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Slap: Sounds like a plan | The pleasure isn’t in doing something, the pleasure is in planning to do something. 😀
Research has shown that anticipating something can be a powerful, positive emotion that can help us live happier lives. If anticipation arouses more intense emotion than retrospection, we wondered if we could build a business that champions the joy of anticipation.
If we are more likely to talk about how excited we are about something we want to do (insert great idea here) compared to something we have already done (Instagram and Snapchat have this covered), what would that thing be?
We know that making plans with friends can be a hacked together logistical nightmare. With so many options to connect with people, communication has become fragmented and in some cases made people less accountable and downright flaky.
This pandemic has shown the world how fundamental human contact is in our lives. And we’re not talking about virtual contact. Zoom fatigue is real. People are re-realizing how important being with their friends in-person is.
Going forward in this new normal, who we spend time with in-person is going to take more effort and purposeful planning. And that sucks, but it doesn’t have to.
This problem doesn’t get in the way of people getting together with their friends (when we aren’t responsibly social distancing), but could there be a more fun way to do it? If so, then could we, in theory, build a business that facilitates the joy of anticipation?
That strikes us as a fun challenge and we’ve accepted it!
We’re thrilled to introduce you to our attempt to help people live life to the fullest and effortlessly experience the joy of anticipation with Slap, the new creative way to live your best life with your friends or make new ones. It’s for people who don’t like to plan, but are always down to do something fun.
We’ve combined the camera, future location and messaging together in a unique way that unlocks the social potential of the map by turning it into a ‘Video-based Social Calendar with Group Chat’ that captures future plans with our spontaneous Event Stories (Video Invite® + Video RSVPs).
There are plenty of invite services that ‘list’ who’s coming to your event or kickback, but none of them ‘show you’ who’s coming and how excited they are to join in.
It’s not where you are now, it’s where you want to be in the next 24 hours.
Bored? Record a Slap (Video Invite®) to start an Event Story telling your friends or the world what you want to do. Then pin the location of where you’ll be on your map.
Looking for something to do? Surf the Slap Map to see what your friends have posted they’ll be doing. Don’t miss out, spontaneous event stories disappear within the next 24 hours.
Find something interesting to do? Slap back by recording a Video RSVP to tell your friends you’re in. Start enjoying the anticipation of the event as the Slap backs start coming in and you see and hear how psyched everyone is.
Once you Slap back that you’ll be joining in, you’ll unlock the group chat with everyone else who will be going.
At our core, we are a group chat app that starts with an idea and then people join in verses putting a group together first and then figuring out an idea. We’ve flipped the flow to give users more control the way it works in real life instead of modifying our behavior to fit the framework of how a messaging app was designed.
When all of your favorite people are sharing and discovering things for you to join in on, life will get a lot more interesting.
Let the fun begin before the fun begins which is half the fun.
You’re welcome.
💙 #slap
# # #
About Slap
Sounds like a plan is the new creative way to live your best life with your friends or make new ones. It’s for people who don’t like to plan, but are always down to do something fun. The video-based map that serves as social calendar with group chat is available for download on iOS. Android coming soon. For more information, visit www.slap.events or follow us on social media — Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin. | https://medium.com/@slapevents/slap-sounds-like-a-plan-bd91ad2d65e | [] | 2020-07-21 13:46:35.203000+00:00 | ['Mobile', 'Messaging', 'Maps', 'Social Media', 'Calendar'] |
How to host a Cricket Tournament on the CricHeroes App? | Whether you are organising a Cricket Tournament for the first time or have done so multiple times, we all agree that it is a tedious job. Apart from deciding the format (number of overs, ball type, etc), registering teams, scouting sponsors, managing grounds, umpires, scorers, commentators, arranging drinks/food will take a toll on you at the end of the day.
We, at CricHeroes, are here to help you in at least some of the aspects of hosting and managing a cricket tournament.
Once you have decided on the format of the tournament, the next plausible steps are registering teams, booking grounds, umpires, scorers, and commentators.
We can help you get more teams with our premium offering Power Promote. Rest of the stakeholders you can search and find from the Ecosystem section of CricHeroes. But in this article, we are going to talk more about how you can score a cricket tournament successfully on the CricHeroes App and how delightful the experience is.
How to register and score a Cricket Tournament on the CricHeroes App
There is Add A Tournament option in the Side Menu of the app, from which you can start the process.
Fill all the tournament-related general details such as — Name & logo of the tournament, ground, category, ball type, etc on the first screen.
Next, you can add Teams and there are multiple ways to do that. You can add Rounds and Groups and create a schedule as a final step. All of these steps are explained in the following videos.
Optionally, you can also add the tournament officials to make your page more interesting.
But why would I do that?
You must be thinking, what’s in it for me? Why would I take so much trouble to register my cricket tournament on CricHeroes? Well, there is more than one reason.
Dedicated Tournament Page
You will get a dedicated Tournament Page (just like a Facebook Page) on the CricHeroes App and Website with your own branding (logo & banner).
Dedicated Tournament Page
Leaderboard
Get the leaderboards for Batsmen, Bowlers, Fielders, and MVPs of the tournament with advanced filters automatically. It’s like magic!
Tournament Leaderboard
Points Table
Get ICC-compliant Points Table based automatically, once again like magic!
Points Table (Standings)
Schedule
Schedule all your matches in advance and keep everyone in sync with the dates and timings.
Boundary Tracker
Get an IPL-style boundary tracker and leaderboard for your tournament.
Boundary Tracker
Advanced Scorecard
Detailed Scorecard, Commentary, Wagon Wheel, Manhattan, Worm Graph, Run Rate chart, Wickets Pie, etc. (Do we need to say automatically once again?)
Advance Cricket Scorecard
Neat and easy, Ain’t it?
CricHeroes is by far the best platform to conduct your cricket tournament, no matter at what level it is happening. With more than 27000 tournaments and 450,000 matches scored, the number speaks for themselves!
So, what do you think? Download the CricHeroes App and try hosting a Cricket Tournament today or register now. | https://medium.com/cricheroes/how-to-host-a-cricket-tournament-on-cricheroes-a2d4a741b3bf | ['Parita Pithwa'] | 2020-09-02 12:29:58.750000+00:00 | ['Cricket', 'Matches', 'Tournaments', 'Online Scoring', 'Register'] |
Space manifolds are leading us to a more chaotic solar system. | A new superhighway is discovered by a team of astronomers in Serbia and the United States, which gives us the information that due to the mutual interaction of stable manifolds and unstable manifolds in the solar system, a new pathway is generated which is chaotic in nature.
Jupiter linked manifolds are dynamically unstable:
Researches are working for decades to study the path followed by comets and their preferable trajectories; a huge amount of studies has been carried out to understand the formation of orbits around the planets of the solar system. The new study shows us that the distribution of such a manifold for all the solar system planets is similar. However, the most talked-about manifolds are linked to Jupiter because the asteroids and comets present between Jupiter and Neptune are dynamically unstable, which leads to chaotic architecture.
Manifolds facilitate comets and asteroids to travel much faster in the solar system if they follow the preferable chaotic trajectories. Jupiter has a high amount of gravitational force, which leads to shorter orbital periods, and thus more complex manifolds are present. The researchers have noted a “V-shaped” chaotic structure connected to various manifolds.
Figure1: Solar System
Manifolds in the solar system can assist us to travel much faster in space:
New spacecraft are being designed according to the new understanding of astronomical observations. The newly discovered pathways can assist our space missions, assist us in producing advancements in spacecraft manufacturing technology, and observe those bodies surrounding our earth. | https://medium.com/@hasnariaz26/space-manifolds-are-leading-us-to-a-more-chaotic-solar-system-caa270a9c530 | ['Hasna Riaz'] | 2020-12-13 20:25:23.126000+00:00 | ['Astronomy', 'Space', 'Space Exploration', 'Science', 'Solar System'] |
Why Safety Helmets are important? | Trade Brick is the manufacturer of Construction Safety Helmets in India
Working on a construction site, or any workplace where heavy objects and machinery operates is dangerous and is prone to accidents. One should not forget to wear a safety gears like safety helmet, jackets, gloves etc. for their safety. There are many industries and sectors where there is a risk of head injury. To protect the workers from these injuries, it is important to use correct safety helmet.
Why Safety Helmets Are Important?
1. Protection against Head Injuries
2. Protection against Slips and fall
3. Increases Chances of Survival in Accidents
4. Improves Employee Visibility
5. Provides Company Branding
6. Provides Sun Protection
7. Provides Adequate Ventilation
No matter how hard the workers may find the task of wearing a hard hat throughout the day, once they get the hand of its many benefits and how the scenario has improved in recent years, they will be more than happy to wear safety helmets for improved protection at the worksite.
Trade Brick is the best-in-class manufacturer plus supplier of Safety Helmets. Now you can get stylish and affordable safety helmets online at tradebrick.in. One can also get their helmets customized as per their requirements. Take advantage of our genuine products, best prices and fast delivery anywhere in India.
White — Managers | Black — Site Supervisor | Yellow — Site Workers | Grey — Visitors | Red — Firefighters | Green — Safety Officers | Blue — Electricians / Carpenters or other Technical Operators. | https://medium.com/@allindiainfo/why-safety-helmets-are-important-af7a29fd3178 | ['All India Info'] | 2020-12-01 07:24:35.341000+00:00 | ['Industry', 'Manufacturing', 'Safety', 'Safety Helmets', 'Construction'] |
[DOWNLOAD]-Crash Course for the ACT, 6th Edition: Your Last-Minute Guide to Scoring High (College Test Preparation) | DOWNLOAD>>>>>> http://co.readingbooks.host??book=0525567666
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Your Last-Minute Guide to a High ACT Score!Crunched for ACT prep time? Crash Course for the ACT is your last-minute solution, providing the most critical information you need to do well on the exam — plus 10 simple steps to put you on the path to your best score.Everything You Need to Help You Achieve a High Score — Condensed. — Concise, expert advice on all the question types you’ll see on the test- Up-to-date information on the ACT- Key strategies and exercises for each section of the exam Practice Your Way to Excellence.- 150+ practice drill questions and answer explanations, spread across all sections of the test- Example questions with step-by-step solutions throughout the book- In-depth instructions to help you write a high-scoring essay
Books are a valuable source of knowledge that affects society in different ways. Whether you are reading a masterpiece by an award-winning author or narrating a bedtime story to children, the significance of books cannot be overemphasized.
Human beings need to learn and stay informed, which are crucial needs that books can fulfill. They are also essential for entertainment and enable individuals to develop wholesome mindsets throughout their lives.
“Millions of books have been published over the years and they continue to be an integral aspect of people’s lives around the globe.
From making it easier to understand different aspects of life to serve as worthwhile companions that take you through challenging times, books have proven to be precious commodities.
Books are essential in a variety of ways that go beyond enriching your mind or entertaining you. They have stood the test of time as reliable references for centuries. They stimulate your senses and promote good mental health. Other benefits include enhancing your vocabulary, allowing you to travel through words, and inspiring positivity through motivational literature.
While the internet and television are useful in their own ways, nothing can compare to a great book. Books ignite your imagination, give you new ideas, challenge your perspectives, provide solutions, and share wisdom. At every stage of your existence, you can find a relevant book that will add value to your personal and professional life.
Books are filled with knowledge and they teach you valuable lessons about life. They give you insight into how to navigate aspects of fear, love, challenges, and virtually every part of life. Books have been in existence since time immemorial and they hold secrets of the past while providing a glimpse of the cultures of previous civilizations.
A book has the power to change or reinforce how you feel about your surroundings. It is a therapeutic resource that can equip you with the tools you need to stay on track and maintain a good attitude. Whether you want to learn a new language or delve into the intrigues of nature, there is a book for every situation.
There are numerous reasons why books are important. Reading books is a popular hobby as people around the world rely on them for relief and entertainment. Books contain records of history and are used to spread vital information. Reading books helps to improve your communication skills and learn new things. It can be useful for easing anxiety among students and professionals.
Other reasons that highlight how important books are in their positive impact on intelligence, writing abilities, and analytical skills. Books give people a great way to escape into another dimension. They are packed with endless possibilities for adventure and experiences that would be difficult to access in reality.
It is essential for people to strive to include books in their daily lives aside from using them for academic or professional purposes. They aid emotional and mental growth, boost confidence, and sharpen your memory. It is natural for people to be curious and want to learn more, which is why books are still significant today.
Books are a valuable source of knowledge that affects society in different ways. Whether you are reading a masterpiece by an award-winning author or narrating a bedtime story to children, the significance of books cannot be overemphasized.
Human beings need to learn and stay informed, which are crucial needs that books can fulfill. They are also essential for entertainment and enable individuals to develop wholesome mindsets throughout their lives.
“ | https://medium.com/@sarahmccarthy_78720/download-http-co-readingbooks-host-book-0525567666-daf77ca64e67 | [] | 2021-12-13 07:23:48.144000+00:00 | ['Download', 'Reading', 'Book', 'Read', 'eBook'] |
What It Means to Be an Editor | What It Means to Be an Editor
Can you guess the single most important resource of an editor? It’s not the dictionary, the computer, or the red pen. It’s not their language skills or their knowledge of the subject or genre.
It’s the author’s trust.
If you’re editing a book, paper, or even just a blog post for an author who doesn’t trust you, you’re wasting your time. There is no point in doing the work, as the author will not implement any of the changes you suggest.
If you’ve ever written anything other than a diary entry or an e-mail, you know writers are protective of their work. They get attached to certain words, phrases, or pieces of content. If they’re going to take someone’s advice on what to change (and especially on what to cut out), it better come from a person they trust.
But how do you show an author you‘re serious about their work?
For an author to trust you, they must first believe that you, too, want the best for them and their work. Therefore, my first rule of editing is:
Be Respectful
I have heard so many authors talk about traumatic editing experiences. They see their editors as dictators who come in and delete everything they don’t like. Some authors are scared their editors might butcher their work.
But editors who dictate rather than advise have forgotten one crucial thing: They are not the author.
This is why I have made respect my number 1 editing rule: Whatever it is I’m editing — no matter if it’s a full-on novel or a tiny online article — I am always aware of how much work the author has put into it. I treat every word with respect.
I don’t just write a comment saying “This is rubbish. Delete.” Instead, I would try to explain why a certain scene or thought might not be in the right place and make a suggestion on where else to put it. The keyword here is suggestion. I never, ever command.
I find out what the author is trying to do, and then I respect that.
This has nothing to do with being too nice. An editor who treats the author with velvet gloves and isn’t honest about problems is, of course, a waste of money. But that doesn’t mean editors have to be mean. It’s all about being constructive and showing respect for the author’s work.
As an editor, always remember that you are not the author. And that brings me to my second rule of editing:
Be Humble
It is not the editor’s place to change the author’s voice or style. On the contrary: It’s their job to identify and then reinforce the author’s style. The last thing you want to do as an editor is imposing your own style upon someone else’s work.
And that requires you to be humble.
If you want to use your own voice and style, you should be wearing the author’s rather than the editor’s shoes. A good editor puts their personal preferences in a drawer somewhere deep within their mind and looks at the text objectively.
Teamwork
In the end, an author and their editor form a team with a common goal. So if you’re an editor and want your clients to trust you, always remember these two things:
The author has put a lot of work into it. Therefore, respect it. You are not the author. Therefore, be humble.
These two qualities will show your client that you are just as serious about their work as they are. It will show them you care about their work and that your sole intention is to help make it the best it can be.
This is how you get authors to trust you with their work. | https://medium.com/@karintaglang/what-it-means-to-be-an-editor-212885983d18 | ['Karin A. R. Taglang'] | 2020-12-15 10:37:06.452000+00:00 | ['Teamwork', 'Editing', 'Authors', 'Writer', 'Trust'] |
Facing the ocean in all its calm and treacherousness | Afternoon on June 10, the sky has cleared a little from the rain. Three drove down to the southern shore and saw the memorial. “The Cornerstone of Peace.”
Standing in front of the stone, I read through the four languages carved on the stone. The languages converged into a single voice, speaks of a common history, interwoven and constantly forward, like waves of the ocean. Peace. A single word and a seemingly universal concept, yet its meaning has always been manifold and complex. Any simplistic interpretation of the word peace is problematic and could be harmful.
Whose peace? Peace of a person or a people? What people? Peace achieved by the community or regulated by the government? Which government? When peace is declared, are we in peace? Or are we at war? Sometimes, even if we do not hear gunshots or see smoke, we are at war.
June 7, we civic hackers and activists from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea have finally met in person in Koza next to Kadena Air Base, “the largest and most active US Air Force base in the Far East.” Friends in Koza have arranged food inside a city-government-sponsored co-working space and a powerful dance “Eisa” outside on the otherwise quiet street. Standing next to the young dancers, the cultural shock waves were very real and visceral.
June 8, among other projects, we were compiling a list of Chinese “invasion” of Hong Kong for the last 20 years; we were making a four-language website to serve as an info hub for the growing movement against Hong Kong government’s attempt to legalize extradition to China; we were mapping relations between content farms and Facebook fan pages through matching post content to investigate Chinese information operations.
June 9, a reporter from Okinawa Times visited. It was the day of the Fan-song-zhong (反送中, No Extradition to China) march in Hong Kong. People are gathering in the parks, on the streets, wearing white. Across the ocean, four more hongkongers are on their way, rushing back to their homeland. They will be there in time to witness and experience everything.
Photo taken in Koza before friends from Hong Kong return home.
We did not know it yet but June 9 will soon to be known as the first among many anti-extradition gathering. 1,000,000 people on the streets.
June 12, protesters were met with police tear gas and bullets outside of LegCo (Hong Kong’s Legislature). June 13, I arrived at HKG (surprisingly) without delay or interruption. I was worried until passport handed back from immigration officer.
June 14, mothers sit-in; June 15, CE Lam “postponed” bill at 3pm, one protester declared dead in hospital after falling from outside of Pacific Place (PP) that night; June 16, 2,000,001 people marched, I became one of them.
June 18, a joint statement from 8 Telegram channels demanded official response to the 5 demands by June 20. June 20, no word from government, police HQ were under siege; government offices occupied.
In FtO ’s Telegram group, we would continue to translate materials for the info website made in Okinawa. A friend of an FtO friend messaged me over Telegram. They asked if I would help to record voice over in Taiwanese Mandarin for the animated short film they have made.
A screenshot from the animated short film originally in Cantonese and published here via Stand News without attribution by authors’ request.
June 21, around 11pm, people outside of police HQ in Wan Chai were debating whether to stay or to leave. A poll was sent to one of the regional Telegram channels, echoing Joshua Wong’s on-site polling that was broadcasted via live-streaming. Comments quickly appeared to oppose this poll as forming “a big stage” (大台) and straying from the principle (rough consensus?) that this movement is “without a big stage”. (無大台) A meme then followed with the phrase “Be water, my friend.” It felt like a timely release, at least for me, of the “last battle anxiety.” It was the re-opening of a space for each person to think together and finally decide for themselves.
Screenshots of a regional Telegram group June 21 around 11pm.
This movement continues to decentralize and intensify. Some Telegram groups started to add mechanisms to prevent fake accounts. One requested real people to add a * after their screen name. Others would add a “shepherd dog” account to ask new accounts to solve a simple problem under 30 seconds.
Everything was happening in Hong Kong while in Taipei, I had to work on a proposal on information warfare research. Deadline was July 1. Then Hongkongers occupied LegCo the night of July 1.
Go. (22:13)
People are not violent. Governments are.
A protester inside LegCo took off his mask because “we cannot afford to loose again”. He urged people with capacity to join this occupation and non-violent protesters to surround LegCo. (22:28)
In government press conferences, Lam and officials have constantly mentioned “law”, “order”, “security”, “peace”, “prosperity”. What those people in suites never say is whose law and order? Whose security? Whose peace and whose prosperity? And most of all, at what cost?
Hongkongers’ schedule for six rallies in just three days July 5–7. Bottom-right reads “measure your strength and act accordingly.” Source: An anonymous Telegram channel
Lennon walls with post-its have “blossomed” everywhere in Hong Kong. Counter-protesters would destroy the post-its. Protesters would then put up new ones. “Post, don’t guard,” some netizens would say. “Be water, my friend.”
Photos of Lennon walls across Hong Kong. Source: An anonymous Telegram channel
July 9, in a 9am press conference, Lam announced that “the bill is dead.” Memes mocking use of phrase spread quickly.
We don’t want the bill killed. We want it withdrawn. Source: An anonymous Telegram channel
It has been a month since the first gathering on June 9. We did not know it yet but this movement has already started to spread across the entire Special Administrative Region.
What are the Hongkongers up to? 2019 Summer edition. Source: an anonymous Telegram channel
Many Hongkongers have paid great price in participating in this movement. Some with their lives. “Made of police batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets,” some have described the making of Hongkongers like so. What can I, an outsider, do or say to support a friend who has been through all this first-hand? Via Telegram channels, graphic design work have spread to arm the movement. Through those same channels, messages of love and care have also spread to strengthen the people from within.
You must have been through a lot after persisting for so long. I am ready to listen to you. Would you like to share with me? Source: an anonymous Telegram channel
This is what the Summer of 2019 is like for a Hongkonger. Source: an anonymous Telegram channel
July 21, at dusk, protesters gathered outside of China’s Liaison Office in West Hong Kong Island. PRC’s emblem was defaced. (A plastic cover was installed days later.) After night fall, citizens (wearing black for the protests) were attacked repeatedly by mobs wearing white holding blunt weapons at the Yuen Long metro station. Speculations on police-mob collaboration. Terrifying images and videos once again took over messaging groups and media platforms.
July 25–26, Taiwan Foundation for Democracy and the East-West Center hosted a close-door workshop in Honolulu titled “Defending Democracy Through Good Governance and Transparency.” Much of the conversation was around Chinese influence (“sharp power”) in the West Pacific. Lack of transparency, deeply rooted corruption, information manipulation (aided by ICT,) and China’s invasive powers threatens the lives and freedoms of journalists, civil servants, and civil societies in the Pacific Islands (also Taiwan.)
July 29, g0v contributors attended a meeting of nullfull in Seoul. It was the first attempt to build a bridge between two communities, an effort lead by the newly-formed g0v international task force ( g0v-intl ) to build mutual understanding among similarly-minded communities in East Asia.
August 5, almost two months after June 9, was a voluntary general “three strike” (of work, class, and market) and non-cooperative movements. More than 100 flights were cancelled. Most metro lines and stations including Airport Express stopped service. Major roads blocked. 7 simultaneous rallies were hosted in 7 districts. Protesters gather outside multiple police stations. Tear gas has been deployed everywhere. More mob and rogue police attacks on citizens and journalists alike.
Tear gas and bullet shells collected in Chuk Un on August 5. Source: Youngspiration Telegram channel posted around 5pm August 5
Photos of tear gas deployed across Hong Kong on August 5. Source: Apple Daily HK posted at 12am August 6 | https://medium.com/@chihaoyo/facing-the-ocean-in-all-its-calm-and-treacherousness-535da4bfc414 | [] | 2019-08-11 18:17:05.730000+00:00 | ['Facing The Ocean', 'Taiwan', 'Hong Kong', 'Community'] |
What Does Zappos Have to do With Trauma? | Garden of the Gods in the spring, 2020 (Amy Arbaugh)
A Brief Look at the Trauma Informed Care Model in Practice
With the recent passing of former Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, discussions about his commitment to a particular model of organizational and corporate culture have reemerged. As a proponent of intentional culture, Hsieh looked to shape his company in ways meaningful to him from the start.
Listening to news clips and reading some snippets of how things unfolded for Hsieh over time, I came across some lines from Business Insider that spoke to me about a set of challenges faced by practitioners in the field of social and public service related to the idea of trauma informed care.
When asked how some staff took to his cultural model, Hsieh said, “’What we found was that it was really hard for people to be half in one world and half in the other,’” meaning because workers are socialized in particular forms of leadership and workplace culture, it can be difficult to adopt something completely new that requires one to get rid of old ways of being and learn new ways of being.
This is an intense form of resocialization. We do it every time we become part of a new organization; however, if the new organization is asking things of you that challenge lifelong foundational learning, workers can feel a sense of dissonance. Hsieh concluded that “’The default became falling back on habits, and so it hindered the whole adoption process’” for some staff in leadership roles. They found it difficult to truly enact participatory, collaborative and democratic processes being used to thinking of leaders as autonomous decision makers.
Though there is much research on effective, positive leadership styles, long-term cultural leadership trends in the US have tended towards valuing the authoritarian, especially when organizations are undergoing stress or change. While we often do not like the use of that term, I use it here intentionally rather than the friendlier term, authoritative.
My implication is that when workers become leaders in social services and/or non-profits, they may experience a sense of dissonance between what they intuit from our culture to be the correct form of leadership and the often intensely emotionally-driven environment that derives from working with people with high needs, lots of barriers and those in need of extensive skills development. This dissonance can lead to reactive measures that take on the color of authoritarianism. Further, bring in new models of care and the push to impress donors by showing that your staff are trained in the latest innovations and we have another example of a good, working theory being poorly implemented.
This brings me to the much-trending trauma informed workplace perspective mentioned above. This is not so much a piece about leadership — though I believe that plays a role — as it is about what can happen when we attempt to implement a new organizational model in an incomplete way.
The trauma informed care model is seeing widespread support not only in the field of health care, but also in public and social services, from education to various non-profit service providers. This perspective uses the power of scientific inquiry and the drive of compassion to understand how deep, systemic poverty affects the body, down to the very development of neurological pathways. It makes direct connections to long-term term life chances, and therefore gives an important holistic way of conceptualizing the impacts of inequalities on individuals and communities.
While trauma informed care has been around for a bit now, it has recently gained wider purview as corporations are asked to create a trauma informed culture in the midst of the pandemic and social unrest. This is quite different from how practitioners in public service have been asked to use the model. Corporate staff are asked to recognize that many workers are affected by the world around them, experiencing stressors to the point of trauma. There are impacts difficult to turn off when showing up at work during 2020 and these will continue to be difficult on into 2021. It makes common sense to have sensitivity to these issues and it’s not a bad idea for workplaces to take this moment to pause and consider some healthy practices.
To be clear, I am not really critiquing the model; rather how it is put into place in some cases. I am also offering an experiential view not making broad-scale research claims. It is important to note, however, that the model itself falls under critique in a couple of ways for those who are interested. Some raise concerns about the extent to which trauma actually changes the physical structure of the brain and therefore impacts all following life experiences (i.e. the science is sketchy), whereas others raise qualitative concerns such as how the language we use in the trauma informed care model could serve to emphasize deficits rather than assets if we’re not careful with its implementation. Instead, a “healing centered engagement” can build individuals and communities by emphasizing agency and empowerment, according to Ginwright.
Like many in my career pathway, I encountered this framework locally in the fields of housing and in workforce development in recent years. In both, staff receive a one to three-day training and are expected to apply these ideas in their everyday interactions with clients. As a sociologist, the idea that social context from birth on up impacts a person’s life chances, down to their physical health is not new. It’s a core viewpoint. But the trauma informed perspective is more medically, socially and politically complex than that. And this is the point at which I begin to feel some profoundly serious concerns.
A perspective meant to engage system-level change ends up sitting at the level of individual attitude adjustments when staff are required to attend workshops to check donor boxes in the name of ongoing professional development. According to Sandra L. Bloom, the trauma informed model is — should be — one that is a total systems approach. Every aspect, every program and person within an organization must bear the characteristics of the total system, in this case, the trauma informed care model in order for it to succeed.
While viewing clients through a trauma informed lens may help workers distant from the lived experience of trauma to better understand their clients’ experiences, organizations must transform mission statements and restructure around this model in order to produce the results that lead clients into pathways of human flourishing. There must be total buy in.
The promises of the trauma informed perspective flounder under the weight of heavy caseloads, lack of time, resources and administrative commitments. And more, the trauma informed model, to be most effective, must also view the workers of the organizations who attempt to enact the model as potentially experiencing the effects of trauma themselves. This is a workforce that sacrifices much. While this career pathway is a choice, it is a choice that comes with few tangible rewards and the emotional lives of the workers — not just their time — is often exploited by administrators who are themselves pressured to fulfill certain financial and programmatic goals.
Let’s return back to Hsieh. The interesting tie-in for me is this: he was able to create from the ground up an organization built on a very specific set of values and norms. And even under those circumstances there were challenges with buy in. Zappos would offer workers a buyout after five weeks if they felt the culture was not for them.
Cash-strapped non-profits and social service entities cannot afford to do this. Bloom asserts that the social service sector experiences chronic stress. She writes that it is a “system under siege.” As noted above, stressed organizations and systems under siege tend towards authoritarian measures that become toxic. Therefore, we end up with agencies that suffer from stressors and traumas that take on the color of the traumas and stressors experienced by their clients.
Organizational learning and transformation are participatory processes by nature and an agency under chronic stress can hardly undergo positive social change, adopting new and holistic practices without full buy in from all staff and administrators. So, what we end up with, then, is a band aid — a really nasty band aid like the kind you find at the bottom of a public swimming pool.
Workers attend trauma informed care workshops where they are asked to become vulnerable by conducting their own trauma inventory; then, they learn about all of the negative, long-term and sometimes inalterable effects of childhood trauma; next, is the disheartening ask to not only rearrange your own mental models, but to then take this massive transformation back to your own organization and enact social change there. But it doesn’t stop there! Workers are also asked to consider how they will change their entire communities as a result of attending these workshops.
Read with a different tone, these words might come across as inspiring. We ought to consistently reinvigorate our ways of thinking and we ought to want to improve how our organizations work, how we relate to clients and to each other. But the tone should be heard in a critical light and raise new questions like, if social service and non-profit fields are truly committed to positive change and in incorporating models like the trauma informed care approach, then the burden cannot be put on individuals working autonomously on their own attitudes. Attitudes do not make social change.
To dive deeper still, workforce development is permeated by the philosophy of personal responsibility. It makes sense. Typically, there is some government connection in workforce development and our US culture is very committed to the idea of personal responsibility. When practitioners in this field attend trauma informed care workshops and are left without the tools to interpret and apply the perspective in their day-to-day work, there can develop a serious kind of dissonance because the trauma lens teaches us that many of the choices made by our clients regarding work and workplace behavior relate to ongoing trauma.
Employers don’t really care about this. When they see a gap on a resume, they are not asking in what ways has trauma contributed to this gap. What on the surface could be construed as a lack of ambition or questionable career choice, from the trauma lens appears logical when examined more closely. Whether it involves exhaustion, stress, limited transportation options, health matters or work-life balance, these job seekers often think critically about their situations and conclude that the most reasonable choice involves resigning from a position they can’t commit to for various reasons. But even these kinds of choices have to be artfully spun when someone lands an interview. That is where a good job coach comes in. I have had many conversations with workers who have to shape and reshape their stories allowing their lives to make sense to prospective employers. Unfortunately, many people struggle to do this on their own.
The bottom line is this: workers in the social and public spheres are being asked to take on responsibility for ushering in a model that requires whole organizational and community commitment. We are responsible for our own attitudes, how we treat our clients and each other, but the adoption of the trauma informed care model is a systems level concern and therefore requires a systems level response. | https://medium.com/@amyarbaugh/what-does-zappos-have-to-do-with-trauma-ed5c7f82674c | ['Amy Arbaugh'] | 2020-12-04 18:22:50.193000+00:00 | ['Career Coaching', 'Workforce Development', 'Organizational Change', 'Trauma Informed Care', 'Social Change'] |
Case study: Uber Eats new feature ‘Restaurant Highlights’ | User Scenarios
When I first enter the app I want to find a list of small business owners in the navigation system so I can easily sort through large corporations.
When I go through the list of recommended small business owners I want to be introduced to new local owners so I can support a diverse range of small businesses.
When I go through the list of recommended small business owners I want to be informed about their production, their ethics, and safety precautions so I can make informed decisions about the businesses I spend my money on.
When I go through the list of recommended small business owners I want to learn about different foods and ingredients they use so I can replicate the dish in my own way.
When I go through the list of recommended small business owners I want to save and edit items in my cart so I can checkout without having to return to the home page.
When I first enter the app I want to easily know what the restaurant serves so I can quickly find a meal that fulfills my needs.
When I first enter the app I want to find the app extension on the main navigation so I can quickly find the option of searching.
When I go through the list of recommended small business owners I want to sift through options easily so I can passively look through food options without getting overwhelmed.
When I go through the list of recommended small business owners I want to know what general food category the restaurant serves so I can quickly move on to the next option if it doesn’t match my current mood.
When I go through the list of recommended small business owners I want to sort and filter certain aspects so I can eliminate options I don’t want while passively searching.
When I go through the list of recommended small business owners I want to better see the ingredients in each dish so I can note what foods I am feeling driven towards in this moment.
When I go through the list of recommended small business owners I want to be able to add people to the order, like the restaurant and menu filter/search so I can use the existing features that I am familiar with in the extension page.
When I go through the list of recommended small business owners I want to see something other than the list of food options so I can be convinced to make my decision by other factors than just the food.
Flowcharts | https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/uber-eats-new-feature-restaurant-highlights-79f4e802e0d6 | ['Katherine Ng'] | 2021-04-14 03:52:50.699000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Technology', 'Uber', 'Interaction Design', 'User Experience'] |
教育未來在哪裡 :《2020臺灣教育科技展》 | 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/%E4%B8%80%E5%A1%8A%E8%A8%AD%E8%A8%88%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2%E5%A4%A7%E8%9B%8B%E7%B3%95/%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2%E6%9C%AA%E4%BE%86%E5%9C%A8%E5%93%AA%E8%A3%A1-2020%E8%87%BA%E7%81%A3%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2%E7%A7%91%E6%8A%80%E5%B1%95-64a475202820 | ['Jade 三三'] | 2020-12-07 17:50:50.403000+00:00 | ['AR', '老師', '遠距教學', '學生', '教育科技'] |
Remote for Good?: An Interview with Kea Zhang about the Future of Collaboration | Remote for Good?: An Interview with Kea Zhang about the Future of Collaboration
Oslo-based product manager Kea Zhang reflects on the future of remote collaboration, and what tools and strategies can get us to the next-level. Tori Campbell Follow Dec 16, 2020 · 9 min read
Kea Zhang, Director of Product Management and UX at UserTesting (formerly Teston), is a master collaborator. No stranger to brainstorm sessions, design thinking workshops, or user-testing feedback meetings; she has been at the forefront of the global shift to digital collaboration even before Covid-19. Appropriately, Kea was a virtual presenter at Design Matters ’20, where she spoke about The Future of Workshops, and how some things work even better remotely.
Kea Zhang
We sat down (virtually) with Kea to talk about the differences between remote and in-person collaboration, and to gain some insights into how to host workshops that will capture and hold the attention of our attendees. Kea told us about some of the yet-to-be-invented digital tools on her wishlist that would help with some of the pain points of being remote, while also giving advice on how to make sure that everyone, no matter how shy, felt equally included in the remote collaboration process.
What do you find are some of the assumptions or misconceptions that people bring into remote collaboration?
This is a great question to start with. I have noticed that there is an invisible barrier to remote collaboration because people have a feeling that remote collaboration is harder than in person collaboration, and in some ways, it is. We are so comfortable with the physical tools we use for face to face collaboration, so for people who aren’t used to remote collaboration it can be a bit daunting to learn. In a way, everything on a video call is harder: it’s harder to connect with people, it’s harder to get feedback, it’s harder to establish relationships in general. So those assumptions, though sometimes true, are a massive barrier.
“But, remote collaboration is not as hard as you think.”
It is true that you don’t have a physical whiteboard or sticky notes; but we do have pretty great digital whiteboarding tools. And yes, it is harder to keep people engaged but it is not impossible. There are actually a lot of similarities and inspiration to be found within physical collaboration methods and frameworks. A lot of transitioning into remote collaboration is just about finding the energy to take the leap and cross that barrier. You can make it work.
Kea Zhang presenting at Design Matters ‘20
Also, setting the right patterns of inclusive behaviour for your remote collaborations is much more important. When you are meeting together in the same space, face to face, it is very noticeable if someone is looking uncomfortable because you are able to read facial cues and body language. So on that level, with in-person collaboration, it is easier to manage equal participation and engagement, making sure that everyone is contributing and being heard. That is much harder on a call.
On a call it is much easier to make false assumptions, skipping introductions or ice breaker activities. I would say: don’t skip those things and don’t make those assumptions — really make the effort to make everyone feel included from the very start. This inclusion is really what is going to have a great impact on the sort of outcomes you will have in your remote collaboration.
“So many of us are trying new things, working on new projects, and working with new people this year. In order for us to all have good long term outcomes and relationships it is really important to just make sure everyone feels included.”
You spoke a little bit already about how those assumptions might hinder the remote collaborative process, but do you have any insight about if or how some assumptions might actually help the process?
I think a lot of us end up not crossing that barrier because we are drained from this year being really exhausting. But those people who have crossed that barrier, who are making that leap and doing the research, are very open to learn and try new things. Thus, they may be more readily available to accept feedback, which I do think will allow our industry to really improve our remote collaboration processes.
“There is a lot to learn from each other and from ourselves on that journey towards better remote collaboration.”
How do you feel the attitudes and behaviors towards this remote collaboration have changed since March, when many countries first went into lockdown?
I think what I am noticing now is a lot more people are warming up to remote collaboration. In the beginning people were very hopeful that it would be short-term; so they were more in the mindset of riding it out, and maybe not running remote workshops because they thought they were going to take a lot of extra work. Now we are nearing the end of year, and hopefully vaccines are coming very soon, but who really knows when this is really going to end? So I think overall people have become more open to it, and are sharing and experimenting more.
I remember at the beginning of your presentation at Design Matters ’20 you conducted a Menti poll that playfully illustrated the scale at which people are distracted during remote meetings and workshops. You know, people are brushing their teeth, people are watching Netflix. Could you elucidate a bit more some of the tips or tricks you have seen, or you yourself have employed, to get your attendees to be more fully engaged in the collaborative process?
The Mentimeter poll results from Design Matters ‘20
I think the first thing I want to mention here is that you probably just can’t. You can’t expect to keep everyone fully engaged. I think you can hardly do that when you are even meeting face to face, and remotely you just need to drop that expectation. Change your thinking to ‘how can I ensure that people are engaged when I really need them to be engaged?’ With that in mind I think there are a bunch of different things you can do. For example the Mentimeter tool is great because you can set lots of different types of questions and even if not everyone is engaging actively, they are watching and reflecting on it because it is interactive.
Sometimes it is also important to ask yourself what level of engagement you actually need. What is your goal here? Do you actually need people to engage in giving you active responses, or is it enough for them to passively take in the information? Having a clear goal in mind is really important.
It is also really important to set the scene and warm up with a good activity to get everyone in the right mindset. If everyone is having fun and is engaged at the start of the meeting it is much more likely that this energy will carry into the rest of your meeting.
Other things that I like to do are really typical design thinking practices. If you are running a workshop activity or doing some type of brainstorming in groups, give them some time to work individually first. That is also one of those inclusive behaviors: accounting for people’s preferences with how they think and work. There are also a bunch of activities that you could run as a group or convert into individual activities. For example, affinity mapping is typically a group activity that actually works well individually when digital.
Thinking a bit more about the logistics: what tools do you feel are missing right now to help with remote collaboration?
What I think is missing revolves around the activities that supplement the actual workshop. For example, integrating more energizer/warm-up aspects into the tool. There are a lot of great tools available and it is quite easy to mix and match but I would love to see a tool that thinks beyond the whiteboard to be a bit more holistic. If I had to come up with a ‘dream tool’ it might be a random generator for ice breaker and warm-up activities…almost like the Giphy extension for Slack. You could say ‘this is what I am looking for, this is the outcome I am hoping for, this is how many people I have, this is how much time I have, etc’ and it would randomly suggest an activity. I think that would be great because, I know it sounds silly, but it really does make a big impact on your meeting, especially if you are working with people you are not so used to working with. So I think it would be really nice to bring in all of these ideas from different places to have a bit more inspiration.
Kea Zhang reflecting the joy of workshops at Design Matters ‘20
In your talk at Design Matters, one of the very first things you mentioned was not to force people to put on their video if they didn’t want to. I found that to be very contrasting to what I have experienced with most video calls and I found it quite refreshing. Do you feel that you have any pushback in either direction about this?
I try to frame it as a personal decision because there are so many people out there who believe you should always have video on, and I wanted people to know that you can totally be successful without it. But as a facilitator you have to have thick skin because you may be seen but you might not necessarily see others, and you are likely to receive way fewer cues. I think it is okay to encourage people to turn on their cameras but not mandate it; just reminding everyone that it is okay either way.
I know from in the past some of these remote meetings where most attendees had their cameras off, I would just wonder ‘Are they even there? Are they listening?’ But when we would start an activity everyone would be super active…so I guess I have had enough experiences to know that they will still be engaged with video off. It is very much about knowing your team, so those cases where you don’t know people well might benefit from video.
What do you feel will take us to the next step of remote collaboration?
I don’t know if there is any one thing but just a mix of everything we have already talked about: awareness, energy, recognition of the importance of these inclusive practices. I am really excited about what will happen when this pandemic is over, because I think remote work is here to stay. I think we will see some interesting ideas of how we can work asynchronously, and with a mix between remote and physical. Maybe when all of this is over there will be more energy for us to be experimental and creative.
Great thank you so much for your time. Is there anything we haven’t talked about today that you might want to share?
I think we covered everything, but just to make this extra, crystal clear: it is really important for every company and individual to focus on inclusive behaviors when working in remote collaboration. When you do research for a workshop put in the effort to figure out how you can be inclusive — especially if you are working with a new team or with people who don’t really know each other. If you are working with an existing team you can also check in with each other for social meetings just ensure you are still connecting on a human level. If you have these personal relationships, warm-ups and icebreakers are less important.
My company invested in inclusive behavior training, and it was great to make sure that everyone was on the same page. You can even run this yourself as a workshop with your team by reflecting on your own practices and asking one another ‘What can we do better?’ There are some really basic things that came out of that training, for example, when you invite someone to a meeting, remember to write an agenda so that everyone can prepare and the meeting can have good outcomes. | https://medium.com/demagsign/remote-for-good-an-interview-with-kea-zhang-about-the-future-of-collaboration-180feeeec850 | ['Tori Campbell'] | 2020-12-16 11:42:41.960000+00:00 | ['Collaboration', 'Digital Tools', 'Digital Design', 'Design Dogs', 'Remote Work'] |
Nervos CKB Development Update #35 | By Cipher Wang, Xuejie Xiao, Ian Yang.
May 4th to May 17th, 2020
TL;DR
CKB v0.32.0 will be released on May 22 and Testnet Aggron will be reset on the same day.
We are building two dApp development frameworks: Capsule and Lumos.
CKB Explorer has a new look.
Neuron v0.30.0 has been released.
Changes in CKB
We have delayed the release of v0.32.0 to this Friday (May 22) because of bugs:
Fix collaboration issues between two protocol by driftluo (nervosnetwork/ckb#2075)
Fix orphan block pool deadlock by quake (nervosnetwork/ckb#2074)
We will also reset the testnet Aggron on 22nd, see details in wiki.
Make minor change to pow algorithm for testnet by yangby-cryptape (nervosnetwork/ckb#2028)
We are also working on:
Improving RPC error messages and documentation.
Implementing Chain Freezer to separate code and hot data in the database.
Improving chain sync.
See more details in this public sprint board.
Changes in Dev Tools
We are busy building 2 useful development frameworks:
Capsule: a Rust based smart contract development framework.
Lumos: a JavaScript/TypeScript based dapp development framework.
If you know the generator/validator separation of CKB, you would realize that capsule is for validator, while lumos is for generator. When working together, we expect them to provide top-level development experience on Nervos CKB.
Both frameworks are making good progress, and are expected to be released soon.
Changes in Applications
We have updated the UX of CKB Explorer
Build a new main page theme with a large HUD.
Introduce several new data charts.
Neuron v0.30.0 has been released
Bundled with CKB node v0.31.1.
Update UX components, including Settings, DAO page, and Experimental divider.
Add operating system info in the Debug info.
We have release ckb-rich-node for dApp backend data source.
We are working on: | https://medium.com/nervosnetwork/nervos-ckb-development-update-35-d711f5c8b41e | ['Ian Yang'] | 2020-05-21 09:32:57.529000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Development Updates', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Nervos'] |
Cupplement | A story by: Pernelle Theijn & Merlijn de Vroe
What is it?
Most of us have seen our lives change, when we grow up, our responsibilities grow too. We need to be faster, available at all times and in two places at once. Besides the physical pressure, the mental pressure is not something to underestimate. Living healthily is of major importance but is often put in second place. We all know the famous protein and vitamin shakes, that deliver all vitamins you need to stay healthy in one take. However, we are also familiar with their taste, which is not always pleasant. Cupplement is a new Dutch start-up company, owned by Florian and Stefan, that produces coffee cups with vitamin B1, B2 and B12, Guarana and MCT-oil. The coffee tastes delicious and is like any other good quality coffee you already love. But don’t be fooled, besides a longer lasting energy boost, your coffee break will uplift your vitamin level!
Aside from vitamin B1, B2, and B12, the two superfoods that have your back when it comes to giving you the extra (long lasting) energy and focus boost, are Guarana and MCT-oil. The caffeine in the Guarana berries, a well-known ingredient in Brazil’s energy drinks, is slowly absorbed by your body, which results in long benefit. MCT oil is part of the coconut, which your body quickly converts into energy too. This is unlike your regular coffee where a caffeine dip is usual business.
Why is it cool?
It is an easy, quick and delicious way to get the daily essential amount of vitamin B.
Helps you study for exams and reach deadlines as it increases your focus level.
Unlike regular coffee, a caffeine dip is not something Cupplement has heard of, thanks to the MCT oil and Guarana berries. Cupplement keeps you going for hours without needing another coffee.
Cupplement coffee contains Vitamin B1, also known as Thiamine. Vitamin B1 is an essential vitamin for the energy supply within the body. It is great for the hart, nervous system and the brain. Vitamin B1 helps against depression, concentration problems and memory loss.
Cupplement also contains Vitamin B2. Vitamin B2 helps with observation of the energy from consumed food. Furthermore, vitamin B2 is great for healthy skin, hair and nails.
Cupplement is great for vegetarians, given the fact that contains Vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 is one of the most famous vitamins within the vitamin B complex. Vitamin B12 is mostly found within animal products, such as meat and fish. A shortage of vitamin B12 can cause anaemia, with symptoms being dizziness and tiredness.
MCT helps with containing your muscle mass too!
The coffee cups are biodegradable, so can be thrown away next to the banana peels.
Cupplement is easy to use with a Nespresso machine.
Why does it have growth potential?
So, it is unlike your usual routine: where with multiple coffees a day, the sleepiness is kept away. With this new blend, you are set for hours, and it helps you study for your exams and reach those deadlines without buckets of coffee and energy drinks. The demand for fast food, home delivery meals and ready-made dishes is growing fast. People have less time, or let’s rather say, make less time to eat and obtain all the necessary vitamins we need to stay fit and healthy. When students need to prove themselves and study hard, (mostly in between the four walls of their bedrooms these days) an extra vitamin boost and long-lasting caffeine lift are not superfluous. Besides being a nice drink for the students among us, vitamin coffee is great for many: busy moms and dads, people working, sports fanatics and simply coffee lovers.
https://www.cupplement.nl
A coffee a day keeps the doctor away. How one coffee break can provide you with essential vitamins and long-lasting energy. | https://medium.com/@SotT_team/cupplement-77f58bc35f88 | ['Futurists Club Team'] | 2021-06-08 19:58:09.793000+00:00 | ['Health Care', 'Cupplement', 'Pharmaceuticals', 'Coffee'] |
Content Strategy: How To Make A Podcast Campaign For Your Client | After having a great discussion with Misty, my content strategy plan for VWS is to create a podcast campaign because most of my topics in the above screenshot can actually become episodes for the VWS #UpSkills podcast. Now I just to provide VWS with what content types, formats, and channels it can use to reach education booster.
I came up with this campaign idea because I started a bilingual podcast called “Abroad, Not Alone” in October with a Taiwanese friend in D.C. Speaking from personal experience, everyone can start a podcast, even at no cost (so long as you have a smartphone to hit that record button).
A part of the slides I created for VWS
My ideas for the VWS #UpSkills podcast episodes
Materials I created for VWS to use right away (for VWS only).
Takeaways
Though the class is told that we won’t be able to see the results of this client-based project, I really enjoy Misty’s step-by-step guidance of how to create impactful storytelling and brand messaging through content design. Another thing I learn is content designers should really keep people in mind and be empathetic. Every change of words and content creation should have a reason behind it. Do some qualitative user research and invite a classmate/instructor/mentor/friend to be your second eye would never harm. When I am stuck on how to narrow my topics to make it more approachable and feasible for VWS, I reach out to Misty and my classmate Alyssa for assistance. It really helps! Make the ask. Content people are always willing to help. | https://medium.com/@isabelwangofficial/content-strategy-how-to-make-a-podcast-campaign-for-your-client-50e3534df09d | ['Isabel Wang'] | 2020-12-17 07:43:49.476000+00:00 | ['VR', 'Content Marketing', 'Content Design', 'Podcast', 'Content Strategy'] |
Preparing your pet before the arrival of your baby | BY THABITHA DAVID · PUBLISHED JULY 10, 2020 · UPDATED SEPTEMBER 9, 2020
Introduce your baby to pets: You are anxiously waiting for the arrival of your new family member.
You have started preparation of the of the baby room. You have set the crib, painted the room. Baby proofed your house.
As that day comes nearer, you decorate your house with lights, balloons, and flowers. And the inside is crammed with baby’s stuff.
If you have a pet, he is watching all this.
Topics
Introduction
Your pet has been with you from the beginning. Your pet is watching and observing everything.
If you have a dog, he even takes it as his responsibility to guard and protect the house.
He senses the changes happening within your house and he does not know the reason for this change.
When the environment of a house changes dramatically, animals get stressed.
You love your baby and you love your pet too, but it does not mean they also love each other.
So, how to go about introducing your pet to your baby and help them love each other?
Preparing your pet before the arrival of your baby
Prevention is always better than cure. Adapting some simple changes beforehand can save you from stress, after the baby is born.
It is vital to show to your pet that nothing scary is happening or going to happen.
Never think to send your beloved pet to shelter, you can teach him whatever you want.
First, do all the decorations by keeping your pet in mind.
When you are working on baby’s room decor, make sure to have some space from where your pet can see inside. Otherwise, he will feel isolated and furious.
If your pet jumps and messes up, then install a security gate.
Leave space over that security gate so he can see and smell because escaping from a pet and shutting doors will make the situation worse.
Also, show him the space and the objects of the baby who is going to be born, from the cradle to the bathtub, from rompers to rattle.
Your pet will love the time you spend with him. But at the same time will get familiar with the new items in the house.
If you have a dog. He might sniff around a bit and then register it as part of the household items he might have to guard and protect.
I also played with my dog asking where the baby is. And trained him to the word baby room. He also got trained to come till the door and sit and watch and not enter inside.
By doing so the animal will not feel excluded.
Make changes in your pet’s feeding and walking and sleeping time. If he did not have one, make it into a schedule so it becomes easy or you and for your pet when the baby arrives.
Before the arrival of your baby, train your pet to spend more time alone so that he gets used to it and when the baby comes, your pet does not associate this less attention with the baby.
Communicate with your pet, even during your recovery. Make sure your other family members give proper time to your pet. My husband would show pictures of the baby to my dog.
If you have a dog:
If there is a dog within the house, you must act beforehand by gradually introducing the smell of your baby, before the first meeting.
My husband would let the dog smell the baby cloth bag when he brings it home for washing. When I was in the hospital.
It is important to familiarize your pet with the baby’s smell.
If you have a cat:
If there is a cat, however, this preliminary is not necessary. He is curious but independent, he likes to get things done.
The important thing is to ban him from jumping into the cradle because he could roll in the soft mattress laid out for your baby even when the baby is inside.
Best to train the cat not to enter the baby room. My cat’s egos were so high that she never entered even if I called her.
Even after the room was no more a baby room and became a guest bedroom she wouldn’t enter. | https://medium.com/@the-shades-of-yellow/preparing-your-pet-before-the-arrival-of-your-baby-b0377aab1df4 | [] | 2020-11-26 16:17:49.941000+00:00 | ['Kids', 'Mental Health', 'Baby', 'Pets', 'Parenting'] |
Victoria BC Real Estate Blog | Are you looking for a Victoria BC real estate blog that you can trust? You are in luck, we are not Realtors. We are not regulated by the victoria real estate board, so we can tell you how things are.
We are also not looking to make a sale in Victoria. Further, we don’t need to convince you that it’s a good time to buy or sell your home. We are here to educate you on the victoria real estate market and real estate law.
If you want to hire a Realtor or a real estate lawyer, you can contact us below. We have a few good people that we trust. They have proven themselves to us to be reliable and honest. Before recommending anyone to a professional, we need to know that the professional is willing to work hard for the client.
We do not like lazy Realtors or ones that just want a quick commission. ClearWay Law started as a law firm and moved into a free service for the public. We first focused on improving the law firm industry, now we are working on the Realtor industry.
Time Of The Year To Sell Your Property
Spring is the most common time to list your property. People are in the mood to make purchases, and Victoria BC looks so beautiful during this time! Many people are wanting to retire in Victoria, and they come in the Spring. They might look at properties for a month or two, and then pick a property to purchase. A lot of people start looking for a property around March or April.
If you want to speak to a Realtor or real estate lawyer, fill out the form on the side of this page. One will call or email you directly.
Real Estate Market Forecast Victoria BC
We believe the forecast will be position. This is because of the uniqueness of our demographic. This is also because of the economic factors in Victoria. In Victoria BC there is a military base, universities, hospitals, foreign investment. There are people that are retiring here that want to be close to nature.
There are many things propping up the real estate market. This is as opposed to places that rely on restaurants, pure tourism, and industry. Any city that has less than three economic drivers will struggle to main stable housing prices. Even with tourism down, the future for the real estate market will be bright.
Current Real Estate Market Victoria BC
The current real estate market has gone up month over month 2% for the last 3–4 months. COVID-19 has brought social distancing measures for all aspects of the business. This includes when a Realtor shows a property. Further, there are rules when Realtors communicate with people looking to buy or sell real estate. Open houses are being done virtually.
Victoria BC Realtor Commission | Victoria BC Real Estate Blog
It’s 6% on the first $100,000 and 3% on the balance are the standard on anything under $1.5m. After that, Realtors in Victoria BC start doing 3% for properties over $1.5m.
Fair Realty has a mere posting model. This is where they will upload your listing onto MLS. They do the work to get the property on MLS. This work includes photos, property descriptions. However, they will not invest in getting good pictures.
They charge $1000 to do that. It is up to you to sell the property. They do not do open houses in this model. People can still purchase full service at Fair Realty.
1% Realty does a straight 1% commission across the board. These realtors won’t be able to offer effective marketing for your home. It takes money to sell a property effectively. This model can work, but you need to connect with the correct Realtor. People get what they pay for. If you pay a low commission, you can’t expect over-the-moon service. It depends on what you are looking for.
Are Realtor Fees Negotiable?
Realtors are trained by coaches to avoid negotiating on fees. However, 80% of the time a fee negotiation is possible with your average agent. It’s the strongest Realtors that will not negotiate on the fees.
Where should I live in Victoria BC?
The most popular neighbourhoods are within 20-minute proximity of the downtown core. However, Langford seems to be emerging as its own independent entity. It is building out its own infrastructure.
Oak Bay is a nice upper-class neighbourhood. It has strict bylaws to maintain its character and community. There are a lot of senior people in Oak Bay. There are also a lot of young families.
The homes are older as well. This can mean having to update the property to get insurance. Expect oil tasks, asbestos, cracked foundations. Any capital expeditor should be accessed prior to purchasing.
Saanich East is an upper-middle-class area. It has lots of schools and lots of young families. There are a lot of people that are retired. It’s close to nature, as are most of the areas in Victoria BC. It’s just outside the city. It has quiet neighbourhoods. All of this while only being a 20-minute drive to downtown Victoria.
Is Victoria cheaper than Vancouver?
Yes. Victoria would be similar to Burnaby or New Westminster. Or many of the sub-areas of Vancouver. It’s not near to Vancouver.
Are house prices going down in Victoria BC?
No, they are currently on the rise. However, this could change due to COVID-19.
Langford real estate
Real estate in Langford has been on the rise, value-wise! There are lots of affordable homes for young families. The demographic tends to be very young. It’s basically like what Gordon Head was back in the ’90s.
We hope you enjoyed reading part of our Victoria BC Real Estate Blog.
Author: Alistair Vigier is the CEO of ClearWay Law | https://medium.com/@avigier/victoria-bc-real-estate-blog-da148f99a173 | ['Clearway Law'] | 2021-12-15 20:46:11.992000+00:00 | ['Property Investment', 'Property', 'Property Management', 'Property For Sale', 'Property Development'] |
How to Reboard Employees Back to the Office | At long last, after a long period of uncertainty living and working through the coronavirus pandemic, companies in many countries are welcoming back employees to the workplace.
While most employers are familiar with the terms preboarding, onboarding, and offboarding, which cover the entire employee lifecycle, reboarding is term that, historically, has been used in connection to employees returning to work after parental leave or long-term sick leave. However, today, reboarding more commonly refers to introducing employees back to the workplace and refamiliarizing them not only with their role but the company’s policies in a post-pandemic world.
However, it’s not as easy as simply opening the doors and getting back to business. Before welcoming employees back to the workplace, it’s essential that companies have a plan to reboard employees.
Work Is Not What It Used to Be
Although many employees are returning to the office, it won’t be like it was before. That is to say, few organizations are likely to return to the way things were pre-covid, where all employees were required to work from the office full-time. Instead, we will see many variations of hybrid working models.
Before welcoming employees back to the workplace, it’s essential companies have a reboarding plan.
Whether individuals work from the office two or three days a week or from home the majority of the time, we’re going to see many different ways of working. In our study of more than 58,000 employees throughout Europe, 59% of employees in Denmark, 49% in Germany, 46% in France, 45% in the Netherlands, 34% in the UK, and 30% in Sweden said they would like the opportunity to work from home more in the future. The large majority from all countries in the study say they would like to work from home somewhere between 40–60% of the time.
What’s more, 73% of French, 69% of German, 64% of Danish, 63% of Dutch,
57% of British, and 40% of Swedish respondents say that flexible working hours are extremely important when deciding whether or not to apply for a new job or stay with their current employer.
Before You Start Reboarding
While preparing to reintroduce employees back to the office, it’s essential that companies have defined their policies and guidelines. For example, is there a seating plan? What are the company’s policies around working-from-home? What are the rules regarding work equipment? Are there health guidelines that employees should be aware of, such as restricted numbers allowed in meeting rooms and lunchrooms? Do employees need to wear masks? Having the answers to these questions is essential before reboarding employees.
Another matter that employers should be prepared for is a possible clash of opinions amongst employees about the pandemic itself. As HR magazine shares, the pandemic has affected and challenged us all differently and everyone has an opinion on how things should be handled. This is why companies must be clear in communicating expectations and policies in the workplace.
One way to minimize the risk of employee conflict is to establish a counsel assigned to resolve disputes. What’s more, employees should know who or where they can turn to if they have any questions or concerns.
Mixed Emotions
For many, there are mixed feelings about returning to the office, which employers should consider when putting together their policies. According to the American Psychological Association, nearly half of Americans (49%) say they feel uneasy about adjusting to in-person interaction once the pandemic ends and 46% say they do not feel comfortable going back to living life like they used to before the pandemic.
While many employees cite being scared that they’ll lose their work-life balance and other work-from-home privileges when returning to the office, others cite feeling anxious about returning to office life and socializing face-to-face after such a long period of restricted contact.
For many people, it will also be the first time that they meet their colleagues in person. But these “new” employees are not the only ones who will need time to adjust to changes. Having worked in isolation for so long, employers should be prepared for a period of adjustment, where employees adapt to sharing their workspace again.
For many, there are mixed feelings about returning to the office, which should be considered.
Tips for Reboarding
1. First and foremost, when reboarding employees, employers must inform employees of the company’s policies, practices and procedures. Furthermore, employers should inform employees of the company’s road map, where the company is headed, and its stance on flexibility and remote working.
2. While it’s probably unnecessary to give returning employees a tour of the office unless, of course, your company moved premises, consider what you need to do to make working conditions optimal. Do desks need to be arranged to create a safe distance between colleagues? Do meeting rooms need to be modified to seat fewer people? Do hand sanitizing units need to be installed in bathrooms?
3. Reestablish and reinforce a sense of culture and unity. Ensure employees understand how they contribute to the company’s success. Here are more tips on how to build a positive workplace culture.
4. Ask employees what they need and want to make the transition smoother. Send regular surveys and questionaries that employees can answer anonymously. Through surveys, employers can gain valuable feedback and learn how employees feel, how they’re adapting to changes, what they believe is working well, and what can be improved.
5. Review your employee benefits. When we asked employees how strongly they agree that the benefits they are offered by their employer reflect the current situation, except in the Netherlands (34%), fewer than 20% in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and France say they strongly agree. What benefits do your employees say they need and want? What benefits will support their well-being?
To see more results from our study and to help you prepare for tomorrow, be sure to download The Future of Work Report. | https://medium.com/@benify/how-to-reboard-employees-back-to-the-office-69857031d3b3 | [] | 2021-09-03 08:48:27.127000+00:00 | ['Reboarding', 'Employees', 'Benefits', 'HR', 'Employee Experience'] |
Playing the Blame Game | Playing the Blame Game
Or the merits of lifting a finger rather than pointing it, as it pertains to the climate crisis. Barnhill Follow Dec 17, 2020 · 6 min read
Photo by Iyan Kurnia on Unsplash
Read five articles on the climate crisis and you’ll read about 5 different culprits for our current predicament. From politicians to businesses to the very nature of our economy and everything in between. Who’s right? Truthfully, all of them. Who’s to blame? Simply, all of us. But while there may be some catharsis for a climate writer in pointing their finger, or some absolution for us in reading about it, the honest truth is it doesn’t help.
I saw the movie “Rising Sun” when I was 14, it’s an action crime thriller based on a book by Michael Crichton. And while I have watched it many times, I’ve not seen it in at least 20 years. There is one minor scene in that movie, an exchange between characters played by Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes, that features a quote that’s rattled around in my brain for the past 27 years:
“The Japanese have a saying, ‘Fix the problem, not the blame.’ Find out what’s (messed) up and fix it. Nobody gets blamed. We’re always after who (messed) up. Their way is better.”
That stands in stark contrast to the blame game we play in the climate conversation (and also in most political conversations and, basically, the entirety of Twitter). But I want us to play a new blame game. Let’s find the sources of our many problems, fix them and move on. Rather than making blame rhyme with shame, let’s turn it into a shorthand for troubleshooting the problem. The first step to doing that is understanding that the purpose of blame, in this context, is a desire to absolve us of our own guilt. As long as it’s someone else’s fault we don’t need to change. But if we really want to solve this crisis, the one thing we all need to do is change.
Of course, the degree and extent to which we all must change varies greatly. That’s where confusion and paralysis can set in. Change is not uniform. There is no one easy-ways-to-go-green list for everyone to follow.
No More Taxpayer-Funded Quilting Bees
Think for a moment about quilts. They can appear to be haphazard things, when in fact their patchwork is a painstaking and considered creation. They can be mementos, or keepsakes. They can tell very personal stories, unique to the quilter — a one-of-a-kind creation.
Quilting is the citizens approach to environmental action.
It’s what we can do, when we can do it. We write a letter to a representative here, plant a pollinator garden there, drive less when we can and recycle everything in sight. That’s not bad. The opposite, in fact, because being mindful about what we’re doing (especially before we do it) can help lead to meaningful change. What begins with thinking more carefully about how and what we recycle could very well end up with all our homes on a smart grid that has our appliances operating at peak efficiency and lights turned off the moment we leave a room. That’s the beautiful thing with the quilting approach to environmental action: we start with one little square of fabric, but the creation we weave can be as big as we can dream.
The problem isn’t that quilting is the citizen’s approach. No, the problem is that it seems to be the government’s approach as well. Only their approach truly is piecemeal and haphazard, and that’s no way to solve systemic problems. To do that we don’t need a quilting bee. We need a ship’s captain. Someone who can reverse the engines and begin to turn this massive hauler of human destructiveness around. But in our current system that is, well, extremely difficult.
Currently, despite the best intentions, Senators, Representatives or even Cabinet Secretaries cannot be the ship’s captain. That’s because responsibility for all the things that effect environmental decision-making is so fragmented — the effect of the piecemeal approach our government has previously taken to environmental action. How do I mean? Well, let’s say for example, that you have an innovative way of providing every American with both clean fuel and renewable energy. You want to make sure it’s available to every American. The electricity we all get is provided by local and regional utilities that are regulated by the states (who set the prices). The EPA, however, which oversees things like air and water quality also oversees fuel standards. But the Department of Transportation is in charge of mileage standards and infrastructure. Then there’s the Department of Agriculture, which has a pretty big say in ethanol production. Meanwhile you need money to scale up production and it’s the Department of Energy that holds the biggest source of funds for energy research.* What do you do? Where do you start? A quilt, it turns out, is a poor way to approach systemic reform.
Additionally, the impetus to make changes like incentivizing renewable energy production, making domestic recycling an attractive option, penalizing polluters, rewarding eco-forward companies and making doughnut-level changes to our economic models and approaches require a singular vision. Or, more to the point, a singular decision. Only the President can begin to turn the ship around. It must be their call to reorganize departments and reporting structures. It must be the President who signs off on incentive structures, penalty plans or encourages re-imagining how we approach our economy. Where the buck stops is where ensuring our country is taking meaningful, collective action starts.
The Duality of Action
When it comes to fighting the climate crisis it’s not about determining whether a top-down or bottom-up approach is best. It’s about recognizing the duality that solving this requires, and embracing both. And it’s about all of us — individuals, voters, policy-makers and industry leaders — realizing and accepting that we can’t change the results unless we change the thinking and processes that yield those results.
One thing politicians and business leaders have in common is short sightedness. It’s not completely their fault, it’s how we’ve designed the system. The investments and changes needed to solve the largest challenge we’ve ever faced are impossible to make as long as the people these deciders answer to — voters and shareholders, respectively — aren’t looking further than an earnings report or election cycle ahead. We need to assure them we’re taking the long view, and that what will cost them their jobs isn’t looking ahead but not looking far enough ahead. Tell them if they make those difficult, long-term choices and take significant climate action we won’t hold it against them in the next cycle simply because there’s not a chart of upward economic growth or of downward temperature trend to show as pay off. And also, let them know the inverse is true: if they don’t take bold action — if they continue a business-as-usual, piecemeal approach — then you will.
This is how we, as voters and consumers, have power. It does require effort and diligence. But, again, against an existential threat the likes of which we have never seen, none of us are off the hook. The good news is that’s not an issue when our focus is fixing the problem, not the blame.
ACTIONS
Reach out to your elected officials directly. Call and email to express the expectations you have for them helping bring about systemic change. Tell them you understand it requires an investment that doesn’t yield immediate results. Tell them your vote is contingent on them making the decisions that will benefit the next generation more than yourself. How do you tell business leaders that same thing? By voting with your wallet, and doing a little bit of leg work. For example, buying something because the packaging is recyclable doesn’t really matter if the product is shipped from China. But there are ways to find companies that have real environmental commitments and support them. A helpful shorthand is to look for things like B Corporation, 1% for the Planet or Climate Neutral certifications. Here’s a helpful primer on what those are and some of the gold-standard businesses to start with.
*Source: “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” p.409. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/playing-the-blame-game-601e905a586f | [] | 2020-12-24 16:19:18.635000+00:00 | ['Climate Change', 'Environment', 'Activism', 'Behavior'] |
Different SEO Strategies : Everyone must have to know | There are Two different SEO strategies: White-Hat SEO and Black-Hat SEO
White-Hat SEO Strategies:
White-Hat SEO
Focus on Quality Content:
Content was top dog, presently it’s whatever outclasses a ruler Emperor, maybe? Regardless, the substance on your site is one of the main inquiry positioning elements inside web crawlers, and many see it moving toward turning out to be significantly more significant later on.
Fulfill The User Intent:
Google’s web search tool has for some time been fixated on conveying indexed lists that all the more precisely coordinated with the inspirations of searchers, a mission that has been classified “client goal”. This is as basically assumed control over white hat SEO.
Each update has been tied in with developing the number and exactness of the elements that go into speculating client plan. Presently, there are great many such signals and they needn’t bother with much contribution to relegate your website a spot in the internet based world.
Focusing Mobile First:
If you haven’t refreshed your site to zero in on versatile quality first, you’re falling behind. Google’s web search tool initially began underscoring versatile list items in 2016, when they reported a dynamic mark intended to lead searchers toward content that could be handily peruse on telephone gadgets.
Claming Your Local Business Listing (GMB):
Conveying locally applicable SERPs is only another way that the Google calculation is attempting to coordinate with client goal. Normally, clients who are searching for home administrations, eateries or some open air fun would rather not see query items that are many miles away.
Fantastic Keyword Research:
On the off chance that you asked a SEO in 2009, and one this year concerning what it intended to appropriately utilize keywords, you would find some altogether different solutions. The keywords research strategies we presently use are enormously unique. keywords were once the fundamental apparatus for controlling early calculations, and that has prompted numerous critical changes throughout the long term.
Quality Link Building:
All in all, what is third party referencing? External link building is one of the most delicate cycles in the white hat SEO tool kit. Connections are fundamentally significant, in that a site with none of them will limp instead of running to the highest point of search rankings. In any case, it tends to be not difficult to try too hard.
Black-Hat SEO Strategies:
Black-Hat SEO
Copy content:
When somebody attempts to rank for a specific catchphrase, they may copy content on their site to attempt to get that watchword in their text again and again. Google punishes destinations that do this.
Invisible text and keyword stuffing:
Years prior, a black hat methodology was to incorporate a huge load of keywords at the lower part of your articles however make them a similar shading as the foundation. This technique will get you boycotted rapidly. The equivalent goes for stuffing in catchphrases where they don’t have a place.
Clocking and Redirecting :
When it comes to diverts, there’s a good and bad way of doing it. The incorrect way is purchasing up a lot of catchphrase rich spaces and guiding all the traffic to a solitary site.
Poor Linking Practices:
Going out and buying a Fiver bundle promising you 5,000 connections in 24 hours isn’t the correct manner to construct joins. You really want to get joins from important substance and destinations in your specialty that have their own traffic. | https://medium.com/@odf.odigital/different-seo-strategies-everyone-must-have-to-know-68b4a38f7c6a | ['One Digital Factory'] | 2021-12-30 11:51:00.408000+00:00 | ['Blackhat', 'SEO', 'Strategy', 'Whitehat', 'Seo Services'] |
Why I Fell in Love With Vedic Meditation: My Secret Weapon of Well-Being | Why I Fell in Love With Vedic Meditation: My Secret Weapon of Well-Being
How I finally found an absurdly easy form of meditation that hooks you immediately, and that you’ll want to do every day.
I first found out about meditation when I was 19. I was a college sophomore who had broken free of the chains of Midwestern white Christianity and ventured into the realm of Eastern thought. That’s when I discovered Buddhism in particular, and meditation in general.
As I read about meditation, and why Buddhists promoted it as a central part of their religion, I loved the idea of it. And that’s about as far as it went: I loved the idea of meditating, but the practice — not so much.
I can remember the first time I tried to do Zazen meditation (the preferred mode of Soto Zen practitioners). I sat down, closed my eyes, focused on my breathing, and attempted to not think of anything. It didn’t work. Then I remembered that I shouldn’t try to not think; I should simply not think — but not think about not thinking. Immediately, I found myself sweating, in pain, and anxious with self-criticism. I was pretty sure that’s not what Dogen (the founder of Zen) had in mind for meditators.
The Various Flavors of Disappointment
So Zazen didn’t go well for me. But there are so many types of meditation under the Buddhist umbrella; one of them had to be non-anxiety-inducing, and bring me the benefits that I had heard so much about.
I moved on to Vipassana, Metta, Walking Meditation, Mindfulness Meditation, and even some (admittedly bumbling) work with koans (where you meditate while mulling over an esoteric and paradoxical statement or question from a classical Zen text). It was basically one disappointment after another.
I then tried some of the secularized meditation apps, with guided meditations and breathing exercises. Some did help me feel a bit better, but the effects were neither profound nor lasting. I also didn’t see them as doing much more than harnessing the power of breathing to trigger a physiological response.
For all of the forms of meditation I’ve tried over the past 15 years — both spiritual and clinical — none of them left me with either of the three things that are vital to support the establishment of a habit:
some immediate positive reinforcement or small rewarding feeling
a view of how this will benefit me long-term
a lack of barriers to simply starting it each day
Enter the Dragon: Vedic Meditation
After having pretty much deferred a meditation habit to the bin of abandoned aspirations (along with running a marathon, and others), I managed to accidentally find the missing piece that I’d always been looking for to make meditation a regular habit. I was listening to a podcast, and heard Ray Dalio — bestselling author and noted hedge-fund manager — credit the practice of Transcendental Meditation for much of his ability to do what he’s done.
I had heard about TM before, but never given it a second thought. But this time, it stuck.The way he described it was so practical, down-to-earth, and easy, that it seemed like it was what I’d been looking for. Adherents of it tout all sorts of benefits, which have been documented by peer-reviewed scientific journals:
notably less stress and anxiety throughout the day
boosts in cognitive ability and creativity
better sleep
lower blood pressure
It sounded great to me. But here’s the rub: learning TM takes 4 days of 1.5 hour sessions and costs about $1000. Everyone insists that it’s worth it, but I’m always skeptical of things like that. So I did what everyone who grew up with Napster and CD burners would do: I tried to find a free version to try out.
What I found out is that TM is based on a very old form of meditation practiced by Yogis going back thousands of years: Vedic Meditation. It’s a dead-simple practice:
you do it twice a day, for 20 minutes each session
you sit down anywhere you can be somewhat comfortable and close your eyes
you relax yourself by breathing deeply a few times
you repeat a mantra (one short word that doesn’t have an English meaning) silently in your mind. Any time other thoughts come up, gently and non-judgmentally guide your mind back to the mantra.
be totally okay and neutral with whatever your mind is doing during the twenty minutes
For as simple as it is, it is just as effective. From the first time I did it, I felt super relaxed after the session, and well into the rest of my day. I found that — unlike other forms of meditation I’d tried over the years — I looked forward to doing the meditation.
By the second and third times I did it, I experienced what practitioners call “transcendence” — which I can best describe as that really cool feeling you get between laying down to sleep and actually being asleep — but it lasts for about 20 minutes! It doesn’t happen every time — and that’s not the goal. But when it does, it’s really nice.
What Vedic Meditation Does
The only goal during a session of Vedic meditation is to allow your body to relax as deeply as possible. And when I say deep, I mean deep. How deep? As it turns out, during sessions of Vedic meditation, you can tap into a state of relaxation that is more regenerative than sleep, in terms of reduced cortisol (the stress hormone) and 3 objective measures of restfulness (breathing, lactic acid production, and skin conductance).
From my own experience, I feel exactly what the data bears out (and, I might add, before I learned those data points). The afternoon session that I had on the day I began writing this article was after a particularly stress-inducing contract negotiation with a customer. Afterwards, I had a headache, I could feel my heart rate elevated, and I my mind was racing. I got back to my hotel room, sat on the couch, and did 20 minutes — just me, my mantra, and the timer to let me know when to stop. When I arose out of the session, it was as if I’d taken a nap for an hour or so — but without the grogginess I often feel after a nap.
The effects tend to last, as well. I’m not experienced enough yet (I only have a few weeks under my belt). But what I have noticed outside of the meditation sessions is the following:
a more consistent mood: lower highs and higher lows, which means…
…a more consistent energy level. Not bouncing off the walls, but not crashing, either.
less trouble focusing
I perceive more time between my felt emotional reactions and my physical actions. This means I can control angry outbursts or ill-thought-out reactions to stressful situations.
Skeptical? Great. Then Try It.
But please — please don’t take my word for it. That’s the beauty of this. You can try it for yourself. There is an app that I recommend to do this. I am in no way affiliated with it, but since it helped me start and sustain my habit, I think it’s only right to share it. It’s called 1 Giant Mind. That’s the only plug I’ll make.
Really, this article was almost as much to help me organize my thoughts about a new and beneficial practice that I’ve begun as it is to sell anyone else on it. So, if you have tried and failed at meditation previously, are interested in feeling better, and improving your physical health, and you can spare 40 minutes per day — try this.
Honestly, part of the foundation of this type of meditation is that it is — by definition — effortless. So you can’t even claim that you’re too lazy to try it (which is always my go-to excuse). If you did try it, and you’d like to let me know how it went, please feel free to email me. I’d love to hear your feedback. | https://mikesturm.medium.com/a-meditation-for-those-of-us-who-just-cant-seem-to-meditate-3fa77e61d9f3 | ['Mike Sturm'] | 2018-04-20 21:42:51.038000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Productivity', 'Self Improvement', 'Meditation'] |
ALD — Alcholic Liver Disease. Addiction — liver disease and diabetes | Thank you for your article on Acholic liver disease. I am sorry to read about your father passing of ALD. My brother died at age 42 from ALD. He was warned that his liver was in trouble long before it got worse and his GP helped him to stop drinking. He admitted himself into a place to get off alcohol but after two weeks it failed because they stopped his medication abruptly. We didn't understand why. But it caused him distress and he was very depressed too so he just gave up and carried on drinking. Eventually, he died.
I also have type 2 diabetes and I was told I had a fatty liver but I only drink a couple of glasses of wine on Friday and Saturdays. It did worry me and I was wondering whether I should give up drinking forever. I think type 2 diabetes makes everything worse in the body especially if a lot of alcohol is being consumed. Diabetes can speed up the process of many other illnesses or at least that is what I understood when I was first diagnosed. Both my parents suffered from diabetes too. My father was type 1 and my mother type 2. Plus my two other brothers are now type 2 but the brother who died of ALD was never diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. My point is, having diabetes can make every other illness much worse so I did wonder whether my brother had type 2 diabetes but was never diagnosed with it.
I wrote about my brother's problem with ALD on Medium sometime ago here: https://medium.com/living-lifestyle-news/drinking-alcohol-regularly-can-ruin-your-health-and-your-life-it-ruined-my-brother-ffe26dea0a93 | https://medium.com/living-lifestyle-news/thank-you-for-your-article-on-acholic-liver-disease-983501cffbf4 | ['Denise Larkin'] | 2021-07-06 12:56:22.671000+00:00 | ['Diabetes', 'Addiction', 'Prevention', 'Disease', 'Health'] |
Could the Supreme Court Steal Another Election? | When the Supreme Court ordered the state of Florida to stop counting their ballots, awarding the election to George W. Bush, attorney Vincent Bugliosi wrote:
“…the institution Americans trust the most to protect its freedoms and principles committed one of the biggest and most serious crimes this nation has ever seen–pure and simple, the theft of the presidency…
“No technical true crime was committed here by the five conservative Justices only because no Congress ever dreamed of enacting a statute making it a crime to steal a presidential election…
“That an election for an American President can be stolen by the highest court in the land under the deliberate pretext of an inapplicable constitutional provision has got to be one of the most frightening and dangerous events ever to have occurred in this country.” | https://medium.com/the-word-is-not-enough/could-the-supreme-court-steal-another-election-937258292fa8 | ['Lon Shapiro'] | 2020-11-27 19:23:58.962000+00:00 | ['Supreme Court', 'Fascism', 'Donald Trump', 'Politics', '2020 Presidential Race'] |
The Company Shutdown | The Company Shutdown
Jay, Part II
Jay* was in the middle of telling his story to me when he brought up depression:
What were the scariest moments in the company?
Shutting down the startup was definitely the worst moment. Over the course of the company, I dealt with anxiety and I learned how to manage it. But when we shut down the company, I was definitely depressed for at least 6–9 months afterward.
I hadn’t expected him to tell me this. Jay had mentioned nothing about depression before or during the interview. But I was so glad that he did because it’s incredibly common to go through both. The statistics are all over the place; studies cite comorbidity rates anywhere from 30%-75%.
Woah. What happened?
This startup that was my baby–it took up all of my time and energy–was no longer in my world. I no longer had a job. I had a relationship fail at the same time largely because I was so focused on my startup that I wasn’t very present. All of these things were related. And so I was dealing with both of those things and, in my life all of a sudden, I had all of this free time. I had way too much free time. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next.
Did you have symptoms or behaviors that other people could be feeling and could recognize that they need help?
I lost my appetite. I lost 15–20 pounds in the month or two after shutting down the company. I sulked around a lot. It was obvious to me that I was depressed. Anxiety was something that I was unaware of and maybe through the life of the company I had dealt with some depression but it was way minor than anything that I had dealt with related to anxiety. But after the company shut down, I was just super bummed out. I needed to vent a lot about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about something for more than an hour or two. Because of what I had gone through with anxiety, I knew that I just needed to go and see someone a few times a week before I would start feeling better.
My sleep patterns definitely changed, too. I remember getting heartburn–that was weird. I had never had heartburn before but it’s a common effect of anxiety so maybe I had anxiety and depression when the company shut down. Some of the same things that I had dealt with earlier came back. I drank more and socialized more because I just wanted to get out and be with people. Being with people, actually just being around people was really good for me, but I sulked by myself a lot.
What helped?
Therapy definitely helped me through this period. Talking to other founders who had been through company failures helped me through that, too. They would remind me that startups are hard and you probably messed up in a million different ways but most startups don’t make it anyway. It’s so easy to go into denial about that or pretend that that doesn’t apply to you, because you went through a top accelerator program, you had great investors, you had a dream team. There are so many reasons that you can come up with to justify why you shouldn’t have failed. Talking to other people and in particular other founders who had been there and could understand what I was going through was hugely important.
“I think for them, it helped them heal their own wounds, too. A lot of smart, driven people fail in the startup world. It may or may not have been your fault that you failed but it’s just part of this game that we are all playing. And it’s okay to fail”
How did you meet these other founders?
That’s a good question. A handful of people reached out to me. We had some nasty press written about us after we shut down the company that placed the blame on us, the founders. That was salt in the wounds for us. The last thing you need after admitting failure is bad press.
People saw the press and a few founders from the Y Combinator community emailed me and said, “Hey, I’ve been through this. It really sucks. Do you want to grab a beer or lunch?” And so we did. I started to network with more and more people who had been through the same pain I was going through.
I think for them, it helped them heal their own wounds, too. A lot of smart, driven people fail in the startup world. It may or may not have been your fault that you failed but it’s just part of this game that we are all playing. And it’s okay to fail. You’ll go on to bigger and better things. But even so, there was like a grieving process for me for at least half a year.
What else helped you get through it?
I took a trip–a solo trip to Europe. This was both really hard and helpful. I just told myself, when in the hell else am I going to get a chance to travel with so few obligations. I had no job, I didn’t have a place to live because I had been living with my girlfriend and we broke up. I had some savings and I didn’t have an apartment or need to pay rent.
The first couple of weeks were really hard because I was just thinking about all of the things that had happened. But it ended up being a really good experience for me. There is so much for you to do out there in the world. Your life is more important than this or any startup. It made the startup failure and everything that I was upset about back home seem kind of silly. These people in these different countries didn’t care, didn’t give a shit about it. I realized that my startup was this small world that I was obsessed with. The time away gave me perspective and healed me a little bit.
What are you doing now?
I just started a new company. I worked at another startup in-between and did some consulting.
Do you think therapy should be required for startup founders? Do you think it should be a business expense?
I totally would support that. It’s good for the company. It’s good for investors. I think it absolutely should be, in particular in the beginning. The more you do before it’s an issue, the better you’ll be long term. Therapy is preventative healthcare, too.
I think it’s really important to learn how to deal with your own stress and learn how to deal with one another. There were times when we were all fighting. Or one person wasn’t performing as well as other people would like. And that rotated around and we kept pointing fingers at each other. So there is something similar to relationship and marriage counseling that needs to happen. And that should happen before there are big issues . That should happen early.
What do you do when you see a friend who needs help?
I’ve definitely recommended therapy to friends. I had some people come to me who were suffering with anxiety and depression and knew that I had dealt with it, too. Also, if I see a friend going through a breakup or a friend who exits a company poorly, is upset and looks depressed, or needs to vent, then I’ll be there for them and let them vent and talk to them as much as they need to. I always tell them that they should really go talk to somebody who is a professional, who can really help. I definitely recommend therapy to people, I advocate for it. Only so many people will follow through because of the stigma around therapy. It’s really common for people to think that therapy is only for “crazy” people. That’s just not true.
Thank you again, Jay, for sharing your story. I’m grateful for your trust and willingness to revisit hard times in your life with the shared belief that by sharing our stories we can help someone else.
Resources
Looking for therapy? Book an appointment with an evidence-based therapist on Kip.
Need help now? You’re not alone. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1–800–273-TALK. It’s available 24/7 and staffed by crisis response professionals. | https://medium.com/kip-blog/the-company-shutdown-355712c54753 | ['Erin Frey'] | 2017-03-30 17:21:25.478000+00:00 | ['Anxiety', 'Mental Health', 'Startup', 'Depression', 'Founders'] |
Who Loses When Tech Unicorns Don’t Make a Profit? | How about this: You and I are going to have a competition to see who is the best salesperson. The winner takes home their day’s revenue in cash. Sound good?
Okay, you’re in. First, we each need to pick an item to sell. It can be anything you want. Then we are going to go out on the streets and offload as many of them as we can.
I guarantee I am going to win. Why? Because I am selling $10 bills for just $5. I hit the street, and after some initial disbelief, I start selling. Word gets out, and people are flocking to me in droves. I sell out before I’ve caught my breath.
Let’s see how I did: Units shipped? 10,000. Revenue? $50,000. That’ll do nicely, thank you. What about profit, though? Oh, I lost $50,000 — but does it matter? My revenue and growth are wonderful, and my happy customers keep coming back again and again.
Something doesn’t seem quite right, does it? Well, despite the absurdity of this situation, it isn’t too far from the truth for the world of tech unicorns.
Who cares about profit?
Growth is everything in the world of tech startups. The industry’s obsession with lists of the fastest growing companies, such as the Deloitte U.K. Technology Fast 50 and the Forbes Fast Tech 25, paint success as a hockey-stick-shaped growth curve combined with equally skyrocketing revenue regardless of the route those companies take to get there.
As I’ve written about previously, the pressure to hit these expectations can lead to bad behavior, such as the proliferation of a growth-or-die mindset. Some companies strive for growth at the cost of good business practices or the mental and physical health of their employees and can have a negative impact on society and the planet.
But what kind of grand mission involves losing huge amounts of money indefinitely?
But even if a hyper-growth unicorn has succeeded while doing everything right for its employees, one key factor is often an issue, and it happened to me in the example at the start. In my competition-winning sale of $10 bills for $5, I lost $50,000. If you asked many people — especially those not used to analyzing the world of software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies — whether a business making a significant, increasing net loss was a good thing, I’m sure they would say that it isn’t.
Yet look at some of the recent filings for the initial public offerings (IPOs) for tech unicorns:
Pinterest, which filed on March 22, made $755.9 million in revenue in fiscal year 2018 but had a net loss of $63 million.
PagerDuty, which filed on March 15, made $79.6 million in revenue in fiscal year 2018 but had a net loss of $38.1 million.
Lyft, which filed on March 1, made $2.2 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2018 but had a net loss of $911.3 million.
In fact, Lyft appears to have made the largest ever net loss for a company going public. This raises a pivotal question: What does success mean for startups? After all, the companies that ring the NASDAQ bell get the global news headlines and the glittering cascades of ticker tape. But companies that our industry and media celebrate as successful are rarely making a profit, unless they happen to be miracle workers like Zoom.
As Bloomberg reports, Uber lost $1.8 billion in 2018 against $11.4 billion in revenue, and Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing lost 4 billion yuan ($585 million) in the first half of 2018. WeWork lost a staggering $1.93 billion in 2018 against $1.82 billion in revenue.
Those companies are not yet public, but when unicorns do float on the stock market, it’s not clear if a path to profit is necessary. As Matt Levine at Bloomberg wrote, one could argue that tech IPOs are being designed in such a way to protect unicorns from needing to go into the black. More companies than ever are offering nonvoting stock to the public, such as Snap in 2017, with Lyft recently following suit.
This means startup founders can still retain control of their companies and make declarations that said company is less about making a profit and more about some grand mission. But what kind of grand mission involves losing huge amounts of money indefinitely?
A race to the bottom for those at the top
I once read a tongue-in-cheek description of San Francisco as “an assisted-living community for tech workers in their thirties.” This snide jab pokes fun at the wave of Silicon Valley startups creating services and products that seem specifically designed for a stereotypical tech worker in the city. Nowhere to park your car? Uber and Lyft can get you around. Too busy working to cook and do grocery shopping? Postmates can deliver your lunch and dinner. Living in an apartment too small for a laundry room? Rinse can do your washing.
These kinds of startups are not simply selling software. They are leveraging software to scale a traditional service economy. Companies like Uber, Lyft, Postmates, and Rinse use their apps to consolidate what would traditionally be plethora of local businesses serving a local area into a singly held global operation.
All of this is fantastic news for the customer; the typically well-paid, white-collar worker who gets the benefit of high tech, efficient, convenient services. These apps are often involved in a race to the bottom through fierce competition. Joe Bloggs, your stereotypical software engineer, is swimming among free ride coupons for Uber and free delivery codes for Postmates. But who is really paying the price for this?
The cost of developing good software is not cheap, especially if your software is being developed by a San-Francisco-based company. The city has the highest average salary for software engineers in the world, with an average starting salary of $91,738. However, wages rise dramatically at well-funded startups in order to attract the best talent, especially since the average rent of a one-bedroom apartment in the city is $3,360, and the cost of living is generally very high. A software engineer with a few years of experience could be earning over $200,000 after taking vesting stock into account.
This leads into a somewhat paradoxical situation: If the cost of developing software is so high and the services that are being offered are so reasonably priced, who is funding it? Who is losing out as a result?
The race for market domination
The initial question of who is funding growth is typically straightforward: It’s venture capital (VC) firms. This shouldn’t be surprising; most hyper-growth technology companies since the dot-com boom have expanded rapidly by taking on millions of dollars in VC cash in return for equity in their companies.
These investments unlock hiring, support opening offices in new locations, fund development of large research and development projects and acquisitions of other companies. They are the nitrous oxide injection into the engine of Silicon Valley. In the race to be the most dominant player in the market, which leads to securing the best possible valuation for an exit, speed is key.
So what drives the best valuation for the exit of a SaaS company? Some of the typically important metrics are as follows:
Revenue: The amount of money made through sales
The amount of money made through sales Revenue growth: How much that revenue has increased year over year
How much that revenue has increased year over year Net retention rate: The percentage of customers who stay with the service rather than cancelling
The percentage of customers who stay with the service rather than cancelling Total addressable market: The size of the market that is out there for the business, i.e., the revenue opportunity for the future
If we recall my fantastically silly business selling $10 bills for $5, one could argue that I would be doing very well measured by these metrics. After all, who doesn’t want free money? I would clearly be in unrecoverable debt after a very short space of time, but I would dominate the market — unless someone sells $10 bills for less.
In the case of real hyper-growth companies, VC firms place a bet that if companies are able to grow quickly and become the most dominant force in the market, even if operating at a heavy loss, then that rapid growth will eventually lead to monopoly profits. However, it can often be unclear how a company will become profitable and how long it will take to get there.
Matt Levine writes that one way of viewing the investment of large sums of money into loss making companies selling desirable products at far below cost price is that the VC firms are essentially subsidizing consumer’s lifestyles. That free ride coupon is less thanks to your friend who gave it to you, but more thanks to the deep pockets of SoftBank, Tencent Holdings, or Benchmark Capital.
Of course there is risk in this approach. If I have my business selling $10 bills at a loss, then eventually I will go bankrupt, and that’s my fault. If I sell access to my subscription software and raise VC money so I can sell it at a loss to capture market share, then eventually I’ll need to stop raising money and start increasing prices or efficiency so I can claw back losses and start making a profit. If that fails, then I lose and the VCs lose.
But what does losing mean to us? Well, for the VCs, it isn’t too much of a big deal. Usually only a small handful of their portfolio companies need to exit well for them to successfully grow their investment funds. Maybe my failure is a drop in the ocean to them. And what about my own failure? Hurt pride aside, the experience was good, and as long as I didn’t get myself into personal debt, then there is a whole world of high-tech jobs looking to snap up an ambitious ex-founder.
Who are the real losers?
Photo: Jack Taylor/Getty Images
But the startups that were mentioned earlier in the article — Uber, Lyft, and Postmates to name a few — represent companies that have a gig economy at the core of their business. Uber and Lyft drivers get paid per ride and work as much or as little as they like. Cycle couriers such as those that work for Deliveroo in the U.K. get paid per delivery, similar to Postmates.
When we look at the effect of a VC-subsidized economy, the consumer wins by getting a better service at a lower price. The companies win by growing at an accelerated rate and capturing market share, and the VCs give themselves a better chance at getting a return on their investment. However, the subsidization of services in the gig economy often hits the workers directly.
According to Recode, gig economy workers are earning half of what they did five years ago. In summer 2018, Lyft was required by law to pay their drivers minimum wage in New York. Reviews on Glassdoor from Deliveroo drivers highlight a number of issues: workers reporting that they are paid under minimum wage, have no sick pay, have to pay for wear and tear on their vehicles, are not provided insurance by the company — the list goes on. Similar feedback has been given for Uber, Lyft, and Postmates.
One could argue that the gig economy is ideal for people who want casual, flexible part-time work: students, retirees, or people who just want to earn a bit of extra money from time to time. However, this view is blinkered: In the U.K., 6 million adults were reported to be working full time via gigs. Given that the barrier of entry to gig economy jobs is low — a worker typically just needs a vehicle — one could posit that a high proportion of the workers are those with the least transferable skills and ability to get secure salaried jobs.
This means their livelihood depends on gigs created by subsidized benefits to the customer, leaving them vulnerable. There is no guarantee of earnings. There is no predictable amount of income for a given day or week. Why should gig workers suffer in the quest for more market share and a bigger return for the VCs?
We know the battle for market dominance requires rocket fuel. However, large cash injections are often not enough; instead, they are often coupled with the cost of the product being subsidized so that it really is a deal that is too good to be true for the consumer. For many startups, the subsidy to the customer manifests in net losses for the company and risks for the investors and founders. However given that most tech companies go public while losing money, one could argue this isn’t even that big of a risk in today’s IPO market.
For companies that generate revenue through a gig economy, there is another party that will always lose: the worker. The moped driver who is trying his best to provide for his or her family or the bicycle courier who is trying her best to save for college. When their income and rights are compared to those who fund and develop the software, they are truly a second-class citizen.
Companies should have to place the wellbeing of their workers at the core of their business regardless of the importance of their role.
Some have argued that gig economy companies are in a rush to go public before new labor laws are able to catch up with them. Drivers are not classed as employees because it could be cost-prohibitive. Instead, they are classified as independent contractors, which allows companies to avoid being bound to legislation requiring that they provide minimum wage, sick leave, health insurance, and other benefits that salaried staff would expect. In March 2019, Uber settled a $20 million lawsuit over driver classification ahead of its planned IPO, and Lyft filed a lawsuit against New York over the aforementioned minimum wage laws. Lyft’s motion for an injunction was denied.
Those with the most to gain should have the most to lose
As traditional service economies get disrupted by technology-based startups, we need to keep the bigger picture in mind. For investors and founders, the implications of losing the battle against competition aren’t fatal. There are always other companies to invest in and other jobs for founders to do. For consumers, there is everything to gain through the flood of new technology-rich services at a bargain price. However, those in the middle — the gig workers delivering those services — are the ones who suffer.
We need to call for greater cooperation between governments and technology companies to ensure that those that work gigs for the benefit of the customer and the company’s rapid growth are not left to suffer as unequal. They, too, are part of our society and should have equal opportunities and rights. There is some progress in this area: This year, delivery company Hermes became the first U.K.-based company to provide trade union recognition for their gig economy workers. But there is still a long way to go.
Workers providing these services have little protection. As Alexandrea Ravenelle writes on Medium’s OneZero, the gig economy leaves workers open to sexual harassment. And as other news outlets report, the stress of making money with little safety net can cause mental health issues and, in the extreme, can even lead to suicide.
Services should benefit society as well as generate revenue. Companies should have to place the wellbeing of their workers at the core of their business regardless of the importance of their role. We all have bills to pay, and we all want to hope for a better financial future.
Let’s ensure that disruptive, high-growth, heavily subsidized services are for society’s gain rather than for those with the most to gain. | https://onezero.medium.com/who-pays-the-price-for-selling-10-bills-for-5-fe5ef18c0a6e | ['James Stanier'] | 2019-04-15 15:44:34.410000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Business', 'Gig Economy', 'Technology', 'Startup'] |
Easy Ways to Lose Weight and Healthy Eating-What You Need to Know… | 1. Trying intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting (IF) is a diet that involves regular short-term fasts and shorter-term meals during the day.
Several studies have shown that short-term intermittent fasting that lasts up to 24 weeks leads to weight loss in overweight people.
The most common intermittent fasting methods are:
Alternative Day Reliable Sauce (ADF) Fasting: Fast every other day and eat normally on non-fasting days. With the modified version of TrustedSource, only 25–30 percent of the body’s energy needs are used on fasting days. 5: 2 diet: fast 2 out of 7 days. Eat 500–600 calories on a fasting day. 16/8 method: Fast for 16 hours and eat only during 8 hours. For most people, the 8-hour time frame is between noon and 8 pm. One study with this method found that a limited time diet consumes less calories and loses weight for participants.
Get my FREE PDF from my 10 tips on how to lose excess cliograms…
2. Tracking your diet and exercise
People who want to lose weight need to know what they eat and drink every day. The most effective way to do this is to keep a log of all the items you consume in your journal or online food tracker.
In 2017, 4,444 researchers estimated that there would be 3.7 billion health app downloads by the end of the year. Of these, nutrition, physical activity, and weight loss apps were the most popular. Tracking the progress of physical activity and weight loss can be an effective way to manage weight, so this is not without reason.
A study by Trusted Source found that consistent tracking of physical activity helps with weight loss. Meanwhile, a Trusted Source review study found a positive correlation between weight loss and the frequency of food intake and exercise monitoring. Even a simple device like a pedometer can be a useful weight loss tool.
FREE PDF with fast weight loss diet types…
3. Eating mindfully
A hearty diet is a habit of paying attention to where and how people are eating. This habit allows people to enjoy the food they eat and maintain a healthy weight.
Most people live a busy life and tend to eat quickly while traveling, in the car, at work at the desk, or watching TV. As a result, many people are barely aware of what they are eating.
Here are some techniques for eating carefully:
Sit down and eat at the table if possible. Pay attention to the food and enjoy the experience.
Don’t be distracted while eating. Do not turn on your TV, laptop, or phone.
Eat slowly: Take your time to chew and enjoy. This technique helps people lose weight because it gives the human brain enough time to recognize signals that help prevent binge eating.
Make informed food choices: Choose foods that are rich in nutritious nutrients and fill up in hours instead of minutes.
FREE PDF with recipes for fast weight loss…
4. Eating protein for breakfast
Protein regulates appetite hormones and helps people feel full. This is mainly due to a decrease in the hunger hormone ghrelin and an increase in the satiety hormone peptides YY, GLP1 and cholecystokinin.
The Research Trusted Source for young adults also shows that the hormonal effects of a high-protein breakfast can last for hours.
Suitable choices for a high protein breakfast are eggs, oats, nut and seed butter, quinoa porridge, sardines and chia seed pudding.
FREE PDF learn how to get to the perfect line in a few steps…
5. Cutting back on sugar and refined carbohydrates
Western diets are increasingly adding sugar, and even if sugar is contained in beverages rather than foods, this has a clear link to obesity.
Refined carbohydrates are highly processed foods that are deficient in fiber and other nutrients. This includes white rice, bread and pasta.
These foods are quick to digest and are quickly converted to glucose.
Excess glucose enters the blood and induces the hormone insulin. This promotes the accumulation of fat in adipose tissue. This contributes to weight gain. Whenever possible, people need to replace processed and sugar-rich foods with healthier alternatives.
Good food exchanges are:
whole grain rice, bread, pasta instead of the white version Fruits, nuts and seeds instead of high sugar snacks Herbal tea and amniotic fluid instead of high sugar lemonade Smoothie
with water or milk instead of fruit juice
FREE PDF about diet and fast weight loss…
6. Eating plenty of fiber
Dietary fiber, unlike sugar and starch, represents a plant-based carbohydrate that cannot be digested in the small intestine. High fiber intake can increase satiety and reduce weight.
Fiber-rich foods include whole wheat breakfast cereals, whole wheat pasta, whole wheat bread, oats, barley, and rye. Fruits and vegetables Pea, legumes, legumes Nuts and seeds
FREE PDF about a healthy and balanced diet…
7.Getting a good night’s sleep
Many studies have shown that less than 5–6 hours of sleep per night is associated with an increased incidence of obesity. There are multiple reasons for this.
Studies suggest that sleep deprivation or sleep deprivation slows down a process called metabolism in which the body converts calories into energy. When metabolism is less effective, the body can store unused energy as fat. In addition, lack of sleep can increase insulin and cortisol production, which also promotes fat accumulation.
How long someone sleeps also affects the regulation of the hormones that control appetite, leptin and ghrelin. Leptin sends a signal of fullness to the brain.
FREE PDF about healthy living | https://medium.com/@ognjenniikolic3/easy-ways-to-lose-weight-and-healthy-eating-what-you-need-to-know-62ee1f1b2dc1 | [] | 2021-12-17 22:55:56.539000+00:00 | ['Diet', 'Fitness', 'Lifestyle', 'Fat Burning Foods', 'Life'] |
7 Tips for Picking the Right Trade Show for your Business | Trade shows are great for business. Simple.
They offer a place where you can be in a room full of people who you know are your audience — the show floor is filled with potential new customers, and it’s a chance to get to keep your finger on the pulse of your industry (and your competition).
But if you’re looking to exhibit for the first time, it can be daunting just trying to find the right trade show, particularly for a start-up or small business who perhaps are limited on resources.
After fifteen years in the exhibition industry I’ve learnt a thing or two, so here are my seven insider tips on how to find the best trade show for your business.
Know your target customers
It might sound like a very basic place to start but before you even start to look at exhibiting at a trade show, you need to fully understand who it is you’d like to meet.
Knowing the exact job titles/functions of your top 20 dream customers will help you select the right show for you. Keep this in your mind when approaching exhibition organisers about exhibiting and even share this list with them. They should be able to give you a stand location and exhibition package that helps you target your prospect clients.
Go niche. I mean like super niche.
There are more trade shows that you can ever imagine.
Once you really understand who you’re looking to target, it will allow you to be super selective with which trade show will help you get in front of your key audience.
Whilst going to the biggest exhibition or the ‘number one’ in your industry might seem like a great idea, for a start-up or small business there is the risk of you being ‘lost’ amongst the big boys.
It is seriously quality over quantity with the leads you’ll pick up at trade shows. You’re looking to find your next sale, not simply weak non-qualified data to boost your sales database. By going niche, you’ll be able to put your company in front of a smaller amount of the right companies and have serious conversations with them.
Really interrogate the organisers
When approaching an organiser, don’t be afraid to ask for previous attendee visitor samples. Due to GDPR they won’t be able to give contact names and addresses of course, but it will give you an insight into visitors who attend.
Look at who previously exhibited. Are there any other industry ‘friends’ on the list who might be able to give you the inside scoop on how the event has performed for them?
Oh and don’t be pushed into making a snappy decision because there are only ‘three stands left’. If you are particular about stand location then of course speed is of the essence to secure your stand, however, it is important that you make the right decision for you and your business. Make sure you have plenty of time to maximise your investment and properly plan your exhibition strategy.
Ask your PR company
If you’ve got an engaged PR company, who will know your industry and will be able to give you advice and feedback on the trade shows you’re looking to attend. You’ll usually find they’ve been to a number of them and even had other clients exhibit.
If your time is precious, consider asking your PR company to do the research for you. They fully understand the market and have your company interests at heart.
Ask your customers
A simple survey of your current customers can give you insight into which trade shows they attend. Ask them if they met anyone there? Did they make any purchases as a result of attending?
You’ll need to ask quite a sample to get a bigger picture of whether the trade show is valuable to them or not. Remember, simple things like a terrible train journey to the event can put a visitor off attending for life so you need to make sure they are giving you relevant and insightful feedback.
Also, some people just don’t like going to exhibitions. They prefer the comfort of their office!
Look to join forces with a partner company
If you’re a start-up or small business, trade shows can seem really daunting in terms of time and money. Why not team up with another business that complements your own to share the cost and help you manage the stand.
Be careful — some exhibition organisers will charge you a “Co-location” fee to have both companies listed in their directories and show marketing materials. Make sure you ask before signing up. It may be as simple as adding an additional marketing package to your stand cost.
Going abroad? Look for funding
If you’re looking to expand your business outside of your usual country of business, you can often apply for grants and funding from your local government.
In the UK for example, the Department for International Trade run the Trade Show Access Programme (TAP) https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tradeshow-access-programme in which you can apply for grants to go to trade shows on their approved list.
Also, speak to your industry associations and local chambers of commerce, often who take trade delegations out to exhibitions abroad and may have a pavilion stand that your company could feature on.
In short, do your research and be prepared to ask questions. Look around and speak your industry network — make sure you’re choosing the right event for your business and you’ll have the very best experience. | https://medium.com/@52eight3/7-tips-for-picking-the-right-trade-show-for-your-business-7fb941edbbae | ['Katie Morhen -'] | 2019-10-17 12:09:09.417000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Events', 'Startup'] |
Subsquid in 2021 — From Zero to 60m Monthly Queries! | The second half of 2021 has been huge for Subsquid. Starting off in June, the fact that we have ended the year being the data backbone of many top tier projects in the DotSama ecosystem shows how far we have come in this short time. 🦑
We had a bit of a head start of course, given that the Hydra technology that underpins the Subsquid protocol had been reimagining blockchain data management since August 2020. It was developed by former Joystream core developer Dmitry Zhelezov who came together with Marcel Fohrmann to bring Hydra to the next stage, leading to the creation of Subsquid.
We hit the ground running and ramped up development of Hydra v4, which was released in August. Hydra v4 improved the speed and stability of the data pipeline while streamlining the Hydra project deployment experience. Hydra v5, which is set for release in early 2022, will build upon this success and take Subsquid to the next level. Subsquid is currently answering around 60 million squid archive queries per month with a current total of around 142 million calls being done so far! 🔥
These developments quickly put Subsquid on the map, leading to partnerships with a variety of top tier Polkadot projects. HydraDX’s Basilisk was one of the first to benefit from Subsquid’s data enhancement capabilities as it utilised the protocol for the management of its Polkadot parachian auction bid. Social media platform Subsocial partnered with Subsquid soon after to help them implement a raft of new features for users which required enhanced data throughout and reliability.
The tail end of 2021 saw further usage of Subsquid within top Polkadot projects — cryptocurrency bridging platform Interlay implemented it as a way of facilitating user demands for more reporting features, and prediction market Zeitgeist utilised it as a way of reducing loading time as well as adding features to its dashboard that were not previously available. We even collaborated with SFY, creators of the Donkey Gang NFT series, for a series of exclusive Squid Squad NFTs!
This year also saw us throw open the doors to our Open Ocean Council auditions, allowing Subsquid contributors around the world to prove themselves worthy of becoming a member of the illustrious Squid Squad. This team of Subsquid core contributors will control Subsquid when it eventually becomes a DAO, which is one of the major milestones we hope to achieve in 2022, and we offer huge bounties to the highest achievers — including a place on the squad. In a throwback to the Subsquid creation story, Subsquid also sponsored the Gitcoin Grants Round 12 Hackathon in December, offering prizes of up to $10,000 in USDC for the winners and the RMRK Hacktoberfest.
One of the biggest boosts of 2021 came in November when Subsquid secured $3.8 million worth of investment in a highly oversubscribed seed round, reinforcing the faith that investors have in the project and allowing us to reinforce our ambitious future plans.
Overall, 2021 has been a monumental year for Subsquid and we are getting ready to build further in 2022! The development team is constantly hustling hard to provide more unique updates to the Subsquid protocol, with the community taking up the various roles open to Subsquid supporters to enable full decentralisation, as well as the intended launch of the SQD token. Along with the planned transition into a DAO these are our three big challenges of 2022, alongside which there will of course be plenty of smaller milestones that will be well worth celebrating.
We’d like to sign off 2021 by thanking all our supporters and stakeholders for spreading the word about Subsquid throughout the year and for helping us shape the protocol. We’d also like to thank our investors, without whose backing we would never have come this far.
We can’t wait to go further on this journey with you in 2022 and beyond and hope that those who are celebrating enjoy a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 🌟
Sincerely yours,
The Squid Squad
Join our Community!
To find out more about Subsquid, join us on our Discord server and chat to one of our helpful Subsquid team members or other users. For those who want some more background information on Subsquid and what it’s all about, our website and Medium page are the perfect places to start.
Website, Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Subsocial, Reddit, Facebook, Insta | https://medium.com/@subsquid/subsquid-in-2021-from-zero-to-60m-monthly-queries-f5bd3fa962f8 | [] | 2021-12-25 15:45:49.148000+00:00 | ['Web3', 'Data', 'Polkadot', 'Startup', 'Blockchain'] |
Comparing the first and second wave of COVID-19 in Italy through Python Pandas | Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
In this tutorial I implement the code to compare some measurements related to the first and second waves in Italy. In my previous post, I dealt with the ratio between the number of total cases and number of swabs. In this post, I consider the following types of measurements:
number of deaths
number of patients admitted to the intensive care
number of number of hospitalized. I exploit the Python pandas library. The code is very simple and reusable thus it can be easily adapted to data related to other Countries.
Every measurement is analysed from two perspectives:
cumulative measure — the measure related to a given day is the sum of all the measurements of the previous days plus the measurement of the current day.
daily measure — the measure related to a given day is given only by the measurement of the previous day.
In addition, for each measurement, I provide the code to compare data related to the first wave with data related to the second wave. I set the 2020, July 31st as the splitting date between the first and second wave.
All the code described in this tutorial is available in my Github repository.
Import data
Firstly, I import data from the Github repository of the Italian Protezione Civile. Data are updated daily. I read the csv file through the read_csv() function and I use the set_index() function to set the date as the index of the dataframe. This operation converts the dataframe into a time series. Then, I use the tail(10) function to show the last 10 rows of the time series.
import pandas as pd
df = pd.read_csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19/master/dati-andamento-nazionale/dpc-covid19-ita-andamento-nazionale.csv")
df.set_index('data', inplace=True)
df.tail(10)
Cumulative measure
I define a generic function, called plot_measure() which plots a measure passed as parameter. This function exploits the matplotblib library to plot the measure.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np def plot_measure(measure):
x_labels = []
dates = measure.index.tolist() i = 0
step = 5
while i < len(measure):
x_labels.append(dates[i])
i += step plt.figure(figsize=(25,10))
plt.grid() plt.plot(measure)
plt.xlim(dates[0],dates[len(dates)-1]) plt.xticks(x_labels,rotation=90)
plt.show()
Now I can use the defined function to plot the cumulative number of patients admitted to intensive care (column terapia_intensiva ).
plot_measure(df['terapia_intensiva'])
The same function can be used also to plot all the other columns of the dataframe, such as the total number of hospitalized patients and deaths.
plot_measure(df['totale_ospedalizzati'])
plot_measure(df['deceduti'])
Now I define a function, called plot_measures() which plots two measures, one related to the first wave and the other related to the second wave. The function is very simple and takes the two measures as input.
def plot_measures(measure1, measure2):
plt.figure(figsize=(25,10))
plt.grid() plt.plot(measure1, label='first wave')
plt.plot(measure2, label='second wave')
plt.legend()
plt.show()
In order to split a measure in the two waves, I define a function called overlap() which receives the measure as input, as well as the range of values between min_value and max_value , within the starting date of each wave must be identified. In practice, I'd like that the two waves start when the values of the considered measure fall in the same range of values. For example, for the column terapia_intensiva I'd like that the beginning date of the two waves falls in the interval [400,500]. Then, I create two series, one for each wave and I plot the result.
def overlap(measure, min_value, max_value):
fw_date = measure.where((measure > min_value) & (measure < max_value) ).dropna().index.tolist()[0]
fw_end_date = '2020-07-31T17:00:00'
sw_date = measure[fw_end_date:].where((measure > min_value) & (measure < max_value) ).dropna().index.tolist()[0]
fw_df = measure[fw_date:fw_end_date]
sw_df = measure[sw_date:]
fw_index = np.arange(0, len(fw_df))
sw_index = np.arange(0, len(sw_df))
fw_ts = pd.Series(fw_df.values,index=fw_index)
sw_ts = pd.Series(sw_df.values,index=sw_index)
plot_measures(fw_ts, sw_ts)
Now I can apply the function overlap() to the column terapia_intensiva
overlap(df['terapia_intensiva'], 400, 550)
and the column totale_ospedalizzati
overlap(df['totale_ospedalizzati'], 4900, 5100)
Daily measure
In this case, I define a function called daily_measure() , which calculates the value of the measure related to a given day as the difference between the current value for that day and the value for the previous day. Then the function returns a Series() with the obtained value.
def daily_measure(m):
d_measure = []
for i in range(1, len(m)):
d_measure.append(m[i] - m[i-1])
return pd.Series(d_measure, index=m.index[1:])
I can apply the described function to plot the column terapia_intensiva
plot_measure(daily_measure(df['terapia_intensiva']))
or I can apply the overlap() function to the daily_measure() related to the column terapia_intensiva .
overlap(daily_measure(df['terapia_intensiva']),50,80)
The same analysis can be done for the number of deaths.
plot_measure(daily_measure(df['deceduti']))
overlap(daily_measure(df['deceduti']),180,200)
Summary
In this tutorial I have shown that two kinds of visualizations can be done with data related to COVID-19, one based on cumulative data and the other based on daily data.
In addition, a comparison can be done between the first and second waves of COVID-19. For some analysis regarding the comparison between the first and the second wave, such as predictions and time series analysis, stay tuned and follow me :)
If you wanted to be updated on my research and other activities, you can follow me on Twitter, Youtube and and Github. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/comparing-the-first-and-second-wave-of-covid-19-in-italy-through-python-pandas-fbc8d22cb741 | ['Angelica Lo Duca'] | 2020-12-22 16:34:47.514000+00:00 | ['Second Wave Of Covid 19', 'Python', 'Covid 19', 'Pandas', 'Data Science'] |
Is eating bread bad for you when you are trying to lose weight? | Is eating bread bad for you when you are trying to lose weight by Damir.
Is eating bread bad for you when you are trying to lose weight? TrainChampion Follow Dec 22, 2020 · 3 min read
Many people have asked us whether eating bread can hinder their weight loss. This blog post will explain the consumption of bread from a scientific point and practical point. Let’s first deconstruct the bread and start from the basics.
What is bread actually and what is comprised of
Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour and water, usually by baking. The primary nutrients in bread are carbohydrates.
There are myriads of bread on the marketplace but the two main types are:
White bread (1 slice or 28 g has about 74 calories)
Whole-grain bread (1 slice or 28g has about 69 calories)
White bread is made from refined flour and as a consequence is low on fiber. On the other hand, whole-grain bread is made from wheat that is high in fiber, vitamin B6, and E.
Usually, the whole-grain bread is more nutritious and healthier than white bread.
Scientific benefits of whole-grain bread
Many research studies have been conducted to prove that eating whole-grain bread is a usually wiser choice than eating white bread. Here are a few:
In one Harvard study completed in 1994, people who ate high-fiber bread had fewer heart attacks and strokes than those who ate typical white bread.
One research study from the University of Washington in 2003 proved that consuming whole-grain bread can lower heart disease risk by 20 percent.
So what are the main benefits of whole-grain bread? It’s the fiber. Remember fiber is your friend. Fiber can help you regulate your body’s use of sugars, helping to keep your hunger and your blood sugar in check.
Some practical advice when you are on your weight loss journey
Eating whole-grain bread is usually better than eating white bread. However, if you want to lose weight, you need to be mindful of the calories that you take in. Let’s say you have a lunch that is at about 400 calories. If you add 1 slice of whole-grain bread, you will be adding 69 on top of that. That’s only 1 slice. If you have two slices that is 138 calories just from the bread.
If you are adding bread to your every meal, calories will accumulate. So what is the practical solution? If you are someone who loves bread so much, try cutting back slowly on bread. Instead of having 2 slices of bread per meal, change to having only 1 slice per meal. Then, when you mastered that habit, try having a meal without bread.
Here is something to pay attention to. When you set your meal calorie threshold, you need to take into account the bread that you are taking with the meal. For example, if your main meal calorie threshold is 400 calories, then your main meal+ bread calorie intake needs to be within 400.
To recap…
If you need to choose between white and whole-grain bread, choose whole-grain bread as it is more nutritious and contains a healthy dose of fiber.
Although whole-grain bread is better than white, it adds additional calories to your daily meals so you need to pay attention to how many calories/slices you take in just with your bread.
Cutting back on either white or whole-grain bread is usually a good idea if your goal is to lose weight.
Until next year,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
TrainChampion Team | https://medium.com/experts-write/is-eating-bread-bad-for-you-when-you-are-trying-to-lose-weight-6d5435b346b9 | [] | 2020-12-22 11:02:33.338000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss', 'Personal Trainer', 'Bread', 'Nutrition', 'Personalised'] |
6 Ways to Get Your Kids Hiking | With TV, games, and toys competing for your child’s attention, being outside could be the last place they want to be.
But whether it’s a vacation to the mountains or a local day hike, the tips below could help the transition run more smoothly.
1. Get outside. A LOT.
Fostering your child’s love for the outdoors could mean letting them get a little dirty.
Let them puddle-jump, collect weird things, feel the ground beneath their toes.
It goes beyond fresh air.
Harvard University says to get your little ones outside is not only good for their health but also crucial for their development.
Vitamin D and exercise are great reasons to spend time outside, but did you know that unstructured time outside helps children problem solve? It creates a safe space for risk-taking and responsibility. Promoting a love for nature, creativity, and imagination.
All things that will ultimately make time outside more enjoyable for them and for you.
2. Talk about it.
If you’re excited about your hike, chances are it will catch.
Children that are prepared for what’s to come experience less anxiety and stress. It’s like saying ‘it’s almost time for bed’ an hour before-hand so they have time to process it.
Books can be the best way to dive into visual explanations. Find some of the following titles at your local library or bookstore–
And most likely, the characters in their favorite TV show go on an outdoorsy adventure at least once or twice. Flip it on and watch it with them for extra effect.
3. Show them ‘the gear’.
If you’re planning on hitting the trails, share the equipment you’ll be taking along.
Whether it’s a headlamp, a map, or the carrier they’ll ride in, let your child get involved in the planning process. This encourages questions and gives you a chance to show how excited you are.
Have a test-run camp-out and set up a tent in your backyard or your living room. Let your kids roast marshmallows over a candle, and sleep in a sleeping bag.
I know I still remember when my parents let me set up my little wal-mart tent in the backyard, holding a flashlight until I fell asleep.
4. Give them a job to do.
For older kids, entrusting them with a job can make them feel confident and important.
Talk it up.
Let them ‘navigate’ with the map, or maybe they’re in charge of an important snack!
Sometimes the only way my dad could get me and my brothers up a mountain… was the promise of chocolate pudding. (Do I use this bribery today? Well, yes I do.)
A compass is a great lightweight tool for little ones to carry.
(Make sure an adult is always aware of direction.)
5. Make it interactive.
Bring along a journal, or nature bingo.
It’s a great reason to get outside, but also a good way to break up the monotony of walking.
Some great options are linked below.
Creating a prize is a great idea for some of those more resistant kids.
6. Make it memorable.
Remember disposable camera’s?
They’re a light, easy way to keep your kids entertained on trail. It’s a great ‘Leave-no-trace’ way to bring it back to #5. Without disturbing natural wildlife and delicate flora and fauna, you can document things you’ve found.
Not to mention the great memories to look back on once they’re developed.
If you’re lucky you’ll get more than just pictures of thumbs.
So get out there and enjoy the benefits of nature!
It doesn’t have to be work. Incorporating any of these tips into your daily life will strengthen your child’s love for the outdoors. Not to mention getting on trail easier and more enjoyable for all involved. | https://medium.com/@thomsencopywriting/6-ways-to-get-your-kids-hiking-211a1db613c5 | ['Sarah Thomsen'] | 2020-12-06 14:58:41.071000+00:00 | ['Nature Walk', 'Hiking', 'Children', 'Tips And Tricks', 'Hiking With Kids'] |
How To Grow Kale | The Complete Guide To Growing Kale + 5 Harvest Tips | How To Grow Kale | The Complete Guide To Growing Kale + 5 Harvest Tips Gardenuity Follow Oct 15, 2019 · 6 min read
Kale is the hardy, cool-season green that’s perfect for growing as the temperature drops. Part of the cabbage family, kale is arguably the most nutrient-dense food in the world and it’s shockingly easy to grow. So how to grow kale?
Here is your complete guide to growing kale — from planting, to care, to harvesting. We cover how to avoid pests, exact garden soil needs, and more.
WHEN TO GROW
Kale is one of those rare vegetables that can be planted both in early spring and early fall. In fact, in some cases, it’s even a year-round plant.
If the weather in your climate doesn’t drop below 20° F, a kale garden is an option any time of the year.
To create a spring kale vegetable garden, plant in early spring before the summer heat becomes too much for the plant — best 3–5 weeks before the last frost. For a fall garden, plant approximately 6–8 weeks before the first frost.
This being said, kale seeds germinate most successfully in soil that is about 45°F, so plant according to your climate!
It may sound odd, but kale actually grows best in the cold air temperatures of fall. Kale is frost tolerant, meaning it can continue to grow successfully after a light frost.
In fact, kale tastes better when grown in the fall; the cold weather brings out the natural nutty flavor of the leaves and produces a more tender harvest.
To grow your own kale garden check out our Antioxidant Garden that contains kale and many other antioxidant-rich greens.
LOCATION
Essentially, kale can be grown everywhere — even the tropics will work with a little bit of shade! The city is no exception. You definitely don’t need a backyard to grow kale; this leafy green is a perfect candidate for a container garden. Be sure that your continue is at minimum 12 inches in diameter and deep enough to support kale’s root system.
Soil is a major part, if not the most important part, of your garden’s home. Be sure to use soil with good drainage. Enrich the soil with compost and fertilizer before you set out your seeds/seedlings, refreshing occasionally.
The ideal soil pH for a kale garden is between 6.5–6.8. This most successfully prevents clubroot disease. If clubroot disease isn’t a problem in your garden, you can push it as low as 6.2 pH.
Test the soil with a do-it-yourself kit or use a complete Gardenuity kit, which comes with kale seeds/seedlings and soil specifically curated for optimal growth.
PLANTING
Direct sow vegetable seeds 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch deep into well-drained soil. Water deeply after planting. After two weeks of growing, thin the seedlings, spacing them about 8–12 inches apart
Growing from transplants, or ‘adolescent’ aged plants, is a great option for fall growing. Doing so avoids the tenuous beginning growing stages and increases your chance of a successful harvest — especially if your fall garden is off to a late start or it’s a bit chillier than expected.
You can either begin your seeds indoors and transfer or buy your transplants from a farm partner you trust. After planting seedlings, allow at least 2 weeks for the seedlings to adjust to their new home. Consider replanting as a minor trauma for your plant. Watch them carefully during this period, being sure to water them regularly.
Because the soil gets cold and acts as a mini-fridge, a kale harvest can last much longer than normal. Use successive planting to extend your harvest throughout the winter. To do so, plant additional kale plants every 2–3 weeks until the first frost or until you run out of space.
Pro tip: Beets, celery, cucumber, herbs, and spinach made good neighbors for kale, while strawberries and tomatoes are unfriendly to kale’s growth.
WATER
Water your kale garden regularly, being careful not to overwater. Generally, kale prefers a nice even supply of water — about 1 to 1.5 inches per week.
Use the thumb test as a foolproof water to determine if your plants need water. Stick your thumb about an inch deep into the soil. If the soil is moist, wait another day. If it’s dry, water immediately.
SUNLIGHT
Kale grows best in full sun, but will tolerate partial shade. If your kale receives fewer than 6 hours of sun daily, your plants will be thinner and produce fewer leaves, but they’ll still be edible and delicious.
PESTS
Luckily, pest populations tend to drop dramatically in the fall. Regardless, watch out for the following pests.
Cabbageworm
Cabbageworm is the larvae of cabbage white butterflies. These pests are velvety green worms that are fond of chewing holes in kale leaves. Remove infested leaves.
Aphids
Gray-green cabbage aphids are often found in clusters in the folds of frilly kale. To treat, spray with organic insecticidal soap. If a specific leaf is badly infested, pick the leaf off the plant and discard it.
Harlequin Bugs
Harlequin bugs are colorful black and orange pests that plague older kale plants. The best way to protect seedlings from these (and other pests) is to cover them with row cover or another lightweight fabric.
HARVEST
Direct sowed kale plants typically mature in 55–75 days, while transplants are ready to harvest in about 30–40 days. You’ll know that your kale is ready to harvest when the green leaves are about the size of your hand.
Kale will grow until it’s 20° F.
As such, if you protect your kale with a row cover, you may be able to harvest all winter long.
Here are 5 kale harvesting tips to make your harvest easier.
You can harvest fully mature leaves 55–75 days after sowing, baby greens 20–30 days after sowing, or microgreens 12–20 days after sowing. Microgreens and baby leaves are particularly tender and can be eaten uncooked — use them in salads! Larger leaves should be cut and cooked like spinach, removing the tough ribs before preparing. Pick about one fistful of leaves per harvest. To lengthen your harvest, avoid picking the terminal bud, which is found at the top center of the plant. Pick the oldest leaves first which are usually found at the lowest section of plants. Work your way up the stalk as the growing season continues. As you harvest, discard leaves that appear yellow or ragged to keep your plants healthy.
Overwintered plants will eventually bolt. You’ll know your kale plants have bolted because they will start to produce yellow flowers. Once this happens, it’s time to tear up your kale garden and replant with something new.
STORAGE
Kale does not keep well, as it loses flavor quickly. We suggest you only harvest what you can use in a day. Return to your plant for more fresh eats as needed!
Store as you would any other leafy green. We suggest doing so in a plastic bag lined with dampened paper towels. For freshest tasting results, wait to wash leaves until right before serving. Alternatively, dry or freeze your kale harvest.
If your kale leaves get too big and therefore tough, don’t waste the leaves! Massage them instead. When you massage your kale, you break down the fibrous tissue to create a more tender edible green.
To do so, remove the ribs and woody pieces from the end of each leaf. Tear into bite-sized chunks and put in a bowl. Add olive oil until lightly covered and a pinch of salt.
Begin mixing and working this into the leaves like you’re kneading bread dough.
After 5 minutes, the leaves should look darker in color and feel more supple. Serve immediately!
ENJOY YOUR HARVEST!
Once you have your successful harvest, get eating! Check out this sweet kale smoothie recipe to begin your kale culinary adventures. | https://medium.com/gardenuity-the-sage/how-to-grow-kale-the-complete-guide-to-growing-kale-5-harvest-tips-841e6cbd41e9 | [] | 2019-10-16 16:47:42.721000+00:00 | ['Gardening', 'Health Foods', 'Plants', 'Garden', 'Healthy Lifestyle'] |
Little People…Average People…Brilliant People… | Which one are you?
Photo by HANNAH BARTMAN on Unsplash
Back in the day, “Ma Bell” and landlines were the only way to communicate at a distance. I remember when my mom would talk on the phone for hours. Really! Hours!
At the time, I was young, and I wasn’t interested in what she was talking about or to whom. I took that time to gain a little more freedom, by staying outside after the street lights came on. Or, staying up a little later on a school night.
My mom would lose track of time being so immersed in her phone conversation, that she didn’t check on me since the phone was attached to the wall. She would have had to interrupt her conversation, lay the phone down, and search for me.
When I became an adult, I unconsciously mimicked my mother. I would stay on the phone for what seemed like hours. Once I was off the phone I realized how much time I had wasted. And half of my conversation I couldn’t even remember!
I was very ashamed of myself. Sometimes I would talk if someone called me during dinnertime, I threw my family off of their meal schedule, talking about nothing that I could remember of importance.
A couple of my regular phone buddies loved to gossip. Once I realized what was going on, I intentionally remained neutral. I would not add fuel to the fire, and I learned how to redirect the conversation, by changing the subject to something general.
Photo by SUNBEAM PHOTOGRAPHY on Unsplash
Eventually, I learned how to end the conversation without offending them. I allowed caller ID and my answering machine to work for me. Then when voicemail replaced my answering machine, I felt I was “off the hook,” (no pun intended).
As I matured, realizing I was a wife and mother, I reflected on the type of person I had become. It was time for me to put away childish things. And gossiping was not something I felt comfortable doing. Just listening to it, I was just as guilty. I realized that wasn’t part of my nature.
Plus, I don’t lie well. It’s nothing worse than trying to back peddle out of a lie when confronted. Actually, I never had to do it. But, I confronted others during my younger years about something that was said about me.
This may seem elementary and cliche, but it works. The Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Empathy. Plain and simple.
Plus, I was raising a child whom I didn’t want to pick-up any bad behaviors I had the power to change.
One morning, I had the radio on as I was getting ready for work. The DJ would always quote words of wisdom for his closing thoughts at the end of his segment.
That particular morning, he quoted some words by Eleanor Roosevelt: “Little people talk about others. Average people talk about things. Brilliant people speak of ideas.”
I’ve always held this quote close to my heart. And I’ve often thought about what it truly means to me.
The lesson I’ve learned: Small-minded people can’t think beyond gossiping about other people, or even “thing outside the box.” They always follow the leader with the inability to think independently or make decisions for themselves.
Every day- or average-minded people talk about general/neutral things (conversations without bias or controversy, ie., weather, fashion, cars, etc.).
And those brilliant-minded thinkers/innovators who imagine or are actually doing the next big thing; positive things in their life and/or the life of others, or even for the world.
Which one are you? Think about it. | https://medium.com/@mediainprint/little-people-average-people-brilliant-people-a7592e9555a6 | ['Just Say It In Print'] | 2020-12-21 17:03:44.367000+00:00 | ['Phone', 'Empathy', 'People', 'Schedule', 'Voicemail'] |
Adjusting Driving Position for the Cockpit with FANATEC Podium DD1 | Adjusting Driving Position for the Cockpit with FANATEC Podium DD1 MASKiracing Follow Feb 20 · 4 min read
The Motivation for the adjustment
Nowadays, I changed from FANATEC CSW V2.5 to FANATEC Podium DD1 and I felt pain in my wrist due to the strong FFB.
After considering and investigating the reason, I found that my body and the steering wheel were too near. When I turn the corner and I tilt the steering by over 90 degrees, I found the bottom wrist got pain. For example, I feel pain in my right wrist.
Though the DD1’s shaft is longer than the CSW V2.5, I just settle the DD1 by using the same holes on the cockpit. This makes the distance between the body and steering closer. Due to the high-torque motor which emits a max 20Nm torque, it’s bad for our body to continuously drive with an undesirable driving position.
Proper torque for a bolt of the real vehicle tire is about 100Nm. This DD1 can provide 1/5 of the torque.
By the way, when I stepped on the break, the front of the seat floated because the connection between the seat and frame is not appropriate. That had annoyed me.
The reason is the way of the usage of the L angle bracket. The below picture is from the back of the seat. The 4040 frame and the 4080 frame were connected with this one bracket. Though this bracket has the projection to fix the position of the bracket, it has a play. This caused the seat to float when I stepped on the brake. I had left this issue but I solved it together with the driving position issue. Please see the below sentences.
Before
These are the “before” pictures.
My Work for Proper Driving Position
I removed the seat one time.
I use this bracket like this.
I use 4040 frame like this as a bridge.
Nowadays, when I use VR with formula car, I felt the uncomfortable difference between my leg and the virtual driver’s leg position. So I made the height lower. As a result, the seat position went down by 4 cm.
I got two 4080 frames that had been used as the base of the seat.
Complete!
I feel comfortable with this driving position and the squeakiness vanished.
I use these gadgets in the picture.
The original design is here:
My Related Articles | https://medium.com/sim-products-review/drivingpositionadjustment-858ebb76ed94 | [] | 2021-02-20 16:24:31.683000+00:00 | ['DIY', 'Fanatec'] |
Waves — | Waves.tech
Innovations of tomorrow for people of today About To empower builders of decentralized solutions of tomorrow… | https://medium.com/@alexeyshasherin/waves-dfc3571991f8 | ['Alexey Shasherin'] | 2020-12-22 17:02:07.840000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Waves', 'Exchange'] |
PLUTUS LAUNCHES BITCOIN AND ETHEREUM TRADING ON NEW DEX EXCHANGE | Today, Plutus have expanded their PlutusDEX trading platform with support for rapid Bitcoin and Ethereum trading. Members are now able to swiftly and securely deposit, trade, and withdraw Euros and cryptocurrencies.
The PlutusDEX is a purely peer-to-peer method of exchanging currencies, which means that there is no centralised storage of currencies whatsoever. Plutus never store any user balances, which means that there is no ‘vault’ to be hacked.
This exchange, coupled with the Tap & Pay app, enables Plutus users to unlock the value of their crypto to pay for anything, from high street retailers to online outlets. Users can access the platform via Plutus Tap & Pay for Android/iOS, which is already live today.
Danial Daychopan, CEO and Founder of Plutus adds “This new expansion to our trading platform will allow users to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum while taking advantage of market highs and lows. The transactions will be quick and easy, with the purchased crypto available in your account to spend all over the world.”
During the BETA programme, members of the PlutusDEX will not be charged any fees for buying cryptocurrencies. PlutusDEX facilitates fair market rates based on the current price exchange across all exchanges. This will see members making instant payments and transfers in crypto and fiat currencies for free. After the BETA stage has been completed, a tiered structure of fees will be introduced.
This new development comes shortly after Plutus announced their integration with the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), the new format for cross-border Euro-based bank transfers, that is heralded as the future of European banking.
The payment format is used across 34 countries and is already being adopted by major banks. Now members can transfer, convert and spend Crypto easily across Europe.
Cryptocurrencies are rapidly evolving, and this development continues Plutus’ position as one of the leaders in a global push for fintech innovation. | https://medium.com/plutus/plutus-launches-bitcoin-and-ethereum-trading-on-new-dex-exchange-d7bcf2ec2f65 | [] | 2019-01-15 16:29:31.273000+00:00 | ['Trade', 'Bitcoin', 'Exchange', 'Announcements', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
New Language | Thomas and I get drunk one night around the fire pit in the heat of summer and dance under the Vermont sky. My hips sway as my bare feet press into the damp earth, bats dancing through the trees above our heads. The notes of Dreams echoing off the forested hillside next to our house. My blue dress is backless and the wind grazes my skin and along the side of my neck, my hair swirling around my tear-stained face. We have no neighbors; any headlights can be seen far off. Thomas reaches out for me and we make love in the grass under the almost-full moon. I dig my hands into the earth and drink in the night air.
I feel, for the first time, that I am free of you.
I can easily recall every outline, every freckle, the scar from the accident, the curvature of your nose- too much for classic good looks. The tilt of your lips, always in stark relief framing straight teeth and a quick laugh. How the tilt of your elbow slightly throws off your gait.
Your face is never fuzzy, never blurry.
Your exact features will be in my head, mirrored in quick glimpses in the grocery line, in the car next to me, in my husband, until the end of time
My brain is different now. The wiring is changed. My responses unconscious and
A flinch here
A double-take there
I have a six sense about:
The step brother
The in-law
The guy at the gas station.
Sometimes I worry that you will find the tiny village I live in, and I will see you at the Trading Post. You will recognize me despite my newly dark hair and beg for me to follow. Or, in my other version, you pull out the gun that was under your bed, and put it to my head. Instead of yours this time.
Your furious riptide, is still able to drag me under from two thousand miles away; the waves relentlessly battering at the cliffs and the salt stinging my face. Because I did not have the strength to go with grace, I messily fought and scrabbled for my freedom, lying, cheating, and deceiving my way out. I left a damaged man in my wake and no warning for the women who would come after me. Sometimes I wonder if I really am the monster, too. A coward who saved herself and didn’t look behind.
Maybe we were meant for each other after all.
But Thomas strokes my face now. His love making is soft. He will touch me as I lean back against him. He too gazes into my eyes and tells me he will never leave me. He too will whisper my name and tell me I’m the most beautiful woman he’s ever been with. That my breasts are the perfect handful and reverently trace the lines of my hips with his fingers.
I know it in my bones he will never hurt me.
There is no sharpness in our interactions. No danger like there was with you.
And this keeps me up at night, the panicked tattoo of my heart against my chest.
Wide awake I close my eyes to test myself:
Do I know his face as well as yours? Do I know the angle of his jaw and the width of his hands? The pitch in his voice when he tells me I am his and he is mine?
Who do I dream of at night? And talk to on my drive home?
Because our secret language flows forever through my lips; under my breath; whispering into my lover’s ears, screamed into the sky, shouted in my mind and stifled through my cries.
They say it’s easiest to learn new languages when you are young, and as I lie on my back I realize that these are the brightest stars I have ever seen. | https://medium.com/@walkingwithmae/new-language-e6ea570f1305 | ['Hannah Mae'] | 2020-12-15 00:47:57.779000+00:00 | ['Survivor', 'Domestic Violence', 'Memoir', 'Creative Non Fiction', 'Creative Writing'] |
Creating a QR Code Scanner With Vanilla JavaScript - Fletcher Rippon | Let's Start Coding!
Creating the basic HTML layout
The first thing we are going to do is very easy, creating the basic HTML all we are going to add for this example is a <video> tag with an id and some other attributes, you can add more elements to make the layout more interesting we will be doing that in part 2 of this article.
We are going to use the id to select the element with our JavaScript code later on. The width and height can be set to whatever you like for this example I'm setting them to 640px by 480px . The autoplay attribute is needed to play our stream nothing will happen without autoplay .
Creating the video stream
Now it's time to start writing some JavaScript, firstly we are going to select the video element from the page we just created then check if there is a camera available that we can stream from if there is then start streaming to the video element.
Now if you open the browser you should see a live stream from your webcam that we can use to scan barcodes and QR codes.
Creating the barcode scanner functionality
First, we need to create a new BarcodeDetector class and declare the barcodes that we want our barcode scanner to detect for this example I only want to scan QR codes so that's the only one I will add.
Creating the bar code detector (to add more codes add the code name to the formats array)
You can go to the MDN docs or scroll to the top of the page to see what codes are supported if you would like to scan more than QR codes. If you want to use all supported formats you can use the getSupportedFormats function.
Get supported formats is an async function so you need to use then() or an await to resolve the promise
Now that we have the barcodeDetactor class, we can start making the barcode detector function.
To start detecting barcodes we use the BarcodeDetector.detect() this method takes a parameter this can be a element , blob (type of image) or an ImageData object. Once the BarcodeDetector has detected a code we first check to see if the array is empty if it is we will leave the function then we log each code to the console. But before we can see our barcodes data getting returned to the console we need to run this function over and over again to get it in real-time we can do this really easily by using the setInterval method.
Now you can start scanning barcodes and see that data is getting returned to the console. The data should look something like this.
In this object, there are four properties boundingBox , cornerPoints , format and rawValue . The format and rawValue properties are easy to understand the formate is the formate of the code that was read in this case it was a QR code and the rawValue is the value/content of the barcode.
We also have the boundingBox and cornerPoints these both hold data on the shape and position of the barcode this data may look like they achieve the same thing but they do have differences and can change the shape they draw depending on the code you are scanning and how that code gets scanned.
Corner points
The cornerPoints array holds all four points of the scan area starting from the top left corner and continuing clockwise so cornerPoints[0] is equal to the top left then cornerPoints[1] is equal to the top right and so on. If we draw a line from each point it is unlikely that it will be a perfect square or rectangle due to the perspective of the code that the camera is looking from.
It is important to truly understand what the scan area is and what the result could be depending on the code you use for example QR, aztec, data matrix codes and other codes similar to them, this will outline the whole code because the scanner needs to be scan to the entire area to retrieve the raw value of the code.
While codes like ean 8/13, code 39/93/128, Codabar, and more like these don't need to scan the entire area of the code they just have to scan across the entire width and a small amount of the height of these codes. Here is an illustration to make this a bit easier to understand.
This image represents how different codes are scanned and how the results from the cornerPoints data can look for different barcodes
Bounding box | https://itnext.io/creating-a-real-time-qr-code-scanner-with-vanilla-javascript-part-1-2-creating-the-scanner-a8934ee8f614 | ['Fletcher Rippon'] | 2021-05-23 13:53:04.105000+00:00 | ['Qr Code', 'Programming', 'Website Development', 'JavaScript', 'Vanilla Javascript'] |
Acquire and Analyze Weather and Climate Data with Python and Tableau | Weather and Climate data are valuable resources, not only to forecast the weather but for dozens of purposes across industries, governments, and in personal life. Opportunities to apply data analytics and data science techniques to these data to inform and support decision-making are almost endless.
NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is the world’s most extensive weather and climate data collection. Its databases contain over 37 petabytes of atmospheric, coastal, oceanic, and geophysical data. This article describes the data, how to download its data files, and instructions to acquire it with a Python program that calls its Data Service API. It also demonstrates a Tableau Public dashboard to visualize a sample set of wind data retrieved with the API.
Weather and Climate Data Uses
Weather and climate data serve a multitude of needs in society. Here are some examples:
Agriculture — Farmers can use weather data to determine when to plant and harvest crops, apply fertilizer and herbicides, and so on.
— Farmers can use weather data to determine when to plant and harvest crops, apply fertilizer and herbicides, and so on. Allergies — Weather plays a significant role in allergy seasons, especially for those related to pollen and other plant materials.
— Weather plays a significant role in allergy seasons, especially for those related to pollen and other plant materials. Building and road construction — Weather may impact outdoor construction work.
— Weather may impact outdoor construction work. Civil Engineering — Engineers who design structures such as bridges, roads, and tunnels, must be aware of weather effects on them and their materials over short and long periods.
— Engineers who design structures such as bridges, roads, and tunnels, must be aware of weather effects on them and their materials over short and long periods. Climatology — Climate scientists use weather and climate data to understand past, present, and potential future climates.
— Climate scientists use weather and climate data to understand past, present, and potential future climates. Clothing and fashion — The types of clothing we wear vary with the season and weather conditions. Some people choose their style and colors by season.
— The types of clothing we wear vary with the season and weather conditions. Some people choose their style and colors by season. Emergency management — Emergency managers use weather and climate data to determine the potential risks of catastrophic events, such as wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods.
— Emergency managers use weather and climate data to determine the potential risks of catastrophic events, such as wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods. Forensic meteorology — Forensic meteorologists analyze weather data to piece together past weather events.
— Forensic meteorologists analyze weather data to piece together past weather events. Forestry and Land Management — Foresters use weather and climate data to manage forests, understand the effects of droughts, mitigate the risks of fires, and more. The U.S. Forest Service, for example, operates an extensive network of automated weather stations.
— Foresters use weather and climate data to manage forests, understand the effects of droughts, mitigate the risks of fires, and more. The U.S. Forest Service, for example, operates an extensive network of automated weather stations. Migration of People — Weather and climate are factors that people use to help them determine where to live.
— Weather and climate are factors that people use to help them determine where to live. Outdoor recreation — Outdoor activities such as hiking, sailing, skiing, camping, fishing, and hunting vary by season and weather. People evaluate historical climate and weather data and current conditions and forecasts to choose good times for their outdoor activities.
— Outdoor activities such as hiking, sailing, skiing, camping, fishing, and hunting vary by season and weather. People evaluate historical climate and weather data and current conditions and forecasts to choose good times for their outdoor activities. Product sales and marketing — Retailers, for example, use weather data to determine when to stock certain types of goods, such as bathing suits or snow skis, in their stores.
— Retailers, for example, use weather data to determine when to stock certain types of goods, such as bathing suits or snow skis, in their stores. Shipping — Shipping may be affected by the weather. For example, the shipment of grain and other bulk goods in barges on inland waterways that may freeze in the winter is affected by the weather.
— Shipping may be affected by the weather. For example, the shipment of grain and other bulk goods in barges on inland waterways that may freeze in the winter is affected by the weather. Tourism and travel — People rely on weather and climate data to plan short and long trips to their chosen destinations.
— People rely on weather and climate data to plan short and long trips to their chosen destinations. Wave activity and hydrodynamic impact — Data from weather instruments mounted on buoys can help project the effects of waves and weather on coastlines and beaches.
— Data from weather instruments mounted on buoys can help project the effects of waves and weather on coastlines and beaches. Weather forecasting — Meteorologists use climate and weather data to help them predict future weather.
Data Overview
NCEI is the leading authority for environmental data in the U.S. It manages extensive archives of atmospheric, coastal, geophysical, and oceanic research data.
NCEI manages a variety of data products, many of which are available to the public. Too numerous to mention, and beyond the scope of this article, here are some examples of its data product categories:
Air temperature and atmospheric properties
Arctic and sea ice
Ecosystems and natural resources
Geomagnetism
Natural hazards, disasters, and severe weather
Ocean climate
Precipitation
Space weather
U.S. and regional climate
Download Weather and Climate Data
In addition to application programming interfaces (APIs), NCEI provides tools to find, request, and download weather and climate data.
Find a Station and Order and Download its Data
Weather observing stations located in the United States and worldwide capture much of the weather data managed by NCEI. Navigate to the Data Tools: Find a Station page to search for stations by city, county, state, ZIP code, or country.
In the example shown below, I use the Find a Station tool to search a location of San Jose, California, the Daily Summaries category, a date range 2000–01–01 through 2020–12–31, and the Wind data category. Note the observation station symbols in Fremont and San Jose, California, on the map.
Data Tools: Find a Station. Image captured by the author.
When I click on the station symbol in San Jose, a STATION DETAILS window pops up, as shown below. Note the component of the ID value to the right of “GHCND:.” This value, “USW00023293,” is the observing station’s unique identifier at the San Jose International Airport. This ID will be used later in a call to the NCEI Data Service API to retrieve weather data captured by this station programmatically.
Weather observation station details. Image captured by the author.
To start the process to retrieve this data, click on the [ADD TO CART] button. Then, click on the [Cart (Free Data)…] button in the screen’s upper-right corner.
Data shopping cart button. Image captured by the author.
On the Cart: Daily Summaries page, select the “Custom GHCN-Daily CSV” format. This selection will result in the download of wind data in a comma-separated value (CSV) file. The file format will be similar to the CSV file that a Python program will save after calling the Data Service API.
Review the search values, including the “Date Range.” When ready, click the [CONTINUE] button.
Cart: Daily Summaries page. Image captured by the author.
On the Custom Options: Daily Summaries page, make the selections shown in the screenshot below. Note that a Units value of “Standard” will return wind speed values in miles per hour (MPH). Selecting “Metric” would return wind speed values in meters per second.
The “Average wind speed (AWND)” data type will also be used later in the article to demonstrate visualizing the data in Tableau Public. The “Fastest 2-minute wind speed (WSF2)” and “Fastest 5-minute wind speed (WSF5)” data types have been selected only for demonstration.
The “AWND,” “WSF2,” and “WSF5” data type values will be used later in a call to the Data Service API.
Custom Options: Daily Summaries page. Image captured by the author.
When presented with the Review Order page, review your selections and enter your email address twice. When ready, click on the [SUBMIT ORDER] button. Within seconds or minutes, NCEI will send you an initial email to confirm the order submission and a second email to confirm its completion. The completion email contains a link to download a data file that meets your selection criteria.
Climate Data online request email subject lines. Image captured by the author.
Open the second “Order Complete…” email. Click on the [Download] link to download the data file.
Partial Climate Data Online request completion email. Click on the [Download] button to download the data file. Image captured by the author.
Open the downloaded CSV file in a text editor. It should look similar to the file shown below. Note that the column names (called “data types” by NCEI) in the first row correspond with comma-separated data values in subsequent rows.
Sample of downloaded daily wind data CSV file. Image captured by the author.
Other Data Search Toolsets
Searching for observation stations and selecting and downloading their data is one of many ways to retrieve data from NCEI datasets. Use the links on the Climate Data Online page to explore other methods.
Climate Data Online page. Image by the author.
NOAA also offers the OneStop data search platform to find and view a variety of data interactively. Some data are available for download.
NOAA OneStop Data Search Platform home page. Image captured by the author.
Calling the Access Data Service API with Python
NCEI provides four RESTful APIs to acquire weather and climate data. This article describes how to use the Data Service API to obtain daily summary data for several weather stations.
The Data Service API retrieves data based on parameters sent to a web server with a predefined URL. See the brief Data Service API documentation for an overview of how it works.
URL and Parameters
To use the Data Service API, append parameters to this predefined URL:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/services/data/v1
The sample code described in the next section will query the daily-summaries dataset to retrieve the daily average wind (‘AWND’) speed value for several U.S. locations for each day between January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2020. The API returns AWND and other wind values in miles per hour (MPH). To retrieve the desired data, append these parameters to the URL shown above:
dataset — The ‘daily-summaries’ dataset provides summarized daily weather data, including wind data.
— The ‘daily-summaries’ dataset provides summarized daily weather data, including wind data. dataTypes — We are interested in daily average wind speed (‘AWND’) in this example. But for possible future use, the parameter value is set to obtain the fastest 2-minute windspeed (‘WSF2’) and the fastest 5-second windspeed (‘WSF5’). To get these three types, set the dataTypes parameter value to ‘AWND,WSF2,WSF5.’
— We are interested in daily average wind speed (‘AWND’) in this example. But for possible future use, the parameter value is set to obtain the fastest 2-minute windspeed (‘WSF2’) and the fastest 5-second windspeed (‘WSF5’). To get these three types, set the dataTypes parameter value to ‘AWND,WSF2,WSF5.’ stations — In this example, we are interested in the daily average wind speed for these stations: Chicago O’Hare International Airport, Rochester International Airport (Minnesota), and San Jose International Airport. Provide these stations’ identifiers to the API in this comma-delimited list: ‘USW00094846,USW00014925,USW00023293.’ Search for station IDs in the Data Tools: Find a Station page as described in a previous section of this article.
— In this example, we are interested in the daily average wind speed for these stations: Chicago O’Hare International Airport, Rochester International Airport (Minnesota), and San Jose International Airport. Provide these stations’ identifiers to the API in this comma-delimited list: ‘USW00094846,USW00014925,USW00023293.’ Search for station IDs in the Data Tools: Find a Station page as described in a previous section of this article. startDate — Records from January 1, 2000, through December 31, 2020, will be retrieved. So, in this example, a value of ‘2000–01–01’ will be set.
— Records from January 1, 2000, through December 31, 2020, will be retrieved. So, in this example, a value of ‘2000–01–01’ will be set. endDate — Since we’re interested in data through 2020, set this value to ‘2020–12–31’.
— Since we’re interested in data through 2020, set this value to ‘2020–12–31’. boundingBox — Set the bounding box values to select data from a geographic location contained within the coordinates. It includes four comma-separated numbers. North and South range from -90 to 90, and East and West range from -180 to 180. For this example, set boundingBox to ‘90,-180,-90,180’.
— Set the bounding box values to select data from a geographic location contained within the coordinates. It includes four comma-separated numbers. North and South range from -90 to 90, and East and West range from -180 to 180. For this example, set boundingBox to ‘90,-180,-90,180’. units — Values are “metric” or “standard.” For the average wind speed data type, the “standard” value will return the wind speed in miles per hour.
Here is the full URL that resulted from appending the parameters to the base URL:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/services/data/v1/?dataset=daily-summaries&dataTypes=AWND,WSF2,WSF5&stations=USW00094846,USW00014925,USW00023293&startDate=2000-01-01&endDate=2020-12-31&boundingBox=90,-180,-90,180&units=standard
Python Code
Class c_ncei_data_service_api
The file c_ncei_data_service_api.py defines the c_ncei_data_service_api class. The following sections describe its functions.
__init__() constructor function
The __init__() constructor function is called when a program creates an instance of the c_ncei_data_service_api class. It takes these input parameters:
dataset — The name of the NCEI dataset that contains the desired data.
— The name of the NCEI dataset that contains the desired data. data_types — The fields to return from the dataset. It consists of a comma-delimited list of field names.
— The fields to return from the dataset. It consists of a comma-delimited list of field names. stations — These are unique identifiers of observation stations of interest. The parameter consists of a comma-delimited list of station IDs.
— These are unique identifiers of observation stations of interest. The parameter consists of a comma-delimited list of station IDs. start_date_time — The first date of the data to retrieve.
— The first date of the data to retrieve. end_date_time — The last date of the data to retrieve.
— The last date of the data to retrieve. bounding_box — See the description for boundingBox in the previous section.
The function performs these steps:
Set variable self._base_api_url to the value of the base URL of the NCEI Service Data API. Call self.call_api() with the input parameters to retrieve the requested data.
Definition of __init__() function at the top of the c_ncei_data_service_api class module. Note the “import requests” directive, which is required to use requests.get() to submit the request to the NCEI Data Service API.
Note: By default, a call to the URL will return data in CSV format. See documentation for the parameter to set to retrieve the data in JSON and other types.
call_api() function
The call_api() function retrieves data from the specified NCEI dataset. It performs these steps:
Append parameters to the base URL to create the full_url variable. Note that it sets the API’s ‘units’ parameter in addition to the function’s input parameters. Submit the URL with the requests.get() function. The resulting dataset, if any, will be returned into the ‘response’ variable. Return the ‘response.text’ variable to the constructor.
call_api() function within the c_ncei_data_service_api class module. This function uses requests.data() to submit the full URL of the NCEI Data Service API request.
get_data() function
The get_data() function returns the dataset data to its caller.
get_data() function in the c_ncei_data_service_api class module.
write_data_file() function
The write_data_file() function writes the data returned from the URL call and stored in the self._dataset variable to a text file. It performs these steps:
Open the file specified in the parameter in write mode. Write the value in the self._dataset variable to the file. Close the file.
write_data_file() function within the c_nei_data_service_api class module.
Controller Module
The controller module imports the c_ncei_data_service_api module and performs these steps:
Create an instance of the c_ncei_data_service_api class with the parameters described in the __init__() constructor description. This step will retrieve data from the NCEI dataset. Print the retrieved data to the display. Write the retrieved data to the specified file.
The controller module creates and calls an instance of the c_ncei_data_service_api class. It then prints the data returned from the API to the screen and writes it to a file.
Possible Class and Program Improvements
I developed the c_ncei_data_service_api class and controller module for demonstration and learning purposes. Here are some ideas to add features and make the modules more robust and production-ready:
Add error-handling to gracefully recover from errors and retry parts of the code if needed.
to gracefully recover from errors and retry parts of the code if needed. Write information about the program’s operations, such as the date and time when it starts and finishes, error information, input parameters, and the number of records retrieved, to a log file .
. Modify the call_api() function to handle more input parameters, such as the desired output data format (CSV, JSON, PDF, and others).
Running the Program
Run the controller module to create an instance of the c_ncei_data_service_api, retreive the desired data from the NCEI Data Service API, display the data, and write it to a file. The output file should appear similar to the sample in the output weather_data.csv file shown below. The first row contains column headers, while subsequent rows contain data.
CSV file retrieved with call to NCEI Data Service API. Image captured by the author.
Other NCEI APIs
While this article explores the use of the Data Service API, NCEI has provided these APIs, too:
Search Service API — Discover datasets and data based on a set of parameters.
— Discover datasets and data based on a set of parameters. Access Support Service API — Discover metadata and attributes about datasets based on a set of parameters.
— Discover metadata and attributes about datasets based on a set of parameters. Access Order Service API — Retrieve information about previous orders based on a set of parameters.
Learn more about NCEI datasets on the Access page. It provides links to data discovery tools, data access information, and developer tools, including the APIs, map service directories, climate data web services, and the official NOAA GitHub repository.
Analyzing Data in Tableau Public
Chicago, Illinois, is known as “The windy city.” I live in southeastern Minnesota, which is a windy place, too. To visually compare the Chicago areas’ daily average wind speeds with those of Rochester, the largest city in southeastern Minnesota, I loaded the data retrieved with the Data Service API in Tableau Public. There, I created a Daily Average Wind Speed dashboard. My son lives near San Jose, California, so wind speeds at San Jose International Airport are shown, too.
The results surprised me. Wind speeds at Rochester International Airport (Minnesota) are consistently higher than at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. Both have winds much greater than San Jose International Airport.
From 2000 through 2020, the locations have these daily average wind speeds in miles per hour:
Rochester International Airport (Minnesota) — 11.31 MPH
Chicago O’Hare International Airport — 9.52 MPH
San Jose International Airport — 6.44 MPH
Daily average windspeed for three locations from 2000 to 2020. Image captured by the author.
The dashboard also shows daily average wind speed by year, month, month by year, and season. Meteorological seasons in the northern hemisphere are defined as follows.
Spring — March, April, and May.
Summer — June, July, and August.
Fall — September, October, and November.
Winter — December, January, and February.
According to the data, spring and winter are the windiest seasons in Rochester and Chicago, and summer is the calmest. San Jose has relatively light winds year-round. | https://towardsdatascience.com/acquire-and-analyze-weather-and-climate-data-with-python-and-tableau-4878e8759152 | ['Randy Runtsch'] | 2021-04-15 17:30:03.835000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Weather', 'Climate', 'Data Analysis', 'Python'] |
Retirement Calculator Shakedown | Yup, you probably guessed it, I fell victim to using a shady online retirement calculator; those ‘helpful tools’ provided by your friendly Asset Manager to help you see if you have saved enough for retirement and find out what you need to change. Some call it a ‘veil’ to make you feel scared and appease your fear with sweet financial products (I love a good financial product).
Actually, I’m finding the concept quite useful. Don’t get me wrong; you need trained financial advice and using a reputable CFP is advised. As Hilton Tarrant once tweeted, ‘you wouldn’t not go to the doctor for your physical health, so why not spend money on professional advice for your financial health’, or something like that. I’ve enjoyed them simply because it helps one test various scenarios, at a high-level, and assists to drive the critical thinking.
So I agree that it is a tool that leads to sales, but it’s also a very useful tool which helps people think about retirement and helps them take the steps towards retiring right
So, let me introduce the ‘Battle of the Retirement Calculators’; a shakedown of what’s available on the South African market and how they shape up, based on my evening’s foray into very simple scenario modelling, with a sample of our finest FS institutions’ tools. Take into account that this is the entry point for many people into the retirement planning topic, which makes it important. | https://medium.com/@mmcfly/retirement-calculator-shakedown-390d382e447e | [] | 2020-12-23 19:45:23.528000+00:00 | ['Retirement Planning', 'Personal Finance', 'Retirement', 'Financial Services', 'User Experience Design'] |
Deep dive into Mapstruct @ Spring | Basic Mappings
Let’s start our application with a basic model, which contains the class Doctor. Our service will retrieve this class from the model layer and then return a DoctorDto class.
Model class:
@Data
public class Doctor {
private int id;
private String name;
}
Dto class:
@Data
public class DoctorDto {
private int id;
private String name;
}
To do this, we should create our Mapper interface:
@Mapper(componentModel = "spring")
public interface DoctorMapper {
DoctorDto toDto(Doctor doctor);
}
As both classes have the same property names (id and name), mapstruct will include the mapping of both fields in the generated class:
@Component
public class DoctorMapperImpl implements DoctorMapper {
@Override
public DoctorDto toDto(Doctor doctor) {
if ( doctor == null ) {
return null;
}
DoctorDto doctorDto = new DoctorDto();
doctorDto.setId( doctor.getId() );
doctorDto.setName( doctor.getName() );
return doctorDto;
}
}
By adding componentModel = “spring”, the generated mapper will be a Spring bean and can be retrieved with the @Autowired annotation like any other bean:
@Service
public class DoctorService {
private final DoctorMapper doctorMapper;
private final DoctorRepository doctorRepository;
@Autowired
public DoctorService(DoctorMapper doctorMapper) {
this.doctorMapper = doctorMapper;
this.doctorRepository = doctorRepository;
}
public DoctorDto getDoctor(Integer id) {
Doctor doctor = doctorRepository.findById(id);
return doctorMapper.toDto(doctor);
}
}
Mapping Different Property Name
If we include a property phone in the Doctor class:
@Data
public class Doctor {
private int id;
private String name;
private String phone;
}
To be mapped to contact in DoctorDto:
@Data
public class DoctorDto {
private int id;
private String name;
private String contact;
}
Our mapper won't be able to map it automatically. To do this, we will need to create a rule for this mapping:
@Mapper(componentModel = "spring")
public interface DoctorMapper {
@Mapping(source = "phone", target = "contact")
DoctorDto toDto(Doctor doctor);
}
Making sure every property is mapped
If we want to guarantee that we don't forget to map any target property, we can configure the unmappedTargetPolicy option on our mapper:
@Mapper(
componentModel = "spring",
unmappedTargetPolicy = ReportingPolicy.ERROR)
public interface DoctorMapper {
@Mapping(source = "phone", target = "contact")
DoctorDto toDto(Doctor doctor);
}
With this configuration, if we remove
@Mapping(source = "phone", target = "contact")
our code will fail during compilation with the error:
Unmapped target property: “contact”. DoctorDto toDto(Doctor doctor);
If for some reason, we want to ignore a target property, we can add:
@Mapping(target = "contact", ignore = true)
Similarly, we can also guarantee that all source properties are mapped by configuring the unmappedSourcePolicy option.
Mapping Child Entity property
Most of the time, the class that we need to map contains child objects. For example:
@Data
public class Doctor {
private int id;
private String name;
private String phone;
private Speciality speciality;
} @Data
public class Speciality {
private int id;
private String name;
}
And in our Dto, instead of the full speciality, we just need its name:
@Data
public class DoctorDto {
private int id;
private String name;
private String contact;
private String specialityName;
}
This situation is also straightforward with mapstruct:
@Mapping(source = "phone", target = "contact")
@Mapping(source = "speciality.name", target = "specialityName")
DoctorDto toDto(Doctor doctor);
Mapping the full Child Entity — Using another mapper
As before, our Doctor class has a child object Address:
@Data
public class Doctor {
private int id;
private String name;
private String phone;
private Speciality speciality;
private Address address;
}
But in this case, we want to map it to a new object in our DoctorDto class:
@Data
public class DoctorDto {
private int id;
private String name;
private String contact;
private String specialityName;
private AddressDto address;
}
To perform the mapping between Address and AddressDto class, we should create a different mapper interface:
@Mapper(componentModel = "spring")
public interface AddressMapper {
AddressDto toDto(Address address);
}
Then, in our DoctorMapper we should make sure that this mapper is used when mapping the Doctor to DoctorDto. This can be done with the "uses" option on the mapper configuration:
@Mapper(
componentModel = "spring",
unmappedTargetPolicy = ReportingPolicy.ERROR,
uses = {AddressMapper.class})
public interface DoctorMapper {
@Mapping(source = "phone", target = "contact")
@Mapping(source = "speciality.name", target = "specialityName")
DoctorDto toDto(Doctor doctor);
}
We will see that our DoctorMapperImpl will Autowire and use our AddressMapper:
@Component
public class DoctorMapperImpl implements DoctorMapper {
@Autowired
private AddressMapper addressMapper;
@Override
public DoctorDto toDto(Doctor doctor) {
if ( doctor == null ) {
return null;
}
DoctorDto doctorDto = new DoctorDto();
doctorDto.setSpecialityName( doctorSpecialityName(doctor));
doctorDto.setContact( doctor.getPhone() );
doctorDto.setId( doctor.getId() );
doctorDto.setName( doctor.getName() );
doctorDto.setAddress(
addressMapper.toDto( doctor.getAddress() ) );
return doctorDto;
}
...
}
Mapping with a custom method
Let's now add a list of patients to our Doctor class:
@Data
public class Doctor {
private int id;
private String name;
private String phone;
private Speciality speciality;
private Address address;
private List<Patient> patients;
}
However, on our DoctorDto we only want the number of patients:
@Data
public class DoctorDto {
private int id;
private String name;
private String contact;
private String specialityName;
private AddressDto address;
private int numPatients;
}
This mapping requires 2 things:
A custom method with the @Named annotation
The qualifiedByName config on the Mapping annotation
@Mapper(
componentModel = "spring",
unmappedTargetPolicy = ReportingPolicy.ERROR,
uses = {AddressMapper.class})
public interface DoctorMapper {
@Mapping(source = "phone", target = "contact")
@Mapping(source = "speciality.name", target = "specialityName")
@Mapping(
source = "patients",
target = "numPatients",
qualifiedByName = "countPatients")
DoctorDto toDto(Doctor doctor);
@Named("countPatients")
default int getNumPatients(List<Patient> patients) {
if(patients == null) {
return 0;
}
return patients.size();
}
}
@BeforeMapping @AfterMapping
The previous example (mapping from List<Patient> patients to int numPatients) can also be done with @BeforeMapping and @AfterMapping
@Mapper(
componentModel = "spring",
unmappedTargetPolicy = ReportingPolicy.ERROR,
uses = {AddressMapper.class})
public interface DoctorMapper {
@BeforeMapping
default void setList(Doctor doctor) {
if (doctor != null && doctor.getPatients() == null) {
doctor.setPatients(new ArrayList<>());
}
}
@Mapping(source = "phone", target = "contact")
@Mapping(source = "speciality.name", target = "specialityName")
@Mapping(target = "numPatients", ignore = true)
DoctorDto toDto(Doctor doctor);
@AfterMapping
default void setNumPatients(Doctor doctor,
@MappingTarget DoctorDto doctorDto) {
doctorDto.setNumPatients(doctor.getPatients().size());
}
}
These methods will be called in the beginning and end of our generated mapping method:
@Override
public DoctorDto toDto(Doctor doctor) {
setList( doctor );
if ( doctor == null ) {
return null;
}
DoctorDto doctorDto = new DoctorDto();
doctorDto.setSpecialityName( doctorSpecialityName( doctor ) );
doctorDto.setContact( doctor.getPhone() );
doctorDto.setId( doctor.getId() );
doctorDto.setName( doctor.getName() );
doctorDto.setAddress( addressMapper.toDto(doctor.getAddress()));
setNumPatients( doctor, doctorDto );
return doctorDto;
}
Mapping with an additional parameter
Let's check how to handle a situation where your mapper needs to receive an additional parameter, besides your Entity.
In this case, your Doctor class can only get the City Id:
@Data
public class Doctor {
private int id;
private String name;
private String phone;
private Speciality speciality;
private Address address;
private List<Patient> patients;
private int cityId;
}
But needs to map it to the City Name:
@Data
public class DoctorDto {
private int id;
private String name;
private String contact;
private String specialityName;
private AddressDto address;
private int numPatients;
private String cityName;
}
Your service will fetch the list of cities and pass them to the mapper
@Service
public class DoctorService {
private final DoctorMapper doctorMapper;
private final DoctorRepository doctorRepository;
@Autowired
public DoctorService(DoctorMapper doctorMapper) {
this.doctorMapper = doctorMapper;
this.doctorRepository = doctorRepository;
}
public DoctorDto getDoctor(Integer id) {
Doctor doctor = doctorRepository.findById(id);
List<City> cities = getCities();
return doctorMapper.toDto(doctor, cities);
}
}
In our mapper, we need to:
mark the additional parameter (list of cities) with @Context annotation
create a custom method to handle our mapping
request the context parameter (list of cities) on our custom mapping method
@Mapping(source = "phone", target = "contact")
@Mapping(source = "speciality.name", target = "specialityName")
@Mapping(target = "numPatients", ignore = true)
@Mapping(source = "cityId",
target = "cityName",
qualifiedByName = "cityName")
DoctorDto toDto(Doctor doctor, @Context List<City> cities);
@Named("cityName")
default String getCityName(int cityId, @Context List<City> cities) {
return cities.stream()
.filter(city -> city.getId() == cityId)
.findAny()
.map(City::getName)
.orElse(null);
}
Dependency injection on mapping methods
You will probably find yourself in situations where your custom mapping methods require another bean (another mapper, a repository, a service, etc).
In these situations, you will need to Autowire that bean to your mapper, so let's see an example of how to do it.
In this example, our Patient class will be an abstract class:
@Data
public abstract class Patient {
private int id;
private String name;
private int age;
}
Which contains two implementations:
public class Man extends Patient {
} public class Woman extends Patient {
}
As we previously saw, this is the state of our Doctor entity:
@Data
public class Doctor {
private int id;
private String name;
private String phone;
private Speciality speciality;
private Address address;
private List<Patient> patients;
private int cityId;
}
However, our PatientDto requires a distinct list for each concrete class:
@Data
public class DoctorDto {
private int id;
private String name;
private String contact;
private String specialityName;
private AddressDto address;
private int numPatients;
private String cityName;
private PatientsDto patients;
}
And
@Data
public class PatientsDto {
private List<ManDto> men = new ArrayList<>();
private List<WomanDto> women = new ArrayList<>();
public void addMan(ManDto manDto) {
men.add(manDto);
}
public void addWoman(WomanDto womanDto) {
women.add(womanDto);
}
}
So to map these concrete classes, we should start by creating two mappers:
@Mapper(componentModel = "spring")
public interface WomanMapper {
WomanDto toDto(Woman woman);
} @Mapper(componentModel = "spring")
public interface ManMapper {
ManDto toDto(Man man);
}
But to map from List<Patient> patients to PatientsDto patients we also need a different mapper that uses the newly created mappers (WomanMapper and ManMapper), that will end up being used by our DoctorMapper.
Since our PatientsMapper will need to use the WomanMapper and ManMapper, instead of creating an Interface, we need to create an Abstract class:
@Mapper(componentModel = "spring")
public abstract class PatientsMapper {
@Autowired
private ManMapper manMapper;
@Autowired
private WomanMapper womanMapper;
public PatientsDto toDto(List<Patient> patients) {
PatientsDto patientsDto = new PatientsDto();
for (Patient patient : patients) {
if (patient instanceof Man) {
patientsDto.addMan(
manMapper.toDto((Man) patient));
} else if (patient instanceof Woman) {
patientsDto.addWoman(
womanMapper.toDto((Woman) patient));
}
}
return patientsDto;
}
}
Finally, to make our DoctorMapper use the PatientsMapper, we need to add some configuration:
@Mapper(
componentModel = "spring",
unmappedTargetPolicy = ReportingPolicy.ERROR,
uses = {AddressMapper.class, PatientsMapper.class})
public interface DoctorMapper {
...
}
As the patients variable has the same name on the Entity and Dto classes, we don't need to specify anything else.
This will be the end result of the generated classes:
@Component
public class DoctorMapperImpl implements DoctorMapper {
@Autowired
private AddressMapper addressMapper;
@Autowired
private PatientsMapper patientsMapper;
@Override
public DoctorDto toDto(Doctor doctor, List<City> cities) {
if (doctor == null) {
return null;
}
DoctorDto doctorDto = new DoctorDto();
doctorDto.setNumPatients(
getNumPatients(doctor.getPatients()));
doctorDto.setCityName(
getCityName(doctor.getCityId(), cities));
doctorDto.setSpecialityName(doctorSpecialityName(doctor));
doctorDto.setContact(doctor.getPhone());
doctorDto.setId(doctor.getId());
doctorDto.setName(doctor.getName());
doctorDto.setAddress(
addressMapper.toDto(doctor.getAddress()));
doctorDto.setPatients(
patientsMapper.toDto(doctor.getPatients()));
return doctorDto;
}
...
} @Component
public class ManMapperImpl implements ManMapper {
@Override
public ManDto toDto(Man man) {
if ( man == null ) {
return null;
}
ManDto manDto = new ManDto();
manDto.setId( man.getId() );
manDto.setName( man.getName() );
manDto.setAge( man.getAge() );
return manDto;
}
} @Component
public class WomanMapperImpl implements WomanMapper {
@Override
public WomanDto toDto(Woman woman) {
if ( woman == null ) {
return null;
}
WomanDto womanDto = new WomanDto();
womanDto.setId( woman.getId() );
womanDto.setName( woman.getName() );
womanDto.setAge( woman.getAge() );
return womanDto;
}
}
Updates
Mapstruct also provides an easy way to handle updates. If we want to update our Doctor entity with the information on DoctorDto, we just need to create:
@Mapping(source = "contact", target = "phone")
@Mapping(source = "specialityName", target = "speciality.name")
void updateEntity(DoctorDto doctorDto,
@MappingTarget Doctor doctor);
As we can see on the generated implementation, it will map all variables (null or not null):
@Override
public void updateEntity(DoctorDto doctorDto, Doctor doctor) {
if ( doctorDto == null ) {
return;
}
if ( doctor.getSpeciality() == null ) {
doctor.setSpeciality( new Speciality() );
}
doctorDtoToSpeciality( doctorDto, doctor.getSpeciality() );
doctor.setPhone( doctorDto.getContact() );
doctor.setId( doctorDto.getId() );
doctor.setName( doctorDto.getName() );
if ( doctorDto.getAddress() != null ) {
if ( doctor.getAddress() == null ) {
doctor.setAddress( new Address() );
}
addressDtoToAddress( doctorDto.getAddress(), doctor.getAddress() );
}
else {
doctor.setAddress( null );
}
}
Patch Updates
As we have seen in the previous example, the default update method will map every property, even if it is null. So if you encounter yourself in a situation where you just want to perform a patch update (only update the not null values), you need to use the nullValuePropertyMappingStrategy:
@BeanMapping(nullValuePropertyMappingStrategy =
NullValuePropertyMappingStrategy.IGNORE)
@Mapping(source = "contact", target = "phone")
@Mapping(source = "specialityName", target = "speciality.name")
void updatePatchEntity(DoctorDto doctorDto,
@MappingTarget Doctor doctor);
The generated method will perform null checks before updating the values:
@Override
public void updatePatchEntity(DoctorDto doctorDto, Doctor doctor) {
if ( doctorDto == null ) {
return;
}
if ( doctorDto.getContact() != null ) {
doctor.setPhone( doctorDto.getContact() );
}
doctor.setId( doctorDto.getId() );
if ( doctorDto.getName() != null ) {
doctor.setName( doctorDto.getName() );
}
if ( doctorDto.getAddress() != null ) {
if ( doctor.getAddress() == null ) {
doctor.setAddress( new Address() );
}
addressDtoToAddress(
doctorDto.getAddress(),
doctor.getAddress() );
}
if ( doctor.getSpeciality() == null ) {
doctor.setSpeciality( new Speciality() );
}
doctorDtoToSpeciality1( doctorDto, doctor.getSpeciality() );
}
Conclusion
This article described how to take advantage of the Mapstruct library to significantly reduce our boilerplate code in a safe and elegant way.
As seen in the examples, Mapstruct offers a vast set of functionalities and configurations which allows us to create from basic to complex mappers in an easy and fast way. | https://medium.com/uphill-engineering-design/deep-dive-into-mapstruct-spring-7ddd8dac3d6d | ['Miguel Duque'] | 2020-12-14 00:44:25.777000+00:00 | ['Java', 'Mapstruct', 'Mapping Tool', 'Spring Boot', 'Spring'] |
Do You Ever…? | Do you ever wake up and you think to yourself today is going to be a good day and then as you take your first steps that morning everything hits you like a truck like a whole ton of weight was dropped on your head because you felt like you could finally stand without falling but no one can stand to see that so they put more bricks on your head and call it “I'm making you stronger so you can walk farther with more weight on your head” rather than “I know I'm hurting you lemme help you by taking a brick of your head and help you carry it”.
Do you ever wake up and take a deep breath first thing in the morning to help you get through the day because you know you won’t be able to find peace through the rest of the day because of the environment that you are in. because you know that the second you get out of your safe space the second you open your eyes reality becomes real and you have to face that.
You can't hide. You cant cower away from it. You cant run. Because it chases you. Oh, how it chases you. The more you want to run away from it the stronger the scarier it becomes. Everyone says running away isn't the solution but at that point, it's the only door you have.
Do you ever wake up in the morning and think, oh god not again I can't keep doing this like and cry to god praying pleading to beg that He will help you today that today will be the day where he sends you a sign that it’ll okay that you’ll make it through the day.
Do you ever wake up in the morning and ask yourself why did I wake up today. For what purpose have I woken up. Because you don't know your own purpose. Because you are that lost. You are just drifting, floating between people, emotions, thoughts. Just moving going with the flow. Forgetting about yourself worrying too much about others.
Do you ever wake up in the morning crying asking yourself why did I have to wake up? Not because you need more sleep but because you know you can't face the world not again not like this not again. But you wake up. You get out of bed. You face these harsh realities, and no one cares. No one acknowledges the hardships. No one acknowledges the strength it took. No one acknowledges any of it.
They acknowledge oh you woke up late, but don't realize how hard it was to get out of bed that morning, to take that step, to take that breath of air, to get out of the zone of tears, to get out of the anger, to get out of the pain. To push it down so no one sees it. To push it down so you can look okay to people. to convince others that you are okay and not even yourself.
Do you ever wake up to see a good morning text from the people you love and you think “oh I have them by my side it’ll be okay”? Do you ever see someone ask you “are you okay?”, but you cant tell them the truth because you don't want to hurt them, so you lie to them to convince yourself that you could be okay. Do you know the number of white lies I tell to people to make them think I'm ok but I'm not and deep down inside I'm wilting slowly dying but no one seems to care and you don't know where to go because you're stuck in this spot and you don't know what to do.
You're too tired to get up, you're too tired to move, you're too tired to pick yourself up because you use all the energy you have trying to plaster a smile on your face trying, trying to feel okay. Because that's how I feel.
I don't feel anything. I wake up every day, a burden, an unnecessary weight to the world. I wake up crying. I go to sleep crying. I've honestly run out of tears. I can’t even cry anymore.
Last night was one of the hardest nights of my life. I couldn’t sleep I was suffocated. Everything rushed inside my head and I broke. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t yell. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t ask for help. I couldn’t go to anyone. except myself. But I didn’t even have me to go there. It caught up to me. All the lies I've told all, the mistakes I've made. Everything. It’s all caught up. And I know I'm only 16. Only. But how much longer is life? Because if it's like this I don't want to do it anymore. And I know two years college this that life whatever. I don't give a shit. I don't care. If I can't even be happy now, how can I even possibly convince myself that I’ll be happy then? I can't. I give up.
God says when you really need something you need to surrender yourself to him. So I have. I surrender. I’m done.
This is how many teenagers feel. Their minds are a dark place, but there is always light at the end of the tunnel. This is how I’ve felt, but it is not how I always feel. Life is painful, yes, but life is also beautiful. You just have to wait long enough to see it. If you ever, have any thoughts about leaving this world or ever need to talk to someone, please, for yourself, call The National Suicide Prevention Hotline (800)–273–8255. There are people waiting to listen to your stories. Let them be heard. | https://medium.com/@bhaavanaanna/do-you-ever-1014c52c91c8 | ['Srisaibhaavana Anna'] | 2020-12-22 21:10:51.700000+00:00 | ['Teenagers', 'Feelings Become Words', 'Feelings', 'Suicide Awareness', 'Mental Health'] |
Reading “The Lord of the Rings”: Chapter 9: “At the Sign of the Prancing Pony” | Having finally made it through the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs, the hobbits come at last to Bree, a small town that is, for all intents and purposes, the last staging-post before they really enter into the unknown. They find lodgings at a lovely inn called the Prancing Pony, but unfortunately things quickly go rather awry when Frodo, in the midst of performing a song, accidentally (or so it seems) puts on the Ring. The resulting disappearance causes quite an uproar, a situation made worse by the presence of a stranger that has taken quite an interest in Frodo and his doings.
I’ve always felt that Bree was one of the best places that Tolkien ever created, in large part because it seems to be such an anomaly. It’s a bit of an island in the midst of the wild lands that exist in the northwest of Middle-earth but, as the narrator makes clear, it’s actually far older than anything that the men of Westernesse established (or so the Men who live there claim, anyway). There’s no denying that there’s a solidity to the place that suggests that there’s no doubt some truth to their claims; it’s the sort of place that one can almost imagine living in, going on about one’s life without little care for the outside world. Bree, like so many other places that Tolkien created, seems to simply breathe history.
For Sam, this is one of those critical turning points, and the narrator allows us to see a glimpse inside his mind as they approach this strange city, so different from anything that he’s yet encountered. There’s a telling juxtaposition here, for while Sam had previously thought that seeing the wonders and terrors of the outside would would entail larger-than-life things, in reality the most unsettling thing (up until this point, anyway) is a small town full of the dwellings of Men. It’s actually rather touching to see the way in which Sam is so discomfited by something so seemingly ordinary. We also can’t help but admire his bravery in continuing onward anyway, his loyalty (and deference) to Frodo outweighing all other considerations.
The central location in the chapter is, of course, the inn, and it’s one of the warmest places that we see described in Middle-earth. Though there are some hints that all is not as well as it should be — the presence of the southerners proclaiming that they will claim land regardless of the wishes of those currently living on it, for example — it is, all around, a place of comfort and peace. I’ve always thought that one of the most disappointing translations that Peter Jackson made in his adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring was Bree, which becomes far more more menacing than it is in the novel.
That’s not to say that there’s no menace here, of course. Aside from the sinister southerners, there is the stranger that continues to whisper in Frodo’s ear in a corner of the common room, and this is one of those instances where it’s valuable to think about this book from the perspective of someone who’s never read it before. At this point, we have no reason to think that he’s an ally, still less to think that he might be an ally or a friend. Instead we, along with Frodo, can’t help but wonder whether he is just one more person in league with Sauron, making the later revelation that he is, in fact, a good friend of Gandalf and thus an invaluable aid to them all the more surprising.
What makes this especially fascinating is the convoluted path that Tolkien took to arrive at the character of Strider. As Christopher Tolkien documents in his magisterial The History of Middle-earth, for a long time Strider was in fact a character named Trotter who was a hobbit who wore wooden shoes. It’s hard to imagine such a character in the place of the Strider that we know and love, but it seems that the elder Tolkien held onto this idea for quite a long time, and it’s fun (if rather dismaying) to think about how drastically different this book would have been had we been saddled with the character of Trotter rather than Strider. It’s probably no exaggeration to say that The Lord of the Rings would have struggled to find success had he not decided to make this extraordinary change.
Now, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m not always a huge fan of the songs in The Lord of the Rings (heresy for some, I know). However, there are some exceptions to that, and I personally think that the more amusing songs in this novel are the best ones. That is certainly true of the song that Frodo sings as an attempt to distract the gathered company from what would have been a too-revealing remark from Pippin about the nature of Bilbo’s disappearance. The song is, of course, an imaginative reconstruction of “The Cat and the Fiddle,” giving far more depth to the lyrics than we, in these latter days, were even aware of. It’s truly a brilliant piece of poetry, and it’s hard not to laugh and cheer along with the gathered crowd, our enjoyment given more potency by our awareness of just how brilliantly creative Tolkien must have been to add so many layers to a simple children’s rhyme. While it’s a shame that it was cut out of Jackson’s adaptation (though it makes an abbreviated appearance in Bakshi), it’s hard to imagine it making a very smooth translation to the screen.
In many ways, this is a hinge chapter, marking the moment when Frodo finally leaves behind everything that has even the most tenuous connection to what he’s grown up knowing. Once they leave Bree, they will leave behind hobbits and enter into lands where many have never even heard of them (or, if they have, think of them as nothing more than fairytales). After this brief sojourn, nothing will ever be the same again.
Next up, we’ll discuss in more depth the revelation that Strider is not quite what he seems. | https://medium.com/darcy-and-winters/reading-the-lord-of-the-rings-chapter-9-at-the-sign-of-the-prancing-pony-853a6b643fb7 | ['Dr. Thomas J. West Iii'] | 2020-12-27 17:06:14.127000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Literature', 'Fantasy', 'Lord Of The Rings', 'Book Review'] |
4 Real-World Scenarios That Read Like Chaos Engineering Experiments | 4 Real-World Scenarios That Read Like Chaos Engineering Experiments
Understanding chaos engineering through everyday experiences
(scene)
You love your Mom, right? She’s the best. She brought you into this world, changed your diapers, helped you with homework, taught you how to cook, clean, and essentially take care of yourself. She’s awesome. And what did she ask from you? Not much. Maybe you could call every once in a while. It’d be nice to hear from you. Maybe get her something nice for Mother’s Day. You know, to show you care.
But in this scene, you, unfortunately, have waited until the last minute to get her that perfect gift. Sure, there’s a lot happening right now, but still. Be better. At least you found her that gaudy — I mean tasteful — necklace she wanted. In fact, you’ve secured the last one left in the online retailer’s stock. You can already picture her opening the box and beaming at you with pride and delight. This time, finally, you were the good sibling. You move the necklace into your checkout cart, you’re ready to pay, and… BOOM! The online retailer’s server crashes. Toast. Doesn’t come back up for hours. And when you’re finally able to log back in, the necklace is gone! Now you have to go with Plan B, like flowers or a fruit basket.
Sigh.
In fairness, it didn’t have to be this way. Sure, you could have been an overachiever and had the necklace lined up weeks ago, but by the same token, that online retailer should have been better prepared for the increased Mother’s Day traffic.
(/scene)
***
Chaos engineering experiments would have been the perfect solution to stress test the server’s ability to handle a nation of children waiting until the last minute to get their mom a gift.
There’s no shortage of articles out there explaining chaos engineering, so I won’t dive too deeply into the origins. In a nutshell, chaos engineering allows you to experiment on a software system to see how it will react to various failures and unexpected disruptions such as:
An EC2 instance suddenly stopping
An unexpected CPU or memory spike
Unknown network latency
An ECS container getting deregistered
A Kubernetes node getting deleted
Chaos engineering experiments are a safe and practical way of testing a software system’s resiliency — its ability to tolerate these types of failures while still ensuring adequate quality of service.
Instead of the same old boring chaos engineering overview, I thought it would be fun to lay out some tech experiments and provide corresponding real-world scenarios.
1. Chaos Engineering Experiments — Load Balancers
In the tech world, load balancers distribute incoming network traffic across a group of backend servers. They route requests to ensure they’re handled with maximum speed and efficiency. If a server goes down, the load balancer adjusts — routing and distributing traffic to the other servers.
With chaos engineering, you can test your load balancer’s settings to see if they’re optimal for reducing outages. You can run an experiment where you deregister a target from your load balancer’s target group and observe what happens. Will traffic still be routed and distributed efficiently, or will it crash the system, preventing our procrastinating protagonist from buying his mom a timely gift?
In the real world, I like to think of this experiment like supermarket checkout lines. You’ve got your standard lines with a cashier, your 10-Items Or Less lines, and then your self-checkout station. But what happens when people don’t respect the 10-item limit or bring their week’s worth of groceries through the self-checkout?
Chaos, that’s what.
Your load balancer would be like a shift manager making sure that enough registers are up and running, reminding people to respect the 10-item limit rule, and directing longer lines to other registers to even out the wait times. If it does its job correctly, no small children will be lying down on the floor, waiting out the interminable lines.
2. Chaos Engineering Experiments — Security Groups
Security groups are essentially virtual firewalls. Their rules control the inbound traffic that’s allowed to reach your instances and the outbound traffic that’s allowed to leave them. They protect your resources by ensuring they’re only exposed to trusted resources and IP addresses. “Never trust/always verify” is a core principle of a well-managed security approach.
A great chaos engineering experiment is to swap out the security groups for a specified load balancer. What happens if a random security group sets the rules? Will non-trusted traffic still pass through? Ruh-roh. Remember, the whole point of these experiments is to find issues before they become production problems.
In the real world, I think of this experiment as TSA at the airport. The agents are pretty much almost always professional, courteous, and do the best they can. But what would happen if you switched out these trained professionals with random folks off the street? You could end up seated next to a passenger who snuck their carnivorous house pet through customs.
photo created by subinpumsom — www.freepik.com
Tigers may be all the rage right now, but I don’t want to sit next to one on a cross-country flight. They never respect armrest etiquette.
A trained TSA agent isn’t going to let an animal inconsistent with its guidelines onto the flight, let alone an apex predator. When your chaos engineering experiments expose similar security group gaps, you can work to mitigate them. Be cool cats and kittens and make sure your security groups are doing their jobs, too.
3. Chaos Engineering Experiments — CPU Spikes
Sometimes your local machine is going to run slowly, like when you miss your morning cup of coffee. There can be any number of reasons for the lags, but prolonged speed issues generally indicate a CPU spike issue (i.e., a CPU hog). You’ve got a process stuck somewhere and it’s keeping other programs from running properly. Maybe you opened up that phishing link against your better judgement (attractive singles in my area want to meet me?!), or maybe your bored kids borrowed your laptop and downloaded every game, show, and movie they could find. Whatever happened, your machine is taking F…O…R…E…V…E…R…to load.
You can run a chaos engineering experiment to force a CPU spike to see how well different apps on your local machine function under the stress. You can even customize the spike percentages to reflect varying degrees of spikeyness. It’s a great way to test your system’s resiliency and find your thresholds for handling volume. You can find out the breaking point between acceptable performance and seriously considering taking your machine to a witch doctor to exorcise the demons inside.
I like to think of CPU spike experiments as being the beginning of a new month when 100’s of new shows and movies hit your favorite streaming services all at once. You want to watch them all, and then you just kind of freak out because there’s so many options to choose from. Better Call Saul! Killing Eve! The Good Place! Ozark!
Aaaaggggghhhhh!!!!! Can you handle the binge-watching overload, or will your dishes, laundry, and unpaid bills pile up past the point of no return?
4. Chaos Engineering Experiments — Drain Nodes.
Okay, so draining nodes sounds kind of gross, but don’t worry — you don’t have to get a dermatologist involved. All this really means is that you’re evicting pods from your node in Kubernetes. What you’re doing here is ensuring you no longer have any pods scheduled on your nodes, and any currently active running pods are evicted.
In Kubernetes terms, pods represent running processes on the nodes in the cluster. You always want to allow them to terminate gracefully when they’re no longer needed — giving you a chance to clean them up.
You can run chaos engineering experiments to identify either specific or random nodes to drain. You can also set parameters, like how many seconds you want to wait for the nodes to drain or how many random nodes should be affected. So what will happen if your nodes drain without you cleaning them up first? The container orchestration struggle is real.
I think of this experiment like a terrible roommate. You know, the one who’s always late on rent (but never late to go out for drinks), eats your food, clogs your toilet, and never does dishes. She seemed so fun and refreshing at first, but now she’s ruining your life.
While you’re definitely ready to move on from this roommate, you want to do it in a way that won’t cause any new problems. A graceful eviction here means providing notice, and following all the legal guidelines and best practices for kicking someone out of your flat. You don’t need any more drama in your life. That’s true for containers, too — drain your nodes, and keep your containers running in harmony.
***
While we’ve all experienced quite enough chaos in our daily lives these days, injecting some chaos into your software development in a careful and controlled environment is just good practice. Figure out where the stressors and inflection points await, and then work to mitigate them before they turn into production incidents. Your moms will be so proud of your initiative and preparation. And isn’t that really the best gift you give them? Still, maybe get that necklace a little earlier next year though, just in case. | https://medium.com/capital-one-tech/4-real-world-scenarios-that-read-like-chaos-engineering-experiments-8dbf40c5f247 | ['Richard Heffron'] | 2020-07-29 18:31:10.418000+00:00 | ['Chaos Engineering', 'Software Testing', 'Software Development', 'Testing'] |
On the Verge | The verge and foliot escapement. The first mechanical clocks, building on the older principle of water flow for energy, employed a solid weight to yield the computation of time. If we just tied a weight and let it drop, we would not have to wait long, and we would be able to measure time only in seconds. So the trick for a mechanical clock without water, but instead using a weight, is to delay the time of the weight drop. This was done with an escapement. The verge is the vertical post and the foliot, the horizontally rotating bar. This animation (which can be viewed by clicking on the above image) is from Peter Ceperley who has a good explanation of the gear train powered via the escapement control. Think of this escapement is the medieval equivalent of a square wave — a mechanism to achieve an oscillating signal. | https://medium.com/creative-automata/on-the-verge-943d848bf998 | ['Paul Fishwick'] | 2016-12-20 17:44:17.523000+00:00 | ['Engineering', 'Kinetic', 'Machine'] |
End-to-End CNN using TensorFlow | 2. Data gathering
A big part of your machine learning engineer workflow will be data gathering, cleaning, and formatting data. Lucky if your data is already clean & kudos to all data engineers for making that happen.
Our data is gathered from Kaggle.
After download and extract, we can see that data is in the below structure.
|-test
| |-image1
| |-image2
|
|-train
| |-Cat
| |-image1
| |-image2
| |-Dog
| |-image1
| |-image2
Here we see that data is well-formatted.
Before we jump into Jupyter notebook we have to make our data ready.
If you want to use this structure you can use TensorFlow image_dataset_from_directory.
image_dataset_from_directory. The second option is to read a CSV file. But here CSV file is not included, so we have to make one. For that, let’s make a function to rename all images and then move all images into a single folder. After that, we create a CSV file with filename and labels.
create a label list
label = [] for filename in os.listdir('path-to/train/'):
label.append(filename)
This function is to take the folder name from that path we provide and append it to the label list. The label looks like this [ ‘cat’, ‘dog’].
A rename function
The rename_image function takes the path and name that you want to change.
os.listdir make a list of all files from that folder.
src is used for the source file and dst the destination file.
Here we add a unique name and then file extension. Now loop goes through all images and changes the name that you give in the function argument.
file_name function is to call our previous rename function and applies to the subfolder as we gave the folder name also.
Now you can see that all images are renamed. let’s move all images into a new folder with the help of the python os.replace function.
move files
move_files takes an old and new path then moves a file from old to new.
For change files from more than one folder, we provide all folder names (our folder names stored in the label list) to file_change after that function call that move_file function and move images from subfolders also.
Now all our images are in one folder let’s make CSV file from that. Before that, we have to convert data into DataFrame then save it to a CSV file.
create CSV file
create pandas DataFrame from lists
In the above code, we have 2 lists called categories and filename. Now let’s make Pandas DataFrame and then, we save that DataFrame into CSV file with the Pandas to_csv function.
Our CSV file is ready with Filename and label accordingly. Now let’s build the CNN model. | https://towardsdatascience.com/end-to-end-cnn-using-tensorflow-4c7d9af3ca4c | [] | 2020-12-09 04:31:59.353000+00:00 | ['Deployment', 'TensorFlow', 'Heroku', 'Deep Learning', 'Machine Learning'] |
How Small Acts of Kindness Make You Become Better | How Small Acts of Kindness Make You Become Better
The accurate measure of a person is how they treat someone who can do them absolutely no good.
The world needs more kindness and more empathy!
Sounds good, right? Probably would make a wonderful campaign slogan or would have been on a bumper sticker on a hippie’s car from the sixties.
The act of kindness and empathy is an effort so simple to make that you think everyone would practice it.
Unfortunately, it sounds better in thought than in reality.
For example;
It’s a shame that we can throw away so much food, yet so many are starving.
There are so many homeless people, while the housing markets are booming.
We utilize social media to troll or break down instead of uplift and inspire one another.
There are so many examples to list.
Let me emphasize this — there are many people doing good out there already, and the world is not as fully myopic as it seemed a few sentences ago.
However, there is tremendous room for improvement, and it can all start with us.
We could do a lot better with one another.
I remember a wonderful movie I saw called “Pay it Forward.”
(In a nutshell) A social studies teacher gives his junior high school class an assignment to develop an idea to change the world for the better and put it into action. When one student creates a plan for “paying forward” favors, he not only affects the life of his struggling single mother, but he sets in motion a viral effect that has blossomed into a national phenomenon.
This movie impacted me because its success popularized the term “pay it forward.” It was cool to give back. It was easy to say to my friends, “pay it forward,” and they would understand and want to do the same.
So you would think my giving back habit would be ingrained, but it can easily be pushed aside because of inconvenience.
I was recently inspired by my kids on giving back.
I was driving home from the mall with my older son and daughter a few weeks back. While driving, my kids spotted a noticeably pregnant woman with a sign asking for money to buy food.
My kids said, “Daddy, look, she’s pregnant and homeless.”
I said, “That’s a shame,” and casually went about focusing on traffic.
My daughter said, “She needs help; we should do something.”
My son said, “Yeah, why is it she out there? I never see pregnant homeless women outside; something must be wrong?”
I said, “I dont know,” and proceeded to drive — literally, seconds later, I thought to myself “I should do something, no, I will do something.”
There was an opportunity to help someone in need, and I could do it, yet I was ready to shrug it off and grip about how unfair the world is.
I decided to make a U-turn and drove back towards the area the lady was in. She was walking up a sidewalk near the cars with her sign hoping for anything she could get. I pulled up and reached into my wallet and gave her a twenty-dollar bill. (The first bill I got my hand on as traffic was ready to keep moving).
I said to her, “Have a nice day, and please be safe.”
The lady was happy, and l was glad that I helped in a little way.
Granted, a better way to help would be to find out exactly why she is in that circumstance and go from there, but I think it was the best I could have done in the little time I had.
My kids said surprisingly, “Wow, you gave her $20?”
I replied, “The money is not a concern. We spent more than that at the mall, and to this lady, $20 will tremendously impact her day.”
I told my kids, “Dont hesitate to pay it forward if you can. If you are blessed, give back.”
It was pleasant to give back to the lady, but I was more grateful that my kids inspired me to act kindly. They clearly have the sensibility to want to help others out in the world.
I am grateful that my wife and I raised such kind kids. And witnessing their daddy perform an act of kindness showed them it could be done.
“Remember, there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.” — Scott Adams.
Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash
Just imagine if everyone did this, how different would our world be? | https://medium.com/change-your-mind/how-small-acts-of-kindness-makes-you-become-better-e781967609 | ['Teronie J. Donaldson'] | 2020-11-20 13:01:20.300000+00:00 | ['Pay It Forward', 'Kindness', 'Humanity', 'Empathy', 'Give'] |
Paris is the best and worst place to write | Life in Paris isn’t all spritzes during the golden hour in front of the Odéon with lovely friends old and new, and then a party in a top-floor apartment overlooking the Luxembourg Garden on the front side and a straight shot view of the Eiffel Tower at sunset on the back side. I spend a few hours each day hunched over a laptop in my little studio apartment struggling to write words that don’t come easily. I am often paralyzed with self-doubt. Other than Saturday mornings with a writing group at the Unicorner Cafe, where everyone is focused on working, I haven’t found a good cafe writing situation yet where I am not distracted by people watching and the potential for wine.
I have had to figure out life stuff and do chores, too. The trash and recycling bins were hidden behind an unmarked door in our building and it took me a couple days to find them. The washer is tiny, so I wash small batches of clothing frequently, and the dryer doesn’t dry, so I hang wet clothes on a collapsible clothesline that takes up half the floor space in my small studio apartment. I am trying to resist eating out all the time so I don’t go broke. I stand in line with other neighborhood denizens in the mornings to buy a chocolate croissant and a baguette at the boulangerie around the corner. One baguette lasts me a couple days. I am trying a different cheese every few days from the exquisite cheese shop across the street from the boulangerie. The people who work there don’t speak English well, but they have been super kind and helpful explaining the cheeses to me. Each purchase feels like a leap of faith and I have never been disappointed. The first time I stopped by, they steered me toward the milder cheeses. When I came back the next time, I asked for something plus forte, a little stronger. So far, I like the pélardon the most. The cheese shop also sells fresh, never refrigerated eggs that I leave on the counter until I am ready to eat them, and freshly-churned, salty butter that seasons the eggs perfectly when I make omelettes. I shop for things like toilet paper and cereal at the Monoprix a few blocks away.
This is the extent of my hardship in Paris so far, so I am not complaining. I know how lucky and privileged I am. I learned a piece of shocking news, though, two days before I arrived that has derailed what I thought I was going to be writing about in my self-directed writing residency. (More on all of that once I’ve had a chance to fully process!) Despite having a few friends here, having met a few fantastic people, and having been in touch with the folks I am closest to back home, managing the emotional aftermath has been challenging being alone in a foreign land. It helps that the foreign land is Paris.
I experience awe and wonder every day and am overdosing on these frequent boosts of serotonin that lift my spirits. For example, last night I attended a performance of Madame Butterfly in the courtyard of Les Invalides, which was once a veterans hospital that happens to have been built in the 1600’s and happens to be a magnificent example of classical French architecture where Napoleon is entombed. Rain clouds had threatened to spoil the show all afternoon. Sitting in bleachers en plein air, I munched on a ham and cheese sandwich washed down with a cup of white wine and chatted with the woman sitting next to me in broken French before the show began. When Cio Cio San wrapped herself in the American flag and declared her undying love not only for Pinkerton but for all things American, my mind started wandering as I thought about American Imperialism and what it means to be American. Toward the end, lightning lit up the sky as if in sync with the music. I cried a little at the stunning beauty of it all.
At that party overlooking the Luxembourg Garden the previous evening, a new friend Sharon from DC and I talked to Eva, an Icelandic woman who’d lived in New York City for 12 years. After a few minutes of getting to know you chit chat, I asked them what it means to be American. Sharon pointed at flaws like systemic racism and vast economic inequality, which I could not deny. Eva said, America was a land of opportunity that offered possibilities to seize that weren’t available in the same way in European countries. I think they were both right.
Eva added that Americans were optimistic, positive, and welcoming. It wasn’t like that in Iceland or in Europe, where it takes a long time to befriend a European. Other Americans I’ve met in Paris have confirmed this. One new American friend in Paris has a group of friends who are all ex-pats from countries around the world. Another person I met says all her friends are Parisian, but they hail from former colonies, several West African countries and Vietnam. One American I met says his friend circle consists of mostly French people, but those friendships are limited by his inability to speak French fluently. | https://artisfear.com/paris-is-the-best-and-worst-place-to-write-37b1cd328b42 | ['Philippa Hughes'] | 2021-09-05 13:01:30.187000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Identity', 'Travel Writing', 'Paris'] |
5 Data Storytelling Homework Assignments | Level Up Your Data Storytelling Game
What draws me to data storytelling? The opportunity to work in the space where analysis and intuition, qualitative and qualitative, logic and emotion, overlap. In my version, data and storytelling work in concert with each other. Both modes of thinking can be incorporated into every step of the process, from determining which questions to ask, to figuring out what data and methods can answer those questions, to designing and communicating the insights.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend a day in Athens, Georgia with folks — designers, journalists, technologists, teachers, researchers — who share a love of data storytelling at Tapestry, a conference hosted by visualization software company Tableau. Here are some five homework assignments my favorite speakers inspired me to give myself, along with a few insights:
Homework Assignment #1: Create a data graphic on your cell phone
Hannah Fairfield, designer at the New York Times, spoke about how to create data graphics that build to a reveal — just like any other good story does. This concept was echoed throughout the day: When you show your audience “2 + 2” and trust them to infer “4,” they experience the information as discovery, which is stickier than simply presenting an interesting finding. As part of this talk, Fairfield shared an example of on motorcycle helmets and fatalities presented as a slideshow that steps the audience through a data story toward an insight. The slideshow was designed to be viewed on a cell phone (as is every graphic Fairfield develops for the Times):
This data story from the New York Times is, effectively, sequential data art. It’s designed with a mobile-first mindset.
While this graphic was designed for a cell phone, it wasn’t designed on a cell phone. Why should you even try such a thing? Designers often don’t “think in mobile” because they do their work on giant screens. Forcing yourself to not only view the graphics you make on a small screen, but build it there as well, will help reinforce the mobile-first mindset.
If, like me, you are at a loss in terms of how to actually create and edit graphics on your phone, here are some apps to get you started: iOS, Android.
Homework Assignment #2: Use a single set of data to tell 7 (or more) types of data stories
Ben Jones of Tableau Public — inspired by Kurt Vonnegut and Edward Segel and Jeffrey Heer’s must-read paper on visual narratives — presented seven common data story patterns: change over time, drill down, zoom out, contrast, intersections, factors, and outliers.
To illustrate these story types, Jones used a single data set on the freedom of the press. This approach highlights something I truly believe is at the heart of data storytelling (or any kind of storytelling, really): A single data set can lead to infinite stories. This is far more exciting than simply telling the story through different channels or mediums: The insight Jones pulled from the data, as well as the presentation, was different in each example he presented.
There are no doubt more than seven types of data stories, but this is a great start. Images are from Ben Jones’ presentation, (which I then converted to an animated gif).
It’s easy to become accustomed to telling certain types of stories with data. Those habits help us do our work better, especially when operating on a deadline. But sometimes we need to break them. Creativity is a never-ending dance of finding, learning, and outgrowing patterns, and this homework assignment can help you navigate that process.
Homework Assignment #3: Collaborate with a researcher and offer to visualize, for a new audience, the data they’ve compiled
Working with a small team, when Popular Science’s Kathryn Peek wants to do an ambitious storytelling project, she looks outside her organization for opportunities to collaborate. Often, this means teaming up with scientists and researchers to present their data in new ways for new audiences. As they work to present the information in new ways, they often end up uncovering new insights as well, as they did with this visualization of the lifecycle of scientific ideas.
Data storytelling happens in all kinds of settings — journalism, science, business, academia, education — and each of those communities has developed its own best practices, conventions and points of view. Cross-pollinating your data storytelling with another discipline provide news inspiration and has the potential to expand your skills as a data storyteller.
Homework Assignment #4: Write down your definitions of “data,” “story,” and “data story”
Data designer Kim Rees of Periscopic introduced herself with a statement she knew would be provocative at a data storytelling conference: She doesn’t think data and story belong together.
As she spoke, it became clear that her definition and my definition of “story” didn’t line up. She equates story with fiction, whereas I see story as a way of organizing information. (Many of my favorite storytellers — Joan Didion, John McPhee, Ira Glass, Jad Abumrad — deal in nonfiction.)
The reason I bring this up is not to debate Rees — although that would be fun — but to encourage as a thoughtful approach to the work of data storytelling. Definitions needn’t be concrete — in fact, I’m sure mine will be mutable — but forcing ourselves to think about them is a great way to examine the principles and assumptions that underlie the work we do as data storytellers.
Homework Assignment #5: Tell a data story using a QUESTION → ANSWER → NEW QUESTION structure
Storytelling is an an evolutionary strategy, says Newman University English professor Michael Austin. We tell stories because they help us survive; the entertainment value is a by-product. (Austin has written an entire book on the topic, Useful Fictions.)
The best stories create, then mediate, anxiety. How? By posing questions, then answering them. If you can do this in a way where the answer of one question gives rise to a new question, well then you’ve got yourself an infinite storytelling loop.
For a great story, pose a question that demands to be answered. For a never ending story, keep doing this.
How can this help you be a better data storyteller? You know why your data is important, but your audience doesn’t. Before you present the data, present a question that can be answered by the data. Create a need and then satisfy it.
What comes next?
As I complete these homework assignments, I’ll post the results and share them here — and I encourage you to do the same.
What data storytelling homework assignments have you given yourself, and how have they helped you be a better storyteller?
Jordan Wirfs-Brock is a data journalist with Inside Energy. | https://medium.com/design-play/5-data-storytelling-homework-assignments-50f4ee03baaa | ['Jordan Wirfs-Brock'] | 2015-03-16 04:31:30.603000+00:00 | ['Data Storytelling', 'Data Visualization', 'Design'] |
Database Abstraction Layer | Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash
By the name of “Database Abstraction Layer” is commonly used to introduce a specific type of API. Which has ability to support multiple DBMS. As in the sense of the name ‘abstraction’, it explains that the API is not tightly coupled to one underlying database.
DBAL sits between the application and the underlying database, which interact with the database. The main benefit of DBAL is, you can change database back-end without worrying about code changes in the application. It also simplifies the database code and makes it easier to connect with database and update it.
Let say, you need to change your database back-end from PostgreSQL to Oracle? This is not an easy task. You’ll have to thoroughly go through every each of PostgreSQL specific code in your application and substitute it with the equivalent code for new database.
To avoid such difficulties, DBAL serve to decouple application logic from that used to communicate with the database. By passing all database related commands through this generalized interface, it became possible switching to some other ODBC-compliant database back-end is done in the blink of an eye. It just need to change the connection settings to replace the new database back-end.
Below diagram shows what I have explained so far.
As diagram shows, DBAL sits between the actual database and the application. Hence application does not need to know how the underlying database work.
For another instance, suppose you changed the name of the tables. You would have to go through each file and search for SQL using that table and replace the name of that table. Imagine how much time you could have saved and minimized errors if you only had to edit one file, the file that had all your SQL methods. Same thing applies to the column names also.
Those are the advantages of having a “Database Abstraction Layer” within your application.
There are several database abstraction layer options we could use in day to day application development. Those are: -
☞ PDO
☞ Doctrine DBAL
☞ ADOdb
☞ PDOModel: Database Abstraction and Helper PHP Class
☞ xCRUD Data Management System
☞ PDO Crud: Advanced PHP CRUD application | https://medium.com/@hemachandra.hashan/database-abstraction-layer-a2d400104c56 | ['Hemachandra Hashan'] | 2021-07-20 12:53:04.087000+00:00 | ['Postgres', 'Backend', 'PHP', 'Server Side', 'Database'] |
The Overdue Mortality Check I Desperately Needed | The Overdue Mortality Check I Desperately Needed
One friend’s near death experience was a clear dose of reality.
Photo by Aron Visuals via Unsplash
A week ago, I was sitting on a sunny patio enjoying a margarita with my friend Rhonda. She is one of the truest friends I have ever known. Today, I brought a week’s worth of meals to her house for her family to tide them over while she recovers in the ICU after suffering from a brain aneurysm.
Saturday morning, her fiance found her balled up in the corner of the bedroom, holding the back of her head, rocking herself and crying. Shortly before the paramedics arrived, she lost consciousness.
I was devastated and anxiety stricken for two days as we awaited updates on her condition and the six hour long surgery she underwent. Relief came with every amazing and hope soaked update. Then, somewhere in the middle of making a huge batch of Italian Wedding Soup on Sunday, a horrible thought crossed my mind.
I live alone without a partner. My daughter is only here half the time. Of the time she’s with me she has sports, friends and an active social life. In a few years, she’ll head to college.
If this happened to me, there are high odds no one would know. I would be gone. I’m not ready for that.
I don’t say this for sympathy or pity. My life situation is my choice. The reality check was beyond fear of dying alone. The reality check was how horribly ill prepared I am in case of something horrible.
To put a fine point on it, my shit is not even remotely together. If something happened to me, the mess I would leave behind for my loved ones would be a total disaster.
Photo by Kate Macate via Unsplash
I’m in my forties. I’m no longer 10 feet tall and bullet proof.
I have hit a point in my life where when I am told during my well woman exam that there’s nothing concerning about my breast tissue, I want to run down the hall after the appointment high-fiving people like an NBA player running onto the court.
My friend’s near death experience made me take a look at all the things I’ve never done on behalf of myself and everyone I love. Things need to be taken care of. People need to know I loved them and cared enough to make their lives easier.
And someone needs to know that the copy of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls in my office is 1st edition and if they want to sell it, that’s fine but they better use the money to by me a fantastic burial dress. An inappropriate one with a plunging neckline.
Everyone needs to have an envelope in a proverbial desk drawer.
My affairs are not in order but strewn about in random bins and files and on hard drives. The last thing I want, in the event on my untimely demise, is my family trying to do something as simple as find a life insurance policy, which I think may actually be in the garage somewhere near the camping equipment.
In the next few weeks, I’m making that envelope. All my accounts, account numbers, logins, passwords, contacts, etc. Someone will the keeper of that. It’s the kind thing to do. I’m an adult. I also have to admit that it would be incredibly embarrassing to not have this stuff organized. Not that I would feel embarrassed. I’d be dead.
Side note to self: Clean out the fridge. It would also be embarrassing for everyone to know how old that jar of maraschino cherries is.
There will also be instructions. Detailed ones.
I am certain that I would still be a control freak and planner from the grave. Nothing would piss me off more in the afterlife than if a really crappy obituary ran about me. You know the kind that mentions the departed’s pets and where they were born. Anyone reading my obituary would most likely know I loved my dog. We don’t need to print that.
In my envelope, someone is going to be assigned obituary writing detail. It’s horribly morbid but this is my damn legacy, I get what I want. I have already chosen this person. I get to review a draft every few years. Editorial rights exercised.
I also get to decide who delivers my eulogy and what songs are played at my funeral because if someone plays a lame hymn at my service, I am going to be haunting the hell out of a good number of people and that seems like a lot of work for someone who’s laid to rest. Spoiler alert — Four words: Spirit. In. The. Sky.
My best friend will be the only person with my phone and computer passwords and her sole job is to get her ass to my house and clean that crap up before handing it over to anyone else. My Amazon shopping habits and history are no one’s business. You don’t know my life.
I’m partly serious and partly kidding. How much in either direction? I don’t know. I do know that I don’t want to leave this Earth before I’m ready. I also, know that I don’t necessarily get a say in that matter.
I need peace of mind. I want my family to have peace of mind. I don’t want my friends burdened. I don’t want my records given to Goodwill and I sure as hell do not want to be buried in an ugly dress. | https://vanessatorre.medium.com/the-overdue-mortality-check-i-desperately-needed-ab52f98f506c | ['Vanessa Torre'] | 2019-10-23 05:28:52.305000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Relationships', 'Death', 'Humor', 'Organization'] |
The Disney Sequel Marathon: “Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World” (1998) | I went into this film expecting to hate it. While I enjoyed the original Pocahontas — despite its problematic reliance on the “noble savage” trope and its egregious butchering of the historical record — it just seemed to me that there wasn’t enough magic in it to make it a true classic, let alone to sustain a sequel. Unfortunately that suspicion proved to be only too true. While Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World has an intriguing premise, in which Pocahontas travels to London in order to forge a peace between her people and King James, it ultimately is ham-strung by lackluster songs, a silly plot (which, somehow, involves the mercurial and petulant King James sending an armada to America to squash the Native Americans), and a John Smith B-plot thrown in.
However, since this series of short essays is intended to find the good in even the worst of Disney sequels, that’s what I’m going to do.
To begin with, the film does have a strong voice cast. Irene Bedard returns as Pocahontas, giving the young woman the same gravitas and sincerity that made her such an appealing heroine in the first film, and Judy Kuhn does the same for her singing voice (unfortunately, absolutely none of the songs are truly worthy of her skill). Billy Zane has an incredibly sexy and slightly debonair voice, which makes him the perfect choice for John Rolfe, who is much more dignified, and noble, than John Smith, while the immortal Jean Stapleton provides the voice of his housekeeper, Mrs. Jenkins. And, and course, the late David Ogden Stiers steals the show with his Governor Ratcliffe, a man who relishes his cruelty.
For my part, I would have liked to see more of Ratcliffe. Though he may not be in the top tier of Disney villains, there’s just so much energy and camp appeal to the character. He is, without a doubt, something of a dandy, with a certain sartorial elegance and Stiers’ clear joy in playing the role. What’s more, he shows himself to be absolutely ruthless, particularly in his hatred of John Smith, whom he will stop at nothing to destroy (he even pulls a gun on him in their final climactic duel). Unfortunately, he’s not given too much to do, though the film does what it can to suggest that he’s managed to become a power behind the throne, even though it probably goes without saying that this has no basis in historical fact.
While he doesn’t have his own song — which he had in the original film — he does have a prominent part in the number “Things Are Not What They Appear,” which is, quite honestly, one of the few points where the old Disney magic makes an appearance. It’s a scene orchestrated by Ratcliffe, who intends to use a group of cruel jesters and a bear-baiting to goad Pocahontas into revealing her true “savage” self to James and the gathered courtiers. The jesters are quite unsettling to watch as they magically transform and gambol among the diners, and the bear and its (mercifully brief) torment are rendered well. The scene works pretty well, despite the patent absurdity of having a bear baiting in a banqueting hall. However, one can’t help but wish that the filmmakers had used a similar inventiveness when putting the rest of the script together.
The romance between Pocahontas and John Rolfe is fine, as far as it goes, but it lacks the power that one usually sees in the Disney romances. That’s unfortunate, because John Rolfe really does seem like a nice enough fellow, and in a different sort of film he might have even managed to become one of the more iconic Disney princes. There’s something of the Prince Eric in him, though fortunately Pocahontas is a much more dynamic and empowered female character than Ariel. For some reason, though, the film just can’t let go of John Smith (who’s voiced by Donal Gibson, Mel’s brother), even though the eventual breakup is so perfunctory that if you blink you miss it.
There are also a few scenes that do possess a certain poignancy, particularly the moment when Pocahontas departs for England and bids farewell to her dear friend, Nakoma. Of course, the film itself doesn’t depict Pocahontas’s death — which, according to history, happened before she was even able to leave England — but it does seem as if the film’s creators expected their audience to have at least an inkling of that. Thus, when we see the two of them say farewell, we know on some level that this will be the last time that they ever see one another alive. It’s yet another indication of just what this film could have accomplished had it been just a bit braver and didn’t lean so much into the cuteness and slapstick that is such a weakness in most of the Disney sequels.
That being said, I did enjoy the sequences involving Meeko. While the little raccoon may not be the most complex of the many Disney sidekicks, I’ve always thought he was quite charming, in large part because the animators managed to capture something of the cleverness and ridiculousness that always hover over nature’s little bandits. Meeko manages to inject some life into the film, and I found myself looking forward to the moments when he would appear on-screen and get into some of his signature mischief.
Pocahontas II is enjoyable enough, but to my eyes its primary flaw is that it’s just not that interesting. That is truly a shame, because the story of Pocahontas’ journey to London and her romance with Rolfe does have the makings of a certain tragic drama. Certainly, I wouldn’t have expected the filmmakers to actually depict her premature and quite tragic death in England, but it seems to me that they could have made a more compelling sequel by jettisoning the heavy fictionalization of history and the tedious (and ultimately extraneous) John Smith plot and allowing the romance between Rolfe and Pocahontas more time to flourish. | https://medium.com/screenology/the-disney-sequel-marathon-pocahontas-ii-journey-to-a-new-world-1998-63fcf49f9eb | ['Dr. Thomas J. West Iii'] | 2020-12-23 15:46:47.020000+00:00 | ['Animation', 'Movies', 'Disney', 'Film', 'Culture'] |
Dear people with “diversity specialist” in your job title… | Greetings and happy Monday…again
I came here today to hopefully shed some light on some things that white people might think are benign decisions but that really disclude the exact group of people you claim to want to include.
This is going to be a VERY unpopular take but remember, I am a Black woman, over 40 and in tech. I have tons of insight, if you are willing to listen.
Hot Take: When you have the word “diversity”, or “inclusion” in your job title and you lovingly display a photo of all your white female co-workers thinking to yourself , “Now THIS is diversity, you go girl!” this is 100% not diversity. Equality for white women in the job force is NOT equality for ALL women and is NOT diversity in anyway, shape or form. Especially if all the white women aren’t even in different age groups.
Another hot take: When you post a job, after claiming you are a “diversity inclusive specialist”, that states you don’t care about experience, just passion for learning, then list that the candidate must have 5+ years experience as a software engineer…this too is not inclusive and you are not a specialist at anything diverse. This is called empty platitudes and it is offensive.
Solution: Stop being so completely EXCLUSIVE and start taking chances on people, especially Black women who have literally spent thousands of hours learning, teaching ourselves and others and creating technology that y’all use.
It is exhausting falling for your “inclusion” empty promises and “diversity” lies when you really don’t know or have not taken the time to understand what that even is.
Again, no offence to white women in tech or white ppl but you also might want to stop hiring white, straight, young people in positions that are responsible for diversity and inclusion.
Happy Monday folks, and this is why I can’t have nice things and also why I am super picky about who I want to work with next.
Resources:
I found a cool site for kids and me, while searching for simple music based projects to add to myCV.
True story, I have a secret love affair with the Raspberry Pi. If you have $30-$60, buy one or three Raspberry Pi’s off of craigslist or whatever non-Bezos revenue based site you like, and check out ProjectsRaspberryPi and build something. I will too. | https://medium.com/@codingover40/dear-people-with-diversity-specialist-in-your-job-title-716d89cd2111 | ['Patricia Ehrhardt'] | 2020-11-23 21:22:53.951000+00:00 | ['Platitudes', 'Diversity In Tech', 'Diversity And Inclusion', 'White Privilege'] |
Digital Marketing Training In Coimbatore | Digital Marketing Training In Coimbatore
Are you based in Coimbatore? Peeking for respected digital marketing training in Coimbatore? Or at the slight, the training institute that covers Coimbatore and available Yes, we are the one — the skilled digital marketing and SEO training capital post at Coimbatore. But also offering the best training in SEO, digital marketing, and web designing discipline courses in and around Coimbatore. Digital Marketing Training In Coimbatore almost uncover areas like Palakkad, Tirupur, Salem, Erode, Udumalpet, Sathyamangalam, Mettupalayam, Ooty, etc. Not just by marks, we have a reasonable. number of trainees from these district to learn digital marketing from us. As far as we accept it as digital, distance never issues. Best Digital Marketing Training in Coimbatore How do you distinguish the best digital marketing agency in Coimbatore? Of course, there is no demanding regulation that the digital marketing training institute must be in Coimbatore. The digital marketing training course Coimbatore very good be a real‐time plan. It must be the potential to give a new picture to your digital marketing profession. If you are take out a company, apply digital marketing training in Coimbatore specialists must permit you to deal with your marketing agree by yourself. You should be allowed to examine your career strategies, define intention, attract the goal audience, and make more deals. The training must be willing surely, it must cover the total section of digital marketing training in Coimbatore | https://medium.com/@vetriseoanalyst/digital-marketing-training-in-coimbatore-20f957372471 | ['Vetri Seo Analyst'] | 2021-12-27 11:10:01.624000+00:00 | ['Seo Services', 'SEO', 'Seo Training'] |
Top 25 Full Stack Development Training Institutes In Bangalore | If You Are Search For A Full Stack Development Training Institute In Bangalore . Then Read This Blog And Choose Your Training Center And Start Your Carrier Updation.
Full Stack Development Is Combination Of Front End, Back End & Data Base
After The Course Candidates Choose There Domain as Front End Developer, Back End Developer, DB Analyst , Full Stack Developer,Web designer etc….
Full Stack = Front End + Back End + Data Base
In Bangalore These Are The Top 25 Full Stack Development Training institutes.
UNIQUE TECHNOLOGIES
Unique Technologies Provide Advanced Full Stack Development Courses In Bangalore. There Are Three Main Specializations They Provide
Specialization In PHP With Laraval
Specializations In Python With Django
Specializations In Java NodeJS
After The Course, They Provide 1 Month Real Time Internship Program And Placement Assistance.
address: Tulasi House, No 27,
Nandini Layout,
Bangalore
560096
(Landmark : Opp to HP Petrol station)
contact:+91–9880959620 ,080–29779992
http://uniqtechie.in/full-stack-development-training-institute-in-bangalore.html
[email protected]
2. Pinnacle Training India
Pinnacle provides full-stack development training In Bangalore for computer programming which makes the expert in front end and back end coding. They have fundamental obligations comprises of the frond-end designing user interface, Develop databases, and servers for the functionality of the website and mobile app coding
what do you learn?
Python Core Additional task
youtube downloader app
paint app
snake game
password generator
In Machine learning
Building a Chatbot
Build an Image Similarity Engine
EMI available
Online course fees: 35,398
Contact:+91–8073500625
https://pinnacletrainingindia.com
3. DCT academy
Programming is an art as a science, it needs one to have a holistic knowledge of core programming ideas together with its allied technologies. For becoming an entire full stack developer one also must have a strong foundation on concepts like object-oriented programming and database design skills. we tend to at DCT Academy believe that web development could be a skill that anyone will acquire, by walking on a true and trusted path for learning.
Full stack JavaScript web development; 34,000.00
Address:430, 28th A Cross, 11th Main Rd, 4th Block,
Jayanagar, Bangalore,
Karnataka 560011
Contact: +91 9916811566
https://dctacademy.com/
4. Besant Technologies
Besant Technologies offers best Full Stack Training in Bangalore with most practiced professionals. Our Instructors are operating in full Stack and related technologies for a lot of years in MN C’s. we conscious of industry wants and that we are giving Full Stack Training in Bangalore in additional practical method.
Address: №2, Ground Floor,
29th Main Road, Kuvempu Nagar,
BTM Layout 2nd Stage,
Bangalore — 560076
Karnataka, India
Landmark:Next to OI Play School
Contact: 7339173555
http://www.trainingbangalore.in
[email protected]
5. Newstein
Newstein is a Bangalore based mostly, upcoming software consultancy and products development organization giving full stack web development solutions.
Started in 2018, Newstein is a dream project of four tech innovators, to produce analysis driven innovative solutions with continued support to allow clients to quickly update their applications with the latest technologies and options.
Course fees: 35,000
Address: 1st floor, #221, 9th Main, 6th Sector,
HSR Layout, Near Lawrence High School ICSE,
Bengaluru, Karnataka 560034
Contact: 8618050662
https://newstein.in
[email protected]
6. Zakelabs
zekeLabs — AN L&D Guardian and a pioneer of the Proactive Revolution, is that the most great organization with in-house material specialists (SMEs) & technology evangelists in india and southeast asia. among a number of years,
Address: 2nd Floor #188, Survey No. — 123/1,
Incubes Building Next to McDonalds, ITPL Main Rd
Brookefield, Bangalore, Karnataka 560037
Contact:+91 8041690175
https://www.zekelabs.com/
[email protected]
7. Be-practical
Be-Practical is one amongst the best coaching institutes in Bangalore, this training organization relies on Bangalore and USA and it’s pioneered as a diversified entrepreneurship tapping into the wants of the job market in India,
Address: 332, Siddhaiah Puranik Rd,
Shakthi Ganapathi Nagar, Basaveshwar Nagar,
Bangalore, Karnataka 560079
Contyact: +91–9242079119
https://www.be-practical.com/
[email protected]
8. ZanRays
ZenRays offers the best Full Stack Development coaching in Bangalore, which includes the HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap, JavaScript, MEAN Stack training in Bangalore. Full Stack Developer is that the one who is going to work on each Front-end and Back-end of an application. Classroom and online coaching facilities are accessible for all the sessions and technology training courses in Bangalore. Verify other IT code training Courses in Bangalore.
Address: No 470, 3rd Floors, 80 Feet Rd,
Opp. Bus Depot, 6th Block, Koramangala,
Bangalore, Karnataka 560095
Contact:+91 6362454616
https://zenrays.com/
[email protected]
9. TIBacademy
TIB Academy is one of the best coaching institutes in Bangalore, providing all trending package courses with appropriate Placements in Bangalore. Being №1 training Institute in Bangalore, our coaching programs are totally supposed to satisfy each student’s desires and needs.
Address: Second Floor and Third Floor, 5/3,
Varthur Road Kundalahalli Gate,
Opposite to SKR Convention Hall, Next to AXIS Bank
, Bangalore, Karnataka 560066
Contact: 9513332303
https://www.tibacademy.in/
[email protected]
10. Web stack academy
Web stack Academy (WSA) is one of the foremost effective software system institute in India for Full Stack coaching courses on MEAN Stack. The Masters and Full stack courses includes Responsive Frontend Development victimisation Angular, Jury, CSS, Bootstrap and Node.js with express Framework within the Backend, among alternative latest technologies, using JavaScript as the programming language.
Address: №83, 1st Floor, Farah Towers, M.G Road,
Bangalore, Karnataka 560001
Contact: +91 809 555 7 332
https://www.webstackacademy.com/
11. Thru Skills
Full Stack Development with 3REE training in Bangalore at Thru skills are going to be of great help to anyone who is trying to induce into the React, Redux, NodeJS, express JS and Rethink db. Whether you’re trying to require up Full Stack Development with 3REE training, our coaching modules can help you to attain glorious and find a Full Stack Development with 3REE Certification
Address:2nd Floor, Murudeswar Building, Opp Megamart,
Marenahalli Rd, Putlanpalya, Jayanagara 9th Block,
Bangalore, Karnataka 560069
Contact: +91 831 737 5392
https://www.thruskills.com/
[email protected]
12. Kora trainings
The course in Bangalore for full stack developer covers aspects of web technologies through live projects. in the starting basics of HTML/CSS are schooled moving towards high-end technology like AngularJS applications. They conjointly provide data of content management system like WordPress. The courses help in understanding concepts of each front and back end.
Address: 3rd floor, #12, above Ramdev Medicals,
Opp to SBI ATM,Dental college road, marathahalli,
Bangalore, Karnataka 560037
Contact:(+91) 8867896632
https://www.koratrainings.com
[email protected]
13. IIHT
When software development on cloud is that the thorough course, IIHT goes one level up by redefining the thorough course by introducing the ultimate variant — the MEARN stack.
As a software developer on cloud you become skilful within the following areas creating you a full stack developer:
Address: No: 15, 4th Floor, Sri Lakshmi, Complex,
MG Road, Near SBI LHO,
Bangalore — 560 001, India.
Contact: +91–95130–72227
http://www.iihtfullstack.com
[email protected]
14. koenig-solutions
This 28 days’ course is meant to accommodate to the ever-changing role of developers and technologies round the world. It covers all aspects of web technology with a live project. It begins with terribly basic HTML/CSS to high-end technology like Angular JS applications. It includes aspects of Front and Back-end technology for a web application, starting from HTML/CSS, HTML5/CSS3, PHP, Angular JS & others.
Address: Koenig Solutions Pvt. Ltd.2nd & 3rd Floor, №39,
8th MainKoramangala 4th Block,
Bengaluru-560034, (India)
Contact: +91 88823 77077
https://www.koenig-solutions.com
[email protected]
15. evolve technologies
Full stack developers are being hired by startups and MNCs like hot cakes sold in a very cafe or a confectionary! Each company looks for candidates who have full stack developer skills. Full Stack Developer has the end to end information of an application and thence is treated with respect within the Full Stack Development domain.
Address: # 58, IInd Floor, HMT Layout
Land Mark — Behind R T Nagar Police Station or
Above Act office,
R T Nagar,Bengaluru, Karnataka 560032,
Contact: +91–9945294539
http://etcoe.in
[email protected]
16. Zeolearn
Zeolearn offers MEAN Stack training course by the leading trade expert trainers and ensures your mastery of full MEAN Stack development. Take your career to successive level by acquiring this MEAN Stack certification program from our institute that proves that you are associate degree expert at JavaScript technologies of the most common MEAN Stack.
Course fees: online course 32,999/-
Contact: 7619140333
https://www.zeolearn.com
[email protected]
17. infocampus
Full stack developer coaching use for end to end development. In software development stable job profile is full stack development, as a result of a full stack developer is ready to implement all level of business needs, from requirement analysis to style of front and and back end API connectivity.
Address: 1st & 4th Floor, Service Road, Above HDFC Bank,
Near Kalamandir, Outer Ring Road Marathahalli,
Bengaluru, Karnataka 560037
Contact: +91–8884166608
http://infocampus.co.in
[email protected]
18. Niit
This I.T. program trains the students to achieve experience in front-end, back-end, web development, application development and software development technologies at completely different levels that provides a footing over others in the much tightened field of software system development. It’ll facilitate them traverse the clutter and be previous others from the terribly first step that they take in the trade.
Classroom and online training fees: 70,000
Contact: + 91 124 4293000
https://www.niit.com/
[email protected]
19. Beginskills
Java is an OOP (Object oriented Programming) language first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. As a result of secure and reliable, most corporations prefer this. Java is compiled to byte code that may on any Java virtual machine. It’s a most well-liked programming language. Begin Skills Bangalore provides best Advanced JAVA coaching Courses in Bangalore. Gets live project Java training in Bangalore from our IT Professionals? We’ve got high and experienced industrial professionals as the JAVA trainers.
Address: #1538, 2nd floor, 4th main, 1st stage,
Kumarswamy layout,
Bangalore-500078
Contact:7795309595 7892229347
http://beginskills.com
[email protected]
20. Inventateq
For nearly half a decade, InventaTeq has been NO.1 & Best software training Institute providing 100% guaranteed JOB Placements, efficient, Quality & Real time coaching courses on Digital promoting (SEO, PPC, SMO), massive knowledge HADOOP, Devops, Cloud Computing, AWS, RPA Tools, Machine Learning, artificial intelligence, Block chain, Python, sales division, data Science, package Testing (Manual & Automation tools), Microsoft Azure, IoT, knowledge reposting tools (Informatics nine.5, OBIEE 11g, Qlikview
Address: №687, 1st Floor, 29th Main Road, BTM Layout 2nd Stage,
BTM Lake Road, Coming from Silkboard then take left at AXA company signal,
opp to OI Play school, Bangalore — 76.
Contact: 080–42108236
https://www.inventateq.com/
[email protected]
21. Stack academy
Stack Academy offers Project primarily based room Learning by industry experts as instructors in conjunction with evaluating your Technology Quotient
Address: 202, Mathura complex, East of NGEF Kasturi Nagar,
Bangalore — 560043.
Contact: +91–9538 19 18 18
http://stackacademy.in/
[email protected]
22. Zenways
MEAN/Full stack is widely utilized in the industry to develop scalable web applications and to power mobile applications conjointly. Major companies that use NodeJs or MEAN stack are Google, Microsoft et al.. the main objective behind using Full stack is to develop a stateless web application that may handle large number of users, is quick and scalable in practice. It follows MVC architecture and development time is additionally facilitated. Learning MEAN stack can offer you an honest opportunity to be a part of the worldwide workforce
Address: 549, 1st Floor, 14th Main Road, Sector 7,
HSR Layout, Bangalore — 560102
Contact: 8800734046
www.zenways.io
[email protected]
23. Apponix
We are one amongst the highest web designing development coaching provider in bangalore.We provide a 100% job guarantee once completion of the course. Gets the best net designing training in Bangalore. All our net designing trainers are terribly toughened IT professionals and like to share their practical information with the students. This course is meant to meet all level of student demand. Our net designing development trainers perceive the fresher’s professional’s requirement very well.
Address: Apponix Technologies Private Limited #306,
10th Main, 46th Cross, 4th Block Rajajinagar,
Bangalore — 560010
Contact:+91 8050580888
https://www.apponix.com
[email protected]
24. Webstack Academy
Webstack Academy (WSA) is one among the best software institute in India for Full Stack coaching courses on MEAN Stack. The Masters and Full stack courses includes Responsive Frontend Development using Angular, Jquery, CSS, Bootstrap and Node.js with specific Framework in the Backend, among different latest technologies, using JavaScript because the programming language. With more than 300+ Placement tie-ups with IT firms, our students who have completed the MEAN stack and different Full Stack courses are in wonderful position capable of delivering immediately once the course completion.
Course fees: 40,000–60,000
http://www.webstackacademy.com
25. opusapplabs
Less Theory Practical’s. All our coaching programs are 100% active with Real time examples. we let our students participate in our Real time comes and do committal to writing to make certain that they gain 100% practical data and perceive the topic completely so that they’ll face any reasonably interview with confidence.
Address: #1278, 2nd Floor, 25th Main, 40th Cross,
Jayanagar 9th Block,
Bangalore — 69
Landmark: Opposite to Big Bazaar / Near to Bangalore Central
https://opusapplabs.com/
[email protected] | https://medium.com/@smithlio1993/top-25-full-stack-development-training-institutes-in-bangalore-f877acc13bdf | ['Smith Lio'] | 2020-07-03 11:20:10.215000+00:00 | ['Web Development', 'Web Design', 'Full Stack', 'Backend Development', 'Front End Development'] |
Productivity Stinks: Get Ahead By Doing Nothing | The Delayer
Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus — Picture By Schurl50 [Public domain] Via Wikipedia Creative Commons
It’s the year 217 BC and Rome has a major problem. The living version of the terminator has killed a Consul (president), crushing two Roman armies and is running loose on Italian soil. Hannibal Barca from Carthage had been raised from a child to lead a military and hate Romans. He managed to take an army with elephants across the mountains. It seems there was nothing he couldn’t do.
In a panic, Rome elects a dictator to harness their resources and respond to the threat. They chose Quintus Fabius. His choice of actions is to sit and do nothing. He knows that Hannibal is far from home and his supplies lines. If the Romans sit back and wait, the mountain climbing menace might burn himself out.
Fabius would avoid engaging in direct battles. He’d use his soldiers to harass Hannibal’s forces whenever they were sent out to look for supplies. This not only aggravated the enemy forces, but it also drove the citizens of Rome into an uproar. Fabius was put in charge to do ‘something’, not hide and let an enemy army destroy the countryside.
He’d have challenges to his power, both of which would result in disaster. An underling would lead an army against Hannibal and have to be saved by Fabius. After his term as dictator was up, two Roman consuls would be elected and attack Hannibal again.
In the Battle of Cannae, the Romans would lose between 55,000 to 70,000 men in one of the biggest disasters in their history. Only after this massive slaughter would the Romans adopt Fabius’ strategy again. He was no longer looked at as a coward. He’d be given a title that would stick with him through history — Cunctator or “the delayer”. Eventually, the strategy would work, saving the Romans. | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/productivity-stinks-get-ahead-by-doing-nothing-34b650bb0bf4 | ['Erik Brown'] | 2019-10-25 21:01:02.029000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Business', 'History', 'Self Improvement', 'Productivity'] |
Make the most of your garden all year round | As we are officially in winter, we typically spend less time in our outside spaces. But now more than ever, Brits are looking for new ways to make the most of their gardens all year round.
With these tips, you can make your garden look and feel more inviting for the colder months, whether you decide to brave the cold or not!
Keep those green fingers busy
You wouldn’t assume you can work on your gardening skills in December, but we have just the thing for our keen gardeners out there.
Are you looking to brighten up your drive or balcony? Why not plant the following shrubs to add a splash of colour:
TIP : why not try a self-fertile variety such as Ilex aquifolium ‘JC van Tol’ to guarantee you a crop.
Make it cosy!
Even if you have only a balcony or a small patio garden, you must still utilise it! If you have a larger garden, then focus on warming just a small, more intimate area rather than tackling the whole space.
To better that, add shelter to shield you from the cold nights and lights to enhance a cosy atmosphere by creating strong shadows, framing your designated winter garden beautifully.
Repurpose old cushions and throws
You don’t need to have designated furniture for outdoor use only. Grab some spare cushions, throws and blankets that you already own and repurpose them for the garden.
Don’t leave them outside, have a basket that you bring out with you when you do happen to sit outside.
Have you thought about a fire pit?
Having a fire pit will be sure to get everyone using your garden during winter. You can find a wide variety of firepits suitable for all garden sizes.
Firepits have many great benefits. They keep you warm and create opportunities for fun activities for your family like roasting marshmallows.
Entice the wildlife
Plants are great ways to add colour to your winter garden, but have you ever had a beautiful robin or a goldfinch spread their wings in your outside space?
Invest in a bird bath to entice birds in.
Birds need water for drinking and to clean their feathers, especially in the winter months when most water sources may be frozen over. Make sure the bath is no deeper than 5cm deep and add stones or gravel for some grip.
Adding bird feeds around your outside space will also bribe these beautiful birds around your home.
Are you looking for more outside space? Why not browse our properties today. | https://medium.com/@paul-oshea/make-the-most-of-your-garden-all-year-round-4cccedf9b75a | ['Paul Oshea'] | 2021-12-14 04:20:23.362000+00:00 | ['Gardening Tips', 'Paul Oshea', 'Garden', 'Property', 'Estate Agents'] |
I Miss The Lighted Apple Logo | Every time I see an older MacBook with the bright white lighted Apple logo…I get envious.
I imagine that was exactly the point of the logo light in the first place.
In an era where Apple has killed MagSafe, the Startup Sound, Skeuomorphic design, and the iPhone’s headphone jack, among other things…I realize that it’s weird to focus on the silly little white light that used to be on the back of their laptops. A light that you can’t even see while you’re using the computer.
But it was fun and cool. Sometimes that’s enough.
The MacBook Air was the last holdout, and now that it’s been 12-inch-MacBooked, the light is effectively dead.
I do a lot of writing in coffee shops, and over the last four years I’ve watched the screen landscape transform. It used to be a field of soft glowing white Apple logos, which stood in stark contrast to the occasional black PC monolith.
Now, one by one, the lights are vanishing as the laptops are upgraded, replaced by cold metallic mirrors of aluminum.
I never had the pleasure of personally owning a MacBook with the lighted Apple logo. My first MacBook was a 2016 12-inch model, which I still use from time to time in spite of Apple’s increasing attempts to squeeze it out of its own product line.
The aluminum Apple logo is fine. It has a nice premium smooth feel to it, with materials that would be at home on a yacht, or an airplane, or a stereo system, or whatever.
But those glowing white lights felt like they were from the future. Not the awkward 90's-but-with-smartphones-and-broadband future we’re actually living in, but the sleek future that science fiction continually promised me as a kid.
There’s something magical about the way those logos glow, and how perfectly bright and natural they look even in a sunlit room.
It’s a brilliantly simple design too, though its brilliance also means you can never turn the light off without turning off the machine. Perhaps Apple was so confident in its cool glowing they just figured that no one would ever want to turn it off?
Unlike bespoke LED case lighting solutions, the Apple logo is simply a partially transparent window into the innards of the display, which allows the backlight to shine through.
A clever trick, indeed.
Photo by Dmitry Chernyshov on Unsplash
I get that removing the light/magical window helps make the laptop thinner, makes the casing more robust, and helps cut down the costs of producing and repairing the display. I’m sure that piece of shiny aluminum is much easier to produce and easier to not break during production than whatever mystical semi-transparent acrylic they used for the old logos. And I know there are plenty of RGB-enabled PC’s out there if I want to get my lighting fix on.
But none of them have the soft, audacious glow of the old MacBook logo. It announces itself with the firm authority of the sun, and you cannot turn it off.
While I was writing this in my local coffee shop, two different dudes sat down, each of them using previous generation MacBook Airs, complete with those soft glowing logos. There’s one both to my left and my right. It’s like the Apple universe is calling out to me, thanking me for paying one final homage to their old lights.
I’m not joking. Here are some bad quality photos taken with my cell phone. I have cropped both of these to stupidly small sizes because these men are far away, and I want to protect their anonymity.
The second man is wearing an Atari shirt. I’m not sure what to make of this.
If I were running Apple, in spite of being completely unqualified since I care more about lights and trackpads than anything else, I would have added lights to the backs of every Apple product.
The iPhone. The iPad. The EarPods, even. How cool would it be if the EarPod case had a tiny glowing Apple logo on it for the charge light?
At 35, I’m officially old enough now to “not know what’s cool,” but I think Apple really blew it by taking the last bits of whimsy out of the MacBook. I don’t care if it’s trying to be a fancy “productivity” machine, part of what I’ve always liked about Apple is their nod towards fun.
I worry that as they push into a bigger audience and focus more and more on sleek efficient luxury, the fun will be lost forever. | https://xander51.medium.com/i-miss-the-lighted-apple-logo-a2262d6ba580 | ['Alex Rowe'] | 2019-05-21 22:20:51.269000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Tech', 'Apple', 'Mac', 'Design'] |
Convolutional Neural Networks for binary classification of Solar Flares | Convolutional Neural Networks for binary classification of Solar Flares
Note: This article is a part of a bigger study. You can find here and love it till death do you guys part.
The majestic gas ball that is the Sun has crucial effects in our lives. We know and live this life thanks to this star and it is close enough to have magnetic and deep study about it too.
In particular, solar flares are sudden flashes that occur on the Sun. You may think that in your life you have more serious stuff to think about, and you are probably right. Nonetheless these little (not so little actually) flashes have several consequences on our lives.
These flares are often close to sunspots, that are maybe the most important physical phenomena about solar magnetic energy. Indirectly speaking, solar flares due to these sunspots have important effects in our climate as they affect the Sun energy.
When these flares appear, they are usually accompanied by Coronal Mass Ejection that can disturb our communication, destroy our satellites, kill our space astronauts.
It is thus essential to monitor solar flares, and classify them. It is even more appealing to instruct a computer how to do that with (data and) Machine Learning.
Shall we dance? :)
Summary:
1. The challenge
2. The tool
3. The code
4. The conclusion
1. The challenge
As a non astrophysicist I know basically nothing about the Sun. But if I knew a lot about the Sun I would’ve written an analytical function and find it by myself a way to detect solar flares. Unfortunately, even the ones that know a lot about the Sun didn’t manage to do it so far. So the challenge here was to find an algorithm that was able to detect solar flares with 0 domain knowledge, without using any physical quantity or theory or hypothesis. The task is thus the following:
Given a certain number of images, build a classification algorithm that is able to detect whether or not there is a flare on the Sun.
To summarise this with an image, you can think about something like this:
This image was created by me and it was used during a presentation.
2. The tool
The tool that has been used during this process is called Convolutional Neural Network. You can find more detail of how these little creatures work in here, but essentially they just run over the image and analyze each pixel. Then they build a network that collapses in the last layer that is a probability that the image belongs or not to a certain class.
In this study, two different networks have been used:
A) A convolutional neural network to detect, given a total image of the Sun, whether or not the Sun has active regions (a.k.a. magnetical active zones).
B) A convolutional neural network to detect, given an active zone of the Sun, if the Sun actually has or not Solar Flares in that region.
Why is that? Why am I using two networks? Because the Sun could have active regions, but it is not obvious that these zones have solar flares too.
Let’s give a look to these two beasts:
A) As an input, the first network “eats” black and white images, and it does this:
This image belongs to me and it was produced with the help of this tool
B) The second one takes as an input coloured images (RGB) and it goes like this:
This image belongs to me and it was produced with the help of this tool
3. The Code
Ok, here we go.
Let’s start with that: the data extraction part was really (I mean, really) hard. As it is a physical matter, it was hard to find just the raw images as a lot of sources referred to physical quantities only. Moreover, as this is an academic topic and has not an open-source request, data were hard to find by themselves. Let alone be to find reliable images or csvs ready to be used. But we are data scientists and we don’t give up.
So I’ve started scraping.
The scraping part is pretty intense, so please refer to GitHub if you want to see the lines of codes or we will get out of the track. Nonetheless, these were the strategies to get the data.
For the first part, two online sources were used. As we are obviously talking about Supervised Learning, the labels were extracted scraping from the SpaceWeatherLive.com site. This source (ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/) was used to get the Solar Flares images.
For the second part, a single source has been applied and it was this one. I’ve extracted the csv with the solar flares/active regions images link and I’ve written a script that stores the images with their labels on my PC.
As my final goal is to show you the power of the CNNs I will go over the technical part of scraping (but please, again, visit the GitHub page or hit me if you have any doubt).
Let’s start with the first CNN.
3.1 First CNN
Here’s an example of an image of the dataset:
And here you can find an example of the dataset with its labels.
The labels are pretty balanced, as you can observe:
So let’s start playing.
Train/test rigid split:
And cross validation (CV=10):
Lovely accuracy (94.7%). And it is obtained with cross validation so it is pretty reliable.
3.1 Second CNN
Here’s an example of the image | https://towardsdatascience.com/convolutional-neural-networks-for-binary-classification-of-solar-flares-b97de0852037 | ['Piero Paialunga'] | 2020-12-21 00:20:20.164000+00:00 | ['Astrophysics', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Convolutional Network', 'Machine Learning', 'Deep Learning'] |
Launch AWS instance and attach volume using AWS CLI & script | For getting the instance-id, you can create a command for getting the instance id using the query and filters. Though you can also use the simple command, but that won’t help us in automation, that we’ll do in the latter part of this article.
aws ec2 attach-volume --device /dev/xvdb --instance-id i-0159851f2556c1a04 --volume-id vol-0536d4b73a5937242
Part II — Automating the things using scripting
Tip: To read the full code at once, go to the end of the article
For automating the above things, means for creating those resources with a faster pace and no manual involvement, you just need to do a few more things.
First thing, you need to notice that the above commands that we have discussed above are for the Windows Command or PowerShell, and if you try to run those commands in Linux, some of those will give some error. For automating, we are going to write the bash script, and for that, you need a bash shell, which you can get either from any Linux Distro or even Git Bash.
So, Let’s start the scripting part
The first thing, you need to do is to declare the variables for the tags or the name of resources.
#!/bin/bash #Declaring Variables keyname=testingclikey
instancename=testinginstance
sgname=testingsg
ebsname=testingebs
Now, let’s say you want to create the key-pair from the bash. But, here, you need to note that if you are going to give tag to the key-pair, as we have done in the command at the start, it will give an error. This is because we have used the curly braces in that command, {}, which are intended for other things in Bash. So, to tackle this error, you can use double quote “” as done in command below:
#creating the key pair aws ec2 create-key-pair --key-name $keyname --tag-specification "ResourceType=key-pair,Tags=[{Key=Name,Value=$keyname}]" --query "KeyMaterial" --output text > $keyname.pem
Similarly, you can create the security group:
#Creating the security group aws ec2 create-security-group --group-name $sgname --description "created from CLI" --vpc-id vpc-50f0e456
Now, the heart of Scripting
Till now, everything was really fine, but when you are going to create the inbound rule for the security group, you need to retrieve the group-id of the security group that you have created and then pass that group-id to another command.
So, for getting the security group info, we can use the aws ec2 describe-security-groups command. But that will show you the info about all the SGs and in json format. So, we need to format that output, then, pass to other commands. For that you can use the following command:
aws ec2 describe-security-groups --query "SecurityGroups[].GroupId" --filters Name=group-name,Values=$sgname
If you have noticed, that the above command is in windows and the output is not what we require, so, now switch to Linux, and let’s do some change in the output.
Now, the output is in the shape of what we require, so, instead of printing that in Console, let’s store that in variable sgid. Here, for formatting the output we are using the sed and tr. See command below:
sgid=`aws ec2 describe-security-groups --query "SecurityGroups[].GroupId" --filters "Name=group-name,Values=$sgname" | sed -n 2p | tr -d \"`
Now, we have the security group id stored in sgid variable. So, let’s use this and create inbound rules.
#Adding the inbound rules to the security group created aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress --group-id $sgid --protocol tcp --port 22 --cidr 0.0.0.0/0
For launching the instance, the command is the same as discussed previously except that we are now using the variables inside the command:
#Launching the instance aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-0e306788ff2473ccb --count 1 --instance-type t2.micro --key-name $keyname --security-group-ids $sgid --tag-specification "ResourceType=instance,Tags=[{Key=Name,Value=$instancename}]"
For Creating the volume, not much difference except using double quotes and variable in place of the name of the volume.
#Creating the Volume
aws ec2 create-volume --availability-zone ap-south-1a --size 1 --tag-specification "ResourceType=volume,Tags=[{Key=Name,Value=$ebsname}]"
Now, for attaching the instance volume, you need the volume id and the instance id and then, pass the values to another command. To achieve, we have used the following commands:
#storing the value of Volume ID in variable volumeID
volumeID=`aws ec2 describe-volumes --query "Volumes[*].VolumeId" --filters "Name=tag:Name,Values=$ebsname" | sed -n 2p | tr -d \"` #Storing the value of instance ID in the Variable instanceid
instanceID=`aws ec2 describe-instances --query "Reservations[*].Instances[].InstanceId" --filter "Name=key-name,Values=$keyname" | sed -n 2p | tr -d \"` #Attaching the volume to the instance
aws ec2 attach-volume --device /dev/xvdb --instance-id $instanceID --volume-id $volumeID
So, Let’s sum up everything into one script file:
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/theadarshsaxena/AWS-CLI-Scripting/ | https://theadarshsaxena.medium.com/launch-aws-instance-and-attach-volume-using-aws-cli-script-bc0fecbcd6a9 | ['Adarsh Saxena'] | 2020-10-25 08:00:54.552000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Automation', 'Aws Cli', 'Cloud', 'Scripting'] |
Jesus and the Old Covenant | by Jim Gordon
Did Jesus teach from the Old Covenant? Was not the birth of Christ the beginning of the New Covenant? When does the Old Covenant end and the New Covenant begin? We tend to forget that the Old Covenant does not end with Malachi and the New Covenant does not start with Matthew.
Even though Jesus came to fulfill the old agreement through grace, the first thirty-three years that Jesus walked the earth He lived under the Old Covenant. He was required to follow all its rules and regulations. He even taught from those rules, yet those rules are no longer intended for us. ‘But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons’. Galatians 4:4,5
The New Covenant began when Jesus was crucified. When He said ‘It is finished’ He was talking about the Law, the Old Covenant. Upon His resurrection the New Covenant began and we are no longer required to try and live under the Law and the way of the Old Covenant. It is finished!
The old agreement was basically a tutor. A way God used to show humans that we were unable to live a perfect life on our own. It was a way to show us that we needed someone to redeem us and restore our fellowship with the Father. Jesus came and fulfilled the old agreement and upon his resurrection made a new agreement of grace. ‘Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill’. Matthew 5:17
Now that the Law has been fulfilled in Christ, we are no longer required to try to live by the ten commandments and the rules and regulations of the Old Covenant. So often we seem to forget that because of grace we now live by faith in Christ. We are no longer slaves to sin, we are no longer just a poor sinner saved by grace although we were sinners and we are saved by grace. We are now the righteousness of God through Christ. God no longer calls us slaves but He calls us Sons. We are seated in heavenly places in Christ. This is not to say that we should go out and do whatever we want, right or wrong. We do have freedom in Christ to do what we choose, but there are consequences if we choose things that God has warned us to stay away from.
Today we choose to live a life pleasing to God because of love. Godly love is the fulfillment of the Law. We love God and we love others, we have been made righteous through Christ and we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who guides us, teaches us and gives us strength. We do not love or please God out of obligation. We do not love him because we are trying to fulfill a set of rules and Old Testament laws that we could not live up to anyway. We do what is pleasing to God because we choose to do so because of our love for Him. | https://medium.com/@donewthreligion/jesus-and-the-old-covenant-14e19c44a93e | ['Done With Religion'] | 2019-03-01 21:08:35.321000+00:00 | ['Bible', 'Christian Living', 'Jesus', 'Grace'] |
“Laddu Daddu” | The thing that stayed with me most in the first few weeks of working with the core team of Aagaaz in the park was that no one knew the names of things but everyone knew how to make them up. We were introduced to games that seemed to have bizarre names: something about a chicken, something about spotting, something about laddus. These games themselves were familiar that I had perhaps played as a kid or in some theatre workshop, but the names had betrayed my understanding of them. Dog and the bone but not quite. Gol spot was Ghum ghum stop. That one I recognised.
But working with this group is always quite like this: a familiar sensation, the warmth of a playground, and an invitation to a microcosm of its own. I think I’m the only person who hasn’t worked with everyone closely before. So I’m still discovering the little shared gestures, the common jokes, the slight indications that someone wants control, the glance that says I am bored. But each time I find some pieces of the puzzle, and it’ll probably come together eventually.
I’ve realised I really like being led. Three sessions out of four in a month are sessions where I get to be a participant, to be led. To be asked to run and jump. I am far more nervous about the sessions I need to plan for. I normally begin by thinking about exercises that I am comfortable leading and then about how a bunch of them can come together. I usually find myself grouped with two people who seem fairly confident about where their activities fit in the session, how much time they will take, and why they fit in the overall focus of that day. Sometimes I come across a ridiculous name and I resist asking so I get the chance to discover what that is during the session. Laddu Daddu was worth the wait. Sometimes, one of them will say I’ve invented something that lasts twenty minutes and sometimes, while everything would’ve been planned, one of them will invent something at that very moment.
Perhaps that’s how you build a good microcosm: you experiment, you add and remove things, but somehow, it makes sense in that space. The narratives, tangents, and arcs keep moving but that world remains consistent. It’s what makes you trust it, invites you in and convinces you it will be there even if you look away. I’m learning that if you believe in a fictional world strongly enough, you can trust that your actions will fit right in. I’m learning that even if I am scared to lead an activity one day, I can begin by giving it a ridiculous name. | https://medium.com/@aagaaz-theatre/laddu-daddu-401e888de97c | ['Aagaaz Theatre Trust'] | 2020-12-26 12:28:17.059000+00:00 | ['Performance', 'Learning', 'Theatre', 'Training', 'Community'] |
Cleaning PySpark DataFrames | Cleaning PySpark DataFrames
There’s something about being a data engineer that makes it impossible to clearly convey thoughts in an articulate manner. It seems inevitable that every well-meaning Spark tutorial is destined to devolve into walls of incomprehensible code with minimal explanation. This is even apparent in StackOverflow, where simple questions are regularly met with absurdly unnecessary solutions (stop making UDFs for everything!) Anyway, what I’m trying to say is it takes a lot of guts to click into these things, and here you are. I appreciate you.
In our last episode, we covered some Spark basics, played with Databricks, and started loading data into DataFrames. Now we’re diving deeper into DataFrames by touching on every data enthusiast’s favorite topic: cleaning data. To keep it interesting, I picked the filthiest data set I could find: FDA drug enforcement!
Dropping Rows
We don’t have to look at this data for long to start noticing some holes:
Look at all those empty cells. Shame. Let’s deal with these trouble makers.
Dropping Rows With Empty Values
If you’re a Pandas fan, you’re probably thinking “this is a job for .dropna() !" As it turns out, you may be more spot-on than you think - PySpark DataFrames also have a method for dropping N/A values, and it happens to be called .dropna() !
df = df.dropna()
display(df)
The keyword arguments will make you feel right at home:
how : accepts ‘any’ or ‘all’. If ‘any’, rows containing any null values will be dropped entirely (default). If ‘all’, only rows which are entirely empty will be dropped.
: accepts ‘any’ or ‘all’. If ‘any’, rows containing any null values will be dropped entirely (default). If ‘all’, only rows which are entirely empty will be dropped. thresh : accepts an integer representing the “threshold” for how many empty cells a row must have before being dropped. Tresh is a middle ground between how=any and how=all . As a result, the presence of thresh will override how.
: accepts an integer representing the “threshold” for how many empty cells a row must have before being dropped. Tresh is a middle ground between and . As a result, the presence of thresh will override how. subset: accepts a list of column names. When a subset is present, N/A values will only be checked against the columns whose names are provided.
PySpark has no concept of inplace, so any methods we run against our DataFrames will only be applied if we set a DataFrame equal to the value of the affected DataFrame ( df = df.dropna() ).
My dataset is so dirty that running dropna() actually dropped all 500 rows! Yes, there is an empty cell in literally every row. Here's where we benefit from passing column names to subset:
df = df.dropna(subset=['postal_code', 'city', 'country', 'address_1'])
display(df)
Things are looking cleaner already:
Replacing N/A Values
While N/A values can hurt our analysis, sometimes dropping these rows altogether is even more problematic. Consider the case where we want to gain insights to aggregated data: dropping entire rows will easily skew aggregate stats by removing records from the total pool and removing records which should have been counted. In these cases, fillna() is here to help.
fillna() accepts a value, and will replace any empty cells it finds with that value instead of dropping rows:
df = df.fillna(0)
display(df)
fillna() also accepts an optional subset argument, much like dropna() .
Dropping Duplicate Rows
Another top-10 method for cleaning data is the dropduplicates() method. By itself, calling dropduplicates() on a DataFrame drops rows where all values in a row are duplicated by another row. Like the other two methods we've covered so far, dropduplicates() also accepts the subset argument:
df = df.dropduplicates(subset="recall_number")
display(df)
Selecting Data From a DataFrame
There’s another problem: it has a lot of useless columns. No, seriously, check out what happens when I run df.printSchema() :
root
|-- classification: string (nullable = true)
|-- center_classification_date: timestamp (nullable = true)
|-- report_date: timestamp (nullable = true)
|-- postal_code: string (nullable = true)
|-- termination_date: timestamp (nullable = true)
|-- recall_initiation_date: timestamp (nullable = true)
|-- recall_number: string (nullable = true)
|-- city: string (nullable = true)
|-- more_code_info: string (nullable = true)
|-- event_id: integer (nullable = true)
|-- distribution_pattern: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_application_number: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_brand_name: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_dosage_form: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_generic_name: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_manufacturer_name: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_product_ndc: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_product_type: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_route: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_substance_name: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_spl_id: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_spl_set_id: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_pharm_class_moa: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_pharm_class_cs: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_pharm_class_pe: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_pharm_class_epc: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_upc: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_unii: string (nullable = true)
|-- openfda_rxcui: string (nullable = true)
|-- recalling_firm: string (nullable = true)
|-- voluntary_mandated: string (nullable = true)
|-- state: string (nullable = true)
|-- reason_for_recall: string (nullable = true)
|-- initial_firm_notification: string (nullable = true)
|-- status: string (nullable = true)
|-- product_type: string (nullable = true)
|-- country: string (nullable = true)
|-- product_description: string (nullable = true)
|-- code_info: string (nullable = true)
|-- address_1: string (nullable = true)
|-- address_2: string (nullable = true)
|-- product_quantity: string (nullable = true)
I don’t even know what some of these columns are. Even if I were to drop every column I didn’t recognize, I’d still be wasting a ton of time going down this list. Luckily, we have select() . When we call select() on a DataFrame, we can explicitly call out which columns to keep:
df = df.select('classification', 'report_date', 'termination_date', 'city', 'distribution_pattern', 'status', 'product_type', 'country', 'product_description', 'address_1', 'address_2', 'product_quantity') display(df)
Our data is starting to look digestible by humans (unlike the presumably horrible drugs listed in our table):
Filtering Data
Sometimes we’ll work with data which has a number of outliers which skew our results. Other times, we’ll only want to work with rows which belong to a particular subset of information. Here’s how we’d clean our data to only contain cases which occurred in South San Francisco:
df = df.filter(df.city == "South San Francisco")
The contents of filter() will always be a conditional where we compare the values in a certain column against an intended value. The easiest way to access a DataFrame's column is by using the df.column_name syntax.
In our case, we’re comparing a column holding strings against a provided string, South San Francisco (for numerical values, we could use the greater-than and less-than operators as well).
Filtering by String Values
Aside from filtering by a perfect match, there are plenty of other powerful ways to filter by strings in PySpark. Take a look:
df.filter(df.city.contains('San Francisco') : Returns rows where strings of a column contain a provided substring. In our example, filtering by rows which contain the substring "San Francisco" would be a good way to get all rows in San Francisco, instead of just "South San Francisco".
: Returns rows where strings of a column contain a provided substring. In our example, filtering by rows which contain the substring "San Francisco" would be a good way to get all rows in San Francisco, instead of just "South San Francisco". df.filter(df.city.startswith('San')) : Returns rows where a string starts with a provided substring.
: Returns rows where a string starts with a provided substring. df.filter(df.city.endswith('ice')) : Returns rows where a string starts with a provided substring.
: Returns rows where a string starts with a provided substring. df.filter(df.city.isNull()) : Returns rows where values in a provided column are null.
: Returns rows where values in a provided column are null. df.filter(df.city.isNotNull()) : Opposite of the above.
: Opposite of the above. df.filter(df.city.like('San%')) : Performs a SQL-like query containing the LIKE clause.
: Performs a SQL-like query containing the LIKE clause. df.filter(df.city.rlike('[A-Z]*ice$')) : Performs a regexp filter.
: Performs a regexp filter. df.filter(df.city.isin('San Francisco', 'Los Angeles')) : Looks for rows where the string value of a column matches any of the provided strings exactly.
In addition to filtering by strings, we can also filter by columns where the values are stored as dates or datetimes. Perhaps the most useful way to filter dates is by using the between() method, which allows us to find results within a certain date range. Here we find all the results which were reported in the years 2013 and 2014:
df = df.filter(df.report_date.between('2013-01-01 00:00:00','2015-01-11 00:00:00'))
Filtering via where()
.where() is another way of achieving the same effect that we accomplished with filter() :
df = df.where((df.city == "South San Francisco"))
Sorting Our DataFrame
Finally, there are a few ways we can sort the data in our DataFrame to our liking. My preferred method is by using orderBy() :
df = df.orderBy('report_date', ascending=False)
orderBy() sorts results in the way we'd expect: string columns are sorted alphabetically, numerical columns are sorted chronologically, etc. The ascending keyword parameter allows us to display these results descending order when ascending is equal to False.
Notice how we passed ‘report_date’ as a string, as opposed to df.report_date? PySpark allows us to do this for some reason. This won’t work when filtering, however, because df = df.filter("city" == "South San Francisco") looks like we're trying to evaluate a string against a string.
A shittier way of achieving the same effect is by using the sort() method. sort() is shittier than orderBy() because the syntax is uglier, and because it requires us to import something just to list our results in descending order:
from pyspark.sql.functions import desc df = df.sort(desc("published_at"))
That’s all the time we have for today folks. Join us next time when we explore the magical world of transforming DataFrames in PySpark. | https://hackingandslacking.com/cleaning-pyspark-dataframes-1a3f5fdcedd1 | ['Todd Birchard'] | 2019-06-24 12:01:02.931000+00:00 | ['Pyspark', 'Apache Spark', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Data Engineering'] |
When Can We Stop Talking About COVID-19 Please? | Health
When Can We Stop Talking About COVID-19 Please?
Politicians and experts are talking too much
Photo by Cade Renfroe on Unsplash
I have reached breaking point. Every time I turn on the TV, there is a talk show and they are talking about you know what. That virus thing. I will not even mention it! There will be variations on what virologists, epidemiologists, immunologists, and politicians think now. As opposed to yesterday.
How many talk shows? Here in Italy, where I live there are 7 a day while in Germany they only have about 6 every week! In addition, every news bulletin gives extensive and exhausting coverage of the topic as well.
Why not have one and only one bulletin about COVID-19 every day, such as the one that WHO issues? This would leave us time to breathe and also talk about other topics such as our life.
There will be warnings about how useless it is to comment on the data. The WHO weighs in today and says that one person in Europe dies of COVID-19 every 17 seconds. Daily data is not a real indicator of when and if the peak will happen. After all, we will have to wait another two weeks. My question is then why are we asking them now?
This is the second wave. Then more questions and very carefully worded disclaimers about the third wave. We do not know when or if it will even happen. It does depend on how each one of us behaves. Maybe, we need more data!
Then the parameters have driven everyone mad here in Italy. The wise men have decided that there are 21 of them. The regional governments are wringing their hands and say that 5 is more than enough. There will be a statement made, discussion in Parliament, and maybe yet another government decree. What is it today?
We need simple and practical guidelines- not endless discussions that make us switch off anyway. This is why I think there is far too much of it.
Then there is Christmas. One virologist, Ilaria Capua, said that Santa Claus should be wearing a mask but this was probably to reassure children and also stress that everyone has a role to play in being responsible. The Italian Prime Minister has said that this Christmas will be a soft one. Un Natale soft. Light Christmas. There are to be no kisses and hugging. Try telling Italians that!
We think of precious past Christmases when they were the full-on ones or the scrumptious ones. It just gets more and more ridiculous. In the UK, police have even said that they will invade people’s homes and check if they are abiding by the rules. How many people can you hide under that dining table, Mum? I have written a satirical piece here which will make you laugh.
Laugh? Yes, that is all I can do now. Oh yes, the message from all that chatting, discussing, arguing, blustering, pandering and pleading is the following:-
Wear a mask, keep your distance and wash your hands and we will all be fine.
Oh yes, a vaccine is arriving and that is much better than any gift you might get from Santa Claus. Unless you are a negationist and anti-vaxxer of course. That discussion will be the next talk-show pandemic and I will end up in a psychiatric unit.
We can still wish each other a Happy Christmas, I hope! By phone or on WhatsApp of course. Start getting your memes ready!
Other fun stuff I have written is here:- | https://medium.com/politically-speaking/when-can-we-stop-talking-about-covid-19-please-ea387de0b7a7 | ['Robert W. Locke'] | 2020-11-19 17:54:43.566000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Tv Talk Shows', 'Italy', 'Politics', 'Health'] |
How I learned to make simple, healthy and cheap meals | Everything here is from Trader Joe’s except the sauce.
I’m no Julia Child. I hate to cook, and I’m a fussy eater — a bad combination, especially when money is tight.
However, retirement now gives me the time to plan my shopping and menu more prudently, an extra challenge when you live alone. I’ve become more adventuresome as well. I started using onion in a lot of dishes. I add tomatoes — a favorite — to sandwiches, etc. I’m using fresh herbs and other spices for the first time!
Pizza
Who knew homemade pizza could be so easy (and cheap!) to make at home? And pretty tasty, too.
The finished product: Sauce, cheese, artichokes, cherry tomatoes, chicken sausage.
I buy Monteli organic pizza crusts from Trader Joe’s (where I buy 90 percent of my food). They’re gluten free without GMO ingredients and made in wood-fired ovens in Italy, just $3.29. They are frozen (two to a pack), so they have a bit of sodium.
I simply add two-third cups of sauce and cheese and then toppings. I try to be healthy so I usually add artichokes, tomatoes and already cooked chicken sausage, all from Trader Joe’s.
In a 420-degree oven for just five minutes and a meal fit for a lazy cook!
Slow cooker
I brought out my slow cooker for the first time in years. Before my son went off to college, I used to serve him dinner several times a week, so I made larger meals such as pot roast. I generally don’t like to eat the same food two days in a row. Now I’m freezing and eating leftovers more often to save money.
My slow cooker favorites so far have been beef stew and chicken soup, both such hearty meals in cooler weather and providing plenty of leftovers that can be frozen. I still need to get better with seasonings. These two recipes turned out well, however.
Damn Delicious Slow Cooker Beef Stew
Delish chicken noodle soup
In the wok
Stir-fry meals have been a staple for me for years, again because they are simple and quick. I buy all the ingredients at Trader Joe’s: chicken tenders, a vegetable mix that comes with sauce and basmati or jasmine rice. I usually add an orange or yellow pepper.
Rinsing and cooking rice takes about 20 minutes or so, but the rest of the meal is done within 15 minutes or so, after you cut the onion and pepper. This is a tasty and healthy dish, and always good for a second meal.
In the oven
I often buy four boneless pork chops at Aldi, my other favorite grocery, and get two meals out of them. I first follow this very easy recipe and add different veggies to serve with the first two.
The Stay at Home Chef Easy Baked Pork Chops
Two days later, I cut up the two remaining chops into small pieces and add to a frying pan where I’ve already sauteed onion in olive oil. Add some already cooked (made from frozen) fried rice from Trader Joe’s, and it’s an instant and cheap meal.
The Japanese Fried Rice and Vegetable Fried Rice from TJ’s are staples in my freezer. They are inexpensive, and like most TJ foods, they are free of unnecessary additives and preservatives.
Trader Joe’s
In fact, I would be undernourished or very poor if it weren’t for Trader Joe’s. I’ve shopped there weekly since it opened in Gainesville, Fla., about seven years ago. They are always adding (and sometimes subtracting, of course) different foods or variations with lots of novel offerings. You can expand your palate with items from around the world. In addition, I avoid sugar additives, nitrates and corn syrup. So does Trader Joe in most of his offerings.
Although their organic foods are more expensive, they still are cheaper at TJ’s than at other markets here. I try to buy organic unless it’s just outrageously priced.
The only bad part of Trader Joe’s is an abundance of sweet and fattening products.
As my metabolism slows, I’ve started paying more attention to the calories and other nutrition information. It can be shocking. But life is short, and you need to imbibe.
Always on my indulgence list: Cold Brew Latte Dessert Bars….it’s like coffee ice cream on a stick! Just $1.99 for five.
I highly recommend a visit if you’ve never been to a TJ’s or at least check out its website.
Other enthusiasts comment regularly in this Facebook group. | https://medium.com/@ronwayne/im-no-julia-child-1009dc7c1fdb | ['Ron Wayne'] | 2020-12-21 23:28:12.794000+00:00 | ['Thrifting', 'Cooking', 'Trader Joes', 'Foodies', 'Retirement'] |
How to Create a Revolut-Esque Cards Collection View on iOS | How to Create a Revolut-Esque Cards Collection View on iOS
Photo by Arnel Hasanovic on Unsplash.
This article is to help you understand how you can customize a UICollectionView layout by subclassing a UICollectionViewFlowLayout .
We’ll get into insets and line spacing to customize the spacing around the cells and use the UIScrollView protocols to add a snapping behavior to each cell when a user scrolls. We’ll also add in a scaling animation to the cells when the user is swiping over them to give it a bouncy feel.
We’ll be creating an In-App Wallet that is similar to what Revolut has (i.e a collection of credit cards that the user can swipe through, centering the selected card and displaying a small part of other cards):
This is what you will achieve by the end of this article.
Let’s break down the problem into three parts:
Add spacing between cards such that a part of the previous and the next card is visible (centered pagination).
Add a snap-on-scroll behavior so that only one card is in the center of the screen.
Scale down the selected card when the user starts scrolling and scale up the new card on scroll end.
So let’s get started. 🥳 | https://betterprogramming.pub/how-to-create-a-revolut-esque-cards-collection-view-on-ios-c42e649f17a9 | ['Burhan Shakir'] | 2020-12-21 16:36:57.385000+00:00 | ['iOS', 'Xcode', 'Mobile', 'Programming', 'Swift'] |
Essential Items For Cold Weather | Guys winters are coming!! I know many new mom's are super worried about their new borns, of course, you cannot hibernate all winters.
Trust me guys winters with an infant doesn't have to be a big deal... As long as you are properly equipped and fully prepared for it.
Few essentials you need to stock up to be on the safe side. As a mom of three, I would love to share what I've learned along the way.
PULSE OXIMETER
For me, there is nothing quite so heartbreaking as a sick baby. At the same time, there is nothing more perturbing than a baby with an upper respiratory infection. Whether your child has a wheezing sound when they cough or is breathing rapidly, a pulse oximeter can give you an instant reading of the oxygen saturation in their blood. This reading can then help you decide whether they need to be seen by the doctor or should be taken directly to the hospital. Anything less than 90 means your child needs to be seen by a doctor immediately. Having a baby pulse oximeter on hand, along with the skill to properly use it, can offer a piece of mind to parents at a stressful time.
I totally recomend it.
HUMIDIFIER
This is something new-parents must have while setting nursery especially if it’s a winter baby.
There are many benefits of humidifiers for your newborn.
It provides against dry air especially in the winter months when indoor air tends to become dry from your heating system(heaters/inverters) robbing the natural moisture in it.
The harsh air of winters results in frequent sore throats, dry sinuses, and stuffy noses. Since babies are much more susceptible to congestion, they easily fall prey to the infections and sicknesses that often run rampant in the frigid months.
A humidifier adds much-needed moisture to the air and creates optimal breathing conditions, allowing your baby to sleep comfortably and loosen the build-up of mucus which releases conjestion and helps her in taking feed and sleep.
It also helps relieve your baby of irritated, dry skin.
There are two main types of humidifiers;
Warm mist: the warm air they emit can kill germs and viruses. The warmer air also helps baby to breathe by reducing mucus build-up and opening the respiratory passages.
Cool mist: the benefit of cool mist humidifier is that a toddler or young child cannot be scalded when touching or playing with it.
*Both types of humidifiers will add moisture to the air*
Make sure you are cleaning it out weekly to prevent mold and mildew otherwise that is a recipe for infection.
It’s important to allow your humidifier to completely dry between uses. This help eliminate the possibility of mold, germs and lint accumulation.
Distilled water is recommended for better performance.
THERMOMETER
During winters, the microbes and viruses thrive and find hosts to infect. Combined with decreased immunity, babies become an easy targets or diseases.
Keeping yourself equipped is tool to avoid panic attacks.
I know a rectal thermometer gives a more accurate reading but I don’t feel comfortable taking a rectal temperature that’s why I use ear and forehead thermometer.
*Never use a mercury thermometer for your infant or toddlers.*
MOISTURIZER
Your baby skin is extremely sensitive and the harsh atmosphere of the winter can make it super dry. If you want to keep your little one’s skin soft and supple, use a good moisturizer for his/her skin.
NASAL ASPIRATOR
As a mother of three I totally recommend nasal respirator or rubber bulb syringe is a medicine cabinet.
These tiny tools help you clear your newborn’s sensitive nasal passages of mucus, helping relieve congestion in a fussy baby that might be having a hard time feeding and breathing.
I recommend to place a few drops or squirts of saline solution (available at a pharmacy) in each nostril to try and liquefy secretions.
Lay your baby on his back to apply the saline solution and let him/her sit for 20 seconds to see if that alone will help ease congestion. If not, you may want to try the aspirator or bulb syringe.
BOTTLE WARMER
There is nothing worse than trying to calm down a crying hungry baby. When they want food right away and have no patience for the time it takes to heat it safely!
There is no law against giving your baby cold or room temperature milk but there is a reason why baby prefers warm milk.
Breast milk is near to the average human body temperature(98 degrees).
A bottle made with filter water is almost 50 degrees colder than breastmilk. Especially in winter when the body needs more energy to keep itself warm. The baby’s body uses energy to heat cold liquid for digestion.
The conventional way of heating formula milk or breast is very time-consuming... However, if it gets too hot, the next pain would be to cool it to room temperature.
That is where you need a bottle warmer to save all this hassle.
Plus it preserves the nutrients. The use of microwaves can affect the composition of milk and destroy nutrients.
And on the top of the list, you will not have extra pots or dishes to wash.
I find it very convenient especially in winter. | https://medium.com/@madeehadamoun/essential-items-for-cold-weather-4d9204c0f5c5 | ['Madeeha Damoun'] | 2020-11-05 12:53:01.717000+00:00 | ['Winters', 'Baby', 'Tips', 'Parenting', 'Essentials'] |
Forms for New Instances in Rails | Recently I’ve been spending a fair amount of time in this area of rails, and much of that time was spent learning as opposed to executing; so I felt imparting some of my newly found knowledge could save someone else a few hours as they slog through the same experience. (Looking at you, Bootcampers).
Forms are just that, a form that a user can fill out on an application. Typically when we think about forms we think a doctor’s office or a survey but we are inputting information into forms constantly. While I’m writing this article I am putting data into a text_area variable. Filling out the title was most likely a text_field variable, which is very similar to area except for shorter sentences like names, mantras or titles. Below is a look at some of the different variables in forms and how they are represented on screen.
To start a form, use form_for in one of your views and tie it to a model.
text_field and text_area.
The above are examples of where a user inputs data manually, but what if we’d like to choose from a list? That’s where collection_select and collection_check_boxes come in handy. These can be a little bit trickier but are integral to a good experience on a website.
In this example I’m using something from my personal page. I am the user , and repos denote my GitHub repositories (kind of a bad example) but let’s say I wanted to add a repo to an instance of a user . To break it down:
:repos are part of the has_many relationship for a the user and we simply have to permit it in our strong params. Code is as follows:
private def user_params
params.require(:user).permit(:name, :repos)
end end
For this particular example we are only allowing one even though it is a one-to-many relationship.The next helper method allows us to fix that, and choose from many.
Repo.all are the choices we can choose from. Obviously we want a dropdown menu of all of the possible repos, so we call .all on the Repo class. Note that best practice says to set @repos = Repo.all and call @repos on the form.
:id and :url are attributes from the Repo class, :url is in the display position being the furthest to the right and :id is in the value position. It looks like this on the web application:
Repos can now be set from choices on a dropdown menu.
Similar to collection_select we can do collection_check_boxes which allows for multiple selections as opposed to one. This is a much better choice when you have a has_many relationship. Note that this can get a little bit tougher when you’re doing a many-to-many relationship. The code is essentially the same in the form_for . The major changes are in the model/controller. Below is the form.
<%=form_for @user do |f| %>
<%=f.label "Name"%>
<%=f.text_field :name%><br>
<%=f.label "Repos"%><br>
<%=f.collection_check_boxes :repo_id, Repo.all, :id, :url %>
<%=f.submit%>
<%end%>
It took me a little while to wrap my head around this part. Now that we’re being passed an array, we need to add the ability to accept nested attributes to the User class, the code looks as follows:
class User < ApplicationRecord
has_many :repos
accepts_nested_attributes_for :repos
end
The user controller now needs to permit an array for repos as well, and we need to change the create method in the controller.
private def user_params
params.require(:user).permit(:name, repos:[])
end
The controller will need to iterate through the chosen id’s from the application’s user input, find them from the Repo class, and then shovel into the user.repos array.
def create
@user = User.create(name: user_params[:name]) user_params[:repos].each {|repo| @user.repos << Repo.find_by(id:
repo) }
redirect_to @user
end
The final display will show all of the check boxes, so if you have a large pool to choose from, it may not be the best solution for starting out. I’d recommend looking into how to make the check boxes scrollable to allow for a better visual experience.
Since you will often times be using a similar structure for forms there is a way to reuse the same form through partials. The way to do this is to navigate to views and create a new view called _form.html.erb . Then, in any other view you can simply call it through using <%= render ‘form’ %> and it will save you having to rebuild the same code for new/edit. | https://medium.com/@williamchknight/forms-for-new-instances-in-rails-116fb956400 | ['Charlie Knight'] | 2020-12-22 23:18:43.110000+00:00 | ['Rails', 'Collection Select', 'Forms'] |
Designing for a hackathon | Written by: Annie Xu
Each year, students from around the world are eager to participate in hackathons and look forward to an exciting weekend filled with learning experiences, and a healthy dose of competition. Hackers can have very different impressions of each event- starting from the very first social media post.
No matter what we were told growing up, people do judge books by their covers. Design helps represent the identity of the organization and its values as well as what hackers can expect from the event experience. All of this is done through ✨ branding ✨.
Defining the brand identity is just one of the many aspects the Design team is responsible for on Hack the North. Designing visual assets, user experiences, and even wayfinding signage are just some of what falls under our purview. Throughout all of these projects, there are 3 pillars our design team carries into the design process:
Designing with intention 🔬
Designing collaboratively and efficiently 🤝
Designing for inclusion and accessibility 🌎
Designing with intention 🔬
How can we make our website more accessible? What narrative should we build with our brand? What information goes first on the sponsorship package?
When designing for a big event, we often have to make difficult decisions and hope that the decisions we make are objective. In reality, we sometimes get caught up designing in a bubble where we let our biases influence our decisions. As a design team, we make a conscious effort to be intentional with our design decisions and be well informed about our community.
When it comes to each design project, there are two things to always keep in mind: 1) What’s the desired outcome?, and 2) Who’s our audience?. When branding Hack the North 2020++, our goal was to simultaneously encompass the event’s direction while staying identifiable as the event our hackers all know and love. Specifically for 2020, we wanted to emphasize our main mission:
To make it easy for anyone to dream big and build.
Our audience includes passionate and innovative students from around the world. Each year we reach out to our hackers to ask for feedback on the event and their experiences, which helps us better understand the community we’re designing for.
What do our hackers value? What truly makes their experience special?
When designing the brand, we must consider what makes our hackathon unique to our audience. In order to push for inclusivity last year, we designed big and bold empowerment posters for the event. Since our hackers value these unique experiences, we wanted to showcase them on our landing page for 2020. | https://hackthenorth.medium.com/designing-for-a-hackathon-f3025c8aa4df | ['Hack The North'] | 2020-08-07 16:10:14.296000+00:00 | ['Hackathons', 'Accessibility', 'Branding', 'Technology', 'Design'] |
Global warming : Causes and Preventions | The global warming is controversial issue, scientists and experts are in contradiction until now many of their predictions are still uncertain. AS result, they are scientists who argue that global warming is just a phenomenon that taken place before, and still Will take place again. However, before going any further, first let look at the overall aspect of global warming at it description; many scientists has targeted 2 degree Celsius as the unexpected temperature degree but the target still a contest subjects. Global warming is an increase of the earth’s atmospheric and ocean temperature widely predicted to occur due to an increase in the greenhouse gases effect resulting especially to pollution.
According to intergovernmental panel on climate change( IPCC), scientists and all experts on the earth’s climate concluded that human activities are the cause of climate pollution these include: fossil fuel extraction, deforestation, consumption and land use (agriculture)
Global warming is a critical issue that concerns not simply public persons but also each individual and political support as human is mostly exposed to the worse. The greenhouse gases, air and water pollution are the effects of global warming resulting on human health problems and causes death and disease such as: lung cancer, neurological disorders, Asthma, gastrointestinal, etc…
On the other hand, global warming is due to the economic factors (industrialisation and technologies) has accumulated amount of chemical substances to increase the profits and productions and these results in air pollution, carbon dioxide; substances that are coming from cars factories and power plants.
Finally, the best way to save humanity to global warming catastrophe would be preventions as the impacts are hard to predict in advance. They say prevention is better than cure. These solutions will include: | https://medium.com/@mbembeolga/global-warming-1d558e1d4629 | [] | 2020-12-08 15:51:07.141000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Pollution', 'Global Warming', 'Essay', 'Globalization'] |
Crypto Exchange Unwittingly Helps Ransom Racketeers | Over the weekend, I listened to one of the latest episodes of Unchained, which is a podcast featuring interviews with some of the best minds in crypto. In the episode, titled “How Widespread Is Money Laundering in Crypto?” host Laura Shin talked with Tom Robinson, the Chief Data Officer & co-founder of Elliptic, and Yaya Fanusie, the director of analysis at the Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The concept of money laundering through crypto isn’t shocking to anyone, but during the episode, Tom said something surprising: that “ShapeShift doesn’t do KYC. For that reason, the funds from the Wannacry ransom [that] were in Bitcoin were sent to ShapeShift and were then converted to Monero.”
Wait a minute. Ransom racketeers used ShapeShift? What’s going on here?
ShapeShift is a crypto exchange, headquartered in Switzerland, that is currently operating today. They don’t require users to give their personal information in order to clearly identify who is using the service? This is common practice for an exchange. It’s known as KYC, or Know Your Customer. This practice helps prevent bad actors from storing and moving money.
Traditionally, money laundering was a simple concept in theory, if difficult to pull off: run bad money through a shell business, so it looks like lawfully generated revenue. With cryptocurrency, this isn’t really an option, at least not yet, but bad actors have another simple solution to launder their coins: trade them for other coins.
Cryptocurrency has the advantage of being uniquely difficult to trace among currencies. Trading these coins is a faceless transaction with little more than an address to a digital wallet signifying ownership. A single criminal could generate thousands of these addresses to move funds around if they wanted to.
You can see the address, and how much Bitcoin is in that address, but the identity of the owner? Anonymous, though it turns out, only pseudo-anonymous. Criminals can make mistakes. Tracking IP addresses to identify the owners of particular Bitcoin addresses is possible, something that the founder of Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, found out too late.
So if Bitcoin is only pseudo-anonymous, how can criminals better launder their cryptocurrency? Turns out, the answer remains simple. Monero is a privacy coin that blurs individual transactions in groups, making it impossible to see which individual addresses. If someone can transfer stolen Bitcoin into Monero, then they can get away scott free because after that point, there is no longer a trail that can be followed.
ShapeShift, the safest way to buy cryptocurrencies for everyone, but maybe that’s not a good thing.
This is exactly what happened on ShapeShift. Almost one year ago, in August 2017, there were reports of the WannaCry Bitcoin funds moving through the crypto exchange ShapeShift. WannaCry was a ransomware virus that infected over 200,000 computers last year, locked up the systems, and demanded $300 in Bitcoin to unlock it. The hackers behind WannaCry then took just over $140,000 of ransomed Bitcoin and exchanged it on ShapeShift for Monero.
The movement was detected by a company called Elliptic, which works with government agencies and financial institutions and finds illegal activity in cryptocurrencies. Elliptic traced the Bitcoin stolen by WannaCry to ShapeShift, but once that Bitcoin was exchanged into Monero, they could no longer follow the trail.
In the aftermath, ShapeShift acknowledged the transaction, stating “the WannaCry attacker did breach its terms of service and utilized the services to move a portion of their proceeds of crime” and that they were working with law enforcement on the issue. However, this begs the question: how can ShapeShift possibly identify when someone breaches its terms of service when they do not identify their users in the first place? Similarly, what information can they then provide to law enforcement to help with the investigation?
“We have no idea who moved the money either, officer, but we’re here to help.”
On their website, ShapeShift states that “users do not have to create accounts, deposit funds, or provide private personal information. This keeps the users safe from identity or financial theft — a critical improvement in exchange technology.” Sure, protecting user identity is important, so there is an argument that this is an improvement, but at what cost? Who is really being protected?
Reading ShapeShift’s Terms of Service, which were updated in April 9, 2018, the company states that users are “prohibited from using or accessing ShapeShift to transmit or exchange digital assets that are the direct or indirect proceeds of any criminal or fraudulent activity…ShapeShift reserves the right to deny, delay, or cancel a transaction it perceives as a risk of criminal or fraudulent activity.”
How can ShapeShift simultaneously prohibit bad actors from accessing the platform while also maintaining a policy of anonymity? Hint: they can’t. The price of anonymity is that everyone is anonymous, including criminals. As long as the exchange is unregulated, everyone can participate, which can appear beautiful as an idea, but in reality and in execution, it becomes a ground upon which criminals thrive.
This points to why regulation is important and why any website that allows users to trade cryptocurrencies should become regulated and follow regulation. In the US, this would mean the website should be regulated by either the CFTC, SEC or the local regulator, and certainly follow FINCEN rules. Should a foreign regulated entity onboard U.S. citizens, then they need to find a U.S. regulated entity as a correspondent in the transaction to make sure it follows U.S. regulation.
ShapeShift is incorporated in Switzerland, the land of the free and secret banking system. However, being a foreign corporation does not absolve its requirements to follow U.S. regulation if they have at least one U.S. customer. Clearly, ShapeShift has US. customers. Not only is Erik Voorhees, the CEO of ShapeShift, American, but Erik admitted that ShapeShift operates in the United States in a conversation with Kraken’s Jesse Powell about New York’s BitLicense, which is difficult to obtain and one of the first regulatory measures taken in crypto.
How does Erik Voorhees get away with this? Digging into his background, I discovered that in 2014 Erik was sanctioned by the SEC for selling unregistered securities to investors without registering the offering with the SEC or seeking an exemption from registration. Because of the consent decree, Erik agreed to not violate the SEC rules. The strange thing is that ShapeShift is clearly not following the FINCEN rules and SEC regulations because the platform allows tokens that were issued in ICOs to be traded when these tokens are clearly viewed as securities by the SEC. Keep in mind that ShapeShift makes money by enabling anonymous transactions and as such is probably operating as an unregistered exchange.
There’s a reason banks have cameras to identify who comes and goes.
The ShapeShift example illustrates why regulation matters. Those who feel regulation is the enemy of freedom and democracy should reconsider the principles the two are based on. Freedom and democracy are about equal rights, equal access, and equal opportunity. Creating a level playing field for everyone.
In many ways, cryptocurrencies are enabling these principles, but if they better enable criminals to take advantage of others too, then it undermines those original ideals. Perhaps, this type of unregulation can be considered true “freedom,” where anyone can do anything, but as a society, we have already collectively agreed on certain moral principles and laws. Everyone should not be able to do everything. There are crimes that we have decided as a society are wrong. Enabling crime is also wrong. In that sense, we have already let go of the libertarian’s freedom.
This is not to say that ShapeShift or any crypto exchange is directly facilitating criminal activity. I don’t believe Erik built ShapeShift with that intention, nor do I think that anyone would make (or win) an argument saying that exchanges today are comparable to the Silk Road, the most infamous online black market, for example.
However, the Silk Road was in many ways built on Bitcoin. There are inherent dangers to cryptocurrencies, and as a result, there needs to be regulations in place to protect the businesses and people using them. There needs to be accountability. Anonymity is not a step forward in this regard, but one backward.
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For more information, view our Offering Circular. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/crypto-exchange-unwittingly-helps-ransom-racketeers-76425bef8d6b | ['Howard Marks'] | 2019-03-12 19:27:10.912000+00:00 | ['Finance', 'Exchange', 'Regulation', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin'] |
Why I Don’t Pack Heat (a Love Story) | To the confusion of a few of my friends, whom other friends of mine might crassly dub “libtards”, I took my adult-age daughter to a shooting range a couple of times earlier this year. It’s not like I keep up on my NRA membership dues. It’s not that I want her to be a gun-toter. It’s only that I want her to make choices for herself. And if she enjoyed it, maybe we would bond by taking self-defense or concealed carry courses together. I want her to know that her father doesn’t pull favorites when it comes to the Bill of Rights.
We had fun. She shot better groups than I did with a 22 long-rifle revolver. I got the better groups with 9mm Glock, a pretty important result for my frail male ego. As far as I know right now, she’ll never go back to a range. At least, she had the experience.
Earlier this same afternoon, a driver came within a fraction of an inch of running over my toes. I had flatted on my bicycle and decided I would rather hoof it-two miles from a dry apartment-rather than try to inflate the tire adequately with a minuscule 6″ long emergency pump.
As I was passing by a hospital, walking across an apron connecting one of its many parking lots to the street, a man in a car pulled in front of me. I was traveling all of 2 MPH. Feeling no immediate sense of danger, I continued-assuming, albeit warily-he would see me in my bright yellow rain parka, apply his brakes, and yield to the pedestrian wheeling his bike across the village.
Well, nope! He only brought his car to a stop when it was directly in front of me about six inches from my body. If he had rolled straight through, his tires would have rolled way too close to my toes. I did the prudent thing and stopped my forward advance. Actually, I had no choice.
Then, for the sake of all cyclists on the road now and all cyclists who might venture out on the road in the future, who someday might encounter this same guy on any given day for as long as he legally holds a driver’s license, I barked out, with hearty vigor, “HEY!”.
His face was not that far from mine. It was only separated by a plane of glass, the driver’s side window. I succeeded in exciting him from an evident stupor and for a brief moment I watched as he turned his head and expressed unrehearsed shock to find me there. He had (obviously) not looked both ways. He had no idea how close he came to hitting me. I mean, what if I was going 3 MPH? It could have been all over (for my toes, at least).
On another day, if I was feeling particularly icky, I might have reasoned-as I have done many times in the past-that this guy was assaulting me with a deadly weapon. This is, in fact, a fact. I could have also reasoned that he would do it again (another fact). This is the reason why I don’t pack heat. It’s a short jump in logic, distorted by the heat of outrage, to want to plug that guy in self-defense. Worst case, I’m sure my attorney could have gotten me off on temporary insanity. It’s not like this hasn’t happened to me roughly three hundred times before in a long career of city and suburban cycling. It’s not like I’m not reasonably cautious and don’t try to ratchet up my caution year-after-year. It’s not like I wasn’t exceedingly visible in my bright yellow, reflectorized cycling costume. It’s not like I want to die pointlessly at the hands of a booger-eating moron (sorry, sir, at least I didn’t shoot you).
For the time being, I’m going to leave the guns at the range. If I was married, I would put a gun in a locker and hand the key to my betrothed. As a bachelor, no way.
Or, I might join the Quakers so I could be like that old Quaker, who padded down to the kitchen, found a robber already on the inside of his backdoor, and lowered his blunderbuss in the direction of the intruder.
Friend, he said, I would not harm thee for all the world, but thou standeth where I would shooteth
Choice. That’s a good motto for any parent. Let them choose. Or risk, as Mark Twain once observed, they’ll go for forbidden fruit. | https://medium.com/@john-poplett-52999/why-i-dont-pack-heat-a-love-story-8cb2f8fef935 | ['John Poplett'] | 2020-10-12 21:54:07.856000+00:00 | ['Bill Of Rights', 'Choices', 'Parenting', 'Fatherhood', 'Guns'] |
Building an XR Application in Unity with MRTK [Part 3.5] — Cross-Platform Environment (VR) | In the previous section, the Spatial Awareness System in MRTK was used to bring real-world environment mesh data into the Unity scene. This is useful on Augmented Reality devices such as HoloLens where we can use the scanned world mesh for features such as Physics and occlusion. On virtual reality devices such as provided by Oculus, Microsoft, HTC and more, there is no scanned world mesh provided (at time of this writing). Passthrough AR in a virtual headset is advancing quickly but for the time being, all content in a VR is virtual. Thus, to support a mixed reality device that cross-platforms both AR and VR, there needs to be a virtual environment available for the targets to be placed upon.
Environment Content
For this step, any environment will do. The GitHub version of this project utilized the free models available in the Standard Assets package from Unity. See the Environment prefab in the GitHub project which is also in the root scene. The reader should feel empowered to be creative here!
There are two important settings with the environment GameObjects in order to ensure the rest of the project will work as intended.
All GameObjects in the environment need to be on the SpatialAwareness layer so the orb ball will interact with them. All GameObjects (as desired) need collider components to match their form
Toggling the Environment
Now that there is a virtual environment in the root Unity scene, there needs to be a way to toggle the environment and Spatial Awareness system from the previous section depending on what kind of device is being used at runtime.
This can be done by utilizing the CameraSystem in MRTK. The CameraSystem has a public property IsOpaque. If true, the current device is a “Virtual Reality” type device and if false, the device is a transparent “Augmented Reality” endpoint. The CameraSystem can easily be access by the CoreServices static helper class in MRTK. Thus, one can easily check if the device IsOpaque and if false, then hide all virtual assets under the Environment GameObject and allow the Spatial Awareness system to run. Otherwise, explicitly disable the Spatial Awareness system by using CoreServices to access it and calling Disable().
From the previous section, there was also the Spatial Mesh Observer which utilized a static mesh object in the project to simulate a scanned room environment. In order to run this in editor for testing, a simple flag can be added to hide the virtual environment and keep the Spatial Awareness system enabled to utilize the Spatial Mesh Observer in editor.
Previous section: [Part 3] — Scanning the Environment (AR)
Next section: [Part 4] — Building the targets
Table of Contents
References | https://medium.com/@troyferrell/building-an-xr-application-in-unity-with-mrtk-part-3-5-cross-platform-environment-vr-5db968b5950d | ['Troy Ferrell'] | 2020-12-11 06:09:57.577000+00:00 | ['Hololens', 'Virtual Reality', 'Augmented Reality', 'Oculus'] |
What I Wish I Could Have Said: Reflections from a Mental Health Mama | As my child’s screams echo throughout the store I’m feeling rather embarrassed. No. Make that mortified. People are looking; staring even. My child is not a toddler. She’s “big enough to know better”.
I’m a very quiet person and this is not how I wanted to spend my afternoon. A quick trip to the store to spend a little birthday money has turned into a nightmare and I can’t find a way out.
I can feel the judgement all around me and all I can do is put my head down, focus on my daughter and make a hasty exit. Later that evening in a calm moment at home, I reflected on what I really wanted to say to the people we encountered.
I want to tell them that she’s doing the best she can.
That we work really hard to make a plan and stick to it.
That she is a sensitive soul and easily loses it.
That this is not a temper tantrum, but rather an inability to cope.
That there was nothing I could have done to stop this in its tracks; it just had to run its course.
That there is no specific diagnosis that will explain her behaviors (although she’s carried several: generalized anxiety disorder, sensory processing disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, attention deficit disorder).
That years of occupational therapy and counseling have not solved this for us, although things have gotten easier.
That I’m not a bad parent although I often feel like I am.
Aside from all of the things that I wish I could have said in that moment and countless other moments, here are 8 things to know about parenting a child who experiences mental health challenges:
Parenting challenging kids can be lonely work. While we work hard to find our supports, it can feel very isolating to be in this situation. Very few people can understand the challenges of raising kids who struggle with their emotional health unless they’ve been there. We pretend like everything is ok. Even when it’s not. Please don’t make assumptions. No one can truly know anyone else’s story. A little empathy can go a long way toward helping us feel more supported. We’re exhausted. Sleepless nights, endless appointments and meetings, and trying to stay one step ahead leave us physically and emotionally depleted. We never know what’s coming when the phone rings. Is it the school calling again? The doctor? We don’t always want to answer, but we know we have to. We’re all doing the best we know how to do. That includes you! We feel judged. Even if others around us aren’t actually judging us, we tend to be judging ourselves. Stigma is real. Mental health struggles continue to be surrounded by stigma. No one wants to talk about it, especially when it comes to our kids. Yet, we know that 17% or about one in every six youth ages 6–17 experiences a mental health disorder. In the adult population, one in four suffers from a diagnosable mental health disorder in any given year. That’s a lot of families affected by this dark secret.
So, let’s talk about it! We owe it to our children, our loved ones and ourselves to get the help and support we all need. The more we normalize the conversation around mental health (which we all have, just like physical health!), the healthier we will all be. It’s time to bring mental health into the light of day and give it the attention it deserves. | https://medium.com/@mamaresilience/what-i-wish-i-could-have-said-reflections-from-a-mental-health-mama-e999946c5381 | ['Serena Ward'] | 2020-12-27 15:46:25.697000+00:00 | ['Mental Illness', 'Parenting', 'Resilience', 'Mental Health', 'Stigma'] |
Treat Your Child Like an Adult | Photo by Evelyn Semenyuk on Unsplash
Treat your child like an adult? But why, isn’t she just a child? Why should I try to treat my child like an adult? Well, one of the key objectives of parenting is to train your child to be an adult someday. Is it not? What better way of training than the popular cliché, practice makes perfect!
I am sure you’ve observed your child talk like you or repeat your frequently used words and phrases just when you were not expecting it. If you treat your child like an adult, she learns to do the same, plus a lot of other benefits.
An adult-to-adult interaction suggests that the two individuals are equally important in the situation. Though they may not be of the same age, have equal subject knowledge, or have equal experiences in life, in an adult-to-adult interaction, both individuals have an equal say in the ongoing conversation.
Imagine your 7-year-old daughter playing with her friends well past her agreed cut off time. She needs to be back home to complete her school assignments.
Mom: Leela! You know you must be back home by 7 pm. Why do I need to remind you every day? There are piles of assignment sheets waiting for you. Don’t you already know that? C’mon hurry! Drop everything and come back this minute! Leela: Please Mom, just a few more minutes. I am winning. Please let me finish the game. Mom: Oh C’mon! You always do this!
It’s possible that Leela dropped everything, made a face and followed her mother back home. It is also possible that despite the coaxing, Leela went on to play for a few more minutes.
If we look at this interaction, the mother clearly establishes that Leela is irresponsible and not bothered about her school assignments. Leela also responds without showing any concern for the schoolwork.
What if the conversation went something like this?
Mom: Leela, are you ready to wrap up your play? It’s 7 pm already. I know you want to complete all your schoolwork before bedtime. Leela: Sure! But I wish I could finish the game; I’ve almost won. Mom: Ok, five more minutes. I am waiting for you; we’ll quickly walk back home.
This time the mother did not force Leela to leave at once but suggested an alternative. As a result of both interactions, Leela would either leave at once realizing that she needed to work on her assignments, or she would take a little more time before she returns. However, in the second interaction, the mother showed more respect for the child and indicated that she trusted Leela to make the right choice with respect to schoolwork.
We can clearly see that the second conversation is a healthy adult-to-adult type of interaction. Both persons show mutual respect and value the opinion of the other. The mother in the second conversation negotiates with the child instead of dictating what needs to be done. Now, this child is more likely to be respectful and demonstrate good social behaviour later in life as children tend to copy the behaviour of their parents or other care givers.
Let’s look at another very common parenting situation. The child always reaches the bus stop last minute and almost misses the school bus. There is commotion at home every morning to ensure that she is on time.
Mom: Hurry! There are only 5 minutes left. Why did you not pack your bag last night and make sure you have everything? This is so irresponsible of you. If it weren’t for me, you would miss your bus every day. Leela: You are upset for nothing. You don’t need to be after me every morning. I haven’t once missed the bus yet.
This conversation is not an adult-to-adult conversation as both individuals are not equal here. The mother has raised herself to a higher plane indicating that Leela is irresponsible and dependent on her for day-to-day things. How can we do this differently?
Mom (the night before): Leela, I hope you have packed your bag and are all set for tomorrow. Let me know if you need anything. Leela: Don’t worry about me! I have everything I need.
Next day morning, the mom resists the temptation to nudge and help. She lets Leela take the ownership of reaching the bus stop on time. When Leela gets no help, she is more likely to make more effort herself. If she does miss the bus a couple of times, it only reinforces the mother’s advice. Leela will also need to put up with the consequences like making up for the missed schoolwork and explaining to her friends and teachers why she missed school. On the other hand, despite her seemingly last-minute attitude, if Leela manages to catch the bus every day, the mom learns that Leela probably has her own way of getting things done but she is an independent individual. Isn’t that the final goal of parenting?
What are the other benefits of treating your child like an adult?
High Self Esteem
Children form their impression of the world based on what adults around them show and tell them. If you constantly criticize the world and society around you, your children are more likely to have a negative view of the world too. Similarly, when you constantly tell your children that they are not good enough at sports, academics, managing their time, or social interactions, they believe that about themselves and it deeply affects their self-esteem. I realized this one day when my son was about 4 or 5, and he told me that he liked being the bad guy. It made me think if he really believed that he was a bad guy. I wondered if I was unknowingly conveying that to him. I knew that I needed to change his view of himself. I knew I needed to choose my words carefully with him.
Better Self Confidence and Decision Making
I am sure you have a friend who thinks a thousand times before buying a shirt and even after getting it looks for appreciation to confirm that he made the right choice. Such a person is a reluctant decision maker. If you treat the child like an adult, you demonstrate trust in her abilities to manage her life. When the child can try out choices and see them work or fail, it improves her ability to make a better choice next time. The consequences of making a wrong choice or decision are not very high at a young age. So, why not let them try out and practice decision making now? This will make them more confident later in life and not afraid to take decisions. You need to accept the fact that the child may make mistakes a few of times and that’s part of the growing up journey. Do we all not make mistakes even as adults?
Better Social Skills
You are your child’s role model. If you talk to your child respectfully, she will learn to do the same. If you listen to her with patience and let her keep her viewpoint, she is more likely to be a good listener and appreciate the point of view of others. Such a child is likely to be more accommodating of other people’s behaviour. Besides this, empathy, kindness, civic sense, etc. are very valuable social skills that you need as an adult. If parents are mindful of these aspects during their conversation with their children, the children are more likely to reciprocate the same not just with parents and family but also in their other social interactions.
Even after trying so hard, once in a while, if we do lose our calm and get emotional, there is no need to be too harsh on ourselves. Remember, no one taught us how to parent; we all are learning on the job. | https://medium.com/@richa.optimom/treat-your-child-like-an-adult-407e79884eb7 | ['Richa Sabharwal'] | 2021-09-14 04:31:32.212000+00:00 | ['Parenting', 'Adulthood', 'Modern Parenting', 'Indian Parenting', 'Self Esteem'] |
O Venerable, O Ancient! | Once in a grey hour of despair
I huddled within in an ego shell
Caught in grip of a futility’s spell,
A gloom was upon my stare.
O why must I be most unvisited
By Thee I thought; unfriended, alone
Bereft of Thee and most forlorn
In this empty house of Night.
And then I heard in a million cells
Thy voice, a flower-soft resonant thunder,
Drowning my being in utmost wonder
Saying, ‘O who in despair calls
To Me in all things ever present?
Deaf mute to all apparent glory
That I invested in thy little story?
In what speck am I now absent
I who uphold thee on this globe?
The sentinel stars I have appointed
From empty space to thee guard.
I shield thy soul with a living robe,
Crowned thee with a mind to muse.
The daily victory of the champion sun
Over all that the Night has done,
Its daily distortions, its wily ruse.
I send thee messenger birds
On airy roads through space afar,
In melodious beaks My words of care
To shore thee from sullen moods.
O lone pilgrim in eternal Time,
Thy roads are never empty
Of My unerring will and beauty,
Circle boldly My manifest shrine.’
The words then sunk to my soul,
It awoke then from Time’s stupor,
In radiance the gloom did disappear
Outshining this matter’s dim rule.
I then prayed, ‘O Venerable, O Ancient,
Obeisance to Thee most beneficent!’ | https://medium.com/inevitable-word/o-venerable-o-ancient-f6a4619bc80e | ['Mahesh Cr'] | 2020-12-16 17:02:02.830000+00:00 | ['Sri Aurobindo', 'Poetry Writing', 'Poetry', 'Yoga', 'Poetry On Medium'] |
2 Simple Habits to Make you a Better Enterprise Software Engineer | Next Level Engineering
2 Simple Habits to Make you a Better Enterprise Software Engineer
Take your software engineering career to the next level with these straightforward, actionable habits.
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
In my first post-collegiate job, I was thrown into a whirlwind of new technologies, emails, management, and JIRAs. I was barely keeping afloat while getting the hang of all the new skills I needed to transition from a student to a professional.
Eventually, I began to settle into the new role. I knew what to expect from daily meetings and could complete a change (with tests!) all on my own. The initial boost of new skills to learn when becoming a professional started to wear off. I started to wonder, is there all there is? Continually chasing my proverbial tail trying to be “up to date” on the latest tech?
I came to my mentor with one question: “How do I keep growing?” I fully expected him to tell me to learn a new technology or work more hours. Instead, I received 2 simple, actionable habits that had nothing to do with technology. Since then, my career trajectory has taken off like a rocket.
Over Deliver
I completed my code changes slightly ahead of schedule and with a high level of quality. I practiced the Clean Code and was always seeking feedback. My manager evaluated me positively for my performance, but not exceptionally. I felt ready to grow, but my manager didn’t seem to share that feeling. I was frustrated by the humdrum day to day work, and I was ready for more. Why didn’t my manager ask me to take on new, exciting projects? What was I missing?
My mentor explained to me the importance of over-delivering. If you want your manager to give you more responsibility, show them that you can do more work. Why should my manager trust me to handle new things without any evidence that I could? All I had shown was that I could handle my current workload. If I was ready for more, I should certainly be able to show that through my work.
Good Enough Is Not Good Enough
In school, doing “enough” was generally all you needed to get the highest marks possible. There was no reason to do anything extra because it did not contribute to your success. If anything, it slowed you down. The results graph looked like this:
Image by Alex Power (Author)
However, nearly the opposite is true at work. Doing the minimum effort required to complete your tasks is the standard. There is very little reward for simply doing what is asked. The results graph looks more like this:
Image by Alex Power (Author)
Not only is there no upper limit to the results you can attain at work, but extra effort begets more results, not less. A little bit of over-delivery causes a lot of extra results. Over delivering is simple — just do more than you were asked to do.
Armed with the knowledge of the impact of effort, my mentor advised me to keep the following habit: For every 4 tasks assigned to you, complete 1 extra task. By doing this, I instill in my manager and peers alike that I am efficient and effective enough to continually do more than what was asked.
Shortly after implementing this practice, my manager was excited to bestow me with new responsibilities. Obviously, I could handle not only my current tasks but I could be creative and find ways to provide additional value.
Here are a few simple ideas to provide bonus value to your team:
Complete an extra change from the backlog. Preferably, something high priority or that your manager has specifically asked for but no one has had time to do. Make quality of life change for developers, or refactor a component that has been causing trouble. Create or update documentation and training materials. Create a tool or process to help your team be more productive. For example, a testing framework or build process upgrade.
Read
I was happily cruising along, regularly over-delivering, and steadily growing my responsibilities and expertise. By continuing to over-deliver, I consistently learned new incremental skills. I focused heavily on the quality of my work, which gave me incremental gains in my existing skills. As I took on new responsibilities and engaged in over-delivery, I was able to learn and master new adjacent skills.
After a few months of this, I settled into this cycle of incrementally improving my skills. I became the subject matter expert in a few technological and business domains. I helped to educate other new folks as they grew into their own roles. But what is my next step? I feel like I’m growing, but it’s still not substantially different than what I already do.
Incremental Is Not Enough
What I needed was a fundamental change. I was looking for brand-new skills and ideas that were also applicable to my daily work. What is the source of such new ideas? The answer was simple: read a book.
By reading, you can engage deeply with new ideas. No matter what you read about, there will always be cross-applicability. Choose a topic and just start reading. The best advice I received was to plan out 30 minutes of your day just to read. Block it off on your calendar and stick to it. Once you are in the habit of reading regularly, you can try incorporating a variety of genres:
By reading these books, I expanded my worldview from the immediate concerns of my job to many high-level ideas. Implementing those ideas and taking action on them has provided immeasurable value to my career. The simplest way to impress upon your boss and peers that you are going places in your career is to be a consistent source of new ideas. This heavily implies that you are not only doing your job but also thinking about your job.
The best part is, books are free from the library. Too lazy to go to the library like me? Use an app like Libby and read free books on your favorite kindle device (or phone). The impending deadline of having to return the book helps keep me on track with reading.
Success Follows Habits
Consistency was key in my career. By sticking to over-delivery and consistent reading, I was always a step or two ahead of where my manager expected me to be. My career began to take off, and in 3 short years, I’ve taken over the functional architecture of our client’s new flagship payments product. I’m certain that if you stick to it, you will crush your goals too.
For every 4 assigned tasks, deliver 1 extra. Read daily.
And, if you like reading, here are some recommendations | https://medium.com/javarevisited/2-simple-habits-to-make-you-a-better-enterprise-software-engineer-4fce7ac979ef | ['Alex Power'] | 2020-11-08 10:41:16.072000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Habits', 'Careers', 'Programming', 'Enterprise Technology'] |
Can’t Decide Between Gold or Bitcoin? Why Not Both? — U.S. Global Investors | Please note: The Frank Talk articles listed below contain historical material. The data provided was current at the time of publication. For current information regarding any of the funds mentioned in these presentations, please visit the appropriate fund performance page.
June 17, 2021
Paul Tudor Jones is super bullish on Bitcoin right now and may give the crypto the same 5% weighting as gold, commodities and cash.
Two years ago this month, the billionaire hedge fund manager said that gold was his favorite trade in the next 12 to 24 months due to geopolitical disruptions, among other factors. The yellow metal “has everything going for it,” he told Bloomberg.
It was a good call. Over the next 12 months, the gold price surged from around $1,330 an ounce to $1,730, and in August 2020 it eventually hit its all-time high of $2,073-a 55% increase from the day Jones announced his bullishness.
This week he made a similar call in response to runaway inflation, saying he’d go “all in” on not just gold but also crypto and commodities if the Federal Reserve refuses to step in and tame rising consumer prices. (For the record, the Fed did just that, leaving rates at historic lows for now.)
“If [the Fed governors] say, ‘We’re on the path, things are good,’ then I would just go all in on the inflation trades. I’d probably buy commodities, buy crypto, buy gold,” Jones told CNBC.
He added that he wanted “5% in gold, 5% in Bitcoin, 5% in cash, 5% in commodities.”
Jones’s comments come just a few weeks after fellow billionaire hedge fund guru Ray Dalio surprised investors by saying he’d rather own Bitcoin than government bonds. Investing in bonds has become “stupid,” he said, since yields are currently lower than the rate of inflation.
Like Jones, Dalio has traditionally been a fan of gold, and as of Bridgewater’s most recent filing, his fund had a $277 million position in SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and a $143 million position in the iShares Gold Trust (IAU). The fund also held relatively small positions in a number of companies involved in precious metal mining, including Barrick Gold, Newmont, Agnico-Eagle Mines and Wheaton Precious Metals.
With Inflation on the Rise, Investors May Not Be Able to Afford Shunning Gold and Bitcoin
I think both Paul Tudor Jones and Ray Dalio are right to allocate funds to gold as well as its digital cousin Bitcoin. Some investors try to make it an either/or debate, but generally I believe there’s enough room in most portfolios for both assets, not to mention exposure to commodities.
I’ll show you why in a moment, but for now, there shouldn’t be any question that inflation is here, transitory or not. A basket of commodities, including gold, is close to touching and exceeded its all-time high set in 2011 as shortages, labor scarcity and a mounting backlog of orders lift prices for everything from aluminum to wheat.
As a result, prices received by producers for finished goods and services rose at the fastest pace on record last month. The final demand index advanced 6.6% in May, the largest increase ever since 12-month data began to be collected in late 2010.
Seeking a haven, then, makes a lot of sense to me at this time. Stocks have so far shrugged off higher inflation, but it’s important to recognize that rising consumer prices are often a self-fulfilling prophecy, regardless of the Fed’s actions. Many investors may not be able to afford shunning gold and Bitcoin.
Gold and Crypto Beat Tech Stocks
Even if inflation weren’t such a concern, gold and Bitcoin have performed well enough in recent months to justify having them in your portfolio.
In fact, according to a recent report by Bloomberg commodity strategist Mike McGlone, a simple 80/20 index of metals and cryptos has beaten the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 since August 2017, when the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index was launched.
When combined at a 20% weight with the Bloomberg All Metals Index, Mike’s metals-cryptos 80/20 index has been very competitive against and ended the period higher than the Nasdaq-100. What’s more, it did that with lower volatility.
“Volatility is relative, and when combined with gold, Bitcoin has been less risky than the S&P 500, which should sustain the quasi-currency’s outperformance in 2021,” Mike writes.
That’s not to say that Bitcoin is risk-free. Far from it. But when used prudently with gold, it could help shield investors from potentially rocky market volatility triggered by higher-than-expected inflation.
For more on gold and crypto, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking here!
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The Commodity Research Bureau (CRB) Index acts as a representative indicator of today’s global commodity markets. The CRB measures the aggregated price direction of various commodity sectors and is designed to isolate and reveal the directional movement of prices in overall commodity trades. The producer price index (PMI) for final demand measures change in prices received by domestic producers for goods, services and construction sold for personal consumption, capital investment, government and export. The Nasdaq 100 Index is a basket of the 100 largest, most actively traded U.S companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index (BGCI) is designed to measure the performance of the largest cryptocurrencies traded in USD. The S&P 500 is a stock market index that tracks the stocks of 500 large-cap U.S. companies.
Holdings may change daily. Holdings are reported as of the most recent quarter-end. The following securities mentioned in the article were held by one or more accounts managed by U.S. Global Investors as of (03/31/2021): Barrick Gold Corp., Newmont Corp., Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. | https://medium.com/@bulldogholmes/cant-decide-between-gold-or-bitcoin-why-not-both-u-s-global-investors-da1a4d92c6f2 | ['Frank Holmes'] | 2021-06-17 21:29:02.910000+00:00 | ['Gold', 'Bitcoin', 'Commodities', 'Au', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
7 Spectacular Reasons to Choose ROR for Your Project | How ROR can be beneficial for your next project?
7 Spectacular Reasons to Choose ROR for Your Project
Explanation to the reasons for you to choose Ruby on Rails for the web development
You must have heard of Twitter, Airbnb, GitHub, or Hulu. But do you know what’s the common thing between all of them? So, all of these use Ruby on Rails as their development tool. And not only these companies, but there are also other major companies using RoR for their online businesses.
The Ruby on Rails has indeed become a hot trend in the technology and the benefits of RoR is something that makes it stand tall against other frameworks.
What is this Ruby on Rails?
Ruby on Rails is a server side web application framework. It was launched in the year of 2005 with the MIT license. From then RoR has powdered various websites for large enterprises as well as for startups. There are around 8,65,472 live websites that are using the RoR. This framework is optimized for sustainable productivity and programming happiness. When developers get comfortable with the coding, there will be limitless customization, development & transformation of your web app.
Now, when there are many server-side frameworks available in the market, then why should you choose Ruby on Rails for your project over other frameworks? Here’s the answer.
7 Spectacular reasons to choose RoR:
1. Open-source Framework
One of the major reasons online players opting for RoR is that it is an open-source web development tool that means anyone can download it and use it without paying for any licenses. Like there are many programming languages having expensive licenses. It runs on the other open-source framework known as Linux. And this makes things a lot easier for developers to work. And this reduces the cost of development as well.
2. Cost-effective
Being an open-source platform, Ruby on rails is very useful for cost reduction. For every development company, money is an essential factor; therefore, you can invest the saved money in other business aspects. Ruby on Rails makes the projects cost-effective and successful & it helps in delivering higher productivity. It is also very budget-friendly for start-ups that enables them to compete with large organizations.
3. Faster web development
Once you get familiar with the RoR, you will realize that it works amazingly fast. So, what is the meaning of faster web development? It’s a platform that allows the speedy time of transition between the development and the reiterating the design of the functions. And the Ruby on Rails based web page will be ready easily. To build a weeb using languages like PHP or Python, it may take around 12 hours, where Ruby on Rails will do this for you in just 6 hours. It follows the convention over configuration that helps in making the project development life cycle short.
4. Clean Codes
Let’s imagine that you own a marvelous web app, and it is performing as per your expectations as well. After months or even years, you felt an issue about which you are not aware of. What will happen? You come to know that the company that built the application is not in existence, or the developers are not part of the company.
No one has the knowledge about the code from where it starts or ends. It would be painful and costly for you to either rebuild everything from basic or getting problems fixed.
Ruby on Rails marks the protocol of coding. And this will be easy to pass from one developer to another developer. Because it’s easy, clean and everyone uses it!
RoR allows fast changes as well. It enables you to edit codes according to your desired modifications. In a long-term model, RoR is a most thoughtful choice because making the change in the codes with this framework would be a cakewalk for you!
5. Security
Don’t you agree that the secure framework is the utmost priority and requirement for any development project? And there are various security measures in the Ruby on Rails that will enable you to earn the trust of developers.
Cybersecurity is a matter of concern for businesses. You would always be concerned about how data can be protected from getting hacked? How can the web be protected from malware and viruses attacks? Here’s your answer, utilise Ruby on Rails.
Because the framework by default has the security features even without extra coding. RoR developers follow the development cycle, which is secure, resulting in the secure application developed in RoR.
6. Huge Library
Ruby on Rails has a huge library that can be utilized to develop projects faster. There are many tools and functions available in the RoR library. Do you know that there are add-ons which are recognized as GEMS? And it’s amazing to know that you will find a Gem to perform anything you need in Ruby on Rails even without the coding. And these kinds of Gems are added in the collection on a regular basis.
So, with such a large library, it is obvious to expect the web application to be unique. And it enables you to expect your RoR developers to give you an excellent output matching your requirements and expectations. Therefore, to hire a Ruby on Rails developer would be beneficial for your project.
7. Easy Learning Curve
The learning curve with Ruby on Rails is easier in comparison with the other server-side programming languages. Because it uses English-like syntax that is easy to write, read and understand for the developers. Ruby is regarded as an easy programming language, and this goes the same for the Ruby on Rails framework too.
Learning to work with the RoR framework is quite easy, and there are a number of tutorials on websites like YouTube and other sites from which one can learn Ruby on Rails easily. As it is easy to learn, developers’ time can be saved because of the elimination of the need for rewriting or creating the code from the beginning.
Concluding notes
There is no doubt that RoR has become an internet sensation. And the benefits of using the Ruby on Rails are priceless. And there are many spectacular reasons to choose Ruby on Rails for your project, as mentioned in the article. So, if you are thinking of choosing Ruby on Rails for your next project, then hire Ruby on Rails developer and get started. In the end, we can say that Ruby on Rails is here to stay! | https://medium.com/devtechtoday/7-spectacular-reasons-to-choose-ror-for-your-project-3e213f3db281 | ['Bharti Purohit'] | 2020-04-15 12:36:05.250000+00:00 | ['Ruby on Rails', 'Open Source Framework', 'Ruby On Rails Development', 'Development', 'Ruby On Rails Developers'] |
The Customer Is King? No, She Is the Hero in the Story! | We’ve all heard the business mantra that the customer is king. It describes the importance customers have to business, and the resulting need to provide good services to them.
While we can probably all agree that our customers are important and that we need to provide great service to them, does the mantra “the customer is king” make sense? And should those of us who work in B2C (business-to-customer) act like it?
Let me give a personal example: Recently, I disappointed a client. This person had rather unrealistic expectations on how quickly and often I could be available for them, given the limited service they had picked and how it was described.
I explained that to them and they quit (which was honestly a relief).
Is that how I would treat a king?
The truth is that it probably depends on whether we’re talking “Game of Thrones” model of kingship or today’s more fashionable representative monarchies. In the first case, I’d probably do whatever is necessary to keep my head… including catering to unreasonable whims.
But is that really the associations we want to have with our customers? A relationship dynamic that’s based on power imbalance and, well, fear?
(And if that’s what we want our work life to look like, wouldn’t it be easier to just get a job so we can have someone else tell us what to do?) | https://medium.com/workyoulove/the-customer-is-king-hero-8e064ca77ae3 | ['Berenike Schriewer'] | 2020-10-15 14:53:30.981000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Customer Service', 'Freelancing', 'Leadership', 'Business'] |
用C#學習物件導向設計：簡介. 從以前就蠻想好好的來整理下物件導向設計的相關概念，在寫完資料結構與演算法的系列文… | 什麼是物件導向
先來看看維基百科的介紹：
物件導向程式設計（英語：Object-oriented programming，縮寫：OOP）是種具有物件概念的程式程式設計典範，同時也是一種程式開發的抽象方針。它可能包含資料、屬性、程式碼與方法。物件則指的是類別的實例。在物件導向程式程式設計裡，電腦程式會被設計成彼此相關的物件。
根據上面的描述得知，我們可以用類別（Class）來定義一個事物的抽象特點，包含了事物的屬性( Field )以及方法( Method )，像是將類別想像成一個手機藍圖，裡面包含了廠牌名稱，規格及功能等資訊；而物件( Object )即是類別的實體化，可當成根據藍圖實體化生產後的手機。而一個程式中包含著各種獨立而又互相呼叫的物件，即是物件導向程式設計。
為何要學習物件導向
談到為何要學習物件導向，首先要了解一下程式碼的好壞。首先，一段程式要能動的起來，說明這個程式是可以滿足客戶需求的；再來是這個程式應該要能夠被切割，即大的任務能分解成多個小任務，方便在各種情況下進行測試以確保程式能順利運行(單元/集成測試)；然後是這個程式應該是要足夠穩定的，即不會因為更新、添加新功能，就出現錯誤(改 A 壞 B)；程式也需具備能「重覆利用」的特性，可將重覆執行的程式碼獨立出來，增加維護性及開發效率；最後是可讀性與可擴展性，前者是讓人能輕鬆的了解程式的功能，後者則是容易添加新的功能。
看到這邊大家可能都會有種「要馬兒好，又要馬兒不吃草」的感覺，如此完美、顧及每個面向的程式真的有可能寫的出來嗎？個人認為是有些困難的，比較能做到的是寫出「能配合專案需求」且「較好維護」的程式碼，這時對專案的了解程度就很重要了，也能看出一個工程師的功力所在。而透過熟悉物件導向的特性與設計原則，能讓我們在設計程式時，寫出較佳的程式碼。
物件導向的四個重要特性
物件導向程式有四個重要特性如下：
抽象( Abstraction ) 封裝( Encapsulation ) 繼承( Inheritance ) 多型( Polymorphism )
抽象即為將真實的需求轉換成物件導向中的類別，可包含狀態(屬性)與行為(方法)。以前面提及的手機藍圖作例子，我們可將每支手機共有的特性如裝置、公司 、電量及功能等，抽離出來放在類別中：
public class CellPhone
{
public string model { get; set; }
public string company { get; set; }
public int battery { get; set; }
public void Function(){}
}
封裝可以隱藏/保護內部實作的細節，並可以對屬性或方法設定存取層級( public, private, protected )。像是對剛才的 CellPhone 類別加入一個不對外公開、且只能在該 class 內部做調用的方法：
public class CellPhone
{
public string model { get; set; }
public string company { get; set; }
public int battery { get; set; }
public void Function(){}
private void ProtectFunction() { } //只能在內部調用該方法
}
繼承是建立新類別以重複使用、擴充和修改其他類別中定 義的行為。像是可以將剛剛 CellPhone 中的方法改成 virtual 方式：
public class CellPhone
{
public string model { get; set; }
public string company { get; set; }
public int battery { get; set; }
public virtual void Function()
{
Console.WriteLine("origin function");
}
}
然後再新建一個類別，在建構式中呼叫基底類別並使用 override 複寫剛剛的 virtual 方法：
public class NewCellPhone : CellPhone
{
public NewCellPhone() : base() //呼叫基底類別
{
model = "iphone";
company = "Apple";
battery = 3000;
}
public override void Function() //複寫方法
{
Console.WriteLine("override function");
}
}
多型則說明了在相同的介面下，可以用不同的型別來實現，像是剛剛基底類別宣告的 virtual 及後面複寫的 override 方法也是多型的一種。事實上在 C# 中，所有類型都是多型類型，因為所有的類型(包含使用者定義的類型)都是繼承自 Object。
物件導向設計原則( SOLID )
根據上面的四項重要特性，發展出了五項物件導向的設計原則，除了可以用此衡量程式碼的好壞( code smell)外，也有著降低程式的複雜度、較佳的程式可讀性，高內聚低耦合，容易維護等好處。這五項設計原則就是這個系列文的目錄：
單一責任原則 SRP ( Single Responsibility Principle ) 開放封閉原則 OCP (Open Closed Principle) 里氏替換原則 LSP ( Liskov Substitution Principle ) 介面隔離原則 ISP ( Interface Segregation Principle ) 相依反轉原則 DIP( Dependency Inversion Principle )
接下來會一篇篇的講解各原則的特性並使用 C# 進行實作，希望大家都能有所收穫。 | https://medium.com/@break0344/principles-of-object-oriented-design-d6f126d57acc | [] | 2020-12-02 12:13:23.728000+00:00 | ['Object Oriented', 'C Sharp Programming', 'Solid'] |
Alan Turing on Intuition and Human-Machine Computation | What is a computation?
According to Alan Turing (writing in 1936/7), when it comes to human beings, a computation is the following:
A computation occurs when the human mind carries out a mental action according to a rule.
The words above (which aren’t Turing’s own — exact — words) don’t mean that people know that they’re following a rule. (Therefore people don’t know what that rule is.) Human grammar, after all, is also rule-governed; though not all children — and even many adults — can formulate the grammatical rules they employ. Nonetheless, almost everyone still follows these rules. (This is similar to both the philosopher’s notion of tacit knowledge and Noam Chomsky’s theory of innate universal grammar.)
It was said that computability is the mind’s following a rule. Well, Turing believed that this is usually the case. So does that mean that there can be computability (or computations) without the following of rules?
More specifically, when machines (or computers) modify their own behaviour, is that an example of not following a rule?
It’s certainly the case that computers can do things which weren’t predicted by their programmers (or designers). So does that mean that such computers aren’t following any rules? After all, they could be following new rules which they have (as it were) created themselves. So not following the programmers’ rules doesn’t automatically mean that computers aren’t following any rules at all.
We can even say that such computers have genuinely learned (forget the semantics for now) something which wasn’t fed into them by their programmers (or designers). However, they may still be following rules. In fact the new rules may be the logical/mathematical consequences of the programmers’ old rules.
That said, how does all this stuff about rule-following computers directly connect with the brains and minds of human beings?
Alan Turing did think that the human brain is a machine… Or at least he thought that many — perhaps all — of the functions of the brain are that of a machine. Nonetheless, he also believed that the brain is so complex that it can give us the impression of not following a rule.
Now it seems clear that it’s the complexity of the brain that generates only an “appearance” of the brain not following a rule (see here). So that basically means that even though the brain appears not to be following a rule, it may still be doing so. It’s just that the brain is so complex that the investigator — or even the (as it were) owner of the brain — couldn’t know all the rules which the brain is following. Similarly, the complexity of the brain may also generate the belief that it is an “indeterministic machine”. Yet if the brain were truly indeterministic, one could also question its status as a “genuine machine”. (Douglas Hofstadter, for example, seems to have believed — at least at one point in his career — that if a “machine” does go beyond the rules, then, by definition, it can’t actually be a machine — see here.)
Following on from all this, does that mean that if the computer has learned something — or has created its own rules — that it’s displaying (or showing) what’s often called “genuine intelligence”? After all, the computer has gone beyond what the programmer programmed. It can be supposed that all this depends on the semantics of the word “intelligence” (as with the word “learned” earlier). If not following the rules of the programmer is a case of genuine intelligence, then the computer is displaying genuine intelligence. Nonetheless, is not following the rules of the programmer really genuine intelligence or is it something else? In that case, what exactly is it?
Intuition
So what is intuition?
It depends on how the word is used and in which context it’s being used. In Alan Turing’s case, we (or mathematicians) use our intuition when seeing the truth of a formally unprovable Gödel sentence. That’s because Gödel sentences can’t be proved. Nonetheless, they’re true and they’re taken to be true.
How do we know they’re true without mathematical proof?
According Kurt Gödel himself, it’s through the use of human intuition (see here).
And if a Gödel sentence can’t be formally proved, then it can’t be shown to be true through “mechanical” methods. Again, it can’t be proved because proof is deemed to be a mechanical process (at least in this respect).
Another way of looking at intuition is with another of Turing’s ideas: the “oracle”.
In the case of a Gödel sentence, the mathematician (or the oracle) simply “has an idea” that the Gödel sentence is true. That is, he doesn’t use a mechanical method to establish its truth. He has an idea (or an intuition) that it is true. This hints at the brain (not the mind) working in ways which are way beyond conscious thought. That is, intuition is a result of the brain (not the mind) indulging in unconscious processes.
You may now ask how something can be established as true — especially in mathematics — without proof. You may also ask how truths can be established — especially in maths — only on the flimsy basis of a mathematician’s (or even of hundreds of mathematicians’) intuition or his simply “having an idea”.
Computer scientists — and the philosophers of mind who focus on computer/brain comparisons (or who even see the brain-mind as a literal computer) — will like Turing’s conclusion (of 1945/6) that algorithms are enough to account for all mental activity. Bearing in mind the previous comments about intuition, Turing believed that algorithms also encompassed non-mechanical intuition.
Just as intuition follows algorithms (therefore rules), Turing believed that what he called “initiative” didn’t require uncomputable steps either. In other words, both human and computer initiative is also a mechanical process. (That would make the idea of computer’s showing initiative less problematic for the simple reason that what it’s doing is still a computable — or mechanical - process.) However, as stated earlier when it was mentioned that computers may go beyond the rules (or programmes) created by the programmer, even if a computer departs from the computations which were programmed by the programmer, it would still be following a (new) rule, indulging in computations, or following mechanical processes.
Indeed — what else could a computer (or machine) be doing?
Another way of looking at a computer’s — or a Turing machine’s — ability to follow its own rules (or to show initiative) is for the programmer to engineer an element of randomness into the computer (or into the programme). That was what Turing did with his Manchester computer of 1948/50. That means that such randomness is deemed to (as it were) bring about intuition (or initiative). However, it would still be intuition (or initiative) that’s grounded in computation or in mechanical processes. The randomness, therefore, would simply be a result of the computer not abiding by the programmer’s rules (or programmes). It wouldn’t — or doesn’t — mean that the computer has gone beyond rules or computations.
[I can be found on Twitter here.] | https://www.cantorsparadise.com/alan-turing-on-intuition-and-human-machine-computation-ce73cff70a5b | ['Paul Austin Murphy'] | 2021-06-16 09:23:33.602000+00:00 | ['Alan Turing', 'Computation', 'Intuition', 'Machines', 'Philosophy'] |
App Library V2.0 Is Live!. We’re so excited to announce that the… | We’re so excited to announce that the App Library V2.0 beta is live! It’s been an amazing journey for us to get here over the past years, and we’re very happy to finally be launching our App Library and seeing our dreams for a Dapp marketplace to come true. Thank you to all our Morpheus Labs community, friends and supporters for your encouragement and feedback every step of the way, we couldn’t have gotten here without you.
Overview of Morpheus Labs SEED
Together we turn ideas into opportunities
Consolidating multiple blockchain technologies and experiment environments onto one platform minimises the switching costs associated with various platforms, applications, and providers. Morpheus Labs SEED provides corporates, financial institutions and government entities easy access to a platform that enables them to develop, test and manage blockchain applications using different blockchain protocols supported by the platform to achieve rapid prototyping, cost efficiency and a fail-safe environment. The platform supports distributed hosting for blockchain network nodes and off-chain applications while providing a centralised platform service for developing, managing and regulating blockchain networks. Ultimately, SEED empowers anyone to partake in this revolutionary technology.
Morpheus Labs SEED’s AppLibrary is a crowdsourced innovation marketplace that caters to the needs of businesses and individuals alike who can source for ideas and applications on the blockchain. A review system is also in place where developers, midsize and large companies can publish their applications for other users to download and customize them for their use. With the ability to curate industrial solutions on the platform, clients cut short a lot of time to find a suitable use case to customise a solution for their businesses.
The Morpheus Labs Team has already partnered with a few blockchain partners and will work out with interested partners to handpick and list comprehensive blockchain-based solutions in our App Library over the next 3–6 months, with the aim to help to bridge enterprises and implementation of blockchain solutions into businesses from the beginning to the end — to innovate, build, test, market, and distribute your Dapps and grow businesses.
V2.0 Beta Launch Features
Users can download and deploy dApps not only in a workspace (development and customization use) but also in runtime (production use)
Automatic deployment of blockchain and dynamically connection of dApp to the underlying network
Get access to promote any dApp in AppLibrary and create deployments using Use Case templates. Stay tuned, Solution Centre revealed coming soon!
Types of application to publish in our App Library
The following are the steps to publishing dApps in our App Library depending on the three types of application a user wants to publish: Source Code, Compiled Code and External.
Source code: Suitable for development and testing versions (aka dev)
This type includes all types of workspaces where the source code will be used to run the application. These applications are typically those you may use as proof of concept, samples and those developed by you. Typically, these applications will start in dev mode.
2. Compiled code: Suitable for staging and production versions (aka production)
“Compiling” is more specific, and almost invariably refers to a process that takes source code as its input, and outputs something runnable, typically machine code for either a physical or virtual machine
This type includes all types of applications typically built for production. These applications are typically those you may let other users download and use without disclosing the source code. Typically these applications will start in production mode. Vendors can publish applications in “compiled” deployment type for example to advertise, freemium, or for-purchase.
3. External: Suitable for featuring your application with AppLibrary
This type includes all types of applications running outside of Morpheus Labs SEED platform. The benefit of publishing external applications in AppLibrary is directly related to how good the application is to attract more ML SEED users to use it, to extend it. Cross referral and marketing as well as showcasing the top-ranked app are applicable for external applications.
Get everything you need for your blockchain-based applications before they become available to customers. Morpheus Labs SEED gives you all the tools, resources and support you need.
Want to join the beta? Just visit https://docs.morpheuslabs.io/ today to get started right now, or contact us to learn more about Morpheus Labs SEED. | https://medium.com/morpheus-labs/app-library-v2-0-is-now-live-199958723f5 | ['Morpheus Labs Team'] | 2020-11-26 09:59:33.236000+00:00 | ['Dapps', 'Blockchain', 'Defi', 'Technology'] |
The Best Spots to Spank Her | Lots of women are into being spanked, but very few of them want to be hurt.
I have my share of kinks. None of them involve getting bruised or feeling any pain. But they very much involve getting my ass spanked, slapped, and paddled.
I’m into the dynamic it creates.
Being on the receiving end of a good spanking involves giving myself over to my partner. It’s putting my trust in him and giving up some control. And that kind of thing puts me in a headspace I love being in.
It also makes me feel submissive. He’ll give my ass exactly what it wants and all I have to do is lie there, gasping from pleasure, moaning my appreciation, softly whispering “yes” when he asks if I want more, and arching my back to present my ass to him.
But what I love even more are the sensations that come with a good, firm spank.
A lot of people who haven’t been on the receiving end of one imagine that it’s painful, but it isn’t. At least, it doesn’t have to be.
The best way I can describe is that it’s intense. It’s like a jolt of good feelings are slapped right into your ass and start coursing through your body.
It’s pure pleasure, and you can practically feel the endorphins and adrenaline taking over your brain during a good spanking session.
And then there’s the arousal.
Spanking is fun throughout any kind of action you’re having, but it makes fantastic foreplay. Every set of spanks feels like it turns my arousal up a notch. By the end, I’m ready for anything. I’m practically breathless with desire. I’m pushing my thighs apart, hoping I get fingered. I want to be taken.
But it can all be ruined if it isn’t done right.
When the intense feelings turn to pain, it takes me completely out of the moment. If I get spanked too hard or in the wrong spot, it can take me out of my safe, relaxed, subby haze. And instead of ramping up my arousal, it pulls it back.
It’s the same for most people. That’s why if you’re going to spank someone, it’s worth learning how to do it — and especially, where to do it.
Get Her Ass Ready
You don’t need to get your lady wet before spanking her, but you still need to warm her up before you smack your palm against her cheeks.
Warm her up physically by rubbing her ass, stroking her skin, or slowly pulling down her pants if you’re going to spank her through her underwear.
Start with a few gentle hits to get her used to the physical sensation and get her in the right mindset for more.
Ideally, you won’t put a lot of strength in your smacks until she’s already flustered from the hormones coursing through her.
Use your voice, too. Talking dirty to her is a great way to turn her on and get her in the mood for what you’re going to do to her.
Dirty talk will also make her feel a lot more connected to you. She’ll feel a lot safer and relaxed than she would be if you were spanking her quietly.
So, utter a few filthy phrases for her. Tell her how incredible her ass looks when she’s lying across your lap or bent over for you. Tell her that it’s just asking to be slapped.
Punctuate your spanks with rhetorical questions like “You love it when I smack your like that, don’t you?” and “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to get my hands on your gorgeous ass?”
Saying the right things will have her squirming in anticipation and make her enjoy the spanking even more.
You should also build up to the spanking with some seduction. A slap on the ass when I’m in the middle of a flirty exchange feels amazing. One that’s completely out of the blue, not so much.
A spank that takes her completely by surprise is more likely to be painful and unpleasant, even if you don’t deliver it with a lot of force. So, make sure you create the right context for it. Chase her a little, get her worked up, kiss her and squeeze her hips before letting your hand land on her ass.
Her Spanking Spots
The main area you should be spanking are the fleshiest bits of her butt — square in the middle of each cheek.
That’s where she can take the most impact and feel the intensity without too much physical discomfort.
Spanking between her cheeks makes for a particularly intense but good spank, too. She’ll feel it mostly in her ass but the stimulation will reverberate to her pussy as well.
Avoid spanking her too high. Her lower back is going to be very sensitive to pain, so inching higher will quickly take you out of her pleasure zone and into some painful territory.
In general, I’d avoid the top of her ass altogether. Spanking takes some practice and there’s a good chance your aim isn’t quite as good as you think it is. A slight slip-up can ruin everything when you’re spanking her in that spot, so treat the top of her ass like a buffer instead of a target.
Plus, the top of the ass isn’t the most pleasurable place to receive a spanking anyway. Neither of you are going to be missing out if you avoid it.
The sides of her ass are also a bit risky. A smack on the hips or just below them isn’t as bad as a hit to the lower back, but it’s still not a pleasant feeling because there’s less muscle and fat there to take the blow.
Slapping the lower part of her ass is safe, though. I love feeling a good underhanded slap clapping against my butt. It delivers a really sharp, deep intensity and it’s also a pretty natural spot to aim for when she’s bent over.
And if you miss, it’s not such a big deal because the back of her thigh will be able to absorb the blow as well as her ass can.
If you do give her thighs a slap, though, keep in mind that the inner thigh is particularly sensitive, so either avoid it or give it only very gentle spanks.
If she isn’t a lady you’ve been spanking regularly, you’ll want to start off by exploring her ass and what it can take.
Start with soft slaps and slight taps. Build up the intensity gradually so you can gauge how she reacts and where her pain threshold is.
Pay attention to her body language, to the way she moans and groans, and to the way she tenses up. Ease up if it seems to be a little much for her.
And make sure you’re getting direct feedback from her. You can establish a safeword and check in with her once in a while to ask if she needs to use it. Or you can ask simple questions like “Do you want it softer?” or “How does that feel?”
If you do that, you’ll basically have a mental map of her ass — which parts can really take it, which parts are more sensitive, and how close you can get to her hips before it crosses into discomfort.
And I know that part of the fun of a spanking is the surprise of getting smacked. I love the little shock I feel every time Mr. Austin’s palm makes contact with my skin. But asking for that feedback isn’t going to spoil any of that. She won’t know exactly where your hand will land, at what exact millisecond it’s coming, or how hard you’re going to it. All she’ll know is that she won’t get hit where she doesn’t want to and it won’t push past her pain tolerance.
Vary Up Your Spanking
Unless you’re just giving her ass a few sharp smacks, you should vary up your spanking.
The reason a spanking crosses into painful territory isn’t always because you hit the wrong spot or your hand landed a bit too hard. Sometimes, it happens because you’re doing the right thing but just doing it too much.
Repeatedly smacking the same spot will make it more and more sensitive. So make sure you throw in some softer hits once in a while and focus on different parts of her ass.
You can also stop spanking completely to give her ass a bit of a break. Keep touching and engaging with her between spanks so she keeps her head in the game and stays turned on. Rub her butt, stroke her skin, whisper hot words in her ear or tease her a little. Give her ass a good squeeze while you tell her what a tough girl she is. Or give her thighs a few slaps.
Those little breaks don’t have to last long. They can just be ten to fifteen seconds, but it helps her recover and makes a big difference.
Pussy Slapping and Tit Smacking
I used to have a very hard line when it came to smacking tits and, especially, slapping pussies.
I’ve softened a bit this year, though, because I’ve been on the receiving end of some pussy slapping that I wasn’t mad at.
It’s gone from a no to a yes for me, but it’s still a very qualified yes. It’s very easy to get it wrong and overdo it.
What anyone needs to understand before going at her pussy with an open palm or giving her a snack on the tit is that those are very sensitive areas and should be treated like it.
Never smack her pussy the way you would smack her ass. Give soft taps. Hit it as gently as you hit your palm when you’re giving fake, polite applause.
It won’t feel like you’re giving her a lot of impact when you do that, but it’s going to feel really strong on her end. Those soft taps on her pussy are going to be the equivalent of a sharp, firm slap on her ass.
And be aware that it’s not something most women are into and you need to get consent before smacking her anywhere other than her butt.
Start Practicing
If you’re with someone who loves a good spanking or just wants to try it out, it is absolutely worth getting it right.
A good spank will make her hornier, it will make her feel dirty and naughty, and it will make you seem more confident and dominant.
So take the time to study up. Learn the right techniques, hone your spanking skills, and smack her right where she wants you to. | https://medium.com/love-emma/the-best-spots-to-spank-her-329e89879ab0 | ['Emma Austin'] | 2020-11-26 14:41:33.065000+00:00 | ['Advice', 'Relationships', 'Sex', 'Women', 'Life'] |
Which Framework to Choose: Comparing Django and Ruby on Rails | There are more than 90 web-development frameworks out there. No wonder it’s hard to choose the one that’ll suit your project best. Still, there are at least two major frameworks that are widely used by the tech giants of nowadays, and for good reason. Ever heard of Django or Ruby on Rails? If both web frameworks are quite good, how do you compare Django and Ruby on Rails to choose which one to use for web development?
Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Dropbox, and other online- and app-based services that we use daily are powered by Django, a Python-programming-language framework. On the other hand, Airbnb, Bloomberg, Shopify, and other leading companies use Ruby on Rails, a Ruby programming language framework. Both languages were created to serve the web and make web applications (including mobile web apps) possible.
In this article, we’ll compare these two popular frameworks. While both are fast and easy to use, Django and Ruby on Rails each have reasons for and against them as the development framework for your future project.
As software-development professionals, we’ve found materials comparing Django vs. Ruby on Rails performance and speed too oversimplified, since speed and performance often depend on the complexity of each individual project as well as the proficiency of the development team with the respective technology.
What we mean to say is that even if Python/Ruby/etc. are interpreted languages and are slower in certain workloads for tasks which are relevant for a web framework, this may not matter. So we decided to take a closer look at their pros and cons, as well as use cases to help you decide which one is the best fit for your needs. | https://medium.com/better-programming/which-framework-to-choose-comparing-django-vs-ruby-on-rails-21e40d92d981 | ['Django Stars'] | 2019-11-07 14:02:27.401000+00:00 | ['Web Development', 'Ruby on Rails', 'Django', 'Web Framework', 'Programming'] |
Design Patterns for Machine Learning | With Machine learning all over the place, it is becoming increasingly important to capture best practices and solutions to tackle common ML problems. Design patterns are a way of capturing these problems and providing reusable answers using generic and well-proven ML designs. They are ways of thinking when designing solutions or building ML systems.
Now the question is , Can we abstract best machine learning practices into design patterns?
As per Wikipedia, “Design patterns are formalized best practices that the programmer can use to solve common problems when designing an application or system”.
Here’s a new book published recently on the topic, “Machine Learning Design Patterns”. The book introduces 30 design patterns in machine learning in detail which are structured into categories such as Problem representation, Model Training, Resilient Serving, Reproducibility and Responsible AI.
In this post, I would like to focus on summarizing few design patterns from the book that I found interesting.
1. Rebalancing: Problem representation Design pattern
Imbalanced datasets are a common scenario in classification problems such as Fraud Detection, Anomaly Detection, Spam Detection, etc. But the typically ML models used for classification work with the assumption that all the classes are balanced and thus resulting in poor predictive performance. Some of the most common strategies used to handle imbalanced datasets are given as follows:
1. Choosing the right performance metric: Though accuracy is the most commonly used metric, it might not be the best one to use in case of imbalanced datasets as the class distribution is skewed. The goal in this case is to maximize both precision and recall, and hence metrics such as F1 score or AUC are more efficient to evaluate the performance.
2. Sampling methods: Resampling is a widely adopted technique to balance the samples within the classes in the dataset.
a) Over-sampling: This approach involves oversampling minority class. The simple approach involves duplicating the samples from the minority class which doesn’t add any additional information to the dataset. The other advanced techniques like SMOTE (Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique) synthesize new samples from the existing data.
b) Down-sampling: This approach involves choosing a random subset of the majority class to reach the same size of the minority class, which might cause loss of information.
3. Weighted classes: This approach involves using penalized learning algorithms which increase the cost of misclassifications in the minority class. That is, the cost of classification mistakes in the minority class is proportional to how under-represented the minority class is.
2. Transform : Reproducibility Design Pattern
The key idea of this design pattern is to separate input from features. To train a model, we extract features from raw input. But in most of the machine learning problems, inputs are not directly used as features. A lot of transformations such as standardization, scaling, encoding, etc. are applied on the input to convert them into features that are fed into the algorithms. But if these transformations are carried out as preprocessing steps, it’s a problem to reproduce them at the prediction time as the input for prediction will still be in the raw format. So, its important to clearly separate out the inputs from the features, encapsulate the preprocessing steps and include it into the model to ensure reproducibility. This design principle allows an easy migration of a machine learning model to production by separating inputs, features and transformations. TensorFlow provides tf.transform to carry out transformations efficiently and saving them, so that they can be reproduced by applying tf.serving during prediction time.
3. Checkpoints : Model Training Design Pattern
Resilience and fault tolerance are the major characteristics of a scalable system. A checkpoint is a snapshot of a model’s internal state (including weights, current learning rate), so that training can be resumed from this state at any later point in time. Power outages, OS faults, task preemptions, or any other unforeseen errors can happen during the training, especially with deep learning models that can result in losing entire time and resources. Checkpoints are enabled in majority of the deep learning frameworks including TensorFlow, Keras and PyTorch. One of the approach for implementing a checkpoint can be:
1. Keep a checkpoint at the end of every epoch
2. Save the model with the best accuracy
TensorFlow and Keras provide API’s such as tf.Estimator API and ModelCheckpoint API respectively and model weights can be saved in PyTorch to implement checkpoints.
4. Workflow Pipeline : Reproducibility Design Pattern
This design pattern aims to isolate and containerize the individual steps of a machine learning work flow into an organized workflow to ensure maintainability and scalability. The machine learning development workflow is generally monolithic, which contain a series of tasks from data collection to training a model and its evaluation. But the machine learning tasks are iterative in nature. But tracking all the small changes done in the workflow during the development process becomes complicated as the process is iterated more number of times. This introduces the concept of MLOps , which contain similar concepts as in DevOps such as continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) but also includes additional concepts of continuous evaluation and continuous training. The key difference in MLOps and DevOps is that, it is not only the code, but also the data which has to be continuously tested and validated in MLOps. Containerization of each of the tasks in the workflow is the methodology proposed to implement this design pattern. The authors propose a ML pipeline which is an executable DAG(Directed Acyclic Graph) of ML steps which are containers. The main problem it solves is the “Dependency Tracking”, such that only the dependent steps are re-run incase changes are made at a certain step of the pipeline ensuring reproducibility.
5. Explainable Predictions : Responsible AI Design Pattern
Machine learning models are black boxes in general. But having a clear understanding of the model behavior is very important to diagnose the errors and to identify potential biases to decide if they can be employed. Introducing explainability in machine learning is a major factor in Responsible AI. Hence, the key idea of this pattern is to interpret the machine learning models to understand why and how the model made the predictions in a certain way. But the current evaluation metrics only talk about the relative correctness of the predictions given the data set, but they don’t provide any insight on why the model arrived at that prediction. ELI5, SHAP and LIME are the most widely used Python libraries for model explainability.
Though the above techniques are implemented in most of the machine learning practices, defining design patterns helps to create general reusable solutions for the commonly occurring problems. They help in communication between engineers and quickly solve common problems by providing off-the-shelf solutions.
Happy Learning!! | https://towardsdatascience.com/design-patterns-for-machine-learning-410be845c0db | [] | 2021-07-19 21:35:23.367000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Efficiency', 'Design Patterns', 'Standardization', 'Methodology'] |
How to Have a Healthy Relationship with Writing | I’ve always loved writing, but I’ve been afraid of writing, too.
Because I love it. Because it’s important to me. Because it’s a core expression of who I am, so I don’t want to mess it up.
Most of my life, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with writing.
Actually, more of a love-fear, dread, avoid, obsess over relationship. In other words, not a healthy one.
And I know exactly why.
Our Unhealthy Beginnings
My relationship with Writing was sporadic, strained, and codependent. I was like a fangirl trying to date a superstar.
We’d go out, me and Writing. I’d be nervous and tongue-tied, awkward and unsure, and totally not myself. After the date, I’d feel miserable and stupid; I’d go over every single thing I did and said wrong. I relived each error, each embarrassment. And I’d swear that Writing was not for me. I’d avoid the phone calls. I wouldn’t answer the texts.
Then, after a few weeks, the memory would fade. I’d get the flutters and jitters and all those infatuated feelings. I’d agree to another date, certain it would go better this time.
And, of course, it would be the same story.
I was infatuated with Writing and thought I was in love. But I was also anxious, star-struck, and uncomfortable.
Of course, I couldn’t relax and be myself and have a good time with Writing. I was way too nervous.
When Things Changed
Things changed for me and Writing when I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to break up, once and for all, but the idea broke my heart. So, instead, I decided to commit to something more serious. More regular.
We started seeing each other every week.
Then it was every day.
At first, I was as uncomfortable and awkward as ever. I felt like every date was a complete waste of time. I was always sure Writing wouldn’t call back.
Slowly, though, something changed. I changed.
Sheer repetition creates familiarity, and guess what familiarity does? It takes away the discomfort.
The more I hung out with Writing, the less nervous and unsure I became. The more I realized that Writing wasn’t some god, some unreachable pinnacle, some flawless wonderland. Writing was sometimes complex, challenging, and intimidating, but, just as often, simple, open, and fun.
Finding Mutual Love
The more I got to know Writing, the less intimidated I was. And I began to see another side to our relationship: as much as I wanted things to work out with Writing, Writing wanted the same.
I needed Writing; Writing also needed me.
We’re in a good place now, me and Writing. We have a committed relationship. We have our bad days, sure. Sometimes Writing frustrates the crap out of me, and I’m sure I do the same. We have conflicts, but we work them out.
I’ve learned that a healthy relationship doesn’t mean you always feel good, but it does mean you don’t feel scared.
Sometimes I’m not feeling it, so we take a break. But we never take a break for very long. Spending time together and communicating regularly is what makes our relationship work.
We’re a Work In Progress
Whenever we drift apart, I start feeling like I don’t know Writing anymore. Then I start feeling nervous and unsure about our relationship again.
It’s taken me a long time to realize that those fears don’t come from Writing; they come from me. And that’s okay, too.
It’s like any worthwhile thing; you have to work at it. But the more you work at it, the better it gets. The work turns into play. You move from frustration to flow. And one day you look up and realize you’ve got a good thing going. | https://anniemueller.medium.com/how-to-have-a-healthy-relationship-with-writing-55ec104bbc05 | ['Annie Mueller'] | 2020-03-05 15:17:31.229000+00:00 | ['Writers On Writing', 'Writing', 'Psychology', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing Life'] |
National Currencies Need Not Be a Ponzi Scheme | Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
As the Lebanese cautiously rejoiced their national currency recovering more than 20% of its value against the United States Dollar, Harvard fellow and former banker Dan Azzi announced on Twitter that the Lira market is being manipulated with a massive, unnatural injection of the dollars.
Dan Azzi tweets “Lira market being manipulated with a massive, unnatural injection of $” following the sharp recovery of the LBP/USD exchange rate accompanying the reappointment of a former Prime Minister.
A back of envelope calculation made its way into the replies. Assuming a $7 million daily market, injecting $2 million dollars daily with the willingness to lose 20% of its value could have been pushing exchange rate. Effectively, at a cost of $400 thousand a day, “you can turn a whole population into poverty or into a more affordable life.” | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/national-currencies-need-not-be-a-ponzi-scheme-33bd6ff24033 | ['Wael Itani'] | 2020-10-29 13:25:54.397000+00:00 | ['Economics', 'Money', 'Justice', 'Technology', 'Economy'] |
Two Simple Algorithms for Chunking a List in Python | The Challenge
Create a function that converts a list to a two-dimensional “list of lists” where each nested structure is a specified equal length.
Here are some example inputs and expected outputs:
# INPUT LIST: [1,2,3,4,5,6]
# INPUT SIZE: 3
# OUTPUT: [[1,2,3],[4,5,6]] # INPUT LIST: [1,2,3,4,5]
# INPUT SIZE: 2
# OUTPUT: [[1,2],[3,4],[5]] # INPUT LIST: [1,2,3]
# INPUT SIZE: 4
# OUTPUT: [[1,2,3]]
Reviewing our examples, there are some important distinctions for scenarios where the list and chunk size do not perfect match up.
When the list does not evenly divide by the chunk size, the last index will be shorter than the evenly sized chunks.
When the chunk size is larger than the list itself, a chunk will still be created with the list in the first index.
We’re going to solve this two ways. The first function will be written generically — using techniques that can be applied in any programming language. The second function will be optimized for Python — using techniques that are specific to the language.
Runner-Up
For a generic chunking algorithm, we’re going to utilize basic programming techniques. We begin by creating an empty list, setting a counting variable to zero, and a variable for the length of our list.
A while loop is an iteration (looping) structure that will execute its body when the expression evaluates to True . We want to loop through the entire list, so we will iterate as long as i is less than arr_length .
Inside the while loop, we need a condition to add new chunks at the appropriate time. We’ll use the modulus (remainder) operator here. If you’re unfamiliar with this arithmetic operator, it calculates the remainder from the division of two values. When the remainder is equal to zero — beginning of the loop and every n-th iteration where n is equal to the chunk size — we nest a new list.
Now, we know we will always be populating the newest chunk created, which has the largest index. We use len(chunked_list)-1 for the index value to represent this knowledge and add the currently iterated item from our original list.
Finally, we increment i to avoid an infinite loop and return chunked_list once the loop completes.
def genericChunk(arr, chunk_size):
chunked_list = []
i = 0
arr_length = len(arr) while i < arr_length:
if i % chunk_size == 0:
chunked_list.append([])
chunked_list[len(chunked_list)-1].append(arr[i]) i = i + 1 return chunked_list
Optimal Solution
We can improve our generic function using tools available in Python. Specifically, we’ll use list comprehension and slice notation to efficiently grab sections of the original list. Additionally, we’ll import the ceil() function from the math library to keep our function as a one-liner.
List comprehensions are an ultra-fast replacement for simple for loops. We’re being so efficient that we don’t even need the chunked_list variable, we can return directly from the list comprehension.
The number of iterations will be equal to the length of the list, divided by the chunk size, rounded up. This accounts for a list such as our second example where the list does not divide evenly by the chunk size.
We define each item in the returned list using slice notation. The starting index of the slice will be equal to our current iterator i multiplied by the chunk size. The ending index will be the starting index plus the chunk size. | https://medium.com/code-85/two-simple-algorithms-for-chunking-a-list-in-python-dc46bc9cc1a2 | ['Jonathan Hsu'] | 2020-05-17 12:38:27.623000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Python', 'Technology', 'Programming', 'Software Development'] |
Best Tips for website image optimization | Best Tips for website image optimization
What is image optimization?
Image optimization is nothing but using the most compressed yet visually acceptable image in the suitable file format for the exact role of the images. It pays to keep your image quality up and your file size down.
Why you need image optimization?
There are two important reasons for image optimization: download time and bandwidth used. These may seem interconnected, but also they are important for different reasons & that could be hardware storage space is really applied in some cases. Download time includes images load time factored into its search engine rankings. If the image takes longer time to load, you are more likely to lose visitor, therefore image size contains an important component of a site’s speed.
Images speak lots of things. The simplest thing to consider when optimizing images is file type. Particular image file types are better suitable for specific images and you must ensure that your page takes maximum 10 seconds to load. CSS is the best way to decrease image load time; it is possible for the browser to provide images using pure CSS. CSS animation and effect can be used to produce resolution-independent assets that always look keen at every resolution and zoom level.
Bandwidth optimization is the way of taking care of load on networks. It is an easy way to optimize existing bandwidth. Optimizing images can save a lot of bandwidths and improve page speed considerably. All you need is a little time to load and a few tools. You can reduce a website’s bandwidth usage, it is the hidden killer of the high traffic site and most mainstream hosting plans have bandwidth caps that require extra.
Image optimization is not the quick task. It requires time that could be spent on other things. Image optimization is one of the main factors that you need to consider because a lot of people search for the popular image.
Mail at: [email protected] | https://medium.com/@ultimezdipika/best-tips-for-website-image-optimization-2ae403388ab4 | [] | 2016-11-23 04:46:25.276000+00:00 | ['Web Development', 'Digital Marketing', 'Digital Marketing Agency'] |
Black Lion Hair is a hair transplant center established in Istanbul in 2015, offering international… | Black Lion Hair is a hair transplant center established in Istanbul in 2015, offering international services. It is a brand that has made it its mission to host its guests in the best way with its service quality and professional staff at European standards. The world-famous Black Lion Hair Transplantation Center has performed more than 8,000 operations in 6 years and continues to serve in 5 different languages. Black Lion Hair offers 5-star accommodation and VIP transfer service to its customers who come for hair transplantation. In our hospital located in Istanbul, the doctor and professional staff carry out treatment procedures. Thanks to its innovative approach, Black Lion Hair offers the most comfortable service to its customers. Although hair transplantation is not a simple procedure, it is a process that requires serious responsibility and professionalism.
For this reason, all our operations are carried out in the most equipped hospital in Istanbul, in a sterile environment. Patient satisfaction and comfort is one of our basic policies.
We use the latest technologies simultaneously with the whole world in the health sector, where our business partnerships and experience with well-established hospital groups are our greatest reference. We are actively working in the field of FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction). We are a worldwide known brand with FUE hair transplantation technique. | https://medium.com/@melihkeser6/black-lion-hair-is-a-hair-transplant-center-established-in-istanbul-in-2015-offering-international-d922b42a278 | ['Black Lion Hair Istanbul'] | 2021-12-29 14:25:32.790000+00:00 | ['Hair', 'Hair Transplant Cost', 'Hair Transplant', 'Hair Transplant Clinic', 'Hair Transplant Surgery'] |
PL/SQL Code Coverage: 12 Things Developers Will Love About Oracle Database 12c Release 2 Part 12 | We’ve covered a lot of new functionality in this series. Some if it you’ll use straight away. Other bits you’ll wait a while.
In any case, when you upgrade to 12.2 you’ll want to test all your code to ensure it works as expected. Which brings the question:
“How much of my code did the tests actually run?”
Coverage metrics will help immensely with this.
Simple line level analysis of the tests isn’t good enough. To see why, consider the following code:
We have a basic function that returns its argument and calls dbms_output.
The procedure calls the function twice in a single if statement:
create or replace function f (p int)
return int as
begin
dbms_output.put_line('Executed: ' || p);
return p;
end;
/ create or replace procedure p is
begin
if f(1) = 1 or f(2) = 2 then
dbms_output.put_line('this');
else
dbms_output.put_line('that');
end if;
end p;
/
Due to short-circuit evaluation, f(2) is never executed! You can see this from the output:
SQL> exec p; Executed: 1 this
Anything working at the line level will incorrectly report this as fully covered.
To overcome this, you need to details of “basic block” executions.
So what is a “basic block”?
It’s a piece of code that you either runs completely or not at all. Code always belongs to exactly one basic block. For example:
if f(1) = 1 or f(2) = 2 then
dbms_output.put_line('this');
else
dbms_output.put_line('that');
end if;
has four basic blocks. One for each call to f and two for the calls to dbms_output.put_line.
The new code coverage functionality measures and reports on these basic blocks.
Using it is easy. First you need to create coverage tables to store the metrics:
exec dbms_plsql_code_coverage.create_coverage_tables;
Then call start_coverage before your test and stop_coverage after:
declare
run_id pls_integer;
begin
run_id := dbms_plsql_code_coverage.start_coverage('TEST');
p;
dbms_plsql_code_coverage.stop_coverage;
end;
/
You can then get metrics by querying the dbmspcc* tables that hold these details:
select owner, name, type,
round( ( sum(covered)/count(*) * 100), 2) pct_covered
from dbmspcc_runs r
join dbmspcc_units u
on r.run_id = u.run_id
join dbmspcc_blocks b
on r.run_id = b.run_id
and u.object_id = b.object_id
where r.run_comment = 'TEST'
group by owner, name, type; OWNER NAME TYPE PCT_COVERED
----- ----- ---------- -----------
CHRIS P PROCEDURE 50
CHRIS F FUNCTION 100
This is all well and good. But there’s always some code which your tests don’t cover. Maybe it’s deprecated, so you don’t need test it. Or it’s “just-in-case” code to cover theoretically possible but practically impossible cases. Such as the infamous “when others” exception handler.
You want to exclude these sections from your reports. Fortunately you can with the coverage pragma. By marking lines as “NOT_FEASIBLE” you can filter these out of your reports:
create or replace procedure p is
begin
if f(1) = 1 or f(2) = 2 then
dbms_output.put_line('this');
else
pragma coverage ('NOT_FEASIBLE');
dbms_output.put_line('that');
end if;
end p;
/
Rerun the tests and you can hide the untestable parts in your report!
select owner, name, type,
round( ( sum(covered)/count(*) * 100), 2) pct_covered
from dbmspcc_runs r
join dbmspcc_units u
on r.run_id = u.run_id
join dbmspcc_blocks b
on r.run_id = b.run_id
and u.object_id = b.object_id
where r.run_comment = 'TEST'
and b.not_feasible = 0
group by owner, name, type; OWNER NAME TYPE PCT_COVERAGE
----- ---- --------- ------------
CHRIS P PROCEDURE 66.67
CHRIS F FUNCTION 100
If you really want, you can exclude whole sections of code by wrapping it in two coverage pragmas. The first starting NOT_FEASIBLE_START, the second NOT_FEASIBLE_END: | https://medium.com/oracledevs/pl-sql-code-coverage-12-things-developers-will-love-about-oracle-database-12c-release-2-part-12-1efeddb2c22b | ['Chris Saxon'] | 2017-10-25 20:42:22.038000+00:00 | ['Oracle Database', 'Software Development', 'Testing', 'Plsql', 'Programming'] |
Is Project Management the Right Career Path for You? | Is Project Management the Right Career Path for You?
Starting your career as a project manager can be exciting — but you need to know what the role entails
Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash
Project Management is a popular career choice for young graduates, and also a skillset that is in high demand amongst employers.
And the demand for project managers is predicted to grow even faster, in fact, that any other occupation over the coming decade.
A great way to gain exposure to all sorts of projects and industries, you will find project manager roles in all organizations — large and small. Getting things done right is the bread and butter of any company, after all, and project managers are a key part of this.
Wondering whether this could be a suitable career path for you?
While I’m all for developing your own skills and improving on your weaknesses, there are some inner traits that will make Project Management a more natural choice for you.
Read on for the top 3 qualities you should ideally have, before jumping into a Project Management career. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/is-project-management-the-right-career-path-for-you-heres-how-to-find-out-90ed069397ce | ['Clément Bourcart'] | 2020-12-29 15:11:41.433000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Careers', 'Project Management', 'Career Advice', 'Jobs'] |
Can you play Cyberpunk 2077 on a “budget” Gaming PC or Laptop. | Cyberpunk 2077 from the creators of The Witcher game series is one of the most awaited games and was released on the 10th of December 2020.
Are you like me and can’t wait to get your hands on the Cyberpunk 2077 game which was highly hyped for so long? But wait for a moment before you buy it in this holiday season for your Budget Gaming PC or Laptop.
So Should you buy it or download it?
The Answer is No!
If your rig doesn’t meet the requirements of this game , you are in big trouble. I have a budget gaming PC and wanted to play this game on it, so I started to download it which took a whole day . When I actually installed it, and was exited to choose the character’ s appearance and life path. This part had no problem at all, but when the actual game started, it was horrible.
It started to stutter, dialogues were lagging, there was no FPS whatsoever. However I didn’t lose all of my hopes and tried to play it further with the lag hoping it would get better gradually and I was completely wrong.
The same PC which had no problem running many of the triple A titles in medium high settings couldn’t handle Cyberpunk 2077. I was in complete shock, and believe me I tried everything in my power to make use of the large chunk of data that I downloaded the previous day. I set my in-game graphic settings to the lowest, overclocked my GPU and overclocked my RAM, opened the cabinet panel to help with the cooling, tweaked the Nvidia control panel a bit. It was of no use !!!! The GPU temperature was up to 70 degrees, and the lag was still there.
The conclusion is you cannot play it or if you do you wouldn’t enjoy it. So please check the requirements before you buy it or you are downloading a cracked version using torrents. | https://medium.com/@rakhulant/can-you-play-cyberpunk-2077-on-a-budget-gaming-pc-or-laptop-dbb7315aa8d5 | ['Rakshith R'] | 2020-12-15 09:23:04.658000+00:00 | ['Cyberpunk', 'Laptop', 'Budget', 'Gaming', 'Pc Gaming'] |
If The Democratic Establishment Were A Husband | Wife: Darling, the pipes are still broken.
Husband: I told you I’ll get to it.
Wife: It’s been months, darling. This house is turning into a bog and the children are getting sick.
Husband: I’ll get to it, I said! Look, we all need to come together on this issue. You happen to be married to the best handyman there is, and I definitely care deeply about fixing those pipes. Did you know there are children getting sick as a result of our bad plumbing?
Wife: I literally just said that.
Husband: I know one of them, Jeannie, she’s eight years old, and she has the most heartbreaking story you’ve ever —
Wife: I know! That’s our daughter! Look, just please let me call a plumber.
Husband: Oh look at you with your pie-in-the-sky ponies and unicorns. There’s no money for a plumber.
Wife: What? We’ve got plenty of money!
Husband: Nope we don’t! I spent it on this cool drone! Check it out!
Wife: Idiot! Why are you spending our money on drones when our children can’t drink the water?? Look, okay, I’ll call my brother. He can fix this.
Husband: What? No! You can’t bring in a third party! This is a two-party system! You have to choose between me and the raw sewage that’s slowly filling our house.
Wife: But the raw sewage is your fault! You refuse to fix the problem! If you’d just start fixing the problem we wouldn’t be up to our ankles in poo water!
Husband: I think the real problem is that you’re completely overreacting and misinterpreting the situation here. Everything’s fine. I just need to work on my messaging.
Wife: Oh my God! You can’t stop me from calling my brother. If you won’t fix the problem I’ll get someone who will.
Husband: You can’t call your brother.
Wife: Why not?
Husband: The Russians —
Wife: Oh, again with the Russians!
Husband: They hacked our phone! This is a serious crisis!
Wife: Oh, you blame those Russians for everything! The phone, the car, that job you didn’t get —
Husband: I’m pretty sure your brother was behind that as well. I was the most qualified candidate in history for that position!
Wife: You submitted an awful application and you know it!
Husband: I don’t understand how you can be fighting me when we’ve just been attacked by Russia!
Wife: I can’t take this anymore! I’m leaving.
Husband: The Russians put that thought in your mind!
Wife: Huh? No, I’m pretty sure it was the swirling eddies of poo in our living room put that in my mind.
Husband: No, you don’t get it, they got to your brother and now he’s got to you!
Wife: Nope.
Husband: Anyway, where are you going to go? No one else will ever love you. No one will ever take care of you. If you remarry the next guy will probably just let you fester in a house full of poo water, like a bloody psychopath.
Wife: That’s exactly what you’re doing!
Husband: Yeah but check out this cool drone!
Wife: You have got to be the most… hey, what’s that over there?
Husband: What? Where?
Wife: Right there!
Husband: Oh, nothing. That’s nothing.
Wife: It’s a sledgehammer! Did… did you break our pipes?
Husband: No. Stop reading Russian WikiLeaks.
Wife: You did! Christ, what are you??
Husband: Look miss ponies and unicorns, I don’t know how things work in your imaginary fairy candyland, but down here in the real world you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few sewage pipes. In times like these, we need to unite to advance the common good of everyone. Come on, let’s go to bed. I’ve met a nice man from Wells Fargo who said he’ll get me that job in exchange for a few favors.
Wife: Sigh… okay, I guess. Not like there’s anywhere else I can go. Will you please try and fix those pipes though?
Husband: Someday, dear. Maybe someday. Come to bed.
Wife: Okay… wait! Who’s she??
Husband: No one. Stop imagining things.
_________
Thanks for reading! My work here is entirely reader-funded so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following me on Twitter, bookmarking my website, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying my new book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. | https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/if-the-democratic-establishment-were-a-husband-ebf9c7d8cbe4 | ['Caitlin Johnstone'] | 2017-12-29 13:02:00.474000+00:00 | ['Hillary Clinton', 'Humor', 'Politics', 'Democrats', 'Democratic Party'] |
Master RxJs: Handling auth-related events frontend with RxJs | Photo by Eric Prouzet on Unsplash
RxJs excels at handling asynchronous operations. Today, we’re going to look at how to solve one of the more challenging parts of front-end development using RxJs: Handling events related to authentication.
So how much ground are we going to cover with this article? We’re going to look at the following common problems related to authentication handling:
Fetching and storing tokens in a BehaviorSubject in a service
Automatic notification to the user if their token is about to expire
Automatic logout when the user is inactive for a given period of time
Note that this article does NOT cover topics of actual route restrictions concerning tokens, or authentication processes for API. The former is too framework-oriented and does not necessarily relate directly to RxJs, and the latter is strictly API-related, whereas I’m looking at using RxJs to improve the frontend developer and user experience.
As the code required to showcase this usage of RxJs is quite extensive, instead of the usual code-along I’ll simply present a finished solution and explain how each part works. The finished example is available here:
Handling auth-related problems in frontend using RxJs
Let’s understand how this work by going through one file at the time. We are going to skip looking at files that are not necessarily relevant to what we’re trying to achieve. For example, dashboard and landing-page are simple pages with a button and do not deserve further inspection.
Let’s start by looking at the services.
app/services/auth.service.ts
auth.service.ts is the service that accepts requests to log in or out, stores the auth token and exposes data related to the token.
Close to the top we see a declaration for authToken$ as a BehaviorSubject of type Token . If you’re unfamiliar with BehaviorSubject , reading up on them might be smart, but in this case just consider them the go-to type for storing data in services.
Next we have a set of selector functions that return data based on the state of authToken$ . I prefer having the state-holding BehaviorSubject kept private inside a service and rather expose observable selectors that return either props directly from it or calculated variables based on the data stored. We expose three observable selectors: isAuthenticated$ which returns true when we have a token, userData$ which exposes the userData stored in the token, and exp$ which exposes the expiry (timestamp) of the token.
We also want auth.service to be solely responsible for logging out the user when the token expires. Although this could be done in auth-timeout-warning.service described below, considering that it handles situations when the token is close to expiry, forcing a log out when the token expires is a concern that should not be separated from auth.service.ts .
We implement this by making a forceLogout$ Observable that pipes exp$ and creates a timer that waits until the seconds between and now the expiry has passed. We destroy this pipe if the user already logs out, and otherwise subscribes to it and forces a logout when it emits.
AuthService has two methods: logIn() and logOut() . Although this varies from developer to developer, I prefer NOT to return observables from service actions, but rather let components or other service react to changes in the service itself once it has finishes running any function. Therefore, logIn and logOut are both void functions.
Using timer(400) we emulate a delay for the login which we will use for testing the case where the user logs in JUST before he is automatically logged out.
Other than that, both logIn and logOut basically behaves by updating the authToken$ state. The expiry of the token is set to 4 seconds from whenever logIn is called.
/services/auth-timeout-warning.service.ts
auth-timeout-warning.service.ts is responsible for letting the UI know when a token is about to expire, and also to inform the UI of when the token was reset meaning a warning is no longer necessary to display.
From the top we see the calculateDelayTime method. This is used when a new token is fetched, and will return how much time is left until 2 seconds before the user is automatically logged out.
The service exposes two variables: timeoutWasReset$ which is a Subject that notifies whenever the expiry time has been updated and timeoutNotificationReached$ which is an Observable that emits whenever we are 2 seconds away from being automatically logged out.
Next comes the first tricky part of this setup. We define timeOutNotificationReached$ to be a reaction to authService.exp$ . We immediately signal that the timeout has been reset by calling this.timeoutWasReset$.next() . Then, we check if the expiry date is actually set ( authService.exp$ will emit null when the user logs out), and if it is we let the emission pass.
We then switchMap over to a pipe we create by calling of(exp) (our final emission will be the actual expiration time). We delay it by 2 seconds less than the expiration time, and then say we only care about waiting for the emission as long as the user is logged in by using takeUntil on exp$ and filtering out anything truthy.
The last step might not make a lot of sense at first, but remember that before we use switchMap we already do the opposite: We filter out falsey exp values. In this case, a new emission will reach switchMap , and since switchMap automatically unsubscribes from the inner observable and creates a new instance when an emission reaches it, we have already covered the case where a new valid expiration date is emitted. In the case where exp$ emits null , we know the user has logged out, so we only bother unsubscribing the inner Observable. (We don’t do this on the outer Observable as this would make the stream never accept any emissions from authService.exp$ until the page is reloaded.)
Finally, we add shareReplay to ensure that only one of these pipes are active no matter the number the subscribers, so that we for instance avoid side effects like timeoutWasReset$ being called when we get new subscribers rather than only when authService.exp$ emits..
So far, so good? The pipe is a bit complicated, but summing it up all it really does is the following: | https://medium.com/swlh/master-rxjs-handling-auth-related-events-frontend-with-rxjs-a10c396c6493 | ['Lars Holdaas'] | 2020-03-18 16:15:30.583000+00:00 | ['Rxjs', 'Angular', 'Front End Development', 'Reactive Programming'] |
Best Gallery Or Museum In New Jersey: Evalyn Dunn Gallery / 2020 American Art Awards | American Art Awards: “In 1958, this Dunn family effort was originally created as a casual, local venue for the exhibition, framing and preservation of art — but over the years Evalyn Dunn Gallery has exceeded everyone’s expectations to become a significant world-renowned gallery. When Evalyn Dunn first opened her art gallery in the 1950’s, people marveled at her ability to hold a full time job, run an art gallery and raise a family. Fortunately, her supportive husband, Benjamin, worked with her and consequently Evalyn Dunn Gallery prospered.
“In its 61st year, the east coast treasure showcases the finest 20th Century American and European art, works of acclaimed artists from all countries, including Alvar of Spain, Graciela Rodo Boulanger of Bolivia, Ron Hedrick of Canada and American artists such as Michele Byrne, Jon Friedman, Mary Johnston and Ricardo Roig.”
Other include Stephanie Amato, Antonelle, Apple, Daniel Azoulay, Beatty, Natalia Bessonova, William Bunting, Giovanna Calzolari, Daniel Carvalho, C.M. Cooper,, Adolpho Colque, Cook, Cora, Cybele, Datian, Dawley, Degas, Fairchild-Woodard, Kate Faust, Gantner,William Gramley, Karla Gudeon, Ilan Harel, Jessica Hedrick, Impiglia, Jaramillo, Judaica, Kochberg, Lee, Mercurio D’Anchise, Miro, Natale, Nava, Pei Yang, Peter Max, Pino, Pruna Milanes Pv Giancarlos, Alicia Quaini, Renoir, Salzman, Jane Seymour, Sissman, Ilene Smith, Murray Smith, John Triarsi, Rosalia Verdun, Vidan Dangelico Vittorio, Jessica Wasilewski and Whistler.
Star Ledger‘s Sally Friedman writes: “Both sisters can still remember doing their homework after school in the back area of their parent’s art gallery.”
Today, Jaclyn Civins owns and runs the gallery, and her sister, Amy Walsh, is the marketing director. They fondly recall ambitious mom Evalyn and dad Benjamin importing oil paintings from Europe sixty years ago. As the business has grown and changed locations over the last decades, Civins and Walsh have left their own imprint on a business that honors what their parents began. Due to changing times the gallery has begun to diversify and has expanded to include jewelry, art glass, gifts and religious items.
Jaclyn Civins was voted “Westfield’s Small Business Person of the year for 2018” by Alignable. The gallery was also selected as one of the top galleries in the US by Art Design Consultants.
American Art Awards: “American Art Awards selects Evalyn Dunn Gallery as our Best in New Jersey and one of our Top 25 American Galleries and Museums for 2020.”
Evalyn Dunn Gallery / 549 South Avenue West / Westfield, NJ 07090
Mon — Sat 10–5 / Sun & Evenings by appointment. / (908) 232-0412 | https://medium.com/@thombierd/best-gallery-or-museum-in-new-jersey-evalynn-dunn-gallery-2020-american-art-awards-db7981e99ad6 | ['Thom Bierdz'] | 2020-07-21 03:31:15.562000+00:00 | ['Awards', 'Artist', 'Art', 'Gallery', 'New Jersey'] |
The Ettie video doorbell takes your visitor’s temperature before they cross your hearth | The Ettie video doorbell takes your visitor’s temperature before they cross your hearth Desiree Feb 2·2 min read
COVID is definitely a theme during this year’s online-only CES, particularly when it comes to video doorbells. We’ve already seen video doorbells with touchless designs from Arlo and Alarm.com, and now here’s one that takes your visitor’s temperature before they’re allowed inside.
Related product Ring Video Doorbell (2nd Generation) Read TechHive's reviewSee it The Ettie comes equipped with your usual arsenal of video doorbell features, including HD resolution, two-way audio, and a mobile app that lets you see who’s standing on your doorstep. (Plott, the company behind the Ettie, has yet to reveal additional features.)
What sets the Ettie apart is its infrared temperature sensor, which lets it quickly take a visitor’s temperature. Once it’s measured a person’s temperature, the Ettie can send an alert to your phone to let you know whether it’s safe (well, relatively speaking) to let the visitor inside. There’s also a pair of LEDs—one green, and one red—on the doorbell itself, which can flash to let the person know whether they’ll be allowed entry.
[ Further reading: The best video doorbells ]Besides its ability to take someone’s temperature, the Ettie can snap the visitor’s picture and take note of when they arrived. It can also track a venue’s headcount and send an alert if you’ve reached capacity, while its visitor log could be used for contact tracing.
While the Ettie could certainly be used for a residence, it seems more targeted at businesses—say, a small storefront that’s limiting its capacity to maintain social distancing, or perhaps the waiting room of a doctor’s office. The built-in infrared temperature sensor could also be useful for a small business that can’t spare an employee to perform temperature checks at the door.
Ettie manufacturer Plott says beta units of the doorbell are slated to ship in the second quarter of 2021, with a target price of $300.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@desiree38919073/the-ettie-video-doorbell-takes-your-visitors-temperature-before-they-cross-your-hearth-1d35fab4b576 | [] | 2021-02-02 09:42:58.747000+00:00 | ['Entertainment', 'Tvs', 'Chargers', 'Services'] |
More Full Frontal On The Way | More Full Frontal On The Way
MYLES ARONOWITZ / TBS
TBS officially handed a renewal to Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. This was not a shock, nor was it unexpected. The show has proven to be a hit with its target audience and is an awards magnet.
Full Frontal is currently the buzziest late-night talk show. Colbert may have the ratings, Kimmel has the heart, as Corden has the singing but Full Frontal has its own secret weapon: Samantha Bee.
Yes, the hostess herself makes the show great. She attacks the right, left, and center equally. Of course, her most pointed jabs are aimed directly at Donald Trump but she is not afraid to go after Democrats with the same verve.
There were calls for Full Frontal to be canceled after Bee called First Daughter and Senior White House Advisor, Ivanka Trump, a “feckless cunt.” The controversy seemed to stem from two things. Trump supporters didn’t realize that Ivanka is a c — t and they had no idea feckless was a real word.
Around the same time, she called on former senator Al Franken to resign for inappropriate behavior. Eventually, he did but the left was not happy with those who said he needed to resign.
She apologized for the Ivanka controversy but refused to back down on Franken. The apology to Trump is believed to have been mandated by the network and not something she wanted to do.
What are your hopes for Full Frontal season 5? | https://popoff.us/more-full-frontal-on-the-way-5c9945e7544c | ['Edward Anderson'] | 2019-11-15 13:36:31.874000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Election 2020', 'TV Shows', 'Trump', 'Television'] |
Implementation of Principal Component Analysis(PCA) in K Means Clustering | Let us code!
About the dataset : It contains 217 columns of hobbies, where 1 means yes.
So, first step will be to import all the necessary libraries.
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sklearn.cluster import KMeans
from sklearn.decomposition import PCA
Next step will be to load our dataset. I have downloaded a dataset from Kaggle.
df = pd.read_csv("kaggle_Interests_group.csv")
Next step is data preprocessing. The data has a lot of NaN values, because of which we cannot train the model. So we simply replace those with 0 using this code.
df.fillna(0, inplace = True)
As we can see in the dataset that we don’t need the first two columns, so we will assign rest 217 columns to variable X.
x = df.iloc[:,2:]
Let us now move on to building and training the model. Even though it is specified in the dataset that it contains 4 groups, but still we will implement the “elbow method” to determine the number of clusters. This can be done by using WCSS (sum of squares of distances of datapoints)
wcss = []
for i in range(1,11):
model = KMeans(n_clusters = i, init = "k-means++")
model.fit(x)
wcss.append(model.inertia_)
plt.figure(figsize=(10,10))
plt.plot(range(1,11), wcss)
plt.xlabel('Number of clusters')
plt.ylabel('WCSS')
plt.show()
This should give the following graph as output
Graph to find out appropriate number of cluster
As it is evident that there is no particular elbow for this dataset, so in this article I will do it using 6 clusters. You can implement it using 4 clusters as a practice.
Next step is to convert our dataset from multidimensions to 2 dimensions.
pca = PCA(2)
data = pca.fit_transform(x)
You can specify any number of dimensions/features to reduce to while initialising PCA() functions, but for simplicity sake I have used 2. If you are using more than 2 components, you can use first two components with highest variance value to train and visualise the dataset.
Here we have used fit_transform() function to to both fit the dataset x and apply dimensionality reduction to it. This returns an ndarray of 2x2 dimensions.
Next we plot and check the variance of the components.
plt.figure(figsize=(10,10))
var = np.round(pca.explained_variance_ratio_*100, decimals = 1)
lbls = [str(x) for x in range(1,len(var)+1)]
plt.bar(x=range(1,len(var)+1), height = var, tick_label = lbls)
plt.show()
This returns the following screenplot
Variance levels of different components
Now we will train our model based on the new features generated by PCA(). Since we have only 2 Principal Components (PC1 and PC2), we will get a 2D figure with 6 clusters.
centers = np.array(model2.cluster_centers_)
model = KMeans(n_clusters = 6, init = "k-means++")
label = model.fit_predict(data)
plt.figure(figsize=(10,10))
uniq = np.unique(label)
for i in uniq:
plt.scatter(data[label == i , 0] , data[label == i , 1] , label = i) plt.scatter(centers[:,0], centers[:,1], marker="x", color='k')
#This is done to find the centroid for each clusters.
plt.legend()
plt.show()
This is the scatterplot we get.
PC1 vs PC2 graph, with centroids marked
Hurray! We have successfully coded and implemented K Means clustering with PCA. Give yourself a pat on the back ;)
You can checkout the python notebook as well as the dataset on this GitHub link.
Here is the Kaggle link for the dataset used in the above article.
Thank you for reading! | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/implementation-of-principal-component-analysis-pca-in-k-means-clustering-b4bc0aa79cb6 | ['Wamika Jha'] | 2021-02-28 16:12:34.386000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Visualization', 'Clustering Algorithm', 'Unsupervised Learning', 'Python'] |
Into the Ghizer | Into the Ghizer
On all the days, what we found in abundance was snow all around. I still remember a view from window while sitting in lounge with book in hand, facing Snowy mountains. Being a person born and raised in central part of Pakistan, it was dream come true. By getting up in the day, we used to hear from our host family ‘baraf aaj b paray gi, mausam saaf nahi hai’ although we were unable to map their reading at that moment but they were true.
Early morning view form room window
It was our first journey to Gilgit by air. We booked our flight, then cancelled and then booked again. By reaching on airport, we thought us to be late but Plane was still not in mood to fly. Flight was one hour late and everyone was trying to inquire receptionist who was giving annoying funny answers to passengers. It was an exciting journey to see Nanga Parbat in the ariel view. During our flight, plane was going through clouds and there was a certain turbulence but still, it was fun.It took 60 minutes in total and we were landing at Gilgit airport which is around 18-hr distance by road which was impossible in such weather. Gilgit airport is a magnificent and captivating view. | https://medium.com/@saba-malik/into-the-ghizer-473fbd48c1a6 | ['Saba Malik'] | 2020-04-21 08:00:45.529000+00:00 | ['Pakistan', 'People', 'Northern Area', 'Snow', 'Life'] |
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