Elite, and Elvira in The Boarding School: Las Cumbres on Amazon Prime.
Interview (with English, Spanish, and Arabic subtitles) between Mina El Hammani and Saufeeya Goodson
El Hammani decided at seven years old that she wanted to be an actress, but struggled to find someone with whom she could identify on screen at that time. Nadia, her character in Elite, is the role she says she had been waiting for her entire life, allowing her to play someone in whom she can see herself reflected and who will give girls of Arab heritage in Spain, and around the world, a familiar face on TV and a sense of representation.
Ara Malikian
Born in Lebanon to an Armenian family, and living in Spain since 1998, world-renowned violinist Ara Malikian has lived in a multicultural environment his entire life. Growing up during the Lebanese Civil War, his talent, dedication, and passion for music were clear from a young age. The War may have forced him to study in air-raid shelters, but it also showed him the strength his music could have in lifting spirits and bringing hope to its listeners. At 15, he received a scholarship to study at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover, Germany, from the German Ministry of Culture, and so his time in Europe began.
Malikian may not be the image you expect when you think of a violinist, with his tattooed ams and mid-performance leaps. He says that earlier in his career, he tried to “fit in” in the classical music scene, and later realized that he needed to be himself and created his own path. Now, his music is a representation of his own mixed heritage and the places he’s been along the way, taking inspiration from his Armenian background, as well as his Middle Eastern and Mediterranean upbringing and his adopted Spanish home.
Hiba Abouk
Photo by Guillem Medina, 2017 Sitges Film Festival
Spanish actress Hiba Abouk’s career skyrocketed after her breakout role of Fátima in El Príncipe (The Prince), an action-crime drama that takes place in the Príncipe Alfonso neighborhood of the Spanish autonomous city of Ceuta, near the border with Morocco. Mina el Hammani (see first section), who played the character of Nur in the second season of El Príncipe, said the show, with a majority of Arab actors in lead roles, and specifically Abouk, let her not only feel represented on TV, but showed her that there were Arab women in Spain that came before her and fought for a place as actresses.
Born and raised in Madrid to Tunisian parents, Abouk cites her multicultural upbringing as part of her inspiration for becoming an actress:
“When I was 16 or 17 years old, I discovered that there were so many stories to tell, especially being an Arab woman. I wanted to talk about the clash of cultures I experienced as a teenager. Things happened in my house and in the street, but they were two separate worlds. I always dreamed of being an actress so I could play women like me” (2018, El País).
Najat el Hachmi
Photo credit: Fundación Tres Culturas
At age 8, Morrocan-Spanish author Najat el Hachmi moved from Nador, Morocco, to Vic, a city about an hour north of Barcelona where she would spend the rest of her childhood. She started writing at age 11; what began as simply as a mode of entertainment would soon transform into a way for her to channel her thoughts about her dual-identity, and to bring her two homes closer together. Identity and the immigrant experience in Spain, and Catolonia more specifically, would go on to be a central theme in her work.
El Hachmi studied Arabic Philology at the University of Barcelona and, in 2008, she earned the Ramon Llull Award for her book El último patriarca (The Last Patriarch). In 2014, she published her autobiography, Jo també sóc catalana (I, Too, am Catalan / Yo también soy catalana), and in 2020, she received the 77th Nadal Award, the oldest literary prize in Spain, for El lunes nos querrán (On Monday They’ll Want Us), a novel about the importance of women taking control of their own lives and facing gender, class, and ethnic battles to do so.
Muhsin al-Ramli
Iraqi writer, translator, and academic Muhsin al-Ramli has lived in Spain since 1995. He left Iraq for Jordan after his brother, poet Hassan Mutlak, was executed in 1990. Working as a journalist in Jordan, he decided to learn Spanish over English, drawn to the language’s great literature. This allowed him to later study in Spain, obtaining his PhD in Philosophy from the Autonomous University of Madrid in 2003.
While earning his PhD and working as a translator, Dr. al-Ramli established Alwah, one of the first Arab magazines in Madrid, in 1997, wanting to give his brother the voice that was taken away from him. Now, much of his work serves as a link between his two homes, having translated countless Spanish classics into Arabic, and vice versa. His novels, The President’s Gardens and Dates on My Fingers, were long-listed for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2010 and 2013, and Yasmeen Hanoosh’s English translation of his novel, Scattered Crumbs, won the 2003 University of Arkansas Press’ Arabic Translation Award. Al-Ramli is also a professor at Saint Louis University’s Madrid campus.
Magdy Martínez Solimán | https://blog.spainintheusa.org/arab-american-heritage-month-1c748bef1f7c | ['Embassy Of Spain Usa'] | 2021-04-26 19:13:20.002000+00:00 | ['Literature', 'Spanish', 'Entertainment', 'Arab', 'Spain'] |
20. Yüzyıl Müziği — Tango X.T.C, Joe Hisaishi | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/t%C3%BCrkiye/tango-x-t-c-joe-hisaishi-3f42df8678bb | [] | 2021-01-09 23:32:18.166000+00:00 | ['Tango Xtc', 'Hayao Miyazaki', 'Joe Hisaishi', 'Türkçe', 'Film Müzikleri'] |
11 Principles of Placemaking: How to Design People-Centered Places | If you want to design places catered for humans, placemaking is the concept you want to utilize.
It’s UX on an urban scale. We plan, design, and develop according to the user’s needs and preferences, to ensure that the output is actually useful and usable for them. In this case, the user is the community — the people.
In their book How to Turn a Place Around, Project for Public Spaces (PPS) proposes 11 principles to help urban planners, designers, and developers make places people actually want to live in.
Let’s dissect them one by one.
1. The Community Is the Expert
To begin a placemaking process, it’s best to first identify the talents and assets of the community.
In every community, there are “experts” who can present valuable perspectives and insights about the area’s history, culture, functionalities, or any other aspect that’s considered meaningful for the people.
By placing the community as the expert, it will foster a sense of “community ownership” which elevates the place’s importance in the eyes of its residents.
2. Create a Place, Not a Design
When we hear “design,” our minds are likely to conjure images of shapes, colors, and other physical elements. However, it actually extends beyond that.
As we understand from UX, design is about experience.
In placemaking, every element (physical or otherwise), must serve a purpose. Mainly, the place should make people feel welcome and comfortable.
This often translates to the development of effective relationships between the place, the people, and the activities. The goal here is to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
3. Look for Partners
In a placemaking project, it’s best to look for partners as early as possible.
These partners may come from the residents, local governments, educational institutions, museums, libraries, or other related organizations.
Since placemaking is community-driven, and the place itself is supposed to foster community ownership, more partners will generally mean a greater sense of community.
4. You Can See a Lot Just by Observing
Instead of guessing what might work or not work, it’s much more preferable to learn through observation.
Simply by looking at how people are conducting their activities in a place, which elements they use or don’t use, what features they like, or don’t like; we can accurately identify what elements are missing and thus can be incorporated through placemaking.
It’s also important to remember that the people’s preferences will evolve over time, and needs to be managed continuously.
5. Have a Vision
A good placemaking approach shouldn’t just flow by “whatever seems easiest” or “whatever seems good at the time” — it should have a vision.
This vision might include the physical shape of the place, its brand/image, the kinds of activities that might happen there, and so on. Ideally, the vision should come from the community itself.
6. Start with the Petunias: Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper
Places are complex entities, and the placemaking practitioners shouldn’t expect to do everything correctly from the get-go.
The best places are made through incremental improvements that are tested and refined over many years. For example, physical elements like seating, footpaths, or public artworks can be added and subtracted as needed, in time.
Your first step can be as simple as planting a row of petunias. From there, you can gradually experiment with more intricate elements.
7. Triangulate
Holly Whyte defined triangulation as follows:
“Triangulation is the process by which some external stimulus provides a linkage between people and prompts strangers to talk to other strangers as if they knew each other.”
In the context of placemaking, this generally means the relationship between separate elements within the place, and how we select and arrange them to achieve a desirable effect.
For example, if we put a coffee stand and a bench near a pond, they will create a behavior pattern: People will buy a cup of coffee, then sit on the bench to drink it, while enjoying the pond’s view.
8. They Always Say “It Can’t Be Done”
Yogi Berra once said:
“If they say it can’t be done, it doesn’t always work out that way.”
Creating good places always has its obstacles. Often, no single stakeholder in the placemaking project has a specific responsibility to “create places.” Each person will have a narrow job description such as “landscape design” or “traffic management.”
As mentioned before, placemaking itself is a community effort that’s nurtured through small scale improvements over time.
9. Form Supports Function
While “form” is important, it must be designed to support a certain “function.”
This function should come from the place’s vision and the community’s needs and preferences, which can be understood through the input of the partners, and the community itself.
10. Money Is Not the Issue
Usually, the major problems of placemaking are not financial in nature.
After basic infrastructures are put in the public spaces, any additional elements often don’t have that big of a cost. Additionally, if the community and other partners are thoroughly involved in the process, this cost can be reduced further.
In the broader context, the financial costs are not as significant as the benefits. The bigger issue is, therefore, to ensure that all stakeholders involved are on the same page, going all-in on the same vision.
11. You Are Never Finished
By nature, a good place is one that responds to the needs and the preferences of the community, and these are ever-changing variables.
Amenities wear out, new technologies are invented, social customs are continuously shifting — placemaking doesn’t simply “end,” it’s an ongoing process.
Thus, to create good places, the ability to adapt and overcome change is of the utmost importance.
Final Thoughts
Placemaking is still growing as an urban development concept. It will adjust itself to the characteristics of the particular time and location. Perhaps, these 11 principles will also change with it.
That being said, whenever and wherever placemaking is conducted, one thing stays the same: Just like UX design, that focuses on the users, placemaking focuses on the community.
First and foremost, placemaking is done with the community — the people — in mind.
That’s the most important mindset you need to make people-centered places. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/11-principles-of-placemaking-how-to-design-people-centered-places-b84e7e705a1f | ['Aushaf Widisto'] | 2020-10-03 04:13:58.643000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Design', 'Urban Planning', 'Placemaking', 'Cities'] |
Important equipments such as paper shredder and laminator to make life easier | Important equipments such as paper shredder and laminator to make life easier Techflye Dec 21, 2021·2 min read
With the ever-expanding danger of wholesale fraud, many individuals choose to search for a home paper shredder to give them solace that their classified data is appropriately obliterated. There are countless sorts and brands of shredders available today. And finding the best home paper shredder for you can appear to be a mind-boggling task.
Types of shredders
Manual shredders are truly reasonable and simple to utilize. They sit around your work area and shred any papers that you feed into the throat of the machine. For the most part, you need to wrench a handle that moves the paper through the sharp edges that shred it, yet assuming you begin to shred bigger volumes of paper; this can start to feel like a great deal of exertion.
Whereas automatic paper shredders are intended to accomplish everything, the best home paper shredders available today are programmed. A sensor is incorporated into the machine that advises it to begin destroying when the paper is presented and quit destroying once it has gone through the throat. To get the best and reasonably priced home paper shredders in South Africa, many companies provide advanced paper shredder machines.
Lamination machine for your office
Lamination is a course of putting something between layers of plastic and sticking them with heat and additional pressure, as a rule with cement. Sounds sufficiently direct; however, there are mainly three kinds of overlay in the workplace climate: Heated Roll Lamination, Pouch Lamination, and Cold Roll Lamination.
Finding the right laminator can be a daunting task. Many organizations and businesses can profit from possessing their roll overlaying machine, yet with all the claim to fame capacities and elements present on some huge arrangement laminators, figuring out which machine best fills your particular necessities can be a troublesome assignment.
But the HP Laminator in South Africa will get you excellent quality products. There are a variety of laminators with various advanced specifications. All you need to do is buy the one that satiates your requirements. Office Laminator in South Africa can be a great option to meet all your requirements.
Lamination is certifiably not a new term. We as a whole are familiar with this old yet successful procedure utilizing which an item, for example, a book or our important degree certificates, is covered or sandwiched with an incredibly slim layer of plastic. However, the cycle is exceptionally straightforward; you should be cautious while picking a laminating machine. | https://medium.com/@techflye21/important-equipments-such-as-paper-shredder-and-laminator-to-make-life-easier-4065cc529b4e | [] | 2021-12-21 07:55:38.074000+00:00 | ['Office Shredders', 'Hp Laminator', 'South Africa', 'Laminating Service', 'Office Laminator'] |
Gov. Pritzker is failing imprisoned people in Illinois | April Ward is the mother of COVID-19 patient Mickiael Ward who is currently serving a sentence of 84 years at Pontiac Correctional Center. She is a member of Mothers of the Kidnapped, a project of Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition and Solidarity.
Since the painful and traumatic 84-year sentence announced against my son Mickiael in 2019, I have had considerable time to reflect. My son was wrongly alleged to have committed a terrible crime in 2013 against teenager Hadiya Pendleton. An 18-year-old Black man, he was subjected to the Reid interrogation technique which is increasingly viewed as leading to false confessions, particularly from young people.
I view his treatment as a form of torture, much like what the Central Park 5 endured following the same technique.
My primary takeaway after my son was taken away from me? We must look out for one another in the face of overwhelming state and federal power. Those bodies have the power to do good, to help improve people’s lives, but they also hold immense power and capacity for wrongdoing, violence, and harm.
This is clearer than ever in election year 2020 as our communities are being battered by COVID-19 and a federal government that every day makes clear it is unprepared to follow science in fighting back against this new virus.
COVID-19 has reached into Pontiac Correctional Center and hit my son. He is young and fit, but I fear he could die or face lingering medical consequences. When a prison officer stomped the cast off of his broken thumb, he never received adequate treatment. COVID-19 is far more serious.
The prison has quarantined him in a part of the facility previously closed by court order. The conditions are dreadful, lacking fundamental cleanliness and showing signs of rats.
Nurses, unsurprisingly, are afraid to treat the handful of men held with my son. It is clear treatment is not as good as it would be outside the prison. The families of these COVID-19 patients have to stick together because so few are standing with us.
Conditions in US prisons are so grim that the United Nations felt obliged to write President Donald Trump and remind him of his responsibilities in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We reiterate that infectious and communicable diseases may spread easily in overcrowded detention facilities due to poor hygiene and sanitation and this may adversely impact on the right to life of detainees.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker also has responsibilities to those imprisoned in Illinois. Right now, the state is failing. My son recently received a letter warning of Legionnaires’ disease in his prison.
This raises profound questions for me about how the state is warehousing prisoners without regard to their health and to their chances for life. How we care for the vulnerable and most disenfranchised among us speaks volumes about the kind of society we are.
We are losing that fight on many fronts — both inside and outside of prisons.
You may or may not care about the wellbeing of my son, but we remain interconnected.
What is happening to prisoners with COVID-19 in Pontiac is not without consequence for the health of our wider community and the kind of communities we seek to build.
It’s better and smarter policy, it seems to me, to look out for everyone than pursue narrow self-interest alone. We have the capacity to lift up more people than our bickering leaders are currently raising up.
Gov. Pritzker should do more to release elderly prisoners and those with pre-existing conditions. He should also be more responsive to community calls to improve the medical treatment of those already suffering from COVID-19 and to pardon all victims of police torture. They are his responsibility. | https://medium.com/@motheringisradical/gov-pritzker-is-failing-imprisoned-people-in-illinois-a-reflection-from-mama-april-ward-11aebb4ad662 | ['Mamas Collective'] | 2020-12-07 21:27:09.355000+00:00 | ['Prison', 'Covid 19'] |
Raspberry PI 4 with encrypted root partition, LVM and remote unlock | This how-to describes the necessary steps to set up a Raspberry PI 4 with a LUKS encrypted root partition, LVM and remote unlock via Dropbear SSH server in initramfs.
I’ve compiled this from various other tutorials, most notably Secure Kali PI 2018 and Raspberry Pi Encrypt Root Patition. The main differences are:
Device UUIDs instead of paths in fstab , crypttab and kernel command line.
, and kernel command line. LVM inside the encrypted partition.
cryptroot-unlock as Dropbear command.
as Dropbear command. No modification of /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/init-premount/dropbear .
Note: because of a problem when creating the initramfs for the first time and the encrypted root partition is no yet fully set up, a screen and keyboard need to be connected to the Raspberry PI for one step.
Prepare storage device
The following steps are executed on another computer, rather the Raspberry PI.
Download the image from the Raspberry PI website.
Connect your storage device (either a SD card or a USB storage device) and run lsblk to determine the device path. Be absolutely sure about this because you might destroy your system when picking the wrong one. I’ll write /dev/sdX for the rest of this how-to.
Copy the downloaded image onto the storage device:
dd if=raspios.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress
Run fdisk to get some information about the storage device:
fdisk -l /dev/sdX Disk /dev/sdX: 1.73 GiB, 1858076672 bytes, 3629056 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x067e19d7 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdX1 8192 532479 524288 256M c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdX2 532480 3629055 3096576 1.5G 83 Linux
The important values are the sector size (512) and the total number of sectors (3629056).
The goal is to have a partition of 2 GB at the end of the device for a temporary unencrypted root and use all the space in between for the encrypted LVM partition.
Calculate the first sector of the new partition 2 GB from the end:
$NUMBER_OF_SECTORS - 2 * 1024^3 / $SECTOR_SIZE
Run fdisk again and create the partition:
fdisk /dev/sdX n # create new partition
p # primary partition
<enter> # use default partition number
XXX # the calculated start sector from above
<enter> # use suggested end sector
w # write
Now copy the data from partition 2 to partition 3 and resize it to use the full 2 GB:
dd if=/dev/sdX2 of=/dev/sdX3 bs=4M status=progress resize2fs /dev/sdX3
Run fdisk again and recreate the second partition.
fdisk /dev/sdX p # note start sector of partition 2
d # delete partition
2 # select partition 2
n # create new partition
p # primary partition
2 # partition number 2
XXX # start sector from original partition 2
<enter> # use suggested end sector
w # write
Run blkid /dev/sdX3 and copy the UUID.
Mount the boot partition, edit cmdline.txt and replace the value of the root parameter with the UUID from above. E. g. replace root=PARTUUID=XXXX-2 with root=UUID=XXX-XXX .
mkdir -p /mnt/rpi/boot mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/rpi/boot vim /mnt/rpi/boot/cmdline.txt
If you want SSH to be enabled right from the start, create a file named ssh in the boot directory:
touch /mnt/rpi/boot/ssh
Unmount and clean up
umount /dev/sdX1
rm -r /mnt/rpi
Create the encrypted volume. I’ll use the cipher aes-xts with a key size of 256 and sha256 for the best performance on the Raspberry PI. Once it becomes available in the default Raspberry PI OS, aes-adiantum might be an interesting choice.
cryptsetup luksFormat \
--type=luks2 \
--pbkdf=pbkdf2 \
--cipher=aes-xts-plain64 \
--key-size=256 \
--hash=sha256 \
/dev/sdX2
Open the encrypted volume and setup LVM. I’ll use 50G for the root file system. Adapt this to your needs and the size of your storage medium.
cryptsetup open /dev/sdX2 rpi pvcreate /dev/mapper/rpi vgcreate vgrpi /dev/mapper/rpi lvcreate -L 50G vgrpi -n root mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vgrpi-root lvchange -an vgrpi cryptsetup close /dev/mapper/rpi
Raspberry PI configuration
Now connect your storage device with the Raspberry PI and power up.
Update and install the required software
apt-get update
apt-get install \
dropbear \
lvm2 \
cryptsetup \
busybox \
dropbear-initramfs \
cryptsetup-initramfs
Open the encrypted volume
cryptsetup open /dev/sdX2 crypt
Run blkid and note the UUID of /dev/sdX2 and /dev/mapper/vgrpi-root . They will be required in the next steps.
Edit /etc/fstab and replace the file system for / with the UUID of /dev/mapper/vgrpi-root . It should look like this:
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
UUID=XXXXXX /boot vfat defaults 0 2
UUID=XXXXXX / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
Edit /etc/crypttab and add an entry with the UUID of /dev/sdX2 . Make sure to use tabs as separator between the values.
crypt UUID=XXXXXX none luks
Open /boot/cmdline.txt in an editor. Change the value of the root parameter to the UUID of /dev/mapper/vgrpi-root and add a new parameter cryptdevice with the UUID from /dev/sdX2 followed by :crypt . Append rootdelay=2 at the very end.
[...] root=UUID=XXXXXX cryptdevice=UUID=XXXXXX:crypt [...] rootdelay=2
Uncomment and change the following line in /etc/cryptsetup-initramfs/conf-hook :
CRYPTSETUP=y
Create /etc/dropbear-initramfs/authorized_keys and insert your SSH public key (usually from ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub on your other machine).
Uncomment and edit the following line in /etc/dropbear-initramfs/config :
DROPBEAR_OPTIONS="-sgjkc cryptroot-unlock"
The options here mean:
-s Disable password logins
-g Disable password logins for root
-j Disable local port forwarding
-k Disable remote port forwarding
-c Force command to be executed
Add the following line at the end of /boot/config.txt :
initramfs initramfs.gz followkernel
Create the initramfs. This might show some errors from cryptsetup you can ignore for the moment.
mkinitramfs -o /boot/initramfs.gz
Copy root file system to encrypted volume
Power off your Raspberry PI and connect the storage device to your other computer again.
Mount the unencrypted temporary root partition, the encrypted root partition and copy the data.
mkdir -p /mnt/rpi/{default,crypt} mount /dev/sdb3 /mnt/rpi/default cryptsetup open /dev/sdb2 rpi mount /dev/mapper/vgrpi-root /mnt/rpi/crypt rsync -avh /mnt/rpi/default/* /mnt/rpi/crypt/ umount /mnt/rpi/crypt umount /mnt/rpi/default lvchange -an vgrpi cryptsetup close /dev/mapper/rpi rm -r /mnt/rpi
Boot Raspberry PI from encrypted volume
The first boot from the encrypted volume will probably fail, so you need to connect a screen and keyboard to fix it manually. I’m happy for any hints how to solve this in a more elegant way.
Wait until the errors stop and you are dropped into the initramfs shell
Enter the following commands and hit CTRL-D afterwards:
cryptsetup open /dev/sdX2 crypt
vgchange -ay
Now the boot process should continue and you can login.
As a final step, recreate the initramfs to fix the errors from above. It should now execute without any errors.
mkinitramfs -o /boot/initramfs.gz
Now that everything is set up, you can erase the temporary root file system on partition 3 or keep it as a recovery system.
Please note that you have to recreate the initramfs after every kernel upgrade!
Resources | https://medium.com/@andreashug/raspberry-pi-4-with-encrypted-root-partition-lvm-and-remote-unlock-457e680fc8d5 | ['Andreas Hug'] | 2020-12-22 10:14:20.119000+00:00 | ['Raspberry Pi', 'Tutorial', 'Encryption'] |
Creating Logistics Software With An Eye For Customer Experience | Providing an exceptional customer experience has become the main topic of discussion in most industries, including logistics. Third-party logistics providers strive to attract and retain customers by creating feature-rich customer portals.
Moreover, in 2020, B2B companies consider digital interactions two to three times more important to their customers than traditional interactions according to McKinsey research. The major spike in demand for transportation services has forced companies to automate and streamline their processes. Taking these facts into consideration, creating platforms where customers can track and order shipments at any time has become an unspoken rule in the transportation industry.
Some companies have already introduced client portals and are reaping the benefits of this decision. Some are still doubtful and remain behind their competitors.
Read More: Creating Logistics Software With An Eye For Customer Experience
If you’ve decided to create a self-service portal for your individual or business clients, it’s high time to take action. Creating a self-service portal will allow you to successfully compete with market leaders as well as get a competitive advantage over those who are still hesitating.
At Claritus, we receive lots of inquiries from logistics companies looking to build customer portals. In this article, we walk you through the main benefits of creating this type of software and help you decide on the requirements for your application. We hope this information will help you make a decision and develop a solution that will be warmly welcomed by your customers.
Why client portals are a boon for logistics companies
There are strong reasons behind the desire to build a customer portal as fast as possible. We’ve thoroughly analyzed the logistics market and the inquiries we’ve received to define some of the most common benefits of creating a customer portal:
Reduced operational costs
Traditionally, to book a truckload shipment or check the status of a delivery process, a customer had to call a dedicated logistics manager or sales representative. By creating a self-service customer app, you enable your customers to check information or fill in order information by themselves, reducing the number of support requests.
Customer autonomy lets agents work more productively, focusing on more complex tasks and solving problems faster.
Increased customer satisfaction
Customer portals empower users to access information or order services 24/7 without contacting a customer support representative. Within the last few years, self-service portals have become a necessity for organizations in many industries.
A customer app will also help you increase customer satisfaction by gathering valuable insights into customer behavior. This data will help you improve the quality of your services and deliver a more personalized user experience.
Increased customer lifetime value
Convenient services along with visibility of your processes can encourage customers to work with you on an ongoing basis. When you build transparent relationships with your customers and let them see all information and documents regarding their shipment orders in one place, they’ll want to keep using your app. Providing visibility and personalized offers is a great way to increase customer retention.
How to meet increasing customer expectations?
To reap the benefits we’ve described above, your service should effectively meet specific customer needs. Bear in mind that in most companies, apps for customers mirror information from internal software like transport management systems, order management software, and warehouse management systems. So as a rule, creating a customer portal is infeasible without automating a company’s internal processes (if you don’t have any software yet) or integrating existing software with new software solutions.
What can help you create software aligned with your business?
To build a customer portal, some companies mistakenly follow the strategy of creating custom applications identical to the apps of their rivals. Unfortunately, this strategy has a high risk of failure, since it doesn’t take into consideration the specificity of a company’s business processes and customers’ needs.
To build an application that meets the needs of your customers and is perfectly aligned with your business processes, you should conduct a thorough analysis of your business processes and existing software solutions. Here are some questions you should ask yourself to define the requirements for your customer portal:
1. What are the most common questions customers ask your logistics agents?
Survey your employees on the most common questions and problems your customers bring to the support team. This will help you define the top priorities for your customer portal. Do employees have problems accessing invoices or bills of lading? Then creating a convenient document database should be a high priority.
2. Is it convenient for your employees to use your existing software?
Interview your employees about the convenience of using existing software. What functionality do existing solutions cover and what tasks should your logistics managers do manually?
Create a list of problems your employees encounter when using the software. Analyze the potential causes of mistakes and data losses. Also, define what processes could be automated.
3. How is information stored and processed?
Before your customers can access the information they need in the customer portal, ensure that information is effectively stored and processed on your TMS or ERP software. How do agents collect and change information about shipments? What software do they use for these purposes? Are there any risks of a data breach? How do your employees gather information for reports and exchange data between operating units? Answer these questions to find possible room for improvements for storing and exchanging data.
4. How can customers access shipment information?
Do your agents send shipment information manually via email or is it sent automatically? How do they notify your customers about delays or arrivals? Define the most favorable communication channels and the format in which information will be sent to users. Also, pay close attention to integration with your existing software so information is immediately changed and sent to the customer portal via a safe communication channel.
As you can see, building a successful customer portal is impossible without internal software (like a TMS, WMS, or ERP) that works like a clock. If you want to create a custom client portal that integrates with third-party solutions or create both a TMS and customer portal, you can rely on us. Claritus has solid experience creating logistics software even under tight deadlines as well as integrating custom software with existing solutions.
You can learn more about what we can do for logistics companies or contact us directly to discuss a solution tailored to your particular needs. here | https://medium.com/@claritusconsulting01/creating-logistics-software-with-an-eye-for-customer-experience-603e5e8cc6ff | ['Claritus Consulting'] | 2020-12-21 12:45:06.561000+00:00 | ['Softwares', 'Logistic'] |
Hope Has Risen | lifting red above horizon’s promise,
a rosy tint to sky
this morning’s sunrise crests
the lip of ocean
symphony of color shifts amber
to glorious gold
now…hot yellow singing above
a wide-open sea
gentle waves, cresting glides,
ripples into shore
alone on the deck I watch
a seagull’s flight
wind whipping cool air over
my bare shoulders
unbearable lightness of being
brings a new day
hope’s golden orb has risen
after the storm
©Jennifer Cowie King
If you liked this poem, you might like this one… | https://medium.com/loose-words/hope-has-risen-33c7ed36b784 | ['Jennifer Cowie King'] | 2020-11-06 15:55:50.396000+00:00 | ['Free Verse', 'Poetry', 'Nature', 'Beauty', 'Hope'] |
A Rhinoceros-shaped Idea | Dürer was always fascinated by the natural world and became renowned for the accuracy in which he depicted it. His Portrait of a Young Hare, the Stag Beetle, and his Great Piece of Turf are just a few examples of his astute observation. However, one of his best known images is considered inaccurate, yet evocative. You see, he didn’t get to see a real rhinoceros at first hand...
King Emmanuel had sent the rhinoceros on to the Pope but, sadly, it died at sea during its second ill-fated voyage from Portugal to Italy. Dürer, therefore, relied on a rough first-hand sketch and the descriptions of others to create his rhinoceros — that and a thousand year old description in Pliny the Elder’s The Natural History, which described the rhinoceros as the mortal enemy of the elephant, about the length of an elephant but with shorter legs, and skin the colour of box-wood. Some of this description is included in vernacular German above Dürer’s image of the rhinoceros.
Why was this event so significant and newsworthy? In Durer’s time, ancient Greek and Roman texts were being rediscovered and re-examined. Their knowledge contributed to the Renaissance, a renewal of arts and science throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which really gathered momentum in northern Europe, ahead of the High Renaissance in Florence.
A rhino had not been seen by Europeans for a thousand years — not since the Roman era, when some were brought over for the sake of spectacle and slaughter in the gladiatorial arenas. Such creatures had become almost mythic, like that other horned creature, the unicorn. So, a real rhinoceros was living proof that the texts of the ancients contained facts and knowledge still relevant and worthy of continued exploration. Dürer’s rhinoceros celebrated this rebirth of knowledge and discovery.
His drawing of the rhinoceros is full of life and fills the page to emphasise its size. Dürer used his knowledge of more familiar creatures like horses and dogs, as well as his knowledge of armour from depicting Knights, to embellish the vague reports he had of the real creature. Yet many details seem astonishingly accurate, the shape of the head and presence of rib-ridges, for example.
The smaller horn on its neck is often dismissed as pure invention but in some rare cases a process know as hyperkeratosis can result in a localised thickening of the hide that may grow to resemble a small horn, in exactly the position shown. Generally, the armour plates do closely resemble the fold pattern of the real life version’s thick hide, as do the warty bumps that stud them. | https://medium.com/signifier/a-rhinoceros-shaped-idea-d18d4ca5458 | ['Kim Vertue'] | 2020-12-06 11:30:57.900000+00:00 | ['Surrealism', 'Art History', 'Art', 'Drawing', 'Rhinoceros'] |
World Happiness Reports make this Data Scientist Unhappy | Every year the United Nations release the World Happiness Report leading readers to believe that they have successfully ranked all countries by happiness. These reports always capture the attention of the media and is most certainly captivating, but the reality is that these ‘rankings’ are built on statistical misuse.
The happiness index for each country is calculated by asking citizens:
‘Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. Which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time’
And then averaging the responses to get a score between 0 and10.
This approach has already drawn some concerns from a philosophical standpoint, with some arguing that this line of questioning leads responders to overvalue income and material possessions rather than happiness. I’ll leave that line of thinking to my friends in the social sciences and for the purpose of this article I will only go over the statistical shortcomings:
Shortcoming Number 1 — The Rankings are too precise
It’s just not feasible to survey every person in each country, so the next best thing is to survey a random subset of people and use those results to represent the entire population of the country. Although the average happiness of the random sample would closely represent the average happiness of the entire population (assuming the sample size is large enough) it will not be an exact representation. Statisticians get around this by reporting a 95% percent confidence interval (CI) which means that there is a 95% chance the true mean (in this case happiness) lies in that range. For many countries, their respective sample happiness scores are very close and there is a significant overlap in the 95% confidence intervals. Consider the following example:
Spain and Saudi Arabia 2020 Happiness Score
We can see that the happiness score are very similar for both Spain and Saudi Arabia and it would be very irresponsible to conclude that Spain is happier than Saudi Arabia or vice versa.
However, in order to achieve a ranking system, this inaccurate conclusion is repeated across many countries.
In this case Saudi Arabia is ranked above Spain despite there being no data supporting this conclusion.
This is an example of over precision, meaning that the level of accuracy associated with random polling is not enough to justify a ranking system.
A more appropriate use of the data would be to categorise each country as either thriving, struggling or suffering. This is what the Gallup (original organisation that ran the poll) concluded with the data.
To illustrate the effect over precision can have on the happiness rankings, I ran 1000 simulations where each country was randomly allocated a new happiness score (and consequently rank) based on the 95% confidence interval reported. I have linked below a dashboard I have created, where for each country you can view the lowest and highest possible rank of each countries based on these simulations, as well as the span between the lowest and highest rank.
Countries with a difference span less than 5
In the above visualisation, only countries with a difference between the highest and lowest rank in the simulations being less than 5 are coloured. We can see that this only covers a handful of countries which highlights how volatile and inconsistent these rankings are!
Shortcoming Number 2 — The happiness score is biased
Since the measure of happiness is based on quantifying qualitative data rather than pure quantitative measures, it opens the door for many biases that have the potential to derail any analysis. There are many underlying factors that influence someone’s response when you ask them to rate their life out of 10. For example, many Asian cultures have a tradition of humility whereas in Scandinavian cultures people tend to be more inclined to tell others how happy they are. This could have contributed to the high rankings of Nordic countries whilst Asians countries such as Japan (62nd) and South Korea (61st) are lower than expected.
These biases unfortunately are part of any analysis, especially those involving qualitative responses, however if they are properly understood and minimised than reliable conclusions can still be drawn. For example, these biases may limit the ability to compare happiness between countries but from the data we can still conclude that developing countries are generally less happy then developed countries.
These statistical shortcomings are enough to make any data scientist cringe. What would have been more appropriate with the data at hand would have been the identification of broad categories like what Gallup produced. The world happiness report is an example of how not fully understanding the limitations of statistical processes can result in misleading and unreliable analysis.
For my simulation code please see this GitHub Link: https://github.com/jama001/World-Happiness-Rankings
My name is Jamie Ferreira and I am an aspiring data scientist majoring in Data Science and Business Analytics at the University of Sydney. Feel free to leave any comments below and connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-ferreira-942374186/ | https://medium.com/@jamie-ferreira11/world-happiness-reports-makes-this-data-scientist-unhappy-754b853e2c19 | ['Jamie Ferreira'] | 2020-12-17 12:59:19.582000+00:00 | ['United Nations', 'Happiness', 'Data Science', 'Tableau', 'Statistics'] |
Buddhist Parable to Reduce Suffering | The Buddhist parable about the second arrow explains the cause of much unnecessary suffering.
The story goes that if an arrow strikes you as you wander in your garden, naturally, it hurts. But this initial injury might not signal the end of your distress. Even if the person who attacked you flees without casting another blow, you might still experience yet another bout of pain which Buddhists call the second arrow.
The second arrow, unlike the first, is controllable. It is anguish caused by your thoughts after a hurtful blow takes place. So, you might add pain (another arrow) to the initial cause of angst.
How you deal with a problem causes the second arrow to flow or disappear
We all suffer from the impact of that second arrow at times. Maybe we say something inappropriate at a business meeting, or to a friend, and pierce ourselves with torment by reciting the event in our minds rather than sort out the problem.
Or, perhaps an adverse incident occurs, we lose our job for instance, and we tell ourselves we are no good. The second arrow, self-defeat, continues injuring us and we lose courage.
The arrow may strike when we attempt to be productive too. My friend often berates herself when she neglects to use positive thinking. Her second arrow is self-imposed punishment for contemplating what she sees as an improper thought.
So, you see, we may injure ourselves with that second arrow for a variety of reasons, and even when we embark upon self-mastery arrows can flow.
How to stop casting the arrow
Self-awareness is the first step. You must recognize when you pull back the imaginary bow before you let the arrow fly. It’s difficult to change, since piercing our psyches with suffering is habitual, but it is possible to alter our behavior.
One step at a time
Initially, when you take steps toward change, you’ll find the arrow has been cast. You will notice it installed in your mind. But you’ll stem the pain by extricating it with determination and resilience.
You’ll tell yourself you are in charge of your pain and can control what happens next.
You will realize you couldn’t govern the first arrow, but now’s your chance to make a difference to how it affects your well-being.
After much practice, you’ll stop the arrow flying before it strikes you. In a moment of wisdom, because your brain is changing to accommodate this new behavior, you’ll take a different route.
At such a time, you’ll take stock, and release your resistance to the first arrow.
Accepting the first arrow is the key
The second arrow never flies unless you resist the first. By resisting, you don’t help the situation. Your rage or worry about what’s befallen you changes nothing for the better. It is a weapon you turn inward.
The way to stop hurting yourself is to accept whatever’s upset you as having happened. This doesn’t mean you think it is okay or agree with it. It means you stop fighting, living in the past with your sorrow, and shift into the present to deal with what ails you.
When you take positive action, whether it’s to self-sooth, find help, or manage the problem another way, you stop focusing on casting the second arrow and the difficulty lifts.
Let go of the need to change what has occurred, and be philosophical. An adverse event happened, but it has passed. What’s left is the fallout, and it’s time to sweep up and cope without yelling about the injustice you’ve suffered, aloud or in your imagination.
Mostly, second arrows take place in the dark. They roughhouse in people’s heads, thumping against the sides until a headache ensues. But, they exist, just the same as when people rant and rave about a situation they can’t change.
Angry outbursts, worries, and self-defeating talk are second arrows. Once you recognize them, you will see how much they harm you and stop creating them in favor of greater peace of mind. | https://medium.com/recycled/buddhist-parable-to-reduce-suffering-5dfce7b94897 | ['Bridget Webber'] | 2019-11-02 15:45:27.537000+00:00 | ['Personal Development', 'Lifestyle', 'Mindfulness', 'Psychology', 'Meditation'] |
Live for live | The truth about “Turned off people”
It is strange, but, although it is incredible most of the people, they live for living.
And who are those people?
They are those who lost part of their soul in the course of their lives, that spark that encompasses the illusion, hope and ambition of a longing and was lost by an unfulfilled desire.
That loss has caused the “Resignation”, yes, it is the most paralyzing emotion of any person, it is that feeling of abandonment of struggle for life. Sometimes it happens due to the wear of emotions.
These people who “live for life” are generally the abandoned, the forgotten ones of their friends, family or love. In this group of people are also the “frustrated”, those who do not have what makes them happy, for example, they never found their soulmate, they never worked where they wanted, they never did what they wanted, they never enjoyed their life, they never they dared to fight the current.
These people are characterized because the day to day they go through in a similar way, their feelings do not rise, they only remain and many times they go down.
They always have a sad, disheveled, boring, bitter face as of a monotonous life.
Deep down they hope that someone miraculously appears out of nowhere, realizes what is happening to them, and they want them to hold them tightly by the hand and take them out of that place.
They are waiting for someone or something special to get them out of their limbo.
Many times they do not find it, many times their lives are stagnant and end like this.
All of these people have family, friends, coworkers, and people who know them, so help them, but how? Encourage them, push them to become part of something.
Do not judge them, do not ignore them, share part of your spark of life with them, since they are people like you or me. And life situations has made me meet people like you or me, just for the purpose of doing something for them and taking action.
You will see that you will not only help them, but also yourself, because you will improve as a human being.
This life needs people with a good heart to help people named as I say “Turned off people.” | https://medium.com/@eli-casamayou/live-for-live-149c6f54b8c5 | ['Eli Casamayou'] | 2020-04-23 23:17:33.729000+00:00 | ['People', 'Sadness', 'Depression', 'Alone', 'Sad'] |
Intro to Web Development with Rust for NodeJS Developers | Rust is different. You can pick up Python or Ruby over the weekend, create a first CRUD application and be happy with the results.
With Rust… with Rust you will struggle to pass a String to a different method, change and return it. You then will order the Rust book, see its size, *sigh* and get started.
After a few weeks of fighting through the book after work, you give up and wait until someone else creates an easy-to-follow tutorial.
Here is your “easy” tutorial
I struggled with the same problems. Life circumstances however gave me a few months time on my hands to really focus on Rust.
What follows is a first overview, concept, and paths to follow. In the coming weeks and months, I’ll publish a series of articles to help you to get from concept to product.
NodeJS vs Rust
After installing them (I chose brew for macOS in this example, the method doesn’t matter), the underlying stack looks different. NodeJS needs V8, the runtime engine from Google, and bindings to the JavaScript library to run JavaScript code.
Rust depends almost completely on Rust itself. Just the compiler is using llvm libraries, which are written in C and C++.
How much “web” is in Rust?
It was and is a design decision not to include a standard http library in Rust. The OSI layer is therefore covered differently:
Node covers the whole stack, and offers with Koa and Express, two well-known and “rock-solid” web frameworks which help you to build applications on top of HTTP.
On the Rust side of things, just TCP is implemented in the Rust Core. The current web frameworks (actix and rocket) are implementing everything up until HTTP though. So you don’t need to care where this is coming from.
If you want to use pure HTTP calls without any larger framework, you can install “crates” (equivalent to npm packages in the Node world) which implement the HTTP protocol (like hyper and tiny_http).
npm vs cargo
Node is using npm for its package management:
npm install is installing dependencies
is installing dependencies npm run xyz is executing scripts inside the package.json
On the Rust side, cargo is handling everything related to your project:
cargo new NAME --bin is creating an application
is creating an application cargo new NAME --lib to create a library
to create a library cargo run is executing the code
is executing the code cargo build is creating an executable
is creating an executable cargo test is running all tests inside the project
There is an open PR to add cargo add to install dependencies. Right now you have to add them by hand to your Cargo.toml file. As you see, you don’t need to include scripts in a package.json to run tests or build and test your application.
Mindset change: Cargo is fetching the packages after cargo run , and just if the version changed. So the first time it will fetch all packages, the second time just when a change in the version number happened. Unlike npm i which fetches the packages right away, and will add it to the package.json with the save notation.
Ecosystem
Node is not successful for no reason. The ecosystem is rich and flourishing. Rust is still developing, but has already many great “crates”. The website arewewebyet.org is tracking the progress and showing you interesting packages in the Rust world.
There is also an attempt to create an official Rust Web Framework, called Tide. It is already pretty mature and can be used for side projects. Feel free to contribute and help craft a great environment for web development in Rust.
Asnyc programming aka Promises aka Futures
Nodes killer feature are Promises. Although not always easy to understand and handle, Promises and the event loop are what makes Node so lucrative.
Rust is also implementing an asynchronous mechanism, which are not yet in the final version. They are called Futures. A library called Tokio is already offering an asynchronous run time. You can track the progress on asynchronous programming in Rust over at areweasyncyet.
How to get started?
Install Rust: curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh Create a new project: cargo new web-app --bin cd web-app
Now you can choose your web framework of choice. You can either start with Rocket or actix. You can follow the tutorials on the website to get a first web application running.
Heads up: undefined, borrowing and types
To not to get frustrated until my next post, here are the main four things about Rust you will have to get used to (which are quite awesome after a while).
The following example covers already a great amount of new concepts. Make sure to add reqwest to your Cargo.toml dependencies:
reqwest = “0.9.11
Use this example to play around, see where you can get errors and learn to fix them.
Is this all?
Two opinions:
“Sadly no!”
“No, but that’s a good thing!”
You actually have to learn a decent amount of Rust to get started. This is what I am here for. In the next few days, weeks and months I will cover the basics up until creating a solid web application.
Up until then, I can recommend the Rust track on Exercism.io and the Rust Book which you can find also in a paper version at your local book store or at Amazon.
As mentioned in my first article, Rust is making you a better developer, so the road will be long at times, but always worth it. Follow me on twitter or Medium to stay up to date! | https://levelup.gitconnected.com/intro-to-web-programming-in-rust-for-nodejs-developers-1a9c048c4de1 | ['Bastian Gruber'] | 2019-03-19 14:48:22.008000+00:00 | ['Introduction', 'Web Development', 'Nodejs', 'Rust', 'Tutorial'] |
Darkman Haiku | Photo: Universal Pictures
Darkman Haiku
A salute to Sam Raimi’s 1990 cult classic, written in the style of the traditional Japanese poetry form
My name is Darkman
I’m scarred inside and out!
Yeah, I’m depressed
I’m like Batman
Shadowy vigilante
Why are you laughing?
I don’t have any lips
Once, I looked like Liam Neeson
A fire ate my face
I fight crime at night
They call me “superhero”
No, really they do
I’m a scientist
Who can make synthetic skin
(An audible sigh)
I have super strength
I don’t feel physical pain
Emotional? Yes
I wear fedoras
Bandages cover a skull face
Grandmas point and scream
I love musicals:
Phantom of the Opera…
Actually, just that
My secret HQ:
A rat-infested warehouse,
real fixer-upper
I get really mad
Then I fight evil gangsters
And I feel better
Hello Punisher?
Nobody returns my calls
Rorschach are you there? | https://medium.com/humungus/darkman-haiku-21823744e295 | ['John Devore'] | 2020-08-18 21:43:23.691000+00:00 | ['Film', 'Horror', '90s', 'Poetry', 'Superheroes'] |
That depends — are you an omnivert? | Photo by Oscar Söderlund on Unsplash
Introverts and extroverts. A personality dichotomy that stands the test of behavioral time, but should it?
I, for one, find myself exhausted by the constant need to label everyone as essentially either a hermit or a court jester. The semantics of the labels themselves are so extreme that we can’t expect everyone or even most people to fit nicely into these two categories. There are countless people in the world that enjoy socializing at parties on occasion, but also enjoy their alone time to be secluded from the hustle and bustle of fast-paced society. Some people love being alone the majority of the time and thrive in seclusion, but are also comfortable in large social situations now and again. These people aren’t strange or outliers, though. In fact, most people you meet and interact with everyday probably don’t fit neatly into the category of introvert or extrovert — we’re omniverts.
Omniverts don’t love being alone all the time and don’t always want to be at a party. We’re a mixture of both those personalities. Sometimes we love the exciting energy of large crowds and find ourselves drawn to clubs and group activities. But, at other times, we just want to curl up with a good read, plug in our headphones, and lose ourselves in the joy of our own company.
So, how do you know if you’re an omnivert? Here’s the easiest way to find out. When someone asks you if you’re an introvert or an extrovert, do you ever say, “Hmmmm…it depends?” That buzzword “depends” is your biggest clue. Omniverts don’t fit into a category of being either always introverted or always extroverted. Rather, their personality tendencies are dependent on a variety of factors, including: societal, situational, emotional, financial, and many more.
Let me give you a personal example for some context. I absolutely love talking to and meeting new people — it’s hands down one of my favorite things. So, at first glance you’d say I’m for sure an introvert, right? But, honestly, my level of desired social interaction is highly dependent on my inner happiness at that time. If I’m feeling down, I’ll be much less likely to hold a conversation with my friends or want to go out. But, when I’m happy? Oh, watch out stranger standing next to me at the bus stop, because we’re about to have an unsolicited conversation at 9:30 a.m., and I hope you’re ready.
Now, it’s important to understand that we’re not just calling ourselves omniverts because this generation values individualism and we want to build a new category of personality to place ourselves in. No, it means we’re tired of people confining our complex personality spectrums to just two extremes that really don’t properly encapsulate human behavior well at all.
It’s okay to be an introvert, and it’s okay to be an extrovert. But, it’s also okay to be an omnivert. Don’t let anyone tell you that you are definitely an introvert, because you’d rather stay home and read than go to their housewarming party. And don’t let someone tell you you’re an extrovert just because you’d rather spend your free time at work conversing with your coworkers than staring at your phone screen. Be the personality you want to be, and be true to yourself. And if you don’t fit into a clean-cut category, then you might just be an omnivert. | https://medium.com/@chadqbrown/that-depends-are-you-an-omnivert-558f541a1bb2 | ['Chad Q Brown'] | 2019-09-13 18:34:00.254000+00:00 | ['Behavior', 'Disc', 'Personality', 'Introvert', 'Extrovert'] |
Why code on Python using Virtual Environments? | Python has now been widely adopted for everything ranging from first language to introduce a student to the world of coding to develop the logic for real-time deep learning software for self-driving cars.
But still many of them don’t have a clear idea how to actually start with working on a Python project. Some use PyCharm IDE for first project which confuses many rookie coders as they get overwhelmed by the huge amount of advanced options and settings available so as to get started with a project. Let me try to make those section of people clear on how to proceed.
First off: Kindly install Micrsoft VSCode editor which is currently world’s most used lightweight editor.
So you might be knowing every Python project requires some additional libraries to be imported like numpy, pytorch, scipy, etc. But the biggest mistake we often do is perform a pip install in the global installation of python in our laptop.
Every python project should be started with creation of a Virtual Environment (more commonly venv) which would maintain the requirements of project
Next what we usually do is that just “pip install” bunch of libraries for our next project and loose track of what all we need once the project needs to scale up. That’s because the project was not initialized in a virtual environment!
Why we need a virtual environment?
The purpose of a virtual environment is to have a space we can install the packages that are specific to a certain project. Like for example — let’s say you have lot of Django sites which use Django ver 1, but now for newer projects you want to make use of Django ver 2.
Well then if you are just using a single global environment for all projects then when you update the Django package, it might break many of the old projects which would become incompatible with the newer version. Hence we don’t want all our Django projects pointing towards a single package. So each project should have it’s own packages seperated from each other such that we don’t end up breaking old code base.
Also having a separate environment for each project is easier to manage and maintain it’s dependencies. So lets get started!
First let me show you the list of modules that I have in the global installation of python:
Now I will navigate to my destop where I have my Project folder inside which we will make our virtual environment.
We will use the following command to create a virtual environment:
python -m venv <your virtual env name>
I have created environment with folder name “.venv”. This is a common nomenclature used by developers (some even go with simply “venv”).
Remember to be able to execute this command, you need to first “cd” to the root directory of your project folder.
Now to activate this newly created environment we will use the following command in powershell:
.venv\Scripts\activate.bat
So now we can see the environment name (.venv) appears in the beginning. This means you have successfully activated you first virtual environment. So now when you install some packages (pip install) here, you will only be installing for this particular environment.
For example I want to install 2 python packages name numpy and scipy, as I will be doing a machine learning project here then I will simply use the command:
pip install numpy pip install scipy
Thus we installed numpy and scipy only to our environment, isolated from rest of my projects and even the global installation of python.
Moreover if we want to export the project, using virtual environment has another feature where you can auto generate a requirements.txt file which other developers can use while cloning your project and install all of the same packages and dependencies that you were using. So to do that, first we will use:
pip freeze
This will produce a list of installed packages in your evironment, but uses the output which pip install expects. A common developer convention is to put the output in a requirements.txt file using the following the command:
pip freeze > requirements.txt
Now you will see a new txt file is created in your project’s root directory.
Lets see how this virtual environment is selected inside VS Code
By default, the Python extension in VSCode looks for and uses the first Python interpreter it finds in the system path.
To select a specific environment, use the Python: Select Interpreter command from the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P).
Here we can see multiple global instances of Python alongside the “env” folder which the VSCode automatically found inside the project root directory.
The requirements.txt can then be committed to version control and shipped as part of an application. Users can then install all the necessary packages with install -r
Now we know — how to create virtual environment, how to export it to a requirements text file, let’s see how we would use this requirements.txt file to install all the dependencies while cloning someone’s project.
So the initial steps remain the same i.e, after cloning the project to your machine, you create a virtual environment in the root folder of project after which you will activate the virtual environment. Next you execute the following command:
pip install -r requirements.txt
So finally we have learnt how to create virtual environments, export the packages to requirements.txt and finally how to install someone’s project dependencies too. | https://medium.com/quick-code/why-code-on-python-using-virtual-environments-6f1bb327a84e | ['Madhuresh Gupta'] | 2020-05-28 02:20:06.481000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Stay Home Stay Safe', 'Work From Home'] |
📊 billboard.js 1.12.0 release: Multi type gauge, new focused y grid line, Bubble Compare plugin & more! | Really excited to share the first new release of 2020! 🎉🎊
This release comes with 12 new features added & 19 bug fixes.
For the detailed release info, please checkout the release note:
https://github.com/naver/billboard.js/releases/tag/1.12.0
What’s New?
Multi type gauge
Prior this update, Gauge only could be represented as single level gauge or stack data similar as Pie.
From this new release, we’re adding one more option for gauge! Each data can be represented as single level gauge, providing an easy way to compare each other.
Multi type Gauge
The usage is really simple as always. Just set gauge.type='multi' and done.
gauge: {
type: "multi",
arcs: {
minWidth: 5
}
}
New focused y grid line
The focused grid line is an indicator guide line to visualize what point of data is shown currently. Basically, this vertical guide line was based on x Axis value.
In most cases, this was okay, but x Axis only based make difficult to recognize y Axis value spontaneously.
To improve this, added new focused y grid line from this release. The new ‘focused y grid line’ will point automatically data bound axis as the below screenshot.
y Grid focus line
To enable, simply set grid.focus.y=true .
grid: {
focus: {
show: true,
y: true,
edge: true. // Show edged focus grid line.
}
}
You can control how focus grid line to be displayed by grid.focus.edge option.
non-edge focus grid line (Left) / edge focus grid line (Right)
Donut/Gauge/Pie expand rate
Now you can control the expansion of the pointed data for donut, gauge and pie types.
Adjustable expand rate for Pie
Adjust the expand rate by setting expand option.
[donut | gauge | pie] : {
expand: {
rate: 1
}
}
axis.x.[min|max].fit
Let’s say you generated a chart with below options, giving min and max value to limit x Axis value.
bb.generate({
data: {
columns: [
["data1", 30, 200, 100, 100, 100],
["data2", 50, 20, 10, 50, 60]
]
},
axis: {
x: {
min: -1,
max: 10
}
}
});
The given axis.x.min/max option, will make a spaced area on left & right side horizontally.
Let/Right padded space
The newly implemented axis.x.min/max.fit option, will make to fit on bound data range.
axis: {
x: {
min: {
fit: true,
value: -1
},
max: {
fit: true,
value: 10
}
}
}
Fitted x Axis padding, according the data boundaries
But, in a case that bound data is greater than the min/max value, it will behave as before.
axis: {
x: {
min: {
fit: true,
value: 1
},
max: {
fit: true,
value: 3
}
}
}
Limited x Axis based on the min/max setting
New axis.y2.tick.rotate option
The tick.rotate option makes tick texts rotated, useful to represent wide spaced text in limited width size. When axis.rotated=true is set, y and y2 Axes also needed apply rotate options in some circumstances.
From this release, by setting tick.rotate for y or y2 Axes, you can make this happens.
axis: {
// y, y2 axes rotate works only when axis is rotated
rotated: true,
y: {
tick: {
rotate: 50
}
},
y2: {
show: true,
tick: {
rotate: 50
}
},
}
y/y2 Axis tick texts rotate
New axis.[y | y2].tick.stepSize
With the new axis.[y|y2].tick.stepSize , adjusting the intervals of tick values became more easier.
axis: {
y: {
tick: {
stepSize: 33
}
},
y2: {
show: true,
tick: {
stepSize: 20
}
}
}
Given stepSize option, the ticks will be displayed having given intervals.
Stepped y/y2 Axis tick text values
New [bubble | line | scatter].zerobased
New added zerobased option will make y Axis to start from 0, instead giving a padded value(default).
The below screenshot displays the differences between the padded(the first screenshot) and without padding (the second).
without zerobased(first screenshot) & with ‘zerobased=true’ (second screenshot)
The usage is simple and straightforward.
[bubble | line | scatter]: {
zerobased: true
}
New Bubble Compare Plugin
The newly added bubblecompare plugin, will facilitate visually comparing values using bubble type. Comparing data 3-dimensional ways, x axis, y axis & bubble-size.
The demo link, will show a simple comparison of population of each countries using this plugin. Where Value x represent population density, Value y for Area and Value z population.
Bubble Compare plugin in action
The plugin provides three simple options to be configured.
plugins: [
new bb.plugin.bubblecompare({
minR: 11,
maxR: 74,
expandScale: 1.1
}),
]
axis.x.tick.autorotate
According the dimension where chart is displayed, adjusting the full display of the axis tick texts was a challenge. Because of this reason, tick.rotate comes to the rescue.
But, tick texts remains rotated even it has enough space to be shown.
To mitigate this, introduced new axis.x.tick.autorotate option.
x Axis tick text autorotate according its width size
As shown from the above screenshot, the x Axis tick text rotate changes according the size where is displayed.
axis: {
x: {
tick: {
fit: true,
multiline: false,
autorotate: true,
rotate: 15,
culling: false,
count: 10
}
}
}
Changes might you need to know
Tooltip enhancements
a) callback option
Improve tooltip’s on callback options(onshow, onshown, onhide, onhidden) passing the current chart context and current dataset.
tooltip: {
onshow: function(ctx, currentData) {
ctx; // current chart instance
currentData; // current tooltip dataset
/*
[
{x: "2020-01-18T15:00:00.000Z", value: 33103, id: "data1", index: 6, name: "data1"},
...
]*/
}
}
b) positioning
As of pointing rightest data point, if the mouse pointer located near data point, tooltip is appearing over data point. Which makes data point invisible.
From this release, tooltip position will be adjusted for rightest positioned data points to not overlap data points.
c) updates for touch devices
For touch devices, the basic interaction differs as the desktop one.
For desktop environment, to retrieve data values and the tooltip display, it can be done by the mouse moves. But, for touch devices this interaction is done by user touch.
Previously, billboard.js wasn’t maintaining current data point selection when resize(like screen rotation) happens and was a bad user experience.
From this release, the states of the current data point selection will be remained for this usage scenario.
zoom.resetButton.onclick
New callback option, zoom.resetButton.onclick is added. The ‘Reset Zoom’ button is displayed when drag zoom-in is applied.
This new option, simply make a call of function when the ‘Reset Zoom’ button is clicked.
zoom: {
enabled: {
type: "drag"
},
resetButton: {
onclick: function(button) {
button; // Reset button element reference
... }
}
}
Update on axis.y2 domain
Previously, when set to show y2 Axis, the default domain values was [0, 1].
As the below screenshot shows, y2 Axis domain was a meaningless not having any correlation with the data values.
To improve this, if no data is bound to y2 Axis, its domain will defaults to the y Axis domain value.
default y2 Axis domain (Left) / updated y2 Axis domain (Right)
The great Contributors!
This release could be possible because of the hard work of all contributors. Thanks for your support!
‘Multi type gauge’, ‘x axis tick autorotate’ and ‘update on axis.y2 domain’ by https://github.com/michkami
Bubble Compare plugin by https://github.com/jm-chong
And some minor(but also great) contributions from:
https://github.com/zhongdeliu, https://github.com/ECrownofFire
What’s Next?
We’re working very hardly for the next major v2 version. You can find its early implementation from:
Main Goals of v2 are:
Move codebase to TypeScript
Restructure of file system & class architecture
Make smaller build & run faster
Do not break backward compatibility
We won’t providing a due date for this, but we’re planning to release within 2~3Q of this year.
As always, thanks for all contributors and all users!
Stay well and healthy until the next release. | https://medium.com/@netil/billboard-js-692f4db55b0b | ['Jae Sung Park'] | 2020-03-24 06:17:27.589000+00:00 | ['D3js', 'https://github.com/naver/billboard.js/releases/tag/1.12.0', 'JavaScript', 'Chart', 'Data Visualization'] |
10 Conceptual Differences Between Anaplan and Excel | Did you get a chance to watch the introduction to advertisement (1992) -when MS Excel was first launched? If so, you will remember the iconic sentence ”My spreadsheet doesn’t do that’’ spoken to compare the old-fashioned spreadsheets with MS Excel. (if you haven’t seen it, highly recommend you to watch it to see how feels like it was a hundred ages ago when really it was 3 decades ago)
There is no doubt that MS Excel is the most common spreadsheet of all time. But after building several projects via Anaplan, to my surprise, I have found myself saying “My MS Excel doesn’t do that.”
In my words, Anaplan is a cloud-based platform that provides detailed hyper-scale models to get fast, accurate, synced data for budgeting, planning, forecasting to solve business problems and to get the best financial analysis insights by providing eye-catching and highly effective UX pages.
Let’s take a look together at why I enjoy my Anaplan experience by explaining In 10 steps of Conceptual Differences between Anaplan and MS Excel.
1. Power of Calculation
At first glance, the power of calculation is the most remarkable feature of Anaplan. If you have experience with Excel, it’s no secret that it doesn’t do well with a large number of rows including complex formulas. But Anaplan’s hyper-scaling with CPU cores can compute millions of rows in a split second. Anaplan can incorporate sophisticated coding quickly because its technology applies the code to only related cells among multidimensional models.
2. Cloud-Based Structure
If you are using Office 365 Cloud, you can run your Excel spreadsheet on your local machine and synchronously store it to the cloud driver. However, there is a high possibility of outages in the case of complexity. Excel online provides only light editing options with regards to the desktop version of Excel on Windows.
On the other hand, Anaplan has cloud architecture with in-memory processing. Without scaling issues, you can process millions of rows directly in the cloud. Anaplan cloud also supports application lifecycle management (ALM). Thanks to ALM, we can separate the production and development phases of the application and associated duties, roles, and functions. Also, you may review the changes later because the previous version is held in the cloud too.
3. Multi-User Collaborative Environment
The cloud-based structure, also allows for multi-user collaboration. Spreadsheets in general are designed for single-user applications. Anaplan models can be built by different users added by the workspace administrators. This structure maintains simultaneous visibility with partners worldwide.
Also, thanks to dynamic UX pages, end users can add new data to the model using import actions or allow editing. It enables the team members to join the planning implementation effectively. Multiple users can execute the process from budgeting to forecasting by commenting or edit it at the same time.
Thanks to the user-friendly concept of dimensionality, team members do not have to be programmers in order to cooperate on the model. This feature enhances the collaboration and speed of performance by eliminating communication inertia.
4. Surveillance (Selective Users/Roles)
The ability to be driven by multi-users may bring about doubts with regards to security and user access level. In Excel, users can reach the main spreadsheet with full access. That increases the risk of errors and security at the same time. However in Anaplan, thanks to flexible permissions, you can protect the data and the process effectively. Anaplan supports different user authorization levels, hence you can assign different roles and grant selective access. Role-based access controls the users by assigning module, version, list, and action permission to the role. User management and selective access in Anaplan provide only authorized users with permitted rights(read/write) to the specific data(modules/line or list items). This tailored limitation ensures the protection of the company data while providing necessary transparency to the relevant individuals.
5. Relational Data (join in SQL)
In MS-Excel it can be hard to connect data from different spreadsheets to each other. You must use some Lookup functions to connect different data from many Excel sources. Or, as another time-saving option, you can write SQL using Power Query. You can use Power Query to build a dynamic SQL statement that will automatically generate all the conditions in the Excel table.
However, in Anaplan you do not need to be a SQL programmer to join modules together. On the contrary, you can fetch and consolidate data from different sources easily. Anaplan uses hyper-block technology which allows the merging of different large data sets at in-memory datastore with a calculation engine. It is like the imaginary cube version(or tensors in deep learning) of the 2 dimensions JOIN function in SQL.
In my opinion, this is the game-changer because such multidimensionality turns the complex market problems into a piece of cake while allowing you to enjoy the performance and the flexibility to reach all data from one formula bar.
6. Nested Data (family child)
MS Excel can’t keep nested or hierarchical data so you can’t calculate a formula that depends on the data’s hierarchy. Let’s look at the hierarchy concept with a geographic region sample:
a city (New York) is a child of a country (USA), which is a child of a region (AMER), which rolls up into a total of the international company. Such as, if you have only country sales data, and you don’t have any hierarchy between country and region, you can’t automatically calculate region scaled sales depending on countries.
This calculation is a real hard problem in MS Excel. Because MS Excel is the 2-dimensional and only way to get into the dimensions is to create a pivot table and those are not that easy to work with.
However, Anaplan technology recognizes the relationship between parent-children data thanks to the concept of dimensionality. That provides a calculation convenience when it comes to decision-making and comparing the totals in regards to their geographic level. Long story short, while looking at the big picture of sales, you can easily track how micro changes affect the macro. Anaplan implements and automatically computes them by rolling up the real-life data.
7. Anaplan Connect API
REST API services are the most common communication technology in the internet world. You can connect different services, data sets, and databases to each other using REST APIs.
Anaplan Connect is an API Client which supports import, export, process, delete or upload metadata functions. Thanks to this command-line interface, manual work is not required for each run. Also, you can schedule the actions that you want to run automatically.
In addition, this Anaplan interface does not require coding a full-scale software application. You can communicate your applications or ERP software to Anaplan API.
Moreover, while using standard Anaplan Connect to perform the mentioned operations, you can use Anaplan Robotic Process Automation Connection(RPA) to automate the security settings for new Import Data Sources.
8. Flexibility — Power Query
Anaplan has a flexible structure that allows you to connect a third-party data integration on a single platform. Anaplan’s expansive network can extend integration capabilities. For example, purpose-built integrations such as Tableau, Power BI, DocuSign are supported by Anaplan interoperability capability. In addition, Anaplan can integrate with data lakes and data warehouses (MuleSoft or Informatica for example) using connectors for ETL and ESB tools.
Even if MS Excel does not have this ability, Anaplan’s flexibility is similar to Microsoft’s Power Query which is a data transformation and data preparation engine. Using Power Query, you can perform the extract, transform, and load (ETL) processing of data. For example, using connectors such as Excel or Anaplan, PQ can transform the data to Power BI.
In summary, we can say that Anaplan’s extensive network includes MS Excel’s spreadsheet functions with Power Query at the same time on a single platform that maintains easy deployment and communication with third-party solutions.
9. Forecasting — PlanIQ
MS Excel has the ability to present statistical calculations with its functions such as QUARTILE.INC, CORREL or STDEV.S. Excel can also compute a data set’s mean, average or standard error of estimate for a regression. But these are far beyond the capability of delivering intelligent and precise forecasts.
By implementing built-in Machine Learning(ML) algorithms, Anaplan provides predictive insights for business decisions. Because market conditions are very dynamic, thus tactical real-time resources are very crucial for actionable planning.
Anaplan uses PlanIQ which produces accurate forecasts using AI and ML. Product managers, sales teams, finance reporters, or humans can use PlanIQ to get info for the projected period. For example, a demand planner can improve top-and bottom-line order volume according to PlanIQ technology by utilizing historical data and customer attitudes. Or, a sales manager can optimize the enterprise strategy thanks to predicted insights regards to different scenarios and commercial periods.
In addition, Anaplan can integrate AWS’s Amazon Forecasting by combining Anaplan’s powerful calculation engine with AWS’s market-leading ML and deep learning algorithms to generate reliable, agile forecasts without requiring expertise from data scientists to configure, deploy and operate(*).
10. UX pages
MS Excel can create different charts utilizing rows and columns and present data visualization such as pie charts or scatter plots.
Anaplan UX pages perform above and beyond as a data visualization tool by providing collaborative agile planning. The models can be personalized with key performance metrics and reports at any time by pivoting or filtering. The ability to change the dimensions allows controlling the time and the periods to be focused.
End-users have the ability to add new data or import files to participate in the planning process. The users can be limited in accordance with their regions or work scope through pages. UX pages are also deployed from desktops, tablets, or mobile apps.
Moreover, with a new update to UX pages, Anaplan now provides management reporting that seems like a PowerPoint document with dynamic and interactive slides. This feature can help create visual narratives for business leaders to understand key data and drive confident decisions.
These are the 10 differences I recognized as an Anaplan Model Builder and an experienced MS Excel user. Hopefully, synchronizing the more partners experience this powerful platform, the more organizations find effective solutions and have enjoyed its benefits. | https://medium.com/@v4.1data/in-10-steps-conceptual-differences-between-anaplan-vs-excel-e934dd0a85da | ['Vera Guzelsoy'] | 2021-09-10 15:46:02.085000+00:00 | ['API', 'Connection', 'Planning', 'Excel', 'Anaplan'] |
A-Z Clustering. | First let’s start with K-means Clustering, The Widely used isn’t it?
What is clustering? Clustering is a process of grouping set of observations that the same group are similar to each other than to those of others within large population. Example Types of car sub, sedan, sports, economic etc.
Steps for performing clustering.
1st determine the number of clusters i.e. Values of ‘K’
2nd now the algorithm will assign the observations/clusters to the seeds based on their close proximity.
Now how the algorithm will decide which observation is closed to which seed either the left or right seed?
3rd for that draw a perpendicular bisector between the lines from the mid-point.
So any point to the left is closer to seed1(cluster) & any point to the right is closer to seed 2 (cluster)
Similarly when we draw a perpendicular() to seed 3 and any point to the above is closer to seed 3 & any point to the below is closer to seed 1
4th and the algorithm will create groups i.e. the clusters. But how we know these are the most optimal clusters based on the seeds. It calculates the centroid of these clusters i.e. mid-points which is calculated by averaging the midpoints of each clusters. This is how K-means of clustering technique works.
3 Methods to calculate the distance
1.) Single Linkage: The distance between 2 clusters is determined by the distance betweent eh closet members of those 2 clusters.
2.) Complete Linkage: in complete linkage the distance is given by the most distant between the closet members of the 2 clusters.
3.) Centroid Linkage: in centroid linkage the distance between centroids that is the mid-points of the clusters is used to determine the distance between clusters.
Data Preparation for clustering
Scaling: is a concept of bringing together different measures of variables into a one uniform scale of measure. In other words maintaining a uniform identity to understand the variance between them.
Because the algorithm will think it a variance rather than a different scale of measure. So in order to do effective clustering we need to adjust the variable to a common scale
= Scaled between (0–1)
4 Methods of Scaling
Divide each variable by the range after subtracting the lowest Example: Machinery Highest = 93
Lowest = 12
Range = 93–12 = 81
Divide each variable by the range after subtracting the lowest
=> 12–12/81=0.0 => 46–12/81=34/81=0.41
2. Divide each variable by the mean of the variable Example: Machinery Mean= 50.33
=> 12/50.33= 0.28
=> 46/50.33= 0.91
3. Normalization / Z scoring of variables (commonly used appropriate method)
— Subtract mean from each variable then divide by standard deviation Example: Machinery
Variable1 — mean/standard deviation=12–50.33/40.67 = -0.94
Variable1 — mean/standard deviation=46–50.33/40.67 = -0.11
Weighing: concept of adjusting the values of the variable as per their relative importance.
Frist step before weighing is to scale all the variables & standardize them. Now we can tell the algorithm which variables are more important than the others.
For example if we assign a weight of 2 to a variable product category after having them in a common scale then we will just multiply X-times ( like multiplied by 3) in order generate a new weighted variable.
4. Others: There are many other ways to scale the data without disturbing the variance, once such is Logarithm by converting the values in log which also ranges from 0 to 1
Don‟t worry we won‟t be manually calculating each of them instead we will use functions that will do the scaling for us.
Handling Categorical Data
Clustering algorithms can handle continuous data.
B ut what if it contains Categorical Data Types like
Nominal (no order)
Furniture A VS Furniture B
High vs Med vs Low
Ordinal
Tea VS Coffee Rating: 1 to 5, Yes vs No
So the easiest way to solve this is to create Binary Variables
Binary Variables are also a type of Categorical Variables but it is in 0,1binary format. Therefore it can handled by clustering algorithm.
Evaluating Clusters
Difference in Centroid Average distance between the cluster centroids divided by the average distance between the members and the cluster centroid 2. Profiling Clusters Profiling is an another way to identify each clusters & why it is different the rest. For example take the mean of each variable within the cluster & compare it to the mean of the same variable of the population. Here too i will show you an another way to evaluate the clusters using special packages and functions.
Since there is no target variable in clustering it can be highly used to identify hidden patterns in the data without any hypothesis. It can also be categorized as Unsupervised Machine Learning
Some of the few use cases of clustering are Segmentation like Customer, Product Segmentation, Outlier Detection or Fraud Detection or Improving performance of the other techniques by segmenting the data into smaller groups
Improving Clusters: in case if we have one or few strong clusters, remove the strong cluster and recalculate the cluster from the remaining to detect new clusters. | https://medium.com/data2dimensions-rupak-bob-roy/a-z-clustering-b1e37b67591b | ['Bob Rupak Roy'] | 2020-11-19 04:09:37.537000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Clustering', 'Advanced Analytics', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Mining'] |
Transformation and the Network Economy | By: Jayden Stewart
We get asked one question here a lot at TribalScale, and that is why are we so willing to hand over the secrets of our success in transformation engagements?
It’s true that our biggest assets are our people and our processes. And it’s also true that we use these things to their fullest potential in transformations, where we embed ourselves within our client’s organization and teach them to use Agile methodologies, and empower them to develop high-quality software independently.
But it’s not true that sharing our biggest assets with others weakens us in the long run, in fact, the opposite is the case, and I’ll tell you why.
In the past, it was possible, and the norm, for enterprises to create value entirely within themselves: New products and new ideas could be created by the people, processes, and property of one organization, and ownership and revenue would reflect this.
In the internet age, this is no longer the case. The dramatic rise in the number of connected devices has created an equally dramatic reduction in costs for gathering and sharing information; and the more easily information can be shared, the more pressure there is to do so.
The new possibilities for collecting information have allowed consumers to make their preferences known like never before, opening up new choices and therefore new spaces for companies to compete. This has driven power away from producers and into the hands of consumers.
The result is that organizations must now share information in order to remain competitive. New market forces have compelled companies to collaborate and the spread of networks, both collaborative networks and the networks of connected devices that power them, has been truly global.
These networks add an immense amount of value to our economy as the products and services that are created through them are far better than what any one company could achieve on its own.
This is known as the ‘network economy.’
Forbes’ Greg Satell put it this way:
“The reality that we need to grapple with now is that competitive advantage is no longer the sum of all efficiencies but the sum of all connections. To win in today’s connected economy, you need to deepen and widen networks.”
When we conduct transformation engagements, we arm enterprises with the skills, tools, and processes needed to build modern, user-centric, cloud-based software; but just as importantly, we help build a network of smart, creative people who are empowered to build better products for end-users.
We can’t speak for any other companies out there, but we think the movement of power from businesses to users is a great thing. It means that the economy is moving towards a function of improving lives, rather than filling pockets, and that we as people get to work on projects that add value to people’s lives.
It also means that as we expand our network through transformation engagements, through every engagement in fact, we grow our ability to create meaningful digital experiences. We couldn’t be more excited to keep doing exactly that. | https://medium.com/tribalscale/transformation-and-the-network-economy-159583f0cb22 | ['Tribalscale Inc.'] | 2019-08-19 20:46:45.344000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Network Economy', 'Thought Leadership', 'Transformation', 'Digital Transformation'] |
Never Give Up Without A Fight | Never Give Up Without A Fight
The day I stepped away from writing (this would be almost 7 years ago) it was with the deliberate intention of never putting another word on paper.
Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash
I was fed up with the stops and starts, the mixed advice, the ‘almost were’ projects, the half-finished manuscripts and my own sense of ennui. It felt like there was never enough time to write. And the worst part was — I convinced myself that writing was a frivolous waste of the time.
Somehow I got the idea I should spend every waking moment building servers or learning Cisco networking or studying for certification tests or, well, anything other than writing. Doing those tasks was more ‘real’ than writing could ever be…
It was a difficult and fairly negative time for me. I’ve read enough from other writers to know that many of us have gone through even worse while building their careers. I mean, let’s be honest, there are more reasons not to write than there are reasons to write.
Most ‘reasons’ are excuses. Some are legit.
A legitimate reason would be losing a job or a true family crisis. My experience tells me anything else is doubt masquerading as purpose.
I learned the hard way that if you’re meant to write the stress of avoiding or ignoring it will eat you alive.
How did I get over myself?
For years I ignored my feelings. I told myself all kinds of stories about how it didn’t matter if I wrote or not. I reasoned that no one was waiting for anything I’d produce anyway.
The vast emptiness that sometimes overwhelmed me HAD to have some other source, right? It sure as hell couldn’t be happening because I wasn’t putting words on paper. That was too silly to consider.
I believe I’ve mentioned before that depression is an issue for me. I assumed the emptiness was just another bout with my old enemy. It took a while to comprehend that not writing removed one of my coping mechanisms.
The printed word (reading and writing) helped me fight back.
In a way, at least for me, writing is medicine. Every time I forget that I suffer.
Since I’m stubborn, realizing the issue and then doing something about it was a real battle. The person I’d asked to be my mentor bailed on me. No one offered encouragement or even noticed. That meant it was my problem to solve.
I was forced to take a hard look at why I loved writing so much. I also had to overcome the internal argument that writing was a stupid waste of time.
Pro tip #1 — You can only ignore your feelings for so long. Eventually your body will get fed up with the lies and do something nasty to you to get your attention.
I won’t go into what happened, but trust and believe my body’s response got my attention in a major way. It was time to get my shit together.
I made a deal with myself which went a little like this — Produce just one book this year, get it published and into the hands of at least one reader. If I can do that then I’ve proven writing isn’t a waste of time. I also promised that if I kept hemming and hawing and produced nothing in that year, I would drop this forever and do something else.
I am often scattershot in my approach to solving my own problems. I tried meditating on my own. I tried writing random pieces and creating a daily journal. I tried joining writing groups. I tried getting help from other writers I knew.
I didn’t start to get any traction until I found some things on YouTube that resonated.
Remember, I was searching for a type of internal approval. My struggle was more than just the mechanics of crafting stories and books. I needed to feel that it was ‘okay’ for me to write!
Pro tip #2 — All of the pie in the sky motivational BS on the planet means nothing if YOU don’t believe in your own dream.
It took a while but I finally found a few videos that sunk in and felt right. One of the first was a video featuring Les Brown, Eric Thomas, Will Smith and some others. The link to the video is right here. The other one featured a speech from Sly Stallone and that link is here.
Why these two videos?
I wish I had a single coherent answer for you, I really do. Something about them struck a deep chord.
I watched them twice a day that first year. When I woke up and right before I went to bed.
Finally it sank in.
The message was clear — NEVER GIVE UP WITHOUT A FIGHT. The words and energy were correct. I’ve always loved Les Brown and Eric Thomas. I didn’t know Will Smith was doing motivational stuff but his words were awesome too.
So I listened to them every day and after a while I took small actions every day.
I spent time on my rebounder. I walked until the sweat stung my eyes. I started doing morning pages again. I wrote and published two books instead of one. I even sold some…
Going through all that gave me back the one thing I was missing — my own approval.
I still listen to them now several years later. Give them a try and see what you think.
Never give up without a fight!
Struggling with feelings is natural for creatives. Every one of us go through it once or a hundred times. Following your heart is difficult every time. If you’re brave enough it’s worth the effort.
Feel like you’re at a crossroads on your own journey?
I wish I had all the answers for you but I’m only one person. All I can do make suggestions. Like Morpheus said — “I can only show you the door; you’re the one who has to walk through.”
What do I suggest?
Before you decide you’re done with your dream, give it one last honest try.
Finish that book (novel, poem, screenplay, article) this year. Spend time crafting several short stories, participate in NANOWRIMO next November. Make friends with another writer. DO something.
Write something that matters to you. Work hard to keep your internal editor and self-limiting detractors at bay. Keep in mind YouTube can be your friend…
Write to please yourself. If you can do that and have fun with it, you may puncture your own doubt.
Should you choose to quit that’s fine. Put it down, walk away and turn your energy to something that matters to you.
You must be clear though. Have you actually tried or did you just give up? Don’t sell yourself short, that way lies madness. Also, never give up on being creative out of fear of how someone else might view you.
And for God’s sake don’t give up on writing because you feel that it’s a waste of time.
Even if you only ever write for yourself, that’s worth the effort right there.
Good Luck!
Peace
You just read another exciting post from the Book Mechanic: the writer’s source for creating books that work and selling those books once they’re written.
If you’d like to read more stories just like this one tap here to visit | https://medium.com/the-book-mechanic/never-give-up-without-a-fight-aa8e7a530dce | ['Ronn Hanley'] | 2020-04-17 17:30:00.773000+00:00 | ['Keep Going', 'Perserverance', 'Trust', 'Writing Advice', 'Writing'] |
Fear. | Written by
I’m an award-winning comic artist, writer and graphic recorder. All words + images © Sarah Firth. Contact me www.sarahthefirth if you want to use them. | https://sarahthefirth.medium.com/fear-99cd5d7996e1 | ['Sarah Firth'] | 2020-03-15 09:11:10.484000+00:00 | ['Personal Development', 'Personal', 'Transformation', 'Psychology', 'Healing'] |
Stock Market Visualizations | I miss the old Map of the Market which was online since 1998 and was one of the first visualizations on the web.
This was long my go to site for a quick update on how the market was doing. Who is up, who is down, and why? It seems SmartMoney has sold out and removed it. Perhaps after 15 years, and since it was build with Flash, the time had come.
That left me looking around for a replacement. I found this one at FinViz
Each square is sized according to its market capitalization (the relative cost to buy every share at its current price). As you can see, you can buy about 2 Googles or 3 ExxonMobiles for the price of 1 Apple. When you see the market like this you get a sense of how big (or over/under valued) some of these stocks might be. Another cool feature of this chart is the Bubble view:
This shows how far from the pack Apple is. When you zoom out to see more of the world you can see how big the stock market has become.
What I was interested in is the Health Care sector which as you can see is bigger than Industrial Goods (the so called Military Industrial complex), and bigger than “Big Oil”
Below is a screenshot from the desktop tool StockTouch which, by the way, I discovered when it was an editors choice in the Apple App Store. It has a good interface to drill deep and read the news, but the one thing I miss about the original is how it showed the relative size of each industry and stock. This chart treats them all as equals (if they make it into the top 100 that is). I would not recommend this for OS X — it worked fine on the iPad. | https://medium.com/ben-shoemate/stock-market-visualizations-429c21ad9bb8 | ['Ben Shoemate'] | 2016-12-18 21:00:19.177000+00:00 | ['Visualization', 'Web Design'] |
Do #BlackLivesMatter to the fashion industry? | The social movement has exposed a raft of issues amongst the fash pack — but if we look deeper, we’ll find they were always there.
The spotlight has shone on the fashion industry this past week. (Photo: Unsplash)
The past two weeks have been filled with images of worldwide #BLM protests, questionable op-eds, and a disappointing number of new revelations within the fashion industry.
It was almost farcical in its recipe: a black Instagram tile, followed by accusations of racist behaviour in the comments, followed by a mea culpa, followed by a resignation. Over and over again.
So will these ‘realisations’ — only ‘realised’ once they have been called out publicly — really change anything? First, let’s take a look at just some of the biggest #BLM revelations this past week.
Man Repeller
This week’s most prominent accusation landed in the lap of Man Repeller founder, Leandra Cohen (nee Medine). After posting a vague open letter about how she could create “a sustained impact in the fight to eradicate systemic racism”, the accusations flooded in — from past employees and interns alike.
Then, a second open letter appeared, in which Cohen suggested she was “humbled by the depth of wisdom on display” — but apparently not humbled enough to bother actively working on her own shortcomings. She instead announced that she had stepped down from the top job.
I was openly critical of Cohen’s decision to step down in an op-ed I penned this week, suggesting that her solution of running away from the problem might just be the opposite action that Man Repeller (and, in fact, Cohen) needs.
Ironic, then, that Man Repeller posted this as their first reference to George Floyd, before the shit hit the fan:
Refinery29
Another seemingly-progressive media outlet took a hit last week, in the form of Refinery29’s top editor, Christene Barberich. The co-founder and global editor-in-chief was accused of “racist aggressions”, underpaying Black staff, and a general lack of diversity.
Her response detailed her plan to “make room” for others by stepping down from the top job.
“I will be stepping aside in my role at R29 to help diversify our leadership in editorial and ensure this brand and the people it touches can spark a new defining chapter,” said Barberich on her latest Instagram post.
“It’s time for a new generation of leadership that’s truly reflective of the diversity of our audience with divergent points of view, one that builds and expands on our original mission to amplify and celebrate a wide range of voices, perspectives, and stories…stories that need and deserve to be told.”
Vogue
As we continue with the publishing theme, Diet Prada has also shared accusations levelled at Vogue from many ex-employees, including Vogue ex-media planner Shelby Ivey Christie.
“ ‘A white male exec on the digital biz team dressed up in a chicken suit, with gold chains, sagging pants + rapped to our entire biz org as a meeting “kickoff” ’, said one tweet. HR was alerted, but nothing was done.”
So far, I haven’t seen a response from the media company, or Anna Wintour herself — although they have been posting #BLM content and coverage all week.
Zimmermann
Also shared by Diet Prada this week was a post detailing a leaked set of ‘grooming standards’ for Zimmermann employees — some of which included the requirement that hair was to be “blow dried straight” and should contain no “plaits, braids”. Clearly the standards were created with non-POC hair in mind.
There were also allegations from former US interns Maci Marie Bourgeois and Desiree Celestin, as well as a Black model hired for a photoshoot, that disparaging comments had been made about their hair.
The Aussie fashion brand responded to enquiries from Fairfax journalist Benjamen Judd, saying of the model-related allegations that “management had been made aware of an incident in early 2019 and the contractor who made the remarks was immediately terminated.”
They also shared a post to Instagram, saying: “As founders, the realisation that our company has let people down, especially women of colour, is an urgent call to action... We apologise to all those that have been hurt by our failure to adequately protect against discrimination and are truly sorry that we have not lived up to these expectations.”
Anthropologie, Celine, Reformation, L’Oreal
There are almost too many more to dive into in this article, but a further four companies are worth mentioning — also uncovered by Instagram watchdog Diet Prada.
Anthropologie have been accused of racist profiling, allegedly using a ‘nickname’ for profiling Black customers in-store. The company rigorously denied the accusations in an Instagram post on their profile.
Celine posted a #BLM black tile, only to be called out in their comments by celebrity stylist Jason Bolden. “Wait really,” he said in his comment under their post, “u guys dnt dress any black celebs unless they have a white stylist @celine 🤷🏾♂️✊🏾🧐 FACTS [sic].”
Cult brand Reformation has also fallen victim to their own blind spots, being called out for hypocrisy after posting some light #BLM content and donation links. Amongst allegations of being held back for a promotion, former employee Elle Santiago also detailed her first Black History Month at the brand, where a now-VP posted photos eating fried chicken, captioned “Happy Black History Month!”
The brand shared a video stating they are ‘making changes… starting now’.
Meanwhile, L’Oreal was haunted last week by their prior decision to dismiss transgender Black model Munroe Bergdorf. Bergdorf alleges that she was fired due to sharing anti-white supremacy posts on her social media, and after asking for a public apology was ignored by the brand.
You can see Diet Prada’s posts, and more details, here: Anthropologie, Celine, Reformation, L’Oreal.
Gucci
I’ll end on this one, only because it kind of answers my initial question: Will these ‘realisations’ really change anything? My answer is maybe in the short term, but also probably not. And Gucci is why.
Having being called out several times for racist imagery and appropriation in the past (see their ‘blackface sweater’ and ‘sikh turban’ gaffes here), the brand posted a regram of @ cleowade’s #BLM commentary. It was about as lazy as the appropriated designs they have repeatedly doled out.
If a huge brand like Gucci can’t even be bothered to allocate time for creative and marketing professionals to cobble together a campaign representing their position on such an important issue, how are we meant to believe that they actually give a shit?
So… do all these resignations mean that change is coming?
For those who think that this latest raft of resignations is ‘something new’ in the fashion industry, I have bad news: this has been going on for years. Until we see these people replaced by POC voices — diverse voices that truly wield enough power to make the structural and cultural changes needed within a broken company to reform it, top to bottom — we’ll just get more of the same.
Another empty black tile, another allegation, another resignation.
Change — true, meaningful change — must come from within. So now we have to work out how to get those voices to the table. And I sure as hell know a black tile on Instagram ain’t gonna cut it. | https://medium.com/the-style-list/this-week-in-fashion-do-blacklivesmatter-to-the-fashion-industry-4dcfe9ee6dc4 | ["Bianca O'Neill"] | 2020-11-24 21:30:22.421000+00:00 | ['BlackLivesMatter', 'Beauty', 'Fashion', 'Racism', 'Activism'] |
My Best Online Dating Horror Stories | My Best Online Dating Horror Stories
The most popular of my Cupid Tinder Match series
Katie Dutch — used with permission
You’ve laughed, you’ve cried, you’ve thrown things at the wall in solidarity with me over the myriad heinous online dating horror stories from my indentured servitude wading through the Bog of Eternal Stench that is OKCupid and Tinder.
I’m finally off the market! And it’s my two year anniversary of writing on Medium. To celebrate, I’ve rounded up the top ten most popular Cupid Tinder Match stories for your reading pleasure.
Please enjoy getting frustrated, bewildered, shocked, and angry with me all over again!
1. Mr. Impatient
2. Are You Ready For Some Football?
3. The Comedian
4. Is That Code?
5. French Guy in LA
6. Bakersfield
7. They’re Not ALL Terrible Stories
8. Definitely a Professional
9. Indirect Pass
10. Cause of Death: Boredom | https://medium.com/digital-dating-for-dummies/my-best-online-dating-horror-stories-a2a6580b9d23 | ['Niki Marinis'] | 2019-04-05 19:27:49.569000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Online Dating', 'Dating', 'Relationships', 'Life'] |
An introduction to coaching | Grow Model
The Grow model is often used in coaching and can help structure questions to help the individual work out how to solve their problem.
Goal — what do you want to achieve
Realistic — is it realistic?
Options — what are the potential options
Will — the will to see it through.
The GROW model was influenced by what’s known as the ‘Inner Game’ method, developed by Timothy Gallwey, to help tennis players improve their game. By just giving simple instructions on what the player needed to improve didn’t provide long lasting results, but, by asking them questions that led them to figure out what they needed to change, made for a longer term reward. For example instead of saying ‘You need to watch the ball more’ he asked them to shout out loud whenever the ball hit the ground and again when they had hit it. This way they had to actively ‘keep an eye on the ball’.
If you’re new to coaching it can take a lot of restraint to not to jump in and provide an answer upfront, so here are some useful coaching questions to get you started.
Goal Setting and Realistic
1. What outcome are you looking for?
2. What would you change?
3. What concerns do you have?
4. Can you actually change anything?
5. Are you relying on others for this change?
6. What’s the impact if you do nothing?
Options
1. What could you do?
2. Are there any downsides to that approach?
3. Are there any other options?
Willingness
1. How will you go forward?
2. What roadblocks do you expect?
3. What do you need to do first?
With these questions you’ll hopefully avoid providing a resolution and help them find their own answer. | https://medium.com/imlouisehowells/an-introduction-to-coaching-263fe254c80b | ['Louise Howells'] | 2019-03-03 09:45:23.356000+00:00 | ['Coaching', 'Mentorship', 'Leadership', 'Self Improvement', 'Coach'] |
MongoDB vs SQL: the View on the Question from 4 Sides | 1. Back-end
Readability
NoSQL is human-readable. If you see some complex SQL query, then you should sit and wait until you finally get what it does. In case of huge queries on dozens of lines, this starts to be insanely long. +3 to MongoDB
Debugging
NoSQL is developer-friendly and is easy to debug. If you write some complex query on SQL, then there is no way to debug it as easily as it is done using MongoDB when you get some strange error. But if you don’t have many JOIN operations, then it is not such hard to debug.
+2 to MongoDB
The complexity of databases and normalization
The question of the presence of many JOIN operations gets us to the problem “to normalize or not to normalize”. If your tables are too normalized, then there are many JOIN operations, which costs too much and cannot be debugged in an easy way.
Normalization typically decreases the size of the database It is WAY HARD to debug normalized database, as there are many JOIN operations JOIN operations cost a lot in terms of performance, that is why normalization is not so good sometimes
There is a special term called denormalization: reduction of the database to making I/O operations quicker by adding some extra data to tables.
I would prefer the compromise and medium normalization in the case of SQL, which also leads to increased debugging latency.
The same problem could happen with Mongo, as its documents are stored in collections. To request some additional information, we should request another collection. But typically developers use normalized collections in the case of Mongo.
So it is just 0
Vulnerabilities
NoSQL does not allow SQL Injections to pass, and SQL Injections are very, very dangerous: it is one of the most popular answers on “Why is my website cracked”.
Let me give an example: you have a search field on your side. When a user types something there, then you get the contents of this input and send it to the server, where the following SQL query is executed:
const query = `SELECT * FROM database WHERE name=${input};`;
Now imagine that the “input” is the following one:
const input = "'; DELETE * FROM database"
Do you see? Your database is now void!
NoSQL does not allow it to happen, as it just does not have such a problem of queries. You don’t have to check if the user wants to drop your database each time you execute a query. +3 to MongoDB
Implementing new features
It is hard to implement new features and change types and schemes of data on SQL. You should do migration, then perform migration tests, which is a lot of headache.
Using MongoDB you can do it without any problem, as it does not require even writing migrations.
3 to MongoDB | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/mongodb-vs-sql-the-view-on-the-question-from-4-sides-d753082a97fb | ['Denis Shilov'] | 2020-12-22 16:31:51.675000+00:00 | ['Relational Databases', 'Backend', 'Data', 'Mongodb', 'MySQL'] |
The First Ad in Human History | The First Ad in Human History
From a long, long, long time ago
Source: Pic by Riccardo Resciani
Today, advertising is a trillion-dollar industry. Commercials are everywhere. You literally can’t escape them.
Before long, we’ll have to wait to skip an ad before opening our physical mailbox.
Advertising has always been around. But mass advertising didn’t become the norm until the mid 19th century, when you saw a sophistication of the process, with ads routinely appearing in newspapers and magazines.
1898 Horse Ad Haggerty
A hundred years prior, in Japan, written ads were common. You saw large banners promoting different products in markets.
During the keto area, there were frequent ads for their medicinal practices.
Kinseitan Medicine ad from Tokyo in 1806. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Sliding back another 500 years, we get to the Middle Ages.
Most advertising consisted of simple words describing what that place did: “butcher,” “blacksmith,” “tailor.”
Or it would simply display a symbol that represented what service the establishment provided. Illiteracy rates were high during this era and thus businesses had to adapt.
A render of common medieval advertising — this one a blacksmith. (Image by CGTrader)
Outside of that, word of mouth and town criers were the most common forms of advertising. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/the-first-ad-in-human-history-f9ae6748c73 | ['Sean Kernan'] | 2020-04-27 15:44:25.901000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Life', 'Advertising', 'Humor', 'Business'] |
Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie | This is a great video if you like Stop Motion photography. Nice song, too.
Watching this video, I am impressed with the way they depict her days. The phrase “she fights for her life as she puts on her coat… as she fights for her life on the train” just seems to haunt me… a good example of how we are all living our “normal” lives but all dealing with complex issues…. work, life, love…
Oh, and the “fish” (sock) that taps her on the nose in perfect rhythm to the music is absolutely perfect.
After seeing this, I bought a copy of the song iTunes
.
Oh, looks like you can also get the Her Morning Elegance Video
in iTunes as well. | https://medium.com/connected-well/her-morning-elegance-oren-lavie-d3cff40fed00 | ['Robert Merrill'] | 2016-03-27 20:25:16.385000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Cool', 'Song'] |
Delta Lake in Action: Upsert & Time Travel | How to run Delta Lake with Apache Spark
First things first, to get started with Delta Lake, it needs to be added as a dependency with the Spark application, which can be done like:
For pyspark shell
pyspark --packages io.delta:delta-core_2.11:0.6.1 --conf "spark.sql.extensions=io.delta.sql.DeltaSparkSessionExtension" --conf "spark.sql.catalog.spark_catalog=org.apache.spark.sql.delta.catalog.DeltaCatalog"
As a maven dependency, delta lake can be included as below in pom.xml
<dependency>
<groupId>io.delta</groupId>
<artifactId>delta-core_2.11</artifactId>
<version>0.6.1</version>
</dependency>
Things to note:
Here, 2.11 is the scala version, if working with scala 2.12 change version accordingly.
is the version, if working with scala change version accordingly. 0.6.1 is the Delta Lake version which is the version supported with Spark 2.4.4 .
is the Delta Lake version which is the version supported with . As of 20200905 , latest version of delta lake is 0.7.0 with is supported with Spark 3.0
, latest version of delta lake is with is supported with AWS EMR specific: Do not use delta lake with EMR 5.29.0 , it has known issues. It is recommended to upgrade or downgrade the EMR version to work with Delta Lake.
How to Write data as Delta Table?
Delta lake works with data stored as Delta Tables, so data needs to be written as Delta Table.
To convert existing data to Delta Table, this needs to be done once.
df = spark.read.parquet("path/of/some/data") # Read existing data df.coalesce(5).write.format("delta").save("path/of/some/deltaTable")
To write fresh data as Delta Table
df.coalesce(5).write.format("delta").save("path/of/some/deltaTable")
Things to Note:
When data is saved as a delta table, the path contains _delta_log directory which keeps track of Delta Table metadata.
directory which keeps track of Delta Table metadata. Write DeltaTable partitioned with some column like:
df.coalesce(5).write.partitionBy("country").format("delta").save("path/of/some/deltaTable")
How to read a Delta Table?
As a Spark dataframe:
df = spark.read.format("delta").load("path/of/some/deltaTable")As DeltaTable:
Reading DeltaTable as Spark Dataframe allows all Dataframe operations on the DeltaTable.
As DeltaTable:
deltaTable = DeltaTable.forPath("path/of/some/deltaTable")
Reading data as DeltaTable only supports DeltaTable specific functions. Also, DeltaTable can be converted to DataFrame like:
df = deltaTable.toDF
Upsert with Delta Lake in Apache Spark
UPSERT operation on DeltaTable allows for data updates, which means if DeltaTable can be merged with some new dataset, and on the basis on some join key , data can be inserted on modified in the delta table. This is how Upsert can be done on the DeltaTable:
val todayData = # new data that needs to be written to deltaTable val deltaTable = DeltaTable.forPath("path/of/some/deltaTable") deltaTable.alias("oldData")
.merge(
todayData.alias("newData"),
"oldData.city_id = newData.city_id")
.whenMatched()
.updateAll()
.whenNotMatched()
.insertAll()
.execute()
Seems simple right? That’s it! So what will happen is, rows in todayData with updated information on cities will be modified in deltaTable if the city already exists in deltaTable and if the city doesn’t exist, rows will be inserted in deltaTable , our basic Upsert!
Things to note:
Upsert operation can be modified with the use of partitions, for instance, if a specific partition needs to be merged, it can be specified to optimize merge operation like:
deltaTable.alias("oldData")
.merge(
todayData.alias("newData"),
"(country = 'India') AND oldData.city_id = newData.city_id")
.whenMatched()
.updateAll()
.whenNotMatched()
.insertAll()
.execute()
The operation to perform in case rows match or don’t match in deltaTable with the join key is configurable, refer the documentation for details.
with the join key is configurable, refer the documentation for details. By default, the merge operation will write lots of small files, to control the number of small files, set following spark conf properties accordingly, refer the documentation for details.
spark.delta.merge.repartitionBeforeWrite true
spark.sql.shuffle.partitions 10
After a successful merge operation, a log commit will be created in _delta_log directory, it might be interesting to go through its contents to understand the workings of Delta Lake.
directory, it might be interesting to go through its contents to understand the workings of Delta Lake. Merge only supports one-to-one mapping, i.e. only row should try to update one row in DeltaTable , if multiple rows try to update the same row in DeltaTable , the merge operation fails. Preprocess data to take care of this.
Time Travel with Delta Lake in Apache Spark
Delta Lake enables the capability to go back to previous versions of data, the same can be achieved via specifying which version of data to read as:
df= spark.read.format("delta").option("versionAsOf", 0).load("path/of/some/deltaTable") | https://towardsdatascience.com/delta-lake-in-action-upsert-time-travel-3bad4d50725f | ['Jyoti Dhiman'] | 2020-09-09 17:42:45.814000+00:00 | ['Delta Lake', 'Big Data', 'Data', 'Apache Spark', 'Data Science'] |
TOP 10 REASONS WHY MOST STARTUPS FAIL — BusiAffairs | Why most startups fail is the most well-known inquiry in India. A nation like India has the third-biggest biological system for startups, yet 80–90% of Indian startups fail inside the initial 5 years of their foundation.
We should contemplate why most startups fail to discover achievement with the goal that you will not confront these issues.
It is appropriately said that in any startup if there’s no battle, there’s no advancement. This article will furnish you with a rundown of purposes for the failure of startups.
1.LACK OF MARKET DEMAND
Most startup originators don’t totally understand what their thing might actually achieve keeping watch If the thing fails to energize revenue in light of low market revenue, then, the association will stand up to obliteration.
2.INSUFFICIENT FUNDS
Asset and time are restricted and ought to be assigned wisely. The subject of how is it possible that you would go through your money was a normal issue and defense failure alluded to by startups (29%). In any case, there is no reaction to how much money one prerequisites to spend on the business. Various startups fail as a result of lacking resources. Similarly, various associations fail to raise additional financing.
3.CONFLICT BETWEEN TEAM
The strength of the group is every individual part, the strength of every part is the group. A successful and submitted colleague with various scopes of capacities is essential for the achievement of an association. A group that doesn’t have confidence in their central will reliably achieve anarchy.
4.OVERPRICED PRODUCTS
Valuing should be appropriate according to the thing for the achievement of a startup. If a thing is assessed too expensive, the thing may fail to secure customers to make it productive. It will in general be high only if there is a benefit for the customer and if it looks good.
5.IGNORANCE OF CUSTOMERS NEED
It is principal for a startup to come up with things and plans that customers need. Neglecting their need will simply impact your business. Getting analysis from customers every so often across periods of thing headway and testing doesn’t permit an association to down.
6.GET COMPETITIVE
Despite the sayings that startups shouldn’t zero in on the contention, entirely an idea gets market endorsement, there may be various contenders in a space. Furthermore, remembering that focusing on the challenge isn’t sound, ignoring them was also a recipe for failure in 19% of the startup failures. There should be an amicability between over concern and carelessness.
7.LACK OF INNOVATIVE BUSINESS MODEL
To be viable a startup should be imaginative. Various startups don’t have an interesting business imagined that is risky and by which buyers will be outfitted with better help; when in doubt, most startups are imitating what has been viable elsewhere. Since finance managers aren’t willing to be just comparably inconvenient as those abroad, they’re less disposed to have a business that adds regard and in this manner, attracts financing.
8.POOR MARKETING
Knowing your customers and giving them what precisely they need is an ability of a fruitful business.
The business should focus in on standing apart enough to be seen by customers and changing over them into leads. This is the principle mastery of a productive association.
9.PRODUCT MISTIMED
On the off chance that you release your item too early, it’ll lead to a terrible impact on purchasers additionally it’ll prompt
your misfortune as it were. Moreover, on the off chance that you release your thing too far to turn back, you may
have messed up your open entryway keeping watch. why most startups fail
10.LACK OF PASSION
Various people consider great contemplations nonetheless they don’t uphold the business climate as a result of the shortfall of energy. The shortfall of data on space was a critical clarification behind failure paying little heed to how incredible the idea is. With excitement, it is doable to build a thing and market it adequately.
So here are the 10 reasons why most startups fail. | https://medium.com/@reginaphalange709/top-10-reasons-why-most-startups-fail-busiaffairs-a9d18048f29d | [] | 2021-07-05 17:33:15.772000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Failure Of Startups', 'Business Startup', 'Business'] |
PANEL: Redefining the Role of Data Stewardship and Data Collaboration for COVID-19 | Richard Benjamins (Telefonica), Claudia Juech (Cloudera Foundation), Brennan Lake (Cuebiq) at the 2020 Responsible Data Summit
Data collaboratives are a new form of collaboration, beyond the public-private partnership model, in which participants from different sectors — in particular companies — exchange their data to create public value. This emerging data approach can bring together a wide range of inter-sectoral experience to generate new insights and innovations. However, the success of these arrangements often depends on data stewards — responsible data leaders empowered by their organizations to proactively initiate, facilitate, and coordinate data collaboration.
In a panel published Tuesday for the 2020 Responsible Data Summit, The GovLab’s Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer Stefaan Verhulst spoke with real-world data stewards Claudia Juech (Cloudera Foundation), Richard Benjamins (Telefonica), and Brennan Lake (Cuebiq) about the value of their role. Addressing the renewed need for data amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, they spoke specifically about how they had contributed to the COVID-19 response and recovery effort.
Brennan Lake began the conversation by noting how his organization’s prior experience working on public good issues benefited it during the pandemic.
“I think if we were a company that just solely focused on for-profit models and satisfying private-sector needs, we might have been scrambling to respond to the call and the need for this kind of data but luckily responsible data stewardship is baked into Cuebiq’s DNA.”
He added: “The key ingredient to success was having that network in place and having the infrastructure to be able to share data better in a responsible way with folks we knew would take up the mission in a very action-oriented way.”
Richard Benjamins echoed these points and noted how private-sector organizations can glean lessons from their normal business models.
“When the whole pandemic actually happened, we went proactively to the Spanish government and said, ‘hey, we have nice insights for managing the crisis.’” He noted. “Since then, we’ve been sharing this kind of information through dashboards or executive reports at different levels, just following movements of people across the country.”
Complimenting the anecdotes of the previous two speakers, Claudia Juech noted several major takeaways from her work. First, she said that, as Richard and Brennan indicated, many of the Cloudera Foundation’s grantees had embedded coronavirus-related activities into their data work. Second, she found that many of the criteria for grantees — such as security and governance and data science capacity — continued to be relevant amid the pandemic.
The attendees subsequently expanded on these points and discussed a variety of other issues, including the need to promote long-term sustainability, the value of a community of data stewards, and the importance of engaging with the public on data reuse.
You can watch the full discussion on these points through the video above. | https://medium.com/data-stewards-network/panel-redefining-the-role-of-data-stewardship-and-data-collaboration-for-covid-19-5edcf6aa610f | ['Andrew J. Zahuranec'] | 2020-07-31 19:22:11.030000+00:00 | ['Events', 'Interview', 'Data Collaborative', 'Data Responsibility', 'Data Steward'] |
A Character Has 4 Pivotal Moments To Change In A Movie by Peter Russell | A Character Has 4 Pivotal Moments To Change In A Movie by Peter Russell FilmCourage.com Follow Sep 8, 2018 · 4 min read
Watch the video interview on Youtube here
Film Courage: Can you give me an example of just showing, whether it’s someone waking up in the morning and they have back pain…
Peter Russell, screenwriter and script doctor: Oh yeah…BREAKING BAD, here is this horrible guy, he got rid of his brother-in-law (we didn’t mind seeing him die), but he ends up ruining his family entirely, Jesse, etc. When we first see Walter White, actually we first see him in his underwear in the desert, when we first see him at home waking up, he’s waking up in this awful little bedroom with a terrible nightstand, he’s got this crappy little exercise machine which he gets up on which he’s broken after 10 seconds (one of those step things) and then the camera pans to the wall and we see on the wall that in 1983 Walter White was in line for a Nobel Prize in Physics (Chemistry). Then we go back to him and see he’s dead, something has hurt him. What is it? Well we find out much later what it is, that he was betrayed by his partner, by his love. And then he goes and he slumps down and he is sitting at his breakfast table and it’s his 50th birthday and he gets soy bacon for his birthday. And his wife goes “Eat it! You’ll like it!” And then his son comes out and says “Well, the water heater is not working.” “Well, you’ve got to get up early and be the first in the shower.” “Why can’t we buy a new water heater?” Right? Well, because Walter is a loser, right?
Watch the video interview on Youtube here
Everything about Walter shows us that he’s been horribly wounded by something. What we’re rooting for is for Walter to get better and so when Walter becomes a badass, I don’t know about you but I’m on his side. I know he’s hurting innocent people, I don’t care…”Walter, get ’em, get ‘em! Get that guy!”
So that is a terrible part of the human soul baby. But it’s the device by which we make a character sympathetic is to show their wounds because as human beings we’re not going to be interested in good-looking, perfect people who are making a lot of money and they are great in everything they do. Who gives a crap? We want to see people that we can identify with because that’s not us. We’ve got problems, right? I’ve got problems, right? I want to see my problems and somebody else with problems, dealing with problems, okay?
And you can say Okay a show like RIVERDALE doesn’t do that, but they do. And there’s fantasy shows where that’s not the case. But most of the time you do want to see a wound. That’s what likability really means. “Oh, they’re like me? They’re screwed up. They don’t have it all together. Wish I did. Maybe they’ll get it all together, right?
Film Courage: And then that means “I’ll get it together.”
Peter: Uh-huh. How did they get it together? But mostly it’s just like “Yeah, they’re like me. They’re not perfect, they are like me.”
Film Courage: Well, you’ve been using an acronym for a little bit. And what’s funny is driving over I was looking through the notes and I think that David [Branin] had said off camera that BMOC stands for Big Man On Campus in the basketball world which I was not privy to, I did not know that. For writing what is your take on this acronym?
Peter: Beginning, middle, obstacle and climax. That’s what that stands for. I found this out years ago analyzing all movies that there was an E = mc2 moment for me. There were four crescendos in a movie where the hero is asked to change and asked to learn the theme of the movie and asked to learn how to heal. All the things I talk about, the big things I talk about, healing, learning the theme, stopping bleeding, all that. There’s four times in a movie inevitably that that happens at a crescendo. It’s 30 pages in, 60 pages in, 90 pages in and about a 108 pages in. Those I call the beginning, middle and climax. The BMOC, right? Now that’s a structure that is in every great movie practically that you’ve ever seen. It’s not in a [Jean-Luc] Godard movie, okay. If you’re writing a French Wave movie, I’m sorry I won’t be able to help you. That’s just a French guy peeing in an alley for two hours and that’s great! I love those movies.
But in a Hollywood film that structure is invariably in the story and if it’s not there’s usually something missing. It will be superseded some day but that’s what’s operating now.
That BMOC operates in everything, every movie DUNKIRK, in DEADPOOL, everything. But now in DEADPOOL (let’s just take an example) which is a great movie again I’m big on wounds, right? What’s our wound in DEADPOOL? The guy…well he’s wounded because he’s ugly. He becomes extremely disfigured by a chemical bath right. And because of his wound…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
Watch the video interview on Youtube here
Want more Film Courage videos? Check out new videos 5:00 p.m. daily — subscribe at the main Film Courage Youtube channel. Subscribe to the second Film Courage Youtube channel here… | https://medium.com/film-courage/a-character-has-4-pivotal-moments-to-change-in-a-movie-by-peter-russell-2d026f133662 | [] | 2018-09-08 23:52:35.936000+00:00 | ['Writing Tips', 'Writing', 'Screenwriting', 'Writer', 'Writing Life'] |
Labels are not written | People, a picture book written by Peter Spier, is what changed 7-year-old Mary’s way of making sense of the world around her. When she opened the book, she realized Earth was more than just a sphere. Indeed, it was a place where more than just one language was spoken, more than just one skin color was seen, and more than just one body type was allowed. Without going too far, our school was the ideal representation of diversity.
Mary Nakada is an alumnus who graduated from Roosevelt more than 18 years ago. After four years of college, and seven years of preparation, she came back to work as director of communication here at FDR.
People always say middle school is the period of time when you stop being a kid and become a teen. Mary felt that change as questions and thoughts started to sprout. “Who am I? Am I Peruvian enough? Am I Japanese enough?” She constantly got lost in all those thoughts and the process of getting to know who you are, what you want, and what is your place in this world; for her, this was no easy challenge.
Part of growing up is getting to know who you are. Part of that process includes finding people with similarities who understand you as a person, but as Mary said, “Even though I had a bunch of friends, there were times in where I felt excluded, and it can be very isolating and lonely, but it was because I was forging my own identity so naturally.” Being a teenager is already complicated, but being a teenage girl gets even worse, seeing as we consider every minor inconvenience a huge problem. However, this is why Mary was not a normal teenage girl. Instead of shying away, she used the difference to her advantage. As opposed to the rest, she didn’t complicate herself with if she belonged to this group or to that group, and instead, she let people believe what they wanted to believe. “I’m not an international student, as far as my parents are not coming from outside in, but for other students, I am Japanese too, and also Peruvian. I was in between groups, which for me was a blessing, I was able to be a part of everyone’s group.”
When Mary went into high school, she built new friendship bonds with multiple people who agreed with the idea of expanding the group to people who were different from them. Rather than belonging to the Peruvian, Japanese, or the American “box”, she built her own space, giving every international student and peers the opportunity to have a warm welcome and being friends. “I believe opening up to different cultures was what made my adaptation to University in Ohio so easy”.
Traveling to Ohio to start the new chapter of her life was not a challenge for Mary. When she went to college in the USA, she mentioned that having a similar size campus with small classes facilitated her ability to connect and form a closer relationship with teachers and students. Socializing with different cultures and nationalities at school was an element that allowed Mary to easily adjust to the outside world. Even though it was Mary’s turn to become an international student, she was already familiar with the concept and language which was a huge advantage.
Once her college career was done, she stayed seven years more in the states. It was thirteen years later when Mary returned home to work as the director of communication at Colegio Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Ever since then, she was no longer just an alumni of FDR, but an employee as well. Mary has been working for more than fourteen years in the school that shaped her and prepared her for the outside world. Throughout her working career as the director, she has worked with multiple alumni on campus, making their bonds stronger and remarkable.
We all have questioned and forged our identity so naturally at some point in our life to feel we belong, but as we adapt to fit in a particular group, we put ourselves into a box already labeled. Life’s purpose is about building our own space once we realize we do not have to fit into someone else’s ideas and expectations of who we should be. Now, let me ask you, How are you thinking of building your own space? | https://medium.com/@24amahch/labels-are-not-written-63b2f65f0efb | [] | 2021-06-08 16:35:52.967000+00:00 | ['International', 'Diversity', 'Identity', 'Own Space'] |
Space Opera | The music achieves a rousing tempo as the noble Erhard, captain of the spaceship Siegfried, sings his defiance to the Martian overlords. The human chorus joins in to support the hero’s bold aria. No longer will the Martians restrain the galactic Human Reich, the chorus sings, no longer will the Martians threaten the universe.
The elderly composer Richard Strauss feels the sweat on his brow. At 84, he has not conducted an orchestra in some time, and regrets doing so on this occasion. But his daughter-in-law and grandchildren needed help, so he had made one final deal with the devil.
Song and music fill the new Grand Opera House, a few miles from the Reich Space Command Center, safely distant from the nearby radioactive ruins of Moscow. The hall is packed with dignitaries. The State Music Bureau had commissioned the opera to honor the upcoming manned Moon launch. The year 1948 would be remembered as the beginning of Mankind’s journey to the stars. Having conquered the world with its atomic rockets, the Reich was eager to focus its subjects’ imaginations on the conquest of space.
The drums beat and the horns blow as the muscular Erhard drives the Martians off stage. The violinists and cellists put their energy into the music as Erhard embraces the beautiful Princess Eva. The attractive couple sing about the future of both their love and the human race. Strauss thinks the opera’s plot is melodramatic science fiction drivel written to meet Goebbels’ specifications, the racist overtones obvious when you substituted the Jew for the green-painted Martian cast.
Goebbels was an enthusiastic sponsor of the opera, active in selecting the cast and costumes. The Reich’s propaganda minister publicly praised the work as a bold “science mythology” for a ‘glorious new age” and was now on site to watch tonight’s debut. The Reich was broadcasting the performance live on all its networks, giving Strauss’ final artistic endeavor a global audience.
Strauss was uncomfortable working with the Nazis, embarrassed by the regard the monsters had for his music. But his daughter-in-law and grandchildren were Jewish, and the only thing saving them was Hitler’s admiration of his operas, so he accepted the Fuhrer’s favor. Few knew of his sacrifice, however, and Strauss regretted that he was perceived as a Nazi supporter.
He had been reluctant to conduct the orchestra, but relented on the condition that his family be allowed to emigrate to the distant and safe regions of South America. For the esteemed Strauss’ cooperation on such an important project, Goebbels was happy to oblige.
As the opera approaches its conclusion, Strauss can feel the weight of the object he conceals in his jacket, and hopes that his resolve will make a difference. He wonders how he will be remembered, for his music or his actions tonight, or if the Reich will allow him to be remembered at all.
Strauss admires the costumes and scenery, the bright gold and green, the smoke and lighting working with his music to create an intoxicating mood. The opera ends, and the audience rises with thunderous applause. The opera is a success.
Strauss, weak, takes his last bow, tearful at his participation in this propaganda, consoling himself that he did so for his family. He takes the small gun he smuggled into the concert hall out of his jacket pocket and puts it in his mouth as members of the audience gasp.
Tomorrow, rockets will lift the Reich’s ambitions to the stars. As Strauss pulls the trigger, his last thought is the horrific notion that Nazi astronauts will hum his music as they plant a swastika flag on the Moon, and he is thankful that the vacuum of space carries no sound. | https://medium.com/short-sci-fi-stories/space-opera-4e185ab6b4c7 | ['Reed Beebe'] | 2017-07-08 16:25:07.107000+00:00 | ['Heavy Metal', 'Alternative History', 'Music', 'Science Fiction', 'Strauss'] |
從Javascript函式的this指向原理深入探討D3.js的this | 其實這個標題下的有點不太精確，但我想從我自己本身遇到的問題的角度來切入，然後再進一步深入說明…
事情是這樣的，在函式中使用`d3.select(this)`可以取得調用此函式的dom，比如說有以下幾種情境範例：
1.事件
d3.selectAll('g')
.on('click', function(d){
var target = d3.select(this) // d3.select(this)取得點擊元素<g>
target.classed('active', true)
})
2.陣列迴圈
d3.selectAll('g')
.each(function(d, i){
var dom = d3.select(this) // d3.select(this)取得元素<g>
var x = i * 20
dom.attr('transform', 'translate(' + x + ', 20)')
})
3.動畫
dom.transition()
var dom = d3.select("body").append("div") dom.duration(2000)
.tween("number", function(d) {
var inter = d3.interpolateRound(0, 100);
return function(t) {
var n = inter(t)
d3.select(this).html(n) // d3.select(this) == dom
}
})
到目前為止都沒有問題，後來因專案需求改為es6語法，所有的函式也都改為了箭頭函式，此時開始發生問題了，以上述的第一個範例來說會是長這個樣子：
d3.selectAll('g')
d3.selectAll('g')
.on('click', d => {
let target = d3.select(this) // d3.select(this)取得對象發生錯誤
target.classed('active', true)
})
在這三個例子當中，原本this都會指向到`<g>`元素當中，可是當函式改寫成箭頭函式的時候this變成指向到`window`。
雖然我原本就約略知道javascript的某些規則，”function”和箭頭函式兩種寫法中使用this會指向到不同的地方，但是對此並沒有深入的去了解、以及對於d3.select(this)這個寫法的意義也不是很清楚。這個寫法原本是照著書上教學照著寫的，只知道要這樣寫但不知原因為何，知其然不知所以然，所以遇到問題也不知如何解決。
當我第一次遇到這個問題我還以為是踩到D3的坑，花了點時間研究後終於知道這完完全全是javascript本身的問題，並不是D3的特性造成，下面會進一步說明原因以及解決這個問題的解法。
探究d3.select(this)原理
要理解`d3.select(this)`的原理，其實就等同於理解javascript的this。我一開始會誤以為這是D3提供的特殊用法，就是因為對於javascript的this了解的不夠深入所致；所以這一章節要講的其實就是javascript而已，跟D3沒有半點關係了。
這裡主要是針對function () { … }寫法、以及使用箭頭函式中使用`this` 兩種來做比較合說明。理解之後就會知道D3內使用this會有這樣的差異了。
function () { … }內的this
這裡的this很容易誤解，this指向誰其實跟function是在哪裡宣告並沒有關係，this會指向的對象是依據調用此函式的物件是誰。
比如說，某function在window（全域）上宣告，而呼叫此function的人也是在window，function內的this也是在window（好像繞口令）。
我上面所講的也就是一個最簡單的情況，以一段簡單的程式來看會是長這樣子：
window.word = ‘hello world’ function say() {
console.log(this.word)
// 印出 hello world
}
say()
但如果函式不變，但調用此函式的人是某物件，則this就會指向該物件，範例如下：
window.word = 'hello world' function say() {
console.log(this.word)
} var people = {
word: 'how are you',
say: say
} say() // 印出 hello world
people.say() // 印出 how are you
同理，調用此函式的人為DOM，則this就會指向該DOM，範例如下：
function addBorder() {
this.style.border = 'px solid red'
// 點擊el調用addBorder，this會指向el，因此el會加上紅線
} var el = document.querySelector('element-id' el.addEventListener('lick', addBorder)
講到這裡`d3.select(this)`能取得DOM的原理就呼之欲出了，並不是D3做了什麼黑魔法，而是javascript的this原本就是會指向到調整此函式的物件。
箭頭函式中的this
Javascript推出新的節頭函式，幾乎大部份和原來的function沒有什麼不同，偏偏就是this指向的規則和原來不同。
在箭頭函式中this指向宣告函式的物件，而非調用函式的物件。也就是說他在函式被宣告時this的指向就固定下來了，不會隨著使用的方式不同而改變指向的對象。
稍微修改前面的範例，原來的say()函式因為是在全域window上宣告的，所以無論由哪個物件調用this都是指向到window。
window.word = 'hello world' let say = () => {
console.log(this.word)
} let people = {
word: 'how are you',
say: say
} say() // 印出 hello world
people.say() // 印出 hello world
再來，延續前面的DOM事件範例，程式完全不變，只把function改成箭頭函式，此時就會報錯了，因為this指向的對象不再是調用此函式的DOM本身，而是指到window去了。
let addBorder = () => {
this.style.border = '1px solid red'
// 報錯，因為this指向window，window底下沒有style物件
} let el = document.querySelector('#element-id') el.addEventListener('click', addBorder)
箭頭函式的問題解法
爬文後我整理出三種解法，其中第一種用法是我個人的推薦用法，不過他只適用v4以上版本，如果使用v3以下版本就只能使解法二或解法三了。
解法一（建議用法）
這個解法可以完完全全的取代`d3.select(this)`而且程式意義上也十分合理，不過只有一件小小的但書就是只適用D3 v4以上的版本，v3是不支援的。
上述三個範例的函式當中，注入參數中的「第三個參數」就是「調用此函式的DOM的集合（陣列）」，透過函式中「第二個參數」也就是該調用任務中的陣列索引，就可以找到調用此函的DOM…
講起來有點饒舌，簡單講，假設這個陣列命名為`all`、索引為`i`，`all[i]`就會等同於我們尋尋覓覓的function中的`this`啦，而`d3.select(all[i])`也就等同於`d3.select(this)`。
直接用本文最一開始的三個範例重新用此解法來改寫：
1.事件
d3.selectAll(‘g’)
.on(‘click’, (d, i, all) => {
let target = d3.select(all[i]) // d3.select(all[i])取得點擊元素<g>
target.classed(‘active’, true)
})
2.陣列迴圈
d3.selectAll(‘g’)
.each((d, i, all) => {
let dom = d3.select(all[i]) // d3.select(all[i])取得元素<g>
let x = i * 20
dom.attr(‘transform’, ‘translate(‘ + x + ‘, 20)’)
})
3.動畫
dom.transition()
const dom = d3.select(“body”).append(“div”) dom.duration(2000)
.tween(“number”, (d, i, all) => {
let inter = d3.interpolateRound(0, 100);
return t => {
let n = inter(t)
d3.select(all[i]).html(n) // d3.select(all[i]) == dom
}
})
解法二
認真講起來其實這個方法真的還不錯，雖然聽起來好像有講和沒講好像一樣，那就是用原本的函式寫法function () { … }，不要使用箭頭函式，謝謝觀賞（啊不是啦）
這還真可能真的是種簡單的解法，只是在某些情況下又沒辦法真的符合需求。
就我自己本身的例子，我的使用情境是在js的class（或者說是物件）當中使用d3，我希望this本身有其意義（我希望指向到class本身），如果函式使用function () { … }那我就無法透過this指向到class本身。
就這種情況來說還是有一方式可解決，也就是在函式外面宣告一個變數指向到函式外的thi，通常這個變數會取名叫`self`或`that`或是其他自訂有意義的名稱，這個算是javascript中常用的小技巧。
舉例如下：
export default class {
constructor () {
this.className = ‘active’
const self = this // 自訂名為self的變數指向到class的this
// …略…
d3.selectAll(‘g’)
.on(‘click’, function(){
let target = d3.select(this) // this指向<g>元素
target.classed(self.className, true) // self指向到class的this
})
}
}
解法三
最後這個解法很容易就出現漏洞，而且只適用上述三種情境當中的「事件函式」當中… 所以就當作參考就好了 XD（應該說，此用法的程式意義和d3.select(this)不太相同，適不適用需依你的使用情境來看）。
解法就是改用`d3.event.target`來代替原來的`this`。
但是我說的漏洞，是他取到的對象和原先的`this`有可能會不一樣（！！），聽起來好像很可怕，但如果了解javascript的事件傳遞機制就知道這個再正常不過。
我所指的就是javascript的event bubbling，事件傳遞時會由最內層的DOM一層一層往外傳遞。假設有一組DOM如下：
`<svg>
<g>
<path …略…>
<text …略…>
</g>
<g>
<path …略…>
<text …略…>
</g>
<g>
<path …略…>
<text …略…>
</g>
</svg>
假設前面範例的第一段程式碼的html是長這樣個子，在該例中click監聽事件綁在`<g>`上面（也就是說用d3.select(this)可以取到被點擊到的`<g>`元素），但是滑鼠點擊時有可能是點到畫面上的`<path>`或`<text>`元素，那`d3.event.target`就會是`<path>`或`<text>`，而不會是`<g>。`
這裡有一個方法可以解決這個問題，就是在剛才取到的對象上加上`.parentNode`就可以找到他的父節點。
…依據的我經驗，這個方法又可能會越補越大洞…
這個情況是，如果你的DOM是多層的，就沒有辦法保證事件傳遞是從第二層開始，他有可能會從第三層或第四層，因此就沒辦法正常找到你最初想找的`<g>`。
總結
假設上述解決方式中，你和我一樣選擇使用「解法一」，用`d3.select(all[i])`來取代`d3.select(this)`，那對於這個「this」到底是什麼似乎就沒那麼重要了（？）。
對我個人而言，因為我的D3專案已經採用javascript模組化開發（使用es6 module以及webpack編譯），this在專案當中是有其意義，所以即使不是用在上述情境，在其他的程式裡也是會遇到類似問題。另外，多方面的吸收知識能夠更提供程式的掌控能力，而且在遇到問題時在尋找解決方案也會更有彈性。
以上是我的學習的一個整理，單純是從我遇到問題的角度試著以我的能力進一步探討。說實在javascript的this還真是博大精深，就語言本身可能只摸到基本概念而已，如果在文字或觀念上如果有不夠正確的地方再麻煩先進多多指教感謝~。 | https://medium.com/@upstairs0102/%E5%BE%9Ed3-js%E7%9A%84select-this-%E6%8E%A2%E8%A8%8E%E7%9A%84%E5%87%BD%E5%BC%8F%E4%B8%AD%E7%9A%84this%E6%8C%87%E5%90%91-779a2258d8c8 | ['Thunder Boy'] | 2019-08-21 06:32:57.197000+00:00 | ['D3js'] |
How Will The Use Of Blockchains Accelerate The Pharma Industry? | How Will The Use Of Blockchains Accelerate The Pharma Industry?
Pharmaceuticals are one of the industries the world is talking about, particularly in pandemic times, when the entire world is looking to the latest vaccine, there will be a need for a system that can ensure that the same is delivered seamlessly. Although traditional platforms are adept at this, they are not as powerful, and a more efficient system will therefore be needed. Here, Blockchain can prove helpful. Well, it’s not just that, Blockchain’s function is spread through numerous segments, and we’re going to explore how and why Blockchain is the pharmaceutical industry’s right solution.
The issues that we have to tackle:
We need to consider the main issues of the pharmaceutical industry that are staring us in the face before we go to understand how Blockchain can help the system. Here’s a couple of them:
1. Drugs that are counterfeit
2. System of supply chain
3. Management of inventories
Although the pharmaceutical industry still has other problems, these are the main concerns that need fast answers.
Blockchain, why?
The distributed ledger system is Blockchain, and it works to build a platform where all the data is freely available and traceable. The main features of Blockchain technology that will make it a panacea for the pharmaceutical industry and other industries are immutability and transparency.
Do we understand how this is happening?
Drug safety: It is not new to the problem of fake drugs; it is one of the greatest issues needing the right solution. The problem is serious, and it needs a solution. In 2012, 11 people near Boston were killed by contaminated steroids, and 100s of people were left sick. No active ingredient in cancer medicine has been detected in the US. Such concerns are inevitable. In fact, counterfeit drugs can claim the lives of people, and we therefore need a system that can make it easy to track and trace them. We can allow the tracking of APIs used in drug production with Blockchain. By monitoring this, one can easily find out whether or not there is a device problem, and it can be tracked immediately if there is a problem.
Supply chain management: The next pointer where Blockchain will prove advantageous is supply chain management. With Blockchain, monitoring and tracing of data is simpler, and this functionality can be used by the pharmaceutical industry to monitor the supply of medication and other health supplies.
Inventory management: Again, this is an important matter that needs to be solved by Blockchain. I should still be providing medication and other medical aids, but that is only possible when there is a good system of inventory control. The information is easy to upload with Blockchain and freely available to all people in the system. It would then become easier for them to access this and to know if the inventory of medication and other medical aids is insufficient.
With all these benefits, Blockchain is one of the leading support schemes to boost the functioning of the pharmaceutical industry. Although there are many other use cases, such as clinical trial management, and others, there is also a need for Blockchain experts that can build ready-to-use integrated platforms and can synchronize them with the current market segment.
Ahead of the Way:
To match the rising demand, there is a need for professional people who can exploit this technology. The Blockchain Council is the best choice for you if you are also ready to make a strong impact on technology and are searching for the right learning platform. For more information on the best online certification program in the Blockchain and Related fields, contact the Blockchain Council. | https://medium.com/@yashasvi-9094/how-will-the-use-of-blockchains-accelerate-the-pharma-industry-fc77c9d38261 | ['Yashasvi Gupta'] | 2020-12-23 04:47:17.886000+00:00 | ['Blockchain Training', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Blockchain Education', 'Blockchain Platforms', 'Blockchain Development'] |
Happy reading, Pallvi! | Bylines in Publishers Weekly, the Syracuse (NY) Post-Standard, others. One Sister’s Song (novel). Not Nearly Everything You Need to Know About Writing (ebook). | https://medium.com/@karendegrootcarter/happy-reading-pallvi-1431ae6870e | ['Karen Degroot Carter'] | 2020-12-20 14:31:03.678000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Reading', 'Authors'] |
What a perfectly written resume looks like | Writing a resume is not hard: There’s a standardized format that shouldn’t be strayed too far from (unless you are in more creative fields).
I’ve realized — after reviewing hundreds and thousands of resumes — that not everyone knows what this standardized format should look like. That’s okay. That’s what this article is meant to help with.
I. Resume Header
Header of resume
This is self-explanatory: All resumes should start with your name and contact info up top.
Some candidates choose to include a link to their LinkedIn profile
Insider Tip: If you have an international sounding name, it could be beneficial to include up top if you hold a green card / are a US citizen. It’s unfortunate to admit, but I 100% believe that there are candidates often overlooked because the name sounded too ‘foreign’ and the hiring manager just assumed the candidate might need a visa.
II. Work Experience Section
You want to highlight both your most recent work experiences, and also your most relevant work experiences.
Insider Tip: Including internship experiences usually holds little weight in your candidacy — Hiring managers will often just gloss over it anyway. The only exceptions to this are if: (1) The internship helps to significantly bolster your candidacy (i.e., prestigious internship at the White House as special advisor to so-and-so, or if you interned at McKinsey and don’t have any other big brand names on your resume to include) (2) The internship is relevant to the role you are applying for (i.e., if you’d interned with an edtech company and are now trying to break back into the space)
Sample consultant’s resume highlighting select case work
Sample banker’s resume highlighting select transaction experience
For consulting and banking backgrounds, it is helpful to select a few projects/deals to highlight, and detail specifically your work and impact in each.
I would select projects that highlight the breadth of your skillset, but also make sure to tailor it for the role you are applying for (i.e., if you are applying to a role that wants someone with familiarity in the healthcare space, you’ll want to make sure you flag the relevant healthcare projects you’ve done)
I would be able to speak to all my projects I’ve highlighted in detail — as you can be sure hiring managers will want to dive deeper into select experiences
Include 2–4 bullets under each project you’ve decided to highlight, and make sure to quantify results and impact whenever possible (i.e., drove $10M+ in cost savings; conducted 80+ customer interviews)
III. Education Section
This section is pretty straightforward.
Education section of resume
Highlight your education, include majors and minors, flag any honors or awards or other accomplishments worth highlighting
Do not feel the need to include details about your high school — this is unnecessary, and again, I’d only include it if there was something extremely outstanding or impressive to highlight.
IV. Skills / Interests / Other
You’ll get mixed opinions on this, but I’ve always been a fan of adding a few interests onto your resume — Hiring managers want to get to know the type of person you are, what you like to do in your free time, and this is always good conversation feeder.
Insider Tip: It’s perfectly fine to just state broad interests (i.e., “Travel”), but the more specific you can be, the easier it is for the interviewer to start a conversation around common topics of interest and to ‘bond’ with you — or be impressed by your interests! (i.e., “Travel — 35+ countries and counting”, “Travel — most recently: Thailand, Mexico, Patagonia”)
You’ll also want to use this section as a chance to showcase your skills (usually technical skills or language proficiencies). | https://medium.com/@juliettelim/what-a-perfectly-written-resume-looks-like-1f9060300b56 | ['Juliette Lim'] | 2020-12-04 00:11:27.732000+00:00 | ['Resume Writing', 'Interview Tips', 'Interviewing', 'Recruiting', 'Resume'] |
What Is The Difference Between Hydraulic And Mechanical Shearing Machines | What Is The Difference Between Hydraulic And Mechanical Shearing Machines Sissizhang Aug 24·7 min read
Basic Knowledge
According to different transmission methods, the shearing machines are divided into mechanical transmission type and hydraulic transmission type. Shearing machines with a cutting thickness of less than 10mm are mostly mechanically driven, and those with a cutting thickness of more than 10mm are mostly hydraulically driven.
According to the orientation of the upper blade to the lower blade, the shearing machine can be divided into flat blade shearing and oblique blade shearing. When cutting with a flat blade, the sheet material touches the full length of the upper and lower cutting edges together, resulting in large shearing force, high power consumption, and large oscillation. However, the cutting quality is better, and the cut sheet is relatively straight without distortion. The transmission method of the flat-blade shearing machine is mostly mechanical transmission, which is mostly used for small shearing machines and thin plate cutting. Oblique blade cutting is a method of gradual shearing, so the instantaneous shearing scale is smaller than the width of the sheet. The cutting quality of the oblique blade is not as good as that of the flat blade, and there is distortion and deformation. However, the cutting force and energy consumption are smaller than flat-blade cutting, so it is used in large and medium-sized shearing machines.
The shear is divided into the linear type and swing type according to the movement method of its knife holder. The straight-line structure is relatively simple (it looks like a guillotine gate, so it is also called a guillotine shearing machine), and it is convenient to manufacture. The blade has a rectangular cross-section and all four sides can be used as blades, so it is more durable. The knife holder of the swing beam shear moves around a fixed point during cutting. The advantage is that the conflict and wear between the upper and lower cutting blades are small, the blade deformation is small, and the cutting accuracy is high. However, the swing tool post accepts positive and negative alternating torque during the cutting process, so the width of the tool post cannot be too large. Therefore, the pendulum structure is mainly used for shears with a plate thickness greater than 6mm and a plate width not greater than 4000mm.
Working Principle of Hydraulic Shearing Machines
After cutting, the shearing machine should be able to ensure the straightness and parallelism requirements of the cutting surface of the sheared sheet and minimize the distortion of the sheet to obtain high-quality workpieces. The upper blade of the shearing machine is fixed on the knife holder, and the lower blade is fixed on the workbench. There is a supporting ball installed on the workbench to prevent the sheet from being scratched when sliding on it. The back gauge is used for positioning the plate, and the position is adjusted by the motor. The pressing cylinder is used to compress the sheet to prevent the sheet from moving during cutting. The guardrail is a safety device to prevent work-related accidents. The return journey generally relies on nitrogen, which is fast and has little impact.
Working Principle of Mechanical Shearing Machines
The motor drives the flywheel shaft through the belt, and then drives the eccentric shaft through the clutch and gear reduction system, and then drives the upper tool post through the connecting rod to make it reciprocate up and down to perform cutting work. The cam at the left end of the eccentric drives the plunger of the pressing oil tank to return the pressure to the pressing foot and press the sheet before cutting. When returning, the presser foot is returned by spring force.
Precision Control Effect of Hydraulic Shearing Machines
The hydraulic shearing machine is a new type of shearing machine that is different from the ordinary shearing machine. Because of the numerical control, its operation is more streamlined, and the efficiency of the workers is further improved. Numerical control hydraulic shearing machine refers to the technology that realizes the motion control of one shearing machine or multiple shearing machines with digital instructions composed of numbers, characters, and symbols. CNC hydraulic shears generally use general-purpose or special-purpose computers to achieve digital program control, which usually controls mechanical quantities such as position, angle, and speed, and switches related to the direction of mechanical energy flow. The production of CNC hydraulic shearing machines relies on the emergence of data carriers and binary data operations.
Precision Control Effect of Mechanical Shearing Machines
For a long time, the technical improvement of mechanical shearing machines has been slow. Although some companies have made improvements to the adjustment of the blade gap of the mechanical shearing machine and achieved rapid adjustment, it still does more harm than good. It is easy to damage the machine tool and it will be eliminated in a short time. The mechanical shearing machine adopts a resistance key type clutch structure and an open gear transmission and adopts more advanced electrical appliances (footswitch, manual switch) for operation, low noise, easy operation, and maintenance. It adopts an all-steel welded structure, simple structure, easy operation, beautiful appearance, and low energy consumption.
Advantages And Disadvantages of Hydraulic Shearing Machine
1. Advantages
The cutting force is large and the hydraulic overload protection reduces the damage to the machine tool.
Equipped with electric back gauge, digital display, convenient and quick.
The knife-edge gap can be adjusted quickly, saving time and labor.
When cutting the plate, the cutting of the plate is completed, and the upper knife frame automatically rises, which is not slower than the mechanical shearing machine.
The integral steel plate welded structure has good strength, rigidity, and vibration resistance. The two cylinders are fixed on the left and right columns. The working table is equipped with auxiliary knife holders to facilitate the micro-adjustment of the blade. The working table is also equipped with a feeding ball and is easy to operate.
The stepless adjustment mechanism of blade gap adjustment can meet the cutting needs of different plate thicknesses and materials.
The blade can be cut with four cutting edges, which prolongs the service life of the blade.
The upper tool rest adopts an inwardly inclined structure, which is convenient for blanking and improves the precision of the parts.
Adjusting the cutting stroke can not only improve the processing efficiency but also realize the segmented cutting function.
The number of cuts can be pre-set and automatically counted, which reduces the complicated inventory work.
The use of an advanced integrated hydraulic system reduces pipeline installation and ensures a high degree of reliability and safety in the operation of the machine tool.
The hydraulic pressure material mechanism is adopted. After the oil is supplied by a number of material pressure oil cylinders installed on the front support plate of the frame, the material pressure head is pressed down after overcoming the tension of the tension spring to compress the sheet material. After the shearing is completed, it is reset by the pulling force of the tension spring. The size of the pressing force increases with the increase of the thickness of the sheared plate
2. Disadvantages
When cutting full mouth, the speed is slightly slower
High price
Advantages And Disadvantages of Mechanical Shearing Machine
1. Advantages
Fast cutting speed
Good price
Easy maintenance
Two kinds of cast iron casting and steel plate welding, using pedal type, connected by pull rod and spring, work smoothly. Generally used in hardware, electrical appliances, color tiles, and sheet cutting. Suitable for cold sheet metal and cold cutting.
2. Disadvantages | https://medium.com/@sissizhang66/what-is-the-difference-between-hydraulic-and-mechanical-shearing-machines-e467bf06c1b7 | [] | 2021-08-26 03:10:32.790000+00:00 | ['Cutting', 'Shearing Machine', 'Cutting Tools'] |
Relational Database 6 | Time Complexity, Index Algorithms Comparison for Searching | A Quick Intro on the Big-Oh Notation and the Time Complexity
(1) Basic Assumption
We can make an assumption (actually this is a fact but we are not going to prove this. If you are curious, you can study the assembly language) that the running time of a program has a linear relationship with the number of the executed lines (or problem size). We can easily see this relationship through the following program.
(2) The Definition of Operation Blocks
Because we have known that the running time of a program is positively related to the number of the executed lines N. Then we can write,
Suppose we define that an operation block is a block of several executed lines that will be looped, then we can have the relationship that the final number of the executed lines N is a function f of the number of executed lines in an operation block,
thus,
so that we can know the running time T is a function of the number of executed lines in an operation block, which can be defined as T(n).
(3) Typical Time Complexity Curve
The expression of T(n) can be in various formations, typically, the time complexity curves can be,
(4) The Definition of Big-Oh Notation
Let f(n) and g(n) be nonnegative-valued functions defined on nonnegative integers n, then the function g(n) is O(f) (read: g(n) is Big-Oh of f(n)) if and only if there exists a positive real constant c and a positive integer n0 such that,
Actually, the big oh describes the upper bound of the time complexity.
Example #1. Prove that running time T(n) = n³ + 20n + 1 is O(n³).
Proof:
Thus, the running time T(n) = n³ + 20n + 1 is O(n³).
Example #2. Prove that running time T(n) = n³ + 20n + 1 is O(n⁴).
Proof:
Thus, the running time T(n) = n³ + 20n + 1 is O(n⁴).
Okay, now, then there seems like a conflict. Based on the examples above, we can know that the running time T(n) can be treated as both O(n³) and O(n⁴). So which one is the time complexity we would like to have?
For time complexity, we define that the lowest Big-Oh complexity or the lowest upper bound of the time complexity will be the notation that we use to describe the time complexity of an algorithm. Based on this definition, we can have the conclusion that O(n³) is our time complexity for the previous algorithm.
(5) The Dominant Term of Big-Oh Notation
The dominant term in a time complexity is the term that grows the fastest. Find the dominant term is the quickest way that we can calculate the time complexity of an algorithm. The common relationship of the terms is,
1 < log(n) < n < nlog(n) < n² < n³ < 2ⁿ
Example #3. Find the lowest Big-Oh complexity of the running time,
Answer:
then,
So n^(1.5) is the dominant term of the running time, and,
2. Time Complexity Example: Self-Balanced Binary Search Tree (AVL tree)
An AVL tree is a self-balancing binary search tree. We can see a visualization of this data structure from here.
(1) The Definition of the Height of an AVL Tree
A single-node tree has height 0, and a complete binary tree on k + 1 levels has height k. Suppose n is the number of the nodes that we have for an AVL tree, then the height h of this tree satisfies,
Proof:
See here.
(2) The Time Complexity For Searching the AVL Tree
At the worst case, we have to go to the deepest level of this tree in order to find the result we want. Then we have to do the search for h times and h is the height of this tree. Becasue h satisfies,
where n is the number of the nodes in this tree. Then the time complexity for searching an AVL tree is O(log n).
3. Memory vs. Disk Storage
4. Index Performance Comparison
In order to compare the performance between different algorithms, we have to define the table below,
B # the # of pages
R # the # of records per page
D # the avg time to r/w to a disk page
C # the avg time to r/w to a record
H # the time to hash a record
F # the fan-out (avg number of child for non-leaf nodes)
Then, (we don’t have to prove this)
It is easy to find out that when a table is under construction (with new values keep updating to it), then it will be time saving if we remove all the indexes of this table. However, if the table is stable with no new values to insert, when we are going to conduct more sorted searching (ORDER BY) or range searching (WHERE a > b), then it will be better if we build a index of binary tree. When we are going to conduct more equality search (WHERE a = b), then we are going to build a index of hashing.
5. Index for SQL
Create an index for the table
CREATE INDEX <indexname>
ON <tablename>
USING <indexmethod> (<colname>);
The index methods are,
btree (default)
hash
gist
gin
Delete the index of a table
DROP INDEX IF EXISTS <indexname> CASCADE;
Cluster the index of a table (btree)
CLUSTER <tablename>
USING <indexname>;
Note that a cluster btree will take more time to construct but it will perform better for searching and sorting. | https://medium.com/adamedelwiess/relational-database-6-time-complexity-index-algorithms-comparison-for-searching-cf8ded4a101e | ['Adam Edelweiss'] | 2020-11-15 12:56:52.173000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Postgresql', 'Relational Databases', 'Searching Algorithm', 'Time Complexity'] |
’Tis the Season… I guess | This holiday season is very different for me. I’m alone in a big city and watching so many people travel for the holidays, bake cookies with their parents, go holiday shopping for their friends, make plans to go to fancy dinners, celebrate at company holiday parties, etc. And this year kinda sucks because… I’m not doing any of that.
I know I can’t complain when I’ve brought this upon myself. I decided to move to a new city and I decided to be single and I decided to work at a restaurant that barely closes for the holidays. I decided not to go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas and I decided on all of this. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Believe me, I recognize that I’m at a place in life, literally and financially, where I can’t just always have what I want or travel to where I would like. That’s a part of growing up and that’s okay. But again, doesn’t make it any easier.
Don’t get me wrong- I’ve got some awesome friends around me who also aren’t traveling or doing much for the holidays. But when you get on social media and see people doing all the holiday things you wish you could do, it just kinda stings.
The point of me writing this, I guess, is to put it out there that if you feel alone this holiday season, you really aren’t. I’m here and very much alone and feeling a little sad and pitiful and it’s okay for you to feel that way too. | https://medium.com/@loganchaudoin/tis-the-season-i-guess-51404fe0182c | ['Logan Chaudoin'] | 2021-12-17 21:21:18.977000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Chicago', 'Growing Up'] |
Startups & COVID-19: Curated Resources Part 3 | Written by Connette Blake
As part of our continuing coverage, StartingUpGood is scanning the web for the best resources for startups amid COVID-19. This is our third installment of curated resources. See our previous articles here and here.
Are you finding these resources helpful as you navigate business operations during this challenging time? Let us know by Tweeting StartingUpGood or commenting below.
First Round Review has curated advice from business leaders and investors who have been-there-done-that. While admitting that we are living in unprecedented times and the path of every startup is unique, this guide highlights tactics that have proven to be successful in the past.
Questions addressed include:
How do we approach planning given COVID-19?
What signals should we be watching before pulling the trigger on alternative spending plans?
How will the bar for fundraising be different in 18–24 months compared to now?
Are there any alternatives to a RIF while still decreasing burn?
How do we market during these times?
The Unreasonable Group has created a “dedicated hub to share some of the most useful resources that our team has encountered for navigating work, life, and business during this crisis.” Topic covered include Funding, Insights, Wellness, Remote Work, and how Unreasonable Fellows are taking action.
Business Fights Poverty, in partnership with the Harvard Kennedy School Corporate Responsibility Initiative, has created a response center. Featured here is a Response Framework for how companies and civic organizations can “respond to the immediate crisis and develop plans for longer-term recovery and resilience”. While not specifically targeting startups, this framework outlines how businesses can protect the most vulnerable stakeholders in their operations.
The site also includes an Action Mapping Tool with over 200 examples of business action across sectors and countries as well as links to a variety of virtual events and podcasts.
For ideas on what other startups are doing for COVID-19 relief efforts, CrunchBase is compiling a running list.
Octopus Ventures’ How-To guide gives entrepreneurs and investors some quick, practical tips for conducting a remote pitch.
TripplePundit’s recent article is not specific to startups but offers good advice that entrepreneurs can implement.
__________________________________
Connette Blake has over 15 years of experience advising organizations on their marketing, communications and fundraising strategies. Since joining StartingUpGood, Connette has worked to promote social impact in startups and advance impact investing. You can contact Connette at [email protected]. | https://medium.com/startingupgood/startups-covid-19-curated-resources-part-3-b1cab1f7384d | [] | 2020-04-24 19:35:25.358000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Startup', 'Social Impact', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
5 Short and Simple Steps You Can Take to Lose Weight | 5 Short and Simple Steps You Can Take to Lose Weight
Losing weight by building healthy habits.
I write this from my own experience of losing weight, and while I haven’t accomplished my goals yet, I have learned a lot along the way so far through losing a lot of weight multiple times. I’m not suggesting a crash diet, or really a diet at all. These are sustainable changes, to be implemented bit by bit so that you barely notice them. I’ve found that these things work, at least for me, and that they are sustainable as long as they aren’t taken to the extreme.
First, I want to get the basics out of the way. Real weight loss happens by maintaining a calorie deficit over a long period of time. While many factors affect this and many ways to accomplish it, this is a basic truth.
Anyway, here are 5 simple steps you can take to reach your weight loss goals, whatever they may be.
Photo: TotalShape / Pixabay.com
1. Literally Steps
Simply walking for 15 minutes to an hour every day can do wonders for both weight loss, as well as general health. It’s super easy and can be tied to a routine you’re already doing, for example by walking after dinner or before bed. Additionally, it can give you time to catch up on podcasts or audiobooks that you maybe otherwise wouldn’t find time for.
2. Drink Only Water
For me, this is a great starting point for a healthier diet. Replacing any soda, milk, or juice with water helps cut down on liquid calories, which don’t fill you up more anyway. Also, drinking enough water can help reduce hunger, making it easier not to overeat. It’s easy to mistake thirst for hunger, so remember that the next time you feel hungry, you might only be thirsty.
3. Eat More Whole Foods
I personally found that reducing my calorie intake was a lot easier if I mainly ate whole foods, such as meat, vegetables, eggs, etc. Emphasis on the vegetables! They are very filling and some of the least calorie-dense food there is. In my experience, when I ate these kinds of food, I didn’t have to go hungry to lose weight. Additionally, by cooking for yourself instead of eating pre-prepared meals, you’ll be moving around in the kitchen. Any movement helps!
4. Strength Training
Strength training and building muscle can increase your metabolism, though the question of how much is debated. Some say the effect is minimal, while others claim it is greater. Nevertheless, developing your strength is one of the best things you can do for general health. This can be accomplished in a lot of different ways. I’ve found it easiest to go to the gym and lift weights a couple of times a week, doing a full-body routine. However, doing calisthenics, a more split up gym routine, or other forms of strength training works too. The important thing when choosing a form of strength training is to choose something you can adhere to. Consistency over longer periods of time is the key to success in most things! Which brings me to my final point.
5. Time
No matter how well you implement these changes, it will take time. If you incorporate these healthy habits into your life little by little, rather than doing everything at once, you might find it easier to sustain them in the long run. I believe this is the biggest reason why I’ve failed several times to keep the weight off. I get too obsessed with it, do too much at once, and end up losing motivation because thoughts of weight loss take up too much of my energy and time. | https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/5-short-and-simple-steps-you-can-take-to-lose-weight-e5c281b92064 | ['Markus Skårnes'] | 2020-11-01 19:02:58.130000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss', 'Lifestyle', 'Tips', 'Health', 'Nutrition'] |
NapoleonX Newsletter — January 17, 2019 | Dear Napoleonians,
Christmas period has come and go since our last newsletter. Santa brought us a nice gift as crypto markets seem to have bottom, at least on a short term horizon. BTC.USD is up 9.6% since then and ETH.USD 40.3%. However, the rebound is still fragile and we remain in a downward trend at this stage. So you should trade accordingly.
NapoleonX trading signals
We have had a disappointing performance on our BTC.USD strategy that has yielded a -1.9% return over the period due to lack of a clear trend. That is why we have been working on a new strategy that will incorporate short positions for this pair. We can’t specify an exact date at this stage but we will make our best to release it in the near future.
On the contrary, our ETH.USD strategy has been on fire with a +90.4% return (you read it right and this is not an annualized figure!). Here, the trends have been clearer and our model has managed to catch them both on the upside and downside.
With a +97.2% return, our ETH/BTC/USD allocation strategy has been the winner over the period, on the back of the excellent performance for the ETH.USD strategy.
DAFs
We know you are all impatient for the DAF release. What we have communicated is that we need to get out of this vicious bear trend on cryptos to attract institutional investors attention and avoid spending money and energy to fight a lost battle. It has always work like this when you are in a fund raising exercise. Having performing strategies is mandatory but it is not sufficient.
We will wait until the planets are aligned. Hopefully, this will happen sooner rather than later. We are hopeful that the bear trend may end in Q1-Q2 this year if history is any judge.
New developments
You have asked for it and we are working on it! Basically, we are only providing trading signals at this stage as was planned in our roadmap. The launch of the first DAF is still a few weeks/months away. So we have some time to develop actual bots (through API) that will hit the markets for you at the right time of our trading signals. We will select 3 main Exchanges and develop these new products that will allow to follow a given crypto strategy by a simple subscription program. This will not come for free and will only be available to NPX token holders at first, through our NapoleonX platform.
There are some difficulties that we need to resolve like the equality among the users of our service, the minimizing of market impacts, the minimizing of tracking error, the execution of these signals on your accounts without NapoleonX team being able to access your fund, and the fraudulent use of our services. This will take some time but could hopefully be launched before the end of Q1. We will of course keep you posted on this matter.
Partnerships
We are also working to launch an execution module through copy trading on a well known trading platform. There are legal and technical issues that need to be overcome but hopefully this could also be available in the near future.
Events
On January 30th I will be part of a panel on the “Disruption in the Asset and Wealth Management Industry” at the Paris Fintech Forum, alongside eToro CEO amongst other.
The PFF is the leading international event in Europe on digital finance and fintech with an international crowd of attendees being mostly decision makers, so its a great opportunity to get the Group some visibility. While we are not exhibiting at this show, our co-founder Jean-Charles Dudek will also be present during the two days of the event to identify business opportunities with the players in the sector and promote our investment solutions.
We will also present at an event organised by OKEX on February 20 in London. We hope to develop our relationship with this platform as it is particularly suited for the execution of our trading bots.
We will publish further details on these two events on our social media, so stay tuned on our channels.
Conclusion
As you can see, we are not sitting still but are working hard to develop this project beyond what was initially planned. The weeks ahead may end the terrible crypto bear market. This would then pave the way for the actual launch of the first DAF. Continue supporting us and spread the love to grow our community of users.
Yours sincerely,
Stephane IFRAH, CEO Napoleon Crypto | https://medium.com/napoleonx-ai/napoleonx-newsletter-january-16-2019-5e351d35600a | ['Napoleon Group'] | 2019-01-17 15:04:22.111000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Bitcoin', 'News', 'Investing', 'Finance'] |
Flutter: Anatomy of a Container | Figure 1: Flutter Container demo
I started writing code in dart for Flutter for more than a year now. Whenever I see a tutorial, read an article or follow an instructional series for learning Flutter better, I see that Container is the widget where things start from. Container has been in my life for so long, I decided to write a little about it in its honor. In this article, I am going to break down the anatomy of a Flutter Container.
The Container widget can be used anywhere inside the widget tree. It is one of the most adjustable widget. There are many parameters of this widget which help in decorating it to your requirements.
Child
Container takes a child widget which stays inside of it. In figure 1, Text widget is provided as the child along with a Center widget to position it in the center.
Height
Takes a double value as the constant height of the Container.
Width
Takes a double value as the constant width of the Container.
Color
Fills in the Container with the desired color.
Padding
The padding parameter is applied around the child of the Container. It takes one of the many const functions of EdgeInsetsGeometry. Refer to figures 2 and 3.
Figure 2: Dart code for Container with padding
Figure 3: Container with padding 8.0
Margin
The margin parameter is applied around decoration and child. Here, I had to provide an extra Container as background to visualize the effect of margin. See figs. 4 and 5.
Figure 4: Dart code for Container with margin
Figure 5: Container with margin 8.0
Border
The border parameter is given via the BoxDecoration object. When applied, it can be seen around the child or padding, if there is any.
Figures 6 and 7 will help you better understand the difference between the three concepts of spacing.
Also, observe that when decoration is used, Container does not allow using its color parameter and instead suggests using the color parameter inside the BoxDecoration object.
Figure 6: Dart code for Container with border
Figure 7: Container with border 4.0
See figure 8 to get an idea of where padding, margin and border can be observed in a Container.
Figure 8: Breakdown of a Container. (This image was taken from a video lecture on Udemy by Maximilian Schwarzmüller)
Transform
This parameter allows the Container to move on the x, y or z axes.
Figure 9: Dart code for Container with transform property on Z axis
Figure 10: Container transformed on Z axis by 2 radians
To know more about transformations, check out my article on transformations and custom paint here.
Find more about Container through Flutter official docs here. | https://medium.com/swlh/flutter-anatomy-of-a-container-22287e29d4bb | ['Hamza Mateen'] | 2020-12-19 09:54:53.816000+00:00 | ['Flutter', 'Flutter Widget', 'Containers', 'Flutter App Development', 'Flutter Ui'] |
Simple steps to reduce stress | Photo by Alex Sheldon on Unsplash
Let me start by defining what is stress and why do we have it.
(I am going to use the words worry, stress and anxiety interchangeably.)
What is it? As human beings, stress or anxiety is actually a protective mechanism for us to survive. What happens is when we are either faced with a situation in reality or we imagine a future situation, we go through something called as “stress appraisal”. What that means is, we ask ourselves, “how significant is this?” and “can I deal with this?”. If the answer is “no” then our brain and body start producing stress response (e.g. hormones like cortisol in our bloodstream) to get us to prepare to deal with situation that we don’t think we can deal with. This is what you physically feel, when you say “I am feeling stressed or anxious” e.g. palpitations, increased heart rate, blood pressure, or just general restlessness.
Most important point is that Stress/Anxiety is a physiological phenomenon i.e. it does not just exist in our mind, but it actually lives in our body. This is very important to know as this implies to deal with stress, we need to engage our body as much as our mind.
Why do we get stressed? It is just a preparation to deal with situation that we earlier answered as “I can’t deal with”. Imagine a lion running after you, it is good to feel stress, blood flowing into limbs, non-essential systems like digestion shuts down, so you can run for your life to survive. Now today unfortunately with social media, news channels we are perpetually stuck in that feeling of lion running after us, and hence feeling general anxiety that never leaves us. Also another point is that this can happen for not just real things, but things we imagine. So this imagination can then lead us to a vicious cycle of “what if this”, “what if that”…and of course your body goes into a stress response mode.
To deal with this there are some basic reminders and basic behaviors
Reminders:
You are not alone. Most people around you are feeling this, maybe at different levels.
Nothing is wrong with you personally. What you are feeling is how human beings have been genetically coded.
Stress can get triggered with imagined situations too
Stress/worry is our response to deal with (aka control) the situation.
Stress lives in our body
Basic physical behaviors
Most of you are going to roll your eyes for what am I going to say because it is cliched but so true. Breath, move, eat, sleep, repeat.
Breathing : Since stress lives in our body so we can use our body to fight it too. We have to activate our parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS) , which will then reduce the cortisol and calm our heart, body and mind. How do we activate it? Basic sensory exercises — like “focus on your breath and do a counted breathing”. The actual counts are not super important. Most common out there is called 4–7–8. Inhale for a count of 4, hold for 7 and exhale for 8. Try it! While exhaling you can try both modes, exhaling from your mouth or nose.
: Since stress lives in our body so we can use our body to fight it too. We have to activate our , which will then reduce the cortisol and calm our heart, body and mind. How do we activate it? Basic sensory exercises — like “focus on your breath and do a counted breathing”. The actual counts are not super important. Most common out there is called 4–7–8. Inhale for a count of 4, hold for 7 and exhale for 8. Try it! While exhaling you can try both modes, exhaling from your mouth or nose. Movement , eating, sleeping : all help with chemical detox wash of your brain, reset your hormones, restore blood flow and oxygen to cells. In current times where we are locked up, we can be creative. Like you can put on favorite music while cooking and move your legs and hips. Or do some stretches while sitting in front of TV.
, : all help with chemical detox wash of your brain, reset your hormones, restore blood flow and oxygen to cells. In current times where we are locked up, we can be creative. Like you can put on favorite music while cooking and move your legs and hips. Or do some stretches while sitting in front of TV. Routine: Our bodies love routines. Google circadian rhythm. Its restorative. So make sure to eat, sleep, move at specific times. And our mind love routines as it is less work for us to constantly decide. Routine is like someone made a pre-decision for us.
Basic mental behaviors:
Attention : Thing of a purple tree. Now don’t think of an orange elephant. Got you! Our brains don’t understand “no”. All it knows is symbols. So when you say “don’t think about covid” , you are thinking about covid. Instead just say “think about tree”, “thing about breath” “think about X”. Basic way our brains work is “where attention goes energy flows” . So if your attention is constantly on news and checking numbers of COVID cases, then that’s where your energy is going, leading to stress. If your attention is on this moment that maybe you are getting to spend with your family or saving time on commute or staying healthy, then that’s where your energy will flow, leading to positive feeling.
: Thing of a purple tree. Now don’t think of an orange elephant. Got you! Our brains don’t understand “no”. All it knows is symbols. So when you say “don’t think about covid” , you are thinking about covid. Instead just say “think about tree”, “thing about breath” “think about X”. Basic way our brains work is . So if your attention is constantly on news and checking numbers of COVID cases, then that’s where your energy is going, leading to stress. If your attention is on this moment that maybe you are getting to spend with your family or saving time on commute or staying healthy, then that’s where your energy will flow, leading to positive feeling. Acceptance : Emotions are just messengers. They are not right or wrong. They just are. Accept whatever emotions are here. Emotions live in our body so get in touch with your body to know how you are feeling. One phrase that can help is : “This is hard, and its OK”. Meanwhile let yourself feel whatever is arising without resisting it. (Note: for acute cases like panic attack breathing and distracting can work better).
: Emotions are just messengers. They are not right or wrong. They just are. Accept whatever emotions are here. Emotions live in our body so get in touch with your body to know how you are feeling. One phrase that can help is : Meanwhile let yourself feel whatever is arising without resisting it. (Note: for acute cases like panic attack breathing and distracting can work better). Kindness: Be kind to yourself first. If you are feeling stressed, it means your brain thinks you can’t deal with something. That is a hard place to be. Offer yourself kindness by just saying “I hear you and I am here for you”. Remind yourself you are not alone and there is support out there and that eventually you will figure this out. Humans are very creative and adaptable. After all survival is coded in our DNA.
I will end with following serenity prayer that helps me:
“This belongs. Its OK. It will be OK.”
— — — — — — — — —
Thank you for reading.
If you like what you read, please support by following, clapping and sharing. Your support helps to spread the knowledge and keeps me going.
THANK YOU again for your support!
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— — — — — — — — — | https://medium.com/@deepti-coach/got-stress-here-are-some-thoughts-on-how-to-deal-with-it-in-current-covid-times-2a8765d63fd7 | ['Hacking Life'] | 2020-08-12 05:05:11.717000+00:00 | ['Self Help', 'Co Vid', 'Happiness', 'Anxiety', 'Stress'] |
Escaping the Cold: Migrating from Frozen Mountain to Agora in Unity | Hello developers! In this tutorial you’ll see just how easy it is to switch from using Frozen Mountain to Agora for your video chat purposes in Unity.
First, some context is necessary as to why you’d want to migrate from Frozen Mountain. You are accomplishing the same functionality using ~200 lines of Agora SDK code, compared to the ~1500 lines required in the Frozen Mountain example. Agora puts the developers first, and we are continuously improving the developer experience and streamlining our products.
When using Frozen Mountain, you have three standard WebRTC protocols to choose from. When you use Agora, we simplify this process by connecting your users to our own SD-RTN™ (software-defined real-time network), which is more scalable and reliable than standard WebRTC video chat.
I’ve inserted Agora SDK code in the locations where Frozen Mountain implements comparable functionality, so you’re able to compare how simple it is to use Agora vs. Frozen Mountain.
To get started, you need an Agora account. If you don’t have one, here is a guide to setting up an account.
This project implements the Agora SDK into the Frozen Mountain starter demo for Unity. You can find the example project here on our community GitHub.
Join Screen
You will reuse the assets provided in the Join level inside Assets > Scenes.
Inside of JoinBehaviour.cs:
You need a variable reference to the mRtcEngine and your app ID retrieved from the Agora Console.
Next, you initialize the Agora engine and make sure the JoinBehaviour object persists between scenes.
DontDestroyOnLoad is called to maintain the reference to the Agora engine when the scenes change. One initialization is necessary for the duration of the application.
When you either join a channel or leave a channel and return to the Join Screen, OnEnable() will fire and make sure your references are connected.
A bit of housekeeping: Inside Unity’s native OnApplicationQuit(), clean up the Agora engine when you exit the demo.
The updated JoinBehaviour.cs script demonstrates how simple it is to create a connection to the Agora network (SD-RTN™) and to set up a video chat by calling JoinChannel().
Channel Screen
In the channel screen, implement the functionality for leaving the channel and returning to the Join screen, the callbacks for when users join and leave, and the code to create new video screens for joining users.
I’ve changed the Unity Start() function to OnEnable(), and left Frozen Mountain’s code intact yet commented out.
From Start Method to OnEnable()
Initialize the callbacks for users joining and leaving. There are many other callbacks you can subscribe to, but you are aiming for simplicity here. Frozen Mountain implements the callbacks in a function called Register() which is called in OnEnable().
OnJoinChannelSuccessHandler Callback
Get the audio and webcam devices to display them in the bottom panel, and get the channel name from the callback to display in the top-right panel.
OnUserJoinedHandler()
Create a game object and attach the Agora VideoSurface.cs script to it dynamically. Initialize it with the incoming UID.
OnUserOfflineHandler()
Here, you clean up the video panels of users who’ve left by searching for the UID from the callback.
Make ImageSurface()
In this function, you instantiate the objects that receive video frames from the Agora engine, and set their position in the scene.
Leave
When a user presses the Leave button, the Agora channel is left and the scene switches back to the opening Join scene, allowing the user to join a different channel.
Toggle Video Button
To replicate the “audio only” setting in Frozen Mountain, you can call mRtcEngine.MuteLocalVideoStream() to enable or disable the video display and allow only audio to pass through the channel. Create a new button along the top bar and assign this function into the OnClick event inside the Inspector.
Summary
You now have everything you need to create a basic web chat app comparable to the Frozen Mountain demo. The power of Agora is the simplicity of use, coupled with the SD-RTN™ delivering world-class connection results that outperform WebRTC protocols.
I hope this guide was helpful. If you learned something, make sure to teach someone else!
Have fun making the migration from Frozen Mountain to Agora!
-Joel | https://joel-67824.medium.com/escaping-the-cold-migrating-from-frozen-mountain-to-agora-in-unity-d0556c0bb6c1 | ['Joel Thomas'] | 2020-11-20 18:13:15.376000+00:00 | ['Agora', 'Video Chat App', 'Rte', 'Unity', 'Video Game Devlopment'] |
Find your way to our map making quest! | With Google Maps, we can travel all over the world without ever leaving our houses. Check out art in the Louvre in Paris, or walk along the base of Mount Everest in Nepal. That’s why we’re so excited to announce our new quest, to help learners get even more from the Google Map tool. Introducing Creating with Google Maps!
This advanced, 5-step quest will teach you how to manipulate data and create a visual Google Map of your own, geocode, and more! If you’re in the mood to travel, check out some of the labs on this learning journey.
Use Google Maps API to Visualize BigQuery Geospatial Data — Visualize taxi drop off locations from journeys that started from the block surrounding the Empire State building in New York City. You’ll use the data to query a BigQuery table and use the geospatial data to draw a heat map, all using the Google APIs.
Build a Nearby Business Search Service with Google Maps Platform — Looking to support local businesses? Use Google Maps Platform’s Maps and Places APIs to build a local business search, which geolocates the user and shows the best places for you to pick up some tasty takeout tonight.
Google Maps Web Services Proxy for Mobile Applications — Building a Google App Proxy will help reduce your network traffic by removing extraneous data while still caching Google Place data, so you’ll always remember where you’d been.
Find your way to a map making badge — and enter code 1q-mapping-120 for 5 free credits on your learning journey. | https://medium.com/@qwiklabs/find-your-way-to-our-map-making-quest-264a162263da | [] | 2020-06-03 13:01:01.196000+00:00 | ['Qwiklabs', 'Google Maps', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Maps'] |
Data Visualization Lab | This graph shows the popularity of some of the most watched Netflix shows from 2004 to 2019. So, the most popular Netflix show according to this chart is Stranger Things, but the most current popular show is 13 Reasons Why.
Our brain prefers one proportion over another because we want to see a bigger number, but the chart shows that the bigger number is actually a smaller percentage. Charts and graphs help us see the answer more clearly because they show us that bigger numbers don’t always mean it’s better.
This chart shows a comparison of the best versus worst quarterbacks in the NFL. It compares their touchdowns, interceptions, sacks, comp and QBR. The football player with the bigger numbers is obviously the better NFL player.
During the recession there are big amounts of job loss that last for a couple of years. After the recession is over, however, it takes a couple of years for people to begin to get jobs again. | https://medium.com/danielle-havrilla-course-portfolio/data-visualization-lab-1cd3ae05a7b7 | ['Danielle Havrilla'] | 2019-10-07 21:14:52.726000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization'] |
Python for Transit: Speed by Bus Segment in a map from GTFS | Python for Transit: Speed by Bus Segment in a map from GTFS
In this article, we will see how to get scheduled mean speed by bus segment from a GTFS using the Python package gtfs_functions. You can find the repository and official documentation on GitHub.
If you are looking for an extensive explanation of the package, I recommend you first read this introduction. Here, we are going to directly dive into the specific use case of getting stop frequencies in a map.
Package installation and GTFS parsing
To install the package and parse the GTFS run the code below. For the article, I downloaded the GTFS from SFMTA (San Francisco, CA).
Cut the shapes into segments
Sometimes, looking at the variables at the stop or line-level is not the best solution, and we need to go at the segment level. We want to know what is going on between stop A and stop B and how it is different from what is going on between stop C and stop D.
In order to be able to aggregate information at the segment level, we first need to cut the long shapes of each route in segments that go from stop to stop.
That is exactly what the function cut_gtfs does. It takes 3 arguments from the parsed GTFS:
The output shows:
GeoDataFrame output for the function cut_gtfs().
Which is:
route_id of the segment
of the segment direction_id of the segments as comes in the GTFS
of the segments as comes in the GTFS stop_sequence of the starting stop of the segment as it comes from the GTFS
of the starting stop of the segment as it comes from the GTFS start_stop_name as it comes from the GTFS
as it comes from the GTFS end_stop_name as it comes from the GTFS
as it comes from the GTFS start_stop_id as it comes from the GTFS
as it comes from the GTFS end_stop_id as it comes from the GTFS
as it comes from the GTFS segment_id as a concatenation of the start_stop_id and end_stop_id
as a concatenation of the start_stop_id and end_stop_id shape_id for that segment as it comes from the GTFS
for that segment as it comes from the GTFS geometry as a LineString
as a LineString distance_m that represents the length of the segment in meters. This will be useful to calculate the speeds later.
Having the segments is not the output in itself, but just a middle step we have to take to finally aggregate variables at the segment level. Let’s see how to do that in the next sections.
Calculate segments speeds
The GTFS gives us time information for each trip and stop. Now that we also have the distance in meters for each segment, it would be a trivial thing to calculate the speed between two stops for each trip. We also are able to calculate the number of trips that take place in that segment for each time window. All this information can be used to calculate the weighted average speed per route, segment, direction, and time of day.
That is exactly what the function speeds_from_gtfs does and it takes 4 arguments:
routes from step 1
from step 1 stop_times from step 1
from step 1 segments_gdf calculated in step 4
calculated in step 4 cutoffs as defined in step 2
The output for one specific segments, direction, and time of day shows:
The output has some self-explanatory columns so I will explain only the ones related to speeds:
speed_kmh: average speed in kilometers per hour for that route, segment, direction, and time of day
average speed in kilometers per hour for that route, segment, direction, and time of day max_kmh: maximum average daily speed in kilometers per hour for that route, segment, and direction.
maximum average daily speed in kilometers per hour for that route, segment, and direction. speed_mph: average speed in miles per hour for that route, segment, direction, and time of day
average speed in miles per hour for that route, segment, direction, and time of day max_mph: maximum average daily speed in miles per hour for that route, segment, and direction.
Note that in the example above the chose segment 3114–3144 appears four times: one for each of the routes that serve that segment and a fourth time for the route “All lines”. This route is created by the function and it aggregates the weighted average speed in that segment taking into account all the routes that stop in its starting and ending stop.
Also, notice that the aggregated value for “All lines” takes into account the three segments, ignoring the direction the lines had in the GTFS. This makes sense since the segment always starts and ends in the same stops, even if the assigned direction is different in the GTFS
The route “All lines” is created by the function itself and it aggregates the weighted average speed in that specific segment taking into account all the routes stop in its starting and ending stop.
Show results on a map
If you are looking to visualize data at the segment level for all lines I recommend you go with something more powerful than the map_gdf() that we saw in previous articles like kepler.gl (AKA my favorite data viz library). For example, to check the scheduled speeds per segment:
You will need to manually style the colors and filters but you will have complete control over the visual. Or you can always learn to do it programmatically (which I haven’t yet).
Acknowledgments & References
Far from taking credit from other’s work, I want to acknowledge that some functions of this package were built on top of great and more generic packages and were just slightly modified to better serve this specific workflow.
For example, the function import_gtfs() heavily relies on partridge, a powerful Python library created by Remix founders that makes parsing a GTFS very easy. Similarly, map_gdf() and save_gdf() are built on top of folium and geopandas respectively. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/python-for-gtfs-speed-by-bus-segment-in-a-map-2c0316f71e87 | ['Santiago Toso'] | 2020-12-13 16:31:30.169000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Transit', 'Data Science', 'Transit Planning', 'Urban Planning'] |
How to get the most out of a mentorship program as a mentor or mentee | Originally posted on F-Secure’s blog: https://blog.f-secure.com/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-a-mentorship-program-as-a-mentor-or-mentee/
I have been privileged to be part of mentorship programs from varying perspectives, from being a mentee, mentor, to an organizer. The first time I took part in a mentorship program was in 2017 as a mentee. It was at a time when I was looking to transition from Academia to Industry and I wanted to network and get guidance in my transition process.
I got matched to a lady who was the head of an IT department at a transportation company. Although the relationship didn’t last long, she gave me valuable insights that I still carry with me today. She helped me improve my cover letter as well as my CV by pointing out that I needed to always communicate value and results rather than listing the responsibilities that I had. And to try as best as I could to put that value in numbers, which was not an easy thing to do with academic positions.
That additional perspective plus experience is what mentorship programs offer. Mentorship programs, when done well, allow you to reflect on how you work and find ways to improve yourself.
Fast forward to 2020, I am now part of another mentorship program, an internal program at my workplace that is meant for all the Fellows (F-Secure employees) across all the different units and offices where we operate. In this program, I got to participate as an organizer, a mentor, and a mentee. I learned something new and valuable in each of those roles and I wanted to share some of these learnings.
Naturally, both the mentee and mentor have to be ready to commit to the process. It usually helps to have a written agreement signed by both to show this commitment. Once you do decide to commit, here are some tips or guidelines.
As a Mentee:
Understand that you are the driver of the relationship. It’s your responsibility to set up the expectations, arrange the mentoring meetings, the meeting frequency, etc.
Understand that the mentor is not there to do the work for you. You are responsible for your development. This means you should also say when it’s not going well.
Set a realistic goal and communicate it well to the mentor. I find it useful and more valuable to set a goal that challenges you and will have an impact on you once you go through the program. For example, as I shared earlier, I had the goal of transitioning from academia to industry. This was a challenging goal which has had a huge impact on my career .
Depending on the length of the program, break that goal into few manageable and measurable objectives and try to tackle one at a time over one or two meetings. In my last mentoring program, which lasted over 5 months, I had 3 objectives and the mentor also had 3 objectives. And we tried to tackle one objective in each meeting.
Prepare for the meetings, that way you and the mentor get the most out of the meetings. Even though the meetings can have the atmosphere of a casual chat rather than a serious meeting, preparing a focus for each meeting helps in achieving the objectives. I usually agreed on the agenda of the next session at the end of each meeting. Preparing or giving a purpose to each meetup also reduces the common feeling of meetings of “I am wasting the mentor’s time”.
Lastly, try to include personal topics for discussion and fun activities, this way you will get to build a more open and trustful relationship.
As a Mentor:
As a mentor, you are usually there to guide and not be a problem solver. It’s easy especially for technically orientated persons to be problem solvers, but the idea is to help your mentee figure out the solution. This is also where good listening skills come in handy.
Put in the effort and take time to also prepare. You shouldn’t be too comfortable that you are the one with the knowledge and that you are just going to pass it on. It’s best to learn how your mentee learns and adapt your guiding process to them. You have to learn how to transition from being an expert to a leader.
Get rid of the imposter syndrome — I remember when someone asked me to be a mentor, my first thought was “was I qualified enough to be someone’s mentor?” and I have heard many mentors ask themselves this. Key is to be confident that you are in the position you are in for a reason and that you have something to contribute to a person who wishes to grow. Have healthy confidence in your abilities.
Have and show empathy — Be able to put yourself in your mentee’s shoes and see whether the advice you give relates to that person. For instance, if your mentee is in some way disadvantaged it doesn’t help to tell them,” work hard”, without taking into account or discussing the existence of possible structural barriers that prevent that person from advancing as they would like, no matter how hard they work.
Lastly, set your own objectives in the program. I feel that that helps build a more mutually beneficial relationship.
I just also recently started participating in another mentorship program. This one is a cross company program where people from different companies are paired together. Under this program, I will be focusing on developing myself as a more valuable and insight-focused data scientist (more on that to come) and I will surely be applying many of the above tips.
Write and let us know what other tips you have. | https://medium.com/@mdoucem/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-a-mentorship-program-as-a-mentor-or-mentee-fc148ad4c68b | ['Myriam Munezero'] | 2020-12-21 23:56:35.088000+00:00 | ['Mentor', 'Mentee', 'F Secure', 'Mentorship'] |
Do You Need A Divorce Lawyer? | Still, and both parties feel that it’s time to get a divorce, you don’t inescapably need divorce counsel to handle your case If your marriage has ended. You can file for a divorce yourself using numerous of the do-it-yourself divorce accouterments if there are no children involved, and if the connubial property can be divided as both parties would like. However, if one or the other demurrers the divorce, or if you have a lot of property to divide, If you have children. Divorce lawyer Hilton head sc.
A divorce counsel will file the proper paperwork to ensure that you get your fair share in the divorce. This is especially true if your partner is against the divorce or disagrees with certain aspects of the bifurcation, like guardianship of children or division of the connubial property.
To save money, you and your partner should sit down and bandy the areas of concern before hiring a divorce lawyer. However, or better yet, all aspects of the divorce, If you both can come to an agreement on some aspects of the divorce.
Still, but can not decide on how to resolve the value of your home, you’ll save plutocrat when you cover only the concern with your divorce counsel of how to divide your home If you both can agree on guardianship. There will be no need to waste time agitating the guardianship issue if it’s resolved, which will save legal freights. A divorce counsel charges by the hour and if you can save 30 twinkles of talking, you could save yourself further than a hundred bones. Thus, always bandy aspects of the divorce collectively before bringing your enterprises before the divorce counsel. Divorce lawyer Greenville SC.
Still, also your divorce counsel will know how stylish to deal with him or her If you don’t feel that your partner can bandy the case rationally without wrathfulness.
When opting for a divorce counsel, you’ll want to detect one that isn’t only good, but that’s also compassionate. Going through a divorce can be veritably stressful for both parties and any children involved, so you should make sure that your divorce counsel has a compassionate and caring station not only towards you and your children but towards your partner as well. There is no reason to have an angry and stressful divorce no matter what you and your partner’s differences are, and your divorce counsel should be understanding of this.
Still, don’t vacillate firing him or her, If you hire a divorce counsel and if you aren’t happy with his or her services. You’re paying for legal services and if you aren’t happy with the way your divorce counsel is handling your case, you’re always free to find someone who’ll handle your divorce in a manner that you see fit.
Of course, there are certain laws each party must abide by. Guardianship issues, visits, and child support are some effects your divorce counsel can not change. The liberal visit is handed for the one who doesn’t have physical guardianship, and child support is fairly required. However, this is a commodity that you can’t change and you shouldn’t get worried with your divorce counsel about a commodity like this, If your divorce counsel states that you must let your partner see his or her child every other weekend. Divorce lawyer Bluffton sc.
But if your divorce counsel states that he or she’s going to draft the papers to grant further than is needed by law, and if you’re unhappy about this, ask the divorce counsel to make changes or find yourself another divorce counsel. | https://medium.com/@johnsmithdigitalworld/do-you-need-a-divorce-lawyer-e3129628a4af | [] | 2021-12-30 09:45:05.221000+00:00 | ['Lawyers', 'Lawyer Hilton Head Sc', 'Divorce Lawyer', 'Divorce'] |
Jobs of the Future | STEM
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math
That’s what this edition of the Modular Monthly is dedicated to. As a parent or grandparent you might be familiar with the term STEM or STEAM, with the A for ‘Arts’ added.
In this article, we will explore kids’ interest for a STEM related education. We will outline current challenges and how we can address them!
As always, you will have a chance to meet the Makers of the Month, this time from France 🇫🇷
Enjoy the read!
What’s the issue?
Our society is rapidly changing. There are massive technological, economic and social developments occurring. This influences the future work and living environment of your children.
Kids should be prepared to participate in a successful later life, both individually and socially. Repetitive and routine work tasks will be less and less executed by humans. Robots and artificial intelligence can take over tasks. But who is going to build and program those robots?
A survey was conducted by Junior Achievement (a non-profit youth organization) last year. Results showed that interest from teenagers in STEM careers is low and declining amongst girls. 27% of the boys reported to have an interest in pursuing a future in this field, while only 9%(!) of the girls show interest.
Earlier studies show that children do show more enthusiasm for STEM careers at an early age. Unfortunately, this often fades away later.
How come kids don’t stick to their enthusiasm for careers in engineering or tech? They lack interaction with role models and they fear the education will be ‘too hard’. If tech isn’t present around them, in an engaging and fun way, the risk is that kids lose interest. The key in generating more involvement is introducing STEM in the classroom and at home. Another important factor is emphasising that kids can help others by having a job in this area. Research proves children are not only considering the likelihood they will succeed in their future job.They have an altruistic motivation to help others. STEM careers offer this opportunity.
The jobs of the future
What kind of jobs are we talking about when we mention a career in STEM? This is something we don’t know yet. 65% of children entering primary school today will end up working in completely new job types that don’t yet exist, predicts the World Economic Forum.
Tech is a rapidly evolving field. Some of the top trends for this year are Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Virtual Reality and Cybersecurity. Trying to look into the crystal ball a bit further, here are the jobs that will be required in future.
5 Jobs that LinkedIn foresees for 2030
Organ Creator
Yes, you read that correctly. Scientist might have to create organs because of the shortage of transplantable organs. Peculiar job, but extremely useful! Earthquake Forecaster
The possibility to predict earthquakes has been anticipated on for decades. Maybe 2030 will be the year in which clever researchers can actually warn for impending doom of earthquakes. Self-driving car mechanic
The self-driving car already exists in basic form. But we don’t see the self-driving car self-servicing itself yet. This asks for mechanics who are as handy with tools as they are with the computer software. Trash engineer
Upcycling is needed to reduce our ever growing pile of waste. Materials science and engineering are essential skills here. Creative and resourceful kids will flourish in this job. Ultimately, a zero-waste world is the goal! Drone traffic optimiser
Drones already exist, but their functions will expand. If the police uses drones to patrol, Amazon drops orders with a drone and the grocery store has the same idea, then we will need drone traffic optimisers. We don’t want broken eggs delivered or crashed drones falling from the sky. 😉
Did you know you as a parent also play an important role in the career path your child chooses? Studies demonstrate that parents have the biggest influence on the choice of profession.For your children, you are the first role model, they will observe you and your behaviour. Encouraging your kids to explore the world of STEM gives them a head start for their future career.
There’s many ways to do this. Take them to an engineering museum, give them a fun science magazine, do easy home science experiments with them. And last but not least; build an Infento Ride with your kids. This way engineering will not just be a vague concept, but will actually come to life! Kids will grow confidence by creating their own vehicle. From building a Ride, to building a custom Ride, to a scientist building a rocket? | https://medium.com/modular-monthly/jobs-of-the-future-89263fbe43e2 | ["Infento - World'S First Real Constructible Rides"] | 2020-11-18 13:18:54.887000+00:00 | ['Technical Skills', 'Ride', 'Building', 'Future', 'STEM'] |
Dodgers look forward to rings and celebrating with fans in home opener | (Photo by Harrison Barden/MLB)
by Rowan Kavner
When Clayton Kershaw was announced the Opening Day starter, it meant more than just handing the ball to the three-time Cy Young Award winner April 1 in Colorado. It also meant the 14-year Dodger veteran would get to fully enjoy the pregame home opening festivities of April 8 a week later.
“There might be something to that, yeah,” said manager Dave Roberts.
Before Walker Buehler and the Dodgers take on the Nationals on Friday afternoon at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers will receive their 2020 World Series rings and raise their championship banner.
Friday will bring plenty of reasons for joy. In addition to the ring ceremony, it will also mark the first time the Dodgers get to celebrate their championship at home in front of their fans after a season of seeing only cardboard cutouts in the Dodger Stadium crowd. The postseason was spent mostly in Texas and there was no parade back home to fully commemorate the momentous occasion because of the pandemic.
“It’s been marked on the calendar for a while now,” Kershaw said. “I’m excited. I’m excited we’re going to have a few fans there. That’ll be really cool.”
Kershaw said after last season’s World Series title he might have taken for granted just how much those closest to him cared and wanted to see him succeed. He realized how much the ups and downs, and ultimately reaching the mountaintop, impacted not just him but those around him.
“Especially my wife,” Kershaw said. “I think she’s going to be pretty excited too (for Friday). Just seeing teammates, get to celebrate with them, get to see the rings — to do all those things — it’ll be a special day, for sure.”
Most Dodger players had a tough time picking one moment in particular they’re looking forward to most.
“Can I say everything? It’ll be a pretty special day,” said Max Muncy. “Obviously, I’ve never been a part of something like that, so I can’t really say what I’m looking forward to the most — so I’m going to go with everything.”
Roberts said he’s seen pictures of the ring but hasn’t seen it in person yet. Many Dodger players have avoided even pictures. Chris Taylor said he wants it to be a surprise, but what he’s most looking forward to Friday is playing in front of his home fans again and seeing their reactions to the day’s events.
Whether it’s the fans or the rings motivating players the most, they’ve been waiting for this day for months.
“We finally accomplished what we were trying to accomplish over my last seven years,” said Justin Turner. “We fell short a couple times, obviously had some tough endings to some seasons. Seeing the banner go up, getting that ring, is going to be a good feeling. That’s what every kid dreams of.”
Stadium and auto gates will open at 10:30 a.m. for the home opener, which begins at 1:10 p.m. PT. Fans are encouraged to be in their seats by 11:45 a.m. for pregame ceremonies.
For those not in attendance, the pregame ceremonies will be televised on Spectrum SportsNet LA, carried live on radio on AM 570 LA Sports and AM 1020 (Spanish) and streamed in HD on the free iHeartRadio app (search AM 570 LA Sports).
“I’m looking forward to seeing Dodger fans, however many we can put in there to adhere to restrictions,” Roberts said. “I’m looking forward to getting that big fat ring, and just to kind of put a bow on 2020.” | https://dodgers.mlblogs.com/dodgers-look-forward-to-rings-and-celebrating-with-fans-in-home-opener-10453999fc0 | ['Rowan Kavner'] | 2021-04-09 01:59:03.220000+00:00 | ['World Series', 'Dodgers', 'Dodger Stadium', 'Home Opener', 'MLB'] |
How to Change Your Own Mind When It’s the Right Thing to Do | Changing your mind with wisdom
Understanding the Sunk Cost Fallacy was the first step towards learning how to change your mind. What we want to do now is overcome this fallacy and bring rationality back into our decision making. Doing so will help you to develop your skill in deciding when it’s better to change your mind. There are a few ways to do this.
Drop the plan
Sometimes, having no plan is the best strategy because then you won’t be committed to anything. You can change at any moment without feeling that you need to maintain any consistency. Warren Buffett talks about the advantages of having no concrete plan for his investment firm, Berkshire Hathaway:
“We do have a few advantages, perhaps the greatest being that we don’t have a strategic plan. Thus we feel no need to proceed in an ordained direction but can instead simply decide what makes sense for our owners.”
By dropping the plan, Buffett and his team are able to quickly adapt to changes. They don’t care much if they have to change from their initial direction or think about the market differently. They just care about getting the best possible return. This mindset encourages them to always jump on the best opportunities without being stuck in any rigid plan.
Leave your plans a bit flexible and open. You can have a general goal, just like Buffett does with “get the best returns,” but don’t be tied to any kind of step-by-step restrictions. Do what needs to be done to reach the overall goal, even if that means changing course along the way.
Remove the past
Removing past events and commitments from your decision making will encourage you to adjust course when necessary. The famous Historian Thomas Carlyle once said that:
“Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. ”
Perhaps the stock you purchased looked great last month, but the latest news shows otherwise. That’s perfectly OK, you can change course and as Carlyle said “do what lies clearly at hand,” make the best decision based on the information that you have right now.
The past is gone and done. One should make their decisions based on the information that is presently available. New information could mean a better option has emerged. Don’t let the past of yesterday influence your decisions of today.
Look at facts only
A great exercise for better decision making is to write down all of the facts only. We define a fact as something that is objectively true and 100% verifiable. For your decision making, you can label the facts as positive or negative to check if the choice will be a good one. This is similar to the pros and cons approach of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin writes:
“My way is to divide half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns; writing over the one Pro and over the other Con…When I have thus got them altogether in one view, I endeavor to estimate their respective weights…. I find where the balance lies; and if after a day or two of further consideration, nothing new that is of importance occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly.”
The advantage of this method is that it is fully objective. There are no emotions or cognitive biases involved. The decision itself is logical in that the pros and cons are directly weighed and calculated. This decision making technique can be applied at any time, either before you make your initial decision or afterwards to determine if you should change course. Logic and rationality grant you freedom from the influence of the Sunk Cost Fallacy.
Let other people check you
We certainly won’t be able to know everything all of the time; our own perspective is in itself biased. But what we can do is ask other people to help us out, to double-check our decision making. The Italian artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci says:
“We know well that mistakes are more easily detected in the works of others than in one’s own. When you are painting you should take a flat mirror and often look at your work within it, and it will then be seen in reserve, and will appear to be by the hand of some other master, and you will be better able to judge of its faults than in any other way.”
Other people have a different view of your work. They will be able to see your situation more objectively since they are not tied to the emotional self-image that you are. They aren’t restricted by the same Sunk Cost Fallacy since they’re not as invested in your decision.
So when you have the opportunity, ask people to review your decision. Try to give them the rawest, most uncut view of your situation such that they can look at it objectively. With that second opinion, you’ll more easily be able to spot mistakes and pick the best option available.
In Summary
Changing your mind on a previous decision is often a great thing to do. There could be a better option now due to new information. But we often find it hard to change our minds due to the Sunk Cost Fallacy in Psychology. There are a few ways to overcome it: | https://medium.com/better-advice/how-to-change-your-own-mind-when-its-the-right-thing-to-do-d151ccf5caee | ['Mighty Knowledge'] | 2020-12-18 11:29:47.785000+00:00 | ['Thinking', 'Self Improvement', 'Strategy', 'Mindset', 'Books'] |
Cleaner Data Analysis with Pandas Using Pipes | Cleaner Data Analysis with Pandas Using Pipes
Practical guide on Pandas pipes
Photo by Candid on Unsplash
Pandas is a widely-used data analysis and manipulation library for Python. It provides numerous functions and methods to provide robust and efficient data analysis process.
In a typical data analysis or cleaning process, we are likely to perform many operations. As the number of operations increase, the code starts to look messy and harder to maintain.
One way to overcome this issue is using the pipe function of Pandas. What pipe function does is to allow combining many operations in a chain-like fashion.
In this article, we will go over examples to understand how the pipe function can be used to produce cleaner and more maintainable code.
We will first do some data cleaning and manipulation on a sample dataframe in separate steps. After that, we will combine these steps using the pipe function.
Let’s start by importing libraries and creating the dataframe.
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd marketing = pd.read_csv("/content/DirectMarketing.csv")
marketing.head()
(image by author)
The dataset contains information about a marketing campaign. It is available here on Kaggle.
The first operation I want to do is to drop columns that have lots of missing values.
thresh = len(marketing) * 0.6
marketing.dropna(axis=1, thresh=thresh, inplace=True)
The code above drops the columns with 40 percent or more missing values. The value we pass to the thresh parameter of dropna function indicates the minimum number of required non-missing values.
I also want to remove some outliers. In the salary column, I want to keep the values between the 5th and 95th quantiles.
low = np.quantile(marketing.Salary, 0.05)
high = np.quantile(marketing.Salary, 0.95) marketing = marketing[marketing.Salary.between(low, high)]
We find the lower and upper limits of the desired range by using the quantile function of numpy. These values are then used to filter the dataframe.
It is important to note that there are many different ways to detect outliers. In fact, the way we have used is kind of superficial. There exist more realistic alternatives. However, the focus here is the pipe function. Thus, you can implement the operation that fits best for your task.
The dataframe contains many categorical variables. If the number of categories are few compared to the total number values, it is better to use the category data type instead of object. It saves a great amount of memory depending on the data size.
The following code will go over columns with object data type. If the number of categories are less than 5 percent of the total number of values, the data type of the column will be changed to category. | https://towardsdatascience.com/cleaner-data-analysis-with-pandas-using-pipes-4d73770fbf3c | ['Soner Yıldırım'] | 2020-12-24 18:36:53.853000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Pandas'] |
Why Nobody Can Be Fascist Nowadays | As a politics addict, not only am I interested in my country’s domestic politics, but also in international politics. Each country differs in terms of culture, society, history and institutions. However, there’s one factor that makes all democracies similar; that is, the existence of two or more parties that are ideologically positioned on a continuum that goes from Left to Right. In England there are Labours and Conservatives, in the US there are Democrats and Republicans.
If we focus on each country’s political language rather than its party system, then we’ll find out that there is also another feature shared by nearly every western democracy. Each country has its own political language, which is clearly shaped by its historical roots. For instance, an Italian politician is much more likely to talk about the Catholic Church than a British one. However, as I’ve already said, there is also a strong similarity. When these countries experience times of social and political tension, we are likely to hear lots of undue references to Fascism.
What is Fascism? Have you ever thought about that? This word is used quite frequently in modern Politics, but does it really make sense? Politicians make use of several distortion tactics in their speeches. One of them is called “Name-Calling”, by which a politician attacks her/his rival by linking her/him to a negative symbol. Here, “Name-Calling” is represented by the word “fascist”, whereas the negative symbol is clearly Fascism. Still, does it really make sense to use this word and this symbol? The answer, to which I’m going to bring evidence, is no.
The problem is that, all around the world, several politicians usually just say something like, “He is a fascist,” and then drop the mic, as if nothing more needs to be said. But there is something more that has to be said. If a person attacks someone else by labelling her/him as a fascist, then s/he should be able to explain what being a fascist means. Otherwise, the attack will be no more than mere speculation.
In 1946, George Orwell published an interesting essay called “Politics and the English Language”. In this essay, Orwell criticized several inaccuracies of the written English of his time. He dedicated some lines to the word “Fascism” too. According to him, ”the word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’”. Hence, Orwell considered that the word “Fascism” had been deprived of its real meaning. He went on saying that:
The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning.
Mussolini and Fascist “Blackshirts” in Naples before the March on Rome (1922)
Historically Speaking
A few days ago, Grant Piper published a remarkable article for History of Yesterday called “A Definitive Guide to Historical Fascism”. I strongly suggest you to read it if you’re interested in the historical roots of Fascism.
Piper tries to find the ideological roots of Fascism too. He mentions an essay called “The Doctrine of Fascism” written by Mussolini in 1932 as a sort of fascist manifesto. It would be wrong to compare this essay to Marx’s and Engels’ “The Communist Manifesto”. They are different in terms of lexicon, style and purpose. Instead, it is much more reasonable to compare “The Doctrine of Fascism” to the “Mein Kampf”. Both are essays and not manifestoes. However, there are also a few differences. I will analyze just a couple of them.
First of all, the “Mein Kampf” was published in 1925 (eight years before Hitler seized power in Germany) while “The Doctrine of Fascism” was published in 1932 (ten years after the beginning of Mussolini’s presidency). The former was aimed at describing what Hitler would have done once in power; the latter, instead, was aimed at providing an ideological reason for what Mussolini had already done in office. Just to make a simplistic example, we can say that, as far as Nazism is concerned, the book was published before the movie; instead, in Italy, the book was published after the movie.
When Hitler’s dictatorship started, the “Mein Kampf” became a sort of sacred text. In schools, it was part of the curriculum. Whenever a couple got married, bride and groom were given a copy of it by the State. Each soldier was given a copy as well. Conversely, the distribution of “The Doctrine of Fascism” was nearly inexistent, as it was just an article in the “Treccani”, an Italian-language encyclopedia. Mussolini didn’t think that reading that essay should have been compulsory.
Mussolini’s desk at the headquarters of “Il Popolo d’Italia”, the newspaper he edited
Fascism as an Ideology?
By this point, it is reasonable to wonder whether Fascism was backed by an ideology or not. Merriam-Webster gives three definitions of “ideology”; the most useful for the purpose of this article is the second one: “[Ideology is] the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program”. This definition implies the fact that this body of theories and beliefs is immutable; or, at least, that the key principles of the ideology do not change over time. For instance, if you are Catholic, you will always believe in the existence of God. Perhaps you will change your opinions towards same-sex marriage, as the world we live in has finally developed; but you will never deny the existence of the Trinity.
What are the key principles of Fascism, then? We have already seen the fact that Italian Fascism didn’t have a manifesto, nor a book. Where can we find these principles? The answer is that we have to derive them from Mussolini’s life. This is because Fascism — and this is the main thesis of this article — was just Mussolini’s Fascism. Hitler’s was Nazism; Franco’s was Francoism. It follows that, if you attack a politician by saying s/he is a fascist, then you are saying that s/he is an Italian man born in 1883 who ruled over Italy from 1922 to 1943. It sounds quite weird, doesn’t it?
It might be argued that Italian Fascism was just a sort of paradigm. But still, what is this paradigm like? Can we confidently say which were Mussolini’s thoughts on race or his ideas on nation? These are the two themes I’m going to analyze, as they are the typical themes one refers to when s/he uses the word “Fascism” nowadays. However, the same analysis is valid for any other theme.
Mussolini in 1925
Mussolini’s Ideas on Race
Fascism and racism are usually deemed bound to each other. According to many people, if someone is racist, then s/he is also fascist. However, this is clearly wrong. There are thousands of events, in History, when someone was discriminated, or killed or deported, just because of her/his race. The majority of these events took place before 1919, the year in which Fascism was created by Mussolini. Obviously, racism spread around the world long before Mussolini created the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento.
Now, let’s reverse the reasoning. That is: if someone is fascist, then s/he is also racist. From a logical perspective, this is much more plausible. However, I’m going to show you that this is wrong as well. Remember that I’ll stick to Italian Fascism. To me, Italian Fascism and Fascism are the same thing, as I’ve already said, but I’m going to repeat it throughout the article just to be as clear as possible.
The aim of this article is not to prove that all beliefs about Fascism are wrong, the aim is to bring evidence to the argument according to which we cannot confidently say what Fascism is. There were multiple Fascisms. However, all of them were embodied by Mussolini and, to a larger extent, by the Italians who lived during Mussolini’s dictatorship.
What about Mussolini’s thoughts on race, then? It might be uncomfortable, but in his first years as President of the Council of Ministers, Mussolini was not racist at all. Usually, a fascist’ racism is believed to be addressed to Jews. However, in 1920 Mussolini published an article on “Il Popolo d’Italia”, the newspaper he edited, where he wrote that:
In Italy, there is absolutely no difference between Jews and non-Jews; in all fields, from religion, to politics, to weaponry, to economics… the Italian Jews have the new Zion here, in our adorable land.
It might be argued that this was Mussolini before he took power, then everything changed. Anyway, this is not totally correct. In 1929, the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See reached an agreement to settle the “Roman Question”. Mussolini declared Catholicism to be the official religion in Italy. When he delivered a speech to the Chamber of Deputies to explain the content of the “Lateran Pacts”, he said that:
It is ridiculous to think, as somebody said, that the synagogues should be closed. Jews have been in Rome since the time of the kings. […] They were 50,000 in the days of Augustus and they asked to cry on Julius Caesar’s body. They will remain undisturbed.
Then, from 1938 to 1943, Mussolini promulgated the “Racial Laws” to enforce racial discrimination in Italy. They were directed mainly against the Italian Jews. It is commonly acknowledged by historians that they were due to Hitler’s influence on the Italian dictator, but this is not that important for the purpose of this article. What’s important, here, is the fact that Mussolini started by ruling Jews out of the public administration and, eventually, he sent them to concentration camps.
What is the right view of a fascist towards race, then? How can we confidently say that the “true” fascist discriminates ethnic minorities? At the beginning of his dictatorship, Mussolini didn’t do that at all. If you want to read more about this topic, take a look at “Hitler and Mussolini, a Love-Hate Relationship”.
The signatories of the “Lateran Pacts”
Mussolini’s Ideas on Nation
From 1922 to 1943, Mussolini’s ideas on the Italian nation were pretty much the ones we would expect. Throughout this period, Mussolini pursued the myth of the Roman Empire. He believed that Italy should have had an empire. This is the reason why the Second Italo-Ethiopian War was launched in 1935. This war of aggression resulted into a massive political success, as Fascism reached its peak of consensus; but it was also a huge economic failure, as Ethiopia was far from being a rich country. When the League of Nations imposed economic sanctions on Italy because of the conquest of Ethiopia, Mussolini delivered a speech to the Chamber of Deputies in which he talked about Italy as the victim of international conspiracies.
In 1943, after Mussolini’s capitulation, he was rescued by German paratroopers from his imprisonment in Gran Sasso massif. Brought in Munich, Mussolini met Hitler. Even if Mussolini considered his political experience ended, the Führer forced him to go back to Italy in order to take control of the Northern part of the peninsula. However, Mussolini was not ruling anymore. The Italian Social Republic was no more than a German puppet state. The Italian dictator was pretty aware of this.
Hence, what is a fascist’ ideas on nation? Are they similar to Mussolini’s original ones? If so, can we confidently say that, when Mussolini accepted to head a German puppet state, he wasn’t a fascist anymore?
Mussolini, Hitler and King Vittorio Emanuele III in Rome (1938)
Conclusion
What I’ve been trying to explain is that Fascism was just the story of a man and the people who decided to follow him. It is impossible to say correctly which are the ideas of a fascist. I’ve analyzed race and nation, but the same twists can be found in Mussolini’s attitudes towards political rivals, urbanization, and so on. It might sound weird, it might be uncomfortable, but from 1922 to 1943 the majority of the Italians simply decided to follow the moods of a single person. When you say that someone is fascist, then, what do you mean? | https://historyofyesterday.com/why-nobody-can-be-fascist-nowadays-53a6d751d607 | ['Michele Caimmi'] | 2020-07-20 06:46:01.183000+00:00 | ['History', 'Italy', 'Politics', 'Fascism', 'Mussolini'] |
Check it Out if it’s Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome | Many male adults have the experience with pelvic pain, and many of these choose to overlook it. As a man, you cannot be too fussy to bother with any occasional pain. That’s right! But if the pain appears repeatedly, you’d better watch it, especially when you have a work that requires that you sit the whole day for each day.
You may wonder what sort of pelvic pain worth your attention. Well, if you believe a bearing-down pain which involved in several area including perineum, groin, anus area, scrotum and inner side of thigh.
And the pain appears repeatedly and the situation may last for months, you ought to be wire than it as you may be diagnosed as chronic pelvic pain syndrome.
Chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CPPS) is a very common urinary system disease. And up to 2.5%~16.0% male adults have problems with CPPS. CPPS can also be known as prostatitis type Ⅲ — — a chronic prostatitis with no bacterial infection.
Patients were suffering not just the long run repeatedly prostatic pain and abnormal urination, but additionally mental distress. In fact, CPPS ended up listed as the severe chronic disease that the badly affect people’s life quality by National Institute of Health (NIH) in USA.
The mechanism of CPPS isn’t specific up to now, but sitting is certainly one well-known cause. Excessive sitting provides a persistent pressure on pelvic that obstructs the blood circulation in prostate area.
Obstructed blood circulation results in inflammation as well as a number of symptoms including prostatic pain and abnormal urination. As the inflammation wasn’t a result of bacteria, antibiotics have little influence on it. That is why it’s so tricky to manage.
Researchers are actually searching for a nature method of getting rid of CPPS. Chinese traditional medicine shows its advantages with this battle. It’s known that may types of Chinese traditional herbs have very good effects on improve blood circulation. It provides a nature and effective strategy for CPPS.
Dr. Lee is a of the successful herbalists. She brought modern technology into traditional herbal pharmacy, developed diuretic and anti-inflammatory pills. Diuretic and anti-inflammation pill is formula with Chinese herbal extractive. It can effectively reduce inflammation by improve blood circulation of pelvic area.
Patients are expectedly to find out an understandable effect within a couple of months. Diuretic and anti-inflammation pill is honored since the most nature and effective answer to chronic pelvic pain syndrome. | https://medium.com/@vivianeyao/check-it-out-if-its-chronic-pelvic-pain-syndrome-ea175e968507 | ['Vivian Eyao'] | 2019-06-17 10:23:54.674000+00:00 | ['Prostatitis', 'Cpps', 'Health', 'Natural Treatment'] |
Reflection #3: Adventures in Zonbar | Adventures in Zonbar(Working title, especially since the project is still just saved as Project1) is a digitally made game on RPG Maker. It is about how four high school students tell an old homeless man to not ask them for money when he asks for some in a disrespectful way and afterwards, they are teleported to his homeland of Zonbar as he feels disrespected when he is called an old fart. Chad, our main character has to find his friends and beat the old man, Zanthar the Unrelenting, and go home. I was not able to find anyone to test it, but I did show it to some people. They seemed to really like the premise of the game and the story when I showed off what I had made. As I showed it to my friends that are in to turn-based JRPGs, so they understood the rules and needed no explanation once they saw a battle happen. There’s one major bug that I don’t really know how to fix, so that happened and I had to restart the game in mid presentation, which was unexpected for me. They enjoyed seeing what I have presented them and hoped that I would make more. What stood out to them was the funny dialogue since most JRPGs don’t go for more comedic stuff with most of the text. Anything that I would change is that bug and to go back and change how certain attacks are and how much hp they do cause I think it’s very skewed towards the player because of RPG Maker, so I would have to fix that. Also expand on the world. Overall I really enjoyed making a game on RPG Maker and can’t wait to continue this game or make a new, hopefully fully fleshed out, game. | https://medium.com/tcnj-imm-game-studies-2020-fall/reflection-3-adventures-in-zonbar-2c1d46238a96 | ['Kyle Ackerman'] | 2020-12-10 21:49:18.066000+00:00 | ['Rpgmaker', 'Game Design', 'Jrpg', 'Video Games'] |
Green Power for Business | Now is the best time to switch to green power for your business. You could be saving money, while helping to save the planet and reducing usage. The year of 2020 has been a very hard one for business and now more than ever, a saving of 10–30% on a monthly bill would be welcome.
What is Green power?
Green power is the phrase used for power which is Eco-friendly and doesn’t harm the planet. A better and more technically correct term is Renewable power. While green power can cover things like hydrogen and nuclear. Renewable is only for things like wind, sea, motion, thermal rocks and solar. While there is some debate if nuclear is indeed green and good, there is very limited debate to wither renewable power is good.
Is Renewable cheaper? why is it?
Renewable power can be cheaper than finite sources and is getting cheaper every year. Some will say that it is cheaper due to government help, but this shows only part of the reason. The price of coal/petrol is based on global market, it is a finite product which will run out. Thus may increase in price as it becomes harder to find. Also as technology advances in Solar, wind and energy storage, it becomes cheaper.
The reason you need a company like us is not all renewable is cheaper than all fossil fuels, we compare all the UK companies than can do renewable power.
Why switch to Renewable power?
Help reduce business carbon by 16%-37% Help reduce monthly bills Stay ahead of Government legislation and targets Invest in business Earn additional income (based on industry)
FREE energy audit
We will look at your bills, premise and sales channels and find a way to lower your Carbon, consumption and cost. For a FREE energy audit, get in touch. | https://medium.com/@juliusschenk/green-power-for-business-4e6176bd510a | ['Julius Schenk'] | 2020-11-24 19:50:45.469000+00:00 | ['Alternative Energy', 'Renewable Energy', 'Solar Energy', 'Green Energy'] |
Facebook Advertising: Not Your Normal Advertising | Brand recognition is not easy these days; it’s like finding a needle in a haystack. Even though you might have created a really insightful piece of content, it can be hard to reach the target audience, especially in the beginning, where no one knows you or your brand.
Social media is one of the most effective communication and advertising channels. But marking your presence among the already established is not easy. Also the competition is increasing day by day. But thanks to social media ads, one can promote their business easily and effectively.
Highly targeted ads on social media can help you reach exactly the people who care about your content. The ability to target potential readers and customers based on demographic data, behaviors and very specific interests is the biggest strength of social media ads.
But social ads are just not limited to promoting content, they are also a great way to advertise brand and products, drive traffic to your website or online shop, or collect contact information for your email campaigns.
For reading full blog visit our blog https://www.kumbhdesign.com/blog/facebook-advertising-not-your-normal-advertising/ now. | https://medium.com/@designkumbh/facebook-advertising-not-your-normal-advertising-da097b02b525 | [] | 2021-12-10 07:01:26.736000+00:00 | ['Social Media Marketing', 'Smm Services', 'Smm Services India', 'Facebook Marketing Agency', 'Facebook Marketing'] |
Running multiple HTTP servers in Go | Server type
To create and configure a custom HTTP server, http package provides Server structure. This structure has below public fields (from the doc).
type Server struct { // TCP address to listen on, ":http" or ":https" if empty
Addr string
Handler // http.DefaultServeMux if `nil`Handler Handler
TLSConfig *Config // TLS configuration for HTTPS protocolTLSConfig * tls
// request, including the body.
ReadTimeout Duration // ReadTimeout is the maximum duration for reading the entire// request, including the body.ReadTimeout time
// writes of the response.
WriteTimeout Duration // WriteTimeout is the maximum duration before timing out// writes of the response.WriteTimeout time
// the base context for incoming requests on this server.
// If BaseContext is nil, the default is context.Background()
BaseContext func(Listener) context.Context // BaseContext optionally specifies a function that returns// the base context for incoming requests on this server.// If BaseContext is nil, the default is context.Background()BaseContext func( net // ErrorLog specifies an optional logger for errors accepting
// connections, unexpected behavior from handlers, and
// underlying FileSystem errors.
ErrorLog *log.Logger
}
We are familiar with the Addr and Handler fields. The ReadTimeout and WriteTimeout fields can be important for added safety. ErrorLog is crucial to log any errors thrown by the server while processing a request.
💡 There are other public fields that are not mentioned above but could be crucial for your use case.
The Server structure implements basic methods like ListenAndServe , SetKeepAlivesEnabled , Shutdown , etc. to configure and control a server.
Let’s create some custom servers and run them concurrently.
In the above program, the createServer function creates a ServerMux object and implements a fresh routing mechanism. The server object contains the implementation of a brand new HTTP server based on input arguments.
It then returns a pointer to the newly created Server object since most of the methods implemented by the Server structure has a pointer receiver.
In the main method, things are not so different. Instead of using http.ListenAndServe method to spawn an HTTP server with the default configuration, we are creating a brand new instance of an HTTP server inside goroutines and spawning it using Server.ListenAndServe() method call.
💡 Unlike http.ListenAndServe(addr string, handler Handler) method call, the server.ListenAndServe() method call does not need any arguments since the configuration of the server is present in the server struct itself. The server.ListenAndServe function internally creates a tcp listener on address addr using net.Listen function which returns a net.Listener and uses it with server.Serve function to listen to incoming connections using the server.Handler field value (a ServeMux object).
Let’s look at the common methods that can be invoked on the Server object.
SetKeepAlivesEnabled method
The Server.SetKeepAliveEnabled method enables the HTTP persistent connection. By default, this is enabled for better performance.
server.SetKeepAlivesEnabled(false)
Close method
Once we no longer need a server, we can close it without terminating the main program. This is achieved using the server.Close method. This method forcefully shutdown a server without gracefully closing the active TCP connection.
error := server.Close()
Hence, this method can only be used when a server needs to be shut down immediately without caring about active TCP connections.
In the above program, we have created a bare minimal server and spawned it in the main method. We have also created a exitSignal channel to block the main goroutine unless the server is closed. Even after server exits, the main goroutine is blocked until unless some goroutine writes a value to or closes the exitSignal channel.
Using time.AfterFunc function, we have launched another goroutine that executes a function after 3 seconds. In this function, we are calling server.Close() method which closes the server. This function call may return an error but before that happens, the server may close already and exit with an error.
This is why exitSignal channel is so important in this scenario. Once server.Close() is returned, we are closing the exitSignal channel using built-in close function.
Once the exitSignal channel is closed, this goroutine will be killed and control will pass back to main goroutine. Since exitSignal channel is now closed, main goroutine is no longer blocked and it will start executing the code below the read from channel ( <- chan ) expression.
Once you run this Go program, after 3 seconds, you will be able to see this result in your console.
$ go run go-server.go (took 3s)
ListenAndServe(): http: Server closed
Close(): completed! <nil>
Main(): exit complete!
The only drawback of Close method is that it can not close hijacked connections like WebSockets. But we will look into that in other lessons.
Shutdown method
The server.Shutdown method behaves exactly like server.Close method but with some added safety. If you want to gracefully close active TCP connections, then Shutdown() is better compared to Close method.
One good advantage of using Shutdown method over Close is that we can perform some cleanup operations after a server shutdown is initiated. This can be done by registering one or more cleanup functions using RegisterOnShutdown method.
server.RegisterOnShutdown(f func())
These cleanup functions will be run as separate goroutines and they will be invoked as soon as the shutdown process is started. Like Close method, Shutdown method can not close upgraded or hijacked connections. Hence this is a good place to close these connections gracefully.
This method needs a base context of the incoming requests. If you haven’t configured the BaseContext field of the Server structure, you can use the context.Background() since it is the default value for the BaseContext field.
The Shutdown method does not wait for cleanup job to be completed. Also, the server will return immediately once the Shutdown call is made. Hence it is mandatory to keep main goroutine alive until the server shutdown and server cleanup jobs are completed. For that, we can use channels or a WaitGroup like we did in the previous examples.
Let’s modify our earlier example and register a cleanup function.
In the above example, instead of using two channels to signal exit, we are using a WaitGroup . WaitGroup wg will wait for 2 goroutines to finish their jobs, one that closes the server and the other that performs the cleanup.
The ideal output of the above program should be as following. However, results may vary depending upon your system. But in all the cases, Main(): exit complete! will be the last statement.
ListenAndServe(): http: Server closed
Shutdown(): completed! <nil>
RegisterOnShutdown(): completed!
Main(): exit complete! | https://medium.com/rungo/running-multiple-http-servers-in-go-d15300f4e59f | ['Uday Hiwarale'] | 2020-09-01 06:42:04.870000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Golang', 'Go Programming Language', 'Golang Tutorial', 'Go Programming'] |
Are Healthy Teams also High performing Teams? | Photo: rawpixel.com / Freepik
Have you ever wondered whether team health is a factor in building stronger, high-performing teams?
The answers to this question might seem simple. As an Agile Team Lead for CBC Digital, I’ve been experimenting with different metrics and measurements to find an accurate answer for this question, rather than saying, “the team is doing great or they are performing well.”
The simplest logic is to think that if you’re sick or stressed out, you will not be able to perform as well. The same theory applies to your Agile teams. OKRs, KPIs, and velocity are good tools to measure performance, yet I’ve found “health and well-being” is the most important indicator of team performance.
Here’s how I apply the Agile mindset with my teams to ensure they work within a psychologically safe space, all while having a great time together:
Photo by Michael Kwan-Analytics & Search team, CBC
Understand the team culture
As a leader and a coach to your team, you need to know your team dynamics. These are some of the areas to probe:
How creative are they when it comes to problem-solving?
What areas do they need guidance to improve?
What have you learned through your 1:1s about their concerns and what makes them happy?
How safe do they feel within the team?
How accountable and committed are they?
2. Provide clear direction and have a proper team structure
Defining your team’s purpose and direction through a structured development/execution plan can help maintain focus and stability. Also, providing opportunities for employees to take on more leadership roles within the team helps teach shared responsibility and accountability. Your team will feel supported to pursue various avenues and to continue to grow in their career paths.
3. Encourage Teamwork
The foundation of a healthy team is to ensure that people trust one another and communicate openly. They should be:
Collaborating and freely participate in conversations
Listening willingly and actively
Engaging in constructive conflict resolution and problem-solving
4. Be a good listener
Understanding your team’s concerns is a proven way to keep your team motivated. A simple expression of appreciation helps to build a healthy team dynamic, which drives productivity. Be there to motivate and encourage them. Invite them to share their ideas. And support them in their training needs as they reach to achieve their career goals. Celebrating the wins together, and solving problems as a team will help to improve everyone.
5. Commit to team checkups
Having 1:1s with team members at least once a month helps to build safe and strong connections. A healthy rapport with your team is vital to having constructive conversations.
6. Abandon traditional retrospectives
Instead of trying to generate lessons learned for the next sprint/project, experimenting with new retrospective ideas can be an opportunity to identify what the team can do better and what can be improved to increase the team’s capacity for the future…
7. Establish team health metrics
The quarterly metrics I use include team-building exercises, team health checks, performance surveys to learn about loopholes in the product roadmap or objectives that were not discussed during a retro. It’s also important to introduce team best practices in order to provide guidance and to be referenced at will. Communication matrices can be useful in understanding how the team feels about rituals, meetings, experiments in place, etc.
Throughout the past few years in my role as an Agile Team Lead, through frequent experimentation, I discovered that having superstars on the team or having the best skill sets are not the only important factors in building a high performing team. What I’ve observed is that the secret lies in the more intangible factors, such as the bonds and trust forged within its members that make teams highly successful. Striving to build a psychologically safe environment and ensuring that team members are happy physically, mentally, and socially is what builds a healthy team, and consequently, a high performing product team.
To join our teams at CBC, check out our current openings here. | https://medium.com/cbc-digital-labs/are-healthy-teams-also-high-performing-teams-1c5b5567134a | ['Ashanti Jayasena'] | 2020-09-01 18:52:38.919000+00:00 | ['Collaboration', 'Workplace Culture', 'Agile', 'Teamwork', 'Software Development'] |
Key Ingredients for Writing Compelling Video Game Characters | One of the biggest struggles of narrative design is creating strong characters when they have such limited showtime and script. Movies and cinematic cutscenes give writers a certain control over how we see characters act, but how do we handle character building in less story-centric and less narrative-driven games?
What we lack in dialogue and action, we need to make up for with a depth that helps characters shine during the limited airtime they do get. So firstly, what actually makes a character, a character?
MOTIVATION
Character: The mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual
Behaviours, habits, mannerisms… these are what we see most obviously in characters, but where is it exactly that these qualities originate from? Characters are much more than a set of characteristics; they have wants, needs and fears that drive them. So when it comes to writing stories, we need to begin with the motivation that builds the foundation of that story. For this, we have two simple ingredients:
Intensity of wanting something Something standing in the way
It is conflict that all stories are based upon, and conflict that should drive a character.
What does your character want? What stands in their way?
PLAYER RELATIONSHIP
Players have a special relationship with protagonists in video games, unique from other mediums. Avatars are the characters that we want to be, to project ourselves into. As narrative designers, we can utilise this chance to create something more intimate, as a roleplaying vessel to play as. This can be via:
An ideal fantasy — For example, roleplaying as a spy or princess. This is something we can never be, something amazing and beyond our reach in real life, but oh so fun to taste the power of it in a fantasy world.
— For example, roleplaying as a spy or princess. This is something we can never be, something amazing and beyond our reach in real life, but oh so fun to taste the power of it in a fantasy world. A blank slate — Sometimes known as silent protagonists, these characters have no notable characteristics or backstory. By giving the player less detail and complete customisation over their character, we give them more opportunity to project themselves onto their avatar.
— Sometimes known as silent protagonists, these characters have no notable characteristics or backstory. By giving the player less detail and complete customisation over their character, we give them more opportunity to project themselves onto their avatar. A combination of the above
Of course, a blank slate is what it is: Blank. Therefore, much of the character building in this article will only apply to side characters and protagonists with established characters. When it comes to a blank slate, we need to hold back on personality traits and leave the player more control over who they’re playing as; I struggled with Fallout 4 because my character had a voice, and it wasn’t who I wanted it to be. In previous Fallout games where my avatar was mute, I could imagine my own ideal persona for my character without having that illusion shattered.
We need to remember to maintain this roleplay and player-character connection. They should share pain (more on this in my immersion article!), victory, knowledge, surprise and learning together. So, for example, the player shouldn’t be able to magically see enemies hiding and waiting to surprise the protagonist in a prior cutscene. And vice versa, the protagonist shouldn’t already know a twist before the player learns of it either. When we do these things, we break that roleplay connection. On the other hand, even the simple act of the protagonist levelling up and unlocking new moves as the player themselves masters the game alongside them is a bond in itself. You’re in it together.
Are there any imbalances between the player’s knowledge and the protagonist’s? By starting the game in an environment new and unknown to the protagonist, the player can learn and explore together along with them, without disadvantage over one another. Just beware of using cliches (*cough* memory loss!).
THREE DIMENSIONAL CHARACTER
Good characters are often described as three-dimensional. They’re complex and unique, with fully developed lives, attitudes, and weaknesses. We need realistic characters to help immerse us in a game’s world, engage our emotions, and motivate us to share their goals. But we can avoid ‘flat’ characters by breaking them down into their physical, sociological and psychological dimensions.
Physical
This is everything that makes up the physical body of your character: Their appearance, race, gender etc. Physical traits may even affect a character’s story or lot in life, for example being shunned from society as a mutant or facing hardship from prejudice. Just be careful not to stereotype a character’s appearance to fit their story.
Sociological
Think of this as the hard facts about a character’s story and environmental factors: Their culture, history, upbringing. This includes where they have come from and where they are now, and how these past and present factors have molded their present character.
Psychological
This is how we see the character act and react: Their view of the world, opinions, attitudes, actions. It’s important to remember that a character does not know themself: their emotions and character are revealed through action and the paths they choose, largely during hardship. The true psychological dimension of a character is revealed when the character takes off their comfortable mask in a crisis. In other words, when us writers screw everything up for them.
Which we will do.
A lot.
Self awareness is boring and, frankly, unrealistic. Characters should never explain themselves, their emotions or their behaviour, because they shouldn’t know their psychological dimension much better than the player does.
At the end of this article, I’ll share a checklist of questions I commonly use when building characters and their three dimensions, but until then…
CHARACTER ARC
Credit to Reedsy and their character arc guide
As narrative designers, our job is to compel the player, to make them like a character… Or alternatively, if the character is a complete asshole, make the player mesmerised by them. As previously mentioned, by seeing a character change, by seeing them in crisis, we see a true depth that allows us to empathise with their struggles. As writers, we have to be horrible to our characters to find out who they really are. And that’s where growth and development come in.
Story must move forward. But when the story moves forward, the characters must change with it. If the protagonist starts down in the gutter, make them rise up and find courage. If the protagonist starts high and proud, tear them down to the ground. It is when we’re forced to face conflicts and obstacles that we have to grow. This can be physical challenges and rivalries, or mental battles and moral dilemas. We can use every one of these incidents to reveal depth of character and learn truths about them that even they don’t know themselves.
Now, this is all very useful for a heavy game narrative but, outside of the main story, how can we reflect growth in gameplay? Unlockable combat stances, ballsier battle cries and dialogue barks, and increasingly impressive armour can be a brilliant way to reflect a growth of character without having to rely on cutscenes and linear story. It’s gradual, it’s subtle, and we’re constantly absorbing and acknowledging these changes as we play. But we can also add smaller reinforcements from NPC reactions to the player: Remarks on their actions, rumours of effects on the world from the things that they’ve done, and recognition of their name. All of it reflects one satisfying thing: Progression.
What skills or insight is lacking in a character, and what room for growth is there? What setbacks can we match to these moments of growth? And at what cost does this growth come?
A WORTHY ANTAGONIST
Let’s not forget one thing: Bad guys are people too.
It shouldn’t just be the protagonist that grows; equally the antagonist needs to advance along with them, both in character and gameplay level. A story is only interesting if the rivals are evenly matched, therefore the antagonist should be very capable of beating the protagonist every step of the way with increasingly powerful minions, moves and weapons. And to keep the narrative compelling? Their character must be as strong and fleshed out as the protagonist’s too.
Bad guys are usually a large part of a story’s motivation, and that motivation must be strong to make us actually care. We can have enemies so evil that we love to hate them, but we can also have greyer enemies we might begrudgingly cheer against while silently rooting for their own redemption. Let’s take the Turks from FFVII for example, they show glimpses of humanity, of remorse and brotherhood; qualities that remind us they’re not just drones. And they’re just… so damn cool.
Antagonists should be equally as developed as protagonists, despite less screen time. Give them a tragic flaw. Reflect their personality and actions via NPC ambient gossip, their treatment of victims, the architecture of their lair, and their minions in their mannerisms, phrases and actions.
UNEXPECTED EMOTION
Humans are complicated beings, and we’re also really messed up and confused, like, all the damn time wait is that just me. Characters don’t know themselves, and they don’t necessarily always react how the audience expects. Trauma, fear, bereavement, general suffering can, unsurprisingly, do weird things to a person.
But when characters react the opposite to how we expect, it can also be all the more emotionally powerful, surprising and attention-grabbing. For example, a tough character finally breaking down and falling to pieces under pressure or fear. Or irrational anger at a dead loved one for ‘leaving’. These unexpected behaviours can allude us to exactly how deeply affected and vulnerable a character is, despite appearances.
One of my favourite Star Trek episodes I watched recently, ‘One’, sees the tough and together Seven Of Nine have a bit of a breakdown as she finds herself alone on the ship with a psychopath. The build-up of a strong unshakable character is all the more powerful when they finally are shaken enough to just lose their damn minds. Let emotions explode in weird ways and the results might pleasantly surprise you.
Unexpected emotion and outbursts should be used sparingly and never forced. Otherwise… well, they’re not so unexpected. They need to be suppressed and built up… then you can let it explode for maximum impact, like a big ‘ol sparkly bomb of tears and hysteria.
The obvious moments to exercise unexpected emotion are after the deaths of companions or side characters. But, alternatively for non-linear games, we can have characters act unexpectedly in difficult times such as the run-up to an ultimate boss. Find (very) rare gameplay moments when characters are really pushed to their limits.
SHOW, DON’T TELL
Backstory is dull. It’s all too easy a mistake to shove backstory down the player’s throat in a three-page long monologue, but this more often than not only results in a loss of immersion and detachment from the player. If something happened to someone or was important to their past, don’t talk about it: show it in a flashback. If the player sees it vicariously for themselves, they can form an actual emotional attachment along with the protagonist as opposed to passively hearing it third hand.
Take the Last Of Us. Joel’s past isn’t forced on us through unnatural speeches and clunky throwbacks. Instead, we get to live his memory out ourselves in the game’s prologue. And it works beautifully. So make it personal, and make the player witness what makes an antagonist so evil or how deeply the protagonist loves another.
Of course, we don’t always have to use long, grand flashbacks to convey a character’s memories, not to mention we don’t always have the functionality in some types of games. But we can still sprinkle the backstory of characters throughout their actions and current habits, for example, becoming nervous or enraged in certain places, or not wanting to talk about certain things. They could even hold a keepsake from a loved one, with an uncharacteristic protectiveness over it.
It’s always better to show little than to reveal too much: Just because a character has a backstory, doesn’t mean we are obliged to tell it. Mystery can be far more powerful, and all it takes is a few seeds. Alternatively, save reveals for later, after you’ve made the player want to know more.
CHARACTER BUILDING CHECKLIST
I always find that scribbling down the answers to a few key questions about my characters really solidifies exactly who they are in my head and makes them really come to life. Once I’ve established these little details, I write up some dialogue for them just to get a good feel of how they’d typically react to stuff (even just dialogue barks, for example, victory barks).
A few of my favourites:
Name and nickname — why are they called this? What is their goal? Their motivation? What is their backstory vs present story? What do they look like What is their disposition Where do they live What do they eat How do they dress Any major experiences or traumas? Any failures or internal conflicts? How was their childhood? What are their ruminations? What are their obsessions? What are their fears? What are their flaws? What are their strengths? What is their happy place? Are they in love? Do they have any medical conditions? What are their hobbies? What are their friends like? What are they embarrassed by? What do they believe in? What makes them relatable?
OTHER IDEAS AND INSPIRATION
A great place to start as a base for your cast of characters is to take a look at typical character archetypes and morality charts. This isn’t to encourage stereotypes and tropes per se, but I find this helps me to map out a diversity amongst my cast. I know I personally have a habit of falling into writing certain personas, but I find that setting out ‘types’ to begin with ensures that I establish a balance of various personalities for a more colourful story.
Need a wee character writing prompt to jump off from? Just use the simple formula:
Character = Adjective + noun
FURTHER READING
I hope the pointers mentioned in my article help to strengthen your characters like they have my own! Obviously, human beings are pretty complex subjects so there’s a hell of a lot more ground we can cover when writing characters in games. Next up, I’ll be expanding on archetypes and character relationships that add richness to those squadmates with the least airtime: companions. | https://medium.com/swlh/key-ingredients-for-writing-compelling-video-game-characters-875b00a236d2 | ['Natalie Mikkelson'] | 2020-11-27 16:01:10.480000+00:00 | ['Character Building', 'Game Design', 'Game Development', 'Narrative Design', 'Gaming'] |
Our greatest starvation. | When was the last time you opened up to someone about the most sacred moments from your past in an uninterrupted, non-judgemental setting filled with intent listening and empathy?
For me, it was yesterday.
A work-related call with a good friend yesterday turned into a 6-hour conversation of me opening up about the deepest (and in some way darkest) moments from my past.
After it ended, I felt emotionally carved out, in a good way. It was a fitting end to the worst year of my life (more on that in another article).
When I woke up today, I wanted to pen down some of my thoughts on why this experience was so deeply cathartic.
Blind spots
Let’s take part in a short experiment.
Close your right eye with your right hand and focus your left eye on the black circle above. Slowly move closer to the screen and stop when the magic happens.
There is a certain distance at which the “+” will completely disappear from your view, although it’s right in front of you.
This is your neurological and literal blind spot.
Yesterday, I learned about my emotional blind spots.
Three hours into my sharing experiences from the past, he told me something I hadn’t heard before.
“You are too hard on yourself. You are taking too much responsibility for other people’s actions and not being compassionate enough to your past self.”
Without diving too deep into the meaning behind the above, it showed me that such realizations cannot happen in a vacuum. For most of this year, I was my own teacher, mentor, and therapist. But, there are limits to me being objective towards… me.
We all need someone else to spot these blind spots.
Starvation
This is how I see the scale of listening. | https://medium.com/@poojabalasubramani/our-greatest-starvation-b7f0b136abd3 | ['Soundarya Balasubramani'] | 2020-12-18 03:40:12.988000+00:00 | ['Connection', 'Conversations', 'Compassion', 'Empathy', 'Humanity'] |
4 Important Traits of a Great CFO | A great Chief Financial Officer is crucial to the success of a business, but what makes a great CFO?
With a rapidly changing business environment that’s becoming more and more global, as well as advances in analytics technologies, a great CFO must possess a number of traits, beyond the obvious finance knowledge, to ensure they’re successful.
Integrity
First and foremost, a great finance chief must be honest and stand by what they believe. If the numbers suggest a course of action is taken, it’s important the CFO be able to stand behind it, whether it will be well received or not. The CFO is a guardian of everyone’s money and must be able to communicate both good and bad news when it arises. Strategic Vision
Like a chess player, a great CFO must be able to think ahead and envision multiple outcomes or paths to success. Looking at the bigger picture, the best finance chiefs help implement and execute business and finance strategies to evolve the business as a whole. Communication Skills
Communication is important to a lot of positions, but especially so when one often has to be the bearer of bad news. A great CFO is able to communicate the business’s finances both orally and in writing, as well as provide the necessary information to key personnel in an efficient and easy to understand way. Business Expertise and Knowledge of Operations
A great CFO isn’t just a numbers guy and needs to understand many of the business’s operations and procedures in order to help strategize and provide insight when problems arise. A great CFO should be willing to step out of their office and connect with all parts of the business.
A great CFO must be able to integrate into all parts of a company, rather than just being the budget guy. CFOs must possess leadership qualities and be able to adapt when things don’t go exactly as planned. A CFO who spends all their time in the office crunching numbers isn’t as valuable to a company as someone willing to dig in and connect with each department to get a better view of the big picture. | https://medium.com/@adviaconsulting/4-important-traits-of-a-great-cfo-50b76c30180c | ['Advia Consulting'] | 2020-12-07 15:55:37.355000+00:00 | ['Consulting', 'Financial Planning', 'Corporate Culture', 'CFO', 'Enterprise'] |
Decorating Your Bathroom With Blinds and Curtains | Home furnishings can vary considerably in Dubai. There are just so many different styles and options for your home decorating that one can be overwhelmed by the situation. For instance, there are many different options for your master bedroom including luxurious and designer pieces.
In other instances, you may want to incorporate a more traditional look into your home. In this instance, you should really look into the wonderful options for decorating your bathroom.
This area of your home is typically very small and in most cases is going to have less furniture than a normal bathroom. Therefore, a great option for decorating your bathroom is to go with blinds and curtains.
However, there are going to be certain situations where you will be better off with a separate display rather than using blinds and curtains. For instance, if you live in a smaller home you will probably not want to deal with the cost of a separate display of your bedroom furniture.
One of the primary considerations to make when deciding whether or not to go with a separate display is the cost. Deciding on a separate display can be a great option, but it is a huge financial investment. In the long run, it can be very expensive if you are planning on doing this in the long term.
Blinds and curtains are very inexpensive, and there are numerous stores that specialize in selling these types of blinds and curtains. You can usually find these blinds and curtains online and even in stores that sell furniture. So, to save money and make a very affordable investment in your home decorating, you may want to make use of an online store that specializes in such items.
One of the greatest features of shopping online for blinds and curtains is that you can find such blinds and curtains in many styles, colors, and designs. In fact, many online stores even have multiple styles of blinds and curtains, so you can choose from a very large selection.
In addition to the variety of styles, you can also find blackout window blinds that have an easy-to-use one-touch window. You do not even have to use the blinds and curtains as the blinds and curtains come fitted and go over the windows and doors. This feature is great for those who do not want to deal with changing the blinds and curtains every time they want to change the curtains.
The additional benefit of the blinds and curtains Dubai you purchase online is that you can shop from the comfort of your own home. This eliminates the cost of traveling to the store or shopping from the convenience of your own home.
In addition to this, you do not have to worry about being wrong on the right size of blinds and curtains. Many of the online stores carry sizes for all sizes of blinds and curtains so you can order the right size blinds and curtains for your room in your bedroom, living room, or bathroom.
The most important consideration to make when purchasing blinds and curtains is the price. If you decide to go with blinds and curtains in an online store, you can find great deals and save money while still getting the type of blinds and curtains you want. | https://medium.com/@curtainblindsdubai/decorating-your-bathroom-with-blinds-and-curtains-5a6b19d2c7f8 | ['Curtains Blinds Dubai'] | 2020-01-14 09:56:00.794000+00:00 | ['Interior', 'Home', 'Home Decor', 'Interior Decorating', 'Home Improvement'] |
Financial Automation Is The Future Of Corporate Finance | What is an automated financial system?
Automated financial systems refer to the use of software to automate top finance-related tasks such as data consolidation and financial statement preparation. Financial systems have the potential to greatly overhaul how finance departments are run by freeing up time so that finance professionals may focus on strategizing, analyzing, and making key strategic decisions.
Why should you automate financial processes?
There are a few reasons why financial automation should be a top priority for the finance department.
Data integrity
Financial document automation or financial statement automation reduces the risks of unnecessary errors in calculations. With automated processes, you can be more confident in your numbers.
Greater visibility
When you adopt financial process automation, you’re more likely to get a complete picture of your financials. Modern software offers visibility into the numbers that were previously unattainable.
Accelerated efficiency
Automated financial systems means replacing manual processes with automated ones, which results in smoother processes. Instead of being slowed down by manual, error-prone processes, financial process automation accelerates procedures and saves you time.
Investigate which activities can be automated
The finance function is responsible for a wide range of responsibilities, from consolidating data to making complicated decisions. According to McKinsey, existing technologies can fully automate 42% of finance activities.
When it comes to FP&A, activities such as building standard management reports and consolidating and validating budget and forecast inputs have much to gain from automation. Budgeting, forecasting, and management reporting are all key responsibilities that can benefit from automation. FP&A typically dedicates a lot of time on aggregating and formatting data instead of strategic planning.
How can you automate your financial processes?
To automate financial processes, first identify the processes that can benefit from automation. Which processes are you currently conducting that it would be great if you didn’t have to perform? Which routines can you do without? Once you’ve identified the repetitive tasks you’d like to automate, look into the automation platforms that can replace time-intensive and how-value tasks. DataRails is one such automation process that can save you plentiful time and reduce unnecessary manual work.
According to Accenture, automation is going to eliminate up to 40% of the transactional accounting work that finance professionals currently conduct. So, to align yourself with this statistic, look into adopting RPA and automation software to take better control of your processes.
Automation is not a threat
There’s a misconception that bringing in automation will eliminate jobs and replace existing workers. However, this is far from the truth. Ultimately what automated financial services achieve are improved and accelerated processes. They allow finance professionals to focus on value-added work, as opposed to spending their time on repetitive manual work.
The use of automated financial services will be a big priority for the C-suite in coming years. Automated financial processes allow for the gathering and consolidation of information quicker and better than a human could accomplish, enabling decision makers to focus on what really matters. DataRails can help, without asking finance professionals to change the way they currently work.
Automated financial statements in Excel
Thanks to DataRails, automating an Excel based financial statement is possible. Users can keep working in Excel while simultaneously benefitting from financial automation that significantly improves work processes. With DataRails, users can collect, report, and analyze financial and operational data, no matter where it’s stored. Automate data transformations including consolidations, FX conversions, hierarchies, financial adjustments, and more.
Financial statement automation is the future of the finance department, and it’s more achievable now than ever. Let DataRails help you move towards the future. | https://medium.com/@datarails/financial-automation-is-the-future-of-corporate-finance-717955d6ade8 | [] | 2020-12-27 10:27:14.405000+00:00 | ['Financial Services', 'Finance', 'Automation', 'Finance And Banking'] |
What is Information Architecture? | What is Information Architecture?
And what do I do with it?
From brewing a pot of coffee to navigating through your favorite app, information architecture is pervasive. You may not even notice it, but our lives are subtly — and sometimes overtly — guided by the information architecture around us.
And that’s exactly why you need to understand what information architecture is — especially as a designer.
What is Information Architecture?
In its simplest form, information architecture (IA) is the discipline of organizing information clearly and logically. Its purpose is to make sure said information helps users easily navigate and use a product, app, or website.
In essence, IA is like a map. It allows users to understand exactly where they are and how they can get to where they want to be. To do this effectively, information has to be presented in a way that makes it easy for the user to follow the map — with minimal cognitive effort.
The Importance of Information Architecture — Particularly in Design
Whether you’re designing an app, website, or any other product (physical or digital), your ultimate goal should be to give users a great user experience (UX). No matter how exceptional your product may be, if your user struggles to find their way around, the negative UX will increase the likelihood that they dump your product. And once you lose a user, bringing them back is next to impossible.
That’s why information architecture must be a core element of product design — it helps guarantee a great product experience.
Information architecture may not be visible to end users, but it should form the backbone of product design. After all, your visual design and navigation will be heavily influenced by your IA. If your information architecture is designed well, users will find it easy and enjoyable to use your product. Not only will the high customer satisfaction rates lead to loyal users, they will also lead to more positive reviews. And as you well know, positive reviews lead to more new users and, ultimately, significant growth of your user base.
The 8 Foundational Principles of Information Architecture that Impact UX
Information architecture is a very broad field that can’t be fully covered in a single post. However, there are some important foundational IA principles that you need to know if you’re to create a great UX for your users. These are borrowed from Dan Brown, one of the pioneers of modern IA.
Principle of Objects
Treat your content as a living entity. Like any living thing, each piece of content has a unique lifecycle, behaviors, and attributes. These will determine the way you structure a particular piece of content.
Principle of Choices
Don’t overwhelm your users with too many options as this will mean more cognitive effort. And more effort could cause anxiety, leading to a negative UX. If there is to be a range of choices on a page, they should all be focused on one particular task.
Principle of Disclosure
One common mistake many designers make is to try and squeeze in a lot of information on a single page. This only leads to information overload. The principle of disclosure states that you should show just enough information to help users understand where they are and what they’ll get as they go deeper. Limiting the information they see at any given point will allow users to better absorb it.
Principle of Exemplars
If you’re presenting different categories, show examples of content in each category. Examples, especially visual ones, will help users easily identify what they need to do on that page.
Principle of Front Doors
In the case of a website, assume that a good portion of visitors will come through some page (door) other than the homepage. This means every page should include some basic information letting users know where they are and the steps they should take to get to the next level.
Principle of Multiple Classifications
The principle of multiple classifications simply means you should offer users different ways to browse the content on your site. This is because different people prefer different methods of finding what they’re looking for on your website. Structure your navigation in such a way that it caters to all common browsing methods.
Principle of Focused Navigation
Focused navigation simply means every navigational element should not be defined by where it appears. Instead, it should be defined by and focus on the directions it contains.
Principle of Growth
Always anticipate the growth of your website. As your website grows, so too will the amount of content increase. As you design your IA, make sure to plan for this growth. If your IA is not scalable, it will lead to you having to constantly redesign your website.
Following these simple principles will help create a strong foundation for your IA, ultimately resulting in a positive UX.
Understanding the 4 Components of Effective Information Architecture
Effective information architecture, for any digital or physical product, depends on understanding the 4 components that define how you structure your content — even as you’re on the prototyping stage of design. As a result, it also determines how users interact with your product. Here’s a brief look at those 4 components:
Organization Systems
Organization systems involve determining how you’ll categorize your information. These can be further broken down into 3 structures:
Hierarchical. This type of content organization involves presenting information in such a way that users will quickly understand the importance of each element. Relying on the Gestalt principles, this usually involves visual perception on the user’s part. A typical example is the use of larger fonts to highlight important copy or contrasting colors for important buttons on a page.
Source
Sequential . In this structure, information is presented in such a way that users move along a predefined “journey,” step-by-step. For example, to make a purchase on an e-commerce website, the user will select a product, add it to their cart, confirm their selection, and head off to the checkout page. Relevant information is presented along each step of the way.
. In this structure, information is presented in such a way that users move along a predefined “journey,” step-by-step. For example, to make a purchase on an e-commerce website, the user will select a product, add it to their cart, confirm their selection, and head off to the checkout page. Relevant information is presented along each step of the way. Matrix. This structure is a bit more complex as it involves giving users control over how they want to browse through your information. Users are given several options for retrieving the information that they’re looking for. For example, you can organize your information according to date, trending topics, or even audience type.
But categorizing your information is only one aspect of effective IA. Let’s move on to the next component.
Labeling Systems
Labeling systems deal with how you represent information on your website. In most cases, you will have a lot of information to communicate to users. Unfortunately, giving it all to them at once can lead to confusion.
This is where labeling systems come to play.
Source
As an information architect, you must create labels that represent loads of data in as few words as possible. For example, a call-to-action button is a label that represents the instructions you’ve already given a user.
Navigation Systems
A navigation system, in terms of IA, involves how users move through your app or website content.
Source
Examples of navigation systems include (but are not limited to):
Hierarchical navigation . This is a simple system that takes users from the main page to other linked pages — usually in the form of a drop-down menu.
. This is a simple system that takes users from the main page to other linked pages — usually in the form of a drop-down menu. Global navigation . This is a more complex navigation system that allows for vertical and lateral movement across the website. Commonly called a “site-wide navigation bar,” it sits at the top (and bottom) of a page and consists of a set of links that allow users to easily access the top-level pages of a site.
. This is a more complex navigation system that allows for vertical and lateral movement across the website. Commonly called a “site-wide navigation bar,” it sits at the top (and bottom) of a page and consists of a set of links that allow users to easily access the top-level pages of a site. Local navigation . As the name suggests, this navigation system helps users explore nearby content in relation to where they are.
. As the name suggests, this navigation system helps users explore nearby content in relation to where they are. Contextual navigation. Contextual navigation offers users a way to navigate an app or website in terms of related content. For example, an e-commerce store can offer customers contextual navigation by displaying to users a navigation menu that features related products.
Navigation systems are complex and can’t entirely be covered in a single post. Check out this post for a more in-depth look at them.
Search Systems
Searching systems are employed to help users easily search for information in a digital product. This is especially essential for products that have so much information that users are at risk of getting lost as they browse through your content.
Source
To implement a search system, you’ll need filters and a search engine to help pull out relevant data. You’ll also have to think about ways you might present search results to users so that they are easy to understand and navigate through.
Information Architecture — The Foundation of Good UX
While we’ve only scratched the surface, it’s evident that without good information architecture, it’s impossible to give your users a good user experience. Indeed, information architecture is the foundation of good user experience. | https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/what-is-information-architecture-cb472d192ae9 | [] | 2020-11-25 22:34:40.874000+00:00 | ['Information Architecture', 'UX Research', 'UX', 'Ux Strategy', 'UX Design'] |
The Ultimate Guide to Clustering Algorithms and Topic Modeling | Metrics for K-Means
How to determine the goodness-of-fit for clustering models like K-means? The answer to this question is important for finding the best fit model during the iteration steps and plays an important role in helping researchers decide the number of clusters. The most used metrics for clustering algorithms are inertia and silhouette.
Inertia
Inertia measures the distance from each data points to its final cluster center. For each cluster, inertia is given by the mean squared distance between each data point X_j ∈ Ck and the center 𝜇𝑘:
After summing up inertias from all clusters, the total inertia is used to compare the performance of different K-Means models:
By the definition of inertia, it is clear that we need to choose the model that minimizes the total inertia.
Silhouette Coefficient
The silhouette coefficient is another metric that can be used in clustering algorithms. For each data point X_j, it calculates the average distance between X_j and all other points in the same clusters. Let’s define it as a_j. Then it looks for X_j’s next nearest cluster (the second-best cluster to classify X_j) and calculates the average distance between X_j and all points in this cluster as b_j. The silhouette coefficient for point X_j is:
From the equation above, we can see the silhouette coefficient is between -1 and 1 depending on how which one is larger, a_j or b_j:
If b_j is larger than a_j, it means the model has clustered X_j into the best cluster. The larger the b_j compared to a_j, the better the cluster. Otherwise, when a_j is larger, it means this point should probably be in the other cluster. The larger the a_j compared to b_j, the closer the value to -1.
The silhouette coefficient gives information about how tightly each cluster is when calculating its average for all data points in the clusters. It measures the model performance when calculating the average silhouette coefficient for all data points. | https://towardsdatascience.com/wthe-ultimate-guide-to-clustering-algorithms-and-topic-modeling-4f7757c115 | ['Zijing Zhu'] | 2021-09-03 19:07:14.432000+00:00 | ['K Means', 'Unsupervised Learning', 'Clustering Algorithm', 'Topic Modeling', 'Machine Learning'] |
Winning End To 2020 | Inter ended 2020 with a 2–1 win over Hellas Verona at the Stadio Bentegodi. We had dropped two points here on the 10th of July, more crucial points dropped in our quest for the Scudetto last season.
Highlights of Hellas Verona vs Inter, 2020–21
Disjointed First Half Attacks
We dominated the game against Hellas Verona from the start. There was greater urgency in our play but unfortunately, it broke down in the final third. We broke away from our traditional 3–5–2 to play with a 3–4–3 but the combination between Ivan Perisic, Lautaro Martinez and Romelu Lukaku up front was disjointed. In defence, it was a case of men against boys as Milan Skriniar, Stefan de Vrij and Alessandro Bastoni comfortably dealt with the threat of Verona’s young forwards. Our young forward, Eddie Salcedo, on loan at Verona couldn’t get a look in against de Vrij. Despite the dominance, the game’s best chance actually fell to the home side. Another Inter loanee, Federico Dimarco forced Samir Handanovic to pull off a great stop to prevent us from going one goal down.
Unlikely Winner
After a toothless display in the first half, we were a lot better in our attacks in the second half. Lautaro Martinez had a moment of brilliance to turn in a cross from Achraf Hakimi on the volley. After taking the lead, we made an inexplicable mistake. A cross by ex-Inter youth product, Davide Faraoni was parried by Handanovic and Skiriniar was not quick enough to clear the danger. Young Ivan Ilic was on hand to stab home a sickening equaliser. A goal scored against the run of play. Our response to that was impressive. Instead of crumbling, we doubled down the efforts and pushed hard to retake the lead. Hakimi was especially impressive taking on Dimarco at every opportunity he got. We were rewarded when Skriniar rose high to head home a corner from Marcelo Brozovic.
Milan Skriniar heads Inter’s winner, Hellas Verona vs Inter, 2020–21
Good Run Of Form In Serie A
This win made it seven wins in a row for us ahead of the winter break. A common theme in the seven wins has been greater solidity in our defence. However, our attacking play has been less flamboyant and open compared to the start of the season. That has got to do with the starting position of our defence. Instead of playing a high line, we are now sitting deeper. Teams have also got wiser on our usage of Romelu Lukaku. The goals from the big Belgian striker have not dried up but his overall play has not been as good. His combination with Martinez has also been incoherent. Martinez last scored against Torino almost a month ago which indicates his own drop in form. In this run, the form of our defenders, Nicolo Barella and Marcelo Brozovic, the spine of the team has been vital. Long may it continue. May the squad get stronger as well over the January transfer window. No two ways about it, it is make or break for Antonio Conte in Serie A.
Inter’s two scorers, Skriniar and Lautaro Martinez, Hellas Verona vs Inter, 2020–21
*Article 153 | https://medium.com/@rasfootballworld/winning-end-to-2020-539320d0c84b | ['Rasvinder Singh'] | 2020-12-24 15:01:50.997000+00:00 | ['Calcio', 'Football', 'Inter', 'Soccer', 'Serie A'] |
Project ii -Recognising Hand Written Digits | #Step 1 Importing Libraries
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sklearn import datasets
from sklearn import svm
#Step 2 i.Data sets load ii.Shape finding
digits= datasets.load_digits()
digits.data.shape
(1797, 64)
#Step 3 Using matplotlib finding gray scale image
plt.figure(figsize=(20,4))
for index, (image,label)in enumerate(zip(digits.data[0:6],digits.target[0:6])):
plt.subplot(1,6,index+1)
plt.imshow(np.reshape(image,(8,8)),cmap = plt.cm.gray_r)
plt.title(f’Training: {label}’, fontsize = 20)
#Step 4 Train the Support Vector Classification (SVC) estimator
svc = svm.SVC(gamma=0.001,C=100.)
svc.fit(digits.data[1:1790], digits.target[1:1790])
SVC(C=100.0, gamma=0.001)
#Step 5 Test our estimator.
#lets predict for 5 data
pred = svc.predict(digits.data[1791:1796])
pred
array([4, 9, 0, 8, 9])
#Step 6 Validate
digits.target[1791:1796]
array([4, 9, 0, 8, 9])
#We can see that the value of pred and digits.target is same i.e ([4,9,0,8,9]) we conclude our model is 100% accurate.
#Step 7 checking more data set:
pred_1 = svc.predict(digits.data[1591:1596])
pred_1
array([0, 0, 2, 2, 7])
#Step 8 Validate
digits.target[1591:1596]
array([0, 0, 2, 2, 7])
#Step 9 checking more data set:
pred_2 = svc.predict(digits.data[1084:1091])
pred_2
array([2, 6, 3, 3, 7, 3, 3])
#Step 10 Validate
digits.target[1084:1091]
array([2, 6, 3, 3, 7, 3, 3])
#Step 11 checking more data set:
pred_3 = svc.predict(digits.data[184:195])
pred_3
array([2, 0, 1, 2, 6, 3, 3, 7, 3, 3, 4])
#Step 12 Validate
digits.target[184:195]
array([2, 0, 1, 2, 6, 3, 3, 7, 3, 3, 4])
#Step 13 By SVC checking the accuracy of our model
#i.Split data into Train and Test using train_test_split()
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
x_train,x_test,y_train,y_test = train_test_split(digits.data,digits.target,test_size = 0.25, random_state=0)
#Step 14 putting data into SVC model
svc.fit(x_train,y_train)
SVC(C=100.0, gamma=0.001)
#Step 15 on test data checking data prediction
pred_acc = svc.predict(x_test)
pred_acc
#Step 16 Accuracy checking
from sklearn.metrics import accuracy_score
score = accuracy_score(y_test,pred1)
print(f’Accuracy = {round((score*100), 2)}%’)
Accuracy = 99.88%
#Accuracy of our model is 99.88% which is great | https://medium.com/@hana1809s4/project-ii-recognising-hand-written-digits-3721dc06e507 | ['Mohammad Ikram'] | 2020-10-05 19:37:59.918000+00:00 | ['Svc', 'Data Analytics', 'Digits Recognition', 'Scikit Learn', 'Python3'] |
The MOAC Story Episode.1 | MOAC Founder Zhou Sha:
Let’s set everything else aside for today, because I’m introducing our MOAC blockchain to several big project managers. I wanted to organize my thoughts. Because I wanted to make sure everyone understands what I’m talking about. Everyone grab a seat so that we can all get on the same page.
The MOAC Story Part I:
What is Bitcoin forking?
Everyone’s been confused lately by Bitcoin Gold’s forking. We just had a new fork, Bitcoin Cash, and on the 16th of November we’ll have another called segwit2x, a new version of B2X. Bitcoin’s sired three children in a single year, have they gone crazy? It’s actually because Nakamoto has seemingly disappeared, and the company’s divided. The reason for the division is because Bitcoin has 1M blocks, with a new one being produced every 10 minutes. This makes for only 7 transactions per second. The result is that the casino’s too small. It can only hold 100 gamblers, but there’s 10,000 outside who want in. This led to a disagreement between the miners and the programmers as to how to resolve the situation.
The MOAC Story Part II:
What’s Going on Between the Miners and Programmers?
The Miners’ thought process is very simple. If there are gamblers wanting to buy in to the table, then I earn a fee from it. So the solution is to make the casino bigger. There are different opinions as to how big it should get. Some say that if there’s 200 people that want in, then we should make it twice as big. Others say it should be 4 times bigger. Still others propose more flexibility, and we can adjust depending on how many people come. So it could be a twofold, fourfold, or eightfold expansion. The casino’s so big anyways, so many people come to gamble, and business is good. But the programmers’ thought process is different. They think that only looking at profits is low. It’d be better if we made an addition (a side chain), this lets small-time gamblers play with each other while big players play with their own crowd. This addition was called Segwit. Everyone saw how New York had an assembly, with the miners and the programmers each having to yield a little. So they made an addition and expanded the scope of the main project.
The MOAC Story Part III:
The Storm Inside the Bitcoin Teacup
So the programmers and the miners finally came to an agreement, that is to support an addition (Segwit2x). The first step was to support Segwit, and then add the 2x in November (when the block number reached 2M). The result was that those who didn’t support Segwit went off on their own and made BCC. So when they added 2x in November, some referred to themselves as No2x, meaning that they opposed expansion. People in this group also participated in the new fork BTG. Not only did they oppose expansion, they also deeply despised the ASIC mine. They wanted to revise the algorithm and go back to GPU mining. This became another controversy about whether or not this was according to Nakamoto’s original intention. But the problem was that Nakamoto had disappeared, and his logic was inconsistent even if he did show up. So how could he deal with this division?
Where to Find Us
Website: https://moac.io/
GitHub: https://github.com/MOACChain/moac-core
Twitter: https://twitter.com/moac_io
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MOAC/
Medium: https://medium.com/moac
Steemit: https://steemit.com/@moac-official
Telegram(International): https://t.me/moacblockchain
Telegram(Developers): https://t.co/8m3m9RD5ix
Telegram(China): https://t.co/73rU9sHWLH
YouTube (Event Channel):https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBU405W7vfOPBicLwW9-QOA
Youtube (Technical Channel) :
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_U54wsGNrm_Yivj5bH9i7Q?view_as=subscriber
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moacchain/
Weibo:https://weibo.com/u/6563458350 | https://medium.com/moac/the-moac-story-episode-1-2e0894bbbf53 | [] | 2018-07-18 09:03:18.209000+00:00 | ['Moac', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin'] |
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