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Suicide By Good Intentions | Suicide By Good Intentions
The clichés roll out a red carpet before every major political event.
That is how wars begin and the well-intentioned lose their freedom for generations. The classic formula never fails and the naïve and well-intentioned (ignorant) never fail. They always play their part and perish in the process. And the issue is always FREEDOM, FREE SPEECH and an end to OPPRESSION.
Hey, that sounds wonderful! A lovely thought! Even to people who have never lost their freedom, free speech or been oppressed. No society is perfect but it’s always good to get personal on a popular subject until you realize their ideals are the opposite to yours and your ‘good intensions’ have been hijacked by your ‘sponsors’ to abolish all freedom, free speech and bring long-term oppression on people who have never been oppressed before.
This planet has suffered this naiveté of the innocents since the beginning of time. It is a stroke of political genius to manipulate peoples’ thinking and the result is the 30 Year Plan, part of the ideology by which to change an entire society in 30 years. You indoctrinate the children to disparage their parents and when the young people turn 30 or thereabouts, they are ready to throw everything overboard because they know the truth. Been there, done that! In my time they were arrested and deported to Siberia. The truth dies with them. But Hitler and Stalin never died and that is why we continue do the war enactments; the jousters and lancers on their high horses, on both sides, until the end of time.
Right now, in 2020, we are about to do another round — ‘play the same again Sam!’ The same placards, same speeches, bricks and baseball bats. The same banners. The youth of nations truly, baffled. Most of them have already have FREEDOM AND FREE SPEECH or they would not be out there free to pillage, loot and burn.
On the other side are the truncheons, the law and order guys, just as ignorant, falling on their swords by default.
Then there is the third party, literally the ‘party givers’ that funds and hands out the platitudes, anxious not to lose their ‘ill gotten gains’, wearing coats with double lining, and easily turned on dime.
For those who have not read the books or seen the films let me fill you in with actual history, a true story in miniature. Namely the occupation of the Baltic States, a cameo classic of how the scene unfolded in the 1940’s what we could expect down the road.
I speak for myself, and what happened in Estonia, a country of just over a million population whose country has been occupied and oppressed for almost a thousand years by powerful neighbors, 800 of those yeas under Germans (also Danes, Poles, Lithuanians, Russians and even Swedes). To cut a long story short, Estonia gained freedom in 1918, the first time ever, and established a true republic until 1923. No nobility, just hard work and a passion for higher education.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact put an end to that. In 1939, Hitler and Stalin had made a secret agreement to share the spoils of the fallout from WWII, beginning with Estonian elections held at gunpoint. Again, using the well-intentioned and ill-informed, the idealists and the naïve to believe all the Soviets wanted was to build Bases.
Pro-Communist March in Tallinn
My mother, her girlfriend and fellow pedestrians had stopped to watch a column of demonstrators marching down a main street in Tallinn. They were carrying placards calling for; Freedom, Free Speech AND Soviet Occupation — at the same time!! No wonder the bystanders were confused. Estonia had been a free and an independent, democratic Republic for almost twenty years. The bystanders thought it was a joke.
Mother saw familiar faces among the marchers, specifically university classmates, a girl she knew by name, from a good family, proudly in front, calling for the overthrow of Independent Estonia.
When the Soviets arrived, mother was there again. This time heavy artillery, tanks and soldiers. The mood among the silent bystanders; disbelief! The Soviets were only supposed to build Bases. The uniforms were followed by a column of men in rags, a work detail of civilians, bought in to build the Installations.
One of the men must have noticed mother’s expression of shock. He pretended to stumble out of line and hissed into mother’s face… “You think we look pathetic? Wait, you’ll soon be looking worse than this!”
All good dreams did come to an end. The wakeup call came when word got around that the ‘well meaning’ demonstrators had been rounded up, arrested and deported to Siberia. And mother’s friend, a hero of the revolution, had committee suicide. | https://medium.com/@elingottschalk/suicide-by-good-intentions-f423c8c20ad6 | ['Elin Gottschalk'] | 2020-06-15 01:00:22.255000+00:00 | ['Antifa', 'Chaz', 'Estonia', 'Communism'] |
Impressive Charts on Age, Energy, Climate, and Music — DataViz Weekly | Lately, we’ve come across a lot of new impressive charts all over the internet. Here are some of the most interesting ones — check them out and you’ll see the real power of data visualization in action!
Today in DataViz Weekly:
New age for your age — FlowingData
Electricity generation in the U.S. states by fuel source — The Washington Post
Mortality consequences of climate change and income inequality — Bloomberg Green
1990s music recognition across generations — The Pudding
New Age for Your Age
“50 is the new 20.” Or “70 is the new 30.” Or “ some other age is some new different other age.” Many, if not all of us, have seen such headlines or heard similar expressions here and there. Basically, as the quality of life and life expectancy have been growing over time, it is hardly surprising nowadays to feel better (younger) than in the same age decades ago. But are there any strict and commonly accepted criteria to make conclusions about the exact difference?
Nathan Yau, a statistician, made an attempt to bring in more clarity with the help of data. For his research, he took mortality data from the Social Security Administration and looked at the probability of death by age now and in the previous decades, taking the respective curves as the point of reference.
Without more ado, we invite you to check out Nathan’s new article on his blog FlowingData, where he explains in detail what was done, step by step. As you read you will see multiple cool line (and step line) charts. The culmination is an interactive visual analysis tool that, for any age you enter, calculates the new age depending on sex and what decade you choose to compare to, as well as shows the respective curves for context.
Electricity Generation in U.S. States by Fuel Source
A bar mekko chart is a peculiar type of visualization which features bars of variable width to represent two quantitative measures at a time. Here’s an interesting example of how such graphic can be appropriate and useful in practice. John Muyskens, a graphics editor at The Washington Post, chose a bar mekko chart to display how the U.S. states generated electricity in 2019 based on data from the federal Energy Information Administration.
In the visualization, the width of each bar shows all electricity one state generated last year, in absolute values. Lengthwise, each bar represents 100% and shows the composition by fuel source type. The percentage for clean electricity (colored), including nuclear energy (solid color fill) and renewables such as wind, hydroelectric, solar, biomass, and geothermal (hatch fill), stacks above. Natural gas, coal, and other fossil fuels (gray) stack below.
This bar mekko chart is convenient to explore the electricity sources by state. If you are interested in this topic, the article where we found this chart, made by John Muyskens and Juliet Eilperin for The Washington Post, also has 100% stacked area charts that show the change in fuel source percentages for each state from 2001 through 2019.
Mortality Consequences of Climate Change and Income Inequality
The risk of dying from extreme heat caused by global warming is an order of magnitude larger than previously believed. In addition to temperature, income is another important factor as it determines whether people have more or less access to air conditioning as well as other protective measures and opportunities that require investment. These are the key conclusions of the Climate Impact Lab’s new study made public lately.
For Bloomberg, Eric Roston, Paul Murray and Rachael Dottle made an overview of the main points using different visual techniques. They start with a range chart of the projected change in heat-related death rates, which reveals (or proves) the life-saving power of economic growth. Next goes the scrollytelling part. There, the shifts are represented in a global map and a distribution chart that change with the year as you scroll. Look at the projections and you’ll find even more interesting graphics and important revelations in the article.
1990s Music Recognition Across Generations
Teens hardly listen to the same music as parents and may even fail to recognize most of the hit songs from a couple of decades ago. The Pudding’s Matt Daniels and Ilia Blinderman created a cool story revealing how music is passed down from generation to generation.
Several months ago, The Pudding launched a quiz asking readers whether or not they recognized one song or another. Analyzing millions of data points collected in this way, the authors focused on the 1990s music and, among the insights revealed, found out what songs released in that decade have been losing popularity faster (and slower) than others. The story features, in particular, interesting line graphs that show the change in recognition rates for many 1990s hits by the person’s age in the year of the song’s release.
At the end of the piece, all the 1990s songs ever charted in the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 are represented, ranked by how well they were recognized among Generation Z participants of the quiz. “My Heart Will Go On” and “…Baby One More Time” are leading the list. | https://medium.com/data-visualization-weekly/impressive-charts-on-age-energy-climate-and-music-dataviz-weekly-19fd14b860b8 | [] | 2020-08-07 17:56:47.439000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Charts', 'Analytics', 'Data', 'Data Visualization'] |
Cara Handle Notifikasi Midtrans pada API — CoreAPI #ep3 | Jika brosis lebih tertarik dengan metode video, brosis bisa langsung akses video dibawah ini yah.
Btw karna disini kita masih menggunakan localhost, maka kita menggunakan simulasi menggunakan webhook.
—
Tahap 1 : Request Checkout
Untuk brosis yang belum paham Checkout menggunakan Core API Midtrans brosis bisa baca dulu di Ep1 & Ep2
Tahap 2 : Handle Notification
Kali ini kita menyiapkan table terlebih dahulu yah guys. Siapkan dulu saja schemanya sesuai dengan database yang kalian gunakan, disini kita menggunakan MySQL. Buat 1 migration pada lumen kalian.
php artisan make:migration orders --create=orders
Masukan syntax ini ke dalam file migration kalian pada function up()
Schema::create('orders', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->bigIncrements('id');
$table->string('invoice','30')->nullable();
$table->bigInteger('product_reference')->nullable();
$table->string('transaction_id','255')->nullable();
$table->enum('status', ['WAITING', 'PENDING', 'CANCEL', 'SUCCESS'])->nullable();
$table->softDeletes('deleted_at',0);
$table->timestamps();
});
Sehingga menghasilkan struktur table seperti dibawah ini
Jika sudah jangan lupa buat 1 class model untuk table orders ya
<?php namespace App\Models;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model; class Order extends Model{
protected $table = "orders";
}
Kita buat 1 class controller baru dengan nama NotificationController dan buat 1 function di dalamnya yaitu post() , brosis bisa lihat syntaxnya dibawah ini :
public function post(Request $req)
{
try {
$notification_body = json_decode($req->getContent(), true);
$invoice = $notification_body['order_id'];
$transaction_id = $notification_body['transaction_id'];
$status_code = $notification_body['status_code']; $order = Order::where('invoice', $invoice)->where('transaction_id', $transaction_id)->first();
if (!$order)
return ['code' => 0, 'messgae' => 'Terjadi kesalahan | Pembayaran tidak valid']; switch ($status_code) {
case '200':
$order->status = "SUCCESS";
break;
case '201':
$order->status = "PENDING";
break;
case '202':
$order->status = "CANCEL";
break;
} $order->save();
return response('Ok', 200)->header('Content-Type', 'text/plain');
} catch (\Exception $e) {
return response('Error', 404)->header('Content-Type', 'text/plain');
}
}
Penting : Notifikasi yang dikirim oleh midtrans memiliki format JSON, sehingga brosis harus melakukan decode pada json yang diterima oleh API ini.
Jangan lupa untuk routingnya
$router->post('/payment/notification/post','NotificationController@post');
Lanjut, brosis modifikasi class PaymentController agar menyimpan data checkoutnya ke dalam sebuah table orders
(tambah) function buyProduct
{
try {
$result = null;
$payment_method = $req->payment_method;
$order_id = "CXS" . date('YmdHis');
$total_amount = 10000;
$transaction = array(
"transaction_details" => [
"gross_amount" => $total_amount,
"order_id" => $order_id
],
"customer_details" => [
"email" => "
"first_name" => "Azhar",
"last_name" => "Ogi",
"phone" => "+628948484848"
],
"item_details" => array([
"id" => "1388998298204",
"price" => 5000,
"quantity" => 1,
"name" => "Ayam Zozozo"
], [
"id" => "1388998298202",
"price" => 5000,
"quantity" => 1,
"name" => "Ayam Xoxoxo"
]),
); public function buyProduct(Request $req)try {$result = null;$payment_method = $req->payment_method;$order_id = "CXS" . date('YmdHis');$total_amount = 10000;$transaction = array("transaction_details" => ["gross_amount" => $total_amount,"order_id" => $order_id],"customer_details" => ["email" => " [email protected] ","first_name" => "Azhar","last_name" => "Ogi","phone" => "+628948484848"],"item_details" => array(["id" => "1388998298204","price" => 5000,"quantity" => 1,"name" => "Ayam Zozozo"], ["id" => "1388998298202","price" => 5000,"quantity" => 1,"name" => "Ayam Xoxoxo"]),); switch ($payment_method) {
case 'bank_transfer':
$result = self::bankTransfer($order_id, $total_amount, $transaction);
break;
case 'credit_card':
$token_id = $req->token_id;
$result = self::chargeCreditCard($order_id, $total_amount, $token_id, $transaction);
break;
} return $result;
} catch (\Exception $th) {
dd($th);
return ['code' => 0, 'messgae' => 'Terjadi kesalahan'];
}
}
(modifikasi) function bankTransfer
static function bankTransfer($order_id, $total_amount, $transaction_object)
{
try {
$transaction = $transaction_object;
$transaction['payment_type'] = "bank_transfer";
$transaction['bank_transfer'] = array(
"bank" => "bca",
"va_number" => "111111",
); $charge = CoreApi::charge($transaction);
if (!$charge) {
return ['code' => 0, 'messgae' => 'Terjadi kesalahan'];
} $order = new Order();
$order->invoice = $order_id;
$order->transaction_id = $charge->transaction_id;
$order->status = "PENDING"; if (!$order->save())
return false; return ['code' => 1, 'messgae' => 'Success', 'result' => $charge];
} catch (\Exception $e) {
return ['code' => 0, 'messgae' => 'Terjadi kesalahan'];
}
}
(modifikasi) function chargeCreditCard
static function chargeCreditCard($order_id, $total_amount, $token_id, $transaction_object)
{
try {
$credit_card = array(
'token_id' => $token_id,
'authentication' => true,
'bank' => "bni"
); $transaction = $transaction_object; $transaction['payment_type'] = "credit_card";
$transaction['credit_card'] = $credit_card; $charge = CoreApi::charge($transaction);
if (!$charge) {
return ['code' => 0, 'messgae' => 'Terjadi kesalahan'];
} $order = new Order();
$order->invoice = $order_id;
$order->transaction_id = $charge->transaction_id;
$order->status = "PENDING"; if (!$order->save())
return false; return ['code' => 1, 'message' => 'Success', 'result' => $charge];
} catch (\Exception $e) {
return ['code' => 0, 'message' => 'Something wrong | Internal Charge Credit Card'];
}
}
Jika sudah maka jangan lupa di serve dulu
php -S localhost:8001 -t public
Kita buka webhook : https://webhook.site/
Kita copy unique url
Oke sekarang kita buka akun midtrans > settings > configuration, dan paste unique url ke kolom Payment Notification URL.
Kita uji coba, lakukan checkout terlebih dahulu menggunakan bank transfer
Brosis bisa cek data pada table orders
Brosis bisa cek notification history / log ke : https://dashboard.sandbox.midtrans.com/settings/vtweb_configuration/history
Jika statusnya complete, kalian bisa cek di webhook kalian
Brosis bisa copy va_number pada json di column raw content
Untuk simulasi pembayarannya kalian bisa buka : https://simulator.sandbox.midtrans.com/bca/va/index
Jika berhasil maka brosis akan mendapatkan payment confirmation seperti dibawah ini.
Dan jangan lupa klik pay.
Brosis buka kembali webhook kalian dan wala… ada notifikasi success
Sekarang, brosis copy json pada raw content.
Kita sekarang test json request menggunakan Postman,
Jangan lupa send, jika status 200 OK maka kalian bisa cek data kalia pada table orders. Jika status berubah sukses maka kalian sudah berhasil sampai sini
—
Oke, sekian dulu dan semoga bermanfaat. Jika brosis merasa bingung atau mengalami error, bisa chat aja langsung ke socmed ya.
Jika kalian suka silahkan di clap ya :D | https://medium.com/@azharogi/cara-handle-notifikasi-midtrans-pada-api-coreapi-ep3-50861ad4e7a6 | ['Azhar Ogi'] | 2020-12-10 13:27:48.855000+00:00 | ['Lumen', 'Payment Gateway', 'Rest Api', 'Laravel', 'Backend'] |
The 7-Step-Paul-Rand Logo-Test | Do you have a strong logo or a weak one?
While a dancer may ask herself, “I wonder what Michael Jackson would think of my dance moves?” or a boxer may ask himself, “I wonder what Muhammad Ali would think of my right hook?”, a designer would ask, “What would Paul Rand think of my logo?”
By the end of this read, you will know confidently whether Paul Rand would approve or disapprove of your logo.
The Legend
Paul Rand was an American art director and graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM, UPS, Enron, Morningstar, Inc., Westinghouse, ABC, and Steve Jobs’ NeXT.
In fact, when Steve Jobs hired Paul Rand to design the NeXT Computers logo, he hired him for $100,000. To Jobs distaste, Rand said he would provide only one iteration.
[Steve Jobs] asked him if he would come up with a few options, and he said, ‘No, I will solve your problem for you and you will pay me. You don’t have to use the solution. If you want options go talk to other people.
Rand came up with a 100-page brochure detailing the brand, including the precise angle used for the logo (28°) and a new company name, NeXT.
The foundational criteria for this logo test is based on a something Paul Rand said that changed the world of logo design:
The principal role of a logo is to identify, and simplicity is its means… Its effectiveness depends on distinctiveness, visibility, adaptability, memorability, universality, and timelessness.
The 7-Step-Paul-Rand-Logo-Test uses the descriptors above to assess a logo. The steps flow like this:
Is it distinctive? Is it visible? Is it adaptable? Is it memorable? Is it universal? Is it timeless? Then, when you have said “yes” to everything above, ask this final question: is it simple?
For each step except for the last one, rate on a scale from 1 to 10. For the last step of simplicity, rate on a scale from 1 to 15. This mathematically gives weight to what is most important in a logo. A score of 75 is perfect, and anything below a 60 is discardable.
Guinea Pig
The best way to see how this assessment works is to use an example. Let’s use the former logo of Bing, Microsoft’s Internet search engine.
The Bing logo above was discontinued and upgraded in September of 2013 for obvious reasons. Let’s take the 7 steps and apply them to this logo to find out why.
1. Is It Distinctive?
Distinctive means unique and different from everything else. It stands out among the crowd and isn’t easily confused with others.
In our example, the Bing logo uses a youthful, common blue color — 80% of all logos are blue. The typography suggests openness and breadth — good for a search engine, but it is plain and flat which is not going to work if they want to stand out as a competitor of Google.
Because there’s no artwork to supplement the wordmark, a LOT of pressure is put on just the words to convey meaning. But nothing is unique about the lettering. Yes, the wide letters use lots of white space, but the letters seem smushed together, especially around the base of the “i”.
The loop of the “g” is cut off suddenly, which feels cold and incomplete.
If the ear of the “g” (the small stroke flaring off the top right) were any thinner it would look like a bald man’s head with a wild hair sticking up, which makes me think of age (i.e., Microsoft?).
3/10
2. Is It Visible?
Visible means noticeable or easily seen. Because it takes up a generous amount of space, its visibility is high. However, most designers begin crafting a logo in black and white for optimal visibility independent of color. But the deep yellow dot of the “i” is lost when this logo is put in black and white — losing the personal, intimate touch the “i” provides. Always make sure your logo looks good in both black and white.
6/10
3. Is It Adaptable?
Adaptability means that it works across numerous applications — on a t-shirt, on a cup, online, on a truck, on a road sign. You get the idea.
In our example, the Bing logo has enough built-in white space for it to look identifiable on nearly everything. The only strike against it is that it would have trouble fitting into a square — or any instance where vertical slenderness is needed. The text is egregiously scaled horizontally, leaving no alternative to fit into a box, such as a favicon or a mobile app icon. Perhaps, isolating the “b” would work in a box but this would significantly lower its distinctiveness score even more because the “b” is so plain.
5/10
4. Is It Memorable?
The goal of a logo is to be unforgettable — so that when a person feels the need your business solves, your logo comes to immediately mind. You can test this with word association. Word associating is an exercise where you think of the first word that comes to mind when you hear or see something. Word associate with the following logos:
Here’s what I got, respectively: beer, chips, and car. Do the logos use the words: ‘beer’, ‘chips’, and ‘car’? Nope. They don’t need to, because they are easily recognizable, memorable logos.
In our example, I do not get “search engine” from looking at the Bing logo. It’s interesting to see how they fixed this with the new Bing logo, which we’ll talk about in a minute.
The Bing logo’s flatness and lack of emotion make it difficult to remember.
2/10
5. Is It Universal?
When universal logo carries a consistent meaning to a diverse range of people. This is possibly the most difficult part in creating a logo because everyone is different. How do great, global brands accomplish this?
Google uses color.
Apple uses a staple, worldwide fruit and a neutral color.
Note: the Apple logo doesn’t even need words to be identified, creating a heavenly universality score.
As a search engine, the Bing logo needed to demonstrate both power and complexity but not at the cost of approachability (everyone needs to feel comfortable to use a search engine). The design accomplishes approachability through plainness but communicates nothing about robust power and depth of knowledge.
4/10
6. Is It Timeless?
The biggest principles to remember when crafting a timeless logo is do not use the “hottest” colors, “flashiest” fonts, or “coolest” styles. Fads change like the weather, but the sun always comes up, and the sky is always blue. Find the strong core of your design and trim off the extra embellishments. Minimalism is the art of saying more by saying less.
The antiquated Bing logo does alright with avoiding flashiness and short-term sparkle, but its overdone roundness is the opposite of cutting edge.
6/10
7. The Holy-Grail Question: Is It Simple?
Paul Rand said that a logo should epitomize minimalism.
“A logo cannot survive unless it is designed with the utmost simplicity and restraint.”
The first six steps of the Paul-Rand-Logo-Test involve adding and creating standout qualities in your design so that it is unique, durable, memorable, etc. But this last step is about stripping out and reducing extraneous detail to unveil a pure and playful end-product.
Here are two practical measures you can take to ensure your logo is designed with simplicity:
Shrink it down and then blow it up. The appearance and design of a strong logo will be legible and pleasing regardless of its size. Draw it by hand in ten seconds with a pencil. If you can do this easily, then you have a simple logo.
Because simplicity is the crown of the six qualities above, it is rated on a scale from 1 to 15 to account for its critical importance. A highly distinct and creative logo may lose points because it is distinct and creative at the expense of simplicity. A good example of a simple logo is the Nike swoosh:
The $15 billion company is identified by a solid “tick” that says: victory, athletic shoes, and Greek goddess. Many consider it to be the greatest logo of all time.
The Bing logo makes up little ground in this area. While it suffers in offering anything striking or incisive, it does provide a simple essence. But be careful: over-simplicity can come across as thoughtless and boring!
To find the balance between an intuitively simple logo and thoughtlessly boring one, analyze the story of the brand and work backwards from there. Who are the main characters? What are their strengths? What is the conflict they overcome? What does the happy ending look like? Engineer these concepts into a image and then begin reducing from there until you reach the core elements.
10/15
Total
Adding up the scores for the Bing logo, we get:
Distinctive 3 Visible 6 Adaptable 5 Memorable 2 Universal 4 Timeless 6 Simple (out of 15) 10
Total: 36
A 36 explains why Microsoft was okay with releasing it to the public — it was decent enough to work with but not strong enough to last.
The New Bing Logo
In September 2013, Microsoft introduced the new Bing logo with dramatic improvements.
A couple notes about what was done right with this logo:
The loop of the “g” is a smile (something that transcends cultural barriers).
The addition of the strikingly bold icon allows the type to relax and breathe.
It is embedded with subtleties (such as the top slant of the “b”) based upon a “searchlight” story.
The Paul-Rand-Logo-Test can be applied to any logo. You saw how it was applied to the Bing logo; now it’s your turn to try it out and tally your scores. Do you have a strong logo or a weak one? | https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/the-7-step-paul-rand-logo-test-5c7b546af17b | ['Dave Schools'] | 2019-07-04 14:52:12.144000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Logo Design', 'Tech'] |
KIRA Testnet Phase 0 | Milestone 1 | Objective: KIRA Network deployment software compatibility between different host operating systems, architectures and environments
Prerequisites:
Minimum 32GB of the free storage space
Disposable cloud instance, or VM
Minimum 3GB of RAM
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS installed on the host instance or VM
Stable internet connection with at least 10 Mbps download speed
Source code:
KIRA Management tool — kira
Blockchain Application — sekai
Warning: Do not use your primary operating system to test any software releases as they can cause irreversible data loss. While using a personal computer and not a dedicated instance a virtualization software should be used such as VMWare. When using cloud instances along SSH ensure that you will not get locked out when firewall rules change, see list of exposed ports later in the document. While running tests in a home environment it is recommended that a VPN is used as certain firewall rules might prevent access to github and other dependencies hosted online.
Overview
Milestone one will be used to test “Demo Mode” of the network operations in which a local validator node will be deployed on the host machine using a deployment management system called KIRA Manager. Goal of this particular testnet exercise is to ensure stable operation of deployment software across different computer architectures, configurations and NOT functionality of the blockchain application.
KIRA Manager uses Docker to isolate and manage multiple parts of the infrastructure such as docker registry, validator nodes, sentries, private sentries, frontend, KIRA INTERX™ (interchain-nginx) service as well as backup service, recovery service and all other parts of the software stack.
Software Stack (Demo Mode)
Validator
Validator node is a software which produces “blocks” containing transactions, signed and submitted by the users (client software). Validator node is a type of “full node” which executes the blockchain state machine and allows the decentralized ledger to achieve consensus on what the state of that ledger should be. Each block must be signed by minimum ⅔ of all validators for it to be included to the blockchain. In the demo mode there will be just one validator node (running locally on your machine) and new blocks will be produced every few seconds regardless if new transactions are present or not.
Sentry
Sentry node is a type of “full node” which preserves, shares and synchronises the state of the decentralized ledger with other full nodes in the network. Sentry node’s purpose is to propagate blocks, signed transactions and enable query of the blockchain state by the client applications while at the same time protecting validator nodes from potentially malicious queries which might cause software to halt, restart or otherwise fail. If the sentry node fails, the validator node running behind it will remain operational as invalid blocks or malicious messages will never be propagated. In the Demo Mode there will be just a single sentry node while in the later stages a private sentry node will be introduced allowing validators to stay connected in the private network regardless what happens on the publicly exposed node.
INTERX
KIRA Interchain Nginx is a software which acts as an API sitting between the blockchain and frontend applications. INTERX not only enables the frontend to easily query the blockchain state but also secures the connection regardless of the communication protocol used (HTTP/HTTPS) as all responses to queries are signed. This solution was used so that the frontend applications do not have to manage light-clients of hundreds of individual parachains while giving users the ability to fully verify and easily audit the integrity of the “static” website they use to interact with the blockchain. One of the INTERX features is also support of the faucet from where users can claim free test tokens. Additionally INTERX caches all responses which greatly decreases resources utilization and number of queries to sentries via RPC as the same request can be shared with thousands of clients without a need to repeat the full-node query.
Interchain nginx is extremely useful in the context of interacting with hundreds of decentralized networks (especially heterogeneous parallel chains). Otherwise frontend application would have to support multiple different light clients making the development process and long term support extremely difficult while slowing down the user experience and potentially decreasing security by making it more difficult to audit or otherwise verify integrity of the frontend application.
Frontend
Frontend container is only available in the Demo Mode and will not be utilized in the milestone one. KIRA Frontend application is a static page enabling ease of interaction with the blockchain application through publicly available INTERX nodes. In the production environment frontend will be statically hosted via github pages, available as a mobile app or can be run locally, this means users can verify hash of the application they use to interact with the blockchain without fear of malicious code or potential DNS hijacking. Presence of the frontend container in the infra Demo Mode serves a purpose of making it easy to test latest software releases and is not intended for use in production.
Registry
Docker registry container is used to host all docker images locally which speeds up the build process. Every part of the infrastructure is built on your own machine which might take quite some time, however helps to preserve integrity of the code and decreases bandwidth utilization.
Network Layout (Demo Mode)
Docker networking facilitates connectivity between all parts of the KIRA software stack within dedicated subnets. The ufw is used to protect the host machine from unauthorised access to deployed containers. In the Demo Mode following ports are exposed via default network interface:
22 — SSH, allows for remote communication with the host
80 — HTTP, access to the KIRA Frontend (only in demo mode)
443 — HTTPS, access to the KIRA Frontend (only in demo mode)
9090 — GRPC, access to the public sentry (only in demo mode)
26656 — P2P, allows public sentry to propagate blocks
26657 — RPC, allows blockchain query (only in demo mode)
11000 — INTERX API, allows for the state query, caching & file hosting
In the Demo Mode docker networks are isolated into 3 individual subnets
regnet — dedicated to the local docker registry
kiranet — accessible by validator and sentry
servicenet — accessible by all public facing containers
Note: Containers (Software stack running within virtualized OS) can only communicate with other containers if they are part of the same network. This solution greatly improves security of the validator node which can’t be influenced (accessed) by unrelated software stacks.
kira
KIRA Manager (kira) is a console tool enabling management and deployment of the whole software stack. In the milestone one, we will be testing a “Demo Mode” operation of that tool. The only supported operating system is Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and it has to be fully installed and updated before setup is attempted.
Setup
When setting up a kira tool for the first time you should SSH or otherwise access your host machine, open the console/terminal as sudo user (sudo -s) and execute the following instructions by copy-pasting it into your terminal. It is recommended that you should use an SSH terminal supporting colours such as termius otherwise the user interface might be distorted or entirely unusable.
sudo -s cd /tmp && INFRA_BRANCH="master" && rm -fv ./init.sh wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/KiraCore/kira/$INFRA_BRANCH/workstation/init.sh -O ./init.sh && chmod 555 -v ./init.sh echo "4aef734095cab8e91a6d2be25884e7be90583ebb546b5dd748e53a9147c264c8 init.sh" | sha256sum --check && ./init.sh "$INFRA_BRANCH"
Instruction above will first navigate your console to the home directory, download infrastructure initialization script, verify a checksum of the file and execute it. Checking of the sha256 hash of the file is used to ensure integrity of the downloaded file. If hash verification fails you should not attempt to execute the code unless testing demo releases on isolated and disposable VM.
If execution of the initialization script was successful you will see installation process taking place (essential dependencies), followed by TERMS & CONDITIONS communicate.
After continuing, you will be presented with a “Demo Mode” available as a single deployment option. (In the future milestones modes such as “Validator Mode” and “Sentry Mode” will be available).
Select option [1] to proceed then Quick Setup [1] again in the following submenu. The advanced setup [2] is not intended for the scope of milestone one and is used to change branches from which code of the software stack is downloaded.
Depending on your internet connection the very first setup might take between 45 minutes and multiple hours. It is possible that due to insufficient network connection speed the process might fail. In such a case you can start again proceeding with the step 1 of the setup instructions. Every time setup is executed it should be faster as dependencies are installed only once and their changes tracked.
If the final result is a “FINISHED: LAUNCH SCRIPT” notification followed by exit code 0, then the execution was successful and after clicking continue the KIRA Manager tool will appear (it might take a couple of seconds to load). If you accidentally close the window you will always be able to access the manager by simply typing “kira” in the window of your console or terminal.
KIRA Network Manager
The first section the Network Manger (kira ) home screen provides information such as resource utilization, network name, current blockchain height, local IP address, public IP address, name of the default network adapter (eth0 in our example) and status. If the network is healthy the status is green, if the network fails any of the health checks the status will turn red.
Second section presents a list of deployed containers, their names, status and health. Selecting a numeric opton [0], [1] … [n] will automatically open KIRA Container Manager, allowing for managing, inspecting and previewing detailed information in regards to individual containers.
Third section allows for interacting with ALL containers at once, that is stopping them, staring, pausing (freezing) and re-starting. If by any chance any parts of your infrastructure failed it is recommended to use [R]estart option as it will also re-initialize networking.
Final section of the kira manager allows to save all logs and configurations into a single ZIP file which can be used for the purpose of debugging. You should never share those logs with untrusted parties as they can contain sensitive information about your machine such as configuration files, IP addresses and potentially passwords and other secrets. Option [I] has the same effect as executing the setup command and makes it simpler to rebuild your entire setup if something goes wrong and you manage to irreversibly break the infrastructure.
KIRA Container Manager
Container manager is a tool which appears after selecting a numeric option [0], [1] … [n] within the KIRA Network Manager tool its purpose is to provide detailed information in regards to individual containers.
First section provides information such as container name including prefix and suffix of the container ID, repository (optional) and branch relevant to the software stack deployed within the container, port map which details how internal ports are mapped to the external ports (accessible from the host) and IP addresses of the container in each of the subnet they belongs to.
Second section provides detailed status such as host name, state of the container and the health information.
Final section enables control of the individual containers, that is restart, start, stop, dumping all logs and inspecting the virtualized operating system. In the case where the node fails, [L]ogs option enables previewing docker logs without need to enter (inspect) the virtual operating system within the container and making it very easy to report the potential issues.
Inspecting containers can be treated as accessing a virtualized operating system, that is entering the OS from within the OS (inception). By selecting that option you will find yourself within a virtualized ubuntu shell that allows access to the file system and all applications installed within that isolated OS.
Milestone Challenges
We are presenting here a list of potential test cases which can be performed by the Selected Phase 0 Participants and their successful or unsuccessful execution reported to the pinned in the KIRA Testers Private group. Completing any of the test case suggestions is optional for all participants. The scope of your report can widely differ from any of the mentioned test cases as long as it is valuable and insightful in the context of improving the software and the future user experience.
There are no limitations in terms of how many reports you can submit however their content must be sufficiently detailed. All your findings have to be submitted to the report submission form before the 8’th January 2020 and no other channels of communication will be taken into account. Helping other testnet participants in solving their issues is allowed however will not result in higher scores.
Test Case Suggestions
Install kira manger and deploy infrastructure in the Demo Mode
Test all available options in the Network and Container manager
Attempt to cause total or partial infrastructure failure while interacting with the machine remotely (from outside of the host)
Test maximum duration of the infrastructure operation without failure
Provide insight and suggestions in regards to user experience and how it can be improved
Provide insight and suggestions in regards to improving security
Provide insight and suggestions (or create a tutorial) how to deploy KIRA Infrastructure on your unique (unusual or low power) hardware setup such as Raspberry PI 4 (including all prerequisites such as memory flashing, upgrading etc..)
Create PR to the kira github repository which improves performance, user experience, console interface, security or other aspects of the infrastructure operation
Foreword
We want to thank everyone for supporting KIRA and wish everyone Happy New Years 2021! We aim to continue delivering exciting developments and hope to bring even more decentralized joy in the coming months : )
…
Website: https://kira.network
Telegram: https://tg.kira.network
Twitter: https://twitter.kira.network
Support: https://support.kira.network
Medium: https://medium.kira.network | https://medium.com/kira-core/kira-testnet-phase-0-milestone-1-f667b1522b31 | [] | 2020-12-31 13:54:09.838000+00:00 | ['Testnet', 'Innovation', 'Decentralized', 'Launch', 'Blockchain Application'] |
Assignment 5: All the Chart Types | Midterm
My Flourish Graph [Link Below]:
Americans laugh a lot at animals, toys and silly, heartwarming duos
I decided to compare American comedy weekend and gross box office numbers, as well as audience ratings, to the British Film Institute data I used in my previous chart. I took the IMDB Box Office Mojo Domestic chart for the same weekend of June 28–30, 2019, and exactly like my previous chart, organized the top 15 comedy films out of the list of films playing that weekend across America and compared weekend gross, total domestic gross to date, and Rotten Tomatoes audience ratings. I chose Rotten Tomatoes ratings over IMDB audience ratings because Rotten Tomatoes is an American site. IMDB, although now owned by Amazon, was created and based in the UK, and contains more international traffic overall — most Rotten Tomatoes critics and users I’ve come across are American. Through comparing BFI and American cinema data, I found that American comedies were harder to find after the animated films and further down the list. Both British and American audiences responded well to the popular animated/Disney films; Aladdin and Toy Story 4 mainly. However, the USA has bigger numbers with more silly, slapstick and cartoon-y type comedies (Shazam!, The Hustle) and follows the steeping numbers with Pikachu popularity. In the UK, darker, dryer and more sarcastic comedies (Dr. Strangelove, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Sometimes Always Never) came sooner down the list with bigger numbers than that of any slapstick/family/duo comedies. Brits prefer darker, dryer and even vintage comedy films (Kind Hearts, Strangelove), while Americans gravitate toward animals, animated features, comic book characters and silly family duo movies (A Dog’s Journey, Late Night, Being Frank) — lighter themes.
One Dataset, 10 Ways
Chosen Data: America’s Favorite Fast Food Pizza (circa 2015)
The Actual Data (for reference):
Data Source: marketforce.com
10 Graphs:
Graph #1
Graph #2
Graph #3
Graph #4
Graph #5
Graph #6
Graph #7
Graph #8
Graph #9 | https://medium.com/@emily-dosal/assignment-5-all-the-chart-types-a889fcd2c67a | ['Emily Dosal'] | 2020-10-07 18:46:22.597000+00:00 | ['Data Journalism', 'Film Data', 'USA', 'Data Viz', 'UK'] |
What Can a 9,000-Year-Old Woman Tell Us About Our Gender Biases? | What Can a 9,000-Year-Old Woman Tell Us About Our Gender Biases?
Reimagination of an early South American hunter
(Credit: Sonora Hills, 2020)
A taruca deer, grazing on shrubs in the grasslands of Peru, only has moments to live. Too late, it pauses to sniff the air. Humans, crouched with spear-throwers are only meters away. The taruca turns to run, but an 18-year-old hunter rises from the grass in front of it and sends a thin, stone-tipped spear deep into its chest. The hunter leaps forward to grab onto the antlers, holding down its head for another to deliver the final blow.
Nine thousand years later, the hunter’s grave is found. Time has destroyed everything but her crumbling skull and a pile of sharpened stone hunting tools. The hunter was a woman.
She wasn’t the only one, either — 30 to 50% of big-game hunters at this time were female. Did ancient humans not have today’s gender roles?
The 17–19 year old female hunter, buried with her tools. Skull is top left.
(Credit: Haas et al., Science Advances, 2020)
For many modern women, gender biases dictate their ideal behaviour, appearance, and jobs. Women are expected to raise children and care for their families. Even with so many women now in the workforce, studies show that we are biased towards thinking that women work easier, less-demanding jobs. For instance, we expect nurses to be female and doctors to be male. This isn’t based on technological advancements or level of society, either — modern hunter-gatherers have male hunters and female gatherers. If men and women worked side-by-side doing the same, difficult jobs 9,000 years ago, then what happened between then and now to give us such strong prejudices?
History shows us that we didn’t always have the same gender norms. In Ancient Greece, it was common for a woman to own her own land. Viking myths often told of Valkyries — fierce warrior women, but until recently, all warrior’s graves were thought to be male. That is until a DNA test showed that one of their middle-aged warriors was actually female. Buried with weapons, horses, and game boards which are associated with high-ranking warriors, she supports the theory that Viking warriors weren’t just men. Despite our current prejudices, women who are valued for “male attributes” continuously arise throughout most of history.
Grave of the female viking warrior. Illustration by Evald Hansen based on the original grave plan of Bj 581, by excavator Hjalmar Stolpe. (Credit: Wiley Online Library/The Authors American Journal of Physical Anthropology Published by Wiley Periodicals Inc./CC BY 4.0)
Religion may have played a part in the way society viewed women, as many older civilisations had goddesses praised for their intelligence and strength in battle. In contrast, Christianity, now one of the most popular religions in Europe and the US, sees the ideal woman as a pure and gentle mother. But why did this change in thinking become the western norm? We don’t often consider shifts in thinking or faith, as opposed to physical traits, to be a survival mechanism, but it is one example of how amazing and varied evolution can be.
But how does evolution work? Here is a quick explanation. Every organism on Earth, from bacteria to gorillas is fighting to survive. The more, healthy offspring, the better the chances that a species will survive. Therefore, any behaviour or physical trait that leads to more healthy babies ends up being passed on. Evolution can take millions of years, but we can see evolution over surprisingly short spans of time. Modern humans have only existed for about 300,000 years, but we can see ourselves evolving just over the past few hundred. Lactose tolerance, average height, and blonde hair are all traits that have increased since the medieval ages.
Physical traits aren’t the only things that can evolve — our behaviour can matter just as much for our survival. A risk-taker who loves skydiving and mountain climbing will statistically be less likely to live long enough to produce a lot of children compared to someone who prefers gardening. Going back to gender roles, the question is why did they evolve? What has changed between the hunters of the past and our lives today? There are three potential theories for why early hunters weren’t predominantly men. 1. Without modern technology and agriculture, everyone needed to pitch in to help survival. 2. Women were seen as intellectual and physical equals. And 3. Prehistoric weapons allowed women to hunt alongside men by evening out physical differences.
One idea is that the development of better tools and technology meant that fewer people were needed in demanding roles. Instead of fighting for her family’s survival, our hunter could have spent time resting. Studies show that when women are less stressed they give birth to larger, healthier babies. Before the invention of bows, maybe all hands were needed to bring down a large deer. Looking at other areas in history, women would often help with harder chores, but only when there weren’t enough men to do them, such as during war times. WW1 and WW2 saw a huge surge in working women, with WW2 often credited for creating the ‘career women’ that began moving into the workforce during the 60s.
Another possibility is that 9,000 years ago, women were treated as intellectual and physical equals and therefore shared all roles, including the difficult ones. Instead of being expected to rear children, women may have been able to choose which tasks they enjoyed most. Looking at modern, non-patriarchal societies helps to see whether this theory could be true.
Most of the world currently has a patriarchal system, with men are still seen as superior to women, but there are several matriarchal societies. While the workings of the societies differ, they all look up to women and leave the majority of decisions to them. The Minangkabau people of Indonesia are currently the largest matriarchal society, with a population of over four million. It is considered ideal for married sisters to live in their mother’s house, with husbands only occasionally visiting. Land ownership is passed down through the women who are also in charge of distributing and cultivating it.
However, there is one big issue with the theory that a matriarchal society was the reason why both genders of early humans hunted. Modern matriarchal societies still primarily associate women with bearing and raising children, not hard physical labour.
Finally, the reason why ancient women shared physically demanding jobs, may lie in their choice of hunting tool. When we think of early humans, we often imagine that their primary tool must have been the bow and arrow. However, bows weren’t used regularly until the ancient Egyptians adopted archery, 5,000 years ago. Our hunter used a long, carved piece of wood fashioned to throw spears, called an atlatl. The atlatl acted as an extra arm joint, giving the user more power and accuracy behind their throws. Today we use a similar, plastic tool to help throw tennis balls for dogs. Distance is also an important factor, as the atlatl is only effective at close range. As men often have longer, stronger arms, it’s plausible that using an atlatl would have allowed our hunter to keep up with her male counterparts. Her smaller size may also have aided her in getting close enough to wound the deer. If gender didn’t matter for successful hunting, then why wouldn’t women help? The invention of archery may have created a greater gender gap, stopping women from hunting, as large bows often require a lot of strength to shoot. This idea is supported by the fact that modern technology often removes physical barriers — it usually doesn’t take brute strength to operate machinery on a building site, feasibly allowing women into a job that has been dominated by men for hundreds of years.
Illustration of the atlatl in use by Sebastião da Silva Vieira
(Credit: Foods of the natives of the New World. Barueri, São Paulo. Sá. 2014, 403 p.)
The atlatl, however, has been mostly abandoned by hunter-gatherer tribes. Only a few Yupik Eskimos in Alaska use the atlatl, which they call nuqaq, to hunt seals. If the nuqaq were commonly used by both men and women, then this would support our theory. However, despite the occasional woman taking part during family hunting, seal hunting with the nuqaq is a tradition passed down through men.
In many ways, it seems like there isn’t just one reason why modern hunter gatherers have male hunters and female gatherers — it may have been a mixture of these theories and others. But it’s also important to question why we’re so surprised that our hunter was a woman.
Gender biases dictate many of our assumptions. In the last few years, these assumptions have been increasingly scrutinised in the field of archaeology. It isn’t uncommon for archaeologists to question findings when they don’t align with modern gender roles: did I make a mistake? Was this woman an outlier? Are they actually male? The problem is when findings are dismissed or ignored. If we constantly assume that our view of gender has been static since the beginning of human evolution, then we can’t learn about our history.
Modern gender assumptions are not ‘natural’ or ‘set in stone’, they’re simply a product of time. Our recent ancestors may have benefitted from them, but our hunter’s ancestors clearly didn’t. It’s important to recognise that our thoughts and beliefs evolve over time, just like our bodies do — what will archaeologists think about us in another 9,000 years? | https://aninjusticemag.com/what-can-a-9-000-year-old-woman-tell-us-about-our-gender-biases-2551581be552 | ['Sonora Hills'] | 2020-12-18 13:56:35.162000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Culture', 'Gender', 'History', 'Feminism'] |
Zano Bi-weekly Report (23rd August 2021) | There’s a lot happening in the world of Zano, so let’s get straight to it.
Wrapped Zano (wZANO)
We mentioned in the last biweekly that testing on wZano had already begun. It helped us uncover some additional ways in which we could optimize the system and our setup, so part of the last two weeks were spent making the necessary changes and hardening overall system security. The platform’s been designed to work over long periods with minimal intervention, so as not to pull the devs away from other work unnecessarily. One significant issue we had was with the Etherscan API, which would occasionally stop responding for 5–10 mins at a time. Not helpful for testing and definitely not reliable enough for when the wrapping service goes live. Pavel came up with a different approach which, we’re happy to report, is functioning much more reliably.
Unwrap Service Interface
So the system itself is done, the unwrap webpage is finished (as you can see) and wZano has now been officially deployed on the Ethereum main net (Etherscan link). Work on the UI for mobile/desktop has already started, so we’re very close to the final testing round, the wrapped token’s launch and Zano’s entrance into the electrifying world of Decentralized Finance.
Logo/branding explorations
Last time we revealed that we’ve been exploring branding ideas. More accurately, we’ve been working closely with a design company for some time through various stages of design→feedback→revision in search of the perfect logo for Zano. We just received the designers’ latest presentation and we’re really pleased with what we’ve seen. No timelines yet, but we’re certain that most of you guys will be just as impressed with the results as we have been.
PoS with Hidden Amounts Scheme
There’s been quite a bit of excitement around Val’s research paper since its release — there was a very active discussion on the Monero subreddit, though, frustratingly, a lot of the comments didn’t pertain to Val’s scheme directly, but only to the old Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake holy war (which is even less relevant to Zano given our hybrid PoW/PoS scheme). The comments that did address the scheme itself were almost universally positive.
We’ve also been lucky enough to get the opinions of two very highly respected cryptographers/researchers, which led to some clarifications and additions to the paper. Both have concluded, after provisional inspection, that the scheme indeed appears to be sound. We’re now making arrangements for the paper to be properly peer reviewed.
We can’t overstate the importance of this work. Proof of Stake with hidden amounts was generally believed to be impossible up until now. Not only does it allow Zano to achieve a much higher default level of privacy, it does the same for all CryptoNote-based proof of stake coins. There’s a good chance that many projects outside of our own are going to benefit greatly from this work over time.
zNFTs
You’re all no doubt aware of the NFT (Non-fungible Token) craze — the most popular NFT marketplace has already reached $1b in volume for this month alone. So it might come as a surprise to you that Zano has had a form of NFT built-in since it launched. Maybe you’ve already guessed what they are: Aliases (not all NFTs are art-related […or without utility]). You can think of them as Non-fungible Identity Tokens.
Real heroes retweet.
With that in mind, we’d like to ask you all for your ideas and feedback. The larger NFT ecosystem is probably something that many of you guys have a lot more experience with than the team does. Though we already have NFT support in a limited sense, adding support for more generalized NFTs would still take a significant amount of time and work. Before committing resources to it, we’d have to be sure it’s worthwhile.
Do you think there is something we’d bring to the table that’d be a unique selling point for NFTs on Zano? Perhaps a new form of NFT or new application that makes use of Zano’s privacy features?
If you have any original ideas we’d love to hear them. Leave us a comment, or write to us on discord/telegram/reddit.
After wZano?
After discussions, the team has decided that as soon as wZano goes live, they will set to work on giving Zano a significant privacy upgrade (made possible by Val’s new PoS scheme). Both Andre and Val will tackle this as a priority. The upgrade will bring RingCT (Ring Confidential Transactions) and Bulletproofs+ to Zano: RingCT keeps transaction amounts hidden and Bulletproofs+ help ensure the precise integrity of funds by serving as highly-efficient range proofs.
As we’ve said before, this will give us a level of privacy that is equal to, or beyond, that of any other CryptoNote-derived coin (so we can finally unleash those privacy-coin comparison charts!).
“Wen Marketing?”
Since the last update, we’ve also dipped our toe into the murky waters of online advertising, with a short series of Twitter ad campaigns. Being our first time using the platform for ads, there was some trial and error involved, but after some refinements we achieved promising results. Our opinion so far is that it might be a good strategy to have a constantly running small-scale, highly targeted campaign to bring in new followers while using short-term large-scale campaigns to improve reach when we make major announcements. We’ll continue to experiment and let you know our findings.
Community Rock Stars
This is a new section in which we give a shout out to Zano community members who’ve gone beyond the call of duty and made especially great contributions. If it’s ever empty, you’ll know that the community’s characteristic passivity has reached problematic levels. ;)
This week we’d like to acknowledge the contributions of one Mr_Kwibs.
Mr_Kwibs has shown us continuous public support, with positive and informative tweets about the project and by including Zano in some of his own promotional campaigns. In private, he’s always quick to offer us a little advice or share an opportunity with us and as a popular and respected member of the crypto privacy community he’s been doing great work to unify and galvanize its various factions. So thanks for all you do Mr_Kwibs!! | https://medium.com/zano-news/zano-bi-weekly-report-23rd-august-2021-a797ce4b7179 | [] | 2021-08-23 17:24:11.537000+00:00 | ['Privacy', 'Proof Of Stake', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Zano', 'Blockchain'] |
The Logo Design Process | Hello! Designing a logo for your game is not something I’ve seen covered too many times, even though the game logo is an important part of marketing on platforms like itch.io and Steam. A well designed game logo can convey the mood of the game and make it stand out in a crowd.
In this post I will share my logo design process, as well as link to some great resources for learning about graphics design. I want to point out that this is not a software tutorial.
I’ve been working professionally as a graphics designer and illustrator since 2012 and I’m currently working on a short surreal immersive VR experience called DunDun together with my brother and a friend.
The Process of Designing a Logo for Your Game
This article is about the necessary steps to produce a logo for your game. When dealing with clients there will obviously be more steps involved, from the initial background check to time plans and contracts. I’m not writing about those things as my intentions are for you to get started designing your own game logo, not someone else’s.
At the very least, I want to help you understand and better communicate with your graphics designer. I will assume that you have already picked an awesome name for your game.
A summary of the Logo Design Process.
Research. Your initial research should include at least the following information:
■ A brief description about your game. Can you summarize the game in one short sentence?
■ Who is your target audience? (What kind of a player).
■ Who are your main competitors? How do they work with their branding?
■ What makes your game unique in comparison to your competitors?
■ What keywords should be associated with your game? Be specific and keep it three to six words.
■ “Do’s and Don’ts” in regards to the logo design, within your specific genre.
Be honest with yourself and do proper research! This information is essential as it will dictate your design decisions going forward.
Create a Design brief and a Mood board. The above information should be summarized in a design brief. This document will be the foundation for the design of your game logo. Every decision you make should be based on this information, which is why the design brief is very important. It can be a simple text document with the information presented in a bulleted list. Try to keep it two pages maximum.
The Design brief and Mood board.
The mood board is a visual exploration based on the information gathered so far. After all, the end product is a visual one. Collect graphics, fonts, inspiring photos, colors, patterns and anything else that will help concretize and clarify the design brief. Treat it as a sketch and make several iterations if needed. Make the most important imagery bigger and add text captions that explains why you picked those images. This is especially important if you are showing someone else your mood board without being present yourself. Nothing in the mood board is final! An alternative to using any graphics software is to use Pinterest.
Explore ideas. Don’t get stuck on any one particular idea at first, even if you have come up with a really good one. You could start sketching right away if you want, but I find mind-mapping to be a very useful tool to start off with. Mind-mapping helps you brainstorm ideas and structure these visually.
You could also do other “word association” exercises. Find the best methods that work for you. Google will help you with this.
Rest! Sleep on it and let your unconscious mind process the information. Do something else and return well rested. I find that working intensely and then taking a longer break can work really well for your creativity muscles.
Don’t forget to take breaks!
Sketch. I prefer to sketch with pen on paper simply because that is the quickest way for me to get my ideas out. No clunky software to worry about. You might sketch digitally though, and that is perfectly fine. I would urge you not to use any colors at this stage. The shape, or silhouette, is more important. Nail that first, then worry about color.
Sketch a lot and sketch fast! The point is to get many different ideas out as fast as possible. Your initial ideas are likely what most people will first think of, so don’t get too hung up on those. For me, sketching is a way of thinking with my hand. It’s first when you put “pen on paper” that you will notice if your idea really works. When you have produced some solid sketches, pick the best ones. I usually settle for one or two designs.
■ Keep the shapes of your symbol simple. This is especially important since it needs to be readable in very small formats.
■ Your game name is enough though for a logo, you don’t necessarily need to have a symbol as well.
■ Go with one strong idea instead of several. Your logo can’t say everything.
■ Ask someone for feedback!
■ Squint. Is the shape still readable?
■ Flip it to get a fresh perspective on the design (use a mirror if sketching with pen on paper).
■ Scale the logo down and enlarge it as well. Does it still hold up?
Create mockups. When the shape is decided upon, it’s time to focus more on color. Color is a tough subject. I recommend researching your specific genre and other games like your own. How are they using color and what colors are common within your genre? Do you want to stick out or blend in? Maybe the colors in your game logo can relate to the overall color scheme and theme of your game?
■ Keep it simple. A few colors are harder to mess up and it makes the logo more memorable. If I say red and yellow, what company comes to mind?
When you have a decent enough logo (polished and at least 90% finished), make some mock-ups, like a business card or perhaps a pin. Take a screenshot from Steam and itch.io’s main pages and place your logo/capsule art amongst everything else. Does it stand out? Is the logo clearly visible against both light and dark backgrounds? Is your symbol readable as a Twitter profile picture? If you have not decided on a final logo yet, the mock-ups will most likely help you with that decision.
What do the colors and shapes say about the game?
Tweak, after some more rest. It’s important to distance yourself from the work from time to time. If you can, get feedback, then tweak if needed. Some things to think about when designing and using the logo:
■ Formats and sizes. I try to work as much as possible with vector art or in 3D, as the logo will then be scalable without becoming blurry. If you’re working in a painting software like Photoshop, make sure to set the resolution to at least 4K.
■ You should be working in RGB (Red Green Blue) color space to not limit your available colors. Be aware that very vibrant colors will not print as seen on screen, because they will be printed in CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow Key/Black).
■ Be consistent when utilizing the logo. Don’t rotate or skew it. Always scale the logo proportionally!
■ Let the logo “breathe”, which means that you should be generous with margins. Otherwise the design might feel cramped. Also make sure that there is enough contrast so that the logo is clearly visible against the background. A good idea is to make both a black and white version of the logo as a “back-up” for when the primary isn’t clearly readable and therefore can’t be used.
■ Use the logo on everything you share publicly and be consistent with placement. The logo should be present, but it shouldn’t take focus away from whatever it is you are showing off — unless it is the logo itself.
Hey, it’s not rocket science! Congrats, you now (hopefully) have a nicely designed game logo that you can be proud of! If not, well, you could always hire someone :)
Maybe it actually is rocket science…
Join our discord, share your work, get feedback and talk about games. We’d love to see you there! You can find out more about our game project over at anananasstudio.se and sign up for our newsletter.
If you have any questions for me, helpful tips or perhaps examples of nice game logos, please share them in the comments.
Book Recommendations
Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits, by Debbie Millman
Logo Design Love, by David Airey ← A lot of useful info on his website
Thinking With Type, by Ellen Lupton
Interaction of Color, by Josef Albers
Picture This: How Pictures Work, by Molly Bang
Bonus
The Vignelli Canon (free PDF-file), by Massimo Vignelli
How to make a Steam page (free course), by Chris Zukowski ← Check out his blog as well!
Marks of Excellence, by Per Mollerup
Thoughts on Design, by Paul Rand
Color Palette by “TheArtisan” | https://medium.com/@anananasstudio/the-logo-design-process-5990b8ef6520 | ['Anananas Studio'] | 2021-06-17 15:07:34.164000+00:00 | ['Game Logo', 'Game Development', 'Graphics Design', 'Design Process', 'Logo Design'] |
Why you should take bigger risks | THINKING ABOUT RISK
How do we define risk?
Dictionary definitions classify risk as an exposure to danger, harm or loss, but this does little to discuss the probabilities and potentiality behind risk endowed events.
Finance professionals are amongst those who have tried to quantify risk by linking it to the volatility of stock returns. The logic assumes that one any given day, the returns on a stock are random, with probabilities spread across a standard distribution curve, creating a linear risk profile for the returns. Hence, their definition of risk is inherently statistical, and the linearity of returns poses a tradeoff scenario, where it’s assumed returns cannot be increased without also increase risk.
There are, however, fallacies with this assumption, that fail to create an accurate model with applications outside of the niche sector of investment management. Let’s take the measure of volatility. High volatility means is the price of a stock fluctuates greatly upwards, downwards, or in a wave. Low volatility conversely means there is little movement in the price of the stock, which is linked to little risk in the stock. This is inherently not true. Volatile assets are not necessarily risky, the risk lays in the underlying asset, and whether or not the asset has a significant probability of leading to ruin. A non-volatile asset may comparatively be risky, if there exist possibilities that the asset could face extreme outflows, or fall to zero contingent on an event occurring. So, while I’m not saying volatility is utterly redundant as a measure of risk, it’s not a comprehensive measure of risk, especially outside of investment management.
Non-linearity of risk
Again, we are quashing the assumptions that finance literature has provided us with, to get a more detailed understanding of the reality behind risk. As mentioned, volatility leads into the discussion of risk in a linear relationship with reward, i.e. for every 10% increase in risk, our expected value (of payoff) increases by 10%.
However, I propose that this is not the case. Risks are very rarely binary, with static win-loss outcomes. In most cases, risks involve a consortium of factors, creating complexity around the situation, thereby creating non-linearity in the outcomes. This, for example, can lead onto 10x, 100x, or 1000x returns to the upside, or a downward spiral when things take a turn for the worst, bringing us onto the next topic for discussion.
Size matters…
Despite what some may say in other area’s of life, when it comes to risk, size DOES matter. We accept the notion, ‘it’s not about how often one is right, but rather the magnitude of the payoff when one is right.’ Take an investing example. It doesn’t matter how many of the investor’s stock’s make them money, but rather the amount that the investments generate in absolute terms.
Investing analogies are quite conceptually easy when thinking of risk. So to further justify the importance of size, we have an example in the world of politics from Naseem Talib, in his book Skin in the Game. When it comes to public policy, intolerant minorities can (and will) destroy tolerant majorities. The potential size of the impact is more important than the likelihood of the result, especially when the impact could be detrimental (deadly) to the agent involved.
Leading on from this, is the discussion of differentiating risk — ruin & failure. In his book Anti-Fragile, Talib discusses the distinction at length, but effectively it comes down to; does this action contain the possibility of minor harm, or death? We must avoid situations involving low (or any) probability of death at all costs, because no matter how low the odds, there is no recovery from a ‘ruin’ outcome. Contrast this with the risk of failure. Amazon encourages its firm to try, and fail in numerous projects, so long as they won’t cause structural issues (ruin) to the firm.
Embrace being wrong when it’s not costly, and doesn’t count. Trial and error is an integral part of development, be that personal or product, which allows you to take directional steps forward, rather than comically walking back and forth until the ground slowly wears away beneath your feet. | https://medium.com/@S.G.Smith/why-you-should-take-bigger-risks-8e7537ae3e83 | ['Samuel G. Smith'] | 2019-09-13 07:15:18.777000+00:00 | ['Venture Capital', 'Risk Taking', 'Risk Management', 'Risk', 'Ambition'] |
Tips to Help You Eliminate Your Writer’s Block | Tips to Help You Eliminate Your Writer’s Block
There’s nothing more frustrating than staring at a blinking cursor on a blank page while your fingers hover over the keyboard. You know what you want to say, but how you’re going to say it is still a big question.
A writer’s block is often more than simply experiencing a lack of inspiration. It can come from an anxiousness to write, a lack of self-motivation, a feeling of inadequacy or an unhealthy amount of self-criticism. All of these are serious issues that should be solved by pushing through and doing one thing: writing. If you have a story to tell, you have to believe that you can tell it. To hopefully make the process a bit easier, we’ve collected some tips that might help you with that.
Create a pre-writing ritual
Something Toni Morrison — who sadly passed away earlier this week — observed, was that it works to perform a ritual every time you start writing. For her, this ritual was waking up before sunrise, making a cup of coffee and drinking it while the first sun rays touched the earth. A friend of hers, she said, would touch a specific item on her desk every time before she started working. Whatever your ritual is, it creates a way for your body and mind to know it’s time to get into “writer’s mode.”
Get rid of distractions
When a whole world is available to explore with the click of a few buttons, it’s really easy to get distracted. A daily tumble down the YouTube/Instagram/Twitter/Facebook hole can cost you hours without noticing. So turn of your WiFi, put your phone in a drawer and move away from the TV. Get rid of that stack of magazines you still need to read and plan a moment to clean your house while you are not trying to write. Create a distraction-free environment so all there is to do is write.
Find inspiration
Sometimes, all your brain needs is a spark of inspiration. Read a book to get a feel of how other authors’ sentences flow, listen to songs to hear how lyricists play with words, or look at paintings to see how painters bring objects to life with the stroke of a brush. Seeing how others have used their creativity to convey emotion might help you see things with fresh eyes.
Do a writing exercise
When you’re experiencing certain pains, a doctor will tell you to push through it, keep moving around and flexing your muscles. That’s what you have to do when you’re in a writing rut. You have to keep writing. If your project feels like it has reached a dead end, leave it for a minute and write about something completely different. Try finding a fun writing prompt, for instance, or do what Ernest Hemingway did and describe an everyday experience in great detail, using all your senses.
Get moving
Go for a walk around the block, head to your local gym or take a swim in a nearby lake. Whatever your preference, get your body in action. Movement is known to clear your mind. So getting your blood pumping will get those creative juices flowing.
Change of scenery
Whether you work in an office or write behind your own desk, at some point, we all need a change of scenery to reset our brain. Find a place that helps to ignite your senses and motivate that brain to push it into gear.
Create a routine
It seems counterintuitive: telling a creative when to be creative. Shouldn’t you wait for creativity to strike? Nope. You should treat writing like any other job and find a routine that works for you. Write around the same time, give yourself a daily word count goal or set a timer. By creating a routine, writing becomes part of your everyday life.
Stop worrying about perfection
Of course we want our writing to be perfect, but when you’re stuck, aiming for perfection is only going to hold you back. If you’re struggling to let every word perfectly encapsulate what you’re trying to say, every sentence flow from the first try, and every chapter make complete sense from start to finish, you’re going to take forever. Instead, try to let go of perfection and just get that first draft on paper. Force yourself to start writing and not stop until you have it. Afterwards, you can always go back to prune, add and tweak.
Do something “normal”
Research has shown that our aha-moments often happen while we’re doing mundane tasks. If you do tasks on “auto pilot” you activate a different part of your brain. The solution to your creative problem might just be there.
Talk about it
Sometimes, there is an idea stuck in your head, dying to get out, but you just can’t find the right words. It could help to ask someone you trust to serve as a sounding board. Explaining your idea to someone else and having them ask questions might give you ideas about how to describe something or where the story should go next. Pro tip: use a recorder and write down notes. We’ve all had that horrible experience of having a breakthrough and not remembering what exactly it was a few minutes later.
Develop your characters
Are you writing fiction? Take a deep-dive into your characters’ lives. Create detailed profiles, backstories, looks, mannerisms and timelines for them. You might not use any of the details you come up with, but it will make you understand them better. This will make you see things more clearly when you’re working on a story. If you know Character A intimately, you’ll have a better grasp of how he or she would act in a certain situation.
Have your own tips for how to combat writer’s block? We would love to hear them. Let us know in the comments. | https://medium.com/publishizer/tips-to-help-you-eliminate-your-writers-block-324329ef7baa | [] | 2019-08-07 14:46:32.723000+00:00 | ['Writing Tips', 'Writers Block', 'Writing', 'Toni Morrison', 'Publishing'] |
The Woman Who Survived a Meteorite Attack | The Woman Who Survived a Meteorite Attack
Ann Hodges was probably the only person in history to be hit by a meteorite in her Alabama home in 1954.
Image Credits: ThisisAlabama
Is there anything in the universe that is so dangerous that it can wipe out all of us instantly?
It is a meteorite. Let us say, if a one-kilometer long meteorite were to hit Mumbai city, this is what will happen.
· A deep crater at least 10–20 times the diameter of the meteorite would be formed at the impacted site, flattening everything all around it.
· The shock of the collision would create a massive earthquake of more than 10 on the Richter scale that would wipe out almost the entire population of the bustling city.
· If the meteorite falls in the sea, a massive tsunami would drown the city.
· And after the impact, the dust and debris would block the sun for months leading to diseases and drought.
In short, it would be a human and environmental disaster of massive proportions that would take years to recoup from the destruction.
Scary? Isn’t it?
Now the good part,
According to Tulane University environmental sciences professor Stephen A. Nelson, the chances of getting killed by a meteorite is only 1 in 250,000(almost negligible!).In fact, there is more probability of you getting murdered (1 in 185), killed by a cyclone (1 in 60,000), drowned by floods (1 in 27,000), and killed in an airplane crash (1 in 30,000).
But then weird things happen and that was what exactly happened to Ann Hodges on a quiet afternoon in 1954 when a softball-sized chunk of black rock broke through her ceiling, bounced off a radio, and hit her in the thigh, leaving her with a deep pineapple-shaped bruise. | https://medium.com/the-collector/the-woman-who-survived-a-meteorite-attack-c41b2807ca9f | ['Mythili The Dreamer'] | 2020-12-11 16:19:45.528000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Space', 'Feminism', 'World', 'History'] |
Replace master branch in Git, entirely, from another branch | It’s for Newbie (Not recommended in production)
Let’s say you have two branches in my Git repository:
master branch1 (created originally from master )
Situation 1:
Couple of months ago and the code in this branch is 15 versions ahead of master
or
Situation 2:
you messed up your master and you had initial copy with branch.
Solution
git checkout branch1
git merge -s ours master
git checkout master
git merge branch1
git push --force origin master
The result should be your master is now essentially branch1.
( -s ours is short for --strategy=ours )
This resolves any number of heads, but the resulting tree of the merge is always that of the current branch head, effectively ignoring all changes from all other branches. It is meant to be used to supersede old development history of side branches. Note that this is different from the -Xours option to the recursive merge strategy.
Note : If you get fatal refusing to merge unrelated histories , then change the second line to this: git merge --allow-unrelated-histories -s ours master
Refer : https://git-scm.com/docs/git-merge | https://medium.com/@ivarunkumar007/replace-master-branch-in-git-entirely-from-another-branch-7e496c7bc920 | ['Varunkumar Inbaraj'] | 2020-12-23 05:36:12.709000+00:00 | ['Check In', 'Github', 'Git', 'Gitlab', 'Checkout'] |
Triexta Carpet | What is Triexta Carpet and how do you clean it | Manchester House Cleaning Services | Triexta has not been around that long, but it is quickly becoming a popular choice.
Triexta carpet is quickly becoming a popular choice in synthetic carpet flooring. Each type of carpet fibre has its advantages and what you choose depends on your needs.
Triexta carpet is becoming more and more popular. If you have been in the market for new carpet flooring you may not have heard the name but you have come across it. Triexta may still be hard to come by in the UK and if you don’t seek it out it may not be a choice that is offered to you. However, Triexta is quickly gaining in popularity. Triexta will be commonly sold under the brand name Smartstrand in the UK.
In 2009 Dupont petitioned the Federal Trade Commission (an independent governmental institution in the US that is largely responsible for enforcing antitrust laws and consumer protection) to establish a new fibre subclass name and nest it under the existing “polyester” classification. That new fibre was called poly trimethylene terephthalate (PTT) or Triexta. Triexta is essentially a polyester polymer, it is largely similar to polyester after its approval by the FTC PTT is classified as a new synthetic fibre subset and is only referred to as Triexta.
Polyester carpet has existed for more than 70 years, and Triexta has been used for just over 10 years, in comparison, it is a relative newcomer.
We will examine everything you need to know about what Triexta is from how it’s manufactured to its specific cleaning requirements.
Suggested: Carpet Fibers | What different types of carpet fibres are there | Manchester House Cleaning Services
What is Triexta and how is it made?
In short, Triexta is essentially a polyester polymer.
Ok, but what does that mean? Triexta is only exclusively used for the production of commercial and domestic carpets. Poly trimethylene terephthalate was first synthesized and patented in the 1940s however its production made it impossible for it to be commercially produced at the time. The production of PTT was stopped in the mid-1960s up until the mid-1990s. PTT or Triexta is synthesized by the polycondensation of trimethylene glycol with either a terephthalic acid or dimethyl terephthalate. PTT is very similar to other polyester fabrics, exhibiting many of the same qualities. PTT has better tensile and flexural strengths and greater stiffness. Triexta carpet is essentially made out of plastic, therefore it is water-resistant, however, it is affected by surface tension (in normal words if you drag heavy furniture over Triexta carpet it can easily be damaged). PTT combines the durability and resistance of polyester and the elasticity of nylon. Triexta is a thermoplastic that is spun into fibres. PTT is essentially classified as an aromatic polyester. Triexta’s applications in carpet and textiles are limitless, it can be printed in a large number of patterns, it holds dye well, it has the resistance and strength of polyester and the flexibility of nylon. Triexta carpet has inherent softness, by the most simple definition we can formulate it is essentially made out of plastic, therefore it is moisture and mould resistant, it also possesses a good level of stain resistance and is ultimately affordable. A slight classification on the name- poly trimethylene terephthalate (shortened to PTT) is the chemical substance name, after the Federal Trade Commission approved poly trimethylene terephthalate as a new subclass of polyester-based fabrics they noted that “henceforth PTT is to be known by the name Triexta and no longer will be designated under the polyester classification”. Triexta is a petroleum bi-product. After being patented in the early 1940s it did not immediately gain much traction due to the nylon being predominantly used, it took until 1999 until Triexta became commonly available. Triexta is comprised of terephthalic acid and 1,3-propanediol (PTT), it is a thermoplastic that can be spun into yarns and carpet Triexta carpet has some excellent properties.
Suggested: How To Save Money When Cleaning Your Home?
Triexta Characteristics.
Triexta is as resistant as nylon and has the same elasticity as polyester. Triexta carpet has been shown to hold up very well to heavy traffic and heavy soiling, in appearance, it differs from polyester, polyester has a shinier finish, Triexta will have a matte finish. Triexta carpet holds dye well, Triexta carpet can come in many different colours. Triexta is stain resistant against most common stains, however, as a petroleum bi-product, it is susceptible to oil-based stains. Triexta is inherently hydrophobic and water-resistant. It can be used in humid areas because it will not easily develop mould. As far as overall stain resistance goes, Triexta fairs quite well. Triexta will not absorb moisture and most stains can easily be eliminated without having to be spot treated with stain removing agents. The appearance of Triexta carpets will not dull with time, it resists UV rays, therefore, direct exposure to sunlight seems to not affect Triexta. Triexta can hold up against even tough stains, coffee, red wine and if you have pets or kids it can be a good choice for carpet flooring due to the overall excellent stain resistance it offers. Triexta can also be found in an environmentally friendly option. DuPont switched the production method used for manufacturing Triexta from using plastic bi-products to using corn glucose. This was done in an attempt to lower production costs, while previously recycled plastic was used to manufacture Triexta, DuPont began bio-fermenting corn glucose and using it in Triexta production. Corn glucose is a renewable and greener source, therefore, Triexta does have at least partial eco-friendly characteristics. As far as costs, well Triexta is expensive. It is not as expensive as natural carpet fibres but compared to polyester and nylon Triexta is not the most affordable option. However, that cost is at least partially justified by the overall properties Triexta has, other than the mentioned stain and wear resistance Triexta has inherent softness. There is no need to treat Triexta with special stain-resistant chemicals after manufacturing, as is the case for polyester and nylon, it is naturally stain-resistant. These chemicals tend to make synthetic fabrics rougher when compared to Triexta. Triexta has a soft and luxurious feel.
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Triexta Cons.
The biggest disadvantage Triexta has is its track record. It is in comparison to polyester and especially nylon a relative newcomer. There are in theory many advantages Triexta has over other options in the synthetic carpet fibre field, however, those have not been tested. Only time will tell if Triexta has the durability to damage, the stain-resistance needed to make it the preferred choice for synthetic carpet fibres. We are yet to see how will Triexta perform during the average lifecycle for carpet flooring, about 10–15 years. Also, there is the price. In the UK you can find Triexta under the name Smartstrands and prices here are on the higher side of the price range. Triexta is an investment and an untested one at that. The manufactures have put forth incredible claims about the benefits that Triexta has but only time and testing will tell how much of those are based in reality and how much is marketing. If you take into account how new Triexta is and how similar its properties are to nylon there is also the question of why would anyone choose Triexta over nylon? Nylon has been on the market for 70+ years while Triexta has been used for just over a decade. And there is the price we already mentioned, Triexta is more expensive than nylon.
Cleaning Triexta.
Triexta loves oil and attracts oil-based stains like a magnet. Triexta is naturally stain-resistant to most common stains, however, oil-based stains are a major exception. Synthetic carpet fibres are treated with stain-protecting chemicals called fluorochemicals. Fluorochemicals have a hydrocarbon structure and fluorocarbon ends, these chemicals protect carpet fibres from oil and other foreign materials by aligning themselves with the other surface of the carpet fabrics, thus offering a protective barrier between the carpet fibres and surface pollutants. Triexta is not protected with fluorochemicals which can bring about massive challenges for even cleaning professionals. This is why we recommend a reliable, experienced and knowledgeable cleaning company that can provide a professional carpet cleaning service for this type of fabric. Triexta is heat and moisture resistant this is why it is very susceptible to steam cleaning as far as the overall process goes. Professional carpet steam cleaning will use hot water mixed with appropriate types of cleaning detergents. There is very little risk of damage to Triexta carpet when it is steam cleaned. However, Triexta not being treated with stain protecting chemicals mean that Triexta can pose even a challenge for professional cleaners. An experienced carpet cleaning company should know how to treat Triexta specifically.
Suggested: Easy Spring Cleaning Tips and Tricks- How to clean your home like a pro.
Recommendations for domestic carpet cleaning.
As far as DIY uses there are conventional steps you can take to clean Triexta and keep it clean. The first thing is a vacuum, dry vacuum Triexta carpets regularly, this will remove surface debris and please avoid walking with shoes directly over Triexta. If any stains appear immediately try and remove them. The best option is to leave the stain alone and schedule a carpet cleaning service, alternatively do not wipe or agitate stains try and soak them up with slightly damp tissue or a clean cloth. You should not use a brush or any other agitating tool over Triexta, try and wipe stains away instead of scrubbing them away. As far as an overall cleaning recommendation goes, we would definitely suggest that you hoover your Triexta carpet daily and schedule a carpet steam cleaning service at least once every 6 months, preferably once every 3 months. If you are going to purchase and carpet perfume or scent removing detergents avoid oil-based ones, these can seep into the fabric and set as a stain. Try and avoid major water spills or leaks over Triexta, it is in theory water-resistant so the odds of mould or mildew developing are low, however, that is as of now a still untested hypothesis. Triexta is a pretty low maintenance fabric as far as domestic cleaning goes. It performs really well in high traffic areas, especially if you have children or pets. For domestic purposes the usual carpet cleaning procedures apply to Triexta, hoover your Triexta carpet regularly and take care of it. For steam cleaning the first step is to follow the manufacturer’s recommendations to cleaning. Triexta may require some specialized carpet cleaning detergents, however, it may not. Due to its similarity to nylon Triexta should perform well when treated with commercial carpet cleaning solutions. We would avoid agitation or a mechanical brush. We would not suggest a DIY steam cleaning approach to Triexta, however, if you are going to try to use glides and avoid surfactant-based detergents, they may attract soil to the carpet fibres after they have been steam cleaned.
Suggested: Bar and Restaurant Cleaning Checklist — How To Deep Clean Your Business
Call the professionals.
If you are not sure how to clean Triexta you can always contact a reliable professional cleaning company and schedule a carpet cleaning service. Triexta is new, therefore, the exact cleaning requirements will most likely depend on the specific circumstances of your carpet. If you have a prevalent stain call a professional cleaning company immediately, it is your best bet at removing it. Regularly deep cleaning and disinfecting your carpet by scheduling a professional carpet steam cleaning service will not only have short-term benefits but will also help prolong the overall lifespan of your carpet. This also applies to Triexta. | https://medium.com/@office-11008/triexta-carpet-what-is-triexta-carpet-and-how-do-you-clean-it-manchester-house-cleaning-7d2d8969c623 | ['Manchester House Cleaning Services'] | 2021-11-25 17:17:59.990000+00:00 | ['Cleaning', 'Carpet', 'Carpet Cleaning', 'Clean'] |
Tried (& Tested) Community Engagement Tricks To Revive Your Community | Good job! You created a community, you have gathered a lot of people at one place or multiple and everyone seems friendly with each other but wait…
Why are only a few people chatting?
If this is a problem that you are currently facing (getting more people to talk) then read ahead.
Chapter 1: What is Community Engagement and Why It Matters?
Chapter 2: Make it Comfortable
Chapter 3: Allow Them to Build Relationships With Each Other
Chapter 4: Focus on Community Moderation
Chapter 5: Make it Easy to Participate
Chapter 6: Reward Contributors (90–9–1 Rule)
Chapter 7: Properly Welcome Newbies
Bonus Chapter (Case Study): How We Grew Waves’ Engagement Rate Up To 60–80%
Chapter 8: Conclusion
Sadly, community engagement has to be one of the most overlooked metrics in the moderated communities.
It is calculated by the percentage of people participating in the conversations divided by the total number of people within the community.
Around 40–45% is considered ideal whereas below 10% there is a lot of room for improvement.
Communities are formed around people. If there are only certain individuals dominating the conversations, an outbreak of toxicity, or just that the members do not feel invited to speak and express themselves, it will not feel like a community at all.
In the following article, we have outlined our best practices and strategies to boost community engagement or to start building it.
Do not make the atmosphere too serious. People should feel like they are in a warm atmosphere talking to other warm people who are just like them.
If the atmosphere feels too serious or the people feel cold and distant, the newbies will hesitate to speak up because they wouldn’t want to break the ice.
Do not try to push an agenda or a culture on the people within your community. People will quickly notice if you are trying to make them think or feel one way.
If your community is around a cause, be motivational, not strict about it.
PRO TIP: Differentiate your community with honesty, inclusivity and openness. Let people know that it is okay to share their opinions and feelings and encourage empowering others.
As we mentioned in our previous blog about community building, you need to build pathways for people to connect and make friends with each other.
People would often struggle to create relationships over chat and this is why you need to make sure that there are other ways between people to connect.
For instance, some communities offer playing games between the members, others try to get their members to meet in real life.
What we do at Waves is that we schedule video calls between our users and our members have had great conversations and made genuine friendships within our tribe.
You need to ensure that people feel safe. That includes removing any trolls, bullying, and offensive, inappropriate behavior.
The entire atmosphere of your community could change if a few negative influencers are given the freedom to post offensive comments.
INDUSTRY FACT: Many social media networks and communities have suffered due to poor community guidelines and negligence to community moderation.
There is also one thing that ruins communities. Self-promoters. They are easy to identify but hard to remove. People who promote themselves could ruin a community because newbies will not take the community as seriously.
Important to notice here is that you should not go too overboard. If you ban people for little to no reason or over suspicions, people would get very irritated.
Banning people and removing toxicity could be a double-edged sword, especially if this has been the norm until now.
Before sanctioning somebody, make sure to be deserved as well as provide reasoning to what has happened and caused you to punish them.
You need to create multiple entry points and ways to access the online community and to use a call to action to turn observers into contributors.
Those may include: ‘’participate in the challenge‘’, ‘’What do you think about X‘’, ‘’Post your blog‘’, or ‘’Talk about your startup‘’.
Give community members a place to express themselves — make it easy for members to share their stories, experiences and grow their passions — they should feel heard, listened to, and valued.
Invite the members to speak by asking thought-provoking open questions. This opens rooms for discussion that many people would be willing to participate in. These questions may also serve as ‘’ice-breakers‘’.
PRO TIP: What we do at Waves is that at every 48 hours, we send out questions to our members such as: ‘’What is the 1 thing that you want to get out of this community?‘’ or ‘’What is 1 thing that you feel like you are currently lacking and are you working towards improving it?‘’.
Usually, it is relatively easy to spot out the people who are passionate about your tribe. We are firm believers of the 90–9–1 rule of social networks according to which 90% of people are ‘’lurkers ‘’, 9% are intermittent contributors and the 1% are heavy contributors.
After you have identified the 1% (as well as the 9%) pushing forward your community and if you want to further motivate the 90%, it’s time to reward them in some way. We have outlined different rewarding practices:
Badges | Special Roles
The community-building platform Discord is putting this strategy to use. What they allow you to do is that you can assign special roles to the members of your server.
It can be as simple as ‘’[Veteran]‘’ or it can be something more of a ‘’[Contributor]‘’. These roles will be then the differentiator between them and the rest.
Facebook has thought of an interesting badge in their Facebook Groups called ‘’Valued Opinion’’ where you automatically gain it if your comments are gaining a lot of likes because that would mean you have previously solved a problem or helped the community or ‘’Conversation Starter‘’ for the people who start new conversations within the community.
Gamification
Every 48 hours, Sweatcoin offers a game to its users. A question, that if gets answered correctly, you get a chance of winning their cryptocurrency sweatcoins.
Of course, as big as their community is, a lot of people would get the answer right. They then hold a draw to who will win the prize from the people who got the answer correctly.
At Waves, people receive ‘’coconuts‘’ for participating in the discussions and engaging. Then, at the end of each week, the person who has received the most coconuts is announced on our ‘’coconut leaderboard’’ as the winner.
PRO TIP: Waves also uses the coconut scores to track the inactive users within the community and then try to re-engage them to start participating. That would include chatting them personally to see if they have a problem or simply busy. Talking to your community members individually does not scale but it is especially important in the beginning.
Social Validation
The badges, special roles, and gamification all ultimately contribute to the social validation that the users receive from the rewards. They are social signs that they have indeed contributed and moved the tribe forward.
What we love to do every two weeks is that we feature on our social media the current Waver who has the highest coconut score. This way, we are differentiating our superstars and showing our gratitude to them.
Last but not least, welcoming the new members within the community. You do not want them to feel like intruders.
Discord is my personal favorite when it comes to welcoming newbies. A discord moderator is allowed to create an entire welcoming funnel where the new user would need to first read the community guidelines, agreeing to them, and only then to meet the community where there will be a funny message in the general chat saying something like ‘’Person X has just landed.‘’
The new member would then find the chat for ‘’introducing‘’ where they would introduce themselves properly before diving into the conversations.
Welcoming new members can help you not only show them that there is nothing to be scared about but also to make them engage and participate in the main discussions and conversations.
PRO TIP: You can have one person from your moderator staff to ‘’greet’’ the newbies properly. They would often appreciate it.
We used to have a community of 400 people who would hardly chat and engage with each other. We thought that we have a strong community based on numbers.
But the engagement rate was lacking. We thought this is normal — that some people are just more outgoing and the other… 97%… are just shy, right?
Does this sound familiar?
It was like a cold rainy night at Stoke. We just couldn’t win the engagement rate that we wanted. It all came down to thinking outside the box.
We realized that our community, despite small, was too big already. That was the problem. People hesitated to talk, nobody felt welcomed. It was just a cluster of people gathered at one big group chat.
So we split it. We created smaller communities that we could personalize better to each individual. We began by sending out a survey, asking about their main interests, hobbies, and stage of entrepreneurship.
We then split our community into group chats of 10–12 people based on their common interests. They were more interested to talk to each other because they were simply not any different from one another.
Imagine a group of 10 people who are interested in digital marketing, are between 19 and 21 years old and are thinking about starting a business but don’t currently have something off the ground. These people would have so much in common.
That’s how the average Wave looks like. Same entrepreneurial stage, around the same age group, and based on 1 topic. The topics range from as specific as Food Tech to as general as personal development.
Did I mention that we promised them to delete the community after 1 month? We matched them with like-minded people and the time was limited. That sense of urgency drove people to engage, learn together and participate.
Then, since we were confident about their compatibility, we took a risk.
We offered them weekly video calls with people they had never met before who were from their group chat. The reasoning behind this ‘’blind video call’’ was because they were similar. They were like-minded.
Those blind video calls ended up being the backbone of Waves, increasing our engagement rate up to 80% as well as the show-up rate for the video calls never falls down below 60%, even on weekends.
Main takeaways:
Smaller is bigger. By making the communities smaller, Waves showed its users that the definition of an online community is not a gazillion of people gathered at one place where only the regulars (usually around 2–3% of the whole) participate in the conversations.
A solid pathway to building relationships between the members is still king. Repeat after me. Chat is not enough.
Urgency doesn’t kill. It is risky, yes, but does it work? Hell yes.
It is natural for people to want to be around like-minded people, just like them. Sharing experiences and common struggles can build a strong empathetic relationship.
People talk when they feel psychologically safe enough to express themselves. By properly onboarding the new members and rewarding the active people, you will differentiate your community as inclusive and rewarding to be a part of.
If you are currently struggling with the engagement of your community or you are a community manager and feel like there is room for improvement, let’s talk.
Main Takeaways:
Community engagement rate is calculated by the percentage of people participating in the conversations divided by the total number of people within the community
Do not make the atmosphere too serious — the newbies will hesitate to speak up
Do not try to push any agenda or artificial culture
Build pathways for people to connect and make friends with each other
with each other Build proper community guidelines and enforce community moderation , removing trolls, self-promoters, and spammers.
and enforce , removing trolls, self-promoters, and spammers. Make it easy to participate as you send our curated content, questions and making people feel that their opinion is valued
as you send our curated content, questions and making people feel that their opinion is valued Reward your best contributors by validating them socially and keep them with variable rewards
by validating them socially and keep them with variable rewards Properly welcome your new members — build a welcome funnel
Feel free to subscribe to our blog for more content like this and join our journey in figuring out the perfect community. | https://medium.com/@meetwaves/tried-tested-community-engagement-tricks-to-revive-your-community-df176d4bc9fd | [] | 2021-06-20 12:43:21.158000+00:00 | ['Community Management', 'Community Development', 'Community Manager', 'Community', 'Community Engagement'] |
7 of the Most Used Regression Algorithms and How to Choose the Right One | Gaussian process regression
The Gaussian Process captures the typical behavior of a system on the basis of observations of a system and delivers as a result a probability distribution of possible interpolation functions for the problem at hand.
The Gaussian Process Regression makes use of the Bayes’ theorem in the following, which is why it should be briefly explained in advance.
In general, the Bayes’ theorem is defined as follows:
It allows the inference from known values to unknown values. A often used application example is the disease detection. In the case of rapid tests, for example, one is interested in how high the actual probability is, that a positive tested person actual has the disease. [Fah16]
In the following, we will apply this principle to the Gaussian Process.
The Gaussian Process is defined by the expected value for each random variable, the mean function m(x) and a covariance function k(x,x´) .
The mean function m(x) reflects the priori function for the problem at hand and is based on known trends or biases in the data. If the expected value (mean function) is constant 0, it is called a centered Gaussian process.
The covariance function k(x, x´) , also called ‘kernel’, describes the covariance of the random variables x and x′ . These functions are analytically defined.
The kernel defines the shape and the course of the model functions and is used to describe, for example, abstract properties such as smoothness, roughness and noise. More kernels can be combined by certain computational rules to emulate systems with superimposed properties. [Ebd08][Kuß06] [Ras06][Vaf17]
In the following three of the most used kernels will be presented:
Squared Exponential Kernel
A popular Kernel is the Squared Exponential Kernel (Radial Basis Function) and has established itself as the ‘standard kernel’ for the Gaussian Process and the Support Vector Machine. [Sci18l]
The following figures show an example for an A-priori-Gaussian process p(f) through the mean function m(x) (black line) and the confidence interval (gray background). Generally, the confidence interval indicates the range, given an infinite repetition of a random experiment, with some probability, the true location of the parameter lies [Fah16][Enc18]. In this case, the boundaries of the confidence interval are defined by the standard deviation σ.
The colored curves represent some random functions of the Gaussian Process. The example curves serve only to abstract the form of the possible output functions. In principle, an infinite number of these curves could be created.
A-priori Gaussian-Prozess using a Squared Exponential Kernel — Image by the author(inspired by [Sci18n][Duv14])
The kernel has only two hyperparameters:
l (length_scale) decribes the characteristic length scale of the covariance function. The length_scale influences the length of the ‘waves’ of the Gaussian functions.
decribes the characteristic length scale of the covariance function. The influences the length of the ‘waves’ of the Gaussian functions. The variance σ² defines the average distance of the function from its mean. The value should be chosen high for functions that cover a large range on the y-axis. [Ebd08]
The following figure shows the effects of the hyperparameters on the A-Priori-Gaussian-Process and its functions.
Squared Exponential Kernel: Influence of Hyperparameters — Image by the author
Rational Quadratic Kernel
The Rational Quadratic Kernel can be seen as a combination of several Squared Exponential Kernels with different length_scale settings (l). The parameter α determines the relative weighting of the 'large-scale' and 'small-scale' functions. When α approaches infinity, the Rational Quadratic Kernel is identical to the Squared Exponential Kernel. [Duv14][Sci18k][Mur12]
A-priori Gaussian-Prozess using Rational Quadratic Kernel — Image by the author (inspired by [Sci18n][Duv14])
Periodic Kernel
The Periodic Kernel allows functions to repeat themselves. The period p describes the distance between the repetitions of the function. The use of the ‘lenghtscale' parameter (l) is as mentioned earlier. [Sci18j]
A-priori Gaussian-Prozess using Periodic Kernel — Image by the author (inspired by [Sci18n][Duv14])
The kernel funnction and mean function together describe the A-priori-Gaussian-Process. With the help of some measured values, a A-posteriori-Gaussian-Process can be defined, which takes into account all available information about the problem. More precisely, no single solution results, but all possible functions of the interpolations, which are weighted with different probabilities. In the case of a regression task, specifically, the solution (function) with the highest probability is crucial. [Ras06][Wik18a][Wik18a]
For regression, typically a dataset with values of the independent variable X ∈ R and associated values of the dependent variable f ∈ R is given and one wants to predict output values f∗ for new values X∗. [Vaf17]
For the simplest case, a process without noise, the multidimensional Gaussian distribution is defined as follows:
The covariance matrix can be divided into four parts. The covariance within the unknown values K_X∗X∗ , the covariance between the unknown and known K_X∗X values, and the covariance within the known values K_XX.
Since f is completely known, substituting the probability density into Bayes’ theorem yields the a-posterior-Gaussian-distribution.
A detailed derivation is given by Rasmussen in his book ‘Gaussian Processes for Machine Learning’. [Ras06, p.8 ff.]
From priori to posteriori Gaussian Process: Explained with a simple example
In practice, a number of other kernels are used, including combinations of several kernel functions. The constant kernel for example is usually used in conjunction with others. Using this kernel without the combination with other kernels, usually makes no sense, because only constant correlations can be modeled. Nevertheless, in the following the constant kernel is used to explain and illustrate the Gaussian-process regression in a simple way.
The figure below shows the a-priori-Gaussian-Process with a variance of one. By defining the constant kernel as the covariance function, all sample functions show a parallel line to the x-axis.
Representation of the Gaussian process with the so-called constant kernel and one supporting data point — Image by the author
Since no statement is made in advance about a possible noise of the measured data, the process assumes that the given measurement point is a part of the true function. This limits the number of possible function equations to the straight line that passes directly through the point. Since the constant kernel only allows horizontal lines, the number of possible lines in this simple case narrows down to exactly one possible function. Thus the covariance of the a-posteriori-Gaussian process is zero.
With the RBF Kernel , arbitrary processes can be mapped, but this time the result is not a single straight line as A-posteriori-Gaussian, but a multitude of functions. The function with the highest probability is the mean function of the A-posteriori-Gaussian-Process. The following figure shows the A-posteriori-Gaussian-Process and the used measurement points.
Posterior Gaussian Process with Squared Exponential Kernel and used data points — Image by the author
To implement the Gaussian Process in Python, the A-priori-Gaussian-Process must be defined in advance. The mean function m(x) is usually assumed to be constant and zero. By setting a parameter normalize_y = True , the process uses the mean of the dataset values as the constant expected value function. The choice of the covariance function is made by choosing the kernel. [Sci18m]
Gaussian Process Regression in Scikit-learn
The following source code describes how to implement the Gaussian Process Regression with scikit learn and the RBF Kernel used as covariance function. The first optimization process starts from the pre-set values ( length_scale and variance ) of the kernel. By the parameter alpha an assumption can be made in advance about the strength of the noise of the training data.
Optimization process: Hyperparameter erstimation using maximum-likelihood method
The hyperparameters are optimized during the fitting of the model by maximizing the log-marginal likelihood (LML). Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) is a method for determining the parameters of a statistical model. While the Regression methods already presented, such as Linear Regression, aim to minimize the Mean Square Error, the Gaussian-Process Regression tries to maximize the likelihood function. In other words, the parameters of the model are selected in such a way that the observed data appear most plausible according to their distribution.
In general, the probability function f of a random variable X is defined as:
This distribution is assumed to depend on a parameter ϑ. Given observed data, the probability can be considered as a function of ϑ :
Maximum likelihood estimators aim to maximize this function. Maxima are usually identified by differentiating the function and then setting it equal to zero. Since the log likelihood function has its maximum at the same point as the likelihood function, but is easier to calculate, it is usually used. [Goo16, p.128]
One speaks of a normal or Gaussian distribution if a random variable X has the following probability density [Fah16, p.83]:
The maximum-likelihood method will be explained in the following using a simple one-dimensional example. The figure below shows the dataset. All three plotted probability distributions reflect the distribution of the data. With maximum likelihood, one is interested in the distribution that is most likely.
The normal distribution depending on the parameters expected value and variance — Image by the author (inspired by [BB18])
The goal is to define the parameters σ² and µ in such a way that the probability is maximized over all data points considered. For example, given three data points with x-values 9, 10 and 13, similar to the data points in the figure, the joint probability is calculated from the individual probabilities as follows:
This function must be maximized. The mean value then corresponds to the x-value that is most likely to occur.
The following figure shows an example model for the Gaussian Process Regression. | https://towardsdatascience.com/7-of-the-most-commonly-used-regression-algorithms-and-how-to-choose-the-right-one-fc3c8890f9e3 | ['Dominik Polzer'] | 2021-08-24 12:52:06.378000+00:00 | ['Editors Pick', 'Random Forest Regressor', 'Getting Started', 'Support Vector Regression', 'Linear Regression'] |
Must We Build This Now? | A checklist that helps you stop building products and features that shouldn’t be build at all. At least for now.
As I’ve been involved in many different software projects of many sizes and in many roles the last decade I’ve seen some projects fail and some succeed. There are many reasons and influences that contribute to the outcome but in general I think one of biggest wastes is building something that should not have been build at all.
There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.
- Peter Drucker
In this article I’ll try to give you a list of questions which can help you prevent this. But first:
The question that helps taking the pressure off
A while ago someone mentioned a question that you can ask yourself when you feel swamped in work and “high-priority” things keep popping up: “Must I do this now?” You can place the emphasis on every word in this sentence switching the paradigm every time in looking at the “problem” at hand.
Must I do this now?
Must I do this now?
Must I do this now?
Must I do this now?
Must I do this now?
Applying it to product and software development
I really like this question as it helps looking at a problem from different angles. Also it’s very hard to answer all these 5 questions with “yes” which helps you see there isn’t really a high priority problem at hand. Thereby lowering your cortisol levels.
But, in a slightly different way, I also think it’s very useful in both product- and software development teams. Both on macro (products, epics, services) and micro (stories, bugs, code) level. The question becomes:
Must we build this now?
Must we build this now?
Must we build this now?
Must we build this now?
Must we build this now?
Every change of emphasis helps you looking differently at the pitch, problem, solution, story, task at hand. This is super useful to apply in refinements helping you to ask the right questions. Or looking in the mirror when dreaming of the next big thing you envision.
Simplicity — the art of maximizing the amount of work not done — is essential.
- Agile Manifesto
Must
Must we build this now?
A scrum master I used to work with at a former company would ask us: Will there be pouring blood out? Meaning something bad would happen if we won’t do.
Is the task at hand validated? Do we know (for certain) there is a real need?
Is it a must-have or nice-to-have?
Is it a question from a single customer? Or many?
Do the customers/users know what they need?
Are you obligated to do this?
Are you in love with the solution? (You should be in love with the problem)
We
Must we build this now?
Are we the right team to build this?
Is this the service it should be in?
Are we the right people to solve this problem?
Can we delegate this to other people/teams?
Build
Must we build this now?
Is this something we should build?
Can we rent it?
Can we buy it?
Can we use a BaaS or SaaS to solve this problem?
Can we manually fix the problem (without automation)?
Should this problem be solved with automation at all?
This
Must we build this now?
Will this specific feature help our customer?
Do we know for sure the exact root cause/problem?
Are we building the minimal needed?
Are there alternatives in solving the problem?
Is this solution based on opinions?
Is this solution based on assumptions?
Did we talk to enough real users/customers?
Now
Must we build this now?
Is this something we need to do now?
Is this part of the MVP? Is this the phase in which we should build this?
Is this nice to have or must have at this moment?
Do we need to fix this bug right now?
To conclude
Asking the above questions certainly helped me and I hope it helps you as well.
“Life’s too short to build something nobody wants. “- Ash Maurya
Did you like what you read? Please 👏 or share it with friends. You can clap up to 50 times. ♥ That would be really helpful for me ♥.
Attributions
Header: Business photo created by jcomp — www.freepik.com | https://medium.com/keep-getting-better/must-we-build-this-now-d23587dff222 | ['Kristian Zondervan'] | 2020-06-12 07:43:52.328000+00:00 | ['Product Development', 'Agile', 'Refinement', 'Software Development', 'Startup'] |
Generate an Android Archive(AAR) Using Android Studio and Add to an Android Project | Please follow the steps>>
Step1: Start the Android Studio and open the project where you want to generate the AAR file.
Step2: Click the Gradle option in right most corner of android studio.
Step3: You will see the App name in the window, please unfold the options in the sequence shown below.
It might take a few minutes, If the Build task is successfully completed It will show the message.
Step4: The generated AAR files will be located here(According to your Library name)
Step5: Now we can add the archive file into another Android Project so create a new Android Project.
Step6: After creating a new project >> Click on File>> Project Structure >> Modules >> “+” icon >>
Next>> The below window will have an option to select “Import AAR/JAR”
Next>> Click on next after selecting the “Import AAR/JAR” and in the next window select the AAR file path and click Finish.
Note: Take the AAR file generated in the previous project or use the AAR file you want to add.
Step7: Verify in settings.gradle file, the library module will be included.
Step8: Add the library module into the module Gradle file where this AAR file implementation is needed.
app module gradle
Step9: “Sync the project” and wait for the build successful.
Step10: Verify the classes available in the Library module is accessible in the module you have added the AAR file.
Classes available from AAR Library module
Step11: Now you can write the code for using the AAR library module in your Android Project.
Thanks!! Please add comments If you face any issues while implementing. | https://medium.com/swlh/generate-an-android-archive-aar-using-android-studio-and-add-to-an-android-project-b09ad9670ab7 | ['Narendra Harny'] | 2020-12-11 17:34:45.878000+00:00 | ['Android App Development', 'Android Apps', 'Android', 'AndroidDev', 'Android Development'] |
SBI Specialist Officer Online Form 2020 | HI ,This is Sarkari Select Job Website For Immediate Notification Available On This Website. All Current Job Notification Details Available Here. Your Welcome | https://medium.com/@sarkariselectjob/sbi-specialist-officer-online-form-2020-9704f383d0dc | ['Sarkari Select'] | 2020-12-26 14:32:15.662000+00:00 | ['Sbi So Exam', 'Banks', 'Banking Technology', 'Banking', 'Ibps'] |
Grow Your Mental Resilience to Stress Less About People’s Opinions | Next door to us lives a guy who is the embodiment of happy confidence. Whenever he walks past our windows, he’s singing out loud to his headphones. His voice is mostly out of tune, but that doesn’t matter; it’s his energy that catches my eye.
Unbeatable optimism is his signature vibe. He could be out there battling a hurricane and horizontal rain and still be singing. Day by day, lockdown or not, he refuses to give in and turn miserable.
Well, I love him. I always take a moment to listen when I hear his voice coming. He makes me smile. As long as the singing guy is still singing, things cannot be that bad.
And the best thing is, he doesn’t care what other people think. He doesn’t even care when they laugh. How does he manage to put his own contentment above what others think so effortlessly?
Playing the safe game
Most of us wouldn’t do it. You and I would most likely cave in to our natural fear of being judged, even if we just had the best news of our life and are dying for a victory dance in the grocery queue.
Most of us can’t always just be ourselves because we are conscious of how others see us. And sometimes, this fear of judgment can stop us from making the progress we are seeking. If you have a beautiful singing voice but are scared to send out a sample in case others don’t like it, you miss an opportunity to be discovered. If you have a brilliant work idea and are afraid to present it because it sounds too crazy, you might be missing out on career growth.
Many people miss opportunities through similar safety behaviors. These safety behaviors allow them to avoid the discomfort zone of having their talents and ideas exposed (and inevitably, judged) by other people.
Self-doubt can affect everyone
If you, too, often get anxious about what others think, you are not alone. Self-doubt and fear of judgment affect even high achievers, celebrities, and people who otherwise come across as epitomes of confidence.
According to Forbes, the majority of smart and successful people tend to doubt their talents often. Mike Myers, who is not only an actor but a screenwriter, a comedian, and a producer, therefore clearly a multi-talented person, once said:
At any time I still expect that the no-talent police will come and arrest me.
Even the biggest names in the game can doubt the quality of their work or even their self-worth. To everyone’s surprise, Will Smith admitted in more than one interview:
I still doubt myself every single day. What people believe is my self-confidence is actually my reaction to fear.
In the Style Like U What’s Underneath interview series, hundreds of people from all backgrounds, including models and actors, agreed to open up about their vulnerabilities, body insecurities, and fears. Through their sharing of raw feelings and deeply personal stories, the project went viral overnight because millions of people could relate or felt the same.
Build resilience to care less
Caring less is not about being careless. It’s about stressing less. When you build your mental resilience, you care less about external validation because you strengthen your own sense of self in the process. You feel less exposed in situations requiring involvement. Confidence is buildable, just like a muscle.
The other day I noticed a simple but powerful equation when walking through the Leake Street tunnels. It’s an equation about Abstract Art:
Abstract Art = Erm, anyone could have done that + Yeah, but you didn’t.
It reminded me that the people who judge the most are often the ones who do the least. Perceptions are subjective. How others see the outcome is secondary to the evolution of your journey through the process. So the most important thing is to show up. For yourself.
Choose what’s more important than fear
It can be tricky, but it is possible to work with your fear. In fact, the ability to use fear and transform it into growth is what Will Smith sees as the most crucial step of his career:
Courage is not the absence of fear, but the recognition that something else is more important.
When I worked in corporate publishing, I used to get mad anxiety when giving presentations in meetings. The bigger the conference room and the more people squeezed in it, the worse I crumbled. As soon as all the piercing eyes fixated on me, my mind would blackout, I’d get hot flushes, and lose my voice. Yeah, it was bad.
Then one day, I was asked to present a new idea to the CEO and his team.
I had to choose. And I knew that this time, I couldn’t afford to choose my fear.
So I sat down and analyzed everything I felt, using the ramble technique. Then, I thought of solutions to make me feel safer. I knew I’d feel less exposed if I sat down facing the audience rather than standing up. I found a presentation buddy to back me up in case I stumbled. I made my slides super-visual to draw attention away from my face.
This new set-up was my personalized safety net. I didn’t rock the presentation, but it was ok. And for me, ok was indeed a huge victory.
When facing fear, rambling about it on paper is a great start. It works by giving you clarity. Don’t hold anything back. Once your doubts are black on white, they’ll look different. You’ll probably find it easier to detach at least a little and analyze your notes more rationally. Next, find your motivation. Ask yourself what’s more important, your fear, or a record deal? Then, see if you can create any actionable bullet points. Always start with what seems the easiest.
If you prefer diving into positive waters rather than your fears, you can start by answering this list of 20 Questions to Help Increase Your Confidence.
Mind your (inner) tone
The inner voice in our head can be harsh and unforgiving at times. But you can break through its mean noise by asking a simple question:
Would you say this to your best friend or someone you love?
Very often, we find it hard to give ourselves the same love and respect we give others. But the bottom line is, you deserve to treat yourself like you treat your best friend. And your inner voice needs to reflect that.
Instead of focusing on your imperfections, take some time to think about your perfections. And make sure to make a list too. Showing yourself the same love and kindness you have for others when they struggle is an antidote to all the external influences that seed doubts and insecurities within us daily.
“We feel that the process of self-acceptance, while it might sound flowery, is actually not; it’s a heavy-duty, important shift that has to happen.” — Elisa Goodkind, Style Like U
We all crave external approval or social validation sometimes. But these two things don’t mean much without your own inner endorsement. Acceptance, validation, and appreciation are the most profound when they first come from you.
Look for realness in others
Real life does not airbrush. Perfection is subjective. Comparing ourselves to others can cause insecurity and anxiety. Better create the version of yourself that you like the most.
As the body positivity movement proves every day, sharing our scars makes us feel connected. Imperfections tell stories. And stories empower people.
More celebrities now use their platforms to encourage sharing realness. Even royalty no longer hesitates.
I loved what Princess Eugenie did on her wedding day. She chose to wear a wedding dress with a deep open back that exposed her scar from a scoliosis spinal surgery. Without saying a word, she made a profound statement about self-love and acceptance of the marks each personal journey can leave behind.
When you start seeing beauty in the realness of others, it becomes much easier to accept and love your own. Ignore the trolls and focus on people who see you for you. They see your uniqueness and they see your beauty, inside and out, when you let them.
Whenever you feel doubtful about your talent, skills, or the way others see you, remember what Brene Brown says about vulnerability:
Finding balance in your vulnerability expands your world. Staying vulnerable and authentic is a risk we have to take to experience real connections.
And it gets better.
As you build your resilience of mind, and with practice, the things making you feel vulnerable now eventually get easier. And in doing so, they become the stepping stones to building greater confidence. | https://medium.com/publishous/grow-your-mental-resilience-to-stress-less-about-peoples-opinions-5e5c86457887 | ['Martina Doleckova'] | 2020-12-17 17:51:32.916000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Mental Health', 'Life Lessons', 'Life', 'Self Improvement'] |
Symmetric & Asymmetric encryption | When it comes to encryption, most people may feel boring and complex. Inevitably, in most cases, I admit it is not as fascinating as 3D animations, neither comparable with AI computations, etc. However, it at least satisfies a basic requirement that we can whisper to someone.
Imaging a private channel between you and your friends that no outsider can eavesdrop, the encryption suddenly becomes more important. Furthermore, the encryption indeed plays a pretty vital role while the private channel is established to protect your credit card numbers as well as some sensitive private information from being tampered or sniffed. In this story, some essential concept of encryption will be chatted about. There will be not too much complex technical terms, symbols or professional computations. This story may be regarded as a history where the encryption comes from and a rough image what does it look like nowadays.
Symmetric encryption — shift and substitution
Again, when it comes to encryption, an intuitive way to make strings “unrecognizable” is to shift several digits, such as from “cat” to “ecv”. The sender make shift of the origin message and delivers it via an insecure public channel; if one receiver knows the secret 2 (or so called the key), he can roll back the original message. Definitely, it is not a strong encryption yet, there are only few possible keys if only shift is taken into consideration. Following, the substitution is also adopted. Assume a mapping table is set to map “c” into “Z”, “a” into “1” and “t” into “h”. The ciphertext “Z1h” comes out after computing encrypt(key, “cat”) where the key definitely indicates to the mapping table. If a receiver know the table, the decryption “cat” = decrypt(key, “Z1h”) is an inverse mapping using the same mapping table. The combination of two elements, shift and substitution, conceptually build up the symmetric encryption system where the term “symmetric” denotes that the encryption and decryption relies on the same key.
How symmetric encryption work and its related shortcuts.
From the Caesar Cipher thousands of years ago to present, the symmetric encryption was kept progressing. A well-known cryptography-related movie, the imitation game, described how Alan Tuning broke the German cipher machine, Enigma, to help terminate the second-world war earlier; and Enigma is also an implementation of symmetric encryption. Until today, the modern symmetric encryption algorithms like advanced encryption standard (AES), triple data encryption standard (3-DES) and pretty good privacy (PGP) still work both robustly and efficiently. Whereas, some issues also occur along with the usage of symmetric encryption schemes.
Key distribution issues
To make the decryption success, the receiver has to learn the corresponding key of a ciphertext. How could the key be delivered in an insecure channel becomes a tough problem. The condition is depicted in above picture: the key should be transferred in a secure channel; however, to construct a secure channel, a key is necessary. It fails into a deadlock that each side is waiting for the other side. In case that two parties of the data transfer are not geographically close, the key distribution is quite touch.
Key storage issues
Another potencial problem of symmetric encryptions is the key storage. For each pair of sender and receiver, there should be one key for secure transfer. If there are n parties, the total key requirements is basically n(n-1)/2, that’s horrible. For example, there are totally 4950 keys among a group of 100 members. Shown in above picture as well, the key storage needs O(n²) space consumptions.
Asymmetric encryption — a pair of keys
There is a story that cryptographers occationaly found a “pair” idea from some mathmatical textbook. Then, the asymmetric encryption was born while the pair concept was adopted into cryptography. In brief, a pair of keys (say key a and key b) be generated in the key generation phase; then, the operation between the plaintext and key a can only be ”undone” by key b, and vise versa. Following, the key a is published as a public key, and key b is kept secret as a secret key. It is intuitive to build up an asymmetric encryption which the encryption could be constructed by the public key and the decryption is implemented by the related secret key. Illustrated in the picture below, it is how asymmetric encryption works.
The architecture of asymmetric encryption.
Let (sk, pk) be the key pair of Alice, which stands for the secret key and the public key respectively, generated by algorithm key-generation. Bob encrypts message m into a ciphertext c=encrypt(pk, m) using Alice’s public key pk; and Alice obtains m=decrypt(sk, c) through decryption with her secret key sk after receiving. Due to the essentially difference from symmetric encryption, the asymmetric encryption is also called public key encryption.
Application — RSA encryption
As the first asymmetric encryption, RSA is a famous algorithm that perfectly illustartes the pair idea. Now, let’s quickly go through a simplified version of RSA to help understand the asymmetric encryption. All messages of RSA encryption is encoded as a number m between 2 and n-1, which are represented as m mod n. Operator mod denotes modular, such as 8 mod 3 = 2. Then, assume the public key is pk and the secret key is sk, it is easy to implement the encryption encrypt(pk, m) by computing c=m^pk mod n; and the related decryption decrypt(sk, c) is computed by m=c^sk mod n. Two keys sk and pk will be slashed while they’re puting together in the modular operation. In case that parameters sk and n are big enough, the RSA encryption will be computationally secure.
Hope that above scenario helps understand the architecture of asymmetric encryption. Due to that fact that the operation between the plaintext and the public key can only be “undone” by the secret key, it is designed that the public key could be shared to the world to make everybody able to encrypt; but only the secret key owner has the capability of decryption. After the architecture, let’s move forward to realize how does asymmetric encryptions deal with the problems that bother symmetric encryptions?
Key distribution issues
It is straightforward that the asymmetric encryptions easily solve the key distribution issues by hidding credentials to the secret key. Everyone knows the public key can encrypt, but only the secret key owner can decrypt. Obviously, no key distribution issue exist over asymmetric encryption.
Key storage issues
In the asymmetric case, everyone only has to remember their own part: the secret key, the public key, and a certificate signed by a trusted third party. The certificate is a proof that someone owns the public key provided by a trusted third party, which will be introduced soon.
Remark
It is emphasised that I’m not saying the asymmetric encryption is greater than the symmetric encryptions and the former should replace the latter. Both of them have some irreplaceable advantages. In general, the symmetric encryptions are much higher efficient and robust because it bases on bit-wise based operations; and the asymmetric encryptions do not suffer from the key distribution and storages issues. Besides, some special functionality like homomorphism over asymmetric encryptions make it more creative in some private-preserving services.
Digital signature
Digital signature is an interesting well-known appplication of the asymmetric key setting. In the same scenario that the public key is published and the secret key is kept secretly. Then,the secret key owner is able to convince others that a document is “encrypted by the secret key”. Following, we also take RSA for example to demonstrate how a digital signature work in a simplified manner.
Application — RSA signature
Let h() be a collision-resistant hash function, m stands for some message and n denotes the modular number, the RSA signature is computed as sig=h(m)^sk mod n; and the verification is testing the equality between h(m) and sig^pk mod n. Two keys sk and pk will be slashed while they’re puting together in the modular operation. This is an intuitive implementation of digital signature based on the asymmetric key setting.
Here we take term “sign” instead of “encrypt” for clear expression of sig=sign(sk, h(m)). Since only the secret key can make the signature as well as the operation between plaintext and the secret key can be “undone” by the related public key, everyone knowing the public key and message is able to verify the identity of the signer through algorithm verify(pk, h(m), sig). More detail about digital signature could be found in another story. | https://medium.com/@kyle-crypto/symmetric-asymmetric-encryption-5d8d4f6d80f1 | ['Applied Crypto Studio'] | 2019-10-29 03:45:46.352000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Asymmetric Encryption', 'Cryptography', 'Digital Signatures', 'Public Key Cryptography'] |
Five Simple Ways to Produce High-Quality Code | Have you ever worked on a project and cannot figure out the purpose of the code. You navigate between files, run the code a couple of times, read the code-comments, and also the documentation just to get some insight into what the code does. You are not alone, these are symptoms of poor code quality. The purpose of writing clean code does not necessarily mean one can easily understand code within a few minutes, but can surely reduce some unnecessary overhead, for you, and for others.
The aim of this article is to share with you some simple concepts to increase your programming skills, these examples are written in C#, but can also be applied to other programming languages. This article is inspired by Clean Code for .NET Core — a GitHub repository you can find here with lots of great tips.
As software developers, it is our responsibility to produce code that is readable, maintainable, and extendable, so here are a few ways you can improve your programming skills. | https://medium.com/swlh/five-simple-ways-to-produce-high-quality-code-b157be6c6744 | ['Dler Ari'] | 2020-12-11 21:48:31.688000+00:00 | ['Programming Tips', 'Clean Code', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'C Sharp Programming'] |
Cloud Security | With a tremendous amount of data being generated on a daily basis, the need for servers, storage and analytics has led to the paradigm shift of exponentially exploiting cloud services not only by top-notch companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon, but also by the common public. There was a time when shifting to cloud seemed like a mammoth task but with the advent of the COVID-19 global pandemic, changing the conventional technologies and upgrading to cloud services was paramount. However, imagine getting your Instagram account hacked, with all your personal chats and photos being leaked on the internet! Well, cut to reality, near about 50 million records on Instagram were compromised in 2019 merely due to lack of compliance with cloud security practices.
“Security should be factored in at inception, not as an afterthought.”
With the hackers becoming more sophisticated in their approaches of attacking major cloud lacunae, having a robust cloud security environment is absolutely imperative.
So how to make our sensitive data secure on the internet? Let’s find out. | https://medium.com/@bhangdiayash3/cloud-security-da97836707f4 | ['Yashwardhan Bhangdia'] | 2020-12-24 17:37:19.612000+00:00 | ['Iaas', 'Paas', 'SaaS', 'Cloud Computing', 'Cloud Security'] |
The Day To Day Of A Software Test Engineer | The Day To Day Of A Software Test Engineer
Photo by wayhomestudio on Freepik
I work as a Software Test Engineer in a Customer Experience company. Most of the first few hours are business as usual, except for emergencies.
A Sample Routine
First of all, when I start my working day, the first thing I do is pray. A spiritual prayer? No, I do it as soon as I wake up.
I pray that nothing is broken in production because the QA team is the first to be interrogated and if there’s one thing I’m not good at, it’s answering an email interrogation.
I also check my inbox. Yes, it’s important, I often have a lot of articles on software testing, quality assurance or personal development to read.
Thank you medium for always sending me interesting things by email. This is my coffee because I don’t drink coffee or tea.
During the morning
Firstly, participation in upcoming project kick-off meetings, regular meetings on the status of the project.
Clarification of bugs, further investigation, help with root cause analysis. Replying to emails or verbal clarification of reported bugs, and helping to analyze possible causes of the bug.
After the meetings, let’s get to work. The tests of the different functionalities are carried out, be it functional, regression, API, etc. …. It all depends on what is on the agenda and how the team has organized the different activities. Then focus on the high-priority issues. Don’t forget to check the results of automated tests or to run them ourselves if we have them for the project. Bugs during testing? They are reported in our defect tracking tool.
After the morning’s tasks, one of my favorite moments.
Go for lunch. I come back and talk about a lot of things with my manager who is probably the coolest mentor on earth. Thanks for existing Jean Julien.
Afternoon
When I come back from break, I sometimes look at the business and functional requirements documents and provide feedback to my manager.
After that, it is time to prepare the tests, create and/or update the test cases from the documents. Prepare the test data, and checklists if necessary.
All this is ready? Then let’s run our various test cases, asking around for more clarification, reporting defects, updating test cases if necessary, providing a status report. Ah yes, just a few differences from the morning.
Here is a short list of things to do also in the evening, without going into details:
Provide test results to interested people
Provide statistics, metrics
Analyzing test runs
Analyze reason of test runs failures
Fix automated test scripts (if any problems found)
Investigate defects found by tests
Developing new test scripts
Demo meetings
Writing
Reading
Learning infrastructure tools like web servers, CI and so on
Learning test tools
Learning test approaches
It depends on the day and my mood. Don’t worry, just because I’m enthusiastic about automation doesn’t mean I’m a robot.
Final Thoughts
While all of this is important in the day-to-day life of a software test engineer, how you organize your day depends on you, your team, the projects you are working on, and your priorities.
It was a pleasure to share this with you.
Thanks for Reading! | https://medium.com/@jolivehodehou/the-day-to-day-of-a-software-test-engineer-22c1a841ff63 | ['Jolivé Hodehou'] | 2021-09-09 15:19:10.950000+00:00 | ['Testing', 'Test Automation', 'Software Testing', 'Quality Assurance', 'Software Development'] |
Amazon is the biggest threat to bitcoin right now | Over the past year, a growing number of people have leapt to take part in bitcoin’s meteoric rise. Teenagers have invested their college funds. Some families have mortgaged their homes and placed everything on the table. Even billionaires have suggested putting 10% of all assets into the digital currency.
There is a lot of money in play and people’s livelihoods and savings are on the line. As a vehicle of investment, bitcoin itself has an array of problems. It’s extremely volatile — suffering drops as high as 30% in a single day, funds are difficult to recover when hacked, and bitcoin’s technology may be behind other newer cryptocurrencies which offer greater anonymity, programmability, and scaling.
Most people tend to look at popular altcoins when they think about what could dethrone the current cryptocurrency king. But could the real threat come from a more material realm?
Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world
Boasting over 94 billion USD in sales last year, it handles almost half of all American online purchases and has operations across the globe. But despite offering a large variety of payment options, Amazon has yet to allow people to pay with bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.
As the leader in online retail, it’s in a prime position to do so. Any cryptocurrency Amazon adopted would surely see a huge surge of support. Given the current popularity of cryptocurrency, what exactly is Amazon waiting for?
Barriers
One of the reasons Amazon may be avoiding cryptocurrency is their limited transaction speeds. Take a look at the top two major cryptocurrencies.
bitcoin: 7 transactions per second
ethereum: 15 transactions per second
Amazon peaked at 600 transactions per second during last year’s Amazon prime sale. If even a fraction of their traffic decided to pay with cryptocurrency, consumers would be stuck waiting hours for transactions to go through. Not a great customer experience.
Do slow transaction fees mean Amazon will avoid cryptocurrency? The tech giant is no stranger to innovative scaling solutions. Bitcoin and ethereum are currently too slow to support Amazon’s demands but other cryptocurrencies are not. An alternative cryptocurrency called ripple has tested speeds as high as 1500 transactions per second.
Why Amazon Might be Considering Cryptocurrencies
Although it hasn’t announced an official position on cryptocurrencies, there are several indicators that suggest Amazon is considering this space and not necessarily in a bitcoin friendly way.
On October 31st Amazon reportedly bought amazonethereum.com, amazoncryptocurrency.com, and amazoncryptocurrencies.com. This move might be simply covering their bases. Or it might be insight into future endeavours.
There are already services that sell amazon gift cards for bitcoin so in some respect Amazon offering bitcoin on their site would simply cut out the middleman
Finally one of Amazon’s core principles is ‘Customer Obsession’. If customers demand a cryptocurrency payment method Amazon is sure to eventually give them what they want.
Given that many of its shoppers buy goods internationally, cryptocurrency could be an excellent way for shoppers to enjoy a standardized currency without worrying about exchange rates.
What Could Happen
There are a few ways this could play out that could endanger bitcoin’s current reign:
1. Amazon could stay out of the cryptocurrency sector
In order to cross the chasm from investment to currency, bitcoin needs to gain widespread adoption from merchants. It’s unlikely that Amazon will stay out of this sector indefinitely but if it did bitcoin would certainly suffer from being excluded by the world’s largest online retailer. This wouldn’t kill bitcoin, but it would hurt its potential as a currency.
2. Amazon could adopt a competitor to bitcoin
This seems likely if bitcoin cannot keep up with Amazon’s required transaction speeds. Ripple is a potential contender with 1000+ TPS. This scenario could definitely endanger bitcoin’s reign as the top cryptocurrency. A fictional deal with Visa raised the value of the Monaco cryptocurrency by almost 700%. Any deal with Amazon will rocket the partner cryptocurrency upwards. If Amazon chooses to go this route it probably wouldn’t kill bitcoin, but whatever coin they went with could knock bitcoin out of its top spot.
3. Amazon could create its own cryptocurrency
If Amazon Prime video is any indication — Amazon loves to play in high potential spaces where it can leverage its huge army of developers to make big plays. Its holdings range from cloud storage, to video streaming, to hardware offerings. If it sees potential in the cryptocurrency space it has the technical resources to break into it.
It would not be the first time a large established company has launched their own token. In September 2017, the chat giant Kik launched an ICO raising $75 million dollars. Overstock, a publically traded e-commerce company, has seen its stock raise by 30% since announcing it plans to ICO this December.
If Amazon created its own cryptocurrency they could spread its use across their many services: from Amazon Prime, to Twitch, to Audible, allowing consumers to easily transfer funds within the Amazon ecosystem. They could outcompete any other cryptocurrency and entice mainstream adoption by offering a 5% or 10% discount on purchases made with AmazonCoin. With tens of thousands of developers and high paying salaries it could find the technical talent to design a coin that outpaces bitcoin when it comes to scaling and privacy concerns.
This is the most dangerous scenario for bitcoin but it relies on Amazon taking a major leap into a field it has so far avoided.
Keep an eye on Amazon as demand for cryptocurrencies rises
For now Amazon seems to be keeping quiet about its plans in this space. But whatever cryptocurrency Amazon chooses could become a household name overnight.
Whether Amazon chooses bitcoin, ethereum, or something else altogether, their choice will have dramatic consequences on the existing cryptocurrency landscape. Cryptocurrency and the technology behind it are here to stay, but bitcoin and its reign as the number one cryptocurrency might not be. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/amazon-is-the-biggest-threat-to-bitcoin-right-now-62a56d8435e4 | ['Coin'] | 2019-11-20 16:30:07.248000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Investing', 'Amazon'] |
Release Wrap Up — August 2020. Search, Dashboard, Hub, Oh My! | It’s been a busy month here at Jina — our team has been beavering away on our core product, Jina Search, and our other projects like Jina Dashboard and Jina Hub, both of which are getting their first releases this month. They grow up so fast!
So, needless to say, we’re excited to share the highlights of our release notes.
We’re just sharing a smattering of highlights here. Be sure to click through for the full notes!
Jina Search 0.5.0
Jina Search provides the core of our neural search framework.
Recursive Document structure
Native data querying capabilities
Migration of Executors to Jina Hub
Support for Mindspore.
Jina Dashboard 0.1.0
Get insight on running tasks in Jina. With Dashboard, you can analyze logs, design Flows and view Jina Hub images.
View log stream. When running a Jina instance with log server enabled, you can view logs output by your instance in the log stream tab by connecting it to the Dashboard in the settings tab.
tab by connecting it to the Dashboard in the tab. Monitor Tasks. You can view network load, queries per second, and messages sent and received by your Jina instance in the task tab.
tab. View and Edit Flows. In the flow design tab, you can view the Flow of a running instance, import a Flow in YAML format, edit and export a Flow in YAML format.
tab, you can view the Flow of a running instance, import a Flow in YAML format, edit and export a Flow in YAML format. Explore the Hub. In the hub tab, you can view available images, and explore more information about each one such as setup instructions, README's, and build history.
Jina Hub 0.1.0
A centralized registry of custom and community-driven Jina Apps and Pods that are tailored to specific use cases of neural search. | https://medium.com/jina-ai/release-wrap-up-august-2020-c852755e8fc0 | ['Alex C-G'] | 2020-09-02 08:56:39.923000+00:00 | ['Search', 'Neuralsearch', 'Software', 'Opensource', 'View full release notes'] |
We got time. | To love requires vulnerability. Patiently stripping yourself of your well protected persona before the person you love while simultaneously relinquishing control of how you want to be perceived. We have a tendency to maintain a half true incomplete view of our partner and only through courageousness of both partners can the beauty of vulnerability commence. This allows your partner to become fully human in front of you. Many hide behind their ego unconsciously retreating further from love. When the ego interferes with the journey between two lovers their interaction becomes a dance of two halves restricted from diving into the depths of the experience. A person of great reverence and gratitude must have uttered the first I love you. Making the vulnerable attempt to tell their partner that something deep within the heart , beats and stirs elevating their spirit at the sight of them. Like a child learning the world gentleness and reciprocity is what the heart hopes for during this period of aliveness.
The more I mature, my understanding of love evolves into what Bell Hook’s defines as, “The nurturance of ones own or another spirit”. It becomes a way of letting someone know I have trust in them and I have faith that this knowledge will bring a certain attentive gentleness to their behavior. Both partners make the long patient attempt to strip down before one another and see their partner as they really are without falling into the ego’s tendency of seeing a innocently narcisistic projection. So many partnerships have dissolved because of this inability to look at your partner objectively. I have found myself spending many nights awake working to re-figure the pink mosaic lens I once trust the night before. The inability to reconfigure your view of yourself and work towards some objectivity only deepens the distance from your partner.
If we do not give the world room to fail us, elevate us, drop us or touch us we can never grow. My trouble as many have suffered and are suffering is the feeling of abandonment. The fear of making the sojourn of life as we all must make it, alone. Our responsibility, that is the basis of our freedom, constitutes the ability to stand by yourself while knowing you are connected and interwoven into all the lives happening around you. Unable to meet this requirement in this hour develops into a paralysis or an inability to love and reveal yourself before another person. It is paradoxical to think you have to make yourself susceptible to be wounded in order to enter into the core of another person. We are all interwoven into each others live being moved by one another, being intimate with your emotions gives you the power to connect.
For many of us all of our attempts to love have ultimately revealed something buried within us that we would rather not remember. Often times this leads to very elaborate and illusory attempts to prevent ourselves from being damaged or even facing something we hoped to forget. These revelations require faith and empathy to move through the pain to a understanding that you are not condemned to your failures, forever trapped in that moment. One of the greatest things I was told was, “ We got time”. Which remains very cathartic for me because many people are trapped in different fears of time or death. The young want their riches this Friday, and if Friday comes without their riches despair swarms them. I have seen people in their 30s and 40s get anxious at the sight of a clock believing it’ll only be a moment before all possibility of the American dream collapses. Then you see the group that sits impatiently jaded and distrustful of all life waiting on death to meet them.
If you carve anything from these experiences, you do what is required of all lovers, dive to the depths of your soul and pull out faith. Faith that your silence will be heard, your stuttering understood and your heart comforted. Vulnerability helps you become empathetic of your emotions, which helps your partner trust we can understand and forgive their shortcomings. We all are sensitive and fragile holding ourselves together in various ways. Making yourself susceptible to being hurt or being lifted, opens the door to loving the core of another person. I think this makes the endeavor worth it, even if that means everything you once knew on Saturday must be torn down for the information coming in on Sunday. We often reorient ourselves during pain by distracting ourselves with duty or illusions, but to love it requires you to move through everything terrifying taking what you can from the experience. After all, “We got time”. | https://medium.com/@osirianjourney/we-got-time-9fdfe4d38a4 | ['Tony Mcdonald'] | 2021-06-30 18:00:19.539000+00:00 | ['Love Letters', 'Science', 'Philosophy', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Love'] |
Future of marketing lies in chatbots | Modern chatbots are, at their simplest, digital assistants that deliver specific results via a conversational interface. At their most complex, they are artificial-intelligence-powered tools that will make highly-personalized marketing scalable. They will change the face of marketing as we know it.
Many among us have used bots. Few among us have loved them. That’s why we must make a stand before it’s too late.
You’ve heard it. Bots are the future. But what kind of future they usher in is up to us. The marketers. The sales people. The founders. The startuppers. The front-line of artificial intelligence implementers.
Starting right now, we must solidify the framework around how to use these bots for good instead of evil.
But first, we must make a promise.
As marketers, we’re guilty of a lot. Not all of it is good.
We have this tendency to latch on when we find something that works. We don’t let go until the newest, most promising marketing channel is run completely into the ground.
It’s not because we’re evil. It’s a competitive world out there and we’re all just trying to find success for our businesses.
If one email marketing campaign hit our lead goals, we pile on more emails. Content marketing is trending? Let’s force feed people more content than they could ever possibly consume.
Now, software is built specifically to block, unsubscribe from, and otherwise squash the very campaigns we work so hard to create.
When did it come to this? It’s time to make a change.
Messaging is the new frontier of marketing. Bots give us the opportunity to tap into it by creating scalable, one-on-one interactions directly with consumers.
But hold up. That doesn’t mean we should flock to messaging apps with constant, unwanted streams of vague information.
Our bots should be activated only at a user’s request — we need their full permission. They should provide the most direct path from problem to solution. Their input should be rich in context, highly relevant, and as brief as botly possible.
This time around, we can promise to do better.
Consumers have changed.
And, quite frankly, they’re sick of what we’re dishing out.
People don’t want to search your entire blog database, your newsletter is completely lost in the garbage heap that is their email inbox, and they will unfollow you in a heartbeat if they find your social feeds overwhelming or irrelevant.
When a person has a problem, they will follow the path of least resistance to the answer. A bot that can meet them in the messaging interface they’re already using to a provide a solution with minimal investment on their part?
That’s where consumers and new marketers meet.
In their 2016 Mobile Messaging Report, ubisend-the leading AI driven chatbot building company, found that over 50 percent of consumers said they would choose messaging apps over email to get in touch with a company. In their 2017 Chatbot survey, nearly 70 percent of respondents said they would rather engage a chatbot than a human because they desired an instantaneous answer. One in five respondents said they would find no qualms in spending an average of $440 with a chatbot.
Not a bad close for a robot who works around the clock for free.
All good marketers know — meet your audience where they are.
Right now, the consumers are using messaging apps. People no longer have to download a separate app which they will never use:
By operating within already-used messaging channels such as Facebook Messenger or Slack, bots solve people’s growing frustration over the silos that apps create.
Why should a consumer have to download and open three different apps to choose a restaurant, book a reservation, and add the event to their calendar when a bot can do it all from the message app they already have open?
Why should a busy salesperson have to spend hours researching while juggling apps and keeping track of tens of tabs when they could just ask a bot to generate a list in seconds?
It’s simple. They shouldn’t have to. And soon, they won’t.
We can do better this time around.
When you pull it off, the results are incredible. Bots provide incredibly customized communication for every single user you have or ever will have.
However, when it’s bad, it’s almost unforgivable.
Bots operate in a fragile space — people’s personal communication channels. If they don’t deliver an efficient and delightful experience, users won’t hesitate to unsubscribe from your bot and never look back.
The single most important thing you can realize is that the challenge of building a bot doesn’t lie in the technical details. It’s in making it so human-like that people almost can’t tell they’re interacting with a program instead of a live virtual assistant.
Bot communication is both simple and complex all at once.
At a minimum, a rules-based bot should be able to offer up the solutions your user base is likely to seek.
That means you will have to deeply understand your audience, determine what kind of requests they’re likely to make, and develop a way to provide satisfactory solutions.
Your conversational flow is vital and should include a series of dependent questions. The answers to which will give the bot enough info to both understand what the customer wants and deliver on their request.
When available with AI-enabled bots, context is also hugely important.
In the same way a real-life assistant would be able to unpack all the unspoken context in a request, a bot should be able to respond to the same cues.
Say a user initiates a request to find a hotel room for Friday. Artificial intelligence can help the bot learn where that user will be Friday, what time they’re available to check in, whether they prefer their accommodations have a gym, and so on.
Delivery of this solution should arrive within as few steps as possible. The entire interaction, including the solution, should take place right in the messaging app. Most bot-building platforms include rich media options to help users carry out any necessary actions once their answer is delivered.
To be honest, you and your bot probably won’t get it right the first time — or countless times after that. But the amazing thing about AI-enabled bots is they get more and more useful every time they interact with data.
And that’s exactly what a bot should do: Be useful.
Useful bots have a way of attracting referrals and retaining happy customers.
Your bot should help its user cut down on the micro-decisions and actions they have to do each day.
What it should not do is function as another communication channel where you push out non-customized, blanket content.
Just because bots are the newest marketing stream doesn’t mean they’re suddenly the only marketing stream. For more complex tasks, a form or a live customer service agent might still be the best way to serve the consumer.
Even for less complex tasks where a bot usually works, a customer should have the option to engage another channel or a human if they aren’t able to reach a satisfactory solution.
Pick one thing and do it extremely well. Always consider what duties you want your bot to perform and on which platform(s). What works on Facebook Messenger might not be a great fit for Kik.
Research shows that people are very open to interacting with customer service bots, even if they don’t immediately realize that’s what’s happening.
That’s still no excuse to try to pass your bot for a human. People don’t like feeling tricked.
Bots must be held to a high standard now more than ever.
As this technology rapidly evolves marketing as we know it, the way businesses leverage it will set the tone for what’s to come.
That’s why we as marketers and makers must understand our role in ensuring we don’t scorch another channel before it has the chance to radically change communication as we know it.
Bots have unlimited potential.
Right now, it’s hard to understand the full scope of just what bots can do.
Sure they can save you time and stress by making mundane, repetitive tasks a thing of the past.
But imagine an AI-enabled bot that can help keep track of health conditions, refill prescriptions, and automatically alert medical professionals if it senses something is off.
Today’s bots are often divided into two categories: Informational bots and utility bots.
Informational bots give users a new channel to consumer information, such as breaking news alerts based on your interests.
Utility bots help users complete an action or solve a problem via a user-prompted transaction.
This might include enlisting a bot to deal with the nightmare of updating an airline reservation or pulling up your Google analytics data, so your campaign stats are always at your fingertips.
For the first time, that’s not just a figure of speech. The world, and the market, is ready for bots. Just look at WeChat.
China’s WeChat shows the way to social media’s future.
The app’s 700 million users return to it up to 10 times every day to do everything from conduct business calls to manage their personal finances. What can you do to make your bot that streamlined and useful?
If you’re a good marketer, you’ll do your best to build a tool that feels welcoming without being imposing and helpful without being overwhelming. You’ll understand that bot communication should solve one problem really well — and do it only when prompted.
It’s not that people don’t like bots. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. When the basic rules and boundaries are respected, people are pleased to work with bots. They fill a need. They provide value and delight at the same time.
There is no doubt bots are the future. Whether that future is a utopian one or a dystopian one is up to how well we follow this framework right now.
We have the power to build honest-to-goodness relationships with our consumers. And consumers are ready to trust us again. It’s a great spot to be in.
This time around, we will do better. | https://medium.com/predict/future-of-marketing-lies-in-chatbots-a10d124aa39d | ['Riti Dass'] | 2018-10-25 20:23:08.843000+00:00 | ['Chatbots', 'Bots', 'Marketing'] |
Good Software Developer Uses Math | Good Software Developer Uses Math
There are a lot of discussions whether software developers need math to do their work. And the popular view is they do not. Here I challenge that assumption.
Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash
First of all, I would like to clarify which kind of mathematics helps every software developer to be really good and versatile. I am not talking about math-heavy software development here, so in my personal observation, encountering mathematical problems may be a rare event. 95% of time developers (seemingly) are concerned with something else, especially, when they are engaged with the higher level programming languages. In those 5% of occasions it’s still quite manageable. For example, from time to time we may need to do a topological sort or implement some graph algorithm. It’s enough for a team to have at least one person to do it right, but I am not talking about those cases here. Knowing some areas of applied math or algorithms from computer science courses is a big bonus for programmers, but does not prevent people without competences in those fields to become professional software developers. Zero-coding revolution is not the main topic here either, but attentive readers can come to certain conclusions. The main claim here is as follows:
Good software developers reasoning is very similar to that of mathematicians.
On the surface it is not a surprise, because the code we write is equivalent to… mathematical proof according to the Curry–Howard correspondence: Programmers write proofs. Here it’s enough to say every function in the code is an instance of a proof. The whole code of the function can be seen as an example of the function’s type. And having a proof is equivalent to showing at least one example of the type. We are talking about constructive mathematics here. Those interested can take a look into one of the proof assistance, such as Coq, to see what it is about. Well, I’ve oversimplified it in this paragraph. There are a lot of details and nuances.
Good software developers construct better proofs. In order to do so, they develop a special kind of thinking, which includes logical or as some call it algorithmic thinking, and exactly this kind of thinking is similar to what mathematicians do.
Using mathematical thinking does not mean one should know cosines or abstract algebra or some other specific topics or constructs. What is valuable here is the way to reason itself, which can be developed even in high school. It’s completely another matter which constructs teachers use to teach mathematics, but using numbers, addition, multiplication, functions, equations, geometrical objects, it is already possible to give some basic skills and understanding of how mathematical reason works.
High school math content as such can be enough for most tasks in programming. However, it’s the special mathematical thinking we are after here.
Both programming and math are about manipulating symbols. In both areas symbols fall into place in a very strict way, which means both developers and mathematicians should be very careful about what they write and how symbols they write are connected with the rest of the system they are modeling. Both programming and math usually understand symbols as having some type, which strictly defines how that symbol can be manipulated.
One more hint of similarity for both kinds of reasoning is that both professions consider finding and applying patterns as a saver for time and cognitive efforts. Even the term refactoring, widely used in programming, has been probably borrowed from math, where it means removing a common factor out of the brackets:
ax + bx + cx + dx = (a+b+c+d)x
Clean code should read as prose. However, in my opinion writing clean code is quite different from writing prose. This text is not very good prose. It has syntax mistakes in it, typos, punctuation is not correct in some places. And even though I put some thinking into presenting arguments here in a certain order, natural language allows for much more freedom of expression, and my reader will hopefully understand what I am trying to say here.
Writing code in programming language or doing mathematical research gives much less freedom. Mathematical texts are not free from mistakes, but those are considered more like bugs in software. This is because both math and programming use formal languages to express knowledge.
Even though both math and programming keep creators inside certain limits, both fields provide unlimited possibilities to be creative. Sure, certain “functions” of mathematics are known from ancient times, many only for the past 200 years. Programming languages have more recently written libraries. The programming community is abuzz with Rust, so are mathematicians with homotopy type theory. In both fields it is easy to implement something by yourself. But in both fields that new construct can already be found in the vast libraries written so far.
Those in doubt, may still agree to the following:
Experienced programmers, who think they do not use math or do not need math, are just reinventing the math.
It is also important to note here, that while it is relatively hard to do both programming and math, it may be relatively easy to check proofs (if they are written in proof assistant language) or to run the program (written in programming language). It is even possible to verify (prove) some piece of code does exactly what it is supposed to do, though usually it’s quite costly and tests are written instead (tests can prove only that the code is wrong). This is because the logic of the written code is made easy, formalized for machines by humans.
Writing code or math on the other hand is not as simple as running some program. The catch here is that it is impossible to write an algorithm, which can produce an algorithm for every possible problem. Yes, we can move closer and closer to the ideal world by developing new tools and techniques. Yes, certain things, which programmers did yesterday may require programmers no more and accumulated libraries or artificial intelligence can replace them. Yes, AI can help work on mathematical proofs. Mindless programming jobs can disappear. Programming as a profession, however, will not in the near future.
For those who think math is nearly useless for programmers, please, think again. Best of you are doing it without realizing it. So learn some math to become a smarter developer, to align your system of reasoning with a much more advanced one with hundreds of years of “coding” practice. The good news is math is a very vast domain. Start with something elementary: set theory, abstract algebra, category theory, topology, mathematical logic, number theory. Find good introductions, which are not too much into applied mathematics, but stay with fundamental concepts. That is why I do not recommend starting with statistics or mathematical analysis. Try to practice with some “unusual” constructs: groups, graphs, categories, sets. You will discover math from a completely different angle than what you remember from high school. Start with simple constructs. If you love programming, you will like proving theorems. Of course, looking into graph theory may require knowing what is a set. But it’s like in programming using concatenation may require looking into what types the operation supports.
Practicing mathematics will give you an edge over time. You will start to see more patterns and discover that the code you write revolves around a couple of dozen fundamental patterns. You will also amplify your intuition for incomplete constructs (classes, functions, modules), which will help to prevent certain kinds of defects in the code. Maybe, to simplify, if you implement subtraction, your intuition will tell when to “invent” negative numbers to make things clean and beautiful again.
Actually, it works both ways. Programming reinforces understanding of math. Helps to think out of the box (of the “school math”).
Fast symbolic manipulation skills math education gives will make your code have less hard-coded things: x + y is slightly more complex than 2 + 3, but when we also need 2 + 4, 3 + 5, and 7 + 1, making generic function instead of three specific ones can definitely be less complex. Some words of warning are due here. There is one important difference between programming and math: The power of mathematics (and mathematical logic) is in abstracting from the problem domain. Meanings are not needed once we formulate the mathematical model, and appear again when calculations solves the problem. In programming it is usually good practice to call things by their names and attach meanings to constructs whenever possible. In this sense programming is more like physics, where connection with the real world is crucial.
However, math can still help here. Domain entities’ meaning is sometimes quite patchy. For example, it is generally understood that there are 60 seconds in one hour. It is so common sense, that the fact that a leap second can be added now and then rarely crosses the mind. (I have even seen cases where summertime transitions did not cross the minds of developers.) The lesson here is that busy programmers may rely on some assumptions, and only math can tell that the duration of a minute can be more than 60 seconds, just because we have a difference of two numbers. Ability to attach and detach meanings can help build more reliable software. And this is also what mathematicians do, though they spend much more time in the “detached meanings” state.
I’ve tried to sell mathematical (and logical) thinking to developers who consider themselves distanced (or even openly disliking) mathematics. In addition, and for everyone I can only add that mathematics has more concrete uses in computer science and theory of algorithms. For example, every developer should be aware how computational complexity of an algorithm can be calculated (at least estimated) in practice. Otherwise, their software will be open to unpleasant surprises. Basic knowledge of logic can make wonders to the conditions. Familiarity with graph theory can save many hours by applying well-known algorithms, and many more hours of debugging those algorithms. By this I want to say that mathematics can help it’s users directly, not only as a way to hone reasoning skills. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/good-software-developer-uses-math-9954b46e50a1 | ['Roman Suzi'] | 2020-11-14 14:47:27.875000+00:00 | ['Math', 'Software Development'] |
Letting my kids swear means no topic is taboo | Letting my kids swear means no topic is taboo
And that means they actually talk to me.
Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash
It’s zero-dark-thirty and I’m driving my freshman son to school. He’s going on a rant about this one kid and the supposedly terrible things he does.
“He’s such a cunt,” finished my son.
Momentarily, I was stunned. Had my firstborn actually said that word — THE C-word — in front of his mother? Yes, he had. And he’d said it conversationally and matter-of-factly, with no embarrassment even considered.
I barked a little laugh.
“Wow. You must really dislike him. I can’t believe you called him that.”
And then, Mom that I am, I felt it necessary to explain to my kid that using that particular word is pretty off-putting to some people, so he should be careful about using it. After that, we went right back to our conversation about so-and-so, and what makes him so rotten.
At one point, I’d have been shocked to listen in to some of these conversations between my children and myself because in what seems like another lifetime, we didn’t swear. When my boys were very young, they didn’t even know what cuss words were. Upon hearing someone reference the S-word, my kid thought they meant — and he whispered when he said this to me — stupid.
Somewhere along the line, my vocabulary declined. Rather, it increased to encompass words I rarely said aloud. It started around the time my first marriage ended and later, when I began dating the man who became my second husband, my tongue loosened up even more. Part of that is because my now-husband swears like an old Marine, which isn’t surprising because he was raised by one.
As my marriage was ending and then while I was becoming accustomed to life as a single mom, I made a vow to keep it real with my children. That meant they got to see my raw, ugly emotions as I navigated what would become the hardest years of my life so far, and I was open with them about what I was going through. Possibly more often than it should have, that involved swearing.
The boys were pretty young when their dad and I split up, but I’m proud to say that as my oldest entered his preteen years and then became a teenager, I was able to nurture that open relationship to the point that now, he’s comfortable talking to me about anything. Admittedly, there were times over the years when I probably spoke a little too frankly, involving my kids in the grown-up things I was going through, but that’s okay. We’re all just muddling through this parenting thing as best we can anyway.
The swearing thing just kind of evolved. At first, he kind of felt around it, maybe slipping in a word here or there to see what he could get away with. Sometimes I laughed, sometimes I reprimanded, but usually I worked hard to make sure I didn’t flinch.
Why? Because he was talking to me.
I am an only child, and I never really got into the habit of swearing in front of my parents. Only now, in my 40s, might I let one slip in front of my dad and I kid you not, I blush when it happens. I got into the habit of guarding my words when I was growing up, I suppose for fear of not being the good little girl I wanted to be perceived as. That self-censorship extended deeper than the words themselves, too. I never really felt comfortable discussing any remotely sensitive topics with my folks either.
I didn’t want that for my relationship with my boys, so I deemed any word and any topic fair game. I did so by answering their questions — even the hard ones — calmly and honestly, and by metering my reactions when they said something shocking.
Because my kids and I like to go for long drives and find new places to explore in our beautiful state, we spend a lot of time in the car and that is the perfect setting to talk about things. My oldest is in charge of choosing the music we listen to, and the conversation flows in the most amazing ways between any subject that comes to mind. We’ve talked about love and sex and politics and substance abuse. We discuss liberty and feminism and Led Zeppelin and where we can find the best bowl of Pho or deep-fried pickles.
They’ve asked me questions that make me think, and they’ve made me explain things I didn’t want to talk about. I’ve asked them questions that they don’t want to answer, and I’ve responded calmly to the answers I didn’t want to hear.
Sometimes, we talk about what a cunt some kid at school is.
I don’t like excessive swearing. I think cuss words can be used effectively to express strong feelings, but their use can also get to a level that makes a person sound uneducated. I’m trying to teach my children the difference.
My youngest is a preteen, and he’s just starting to feel around the edges of swearing. Generally, it’s when his brother has really pissed him off and he’ll tell him as much. Sometimes I’ll caution him and sometimes I’ll let it slide. If his older brother’s language seems to be slipping dramatically, I’ll give him a nudge that it’s getting excessive and he’ll self-correct. (Until one of those teenage male rage-outbursts occurs.)
So far, it’s been working.
I hope that as my boys get older and life’s topics get more difficult, they’ll continue to feel like they can talk to me about them. And if throwing the C-word in there helps them express what they need to, I’m all for it. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/letting-my-kids-swear-means-no-topic-is-taboo-ea1af01cd6a3 | ['Krystal Moralee'] | 2020-01-27 22:15:03.314000+00:00 | ['Parenting Teenagers', 'Parenting', 'Communication'] |
How Childhood Trauma Can Set You Up to Be a Magnet for Narcissists | Like many of the traumatized men and women I treat for narcissistic abuse syndrome, I too was a magnet for malignant narcissists. Throughout much of my life, the plight of brutal circumstances as a child raised by abusers set me up for subsequent victimization. The developmental disasters I incurred impeded the cultivation of interpersonal discrimination and discernment. Chronic neglect and mistreatment left me starving for loving connection and intimacy. Intimacy that I lacked the life skills and acumen to satisfy.
Unlike children who are raised in a climate of safety and love, abused children can develop a paradoxical attachment disorder known as disinhibited social engagement disorder (DSED). Essentially, when a necessary primary secure attachment to one’s parents has been denied, the child willingly and fearlessly turns to strangers for comfort. Many folks misinterpret these signs of DSED as a form of guileless trust when in actuality it is indicative of ruptured bonds with one’s primary caregivers.
Indeed, as a child beset by traumatic loneliness I carelessly engaged with anyone who was willing. As is reflective of children with DSED, I lacked instinctual fear and self-protective guardedness. Predisposed to be indiscriminately friendly and responsive to seductive overtures put me at risk.
Clearly lacking appropriate social boundaries and being driven by reckless desperation is inherently unsafe. Driven by the need to attach children with DSED may accept a ride from an unfamiliar person or enter the home of a stranger. Self-protective instincts are overruled by the need to attach. In fact, many of the folks I treat for complex trauma report repeatedly putting themselves in harm's way with others who were glaringly unsafe. They either lacked the capacity to discern danger or they simply didn’t care.
As the work of British psychoanalyst John Bowlby established, the capacity for adult intimacy and love is largely predicated on the emotional bonds prevalent within the child-parent relationship. Accordingly, when the relationally traumatized child enters adulthood, difficulties with intimacy morph into relationships characterized by power-submissive dynamics, or what Dr. Patrick Carnes refers to as trauma bonds.
Since differentiating predation from trustworthiness eludes the victim of relational trauma and is exacerbated by an insatiable craving for love which they don’t feel worthy of, subjugation is inevitable.
Photo by Artem Labunsky on Unsplash
As to be expected a reliable sense of independence within connection was not available to me. Afflicted by unmet needs for love, affection and security I deferred, yielded and fawned in pursuit of morsels of kindness. Dynamics with parental narcissism trained me to abdicate personal preferences and any sense of agency. Servitude was deeply imprinted in my psyche. I was groomed to be supply.
Supply is a term coined in 1938 by psychoanalyst Otto Fenichel. It is descriptive of the narcissistic objectification of a designated target. The insatiable needs of the narcissist demand uncompromising compliance and worship. Often referred to as energy vampires, the malignant narcissist will love bomb, manipulate, lie and abuse to ensure a steadfast, obedient continuous source of supply from primary and peripheral relationships.
Folks who were groomed to accommodate the unquenchable needs of their caregivers, to over-function, to endure abuse and neglect and disown dependency needs, limits and intelligent guardedness, are especially ripe for narcissistic victimization. Although these predispositions are not a decisive measure for who becomes the narcissist’s mark, these traits broadcast that one is a malleable naive source of supply that can be easily seduced and controlled.
Suffice it to say victims of narcissistic abuse who are beset by complex trauma will evidence a greater exacerbation of symptoms and present with a more challenging prognosis and recovery, than those grappling with an isolated acute episode of traumatic abuse. For the complex trauma survivor healing from the aftermath of a degrade and discard with a narcissist is not enough to break the relentless pattern of being repeatedly reduced to a codependent pretzel. Deeper therapeutic work is called for. | https://medium.com/invisible-illness/how-childhood-trauma-can-set-you-up-to-be-a-magnet-for-narcissists-664abd2e376f | ['Rev. Sheri Heller'] | 2020-12-12 18:23:56.800000+00:00 | ['Trauma', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Narcissism', 'Child Abuse'] |
Coaching With Heart | One of my VP Product coachees raised a topic that comes up often: “I want to become a much better coach for my reports, both around product issues and people management. How do I ask powerful questions to lead my team through that rather than giving the answer?”
This is a hard (and interesting) question because it mixes subject expertise with management styles and essential soft skills. Content critiques alongside motivation and organizational hierarchy.
I like to start by unpacking and understanding our coaching goals. Typically this is about improved delegation: our goal as product leaders should be to delegate as much direct product management work to our teams as possible. There are other things that product leaders need to do — and can’t delegate — so we try to step back from the daily pandemonium and focus on portfolio-level stuff.
And remembering that much of product management is “case method” rather than book learning or template-driven: courses and how-to guides present product as a sequential, logical process where we do A then B then C based on repeatable steps or universal “best practices.” I find that issues and challenges come up in clusters, unexpectedly, without clean delineation or separation. We have to figure out what tool or method or template or framework to apply, then dig into the problem at hand. (So just sending someone off to a workshop or telling them to search for a template isn’t enough to grow product skills.)
Finally, good coaching/mentoring is inherently generous and low-ego. When I notice myself falling into lecture mode or trying to “win” a discussion, I may not be as helpful as I intend. The goal is to move my product team toward self-sufficiency, not to out-PM them. Plenty of other leadership-level work to do.
From there, worth splitting out a few different learning stages:
1. “Since you haven’t done this before…”
There’s a wide range of concepts and tools to master, often tied to product maturity or revenue ramps or team/company size, that few of us get right the first time. For instance, sunsetting (aka end-of-lifing) a product doesn’t happen very frequently so most (junior) product managers have never done it. And EOL is fraught with technical, user-side and political issues (“but our third-largest customer licensed this obscure database connector, and we can’t afford to upset them.”) So our eager young protégé doesn’t know where to start or how to avoid the pitfalls. Conversations might start with…
“Here’s an old EOL plan of mine. It’s not exactly what we need, but a good starting place. Give it a read-through, then let’s talk about what we can borrow or adapt. Don’t worry if it takes a few drafts to get this right.”
“Sruthi went through this a few quarters back. She can give you a head start, share with worked/didn’t work last time. Then you and I can iterate on it until we’re ready to share your plan more widely.”
“Pretend I’m in Sales or Marketing. Tell me how they would describe this as a customer benefit.”
“None of us are fresh on this, sorry. Here are some starter online resources. But you shouldn’t expect this to be a template exercise, so let’s walk through what you discover before you get too far.”
2. “That might be a workable solution, but…”
Much of what we do is pattern-matching, applying hard-won lessons, thinking through a situation from several sides. But new product managers may want to get to the answer quickly or mechanically — sometimes following a stepwise approach to the wrong place. Or they get lost in the data. Or they briefly forget that we fight for our end users, even when another department is pushing short-term thinking. So we need to mix motivational messages with tough feedback; stay upbeat but unambiguous.
“You really captured the technical problem well here. But feels like we’re jumping to one solution without exploring alternatives. Which of our architects or sales engineers might have other ways to slice this?”
“I think that SSO/delegated authority feature is for our largest customers. But most of your interviews and usage data are from mid-market/SMB. What do we know about the few-in-number-but-big-revenue prospects that may need this?”
“I’m not sure how we got from A to B. Walk me through your logic.”
“Looks like this came directly from our BigCorp account team. Let’s back up, talk about why enterprise sales teams might overstate the market demand for a feature.”
“Which customer segments will be excited if we pull blockchain forward on the roadmap? Which might be frustrated that we’re postponing localization and canceling currency symbol options to make room for that?”
Our goal is both to get a good immediate solution and also build critical product thinking skills. Product managers must be able to handle valid critiques, humbly delivered. (Stakeholders and customers will be less humble, often wrong, and off-strategy.)
3. “Really good work. I might have chosen on a different approach, but that’s OK…”
We won’t run out of important work to do, so our team needs things that are (at least) good enough to move the products and business ahead. And this may be the coaching/mentoring moment when we can hand over a whole stream of similar work.
“Great! I think this is ready for early feedback from a few key sales/marketing folks. Let’s role-play some likely responses about wanting delivery two quarters earlier.”
“Next time, I might push the charts and graphs to the back — pull your two key recommendations to the very top — but let’s go with this as it is. If you hear any confusion from Customer Success, that would be a good time to shuffle the sequence.”
“This third party integration plan looks outstanding. There are 5 other integrations waiting in the wings… how would you feel about picking all of those up and becoming our go-to- person in this area?”
4. “The rest of the product team will eventually have to learn this. How about you take 10–15 minutes at Thursday’s PM staff meeting to walk all of us through your approach?”
For the win… one team member has mastered a product skill enough to coach others. To become a broader resource. To take some mentoring off our plates, which are still overflowing.
Finally, product leaders sometimes share concerns that their best people may leave. That skills-building makes PMs even more attractive to recruiters and competitors. Yup. But I hope that we’re in the long game. Companies, jobs, products come and go… growing great product managers and eventually sending them out on their own is (for me) one of life’s great pleasures. It’s fine to be at the back of Carnegie Hall, applauding a virtuoso who we’ve helped get there.
Sound Byte
Coaching/mentoring is a skill we need to develop as (product) leaders. Focusing on constructive criticism and controlling our egos helps us cultivate skill and delegate more. And eventually share some great talent with the world. | https://medium.com/@richmironov/coaching-with-heart-11b850067dc4 | ['Rich Mironov'] | 2021-06-01 15:56:30.047000+00:00 | ['Coaching', 'Soft Skills', 'Leadership', 'Feedback', 'Mentoring'] |
13 Surprising Ways Opposites Attract Like Magnets | 13 Surprising Ways Opposites Attract Like Magnets
Many people believe that couples who share the same hobbies, personalities, skills, and career interests stick together for life. Still, there is proof that opposites attract with a love that never ends.
Photo by Marc A. Sporys on Unsplash
Is it possible for opposite partners to maintain happiness and love in their relationship? I believe it’s true because I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes in both sets of my grandparents, who remained married and deeply in love until their deaths. Science also proves it. According to the Myers-Briggs test, people draw closer to those who have opposite personality traits.
Thirteen ways to know for sure that opposites can attract and maintain a loving relationship for life are:
1. Your partner is mannerly, and you’re the wild kid.
Imagine an intelligent, smart, and mannerly man who works in the medical field with a young woman who was a wild child throughout her years. She has a strong sense of humor, has lived through harsh life experiences only to overcome them, and works in the legal field. She’s also a few inches taller than him. His ambitiousness, honesty, loyalty, intelligence, gentleness, maturity, and respect is a significant turn on for someone like her. She may also remind him to enjoy life now and then and embrace the feeling of fun and humor.
Joseph Cilona, PsyD., a licensed clinical psychologist in Manhatten, explains, “Many important aspects of relationships, especially personality traits, needs, and preferences are a much better fit when they are opposite or complementary, rather than similar.”
2. An introvert and extrovert balance out each other.
An introvert may never feel like socializing or going out, but the extrovert can fuel the desire to go out now and then. On the other hand, an extrovert feels like going out frequently but will learn to enjoy and love relaxing days at home with their introvert. It eventually becomes a balance.
3. You don’t care what other people say or think, are madly in love with them for who they are, and have nothing to prove to anyone.
Everyone may ask, “What do you see in him/her? He/she’s not attractive. He/she’s too old/young for you. You have nothing in common. It won’t work!” Listen to your heart instead of seeking the approval of everyone else. You know you truly love someone when they are opposite of you, you can’t stop loving them or thinking about them, and you’re sincere about your feelings. Some people date the wrong person to prove to their families or friends that they have an open mind or spite them. It’s crucial to recognize that you’re dating an opposite person sincerely for yourself and not for spite.
4. You’ll embarrass each other but find them adorable.
This one reminds me of both sets of my grandparents. Both of my grandfathers were tall men, and my grandmothers were incredibly petite. My mom’s dad was the wild child, the social butterfly, spoke his mind, had an extreme sense of humor, and my grandma is an introverted, quiet, and shy book nerd. My dad’s dad was business-like, proper, and mannerly, and my other grandma was an outgoing, tomboyish, and sassy little spitfire.
The way they teased and embarrassed each other in front of us never ended, and it was an expression of their love toward each other. They were significantly different, but their passion and attraction to each other remained the same, even in old age. As I look back through my childhood and teens, I’ve recognized the same “wild child” traits in my maternal grandpa and paternal grandma in myself. In my recovery from trauma, I’m gradually and gratefully becoming that “wild child” again.
5. You’ll add to each other’s strengths.
In the beginning, an introvert and extrovert can be shy and nervous around each other. Then, the socialite eventually begins talking and cracking jokes quite a bit. The extrovert teaches the introvert ways to communicate and have a little fun with the conversation. Another example is an introvert who loves to comfort their partner by physical and emotional touch. The extrovert might have always recoiled at cuddling, but their introverted partner will show them the art of love in that way to help them feel comforted.
6. You’ll love learning their views and respect them.
When you truly love someone, you develop mutual respect without arguing. Both of you may have different political views, but you respect each other’s boundaries and opinions without forcing each other to do anything. When you both have mutual respect out of true love, your relationship has the potential to last a lifetime.
7. You’ll start practicing some of their characteristics and habits.
Every person changes through time, and it happens more often in couples who have different characteristics. You may admire one or more of your partner’s habits and begin making them yours. Implementing their practices can lead them to have more patience with you, and you’ll also enjoy it.
8. You’ll complement, not complete each other.
No one on this earth needs another person to feel whole. You’re the only one who can make yourself feel that way. On the contrary, it’s a beautiful thing when you have another person to enhance you, and you have many differences.
Examples of great opposites are:
He’s short and has trouble reaching things, and she’s tall and can reach almost anything.
He’s a cuddler, but she has never felt comfortable cuddling. He shows her the comforting feeling of it, and she gradually begins to love cuddling with him.
He’s the serious, mannerly, organized, homebody, and she’s the funny tomboyish thrillseeker who gets him out of his shell now and then.
9. You’ll develop an open mind to learn and try new things.
Although you and your partner may have many differences, the extrovert can awaken the introvert’s inner child. For example, let’s say that the introvert hasn’t had a pet since he was a kid. The extrovert has a pet and shows the introvert how it felt to have a pet. The introvert will most likely adopt one too, form an inseparable bond with it, and feel more than grateful. The introvert will also love explaining why his pet may knock over the food or water bowl and show him prevention methods since she has had long-term experience raising a pet. The extrovert will also enjoy learning the “proper” ways of the introvert.
10. Your patience will grow.
As the couple learns their differences and adapts to them, there will be times they can irritate each other. No relationship is perfect, and that’s where their devotion, true love, and patience get tested. No marriage or relationship is ever simple. Although my grandparents loved each other deeply and were significantly different, there were times they got on each other’s nerves. Their tolerance of each other increased as they spent more time together, and their love and compassion grew through the years.
11. You’ll become less judgmental and more understanding.
There’s no doubt that you’ll be less critical of other people when you spend more time with someone who’s much more different than you. Both will develop a new way of thinking and behavior that connects you closer. After acknowledging your differences, you’ll be more patient with each other and the people around you.
12. You’ll become more spontaneous.
Dr. Joseph Cilona says, “When it comes to romantic compatibility, many people first think of similarities. While similar traits can certainly increase romantic compatibility, it’s not always the case and can backfire for some couples.”
It gets boring when you date someone who shares all the same interests as you. I’ve been there. You do everything together, it becomes the same routine, and it gets boring. It’s like you’re dating yourself and always expect the same things each day or week. Every date night is Netflix and chill, dinner, and sex. It gets old fast, and expectations start to get unmet. A spontaneous partner does the unpredictable and spices up the relationship.
13. You’ll embrace each other’s differences and encourage them.
Having too many similarities can create problems because you’ll begin worrying when your lover does something different. Frequently, it causes couples to attempt controlling each other due to unmet expectations. You’re more motivated to do something different when you don’t have as many things in common. You love each other’s differences, and both of you remember that those differentiating characteristics are what pulled you together like a magnet in the first place.
Worlds apart attract each other beyond control like a magnet.
It’s a fact that opposites attract, and these couples have the potential to maintain a fulfilling relationship for life. Their passion is like a blazing fire. It’s not about being with a person who has everything in common with you, works in the same field, or has the same personality. A loving and passionate relationship is all about loving what makes you unique and having an open mind. | https://medium.com/an-idea/13-surprising-ways-opposites-attract-like-magnets-4fe1fcb03526 | ['Mari Colham'] | 2020-10-05 06:55:43.372000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Love', 'Lifestyle', 'Psychology', 'Dating'] |
Spending the Holidays Alone | First of all, whether you’re actively choosing to spend the holidays alone or are doing it out of circumstances due to Covid-19 or life event, I hope that you’re compassionate towards yourself and are extra kind to yourself this holiday season. Give yourself the permission and the challenge to invest in your happiness and emotional health by buying and making yourself your favorite meals, spending a few extra hours in bed, playing your favorite games, watching your favorite films or YouTube channels, treating yourself to your favorite drinks, and buying yourself presents. Give yourself a hug and treat yourself the way that you’ve always wanted to be treated. Perhaps you need to forgive yourself for an indiscretion or even the way that you treated yourself in the past. Self-care can come in the form of self-reflection, grieving, going to therapy, and crying. Whatever it may be, I implore you to accept yourself, whatever your financial state might be, whatever goals you may or may not have met, and love yourself during this holiday season.
The holidays are meant to be a time to celebrate and to come together with your loved ones. For some of us, the holidays are trying times. They are the times that amplify the fractures in our lives and in our families or they can be the times in which we pretend that everything is okay, only for things to fall apart and to go back to the way they were after the holiday season.
Growing up, the highlight of my Christmas holiday was going to the Chinese grocery store in Houston. We drove an hour and a half each way just to go to a grocery store! Seeing the items on the shelves, even though I wasn’t allowed to buy them, made me happy. Because we were poor, we didn’t exchange presents. We weren’t even allowed to buy cakes or such. Mostly, I loved going to the grocery store because in those few minutes, it felt like I was in China again, and I could pretend that everything was okay. My mother usually gave us the silent treatment or had some sort of angry outburst before or after going to the grocery store — pretty much at all times — but at the grocery store, she usually wasn’t as mean. I stayed out of her way and didn’t ask for anything. Those were the happiest times of my life. It aches to remember and to write about it now. Because my father hated the Chinese government, we weren’t allowed to celebrate Chinese holidays either. So life was just a long blur of misery. The thing is, even when things changed and my parents earned more money, the holidays remained the same. The only difference was we bought a tree and on Christmas morning, my father would write me a $100 check. There was no love or appreciation. Just a transaction.
As an adult, I set out to have real holidays. But I didn’t realize that I was still playing pretend and creating a fabrication. I chose people who would have proper Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations but I didn’t really enjoy spending time with them. The holidays were this construct, and we played our parts, but we didn’t like each other. Still, this was better than the holidays that I spent at home. There were real presents underneath the tree and large celebratory family meals with drinks. There was genuine laughter and even momentary happiness, but our relationships didn’t work, and I wanted real lasting relationships, apart from the holidays.
Going Cold Turkey
In the last few years, I’ve been spending my holidays alone. I quit the holidays like an addict quitting cigarettes. I went cold turkey. If I didn’t know how to choose people who were healthy for me and people I really wanted to celebrate with, then I would spend it by myself. At first, I thought that I was a loser. Even so, I ventured to buy myself my favorite brisket sandwich. I spent a week without talking to anyone. The second year I spent Christmas alone I ate BBQ again and went to see Vox Lux. The waiter at the BBQ joint gave me a free helping of potato salad. At the movies, seeing people that actually liked each other made me feel sad. I wondered why I had such a difficult time surrounding myself with people who I liked and who liked me back.
Core shame and fear of attachment prevents me from seeking healthy people who are good for me while trauma bonding impels me to seek out the same kind of people and relationship dynamics that I grew up with. It’s all I know. Even though I was sad and I spent Christmas and New Years alone, it was the best holiday I’ve ever had. I ate what I wanted to eat and I did what I wanted to do. For the first time, I was part of the equation. I didn’t have to spend my holiday break at an outlet mall as my mother browsed the racks for hours without buying anything or humiliating me. I got to do what I wanted to do. Last year, I caved and spent the holiday season with an old college friend. After the second day, I realized that I was wasting my time, that I was still chasing people who didn’t choose me, and that it was officially time to go on my way and stop looking back.
The holidays, for people like me, are difficult. It means looking back at a history of holidays filled with deprivation and low self-worth. Sometimes, the holidays compel me to relapse. To seek out people from my past just so I don’t have to spend the holidays alone. I feel ashamed because I am alone. There are conflicting voices in my head judging me for being alone and cheering me on for taking care of me. The judgment doesn’t feel very good.
The last four years has made me stronger. Being alone has helped me to rebuild a relationship with myself and it will help me to seek people who choose me as much as I choose them. I am not there yet but I will be. The most important thing during the holidays isn’t the presents or the food or drinks. It’s the people that you spend it with. Healing and grieving takes a long time. Quitting abusive people and starting a new way of life takes years. I wish the transition period didn’t take so long. I have a firmer idea of what I want and I am committed to making it happen. I’d rather spend the holidays alone than with people who don’t appreciate me. I just hope that I get past my fears of attachment and core shame so that I can begin to seek out healthier relationships. Here’s to normalizing spending the holidays alone and to carving out a life that is healthy for you.
I understand that Covid-19 has forced people who actually appreciate one another to be apart. My heart goes out to them. At the same time, Covid-19 has allowed people like me — a person who would rather be alone to do so without having to explain it or justify it to someone else. Whatever the case may be, I hope that you love yourself and give yourself the permission to be kind to yourself, whether you’re alone or with others.
Being alone on the holidays doesn’t have to be sad or lonely. It can be but that can actually be a good thing as it is part of the healing and grieving process. In the last four years I’ve gotten to know myself better, and I’ve gotten more out of the holidays than spending it with people who had to make digs at me to make themselves feel better. I’m learning to meet my needs and to treat myself. In the past, I chose to spend holidays with people just to be around people. Any proximity to another human being was better than being alone, even though being around them meant the absence of me. One thing I’ve learned in my adulthood is that it’s better to be alone than to be around people who don’t see me. It’s hard for me to understand that I can be around people and be completely myself at the same time. That’s the next step in my healing process. Here’s to the holidays and here’s to taking care of yourself! | https://medium.com/illumination/spending-the-holidays-alone-23c6699f2b41 | [] | 2021-01-01 15:16:03.042000+00:00 | ['Holidays', 'Self Love', 'Loneliness', 'Growth', 'Alone'] |
Building Great Product Teams: Notes From the Underground | Building Great Product Teams: Notes From the Underground
Great product teams make great products. They’re not your average teams.
I’ve been a part of phenomenal teams and I’ve been a part of teams that have had many, many opportunities. I’ve been on teams navigating a now failed startup, on ones jet-setting and consulting globally for high profile clients (hello late-night coffee journeys in Zurich!), and most recently, on ones embedded within a very large organization.
I’ll start with the obvious and non-bleeding edge: a team and its products is a mini-ecosystem. (I swear, it gets better than this.)
One of my favorite human-made ecosystems 👏🏽
This doesn’t mean there are A players and B players, and we certainly shouldn’t subscribe to the idea that there can’t be many star players on a team, it’s outside of that framework. No one is starting and no one is benched. What this means is that everyone has a wealth of skillsets they bring to the team to bring something to life. And they’re all interconnected. The most high-level way we start to do this is the concept of roles. Someone codes, someones tests, someone user researches, someone designs, someone story-tells, and so on. It’s an easy way to create a team formula. And it’s not a bad start. It’s digestible, actionable, and most of the tech industry is ok with it. Because it works well, to an extent.
But the foundational aspect here is it simply creates a product team, a working, functional team — not necessarily a great team.
Great product teams are built with grit. It definitely starts with the individuals, and includes both role-based skills and other skills, but there are qualities at the team level we should be nurturing.
Note 1: a great product team has a goal
Whatever color Kool-Aid or level of fidelity this may be, it has to exist. And you have to all be there for it.
Some of the best teams I’ve been on have had the clearest goals, whether it’s — and here are some fuzzy examples — to get something to market in the next eight weeks, to improve best product practices for a client, to move to continuous delivery, to increase conversion by 4%, and so on. This doesn’t mean everyone won’t have their own goals, and I think it’s healthy and necessary everyone does because these are shorter-term motivators and bring us additional joy and satisfaction in our work. Maybe someone wants to learn a new and emerging language or testing framework, or someone else wants to improve their storytelling or public speaking. All ok. But the thread that ties everyone together to make a group of people a team, is the overarching goal.
Designed by Lillen.
And what makes a great product team in this regard, is that the “great” differentiator can start to emerge when everyone on the team is actually bought into the same goal. Otherwise it’s just a group of people working on a set of features perhaps peripherally related to a slide someone presented in a leadership meeting awhile ago.
Note 2: a great product team is empowered
The team holistically has the skillsets, accountability, ownership, and tools or means to achieve their goal. Often with lots of creativity.
On all product teams, teams build features and own getting a solution out into production. Check. Not writing home about this.
On great product teams, teams own the problems, the prioritization of those problems, and the solution. Which means they’re empowered to 1) choose which problems to solve, and 2) solve the problems however they want to.
This gives rise to a few valuable non-role specific skillsets to look out for when building a great product team. I’ve personally found that high levels of curiosity, ability to effectively navigate ambiguity, ability to make decisions without all the information, and an understanding of short and long-term tradeoffs are some of the most critical ones to help a team thrive and become empowered. (Let’s assume an organization has not already disempowered a product team; this is really another discussion on product leadership.)
When building out my own teams, a common interview question I will almost always ask is some form of “What are you most excited to learn or take on in the next year that you don’t know how to do now?” Occasionally you get a downer response of “oh, putting into practice what I’ve learned…” But if you’re wanting to build a great product team, this response won’t cut it. One of the best hires I’ve ever made, her face lit up when I asked her this question. She rattled off a list of all things she wanted to do that she hasn’t done yet and what she wants to learn and where she wants to go. The light was fully on. And that indicates to me two distinct qualities: that she is curious as hell, and that she has a solid understanding of what she knows and what she doesn’t and where that universe of growth is waiting for her. It’s one of the most exciting things to see when building a great product team.
People with these qualities drive a team to shift from simply delivering to delivering the right thing. And that’s a requirement of great product teams.
Note 3: a great product team embodies a set of *desirable* values
Values exist, and everyone on the team shares them. And they use those values to achieve their goal given they are empowered to do so, in a way that feels right to them.
A product team’s values could be transparency, integrity, collaboration, bringing your authentic self to work and allowing others to do the same, challenging ideas and not people, and so much more. We may all have different ways of manifesting these but our values need to be aligned. Granted you can have teams that share somewhat undesirable values, but let’s assume we’re shooting for the stars here.
I’ve really found this to be team-critical, and another huge differentiator between an average team and a great product team. Fluffy as it may be, IMO shared values is the most important thing in building great product teams. A difference in values is a complete crack in the boat. Think about your own team: Does someone value predictability? Moving up the company ladder? Calling out when the team isn’t building the right thing? Always being right? Taking time to upskill someone else on the team? What does the team value as a whole? All these values and manifestations of values create culture. The culture we nurture by doing, the culture we allow to thrive by not doing. (If this is not clear from oh, let’s say life, then yes, inaction has an impact just like action.) Thus, everyone owns their own culture-add.
I’ve been a part of teams that have shared values and it’s been unstoppable. (You know who you are!) I’ve also been a part of teams that did not share a set of desired values and wow, what a showstopper. Talk about non-thriving. The teams were empowered to… barely keep our heads above water.
We need to value creating a safe space for everyone to challenge everything (let the best idea win!), and to allow people to bring their full, authentic selves to the team.
When you’re looking to build a great product team, focus on the values a person brings and how it will affect the overall set of values the team embodies. Skill sets can be complementary but values should be aligned. Given a desirable set of values, it could even move beyond a great team to ensure your team is built in a way that it will continue to grow and the products will grow with it. Instead of reinforcing the same norms and predictable feedback loops through an outdated culture-fit, teams anchored in shared values will be able to grow and produce a few years from now in a way they never even imagined was possible today. And that’s exciting. These mini ecosystems of teams are breathing, growing things.
And to wrap it up, team values was described to me the other day by a partner at a VC firm, as “enough of both collaboration and contradiction to make a pearl.” Brilliant.
Thanks for reading. | https://medium.com/swlh/building-great-product-teams-notes-from-the-underground-152ff6aeddc7 | ['Lauren Barrett'] | 2020-12-16 21:54:49.128000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Startup', 'Software Development', 'Product Management', 'Teamwork'] |
How to Make Your Mind a Beautiful Place | The art of intentional thinking
Photo by Paul Gilmore on Unsplash
Our world is in our minds.
And, we have the power to make it either a beautiful place or a miserable place.
When we are having a rough day, it’s important to remember that, some things are going to make us sad or upset, but how long we dwell on them and how much we let them get to us depends, many times, on us.
Whatever we talk to ourselves about, becomes our narrative.
The thoughts that bring us down grow like snowballs. The longer we roll them in misery the bigger they get. Eventually, they become like a tsunami. Every time we scrape their parts, we rake them up and dig deeper into them it becomes harder and harder to get out of the whirlpool. In our increasing pain, we forget that the tsunami does not exist for everyone, just that it is in our mind, our self created reality.
It starts to hurt even more than the initial jab of pain. This leads to a second, more important consequence.
Our problems become our focus and the solutions become side issues.
When I keep reminding myself of my problems my mind becomes filled with a “poor me” syndrome. These clouds color my vision, and it is almost like driving with glasses covered in dirt: everything I see is through the unclean lens.
At this point, we are guilty of impaired driving.
One way of moving forward is to change the lens we are using to look at the road ahead. Imagine at this point if we got brand new glasses?
One may choose to dwell on a disagreement forever, allow it to fester, and make it one’s long term battle.
or
One may choose to let it go and not to get so deeply affected by every part of that unpleasant interaction. It is almost like proactively choosing to ignore it or minimize it in your mind. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/letting-go-of-negativity-b5c1b77eecc0 | ['Primal Dhillon'] | 2020-10-31 13:14:52.088000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Happiness', 'Life', 'Psychology'] |
How MEDIUM Pays You (Debunked) | Now obviously, now that you generally know HOW medium pays you, the goal is to generate income. It is time for the second part of this article!
How to make $100 Per Month or More on Medium
Without Curation
An extra $100 a month is a cool 1.2 grand a year. A definite nice addition to any other income, but far out of reach for many writers. Well, today we are going to create a plan to achieve this goal. I specifically mentioned without curation as that is not in our hands. This way, if your article is curated, it provides for extra bonus income.
Let us begin…
Quick Calculation
For all of you math haters, I am sorry but this has to be done.
A $100 a month divided by 30 days = $3.33 per day.
This is the tricky part, but using some calculations that I have done which have via my stories to assume that you need about 2–3 hours of member reading time. How do I know this? I promise you I’m not full of shit, here are all my calculations laid out step by step:
Now that we know all of this we can get started!
The Plan
I realized early not that submitting to those major publications where you see stories get thousands of claps is not worth it. I got published in The Ascent, and curated in startups and leadership. These two are some of the largest topics on Medium, yet this is how my story performed:
The Overview
They also take forever to look and respond to your stories, so we are not going to use these methods.
First, you need to get followers. Like anything, writing on Medium is an investment.
Go follow other people!
Comment on their work!
Highlight key parts!
The more you interact with the community, the more followers you will get. Remember, this is not SOCIAL MEDIA, it is not a question of popularity and ratios but of interaction and connections.
You are going to do this for around 30 minutes a day. It can be during your lunch break, before you go to bed or when you are taking a shit. The timing doesn’t really matter as long as you get it done.
The good thing about being a writer is that you really do not need a specific topic. As long as you can write to keep the readers attention, you are golden. How do you do so? I’ll cover that in the tips and tricks section.
Once you have decided on your topic, the goal is going to be to crank out a nice 5–10 minute article every two days. Remember, we have determined that member reading time is key, so short articles will not cut it.
Still, don’t write 30-minute articles because the chances of people are reading them fully are very slim.
Tips and Tricks
Once you have cranked out this 5–10 minute article and proofread it and such, we need to meet the member reading time requirements to make $6.67 every two days.
This means we need 4–6 hours of member reading time,
INTERACT. External views DO NOT count toward money, so while it is good to have them, we are going to focus on members. If you are interacting with people’s posts for 30 minutes a day, we can usually count on 25–30 minutes of time to be covered form there. As you interact more, the time will increase that people check out your articles. Join medium Facebook groups. Doing so will allow you to post, and if you interact with others, they will definitely interact with your posts. We can get another 10–15 minutes from here. Submit to smaller publications. If you write a banger of an article, then go ahead and submit it to a large publication. But, these articles may not be published for DAYS. On top of this, I got 55 cents from being published in The Ascent. The problem is not with the publications, but the sheer volume of submissions they receive. Before y’all go hating, I started a publication called Never Fear, and will try to get your story at least 30 minutes of member reading time, as well as published under 4 hours. You can read the story here:
We have now reached about an hour, which leaves 4 more that we need.
Creative Steps
Tagging authors. If you spam authors, they are not going to check out your content and add reading time. Also, you will soon run out of authors to tag and this strategy will not work. If you read content like yours, then I would say try to tag 4–5 authors in your story with a sentence two describing why they are there. Fit them in, don’t force them, and this will get you around 30 minutes. Post on Linkedin, and use LinkedIn groups. I don’t think this an option that is used much, but people on LinkedIn are usually interested in topics about the field they work in. Form connections in that field and you will get a lot of viewership. I would say with 500+ connection I have I can get a solid 2–3 hours of member reading time. For people just starting out, it can be around 30 minutes to an hour.
Our total now is 135 to 165 minutes, which is around an hour shy of our goal. The rest is up to your own methods of getting viewership, but don’t worry.
You see, the numbers I gave you above are rookie numbers. As time goes on, this begins to compound with more followers, more posts AND the old articles bringing large amounts of in revenue.
If you do want to become a writer for Never Fear, fill out the google form below and I will add you!
Also, if you think you are not good enough, we take a look at ALL submissions, and you are most definitely a better writer than you think. | https://medium.com/never-fear/how-medium-pays-you-debunked-a8c59de7ab92 | ['Aryan Gandhi'] | 2020-09-04 11:31:11.925000+00:00 | ['Growth', 'Writing', 'Life', 'Success', 'Finance'] |
Why Reference Checks Suck | Dear Entrepreneur:
Have you ever liked a finalist so much that you flirted with the idea of skipping a reference check?
Usually, when asking for references, you’d give the candidate free rein to pick three people they believe will give them an objective and fair reference. However, it is rarely ever mentioned what kind of reference is needed — is it a character, personal or professional reference?
This leads us to one of the biggest pitfalls of a reference check.
Major Pitfall of a Reference Check
Since the type of reference is ambiguous, you can count on the candidate to provide the name of someone who will sing their praises. It could be a supervisor, banker, brother-in-law or anyone they have a good relationship with.
And just like that… the whole purpose of seeking references is defeated!
While hearing nice things about the candidate’s character and performance helps, no one is perfect. You’d also want to hear about any weaknesses to learn if there are any areas of improvement.
Many Candidates Hide their Weaknesses
Very few candidates are self-aware enough to give an honest and thoughtful reply to the question: “What is your greatest weakness?” They will most likely say something generic and rehearsed, with a little bit of false modesty sprinkled in… something like, “My greatest weakness is that I work too much.”
Once you hear this enough times, you may even want to roll your eyes at these kinds of responses. But when a candidate can’t seemingly point out any shortcomings or failures… that’s when you should get suspicious.
How ‘A’ Players Handle Weaknesses
On the other hand, ‘A’ Players are:
● Fearless and introspective: They have thought about their shortcomings and aren’t afraid to tell you what they are. And they don’t just present a problem without a solution, so they will tell you the steps they’ve taken to improve themselves as well.
● They don’t try to be perfect: They know no one is perfect and that we all have limits… no one can be the jack of all trades. So they put a laser-sharp focus on mastering their particular expertise.
7 Tips to Detect ‘A’ Players with References
So how can you use references to your advantage to zero-in on that ‘A’ Player? Here are seven tips that I personally use:
1. Ask to provide full referee’s details of your choice (collect names of supervisors for all jobs while conducting the interview): Did the candidate just hesitate? That could be a red flag — he or she may have been creative on their accomplishments to the point they’re unverifiable.
2. Ask the candidate to set up the reference call: This makes the reference call easier and “warmer” for everyone involved since the connection has been pre-established. 3. Don’t dwell too much on accomplishments: During the call ask the referee what are the areas in which the candidate could use some improvement.
4. Talk to more than three referees: The higher the position, the more people you’ll need to talk to. I’ve found that seven is a good number, with a good mix of bosses, colleagues and subordinates.
5. Ask the candidate to describe their bosses/managers: How they describe their former superiors can be telling. Pay attention to their body language (did they just shift their position or break eye contact?) and word choice (are they using positive or negative adjectives?)
6. Ask the referee to rate the candidate’s performance: Ask them: “On a scale of 1–10 how would you rate [candidate name] and why?”
7. Make sure to use a referee from within the last ten years. Candidates evolve, older work experiences may no longer apply.
Ready for Better Reference Checks?
Checking references can seem like an unnecessary step when what seems to be the perfect candidate is right in front of you. Don’t skip it… no matter how tempting it can be.
When done right, a reference check can be a great way to learn about a candidate’s shortcomings and areas of improvement. It can get you a step closer to landing that ‘A’ Player!
#aplayers #entrepreneurship #hiringtips #entrepreneurialmindset #HR #jobinterviews #hireright | https://medium.com/@sonyadanzig/why-reference-checks-suck-7dda5760bbc1 | ['Sonya Danzig'] | 2020-12-22 23:38:46.140000+00:00 | ['A Players', 'Reference', 'Tips', 'Hire Right', 'Hiring'] |
What’s social about distancing? | What’s social about distancing?
Credit: Mike Dorner
What is it that we miss (or missed) the most during quarantine?
I use the word quarantine as it’s the commonly accepted term to indicate the time of social distancing we’re spending at home in an attempt to stop CoVid-19 from spreading further.
Even though quarantine literally means “a time frame of forty days”, for most of us, it has been far more than that before slowly going back to any embryonal form of ordinary life.
There’s most certainly not just one answer as it depends both on personal inclinations and a person’s current situation however, the first thing people tried to get around while on quarantine was the sudden lack of conviviality by finding new ways of social interaction. Actual face-to-face interaction, something that lately, we were consciously or unconsciously avoiding almost to the extent of becoming low key terrified by it.
We started using FaceTime, HouseParty, Skype, Hangouts… you name it, as never before.
Source: Google Trends (Worldwide)
It’s about conviviality in the end, isn’t it?
How come that in a time when fear of death broke into our everyday lives as probably never before for most of us, our first urge, ok maybe second after the quest for food and toilet paper, is to rebuild the bridges of companionship with friends, family and loved ones?
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs puts belongingness and love on the third level of the pyramid however, it’s the first step of the second block, so basically it’s the most fundamental of our psychological needs.
Maybe though, in desperate times such as these, the pyramid undergoes what I would call a turnover and perhaps, the separation between physical and psychological becomes thinner, and safety comes not only by having enough food in the pantry but through that ancestral need of belonging to your tribe.
I guess that in current times, that idea of belonging could be identified also as “conviviality” which doesn’t necessarily depend on a place but it drills down to the act of sharing.
The environment helps of course but most of all, conviviality is about feeling connected to one another. Even in days like these, each of us found a way recreate conviviality with friends, family and loved ones, despite being physically apart.
Conviviality makes us feel stronger and when we feel stronger together, we feel we can overcome anything, perhaps even death. | https://medium.com/@selene-feige-cele/whats-social-about-distancing-c6b1f1044961 | ['Selene Feige'] | 2020-05-20 15:41:01.087000+00:00 | ['Socialdistancing', 'Human Behavior', 'Social Media', 'Technology', 'Covid 19 Crisis'] |
DeepCode recognized as a top 16 startups disrupting software development with AI | Top 16 AI trailblazers
The 2 original sources are linked below:
AI is transforming lives and businesses everywhere. From retail to finance to healthcare to media, there is hardly any industry or vertical left untouched by AI. Software development is something that is ubiquitous to almost all the industries and, in the world of Agile and DevOps (that is fast approaching), the pace at which we need to deliver and update software is increasing rapidly. To cope with this change, there is a need to incorporate AI in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
Recognizing this, over the past few years, multiple startups have come up to fill this gap. They are constantly innovating to help increase the productivity and accuracy across all stages of the SDLC, starting from requirement gathering to development to testing to deployment to application security. Startups are constantly filling this gap with the application of next-generation concepts such as Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and deep learning.
In this research we present an assessment of startups utilizing AI in the field of software development, primarily focusing on their innovation, growth story, and the impact they have created in the market. We present an assessment and detailed profiling of the 16 AI startups across the stages of requirement, development, testing, deployment & maintenance, and security. Each startup profile provides a comprehensive picture of its technology capabilities, achieved market growth, and the perceived investors’ confidence. | https://medium.com/deepcode-ai/top-16-startups-disrupting-software-development-with-ai-d7eab8ee2726 | ['Deepcode Ai'] | 2018-10-31 12:54:35.439000+00:00 | ['Deepcode', 'SaaS', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Development', 'Software'] |
Three Lessons I Learned from So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport | Lesson #1: Do not follow your passion
This was the center point of the book, as emphasized by the title. For the last few decades, there has been this idea in our culture that we all have a passion and that we must pursue it to be happy. While this message has kind intentions, it simply is untrue. One study cited in the book from “The 2010 Conference Board Survey of US Job Satisfaction” found that only 45% of people were satisfied with their jobs, down from 61% in 1987. This idea has surprisingly made people on average less happy than before. The reason is that most of our passions do not make much money and people get caught up in trying to find out if they truly are following their passion, which leads to feelings of anxiety and sadness. Going forward it seems safe to say that you should follow what you’re interested in, but don’t spend too much time worrying about finding your passion.
Lesson #2: Adopting the craftsman mindset is the way to go
The craftsman mindset focuses on what you can offer the world, as opposed to what the world can offer you. It means that you need to really get good at what you do and gain that career capital, no matter how hard it is going to get (because it will get extremely hard). It may sound weird, but I feel like this mindset makes it a bit easier for choosing a career. I think the fact that you need to focus on other people a bit more, fulfilling a need, and knowing that I am going to have to put in a lot of work no matter what means that which specific career I choose is not going to matter as much.
Lesson #3: There are some key guidelines to when you should actually do a different career
After finding out that you should not follow your passion, and that putting in the time and effort to get good at a skill was the way to go, I was a bit confused about how I should choose my career. Luckily, Cal comes to the rescue. In the book, he lists out the traits that define great work, which include: room for creativity, the ability for you to have an impact, and the feeling of having control. On the converse, here is when you should probably choose a different career (and not use the craftsman mindset): there is little room to distinguish yourself through providing unique skills, the focus of the job is on something useless or harmful, and you have to work with people you dislike. Having a list like this really can help narrow down career options, and whether or not you should leave where you are currently working.
Conclusion
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is needing career guidance, no matter if you’re 16 or 60. This book provides great lessons, such as not following your passion, adopting a mindset to work very hard to gain career capital, and when to choose a different job. On top of this, Cal Newport has an amazing writing style that will keep you hooked. The amount of research put into this and his other books are truly incredible. You can click here and here to visit his blog and buy So Good They Can’t Ignore You on Amazon. | https://medium.com/@matthewjvlp/three-lessons-i-learned-from-so-good-they-cant-ignore-you-by-cal-newport-bd8d34e7206f | ['Matthew Peck'] | 2020-12-26 21:40:11.831000+00:00 | ['Passion', 'Self Improvement', 'Cal Newport', 'Career Advice'] |
Reverse Psychology: how to make people do what you want | Bet you have once asked someone to do something and they ended up not doing it? It’s a common trait amongst humans. And It’s natural for people to reject orders.
No one likes being forced into carrying out requests. People prefer working on their own terms. They feel more in control if the decision is theirs and isn’t coming from someone else.
Now, the question is — how do you get them to do what you want, without making them feel out of control? The answer is — Reverse Psychology!
What’s Reverse Psychology?
Reverse Psychology is a manipulative way of making someone do what they would naturally disagree to doing.
How does Reverse Psychology work?
The basic principle behind reverse psychology is — people do the opposite of your statement. You say a thing, they do the reverse.
Alternatively, instead of telling someone to perform a certain task, you challenge them by saying they can’t do it.
The end result is, they go ahead carrying out the instruction because they want to prove they’re in control and wouldn’t comply with your commands.
Examples of Reverse Psychology
At home, parents can use the following examples of Reverse Psychology;
Tell a young child they can’t finish a plate of food. They definitely would. This is a subtle way of forcing kids who don’t eat to swallow up their food.
Tell a child a certain book isn’t for their age because it will make them act like adults. They’ll read it
For Adults, the following are examples of Reverse Psychology;
To know what people think of you, start by saying all the bad things about yourself. They’ll do the opposite by complimenting you
To make a goofy adult sign up for a training, tell them they shouldn’t bother registering because the training is for smart people only, and you’re sure they aren’t smart!
To force people to attend your event, tell them you’re just inviting them for formality’s sake, because obviously, they would never come!
In Marketing/Advertising, the following are examples of Reverse Psychology;
Have a course on money-making? Make it clear in your copy your course isn’t for people who are scared of making big money!
Have a skincare product for women? State precisely in your copy — “ women afraid of under-twenty looks should not buy”
Have a course on Entrepreneurship? Let your marketing message express clearly — “The course isn’t for people who hate freedom and wouldn’t want to be their own boss”
Where to Use Reverse Psychology?
Reverse Psychology is applicable anywhere but more importantly in business, politics, schools, organizations, and homes.
When to Use Reverse Psychology?
It’s crucial to use reverse psychology in cases where people are more nonconforming than conforming. Nonconformists are a group of people who do not agree to an established pattern of thoughts, beliefs, and practices.
However, when people are conforming, it’s needless to adopt reverse psychology.
Final Words
Reverse Psychology is key to having people do what you want and when you want it.
The good thing is — you won’t have to force them. The choice is theirs but it’s in your power to influence their decision. | https://medium.com/@estherebere/reverse-psychology-how-to-make-people-do-what-you-want-f3ca8c5c9f9f | ['Esther Ebere'] | 2021-07-02 08:01:54.311000+00:00 | ['Advertising', 'People', 'Human Behavior', 'Psychology', 'Marketing'] |
NordVPN Benifits & Services. It is true that there are many NordVPN… | It is true that there are many NordVPN Benefits services that claim to offer you the best VPN service to protect your privacy, but in reality, it is not as easy as that. Before going on a long story about the various NordVPN Benefits services, let’s first define what this type of internet access is all about.
This type of web-based connectivity comes in different forms such as a free version, a paid one, and a combination of both. This is an important feature of any service since the most important aspect of internet privacy protection comes in the form of security and reliability, but it is even more important when used with multiple types of hardware.
Many of these service providers offer a free version that is very simple in its operation, especially compared to its paid versions. The free version is usually very limited in terms of bandwidth and capacity. In addition to that, you will also be restricted to certain sites and applications, so you will need to decide whether or not this service will be for you. Some people find it suitable, but it is also recommended that you use a paid version for better security and reliability.
One of the major NordVPN Benefits services is called Protonmail, and it allows you to keep your privacy by providing a highly advanced mail service that works well with both Windows and Mac computers. You can use the Protonmail email server to store all your email information on an encrypted server, and this feature also helps to provide extra security to your emails.
While Protonmail is one of the most popular free services available, you might also want to consider signing up for a paid version of the software, because of the added features that are usually included in paid versions.
For example, you may be able to run your own server to store your emails and other files, allowing you to use a local network. You can also choose to use your own encryption key to ensure your data is secure when transferred between servers.
There are many other NordVPN Benefits & Services, but there is no doubt that these are some of the best ones out there. So, if you really want to protect your online privacy and identity from the threats that online predators often bring, you should definitely consider using NordVPN to secure your internet connection.
Services & Benefits
One account, 6 devices. Protect yourself, your friends, or your household without buying multiple accounts.
Easy-to-use app. You don’t need to be a cryptographer to use NordVPN. Just pick a server and connect.
For all your gadgets. Get NordVPN for your phone, tablet, and laptop. Don’t forget your smart TV and router.
Protect your online activities — Don’t let other people track what you do on the internet — Use VPN to change your IP address and blur your virtual location.
Safety anywhere, anytime — NordVPN secures your online traffic with leading encryption. In this way, your sensitive data is safe when you browse public wi-fi or other networks.
Get full access to content — not all countries see the internet in the same way. Censorship bypass and enjoy your favorite content by connecting to the VPN server.
The largest VPN server network in the world
Pick among thousands of ultra-fast VPN servers worldwide. Enjoy fast and stable connections wherever you are.
VPN servers — 5400
Blazing speeds. Connect to 5400+ ultra-fast VPN servers to enjoy a fast and stable connection anywhere.
Quick Connect. Hit that button and instantly connect to the fastest server available at the moment.
Fast and safe P2P. Hundreds of servers around the world optimized for secure and smooth file sharing.
Secure connection. Protect your private data from cybercriminals with top-tier, AES 256-bit encryption.
Automatic Kill Switch. If a VPN connection accidentally drops, Kill Switch blocks your device from accessing the web.
CyberSec technology. Protects you from accessing dangerous websites that host malicious software.
Unlimited bandwidth — No bandwidth limits. Go ahead and watch another episode — with NordVPN, your bandwidth is unlimited.
Bye, bye ISP throttling. Stream your favorite TV shows and movies securely, with no interruptions.
Worldwide access. Connect to thousands of servers in 59 countries to securely access any content, wherever you are.
Customer support 24/7. Have questions? Live chat with the customer care team or by email.
30-day money-back guarantee
Try the NordVPN award-winning service without risks on your wallet. If you are not satisfied 100%, let them know in 30 days from the date of purchase and get a full refund.
Nordvpn Versus SurfShark
The Nordvnpn versus SurfShark comparison is a typical Internet search. Both are well known in the business of web proxy and online privacy protection. But which is more convenient to use? In this article, we will compare the two and try to determine which is more suitable for your needs.
As the name says, Nordvnpn is a website that specializes in offering anonymous surfing. What the website does is to modify the existing websites that you visit to mask your IP address.
So how does Nordvnpn compare to SurfShark? At first glance, it would appear that SurfShark is more convenient to use because it is easier to set up. However, the setup is actually quite different. With the former, you have to log on each time you want to use the proxy site. When it comes to Nordvnpn, you just have to click the “start” button and it will automatically start working.
Another difference that you will notice is that your surfing speeds will be a lot faster when using the latter. It is true that the security with Nordvnpn is a little bit better but, to be honest, the speed increase is not huge. It may however work for you if you are just using the proxy site for a few minutes every day. On the other hand, if you use SurfShark regularly, you will notice a considerable speed increase.
It is also worth mentioning that both will provide you with a free anonymous proxy. However, the way in which the latter will also provide you with a better experience is by providing you with a static IP address, which will not change unless you log in. This feature will be especially useful if you live in a country where tracking your Internet activity can be illegal. Using the former, however, you will get a dynamic IP address that will be different from the one given to you by the Nordvnpn.
Both the services are very good at hiding your IP address, which is your key to privacy on the Internet. However, they differ in terms of their pricing. If you need the best service, it is advisable to opt for the one that offers the best price. At the end of the day, you should always aim to choose the one that provides you with the best privacy protection. This will ensure that your identity will always remain protected even while you are using the most popular online sites.
NordVPN Versus ExpressVPN
Nordvnpn and Express VPN are some of the most famous names in the VPN market. However, both of them offer the same basic features. In fact, both of them provide the same types of services such as tunneling, IP changing, and filtering, among others. This article will provide comparisons between Nordvnpn versus ExpressVPN so that you can decide for yourself which one is the best option for you. Read on to find out more.
One of the best things about Nordvnpn and Express VPN is that they both use different types of communications protocol. They differ in their encryption protocols and their DNS servers. This makes it possible for users in different areas to make use of the services provided by each service provider. So if you want to set up a wireless connection in Europe and make use of WiMax, for instance, you can connect via Express VPN because it supports this transmission technology. If you are from the United Kingdom and you are interested in accessing Netflix over Wi-Fi, on the other hand, you can use Nordvnpn because it also supports the latest Netflix format.
Another reason why both VPN providers are so popular is that they both offer free VPNs for their subscribers. However, they have major differences in the types of software that they use for their servers. Express VPN is primarily used for internal operations while Nordvnpn is mainly used for external connectivity. It would therefore be easier for Express VPN users to create a VPN connection at any time since the software would automatically be updated. On the other hand, Nordvnpn must be manually updated every day and must also use the latest IP address ranges available in cyberspace.
There has been quite some discussion on Reddit about which is better between VPN providers like Nordvnpn or Netflix. It seems that both are great tools but only Norde VPN seems to be able to provide the best security and performance.
It may perhaps be because of the fact that Nordvnpn is faster and more efficient when it comes to bandwidth consumption. When it comes to the security aspect, both companies offer similar levels of protection but it might just be the experience factor that makes Netflix the best VPN company at the moment.
When it comes to choosing the best VPN services, you have to make sure you read some more information on the two companies mentioned above. When it comes to pricing and additional features, there is not much difference between them.
However, their security and reliability cannot be questioned. It would therefore be in your best interest to look into these factors more closely to ensure you get the right kind of VPN. The top Nordic internet service providers include Nordvnpn, Pure VPN, SurfShark, and Express VPN.
One more thing you should keep in mind is the fact that both companies offer good discounts for paid annual plans. This means that if you’re planning on signing up for a long term plan, you might want to stick with Express VPN. Nordvnpn and SurfShark both offer monthly plans that are a bit cheaper than other VPN services. It would therefore be a good idea to look carefully at your options and find out which company can offer you the most security and features for the price you’re willing to pay. The bottom line is that no matter which company you choose to sign up with, you need to make sure that you have an anonymous browsing mode activated while you are on the internet.
…Disclaimer (This article contains affiliate links. If you buy a product via a link, it does not increase your costs. On the other hand, it gives you counts and earns me a small commission which allows me to make detailed Reviews like this.) | https://medium.com/@how-do-u/nordvpn-benifits-services-d48a4f27d17 | ['How Do U'] | 2020-12-29 20:10:44.767000+00:00 | ['Hacking', 'Online Security', 'VPN'] |
K-Means 8x faster, 27x lower error than Scikit-learn’s in 25 lines | K-Means 8x faster, 27x lower error than Scikit-learn’s in 25 lines
K-Means iterations (source)
Introduction
In my last article on faiss library I’ve shown how to make kNN up to 300 times faster than Scikit-learn’s in 20 lines using Facebook’s faiss library. But we can do much more with it, including both faster and more accurate K-Means clustering, in just 25 lines!
K-Means is an iterative algorithm, which clusters the data points into k clusters, each represented with a mean / center point (a centroid). Training starts with some initial guesses and then alternates between two steps: assignment and update.
In the assignment phase we assign each point to the nearest cluster (using Euclidean distance between point and centroids) and in the update step we recalculate each centroid, calculating a mean point from all points assigned to that cluster in the current step.
The final quality of clustering is calculated as a sum of in-cluster distances, where for each cluster we calculate a sum of Euclidean distances between points in that cluster and its centroid. This is also called inertia.
For prediction, we perform a 1 nearest neighbor search (kNN with k=1) between new points and centroids.
Scikit-learn vs faiss
In both libraries we have to specify algorithm hyperparameters: number of clusters, number of restarts (each starting with other initial guesses) and maximal number of iterations.
As we can see from the example, the core of the algorithm is searching for nearest neighbors, specifically nearest centroids, both for training and prediction. And that’s where faiss is orders of magnitude faster than Scikit-learn! It leverages great C++ implementation, concurrency wherever possible and even GPU, if you want.
Implementing K-Means clustering with faiss
Github Gist below is also available at my regular Github (link).
A great feature of faiss is that it has both installation and build instructions (installation docs) and an excellent documentation with examples (getting started docs). After the installation, we can write the actual clustering. The code is quite simple, since we just mimic the Scikit-learn API.
Important elements:
faiss has built-in Kmeans class specifically for this task, but its arguments have different names than in Scikit-learn (see the docs)
class specifically for this task, but its arguments have different names than in Scikit-learn (see the docs) we have to make sure we use np.float32 type, as faiss only works with this type
type, as faiss only works with this type kmeans.obj returns list of errors through the training, to get only final one like in Scikit-learn we use [-1] index
returns list of errors through the training, to get only final one like in Scikit-learn we use index prediction is done with the Index data structure, which is the basic building block of faiss, used in all nearest neighbor searches
data structure, which is the basic building block of faiss, used in all nearest neighbor searches in prediction we perform kNN search with k = 1, returning indices of nearest centroids from self.cluster_centers_ (index [1] , since index.search() returns distances and indices)
Time and accuracy comparison
I’ve chosen a few popular datasets available in Scikit-learn for comparison. The train times andpredict times are compared. For easier reading, I’ve explicitly written how many times faster is the faiss-based clustering than Scikit-learn’s. For error comparison I’ve just written how many times lower error the faiss-based clustering achieves (since numbers are large and not very informative).
All of those times have been measured with the time.process_time() function, that measures process time instead of wall clock time, for more accurate results. Results are averages of 100 runs, except for MNIST, where it took too long for Scikit-learn and I had to do 5 runs.
Train times (image by author)
Predict times (image by author)
Training errors (image by author)
As we can see, for K-Means clustering for small datasets (first 4 datasets) faiss-based version is slower for training and has a larger error. For prediction it works universally faster.
For larger MNIST dataset faiss is a clear winner. Training 20.5 times faster is huge, especially since it reduces time from almost 3 minutes to less than 8 seconds! A 1.5 times faster prediction is also nice. The true achievement, however, is a spectacular 27.5 times lower error. This means that for larger real world dataset the faiss-based version is vastly more accurate. And this takes only 25 lines of code!
So based on this: if you have large (at least a few thousand samples) real world dataset, the faiss-based version is just plain better. For small toy dataset Scikit-learn is a better choice; however, if you have a GPU, the GPU-accelerated faiss version may turn out faster (I haven’t checked it for fair CPU comparison).
Summary
With 25 lines of code, we can get a huge speed and accuracy boost for K-Means clustering for reasonably sized datasets with the faiss library. If you need, you can get even better with GPU, multiple GPUs and more, which is nicely explained in faiss docs. | https://towardsdatascience.com/k-means-8x-faster-27x-lower-error-than-scikit-learns-in-25-lines-eaedc7a3a0c8 | ['Jakub Adamczyk'] | 2020-11-05 13:30:17.455000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Machine Learning', 'K Means', 'Scikit Learn', 'Programming'] |
Chatter Static | Imagefrom Pixabay.com
Can’t focus
Can’t think
Patience is a worn thread
Logic’s on the brink
Static chatter never ceasing
drama for the fool
Baby boys in aging skin
drunken in their drool
Get me the fuck out of here
I’m done with Peter Pan
These Lost Boys surely earned their name
in no man’s Neverland
Yet, here I sit, behind a door
steaming by myself
These pests will test the best of me
A danger to my health
There’s solace in the old ink spill
A practice that I’ll prove
But still, before I lose my mind
I need to fucking move | https://medium.com/literally-literary/chatter-static-f8973767375b | ['Scott Leonardi'] | 2020-05-29 14:06:31.180000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Creative Writing', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Roommates', 'Frustration'] |
Diabetic Cyborg Life 12/30: Christmas/Holidays as a Philosophy | I care not to see the days as JC, peace be unto him, being born, or just as if your belief is just a jolly big guy who gives you gifts. It should be just a day of joy and peace that binds all humanity as people living now, as I see thanksgiving. Don’t see just the simple clichés of the days and see the greater meanings that penetrate our souls as people and humans that live here on Earth.
WE a all different. Use that as a tool to broaden ourselves as people, and not a simple aim that divides us as one humanity that lives here and now. Don’t let differences of nationality, religion, race or color divide us.
The epitome of all that is wrong can be seen in the selfishness and division of so many political parties, politicians, leaders. Millions of the overserved, overrepresented populous are making terror and hate for the very variances of us that make humans special and unique. Simple smug put downs are tools of theirs as they seek to spread hate and division for the momentary high humans get from that emotion.
I know this is a centuries long struggle we will never see end in our lifetimes. Yet, unite and show hope because that feeling is more difficult to make than hate but will stick around longer than the brief high that hate gives. | https://medium.com/adam-the-diabetic-cyborg-daily/diabetic-cyborg-life-12-30-christmas-holidays-as-a-philosophy-8820f64be63f | ['Adam', 'Diabetic Cyborg'] | 2020-12-30 06:02:42.652000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Humanity', 'Holidays', 'Optimism', 'Christmas'] |
Year in Review: Do You Remember Your Last “Normal” Day Of 2020? | I was working a morning shift at a small-town Kansas library I’d been employed at since the previous November.
I didn’t know it then, but it was one of the last days the library would remain open before shutting down for several months due to precautions brought on by the Pandemic.
More than the day itself, I remember the feeling that lingered in the air.
It was Wednesday, March 11th, two days before the U.S. would declare a National Emergency.
There was a tense energy buzzing around. I could feel it radiating off the patrons that hesitantly yet hurriedly made their way into and back out of the building — their arms and bags full of books, movies, or whatever else they’d grabbed to curtail their and their children’s minds from the hell-storm that looked to be crawling its way across the country.
Where I was, placed in a town with no more than 5,000 people, smack-dab in the middle of the Great Plains states, nothing had happened yet.
No masks were worn.
No stay-at-home orders given.
No positive cases reported.
People could still touch.
Sports were still ongoing and schools, restaurants, bars, and businesses were still open.
Life was… normal.
I was at my usual position, manning the circulation desk at the entrance of the library. I’d watched people coming and going all morning, and I’d briefly chatted with fellow staff members along with a few patrons about the news of the mysterious virus that was, without hesitation, spreading.
Some believed it was nothing worth getting concerned about.
Others believed it would be our demise.
And then there were those who did their best to pay it no mind at all. They went about their normal routines because if they kept pretending things were still the same… then maybe they would be.
While people buzzed around me, my mind did its own buzzing around thoughts, theories, and even a few conspiracies relating to this new, mysterious virus. My fingers held out on searching for the truth — or some form of it — for as long as they could, but by noon they couldn’t resist any longer. They placed themselves on the keyboard before me, pulled up Google, and typed “Latest Coronavirus News,” into the search bar.
As my eyes skimmed the news stories filled with predictions made by the ones deemed our leaders and top experts in their field, I felt for the first time all morning my own anxious energy arise.
I was suddenly aware in a way I’d never been before of everything I’d touched that day, and each breath I took.
Whatever this ‘virus’ was, it was already everywhere. Slithering its way through one destination after the next — digging roots that weren’t easily going to be eradicated. These thoughts alone were jarring, but as many of us probably felt, the warnings of how drastically our lives were about to change for the “foreseeable future” were the most unbelievable.
I’ve always been the kind that feels a sense of false comfort in knowing.
When I’m afraid of something, rather than turning a blind eye, I’ll usually dive right into the belly of the beast — learning more about the topic and doing my best to understand it. It makes me feel better prepared to make a judgment call if a worst-case scenario arises… Even though I know all I’m doing is likely clinging to false hope.
So, I did what I do best when trying to learn about something that frightens me. I read.
And read and read and read.
Though I’d skimmed a handful of articles about the virus since I first heard about it in December, I’d done that reading more out of curiosity than fear.
This time, my reading was more directed.
Instead of letting my curiosity of how the virus had come to be and where it was and how fast it was spreading guide my article selections, I spent the rest of the afternoon focused more on pieces that talked about what to expect, what precautions to take, and how serious this whole debacle was panning out to be.
While sparse flocks of patrons swept in and out of the library, each fit with an underlying tension that couldn’t be denied, I smiled the warmest smile I could, mustered the strength of a steady voice, and in the stolen moments where it was only me and the computer, I researched.
When I look back now, I believe we all knew something big was coming.
But I also think we had no idea how quickly it would arrive.
I for one can vouch I hadn’t the slightest idea that when I walked out of the library that day, it would be the last day I’d work for months, and the last (mostly) normal day I’d work for the rest of the year.
When I got home that afternoon, the first thing I did was head out for a walk hoping to ease my mind. Yet all I could do was focus on the feeling of the sweet air flooding my lungs, noticing how easily it did so without confinement.
By 5 pm I’d poured a gin and tonic to steady my nerves, and flipped on the evening news — one thing I rarely did on weeknights, and the other I never did.
It was over the next 24 hours that everything changed.
As more cases popped up across the nation, the virus made its appearance in every state except for two. Trump banned all international air travel, while concerts, St. Patty’s day Parades, and nationwide events began canceling. The NBA and NHL were the first ones to declare they were done for the season, and the MLB postponed their spring training. Universities and schools began closing and resorting to online learning, while headlines about a lack of gloves, masks, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and food flooded every news outlet.
It was only the beginning of what would become the downward spiral of the rest of 2020.
I started keeping a journal that day — tallying up the numbers, recording any big “newsworthy” events, and adding in the occasional documentation of my thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
I knew little about what was still to come, but what I did know was that we were all living through a time that was going to go down in history.
As the year comes to a close, it only feels right to look back at its beginning. Reading through my notes, stories, and feelings from those early days of the Pandemic, I can see just how drastically everything changed and how quickly our current state evolved.
It was as if one day everything was normal, and as such tragedies go, the next, it was not.
As I think back and remember that last ordinary day, I wonder, how many others can recall how they spent their last normal day of 2020? | https://medium.com/@k-n-licavoli/do-you-remember-your-last-normal-day-of-2020-16b02662029d | ['Katie Licavoli'] | 2021-01-03 18:47:59.499000+00:00 | ['Covid-19', 'Life', 'Year In Review', '2020', 'Experience'] |
A list of my most essential Sketch plugins | Sketch Runner Pro
Runner pro is like the Alfred for Sketch. You can launch, search, and execute actions with your keyboard. Adding this plugin to Sketch has had a huge impact on my workflow, especially when searching for symbols and adding them onto the artboard.
Comma
Supplied or pasted copy is often not in the right format, Comma adds some really helpful text commands to Sketch which allows you to format text layers quick and easy. It includes simple formatting options like lowercase, uppercase, title case and sentence case, to more complicated commands such as character and word counts.
Zeplin
Zeplin is my goto app for design handoffs, you can find more info about how it fits into my workflow here. This plugin allows you to export your artboards, symbols and styles straight from inside Sketch.
imageoptim
Automatically compress images exported from Sketch? With this plugin you can! When you hit the export button imageoptim seamlessly compresses your images without losing any quality.
Merge Duplicate Symbols
For reasons unknown, Sketch has a habit of duplicate symbols without your knowledge. This plugin scans for any duplicates, then gives you to option to select and merge the various instances. It’s a premium plugin, but it’s well worth it for the headaches it saves.
Symbol Instance Renamer
When you update the name of a symbol it only renames the selected instance. This means the consistency of your symbol naming can quickly slide into disarray. This plugin makes the managing of renaming symbol instances a breeze. It gives you various ways to handle it, but I tend to use the master symbol command which renames all symbol instances on all pages to the name of their master.
Craft
This is an essential plugin if you use Invision. It allows you to sync your artboards and prototypes straight from Sketch. It also has some pretty cool real data import options and allows you to hook into the Invision DSM system. | https://medium.com/@tom_22682/a-list-of-my-most-essential-sketch-plugins-ff8d8d39395e | ['Tom Doidge'] | 2019-09-18 11:50:55.535000+00:00 | ['UI', 'Plugins', 'Design', 'Sketch', 'Workflow'] |
Why are algorithms sexist? by Katia Elkaim | Picture by Ali Pazani
Nothing can describe my state of mind when, for the fiftieth time, my beloved translation software persisted in putting into masculine form the beautiful feminine phrasing that I asked it to translate into English.
My interlocutor, the program, made himself comfortable using all the unisex grammatical latitude that Shakespeare’s language gives him to surreptitiously conceal my “ elle “ or “ sa” in “ he “ or “ his “.
So, I wanted to know more: why is it that even in a machine, the masculine gender spontaneously predominates? It’s the algorithms, I thought. But I was also thinking deep inside that these algorithms, which I visualized as an unintelligible mathematical sequence, couldn’t have a gender preference. So, like any self-respecting curious person, I went to find out.
Point 1: The algorithm for dummies.
The algorithm is a kind of step-by-step instruction manual to reach a given goal. The comparison most often suggested is that of the recipe. For example, if your goal is to make a pizza, then your algorithmic recipe will be: take flour, then water, then olive oil, then tomato sauce etc .. the steps leading up to putting the shaped pizza in the oven at 180 degrees.
The matter becomes more complicated when there are several possible options. If at the moment of putting the topping on the pizza there are several possibilities, the algorithm will be able to introduce, in the form of a tree, the variables according to what you have in the fridge. For example, in your recipe, at the “ choice of topping “ step, the algorithm could define that if there are mushrooms, you put them on. If there are no mushrooms, but there is ham, then you put ham on. If there are no mushrooms or ham, then you put nothing but tomato sauce. If there are mushrooms and ham, the algorithm will be able to look at your choices in the past and decide for itself what it will offer you, based on them. That’s how you move from the autonomous car to medical diagnosis through artificial intelligence or real-time analysis of the financial markets.
Of course, behind this process, there is a human being who translates this recipe into terms that a machine can understand, and that’s where the problem lies.
Flora Vincent and Aude Bernheim, in “Intelligence artificielle, pas sans elles! “published in 2019, point out that AI reflects the society in which we live and its biases, Aude Bernheim takes precisely the example of translation software.
Hallelujah! I wasn’t completely wrong when I wondered. Thus, “the doctor” is always “ le docteur “ and “the nurse” is always l’infirmière.
You’ll tell me it’s quite anecdotal, but it’s not so much so when facial recognition software trains mostly on images of white men or when the algorithms of some AIs have learned to associate the female gender with the kitchen area of a house through thousands of images of women in this type of room. The biases that have been experienced to date are not only replicated, but also and above all amplified, as Hannah Kuchler notes in an article in the Financial Times of March 9, 2018, “Tech’s sexist algorithms and how to fix them”.
Even more delicate is the algorithm that determines a lower salary range for women, based on the statistics of what a woman in this or that position has earned in the past.
In the labor field, one of the glaring examples is Amazon’s hiring system, which simply had to be shelved when it proved sexist and discriminatory because it was based only on male resumes.
The danger of an exponential increase in inequality is very real. Indeed, if I take the example of my pizza from earlier, let’s imagine that my algorithm detects that I have eaten mushrooms in the majority of cases, it might no longer offer me a ham pizza and confine me to an eternity of mushrooms.
Phew! The evil is much more widespread than I thought. I’ve been overwhelmed with articles on the subject, so I’m surprised that a solution hasn’t yet been found.
Apparently, according to Flora Vincent, the geek universe is still predominantly male, with the girls themselves considering it to be elitist, difficult for them to access and self-censoring.
But why girls?
Joy Adowaa Buolamwini, a computer scientist at MIT, has been fighting for years against prejudices in software decision-making processes. She is the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League and provides solutions to overcome what should not be a foregone conclusion.
Moreover, legally, who would be responsible for discriminations and prejudices propagated by an AI? The coder of the algorithm, the author of the source database, or the user?
From the stupid statement I made, I opened a Pandora’s box I didn’t expect. Indeed, naively, I told myself that in the age of technology, where the machine has neither mood nor gender, these shortcomings would gradually disappear.
Convinced that we are all trapped in our mental algorithms, women as well as men, there is only one way to change things and that is to talk about it and talk about it again, and to remember that the first person to have coded an algorithm in the 19th century was called Ada Lovelace. And, that she preceded illustrious scientists like Ida Rhodes, who designed the C-10 computer language in collaboration with Betty Holberton in the early 1950s; Grace Hopper, who played a pivotal role in the development of the COBOL language; Fran Allen, the first woman to earn the title of IBM Fellow and the ACM Turing Award for “significant and lasting contributions to the field of computer science”; Karen Spärck Jones, the originator of the concept of ‘reverse document frequency’, the technology behind modern search engines such as Google; Adele Goldberg, creator of the Smalltalk-80 language, which was integrated by Apple in the programming configuration of the first Macintosh model; Rosalind Picard, Professor at MIT Media Lab, where she leads research in affective computing; Nnenna Nwakanma who campaigns for affordable internet access through her Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa, FOSSFA; Indian AI specialist Neelam Dhawan, ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the most influential women in the world; and, Hedy Lamarr, a well-known actress and inventor of genius.
Ladies, I would like to pay tribute to you here. | https://medium.com/@empowerment-foundation/why-are-algorithms-sexist-by-katia-elkaim-efb47cc76bfc | ['Empowerment Foundation Briefcase'] | 2020-12-13 08:04:47.275000+00:00 | ['Sexism', 'AI', 'Bias', 'Women In Tech', 'Algorithms'] |
How to hack the CP Plus CCTV systems? | “CP PLUS offers a comprehensive range of advanced security and surveillance solutions to meet the ever-changing requirements of different industries. At present, we are serving many different verticals comprising defence, government, hotels, hospitals, educational institutes, homes, infrastructure, and transportation among others. Being a major surveillance system brand globally, we bring efficient, reliable, scalable, and integrated solutions to our customers.”
The above text appears as soon as you open http://www.cpplusworld.com/. They are offering security solutions without security in their software and technology. That is a wonderful strategy.
Well, even after multiple explanations and proofs to this company, they are not serious about fixing this major security issue in their CCTV DVR. This vulnerability can be exploited until they fix the way Authentication is designed/implemented. Take a look at the simple steps (intentionally tried to keep it mostly non-technical)
Vulnerable product: CP Plus DVR
Version: All
Description: Account takeover through authentication bypass of the CP Plus DVR using forgot password functionality
Severity: High
Pre-Requisite:
An active CP Plus DVR system
A smartphone device installed with any QR CODE reader app
PoC/Steps to Reproduce
On the screen where multiple windows of cameras are displayed, select the Admin login option through the settings or right-click to navigate to this admin login screen.
Click on the “Forgot Password” link on the screen.
The user will be asked to enter the registered email id.
But we are free to enter any email id and click on “Next”.
Open the QR Code reader/scanner app on the mobile device and scan the QR code appearing on the screen.
The QR code will be converted into a string value.
From the email id which is entered in #3 compose an email sharing the string value and send it to: [email protected]
Within the next 5 to 10 minutes we will receive an email with a security code along with the serial number of the product.
Enter the security code on the screen in the required field and click on “Next”.
We are free to set our own new password now and log in as an admin.
With this admin privilege, we can check the CCTV logs, copy the footages to our mobile or USB devices, modify the recording settings, delete the recordings/footages, and perform all the activities.
Enjoy! | https://medium.com/@bharadwajdj87/how-to-hack-the-cp-plus-cctv-systems-e455b7934050 | ['Bharadwaj D J'] | 2021-08-27 11:21:59.612000+00:00 | ['Hacking', 'Cameras', 'Security', 'Surveillance', 'Cctv'] |
Delayed code execution in Flutter | Microtask, Future or postFrameCallback, which one should I use?
In this article, I’d like to take you on a little journey into the depths of Flutter and learn more about scheduling code execution. As a conversation starter, let’s assume that we are building an application with a standard BLoC architecture, using the Provider library. To make this task challenging, upon opening a new screen we will have to initiate a network request to fetch something over the Internet. In this case, we have several options where to initiate our request:
Fetch the data before displaying our screen and show it with the data pre-loaded. This may not be the best option. You are likely to load a lot of unnecessary data or block the user interface with spinners if you decide to fetch only the required portions of data. Initiate the loading procedure in BLoC , just before the screen presentation, when creating the BLoC itself or by using a coordinator object to start it for you. If you want to keep your architecture nice and tidy, this would be the recommended approach. Initiate the loading procedure in the initState of the screen, trying to encapsulate this logic in the screen itself.
The third option may not be the best in terms of architectural correctness, but is actually a fairly common approach in the Flutter world. Let’s examine it, as it perfectly demonstrates our topic in a real-world scenario.
For demonstration purposes, here is a sample code. Notice anything wrong with it?
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:provider/provider.dart'; void main() {
runApp(
MaterialApp(
title: 'Demo',
home: ChangeNotifierProvider(
create: (_) => MyHomePageBloc(),
child: MyHomePage(),
),
),
);
} class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {
MyHomePage({Key key}) : super(key: key); @override
_MyHomePageState createState() => _MyHomePageState();
} class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
@override
void initState() {
super.initState();
context.read<MyHomePageBloc>().fetchData();
} @override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
final bloc = context.watch<MyHomePageBloc>(); return Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(),
body: Center(
child: bloc.loading ? CircularProgressIndicator() : Text(bloc.data),
),
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
onPressed: () => context.read<MyHomePageBloc>().fetchData(),
tooltip: 'Fetch',
child: Icon(Icons.add),
),
);
}
} class MyHomePageBloc with ChangeNotifier {
String data = "Loading";
bool loading = false; void fetchData() {
loading = true;
data = "Loading";
notifyListeners(); Future.delayed(Duration(seconds: 3), () {
loading = false;
data = "Done";
notifyListeners();
});
}
}
At first glance, it may seem like everything is fine. However, if you run it, it will inevitably crash and you will see something similar in your logs: ‘package:flutter/src/widgets/framework.dart’: Failed assertion: line 4349 pos 12: ‘!_dirty’: is not true.
This error indicates that we are trying to modify the widget tree at build time. The widget’s initState method is called in the middle of the build process, so any attempt to modify the widget tree from there will fail. In our case, when the fetch method is called, it synchronously executes notifyListeners(), which results in changes in the widget tree.
You may encounter a similar error when trying to do even more seemingly unrelated things. For example, showing a dialogue, which will also fail for a similar reason, because the context ( Element) is not currently mounted in the widget tree yet.
Regardless of what you are trying to do, you must delay code execution until the build process is complete. In other words, you need to execute your code asynchronously. Now to our options.
How to delay code execution in Flutter?
By researching this topic on the internet, I’ve compiled a list of the most commonly recommended solutions. You can even find some additional options, but here are the most noticeable ones:
That’s quite a number of options, you might say, and you’d be right. Speaking of our aforementioned problem, any of these will fix it. However, now that we are faced with such a variety of options, let’s indulge our curiosity and try to understand the differences between them.
Event Loop and Multithreading
As you may know, Dart is a single-threaded system. Surprisingly enough, your application can do multiple things at once, or at least it looks that way. This is where the Event Loop comes into play. An Event Loop is literally an endless loop (Run Loop for iOS developers) that executes scheduled events. The events (or just blocks of code, if you like) have to be lightweight, otherwise, your app will feel laggy or completely freeze. Each event , such as a button press or a network response, is scheduled in an events queue and waits to be picked up and executed by the Event Loop . This design pattern is quite common in UI and other systems that handle any kind of events. It might be difficult to explain this concept in a couple of sentences, so I would suggest reading something on the side if you are new to this subject. Don't overthink it, we are literally talking about a simple infinite loop and a list of tasks (blocks of code) scheduled for execution, one at a time, each iteration of the loop.
The special guest at the Dart Event Loop party we are about to learn is Microtask . Our Event Loop has additional queue inside, which is the Microtask Queue . The only thing to keep in mind about this queue is that all the tasks scheduled in it will be executed within a single iteration of the Event Loop before the event itself is executed.
Each iteration first performs all the microtasks , followed by one event . Cycle repeats.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much information on this subject, and the best explanation I’ve seen can be found in the web archive here or here.
Having this knowledge, let’s take a look at all the options listed above and understand the way they work and the differences between them.
Events
Anything that goes into the event queue . This is your default approach for scheduling an asynchronous task in Flutter. Scheduling an event we add it to the event queue to be picked up by the Event Loop . This approach is used by many Flutter mechanisms such as I/O, gesture events, timers, etc.
Timer
Timer is the foundation for asynchronous tasks in Flutter. It is used to schedule code execution in the event queue with or without a delay. The resulting fun fact is that if the queue is busy, your timer will never be executed, even if time is up.
How to use:
Timer.run(() {
print("Timer");
});
Future<T> and Future<T>.delayed
A well-known and widely used Dart feature. This may come as a surprise, but if you look under the hood, you will see nothing more than a wrapper of the aforementioned Timer .
How to use:
Future<void>(() {
print("Future Event");
}); Future<void>.delayed(Duration.zero, () {
print("Future.delayed Event");
});
Internal Implementation (link):
factory Future(FutureOr<T> computation()) {
_Future<T> result = new _Future<T>();
Timer.run(() {
try {
result._complete(computation());
} catch (e, s) {
_completeWithErrorCallback(result, e, s);
}
});
return result;
}
Microtasks
As mentioned before, all scheduled microtasks are executed before the next scheduled event . It is recommended to avoid this queue unless it is absolutely necessary to execute code asynchronously, but before the next event from the event queue . You can also think of this queue as a queue of tasks that belong to the previous event, as they will be completed before the next event. Overloading this queue can completely freeze your application, since it must execute everything in this queue before it can proceed to the next iteration of its event queue , such as processing user input or even rendering the application itself. Nevertheless, here are our options:
scheduleMicrotask
As the name implies, schedules a block code in the microtask queue . Similar to the Timer , crashes the application if something goes wrong.
How to use:
scheduleMicrotask(() {
print("Microtask");
});
Future<T>.microtask
Similar to what we saw before, wraps our microtask in a try-catch block, returning the result of the execution or error in a nice and clean way.
How to use:
Future<void>.microtask(() {
print("Microtask");
});
Internal Implementation (link):
factory Future.microtask(FutureOr<T> computation()) {
_Future<T> result = new _Future<T>();
scheduleMicrotask(() {
try {
result._complete(computation());
} catch (e, s) {
_completeWithErrorCallback(result, e, s);
}
});
return result;
}
Post Frame Callback
Whereas the previous two approaches involved a lower-level Event Loop mechanism, we are now moving to the Flutter domain. This callback is called when the rendering pipeline completes, so it is tied to the widget's lifecycle. When it's scheduled, it's called only once, not on every frame. Using the addPostFrameCallback method, you can schedule one or more callbacks to be executed once the frame is built. All scheduled callbacks will be executed at the end of the frame in the same order in which they were added. By the time this callback is called, it is guaranteed that the widget-building process is complete. With some smoke and mirrors, you can even access the layout of the widget ( RenderBox), such as its size, and do other kinds of unrecommended hacks. The callback itself will run in the normal event queue that Flutter uses by default for almost everything.
SchedulerBinding
This is a mixin responsible for the drawing callbacks and implements this method we are interested in.
How to use:
SchedulerBinding.instance.addPostFrameCallback((_) {
print("SchedulerBinding");
});
WidgetsBinding
I deliberately included this one as it is often mentioned along with SchedulerBinding. It inherits this method from the SchedulerBinding and has additional methods unrelated to our topic. In general, it doesn't matter if you use the SchedulerBinding or the WidgetsBinding, both will execute exactly the same code located in the SchedulerBinding .
How to use:
WidgetsBinding.instance.addPostFrameCallback((_) {
print("WidgetsBinding");
});
Putting our knowledge into practice
Since we have learned a lot of theory today, I strongly recommend playing with it for a while to make sure you get it right. We can use the following code in our previous initState and try to predict in which order it will be executed, which is not an easy task as it may seem.
SchedulerBinding.instance.addPostFrameCallback((_) {
print("SchedulerBinding");
}); WidgetsBinding.instance.addPostFrameCallback((_) {
print("WidgetsBinding");
}); Timer.run(() {
print("Timer");
}); scheduleMicrotask(() {
print("scheduleMicrotask");
}); Future<void>.microtask(() {
print("Future Microtask");
}); Future<void>(() {
print("Future");
Future<void>.microtask(() {
print("Microtask from Event");
});
}); Future<void>.delayed(Duration.zero, () {
print("Future.delayed");
Future<void>.microtask(() {
print("Microtask from Future.delayed");
});
});
Conclusion | https://itnext.io/delayed-code-execution-in-flutter-23d60b51e76f | ['Oleksandr Kirichenko'] | 2021-03-01 14:39:22.108000+00:00 | ['Multitasking', 'Asynchronous', 'Runloop', 'Flutter', 'Dart'] |
¿Listo para el Gran Cambio? Parte III ¿Qué significa cambio de paradigma? | 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/voces-en-espa%C3%B1ol/listo-para-el-gran-cambio-parte-iii-qu%C3%A9-significa-cambio-de-paradigma-80e00962ecf3 | ['Percy Bustes'] | 2020-09-27 19:05:29.322000+00:00 | ['Aprender', 'Español', 'Espiritualidad', 'Fisica Quantica', 'Cambio De Paradigma'] |
Molecular Diagnostics Market Worth $18.2 Billion By 2027 | The global molecular diagnostics market size is expected to reach USD 18.2 billion by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., registering a CAGR of 9.0% over the forecast period. Increasing prevalence of infectious diseases such as influenza and human papillomavirus is projected to be the key factor the growth of the market.
In the underdeveloped regions of Africa, increasing instances of infections such as tuberculosis and HIV have been witnessed in the last few years. This is projected to drive the demand for accurate and early diagnostic techniques to curb the spread of these infections.
Rapid technological advancements-leading to accurate results, portability, and cost-effectiveness-are expected to be a high impact rendering driver for this market. Companies are upgrading their products by implementing new techniques to gain specific and accurate results. Companies such as Sigma Aldrich Corporation and Qiagen are developing a new range of molecular diagnostic techniques, such as Transcription-Mediated Amplification (TMA) and Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP), for the diagnosis of tumors.
Key players in the market are adopting various marketing strategies such as collaborations with technologically advanced companies and diagnostic centers. Furthermore, players are focusing on expanding their geographic presence in order to increase their market share.
Click the link below:
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/molecular-diagnostics-market
Further key findings from the study suggest: | https://medium.com/@marketnewsreports/molecular-diagnostics-market-91d112122e9f | ['Gaurav Shah'] | 2020-12-15 10:07:24.790000+00:00 | ['Cancer', 'Thailand', 'Vietnam', 'Technology', 'Singapore'] |
Raise Your Hospital KPIs with a Focus on Cause and Effect Relationships | Healthcare organizations depend on monthly reporting of key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure financial performance and operational efficiency. As a result of the pandemic, almost all health executives expect a decline in revenue, so keeping a finger on the pulse KPIs may be more critical than ever before.
Credit: Fullvector/Freepik
Analytic dashboards are commonly used to track performance between monthly KPI reporting — but like monthly reporting, the activity analyzed has already happened, and the opportunity to avoid situations that adversely affect KPIs, such as denials, has passed.
The key to keeping KPIs strong and cash flowing is to avoid situations that inflate days in A/R, denials, write-offs, and decrease net collections. Unfortunately, even after substantial time and effort have been invested in identifying the root cause of situations that result in KPI disruptions, often the solutions are not permanent, and the same issues crop up time and again. The answer to maintaining healthy KPIs is pinpointing and lastingly correcting the situational causes that later affect RCM outcomes — the question almost all facilities face is how?
Identify root causes
A combination of experience, historical reporting, and automated analytic technology can get to the heart of operational deficiencies that cause negative financial performance. There can be many reasons for weak KPIs, but some of the most common causes include:
Days in A/R KPI factors
Slow claims submissions
High denial rates
Delayed payment posting
Claims denial KPI factors
Unsolved technology issues
Inaccurate or incomplete eligibility and insurance verification
Outdated rules engines
Write-off KPI factors
Fatal denials
Incorrectly applied adjustments
Timely issues
Net collections KPI factors
Outdated fee schedules
Failure to collect patient payments
Under or over coding
All situations leading to poor performance begin with data points that are eventually brought together on claims. Some circumstances that cause claims problems can be solved using existing technology; for example, most EHR systems will not let staff book an appointment until all relevant information (data) is recorded. Therefore, if birth dates are consistently missing from patient records, the platform can be set to lock until a birthdate is set. However, persistent RCM issues usually have an element that is much harder to control, for example, authorization denials because of an existing technology glitch or under coding due to inadequate documentation. These problems often need solutions that reach across departments and platforms. Up until now, a lack of communication between systems and siloed information has made permanent solutions impossible.
Reach across your enterprise to correct root causes at the source
Fortunately, there is a solution that can reach across disparate systems and facilities and alert staff when there is a data point that could later lead to operational or performance issues — healthcare business assurance.
Healthcare Business Assurance technology is a proactive solution that provides a permanent fix to RCM issues — wherever they originate. It is layered on top of existing technology and triggers an alarm to alert staff to problematic data. Since alerts happen in real-time, corrections can be made immediately before a claim is generated.
The problem: Decreasing net collections
For example, a large hospital system was continually hearing complaints from providers about under-compensation and saw a worrying trend towards declining revenue. After investigation, the group recognized two leading root causes of inaccurate coding leading to low RVUs and subsequent revenue leakage:
Problematic documentation from providers resulting in under coding and low RVUs
Failure to prove medical necessity
The solution: Proactive correction of root causes
Like many RCM issues, the solution needed a multi-pronged approach to reach across systems and departments. Hospital staff quickly realized BA technology was ideal for providing oversight of operations and providing lasting corrections. The team placed strategic alarms to instantly flag problematic data, allowing staff to correct issues before claim generation.
Solved: Inadequate documentation and inaccurate coding
One primary source of revenue leakage involved transcatheter aortic valve implementation (TAVI) coding. The solution involved multi-tiered alarms placed on the EHR and coding applications that virtually eliminated the circumstances ultimately leading to low net collections. Alerts allowed staff to be aware of and correct scenarios before claims were generated — accelerating overall collections and providing the information needed for accurate coding. Scenarios that triggered alarms included:
Missing fields in provider notes
Lack of terminology in notes to prove medical necessity and align with NCDs and LCDs
Lack of detail in notes to justify accurate procedure coding
Coding anomalies involving coding conventions such as NCCI edits, MEUs, and add-on codes
After correcting documentation and coding, RVUs reflected work done and raised net collections. (In many cases, the top 15–40 codes can drive up to 90% of revenue.) Then, alerts were placed on the RCM analytics platform to indicate when a provider deviated from expected RVUs as determined by historical data and compared with other providers performing the same procedures. In a noticeably short amount of time, providers had confidence in their compensation or (through education triggered by alerts) understood the documentation changes needed to ensure they captured the information necessary for accurate coding.
A permanent solution
Continual, automated monitoring and reporting ensure inefficiencies are permanently corrected. In the event an alert is triggered, a customized, integrated case-management workflow tool ensures timely follow-up that protects RCM outcomes. Flexible business rules engines can accommodate an unlimited number of triggers, alarms and automated case-management workflows, allowing organizations to build upon improvements and create lasting change.
Boost your hospital KPIs and increase overall provider and patient satisfaction
Organizations that concentrate on permanent solutions to circumstances that adversely impact KPIs will regain control of financial performance, ensure a steady stream of revenue, and benefit from a smoother revenue cycle experience that raises both staff and patient satisfaction.
For more on how Effy Healthcare can help you eliminate the root causes of underperforming KPIs visit www.effyhealthcare.com or contact us through [email protected]. | https://medium.com/@effyhealthcare/raise-your-hospital-kpis-with-a-focus-on-cause-and-effect-relationships-5fe08f4ef88c | ['Ana Elias'] | 2020-12-18 11:13:27.623000+00:00 | ['Healthcare', 'Performance', 'Technology', 'Kpi', 'Bi Dashboards'] |
Unsupervised Learning: Dimensionality Reduction | Unsupervised Learning: Dimensionality Reduction
Compress features, reduce overfitting and noise and increase eficciency and performance
Introduction
As stated in previous articles, unsupervised learning refers to a kind of machine learning algorithms and techniques that are trained and fed with unlabeled data. In other words, we do not know the correct solutions or the values of the target variable beforehand.
The main goal of these types of algorithms is to study the intrinsic and hidden structure of the data in order to get meaningful insights, segment the datasets in similar groups or to simplify them.
Throughout this article, we are going to explore some of the algorithms and techniques most commonly used to reduce the dimensionality of datasets.
Basics of Dimensionality Reduction
Dimensionality is the number of variables, characteristics or features present in the dataset. This dimensions are represented as columns, and the goal is to reduce the number of them.
In most cases, those columns are correlated and, therefore, there is some information that is redundant which increase the dataset’s noise. This redundant information impacts negatively in Machine Learning model’s training and performance and that is why using dimensionality reduction methods becomes of paramount importance. It is a very useful way to reduce model’s complexity and avoid overfitting.
There are two main categories of dimensionality reduction:
Feature Selection → we select a subset of features of the original dataset.
Feature Extraction → we derive information from the orginal set to build a new feature subspace.
Feature Selection
Feature Selection stands for a family of greedy algorithms used to reduce the dimensional feature space of a given dataset. The aim is to obtain a model capable of automatically selecting the subset of features most relevant to problem faced.
Greedy algorithms make locally optimal choices at each stage of a combinational search and normally yield suboptimal solutions. This is where they differenciate to exhaustive search algorithms, which evaluate the whole set of combinations and yield the overall optimal solution. The benefits of greedy algorithms is that they are computationally much more efficient, in expenses of precision, but, most of the times they yield sufficiently good solutions.
In that way, we will improve the computation efficiency of the training process, reduce dataset’s noise, avoid overfitting and reduce model’s complexity.
We will study two of the main techniques of feature selection:
Sequential Backward Selection or SBS
Random Forests Feature Importance
Sequential Backward Selection (SBS)
The idea behind the SBS algorithm is the following:
We will set the final number of features d that we want in our dataset
Then, we will set a criterion function that will be in charge of minimizing the loss of performance caused by removing one of the dataset’s features.
At each iteration, the algorithm will calculate this reduction of performance, by simply calculating the performance, before and after the removal of each of the current features.
Then, the feature that results in the least performance reduction, will be removed from the dataset.
If the number of features present in the dataset is equal to the d number (set at the beginning) the algorithms stops. Otherwise, it will complete another iteration.
Feature Importance With Random Forests
We have studied Random Forests algorithms in a previous article. These are a kind of ensemble algorithms that combine a set of weak Decision Tree models in order to build a more robust and precise one.
Using Random Forest, we can assess the importance of each feature, how much they are contributing to the model’s information, by calculating the averaged impurity decrease computed from all decision trees present in the forest. This will be done without making any assumptions of whether the data is linearly separable or not.
This is a quite simple method of obtaining feature importance, as we are going to use the random forest implementation of the scikit-learn library, which already collects feature importance by using the feature_importance_ attribute after fitting a RandomForesClassifier.
We already have studied an example of this in a previous article where we wanted to identify those features that most strongly help to predict wheter a specific individual made at most or more than $50.000.
# Import Ada Boost Classifier
from sklearn.ensemble import AdaBoostClassifier
# Train the supervised model on the training
model = AdaBoostClassifier().fit(X_train, y_train)
# Extract the feature importances using .feature_importances_
importances = model.feature_importances_
# Plot
vs.feature_plot(importances, X_train, y_train)
Feature Extraction
Feature extraction is also used to reduce the number of features of a certain dataset, but in contrast to feature selection, the output features will not be the same as the originals.
When using feature extraction, we project the data into a new feature space, so the new features will be combinations of the original features, compressed in a way that they will retain the most relevant information.
Some of the most used algorithms for unsupervised feature extraction are:
Principal Component Analysis
Random Projection
Independant Component Analysis
Principal Component Analysis (PCA)
In order to understand how the PCA algorithm works, let’s consider the following distribution of data:
PCA finds a new quadrant system (y’ and x’ axis) that it is obtained from the old one by translation and rotation only.
It will move the centre of the coordinate system from the original point (0,0) to the centre of the distribution of datapoints.
It will then move the x-axis into the principal axis of variation, which is the one with most variation relative to data points (the direction of maximum spread).
Then it moves other axis orthogonally to the principal one, into less important directions of variation.
Basically, PCA finds the directions of maximum variance in high-dimensional data and projects this data into a new subspace with the same or fewer dimensions than the original one.
These new directions that contain the maximum variance are called Principal Components, they have the constraint of being orthogonall to each other.
Maximal Variance and Information Loss
Data points will be projected in the direction of maximal variance to form a new axis. The further the points are to the axis, the biggest the information loss.
It is a mathematical fact that when we project points onto a direction of maximal variance, it minimized the distance from old and higher-dimensional data points to its new transformed value. In other words, it minimizes the information loss.
Core ideas of PCA for Feature Transformation
As a summary, what PCA do is to combine every feature and to extract the top more relevant ones automatically. It is a systemized way to transform input features into principal components, and uses them as the new features.
Principal components are directions in data that maximize variance (minimize information loss) when projecting or compressing them down.
The more the variance of data along a Principal Component, the more information that direction contains and the higher that principal component is ranked.
The number of Principal Components will be less or equall the number of input features.
Scikit-Learn PCA Implementation
Let’s see an example of how this algorithm is implemented in the Scikit-Learn library.
# Import PCA Algorithm
from sklearn.decomposition import PCA
# Initialize the algorithm and set the number of PC's
pca = PCA(n_components=2)
# Fit the model to data
pca.fit(data) # Get list of PC's
pca.components_ # Transform the model to data
pca.transform(data) # Get the eigenvalues
pca.explained_variance_ratio
When To Use PCA
When having latent features driving the patterns in data.
For Dimensionality reduction.
To visualize high-dimensional data.
To reduce the noise.
As a preprocessing step to improve the performance of other algorithms.
Random Projection
Random projection is a powerful dimensionality reduction method that is computationally more efficient tha PCA. It is commonly used in datasets that have too many dimensionsfor PCA to be directly computed.
Like PCA, it takes a dataset with d dimensions and n samples and produces a transformation of the dataset with k dimensions, being k much smaller than d (k << d).
Method
The basic premise is to reduce the number of dimension of our dataset by multiplying it to a random matrix. Which will project the dataset into a new subspace of features.
Theoreticall Approach: Johnson — Lindenstrauss Lemma
A datset with N samples in high-dimensional Euclidean space can be mapped down to a space in much lower dimension in a way that preserves the distance to the points to a large degree.
In other words, the distance squared between two points in the dataset is calculated and the distance of those two points in the new dataset must be either:
Smaller than the squared distance multiplied by (1-ε)
Greater than the squared distance multiplied by (1+ε)
Being u and v the considered datapoints.
Random Projection Scikit-learn implementation
# Import Random Projection Algorithm
from sklearn.random_projection import SparseRandomProjection
# Initialize the algorithm and set the number of PC's
randprojection = SparseRandomProjection()
# Fit and transformthe model to data
randprojection.fit_transform(data)
The epsilon value ε, is the level of error we are allowing between the points of the dataset. The default value of epsilon is 0.1.
We can use random projection by either setting a number of components or by specifying a value for epsilon and having the algorithm automatically calculating a conservative value for the number of dimensions.
Independant Component Analysis or ICA
ICA is a method for dimensionality reduction similar to PCA or Random Projection in the sense that it takes a set of features and produces a different set that is useful in some way.
But while PCA tries to maximize variance, ICA assumes that the features are mixtures of independent sources and it tries to isolate these independent sources that are mixed in the dataset.
The motivation behind ICA would be to take the original set of features and try to identify those of them that contribute independently to the dataset, in other words, those with the leat correlation to the other features. So it will isolate those most important components. This problem is called Blind Source Isolation.
High Level Algorithm
X: Is our original Dataset.
A: Mixing matrix
S: Source matrix
W: Unmixing matrix
These variables are related as follows:
So the goal is to calculate W, to be able to obtain S, the source matrix of the independant features.
To do so, the algorithm will perform the following steps:
Having X as the dataset, it will center and whiten it. Choose an initial random weight matrix W1,W2,…,Wn. Estimate W, containing vectors. Decorrelate W. Repeat from step 3 until convergence
ICA assumes that the components are statistical independent. They must have non Gaussian distributions, as we would not be able to restore the original signals if they were Gaussian.
From this point, the central limit theorem says that the distribution of a sum of independent variables tends towards a Gaussian distribution.
ICA Implementation in Sci-kit learn
# Import Independent Component Analysis Algorithm
from sklearn.decomposition import FastICA
# Initialize the algorithm and set the number of PC's
ica = FastICA(n_components=2)
# Fit and transform the model to data. It returns a list of independent components
ica.fit_transform(data)
One interesting applicaiton of ICA is the analysis of Electroenphalographic data. The following is an example of the readings of 14 channels from an EEG scan that lasted 4.5 seconds and the independent components extracted from the dataset. | https://towardsdatascience.com/unsupervised-learning-dimensionality-reduction-ddb4d55e0757 | ['Victor Roman'] | 2019-04-17 13:15:41.414000+00:00 | ['Unsupervised Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Dimensionality Reduction'] |
10 Important Mobile App Development Facts you Should Know | Mobile apps are the tools we can’t live without in today’s world. They help us to find information, learn languages, connect with friends, and much more. For businesses, mobile app development is a necessity. It enables them to get closer to their customers.
There are millions of mobile apps on iOS and Android operating systems combined. These apps generate billion-dollar revenues for their owners. From Twitter to Uber, businesses now develop mobile applications in every industry. And that led to the rise in demand for mobile app development companies.
Mobile developers understand that people want answers to problems at the tap of a thumb. So they undertake mobile app design that delivers them the solution on a small device.
Read more: 8 Best Mobile App Development Tools in 2021
10 Essential Mobile App Development Facts
Here are 10 facts about mobile application development that you should know -
Mobile apps are more popular than websites
Today companies develop mobile apps because users are spending less time on websites and more on applications. Studies show that people spend 87% of their time on mobile applications rather than using the website. Therefore, mobile app development is essential for every business. App stores have around 5 million applications
The largest play store is the Google Play Store for Android operating systems. It has around 2.9 million applications till the first quarter of 2020, as per a report by Statista. The iOS app store has about 1.85 million apps till the same time frame. Mobile apps generated billions of revenue in 2019
According to Statista, mobile applications generated nearly 461 billion US dollars of revenue in 2019. That makes it important for businesses to bring their business on a mobile app. The increasing use of apps is contributing to high revenue. They are developed for multiple platforms
A mobile app design is not limited to a single platform. Android and iOS, as a mobile app development platform, are highly popular. However, there’s also Windows OS, WebOS, Meego OS, Symbian OS, and many more. Mobile app developers earn a lot of money
Apple has paid over $50 billion to mobile app developers since 2008 — just 12 years ago. Clash of Clans is the richest of them all with grossing around $5 billion. Google Play Store also pays high sums of money for revenue from mobile applications. Millennials make purchases on mobile apps
Mobile app development became popular amongst millennials for online shopping. They are spending more time on apps looking for the right product than visiting the store. 63% of millennials are more likely to purchase from their mobile devices. iOS is the preferred platform by mobile developers
Almost 42% of developers prefer iOS as a mobile app development platform, while only 31% prefer Android. iOS results in more revenue as people are more likely to make in-app purchases. Android is perfect for reaching a mass market of consumers. The highest-grossing mobile app is Tinder
The online dating app, Tinder, generated $233 million in revenue, a year-on-year growth of 7%. It is closely followed by YouTube with $164 million. The revenue of the YouTube mobile app has never declined over the past years. Mobile app advertising generates valuable results
The in-app mobile advertising market has reached around $15 billion. It has a highly valuable asset for companies that want to get more leads from mobile applications. Apps are also effective in driving people to take purchase actions. Importance of mobile apps for B2B
85% of B2B marketers believe that mobile application development holds a significant place in content marketing. Apart from being productive and convenient, they are excellent marketing tools to generate more business.
Read more: 7 benefits of Mobile App Development for SMBs
Mobile app development is important for businesses to thrive in the technologically advanced world. By understanding how it impacts their users, they can make better decisions and increase their market share. They have to start considering the essential role of mobile apps in taking their business to the next level. | https://medium.com/@botreetechnologies/10-important-mobile-app-development-facts-you-should-know-1aefdb78d4ac | [] | 2020-12-16 09:38:55.966000+00:00 | ['Mobile App Developers', 'Mobile App Design', 'Mobile App Facts 2020', 'Mobile Apps', 'Mobile App Development'] |
Don’t Become Someone Else’s Collateral Damage on Their Way to Self-Discovery | Don’t Become Someone Else’s Collateral Damage on Their Way to Self-Discovery
Know your worth. REALLY know your worth.
Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash
At some point in your dating lifetime, you learn what it’s like to have someone else as your “rebound” relationship or what it feels like to be the rebound.
A rebound is a relationship (even if a short fling) with someone else shortly after the ending of a more significant relationship instead of using that time to heal and get in the right headspace for someone new.
It’s not always a bad thing. The expression “the best way to get over someone is to get under someone” has its merits. It’s easy to obsess over an ex; inserting someone new in the picture can break the cycle of repetitive thoughts. This works best when both people agree to the no-strings-attached condition of sex.
It’s a whole other ballgame when you’re the collateral damage on their way to self-discovery.
Some people are by nature selfish and self-serving. During a time of rebound and self-discovery, no one is immune from becoming somewhat selfish. It’s necessary to learn who we are at that moment, who we want to become, what we need to fulfill our goals in our next life chapter.
It’s understanding to miss the signs of someone else in self-discovery mode. Naturally selfish people aren’t stealth in their ways and they’re easy to spot after a few interactions. Someone under self-discovery isn’t aware that they’re selfish. It’s often a temporary state and they’re otherwise good people. After all, the first rule of self-awareness is becoming aware that you aren’t self-aware.
While it’s great that they’re going through a personal metamorphosis, that doesn’t mean you need to stick around and take the hard knocks on their path. How do you do that?
By knowing your worth.
So cheesy. I cringed as I typed it. Hear me out.
If you are on your path of self-discovery, it’s difficult to understand your boundaries, your interests, your goals, and everything else that would make for a sequel to Pixar’s Inside Out.
Know your worth: basic human rights
If you struggle to identify your worth, first think of the rules you would apply to every human, such as:
not tolerating physical abuse.
not tolerating blatant verbal abuse (such as “you’re stupid” or “you’re so fat”).
not tolerating theft or damage to your belongings.
not getting involved with someone who was incarcerated for any of the above reasons.
The rules you apply to every human are typically very blatant and black or white. They’re easy to identify. Unfortunately, for many people, this is a boundary that is difficult to enforce.
Know your worth: the bare minimum of dating
Next, think of the rules that you would apply to all humans but more nuanced. They’re more specific to you but most would agree, such as:
not accepting proclaimed “harmless” flirting.
not accepting offhand insulting comments (“careful with those cookies, you’ll end up even bigger”).
them going off on a “guys’ weekend” or “girls’ weekend” with loads of alcohol and partying without checking in if they promised to do so.
keeping you hidden from their family and friends
mooching off you financially because they make poor financial choices
Know your worth: the rules specific to you
The hardest list to determine your worth is the list of acceptable behaviors applicable to you. No one else can make this list for you. To identify them, think of things in the past that made you feel bad but you couldn’t quite articulate why or you felt irrational so you brushed them off. In particular, these are things that people do when they’re going through a life change, major relationship change, and all-around path to self-discovery.
Since the list is unique to you, here are some of my rules I’m putting on my list. | https://medium.com/change-becomes-you/dont-become-someone-else-s-collateral-damage-on-their-way-to-self-discovery-64352d77f1cc | ['Jennifer M. Wilson'] | 2020-12-29 19:32:45.911000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Sex', 'Mental Health', 'Love', 'Relationships'] |
3 Mostly Forgotten Vital Parts of a Business Story | 3 Mostly Forgotten Vital Parts of a Business Story
What You Need to Have Before Raising Money
All pictures in the article are CANVA Pro Images
SARS-CoV-2 or the disease it causes COVID 19 hit the news in 2020. Everybody is aware of the situation we are in. As Europe got into the first lockdown, I was approached by many investors and companies to help them raising or investing money.
Some wanted to help humanity. Others wanted to make money. Both are just claims in the business world. Yet, I declined most offers and only picked up a few opportunities.
All pictures in the article are CANVA Pro Images
When everybody rushes to the market, how can an entrepreneur stand out?
The situation reminded me of the term “Gold Rush Mood.” I learned it at the university as the first “Internet Gold Rush” came up. Every trend that goes into a bubble seems to be attributed to the term “Gold Rush Mood.”
The term was probably coined back when the human race experienced gold rushes in the wild wild west. Everybody wants to go there where the gold needs to be picked up. Yet, only a few are willing to do what is necessary.
Meaning putting the work in. Definitely, in every gold rush, win those who produce and sell the shovels needed to dig for gold.
In March, everything looked like a new gold rush started. Yes, I know, it comes across sarcastic as a pandemic can cost lives. In fact, many people really wanted to help. Investors were flooding to the life science industry.
As did companies who wanted to develop something that helps to fight the pandemic. Public funds set up novel schemes to support companies who are working on a solution.
I always checked whether a company has 3 pre-requisites before recommending it for investments, also in this case. I want to make sure to separate the wheat from the chaff.
What are these 3 things I consider important?
All pictures in the article are CANVA Pro Images
Vision
“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe” — Simon Sinek
One of the books I love the most has been written by Simon Sinek. He emphasizes the importance of knowing.
Why you do what you do
In my consulting and seminars, I call it having a vision. Your vision defines your long term goal. It is what you want yourself, your team, and your company to become.
It is what you want to contribute to society.
For example, a vision in Life Science is:
I want to cure cancer. I want people to live a happy, healthy, and long life without a deadly disease burden.
The vision statements want to answer questions like: | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/3-mostly-forgotten-vital-parts-of-a-business-story-8d28b6624217 | ['Christian Soschner'] | 2020-11-21 16:00:58.678000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business', 'Leadership'] |
Don’t call filmmaker Ryan White an activist; he just wants to hold powerful people accountable | EL: A lot of what I write about is our “prestige” true-crime bubble that we’re in, and how we love miscarriage-of-justice stories. So, in approaching a justice system that, in and of itself, to our Western eyes, seems like injustice on its face, how did you approach picking apart the cultural implications of what justice looks like here vs. there?
RW: I feel like this question comes up in so many of my films. I feel like we’re constantly debating in the edit room: what is “justice” in this story? We ask that question a million times. All of these stories are so complicated, in that that’s not a simple black-or-white answer, but in this one especially, justice was never going to be achieved. From the moment Kim Jong Nam was assassinated: the North Korean operatives got away with it. The North Korean regime got away with it. They literally leave the country as he’s dying, back to their country, which is impenetrable. They’re never going to be brought to any traditional form of justice. So that definition of justice was off the table the moment Kim Jong Nam died, unfortunately for him and his family.
So then the question became: what are degrees of justice that we can convey in our film? If these women are acquitted, that’s also not justice for Kim Jong Nam and his family, because then nobody is held accountable, but we started to realize… I can’t say this for certain, but it seemed like that warped sense for a need for justice is was what was guiding the Malaysian government to convict these women.
EL: Very good point.
RW: ‘The idea that North Korea got away with it, and this happened on our soil to a very public political figure… we cannot let everyone get away with it.’ It felt as if these women were sacrificial lambs in some way for the appearance of justice, which ironically, I think, would be the least amount of justice in the end, if that’s the way it had unfolded.
Culturally, I don’t think it was that different than telling an American story. The North Korean regime is its own thing, and they’re different, but when this was all going down geopolitically, with the Malaysian government, and the Indonesian government, and the Vietnamese government, it didn’t feel that other. That felt very similar to how these stories could unfold here. What was scarier was the idea that the case was so stacked against them that it felt like…
The truth did not come out in that courtroom. The truth was so one-sided in that courtroom, that the only opportunity for the truth to come out was through journalism or documentary storytelling. That’s why, thank god, the lawyers participated with us, and just completely opened up their cases to us, saying, “Here’s everything; put it out into the world because our government is stifling it.”
EL: So there’s also justice, then, for Siti and Doan, in having their story told through the film.
RW: Maybe! They would have to answer that. I feel like, those women have lost so much through this process… I would never pat myself on the back and say, “Thank God I helped get their truth out there!” because the sad reality is, they lost so much, and I don’t know if they’ll ever recover. I’m glad they participated [in the film] as well, and I hope people watch this film and realize that there is a world where they are telling the truth.
It’s still a sad ending for them, all-around, that their lives have been so detoured by this experience.
Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong are led out of the courthouse during the trial.
EL: It’s interesting that you say that… so do you view your documentary project, so to speak, as “activism” in any way? The Keepers I think felt a little like that to me, in getting this story told and out there in a way that would have been lost to history.
RW: I definitely wouldn’t use the world “activism.” I always say no to issue-based films; my company gets offered a lot of them. But, if there’s someone at the center that I’m fascinated with, or stimulated by, or if I’m hungry to know how they ended up there… then that’s what draws me.
For The Keepers, that was never going to be a Netflix series when it began. That was a family story, and it was about me meeting one woman who was Jane Doe, who was at the center of that whole story, and being so compelled by her and her circumstances, that I wanted to make something about her. It was the same about these two women [in Assassins] in essence; I was so compelled by who they were, which was always the guiding star of making this film.
Inevitably what happens is: you can’t tell these micro-stories of these women without looking at the macro, at the web that surrounds them, and then you end up at that world of… systemic, institutional, failings… But that’s never my intent. It always snowballs into that, because you can’t ignore that. It’s also not even my interest… I will battle as long as I can in the edit room not doing the big-picture, systemic parts, until my editor tells me I’m ruining everything if I turn a blind eye to these things.
The Keepers was a really interesting experience, because it more-so than anything I’ve made became a series that led to massive impact and change, but that was never my goal.
What guides me, definitely with Assassins, is anger. When you’re so deep in these stories, you start getting so angry about how people have been treated by the system. Then, I’m like a dog with a bone, wanting to make sure The Powers That Be don’t get away with it the way they have. I like The Powers That Be having to face the truth. So, if that’s activism, then maybe I am an activist.
(This interview has been condensed for space and lightly edited for clarity). | https://medium.com/everythings-interesting/dont-call-filmmaker-ryan-white-an-activist-he-just-wants-to-hold-powerful-people-accountable-5d0fd616a865 | ['Eric Langberg'] | 2020-12-11 20:58:36.133000+00:00 | ['True Crime', 'Documentary', 'Film', 'Filmmaking', 'Interview'] |
In Pictures: Royal Navy photographic awards | In Pictures: Royal Navy photographic awards
The role of the Royal Navy Photographer helps capture the significant moments as operations are carried out across the world. Here are this year's winners of the Peregrine Trophy
The hardy bunch of photographers follow warships and commandos wherever they go, sharing their important missions with the world through still images and video, providing a behind-the-scenes look at life in the Royal Navy, from emotional homecomings to frontline ops.
Now these skilled photographers — all of them serving sailors or Royal Marines — have been recognised for their stunning imagery in the Royal Navy’s annual photographic competition, the Peregrine Trophy.
In the last year, the photographers have been there on the frontline as the Royal Navy continued to deliver during the Covid-19 global pandemic, protecting the UK’s interests at home and abroad.
📸Take a look at some of the award-winning photos below: | https://medium.com/voices-of-the-armed-forces/in-pictures-royal-navy-photographic-awards-7149803c3a6f | ['Ministry Of Defence'] | 2020-10-19 15:39:30.838000+00:00 | ['Photo Essay', 'Photography', 'Military', 'Operations', 'UK'] |
My First Hackathon: The Project | Onboarding flow: building the profile
Two weekends ago I did a hackathon through UX result with a few friends from my Flatiron design bootcamp. If you’re not familiar with hackathons they are basically events where you are working in teams to solve some sort of prompted problem over a given period of time. They can be coding hackathons, design hackathons, etc that occur over a certain period of time.
We chose the challenge of creating the onboarding flow for a smart dog collar, Bark (not a real product although there are a lot of smart dog collars out there). This collar is focusing on millennial dog owners living in urban environments, mainly helping dog owners have GPS tracking and health tracking features for their pup.
It was a really fun 10ish hours we spent looking at competitors, sketching ideas, wireframing, style guide-ing, and testing our concepts! We focused on making it fun, easy, gender-neutral, and taking abilities into consideration. We didn’t win but it was a great experience and a chance to flex our design muscles again in a really short amount of time. | https://medium.com/@hayley-smith/my-first-hackathon-the-project-aa58841f58eb | ['Hayley Smith'] | 2020-12-21 01:26:38.475000+00:00 | ['Learning Design', 'UX Design', 'Hackathons', 'Ux Bootcamp'] |
Predicting Car Price using Machine Learning | In this post, we will learn Linear Regression and real time challenges during implementation for a business problem.
Photo by Joshua Koblin on Unsplash
Problem Description:
There is an automobile company XYZ from Japan which aspires to enter the US market by setting up their manufacturing unit there and producing cars locally to give competition to their US and European counterparts.
They want to understand the factors affecting the pricing of cars in the American market, since those may be very different from the Japanese market. Essentially, the company wants to know:
Which variables are significant in predicting the price of a car
How well those variables describe the price of a car
Based on various market surveys, the consulting firm has gathered a large dataset of different types of cars across the American market.
Business Objectives:
You as a Data scientist are required to apply some data science techniques for the price of cars with the available independent variables. That should help the management to understand how exactly the prices vary with the independent variables. They can accordingly manipulate the design of the cars, the business strategy etc. to meet certain price levels.
Dataset and Python code:
You can download the dataset and respective python code from my Github.
The solution is divided into the following sections:
Data understanding and exploration
Data cleaning
Data preparation
Model building and evaluation
Data understanding and exploration:
Summary of data: 205 rows, 26 columns, no null values
Image by author: 205 rows, 26 columns, no null values
The column“Price” is the target variable and rest of the columns are independent variables.
The independent variables are again divided into Categorical and Numerical variables.
Numerical variables: [‘wheelbase’, ‘carlength’, ‘carwidth’, ‘carheight’, ‘curbweight’, ‘enginesize’, ‘boreratio’, ‘stroke’, ‘compressionratio’, ‘horsepower’, ‘peakrpm’, ‘citympg’, ‘highwaympg’]
Categorical variables: [‘symboling’, ‘fueltype’, ‘aspiration’, ‘doornumber’, ‘carbody’, ‘drivewheel’, ‘enginelocation’, ‘enginetype’, ‘cylindernumber’, ‘fuelsystem’ ‘car_name’]
Heatmap to show correlation of Numerical and Target variable:
Now let’s plot Heatmap which is pretty useful to visualise multiple correlations among numerical variables. We have also used the Target variable “Price” to understand the correlation of numerical variables with it.
Image by author: Heatmap to understand correlation with Target variable “Price”
The heatmap shows some useful insights:
Correlation of target variable “Price” with independent variables:
Price is highly (positively) correlated with wheelbase, carlength, carwidth, curbweight, enginesize, horsepower (notice how all of these variables represent the size/weight/engine power of the car)
Price is negatively correlated to ‘citympg’ and ‘highwaympg’ (-0.70 approximately). This suggest that cars having high mileage may fall in the ‘economy’ cars category, and are priced lower (think Maruti Alto/Swift type of cars, which are designed to be affordable by the middle class, who value mileage more than horsepower/size of car etc.)
Correlation among independent variables:
Many independent variables are highly correlated (look at the top-left part of matrix): wheelbase, carlength, curbweight, enginesize etc. are all measures of ‘size/weight’, and are positively correlated
Thus, while building the model, we’ll have to pay attention to multicollinearity (especially linear models, such as linear and logistic regression, suffer more from multicollinearity).
Data Cleaning:
We’ve seen that there are no missing values in the dataset.
We’ve also seen that variables are in the correct format, except “symboling”, which should rather be a categorical variable (so that dummy variable are created for the categories).
We have also done data preprocessing on The variable “CarName” and created a new variable called as “car_company”.
Data Preparation:
Let’s now prepare the data for model building.
Split the data into X and y.
X = cars.loc[:, ['symboling', 'fueltype', 'aspiration', 'doornumber','carbody', 'drivewheel', 'enginelocation', 'wheelbase', 'carlength','carwidth', 'carheight', 'curbweight', 'enginetype', 'cylindernumber','enginesize', 'fuelsystem', 'boreratio', 'stroke', 'compressionratio','horsepower', 'peakrpm', 'citympg', 'highwaympg',
'car_company']] y = cars['price']
Creating dummy variables for categorical variables.
# subset all categorical variables
cars_categorical = X.select_dtypes(include=['object'])
# convert into dummies
cars_dummies = pd.get_dummies(cars_categorical, drop_first=True)
# drop categorical variables
X = X.drop(list(cars_categorical.columns), axis=1)
# concat dummy variables with X
X = pd.concat([X, cars_dummies], axis=1)
Scaling the features and getting the final list of columns in dataframe for model building.
# scaling the features
from sklearn.preprocessing import scale # storing column names in cols, since column names are (annoyingly) lost after
# scaling (the df is converted to a numpy array)
cols = X.columns
X = pd.DataFrame(scale(X))
X.columns = cols
X.columns
Image by author: final list of columns in dataframe for model building
Final Train-Test split of data.
# split into train and test
from sklearn.cross_validation import train_test_split
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y,
train_size=0.7,
test_size = 0.3, random_state=100)
Model Building and Evaluation:
Building the first model with all the features
# instantiate
lm = LinearRegression() # fit
lm.fit(X_train, y_train)
# predict
y_pred = lm.predict(X_test) # metrics
from sklearn.metrics import r2_score print(r2_score(y_true=y_test, y_pred=y_pred))
R-squared = 0.83826213934
Not bad, we are getting approx. 83% r-squared with all the variables. Let’s see how much we can get with lesser features.
Let’s now build a model using recursive feature elimination to select features. We’ll first start off with an arbitrary number of features, and then use the “statsmodels” library to build models using the shortlisted features (this is because sklearn doesn’t have adjusted r-squared but statsmodels has).
Choosing the optimal number of features for Model building:
One way to choose the optimal number of features is to make a plot between number of features(n_features) vs adjusted r-squared, and then choose the best value of n_features.
n_features_list = list(range(4, 20))
adjusted_r2 = []
r2 = []
test_r2 = [] for n_features in range(4, 20): # RFE with n features
lm = LinearRegression() # specify number of features
rfe_n = RFE(lm, n_features) # fit with n features
rfe_n.fit(X_train, y_train) # subset the features selected by rfe_6
col_n = X_train.columns[rfe_n.support_] # subsetting training data for 6 selected columns
X_train_rfe_n = X_train[col_n] # add a constant to the model
X_train_rfe_n = sm.add_constant(X_train_rfe_n) # fitting the model with 6 variables
lm_n = sm.OLS(y_train, X_train_rfe_n).fit()
adjusted_r2.append(lm_n.rsquared_adj)
r2.append(lm_n.rsquared)
# making predictions using rfe_15 sm model
X_test_rfe_n = X_test[col_n] # # Adding a constant variable
X_test_rfe_n = sm.add_constant(X_test_rfe_n, has_constant='add') # # Making predictions
y_pred = lm_n.predict(X_test_rfe_n)
test_r2.append(r2_score(y_test, y_pred)) # plotting adjusted_r2 against n_features
plt.figure(figsize=(10, 8))
plt.plot(n_features_list, adjusted_r2, label="adjusted_r2")
plt.plot(n_features_list, r2, label="train_r2")
plt.plot(n_features_list, test_r2, label="test_r2")
plt.legend(loc='upper left')
plt.show()
Image by author: Number of Features vs R-squared
Based on the plot, we can choose the number of features considering the r2_score we are looking for. Note that there are a few caveats in this approach, and there are more sophisticated techniques to choose the optimal number of features:
Cross-validation: In this case, we have considered only one train-test split of the dataset; the values of r-squared and adjusted r-squared will vary with train-test split. Thus, cross-validation is a more commonly used technique (you divide the data into multiple train-test splits into ‘folds’, and then compute average metrics such as r-squared across the ‘folds’.
The values of r-squared and adjusted r-squared are computed based on the training set, though we must always look at metrics computed on the test set. For e.g. in this case, the test r2 actually goes down with increasing n — this phenomenon is called ‘overfitting’, where the performance on training set is good because the model has in some way ‘memorised’ the dataset, and thus the performance on test set is worse.
Thus, we can choose anything between 4 and 12 features, since beyond 12, the test r2 goes down; and at lesser than 4, the r2_score is too less.
In fact, the test_r2 score doesn’t increase much anyway from n=6 to n=12. It is thus wiser to choose a simpler model, and so let’s choose n=6.
Final Model:
Let’s now build the final model with 6 features.
# RFE with n features
lm = LinearRegression() n_features = 6 # specify number of features
rfe_n = RFE(lm, n_features) # fit with n features
rfe_n.fit(X_train, y_train) # subset the features selected by rfe_6
col_n = X_train.columns[rfe_n.support_] # subsetting training data for 6 selected columns
X_train_rfe_n = X_train[col_n] # add a constant to the model
X_train_rfe_n = sm.add_constant(X_train_rfe_n) # fitting the model with 6 variables
lm_n = sm.OLS(y_train, X_train_rfe_n).fit()
adjusted_r2.append(lm_n.rsquared_adj)
r2.append(lm_n.rsquared) # making predictions using rfe_15 sm model
X_test_rfe_n = X_test[col_n] # # Adding a constant variable
X_test_rfe_n = sm.add_constant(X_test_rfe_n, has_constant='add') # # Making predictions
y_pred = lm_n.predict(X_test_rfe_n) test_r2.append(r2_score(y_test, y_pred)) # summary
lm_n.summary()
Image by author: OLS Regression result
# results
r2_score(y_test, y_pred)
r2-squared = 0.88514228773125714
So the model has accuracy of 88.51% on test data which is good. There are other ways of model evaluation as well, let’s see those points.
Final Model Evaluation:
Let’s now evaluate the model in terms of its assumptions. We should test that:
The error terms are normally distributed with mean approximately 0.
There is little correlation between the predictors.
Homoscedasticity, i.e. the ‘spread’ or ‘variance’ of the error term (y_true-y_pred) is constant.
# Error terms
c = [i for i in range(len(y_pred))]
fig = plt.figure()
plt.plot(c,y_test-y_pred, color="blue", linewidth=2.5, linestyle="-")
fig.suptitle('Error Terms', fontsize=20) # Plot heading
plt.xlabel('Index', fontsize=18) # X-label
plt.ylabel('ytest-ypred', fontsize=16) # Y-label
plt.show()
Image by author: Error Terms
Plotting the error terms to understand the distribution.
fig = plt.figure()
sns.distplot((y_test-y_pred),bins=50)
fig.suptitle('Error Terms', fontsize=20) # Plot heading
plt.xlabel('y_test-y_pred', fontsize=18) # X-label
plt.ylabel('Index', fontsize=16) # Y-label
plt.show()
Image by author: Error distribution
Now it may look like that the mean is not 0, though compared to the scale of ‘Price’, -380 is not such a big number (see distribution below).
Image by author: Price Distribution
Multicollinearity:
predictors = ['carwidth', 'curbweight', 'enginesize',
'enginelocation_rear', 'car_company_bmw', 'car_company_porsche'] cors = X.loc[:, list(predictors)].corr()
sns.heatmap(cors, annot=True)
plt.show()
Image by author: Heatmap to show multicollinearity among Predictors
Conclusion:
Though this is the most simple model we’ve built till now, the final predictors still seem to have high correlations. One can go ahead and remove some of these features, though that will affect the adjusted-r2 score significantly (you should try doing that).
Thus, for now, the final model consists of the 6 variables mentioned above.
Thank you for reading !!! | https://towardsdatascience.com/predicting-car-price-using-machine-learning-8d2df3898f16 | ['Tarique Akhtar'] | 2020-11-23 14:57:03.947000+00:00 | ['Ordinary Least Square', 'Car Prices', 'Linear Regression', 'Machine Learning', 'Predictions'] |
Ch. 19 Thoughts & Prayers | Ch. 19 Thoughts & Prayers
When my friends, extended family and family friends heard about what happened, many of them sent flowers and cards to my mom’s apartment. After coming back from the nightmare of the attack and the legal proceedings that followed, it was so nice to be back in Rhode Island. When I walked into mom’s apartment, I didn’t expect to see all of that. Instead of being upset that so many people knew or feeling overwhelmed by all of the attention, it was actually a huge comfort. People knew what I was going through, so there were that many people I didn’t have to tell myself. I had also received piles of handwritten notes from friends at NYU, and along with the cards that came attached to flowers and teddy bears, I must have read them all a hundred times. I remember going from bouquet to bouquet, staring at the well-wishes and signatures. All these people showing they were thinking of me. Amid all the emotions I was going through, this time, the reason tears were falling was not just through sadness, but a little happiness, too.
I’m telling you this because even though you may be worried that it’s silly to send things like flowers, cards, or even a small “Guardian Angel” figurine like one family friend sent, amidst such a life-altering traumatic event, it’s not. It was the perfect way to know that I had so much love in my life, but in the perfectly unobtrusive way that I needed at the time. They were the only overwhelming display of love that I could possibly handle at the time. And even though I felt very alone in the world, being surrounded by loving gestures from people who care was very welcome company.
As time went on and flowers wilted, I collected all the notes and cards and letters and put them together in a box that I still take out and read to this day. Though I don’t hear from some of those people who were there for me then, it will always mean something to me. As life continues to move on, I will remember them forever.
These tangible symbols of love were all I needed at that moment, but as time went on, so did other people’s lives. For many family and friends, it seemed like they had done their job, and I didn’t really hear from them again. When I would see them, even just a month or so after, the topic had clearly become taboo, and not a mention of it was ever made in front of me. It was startling to me as I was still so deep in it all, triggers and nightmares and sitting down in my dark pit only pretending to have crawled out. Every person I knew, chatting with them was like coming out of the pit for some air, only to find it suffocating, leaving me desperate to go back down.
When the flowers had died and the sentiments were boxed up, I think I may have felt a bit abandoned. Although I wasn’t ready to really open up to people, I realized that there are things people in my life could have done that I do believe would have helped, so I hope they may do the same for any person going through something similar.
Don’t be scared to ask us how we’re doing. I read your card, I know you know what happened to me and I hear the other side of the phone conversations with my parents all the time. I’m not saying you can’t talk about how I am with my family, of course you can. But I won’t bite if you talk to me, too. The worst reaction I can muster to you is silence or a loaded but terse answer like, “Fine, I guess”.
Try not to treat us like cracked glass. When you said that I was strong in your note, it meant a lot to me. And it would help if you treated me that way. I am broken, but I won’t shatter. At least not until later. You may even make me feel like my old self again, even for a second.
You can still hug me. This is of course extremely subjective, and you should never assume someone is okay with being touched without asking first. But in my experience, there was something so comforting in hugging someone who I’d hugged so many times before. The way they smell, the memories they invoke, the welcome notion that touch can be safe and beautiful.
Please be patient, friends. The only thing I am sure of is that I became a different person after my attack. I was lucky enough to have a couple of friends that stood by me through it all, and not just next to me, but with me. Although I was a functioning person, I always felt alone. It would have maybe helped if I had opened up more, but I also didn’t know how to really. I guess the only advice I’d want to give you is to try to be there for your friend through all of this. Whether they’ve been assaulted or have opened up about abuse to you, the best thing you can do is stick by their side, don’t be afraid when they’re acting like a basket case, and every so often ask them how they’re feeling that day. It helps if you have a scale of 1–10. They don’t need to give you details about why they are feeling a certain number, but it helps you both to know. Eventually, you can figure out why they’re at that number, and hopefully talk it through even. We won’t want to talk a lot of the time, but every so often, we may burst into tears. Don’t worry if you can’t understand what we’re saying, it’s not what we’ll remember. We will remember your hug, and that you didn’t let go. | https://medium.com/brokenbook/ch-19-thoughts-prayers-47fb1b964566 | ['Lauren Azar'] | 2019-08-16 02:34:38.357000+00:00 | ['Trauma', 'Survivor', 'Metoo', 'Sexual Assault', 'PTSD'] |
What will post-Trump journalism look like? | What will post-Trump journalism look like?
White House Press Briefing with President Donald J. Trump and the Coronavirus Task Force / Courtesy D. Myles Cullen, Official White House Photo, Flickr
On February 17, 2017, President Donald Trump asserted via Twitter that NBC News, CNN, and The New York Times, among others critical of his administration, were “fake news” and the “enemy of the people.”
For another president, these remarks would shatter the fabric of the nation. With Trump, however, the statement was far from uncommon.
From the beginning, the President’s tone regarding the news media was combative and his usage of the phrase “fake news” had become synonymous with his persona and his dislike of critical reporting on himself.
However, Trump’s characterization of the news media as “enem[ies] of the people” revealed a sense of media hatred from an American president unseen by journalists in decades. Critics lambasted the tweet as borderline authoritarian á la Joseph Stalin, who infamously referred to political opponents in such a manner.
Despite the pushback, the President’s disdain for the press, especially those considered center and center-left, only swelled with time.
One of the most controversial conflicts between the Trump administration and the media occurred when the President temporarily revoked the press pass of CNN reporter Jim Acosta for an undisclosed period of time. This move by President Trump came mere hours after a contentious post-2018 midterms news conference where Acosta attempted to ask the President several follow-up questions as a White House aide tried to take his microphone and the President called him a “terrible” person.
CNN’s Chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta / Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
CNN, the White House Correspondents’ Association, and several other journalists and media outlets condemned the move, including Fox News, which had become known for providing an almost explicitly pro-Trump stance.
Another noteworthy episode between the press and the President was regarding a question from another CNN reporter, Abby Phillip. President Trump, responding to her inquiry pertaining to the Russia investigation, told her the question was “stupid” and that she asked “a lot of stupid questions.”
While Phillip moved on and Acosta‘s credentials were eventually returned to him, these moments, among an extensive list of others, highlight the profoundly unhealthy relationship between President Trump and the press.
Veteran journalism scholar and Columbia Journalism School professor Michael Schudson believes President Trump had “the worst presidential relation with the news media in memory — and that includes Nixon.”
Schudson further claims the President abhorred negative coverage of his administration, even if said coverage was honest and truthful. In other words, if it wasn’t full of praise, it was full of deceit.
“I’ve never seen any president behave more threateningly and corruptly to the media,” he concluded.
Several other experts feel similarly.
“Other presidents have grumbled about journalists and tried to limit and manipulate reporting on their administrations, but Trump took antagonism toward the media to a higher level than any president over the past twenty years,” said Jon Marshall, author of “Watergate’s Legacy and the Press: The Investigative Impulse” and associate professor of journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
“By calling news outlets enemies of the people, he encouraged distrust of a free press and encouraged violence against journalists.”
Ellen Shearer, former president of the Washington Press Club Foundation and longtime judge for the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual awards, echoed this standpoint while highlighting the difficult experience for journalists trying to receive and report accurate information in the face of “continued disparagement” from President Trump.
It is this disparagement and divisive schoolyard side-picking culture that has defined the past four years in American journalism, Shepard Smith departing from his 23-year career at Fox News to CNBC as a symbolic testament.
However, as the established journalism industry fought distressingly to defend its honor against the President’s vilification, a new generation of journalists decided sitting on the bench was no longer for them. They wanted in on the game.
Just as the volatile political environment of the 1960s and 70s mobilized a generation to grab their notepads and chase the next breaking story, young people today have been energized by the chaotic, yet riveting and fast-paced political whirlpool that is the Trump era.
Journalism schools around the country have seen application numbers rise significantly since President Trump took office. This, despite the onslaught from the White House and the grim reality of the notoriously low-wage, highly competitive industry. | https://medium.com/digital-diplomacy/what-will-post-trump-journalism-look-like-9b2d8e3130db | ['Jaylen Coaxum'] | 2020-11-26 01:28:01.932000+00:00 | ['Elections', 'Journalism', 'Politics', 'America', 'Foreign Policy'] |
Katelyn Hassett — Year Review. Design Intern Katelyn found she has a… | Little Taller: What is your title, and what is it you actually do every day?
Katelyn: My title is design intern, so I do a lot of website and social media design. I do a lot of other miscellaneous items, too, like marketing collateral documents and template creation.
Little Taller: How do you explain your job to other people who don’t quite understand design?
Katelyn: I normally say that I’m a designer, so I create websites. I do print design. I make social media posts. I’m the person behind-the-scenes that designs those things.
Little Taller: You recently passed your 1-year anniversary. What’s been your biggest takeaway?
Katelyn: My biggest takeaway is that real professional design is so different than they make it seem in school. In school, you do everything from the creative brief to the final design by yourself, but this is more collaborative. We all work on different sections of a project and move on to the next project.
Little Taller: Going off of that, what has been the biggest learning curve you’ve experienced between working and going to school?
Katelyn: Definitely time management. I’ve had to learn how to dedicate specific time to school, work, and homework. I had to rethink how I spend my free time to make sure I get all my tasks done.
Little Taller: I feel like that’s a big learning curve for everybody. At school, you’re given a schedule and when assignments are due, but with work, things can change at any moment. How do you feel you’re doing balancing work and school?
Katelyn: I think I’m doing pretty well. I only have three classes this semester, so I’m able to dedicate a little bit more time to work. But I do have another class coming up, and I’m a little bit nervous about how I’m going to balance that because it is an accelerated course online. But I think I’m doing pretty good so far.
Little Taller: How are you balancing remote working in your everyday life?
Katelyn: I mean, I pretty much started out working remotely, so it’s not too big of a change for me. School has been the bigger adjustment. Just because I have to get used to, “Oh, am I going into class today? Or am I going to be on zoom?”
Little Taller: Do you feel like it would be weird having to work in an office since you’ve only worked remotely so far?
Katelyn: It would be a little bit weird, just like how going from being in in-person classes to online was a little bit weird. But it’s something that you can adjust to. I’ve been in the office a few times to work. The biggest thing was just trying to figure out the bus schedule, to be honest.
Little Taller: Do you have any fun projects you do on the side?
Katelyn: Not currently. I’m just trying to get finished up with school right now, I don’t really have too much time for passion projects. I’ll start thinking about things like that once I graduate since I’ll have some more time.
Little Taller: What would you be interested in learning?
Katelyn: I don’t know. I think painting can be really fun. I’d like to learn how to paint with watercolors or acrylics.
Little Taller: What is it you like most about working with Little Taller?
Katelyn: The work environment is a big thing for me. It’s a super casual environment, which I really like. I don’t have to worry about being in a really strict, high-stress office environment, which is something I was worried about going into the workforce. I feel like everyone’s really friendly with each other and we’re all connected. It makes the company culture a lot better, for sure. And the variety of projects is nice, too. Since we’re an agency, I get to work on a lot of different things and use a lot of different tools, which is fun. I like that variety.
Little Taller: How did you get connected with Little Taller?
Katelyn: Through Kyle’s class — I was in his Web One class and it was the first time I had ever done anything web-related. Kyle ended up asking me to be his Teacher Assistant for the next semester, so I ended up helping people figure out how to code their assignments and answering their questions about design. From there, Kyle asked me to help out with a project for SciTech Institute. It was just supposed to be a two-week project, but it went well, so I kept working with Little Taller.
Little Taller: Before you were doing web design, what kind of design were you doing?
Katelyn: I was pretty set on going into print or layout design. I still really enjoy it, but I’ve started to enjoy web design more. It’s pretty cool seeing how I’m able to bring my layout design skills into web design, even though my heart was originally set on print and advertising.
Little Taller: Do you feel like Little Taller helped you figure out what you wanted to do?
Katelyn: Yeah, without Little Taller, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into web design or social media design, which is also kind of fun and something I’d never considered doing before. So I’m glad that I explored the opportunity. Working here has definitely helped me figure out what I like to do.
Little Taller: How do you make a point to continue learning while in this position?
Katelyn: Being in school, of course, helps me keep learning. I’m definitely going to be thinking about how I can keep learning after I graduate, whether it’s design-related or something new, like learning new languages.
Little Taller: What’s one professional skill you are currently looking to develop?
Katelyn: I’d like to get better at web design since it was something new that I jumped into. We use Figma a lot too, and since I’m newer to the program, I’d like to get to know more of the ins and outs of it.
Little Taller: So, this last one has nothing to do with a Little Taller, but if you could be an expert at anything, what would it be?
Katelyn: Honestly, I think being an expert at playing the piano would be so fun. It was something that I did throughout high school. Obviously, that’s not a significant enough time to actually be a great piano player, but I think it’s such a cool thing to be able to play an instrument. I’d like to be an expert at that — or painting. I’d love to be an expert painter.
Little Taller: If you did go back to the piano, would you play piano in public, or is it just a private hobby?
Katelyn: I don’t think I would ever really open it up to public view. When I did lessons in high school, my teacher asked me so many times to do recitals, but I always turned her down. It’s a very relaxing, therapeutic thing for me. Adding on that level of, “Oh, I have to be good enough to perform,” would add stress to it, and I don’t really want that. | https://medium.com/littletaller/katelyn-hassett-year-review-6c64f8a0cb61 | ['Katie Valerio'] | 2021-02-26 22:29:16.574000+00:00 | ['Web Design', 'Illustration', 'Internship Experience', 'Designer'] |
How Solana opens up step by step | Somedays I think to myself I am such a lucky guy. Being able to be with my wife who I consider extremely beautiful and sexy. I always dreamt of a hot Latina woman who loves sex as much as I do. And after a long and rough period we finally arrived at more calm waters which gives us the confidence and trust we needed to fulfill more of our sexual fantasies.
Recently there has been a new development in our lives. Her sister Graciela had been going through a rough time in her marriage and had finally separated from her husband. Now free from the shackles of a bad relationship, Graciela was eager to get back in the game. She had been with her husband for nearly 20 years since she was 16 and he was the only man she had been with.
She and Solana went out the other night to a restaurant and got pretty tipsy. She confessed she is eager to enjoy the single life again and enjoy the flattery of being chatted up, to feel the touch of a stranger’s embrace, the excitement of that first kiss and the chance to have sex with new and exciting partners. The excitement of not knowing who would end up between her legs at the end of a night out, how big his cock would be, what kind of an orgasm he could give her; these were all now possible where before she was living knowing the touch of only one man.
How was this a development for me and Solana you are probably wondering? Well, Solana and Graciela are very close and would always go out together, now when they went out Graciela would be available and openly flirting with other men as well as hooking up with random guys. Solana would get to see how much Graciela was enjoying this new freedom without worry or guilt and maybe then she would realize that this was also available to her, in fact, it was what I wanted for her and maybe that might be the encouragement that she needed to finally let herself enjoy this sexual freedom I wanted for her.
Recently I suggested that maybe Solana and Graciela should go away for a few days to get Graciela’s mind off the breakup and suggested that they fly abroad to completely get away from it all for a few days. They decided to take me up on my suggestion and booked tickets to a concert and flights and an apartment for 2 nights.
They were looking forward to the breakaway and so was I, but for different reasons. I knew that this was going to be 2 days of bars and cocktails. I always loved when Solana drank cocktails, she was always a lot more adventurous after them. On their first night over there they went to a cocktail bar so I knew that they would both be enjoying themselves.
At about 10:30 pm I text Solana to see how the night was going. She rang me not long after and she sounded like she was really enjoying herself. She told me that they had been in the bar since 8 pm and that a group of guys had asked if they could join them at about 9 pm. She told me that Graciela had hit it off with one of them a bit earlier so when the group asked to join them, she couldn’t say no as she knew that Graciela needed this. She asked did I mind. I told her that I didn’t mind and asked her if there were any other good looking guys for her in the group.
She hesitated so I knew that there must be someone who caught her eye. I told her that it was ok if she found one of them good looking and she didn’t have to worry about telling me. She told me that there was one guy there alright who caught her eye and that he had been chatting her up. I told her that she would have to flirt with him or she might ruin Graciela’s chances.
I reminded her that no one knew her there so she didn’t have to worry about rumors and that she should enjoy herself and that I was ok with her flirting with him. She said that she thought that I might get jealous. I reminded her of our conversations about her being a Hotwife and that I was serious about that if she wanted to be with another guy that I was ok with it. She almost whispered saying she thought it had been only fantasy talk. I said that the great thing about this fantasy was that the reality of her hooking up with another guy excited me far more than the fantasy ever did. Again she asked if I was sure and I reassured her that I was.
At about 11:30 pm I got another call from Solana. She told me that Graciela had hooked up with the other guy and that she was gone to his place with him and that she was now there alone with the good looking guy from earlier. She told me that he had asked her if she wanted him to walk her back to her apartment and she asked what I thought she should do. I told her “Solana, I think you should bring him back to the apartment and fuck his brains out”. “Is that what you want me to do?” she asked me. “Is that what you would like to do?” I asked back. She replied “maybe”. I said, “well then, what is stopping you. I look forward to hearing all the details”. With that, she said, “Oh thank you, babe, you know I love you so much”. “I love you too,” I said, “now stop wasting time and go have yourself a seriously good fucking”. With that, I hung up the phone.
I did not hear from her again until the following morning. She rang me and she seemed nervous on the phone. I asked her how her night had been and if she enjoyed being fucked by someone else. She told me that she had a fantastic night and she told me how it went. The guy’s name was Vincent, he was 27 and worked as a lawyer for an international law firm. He was only in town for the night and then he was flying back to the US. She said that it was obvious that he worked out and he made her laugh (something that is more important to Solana). She told me that after she got off the phone with me that she went back into the bar and told Vincent that she would like for him to bring her back to her apartment but that they should get a taxi as she didn’t want to waste any more time. She said that as soon as they set off in the taxi that he leaned across and kissed her. She said it felt weird to be kissing a stranger and me not even being near. But that as soon as she kissed him back she knew that she was going to enjoy this. She said that he slipped his hand under her dress and gently circled her clitoris. She tried to be silent but let out a sigh when he slowly entered her pussy with two of his fingers. The whole taxi trip he kept pleasing her while she desperately tried the taxi driver not to notice anything. She said she nearly came there and then with the excitement of the whole encounter.
As soon as they got back to the apartment he pulled her dress over her head and quickly removed her bra and panties. She was nervous standing naked in front of this guy that only a few hours earlier she had never even met, then she remembered our conversations about her fucking other guys and how much it turned me on. Remembering all this made her pussy swell up and get wetter by the minute. He started to kiss her again and gently laid her down on the bed. She lowered her hand and unzipped his pants and told him to stand up and remove them. He did and as soon as he removed his boxers her eyes lit up. In her words “damn, that is one nice cock”. She told me it was 9” long and as thick as your wrist. She got on her knees and started to suck it, she could hardly get her fingers around it. She stood up and told him “my husband wants me to get fucked real deep and hard, do you think you can do that with that monster?” She told me he didn’t even answer, he threw her on the bed and got between her legs. He placed his rock hard cock against the lips of her smoothly shaved pussy and slowly pushed it into her. “I was so wet babe that it slid right in and it felt sooo damn good” “You know I don’t like to make you feel insecure even though you always push me to think about bigger cocks. Well baby, let me tell you this one was huge. Twice as thick as yours and I now know how I prefer to feel my pussy all stretched out”
As he got deeper, his strokes got harder“ I could feel every inch babe, every stroke pushed deeper and deeper. I wanted to take it all for you, I wanted to be your Hotwife”.
After about 10 minutes of pounding her willing pussy this way he rolled her over onto her stomach. This is Solana’s favorite position and she always comes hard when she is fucked this way. “Oh babe, when he turned me over on my stomach I nearly exploded, I tightened my pussy around his cock as hard as I could and I was moaning so loud, it was incredible, I wanted to take every drop of cum that he had to give. He must have fucked me like this for 20 minutes, it felt like it was an amazing dream. When I came I let out a moan so loud that I must have woke all the neighbors but I didn’t care. I just lay there in absolute ecstasy as he continued fucking me in a total frenzy. As he exploded he pushed in all of that delicious meat deep into my pussy. He got up off the bed he asked me if my hubby will be happy with the fucking he just gave me, well babe, are you happy?”. I told her that I never loved her more than I did at that moment, that I was glad that she let herself do this and that she enjoyed it so much. I asked her if she was glad she did it. She replied “glad I did it, babe I am glad that I am DOING it!!! Vincent is still here and I intend to fuck that cock again before he goes to the airport. I am going to enjoy being your Hotwife. Love you. Bye”
What can I say, I do so love my new Hotwife.
Thanks for enjoying our new adventure. Feel free to read more of Solana
here on Medium. | https://medium.com/take-my-wife-please/how-solana-opens-up-step-by-step-567e39016e70 | ['Solana Simon'] | 2020-12-16 11:33:16.841000+00:00 | ['Cuckold', 'Sexuality', 'Wife Sharing', 'Sex', 'Hotwife'] |
HelloGold Foundation Update #10–6th April 2018 | Tokens
Utility of HGT
The Telegram community poll on suggested utility options has been completed. We’re glad to announce the first feature added to HGT with more to be announced! More detail on that here.
Burning fuel for the rocketship…
Telegram Promo
Our Big Up promo launched on Telegram has helped us to grow a strong and active Telegram Community. At the time of writing, we have surpassed 1,000 members and are hoping to grow even more before ending the promo on 16th April. If you haven’t joined already, head over to the Telegram group and register on the form today!
Aiming for the 120,000 HGT mark next!
Events
We were in Paris early in March to attend EthCC, a big gathering of Ethereum developers and enthusiasts — more than 800 attendees, 200 speakers and lots of engaging conversations. It was a great occasion to meet up with the European Ethereum community and to catch up on latest developments straight from the horse’s mouth. The team was especially interested to see the talk on Gnosis Safe as we are big fans of the Gnosis Multisig! You can find a list of all the videos for the EthCC conference here.
While in Paris we were also invited to present on HelloGold at a meetup organised by StartupToken. It’s always great to have in-depth discussions about the HelloGold mission with others from around the world in person instead of just online.
Harith talking at the StartupToken meetup
At the end of March, Robin was in Beijing to speak on HelloGold at the Fei Niao Blockchain Summit. The energy throughout was palpable — the conference halls were packed with a rapt audience from start to finish. Robin was approached by multiple members of the media including from Jinse, IterDuo, and Shen Lian(Deepchain) and we hope to share with you the articles soon!
In April, the team will be at Blockchain Expo in London as well at the SUSS Global Inclusive Blockchain Conference in Singapore. Let us know if you’d like to meet!
Interviews
Robin appeared on the Bad Crypto Podcast on the 29th of March together with the hosts, Joel and Travis. If you haven’t listened to it yet, check it out here.
Telegram AMA
As voted on by the community, we will be having our first Telegram AMA with Robin on his experience in the gold industry at 11:00 AM UTC, 12th April. Join our Telegram channel where we will soon start to poll for the top questions the community wants to kick off the AMA with!
GOLDX reward distribution
The rewards for March 2018 will be distributed on 9th April 2018. The total allocation will be 1.500 GOLDX, a 29% increase from the previous month.
Please remember to keep HGT in your own wallet and not on any exchanges to receive the GOLDX! | https://medium.com/hellogold/hellogold-foundation-update-10-6th-april-2018-d82ab4ffc780 | ['Harith Kamarul'] | 2018-08-09 04:05:40.442000+00:00 | ['Recycling', 'Hellogold', 'Thailand', 'Gold', 'Blockchain'] |
How Java Developers Publish Their Lambda Functions With AWS CDK | We will talk about aws cdk on this article. It is really important service for cloud developers because it is hard to manage all services in the aws but with the aws cdk development teams can easily configure their services.
What is AWS CDK
AWS cloud development kit is a framework that is used for defining cloud infrastructure in code. It is based on Infrastructure as Code (IAC) standards that enable developers to maintain their cloud infrastructure in a repeatable and predictable manner.
Create The App
In this part we will talk about how to create our first app and AWS CDK Toolkit command-line tool.
cdk init hello_cdk --language java
mvn compile -q
You can easily init your first project with cdk init command. On this stage we have 2 classes. One of them is “HelloCdkApp” that is our main entry point. The other one is “HelloCdkStack” that contains our service stack. We will define our services stack on this class.
Let’s create our lambda function. First create resources folder and hello.js file.
const AWS = require('aws-sdk');
const S3 = new AWS.S3();
const bucketName = process.env.BUCKET;
exports.main = async function(event, context) {
try {
var method = event.httpMethod;
// Get name, if present
var widgetName = event.path.startsWith('/') ? event.path.substring(1) : event.path;
if (method === "GET") {
// GET / to get the names of all widgets
if (event.path === "/") {
const data = await S3.listObjectsV2({ Bucket: bucketName }).promise();
var body = {
widgets: data.Contents.map(function(e) { return e.Key })
};
return {
statusCode: 200,
headers: {},
body: JSON.stringify(body)
};
}
if (widgetName) {
// GET /name to get info on widget name
const data = await S3.getObject({ Bucket: bucketName, Key: widgetName}).promise();
var body = data.Body.toString('utf-8');
return {
statusCode: 200,
headers: {},
body: JSON.stringify(body)
};
}
}
if (method === "POST") {
// POST /name
// Return error if we do not have a name
if (!widgetName) {
return {
statusCode: 400,
headers: {},
body: "Widget name missing"
};
}
// Create some dummy data to populate object
const now = new Date();
var data = widgetName + " created: " + now;
var base64data = new Buffer(data, 'binary');
await S3.putObject({
Bucket: bucketName,
Key: widgetName,
Body: base64data,
ContentType: 'application/json'
}).promise();
return {
statusCode: 200,
headers: {},
body: JSON.stringify(event.widgets)
};
}
if (method === "DELETE") {
// DELETE /name
// Return an error if we do not have a name
if (!widgetName) {
return {
statusCode: 400,
headers: {},
body: "Widget name missing"
};
}
await S3.deleteObject({
Bucket: bucketName, Key: widgetName
}).promise();
return {
statusCode: 200,
headers: {},
body: "Successfully deleted widget " + widgetName
};
}
// We got something besides a GET, POST, or DELETE
return {
statusCode: 400,
headers: {},
body: "We only accept GET, POST, and DELETE, not " + method
};
} catch(error) {
var body = error.stack || JSON.stringify(error, null, 2);
return {
statusCode: 400,
headers: {},
body: body
}
}
}
We will add some maven dependencies for apigateway, lambda and s3.
<dependency>
<groupId>software.amazon.awscdk</groupId>
<artifactId>apigateway</artifactId>
<version>1.76.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>software.amazon.awscdk</groupId>
<artifactId>lambda</artifactId>
<version>1.76.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>software.amazon.awscdk</groupId>
<artifactId>s3</artifactId>
<version>1.76.0</version>
</dependency>
Let’s update our “HelloCdkApp” class.
@SuppressWarnings("serial")
public HelloCdkApp(Construct scope, String id) {
super(scope, id);
Bucket bucket = new Bucket(this, "HelloCdkStack");
Function handler = Function.Builder.create(this, "HelloCdkHandler")
.runtime(Runtime.NODEJS_10_X)
.code(Code.fromAsset("resources"))
.handler("hellocdk.main")
.environment(new HashMap<String, String>() {{
put("BUCKET", bucket.getBucketName());
}}).build();
bucket.grantReadWrite(handler);
RestApi api = RestApi.Builder.create(this, "HelloCdk-API")
.restApiName("HelloCdk Service").description("This service services HelloCdk.")
.build();
LambdaIntegration getWidgetsIntegration = LambdaIntegration.Builder.create(handler)
.requestTemplates(new HashMap<String, String>() {{
put("application/json", "{ \"statusCode\": \"200\" }");
}}).build();
api.getRoot().addMethod("GET", getWidgetsIntegration);
Resource widget = api.getRoot().addResource("{id}");
// Add new widget to bucket with: POST /{id}
LambdaIntegration postWidgetIntegration = new LambdaIntegration(handler);
// Get a specific widget from bucket with: GET /{id}
LambdaIntegration getWidgetIntegration = new LambdaIntegration(handler);
// Remove a specific widget from the bucket with: DELETE /{id}
LambdaIntegration deleteWidgetIntegration = new LambdaIntegration(handler);
widget.addMethod("POST", postWidgetIntegration); // POST /{id}
widget.addMethod("GET", getWidgetIntegration); // GET /{id}
widget.addMethod("DELETE", deleteWidgetIntegration); // DELETE /{id}
}
after adding the method run the following commands;
cdk bootstrap
cdk deploy
Let’s check our AWS services. The first one is ApiGateway
The second one is Lamda
The last one is S3
On the final we will destroy our stack. Because it is unnecasatiy for us.
cdk destroy
For full code please visit my github. | https://munirkarsli.medium.com/how-java-developers-publish-their-lambda-functions-with-aws-cdk-c3624b297912 | ['Münir Karslı'] | 2020-12-03 19:29:34.725000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Java', 'Cdk', 'Aws Api Gateway', 'AWS Lambda'] |
The Grim American History Of ‘The Bicentennial Minute’ | by Sarah Marshall
On July 2, 1776, in a letter to his wife Abigail, John Adams wrote: This second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.
As it turned out, Adams was nearly right about this, as he was about most things. For the various and ungovernable reasons that often decide remembrances of national history, Americans would come to observe the 4th of July as their “great anniversary festival,” though Jefferson had finished the Declaration’s first draft — and the news of it spread, despite a “bar of secrecy,” to the people of Philadelphia — on the second. (Most of it signers would not make their mark until August.)
But the largest celebration of America’s “Day of Deliverance” came not in 1776, but at America’s Bicentennial in 1976, when the nation employed “pomp and parade, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations” — as well as TV spots and commemorative gas station mugs — to commemorate its age. Some of you may remember it; some of you may not. (This divide is perhaps best encapsulated, as are so many seminal moments in American culture, by that episode of “Friends” when Monica sleeps with a college student and, afterwards, says, “Oh my God! I just had sex with someone who wasn’t alive during the Bicentennial!”)
Those TV spots I mentioned were called “Bicentennial Minutes,” and they starred everyone from Vincent Price to Betty Ford. The overwhelming popularity of the series — which aired every night on CBS for two-and-a-half years — shows that Americans wanted more out of their Bicentennial than the chance to buy souvenir Barbie Dolls and issues of Playboy. Revisited now, the spots are grim, intensely and marvelously so, and odd. They tell us not just how widespread Bicentennial enthusiasm was, but what kind of national history Americans sought. Their seriousness stands out even more when compared with the similar public-service projects Canada and Australia attempted a few years later, which proved infinitely lighter — and, in Canada’s case, far more maple syrup-heavy.
First, let’s acknowledge that, while there is something magnificent about a country whose origins lie in such strife and uncertainty reaching its 200th anniversary, there is also something deeply adorable about anyone thinking 200 years old is especially old for a country. When England observed it bicentennial, in 1266, Thomas Aquinas had just begun work on the Summa Theologica, Kublai Khan ruled the Mongol Empire, and, in France, villagers had begun worshipping a dead dog after a rash of alleged miracles occurred near his grave.
Still, many Americans most likely believed that their country, though only 200 years old, had dealt with some of the most difficult 200 years that could have been imagined — had dealt, in fact, with enough difficulty for a whole century in the last decade alone. In 1976, Watergate and Nixon’s resignation — following two years of growing scandal in which he had clung to the presidency like grim death — was still a recent memory. With Ford, America had, for the first time, a leader it had never cast a vote for, as either president or vice president. The country’s economic woes were not just a painful memory but a reality citizens dealt with daily, and in 1975, as the country began planning a year of Bicentennial celebrations, the last American troops had yet to exit Vietnam.
And perhaps this is why, even with all its attempted festivity, the American Bicentennial seems, in retrospect, to have been a somewhat grim affair — as the “Bicentennial Minute” so perfectly reflects.
In this one Jessica Tandy tells the story of how British Redcoats chopped down the “Liberty Tree.” It concludes, as all the “Bicentennial Minutes” do, with the narrator telling the audience that “that’s the way it was” — that is, these aren’t interpretations of history, but representations of what we know to have occurred. No ambiguity hangs over the story: the Redcoats cut down the “Liberty Tree” not because they wanted firewood, but because it “bore the name of Liberty.” History has only one version, and it can be parceled into one-minute increments and sponsored by Shell, then slipped in before the evening news as testament to the fact that whatever happened today can’t be as bad as what happened two hundred years ago today.
What are viewers of 1976 meant to take from this story? That their ancestors — and their trees — died so we could live in the America of today, and we’d better find a more meaningful expression of patriotism than taking part in the CB radio craze? That we’d better not attempt another revolution, since we just don’t have the grit of our forefathers? That, our woes aside — our President, who appears to be powerful and powerless in all the wrong ways aside — we are citizens of a great nation and should be thankful?
Though dozens were produced, relatively few of the “Bicentennial Minutes” are available online today, as they’ve never been released on video, and not many Americans were taping for posterity (at the time, a VCR cost about as much as a used car). A transcript of Lucille Ball’s minute offers the same grave tone, this time without even the benefit of Redcoats, and this trend — a seriousness bordering on scolding — seems to have pervaded the enterprise. Like any truly relevant cultural phenomenon of the 70s, it also inspired the inevitable parodies, on “The Carol Burnett Show,” in which the historic tableau has the temerity to argue with its narrator:
…and on “All in the Family,” where Archie Bunker’s version of the American Dream prove both more energetic and more in keeping with the ideals of many of the Founding Fathers than the minds behind the “Bicentennial Minute” would probably like to admit:
President Ford recorded the final “Bicentennial Minute” as Carter prepared for his inauguration, and, looking tired and fidgety, asked that Americans “pledge to keep the spirit of ’76 alive.”
1776 was the year the Declaration of Independence was drafted but it was also the year Americans came to grips with the fact that, noble ideas of freedom aside, they were engaged in a bloody and seemingly endless war they might have no chance of winning; its spirit was one of hope and idealism, but also one of fear, anxiety, and doubt. That many Americans were keeping the spirit of ’76 alive without even trying may not have escaped Ford, and may have informed the remarkable somberness of the Bicentennial Year. Even the 4th of July itself seemed somewhat lackluster in the offing. Reporting from Manhattan, Ted Koppel expressed surprise both at the relatively small size of the crowds and the fact that they had yet to dissolve into riot:
But what, exactly, was Koppel and Co. expecting? How can a country really celebrate in a way that reflects two hundred years (give or take a few days) of liberty? Did such an observance call for solemnity, or an extra cooler of beer? If Americans had been told the way it was, now they needed to be told how it should be. Here, not surprisingly, advertisers were willing to provide instruction — and sell some products, like Coke, 7-Up and airplane tickets.
Australia would take a few cues from America when it celebrated its own bicentennial twelve years later, but easily outdid us, managing to sum up the essence of Australia — a large group of extremely tan, vaguely dehydrated people clapping in a desert — in a single TV spot, all while managing to not make anyone feel guilty for daring to call themselves citizens:
But this is the kind of thing we expect from Australians (my father is Australian, so I am allowed to say this. I am also allowed to listen to as much AC/DC as I want). Even more interesting, though, is the comparison between our idea of promoting national heritage and a similar series of TV spots, called “Canada Vignettes,” that aired on Canadian TV in the late 70s. Government-funded (and now conveniently archived on the National Film Board of Canada’s website, hint hint, America), they range from the mildly whimsical, in the case of this piece on the Manitoba town of Flin Flon:
… to the concussively delightful, as in the case of “The Log Driver’s Waltz,” which remains the most-requested film from the NFB’s archives:
And of course, any Canadian worth his or her salt remembers the CRB Foundation’s Heritage Project minutes, which featured everything from the history of Baffin Island to basketball to a showdown between Mountie Sam Steele and a no-good American prospector, which I like to think directly inspired “Due South”:
Of course, Canadians are not universally adorable any more than Americans are universally depressed, hopped up on Coke, and complaining loudly at the airport. What this disparity shows us, more than anything else, is not the difference between our countries so much as the differences in the way we approach our histories. For Americans, our country’s legacy — and in particular the legacy of our founding&mdahs;has calcified into myth, and our Founding Fathers have become inhuman and larger-than-life. To have such an inflated sense of our own importance as a country is both a blessing and a curse; envisioning our forefathers as flawless men who could do no wrong, we are both ill-prepared to acknowledge our mistakes and somewhat overwhelmed at the prospect of living up to their example. If we regard our national history with more humility — and a keener eye for the wonderfully absurd — we may feel far more ready to contribute to it, knowing that, as anxious and overreaching misfits, we would fit in with our Founding Fathers far better than our schoolteachers would have us know.
Related: All The Presidents’ Menus
Sarah Marshall is probably watching “Due South” right now. | https://medium.com/the-awl/the-grim-american-history-of-the-bicentennial-minute-1ef9137e29c7 | ['The Awl'] | 2016-05-13 19:17:03.668000+00:00 | ['American History', 'Australia', 'Not So Recent History'] |
Struggling to Make Better Security Decisions? These Tips Can Help | Unintended consequences — the unforeseen outcomes of actions we take — are all around us. It may be an unforeseen benefit, but, more frequently, it’s an unexpected drawback that can create a new problem or make a situation worse.
In the security industry, Security Operations Center (SOC) and Incident Response (IR) teams often face unintended consequences when they try to make better decisions faster by bringing in more data feeds and investing in more analytic behavioral detection tools. Despite their good intentions, these actions do not drive improve decision making. Instead they often make the problem worse — burying staff under data and adversely impacting decision making due to alert fatigue.
Through our work, both previously as practitioners and now with clients, we’ve seen the challenges in making better security decisions and have developed best practices to overcome the pitfalls of alert fatigue and introduce situational understanding to make decisions faster.
The first step is to gain context which comes from aggregating and authenticating internal security indicators (indicators of compromise and event data) with external threat intelligence. Examples of threat-based contextual intelligence include the origin of the data, the distribution method, the actors, the target victims, attack vectors, target data, etc. Having the right context empowers analysts to perform alert triage, separating alerts carrying immediate risk from those that carry high risk, but that can be addressed later. Alert triage reduces alert fatigue by facilitating differentiation of one high priority alert from another and focus time and attention for maximum impact. But it must be done quickly and continuously, using automation, to keep up with the flood of critical alerts analysts face every day.
In our new report, 5 Steps to Making Better Security Decisions , we discuss how to gain context, why it is important to incorporate it earlier in the analysis process, and how context facilitates the next two steps in making decisions — prioritization and focus. We then explore how security teams and technologies can operate more efficiently and effectively to enable the final two steps for better decision making.
Ultimately, SOC and IR teams must avoid the unintended consequences of more data feeds and analytic behavioral detection tools by ensuring these investments are being fully utilized for situational understanding and better decision making. These five time-tested steps can help.
Download the report to learn more. | https://medium.com/security-operations/struggling-to-make-better-security-decisions-these-tips-can-help-495c69ba1f4b | [] | 2020-01-25 15:51:58.079000+00:00 | ['Security Operations', 'Cybersecurity'] |
5 new content ideas for your personal brand | The idea of creating a personal brand is more significant now than in earlier times. People are more aware of what they’re dealing with in their day to day life. The businesses they’re purchasing from, the quality of the product they’re consuming. Each of that creates a relevance on creating a personal brand for yourself, so people could get more attracted to you and purchase whatever you’re providing.
Here are some fantastic content ideas for building your personal brand; let’s get to them one by one.
Update Your Social Media Presence
First of all, decide on which social media platforms you’re planning to use, update all of them with relevant information. Make sure to delete your old accounts and make everything appear fresh and entertaining. There can be invaluable posts or comments that you have posted in your accounts; try to remove them as from now each of your accounts should be only for building your personal brand with positive things.
Help People Connect
Creating a community and providing value for the people is something that could generate brand value and increase people’s trust in you — helping people connect with like-minded people and giving an opportunity to interact with them. It’s all that could make more people connect with you.
Promoting useful brands to your community and helping them grow with it could boost your personal brand and possibly, spread with a wide range of individuals.
Don’t frequently change your brand Identity.
Keep your brand image, tone, and voice consistent. It’s important how we represent ourselves among the community around us; sticking to a persona is one of that. Imagine what would happen if a politician frequently changes his political viewpoints; he would lose a lot of his followers. Just like that, in personal branding, sticking to a specific identity is very crucial for creating a memorable and trustworthy brand identity among your followers.
It’s advisable to do self-research on your industry personals to find how they’re representing themselves among the audience; try to get inspiration from them before you go ahead with particular brand identity measures.
Share Solutions
Every Industry has it’s own struggle to function in various ecosystems, as an expert or being someone who has done necessary research could ideally spot various solutions for solving such problems. Share it with your community, and possibly assist them with getting it done.
Showing you’re there for help and providing value for their life could make you an instant seeker when they think about a particular Industry. Providing solutions can make them trust in your brand.
Keep it Positive
Now you know how to create a valuable personal brand for yourself, but one of the important steps among that is keeping everything positive. People easily get offended by things like religion or race, or politics. So, try not to go in posting content on such topics that could create a mixed feeling for your personal brand.
Keeping everything positive could help you grow a community around with a positive vibe, which can benefit you in getting a positive review for things that you’re bringing in. People must be delighted to be with your brand rather than just confused of what to expect from you now. | https://medium.com/startupwriter/5-new-content-ideas-for-your-personal-brand-ce1d8b123aef | ['Midhun Areeckal'] | 2020-12-27 13:24:02.311000+00:00 | ['Digital Marketing', 'Content Ideas', 'Startup', 'Influencer', 'Marketing'] |
eXchangily DEX Listing Application Start | eXchangily decentralized exchange, the first new-generation decentralized exchange that truly realizes high-speed cross-chain, now officially launched the global blockchain project at the end of July, 2019.
Five highlights of eXchangily decentralized exchange:
1) 100% truly decentralized exchanges, investors control and manage their own digital assets, safe and secure, open source and transparent.
2) High-speed trading performance and good user experience.
3) Achieving cross-chaining is a disruptive breakthrough decentralized exchanges.
4) Legal compliance, U.S. FINRA and SEC registered.
5) 100% of the daily profit of the exchange is distributed to the holders. Every 24 hours, it is better than any digital currency exchange and traditional financial institutions on the market.
Listing your project now: https://forms.gle/HoqdhZuAqKVE64jbA
The world’s high-performance blockchain projects are the first to be considered to be the first batch of the first round eXchangily coin listing, and win millions of dividends. eXchanigly lawyers and professional evaluators will carefully review the first batch of projects one by one.
For the application of the coin listing, please send an email: [email protected]
Wechat Official Account: eXchangily
Twitter: Exchangily Info
Facebook: Exchangily Info
Telegram Community: http://t.me/exchangily_chat
Visit www.eXchangily.com for more information and review eXchangily white paper.
eXchangily registration and Purchase: https://exchangily.com/login/signup | https://medium.com/fast-access-blockchain/exchangily-dex-listing-application-start-d91deeaea098 | ['Fab Info'] | 2019-06-24 14:27:11.959000+00:00 | ['Partnerships', 'Blockchain', 'Events', 'Exchange Listing', 'Decentralized Exchange'] |
A musical trip to Best Music Festivals in Christchurch | A festival or major event is a great way to embark on the holiday. Although New Zealand is the region that plays host to a wide range of events and festivals, offering something for all and all year round. Being a region with a multicultural pattern there are things like art, music or food that you are interested in that are easily available. And with the added colour of these, there are various festivals and fest that has been organised in this country. These colourful events give the vibe to the people who are living far away from their homes in the region. And these vibes would make them realise that they are not away but still they can enjoy the colour of their own culture and living.
In this blog, you will get the idea about different festivals and events that attract a large audience of New Zealand and bind them together in harmony. Though there are many spectacular shows of traditional dance or culture that have been portrayed to the audience of New Zealand. But the most important one which gives the aura of relaxation is the music festival that usually takes place in Christchurch. Featuring everything from the arts, including theatre, dance, music, writing, reading and virtual art. It is considered to be the Best Music Festivals in Christchurch that gives the aura where people not only showcase their talent but also learn about the different musical patterns and the trend that are going on. This festival celebrates everything related to music and focuses on the gorgeous atmosphere that displays bright and vibrant colours and the beautiful notes of music.
Combined with the amazing landscape and music, various competitions also take place during the festival. Which turns out in making a fantastic holiday for the people of the region. Attracting peace lovers and music lovers this festival is rooted in the tradition of music and is now becoming more demanding in the new generation. As they are much more inclined to words the essence of music and want to enjoy the Best Music Festivals in Christchurch.
These kinds of festivals also offer the perfect opportunity to support local music and to get the local sound out there. It brings to life the culture of Christchurch and beyond and never fails to entertain. Do it also Empress of work-life balance and having that much needed time which is required to maintain all these things. Being a multicultural society this place embraces everybody and you will be hard-pressed to find a better coming nation.
Being a music lover and a diehard fan of a certain band, DJ or even a music genre then nothing will excite you more than seeing them perform live at your favourite music festival. Now Best Music Festivals in Christchurch and posted around the world and millions of visit of flock them every year to see some of the biggest names in the music industry. There are loads of music festivals that feature big-name artists each year.
So before you jet off to enjoy the best music festivals around the world, you should look at carrying an international card which is safer than getting bored of cash and also help you save money at the music festival. Also, do your bit of homework in choosing the best currency exchange service that offers you the best forex rate. These few things can help you to get the more relevant fun during these music festivals.
However, there are many travel agents also who booked the trips for the festival. Many travel agencies put together travel packages that include transportation and hotel or transportation, hotel and take it to the festival. Another advantage of using a travel agency to book your trip is that some travel agents have a payment plan that allows you to pay or deposit and make monthly payments.
With these few points you can make your whole trip and the music festival more amazing. With these ideas, you can even save a lot of money on the whole and can invest in some other things that are going on at the festival.
Conclusion
Various platforms are available online through which you can easily book the Best Music Festivals in Christchurch. Are they helping you to give more options so that you can explore easily according to your choices and taste.
In the coming year, there will be more options that will be added up into this industry as the youth is demanding more for it. It is a great opportunity for the artist to earn a great amount of profit while performing in these festivals. Because the ticket that has been offered is also a basic path through which they can earn a good amount of money. To add entertainment to the trip then these kinds of the festival are the best-suited place for you to visit every year. | https://medium.com/@localbiznz/a-musical-trip-to-best-music-festivals-in-christchurch-a7ce12c16b0 | ['Sophiee Smith'] | 2021-11-17 06:00:36.100000+00:00 | ['Festivals', 'Event Planning', 'Christchurch', 'Music'] |
Autoencoders and the Denoising Feature: From Theory to Practice | Generalities about Autoencoders
If we had to summarize them in one sentence, it would probably sound like:
Autoencoders are neural network trained in an unsupervised way to attempt to copy inputs to outputs.
Yes I know, it may seem quite easy and useless. However, we will see that this is neither trivial nor pointless. In fact, Autoencoders are deep models capable of learning dense representations of the input. These representations are called latent representations or codings.
An Autoencoder has two distinct components :
An encoder : This part of the model takes in parameter the input data and compresses it. E(x) = c where x is the input data, c the latent representation and E our encoding function.
: This part of the model takes in parameter the input data and compresses it. E(x) = c where x is the input data, c the latent representation and E our encoding function. A decoder: This part takes in parameter the latent representation and try to reconstruct the original input. D(c) = x’ where x’ is the output of the decoder and D our decoding function
Undercomplete Autoencoders
Throughout the training phase, the goal is for our network to be able to learn how to reconstruct our input data. The following figure illustrates this idea by showing the Autoencoder model architecture.
However, most of the time, it is not the output of the decoder that interests us but rather the latent space representation. We hope that training the Autoencoder end-to-end will then allow our encoder to find useful features in our data.
The decoder, , is used to train the autoencoder end-to-end, but in practical applications, we often care more about the encoder and the codings.
To highlight important properties, one can, for example, constrain the latent space to be smaller than the dimension of the inputs. In this case, our model is an Undercomplete Autoencoders. In the majority of cases we work with this type of autoencoders since one of the main applications of this architecture is dimensionality reduction.
The learning process is quite regular, it aims at minimizing a loss function.
There are different metrics to quantify this loss function such as the Mean Square Error or the cross-entropy (when the activation function is a sigmoid for instance). This loss must penalize the reconstruction for being dissimilar from x.
Linear Autoencoders & Principal Component Analysis
So one of the main applications of Autoencoders is dimensionality reduction, just like a Principal Component Analysis (PCA). In fact, if the decoder is linear and the cost function is the Mean Square Error, an Autoencoder learns to span the same subspace as the PCA.
Comparing the two methods or explaining them in detail is outside the scope of this article. However, if you are interested, I recommend you to read this blog post (this one is also very interesting) which gives you a first intuition of PCA as well as these excellent slides which compare the two methods.
But if one were to summarize the two methods…
PCA: In PCA, we also seek to minimize the gap between input data and its reconstruction by measuring and minimizing the distance between the two. (For example the Euclidian distance.)
N.B: Vectors of the decoding matrix must have unit norm and be orthogonal
This optimization problem may be solved using Singular Value Decomposition. Specifically, the optimal P is given by the eigenvectors of the X covariance matrix corresponding to the largest eigenvalues. Again the full demonstration of that property is outside the scope of this tutorial.
Autoencoders: If we choose to train them with the Mean Square Error, then we aim at minimizing
In the case where f and g are linears, the loss function becomes
Both methods have the same objective function, which is convex, but uses two different ways to reach it. Indeed, Autoencoders are feedforward neural networks and are therefore trained as such with, for example, a Stochastic Gradient Descent.
In other words, the Optimal Solution of Linear Autoencoder is the PCA.
Now that the presentations are done, let’s look at how to use an autoencoder to do some dimensionality reduction.
For the sake of simplicity, we will simply project a 3-dimensional dataset into a 2-dimensional space. The first step to do such a task is to generate a 3D dataset. It is possible to do it simply with the following code.
And here is our dataset!
Now we have to create a Linear Autoencoder to perform PCA and this is possible with the following code.
And we can also visualize the corresponding graph!
Even if the code, as well as the graph, are quite self-explanatory, let’s take a closer look at them.
First, we define the encoder, a dense layer of 2 neurons that accepts inputs of dimension 3 (according to our dataset). So here we constrained the latent-space representation to be of dimension 2 (the output of the encoder).
Then, we define the decoder, also a dense layer but of 3 neurons this time because we want to reconstruct our 3-dimensional input at the output of the decoder.
The combination of the two forms the Autoencoder.
All that remains is to train it using data as inputs and targets. (We want to reconstruct our inputs remember ?)
And finally, the Autoencoder find the best 2D plane to project the data into while preserving as much variance as possible. Now let’s see the projection of our data!
And with the resulting plot…
So, the Autoencoder has reduced the dimensionality of our problem in the same way as PCA would have done.
Regularized Autoencoders
The problem is if we give our network too much capacity with many hidden layers, our model will be able to learn the task of copying data in inputs without extracting important information. In this case, the Autoencoder could not learn anything and would be overfitting. This phenomenon occurs as well with Undercomplete AE as Overcomplete AE (when the codings have higher dimensions than the inputs).
We want to be able to give our model capacity and not restrict it to just small networks to limit the number of parameters.
To do this, we use Regularized Autoencoders which encourages the model to develop new properties and to generalize better.
There are many different types of Regularized AE, but let’s review some interesting cases.
Sparse Autoencoders: it is simply an AE trained with a sparsity penalty added to his original loss function.
Sparse AEs are widespread for the classification task for instance. This sparsity penalty is simply a regularizer term added to a feedforward network.
Denoising Autoencoders: Adding noise (Gaussian for example) to the inputs forces our model to learn important features from our data.
Right now we are going to dive deeper into the concept of Denoising Autoencoders (DAE) | https://towardsdatascience.com/autoencoders-and-the-denoising-feature-from-theory-to-practice-db7f7ad8fc78 | ['Lucas Robinet'] | 2020-11-26 20:13:09.398000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Editors Pick', 'TensorFlow', 'Autoencoder', 'Keras'] |
I’d Let Someone Kill Me & My Family If I Could Have Margaritas With Mark Cuban On Any Of These Boats | I’d Let Someone Kill Me & My Family If I Could Have Margaritas With Mark Cuban On Any Of These Boats
The only “shark attack” I fear is the gut-punch of Mark Cuban not wanting to be friends with me.
Photo by Mike Giles on Unsplash
He’s handsome, he’s wealthy, and no one who makes a salary lower than six figures deserves to make eye contact with him. I’m of course referring to Mark Cuban! Sharing a margarita on board a boat with him would be a privilege for which I’d gladly trade my life. And after sitting my family down and having a very difficult conversation with them, they ultimately gave me their blessing that they would be more than willing to lay down their lives to help me facilitate that goal, too. Here are the top 5 boats that I would love to slurp down that margarita with the Cubanator on.
Mark Cuban’s Yacht
This one should go without saying, but the list wouldn’t be complete if I neglected to include it. Even if Mark Cuban lured me onto his yacht with the promise of clinking glasses and sipping a sweet margarita with me, only to have my numerous enemies (I get many threats on any given day, but I only have reason to believe the ones coming from the wait staff at the Hard Rock Cafe are credible) pop out and kill me and my family, it would be worth it. There’s no denying that I’m going to Hell for my sins, such as commissioning a painting of me skinny dipping with Betty Boop, but I wouldn’t care so long as I got a few precious moments of heaven first.
The Mayflower
The Mayflower may have brought the Puritans to America, but there’s nothing pure about Mark Cuban and I getting together, drinking a couple margs, and talking about how awesome it is when you’re having sex with a woman and it lasts a really long time. And much like the Puritans, I too am seeking a new world: a world in which Mark Cuban and I are best friends. Imagine we’re out to dinner. I unscrew the cap of the salt shaker and it gets all over his food. Mark gets mad and punches me right in the stomach. I double over and thank him for putting me in my place; I was out of line. If he needs blood sacrifices to make that happen, me and my family would be honored to offer ourselves.
The Boat Jim Carrey Escapes On at the End of “The Truman Show”
Sorry Jim, you can walk the plank, because this sailboat only has room for a billionaire entrepreneur/investor, his biggest fan, and some margarita supplies. I want Mark to get a bit tipsy before I pitch him my idea: a service that sends 50% of all my earnings directly into Mark Cuban’s bank account. If the only way to make that happen would be offering up my life, or anyone in my family’s life, that’s more than okay with me.
Wonkatania
I don’t think I’m being controversial when I say I would trade my life or the life of anyone in my family for the opportunity to share a margarita on board Willy Wonka’s nightmare boat with the owner of the Dallas Mavericks! Waterboard me in the chocolate river while my parents are forced to watch, I don’t give a shit, so long as I can have a chill ass afternoon with the number one bad boy of business himself. And by the way, I’ve got a message to the U.S. government; if you dare try to tax Mark Cuban a penny more than he is paying right now, I’m going to light my car on fire.
Timber Mountain Log Ride at Knott’s Berry Farm
I know that I’d be able to conquer my fears and get on this log flume if I was drinking margaritas with Mark Cuban aboard it (even if at the end of the ride, certain death awaited me and my family). And I would also protect Mark so that not a single drop of water would get on his legendary t-shirt and jeans. He’d be so grateful at the end that he may even say that we don’t have to worry about killing me or my family. However, since we made a deal to do so, I would insist that he did anyway. Honor is the most important thing in my life, behind only the stock market, of course. | https://medium.com/slackjaw/id-let-someone-kill-me-my-family-if-i-could-have-margaritas-with-mark-cuban-on-any-of-these-boats-91880a84bd9e | ['Ryan Ciecwisz'] | 2020-07-26 12:31:00.976000+00:00 | ['Satire', 'Humor', 'Business', 'Mark Cuban', 'Boats'] |
When Crypto Encounter Canna | First of all, I am a cosmos fan. Thank you Bitcanna for giving me the opportunity to participate in an early Internal Testnet.
I like cosmos very much, more than polkadot. This is an important reason why I discovered and paid attention to Bitcanna. I think the startup and governance of cosmos is simple and beautiful, and at the same time very decentralized.
Lower gas,faster payments, and Cosmos’ modern coding infrastructure allows for plenty of customization possibilities and faster development. On the other hand, the existence of IBC makes the entire cosmos ecosystem decentralized but not discrete, and it can be easily interacted with other chains.
There is no doubt that Bitcanna’s choice of Cosmos is inevitable. This is a strong combination. Cosmos gives bitcanna better blockchain capabilities, and bitcanna adds a bright color to the Cosmos universe. BTW, I think it should be Bitcanna Green :)
On the other hand, bitcanna itself is also very attractive. Canna has been gradually valued in the medical field. Canna should not be banned for fear of possible harms, but make it controllable after being aware of the possible harms, and then used by humans.
Any drug has side effects, and canna is no exception. Reasonable control and use, rather than simple prohibition, I think bitcanna is changing the world and moving in the right direction.
Finally, let’s talk back to the Bitcanna testnet. Since I am not participating in the cosmos testnet for the first time, I have some references.
The tutorials and tasks provided by bitcanna are very, very complete, and there are almost no task errors and omissions.All you need to do is start a ubuntu or other linux system, and then follow the steps.
In this regard, I won’t go into details. It mainly involves node operation and validator. I want to talk about the other operations of validators. These are not explained in the current tutorials and tasks, but I am sure they will be there in future.
The most common operations I think are to check the balance, withdraw and delegate. Like these:
Check balance: bcnad query bank balances <bcna1…> Withdraw-all-rewards: bcnad tx distribution withdraw-all-rewards --from <ValidatorMoniker> --chain-id bitcanna-testnet-2 --gas-prices 0.01ubcna --yes Delegate: bcnad tx staking delegate <bcnavaloper...> 10000000ubcna --from <WalletMoniker> --chain-id bitcanna-testnet-2 --gas-prices 0.01ubcna --yes
Through these three instructions, you can easily write an automatic withdrawal-delegate script to help you get more rewards and voting rights faster.
Of course, if you study the documentation in depth, or just use the bcnad — help command, you can find more interesting ways to play.
Is it fun and simple? There is also a customizable blockchain browser and dashboard waiting for you.
Soon, the next testnet Phase 2: Public Testnet will begin. It will be open to the public, you are welcome to join and enjoy it.
So just stay focused on Bitcana, and don’t look away | https://medium.com/@suzumiya2014/when-crypto-encounter-canna-8c853e5d256f | [] | 2021-06-08 16:57:07.199000+00:00 | ['Bitcanna', 'Ibc', 'Testnet', 'Crypto', 'Cosmos'] |
Private nodes | Integro’s Learning Management and Reward System is used by Governments, Financial institutes and Research Organizations.
It is heavily used by these organizations for effectively managing their private contents, conducting internal training and knowledge transfer.
These organizations deal with a lot of high secured data and would pay a lot of money to host in a highly secured and an encrypted environment.
Private nodes provides these organizations the ability to host their own secured data in their own infrastrucutre with encryption enabled. They are able to apply their own encyrption to better protect their data.
To launch a private node, organizations will need to stake IGRO tokens for a minimum of one year. Staked tokens will be verified with the help of the Proof of Stake algorithm. Organizations can pull out their staked IGRO tokens to sell it back to the market if they wish to discontinue the service or they can hold them for continued service.
The benefit of staking tokens for the private nodes is that the organization will not have to pay per user on a recurring basis. Also these staked tokens reduce the supply of available tokens thus helping increase the relative demand. | https://medium.com/stackos/private-nodes-d738ed20961d | [] | 2018-09-17 00:43:26.965000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin'] |
Nonprofit Revenue and Expenses: Real World Answers to Everyday Questions | How to Handle Nonprofit Revenue and Expenses
I volunteer as treasurer for a nonprofit bakery. They were given the opportunity to get a Hobart commercial double oven for $300. My guess is the oven is valued at $2000 — $3000. How do I record it? At cost or value with the difference between cost and value going to inkind donations?
Answer: When recording the purchase of an oven for $300, that is valued at $2000, you would record the purchase price of $300 and then record an inkind donation for the difference. The donor’s deductible amount is the difference between the purchase price and the value.
I have a client that wants employer payroll tax expenses broken out by class. Like for an employee split 50–50 with admin and programming they also want the taxes they pay for that employee split 50–50 and have the class for admin and program assigned. Is this really necessary?
Answer: Yes, this is absolutely necessary, since all nonprofits need to allocate all expenses by functional area — Support Services, which includes Management and General and Fundraising, and Program. It is essential to allocate all expenses, including salaries and payroll taxes to the appropriate functional area. If your accounting software cannot handle this, then it would be worthwhile to look at an accounting system that will allocate the costs automatically for you, like Araize’s FastFund Online.
My nonprofit is recently incurring frequent expenses that are reimbursed by other entities. They are not donations as they are being invoiced for the specific expenses that are incurred. It happened once last year and the CPA at that time said to just create a contra-expense account as the sub-line item. It looks like this will be happening on a much more frequent basis and I want to confirm that is a proper way of handling it? I don’t like having that type of craziness in the COA. If we know ahead of time that the expense will be reimbursed, would it be better to book the original expense to prepaid expenses and have the reimbursement also booked there? Or is it correct to book directly to a reimbursed expense account and reimbursed expense income account?
Answer: Your CPA is complicating matters for you. The funds received for reimbursement of expenses should be credited to the original expense account, reducing the expense. You do not need to create a contra-expense account.
For those of you using deferred revenue, do you move funds from deferred revenue to income individually as part of every single relevant expense entry, or do you summarize and transfer a lump sum for all expenses at the end of each month?
Answer: When recording the recognition of deferred revenue, you can make a single entry at the end of the month as a summary of the entire month’s activity.
This nonprofit works on a cash basis but lately there have been a few times that I have had to enter in invoices. I just noticed that half of them went in Accounts Receivable and half went in Pledge Receivable. Why would this happen (as opposed to just one or the other)? When I create the invoice I just enter the service item which eventually links to the right income account. Where is the “middle man” account chosen?
Answer: If your invoices are for services rendered for income, the the posting should be to your Accounts Receivable account. If you receive a pledge for a charitable contribution and record the pledge, then the posting should go to the Pledge Receivable account. In QuickBooks, your bills have items that are linked to income accounts. If you record pledges, then you would have to set up an item for Charitable Contributions that is linked to your Donations account.
Bottom Line
In the normal course of navigating the myriad of issues related to nonprofit revenue and expenses, you may have encountered some of these questions. It is essential to follow compliant nonprofit accounting methods to ensure accountability to your funding sources. | https://medium.com/@araize/nonprofit-revenue-and-expenses-real-world-answers-to-everyday-questions-f34ebeb3a776 | ['Joseph Scarano'] | 2021-12-14 14:49:38.600000+00:00 | ['Nonprofit', 'Accounting', 'Accountant'] |
Mayor and Deputy Mayor: Remember to Shop Small | This Thanksgiving, Moorestown will pause to spend time with family and friends and remember the things that they are most grateful for. The next day, however, many folks will try to snag the best deals and get a jump start on their holiday shopping.
While we appreciate that 57% of Americans will be taking advantage of “Black Friday” as a chance to save some money, we would like to take this opportunity to urge all of our neighbors to keep it local this week and throughout the holiday season.
Towni Localistics and Sustainable Moorestown have teamed up to spread the word on a new Moorestown tradition — “Plaid Friday.”
Originally started in Oakland, California, the concept behind Plaid Friday is the “weaving the individual threads of small businesses together” and urging shoppers to spend their hard-earned dollars supporting our small businesses on a day traditionally dominated by big box stores. It’s simply a relaxed, hometown alternative to the madness of Black Friday. We applaud this movement here in our community, and ask that all residents consider spending time on Friday shopping and dining at our Moorestown businesses (and preferably, doing so while wearing something
plaid!)
If you are more likely to spend Friday relaxing on the couch after your family’s Thanksgiving feast instead of venturing outside, consider taking your family out this weekend to celebrate Small Business Saturday and patronizing our local businesses on that day instead! Research from the American Independent Business Alliance found that for each dollar you spend at small businesses, there will be three times more of that money sent back into the local economy than one spent at a chain. Think of the impact you can have right in your own backyard!
Both of these days offer us a chance to show our appreciation and respect for our town’s small business owners, and to send a message that we as a community believe in shopping small. These businesses are the lifeblood of our community, owned by our friends and neighbors and essential to the small town character of this place we call home.
We wish you and yours a happy, peaceful, and joyous Thanksgiving!
Mayor Stacey Jordan and Deputy Mayor Chris Chiacchio | https://medium.com/the-moorestown-sun/mayor-and-deputy-mayor-remember-to-shop-small-a37ecd4aebb8 | [] | 2016-09-23 14:50:50.112000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Families', 'Headlines', 'Small Business Saturday'] |
Just How Robust Are Tree-Based Classifiers In Handling Missing Data As Is? | First and foremost, this is not a scientific experiment to determine how one should preprocess data with missing values or which tree ensemble excels in giving the most accurate predictions when fitted to data with missing values. My main motivation is to examine how the predictions of different models change as the amount of missing values in the dataset increases. The results of this experiment may probably not be indicative of a result from using a different dataset to fitting the same models. However, I am hoping that it may offer some insights into the tipping point where the deterioration of the prediction accuracy starts to accelerate.
Data Source and Description
The credit approval dataset is downloaded from UCI Machine Learning Repository. It consists of 690 entries with 9 categorical and 6 continuous feature attributes. The names and values of the features have been altered to indiscernible types in an afford to preserve confidentiality of sensitive information. There are 37 row entries with one of more missing values but it only constitutes less than 1% of the total data. The two target classes, approved and rejected, are almost balanced, making it simpler to evaluate the different models.
Model Training and Testing
The dataset is split into 80% for train and 20% for testing. Of the 552 entries in training and 138 entries in test set, there are only 29 and 8 missing values respectively. Each model is fitted to a pipeline where processes such as imputing missing values, scaler transformation and model training are streamlined. As the setup for this experiment, I decided to impute the mean and mode for the dataset to train on logistic regression and to impute an empty field and ‘-999,999,999’ (seems silly, but like I said, this is only a fun experiment) for the dataset to train on Extra Trees, Random Forest, Adaboost and Gradient Boosting.
Pipeline for Logistic Regression
Pipeline for Tree Based Classifiers
The results of each model and the amount of missing data are then recorded in a Pandas DataFrame. | https://towardsdatascience.com/just-how-robust-are-tree-based-classifiers-in-handling-missing-data-as-is-67d62adaf40c | ['Thom Su'] | 2019-10-05 02:52:54.956000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Logistic Regression', 'Tree Ensemble', 'Data Science', 'Missing Data'] |
“Insulin Resistance” Science-Research, December 2021, Week 2 — summary from MedlinePlus Genetics, Europe PMC, Springer Nature, PubMed and DOAJ | “Insulin Resistance” Science-Research, December 2021, Week 2 — summary from MedlinePlus Genetics, Europe PMC, Springer Nature, PubMed and DOAJ MedlinePlus Genetics — summary generated by Brevi Assistant Donohue disorder is an unusual disorder defined by severe insulin resistance, a problem in which the body’s cells and body organs do not respond effectively to the hormonal agent insulin. Insulin typically aids manage blood sugar level degrees by regulating how much sugar is passed from the blood stream right into cells to be utilized as energy. Gestational diabetes mellitus is a disorder defined by abnormally high blood sugar level degrees while pregnant. Babies whose mommies have gestational diabetes mellitus are additionally most likely to establish hazardously low blood sugar degrees quickly after birth. Rabson-Mendenhall disorder is a rare condition defined by extreme insulin resistance, a condition in which the body’s cells and organs do not react effectively to the hormone insulin. In people with Rabson-Mendenhall disorder, insulin resistance hinders blood sugar regulation and ultimately causes a problem called diabetic issues mellitus, in which blood sugar levels can end up being hazardously high. Brief stature, hyperextensibility, rupture, eye anxiety, Rieger anomaly, and teething hold-up, commonly recognized by the phrase SHORT disorder, is an unusual disorder that affects many components of the body. Some people with SHORT syndrome have dental problems such as delayed look of teeth in very early childhood, tiny teeth, fewer teeth than regular, and an absence of protective covering externally of the teeth. Type 2 diabetic issues is a disorder identified by unusually high blood sugar level levels. Most people that create type 2 diabetes mellitus first have insulin resistance, a condition in which the body’s cells utilize insulin less efficiently than typical. Type A insulin resistance disorder is an uncommon condition characterized by serious insulin resistance, a problem in which the body’s tissues and organs do not react effectively to the hormone insulin. Extreme insulin resistance additionally underlies the various other symptoms and signs of type A insulin resistance syndrome. Please keep in mind that the text is machine-generated by the Brevi Technologies’ Natural language Generation model, and we do not bear any responsibility. The text above has not been edited and/or modified in any way. Source texts: https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/donohue-syndrome — Donohue syndrome.
https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/gestational-diabetes — Gestational diabetes.
https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/rabson-mendenhall-syndrome — Rabson-Mendenhall syndrome.
https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/short-stature-hyperextensibility-hernia-ocular-depression-rieger-anomaly-and-teething-delay — Short stature, hyperextensibility, hernia, ocular depression, Rieger anomaly, and teething delay.
https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/type-2-diabetes — Type 2 diabetes.
https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/type-a-insulin-resistance-syndrome — Type A insulin resistance syndrome.
Europe PMC — summary generated by Brevi Assistant Purpose To define clinical end results in pet cats with insulin resistance and acromegaly treated with stereotactic radiosurgery. Procedures Medical records of pet cats with insulin resistance and acromegaly treated with SRS in between August 2013 and November 2019 at a solitary establishment were reviewed. Exogenous insulin requirements decreased in 10 of the 14 cats, with a median time to least expensive insulin dosage of 399 days. Most felines had decreased exogenous insulin demands after SRS. Both pregnancy and polycystic ovary syndrome make up insulin-resistant states that are connected with an increased frequency of glucose intolerance. We compared surrogate IR indices in 1st trimester pregnant women and in women with PCOS. We did 75 g Oral Glucose Tolerance Test with insulin dimensions in 106 healthy and balanced 1st trimester pregnant women at 9. 9 ± 2. 6 weeks of gestation and in 418 women with PCOS. Women with GDM diagnosed according to IADPSG criteria demonstrated greater IR than expecting women without GDM. The epidemics of excessive weight and type 2 diabetes have led to extensive investigation of the underlying mechanisms of these illnesses and their primary issues such as heart diseases and non-alcoholic fatty liver condition. Adipose tissue, the liver, or skeletal muscular tissue can proactively release produced variables called organokines which can connect with various other far-off targets in intricate networks. A lot more lately, other unique conciliators of inter-organ crosstalk such as extracellular vesicles and their non-traditional freights as miRNAs and lncRNAs are gaining importance and stand for potential therapeutic targets. In the present phase, we summarize a few of the present understanding of inter-organ interaction with a concentrate on adipose tissue-released variables and their inflection on various other organs and cells like pancreas, liver, skeletal muscular tissue, the cardiovascular system, and the gut in the context of obesity and its progression to insulin resistance. Please keep in mind that the text is machine-generated by the Brevi Technologies’ Natural language Generation model, and we do not bear any responsibility. The text above has not been edited and/or modified in any way. Source texts: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/34773702 — Endocrine response and outcome in 14 cats with insulin resistance and acromegaly treated with stereotactic radiosurgery (17 Gy).
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/34855192 — High prevalence of early (1st trimester) gestational diabetes mellitus in Polish women is accompanied by insulin resistance similar to women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/34853949 — Inter-Organ Crosstalk in the Development of Obesity-Associated Insulin Resistance.
Springer Nature — summary generated by Brevi Assistant Heart disease is the leading reason of fatality in schizophrenia. Finally, people with schizophrenia showed adipose tissue dysfunction compared to body mass-matched HCs. History We aimed to define refined physique by utilizing several anthropometric characteristics that represent fat distribution, and review their organizations with risk of insulin resistance and cardiometabolic problems in the Chinese population. In women, as compared to the low WHR-low WTR-low WNR shape, all body forms were substantially related to IR and related cardiometabolic conditions; while in men, the low WHR-high WTR-high WNR form and the greater WHR associated shapes were dramatically related to IR and associated cardiometabolic problems. History Although roughly 50% of Chinese with type 2 diabetic issues mellitus patients have vitamin D shortage, research pertaining to vitamin D supplements on insulin resistance has generally concentrated on non-Asians. However, the combined results of vitamin D supplementation and ET on IR in T2DM patients are unclear. The upsurges of weight problems and type 2 diabetes have led to extensive investigation of the underlying mechanisms of these conditions and their main difficulties such as cardiovascular conditions and non-alcoholic fatty liver illness. In the present phase, we sum up several of the current knowledge on inter-organ communication with a focus on adipose tissue-released variables and their inflection on other organs and tissues like pancreas, liver, skeletal muscular tissue, the cardio system, and the gut in the context of weight problems and its development to insulin resistance. Type 2 diabetes mellitus is enhancing worldwide, identified by insulin resistance and hyperglycemia. The outcomes of this study will increase our understanding regarding the impact of high sugar focus on insulin resistance in human AT-MSCs for the renovation in diabetic therapy. Please keep in mind that the text is machine-generated by the Brevi Technologies’ Natural language Generation model, and we do not bear any responsibility. The text above has not been edited and/or modified in any way. Source texts: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01741-9 — Adipose tissue dysfunction, inflammation, and insulin resistance: alternative pathways to cardiac remodelling in schizophrenia. A multimodal, case–control study.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12986-021-00629-1 — Associations of body shapes with insulin resistance and cardiometabolic risk in middle-aged and elderly Chinese.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-021-05861-x — Combined effects of vitamin D supplementation and endurance exercise training on insulin resistance in newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus patients with vitamin D deficiency: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.
https://doi.org/10.1007/164_2021_564 — Inter-Organ Crosstalk in the Development of Obesity-Associated Insulin Resistance.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75506-5_42 — The Influence of High D-glucose Concentrations on Increasing the Expression of EGR-1, PTEN and GGPS-1 Involved in Insulin Resistance of AT-MSCs.
PubMed — summary generated by Brevi Assistant The duty of adipose cells swelling on AT function in humans is unclear. We researched 86 volunteers with regular weight or weight problems at standard, and a subgroup of 25 volunteers with obesity prior to and after weight loss. Introduction: Obesity and associated metabolic disruptions are often related to modern way of living and are characterized by extreme fructose consumption. Our outcomes recommend that VAT inflammation could precede excessive weight and begin before the measurable increase in VAT mass, making it a silent threat factor for the advancement of T2D. The hyperproduction of oxidative stress and inflammatory biomarkers, which is paralleled by decreased levels of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory conciliators, belongs to cellular mechanisms that add to the disruption of metabolic homeostasis in obesity. Gender-specific modifications in aminothiol condition and adipomyokine account and the gender-restricted association between these biomarkers and metabolic derangement follow an increased cardiometabolic risk in guys compared to age-matched women with stage I-II obesity. Due to the quick surge in the occurrence of persistent metabolic condition, increasingly more medical professionals and standard clinical scientists focus their vision on insulin resistance, a very early and central occasion of metabolic illness. Here, we evaluate the recent development in the research about the regulation aspects of mitochondrial Ca2+ and how the dysregulation of mitochondrial Ca2+ homeostasis is associated with the pathogenesis of hepatic IR, giving a new viewpoint for further discovering the duty of ion in the onset and development of IR. The epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes have led to extensive examination of the hidden mechanisms of these diseases and their main issues such as heart diseases and non-alcoholic fatty liver condition. We looked for to examine the recurring effects on fasting plasma sugar and fasting insulin after 12-weeks of high-intensity period training, resistance training, or simultaneous training in women with insulin resistance. These findings reveal that HIIT lowers FPG and RT lowers FI 24-h post-training; both work out interventions alone have remarkably better residual effects on FPG and FI than CT in women with insulin resistance. Please keep in mind that the text is machine-generated by the Brevi Technologies’ Natural language Generation model, and we do not bear any responsibility. The text above has not been edited and/or modified in any way. Source texts: https://doi.org/10.2337/db21-0609 — Adipose Tissue Inflammation is Not Related to Adipose Insulin Resistance in Humans.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2021.749328 — Fructose Induces Visceral Adipose Tissue Inflammation and Insulin Resistance Even Without Development of Obesity in Adult Female but Not in Male Rats.
https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/9713582 — Gender-Specific Behaviour in Obesity Stages I-II: Imbalance of Aminothiol Status and Adipomyokine Profile in Subjects with Different Insulin Resistance Severity.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mito.2021.11.007 — Insight of the role of mitochondrial calcium homeostasis in hepatic insulin resistance.
https://doi.org/10.1007/164_2021_564 — Inter-Organ Crosstalk in the Development of Obesity-Associated Insulin Resistance.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.760206 — Residual Impact of Concurrent, Resistance, and High-Intensity Interval Training on Fasting Measures of Glucose Metabolism in Women With Insulin Resistance.
DOAJ — summary generated by Brevi Assistant Protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B is an important negative modulator of insulin signaling and has drawn in considerable attention in treating type 2 diabetic issues mellitus. Cellular glucose usage was considerably raised in insulin-resistant HepG2 cells after LPMP therapy. The purpose of this screening and analysis research was to check out the accord amongst indices of sugar metabolism, consisting of the Homeostatic Model Assessment for Insulin Resistance, HOMA2, Matsuda Index, Quantitative Insulin-sensitivity Check Index, hemoglobin A1C, and not eating plasma glucose versus intravenous sugar resistance test-measured insulin level of sensitivity in individuals with persistent motor complete SCI. Procedures were contrasted making use of modified R 2 from direct regression models with Akaike details criterion. Sleep apnea syndrome is a common condition defined by recurrent apnea or hypoxia episodes resulting in periodic hypoxia and arousals during rest. Nevertheless, the thorough mechanism whereby IH generates insulin resistance in SAS patients has not been totally revealed. Several chemical levels of sensitivity is a multisystem disorder, and limited expertise in its pathophysiology exists. When contrasted to controls, we located that MCS individuals may be more insulin resistant and that MCS ÷ FSD might have a damaged glucose metabolism. The adipokine Neuregulin 4 secures versus obesity-induced insulin resistance. Adipogenesis was unaffected in Nrg4 KD adipocytes, but there was a complete impairment of the insulin-induced 2-deoxyglucose uptake, which was likely the result of decreased insulin receptor and Glut4 healthy protein. Background: Quantile-dependent expressivity is a dependancy of hereditary effects on whether the phenotype is high or low relative to its distribution. Approaches: Quantile-specific offspring-parent regression slopes were estimated by quantile regression for not eating sugar concentrations in 6453 offspring-parent sets from the Framingham Heart Study. Please keep in mind that the text is machine-generated by the Brevi Technologies’ Natural language Generation model, and we do not bear any responsibility. The text above has not been edited and/or modified in any way. Source texts: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms222312693 — A Novel PTP1B Inhibitor-Phosphate of Polymannuronic Acid Ameliorates Insulin Resistance by Regulating IRS-1 Akt Signaling.
https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10235591 — Comparison of Various Indices in Identifying Insulin Resistance and Diabetes in Chronic Spinal Cord Injury.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms222312898 — Effects of Intermittent Hypoxia on Cytokine Expression Involved in Insulin Resistance.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182312654 — Insulin Resistance Is Associated with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity in a Danish Population-Based Study — DanFunD.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms222312960 — Neuregulin 4 Downregulation Induces Insulin Resistance in 3T3-L1 Adipocytes through Inflammation and Autophagic Degradation of GLUT4 Vesicles.
https://doi.org/10.1159/000519382 — Quantile-Dependent Heritability of Glucose, Insulin, Proinsulin, Insulin Resistance, and Glycated Hemoglobin. | https://medium.com/@brevi-assistant/insulin-resistance-science-research-december-2021-week-2-summary-from-medlineplus-genetics-30e7e3ce2791 | ['Brevi Assistant'] | 2021-12-10 04:04:09.492000+00:00 | ['Insulin Resistance', 'Diabetes', 'Health', 'Biology', 'Research'] |
Sıfırdan Yüze | Get this newsletter By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices.
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Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription. | https://medium.com/t%C3%BCrkiye/s%C4%B1f%C4%B1rdan-y%C3%BCze-9a33128d3f87 | ['F. Emir Dorukoglu'] | 2020-12-28 13:49:25.658000+00:00 | ['Hayat', 'Kişisel Gelişim', 'Başarı', 'Türkçe'] |
Black List writers on the craft: Theme (Part 1) | Over the years, I have interviewed over 50 Black List screenwriters. Over the next four weeks, I am running a series featuring one topic per week related to the craft of writing.
This week: How do you understand and work with the concept of ‘theme’?
The diversity of responses among the Black List writers I have interviewed is fascinating. Some writers start with theme. Some find themes during the story-crafting process. Some don’t even think about it. But today, we start off a basic question: What is theme?
Geoff LaTulippe: “Theme, to me, is the ultimate notion that you’re trying to get across with your story. Love is Hard. Space is Dangerous. Hope is Lost. Whatever it is, you have to ask yourself, ‘If I had to give it to the audience in one sentence, what would be the POINT of all this?’” Will Simmons: “Theme is the nucleus for every screenplay. Each scene should be an exploration of the thematic undercurrent. A poignant theme will lend itself to a variety of interpretations, which the characters can embody and externalize. It should grow in complexity as the story progresses and characters struggle to survive the journey.” Chris Borrelli: “For me, I would almost say, what am I trying to say? What am I trying to…and there is something I’m trying to say, in whatever I…and sometimes there’s multiple themes…one will stand out for me.” Brad Ingelsby: “I wish I had the best way to define what theme is. I know what it means to me, I guess. If you look at the main character, what is the story really about to that person? Why are we going on this journey with them?” Arash Amel: “For me, personally, it grows out of my characters. It’s, ‘What is my character trying to achieve? What do they love? What do they exemplify, and what are they afraid of?’ Those questions lead me to answer what the theme for the character is, for the lead character, and then that comes in and underpins pretty much the whole of the movie and then flavors the subtext.” Rajiv Joseph: “I feel that every story has to have an idea that transcends the action and the characters… We can both write funny, cute dialogue until we’re blue in the face and it’s not going to mean anything. Always, no matter how silly a movie might be, I think there has to be some deeper idea that’s its soul.” Lisa Joy: “For me, theme is the soul of a script. It’s the sense or feeling stitched in fine thread throughout the pages. It’s the part of a script that a reader can take away and relate to or apply to their own lives long after they’ve forgotten the snippets of dialogue or plot points of the script itself.” Stephany Folsom: “To me, stories are supposed to convey something about our human experience and why we’re here. Theme isn’t what I lead with. But theme has to be there or else it’s not a movie. What’s the point of telling a story if it doesn’t have something to say about life?”
Takeaways:
Theme has something to do with the point of the story, the meaning of the story, the “nucleus” of the story. This take embraces the intellectual / thoughtful aspect of a story.
But there’s also this: Theme is the “soul” of the story, something deriving from the characters which ties into our “human experience.” Here theme is more about the emotional / psychological dimension of a story.
This aligns with my theory: That a script’s central theme is best understood as the emotional meaning of a story. But here is another actionable take on the concept:
Ashleigh Powell: “Theme is something that has always felt very elusive and intimidating to me. Maybe it comes from reading a lot of literature, having to dissect and analyze and write serious essays on the importance of ‘THEME’ in a story. But I recently read a piece of advice… this comes from Tawnya Bhattacharya from the Script Anatomy blog… that has really struck with me: ‘Theme is the opposite of your main character’s flaw.’ You start the story with the main character’s flaw, you show how that character is transforming over the course of their journey, and by the end of it they’ve completed an arc and realized the theme. I think there is something beautifully simplified about that approach.”
Identify what the Protagonist’s Disunity nature is, jump to its opposite nature (Unity), and that informs what your story’s central theme is.
No matter the various interpretations put forth by Black List writers I’ve interviewed, they all agree on one thing: Theme is critical in writing a story.
How about you? What’s your definition of theme? How do you go about working with themes in your stories?
Come back tomorrow for more about this important subject: Theme. | https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/black-list-writers-on-the-craft-theme-part-1-b99940e66021 | ['Scott Myers'] | 2019-06-18 05:48:26.699000+00:00 | ['Screenplay', 'Creative Writing', 'Screenwriting', 'Writing', 'Writing Tips'] |
Can you compile OpenCV Source (in arm64) on Apple M1? | Another Simple Answer: YES!
In my last post, I tried to get OpenCV — x86-64 running on Apple M1.
Simple answer: Yes, OpenCV can be compiled in x86-64 with Rosetta.
Here I just compile again natively.
cd opencv
mkdir build_arm64
cd build_arm64
cmake ../
make -j 9 git clone https://github.com/opencv/opencv cd opencvmkdir build_arm64cd build_arm64cmake ../make -j 9
Again, a little while later. It is compiled successfully.
Ok, basically nothing to see here. It all works as expected. In conclusion, I could switch between two architectures without thinking much about it. If you are linking applications using dynamic linking, then it will be a management nightmare. Good luck here! | https://medium.com/@raymondlo84/can-you-compile-opencv-source-in-arm64-on-apple-m1-1ceaff14d2c9 | ['Raymond Lo'] | 2020-12-17 22:20:57.076000+00:00 | ['Source Code', 'Apple M1', 'Opencv', 'Apple M1 Chip'] |
Developing a Growth Mindset | A growth mindset means that you believe your intelligence and talents can be developed over time, practice and efforts can lead to mastery. A person with a growth mindset takes the success of others as inspiration.
A fixed mindset means that you believe intelligence is fixed. So if you are not good at something, you might believe you will never be good at it and efforts with practice have no importance. Moreover, a person with a fixed mindset takes success of others as threat or jealousy.
In order to have a growth mindset and improve with time, there are some important tips to work on, named as Amal Totkay.
1. Self-Talk
2. Get out of your comfort zone
3. Create new habits
4. Ask people for help
5. Fake it till you make it
Self-Talk:
Self-Talk is having a discussion with yourself. When you have a discussion with yourself it impacts your mind and it is necessary to have a positive impact to be a person with a growth mindset. So rather than saying that you cannot do, think that you can do.
Get out of your comfort zone:
Putting yourself in a position where you can upgrade you mindset is very important even if it is not in your comfort zone and disturbs you. This slight disturbance can resultantly give you a great experience and learning. Like if you are afraid of public speaking, start speaking in public.
Create new habits:
Create new habits to have a growth mindset. This can help you gain new knowledge. You can try listing down your daily improvements, so this can help you know about your current position.
Ask people for help:
As you are working on yourself to develop a growth mindset it is important to get feedback from people that are sincere with you. So that you can further work on your areas of improvement. You can ask people around you, how you have changed in behavior or attitude or communication.
Fake it till you make it:
Research shows that if you act as you are competent and confident in an area, will eventually lead to improved competence and confidence. So, fake it till you make it.
From all of those tips mentioned above, “Fake it till you make it” is my favorite tip for growth mindset. The reason behind this is, when you act as what you want to adopt or improve something you automatically start implementing it in your life and finally you get to achieve a growth mindset. I have started implementing this tip in my life. As I want to improve my communication skills. So, I have started speaking English language with my friends and family that helps me practice and improve communication skills.
A challenge only becomes an obstacle when you bow to it. — Ray Davis | https://medium.com/amal-career-prep-fellowship/developing-a-growth-mindset-371035f24dad | ['Ayesha Zia'] | 2021-04-08 00:29:04.277000+00:00 | ['Amal Totkay', 'Amal Fellowship', 'Growth Mindset', 'Fixed Mindset'] |
Need of Career Counseling & awareness about the importance of soft skills for the student of Pakistan. | Problem Statement:
“School and colleges aren’t providing enough guidance or counseling about career planning, self confidence and public speaking to the students . Students are confused while choosing their career and don’t realize the importance of soft skills like confidence, communication skills . There is clearly a need for these services in the country.”
Most of us have been encountered with a problem during their school and college life called Career Counseling . Students are confused while choosing their career and don’t realize the importance of soft skills like confidence, communication skills .They don’t able to find proper guidance and counseling in schools and colleges. So, they look towards their parents ,relatives and friends.
I have faced this problem during my student career. I belong to a family where getting education is rare thing. My cousins and other relatives often do their own work and they are not much well educated. I was good in study from childhood. My father used to say that my son will become an engineer. So, I got in my sub-conscious mind that I would become an engineer. When I was in F.Sc part 2 , I knew that I would become an engineer but I was not aware with the sub-discipline of engineer. I only knew one thing that is I will become an engineer. Eventually , When I was preparing for entry test I came to know different discipline and different universities . Before that , I hadn’t known about any of these.
I also want to share one story of mine about choosing the sub-discipline of Engineering. I had been a great fan of Marvel cinematic universe (MCU) like Iron Man . I was watching Iron Man movie and came to know that father of Tony stark (Iron Man ) was a Mechanical Engineer. I got inspiration from there seriously.The reason behind getting inspiration from a movie is that I hadn’t access to any kind of career counseling at that moment. I was not aware from different opportunities.
Mostly schools in Pakistan don’t work on the soft skills of students. Their main focus is to get good marks in matric and intermediate by cramming different books. They don’t work on the soft skills like confidence and communication skills which are the most necessary traits . I am lacking in these skills because I couldn’t a chance to improve these in school. I was also not aware of importance of these skills . Now , I am a graduated student and still I have deficiency in these skills.
We came up with a solution for such students of Pakistan. We will organize session ,workshops and events in particularly small schools which have less amount of resources and help them to define their career as well as give them awareness about importance soft skills like confidence, communication skills. Our sessions also include activities that will help to improve the self confidence and public speaking. | https://medium.com/@zeeshan-ahmad164/need-of-career-counseling-awareness-about-the-importance-of-soft-skills-for-the-student-of-3bc2bcf9b48 | ['Zeeshan Ahmad'] | 2020-12-25 22:53:35.343000+00:00 | ['Career Counseling', 'Awarness', 'Soft Skill Training', 'Entrepreneur', 'Problem Solving'] |
Mescaline | Photo by Mario Rodriguez on Unsplash
The extenuation of time into rhyme
The devil’s in the detail
A confusion of contusions, a microbial illusion,
A stretching out of meaning so that
As soon as sad-so-sad covid rears its ugly head
A crying game ensues, tears shed
Mood into an Aztec-under-the-volcano
Cacophony of rumblings of stars, bowels,
Owls’ uncertain stutterings of an undisguised
Conceit. Reckoning everything under heaven
Is calculable, neat, discrete. Mescaline begs
Us to differ. We must suffer the agonies
Of defeat. Throw off the mantle of disguise
Open our eyes to all the frail beauties of the world. | https://medium.com/blueinsight/mescaline-e9e150ea83fd | ['John Edward Marks', 'Jem'] | 2020-12-23 16:21:03.268000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Blue Insights', 'Drugs', 'Coronavirus', 'Poetry'] |
Peer Mountain Has More Answers to Your Questions | As the Peer Mountain community continues to grow, we’re fielding a lot more questions, especially about the Peer Mountain Token ( PMTN) sale and the SmartcapTM algorithm designed to keep it fair and transparent. In response to the growing interest in Peer Mountain and its token sale, we’ve expanded our website’s FAQ page to help you with your due diligence of Peer Mountain. To simplify and speed up your research, we’ve also grouped our FAQs into the following categories:
This is Peer Mountain
Token Sale
Peer Mountain Token ( PMTN)
Mobile App
Here are some recent additions to the Peer Mountain FAQs:
Token Sale
What payment methods do you accept?
We accept payment in ETH.
What are the terms of the pre-sale?
Round 0 buyers will get a discount (currently estimated at 30%). Minimum investment will be 1 PMT. Buyers over 250 EUR in value will have to provide basic KYC information (name, nationality), and buyers over 10,000 EUR may have to provide more details.
Is there a whitelist for participating in the token pre-sale and where can I find it? What is the registration process?
Yes, there is a whitelist for participating in the Peer Mountain Token pre-sale. To get on it, click on the Sign Up button in the upper right corner of the Peer Mountain website and enter your email address. You’ll receive a welcome email with initial instructions. You’ll receive further instructions in subsequent emails from Peer Mountain.
Peer Mountain Token ( PMTN)
What are the various utilities of PMT?
PMTN are used to pay for invitations to the Peer Mountain ecosystem and for establishing trust in commercial transactions. Service providers make micropayments in PMTN every time they use Peer Mountain for identity verification. Peer Mountain attestation engines (i.e. entities that confirm the authenticity of identity documents) receive PMTN for the use of their attestations.
What is the incentive for us to keep our tokens after the ICO?
PMTN are used for offering services on Peer Mountain instances. Service providers will need the tokens and will buy them.
How will you react to the inevitable volatility of the altcoin market and how will the system behave in such circumstances?
As PMTN is a closed ecosystem, we shouldn’t worry about volatility from a service and system standpoint.
This is Peer Mountain
How will the technology work?
Peer Mountain provides a blockchain ecosystem of enterprise-deployed Peer Mountain instances that any user can access with a simple Android or iOS app on their phone. To use Peer Mountain, first you take photos of documents (e.g. passport, driver’s licence) and selfies to create your personal identity dossier. You can then share encrypted information from these dossiers with businesses, institutions, and other individuals to confirm your identity and acquire goods and services.
Why should businesses use Peer Mountain?
Peer Mountain relieves businesses of the burden of storing sensitive information about consumers. Because each user’s identity is complete, secure, and self-sovereign, businesses no longer need to compile and maintain unwieldy, partial dossiers on each customer. They can now view relevant details when they need to without assuming the enormous risk and cost associated with older systems of data storage. As an added bonus, businesses can generate significant revenue through Peer Mountain by acting as attestation providers (i.e. by confirming the authenticity of identification documents).
Visit the Peer Mountain FAQ page for more answers.
Read about Peer Mountain’s pioneering ICO 2.0 token sale.
Get a 30% discount on Peer Mountain Tokens in the 1st round of our token sale — sign up now to get on the pre-order whitelist! | https://medium.com/peermountain/peer-mountain-has-more-answers-to-your-questions-a49c04ed7318 | ['Peer Mountain'] | 2018-06-26 08:02:43.786000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'ICO', 'Ethereum', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Tech'] |
Hosting your Text Generating Infilling Micro-Service with FastAPI on GCP | 2. Deploying Your Own Infilling Micro-Service on Google Cloud Platform
In order to deploy your own infilling micro-service just follow the next simple seven steps.
1. To deploy this micro-service by yourself please create a new project on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). For the new project to be created, you have to choose a project name, project ID, billing account, and, then, to click Create.
Start a NEW PROJECT.
2. Next, activate Google’s Cloud Shell in the upper right corner of GCP to execute a few lines of code to host the ILM-API.
Activate the Cloud Shell.
3. Now, we clone the ILM-API Repository from GitHub. Fort that, type the following command into the Cloud Shell:
git clone https://github.com/seduerr91/ilm-api.git
4. As a next step, we install the requirements. These project related libraries are located in the file requirements.txt. To install all these modules in one go, run the following command:
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
5. To prepare for the deployment of the FastAPI micro-service on Google App Engine, we need to create a gcloud app. Note: By executing the next command, you will be prompted to select a region. Simply choose the region nearest to the geographical location where your consumers access this micro-service. In the cloud shell, type the following command to create the app:
gcloud app create
6. You are almost there! Now, we actually deploy the FastAPI app on GCP App Engine. While running the next command in the shell, you will be prompted to continue. Press Y and hit enter to proceed. It takes a few moments to host the service (like 3–5 minutes), once you execute:
gcloud app deploy app.yaml
7. Now, you can browse to your micro-service. Generally, your app is deployed on the URL that has the following format: your-project-id.appspot.com. In case, you are not sure what the project id is, then type the following command to view your application in the web browser:
gcloud app browse
Congratulations! You just hosted the your own infilling micro-service based on the Deep Neural Architecture GPT-2 via FastAPI.
Next, we take a brief look at the source code, to better understand what we just did. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/hosting-your-text-generating-infilling-micro-service-with-fastapi-on-gcp-ecf92f9d3c0f | [] | 2020-10-21 17:11:36.078000+00:00 | ['NLP', 'Gpt 2', 'Fastapi', 'Infilling', 'Gcp'] |
The welcome party recap Pt 1. So, for the sake of community member… | So, for the sake of community member that were not able to join the welcome party due one or two busy schedule or funny enough the connections(internet connection, you know), Here is a recap of what was covered and discuss in the welcome party, sit back, grab your pen and paper or stick note whichever way you want to put it and enjoy a recap.
Okay, It is our first meetup and it is tagged Welcome Party.
Prior to this participant (interested community members) already opt-in and an email detailing the rules and guide were sent out and the next line of action was also stated, and from the moment the email got delivered, participant are onboarding to the community with the next steps as highlighted in the email.
The D-day later comes and all ready for the real welcome party.
The party as fondly called commenced with the Lead, Adeniyi Temidayo welcome everybody, do some basic house rule, then highlight the agenda of the day, thus:
i. Basic guideline
ii. Introduction of the community leads
iii. A brief introduction of the community
iv. Some background development trend and evolvement
v. clarity on some evolved buzzwords
vi. Duties and what to expect going forward.
I. Basic Guideline
Then the guide serves as the outline that helps in handling and moderates the party.
Adeniyi Temidayo relay the guideline, rules and regulation that will help put things in other in the community and things under check too.
Part of the expectation of what the community aim to achieve given thus,
Participants will be given access to good/best learning resources/material to help them understands the convergent area of data science and its technological implementation.
Here are some housekeeping rules & guidelines, it also serves as an introductory note as well.
Do your best to abide by these rules.
And then this is further reiterate thus,
We will have an hour for the session, 30min(clarification and Feedback) for the first day and an hour(Q&A, Comments and Discussions).
Follow us via our social media handle.
Schedule: Wednesday 5 pm and Saturday at 5 pm.
Once again if you do have questions ahead of the day assigned for Question and Answer and you do not want to forget or have the privilege to jot it down, send to our DM or you tweet at us via twitter(@ds4africa).
II. Introduction of the Community Leads
The community leads were introduced one after another, thus Jolayemi Olubunmi, Joshua and oni Stephen and quickly add that they are ready and willingly drive the community and provide support all the way and across the board as regards the community.
III. A brief introduction of the community:
Over time we have heard of various different buzzwords around data which range from AI, ML, Neural network, and all sort, but then very few people know the meaning of these buzzwords and very very few people know the real major role that buzzword plays, hence, the need to go to the very root of all of these buzzwords and get the clearer picture and be knowledgeable about them, hence, the very need to start at the very basic of it all. in the course of the session, some things we experience daily and how those buzzwords play a role in them will be made clear without forgetting that we connect with them all along.
We are the very person that can proffer a solution to our problem simply because we understand the problem better, and in other to do that we need to understand what tools can help in achieving this, and with the advent of technology some of the processes can as well be automated, so why not learn the tools and tech that can be used to achieved solution and leads more progress.
These we deem fit to know and get clear and not waiting for the foreigner to come to explore our land simply because they have the right tool and are knowledgeable about it uses, then applying it on our raw materials. To not waste much time on this, the community is set to go from the very beginning and that is why you solve the basic mathematics to get everybody along, which means to a certain level we will have to solve some basics maths and take it up from their to how they apply and their application in our daily activities. several daily challenges that can be resolved will as well be highlighted and treated as a community because some of the solutions might be open-sourced too from our end and share with others to explore.
IV. Some background development and evolvement:
some 25yrs ago we have a job role of Statistician saddle with the responsibility of
(i) Gathering of data and cleaning of the same data and
(ii) Applying statistical methods.
But as data growth evolves plus radical tech improvement 5yrs down the lane (20yrs now) we then have the job role changed to Data Mining these with the former job role then combine with extracting pattern from the data collected and thus it helps to make more accurate forecast, moving forward to 10yrs ahead which in addition to the evolvement of duties and tech improvement and data growth from data mining then, we now have Predictive Analytic Specialist that now add new mathematical and statistical method on the same data and the growth of it, hence, the new job role: Data Scientist while things still evolve and radical improvement of technology which happens drastically fast then the need for AI(Artificial Intelligent), Machine Learning (which aside pattern deals with modelling), and more and more… more light will be shed on some of these in details in the cause of subsequent meetups.
Lets quickly add that meetup will go virtual for a while and when there is a need for a physical meetup you all will be informed ahead and for now we will remain virtual and keep to schedule.
V: Clarity on some evolved buzzword:
Due to time this section was limited this to these two words that are interchangeably used Analytics and Analysis these words are used in their literal English meaning but when it comes to the world of Data, which then becomes Data Analytics and Data Analysis they play distinctly different roles and in different spheres, lets touch a few areas on this.
Remember we collect data, which can be simply named, age, gender, level, grade, or even from hospital blood groups, rhesus, or in the banking industries, demographics, and cut across different industries with a different set of datasets.
These data that were collected can be Analyze (Analysis) since they are very large, by splitting them into different smaller chunk and study separately. these simply makes it clear that Analysis has to do with a past event which helps us to collect the data, and from the studying of the data we can be able to explain WHY there is a surge in admission in a certain year, why the rate of male applying for engineering reduced in the recent year, why the male gender are moving into banking and finance as a course, why banks are rolling out different saving plans for the teenagers, and as well explain HOW it all happens that way due to the outcome of the study of data collected.
Summary:
Analysis relies on past events (Data of event that happened), a study in chunks and helps in explaining the WHY it happens and How it happens
Been conscious of time and considering other participants to quickly catches up when they come online, He quickly then wraps up with the Analytic part, Analytics, he then explains that it deals with the future exploration of potential events or put this way, Analytics explore future potentials based on the pattern observed from Analysis. Analytics also make use of the application of logical and components parts which is obtained in analysis, which means we have to have good reasoning in interpreting the outcome of the analysis, look for patterns that can be explored in future. if time permits in the next session we will look into the Qualitative and Quantitative aspect.
To also ensure that participants were following and if it worth the time, He then asked if the participants gain something in this intro party? Then ask for feedback from the active participants to rate the session and in his word the way he puts it.
Rate this session on a scale of 5 (1 not what I expect at all while 5 it worth it and more of such am expecting)? let quickly give a response to this in the next 2min. | https://medium.com/ds4africa/the-data-science-for-africa-welcome-party-recap-part-1-70ed920b65c8 | ['Temidayo Adeniyi'] | 2019-06-05 14:23:00.424000+00:00 | ['Analytics', 'Big Data', 'Data Analysis', 'Data Science', 'Statistics'] |
Susie’s Unicorn | Photo by Yoni Kozminsi on Unsplash
Shortly after my brother died, I pulled a chair over to the kitchen counter, climbed up on it, and grabbed a jar of Sue Bee honey from the cupboard. My legs shook from standing on my tiptoes while holding the glass jar, but I made it down a-okay.
That’s what he called me until his last day on earth, Sue Bee, although sometimes he also called me Susie Q, especially when he was tickling me to death. He got to name me because Dad wanted to name me Ariel and Mom said it sounded like a tv antenna.
Mom mostly kept to her room after Kenny died, and I didn’t want to bother her, so I carried the jar of honey through the living room, careful not to slam the screen door behind me. I sat in the front yard, full of ugly dead grass, which poked the backs of my legs and felt like scratchy pins and needles running up my calves, all the way to the bottom of my shorts.
He used to lie in our dead grass and let insects crawl on him, so I decided to do the same. I wanted to feel them tickle my skin and pretend he wasn’t dead. The honey felt soft and gooey as I spread it up my legs, over my stomach and arms, and the smell of sweet clover overpowered my senses when I poured the rest over the top of my head.
It didn’t take long to attract the bees, bugs, and flies, and I fell asleep luxuriating in the hot Fresno summer, dreaming of my beloved Kenny. I don’t know whether it was Mom or Dad who found me covered with red ants. I only know I woke up in excruciating pain in a hospital bed. I didn’t know I’d fallen asleep on an ant hill.
A bit at a time, I came back from that dark place of tunnel-visioned healing, but Mom and Dad didn’t weather the pain. At least not together. I stayed with Mom, her quiet, obedient daughter, never far from her reach, lost in a world without color. Yellow, orange and red departed with Kenny. Blue, green and purple went with my father, who left to pursue his dream of becoming an artist.
I got to keep the color of grass burnt from the draining heat of desert, which resembled the tumbleweeds I loved to chase whenever they blew into town.
My relentless colorless world became filled with green when Mom was passed over for a promotion by her long-time boss for the new guy. We left for Oregon, where I learned to identify the myriad colors of green in the emerald firs that inhabit the northwest. Out of them all — forest, fern, and pine — my favorite was octarine. I found it one day while chasing a rainbow, after a rainstorm when the sun shone particularly bright. Mom trusted me to run off alone because we were backed up against the woods, where I could climb trees and explore nature without the threat of fire ants.
I found the blue of the rainbow that day in a creek that ran through our property. I enjoyed dipping my feet in the cool wetness and my brother would have loved catching the crawdads that lived in Johnson Creek. Purple grew closer to the ground, bellflowers and lavender, which smelled good, too. They seemed exotic to me, and I imagined Dad off on some island painting lush gardens in his bold hues of breen and glue. That’s how Mom had always described his artwork because she said he was colorblind.
The other colors of the rainbow were more difficult to find. I thought if I saw the reds, golds and pumpkins of the world again, I’d forget about my Kenny.
One day as I sat in a field, he came to visit with a handful of wildflowers.
“Make me a daisy chain, like you used to, Susie Q, and I’ll give you a present.”
After I placed it around his neck, he stuck a buttercup under his chin and showed me the color of sunglow. We chuckled and giggled for at least an hour, blowing dandelion spores into the wind. Then he said he had to go.
I sat in an old oak and watched him fly away on Pegasus. At least I thought it was Pegasus. We’d been studying Greek mythology in school, so when I saw my brother gather the gilded reins of the white winged stallion, I knew when I looked towards the constellations that night, his bright glory would shine back the infinite colors of the galaxy which I’d been terrified to see.
And so it was the first Halloween and Thanksgiving without Kenny that I completely enjoyed, with the full spectrum of autumn around me. As I traipsed through the fallen leaves, looking for the colors of Christmas red to share with my dad, who had promised to visit, I found a horn, unlike a horn of plenty. That’s when I realized my brother had flown away on the last unicorn and left the magic of the coiled alicorn with me for safe keeping until we met again. | https://medium.com/the-junction/susies-unicorn-5b31b87ecee3 | ['Chris Drew'] | 2019-09-19 16:23:00.608000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Colors', 'Healing', 'Magical Realism', 'Flash Fiction'] |
Italian Immigrants, the Lawrence Textile Strike and the Early American Labor Movement | It is undeniable that the American labor movement of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century was hugely beneficial for low-wage workers. Those typically in the most difficult conditions and with the lowest wages were immigrants, and the successes of the labor movement improved working conditions for immigrants of all generations. However, the labor movement typically is associated with blue collar workers who were already situated in the United States, their ancestors having arrived generations before the so-called Gilded Age, strikes, and large-scale unionization. Thus, immigrants are not typically heavily associated with the labor movement, especially not Southern and Eastern European immigrants who began to arrive in the late 19th Century. Italians, the largest of these groups, were contemporarily seen by labor activists and politicians as negative to the bargaining power of organized labor. While Italian immigrants were not exactly the foremost group in terms of class consciousness, their numbers made them a huge part of the working class and they had a vested interest in labor organization and better working conditions. Despite their reputation, over time Italian Americans became a hugely important part of the labor movement. They bettered their own circumstances and those of all working-class Americans through their contributions to important labor unions and participation and organization of landmark strikes. Though they often are not given their just credit, Italian Americans were essential to the power and triumphs of the American laborer.
Through the complicated history of immigration and American history, it has been an almost constant truth that recently arrived immigrants have been cheap options to employ. This stems from many things, but mostly the simple need to survive and secure a work opportunity. Immigrants arriving in an unfamiliar land typically take what they can get, and they certainly do not hold a valuable amount of bargaining power. For this reason, Italian immigrants often accepted jobs with terrible conditions and low wages as a fact of settling in and making a living. This was often a part of the padrone system, the foremost way Italian immigrants found work and necessities in the United States. Like most of the early immigrant experience in these times, the padrone system was inherently exploitative. Padroni were primarily labor brokers, finding cheap labor for various businesses in often dangerous fields. They sometimes had connections in Italy or went there to recruit people to immigrate and work certain jobs. They did the most work, however, with recently arrived immigrants in Little Italies. These immigrants were desperately in need of guidance, jobs, and housing. Padroni would find these at a steep price, taking cuts of paychecks, or handling immigrants banking and charging them arbitrary fees (Chand 2016). The padrone system relied on deception and desperation. Italian immigrants often did not speak English and the United States did not expend much of its resources to accommodate them. They would turn to padroni because they were often the only choice they had. Padroni would use deception to get Italians to work jobs in dangerous fields or remote areas, and act like they had the immigrants best interests at heart. The padrone system has a rightfully negative reputation, but it was a product of Italian community support and some padroni imparted a form of class consciousness: “Many attempted, as devoted patrons to immigrant workers, to represent their perceived interests in North America, and occasionally [articulate] their anger as a class of unskilled worker” (Peck 1998, 50).
For their desperation for work and willingness to take on bad conditions, Italian immigrants earned a bad reputation in the organized labor movement for the first few decades of their presence in America. For this reason, and sometimes racist beliefs, Italian Americans were denied entry to many unions for many years. Though out of their control, this further reinforced their anti-labor reputation. In fact, in 1910 the Senate Immigration Commission concluded that Southern Europeans were hindering the progress of organized labor, based on statistics and testimony from various union leaders (Baily 1967, 57). This report came at a height of nativistic sentiment and calls for immigration control, which must be taken into account. Yet, they underestimated Italian immigrants desire for a better life. To their surprise, Italian Americans were about to contribute heavily to the organized labor movement, especially over the next decade.
Italian immigrants were no stranger to collectivism. Due to the general rejection of them by American society, immigrants in Little Italies came to each other’s aid frequently and even established mutual benefit societies in some cases. Some of these corresponded to trades and played a similar role to unions. These grew exponentially, and by 1902 there were 41 in the city of Philadelphia alone (Fenton 1959, 136). So, why did Italian immigrants quickly receive a reputation as hard to unionize? First was a deep distrust of those outside family and community bounds, which was commonly observed in Southern Italians. Often, it was easier to trust an Italian padrone who had found work for family members rather than a labor organizer one had never met. Second was a propensity for wanting quick improvement and results from union membership. In order to make the risk of joining a union and losing job security in strikes worthwhile, Italian Americans expected to see tangible benefits and did not want to play the long game.
Despite the stereotypes and cultural reasons, perhaps the main indicator of whether Italian Americans were willing to unionize was what trade they worked in and how easy it was to organize labor based on the circumstances. This largely hinged on one factor, the proportion of the company’s wage bill to the final price of a product: “The smaller the proportion of wage bill to final price, the easier for workers to wrest concessions from employers” (Fenton 1959, 138). For professions such as barbers and garment workers, the wage bill covered most of the price of the cheap products they produced. Any increase in wages would make the price of the product rise and cause a loss of vital customers to the business. Not only this, they were easy to replace and their fields fostered fierce competition: “More barbers could easily be trained and with each ship from Europe adding to the numbers of barbers, the labor market was so flooded that barbering skill was not at a premium. The barber business was extremely competitive… unless the great majority raised prices at once, competition from unorganized men soon forced price cuts” (“Italian immigrants and Organized Labor” 2017).
However, circumstances greatly favored the organization of Italian Americans in different trades. Even beginning in the late 1800s, some unions had great success organizing more skilled trades. The best example of successful early organization comprised those involved in building and construction in cities, namely stonecutters, bricklayers and masons. In general, they were more skilled, their wages were a lower proportion of the final price, their work was seasonal, and they could time strikes for vulnerable times in the business; all of these being variables in getting employers or contractors to concede quickly to their demands (Fenton 1959, 138). The employees could strike at the beginning of prime times for construction or expansion, or even in the middle of constructing a building. This exerted enormous pressure to concede to their demands if one wanted their construction project to finish in a timely manner. One interesting fact was that 45% of stonecutters were Northern Italian, and Northerners showed a far greater appreciation for organized labor around the turn of the century (“Italian immigrants and Organized Labor” 2017). This was perhaps a crucial factor in the Social Darwinist thinking that asserted Northern and Southern Italians had a different racial makeup. Although some trades had a head start and better circumstances than others, important strikes involving Italian Americans across various industries would take place in the early 20th Century.
Lawrence, Massachusetts was a bustling mill town with a dark underside at the beginning of the 20th Century. The town was created as a center of the textile industry and employed tens of thousands of workers, mostly unskilled women. Work had gradually become less available to the skilled and by 1912 most jobs were unskilled. Labor was often along ethnic lines, as immigrants typically tended to work unskilled jobs for lower pay. Italians were a primary group represented in the mills, most of them being women. Conditions were, to say the least, appalling: “Spinners worked in extremely damp and humid rooms and were vulnerable to tuberculosis and pneumonia. In the years before the 1912 strike, one third of Lawrence’s spinners would die before they had worked ten years, and half of these would never reach the age of 25” (“Bread and Roses Strike of 1912: Working Conditions”). After a labor law was enforced by the state of Massachusetts, hours for mill workers had to be cut, which led to cuts in already meagre wages. Textile workers in the Washington Mill of the American Woolen company walked out wholesale in January. In this landmark strike, Italian Americans would give perhaps their most important contribution yet to the labor movement: “the 1912 Lawrence strike, perhaps more than any other labor conflict, inspired the Italian-American working class and especially its radical contingent” (Luconi 2010, 152).
Italian American experiences define the strike, which was characteristically brutal and difficult for the strikers, who were up against both a powerful business and the state government of Massachusetts. According to a contemporary journalist chronicling the event, the Italians in Lawrence had been organized by Italian American Joseph Ettor of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1911, just prior to the strike (McPherson 1912). Ettor crucially was able to smoothly communicate with the Italian laborers to explain the benefits of organization, as language was a huge barrier to organization in the past. It was actually an Italian immigrant by the name of Angelo Rocco who initiated the workers’ walkout on January 12th, 1912 (Luconi 2010, 152). The strikers’ proclamation made sure to include the international character of the strike: “All the nations of the world are represented in this fight of the workers for more bread. The flaxen-haired son of the North marches side by side with his dark-haired brother of the South” (“Proclamation of the Striking Textile Workers of Lawrence” 1912). The strike was powered by international bodies such as the International Workers of the World, but perhaps more important were the contributions of the Italian Socialist Federation (ISF). The ISF organized workers, helped to get workers accounts to publish in the newspaper Il Proletario, and contributed the best public-opinion tactic of the strike. This tactic was to send strikers’ children to supporters in nearby towns and states, which worked wonders for the strikers’ media presence and public opinion (Topp 1997, 44). The ISF also contributed perhaps the most important Italian American labor leader ever, immigrant Arturo Giovannitti. Incredibly charismatic and a fantastic writer, Giovannitti would become the face of the Lawrence Strike both contemporarily and for future students to look upon.
On January 29, the Massachusetts state militia and the strikers confronted each other, and a militia member shot Italian immigrant Annie LoPizzo. Seeing an opportunity, Massachusetts framed Giovannitti, Ettor, and striker Joseph Caruso for the killing of LoPizzo (“Bread and Roses Strike of 1912: Strike Leaders Arrested”). Outraged, the strikers released this proclamation:
(“A Proclamation! Is Massachusetts in America?” 1912)
This incident, sending the children out of Lawrence, and media like this helped to win Lawrence for the strikers. When the United States House Committee in Rules investigated the strike, 14-year-old Italian American Carmela Teoli provided crucial testimony which featured in their report of conditions in Lawrence. Teoli had suffered a horrific injury in an American Woolen Co. Mill and spent seven months in a hospital before going back to work. She testified that “the company only paid [her] [hospital] bills, they didn’t give [her] anything else” (“Camella Teoli Testifies about the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike”). This testimony, showing the company did not even make up lost wages or provide any other form of support, marked a huge boost in public opinion for the strikers and American Woolen Co. capitulated soon after. Giovannitti and Ettor remained in jail for months after the strikers’ demands were met by the American Woolen Co in March 1912. Famous Italian socialist Carlo Tresca coordinated a campaign for their release and managed to organize a day-long general strike before the conclusion of the trial (Luconi 2010, 154–155). On November 26, 1912, the three defendants were acquitted. Giovanitti, a gifted orator, said as part of an address to the jury before the verdict: “Let me tell you that [if we are acquitted] the first strike that breaks again in this Commonwealth or any other place in America where the work and the help and the intelligence of Joseph J. Error and Arturo Giovannitti will be needed and necessary, there we shall go again regardless of any fear and of any threat” (“Arturo Giovanitti’s Address to the Jury” 1912).
Lawrence was the most prominent example of Italian American contribution to the labor movement, but it was far from the only one. Throughout the first half of the 20th Century, Italian labor organizers, activists, or anarchists like Luigi Galleani, Arturo Giovannitti, Girolamo Valenti, and Louis C. Fraina, Angela Bambace, and Carlo Tresca would be active and relevant. Even lesser-known Italian American figures were important in crucial strikes and incidents at the height of the labor movement. Italian immigrant Joe Greeni inspired thousdands of iron ore workers to walk off the job at the Mesabi Iron Range, a strike in which Carlo Tresca and other IWW leaders were arrested (LaVigne 2015). In the Ludlow Massacre, the Colorado National Guard fired upon and set ablaze the camp of striking coal miners and their families. One witness described the killings as “the first murder I had ever seen, for it was a murder and nothing less” (“Recounting the Ludlow Massacre”). The two women and eleven children who died in the massacre were all Italian immigrants (“Working Across the Country”). Italian Americans left a huge mark on the labor movement with contributions from the most prominent activists to inconspicuous laborers simply seeking a better life.
Italian immigrants arrived and had to face not only terrible working conditions, but a reputation as lazy, dumb, and passive. Despite mostly being initially rejected by the labor movement, Italian Americans found a way to combat the obstacles that faced them in the pursuit of a better life and a place in American social change. Italian Americans gave a great many understated contributions to the American labor movement, and all American workers are better off for them today.
Works Cited
“Arturo Giovannitti’s Address to the Jury (November 23, 1912) .” History is A Weapon. https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/giovannittijury.html.
“Camella Teoli Testifies about the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike.” History Matters. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/61/.
“Exhibition: Bread and Roses Strike of 1912: Two Months in Lawrence, Massachusetts, that Changed Labor History: Strike Leaders Arrested.” Digital Public Library of America. Accessed Nov 24, 2020. https://dp.la/exhibitions/breadandroses/strike/arrested.
“Exhibition: Bread and Roses Strike of 1912: Two Months in Lawrence, Massachusetts, that Changed Labor History: Working Conditions.” Digital Public Library of America. Accessed Nov 24, 2020. https://dp.la/exhibitions/breadandroses/workerslife/working.
“Eyewitness to Murder: Recounting the Ludlow Massacre.” History Matters. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5737.
“Italian Immigrants and Organized Labor.” The Italian Tribute. Accessed Nov 19, 2020. http://italiantribune.com/immigrants_labor/.
“Proclamation of the Striking Textile Workers of Lawrence.” History is A Weapon. https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/lawrstriproc.html.
“A Proclamation! is Massachusetts in America?” Digital Public Library of America.
“Working Across the Country | Italian | Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History.” Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/italian/working-across-the-country/.
Baily, Samuel. “The Italians and Organized Labor in the United States and Argentina: 1880- 1910.” The International Migration Review 1, no. 3 (Summer, 1967): 56–66. https://www-jstor-org.flagship.luc.edu/stable/3002740.
Chand, Rakashi. “Immigrants Needing Protection from Themselves? the Padrone System in Boston’s North End.” Massachusetts Historical Society. https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2016/02/immigrants-needing-protection-from-themselves-the-padrone-system-in-bostons-north-end/.
Fenton, Edwin. “Italians in the Labor Movement.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 26, no. 2 (April, 1959): 133–148. https://www-jstor-org.flagship.luc.edu/stable/27769876.
LaVigne, David. “The Breaking of the 1916 Iron Range Strike.” MinnPost. https://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2015/10/breaking-1916-iron-range-strike/.
Luconi, Stefano. “Crossing Borders on the Picket Line: Italian-American Workers and the 1912 Strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts.” Italian Americana 28, no. 2 (Summer, 2010): 149–161. https://www-jstor-org.flagship.luc.edu/stable/41426589.
McPherson, John Bruce. The Lawrence Strike of 1912. Boston: Rockwell and Churchill Press, 1912.
Peck, Gunther. “Divided Loyalties: Immigrant Padrones and the Evolution of Industrial Paternalism in North America.” International Labor and Working-Class History 53, (Spring, 1998): 49–68. https://www-jstor-org.flagship.luc.edu/stable/27672456.
Topp, Michael. “The Transnationalism of the Italian-American Left: The Lawrence Strike of 1912 and the Italian Chamber of Labor of New York City.” Journal of American Ethnic History 17, no. 1 (Fall, 1997): 39–63. https://www-jstor-org.flagship.luc.edu/stable/27502238. | https://medium.com/@clayhallee/italian-immigrants-the-lawrence-textile-strike-and-the-early-american-labor-movement-4e112480e24e | ['Clay Hallee'] | 2020-12-15 23:02:34.797000+00:00 | ['Labor', 'History', 'Workers Rights', 'Immigration', 'American History'] |
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Rental Property Investment to Make Passive Income | Rental Property Investment can be a lucrative side hustle for passive income. Read on to find out how
Introduction
A rental property investment may not be for everyone as it involves considerably large up front costs in the form of a down payment etc. But once you have set aside some money, a rental property becomes a worthy option to consider as a semi-passive income stream. Mind you, this isn’t a passive income source that you can leave on auto-pilot and expect cash to roll in. Especially in the beginning where you procure your first investment property and get your first tenant. You should prepare yourself mentally to receive the dreaded call in the middle of the night with the tenant on the other line complaining about clogged plumbing.
Having said that, if you do your homework and prepare for the journey, the reward of owning a rental property and real estate investment is tremendous. Not only does it provide you with a predictable source of income but it also appreciates in value over the years. It grows equity as you pay down your debt and the expenses incurred for the upkeep of your property are tax deductible.
Getting Started with Rental Property Investment
So how do you get into owning a piece of this pie? There are a number of things you need to start thinking about if you want to pursue this path. First and foremost, depending on where you are located and the lenders you are dealing with, you will need to have anywhere between 15–20% of the property value in cash to put down as a down payment. So right off the bat, you need to start researching properties in your area that you would consider investing in, to assess the market and figure out how much you’d have to save to bring to the table.
Another thing you can start working on in parallel with saving up for a down payment, is to start working on your credit score. It’s near impossible to secure ideal interest rates on a mortgage loan from banks if your credit score is lower than 760. You can begin optimizing your credit score by making sure that you have a few active credit lines which you pay off on time. Keep in mind that improving credit scores can take time and therefore if yours needs improvement, you must begin working on this immediately. Look for posts about how to improve your credit score and how to start building your credit from scratch.
Securing a Mortgage
Your next step would be to get your paperwork in order to shop around for a mortgage loan. And it’s crucial to shop around for the cheapest loan with the best terms. Don’t settle on the first lender that you speak with. You will find that doing extra due diligence here will pay dividends in the long run. In terms of paperwork, the lenders would like to see:
Most recent tax return documents (in some cases they might even request the previous 2 years).
Recent pay stubs.
Bank statements to see your income vs liabilities.
Your credit score.
The better prepared you are to provide the prospective lenders with this information, the smoother the process would be. Keep in mind that a ‘hard’ credit inquiry has a small but detrimental effect on your score.
Since shopping around for a favorable lender might take some time, it’s best to do a free ‘soft’ credit check yourself and have that score handy. This score, though not a hard and final one, should give the lenders enough to run the numbers for you and give you an estimate of your loan qualifications. There are several free services available that offer a free credit check. Some of these include Credit Sesame, Experian etc.
Once you have figured out which lender you want to work with, find out how much loan you can qualify for and get a pre-approval letter. This is a vital step in a competitive real estate market because when a property becomes available, it’s usually the most prepared buyer whose offer is entertained. Think about it from the buyers perspective. Most buyers are looking to get their money with the least amount of headaches and a smooth sale transaction. To ensure that, usually someone with a pre-approval letter from a bank backing up their offer is given precedence over someone without one.
Property Search
After lining everything up it’s time for you to go out and start looking at the potential investment properties. It’s vital to look at more than one property and recommended that you begin searching while getting your financing in order. Keep an eye on local listings by checking out local Real Estate websites. Zillow and Redfin for example, are great platforms. Especially keep an eye out for open houses and make it a point to attend as many as you possibly can. You don’t need a real estate agent to represent you and you can simply walk in to have a look at the properties. This will give you an idea of what’s out there in the market and once you have your financing in order you will also know what you can afford.
Having done this homework in advance will ensure that you don’t jump on the first property that you come across. Start collecting data on what’s the going price per square footage in the area and start getting the feel for the floor plans, layouts, designs, fit and finishes. Having accumulated this knowledge will put you in a better position to identify a good opportunity once it arises.
Things to look for
Some of the things that you should look for when inspecting properties are:
A) the area where the property is situated. One of the best things to do is to look at the school ratings in the area. The higher the ratings, the likelier the chance that the area has lower crime rate and has other attractive perks.
B) Look for properties away from main roads and intersections to avoid road noise since that’s something you won’t be able to fix once you have acquired the property.
C) Look for homes with hardwood or laminate floors over carpeted homes. It is highly likely that you will end up having to replace the carpet after the departure of every tenant. Overtime, this will eat into your profits and add to your annual costs.
ROI Calculations
Aside from looking at the property and assessing its condition, part of the homework also requires that you do some number crunching to see if the acquisition of the property is financially viable. The first thing that you would need to do is to see how much income you could potentially generate from this property.
Rental income may be the most obvious source of revenue in this case but there are other things to consider as well, such as a coin operated laundry on the premise or extra storage etc. You can get these approximates from either the seller (if they are also using the property as a rental property), from the sellers agent, or by doing some research on your own by checking to see how much similar properties are being listed for rent in the area. Add to this the equity portion of the monthly payment you will be making towards the mortgage loan.
Once you have figured out your expected monthly income, tally up your monthly expenses. Add up obvious things like the mortgage, property taxes, insurance and HOA/Condo fees. And not so obvious things like provisions for unexpected repairs, vacancy and capital expenditures which are funds set aside to deal with bigger maintenance related expenses such as roof repairs etc. Depending on whether you want your tenants to pay for the utilities or not, you’d have to make provisions for those here as well. Although, we recommend that you write it up in your rental agreement as a tenant’s responsibility. This will ensure that they don’t abuse the utilities and stick you with the bill.
Now that you have your rental income and expenses calculated, you subtract your expenses from your income to get your cash flow. At this point, you obviously hope that this cash flow value is positive. But you want to take it one step further and determine the cash on cash return on your potential rental property investment. To determine this, you need to calculate how much you’d be spending to acquire this property. That calculation will include adding up the down payment that you will be making, your closing costs (these are activities that are needed to process the transaction such as the title fees, flood insurance, loan origination fees etc), cost of any work that you’ll need to do on the property to make it habitable before a tenant moves in, etc.
Now to calculate the cash on cash return on investment, you take your expected annual income (multiply the monthly income that you calculated earlier, by 12) and then divide it by the cost of acquiring the property. The number you will get is the percentage cash on cash return value of your investment. Now to determine whether this is a value that makes this a worthwhile investment, you need to compare this number to the average return offered by other investment vehicles in the market at the time of property acquisition.
If there are other less riskier and profitable investment options available then you are better off investing your money there rather than in the property, however, the stability offered by a recurring rental income stream is usually enough to offset the slight upper hand that stock market trading often has in terms of return on investment. What makes a rental property investment even more of a lucrative option is the fact that the property often appreciates in value and also the rents usually go up a few percentage points with each passing year so your return on investment value only stands to improve.
Property Inspection
Once you have narrowed down a property, make sure to have it inspected by a professional. Look for a good property inspector. Usually you can find them by looking them up on Yelp. It’s vital to get an inspector who is going to be thorough in their inspection. Their job is to look at structural defects, electrical, plumbing, roofing, sewers conditions, radon tests and every other thing imaginable. The more thorough the inspection, the more informed of a decision you will be able to make regarding whether to sink your hard earned/saved money into a particular rental property for investment or not. Having said that, it’s not necessary to reject a property based on the list of issues found. You can in fact use these issues to either negotiate the price down or get the seller to fix the issues prior to purchasing the property.
Finding a Tenant
Once the transaction is done and you have acquired your rental property for investment, then it comes time to take good pictures of the property in order to post your vacancy ad. Nowadays, smart phones are equipped with really good cameras and with some artistic inspiration that you can get looking at real estate websites and some good lighting, you can take some really good pictures yourself. This is something we recommend you do if your rental property is in a very hot market where the demand is high and supply is low. It’s likely that you will be able to find a tenant without having to dish out money from your pocket to get professional photographs taken of the property.
If you are however not a good photographer or if the property is in an area where tenants are hard to come by, then it’s recommended that you hire a professional for taking photos. Make sure to save these pictures so you can reuse them down the road (so long as you don’t make cosmetic upgrades to the house after the pictures are taken). To advertise the property, use online free classifieds like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace etc to post pictures and description of the property.
It is also important to keep in mind that how you write up the vacancy ad also makes a difference. Make sure to keep the prospective tenant in mind while writing the ad. A young student might be interested in proximity to public transportation and happening locations in town along with closeness to schools and groceries. Whereas a young couple may be interested in the quietness of the neighborhood, quality of schools in the area etc. You would want to highlight these qualities of the property in your ad. If you got em, make sure to point out big items like views, open concept layout, stainless steel appliances, granite counters, hardwood floors, air conditioning etc.
Screening a Tenant
At this stage, hopefully your phone has started to ring or your inbox has started to receive some messages. When that happens, you must be able to showcase the properties to the prospective tenants as soon as possible without delays as you don’t want them to lose interest. You may also want to get ready to run background checks on these tenants. There are several online services available that allow you to do that such as Rent Prep, My Rental and Smart Move.
You can even write up your lease agreement such that you get the tenant to cover the costs of the background check as a non-refundable fee. These services can give a very decent idea of the type of applicant you are dealing with as they include their credit history, eviction reports, bankruptcy records and even criminal background. Based on these reports, you can make a more informed decision about whom you hand over the keys to your property to.
Wrapping it up
The last thing left to be done once you have selected a tenant, is getting the paperwork done. If applicable, make sure to provide the tenant a copy of condo rules and regulations etc as well as go over the terms and conditions in the lease agreement and answer any questions that they may have. You can find a template for a lease agreement by doing a quick google search and amend it to suit your needs. Make sure to iron out the details of how you will be collecting that monthly rental payment (direct deposit, mail in check, Venmo transfer etc) in the lease agreement and that would pretty much wrap up your first source of an income generating rental property set up.
If you are looking for more ideas to increase passive income or learn about investment, make sure to check out the rest of the blog posts here for many more tips and tricks to improve your financial outlook. | https://medium.com/@hustledomain/rental-property-investment-to-make-passive-income-f75d7d0c91f8 | ['Hustle Domain'] | 2021-01-22 01:08:58.298000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Investing', 'Passive Income', 'Side Hustle', 'Rental Income'] |
Reconciling the Differences in Our Data: A Mixed-Methods Research Story | We all love it when the quant and qual align, but what about those other times, when they seem at odds? For example: the surveys are in, the clickstream data has been analyzed, and you’re feeling confident. Then as you compare notes with your teammates, you realize that the recommended next steps based on UX research and data science are poised to send the business in two very different directions.
This was the challenge we found ourselves working to resolve as a user researcher and data scientist with Customer Insights Research supporting the same product team at Microsoft. What seemed like a conflict ended up leading us to deeper insights, a closer working relationship, and a better outcome for our customers—but getting there was a multi-step process.
Step 1. Confront your data discrepancy
Our product team was sunsetting the older version of an app in favor of one that provides accessibility for all users. To help our stakeholders understand what our customers needed in the new version, researchers had conducted user studies, interviews, and surveys as well as analyzing in-app feedback. Caryn, a researcher, was listening to what our customers were saying: they told us too many of the features they enjoyed in the older app were missing from the new app.
The user research recommendation, based on this analysis? Fill the feature gaps from the older app or customers will not transition over.
Meanwhile, Sera, a data scientist, conducted a cohort analysis with clickstream data to understand what our customers were doing in the older version of the app and how that impacted their transition to the new version. Based on the qualitative feedback, she expected to see customers who used features only available in the older app abandoning the new app. But the analysis showed that they weren’t.
The data science recommendation at this stage? Since customer retention in the new app doesn’t correlate with feature use in the older app, focus on other vital parts of the user journey to help people transition.
Research and data science had arrived at opposing suggestions. Now what?
Step 2. Resist the urge to champion your own data
At this stage, it could have been easy to each double down on our opposing viewpoints. If we’d presented the results, asking our general program manager to choose between recommendations, at least one of us would have the satisfaction of knowing we influenced the product. But how could our stakeholders and leaders be confident they were making the best data-driven decision, if we forced them to choose between quant and qual?
In a way, mixed-methods research is an exercise in getting comfortable with conflict and finding reconciliation instead of a “winner.” Happily, we each realized this and resisted the urge to champion our own perspective. We asked for the time we needed to investigate further, and our product team accommodated. | https://medium.com/microsoft-design/reconciling-the-differences-in-our-data-a-mixed-methods-research-story-6c1a2fe2f9f4 | ['Caryn Kieszling'] | 2019-12-31 19:14:29.344000+00:00 | ['Research And Insight', 'Design', 'UX', 'Data Science', 'Microsoft'] |
Social Token | Social Token Airdrop
🔹PRE-SALE SLT Token Available🔹
🔓Supply : 10,000,000,000 SLT
💎Price Listing Exchange : 250 TRX = 265 SLT
💥Price Token SLT Sale : 500 TRX = 560 SLT
💥Price Token SLT Sale : 1000 TRX = 1150 SLT
💥Price Token SLT Sale : 5000 TRX = 6500 SLT
💥Minimum Buy : 10000 TRX — 12500 SLT
👤Limited 5000 Participation
📊Soon Listing Price Justswap : $0.03 USD on TRX
How to receive Fast SLT Coin
👤Did you not install Tron Link Pro:
1️⃣ Install Tron Link Pro Mobile Wallet
2️⃣ Add assetd
3️⃣ Past this Contract Address
TXjG8cKJH3VNTRC8dcyxQLy7yKBxb7MZps
1️⃣Post PRE-SALE SLT: https://t.me/SocialToken_official
2️⃣Send TRX To contract Address: press to copy:
✅ TXjG8cKJH3VNTRC8dcyxQLy7yKBxb7MZps
3️⃣After confirmation of your sent TRX transaction, SLT will be sent to your wallet for 5 minutes, completely automatically.
🔹Contract SLT Verified https://tronscan.org/#/contract/TXjG8cKJH3VNTRC8dcyxQLy7yKBxb7MZps/code | https://medium.com/@socialmediatoken/social-token-ba61e504f483 | ['Social Token'] | 2020-12-15 06:54:00.496000+00:00 | ['Trx', 'Tron', 'Social Media', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Token Sale'] |
hello, my name is amelia, and welcome to the diary of a 19 year old girl trying to find her place… | hello, my name is amelia, and welcome to the diary of a 19 year old girl trying to find her place in the world. well, not diary, but more of a journal or blog or whatever you’d like to call it. i’m writing this in hopes of reaching people going through similar things in their lives that i encounter in mine and letting them know that they aren’t alone.
hey, you. yes, you. you have secrets, don’t you? don’t worry, i won’t ask what they are; secrets should be kept hidden unless it yours to tell. with this app, i will be telling you a few things only a few people know. like, not even my parents know. i’ve made friends with some pretty awesome people that respect my secrets.
let’s become friends! | https://medium.com/@mkmrfwph/hello-my-name-is-amelia-and-welcome-to-the-diary-of-a-19-year-old-girl-trying-to-find-her-place-3fae8acf00ac | ['Amelia Scott'] | 2020-12-18 03:15:36.324000+00:00 | ['Teenagers', 'Anxiety', 'LGBTQ', 'Youngadult', 'Depression'] |
Your New Year movie recommendations are finally here! Here are the top 5 movies you should be watching on New Year’s eve | 4. Snowpiercer
For people who are not into romcoms, this action-packed movie will never fail to entertain you. In a dystopian future around 2031, the world has been hit by some catastrophe, and the only survivors are packed into a train that circles the globe. The front compartments are occupied by the “more important” people and the ones in the last compartment are usually people in the lower strata of the class system. Fed up by this bifurcation, one man decides to make the train “classless” by traveling up the compartments to the front of the train. The catch here is that every time the train completes a full circle around the globe, a year is considered to have passed by. Thus, it is a New Year’s eve movie but the type of New Year celebrated in this movie is quite different from the movies mentioned above. It has achieved perfect equilibrium by putting in some classic adrenaline-filled action sequences and by making a critique on how society would always fail to be completely classless and equal. With Chris Evans in the lead and the Korean filmmaking maestro Bong Joon Ho at the helm (who would go on to win four Oscars for his hit film “Parasite” in 2019), this movie is all set to become a “sleeper hit”. | https://medium.com/@lifein16by9/your-new-year-movie-recommendations-are-finally-here-d03f4f5d633 | ['Life In'] | 2020-12-27 08:14:31.870000+00:00 | ['Movie Review', 'New Years Eve', 'Movies To Watch', 'Movies', 'New Year'] |
OpenTracing using Spring Cloud Sleuth | Introduction
In the world of microservices, a distributed transaction moves across multiple services. OpenTracing would be very helpful to reduce Mean Time To Detect (MTTD) an issue in a distributed transaction.
Trace: Description of a distributed transaction that moves across multiple services.
Span: Timed operation within a distributed transaction. A group of spans form a trace
Span Context: As the distributed transaction moves from one service to another service, the span context needs to be propagated as well. Span Context can be propagated using B3 propagation, a specification for the header “B3” and those that start with “X-B3-”. Below are the“X-B3-” headers propagated through the network call.
X-B3-TraceId
X-B3-ParentSpanId
X-B3-SpanId
X-B3-Sampled
Zipkin is a distributed tracing system. It helps gather timing data needed to troubleshoot latency problems in service architectures. Features include both the collection and lookup of this data by Trace Id.
Run the below commands to run Zipkin server in local machine
curl -sSL https://zipkin.io/quickstart.sh | bash -s
java -jar zipkin.jar
Spring Cloud Sleuth provides Spring Boot auto-configuration for OpenTracing. Sleuth instruments common ingress and egress points (RestTemplate, Spring Kafka, etc.) with OpenTracing
Dependencies
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-cloud-sleuth-zipkin</artifactId>
</dependency> <dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-cloud-starter-sleuth</artifactId>
</dependency>
RestTemplate must be a Spring Component, otherwise, http calls won’t be intercepted by tracing
I have created a sample service using Spring Boot Cloud Sleuth. Please follow the below steps to run it
1. Clone the repo
2. In the terminal, cd to the code base
3. Run mvn clean install
4. As shown in the below image, open 4 terminal windows (one for Zipkin server, two for MainService, three for UserService and four for BookService)
java -jar target/sampleservice-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar --server.port=8080 --spring.application.name=MainService java -jar target/sampleservice-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar --server.port=8081 --spring.application.name=UserService java -jar target/sampleservice-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar --server.port=8082 --spring.application.name=BookService
5. Once Zipkin is started and MainService, UserService and BookServices are started, open the following url http://localhost:8080/users/4890-12-29379490/details/
6. Trace and Span data should be displayed as shown below
6. Trace and Span data should be displayed as shown below
7. Open Zipkin server using the url http://localhost:9411/ and enter the Trace Id in the search box (Search by trace ID)
8. It displays the distributed transaction involving the calls to UserService and BookService, made by MainService.
Zipkin Server showing the distributed transaction
Happy coding :)
https://github.com/vpandeti/opentracing
References:
https://opentracing.io/docs/overview/
https://zipkin.io/
https://spring.io/projects/spring-cloud-sleuth | https://medium.com/@vpandeti/opentracing-using-spring-cloud-sleuth-354b67b03935 | ['Venkat Pandeti'] | 2020-12-10 23:44:51.781000+00:00 | ['Microservices', 'Opentracing', 'Distributed Tracing', 'Spring Boot', 'Sleuth'] |
How to make a homepage convert better. Shaking up the banking system. | I think these guys might just be my dream client.
www.punk.money
They’re making casual loans easier for your average joe. So basically they’re sticking it to the banks and payday lenders. They’ve also got room for a pretty cool tone of voice. I say “room” because I think they could dial it up a bit. But I’m jumping the gun here. Read on, and you’ll see what I mean. Anyway, let’s get to it and Punk Money, if you’re listening, let’s change the world together ya?
The Good
Bloody love the graphic design. It’s loud. It’s punky. It’s memorable. It’s also not too scruffy. This is after all a financial service. When dealing with the serious topic of money one can’t be too rock ‘n roll. So to whoever’s behind the visuals, well done. I think you nailed the fine line between reflecting the punkiness and not scaring people off.
Complementing the visuals is the copy’s punky tone. Any financial services company that can say “we’re tearing the system apart from the inside” has gotta be worth a look in. And that value prop; “money for the people, by the people.” That’s almost starting to make loans sound sexy! So yes. Digging the value proposition. Well. Sort of. Because on the other hand…
The Bad
The value prop could do with being a tad more specific. Although I could hazard a guess, I wasn’t completely sure what Punk Money was until I scrolled below the fold.
Yes, “access to the money you need, when you need it” sounds like it’s offering loans. Still, without using a phrase like “all-purpose loans” some visitors may get the wrong idea and think it’s, say, a crowdfunding platform and bounce because of it.
Also, I think that CTA is a little premature. We need to explain the product a bit more before we ask for any kind of commitment. Despite the groovy exterior, we’re still looking after people’s cash here. We can’t ask for commitment willy nilly. And yes, I know this is just the pre-launch registration but lets at least say a bit more before we jump into people’s inboxes.
I also think we’re missing a trick by not starting with the pain point this product solves. Since 2008 (at least) banks haven’t had the best reputation. And payday lenders are about as popular as cancer. These two purveyors of financial grief have been causing trouble for far too long and Punk Money is here to stop it! Now there’s some great copy at the bottom of the page that’s getting there: | https://medium.com/@robbiekingthing/how-to-make-a-homepage-convert-better-2-shaking-up-the-banking-system-7a29f30ccca | ['Robbie King'] | 2019-05-10 01:35:43.870000+00:00 | ['Financial Services', 'UI', 'UX', 'Copywriting', 'Conversion Optimization'] |
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