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The Race To Find A Cure For Aging | The Race To Find A Cure For Aging
Learn about three pioneers working to turn back the clock
We want to look & feel young again, and every year we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on beauty serums, cosmetic surgery, and exotic supplements in the hopes of appearing more vibrant, healthy, and desirable.
All of those products, procedures & pills only cover up the symptoms of aging — they do nothing to address the cause. While medicine does help us to live longer, at best it has only slowed the ravages of time, and an aging population is driving demand for alternatives to the gradual decline into senescence.
Aging, once thought to be inevitable, is being challenged. For the first time in history, biomedical innovators are starting to view it in a disease model, and not as an inevitability of life — and medical science is working to find a cure.
Here are three stories of people from different walks of life who share a singular goal — they’re actively working to extend their own lifespans, and sharing what they’ve learned on how to achieve it:
David Sinclair & NAD+
Dr. David Sinclair says the solution is to get your NAD+ levels up — and he’s offering detailed, practical advice on how to do it. In lengthy interviews with Joe Rogan & Rich Roll, as well as his recent book, he discusses the health benefits of intermittent fasting, limiting sugar & red meat, and eating plenty of vegetables — but for Sinclair, that’s only the beginning.
Sinclair is an award-winning Australian biologist, professor of genetics, and Founding Director of the Paul F. Glenn Laboratory for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging at Harvard University.
His team of 30+ scientists is deeply engaged in studying the mechanisms involved with aging & senescence, and treatments to potentially reverse them. One of the promising life-extension supplements they’ve identified is Metformin — an inexpensive blood sugar medication that may extend the human lifespan by as much as 10%.
In addition to Metformin, Sinclair is bullish on the prospects of NMN (nicotinamide monomucleotide) for life extension. This vitamin B-3 derivative converts easily into NAD+ inside your cells, which is claimed to improve cellular function and offer rejuvenating effects seen in human clinical trials.
Sinclair claims to have reversed aging in lab mice, and also claims to have “knocked more than two decades off his biological age”, as well as boasting online that he has the lung capacity, cholesterol and blood pressure of a “young adult” and the “heart rate of an athlete.”
If he’s right, aging can reversed with NAD+ boosting supplements — and that’s a big step in a cure for aging and the diseases that come with it.
Elizabeth Parrish & Telomeres
Others, like Elizabeth Parrish, the CEO of BioViva Sciences, have taken a different route: she underwent experimental gene therapy to lengthen her telomeres & reduce muscle wasting back in 2016, and claims her health has improved since the treatment.
According to Wikipedia, “independent testing by SpectraCell Laboratories had revealed Elizabeth Parrish’s leukocyte telomere length had been extended from 6.71kb to 7.33kb” — but in 2018, she reported further lengthening in her telomeres up to 8.12kb, along with an overall growth in muscle mass.
A telomere is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences at the end of each chromosome that protects it from damage — and telomeres get shorter as we age, leading to a variety of aging-related diseases. The initial 10% increase of Parrish’s telomeres has been roughly compared to her cells becoming 20 years younger.
However, critics such as Dr. Bradley Johnson at the University of Pennsylvania have questioned her results, stating, “Telomere length measurements typically have low precision with variation in measurements of around 10 percent, which is in the range of the reported telomere lengthening apparently experienced by Elizabeth Parrish.”
Jim Green in 2007 (on left) and in 2019 (on right)
Jim Green & TA-65
Meet Jim Green, patient zero in a “one man experiment in radical anti-aging”. He lacks the Sinclair team’s funding and can’t bioengineer retroviral delivery systems like the Parrish team, but what he lacks in budget he makes up for in courage, innovation & perseverance.
A few years back, Jim decided to tackle aging head-on, and started doing intense research into published scientific papers on aging, cellular senescence, and supplements that led him to a rigorous health regime that he claims has literally reversed his aging.
Jim’s published a collection of links and notes to all of his papers online, and from talking with him personally several times I can tell you that he’s been more than diligent about his research. Josh Mitteldorf also interviewed him recently, and in that interview Jim talked at length about his use of first a nutraceutical called TA-65 and later Astragalus Root Extract as a telomerase activator to “give new life” to old cells.
Jim has taken the hard road: consuming copious amounts of Astragalus extract along with countless other supplements and a daily exercise routine that’s visibly reversed most signs of his aging — including his seeing his gray hair regain it’s youthful color (no, he doesn’t dye it, that’s natural).
Conclusion
Rather than trying to hide the signs of aging with makeup or plastic surgery, innovators like Sinclair, Parrish & Green have taken action to turn back the clock in the hopes of not only living longer — but also living better.
Sinclair has spoken numerous times about aging leading to a “tragic loss of human capital & potential that up until now we’ve taken for granted”, but if the research that these innovators are pursuing bears fruit, then it may no longer be our inevitable fate.
Whatever the results of their experiments may ultimately be, their research alone is a testament to our shared desire to stop the sands of time from passing & make the most of every moment that we have. | https://medium.com/discourse/the-race-to-find-a-cure-for-aging-98676b0318dc | ['Tim Ventura'] | 2019-12-26 18:18:13.683000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Futurism', 'Aging', 'Science', 'Medicine'] |
3 Tips for Leading a Software Development Team | 3 Tips for Leading a Software Development Team
Congratulations! You lead a team now. So what’s next?
Image via Canva
Congratulations! You have been named as a technical lead/team lead/lead developer (or whatever term your company has chosen) in charge of leading a software development team. This next chapter of your career is a milestone for software developers. The mere fact that you have reached this stage reflects how well you have been doing in your career so far.
You may feel excited, anxious, panicked, or a little bit of all these emotions. This is perfectly normal. I was in your shoes just a few months ago when I transitioned from a software developer into a technical lead of an international team of developers in a Fortune 500 company. I was mostly excited because being in a leadership position at work had always been a dream that I had worked towards for years. However, when I actually started in my role, it was harder than I had expected. Much harder.
I eventually pulled it off — after numerous restless nights and copious amounts of coffee — and even received formal recognition and awards for my leadership. Here are three things that I learned the hard way that will hopefully help you in your new role:
1. Learn like it’s your first job out of college
Remember how eager you were to learn in your first job as a fresh graduate? You need to perform at this same level for your new position.
That’s because good developers don’t automatically make good technical leaders. You may be a code ninja, but leadership requires a skill set that developers don’t regularly flex in most of their day-to-day routines. So be prepared for an influx of practical lessons and new knowledge.
That being said, you must also pace yourself while adjusting to your new position. Just. Slow. Down. Otherwise, you risk burning yourself out and dragging your team’s performance along with yours in a downward spiral.
But to truly learn in your new role, you’ll also need to master the art of active listening. Ask what you need to know from your developers, stakeholders, and other teams that you may work with. Then, listen to them so that you can deliver what they need and ultimately enable your team’s success. | https://medium.com/better-programming/3-things-to-keep-in-mind-when-leading-a-development-team-for-the-first-time-3ab55e1fc82a | ['Rovie Doculan'] | 2020-11-20 07:37:45.469000+00:00 | ['Project Management', 'Leadership', 'Programming', 'Software Engineering', 'Startup'] |
5 JavaScript Technical Interview Questions That You Should Be Prepared For | 3. How do you test code?
There are many ways you can ensure that you write quality codes. First, let’s compare unit test and end-to-end (E2E) test.
3.1) JavaScript Unit Test
Unit test tests a block of code (i.e., function) “unit” to ensure that they all run as expected. This tests allow developers to check individual areas of a program to see where(and why) errors occur.
Benefit of Unit Testing
1. It makes your project more agile. Whenever you add a new feature, you many have to change the old code. Changing a code that’s been tested already is costly and risky. However, if you run unit tests on the new code, you will be confident that the new code won’t break any old feature.
2. Helps finding bugs early in the development cycle.
Popular Unit Testing Tool
Jest
Jest is a JavaScript testing framework maintained by Facebook.
3.2) JavaScript E2E Test
End-to-End (E2E) testing is a technique used to test if the application behaves as expected. In simple terms, a software testing methodology to test an application flow from start to end. The main purpose of E2E is to simulate the real user scenario.
Popular E2E Testing Tool
Cypress.io
Fast, easy and reliable testing for anything that runs in a browser.
TDD vs. BDD
“What are you testing for?” is a great question to ask when comparing The Unit test and E2E test. In behavior driven development (BDD), you are looking for the behavior, for example, what will happen to this system under a certain condition. But in test driven development (TDD), you have a test for a method which will assert some conditions, but as the system evolves these tests may give you false results.
To simply this further, it can be written
In TDD, I don’t care much about the output. The only thing needed is to carry out the test in a particular way.
In BDD, I don’t mind how you come up with the output, only that the output has to be correct under the given condition.
Summary
BDD has evolved from TDD, as a way to eliminate the shortfalls of TDD.
Best to implement both approaches — one to support the quality of the code the developer writes, and the other to support the behavior of the system defined by the product owner.
3.3. Linters
lint, or a linter is a static code analysis tool used to flag programming errors, bugs, stylistic errors, and suspicious constructs. They scan your scripts for common issues and errors, and give you back a report with line numbers that you can use to fix things. In addition to actual bugs and errors, they also check for subjective, stylistic preferences as well.
Benefits of linters
1. Linter helps catching common mistakes and bugs easily.
2. Linter helps increase productivity by allowing colleagues to use same code styles.
Popular linters
ESLint
The custom configurations is the one of the best features of ESLint. While JSLint does not allow for configuration, which means it enforces a single style guide, ESLint is little bit more flexible.
You could adopt big IT companies’ coding style easily with using ESLint.
Google
“extends”: [“eslint:recommended”, “google”]
AirBnb
"extends": ["eslint:recommended", "airbnb"]
Standard
"extends": ["eslint:recommended", "standard"]
3.4. Online code editors
Many developers use online code editor for everyday developments & debugging and it indeed one of the best testing tools for modern developers.
jsfiddle & repl.it
Good for checking confusing JavaScript types and variable scopes.
repl.it
CodeSandbox
Good for testing SPA code (React, Vue or Angular).
Codepen
Good for testing CSS and HTML. CSS is hard to debug and find the errors because CSS often does not throw any errors. | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/5-javascript-technical-interview-questions-that-everyone-has-to-prepare-39c0c062891f | ['Gp Lee'] | 2020-12-07 09:07:58.679000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'Web Development'] |
The Reason Why We Can’t Smell Our Own House | As the days etch on, I can’t help but think about the friendships I’ve had in my formative years, where we would invite our friends to our homes — with our parents’ permission obviously — and they would invite us back.
When we visited a new friend or acquaintance, their house had this innate but benign signature smell. It seemed to be exclusive to their house only, no matter how many times you visited them afterward.
However, if you told them that their house had a unique smell, they would usually be oblivious, shrug their shoulders, and move on. Then, the tables would turn, where they would visit you and they would tell you that your house has a unique smell, too.
It could be a myriad of normal smells, ranging from pepper to freshly brewed coffee, to the faintest hints of lavender, or even freshly cut lemons. Either way, we sometimes get oblivious to the smells in our own home sometimes.
It’s called olfactory adaptation.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Olfactory adaptation, alternatively known as olfactory fatigue and nose blindness, is just a temporary inability to identify certain smells after prolonged exposure to it.
For example, if you chewed a strong brand of minty gum for about an hour or so, you will eventually stop smelling it. Some of the smell might have genuinely weaned off, but your brain has grown fully numb to it, and you initially forget about the gum chewing.
Hours later, your partner comes in, excited to share something with you. They open the door and are momentarily taken aback by the mint’s sheer power. They too, will eventually fall prey to the tantalizing reaches of olfactory adaptation.
However, it’s not a terrible thing to have. Think of our cavemen ancestors. If they were hiding from predators, olfactory adaptation could have comforted the person, especially as the smells would have taken the backburner for more pressing matters, like finding food and preparing a better shelter.
Photo by Dan Edwards on Unsplash — New smells crop up, but that’s part of life.
When you inhale, there are various molecules that permeate off of the things in our environment, and they work their way into our nostrils, onto a wall of mucus at our throat’s backside, called the olfactory epithelium.
These molecules get dissolved and bind to special receptors that fire signals to the brain, which is then registered as a specific smell. In theory, you could trick yourself into smelling something else with the help of a trusted loved one, as a study in 2001 has shown.
For example, imagine someone shared a mysterious dish with you. You’re not sure what this dish is made out of, and so, you ask them. They lie, without you knowing, and tell you it’s a variation of something that you already like, such as your favourite food.
This neutral smell might be more favourably received until the deception is discovered.
However, the same loved one could also trick you in the other direction, by insinuating that you are smelling something super disgusting. I’ll let you use your imagination on that.
Photo by Andrey Zvyagintsev on Unsplash — She’s not impressed.
Either way, changes to our surroundings, require us to be mindful of the things happening in our environment. Our brain is constantly calibrating, processing new sights, sounds, and smells.
If you’re unsure if your house is smelling good or not, perhaps you can leave the room — and perhaps the entire house itself — for a few hours and then come back to it later.
If you’re still unsure, you could take a quick jog up and down the stairs or do some other kind of sudden movement, like jumping jacks and stretches.
As long as you surround yourself with the most wondrous smells, perhaps the rest will follow, and everyone will walk out of the situation much happier than before. | https://medium.com/science-soul/the-reason-why-we-cant-smell-our-own-house-1514ab70b57a | ['Synthia Satkuna', 'Ma Candidate'] | 2020-11-20 00:53:55.656000+00:00 | ['Smells', 'Science', 'Psychology', 'Writing', 'Nose'] |
Page One: ‘Shakespeare in Love’ (1998) | Written by Marc Norman, Tom Stoppard
The movie version of the scene:
The movie won 7 Academy Awards including Best Original Screenplay. It is well worth the read which you may do here.
Page One is a daily Go Into The Story series featuring the first page of notable movie scripts from the classic era to contemporary times. Comparing them is an excellent way to study a variety of writing styles and see how professional writers start a story.
For more Page One posts, go here.
You may follow the daily conversation on Twitter as I cross-post there: @GoIntoTheStory. | https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/page-one-shakespeare-in-love-1998-d9c3480caa7e | ['Scott Myers'] | 2020-12-10 12:02:46.968000+00:00 | ['Screenplay', 'Screenwriting', 'Film', 'Movies', 'Cinema'] |
Visualizing England and Wales House Prices | “UK house prices soar to record high despite Covid crisis,” proclaimed the Guardian headlines in the first week of September 2020. Against all odds, the direction of house price seems to be one of the few constants in this turbulent world of uncertainties.
But, is it really?
Economists have explanations for past data, but as always, the real interest lies in the forecast. A good friend of mine recently asked me about property prices in London, and to help him with the quest, I built a plotly web app to visualize the house price data which you can access here.
Data
The house price data comes from the HM Land Registry, covering transactions from the beginning of 1995. Property types come in 5 categories: Flats/Maisonettes; Terraced; Semi-Detached; Detached and Other. Type Other is filtered out from the data, as the price can be very low (under £1,000, and I am not sure what it is); or over £100 million for a multi-storey building, which would totally distort the average residential pricing.
Paddington or Kilburn
Just after I finished the app, my friend called again and told me he had shortlisted two properties — one in Kilburn, the other in Paddington. Clicking on the map part of the app, we have the following price-trends in the areas:
Paddington:
Kilburn:
Flats are the main property type sold in both areas. Although the average price in Paddington more than doubled from 2019 to 2020, the sales volume dropped significantly compared to the previous year. As expected, the lockdown has slowed the activity of the housing market to a sluggish crawl. Kilburn also saw a dip in sales volume like the rest of the country, but it’s still a touch below the peak price in 2017.
My advice? I do not have a good track record when it comes to house price prediction. Given the market’s overall upward trend in the past 25 years, with hindsight, my stubbornness in waiting for “the right time” to buy our home never ceases to annoy my wife and amuse myself in equal measures. So I just sent my friend the two screen shots — and my app — for him to reach his own conclusion.
One caveat about the raw data was that property size was not accounted for. It is possible that the reality behind the figures is more complex — I suspect the recent jump in Paddington’s house prices was in part due to the completion of a new luxury complex. Although the app has its limitations, it is a useful tool for prospective buyers making data-driven decisions.
What is your take on the market? | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/visualizing-england-and-wales-house-prices-8582f875eca8 | ['Ivan Lai'] | 2020-10-27 13:21:31.382000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Dash', 'Data Science', 'Plotly'] |
React-Native Klasör Yapısı ve Mimari | 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/hardwareandro/react-native-klas%C3%B6r-yap%C4%B1s%C4%B1-ve-mimari-692c43acd689 | ['Münevver Bahar'] | 2021-02-11 22:36:22.123000+00:00 | ['Structure', 'React Native', 'Architecture'] |
Serenity: What Ethereum 2.0 means for blockchain technology. | My first ever cryptocurrency was probably Cardano (ADA), but Charles Hopkins was more known as ‘Ethereum co-founder’ than ‘Cardano CEO’. Funny right? Well, that just goes a long way to explain how influential ethereum is in the crypto space. Arguably more popular than bitcoin amongst technically inclined blockchain enthusiasts. If you got in here for the quick bucks, then it should be bitcoin for you. but that’s by the way…
Trying to dive into ethereum’s technology or attempting to use its infrastructure, one runs into numerous issues. With the size of Ethereum’s archival nodes currently sitting at over four (4) terabytes (4Tb) and the actual blockchain size well over a hundred (100) Gigabytes and each block adding two (2) Megabytes to this already huge figure, the Ethereum blockchain according to many ‘will never scale’ and in 2019, Bloomberg reported the Ethereum blockchain is ‘almost full’. Scalability and memory friendliness are both very appealing features and good ingredients for mainstream adoption, ethereum lacks both.
Chart culled from Etherscan
Your attention must have been drawn to a recent transaction with a transaction fee of over 10,000 ethereum coins to transfer 0.55 ethereum coins to another address. Well, transaction fees are relatively very much lower currently, but compared to most other blockchains, ethereum transaction fees are ‘high’.
Unarguably one of the biggest events expected to happen soon on the crypto space is ethereum moving from Proof of Work to Proof of stake. The upgrade to ethereum 2.0 also known as SERENITY is expected to bring moment-defining changes to the ethereum ecosystem. This upgrade changes ethereum’s consensus algorithm to proof of stake. Time to switch off the mines guys!
Being home to most decentralized applications and smart contract projects on the crypto-sphere, ethereum is a very influential project. This change says a lot about ethereum and could mean a lot for blockchain technology.
But what could these be? Let us know in the comments sections!
Here are my (very) personal opinions:
Proof of stake (POS) wins again
Ethereum moving to Proof of stake and Defi projects springing up seriously lately spells a defining moment in the crypto space. Being the most popular altcoin and only second to bitcoin itself, ethereum blockchain, its ether coin and the numerous smart contracts running on it have seriously rocked the crypto space and is unarguably the most copied project in blockchain technology. Changing its token generation scheme to proof of stake is for sure a big win for the proof of stake technology.
To be frank, I’ve always been a fan of Proof of work coins, to an extent I feel it is a cleverer and a more sophisticated technology than proof of stake, but maybe Vitalik got to school me better. Whichever way, Proof of work still holds a special place in my list.
The move to proof of stake is expected to add more flexibility to the ethereum blockchain, a feature it terribly lacks. Proof of work algorithm is a complex computing protocol. Running a node for a proof of work coin requires enough computing power and of course, a whole lot of electrical energy. Working on computer resources, proof of work operations piles pressure on the device resources, stores an enormous amount of data and consumes the device memory in an outrageous manner. Poorly scaling blockchains like ethereum and bitcoin would consume double to three-digit gigabytes on your device and heat up the device.
Proof stake algorithm is energy conserving in all aspects. Due to its memory friendliness and relative simplicity it makes judicial use of computing resources. Staking process also provides a more flexible token generation algorithm in contrast to the very much complex proof of work. Getting rid of the mining process saves the electrical power required to mine tokens.
Moving to POS spares ethereum blockchain of this turmoil, guess that’s why it was named SERENITY! Well, it’s serenity and peace at last for ethereum believers and skeptics. As amazing move…arguably.
Fate of smart contracts and DApps
Projects built on the ethereum blockchain makes up a very huge percentage of the whole cryptocurrency market. It is unarguably the largest ecosystem in the crypto-space. The upgrade to 2.0 and switch to POS is a very important one and one would wonder what effect it will have on the occupants of this ecosystem.
Ethereum’s rigidity and vast issues have also been a problem for smart contract projects in its ecosystem. A number of them have made attempts to solve some of Ethereum’s issues.
POA network is building a sidechain application which hopes to solve Ethereum’s scalability issue and allow organizations and game developers to build their own networks and deploy their DApps in a faster, more scalable and a lower fee network. Many other similar smart contract projects on the ethereum network are focused on solving the three issues plaguing the ethereum blockchain; poor scalability, high transaction fees and low transaction speed.
Singapore-based ethereum smart contract project, Loopring has developed a couple of working solutions to Ethereum’s issues. Loopring’s technology strives to create a platform for building and deploying high efficiency decentralized exchanges on the ethereum blockchain. Using the Zero Knowledge Rollup (ZK-Rollup) protocol, Loopring have been able to provide solutions to Ethereum’s poor scalability and as well, its slow transaction speed.
Other projects on ethereum blockchain have been limited in many ways by the long-lasting issues the blockchain faces. If the upgrade to 2.0 solves these issues, then things are expected to get even better for these projects and their growth could speed up even more.
Ethereum overpowered by its issues?
Ethereum ran into these issues and have lived with it for so long. It is home to many brilliant developers; however, they only manage to parry these issues for years instead of solving them. The ethereum blockchain has in fact not progressed so much over these years. Attempts at tackling scalability issues are basically management strategies and very little in-roads have been made towards solving the scalability issues it faces.
During this time, a couple of other Proof of work blockchain projects have developed solutions to Ethereum’s issues while ethereum remained stuck. Low transaction fees, infinite scalability, flexibility…most ethereum issues have been solved by different blockchain projects. Pascal blockchain could run for years and add only 26 megabytes of data to its blockchain size. Ethereum blockchain would increase by the same size after only thirteen blocks.
Ethereum have remained dormant over these years and its only solution to solving this issue is a total change of consensus algorithm. It is pertinent to say that ethereum 1.0 was overpowered by its issues and ethereum 2.0 is an escape from the shackles of ethereum 1.0. Being a leading figure in blockchain technology, one would expect ethereum to tackle these issues in a different way without shifting its original form totally…well that wasn’t the case, we got a new blockchain…lol.
Well, anything that solves a problem is a solution. I’d expect ethereum to do something different, but this is a whole lot already and if it solves the issues it faces currently, then its brilliant enough to get an applause from the crypto community.
The upgrade to 2.0 is moving at a good pace and we might see a completion months from now.
Until then, I’ll cross my fingers and read your comments.
Follow me for more!
Well, you can just catch my tweets! | https://medium.com/@joelagbo/serenity-what-ethereum-2-0-means-for-blockchain-technology-60961d71cdb6 | ['Agbo Joel'] | 2020-12-07 03:24:32.043000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Eth', 'Ethereum Blockchain'] |
OOPs, I Just Don’t Know How to FUNCTION | OOPs, I Just Don’t Know How to FUNCTION
Source: globalnerdy.com
What Is Functional Programming?
Functional Programming is a paradigm where the structure of a program is created using primarily functions. It uses pure functions to return the same result whenever provided the same variable; this is due to its referential transparency. Referential transparency is defined whenever a user references a variable anywhere in a program, it will have the same value every time (A.K.A. immutable variables!). These functions also never have side effects…meaning the global variables wont change (another GREAT example if immutable variables!). Another property of programming is that functions are considered first class functions when they can be used as parameters for one function or use it as a return value for another function. This is considered function composition; reducing redundancy and allowing the program to be configurable. When using arrays, functional programming will create a new array to store data instead of manipulating existing variables for the desired return. Example:
let myArray = ['I', 'love', 'chocolate', 'frogs'];
let madeAString = myArray.join(' ');
console.log(madeAString);
// the join() function takes an array, joins
// all the array items together into a single
// string, and returns this new string
What Is Object Oriented Programming (OOP)?
OOP is exactly how it sounds, it organizes software around object instead of functions, using a key: value pair to store data. Variables and functions are brought together inside of an object. OOP is an example of an imperative programming model by minimizing variable use. Lets look at some key features of OOP:
Encapsulation is used for information hiding, allowing only parts of data to be seen from the outside. This prevents all objects in a program from automatically communicating with each other by placing objects inside of classes.
Abstraction only shows essential attributes of the data relative to what the program allows the user to see. This will prevent users from seeing unnecessary data stored inside of the class.
Polymorphism allows different classes the ability to use the same interfaces. It also allows objects to take many forms
Inheritance establishes a hierarchy within classes and objects, creating the dynamic of parent-class/subclass.
Classes create objects inside of them to help define a set of properties for the objects inside of them. Using constructors, objects can be created with a series of user or program input. Example:
class Rectangle {
constructor(height, width) {
this.height = height;
this.width = width;
}
}
Objects can contain both data and functions to manipulate data. Objects use Key: Value pairs to store data. Objects within the same class with contain the same keys (identifiers). Values inside of an object can be a string, array, integer, or boolean. Example:
var myCar = {
make: 'Ford',
model: 'Mustang',
year: 1969,
running: true
};
Should I Choose Just One?
NO!! Both are valid programming methods to use; one can be better suited than the other and it’s important to understand both ways of thinking! | https://medium.com/@jenhenry1995/oops-i-just-dont-know-how-to-function-87a49fdb30d9 | ['Jen Henry'] | 2020-11-05 03:27:30.157000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Object Oriented', 'Functional Programming'] |
Global Parents Day Issue- Because parenting is a full-time job! | Global Parents Day Issue- Because parenting is a full-time job!
It’s Global Parents’ Day — the day to thank and appreciate parents for all the effort they put in to cushion us from the grinds of the world. SupDup Kids Jun 1·2 min read
During the pandemic parents had to step in to ensure that their children don’t miss out on the fun of the crucial growth years.
Parents juggled between work-from-home jobs and chores but made sure to not compromise on the development of their children.
To list out all of the things parents did or do for children is a task in vain because it is immeasurable. But, there are several honorary mentions from the list that are laudable.
#1- Played with them- Parents had to become friends in the absence of peers, playgrounds, and schools. They went down several years in age trying to be the kids they had once been to make good company for their kids. Friendship with kids helped both parents and kids to communicate better with one another.
#2- Sat through classes with them- Initially, it was hard for children to get used to sitting through long online lectures. Parents made sure to sit along with them to do away with any distractions and help kids with concepts they find difficult to grasp.
#3- Expose them to good content- The world is replete with content but exposing children to the good ones is what good parents do. Alongside online classes, parents enrolled their kids in other helpful courses and lessons that may benefit them in the future.
#4- Actively listened- Children have a world of their imagination and all they need is someone to lend ears to their fantasies. Among millions of other things, parents also accompanied their children into the magical world.
#5- Accommodated them in chores- Parents did not just teach their kids academic skills but also life skills. Dalgona coffees and banana bread were made with the assistance of little chefs around the world.
And that’s what makes parents so special! Don’t you think they deserve some rest too?
Well, SupDup is here to be a parent in place of a parent.
SupDup is a technical parent, friend, and guide that helps kids grow and allow parents some free time.
SupDup creates a space that is engaging, educational, and fun.
It becomes a playmate for kids and displays to them a wide variety of content that allows them to understand and equip themselves better for the future ahead.
If you wish someone to take care of your kids while you unwind, download the SupDup app now! | https://medium.com/@content-supdup/global-parents-day-issue-parenting-101-in-the-restraining-times-71660128f0b9 | ['Supdup Kids'] | 2021-06-01 07:09:35.335000+00:00 | ['Parenthood', 'Parenting', 'Parenting Toddlers', 'Parenting Advice', 'Parents'] |
Hi, Anthony Moore, this article was so timely as I made a commitment today to reassess my… | Hi, Anthony Moore, this article was so timely as I made a commitment today to reassess my relationship with money. As you’ll see from my Medium profile I am the co-host of a podcast called “What Is Money,” that aims to unlock what we affectionately refer to as the “knowledge currency of economic freedom.” Yet, selfishly we could would both admit that part of the reason we launched the show was for the very purpose of examining “what we don’t know that we don’t know” about money.
While journaling today I was reminded of something that wealth guru Robert Kiyosaki constantly preaches, namely that most of us “work hard for our money versus allowing our money to work for us.” This is a paradigm I intend to embrace — the proverbial right side of the Cash Flow Quadrant which involves redirecting ones focus to that of a Business Owner and Investor.
Your article also reinforced the importance of nurturing one's thoughts and growth mindset pertaining to money. I’ve determined that this is a much better use of my time than spending on Instagram posting pictures for likes about my Paleo lifestyle. LOL
In any event Anthony, great piece. — Michael | https://medium.com/@whatismoney/hi-anthony-moore-this-article-was-so-timely-as-i-made-a-commitment-today-to-reassess-my-23d85031865c | ['What Is Money'] | 2019-04-30 03:27:59.832000+00:00 | ['Investment', 'Money Mindset', 'Money Management', 'Wealth', 'Money'] |
5 Reasons that 2020 Was the Year of Nonprofit Local News | As legacy media struggled during the pandemic, many nonprofit outlets shone, with NewsMatch as a catalyst for bringing in more donations
In the narrative about the struggling local news business in America, we hear mostly about layoffs, pay cuts and even closures of publications this year due to the pandemic. But what we rarely hear about is the resilience, the staying power and the growth of nonprofit local news. In 2020, the membership of the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) rose by more than 25% — reaching a total of 300 nonprofit news organizations for the first time.
“Perhaps the most striking change over the past few years is that so many more people now get their news from nonprofit sources,” said Sue Cross, executive director of INN. “Our membership has just about tripled since 2016, and our distribution channels have expanded, to the point that when you add in social media, we can’t quantify how many millions of readers the INN network is reaching every day.”
Yes, it’s true that nonprofit is a tax status and not a business model, and the need for diversified, sustainable long-term revenue remains a constant issue. But nonprofits have led the way in seeking out reader revenue, donations and memberships that have longer staying power than advertising — and have the added bonus of bringing community members closer to the publication. They’re also more likely to have female executives than legacy publishers, and have started to reflect the diversity of their communities.
This is not a new phenomenon, but just one that’s flown under the radar. The nonprofit Associated Press and public media stations have been around for decades serving local audiences. And public media honed the “pledge drive” crowdfunding idea with perks long before Kickstarter or Indiegogo were launched. National investigative outlets such as the Center for Investigative Reporting (launched in 1977) and the Center for Public Integrity (launched in 1989) showed just how impactful the nonprofit model could be for doing deep dives into important topics.
But only with the more recent wave of local online nonprofits such as Voice of San Diego and Texas Tribune has the idea of replacing lost newspaper reporters within nonprofit newsrooms become viable. But even this first wave of local nonprofits was often a group of laid-off newspaper journalists who had no idea how to make money. The solution: “let’s launch a nonprofit newsroom so we don’t have to figure that out!”
The reality is that nonprofit news outlets require the same dedication to the bottom line, even if they are not beholden to shareholders or investors. And on that front, the latest INN Index of member revenues showed less reliance on foundation grants and more income from recurring donations and memberships. The American Journalism Project (AJP) has been instrumental in supporting a range of nonprofit newsrooms by making sure they have the business resources to succeed.
This year, that kind of stability is important, as the pandemic has required clear and accurate information for communities that are hurting.
“The last year has made clear the importance of timely and truthful information that helps us to better understand the issues of our day and each other,” said Josh Stearns, program director of Public Square at the Democracy Fund. “COVID-19, economic recession, racial justice uprisings, and a polarizing election have demonstrated with glaring clarity the vital role of local news to our personal health and safety as well as the health and safety of our democracy. But even before this year, the data was clear that when communities lose local news we see lower voter turnout, fewer contested races, and more government corruption and waste.”
(To see how INN has grown around the country, or to see the AJP grantees mapped out, check out Knight’s Civic Bright Spots Map and choose those layers.)
The following are five reasons nonprofit news has come of age this year.
A business model tailored for tough times.
The COVID-19 pandemic hit all newsrooms hard, but nonprofits were much less reliant on advertising from local businesses, which have struggled under lockdowns. And while it’s true that a recession and massive layoffs meant that there is less money in the economy at large, community members are more attuned to charitable giving, especially when news organizations are providing a crucial, timely resource.
Not only is nonprofit a tax status for the news organization; it also means that donors can write off their donations on tax returns.
“Nonprofit newsrooms do have a leg up when it comes to generating revenue from individuals in the form of membership, individual donations, etc.” said Cierra Hinton, executive director and publisher of Scalawag, who also coaches newsrooms at the Facebook Sustainability Accelerator and UNC-Knight Table Stakes Initiative. “Especially when we think about major and institutional gifts, gifts that are large enough to immediately and significantly contribute to the sustainability/expansion/growth of an organization, tax deduction and the rules of grant making are easier to navigate for nonprofits-though not impossible for for-profits.”
Hinton also noted that nonprofits have more consistent revenue sources than for-profits, who have benefited this year from a massive boost in election and census advertising dollars, as well as government assistance through COVID-19 relief programs.
“I especially wonder what that means for next year when elections and census [revenues disappear] and we have no stimulus in sight. How recession-proof is the advertising stream?”
2. NewsMatch connects more funders to nonprofit news.
As INN has grown, so has a companion program called NewsMatch, which doubles and sometimes triples each donation to a nonprofit newsroom from November 1 to December 31 each year. That funding comes from a growing list of foundations. Some local newsrooms have even tapped into local foundations to triple-match donations. The combined philanthropic, corporate, and donor investment in nonprofit news through NewsMatch has gone from $2.5 million in 2016 to nearly $9 million in 2019.
Democracy Fund’s Stearns noted that NewsMatch has been key in the growth of nonprofit news in three areas:
1) as an on-ramp for new funders for media
2) equipping newsrooms with the tools and strategies they need for fundraising
3) helping publishers grow as they make deep connections to their communities
“Through NewsMatch, thousands of new people have donated to local news and investigative reporting, dramatically expanding reader revenue as a source of funding for nonprofit journalism,” Stearns said.
More than just providing money to nonprofit newsrooms, NewsMatch also includes hands-on support for fundraising, helping to build infrastructure for years to come.
“It’s really helpful at connecting the work we do to donors and foundations,” said Candice Fortman, executive director of Outlier Media. “NewsMatch chips away at that. When you are small and don’t have a development person, it makes you sit down and think about your strategy around fundraising. For two months you have a development person at INN and NewsMatch who helps you think about emails and social media, and who you should be targeting, and small newsrooms don’t typically have that help throughout the year.”
Along with NewsMatch, there have been specific days like #GivingTuesdayNow this past May 5, which helped bring in an influx of donations for nonprofit newsrooms.
3. For-profits are becoming more like nonprofits (or just converting to them).
Let’s face it. Many “for profit” publishers in local news are barely scraping by, let alone making huge profits. Most large newspaper chains are owned by extractive hedge funds more interested in stripping away assets than serving the public.
Is it that big of a stretch for many for-profit publications to become nonprofits? In fact, there have been three interesting threads happening as for-profit newsrooms look more and more like nonprofits:
Increasingly, the line is blurring between for-profit and nonprofit newsrooms. However, nonprofit newsrooms that are members of INN are required to abide by designated standards in editorial independence, ethics and transparency.
4. Nonprofit news outlets are becoming more diverse and covering underserved communities.
It’s been a long road to diversity at nonprofit newsrooms but this year showed some progress. Half of nonprofit news executives and 60% of employees are women, according to INN’s report on diversity, equity and inclusion this year. According to INN, nonprofit news organizations are more diverse than traditional newsrooms but still less diverse than the public at large. Moreover, only 1 in 5 executives and board members are people of color at nonprofit newsrooms.
One bright spot is among newly launched nonprofit startups over the past few years; 10 of 24 startups that joined INN from 2017 to 2019 reported that people of color made up 40% or more of the staff. Plus INN notes that many of its publications are now serving bilingual or communities of color, including Canopy Atlanta, Documented, El Timpano, Indian Country Today and Sahan Journal. And those newsrooms are also transforming how news is produced and distributed, with Canopy Atlanta selecting news topics in collaboration with local residents.
“Diversity is a real question for nonprofit journalism,” said Sarah Alvarez, founder and executive editor of Outlier Media. “It’s easier to start from scratch, like building a new house versus renovating an old one. Smaller news organizations can create from scratch instead of just fixing old problems, which is great, it’s a real pathway to doing news. At the same time, what we’re up against is tremendous, including a toxic legacy in our industry, and we aren’t resourced the same way that an organization meeting these challenges needs to be effective. Very few nonprofits are funded to do the work that they’ve set out to do.”
Scalawag’s Hinton says she does feel like she’s seeing more non-white people in the business than a few years ago, but “there are still not nearly enough.” But she sees potential for change.
“Nonprofit news definitely has the potential to be the way we bring in more diverse leadership and grow the number of journalists of color and other journalists with underserved backgrounds (we need more journalists that identify as poor and/or working class),” Hinton said. “Though there is something to be said for the for-profit model and people of color in particular having ownership and equity in the businesses they run, launching a business is hard, growing a business is even harder, and having at the very least a board of directors and an association and network like INN getting tools and resources to you certainly helps.”
5. Collaboration has become a way of life for many nonprofit newsrooms.
Some of those early nonprofit newsrooms like CIR and Center for Public Integrity were known for collaborating with larger, established news organizations to help distribute their work to wider audiences. And in some cases, the collaboration included reporting on a topic together as in the “Post Mortem” investigation by ProPublica, NPR and Frontline. That work has continued at the local level, with many city and regional collaborations funded by the Solutions Journalism Network, and ProPublica doing local investigations with partners in its Local Reporting Network.
Nonprofit newsrooms have worked together on election coverage, and also held Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot accountable to the promises she made on the campaign trail in the “Lens on Lightfoot” collaboration. That effort included newsrooms such as Chalkbeat Chicago, La Raza and Block Club Chicago, as well as the Better Government Association, with funding from three foundations.
INN has also helped to spearhead distribution deals with various partners, including Spotlight, News Break, Patch, Nextdoor and Flipboard, allowing more people to access their members’ work.
“With many of these new platforms featuring INN member content, members are exposed to thousands of new readers who can be converted into regular readers and, hopefully, sustainers with time and attention,” said Jonathan Kealing, chief network officer for INN. “A few platforms, in particular Patch, pay all members for the page views they generate on their platforms. Others, like SmartNews and News Break, are paying an increasing number of members based on a share of the revenue they generate, helping to augment other, primary revenue streams.”
There’s limitless potential for more collaborations (including with other local for-profit newsrooms), and perhaps in collaborative fundraising.
“Collaborative fundraising could be key,” said Outlier Media’s Fortman. “You will see more of that in 2021, especially from organizations led by people of color who need to find funding outside of [typical] foundations and donors-who need to attract major funders, but can’t do it alone.”
More Support Coming in 2021?
As nonprofit local news grows in stature it has an opportunity to gain on a front that has eluded public media in the past: funding from states and the federal government. While the U.S. government, especially on the Republican side, has been quick to cut public media funding in the past, there’s a growing movement of potential policy ideas that would support local news in its time of need.
For now, though, the burden is still on foundations and charitable individuals. “The reality is that across the globe most democratic nations have a robust noncommercial public interest media landscape, mostly publicly funded,” said Stearns of Democracy Fund. “In the U.S. we have far less public funding but we have a much more robust nonprofit and philanthropic sector. As the traditional business model that has supported local news erodes it’s critical for philanthropy to help preserve and reinvent journalism as a public good.”
Interested in supporting the work of local nonprofit newsrooms? Find out how your donations can be doubled at the NewsMatch website, and keep an eye out for your local nonprofit newsroom’s fundraising campaign, running through the end of the month.
Mark Glaser is a consultant and advisor with a focus on supporting local and independent news in America. He was the founder and executive director of MediaShift.org, and is an associate at Dot Connector Studio, and innovation consultant at the New Mexico Local News Fund. | https://medium.com/trust-media-and-democracy/5-reasons-that-2020-was-the-year-of-nonprofit-local-news-8ea465d00ec2 | ['Mark Glaser'] | 2020-12-15 20:22:20.776000+00:00 | ['Donations', 'Knight Local', 'Nonprofit', 'Local News', 'Newsmatch'] |
Join Clover Finance Global Ambassador Program | We are pleased to announce that Clover Finance has successfully won the fifth slot in the recent Polkadot parachain slot auction! Taking this opportunity, we would like to thank every supporter. Thank you for your support and bids for the Clover crowd loan rewards. The launch of the parachain is not the end for Clover but a new beginning instead. We are very happy to start our new chapter with you!
The Clover team has been working hard on technology and business development. We have successfully launched the first new iteration of the Clover cross-chain wallet in the third quarter of 2021. As of now, the cumulative download count for Clover wallet has exceeded 300,000 times, and we expect to continue the growth rapidly. With the launch of the Polkadot Parachain, we will continue to focus on the development and empowerment of the Clover ecosystem and the infrastructure of the Clover chain.
With the growth of our user base, we are now undertaking a recruitment plan for Clover Finance global ambassadors, totalling 100 people. We look forward to working together with you all.
Program details:
We are looking for volunteers who can assist the team in promoting media content, expand and engage with the community. Also maintaining the brand image of Clover Finance. Below is the detailed list of positions and roles:
3 Official community ambassadors (fluent in English)
3 Chinese community ambassadors (fluent in Chinese)
2 Russian community ambassadors (fluently in English and Russian)
2 Vietnamese community ambassadors (fluently in English and Vietnamese)
2 Turkish community ambassadors ( fluently in English and Turkish)
2 French-speaking community ambassadors (fluently in English and French)
2 Spanish community ambassadors (fluently in English and Spanish)
2 Discord community ambassadors (fluently in English)
♦ Clover Finance Global Ambassador Responsibilities:
Enhance the community atmosphere, guide positive discussions, and answer questions about Clover Finance in the communication group;
Promote Clover Finance related articles and event info;
Assist in expanding the number of community users and the size of the community.
Translate and publish Clover Finance related news.
Organize online and offline activities (Fees for activities can be provided when needed).
Assist in organizing activities (For example: Being guide on events, etc)
🕵🏻♂️ Who can become Clover Ambassador?
Experienced in the digital asset industry, or have a long-term interest in digital assets.
Familiar with the development concept of Clover Finance, able to actively assist with official community promotions. Experience in community management is preferred. Be familiar with Clover Finance’s products and activity rules.
Time is relatively flexible, spend time every day to communicate and engage with community members.
If you meet the criteria stated above, then, please go ahead and apply.
🧧What you’ll earn
A total of 50,000 $CLV ambassador rewards quarterly.
Direct access to executive members behind Clover Finance and learn from their expertise and mentorship.
Exclusive growth path, quickly accumulate blockchain work experience
Clover Finance exclusive NFT and gifts.
✅ How to apply?
👉 Become a part of the Clover team by submitting your applications to our official email id : [email protected]
🙌🏻 Join us to see more ways you can grow and earn.
📌 Application Submission Timeline :
23rd December, 2021 — 31st December, 2021
About Clover Finance
Clover Finance is a substrate-based blockchain infrastructure platform that’s focused on cross-chain compatibility for decentralised applications and interoperability between different blockchains.
Featured by Coinlist as one of the most noteworthy projects in 2021 and backed by major industry institutions such as Polychain Capital, Alameda Research, Huobi and OKex’s Ventures Arm, the platform puts together a large user base and merges different projects into a one-stop open and integrated service platform on Polkadot.
🌐 Reach Clover Finance on
[Website] [Telegram] [Twitter] [LinkedIn][Github] | https://medium.com/@projectclover/join-clover-finance-global-ambassador-program-41b3952a9906 | ['Clover Finance'] | 2021-12-23 06:10:49.043000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Clover Finance', 'Polkadot'] |
BLOCKCAP PLANS TO HAVE 50K BITCOIN MINERS OPERATIONAL BY 2023 | BLOCKCAP PLANS TO HAVE 50K BITCOIN MINERS OPERATIONAL BY 2023
Executive chair and founder Darin Feinstein said the firm plans to make the U.S. a global leader in making blockchain technology mainstream.
One of the largest crypto mining firms in North America said that it has acquired an additional 8,000 rigs and has begun mining other cryptocurrencies.
In an announcement from Blockcap on Monday, the mining firm said it planned to have more than 50,000 mining rigs online by the end of 2022. Blockcap now controls more than 12,000 mining rigs, generating more than 6.6 Bitcoin (BTC) daily — roughly $380,000 at the time of publication. The firm added that it was accelerating its move to mine other cryptocurrencies including Ether (ETH).
According to the firm, the addition of the ETH mining rigs in operation would account for 1.229 terahashes per second, or roughly 0.21% of that of the Ethereum network. The more than 50,000 Bitcoin miners, when fully operational, are projected to control roughly 2% of BTC’s current combined hash rate.
“Blockcap’s growth strategy is focused on bringing various peer-to-peer digital assets directly to the people who will utilize them to improve their lives,” said Blockcap executive chair and founder Darin Feinstein. “We strive to contribute to the critical infrastructure necessary for mass adoption of these digital asset technologies so people can participate more fully in the global financial system.”
Both Blockcap and Riot Blockchain — two of the largest crypto mining operations in the United States — have announced plans to set up shop in Texas for their corporate offices and their mining facilities, respectively. Blockcap raised more than $75 million in two funding rounds led by Off The Chain Capital and Foundry Digital. | https://medium.com/blockcap/blockcap-plans-to-have-50k-bitcoin-miners-operational-by-2023-ebf89e664ebc | [] | 2021-06-18 17:37:47.517000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Technology', 'Mining'] |
A Deeper Look Inside Indian Automotive Industry | The Grand Old Lady car
India had Ambassadors and Premier Padminis. These are curvy, fat cars with gear shifts behind the steering wheel.
Three people could sit in the front, including the driver.
These are the yellow-black taxis you’ll still see across India. They’re comfortable.
Ambassador taxi toy
Supremely snooty: Contessa Classic
A very fancy and expensive car was also available. It was called the Contessa Classic.
This was a very long car, a sedan, maybe you’d call it today.
There was a classmate of mine who studied with me in school in the early ‘90s. He and his sister used to come to school by this car. The Contessa Classic.
We peasants would lock up our bicycles with chain locks. This guy and his baby sister would get out of this car, the one my dad had held the door open of when his General Manager had come visiting Mysore.
I never even made eye contact with this classmate for two years. His car intimidated me.
The Contessa Classic car: Picture by Andrew Bone on Flickr
The car we wept for: The Nano 2009–2020
Oh the poor baby, the Tata Nano. $3953.5 and slightly more expensive than the Maruti 800. Discontinued from 1 April 2020 because the manufacturers aren’t upgrading it to BS-VI.
This was a car that needed better marketing.
Tata Nano
Crying in the rain
So many times in the ‘80s , in Guwahati, during the rains, I wished that my dad owned a car.
I would reach the school and change my footwear and skirt in the completely disgusting bathroom there. Having carefully packed a change of clothes in a plastic bag.
My parents never interfered or helped. Everyone in Assam went through this, seven months of the year. Cars were rare. Only the very rich owned them.
1990: The Maruti 800 dries our tears, clean and dry to school
If the Maruti 800 hadn’t come along, we’d have waited and waited to be able to buy the Ambassador, which was about twice as expensive as the Maruti, and horrendously difficult to drive.
A couple years later when my dad was promoted, he got his “own” official car, the one I wasn’t allowed to sit in unless my dad was with me- an Ambassador.
My dad managed to buy a Maruti Suzuki but only 3/50 students in my class had parents who owned cars.
Cheap car: the death knell for the Nano
India has every kind of person it it, and they should have been able to sell the Nano really easily., Specially during the rainy season. Why did the Nano flop?
The answer is : LakhTukhYa.
Lakhtakiya, pronounced as above, is the reason the Nano flopped. It means, car which costs a lakh. It made the Nano sound like a cheap car.
The sound of it, like hands clapping: lakhtakiya! It sounded a death-knell for the dear car.
They had a show on Discovery about the manufacturing and how they had made do with three lug nuts in the wheel instead of four. That wasn’t appealing. An hour long show telling you how they had cut corners.
The Nano didn’t help itself by having just the single windshield wiper. Just like an auto-rickshaw.
Yellow Tata Nano in same frame as an auto-rickshaw/three wheeler
How they could have saved the Nano: make it notorious
In 1995, a total of 42 people got inside a Maruti 800, closed the doors, of a stock Maruti to set the record. They got into the Guinness book for this.
Why didn’t they give the Nano a leg-up like this?
The Nano reached the Guinness record book in the year 2013 for the longest journey covering the entire country. Srikarunya Subrahmanyam and his team started from Kanyakumari and completed the record run in Bangalore, covering a total of 10,218 km in just ten days.
The Tata 607 truck
They should have turned it into a notorious car, one famous for strength and durability, just like the 607 and the 407. These are Tata’s most famous trucks.
I wish the trucks and larger Tata cars had gone on an all-India trip with the Nano.
The blue car’s a Hyundai, the black is a Tata Tiago.
The Tatas are ethical capitalists
Tata Motors, which made the Nano, isn’t just a car company. My God I am getting goosebumps just for typing such blasphemy. They’ve been making trucks which transport goods all across India’s highways since anybody alive can remember. They make steel, they used to own Air India! | https://medium.com/the-domino/oh-the-cars-weve-seen-7799ef3564fc | ['Tooth Truth Roopa Vikesh'] | 2020-08-05 13:56:42.648000+00:00 | ['Márketing', 'Business', 'Automotive', 'India', 'Cars'] |
Couchbase — Expanding the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure NoSQL Ecosystem | Couchbase is a distributed NoSQL database. It’s a document store in the same class of databases as MongoDB. It differs in some really interesting ways. For instance, Couchbase offers a query language called N1QL that allows a user to write ANSI SQL (including joins!) against the document store. These N1QL queries return JSON documents. It’s a little weird, but simplifies developing web, mobile and IoT applications substantially.
Couchbase has three different products:
Couchbase Server — The core NoSQL database
— The core NoSQL database Couchbase Lite — A lightweight version of the database that runs on Android and IoS devices
— A lightweight version of the database that runs on Android and IoS devices Couchbase Sync Gateway — Manages the synchronization between the mobile and server components
This leads to some amazing use cases with companies like Ryan Air using Couchbase in their mobile app to store information locally, improving customer experience through reduced latency when using a mobile application.
This also provides the ability to continue using the app if disconnected from the server or internet.
Beyond this core functionality, Couchbase offers a variety of components that can be mixed and matched on heterogeneous nodes.
These are:
Data
Query
Index
Full Text Search
Analytics
Eventing
This allows users to scale whatever component of the database their use case demands. Couchbase calls this Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS).
I have a particularly warm spot for Couchbase because I was leading their cloud partnerships before coming over to OCI. They have a great team of people that are a pleasure to work with. Today we have a very close partnership with Couchbase. We’ve worked to build out a Terraform module that automates the deployment of Couchbase on OCI.
Writing this module has been a funny continuation of my introduction to Terraform. That was working with Gruntwork.io on the Terraform module they put together to deploy Couchbase on AWS. One of the co-founders, Jim, literally wrote the book on Terraform. It’s a good read. Gruntwork also created an open source framework for testing Terraform code called Terratest. We’re currently looking at ways to use that in our work at OCI.
Prior to the Terraform module, I’d worked with the Infrastructure as Code (IaC) languages that each cloud provides — AWS CloudFormation, Azure Resource Manager and Google Deployment Manager. It’s been really interesting to dive into how Terraform presents a single framework for deploying on any cloud, providing an open source technology that is the basis of a multi-cloud world.
I’ve been really impressed by OCI’s choice to embrace an existing open source technology, both by joining the CNCF as a Platinum member and contributing the OCI provider to the Terraform project.
This open approach to building a cloud seems preferable to technology stacks that lock users to a single platform.
I worked with our video team to record a demo showing how to run the Terraform module to get a Couchbase cluster on OCI:
The module deploys both Couchbase Server and Sync Gateway. You can, of course, configure it to deploy different numbers of nodes, machines and so on. This is just the start of our partnership with Couchbase. Some items coming up include:
Oguz on the OCI team is going to work on improving the module, including revving it to Couchbase 6 and adding MDS support.
We’re currently debating whether to reuse the Python template generator approach I’ve used on some other technologies or wait for the control structures that Terraform 0.12 is introducing.
Blog post on the Kubernetes Operator for Couchbase on OKE coming shortly
We’re also starting to run some POCs of Couchbase on OCI. If you’re interested in learning more please reach out to me at [email protected] or on twitter @benofben. | https://medium.com/@benofben/couchbase-expanding-the-oracle-cloud-infrastructure-nosql-ecosystem-f1e920455c35 | ['Ben Lackey'] | 2019-06-17 21:40:09.197000+00:00 | ['NoSQL', 'Oracle Cloud', 'Couchbase', 'Terraform', 'Oracle'] |
How to create/import/manage wallet in Magnum | How to create/import/manage wallet in Magnum
Creating a wallet is incredibly simple and can be done either through the Dashboard or in the login window. If you’ve never used Magnum, you will be offered to create a wallet immediately upon opening the app, after which you will have to set a password and save your mnemonic phrase.
And when in the Dashboard, you can find the “Add wallet” button on the left side panel or in the “My Wallets” tab. Either way, you will be presented with a choice of the cryptocurrency to use, after which your wallet will be generated based on your mnemonic phrase.
How to import your existing wallet into Magnum?
If you know a wallet’s private key or mnemonics phrase, then importing it to Magnum will not pose any challenge. Once you’ve created a Magnum Wallet, find “Add wallet” on the Dashboard, go for “Import mnemonic phrase” or “Import private key”, select the cryptocurrency and enter either the private key or the mnemonics phrase.
How to send/receive transactions using Magnum?
The most basic wallet operations in Magnum are performed intuitively. To perform a transaction, select the wallet you wish to send from, enter the amount and provide your password. You can also manually set the network fee to speed up the transaction or save some coins. If you wish to receive a payment, you can copy the address from the wallet’s page or make use of the QR code that is available right beside it. | https://medium.com/@Magnum_Wallet/how-to-create-import-manage-wallet-in-magnum-3411deb7256e | ['Magnum Wallet'] | 2019-09-10 14:13:48.865000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Wallet', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Crypto'] |
How Real-Time Communication in Web Development Made | WebSockets vs HTTP
So, does it mean it’s impossible to create a chat application without WebSockets?
Well, there is a technique called HTTP Long Polling. Using this, the client sends a request and the server holds that opened until some new data is available. As soon as data appears and the client receives it, a new request is immediately sent and operation is repeated over and over again. However, a pretty big disadvantage of using HTTP Long Polling is that it consumes a lot of server resources.
Socket.io — Building a Chat App
Below, I’ll present to you a brief Socket.io tutorial on how to create a simple chat application with Vanilla JS frontend part and Node.js server. You need to create a project with the default package.json file.
Having this created, you need to set up a server and install all the needed dependencies. In order to do it, you need to create an index.js file and install socket.io and express. You can use the following command:
touch index.js && npm install express socket.io && npm install --save-dev nodemon
In index.js , you need to set up a local server and basic socket connection.
And basically, that’s all you have to do on the backend side at the moment. Once you make a proper request, the connection should be established. It will be visible through the logged message as shown below.
const express = require(“express”);
const socket = require(“socket.io”);
// App setup
const PORT = 5000;
const app = express();
const server = app.listen(PORT, function () {
console.log(`Listening on port ${PORT}`);
console.log(`http://localhost:${PORT}`);
});
// Static files
app.use(express.static(“public”));
// Socket setup
const io = socket(server);
io.on(“connection”, function (socket) {
console.log(“Made socket connection”);
});
Time to prepare the frontend
Let’s start by creating the public folder and the following files: index.html , main.js . Optionally, you can add style.css .
Below, you can see the index.html scaffold. Basically, all you need are HTML tags you can refer to and some scripts from Socket.io included in the project. That’s how your index.html file should look with the WebSockets scripts included.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang=”en”>
<head>
<meta charset=”UTF-8" />
<meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
<title>Socket.io simple chat</title>
<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”./style.css” /> </head>
<body>
<div class=”container”>
<div class=”inbox”>
<div class=”inbox__people”>
<h4>Active users</h4>
</div>
<div class=”inbox__messages”>
<div class=”messages__history”></div>
<div class=”fallback”></div>
</div>
</div>
<form class=”message_form”>
<input type=”text” class=”message_form__input” placeholder=”Type a message” />
<button class=”message_form__button” type=”submit”> Enter </button>
</form>
</div>
<script
src=”https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/socket.io/2.3.0/socket.io.js”></script>
<script src=”main.js”></script>
</body>
</html>
Then, you need to set up the connection on the frontend side. The only line of code you need in main.js is const socket = io(); . As you can see once the page is opened and the script is loaded, the connection is established. The next thing you need to do is to handle a new user connection, a new message, and last but not least a currently typing user.
In socket, there are two ways of emitting events. One way is from the user to everyone and the other which emits an event to all the other instances. The idea is to display the list of all the active users. So, when a user connects they need to inform about it and get the list of users who are already active.
const activeUsers = new Set();
io.on(“connection”, function (socket) {
console.log(“Made socket connection”);
socket.on(“new user”, function (data) {
socket.userId = data;
activeUsers.add(data);
io.emit(“new user”, […activeUsers]);
}); socket.on(“disconnect”, () => {
activeUsers.delete(socket.userId);
io.emit(“user disconnected”, socket.userId);
}); });
When a user connects they emit the event which includes the information about their username. You should set the property of userId on the socket. It will be needed when the user disconnects. To do that you need to add a username to the Set of active users and emit an event with a list of all active users.
In the main.js I created two functions and two socket listeners.
const socket = io();
const inboxPeople = document.querySelector(“.inbox__people”); let userName = “”;
const newUserConnected = (user) => {
userName = user || `User${Math.floor(Math.random() * 1000000)
}`; socket.emit(“new user”, userName);
addToUsersBox(userName);};
const addToUsersBox = (userName) => {
if (!!document.querySelector(`.${userName}-userlist`)) {
return;
}
const userBox = `<div class=”chat_ib ${userName}-userlist” <h5>${userName}</h5> </div>`;
inboxPeople.innerHTML += userBox;
};
// new user is created so we generate nickname and emit eventnewUserConnected(); socket.on(“new user”, function (data) {
data.map((user) => addToUsersBox(user));
});
socket.on(“user disconnected”, function (userName) {
document.querySelector(`.${userName}-userlist`).remove();
});
Since we handled the way users can connect and disconnect, now it’s time we handle the new messages. On the server-side you do nothing more than adding the listener shown below.
socket.on(“chat message”, function (data) {
io.emit(“chat message”, data);
});
On the client side you need to do a few more things, as per the example below.
const inputField = document.querySelector(“.message_form__input”);
const messageForm = document.querySelector(“.message_form”);
const messageBox = document.querySelector(“.messages__history”); const addNewMessage = ({ user, message }) => {
const time = new Date();
const formattedTime = time.toLocaleString(“en-US”, { hour: “numeric”, minute: “numeric” });
const receivedMsg = `
<div class=”incoming__message”>
<div class=”received__message”>
<p>${message}</p>
<div class=”message__info”>
<span class=”message__author”>${user}</span>
<span class=”time_date”>${formattedTime}</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>`; const myMsg = `
<div class=”outgoing__message”>
<div class=”sent__message”>
<p>${message}</p>
<div class=”message__info”>
<span class=”time_date”>${formattedTime}</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>`;
messageBox.innerHTML += user === userName ? myMsg : receivedMsg;
};
messageForm.addEventListener(“submit”, (e) => {
e.preventDefault(); if (!inputField.value) {
return;
}
socket.emit(“chat message”, {
message: inputField.value,
nick: userName,
});
inputField.value = “”;});
socket.on(“chat message”, function (data) {
addNewMessage({
user: data.nick,
message: data.message
});
});
The function responsible for displaying new messages is triggered right after receiving information from a socket. The message is pushed to the server in the listener function of the form submit. You just need to check if the client is a message author or not.
I hope that this brief Socket.io tutorial helped you understand how simple is using this approach. And how many interesting things you can do with JavaScript and basic Node.js knowledge. | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/real-time-communication-in-web-development-c29a38a7bdb0 | ['Bilal Rifas'] | 2020-10-19 18:25:04.378000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'JavaScript', 'UX', 'Web Development', 'Nodejs'] |
I. BECOMING: MICHELLE OBAMA | Photo by Alex Nemo Hanse on Unsplash
I. BECOMING: MICHELLE OBAMA
“No story is that Simple.”
-Michelle Obama
Themed around the time from when she was born and where did she grew up to be, “Becoming” by Michelle Obama, U.S.’ First Lady, is an excellent book that not only introduces readers to her “life as it is” but also her journey in making the “world as it should be”.
Michelle La Vaughn Robinson-Obama, through her book- not just simply briefs about what one can do or not, but alongside she opinionates freely about the society and its “terms and conditions” and how one can hopefully live the life passing through these challenges and never stop growing.
Initiating with the writing tone, the most impressive part of the book lies in its flow. Her journey flows from her words to the minds of readers; it maintains continuity as well as connectivity as each chapter passes by. No doubt, the vocabulary used is very apt, precise and up to the point. Filled with empowering quotes, the book can really help its readers to reflect upon themselves. Interestingly, there are many instances resonating with everyday lives of people. It ensures in making you feel grounded.
Michelle comments down every part of her life- from infectiously funny, comical events that occurred to the toughest and table-turning moments in her life. Through her book, she describes her closeness with her family- her mother, father and brother — and the precious values inculcated in her by them. As she grew up, she had her new family- her husband and two daughters. She loves them unconditionally and that is shown throughout the book.
She has finely criticized the wrongs happening in the society- the racial discrimination, the stereotypes of men and women, the lowering rates of fitness in all over the country and the worst of all- the terrorism. One might think of her as a fortunate person to have experienced everything in her life, but through this book, she absolutely clears off that thought. She has worked through her values straightly and made her ordinary life extraordinary.
She also gives insights on her personal but normal life with her husband- Barack Obama, U.S.’s First President. Altogether, they share an amazing bond, even during moments of high tension, separation; they knew that everything is connected from within. In addition, their within was and is so strong enough that eventually not only improved their life but also that of the whole country.
“Becoming is never giving up on the idea that there’s more growing to be done.” Through this line, readers are appealed that there is no end; there is only growing, growing up from struggles. She faced criticism in every field and at last, she proved herself perfectly. That’ so beautiful.
Honestly, summarizing the book into few lines is not that correct. There is endless things to learn as you study the book. It is filled up to the brim, with full of inspiration, enthusiasm, self- realization and everything above all- staying true to yourself. Through her keen observational skills, Michelle efficiently details that it is a journey after all, and every second you live in it, you own it for yourself. Hard work and passion does pay off; even if you fail, you get to successfully learn something from it and that is wonderful.
Any person willing to take steps to develop a life worth living for, must read this book once at least to feel empowered, enthused, resilient and hopeful.
Source used https://z-lib.org.in (download books free). | https://medium.com/@meghap2316/book-review-series-290ed780d841 | [] | 2019-12-25 06:45:09.031000+00:00 | ['2016 Election'] |
The Honeymoon Murderers | On the morning of January 8, 1920, Train 9383 of the Pennsylvania Railroad approached the Rochester station on schedule. The train’s brakeman happened to be looking out window as the train steamed over a culvert west of the Ballantyne Bridge. As the locomotive passed, the brakeman spotted a corpse laying in the ditch.
The police, led by Sheriff Andrew Weidenmann, quickly arrived at the scene. There they discovered the half-naked body of a young man. His skull had been crushed at its base with a blunt instrument. The upper jaw was shattered. The victim’s ears were shredded, his face was badly cut, and multiple stab wounds disfigured his body. A slashed abdomen revealed a cold, glistening coil of intestine. Sheriff Weidenmann and his his experienced deputies were stunned by the savagery of the murder.
The snow-covered ground had captured the footprints of a man and a woman; the broken heel of a woman’s shoe was found embedded in the soil. A tree stood sixty feet from the body; the snow around its base had been packed flat and tattooed by the frenzied imprints of a woman’s shoes. She had apparently danced around hysterically while the victim was being killed.
A large stick, possibly torn from a nearby stump, lay nearby. One end was stained with blood. Investigators believed that the makeshift club had been used to smash the skull. As the police continued to search the area, they found the broken handle and chamber of .32 caliber pistol. Officers speculated that the pistol might have broken when smashed against a man’s skull.
The victim wore a shirt and underpants. The rest of his clothes, rolled into a bloody bundle, were found nearby.
As word of the violent murder spread through Rochester, witnesses arrived bearing pieces of the puzzle. Charles Scherer, a taxi cab driver, told the police that he had driven two men and woman out the Scottsville Road to Mosquito Point the previous evening.
The police escorted him to morgue, where the driver identified the victim as one of his passengers. The victim was Edward Kneip, a local machinist. When the sheriff’s detectives visited his place of employment — the Gleason Works — his foreman, told an interesting story. T
he preceding day, just before work ended for the afternoon, a man presented himself at the front office, asking to speak with Edward Kneip. The visitor flashed a badge and claimed to be “Detective Arnold” of the police department. Kneip, he said, was wanted for questioning in an assault.
Kneip did not appear to recognize the visitor when he came to the office. He passively submitted to handcuffing and left with the “police detective.”
Shortly thereafter, the fake detective’s car broke down and he had been forced to hire Charles Scherer to transport the two men and a woman out of town. The police found the car near Scherer’s house.
When the automobile license bureau looked the plate numbers up in their records, they discovered that the car had been purchased by a Mr. Arnold, and it was owned by his step-son, James O’Dell.
The police visited and searched the Arnold home. Although O’Dell was not home, they discovered a blood-soaked skirt and coat. Pearl O’Dell, who was home, was taken into custody.
Detectives soon spotted James O’Dell on the streets of the small town. He was arrested, and quickly joined his wife in jail. Before the night ended, the couple confessed to the murder of Edward Kneip.
Confessions
Honor was the motive for the crime, claimed the accused. The O’Dells were newlyweds. They had married December 15, 1919, less than a month earlier.
Nevertheless, Pearl had a dark secret that only emerged slowly. Two years earlier, as a girl of sixteen, Edward Kneip, a local swain, had seduced her, and she had presumably — no paper in 1920 would ever dare to state this explicitly — surrendered her virginity to the older boy. He had promised to marry her, but later had refused to fulfill his obligation.
The pair split. Pearl spent two years nursing her shame, the knowledge of which she handed on to her husband after their wedding. O’Dell vowed to exact revenge for what had been done to his bride.
Pearl’s secret was too much for her new husband to endure. He couldn’t clear it from his thoughts; he began to suffer from insomnia. “Every time I walked down the street I would imagine people would look at me and sneer,” said James. “I imagined they would say to themselves, ‘O’Dell, you needn’t hold your head up so high; your wife has been out with other fellows before.’”
Finally, O’Dell’s thoughts drove him to retribution. Since Kneip did not know him, it was easy to pose as a police detective and “arrest” him. “He never asked who I was,” remembered James. “I just told him he was wanted at headquarters. He asked me who made the charge and I said ‘Pearl Beaver,’ which was my wife’s maiden name. Then he turned red. He knew we had something on him. She was under age when he wronged her.”
James took Kneip to his home, and tried to extract a confession from him. Kneip refused to talk. James then placed Pearl and the handcuffed Kneip in the back seat of his car. As they tried to leave town, the car broke down. O’Dell couldn’t restart the engine, so he contacted the taxi driver, Scherer, to transport the trio out of town. Scherer did not like the looks of the young man, so he took his roommate, Spink, along for the ride. Scherer would later testify that he thought the threesome intended to rob him.
The taxi drove out the Scottsville Road and stopped where it crossed Mosquito Point Road. Kneip ordered Scherer to stop the car. The justice of the peace lived nearby, he told the driver. They would walk the rest of the way. He paid the fare, and the three got out.
The O’Dells’ account of the murder was vague. After they left Scherer’s taxi, O’Dell handcuffed their victim — arms stretched behind his back — to a tree and then encouraged Pearl to beat him with a heavy steel file.
“I struck him across the face with a file.” she said. “Even in the darkness I could see the mark the blow made and the flow of blood that followed.” She began to shout at her victim, “You’re to blame for my downfall. You would have made a woman of the streets out of me.”
She battered the helpless man around the head with a heavy steel, and when he passed out, they unlocked his handcuffs and left him laying on the ground beneath the tree. As the couple walked away, they realized that Kneip had a letter in his possession that their lawyer had written, warning the young man to stay away from Pearl.
That might offer the police a clue, so they returned to recover it. Kneip was evidently in better shape than anticipated. When James O’Dell reached for the letter, a revived Kneip attacked him.
“They fought a minute,” recounted Pearl. “My husband hit him and he went down. He was bleeding badly, but he got up and charged my husband. They grappled again, and this time my husband was getting the worse of it. I wanted to help — I couldn’t stand there and see him kill my husband, so I ran behind him, and caught him like this.”
Pearl then demonstrated grabbing someone’s shirt from behind and pulling. This, she claimed, unbalanced Kneip. He slipped, fell, and struck his head on a rock. “He struck his bead on something hard,” her confession continued. “His head was broken and he died.”
Pearl O’Dell denied that the murder had been premeditated. “We didn’t intend to murder him,” she said. “We meant to take him to police headquarters and have him arrested when we first got the man. I don’t know why we did it — I can’t tell! I know my husband was crazed with anger when Kneip admitted to him that he had been intimate with me before I was married.”
In his confession, James O’Dell blamed himself and expressed the hope that his wife would be released. For her part, Pearl O’Dell showed no remorse for what had happened. “If they send my husband to the electric chair,” said Pearl, “I will go with him. I am as much to blame as he is. Besides, after this affair there will be nothing for me to live for.”
The newspapers echoed the police view that the “slaying formed the most revolting crime in the history of Monroe County.”
James and Pearl both claimed in their confessions that they had not intended to kill Kneip — they simply wanted to rough him up, to make him pay for what he had done to Pearl and keep him from telling stories about her around town. The question of premeditation would be important in the State’s case: had the pair truly intended to kill Kneip, or was his death an accident?
Questions of Character
As newspapers began to probe the corners of the story, they discovered that Pearl might not have been the model of virtue that she claimed.
Her sister, Elba, was skeptical about Pearl’s innocence. Pearl had lived with Elba for a short time, and Elba remembered Edward Kneip courting her sister. Kneip had always appeared a “gentlemanly fellow.”
They had dated for a while, but then he suddenly stopped coming to the house. Before the two had become an item, Pearl had gone out with many young men.
“She was always rather wild, and we could do nothing with her,” said Elba. “She got to going out every night and my husband and I used to try to keep her home, but she would never mind us. We finally had to tell her to leave the house.”
This must have been a blow. The young girl had been virtually homeless since she was eight. Her parents had split up, and she had run away from her mother’s home, moving in with other family members. Deprived of schooling and the normal life of a young girl, she had worked since she turned ten.
A childhood companion, Millie Ryman, claimed that Pearl had been sent to work on a farm in Colley, Pennsylvania. She was “sort of a wild girl, but at that time she wasn’t a bad girl.” She liked the boys “and the boys liked Pearl, although she never tagged after them. She was always ready for fun and went to the dances every little while when we had them.”
Most shockingly, according to Ryman, Pearl had married and run away from the farm. “I haven’t seen anything in the papers about that marriage,” said Ryman, “and I guess she hasn’t said anything about it, but that’s what we all heard when she left town…I couldn’t swear that she was married then, but everyone said she was married. That was in 1915, I think, and Pearl was 14 years old.”
Pearl, when asked about Ryman’s story, denied that she had been married before meeting James O’Dell.
Although Pearl’s past suggested that the girl might not have been as innocent as she maintained, her husband James had apparently lived an upright life. Prior to his marriage, James O’Dell had a spotless record.
A Rochester native, he had served his country in the U. S. Navy, was a member of the Masons, Elks, Oddfellows, and the American Legion, and he played saxophone in the Legion Band. He was slight, weighing only 122 pounds, and wore tortoise shell rimmed glasses. It was unlikely that he would have worked up the courage to confront Kneip of his own volition. Someone must have goaded him into the crime.
“It now seems certain,” concluded a reporter for the Reading Times, “that rejected love, turned to smoldering hatred, transformed Pearl O’Dell, 18 years old, into a demon. Her fury at the loss of a favored lover impelled her to feed the mind of the youth she had married with venom until he became her partner in the ‘honeymoon murder.’”
The prosecutor believed Pearl had taunted her new husband, accusing him of being “yellow,” until, unmanned by her derision, he had agreed to join her in the attack on Kneip. Sheriff Weidenmann agreed with this assessment: “It was unmistakably the woman’s crime.”
James O’Dell’s role was minimized as the case coalesced around Pearl. After he had handcuffed Kneip to the tree, he had told Pearl to do what she wanted, and then turned his back. “The dance of death executed by the girl was no pretty thing,” opined the reporter for the Reading Times. “The ground at the base of the tree was churned up by her high heel shoes as she lunged time after time at her helpless captive.”
Pearl, rather than James, had been the prime mover in the crime. The prosecutor’s theory claimed that Pearl considered Edward Kneip her mate; in her mind, Kneip had married and then rejected her. When she lost Kneip, “Mrs. O’Dell reverted to a savagery that few men are capable of.” As Rudyard Kipling had observed, “the female of the species is more deadly than the male.”
The defense team also intended to mine this vein of ore. The breakdown of Pearl’s relationship with Kneip had unbalanced her mind; she had become temporarily insane. The “terrible assault on her former sweetheart was a symptom of insanity, sweeping her back from the restraints of civilization to the ruthless impulses of her far-off savage ancestors.”
What accounts for the uptick in female crime, wondered newspaper writers?
Noted nerve specialist, Dr. John D. Quackenbos had an opinion: women were suffering from their expanded societal roles. “Women are living the lives of men and it is not surprising that being the mental equals of men they are becoming equally skillful criminals.”
This development, continued Dr. Quackenbos, surprised no one. Experts had long predicted that women would become more criminal. “Fifty years ago a leading London physician said that if women lived the lives of men, smoked and drank as they pleased, race deterioration would begin. That is exactly what has happened.” When Quackenbos was a young man, girls never went out at night, unless they were chaperoned. “Now it is not unusual to see a young woman in a hotel lobby with her legs crossed, smoking a cigarette.”
A lax, permissive society had allowed women to abandon old roles. Freed of restraint, criminality would naturally appeal to some of these women.
On January 14, 1920, the grand jury quickly returned two indictments, charging both James and Pearl with first degree murder. If a trial found them guilty, they faced the death penalty. There was, however, a complicating factor. Pearl announced that she was pregnant. If true — and she was refusing to allow a doctor to examine her — how might that complicate her trial and sentencing? Could you send a pregnant woman to the electric chair?
James in the Dock
The prosecutor chose to try the couple individually. James O’Dell faced justice first. His trial opened on April 19, 1920.
Public opinion was not with the hapless young man: men and women lined the entrance to the courthouse and hissed at him as he arrived for the first day of his trial. The crowd’s hostility compelled Sheriff Weidenmann to issue a public warning that his officers would make arrests if the demonstrations didn’t stop.
The prosecutor, using the couple’s confession against them, quickly laid out the state’s case: James and Pearl had abducted Edward Kneip. They tortured and killed him. Their action had been premeditated and deserved the maximum penalty available to the court.
Pearl O’Dell was the star witness for the defense. She claimed that on December 28, 1918, Edward Kneip had visited her at her sister’s home. He brought a box of chocolates. “I ate some,” testified Pearl, “but noticed that he refrained from doing so. I became dizzy. When I came to I was on the couch. I realized what had happened to me. I told him he would have to marry me. I said that if he didn’t I would have him arrested. He said that he would marry me, and we fixed the date for February 28, 1919.”
Unfortunately, Kneip quickly reneged on that arrangement. He kept postponing their nuptials, until finally, in June, she broke their engagement. In September she began seeing James O’Dell. O’Dell proposed in December. At first Pearl refused his offer because she had “had illicit relations with another man.” O’Dell prevailed, however, and the pair were married.
Kneip, after he learned about the wedding, approached Pearl in the street. He sent her a letter that James found in his wife’s purse; she snatched it from his hand and threw it into the wood stove. Suspicion haunted James; was his wife still involved with Kneip? He had difficulty sleeping.
Finally, said Pearl, “I said, if you don’t believe me go out and get him where he works. I want to see him. Bring him up here and we’ll make him tell the story.”
James had, setting the tragic story in motion.
Pearl’s attorney, Louis Fuller, interrupted her testimony before she could narrate the actual killing of Kneip. Knowing that she would soon be on trial, he did not want his client to make any statements that would haunt her in the subsequent case. “While I thought it no more than fair that she should testify for her husband,” Fuller told the court, “I think that she should not proceed further.”
Pearl’s testimony ended.
The trial was completed in four days. Although James O’Dell’s attorney attempted to build a case for manslaughter, emphasizing the idea that O’Dell simply intended to punish Kneip for his attack on Pearl’s virtue, the jury did not buy it. On April 23, after ten hours of deliberation, the foreman announced the verdict: guilty of first degree murder.
Judge Thompson sentenced James O’Dell to execution by the electric chair.
Pearl’s Trial
The excitement in Rochester had barely subsided from Jame’s trial, when the courthouse doors opened again and Pearl had her moment in the legal limelight.
Her trial began May 27, 1920. District Attorney William Love had a clearcut case, one that merited a charge of first degree murder. The police investigators again related the details of their investigation; the coroner testified to the savagery of the attack; Love capped his presentation by reading Pearl’s confession to the jurors. Her attorney, Louis Fuller, didn’t even waste the court’s time by cross-examining several of the state’s witnesses.
After a long weekend recess, the defense mounted its counterattack on Tuesday, June 2, 1920. Louis Fuller was aiming at a verdict of justifiable homicide, so it was important to curry sympathy with the jurors.
He put Pearl O’Dell on the stand and walked her through the tale of her difficult life. She told of a childhood destroyed by her parent’s separation at age four. She had been raised by her sisters and put to work as a teenager. Innocent in the ways of the world, she had fallen to Kneip’s machinations and then was devastated when he refused to make an honest woman of her.
Ultimately she had yielded to James O’Dell’s desire to marry her, despite her fallen state. Although O’Dell had said her past would not bother him, it obviously gnawed at his mind.
“He would get up in the night,” said Pearl, “and cry and sit in the parlor for two or three hours. He seldom ate anything but he never abused me.” Nevertheless, all was not well. “He said I hadn’t told him the whole truth. He called me his ‘second-handed wife’ several times.”
Her story unfolded with the tale of abducting Kneip, the taxi ride to the lonely country spot, and then handcuffing him to the tree. James O’Dell urged his wife to right the wrong that had been done to her. Pearl asked Kneip if he was sorry for what she had done to him.
“No,” he replied.
“I struck him across here [the temple] with the file,” she said, “and the handle slipped off. He called me a prostitute again. I threw the file and handle away, and James struck him with the gun once. The handle broke and he handed it to me, and I threw it away. James undid the handcuffs, and Kneip slid down the bank.”
After the two blows, Pearl claimed that she and O’Dell had started to walk away. Then, remembering that Kneip might have a letter from the attorney that mentioned her name, they returned to collect the incriminating evidence. Kneip was conscious. He suddenly attacked James O’Dell. He flung himself on top of James and began choking him. “I tried to pull Kneip off,” said Pearl, “but I couldn’t, so I struck him. Then I pulled James out from under Kneip.”
Was this justifiable homicide?
“Did you believe Jimmy was in great danger?” asked Pearl’s attorney.
“I certainly did.”
“Did you at any time have any desire to kill that man?”
“No,” she said, tersely.
“Did you at any time have any idea that you were killing him?”
“No, I did not.”
Pearl’s attorney spent a considerable amount of time portraying James as the responsible party in the affray. He was known to become violent when he drank, and Pearl attested to the smell of liquor on his breath the night of the homicide.
She, in fact, was the victim in the case. Kneip had victimized her; James O’Dell, incapacitated by his inability to let the past go, had victimized her by involving her in this murder. She was not a masterful manipulator of men: she was simply a traumatized woman who had been dealt a terrible hand.
The defense team’s strategy, throughout the trial, was to make her appear sympathetic. She could have been the misused, hapless daughter of any of the fathers sitting in the juror’s box.
It worked. The closing statements by both sides ended at 4:08 on Thursday afternoon. The jury retired for deliberations, and at 11:40 that evening, returned with their conclusion: guilty of murder in the second degree. Pearl would not face Old Sparky, the electric chair, at Sing Sing Prison.
Judge Thompson thanked the jurors and immediately levied his sentence: Pearl would serve twenty years to life at Auburn State Penitentiary.
Aftermath
James O’Dell was executed almost a year later, electrocuted on April 28, 1921. Pearl gave birth to their child, a daughter that she named Gloria, on September 12, 1920.
State law permitted her to keep the baby by her side in Auburn Prison for the first two years of its life. There was a public outcry when little Gloria was taken from Pearl after two years. More than 10,000 people submitted petitions to Governor Nathan Miller, asking him to commute her sentence and release her to raise Gloria. | https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-honeymoon-murderers-e7e89963233e | ['Richard J. Goodrich'] | 2020-12-16 17:55:20.931000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'True Crime', 'Crime', 'Murder', 'History'] |
sabor artificial de morango | in In Fitness And In Health | https://medium.com/poesia-rosa/sabor-artificial-de-morango-c8c69a86a533 | ['Vinícius Asevedo'] | 2018-09-01 17:50:57.159000+00:00 | ['Poesia', 'Poema', 'Literatura', 'Surreal', 'Poesia Rosa'] |
I never saw a discontented tree | I never saw a discontented tree
“I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!” | https://medium.com/tree-stories/i-never-saw-a-discontented-tree-e1162bffc19 | ['Rabia Akram'] | 2020-12-07 20:52:25.312000+00:00 | ['John Muir', 'Quotes About Trees', 'Trees', 'Quotes'] |
Cryptocurrency Tax Rules | Hi there! It’s obvious, that any industry, which currently stands at a rough valuation of more than 0.5 trillion USD will have to undergo certain speculations and manipulations. Thus the governments are putting all the efforts they can in order to prevent the malfunctioning cases found in the cryptocurrency market. Therefore, all countries both developing and developed ones, are currently coming up with certain regulations in order to oversee the business in the cryptocurrency market in order to deliver a safe and transparent space for the investors.
Cryptocurrency Tax Regulation
Starting from October 1, 2020, the cryptocurrency investors are required to pay a 20% capital gain tax on ‘excess profit’, if that profit goes beyond $2100. If the income level does not exceed this threshold, the taxation will not kick in. Non-residents and foreign corporations that trade on South Korean exchanges will also be taxed: under the new rules, Korean exchanges will be responsible for deducting the tax from transaction gains and paying it to the Korean customs office.
Taxation Period
According to the Income-Tax Act, the taxation period takes place from 1st January to the 31st December, roughly 1 year. Cryptocurrency taxes can be paid after reporting them together during the comprehensive income tax reporting period in May 2022. Cryptocurrency items will be added to the comprehensive income tax return form in the future.
Report Method
The South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges will start providing additional services for investors to assist them in reporting their taxes. Thus, you will be able to confirm the numbers in your capital gains through the exchange and report them in your taxation later. On the other hand, the National Tax Service will separately receive the details of all transactions incurred in the domestic exchanges on a quarterly basis and will compare them with every investor’s taxation report.
※ If an investor uses a domestic exchange that does not provide tax services, the investor should directly calculate the taxable income by computing the capital gains and report it to the National Tax Service.
Capital Gain Calculation
Taxes are levied on the proceeds deducted from the purchase price and additional expenses (transaction fees, tax expenses, etc.) from the selling price during one year, which is calculated for the threshold above $2100.
Reporting of accounts on the overseas exchange
The existence of overseas exchange accounts should be reported to the taxation authorities, apart from the report and payment made annually in May. The National Tax Service will add a crypto exchange account to the list of overseas financial accounts, once it is reported. However, if you decide to go the other dark way, you might get caught for not reporting your account, and for that, you will have to pay additional taxes and fines. In fact, you will be charged 20% for non-reporting and 40% for cheating (60% for out-of-regional transactions).
Can I use the OTC market to avoid taxation?
Once the revised Specific Financial Information Act takes effect in March next year, OTC companies operating in Korea will be defined as Virtual Asset Operators (VASP) and will be required to directly report to the financial authorities. However, it is not clear whether OTC companies will be required to report to the National Tax Service, as the enforcement ordinance of the tax law has not been issued yet.
Will it be possible to pay less taxes, if the numbers in the capital gains will be small? We can transfer the assets to our personal wallet before the tax is enforced and sell it as soon as we deposit it on the exchange after the tax is enforced?
Taxpayers will have to prove the acquisition value of the crypto they had even before the tax was enforced. Therefore, if you do not prove it before, it will be determined by September 30, 2021. If you acquire it after tax enforcement and fail to prove it, the acquisition price will be 0 KRW, so sales excluding 2% of local taxes will have to pay 20% of the total tax. | https://medium.com/misbloc/cryptocurrency-tax-rules-6e9006164925 | [] | 2020-12-07 03:06:49.050000+00:00 | ['Medicine', 'Taxes', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Projects'] |
NBA:The Nets dominated the Warriors, and the Clippers staved off a comeback attempt by the Lakers | Paul George’s Hot Hand Pushes Clippers Over Lakers in Season Opener
Listen, if last season proved anything, it’s not to overreact to opening night or even the regular season. For the second year in a row, the Clippers defeated the Lakers in the teams’ first game, riding a hot night from Paul George to a 116–109 win. The Clips raced out to a big lead in the first half before the Lakers closed the gap. But George was too good down the stretch, and the Lakers never really threatened in the final few minutes. With the caveat that this regular season is going to be one of the strangest in NBA history — yes, even after the last one — and that things can change immensely between now and whenever the playoffs happen, here are three thoughts on the first Clippers-Lakers matchup of the season.
Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports
The new additions had mixed results
Both teams relied heavily on their offseason additions in night one. Here are some very brief first impressions on some of those players.
— Dennis Schröder started at point guard and put up a near triple double in 28 minutes of action. Schröder recorded 14 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists in his Lakers debut. Though he wasn’t always effective — his energy can sometimes be a double-edged sword — it is clear to see what kind of role he can serve for the Lakers this season. His ball-handling should give LeBron less of a burden on offense, and his on-ball defense will have value against opposing guards. Overall, it was a solid start.
— Serge Ibaka started at center for the Clips, though he played fewer minutes than backup Ivica Zubac. (Zubac, it should be noted, was a plus-17 compared to Ibaka’s minus-8.) Ibaka’s offense was solid, but I’m most intrigued about what he can do defensively. Ibaka allows the Clippers to switch Anthony Davis-LeBron James pick and rolls when he’s matched up with AD. Ibaka isn’t someone who can guard Bron full time, but that’s a nice wrinkle for the Clips to have in their back pocket in a potential playoff series (gulp), and something they wouldn’t really want to do with Montrezl Harrell.
— Speaking of Harrell, he came off the bench and played a team-leading 32 minutes, putting up 17 points and 10 rebounds. He’s a natural fit with Schröder, and because of Marc Gasol’s foul trouble, he played early minutes alongside AD. The Laker version of Harrell was more or less the Clipper version. It was unsurprising to see his old teammates repeatedly challenge him defensively.
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— Nic Batum started in place of Marcus Morris and played a way bigger role than anyone imagined. Meanwhile, Gasol and Wes Matthews didn’t really have a big impact for the Lakers. Gasol started but was held to only 12 minutes because of all his fouling. I like the space Gasol offers on offense, he gave LeBron some room on drives Tuesday. But his type of defensive skill doesn’t really replace what Dwight Howard brought this team last season. Concern is too strong of a word to attach to a vet like Gasol, but his minutes deserve monitoring after how he struggled in the bubble.
Get used to big rotations
The Clippers had nine guys play at least 20 minutes in the opener. Meanwhile, the Lakers had 11 guys play at least 10 minutes. LeBron played only 28, and Davis 31. The Clips, who had an extra month off, pushed both Kawhi and PG to 34 and 36, respectively. This could be the new normal in the NBA as teams deal with the short layoff coming off the bubble. Limiting LeBron and AD obviously makes a ton of sense for the Lakers. This regular season is going to be about survival. I don’t imagine Frank Vogel is going to be as aggressive as he was last season when the Lakers were on a mission to secure that №1 seed. Vogel could have brought in James earlier in the fourth to stave off a Clips run but prioritized his body instead. Depth is going to be more important than ever for veteran-laden squads headed into 2021.
Be happy for Paul George
If anyone needed a big night Tuesday, it was Paul George. He poured in 33 on 13-of-18 shooting, including 5-of-8 from three. George bore the brunt of the Clips’ criticism after their Orlando playoff exit. One regular season game won’t repair his reputation — just watch the grilling he got from the TNT crew in the postgame — but PG needed a win, however small in the grand scheme of things. George said he was in a great place both physically and mentally Tuesday night — alluding to the difficulties he had in the isolation of the bubble. The league and we as fans are better off when PG is firing on all cylinders. Two seasons ago, he was an MVP candidate with the Thunder. If his health and mindset allow him to maintain that form moving forward, everybody wins.
Like our facebook page Just Perfect | https://medium.com/@fybsy/nba-the-nets-dominated-the-warriors-and-the-clippers-staved-off-a-comeback-attempt-by-the-lakers-5e0238cf5525 | [] | 2020-12-23 09:39:29.645000+00:00 | ['News', 'NBA', 'Lakers', 'Sports', 'Fybsy'] |
Gaming Headset VS Headphones: How to Choose for PC Gaming | Source: Gaming Headset VS Headphones: How to Choose for PC Gaming
You may have gotten an HD monitor, a PC with high-powered CPU, a video card combo and a fast-speed WiFi router to enhance your gaming experience. However, you may also find that an outstanding gaming experience ends up sounding. Indeed, the gaming experience is incomplete without a proper sound effects. A good headset or a good pair of headphones play a vital role in the immersive gaming experience.
However, whether you’re a casual gamer or a pro gamer, when intending to get an audio gear for your immersive PC game playing with outstanding sound effects, you may find yourself all at sea about whether to pick a gaming headset or a pair of headphones. Indeed, it’s hard for you to make the decision if you cannot discriminate between the two headgears.
Also, even if you’ve made the decision between them, you may still find yourself in the market for the right one which matches up to your expectation. Well, don’t be fretful. The following is going to explore the difference between a gaming headset and headphones and tell you how to choose between them. Then it’ll guide you on how to pick the right headset as well as offering you several excellent picks. Take your time and continue your reading.
Also Read:
Asus ROG Phone 3: Born for Optimal Mobile Gaming Experience
How to Connect Your Bluetooth Headset to Nintendo Switch
Headphones VS Earbuds: What’s the Difference and How to Choose
Full Instructions: How to Use TWS Bluetooth Earbuds
Risks You Should Know When Wearing Headsets
How Can be Restored While Smartphones and Headsets Have Become Dirty?
Gaming Headset VS Headphones: How Do They Differ
Having a clear understanding of the difference between gaming headset and headphones helps to find out their pros and cons, making it much easier for you to decide which one you should choose. There are a variety of factors through which the difference between the two audio gears can be explored. Let’s have a look.
Microphone
The most notable and more noticeable difference between the two types of headgears boils down to whether they have a built-in microphone. A gaming headset comes with a microphone for communication whereas a pair of regular headphones doesn’t. In other words, at the simplest level, a gaming headset is a headphone with a built-in microphone while headphones are just headphones without any microphone attached.
With the built-in microphone, gaming headset offers users an one-stop-shop solution for starting to play games as quickly as possible without getting in the grip of complicated technical details. Compared to the gaming headset, the headphones are less convenient since they don’t offer a singular audio gear solution.
However, you can gain immersive gaming experience by using a pair of headphones coupled with an extra mic combo which is detachable to the headphones. But this means you have to shop for both a pair of headphones and a mic for better PC gaming when you’d like to choose a pair of headphones.
Design
In terms of design, on the whole, gaming headset is bulkier and has more gamer-type looks than most of headphones. Gaming headset is a type of headgear customized for gaming so it features good gamer-type design. Due to the need of offering enjoyable gaming experience, it’s bulkier for prolonged use, has more pads in ear cups and larger headbands come with a retractable mic and own colorful LED sound designs (often RGB). Simply put, it’s designed to look good with your gaming setup.
Compared to a gaming headset, headphones have similar basic components. They also have a strap going the head, a pair of earcups, drivers, and speakers in the ear-cups. However, they don’t come with a microphone. Since regular headphones aren’t specifically made for gaming, they are not too fancy in looks. Nevertheless, they are still decent and neat in design.
Sound
Due to different purposes, there are various differences between the gaming headset and the headphones in sound quality. The gaming headset is born for gaming so it features itself at its best with all the gaming needs such as fancy design, clear communication mic, enhanced comfort, and immersive sound to provide an outstanding gaming experience. It offers you a lifelike gaming experience by giving you excellent surround sound and immersive sound capability.
Surround sound offered by gaming headset allows for high positional accuracy. This feature is extremely important for gamers who play competitive games especially FPS games since it enables users to accurately locate the position of the enemy. Moreover, a gaming headset is also capable of allowing users to discriminate powerful Bass such as the sounds from explosions or gunfire.
Furthermore, a gaming headset also offers you immersive sound by discriminating the amount and strength of different sound levels, which helps to give an in-game gaming experience.
However, in terms of the overall sound quality, a gaming headset isn’t good as compared to the headphones for the same price. This is because most gaming headset manufacturers pay more attention to the fancy design and the microphone instead of the overall sound quality.
When it comes to headphones, they are made to bring excellent sound quality since they are most frequently used to listen to music and record audios. Headphones, in general, can give an excellent natural sound with good Lows, Mids, and High as well as a significant amount of Bass. That said, headphones have better sound quality than the gaming headset for the same price. However, since they aren’t customized for gaming, the positional accuracy of headphones is often not as good as that of the gaming headset for the same price.
Pros & Cons of Gaming Headset
Pros:
* Fancy Look
* Built-in Microphone
* Singular Solution for Painless Setup
* High Surround Sound Capability
* Good Positional Accuracy
* Immersive and In-game Feel
Cons:
* Compromised Overall Sound Quality
Pros & Cons of Headphones
Pros:
* Good Overall Sound Quality
* More Versatile
Cons:
* No Microphone
* More Expensive Investment by Combining with Extra Mic
* Less Convenient When Pairing with Extra Mic
* Compromised Positional Accuracy
Gaming Headset VS Headphones: How to Choose
Now it has been manifest that both of the two headgears have their advantages and disadvantages. Hence, whether to choose a gaming headset or a regular pair of headphones, in fact, depends on your needs and your budget. Of course, you need to pay more attention to sound quality.
Figure out What You’ll Use It for
As mentioned earlier, the two audio gears are meant for different purposes. Thus, it’s of great necessity for you to figure out how you’ll use the audio gear.
If you’re just a casual gamer who plays games once in a while but always listens to music or mixing, a standard headphone may be the better choice since you can enjoy the audio with better sound quality. However, a gaming headset is a way to go if you’re a pro gamer since it’s customized for gaming and features itself at its best with all the gaming needs in design, mic, wearing comfort, and immersive sound to provide an outstanding gaming experience.
Focus on Sound Quality
In general, a pair of headphones is much sounding than a gaming headset. So if you attach great importance to overall sound quality, a pair of headphones may be a great option.
However, you need to simultaneously think about whether positional accuracy is necessary. If you’re into gaming, it’s advisable that you pick a good gaming headset since it can offer you excellent positional accuracy to help locate the position of your enemy.
Consider the Cost and Your Budget
In addition to figuring out your purpose and focusing on sound quality, you should also consider the cost of the two audio gears and whether it’s affordable for you.
In general, a gaming headset is cheaper than a pair of headphones. Headphones always come with the great sound quality which adds the cost of them. Besides, buying a pair of headphones always means buying both a pair of headphones and a detachable microphone. This makes the headphones much less affordable.
Anyway, based on your practical needs and personal preferences, it’s advisable that you choose one that is your budget option and value for the price.
How to Pick the Right Gaming Headset
For PC gaming, if you’re a pro gamer or a game lover who always plays games, a gaming headset is the way to go. However, since there are a great number of gaming headsets available in the market, choosing the right one isn’t a pushover. The following are some factors you should consider when selecting a gaming headset.
Design & Comfort
The right gaming headset should match your gaming setup. Besides, it should also look fancy and gamer-type. Moreover, comfort is paramount for a gaming headset since an uncomfortable headset can easily affect your gameplay. Therefore, you should take account of the shape and the diameter of the inner ear cup to find one that can well fit the size of your ears.
Sound Quality
Good sound quality is a must for the outstanding gaming experience. Hence, when selecting a gaming headset, you need to pay attention to sound quality. Keep remembering to choose one that comes with surround sound / stereo sound which allows for high positional accuracy, leading to more efficient gameplay.
Besides, you need to focus on the speakers and drivers as well as the frequency response. Choose a gaming headset with large speakers and a wide frequency response allows for precise and immersive gameplay. Moreover, choosing one with noise cancellation, excellent details, Bass and Treble is also good for enhancing sound quality, bringing better gameplay.
Durability
Buying a low-quality gaming headset will bog you down in repairing and replacing within a few months. Hence, always invest in a durable and quality headset which allows you to use it for a more extended period.
Cost
Choosing a gaming headset which satisfies all the above needs and within your budget is advisable. It’s not always the higher the price, the higher the quality. It’s inadvisable of you to invest in a very expensive one that doesn’t have very high quality and far beyond your budget. You should choose one which is affordable and value for the money.
What Headset Do Pro Gamers Use
For pro-gamers, HyperX Cloud is by far the best and the most popular gaming headset in the world. It includes the first and second versions. In terms of design, it’s sleek and simple with the flexible leather-wrapped headband and detachable microphone. Its fancy brushed metallic exterior makes it look gamer-type.
For comfort, this model uses flexible memory foam (double layers with distinctive HyperX synthetic leather) in the earplugs and headband, making it comfortable to wear on your ears after long-time use.
In terms of sound quality, its 50mm drivers and wide frequency range allow for excellent sound quality. With the virtual 7.1 surround sound, it enables users to determine the source of the enemy, leading to the more accurate gaming experience. The Cloud II microphone and the 3.5mm Cloud II plus USB plugs also make the model the ideal choice for gaming.
For most pro gamers, the HyperX Cloud will be the ideal choice of gaming headset. However, the fact is that its price is around $100 which is quite expensive and is likely to be far beyond your budget. Don’t fret though. There are much cheaper alternatives that can still give you the majority of powerful features that the ideal HyperX Cloud has. They are our Model WV725 (product link), WV726 (product link), and WV710L (product link) stereo gaming headset.
More Affordable Gaming Headset Alternatives: Our Model WV725, WV726, and ＷV710L Stereo Headsets
Whether for pro gamers or for game lovers, these three models of gaming headset are excellent choices for gaming since they allow for an immersive, high-efficient, and outstanding gaming experience at super cheap prices. In terms of design, they are sleek and fancy and can be comfortably placed and wore on your ears for long-time use. It’s worth noting that the model WV710L comes with a colorful LED light sound design, which makes it completely cool and gamer-type.
As to the sound quality, these three models are capable of supporting surround sound which allows for high positional accuracy when sourcing the enemy. Their 40mm speakers and the wide 20hz-20khz frequency response range also bring immersive gaming experience for users. The audio output is also very excellent.
In terms of the plug, they support 3.5mm headphone plug plus USB plug, which makes them versatile and compatible with more devices other than PC. As gaming headsets, they have good product quality, making them durable to use.
WV725 & WV726 & WV710L Specs
Headset: ABS+PP
Speaker: 40mm32
Frequency response: 20hz-20khz
Output power:5mw
Microphone sensitivity: -42db +/ -3db
Length of wire:1.2m
Plug :3.5mm+USB
Cable box: volume + microphone switch
Price
WV725 Stereo Gaming Headset:$3.58
WV726 Stereo Gaming Headset:$3.04
WV710L Stereo Gaming Headset with Light Version:$4.91
Final Verdict
The gaming experience is incomplete without good sound effects. A gaming headset or a pair of headphones helps to bring more immersive and outstanding gaming experience. Whether you should choose a gaming headset or a pair of headphones depends on your practical needs and personal preferences since they both have their pros and cons.
However, for pro gamers, a gaming headset may be the way to go since this headgear is born for gaming. When choosing a good gaming headset, you need to consider the design, comfort, sound quality, durability, and your budget. The rule of thumb is to pick one that is value for the price and within your budget. Our Model WV725 (product link), WV726 (product link) and WV710L (product link) gaming headsets are worth a try since they are powered with excellent features in super-cheap prices. You can have a try. | https://medium.com/@carrienewaymobile/gaming-headset-vs-headphones-how-to-choose-for-pc-gaming-a336791ed6cc | ['Carrie Tsai - Neway'] | 2020-09-04 07:40:13.852000+00:00 | ['Gaming Headset', 'Gaming', 'Headphones', 'Pc Gaming'] |
Overview of trading tips from AIT desk | Overview of trading tips from AIT desk
Our ML team provides the freshest and the most interesting #tradingtips and #tradingsignals which you can use for your profit.
We are really proud to have this new section on our blog #AIT_TIPS.
During the past week, we managed to collect several tips and ask you to share them with your community.
The most recent:
For sure you have friends who are asking questions like:
“How do I start investing in crypto?” “What to do with million of cryptocurrencies in the market?” “How not to screw up choosing trading strategy?”
In our list, there are MedicalChain, Level Up Coin, GreenMed, Sia coin, Nexus, Tron, Lisk, Cortex, and Fantom.
Any questions or concerns? Ask our ML team in Telegram community! | https://medium.com/aitrading/tips-from-ait-desk-overview-d3ac90a6a408 | [] | 2018-06-14 15:04:27.352000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Trading Tips', 'Trading Ideas', 'Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Trading'] |
Here at Christmas and the New Year, I am going to celebrate our return to sanity AND the inclusion of a population that has left out | Here at Christmas and the New Year, I am going to celebrate our return to sanity AND the inclusion of a population that has left out Left Wisdom Dec 23, 2020·3 min read
A lot of people are saying Merry Christmas right now. I am going to say it in a way that means more than just a celebration of a commercial or even religious holiday. I am going to say Merry Christmas by expressing my joy that there are signs that we may be coming out of what I continue a dark night of the soul that we have been in the middle of for the last four years.
In two days' time, we will be celebrating, as individuals of a particular religious tradition, the birth of our hope for peace and goodwill to all persons. Others have been known to celebrate this same period of time as a sign of recovery from the depth of darkness of winter. I feel it is time that we look again to the future with home after the pain and angst many of us have suffered for the last four years watching bigotry given full voice in this nation that we take such pride in.
That is why I take this opportunity to give my thoughts on the nominee that Joe Biden, our President-Elect has decided to nominate for Secretary of the Dept of the Interior. This nomination is a piece of good news for more than one reason. Ms. Deb Haaland represents a first. She is the first Indigenous American to ever be elected to Congress in 2018. She is a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe and was elected as a Democrat in New Mexico. This signals Biden’s commitment to making his cabinet look like America as a nation with representation from the rank and file, including the different ethnic demographics that actually make up this diverse tapestry of a nation.
The second reason that we need to celebrate this nomination is that it is also a sign that we are moving, at least a bit, away from the attitude that we have been cursed with for the last four years, and rape and pillaging of the land. Ms. Deb Haaland is likely as the first Indigenous American Cabinet member to bring a sensitivity about resource conservation beck to the Federal government.
What would be the best New Years' gift that I can think of is that this nomination is confirmed, and our nation moves into the future with a more inclusive and environmental attitude that we have suffered for the last few years. Bringing another minority that has long been either ignored or abused to a place at the table can only be a good thing. And Christians celebrating the Christ of hope should have comfort in the hope presented by this change in direction.
Despite the hatred that is being spewed at the current time, let’s try to look to the future that will soon be with us with at least some measure of hope.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and let’s move into 2021 with hope and the joy that comes with hope. | https://medium.com/@jwgarman2/here-at-christmas-and-the-new-year-i-am-going-to-celebrate-our-return-to-sanity-and-the-inclusion-6664faef1a5c | ['Left Wisdom'] | 2020-12-23 20:04:00.319000+00:00 | ['Biden', 'Christmas', 'Indegenous', 'Hope', '2020 Presidential Race'] |
Dear White Women Who Voted for Trump | Leave surveys show that 55% of white ladies decided in favor of Trump in 2020, considerably more than the 52% who so in 2016.
To those white ladies, I state: your disguised sexism is poison. Your prioritization of racial domination and dread of the individuals who are unique in relation to you over the exacting wellbeing and soundness of our nation is poison. You have been drinking and planting poison from a man who abhors ladies, disdains non-white individuals, and ridicules individuals of various capacities. When Trump said he was getting your spouses back to work, did you hear him? Do you realize that we are the greater part of school graduates and the greater part of the labor force? When the dependable rape claims accumulated against him, did you not hurt inside for your kindred ladies who have been assaulted, their accounts denied, and their names hauled through the mud? When you see babies in confines — some of whom may never be brought together with their folks again — does your heart not throb? When you show your own kids compassion, what models do you approach?
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This isn’t a bring down of conservative ladies who have unexpected perspectives in comparison to I do on strategy. Contempt and refusal of essential basic freedoms for all individuals is an ethical issue, not a political one.
I distinguish as a lady most importantly. Prior to any of my different descriptors — American, mother, pioneer, spouse, author, companion, white, hetero, and so forth I have been a young lady, raised totally by ladies. I have been a young lady, seen uniquely as a sex object notwithstanding my Elite level instruction. Truth be told, a portion of the most exceedingly awful of that externalization and sexist treatment occurred at that equivalent Elite level school by entitled chauvinist man-young men simply like Trump. My First year I spruced up as Aphrodite and was pushed in a bad position and nearly assaulted by a male companion. Later I was told by a male cohort who I had dominated in a discussion that I would make an incredible congressperson’s better half one day. Etc.
All ladies have these encounters, regardless of whether you are the (in any event) one out of three who have been assaulted. However you decided in favor of a sequential sexual stalker and victimizer who can’t stand a female writer posing him extreme inquiries. Who rates and upbraids financial specialist and female lawmakers on their appearances and sexuality. Who utilized mission assets to take care of a porno star he took part in an extramarital entanglements with while his significant other was recuperating from the introduction of their youngster.
You decided in favor of a man who let a huge number of Americans kick the bucket from Coronavirus without demonstrating a smidgen of compassion for their families and networks. A man who is a narcissist so threatening he will gain by any circumstance to bring in cash and advance himself, in any event, when he got the horrible illness he’s been lying about. Who supported and enacted racial oppressor bunches that advocate for scorn violations and racial war. Who might allow California to consume, drill the Cold, and offer our public terrains to line the coffers of other rich men. Who hauled our nation out of helpful worldwide agreements and many years old unions for our wellbeing, security, and climate for his deference for dictators who murder their own kin. Whose political nominees are as of now gutting the very foundations that they should serve, that should serve you and your family.
White ladies, we have to improve. We are a contributor to the issue of racial domination and abuse. We have to put non-white individuals immovably at the front of our psyches and hearts and never-ending advantage and tune in and figure out how to be genuine partners. We have to act and talk and give and vote as though our own relationships will be broken up and our positions undermined when LGBTQ+ rights are assaulted. We have to begin by recognizing that even with the extended Biden win, this nation isn’t alright, and that it has never been ok for all Americans.
We have to not detest ourselves and one another, by the same token. As ladies, we have to cooperate to recuperate the open injuries that this political race season has uncovered. Trump verged on winning a subsequent term, regardless of indicating us and the world precisely what his identity is. He is still President for three additional months. After that the phantom of his despot style administration won’t disappear and nor will the lie enhancement chamber that is Fox News. There will be others like Trump who are encouraged to lie and put down and partition. You can’t tune in to the simple sounding untruths that Trump — and those in his picture — shout out and trust you to accept. Neither Covid or prejudice are disappearing. The hard certainties and significantly harder work anticipate. | https://medium.com/@zvcfvbgf/dear-white-women-who-voted-for-trump-6a6afb24abc0 | [] | 2020-11-13 13:55:22.709000+00:00 | ['Human Rights', 'Feminism', 'Election 2020', 'White Supremacy', 'America'] |
What Travelling the World Taught Me About Leadership | Travelling has always been a significant part of my life. My wife and I travel all over the world, trying to see and experience as many destinations, landscapes, and cultures as possible. It’s transformative; travelers know firsthand that it is impossible not to have it influence every aspect of your life.
Even in business. As the CEO of a global telecommunications company, travelling is also a major part of my day-to-day responsibilities. We have hundreds of employees working across all seven continents, from America to Brazil to the Congo. As our team has grown (and continues to grow), I now spend between 30–40 percent of my time flying between Ireland and other countries around the world.
Constantly changing environments and working with employees and clients from diverse cultures demands a skillset that sets many leaders apart. It not only positively impacts the relationship you have with your employees and clients, it also gives you a competitive advantage in your industry. These are the biggest lessons in leadership I have learned from being an avid traveller:
Big risks lead to bigger rewards
When people travel, they typically plan activities they have never done before: rock climbing, scuba diving, spelunking, etc. That is why “travel bucket lists” exist. These activities are challenging and scary because they are outside of our comfort zones, but this is also what makes them exhilarating and addictive-hence why most people try each activity once.
Yet, even that one time can have a huge impact on your mindset. Think about it: when do you feel the most inward change? During moments of stagnancy, or when you push yourself outside of your comfort zone? Bold choices have big rewards, and, in business, that could mean the difference between a successful organisation or one that is dead in the water. If you do not challenge yourself, how are you supposed to challenge your team?
Taking risks also requires confidence. It demonstrates that you are comfortable tackling challenging situations head-on, with the possibility that the outcome may not be in your favour. Employees will notice this. Great leaders should be okay with the unpredictable, and travelling regularly gives you the wherewithal to prevail in the unknown.
Building a community
There are many different synonyms to call your team of employees, but ‘community’ is rarely one of them. Bad leaders view their employees as cogs in a machine, and good leaders know that good employees are essential to their success-but leaders who travel think of employees as their community.
My company’s growth is not just my success, it is only possible because of my dedicated team. When you think of your employees in this way, you treat them differently. Just like when you travel, you treat the communities you enter into with respect. When you respect your employees, you care more about their personal development and happiness because you know your company is only as good as your employees.
There is an African proverb that has always resonated with me: “If you want to go fast, travel alone. If you want to go far, travel together.” This is the mindset I take with me into the office every day, no matter what location I am at.
The importance of sticking to a schedule
Imagine travelling without an itinerary. While this is possible for some people, most others need a schedule of times and events to make sure they do not miss out on anything they had planned. I have always been a stickler for organisation and, since I travel so much, I do not leave my house without a diary, which is where I prioritise all my tasks and goals.
Many people believe you have more time to work when you travel, but this is far from the truth. Travelling can be quite a time suck, so you must learn to work quickly and effectively in shorter periods of time. After numerous business trips, I have actually learned how to be more productive when I am away from the office. It is about managing your time well and working on what needs done first.
These lessons, among others, have altered my perspective on leadership and my ability to be a leader in ways that you cannot learn from a class or a book. Perhaps the best part about travelling is that everyone will pick up different skills along the way. I hope these lessons are insightful no matter what industry you are in, but I also hope you have the opportunity to travel and evolve yourself as a leader through your own experiences.
Connect with Kealan Delaney | https://medium.com/@kealandelaney/what-travelling-the-world-taught-me-about-leadership-3137096acbd0 | ['Kealan Delaney'] | 2020-01-24 16:13:12.349000+00:00 | ['Leadership Development', 'Leadership', 'Employee Engagement', 'Business', 'Employment'] |
The Ultimate Checklist for Getting a Job Interview in 7 Days. | The no bullshit checklist for getting job interviews from LinkedIn in days.
Straight to the point, follow these steps:
Got to LinkedIn and upgrade your account to Premium Career. Use your free month if you haven’t already or pay for it.
Forget about applying to jobs listed on LinkedIn. It doesn’t work.
Now this is where the real work begins. Go to your LinkedIn in profile and rework it completely. Use a beautiful header for your profile. Take a good head shot and use as your profile picture. Clean up your skills, experience and education area of your profile.Use samples of your past work and pinn them in the "Featured" area of your profile.
Let recruiters know you are open to work. You can share your open-to-work status by checking either "share with recruiters only" or "share with all LinkedIn members. Our goal is to "share with recruiters only"
Once you do this, you will begin to get profile views from recruiters. Now you need to give them compelling content to view. Post content that:
Outlines your process. Many people are probably already sharing their work samples, portfolios, products or services on LinkedIn. Don’t do this. Stand out from the crowd by sharing what differentiates you: Your process. Your secret sauce. For instance, many UI/ UX Designers are sharing their designs already on LinkedIn. So how do you differentiate yourself? Share your design process, share your learnings from working with clients. That stands you out from the crowd and gives recruiters some authentic content to see the stuff you are made of.
Will make people know, like and trust you. Tell compelling stories, people love them. Share your professional accomplishments. Freely share your knowledge. Post content everyday.
By now, you will be getting messages from recruiters requesting if you are available for work. Make it a two-way conversation by using your LinkedIn Inmail. Search for key recruiters in the industry or company where you want to work and send them a cold message. LinkedIn makes it easier by providing you with a free message template. Use it!
Remember, the goal is make people know, like and TRUST you. People only give jobs they feel this way about. Good luck!
https://upscri.be/z6hcki | https://medium.com/@opesays/the-ultimate-checklist-for-getting-a-job-interview-in-7-days-430ba5f8b7e1 | [] | 2020-12-14 04:23:14.326000+00:00 | ['Job Search', 'LinkedIn', 'Interview', 'Job Hunting', 'Linkedin Profile'] |
How to Buy a Quality Business on Flippa | I heard recently from the head of Flippa that my business partners and I had collectively bought and sold the most businesses by gross value. This was a surprise, as that’s not our day job, and we’ve done less that a dozen transactions. Our actual job is building SmartrMail.
Flippa is the biggest marketplace for buying and selling online businesses. We’ve used Flippa to help start businesses, grow our existing businesses, and to generate free cash flow as ‘side hutles’ while we were employed. We’ve done well financially from it: everything we’ve sold has been for at least 3x what we paid. It’s also taught us some important lessons on running and growing different types of internet businesses.
I’ve had friends often ask ‘how do I buy a website?’. So, for them and anyone else interested, here’s my guide on how we buy websites on Flippa:
1. Decide What Type of Business To Look For
First off, think about the type of business you might want to run. We’ve bought a range of businesses, from Design Blogs to Digital Template Stores, to Marketing Tools. Some are going to require more hands-on work to improve, grow and maintain. An eCommerce store will take more day to day running than a blog. But none of them are ‘passive’. All require effort and work to improve and maintain. My personal view on web businesses is if they’re not growing they’re dying, so you will need to always be actively growing your business.
Our personal preference is older, established websites that have an audience, but haven’t been given much attention from their owners. So they may have a steady (but declining) stream of organic traffic, or have an established customer purchase history, but haven’t been updated for a long time. We’re happy to buy old, ugly websites, as long as they’re on an easy to improve platform. In our experience, sites on platforms like WordPress, BigCommerce, Shopify, Magento are best as they can quickly be improved.
In eCommerce we tend to like digital goods over real goods as there’s no stock to handle. We avoid drop-shipping as it seems too hard to get good margins. Established blogs are great if you like and understand the topic. I’ll go into more detail around why we like blogs, and few ways we’ve quickly monetized blogs to 10x earnings, in another post.
It’s up to you what type of business you choose. We look at hundreds to find quality and value, and only buy businesses we can understand or confidently learn about quickly.
2. Search for Businesses at least 2 years old
Set Website Age to 2+ Years.
To quickly weed out 90% of the junk and scam businesses, limit your search for businesses that are minimum two years old.
Does this mean you might overlook a good, young business? Certainly. But it removes you having to sift through the bulk of the silt to find a speck of gold. Most scammers or quick flippers don’t have the patience set up and run a scam website for more than a year. You can set Web Site Age in advanced search.
2. Understand Valuation Multiples
You’re buying a business, so you should understand the basics of how business is valued, which is Annual Earnings Multiples. If you’re buying shares of a public company on a stock exchange, you might pay 20x Annual Earning for those shares. That is, that company’s annual earnings are 1/20 of the value of the company. Public companies are considered a ‘safe’ investment as there’s a lot of information about them, their books are audited by a trusted 3rd pary, and there’s high liquidity as you can easily sell your shares.
Buying on Flippa is the complete opposite.
There’s an incredibly high risk of getting ripped off when buying a business from an online marketplace, so the value should be much lower than 20x earnings. When looking at a businesses earnings, make sure you use the last 12 months of data to calculate ‘annual earnings’. Often people will look at the last 3 months and multiply that by 4. That’s a mistake. It’s human nature to optimise for earnings when you’re selling a business, so the last 3 months earnings are likely jacked up (by any means). Also, just assume some costs have been stripped out to boost earnings, espcially any owner’s time.
3. Buy Value
We look to buy companies on a Price to Earnings (P/E) of 1x. That is, if you held the company for a year, with no change in current earnings, it would pay back the value of the purchase price. We’ve bought businesses on valuations between 0.8x-3x earnings before. Mostly we’ve bought at around 1x-1.5x.
Sometimes we’ll pay up to 3x on a business that has obvious ways to grow earnings quickly, or that can provide one of our other businesses with immediate earnings growth.
Mostly we’ll stick to paying 1x — 1.5x earnings. The risk of buying something worth less than it seems is so high that we’d prefer not to go over this. It’s better to miss out on something good that isn’t cheap than lose your money.
4. Set Your Budget and Earnings Range
So lets say you’ve set an earnings range of 1x-2x P/E. You can work out what Monthly Profit range to set on search by dividing your total budget to buy a business by 24 and 12 (1x-2x).
For example, assume you’ve got $2,500 to spend on a business. The Monthy Profit slider could be set between $50–250 Profit per month. If you pay $2,500 for a business earning $250 per month, that’s a P/E of 0.8x (great!). Paying $2,500 for a business earning $50 per month is 4.2x, which is expensive. Ideally you’d pay up to $1,200 max for a $50 per month business.
4. Search for a Business You Can Run
Ok we understand how to value a business, so it’s time to browse away. Look for anything that you understand or thing you could learn about. If you’re buying a blog or ecommerce site, it’s pretty easy to understand what you’re getting.
For example, buying a blog about something you’re already interested in means you can hit the ground running with new content, and new marketing, as you understand the topic, and the audience. Neil Patel wrote a comprehensive guide to building up your blog audience. Read it in a day and that’s enough to grow your blog. As you build your audience you can add different streams of revenue outside of just Ads, which I’ll go into another time.
The beauty of buying an established business, as opposed to starting one, is you’re getting many years of hardwork for not a lot of money. If you stick to looking at businesses built on top of one of the established platforms mentioned above, you can easily find people on Upwork to help with technical and design updates.
5. Understand the Technology Risks
If you’re buying a more complicated tech business, you need to understand the technology risk. For example, if you’re looking at a SaaS, you need to research the market, and the technology it’s built with. Understand the cost to continue development and support. Same goes for native mobile apps on iOS and Android.
If you’re a developer and you find a business in an area you understand, then you’re at a distinct advantage in assessing it. If you’re not technically minded, then I’d suggest either partnering with someone who is, or avoiding businesses that rely heavily on technical innovation.
6. Be Patient and Thorough
There are thousands of listings, but most of the businesses on there are junk. The rest are scams. Seriously.
Only a handful are quality, so deep research and patience is needed. Expect to be looking for at least a couple of weeks at new listings. I’d suggest creating an account, and saving your particular search. That way you’ll get send a daily email digest of new listings matching your search critera.
This is the most important step: the patience to look at hundreds of businesses and saying no quickly, until you find one that has met all the above criteria. It’s something Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger talk about a lot: doing nothing for a long time until they find something excellent.
7. Be Ready to Move Quickly
When you find a business you like, that’s priced within the P/E range you’re comfortable with, message the seller. Ask:
Add you to their Google Analytics (you’ll need to give your gmail address) to verify their traffic sources.
What’s their reserve?
What would they do to grow the business?
Checkout the seller’s selling history, has the site been sold previously, if so what were the comments on it. Google the seller. Go to the website for sale, search around it, sign up, dig in and use it. Go to their social channels, check what people are saying about the business. If it’s selling something, buy something to see what it’s like.
If everything checks out, next set up a time to Skype/Hangouts call with the seller. Ask the same questions, reasons for selling, and make them screenshare and login to their payment gateway (PayPal, Stripe etc) and show you the actual earnings on the call. Do the same with the website’s admin panel, and email inbox.
Indepth research here is the most crucial step to avoid getting your face ripped off. Expect to deep research like this 3–10 times before you find and successfully buy a business.
If you start asking questions straight away, you’ll be prepared incase a business suddenly gets a Buy It Now price added. For businesses that have a high reserve price, just ‘watch’ them. It likely won’t sell, and if it does be thankful it wasn’t you that overpaid. Often first time sellers have unrealistic price expectations, and may relist a business a few times before it comes into a reasonable sale range.
8. Use Escrow to Buy
If you’re buying on Flippa, just use their Escrow services. Give yourself at least a 7 day escrow period. This means the business, email and social accounts will be transferred over to you on day 1, and you’ve got 7 days to check it’s legit before the funds are released to the buyer. Use the time to check the traffic (sales if there are any) is as it should be.
Woohoo, you’re now a business owner! Next step, growing your business… | https://medium.com/on-startups-and-such/how-to-buy-a-quality-business-on-flippa-4fa9701a069c | ['George H.'] | 2020-11-05 05:49:32.950000+00:00 | ['Growth Hacking', 'Growth', 'Startup', 'Flippa', 'Hustle'] |
Lenape Regional High School District Business Administrator, James Hager, Receives NJASBO Distinguished Service Award | Lenape Regional High School District Business Administrator, James Hager, Receives NJASBO Distinguished Service Award Admin Follow Jul 11, 2016 · 3 min read
Lenape Regional High School District (LRHSD) Business Administrator (BA)/Board Secretary and Medford resident James “Jim” Hager recently was honored by the New Jersey Association of School Business Officials (NJASBO) with a 2016 Distinguished Service Award for his long-term, continuous exemplary service.
As part of the award, Hager had the honor of presenting a $1,000 scholarship from NJASBO to a student at Seneca High School in Tabernacle.
Among just six Distinguished Service Awardees statewide, Hager has served as BA/Board Secretary for Lenape Regional High School District since 2003. Previously, he served in the same role for Pemberton Township Schools from 2001 to 2003, and Bridgeton Public Schools from 1999 to 2001. From 1986 to 1999, Hager worked at the New Jersey Department of Education, moving from Assistant Manager of the Bureau of Program Approval in the Division of Special Education when he was first hired, to the Division of Field Services’ County School Business Administrator for Burlington and Gloucester Offices when he left.
In nominating Hager for the Distinguished Service Award, Mary Ann Bell, President of Burlington County ASBO, said, “Jim is an asset not only to his district, but to the entire county; everyone wants to sit next to Jim because his perspective and insights are unmatched. He is always sought out when it is time for sound advice.”
Carol L. Birnbohm, Ed.D. Superintendent of the LRHSD, said, “I have had the pleasure of working side-by-side with Jim for almost his entire career in our district. Through the years, Jim has been a confidential sounding board offering a business lens to many important student and staff initiatives. I am glad to call him my partner in education and I believe much of our student and staff successes have come from Jim’s contributions, sage advice, and ability to do his job in the most ‘right’ way.”
LRHSD Board of Education President Linda Eckenhoff was effusive in her praise for Hager. “It’s an honor for us as school board members to work with Jim, who does such a fine job for the district, year after year. The fact that now his colleagues statewide have honored him with this award speaks volumes not only about his qualifications and experience, but his impeccable character as well.”
Fellow board member Margaret “Cookie” Estlow, added, “He [Hager] is never reactionary, but thinks issues through when pressed or asked a question. He is so well versed in education/ school/district finance, not just evaluating the day-to-day finances of the district, but the future financial needs and growth of the district. Jim also is very approachable and is an excellent communicator when explaining district business.”
Hager earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology and anthropology from Gettysburg College, and a master’s degree in Special Education from Temple University. He also received the State of New Jersey’s Principal and Supervisor of Education Certificates. Hager is a trustee and finance committee member of the Burlington County Joint Insurance Fund. In his free time, he enjoys being with his family and traveling
[caption id=”attachment_54582" align=”alignnone” width=”580"]
Lenape Regional High School District Business Administrator (BA)/Board Secretary James Hager, second from left, is applauded by his colleagues and officers with the New Jersey Association of School Business Officials (NJASBO) upon receiving the Distinguished Service Award. Pictured, from left, are 2015–16 immediate Past President Frank Ceurvels, Executive Director John F. Donahue, and President Louis Pepe. Hager was one of six NJASBO Distinguished Service Award winners.[/caption] | https://medium.com/the-medford-sun/lenape-regional-high-school-district-business-administrator-james-hager-receives-njasbo-distinguishe-ad7efaa56a31 | [] | 2016-12-19 15:55:44.660000+00:00 | ['James Hager', 'All News'] |
SQL Vs NoSQL | Individuals expect that NoSQL is the opposite of SQL. Instead, it’s an alternate kind of Database intended for use-cases where SQL isn’t ideal. The contrasts between the two are many, albeit some are significant to such an extent that they characterize the two databases at their centers.
Engineers/developers are all excessively mindful of the requirements for proceeding with training. Regardless of whether there’s another system to get or another support to learning, advancement and transformation are crucial to improvement. Perhaps the most blazing point, for now, is the choice to go with the standard SQL database or to move to a NoSQL database
NoSQL information bases have been around for quite a long time, on account of the development of Carlo Strozzi. Nonetheless, these databases weren’t in the news much until the mid-2000s’. Off late, organizations like Google and Amazon started investing more energy into creating NoSQL databases. Regardless of their new fame, numerous engineers, modelers, and planners may not be completely fully informed regarding what NoSQL databases offer.
Accordingly, for a once-over on the contrasts between the two databases, look at the accompanying 7 key takeaways that each engineer should know
1. The Use of Structured Query Language
SQL databases are characterized because of their utilization of the SQL language. Any database that somebody can collaborate with through SQL is a SQL database. As an incredible, all-around utilized language, it’s utilized across various information bases, for example, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and the sky is the limit from there. The inquiry language permits clients to compose complex inquiries, pull information from a few tables, and that’s just the beginning. This comprehensiveness settles on it a protected decision for anyone who needs unwavering quality.
Then again, albeit comprehensively ordered, databases that don’t use SQL are NoSQL databases. As we’ll before long observe, the best approach to connect with NoSQL databases can incredibly vary starting with one data set then onto the next relying on the composition plan.
2. Relational versus Non-Relational
Other basic names for the two databases being referred to are relational and non-relational databases.
SQL or relational databases store information in predefined models that make them easy to utilize and depend upon. This model permits data to be embedded, refreshed, and extricated effectively. In addition, separate data indexes can be connected by interesting identifiers — keys. To put it plainly, relational databases can be perceived by all.
Then again, non-relational databases, NoSQL data sets, are substantially more adaptable regarding data stockpiling. While this may appear to be helpful, prepared designers will comprehend its expected effects. After some time, as increasingly more data is put away in a non-relational database, it might get hard to keep everything straight as there are no standard models to follow.
3. Table Based vs the Field
SQL databases utilize tables, whereas NoSQL databases utilize just about anything else. The table-based approach goes hand-in-hand with the rigid schemas. You create as many tables as you need for your project, and you relate them with one another. Thus, you know exactly how a table will look when you need to examine data you haven’t seen yet.
NoSQL databases are quite vague in this sense, as their data is fluidly structured. There is no exact basis on which NoSQL databases are founded. Some popular NoSQL databases use graph stores, key-value pairs, wide-column stores, or document-oriented stores. The advantage of using NoSQL databases is that you have unlimited flexibility. You can choose whatever kind of database engine you want.
4. Vertical Scaling versus Horizontal Scaling
One of the main reasons NoSQL databases filled in prominence was because of their even adaptability. SQL databases require vertical scaling — you need to add more capacity to improve execution and limit. In principle, SQL databases have a maximum cutoff which can be arrived at when no more equipment enhancements can be made. This may prompt extensive downtime and more noteworthy costs in changing your model.
Presently don’t do you need to put cash in more costly segments and better quality CPUs to oblige scaling a SQL database. At the point when you utilize a non-Relational database, you should simply add more machines to your munitions stockpile. Also, even scaling basically gives repetition as you have a few machines and not one purpose of disappointment.
5. Defined Schemas vs Dynamic Schemas
Piggybacking off the relational and non-relational aspect of databases, the differences in data storage is stark between the two styles.
SQL databases utilize schemas and tables which are predefined and easy to access for all users. You have your primary keys, fields, and values. From there, you can create as many tables as you’d like. You can insert secondary keys into tables and create complex relationships between several tables. This style of data storage makes it easy and quick to analyze large amounts of data together.
On the other side of the coin, non-relational databases allow you to create databases with dynamic schemas. You don’t need to create database models upfront. As you expand your database, you can add new models and mix data types seamlessly.
6. Use Cases
On the off chance that you have a strong handle of your undertaking and the data you need to store, settling on a SQL and NoSQL data set is clear.
At the point when you have information that seems as though it is innately relative, utilize a SQL information base. They’re solid, effectively open with SQL, and demonstrated stores of data.
Then again, if your data is adaptable and doesn’t have inflexible relations, try a NoSQL database out. You have a few mainstream suppliers to choose from. You’ll discover the ease of having the option to characterize new patterns on the fly appealing. Besides, in case you’re stressed over future adaptability, NoSQL databases are appropriate to use.
7. Support, or Lack Thereof
The last key takeaway to be aware of is the support for the two types of databases. SQL databases are giants — they have swaths of users around the globe. They’re well-established and come with thorough documentation. If you run into a problem with an SQL database, you’ll have plenty of help. Plus, there’s plenty of walkthroughs and SQL cheat sheets to help newcomers.
Although NoSQL has gained a following and popularity, they still lack the same support compared to SQL databases. You may struggle to find quality educational materials, support docs, and more.
In short, if you know how your data looks, and what the future holds for your database, it’s easy to choose a type of database. SQL databases provide proven results, a powerful query language, and consistency. NoSQL databases are innovative, adaptable, and powerful databases that will only grow with time. | https://medium.com/@vigneshthulasidass/sql-vs-nosql-2d3034299c23 | ['Vignesh Thulasi Dass'] | 2020-12-23 21:13:07.455000+00:00 | ['Nosql Database', 'Sql Server', 'Sql', 'NoSQL', 'Database'] |
The Legend and Hero NFTs | The Legend and Hero NFTs
To build Bollyverse, a parallel Bollywood heroes dimension, Bolly Heroes brings about a limited edition NFT collection where your NFTs will be the stars of their films, animated series, games, and significantly more. The unique feature of this Bollyverse is that it collaborates with real partners like production houses, music marks, brands, big names, gaming studios, and animation organizations. This parallel Bollywood universe consists of Legend and Hero NFTs, explained below.
LEGEND NFTs
Legend NFTs includes 250 interesting NFTs addressing notorious scenes, characters, and outfits from 50 years of history of Bollywood motion pictures — the world’s largest entertainment industry! The most distinctive feature they portray is that they do not represent any real characters or people but closely resemble everything Bollywood stands for.
If you hold the Legend collection, you are automatically eligible for 10% royalties that these NFTs grant, which seems like a great deal! This royalty can be earned, on transaction fees, revenue, rewards, and incentives within the Bollyverse. Early holders and participants get the most rewards, so buckle up before they sell out!
Another advantage is that the collection of Legends convey a few rights on the booking of tasks and a few different exercises inside the Bollyverse for perpetuity. In the initial 15 days, the Legend NFTs can be exchanged by the Community. Therefore, in simple terms, one must hold legend NFTs for various future promotions and exclusive rewards.
HERO NFTs
Hero NFTs comprise 10000 interesting automatically generative NFTs with their motivations and prizes. Every Hero NFT has various characteristics and properties that will be disclosed near the dispatch. So what exactly makes them suitable and attractive for Indian consumers?
Their uniqueness and appeal lie in the way they catch Indian Bollywood culture, the enthusiasm, and the fantasy that continues for each Indian just as worldwide residents. They subtly try to capture the vividness of how one’s character would like as these NFTs do not represent any real-life characters. Each from the massive array of heroes has traits, unique skills that will be instrumental in launching any new Bollyverse Projects like producing films, music, shows, products, and services inside the Bollyverse.
These Hero unique skills can also be pooled or traded by the community to commission projects which also makes these unique and readily tradable by the community to commission projects. A few Heroes have a lot of credibility and hence influence over the Legends and Real NFTs. And the best part is, all Hero holders can join the Bollywood World governance and vote!
We will distribute 30% of the exchange expense into the community wallet, which can be utilized for working and purchasing up the floor for giveaways. It is at long last an ideal opportunity to be the creator of your own Bollywood acting and afterward understand your best film, TV series, or comic ideas!
About Bolly Heroes:
Bolly Heroes is a limited NFT collection in which you may write, perform, and produce your tales and characters to deliver community-driven movies, games, events, and activities. Bolly Heroes is a platform where you can buy ultra-rare NFTs to collect and preserve as gifts from your favorite Bollywood stars. These NFTs are extremely rare since they do not expire but instead live for a lifetime. The fascinating characteristic of NFTs is that they act as a digital fortune for you. It is a new concept for those who respect the works of celebrities and are passionate admirers of Bollywood’s never-ending enchantment.
Social Media
Website | Discord | Telegram | Twitter | Opensea Collection | https://medium.com/@bollyheroesofficial/the-legend-and-hero-nfts-52300c89fe5a | ['Bolly Heroes - Nfts In Bollyverse'] | 2021-11-26 09:20:22.317000+00:00 | ['Bollywood', 'Opensea', 'Nft Collectibles', 'Nft'] |
Live Streaming vs. Video on Demand: What’s the Best Fit? | Live Streaming and Video on Demand (VOD) offer different benefits to an organization, and both can be leveraged to ensure growth opportunities and engagement with your audience. The question is, which is the right fit for you?
What is Video on Demand?
VOD is the ability to click and play video content without the constraints of a broadcasting schedule and is distributed to viewers on internet-connected devices.
While examples of VOD platforms include Netflix, Disney +, and Hulu, it’s not a video service that is limited to these leaders in the media and entertainment industry. VOD is becoming more established as a platform to stream niche content by smaller broadcasters, including those in the health and fitness industry. Video-on-Demand content enables practitioners such as physiotherapists or personal trainers to provide additional benefits to face to face sessions.
For the health and fitness industry, motivation plays a crucial role in enabling individuals to reach their goals. There’s no better way to do this than face to face, but when this isn’t possible, due to COVID lockdown or in between sessions, then video content with exercises for strengthening and conditioning will maintain motivation and self-discipline for your audience.
What is Live Streaming?
Live streaming is the ability to record and broadcast real-time, live video to your audience over the internet.
Typically, live streaming is done via an internet-enabled device using third-party channels, which can include Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, or your own SVOD platform.
Live streaming provides a direct-to-audience link and should be considered a premium and unique experience for your audience. It works particularly well for audience participation, especially if holding fitness classes, broadcasting events, or sharing a personal and timely message to your viewers.
Benefits of Video on Demand
Content is available precisely when a user demands access to it, as often as they wish to access it and on the device of their choosing
Plays as high-quality video regardless of the audience’s internet speed
Content can be perfected and edited before being distributed
Drives consistent and reliable revenue through a subscription (SVOD) model
Benefits of Live Streaming
Target your content to viewers most likely to engage, on your schedule
Provide real-time engagement with viewers
It takes less time to produce, no editing requirements; a 10-minute live stream will take 10 minutes to make
In the battle for an engaged audience, both live streaming and Video on Demand have a part to play in your video content strategy, and both can bring tangible benefits to your brand. In terms of convenience and to ensure the longevity of your brand, we suggest utilizing the strengths of VOD to provide long-term assets to your audience and live streaming for that immediate hit of real-time engagement.
Considering the benefits of both technologies, many in the health and fitness industry decide to combine them both in their strategy for audience growth. No matter what your preference is, knowing your audience is a good start for future engagement, but the foundation for growth will always start with the exciting niche content you produce. | https://medium.com/video-space/live-streaming-vs-video-on-demand-whats-the-best-fit-3a69fe3bc51f | ['Liz Mounfield'] | 2020-09-23 13:04:38.744000+00:00 | ['Video On Demand', 'Live Streaming'] |
The power of 256 in Blockchain | How to pronounce 2²⁵⁶?
2²⁵⁶ is pronounced “two to the power of two hundred and fifty six”.
What does it represent?
Computers represent numbers in binary. Below is an example where we have 2 bits, and each bit can represent a ‘1’ or a ‘0’ allowing us to produce 4 possible combinations:
00 = 0
01 = 1
10 = 2
11 = 3
The formula “2 to the power of the number of bits” gives us the range of numbers that we can represent. So 2² equals 4, which is true from the table above where we have 4 possible values. (In computing, we start counting from ‘0’)
If we have 3 “bits” then we have 9 possible combinations (ie 2³=9):
000 = 0
001 = 1
010 = 2
011 = 3
100 = 4
101 = 5
110 = 6
101 = 7
111 = 8
If we have 256 ‘bits’, then we have 2²⁵⁶ possible combinations which allows us to represent a really large number!
What does 2²⁵⁶ look like in decimal?
115,792,089,237,316,195,423,570,985,008,687,907,853,269,984,665,640,564,039,457,584,007,913,129,639,936
OR
1.158 x 10⁷⁷ (this is 1.1 with 77 zeros after it).
Source: https://defuse.ca/big-number-calculator.htm
How do you pronounce 2²⁵⁶?
115 quattuorvigintillion 792 trevigintillion 89 duovigintillion 237 unvigintillion 316 vigintillion 195 novemdecillion 423 octodecillion 570 septendecillion 985 sexdecillion 8 quindecillion 687 quattuordecillion 907 tredecillion 853 duodecillion 269 undecillion 984 decillion 665 nonillion 640 octillion 564 septillion 39 sextillion 457 quintillion 584 quadrillion 7 trillion 913 billion 129 million 639 thousand 936
Source: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2%5E256
What can I compare 2²⁵⁶ with?
2²⁵⁶ = 1.158 x 10⁷⁷
So 2²⁵⁶ is between 3.5 times the stars in the universe or a few zeros less than the number of atoms in the observable universe.
Here is an interesting video on 2²⁵⁶ that a friend of mine brought to my attention (Thank Barry!)
Why is 2²⁵⁶ important?
2²⁵⁶ is important is because this is the ‘perceived’ range of all possible private keys values cryptography uses in blockchains
Does that mean there are 2²⁵⁶ possible private keys?
Not quite. Not all numbers in the 2²⁵⁶ range are on the mathematical curve used for finding a matching public key. Bitcoin and Ethereum (and many others) use the secp256k1 elliptic curve which defines the range slightly less than 2²⁵⁶. 432420386565659656852420866394968145599 less to be exact.
The range, ’n’ is actually from 0 to 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFEBAAEDCE6AF48A03BBFD25E8CD0364141 (as defined in the SEC2 standard).
2²⁵⁶ = 115792089237316195423570985008687907853269984665640564039457584007913129639936
n = 115792089237316195423570985008687907852837564279074904382605163141518161494336
2²⁵⁶ — n = 432420386565659656852420866394968145599
but this is a minor point. This is like computing 1,000,000 minus 10 which can be still considered as one million.
Side note: The name secp256k1 can be broken down to SEC which is the Standards for Efficient Cryptography SEC2. p means that the curve coordinates are a prime field, 256 means the prime is 256 bits long, k means it is a variant on a so-called Koblitz curve, and 1 means it is the first (and only) curve of that type in the standard. (Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2699.0)
But wait, there’s more!
A Bitcoin address is a RIPEMD160 of the public address. This means that the length of the address is 160 bits meaning the possible keyspace, or possible range of values, is now reduced to 2¹⁶⁰ which is still a very big number. Ethereum also reduces the key length to 160 bits. Represented in decimal it is: 2¹⁶⁰ = 1.46 x 10⁴⁸ or 1461501637330902918203684832716283019655932542976.
How big is this? The width of the observable universe is 8.8 x 10²⁶ meters or 8.8 x 10²⁹ millimetre. If a Bitcoin or Ethereum address represented a length of 1mm, it would span slightly under twice the length of the observable universe!
1.46 x 10⁴⁸ is actually the total amount of unique wallet addresses possible. Now here is the tricky part. We have 2²⁵⁶ possible private keys that maps to 2¹⁶⁰ possible public keys. Logic tells us that there will be more than 1 private key for every public key. In fact, all you have to do is find any one of the roughly 2⁹⁶ private keys whose corresponding public key hashes to that address. In other words, 2⁹⁶ represented how many potential PRIVATE keys would work for a single PUBLIC key. Good luck finding that though!
Summary
In summary, the range of possible values of private keys are very, very large. Although the possible range of private keys is slightly under 2²⁵⁶ as defined in the SEC2 standard. The private key is then hashed to 160 bits, so the possible range becomes 2¹⁶⁰ which is still a very large number, almost twice the length of the observable universe in fact! The point being that the possibility of two private keys being the same is super duper duper low.
Ref: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/279l5v/an_exhaustive_look_at_private_keys_for_the/ | https://medium.com/decentralize-today/the-power-of-256-in-blockchain-468aa3f395bc | [] | 2019-04-10 00:01:11.684000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Decentralization', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin'] |
US Presidents and the relative age of their successors | When he takes office on January 20th, Joe Biden will become the oldest ever US President. And, assuming Donald Trump doesn’t rage quit the Oval Office before then, it’ll also mark the second time in a row a US President has handed over to a successor who’s older than them after Trump replaced the younger Obama in 2017.
That got me wondering about how different Presidents and their successors have been in age over the years. Because time remains stubbornly linear, and no one has yet lived to be the 289 years old they’d need to be older than George Washington, we’d expect that it would be more likely for a President to be replaced by a younger successor than an older one.
There have been 44 Presidential transitions so far (George Washington obviously didn’t succeed anyone, though he was older than King George III and Prime Minister William Pitt) and 31 of them have seen Presidents being followed by younger successors, while 13 Presidents have been older than the man they replaced. Those thirteen were:
Andrew Jackson, 118 days older than John Quincy Adams
William Henry Harrison, 9 years and 299 days older than Martin Van Buren
Zachary Taylor, 10 years and 343 days older than James Polk
James Buchanan, 13 years and 214 days older than Franklin Pierce
Andrew Johnson, 45 days older than Abraham Lincoln
Chester Arthur, 2 years and 45 days older than James Garfield
Benjamin Harrison, 3 years and 210 days older than Grover Cleveland
William Howard Taft, 1 year and 42 days older than Theodore Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson, 261 days older than William Howard Taft
Lyndon Johnson, 8 years and 275 days older than John F Kennedy
Ronald Reagan, 13 years and 238 days older than Jimmy Carter
George W Bush, 44 days older than Bill Clinton
Donald Trump, 15 years and 51 days older than Barack Obama
(Joe Biden is 3 years and 206 days older than Donald Trump)
A huge gap, record-breaking, the biggest (picture: BBC)
The only other time both a President and his successor were followed by someone older was the early 20th century — Theodore Roosevelt succeeded by the older William Howard Taft in 1908, who was then defeated (with the assistance of Roosevelt) by the older Woodrow Wilson in 1912. However, the age difference between the youngest and oldest of the three (Roosevelt and Wilson) is less than that between Trump and Biden.
Also of note in that list is that George W Bush and Bill Clinton are the closest in age of any two successive US Presidents, born just over six weeks apart in 1946, while Bush and Donald Trump are the closest in age of any two Presidents, having just 22 days between them. (The closest gap between a President and a younger successor is the 160 days between Ulysses Grant and Rutherford Hayes)
Biden will be the first President to be older than four of his predecessors (Trump, Obama, Bush and Clinton). Previously, the record was three, held by James Buchanan (older than Pierce, Filmore and Polk) and Ronald Reagan (older than Carter, Ford and Nixon).
The 15 years between Obama and Trump is the biggest gap between a younger President and their older successor. The counterpart in the other direction is when Dwight Eisenhower handed over to John F Kennedy, who was 26 years and 227 days younger than him, beating the previous 17 years and 290 days between James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln. | https://medium.com/@nick-barlow/us-presidents-and-the-relative-age-of-their-successors-3399da43a638 | ['Nick Barlow'] | 2020-12-15 17:26:51.658000+00:00 | ['Aging', 'History', 'Presidential Trivia', 'US Politics', 'President'] |
Special Announcement: Saturday Morning Sass | Hello my lovely readers!
I’m launching a little comedy newsletter this weekend and wanted to announce it here away for you all to enjoy. If you can’t guess already, it’ll be called Saturday Morning Sass. What can you expect from it?
Well, it will feature funny articles and stories about my life. Basically some of the same things you read here, but I’m going to put more of it in one place. Get ready for some sassy satire, funny poems, and crappy little comics!
If you like my funny stuff then feel free to subscribe and share with your friends! #ShamelessSelfPromo
Oh and yes it will be totally free. Here it is!
That’s all folks!
Also a quick thanks to everyone who follows me here on Medium, I really appreciate you guys! :) | https://medium.com/@victoriaafraser/special-announcement-saturday-morning-sass-4fb87b0759ac | ['Victoria A. Fraser'] | 2020-12-10 16:32:46.273000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Satire', 'Humour', 'Newsletter', 'Sass'] |
Loss | Loss
https://www.shutterstock.com/g/sudok1
It’s so silent now.
Your mumbles and grumbles and things I wouldn’t pay mind to ring in my ears.
Yet you are not here.
We remember your gentleness.
Stories and tales now reverberate every room.
Things we never knew.
So much kindness in you.
You would help the needy.
Reassure the pleading.
Hold tight to family ties.
Because, above all else, you were wise.
You have left a crater.
Whose depths, we realise, knows no bounds.
We swim in it’s waters.
Just to stay closer.
..To you. | https://medium.com/illumination/loss-9f72e74e93c8 | ['Tiya Chows'] | 2020-12-19 19:42:56.949000+00:00 | ['Loss', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Covid 19', 'Poetry', 'Death'] |
A Full Guide on the Differences Between UI and UX Design | Increasingly, with the development of technology, more and more people are getting involved in the design. For beginners, it’s important to know the difference between UI and UX design. Having a comprehensive theoretical understanding of design is the first and necessary step in becoming a UI/UX designer.
What is User Experience Design?
User experience design is the process of building relationships between a company, its products, and its customers.
User experience design is the process of researching, developing, and improving all aspects of user interaction with a company ’s product to satisfy its users. The goal is to improve the user’s experience with the product through test results, ultimately creating a product that is useful and valuable, as well as easy to obtain, pleasing to use.
UX design contributes to a product that provides an effective user experience. It includes different disciplines, such as visual design, interaction design, usability, and more.
What is User Interface Design?
The user interface is the visual appearance of a product, and UI designers decide how to visually design the product for effective user experience. A good UI design helps attract users and ensures a pleasant product experience.
The elements of UI design include content such as documents, text, images, videos; forms including buttons, tags, text fields, checkboxes, drop-down lists, graphic designs; and behaviors like what will happen when the user’s click/drag/enter.
It requires UI designers to have a good sense of aesthetics and technical skill. A creative role, the goal of the UI designer is to create a compelling, beautiful user interface that elicits an emotional response from the user.
Simply put, if you first saw a website and marveled at it its visual appeal, it was mainly due to a UI designer.
What’s the Difference Between UI and UX?
UI design and UX design always overlap, but are you really clear about their differences? Simply, UX design refers to user experience design, and UI design refers to the user interface design. They have a close relationship in product design but serve different roles.
In terms of functionality, UI is how things look, UX is how things work. UX is a process, while UI is a deliverable. But people easily confuse the two since they tend to have a symbiotic relationship. As Rahul Varshney, co-creator of Foster.fm puts it:
“User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) are some of the most confused and misused terms in our field. A UI without UX is like a painter slapping paint onto canvas without thought; while UX without UI is like the frame of a sculpture with no paper match on it. A great product experience starts with UX followed by UI. Both are essential for the product’s success.”
So the obvious differences between UI design and UX design result in different roles.
1. Different focus
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The most important difference between UI and UX designers is that they have a different use for prototyping. Many UI designers believe a prototype should be a hi-fi model. However, for the UX designer, fidelity is an afterthought; they care more about logic. Simply speaking: when you’re going to meet your customers, show them the design made by the UI designer. When you’re going to meet the programmers, take the prototype made by the UX designer.
The reason is really simple too. UI designers pay more attention to the interface- the front end, while UX designers focus on the back end.
2. The colors they use
UI designers tend to design prototypes in full color. Conversely, UX designers generally use only three colors in prototype design: black, white and gray.
This difference can be seen commonly in designing and using icons. For example, when you need to create a bottom navigation bar, UI designers will spend lots of energy making it as realistic as possible, including the button color before and after clicking. On the contrary, UX designers would insert the button in the right place, then leave a note: Gray after clicking.
3. The tools they use
Since there are so many differences in the roles between UI and UX designers, the tools they use must be different. For UI designers, designing images is of prime importance. Hence, tools like Flinto and Principle, which are bounded to Sketch, have an advantage. InVision is also an option and the team collaboration function makes it a competitive option.
UX designers will favor a wireframe as it saves time and makes designing more efficient. There are lots of qualified prototyping tools: Mockplus with its easy and transparent to operate, Balsamiq with sketch style, and Axure with comprehensive functions. What’s more, there’s a unique advantage to using Mockplus; it has 8 ways to test and preview projects. This is especially helpful during testing.
UX is Not UI
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works”
-SteveJobs
Theoretically, UX design includes wireframing/prototyping, interaction design, and user testing. UI design includes visual design and interaction design.
Note that both UI design and UX design requires interaction design. Interaction design guides the user’s feelings and behavior.
If you are confused by the terms mentioned above, have a look at our article UX vs UI vs IA vs IxD to build up your design thinking.
UX is not UI, but they do complement each other:
UX makes interfaces useful, UI makes interfaces beautiful.
UX helps users accomplish goals, UI makes emotional connections.
UX design precedes UI design.
UX design occurs throughout products, interfaces, and services; UI only pertains to interfaces.
What Do UI/UX Designers Do?
The best way to learn what UI/UX designer do is to peruse job descriptions. You can find many real UI/UX designer job descriptions on recruitment websites.
Career Foundry illustrates the key responsibilities of each position.
UX Designer Skills and Responsibilities
Content/Strategy: Customer Analysis, Competitor Analysis, Product Structure/Strategy Prototyping and Wireframing: Prototyping, Testing/Iteration, Development, Planning, Wireframing Analytics and Execution: Coordination with Developer(s), Coordination with UI Designer(s), Analysis and Iteration, Tracking Goals and Integration
So, the User Experience Designer is not only responsible for preplanning and preparing the technology behind the product. They are also responsible for how users interact online and offline, including customer service and analytics.
UI Designer Skills and Responsibilities
Look and Feel: Branding and Graphic Development, User Guides/Storyline, Customer Analysis, Design Research
Responsiveness and Interactivity: Adaptation to All Device Screen Sizes, Interactivity, and Animation, Implementation with Developer, UI Prototyping, Implementation with Developer
UI design creates the skin and appearance of a product. It forms the personality and the brand. It connects the product to the user, building trust, and transferring of the brand concept. The role of UI designer requires collaboration with other team members, such as developers and the UX designer.
What Kind of UI/UX Design Course Should You Take?
For most beginners, taking a course is the best and quickest way of learning how to be a UI/UX designer. It’s not easy and there is no shortcut.
There are many ways that you can f take a UI/UX design course, with many free or paid options. Free UX design courses from top universities is a good place to start, but not enough to advance to a career. Lots of organizations and platforms are now providing good courses and tutorials online. Here are 30 of the best online course websites to learn UI/UX design summarized by the Mockplus team.
What’s is the Salary of a UI/UX Designer?
The salary of a UI/UX designer depends on many aspects, including location, experience, industry, and project/product type.
According to Glassdoor, the average base salary of a UI designer in the United States is $80,450/yr, while the average base salary of a UX designer is $90,697.
For more information, here is a study of UI/UX designer salaries from around the world.
So, do you want to be a UX Designer or a UI Designer?
People face choices every day. Once you get know the differences between UI/UX design, from the theory, to how they work together, resources of where to learn each, as well as how much they get paid, it’s your turn to make the decision to be a UI designer or a UX designer.
Resources:
UI/UX Design Tutorials: 6 Amazing UIUX Design Tutorials
UI/UX Design Tools: The Best Mockup & Wireframing Design Tools & Apps for UI/UX Designers
Portfolio Design Websites: 20 Best Examples of Portfolio Design Websites That Bring You Inspiration
UI/UX Design Books: The Best UI/UX Design Books & Resources for Designers
Mockplus iDoc, Handoff Designs with Accurate Specs, Assets, Code Snippets Automatically
Get Started for FREE | https://medium.com/@uixdesign/a-full-guide-on-the-differences-between-ui-and-ux-design-8b2dd15b97f1 | [] | 2019-04-16 03:54:42.135000+00:00 | ['UI Design', 'UX Design', 'UI', 'Designer', 'UX'] |
Detecting stationarity in time series data | Stationarity is an important concept in time series analysis. For a concise (but thorough) introduction to the topic, and the reasons that make it important, take a look at my previous blog post on the topic. Without reiterating too much, it is suffice to say that:
Stationarity means that the statistical properties of a a time series (or rather the process generating it) do not change over time. Stationarity is important because many useful analytical tools and statistical tests and models rely on it.
As such, the ability to determine wether a time series is stationary is important. Rather than deciding between two strict options, this usually means being able to ascertain, with high probability, that a series is generated by a stationary process.
In this brief post I will cover several ways to do just that.
Visualizations
The most basic methods for stationarity detection rely on plotting the data, or functions of it, and determining visually whether they present some known property of stationary (or non-stationary) data.
Looking at the data
Trying to determine whether a time series was generated by a stationary process just by looking at its plot is a dubious venture. However, there are some basic properties of non-stationary data that we can look for. Let’s take as example the following nice plots from [Hyndman & Athanasopoulos, 2018]:
Figure 1: Nine examples of time series data; (a) Google stock price for 200 consecutive days; (b) Daily change in the Google stock price for 200 consecutive days; (c) Annual number of strikes in the US; (d) Monthly sales of new one-family houses sold in the US; (e) Annual price of a dozen eggs in the US (constant dollars); (f) Monthly total of pigs slaughtered in Victoria, Australia; (g) Annual total of lynx trapped in the McKenzie River district of north-west Canada; (h) Monthly Australian beer production; (i) Monthly Australian electricity production. [Hyndman & Athanasopoulos, 2018]
[Hyndman & Athanasopoulos, 2018] give several heuristics used to rule out stationarity in the above plots, corresponding to the basic characteristic of stationary processes (which we’ve discussed previously):
Prominent seasonality can be observed in series (d), (h) and (i).
Noticeable trends and changing levels can be seen in series (a), (c), (e), (f) and (i).
Series (i) shows increasing variance.
The authors also add that although the strong cycles in series (g) might appear to make it non-stationary, the timing of these cycles makes them unpredictable (due to the underlying dynamic dominating lynx population, driven partially by available feed). This leaves series (b) and (g) as the only stationary series.
If, like me, you didn’t find at least some of these observations trivial to make by looking at the above figure, you are not the only one. Indeed, this is not a very dependable method to detect stationarity, and it is usually used to get an initial impression of the data rather than to make definite assertions.
Looking at Autocorrelation Function (ACF) plots
Autocorrelation is the correlation of a signal with a delayed copy — or a lag — of itself as a function of the delay. When plotting the value of the ACF for increasing lags (a plot called a correlogram), the values tend to degrade to zero quickly for stationary time series (see figure 1, right), while for non-stationary data the degradation will happen more slowly (see figure 1, left).
Figure 2: The ACF of the Google stock price (left; non-stationary), and of the daily changes in Google stock price (right; stationary).
Alternatively, [Nielsen, 2006] suggests that plotting correlograms based on both autocorrelations and scaled autocovariances, and comparing them, provides a better way of discriminating between stationary and non-stationary data.
Parametric tests
Another, more rigorous approach, to detecting stationarity in time series data is using statistical tests developed to detect specific types of stationarity, namely those brought about by simple parametric models of the generating stochastic process (see my previous post for details).
I’ll present here the most prominent tests. I’ll also name Python implementations for each test, assuming I have found any. For R implementations see the CRAN Task View: Time Series Analysis (also here).
Unit root tests
The Dickey-Fuller Test
The Dickey-Fuller test was the first statistical test developed to test the null hypothesis that a unit root is present in an autoregressive model of a given time series, and that the process is thus not stationary. The original test treats the case of a simple lag-1 AR model. The test has three versions, that differ in the model of unit root process they test for;
Test for a unit root: ∆yᵢ = δyᵢ₋₁ + uᵢ Test for a unit root with drift: ∆yᵢ = a₀ + δyᵢ₋₁ + uᵢ Test for a unit root with drift and deterministic time trend:
∆yᵢ = a₀ + a₁*t + δyᵢ₋₁ + uᵢ
The choice of which version to use — which can significantly effect the size and power of the test — can use prior knowledge or structured strategies for series of ordered tests, allowing the discovery of the most fitting version.
Extensions of the test were developed to accommodate more complex models and data; these include the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) (using AR of any order p and supporting modeling of time trends), the Phillips-Perron test (PP) (adding robustness to unspecified autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity)and the ADF-GLS test (locally de-trending data to deal with constant and linear trends).
Python implementations can be found in the statsmodels and ARCH packages.
The KPSS Test
Another prominent test for the presence of a unit root is the KPSS test. [Kwiatkowski et al, 1992] Conversely to the Dickey-Fuller family of tests, the null hypothesis assumes stationarity around a mean or a linear trend, while the alternative is the presence of a unit root.
The test is based on linear regression, breaking up the series into three parts: a deterministic trend (βt), a random walk (rt), and a stationary error (εt), with the regression equation:
and where u~(0,σ²) and are iid. The null hypothesis is thus stated to be H₀: σ²=0 while the alternative is Hₐ: σ²>0. Whether the stationarity in the null hypothesis is around a mean or a trend is determined by setting β=0 (in which case x is stationary around the mean r₀) or β≠0, respectively.
The KPSS test is often used to complement Dickey-Fuller-type tests. I will touch on how to interpret such combined results in a future post.
Python implementations can be found in the statsmodels and ARCH packages.
The Zivot and Andrews Test
The aforementioned tests do not allow for the possibility of a structural break — an abrupt change involving a change in the mean or other parameters of the process. Assuming the time of the break as an exogenous phenomenon, Perron showed that the power to reject a unit root decreases when the stationary alternative is true and a structural break is ignored.
[Zivot and Andrews, 1992] propose a unit root test in which they assume that the exact time of the break-point is unknown. Following Perron’s characterization of the form of structural break, Zivot and Andrews proceed with three models to test for a unit root:
Model A: Permits a one-time change in the level of the series.
Model B: Allows for a one-time change in the slope of the trend function.
Model C: Combines one-time changes in the level and the slope of the trend function of the series.
Hence, to test for a unit root against the alternative of a one-time structural break, Zivot and Andrews use the following regression equations corresponding to the above three models: [Waheed et al, 2006]
A Python implementation can be found in the ARCH package and here.
Semi-parametric unit root tests
Variance Ratio Test
[Breitung, 2002] suggested a non-parametric test for the presence of a unit root based on a variance ratio statistic. The null hypothesis is a process I(1) (integrated of order one) while the alternative is I(0). I list this test as semi-parametric because it tests for a specific, model-based, notion of stationarity.
Non-parametric tests
In the wake of the limitations of parametric tests, and the recognition they cover only a narrow sub-class of possible cases encountered in real data, a class of non-parametric tests for stationarity has emerged in time series analysis literature.
Naturally, these tests open up a promising avenue for investigating time series data: you no longer have to assume very simple parametric models happen to apply to your data to find out whether it is stationary or not, or risk not discovering a complex form of the phenomenon not captured by these models.
The reality of it, however, is more complex; there aren’t, at the moment, any widely-applicable non-parametric tests that encompass all real-life scenarios generating time series data. Instead, these tests limit themselves to specific types of data or processes. Also, I was not able to find implementations for any of the following tests.
I’ll mention here the few that I have encountered:
A Nonparametric Test for Stationarity in Continuous-Time Markov Processes
[Kanaya, 2011] suggest this nonparametric test stationarity for univariate time-homogeneous Markov processes only, construct a kernel-based test statistic and conduct Monte-Carlo simulations to study the finite-sample size and power properties of the test.
A nonparametric test for stationarity in functional time series
[Delft et al, 2017] suggest a nonparametric stationarity test limited to functional time series — data obtained by separating a continuous (in nature) time record into natural consecutive intervals, for example days. Note that [Delft and Eichler, 2018] have proposed a test for local stationarity for functional time series (see my previous post for some references on local stationarity). Also, [Vogt & Dette, 2015] suggest a nonparametric method to estimate a smooth change point in a locally stationary framework.
A nonparametric test for stationarity based on local Fourier analysis
[Basu et al, 2009] suggest what may be the most applicable nonparametric test for stationarity present here, as it is applicable to any zero-mean discrete-time random process (and I assume here any finite sample of a discrete process you may have can easily be transformed to have zero mean).
Final Words
That’s it. I hope the above review gave you some idea as to how to approach the issue of detecting stationarity in your data. I also hope that it exposed you to the complexities of this task; due to the lack of implementations to the handful of nonparametric tests out there, you will be forced to make strong assumptions about your data, and interpret the results you get with the required amount of doubt.
As to the question of what to do once you have detected some type of stationarity in your data, I hope to touch on this in a future post. As always, I’d love to hear about things I’ve missed or was wrong about. Cheers!
References
Academic literature
Online references | https://towardsdatascience.com/detecting-stationarity-in-time-series-data-d29e0a21e638 | ['Shay Palachy'] | 2019-11-12 09:48:05.449000+00:00 | ['Stationarity', 'Time Series Analysis', 'Statistics', 'Data Science', 'Timeseries'] |
Death, Again | Death, Again
Out of the blue, an old friend texted me this morning — a rare occurrence, after all these years. In it, a vibrant photo featured a father with his three happy boys, none yet a teenager. Then I saw it: the word, ‘obituary’.
Marc and the boys, earlier this year
After my brother, Jordan, died in 2004, I left one universe to enter another. The one I left understood death from the perspective of fear for the unknown, as well through the intellectual notion of sympathy. That’s because both fear and sympathy are the tools of outsiders. Then, that June 1st, I became an insider — one who has breathed Death’s stench, close up. Fear gave way to despair, while sympathy found its future outlet in the far more emotional world of empathy.
Loss, in all of its ugly complexity, was suddenly real.
Death had gone from something abstract — something ‘terrible’ and worthy of ‘thoughts and prayers’ that happened to others — to something not just very real, but personal; a new star by which to navigate a suddenly fragmented life. Our parents aged overnight, with one of them becoming listless, then as now, a decade and a half later. That same parent has become obsessed with my brother’s life, in death, having turned him from a beautiful yet very human being into a veritable God — an infallible and unreachable paragon of everything superlative. In his reimagining of his other son, I was relegated primarily to the position of recipient for his regular diatribes about my brother’s greatness. In a sense, my relationship with our father died that day, too. He no longer has room for much else, other than to rake himself over the coals continually, in the absence of accepting his son’s death for what it was: ugly, senseless, unforeseeable, and at the tender age of 38, an unavoidable tragedy to be accepted, after the fact, and made meaningful, somehow.
I guess he chose his path.
For me, personally, Jordan’s death meant the loss of my best friend, first and foremost, whose voice and counsel I’d never — ever — hear again. The new context of being an only child after having enjoyed a life with someone who “got me”, and me him, like no other, meant that our aging parents became my future charge, alone. I was now the sole would-be caregiver, in spite of the fact that my brother, the doctor, was the one with the constitution and temperament for these things. From tiny needs to massive ones, our parents now have but one place to go, as an outlet. The loss of sharing — future milestones and tragedies alike, dissected, discussed, lamented, extolled — was perhaps my most acute personal loss; as though I lost part of my own sense-making apparatus. Jordan was that for me, and I know I was, for him, too.
The impact goes on.
Now, whenever I hear about someone else’s loss — especially someone I know well — it is no longer abstract. I am no longer “sorry for their loss”. I am, however, “heartbroken,” in a very visceral way. That’s because it sends me back ‘there’, to ‘that place’, full of loss and anguish and confusion. That place full of, “how do I even begin to make sense of what cannot be made sensible?” Of, “how do I get up tomorrow, and continue doing things that seem meaningless now, next to what just happened?” Things like grocery shopping, or making money, or laughing…
Eventually, we place our numbness on the back burner, because that is the only way to move on. In that way, we honor the dead, by not amplifying the loss with our own actions.
Big brother and me, in happier times © Michael Fieldman 1974
Death Strikes Again
This morning, out of the blue, my old friend Marc reached out. I always liked him very much, but we hadn’t seen one another much since he left New York years ago, to follow his then-wife — a geneticist — when she landed a job opportunity, in Texas. I was surprised and delighted to see his name and face pop up on my phone. He sent a photograph, without words, of his three beautiful boys surrounding him — all of them smiling, ear to ear. Underneath it sat a link that read, “Alexandre XXXXXX Obituary, TX”.
[I’ve scrubbed his family name, for reasons of family privacy.]
My heart sank.
I knew Alexandre as ‘Pax’, which is how Marc referred to him. Pax, a month shy of his tenth birthday, died just over a week ago, on October 14, 2020.
I breathed in sharply. Marc had just become an insider, like my parents, only with 28 fewer years to enjoy his son. He now knew Death’s stench personally, like me. So while it was no later than 7am in Houston, I picked up the phone reflexively and spent the next hour trying to listen, and help Marc make sense of the senseless; a fruitless attempt to take on one scrap of what he was feeling. The best I could conjure — involuntarily — was the pain I felt for him, as a parent of young children. I cried quietly while we talked, because my own brother’s death, and the unconditional love I now know as a father, both allowed me to feel pain.
Marc is at the very first step of an ugly journey that foists logistics upon you before you’ve had a chance to process anything — to begin grieving, in whatever form our own nature allows us to. A funeral. Two more children to protect, love and help process a cataclysm, even though we may want to fall apart ourselves. The uncomfortable dance with an ex-wife and co-parent, and the numbing complexities that surround the context of Pax’s death — complexities it is not my place to discuss here, though my heart goes out to him doubly so in the knowledge of what they are. And Pax’s brothers: they, too, will be caught up in those complexities, in addition to their own.
Marc’s road is long and lonely. It has changed everything, in an instant.
Our prime focus, as adults — our professional goals, a life well lived — suddenly feel meaningless, even crass; distasteful. At the same time, that which required no consideration at all — being dad, picking Pax and his brothers up, talking about homework, or logistics, or girls — are suddenly, deafeningly agonizing in their finality — in their forever absence.
The loss of a child is every parent’s greatest nightmare. The specter of losing my daughter has consumed much of my own fear apparatus since my brother died, thereby turning two into one, for our parents. With a single daughter, before I met my current wife, and her — now our — two children, I was never far from the dreadful fear that if I lost her, as my parents had lost a son, I’d have no one. It made me yearn for more children, for the incomprehensible reason of “odds”. As a hedge.
How nonsensical is it to think of children as “odds”?!
Many in the developing world, I now know — with still-pitiful survival rates — have accepted that grim reality.
I have not lost a child, thankfully. If I did, I don’t know how I could recover. Marc now has to figure that out, on his own. Thankfully, he was blessed with two other boys who still need him — now, more than ever — and whom I’m sure love him, as they should. He is truly a beautiful man, inside and out. I hope those rays of sunshine keep him grounded, while the Earth is swallowing him up. They need one another now, to brace against what’s coming.
New Normal
The return to sun is not guaranteed. But it is absolutely possible. Those who have lost can find new life. The forms are countless. Most of them do no dishonor to those they have lost. Many of them reveal renewed purpose, in ways we couldn’t have imagined. I honor my brother daily, not just in my thoughts but in the lessons he provided and left, even though it took a decade or more for me to finally understand some of them, and where I could not only act on them, but know who they came from. I know there are more to come.
Our lives are touched by those closest to us in not only profound, but permanent ways. They leave marks — marks for us to uncover, with time, and to internalize, then act upon, for ourselves and for others. Flames to keep us warm, and alive. Ideas and insights to help make sense of the messy process of being human, with its love and loss; its victories and defeats; its ecstasies and its agonies.
Pax will be missed, by no one more than the parents who brought him into the world, and nurtured him; and moreover, by the brothers who never truly knew life without him. My heart breaks for Marc, but I cannot lift his burden. I can only be there, and let him know this, regularly. It was already tough for him to be away from his native home, then his adopted one, in the North East: Cambridge, and New York. He followed a wife in good faith, then remained there as a father.
And now this.
This is the time, I recall vividly, when we need our friends and those who love us most. We need to talk; to process; to hear; to be heard; to sit quietly, in the company of safety — the safety to fall apart, if that’s what our cards hold for us; or to pretend, every now and then, that we are still whole, and can laugh.
It’s called grieving. And until it happens, adequately, per se, our sense-making will remain hindered. Sixteen years into mine, it’s not yet complete, even though I had an entire summer to grieve, when I holed myself up in a basement and wrote a memoir in honor of my brother’s and my relationship.
Whether or not the book was any good as a story, it was the perfect vehicle for my own catharsis; my ability to return to the world I left when he did.
The road ahead is long, Marc. Just know you are loved, much as Pax was; and that your friends and family — the ones who are still here — will do what we can to help return you to health, whatever that may look like, for you.
You are not alone, in this experience or in life.
Your friend,
Anthony | https://anthonyfieldman.medium.com/death-again-a0f39cfa4871 | ['Anthony Fieldman'] | 2020-11-24 21:45:37.229000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Death', 'Family', 'Tragedy', 'Parenting'] |
Seasonal Life Among the Branches of a Copper Beech | All year long, the tree turns. Not like a wheel, but by showing us the circle of life. The seasons are easy to recognize when you observe a tree.
There is an enormous copper beech outside my window I see as a friend. Not as strange as you might, at first, think because it’s visible throughout the day. What, or who, you encounter most often affects you. They influence the way you think and feel.
The beech tree, so resplendent in a crown of cinnamon much of the year, is bare-branched come December. Its beauty currently stems from how it shelters many wild birds and animals. I watch squirrels scamper along it and note a pair of crows who nested earlier and have made a family. They fly back and forth to rest on the branches.
Here’s my winter poem to the copper beech, since it does such a splendid job.
The Copper Cradle
In spring,
tight buds whisper with copper treasures,
yet to unfold.
By summer those blossoms open to the sun,
and life blooms among the branches with chirps and dashes.
In winter,
the cradle sheds what’s no longer valuable to hold,
recognizing old gems will soon be dust.
Come nightfall,
though, it gives shelter under a wide canopy of stars. | https://medium.com/the-bolt-hole/seasonal-life-among-the-branches-of-a-copper-beech-377071354b2c | ['Bridget Webber'] | 2020-12-19 15:20:42.548000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Poetry', 'Life', 'Seasons', 'Trees'] |
Download TV Streaming Apps For Android | Live NetTV
There are numerous individuals out there who need to stream TV on the web yet don’t know about a dependable site of utilization that can enable them to stream TV channels on their cell phone or TV. With the assistance of the Android Live NetTV APK, you can stream in excess of 700 TV stations and brilliant motion pictures on your android gadget. Films and TV stations are a standout amongst the most captivating wellsprings of stimulation among individuals everything being equal. You can watch pictures of good quality on TV but you can not compare this you’re your TV.
Morpheus TV
Not at all like Netflix, Amazon Prime you don’t need to buy into any bundle to watch the substance or download them. The Morpheus TV application is totally free and you can download any motion pictures, TV appears Documentary in free. The Morpheus TV application has huge amounts of highlights like Interesting UI, Easy to Navigate, Multiple download Link, HD Quality, and Notification of the new substance and so on.
Features of The Morpheus TV App
Recognizable UI
The User Interface of the Morpheus TV application is the main thing you will love it. The UI is loaded up with the shading and furthermore out of sight too. The simple to swipe menu is accessible to explore in various classifications like Movies, TV Shows, and Documentaries.
HD Content and Multiple Download Links
All accessible substance on Morpheus TV application is in HD quality and furthermore has Multiple Download connects too. On the off chance that there is any kind of mistake in downloading then you can have alternatives. Before downloading the substance select the Quality like HD or Standard.
Vizer TV
Vizer TV is an application that gives you a chance to watch motion pictures and TV appears for nothing from your Android gadget. Best of all, you can watch the motion pictures in either unique form or named in Portuguese.
The interface is pleasant and natural. When you open the application you can see a rundown of all the most recent film and TV show discharges. In any case, you’re just inspired by one explicit class, you can choose it from the menu situated in the lower some portion of the screen.
Highlights Of Vizer Apk
Vizer App thinks of a ton of highlights which aren’t accessible in some other application. Like you can stare at the TV Channels, 1000’s of films, Anime Shows and a whole lot more. This, Vizer TV is an application that gives you a chance to watch motion pictures and TV appears for nothing from your Android gadget. Best of all, you can watch the pictures in either a unique form or named in Portuguese.
Happy Chick
This application is fit for imitating any stage you can envision. Download amusements for any sources and appreciate them with Happy Chick.
The principle fascination of Happy Chick is the way that you can download the diversions specifically from its index, so you don’t need to go through a different device to end downloading records that may not by any means work. When you complete a hunt, you get a considerable rundown of alternatives, contingent upon the diversion. Before beginning the download, you can perceive what stages it’s accessible for, so you generally know without a doubt that you’re downloading the correct diversion.
Mobdro APK
Mobdro has a thorough library of satellite stations. This application is very much upheld and normally refreshed to keep it free of bugs and glitches. While generally, it is remote-accommodating, when you open the rundown of channels, it scrolls left to great as through and through.
That makes things somewhat badly arranged. Fortunately, it has a viable inquiry choice that discovers anything you are searching for. Simply type for the sake of the substance or TV channel and the application will find it for you inside its colossal media library.
Ventures To Install Mobdro.APK On Android
· To turn on “Obscure Sources” just pursue the means. Essentially go to your telephone Settings → Security → Turn on “Obscure Sources”.
· Presently, tap on the most recent Mobdro APK which you have just downloaded on your gadget.
· Permit any authorizations on the off chance that it asks, and hang tight for not exactly a moment while it is getting introduced.
· When the setup is finished, you have now Mobdro application effectively introduced on your android. | https://medium.com/@owenjain/download-tv-streaming-apps-for-android-8634d00cd0d1 | [] | 2019-04-27 09:43:33.152000+00:00 | ['TV'] |
Experimentation & Measurement for Search Engine Optimization | We hypothesized that this landing page would increase relevance with its clearer content, and decrease page load time with its lighter code structure, among many other improvements. This would consequently lead to to a higher ranking for our page on search engine results.
But since we can’t know the exact ranking of our pages, we rely on traffic as a proxy for an increase in rankings. That is, when our ranking for our San Francisco search page jumps, we’d expect to see an increase in the traffic to this page from search engines. But how can we measure this effect?
Limitations of A/B Testing
Our Growth team leans heavily on iterative experimentation for nearly every product change to make sure that we can measure effectiveness and to learn as we build. Most data scientists are able to leverage a traditional A/B test at the device- or user-level for all of their experimentation needs. In this setup, users that enter the experiment are randomly bucketed into the treatment groups, and we can directly compare the outcome of the treatment group with that of the control group.
A/B tests have very good power and allow for complete randomization. At Airbnb, they are useful for measuring the treatment effect on metrics pertaining to engagement and conversion. These are events that we log on the Airbnb site, and we can easily measure the incremental uplift in these metrics through a difference-in-means hypothesis test, such as a t-test.
However, in the case of our new “Magic Carpet” page, an A/B test will not allow us to measure an increase in traffic caused by a change in its external search engine ranking. A given page will look different across various search engine bots, and therefore we cannot isolate the effect of Magic Carpet on our rankings.
Therefore, quantifying the impact of such a product change requires a more sophisticated approach.
Leveraging a Market-Level Approach
A key realization is that our search results page isn’t just a single page; in fact, there are many different versions for different cities, towns, and regions. Each of these have what is called a unique “canonical URL”, and we actually have over 100,000 of them that are surfaced on search engines! Therefore, instead of assigning a single visitor to treatment or control, we can set the unit of randomization of our experiment to be a specific canonical URL. We’ll then measure the effect using an approach commonly used in market- or cluster-level experiments.
For example, the San Francisco search results page may be in treatment, and we’d update it with our Magic Carpet design. Meanwhile, the Paris page in the control group will be left the same. This random assignment will then continue to be applied to each of our ~100,000 URLs. This way, when a search engine bot scrapes our site, it will consistently see the same treatment for each page, and the ranking for that page will update accordingly.
However, a more nuanced statistical approach needs to be taken in this case, because we cannot simply make a direct comparison between the traffic of treatment and control URLs. This is because the baseline traffic between different URLs can differ substantially, and many times this difference is larger than the treatment effect we wish to detect. The San Francisco page may have a similar amount of traffic as Paris page, but it probably has something like 100% more traffic than the page of a smaller city, such as New Orleans. This makes it very difficult to measure something like a 2% lift in traffic!
For this reason, we need a mechanism to account for the inherent differences that exist between these URLs by leveraging pre-experiment data, before the change took effect.
Developing a Model: Difference-in-Differences
A difference-in-differences framework is one technique that utilizes pre-experiment data to control for these baseline differences in the absence of any interventions. We can use this method to measure the treatment effect and its statistical significance by using an estimator from a linear model, where for each page i and day t:
Our principle variables include:
traffic_it = number of landing page impressions to page i on day t. We apply a log to this outcome variable to account for its right-skew, and to regularize the heteroskedasticity commonly present in traffic data.
treatmentᵢ = treatment group indicator (equal to 1 if in the treatment group, 0 otherwise)
post_t = pre/post-period indicator (equal to 1 if in the post-period, 0 otherwise)
However, there is still a lot of variation across time and markets in our traffic data that may hinder us from detecting a treatment effect. The difference-in-differences approach allows for an elegant solution to this problem; we can simply add in covariates to our model in order to control for the various effects:
aᵢ = fixed effect (or mean) for a page, to allow for flexible intercepts of each URL
t = time index, to account for overall time trends
dowⱼ = weekday indicators, to account for weekly seasonality
Since we’d like to know the effect of the treatment group in the post-period, the b₂ coefficient reflects the “difference-in-differences”, and therefore the treatment effect that we wish to estimate.
In simpler terms, we’re looking for the incremental effect on the treatment group after the experiment started. | https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/experimentation-measurement-for-search-engine-optimization-b64136629760 | ['Brian De Luna'] | 2020-01-13 21:05:24.614000+00:00 | ['Causal Inference', 'Experimentation', 'SEO', 'Data', 'Data Science'] |
Oz | Oz, Again
A poem
Photo by Kuma Kum on Unsplash
Letting her
wander deep
within my soul.
Letting her
puzzle-piece
my stepping stones.
Letting her
brand a memory
between my eyes.
Letting her
distract me from
everything, anything
at all.
Letting her
pull me back in
time and time,
life by life,
again…
And
letting myself
fall in and out
of love, of grace,
of nirvana…
Though
slyly smiling
all the livelong day.
Though
slyly smiling
all the livelong Way. | https://medium.com/spiritual-secrets/oz-a268671e827a | ['Aaron Quist'] | 2020-12-11 16:07:35.766000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Love', 'Attachment', 'Nirvana', 'Spirituality'] |
Making Money With Software Engineering as a Freelancer | Photo by Allie on Unsplash
Making Money With Software Engineering as a Freelancer
How you can start earning some money as a freelance programmer
Let’s face it, the idea of not working for a boss and being your own boss is very appealing to almost everybody. This is not any different when it comes to programmers. It seems so nice to work from where and any place you want — from cute little coffee bars to snow-white beaches. Or maybe just from the comfort of your own home.
Who doesn’t like that idea?
Working as a freelancer comes with some major perks. One of them is the possibility to have a flexible work schedule. You could start typing code wherever you want and whenever you feel like it. And on top of that, you can decide which projects you want to work on.
It might seem easy, but making money as a freelance programmer is actually quite hard. Once you jump on the freelance bandwagon you all of a sudden start competing with thousands of other people from all over the globe. More often than not those people can do the same job as you but for way less money than you’d do it.
So how can you actually make some money as a freelance programmer? | https://medium.com/swlh/making-money-with-software-engineering-as-a-freelancer-11225ff9fc2e | [] | 2020-05-03 05:01:00.875000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Freelancing', 'Software Development', 'Work', 'Programming'] |
Why Teach Astronomy in School? | “Astronomy is useful because it raises us above ourselves; it is useful because it is grand; …. It shows us how small is man’s body, how great his mind, since his intelligence can embrace the whole of this dazzling immensity, where his body is only an obscure point, and enjoy its silent harmony.”
— Henri Poincare, Physicist
Exciting and fascinating as astronomy might be, some might ask how astronomy is useful and how it can be connected to real-life practical problems. Why should it even be taught in school?
Even though astronomy is taught in most schools worldwide, these are still questions that both teachers and students sometimes ask themself, and the answers might not seem to be clear. Astronomy might seem more of a hobby, than a useful skill in everyday life.
Since I am doing a master’s thesis about astronomy teaching, I have dug up some great arguments, most are directly inspired by the article “Why is Astronomy Useful and Should be Included in the School Curriculum” by John R. Percy.
An interdisciplinary subject
Astronomy is one of the most cross-disciplinary subjects. It can be connected to most other natural sciences such as biology in the search for life and our origins, geology when considering Earth as a planet, chemistry as the elements originate in cosmological events, math and physics for obvious reasons, and humanities such as history, arts, religion, and philosophy.
Sciences
Physics: Astronomy can be used to illustrate many concepts of physics, such as gravity, light, and light spectra.
Astronomy can be used to illustrate many concepts of physics, such as gravity, light, and light spectra. Mathematics: Historically, there has been a lot of mathematical development through astronomy, such as trigonometry, logarithms, and calculus, and hence astronomy can be used to illustrate those branches in mathematic.
Historically, there has been a lot of mathematical development through astronomy, such as trigonometry, logarithms, and calculus, and hence astronomy can be used to illustrate those branches in mathematic. Geology: Astronomy has advanced the geological sciences by providing a variety of environments of other planets and moons.
Humanities
History: In scientific revolutions, astronomy stands out. Astronomy has historically contributed to many practical applications.
In scientific revolutions, astronomy stands out. Astronomy has historically contributed to many practical applications. Philosophy: Astronomy reveals our cosmic root and place in space and times. It asks the most fundamental questions: What is the origin of the universe, galaxies, stars, planets, atoms, the molecules of life, what is the origin of us and life itself, and are we alone in the Universe?
Technology and applications
The interest and practice of astronomy have led to various kinds of discoveries and technological advancements.
Timekeeping: One of the most important historical practical applications is timekeeping: Calendars, days, seasons, and years originate from the orbital movement and rotation of Earth around the Sun, and it should be part of general education to know about.
One of the most important historical practical applications is timekeeping: Calendars, days, seasons, and years originate from the orbital movement and rotation of Earth around the Sun, and it should be part of general education to know about. Navigation: Astronomy has contributed to the development of the GPS and other satellite navigation systems. Einsteins relativity theory has made it possible to make exact corrections to the measurements.
Astronomy has contributed to the development of the GPS and other satellite navigation systems. Einsteins relativity theory has made it possible to make exact corrections to the measurements. Natural phenomena : Astronomy explains tides and impacts of asteroids and comets with the Earth.
: Astronomy explains tides and impacts of asteroids and comets with the Earth. Detectors and imaging: Astronomy has led to technological advances in low noise radio receivers and detectors for photography and electronic cameras. The image processing techniques for astronomy are also used in medicine.
Astronomy has led to technological advances in low noise radio receivers and detectors for photography and electronic cameras. The image processing techniques for astronomy are also used in medicine. Computers: Astronomers use a large fraction of all the supercomputers in the world, driving the need for further development forward.
Bringing people together
Astronomy not only brings different subjects together but also different people across time, cultures, and borders.
International: Astronomical observations require data from different latitudes and longitudes and thus foster international co-operation.
Astronomical observations require data from different latitudes and longitudes and thus foster international co-operation. Generations: Some observations require decades and centuries of time, thus linking generations of different times.
Some observations require decades and centuries of time, thus linking generations of different times. Culture: Astronomy is deeply rooted in our culture because of its philosophical implications, and due to the time scales of observations, it also links cultures of different times.
Developing different kinds of thinking and attitudes
“When I think of science and scientists I think of kids who never lost their curiosity and wonder”
— Neil deGrasse Tyson
Curiosity: Astronomy harnesses our curiosity, imagination, and exploration. We have gone to the Moon and back, always pushing our geographical limits, ready to explore further in the Solar system.
Astronomy harnesses our curiosity, imagination, and exploration. We have gone to the Moon and back, always pushing our geographical limits, ready to explore further in the Solar system. Abstract thinking: Due to the enormous distances and time scales, astronomy is great at training the sense of thinking more abstractly about scales of time, distance, and size.
Due to the enormous distances and time scales, astronomy is great at training the sense of thinking more abstractly about scales of time, distance, and size. Rational thinking: If taught properly, astronomy can promote rational thinking and understanding the nature of science through observations and simulations.
If taught properly, astronomy can promote rational thinking and understanding the nature of science through observations and simulations. Environmental awareness: Astronomy explains and demonstrates long-term changes in the weather and the effect of solar radiation. Also, seeing our planet in a greater context from space can make us realize how special and fragile our planet is.
Beauty and art
“Art and astronomy have something in common. All you need is an open mind. You don’t need a fancy education to find it interesting.”
The above words were said by an artist and exhibition owner of Glasslåven Arts Centre in Norway, which I visited in February 2020. I wrote it down because it made a lot of sense to me.
Astronomy reveals a Universe which is vast, varied, and beautiful — the beauty of the night sky, the spectacle of an ecplise, the excitement of a black hole. (John R. Percy)
Astronomy has not only scientific value, but emotional, aesthetic, and artistic values, inspiring artists, poets, stories, and movies. It can be the perfect combination of science and creativity.
Final words
I never had much astronomy in school myself. I had some basics about our solar system and the planets in public school. There was no astronomy in high school.
I always pondered about space and the big questions about the origins of it all, about the planets, stars, and galaxies, but I have always seen it as just a hobby, something to entertaining my mind. Back then, it never occurred to me that astronomy could actually be useful and a serious carrier path (it was in the ´90s).
I still don’t know about the serious part. I have discovered that life should not be taken too seriously, and hence I have let my mind wander into space and I haven’t regretted it. I have found astronomy to be the perfect combination of science and creativity.
I am glad to see that astronomy has gotten a bigger part in the education systems worldwide nowadays, and hopefully, it will inspire young people to science and technology and help increase public scientific awareness, understanding, and appreciation.
Stay curious! | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/why-teach-astronomy-in-school-edeb1bc1a924 | ['Lenka Otap'] | 2020-09-18 13:14:31.899000+00:00 | ['Astronomy', 'Education', 'STEM', 'Science', 'Teaching'] |
Summer Straw Colorful Clutches Right In Canada! | With temperatures hiking up and humidity on the rise, summer is at its peak!
With our summer outfits, it’s especially important for the items to be effective and colorful. Effective because no one wants to be carrying extra baggage that they don’t need; even better, carrying it with style. Summer is the season for bright colors and light texture.
The Island Straw Co. has the exact bag for you. From totes, baskets, wallets, and wallets, they have it all! With so many variations, there’s one for everyone, but most likely too many too choose from. The bags are all made from high quality straw and woven in a traditional Bahama weave. The fish shaped bags, clutches with flowers, and palm tree tote bags are all authentic art pieces from artists in the Bahamas. These bags with flare and color will give one an immediate mood boost and accessory for a breezy summer outfit.
The Island Straw Co. has been making printed masks since the COVID-19 outbreak has started. They are amazing local proactive participants in the decline of COVID-19. It keeps masks stylish and favorable to wear in order to protect themselves as well as other people. This company supports people here in Canada as well as the people in Bali who hand make and every one of these masks. It’s heart-warming that it’s a win-win for everyone.
Don’t forget to check out their deals on their website and social media pages for deals and updates on new looks.
*All information and photos are from https://theislandstrawco.com/*
Website: https://theislandstrawco.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Island-Straw-Co-103162981235821/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theislandstrawco/ | https://medium.com/@tenatch10/summer-straw-colorful-clutches-right-in-canada-b778f245c97c | [] | 2020-08-07 14:01:01.725000+00:00 | ['Tenatch', 'Summer', 'Bags', 'Bahamas', 'Canada'] |
Ц.Оюунгэрэлийн оролцсон “Диплом подкаст”-ын тэмдэглэл | 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/aagiis-blog/%D1%86-%D0%BE%D1%8E%D1%83%D0%BD%D0%B3%D1%8D%D1%80%D1%8D%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B9%D0%BD-%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%86%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%BD-%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BC-%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82-%D1%8B%D0%BD-%D1%82%D1%8D%D0%BC%D0%B4%D1%8D%D0%B3%D0%BB%D1%8D%D0%BB-f73b657a632c | ['Altan Bayar'] | 2020-11-24 04:16:30.068000+00:00 | ['Podcast', 'Notes', 'Publication'] |
Presale for rTAX3 is live! Would you rather be the tax collector or the tax payer? | Presale for rTAX3 is live! Would you rather be the tax collector or the tax payer?
The rTAX3 presale is live for you on our website:
https://defidisciplelabs.finance
Audit Completed by Solidity with no security issues:
https://solidity.finance/audits/rTax3/ (Additional security audit performed in-house with SmartCheck, Mythril, Slither)
https://solidity.finance/audits/rTax3/ (Additional security audit performed in-house with SmartCheck, Mythril, Slither) Code is opensourced on Github:
https://github.com/defidisciplelabs/contracts
https://github.com/defidisciplelabs/contracts 440 ETH to be locked: in Uniswap Liquidity Pool with Team.Finance
in Uniswap Liquidity Pool with Team.Finance Dextools Sponsored: Most projects on listing Dextools perform well on Uniswap launch so we thought it makes sense to partner with them
What does rTAX3 do?
rTAX3 in one line is: tax redistributed to citizens of the world.
The concept and idea started in our banking days while making massive profits investing in crypto. Obviously, with any capital gains the tax authorities would eat up the gains like crazy. We started pondering if there was some way that this unfair treatment can be corrected and then shared with other tax payers.
With the explosion of crypto and decentralized networks and protocols, we saw this was very possible which is how the concept of rTAX3 came to life!
We want to enable everyone int he world to become a tax collector. Not a tax payer. rTAX3 charges every token transaction a 3% fee (a.k.a indirect tax) and simultaneously redistributes that fee to all rTAX3 token holders via a rebase mechanism. That means token holders are rewarded directly in their wallets without having to initiate any stake or claim transactions. It’s all handled through our innovative rebase mechanism allowing users to save on transaction fees.
Token Utility
As mentioned, this is a community project. We need to engage them closely and take a decision on what the additional utilities are and the timing for releasing them.
We can increase utility and get to high TVL like other defi projects. There is always Staking, Liquidity Mining, LP token staking, etc.
From building out the tax protocol perspective and driving adoption of the taxation system, we will need to develop things that never have been done before. Should we create LPs with other pairs in the ecosystem to drive interoperability, multichain usage, and growth? Let’s decide this together.
Our focus is on the use case of putting taxes into the hands of the people. if you are thinking of just where we are today and the token contract that is launched, then yes it will probably moon like any RFI clone with strong tokenomics and supporters.
Defi Disciple Labs hopes that the community is not joining us because people think RFI clone and moon. We want them to join us in building the long term utility of the token.
Token Metrics
Total Token Supply: 100,000 rTAX3 (Fixed Supply)
Presale: 60,000 rTAX3 (60%)
Uniswap Liquidity: 20,000 rTAX3 (20%)
Ecosystem: 15,000 rTAX3 (15%)
Team: 5,000 rTAX3 (5%)
rTAX3 Token Contract Address: 0x2fBF522c8A514CdeE64E5E3FBd37fAA1555DfF4C
Presale Information
Presale link: https://defidisciplelabs.finance
Presale Price: 1 rTAX3 = 0.02 ETH
Initial Price on Uniswap Liquidity: 1 rTAX3 = 0.022 ETH
Presale is 10% cheaper: The initial launch price will be higher than the presale price to create an initial floor for presale contributors.
Liquidity will be locked in Uniswap: To support the initial floor price, 440 ETH and 20,000 rTAX3 will be added in the Uniswap Liquidity Pool.
LP Tokens will be locked: We will use a protocol like team.finance to lock and be transparent with the community the location of LP tokens.
rTAX3 token claim will be available right after the token sale ends.
rTAX3 Presale Contract Address:
0x027b60572d3ac2393a6ed5249ea1956b3c1b6109
Want a chance to win $100 worth of rTAX3 tokens?
Give this Medium article 50 claps
Share this Medium article on Twitter and follow https://twitter.com/defidisciplelab and https://twitter.com/0x0000000000dev
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We will randomly pick one winner. Maybe 2 or 3 if the hype is strong!
Who are the early supporters?
So many smart and influential crypto adopters have supported this project from the very beginning. Now we share the fruits of our labor and can celebrate with a big Uniswap launch.
Official Links
Website: http://defidisciplelabs.finance
Twitter: https://twitter.com/defidisciplelab?s=03
Chat Group: https://t.me/defidisciplelabs
ANN Channel: https://t.me/defidisciplelabsann | https://medium.com/@0x0000000000dev/presale-for-rtax3-is-live-would-you-rather-be-the-tax-collector-or-the-tax-payer-c3a22c8da27d | [] | 2020-12-20 18:04:17.483000+00:00 | ['Web3', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Uniswap', 'Blockchain', 'Token Sale'] |
How To Create Custom Maps using Google Maps | In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a map using Google Maps; how to customize that map manually or by importing data from a spreadsheet; and how to publish it on your site.
Create a basic map
Start by heading to maps.google.com.
Click on the menu icon on the top left-hand side of the screen and select “Your Places.” (The menu icon is just to the left of the search bar on the top left-hand side of your screen.)
Select the maps tab. Navigate to the very bottom of that window and select “Create a Map.”
This will open a map in a new tab that you can customize in one of two ways: by drawing points and shapes manually or by importing a spreadsheet.
Customize your map by drawing
Let’s start by drawing — that is, manually creating points or shapes — on your map.
Add a Marker
To create points on your map, simply select the “Add Marker” tool near the search bar, then click the place on your map where you want the point to go.
Give your point a title and a description when prompted, if you’d like.
You can adjust the color and the icon style for the point you just created by clicking on the paint bucket icon. This will show you various colors and icon options.
By default, Google will show you its most popular icons, but there is also a whole icon library that you can explore by clicking “More Icons.” (You can also import a custom icon from the web, using resources like the Noun Project.)
Another way to add a marker to your map is by searching for your desired location. When your searched location appears in the pop-up window, click the “add to map” button to create the new marker on your map.
Create Lines and Shapes
You can also create lines or shapes on your map as well by clicking the “Draw a Line” tool. You’ll see several options from the dropdown menu, including ones for creating a driving, biking, and walking routes. For the moment, let’s just use the “Add a line or shape” tool.
To create a line, simply click along with the map where you want your line to be.
To create a shape, click along with the map and be sure to connect the dots to create an enclosed shape.
Just like a marker, you can add a title and description to your line or shape. Once you hit save, you can also adjust its color, line or border weight, and transparency by clicking on the paint bucket.
Add a Photo or Video to Your Map
You can add a photo or a video to any marker, line or shape that you create on your map. To do so, click on your marker or shape and find the photo icon.
A popup window will appear and you’ll see several options that allow you to:
1) Upload a photo file from your computer or from your Google Drive
2) Take a photo with your web camera
3) Add an image from the web via url or via Google Image Search
4) Add a YouTube link via url or via search
Once you’ve chosen an image or video link you’d like to use, hit save and it will be added to your marker or shape. You can also create a gallery with multiple images and/or video links by clicking on the “+” button on the bottom right-hand side before saving.
Customizing the base map
Take a look at the left-hand side of your screen. You’ll notice a box that shows information about your map, as well as the various layers that comprise it.
So far, all the changes we’ve made have been to a layer on top of the map that we see. But you can also change the style of the map itself. To do so, click the small arrow next to the “Base Map” layer. You’ll see several map styles from which you can choose.
Customize your map with data
We’ve learned how to customize our map by manually adding markers, lines, and shapes. But say we have a ton of points that we want to add to the map. You could add each marker manually, but importing a spreadsheet would be faster.
For any map you make, you’ll want to have your data in a spreadsheet and you’ll need at least one column that contains location data. That location data can be a simple list of addresses; city, state, country information (e.g. “Oakland, California” or “Buenos Aires, Argentina”); or it can include latitude and longitude coordinates, separated by a comma (e.g. “37.8043637, -122.2711137”)
For this tutorial, let’s use the following sample data set of student hometowns to populate our map.
Before we add it to our map, let’s take a quick look at the data. The spreadsheet has 4 columns: one for the student’s name, one for their hometown, one for their assigned J200 course, and one for media concentration.
To upload the spreadsheet to our map, we’ll need to first create a layer by clicking “Add a layer” in the left-hand box.
Under the new “Untitled Layer” you’ve created, click import.
Then find and select the Student Hometowns spreadsheet. (It will likely be in the “Shared With Me” or “Recent” tab.)
Google will prompt you to select the column that contains the location data. This is what Google will use to place the markers on the map. In our case, the location data is in the hometown column, so we’ll select that.
(If you had location data that contained latitude and longitude coordinates, you’d have an extra step here. Google would ask you to select the appropriate order of your coordinates: “latitude, longitude” or “longitude, latitude.”)
Then, Google will prompt you to select the title for your markers. In this case, we want student names to show up as our titles, so we’ll select the “Name” column.
Hit finish and Google will automagically generate your map with the appropriate markers.
Here’s what one of the markers looks like up close.
Note, the markers have all the information we had in our spreadsheet: name, hometown, J200, and concentration.
Adjusting styles
Looking at our newly created map, notice that all our markers are exactly the same style: a blue pin.
You can easily adjust the style of all of the markers at once by going to the layer we just created (it should now be titled “Student Hometowns”), hovering over “All Items” and clicking the paint bucket on the right. You’ll see different colors and icons that you can choose from.
You can also add labels to your markers as well. To do so, click on “Uniform style” underneath the “Student Hometowns” layer. You’ll see a dropdown menu called Set Labels with different label options to choose from.
Try selecting “Name” to see each student’s name added to the map.
But what happens if you want to change the style of just some of the markers?
There are a couple of different options, depending on what you want to do.
If you want to change the style of each individual marker, in the “Student Hometowns” layer, click on the “Group places by” dropdown menu.
In the popup that appears, select “Individual styles” from the menu.
This allows you to select markers one by one and change it is color or icon style.
Now, what if we want each J200 group to have its own color on the map? To do so, we have to change the markers as a group. In the same menu, scroll down to the “Style by data column” option and select “J200.”
Google will automatically choose two different colors for each J200 group. If you want to change the color or icon style for each of the groups — say you want to make Oakland North dark gray and Richmond Confidential red — just hover over each group and click the paint bucket to customize.
Embedding on your site
So…you’ve played around with your map and made it just how you want it and now you want to put it on your website. What do you do?
First, you’ll want to make sure your map is publication-ready. Make sure to give your map a title. Let’s call ours “UCBSOJ Student Hometowns.” You can add a description to the map as well.
At this point, you may want to take a look at what your map will look like when you publish it. To do so, click the “preview” button on the layers box. A new window will open with a preview of your map.
Next, you’ll need to share the map publicly. Do this by clicking the “share” button on the layers box and changing link sharing to “public.”
Last, you’ll want to grab the embed code. To do so, click the three dots on the right-hand side of the layers box, and find “Embed on my site.”
Copy and paste the HTML into the source code of your website and you’re set!
#googlemaps #googlemapsplatform #google | https://medium.com/@devish2/how-to-create-custom-maps-using-google-maps-3de774477a86 | ['Devesh Raj'] | 2020-01-14 06:32:23.390000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Maps Dynamics Crm', 'Google Maps', 'Maps', 'Google'] |
Integrating Education and Technology | The Educational System is catching up with the rapid pace of the digital world, as it adapts to the fast development of technology. While there are some who contend that the implementation of EduTech tools and applications may potentially be a distraction to the system, and are therefore not a good idea to integrate into schooling, it is still evident that they possess great potential in improving the educational niche as a whole. And, with proper understanding and integration, outlined with proper guidelines, it is possible to completely allow technology into the world of education.
If applied correctly and implemented correctly, technology can make the teaching life easy. To ensure that students understand each lesson taught to them, teachers are tasked with preparing concepts and approaches to keep their lessons clear. Before computers and projectors, teachers would painstakingly write important points on Manila Paper and create 2D props as visual aids, while at the same time, keeping the students entertained. Now, with technology in place, teachers may create presentations for their lessons and use projectors to show them in class.
The Importance of Integrating Technology into the Education Industry
Despite skepticism over the approach, integration of technology into the Education Industry provides beneficial and reasonable arguments as to why this has to be implemented. At the top of the list, is that technology provides transparency across the system. The existence of technology provides the students with immediate access to learning materials and their own performance data. This allows the students the opportunity to access as much of the source material as the World Wide Web is able to provide, helping them to gain greater knowledge and understanding tailored to their needs.
It also allows the opportunity for collaboration. With the help of technology, it is now easier to collect and record data and store it in the cloud. Both students and teachers are also able to access this data and implement changes and updates in real time.
Most importantly, it encourages planning, reasoning, and critical thinking on the part of the students. With all of their resources available, the students are encouraged to read through the materials, assess the credibility of the gathered sources, and determine the appropriate tools to use in order to aid them in their learning tasks.
Continuous Room for Improvement
The present debates and arguments around technology’s effectiveness in the education industry reveals continuous opportunities for improvement in the area of Education Technology. It is therefore important for students and teachers alike to embrace new change, and contribute in the improvement of the niche.
Opet fully embraces and guides students in better learning and integration of technology. Taking advantage of technology, Opet integrates Artificial Intelligence to assist students in conducting on-point research to better achieve the output and results they need to aid them in their studies.
Feel free to contact Opet for more information on how our services may support your needs.
To find out more about Õpet, be sure to visit our social media sites below:
Official Website: https://opetfoundation.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/opetfoundation
Telegram: https://t.me/Opetfoundationgroup
Medium: https://medium.com/@opetbot
Bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3735418
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OpetFoundation
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/opet-foundation/ | https://medium.com/%C3%B5petfoundation/integrating-education-and-technology-829299974cd5 | [] | 2018-06-05 05:12:34.917000+00:00 | ['Edutech', 'Education Technology', 'Education'] |
US v. E-6 — Sexual Assault. When we were first hired on this case… | When we were first hired on this case, the assigned military counsel thought that the client should plead guilty. The situation looked dire. My client was an E-6 Navy Diver and one of the first African Americans to graduate from the Navy Diver program. When I first reviewed the charge sheet, I realized that this was a two-accuser case. One accuser worked with my client and one accuser was dating one of the divers in my client’s unit.
Accuser One, the co-worker, claimed that my client waited until everyone in the office left, walked into her office, and essentially attacked her. She did not report the allegation for several months, but she made a statement to NCIS, and my client was charged. Accuser One claimed that my client attacked her, threw her against a desk, tried to rip her clothes off, and she only got away because she fought my client off.
Accuser Two was dating another diver in my client’s unit. She claimed that my client assaulted her at a party while everyone else slept. In her allegation, she asserted my client grabbed her breasts and her buttocks without her consent.
We immediately began to investigate both allegations. As for Accuser One, she claimed that during the assault, she screamed, threw things at my client, and that she was thrown on a desk, causing significant damage to the desk. We interviewed the person who sat at that desk and the janitor who was scheduled to clean the office that night. Both witnesses confirmed that the there was no evidence of an assault. No scattered papers, no sign of a fight, and the desk was not in disarray. We also spoke to a witness who was sitting in an office located a few doors down. According to the desk log, this witness was still in the office as the alleged assault took place. Yet, she did not hear a thing. She heard no yelling, no fighting, and otherwise had no knowledge that a fight had occurred. We also uncovered text messages exchanged between our client and Accuser One that indicated they were very friendly with one another in the days immediately after the alleged assault. We felt good about what we had found.
As for the second accuser, we discovered that she had a motive to falsely accuse our client of assault. The week before she accused my client, my client reported her boyfriend for using a racial slur against him. While on a dive in Key West, Florida, the second accuser’s boyfriend called my client the N-word. My client immediately reported him, and he faced a misconduct investigation. Ten days later, his girlfriend accused my client of sexual assault. Plus, I spoke to two different witnesses who attended the party where the alleged assault occurred. Both of those witnesses denied ever seeing an assault even though they would have been feet away from my client when the alleged assault occurred.
After 4 days of trial, the military jury fully acquitted my client. The lesson we learned is that our client cannot rely on military law enforcement investigations to get justice. This is why at Capovilla & Williams we employ our own investigators to ensure that our clients are given a fair opportunity to defend themselves.
____________________________________
RESULTS: Full AQUITTAL. NOT Guilty of all charges. NO jail time. NO sex-offender registration. | https://medium.com/@mickeywilliams454/us-v-e-6-sexual-assault-4276f741f9ea | ['Mickey Williams'] | 2020-11-16 17:56:45.337000+00:00 | ['Military', 'Courts', 'Lawyers', 'Attorney', 'Sexual Assault'] |
The 100% correct way to split your chunks with Webpack | Now, to talk about the other type of file-chopping…
Code splitting (don’t load code you don’t need to)
This particular approach only makes sense on some sites, says me.
I like to apply the 20/20 rule that I just made up: if there’s a part of your site that only 20% of users go to, and it’s bigger than 20% of your site’s JavaScript, then you should only load that code on demand.
Adjust those numbers to taste, obviously, and there’s more complex scenarios than that, obviously. The point is, there’s a balance, and it’s OK to decide that code splitting simply doesn’t make sense for your site.
How to decide?
Let’s say you’ve got a shopping site and you’re wondering if you should split out the code for the ‘checkout’, because only 30% of your visitors make it there.
The first thing to do is sell better stuff.
The second thing is to work out how much code is completely unique to the checkout. Since you should always do ‘bundle splitting’ before you do ‘code splitting’, you might already know how big this part of your code is.
(It might be smaller than you think, so do the sums before you get too excited. If you have a React site, for example, then your store, reducers, routing, actions, etc. will all be shared across the whole site. The unique parts will mostly be components and their helpers.)
So, you note that the code that is completely unique to your checkout page is 7 KB. The rest of the site is 300 KB. I would look at this and say meh, I’m not going to bother code splitting this, for a few reasons:
Loading it up front is no slower. Remember that you’re loading all these files in parallel. See if you can record a difference in the load times between 300 KB and 307 KB.
If you load this code later, the user will have to wait for that file after clicking on ‘TAKE MY MONEY’ — the very time at which you want the least friction.
Code splitting requires changes to your application code. It introduces asynchronous logic where previously there was only synchronous logic. It’s not rocket science, but it’s complexity that I think should be justified by a perceivable improvement to the user experience.
OK, that’s all the party pooper “this exciting tech might not apply to you” stuff.
Let’s look at two examples of code-splitting…
Polyfills
I’ll start with this because it applies to most sites, and is a nice simple introduction.
I’m using a bunch of fancy features in my site, so I’ve got a file that imports all the polyfills I need. It includes these eight lines:
I import this file right at the top of my entry point, index.js .
With the Webpack config from the bundle splitting section, my polyfills will be automatically split into four different files since there’s four npm packages here. They’re about 25 KB all up, and 90% of browsers don’t need them, so it’s worth loading these dynamically.
With Webpack 4 and the import() syntax (not to be confused with the import syntax), conditionally loading the polyfills is pretty easy.
Make sense? If all that stuff is supported, then render the page. Otherwise, import polyfills then render the page. When this code runs in the browser, Webpack’s runtime will handle the loading of those four npm packages, and when they’ve been downloaded and parsed, will call render() and things will carry on.
(BTW, to use import() , you’ll need Babel’s dynamic-import plugin. Also, as the Webpack docs explain, import() uses promises, so you’ll need to polyfill that separate to the other polyfills.)
Easy, right?
Here’s something a bit trickier…
Route-based dynamic loading (React specific)
Going back to the Alice example, let’s say that the site now has an ‘administration’ section, where sellers of products can log in and administer the crap that they have for sale.
This section has many wonderful features, plenty of charts, and a big fat charting library from npm. Because I was already doing bundle splitting, I could see that these were a shade over 100 KB all up.
Currently, I have a routing setup that will render <AdminPage> when the user is viewing an /admin URL. When Webpack bundles everything up, it’s going to find import AdminPage from './AdminPage.js' and say “hey, I need to include this in the initial payload”.
But we don’t want it to. We need to put that reference to the admin page inside a dynamic import, like import('./AdminPage.js') so that Webpack knows to load it dynamically.
It’s pretty cool, no config required.
So instead of referring to AdminPage directly, I could create another component that will be rendered when the user goes the the /admin URL. It might look something like this:
The concept is pretty straightforward, right? When this component mounts (meaning that the user is at the /admin URL), we’ll dynamically load ./AdminPage.js and then save a reference to that component in state.
In the render method, we simply render <div>Loading...</div> while we’re waiting for the <AdminPage> to load, or the <AdminPage> once it’s been loaded and stored in state. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/the-100-correct-way-to-split-your-chunks-with-webpack-f8a9df5b7758 | ['David Gilbertson'] | 2019-05-22 09:03:35.198000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Web', 'Webpack', 'Website', 'Web Development'] |
Ellis Island | *The history of Ellis island began in the late nineteen century, when it became a replacement of The Castle Garden (or Castle Clinton) — a very first Immigration Station of New York State at that time. There were several turmoils occurred in Europe during those years, such as political chaos, economical crisis and religious constraint. As a result, The United States became the harbor of hope and freedom for millions of people to arrive.
“Most immigrants entered the United States through New York Harbor, although there were other ports of entry in cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, San Francisco, and New Orleans. The great steamship companies like the White Star, Red Star, Cunard, and Hamburg-America Lines played a significant role in the history of Ellis Island and immigration as a whole.” by https://www.statueofliberty.org/ellis-island/overview-history/ | https://medium.com/@evelyncheung/ellis-island-1aa6032288a0 | ['Evelyn Cheung'] | 2020-12-28 22:39:59.755000+00:00 | ['Ellis Island', 'Poetry', 'Politics', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poems On Medium'] |
Wine Classifier Using Supervised Learning with 98% Accuracy | With the information I just obtained from the graph, I already have an idea of the kind of classifier I am going to use: a Naive Bayes Classifier. This machine learning classifier performs extremely well on normally distributed data (do not believe developer who mocks it!). If the distributions are situated apart from each other, even better, it will be much easier to distinguish among the three different classes.
4. Preprocessing
Given that this is a very simple dataset and the data is already in numerical form, I personally do not think I need to make any preprocessing. If you are a beginner, know that you need to preprocess data when you have to prepare it for your model (for example converting categorical data to encoded data).
Extracting Labels
The only thing I am going to do is extracting labels from the dataset so that I can feed it to the model.
v.upload.retrieve_backup(e.K)
v.extract.labels(['Wine'])
e.y
sample of labels
5. Splitting
I will now split X (features) and y (labels) into train and test. As a default, I will use a .2 proportion for the test side.
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = v.split(0.2)
print(X_train.shape, X_test.shape, y_train.shape, y_test.shape)
6. Machine Learning Model
It is now time to create my AI:
Creating the Model
I will be using the scikit-learn library, one of the best open-source machine learning libraries.
from sklearn.naive_bayes import GaussianNB
clf = GaussianNB()
Training the Model
I will use my train samples to find the rules that link X to y. Then, I will make an estimate on X_test and compare it with the actual results that the model has never seen: y_test.
clf = clf.fit(X_train, y_train)
y_predict = clf.predict(X_test)
from sklearn.metrics import accuracy_score
print(accuracy_score(y_test, y_predict))
1.0
100%! Astonishing result!
7. Evaluation
I have only been splitting the dataset once, but, to improve the validity of the model, I can use a cross-validation algorithm to test the model on 10 different splits, each one with different data taken from the dataset.
v.statistics.cross_validation(clf, X_train, y_train, 10) Accuracy: 0.96 (+/- 0.09)
[1.00,
1.00,
1.00,
0.92,
0.92,
1.00,
0.85,
0.92,
0.92,
1.00
]
Depending on the data in train and test determined by the split, the accuracy ranges from 85% to 100%, with an average of 96%. The result can vary, the top I obtained is 98% after a few attempts. | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/wine-classifier-using-supervised-learning-with-98-accuracy-5f2e173e967e | ['Michelangiolo Mazzeschi'] | 2020-06-05 21:01:01.157000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Wine', 'Big Data'] |
New year, a whole new meaning | New year, a whole new meaning
What if we learned from the year that was 2020, understanding how connected and reliant we really truly are? Christina Dec 27, 2020·3 min read
Did you ever think a calendar year could make such an impact? 2020 describes a host of feelings — an expression that unites the globe, even through a multitude of differences. 2020 brought to light exactly how reliant we are on each-other; it magnified a global community.
If we feel the power and influence of those around the globe, what is possible from the power and influence within our neighbourhood?
What action are you taking today, in your personal and in your professional life to favourably impact someone else?
What path will you travel in 2021? (Photo by Frans Van Heerden on Pexels)
Is this a sensation that feels like a burden? Some industries or professions may feel this more than others. For example, if you are a human resource professional, you may be used to needing to be present for everyone else. While having a direct impact on an organization, I have heard many express that there is a element of your actions remaining on the periphery and yet, your role is the centre-fuse of the operation.
What does team and community mean to you? How are the strengths of each individual optimized to harness the power of the team? Enter, the TRUE COLORS Methodology. Orange, Yellow, Green, and Blue — each color represents a different primary personality type. The True Colors methodology helps individuals understand how different personality types best interact with each other. It is a powerful tool to support communication and collaboration within a team by increasing understanding of innate attributes of individual personalities. | https://medium.com/@christinamoog/new-year-a-whole-new-meaning-26d37af92295 | [] | 2021-01-17 14:44:09.821000+00:00 | ['Community', 'Positive Thinking', 'New Year', '2020', 'Perspective'] |
Bhagwad Geeta : The Arjuna’s way. | Bhagwad Geeta, a spiritual dive into seeking answers of meaning and purpose of life, a pious Hindu scripture based on the conversation between Lord Krishna and Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurushetra which lays down the path to be followed by entire humanity and seeks to answers the dilemmas faced by us at different stages of life.
In the battlefield of Kurushetra Lord Krishna was on the chariot of Arjuna as his 'sarathi' (guide) against the mighty Kauravas army, upon reaching the battleground and seeing his family members and dear ones on the opposite side, Arjuna was perplexed about the purpose this war would serve and he opens himself up to his 'sarathi' and seeks answers to his queries, this conversation between the two is inscribed in the holy Bhagwad Geeta.
The preachings of Lord Krishna in Geeta about the various aspects of life, the way he explains and quenches the curiosity of Arjuna is widely appreciated, discussed and researched. I was also absorbed in the answers of Lord Krishna, the deep spiritual aspects it relates to and how it tries to simplify the complex web of attachments, we are trapped into during our life.
During my reading of the Bhagwad Geeta, an aspect struck me which I find is not widely discussed. The essence of Bhagwad Geeta is seen as the preaching of Lord Krishna but by what I was truly amazed were the questions of Arjuna, upon how he brought them out from his within. The soul of Geeta lies in them too. I put forward that before you arrive at the answers of Lord Krishna and try to decode and absorb them, you must try to understand the questions of Arjuna, their dimensions and most importantly ask yourself, How did Arjuna think of this? where did it come from in him? I believe it is only then you can comprehend the answers of Lord Krishna.
Let me take you through one exchange between the two to validate my belief.
After a few exchange of questions and answers with Lord Krishna, still caught in a dilemma to proceed in the war or not, confused Arjuna asks :
These people on the other side, who happen to be my family, kin and dwellers of the same kingdom, I believe you, Lord, they are not on side of 'dharma' (righteousness). If I go ahead in the war and kill them all, by your words, their annihilation might seem justified. But dear Lord, what about the women who would be left without their husbands and the children who would be left devoid of their father’s care? What will be the faith of such society, the honour of women and upbringing of the children? Won’t it lead to our coming generations being corrupt and polluted (spiritually)?
Observe how Arjuna brings out this question, he tries to analyze the consequences of his actions not only on himself or those in the opponents to whom he is attached but also on the society and coming generations. What a remarkable soul he is to think on these lines.
We human, in general, think mostly on how our actions would benefit us or our loved ones to whom we are attached to. Measuring the effect of our deeds on the society we live in or the generations that are yet to come is beauty of rare kind.
Therefore, I strongly argue that one has to try and get into the state of mind as that of Arjuna’s and to appreciate the beauty and pureness of his thoughts and conscience. It is only then one can dive deep into the answers and preachings of Lord Krishna to fetch the spiritual pearls that lie to be explored to find the purpose of life.
As far as the answer of Lord to Arjuna’s query, it states that as a warrior he is dutybound to proceed in the war and the removal of the 'adharmic' (evil) forces would ensure a better society and future generation. You will able to explore more when you try it yourself and I leave it for you! | https://medium.com/@riturajkr/bhagwad-geeta-the-arjunas-way-64dd5f198be | ['Rituraj Kumar'] | 2020-12-24 03:05:06.547000+00:00 | ['Bhagwad Gita', 'Life', 'Questions', 'Purpose Of Life', 'Dharma'] |
How EDG did the Impossible at Worlds 2021 | EDG winning Worlds 2021
Something of an amazing story was the run that Edward Gaming had at League’s Worlds 2021 finals. At every possible turn, EDG was considered the underdogs and was able to prevail. Even though they were the 1st seed coming out of China’s region (LPL), they were known for always choking at Worlds. They had never gotten out of the quarterfinals in their team’s history. Once they made it to the quarterfinals as a second seed from their group, many people thought their run would be over once more.
They had to face familiar competition in the first round of bracket play. Here, they faced Royal Never Give Up (RNG) where they were able to break their curse and move on to the semifinals in a highly contested 5 game series. Next, they had to face a Korean team (the second seed coming out of LCK) named Gen.G and were able to beat them in a back and forth 5 game series as well. Many people thought they would have lost to them as the LCK’s dominance was back. On the other side of the bracket, it was last year’s champs DWG going against Faker’s historic team in T1 (1st and 3rd seeds of the LCK, respectively). Once DWG made it to the finals in a 5 game series, most fans and analysts were already celebrating DWG’s back-to-back victory.
China celebrating EDG’s win
Only previously done by Faker and T1, many people assumed that DWG was going to make history once more and 3–0 EDG in the finals. Many people were not excited for this matchup and believed that the real finals was between T1 v DWG in the semifinals. But, they were all completely wrong. EDG was able to take game 1, which was a complete surprise. Most people thought it was now going to be a 3–1, or a gentlemen’s sweep. DWG ended up winning the next two, the champs were now up 2–1and ready to secure their place in history. However, through better picks/bans, better coaching, better communication, and seeming to play more comfortable on stage, EDG was able to win the series 3–2 against all odds.
EDG was supposed to get eliminated in the quarterfinals like they always do. Instead, they made it all the way to the finals and won it all. The one time they make it beyond the quarterfinals, they end up winning the entire damn thing! It was a historic win where we saw the previous champs get absolutely outplayed. The key matchup was in the mid lane where DWG Showmaker was supposed to be the carry, but EDG Scout was able to neutralize his impact in team fights. His amazing plays came when he was on Zoe, where he was able to do major damage in team fights and pick out the right players to kill. Scout ended up winning the MVP due to his plays and talked about how his win was for Faker from T1 who helped coach him when he was previously on that roster. EDG has an amazing and resilient story on how the underdogs can always find a way to win, even when the whole world has counted them out. | https://medium.com/@jose.martinez22/how-edg-did-the-impossible-at-worlds-2021-235690a471a8 | ['José Martínez'] | 2021-11-25 00:00:00.288000+00:00 | ['League of Legends', 'Gaming', 'Edward Gaming', 'Esport', 'Worlds 2021'] |
TOP WEBSITE DESIGNING COMPANY IN NOIDA | -Are you searching for a new website or webpage that strengthen your business identify worldwide? CodingExpo Technology pvt ltd is the top website designing company in Noida, India.
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-we provide a perfect responsive themes to your website, we give different features like Google map, where it destermines the path to your business organisation.
-We work on mobile friendly website designing, in this progressive technology the site can meet any dimension screen, throughout this visitors gain flexibility to access your internet page from the tablets, mobile gadgets, and I phones. We will carry your online business to a higher level. CodingExpo Technology is a Responsive Website Designing Company in Noida.
-We give a high quality and innovative web services which helps you to promote your business to the upper level and also , with the help of our broad range of website designing features which helps you to develop your web presence and bring your web ideas online.
-Our experienced and skilled developers develops an attractive platform for your business that makes the audience connect with you.
-We not only focus on designing the website but also expansion your website rank through SEO service. | https://medium.com/@codingexpotechnology/top-website-designing-company-in-noida-c879ed15c299 | ['Codingexpo Technology'] | 2021-06-17 13:34:37.088000+00:00 | ['Top Website Designing', 'Website Design', 'Website Designing Company'] |
Front End Developer Interview Questions In 2021 | Common skillset for a front end developer
HTML/HTML5 CSS2/CSS5 JavaScript/Jquery Responsive design Version control/Git Testing/Debugging
Frequently Asked Front End Interview Questions
Here in this article, we’ll be posting regularly inquired Front conclusion Meet Questions and Answers with the conviction that they will be accommodating for you to pick up higher marks. Moreover, to let you know that this article has been composed beneath the direction of industry experts and secured all the current competencies.
What are the technical skills that are needed to be a front-end developer?
Technical frontend developer skills
HTML and HTML5
JavaScript and JQuery
Responsive Design
Testing
Creativity
Version Control Systems and other developer tools
CSS3
Apart from the above-mentioned technical skills, a good front end developer should also have the below-mentioned skills:-
Experience in any of the Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.
Cross-browser testing.
Knowledge about OOPS and PHP.
Basic knowledge about on-page SEO, and off-page SEO
2. What is HTML, XML
HTML
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. HTML is the standard markup language for creating Web pages. HTML describes the structure of a Web page. HTML consists of a series of elements. HTML elements tell the browser how to display the content.
XML
XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language
XML is a markup language much like HTML
XML was designed to store and transport data
XML was designed to be self-descriptive
XHTML
XHTML stands for EXtensible HyperText Markup Language. XHTML is a stricter, more XML-based version of HTML. XHTML is HTML defined as an XML application. XHTML is supported by all major browsers.
3. What is Lazy Loading?
Lazy loading is the practice of delaying load or initialization of resources or objects until they’re actually needed to improve performance and save system resources. … The benefits of lazy loading include: Reduces initial load time — Lazy loading a webpage reduces page weight, allowing for a quicker page load time.
4. What JavaScript templating libraries do you use and why?
I am listing down the most used JavaScript libraries for interview question preparation: Front-end.
Lodash Chalk Anime.JS ThreeJS Jquery D3.JS Underscore.JS Bideo.JS
5. What Is AJAX? What are the advantages of using it?
AJAX = Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. AJAX is a technique for creating fast and dynamic web pages. AJAX allows web pages to be updated asynchronously by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes.
Pros of AJAX
Improved user experience
Reduced server hits and network load
Multi-browser support
Asynchronous processing
Faster page renders and improved response times
Platform and architecture neutrality
6. What is the difference between Responsive design and Adaptive design?
A website’s appearance changes depending on the browser’s viewport in responsive design. The width of the window is typically used by developers to evaluate the size of dynamically evolving items on the page.
An adaptive website, like a responsive website, can change the layout of the page based on the width of the browser, but in a different way.
Adaptive designs are made up of several versions of the same design, one for each size specified by the designer or user interface developer.
7. What is a class?
Let’s unveil any magic and see what a class really is. That’ll help in understanding many complex aspects.
In JavaScript, a class is a kind of function.
Here, take a look:
-class User {
-constructor(name) { this.name = name; }
-sayHi() { alert(this.name); }
-}
-// proof: User is a function
alert(typeof User); // function
8. What is the difference between GET and POST?
A GET request is commonly used for AJAX API calls, while a POST request is usually used to store data in a database or send data through a form.
POST requests are used in two stages and are not visible to the user. GET requests are limited to secure and can be seen by the user in the URL. POST requests are therefore more reliable.
9. What is a CSS float and why you should use it?
This technical question is ideally fit for more junior front-end developers and assesses their CSS knowledge. Although technological knowledge is relevant, it is the “why” that matters most in this case. The explanation for the candidate’s use of floats will help you figure out their approach to website styling — and whether or not they’re a good match for your business.
10. What is Cross-browser testing?
Cross Browser Testing is a method of testing that determines whether an application performs as planned across multiple browsers and degrades gracefully. It is the method of determining whether or not your application is compatible with various browsers.
11. What are the building blocks of HTML?
Attribute: An attribute in HTML provides additional information about an element, and it is used in Start TAG. There are two fields in it: Name and Value.
Tags: Tags in HTML are written between the and > brackets and surround and add context to the text.
Elements HTML elements are described as anything written inside tags in an HTML file.
12. What are the benefits of using Anime.JS?
Layered CSS transforms
Controls and callbacks
Animate anything
Effects and Animations
Scenes and Cameras
Data loaders and Shaders
Conclusion
As a result, these are the most relevant interview questions and answers for front-end developers. It will help you in your just-in-time planning for the front-end creation work interview. Please let me know if there are any other relevant front-end developer questions that I missed in the comments. | https://medium.com/@abhishek420/front-end-developer-interview-questions-in-2021-5cb31616a525 | [] | 2021-04-25 11:19:20.166000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Front End Development', 'Technology', 'HTML', 'Interview Questions'] |
Outsourcing the Software and Cloud Services: Increasing Demands for Scalable Business Solutions | The outsourcing of software development and cloud services are great options for organizations that want to scale. Outsourcing software development lets you match ambition with talent, without waiting to build in-house expertise. Similarly, cloud services let you access the hardware and software without having to provision to buy and maintain them yourself. Combined, software outsourcing and cloud services offer a scalable business solution where the emphasis is on adding new customers, not adding to your in-house.
Software Development Outsourcing for Scaling
When your product hits and starts to grow, if Technology is not your core talent, or if you have reached the limits of your digital resources, then you need to reach out to an outsourced expert.
Such technological partners can fill the void between your increasing customer demands and your current technical abilities. An external partner can help in several different ways like:
Provide Technical consultation and solution architecture.
Help to develop your product from scratch to finish.
Work on a specific segment of your project.
Provide advice on strategy and technology.
Take responsibility for ongoing solution management.
Perhaps most importantly, an outsource partner can introduce resource efficiencies that allow you to scale your operations smoothly and without wasting any additional revenue that comes from an expanding customer base.
Cloud Services help to Ramp Up Faster than In-House IT
The central idea in cloud-based services is that you access hardware and software over a network while letting someone else take responsibility for the computer system resources required to make them work. Much as you would turn to an expert custom software developer to translate your core business ideas to a digital platform, the cloud puts responsibility for the maintenance, upgrades, and efficiencies of your digital programs into the hands of specialists.
Cloud services give enterprises access to the best software products available without needing extra expertise or resources to host them. The result for the enterprise is increased agility and scalability, lower costs, and reduced IT complexity.
Maximize Benefits While Minimizing Risks
To maximize the benefits of cloud services, you must make the programs that were once tethered to your workstation readily available across an entire network of office locations, mobile devices, and a range of digital platforms, browsers, and application connections. To minimize risk, you should be working with an outsourced software partner who can complete comprehensive planning, quality assurance, and expert technical execution.
That way, you get access to outsourced software that lets you better align technology with your business goals. You can find new ways to communicate, collaborate, share information, track customer metrics in real-time, and perform data analysis that provides real-time insights on your operations. For the expanding business, software outsourcing and cloud services provide the ability to grow on demand.
Outsourced Scalability and Efficiency
Software outsourcing and cloud services help you work more efficiently. Rather than responding to a surge in customer interest by onboarding additional staff, you can preserve the additional revenue and make it easier for your existing staff to achieve more with their core talents.
From the very start, outsourcing both software and data storage over a subscription basis can be dramatically cheaper than purchasing products outright and investing in related infrastructure. Similarly, outsourcing to the cloud reduces the need to carry IT, staff for maintenance and troubleshooting. This makes it easier and more affordable to access software solutions that meet several important functions:
Improve customer monitoring and automation of service
Streamline workflow operations to remove bottlenecks and inefficiencies
Better integration of customer information with customer outcomes
Not everyone is equipped to make the migration to the cloud and outsourced software on their own, so if you’re unsure about how to take the leap seek the advice of an expert.
Build a Tech Product with ScaleTech
Moving data and workflows to the cloud can help your operation scale as needed. The most profitable trend today is to scale with better tools rather than with a bigger headcount, or more office space. Software outsourcing and Cloud services not only help you scale your business, but they can also help you build a better one. Migrating to the cloud and embracing software as a service arrangement lets you reroute resources away from depreciating assets and specialized staff, and toward highly flexible, customizable, and evolving solutions.
ScaleTech has made some market breaking innovations since we started and partnered with some big names like NFL, and MyJackPot too. If you’re ready to make the most of the Cloud, contact our team today. | https://medium.com/@scaletech/outsourcing-the-software-and-cloud-services-increasing-demands-for-scalable-business-solutions-845bbb0381af | [] | 2020-03-23 12:43:24.725000+00:00 | ['Cloud Computing', 'Scalability', 'Business', 'Outsourcing', 'Software Development'] |
Fotoğraftaki büyük hata nerede? | Future-proof invisible design systems, data-driven strategies, powerful visual identities, and memorable experiences to connect people to your brand.
Follow | https://medium.com/antrepo/foto%C4%9Fraftaki-b%C3%BCy%C3%BCk-hata-nerede-c66cf4db43e2 | ['Mehmet Gözetlik'] | 2019-04-23 10:32:07.664000+00:00 | ['Tasarım', 'Marka', 'Audi', 'Kurumsal Kimlik', 'Tipografi'] |
Not Fit to Breed? Forced Sterilization Is Not New In America. | On Monday, a whistle blower and former nurse at a Georgia ICE detention center accused a doctor of forcibly sterilizing immigrant women.
According to the whistle blower, the ICDC consistently used a particular gynecologist who almost always opted to remove all or part of the uterus of female detainee patients.
He has a nickname, that gynecologist.
They call him the uterus collector.
Omg, is America becoming fascist?
News outlets and bloggers are shocked, wondering aloud if America is becoming like the Nazis.
Surely, you jest.
America is not becoming like the Nazis. America inspired the Nazis.
I wish I was kidding. It makes me a little sick to say it.
But the truth doesn’t care what anyone thinks of it.
By the end of World War II, over 400,000 people had been forcibly sterilized under German Eugenics laws.
When the issue of forced sterilization was brought up at the Nuremberg trials, Nazis defended their actions and their eugenics laws by saying they had only taken inspiration from the United States.
Eugenics. Made in America
Although the practice of Eugenics and forced sterilization is associated with Nazi Germany and other oppressive regimes, it started in America.
It seems horrible, doesn’t it? Cutting open a woman’s gut and yanking out her uterus and Fallopian tubes. Like some twisted dystopian Atwood novel.
But no. It’s just business as usual in America.
During the U.S. colonization of Puerto Rico, over one-third of women were sterilized. Many were under age 30.
Eugenics wasn’t even legal in America. Yet
Indiana passed the world’s first eugenics sterilization law in 1907 and 31 other US states followed suit.
Eugenics. Born in America.
An excuse for racial extermination…
White elites with strong biases about who was “fit” and “unfit” embraced eugenics, believing American society would be improved by increased breeding of Anglo Saxons and Nordics, whom they assumed had high IQs.
Sound familiar? That’s what Hitler said, too.
America just said it first.
Anyone who didn’t fit the mold of racial perfection, which included most immigrants, Blacks, Indigenous people, poor whites and people with disabilities, became targets of eugenics programs.
Over to 70,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized under Eugenics laws that were originally declared as a way to eradicate “feeblemindedness,” but that really served as a means of racial extermination.
America’s Eugenics program, accepted by the Supreme Court, targeted Black, Native American, Latina, and Puerto Rican women for over a century.
They were deemed unfit to procreate because of “undesirable” traits that should be bred out of future generations.
You know. Like color.
“Undesirable,” of course, was a euphemism for immigrants and anyone who was not white and also happened to be poor and/or mentally ill.
Have you heard anyone use the word “undesirables” lately?
A phrase as American as apple pie.
In California, Latina women of Mexican descent, were sterilized at 59% higher rates than non-Latinas.
In North Carolina, the state performed surgeries on more than 7,600 people between the 1930s and 1970s. 65% were Black women
According to Rutgers historian Johanna Schoen, more than one-third of those sterilized were not even of legal age to buy a drink or vote. The youngest girl sterilized was only nine years old.
The Mississipi Appendectomy!
Forced sterilization of Black women was so common across the South that it was called a “Mississippi appendectomy” because doctors would tell women they needed to get their appendix out, but then sterilize them.
Wealthy white medical students were allowed to “practice” performing a hysterectomy during those Mississippi appendectomies.
Can you even imagine? The doctor you trust tells you that you need to have your appendix out and you wake up with your uterus gone?
In the 1970s, autonomy was for white women…
You might think it would have ended once the Nazis were tried for crimes against humanity and the Nuremberg trials hit global news.
You would be wrong. It did not end.
In the 1970’s, as Roe v. Wade hit the courts and the headlines and granted women bodily autonomy, up to 50% of Native American women who received medical care were forcibly sterilized by the United States government.
Also during the 70s, the Nixon administration increased Medicaid-funded sterilization of low-income Americans, primarily those of color.
The Last Forced Sterilization?
Most of the state Eugenics laws were repealed by the 1970s.
A Supreme Court ruling in the late 1970s said doctors had to fully inform patients of their rights and could not ask for consent for sterilization during childbirth. But the practice continued.
According to historians, the last forced sterilization in U.S. history was performed in Oregon, in 1981
Except, no.
Forced sterilization is still common for women who are incarcerated or otherwise detained. Like in the ICE center. But not just there.
Even though forced hysterectomies were officially banned in California in 1979, 1400 women in California prisons, primarily women of color, were given unwanted sterilizations between 1997 and 2010.
2010. That’s a decade ago.
A Legacy of Inequality…
America was profoundly shaped by the Eugenics Movement. It’s an integral part of the racial inequality that has always existed in America.
All forced sterilizations, regardless of time or place, both then and now — have one thing in common. They dehumanize a subset of the population deemed less worthy by those with privilege.
24 hours after the whistle blower report hit the news, 168 members of Congress sent a letter urging DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to investigate the allegations.
Of course they did.
It’s an election year.
They’re demanding an urgent response and a briefing by September 25.
Of course they are.
It’s an election year.
On September 25, there will be a report. What there won’t be is change. Not unless enough voices demand it. Inequality will continue for as long as we continue to look the other way. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/not-fit-to-breed-forced-sterilization-is-not-new-in-america-6d05eb31310c | ['Linda Caroll'] | 2020-09-17 15:10:24.579000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Feminism', 'History', 'Equality', 'Racism'] |
Meet the All-Girls Competitive Robotics Team from The Bronx | Story by Taylor Hess
Robot 9717A zips around the competition pit, burrowing into corners and sneaking behind larger bots to hunt yellow foam stars and orange cloth cubes. Nicknamed “Cobra” for its claw-like apparatus designed to lunge out during matches, grabbing at the stars and cubes, it stands out not only for its lithe design in a pack of chunky square robots, but also for who made it: the St. Catharine Comets, a group of scrappy teenagers from the St. Catharine’s Academy in the northeast Bronx and one of the few all-girls robotics teams on the competitive high school circuit in New York State.
Competitive robotics is gaining widespread attention as a gateway into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers. Despite a national and local push to bring high-level science and technology training to as many high school students as possible, girls — and low income and minority girls in particular — are still wildly underrepresented. In 2011, only eleven percent of the STEM workforce was black, and seven percent of the STEM workforce was Hispanic. Among science and engineering graduates, about a third are women. And yet almost twice as many men are employed in STEM careers.
The Comets, led by coach Sheree Petrignani, are trying to topple that imbalance and prove to their mostly-male opponents, their families, and themselves, that they belong in competitive robotics, in coveted college engineering programs, and eventually in the profession as expert programmers, designers, and creators in STEM fields.
“I really can’t imagine high school without robotics,” says Angelique Taveras, the team’s leading builder. “I think I’d be constantly searching for the support from a stable group and for a purpose. But on the robotics team, I feel like I found that.”
Taveras, 17, didn’t consider joining the robotics team when she first enrolled at St. Catharine’s as a freshman. The fastest way to make friends, she thought, was to join the cheerleading team. But Taveras had spent the previous summer studying basic hydraulic mechanics while interning at a summer engineering camp, and was itching to learn more. So she abandoned cheerleading to become the youngest member on St. Catharine’s competitive robotics team. Now, having dedicated four years to robotics, she’s the most veteran builder and the only senior on the team.
“Robotics has really built the foundation to who I am,” Taveras says. “The most amazing thing is the fact that you’re creating something. It almost feels like you can do anything.”
St. Catharine Academy couldn’t always afford a robotics lab. Tuition is about $8,750 per year, but roughly half of the students receive some financial aid. Many students are first-generation immigrants; the student body is 22 percent white. The school is in the northeast corner of the Bronx where household income is the lowest of the five boroughs. Tuition can be a huge chunk of a family’s annual income, raising pressure on the young women to succeed.
With the help of donations from the Class of 1966, St. Catharine Academy recently added a 3D printer to their growing lab full of Legos, tools, various-sized robots, a motorized Ferris wheel, and solar submarines. Building supplies include hydraulic motors and three-gear chains. Trophies and plaques decorate shelves and STEM-related newspaper clippings hang on the walls. But the cost of building the lab was just an initial investment. A battery that runs for about four minutes costs $40. A motor that lasts for only two tournaments costs $40. And if the team qualifies for nationals this spring, they’d need to raise about $40,000 to charter a bus to the VEX tournament in Waukee, Iowa.
Petrignani has built the robotics program from the ground up since she started teaching at St. Catharine Academy in 2011. It took a year to design the curriculum and recruit students for the competition team. To pique interest, Petrignani designed a summer intensive course for potential middle school talent, encouraging promising students to register for high school robotics. In the last five years, Petrignani’s recruited more girls to join the team, but it’s still sometimes an uphill battle for the girls to prioritize robotics.
“For the girls who are first generation here in the United States,” Petrignani says, “I do feel they need to be helpers at home more with siblings.” When the girls struggle to juggle the demands of their honors and AP level school work with hours spent building in the robotics lab and extra family obligations, Petrignani helps supervise their time management. “I don’t want to add additional stress. The only time the beast comes out of me is when we’re on the field, but they know it’s only game talk.”
The Comets’ goal this year is to qualify for the national VEX Robotics Competition, after a series of scrimmages and regionals that could potentially lead to state championships and ultimately the national tournament in Iowa. But breaking into the national stage this year isn’t the last stop for the Comets; instead, it’s a step toward a much larger end goal.
“My mission in life is to recruit as many young women into the field of STEM,” says Petrignani, or Ms. P, as her girls call her. “These are where the scholarships are; these are where the jobs are going to be.” The opportunity to compete at the national level boosts every girl’s hopes of getting accepted into college programs that could lead to promising careers in engineering.
On the evening of December 5, while Taveras was napping, the phone rang. The call was from the Posse Foundation, informing Taveras that she was one of ten exceptional students from minority backgrounds selected to attend Lafayette College class of 2021. If she hadn’t seen some of her senior teammates receive college scholarships to pursue engineering degrees when she first joined the Comets as a freshman, Taveras says she wouldn’t have been inspired to chase an engineering dream herself. But after securing a full-ride scholarship to study chemical engineering, Taveras was reluctant to celebrate her achievement. “My mom had to keep reminding me how hard I worked, explaining to me why I wasn’t just lucky,” she says.
With her future at Lafayette locked, Taveras refocused her energy on the team she had grown to love. Leading up to the final regional competition at the end of February, the St. Catharine Comets had accumulated two more trophies, for innovation and for special recognition from the judges. “I think we can really do this,” Petrignani said more frequently during lab sessions, bus rides, and team huddles.
“We work too hard to mess up,” Petrignani exhorted her team before the second regional competition in January. They had already won the Create Award after competing in 62 matches at the first regional tournament. But before nationals, the team would need to win awards at the three remaining regionals in order to qualify for states. Now competing against several college level teams at Vaughn, the Comets were one of the first to arrive, a habit Petrignani enforces. Arriving early to set up and prepare demonstrates professionalism, she often reminds the girls. After check-in, Petrignani called a team huddle.
Boys from other arriving teams shuffled by with their own boxes of gear. “We have to be on our game and show sportsmanship,” Petrignani said, eyeing the girls, one by one. Asking about a lunch break, checking cell phones, or removing protective goggles would not be tolerated. The roboticists were reminded to tie their hair up, to be on the lookout for judges lurking near their worktable, to stay energized and focused. “Nothing is ever finished being built. Just like a car, our robots need to be maintained.”
It takes about five months to build a robot ready to compete at a VEX competition. And even once the design and programming are working together so that the robot drives smoothly, the design requires constant tweaking and adjustment. During a tournament, the computer program might glitch, a gear-chain might slip, or some inexplicable malfunction might cause the robot simply to freeze in a driving pit during the middle of a match.
During match play on the 12×12 square field, two competing robots will drive in autonomous mode for fifteen seconds before teams step in with remote controlled driving. The object of the match is to score more points than the opponent bot by moving, collecting, and throwing the foam stars and cloth cubes.
Most teams build rectangular and square robots. Petrignani calls them “the boys’ big dump trucks.” But the Comets’ Cobra has an unusual triangular base that allows for more agile maneuvering. Bulkier robots might seem more menacing or impressive, but they’re actually less challenging to build. The smaller the robot, the more intricate the details of the design.
“We like it to be simple and efficient because we don’t want to stress the motors,” team captain Ashley DeLeon says. Cobra is lightweight, inspired by triangular Delta airplane wings, DeLeon explained. And efficiency is not only about design. The smaller sized robot requires fewer building materials. The Comets’ Cobra, subtle, neat, and relatively cheaper to maintain, is also an effective robot. “Triangular designed mechanisms are known for very fast velocity.”
In a field as utilitarian as engineering, design can often feel thoughtless or cold, says St. Catharine Academy principal, Sister Ann Welch. “Especially in medical and housing, you can really see the difference with a female touch, rather than the coldness of just building buildings.” Women engineers are potentially more intentional, more caring in their design ideas and execution, she explains. It’s the difference between building a building and creating a home, or between designing a prosthetic limb and creating an arm.
“There are many things in life that I can tell were designed by men,” Petrignani says before the final regional competition. “At the ladies’ room, if the door swings in, I know it was designed by a man because a woman would never design a door to swing in toward the toilet; it would go out.” It’s in the design subtleties that Petrignani observes a world predominantly catered to men because it was predominantly engineered by men. “So those kinds of things,” she says, “I would like to change.”
Taveras is summoned back to the building table just as the programmers finish adjusting code. There’s another driving match before the teams pick partners for a two-on-two competition. A boys team, ranked similarly to the Comets, agrees to link up but then changes its mind, so the Comets accept an offer instead from the only other girls team, a Girl Scouts troop. “We girls need to stick together,” Comets builder Angelica Lawton says. The Girl Scouts-Comets team forfeits a match, putting their fate in the hands of the judges who decide subjective prizes. The girls spend the final competition rounds cheering on competitors.
As the awards begin, and the Comets huddle together. Taveras is still in a fold-up chair, hiding the nerves she says she’s feeling. Parents bicker over the competition’s outcome and chatter from other teams sprinkle around the room. When a judge says that the Design Award winner qualifies both for states and nationals, the robo girls of the St. Catharine Comets fall quiet.
“Team #9717,” announces the judge as a uniformly-pitched group scream fills the space. The Comets jump from their seats to receive the trophy. “The first all-girls team to go to nationals!” shouts team captain DeLeon. While scuttling back to her seat, Taveras grins and shakes her head, then embraces three teammates. “I don’t even know,” she repeats, as girls around her pace, yelp, curse, and cry.
“We did it,” Petrignani says, her voice hoarse from a day of coaching. Her face is pink and her eyes well. “We’re going to nationals.” With their uniquely designed robot, the girls of the St. Catharine Comets had just engineered their way to nationals. And when the team embarks on a twenty-hour journey from the Bronx to the national stage in Waukee, Iowa this week, they won’t just be making history at St. Catharine Academy or the VEX U.S. Open; these roboticists are building futures. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/meet-the-all-girls-competitive-robotics-team-from-the-bronx-df0cf67a2ab7 | [] | 2020-11-18 04:07:10.333000+00:00 | ['Robotics', 'Women in STEM', 'Women In Tech', 'Education', 'STEM'] |
How Airbnb is Moving 10x Faster at Scale with GraphQL and Apollo | GraphQL Unions for Backend-Driven UI
The existing state for the product at the beginning of the talk presupposes we have built a system where a very dynamic page is constructed based on a query that will return an array of some set of possible “sections.” These sections are responsive and define the UI completely.
The central file that manages this would be a generated file (later, we will get to how to generate it) that looks something like this:
Since the list of possible sections is quite large (~50 sections today for Search), it also presumes we have a sane mechanism for lazy-loading components with server rendering, which is a topic for another post. Suffice it to say, we do not need to package all possible sections in a massive bundle to account for everything up front.
Each section component defines its own query fragment, colocated with the section’s component code. That looks something like this:
This is the general idea of Backend-Driven UI at Airbnb. It’s used in a number of places, including Search, Trip Planner, Host tools, and various landing pages. We use this as our starting point, and then in the demo show how to (1) make and update to an existing section, and (2) add a new section.
Explore Your Schema With Playground
While building your product, you want to be able to explore your schema, discovering field names and testing out potential queries on live development data. We achieve that today with GraphQL Playground, the work of our friends at Prisma. The tools come standard with Apollo Server.
In our case, backend services are primarily written in Java, and their schemas are stitched together by our Apollo Server, which we call Niobe. For now, since Apollo Gateway and Schema Composition are not yet live, all our backend services are name-spaced by service. This is why exploring the playground begins with a list of service names. The next level down in the tree is the service method. In this case, getJourney() . As I mention in the talk, Schema Composition, a new concept unveiled by the Apollo team, should help us build a more sane schema model. More on that in the coming months.
View Your Schema in VS Code with the Apollo Plugin
One of the joys I wanted to demonstrate in the talk is having so many helpful tools at my fingertips while building our product. This includes access to Git in VS Code, as well as the integrated terminal and tasks for running frequently-needed commands.
Of course, we also had some fun stuff to show for GraphQL and Apollo! The part that most people had not seen was the new Apollo GraphQL VS Code Extension. There is no need for me to copy over all juicy features from their marketing site (there are many!), but I will elaborate on one feature: Schema Tags.
If you are going to lint your queries against the schema you are working on, you will invariably be presented with the decision of “which schema?” The default may be your production schema (“current,” by convention), but as we discuss in the demo, if you need to iterate and explore new ideas, you need the flexibility of targeting a provisional schema.
Since we are using Apollo Engine, publishing multiple schemas using tags allows us this flexibility, and multiple engineers can collaborate on a single proposed schema. Once proposed schema changes for a service are merged upstream and those changes are naturally flowing down in the current production schema, we can flip back to “current” in VS Code. Very cool.
Automatically Generate Types
The goal with Codegen is to benefit from strong type safety without having to manually create TypeScript types or React PropTypes. This is critical because our query fragments are distributed among the components that use them. This is why making a 1-line change to a query fragment results in 6–7 files being updated; because that same fragment appears in numerous places in the query hierarchy — in parallel to the component hierarchy.
This part is nothing but Apollo CLI functionality. We are working on a particularly fancy file watcher (named “Sauron,” obviously), but for now it is no trouble at all to run apollo client:codegen --target=typescript --watch --queries=frontend/luxury-guest/**/*.{ts,tsx} as needed. It is good to be able to flip off the codegen during rebases, and I typically filter my scope down to the project I am working on.
My favorite part is that since we are co-locating our fragments with our components, changing a single file results in many files in the query being updated as we move up the component hierarchy. This means that higher up in the tree near the route component, we can see the consolidated query and all the various types of data it can pass through.
No magic there at all. Just Apollo CLI.
Isolate your UI Changes with Storybook
The tool we use for editing UI is Storybook. It is the perfect place to make sure your work aligns with designs to the pixel across breakpoints. You get fast hot module reloading and a couple checkboxes to enable/disable browser features like Flexbox.
The only tricks I apply to Storybook are loading the stories with the mock data we’ve extracted from the API. If your mock data really covers all the various various possible states for your UI, you are good to go. Beyond that, if you have alternative states you want to account for, perhaps loading or error states, you can add them in manually.
This is the crux of the matter for Storybook. This file is entirely generated from Yeoman (discussed below), and it delivers the examples from the Alps Journey by default. getSectionsFromJourney() just filters the sections.
One other hack you’ll notice is that I added a pair of divs to bookend my component vertically, since Storybook renders with whitespace around the component. That is fine for buttons or UI with borders, but it’s hard to tell precisely where your component starts and ends, so I hacked them in there.
Since we are talking about how all these fabulous tools work so well together to help you be productive, can I just say what a delight it is to work on UI with Zeplin or Figma side by side with Storybook. Digging into UI in this abstract way takes all the chaos of this madcap world away one breakpoint at a time, and in that quiet realm, you are good down to the pixel every time.
Automatically Retrieve Mock Data
To supply Storybook and our unit tests with realistic mock data, we want to extract the mock data directly from our Shared Development Environment. As with codegen, even a small change in a query fragment should also trigger many small changes in mock data. And here, similarly, the hard part is tackled entirely by Apollo CLI, and you can stitch it together with your own code in no time.
The first step is simply to run apollo client:extract frontend/luxury-guest/apollo-manifest.json , and you will have a manifest file with the all the queries from your product code. One thing you may notice is that the command is name-spaced to this “luxury guest” project because I do not want to be refresh all possible mock data for all possible teams.
This command is lovely because my queries are all distributed among many TypeScript files, but this command will execute on source and combine all the imports. I don’t have to run it on babel/webpack output.
The piece we then add to this is short and mechanical:
We are currently working with the Apollo team to extract this logic to the Apollo CLI, as well. I could imagine a world where the only thing you need to specify is the array of examples you want, and co-locating them in a folder with a query would automatically codegen the mocks on demand. Imagine specifying the mocks you need thusly:
If you have some ideas for how you would want to use this, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
Add Screenshot Testing to Code Review with Happo
Happo is a straight up life-saver. It is the only screenshot testing tool I’ve ever used, so I would not be sophisticated enough to compare it to alternatives, if there are any, but the essential idea is that you push code, and it goes off and renders all the components in your PR, comparing it with the version on master.
This means if you edit a component like <Input /> it will show you the impact on components that use Input, including the Search Bar you accidentally modified. It. Is. Fabulous.
How many times did you think your change was contained only to discover that ten other teams started using what you built, and your change breaks three of the ten? Without Happo, you might not know.
Until lately, the only downside with Happo was that our Storybook variations (the input to the screenshot testing process) did not always reflect reliable data adequately. Now that Storybook is leveraging API data, we can feel much more confident. Plus, as our demo explores, it is automatic. If you add a field to the query and then the component, Happo will automatically post the diff to your PR, letting the engineers, designers, and product managers sitting next to you see the visual consequences of the change you have made.
Generate New Files with Yeoman
If you need to scaffold a bunch of files multiple times, you should build a generator. It will turn you into an army of you. I was shocked following the talk by how many people thought we had a flotilla of infrastructure engineers working on what I showed in that video. Other than the AST Transformations (which I will address next), this was just three template files and this puppy:
You could imagine creating something like the above in 2–3 minutes for a project that was only going to last the afternoon. Yeoman generators don’t need to wait for infrastructure teams or massive multi-quarter projects.
Use AST Explorer to Learn How to Edit Existing Files
The tricky part for Yeoman generators is to edit existing files. But with Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) transformations, the task is made much easier.
Here is how we achieve the desired transformation of Sections.tsx, which we discuss at the top of this post:
_updateFile is boilerplate for using Babel to apply an AST transformation. The crux of the work is _addToSectionMapping , and you see:
At the Program level, it inserts a new Import Declaration. Of the two Object Expressions, the one with multiple properties is our Section Mapping, and we will insert a key/value pair there. The Tagged Template Literal is our gql fragment, and we want to insert 2 lines there, the first being a Member Expression and the second being one of a set of “quasi” expressions. (Hmm…)
If the code performing the transformation looks intimidating, I can only say the same is true for me. Prior to writing this transformation, I had not encountered quasis, and it would be fair to say I found them quasi-confusing (#DadJokes).
The good news is that AST Explorer makes it easy to hammer this sort of thing out. Here’s that same transformation in Explorer. Of the four panes, the upper left contains the source file, the upper right contains the parsed tree, the lower left contains the proposed transformation, and the lower right contains the transformed result.
Looking at the parsed tree immediately tells you the structure of the code you’ve written in Babel terms (you knew that was a Tagged Template Literal, right?), and that gives you what you need to figure out how to apply transformations and test them.
AST transformations also play a crucial role in Codemods. Check out this post from my friend, Joe Lencioni, on the matter.
Extract Mock Content from Zeplin or Figma
Zeplin and Figma are both built to allow engineers to extract content directly to facilitate product development.
In the case of the image above, extracting the copy for an entire paragraph is as simple as selecting the content in Zeplin and clicking the “copy” icon in the Content section of the sidebar. | https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/how-airbnb-is-moving-10x-faster-at-scale-with-graphql-and-apollo-aa4ec92d69e2 | ['Adam Neary'] | 2018-12-05 17:35:07.315000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'GraphQL', 'Front End Development', 'Web', 'Frontend'] |
Durians Daily #145: This country has raised more than 60% of the IPO values in Southeast Asia in 2020; Australians to gain better access to education on e-scooter safety; Australian rocket company to | Missed out the last Durians Daily? Go here to check it out.
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500 Startups is a venture capital firm on a mission to discover and back the world’s most talented entrepreneurs, help them create successful companies at scale, and build thriving global ecosystems. In Southeast Asia, 500 Startups invests through the pioneering 500 Durians family of funds. The 500 Durians funds have backed over 200 companies across multiple sectors from internet to consumer to deep technology. It continues to connect founders with capital, expertise and powerful regional and global networks to help them succeed.
This post is intended solely for general informational or educational purposes only. 500 Startups Management Company, L.L.C. and its affiliates (collectively “500 Startups”) makes no representation as to the accuracy or information in this post and while reasonable steps have been taken to ensure that the information herein is accurate and up-to-date, no liability can be accepted for any error or omissions. All third party links in this post have not been independently verified by 500 Startups and the inclusion of such links should not be interpreted as an endorsement or confirmation of the content within. Information about portfolio companies’ markets, competitors, performance, and fundraising has been provided by those companies’ founders and has not been independently verified. Under no circumstances should any content in this post be construed as investment, legal, tax or accounting advice by 500 Startups, or an offer to provide any investment advisory service with regard to securities by 500 Startups. No content or information in this post should be construed as an offer to sell or solicitation of interest to purchase any securities advised by 500 Startups. Prospective investors considering an investment into any 500 Startups fund should not consider or construe this content as fund marketing material. The views expressed herein are as at the date of this post and are subject to change without notice. One or more 500 Startups fund may have a financial interest in one or more of the companies discussed. | https://medium.com/500-durians/durians-daily-145-this-country-has-raised-more-than-60-of-the-ipo-values-in-southeast-asia-in-129c3bd2f79 | ['Southeast Asia'] | 2020-12-04 06:51:09.997000+00:00 | ['Mobility', 'Stock Market', 'IPO', 'Space'] |
How fate killed Isoroku Yamamoto | How fate killed Isoroku Yamamoto
A small change in Allied decision making fixed the fate of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
Isoroku Yamamoto. Source-Wikipedia
Subash Chandra Bose was the most wanted man in British India.His Majesty’s Governmetn feared that Bose could undermine British India’s morale and, in turn, affect British India’s support for Britain in World War II.
British intelligence got valuable information on the whereabouts of Subash Chandra Bose but gave it up for a higher profile enemy, Isoroku Yamamoto. It’s an intriguing tale of how a Japanese general unknowingly saved the life of Subhash Chandra Bose.
Who Was Bose?
Bose. Source-Wikipedia
Subhash Chandra Bose was born in Calcutta (modern Kolkata) in British India.
He passed the Civil service exams, which was considered the most challenging exam to crack in British India. Due to racial discrimination, the British Indian government refused to give him a proper position.
He quit his job and joined the Indian National Congress(INC). He rose to become the leader of INC. Due to his radical ideas and pressure from Mahatma Gandhi to promote his prodigy Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose left INC to form a left-wing party Forward Bloc.
Bose with Hitler.Source-Wikipedia
The secret agenda of Forward Bloc was to use violence to intimidate the British Indian government. The British Indian government branded Bose as a terrorist and kept him under house arrest.
He escaped from his house, and via Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, Bose reached Europe. Bose’s idea was to seek the help from the Axis Powers to liberate British India.
Bose was encouraged by the Nazi government, and he set up Azad Hind, a radio station to broadcast anti-British Indian government propaganda. At the peak of World War II, the German government was secretly planning an invasion of British India.
If Operation Barbarossa (the Invasion of Russia) succeeded. Germany’s Army Group B would link up with Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps and Italian forces from Egypt and continue their march via Iran to British India. The hope was to link up with Japanese forces coming from Thailand in India.
Hitler knew India was the jewel in the British crown and wanted to snatch it. Bose was the right tool to instigate hatred in the mind of British Indian citizens. With Operation Barbarossa headed to a disaster, Germany dropped the invasion plans for British India. But a new superpower was eyeing India.
Rise Of Japan:
Yamamoto in pearl harbor planning.Source-Wikipedia
Japan rose from economic depression to become a major power in a short span.
After World War, I Japan concentrated on its expansionist policy. Japan invaded China in 1933, which drew heavy criticism.
Japan, which relied on the USA for most of its raw materials, faced an embargo for its military actions. Japan decided to expand into South East Asia and capture European colonies.
Japan’s mastermind behind this project was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Yamamoto, the Japanese navy commander, was the spine of entire Japanese operations on the field in World War II. The successful Pearl Harbor attack on America’s Pacific Fleet in Hawaii was the brainchild of Yamamoto.
After the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan dragged the US into the war, and it had severe consequences. Meanwhile, Japan expanded its colonial borders and occupied French Indo-China (modern-day Vietnam), Malaysia, Indonesia, and Burma. Japan’s next target was British India.
Bose, who fought for a lost cause, now found a new ally in the form of Japan. Japan had captured many British Indian Army soldiers. Bose wanted to induct them into his newly formed Indian National Army or INA. Bose’s new hope was that the INA would fight alongside Japanese forces and liberate British India.
Fate:
Last photo of Yamamoto. Source-Wikipedia
By now, the US had decoded Japanese naval codes and deciphered most of the Japanese communications. In one such transmission, the US found two valuable information. On April 18, 1943
Bose will transfer from a German U-boat off the coast of Madagascar to a Japanese submarine for a voyage to Tokyo.
2) Yamamoto will visit Japanese troops stationed in the Solomon Islands for a briefing.
For the Allied forces, both leaders were prime targets, but if they attacked both the leaders simultaneously, the Japanese and German high commands could conclude that the USA had broken the Japanese naval code.
American leaders decided to spare Bose. Armed with Yamamoto’s travel itinerary, US fighter planes shot down his plane in Bougainville Island. The crash killed him instantly.
The operation was aptly named Operation Vengeance. Though there are questions on the ethics behind the action, after the death of Yamamoto, Japanese morale dropped drastically.
Yamamoto and Bose might have never met, but in a strange twist of fate, their lives were intertwined on April 18, 1943, when Allied forces took Yamamoto’s life to spare Bose’s life. | https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/how-fate-killed-isoroku-yamamoto-377e1bf82ade | ['Karthick Nambi'] | 2020-11-12 21:27:12.794000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Japan', 'War', 'World', 'History'] |
Where to use the INP token | InPoker provides INP tokens as a reward for winning the tournaments. Tokens can be used for staking or purchasing various products on the platform, such as Elite NFT membership cards. With cashier facility is coming to InPoker very soon, users will be able to stake their INP tokens and earn APY, even when not playing.
InPoker also allows users to create new generations of Elite NFT membership cards by staking their existing cards together with the INP-BUSD LP for one month. The new membership cards can be used to access additional tournaments and benefits or users can choose to resell them on the marketplace.
InPoker will buyback and burn half of received profit in INP tokens in order to decrease the total supply and increase demand as the platform becomes more popular. Shortage of tokens in circulation will drive the demand. By keeping the INP token and staking it, users can continue to be rewarded. This will attract more users in the platform while providing a sustainable blockchain economy for the INP token.
The upcoming cashier facility will allow users to withdraw winnings to your wallet at any time. Users will also be able to take advantage of the DeFi protocol, which was the core idea for the project since the beginning. DeFi protocol allows to cut the risks associated with losing all the funds in the game and it is a very unique solution not found on other poker platforms. Users can supply their crypto assets and borrow in-game BUSD tokens up to 60% of the asset value while retaining the balance and earning APY.
Stay tuned for more exciting developments on https://www.inpoker.io
Join our official Telegram Channel here: https://t.me/influencerpoker | https://medium.com/@inpoker/where-to-use-the-inp-token-68cac51d65da | [] | 2021-11-28 05:04:50.416000+00:00 | ['Poker', 'Crypto', 'Inp', 'Inpoker', 'Nft'] |
Chord Dasar Pamungkas I Love You But I’m Letting Go | Intro: G C G C
Hmmm no o..
G
Sunday night after
C
A rainy day
G
I delete all your pictures
C
I walked away
G C
From you..o oo
G
Nights are the hardest
C
But I’ll be okay
G
If we are meant to be yeah
C
We’ll find our way
G C
But now.. let it be..
Am
Cause you know what they say
C
If you love somebody
D
Gotta set them free..
Chorus:
G
I love you but I’m letting go
F Em
I love you but I’m letting go
D C
I love you and I’m letting go
D G C G C
I love you but I’m letting go..hmm..
G
Little did I know love is easy
C
But why was it so hard? it was like
G
never enough i gave you all
C
Still you want more
G
Can’t you see? Can’t you see?
C
That you want someone that I’m not
G
Yes I love but I can’t so I am
C
Letting you go now
Am
And baby one day when you finally found
Bm
What you want and you’re ready to open your heart
C
To anyone dont push people away again
D
Easier, I know but it’s also very lonely..
Em C Bm Am Bm C D
Yeah.. ooo..oo ooo..oo..
Chorus:
G
I love you but I’m letting go
F Em
I love you but I’m letting go ooh
D C
I love you and I’m letting go
D C D
It is the only way, you know? ohoo
G F
And from now on I will
Em D
Hold my own hand..
C D
Until one day you’ll hold
C D
My lonely hand..
Outro:
G C G C
u u..uuu… | https://medium.com/@anisaaziza22/chord-dasar-pamungkas-i-love-you-but-im-letting-go-657b2c7d7f9e | [] | 2020-12-23 08:21:56.052000+00:00 | ['SEO', 'News', 'Music', 'Videos', 'Love'] |
Visualizing the News with Watson Discovery | This article is co-authored by John Carpenter, artist and spatial interaction designer at Oblong Industries.
Our ongoing exploration of the ways that IBM Watson® services can make sense of large datasets led us to a demonstration of exploring a live corpus of English language news stories from around the world. During a single weekday, an average of approximately 20,000 stories are fed into our system, the Discovery News application. In order to process all of this unstructured information quickly, the ability to understand language at scale is required.
The team’s goal for this project was to broaden people’s typical field of vision for news, to encourage curiosity, and to facilitate research within the ever expanding landscape of news. We wanted to invigorate the familiar routine of browsing a daily news feed while demonstrating the power of a Watson service, Watson Discovery News. One of the strengths of this service is its ability to analyze unstructured text to extract meta-data from content. This is made possible with embedded natural language processing capabilities. The service provided data such as: concepts, entities, sentiments, semantic roles, authors, publication dates, and relevant keywords with associated confidence scores. Visualizing news stories using this information help users find stories they might not have in a typical day of browsing the news.
The Immersion Room
The application is designed for a large scale 320° immersive room and visitors are invited to experience the news inside of it. Imagine you are controlling a UI that is an entire room, as opposed to a browser window. The software is built in Oblong’s g-speak spatial operating environment, and runs in real-time across 5 computers and 45 screens — which means that we’re driving 93 million spatially and temporally synced pixels. Another advantage of the spatial operating environment is that it provides true spatial tracking for interactions, allowing for input events to seamlessly pass (like 3D pointing or a 4D gesture) into the application’s environment. This is useful for both navigating a large complex spatial datasets and for interacting with the immersive, dynamic UI.
The Immersion Room is designed for collaborative group engagement. While one person drives the UI with a spatially tracked ultrasonic wand, additional inputs such as mobile devices, are integrated into the system to conduct searches within the application. The wraparound space, dynamic interface, and ease of discovering new content has been found to facilitate discussion and generate insight into the day’s events amongst our visitors.
Data Visualization and UI
Given this large scale form factor and a very real possibility of visitors not knowing where to focus upon entering the space, we decided to anchor the stories to their positions on the globe using locations extracted from articles. By plotting points geographically, we were able to see concentrated areas of news activity and identify locations of high activity over time.
Next we extracted concepts and entities, semantic roles and relations, along with sentiments from the daily feed of news stories. These relationships are mapped and visualized to reveal the rate of co-occurrence between topics as well as the average sentiment. The more frequently we see a concept or entity in the news, the more prominent it becomes in the UI. Very simply, the frequency of those topics and the positive and negative feelings associated with them gives us a quick glance at what a given day’s news is about.
A simple control panel allows users to easily explore this rich live dataset. The flexible UI accommodates a variety of views as users filter on concepts and sentiment, see high activity spikes, explore global reaches of concepts and drill down to a single news story. Users are encouraged to fully explore and immerse themselves in the room-sized visualizations. When designing and building this application, the team opted to allow users free rein to go inside of and even pass through the globe, progressively revealing new concepts and meta data as they move closer and closer.
UI elements unfold in the space to facilitate exploration. When a concept is selected the control panel opens up to a related concepts diagram, which opens up to a scrollable grid of filtered news stories, which in turn launch a real-time web view of the current story. With this system, users can quickly navigate from 20,000 to just a few stories of interest with a couple of gestures and clicks.
The highly dynamic UI of the News Discovery application provides users with a myriad of ways to explore different facets of an enormous body of aggregated news stories; inspiring a vision of how quickly teams can use this Watson service to find patterns and trends on topics they care about.
This project was a collaboration with the IBM Immersive Experiences team and Oblong Industries. It can be viewed in a Watson Experience Center.
Jenny Woo is a Design Lead of Watson Immersive Experiences at IBM, based in New York City. The above article is personal and does not necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions. | https://medium.com/design-ibm/visualizing-the-news-with-watson-discovery-13e8be538428 | ['Jenny Woo'] | 2019-06-10 21:46:42.224000+00:00 | ['Immersive Storytelling', 'Ibm Watson', 'Data Visualization', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Much Ado About Nothing: The Perils of Trivializing Mental Health | Time and again terms like ‘depression’ and ‘anxiety’ are used figuratively, more often than not, to denote the mildest signs of discomfort, restlessness, and misery experienced by an individual. The concept of the state of your mind needing some sort of upkeep and being prone to illness just as much as your physical body, is something so radical in society, that it is shelved under the topics considered ‘taboo’. If one observes closely, over the years, there has been a gradual but definitive acknowledgment of ‘mental health’ as a concept. “Yes, of course, you need to take care of your mind just as much as your body”, reading: preferably mental health should exist as a dystopian concept and should not relate to someone among us or even associated with us.
The question that irks me as I am hopeful it does to many of you is, why does society collectively deny the damage that mental health can potentially cause and dismiss its importance? The answer is one that perhaps lies at the roots and requires a comprehensive study of the society at large. But, let’s talk about the present moment. There’s no denying the fact that a number of people have come forth and spoken about the importance and ramifications of mental health today. Given the burgeoning power of social media, now more than ever, there have been extensive talks on this issue and how to deal with it. Yet, we find ourselves unwilling to accept it the way we would in case of a normal physical ailment. There is still a long way to go before a visit to a therapist is de-stigmatized and seen parallel to a visit to a doctor when we’re feeling unwell. Why is it so?
A prime example of the dismissal of mental health in our society is exemplified by the lack and inadequate access to treatment resources and options as opposed to ‘regular’ healthcare. The sheer blatant dismissal of how depression and/or some other mental illness could potentially be fatal without proper treatment has made me question how far we have actually come in our road to acceptance of mental health.
Now, I am not going to delve into the statistics, but we all know the average rate of people who suffer from mental illness and ultimately succumb to it, per year. It’s easy to ask someone to talk about it and share their feelings but let’s be honest, how many of us actually take words like anxiety, stress, panic, depression, etc seriously enough to consult the person as a professional? Granted accessibility to mental health professional care is not affordable, and that’s a whole other tangent, but how many of us take the first step in addressing the situation seriously enough to consult the individual one? That is even if we are in a privileged enough position to discuss matters concerning our mental health, in the first place. The idea borders on non-existent in communities that aren’t. And as precarious as it is for people like us, imagine the effects for people who are not at liberty to acknowledge it. Perhaps they just don’t see it as an issue that needs to be addressed or perhaps they are forced to keep it confined lest they are considered ‘aberrant’. Herein lies the problem. We need to be speaking about this. More openly, more vigorously, and more frequently. | https://medium.com/@naomikasaran/much-ado-about-nothing-the-perils-of-trivializing-mental-health-b5b3c86bf793 | ['Naomika Saran'] | 2021-12-25 13:14:53.009000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Theatre'] |
The Amazing Truth About Weight Loss | In This Article You Will Learn The Strategy With Balancing Diet and Supplements
Reduce refined carbohydrates One way to lose weight quickly is to reduce sugar, starch, or carbs. This can be done by using a low carb diet plan or by reducing refined carbs and replacing them with whole grains. Doing this will reduce the feeling of hunger and generally eat less calories (1TrustedSource). The Low Carb Diet Program uses the burning of stored fat for energy instead of carbohydrates. If you choose to consume more complex carbohydrates, such as whole grains that are deficient in calories, you will benefit from more fiber and slow digestion. This will make them more satisfying to keep you happy. A 2020 study found that a very low-carbohydrate diet was beneficial for weight loss in the elderly (2TrustedSource). According to a study, a low-carb diet can reduce appetite, resulting in less calories burned without thinking or feeling hungry (3TrustedSource). Note that research is still underway on the long-term effects of low-carb diets. Also, continuing a low carb diet can be difficult. This can lead to a yo-yo diet and you may not be successful in maintaining a healthy weight. The low carb diet has potential drawbacks that can lead to another approach. A low-calorie diet can also lead to weight loss, making it easier to maintain for extended periods of time. If you’re choosing a diet that focuses on whole grains rather than refined carbohydrates, a 2019 study associated high whole grains with a low body mass index (BMI) (4TrustedSource). Talk to your doctor about recommendations to find the best way to lose weight. Summary Reducing the amount of sugar, starch, and carbohydrates in your diet can help reduce appetite, lower insulin levels, and lose weight. However, the long-term effects of a low-carb diet are still unknown. A low-calorie diet may be more sustainable.
2. If you have a pretty good diet that you are following you use a diet supplement to make it a little easier so you do not feel so overwhelmed by it.
Here is a free E book on the truth about weight loss and there is a link to a very healthy popular and effective supplement.
3. Move your body You don’t need exercise to lose weight, but it can help you lose weight faster. Weightlifting has a particularly good advantage. Weightlifting burns a lot of calories and prevents slowing down metabolism. This is a common side effect of losing weight (13Trusted Source, 14Trusted Source, 15Trusted Source). Try going to the gym 3–4 times a week to lift the weights. If this is your first time using the gym, ask your trainer for advice. Make sure your doctor also knows about your new exercise plan. If you can’t lift the weights, aerobic exercises such as walking, jogging, running, cycling and swimming can be very helpful in weight loss and overall health. Both aerobic exercise and weightlifting can help you lose weight.
I hope you found helpful, once again I truly recommend reading the E Book for further info and to check out the diet supplement that so many people have used to really get there dream bodies. | https://medium.com/@matthewh10847/the-amazing-truth-about-weight-loss-248bafd0d825 | ['Matthew Hodgson'] | 2021-12-26 03:11:23.832000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss', 'Weight Supplement', 'Weightloss Recipe', 'Weightloss Foods', 'Weight Loss Tips'] |
跑步與社運？ | 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/culturetendo/run-8f8e15a2bfec | [] | 2020-12-26 01:07:17.140000+00:00 | ['Culture', '香港', 'Social Change'] |
Innovation Management Platforms Market Research Study by Industry Size, Share, Opportunities, Analysis and Forecast to 2023 | Innovation management is a combination of the management of innovation processes, and change management. It refers both to product, business process, and organizational innovation. Innovation Management Platform is a system that allows the management.
Innovation Management Platforms is primarily split into: Service and Software. And Software are the most widely used type which takes up about 72.54% of the global market in 2016.
North America is the largest sales region of Innovation Management Platforms in the world in the past few years. North America market took up about 34.71% the global market in 2016, while Europe was 32.55%.
The rise of cloud computing and social platforms enabled the growth of innovation management software from the earlier software product, and both cloud and social platforms now support much of the innovation management software capabilities.
Get Free Sample Copy of Report @ https://www.qurateresearch.com/report/sample/ICT/QBI-LPI-ICT-55349
Over the next five years, projects that Innovation Management Platforms will register a xx% CAGR in terms of revenue, reach US$ xx million by 2023, from US$ xx million in 2017.
This report presents a comprehensive overview, market shares and growth opportunities of Innovation Management Platforms market by product type, application, key companies and key regions.
To calculate the market size, considers value generated from the sales of the following segments:
Segmentation by product type:
Services
Software
Segmentation by application:
Public Sector & Education
Retail & Consumer Goods
IT & Communication Technology
Manufacturing
Transportation & Logistics
Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance
Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals
We can also provide the customized separate regional or country-level reports, for the following regions:
Americas
United States
Canada
Mexico
Brazil
APAC
China
Japan
Korea
Southeast Asia
India
Australia
Europe
Germany
France
UK
Italy
Russia
Spain
Middle East & Africa
Egypt
South Africa
Israel
Turkey
GCC Countries
For more information/ Ask your queries: https://www.qurateresearch.com/report/enquiry/ICT/QBI-LPI-ICT-55349
The report also presents the market competition landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the major players in the market. The key players covered in this report:
Qmarkets
Brightidea
Imaginatik
Hype Innovation
Ideascale
Innosabi
Cognistreamer
Crowdicity
Planbox
Spigit
Inno360
Exago
SAP
Major Factors about the Report:
• Global Innovation Management Platforms Market Overview
• Economic Impact on Market
• Market Competition
• Global Innovation Management Platforms Market Analysis by Application
• Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers
• Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders
• Global Innovation Management Platforms Market Effect, Factors, Analysis
• Global Innovation Management Platforms Market Forecast
Place Purchase Order for this Report @ https://www.qurateresearch.com/report/buy/ICT/QBI-LPI-ICT-55349/ | https://medium.com/@minaranjan66/innovation-management-platforms-market-research-study-by-industry-size-share-opportunities-db4e64d6b91b | ['Mina Ranjan'] | 2019-08-01 13:33:20.279000+00:00 | ['Management', 'Innovation Management', 'Innovation', 'Management Platforms', 'Platforms'] |
Did Joseph Epstein say female PhD’s should drop their Dr prefix or did he refer to all PhD’s? | Did Joseph Epstein say female PhD’s should drop their Dr prefix or did he refer to all PhD’s?
You have to give him the benefit of doubt and presume he was suggesting that PhD could use a different honorific other than Dr. | https://medium.com/@thesundayprogrammer/did-joseph-epstein-say-female-phds-should-drop-their-dr-prefix-or-did-he-refer-to-all-phd-s-169140763658 | ['Joseph Mariadassou'] | 2020-12-22 04:59:19.191000+00:00 | ['Sexism', 'Jill Biden', 'Feminism'] |
A Closer Look at Sound Design: The Atmosphere | The whole process of sound design is, in reality, a rather complex chain of events that, at some point, intertwines with the no less than also complicated chain of events that describe the film production process.
Sound, as understood by the vast majority of individuals, is actually a pivotal part of the whole moving picture or moving images — which is why its importance requires a somewhat deep analysis in order to understand how a sound design project goes from its inception to the final mix or final stages.
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
For starters, one of the most important aspects every sound professional needs to pay attention to whilst working on the edition of a particular scene is trying to clean up the dialogue tracks as much as they can. For example, by applying an EQ filter, you can get the best version of the dialogue before proceeding with further steps. And although we’ve mentioned this technique in previous posts, there are many techniques to make the most out of every track during the early stages of the post-production process.
For instance: if the tracks you’re working on seem to have a lot of hum noise in the background, one thing you can certainly do is tone down the low-shelf frequency and then adjust the mid-shelf to turn the dialogue into a more well-done version of the exact same lines.
Additionally, you can also use volume key-framing for achieving a more detailed and meticulous work and for lowering the number of possible sound distractions between one scene and the next one.
That being said, it would be fair to assert that the whole idea behind the complexity of the sound production and post-production process as we know it boils down to one thing: creating the perfect environment for the story that is going to be told through a chain of moving images.
So, how does the process goes from its early stages to the final mix? Once at least one sequence of moving images has been taken care of in terms of pace, the idea is to begin by developing the storytelling whilst adding atmospheric sound and, of course, sound effects. This part is highly dependable on the very nature of the story the director has envisioned in their mind; however, this is, to some extent, pretty much applicable in every project.
There are several ways to create the aforementioned atmosphere. Atmospheric sounds and sound effects will help you smooth out every cut. Also, both things can arguably improve the film’s timing by compensating for what is initially missing in the motion picture. During this stage, is always a good idea to work with both the picture crew editing the images and your soundtracks until everything meets somewhere in the middle of what the production crew is expecting.
As a side note, always keep an eye on the overall pace of the moving images. Let’s not forget that sound and audio are means to an end: they are supposed to create, enhance and improve a film’s storytelling in order to achieve a seamless transition between scenes.
So how to come up with the proper atmosphere or environment for a film through sound? Many sound professionals have at hand a truly large sound effects library, and they always are fond of experimenting with those effects looking for the perfect combination, proper atmosphere and adequate environment. Their purpose? Create a world off the back of what the director has in mind for the moving images.
Depending on the nature of every project, sound professionals can either come up with their own signature sounds or resort to their library; however, everything needs to be tailored to what the director wants. Think of, for example, a movie set in an arid desert — where no animals, trees, insects, or other living species aside human beings can be found. A good starting point could be creating such an atmosphere by including the sound of the wind and sea waves to develop a compelling story.
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
Think of the sea or the wind slowly getting louder, gradually gaining strength and speed. That, for instance, could be the perfect go-to action to add more intensity to a specific scene, allowing the audience to perceive the whole thing as something credible.
If the project already includes a soundtrack, it is always advisable to be extra careful. If a scene’s pace is on point, then the music will fit in just right; however, and remember, audio professionals cannot compensate for the wrong pace in a film simply adding signature sounds and sound effects to provide the picture with the right atmosphere. | https://enhancedmedia.medium.com/a-closer-look-at-sound-design-the-atmosphere-680bbe2b9b2f | ['Enhanced Media'] | 2019-07-30 13:01:02.197000+00:00 | ['Filmmaking', 'Post Production', 'Sound Design', 'Movies', 'Sound'] |
‘Inside Amazon’ Facebook ads surged after Teamsters union drive announced | ‘Inside Amazon’ Facebook ads surged after Teamsters union drive announced
Ads focused on company’s minimum wage policy, a company talking point when facing criticism from lawmakers & critics Ian Delabie Follow Sep 14 · 6 min read
A new analysis of Amazon corporate 2021 spending on Facebook political ads by NYU Cybersecurity for Democracy reveals patterns of strategic spending nationally as well as regionally. According to data from Facebook Ad Library transparency reports, Amazon spending surged nearly 14-fold, from $26,000 on the week of June 24 to nearly $355,000 on the week of July 1, soon after the Teamsters Union, a prominent labor union with national reach, announced a campaign to unionize Amazon workers.
So far this year, spending has been concentrated in states such as Alabama and New York, where the e-commerce giant is expanding its workforce and facing controversy in its opposition to union organization efforts amongst its 950,000 American employees.
The ads in question–disclosed as “social issues, elections, or politics” ads by Facebook–promote the benefits of Amazon’s minimum starting wage of $15/hour. Amazon’s support of a $15/hour federal wage is a major talking point when facing unionization drives. The sponsor of the ads, Inside Amazon, describes itself as the “Official Facebook page for Amazon corporate employees.” Unlike Amazon’s more conventional ads for products run under Facebook pages such as “Amazon Explore” and “Amazon Lifestyle,” Inside Amazon appears to be selling the benefits of working at one of its over 100 warehouses in the United States, dubbed fulfillment centers. Between February 4 and August 12, Amazon spent a total of $4,144,176 on Inside Amazon ads.
Inside Amazon 2021 ads focused on the federal minimum wage campaign, with more spending in states with union drives and expansion plans.
From a cursory glance, these ads may appear aimed to attract new employees. But the individual ads do not link to a recruiting site, but rather to a company site on its minimum wage campaign.
States where company plans expansions see more Amazon Facebook ad spending
Since Inside Amazon began running the $15/hour ads in March 2021, ad spending has surged twice. The most recent surge dates back to late June soon after the Teamsters announced a nationwide strategy to support unionization efforts of Amazon workers. Inside Amazon ad spending rose from $26,101 in the week prior to the official announcement on June 24 to $354,698 in the preceding week.
A breakdown of spending for this particular surge points to a pattern of ad spending in states where the company anticipates a considerable expansion in workforce and the opening of new facilities. While this pattern mirrors the first surge in May, which followed Amazon’s own press release that it would be expanding its workforce by an additional 75,000 employees, Inside Amazon disproportionately spent in states where the Teamsters maintain a significant presence such as Illinois, New York and New Jersey. Between June 12th and August 12th, Inside Amazon spent an additional $338,500 on Facebook ads in New York, where Amazon is also facing an independent unionization effort in Staten Island.
Reports by Bloomberg, Vice, Wired, and more have detailed how Amazon’s $15 dollar/hour policy can be seen as part of its corporate expansion and anti-union strategy.
Wired notes that Amazon’s decision in 2018 to raise wages is “unequivocally a good thing, with the power to positively impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers who were paid low wages even as their employer amassed enormous wealth.” However, it can also be seen as part of its strategy as it expands and faces criticism from lawmakers and unions: “Amazon is likely betting…that increasing pay will do more than just alleviate pressure from lawmakers and activists who want the retail giant to improve its working conditions.”
Within the same spending period, the Teamsters have also spent on Facebook ads — a total of $40,989. However, patterns of geographical spending and messaging have not corresponded with unionization drives, but rather have focused on criticisms towards elected officials and candidates in upcoming local elections.
The 2021 Teamsters Facebook ads focused on elections.
Amazon spending in Alabama coincided with union drive
A close examination of initial ad spending by Inside Amazon in March 2021 reveals a pattern similar to the late June surge. Early spending on these ads occurred in a two-week period from March 4 up until March 18. Exclusively targeted to Alabama, the timing of ad-spending coincides with the tail-end of the seven-week window in which Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer were voting to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Up until the last day of voting on March 29, Amazon had yet to spend on Inside Amazon ads outside of Alabama.
The AP reported how Amazon used its stance on the $15/hour wage as an anti-union message: “Amazon argued that it paid workers at least $15 an hour and already offered the benefits unions want. It hung anti-union signs throughout the warehouse, including inside bathroom stalls, and held mandatory meetings to convince workers why the union is a bad idea.”
The week before the Bessemer results were announced on April 9th, Inside Amazon focused its ad targeting on Texas and Florida. Notably, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, published his support of the Bessemer unionization effort via a USA Today opinion piece on March 12. Much like Alabama, Florida and Texas are right-to-work states and are expected to house some of Amazon’s largest workforce expansions in the United States over the coming years.
Universal ad transparency needed
The pattern of strategic spending by Inside Amazon, discussed here provides an example of why the public needs universal ad transparency from Facebook and other online platforms. The data trends discussed in this piece are limited to the voluntary ad transparency provided by Facebook, which is incomplete: | https://medium.com/cybersecurity-for-democracy/inside-amazon-facebook-ads-surged-after-teamsters-union-drive-announced-8fbe7cbcf3f2 | ['Ian Delabie'] | 2021-09-14 21:25:27.865000+00:00 | ['Transparency', 'Political Ads', 'Teamsters', 'Facebook', 'Amazon'] |
Instinct v Intuition | One of the questions that I get asked a lot is what is the difference between intuition and instinct? For me there are some very subtle differences, which I will take you through in this article.
Most dictionary definitions of Instinct will describe it as the ability to comprehend something instinctively, so they group the two things together. In my experience, they do feel different in our body.
Here are two ways that I distinguish between instinct v intuition:
Where You Feel It
For me, instinct is a very basal reaction and is felt in the body somatically. We sense a tingle on the back of our neck, or a tightening of our shoulders when we feel uneasy. It comes from the animal part of our nature and is fuelled by our innate desire to survive.
Intuition almost feels like it sits just outside of the body for me, like the Jiminy Cricket sitting on my shoulder, or a cloak of knowing. It lives in the open space around us, the magic in our fingertips, and our connection to source and the universe.
How You Feel It
Instinct will quite often come along with a sense of fear of anxiety. It is likely to be heightened when walking in the dark, or in an unsafe environment. There is a sense that there is something to be fixed. For me, sometimes I wake in the night when one of my kids is ill, before they even call out. That is my animal instinct.
Intuition cannot come from a place of fear. We simply can’t intuit when we’re afraid. Instead, it comes with a feeling of fulfillment or purpose. That something is just right or wrong. It is very calm and usually feels like a deep, soothing voice inside.
If the voice is too excited or scared, it is not likely to be our intuition. Excitement might be a sign that there is either something instinctual, or there is something deeper, like wishful thinking or projection at play. I will cover those in a later article.
If you enjoyed this article, you may also like:
What Is A Three Centered Decision?
Tomorrow’s Men | https://medium.com/@sarahclaireryan1/instinct-v-intuition-43be03f678da | ['Sarah Ryan'] | 2020-02-20 12:44:57.574000+00:00 | ['Instinct V Intuition', 'Intuition', 'Instinct', 'One Of Many Coach', 'Intuitive'] |
Please Sir, I Want Some More! | We’ve waited a long time to come together.
Let's not screw it up.
We need to respect and show kindness to each other.
It’s our time for more of both.
Your Turn!
Theme: More
Inspired by Harper Thorpe “Wanting More”, and prompt, “More”. Thanks also to our hosts, Kathy Jacobs and Harper Thorpe, and the rest of the talented Chalkboard team! | https://medium.com/chalkboard/please-sir-i-want-some-more-2674cd63c2f1 | ['Lee-Anne Hancock'] | 2020-11-12 13:31:05.099000+00:00 | ['Kindness', 'One Line', 'Respect', 'Poetry', 'Chalkboard'] |
Saving a Life on The Edge of A Cliff | Moshe Raveh on the edge of the cliff watching the approaching IDF 669 helicopter come to evacuate the fallen girl
United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Moshe Raveh was attending to a medical emergency in the town of Shlomi on Shabbat afternoon and was just packing up his equipment after having finished treating the patient when he received another emergency alert regarding a life-threatening incident near the Keshet Cave. In spite of being more than nine kilometers away, Moshe was identified as one of the closest first responders to the incident. He left the building where the previous patient was being loaded into the ambulance, jumped on his ambucycle, and raced down the highway to the cave. Moshe parked his ambucycle at the entrance to the park where the trail began and continued down the path on foot hoping to find where the incident took place.
“After quickly walking down the path for a few minutes, I arrived at an area where the path makes a sharp turn that if you miss, you can fall over the edge of the cliff,” recounted Raveh. “I noticed that there was a tourist group on the trial and a man was standing at the edge of the cliff and told me that his daughter had fallen into the ravine below. A police officer had also arrived and asked if I knew the path and if I could accompany him down the cliff-side. As a local resident, I knew the path down to into the ravine and I took the police officer and another bystander who had offered to help, down the path.”
Raveh and those who accompanied him found the girl on the edge of a precipice, unconscious, and unresponsive. “The first thing we did was move her away from the cliff so that neither she nor we would fall. We brought her to a wide outcropping of rock where we could lie her down and begin treating her. We were worried about the steep drop on one side of us and not falling over the edge, and also worried about the gathered crowd on the cliff above us knocking rocks down on top of us. At the same time, we had to treat the girl for her injuries.”
It took Moshe more than half an hour to arrive at the park and reach the girl from the time that the emergency alert had gone out. “I don’t know exactly how long she had been lying there before I got to her, but it was at least 30 minutes,” Raveh said. “I tried to open her mouth to insert an oropharyngeal airway so that I could more easily provide enriching oxygen to help her, but she was suffering a major spasm in her jaw due to the fall and we could not open her mouth. I placed the mask over her mouth and nose and turned the oxygen on. It took some time for other rescue forces to arrive. Once there was a paramedic at the scene, he sedated her, and only then were we able to open her mouth to insert the oropharyngeal airway.”
Raveh continued to retell his account of the dramatic rescue. “We managed to stabilize her at the scene and then the IDF’s Search and Rescue Unit 669 arrived with a helicopter to medevac the girl to Rambam hospital in Haifa. The whole operation took close to three hours. I responded to the incident around 2:00 p.m. and I only returned home in time for Arvit (the evening prayer at the end of Shabbat). My family told me that they were curious as to where I was but after they prayed they turned on the TV and saw the incident reported on the news and knew exactly where I was and what I had done.”
Raveh said that the incident, while not his first serious trauma incident, still was a bit unusual. “I’ve been an EMT for a long time. I’ve already responded to plenty of medical emergencies where I was the first responder at the scene for a long time and had to treat a seriously injured patient by myself. Today’s incident was no different from that respect. However, it was certainly challenging and difficult to reach the girl on the edge of a cliff and treat her there without being able to get her any other help until the helicopter arrived to transport her. While it is not how I imagined spending my Shabbat Chanukah afternoon, I am very happy that I was able to go and that I had the training and equipment necessary to help save her life and stabilize her while we waited for transport.” | https://medium.com/the-edge-of-heaven/saving-a-life-on-the-edge-of-a-cliff-b0e4bc753d6f | ['United Hatzalah- Israel Ems'] | 2020-12-12 19:04:34.534000+00:00 | ['Fall', 'Cliff', 'Israel', 'First Responder', 'Helicopter'] |
Fascism is growing in Coos County, how did this happen? | Its an August day in the coastal Oregon town of Coos Bay in 2019, and an event is happening downtown. It is called the 2nd Amendment rally, and a local radio host is hosting the event to spread a petition to make law enforcement not follow gun control laws, the Second Amendment Sanctuary Ordinance. His name is Rob Taylor, a semi-old nationalist white guy with a haircut only a Nazi could love. He shows up usually in an American flag shirt and sunglasses and carrying a flag. He is a Coos County resident, but he is not the sole reason counter-protesters showed up to the event. (I won’t beat around the bush here, I set up the counter-protest, but that’s not an unknown fact nor was it at the time).
Rob invited a person from Vancouver WA who just got charged with inciting a riot after assaulting a leftist brewery in Portland, Cider Riot, and initiating and refereeing a brawl outside, Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson. Gibson started Patriot Prayer in 2016 after Trump won election and though the group is supposedly “devoted to freedom, love and peace” but the only thing they’ve devoted time to is clashing with anti-fascists and cops in the streets of Portland and Salem. The group and their events constantly attract Proud Boys, Identity Evropa, Oathkeepers, Three Percenters, and other alt-right fascist extremists. A known attendee of their rallies, Jeremy Christian, carried out 2 racially motivated murders in the 2017 Portland train attack. Whether or not Gibson has denounced white supremacists and neo-Nazis hardly matters when the groups actions and associations have shown again and again, year after year that they’re a fascist organization.
He came from the more liberal city of Portland, the center of his war against “Antifa”, down to Coos County, a rural Republican voting place ripe for recruiting folks and spreading his fascist messages. I said clearly on social media that he didn’t belong here. After all the violence he had initiated or instigated up North, I did not feel right about him bringing that risk to Coos Bay. So I stood against them, across the street with a couple of friends and acquaintances, and held signs that were opposed to them, a mild form of anti-fascist action. I unfortunately had to talk to both Rob and Joey face to face there. I shook their hands when they came to meet me but I should’ve spit on them. They gave all the fascist excuses whilst arguing with me: they “aren’t fascists”, they “denounce” white supremacists and neo-nazis but can’t explain why they keep showing up at their events, they’re just fighting for “freedom” and they’re just “patriots” and that “antifa” is the real problem. It wasn’t hard to see through it.
Though I went home with a mere hope that they wouldn’t come back out again, and that those fascists would fade into obscurity. Fast forward to 2020, when I counter-protested their pro-Trump rally in February, and then when the summer came, and the pandemic was going on and racial justice protests were going on everywhere and right-wing reactionaries were, well, reacting, they came back full swing.
Rob Taylor, whom I heard give a defense of blackface the first time I listened to him in 2019 on his radio show the Rob Taylor Report , had of course turned into a lockdown protesting, racial justice protesting, riot fearmongering, law enforcement supporting nationalist who was now showing up to his events with the armed and seemingly decentralized “Coos County Patriots”, a group of dad bod old larpers who know how to hold a gun and look hard.
He was there when 200 armed Coos residents gathered in downtown Coquille on June 2nd 2020 to defend against “buses of antifa”, a total hoax at the time. The story made national news as a hoax that brought out a full force reactionary army in a small coastal town.
When we had started protesting racism in Coos County after George Floyd’s murder and all the subsequent protests, the city of Coos Bay had decided to put together a resolution decrying racism and promoting diversity and implementing little change other than diversity training for city staff, nonetheless, even though we weren’t opposed to it, we hadn’t asked for it and were drafting a committee proposal to them instead. As we showed up to the library (where the CB City Council was having their city meeting) to voice our proposal and let black voices be heard, Rob and the CC Patriots showed up too.
It immediately got tense. Rob pranced around worryingly with a flag, which made us stand on both sides of our black speakers for safety. He went in and screamed at the council in a tirade that none of them tried to stop, despite it clearly being inappropriate. Then when he left and went back outside, he harassed the black people outside and called one black woman a “shit-licking bitch” before he decided to leave. His patriots didn’t stop him or discourage them and at times they even got heated and had to hold eachother back from confrontations.
Rob ranted about the incident on his show, calling the resolution a “race-baiting resolution by marxists” and urging Coos Bay residents who would “preserve, protect and defend the constitution" to run for City Council. Despite social justice and racial justice demonstrations going smoothly and orderly throughout the summer and fall, with the most daring thing being the peaceful marching of a few streets on August 8th, Rob’s events like his 4th of July rally and Law and Order rally were roudy, in your face, intimidating, and dirty. He left the boardwalk trashed on the 4th, and his Law and Order rally included a truck parade he was legally not allowed to do.
That summer, he also had asked people to run for city council, in which case one of his listeners, Jim Kingsley, an old man who didn’t even think he had access to the city charter, did run. He also got his Second Amendment Sanctuary Ordinance on the ballot in Coos County and though both his candidate and his ordinance failed to pass, he wouldn’t give in on trying to affect local politics. He also did a show with Rob Gensorek of Charleston Basin Tackle, who had become notable for also attending the Coquille armed event on June 2nd and vehemently opposing anti-fascists, even boasting how his truck accessories would be excellent to run over protesters with. On that show, they both delved hard into transphobia and their opposition to anti-fascists.
Rob brought Gibson back to Coos Bay again on October 4th for a “Law and Order Rally” which featured Gibson, Joe Rae Perkins (a vocal q-anon conspiracy theorist who ran for Senate in Oregon), Michael Cross (a attorney general candidate for Oregon), and Jim Kingsley as speakers. Armed men attended, whether they were Coos County Patriots, Proud Boys, Oathkeepers, Patriot Prayer or some other reactionary right-wing group is unknown. We opposed the event with a peaceful anti-fascist event, being a productive drive for wildfire victims up the street. They directed their illegal truck parade right up the street to go right next to us to intimidate us, and then went to WalMart so Joey Gibson could scream his fascist rhetoric in the parking lot.
(Law and Order Rally, Oct 4th 2020. From left to right, Joey Gibson from behind, Rob in the nationalist flag shirt, Jim Kingsley behind him. Photo credit goes to Gabrielle Colton)
A few months later, a man who attended that rally, much like Jeremy Christian, killed a garden worker in Eugene and then traveled to Reedsport to try suicide by a cop, which he was successful in. David Ruozi was his name. Rob has not addressed the murder or death yet.
Rob and his Patriots would only come out for “Stop the Steal” rallies and pro-Trump demonstrations in front of Ray’s grocery store in Bandon. He promoted and continues to promote the conspiracy theory that Trump won the 2020 election. He decided to go to Salem on January 6th 2021 for another ‘Stop the Steal” rally, this one including Proud Boys and a white supremacist murderer, Kyle Brewster, convicted of the 1988 murder of 28 yr old Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian immigrant. An effigy of Oregon Governor Kate Brown was burned there, there was a clash with anti-fascists there, and only days earlier the Oregon Capitol Building was breached by Joey Gibson and others.
More shockingly came the news that 14 people from Bandon had went to DC on January 6th for the insurrection. A few of these individuals that are known, including Rod Taylor, a different Bandon resident by a strikingly similar name to Rob Taylor, have been at the same local demonstrations as Rob, have talked to Rob, and are members of an organization (that they probably founded), called “Citizens Restoring Liberty”, which masquerades on the surface as a patriotic stand against mask mandates, but their content and actions would prove them to be blatantly fascist.
Rod had supposedly only walked up the back steps of the capitol and got arrested later for violating curfew. He maintained in a news interview that he came for a peaceful protest of the “stolen election” and that he didn’t agree with the actions of those who breached the Capitol or fought Federal Police, but it doesn’t change the fact that he attended an insurrection fueled by a conspiracy theory and it was planned to be just that, an insurrection based on the “stolen election”, and literal neo-nazis with “Camp Auschwitz” and “6MWE (Six Million Wasn’t Enough)” shirts were even pictured there.
Rod and Rob met up for a show soon after the 6th and discussed their actions in Salem and DC, which they described as harmless and honorable. Rod talked about supposedly facing security problems at the airport, but he has faced hardly any consequences for attending the insurrection, neither legally nor socially in Coos County. Rod also spoke about going to Gardiner to fly a drone over a FEMA facility for wildfire victims because he thinks it’s a facility for “illegals.” The headline about “14 People from Bandon attended DC on Jan 6th”, despite being an alarming revelation to anybody following the actions of the right here, went unaddressed in public discourse. FB groups like What’s Happening Coos County with 30k members wouldn’t allow the subject to be brought up. The World Newspaper, who posted the article, wouldn’t let any of my letters to the editor about it go through until I didn’t specifically call anybody out.
So where are we at now? Rod Taylor decided to run for office. He ran for Coos County Transportation District and Port of Bandon. As of writing this, he won both races. Jim Kingsley ran for Coos Bay School Board and lost. I stopped writing this out of sheer frustration when I got to the end of the last paragraph and looked at the election results. To compile what I have and show you the buildup of all this and have to go back through it all and have it culminate in this is one of the most crushing experiences I’ve ever had.
The whole game (which it isn’t, it’s peoples lives) has changed and now one of the fascists, the insurrectionist who went to DC and bragged about it, got into 2 local offices. That is unacceptable, but to fight fascism once it is in office? That is supremely difficult. However, I do so intend to continue fighting fascism here and mobilizing folks to fight back. Somebody has to stand up for inclusivity in Coos County.
The fascists are planning a “Freedom, Faith, and Family Festival” in Bandon on May 29th 2021, which is 6 days away at the time of writing this. A group formed by, or at least including Rod Taylor, called “Citizens Restoring Liberty” is the group behind the event and Restoration Worship Center is hosting the event. Set to be notable featured guests are Rob Taylor, Joey Gibson, Rob Gensorek, Ann Vandersteel (Pizzagate & Q-Anon Conspiracy Theorist), and David Brock Smith (Far-Right Lawmaker who believes Trump won and the insurrection was okay), among others. It is being advertised as a “Family Friendly Event” and is even finding ad time on the local radio stations.
With these growing events that happen year after year with extremists like Rob and Joey spreading their agenda, and with their hands muddied in insurrection, riots and associations to murderers, and with somebody like Rod Taylor in office, they must be stood against. If Coos County seeks to be a community of inclusivity, then they must not allow exclusivity. If they seek tolerance in their community, they must not tolerate intolerance. There is no way fascists have ever been defeated by ignorance or silence or appeasement, only by confrontation and fighting them. The situation grows more dire with time. It is already far worse than it ever had to be.
In 2019, I thought they’d fade into obscurity, and that was a very naive thought. Instead, I faded into obscurity, as did most of the resistance to the fascists. However, I see the threat. I watched them grow, and heard their bullshit, I’ve been appalled at their gross acts and their dog whistle-riddled rhetoric. They aren’t just folks with differing opinions to me, they are intolerant and a threat to the community, and that threat ceases when they cease to be bigoted in any way. Its actually not so far-fetched as it seems, you literally just let go of your hate and your judgement and accept others. So I am anti-fascist and I’m sounding the alarm.
I’ve watched them go from podcasts and blogs to couple hundred people rallies and festivals and connect with some of the most far-right people you can find in Oregon. They’ve relentlessly sought public offices and pushed public measures. They have manufactured their own media complex and have positioned their self as the alternative media to the “liberal” Coos Bay media, which is actually already pretty conservative. They’ve also cultivated enough “respectability” that they aren’t seen as fascist locally and speaking up against them sounds like disrespect and un-civility. It is indeed the touchiest local subject, so much so that most of the time, it is off limits. It is very hard to be able to talk about local fascism on the What’s Happening Coos County Facebook group with 30,000 people, or to write about it in an opinion piece for The World Newspaper.
So, if you have managed to read all the way through this, and if you feel some level of urgency after having gone back over 3 years of fascism here, here’s what I ask of you:
Speak up against the fascists I have listed in any way possible. On social media, in opinion pieces, in city and council meetings and even on radio or TV if you can. There’s an Anti-Fascism in Coos County Facebook page and Instagram that you can follow, they post really good stuff about local fascists.
Stand against them when they have events near us. Directly oppose them with your counter-presence. Clashes are not what we are seeking, and any violence used by anti-fascists should be in self-defense or to prevent greater harm.
Explain this to your friends. Research fascism and talk it through with them and explain the necessity of anti-fascism. Try to normalize anti-fascism before they normalize fascism.
Get involved in your local governments, schools, and organizations. If they’re ballsy enough to run, you can be too. You don’t want them to be in there before you. The status quo here needs to go anyway, this place is destined to change at some point, and I’d rather it not be in a fascist way.
Reflect on your own views, rhetoric, and actions. Are you being exclusive or intolerant of a certain group of people? Have you fell for fascist propaganda before? How complicit have you been in fascism? Have you enabled or aided fascists?
Do not fall for the idea that fighting fascism just puts you both in the wrong. Most Americans wouldn’t say that our troops on D-Day were just as bad as the Nazis on the beaches, nor would they say our troops in Italy are just as bad as Mussolini’s fascists. As paradoxical as it seems, having a society means not tolerating the intolerant. Otherwise, group by group, society will be scapegoated and oppressed, beat or even killed.
Lets hope that we can effectively fight this before it gets worse here, but let us not stop at hope. Hope without action is just useless optimism and wishful thinking. YOU have to be part of MANY people in YOUR community to fight this.
Otherwise, get used to KKKoos KKKounty…
Update: Wow. Within 24 hrs of publishing this, my tires have been slashed. | https://medium.com/@imonaciawatchlist/fascism-is-growing-in-coos-county-how-did-this-happen-20e31051b03f | ['Cameron Langley'] | 2021-05-25 03:20:48.180000+00:00 | ['Rob Taylor', 'Antifascism', 'Racism', 'Fascism', 'Coos County'] |
Types of Variable in Ruby | There are 4 type of variables in Ruby :
Class variables
Instance variables
Local variables
Global variables
Class variables:
class variables are the variables which are same for all the instances of the class . In ruby class variables are denoted by@@. The scope of the class variables is within that class.If one instance of class change the value of class variable then it will be reflected to all instances of that class. An uninitialised class variables will show you an error.
Ex.- @@student , @@fno ,@@sno .
Instance Variables :
An instance variables are the variables with are the separated for every instance of class .An instance variables are denoted by @ in ruby. An uninitialised instance variables will not shows an error.
Ex.- @student , @fno , @sno .
Local variables :
Local variables are the variables which created for the specific for one block as well as the have the scope within only that block. In ruby local variable’s name start with lowercase or an underscore.
Ex.- fno , sno , _student.
Global variables :
Global variables have scope through out the program.In ruby global variables are denoted by $.
Ex.- $fno , $sno , $student . | https://medium.com/@patilpradnyesh1312/types-of-variable-in-ruby-9759d11b2157 | ['Pradnyesh Patil'] | 2020-09-06 17:38:07.968000+00:00 | ['Variables', 'Ruby on Rails', 'First Post', 'Ruby'] |
Overwrite Strings in an executable | This is a quick and dirty POC with no frills, no guard rails and almost no testing 😊.
It looks for things like “mimikatz” and “sekurlsa” in the executable and replaces it with a string like “mimifish” and “sekufish” but in the executable rather than the source code. Helpful if you don’t have the source code!
All this does is takes an EXE and turns it into a HEX string. It converts the string to search for and string to replace into HEX and then searches for it in the HEX representation of the file. Then replaces the value and converts it back to a file. In this POC, the FIND string size needs to be the same as the REPLACE string size.
This is what normal mimikatz looks like from Benjamin Delpy and Vincent le Toux.
And here is what it looks like after I replace some strings in the executable. Notice it didn’t find “sekurlsa” because I replaced it with “sekufish”. Also I’ve butchered the the ASCII art (I believe I once read that some AV’s look for the ascii art of mimikatz).
And when I run “sekufish” instead of “sekurlsa” it still runs like normal and I’m dumping credentials on my machine. Hooray I didn’t destroy the functionality.
Here is a quick virus total look of the binary before the string replacement.
After here is virus total after the string replacement. It made a difference!
I only spent an hour on changing a few of the strings so it is likely, with some effort, this might fare better in Virus Total. One thing to note, when I ran DITTO on the binary (and cloned notepad) it also dropped the detection rate further.
Here is the POC code for a console program. I hard coded the input and output files (sorry I’m super busy).
feel free to follow me on twitter
https://twitter.com/_markmo_
@_markmo_
reference code:
C#
https://codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/3226/replace-sequence-of-strings-in-binary-file
Linux
https://everydaywithlinux.blogspot.com/2012/11/patch-strings-in-binary-files-with-sed.html?m=1 | https://medium.com/@markmotig/overwrite-strings-in-an-exe-av-evasion-maybe-f28935078911 | ['Mark Mo'] | 2020-02-14 14:24:31.601000+00:00 | ['Infosec', 'Blue Team', 'Red Team'] |
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return -I love that line a lot. | The greatest thing you’ll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return.
I love that line so much. It may as well be my all time favorite line, and I learned about it from a movie. Since hearing it from Moulin Rouge! I have always kept it close to heart. I mean, they did say it was the greatest thing I’ll ever learn, so I took it on as if it was a challenge. I was determined to learn everything there is to learn about love.
Defining how to love is easy. It doesn’t matter what your love language is. Loving someone was easy to do, adapt to, and work towards. As an ENFP, I can charm my way into any type of relationship and love the person just as easily as I have charmed them.
No one talks about how difficult it is to allow people to love you.
Allowing people to love you does not seem like a challenge at all, doesn’t it? You spend enough of your time with people and soon you will be familiar with each other long enough to think that they love you and presto, you are loved in return and you have allowed them! They say “I love you” and you say “I love you, too.” Easy, right?
Allowing someone to love you is to allow yourself to be vulnerable in their presence. It is knowing that you are showing the rawest version of yourself and do not care about you being judged, or worse, hated.
Allowing yourself to be loved in return is giving them the power to hurt you. It is breaking down your walls for them. Walls that you have built around yourself to keep you from being hurt again. It is letting the other person see you for who you are, along with all the other archetypes in your persona.
Allowing yourself to be loved is showing them your muchness without any form of filter.
In the isolation brought about by this year, this indeed has been the greatest lesson that I am still learning how to do. And I am learning that I have not truly allowed myself the greatest love that is there to be felt. Learning to love who you truly are without your walls or filters; learning to love the vulnerable version of myself. It is indeed, the greatest love of all. | https://medium.com/@sen-sarmiento/the-greatest-thing-youll-ever-learn-is-just-to-love-and-be-loved-in-return-i-love-that-line-a-lot-d99f1fcff936 | ['Sen Sarmiento'] | 2020-12-14 15:32:06.132000+00:00 | ['2020', 'Love Yourself', 'Moulin Rouge', 'Love', 'Lessons Learned'] |
Into The Woods | Matthew Donnellon is a writer, artist, and sit down comedian. He is the author of The Curious Case of Emma Lee and Other Stories.
Follow | https://medium.com/bard-and-quill/into-the-woods-bd320533156c | ['Matthew Donnellon'] | 2019-06-16 23:06:07.553000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Creative Writing', 'Creativity'] |
Václav Havel today | Václav Havel was not only a hero of democracy, the prime mover behind the Velvet Revolution and the true father of the Czech Republic.
He was at the same time one of the most influential world-class intellectuals of the last century and a quintessential Czech. His wonderful mocking of all the bureaucracy jargons, newspeaks and governmental gibberishes of world stands unmatched to this day.
As a writer, as an opinion-leader as well as a politician, he anticipated many of the most pressing issues of our age: anti-consumerism, humanitarianism, environmentalism, civil activism, and direct democracy.
He was, as the European Parliament aptly put it, an advocate of an undivided Europe.
He would have turned 84 today. Všechno nejlepší, pane Prezidente. | https://medium.com/reale/vaclav-havel-today-4256d3b930d8 | ['Roberto Reale'] | 2020-10-05 11:40:48.688000+00:00 | ['Democracy', 'European Union', 'Politics', 'Europe', 'Czech Republic'] |
Go Heatmap Yourself | Recently we introduced a heatmapping feature on Strava, our first feature built using the Go programming language. This is part of work to move Strava towards a service-oriented architecture with well-defined interfaces that can be written in any language.
The service has two main components: the front end host and heatmap generating workers. Our main code base interacts with the front end: requesting to build, view and update maps. The front end then delegates jobs to the workers using a Gearman queue. The workers aggregate the activity data, generate the tiles, and upload everything to Amazon S3. Metadata is saved to DynamoDB and tiles are served to the user via CloudFront.
Pretty simple architecture, so why use Go? Well, we wanted something with a few key features: a built-in webserver to accept API commands, easy tie-in with existing C code, and speed to eliminate any overhead from an inherently slow aggregation process. A prototype in Ruby was painful, so we looked elsewhere.
Go fit the bill with its net/http library, cgo and compiled binaries, but it wasn’t all roses and lollipops along the way. First, Go lacks mature, fully supported client libraries. There is code on Github for just about anything, but very little of it seems “production ready.” As a result, we spent a lot of time building and testing our own libraries.
Another issue we ran into was a performance hit from cgo, fortunately we found a workaround. While very easy to use, there is a slow context switch when switching between Go code and C code. For example, during the aggregation step the Go code feeds the lat/lng points to the C code using something like:
for _, latlng := range latlngs { C.hm_addLatLng(latlng[0], latlng[1]) }
This worked, but when we modified the code to something like:
for i := 0; i < len(latlngs); i+=10 { C.hm_addLatLngBulk(latlngs[i][0], latlngs[i][1], latlngs[i+1][0], latlngs[i+1][1], ..., latlngs[i+9][0], latlngs[i+9][1], ) }
we got a 30% speed increase over this data aggregation step. That means that at least 30% of the runtime was spent making the function call, not doing any work. Something to keep in mind for the future.
Personally, I’m a fan of Go and was happy to have used it on this project. I enjoy the C style and Go makes most of the mess of C easier with a built in string types, slices for growable arrays and garbage collection, all while compiling into a single binary. We still have more to learn about Go, and time will tell if it was indeed the right choice for this project.
And as always, if you’re interesting in working on cool athlete-related projects like this, check out the open engineering positions at Strava. | https://medium.com/strava-engineering/go-heatmap-yourself-43371c169b26 | ['Strava Engineering'] | 2017-05-09 17:44:28.789000+00:00 | ['Maps', 'Data Science'] |
Persuasive Writing: How to Use AI and an Example of a Really Good copy | Persuasive Writing: How to Use AI and an Example of a Really Good copy A. Noah Aug 3·5 min read
If you’re looking for persuasive writing examples, then this blog post is the perfect place to start.
We will cover persuasive writing tactics and how anyone can use AI to write persuasive copy.
If you want to get started with persuasive writing in the quickest way possible, then make sure that you read the first section of this article.
Related: AI short story generator
What are persuasive writing tactics and how do they work?
Persuasive writing tactics are persuasive words or phrases that you can use to convince people to do something.
Persuasive writing relies heavily on persuasive words or persuasive phrases. Using persuasive words in persuasive sentences is the best way to get your point across and convince someone of an argument.
Related: how do u write an introduction paragraph
Listed below are three examples of persuasive tactics that you can use in any persuasive sentence:
appealing to reason — a tactic used to encourage people by presenting facts and reasoning
persuasive language — a tactic used to encourage people by using persuasive words or phrases
emotional appeal — persuasive language that is designed to evoke an emotion in the reader.
Related: How to use AI for ghostwriting
Persuasive copy and why it matters
Using persuasive tactics like these is very important for persuasive writing. It will improve your chances of persuading someone and getting your point across. You can also use AI to write persuasive copy!
Most people think that using artificial intelligence or machine learning to create content takes away the human touch, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Humans are still in control of persuasive tactics, and AI can be a huge help!
AI is a great way to get your persuasive copy written quickly. You no longer have to spend hours researching persuasive writing tactics on Google or create each sentence by hand with persuasive words.
Related: How to use an AI generator
How AI can help you write more persuasive copy
To demonstrate how you can use AI for persuasive copywriting, we’ve created a persuasive writing example of our own!
For our example, we’ll use the topic: “Why Students Should Eat Breakfast Every Day”.
I randomly picked that topic after doing a quick Google search.
AI writing tool of choice: Jarvis AI.
First, we’re quickly going to sign up for Jarvis AI and sign in.
Once we’re signed, we’ll be presented with templates to pick from. Let’s go with the Creative Story template for our example.
I made a point to use “persuasive” for the tone of voice for this writing. Now, we only need to hit ‘Generate AI content’ and Jarvis will do the rest for us!
Related: How to make an essay longer
An Example of a Persuasive Copy Generated by AI
This is the 1st sample that Jarvis came up with:
Research has shown that students who eat breakfast every day perform better in school and are less likely to be overweight. A recent study showed that children who ate breakfast before they started their morning classes were more alert, attentive, and ready to learn than those kids who skipped their morning meals.
Now let’s copy that and paste it in the Long-form template and have Jarvis write for us a longer article. This is what he came up with when I hit ‘Compose’:
Research has shown that students who eat breakfast every day perform better in school and are less likely to be overweight. A recent study showed that children who ate breakfast before they started their morning classes were more alert, attentive, and ready to learn than those kids who skipped their morning meals. In addition, children who skipped breakfast were more likely to struggle with their grades and exhibit behavior problems. A majority of school districts in the United States now offer free or low-cost breakfast for all students. Doing this helps ensure that every child has a good start to his or her day and is prepared to learn once class begins. These new findings of the importance of breakfast and its relationship to learning are not surprising. A child’s eating habits play an important role in his or her ability to learn. A healthy, balanced diet is essential for children as they grow and develop. As kids get older, they need more energy and nutrients than ever before — as much as twice what they needed. A growing body needs more calories, fats, carbohydrates, and proteins; bone development also intensifies during these years. Milk, calcium-rich foods (such as cheese), green vegetables (for iron), beta-carotene (to promote eyesight), and vitamin C are all essential nutrients for young people. Foods with high levels of sugar and fat (like fried foods or candy) provide the body with quick energy, but very little nutrition. They have been linked to learning problems in children because they don’t provide the brain with the fuel it needs to function at its best — complex carbohydrates and vitamins and minerals in fruits, vegetables, grains, and dairy products. Fatty and sugary foods may also deprive young people of the vitamins they need to grow healthy, strong bones and teeth. Some researchers suggest that kids who eat lots of sweets are at risk for low-serum calcium levels. Other studies show that too many calories or a poor diet can cause physical problems such as anemia, weight gain, or a lack of nutrients that can slow down the brain and body. Eating well-balanced meals helps children feel better and perform their best in school so they are better prepared for the day ahead. A healthy breakfast should include some kind of protein — whether it is meat, cheese, milk powder, eggs, beans, or tofu. Fruit and vegetables, whole grains, or other good sources of complex carbohydrates are also important for a healthy breakfast.
I kept hitting ‘Compose’ whenever Jarvis paused.
Related: What is a synthesis essay?
In Closing
Persuasive writing can be challenging, and persuasive copy is often hard to come by.
Fortunately, in this day and age, there are advanced AI tools that can make this process 1000% easier particularly, when your time is limited.
With the help of Jarvis AI, an artificial intelligence tool that will write for you a persuasive copy to use in any persuasive writing situation, the process of creating persuasive content has never been easier.
Whether you’re looking for persuasive blog post ideas or need some specific advice on how to improve your current marketing strategy, this sample should provide plenty of inspiration and guidance.
Who knows? Perhaps they’ll even convince you to give this new AI tool a try yourself!
Related: What is AI copywriting? | https://medium.com/@Noah_D_A/persuasive-writing-how-to-use-ai-and-an-example-of-a-really-good-copy-50a45ce9815f | ['A. Noah'] | 2021-09-15 23:57:52.112000+00:00 | ['Writer', 'Writing Prompts', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing Life', 'Writers Block'] |
She of Might, She of Light | You climb to get closer, and in like manner so she sinks. She descends gradually, lowers her fiery eyes into a gentle gaze, and eventually, at the convergence of the ethereal, you no longer look up towards her — she of might, she of light. You realise that at that point, you and her are level, and at that point, you are the closest you will ever get to her in 24 hours. She realises this too, and seems to linger.
Now this is what the day has been for. This coming together. If you had a good day, you tell her. If you had a bad day, you tell her. She does not praise, she does not rebuke.
But while she of might and light appears to be tame and lame, she is no less cunning, no less proud. She demands your attention, for if you are not careful and look away, she takes it to heart. Now your hurried little mind catches itself, and urges your eyes back to her. But lo, she has gone! And now you both grow apart, and you sigh, the ensuing breath the first since she approached.
These are how evenings should be spent — by attempting to shorten the distance between yourself and the sun. | https://nickiscurious.medium.com/she-of-might-she-of-light-48370657a817 | ['Nicholas Aw'] | 2020-05-18 15:44:38.691000+00:00 | ['Sunset', 'Creative Writing', 'Prose', 'Dusk', 'Sun'] |
Everyone can! | Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash
“ Work hard in silence, let success make the noise.”
One must have a clear-cut and realistic goal in life. A person having a purpose must know what to do. One should move forward step by step to achieve it. One must have fire in their belly to achieve it. Without an aim or set goal, a person is directionless. Having an aim is like a map. One gets to know where they are heading.
It is important to note that a goal is not a wish. Wishes can be unrealistic but, a goal is something that should be practical and achievable. A goal is something, into which one puts all their effort to achieve. The goal does not have to be something very big. Life is all about measurable steps. One can have a simple goal like finding a new job. Further, when one achieves it, then they can think of owning that particular company.
Photo by the blowup on Unsplash
People might even fail to achieve their goals. But life does not stop here. Life is all about winnings and failures, altogether. One should enjoy the journey towards their goal. One must keep in mind, not to get shattered by the failures.
One must analyze their mistakes and learn from them. Moreover, when one gets to know the reason why they failed, they must put more effort than the prior time. When one works hard, then there is no such reason for not achieving their desired goal.
One should always keep in mind that “Everyone Can!”. | https://medium.com/@anushkasen993/everyone-can-b6d5cde98cd1 | ['Anushka Sen'] | 2021-04-13 06:52:03.245000+00:00 | ['Importance Of Goals', 'First Post', 'Motivational', 'Do Read', 'Please Like'] |
Automotive after peak car: Valhalla burning? | Automotive after peak car: Valhalla burning?
Have we reached peak car, the tipping point where sales and usage of cars start to decline? And what does this mean for automotive, the dominant German industry? Martin Recke Mar 6, 2019·3 min read
Germany as a country defines itself, to a certain degree, by its automotive industry. Think BMW, Daimler, or Volkswagen. Over the past decade, their relative weight increased tremendously, as a recent Accenture study found out. (Full disclosure: Accenture is the mother company of SinnerSchrader, one of the hosts of NEXT.) How can the German car giants keep their top position in a peak-car world? Or are they doomed?
Over the last couple of years, this blog and the accompanying conference have repeatedly been stricken by a touch of apocalypse. The sky is falling. Dance on the volcano. Or is it Twilight of the Gods? Richard Wagner’s opera Götterdämmerung ends with Valhalla in flames, and the gods burning. Is this the fate of the German car industry?
Bloomberg provides a lot of data, painting a bleak picture of the peak-car era. Recently, BMW and Daimler announced to pour more than €1 billion into ShareNow, their car-sharing and ride-hailing businesses. Volkswagen opens up its MEB electrical construction kit to external manufacturers. All the car manufacturers are trying to reposition themselves as tech/software companies.
We live in exciting times, to say the least.
The convergence of three major trends
What makes the car industry so interesting is the convergence of three major trends: digitisation, electrification, and autonomous driving, the latter driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning. This paves the way for platform business models, for a shift from hardware/product to software/service (e.g. from car ownership to mobility service), and thus for better integration with the mobility ecosystem.
Today, car manufacturers probably aim to become the Apple of automotive: strong brands with profitable hardware products and a growing software/service business on top of that. But they might end up being more like the OEMs of the PC era, providing commoditised hardware for other companies’ lucrative software businesses.
There is one company that played an important rule during the PC era and later ditched their PC hardware business to focus on higher-value, more profitable markets: IBM. It is hard to imagine Volkswagen oder Daimler spinning off their car factories and focussing on mobility services. But in a peak-car world, that might be an attractive option.
Value creation shifts away from the classical car industry
The reasons for the decline in automobile usage are manifold, and not all of them may prove valid in the long term. And another, closely related summit reminds us to be careful about these kind of predictions: peak oil. Last year saw another record high for global oil production. So, maybe we are at peak oil right now. Or maybe not.
Only in hindsight we’ll see whether we reached peak car in the second decade of the twenty-first century or not. But whenever we enter the peak-car world, the consequences will be dire. Since value creation shifts away from the classical car industry, jobs will be lost. Look at Detroit to get a glimpse of what could happen.
Parts of Germany have been hit hard by economic decline in the past. However, the decentralised setup of the German automotive industry poses a significant difference to the Rust Belt. The gods of the German industry aren’t colocated in a single hall, unlike the gods in Wagner’s drama.
And instead of fighting each other, the car guys already cooperate when it comes to digital value creation: Besides ShareNow (BMW, Daimler), there’s also HERE (Audi, BMW, Daimler), the mapping and location data service provider. And furthermore, Volkswagen now targets micromobility, another market that can eat away market share from the incumbents.
To be sure, that won’t be enough to survive in the long run. But we haven’t yet reached the final act. | https://medium.com/@mr94/automotive-after-peak-car-valhalla-burning-f5ed3a2a5bfd | ['Martin Recke'] | 2019-03-06 21:47:12.614000+00:00 | ['Self Driving Cars', 'Mobility', 'Automotive', 'Electric Car'] |
How to Use Cloud Functions on Huawei AGC? | What is Cloud Functions? How can we use Huawei cloud functions in recipe finder application?
Photo of Kara Eads on Unsplash
Hello everyone,
Nowadays, definition of serverless architecture entered into our lives for some reasons. By this way, developer does not have to think about location, bills, maintenance of server because there is no server which should be configured. Term of FaaS (Function as a Service) occured by serverless architecture. It is a type of Cloud Computing System and functions are triggered by events. FaaS model can be implemented by 3rd party applications.
Huawei introduced the FaaS model; Cloud Functions. To use and have experience on it, It needs application by email.
Huawei Cloud Functions provide us a serverless environment which work together with other services in AppGallery Connect which are event sources for cloud functions. Listening to the event sources to trigger the function. You can see the price information in the guide of Cloud Function on Huawei Developer. | https://medium.com/huawei-developers/how-to-use-cloud-functions-on-huawei-agc-6aeb1c47802a | ['Hakan Erbaş'] | 2020-12-21 13:58:03.013000+00:00 | ['Huawei', 'Cloud Functions', 'Hms', 'Faas', 'Serverless'] |
A Finite Number Of “Numbers” | You may be familiar with real numbers and their subtypes (rationals, irrationals, integers, etc.). If you need a refresher see “Real Numbers, From The Ground Up”. You may also know that there is an infinite number of real numbers and also an infinite number of each subtype of real numbers. And some of those infinities are equal to others (e.g. # integers = #rationals) while some are larger than others (# irrationals > # rationals). See “Number Of Numbers: Infinite Weirdness” for a discussion of the cardinality of real numbers. What you may not be too familiar with is that there is a more general concept of numbers. Numbers can be thought of as a set of elements on which you can do arithmetic. The mathematical name for such a set is a field. This article will introduce you to finite fields: sets of a finite number of elements with well-defined arithmetic on the elements. Such fields have myriad practical applications in cryptography, data integrity, data coding, etc.
Arithmetic On A Field
What exactly is arithmetic on a field of numbers which are merely elements in some set? For real numbers, we understand arithmetic in a geometric way on the real number line. For example, to add 1.2 to 3.5, you start at 3.5 on the number line and move a distance 1.2 rightward. But for an arbitrary field with possibly no such equivalent number line to invoke, we have to use an algebraic approach instead. In such a formulation, arithmetic consists of two operations on every pair of numbers. The operations are addition (denoted by the symbol ‘+’) and multiplication (denoted by the symbol ‘*’). Both these operations behave similarly to addition and multiplication on real numbers. This behavior consists of several properties like associativity, commutativity, distributivity, and so on, but let’s not get bogged down in too many technical details. The salient properties to understand the basics are the following:
Adding or multiplying any two numbers gives another number in the set. “0” is a number in the set with the usual property that it can be added to any other number without changing that number. Every number has an equivalent negative number in the set with the usual property that the sum of the two is “0”. Subtracting a number is then defined as adding the negative of that number. “1” is a number in the set with the usual property that it can be multiplied with any other number in the set without changing that number. Every number (except “0”) has an equivalent reciprocal number in the set with the usual property that the multiplication of the two is “1”. Dividing by a number is then defined as multiplying by the reciprocal of that number.
Let’s see which types of real numbers are fields, based on the above properties:
------------------------------------------------------------------
| Type | Field? | Why? |
------------------------------------------------------------------
| Reals | Yes | Satisfies all properties |
| Rationals | Yes | Satisfies all properties |
| Irrationals | No | 0 is not irrational |
| Integers | No | Reciprocals (e.g. 1/2) are not integers |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Prime Fields
What is the smallest field? A field of the 2 numbers: 0 and 1. Let’s call this the 2-field. You can think of this field as 2 points on a numbered circle (e.g. 0 at 12 o’clock and 1 at 6 o’clock) with addition executed as clockwise hops. This is equivalent to performing all arithmetic operations like normal real numbers, dividing the normal result by 2, and using the remainder as the actual result. This way each result is a 0 or a 1 and is a member of the 2-field. Wouldn’t elementary school have been so much easier if we worked with 2-fields instead of the real numbers field?
2-field (image by author)
Can the 2-field construction above be generalized to 3-field, 4-field, and so on for larger sized finite fields? Turns out that it only works for fields that have a prime number of numbers. So, a 3-field has the numbers 0, 1, 2. A 5-field has the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. And so on. For every prime number ‘p’ there is a p-field with ‘p’ numbers from 0 to p-1 and addition/multiplication performed as normal integers with the additional step of dividing the result by ‘p’ and using the remainder as the result.
5-field (image by author)
Why doesn’t a composite number ‘c’ give us a c-field in the same way? One reason is that there is at least one number in the set that does not have an equivalent reciprocal number. For example, if ‘c’ is 4, then there is no number in the 4-field that multiplies with 2 to give 1 (2*0 = 0, 2*1 = 2, 2*2 = 4 -> 0, 2*3 = 6 -> 2). In general, every prime factor of ‘c’ is a non-zero element of the c-field with no reciprocal element in the field. Here’s the proof:
Extension Fields
Are there any other finite fields beside the prime fields? Indeed. For every prime number ‘p’ and whole number ’n’, there is a pⁿ-field called an extension field. Such fields follow different rules of arithmetic than the take-the-remainder approach of prime-fields. And the numbers in such fields are actually polynomials. Let’s take a closer look.
The elements of a pⁿ-field are polynomials of degree n-1 with the coefficients being elements of the prime p-field. For example, the numbers in a 2²-field are polynomials of degree 1 with coefficients in the 2-field. The addition of 2 elements is the addition of the polynomial representations of those elements, with the coefficients added as p-field numbers.
2²-field elements and addition (image by author)
Multiplication of 2 elements in a pⁿ-field is the multiplication of the polynomial representations of those elements, with the coefficients added as p-field numbers. But now the resulting polynomial can be of a degree higher than n-1. To map it back to a pⁿ-field element there is an analogous process to how we took remainders in a prime p-field. In the polynomial case, we divide by any irreducible polynomial of degree n and take the remainder polynomial of degree n-1 as the result. An irreducible polynomial is one that cannot be expressed as the product of 2 other polynomials. In a sense, it is the analog of a prime number that cannot be expressed as the product of 2 smaller numbers.
2²-field multiplication (image by author)
If representing numbers as polynomials is not exciting enough for you, we can go further. We can represent the numbers in a pⁿ-field as n by n matrices whose elements are p-field numbers. Then, addition and multiplication follow the usual matrix addition and multiplication. What is the matrix representation of the elements? Each n-digit base-p number in the pⁿ-field can be thought of as an n-component vector in an n-dimensional vector space spanned by the n-component vectors (1, 0, …, 0), (0, 1, 0, …, 0), …, (0, 0, …, 0, 1). For example, in the case of the 2²-field, 00 = (0, 0), 01 = (1, 0), 10 = (0, 1) and 11 = (1, 1). Then, the matrix representation of a pⁿ-field element ‘a’ can be constructed in the following way. The first column is the vector corresponding to ‘a’ * ‘00…01’, the second column is the vector corresponding to ‘a’ * ‘00…010’, the third column is the vector corresponding to ‘a’ * ‘00…0100’, and so on.
2²-field matrix representation (image by author)
Summary | https://medium.com/cantors-paradise/a-finite-number-of-numbers-e8fbda33d7bd | ['Vishesh Khemani'] | 2020-12-09 14:48:42.991000+00:00 | ['Numbers', 'Mathematics', 'Infinity', 'Learning', 'Science'] |
Painful Memories | Part 1 —
The day burned by for Steven Northrop, his shiny Mercedes belting down the highway, the majestic city in his rear view mirror. The company loaner was a small price to pay for the freedom to travel on the company’s dime. Four star hotels, expensive dinners, the image of success.
Eying the clock on the instrument panel, he was running considerably behind. Steve had spent the previous night betting big on a football game, losing a good portion of his expense account in the process. But that was all about to change — The company had set up a meeting for him in some small town he’d never heard of. Somehow they had a 200 year old patent on a medical instrument, and his boss wanted the account. It’d be a great customer, and would cement his status as top dog in the commission department. He was still about 600 miles out from his destination. He looked out the window and gave a smug look to the endless wheat fields half hunched over in the summer aridness. The car continued to zoom down the sunny, one lane road.
His thumb clicked a button on the wheel, catching the opening part of some 60's rock and roll tune from the speakers, making the most of an otherwise boring drive. The song brought back a flood of memories to the first time he took his 1972 Dodge Charger out on the open road. It had been his first car, which he later ended up giving to his younger brother. (Who had taken equally good care of the beauty.) The song began to cut in and out slowly, before finally settling on overwhelming static. “Company should have coughed up the dough for satellite radio,” he thought. Impassively, he flipped to the next station. Highs and lows of static. Next. Static.
He continued flipping, this time more impatiently until he settled on the one station that was playing anything. It was news from a local radio station. Better than static. This time though, the news cut out and a voice came on. “Take the next right.” His eyes flicked towards the GPS screen, but the screen said to stay on this road for the next 80 miles. He began to think maybe the grind was getting to him. A flick of the switch to the next station.
Static….
“Terrific,” he heard himself say out loud. But this time the static stopped abruptly, and a voice came back on. This voice was not the news, it was not a song — it was different- and one Steve hadn’t heard in years. It was the sound of his younger brother, who had gone missing 10 years earlier. Steve’s eyes looked glossy like cellophane wrap, as his brother’s voice echoed through the honeycombed speakers. He was hypnotized on the voice, and for a long moment forgot he was going 85 mph. He was transported back to the memory; reliving the two of them throwing the football around in the backyard at their parent’s lakehouse. He caught himself and snapped back into the present, realizing he was still driving. He compensated the steering wheel, but surprisingly, was still in his lane. His foot eased off the gas, and flicked off the radio.
There was nowhere to pull over — the curbs next to him were nothing but steep ruts with gravel pits. It didn’t matter though, he hadn’t passed a car in the last two hours. So he slowed down to a complete halt, right in the middle of the one lane road. The perfect center of nowhere. He threw the transmission into ‘park’, and looked out the window a long moment. Gazing out over the crops, the sun was outlining eye-watering shards of light over the fields in sort of a halo effect. The whisper of summer wind gently swaying the fields. His eyes crossed back over to the radio.
Slowing turning the radio back on, the sound of static filled the air. The voice had vanished. Oddly, this was more comforting to him. The police never did find his brother. He glanced in the rear view mirror at the long road behind him. He thought about heading back that way, just to see if there was indeed a road that veered off. On the other hand, it was a painful memory and he had a schedule to keep. He gripped down on the shift lever, and clicked each notch until it rested into ‘drive.’ He eased off the brake, and the car tugged toward.
The hissing of static continued on the radio, but Steven had tuned that out ever since he turned the knob back on. He was focused on the drive now. The view was picturesque to say the least, and looked like it was ripped out from some farm photography magazine. All that was missing was the artists signature on the lower right corner. But his thoughts began to chew at him. What made him think of his brother? Why now? Each thought was ping ponging back and forth until something caught his attention —
A rundown gas station sprang up in the distance. On his right. Harsh winds had faded the wooden facade. A Coca-Cola sign pinned at the top and bottom was hanging on the corner of the building, spinning freely in the wind. Two antique gas pumps stood side-by-side like soldiers, sharing the same shade of orange rust the roll-up door on the station’s garage had displayed. Despite all of this, it looked extremely quaint from the outside. Steven slowed down to catch a better view. Not only was it the only sighting of anything beyond corn for the last 50 miles, but there was something particularly odd about it.
While everything else had pretty much been rusted all the way through, the pump read outs themselves had been almost brand new looking. The numerical display on the meter was sparkling. Steven jerked the car into the station’s entrance at the last second, the car fishtailing. Driving up to the gas pump, getting a good glimpse of the meter. The meter read “This sale .86.” That was the year his brother had been born. “Maybe?”, he thought. He glanced below — a sign that read “gallons” with a “3.4” listed. He reached over and scribbled the numbers on his planner. Shuffling through his memory like a rolodex. What could represent those numbers? Maybe they don’t mean anything, he second guessed himself. His eyes shifted from the antique gas pump, directly behind it to the single service station door.
There were three window panes to see inside. The yellow grime from years of dust covered the windows. He fetched a deep sigh, pushed the button that unlocked his seatbelt, and opened his car door. The methodical ding from the keys left in the ignition faded out to a quiet background noise, as Steven walked to the dirty garage door. He wrapped his hands on the sides of his face, while squinting through. The garage had pieces of car parts that looked like most were from the 1950’s. Old signs, and oil cans neatly placed on shelves. Several bumpers were hung against the wall. He pulled his head back, and turned his attention to the convenient store attached to the station. He ascended the two wooden steps, one breaking at his weight. An “ICE” freezer sat empty against the building.
The bell jingled, and the door opened. When he entered, the store wasn’t the dim and dirty place he was expecting. Instead, it had been fully stocked with items nobody had seen since the 50’s: original blister cards; cans of corn with 5 cent price tags; glass soda bottles on shelves. Across the room, there was a twinkle of light reflecting back at him. It was the antique cash register. Two price flags at the top displayed the sale price of “$3.40." Steven’s eyes narrowed, as he maneuvered around the L-shaped counter. He stared for a moment, regarding the register. He took one more glance behind him listening and back to the register—
He paused a moment before stabbing the button marked: NO SALE. The one button in faded yellow. The classic “ch-ching” of the drawer was heard, and the register itself came slapping out.
A few Morgan dollars, old currency, and a slip of paper was stuffed under one of the bills. Steven pulled it carefully, revealing a receipt to a second hand store, Ted’s. Dated 10 years earlier. Odd, considering there was nothing in this place less than 50 years old. There was an address on it. Old Orchard it said. He placed it in the front pocket of his dress shirt, took one more look around, and raced for the door —
The door came flying open, as Steven shot out like a bullet. Jumping over both stairs — he sprinted to the the car door, still chiming. Stopped for a moment, dead in his tracks. Spinning back around at the gas pump, getting one more glance at the numbers. “$3.40" — he was all but sure now. He felt it was a message. A voice calling to him. The phone ringing in his car broke his focus —
While doing 90 back on the one lane road, he was in mid-conversation with his boss. “Yeah…yeah. Just a little car trouble that’s all. Got a flat tire 80 miles from nowhere. Still making good time, though.”
“If you can secure this deal, Steve. Good things are coming your way.” Steven cracked a smile. “But if you can’t, just prepare for the transfer rumors to start. Steve’s heart sunk. But that fear was washed off quickly. There were bigger things at stake.
Out the window, a patinated sign that read: “Old Orchard: 3 Miles.” His eyes followed it until it whizzed past him. He quickly fished the receipt from his shirt pocket. Double checking. Yep, it had been Old Orchard. Dropping the receipt over his planner. “Look, the deal will go through, Gary. I’ll call you when I reach town,” he said before pressing the button on his wheel. Cutting off the call.
A quaint little sign appeared, “WELCOME TO OLD ORCHARD.” Beyond that a small row of headstones, maybe 50 in total, enveloped by a small white fence. There had been a groundskeeper: a pudgy, silver-haired man in his 60’s sitting on a ride-on mower methodically striping the grass. His name was Walter Tandy. He paid no attention to the car zooming past. Steven had given a glance over, trying to get a date or a name on any of the headstones, but his speed made it impossible.
His car drove through the lonely road, snaking through the summer-kissed countryside a few more miles, before his tires rushed over a remote intersection that was unpaved, and unloved. He looked down the desolate, single lane strip as an old wooden sign hung above: “Shoe Factory Road.” His car wavered side to side, before hitting pavement again. Beyond that the smell of pine trees overtook him, as he felt he was being sucked into a gloomy, logging trail; a single sliver of road paved just for him. It was a lonely road. Then again, it had always been for a traveling salesman. He glanced on the GPS which didn’t really help (since he didn’t know where the hell he was), although it told him he’d be approaching a cluster of town less than a mile ahead.
The town came into view magically, almost majestically. The main street had small shops and old-fashioned architecture. The kind you’d expect from small-town Americana. A few cars passed on and off of the four or five intersecting streets that made up the downtown. A handful of pedestrians strolled the sidewalks. The parking spots were the slanted type, and Steven quickly cut across the street after seeing Ted’s Thrift Store — We’ll Sell It If We Got It. He jammed the transmission into park. A few onlookers glanced his direction. But he didn’t give a shit. Even if part of him didn’t know the outcome, he was on a mission…
To Continue Reading — -Part 2 | https://medium.com/graphic-novel-horror-tales/painful-memories-a21074437ffb | ['Chris Darkes'] | 2017-10-18 01:44:44.040000+00:00 | ['Horror', 'Books', 'Writing', 'Fiction', 'Short Story'] |
Nikie is starting her personal blog I’m just starting my blogging way. That’s first post, I’m going to publish. Shortly about my future content: It’s my own blog about my life, about my obstacles and… | Nikie is starting her personal blog
I’m just starting my blogging way. That’s first post, I’m going to publish.
Shortly about my future content:
It’s my own blog about my life, about my obstacles and the progress of overcoming them, about my country, about my work, about my duties etc. I’m holding it for myself, firstly. So, I’ll publish here what I want to publish and I never teach you and never ask you to share my views.
I guess, you will find here some information about city & village, parents & children, law & society, true history & “modern-written" history, cooking & house chores, finally, you will find here anything I decided to publish.
I will be really thankful for every kind word. Please, be polite if you disliked my blog.
Sincerely, Nikie | https://medium.com/@offinika/hello-there-d9bfd22b4416 | ['Auslander Nikie'] | 2020-12-26 22:50:18.691000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'New', 'Blog', 'Lifestyle', 'Personal'] |
How performant are Array methods and Object methods in JavaScript? | How performant are Array methods and Object methods in JavaScript?
Analysing the Big O of various Array and Object methods
Understanding how objects and arrays work through the lens of Big O is an important thing to know, as it should influence the choices you make when structuring data in your apps.
Along with this, is it just as useful to know when you should be using an Object and when you should be using an Array.
Objects
When to use objects
When you don’t need order
When you need fast access/insertion and removal
Big O of Objects
Insertion: O(1)
Removal: O(1)
Searching: O(N)
Access: O(1)
Searching is O(N) because here we are searching for a value in the object, rather than searching for a key. So to find the value, we must check every value in the object.
Big O of Object Methods
Object.keys: O(N)
Object.values: O(N)
Object.entries: O(N)
hasOwnProperty: O(1)
Arrays
When to use arrays
When we need order
When you need fast access/insertion and (sometimes) removal
Big O of Arrays
Insertion — it depends
Removal — it depends
Searching: O(N)
Access: O(1)
Why does Insertion vary?
Because insertion at the end of the array (with array.push) is O(1). However if we want to insert at the beginning of an array (with array.unshift), it’s O(N) as we have to move every entry up by one.
Why does Removal vary?
Because removal from the end of the array (with array.pop) is O(1). However if we want to remove from the beginning of an array (with array.shift), it’s O(N) as we have to move every entry down by one.
Big O of Array Methods
Push: O(1)
Pop: O(1)
Shift: O(N)
Unshift: O(N)
Concat: O(N)
Slice: O(N)
Splice: O(N)
Sort: O(N * log N)
forEach: O(N)
Map/Filter/Reduce: O(N)
Conclusion
Hopefully this short article has given you a rough guide as to how performant Array methods and Object methods are, as well as when it would make sense to use one data structure over another. There’s definitely more things to consider, but thinking about some of the points raised here will help you to make better decisions as a software developer.
Enjoyed this article? If so, get more similar content by subscribing to my YouTube channel! | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/how-performant-are-arrays-and-objects-in-javascript-c53fa0ea5b1c | ['Sunil Sandhu'] | 2020-12-29 08:06:23.032000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Algorithms', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Web Development'] |
An introduction to Decentralized Finances (DeFi) | Based on the poll that we did more than 50% of the community have only heard about DeFi or don’t even know what DeFi is. Since DeFi is rapidly growing in the cryptocurrency ecosystem we feel it’s important we expand upon that topic.
Traditional finance system
If we want to take a dive into DeFi it is good to take a look at the traditional finance systems. Trading can only happen when two parties have an excess of goods that the other party needs and originally the trading was made with goods and services, this is called bartering. As the economy grew, so did the need for an intermediary that represents a certain amount of value, hence currency was created. Suddenly you didn’t need to have exactly what the other party wanted, but you could just pay him with the currency and they could use that currency in any way they wanted and get the thing they want if someone else offered it. So a win-win situation, right?
The earliest inscribed coinage
While in ancient Egypt the original money was a form of receipt, representing grain stored in temple granaries and some sort of medium like ox-hide shaped ingots of copper were used and the Chinese used the first alteration of coins somewhere around 770 B.C, but the first official currency that we know of was created by Lydia’s King Alyattes in 620 B.C. This allowed the country increase its internal and external trade, becoming one of the richest empires in Asia Minor.
Earliest paper money
With the need for credit and a lighter medium of exchange in premodern China paper money was introduced, which is basically like an IOU (I owe you) from the issuer of the note. For this to be able to work, people had to put trust in these central authorities like governments or banks, so that more paper money wasn’t created that there was value stored. With this trust and no way to oversee the whole system, central authorities had a lot more power as they could create more banknotes without the need to have it backed up by anything. With the abolishment of the gold standard in 1971, the dollar became backed only by the trust in the government, or in other words, it retains its value through government stability and that of the nation’s economy.
The computer and the internet allowed data to be exchanged at a really fast pace from one part of the globe to the other. This allowed the creation of databases that tell us how much money someone has and payments were transformed simply into transferring this data from one person's banking account to another. Payment cards, debit cards, credit cards, digital money all became available because of this, and while some regulations were set, still everything was controlled by a few central authorities and no way for the public to fully oversee the system.
Starting with Peer-to-peer
The first blockchain Bitcoin is “A Peer-to-peer Electronic Cash System” or in other words, it acts like a currency that is not controlled by a single entity. Since currency is part of the financial system we could say that the first solution on blockchain was a DeFi solution.
It is estimated that only a bit over 8% of the world's money exists as physical cash (banknotes or coins) and around 92% of it is in digital form, so there is a great potential for a digital currency to thrive. More and more banking and financial services are being built on blockchain which can be seen as a natural expansion upon the initial Peer-to-peer currency concept.
A lot of solutions that connect blockchain and the real-world may lag behind as there might be more governmental restrictions and issues (for example the oracle problem). And governments are usually slower to react as it is a long process to establish all regulations, laws and to convince other political parties to agree with certain approaches. While DeFi solutions might find some problems with governmental regulations there is almost no way of stopping someone from releasing a new solution and deploying it on the network. Once it is deployed there is no central authority to take it down.
Onwards to DeFi
With cryptocurrency expanding so are its solutions. Blockchain and decentralization allow anyone to participate, therefore Decentralized finances (DeFi) allows everyone to participate in financial systems. DeFi is bringing centralized solutions and creating Dapps that provide the same function. Currently, one of the most popular DeFi solutions is borrowing and lending with more than 1.2 billion $ locked in this sector on Ethereum alone, compared to the whole DeFi space on Ethereum having 1.5 billion $ locked this represents 78% of the whole space.
Derivatives are second in place with around 194 million $ locked, which represents a bit less than 13% of the Defi space on Ethereum.
A derivative is a financial security with a value that is reliant upon or derived from, an underlying asset or group of assets. The most common underlying assets for derivatives are stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, interest rates, and market indexes.
Assets with the most famous one of Wrapped Bitcoin or (WBTC) represent 70.7 million $ less than 5%, decentralized exchanges represent 56.9 million $ less than 4%, and payments with Lightning network leading the way have 9.3 million $ locked which is less than 1%.
This data was collected from Defipulse on 23rd of June 2020
While there are also many other DeFi solutions or are currently being built at the moment, Ethereum is currently still the main provider of DeFi solutions and a list of DeFi applications for Ethereum can be easily accessed here or here.
Lego blocks on Ethereum
Start of DeFi on ICON network
Other blockchains are starting to present more DeFi solutions as well, whether they are built on top of a blockchain similar to what Fantom or ICX (with LICX, Balanced, and bridge) is doing or on a completely separate blockchain like Thorchain or Terra. These are only a few examples of how DeFi is being integrated, but the core of it is to decentralize financial services, allow everyone to participate, and lower restrictions and fees by cutting out the middle man. The best way that DeFi operates is by combining all the different solutions and use them almost like Lego blocks, with one protocol being build on top of the others and just adding them together to provide the best possible returns on your investment. With more and more services being developed and the possibilities of combining DeFi on a cross-chain level the whole investing in DeFi can be really confusing for new users. But there are many guides (Defipulse, Defiprime) that you can use to get you up to speed on how to invest in DeFi.
Here are a few of the DeFi solutions and a short description of them:
Compound is a borrowing and lending platform offering rewards for anyone that borrows or supplies assets on compound (Liquidity mining)
Aave is a lending protocol, it allows collateralized loans, “rate switching”, flash loans and unique collateral types.
Balancer is an automated-market maker that allows liquidity pools composed of multiple ERC20 tokens instead of 1:1 pools. It also has liquidity mining.
Uniswap is like a Decentralized exchange where users provide liquidity for swaps and earn fees from swaps
1inch allows finding the best possible ratio on DEX exchanges
dYdX is a decentralized margin trading platform that allows users to borrow, lend and make bets on the future prices of popular cryptocurrencies
Tokensets allows you to follow the trading of other users
Synthetix is a protocol for trading derivatives on Ethereum blockchain such as gold, Bitcoin, Stocks, etc.
RealT allows pooling together to buy real estate properties and earn income from the rent.
Iearn allows users to take advantage of multiple DeFi protocols with one access point
MakerDAO at its core, it is like a credit facility that issues loans with a certain interest rate
REN is a protocol that enables transfer of value between blockchains, which brings interoperability to DeFi
wETH and wBTC are ERC20 representations of ETH and BTC which allows Dapps with ERC20 compatibility to interact with BTC and ETH. This is useful from the development perspective rather than as an investment
And many others
With all of these Dapps interacting with each other, simplification is also needed. Luckily there are services in DeFi that can also help you simplify the process like Idle and platforms which let you interact with the most popular DeFi solutions on the market like Instadapp and Zerion.
How DeFi looks like for someone who is not familiar with it. Image credit: @sassal0x
A the time of writing “Yield farming” is a big upcoming thing for DeFi, which is connecting solutions to maximize your returns and also farm governance tokens of projects like compound, balancer, ren, etc. The reported numbers of Annual percentage yield (APY) were even up to 100%, this is an insane amount but it is probably just the starting push before more people understand it and join, then APY will most likely stabilize at a much lower percentage.
Please note that DeFi is not risk-free, while it can yield great returns on your investment there is also a possibility of smart contract bugs, liquidation risk, liquidity crunch, admin key or governance compromise, stable coin:dollar ratio failing, etc..
While some of this risk can not be removed, you can always ensure your investment from technical fails, like smart contract bugs or stable coin:dollar ratio failing through insurance services Nexus mutual or Etherisc. These services are still centralized at the time of writing.
An important thing to check is if the smart contract has been audited by a reputable auditing company like Trail of bits, Open Zeppelin, Quantstamp to name a few (I can not guarantee the reputation of these companies, my research brought me to believe they are reputable, but always do you own research).
Future of DeFi
The future is always impossible to predict but the way things are resolving now, the future of DeFi seems bright. With the rapid increase of projects being connected to each other, with tokenizing more stuff and consequentially more funds being locked into DeFi, this might just be the next gold rush in crypto space. In the long term, the goal of the space should be that anyone can invest in anything regardless of the amount that they contribute as blockchain allows easy pooling to collect enough funds you could look for example at investing in real estate market with 1$. In traditional markets, this would be impossible as it would not be worth the time for any intermediary. Also, the returns in a decentralized system can be higher because there is no middle man taking their cut of the profits.
At the end of the day, what could be a better sector than finances for cryptocurrencies to dominate, after all, they are currencies and the first use case for a blockchain was a financial one. How will things play out in the blockchain space and the decentralized finance world? I guess we will just have to wait and see. | https://medium.com/block42-blockchain-company/an-introduction-to-decentralized-finances-defi-94191531368e | ['Jasa Srot'] | 2020-06-25 14:59:39.932000+00:00 | ['Block42', 'Tech', 'Blockchain', 'Decentralized Finance', 'Defi'] |
Ta dose crypto du jeudi 29 mars — La Fondation Litecoin présente ses excuses dans l’affaire Litepay | Blockstream Introduces Lightning Applications With The Week of LApps - Coinjournal
The last few months have seen an exciting increase in the pace of updates and news from the three main development… | https://medium.com/la-bulle-crypto/ta-dose-crypto-du-jeudi-29-mars-la-fondation-litecoin-pr%C3%A9sente-ses-excuses-dans-laffaire-litepay-761c164c499f | [] | 2018-03-29 12:02:23.116000+00:00 | ['Litecoin', 'Ripple', 'Lightning Network', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin'] |
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