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Monday | Trying to quit smoking crack for the first time.
I’ve been off heroin officially for over 3 years. It’s actually more like two and a half. My first couple months on methadone were spent fucking around with my friend Elvis. He would text me from the tiny chic apartment in Hell’s Kitchen that he was staying in while the owner was off at Summit Malibu (on Elvis’s recommendation; we were alumni) trying to quit the meth habit that caused him to host raw sex parties there.
i saw mason
what r u doing?
That was usually code for “please come help me shoot up”. It’s hard to turn down dope during your first few months on methadone. My clinic started me off at 30mg a day and went up 5mg a week until I hit 50mg. Then I had to ask to go up, max 5mg a week still. I could still feel the effects of heroin until I hit 65mg. That was my magic number. My last time shooting up I was with Elvis. I did a few bags and felt nothing. I stopped seeing him shortly after, as drug habit and his belief that he was a “Targeted Individual” was getting out of control. I stopped hitting up “mason”.
I did try to cop one more time when one of my favorite rappers came through and posted about needing help finding dog food. My long time dealer of four years, for the first time ever, did not respond to my texts. I informed the rapper via text that he wasn’t around, sorry. I never tried again.
So it’s been over three years. About six months ago, my not-partner decided to surprise me on my birthday with a bunch of drugs. I had mentioned that I did crack twice prior and enjoyed it. So we googled how to cook crack. He liked it a lot. He looked in my eyes and told me, “I’m thinking about starting a serious crack habit.” I was worried. But still weak. The drug was still great. And when we could no longer get our hands on coke, I was the one to mention that Washington Square Park was full of crack dealers. I was the one to suggest we go sit on a bench next to the tables full of dealers. The first guy to walk by chanting his offering, “Weed, weed…” was our first middle man. He was being followed around by a fucked up looking guy wearing scrubs. My not-partner followed him while I stayed on the bench with the scrubs guy. He was looking around on the ground picking up small pieces of white stuff and murmering to himself, “No way, right? No way…” Eventually a guy came walking through and everyone came running up to him. My not-partner told him that he had given the money to the middle man. The middle man started stuttering and the obvious dealer started threatening him. We ended up giving the dealer more money. It had started pouring. He handed us rocks in the rain, winking at me as he handed me an extra one.
At this point, it’s been quite a few months. When I walk up to the tables at Washington Square Park someone immediately comes up to me and tells me to follow them. I do, without question. Beside them I mumble the amount of money I have and trade me a couple plastic baggies full of tiny rocks. I thank them and tell them to stay safe and we go our separate ways. This shit has been happening at that corner since long before I even moved to New York, and it will continue there until the end of time. Sorry, yuppies. Arrest one and another shall take his place. The endless dance.
I received my stimulus check in the mail. It’s sitting on the same shelf my altar is on. I’m trying to harness it’s power before I cash it. lol No actually I’m trying to keep myself broke as possible so I can’t by crack. Technically I could spend as little as $10 to get a high, but I won’t bother for less than $30–40 worth. Unless I’m fiending. Then I’ll spend hours scraping out old baggies and trying to pull a drag off a dead blackened pipe. But instead I’ve just doubled my dosage of “Xanax”. They’re pressed pills, but they’re stronger than real Xanax. I’m on my last bottle of methadone and tomorrow is my last clinic day before Thanksgiving. I don’t have enough money on me to get more than a $20 bag so I won’t have to worry when I walk past the park on my way to the PATH train. But despite the fact I’m leaning over from the Xans and ‘done I still have that itch.
Man.
Fuck uppers. | https://medium.com/@burghl3ss/monday-266da5caf943 | [] | 2021-01-07 17:00:52.201000+00:00 | ['Recovery', 'Cocaine Addiction', 'Addiction', 'Crack', 'NYC'] |
Jean Danhong Chen 5 Tasks Immigration Lawyers Do | As an immigrant, you are probably not as lucky as Americans to find a job as many of the jobs that Americans find.
Jean Danhong Chen Fortunately for you, there is probably an immigration lawyer who will assist you in hiring and hiring workers, or at least assist you.
Immigration lawyers can help you with everything from applying for a job, dealing with human relations staff and finding employment opportunities.
An immigration lawyer can assist you in all matters relating to the law of citizenship, such as citizenship, application for citizenship and immigration law.
A lawyer provides legal advice on all aspects of immigration laws, including immigration — supported employment, family-supported immigration and immigration-supported employment.
The attorneys provide legal advice on all aspects of immigration law and the law of the United States of America.
Lawyers: Lawyers provide medical advice, legal assistance and legal assistance in all areas, from citizenship applications, immigration applications and visas, immigration policy and law enforcement issues, to all facets of US citizenship and citizenship law, including family immigration, employment promotion and labor issues.
Jean Danhong Chen Immigration attorneys provide legal advice on all aspects of immigration law and the law of the United States of America. Immigration lawyers interpret and guide the process by which people can secure travel, work and student visas.
Some specialise, for example, in visa applications, travel and work visas, employment and employment promotion issues, immigration policy and law enforcement.
Immigration lawyers do not represent their clients directly in court, but help and advise them on their rights as immigrants. Immigration officers prefer to work with immigration lawyers who can communicate professionally, demonstrate reason, have knowledge and are sincere in their commitment to their clients. Some immigration lawyers are found in small practices specializing in immigration law.
Whether you are interested in obtaining a work permit in the United States or permanent resident status or even a temporary work visa, an experienced immigration lawyer is a true expert in what you need to achieve this.
Jean Danhong Chen A qualified immigration lawyer can guide you through the complicated process with a clear understanding of your rights as an immigrant, your legal status and the goals you are trying to achieve.
Many of the characteristics of top immigration lawyers can only be established in court, where you can explain your circumstances to immigration lawyers who offer you potential strategies for success. | https://medium.com/@jean-danhongchen/jean-danhong-chen-5-tasks-immigration-lawyers-do-79ae68a56245 | ['Jean Danhong Chen'] | 2021-04-09 17:42:17.130000+00:00 | ['Lawyer', 'Immigrant Lawyer', 'Jean Danhong Chen'] |
Data Visualization | Data Visualization using matplotlib and seaborn
In this blog we’ll try to understand what data visualization is and how it could be used for making plots using matplotlib and seaborn in Python. We will also talk about the various types of analysis along with the most common types of plots used in data visualization.
What is Data Visualization ?
Data visualization is a form of visual communication. It involves the creation and study of the visual representation of data.
We’ll be implementing various data visualization techniques on the ‘iris’ dataset.
Different types of analysis:
Univariate (U) : In univariate analysis we use a single feature to analyze its properties. Bivariate (B): When we compare the data between exactly 2 features then its called bivariate analysis. Multivariate (M): Comparing more than 2 variables is called as Multivariate analysis.
Most common types of plots used in data visualization:
Scatter plot (B) Pair plot (M) Box plot (U) Violin plot(U) Distribution plot (U) Joint plot (U) & (B) Bar chart (B) Line plot (B)
Let us look at some of these plots used in data visualization one by one :
Import libraries for data visualization
First we need to import two important libraries for data visualization -
matplotlib seaborn
Matplotlib is a python library used extensively for the visualization of data. While Seaborn is a python library based on matplotlib. Seaborn provides a high-level interface for drawing attractive and informative statistical graphics.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
Load file into a dataframe
iris = pd.read_csv("iris.csv")
1. Scatter Plot:
It is one of the most commonly used plots for simple data visualization. It gives us a representation of where each point in the entire dataset are present with respect to any 2 or 3 features (or columns). They are available in 2D as well as 3D.
# Here we are plotting sepal_length vs sepal_width
# setosa - 'red'; versicolor - 'blue'; virginica - 'green'
for n in range(0,150):
if iris['species'][n] == 'setosa':
plt.scatter(iris['sepal_length'][n], iris['sepal_width'][n], color = 'red')
plt.xlabel('sepal_length')
plt.ylabel('sepal_width')
elif iris['species'][n] == 'versicolor':
plt.scatter(iris['sepal_length'][n], iris['sepal_width'][n], color = 'blue')
plt.xlabel('sepal_length')
plt.ylabel('sepal_width')
elif iris['species'][n] == 'virginica':
plt.scatter(iris['sepal_length'][n], iris['sepal_width'][n], color = 'green')
plt.xlabel('sepal_length')
plt.ylabel('sepal_width')
2. Pair Plot
Lets say we have n number of features in a data, Pair plot will help us create us a (n x n) figure where the diagonal plots will be histogram plot of the feature corresponding to that row and rest of the plots are the combination of feature from each row in y axis and feature from each column in x axis.
The code snippet for pair plot implemented on Iris dataset is :
sns.set_style("whitegrid");
sns.pairplot(iris, hue="species", size=3);
plt.show()
3. Box Plot
A box plot (or box-and-whisker plot) shows the distribution of quantitative data in a way that facilitates comparisons between variables or across levels of a categorical variable. The box shows the quartiles of the dataset while the whiskers extend to show the rest of the distribution.
Code for plotting the features using Box plots :
# Plotting the features using boxes
plt.style.use('ggplot')
plt.subplot(2,2,1)
sns.boxplot(x = 'species', y = 'sepal_length', data = iris)
plt.subplot(2,2,2)
sns.boxplot(x = 'species', y = 'sepal_width', data = iris)
plt.subplot(2,2,3)
sns.boxplot(x = 'species', y = 'petal_length', data = iris)
plt.subplot(2,2,4)
sns.boxplot(x = 'species', y = 'petal_width', data = iris)
4. Violin Plots:
The violin plots can be inferred as a combination of Box plot at the middle and distribution plots (Kernel Density Estimation ) on both side of the data. This can give us the details of distribution like whether the distribution is mutimodal, Skewness etc.
Violin plot is also from seaborn package. The code is simple and as follows.
# Representing data using violin form
plt.style.use('ggplot')
plt.subplot(2,2,1)
sns.violinplot(x = 'species', y = 'sepal_length', data = iris)
plt.subplot(2,2,2)
sns.violinplot(x = 'species', y = 'sepal_width', data = iris)
plt.subplot(2,2,3)
sns.violinplot(x = 'species', y = 'petal_length', data = iris)
plt.subplot(2,2,4)
sns.violinplot(x = 'species', y = 'petal_width', data = iris)
5. Joint Plot
Join plots can do both univariate as well as bivariate analysis. The main plot will give us a bivariate analysis, whereas on the top and right side we will get univariate plots of both the variables that were considered. It makes our job easy by getting both scatter plots for bivariate and Distribution plot for univariate, both in a single plot.
There are variety of option you can choose from, which can be tuned using kind parameter in seaborn’s jointplot function.
# Joint plots shows bivariate scatterplots
# And univariate histograms
sns.jointplot(x = 'sepal_length', y = 'sepal_width', data = iris)
6. Strip Plot
A strip plot can be drawn on its own, but it is also a good complement to a box or violin plot in cases where you want to show all observations along with some representation of the underlying distribution.
It is is a graphical data anlysis technique for summarizing a univariate data set. It is typically used for small data sets (histograms and density plots are typically preferred for larger data sets).
# Plottign data in strip
plt.subplot(2,2,1)
sns.stripplot(x = 'species', y = 'sepal_length', data = iris, jitter = True)
plt.subplot(2,2,2)
sns.stripplot(x = 'species', y = 'sepal_width', data = iris, jitter = True)
plt.subplot(2,2,3)
sns.stripplot(x = 'species', y = 'petal_length', data = iris, jitter = True)
plt.subplot(2,2,4)
sns.stripplot(x = 'species', y = 'petal_width', data = iris, jitter = True)
lmplot() function in seaborn
Seaborn’s lmplot is a 2D scatterplot with an optional overlaid regression line. Logistic regression for binary classification is also supported with lmplot . It is intended as a convenient interface to fit regression models across conditional subsets of a dataset.
The fuction can draw a scatterplot of two variables, x and y , and then fit the regression model y ~ x and plot the resulting regression line with a 95% confidence interval for that regression.
lmplot() has data as a required parameter and the x and y variables must be specified as strings.
# This graph is same as above but plotting the species separately
sns.lmplot(x = 'sepal_length', y = 'sepal_width', data = iris, hue = 'species', col = 'species')
Conclusion :
So here you go, you have learned about the different kinds of plots that you could make using seaborn and matplotlib library. Data visualization not only helps you to understand your data well but whenever you find any insights, you can use these visualization techniques to share your findings with other people.
Now go on and try creating such amazing plots on some real-world data sets. | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/data-visualization-a6dccf643fbb | ['Afroz Chakure'] | 2021-06-06 03:27:27.561000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Visualization', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Matplotlib'] |
6 Tips for Mapping Out Your Sales Page Design (to Save Time and Sanity) | Here’s something about me — I love writing sales pages, but HATE designing them.
I know I’m not the only one!
So, here’s what I do to make the process a bit less stressful. This can help make the design process easier whether you do it yourself or hire a web designer to do it for you.
Use Headlines and Subheadlines
Headlines and subheadlines make your sales page easily scannable for vital info. Although you don’t want your ideal buyer to skim your sales page, if she decides she needs to, you should make it easy for her to find what she needs. After all, she might be really close to buying, but just need to confirm one thing.
In addition to telling the reader exactly where to find vital info, headlines and subheadlines can help YOU stay on track while you’re writing so that you don’t end up bouncing all over the place. You want your sales page to make sense — from beginning to end. This is one way to ensure that happens.
Some common headlines and sections to include on your sales page include:
Your attention-grabbing headline and subheadline (usually calling out your ideal client, their pain, or the results they want)
Introducing (where you finally introduce your offer and its benefits
What’s Included/What You Get (where you talk about all of the features of your offer)
How This Works (where you talk about the process of working with you — from start to finish)
Testimonials (where you share the results other people have gotten after working with you)
Who This Is For (where you discuss who would get great results with your offer)
Who This Is Not For (where you talk about who is not the ideal customer for this offer)
Bio (where you share who you are, why you created the offer, and why you are the best person to get it from)
FAQS (where you answer questions and address common objections)
Break Up Your Text
Have you ever read something online that was just one big, long block of text?
Did you automatically get pissed off at whoever wrote it and refused to read it?
Or perhaps you made an attempt to read it because the topic was interesting, but you just couldn’t muddle your way through.
That’s because reading long blocks of text makes our eyes work harder than is necessary. We learn as early as elementary school to break up text into paragraphs.
Online, you have to take it even further. You want to make things scannable and easy to read.
Use short paragraphs. 2–3 sentences per paragraph should do it! You can also use single sentences as long as that sentence stands on its own well.
Also, use bullet points whenever it makes sense.
Use Visual Emphasis
When it comes to online writing, bold, italics, and capitalization are your friends. Use them strategically to draw attention to important words, phrases, and sentences. I also like to use pops of color throughout my sales pages.
Make a Note of Where to Place Visual and Design Elements
When you’re writing your sales page, you don’t want to break your creative flow by stopping to create or add visual elements like pictures, testimonials, graphics, or call buttons. You need to focus on getting all the words down and THEN you can go back in and add all the visual stuff.
To make it easy for you to remember where everything goes (or for your designer, if you are outsourcing the sales page design), make a CLEAR note of where things go. For example, you can type things like “Pricing Table Here”. “Testimonial from X Client Here” or “Buy Now Button Here”.
To avoid ending up with a published sales page that still has those placeholder notes on it, make it really hard to overlook them by changing the font, type, size, and/or color of the text.
Embrace White Space
While having great visuals definitely makes a sales page more effective, there is such a thing as too many visuals. Don’t feel like you need to fill in every blank space with something. In fact, having white space on your sales page is good because it gives the eyes a bit of a break while reading.
Use Call-to-Action Buttons Strategically
The whole point of a sales page is to get your ideal client to take action, whether that is to buy a coaching package, enroll in a course, or book a sales call. You MUST include a clear call-to-action. Personally, I love using call-to-action buttons with micro-copy like “Yes, Sign Me Up!”, “I want in!”, “Take My Money”, “Book a Call”, or the classic “Buy Now”.
Whatever your call-to-action is, though, you want to use it strategically. Don’t jump the gun by introducing it too soon. You want to wait until your reader has learned what the offer is and how it will help them before inviting them to buy it.
Unless they arrive at your sales page already knowing everything, a premature call-to-action is the sales page equivalent of yelling “Hey, baby…can I get them digits!” to an attractive woman from across the street — before you even know her name or have had a conversation with her. Even if you could have been a match made in heaven, she’s probably going to think “Boy, bye” in her head while she quickly walks past you.
Talk to your ideal client first. Tell her about yourself and what you do for a living. Let her see your value and how you can change her life. THEN you can invite her to give your offer a shot.
Personally, I also think it’s smart to put your call-to-action in a few places if you’re using a long-form sales page. Remember, your goal is to make it super easy to work with you. Having to scroll forever to find the Buy Now button doesn’t help.
That’s it! Write persuasive copy and use these design tips to create a sales page that puts more dollars in your bank account each month.
Check out screenshots of my Blog with Authority: Pull in Paying Customers with Your Blog” sales page to see these tips in action! | https://medium.com/@tiffanyhathorn1985/6-tips-for-mapping-out-your-sales-page-design-to-save-time-and-sanity-3c031fe774a8 | ['Tiffany Hathorn'] | 2019-06-22 20:05:33.733000+00:00 | ['Copywriting', 'Online Business', 'Online Marketing', 'Copywriting Tips', 'Sales Page'] |
The dos and don’ts of job hunting | In this article, I will share the things that, if done right, will become a game-changer in your job search.
How do I know about landing great job offers? Simple. I wrote hundreds of motivation letters and CVs for myself and other people and filled out hundreds of job applications. I’ve seen what is working and what is not. Approximately 95% of my applications received a callback. So here is what you should know:
1. Send out at least a dozen applications a week. Not one per month, not even one per week, but one-two per day. Do you want that job or not? You have to really go for it. Do your research, pin several firms you would like to work for, select several positions at each firm that are of interest to you, and apply, apply, apply. First of all, not all the firms will answer; some might have the position already filled or might have several candidates already at the final stages of interviews. Then, some firms might eventually offer a lower salary than what you would expect. And some interviews, you are probably going to mess up; this is life, anything can happen — a bad day, an asshole interviewer, or you might not be experienced enough for the role. The moral of the story — the more you apply, the higher your chances are to get a perfect role/salary/time-until-hired ratio.
In different professions, the job opportunities are varied, and there might not be so many options around. In this case, network, socialize with the people in the field, go to the job fairs or the open door days to your desired employer, get as much information about the hiring requirements as you can, in other words, act every single day, be out there! I have seen countless people who used this situation (having limited employers for their specific field) to do nothing, literally nothing, or do nothing + whine about “how hard it is.” THAT will NOT get you a job for sure. Building up your portfolio, attending conferences, relevant events, and educating yourself about the role and the field will.
2. Save your dream companies for later. The first couple of applications/interviews are for practice purposes. Most people are too afraid/ashamed to fail, so as a result, they are so scared to apply. Frankly, there is no reason for that. Failing an interview is a valuable experience! As long as you learn from it. Yes, you failed and made a fool of yourself! But! You now have an idea about the type of questions they ask and about the interview atmosphere. Also, the more times you get humiliated, the higher your resistance becomes. In other words, you will be significantly less nervous next time, which means a calmer state of mind and better performance. It is not he to whom everything is easy who deserves admiration, but he who failed and dared to try again and again. Theodore Roosevelt said in his famous speech, “Citizenship in a Republic” in 1910:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Remember what Uncle Teddy said, kids.
3. If a recruiter finds you in social networks and offers an interview — do it! Yes, even if you’re not looking for a job right now. First of all, it is an excellent way to practice and keep your knowledge fresh and up-to-date. Let’s be honest, in our day-to-day jobs; we are mostly doing very specific things that do not necessarily permit us to keep all the profession’s basics fresh at the top of our heads. Secondly, it is a fantastic way to estimate your market value and get an idea of what your employer’s competitors will offer to have you and your expertise on board. Perhaps it is time to ask your boss for a raise? Or, on the contrary, stop whining and feeling underpaid. And finally, losing opportunities, especially when they come your way so willingly, is just silly. I know quite a few examples of people opportunistically going for an interview and landing on jobs that doubled their pay.
4. DO NOT use a generic motivation letter for different positions. I know we humans are lazy, but you can’t have an omelet without actually breaking the egg. Each position has a precise description, and each firm is looking not only for a professional but also a personality match. Your motivation letter must answer very accurately the points highlighted in the position description. For example, suppose the job description states that they are looking for a team player who is knowledgeable in computer science to be responsible for the infrastructure development project. In that case, the motivation letter should state that you have successful experience of working in a team, provide a specific example, and on top of that explain that infrastructure development is exactly something you are looking for because of a related project you worked on at a previous workplace/at the university which (even if not directly involved it) made you realize how important it is in general, as well as how fascinating it is for you, and how you can use your already existing skills (enlist the specific skills!) to build up even more expertise in this project. It should always be about particular examples, emphasis on the value you can bring, and proof that you are willing and EXTREMELY interested to develop professionally in this direction. I will repeat for the bazillion’s time: be specific! Don’t just say, “Oh, I am sooooo extremely interested!” say, “I am extremely interested BECAUSE of A), B), C), etc..”
5. When it comes to a CV: keep it short. Nobody cares you took singing lessons in 5th grade, so cut out the irrelevant bullshit. If you are applying for a job at an American company, try to fit it on 1 page and not add a photo. Some workplaces consider it unprofessional. A more extensive CV with a photo is acceptable for a European workplace, but I would still recommend limiting it to 1 page. Imagine hundreds of CVs HR receives! Nobody is going to have time to read your autobiography in 5 volumes. They want to see you have relevant education and work experience, perhaps 2–3 interesting points, and a “cherry on top” if you have one (for example, an award, an exciting project you’ve accomplished, or an exotic international experience). Even though a photo is acceptable in the European format, it is my personal opinion that a CV should speak about you as a professional, highlighting the experiences that prove to the hiring manager/HR that you will be a good fit for the job. The way you look has nothing to do with it and might be taken as an attempt to influence a hiring decision.
To sum it up, be hard-working, be specific, and to the point, embrace your failures, and learn, learn, learn. Good luck! | https://medium.com/@marynanazarianblog/the-dos-and-donts-of-job-hunting-cb58f0cdab4b | ['Maryna Nazarian'] | 2020-12-08 19:36:00.135000+00:00 | ['Job Search', 'Motivation Letters', 'Job Hunting', 'Career Change', 'Success'] |
How to Check If the Ports Are Open With Using Traceroute | Introduction
I will present a few examples that may be helpful in troubleshooting network problems wit ICMP, UDP and TCP communication with using traceroute
For test we can use simple Vagrant file.
Let’s start
ICMP
Checking if the route is routed to the destination and if the IP is reachable. | https://medium.com/@iceburn/how-to-check-if-the-ports-are-open-with-using-traceroute-f6687be3acc4 | [] | 2020-12-23 07:22:35.996000+00:00 | ['Troubleshooting', 'Networking', 'Linux'] |
[NOTICE] EXNOMY Operating Policy | EXNOMY Operating Policy
Semi-decentralized exchange ‘EXNOMY’ was developed by the Linker Coin Foundation, and Linker Global Limited plans to operate ‘EXNOMY’.
About 50% of listing fee will be received as LinkerCoin(LNC). This term will be specified in the contract.
The Semi-decentralized Exchange is based on the Klaytn mainnet. You can use EXNOMY beta version with various test coins.
EXNOMY (EXCHANGE + ECONOMY): www.exnomy.com
EXNOMY 운영 정책
Semi-decentralized Exchange ‘EXNOMY’는 링커코인 재단 Linker Global Limited가 운영합니다.
링커코인 재단에서 운영하는 EXNOMY의 상장비용의 50% 내외를 링커코인으로 받을 계획이며, 이는 상장계약서에 명시될 것입니다.
Semi-decentralized Exchange는 Klaytn 기반으로 제작되었으며, 현재 테스트 코인으로 EXNOMY 베타 버전을 이용해 보실 수 있습니다.
EXNOMY(EXCHANGE+ECONOMY) : www.exnomy.com | https://medium.com/linkercoin/notice-exnomy-operating-policy-30fe656109be | ['Exnomy X Linkercoin'] | 2019-12-13 03:08:50.368000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Decentralization', 'Linkercoin', 'Exnomy'] |
Skversky back home again | By Mike Gibson
For the Wire
[caption id=”attachment_724" align=”alignleft” width=”300"]
Bensalem native Jeff Skversky, shown here interviewing Philadelphia Flyer Danny Briere, works for Channel 6 as a weekend sports anchor. A Bensalem High School graduate, Skversky held positions in Georgia and New York before relocating to the Philadelphia area. [/caption]
Jeff Skversky may have taken a roundabout route from Bensalem to the Channel 6 studios on City Line Avenue, but he says it was certainly worth the journey.
“To me, it’s the greatest job ever in the greatest place ever,” he said of his position as the station’s weekend sports anchor. “I haven’t thought beyond this. After all, this is the station I grew up watching and I’m working with the people I grew up watching.”
In order to do that, Skversky had to endure stops and sometimes joblessness in Macon, Ga., Atlantic City, N.J., St. Louis, Baltimore and Syracuse before coming back home to do the weekend sports for Channel 6.
For Skversky, it all started with doing high school games on the Owls Television Network, an in-house part of the Audio Visual Department at Bensalem High School.
“By the time I was in high school, I knew I wasn’t going to be a professional baseball player,” he said. “I told myself I was probably better off doing something else and I knew I loved sports. I was a big Phillies, Eagles, Sixers fan.”
“Bensalem had this TV station and I did morning updates and play-by-play for the high school basketball team,” he said. “If I had one piece of advice, it would be to learn how to write a little bit and I learned how to write updates and things like that for the high school station.”
That led Skversky to pursue a communications degree from Temple University and he made the transition from being a Bensalem Owl to a Temple Owl, graduating in 2001 with a B.A.
“Looking at schools, Temple was the best option for me,” he said. “I started writing for the school newspaper, then I worked at the TV station at Temple, then I started sending out demo tapes for my first job.”
That first job turned out to be at a Macon, Ga., TV station. When he got there, they told him that they “ran out of money and were going to be doing weekend news for awhile. Here I was in Macon, Ga., excited as you can be and, boom, out of a job as soon as I got there.”
So he headed home and within six weeks got a job at the NBC-TV affiliate in Atlantic City, WMGM-TV.
“It was an hour-and-a-half from home and it was perfect,” Skversky said. “I was doing a lot of high school stuff and some Eagles’ highlights.”
After a year-and-a-half, Skversky relocated to Syracuse, N.Y., where he was the weekend sports anchor for three-and-a-half years.
“It was crazy,” he said of his time in Syracuse. “Usually, your first day on the job you are doing mundane stuff, like turning on the computer and filling out paperwork. But my first day, [Syracuse University star and current New York Knick] Carmelo Anthony announces he was coming out of school. So that’s the biggest story up there and there I was covering it.”
Following Syracuse, Skversky had a stint in St. Louis — which included covering a Cardinals’ World Series win — “before the economy tanked and they slashed our sports department.”
Once again, Skversky found himself 1,000 miles away from home without a job.
“I flew home and stayed with my parents for a couple of months, freelancing for Fox29 when the Phillies won the World Series,” he said. “Then Channel 6 asked me to come in for an interview. I watched Channel 6 all my life and so did my family and when they called and told me I got the job, it was the greatest feeling of my career.
“All of those people that I work with now are iconic to me,” he added.
“The first time I anchored, I was sitting between Jim Gardner and Dave Roberts and I had to pinch myself and say, ‘What am I doing here?’ I had to go back to reading the script and get my thoughts together before I went live.
“For me, I’m a huge baseball fan, so to see the Phillies win it all in 2008 and to personally cover it was the №1 thing in terms of the things I covered,” he said. “The next thing was the Flyers’ Stanley Cup run in 2010. They were supposed to be eliminated, but they were a team playing on borrowed time and the next thing you know, they are in the Stanley Cup Finals.”
Occasionally, Skversky says he’ll think of those jobless days in Macon and St. Louis and appreciate where he’s at now.
“I did earn it and the opportunity wasn’t handed to me,” he said. “I’m going to be here four-and-a-half years in August and every once in awhile I tell myself I don’t want to ever take it for granted and want to appreciate it.” | https://medium.com/langhorne-times/skversky-back-home-again-30d69ef0a084 | [] | 2017-04-27 15:02:27.363000+00:00 | ['Bucks County', 'Sports'] |
Making history come out right… | There are things you have to understand before you can believe them; and yet there are also things that you have to believe before you can understand. In between these two there’s a leap of faith.
Nouns and modifiers
Am I a Christian socialist or a socialist Christian? What’s the difference? Wittgenstein comes to mind. Speech acts can only be interpreted through the intent of the speaker; but in my case Christian is the noun and socialist is the modifier, a very contingent one. Contingent, because socialism, however defined, is an artifact of modernity. That’s why saying things like “Jesus was a socialist” is kinda ridiculous, given that socialism was a modern reaction against capitalism, which didn’t begin to congeal as a hegemonic structure until the early sixteenth century. The economy of first century Palestine was tributary, not capitalist. Socialism wasn’t even thought of, though Luke and Paul did preach an egalitarian communalism. That’s the source of these confusions. I call it anachronistic retrojection — imposing present-day categories on the past and its peoples and their ideas that didn’t yet exist. Socialism wasn’t even a word until around 1835. Getting one’s bearings in late modernity, between the Gospels and the present . . . finding ways to prolong the incarnation, to be a disciple . . . that’s not a simple transference based on proof texting and anachronistic interpretation.
My relation to socialism began as a devotee —as a Marxist to be exact, if exactitude is possible with so many interpretations, permutations, and distortions of Marx afoot. Around 2006, I suffered a kind of crisis of faith with Marxism. In 2008, I was baptized. I only came to realize later on that my attraction to socialism was also a reaction to my own military past, where as a de facto if not declared atheist I had done things that felt overwhelmingly, horribly wrong.
I realize now — and this may strike non-Christians oddly — that that feeling of wrongness and alienation was alienation from God. It was only after incorporating socialist thought, and in the context of working against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and after I had learned more about myself and violence from the study of feminism), that I was prepared to become a Christian.
Each convert has his or her own historical map.
One of my mentors in this process was theologian Stanley Hauerwas, for whom I shall always be grateful. He hammered on the point — one which the old Marxist in me resisted with all my might — that it is problematic, to say the very least, for Christians to participate in power predicated on violence — especially war. The shorthand for this is the “Constantinian compromise,” that is, the church taking a demonic turn by aligning itself with a violent imperial power.
Like my mentor, I count myself Christian and pacifist and consider this redundant. This doesn’t mean pacifism is passive-ism, nor does it compel us to follow any particular political program, nor does it commit me to some utopian delusion about this world becoming non-violent (it won’t).
Between Constantine and Daru
Constantinianism is not merely the urge to align with power, which can be incidental, but the belief that — with the right power moves — human beings can “make history come out right.” This delusion — and it is a delusion — is the motive force behind many “socialisms.” And in this respect, these socialisms are the same as the imperial white supremacist ideology of progressivism which held sway in the early twentieth century. A faith in the power of enforced social engineering to “make history come out right.”
It seems to matter little to many socialists that nothing in history suggests this is even possible, or that things have gotten so bad that we’ll spend the next hundred years inside a long, global emergency with no good outcomes.
For Christian socialists, who see socialist as the noun and Christian as the modifier, socialism is still reified — a thing we can define, and about which we can make exclusive claims about who is a “real socialist.” Even if there are fifteen versions of “real socialist.” The Gospels, for Christian (modifier) socialists (noun), are enlisted in support of that reification. Socialism comes first, and the rest is trying to bind the Christ onto a Procrustean bed.
The idea of “taking political power,” then, is precisely to “make history come out right.” Right-wing constantinianism is countered by left-wing constantinianism, both of which thrive on the delusion of “making history come out right,” both of which share a belief in the pernicious and bloody myth of Progress.
This is a conundrum over which barrels of ink have been spilled in Divinity Schools and seminaries. Here is history unfolding around us, a process within which we are embedded, and within which we have agency, albeit agency that is tightly circumscribed by historical forces sedimented into the contemporary built environment. We can’t step out of it, or float aloofly above it, because we are in it . . . and in it together.
. . . for he makes his sun to rise on the wicked and the good, and sends rain upon the just and unjust. (Matthew 5:45)
If we ought not align with power, how do we avoid it when our own actions play a role in it whether we like it or not . . . and whether we can control the ramifications of our actions or not (we can’t). I’m reminded of Albert Camus’ short story, “The Guest,” in which our protagonist Daru tries to isolate himself — hermit-like — from the social strife engulfing Algeria in its violent struggle for independence against France. Of course it’s impossible, as Daru discovers.
Sometimes doing nothing is doing something. Should I refuse to vote because voting is an exercise of power? What, then, about the danger — now temporarily receding — of the Trump presidency? Is my refusal merely empowering one side whether I like it or not? This is the kind of quandary that enlivens modern discussions of ethics, where the unspoken goal is to discover universal, one-size-fits-all “solutions” to every hypothetical ethical dilemma.
Pacifism for the violent
Pacifism is an unfortunate term in this regard, suggesting to every modern mind forged in the restless search for salvific universals that pacifism is a kind of unyielding principle to which every actual person must submit — an ideology instead of a practice.
The praxes for this principio pacifico are variable, but they include protest, criticism, even civil disobedience, sometimes at great risk. But can a pacifist, or a pacifist Christian, deal in things like electoral politics when electoral politics is itself a kind of low-intensity warfare? The state itself is constituted as a legal monopoly on violence. See how I keep defaulting to the search for a proposition to which we can all assent — a universal principle?
If I were to say, on the other hand, that my pacifism means that I myself cannot or will not participate in violence, does that mean I have to restlessly search out any way in which I might be collaborating with power and violence and war and break away?
Certainly, I can say that I’ll not raise my hand again to another human being, and that’s vitally important (as well as a huge relief). The thing is, every act any of us performs is already imbricated with power and violence, as Daru discovered. If this constitutes complicity with violence, then everyone is complicit. Kind of an ethical non-starter.
Being pacifist is an outcome of being Christian, not some attempt to float above the world as a non-participant signaling my “virtue” from on high. As Stanley Hauerwas was known to say, “I’m a pacifist because I am a violent son of a bitch.”
I say I’m a pacifist because I’m a violent son of a bitch. I’m a Texan. I can feel it in every bone I’ve got. And I hate the language of pacifism because it’s too passive. But by avowing it, I create expectations in others that hopefully will help me live faithfully to what I know is true but that I have no confidence in my own ability to live it at all. That’s part of what nonviolence is — the attempt to make our lives vulnerable to others in a way that we need one another. To be against war — which is clearly violent — is a good place to start. But you never know where the violence is in your own life. To say you’re nonviolent is not some position of self-righteousness — you kill and I don’t. It’s rather to make your life available to others in a way that they can help you discover ways you’re implicated in violence that you hadn’t even noticed. (Stanley Hauerwas)
What a strange thing it is to worship a vulnerable God! Stanley is a Texan male. I’m a former career Special Forces soldier. My every thought is stained with violence. Vulnerability is anathema to me. This is especially confusing when I talk about “tactics” as a political matter, as a socialist matter. Because tactics, as most of us understand them, are agonal. Tactics are about a fight. They are embedded in the war episteme, wherein the world is divided into allies and enemies, and loving those enemies is not on the menu.
“See, I am send you forth like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and as guileless as doves.” (Matthew 10:16)
I can’t do that alone, so “I create expectations in others that hopefully will help me live faithfully to what I know is true but that I have no confidence in my own ability to live it at all.” If I propose tactics (which few listen to anyway) or participate in tactics (elections are tactics), does that implicate me in violence because these are structured as conflict? Surely, neither I nor anyone else outside the structures of power (or, “the principalities and powers,” as we say) have that kind of power at all.
Let’s take elections as an example, since it’s an issue among both Christians and socialists. I participate in elections, even elections that generate increasing conflict; because I’ve made a calculation that elections are less likely to result in violence than the alternatives in our situation as it exists now. Time will tell if that calculation is correct. Peacemaking, in many contexts, is not some absolute choice, but a judgement call: which course of action seems likely to keep violence to a minimum?
This is difficult for many socialists — many of whom despise pacifism, because they are committed to a fantasy of social engineering that may require violence. Some socialists lean into the violence.
Can we social-engineer a proper future? This is a theological question, but also a practical one.
As we look into the approaching abyss of climate destabilization, financial failure, biome collapse, mass migration, political instability, the next “black swan” pandemic, our fantasy futures are being foreclosed faster than we can make them up. History has provided no evidence that we actually can (or should) “make history come out right.” Quite the contrary, every attempt so far has been built on horrific violence and failed anyway. That’s what Ivan Illich meant when he said, “To hell with the future. It’s a man-eating idol.”
You will never hear me refer to myself as a “progressive.” It’s gone from being a signifier for the modern imperial project to meaning anyone to the left of Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton. “To hell with progress. It’s a man-eating idol.”
Then there’s scale. Neither “progressives” nor socialists have much time for the question of scale; it fucks with their futuristic fantasies. Whether they want to attend to it or not, history seems to show an inverse ratio between the scale of a project (or a state) and the ability of those projects or states to do what they claim to intend. Our horrific penitentiary system was originally a scheme by devout Quakers, intended to restore the fallen to full membership in society. Socialists would do well to apprehend this, but alas most of us are still wedded to The Future . . . which we think “we” can “build,” like a Lego toy.
And yet I count myself a socialist. Why? Well, I’m also a Catholic, so I’m becoming ever more adept at making distinctions within complex contexts without falling for the easy out of treating these complexities as if they are contagion narratives, zombie movies where the prime motive is avoiding contamination.
If the starting point for any Christian or for any socialist is, “How can I become a purer person?” then we’re already off the rails. What Christians and socialists ought to be focused on, it seems, and what these traditions have in common, is how to pursue the common good (with a preferential option for the poor). (That’s not to say that personal character is unimportant; it is vital for the rational evaluation of what that good is. But this is not the same — in fact it is antithetical to — virtue signalling.) We Christians who eschew violence have an addendum — to pursue the common good, with a preferential option for the poor without relying on violence.
Pacifists oppose war, but are you and I participating in war if we work as trauma nurses adjacent to the battlefield?
I can already hear the ethics-nerds ginning up hypothetical quandaries that pit the common good against peace, so I’ll remind readers again — contra the entire episteme of modernity — that this move implicitly seeks a universal answer to a very singular hypothetical circumstance. These hypothetical quandaries are designed around the assumption — consistently disproven by history — that some universal principle can govern every particular or singular circumstance. Without veering too far off onto the side road of moral philosophy, the competing candidates for The Universal Answer, which can never be reconciled to one another and therefore have us stuck, are the duty-ethics of a Kant, the consequentialist ethics of a Bentham, and the “ethically neutral” contract-theories of Locke and Rousseau.
Christians, some of us, have access to a different approach — one that does not reach for universals during every encounter with the singular — called virtue ethics. The shorthand is to form in each person the capacity to judge circumstances based on their particular contexts and respond in ways that are prudent, practical, and just for each situation. I wish I’d hear more from socialists about character formation. But I again digress.
Peacemaking and the idol of Progress
Capitalism — an enforced system of social relations that progressively commodifies every aspect of social life as it progressively destroys the biodiversity upon which we all ultimately depend — has failed.
Late capitalist modernity runs now only on corruption and inertia; and it has created in us a spiritual poverty, a kind of vulgar mass narcissism built around consumer addictions that, combined with abject dependency, makes us feel ever more like rats in a maze. The reason capitalism has been more destructive than any other epoch is not that it is worse in any detail, but that capitalism — cancer-like — has spread itself throughout the globe, tying all our fates together in an unprecedented way. Wanna talk about scale yet?
Capitalism is failing, but it doesn’t follow from that fact that (1) we can control its descent or (2) accelerate its descent or (3) control the outcomes of trying to control or accelerate its descent . . . much less (4) “replace” this global social arrangement wholesale with an imaginary one.
Socialism — as idea, as fantasy, and-or as political method — exists solely as a response to capitalism. As Marx envisioned it, socialism is a hostile takeover of capitalist “development” from capitalist overlords by “the masses,” envisioned by many “Marxists” as led by a specially enlightened cadre of theoretical and technocratic intellectuals.
Then again, Marx is not the only socialist, nor is Marxism (in whichever sectarian guise) the be-all and end-all of “socialism.” Nor is every Marxist now a technocratic progressive (Silvia Federici, e.g., or Jason C. Moore are exceptions). The socialist response to capitalism has congealed as ideology (which always, imo, simultaneously conceals and reproduces certain kinds of power); but my interest in it and my contingent fealty to it are as a political method and a tactical orientation. Consequently, I don’t give a damn about what qualifies anyone as a “true socialist” or any of that other clique-like, we-are-the-enlightened-ones bullshit that preoccupies those who have chosen to live out their brief lives in little ideological bunkers.
My understanding of capitalism is very Marxist in many regards, but diagnosis is not synonymous with or even necessarily a movement toward a successful treatment protocol. “Development,” that manifestation of the myth of progress, whether capitalist or socialist, is still a war on subsistence (Marx did not emphasize this except as a marker of progress); and if there is a way out of our current morass, then what has to happen — as a matter of ecological necessity — is a return to local subsistence.
We will return to subsistence. That much is certain over time. But there is a crash landing scenario and a crash scenario (there are no soft landing scenarios). Unfortunately, in a world where more than half of us live in cities — the crash landing (as opposed to crash) can only happen with the massive assistance of the state. Because the crash scenario involves horrific scenes of destruction and unbridled violence, alongside many decades of disease, disorder, and despair; and because I believe the first measure necessary to crash land instead of just crash requires a social democratic/socialist bridge — one for which only the state has the capacity . . . here I am with the socialists.
What is the telos, then, my North Star, for participation in socialist politics as a pacifist Christian? Let’s call it peacemaking. Not seeking the violent “peace” of Pax Romana or Pax Americana, and not seeking the “peace” of calling for reconciliation in the aftermath of every offense — that tactical passive-aggression on the part of abusers who have suffered setbacks. By peace, I mean (1) resisting violence as a means to an end and (2) creating or intervening in relations that are structurally antagonistic and which lead to strife and violence. Nothing creates strife like scarcity. I’ve seen food riots. They’re indescribable.
Capitalism was built and is maintained by violence, and it structures all relations as competitive, baking strife into society using enforced scarcity — call it enclosure if you like. The inhering arms race of capital, whether in business or war (the two are combined now), has taken us to the brink of both biospheric collapse and nuclear annihilation. There is a real question about whether a post-capitalist crash landing (as opposed to crash) is even possible now.
What can be done and what we ought to do, then, are also big question marks. There’s no one answer to those questions either.
I don’t share the socialist delusion of “building a future” ex nihilo, or even of accurately anticipating “the future” (that ever receding fiction), so I’ve excused myself from these kinds of conversations. Nonetheless, I remain a part of the social democratic (Yes, not “real” socialists . . . damn, take a break people!) electoral movement in the US and of those socialists who anticipate raising the bar as this movement hopefully advances. Because they’re doing the best they can with what they have right now, and they’re advancing some key governmental reforms that will relieve enough suffering (scarcity) to let people catch their breaths and figure out how to navigate a world in economic, social, and environmental turmoil.
On the other side of that coin is the rise of the anti-intellectual, authoritarian right; and the only decent defense we have against it is to strengthen a left pole within some kind of united front as counterweight. This means, as far as I can see, resisting the Democratic establishment between elections and continuing to join them to isolate and neutralize Republicans during elections. Fantasizing (some call it theorizing) about a world where we’re not this weak won’t help. Imaginary strength is a weakness, and acknowledged weakness is a strength.
I saw a post from a young leftist man (of course) recently. He said, “Any compromise with capitalism will only strengthen capitalism.” As if anyone is in a position to dictate whether or not to “compromise” with “capitalism.” This is impotent macho bluster. And fallacious, beginning with reified “capitalism.” We all compromise with “capitalism” every day. Because that’s the air we’re all breathing. Capitalism isn’t some giant to be slain, but a deeply entrenched set of self-organized relations upon which every single one of us depends right now, and within which we were born, raised, enculturated, and disciplined.
These are practical matters, not ideological (a counterfeit of the theoretical); and in practice that means — speaking for myself, as a Christian, right now in the world as it is becoming — that I remain contingently socialist.
The only conceivable compassionate path right now appears to be some form of socialism — by that I mean expanding collective and democratic control over key infrastructure, like the nationalization of all medicine, financial institutions, social media, critical physical infrastructures, etc., and protecting these from commodification. A federal jobs guarantee would be nice, too, in conjunction with massive ecological restoration. Likely? Not really, but it seems we have to try . . . as peacemakers.
In the short term, that means electoral politics, specifically the push to colonize the decaying Democratic Party as a means of seizing legislative power. For those “revolutionary socialists” (mea culpa) who want a violent “overthrow of capitalism” I no longer have the time of day. Shit like that never works the way it was intended, and violence breeds more violence. The way to make big change without turning our streets into war zones is still . . . listen now . . . legislation. To make new legislation, we need new legislators.
But again, I digress.
GUMP, despair, nihilism
What it also means to be Christian (noun) socialist (modifier) is that when Christian commitments conflict with socialist ones, this conflict may provoke a reexamination of both to determine whether or not we have erred in our understanding of said conflicts. If we are satisfied that we understand adequately, then the Christian commitment trumps. To be a Christian, speaking for my own comparatively small cohort, means that we cannot subordinate our commitments to nationalism — our position in a lively debate ongoing among Christians now — or to ideologies. This means that we will not allow ourselves to be subsumed into some reified vision of “Socialism.”
The very reason Christians speak of “modernity” — which is obviously a capitalist modernity, but that’s beside the point here — is because we have a deep critique of the assumptions and practices that underwrite the whole modern epoch.
Marxism is a thoroughly modern phenomenon.
Christian critique of modernity is different from the so-called postmodern (neo-Nietzschean) indictments of modernity, which have proven to be a cul-de-sac of self-referential paralysis, intellectual and political. Reactionaries desire a return to some mythologized past; but modernist-socialists likewise “react” against the past, that is, they hold the belief that the past is something to be overcome — as if that were even possible. This has become the very basis of the post-colonial, imperial project, of what Ivan Illich called the “war on subsistence” . . . or development.
Modernity, even the modernity of most socialists, accepts and even celebrates the objectification (death) of nature, as well as the disenchantment and alienation that attend nature’s wake; then they wonder why people seek out spiritual fads or refuse to accept socialist ideas that are stated in the sterile, objectifying, white-urban language of liberal modernity.
We’re forced to swallow a narrative that disembodies us, that wants us to jump out of our skins and see the world from outside our own embodiment, a view from everywhere and nowhere that reduces creation to mass and motion, erasing all of creation’s signs and stripping it of meaning, a world devoid of mystery or transcendence, a world devoid of our ancestors and our angels, a world of absolute spiritual impoverishment . . . worse, spiritual death. I have two words, spoken in the modern idiom: fuck that.
Modernity is an epoch that fundamentally depends for its justification upon a world objectified, atomized, mapped, and disciplined for extraction. Modernity was birthed in war, in colonization, most especially in reducing creation to a basket of “resources.” It furthermore depends on a faith in the ability to subordinate all to one moral vision — a vision within which there is no real and ultimate arbiter, which — upon discovering the impossibility of achieving that universalism — leaves all decisions to power. This faith in a Grand Unifying Moral Perspective (GUMP) has been proven unfounded, and yet it persists, viciously in most cases. As does the faith in “The Revolution.”
Socialists and socialist Christians can be differentiated by the Christian account of fallen-ness. Our mythic account of the Fall is people — who have been given unprecedented power as creatures (and not creator) — who are forbidden one thing, which is the province of God, and that is the “knowledge of good and evil.” In our prideful attempt to seize that knowledge for ourselves we unleashed a fatal mischief into the world. Sibling murders sibling. People tried to build towers that could reach heaven. In this latter story, God’s remedy was anti-universal: God multiplied their languages and forced their decentralization.
The technologically optimistic socialists that predominate journals like Jacobin are as hostile to tradition and vernacular culture as any lizard-minded imperialist except when they’re employing the shallow cultural signifiers of poststructurialist identitarians to appease them.
As a Christian, I’m with the Jacobin/DSA types (I am an inactive member of DSA) at least as far as achieving some key social objectives like universal health care, because this kind of program abolishes a form of scarcity, and scarcity generates conflict; but I will continue to point out that their solar-powered magical future where no one is ever again avaricious, petty, jealous, vengeful, or cruel is horseshit. We are still the same broken creatures, thankless and prideful, and no “system” engineered by academic technocrats will ever change that . . . in fact, no “system” is ever going to be “engineered.”
Socialism can’t remedy some basic human frailties — pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth — and the spiritual impoverishment of so-called secular society can’t erase that constant, our apprehension of our own mortality, which — in a spiritually impoverished world — leads to the ultimate sin: despair.
Despair and nihilism are twins. And I promise you, despair and nihilism are as prevalent or more prevalent among those who have their basic material needs met. It’s only with time and space for reflection that people can grasp the horror — one kept at bay by all our noise — of a dead universe.
“Without God, all things are permitted.” That’s Dostoevsky! And that’s nihilism!
Most modern virtues — like “empathy” — are vestiges of a pre-modern period, now perverted and institutionalized. Following the modern (and “postmodern”) map to its logical conclusion, one encounters an abyss of meaninglessness, where everything goes, and where the nihilist is the only one who knows his or her own “authenticity.”
What is not to be done?
Now Christianity can’t explain why “socialism” can’t be created ex nihilo, and therefore cannot be engineered. For this practical concern, chaos/complexity theory — a modern mathematical project — will do nicely.
Complexity/chaos theory has an application to politics. “Chaos” actually gives rise to order (a creative tension without which we wouldn’t have a universe) through self-organization, which is comprised of many small feedback loops within feedback loops that “re-order” in the wake of serial “bifurcations” that lead to “the edge of chaos,” or systemic disruption. The idea, then, of “building a future” (ex nihilo) is an absolute delusion; because what we call “society” is ordered through billions of billions of small feedback loops, social and environmental.
These feedback loops are themselves both experienced and initiated by the tendency of each human being to seek accommodations within the range of objective situations and subjective choices that are known and available. The real changes can never happen as intended “from above.” The re-organization (self-organization) of systems that reach “the edge of chaos” is where the action is . . . in newly emergent feedback loops. And these are not predictable. So . . . social engineering never works as intended, but it can create a lot of mischief with those unintended consequences.
(This is also why tactics work far more often than strategies, by the way. Read Michel De Certeau’s The Practice of Everday Life.)
Think of your own daily routines and how you make decisions. All are decisions (choices), but each decision has to take into account one’s personal situation, customs, habits, regulations, and built environments which you’ve inherited, a matrix, if you will, that is too stable (through self-organization) to effectively disrupt (for now), but around and through which one can fashion creative responses.
What our actual “system” does is not really that systematic. Those in power establish and enforce the core practices (like capital accumulation), after having forcibly separated the masses from any form of non-monetized self-provisioning (subsistence), and the rest of us adapt. Based on various historical factors, resistance to this arrangement is met by power, based on the validity of any threat to accumulation, along a continuum stretching from ignoring minimal threats to state terror against it. But it is not managed throughout, like a massive machine. Power simply stamps out emergent alternatives to seeking our accommodations through anything other than monetized relations. Money is the key resource, and it’s made intentionally scarce for the masses. That’s the he and the she of it. Everything else self-organizes around this.
Which, to my mind, means practice trumps theory every time. Theory is sound only insofar as there are no exceptions to the theory in the particulars.
Marxism’s most significant theoretical departure from Marx has been an almost wholesale return to philosophical idealism; and this has crippled their movements again and again. Marx’s inversion of Hegel has been all but forgotten. That is, the Hegelian assertion that ideas give rise to practices, which Marx said Hegel got backwards, is manifest in the tiny Marxist grouplets (and even among more diverse groups like DSA) is the insistence that right practice can only be accomplished when their is absolute fealty to a “correct” theoretical account.
Instead of doing practical things in response to immediate needs then waiting to see how they ramify, these grouplets spend most of their energy in trying to convince others that their academic theories — which most plain people simply don’t understand — are a prerequisite to acting as political cadre. The problem is that theory is the view of the city from atop a skyscraper that conceals what goes on in the alleyways. These groups self-caricature in their constant and seemingly urgent arguments about which untested theory is “The Correct Theory.”
For the record, Marx bent the stick a bit far, but he was challenging his master. In reality, practice and ideas exist as self-reinforcing feedback loops, too, and they can never be segregated into pure laboratory forms. Where Marx was correct is in his claim that what exists — as structure — overdetermines our lives through the constraints that “the actual” exercises on our practices, habits, and imagination.
It’s over time, as we self-organize within our imposed constraints, that social stability is achieved in the same move that inscribes first our habits, and from there our consciousness. This bakes resistance to change into society at every level, making attempts to break through to new forms of consciousness, so to speak, a practically and intellectually arduous undertaking . . . one that is reinforced in its lack of efficacy by the basic Marxian premise that consciousness reflects lived experience, not vice versa. Our philosophical idealist default, on the left, continually and consistently marginalize us.
It’s already questionable whether “philosophers” ought to be the ones determining how to “make history come out right” — questionable as a goal, and questionable with regard to the strategy for that goal being changing people’s minds instead of changing their available choices and habits. Philosophers and theorists (some of my best friends are philosophers and theorists) are standing atop a skyscraper with no clear view of the city’s gritty, granular alleys.
Socialists who prioritize ideological conformity are an obstacle to any realizable socialist goals. Combined with the fact that Marx’s theoretical foundation is conflict, dividing the world into allies and enemies, this has created our self-isolating default on the left.
Speed-stunned imagination
We’ve been drawn into a politics perpetual conflict, yes, but also a politics of panic, a politics that does precisely what capitalism does, valorizing speed, focus, efficiency. We seem to have forgotten that even Marx — the great conflict theorist — began his inquiries around the question of alienation, what might be properly called spiritual impoverishment. Nothing contributes more to that impoverishment than violence.
Violence occupies me, like an invading army . . . or a demon. It possesses me through a continuous and uninterrupted exposure to and enfoldment within the idols of speed, focus, and efficiency. Modernity is perpetual hurry . . . perpetual war.
This is what I have to learn again and again, because I, too, am a violent SOB. I can’t rely on speed, focus, and efficiency. Especially the kinds of speed, focus, and efficiency that underwrite the violence of modernity. As a Christian, I not only have time, I have a mandate — a hard one called enemy-love. I also have something — someone — upon whom I can rely.
I think that fundamental is the presumption that as followers of Christ we do not assume that we are going to rule the world. Rather, we assume that God has given us time in a world with deep injustice to do the kinds of things that are necessary for the recognition of the dignity of the enemy, and how that recognition can lead to reconciliation. And it takes time; … God became time with Christ, which means that we have all the time in the world to do what’s necessary. (Stanley Hauerwas)
And so we work and pray. Down here in the alleys. History came out right in an open tomb. We just have to bear witness to that in our actions. The tricky part is discerning what actions to take. | https://medium.com/@stangoff/making-history-come-out-right-c34b941b6e03 | ['Stan Goff'] | 2020-12-02 12:25:17.004000+00:00 | ['Modernity', 'Capitalism', 'Socialist', 'Violence', 'Christian'] |
Smart home trends that will die in the next 2 years | In 2019, when the tech industry is witnessing unprecedented growth of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, just being ”smart” is not enough. Smart home devices industry is constantly developing and shows no signs of slowing down. Every year this ever-evolving market is introducing new smart home trends. Ordinary homes turn into places that look and function more like habitation from futuristic TV series. And if you want to stay compatitive while producing stuff for this sort of market, you definitely need to follow actual trends and preventively recognize anti-trends.
Smart home industry brings up a huge number of advantages such as energy-saving, accessibility, safety, and sustainability. At the same time, many users still face difficulties when having to decide on which services should their home devices be used or how to make sure that your smart home is working at its fullest. It happens due to many reasons, for instance, the different capabilities of separate services and product compatibility. Good thing is that the producers of disruptive home technologies monitor critically failed ideas and patterns and fix them. As a result, some trends naturally fade away while more effective solutions displace them.
In the following sections, we will describe the major trends that are currently disappearing from the smart home industry and what is coming instead. Check out with us if you anticipate the future of smart home appliances properly.
Smart Charging Instead Of Wires
No matter how innovative some of your home appliances are, most of them still depend on power batteries and wires. Modern smart home users find it annoying and time-consuming. Thus, many companies are also working on various wireless solutions for smart devices. For example, Wi-Charge has introduced a unique algorithm that enables sustainable device charging. The technology can give a new push for the development of such battery depending devices like mobile phones, smart locks, doors, and window sensors. Apparently, in quite a while we’ll say goodbye to most ugly and ubiquitous wires. After all, basic features of smart home are not only convenience and safety but also beauty and aesthetics.
Multifunctionality Instead Of Monofunctionality
With growing competition on the market, smart devices are getting even more advanced. There is no more place for solo products any longer. In 2019, tech companies strive to supply established smart appliances with plenty of functions and features. For instance, Philips started its light story with simple light bulbs that had only one actual function — illumination. But the latest generation of bulbs also have built-in motion sensors and millions of different light regimes to choose from. Moreover, such smart bulbs offer good compatibility across the board (Apple Homekit, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Samsung SmartThings).
Total Connectivity Kills Rare Connection Protocols
The ability of a smart device to interact with other products without any restrictions of access became a huge challenge for smart home producers. Currently, most businesses turned to WiFi and Bluetooth in order to connect their smart home devices and create a single smart home environment. At the same time, the idea of total connectivity requires high quality of connection technologies. Poor signal might become a serious obstacle for enjoying the full potential of smart home devices. Thus, the latest smart home devices are switching into Wi-Fi 6, or the next-generation WiFi.
Screened Smart Home Control Pushes Back Voice Control
A few years ago, voice control systems have disrupted the modern tech market. The idea of getting any info you want without any effort was so simple and convenient. Apps like Google Home, Apple Homepod and Amazon Echo are now integrated with speakers, lamps, cars, microwave ovens, TVs, and clocks, basically making every home device “listening” to you. In the modern smart market, voice is often not enough. For this reason, the latest smart home trends tend to build screened smart home devices, which would be able to display large pieces of information, adjust a range of settings at one time, or suggest persistent instructions.
Another strong wave that sooner or later will fundamentally change the idea of home environment management is “brain” control. So far Elon Mask only announced about future capabilities of his new innovation — Neuralink. But all humanity is looking forward with great anticipation to this technology and it’d better for smart home manufactures to keep their ears open in this direction.
More Virtual Assistances
Soon after making their home smart, users often realize that their smart devices speak different languages. Industry newcomers often do not know that different devices and services available on the smart home market are only compatible with particular smart assistant (Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home, Apple’s HomeKit or Samsung’s SmartThings). Having light bulbs only working with Alexa and smart locks supporting Google Home can become a real disaster. In 2019, many smart home devices started supporting two or more smart assistances at the same time. For example, Sonos One speakers are now compatible with both Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant. In the meanwhile, it might be a good decision to choose one “brain” for all your smart home devices.
One app replaces millions apps
Modern smart home devices do not require a separate app to work with them any more. This innovation helps both the smart home devices industry and users to save a lot of money and time. Users only need an app once to set up to launch a bunch of new devices. Later on, smart hybrid apps, such as Loxone Smart Home App, are successfully used to control your smart home.
Importance Of Being Actual
The idea of having a smart home is to make one’s life easier and more relaxed. However, this is not always the reality faced by modern users. In fact, having smart home can end up proving to be quite stressful with a range of issues. Devices don’t connect properly or have difficulties to find the speaker, or the coffee machine doesn’t make its scheduled coffee and users find themselves dozing at the wheel of their cars and so on and so forth. It’s not that easy to be a producer of smart home devices nowadays. You should permanently monitor thousands of user cases, enroot really cool solutions and throw away poor and out-of-date technologies. Just remember that the world of smart home appliances changes all the time for better and you should change with it as well.
For us, CES 2020 is an amazing opportunity to discover the latest news of the IoT world, and meet other professionals and enthusiasts. Yes, exactly, we are looking forward to meeting you. If you have the same thoughts, schedule a meeting with us, and we’ll talk in January!
Source: https://brainbeanapps.com/best-practices/smart-home-trends-that-will-die-in-the-next-two-years/
Visit Brainbean Apps blog for more insights. | https://medium.com/@brainbeanapps/smart-home-trends-that-will-die-in-the-next-2-years-715b1239955a | ['Alexey Pelykh'] | 2020-02-21 09:37:44.104000+00:00 | ['Consumer Electronics', 'Marketing', 'Strategy', 'Management', 'Smart Home'] |
Amor e teimosia | 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/revista-in-comoda/amor-e-teimosia-6e29de391e89 | ['Izabel Da Rosa'] | 2020-12-27 16:37:50.707000+00:00 | ['Amor', 'Vida', 'Poesia', 'Romance'] |
How to show your working class skills while consciously appropriating the japanese boro technique | How to show your working class skills while consciously appropriating the japanese boro technique Amber Jam Aug 27·3 min read
Since my childhood there has not been a day I wasn’t interested in other cultures, also did I not see myself immerged in one particular culture or having my ‘own’. My art practice has always been drawing lines, sometimes shaping figures, sometimes venturing into the world of colour, but I always preferred the black on white or reverse. Which is why I loved watching teachers writing on the chalkboard, forgetting the meaning behind those lines, always noting their feelings and thoughts.
Drawing lines or making stitches for me doesn’t seem so far apart. As a child I also loved to stitch paper together, to the delight of my elders it kept me occupied for a while.
Japanese culture has a way to draw lines, in my viewpoint, very clear, very slim, delicate, sometimes firm, sometimes broken. Lines show, where bodies end, but they can also illustrate scales, leaves, folds of clothes, grasses, gusts of wind, rocks, age lines etc.
Those fine art lines were, for a long time reserved to the higher classes of japan. Society was devided in such a way, that someone with a certain income was not to break etiquette by acquiering household items or clothing that did not fit his or her status.
Today, when I see rich kids dress in purposely torn jeans, I sometimes wish there was this kind of etiquette. For the lower income classes there’s always this magic of ‘fake it till you make it’. This can lead to crime but can also motivate and bring some kind of relief.
Eventually, in Japan, boro emerged from poverty and the lack of having new clothes or material big enough to make them. So they did patch work, and they did it in way, that today we see as very interesting and artful. In the western world in the last 100 years we have been confronted to the cut up culture of dada, which has always been a refuge from fascism, we have experienced the cuts and breaks, mixes and mashes from hip hop culture and we love it. We love putting things back together when they are broken, we despise buying something new if its still good.
I know I’m not talking for everyone right now, however big this slice of society might be, confronting the climate crisis, it is growing rapidly. We have learned that we don’t have to be communist or capitalist in order to survive. We have learned that all classes have their advantages challenges (except the lowest ones) and we show solidarity more often than before, in germany particularly through ranting in traffic.
Like the torn designer jeans, It will come of as mockery to wear boro when being a rich fark and not caring about the poor. But the practice of boro, which has to be learnt, experienced and trained, to me is a practice of compassion with those, that have nothing. It is a reminder, that life’s winter is nearing every day, and that one needs to be prepared when the time for the last stitches comes. | https://medium.com/@amberjam64/how-to-show-your-working-class-skills-while-consciously-appropriating-the-japanese-boro-technique-ef6b18020b2c | ['Amber Jam'] | 2021-08-27 05:40:30.395000+00:00 | ['Art', 'Culture', 'Boro', 'Stitching', 'Japanese'] |
Blockchain Report — 8/22/2018 | Summary: Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Is Getting Involved In A Blockchain Project; Energy Firm Announces Massive Cryptocurrency Losses During Blockchain Rebrand; U.S. Government Grants $800,000 To Blockchain Researchers
Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Is Getting Involved In A Blockchain Project
According to Coin Telegraph, Steve Wozniak has announced that he is planning to get involved with a blockchain project for the first time. He made this statement at the ChainXchange blockchain conference held in Las Vegas. Wozniak praised blockchain technology in an interview, stating:
“I’m involved with, very soon, my first time being involved in a blockchain company…Our approach is not like a new currency, or something phony where an event will make it go up in value. It’s a share of stock, in a company. This company is doing investment by investors with huge track records in good investments in things like apartment buildings in Dubai.”
Wozniak then compared Ethereum to the Apple’s app store, because they both allow thousands of companies and individuals to run their own applications. He said, “Ethereum provides the tools for a blockchain application of your own… I see more people using Ethereum that way.”
Energy Firm Announces Massive Cryptocurrency Losses During Blockchain Rebrand
According to Coindesk, energy firm Global Energy Resources International Group is planning to rebrand itself as a blockchain company despite the fact that the company has lost millions investing in cryptocurrencies. The firm is planning to change its name to “Global Token Limited”.
A company filing shows that the company has launched cryptocurrency trading platforms in Hong Kong, as well as making investments in cryptocurrency assets and blockchain technologies. A report disclosed by the company in August 10 shows that they invested a total of $2.4 million in cryptocurrency assets, which has had a near 50% loss of $1.02 million.
As a result of the losses from cryptocurrency and related blockchain investments, the company recorded an overall net loss of $6.3 million in the first half of the year, compared to just $573,277 in the same period last year.
U.S. Government Grants $800,000 To Blockchain Researchers
According to Coindesk, the U.S. government is helping to fund a distributed ledger platform being developed by researchers at UC San Diego. Subhashini Sivagnanam, a researcher at the San Diego Supercomputing Center, won $818,433 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop the Open Science Chain (OSC). The OSC is a ledger that will help researchers efficiently access and verify data collected through scientific experiments.
This is not the first time that the NSF has made a foray into blockchain technology. The NSF has funded a number of blockchain projects in previous years, including blockchain projects focused on cryptocurrency incentive mechanisms and blockchain technology use-cases.
Public records describes the OSC as the following:
“A web-based cyberinfrastructure platform built using distributed ledger technologies that allows researchers to provide metadata and verification information about their scientific datasets and update this information as the datasets change and evolve over time in an auditable manner.”
ICO Watchdog™ is the most popular chatbot assistant for ICO investors and cryptocurrency traders now available for FREE on Telegram, Messenger, Discord and Slack. Sign up today at http://icowatchdog.com.
Do you want daily blockchain and cryptocurrency news delivered directly to your inbox or feed? Sign up today for the Blockchain Report by ICO Watchdog™ at http://bit.ly/2KYOpxJ or follow us onTelegram,Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. | https://medium.com/blockchain-report/blockchain-report-8-22-2018-a819f0532bfb | ['Christopher Durr'] | 2018-08-22 11:23:44.629000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Investing', 'News', 'Bitcoin'] |
WELCOME PERPETUAL INCOME 365 AFFILIATES! | in We Need to Talk | https://medium.com/@sonudilli110/welcome-perpetual-income-365-affiliates-825d0c160e65 | [] | 2020-12-24 13:19:36.542000+00:00 | ['E Marketing', 'E Business Suite', 'Email Marketing', 'Affliate Marketing'] |
“A vicious attempt by the antichrist (Dajjal) and Zionist forces to take over the world”. | Image by Istock
“The United States and Israel are the antichrist forces that pose the greatest threat to world peace.”
Ever since man was created, he has been fighting for the throne and crown, maybe it has been added to human instincts. And it was the habit that gave rise to the idea of creating one’s own country and land. As time went on, this passion grew along with it. The fact that the world today is divided into so many different countries and regions is a living example of this.
In the old days, when a country had to invade another country, it attacked with an Army and with heavy artillery. But now with the changing times, the style of fighting has also changed radically. Now wars are fought with the brain and modern technology. In these wars, regular troops and weapons do not attack any country. One country carries out remote control attacks inside another country. Drones are like an entire Army.
As we saw in early 2020 how drones hit their targets. Israel targeted Iran’s General Qasim soleimani on January 3, 2020, by drone. And now, recently almost two weeks ago, Israel again attacked inside Iran and targetted its nuclear scientist Mohsin Fakhri Zadeh. Both of these incidents were devastating and heartbreaking. Such incidents create hateful and provocative feelings against other countries. Behind all this, the United States is supporting Israel. Israel cannot take such bold steps without the support of the United States. The United States is baking terrorism around the world. The United States and Israel are still supporting ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and many other militants groups in Asia.
The world is sitting on a pile of dynamite right now, We cannot afford any kind of mistake, any kind of adventure, or any kind of negligence. A very simple cause can ignite this explosive world. And then there will be only destruction and piles of corpses behind, and nothing will be left. All countries of the world have to make wise decisions. All the countries that have atomic power must use their power for the welfare of poor people, not for their destruction.
There is only one goal behind all this and that goal is Greater Israel. Israel wants to go all out on this greater Israel issue, and wants all Islamic countries, especially Arab countries, to recognize it as soon as possible. Some Arab countries have been conquered by Israel through greed and some by force and threats. Israel has threatened to attack some Arab countries. Recently it attacked Lebanon’s capital Beirut on August 4, 2020. A deadly explosion that shook Lebanon’s capital. 150 were killed and more than 5,000 were seriously injured in that attack. The United States is behind all the homeless and refugees in the world. And yet Israel and the United States are constantly trying to find an excuse to attack Iran. It has been the nature of the United States to look for excuses when it wants to invade a country, such as Iraq. TK
Who will be accountable for the brutal murder of innocent children and civilians in that attack??? By doing all this, only feelings of hatred will remain in the hearts of those who survived. The fire of revenge against America and Israel will continue to burn in the hearts and minds of these survivors. Then this fire of vengeance will compel them to avenge the blood of their loved ones that have been shed so cruelly. when that happens, Muslims will once again be accused of terrorism, but no attempt will be made to find out the cause of terrorism.
“The fact is that unfortunately, the one who dies is also a Muslim and the one who is called a terrorist is also a Muslim.”
That is a fact that when any member of one’s family is killed brutally, the remnants of that family become more vengeful. The same thing has happened with these Islamic countries. Whenever they or their families were attacked, they always tried their best to take revenge. We all have the example of Afghanistan where all this oppression has been going on for 19 years. We all know very well that the United States launched a 9/11 false flag drama to invade Afghanistan. America started killing innocent children and people there, the Afghans were forced to took up arms. And then 19 years after the Afghan war, the United States is on the brink of disaster. When Afghans started fighting for their sovereignty and their rights, the world chanted the same slogan that Muslims are terrorists. Now after so many years of humiliation and defeat, the US is running away from here. According to a famous and great poet of the subcontinent, Mirza Ghalib Asadullah khan said:
Nikalna Khuld Se Aadam Ka Sunte Aaye The Lekin,
Bade Be-Aabru Hokar Tere Kooche Se Hum Nikle. We have heard about the dismissal of Adam from Heaven,
With a more humiliation, I am leaving the street on which you live…
With all these foolish actions, Israel is putting the peace of not only this region but the whole world at stake. Not only Israel but also the United States is guilty of destroying world peace.
The world has high hopes for Biden. Biden’s policy towards Iran is soft and he wants good and positive relations with it. The world believes that Biden is better than Trump because he is not an extremist. Biden will have to take some bold steps for the peace process and win the trust and confidence of the world.
An easy way to get rid of hatred, terrorism, and conspiracies here is the solution to all these problems:-
“There is only one policy and that is to live and let others live too”.
If the world wants to be the cradle of peace, then the “so-called” world powers must play their part. Countries that have been illegally occupied by other countries must be freed. They should be given the same freedom as the people of these countries want. Almost all the countries that have been illegally occupied are Islamic countries, such as Palestine, and occupied (JAK) Jammu and Kashmir by India. It is the responsibility of these “so_called” world powers to curb the growing state terrorism of Israel and India. If these steps are not taken in practice, then the desire for world peace will become a nightmare.
This world is a paradise on earth see this paradise and enjoy its beauty. It is the responsibility of all of us to make our paradise more beautiful and pleasant by planting trees and greenery in it and to do whatever we can to maintain its beauty. In this paradise, peace should be given a chance instead of hatred and conspiracies. Let’s pledge together today, that we will try to give peace a chance to get rid of the wrong policies that have only ruined the world. Leave a land for our future generations that is the cradle of love, peace, affection, and brotherhood. Our future generations may not even know the meaning of words like hate and conspiracy. We will treat those who lost their loved ones and lost their homes in these wars of hatred with great love and will win their hearts. These helpless people only need our attention and love.
It is the responsibility of the rich and powerful nations of the world to make efforts to resettle them. Create jobs and other opportunities for them. And all their losses should be compensated. If all these steps are taken, then this world will become a cradle of peace. And if these steps are not taken, then this world will look like hell. And hell belongs only to the devils, and not to human beings. It is also a bitter reality that the time it takes to destroy the world is probably ten times longer than it takes to fix it. But no matter how long it takes, we make this peace effort so that we can make this world a livable place.
“Let’s give peace a chance before it’s too late”. | https://medium.com/@nailaleo90/a-vicious-attempt-by-the-antichrist-dajjal-and-zionist-forces-to-take-over-the-world-86a49545ae26 | ['Naila Latif'] | 2021-03-03 23:35:03.493000+00:00 | ['Zionist', 'Antichrist Forces', 'Israel', 'USA', 'Terrorism'] |
War photography — The frames of chaos and miseries. | We all share the history of war, either through our ancestors or ourselves. War not only represents an action taken to conquer a place or for power. War is also an uproar against injustice and inequality. Any action to reclaim what was ours is also a war. And these commotions live in every moment of war through war photographs.
Since the inception of the community, there has been war. And we have been conveyed the agonies of war through war photographs. It takes us to the war place and shows us what we were unaware of. These pictures evoke real emotions. We experience reality and make us hope for the better.
There has never been a more influential medium to encounter the terrible and inhumane reality. We were taught about the horrific history of wars through this immersive medium. Photographs that engage the entirety of our senses, not just our eyes and ears. It makes us dive in every dilemma in devastating and remarkable ways. The war and its purpose might be different but the intention is the same as every war photographs to, make us withstand horrors and then to end them.
The trauma every war photographs goes through is extremely tough. They watch innocents die, family departs and an entire generation butchered. Concealing the terror within, they continue capturing as they are messengers to rest of the world of how war can destroy an entire community. Some photographers even fall into anxiety and depression, the study says.
And throughout all of their captures there will be a feeling of helplessness, of not being able to do anything for the suffering of others, and the steady terror and danger they submit themselves and their family to. Photographers wanted to educate people in the world about the lives of those trapped in difficult situations such as poverty and living in war zones etc. They use the emotional power of still images to captivate people and make them pay attention to subjects they would rather ignore.
It seems like a reasonable belief that the closer we get to realities, the more we will learn, and the more we will understand the absurdity of our ways. But showing horrors doesn’t necessarily end them. When it comes to war photography, each photograph has gone through the learning curve of balancing shock and developing a unique approach to storytelling.
Different approaches to exemplifying violence and war have different impacts. The more effective photographs are modest and engaged story conveying photographs. They help us connect with the pain and an urge to reach out to them. It tells us how we reached here and what our ancestors have gone through for the same. It gives a reason to live kinder every day for the soldiers who live for us and leaves for us. These photographs paralyze our intuition and enhance our ability for meaningful change.
War photography also grappled with these challenges at its inception. Some of the earliest photographs were of dead bodies on the battlefield. Those photographs were fundamentally clicked with the hope that just the very act of showing this dreadfulness would stop the war. And somewhere with the expectation of preventing such another calamity falling onto a nation.
The air around you becomes a hammer that is going to crush you into pieces. You have a hard time getting your thoughts together. They’re frozen into a million pieces in your brain. You can’t think. The bombing is so strong, it destabilizes you. And the smell, the disgusting smell. Then there’s the noise, the screams. You’re trying to focus on what you’re going to do when it stops, which way you’re going to go, who’s going to be reliable.- Patrick Chauvel
These words represent the atrociousness faced by every war photographers. Looking at the war captures years later, when we have grown overhauled to stories coming with pictures, they stir our thoughts. We don’t know their names, their backgrounds, or the traits that made up their lives. But war photographs connect us with their repulsiveness and make us find a common ground. Even though photographers wish people would look more closely at these dooming images, there is evidence that this may hurt more than it helps maybe we grow impassive to these images. Even though to feel something we have to put aside the fear and accept the reality.
The war photographs show no pictures of fantasies or cooked up stories. It rather evokes an emotional resonance through striking and long takes on the empty faces of survivors and observers.
Besides dulling us, images of death, violence, and horror deeply influence us without our knowledge. Shocking and sensational images of war and suffering are increasingly appearing in our current media situation and have become hard to distinguish our life from them. Because ultimately the pain and suffering will knock our humanity and make us do something better.
The problem with war pictures does not universally mean the same things to all people. It relies on what side you are on. If not distributed carefully and responsibly, they can end up serving a very different purpose than what they were intended for. While you and I may be terrified witnessing the murder of a person it might convey some different phase of emotions to people who are connected. The people on the opposite side of the struggle feel satisfying revenge witnessing the death of their enemy through a war picture. That’s why it is said that a war picture is too strong in conveying emotions to people than any other mediums. It sticks on to our mind and keeps us awake in the night.
Certainly, all media are eventually used to represent war. Photography, radio, television and now virtual presence. The mere representation of war is not as effective as a devoted one. Here comes the influence of photographs. They are more immersive and overwhelming. Photographs are as desirable to just show the pain, rather than learn the very difficult way of learning it from different sources. It is a medium of an entirely new approach to the storytelling of agonies and miseries. | https://medium.com/printartica/war-photography-the-frames-of-chaos-and-miseries-82db44ee08d6 | [] | 2020-12-13 11:28:10.983000+00:00 | ['Photograph', 'War Photography', 'Illustration', 'Art', 'Digital Artists'] |
Why Private and Family Office wealth is seeking a new path and new direction? | Family Offices and UHNW are making significant investments in Deep Tech…
In the past few years since working alongside wealthy families, ultra high net worth people and the newly anointed billionaires, who have made their fortunes much faster that previous generations, there has been a number of shifts in not only their behaviours but also in their appetites towards proportionate risk taking and impact investing. With one notable big shift the move towards ‘Deep Tech’.
Why this is a move masks much deeper issues for the investment management community?
Many families and UHNW are looking to break free from traditional Wealth and Asset Management shackles, with the competing attitudes of the new generation collides with the conformist strategies of the older generations that insist on a traditional balanced and diversified portfolio is now being questioned. Traditional strategies are often so balanced and so diversified restricts the massive upside potential, given most strategies rely on real estate increasing in value, prefering fund of funds, blue chip equities and a smattering of bonds as cornerstone investment strategies.
But with real estate sliding and becoming more illiquid than before in certain regions, the search is on for the best performing options which is drawing this audience towards tech…but not just any tech.
New money is made quicker…
It is clear the pace of wealth accumulation is increasing with new fortunes created in years rather than decades. Fortunes made in markets that experience greater volatility and movement with operating models based on new technology, leveraging data to deliver insight that scale business models much faster to reach a global audience. A trend that suggests older more traditional investment strategies now struggle with todays approaches given in Asia there have been more than 1000 new billionaires created, and 800 new Family Offices across China, India and other parts of the far East.
But when you look closer, a large proportion of this new wealth comes from deploying Deep Tech strategies and getting their hands on the underlying technology itself... Technology that remains in stealth mode, often in R&D and behind closed doors of the people that already know.
Old dogs, older strategies versus my AI BoTs with their own
Most investment strategies and advisory firms were designed for a different era, when the world was pre Internet, pre iPhone, pre Crypto and pre AI with each evolutionary technology cycle more profound than the last. The impact of packet switching in the 1960’s laid the foundation for the Internet decades later. Alan Turing elector mechanical code breaker in the 1930 layer the foundation to cipher based cryptographically secure computing on which Blockchain is now based. Foundations are often set a decade or more earlier as human behaviours can take many years to accept new tech and the new norm. But not any longer. The new millennial generation are already preprogrammed and ready to go…
Now consider this. We are in a unique ‘all at once’ tech cycle with so many profound advancements happening literally all at once - AI and Machine Learning, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Internet of Things, Robotics, Drones, NLP as we pass Singularity where the machines are advancing quicker than humans can now control.
It is this Deep Tech, which forms a new horizon that changes the fundamentals of commerce, of social interaction and the way in which we see the world. How we consume information, how we vote, the nature and role of work, how people get treated and healed when sick, mass mobility and dare we say mass migration due to climatic shifts. All of which creates new issues for society, and where today 90% of the population have some degree of mental issues and challenges, whether gen X and Z with their digital dementia, or the millennial with their lifestyle focused ‘Likes’ and need to broadcast the Selfie lifestyle, as everyone is more interesting and more successful online, part of the reason for emerging social disorder and increasing suicide rates amongst this age group. As the perception is renewed time and again they are simply not good enough.
Global Wealth has a big problem…and it is not the tax man.
As we approach another Family Office Summit in Monaco in June, I will be presenting new ideas and thoughts on Impact Investing and where to find Value and why the fundamentals now point to Deep Tech as the game changer for delivering great investment opportunities. Requiring deep knowledge, insight and expertise to assess and get access to Deep Tech opportunities. Access that is beyond the reach of 99% of wealth advisors and asset managers, as they have not yet embraced new asset classes and convince themselves the old ways still work. One has to ask therefore why are many Families are creating their own front of house teams for direct investing and work with businesses like ours that are focused on Deep Tech?
Yes we keep going deeper…and yes it is invasive
As we reel from the discovery that Deep State is at the heart of most things bad, influencing our geo-politics, voting outcomes, restricting freedoms and the use of Deep Tech with the apparent closing in on the Cambridge Analytica who had a role to play in various voting. And when you dig deeper the company investors it seems came from a Republican Family Office. The revelations of the Snowden files, the Panama Papers , the Assange leaks and his 1000 year imposed sentence, and yes China and Russia admitting they are escalating hacking, the new Cold War dubbed Cyber Terrorism has merely shifted to Deep Tech.
A question how to reach and control 7billion+ people, individually or in blocks…
The continued attempts by some to undermine and destroy democracy, to crush the notion of the sovereign state has created feelings of new nationalism as the people are becoming aware, despite the news media trying to divert attention, increasing the volume of lies and the misinformation, which the likes of the BBC, CNN and the daily press re-packaged as new old truths.
Let us not forget the revelations of AI driven Deep Fake, where videos of what looks like Barrack Obama and other politicians espousing activist language to, that can be used to fool a nation, to incite war, push racism and layer new political correctness to dumb down the voice of the people. Against a backdrop of redefining the word and the meaning of ‘racism’ defined as a new politicised weapon, to restrict free speech; issues that has been latched onto by the liberals and minority groups, as they want a utopian world.
We are all on the receiving end of Deep Tech and most have no idea of what is really happening.
So Deep Fake…who or what is behind it?
By whos hand?
Human or machine or human first and machine second…
In my view we have already passed Singularity, where the advancement in technology (“AI”) passes the point in which human kind can control things, we will touch on later…
Where to find value? One has to go DEEPer
The world I interact with is far different to the world frequented by Asset and Wealth Managers, who arrive in their plush offices, Saville Row suits and limos that drops them at reception. An inefficient industry, bloated with layers of people validating information, trying to touching the money and assets of the wealthy, so they can justify a fee…
At an Asset Management event in London I spoke at recently, I showed how our platforms can digitise any asset (financial or physical), can create a new financial instrument/asset class that can be traded Time Zero (“T Zero”) for micro fees. A place where we can identify the owners of the asset, trade the asset in a secondary market, secure the asset with custodians, have the asset insured, and always match the holder of the asset with their commercial entitlements, rights and obligations, a do this 2million times a second.
The audience didn’t know what to say, as I continued to explained that our industry will put them all out of business in less than a decade. Because this community cannot deliver value fast enough to the wealthy and to those that hold much of the worlds assets. Assets that remain largely illiquid because current markets and trading options are bloated with inefficient ‘fat cats’, legacy IT systems and intermediaries, brokers and third parties waiting in line with their hands out.
I mentioned that Blockchain as a legitimate transformational technology can remove 50% of operating costs and overheads in less than 6 months. There were many pale faces in the room that couldn’t make eye contact. Mostly operations people that knew what I was saying to be true.
DEEP invasion, mind and body
In recent times the rules of tech investing has largely driven by the VC ‘hope model’ where the partners of funds make bets on which portfolio company will pay for the other 9 that failed and still deliver a profit. Not only does it feel like licensed gambling, it is. And no wonder most of the families are moving away from the LP/GP model as they do not want their capital tied up for 5 to 10 years, and want a say in direction. Investing in tech requires understanding of mainly computer science, investing in Deep Tech additionally requires physics, quantum computing, cryptography, coding and several others specific domains and expertise to make sense of ‘all at once’.
In Dubai in March 2019 we heard from the biggest families announcing new renewed portfolio focus on technology, and as usual in public they don’t give much away. When you talk to them privately this also means they are looking for Deep Tech, opportunities beyond simple payment systems, software applications, mobile apps, CRM, databases, hardware and new devices. So called Tech, and beyond the first wave of social impact projects — alternate power sources, tokenised real estate, new trading exchanges, cannabis farms and new industry models such as healthcare, supply chain.
Although we do not reveal our activities with families, I can tell you this. Investment decisions now happening in Deep Tech because it has the greatest cause and effect on Impact Investing. We are seeing more Families want to be a part of solving the fundamental issues of society and mankind, cojoining socioeconomic with social impact. And the good news is many families have already invested in Deep Tech.
So what is it?
Deep Tech relates to an ‘all at once’ portfolio that combines several branches of tech combined into new infrastructure, new processing capabilities that deliver new insights and outcomes that deliver solutions for hundreds of millions of people at the same time, and reach billions of others, influencing and changing behaviours and monetising interactions. And why Amazon, Google and other tech brands are all over Deep Tech.
Deep Tech solves the biggest issues facing mankind, leveraging the now huge processing power of technology, capable of delivering new insights, challenging and therefore changing and upgrading the rules of computer science, physics and the science supporting mankind. Re-packaged with new front ends and new business models. Synthetic systems, self learning infrastructure, automated processes, and of course AI and machine learning at its colonel.
Singularity
The blurred lines between the flesh and machine are now undetectable as Deep Fake can attest. Of a time of singularity when the advancement of technology outreaches humans, when machines create themselves, in code that controls machinery (e.g. drones) is already here. Although mainstream is not paying attention, others in high places are all over it. Governments and large companies sit on huge volumes of (surveillance and other) data on everything we do and interact with. The backbone of Skynet.
New generations of Artificial Intelligence where the machines write their own code humans cannot understand, remain hidden, as code is deployed where who knows, which some believe is the first stage of the Rise of the Machines. For me having touched computer science for more than 4.5 decades, the tipping point has already passed. Like a virus that once in the open, it propagates and cannot be retrieved, amended or stopped.
Deep Tech is the realisation that those in power that have the resources can do good things for mankind, but also bad things, controlling the people in new ways. Replacing the old Schuldig philosophies of a Kreditocracy exploiting are areas of technology that the mainstream do not understand, to be invested in and strategically deploy Deep Tech to eliminate the competition and redefine the rules of engagement for business, mankind, and our civilisations next evolution.
I often get asked what is AI? And many have complex answers…
For me its simple: ‘Software code that can write itself and new self, code and a new future mankind cannot understand.’
The issue with AI is of course is bias. As machines, processors and hardware, operating systems and all kinds of code don’t feel, don’t have intuition and cannot make multi dimensional decisions. They are created and formed often under extreme bias by the creators as a starting point, and all further learning starts from this position, as a distorted version of events and truths.
Whilst this is not an advert for the next terminator movie, the implications for machine led bias cannot be ignored, a bias without feeling, of flesh of vulnerability of being human. But then who is making the decisions as demonstrated by the military use of drones that set their own parameters, plan and execute missions is for some a stage before Skynet kicks in.
Deep Tech Investing
At first we didn’t think too much about Deep Tech as we thought the families we speak with were traditional and weren’t ready. Although in many cases true, we started to introduce some of the Deep Tech key concepts and more importantly the projects we were working on and they wanted more.
Families are generally well informed, get great macro data and see the big picture which is essential to embrace and see Deep Tech possibilities. They intutively like big plays, reinventing cities, challenging how healthcare is delivered, solving the water issues, climate change and alternate energy sources. Philanthropic, giving back, social cause, passion projects. Yes. They like to give back but also to make returns over the long term, and above all leave a legacy!
But Deep Tech goes much further than traditional tech investing. Taking on the worlds biggest challenges and problems, changing and influencing the fundamentals of lifestyle, wellbeing, consumerism, government, monetary and voting systems, as the race between those who want to liberate mankind, an those who want to restrict and control it.
We like Deep Tech because it not obvious where the ‘end game’ will be played, or how far reaching the impact will be, but we do know the outcomes have massive potential, and by implication the potential to touch billions of people, soon to become the defaulted new way of doing things…
New Projects, new pathways, new outcomes
We are working with several projects contemplating different aspects of quantum physics, nano technology and AI and quantum computing built on Shor’s Law will redefine security and cryptography itself, albeit we like the look of quantum resistant Blockchains has yet to find their place in the natural order of things…
We are assaulting and knocking down the norms, the generally accepted principles of what can be done in computer science, physical realms and mechanical laws. We are backing new Deep Tech projects, we are becoming part of their infrastructure build, telling their story and delivering their futures.
For example we have plant based alternatives to super bacteria now resistant to common antibiotics, we have nano technology that can ‘cancel out’ toxic waste and clean up industry and the potential to repair the damage we are doing to our planet. Deep Tech that repairs human bodies when they are literally written off. new forms of mass enetertainment, eGaming that engages tens of millions of peoples at once as the people look for and eat new entertainment experiences engaging hundreds of millions of millennials at once.
We love Deep Tech, because it solves the big issues and now Family Offices do to. Combining the very latest technology and thinking, that has already extended past human engineering and understanding.
Are you ready to invest in Deep Tech…?
Author: Nick Ayton is Founder of Chainstarter Ventures Ltd a Family Office advisory firm that specialises in Deep Tech and matching Family and UHNW wealth with the projects that matter.
© NickAyton.com 2019 | https://medium.com/@nickayton/why-private-and-family-office-wealth-is-seeking-a-new-path-and-new-direction-91b0a568f957 | ['Nick Ayton'] | 2019-06-10 13:49:10.004000+00:00 | ['Impact Investing', 'Deeptech', 'AI', 'Wealth', 'Investing'] |
The Harsh, but Very Honest Reality of Making it Online | I can hear you saying — “but if it was that easy- everyone would be successful”. And I can hear you loud and clear, but why no one shares their experiences about struggles. We can learn from each other or know that you’re not on your own. And that it’s ok.
We read a lot about success stories which are very inspiring and uplifting, especially when it seems there are no more solutions.
I want to share the real struggles of making it online. And hopefully, I could help someone to see that we all have mountains to climb. But grit and passion will lead us to success. I believe in a year’s time I will write one of those success stories articles and share my journey how I make my living from writing etc.
And this is my story so far.
Social Media Journey
I’m struggling to say the least. I’m trying to niche down, I’m trying to find a spin to my niche so that I can stand out. But nothing comes to my mind. I keep procrastinating because I can’t have that perfect solution, which has been sold to me a lot of times.
Does that mean I can’t do it? I don’t have what it takes to win the online world?
The internet world is hard. I’m trying to build my presence but I feel that I’m taking one step forwards and 3 back. Especially I can feel this resemblance with the Twitter platform. It’s a social media platform, where words are powerful and mean more than pictures. I tried Instagram for a while but it never felt me — it felt like I tried to be someone else. So when I rediscovered Twitter and it’s community — I started to believe again that it is possible.
I only have 51 followers, but that’s ok. I need to find my voice, to find my identity so that I can be known for who I am. And only practise will let me grow my voice. I have to share consistently, even though no one is reading my content at the moment.
I absolutely admire people who made it online. I know it takes time and hard work to start earning money.
I bought a few courses to help me kick start my journey.
First, a bought a course about ‘how to’ make courses online or rather how to sell it without having a big audience. I had very high hopes for that. But again and again, I stumble against the same questions — who am I? What is my niche?
Newsletter
My first newsletter went to 10 subscribers. I was very excited, but it was quickly gone when 1 person unsubscribed and others didn’t even open it.
To say the least, it is hard to keep going.
I tried to experiment with different newsletter theme. It was more for me than for the readers, purely so that I could produce the best content I can. That means I need to be as excited writing it as excited my readers should be.
I started with online tools for business, but as much as I love the subject — it's not niche enough to capture more audience. So I tried to go more detailed and chose Artificial Intelligence (AI) as my niche. But that didn't last long as I quickly realised I wasn't passionate enough.
My gut feeling is to write about online tools for business but addressed more to busy parents. I can easily relate to it and write from my own experience. The long term idea would be to build a community of like-minded people to share their experiences.
Blog Posts
Publishing online was the scariest thing I did for a while. Medium opened up the possibilities for me to try it out.
My first blog post ever was “10 Social Media Post Ideas for Beginners”, which got published by Better Marketing publication. I thought- that’s easy! No wonder I got very disappointed when big boys kept rejecting my publications one after another.
I know I need to work on my article structure and expressing my ideas better. That’s why I’m not giving up and will keep trying.
To be able to create we need to keep writing and shipping.
It’s hard to know what to write about and to do it in the best possible way. But in this case, I know — practice is the king. That will make my work better.
Final note
Competence breeds confidence. Work on the skill first and other time you’ll become confident.
“It just takes one peace of content to change your life. You just never know which one that’s going to be” — Gary Vee
It’s a marathon, not a sprint. And there will be falls and desire to quit, but the willingness to try and grit should help me to keep going.
Quitting is not an option! | https://medium.com/@karolina.rickard/the-harsh-but-very-honest-reality-of-making-it-online-d2a6839ddde0 | ['Karolina Rickard'] | 2020-12-19 21:47:49.084000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Struggle', 'Blog', 'Reality', 'Newsletter'] |
Weekly update #5 | Exchanges — Currently we are waiting for Cryptopia, and we hope that they will process our request for listing as soon as possible. We are considering Livecoin exchange as an option for listing as well. We would like to know your opinion about listing on Livecoin. At the moment LIVE is available on Openledger and Forkdelta.
Beta version — Everything goes well. It is constantly being developed and improved. Soon, the first beta version of the platform will be moved to a new server with a new domain. The platform is ready for uninterrupted broadcasts via the modified WebRTC, the first version of the beta will have private anonymous chats between models and users, a private chat, payments with LIVE tokens, as well as the direct deposit and withdraw to the platform account.
Legal side — Registration in Cyprus is in the process. The necessary documents have been submitted to the Cyprus register. Next step after the establishment of the Cyprus company will be the acquisition of a statement on compliance with the accounting requirements of 18 U.S.C. 2257. Only after this label, models will be allowed to appear online.
Important Note — Since users will be able to pay models only in LIVE tokens, which will be purchased on exchanges in the first stages, we urgently need to get new listings before the release of the beta for token availability on the market and the required trading volume.
Also, we want to note that the beta version, despite the work that is being done, is still a raw product and will be constantly updated starting from the design and up to the functional side of the platform. We would like to remind you that the final release of the finished product is planned at the end of this year. However, as we planned, after obtaining the permission for the Cyprus company, we will begin the first broadcasts. Users will be able to spend interesting time on the platform, and the models will be able to earn LIVE while we continue to develop and will promote the platform and attract new users and models. Beta version announcement is planned after LIVE will be added to the new exchange (Cryptopia or Livecoin), since we do not see the point of doing this without exchanges and models. | https://medium.com/live-stars/weekly-update-5-fd91ddcd7d68 | ['Live Stars'] | 2018-05-04 11:17:14.303000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Ethereum', 'Weeklyupdate', 'Bitcoin'] |
Quantum Computing And The Meaning Of Life—Not Just ‘42’ | But what exactly is quantum computing?
To understand why it’s so incredible, one must look at the difference between a quantum computer and a regular computer. A regular computer works by switching millions of tiny transistors between 1 and 0, or “on” and “off”.
The computer can only tell each transistor to either let an electric current pass or not. There’s no other way and no in-between. So a computer has to switch through the different combinations, one by one.
First, it’s for example 1000101, then 0101101 and then 1100100. These three random numbers already represent 3 different setups and have to occur in order. The computer can not make all 3 of them simultaneously. And though coming up with these 3 will only take the computer a few nanoseconds, having to go through billions of combinations with a lot more numbers (transistors) involved, can quickly become a time-consuming effort.
A quantum computer makes use of a physical phenomenon that takes place in the still quite mysterious quantum world. A so-called “qubit”, which replaces the traditional transistor and consists of a molecule that’s deliberately spun at incredible speeds by shooting it with lasers at pinpoint accuracy while keeping it suspended in a near-absolute-zero environment, will fall into a so-called superposition.
Remember the transistor? It’s either 1 or 0. The qubit, however, can be either 0, or 1, or anything in between (meaning a little of both at the same time). It uses a quantum state, which basically means it’s everything and nothing at the same time.
To describe it really simply: Instead of having to go through the three binary number examples one after the other, a quantum computer can calculate and display all three at the same time.
Imagine the game where you put a little ping pong ball under one of three plastic cups and start switching the cups around. If you were to work like a regular computer, you’d lift them up one by one to find the ball. A quantum computer simply lifts up all three at the same time, finds the ball, and then acts as if it never lifted the two empty cups in the first place. | https://medium.com/illumination/quantum-computing-and-the-meaning-of-life-not-just-42-b1d638c6cdd0 | ['Kevin Buddaeus'] | 2020-09-06 02:46:13.153000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Data Science', 'Future', 'Science', 'Life'] |
Introducing Texture, a new home for AsyncDisplayKit | Garrett Moon | Pinterest tech lead, iOS Open Source Frameworks
Over the last two years Pinterest has been the primary developer of AsyncDisplayKit, an iOS framework for smooth and responsive interfaces. AsyncDisplayKit was created at Facebook, and our iOS team has significantly invested in the project, leading developments of new features and improvements made for the 2.0 launch, and contributing more than 70 percent of the commits to the AsyncDisplayKit repository. Pinterest is committed to investing in the future of AsyncDisplayKit, so today we’re announcing a new home for AsyncDisplayKit and a new name — Texture. This is not a fork. While Pinterest won’t directly own the project, our engineers will continue to help manage it so the framework grows and improves for the community.
In this post, we’ll cover the motivations for moving to a new repository and what this means for you as a developer.
Motivations
We believe creating Texture will ultimately build a stronger open community of developers contributing and mutually benefiting from developing fast asynchronous interfaces. There are three significant advantages to hosting Texture as a separate project outside of Pinterest. First, as an independent organization, Texture’s future won’t be tied to one company, so it can continue to be improved by the community.
Secondly, there’s a huge opportunity right now for the community to get involved. We’ve posted new contribution guidelines and intend to allow new core contributors to have merge access and join regular planning meetings once they’ve made significant contributions. We’re looking for contributions of new ideas, implementations, documentation and bug reports.
Finally, having Texture, formerly AsyncDisplayKit, where the community can control it also means we’ll be able to move faster. We’ll be able to provide more granular membership to the repository which will allow community members to more easily contribute to reviews and organize existing issues. Significantly, we’ll also be able to add new Github integrations like an entirely revamped continuous integration system which runs more tests much faster.
Logistics
What does this mean to you as a user of Texture?
Have an existing Fork you’d like to move over to Texture? Stack Overflow to the rescue! CocoaPod users: you’ll want to change to point to Texture, i.e. `pod ‘Texture’`. If you specified a git repo, the new one is located at https://github.com/TextureGroup/Texture. Carthage users: you’ll just need to update the GitHub address. All imports now need the AsyncDisplayKit prefix. I.e. #import <ASDisplayNode.h> needs to become #import <AsyncDisplayKit/ASDisplayNode.h> All new pull requests should be submitted to Texture’s GitHub repo. All new issues should be filed on the Texture repo. If you open a new one on AsyncDisplayKit, we’ll close it and ask you to move it over. We’re just starting to change the AsyncDisplayKit name to Texture. Currently there should be minimal changes needed to include the new classes, however expect us to make bigger changes to names and branding for the 3.0 release.
What’s next
We have a lot of exciting plans for Texture’s next big release, 3.0. We’re focusing on improving reliability, performance and maintainability with the intention of setting ourselves up to be able to add new exciting features such as progress driven layout transitions and automatic asynchronous layout.
If you’re using Texture, we’d love to hear about it on our slack channel: http://texturegroup.org/slack.html.
Acknowledgements: Getting this project moved wouldn’t have happened without a lot of help. Thank you to the awesome Pinterest engineers who have been the primary contributors to Texture: they do all the hard work: Adlai Holler, Huy Nguyen and Michael Schneider. Jamie Favazza, Henry Lien, Levi McCallum, Josh Enders and Kynan Lalone all helped with the move. Thank you also goes out to Facebook for helping move the process along. | https://medium.com/pinterest-engineering/introducing-texture-a-new-home-for-asyncdisplaykit-e7c003308f50 | ['Pinterest Engineering'] | 2017-04-14 22:51:51.010000+00:00 | ['Open Source', 'Asyncdisplaykit', 'iOS', 'Texture', 'Github'] |
10 Tasks With NLP: Twitter Sentiment Analysis | Task-1: Understanding the Business Problem
As always, we address our business problem in the first step of the project. In this study, we hope to get a result with two positive and negative results. We will process user comments in a sample data set obtained through the Twit API. With NLP techniques, we aim to obtain a numerical representation and enable the expression to clearly describe a real emotion.
Task-2: Import Libraries and Dataset
We usually start by installing libraries that are frequently used in data analysis. Those:
pandas (import pandas as pd)
(import pandas as pd) numpy (import numpy as np)
(import numpy as np) seaborn (import seaborn as sns)
(import seaborn as sns) matplotlib.pyplot (import matplotlib.pyplot as plt)
Also, a little touch of my notebook is required for places where I think we can express it better in black. To set the Jupyter notebook theme, we do as follows:
jupyterthemes
For installation: pip install jupyterthemes
For import: from jupyterthemes import jtplot
Theme of our choice: jtplot.style(theme=’monokai’, context=’notebook’, ticks=True, grid=False)
Note: If you want to see the codes I mentioned here clearly in the notebook in the link, I suggest you make the theme setting. However, this is completely optional.
The data set / data source we use:
32K tweets labeled as hate (racist / sexist) or non-hate in this link:
After loading the dataset as below, you will realize that we have to make some decisions about the columns. Because if we do not eliminate the details that we decided to be useless in an analysis, we will both establish a cumbersome system and reduce the effect of our analysis.
That’s why we decided to remove the “id” column as follows:
Task-3: Explore Dataset
At this stage, we will apply some methods to discover our data set.
1.Method: Are there any empty values in the data set? To do this, let’s try to combine the isnull() query with a graphical representation using the seaborn library.
As you can see, no blank values are displayed.
2. Method: Let’s draw a histogram for a graph of data distribution. The histogram graph will be very useful if the data frame is of a similar scale.
3. Method: Let’s find out the length of the twitts
4. Method: Let’s visualize this with matplotlib
5. Method: Let’s define the tweets. For this: describe()
6. Method: Now let’s see what is the shortest and longest message. As we understand from the above table, min = 11, max = 84 then for the shortest message:
Longest message:
7.Method: Finally, let’s examine how many data we have labeled as negative or positive. We’re looking at those labeled with 1 for negative, 0 for positive. So, positive:
For negative:
Task-4: Plot the WordCloud
Let’s try to combine and count sentences with tolist (), which we can use in Pandas series.
And let’s put it all together like a sentence. Thus, we will be able to use them more comfortably for WordCloud.
Let’s do the necessary downloads for WordCloud as follows:
!pip install WordCloud
from wordcloud import WordCloud plt.figure(figsize=(20,20))
plt.imshow(WordCloud().generate(sentences_as_one_string))
Let’s create a sample WordCloud for negative statements:
Task-5: Perform Data Cleaning
At this stage we will learn how to clear our data. What we mean is a stage that should be well known in a classic NLP project. Actually, everything up to this point has been the provision of prerequisites for starting the NLP project. Now let’s clean up expressions with Punctuation and Stopwords.
1- Remove Punctuation from Text: The string is used to work with classes and constants related to text. Punctuation helps to remove unwanted punctuation marks in text. In order to use the punctuation function, we first need to import string as below.
Unwanted punctuation marks are output
As an example, let’s try to understand how it works with a sentence. Sample sentence: “Good morning beautiful people :)… I am having fun learning Machine learning and AI!!”
The expression flows down, but for a better representation, we may prefer:
So we could see more clearly how the punctuation function works.
Alternatively, we could do this with a for loop like the following:
2- Remove ‘Stopwords’: Stopwords performs the function of extracting words such as “the”, “and”, “is” in the text. Thus, vectorization of more specific words for analysis is provided. For this you have to download the Natural Language tool kit and the Stopwords package to execute this command as follows:
Let’s take a closer look at the use of StopWords based on the sentence we have given above:
Test_punct_removed_join_clean = [word for word in Test_punct_removed_join.split() if word.lower() not in stopwords.words('english')]
Note: ‘StopWords’ separates words they think are necessary. However, it does not interfere with the basic structure of the sentence regarding its meaning. As we mentioned earlier, the important thing is to focus on the words that convey the emotion.
Task-6: Perform Count Vectorization (Tokenization)
An NLP project cannot be completed without tokenization. Tokenization can be based on text in three different ways. These are: word-character and subword (n-gram character). For example: “this word”:
Word _tokenized→this-is-word
Character_tokenized →t-h-i-s-i-s-w-o-r-d
For a better understanding of the subword, see the image below:
image created by the author
Our task here is to display the data in a vector format in addition to all this preliminary information. For this, to install sklearn, and also CountVectorizer must be imported from sklearn.feature_extraction.text.
!pip install sklearn
from sklearn.feature_extraction.text import CountVectorizer
For the vectorization function: CountVectorizer()
Data fit and transformation: fit_transform()
To print which words to show as ‘vectorizable’: get_feature_names()
Now let’s make an example variable with a data_set to better understand the above:
Task-7: Create a Pipline to Remove Punctuations, Stopwords and Perform Count Vectorization
Now let’s go back to our dataset and see how we can create the above together.
Let’s define a pipeline to clean up all the messages. The pipeline performs the following: (1) Remove punctuation, (2) Remove stopwords
The function we will define should be as follows:
def message_cleaning(message):
Test_punc_removed = [char for char in message if char not in string.punctuation]
Test_punc_removed_join = ''.join(Test_punc_removed)
Test_punc_removed_join_clean = [word for word in Test_punc_removed_join.split() if word.lower() not in stopwords.words('english')]
return Test_punc_removed_join_clean
If we test this functionality for any tweet:
Now, define the cleaning pipeline we defined earlier.
from sklearn.feature_extraction.text import CountVectorizer
vectorizer = CountVectorizer(analyzer = message_cleaning)
tweets_countvectorizer = CountVectorizer(analyzer = message_cleaning, dtype = 'uint8').fit_transform(tweets_df['tweet']).toarray()
And let’s see what the qualified words are and examine as vectorial.
print(vectorizer.get_feature_names())
print(tweets_countvectorizer.toarray())
You can get the number of rows of columns with the shape () function.
Note: As you can see from the numbers here, displaying this data as an array may cause problems on some machines. For this, I am leaving a link that I find useful about the ‘MemoryError: Unable to allocate…’ error in stockoverflow. If you get uncorfortable, you can look for a solution.
Now, before starting the test, we can assign variables as x and y as in the classic two-variable. For this, we can create equations for tweets_count_vectorizer i to variable x and to variable y for label. Thus, they are ready for training to easily create our machine learning model.
X =tweets_countvectorizer
y =y =tweets_df['label']
Task-8: Understand the Theory and Intuition Behind NAIVE BAYES
Naive Bayes is a classification technique based Bayes Theorem. The Naive Bayes Classifier assumes that the presence of a particular feature in a class has nothing to do with the existence of any other property. The level of relationship is determined between variables in a similar cluster, such as those who are members of a campaign according to customer demographic structure and population distribution, but separated by different preferences. Probability calculations are made accordingly. In principle, it works step by step as follows:
Calculating the first probability for the given class labels: This is the probability calculation within the total of the individual groups according to the available data. For example, calculating the odds of 4 red or 6 blue balls between 10 balls, so the probability is calculated as 4/10 for a red ball and 6/10 for blue.
This is the probability calculation within the total of the individual groups according to the available data. For example, calculating the odds of 4 red or 6 blue balls between 10 balls, so the probability is calculated as 4/10 for a red ball and 6/10 for blue. Finding the likelihood with each attribute for each class: We calculate the probability of the new variable at a location between two separate variables by looking at its specific location. For example, look at how many blue and red neighbors are next to them between the blue and red balls as indicated by the numbers above. If there are 3 red and 1 blue balls around the object (in the nearest circle) for which we are investigating the probability of the number, it is calculated as 3/4 and 1/6.
We calculate the probability of the new variable at a location between two separate variables by looking at its specific location. For example, look at how many blue and red neighbors are next to them between the blue and red balls as indicated by the numbers above. If there are 3 red and 1 blue balls around the object (in the nearest circle) for which we are investigating the probability of the number, it is calculated as 3/4 and 1/6. Posterior Probability: The above two calculations are set for each variable. Accordingly, for red: 4/10 * 3/4 = 3/10 and for blue: 6/10 * 1/6 = 1/10.
The above two calculations are set for each variable. Accordingly, for red: 4/10 * 3/4 = 3/10 and for blue: 6/10 * 1/6 = 1/10. Solving these values according to the Bayes Formula and calculating the final probability:
Task-9: Train a NAIVE BAYES Classifier Model
So now we have a tokenized version (X) of all the tweets. We previously specified it as X = tweets_countvectorizer.
Let’s import our function from the sklearn library to split arrays or matrices into random subdirectories:
the data allocated for testing the shift
We want to use the Multinomial Naive Bayes classifier. Because it is suitable for text classification with word numbers. We will use multinomialNB () by assigning it to a variable. It could feed again. Feeding in the data to the input and output basically is here. We are training the model on 32K tweets. Therefore, this process may take some time. In that case:
the model is trained, everytihng looks good
Task-10: Assess Trained Model Performance
We will finalize our project by evaluating the model performance. First, let’s try to understand confusion matrixes. Which is simply a way visualizing the performance of our classifier. With Sklearn, the confusion matrix function is used to evaluate and calculate the accuracy of our classification.
In fact, the negative measurement of a message estimation model that is actually negative will be output without error. We can get two types of errors. These:
type 1 Error: If the model responds positively to a message that is actually negative
If the model responds positively to a message that is actually negative type 2 Error: If the model responds negatively to a message that is actually positive
NB_classifier was our train model. We will generate y_predict_test by feeding it with X test. In the confusion matrix we will try to visualize the results with a heatmap. Innovations will be equals to true simply
It has missclassified these two samples missclassified 1.7 and 2.1. However, he was able to classify around 5800 tweets as positive and around 2500 as negative. (We used 20% of the total data as test data, as we mentioned above [size = 0.2])
So let’s go ahead and print out classification report.
Not bad with an overall weighted average of 0.94. However, we should not forget that our dataset is an unbalanced dataset. f1score which is the harmonic mean between the ‘precision’ and ‘recall’ tells us that the model can be improved. | https://medium.com/swlh/10-tasks-with-nlp-twitter-sentiment-analysis-fb1a2757d91f | ['Kurt F.'] | 2020-12-03 00:58:06.188000+00:00 | ['NLP', 'Twitter', 'Data Analysis', 'Data Science', 'Sentiment Analysis'] |
Dominican Republic: building a futureproof Tourism Portfolio | To help us understand the underlying dynamics in the tourism sector, we visualized it through a 3D model. This model helps us and partners visualize and articulate how different elements in the system (governance, i.e. how and how takes decision, Information: who holds it and how it flows; and Market: how resources are allocated) interact with each other to produce a certain set of outcomes. Understanding where the energy is in the current system and who and how allocates resources within it helped us identify “pressure points” (areas of interest) for interventions. If harnessed through a continuous process of sensemaking, learning from these interventions can generate options to shift to a new paradigm based on social inclusion, gender equality, management of natural capital and data use.
Since our last blog post, we have identified three areas of interest what we intend to engage with as a way to create opportunities for transformation. We think these areas are where most of the energy of the tourism sector is concentrated:
Diversifying the tourism model beyond the massive market by promoting and supporting a new local offer. New models of assets management that support a new economy for sustainable tourism. New mechanism and information systems that allows to harness data to create incentives towards behavioral change in order to support new economic models.
If you compare to our previous blog, you’ll see that these areas have gone through a refinement process and they are now more related to the intent of diversifying the sustainable tourism offer in the country. We refined the areas based on additional research and information (e.g. from our office’s regular engagement with the government), as well as by revisiting the process that go us here, iterating our problem analysis, etc. Furthermore, we have since our last post in March begun to identify specific interventions in each of these three areas of interest that can help us “probe” the system to understand its underlying dynamics:
Good practices and incentives to improve the quality of the MSME that works on the tourism sector Economic circular models to be used in tourist businesses. Inclusion labor schemes for disabled people and other collectives within tourism related activities. Demand for new unique offers (experiences) in the tourism sector that allow the sector to responsibly take advantage of the various natural assets in the country. Financial mechanisms to protect biodiversity in the context of tourism. Alternative natural protection ecosystems that at the same time bring access to tourism services. Developing a national ecocultural route experience all over the country. Designing an ecosystem for digital nomads
At this point, we already have what we call a “seed portfolio” where some of the options that composed the whole portfolio are developed. Our intention is to continuously revisit these as we deepen our understanding of the tourism sector and what keeps it stuck in its current paradigm. In the short run, these probes can help us generate new frames for different actors in the system. In the long term, we want to help build an ecosystem that can induce change through a comprehensive, dynamically managed portfolio of interventions that can generate new options for the tourism sector in the Dominican Republic.
Supporting the local ecosystem of stakeholders
At the end of September, to further the above, we convened a session with key stakeholders from the tourism sector in the Dominican Republic. Stakeholders included representatives from the National Association of Hotels and Restaurants, Ministry of Tourism, the National Central Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Ministry of Industry and Commerce, researchers, as well as other organizations. At the session we presented the portfolio approach to tourism that we have been working on. This included describing the logic behind the process and the initial analysis of the sector, allowing participants to appreciate the systems analysis underpinning the portfolio as well as the possible entry points (areas of interest). We intended this session to be a conversation starter for different stakeholders in the Dominican Republic’s tourism ecosystem to come together and co-create a new vision for the sector.
The work was well received. Participants stated the value add of this process as it, in the words of one participant, shows “in one place an analysis that includes all the elements of the tourism sector in the country”. This type of analysis allowed participants to see the links between different elements of the vast and complex tourism sector. Furthermore, a participant also highlighted the importance of this type of analysis as a way to generate insights as inputs to the country’s economy recovery plan: “the National Government has a series of policies that must be prioritized to successfully reopen the economy after the pandemic caused by COVID-19. All this analysis you are presenting in which we are starting to work together, should be included in the Economy Recovery Plan to enable investment policies and job creation processes.”
We are delighted that this work has received attention and interest, and we plan to continue building on it and the initial systems analysis described above. We intent to officially establish a team composed of UNDP CO staff and key stakeholders from the tourism sector ecosystem and use this as a vehicle and forum for co-creating options for a portfolio that can help generate transformative change within the tourism system. In this connection, one of the session’s participants noted: “we think it is important to continue building on this platform, so we all together can have common vision on where to allocate resources and efforts to improve the tourism sector in the Dominican Republic”.
If you are interested in learning more about this process or to participate please don’t hesitate to keep in touch. Either way, we’ll also keep you posted through this blog series! | https://medium.com/@undp.innovation/dominican-republic-building-a-futureproof-tourism-portfolio-bbdd41fad094 | ['Undp Innovation'] | 2021-09-10 18:49:53.951000+00:00 | ['Sustainable Development', 'Systems Thinking', 'Dominican Republic', 'Tourism'] |
I Spent 13 Years Teaching Dangerous Criminals: Here is What I Learned | It’s “us” not “them”
My first lesson came quickly. Although many of these men had committed serious crimes, they were still human beings just like you and me.
They still felt emotions. They still suffered from fears. They still held tightly to their personal value systems.
They had strengths and flaws, brilliance, and talent.
Many of them were much smarter and more resourceful than me. They knew how to build cars, fix household appliances, and paint damn near anything.
They had lived and experienced things I could only imagine.
Oddly, or maybe not odd at all, this didn’t separate us. Instead, it connected us on an even deeper, more primal level. My lesson became crystal clear: We are more similar than we are different.
This makes even more sense when you consider that the Wall Street Journal reports that at least 77.7 million people in the United States alone have a criminal record. To put that into perspective, that means as many people in the U.S. have criminal records as college degrees.
Learning this lesson allowed me to teach with more intimacy and compassion.
(Almost) everyone deserves compassion
I tend to believe that everyone deserves compassion, but I threw in the “almost” because I realize certain individuals have made very poor choices that inflicted unimaginable harm on undeserving families.
I’m not here to defend anyone or to insist on compassion where it is most difficult.
I simply want to share another lesson I learned from teaching dangerous criminals for 13 years.
There are no excuses for bad decisions or bad behavior. However, most of these men grew up in families and in situations that they did not choose. Abuse, violence, and extreme poverty wove consistent themes throughout their lives.
Again, this is no excuse for the choices they made as adults. We each must accept the responsibility for our actions.
Although a big part of what I taught centered on personal responsibility and accountability, I still learned to teach at deeper levels of empathy and understanding.
“If you are still breathing, you have a second chance.“— Oprah Winfrey
These men taught me that (almost) anyone deserves kindness, acceptance, and personal validation for their suffering.
More than once, I have pondered whether or not these men would have ended up in prison if their families could have provided nurturance, gentleness, and unconditional love.
There is hope
My biggest lesson was about hope.
What kind of hope? Hope that people can change. Hope that fractured families can heal. Hope that our mistakes of the past don’t always dictate our future.
During my 13 years, I witnessed more than one man turn his life around, become a great dad to children who desperately needed him, and give back to the community.
I celebrated with men who landed their first legal job and cried with men who lost a loved one.
I also watched men fail, lick their wounds, and pull themselves up again. Hope is a powerful motivator. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/i-spent-13-years-teaching-dangerous-criminals-here-is-what-i-learned-b33e5bfffe32 | ['Christopher Kokoski'] | 2020-12-14 04:34:07.845000+00:00 | ['Personal Development', 'Life', 'Education', 'Teaching', 'Life Lessons'] |
Ms Dynamite, a prophetess of our times & wealth over morality | She was before her time, but what we thought was a call against toxic masculinity, currently speaks to us like it never has before.
There is something extraordinarily empowering about Black British women in the early ninety’s and noughties. There was definitely an interesting electric atmosphere that allowed 90’s babies to be introduced to life and culture at a time where aspects of cultural pride were just beginning to be celebrated. It was the outcome of Black British empowerment, a time where pride of this hybrid culture was being birthed after years of struggling to be seen. London-centric culture was celebrated in schools, the celebration of the likes of Sade, Shola Ama, Gabrielle, and Ms Dynamite — classy and cultural women that were lit, that we could all relate to. Wholesome but still humble to their roots and not afraid to showcase this in their music.
This was a time. It was a movement. And it was soothing.
Speaking as a 90’s baby, in comparison to what is currently our lived reality, this was a more simplistic, authentic time. We were Black & British, hyper vigilant in our cultural differences but a mass celebration of the culture via mass media allowed for a pride in that title. And of course the music represented just this.
You can therefore imagine that as the world seemingly crumbles in the midst of a global pandemic, whilst many of the countries of our heritage are overflowing with the pain of corruption, rape, violence and frankly genocide, outlets of peace are requested. After the protests in the UK calling for the resignations of the most harmful politicians in Nigeria’s government, whose greed for money and power lead them to make the orders of a genocide — moments of recharge are required. I found myself needing the soothing sounds that bring back memories of a simpler time. Aptly, I scrolled across playlists until I found a Black British Songtress playlist that performed this role to the tee. Of course, I found this, and more so, came across a song that shook me, and highlighted the issues of society that have resulted in the boiling point we are seeing at the moment. All this found by Ms Dynamite’s — It Takes More.
I find myself engulfed by what I can only describe as a prophecy of our current time, far removed from any understanding that I would have had of this tune previously. In the echos of melodic tones the UK songstress states “So what you pushin a nice car, don’t you know there ain’t no such thing as superstars. We leave this world alone so who gives a fuck about the things you own”. Whilst distracted by the lyrics that really rocked me in relevance for the first time since it’s release in 2002, “And we can all chat bout gats and blacks on blacks, enforce the hypes and all be stereotypes, but youts are watchin that ain’t what I’m here for, show em to think higher and aspire to be more” bellowed in a meaningful position, speaking on a very current state of affairs in our society — in our generation- in a way that I though a distant lesson until now.
Whilst her concerns on materialism had encountered me as a warning to men that indulged in behaviour that would solely project their monetary status, through materialism, as a way of attempting to attract the opposite sex (be it poorly judged or not). These words echoed a different meaning, relevant to the world in 2020 and our overall attitude to wealth. Specifically, the mentality of wealth over morality and the detrimental effects of this attitude, not just in the UK but worldwide.
This mentality that has strayed away from what would have been traditionally deemed acceptable, has now gone a step further from accepting liberalism but more so celebrates versions of this that can in many ways put money over morals and sometimes self-care. As we see the positive prospects that come alongside OnlyFans pages, fraud and more, we also — more relative to the current systems at hand — see the inflation of the bad and bouji. The displays of wealth across the internet through an ever-growing clique of individuals living £100K lifestyles amongst in a world where most are 2 months away from a maxed-out credit card and possible homelessness.
Over the last couple of years we have been thrown into a desperate age of comparison, all for image, to be in the best restaurants, have the best designer items, buy the sexiest cars and even cop a house by 27 (laughs in brokeness) and when we fall short of this we sink into a ‘underachieving’ ditch.
In the early 2000’s this narrative used to be limited to those who would pull up to a dance in the latest cars, with chains that would be best suited on top of a Christmas tree, eager to try and hand you a drink with the cuff of their sleeve pulled up to expose a watch that most of us wouldn’t even recognise in the first place. Now? Now it’s everywhere. Everyone trying to prove how tasteful they are and eager to touch on just how much this tastefulness costs. We are swimming in a clout ocean, where social media is the river that feeds this insane compulsion, spewing out just a bit more toxicity and diverseness day by day. Because the attitude of comparison has become the hill that we are ready to die on — sad thing is people ARE literally dying from this.
Essentially this attitude feeds into global suffering and is a direct facilitation of the power and greed that leaves others in our home countries suffering. From sweat shops, to items made under the most bizarre circumstances in China, to political families using country resources to fund their children abroad, we can see plenty of examples of expenditure and convenience funded by the suffering of others, we have just become desensitised to it. Us indulging in these attitudes may feel like a victimless crime, but just because we cannot relate to those who are paying the price of our convenience at the peak of capitalism and consumerism doesn’t mean they don’t exist. We, as a society have become a huge part of the problem. Ethics are no longer questioned in the hunt for a better life — for privilege. Dirty money has seemed less so as the economy has plunged into the mud. Austerity is real dirty, and the same money will get us out the dirt. Understandable right? Well of course, so let’s stop denying it and really face some harsh truths about our reality. The strive to be better has made us part of the problem.
Sugar daddies, becoming an influencer, setting up an Only Fans, all feasible ways to make money in 2020, especially as we embarked on the global pandemic that has left many of us worse for wear financially. These steps have just become another form of income in a world where ethics does not pay the bills but at least 10 subscribes per month might. The thing about this is it builds a certain expectation, that will make it very difficult for our children to live up to without compromising their wellbeing in what we would hope to be their best years. Our striving to do better and the affects of austerity may have a detrimental affect on our children’s mental health and measures of self-esteem, when the time comes for them to contemplate the direction and goals they want to pursue in life, which will inevitably be significantly earlier than it was for us.
‘It means more’ acts as a re-ignited flame that, for me anyway, has highlighted in nostalgic innocence. Whilst societal values may have shifted in the decade in which the song was conceived, the outcome of these problematic behaviours remain the same regardless of how necessary it may seem at the moment. Yes, we are a society of grinders, overworking to ensure that we can reap the benefits now and in the future, but the innocence of our children might just be what we are compromising on. Her message being direct in the noughties, now speaks to a whole society of people rather than a small egotistical clique. The need for the new attitude to money and ethics has become completely understandable, but the consequences remain as detrimental as the Garage hit prophesied. We need to be aware of how we navigate this space of influence if we want to protect future generations from a growing adolescent mental health crisis.
The attitude of the elders, pushing us in comparison to others,Keeping up with the Joneses, has undisputedly caused us to reenact the same harmful behaviours, that had led us into depressive pits caused my unattainable life comparisons. This is a form of suffering we cannot inflict on our youth going forward if we really want to avoid them having to deal with the trauma our generation spends years attempting to recover from. | https://medium.com/@chrissiejroberts/ms-dynamite-a-prophetess-of-our-times-wealth-over-morality-8cbed289b649 | [] | 2020-12-16 21:32:51.123000+00:00 | ['Wealth', 'Morality', 'Culture', 'Society', 'Black British'] |
Setting Up VS Code for Scala Development on WSL | Install Scala
Install Scala is not necessary since sbt will download an appropriate version when we build a Scala program. However, if using Scala REPL (command-line shell) is desired, run the following command to install it.
$ sudo apt install scala
Step 4: Use VS Code to Create a Sample Project
The sample project the tutorial uses to the demo has the following layout.
scala-sample-code
├── .scalafmt.conf
├── build.sbt
├── project
│ └── build.properties
└── src
├── main
│ └── scala
│ └── Sample.scala
└── test
└── scala
└── SampleSpec.scala
Before we launch VS Code, use mobaXterm Ubuntu shell to create a project folder on Ubuntu WSL2.
$ cd ~
$ mkdir scala-sample-code
Once the project folder is created, we can close mobaXterm and launch VS Code.
Click the left-bottom icon to connect to WSL and choose Open Folder in WSL as the picture shown below to open the scala-sample-code folder we just created.
After VS Code opens the scala-sample-code folder, we can see the left-bottom icon becomes WSL: Ubuntu, and we can start creating folders and files.
We first create build.sbt with the following content.
ThisBuild / scalaVersion := "2.13.3"
ThisBuild / version := "0.0.1" lazy val sample = (project in file("."))
.settings(
name := "Sample Project",
libraryDependencies += "org.scalatest" %% "scalatest" % "3.2.2" % Test,
)
As soon as the build.sbt file is created, the Metals extension of VS Code automatically detects the change and bumps up a window for importing the build.
The import process automatically creates some sbt build folders and files. And we can continually create our project folders and files.
.scalafmt.conf
version = "2.7.4"
align.preset = more
maxColumn = 100
Sample.scala
object Sample extends Greeting with App {
println(greeting)
}
trait Greeting { lazy val greeting: String = "hello" }
SampleSpec.scala
import org.scalatest.wordspec._
class SampleSpec extends AnyWordSpec {
"The sample code" should {
"say hello" in {
assert(Sample.greeting.startsWith("h"))
}
}
}
After the sample project is created, the layout looks like the picture below from VS Code.
Note that .bloop , .metlas , and .vscode are generated by VS Code and Metals extension. If we use a version control system like Git, we should add these folders to .gitignore .
(The sample code is also available at https://github.com/shunsvineyard/scala-sample-code)
VS Code Usage
The following subsections demonstrate some everyday use cases for Scala development using VS Code.
Code Format
Metals supports Scalafmt for code formatting. To format code, right-click on the Scala file we want to format and select Format Document to format the file as shown in the picture.
By default, Metals formats Scala documents based on the .scalafmt.conf file on the project directory's root. The path can be modified from the Metals extension configuration. See Configurations section to alter the settings.
Run and Debug
There are two ways to run and debug the Scala code.
1. Use Code Lenses
For each main or test class, Metals shows code lenses run | debug for main class and test | test debug for test classes. Click run or test to run or test the Scala program.
2. Use launch.json Configuration
The other way is to define launch.json for VS Code to run or debug a program.
Follow the steps in the picture to create the launch.json configuration file.
After step 3, VS Code asks a few more questions. We can leave them all blank and edit the launch.json file after the JSON file is created. After the configure file is created, we can fill in the configurations and run or debug the program.
Configurations
In addition to the most common use cases, code format, run and debug, there are many other things we can configure Metals to work in the ways we want.
To open the settings, do [File -> Preference -> Settings] to open the settings. The settings have three scopes: User, Remote, and Workspace. Choose whichever fits our needs. And select Extensions -> Metals to modify the settings.
Troubleshooting
Sometimes the Metals extension may not work correctly. We can check the Metals output to get more information to solve it or, at least, have better error messages to google.
For example, if the JDK version we installed does not support JDI (this will result in the debugger not working), we will get the following error message when we try to run the debugger.
Couldn't find a debug adapter descriptor for debug type 'scala' (extension might have failed to activate)
Unfortunately, the error message does not give enough information about the issue. In this case, we can check the Metals output. See the picture below.
It gives us more information about this issue.
Message: Debugging is not supported because bloop server is running on a JRE /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre with no support for Java Debug Interface: 'JDI implementation is not provided by the vendor'. To enable debugging, install a JDK and restart the bloop server.
So, we know the JDK is the issue and need to be fixed.
Terminal for sbt Commands
One useful VS Code feature worth mentioning is the integrated terminal. With the integrated terminal, we can run the shell on WSL. For Scala development, the terminal provides a convenient way to run sbt commands within the VS Code.
Using Ctrl+Shift+P to bring up the Command Palette and type terminal . It should show a few terminal options. Choose to Create New Integrated Terminal (In Active Workspace) .
This brings up the WSL shell on the project directory.
With this feature, we can use the terminal without external tools such as Windows Terminal or MobaXterm.
Conclusion
This article provides the basic setup and common use cases for using VS Code to write Scala code. Although it demonstrates the configurations on Windows Subsystem for Linux, the VS Code Usage section also works on Windows, Linux, and MacOS.
VS Code may not be the most popular editor for Scala programming, but with the great extension support such as Metals, VS Code can be a useful tool for Scala development. Especially for people who work in multiple languages, VS Code could be the one for all your need. | https://medium.com/@shunsvineyard/setting-up-vs-code-for-scala-development-on-wsl-258386a31c23 | ['Shun Huang'] | 2021-01-11 00:31:30.053000+00:00 | ['Vscode', 'Scala 2.13.3', 'Scala'] |
Every day need to be Earth Day! | Earth has been into existence much before we humans devised days or calendar. Had Earth had the option , it would have declated the day humans arrived on it as “Human Day” and similarly a day for the each specie whenever it arrived on earth, It kind of sounds funny that we late-comers on Earth have dedicated just 1 day from our annual calendar for mother Earth.
This Earth Day, the least we can all do is URL (Unlearn, Relearn & Learn) that Earth is not land or soil only but it stands for the whole planet. It is we who occupy minuscule space & came here on Earth for minuscule time, when compared to the timescale of Earth.
What we need to be understand is that Earth comprises of 5 elements (Air, Water, Fire, Space & Earth) and that too in a very harmonious rhythm. Any imbalance in the composition/ratio of these 5 elements causes havoc on Earth directly or indirectly. All creatures on this earth are also made up of these 5 elements only and thus each creature has to work towards maintaining balance of these 5 elements within their own body as well as in their surroundings. Unfortunately, no matter how hard we tried via various programs like UNEP or Paris climate deal or UNSDG, the balance of these 5 elements is completely out-of-sync on the whole planet and so in our bodies. As a consequence world is struggling to find clean water for all, struggling to have enough fertile land to grow food for all, struggling to find solutions ro defer the global warming, struggling to find means to pull-back excess carbon from atmosphere, struggling to clean-up the mess in space etc! The current pandemic as well as all other climate-change related issues are for sure an outcome of this imbalance only.
If we have learnt something from ongoing pandemic then we can atleast make two commitments/promise to ourselves i.e.
I would do whatever it takes to: Being AirWise, Being WaterWise, Being FireWise, Being SpaceWise & Being SoilWise I will celebrate Earth Day everyday
They sound so simple & maybe too less also but as such its no easy feat. The solution for all the mess Earth is in, doesn’t lie with one single nation or one international body. Every creature on Earth is abiding by the rules of the game, except humans. Now is the time, we humans also proclaim that each and every human on Earth would not do any foul play and will abide by all rules of the nature! Happy Earth Day! | https://medium.com/@sunil.pachar/every-day-need-to-be-earth-day-a97364775426 | ['Sunil Pachar'] | 2020-04-23 13:50:25.173000+00:00 | ['Sustainability', 'Earth Day', 'Esg', 'Earth', 'Climate Action'] |
How to Have a Successful UX Career at Google (Or Anywhere Else) | Learn how to “speak shark”
I am a huge fan of the reality TV show Shark Tank. For those not familiar, the basic premise is that entrepreneurs come out and pitch their business or product ideas to an audience of seasoned, successful businesspeople— the Sharks. Sharks grill the “guppies,” asking them detailed questions about how they’ll take their products to market, how they’ll make money, what their sales projections will be, and so on. Sharks then make offers to invest, so entrepreneurs get knowledgeable investors, Sharks get equity, and everyone wins. Or, quite often, everyone loses.
The antics of this entrepreneurial pressure-cooker are entertaining, but the show also demonstrates that business acumen and product savviness go a long way when trying to sell your ideas. The more knowledgeable and business-smart an entrepreneur is, the better they do under questioning. It’s an immensely valuable skill. I call this “speaking shark.” It means thinking like a CEO.
Fully understanding the product area you’re working in is one of the best ways UXers can position themselves as experts, united in true partnerships with both cross-functional teams and their end users. It’s not enough to just do product research, like competitive analyses or market surveys. You are the expert on the user, and that means understanding the full landscape in which your users exist. To get the lay of the land, read industry news, and understand where that industry and competitors are going. The goal is to build a POV on the product and business.
As a manager, encourage your team to think about the following prompts:
What business are you in? What problem are we solving?
For whom? Why?
How do we compete? What is our differentiator?
How do we make money?
What is the growth strategy? What are the ecosystem risks?
Upping your vocabulary and understanding of basic business and product terminology is another fairly simple way of being able to speak shark. Get familiar with business metrics like KPI, sales revenue, net profit margin, gross margin, customer lifetime value, and product metrics like daily/monthly active users (DAU, MAU), churn rate, conversion rate, engagement etc.
The type of product you work on — subscription vs. content sites vs. API products vs. e-commerce — will determine the metrics you gather. Regardless, as a design leader, you have to be able to understand the product and business metrics to be able to demonstrate how UX drives business value. | https://medium.com/google-design/how-to-have-a-successful-ux-career-at-google-or-anywhere-else-ea63624f74de | ['Jhilmil Jain'] | 2019-11-05 17:47:42.874000+00:00 | ['Opinion', 'Design', 'UX', 'Career Advice'] |
Human Beings Are Not Cogs In A Wheel | Human Beings Are Not Cogs In A Wheel
A Call to a Different Way of Thinking
by Dhyana Stanley
Just for a moment consider this — there is a sinking house built on sand and someone tells you that the problem will be solved if you replace the broken heating system. Another insists that the foundation is the issue and you only need to add some gravel to the sand and all will be well.
This is a good example of — if our thinking is off about either the problem or solution then things will not get fixed.
No amount of money we throw into fixing the heating system or shoring up the foundation with gravel will do the job.
We may be a bit more comfortable for a while sitting in a warm house with an efficient heating system but the house is sinking none the less.
All of the 2020 presidential candidates seem to recognize that ‘our house is sinking’ but only Andrew Yang has clear thinking about both the problem and solution. The other candidates focus their attention on fixing symptoms without seeing what is underlying them.
Yang is very different. He addresses the symptoms, such as a broken healthcare system and corporate corruption, but he also sees that what is underlying those symptoms is a distorted way of thinking.
He points out that it’s as if we’ve been brainwashed to believe in scarcity and that human value is based on economic value.
This way of thinking distorts everything.
How we feel about ourself and others is then distorted. And how we treat each other is also distorted.
Fear, divisiveness, corruption, greed, racism run rampant and over time many of us become numb into thinking that it’s completely normal to treat each other the way we often now do.
There is nothing normal about what is now happening in our society.
Yang’s ‘Humanity First’ phrase is like a mantra or Biblical refrain waking us up out of the trance of divisiveness into the possibility of so much more.
Corruption and corporate greed are not at the root of what has a stranglehold on our democracy — they are the effects of a distorted way of thinking. If we throw money at eliminating the effects without addressing our fundamental mindset we may be a bit more comfortable for a while with a somewhat better healthcare system but ‘the house’ is still sinking none the less.
When our thinking is free from what we’ve been programmed to believe then all else will follow.
Repeatedly, Yang points out that every human being has innate value and that there is an abundance of resources. Human value is a given — not earned — and scarcity is simply not true.
From this fundamental mindset of abundance and our innate human value, Yang then builds a scaffold of rational and humane policies that fit together like a puzzle creating a society in which every human being shares and contributes toward its well-being.
Parenting, care-taking, volunteering, journalism, the arts are valued just as much as the career paths of science, math or business. Rather than our nation’s success only being measured by economic indicators, Yang proposes that GDP be a measurement of our overall well-being in which each one of us has a stake.
Based on the understanding of abundance, Yang points out that his policy for each adult American to receive universal basic income of $1000 a month is not at all a hand out. It is a dividend which acknowledges each one’s contribution toward our shared well-being as a nation — the stay at home mom or dad is valued for their contribution just as much as the CEO of a multi-million dollar company.
It doesn’t make any sense for billion dollar tech companies to get rich off of our data while closing our stores and taking our jobs and paying zero in taxes.
And I feel that when those who run these companies get a sense of the type of human centered capitalism Yang is proposing, most will gladly come on board and ask, “How can I help?”
When we finally begin to work together in this rational and humane way, solutions to problems we long thought unsolvable will begin to surface.
There is no telling what this country is capable of when we the people, the true value of this country, are trusted and unleashed to fulfill our highest potential. | https://medium.com/the-national-discussion/a-call-to-a-different-way-of-thinking-11c8235c083b | ['Dhyana Stanley'] | 2020-01-26 13:32:58.142000+00:00 | ['Andrew Yang', 'Politics', 'Basic Income', '2020 Presidential Race', 'Humanity First'] |
Monero BulletProof — Transactions Now Cheaper By 97% | Back in December 2017, Monero announced that they would be implementing their Bulletproof Protocol in two stages which promised to retain all existing privacy and security features while shrinking down transaction sizes significantly and providing an avenue for sustained and efficient scaling.
Since that time two separate audits were done on Monero’s Bulletproof Protocol, the first being done by Kudelski Security back in July 2018 and the second by QuarksLab in January 2018.
Recently Monero shared their latest major release of v0.13.0 of the Monero software named “The Beryllium Bullet” which has enabled Bulletproofs to make transactions on the Monero platform nearly 97% cheaper. While there were some crucial fixes needed Monero has since patched their documented vulnerabilities, most significantly stopping the threat of a 51% attack on their network through remote nodes.
Although significant, the BulletProof update showed little improvement towards the value of XMR and saw only a $4.00 maximum increase in value after the news broke of the update according to CoinMarketCap.
In the long term, Monero looks like they have taken a meaningful step in the development of their platform that might set them apart in the future as the crypto market continues to undergo constant change and evolution. With such a massive step forward Monero may very well be clearing a path for other networks to follow.
Will the BulletProof update spark rally for the value of XRM? Only time will tell. As other networks fall behind the curve Monero has set we may very well see Monero start to climb the charts past its competitors. | https://medium.com/rublix/monero-bulletproof-transactions-now-cheaper-by-97-80801601b594 | ['Shane Moser'] | 2018-10-26 17:46:21.864000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto', 'Bitcoin', 'Monero'] |
Flutter Navigator 2.0 for Authentication and Bootstrapping — Part 1: Introduction | The Navigator 2.0 API has been one of the most controversial APIs I have seen in my software development career. In this series of articles, I aim to convince the readers to use this API in their projects, because it is more Flutterish, it helps to separate concerns and improves the user experience of Flutter Web applications.
The keywords of this series would be declarative API, navigation stack (history stack), Router widget, Navigator widget, app state, and system events. Considering these keywords, I believe the Navigator 2.0 API is summarized best by Micheal Goderbauer:
“Introduce a declarative API to set the history stack of the Navigator and a new Router widget to configure the Navigator based on app state and system events.”
When it was announced, many Flutter devs, including me, initially found this new way of navigation complicated and hard to use due to the increased number of classes, lack of training materials and long documentation. The Flutter team is well aware of this situation, and they started Navigator 2.0 API Usability Research. Anyone can contribute to this research project and engage in the discussions by adding comments to the Github issue.
I was too close to give up on migrating to the new Navigator API too, but I wanted to get benefit from it for my side project to provide a better Web UX. After going through the source code, reading the Github discussions, and experimenting a lot with a demo project, I would like to share my learnings in this series of articles.
Too much information (taken from specs)
I call the old Navigator API as Imperative Navigator API and the Navigator 2.0 API as Declarative Navigator API . As a mobile developer who has worked with Android’s imperative ways of coding for years, I believe getting used to the declarative APIs requires time and practice.
The declarative paradigm is getting very popular nowadays considering the investment by Apple in SwiftUI and by Google in Flutter, and Jetpack Compose. Although the Android team introduced Jetpack Compose toolkit for building native UI with a declarative paradigm, as of today, the navigation is still handled imperatively.
In my opinion, the Flutter team presented the Navigator 2.0 API with an article that gives too much information to digest at once. I think the article could have been split into smaller parts and covered more common scenarios such as authentication, bootstrapping, deep-link handling, etc. I am sure many blog posts from the Flutter community will help to close this gap. I also hope that this series of articles and the sample apps will be useful for the community.
You can find the source code for the sample apps of this series on my Github page. The implementation details of the sample apps will be explained in the following articles:
Why Navigator 2.0?
Although the Navigator 2.0 API is known to be declarative, it still supports the existing static imperative methods (pop, push, replace, etc.) of the Navigator widget. After reading different articles, I came up with the following reasons to use the new declarative Navigator API:
The new API is more similar to how we build widgets in Flutter. We declare the widget’s subtree and return it within the build method. In this declaration, we set the properties of the subtree depending on the widget state. When we set the widget’s state, the build method is called and the subtree is rebuilt accordingly. Similarly, with Navigator 2.0, we build the entire history stack like a widget subtree according to app state updates and system events. This gives us more flexibility to modify every entry in the history stack, unlike the imperative Navigator API.
Parsing and restoring URLs bring significant value to the app navigation when the Web platform is targeted. The new API introduces a component that is responsible for parsing URLs entered in the Web browser’s address bar and restoring URLs on the address bar according to the application state changes.
Instead of describing how to navigate inside the Widgets or in different parts of the application using static imperative API methods, the declarative API introduces the Router widget which makes decisions in a declarative way based on the app state and operating system events. This enables us to apply the most important software development principle: Separation of Concerns. By doing this we move the navigation logic from Widgets and controller classes to the Router widget and its delegates. Building a navigation stack from a central place gives more flexibility and an easier maintenance experience to the developers.
Sample Apps
In this series of articles, using the Navigator 2.0 API in Flutter projects is demonstrated with sample applications that are built incrementally. In the first three samples, we focus on building a navigation stack as a result of user interaction.
In the last sample, we focus on two things:
Handling the new route requests from the OS for example by entering a Web URL on the Web browser’s address bar.
Updating the Web browser’s address bar according to app state changes for example by clicking a button.
1. User Interaction
The first sample has 3 screens: Home, Color, and Shape.
The Home screen lists the Material Design’s 2014 colors.
Clicking a colored button on the Home screen will navigate the app to the Color screen where buttons with the selected color are shown with the following ShapeBorder classes: BeveledRectangleBorder , RoundedReactangleBorder , ContinousRectangleBorder , StadiumBorder , and the CircleBorder .
classes: , , , , and the . Clicking a shape border type will navigate the app to the Shape screen which shows only a button with selected shape border and color.
2. Authentication
The second sample adds the authentication use case to the first sample.
If the user is not logged in, the app first shows a simple Login screen that has only a button.
Clicking the button first navigates the app to the Splash screen which will be shown until the authentication process is done. A delay is added to mock the authentication process.
Once the process is done, the app navigates to the Home screen. In this sample, Home, Color, and Shape screens have logout floating action button so that when pressed, the user is logged out and the app is navigated back to the Login screen.
3. Bootstrapping
The third sample adds the bootstrapping use case to the second sample. In the previous samples, the list of colors (data) is accessed immediately. However, this is usually not the case in the real world. In many apps, once a user is logged in, a Splash screen is shown while the data is being loaded from the local and remote data sources. In this sample, when the authentication process is done and the user is logged in, a delay is added to mock the process of fetching data from a repository. The app waits until the color list data is ready before navigating to the Home Screen. When the user is logged out, a delay is added to mock the process of clearing the user data.
4. Web
The fourth sample is for improving the navigation for the Web platform by handling the URLs properly. In this sample, we will navigate to the Color and Shape screens by typing the URL to the address bar of the Web browser and update the URL on the address bar according to application state changes.
Conclusion
In this article, we had an introduction to the declarative navigation API and explained the sample apps that we will be building incrementally throughout this series. In the next article, we will explore how to build a navigation stack according to the app state changes with the Navigator 2.0 API.
If you liked this article, please press the clap button, and star the Github repository. I would like to thank to Jon Imanol Durán who reviewed initial versions of all the articles in this series and gave me useful feedback. | https://medium.com/flutter-community/flutter-navigator-2-0-for-authentication-and-bootstrapping-part-1-introduction-d7b6dfdd0849 | ['Cagatay Ulusoy'] | 2021-06-22 06:42:49.339000+00:00 | ['Bootstrapping', 'Flutter', 'Dart', 'Navigator', 'Authentication'] |
Horses With Jet Engines Coming Out Their Ass | In this current world of, um, “digital transformation”, this is sort of the competition.
It’s what most businesses are capable of at best.
The title reference is from back in the day of the birth of the auto industry, if people were asked, what they want would be a “faster horse”.
Henry Ford sold them his Model T.
Back then, selling “horsepower” was easy. It was easy to see.
Now, we have these “hybrid” organizations with some kind of “digital” engine and some kind of “industrial” engine.
I call them Frankenstein models without the elegance.
Photo by Johnny Briggs on Unsplash
(I couldn’t find a public image for Frankenstein here, nor a good “steampunk” pic, so this is what we’re left with to visualize the point. :(. )
For our fun here, let’s call these hybrids horses with jet propulsion coming out their ass.
But it’s easy, sticking a jet engine out the horses ass because at least you still have that horse to start with that generates revenue, and if you’re lucky, profits.
Uber is a great example. Textbook really.
A silicon taxi cab. Except it loses $5 dollars for every trip.
If it takes a taxi $6 to cover a trip mile/klm, Uber needs $11 to recover the cost.
And taxis need false scarcity (the reason for this Uber model in the first place) to keep this floor at $6.00 (give or take).
This wasn’t a strategy, it was testosterone and technology. And clearly not thought through.
But this is Silicon Valley for you, an entire ecosystem of evangelists that sell jet engines for horses, putting a pointy thing on its head, and calling this “disruption”.
Crunch the numbers, and Silicon Valley bats worse than average.
As others have put it, Silicon Valley is a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters whose best work produces ‘products’ that demonstrably undermine the economy over time.
Photo by Matt Artz on Unsplash
Kind of like investing in start-ups that feed rat poison into our food and water supply and calling it Valhalla.
But!
Because capital literally has nowhere else to go to find returns that beat average, it wanders into the valley — aka Las Vegas West — in hopes of pulling a one armed bandit in hope of a pay out.
Photo by Benoit Dare on Unsplash
This, for the uninitiated, as an accurate portrayal.
Because. Numbers.
It’s not hard to find this out. Most VCs know this.
But why give up the shell game when there’s no other game to play?
To get to the point of this chapter, we’re currently this macro version of Thelma and Louise in the closing scene, all on our collective jet propulsion horses headed for the cliff thinking we’re about to get Brad Pitt in the sack.
Shut UP and TAKE MY MONEY!!!
We are nothing if not addicted gamblers with illusions of false hope.
What could go wrong? | https://medium.com/@smartswarms/horses-with-jet-engines-coming-out-their-ass-61056fe40df6 | ['Gregory D Esau'] | 2020-12-02 18:30:23.252000+00:00 | ['Consulting', 'Digital Transformation', 'Gambling Addiction', 'Silicon Valley', 'Economy'] |
Resilience vs. Flexibility | Resilience vs. Flexibility
On Saturday, I was supposed to run a marathon. 4 months ago, I put a date on the calendar and said that was the day I was going to run my first marathon and I would do so in under 4 hours.
The training had been exhilarating for me. I love challenging myself to do difficult things and using discipline and consistency to move toward my goal. Every workout, I showed up and stayed grounded in the process of getting a little better every day.
As I spoke about in my last reflection on running, 2 months into my training I injured my foot, likely from overuse. I saw a doctor and tried taking a week off, but the pain didn’t go away. I realized that this injury was going to take some time to heal and if I wanted to stay in shape for my race, I’d have to figure out another way to build up my cardio.
A week removed from my last run, I grabbed my bike from my garage and went for an hour-long ride. If I couldn’t run, I would spend just as much time and effort biking so that when I was healthy again, my cardio would be just as good, if not better.
I tested out my foot at the end of the first week and the pain was still there. I guess I’d have to do another week of biking.
And so this loop went on for the next six weeks, my foot slowly getting better, but not enough. So I did what was in my control and kept biking and building my cardio so I could run the race that was only a few weeks away.
10 days out from the day I wanted to run my race, with permission from my doctor, I went for a longer test run and felt great. I was so excited to have a runner’s high again. I was rusty, but hey if I was healed, I’d be able to push through to run the race.
I made a plan to go on one more long run the Saturday before my marathon. But 3 miles into that run the pain was back. I tried to push through for a half-mile, but I finally gave in to the realization that this wasn’t going to happen.
On my walk home, I first dealt with my frustration. My mind immediately floated to negative thoughts: Am I stupid for trying to rush back into this? Was I going to have to push back my marathon?
I hated the idea of not being able to follow through on my promise to myself. Plus, I just found out that a snowstorm was coming that week that would likely cover the path I was planning to run on.
It took me a moment, but I realized what I had to do was adapt. | https://medium.com/@drakeweissman/resilience-vs-flexibility-72d74e32533f | ['Drake Weissman'] | 2020-12-25 15:13:27.783000+00:00 | ['Fitness', 'Running', 'Growth', 'Grit', 'Personal Development'] |
Team Zero Weekly Newsletter | Ingar & Rick will be releasing a marketing competition this week, running for a month or so. There are GIFs, articles, videos, and all sorts to get involved in. We will be needing the help of the community in selecting the entries that bring us some more exposure.
Lolliedieb has appeared from seemingly nowhere this week with another version of the miner that has been producing some really great results. Currently this is an Nvidia version, with the prospect of an AMD miner in the wings as well.
Currently the miner is being tested in the background and the reports are a great deal of hashrate more, but is still early stages yet, so we will keep you in the loop as this product is finalised and comes closer to release.
We look forward to continuing to build the relationship with Lolliedieb, and thank him for his great work to date.
Last week we released the finer details of the finite supply, block halvings, and also developer fund. To recap, here are the details below again in case you missed them: | https://medium.com/zerocurrency/team-zero-weekly-newsletter-241a6f2363d8 | ['Zero Currency'] | 2018-06-16 15:08:09.981000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Internet', 'Computer Science', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin'] |
Farfetch Apps Development: Organizing future Sprints | By Francisco Medeiros, Test Engineer — Mobile and Sílvia Costa, Test Engineer — Mobile
Do you know what it takes to build the Farfetch iOS and Android apps?
These two platforms are a combined effort of more than 70 people, with the teams divided by PODs which are small custom agile teams, ranging from four to eight members, responsible for a single task, requirement, or part of the backlog. This organizational system is a step toward realizing the maximum potential of agile teams by involving members of different expertise and specialization, like Developers and QA Engineers as well as Designers, giving complete ownership and freedom, and expecting the best quality output. These PODs are laid out to the scope of several product verticals, some dedicated to technical foundation and others to features, not only aligned with the web experience but above all with the business.
The continuous improvement of our apps requires a considerable amount of research, design, planning and development, which is a real challenge to all the participants.
Using timeboxing is a critical component for all of the Scrum events, such as Sprint, Sprint Planning, Refinement, Daily or Mobile Reviews and as a tool for concretely defining open-ended tasks like POD Syncs, cross-team or other required meetings.
This keeps teams focused on accomplishing the task at hand by providing a clear definition of “done”. Time constraints are a crucial component in helping us coordinate the efforts of a diversity of roles and teams.
Do you think that writing code all the time is the best way to be productive?
Software engineering relies on thinking and planning as much as it does on coding, acknowledging the importance of a design phase combined with a solid business case can actually save overall time by reducing refactoring and bugs in the long term. Plan better to identify and address major technical and scheduling risk areas.
Our planning starts by creating high-level estimates, where it’s essential to have a precise alignment within product, design and engineering. Our preparation and analysis also requires looking into resource availability, project scheduling and cost estimation so that we can define a capacity plan and a proper roadmap. This roadmap should be informed by a clear strategy that details what’s going to be built, why, and how we see it coming together.
When doing our estimations, we found that a combination of both Top-down and Bottom-up estimation techniques was the best approach to plan our features.
Top-down Estimates start by gathering enough information to get started and later adding more data as the team receives it. They can also leverage data from previous projects.
Advantages of Top-down Estimation
Quick overall cost overview. Effort predictability. React and adapt to changes. The initial estimates are snapshots, so they allow for fluid changes. A team can add new information as it becomes available to refine the earlier estimates and add detail as the project moves forward.
Bottom-up Estimates apply when having a proper level of detail for the project. This method involves using a work breakdown structure. First, estimate each task one by one and later roll up all the estimates to get the total project estimate.
Advantages of the Bottom-Up Estimation
Big picture of project feasibility. Extended documentation of all requirements. Detailed task estimation.
High-Level Estimation: L1
When a Product Manager (PM) first touches base with a lead or senior engineer to share a big-picture idea, we get a glimpse of the goals and scope of the initiative.
In this early stage, we have limited information, so we need to evaluate the problem we are trying to solve and provide a high-level estimate measured in the T-shirt sizing model. T-shirt Sizing is one of the Story points sizing techniques to estimate user stories used in agile projects. It’s a relative Estimation Technique, rather than having T-shirts in sizes 4, 5, 6 etc, there are just a few sizes: Small (S), Medium (M), Large (L) and Extra Large (XL). This technique is used to forecast the effort required to work on each feature. As the ideation and exploration process evolves, some of these initiatives may be abandoned — for example, if the L1 estimate is deemed too high for the expected benefit of the initiative. However, usually they go-ahead to the next stage.
High-Level Estimation: L2
After this initial phase, it is time to involve the rest of the engineering team for the first time. As the PM shares goals and KPIs, the team begins to estimate the effort required by reviewing the designs, risks, dependencies and minimum requirements to complete the initiative. These estimates are done and measured in One Person per sprint. This unit measure considers the effort based on past experiences, internal debate and agreement among team engineers, for what a single developer might be able to achieve in a sprint while focused on a single initiative, in addition to the usual meetings, interviews, and operational bug fixes.
This stage is crucial for the whole POD to level their knowledge about everything that the initiative requires to be complete.
Capacity Planning
After completing the estimation for the implementation timeline, we have enough information to start the planning phase, considering the work capacity of the team. We take into account the number of available elements, vacations, bugs, refactoring and learning time. We use the concept of learning time to account for the ramp-up of any team members on relevant new skills and personal development objectives during the sprint. All these variables are taken into account to define an execution strategy and evaluate opportunity costs, thus creating a Capacity Plan.
Managers often struggle with challenges such as the following:
Autonomous teams
Shifting and conflicting priorities
Tasks that are difficult to estimate
Understanding actual work versus planned work.
With capacity planning, managers can better anticipate how long something will take to complete and if they have the right staff available to do the work.
In practice, we discovered these benefits of capacity planning:
1. Optimising project costs
Capacity planning lets you visualise what everyone is working on. It makes it possible to change upcoming task assignments and projects based on the team’s skills as well as their availability.
For example, managers could decide whether it is worth delaying the start of the project by a week to reduce overall resource costs on the project. All the information is transparent, allowing managers to make the best decision on how to spend the budget.
2. Ensuring availability
Capacity planning shows what the demanded scope is to take on new projects. It reveals resource availability to avoid disappointing stakeholders or overstretching your team.
Any of your project plans are at risk when the team continually works overcapacity. They are more likely to take time off work with sickness or stress-related conditions.
3. Managing team expertise
When allocating someone to a task, you can quickly see if they are the right fit. Managers can also view collective skills at the team level and identify if it sufficiently maps to future strategic business initiatives or if you might have a skill shortage.
Skill shortages can exist at the broader team level or within a few key skills among a limited number of team members, highlighting the need for training, internal mentoring, or future recruiting strategies.
4. Allocating resources
Managers must be strategic about how they use their teams and on what. Capacity planning helps to balance the challenges of finding and allocating people to work effectively.
With the right people doing the right work, the success and predictability of projects across our organisation improves.
Roadmap
The Engineering Manager, Engineering Team Leader and Product Manager check the timeline resulting from the Capacity Plan to check if there is a need for adjustments due to dependencies and to validate if it is acceptable from a business/product standpoint.
This is the last chance to plan timeline optimization strategies like parallelising work within the team/other teams, to descope features and to get a balance between “done” and “perfectly done”. Technical debt can also be mapped out.
After establishing the capacity plan, we are now able to proceed to the final stage of planning and roadmap creation, with the primary objective of formalising the implementation of the initiative and communicating the start and end date of the project to the organisation/with key stakeholders.
After a consensus between stakeholders (Product plus Engineering) is met, the commitment to Lean Portfolio Management is carried out by creating Epics and projects in Jira. | https://medium.com/farfetch-tech-blog/farfetch-apps-development-organizing-future-sprints-d26c9609fd90 | ['Farfetch Tech'] | 2020-07-06 17:05:12.608000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Mobile Apps', 'Engineering', 'App Development', 'Agile'] |
3 Effective Remarketing Methods for Facebook Advertising | Facebook’s retargeting advertising is one of the platform’s powerful advertising features. You can reach users who are already familiar with your brand through an established customer list and activity on your website content recorded by tracking pixels. This is beneficial to both advertisers and customers, as users are more likely to work with ads from trusted brands they know for pg in digital marketing.
What is Facebook Retargeting Advertising?
Facebook Retargeting Ads are ads that allow you to reconnect with users who have already interacted with your brand in some way (inside or outside of Facebook).
This includes the following users:
● Followed or interacted with a
● Facebook page that shared email as a lead or customer
● interacted with a
● Facebook event
The app displayed a specific number of on-platform videos (including promotional videos) Specific on a specific page of the website Did you view or perform your actions?
You interacted with your Instagram page in some way. Retargeting your ad will result in higher conversion rates and lower average cost-per-click (CPC) because you can reach a warmer audience. Other types of paid advertising.
Each of these strategies is flexible, so you can add targeting criteria such as age-based and interest-based targeting to get better results as needed.
1. Don’t rush to create a sales funnel people won’t convert when they first see your brand new ad. At least most of them don’t. Remember that instead of the race (and the customer!) Will win slowly and steadily. This is where the ad funnel comes in, and you can use readjusted ads to take your users to the next level of the funnel. Setting the goal-achieving process is one of the most common reasons brands create retargeting ads on Facebook.
Start with a brand awareness ad aimed at introducing your audience. Of course, some people can click and convert immediately, but it’s quite possible that many don’t. But that’s okay. You can run a retargeting campaign that displays your ad to users who have saved or interacted with your previous ad.
At this point, you can focus a little more on conversions or lead generation.
How to Implement This Strategy?
A great way to achieve this is to use a video ad for your first ad. This is to provide a great medium to tell the story of your brand. Next, create a custom audience for users who watched more than half of the video (which shows a lot of interest). This can be found by clicking Engagement and selecting Video when creating a custom audience. You can create a custom audience for any of the above criteria by searching for “Audience” under Business Manager. From there, create a custom audience and select the users you want to target again for advanced digital marketing.
2. Show How Customers What They Like
Really, really, really, what did you get when you wanted to buy now and last wanted to buy?
Whether it’s a new shoe (guilty) or new cookware (guilty), I think we all already know each other. Maybe we’re just trying to keep our budget and we can resist the article at first. But it appears in our Facebook feed and is too fascinating.
If a customer visits a different product page on your website, this indicates a high level of interest and willingness to buy. It would be even better if they stayed on the page and added to the cart.
How to implement this strategy?
Hanging the proverbial apple in front of your customers with dynamic ads and custom audiences from your site or app activity for search marketing is a great way to remember you. Especially when combined with discounts and coupon codes, it can lead to immediate conversions.
To make this strategy most effective, target users who visit certain pages but exclude those who made a purchase. To do this, exclude users who have “accessed” the order confirmation page.
Please note that users should not be skipped just to see the shopping cart. This is a great opportunity to drive abandoned cart users to conversions and is a tremendous source of wasted revenue for almost any business.
3. Lost Customer Reintegration
The reintegration campaign has plenty of room for customer growth. All companies have customers that appear to be drifting, but many may be waiting for a shift. You just need the right push.
A retargeting campaign explicitly designed to connect with users who haven’t purchased from you or interacted with your website within a certain period of time is a way to implement this particular strategy at the digital marketing full course.
How long depends on your audience and your business. I’ve seen retargeting campaigns in this category for just three months, or even a year, since my last purchase.
How to Perform this Strategy?
You can upload custom audiences for users who haven’t recently opened or opened emails from the mailing list, regardless of the time period you choose. This is information that many CRM and email service providers can provide and that you can use to your advantage. | https://medium.com/@virajy039/3-effective-remarketing-methods-for-facebook-advertising-7510b49996bc | ['Viraj Yadav'] | 2021-11-26 11:23:22.897000+00:00 | ['Facebook', 'Facebook Ads', 'Facebook Marketing', 'Facebook Marketing Tips'] |
The Three A’s: Audit, Attestation & Assurance | Introduction and Overview of Audit & Assurance
Audit, Attestation & Assurance Services
Audit, Attestation & Assurance generally thought of to be the same sort of service. However, these three are different from each other but do share similarities in representing the common process of an independent accounting firm taking information assembled by someone else and comparing that information to an established set of criteria.
Ultimately, the independent accounting firm provides a report about the results of the service performed. Consequently, this process adds credibility, or integrity to the information thus making it more useful for decision making.
The Relationship Between The Three A’s
Audit Services
Audit services are rather exclusive compared to the other two services. Primarily the audit services include an audit of financial statements and an audit of internal controls over financial reporting (ICFR).
An audit of financial statements provides external financial statement users with an opinion by the auditor on whether the financial statements have been presented fairly in accordance with a suitable financial reporting framework such as the IFRS or the GAAP.
Additionally, an audit of ICFR is to provide financial statement users with an opinion by the auditor on the design and operating effectiveness of ICFR. These audit services enhance the degree of confidence that intended users can place in financial statements.
The only professional who can sign an audit report on historical financial statements and internal controls for a public or private company is a CPA.
Attestation Services
Moreover, when it comes to attestation services, companies produce financial information that go beyond historical financial statements. Some of these include financial forecasts and detailed schedules for specific accounts. The hiring of a CPA to report on the integrity and credibility of this sort of financial information is dubbed as an attestation service.
These services are performed when an independent practitioner or CPA is engaged to issue a report on subject matter that is the responsibility of another party. Since attestation encompasses more than internal controls and historical financial statements, practitioner is used instead of auditor.
Besides this, attestation could also be a review of historical financial statements. Notably, small private companies often view an extensive audit of financial statements in which an auditor must express an opinion on the fair presentation of financial statements as optional and unnecessary. However, during a review engagement, the practitioner will express limited assurance that no material modifications need to be made to the financials. This process makes a review of historical financial statements much more affordable and less extensive and might be more useful for smaller private companies.
Assurance Services
Lastly, the assurance services are done independently to further improve the quality of information or the context for decision makers. Independent implies that the person performing the service is in no way associated with the information curation and creation. Furthermore, the quality refers to the relevance and reliability of the information. The term information refers to any subject matter that can be financial or non-financial, historical, or prospective, standalone data or entire systems of data, internal or external to a company. Essentially, the service encompasses any service a professional uses to improve the quality of information prepared by someone else.
In summary, all the A’s are related to each other but also are different services. Depending on the type of decision maker you are, you would require one or even all of the three services to make an informed decision. These services are to provide credibility, reliability and integrity to cater to all forms of doubt and questions before making a decision. | https://medium.com/@selvyn/the-three-as-audit-attestation-assurance-c9d68bbe3243 | ['Selvyn Allotey'] | 2021-12-21 11:39:38.282000+00:00 | ['Accounting', 'Risk', 'Data Analytics', 'Attestation Services', 'Audit'] |
a unibrow and a dream | I won’t say I was a happy child
Because that would be a lie
And I pour my heart out here for a chance to survive
So here’s how the story goes
There was once a girl
With a unibrow and a dream
She was always angry
Hated everybody
But she had hope in her eyes and a fresh face full of dreams
Now the dark circles under her eyes tell you stories so unholy
Stories she sometimes let slip as a joke
Like when she says “oh well, I’ll die early anyways.” when her friends complain that she drinks too much diet coke
Or when she replies with “maybe because my father never loved me” when the boy she likes says “you are too emotional!” | https://medium.com/@ClumsyCamel/a-unibrow-and-a-dream-78b3928f037 | [] | 2021-01-03 10:56:44.079000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Childhood', 'Love', 'Poetry'] |
Why Football Teams Shouldn’t Wait to Go for Two Late in Games | Why Football Teams Shouldn’t Wait to Go for Two Late in Games
Amazingly, NFL teams still haven’t figured this one out.
Photo by Dave Adamson on Unsplash
Late in the second part of Week 1’s Monday Night Football doubleheader, the Denver Broncos found themselves trailing 24–9 to the Oakland Raiders. With two minutes and 15 seconds remaining, Joe Flacco threw a touchdown pass to Emmanuel Sanders. Brandon McManus kicked the extra point, making the game 24–16.
“So what?”
If this reads as pretty standard to you, it’s because Broncos coach Vic Fangio made the decision that most teams and coaches would have made. However, Fangio made a huge error here, one that lowered Denver’s chances of winning the game.
After the touchdown, down 24–15, they elected to kick the extra point. In reality, the Broncos offense should have stayed on the field. They should have gone for two.
(It wasn’t even the only major mistake the Broncos made in the fourth quarter. Trailing 21–6 earlier on their previous drive, the Broncos kicked a field goal instead of going for it on fourth down. This still meant the Broncos would need to score two touchdowns. For more on this mistake, read this. Additionally, I believe they should have attempted an onside kick down 24–16, though I don’t have all the data to prove that. Anyways, back to the decision to kick the extra point.)
Opting to go for two goes completely against normal thinking, which suggests a team should keep the game within reach as long as possible. Under this mindset, if a team can reduce their deficit to eight points by kicking an extra point, it makes it a one-score game. This applies pressure on the other team since if they don’t score, the trailing team can tie the game on their next drive with a touchdown followed by a two-point conversion.
Compare that to if a team goes for two on their first touchdown drive, when down nine points. If they succeed, it’s a seven-point game. They’ve just gotten the two-point conversion early. However, if they fail, it remains a nine-point, two-possession game. The other team can relax, as the game is still basically over.
Just weighing the two options naturally, the first choice — to kick the extra point after the first touchdown, leading to an eight-point deficit — seems like the better choice to keep the game competitive.
Most people assume this to be the case. In fact, until last season, I had never even considered that going for two earlier would be beneficial, for the same reasons I just described. This is why I don’t mock fans for thinking this way before they’re told about the benefits of going for two early.
However, teams should know better. Making the right choices is their job. The problem with choosing to go for two on the final drive is precisely that teams view it as their final drive of regulation. Their only mission is to give themselves a chance at that two-point conversion before the clock hits zero.
When the conversion is successful, that’s great. They get to play overtime. But when it fails, the game is over. There’s usually not enough time to get the ball back again.
If only there were a way to know ahead of time whether or not the two-point conversion would be successful…
Oh, right. You go for it early. When a team decides to go for it early and succeeds, they get the same benefit of converting later on — namely, that they only need two possessions to erase a 15-point deficit.
When they are unsuccessful, though, they gain the information of knowing they still need to score two more times while more time is on the clock. This allows them to adapt to the situation accordingly, whether this means using timeouts earlier, attempting an onside kick, or using a faster-paced offense.
It doesn’t massively improve a team’s odds — if you miss the two-point conversion, you almost always lose anyway. But just because it rarely ultimately matters doesn’t mean teams should use less-than-optimal strategies.
Once again, I think a big issue here is that coaches are playing not to look dumb instead of playing to maximize their chances of winning.
If a team scores a touchdown in the closing seconds of regulation but fails the two-point conversion, the coach can still say his team gave themselves a chance at the end. If they missed the two-point conversion earlier, it doesn’t look as good, as it’s still a two-possession game.
It’s counterintuitive, but going for two early is clearly the better choice. Yet, somehow, many teams haven’t figured this out, and some fans, even after being given the explanation, still insist it’s better to wait. This drives me up a wall.
Once Vic Fangio’s Broncos kicked the ball off trailing by eight points, their offense never got the ball back again. This means it’s impossible to truly know whether or not they would’ve been able to tie the game.
I do know one thing, though. If things didn’t work out, they wouldn’t be prepared for Plan B. There wouldn’t have been enough time. | https://medium.com/top-level-sports/why-football-teams-shouldnt-wait-to-go-for-two-late-in-games-7971e825b671 | ['Connor Groel'] | 2020-01-11 09:54:15.017000+00:00 | ['Analytics', 'Strategy', 'Football', 'Sports', 'NFL'] |
I can see through the mist. | The Fog
I can see through the mist,
I have been here before,
The life I used to live was just a moral facade.
Your mouths are shooting bullets,
Your words are a fatal grenade,
I left the war I’m told,
I thought I was going home,
But my eyes are now open,
I can see through the mist.
Home has become a battlefield,
I did not volunteer for this,
Old friends become new enemies,
People don’t understand,
The life I used to live,
Is a shadow disappearing through the sand.
I have become a stranger,
Amongst the people that I love,
My mind is filled with terrors
Only few can comprehend.
Is it a surprise I find solace
At the bottom of this bottle?
The only comfort I have found,
Is the fire that warms me,
When I drink this liquor down.
I can see through the mist.
It’s all becoming clear,
The only solution,
Is far far from here,
There are voices I can not silence,
My hands cover my ears,
They say I am wicked,
Just a cog in the gears,
I can see through the mist.
The fog of war is fading,
I am your forgotten,
The veterans of war.
I live in your streets,
Plagued by infidelity,
Betrayed by love,
Misunderstood by society,
I have thrown down my gloves.
I’ve been running for so long,
The throws of death are waiting,
Freedom is in its wings.
Welcome me now brother,
This battle I can not win.
Let your judgement be swift,
So I can find solace in the end.
I can see through the mist. | https://medium.com/@veilrpierce/the-fog-c4a1cd3a28b3 | ['Veil Pierce'] | 2019-09-24 21:27:27.233000+00:00 | ['Insights', 'Poetry', 'Struggle', 'Homelessness', 'Veterans'] |
Reasons you will hate 2021 | Yes, 2020 is a horrible year that could get worse. However, the available data shows 2021 could be terrible.
The available evidence indicates you could hate 2021 even more than 2020. In particular, 2021 could be boring as well as dreadful.
Image by iXimus from Pixabay
Some of the reasons you could hate 2021 include:
Jim Carey’s Joe Biden impersonation on Saturday Night Live is horrible and it will get worse. Ex-President Donald J. Trump (R-Florida) will have nothing to do and TV producers will have nothing to show. Hence, Trump will be all over every TV channel next year. So pay your Netflix subscription now for Trump free TV. President-Elect Joe Biden (D-Delaware) appears to be as incompetent, out of touch, weak, craven, corrupt, cowardly, racist, insensitive, and as useless as Trump. Plus, Biden is boring. Coronavirus Lockdowns Stay-at-Home orders. Stay at Home orders. Mindless hype about coronavirus vaccines. Coronavirus vaccine denial. Big stars in silly propaganda advertisements telling us to take the coronavirus vaccine. The media will be full of whiny leftists attacking Biden. Republicans will try to impeach President Biden. Big corporations trying to show racial sensitivity through Black Lives Matter propaganda. Woke propaganda. Republicans will bore you to death with all their conspiracy theories about how Democrats stole the election. Rich people bragging about all the money they make from the booming Chinese stock market. Centrists ranting and raving about the brilliance of Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris (D-California). The Pod Save America and MSNBC idiots droning on and on about the brilliance of Joe Biden (D-Delaware). The Pod Save America idiots’ childish attempts to convince us that Joe Biden does not have dementia. The K-Hive cult members and their mindless worship of Kamala Harris. All the time we will spend worrying about the old man with dementia in the White House who could have access to the nuclear launch codes. Thank God there’s a 25th Amendment.* The media’s endless speculation about what ex-President Donald J. Trump (R-Florida) will do next. Listening to your kids complaining how boring homeschooling is. Listening to rich people bragging about all the money they are making on the Chinese stock market. Anti-mask propaganda. There will be no European vacations for Americans until 2024 and Americans will not be able to visit Japan until 2025. So enjoy your next vacation in beautiful Scranton, Pennsylvania, home of the Joe Biden Childhood Historic Walking Tour.
So yes folks, 2021 will be terrible and you will hate it.
*Note: We called the Pentagon and asked about the nuclear launch codes. The Second Lieutenant we spoke to said not to worry because the codes at the White House are phonies. The real launch codes have been kept in a safe at the Pentagon since the Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas) administration. | https://medium.com/lists-of-doom/reasons-you-will-hate-2021-dcbeaa7c9f1 | ['Daniel G. Jennings'] | 2020-11-18 15:51:29.145000+00:00 | ['Satire', 'Predictions', 'Comedy Writing', '2021', 'Comedy'] |
Makeover Monday: Scratching the Surface of Community Visualizations in Google Data Studio | If you’re familiar with Google’s dashboarding tool Data Studio, you know the types of visualizations and styling that come with it. The feature-set within Data Studio is continuing to grow and now the Data Studio development team is putting this feature-set in the hands of its user community with Community Visualizations! Community Visualizations can make use of custom JavaScript and CSS to take Data Studio reports to the next level.
Having played around with JavaScript data visualization libraries and front-end web development in the past, I wanted to find some examples to implement into a proof of concept report. The Data Studio report below (linked here) makes use of JavaScript charting engine Highcharts JS as well as JavaScript/CSS for animated text. The possibilities are endless with this new Data Studio feature; I’m excited to continue exploring! Below are some of my learnings as I’ve gotten familiar over the past month.
Data Studio report that utilizes custom visualizations, interactive version found here
On not being a JavaScript developer
Going from drag and drop dashboarding tools like Data Studio, Power BI, and Tableau to JavaScript-based visualizations can seem daunting. Luckily, the Data Studio team is working hard on providing “Getting Started” documentation and even a Codelab!
After completing the Codelab, looking at others’ examples, and getting setup with the Data Studio Developer tooling, a concept I had to wrap my head around was how to compile the JS I was writing (and libraries I was using) into one bundled file. This is a different workflow from calling externally hosted JS in the <head> tag of an html file or calling a package using library() in R. The answer is webpack and it is integrated into the tooling!
Using an external JavaScript charting library like Highcharts JS
Highcharts JS has a very cool (and animated) packed bubble chart that I used in the above example. Here are some tips for using an external JS library:
Pay attention to data format. You might need to use the .map() or .reduce() methods to reshape the data into the desired format. In this case I used .reduce() to iterate through the data returned by Data Studio and create a new array grouped on the Product Category dimension.
You might need to use the or methods to reshape the data into the desired format. In this case I used to iterate through the data returned by Data Studio and create a new array grouped on the Product Category dimension. Turn off any functionality that might make an external call. Since Data Studio Community Visualizations don’t allow external requests and Highcharts makes a call to its servers when downloading an image of the visualization, I toggled this off by adding exporting: {enabled: false} .
Since Data Studio Community Visualizations don’t allow external requests and Highcharts makes a call to its servers when downloading an image of the visualization, I toggled this off by adding . Make sure you adhere to the library’s license. All Data Studio Community Visualizations are public, and if you decide to share your code (or plan on submitting to the Data Studio gallery) you’ll need to make sure you understand the licenses of all of the libraries you’re using.
Using non data-driven elements for report styling
One realization I had while learning was that the world of JavaScript and CSS provides so much opportunity for flashy styling! Why not build a component that requires no dimensions/metrics and uses CSS to animate text based on user input? In theory the style pane could control colors, animation settings, or pretty much any other attribute of your component!
Some other helpful tips | https://medium.com/compassred-data-blog/makeover-monday-scratching-the-surface-of-community-visualizations-in-google-data-studio-6a589f25614 | ['Ben Kates'] | 2019-12-05 15:01:23.574000+00:00 | ['Highcharts', 'JavaScript', 'Google Analytics', 'Analytics', 'Google Data Studio'] |
Editor’s Picks — 2020. Some stories live forever | Editor’s Picks
As we turned to go after him, he fled on his bicycle. And during the chase, he led us into an ambush, where he shot at me three times, hitting me once in the leg with a .45 caliber round.
After shooting me, he continued his rampage… ~ R. Scott
🌟
We were walking down the Via Labicana, and then suddenly, it appeared right before my eyes. That mix of terror and admiration was now in my eyes.
I just stood there for 5 minutes without saying a word, heavy breathing, in awe. That monument I saw … ~ Felipe Xavier
🌟
During that time, I was the perfect portrait of a young, lively person, with a promising career, a fresh liver, and unlimited access to tickets for any major sporting event. I was also doing an MBA, learning to fly helicopters, and driving around in a BMW — all at the same time — at the age of 29.
Needless to say, I had a lot of friends and a social life that made me feel like a celebrity.
Until I realized I wasn’t. ~ Daniele Ihns
🌟
Aristotle was a young frustrated guy in Stagira, Greece. He was suffering from a thoughts-disease as he had opinions about everything in life. His mind never rested and always gave him this-and-that to produce unique thoughtful writings.
He had a Facebook account where he used to vomit… ~ S M Mamunur Rahman
🌟
When the phone rang, and I looked at the caller id, I was paralyzed with fright. How should I sound when I answer, I thought?
By the end of the second ring, I just gave in and answered the damn phone call! ~ Cocoa Griot
🌟
A Marketing job at Coca-Cola working directly with the two major sports events in the world? Pfff… Forget it! It doesn’t happen.
But, thanks to this black cat, and my fairy godmother, that was exactly what I got — a Marketing Manager job at Coca-Cola working directly with the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games. ~ Daniele Ihns
🌟
I yelled at him, “Stop, Police, If you move, I will blow your fucking head off.”
This is not how I would typically talk to people during an arrest, but this was not a normal situation.
As I yelled at him, I started pulling back on the trigger of my weapon. I was ready to shoot this guy if he did not listen. ~ R. Scott
🌟
Many years ago, when I first moved to France, I bought and started to renovate a two-hundred-year-old house that had been abandoned for decades.
The crooked stone walls and giant oak beams soon began to test both my skills and my fragile relationship with my bank manager. When offered a day a week of gardening work at a nearby manor house, I jumped… ~ Mike Alexander
🌟
We all want to know each other on a deeper level, have meaningful and worthy conversations, and strengthen our relationships.
To do this, we need to go back to the beginning: back to square one and take a look at how we are communicating with our young and old loved ones — especially those quiet, shy, and reserved. ~ Shayla D. Potter
🌟
I knew nearly nothing about my destination as it was the first time traveling to the southern part of India.
After a few minutes, it stopped on a stoppage, and a few people got on the bus. I saw them talking and laughing with each other. I turned around — a girl was sitting in a pensive-mood while the wind was playing with her long hair. At that very moment, I felt so helpless. Why? ~ S M Mamunur Rahman
🌟
The marvelous thing is, this collective intention seems to behave in an economically sound manner — almost as if it takes into account the probabilities of an idea propagating or coming to fruition from each source before planting it there.
In other words, very similar ideas emerging in multiple minds around the same time — maybe the universe’s way of hedging her bets. ~ Prajakta unKNown
🌟
The world in 1997 was like this — Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car crash in Paris, Mother Teresa died in Calcutta, Tornado hit in Jarrell, Texas, killing 27 people. All that depressing, heartbreaking incidents happened in those days of 1997.
It is a text about a murder. What did you expect? Happy facts? ~ Felipe Xavier
🌟
“Please find a good man and get married again,” James uttered those words out of pure love, and I cannot imagine how hard it was for him to say them.
“You are so young, honey. You have to get married again.”
“How can you ask me to do something like that?” I asked half incredulous and half touched. ~ Cocoa Griot
🌟
As soon as people start to learn that you care for abandoned dogs, they start to drop boxes full of them at your door during the night.
Eventually, you also start to get calls from people denouncing mistreatment, and you go out to help because you just can’t sleep knowing that an animal is suffering. ~ Daniele Ihns
🌟
Magic happens when you dare to say goodbye to your comfort zone and hit the road. You come across things that unknown — you hear the music unheard — you discover the beauty hidden from your very city-eyes.
All you need is to find some time to start your journey to the destination undefined. Leave the brick-walls and conditioned-air just for a day and see what happens under the sun. ~ S M Mamunur Rahman
🌟
What humans have set up in terms of the killing machinery cannot be found in nature, in the flora, nor in bacteria, fungi, amphibians, mammals, among birds — nowhere.
Only we heartless human meatheads do that. ~ Karmen Jurela
🌟
I know that there are other writers out there with similar views, but it seems we are a tiny minority; outliers in a world that would far rather read listicles about — Ten Ways to Get Rich on Medium — or — Sixty Sex Positions You Hadn’t Heard Of.
I am gradually coming to the sad understanding that the world doesn’t give a damn about the state of the planet we live in, or anything else to do with the environment. ~ Mike Alexander
🌟
Iceland’s forestry service, earlier this year, makes a miraculous finding. They encourage their citizens to hug trees for five minutes a day to help them during social isolation. It may seem like an unusual practice, but research suggests that it could help people feel better.
So, I would encourage you to think about the benefits of hugging an ordinary-looking tree in your neighborhood. Can you dare yourself to hug a tree? ~ Rabia Akram
🌟
I knew with some degree of certainty that it could not have been my wife’s phone. Hers was undergoing treatment after its third plunge into the toilet bowl in less than a fortnight. She had managed to resurrect it after the first two swimming lessons, but this time the prognosis wasn’t looking good.
My wife is the one woman I know who spends more time blow-drying her mobile phone than she does blow-dry her hair. ~ Mike Alexander
🌟
Nicknamed ‘Dr. Checklist’, Peter Pronovost, in a 2006 pioneering study, proved the value of checklists for patient safety.
He devised medicine’s first checklist, what Gawande calls “an absurdly simple tool” for safely inserting a central line into a patient’s chest. A lifeline for delivering medication that gets infected in 4 percent of cases. ~ Zane Dickens
🌟
It’s hard for you to skip your emotions while you feel hurt, tired, empty, or even neutral. Sometimes, you have a bad mood for no reason, and you suddenly feel fed up and anxious, which is something familiar we all go through.
It doesn’t need a lot of effort to uplift your mood, you only need a few simple things to do. ~ Sophia Lill
🌟
You may say you did not mean it and told it only to be nice at that particular time. But when you make a promise to the other person, the other person will take it into account and expect that you will keep your words. It is fundamental.
Ask yourself, what do you expect when someone commits to you? ~ S M Mamunur Rahman
🌟
It didn’t really matter what we were talking about — my responses to him would often be replete with statements like “I don’t totally disagree” or “I guess that’s not such a bad idea.” I did this intentionally, shutting down by putting up fussy lexical walls.
Frequently, I would let my personal feelings step in front of my… ~ Evan Wildstein
🌟
Within three months, I went from weighing 245 pounds to 190 pounds. All it took was a traumatic event and tapping into my repressed childhood memories to hound on the weight-loss-journey every social media influencer tries to sell. ~ Bryson Owens
🌟
We often head out stargazing in New Zealand’s incredible nature that so unmistakably writes all the rules. Out there in its sublime creation where the external circumstances can no longer contact us. All there ever exists is the abode above — an endless ocean of shimmering, glittering ornaments.
In those moments that I wish to last forever for its… ~ Kerstin Krause
🌟
All of our back-and-forth in the private AOL chatroom became flirty, and our messages were full of innuendo. She confided she had a girlfriend. And a boyfriend. I found that enormously provocative.
She was an artist and entrepreneur who rode a motorcycle. She seemed wild and alive. I admitted I was… ~ M. H. Rubin
🌟
High school is weird. It’s the human version of the Discovery Channel. You have one group of savage primates next to another, and all of them are very anal about letting anyone into their folds.
The hipsters bitch about the football players; the cheerleaders avoid the anime kids, and the stoners don’t care about any of it and keep getting baked. It all screams identity crisis. ~ Isaiah McCall
🌟
In the months leading up to my birthday, I started to question everything and resist all the good things in my life. Of course, it didn’t help that the doom of 2020 was looming over my 25th. It added to the whole quarter-life crisis mantra I had created.
I woke up thinking about all the things I was supposed to have by this point in my life, and the only thing I could focus on was how my life was falling apart.~ Venessa Amber
🌟
Our chambered hearts are waiting for a catastrophe like a revolver’s cylinder waiting for a bullet. Catastrophe is what we are made for, what our whispering shadows long for. It’s our destiny. If it hasn’t found you yet, it’s coming. Calamity is one of the few things we can count on.
But what looks like disaster isn’t always. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. The story isn’t over until it’s over, and until it is, we are in no position to say what was a disaster and what was not. ~ Ryan Frawley
🌟
My girls spun to face me and nodded with sincerity. “Yes, that’s what she said, you have to come, collect us in our classrooms! Bye!”
Then they disappeared like Tinker bell into the foliage of Neverland leaving ma and me to scramble back to our feet. The other parents had already begun to shuffle away, and there was a moment of silence. ~ Walter Rhein
🌟
I put on my very first pair of heels at the age of 12. They were cheap little things with a small heel (probably around two inches) — but they were mine. For the first time, I did not borrow my mother’s shoes. For the first time, they fit properly. I felt like a star.
What was the occasion, you may ask? ~ Marija Martincevic
🌟
When you watch the television, the television is not watching you. When you see the billboard, the billboard is not seeing you, and vast numbers of people see the same thing on television and see the same billboards.
When you use these new designs, social media search, YouTube, — when you see these things — you’re being observed constantly and algorithms are taking that information and changing what you see next. ~ S M Mamunur Rahman | https://medium.com/the-masterpiece/editors-picks-2020-170f024df5e9 | ['S M Mamunur Rahman'] | 2020-12-22 16:03:24.083000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Reading', 'Writing', 'Publication', 'The Masterpiece'] |
What to Know Before You Seek Out 'Diverse' Children's Books | Truths to Reckon With Before You Seek Out ‘Diverse’ Children’s Books
Fellow white parents, I’m talking to you
Photo: Catherine Delahaye/Getty Images
Over the past week, I’ve heard from countless white parents like me who are ready to talk to their kids about racism. This suggests that many have been avoiding the discussion for far too long.
I am an educator and loud advocate for racially conscious reading. I believe that books are a great place to start in helping kids learn about our biases, internalized beliefs, and role in inequitable systems. But it’s not enough to buy books with some “diverse” faces on the cover and call your work done. If you’re ready to talk to your kids about racism, whether they’re two or 20, you need to first assess what you have already taught your children about race and people of color. Here’s how to do that work.
Reflect on your own biases
If you need to diversify your library because you have just a small handful of books featuring children of color — or none at all — you have, intentionally or not, already sent your child a message about which stories and storytellers are valuable and worth listening to. There are tons of books about children of color, so if nearly none have landed on your shelves, your patterns may warrant some personal reflection about the reasons behind your choices. Recognizing a need to change and sharing that lesson with your child isn’t about shame — instead, it shows them the importance of ongoing reflection and growth. You’re modeling vulnerability.
Ask yourself if you’re using ‘diverse’ to mean more than just ‘nonwhite’
Diverse means a group with multiple identities represented. Identify what’s missing in your library and explicitly name what you are looking for, and be ready to use real language about race with your child. “I am looking for children’s books with black and brown protagonists.” “Yes, this character is African American, and they have brown skin.” When we say “diverse” instead of naming racial identities, we teach our children that race is a bad word.
Don’t include stories about people of color only through the lens of racism
Provide your kids with stories about people of color experiencing joy and universal life events. Read books about people of color doing brave, smart, incredible things throughout history. If we as white people discuss communities of color only in the context of racism, we solidify a deficit mindset, fail to honor and celebrate the richness of cultures other than our own, and ignore beautiful universalities between people.
Engage in your own learning
Many people have provided white people with tools for learning. Check some of them out. It’s hard to reflect on your biases and role in inequity if you genuinely have no idea that you might hold internalized ideas about people of color and are unknowingly contributing to inequity. As for books for your child, local independent bookstores are amazing resources. If you want to give South Minneapolis some love, look to Moon Palace Books. If you want to champion a bookstore owned by a woman of color, check out Semicolon Bookstore and Gallery in Chicago. If you’re not in a location that has an easily accessible independent bookstore, Google “books about kids of color” or “books about racism” and you will find many. Even that friend of yours who knows a lot about books for children has a list that’s finite, so join in and find some more. Then share them with fellow parents.
Even if it’s taken much too long to get here, the time to get moving (and reading) is now. | https://forge.medium.com/so-youre-looking-for-children-s-books-about-racism-1ef3369d82b1 | ['Laurie Hahn Ganser'] | 2020-06-01 23:18:27.042000+00:00 | ['Childrens Books', 'Diversity', 'Books', 'Racism', 'Parenting'] |
How Caregivers Can Help Children Heal From Trauma | How Caregivers Can Help Children Heal From Trauma
Photo credit: Shutterstock
By Keith Fadelici
What can I say?
What should I not say?
Is there anything I can do to make things better?
Am I as powerless as I feel?
These are common questions parents and caregivers ask when a child has been hurt, abused or survived a terrifying event. They are great questions and — fortunately — there are comforting and helpful answers generated by research and practice in the trauma field.
Research (Birmes et al., 2005; McDonald et al., 2013; Bovin & Marx, 2011) has established that a person’s immediate experience during a traumatic event and their initial reactions afterward — the peritraumatic experience — can be accurate indicators of later symptomatic responses, as well as being predictive factors of a trauma victim developing Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (PTSD). Practice has demonstrated that early interventions during the peritraumatic phase, particularly with children, can be effective in improving the odds that the child who is initially symptomatic will not progress to PTSD.
Two people may survive the same traumatic event — a car accident, sexual assault, combat experience — and one person may suffer traumatic symptoms while the other does not. There are many factors that may impact how an individual responds to an extreme stress. Therefore, it is preferable to consider the event to be a “potentially traumatic event.”(PTE) This distinction also places an appropriate focus on the person who is impacted rather than on what happened to them, shifting attention from how someone was hurt to how they will recover.
Berkowitz, Stover and Marans (2011) identify “the role of family support as a primary protective factor for children exposed to a PTE.” They point out that caregiver-to-child communication is an essential element of this helpful family support. Child and Family Traumatic Stress Intervention, the clinical approach they discuss, focuses this communication, not on the PTE itself but rather on the impacts of that event on the child and the implementation of strategies to address and reduce those impacts.
Caregivers can make the difference! The right kinds of early intervention can be extremely helpful, especially when administered by parents and other adult caregivers.
Here are four interventions that can be derived from this body of research and from our understanding of PTSD:
Acknowledge and respond to the PTE’s impact on the child. Maintain, restore, or increase structure in the child’s life (particularly those that increase the expression of affection or comfort and those that focus on the child’s competencies). Recognize misbehavior and withdrawal as attempts to regain control and respond to them with opportunities to cooperatively increase their control. Take care of yourself.
Acknowledge and Respond to the PTE’s Impact on the Child
When children are impacted by a PTE, there are generally four symptom clusters. Three of these — depressive withdrawal, hypervigilance, and sleep disturbance — often become apparent once caregivers know to look for them. Each cluster manifests in behavioral changes following the PTE and do not quickly resolve themselves. A child may begin having nightmares, become resistant to sleeping alone, develop new fears, seek to avoid situations and people that remind them of the event, or lose interest in activities or friends. The fourth symptom cluster, intrusive thoughts or feelings, is often less obvious. A child may be having recurring images and/or sensations related to the PTE; these will usually appear as problematic behaviors which the child may or may not recognize as connected to these intrusive internal reactions.
When a parent recognizes what they believe to be a change in the behavior patterns of their child in the aftermath of a PTE, they should express their own authentic curiosity about the child’s behaviors and emotions. A caregiver might share: “I noticed that since (PTE) you’ve been having a hard time getting to sleep. Have you been thinking or having feelings about (PTE)?” Or “You seem to be having a lot of big feelings today. I wonder if some of your big feelings are from (PTE).”
Try not to judge the effectiveness of these interventions by how verbally responsive your child is in the moment. A big part of what the caregiver is doing here is communicating to the child that after the PTE, it would make sense that they might be feeling, thinking, and behaving differently than they had prior. Opening the door to this potential connection is itself a great help!
Remember that children tend to be unable to identify how they feel and they tend to express feelings in behaviors rather than in dialogue. This means that it is the parent or caregiver’s responsibility to identify the feeling, not the child’s. When the adult is attuned to a child’s emotional states, the child does not only feel understood but also will tend to feel held and protected simply by the fact that an adult is focused on both their external behaviors and their internal experience.
Parents should demonstrate that they are at peace talking about the past, upsetting event by using age-appropriate language that does not minimize what happened. Use of phrases such as “when your cousin abused you” “the time when Daddy hit Mommy” and “ when (name) touched you” can serve to communicate to the child that adults are okay talking about what happened to them and how it is making them feel. The child is not expected to never mention it or to forget it happened.
Specific word choices should always be guided by what the child understands. For instance, “touched you” can be used when the child understands it as a specific reference to an inappropriate touch. This understanding is usually established by the child’s use of the phrase to reference the scary event.
Recovery from the impact of trauma can be described as a process of overcoming fear that is dominating our bodies, minds, and lives. When a caregiver demonstrates fearlessness in facing the fact that a scary event happened, without avoidance or minimization, they help the child to believe that they, too — with the support of their caregivers — can face and manage what otherwise feels overwhelming. | https://medium.com/a-parent-is-born/how-caregivers-can-help-children-heal-from-trauma-eee957838310 | ['The Good Men Project'] | 2020-12-22 15:27:46.380000+00:00 | ['PTSD', 'Trauma', 'Psychology', 'Parenting', 'Childhood Trauma'] |
80s Tamil Movie Directors | IV Sasi | IV Sasi
Some people might say that I am choosing IV Sasi because his name starts with I. Initially, this series wasn’t supposed to be an A-Z series and I wanted to have IV Sasi because of his bold film-making and knack of making good commercial entertainers. I consider Guru as of one of the crazy entertainers of Tamil cinema. Having said that, IV Sasi’s scripts have been successfully remade in Tamil. Palaivana Rojakkal ( and Kadamai Kanniyam Kattupadu are perfect examples.
IV Sasi was attracted to the cinema at an early age and moved to Chennai to pursue his dreams. He started his career as an art director and assistant director. His first directorial venture was Utsavam (1975), but he shook the South Indian film industry with his Avalude Raavukal (1978), a movie about a commercial sex-worker played by Seema. It criticised the pseudo-morality of people and openly discussed the life of a sex- worker. He made 150 films and known for introducing a lot of actors including Mammootty, Jayan, Soman and Seema. He also introduced Rajinikanth to Malayalam cinema.
IV Sasi was someone who could balance commercial cinema with critically acclaimed movies. His Malayalam hits include Eetta, Iniyum Puzhayozhukum, Ezham Kadalinakkare, Aarattu, Angadi, Ee Naadu, Ina, Aaroodam (Won the National Award for National Integration), 1921, Inspector Balram, Devasuram and many more.
IV Sasi was a close friend of Kamal Hassan, and it was a bilingual that brought IV Sasi to Tamil movie world. Alauddinum Arputha Vilakkum was a fantasy movie that had a huge star cast including Kamal, Rajini, Gemini Ganesan, RS Manohar, Jaya Bharathi, Sri Priya and SA Ashokan as the Genie (his Aalampana rendition is still famous).
His notable movies in Tamil include Pagalail Oru Iravu (that dealt with the trauma of a young girl who couldn’t comprehend with her first sexual experience and abortion), Guru, Kaali, Ellame Un Kairaasi, and Kolangal.
Break-out movie: Guru
Guru is about a vigilante thief who robs the smugglers and helps the poor. He has an alter ego, Ashok (both characters played by Kamal), who is a philanthropist and businessman. He runs an institute for orphaned children in his mother’s name. He has an arch-nemesis MN Nambiar, with one metal arm and they constantly run-in with each other.
Guru was a Robin Hood movie in Batman setting with a James Bond villain. Although the film was based on a Dharmendra starter Jugnu, Guru was an audacious attempt in Tamil cinema. It was a crazy, weird and fun action movie that had unbelievable (illogical) action sequences, complicated plot that connects everyone and some scintillating western background score from Ilaiyaraaja. In simple words, it’s one of those perfect mass masala entertainers.
The movie was a huge success. It ran for a year, and it completed 3885 houseful shows in 45 days (it was mentioned in the ads).
Read the remaining in the posts in this series
https://medium.com/sylvianism/tamil-movie-directors/home
Movies to watch
Allauvuthinum Arputha Vilakkum Pagalil Oru Iravu Kaali Kolangal
References | https://medium.com/sylvianism/a-z-challenge-80s-tamil-movie-directors-i-for-iv-sasi-67911f0c09ed | ['Sylvian Patrick'] | 2019-12-11 14:42:56.340000+00:00 | ['Tamil Movies', 'Ilaiyaraaja', 'Kamal Hassan', 'Tamil Movie Directors', '80s Tamil Directors'] |
How to Make a More Effective Software Team? | Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash
Writing software is often a team effort. It takes effort to make a team effective.
In this article, we’ll look at what makes a team effective.
No Broken Windows
The whole team has to focus on quality. If something’s broken, everyone has to be proactive in fixing issues.
Even if they’re small, they add up faster. Some teams have a quality officer to look for issues and delegate people to fix them.
The whole team needs to focus on quality.
Boiled Frogs
The boiled frog analogy is where the frog slowly boils in the pot as the water inside gets hot slowly.
After a long time, the pot’s water is so hot that it boiled the frog.
In the same vein, we don’t want our software to get gradually worse in quality that the quality issues will become a big issue later on.
Everyone is assuming that everyone else is handling those issues while everything hasn’t changed.
We should actively monitor the environment for changes.
Also, we shouldn’t let scope creep slide if we ever want to finish a project.
Even if some change has been approved by the team, we still need to review if we can do all the changes required.
We should look for things that aren’t in the original requirement and think if we can do them at all.
Then we’ve to take them out if they aren’t.
Communicate
Communication is always important. Without it, we’ll step into each other’s toes.
The team also needs to communicate clearly to people outside the team.
People look forward to meeting with teams with a distinct personality because they’ll be prepared to make everyone feel good.
They produce easy to read and clear documentation.
They speak with one voice and may even have a sense of humor.
We got to generate a brand so that we’re seen as one outside the team. May come up with a logo or a name to make our team memorable.
Don’t Repeat Yourself
Duplication is always bad. Duplicated work between different members doesn’t help us and leads to wasted effort and a maintenance nightmare.
We need communication and project librarian. The project librarian tracks the work that is done by people so that we won’t delegate work twice to different people.
They’ll spot impending duplication by reading material they’re handling.
The librarian is the go-to person for tracking the work. If the task is too big for one library, then different people should be appointed to focus on different parts of the work.
Orthogonality
Different functions of a software team like analysts, architects, designs, programmers, testers, etc. can’t work in isolation.
It’s a mistake to think that they can all work without talking top each other.
Therefore, it’s better to organize around functionality rather than job functions.
We should split the team functionally so that each small team is responsible for a particular functional aspect of the final system.
Then the teams can organize internally as they see fit to get things done.
Functionality doesn’t have to be use cases. They can be technical functionality like data manipulation, user interface and things like that.
These teams can do their things and then they won’t be too coupled to each other if we make our software systems orthogonal and decouple modules from each other.
Then if we decide to change anything worked by those small teams, then the changes are done by those small teams.
This is because the change won’t affect other teams because of the orthogonality.
We can reduce the number of interactions between individuals’ work,m reducing time to delivery, increasing quality, and reducing the number of defects.
Everyone in the team is responsible for a given functionality, so they feel more ownership.
This works well with responsible developers and strong project management. Then the project world needs one technical and one administrative lead.
The technical lead would look at the big picture and eliminate duplicate effort. The administrative head would schedule resources for teams' needs, monitor progress and decide on priorities in terms of business needs.
Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash
Conclusion
We can create effect teams by eliminating duplicate effort and communicate effectively inside and outside of the team.
Also, splitting teams by functionality make more sense since software modules are supposed to be designed orthogonally so that one part doesn’t affect another.
Therefore, they can be built without much coupling between each other. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/how-to-make-a-more-effective-software-team-2c9f16dd75c9 | ['John Au-Yeung'] | 2020-06-25 15:28:35.776000+00:00 | ['Product Management', 'Programming', 'Software Development', 'Productivity', 'Web Development'] |
Box 2(a story about box 1) | By Randy and Avital, Come Out and Play Festival, Night Games, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, September 30th, 2016
Takes place in a magical land cursed by a calamity to be always winter
Children have grown up never knowing the joy of raises of sunshine
The sky is always cloudy
The lanterns are the only protect from the evil snow goblins
And the lanterns are almost out of oil.
The oil career is late.
Oil will not last the night and the wind is howling the oil is flickering
Randy-You head out on the trail
And before leaving
Your partner
Gives you a flashlight
A small light that lasts 24 hours.
You can only turn it on once.
You go down the trail as the last rays of light defuse through the cloud cover.
It’s dark when you hear whimpering behind the bend?
Na there lays the courier
With a massive n ail stuck in their foot
Pool of blood around her foot
A TRAP laid by the snow goblins
You use your scarf to bind the wounds.
Thankfully you have the scarf.
You strap the oil on the back
She hobbles along leaning against you
But at least she is not heavy,
With your freehand you use the flash light to illuminate the dark trail.
The snow goblins cackle.
As the last flickers of the lights are about to go out.
The snow goblins dare not enter their oar
You refill the lights with the oil.
And there is a big flash of light, and the town is safe for one more night.
THE END | https://medium.com/re-play-project/box-2-a-story-about-box-1-4792b364a54f | ['Timothy Braun'] | 2016-10-03 16:26:58.107000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Travel', 'Storytelling'] |
7 Ways to Feng Shui a Cubicle, Desk or Entire Office | Want to make your work environment less stressful?
Then consider bring feng shui to your cubicle or office.
Feng shui is an ancient Chinese art still practiced today that relies on spatial arrangement and orientation to channel specific energy (including success and productivity) into a physical environment.
The principals of feng shui can help infuse your work space with balance, focus and productivity.
Take a cue from unicorn entrepreneurs like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates, both of whome incorporate feng shui to increase their productivity.
Discover 7 ways to feng shui your cubicle!
1. Get rid of clutter ASAP.
The first step to bringing feng shui to your cubicle is cutting the clutter.
Clutter does not make for a productive work space.
Not only can documents and to-do lists get lost in piles of irrelevant paperwork, but it can throw off your mindset when sitting down to do work.
Make it a task at the beginning and end of each day to clear your space of trash and clutter so you are free to focus on work.
This will give you more room physically to work on tasks, as well as free up more mental space and wipe away any unnecessary stress.
2. Be mindful when incorporating color.
People don’t typically think of an office cubicle as a creative space — but you can change that!
All you have to do is bring some color into your cubicle to boost innovation.
According to the principles of feng shui, you should be surrounded by colors that drive the space’s energy and vibes.
When you bring feng shui to a cubicle or office, keep in mind that different colors have different energies and bring about different outcomes.
For example:
Green: improves health and balance
Blue: supports career success and growth
Yellow: represents happiness and good times
White: brings creative energy
If you’re looking to destress, you can incorporate earth tones in your office.
Or, if you’re looking to drive up your energy during the day, incorporate vibrant hues like red, orange and happiness-driving yellow.
3. Bring nature into your cubicle.
Even if you can’t face a window or sit outside when working, it’s critical to incorporate nature into your environment.
To do so, just buy a few plants and succulents to place around your desk.
Be sure to choose pieces that add to your space and don’t overwhelm it.
Also, keep in mind how much care you can give to the plants — no one likes to have dead leaves falling on their keyboard!
4. Invest in a good chair.
While it often goes unthought of, your chair is probably the most important part of your cubicle.
It’s where you spend most of your time working and investing in a comfortable chair can have an enormous pay-off.
The first rule to increase positive energy in your cubicle is to ensure that your chair has a high back.
This will leave you feeling more supported within your workspace.
You may also want to consider the color of the chair, as well as its placement.
Ideally, your chair should be facing a bright and airy space.
Also, if possible, avoid sitting directly in front of doorways — this can often pull energy away from your space!
5. Move your desk.
If you can, move your desk so that it faces the entrance of your office.
When you face the entrance, it puts you in a commanding position where you face not the entrance and the world.
This, of course, isn’t necessarily possible if you work in a cubicle — but there’s a workaround.
Hang a mirror above your desk so that you can see your cubicle entrance at all times!
6. Make your office a home.
Feng shui is all about bringing positive energy into your life, so it’s important to surround yourself with things that make you happy.
When deciding how to decorate, be selective of how much you bring into your office.
Hang up pictures with family of friends that spark happy memories or frame inspirational quotes that will motivate you.
By doing this, everything in your cubicle will serve a purpose, whether it’s supposed to spark joy, decrease stress or ignite creativity.
7. Check your personal energy.
Following the rules of feng shui is a great way to re-energize your office, but it isn’t a quick fix for all the obstacles you may face at work.
The only way you can bring positivity into your space and overcome challenges is if you allow it.
It’s essential to check in with yourself everyday and reflect on the energy that you’re bringing into the office.
Take a few minutes at the beginning, middle and end of each day to work through how you’re feeling.
If you find yourself stressed, take a step back and try to reset your energy.
By doing this, you’re truly embracing the practice of feng shui.
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Originally posted on Inc.com | https://medium.com/marketing-and-entrepreneurship/7-ways-to-feng-shui-a-cubicle-desk-or-entire-office-807f49ff25c8 | ['Larry Kim'] | 2019-09-13 09:51:01.887000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Life', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Office Furniture', 'Feng Shui'] |
Mistakes to avoid while using AKS | Azure Kubernetes Service being a managed service has its own limitation. However, sometimes we don’t pay attention to these limitations when we create AKS Cluster. We only realize when the situation gets worse and we have no option but to resolve the issue or deploy the cluster from scratch. Here is a list of key points you should consider when creating AKS Cluster.
Standard Load Balancer:-
When you create AKS Cluster via Portal, default Load Balancer as of now is Standard Load Balancer. However, if you choose to create an AKS Cluster using Basic Load Balancer, you might hit the limitation of adding multiple Nodepools which isn’t support for Basic SKU. Apart from it, it has limitation related to SNAT Ports that can be assigned to each virtual machine.
SubnetFull Error with Azure CNI:-
Azure CNI Network Plugin provides IP Addresses to Pods from same CIDR used for Nodes. Thus, it’s possible that customers might start getting SubnetFull error if the network isn’t planned in a right way. Please make sure you plan your network correctly when using Azure CNI.
AAD Integration:-
We all want the environment to be secure and follow the principle of least privilege. AKS supports AAD integration, however, please make sure that Kubernetes RBAC is enabled for the cluster else AAD Integration might fail. AAD integration can’t be disabled once it’s enabled for a cluster.
Service Principal Management:-
AKS uses Service Principal to manage cluster resources and it’s one of the key components that need to be managed in a subtle way. Please make sure you’re monitoring the expiry of your Service Principal Secret. If it’s expired, you might see issues related to resource provisioning failure such as failure to create PV/PVC, Unable to create Service of type LoadBalancer, etc.
AKS Security Using Azure Policy:-
Please don’t leave your cluster open to vulnerabilities. Although, it’s really hard to make it 100% secure. But Azure Policy allows you to achieve this to some extent.
Backup Your Data:-
It’s very important to backup your data when you’re using Kubernetes in general or AKS. AKS doesn’t provide a lift and shift mechanism, thus it’s really important to take backup of your application and cluster’s data. This will help if you want to create a cluster from scratch using existing data.
Upgrade To Supported Version:-
It’s very necessary to keep upgrading AKS to a supported version. It helps to keep your AKS Cluster within support scope and each upgrade provides enhanced functionality or bug fixes to the issues which were raised during the previous version.
System Nodepool:-
AKS Cluster is created with a default Nodepool and the mode are set to “system” for it. You can create a new Nodepool with mode set to “user”, but it’s not possible to change the mode to “user” if you only have one Nodepool. AKS needs at least one Nodepool with mode set to “system”.
These are just a few of the things that were on my list for now. I will keep adding as I move forward and continue my learning. | https://faun.pub/mistakes-to-avoid-while-using-aks-5174db0d0706 | [] | 2021-07-09 11:59:39.168000+00:00 | ['Azure Kubernetes Service', 'Avoid', 'Kubernetes', 'Mistakes', 'Azure'] |
How to choose a good and safe Cosmos hub validator among 100? A brief guide for delegators | Delegators seem to value long term trusted community members (which is positive) and also low commission the most. Please note however that higher reward implies higher risk so a lower commission usually means a higher risk of slashing. Some delegators value the amount of self-delegation or “skin in the game” of validators, but the previous biggest validator Ion (Dokia Capital) decided to reduce their self-delegation to improve the decentralization of stake among the top 100 validators and hence benefit more the project and increase its value.
Delegators think that running costs should be below 50% of the commission fee rewards. Therefore, validators with higher commission that also have expensive running costs for security at around 20–50% of the commission fee rewards is fair for delegators. So the commission fee alone should not be considered but the running costs too.
The maximum fee parameter of 20% seems to be considered fair and also a 1% maximum commission rate change per day. For example, during the 21 days period to redelegate after the first delegation a validator could increase the commission fee by 1% every day so that would be a 21% increase although this is unlikely to happen and usually validators will inform their delegators well before any commission fee increase.
Delegators and the community in general think that while decisions like that of Ion to reduce their self-delegation are positive, the decentralization of the Cosmos hub validators should improve a lot still.
Risks for delegators: | https://medium.com/cosmicvalidator/how-to-choose-a-good-validator-guide-for-atom-token-holders-2263dbec18 | ['Cosmic Validator'] | 2021-04-26 07:00:31.279000+00:00 | ['Cosmos Network', 'Proof Of Stake', 'Staking'] |
Will Quantum Computers Break Bitcoin? | In September of this year, Google made headlines when they announced that they had achieved “Quantum Supremacy”. They had reached a major milestone in the development of quantum computing- solving a problem that is essentially impossible for classical computers to perform. This has rekindled interest in the potential threat that quantum computers could theoretically pose to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. If quantum computers can smash through some of the most advanced cryptography on earth, could they one day “break” blockchains as well?
Before we go any further- what IS a quantum computer?
Classical computers like the one you’re reading this on right now use binary code- everything that it does- email, word processing, youtube videos, you name it- can be broken into electrical and optical pulses representing 1s or 0s. Everything from a smartphone to a laptop to Summit, the world’s most powerful supercomputer owned by the US Department of Energy- are considered classical computers.
Quantum computers work in a completely different way. Instead of using “bits” represented 1s or 0s, they use quantum bits or quibits, subatomic particles which can be 1s, 0s, or both at the same time.
IBM’s 50-quibit quantum computer (Image source: Engadget)
We don’t need to get too caught up in the details of quantum mechanics, but here’s what you need to know: quantum computers have calculating power that vastly surpasses even the most powerful classical computers.
Google’s “Sycamore” quantum computer was able to crack in just over 3 minutes a mathematical problem that would have taken the previously mentioned Summit 10,000 years to solve.
So, why is this dangerous for bitcoin?
Blockchains, including the one that bitcoin runs on, make use of extremely advanced encryption which results in permanent, immutable records. The encryption is so strong that there is simply no way anyone using a classical computer can break it.
When you hear about cryptocurrencies being “hacked” what actually happened is someone found a vulnerability in a faulty smart contract (i.e. “The DAO”) or and private keys being stolen. It does NOT mean that that the underlying blockchain tech itself was hacked, because that’s not possible.
A quantum computer however could theoretically smash right through all modern forms of encryption, including that used by bitcoin. This means a criminal armed with a quantum device could break private keys, steal cryptocurrency and wreak all kinds of havoc.
Imagine for example, if this criminal hacked the private keys to Satoshi Nakamoto’s wallet, which holds over 1 million BTC, and began selling them off rapidly. More people would begin to sell in a panic, and the entire crypto market could crash.
How likely is a quantum attack on bitcoin?
Right now? It’s pretty unlikely. While quantum computers are impressive they are also extremely expensive and difficult to build. They are also really not practical for anything besides advanced calculations, and they can only be found in R&D centers of corporations, universities and government agencies. It is estimated that we are approximately 5–10 years away from a quantum computer powerful enough to smash bitcoin’s level of encryption.
While the threat may not be imminent, does this mean that blockchains are obsolete, and bitcoin is doomed?
Not so fast. The advancement of quantum computing means that encryption in general will have to evolve, and that includes all technologies that make use of encryption, like blockchains. Several projects such as “Quantum Resistant Ledger” (QRL) are being designed by teams working on preemptive solutions to quantum attacks.
It’s possible that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will have to adopt more advanced, “quantum proof” blockchains in the future.
While the quantum computing threat should not be keeping crypto enthusiasts up at night, it is something worth keeping an eye on in the medium to long term.
***
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Faast Subreddit | https://medium.com/faast/will-quantum-computers-break-bitcoin-70f28f1d8373 | [] | 2019-10-23 13:01:02.286000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Encryption', 'Blockchain', 'Quantum Computing'] |
Making HTTP Requests in Solidity | What Does This Look Like in Solidity?
To show what this looks like in code, let’s look at getting the numerical price of ETH. You can use this Remix link to follow along, but here is a subset of that contract code.
// Ideally, you'd want to pass the oracle payment, address, and jobID as
function requestEthereumPrice()
public
onlyOwner
{
// newRequest takes a JobID, a callback address, and callback function as input
Chainlink.Request memory req = buildChainlinkRequest(JOBID, address(this), this.fulfill.selector);
req.add("get", "
req.add("path", "USD");
req.addInt("times", 100);
sendChainlinkRequestTo(ORACLE_ADDRESS, req, ORACLE_PAYMENT);
} // Creates a Chainlink request with the uint256 multiplier job// Ideally, you'd want to pass the oracle payment, address, and jobID asfunction requestEthereumPrice()publiconlyOwner// newRequest takes a JobID, a callback address, and callback function as inputChainlink.Request memory req = buildChainlinkRequest(JOBID, address(this), this.fulfill.selector);req.add("get", " https://min-api.cryptocompare.com/data/price?fsym=ETH&tsyms=USD ");req.add("path", "USD");req.addInt("times", 100);sendChainlinkRequestTo(ORACLE_ADDRESS, req, ORACLE_PAYMENT); // fulfill receives a uint256 data type
function fulfill(bytes32 _requestId, uint256 _price)
public
// Use recordChainlinkFulfillment to ensure only the requesting oracle can fulfill
recordChainlinkFulfillment(_requestId)
{
currentPrice = _price;
}
To start making a request to a chainlink node, we call the buildChainlinkRequest function that is imported from the ChainlinkClient.sol , this function returns a Chainlink.Request struct. In this function, we pass the jobID, return address, and fulfillment function when we start to build it.
We can find a jobID of an independent Chainlink node by heading over to a node listing service, like market.link, and searching for what we want. Node listing services are where independent nodes post their information about how to connect to their Chainlink node. You can use them to build your network of decentralized oracles. Make sure you’re on the correct network (ropsten, mainnet, kovan, etc).
For this, we want a job that can make an httpget call and return a uint256 , so let’s try searching for that job on the ropsten network.
Searching for a job on market.link
Let’s pick a job, and just make sure that the jobspec is what we are looking for. We can head on over to the jobspec tab to see what the initiators and adapters are.
Image from market.link
To make sure this job has the right adapters, we can check out their tasks/adapters list. The image above shows that this job has exactly the initiators and adapters/tasks that we want.
Once we verify that the job has the adapters we want, we can then copy the job ID to use in our code. You can see other nodes that have a similar job, and you’ll need this list when you make your contract decentralized, but again for testing and developing we can just pull from a single node. Make sure you also grab the oracle address, as you’ll need this later.
Chainlink.Request memory req = buildChainlinkRequest(JOBID, address(this), this.fulfill.selector);
We then put the JOBID in the first parameter of our buildChainlinkReqeust . The second parameter is the address of the contract to return the data to also known as the callbackaddress . The last parameter is the function that will process the data once collected aka the callbackFunctionSignature . We want to return the data to this contract, so we put in address(this) , and our function that will be processing the data will be fulfill . We defined the fulfill function right below this one.
function fulfill(bytes32 _requestId, uint256 _price)
public
// Use recordChainlinkFulfillment to ensure only the requesting oracle can fulfill
recordChainlinkFulfillment(_requestId)
{
currentPrice = _price;
}
The uint256 _price parameter is where the Chainlink node will input the price gathered from making the http get request. In our example above, we are just setting the return value from the node to our currentPrice variable.
Back in the requestEthereumPrice function, we can then add parameters to our adatpers/tasks. Let’s go over what each adapter does:
httpget
The Chainlink node will make an HTTP GET request; usually, this is a simple API call.
The HTTP GET request that we want to make in the parameters passed to the req variable.
At the time of writing, the return value of this HTTP GET request is:
{"USD":391.41}
jsonparse
Once the node makes the HTTP GET request, it will go through the json and find only the value that we want. Storing the entire return of the HTTP GET request would be really expensive, as the more you store on the Ethereum chain the more ETH gas you have to pay. So, we want to return as little as possible.
req.add("path", "USD");
This will condense the return of the HTTP GET request to just the value
391.41 . It walks down the json of the {“USD”:391.41} return value. For longer json returns, you can add indexes of lists too. For example, if you had an object like:
{"USD": [ "price": {"ETH": 391.41}]}
We could walk down the path to that value with:
req.add("path", "USD.0.ETH");
multiply/times
Once we get the 391.41 value, we have to make it a whole number. Decimals don’t work in solidity, and we need to represent decimals using fixed-point math.
req.addInt("times", 100);
This will adapt our result once more to be 39141 (since we move the decimal place over twice by multiplying by 100).
ethuint256
You’ll notice in our code above, we don’t pass any parameters to this adapter; that’s because we don’t need to. This adapter just converts our answer of 39141 to the solidity understandable format.
ethtx
This one also doesn’t need any parameters. This is the adapter that actually posts the data back on-chain.
Now we use the sendChainlinkRequestTo method, with the address of the oracle we got from market.link, the request itself, and the oracle_payment.
sendChainlinkRequestTo(ORACLE_ADDRESS, req, ORACLE_PAYMENT); | https://medium.com/better-programming/making-http-requests-in-solidity-b472c2b5e5f1 | ['Patrick Collins'] | 2020-10-29 01:32:55.574000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Chainlink', 'Programming', 'Ethereum', 'Solidity'] |
2nd Story — The Eternal Conflict of Python or R (or JavaScript or Julia) | Once you have decided you want to learn Data Science and have a good idea about why you start on this path (for more about the why, check out the first story in this series Start with Why Data Science), then comes one of the biggest questions to answer: should I learn Python or R.
In short, knowing how to program is a core skill for any Data Scientist for a myriad of reasons, from being able to deal access the computing power needed, to, well, it is the way you communicate with computers to tell them what you need. When I was starting some people suggested you could get away with just using spreadsheets, but not only is that a clunky, limited and obsolete way of doing things, like using a fax instead of an email, once you get into big data or simply having to deal with a data stream, spreadsheets simply will not do.
Programming will also teach you something difficult to learn otherwise: computer logic. In data science, and specially in Machine Learning, we are giving computers instructions about how to interpret, in mathematical and computer language, things that come easy for us, like knowing when a picture has a cat in it. We must be able to tell the computers exactly what we want them to do.
What programming language should I learn then? This could be a long discussion, so please sit tight. Python, the answer is python. Well, this was short, but let us get into the interesting reasoning of why python.
First let us talk about the other languages that are doing some ML and DS. JavaScript has some remarkably interesting tools for it, and the advantage of being great for development. However, the tools are limited, and it is not the friendliest language to learn. So, unless you already have JS under your belt, you are better off staying away from it, at least for now.
There are also newer languages like Julia, also interesting, but, in reality, being used less and less in Data Science, and the community for it is much smaller that for R or Python.
Back to the main event. As I mentioned on my last story, my first programming language (after basic at 10 years old) was R, so I do have a big spot in my heart for it. This is a great language for Data Science and Machine Learning. It is free software (not to be confused with open source, here is a good article about the differences), it has a large and thriving community and tons of packages like Caret, GGplot2, Plotly, Superml and many more to make your life easier. It is also a very efficient language built for math and statistics, so it tends to run faster. It is not incredibly hard to learn and has easy to use IDE (Integrated Development Environment) in R Studio.
When I started learning Data Science for real, and since I already knew some R, you might be asking why on earth would I have picked anything else. After all, R seems to be the perfect language for DS. Well, it is. But there is just one small and tiny issue: Pyhon. Sometimes in life, you can have something better than perfection.
Python, named after the British comedic troupe Monty Python, not the gigantic strangling snake, is open source software, easy to install, easy to learn and use. It has one of the largest communities, many times larger than R, very vocal, friendly, open and collaborative. It also has tons and tons of packages from Matplotlib and Seaborn for visualization, Numpy and Pandas for dealing with numbers and data, to ScikitLearn and PyTorch for machine learning. The amount of learning resources available for Python online, free and paid, is mind-blowing. It also has a variety of IDEs available, like Spyder, and it is the main language for Jupyter Notebooks, my favorite tool for programming and DS projects.
The other incredible advantage of Python is that it will allow you to do many other things, from apps to websites to video games. I would probably use other languages for some of these tasks, but it is good to know you have many options with this one.
I did a lot of research before embarking on my road to data science and did not take this decision lightly. Still today, I am happy to have chosen Python as the main language for DS.
The most important thing is to go deep into the language. There are many Data Science learning outlets that will give you some basic programming skills before jumping straight to DS, but believe me, take your time to learn how to program first, before getting sidetracked with Numpy, Pandas, Matplotlib and all the other amazing libraries.
Take your time to understand variables, particularly the nuances of ‘True’ and ‘False’, the ever useful ‘if’ statements, functions, list comprehensions, *args and *kwargs (these took me forever to grasp), and do take a quite a bit of time understanding classes, it will make your life working with libraries much more enjoyable. Finally, take the time needed for the basic concepts to really sink in, delve into the differences of functional and object-oriented programming. In short, take your time to develop your programming skills before moving on. I know there is a lot of temptation to move on to data analysis, ML algorithms and all the interesting stuff, but just like any craft, you need to get your core skills off the ground first.
If you want to be a drummer, you need to understand rhythm. If you want to be a data scientist, you need to understand computer language.
This is about my Road to Data Science, so if you decide to learn R, or Julia, or JavaScript, go for it. You can also learn any of them afterwards. Just make sure to pick one and stick with it until you reach a high understanding before moving on to another language.
Bellow are some of the amazing resources I used to for learning how to program, some are free, or offer some free content, others are not. Check them out first to see if the way they teach is useful and enjoyable for you.
But do remember, programming should be your first and a vital step on your Road to Data Science.
Hope we cross paths through our Journeys…
Jack Raifer Baruch
Follow me on Twitter: @JackRaifer
Follow me on LinkedIN: jackraifer
Next Story: To Math or not to Math
About the Road to Data Science Series
Today, I am working on the first steps of remarkably interesting projects for human development based on Data Science and Machine Learning.
But not that long ago (really, not long at all) I knew extraordinarily little about data science and much less what it all meant (and I am still learning more and more about it every day). In my quest for reinventing myself from Psychologist working in Behavioral Economics to Data Scientist I went through an incredibly interesting journey and learned a lot. This series is mostly a letter to my past self, to help anyone like me take this amazing road and, luckily, avoid some of the mistakes I made on the way due to lack of knowledge or perspective.
Hope you enjoy my ramblings as much as I found joy on my Road to Data Science.
Need Help on your Journey?
This can be a difficult path alone, so feel free to reach out to me through LinkedIN or Twitter. I started this series because of the #66DaysOfData initiative by Ken Jee, it is a great way to connect and get support, so just check out Ken on twitter @KenJee_DS and join the #66DaysOfData challenge.
Learning Resources I have Used and Enjoyed:
Udemy
A LOT of content, some free, most paid. Check out cupon sites where you can usually find free cupons for courses on python, R, data science, machine learning and much more.
Codecademy
Interesting place to learn, they have some free courses and then paid content. Very hands on coding exercises, few videos, mostly reading.
Coursera
My favorite place to learn. Thousands of courses, a lot of content on programming, Data Science and Machine Learning. The University of Michigan has many courses here for python programming from the very basics to complex things. All courses are free to audit, you only pay if you want to earn a certificate.
Freecodecamp.org
The top free place to learn to code. Hundreds of hours of free videos on almost any language. They now also have certifications, also for free.
YouTube
The place to learn anything. All of it is free, it might take a while to get to the content you want and enjoy.
Kaggle
Top site for data science, also run many competitions. They have many free courses, but the programming part is scarce, some basic ones and all focused on Data Science and Machine Learning.
DataQuest
Similar to Codecademy, with many paths and courses. Some free content, the rest is paid. Very focused on Data Science.
Codewars
My favorite place to practice code, challenges for every level from beginners to advanced. This is a good place to challenge yourself and check your progress. | https://medium.com/swlh/2nd-story-the-eternal-conflict-of-python-or-r-or-javascript-or-julia-f7ac21163707 | ['Jack Raifer Baruch'] | 2021-01-15 05:35:01.995000+00:00 | ['Data Sicence', 'Python', '66daysofdata', 'Machine Learning', 'R'] |
Introducing PyTorch Lightning Sharded: Train SOTA Models, With Half The Memory | Introducing PyTorch Lightning Sharded: Train SOTA Models, With Half The Memory
Lightning 1.1 reveals Sharded Training — train deep learning models on multiple GPUs saving over 50% on memory, with no performance loss or code change required! Sean Narenthiran Dec 10, 2020·6 min read
Image By Author
In a recent collaboration with Facebook AI’s FairScale team and PyTorch Lightning, we’re bringing you 50% memory reduction across all your models. Our goal at PyTorch Lightning is to make recent advancements in the field accessible to all researchers, especially when it comes to performance optimizations. Together with the FairScale team, we’re excited to introduce our beta for Sharded Training with PyTorch Lightning 1.1.
Training large neural network models can be computationally expensive and memory hungry. There have been many advancements to reduce this computational expense, however most of them are inaccessible to researchers, require significant engineering effort or are tied to specific architectures requiring large amounts of compute.
In this article we show how easy it is to see large memory reductions using multiple GPUs by simply adding a single flag to your Lightning trainer, with no performance loss. Continue reading to see how we pre-trained a Transformer LM with NeMo showing a 55% memory improvement, and further memory reductions training other PyTorch Lightning powered models. In addition to results in NLP using NeMo Transformer LM, we show results in Speech Recognition using DeepSpeech 2, and in Computer vision training SwAV ResNet and iGPT.
Larger Model, Better Accuracy
Recent advancements in language modelling are trending towards larger pre-trained models performing better on downstream tasks. This is famously shown with the release of GPT-3 by OpenAI, their largest model at 175 billion parameters, requiring massive amounts of compute and optimization tricks to train.
Comparing language model research parameter sizes over time. GPT-3 continued to surpass by magnitudes. Image by Microsoft
When training large models, memory quickly becomes a valuable resource. As we scale our model sizes, we start to run out of memory on GPUs which limits the size of the models we can train. This can be frustrating, and leads us to try smarter memory management techniques.
Sharded Training Powered by Lightning
Traditional Distributed Training vs Sharded Training. Parameters (P) are split across GPUs to reduce memory overhead per GPU. For Sharded Training, we split the optimizer states and gradients. Image by author
Sharded Training, inspired by Microsoft’s Zero Redundancy Optimizer (ZeRO) offers a solution to reduce memory requirements for training large models on multiple GPUs, by being smart with how we “shard” our model across GPUs in the training procedure. Sharding involves fragmenting parameters onto different devices, reducing the memory required per device. In particular, optimizer state and gradients can be sharded independent of the model, and can offer memory reductions for all architectures.
Sharded Training was built from the ground up in FairScale to be PyTorch compatible and optimized. FairScale is a PyTorch extension library for high performance and large scale training, model- and data-parallelism. In addition to Sharding techniques, it features inter- and intra-layer parallelism, splitting models across multiple GPUs and hosts.
With smart gradient and optimizer state sharding across our GPUs, we can reduce memory costs roughly a combined 4x and 8x respectively, as reported by Microsoft. This benefits all models, providing lower memory usage in training across all model architectures and training procedures. The caveat is that naive implementations have resulted in dramatic speed regressions due to the increased volume of communication required between nodes, and the lack of parallelism.
We’ve worked closely with the team behind FairScale who have spent time optimizing communications, reducing this regression to near zero whilst fitting nicely into PyTorch Lightning, allowing researchers to benefit from all the optimizations we’ve already made. You can now enjoy 55% and beyond memory reductions on all lightning modules by simply passing in a single trainer flag! This means larger models can be fit onto multiple GPU cards that are limited in memory.
Enable Sharded Training with no code changes
To demonstrate how easy it is to use Sharded Training in Lightning we use NeMo, a popular library from NVIDIA to train conversational AI models backed by Lightning. We’ll be using a vanilla Transformer LM model provided in NeMo, and be using a 1.2 billion parameter model which has a high memory requirement to train. When training large language models, memory is a valuable resource to boost the model size or to improve saturation on GPUs. To train the model we’ll be using the WikiText dataset.
First we download the dataset and extract using the processing script provided by NVIDIA NeMo. Then define the model configuration using the preset configuration file found within NeMo, modifying the data inputs to point to your dataset. We also build a simple word based vocabulary for benchmarking purposes.
After setting your model parameters, all you need to do is pass the Sharded plugin flag to the trainer enabling Sharded Training. You can increase the number of GPUs and enable native mixed precision for further memory and speed benefits. Behind the scenes, we automatically handle partitioning optimizers and all communication between GPUs.
Below you can see the memory improvement per device using Lightning’s built-in Sharding vs normal GPU scaling where the per device memory allocation stays constant. We also report a host of other models from self-supervised (SwAV), speech recognition (DeepSpeech 2) and generating pre-training on pixels (iGPT) which are all powered by PyTorch Lightning. We save up to 15 GiB of memory per GPU, which allows us to increase the model capacity. For example with the same hardware, we are able to boost out model size from 1.2 to 2 billion parameters when training our Transformer LM. | https://medium.com/@seannaren/introducing-pytorch-lightning-sharded-train-sota-models-with-half-the-memory-7bcc8b4484f2 | ['Sean Narenthiran'] | 2020-12-10 19:48:36.324000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Pytorch Lightning', 'Deep Learning', 'Pytorch'] |
How to Recover Files From Lost.Dir? | How To Recover LOST DIR Files
Wondering what LOST.DIR is? And what does it do?
LOST.DIR, by its name, as you can understand that it means Lost Directory. This Folder can be found on SD Card (Memory Card) or the Phone’s Internal Storage. But it is commonly found on SD Card.
Now let’s understand what it really is?
This Folder stores those files whose extensions are lost and without an extension that file is useless. Every file has its own extension. Let’s take Image for an example its extensions are .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .heic, etc. Likewise for Audio Files the extensions are .mp3, .ogg, .m4a, .ac3, .aac etc. For videos the extensions are .mp4, .mkv, .avi, .ts, .3gp etc.
These were some of the extensions of the respected files.
To recover these files, you just have to rename and add an extension to the end of the name, then you have to open that file and check it to make sure if it works properly or not. If the file is not opening, then that means you have added the wrong extension to the file, and the extension does not match the file. So, rename and change the extension of the file and check the file again. Continue doing this until you get the correct one.
But wait, doesn't it seems to be a long process? It actually is a lengthy process. So follow this next method. I will provide you an App, with that you can recover your files instantly, and it will do the job for you. It is a premium version app for free but, if you download the same App from the play store, you have to pay for the App, and it is not guaranteed that the Play Store version will do the job correctly.
To see the full process, click here to continue reading… | https://medium.com/@ujjwal-murmu-1044/how-to-recover-files-from-lost-dir-290d58bd723b | ['Ujjwal Murmu'] | 2020-12-20 09:08:18.188000+00:00 | ['How To Recover Lost Data', 'How To Recover', 'How To', 'Recovery', 'Android'] |
What’s the most soothing nursery color? | Decorating your baby-to-be’s nursery can be one of the most exciting parts of pregnancy. On the day you bring your little one home, you want her room to be perfect: the crib, the décor, a closet full of adorable little outfits, and swaddles, sacks and diapers at the ready. But most of all, you want the nursery to be a sleep sanctuary. So start with the walls: color experts say certain shades can have an impact on how well your baby sleeps.
The best hues for your new baby
Beach baby
There are few things as calming as a beautiful blue sky and rolling ocean waves. In fact, hues of blue have been shown to lower blood pressure and slow heart rate. Go for powdery or grayed-out blues or pale aqua.
Natural nester
Nature immediately brings a sense of balance and calm. Shades of green have been shown to relieve stress (that’s why TV guests wait in a “green room” before a show.) Try lighter sages, moss and mint hues to keep your little one’s space tranquil.
Blushing babe
Pinks have been associated with kindness, softness, love and relaxation. All very calming attributes. Light roses, soft blushes and light peach tones are all great options. (Tip: if you’re on the fence, always go one shade lighter.)
Neutral napper
Babies are stimulated all day long — so a warm and grounding neutral nursery might be the key to calming them as they settle in for sleep. Earthy shades like beiges and browns are instantly lulling and cozy. And neutrals are super versatile.
Colors to use in moderation
Bright red
This is too stimulating for a newborn, when used as the primary wall color. But reds can be a cheerful accent for a more neutral room.
Day-glow oranges and yellow
Some say orange hues make you hungry — unproven, but you may want to think about that! In general, day-glow brights are a bit of a visual assault and can distract babies from sleep.
Plain gray
While adults love stylish, minimalist grays, they can feel sterile to a baby. If your walls are gray, add a few pops of color to keep the room lively and interesting for your little one.
Of course, no magical can of paint will make your baby a perfect sleeper from day one. (Or maybe you’ll get really, really lucky.) But a soft hue, in combination with a consistent sleep routine and soothing sleepwear like the Zen Swaddle® or Zen Bodysuit, can certainly help set the stage for sweeter sleep. | https://medium.com/@nestedbean76/whats-the-most-soothing-nursery-color-d019435d65c6 | ['Nested Bean'] | 2019-10-16 09:12:36.395000+00:00 | ['Baby Swaddle', 'Baby', 'Baby Colic', 'Baby Sleep'] |
Why Invest in Thailand | If you have your eyes set on working together in the Asian mainland. Be that as it may, how would you enter the market? What’s a decent passage point? Thailand is your portal to business in Southeast Asia. With their new drive to make an imprint in web based business, Thailand is ready with circumstance.
1. Remote Business-situated Government
It’s very simple to get a visa for business in Thailand. Also their sensible cost. The Thai government advances any global business that adds to the improvement of innovation, development, and exchange aptitudes. Besides, their legislature has advanced enactment to expand the network of the nation in general so as to create associations in online business.
2. The Individuals are Pleasant
Thailand isn’t known as the Land of Smiles to no end. Despite the fact that, the moniker was given to the nation by its own one of a kind occupants for the advancement of the travel industry, Thai individuals truly grin. The Buddhist culture debilitates showdown, which makes the individuals increasingly arranged to finding an answer in a positive and pleasant way. They are eminent for their extraordinary accommodation, regardless of the circumstance.
3. Sheltered and Protected
Perceiving and regarding the universal standards like the Paris Convention, the Patent Cooperation Treaty, and so forth.; Thailand government as well, has progressed in the direction of ensuring the worldwide brands enlisted in its nation.
Presently you’re most likely pondering, how does this have anything to do with property speculators? You may have heard that remote speculators are not permitted to possess any landed properties/land in Thailand (not at all like in Malaysia where outsiders can undoubtedly claim various properties in our dirt).
That is on the grounds that we have as a more astute and progressively imaginative financial specialist, it’s a great opportunity as far as possible ventures as speculations alone. We have to ad lib and assemble a business with properties.
4. English is Normal
English has turned into the language of business in the 21st century. Center points of money and foundation like Bangkok have turned out to be increasingly open toward the West by embracing English. You’ll most likely still need to contract an interpreter or get an application, however sometimes organizations will have their own interpreters.
5. FDI Policies and Investments
Outside direct speculation assumes a noteworthy job in Thailand’s financial advancement and is helpful for both the administration and speculators. Speculations done in the fields of aptitude advancement, innovation and development appreciate dynamic support by government and progression.
6. Full help from Thai government
Creating yields used to be the essential wellspring of job in Thailand. Be that as it may, in the ongoing past, businesses have created and the legislature is inviting outsiders to put resources into the Thai economy. Through the Board of Investment (BOI), the administration is offering different assessment motivating forces plans to its speculators. The Thai government is very supportive of business as exemplified by positive relationship with the Thailand cp group. You can get updates about them from cp enews group.
7. Framework
Thailand has a rich and copious of regular assets, improved IT systems (far superior to Malaysia’s) gifted workforce, present day transportation and correspondence offices. All these give the best of business and living conditions and these foundations and comforts is one imperative motivation behind why vacationers and speculators rush to Thailand.
8. The Nourishment and Atmosphere
All things considered, it is Thailand, the home and origin of Thai nourishment. The western inexpensive food variant of Thai sustenance will never measure up to the nourishment trucks you’ll discover in the city of Bangkok. The flavors and sheer measure of social flavor stuffed into each dish will leave your taste buds reeling, if not searching for some milk.
The flavors and sheer measure of social flavor stuffed into each dish will leave your taste buds reeling, if not searching for some milk.
Thailand basically has three seasons which are hot, stormy, and cool. An ever tropical heaven, it’s no big surprise sightseers rush there by the millions to see Thailand’s reasonable, white shorelines. Leave your coats at home, a radiant heaven is standing by. | https://medium.com/@borgtalent1/why-invest-in-thailand-4e4ea4fcce61 | ['Borg Talent'] | 2019-09-01 18:35:59.461000+00:00 | ['ภัคพล งามลักษณ์', 'Cp Group Thailand', 'Phakphon Ngamlak', 'Thailand', 'Cp Enews'] |
The Beauty of Missing Someone | Every day I miss you.
Every day you cross my mind. When you do, I smile.
Other days, a lump forms in my throat. Heat rushes to my cheeks as tears form in the corners of my eyes. I either wipe them away, or let them pour out. Depends on the day.
Every now and then, I chuckle at a memory of us. A time or two, I’ve tilted my head back and out came an uproarious laughter.
Oh, how I miss laughing with you.
For what felt like an eternity, I didn’t know whether you missed me too. Worse, I didn’t know if you’d let me see you again. The thought of you no longer being in my life was like 100 wool blankets around me in the summertime — heavy, suffocating, and dark.
And sure, you’re not “in my life” now. I haven’t seen you for almost eight months. Even though I’m conscious of this fact, I’m crying as I write it, when a moment ago all was well. All was “normal”… as can be without you here, anyway.
Eight months. By far the longest I’ve gone without seeing you in these 14 years.
I remember the first time we were apart. It lasted for three months, and it was painstaking. At least then you would talk to me, when you could.
The feeling of missing you is like a constant embrace from a stranger. Unfamiliar, uncomfortable, unwelcome. I want to push it away and invite you in its place.
Oh, how I miss your hugs.
Photo by Isi Parente
When I was in the Cook Islands for 10 weeks, I missed my parents. I missed my brother. I missed my then-boyfriend, even though we broke up when I got home because I’d changed so much. I missed my dog, who died of old age when I was away. And even though it cost me more than I could afford, I texted you when that happened. Because I needed to talk to you when I was in pain, and no amount of money could outweigh that.
Maybe above all, I missed you.
That was over six years ago.
I used to hate missing people I love. It was like a constant, unsettling shadow I wanted to rip away from. Like tinnitus reverberating in my skull, taunting me. Reminding me. You’re not by my side.
One day, I reflected on how to say I miss you in Spanish. There are two ways to say it:
Yo te extraño
Te echo de menos
For a native English speaker, it takes some time to get used to this format. In both these forms, the word-for-word translation is not “I miss you.” Rather, it is:
You are missing from me.
“You (are)… from” = te
“Missing… me” = Yo … extraño
If that’s too much to wrap your head around, don’t overthink it and simply trust me.
When I grasped the translation “You are missing from me,” I thought about a completely different concept. Rather than imagining missing a person, my mind drifted to items that go missing.
What does it mean when an item (say, your car key) is missing?
It means it’s not in its rightful place.
Now, when I miss you, I understand it’s because you’re not in your rightful place.
By my side.
Although this notion doesn’t heal the pain, I respect it, like beautifully haunting poetry. | https://medium.com/@shelbysmith-co/the-beauty-of-missing-someone-f4e922298047 | [] | 2020-12-26 00:55:36.950000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Breakups', 'Grief And Loss', 'Missing You', 'Loneliness'] |
Power BI — The tool that is beating Excel | Power BI — The tool that is beating Excel
Photo by Lucas Blazek on Unsplash
Data analysis and visualization have always been extremely important issues in the professional environment and a fundamental tool for decision-making in companies. In this environment, Microsoft Excel became easily popular and established itself as one of the main data manipulation tools in the market, however, with the advance of Big Data, the exponential growth of data in the world and the growth of the culture of Analytics and Data Science o Excel is no longer such an efficient tool.
The amount of data in the world is growing by 40% each year and could reach around 163 Zettabytes by 2025.
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“Data is the new gold!”
Year after year, companies focus more on data and how to take value from it to sell more products, get more customers, increase the efficiency of the process, etc. In this scenario, a tool that deals with this large amount of data and is able to expose information becomes essential. To address this necessity Microsoft created Power BI, a visualization tool that is capable to handle Big Data and at the same time change the way that we interact with charts.
Excel vs Power BI for Visualization
We know that Excel has excellent features and allows the user to work in a simple and effective way with data manipulation, in addition to being a tool already known in the market, but even so, the program leaves something to be desired. When we need to manipulate a large number of data, for example, excel crashes a lot in the visualization, presents some interface bugs, does not load the entire file, and can cause serious problems such as file corruption. Another case is when we have a need to do complex graphical analysis or create dashboards, in Excel it is not simple to organize the graphs, the design is not so attractive and you cannot work with dynamic and interconnected graphs. In these cases, Power BI proves to be extremely useful and with a huge advantage over Excel, making data manipulation more agile and efficient.
With a wide range of graphics and widgets, a good ability to deal with big data, integration with different platforms and ease of use, a centralization of different data sources, Power BI has been showing itself increasingly strong in the market.
Below are some comparison data between the two tools:
Data Volume
Power BI is prepared for Big Data and can handle 2000x more data than Excel.
Excel — 1,048,576 (1 million), but it starts giving problems with 500 thousand lines
Power BI — 1,999,999,997 (2 billion), optimized to not show all lines at once
Charts and Visuals
Power BI has interactive visuals with dynamic filtering in real-time, highly customizable, a marketplace that you can find and download visuals, and new visuals that you can develop by yourself and import them.
Excel — It presents the option to activate new types of graphs but the way to create and print the graphs is not so simple and it has no dynamic interaction between graphs.
Power BI — Possibility of interaction between graphics in real-time, dynamic graphics, creation of new graphics using typescript, easy import of new graphics through the Marketplace or direct importing
Integration with external data
Power BI can handle multiple data sources like cloud databases, SQL servers, and more.
Excel — Read data from an Excel Spreadsheet or CSV
Power BI — Databases (Azure SQL, Spark, Oracle, etc.), Content Packages (google analytics, GitHub, etc.), Files (Excel spreadsheets, CSV, text, etc.), and more types of data
In summary, Power BI enables the creation of highly customizable dashboards that are easy to create and manipulate, real-time interaction between charts for a more dynamic data analysis, features that optimize insights and generate great reports, tools for developing ETLs and data pipelines, and more.
First steps
Okay, now you must be wondering, how do I use this Power BI?
Power BI has two ways to access data and use the service, the Power BI Service that you access directly from your browser and the Power BI Desktop that you can download on your Windows and use locally.
At first, I will demonstrate the Power BI Service:
The home page will appear and you can click on Sign in to use your Microsoft account, or create a new one if you want to use it for free. The development tool is very similar to the Power BI desktop.
For Power BI Desktop I will present a quick tutorial on how you can start to use it. To download the Power BI desktop on your windows computer you have to open this link below:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=58494
After download and install you can start to create your dashboards using the first steps presented below:
Importing data
As soon as you start PowerBI the main screen like the screenshot below will be displayed. You can click on “Get Data” to see all kinds of data that Power BI can import or select one of the types of data presented in the menu like Excel, Power BI datasets, SQL server, and others.
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The files you add will be presented in a Table format in the right side menu called “Fields” or in the left side menu in a tab called “Data”.
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Editing the data
After import your data you can edit and create some transformations pipelines using the tool “Transform data” or some calculations with the tab “Modeling”
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The “Transform Data” tool, known as Power Query editor has a lot of good tools for you to edit and transform your data. You can have more information about how to use it in the link below and you can a screenshot of the Power Query editor in the image as well.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/transform-model/
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Developing dashboards
In the right side menu, you will have access to the “Visualizations” pane which is where you will choose the type of graph you will use and drag it to the work area easily with drag and drop. In the Fields menu, you can access the data in your file that you can drag to the graphs to generate visualizations.
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Below is a quick demonstration showing a “Line and stacked column chart” with legend and filters. We have a graph of “DY(12M)” by Asset with a Sector legend segmentation together with a “P/VPA” line variation and a filter per “Asset code” and “DY(12M)” above chart.
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Conclusion
Power BI is a great way to start exploring the field of Data Analytics and get valuable insights into a high-volume dataset. If you are familiar with Microsoft Excel you will have a huge advantage in the development, since many tools, charts, and formulas are very similar to Excel.
I hope it was a good read! For any feedback or questions related to Power BI and Data Analytics, feel free to contact me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/octavio-b-santiago/
If you are interested in learning more about Power BI, I recommend the free Learning Path from Microsoft: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/powerplatform/power-bi | https://towardsdatascience.com/powerbi-the-tool-that-is-beating-excel-8e88d2084213 | ['Octavio Bomfim Santiago'] | 2021-05-14 12:28:44.208000+00:00 | ['Data Analysis', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Data Analytics', 'Power Bi'] |
What Type of Developer is Right for You | Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash
What Type of Developer is Right for You
In this post, I want to briefly discuss the differences between the types of web developers and distinguish with some clarity the difference between them. Specifically, the three most common which are Front-End, Back-End and Full Stack. There are a lot of great reasons to at least know what these roles roughly entail but in my opinion, the best reason is to avoid over or under taxing yourself and employees.
As a developer, there is little worse than looking for a position and finding the local options for a Front-End developer that describe responsibilities of a Full Stack role. Not only is this an unreasonable expectation of a Front-End developer but it also leads to positions in which the developer is also underpaid. This is the kind of mistake I hope to help you avoid, especially if you are a startup with little clue as to where you should start. Additionally, I would imagine it to be just as bad for a start-up company to overpay someone for the skills needed.
Front-End developer:
The responsibilities of this role include coding the html, css and javascript for a given website or progressive web app. They are the ones who give the site it’s desired appearance dictated by the parties vested in the project. They work with the side of the site that the visitor will see and interact with, and they create some of that interactivity.
Back-End developer:
This position has the responsibility of handling all the things you need but rarely see. They take care of making sure the data gets to and from your site and handle your databases as well as keep the security of your site up to date with current technologies. They create a means to safely save your user’s data and allow dynamic use of your site and services.
Full-Stack developer:
This one is pretty straight forward, they cover the full stack of development front and back, and sometimes even the design as well (but not often). They will handle everything from the development on both the front and back ends as well as the integration of the two. These developers often get mistakenly thought of as the only kind of developer which leads to a tough job market for everyone involved including employers
Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash
The vital nature of being able to identify the types of developer roles and their function grows with each day! Misidentifying the target developer can lead to painstaking issues surrounding the hiring process for companies and developers alike, costly issues at that. Avoiding this common pitfall can save you and or your company time and money that could spell the success or failure of your project(s).
Hopefully, you found this helpful and enlightening, and even better I hope it helps you avoid dealing with this type of problem before it’s too late. | https://medium.com/@athenaozanich/what-type-of-developer-is-right-for-you-896937a3b02c | ['Athena Ozanich'] | 2019-06-09 20:10:30.335000+00:00 | ['Full Stack Development', 'Web Development', 'Front End Development', 'Startup', 'Back End Development'] |
Community Outreach: Ways to be Involved Without Joining an Organization — Everything Matters, Start Small | For several reasons, volunteering with an established organization can make community engagement easier for any individual, but joining such an organization is unnecessary for those looking to be involved, promote togetherness, and facilitate positive engagement among community members. Whether you have a specific event, you want to host, or you want to bring your community closer together, remembering that every effort matters can help keep you goal-oriented and passionate.
Community Meals
Sharing food is a perfect way to celebrate with others. When it comes to connecting with your community, what better way to bring people together than by cooking something delicious and sharing a meal with everyone? My family has recently taken to cooking big pots of food and inviting community members to partake. When we share meals with others, we allow ourselves to interact in meaningful, genuine ways over something we all know to be comforting. If you want to organize a regular event, you may consider asking other families to participate and rotate who provides the food or even scheduling a community potluck.
Community Events
Holidays present great opportunities for community involvement. My family, for example, facilitated a community-wide Easter egg hunt for local children. We connected with parents in the community and had everyone purchase plastic eggs, fill them with candy, and share them among 12 families. Hosting and organizing these kinds of events doesn’t take much time, effort, or money. By connecting with others in your community, sharing your ideas, getting feedback, and delegating tasks and financial needs, hosting holiday events like Easter egg hunts, Halloween haunted houses, or other exciting activities can be simple, fun, and engaging.
Community Cleaning
Another great way to build relationships in your community is by working together to clean it up. From picking trash in common areas like streets or parks to fundraising for trash facilities in those spaces, there are plenty of ways you can help your community through cleaning efforts. Taking on these tasks can improve your community’s appearance, promote green thinking, and draw like-minded community members together.
What are some of the ways you’ve recently been involved in your community?
Originally published: https://davidjeansonne.net/community-outreach-ways-to-be-involved-without-joining-an-organization-everything-matters-start-small/ | https://medium.com/david-jeansonne/community-outreach-ways-to-be-involved-without-joining-an-organization-everything-matters-342e04baa11c | ['David Jeansonne'] | 2020-07-01 15:38:36.792000+00:00 | ['Community Organizing', 'Community Outreach', 'Community Engagement', 'Philanthropy'] |
Ranking the Top 30 NBA Centers | Prompt: List out NBA Centers in order for who you would want on your team to optimize your chances of winning a title today, regardless of your salary cap situation.
Key: Player Name Team (2018–2019 Win Shares, 2018–2019 Box Plus/Minus), (2019–2020 Win Shares, 2019–2020 Box Plus/Minus) | https://medium.com/@lpastor631/ranking-the-top-30-nba-centers-a881d1c78359 | ['Lou Pastor'] | 2020-12-22 20:45:22.677000+00:00 | ['Nba Players', 'Nba Rankings', 'NBA', 'Basketball', 'Basketball Analysis'] |
Alyssa Carson, a Louisiana Teenager Girl might be the First Human to Landing on Mars | Alyssa Carson, a Louisiana Teenager Girl might be the First Human to Landing on Mars Anik Kumar Nov 2, 2020·2 min read
Alyssa Carson
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you were placed on Mars, 95 million kilometers far away from Earth, via a spaceship? Surprising to listen to, but it’s true that in 2033, this girl will be the first human to go to Mars alone. Officially, no one was allowed to apply at NASA until the age of 18. Alyssa Carson was only 12 when NASA gave her an opportunity. At such a young age, someone gets an opportunity at NASA, you can imagine!
At just 19 years old, Alyssa is that the only person to possess completed all seven of the space camps. Alyssa is additionally the first to complete the NASA Passport program, visiting all 14 NASA Visitor’s Centers stretching across 9 states. In January 2013, NASA invited her to get on the MER 10 panel in Washington DC to discuss future missions to Mars survive NASA TV. She was later selected joined of seven ambassadors representing Mars One, a mission to establish a person’s colony on Mars in 2030. In October of 2016, Alyssa was the youngest to be accepted and graduate from the Advanced Possum Academy, officially making her certified to go to space and an astronaut trainee.
Alyssa knows that she may never return to the present earth, and a few years later, as the only lonely man, she is going to be lost beneath the blue star of Kumara, a cold, lifeless planet covered in red mirage billions of miles away. You wonder how big people’s dreams will be. This Alyssa shows us our dreams to dream big, teaches us to live. Because she is going to be the primary human to line foot on Mars, and to satisfy that dream, even knowing certain death will go to the red mirage billions of miles away. Where she will be alone, there’ll be no minimum water for her food and thereon planet.
Whatever she takes with her will be her only means of survival. Maybe one-day the name will be in the pages of history Alyssa, but how many people take such an adventure even knowing the cert. quite anything, Alyssa is driven by an insatiable desire to live life to the fullest; to interrupt through the ceiling of possibility and make a positive and lasting impact on the Earth.
“Always follow your dream and don’t let anyone take it from you.” — Alyssa Carson | https://medium.com/@anikkumar7/nasa-blueberry-1ccedbd95f4 | ['Anik Kumar'] | 2021-01-12 05:03:02.217000+00:00 | ['Mars', 'Mars Mission', 'NASA'] |
Practical Ways For Performers to Make Money | Practical Ways For Performers to Make Money
Just because your show has closed, it doesn’t mean the bills stop coming in
Photo by David Hofmann on Unsplash
It can only be read as an understatement if I were to say that we live in difficult or depressingly unique times.
It seems only moments ago that I was underneath a cruise ship stage in full costume, joking with a technician while I waited for my cue.
After ten minutes, the technician would be given the all clear, which would be my signal to duck my head and shuffle onto the waiting lift.
I would stand there and complain to anyone that would listen about how much my shoulders hurt while standing in such an awkward position. Could anything be worse than this?
Things Became Worse
I’m a teacher now, and I wasn’t even forced into the job. I quit my cruise ship job while cruise ships were still sailing, and even considered going back once or twice.
But now, everyone I ever performed with is out of the job, and many of them are wondering what to do next.
Their plan was to perform aboard cruise ship shows until their agent finally took them seriously and booked them speaking gigs on TV shows. This would then naturally transition into movies and eventually, fame and fortune.
These days, only those that are firmly established and have already made their fortune are able to ride out the coma that the entertainment industry has found itself in.
Everyone else is going to need to completely change industries until their chosen profession wakes back up.
But what choices do you have?
Photo by Kat Stokes on Unsplash
Writing
More than anyone else, a performer has the necessary life experience to write and self-publish a compelling book.
By enlisting the help of friends who are talented at proof-reading and editing, anyone can get started as a writer. All that’s needed is a strong recollection of what you went through in getting onto the stage, and what your life was like once you found yourself there.
There are millions of people all around the world who dream of a life on-stage, and have now found themselves bored and in need of something compelling to read.
It’s your responsibility to provide that for them in the form of an exciting memoir! Talk about how you trained for the role, and the horrible audition process you went through.
Discuss the times that you failed, and how these emotions defined the person you became. But don’t leave out all the times you felt on top of the world, what it felt like when the jokes landed, or when the audience gave you a standing ovation.
Leave nothing out, and you’ll find yourself with a best seller on your hands.
Oh, and let me know when the book is released, because I’m also in need of something new and wonderful to read.
Photo by Yura Fresh on Unsplash
App Development
Apple just made news with the unveiling of their App Store Small Business Program.
A knee-jerk reaction from their lawsuit with Epic Games, Apple is rewarding anyone who has an app on their store that makes under a million dollars a year.
The program allows any developer who isn’t AAA to pay only a 15% cut of their profits to Apple, instead of the usual 30%.
For the vast majority of developers, this is extremely good news because a 15% increase in earnings can make a massive difference to their profitability.
Although Apple will never admit it, this development would probably never have happened if it weren’t for Epic Games suing Apple over what it believes is anti-trust behaviour.
Epic Games believes that competing app stores should be allowed on Apple devices, because they really don’t like having to pay 30% of their enormous micro-transaction profits to the tech giant.
This new program was obviously designed to leave out developers like Epic Games, who make substantially more than a million dollars a year from their app. (These are the developers of Fortnight).
But what does this mean for you?
It means that it’s time to develop an app.
There must have been a time in your life when you noticed that an app would solve a problem you had, but none existed.
Think back to these times, and when you’ve landed on the perfect idea, start learning how to get it done.
Courses can be found everywhere, including sites such as Code Academy, Udemy, The Open Code, and many others.
This is the time to educate yourself and transition to a future-proof skill that will keep you paid throughout any future pandemic, injury, age, or grumpy casting director.
The pain of the learning curve now may lead to piles of cash a year from now.
Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash
Online Courses
This avenue is a no brainer for performers, because we already have the ideal camera personality and training, and a lot of skills that people want to learn.
Whether you’re a singer, actor, dancer, puppeteer, or anything else; now is the time to record an online course.
Put on some make-up, set up some good lighting, and record a series of videos that train the next generation of performers in the skills that landed you a career.
Teach them all the little tricks and techniques that caught the eye of casting directors, and kept you employed.
Sites like Udemy are a great place to host your courses and get paid for your art once again.
The best part is, most existing courses are low quality garbage, so all you need to stand out is competence and effort!
And if you were a performer for a living, then you have both of those things in spades.
Most people teaching performance have never performed for money, so you automatically have an enormous advantage and should have no trouble finding your customers.
So go ahead and start planning your course right away, there are millions of bored house-bound dreamers who are waiting for someone like you to fill them with hope, and teach them how it’s done.
So Get Started!
It truly sucks that you’re out of the job, but that doesn’t have to mean that this is the end. Now is the time to side-step into something that’s going to keep you fulfilled, and pay your rent.
Write a book about your experiences, while also recording Udemy classes with your phone and a couple of high quality lights. At the same time, take some coding classes at night to future-proof your skill set.
Not many app developers are performers, so it may take a performer to think of the next great idea that current tech geniuses would never think of.
It’s up to you to keep yourself going until performing arts is resuscitated and you can get back on the stage. So get to work.
*No links in this article are affiliated or compensatory in any way. They’re just honest recommendations. | https://medium.com/money-clip/practical-ways-for-performers-to-make-money-1b91f51fb5ef | ['Jordan Fraser'] | 2020-11-20 09:34:48.342000+00:00 | ['Finance', 'Acting', 'Money', 'Performance', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
“Mami Wata”: December Collection Highlight | This large sculpture was made for Mami Wata, (pidgin English for “Mother of Water”), a charismatic being of great spiritual power celebrated in West and Central Africa and reimagined as deities such as La Sirene (Haitian Vodou) and Yemanjá (Candomblé and Umbanda) in Afro-Atlantic spiritual traditions.
Mami Wata is often associated with water’s sacred, healing power and with love, wealth, and good fortune. This sculpture’s silver high-heeled shoes were restored following the design of a closely related sculpture photographed in a shrine in eastern Nigeria in the 1990s.
Igbo Artist, Nigeria, Mami Wata, ca. 1950
Lauren Tate Baeza, the Fred and Rita Richman Curator of African Art, discusses Mami Wata in the film above.
This is just one of over seventeen thousand artworks in our collection. The High’s your place for digital content! | https://medium.com/high-museum-of-art/mami-wata-december-collection-highlight-7a4df960e93b | ['High Museum Of Art'] | 2020-12-09 21:44:56.417000+00:00 | ['Spirituality', 'Art', 'Artwork', 'Culture', 'Nigeria'] |
Cycling's customer-driven growth in India | Cities need to be productive for you to be truly productive
According to Mckinsey, inclusive cities are productive cities- implying that cities are productive engines.
Commuters will only be incentivised to opt for cycling over other available modes (bike, moped, scooter, etc.) if the city infrastructure supports the safety and ease of travel.
Here’s one thing to keep in mind: Most metropolitan and cosmopolitan cities are now becoming immigrant hubs- and with that comes more a more inclusive two-way interaction- how easily can a citizen get from point A to B, and how many establishments of the city can the commuter interact with along the way?
A densely packed route (A to B), for example will invite a higher frequency of interaction- both with businesses and the government, implying more chances of revenues for both parties.
This however, can only happen if the economic perception of infrastructure investment changes from “costs” to “assets”, as explained in the Mckinsey article.
Good news is that this inclusive infrastructure is slowly becoming a reality: take a look at the graphs from above (figures 2 and 3). Here are some inferences from it:
Out of the 6 major Indian cities mentioned, 4 out of 6 cities saw a decrease in distance traveled, 1 saw a decrease in average time traveled. But, remember that inclusivity is a ratio here: distance to time traveled- and so in that case having a reduction in only one component might not yield much collectively. Thus, while 4 cities have become more dense, 4 other cities have reported to witness an increase in average travel time.
In our next article focused on infrastructure PoV, we’ll try and answer this infrastructure question, with now the base trend clear in our mind: commuters are willing to adopt cycling and the sales figures are showing it.
So, is cycling all hype? How valid is the option in the day-to-day of an average working-class commuter?
Let’s draw first a comparison about the viability of the cycle itself against other modes of transport- cars, e-bikes, etc.
No matter how much I try, I don’t think I’ll be able to draw a comparison as good as Casey Neistat, the famous YouTuber in this insanely fun yet practical video.
Furthermore, you can almost consider this video as a “day in the life” of the average commuter. I’d really encourage you to take 7 minutes out and watch this film.
At 5:51 timestamp, the conclusion is drawn- citibikes, yulu bikes, bounce scooters, etc.- are actually great and can also be financially rewarding, but in the long run- primarily because:
There’s a small learning curve involved Intermodal hubs or places where commuters can switch between modes of transport aren’t available everywhere. But I believe this can be easily hedged over time if the major public transport facilities like metros, sub-urban trains, buses, etc. connect every part of the city/district more frequently.
Screenshot at 5:51 from Casey’s Video. Citibikes apparently are more economical and viable than cycles in the long run, but with a minimal learning curve
But, in terms of a sustainable future- cycles offer a morally rewarding activity (fitness + eco-friendly) in the same time it takes them to go from point A to B. Although, a large driver of e-bikes could also be placebo.
Showdown: Yulu vs. Bounce vs. Cycling
Casey has been helpful.
Industry statistics and trends have been helpful.
But, without some first-hand opinions from the general public, it would be unfair to end this article. Let’s draw our final inference for this part of the series, from consumer insights. For this section, I will be sourcing the information from Quora. | https://medium.com/@vc97/cycling-micromobilitys-crown-jewel-for-the-next-decade-in-india-part-1-3-customer-pov-d3dc3d41382e | ['Varun Choraria'] | 2020-11-16 17:58:35.663000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Transportation', 'Business Strategy', 'Consulting', 'Cycling'] |
Getting started with Quarkus and InfluxDB to ingest sensor data from a Particle device — Part 1 | Deciding which programming language and framework to use for your next backend application is not trivial. There are a lot of variables involved in the process. What is the learning curve of a new framework? What is the end goal of what you are about to develop? A prototype? A full-scale production web server? What is the computing infrastructure that you will be using for the deployment? These are just a few examples, but there could be a lot more to explore before making the final decision.
This tutorial is composed of two articles. In the first one, we are going to explore the Quarkus framework and we will deploy a backend application that ingests and processes data coming from a Particle controller. In the second one, we will see how to store the data received in an Influx database.
As Red Hat states:
“Quarkus is an open source, Kubernetes-native JavaTM framework tailored for GraalVM and OpenJDK HotSpot. It offers a full-stack framework, using top Java libraries and standards. With Quarkus, Java can be a leading platform in Kubernetes and serverless environments, while offering developers a unified reactive and imperative programming model to address a wider range of distributed application architectures.”
Characteristics like fast startup time and low memory footprint are just some of the reasons why we love Quarkus at Wepo and why, in brief, Quarkus can be a good choice for most applications that need a scalable backend that runs on a cloud infrastructure.
So, let’s get started and remember that you can find all the code for this tutorial on GitHub (the code for part 1 of the tutorial can be found in the branch part-1).
Setup a new Quarkus project
We will use Quarkus quick-start and download a project template. First of all, we need to set a Group and Artifact name of our choice and leave Maven as Build tool.
We can use Quarkus quick-start also to add the extensions that we will be using: | https://medium.com/wepoinc/getting-started-with-quarkus-and-influxdb-to-ingest-sensor-data-from-a-particle-device-part-1-6816c66ee94 | ['Claudio Montanari'] | 2020-08-25 22:34:26.652000+00:00 | ['Particle', 'Quarkus', 'Tutorial', 'Influxdb', 'Ngrok'] |
On Not Washing Your Face, Pretending It’s the 90s, & Knowing That Bad Mall Jobs Build Character | Photo by Buse Doga Ay on Unsplash
Hello and welcome to another round-up of stories you may have missed from Atta Girl, a publication for women who did not spontaneously combust on their 30th birthdays. Bizarre, I know! But somehow, here we are, still living our lives, thinking thoughts, and coming up with dynamic skin care routines. And we’re eager to share it all with you, dear readers!
We’ve collected a few stories you might have missed over the past two weeks. If checking out these stories lights a literary fire within you, we’d love to see your writing, too. Just submit a new essay to Atta Girl, or email us at [email protected].
We don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you do, how you’re dealing with your maskne, or whether you think an all-white ensemble is an extremely hot look or something a cult leader would wear—we’re grateful for you. Enjoy the recent work of Atta Girl writers below.
Why are employers always asking irrelevant questions about Microsoft Office, when they should be asking about real professional skills—like how you coped with your that one terrible coworker you had at the Gap who just goofed around with their friends from Pretzel Time all shift, every shift.
2. Em Unraveling’s You Probably Need Some Pleather Leggings This Winter & Here’s Why
Have you been waiting for a sign to buy pleather pants? Well, here it is, bud!
3. Suman Sandhu’s Don’t Wash Your Face!
Are you sick of using 47 different products and still having your skin be a weird, flaky mess? Give this a shot.
4. Shanna Loga’s Calling Products “Pro-Aging” Doesn’t Change Their Message That Aging Is Bad
Who cares what you call it if you’re still gonna tell us there’s something wrong with having the skin of a human being who has lived past the age of 29?
5. Shani Silver’s I Bought Lady Gaga’s Eyeliner And Oh My God
I mean, are you surprised?
6. anniewood’s How Pretending It’s The 1990s Is Actually Good For You
Remember not knowing something and just kind of…not knowing it for a minute? God, wasn’t that relaxing?
For more information on what to pitch to Atta Girl, check this out. | https://medium.com/atta-girl/on-not-washing-your-face-pretending-its-the-90s-knowing-that-bad-mall-jobs-build-character-dfd14100e309 | ['Gabrielle Moss'] | 2020-12-23 14:23:31.363000+00:00 | ['Nostalgia', 'Humor', 'Skincare', 'Beauty', 'Age'] |
My iPhone 12 Experiment — Which One Will I Keep? | Apple’s focus isn’t in line with my own
The other reason it’s so hard buying a new iPhone nowadays isn’t because of the colours (I went for the blue one, if you’re interested), or the new accessories you’ll inevitably have to buy.
It’s because Apple seems to be focusing on stuff which makes it incredibly tricky for me to justify a new phone. I suspect that’s the case for other people, too.
My XS Max is working perfectly fine. In truth, it doesn’t need upgrading, even after two years of heavy use. Alas, upgrade I must, partly because I review this stuff on my YouTube channel, but also because I want to keep up with what’s going on in iPhone land.
The problem lies with the headline features Apple focused on during the launch event:
Let’s take a look at each one.
I really, really don’t care about 5G. Over here in the UK, it means literally nothing and won’t for a few years to come. We still struggle to get decent 4G in some areas, and, regardless, WiFi does a perfect job everywhere else. The amount of focus placed on 5G by Apple was nothing more than a desire to be the first manufacturer to claim they’ve “nailed it”. That bores me to tears.
MagSafe? It looks cool, sure. But I already have two perfectly decent ways of charging my phone, and I have no desire to attach my credit cards to the back of it. Let’s see what third-parties do, but it didn’t get me quite as excited as some industry analysts.
Finally — the cameras. My XS Max has a shoddy camera. I have no idea what Apple did with that generation, but it’s grainy, dull and lacking in detail. But I’ve got used to it.
However, the Pixel revealed to me just how far smartphone cameras have come; it knocks my iPhone into a cocked hat. I therefore want a daily carry phone which matches up to that performance, and have no doubt the iPhone 12 Pro will (the ultra-wide angle will certainly be a nice edition).
But the problem I have lies with one of the biggest features Apple revealed in the Pro line: 10‑bit HDR Dolby Vision video recording.
No one is going to use this. Ever.
And don’t get me wrong, it is so cool that a phone can do this. But it’s equally pointless. Professional videographers use cameras dedicated for the task, and ‘normal’ people simply choose ‘video’ in the camera app and shoot away, only to very rarely review the footage in future.
Why Apple chose to put this much effort into a feature which will be so widely ignored is beyond me. Why not, instead, give us a 120hz refresh rate display, for instance? Or invest some of that R&D time and money in removing the camera notch?
Sorry, Apple — I’m upgrading out of necessity and because of my job. I’m not upgrading because I’m overexcited about what this phone will do for me.
Although, something has got me excited. | https://medium.com/illumination/my-iphone-12-experiment-which-one-will-i-keep-8266883201d2 | ['Mark Ellis'] | 2020-10-21 05:36:54.038000+00:00 | ['Apple', 'Smartphones', 'Electronics', 'iPhone', 'Technology'] |
Burnt Out in Rural Georgia | I work as a peanut inspector on behalf of the state of Georgia, as a temporary job during the pandemic. It’s fairly repetitive work, and it keeps me preoccupied considering I have 50-hour workweeks on average. I’m also a 29 year college student at Georgia Southern University and I’m on the verge of burning out. I take some solace in knowing that I’m in my junior year, but I’m losing my sense of purpose through the monotony of this one-dimensional schedule that I find myself in.
I work at peanut warehouse situated next to a cotton warehouse on the outskirts of town. After work, I’ll drive home when my car is available or I’ll get dropped off, or some times I’ll take a cab, but I always stop by to get an Arizona tea from the truck stop even if that means walking past the same coyote carcass every day.
Out here, there’s no Uber or Lyft drivers and there’s no taxis to pick from. I’m not taking about just the companies, but there’s literally only two cabs out here and both of them can arrive to the truck-stop in an hour at the earliest. There’s enough people in town to keep up demand, but not enough to grow the business to where they can afford to hire more drivers. Their rates aren’t all that cheap too.
I typically call Harold because he has the best rates and he’s a very congenial person who loves to talk. Harold started his cab company about 12 years ago, after he left the turpentine factory in Portal, Georgia. Portal is a small town of about 500 people, most of whom, have connections with the turpentine business and faithfully attend their annual turpentine festival, which takes place every fall.
Design for the 2020 Turpentine Festival which ended up being cancelled due to Covid.
Harold’s business has waxed and waned over the years, but he ultimately decided to work by himself because some of his former employees were being “dishonest with him.” He wants to retire soon, he told me in a beleaguered tone, but he came to the conclusion that it wasn’t feasible to do so. He went on to say:
" I’m burnt out. I’ve been working for over forty years and the money isn’t coming in and it looks like I’m never going to save enough to stop working. Things might change one day, so that people like me will be able to breathe and retire on time, but not in my life.”
Hearing the vulnerability in his gravel-like voice provoked tears, and I told him that I know things like this will change in your life-time because people are starting to wake up and realize this winner-takes-all economy isn’t working for the vast majority of the people. He said he enjoyed my optimism, while he smiled with his bloodshot eyes looked at me in the rear-view mirror.
We passed a couple of large yard-signs promoting Trump and he slowly shook his head. “ At least we got this dummy out of office,” he chuckled as he turned onto the highway. I nodded my head as I got onto my medium app to work on a piece about work-life balance and UBI. I read through what I had in a hushed tone, but Harold was listening closely enough to figure out what I was saying.
“ Is that your writing?” He asked as he placed his Bluetooth in a cupholder. I told him I was working on an opinion piece about why a four-day workweek and a Universal Basic Income would make our economy more humane. Lately, I’ve been able to bring up Universal Basic Income more organically and have had more success in convincing others of the need for one.
“ When you think of Japan, you think of a culture that revolves around work. That’s what we’ve been taught through the media, through Hollywood, but it turns out we work more hours on average than our Japanese counterparts. We are the most overworked nation in the world. The U.S. and Papua New Guinea, outside of a couple others are the only countries in the world that don’t have paid parental leave. We are the richest country in the history of the world, but we’re only this rich because these massive corporations freely exploit us and so it’s no mystery why the wealth gap is widening at dizzying pace.”
I fumed and then decided to collect my breath. Being poor for most of my adult life in the U.S. while having a decent amount of money, while I lived in China has kind of radicalized me, despite having some pragmatic tendencies. My history courses in high school taught me American Exceptionalism, but as I left the country I felt like the social mobility that my teachers clamored about, was more feasible abroad and I had some liberties abroad that I didn’t have in America. I can walk around and not get shot by another citizen. I can walk home, while drinking a beer and I made enough money that my Chinese friends gasped when they saw the balance on my bank account. I could also go to the hospital or a doctor on a whim and not have to worry about medical debt.
Harold loved the ideas of work-life balance and UBI.
“ I never have me-time. Sometimes, I have to skip a meal, and I rarely get a chance to spend time with my wife on top of that. If I had UBI, I can hire another driver, more people would be calling us to pick them up, and I can afford to possibly get a new car. I’ve worked so hard all my life too. I deserve to retire and have enough money to enjoy myself and the time I got left. Maybe eat some more healthy sh*t.”
Harold picked up the phone and talked to his wife. She cooked some jumbo shrimp and was wondering if he was going to be able to make it home.
“ You know, after I drop you off, I think I’m going to call it a day.”
He smiled, as he turned into my apartment complex. I paid my fare, tipped him, and said goodbye.
Harold contributes a lot to his community, especially to the minority community in the Bulloch County area. A lot of his clients work on farms, construction, and the restaurants in the area and a lot of them depend on him and his services, especially myself from time to time. Work-Life balance, whether that be a four day workweek, paid parental leave, creating more public holidays, along with a UBI would mean that people like Harold don’t end up getting overworked, and people like Harold can retire with dignity. | https://medium.com/@samueljboice/burnt-out-in-rural-georgia-f7f2dcea04bf | ['Samuel J. Boice'] | 2020-11-21 23:29:17.241000+00:00 | ['Personal Essay', 'Politics', 'Memoir', 'Work Life Balance', 'Progress'] |
4 Business Lessons From The Man Who Made Louis Vuitton An Empire | 1) Allow Creators To Run The Inventions
What I have fun with is trying to transform creativity into business reality all over the world. To do this, you have to be connected to innovators and designers, but also make their ideas livable and concrete. I’ve been working on the Louis Vuitton Foundation for the past decade. I worked with Frank Gehry on this fantastic building dedicated to the arts. We have a very good relationship. I told him you can do anything you want on the outside, but on the inside, I want something that is usable. — Bernard Arnault about giving creative freedom to his artists.
When we look at Louis Vuitton’s creators, it’s as if they are the ones running the business. It’s rare I find any statements from Bernard Arnault himself about the products that they are launching, it’s always the creators doing it instead.
This showed that Bernard Arnault gave so much freedom to the creators. We see it so much in the designs released every time there is a fashion show event. He allowed the designers to be as wild as possible and let them do the final decision.
This leadership is called laissez-faire, where the leaders allow their employees to run the business, create the decision, and are okay when facing mistakes. It’s not usually common in the business world, since the most common one is democratic leadership.
However, Bernard Arnault seemed to believe in the creative directors and designers the company hired. Therefore, he allowed them to take over the departments and be innovative. I’m sure that he probably said a few words to them, but the bottom line is, the designers are the ones in control when creating new products, not him.
Thus, giving them no limits on the canvas to paint.
2) Quality Before Marketing
“If you do marketing like consumer goods, I don’t think that’s possible (for LVMH). But if you produce something that is really unique, I think that’s possible” — Bernard Arnault at Oxford Union, 2016.
Most companies that involve art in their business are always approaching quality first. We’ve seen this a lot in Disney, Apple, Youtube videos, and books. Businesses like Louis Vuitton are no exception.
If you notice, Louis Vuitton’s marketing is mostly just from Social Media. They don’t do massive advertisements the way grocery stores/consumer goods do. They just announce one thing on Instagram, and that’s it. Sometimes they’ll call the product back to the internet, but they don’t do massive marketing.
And yet, when I worked at Louis Vuitton, every day was always a busy day in stores. Clients keep coming to buy their luxury products.
Bernard Arnault said that they don’t do marketing. He believed that marketing is against what LVMH must do, which is quality. For them, marketing is product creation. In other words, he let quality speaks and let word of mouth from their clients do the marketing.
Therefore, the quality will always exceed everyone’s expectations, so the phrase quality over quantity is very true.
3) Create Timeless/Evergreen Products/Contents
“When I see a product of some of our best brands, it has to be timeless but also it has to have in it something of the utmost modernity in it. That is the key to success.” — Bernard Arnault, 2017.
This is why Bernard Arnault allows his creative designers to go wild. Whether it’s in writing, stocks, or fashion, always aim for the long-term, which is timeless.
Timeless, according to the CEO of LVMH himself, is a brand that lasts forever. That means no matter the generations to come, even when the culture change in time, the company can still adapt and live on.
Louis Vuitton was created in 1837 by Louis Vuitton himself when he was 16 years old. This means that the brand is already more than 165 years old and today, it’s still as good as new. They made sure that the company keeps innovating and lasts.
Bernard Arnault made sure that the products his companies produce are crafted to their best. He mentioned how his team sets a Louis Vuitton suitcase in a ‘torture’ machine where the bag would be opened and closed every five minutes, thrown around, and even dropped with a loud bang. This is their way to test its quality and see how long it lasts (though I’m certain that they had more ways of doing that).
Today, Louis Vuitton is still selling the same bags since the 19th century such as the speedy bag launched in the 1930s. Over the years, the designers made sure that the bag can still fit into the modern world as a classy bag and people are still loving them.
We can also apply this in our own lives. No matter how many products we create, make sure we innovate and be creative on how to make the product long-lasting, ultimately how to make your business long-lasting.
4) Always Treat Your Company Like A StartUp
“I often say to my team we should behave as if we’re still a startup. Don’t go to the offices too much. Stay on the ground with the customer or with the designers as they work. I visit stores every week. I always look for the store managers. I want to see them on the ground, not in their offices doing paperwork.” — Bernard Arnault, 2017.
I agree with this quote very much. If a company thinks that they are good enough already, one day, someone else will catch up with them. Plus, I find that people who treat themselves as startups are very humble.
A startup's main purpose is to grow its business. This includes their product, people, and systems.
When I worked at Louis Vuitton, when my trainer identified one of my weaknesses in public speaking, which is speaking in my own native language, he drilled me and worked harder to help me surpass my weakness. This is why out of all the companies I worked at, Louis Vuitton was the place where I grew the most.
Today, Louis Vuitton grows tremendously beautiful and powerful. It’s so powerful that they managed to acquire 75 different brands, some that are not even related to their main industry, and today, Bernard Arnault is the third billionaire in the world.
I don’t know about the people there but as a former employee, but I learned so much from the company. Public speaking, the fashion world, its businesses, and so many more. It was one of the biggest highlights of my whole career. | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/4-business-lessons-from-the-man-who-made-louis-vuitton-an-empire-768df2f46568 | ['Nicole Sudjono'] | 2020-12-24 21:01:09.869000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Business', 'Productivity', 'Life', 'Self Improvement'] |
Christmas Morning 20201225 | Haiku and Sijo from my daily awakening mind | https://medium.com/morning-haiku/christmas-morning-20201225-9743d4116255 | ['Jenny Lawton'] | 2020-12-25 13:02:46.251000+00:00 | ['Love', 'Gratitude', 'Haiku', 'Mindfulness'] |
Floating Pond Fountain — How To Choose The Right One | Homeowners can add a valuable “element” to their outdoor landscape.
Are you one of those homeowners who are always ecstatic and open to ideas of decorating their homes and properties? This piece could belong to your interests! Read to know more.
Floating Pond Fountain
A tremendous and heartfelt pressure amounts to have a costly addition for home improvement, but at the same time, the budget relents. Have you been there for most of the time? To be honest, a Floating Pond Fountain would be an excellent investment if you can pull it off. Let’s say you can, then what? How to choose the right one?
We’re here to help you with that in the following.
Fountain of the right size
People are under the impression that a pond fountain does what it does in all cases — aerate the pond. However, that’s not true. It truly depends on the size of the pond and therefore, would require a bottom aeration unit in bigger ponds.
Economical options
We raised the idea of Floating Pond Fountains because they are cheaper, efficient, and versatile. You can use the floating pond fountain for aerating different areas and it requires minimum efforts for installing the same. It’s fair enough to say that it is an economical option as compared to the fixed ones.
Package choices
We are delighted to say that you can order packages of floating pond fountains and get various things in the same kit. From LED lights to spray patterns, you can pick them all in a complete package and not bother buying individual units. | https://medium.com/@fountains2go/floating-pond-fountain-how-to-choose-the-right-one-4ffe13c8ff7a | [] | 2019-03-18 09:28:34.354000+00:00 | ['Surface Aerators', 'Decorating', 'Fountain', 'Home', 'Home Improvement'] |
Pandemic Dreaming and Black Fatherhood | “I’ve been through Hell and back, what can I gain,” Baltimore rapper and DAR Elite member True God contemplates on the outro of one of his latest collaborations. Godsend, a project with J-Pegs The Legend, features someone who I consider a brother doing what he does best. Over the course of the last few months, we’ve all lost, essentially, our ways of life. Between COVID and everything else, things have gone left. For example, True and I normally linked up on a fairly regular basis, shot the shit, and tried to sort through our various life issues.
To be honest, some of those issues seem small in comparison to what we’ve seen in 2020.
True lost his mother, a story I’ve discussed as best I could as someone who lost his own five years back. But to be in this pandemic and unable to live life in some semblance of “normal?” It weighs heavily on people. True’s poured his pain into various musical outlets over the past few months.
While I haven’t suffered many big losses this year, I’ve found myself diving deeper into music; it’s been one constant I can always fall back on when the rest of the world turns into a dumpster fire. When I lost my own mother, I decided to release a few projects over those months in an effort to come to terms with my loss. These days, however, I’m mainly a writer on other artists’ stuff. From R&B stylings from Ayoka or Carter Marie, to rapping-my-ass-off tracks from Chris Cassius or John Wells, to melodic hip-hop, I’ve found that music has been the thing that keeps me going. You can’t say that this year hasn’t been good for musical creativity.
Going into this pandemic, though, things got rough in terms of recording my own music. I didn’t have the drive as much. The kids were home many days, so when I did have the drive, I had to revert back to the No-Fi Days. In other words, I’d set up my “studio,” lock myself in a closet (once I got the acoustics just right), and record while the boys watched a movie with Quel. The quarantine and its push towards creativity also inspired me to continue working well with others. Heck, it’s because of Benji that we got half of Songs For… 2 and the entirety of Caviar Dreams.
Even within the successes, I still couldn’t shake that there was something I wanted to do, a quarantine dream. I began speaking with True and Apollo about fatherhood, each of us sharing “war stories.” The positives and the awkward times helped us all get through this year, as we realized we kept going because of our families — specifically our kids. True and Apollo came up with the idea and I was happy to hop on it and provide all I could.
Now, don’t get me wrong: Black Fatherhood was always going to happen. But we didn’t know how/when it would. Through the jokes about “DAR Daddies” and the stories, 2020 was the perfect time to celebrate Black fatherhood. So, we started recording our asses off, something I didn’t think I’d say in 2020 — I usually drop a project a year and a few Elite guest verses — and we touched on all of the joys about being a father.
A few weeks later, Black Fatherhood was complete and ready to be distributed.
It’s an important album, as it takes the pandemic dreams and wishes of many (to be there for and with our children) and looks at them through three distinct lenses. As parents, you (should) want the best possible life for your children. Even if you have to alter your dreams a bit, you still aspire to give your children all the best — and then some. That’s what we gave through Black Fatherhood and what we give as parents on a daily basis. It’s also an album of good music dedicated to the kids in our lives.
On January 1, please stand with three Black fathers as we present our message and thoughts on being parents.
TL;DR:
The quarantine helped True, Apollo and I create Black Fatherhood, a collection of songs dedicated to the journey of the Black father. | https://medium.com/@speedonthebeat/pandemic-dreaming-and-black-fatherhood-6b128e8125b6 | ['Speed On The Beat'] | 2020-12-27 01:31:09.507000+00:00 | ['Black Fatherhood', 'Parenting', 'Black Parenting', 'Fatherhood', 'Hip Hop'] |
Happy holidays! | A warm thank you for your cooperation in 2020!
Another intensive year is coming to an end. This time it has been very strange, indeed, starting with business as usual in the beginning of the year followed by ups and downs, Covid-19, lock-downs, working remotely for several months, meetings only on Teams/Whatsapp/Meet, project stops, project delays, governmental grants and support, project kickoffs, masks, once a week at the office and so on. Still it feels like we have fared rather well here in Finland compared to many other countries. However, our worries and thoughts go out to all the people having been affected by the pandemic everywhere.
This year we have ran continuous development projects with existing partners, and also gained new partners with new interesting projects during the year. Following the uneasy Spring, some of our partners received government grants for developing their processes, products and systems. It has been both interesting and rewarding being part of their journeys and seeing the improvements in their daily processes.
We delivered many of these projects to our partners in November and December ending the year on a positive vibe, despite the pandemic. We have also put a lot of effort into developing our own services for future launch, thanks to the grant we were awarded in the Summer.
With these developments in mind and the possibility of the world opening up thanks to several different vaccines now being distributed all around the world, we are confident that the new year will be happier, stronger and better in every imaginable way!
We wish you a great holiday season and a Happy New Year 2021!
We support Hope working for improving poor children’s everyday life!
This year Nemesys supports the organization Hope — Yhdessä & Yhteisesti ry, instead of sending gifts or Christmas cards. The purpose of the NGO is to support, help and improve daily-life opportunities for children of poor families in Finland. For more information, please visit https://hopeyhdistys.fi/ (in Finnish only).
Be kind, stay safe and take care of each other!
The little helpers of Nemesys | https://medium.com/nemesys-news/happy-holidays-b0389613474b | ['Nemesys Ltd Oy'] | 2020-12-23 22:53:43.289000+00:00 | ['Systems Engineering', 'Year In Review', 'Christmas', 'Projects', 'Support'] |
Having The Courage To Lose | Having The Courage To Lose
Lessons from a recovering perfectionist
Photo by Andrej Lišakov on Unsplash
As a recovering perfectionist, I’ve always wanted to preserve the illusion of perfection at all costs.
It showed up hugely in my career. If I didn’t know something at work, I’d try and gloss over it. I was frightened and brutally ashamed of potentially not knowing ‘my stuff’, so instead of asking for help and support, I’d brush up in secret, and just hope I wouldn’t get ‘found out’.
I had a serious case of imposter syndrome. Those who impressed me with their marketing flair or copywriting expertise bothered me, because they could pick holes in my knowledge and thus my veneer of confidence and credibility.
I took that extremely personally. Now, with the ability to finally own my shadow and self-reflect, I can probably attest that I used to be massively defensive and passive aggressive when poked. Those ‘experts’ highlighted what I didn’t know. In my mind, they were ‘better’ and I was ‘worse’.
What did having this mindset do for me?
It held me back, massively.
If I spoke up and put forward a suggestion that was knocked back or deemed to be incorrect, it hugely affected my confidence. Over time, I just stopped offering suggestions in the workplace. My overriding thought was ‘All of these people are more qualified/knowledgeable than me; why bother?’
My lack of confidence obviously had detrimental effects — after all, if you don’t really believe in yourself, no one else will.
Putting forward suggestions so quietly in a meeting that people talk over you, or speaking up to voice your opinion and no-one listens…it’s a hard pill to swallow.
I lacked assertiveness because I was unconfident. And I was unconfident because I was a massive perfectionist. It becomes a vicious cycle that’s hard to break.
But what I didn’t realise back then is that having the courage to lose is the bravest thing you can do to turn things around.
Last night, I played a card game with some fellow travellers in Da Nang, Vietnam. It’s a simple game called ‘Durak’ where there isn’t a winner, only one ‘loser’ holding all of the cards, and they are called a ‘Durak’, which means ‘idiot/fool’ in German.
Guess who lost three times in a row and became the ‘Durak’?
Ha, yep, it was me.
I noticed something particularly interesting, though: I genuinely didn’t care about losing.
Why?
Because I wasn’t attached to winning.
The next day, I did something I had very rarely done before. I challenged someone’s opinion at work. I told them, incredibly politely, what I’d like to change, and why I think it should be changed.
The difference between then and now is that even if they implement my suggestions and it ends up being horribly bad advice, I am still ok.
Mistakes mean nothing about my worth, and neither does losing.
By taking the fear away from making a mistake, you take all of its power away to control you.
I think I have adopted this mindset partly thanks to the fantastic book called Mindset by Carol Dweck, which I read a couple of years ago.
A perfectionist is fixed in their mindset. They believe that they are their limitations.
A person with a growth mindset knows that mistakes just mean learning, and they mean absolutely zero about that person’s value and worth.
I’ve messed up so many times in my life, I can’t even count. I’ve failed at running businesses, failed at relationships, and failed in my communication skills. I’ve fucked up time and time again.
How do you react when you fall over in the street? It’s embarrassing, right?
You didn’t mean to fall over in front of everyone, and you look pretty stupid. You might feel ashamed, falling flat on your face.
But if you fell over in public every week, after a while, you probably wouldn’t care.
So, ironically, going through those situations makes you pretty tough.
It also makes you far less attached to outcome.
Nowadays, the value lies in the process.
Having the courage to speak up — the courage to express myself, to be true to myself, to participate — regardless of what unfolds afterwards.
Then, no matter what, I haven’t lost anything.
Because I found myself. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/having-the-courage-to-lose-a02781c2beeb | ['Kerry Needs'] | 2020-02-22 15:16:01.216000+00:00 | ['Imposter Syndrome', 'Self Belief', 'Courage', 'Perfectionism', 'Mistakes'] |
I Am a Voice Crying in the Wilderness | John the Baptist said something so powerful with the phrase, “I am a voice crying in the wilderness”. When questioned if he was the Christ or this higher person from God, John constantly said the word, “No”. He humbled himself to not a preacher, a prophet, or even a person. He humbled himself to the mere strength of his voice. He acknowledged that despite the powers which God has gifted him, that these abilities were nothing compared to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said I can bless you with water, but the one to come after me can bless you with the Holy Spirit.
The phrase, “I am a voice crying in the wilderness” can be seen beyond the spiritual capacity as the practice of being humble and acknowledging ourselves for what we are ultimately are in the end, which is our thoughts and ideas. As we enter the Third Week of Advent we focus on Joy and we should ask ourselves, “Who are we?”. Do our thoughts and ideas make others happy, make ourselves happy, and make our creator happy? For me and many others that Joy is felt from God and that we if want Joy we must become like the voice crying out to God, “I accept you, I humble myself before you, and I know you bring me joy!”. | https://medium.com/@annethanyamendis/i-am-a-voice-crying-in-the-wilderness-b2d7c3c54956 | ['Anne Mendis'] | 2020-12-17 15:37:37.317000+00:00 | ['Catholic', 'Faith', 'Advent', 'Joy', 'Faith and Life'] |
The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force | Warning: Materialists need go no further. Well, that’s an exaggeration — materialists without an open mind should go no further, that much is certain. Jeffrey M. Schwartz’s The Mind and the Brain
makes a courageous attempt to resurrect a dualist perspective on cognition primarily by trying to illustrate the brain as a quantum system (which it is) but his argument ultimately falls a few planck lengths short. That’s not to say that the argument isn’t extremely compelling. Moreover what you will learn about neurophysiology and the phenomenon of neuroplasticity along the way will fascinate you.
The book’s progression is a leisurely and meandering walk through the philosophy of the mind, what is known about the operation of the mind, some discussion of specific clinical examples of OCD and therapy, some history of neuroscience, controversial experiments on monkeys (personally, the most difficult portion of the book to get through), a lesson in quantum mechanics and finally some proposals on the operations of a quantum brain and what that might imply for free will and moral philosophy. Schwartz pretty clearly has this last conclusion in mind from the very beginning and he makes no bones about it. All of us, since Darwin, have had personal difficulties with determinism and contending with the fact that if we are biological machines, we don’t feel like it. And whereas other authors might belabor this point and wax on about the horror of a world without moral philosophy and choice, Schwartz doesn’t linger but assumes that we all are pretty uncomfortable with the idea and moves straight into the story of his investigations and what is ultimately the first reasonable and potentially possible argument on behalf of dualism in a very long, long time.
More than anything, what is compelling about the book is that it is the story of an investigation. You learn as he learns. The book is at best, well written — possibly the contribution of co-author Sharon Begley. And if earlier I mentioned that the story meanders, that was not a criticism — it meanders like a walk through garden of ideas. “Over here, you see, we have neuroplasticity, and on your right, examples of OCD therapy that show how that works.” Schwartz does an excellent job of telling the story of his investigation while explaining all the foundational ideas along the way. To me, the book represents a prime example of the kind of synthetic writing that is necessary in an age of Knowledge when all around are specialists. Schwartz deftly moves through several of the sciences with great expertise, pulling a myriad of ideas together. It is for this reason that even those who can’t swallow a dualist argument should still read the text — for the sheer art of it.
So if the story is well told, does the ultimate argument in favor of free will, or what Swchartz calls volition, hold? Almost. I won’t attempt to reconstruct the argument here — read the book — but I will say that the argument hinges on the Quantum Zeno effect and the idea that the mind can make observations in the brain, or hold attention or “mental force”, that allow for the collapse of superpositions of particles and the subsequent firings of neurons. And Schwartz does an excellent job of describing and explaining all the phenomena involved in this process such as the Quantum Zeno Effect, quantum mechanics, neurons, and neuroplasticity. It’s just that something is missing. It is, according to Schwartz, volition or a mental force that allows for the constant observation of neuronal states, thereby allowing us to make choices of attention and he posits that this mental force is a quality of the universe, not unlike gravity or mass. From his point of view, it’s not entirely important what this mental force is, only that we can see how it interacts with the brain, solving the “problem” of the mind-brain interaction in dualism. I personally am not thrilled about a theorized force in the universe for which there seems to be no empirical evidence. A consciousness particle would be nice. I don’t believe this flaw pulls down the entire argument however. It leaves the question open and within there is a lot of room for free will and a “resurrection” of moral philosophy. | https://medium.com/minds-on-media/the-mind-and-the-brain-neuroplasticity-and-the-power-of-mental-force-f6f11c844e28 | ['R. E. Warner'] | 2018-01-29 07:02:03.953000+00:00 | ['Mental Force', 'Sharon Begley', 'Neuroscience'] |
Is IV (Intravenous Infusion Therapy) The Best Treatment for Severe Nerve Pain? | The treatment is provided with the help of the intravenous catheter placed on the hands or arms of the patient intravenously. After this, the medication is infused inside the patient’s body during the standard amount of time. The nerve specialists will monitor you during the process. If you are based in NYC City, you can get it done from specialists at CNC who renders proper Intravenous Infusion Therapy in NYC to the neuropathic patients. | https://medium.com/@completeneurologicalcare1/is-iv-intravenous-infusion-therapy-the-best-treatment-for-severe-nerve-pain-eceb92375d38 | ['Complete Neurological Care'] | 2020-12-24 12:38:58.630000+00:00 | ['Neuroscience', 'Nerve Pain', 'Iv Therapy', 'Neurology', 'Neurodiversity'] |
Validate Video Duration in Laravel | So.. Many times you have found yourself stuck in the situation where you how medium pays for writing articleshave to validate the video length of file when the user uploads the video. Unfortunately Laravel doesn’t provide any way to validate video length. So in this post i am going to show you a very easy method to validate video length. It is independent of the video mime type.
I assume you have some basic knowledge of laravel otherwise why you would be here… Just kidding…
This is my front-end for laravel basic form it.
now my web.php file
before i copy-paste further code. i would like to highlight that we are gonna use a composer package.
composer require pbmedia/laravel-ffmpeg
so now have a look at my VideoValidationController.php
you might here notice that i am using array notation for specifying rules for my video validation. Because this notation gives us freedom to use our own validation rules….. Now you might have guessed till now that i am gonna make custom rule for this… It is pretty easy.
php artisan make:rule VideoDurationValidation
here is my code.
so let me tell you some of the points about this validation rule. … It just takes two parameters. 1st is lower limits for video length (in minutes) and 2nd is upper limit for video length(also in minutes). The second parameter is optional. this is set to PHP_INT_MAX. so you can choose any length.
Hope it helps… feel free to message me in the comment box. | https://medium.com/@rajesh-kumar/validate-video-duration-in-laravel-9afe1d1df0b8 | ['Rajesh Chaurasiya'] | 2020-12-25 19:03:04.502000+00:00 | ['Laravel Development', 'Laravel Framework', 'Videos', 'Laravel', 'Laravel8'] |
YouTube offers 8K content on 8K TVs | 98-inch Sony Z9G
YouTube offers 8K content on 8K TVs
When it comes to 8K televisions, there are two separate, but related questions that need to be answered by TV manufacturers if they wish for the format to succeed. First, is there any noticeable difference between 4K and 8K for the average consumer. And second, how can consumers get their hands on 8K content?
Google is looking to solve the second part for 8K TV through YouTube, which now will allow for streaming of 8K content through AV1 hardware decoding. Rasmus Larsen from FlatpanelsHD:
LG and Samsung’s 2020 8K models are the first TVs to support AV1 hardware decoding. […] Yesterday, TCL said that its new X915 8K TV will also support YouTube 8K via AV1 but that an update to Android 10 (scheduled for later this year) will be required to enable it. Philips has told FlatpanelsHD that it is committed to AV1, too. What is AV1? It is the new royalty-free video codec and format developed by the Alliance for Open Media, which unites heavyweights like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Intel, Netflix, LG, Microsoft, Netflix, and Samsung. AV1 has the potential to bring 4K HDR to far more devices and streaming services. At CES 2020 in January, YouTube confirmed that AV1 support is required to stream 8K videos on 8K TVs, even though its 8K videos are available through PC browsers in other formats.
As Rasmus notes, there’s no streaming platform, like Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney Plus, and Hulu that offer 8K, and that’s not likely to change any time soon. Hell, it was only earlier this year that Hulu began to provide 4K shows and other services like HBO, Showtime, and Starz still don’t even offer 4K content. And with nearly no film and TV production incorporating 8K into their workflow, expect any content in the extra higher resolution format to be one-offs and not entire series. But back to the topic at hand.
What’s notable from the YouTube announcement is who’s in on it and who’s not. You’ve got
LG
Samsung
TCL
but no Sony. This is especially strange because Sony TVs utilize LG panels and that the company offers two different lines of 8K TVs:
Z9G
Z8H
with the former costing $60,000 (it is a 98-inch set for what it’s worth) and the latter coming in at a nearly cheap in comparison $7,000. Is Sony looking to announce support for 8K content through YouTube at a timeframe that suits them best? Or do their 8K TVs lack the hardware required to support the AV1 codec? Both are unclear, but what is clear is that many TV makers, including Sony, want 8K to be the next big thing in home theater without offering a clear reason why. In this case, at least others are allowing for some form of easily accessible 8K content on their TVs.
Unless mistaken, on a Sony 8K TV, the only way to view 8K content is by connecting a computer and running HDMI out. Wireless carriers have 5G, and TV makers have 8K — the promise of something better that in its current form delivers nearly zero benefits to consumers.
If all you want is a good looking TV, both esthetically and visually, I wouldn’t stray from a Sony TV, but if you’re wanting a TV that’s part of a bigger product roadmap, in 2020, I’d stay away from their TVs because the entire lineup is a damn mess,
and there’s a pattern. Do you think 8K will matter one day in home theater? | https://sonyreconsidered.com/youtube-offers-8k-content-on-8k-tvs-8e1f4277278f | ['Sohrab Osati'] | 2020-05-11 18:28:09.703000+00:00 | ['Television', '8k', 'Tech', 'Sony', 'Home Theater'] |
When urgency resides in the slow, quiet, and invisible | When urgency resides in the slow, quiet, and invisible
Art by Sophia Robele
A few weeks ago, I found myself in a Zoom call with over 150 UN colleagues, gathered in silence from our different parts of the world with our attention fixed on the screen of a woman slowly pouring water over tea leaves. Amidst the reverence of the collective stillness and slight discomfort evoked by not knowing what lay in the minds of others in the room, one thought surfaced that has since lodged itself in my consciousness: The way that a group of UN staff show up to an indigenous tea ceremony on a Zoom call in a moment of global crisis, under the banner of learning to lead transformation of socio-economic and ecological systems, is a metric of hope.
This space was one in a series of UN-wide dialogues that UNDP has hosted, in partnership with the MIT Presencing Institute, as a humble yet ambitious experiment in collectively learning how we move from the current status quo of fixing broken systems, to actually attending to the interior and relational conditions that enable new systems to emerge. As embodied by this particular moment of stillness led by an Anishinaabe participant, one of the key characteristics of this journey has been a unique invitation within multilateral spaces to inhabit ways of knowing, being, and doing that are often sidelined by the forms of knowledge centered by the norms and structures of dominant development paradigms and governance systems.
Beyond its value as a quaint meditative moment with some colleagues, though, what does being guest to a tea ritual in a webinar actually have to do with the capacity of multilateralism to effect real change in the world and the choices that lie before us in collectively shaping the future of development?
One dimension of the answer can be found in the example of the ‘knowing-doing’ gap that persists in the ways that we valorize the wisdom of indigenous peoples on sustainable development in our high-level commitment statements yet fail to actually center such wisdom in most of our development efforts. As the 2020 Human Development Report underlines, “indigenous and local knowledge needs to be embedded in and actively connected to ecosystem governance that recognizes their rights” if we are to chart paths forward for human development that ease planetary pressures whilst expanding human flourishing. In acknowledging the advanced capacities of indigenous governance systems through our reports, we must also contend with the history of exclusionary practices upheld by the institutions that wield the power to operationalize this awareness in development policies and programmes.
While much of this history has involved overt rejection of indigenous peoples’ meaningful engagement in agenda setting or refused adoption of standards to protect their rights, this exclusion at the level of political frameworks is rooted in the thought frameworks and norms that are often perpetuated in the very spaces where we claim to prioritize the inclusion of indigenous peoples in development efforts. No matter how many publications are produced on the need to learn from and amplify the development practices of indigenous communities, or policy dialogues facilitated between indigenous peoples and governments, we rarely actually shift the power imbalances that underly the inequalities we are trying to address. Instead of incorporating approaches that leverage the expertise and capabilities of diverse communities to uncover and address the blind spots — and more often, intentional architectures of exclusion — within an institution’s development strategy or intervention, we continue to uphold through our practices a limited set of knowledge systems as universal standards for the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of development.
Part of the capability building process for development practitioners to create the necessary openings for collaboration with indigenous communities in a way that transcends surface-level exercises is in fact the work that takes place in a tea ceremony on a Zoom call. It is the work of bearing witness to the wisdom that is held in a spiritual ritual used by some communities as a way to embody a felt relationship to nature. It is investing the time, humility, and focus on human connection required to recognize all the ways that such practice forms part of a rich ecosystem of philosophies and traditions that give rise to the kinds of local governance systems capable of safeguarding the well-being of both people and planet. It is a refusal to compartmentalize that awareness from one’s work, inviting it to affect the way one co-designs a programme or measures its progress, even if that means having to deconstruct institutionalized processes, one’s own role, or embedded assumptions that do not serve the realities surfaced by such awareness.
When we engage in forms of learning that are not about soliciting inputs from a few ‘representatives’ of a community so that we can claim to better ‘see’ a system through their eyes (reducing the complexity of the person and their experience) and use that as the basis for calling a process participatory, but rather about expanding our understanding of where our own sight and capacity is limited, the premise upon which we engage in processes of co-creation fundamentally shifts. If we truly want to surface “unheard” voices and center the perspectives of those pushed to the margins of our economic or political systems, then we can’t simply offer seats at the table without questioning whose norms and assumptions dictate the rules of that table, or the perceived expertise and roles of those at the table, or what matters have been brought to it in the first place. There is power in the ways we see another person or a community. There is power in the knowledge systems we privilege through our processes. When we shift or expand the ways we see and the ways we value, and learn how to collectively embody that site through intuition-informed and relationship-driven actions, we start to shift power. It is at this level — in the connecting points between consciousness, relationships, and power that play out in our meeting rooms, in our dialogue spaces, in our planning processes, in the decisions of where we create connections and how we foster them — that we actually start to sow the seeds of change that lead to the transformation, or overhaul, of systems.
While many in the UN sense the value of being present to another and the importance of seeing our own role in, and relationship to, the systems we seek to transform, we struggle to connect this awareness to our work. Part of the challenge in making these connections lies in the test of how we articulate them: in how we define the ‘concrete’ impact that a space of embodied learning and relationship-building has on shaping a country’s climate policy or ensuring equitable access to vaccines, particularly when working with language and thought models that often equate impact with efficiency and visibility.
When we are consistently called on to respond to the systemic challenges that are ‘urgent,’ and base our investments and attention on that which poses the most pressing existential threat to humans and the planet, our understanding of the concept of ‘urgency’ is significant. What if the urgency is not in how quick we respond, but how deep? What if the slow, deep work of collective unlearning, or making space for different ways of being and thinking together, or taking the time to value different cultures through practice rather than words, is how we address the source of our interconnected crises, not just their symptoms?
Both the potency of and challenge in ‘making the case’ for this deep intangible work lies in the fact that it does not yield any single or predictable outcome. Its impact is non-linear, emergent, and context-specific. It might be what resides in the spaces where trust and shared understanding is born among diverse partners and becomes the fuel for the kind of experimentation required to address a wicked problem. It might reside in the way a moment of expanded awareness, of self and others, leads a programme officer to identify that the protocols for including vulnerable populations in the design of a programme have not actually yielded true co-creation. Or to unpack the ways that the use of the label ‘vulnerable populations’ might be part of the problem. It might lie in the collective shifts that result from increased willingness to sense and follow intuition: for development practitioners to question the givens in a process or policy or narrative and follow whatever path that questioning leads them down. Maybe that takes the form of an organization’s reexamination of the narrative that technology will save us, to an exploration of the values that need to be fostered for all humanity to benefit from technological progress. It might reside in the spaces where open-mindedness and humility is modeled and leads a team to expand the scope of what it considers in its process of horizon scanning for locally-owned ‘innovations,’ such as the social technologies of a religious community. It might emerge from the connective tissue formed in a space of introspection among change agents — or an invitation to bring the heart into a discussion about economies or the environment — that opens the door for unlikely connections to be made across ideas, work areas, and geographies.
Or it might lie in the way that spaces like these can fundamentally reconfigure the landscape of permission and possibility felt by someone in the room: how something as simple as seeing the word ‘spirituality’ on a slide about development in a UN dialogue, or discovering that the incoherence felt between one’s inner life and work is shared by other colleagues, might enable someone to feel that their insights, lived experiences and belief systems might actually be welcome and valued in the conversation. And the way that this shifted perception and the forms of sharing it evokes, even in a single person, can engender more vulnerability and openness in response — setting in motion an ever expanding net of meaningful relationships across hierarchies and silos, sensed community, and the collaborative glue for change.
The extent to which we perceive examples like these as indicators of impact depends ultimately on the goal. If our goal is simply to deliver the material, pre-defined results of a development programme with the greatest efficiency and quantitatively visible achievements, then maybe these kinds of outcomes can’t be validated as worth one’s time and attention. But if our goal is to step back and understand why our quest for efficiency and effectiveness hasn’t actually changed the systems that render our programmes necessary in the first place, then we can’t afford to discount the possibilities that are situated in the intangible shifts and emergent connections that are forged in the quiet moments in a tea ceremony on a Zoom call. | https://medium.com/@sophiarobele/when-urgency-resides-in-the-slow-quiet-and-invisible-ade4b36bcc3d | ['Sophia Robele'] | 2021-02-26 17:25:58.053000+00:00 | ['Systems Change', 'Social Change', 'Impact', 'Sustainable Development', 'Multilateralism'] |
What To Present Your 20-Year Old Daughter In 2021? | On this occasion, we have created an article about the 20 best gifts for 20-year-old girls for 2021 because every time a special occasion arrives, we always look for an original and surprising gift for a 20-year-old, not a friend, daughter, or granddaughter. Still, at this age, it is more complicated since a new stage of life begins.
However, it can become overwhelming at other times, but you should not worry; above all, you must remain calm because Artpix3D has created a list of gifts for girls of 20 years that will surprise her.
An Instant Camera
To capture special moments. Capture the most memorable moments with that instant camera to have a permanent memory of the moment, be it parties with friends, family, or vacations. Get near-instant photo development.
A 3D Photo Crystal
Sometimes we can make something special, how we want it, and how we want to make our relatives happy. One of the best ways to engrave such moments is to order personalized crystals online.
Just select your favorite picture of you together, and you’ll get the 3D copy of it! Artpix3D blog provides you with tons of valuable ideas on how to show your love story with a crystal online. For example, an excellent way to surprise your spouse with a gift will give you some ideas. You can choose from variable crystal types and find the chosen one for your chosen one.
A Cabin Suitcase
For the adventurous twenty-something. One of the greatest wishes that a 20-year-old girl has is to travel and see the world.
Bring him closer to her aspirations with this colorful cabin suitcase, ideal for a young woman.It is of high quality, resistant and light, and its measurements are 36x55x20 cm.
Bath Bombs
For a relaxing bath. If the twenty-something we are going to give the gift to is a little stressed and you think she should relax, these bath bombs with original and fun shapes are the perfect gift for her. She will only have to throw a bomb in the bathtub and let it release the bubbles and essential oils from her to produce a relaxing and hydrating bath for her skin.
A Mountain Bike
For a young nature lover. We all like the tranquility when we are in the middle of nature, listening to the birds and seeing the diverse fauna. By giving a mountain bike to a 20-year-old girl, we will ensure that she discovers incredible trails and new adventures while she does sports.
Chocolate, Assortment of 20 Pralines
You will be tempted by chocolate. If you have not yet found gifts for 20-year-old girls, a box of 20 delicious handmade pralines, in a wooden box with two drawers that you will surely use after consumption.
Scented Candles
For lovers of aromatherapy.Scented candles will fill the bathroom or any other room with one of the four fragrances that make them up. It is a gift for a 20-year-old girl, delicate that she will surely like.
A Purse
A practical and elegant gift.It is a quality, friendly, and comfortable wallet, one of the most excellent gifts for girls in their 20s. With a large number of designs, to choose the one that best suits her tastes. A classic gift, but one that is always necessary since you should not use a worn wallet.
Stainless Steel Nail Clippers
For perfect nails.With a neat pink case and tools, this portable-sized nail clipper set is one of the essential gifts for girls in their 20s.
A Nail Dryer Lamp
For perfect nails.Almost all women like to have well-painted nails.With this nail dryer, you will quickly dry the polish and leave a complex and shiny surface. It also includes two nail files. One of the most practical gifts for 20-year-old girls at a reasonable price.
A Thermal Bear
For the coldest nights.It is a bag of seeds, suitable for heating in the microwave, with the difference that it has a charming touch. It can be used for sleeping and relieve localized pain and with a lavender scent.
A Led Desk Lamp
For long study nights. With six brightness levels, this light is perfect for studying and reading or working without shadows or flickers. It has a USB port to load your devices.
An Escape Room (the game)
Entertainment with friends.Game for 3 to 5 players, which simulates an «Escape Room.» It consists of solving the adventures in less than an hour, in which you will find riddles, riddles, hieroglyphs, crosswords …Contains four different adventures.
A Makeup Mirror With Light
The most desired mirror. You still don’t know what to give a 20-year-old girl? This mirror can be one of the most loved gifts for a woman since it is a mirror with Led lighting, which offers natural light to achieve perfect makeup. It also has a touch button, 2x and 3x magnification, plus the pit can rotate up to 180 degrees.
If you’re looking for a unique way to showcase your best memories, bring them to life in 3D with one of our custom crystal gifts. Browse our shop here, or take a look at the rest of our blog for more great ideas | https://medium.com/artpix3d/what-to-present-your-20-year-old-daughter-in-2021-cc41e213321b | ['Lychkovakha Ekaterina'] | 2021-04-09 08:38:39.607000+00:00 | ['Daughters', 'Gifts', 'Tips', '3D Printing', 'Moms'] |
Phase II: Core Programming | Despite my homing missiles needing a lot of work, I’ve decided to move on to Phase II: Core Programming, which is the last part of 2D Game Development course. The requirements of this last phase are to complete 10 of the following tasks:
As you can see here, my homing missile, when functional, will count as one out the the ten tasks. Also, I’ve already created balanced spawning in Phase I so that is done.
Next, I plan on implementing the “Player Ammo” which incorporates a visualization for max ammo next to the current ammo count. After messing around with this alllllllll morning, I ended up having to rewatch the tutorial in which we added the score to the game by adding the canvas. (2D Game Development >> User Interface (UI) >> Challenge Review Score Implementation Reboot.) I pretty much had it all figured out except I was missing the part where I had needed to add a serialized field to the UI script in which I could drag and drop the Max_Ammo_Text object. Oh well… perhaps I won’t forget next time!
Damage Powerup for Negative Powerup requirement
Next I decided to tackle the “Negative Pickup”. I found a pixilated skull png file and converted it to a sprite for a “damage powerup”. Upon collection, the player incurs one unit of damage. I made an executive decision to add the damage powerup to my RARE powerup script so that it spawns rarely.
Phase II Complete:
homing missile (half complete)
Player Ammo
Negative Pickup
Take a look at what I have so far: | https://medium.com/@kristintreder/phase-ii-core-programming-679679c6342d | ['Kristin Treder'] | 2020-12-16 01:52:17.742000+00:00 | ['Unity', 'Unity Game Development', 'Learning To Code'] |
Largest and possibly most dangerous gathering of Al-Qaeda in Yemen | A new video shows the largest and possibly most dangerous gathering of Al-Qaeda to date. The clip shows Nasir al-Wuhayshi, who may or may not be AQ(Arabian Peninsula)s top figure, just roaming about in Yemen. When I worked for GPS at CNN for the few months I got to, I helped with the interview of Farea al-Muslimi, the Yemeni activist whose testimony on drones in front of the Senate went viral. Farea and I happened to work together at Beyond Reform and Development/Irada in Beirut together, so it was amazing to get him on the show after hearing what he had to say. Ultimately, he told us that the practical long term effect of drone strikes all over Yemen, seemed to him, to be giving Al-Qaeda more legitimacy. “Al-Qaeda compensates families for their houses or their dead loved ones, and ‘America is looking for us, we are very sorry’ and then they pay them” is what Farea told me that day he came in to get interviewed at CNN. Anyways, it looks like he was correct. Now AQAP seems like they are more organized in Yemen than the US really understood. Watch the video and read more at CNN. | https://medium.com/ramel-media/largest-and-possibly-most-dangerous-gathering-of-al-qaeda-in-yemen-8baab14d71d8 | ['Afeef Nessouli'] | 2016-08-26 20:46:40.143000+00:00 | ['Brdi', 'Barbara Starr', 'Politics', 'Yemen', 'Islam'] |
After liner regression, logistic regression, Neural network What is next? | Kernel Trick
Having a non-linear data at lower dimensional space and projected the data in to a higher dimensional space such that where we get a linear classification. We can understand the statement by taking an example
Let’s assume all red marks are apple and all blue marks are berries. If someone ask you to classify them in to 2 classes then you took all berries to up with a plate and rest, in lower plane are apple. After classify the data we can use logistic regression or neural network for any decision-making purpose or to conclude with any pattern respectively.
SVM
SVM stands for Support Vector Machine. SVM comes under supervised learning. Two important steps in SVM are 1) Kernel Tricks: convert to linear class and 2) Find the nearest point to the decision boundary.
Let’s assume we have some quadrilateral or circles in our training data set and all are labelled. We want to classify the data into 2 different class of circle and quadrilateral. So, to classify the data we plot a hyperplane or decision boundary which decide any new data belong to either circle or quadrilateral class. Now we need to find out which are the data points with lower distance from the decision boundary with respect to opponent class. These 2 lines are the margin which shows the error. Nearest point to the margin is known as support vector. Maximize the margin leads to reduction in error. SVM gives binary out put either 0 or 1.
DECISION TREE
From the above picture we can easily understand what a decision tree is. A decision tree is a decision support tool that uses a tree-like model of decisions and their possible consequences. It only contains conditional control statements. | https://medium.com/@subhasmitap.isme1820/after-liner-regression-logistic-regression-neural-network-what-is-next-8944f3ebdbe7 | ['Business Analytics'] | 2019-11-20 05:33:19.438000+00:00 | ['Support', 'Decision Making', 'Decision Tree', 'Machine Learning', 'Businessanalyticsindustry'] |
Growing up with Asian-American Hair | “Oh wow. She looks like one of those Japanese dolls.”
That’s one of my first memories, gazing up at my mother’s friends who ooh-ed and ahhh-ed over my perfect, silky black hair. They were all white.
“Say thank you,” my mother instructed, and I immediately obliged, even though we were Taiwanese. I was only a kid, but I knew this was weird. They were giving me compliments, but they were all based solely on my looks. And they were saying I was different. And I didn’t want to be different.
I showed my mother a photo of what I wanted to look like. We were one of very few non-white families living in a small, New Jersey suburb, and I wanted to be like the blonde girls I saw in Bon Jovi videos. I couldn’t understand why, no matter how many pumps of hair spray I put in my bangs, they wouldn’t stay up. My mom squinted at the photo I cut out of Tiger Beat, then at me, and confidently informed me (having zero hair expertise) that I needed a perm. Two towns over, on the outskirts of the Paramus Park Mall, we visited a woman I had never met before, but was required to call “Ayi” (Chinese for “Auntie”). Ayi’s kitchen smelled like rotten eggs gone chemical, and her sink had a short, attached garden hose amongst the dirty dishes. I sat cramped for hours on a phonebook, getting what Ayi called “a body wave.” I was mortified by my third grade class photo, taken one week later. It was my first lesson in not messing around with my natural hair. It was my introduction to the torture of what it takes to be beautiful.
After the perm mellowed out, I embraced my Asian roots, quite literally. I experimented once in college with a streak of blonde upon discovering Riot Grrrl bands, but for the most part, I’ve had the same hairstyle my entire teenage and adult life: long, straight, and pitch black. I work as an actress, so whenever I’m on set they curl it to add texture — otherwise my slippery locks end up in my face, usually stuck to my lip color. I grew proud of my mane, feeling a sense of security in its strength and reliability. When I wasn’t working, I loved how low maintenance my routine was. I didn’t have to think about it, and I appreciated that.
I am a feminist and this is scary to say out loud: It feels pretty good to have a job that’s based on my appearance. I love that I have a professional excuse to get my hair done, my nails manicured, my clothes tailored. That there is an army of professionals to help me do so, and that I am paid well for it. The relief that comes the second I’m off duty, when I scrub off the layers of foundation, remove two dozen bobby pins from my head, and peel off the Spanx isn’t just physical. It’s emotional. The expectation to look a certain way is there if I want to address it, but I feel power in choosing not to in my every day life.
One day, on the set of a web series, the grey hairs appeared. Suddenly, my crowning glory became my ultimate shame. “Don’t pluck those,” the hair stylist who found them instructed me. I didn’t listen, and by the time we began filming the second season the following year, he informed me they had sprouted into several patches. I could easily cover them up with black hair powder, but the time to start coloring my hair on a regular basis had arrived. Once again, I had to think about what to do with my hair. It became a problem I had to fix. And I hated that.
About a month ago we had a socially distant dinner with my husband’s family. It was dark outside, but even in the pale moonlight I could tell that our Gen Z cousin’s naturally brown hair was significantly blonder. She told me she had been using something called Sunbabe which sounded a lot like a modernized version of Sun In — a hair lightening spray activated by heat, like the sun or a hair dryer. The same stuff my high school classmates used that turned their hair orange.
I spent the next few days scrolling through the Sunbabe Instagram account — mostly women half my age, in bikinis, holding the small bottles in a hashtag sponsored but not actually #sponsored pose. The images began to keep me up at night and so did the thoughts in my head: I want this spray! DO NOT BUY THIS SPRAY. There is no way that $32 bottle and some sunshine is going to do what a professional is trained to do.
I tried to find some third-party reviews. There is very little written about Sunbabe online, though there are plenty about other, similar hair lightening sprays made by Sun Bum, Klorane, and John Frieda. Even Kristin Cavallari of Laguna Beach fame has one. There were plenty of tutorials on making your own hair lightening concoctions using lemon juice and chamomile. Most of what I found was written by white women. Not all of them were thrilled with the results.
I finally admitted to a fellow Asian friend that I was thinking of becoming a “Sunbabe.” She put it to me straight: “You’re not a 20-something influencer comfortable posting photos in a bikini. I can hear that you are barely comfortable uttering the words ‘Sunbabe.’ You don’t even wear bikinis. Also, you are an Asian woman in her 40’s. This spray was not made for you.” And with that speech, I was brought back to third grade, sitting in Ayi’s kitchen salon, praying for the promise of acceptance based on my looks, thwarted by Asian genes. I wanted it to come easily, as simple as spritzing my tresses and lying on a towel in the sun. I didn’t want to be reminded that I am getting older, that life is getting harder, and that quarantine makes everything a challenge.
Here’s where you might expect me to say that I decided not to buy the Sunbabe, and that I finally accepted who I am, grey hair and all!!! But that’s not what happened. I bought the lightening spray, which took several weeks to arrive from Canada. I promised my friend who monologued her premonition that I would only test a strand. But the second that bottle arrived, I doused my entire head in it with reckless abandon, just like a hormonal teenager. Then I sat in my driveway (sans SPF) for over an hour, in the middle of a Los Angeles heat wave.
And maybe here is where you expect me to say that it turned my hair orange, and that I got a horrible sunburn to boot. That I relearned a valuable lesson from childhood. Well, that isn’t true, either. By the fifth application the peroxide had changed its texture into something Bon Jovi himself would be jealous of. I had taken an enormous gamble, and it had paid off.
And yet, despite all of this, I don’t think I’m going to purchase another bottle. Here is why: I am realizing I still feel the same way as I did before the Sunbabe arrived. It did not cure my anxiety or my depression. Maybe I wanted a little risky drama because I wanted to distract myself from the more serious events that occupy my mind every time I turn on my phone. Or maybe I just wanted to buy into the belief, once again, that making my hair look non-Asian would make me feel accepted as an American. Our country is going through some serious transformations when it comes to race and identity. COVID-19 and the violence against Asian-Americans is something I’ve carried with me in the back of my mind since March.
My niece, who is hapa (half Asian, half white) recently celebrated her tenth birthday. On Facebook, there were photos of her looking so much like I did at her age, only her Irish/Italian roots give her caramel highlights with soft, natural waves. My lifelong hair goals. I thought of the message she would get if she heard me fawn out loud over her looks, and how she is probably only a few years away from owning a smartphone and receiving targeted ads like Sunbabe.
And if she wanted to drastically change her looks, I honestly don’t know how I’d respond. | https://mslynnchen.medium.com/growing-up-with-asian-american-hair-7798fec2a7b9 | ['Lynn Chen'] | 2020-12-20 14:42:16.421000+00:00 | ['Beauty', 'Feminism', 'Asian American', 'Hair', 'Women'] |
Digital Journal. Conversion research. (part11)& addon — Google Analytics Health Check. | Mouse tracking and what is that all about? Ring model.
As the name implies — track mouse movements and clicks on a website. It can be used for various purposes, but those most common are:
-where people click and where they don’t (click maps),
-how far down they scroll on any given page (scroll maps) where people click
There are also heat maps — but there is no correlation where people click and look. No useful correlation between eye movements and mouse movements — apart from the obvious looking at where you are about to click.
One needs to gather a large enough sample size for each page the heat maps are generated for. Aim should be data of 2000, or even 5000 visitors per page analyzed and not lower than 300 (otherwise the margin of error is too big).
Most tools offer you three options:
§ Attention heat maps (generated by algorithm based on mouse cursor movements),
§ click maps that show the aggregated click activity on the page
§ scroll maps (how far down people scroll)
Let me explain each: click maps are useful to see click distribution and if CTA gets more clicks than the rest of the page.
Attention heat maps are interesting, but…always generated by an algorithm — so this is somebody’s interpretation. Take the results with a grain of salt. For most tools attention heat map and click heat map look similar.
Scroll maps — it’s a fact that the longer the page, the fewer people reach the end.
User recordings are vital for conversion optimizers — you can see actual users interact with your site. They fill in missing links for insight, help you understand how actual users use your forms, check out, and the issues they face. Allocate yourself a day (or at least half a day) to watch these videos where people proceed through the site, its well worth it to understand usage patterns and problems they run into.
Pro tip: The best tools let you segment the data by browser, visitor type, behavior, errors. Use this to understand the differences between different segments — mobile vs desktop users, new vs returning, etc.
There are tools on the market that generate “instant” heat maps based on some algorithms. These are machines predicting stuff, and the information is NOT based on your actual users.
The “instant” part of these tools is attractive but always bear in mind that websites are contextual, and your buyers are not machines.
Tools that can be used:
Hotjar (all around winner for SMEs)
SessionCam (enterprise)
Clicktale (great, but expensive)
Inspectlet (I liked it at first, but then started to doubt the accuracy of their data)
CrazyEgg (not really good value for money compared to other tools, lacks user session videos)
Mouseflow
Ghostrec
Ring Model
is a quick and effective way to identify where your biggest leaks are.
The model is developed by Craig Sullivan and it looks at the ‘layers’ or ‘levels’ reached. It focuses on depth of engagement, not pages viewed.
Ring Model
It’s similar to a funnel as it helps you see the key loss steps. In true nature, the model helps one to see where the flow is stuck. Or where traffic is not “converting” into the next level. It helps you see layers of a webpage that needs the most help.
The author suggested to use a standard Google Analytics report for constructing it: Behavior -> Site Content -> All pages.
Then do it with this is two-fold:
Map out traffic flow per layer of the site (and see where the flow is stuck) Verify whether the goal funnel has been configured properly
Here’s the flow:
1. Start with a manual walkthrough of the site to map out the URL structure.
2. Count the unique pageviews per layer.
3. Check the numbers against what you see in Conversions -> Goals -> Funnel Visualization. | https://medium.com/@emunjakovic/digital-journal-conversion-research-part11-addon-google-analytics-health-check-aa5e57976b45 | ['Elvir Munjakovic'] | 2020-12-13 20:04:07.664000+00:00 | ['Marketing Strategies', 'Cxl Institute', 'Cxl Minidegree', 'Growth Hacking'] |
Should the U.S. Deploy Hypersonic Weapons? | Hypersonic weapons can maneuver, jink, and attack at Mach 5 to Mach 20+ (Image: DefenseNews.com)
By Joe Buff, MS, FSA
Some defense pundits see the present world as being in a dangerous nuclear arms control crisis, and some are warning of a new global arms race: The Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty between the U.S. and Russia has fallen, as a direct result of Russia egregiously and unapologetically cheating to the tune of several battalions of banned nuclear missiles deployed in Eastern Europe. The New START agreement, which limits America and Russia to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads each, is due to expire amid doubts about Russia’s willingness to extend it. Meanwhile, China is fast expanding and modernizing their entire military, including tactical and strategic nuclear forces, and they face no arms control limits at all since they have never agreed to any such treaties.
Amid these very valid concerns, yet another has arisen, about the lack of constraints on any countries regarding a new class of weapon delivery platform: hypersonic vehicles, able to tear through the air on their way to the target at speeds approaching Mach 20. Russia, China, and the US are all going after these with one or another degree of unconstrained abandon; successful designs will be astonishingly fast and very hard to see and track before impact. The US has been accused by some American pundits of lacking any coherent policy here: Should we invest in next-gen ways to detect and defend against such weapons, or look instead to deter their use by having lots of our own with which to retaliate in kind, or should we try to get the UN to pass a total global ban?
But hypersonics are a very different issue from the clear and present danger of getting into a renewed arms race in the sheer number of low- and high-yield nuclear warheads in the hands of all three competing superpowers — who are in reality dependent together on mutual nuclear deterrence to keep the strategic peace. Are these new hypersonic delivery vehicles — which are simply speedier and harder to intercept, could mount any type warhead, but don’t themselves add at all to the world total of nuclear warheads — really as bad as naysayers would have us believe?
Ought the U.S. to shun hypersonics — in yet another vain attempt to get our relentlessly anti-democratic, nuclear-modernizing adversaries to go along with our fine example? Should we try to have hypersonics somehow limited or even forbidden by new arms control treaties? Or, in an era when the nuclear-weapons treaties that do exist are under such stress, and where many technologies are advancing faster than can be effectively regulated, should America make sure above all to not fall behind in being able to defend our vital interests on the world stage? And don’t our extended deterrence obligations to our allies, using America’s nuclear umbrella as a check against friends proliferating for themselves, call on us to remain close to, nay, to stay right at the absolute state of the art in putting retaliation-in-kind second-strike nuclear ordnance reliably on target?
What exactly are hypersonics? A hypersonic vehicle is defined as one that moves through the air at a speed of Mach 5 or greater. At sea level, Mach 5 is about 3,500 mph, although hypersonic vehicle designers prefer as much as possible to exploit the much lower air resistance at very high altitude, near or in space. This capability is not exactly new: Germany’s WWII-era V-2 ballistic missiles reached Mach 5, as did the U.S. Air Force’s manned X-15 rocket plane in the 1960s; the reentry vehicles of ICBMs descend ever faster, at top speeds around Mach 16. What is new is the introduction by several competing countries of a next generation of hypersonic weaponry, able to attain speeds as high as Mach 20 and carry a warhead than could be conventional, or nuclear, or that simply relies on its own kinetic-energy smashing power. Crucially, these newer weapons can also maneuver evasively (“jink”) in flight, to avoid the defenses — such as interceptor projectiles or even directed-energy lasers — that work best against the predictable lobbing paths of regular ballistic missiles and their smoothly falling warheads.
The exceedingly fast travel time in flight, mere minutes from launch to target impact across great distances, makes hypersonics effective against fleeting, highly mobile targets that can evade destruction by slower-traveling weapons. Hypersonics are coveted for this ability, as well as for their ability to reliably penetrate through current enemy defensive systems — and perhaps through virtually all conceivable, emerging “missile shield” technologies too.
Russia and China are somewhat ahead of the U.S. in hypersonic weapons development, particularly ones with nuclear warheads. Both countries are heavily nuclear-armed rivals of America in what many experts see as a de facto New Cold War. Both have said they feel threatened by the increasingly effective missile shield systems that America is fielding now with basing help from our allies. Moscow and Beijing complain that our sophisticated defenses — the ground-based embodiment of the spirit of President Reagan’s Star Wars space shield — exceed their own technical know-how, while rendering impotent their ability to deter us from a devastating surprise nuclear attack. They say we could launch all our nukes at them, unhindered, then effectively protect ourselves from any retaliating second-strike they would try to make in revenge. This is nonsense and they surely known it. But our factual argument that America’s missile shield has rather small capacity, intended only to stop a few rogue or accidental ICBM launches, repeatedly falls on deaf ears. Cold wars do feature a serious lack of trust regarding adversary intentions. Hence Russia’s and China’s avid development of nuclear-armed hypersonics, part of their hegemonic, blackmail/intimidation-driven “escalate to win” doctrine — with America in the contest too but lagging somewhat behind, as we much prefer nonnuclear-only hypersonic warheads.
This does sounds like a harmful new arms race, something that all peacekeeping advocates should help try to stop. But is it?
The development of hypersonic weapons perhaps is better viewed as just the latest of countless instances during human history of advancing technology being harnessed for unfortunately warlike purposes. In this ongoing drama of life and death, of prosperity versus destruction, halting the march of scientific and military progress for long has proven well-nigh impossible. Advances in chemistry and physics, in metallurgy and materials science, in math and computer science, in aeronautics and astronautics, have all quickly given birth to parallel see-sawing contests between offensive and defensive weapon systems. The best ever achieved in arms-control negotiations has been to delay things temporarily, to reduce unnecessary excess, to restrict the most egregious types of aggressive assaults, and to reach stability for a time through some semblance of parity — i.e., an assumed rough equivalence in the capabilities and capacities that rival powers possess for damaging each other, so that they can instead deter the outbreak of war via what the media once oversimplified and overdramatized as “mutual assured destruction” (MAD).
In this context, mutual nuclear deterrence has successfully prevented both nuclear war and conventional “big” war between the reigning superpowers for 75 years and counting — in fact, ever since the last super-murderous global catharsis known as World War Two. Mutual confidence in this global peace-enforcing system is vitally important to its continuing effectiveness. If China and Russia supposedly fear that America is gaining a technical edge in nuclear attack, threatening the balance of mutual deterrence, they need to be able to demonstrably restore what they can say with confidence is genuine parity. In that sense, hypersonics are a good thing. After all, America’s current missile shield development is meant to protect us only from a small number of rogue or accidental ICBM launches, not a wholesale retaliatory second-strike from Russia and/or China. And if we by design can’t stop their whole survivable arsenals’ worth of nuclear missiles now, what’s the harm in not being able to stop them when they’re delivered by hypersonics? In short, letting adversaries use new technology to restore what they consider to be a semblance of strategic stability is, well, stabilizing.
Pundits claiming that hypersonic speeds would rush and panic POTUS into ordering a nuclear counter-strike too quickly are badly misinformed: The U.S. follows a strict doctrine of only ever considering a nuclear retaliation based on “launch after attack” rules of engagement. This means POTUS would require thoroughly verified ground truth that a nuclear warhead had actually gone off against us or our allies. Again, this is wisely stabilizing.
That brings us to the question of whether America should develop hypersonics. The only correct answer is “Definitely yes,” and we need to be in the lead here.
We need to address two separate (but equally significant) applications of hypersonics by the U.S., one conventional and one nuclear. These two applications would go a long way to de-fuse the downside of having our adversaries one-sidedly field hypersonics; they would open up for our benefit some of the upside; and they would maintain strategic parity and stability until such time — if ever — when diplomatic negotiations could lead to ratified hypersonics arms-control treaties after all.
The conventional-arms use is to implement Prompt Global Strike, something DOD has sought for at least twenty years. A pinpoint high-value target that is mobile and fleeting — such as a rogue state’s missile-carrier vehicle dodging in and out of a cave or tunnel, or a known and wanted terrorist leader suddenly surfacing for a war council — demands a way for U.S. forces to go from target identification to launch authorization to weapon impact in an hour or less — or the opportunity will be lost, at great cost to our side. Conventional hypersonics offer us a way to achieve this important defensive goal without undue risk of collateral damage or escalation. The same conventionally-armed hypersonics capability would also better sustain our conventional deterrence against superpower adversaries, who might otherwise be more likely to use such weapons against us (or our allies).
If we lacked them, a crafty enemy might hope to game into our sub-nuclear-threshold combat vulnerabilities, much as Vladimir Putin espouses “escalate to win” in the tactical nuclear arena. Putin’s whole theory of this is deeply flawed, based on it is on badly underestimating America’s determination to punish any enemy use of nukes with our own nukes, at the same time decisively dissuading any further such uses or copycats. Maybe Putin read too much into President Obama’s seemingly squeamish, overly anti-nuclear 2010 National Nuclear Posture Review Report. Any misconception about U.S. willingness to use our nuclear arsenal if ever forced to is convincingly dispelled by President Trump’s very different 2018 version.
The nuclear-arms application of hypersonics by America is as a mirror image to the weapons our New Cold War adversaries are introducing themselves, namely, hypersonic nuclear delivery platforms that can maneuver to get past modern defensive-interceptor systems. The relevant war-and-peace working principles here are two very familiar ones: the need to deter by being able to retaliate in kind, and the need to hedge our deterrence against breakthroughs in enemy capabilities. In fact these two time honored principles blend together when it comes to smart policy for acquiring hypersonics: Given that adversaries might harness their ever-improving maneuverable hypersonics to create defensive weapons that can then reliably intercept our incoming ICBMs, the continuing effectiveness of America’s nuclear deterrence relies on us staying abreast with such weapons systems. We need to make absolutely sure — in the unlikely event our strong deterrence ever fails — that our retaliatory second strike can reliably penetrate even the most advanced enemy missile shields imaginable.
But to do that, our national leadership has to be alive and in communication to be able to order the counter-strike. Some defense analysts rightly warn that a conventional hypersonic projectile, given its unstoppable speed of attack and lack of warning time, could be used to start a “bolt from the blue” nuclear war — by first delivering a stealth-trajectory conventional (kinetic or high-explosive) decapitating strike against America’s commander in chief at a moment of his or her exposed vulnerability. Then, while our nuclear command-and-control is still paralyzed by POTUS’s sudden demise — or so this worrisome doomsday scenario goes — the rest of our top brass and our land-based nuclear assets can be devastated by nuclear attacks with relative impunity. (Our SSBNs on patrol would be immune to the hypersonic weaponry, but not to the crippling of the launch-order process.) But trying to ban all the world’s hypersonics to prevent this is quite likely to be a losing proposition.
A better solution would address the problem of decapitating strikes head-on (pardon the pun), by providing now for more than one senior civilian government official who can give limited nuclear launch orders in specified, dire-enough circumstances, in case POTUS is verified to be knocked out of action. And a good way to deter in advance any adversary attempts at such non-nuclear hypersonic decapitation would be to amend our National Nuclear Posture to declare that we would retaliate, at our sole option, with a nuclear counter-strike — just as we say we would do now for various enemy weapons of mass destruction (WMD) strikes such as biological, chemical, dirty/radiological, electromagnetic pulse, and cyber weapons.
Another concern about hypersonic vehicles is that they approach their target at a lower altitude that the lobbing mortar-shell-like trajectory used by ICBMs and SLBMs. The latter can be detected way off by the right type of ground-based radar, looking way above and beyond the horizon. And hypersonics fly at altitudes higher than those used by traditional cruise missiles and attacking aircraft, thus exploiting a “donut hole” in existing air-defense surveillance radar systems. Again, the solution is not some quixotic push to try to get all hypersonics banned — even if such a treaty ever saw multilateral ratification, there would be cheaters just like Russia cheated for years on the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. What does make sense, and what the U.S. is starting to do, is look at effective ways to plug the donut hole — using constellations of look-down surveillance satellites.
In summation, it is precisely the unfailing reliability of our promised nuclear retaliation-in-kind which assures that our nuclear deterrence will not fail — just as it has not once failed in 75 rather strife filled and technologically innovative years. Our national defense policy for hypersonics should be for the U.S. to give international nuclear and conventional arms control all the attention it deserves while making sure to remain at the cutting edge of these advanced aeronautic capabilities. | https://medium.com/@joebuff/should-the-u-s-deploy-hypersonic-weapons-8aaac5fab1ce | ['Joe Buff'] | 2020-12-17 10:23:07.321000+00:00 | ['World Peace', 'Deterrence', 'National Security', 'Hypersonic', 'Foreign Policy'] |
Never Going Back Again | I’ve been listening to Fleetwood Mac lately, thinking about not thinking of you. I know, I know. It’s silly of me even to bring it up, but hon, it’s Fleetwood Mac. Can you blame me?
We used to karaoke to the entire Rumours album in the car while talking about all the things we would do one day. You were going to be a professional photographer, and I was going to pursue a degree in Not Caring. But — you went your own way, and I saw my reflection in snow-covered hills.
So, yea.
I’ve been making excuses not to call.
I have been writing you mental notes telling you about things that you don’t know. Things that may be interesting or just plain boring. I’ve undug our inside jokes and laughed at our old videos. Reread your emails and even cried when I heard your name the other day.
I’ve memorized non-existent scenarios where I am the lead actress and not the messy- 27 -year -old-extra, standing on the side of the road waiting for you to acknowledge me.
I have done a lot of growing up in the past few years. Learned about self-love and all that. I took self-defense classes and even started talking to a therapist again. I finally realized that I am loved, and I deserve all the wonderful things life has to offer. And maybe, it’s good that you went your own way because maybe you weren’t part of the “wonderful things life has to offer” deal. I’ve written many undelivered love letters where I forget to name her. I’ve made up speeches where I confront you, and I tell you how it felt to say goodbye.
Maybe you’ll hear them someday.
If I could summarize this entire thing in a track, I’d tell you to listen to Never Going Back Again. But — as I end this post, I have major Songbird vibes.
So, bye. | https://medium.com/@nigott/never-going-back-again-3502a4cf7220 | ['Nicky Gott'] | 2021-03-18 02:00:49.184000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Lovestory', 'Love Letters', 'Breakups', 'Fleetwood Mac'] |
The Eightfold Path of the Legendary Trader | Like many traders, I read Market Wizards as a kid. If you don’t know it, it’s a collection of interviews with the most legendary traders of the 1980s.
Back when I first read it, I really had no idea what the hell I was doing. I read it, thought I got it and moved on.
But I didn’t get it.
The reason was simple. I didn’t have the life experience and wisdom to understand it. That would take many, many more years.
A few months ago I picked up my old, dog eared and highlighted copy and started thumbing through it. I expected to snag a few quotes and move on but pretty soon I found myself hooked, reading it cover to cover all over again.
Two things struck me immediately.
First, I’d highlighted all the wrong things.
Second, I saw instantly how much these men were alike.
No matter where they came from or how they got started, they all remembered one devastating loss early in their career. They all started with little to no idea what they were doing. All of them transcended false beliefs and developed an amazing ability to adapt and change their minds in a flash.
Their styles, politics and temperament all varied widely but the rest of their lives followed a remarkably similar path.
That’s when I realized I was seeing something bigger, a meta-pattern, a pattern of patterns.
Call it the journey of the great trader.
So what is that path and how can you follow it?
Let’s take a close look.
Number One: Start Out Clueless
No matter how good anyone gets at something they always start out clueless. Maybe trading is some innate gift but that doesn’t matter at all at first. Everyone starts at step one.
Nobody starts off a superstar.
Maybe it’s my fault
This Wizards excerpt from Michael Marcus is typical of most traders.
“Q: Did you know anything at all about what you were doing? Had you read anything about commodities or trading? A: No, nothing. Q: Did you even know the contract sizes? A: No, we didn’t. Q: Did you know how much it was costing you per tick? A: Yes. Q: Apparently, that was about the only thing you knew. A: Right. Our next trade, in wheat, didn’t work either. After that, we went back to corn and that trade worked out better; it took us three days to lose our money. We were measuring success by the number of days it took us to lose.”
You see the same story again and again. Somebody hears about how they can get rich quick in the market. Their friend tells them or they read a story about some king of Wall Street or the newly crowned crypto rich and they leap in hoping to make a quick buck, their eyes filled with stars.
Even if they do have some idea about the basic rules, like setting good stops and choosing a position size that won’t wipe them out they almost always ignore it.
Paul Tudor Jones, a super aggressive, hard charging trader, tells the tale of a horrible early trade where he made a spur of the moment “macho man” cotton buy leaving him seriously vulnerable. Immediately the other pit traders knew his mistake and he did too. The big whale of the cotton market started dumping on him almost instantly, driving the price down hard and locking him in.
He learned the hard way “Never play macho man with the market” as he wiped out 70% of his equity in a single trade.
Every single person thinks they’re smarter than the market. Even if they read the time honored rules of the best of the best they’re thinking “those don’t apply to me, I’m different.”
And that takes us to step two.
Number Two: Make the Same Mistakes as Everyone Else
Think you’re immune to making the same mistakes everyone else does?
You’re not. But don’t worry, you’re in good company.
Nobody is immune.
Inevitably new traders don’t understand why the rules are there to protect them even if they know the rules. Maybe after their clueless stage they read a few books or listen to some smart sounding traders on Twitter or take a course.
The problem is they don’t really understand what they’re reading and hearing. They can’t process it yet because they don’t have the experience to see the wisdom in it, even if they understand it partially at the intellectual level. Knowledge can’t be passed on passively. It has to be earned through personal experience.
And when you don’t understand the rules, what happens?
You screw up.
And what are some of those rules?
1) Don’t overtrade.
2) Keep your position sizes small.
3) Set stop losses.
4) Don’t make snap decisions.
5) Don’t get too high or too low emotionally.
Those are just a few of the essential pearls of wisdom that every trader eventually figures out.
Eventually.
The hard way.
In the beginning everyone just glosses over them.
Legendary currency trader Bruce Kovner tells a classic story about snap decisions. Kovner made his original money hedging spreads on contracts. He’d be long one contract and short another to reduce the risk but as soybeans rocketed to new highs in the 1970’s his broker got caught up in the euphoria and called him wild with greed:
“Soybeans are going to the moon…You are a fool to stay short the November contracts. Let me lift your November shorts for you, and when the market goes limit-up for the next few days, you will make more money.”
He agreed. Limit-up is a circuit breaker on the markets. If they went too high or too low the contracts locked and nobody could trade them. You were stuck. Limit-up meant you were making the absolute most money possible. Limit-down? You were losing the most money possible and even worse you were stuck and you couldn’t sell out.
Kovner perfectly describes the crazy euphoria every early market apprentice feels:
“It was a moment of insanity. Fifteen minutes later, my broker calls me back, and he sounds frantic. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but the market is limit-down! I don’t know if I can get you out.’ I went into shock. I yelled at him to get me out.”
By sheer luck he managed to get out when the markets ticked up past limit-down for a few minutes but not before eating a massive loss.
Afterwards, Kovner talks about the sickness every trader feels when they make a horrific trade and the market eats them alive.
“I was up about $45,000. By the end of the day, I had $22,000 in my account.”
And that brings us to our very next step on the journey of trader enlightenment.
Number Three: Take a Big Loss
Every single trader will eventually experience a catastrophic, heart breaking loss. Many of the best traders went completely belly up, more than once. The original great speculator, Jesse Livermore, lost multiple fortunes.
Kovner tells us the gut wrenching sickness of losing big money in the market.
“I went into emotional shock. I could not believe how stupid I had been — how badly I had failed to understand the market, in spite of having studied the markets for years. I was sick to my stomach, and I didn’t eat for days. I thought that I had blown my career as a trader.”
Michael Marcus tells a similar story of a disastrous sugar trade.
“Q: How much did you lose on the trade by the time you liquidated? A: I lost my own $30,000, plus $12,000 of the $20,000 my mother had lent me. That was my lesson in betting my whole wad.”
Every trader has a story like that to tell. For me it was NEO. I got in late in the bull run and bet big. I just knew it was going to the moon and a few days later I was riding high and I nearly doubled my money.
And then the empire struck back.
China started threatening the big exchanges. It seemed every single weekend there was a brand new story attacking crypto, a big banker saying it was worthless or insane, China cracking down, or another country looking to ban trading.
It didn’t take long for the markets to panic.
And there was no worse coin to hold at the time than a Chinese coin. That’s exactly what NEO was, red Chinese through and through.
I watched my wins vaporize over the course of two days and I just froze. I panicked. I liked the coin and the project, I thought it would turn around so I just hung on as it went down and down and down.
In the end I lost 68% of what I put in.
I was sick to death. I couldn’t sleep or eat for days. Working out didn’t help. Getting a massage didn’t help. Alcohol didn’t help. Whacking it didn’t help. Nothing helped.
Only one thing could fix it. The next step.
Step Four: Reflect and Come Back Stronger
Once you finally experience that soul crushing loss it’s not long after that you realize it was the absolute best experience of your trading life.
If you’re smart and you’re focused you start looking at everything you did wrong. You go over it with a fine tooth comb. You question all your beliefs and ideas. No longer are you willing to just take things at face value. You want to know what works and what doesn’t and so you finally get serious.
Paul Tudor Jones remembers reflecting on his mega-loss and getting so depressed he wanted to quit. But then it hit him:
“It was at that point that I said, ‘Mr. Stupid, why risk everything on one trade? Why not make your life the pursuit of happiness rather than pain?’ That was when I first decided I had to learn discipline and money management. It was a cathartic experience for me, in the sense that I went to the edge, questioned my very ability as a trader, and decided that I was not going to quit. I was determined to come back and fight.”
Real loss equals real wisdom.
Without that loss none of the lessons make any sense to you whatsoever. You’ll think you’re different and that the rules don’t apply to you.
But they do. They apply to everyone. No exceptions.
Step Five: Learn the Age Old Lessons the Hard Way
What is it about the human mind that makes us learn all our lessons the hard way? We read the great wisdom of the ages and promptly ignore it.
Be like water, my friend.
Maybe that’s just the meaning of life? We all have to go through the same struggles and make our own mistakes and live the great story again and again.
After my big NEO loss I reflected on everything I’d done wrong and it hit me like a diamond bullet between the eyes. I realized I didn’t know how to make decisions when I was under fire. I just froze like a deer in headlights. I knew the market had turned and that NEO was going down and I should get out but I couldn’t pull the trigger.
Internally, I just couldn’t accept the loss. I was in denial. I was a good trader and careful or at least I thought I was but now I was faced with a new reality.
I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. And I couldn’t accept the reality in front of me. I couldn’t put it behind me and move on.
I should have sold that NEO shit stack long before it cost me a big chunk of change. Instead I road that loser all the way into Hell instead of cutting my losses.
As Tudor Jones says “losers average losers.”
People love to hang onto losers. They love the pain. Oh they won’t admit it but they do. Pain is drama. And people love drama.
Either that or they imagine the market merely lost its mind for a minute. The project is a good project. Things will turn around.
Except more often then not they don’t turn around or they turn around too late and because you held so long you can’t make up that loss.
And it doesn’t matter if gold is good or a company is good or a project is good. Sometimes that doesn’t mean a damn thing to the market and it just tanks. Saddling up that bomb and cowboy riding it to the bottom is always a disaster.
NEO taught me the most important lesson of all.
More importantly I now understood the lesson:
“Cut your losses, let your winners run.”
Step Six: Money Management
The ancient wisdom really boils down to two words: Money management.
Cutting losses is one of those key principles that everyone has to learn. It’s not enough to simply trade the market, you have to know you’re going to get things wrong a lot of the time. And that means you have to protect your money at all costs.
That’s just basic probability.
Paul Tudor Jones says “I am always thinking about losing money as opposed to making money…I have a mental stop. If it hits that number, I am out no matter what.”
Money management comes down to a few critical principles:
1) Keep your position sizes small to minimize risk
2) Ruthlessly cut your losses.
3) Always use stops.
4) Don’t use too much leverage
5) When you start losing, start trading smaller.
6) When you go on a bad streak, get out of everything and take a break.
7) If you get in a bad trade, get out immediately because you can always get back in later.
All of these principles work in tandem to protect your money.
I learned this the hard way yet again just the other day, when I went a little too heavy on a leveraged position after a strong winning streak.
The mistake was easy to see in retrospect.
What blinded me at first was that I’d gotten masterful at setting my stops. One of my tricks is to set a limit stop price far above or below the trigger so it always gets filled. I’d never had a stop not fill and I’d never gotten liquidated. I don’t get liquidated because I use just enough leverage to make a difference but not enough that the market would only have to move a few percentage points to kill me off.
I put in my trade, set my stop and went to bed.
When I woke up in the morning and checked in I saw I was down 29%. My stop never triggered. I wasn’t liquidated because I hadn’t over-leveraged but it didn’t matter.
I was sick to my stomach.
So what did I do?
Number two, ruthlessly cut loses.
After a few minutes of feeling sorry for myself and thinking I should hold on because maybe it would come back I shut that stupid voice up and sold. I cut that loss immediately. I took it and moved on.
That’s when I understood once more that all the principles work together in concert.
If the position size had been smaller the overall loss would have been smaller. But because I hadn’t used too much leverage I hadn’t gotten liquidated so I was still very much protected.
Low leverage, small positions and stops all work as one. Sometimes one of these risk management tools fail you and the others kick in to help. It’s like the seat belt and the airbag.
Sometimes the seat belt isn’t enough but the airbag is there to save you.
Step Seven: Stop Following Others
It may seem strange to say that I don’t follow other traders or the news but I don’t follow any of them anymore. I may occasionally glance at a chart of a trader who I really respect and see if it matches with my sense of the market but it’s incredibly rare. I might also check in with a trader who I know well and who’s had success over the long run.
And then I just do what I want anyway.
You can go your own way.
In the end you have to follow your own light.
You have to get so good that you trust your own analysis above all else. When you make a mistake you need to know you’re strong enough to figure out what it was and fix it the next time.
If you’re meant to be a good trader you will be. It’s as simple as that.
Ed Seykota is one of the best traders profiled in Wizards. He says is best:
“It is a happy circumstance that when nature gives us true burning desires, she also gives us the means to satisfy them.”
If you have that burning desire to trade and to win, you’ll find a way and you won’t need to follow anyone else once you get your feet wet.
I have my school of traders but my main lesson to them is simple. Learn from me and then move on. Become your own master. Don’t sit at the feet of gurus your whole life.
As for the news? Nothing but poison. Turn it off as fast as you can.
I highly, highly recommend every single human being take a news fast for a month. Disable anything related to news on your phone feed. Unfollow everyone on Facebook. Don’t read the Twitter stream. Get a site blocker for when you’re working and use it frequently.
I guarantee you, you will not miss out on anything. If something really, really big happens you’ll hear about it because people will talk about it. If it’s not big enough to be on everyone’s lips it’s not worth hearing about.
Here’s another thing I guarantee. You will be mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthier by an order of magnitude. Your anxiety will decrease as will your confusion and fear.
You’ll probably end up extending the news fast indefinitely. I know I did.
I could care less about Google News or which coin some random person on the Internet thinks is going to the moon tomorrow based on astrology and hope. Probably the last time I followed news was during the China crisis. And if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t read a word of it this time. I do occasionally read one magazine that I like with strong, consistent journalism but even that is less and less frequent, maybe once a month or every few months and mostly because there is one story I want to read in depth.
When you give up on the news you’ll be in fine company.
Ed Seykota said “eventually I became more confident of trading with the trend and more able to ignore the news. I became more comfortable with the approach.”
I have not met a single good trader who is a news junky even though the average trader is a hopeless news junky. They want a reason for the market to go up or down. They can’t face that it’s random chaos and the push/pull of a billion emotional monsters.
So writers come up with a good reason for why the market made a move. Interest rates changed. A trade war looms. A big soybean shortage struck. Some of these are probably factors but it’s really impossible to use that news in any effective way 99% of the time. The other 1% of the time it is but so what? Is it really worth watching 99% white noise to get that?
Even worse, news is about conflict and tragedy. It’s about pain and suffering. It’s about extraordinary events.
But the more you watch it the more you think those extraordinary events are normal events.
Plagues happen every day. People get shot up around the corner every few seconds. A baby is butchered every ten minutes in your town.
If you’re born in an insane asylum and everyone is screaming all the time you think it’s normal.
It ain’t normal.
You’re hearing about statistical outliers and it does nothing but warp and derange your mind.
The news is poison.
Bite your arm, suck that venom and spit it out for good.
Step Eight: Develop Your Own Style
If you make it this far, you’ve come to the final step on the journey of trading mastery.
What’s that?
Develop your own system.
I used to study Kung Fu. I noticed that most people were obsessed with lineage. Who was the great master that taught their great master in an unbroken line over five hundred years? Did the system change? Was it passed down perfectly and directly?
I soon realized this kind of thinking was total madness. Of course the system changed. Each master learned new lessons through his own life experience and added that to the system. It he didn’t, he was no master. In fact, he probably sucked horribly if he just photocopied what his teacher taught him and passed it down to you.
And I also found myself thinking about the first person in that line of legendary martial artists. If you go back far enough, eventually you get to someone who started the system. That brings up one inevitable question:
Who taught them?
The answer is obvious.
Nobody.
They taught themselves.
And that is what the absolute best of the best do in all fields. They don’t follow. They create.
The old Kung Fu masters didn’t just learn from someone else and regurgitate it. They took what they learned and modified and improved it. They studied nature and themselves. They watched the movement of snakes and birds and they tried to tease out the secrets of those animal powers. They wanted to move as fast as a snake and strike like a tiger. They had everything they needed by observing the world around them.
You must become the master. When you get there you’ll find there’s nobody handing out a belt. You’ll be the final judge in your journey.
And that means eventually you’ll need to develop a trading style that perfectly fits your own personality, your own strengths and weaknesses. If you’re just following someone else’s picks blindly you won’t have to strength to stay in a trade when the going gets really rough. That kind of confidence only comes from within.
To do that you’ll have to look deep inside and figure out what you really want from the world.
As Ed Seykota says, “Everyone gets what they want out of the markets.”
Some people like to lose. Some people like to play the Martyr. Some folks like to be popular. Others love to be contrarians and bet against the crowd. Still others like to sound smart at parties. But they don’t like to make money. They might even think it’s dirty or evil and they self sabotage.
Whatever your weakness the market will happily feed it to you. If you love the excitement of winning big and then losing it all and making it back again, you’ll get that too.
Ed went further: “I think that if people look deeply enough into their trading patterns, they find that, on balance, including all their goals, they are really getting what they want, even though they may not understand it or want to admit it.”
But the best traders do want to make money. They have a deep passion for the markets and a burning desire to win. To do it they all come to the same understanding eventually by reflecting deeply and transcending their own human limitations to become the best of the best.
And when they do they’re ready to walk their own path, a lonely path, but a joyous one too:
Yoda from The Empire Strikes Back
The path of the master.
They no longer need to read any more books or listen to anyone else or follow anyone else’s star.
They become their own guiding light.
They live and die by their own decisions. When they win they don’t get too high. When they lose they don’t blame anyone but themselves.
And they don’t need any outside validation or praise or judgement.
That’s because after all that time and effort and suffering, they finally know what they’re doing. It’s not arrogance. It’s an internal compass that is unflinchingly accurate, developed only through dedication, perseverance, persistence and passion.
It’s earned over time. A long time. Nothing else can give it to you.
It can’t be bought, bargained for, or cheated. There are no short cuts and there never will be.
And all the praise and validation the legendary trader will ever need will show up in the only place that matters.
Their bank account and crypto wallet.
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A bit about me: I’m an author, engineer and serial entrepreneur. During the last two decades, I’ve covered a broad range of tech from Linux to virtualization and containers.
Readers have called my breakout nanopunk novel, The Scorpion Game, “the first serious competition to Neuromancer” and “Detective noir meets Johnny Mnemonic.”
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############################################ | https://medium.com/hackernoon/the-eightfold-path-of-the-legendary-trader-11b304db97c2 | ['Daniel Jeffries'] | 2018-03-20 20:09:28.330000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Finance', 'Stock Market', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin'] |
HONEYPAD — Revolutionizing the DeFi Market for Freelancers | The hyper-deflationary project offers security as well as opportunity for freelancers and investors.
HONEYPAD is Buzzing
As the first self-covering ecosystem with innovative features in the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) market, HONEYPAD is on a mission to change the crypto world, and in particular the crypto freelancer market, for the better while ensuring profitability for its token holders.
Armed with cutting-edge features in its token contract, an absolutely enthusiastic community and an experienced development team, they are launching one of the most trusted Binance Smart Chain (BSC) projects of the year — kicking off on August 31, 2021 at 2PM UTC+0.
In recent weeks, HONEYPAD has gained the trust of many investors by being an example of how a community-owned project can carry momentum through word-of-mouth. The unique system and future plans that HONEYPAD brings to the world with enthusiasm and transparency are notable. Their freelance platform called Honeywork meshes extremely well with DeFi.
As more people accept that the way to work has changed, they are cheering on the 15.9% forecast CAGR to 2025 and stepping in with a smarter, more efficient ecosystem.
As of early 2021, cryptocurrencies have become a multi-trillion dollar force in the global economy — at the same time, the global Freelance Platforms market size is projected to reach USD $9,192.9 million by 2026, from USD $3,393.5 million in 2019. HONEYPAD is bringing these two worlds together.
“Dream big. Forget about fixed salaries. Demand the respect and freedom you crave.” — Honeypad
Sweet as Sugar
In order to have the chance to directly participate in the profit of the new freelance platform as an owner of HONEYPAD tokens, long term investors from all over the world are invited to participate in the project. Although there are some risks involved in participating in a pre-sale, the highly coveted shares are likely to be extremely well received in the DEFI world.
To learn more about HONEYPAD, visit the following links:
Website
Whitepaper
Telegram
ABOUT HONEYPAD
We are driving innovation at HONEYPAD, inspired by our purpose, Let’s turn the crypto world to the better. Investors and Freelancers are at the center of everything we do. With a successfully filled private sale of approximately $300,000, we are committed to growing our revolutionary and dedicated project on a global scale. We leverage our skills and agility to unleash the full power of HONEYPAD. As global citizens, we’re dedicated to making an impact on the crypto world while helping to educate people about the possibilities of crypto. Learn more about our journey by visiting our website or following us on Twitter and Telegram.
Original Article was published on BSC NEWS.
https://www.bsc.news/post/honeypad-revolutionizing-the-defi-market-for-freelancers | https://medium.com/@thehoneypad/honeypad-revolutionizing-the-defi-market-for-freelancers-bacf09d79c0f | [] | 2021-09-01 22:40:39.140000+00:00 | ['Bsc Token', 'Press Release', 'Bsc', 'Bsc Gem', 'Bsc News'] |
Development of API using Node and Express (Part 2) | Part One of this write up can be found in Development of API using Node and Express (Part 1)
Create Product Endpoint
A. Create Migration Method
To start with, I will create a products.js file in the migrations folder created in the root folder. Here, I will define my SQL script that will create the products table in my database. Below is the migration code
The Pool instance configured during database setup in the config.js file was imported. Thereafter, registered an event listener to listen to the pool connect event which logs “connected to database” when the application is successfully connected to the database.
Then, a function createProductTable was defined, which will be called to run the PostgreSQL query to create a products table. For more info on PostgreSQL usage check their documentation. Inside the function, SQL query was defined to run and then use the pool query method to run the SQL query. Only four columns (id, name, description, created_at) is to be created in the products table. After which, the function is being exported to be accessible from outside this file. The make-runnable module was required here to make this file function available to be called directly from the command line.
Now let’s define the script that will be called to create a products table in the package.json file script object as shown below
Babel-node is used to run the function defined to create table in the database. Confirm if your database is already created. Find out how to list your PostgreSQL database and tables in the command line.
Now run npm run createProductTable to create your table in your database. You should get something like this, as shown below
Now checking your database to confirm if it was actually created. You should see this
B. Setup Request Body Parser
The incoming request body needs to be parsed to ensure only allowed content types coming from the client passes through for processing. Hence, body-parser which is a module that helps achieve that was used. This parser middleware will be set in the index.js file after the express server had been instantiated. Below is the declaration as shown below
root index.js file
The body parser module was imported and the two content types (json and url encoded) are to be allowed by the application for processing. So, the json and urlencoded parser will parse all incoming requests to the server.
C. Create Product Model
Let’s create the model that will interface the database to create a product. Create a products.js file inside the model folder in the root folder. Below is the model method to create a Product
migration products.js
The pool instance configured was exported which gives the client access to connect to the database. A createProduct method was defined with the query to insert a product entity inside the products table. In the SQL query defined, only name, description and created_at value that’s required to be passed to this model. Note, the values argument of the model defined must be an array which must contain the name, description and created_at values arranged in that order as defined in the SQL query else data will be inserted in the wrong column. The rows array of objects was destructured from the data returned from the new entity created in the products table which is then returned.
D. Create Controller Method
Next is the controller method which is the intermediary between the client and model. Create a products.js file inside the controller folder with the code shown below
controller products.js
Firstly, the createProduct model method was imported. Then a controller method for product creation named addProduct was defined. It has two arguments which are the request and response object which are exposed by express. The request object embodies any data that is coming from the client that made the request. The two data required from the client request body are the product’s name and description which is being destructured out of the request body object. The created_at time stamp was defined and assigned current time value. The request body values are then passed to the model which inserts them into a row in the products table. Thereafter, the product row object returned is then sent back to the client as json.
E. Declare Route
Now define the route needed to make a request to create a product. So basically api routes are always of this format root_url/api/version/resource (e.g http://example.com/api/v1/users); Note that it’s always good your api’s are versioned. In your routes folder, create index.js file in it and create v1 folder with index.js and products.js file inside it as well. You should have something like this
Below code should be in the routes index.js file
routes index.js
An express router object instance was created and any request to api/v1 will be routed to the version1 route. Express router is capable of performing middleware and routing functions. Below is the version1 router definition in the v1 index.js file.
v1 index.js
An express router object was instantiated. Any request to api/v1/products will be routed to productRouter defined in the v1 products.js file. Below is the productRouter definition
v1 products.js
Above, express router was instantiated and router defines the type of HTTP request method that will be routed to the controller method addProduct passed as the router.post argument. Only post requests to /api/v1/products will call the addProduct controller method. Invariably, any other request method (such as get, patch etc) to /api/v1/products will not be recognized by the server.
Let’s complete our route definition by passing our router to the express server instance use method as argument. This is done inside the entry index.js file in the root folder as shown below
root index.js
Note that the router was passed to the server instance after the body parser middleware which needs to parse all incoming requests before it continues with processing the request.
F. Testing with Postman
Let’s test our newly created api endpoint which is root_url/api/v1/products which only allows post requests. To test api endpoints, you can download and use postman. Start your application using npm start then test the endpoint just created using the below guide
Step 1: Put the endpoint URL inside the URL text input and select the request method as shown below in postman
Step 2: set the content-type as application/json in the Headers content section
Step 3: pass in the request body object of the data to be sent to the server. In the post endpoint, we only need to pass the product name and description into the request body
Step 4: Click the send and you will get a json response object in the response section as shown below
From the response returned it can be seen that the endpoint is working and successfully returned the data of the created product.
Finally, a double check can be done by checking the products table to be sure the product was actually created as shown below
Example Project GitHub Repository: https://github.com/fantastic-genius/products
Part three of this write up can be found in Development of API using Node and Express (Part 3) | https://medium.com/@fantastic_genius/development-of-api-using-node-and-express-part-2-228f9c8d7fcc | ['Abdulfattah Hamzah Atanda'] | 2020-06-14 14:21:24.226000+00:00 | ['Postgresql', 'Api Development', 'Node Js Tutorial', 'Expressjs', 'Beginners Guide'] |
Meet The Women of the Blockchain: Marcie D Terman, Founder of First Global Credit and AICoin | I had the pleasure of interviewing Marcie D Terman, Founder of First Global Credit/AICoin. After 15 years in broadcast news Marcie became a commodity trading advisor for a London based trading firm. She is the Founder of First Global Credit, and the Founder of AICoin.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! What is your “backstory”?
I left a broadcast television career in NYC to come to London in the late 90s to work for a proprietary investment firm that traded decisions made by AI models which it also licensed to banks. There was a natural transition from that into founding a data security company that caught the paradigm shift away from tape backup to tech that used the cloud to store data. I ran DATAFORT for about 14 years until my co-founder Gavin asked me one day if I had heard about this thing called Bitcoin? Seven months later our first crypto-business went live. First Global is a cryptocurrency exchange that also let people use cryptocurrency as trading collateral.
Then, after a successful token launch in the summer of 2017 which allowed subscribers to license our previously developed AI modelling software, we took the license fees and doubled them by trading cryptocurrency markets. We are now starting to take those profits and turn them into investments in a portfolio of early stage AI and blockchain companies.
Can you tell me about the most interesting projects you are working on now?
This is something I absolutely LOVE! AICoin, the token we launched last year has already generated $3m in trading profits, half of that is earmarked for investment in start-up companies. We are building a portfolio of investments and I am doing the initial interviews with the startup founders. The diversity of projects, the energy of these people, the intellectual challenge of dissecting each opportunity is just riveting. I am having an indecent amount of fun doing this work.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
There have been many. Probably the most fun story comes from my very beginnings in cryptocurrency. I went to an Conference in London in the summer of 2014. Just wandering around to talk to people, listen to the lectures and absorbing what this bitcoin thing was all about. And I ran into this tall guy with wire rimmed glasses and a bow tie. Texas accent… in London! We started chatting about blockchain and bitcoin, his business and why I was there. He was super friendly and very open with information. It turned out that guy was Paul Snow the CEO of Factom, a really amazing token that solves big business and government issues by creating an immutable records. You should look them up. Well a few months later when my partner and I launched First Global at Inside Bitcoins Las Vegas 2014, Paul Snow wandered over to our trade show stand because he remembered me and was glad to see we were launching the company. He then proceeded to sneak us into a private party organised by Brock Pierce and Michael Terpin in the Hugh Hefner Suite of the Palms Casino Resort. Two story suite, pool on the terrace, panorama of the strip. Rat Pack meets the Millennial!
We were literally 2 days into the industry and this major player is introducing us to who (at that point) were many of the leaders, investors and power behind the growth of bitcoin. It was a tremendous experience.
What are the 5 things that most excite you about blockchain and crypto? Why?
Only 5?
#1 This industry seems to attract really brilliant people who are not, usual. I have met more people that have introduced me to concepts I never would have considered on my own and that is really exciting to me.
#2 I can see the really exciting thing about blockchain technology is not the financial applications but the ways it is going to fundamentally change how we do business. For instance my sister is a real estate agent and she tells me there is this total scammy product called title insurance. It’s a cash cow that banks demand as it proves (when you are buying a property) that there are no liens against it and that no one else owns it. But largely the same research is done again and again and again. If that information was stored on a blockchain, bang, that expense disappears. Rights of ownership are a cross market benefit with wide ranging applications.
#3 I’ve met quite a few people that are looking at how blockchain tech can be used to improve things in the undeveloped world. Blockchains can be used to minimise transaction costs which suddenly makes the unbankable — bankable. I’ve met a great gal, Genevieve Leveille that is putting together a startup that uses cellular phones and blockchain to link farmers with food sales business. This increases return local farmers in Africa and Asia receive from their produce by minimising the involvement of middle men which currently take a disproportionately large cut from each transaction.
#4 I have gotten to see and be involved in the token market from almost the start. I am not going to talk about scams or the need for regulation. That’s a big subject, too big to address here. But when you see the unbridled creativity that erupted from access to capital that was not being controlled by the elite of Silicon Valley. We are looking at an ice berg where just the tippy top of what is possible is showing. The amount of development that will grow from this phenomenon cannot even be judged yet. We are at the start of a new age and blockchain is one of the technologies that is going to take us there. I happen to believe that artificial intelligence is another.
#5 Trading cryptocurrencies is just plain fun. When I came to London in the late 90s to work for a proprietary trade group we’d traded currency pairs like The Cable (Dollar-pound) or dollar-yen. A big move was a quarter of a cent. With cryptocurrencies a 10% move on the day is not unusual. A 10% move and then a 15% retrace can happen as well. It’s just astonishing.
Oh what the hell #6 — I’ve met these guys who I would call tech-weenies. That’s not a pejorative, it’s just tech is their love, it is their focus. And they were noodling around with bitcoin mining back in ’09 and now they are millionaires. And they’re kind of standing their blinking, not believing their luck. You gotta love that kind of success story.
What are the 5 things worry you about blockchain and crypto? Why?
#1 — Big change is not comfortable and cryptocurrency is going to be the author of really big changes in our financial system, culture, political structures. I do not believe we are headed for cataclysm. The world is so complex, so many interrelated factors, but I suspect that many social and political structures will change because of cryptocurrency and blockchain. You know, that is not necessarily a bad thing. It will definitely shake out some of the boll weevils hiding in the flour sack.
#2 — Most of the talent involved in blockchain startups are intelligent but because of their age and lack of experience they are not wise. They will make painful mistakes where the general population may be faced with difficulties because of this.
#3 — Whenever someone found out I was involved in a cryptocurrency company 3 years ago they’d squint at me and snigger. Now, everyone is looking for trading advice and predictions. I ALWAYS say. Never invest in something you don’t understand. Take the time to L-E-A-R-N. There will always be opportunities so you do not have to leap at this second. And KNOW YOURSELF. If you are not comfortable with risk, think about that before you go flinging huge wads of cash into something pretty and shiny and new.
#4 — There is absolutely no filter on what kind of start-ups are being bolted onto a blockchain and thrust in front of a non-critical public. In a normal angel or VC situation a lot of thought goes into each and every cash transactions. The total crap is filtered out. People are not treating their cryptocurrency like its real money and are indiscriminately flinging funds at anything. Right now, a nice looking ham sandwich could have a successful token sale.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world? Can you share a story?
Well back to the AICoin group which is using the profits we generate from trading cryptocurrency to invest in blockchain and AI startups. We put a number of propositions in front of our membership and they vote using the smart contract embedded in AICoin on what to invest in. These people are not usual token holders. Our subscribers are a bit older, a bit more thoughtful and less over heated. So they have this wealth of experience and knowledge which they apply to their voting. Our first investment is one I cannot publically name just yet. But their business model is to bring high quality medical care to underserved populations using AI and several other new technologies. This is a good business. The founders have good heads on their shoulders. They will make money. They will also do a huge amount of good for the world. We are involved in this. We are helping make this happen. This is hugely satisfying to me.
What 3 things would you advise to someone who wanted to emulate your career? Can you share an example for each idea?
I never stop learning. I read all the time, listen to podcasts and when I meet people I listen far more than I talk. Being a knowledge sponge gives me the best chance to embrace the challenges I will need to face. I think this is a tremendous tool for a successful professional and personal life.
I used to be very goal oriented to the exclusion of everything else. I missed out on enjoying a lot of what I was achieving because I was anxious to get to the next goal. Now, I’ve come to realise there is huge value and satisfaction in the journey. That a successful life is one that is experienced with eyes open all the time. That it is a process where each action should be enjoyed. You’re not going to love everything you need to do, but its far more satisfying to try to be present in the moment.
I have to run my professional life congruent to my personal values. There is no peace if you do things you know are wrong to achieve a goal. And you know what? You don’t have to be a creep or behave in a creepy manner to achieve lofty goals.
Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this :-)
Oh wow. There are so many and of course my mind goes blank when you ask. Malcolm Gladwell, Marc Andreessen from Andreessen Horowitz. Top of the list — Adam McKay. He wrote and directed The Big Short but he also wrote Anchorman with Will Ferrell. He’s got to have a fascinating brain. | https://medium.com/authority-magazine/meet-the-women-of-the-blockchain-marcie-d-terman-founder-of-first-global-credit-and-aicoin-37e8d831ed6a | ['Yitzi Weiner'] | 2018-07-10 17:33:36.408000+00:00 | ['CEO', 'Women', 'Women In Tech', 'Blockchain', 'Inspiration'] |
Why You Can’t Shortcut Trust | Trust is one of those words that is both loaded and ill-defined. We all recognize that trust is very important for nearly all human interactions, especially trade. The actual mechanics of trust, however, are not really well articulated or understood.
How do people trust in something? Why is trust important in money? More importantly, what does this have to do with bitcoin? In this article, we’ll cover how trust in a money is established.
tl;dr Trust in a money requires time, and any successful currency needs to optimize for longevity over everything else.
The Mechanics of Trust in Money
At its core, money is all about trust: enough people need to trust that the money is something that will keep its value, or else they won’t want to hold it. And if people don’t want to hold it, money will tend to trade at a discount until it becomes all but worthless.
Historically, people have trusted glass beads and Rai Stones as money due to their rarity, but their desirability was lost as soon as someone figured out how to easily reproduce them. For people to trust something as money, scarcity needs to be guaranteed. But scarcity is just one of many characteristics that we want in a money.
Ideal Characteristics of Money
As many others have noted, the ideal characteristics of money are scarcity, durability, censorship resistance, recognizability, fungibility, divisibility and portability. We can broadly separate these into two different categories:
Qualities that make money convenient or easy to transact in. Divisibility, portability, fungibility and recognizability all fit into this category. Qualities that make money valuable. This includes whether someone else can debase or steal your money without your permission. Scarcity, durability and bearer instrumentation all fit into this category.
Bitcoin has many of these properties, but what sets it apart from other forms of money is that Bitcoin is both digital and decentralized.
Many moneys are digital (US Dollar, World of Warcraft gold, Linden Dollars), but no digital money until Bitcoin was actually decentralized. Likewise, many moneys are decentralized (gold, silver, salt), but until Bitcoin, none was actually digital. Decentralization is actually what give Bitcoin its value and digitization is what gives Bitcoin its convenience.
The Desire for Scarce Things
Humans have an innate desire for scarce things. This is evident in advertising. One of the easiest ways to get someone to buy a product is to convince them that it’s rare. When people are convinced something is rare, they have a tendency to want it.
The value they assign, however, depends entirely on how long they expect the item to remain scarce.
Certain goods have, as they say, a limited shelf life. When the Wii first came out, it was trading for a lot more than retail price because Nintendo didn’t produce enough units. In other words, Wiis were scarce.
As production caught up, however, the price dropped. Nobody bought Wiis to hold for 5 years to sell again. They either bought to flip or they bought it to play with.
The lesson here is that in order for scarcity to work for money, it needs to stay scarce.
Two other properties required to establish trust
Long term, people must have a good reason to believe that the scarcity of a money will last. The expectation of long-term scarcity of a money is what causes people to trust in a money. Ideally, that scarcity would be immutable.
The other property is a bit more subtle: a money needs to be a bearer instrument so that third parties can’t just seize the money at whim.
What’s important to notice about both immutability and bearer instrumentation is that a money can’t have either property if there’s a central point of failure. That is, if someone other than the nominal owner can remove its scarcity or confiscate it, then the owner needs to trust the other entity to not do those things.
This is generally not a good bet. You may trust the actions and judgment of the current central authority, but there’s no guarantee that they will be in control forever. In fact, most centralized organizations collapse because the temptation to abuse such power eventually becomes too difficult to resist.
Keynesian Hubris
Keynesians generally try to optimize for maximum spending, and thus seek to make money as convenient to spend as possible. This is why it’s so convenient to buy nearly anything in a Keynesian system, especially on credit. Keynesians encourage impulsive spending habits as a way to keep the economy flowing. Impulsiveness tends to hurt people long-term, so in reaction, many consumers purposely make spending more difficult (freezing a credit card in an ice block is a popular method).
In that respect, Keynesians emphasize the convenience properties of money like divisibility, portability, recognizability and to some degree, fungibility, even at the expense of the value properties of money like scarcity, immutability and bearer instrumentation. Not coincidentally, various altcoins often tout these convenience properties as the reason for their existence.
Long Term Value
Long term value accrues to money that has scarcity, securability and durability. These properties are often at odds with the fast movement of money.
Greater portability often means centralizing operations so a single point can process transactions faster. Greater fungibility also may mean trusting that there is no mathematical exploit of certain security assumptions that privacy coins make.
The more trust has to be given, whether to central entities or to the difficulty of certain math problems, the less valuable the money is. In other words, making money especially fast or convenient is often at odds with security, scarcity and decentralization.
Ultimately, value accrues to the money that gains long term trust. No one would argue that a Wii is a great store of value because it traded for a lot of money at one point in time. Trust has to be earned, especially across time.
Time is the ultimate judge
The real test of long term value is time. A well known phenomenon called the Lindy Effect, asserts that the longer something has survived the longer it can be expected to survive. This is so termed because someone noticed that Broadway shows tend to last about as long as they’ve already lasted. That is, a show that’s lasted 15 years, lasts another 15 on average. A show that’s lasted 1 year lasts another 1 on average.
Money can only really gain trust with the passage of time, which means that survival matters more than anything else.
Me, hopefully, in about 20 years
This is another reason why centralization is so terrible for long term value. Centralized entities are by their very nature, fragile. Centralized entities can’t afford a mortal failure without jeopardizing everyone else that depends on it.
Conversely, a decentralized network is by nature anti-fragile: individual failures affect a much smaller group and thus, a decentralized network can afford a lot more mistakes. These mistakes in turn help all the other members of the network to learn what not to do. This in turn, makes the network stronger.
Hacking Trust
Many centralized entities try to bypass the need for long term proof by hacking trust itself. They use social signaling, hype, promises and the like to give the illusion that they’ve earned the trust, rather than actually proving worthy of that trust through time. ICOs, altcoins and hard forks have used these techniques to get people to trust them.
Unfortunately, a lot of people have been fooled by these hacks and this bear market is teaching them some expensive, but valuable lessons. At least they’re learning now when the market is still relatively small, and the population is becoming more immune to these trust hacks.
Conclusion
The priorities of Bitcoin align with long term value. The priorities of almost everything else, much like Amway and other get-rich-quick schemes, align with short term hype. Bitcoin focuses on decentralization and immutability, which provide long-term scarcity. Almost everything else promises these things, but none have Bitcoin’s track record for delivery.
How I feel when I see coins like Tron go up in value
Bitcoin is focused on the one thing that can prove its value. Time. As the last year has proven, this is not a 6-month game. This is a 20–50 year game. As many are finding out, it’s painful to realize you’ve been playing the wrong game the whole time. It’s not too late. The game is still just starting. | https://jimmysong.medium.com/why-you-cant-shortcut-trust-a6fe866a8007 | ['Jimmy Song'] | 2018-08-20 13:55:43.345000+00:00 | ['Trust', 'Bitcoin', 'Money', 'Investing', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Isolation For The Common Good | On March 27th, there was a photo of Pope Francis praying inside St.Peters square published in the New York Times. He was alone. His white vestments contrasted the dark, rain-splattered cobblestones which sat silently in front of him, where usually the faithful congregated to hear his words. Not this day. He stood alone in the vastness of the Vatican, praying for an end to the pandemic.
Perhaps it was my Catholic upbringing, but during this time of Lent, I could not help but see the similarity of Pope Francis, standing alone in the emptiness of the square and the parable of Christ praying alone in the desert.
I am not particularly religious yet I truly admire Pope Francis as a humanitarian. If pictures really speak a thousand words the first one that comes to mind with this one is Isolated. (Loneliness)
During his prayer, he said,
” For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets, and our cities. It has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void.”
Of course, he speaks of the Covid-19 virus. The deafening silence may be a direct result of our own isolation. The quiet, vacant streets. Is this our own forty days in the desert?
I didn’t expect to give up everything for Lent
Growing up, I was taught Lent was a time of sacrifices and I was asked to give up, or sacrifice, something in my life. It may have been a small symbol such as chocolate or some other pleasurable indulgence. Perhaps this was to teach empathy or even a better appreciation for the small things in life. Currently, however, we collectively have been asked to sacrifice our livelihoods, our community, our daily routines, even our hugs for the sake of the common good. During this period where the world is quiet, it is through our quarantine we demonstrate our love for each other. It is how we are all connected.
So, is this fast from a normally fast-paced life truly a call to slow down and live life with a deeper meaning? I can honestly say it has shed some light of appreciation for the small things in life, just like my abstaining from chocolate did in my youth. That chocolate Easter bunny always tasted sweeter than any confection before it. Sharing a conversation over coffee with a friend is not quite the same virtually as in person. Watching a movie on the big screen with a box of popcorn cannot be replaced by binging Netflix. But it is the pictures of the downtown streets, now eerily empty which strike a chord of how much we really need community and connection, for just a few months ago these public places teemed with people, breathing life into them.
The Buddhist Way; where I find hope in Eastern and Western philosophy
As humans, we need to find meaning in our world around us even if that world has become much smaller in diameter. This is true in terms of our relation to our outer world as well as our inner one. It is especially true in times of uncertainty and when faced with the unknown. It is moments like these we may turn inward, finding that still, quiet place within us so we may hear our own, ancient voice whisper words of wisdom and hope. In usual times some people may do this in a church while others may quiet their minds surrounded by nature or sitting and following their breath. One inhalation and exhale at a time.
In Buddhist terms, isolation may be seen as a paradox for in its presence we are called to turn inward and look deeper at our connections, not our separation, with ourselves and how we relate to others. A spiritual reflection. One that allows us to examine how we may move forward into a new way of living.
Isolation sounds rather harsh but if the coin of isolation is turned over perhaps, in this case, it can be seen as an act of altruistic love to help others. It is with this view the struggle and suffering of isolation may cease. We are no longer separated from each other but connected by our efforts. This is the Buddhist way.
The First Noble Truth in Buddhism is that life itself is suffering. At first glance, this may seem defeatist but the principle at the root of this statement is that life is imperfect and if we can accept this then we cease our own suffering. How do we obtain this? Being in the present moment.
Many times we may say to ourselves, “I will be happy when…..”. When might be richer, skinnier, drive a better car, fall in love. But this is happiness in the future and therefore not real, causing us suffering for we may judge ourselves by these standards. What is present is real.
Currently, we may feel discontent due to the interruption in our plans for life. We put travel plans on hold, birthday parties, weddings, and graduations have all needed to be rescheduled for some far off date in the future. While these events are all well worth looking forward to, the challenge is can we find happiness at this moment, now? Are we able to go outside and feel the warm sun on our skin, or smell the sweetness of the spring flowers on the breeze? That moment of deep inhalation is living in the present. From there all it takes is a pause and repeat.
In the time of self-isolation, we may feel like we are experiencing our own version of forty days in the desert but with our own inward glance, it may be the Buddhist way that keeps us present and leads us into a new way of living amongst each other. One where we become a little more patient, a little more tolerant, a little more kind, a little more human.
Today is a beautiful spring day in my world. I vow to take a moment and feel the sun on my skin, to breathe in the soft, warm air bringing myself to the present moment. And to smile. May you find a similar moment in your day. Isolating ourselves can be for the common good. | https://medium.com/illumination/isolation-for-the-common-good-9f7555d06993 | ['Maryrose Denton'] | 2020-04-11 02:36:12.500000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Spirituality', 'Lent', 'Buddhism', 'Common Good'] |
Timeline to 2022: How We Repeal California’s Three Strikes Law | It’s time to repeal California’s Three Strikes law. This unjust 1994 law made it mandatory for anyone convicted of three felonies to serve 25 years to life if any two of the crimes were considered serious or violent. The result was a tidal wave of life sentences that have disproportionately affected African American, and mentally ill and physically disabled defendants, costing taxpayers billions of dollars each year. Learn more about this law here.
SURJ Bay Area partner organizations CURB and Initiate Justice have formed the Repeal California’s Three Strikes Law Coalition with organizations across the state to put an initiative to repeal this law on the California ballot in November 2022. But how does change like this move from idea to reality?
The short answer is through a lot of grassroots organizing and hard work! The process began in May 2021 with polling to test the concept with the electorate and determine how much work was needed. Then the Coalition wrote the language for the proposed ballot measure in June and submitted it to the Attorney General’s office for a ballot title and summary.
The next big step in this process begins in November: signature collection. 623,212 registered voters must sign the Coalition’s petition in order for this initiative to appear on the ballot. (This number is based on the total votes cast for the office of Governor in the last election.) The Coalition is aiming for closer to 690,000 signatures to avert problems with duplicate signatures and ensure successful qualification. These signatures must be collected and filed within a 180-day period, and must qualify 131 days before the election. Signature collection for this petition will run from November 2021 to April 2022.
After the signatures are filed, the Coalition’s focus will shift from qualifying the ballot measure to encouraging people to vote for it. More polling in 2022 will ensure our strategy is tight and effective, and the Coalition will finalize its messaging by June 2022. Then a massive education campaign about this ballot measure will begin. In the words of Malcom X, “We don’t believe in voter registration without voter education.” The Coalition wants to make sure that voters understand what repealing this law will mean: recalculating the prison sentences of those sentenced under this law (including automatically releasing those who have exceeded the base term of their primary offense) and reinvesting the cost savings into the communities who have been most affected, such as through inclusive victims’ services, housing, wellness services, and workforce development.
Beginning in September 2022, the Coalition will also be focused on getting out the vote. We want people to understand that their vote matters; showing up and repealing Three Strikes will create positive change for people all over California, especially Black and Brown communities. On election day in November 2022, our ballot measure will be approved by the requisite majority vote! The Coalition will then fight to make sure the measure is implemented properly and that people who are incarcerated and their families have what they need.
Fundraising will be crucial to this process. The cost of the path to victory is expected to total over ten million dollars. The largest expense will be hiring professional signature gatherers to conduct the critical work of qualifying this initiative to appear on the ballot. Funds will also be needed for campaign consultants, staff, branded apparel, polling, legal compliance, communications, events, and fiscal sponsor fees.
SURJ Bay Area is committed to the success of this campaign and has pledged to raise $25,000 for the Coalition by the end of July. Our community has already raised over $20,000! Help us get over the finish line by donating here — better yet, make it monthly to provide the campaign with steady support until its conclusion in November 2022. Don’t forget to share the donation link with your friends, too.
Repealing Three Strikes will be transformative for our state, but to make it happen we need the involvement of everybody reading this and more. Your commitment can really make a difference! SURJ is training and organizing volunteers into pods to support this campaign. You can sign up to get involved here. Check the supporter box on the signup form if you’d also like to be trained as a social media ambassador. And make sure you’re following the Coalition on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to stay updated as the campaign develops. Share these resources with your friends, too! Together we can impact countless lives and bring much-needed criminal justice reform to our state by repealing Three Strikes. | https://medium.com/surjbayarea/timeline-to-2022-how-we-repeal-californias-three-strikes-law-1be4823e9e04 | ['Micki Luckey'] | 2021-07-23 13:37:16.526000+00:00 | ['Election 2022', 'Grassroots Organizing', 'Racial Justice', 'Prison Reform', 'Three Strikes'] |
Clarify Your Beliefs by Humanizing Your Heroes | Clarify Your Beliefs by Humanizing Your Heroes
Marcus Aurelius used to be my hero, but hero-worship distorted my reasoning.
Photo by Muhd Asyraaf on Unsplash
Killing your idols reminds us they are fallible. Realizing their fallacies helps us avoid errors of our own. Consider the double standard fallacy, where we judge two situations or people by different standards when we should use the same. Indeed, this is the fallacy we often commit with our idols. We don’t hold them to the same standards as other people.
For example, despite several encounters and discussions, we set a boundary with a friend whereby if they undergo adulterous behavior, we will no longer associate ourselves with them. However, when a venerated sports figure commits this same act, we tend to give them a pass and continue to support them by buying merchandise. Perhaps we are willing to forgive them for what they give us in return.
Marcus Aurelius was known as the last ‘good’ emperor of ancient Rome and a famous practitioner of stoicism. Also, in his famous work Meditations, he espoused the only freedom is of one’s soul. And, we can only command what occurs inside us and not outside.
However, Marcus still held the power to free all the slaves in Rome. According to this article published under The American Law Register, “The master might free his slave by having his name enrolled on the list of citizens, the census.” In fact, “The law had ruled a roman citizen who evaded the census should thereby become a slave. Per contra [on the other hand], it came to be held that if on the motion of his master a slave’s name were inscribed on the census he thereby becomes free.” So, we have the mechanism by which a slave can become free. But, does Marcus have the power to enforce “a master” to put his slave’s name on the census?
Alex Mann, M.A. History & Latin, states the powers of a princep, the unofficial title of a Roman emperor from Augustus who (reigned 27 bc–ad 14) to Diocletian (reigned ad 284–305), are as follows:
He had lifetime Imperium- meaning he was immune from prosecution. He was the censor for Rome- meaning he could manipulate voting blocks and basically select who got elected to the Senate. He was the Pontifex Maximus- this was the head religious official in Rome and basically made him the authority on Roman morality. He [could have] stacked the Senate with loyal friends and allies- He would decide on a new law, and the Senate would pass it without question. He had control over the mint and the production of Roman money.
Above, I added ‘could have’ to item number four as this was probable. His reign was from 161 CE to 180 CE, which places him within the time of the princeps.
As censor of Rome, Marcus was in the position to create any law he saw fit. However, this would not have been in line with his character. According to his legal and administrative work, he “showed a great deal of respect to the Roman Senate and routinely asked them for permission to spend money even though he did not need to do so as the absolute ruler of the Empire.” Therefore, we could reason that Marcus could have, at least, presented a law to the senate enforcing all slave owners to place their slave’s names on the next census.
Yet, in his 19 years of leading the entire roman empire, we have no evidence he did anything to that end. I would be remiss to assert he could do this without consequences. Thirty percent of the city of Rome consisted of slaves during his reign. A plan needed development to ease Rome out of slavery for its success. This was another avenue completely within his control. But, no such plan ever emerged. He had the means to follow his beliefs, yet he didn’t. | https://medium.com/the-apeiron-blog/clarify-your-beliefs-by-humanizing-your-heroes-489016c7479d | ['T.C. Gunter'] | 2020-12-18 10:02:30.779000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'History', 'Philosophy', 'Stoicism', 'Belief'] |
MONAT: Too Good To Be True? | Yesterday, I decided to try out MONAT for the first time ever. My friend had gifted me a set and swore by it — so much so that she sounded like an expert herself. But I had just gone through nine brutal months of hair school and come out the other end victorious and pretty much educated on hair, I’d like to think.
So when I read about MONAT online, and all I could find were distributors who swore by it, and no real substantial scientific studies that explained how it works, I was skeptical. Actually, skeptical is an understatement. I hated the entire idea of this stuff.
I’m going to assume you are already familiar with this line of hair care products that claims it’s all-natural and that it grows hair like crazy.
I has worked for many of my friends. Yes, their hair is growing. It feels healthier (their words, not mine). It has treated the hair (their words, not mine).
Many of our clients when I was at school had switched to it and began selling it themselves. Oh, it’s a pyramid scheme, by the way. Another reason for me to seriously feel iffy about it.
I had been putting off this moment for months, but curiousity got the best of me. No, it didn’t kill me. At least not yet.
I chose two of the products in there:
Shampoo: Intense Repair Treatment Shampoo
Conditioner: Revitalize Conditioner “Volume”
I washed, twice, worked up a lather, and conditioned as usual. I double-checked the conditioner bottle. Does it say anywhere to leave it on for a few minutes? Nope. So I rinsed right away.
I noticed a pungant, almost ammonia-type smell that was clearly masked with perfume. Sniffed my hands again to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. Yup. The conditioner stunk. Smelled like serious chemicals.
I rinse out my hair and immediately feel my hair swell. Kind of like how it feels after a protein treatment. Except this wasn’t a protein treatment. Or was it? I don’t know, I’m confused. I can feel a coating on my hair.
I know how my hair feels after a good cleanse. I’m a hairdresser, and a woman, I might add. I’ve tried everything. This feels odd.
I dry my hair with a hairdryer without using any styling products because I want to see the true result of this miracle. My hair definitely feels softer, and I have a bit of volume and “grit”. I really like the volume, but am very skeptical.
I have fine and thin hair, so I might be just the ideal candidate for MONAT.
What throws me off, though, is how fast my hair swelled after using the conditioner.
For years, beauty companies have invested millions, if not billions, of dollars in trying to create treatments for the hair that bring it back to health. One of those things is a protein treatment. As far as I know, a protein treatment is the ONLY treatment that works itself into the hair to add strength. You know why? Because our hair is made up of 90% protein. When we lighten it, we pretty much strip most of that away, so we have to add it back in.
In order for a protein treatment to work, it must be left on for a few minutes, to penetrate, naturally. And it must be used over time — once a week, preferably, until you start to see results.
In my own humble opinion, the Revitalize conditioner has ingredients that mimic protein. I think it coats the hair, rather than repair it. It just works too damn fast. Hair needs time and lots more than just a shampoo and conditioner to repair itself. It needs professional treatments. It needs Olaplex.
Before I sign off, I have to tell about a couple of things.
First, henna. I used henna for years, and I loved the thickness, shine, grit and color it gave my fine and limp hair. Was it treating it? No, it was coating it. After years of coating my hair with henna, it became strong and could withstand heat and abuse. I got a ton of compliments on how thick, strong and shiny my hair was. I swore by it, but now, I know better. Did it change the actual texture of my hair? Nope, it was a band-aid.
Second, Wen. Wen claimed it would make hair grow only to have made people bald instead. Now they’re facing a class action lawsuit. PS. everyone and their mother swore by this brand when it came out.
Third, baking soda and vinegar. There was a huge online trend on using baking soda and vinegar to wash your hair. It was part of the “no poo” movement (or something).
Women fanatically wrote about the amazing way their hair felt — shiny, strong, healthy — after not just one wash, but years of using this concoction. Not only was it natural (cringe), it was cheap! So they ditched their shampoos and went to the kitchen sink.
Fast-forward a couple of years, and those same ladies had noticed their hair was breaking so bad it looked it someone had fried it with Clorox. I don’t even know if that’s possible, but you know where I’m going with this.
The damage was non-reversible and they realized that shampoo might be on the shelves for a reason.
If you’re wondering, it didn’t work because the pH of baking soda is highly alkaline, and vinegar is highly acidic. Alkaline swells the hair (think lightener or bleach) and acid closes the hair cuticle, which makes it look shiny. Imagine constantly going back and forth between alkaline and acid and you’ve screwed your hair forever.
The pH of shampoo mimics our natural hair’s pH: between 4.5 to 5.5. Shampoo companies are not evil and they are not trying to kill us with additives. So this whole all-natural thing is sometimes complete bogus.
If products were all-natural, they would start rotting just like our food would if left outside for too long, or fry our hair like with the example above.
There is a reason cosmetics companies have their own labs and sell some of their products professionally: because when you come into the salon, we educate you on the product, its ingredients and what they mean for your hair.
MONAT claims this for its conditioner:
Helps increase hair density strength and manageability.
A gentle volumizing conditioner for fine and limp hair that penetrates and nurtures the scalp while helping to boost natural growth, aids in improving follicle strength, and helps in reducing hair thinning. Delivers moisture and vital nutrients to aid in plumping and energizing hair from roots to ends. Fine, flat hair is left touchably soft and shiny. Safe to use on colored and/or chemically treated hair and extensions.
This sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. It sounds like something that was written for the consumer who has no idea what anything is. No offence. They hired someone to sell dreams with words.
Writing style aside, I’d like to know HOW it works. For the love of God, no one has been able to tell me how this stuff actually works.
Where are the studies?
What happens when users stop using MONAT? Will their hair fall out in clumps?
I’d like to see some long-term studies done on a LARGE sample size before I can entertain it. | https://medium.com/@linawaled/monat-day-1-too-good-to-be-true-de29c18c7abc | ['Lina Waled'] | 2018-08-18 20:58:54.699000+00:00 | ['Hair', 'Hair Loss', 'Beauty', 'Makeup', 'Monat'] |
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