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I Never Wanted to Homeschool… | I love my kids. I truly do. And I love spending time with them. But I also love when they leave for school in the morning and I know that some other (hopefully) responsible adult is in charge of them and their education for the duration of the day.
I am one of those parents who reads all of the messages on the class Whatsapp group, but still has no idea (nor do I particularly care) what assignments are due when, what the test schedule is, or which teacher is going on maternity leave. I know the names of my kids’ classroom teachers, but I couldn’t tell you the names of most of the individual subject teachers and I certainly wouldn’t recognize any of them on the street.
This is not out of laziness nor out of a lack of caring about my kids’ education. I care deeply. Possibly even too much. My attitude towards their education is driven by two fundamental facts or beliefs:
At the end of the day, I am an immigrant in an unfamiliar culture. I’ve learned to accept the fact that there are certain things I will just never understand (such as the need to wear white shirts so often and the hierarchy of the generic statements written on report cards). It’s simply impossible for me to be the super-involved parent when it comes to school because I don’t always have the right words in Hebrew nor do I even know the right questions to ask.
I’ve never had kids in the education system in America, so I do not know if I would feel or act differently there where I do speak the language and know the culture, but the second fundamental belief leads me to believe that I probably would have behaved similarly there too.
A lot of time and effort went into choosing the schools to which we send our children. Three kids in three different schools is proof enough that my husband and I both value their very individual needs over what would be more convenient for us. I send them to schools where I trust as much as I possibly can that the teachers know what they are doing — if I didn’t, I wouldn’t send them there. So, why should I micro-manage the teachers? They are professionals and I am not. Sure, I know my kid(s) well, but I don’t see them in a classroom setting. I may be able to spot that my 3rd grader is not reading at what I think should be grade-level, but I have no idea how to even guess what the underlying cause of that is or how to address it. But her teacher does know. Because she is a teacher and I am not.
Let me emphasize that again. I am not a teacher. My oldest son was taught to tie his shoes by his tennis teacher when he was six — never even crossed my mind that I should teach him that! Again…I am not a teacher. When any of my kids ask me a general knowledge question, my answer is almost always either “ask Daddy” or “ask Alexa” or “Google it.” Sometimes I do know the answer but I do not know how to teach them the knowledge.
(I just want to be clear here — I am talking about teaching hard skills and things you learn in school. Obviously I am very much a teacher when it comes to imparting the values that I want my kids to have, but that is a topic for another post).
So, you can imagine the scenario back in March when suddenly I became a homeschool teacher. I know tons of parents can relate — the shock, the fear, the realization that 3rd grade math is beyond my abilities! Granted, we were very lucky. My older kids, in 8th and 10th grades, both had excellent distance learning programs that required minimal involvement from me other than the occasional tech support, including and not limited to, the dog eating the internet cable. For the 3rd grader, things were not as simple. Her school tried and I continue to have the utmost respect for the teachers and administrators, but running a class of 30-something 8 years olds on Zoom is just not going to work.
In my head, I thought — ok, she will get her assignments and she will sit in my office next to me and I will do my work and she will do hers. It will be blissful and fun. Needless to say it was neither blissful nor fun. I could barely understand the assignments myself (in Hebrew), let alone explain them to my daughter in a way that she could understand and then do the work on her own. To do it properly would have involved hours of sitting with her to the neglect of my own work. And I’m sure it would have ended with both of us in tears.
Instead, she attended all of the Zoom classes when they took place. She did whatever work she was able to do on her own. She supplemented with some online projects and classes from Khan Academy and others. And she watched a ton of YouTube videos, probably including ones that were totally inappropriate for a child of her age. She now has a “life hack” for every possible situation.
I think she was almost as excited as I was when school resumed in May. I have no idea what is going to happen in September. But I am terrified. I keep picturing my daughter’s future, my sons’ too — as part of a generation of children who will have missed a year (or more? Who knows!) of their formative education.
There are so many unknowns about both the short-term and long-term impact of corona. One thing that is 100% certain is that nothing will ever be the same again — for good and for bad. I, like many others, am still looking for the lessons to be learned. I am hopeful for the emergence of strong leaders, for medical advances that will lead to a vaccine, for people to come together and put on masks even if they think it goes against their basic human rights because it just might save a life.
I never wanted to homeschool my children and I still don’t want to. I don’t know what the 2020–21 school year is going to look like. I hope it involves me going back to being relatively uninvolved in the day-to-day of my kids’ education. Because, as the best meme I’ve seen during this whole crisis said, “You think it’s bad now? In 20 years the world will be run by people who were homeschooled by day drinkers.” | https://medium.com/@ebgk72/i-never-wanted-to-homeschool-afd6807c75df | ['Emily Kirschenbaum'] | 2020-07-19 18:04:41.113000+00:00 | ['Corona', 'Expat Life', 'Israel', 'Homeschool'] |
OUR STORIES | “The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” (Frank Lloyd Wright) Non-fiction pieces, personal essays, occasional poems and short fiction that explore how we feel about how we age and offer tips for getting the most out of life.
Follow | https://medium.com/crows-feet/our-stories-4e9f1b2f2ecd | ['Nancy Peckenham'] | 2020-11-28 17:50:25.657000+00:00 | ['Longevity', 'Aging', 'Health And Wellness', 'Wellness', 'Retirement'] |
The Power of Annual Reviews | This year I write my fifth annual review based on the above mentioned questions. Although I am not a writer or an influencer, I do it for myself. I decided to write in my free time in few years ago. Unfortunately, I could not manage to establish stable writing habits. But I read a lot of books and articles.
However, I did not produce content for the world, I make weekly journals and each year I write my Annual Review.
I like the weekly journals because, I can check what was in my head at the same time in one or more years ago. The time flies, and it is good, that I can recall my feelings.
However, the power of writing the annual reviews are broaden the horizon. I can judge my life. I see my life in helicopter view.
The most important that the thoughts are written. You can put your yourself in your shoes in the past.
I believe in the process of thinking, planning and execution. You can influence your life significantly. I am sure that education can give you a chance. I know, that a smart and hardworking person can achieve a lot. I encourage everybody to work towards the dreams.
However, I am a bit fatalist as well. And your fate is reflected in your annual reviews.
When you are reviewing your former annual reviews, you recognize some life changing events. Maybe you decided to make a career change. Or you met somebody who made a big influence on you. You established a family. You started a new hobby or healthy routines.
I enjoyed recall my last five years with the read of the Annual Reviews. I inspire everyone to write the Annual Review.Writing your thoughts is always beneficial. Because you do it only once a year, you can free up some time for it.
It is the end of December, 2020. Great time to do your first one. | https://medium.com/@jozsef.garab/the-power-of-annual-reviews-947c676576dd | ['Jozsef Garab'] | 2020-12-20 21:02:46.537000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Goals', 'Time Management', 'Productivity'] |
BUSINESS | BUSINESS
Illinois Will ‘Blow Past’ $1 Billion In Legal Marijuana Sales In 2021, Chamber Of Commerce President Says
Marijuana Moment
“Are we going to get to a billion dollars? I think we’re going to blow past the billion dollars based on the experience in smaller states,” the Chamber leader said.
By Elyse Kelly, The Center Square
Illinois’s cannabis industry is growing up fast, with adult-use recreational cannabis sales expected to hit $1 billion by year-end.
In March alone, Illinoisans spent $110 million on recreational marijuana.
Todd Maisch, president and CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, said one factor contributing to Illinois’ explosive growth is that most neighboring states haven’t legalized marijuana yet.
“What we saw early on in states like Washington and Colorado is they did have demand come in from surrounding states, which frankly benefits our industry and benefits the taxes collected,” Maisch said.
Cannabis sales have already surpassed alcohol’s tax revenues for the state, and Maisch said he thinks $1 billion estimates are conservative.
“Are we going to get to a billion dollars? I think we’re going to blow past the billion dollars based on the experience in smaller states,” Maisch said.
There are only a couple of things that could stop Illinois’ explosive cannabis market growth, Maisch said. He said that policymakers could ruin things by pushing taxes too high as evidenced by the tobacco market.
“As taxes have gone up and up and up, they’ve pushed people all the way into the black market or they’ve created this grey market in which people are ostensibly paying some of the taxes, but they’re still getting sources of tobacco products that avoid much of the tax,” Maisch said.
The other thing that could head off continued growth is other states opening up recreational-use markets.
“So if you start to see surrounding states go to recreational, that’s definitely going to flatten the curve because we’re not going to be pulling in demand from other states,” Maisch said.
Maisch points out some concerns that accompany the explosion of Illinois’s recreational cannabis market including workforce preparedness.
“All of those individuals who are deciding to go ahead and consume this product are really taking themselves out of a lot of job opportunities that they would otherwise be qualified, so there’s a real upside and a downside,” Maisch said.
While it’s easy to track the revenues this industry brings into state coffers, he points out, it will be harder to track the lack of productivity and qualified individuals to operate heavy machinery and other jobs that require employees to pass a drug test. | https://medium.com/@jonasdrey7/business-580543c8c765 | ['Jonas Drey'] | 2021-06-16 02:02:45.572000+00:00 | ['420', 'Hemp', 'Marijuana', 'Weed', 'Cannabis'] |
Trump’s Refusal to Dream, Acknowledge Reality, Devastating to Environment and Economy | Greening the Economy is the only way to keep the U.S. competitive in the global economy and to save the environment. flickr.com
President Donald Trump, in comments made at the recent G-7 summit in France, positioned himself as the protector of United States’ wealth, justifying his refusal to address, much less believe in, climate change on grounds that investing in green energy production would damage the nation’s economic standing.
The U.S. has “tremendous wealth,” Trump told reporters. “I’m not going to lose that wealth. I’m not going to lose it on dreams and windmills, which, frankly, aren’t working that well.”
A reality check is necessary here on a couple of counts.
First, green energy production is not a dream, but a substantial reality in nations around the globe, including China, Denmark, and Germany, and, yes, the U.S.
Second, windmills, actually, seem to be working quite well in the U.S. and around the globe.
Just take Iowa as an example. Trump might think about Iowa as a “Field of Dreams,” but the state is actually a field of renewable energy production reality. While states such as New York and California have passed aspirational legislation requiring their states to achieve 50 percent renewable energy use by 2030, and Hawaii has aggressively legislated that utilities must get 100 percent from their electricity from renewable sources by 2045, Iowa has been a trailblazer in creating this reality, generating 40 percent of its energy from renewable sources.
And, according to the United States Energy Information Administration, “One-third of Iowa’s net electricity generation comes from wind, the second-largest share of any state.”
From wind!
And Iowa’s continuing infrastructure investments in windmills promise to lift that level of energy production from wind to 40 percent by the end of 2019. In 2008, only four percent of the state’s electricity generation was sourced by wind.
Additionally, farmers are eager to install wind turbines alongside their corn and garner additional income.
Denmark offers another example of the environmental and economic successes of windmills. The nation generates a whopping 42 percent of its electricity from wind, and the wind energy industry is a billion-dollar industry in Denmark and an export success, whether it be through wind farms, turbine production, or off-shore installation.
And other countries, including the U.S.’s top competitors, are keenly aware that the greening of a nation’s economy, represented in Trump’s phrase “dreams and windmills,” does not result in a loss of wealth but is in fact essential to nation’s ability to maintain and grow wealth and remain economically competitive in the global arena.
Germany, a nation that already generates 41% of its energy from renewable sources, recently announced a plan, expected to be adopted by the government, to shut down all 84 of its coal-fired power plants by 2038 in order to meets international commitments to address climate change. This plan came on the heels of a previous decision, made after Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster, to shut down all its nuclear power plants by 2022 (12 of 19 have already been shut down).
Germany also introduced the world’s first zero-emission passenger train to be powered by hydrogen.
Similarly, China has invested heavily in electric buses, and is positioned as a global leader. They have deployed a fleet of 421,000 electric buses. By comparison, the U.S. has 300 electric buses.
Looking at Iowa and around the globe, it’s clear Trump’s “dreams and windmills” are in fact not dreams at all, but rather a stark reality that must be acknowledged and embraced in any viable plan for a nation’s economic development.
Indeed, in a recent report from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst titled “A Green New Deal for Washington State: Climate Stabilization, Good Jobs, and Just Transition,” Robert Polli, Heidi Garrett-Peltier, and Jeannette Wicks-Lim highlight the intimate linkages between environmental sustainability and responsibility, infrastructure investment and development, and job creation.
The Green New Deal they propose “will create major opportunities to expand job opportunities and launch new industrial development initiatives throughout the state, while also supporting a healthy overall level of economic growth that supports existing employment levels.” Additionally, they project, “clean energy investments in Washington State that would be sufficient to put the state on a true climate stabilization trajectory will generate about 40,000 jobs per year within the state.”
Government researchers, though, have made the intertwinement of economic and environmental health abundantly clear. The report, released last November, emphasizes,
“With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century — more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many U.S. states.” The report charts the negative impacts of global warming in terms of undermining human health, damaging infrastructure, limiting the availability of clean water, and increasing costs in farming, fisheries, and industrial and energy production, in addition to economic damages and costs related to altering coastlines.
And yet we wait for an infrastructure plan from Trump.
It may be that his denial of climate change is an obstacle to his willingness to invest in infrastructure.
In the past, Trump has praised China for its infrastructure, declaring, “China, you go there now, roads, bridges, schools, you never saw anything like it,” he marveled. “I love China,” he went on. But America? He continued, “We’re dying. We’re dying. … We’ve got nothing.”
To get “something,” though, by many accounts, would mean investing in a green economy, as other nations and even our own states are doing.
Trump once famously pronounced, “The American dream is dead.”
It seems dead primarily — and dangerously — in his political imagination.
And the death of that dream portends an American environmental and economic nightmare. | https://timlittlebooks.medium.com/trumps-refusal-to-dream-acknowledge-reality-devastating-to-environment-and-economy-1b41831d2ed1 | ['Tim Libretti'] | 2019-09-02 16:19:12.129000+00:00 | ['Economy', 'Politics', 'Climate Change', 'Economics', 'Environment'] |
Reflections of my life, part I | As a young girl coming to this country, I was very well aware that this was not my home country and the country I was born in (Romania) wasn’t either any longer. I never had a sense of belonging in this country. Neither did my home country fill that void. In order to, what my therapist would later tell me, “survive” I adapted. I was friends at school with different types of kids, not just hanging out with the “popular kids” or just the girls. I tried to blend in everywhere, like a chameleon. That gave me a sense of security and a sense of comfort, but I still felt like an outsider. There were not a lot of kids like me. Not a lot of refugees, Romanians, girls dressed like me, with my music taste, no kids with a complicated life story from the start. However I never wanted to be like anybody else, I always wanted to be myself.
As a young girl I loved books. I must have been around 8 years old when I got this big book full of fairy tales. By the end of the day I had read it all. I used to go to the library A LOT. It was my favorite spot. When I close my eyes I can still see the entire library, where I would walk and run my fingers past the books. Books have always made me feel joyous and I still get excited when I see beautiful libraries or books. If only you could see the amount of books I have bought and collected over the years. So it was only a natural consequence that at about 10 years of age I entered my school’s book reading competition. This used to be part of an annual national competition in the Netherlands. The way it was set up was that you would first compete in your own school and if you won you went on to the regional one.
I won the competition at my elementary school two years in a row. It qualified me for the regional competition. That is where I didn’t win, but I was mentioned in the local newspaper. The judges hadn’t noticed I wasn’t originally Dutch. As I said I lost the competition at the regional level, but depending on what you consider failure, I considered it a win. I was featured in the newspaper and I remember my parents being very proud of me. I was not sure whether it was because the sliver of fame I had gotten or my participation in the competition, but I relished the moment. I felt I was officially like one of the other kids.
As a young girl all I wanted to do was the arts. I sang, danced, formed dancing groups with my best friend, designed clothes, wrote love poems and my own song lyrics. Later on in high school I took part in the yearly high school musical and sang in the pop choir. It was all fun and games until my parents required that I get a conventional job.
I ended up studying communication science at the only university in this country that had a school campus. At that age I really wanted to study in the USA. But unfortunately that was quite unaffordable for my family. The school campus in Enschede was in my eyes the closest thing to an American university campus. I did find it difficult to choose my major, but decided to study something that I always used to see in movies. With communication science I chose something that I thought could get me a job after graduation.
As I progressed and almost graduated with my Master’s degree, I felt it wasn’t something that captured me in my essence. I felt bored and couldn’t imagine a life of writing communication and marketing plans. I felt I was missing a certain depth. What I was studying felt too superficial to me in a sense and not worthy of further investing my time and energy.
How I eventually ended up choosing and switching to a different university, is perhaps a story for another time. But I did switch during the final months of finishing up my Master degree and moved to a different city. I chose to study International Development Studies in Wageningen. Till this day I feel that it is one of the best decisions in my life. I loved it. I was surrounded by students from all over the World, and somehow I no longer felt like an outsider. I found myself in each and every classmate, from Indonesia to Ghana to Lebanon. It wasn’t easy for my parents to understand my decision, but I was very sure it was the right move. The material challenged me and I loved doing the class assignments.
Fast forward to 10 years later, I am now 35 years of age, and looking back at life and reflecting more often than not about everything that I did or felt or wanted. In pursuit of finding my true purpose, understanding my behavior and decisions. My whole life has shaped me up to the person that I am today, I do not fall within the strict confinements of certain “boxes”. I understand everyone who does whatever is necessary to fit the mould, but I am curious when one gets to do what their heart yearns for. | https://medium.com/@andra-m-iacob/reflections-of-my-life-part-i-af1e9bcc5c7c | [] | 2020-12-27 12:55:58.243000+00:00 | ['Decision Making', 'Feelings', 'Life', 'Reflections'] |
How to Wean Yourself Off Smartphones and Social Media | You probably can’t cut tech out of your life completely, but here are some tips to take back control.
By Rob Marvin
How often do you open your smartphone and find you’ve lost 30 minutes or perhaps hours of your day?
It’s all too easy to get lost in our screens as we tap from app to app and scroll through social feeds. In our hyper-connected world, cutting out tech altogether is unrealistic unless you’re ready to drop off the grid and move to a log cabin in the wilderness. What you can do is try consuming tech mindfully.
Whether you think you’re spending too much time on social media, feel like you’re becoming too attached to your smartphone, or are suffering from a more serious tech addiction, we could all stand to be a little less wired. Here are some tips to wean yourself off compulsive smartphone and social media habits, and how to regain control over how you consume technology. | https://medium.com/pcmag-access/how-to-wean-yourself-off-smartphones-and-social-media-8fc04ccc9151 | [] | 2018-04-18 14:40:32.497000+00:00 | ['Addiction', 'Technology', 'Mobile', 'Social Media', 'Apps'] |
Do White Men Rule the World Because They’re More Intelligent? | In 1921, Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to Theoretical Physics.” Einstein was undoubtedly a genius and his contributions to science were deserving of such a prestigious award. Being awarded a Nobel Prize is no easy feat. It involves making an outstanding contribution to the sciences, economics, literature or world peace.
Now, genius is highly subjective. What genius means for some, is different for others. Not every genius who has made a brilliant scientific discovery receives a Nobel Prize — Nikola Tesla being a notable exception. And not every genius falls under the scope of the Nobel Prizes. There are countless brilliant creatives in the arts, music and film industry’s who aren’t awarded prizes, as the arts (bar literature) don’t fall under their remit.
But, the Nobel Prizes do offer a useful barometer into whose considered a scientific, economic, or literary genius deserving of praise, and whose not. When looking at the diversity of those awarded a prize the shocking lack of diversity may surprise you.
Since the first ceremony in 1901, 923 people have received a Nobel Prize. Only 54 prizes have been awarded to women or 6% of the total.
The lack of racial diversity might be even worse.
Of the 923 winners, 70 are of Asian descent. 14 winners are of African descent. And a black person has never won a Nobel Prize in Science, not one.
That means 90% of winners have been white, 94% of winners have been male. If you saw these statistics without reflecting on them, the only conclusion you could make is white men are geniuses, everyone else isn’t. | https://medium.com/an-injustice/do-white-men-rule-the-world-because-theyre-more-intelligent-4eef189edd96 | ['Paul Abela'] | 2020-08-17 18:56:43.345000+00:00 | ['Patriarchy', 'Society', 'Culture', 'Gender Equality', 'Racism'] |
How to Increase Your Learning Abilities | Whether it is an advanced skill, a new technology, a second language, or new information, learning is the key to growing and understanding the world around us. Someone who abandons learning will get left behind in this day and age where every passing moment offers new awareness.
“Continuous learning is essential for critical thinking, analytical mind development, and overall mental growth. Learning also broadens your vision, and your ability to see situations, problems, and techniques in broader ways.”
Besides having a photographic memory, I’ve adopted a few methodologies that help me retain massive amounts of information readily at my disposal. I am going to share them with you.
Learning is important, and so are the techniques which can help to make it faster and more efficient. The following are a few techniques to help you enhance your learning abilities.
Techniques to Enhance Learning Abilities
Relate to Realities of Your Life
Information that we are unable to relate to, become harder to learn, as compared to things that are more meaningful to us. We have learned thousands of facts and figures in school but can only recall a few of them, because for most of us school wasn’t that fun or interesting.
The only learned things that we remember are those that were meaningful to us and that we have been able to practically adopt in our life. One key to learning fast, instead of cramming information, formulas, jargon, or anything, is to figure out where the things you are learning that can be applied in your everyday life, and or the lives of those you care about.
For me the first secret to learning would be that you have to care about yourself and others enough to turn what you learn into meaningful, practical and useful information.
Learn by Doing
We learn best by doing things, by real practice. Whatever we learn through theory is stored in our memory for a short span of time until we apply it in the form of a task.
For instance, if you are trying to master a new language, talking to the natives would be the best way to learn that new language.
Similarly, listening to hundreds of lectures about Adobe Photoshop would never make you master the software, but spending a few weeks with the software, and going through trial and error will prove to be the best way to learn it.
Remember when you learned to drive a car, or ride a bike? It was only when you got on the bike, or behind the wheel that you actually learned how.
For me the second secret to learning would be that it’s best to dive in and practice what you want to learn.
Share What You Learn
One of the best ways you can learn new skills and retain them, is to share them with others. Much research supports this phenomenon. A particular study was done to test this theory.
Two groups were given a write-up to learn with different perspectives: one was expected to take a test and the other group was expected to teach it.
Surprisingly, the group that was supposed to teach it, learned the write-up better. When we learn something with the intention to teach it, we break it into simple and understandable chunks for ourselves. It also forces us to analyze the topic more critically and thoroughly. Furthermore, the need to teach others makes us revisit everything, and the information stores in our minds longer.
This works because of the first secret to learning that I’ve shared with you. You have to care about yourself and others. You won’t be motivated to learn to teach, if you don’t care about teaching people. Teaching requires caring.
One of the reasons I love to speak, and coach, and mentor is that it serves as a reminder to myself.
“When we become busy helping others learn and grow, we help ourselves continue to retain and practice what we’ve learned.”
Take Breaks
Our brains work best when we start something and complete it. This works well in executing tasks, however when it comes to learning we need to tap into diffused and scattered thoughts as well.
For learning, the focused mind, can go through certain facts and figures relating to a problem, while the diffused mental state helps you to see and imagine the bigger picture.
In such a situation, taking a break helps you to knot the dots. Working for 20–40 minutes on a project then resting for 5–10 minutes is the best way to learn. This helps to keep your mind more invigorated and saves you from metal fatigue.
Take Notes
It is considered to be faster and more convenient to take notes on a laptop but using good old fashion pen and paper helps better learn and comprehend. The physical motion of taking notes and seeing them on paper, has an impact on the brain’s ability to increase retention of information.
Taking notes by hand enables one to identify important concepts. Using gadgets to take notes leads to distractions and mindless transcription.
Mental Spacing
Distributed learning is more productive. To remember material for a long time, it is best to review the information with regular intervals. The brain pays less attention during short intervals, so it is best to have longer intervals, such as few days or a week later.
Reviewing the information with longer intervals transmits string signals to the brain that it has to retain the information.
I never had to study for tests in school, because I used the principle of distributed learning. It not only works, it removes a lot of stress from having to cram lots of data last minute for a test, or a presentation.
Test Yourself
Tests are really effective for learning. It is more effective than re-reading and reviewing the notes. A study reveals that the students who were tested about their learning had better long-term recall of the material, even on information that was not covered by the tests. On the other hand, the students who were given extra time to study but were not tested had significantly lower recall of the materials.
This is my final secret to learning and retaining information. Make it a game. Write questions down as you learn information. Put the questions on post-it notes and post them in various places that you’ll uncover throughout the day. Have fun randomly testing yourself.
“Turn learning into a game filled with lots of little self-tests to retain massive amounts of information.”
Conclusion
All the above-mentioned techniques have a significant impact on learning abilities. Relatable information with practical implementation is the fastest way to store information in the mind.
Furthermore, if you take tests and/or teach others, the retention of what you learn becomes stronger.
Frequent breaks and mental spacing is also important for improving learning abilities.
Whenever you want to learn anything new, just apply the simple techniques discussed to get the best results out of your learning.
Originally published at tulliosiragusa.com on November 4, 2019. | https://medium.com/radical-culture/how-to-increase-your-learning-abilities-3625f822f8f8 | ['Tullio Siragusa'] | 2019-12-06 06:34:06.676000+00:00 | ['Growth', 'Leadership', 'Self Improvement', 'Learning', 'Critical Thinking'] |
Victim of Circumstance | I spotted them almost as soon as we stood up. Rather, they spotted me and waved. They were the ceiling guys from the building project I was supervising.
We shook hands as they came over, and they wagged their fingers at me while letting loose weird knowing smiles. I was more than a little lost. Then I looked around the bar we were in and took everything in.
The beer was a little cold but not mortuary standard. They sold neither food nor suya. Not even peppersoup. The chairs were regular plastic and definitely not designed for lengthy interactions with tired backbones. Loud music blared from thin speakers; not great, not awful, just there.
Then I saw the girls. Clad in identically skimpy clothing, you could swear they were twins if you were drunk enough. There were a lot of them, some hidden among the plentiful shadows around the low main building, others milled around, stopping to move ample bosoms in the small clearing that was barely illuminated by deliberately coloured bulbs.
My cheeks flushed with righteous indignation as I grasped the difficulty of the situation I now found myself in. How was I going to tell them that until a few seconds ago, I didn’t know what this place was? That I made a new friend at the hotel who told me to come see this joint he liked, that I might like it too? That like all well-raised young men, I only drank wine and frolicked with women whose dictions came straight out of a dictionary?
I sighed in frustration.
Well since they’d already concluded that I was a hooker connoisseur, I might as well do the hook-up. I gulped the rest of my Gulder as if I was a proper local champion, plunged my hand my left pocket till it grasped the edge of the single durex sachet nestled at the bottom, walked up to the yellow sis I’d been eyeing the entire time, grasped the edge of her cropped top, whispered into her ears, and croaked “how much for short time?” | https://medium.com/@kz-onyegbule/victim-of-circumstance-44d29a6672d6 | ['Kizito Onyegbule'] | 2020-12-16 09:49:11.146000+00:00 | ['Nightlife', 'Afro', 'Nigeria'] |
How new Mac keeps itself cool without fan? | The new apple mac has a lot of efficient heat management. It is recorded that it has good heat management than a PC having water cooling system.
Explanation
The fans in any laptop is connected to CPU through a copper metal heat pipe. This heat pipe is placed over the CPU. This heat pipe sucks only a little amount of heat from the CPU and then fan can also only a decrease the temperature only to a small extent.
Heat sink in a normal laptop
But now in new mac aluminum heat spreader is used which is way more efficient because it is directly connected to the CPU and aluminum is a very efficient heat sucker.
Mac heat sinks
But why aluminum
The metal with most thermal conductivity is Silver and Copper but they are way more expensive so aluminum is the best to use. In relation to its weight is almost twice as good a conductor as copper. See the graph
Thermal Conductivity of different metals
2. Consistency
Thermal conductivity of aluminum in different temperature
3. Non-magnetic
4. Sound and Shock Absorption
5. Non-sparking
6. Recyclability | https://medium.com/@anmolmalikop/how-new-mac-keeps-itself-cool-without-fan-3a3a36676dc4 | ['Anmol Malik'] | 2020-12-06 15:04:00.082000+00:00 | ['Apple', 'Computer Science', 'Mac', 'Technology', 'Knowledge'] |
Startups: Other Things to Consider When Choosing a Tech Stack | Developers love new things, but there are other, equally important factors that technical leaders often overlook.
A “Technology Stack.”
The Internet’s full of articles with titles like “Node vs. Go” or “Battle of the Next-Gen Frameworks,” but side-by-side comparisons like these, often miss the point. There’s a host of other reasons why your business might choose one tech stack over another. | https://medium.com/swlh/startups-things-to-consider-when-choosing-a-tech-stack-9f6bb4a3101d | ['Richard Adams'] | 2019-11-08 05:44:26.839000+00:00 | ['Development', 'Tech Leadership', 'Tech Stack', 'Share Learnings', 'Startup Lessons'] |
The Same River Flows in You — Day 9 of Simplicity | Day Nine — Notice — 25 Days of Simplicity
I love this photo (thanks, Alex Walker for noticing, photographing and sharing). Through some magic, there is a meandering river in this leaf. It’s beautiful.
It helps me take notice.
It reminds me that same magic is in me.
There is a river meandering
through my very body, right at this moment.
It rushes
life through my capillaries
to my fingers and toes, my gut, my lungs, my heart -
eyes and other organs
these gifts that help me notice.
Thank you, River.
Thank you, Mississippi.
You, Water.
Gift of life.
Today, I choose to take notice of your generosity.
Today, as I take a shower, turn on the faucet, wash, drink
I notice. I say to you, “Thank you, River.”
Today, I also take notice.
I notice Anishinaabe women,
Water Protectors,
are caring for you
leading the resistance of Enbridge’s Line 3 Tar Sands Pipeline.
I notice you flowing through them
as prayer-infused breaths of you leave their mouths
to form healing clouds.
Today, I notice the same river that runs in them, runs in me.
I notice, and I am moved to gratitude and care-filled action.
Today, during this pandemic, I notice.
I notice that a pipeline is being built, right now,
through Northern Minnesota.
Through Anishinaabe territory.
Through wetlands and forest.
Through the waters
that grow walleye and wild rice.
Through you, Mississippi.
You, Generous Artery, of Earth’s heart.
I notice.
Today I notice that the same river
that runs through the Water Protectors,
and through me, and the leaf, and through you,
it runs through the construction workers,
and under kevlar vests through the hearts of law enforcement
carrying guns with rubber bullets,
through our elected officials making choices
and choosing not to make choices
and impacting so many lives.
It runs through executives and stockholders
of multi-national corporations
whose senses have become dulled by money
who have forgotten that water is life.
The same river.
I notice.
And I am moved to prayer.
Great Love,
River,
rushing Spirit,
course through this body — through these bodies
Meander
Erode the hardened banks within
Those places compacted by fear, greed,
comfortable complacency
or by despair.
Soak this body. Soften it.
Help this body remember what is Enough.
Carry this body, as we give ourselves
back to the care of your Flow.
And in your right time, and now,
transform us. Make us Living Water,
that we would draw from our innermost depths.
That creative,
gentle
and wild
loving action would flow
out from our bodies,
like clear
life-giving
water.
Stir up our sleeping wisdom
Teach us to notice
Teach us to care for you,
Caring River.
Thank you.
Please, today, take notice.
Notice the gift of water.
Notice that water is life.
And as you drink a glass of living water,
ask of it
to stir up in you
a deeper love for all of life.
If you want to learn more about Water Protectors, and of Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands pipeline, and if you would like to care for the water even during this pandemic, there are several ways to stay informed and get involved.
First and foremost, notice and pray. And, as shared above, let that prayer stir up wise and loving action within you.
You can also follow and support indigenous-led Water Protection movements. Groups to follow, support, and connect with to take action:
Stop Line 3 & Honor the Earth
As well these groups on Facebook: Giniw Collective, Rise Coalition, and Gitchigumi Scouts.
Faith-based groups or individuals can also connect with Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light for resources and ways to get involved.
And, if you’re able, Water Protectors are inviting those who feel called to pray for the water to make their way up north. Efforts are being made to keep people safe during this time of pandemic. Mask up. Show up.
And show up, wherever you are, in love and care for water.
Peace and breath and clean water with you today | https://medium.com/intertwine/the-same-river-flows-in-you-day-9-of-simplicity-70f3cebbbe4c | ['Mike Rusert'] | 2020-12-09 11:52:16.564000+00:00 | ['Water Protectors', 'Water', 'Indigenous', 'Spirituality', 'Advent'] |
https://link.medium.com/gZe1lL0Mvcb I can relate to this routine quite a lot. In fact, one thing I’d like to add is organizing my thoughts and ideas in the Notes app on iPhone. Especially right… | I can relate to this routine quite a lot. In fact, one thing I’d like to add is organizing my thoughts and ideas in the Notes app on iPhone. Especially right before bed, or early in the morning, it can be a great wait to stay on track. After countless attempts of writing down my ideas on paper, I realized it’s not practical for me. I always have my phone with me and having easy access to my notes is the best. After all, I always return to this method, it’s the most useful! | https://medium.com/@MtheW/i-can-relate-to-this-routine-quite-a-lot-b4906cca71d6 | ['S.K Flowers'] | 2020-12-25 19:21:39.925000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Brainstorm', 'iPhone', 'Organization', 'Writing Tips'] |
Preparing for GDPR compliance — what does it mean for NZ? | This is because the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect on May 25th 2018.
Under GDPR, any business or organisation that communicates with, does business with or most importantly, gathers data from, EU citizens — no matter where in the world they are currently residing will be impacted.
New Zealand businesses who have a significant amount of web traffic and customers from the EU are the first who need to really focus on compliance — if you haven’t done this already.
You may need to comply with the regulations set out in this piece of legislation if your business gathers and stores personal data from customers who:
visit your website
buy products or services from you online
subscribe to mailing lists or downloads
use your services and provide their data as part of that transaction.
The penalties for non compliance are severe — up to 4% of a company’s annual turnover, or 20 million euros, whichever is higher.
Note: This penalty applies to businesses located anywhere in the world where they have EU citizens visiting their websites, buying from them or doing business, even if those citizens are not currently located in the EU itself.
What is the focus?
GDPR protects any information that can be used to identify an individual. That includes data tied to a person’s name, address or ID numbers. But it can also be a lot broader than that, including web data such as location, IP address, cookie data and RFID tags.
EU citizens (anywhere in the world) will have the right to request (and be given) a record of any identifiable data your organisation holds relating to them, and secondly to request (and have enacted) the erasure of that data from all systems holding it, if they wish.
If you need to hold that data for business purposes however, like keeping a record of sales through your site for seven years as required for tax purposes, this data doesn’t need to be erased.
The GDPR also allows for “data portability” so that customers should be able to take their data to another provider if they wish.
Action Steps for your Business
1) Allocate the responsibility for researching the GDPR requirements to members of your team, and then carry out a review or audit of all the ways you currently gather and store data about customers, patients, guests or people who request free information from you through marketing automation platforms if you are currently using marketing automation.
2) Gather a record of the various privacy policies from the platforms and tools that you use so they are easily accessed if necessary.
3) Contact your lawyer for their advice about your level of risk and their recommendations in terms of the compliance you should be putting in place, especially if you know you have customers in EU countries.
4) Work out how to respond to a request from a customer to review all the data you currently hold about them, how you would go about erasing it if they wished you to do so, and how you might provide them with data to take to a different provider if they wished.
5) At the bare minimum, start by adding a notice to your site telling visitors they are being tracked and asking permission.
If you want help or advice about adding a cookies message and supporting technology to your website, get in touch and we can talk through the options.
For more information about the GDPR, the following links may be helpful:
Originally published at www.hairylemon.co.nz on 17th May 2018 | https://medium.com/@hairylemon/preparing-for-gdpr-compliance-what-does-it-mean-for-nz-7a728a479484 | [] | 2019-06-17 02:30:29.421000+00:00 | ['Data Security', 'Gdpr', 'Privacy', 'New Zealand'] |
Grails Productivity Tip: Depend on Your Plugin | Image via Wikipedia
Grails has amazing plugin infrastructure. In short it enables almost everything the core application can do and has really good list of plugins: http://grails.org/Plugins
Here what I want to say is something a little bit different:
Do all your business in your application plugin
Reminder: Plugins are enabled in Grails
You can reuse all implementation in your plugins:
Model Object
Services
Controllers
Gsp pages
Plugins can define their plugin dependency, just like maven dependency.
Goal: Extreme Modularity
Model all your business in a single plugin.
You can consider grails an application container in this case which manages transactions and persistence, and ui and enable each plugin with all customization. What you need to do is using config. groovy and ConfigurationHolder for configuration issues.
What grails will do is just starting up plugins and and the applications one by one and expose all services, domain class and controllers which will work fine.
It will increase your modularity and ease your integration issues. You can also run your plugins while your are developing them. This is the most amazing part of all the scenario. You do not need to enter pack-install cycle to test anything.
Tough Part: IDE
If you have already established something like this before with Java you would have setup your IDE for this kind of integration. But for grails there is not support as far as far as I know :( So be ready run some console commands:
cd mycore
grails package-plugin
cd ../myapp
grails install-plugin ../mycore/grails-mycore-plugin-0.1.zip
Reference Guide:
http://www.grails.org/The+Plug-in+Developers+Guide | https://medium.com/altuure/grails-productivity-tip-depend-on-your-plugin-5422291f02af | [] | 2017-09-13 11:51:28.459000+00:00 | ['Plugin', 'Programming', 'Grails', 'Tip', 'Spring'] |
Private Investigations | The consultant surgeon turns the monitor screen towards me and animatedly points out the various bits of my insides. My CT scan, (virtual colonoscopy) reveals all sorts of pertinent information but how he can decipher these swirling abstract patterns into anything other than a contemporary piece of monochrome art is beyond me. “You have a very interesting abdomen,” he tells me. Interesting turns out to mean a) something that he is very hopeful is not cancer but a large lipoma, a fatty non-malignant tumour that has the potential to occlude my colon and b) an inflamed perforation that he believes may be causing the bleeding and abdominal discomfort.
Most surgeons, it would seem, like to do operations. They relish the blade and the cutting into flesh and he tells me this with what almost appears to be a look of enjoyment on his face. I am therefore relieved and surprised that at this stage he believes we should wait a month, perform another CT scan and see if the hole in my bowel is healing on its own.
This is the process, the waiting and trying to continue with normal life, although normal is a relative term. I am in a strange limbo land where nothing is certain. At one moment I am convinced that I’m on the sure and certain road to an early demise, resigned to being about to shuffle off my “mortal coil.” The next moment, I am upbeat, optimistic and positive that it’s a benign tumour and its removal merely an inconvenience. Because I was once a nurse, the unreasonable random nature of illness, accidents and death shouldn’t surprise me, and yet because I was a nurse I encountered it all the time, although of course always with other people. At the end of a shift I could go home and back to living my life.
This illusion was cracked by the very recent death of my cousin. We shared great fun and friendship as children but as is often the way, became distanced by growing older and living miles apart and we didn’t maintain the same close bond of childhood cousins into adult life. But we still had a sense of those halcyon youthful days when we did meet up. We were born a matter of a few weeks apart, so close together in fact that my mother and her sister chose for us both the same name. I was very sad when my cousin died but also if I am honest, shaken by the reminder of my own mortality. There is nothing like a funeral to focus my mind on the symptoms I was experiencing and then see them in the worst possible light. The order of service from his funeral is still in my car, as although I don’t want to be constantly reminded, I don’t seem able to move it from where it sits as this poignant acknowledgement of the fragile grasp we actually have on life.
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
In the meantime, I have to rearrange normal daily routines to accommodate the appointments for blood tests and scans, allow for the time it takes trying to find somewhere to park at the hospital and getting anxious not to be late to see the consultant. My reluctance to discuss what is happening does not change. I have to rearrange clients and give them an excuse that another appointment has come up, and of course some people ask me “is everything alright?” My response is to try to deflect the question. I am not ready to blurt out that “it’s just that the doctors would like to investigate my bloody turds but thanks for asking,” All the while the symptoms are becoming worse. Everything seems normal for a few days and then “shit!” I need the toilet desperately. When I get there, undoing my belt and fly and nearly tripping over my jeans as I rush to sit down, my evacuation turns out to be a bloody, mucous clot. I dare not move, blood clots are like London buses, you wait for ages and then three big red ones come along at once. Added to this I now know what Jack Nicholson’s character in “The Bucket List” meant when he said about getting older, “never trust a fart.” | https://byrslf.co/private-investigations-5595eae8e2ab | ['Dave Eldergill Ma'] | 2021-05-10 23:59:39.453000+00:00 | ['Ct Scan', 'Cancer', 'Colonoscopy', 'Bowel Cancer', 'Beyourself'] |
Firestore — Data Modeling with examples | #4
Store events likes as seen in example #2 and #3, in their sub-collection.
Store user likes in a sub-collection but not as a like per document as seen in example #3, but in an array of likes per document.
I’ll explain.
User sub-collection of likes arrays
In examples #1 and #2 we saved users likes in an array inside a document.
This is efficient when we need to check for events the user liked cause for
one read only we can get up to 3k~ likes of the user.
As mentioned before this had a small problem of scalability, what can we do if a user liked 5k events for example?
Solutions I had in mind for this issue:
1. Limit likes to 2k (for example) and delete old likes that are probably irrelevant anymore to keep likes by user under the limit.
2. Create a sub-collection for likes but the document will have an array of likes and will act the same as examples #1 and #2. Implement a logic to open a new array of likes (in a new doc under same sub-collection) when the array of likes fills up.
Conclusions:
Solution 1 can potentially make me lose data, but it is pretty easy to implement with a scheduled function if I save a timestamp for each like.
Solution 2 is actually a mix between the user likes in examples #1 and #2 with user likes in example #3. It is fully scalable if implemented correctly.
The problem with this solution is that it is very complicated to implement.
The implementation is complicated because when adding a like it needs to see which doc it should put the like into (the latest one) and when a doc gets full (you can decide on a likes limit yourself) open a new doc and “continue” putting likes there.
I picked Solution 2.
Pros
Scalable
Few reads for user likes
Cons
Complicated to implement
Summary
This solution is scalable, yet keeping the reads low.
It is more complicated to implement but more versatile.
I like this solution because even though it is hard to implement,
it is not required to implement the logic of the doc updates to start “rolling”.
Without implementing solution 2 at all this example is almost identical to example #2 with one document only that has an array of likes.
I remind you that this example’s con was the user likes scalability which becomes a problem only if a user does thousands of likes to different events, and in my opinion this will not affect you at the beginning of your development journey :)
In addition, another thing mentioned was that it has more reads than example #1, but this is a fair trade-off as reads are very cheap in Firestore.
#5
likes own collection
A different approach, do not save user likes under the user document (in a sub-collection) and do not save event likes under the event.
Instead, use a new collection, let’s name it ‘eventLikes’ that contains all the likes for events from every user.
When a user likes an event, he should add a document to the eventLikes collection with the data for example: eventId, userId, timestamp.
This way, we can easily set up a trigger function to listen to document creation and deletion and update the event likesCount and simple as that we have a working, fully scalable likes system.
In order to check if a like exists or not (to avoid duplications) we can decide on a document naming convention as ‘eventId_userId’ and then we can easily check if a doc exists in 1 simple read.
If we want to check for likes by a specific user we can simply query the collection with a where statement like so:
firebase.firestore().collection(‘eventLikes’).where(‘userId’,’==’,’XXXX’).get()
Pros
Simple to implement
Fully scalable
Can fetch user likes on a specific number of events (using ‘in’ operator, or just using ‘==’ multiple times) so you don’t have to get all the user likes and save it on client.
Cons
More reads to fetch user likes.
Summary
This solution is fully scalable and very easy to implement!
It will cost a bit more reads for user likes but as I mentioned earlier this is fairly cheap in Firebase.
If you compare it to example #4 where you need a trigger function to listen for user likes that is really annoying because you need to check for new likes and old likes (calculate differences between arrays) and update the event likes. Then a trigger for event likes to update events likesCount, this is too much in comparison to example #5.
In this solution, all you need is two very similar trigger functions — one for doc creations (likes) and one for deletion (unlikes) that updates the event likesCount using a transaction and that’s it (for the backend).
In frontend, its pretty simple too just check if doc exists using the naming convention and to like an event just create a document to eventLikes.
I recommend using Firestore rules to allow user to create or delete docs only if the userId field in the document matches the user uid (request.auth.uid).
Conclusions
There are many considerations needed to be taken care of when choosing a data model for your project.
The data model affects performance, pricing and complexity of development.
There is no RIGHT decision when deciding on a data model for your project.
Every decisions has it’s pros and cons and you should evaluate from which you benefit more for your project needs.
Every data model should be optimized for the project it is made for.
Try to think which actions in your app/project happens the most and try to make the data model optimized for them.
This way you can minimize reads/writes operations and therefore cost :)
I hope you enjoyed reading this article and that I managed to give you some points to look out for and ideas for creating your data model and deciding about your data architecture.
This was my first article, feel free to leave a comment and a clap! ;)
Further Reading
I recommend this post by Francisco García Sierra | https://medium.com/@guylandoy/firestore-architecture-data-modeling-with-likes-examples-26052cc13533 | ['Guy Landoy'] | 2020-12-31 11:30:38.861000+00:00 | ['Data Modeling', 'Firestore', 'Data', 'Database', 'Architecture'] |
How to Find the Best Android App Developer | Android’s market is gradually becoming the world’s largest market and in the coming time, the Android and apps market will be the world’s largest market. Because 240 million devices are used all over the world.
If you are searching for the best freelance Android developer, this is a huge responsibility.
Searching for the best independent Android app developer is a huge responsibility because finding a good Android app developer is a big thing.
Android is an operating system built-in Linux and Linux built into Java and XML. Android is not a language but a framework with a lot of scopes.
Android development provides many features and support classes.
1. Android Development Provides Animation, UI Design, and changes the Screen size property.
2. Android provides a touch screen to a user.
3. Content resolvers, Content Providers, and database.
4. App billing and Google play store.
5. Android provides a tool for debugging.
Quality of Android Developer
1. Calm Yet Zealous: — As an Android Developer you have to face the more difficult issues and always your mind is Calm Yet Zealous because you always ready to solve the more difficult issues.
2. Confident and bold: — A developer should not have a doubt about our work. As a developer, you have full confidence for your work you have Confidence in your work because.
3. Hearer and Doer: — Before hiring any developer, he also checks a developer Discipline because manner is a very important part of any developer.
4. Manager and Planner: — If you make any project you have to manage all things in Development. You have a responsibility to timely deliver a project.
5. Honest: — Honesty is the best policy but some time developer is not honest to our work. Because sometimes people deliver a project for a freelancer.
6. Good Communication: — As an Android Developer you have the best Communication skills because sometimes you will have to talk to a client. | https://medium.com/@josephsamue01/how-to-find-the-best-android-app-developer-1694e0edb166 | ['Joseph Samuel'] | 2020-12-15 09:18:51.685000+00:00 | ['Top', 'Best', 'Android', 'Freelance', 'Developer'] |
Top 5 little Slack App for your remote team in 2021 | 1: Wolivo
Wolivo allows you to save and retrieve useful information for your team and yourself with a single command. That way you can document a particular process directly in slack and everyone from your team can access it.
- Create a knowledge base directly in slack
- Access every information with a simple command
- Keep track of every command in your dashboard
Visit https://wolivo.com/
2: Poker Planner
Poker Planner lets you make estimations with planning poker technique (or scrum poker) directly in Slack.
- Customizable poker points
- Protected sessions: prevent others to reveal/cancel the sessions you’ve created.
- Average point: calculate average point to aid decision making process.
Visit https://deniz.co/slack-poker-planner/
3: Simple Poll
With Simple Poll you can create native polls and surveys right within Slack.
Get your colleagues’ thoughts in minutes; not in the next meeting.
- Native polls
- Anonymous Polls
- Custom emojis
Visit: https://simplepoll.rocks/
4: Must Read
Build controllable must-read lists for your team. No more scrolling channels
If you have a message that is important or must-read to any member of your team you send it in DM or mention him in a channel. But what will you do if you want to send it to many people and be sure it was read? @must-read not only helps you to send must-read messages from the channel to more than one team-member but also tracks their reactions.
Visit: https://finalem.com/must-read
5: Lunch Train
With it, you can easily alert team members, or even an entire channel, about your lunch plans. Just tell Lunch Train the location and the time you plan to leave, and it will do the rest. Invitees can respond directly to Lunch Train, so you know exactly who’s coming
Visit: https://lunchtrain.builtbyslack.com/ | https://medium.com/@wolivo-contact/top-5-little-slack-app-for-your-remote-team-in-2021-4033944a26e | ['Pierre R'] | 2020-12-19 17:26:32.538000+00:00 | ['Remote Working', 'Communication', 'Slack', 'Productivity', 'Team'] |
Ветреный 53 серия русская озвучка: : смотреть онлайн турецкий сериал 2020 | in Eudaimonia and Co | https://medium.com/@miahailaalipoow/%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9-53-%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F-%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F-%D0%BE%D0%B7%D0%B2%D1%83%D1%87%D0%BA%D0%B0-%D1%81%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%8C-%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BD-%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%86%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9-%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B0%D0%BB-2020-96ee780715d2 | [] | 2020-12-25 21:32:56.856000+00:00 | ['Europe', 'Russia', 'World', 'News'] |
Why we do what we do? — 10 Theories that explain human behavior | A 2010 study surveyed all the papers published between 2003 and 2007 in top scientific journals from six sub-fields of psychology. They discovered that the papers often made broad claims about the human mind. However, the majority of test participants belonged to two categories: WEIRD and mentally-ill. WEIRD stands for western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic as described in Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. Which means, the psychological studies are in fact not based on Homo Sapiens but on Homer Simpson.
Scientists have a detailed map of mental states for the mentally ill and WIERD people. But they lack serious information on the mental states of normal human beings. When the researchers fail to decipher our own behavior, we resort to the theories given by the observers of our society. Many philosophers and academicians who were the subject expert took layers off the human behavior.
These theories help us understand our civilization, language, consciousness better.
1. The Immortality Project
Winner of Pulitzer prize in 1974 — ‘The Denial of Death’ is life’s work of Ernest Becker. This book is a work of psychology and philosophy. It explains why humans want to be remembered after death. The author coined the concept of ‘Immortality Project’ to explain this irrational human behavior.
Humans are the only animals conscious of their death. Becker bases this theory on the basic duality in human life. Humans live dual life between the real world of objects and an imagined world of meaning. We have two self, one who eats, sleep, and talk and the other who refuses to acknowledge death. We realize that death is a threat to all the meaningful work we do in our life. That’s why we are so scared of it that we want to be remembered forever. This idea gives birth to ‘The Immortality Project’.
Becker says that our civilization is a symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of its own mortality. As our defense against our own mortality, humans have built entire civilizations. This explains the reason behind the purpose, meaning and our craving to do something big. Which means, we go through all the hardship so that another mortal being remember us, weird!
2. Theory of Mimetic Desire
“This is the most influential book in my life,” said Peter Thiel for the ‘Things Hidden Science the Foundation of Life’. It is written by Rene Girard, a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science, who gave the theory of ‘Mimetic Desire’.
According to the theory, all our desires are mimetic. In other words, all human desires are nothing but an imitation of others desires. The theory explains the rise in appreciation for travel, luxury, and social validation. That’s what makes Instagram such an addictive platform. Our desires are not internal except for our physical needs. It gives a clear differentiation between need and want.
This is how desire functions in our everyday life, someone signals a particular desire and then we also desire the same. No wonder what is keeping our shopping malls full and bank accounts running. After all, all of us can’t become monks. But now that we know the reason behind our desires, we can keep them in check.
3. Universal Grammar Theory
Ever wondered how sophisticated languages developed in the different parts of the world? The interesting fact is that most of the languages developed in the same time duration. If you think of it, you’d realize that it’s not a coincidence. How did all our civilizations invent language and similar concepts of grammar? It is interesting to see that grammar of all the languages has common elements such as noun, verb, words, sentences etc.
The Universal Grammar Theory given by Noam Chomsky explains what lead us to these sophisticated languages. The basic assumption in the theory is that a certain set of structural rules are inherent to humans. Chomsky says that our brain contains a set of constraints for organizing language. The common elements which are part of every language can be thought of as the ‘set-of-structural-rules’.
It would have been impossible for humans to develop such complex language systems on their own. The theory suggests that noun, verb, tense etc. are an inherent part of our DNA. Which means, if we simulate the entire evolution again, humans will come up with languages with similar structural elements in it.
4. Everything eats everything else
No matter how much we talk about veganism, animals rights, humanism, and equality. Humans are cruel and second to none on that list. The plants are the only living beings who can use the sunlight, water, and soil nutrients to produce food. Others get their food from the plants, some animals eat the plant eaters, and remaining feed on both.
This has been the course of evolution. The powerful species will eat the submissive ones and this cycle goes on. The dominant animals are thus favored by nature. They live long enough to reproduce and protect their offspring. This ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ gives rise to a philosophical question “Is nature cruel?”. Why animal life on earth evolved in such a way that the survival depends on killing and consuming other animals? The partial answer is, cruelty is the driving force behind evolution.
5. Viruses and Civilization
Human civilization is like a virus. We live and depend on the earth (host) for our survival. In the process, humans cause damage to the host, like viruses damage the body of their host. It is evident from the route that homo-sapiens took to spread on the earth. First, we appeared on the African continent. Then homo-sapiens moved to the present day Europe. Destroying the great flora and fauna on both the continents. And later they became the cause of extinction of homo-neanderthals.
The large predators existing on those continents were not prepared to deal with the Homo-sapiens. They were unaware of this new species (humans) and didn’t know whether to run or attack these two-legged apes. The homo-sapiens also became the cause of extinction of Tasmanian Aborigines, an ethnic group living on Tasmania island. All these traits show that our civilization is equal to a virus.
Will this behavior of human civilization become the cause of our own extinction? The answer lies in the complex characteristics of the virus. It is not in the interest of a virus to kill its hosts. In rare exceptions, the host dies as part of a complex parasite cycle. Generally, the healthier the host, the longer the virus survive. In the process, the weaker hosts dies and the one who adapts to the virus will later form a symbiotic relationship with it. In a way, viruses have been a major driver of human evolution.
6. Ownership and Monogamy
Ownership of property and livestock was not so common in the prehistoric era like it is today. With the concept of ownership, came the challenge of passing ownership on death. The easiest way to do it was passing it on to the next generations. But, like other animals, humans were not monogamous (committed to one sexual partner) in nature.
Homo-sapiens used to practice polygamy and the group/tribe together raised the infants. With that system in place, it was impossible to divide the individually owned property. The easiest solution was monogamy. That idea later gave birth to the nuclear families in our culture.
Eventually, all the tribes and entire civilizations adopted monogamy. This explains why the majority is always short of providing for their family. The evolution never prepared us to live in nuclear families but our need to own property and transfer it to our heir forced us to do so. It is also a prime example of how alien concepts can overpower our evolutionary needs in this new world.
7. Wishful Thinking
An average human being will always go for the lowest hanging fruit. We are always looking for the easier alternatives, even if it requires us to constantly lie to ourselves. This partially explains the belief systems and religion. But what is replacing religion in this world of increasing atheists is the concept of ‘Wishful Thinking’.
Many writers, philosophers, and motivational speaker popularized ‘Positive Thinking’. The popular work in this field is ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne and ‘The Power of Your Subconscious Mind’ by Joseph Murphy and Ian MacMahan. There are many self-help books on the lines of visualization, positive thinking, and optimism. This idea spread into society like a plague because it is a low hanging fruit on the path of materialistic desires.
These evangelists and writers realized that in the postmodern world people believe in themselves. They created a new god for the atheists. In capitalism, an inability of the majority to meet their new desire lead them to search an easier route. Their obsession gave rise to this pseudo-scientific notion of positive thinking. This explains the rise in self-help books, blogs, and motivational speakers in the world, who speak of the ‘wishful thinking’.
8. Happiness Synthesis
Happiness has become a cultural obsession in present times. Earlier there were only a few philosophers like Epicurus who wrote about happiness at length. Today, every second blog on the internet is helping us on ‘how to be happy’. As if someone is selling happiness in the stores.
Dan Gilbert the Author of ‘Stumbling on Happiness’, challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. According to his theory of ‘Happiness Synthesis’ — human beings can create happiness in every situation. What makes us unhappy? A part of our brain called pre-frontal cortex has the capability to simulate experiences in our head. We can simulate the events in our head, way before they occur. And our simulator signals that this will be good and that will be bad. But even the worst experiences make no impact on our happiness in the long run.
In his TED talk, he projected two pictures on the screen. In one picture a guy won a $314M lottery and in another, a paraplegic patient was sitting in an ambulance. He asked the audience ‘which one would they choose as their future?’ No doubt everyone will want to win the lottery. But a few years after the incidents (lottery and paraplegia) both the guys were equally happy. This explains that the cultural obsession with happiness is fairy dust. It is propagated so that people stay motivated for more money, more productivity and that keeps the economic engines churning.
9. Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality Development
Popularly known as the Freudian theory developed by Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. This theory states that personality is formed through conflicts among three fundamental structures of the human mind: the id, ego, and superego. It deals with the internal stages that humans go through in the process of personality development.
In simple terms, ‘id’ is the biological drive, for example ‘I want to do that now!’. But ‘superego’ (social expectations) will restrict that desire with ‘It’s not right to do that.’ And the stage completes with ‘Ego’ when the persona comes up with a middle way ‘Maybe we can compromise’.
According to Freud, a child goes through five stages which critically shapes and develops the personality. At each stage, there is a conflict between a child’s biological drives and social expectations; successful navigation of these internal conflicts will result in the completion of each stage and will result into a fully mature personality. Freud theory suggests that sexuality is the single driving force in the human personality development, which attracted fair criticism.
10. Escapism
Why do humans want to become inter-planetary species? Why we’ve always dreamed of leaving this planet, off into the dark sky, on another planet. Panspermia hypotheses propose that microscopic life-forms developed elsewhere. Maybe in the celestial bodies (space rocks) ejected into space as a result of a collision between planets and small solar system bodies. Later these celestial rocks collided into the earth and thus sowed the seeds of life on earth.
In an episode of ‘Ancient Aliens’ on History TV18, they entertained this thought that humans collectively have about the space. The episode argued that it is in our DNA to hustle and ultimately find a way out of this planet. Sigmund Freud considers escapist fantasy a necessary element in the life of humans.
Maybe that’s the internal driving force behind our space exploration programs and SpaceX. | https://medium.com/the-post-grad-survival-guide/why-we-do-what-we-do-10-theories-that-explain-human-behavior-87a2f1b21bb9 | ['Rajat Dangi'] | 2019-01-10 08:35:07.238000+00:00 | ['Evolution', 'Human Behavior', 'Capitalism', 'Psychology', 'Theory'] |
Point Address: The world has a new address | Democratizing physical addresses for everyone in the world by allowing individuals to create, update and manage their addresses. https://pointaddress.com
Did you ever wonder who defined the address name of your home? Why is the address of your office, gym, or any building/place in the world called the way it is?
Most addresses in the world were created either by the Governments, local authorities or construction companies that laid out plans for building a particular complex.
While most things have evolved, technology solutions for some reason have so far revolved around assuming physical addresses to be immutable eternal truths.
We intend to change this.
Point Address
If you like the video, please “like” it! Our designer would be happy :)
Point Addresses are addresses that any individual can create, and map it to a particular location in the world. You can choose any name, but just like email addresses, Point Addresses also have a format — called Point Notation.
You can create multiple Point Addresses, edit, change visibility or delete them anytime.
Point Create on Web Desktop
Points are unique in a given country, so if the Point of your choice is taken, you would have to choose a different one.
Moving? Simply change your Point
Update location but not address.
With Point Addresses, if you plan to move you no longer have to share the new address with your friends, and one day all your shipments too. Your Point moves with you. Just update the Point addresses you have shared with everyone, to your new location.
Point Notation
Alpha numeric names; no spaces or special characters; end in country code
Points follow simple notation. Alphanumeric characters that follow with the country code. No special characters, and no spaces are allowed, but you can use dashes between words.
The point notation ends with two dots, one in beginning and one in the end, noting beginning and end of the Point Address.
Point Names can be fun. Users can choose addresses of their choice.
Maximum length of a Point address is 30 characters, with the two dots, and dash + country code, every user has 25 characters of their choosing.
Protect your legal Address
Users can anytime make their Points Private, or Public depending on need
When you share a Point, you hide your Legal address from others. In an ideal world, you won’t have to worry about leaving the your address on the sticker of couriers and shipments.
You can always edit, delete your Points, or better make them Private.
Keep your Legal address safe.
Legal addresses should be used for legal purposes. Property transfers, opening bank accounts and such. Point gives the users access to protect their privacy.
Faster, better deliveries
Point Addresses are precise. Help delivery folks, and visitors, share Points :)
Have you ever wanted to let the delivery person know which bell to ring, or the community parking code, or where to leave the package? With Point you can add photos, and description of your address, and whoever is delivering will be able to access this information.
If you’ve ever worked in delivery business, you know finding addresses is hard. Apartment complexes are nightmares, and so are houses with poor Maps detailing. Point addresses are very precise, and users can share their exact location within a huge complex, or even if your Address is not on Maps.
Hosting an event? You don’t have to print a map, or send 100 messages on where to park and how to find the venue. Point address can have all the information your guests would need.
How to access Point?
Point Address is available on Web (Desktop + Mobile), and App Store (Android coming soon!). Create your Point Address now.
Point Address on Web
Also available on:
Point Address on App Store | https://medium.com/milkie-way/point-address-the-world-has-a-new-address-c3cf683ef3e | ['Sudeep Chauhan'] | 2020-12-12 08:45:13.933000+00:00 | ['Product', 'Address', 'Maps', 'Mapping', 'Launch'] |
Best Performance Tuning Practices for Pytorch | A rticle Overview
Alright, so Pytorch has been one of my de facto choices for handling complex deep learning pipelines, like reading complex data, creating heavy models, and how can I forget the debugging. Now Pytorch already is pretty fast and memory-efficient, however, I will not hesitate to make my script even faster :) With that being said, let’s have a look at some of the very simple guidelines, that can easily be applied and make your model train both faster and efficiently.
Enabling Asynchronous Data Loading And Preprocessing
In case you don’t know, Pytorch does support asynchronous data loading, that is reading, preprocess, and applying the data augmentations asynchronously in the separate worker processes. However, by default, all that is done synchronously, so all the required computations are done in the main thread, and hence blocking everything else.
One of the most heaviest operation you can do to slow down your script is, transferring a lot of tensors from CPU to GPU and vice-versa. By a lot of tensors, I don’t mean the size of the tensors, but how frequently you make this transfer. However, by default, Pytorch does not use pinned memory, which means this CPU to GPU mem copies would be synchronous as well.
Let’s solve both of these issues.
Using more than zero workers
You can simply set the argument for number of workers greater than 0. This argument assigns how many subprocesses to use for data loading. 0 means that the data will be loaded in the main process.
torch.utils.data.DataLoader(dataset, batch_size, shuffle, num_workers = 4)
Note, you cannot just set this argument anything. Getting the right value for num_workers depends on a lot of factors. Setting the value too high could cause quite a lot of issues such as:
Might increase the memory usage and that is the most serious overhead.
Might cause high IO usage which can ultimately become very ineffective.
If the value is higher then the number of cores you have available, then most probably you’ll block everything out, and its highly likely that your whole program will freeze. (Based on my observations)
And there is not any thumb rule that you can follow, some people suggests to set the value to number of cpu cores you have-1, subtracting one to make sure that you script never breaks. But this still is not an optimal solution. The optimal value depends on the number of cpu cores you have available, the batch size for your dataloader and amount of IO usage which is required to load a single batch and of course your model.
For a given batch size, the best practice is to increase the num_workers slowly and stop once you see no more improvement in your training speed.
If possible, you can also try experimenting different values for batch size and num_workers.
Experiment results for different sets of batch size and num_workers. Source
For instance, in the above experiment you can see that the most performance boost for all different batch sizes was in case of setting num_workers to 1, rest of the values didn’t show any performance improvements, in fact setting the num_workers to available cpu cores was causing the most performance regression.
Using pinned memories
If you read your data samples in the CPU, and during training would like to transfer the batch to the GPU, then you can speed up this device transfer by setting pin_memory to True.
This lets your torch.utils.data.DataLoader allocate the data samples in page-locked memory, and therefore speeding up the transfer. Host to GPU copies are much faster when they originate from pinned (page-locked) memory.
You can set pin memory to True by passing this as an argument in DataLoader:
torch.utils.data.DataLoader(dataset, batch_size, shuffle, pin_memory = True)
It is always okay to set pin_memory to True for the example I explained above. Though when your dataset is so small, that you can simply put it to the GPU prior to the training, then pin_memory wouldn’t work of course.
Enable cuDNN Autotuner
Nvidia’s cuDNN supports many algorithms to compute the output of a CNN layer for a fixed size. So if you’re working with CNNs then its highly recommended to enable the cuDNN’s autotuner.
When this is enabled, then for the very first forward pass to the model, the cuDNN would run a short benchmark and try to find the best algorithm to optimize the computation cost for your given hardware and fixed input size, and after that first pass, your rest of the predictions would be much more faster and efficient.
Once again, by default this is disabled in Pytorch and can be enabled as follows
torch.backends.cudnn.benchmark = True
Here, the important thing to note is when this is enabled, then the input size should be fixed for making predictions. Because cuDNN will benchmark every time a new size appears, and most likely leading to worse runtime performances.
Now it’s not like that in your dataset the number of samples is perfectly divisible by the specified batch size, by default the last batch given by DataLoader would have number of samples less than the specified batch size.
So to solve this issue, you can simply pass drop_last argument in the DataLoader as follows:
torch.utils.data.DataLoader(dataset, batch_size, shuffle, drop_last = True)
This will make the DataLoader drop (ignore) the last batch with size less than the specified batch size, hence making the cuDNN autotuner works as expected. And depending on your hardware and model, you could get performance improvement of the range 1.2 to 1.7 times.
Don’t Optimize Worthless Parameters
Almost every self taught ML developer has watched Andrew Ng’s courses, where he explained why using bias parameters in a layer that is followed by batch normalization is redundant. Though this still is one the most common mistake I’ve seen.
Let me summarize what he explained.
When you apply batch normalization, you first normalize the layer by subtracting the mean and dividing by the standard deviation (where both are computed over the dimension of the batch).
Now since, the bias parameters are used in a simple addition operation, and the value of bias parameters remains same across the dimension of the batch, thus while subtracting the batch mean, you’d basically be subtracting the bias parameters you’ve just added (since the mean of let’s say k numbers, where each number is b, is indeed b), hence making the bias addition operation obsolete.
So next time, don’t use bias parameters in a layer which is followed by batch normalization. In Pytorch you can disable bias parameters by simply passing bias = False in any layer that has bias as one of its parameters.
Note, the above explanation is only true when you’re applying batch normalization before the activation layer. If an activation function is applied to the affine transformation before the batch normalization, then bias parameters are not wasted.
So should we apply batch normalization before or after the activation layer? That’s the topic of another article I guess.
Using Large Batch Size
Now this is pretty straight forward. It is recommended to increase the batch size as much as possible, this helps to minimize the cost of launching kernels in GPU, and also since many operations would be done parallel, so yeah… it would be pretty damn fast. In fact, doubling batch size would train your model faster than any other techniques I’m explaining in this article when applied alone.
But, the increasing batch size would lead to two major problems:
Not significant loss convergence.
And running out of GPU memory.
The first issue is very classic, and you can’t do much about it, unless you change your model accordingly. But my suggestion is to train your model with batch size such that during training you’re almost completely filling the GPU memory, then after few epochs when the loss is not further decreasing, then decrease the batch size, simple as that.
Also, try using learning rate warm-ups and weight decaying, these techniques also help the loss convergence for the most part.
And this way you’d be able to get the best from both worlds :)
Now, regarding the out of memory issue. I’ve written an awesome article, that solves this almost all the times, so definitely check it out.
Basically in Pytorch, you can use AMP (automatic mixed precision) that makes both forward and backward pass way faster and efficient, which allows to train the model much faster with high efficiency, thus less memory consumption.
Zeroing The Gradients Efficiently
This particular technique was contributed to Pytorch by Nvidia engineers. Have a look.
It’s highly common practice to zero out gradients before computing them for the next batch as follows:
model.zero_grad()
# ======== OR ========
optimizer.zero_grad()
Nvidia mentioned that this is not an optimal way to zero the gradients out. Surprised? Hell yeah me too, cuz in all the official tutorials and documentation of Pytorch, this is exactly how its done, and so does everyone.
They mentioned that the problems with this approach are:
These zero_grad methods will execute the memset to zero in a loop over all parameters. And this loop will call separate cuda kernels for every parameter.
Under the hood for backward pass, the Pytorch will use “plus equals” operator (“+=”) update the gradients ( because Pytorch by default adds the current gradients to the previous ones, this is the reason why we need to zero out the gradients for each batch in the first place ), and these operators first performs the read operation to obtain the original values and then the addition values.
), and these operators first performs the read operation to obtain the original values and then the addition values. After all above operations, the parameters are once again stored back in the memory.
What they instead suggested is to set the grad attribute of each parameter to none as follows:
for param in model.parameters():
param.grad = None
This approach solves the above issues:
Does not execute memset for each of the parameters.
The memory is instead zero out in more efficient manner within the Pytorch backend.
And the update of the gradients during backward pass will be done directly by simply using the equals operator (“=”), so no time is wasted in any unnecessary reading.
Conclusion
Data preprocessing and augmentation can be done asynchronously by using more than zero number of workers.
Faster device transfer can be achieved by pinned memory.
Models using CNN layers can be further tuned and optimized using cuDNN’s autotuner.
Setting a large batch size can obviously provide a whole lot of performance boost.
AMP can be used for more efficient and faster training.
And finally, zeroing out the gradients by setting the grad attribute to None solves a lot of performance overhead issues.
Alrighty then, I hope these techniques would be helpful for ya.
Thanks for reading. | https://brainbust.medium.com/best-performance-tuning-practices-for-pytorch-3ef06329d5fe | ['Rishik C. Mourya'] | 2020-12-23 07:36:04.120000+00:00 | ['Efficiency', 'Benchmark', 'Pytorch', 'Performance', 'Optimization'] |
Roku Ultra (2020) review: Incremental improvements | The 2020 Roku Ultra is a surprisingly tough streaming box to review.
While Roku’s hardware and software haven’t changed much from last year’s model, the wider world of streaming TV has changed a lot. Between new services like Apple TV+, Peacock, HBO Max, and the forthcoming Paramount+, there are more streaming options to juggle than ever. In response, we’ve seen devices such as the Chromecast with Google TV and the TiVo Stream 4K emerge to make sense of those options, funneling content from multiple apps into a single, unified menu.
Roku, meanwhile, has held steadfast to its less ambitious approach: Make free content easy to find, but make users dig through individual apps for everything else.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best media streamers, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product. Mentioned in this article Chromecast with Google TV Read TechHive's review$49.99MSRP $49.99See iton Google If you still agree with that approach, the $100 Roku Ultra has a lot to like. It supports Dolby Vision and HLG high dynamic range video, Bluetooth audio, and Dolby Atmos audio decode. It’s also a smidge faster than other Roku players, and it still has the comfiest remote you’ll find with any streaming player today.
But if you’re rooting for a new paradigm in streaming, where digging through a dozen different apps is no longer necessary, the new Roku Ultra will inevitably disappoint. (Roku is also shipping a new mini soundbar. You can read our Roku Streambar review here.)
Slicker box, better specsThe 2020 Roku Ultra is easy to tell apart from previous versions. The plastic enclosure has a matte finish throughout instead of being glossy around the edges, and the sides of the box curve inward at the top instead of outward. I think it’s more attractive.
Jared Newman / IDG 2019’s Roku Ultra on the left, 2020’s Ultra on the right.
The port arrangement has changed as well. There’s no more MicroSD card slot for expandable app storage, though the Ultra does have more built-in storage. (Roku won’t say exactly how much.) Meanwhile, the USB slot for local media playback has moved from the side of the box to the back, where it’s joined by the ethernet port and HDMI output.
Jared Newman / IDG MicroSD for expanded app storage is gone, but USB for local media playback remains.
This is also the first Roku player with Bluetooth, so you can pair a phone, tablet, or computer and play music through the TV. It’s a fine addition, though it doesn’t support pairing wireless headphones to play audio from the Roku. (For that, you can use Roku’s mobile app, which offers private listening through headphones or earbuds connected to the phone.)
As before, the Roku Ultra supports 4K HDR video, which allows for both higher resolution and more color detail in highlights and shadows, but the new arrival of Dolby Vision means those color optimizations can happen on a scene-by-scene basis. Of course, you’ll need a TV with Dolby Vision HDR support to take advantage, along with supported content in apps like Netflix or Amazon Prime. Dolby Atmos decode support means that some content can produce object-based audio effects if you have an Atmos-enabled speaker system.
Mentioned in this article Roku Streambar Read TechHive's reviewSee it I should mention one strange video playback issue, though: Deep in Roku’s settings there’s an option to automatically match the TV’s refresh rate to whatever content is playing. It’s disabled by default, but enabling it prevented me from playing video from Apple TV+ due to HDCP errors. Roku says I encountered a known bug that it’s working to squash. If you buy a Roku Ultra, checking for a firmware update should be your first order of business after connecting it to your network.
The remote, meanwhile, is unchanged from last year’s Ultra, which is fine. It’s a bit heftier than most streaming remotes, making it easier to hold, and the varying shapes and sizes of its buttons help you navigate without looking at them. A headphone jack on the left side allows for private listening—a set of earbuds is included—and buttons for volume and mute are on the right along with a power button up top. The remote has an infrared emitter, so you can program those buttons to work directly with your TV.
Jared Newman / IDG Roku’s oversized remote feels great and has a pair of programmable buttons.
You still can’t reprogram the Roku remote’s built-in app-launch buttons, but the two numeric buttons above them can be mapped to any voice command, so you can use them to open your favorite apps or turn on closed captioning. And as with previous Ultras, there’s a button on the box itself that plays a sound on the remote to help you find it—a nice touch that most other streamers still haven’t replicated.
Slight speed bumpsBeyond the more tangible hardware improvements in the 2020 Roku Ultra, Roku claims that the new box launches popular apps faster and has better wireless reception than previous versions. In practice, those improvements are noticeable, but not dramatic.
Compared to last year’s Ultra, the new model launched Amazon Prime about 1.5 seconds faster and The Roku Channel about a second faster, but launch times for Disney+ and YouTube were comparable on both. The Ultra does have a more pronounced advantage over the $50 Roku Streaming Stick+, launching Prime roughly 4.5 seconds faster, and loading The Roku Channel, YouTube, and Disney+ about 1.5 seconds faster, but none of those differences are enough to justify upgrading for speed alone.
Connectivity speed is where things get more interesting. Roku didn’t upgrade the internal Wi-Fi components—the Ultra still supports Wi-Fi 5 with dual-band MIMO—but the company says it has optimized its antennas to improve reception range.
To evaluate, I ran numerous speed tests—both from Roku’s settings menu and from Netflix’s help section—in two tricky spots: One set of tests in my basement entertainment center, and the another at the opposite corner of the house from my router. Here are the results:
2020 Ultra (5 GHz): 58 Mbps in basement console, 36 Mbps in far corner 2019 Ultra (5 GHz): 59 Mbps in basement console, 18 Mbps in far corner 2020 Ultra (2.4 GHz): 73 Mbps in basement console, 29 Mbps in far corner 2019 Ultra (2.4 GHz): 56 Mbps in basement console, 20 Mbps in far corner Roku’s claims of improved range appear to check out, though I did also observe similar or better connectivity speeds in other high-end streaming boxes, including Amazon’s Fire TV Cube and the Apple TV 4K. That’s at least partly because Roku intentionally caps data speeds at 100 Mbps on its devices, supposedly to focus on range instead of speed. (I’ll have more to say about this in my cord-cutting column later this week.)
Software: Free is the focus Jared Newman / IDG The Roku home screen, same as it ever was.
Software is just as important as hardware, though, and Roku’s software is largely the same as it was a year ago. The main section of the home screen presents a grid of apps for services like Netflix and Hulu, while other sections let you browse for free movies and shows, search for free content, install new apps, or purchase a la carte videos from Fandango.
As always, Roku does a better job than any other streaming platform at surfacing free movies and shows. The “Featured Free” section of the home screen pulls in content—mostly ad-supported—from across different apps, and if you search for genres such as comedy or action, Roku will highlight a section of free options in its results.
Jared Newman / IDG Ad revenue is central to Roku’s business model, so you needn’t look far for free, ad-supported content.
The Roku Channel app, meanwhile, provides plenty of its own movies, shows, and linear channels to watch at no charge. Although Roku has also brought that app to Samsung TVs and Fire TV devices, it’s more deeply integrated with search and voice control on its own streamers.
Jared Newman / IDG Roku’s genre searches always bring free content to the forefront.
It’s just too bad Roku doesn’t put that same kind of effort into surfacing videos from premium sources such as Netflix, Disney+, or CBS All Access. Sure, you can use voice search on Roku’s remote to find specific movies or shows from those services, and you can browse across apps using some broad genre searches. But if you want to see what’s happening across all your streaming services or pick up where you left off on a specific show, you’ll have to jump into individual apps. Devices like the Apple TV 4K and the new Chromecast have shown that universal streaming guides and watchlists are possible, but Roku, for whatever reason, hasn’t tried to build one itself.
Jared Newman / IDG You can search for specific shows or genres, but there’s no unified menu for browsing across apps.
That’s not the only way Roku lags behind other platforms. Your ability to launch music by voice remains limited to just Pandora, TuneIn, or iHeartRadio, and you can’t use voice to launch live channels in apps like YouTube TV or Sling TV. Apple TV, Fire TV, and Chromecast with Google TV excel on all those fronts. And because Roku isn’t connected to any smart home platforms, you can’t use it to check on security cameras, control the lights, or adjust the thermostat.
There’s also the lingering issue of HBO Max, which remains unavailable on Roku due to disagreements with AT&T’s WarnerMedia over carriage terms. You can still access HBO on Roku in other ways—through the standalone HBO, as a Roku Channel subscription, or as an add-on to certain live streaming services—but you won’t get the full Max catalog. And for cable subscribers, you can no longer sign into HBO on Roku at all. While every streaming platform has some app gaps, Roku’s HBO issues are a blemish on its once-stellar reputation for app support.
Update, November 12, 2020: Roku has issued an update that adds Apple AirPlay support to select Roku streamers, including this one. This enables an HBO Max workaround—provided you also have an iPhone or an iPad, as TechHive’s Cord Cutter Confidential columnist Jared Newman explains in this story. Visit this page at Roku.com for details on how to use AirPlay (and Apple HomeKit) on compatible Roku devices.
That issue aside, Roku’s straightforward approach has its merits. There’s never any doubt about how to access your apps, and the system as a whole feels speedy and stable. For those reasons, the Roku Ultra remains a safe, easy recommendation for a higher-end streamer.
As for whether it’s the best, that all depends on your philosophy toward streaming.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@natalie35335560/roku-ultra-2020-review-incremental-improvements-44503b170fdb | [] | 2020-11-29 23:21:56.698000+00:00 | ['Connected Home', 'Consumer Electronics', 'Tvs', 'Mobile Accessories'] |
71-Year-Old Climbs Mount Washington in New Hampshire | Hiker Alan Singer on the summit of Mount Washington above the clouds.
“No one better dismiss me as unpatriotic again. I just spent five hours on July 4th weekend climbing Mount Washington in New Hampshire. At 6,288 feet above sea level, it is the highest peak on the East Coast,” reported Alan Singer, a septuagenarian, who teaches history and social studies education at Hofstra University. “It was the most difficult hike I’ve attempted in decades, but I made it to the summit.” He did confess that he “struggled a bit” trying to complete the 4.6 mile climb along the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail.
Mount Washington was known to the local indigenous population as Agiocochook before European colonial settlement in the area. The mountain summit is notorious for rapid changes in weather and posted signs warn hikers. In 1934, the Mount Washington Observatory recorded a wind speed of 231 miles per hour, a world record until 1996.
Mount Washington is located in White Mountain National Forest and is part of the Appalachian Mountains Presidential Range. The Presidential Range has mountains named after George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Dwight Eisenhower, and Franklin Pierce. There are also mountains named after Benjamin Franklin, revolutionary war leaders Samuel Adams and Abigail Adams, and 19th century U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate Henry Clay. New Hampshire proposed renaming Mount Clay after Ronald Reagan, but that has not been approved. Pierce, a non-entity as President in the 1850s who opposed the abolition of slavery, has a mountain named after him because he was a native of New Hampshire.
Mount Washington has been a tourist designation since the 1850s. A coach road to the summit was completed in 1861 and a cog railway has been operating since 1869. The peak is a New Hampshire state park.
Singer, staying at Lake Winnipesaukie had a two-hour drive to the trail head, north on 16 and then west on 302 through the National Forest. He ate “breakfast” while driving, a large black coffee, no sugar, and a home-made oatmeal raisin cookie. Singer started on the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail at 8 AM from the hiker’s parking lot located about a quarter of a mile from the cog rail terminal. As a pleasant surprise, the parking lot had a clean and equipped “facility.” Sunscreen, bug spray, and he was ready to go.
The first mile of the trail had only a slight upgrade from 2,500 to 3,000 feet. The trail itself was slippery because of mud, roots, and rocks. It rained that night so the trees were dripping; the sky was masked by dark clouds. The temperature at the start was in the high sixties, so Singer wore a long-sleeve sun-resistant shirt over a tee-shirt. He also wore a baseball cap, carried a small backpack, and used a collapsible hiking stick.
Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail
One mile in, the ravine trail turned right, east, along the Ammonoosuc River. A trail sign alerted hikers that the Lakes of the Cloud Hut was 2.1 miles away and the summit of Mount Washington was an additional 1.5 miles. For the next mile, the upgrade remained moderate and the trail continued to be rocky, muddy and crossed by exposed tree roots, making the going slow. The trail along the river was pretty easy to follow although it was often difficult to see the faded blue makers a number of places.
On this stretch of the trail, Singer was passed by a couple in their thirties who were speed hiking, the first hikers he had met so far. Soon after he started walking with a family from Pennsylvania, a wife and husband, a college age son, and high school aged daughter.
After a mile on this portion of the trail it crossed the river and started a very steep ascent, climbing from 3,500 to 5,000 feet in the next 1.1 miles. The trail was beautiful with a number of striking waterfalls, but the going was very difficult and Singer could not keep up with the Pennsylvania team. Much of the way Singer was shimmying up exposed rock face on a hillside with a 60% incline and he learned why New Hampshire is known as the Granite State. The rocks were wet from the previous evening’s rain and mist rising off the falls making hand and foot holds treacherous. Singer’s hiking stick now was now more of an incumbrance than a help. He folded it up and put it in his backpack. Wet and sweating as the temperature rose into the seventies, Singer also stashed his long-sleeve shirt in the pack.
Exposed granite hillside
Singer found he was forced to take repeated breaks as he adjusted to the elevation. He also stopped periodically to drink water he had brought with him and ate a Kind Dark Chocolate Cherry Cashew bar. Because of arthritic conditions in his knees, more severe in the left knee, Singer wears tight knee pads on both legs when hiking. This made it difficult for him to stretch for footholds on the rocks and slowed him done considerably. Because he was favoring his left knee and putting greater weight on his right leg, his right thigh began to cramp. During this portion of the hike, Singer met a family from Wisconsin with two teenagers who he walked with off and on for much of the remaining hike.
Climbing the wet rock face was discouraging, Singer fell multiple times, and other times barely held on by grabbing onto roots and scrub pine branches. He considered turning back, but doggedly decided to at least climb to the Lakes of the Cloud Hut, which he estimated couldn’t be that much further, but was. He worried how he would climb down the wet rock face without slipping or having a serious accident. About this time, he noticed that his cellphone was starting to lose power so he shut it off. He would turn it on again at different points to alert his partner about his “progress.”
Wet rocks made hand and footholds difficult
Three-quarters of the way up the steep slope the habitat changed from forest to alpine. Shrub bushes and wild flowers replaced trees. Finally, after two-hours of uphill, Singer emerged on a rocky plain and could see the Lakes of the Cloud Hut.
The Lakes of the Cloud Hut at 5,030 feet elevation is a stopping point for hikers operated by the Appalachian Mountain Club along the Appalachian Trail route that runs from Maine to Georgia. It was initially built in 1901 and expanded many times. It includes a kitchen and bunks for sleeping. Supplies are helicoptered in when the season opens after snow melt and its youthful staff backpack in additional supplies as needed.
Lakes of the Cloud
Singer discussed his options with a young woman who was stationed at the hut. If he turned back the climb down could be dangerous. She recommended he continue to the top of Mount Washington. The going was rugged with a number of rock scrambles, but was dry and not quite as steep. Once at the summit there were National Park services and he could get a ticket on the cog rail down to the parking lot at the base of the mountain. It seemed like a plan. Singer bought a cup of coffee which wasn’t hot, rested for twenty minutes, and pressed on.
The final 1.5 miles to the summit was across a barren plain above the cloud level, occasionally moving through deep fog. Because there were no trees, the trail was marked with small stone pyramids. When the fog cleared and the clouds lifted there were beautiful vistas of the mountain range and valleys below. It was getting colder now so Singer put his long-sleeved shirt back on.
Rocky plateau before final climb
A few minutes out from the station was one of the small lakes, hence the station’s name. The trail at this point was all large rocks so walking really meant using them as steps and sometimes just hopping from rock to rock. This part of the hike took almost an hour and a half as Singer was forced to take frequent rest stops. His breathing was starting to get strained, his knees were aching, and his hands were scrapped and bleeding from gripping rocks and breaking falls. At least during the stops Singer didn’t have to look down at the ground to secure safe footing so he could enjoy the mountain panorama. He also polished off a bag of trail mix and one of his bottles of water.
Plateau trail markers
As he climbed up, he started to meet people climbing down. They had either taken the cog rail to the summit or driven to the top and were hiking to the Lakes of the Cloud Hut. One family had arranged to spend the night there. As he climbed, Singer could see buildings and a weather station tower at the summit, encouraging signs that kept he going, slowly and steadily.
At last, at last, Singer arrived at the summit weather station. Ironically, on level ground again, Singer found it difficult to walk, but triumph was a relief.
Panoramic vistas
The summit of Mount Washington was actually crowded because people drove up or took the cog railway and there was a line of people waiting to get photographed at the summit sign. It was now quite chilly and Singer put on his navy “Brooklyn” hooded sweatshirt. When the sun came out it illuminated the mountains and valleys and the summit had lookouts facing in different directions. Singer more or less waddled into the large Mountain Washington summit store. He made arrangements for the cog rail trip down, a ticket was $51, visited the gift shop, and purchased a coffee that he sipped as he ate a ham and swiss with mustard sandwich that he brought with him. In the dining area he swapped stories with other hikers taking a much needed break. One young man was walking the length of the Appalachian trail and was carbo-loading with pizza because he didn’t know when he would have his next regular meal.
The cog rail ride to the parking lot is down a three-mile steep incline and took about forty-five minutes. It is one of the steepest rail lines of its kind in the world. Each unit includes an engine and a passenger coach that seats about one hundred people. They run on narrow gauge rails and a rack system that resembles a bicycle chain. A young women guide in the passenger coach controlled an emergency brake and provided a narration describing the area as it proceeded very slowly. President Ulysses Grant, a Civil War hero, rode the cog rail to the peak of Mount Washington in 1869, but he doesn’t have his own mountain in the Presidential Range.
Riding the Cog Rail back to the trailhead
I asked Singer if he would do this hike again. His response, “You got to be kidding.”
Follow Alan Singer on twitter at https://twitter.com/AlanJSinger1 | https://medium.com/@alansingerphd/71-year-old-climbs-mount-washington-in-new-hampshire-ed10024175d1 | ['Mendel Letters'] | 2021-07-07 12:37:29.907000+00:00 | ['New Hampshire', 'Hiking', 'Senior Citizens', 'Patriotism', 'Mountains'] |
Teachers Respond to Parkland Shooting | When it comes to school shootings I fear we will never agree on a solution because we can’t even agree on what the problem is. What is the root cause of American mass shootings? If you post that question on facebook you’ll never stop getting answers. Guns. People. Mental health crisis. School bullying. Entitled millenials raised by pumpkin spice latte sipping “snowflake libtards”. Violent video games. Glorification of violence in action movies with handsome leading men. Fatherless boys is the latest explanation being offered up by multiple think pieces. The name-calling and blame-throwing spikes after every shooting.
A fellow Rotarian and friend of mine is a teacher. Her response to the Florida school shooting made me think we should be asking teachers what they think the solution is. Who knows education better than educators?
She says, (in part), “Please if you want to help keep our schools safe, contact your legislators. The schools cannot teach, care for poverty, mental and physical health and make it a fun place for students. We simply can’t do all of those things. We need help. We need communities with robust programs for all of these things, so our schools can do what we do best: instill a love of learning in the future generations.”
Teachers can’t just teach anymore. They also have to parent and raise and counsel and heal children in the same time frame that used to be dedicated to learning subjects like history, math, art, science and literature. And they’re doing it with fewer resources, higher expectations, more regulation and less compensation.
And now, as a response to the “mental health crisis” facing America’s young students, an alarm has been sounded to deputize teachers in an as-yet-defined law enforcement capacity. And my teacher friend is throwing her hands up and saying Enough. But not all teachers think this is a bad idea.
Just a few posts down from hers was a thread started by another teacher friend. He teaches a slightly younger cohort than she does. He lives in an extremely rural county and is a staunch defender of gun rights. He is a kind man who is patient with all perspectives. Reading the divergent responses of both these teachers processing their grief, and how many of their friends seem to align with the respective world views of their own friends, reinforced just how polarized my country is.
There are those for whom the problem can be attributed to anything but guns. Anything else. And literally any solution can be offered but gun control.
A woman who was understandably upset today posted a response to this above cartoon on my second amendment friend’s page: “We carry not because we hate what is in front of us but because we love what is behind us.” Like any solemn vow, I’m quite certain she believes this.
But I believe that whatever the root cause(s) of mass shootings in the US is/are, I’m quite certain the solution is not arming teachers.
That same woman started that particular thread by saying, “These ‘kids’ that shoot up schools are cowards and have a clear path to success KNOWING they will meet zero resistance. If the perception changed in every school in America and the students ALL knew there were armed teachers, staff and guards all in and around the school, these cowards might realize that schools are no longer a soft target.”
When I was a student I had never heard the term “soft target.” I actually didn’t even know that term until I read it in this comment. I don’t mean to wax nostalgic, but when I was a kid elementary school teachers taught their grade and middle and high school teachers taught their subject. And that was it. I have no pedagogical expertise but specialization seemed to work well.
My fourth grade teacher was Mrs. Weber. She was from Texas and she was beautiful. She loved George Strait and wore Poison by Christian Dior — a discovery that startled me as a teenager at the perfume counter at Bon Marche — I recognized the scent instantly. I was nine years old again and her drawl was scolding me for bringing gravel into the classroom that was spilling out of my pockets and onto the reading rug. I have no idea why I did that. But I never got in trouble with her again. I still remember her fondly.
By middle school we had “block” class and interdisciplinary tracks but we had more dedicated classes taught by specific teachers. Mrs. Ryan taught science. Mr. Lewin taught writing. Mr. Balkwill taught choir and music. They were each responsible for the subject in which they specialized. Nothing more, nothing less.
But it seems that ever since we’ve started cutting school budgets the informal job description for teachers is bloating beyond scope creep, far beyond what teachers are paid or trained to do.
When I was a kid we had a separate school counselor. I don’t remember her name but she was blonde and taught us about warm fuzzies and cold pricklies. She illustrated the difference between kind words that make people feel good with cotton balls and mean things with some kind of tinsel.
But now, while teacher salaries steadily decrease, their responsibilities increase. They are no longer free to focus on academia and, as my friend said above, instill a love of learning in their students. They are also expected to be behavioral psychologists, social workers, truancy officers, nutritionists, nurses, doctors and now bodyguards and hostage negotiators.
In today’s world, the fourth grade teachers like Mrs. Weber are also called to be emergency responders with tactical weapons expertise. In the pro-gun/more guns thread I read that morning, a gentleman who seemed to be choosing his words carefully said,
“Like any other security issue the answer is in layered measures. Preventative, physical security, armed response and practiced drills. It is time we start making schools hard targets. This is a sad reality but to continue to collectively bury our heads in the sand and do nothing to secure our schools will only result in further loss of innocent life. Also I must add that disarming law abiding citizens only serves to make schools even more vulnerable. For example my wife has a current and valid carry permit for the state of Texas and carries every day, there is absolutely zero logic in forcing her to disarm herself before entering the kids’ school. If God forbid an active shooter scenario unfolded, having an armed mother present (one that can shoot the fleas off a dogs [sic] back at 15 yards with her XDM) could very well save numerous innocent lives.”
So it seems teachers are just as politically divided as the rest of the country. When I was a kid in Oklahoma we had tornado drills. When we moved to Oregon it was fire drills. My mother grew up in Southern California with earthquake drills. I’m not opposed to preparing for potential threats. I just wish teachers didn’t have to run active shooter drills. But if they do, I sure as hell don’t want that to be the only policy change we make. As NYC math educator José Luis Vilson says, school teachers shouldn’t have to be heroes.
They should be able to teach us the subjects they specialize in. And maybe occasionally scold us for our inexplicable transgressions as we learn how to be students and how to be people.
But it seems we are moving toward a society that would rather arm the would-be heroes than disarm the threat. And even if we were able to enact meaningful gun control regulations for the future, what becomes of all the guns already purchased, traded, registered and not registered?
In the quicksand of everything I’ve been reading, I didn’t find an answer. But I did come across a quote that I copied and pasted and now cannot find the original source. If you, or someone you love, wrote this, please accept or express my gratitude. Whether or not we ever diagnose the root cause(s) of mass shootings, until we stop them, this is the price we will continue to pay.
“Let us take a moment to honor the sacrifice of our brave schoolchildren who lay down their lives to protect our right to bear arms.” | https://heathermedwards.medium.com/i-fear-we-will-never-agree-on-a-solution-because-we-cant-even-agree-on-what-the-problem-is-2e5fb341dee9 | ['Heather M. Edwards'] | 2018-11-05 22:37:09.432000+00:00 | ['Guns', 'Mass Shootings', 'Teachers', 'Parkland', 'Education'] |
Python for Transit: Line frequencies in a map from GTFS | Python for Transit: Line frequencies in a map from GTFS
In this article, we will see how to get line frequencies from a GTFS using the Python package gtfs_functions. You can find the repository and official documentation on GitHub.
If you are looking for an extensive explanation of the package, I recommend you first read this introduction. Here, we are going to directly dive into the specific use case of getting stop frequencies in a map.
Package installation and GTFS parsing
To install the package and parse the GTFS run the code below. For the article, I downloaded the GTFS from SFMTA (San Francisco, CA).
Calculate line frequencies
The function lines_freq takes 5 arguments:
stop_times calculated in step 1
calculated in step 1 trips calculated in step 1
calculated in step 1 shapes calculated in step 1
calculated in step 1 routes calculated in step 1
calculated in step 1 cutoffs: list of numbers that define the time windows we want to aggregate the data by.
The output for one specific line shows:
GeoDataFrame output for the function lines_freq().
Which has the following columns:
route_id from the GTFS
from the GTFS route_name
dir_id : the direction is “Inbound” if it had 0 in the GTFS and “Outbound” if it had a 1.
: the direction is “Inbound” if it had 0 in the GTFS and “Outbound” if it had a 1. window : service window defined from the “cutoffs” input.
: service window defined from the “cutoffs” input. frequency : hourly frequency in minutes per trip in the window.
: hourly frequency in minutes per trip in the window. ntrips : number of trips in the widow.
: number of trips in the widow. max_freq: highest hourly frequency in the day in minutes per trip.
highest hourly frequency in the day in minutes per trip. max_trips : maximum number of hourly trips that take place in that stop.
: maximum number of hourly trips that take place in that stop. geometry
Show results on a map
You can always export the GeoDataFrames we saw and open them in your favorite GIS software, but I added a function to allow the user to quickly take a look from the notebook before going into that workflow. It is not meant to be presentation-ready or fully customizable, just to take a quick look.
The function map_gdf() is built on top of the folium library and allows you to quickly visualize and style the data on a map.
It takes 6 arguments as shown below. For example, to visualize line frequencies:
Acknowledgments & References
Far from taking credit from other’s work, I want to acknowledge that some functions of this package were built on top of great and more generic packages and were just slightly modified to better serve this specific workflow.
For example, the function import_gtfs() heavily relies on partridge, a powerful Python library created by Remix founders that makes parsing a GTFS very easy. Similarly, map_gdf() and save_gdf() are built on top of folium and geopandas respectively. | https://medium.com/@santiagoa-toso/python-for-gtfs-line-frequencies-in-a-map-d1c967695e3d | ['Santiago Toso'] | 2020-12-09 15:43:05.624000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Python', 'Transit', 'Transportation Planning', 'Urban Planning'] |
ETH 2.0 : Ethereum’s big move | Ethereum 2.0 promises to be the biggest change to Ethereum yet. With Proof-Of-Stake, more transactions per second, and better security.
Whole new consensus
The biggest change coming to ETH is the change from Proof-of-Work to Proof-Of-Stake.
Though the groundwork for this new consensus has already been laid and staking has been started on the testnet, the change is yet to come to the mainnet.
PoS is essential for Ethereum’s growth as environmental concerns grips crypto especially after Elon Musk’s tweet which caused a significant drop in crypto markets. After PoS goes live, ETH’s energy demand is estimated to go down 99% as miners turn into validators and mining pools turn into staking pools.
Though 51% attacks will still be possible in staking, the fact that someone will be willing to stake that much of ETH is highly unlikely. Also, such a person would by no means WANT the network to become useless nonetheless.
EIP 1559
As of writing this article EIP 1559(Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559) is slated to go live in the London hard fork. However the update has gone live on the Ropsten Testnet.
EIP1559 will remove the current fee structure by removing the gas fees with a system of base fee and an optional inclusion fee, the former of which will be burned(removed from circulation) and the latter will be transferred to miners as a incentive to prioritize the transaction.
This will solve the problem of high gas fees and will also add a deflationary mechanism to the blockchain, which is necessary as staking attacks depend on the scarcity of an asset.
Shard of hope
Scaling has been a major problem on the Ethereum network, with speed around 2,000 transactions per second and high gas fees make transactions expensive and slow.
ETH 2.0 brings sharding to the table, effectively making the blockchain into multiple small pieces, which would allow the blockchain to run on small devices and phones, increasing its decentralization and increasing the transactions per second that can be carried.
Current estimates range from 10,000 to more than 100,000 transactions per second(TPS) being executed on the network after sharding is introduced.
Not to mention the increased security as the computing power will become much more decentralized that ever before
This is indeed necessary, as the cryptocurrency increasingly looks to expand to real world applications.
Layers of Success
Sharding was earlier intended to come before staking as developers focused to increase the TPS however layer 2 solutions made it possible to conduct transactions at a fraction of cost compared to the conducting the transactions on the main chain,
One of the most promising Layer 2 solutions is Polygon(Previously known as the Matic Network) which has see transactions soaring and had reached an all time high of 2.7$ on May 18th.
Daily transactions surpass Ethereum and BSC
Source: TradingView
These high transactions volumes have also benefitted many DEXs(Decentralized Exchanges) and DeFi as lower transaction fees allow users with small holding to easily interact in the ETH ecosystem.
Ending Thoughts
ETH 2.0 promises considerable changes to make ETH much more sustainable, scalable, decentralized and secure. Many of these changes seem promising yet they still bring along many challenges.
While the community is open to the changes being bough by the Ethereum Foundation it remains to be seem how successful these changes are, although staking and sharding seem a step in the right direction. | https://medium.com/@anmolsingh04/eth-2-0-ethereums-big-move-da640a2a736a | ['Anmol Singh'] | 2021-06-25 18:01:16.487000+00:00 | ['Eip 1559', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Proof Of Stake', 'Ethereum'] |
One More Time With Me | One More Time With Me
Saturday Poetry Prompt: Reason to Rejoice
Photo by Christopher Rusev on Unsplash
I started the monologue in a space between two ends to
talk about life and dreams, the things I live that ain’t mine,
the vibrations of the people, the places, the dinner, the seasonal effects, the silence, the stillness, the attempt to re imagine something lost
I am now closer to my last breath and it will be easier
for several reasons to resonate because it was so perfectly
tailored to me, something I know that it loved me right back
so that’s the dilemma in what I was seeking
I was still staggering like an orphan made by the workhouse
before I lean on the bar with a pensive sigh
not enough time, not enough energy
yet we have enough, actually, we have too much…
too much stress, too much sadness, too much rejection
I try to imagine life without so many calamities and I can’t
so many times rejoiced and every cast was a loser
Why would I be here, if I wasn’t carrying the dead weight of a chronic life?
So why not, try one more time, the craziest fork with compassion from the suffering?
Recount choices or chances? Add, subtract, subtract, the result no simpler than my first choice, my last chance
so finally rejoice in the wilderness of life
to be relieved of the dead burden, of the dark of a dormitory
that remained for several years like a crime scene
So I left because there wasn’t anything worth staying for and
no prospect of anything worth having or becoming
and perhaps…
because there was only one last dream left behind
Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams.
For if dreams go,
Life is a barren field
Covered with snow. by Langston Hughes
To my friend that believed in me, I hope we will have a reason to rejoice | https://medium.com/scrittura/one-more-time-with-me-601ab1a569fd | ['Joanna Vang'] | 2020-12-26 21:26:16.609000+00:00 | ['Dreams And Visions', 'Saturday Poetry Prompt', 'Rejoice', 'Scrittura'] |
Is There Ever Reason to Be Less Than Perfect? | As writers, we are often our own worst enemies. We struggle to write, struggle to edit, then struggle to accept it’s been edited enough and it’s time to send it out into the world. We always believe there is something else that we can add, subtract or change to make our writing stronger and so it’s difficult to accept that while not perfect, it’s just time to let it go.
Writing on a platform like Medium, there is a careful balance between making sure your writing is edited and free of mistakes and typos while not holding it back for excessive editing to change minor points. This is because these types of platforms are more akin to blogs rather than content websites and so readers expect a relatively regular schedule of publishing.
I have noticed when I don’t publish something new for several days that my reads, follows and engagement falls off. Perhaps this is related to popularity with those who already have a large and regular following less likely to see such a fall off. I suspect that popularity would also affect the degree to which your own involvement with other writer’s articles plays a role in how well your articles perform when you haven’t published in a while. When I’m not active on Medium, related social media pages even for a single day, I likewise see a drop in my article stats.
Similarly, I have noticed that the popularity of my writing increased with the number of posts I published a month. There was a point that it increased exponentially which occurred the month when I began publishing at least four articles a week. Reinforced in my efforts by these number, I pushed myself to write five a week and to try for six and this meant sometimes putting things out there that were just easy to write despite not always being perfect in craft, message or topic.
I had noticed that articles written in the first person which included personal accounts seemed to perform better than magazine style articles, yet these weren’t easy for me to write, especially at the beginning. Rather than waiting for a topic to come to mind that I could reflect on or relate from a personal point of view, when stuck I’d fall back on research related articles or those which just explained for example, psychological disorders and issues. While not happy I could often only write articles that seemed dry, I also knew that to wait for inspiration to hit would mean I barely wrote or published.
I think as writers we often want to inspire or impress readers with our humor or ability to create what I call eureka passages which make them think differently about something. We want readers to relate to us and our experiences, to connect with us on both an intellectual and emotional level. However, for many of us, this is a difficult thing to do and there are some that seem to instinctively know how to do this while others don’t.
I am definitely in the latter category. Coming from an academic background I had difficulty transitioning into more of a personal, less formal, writing style and I suspect that may been something that I felt comfortable with in academia, never needing to put your personal views on the line.
When I first started writing on Medium, I continued writing the way I felt most comfortable. I didn’t expect a huge following, especially to begin with, but hoped to grow it over time. I read the other articles on the platform, paying attention to which had the highest engagement. While some were well written magazine style articles the majority of those that I was most drawn to came from personal experiences and expressed personal viewpoints. So I worked toward writing these types of posts.
Yet it was difficult to manage this and more often than not I just wasn’t able to come up with something I thought I could do justice to. Even when I did, I usually found that the article quickly turned back to formality. This meant I was almost never pleased with what I published, even those articles that were accepted for inclusion in publications or curated.
Over time, I had to accept a hard truth. If I waited for ideas and a clear conceptualization that allowed me to meet my loftier goals of true reader connection and engagement, refusing to publish anything unless I thought it had a good shot at this, I would be publishing infrequently. While this may be okay for those who write as a hobby, for those of us who are aiming writing a career, which necessitates a certain amount of popularity and a regular following, it may not be enough.
In order to have time to write new material regularly, engage with other writers and support their efforts as you would like them to support yours, you have to be able to get posts out relatively quickly. This is especially crucial for those of us who may not be able to write quality posts daily. In order to accomplish this, writers need to accept that every post is not going to be perfect in content, tone, wording and message.
Striving to get your point across in a clear manner through clean writing is likely enough to establish a following that will grow over time. Striving for every post to be award winning, however, will not likely help you gain a regular readership.
The painful truth is, no matter how good a writer you are, or how unique and inspirational your writing may be, given the huge amount of content available online, out of site is out of mind. Strive for consistency and the occasional post that really touches readers rather than a viral post every time you publish. | https://medium.com/mental-gecko/is-there-ever-reason-to-be-less-than-perfect-9ebe800dcdf9 | ['Natalie Frank'] | 2019-04-03 14:41:36.084000+00:00 | ['Writing Life', 'Perfectionism', 'Mindset', 'Writing', 'Writing Tips'] |
Which Wireless Hardware Wallet Is Better? — Bitcoin Lockup | D’CENT vs SafePal! In this comparison, we are going to do a head-to-head of two of the most competitive and popular new cryptocurrency hardware wallets in this edition of the hardware wallet roundups.
I am going to dive into which of these bluetooth hardware wallets is better and more secure. How big is your portfolio? Do you need mobile AND desktop support? Do you use any 3rd party wallets for integration? Do you need web-based access instead of a required download?
These are all questions you will need to consider when deciding which of these wallets will be best for you. At the end of the day, the coin support is one of the most important factors (besides security) when deciding which hardware wallet is best for you.
Ultimately, if it doesn’t support the coins you want to store offline, it won’t work for your particular situation. So keep that in mind as we dive into what I consider to be the most important factors when making a such an important decision, such as choosing a cryptocurrency hardware wallet.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, but you also get what you pay for. One of the key features that sets this device apart from most other competing hardware wallets is the fact that there is NO:
This gives it extra security, but it also makes it easier to use, as there are no extra devices necessary for this to operate, other than your smartphone. All you need right out of the box is a charger that supports USB-A to charge the device and a smartphone to download the Safepal App to setup and initialize the device.
This is the cheapest completely wireless hardware wallet on the market. It interacts only with your smartphone and the camera embedded into the device that allows you to transmit encrypted data via the QR code. This is truly a unique device.
This is the one weak point of this product is the lack of coin support, as it only supports: Bitcoin, Ether (and ERC-20 Tokens), BNB, Litecoin, Dash, and Bitcoin Cash, DigiByte (DGB), NEO, and Zcash (ZEC) . However, they have mentioned that there is Ripple (XRP) and Tron (TRX) coming very shortly. They truly are attempting to add more coins, and over time, if they don’t raise their price, this option will be a slam dunk for most users.
Multi-IC architecture design
Bank grade EAL 5+ Secure Element (This is the same security chip used in the Ledger Nano X )
Secure OS embedded on microprocessor
One of the main features I like here is the option to generate a valid QR code on the large OLED screen of this device as a way to send funds directly from your smartphone to your D’CENT wallet. This is super convenient and truly makes this a wireless and independent device that can be used on the go via the D’CENT app, which also includes a market price section and of course all of your wallets and current fiat amount stored within each one.
What’s also nice is you no longer need to backup and restore this device for firmware upgrades like you do with other devices (although you can, since this device can also support bluetooth and USB connectivity if you choose). This makes this a very convenient choice when considering the ease of use and security when choosing how to secure your private keys.
The coin support is varied. The can store and support Bitcoin, Ethereum, ERC20 tokens, RSK, RRC20 (RSK tokens), Ripple (XRP), and MONACOIN. To many, this may not seem like it is very much, however, a majority of the major tokens are ERC-20 tokens and all can be supported natively on this device, which is good. I have not come across a hardware wallet yet that supports RSK and RRC20 tokens yet natively, so that definitely makes this an exclusive hardware wallet first for the D’CENT wallet!
D’CENT vs SafePal: Conclusion
Overall, these are two of the most interesting wallets out there. On the one hand, the SafePal is embracing the QR code level security of an entry level wallet, but is lacking in its overall coin support. I do expect this to change over time and expand their offerings as they begin to gain market share.
On the other hand, the D’CENT is the only hardware wallet that offers biometric security (by use of your thumbprint) as an extra layer of security for signing and authorizing transactions. This is nice in knowing that no one can process any transactions, even if they know your password and/or PIN code.
The D’CENT is also lacking (in comparison to other mainstream hardware wallets) in terms of coin support, but supports the RSK chain (Bitcoin Side-Chain) that is unique to this wallet and will still support all the main coins you get on every other hardware wallet.
At the end of the day, I would go with the SafePal. It’s currently under $40 and has air-gapped technology and is a completely wireless device that doesn’t require you to connect to a computer to manage your crypto assets. That’s not to say the D’CENT is bad, I just would rather spend less and get what some could construe as a better security model, even though its current coin support leaves much to be desired.
What do you think? Would you choose the D’CENT over the SafePal? Let us know down below in the comments!
The Crypto Renegade
NOTE: This post may contain affiliate links. This adds no cost to you but it helps me focus on giving as much value as possible in every single post by being compensated for recommending products that help people succeed. | https://medium.com/@cryptorenegade/dcent-vs-safepal-2020-which-wireless-hardware-wallet-is-better-bitcoin-lockup-3c6cebce6eb1 | ['Crypto Renegade'] | 2019-12-27 04:43:32.376000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Hardware Wallet', 'Bitcoin Wallet', 'Crypto', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Gianluca’s Predictions for 2020 | UPDATE: I’ve scored and reviewed these predictions here, on my new blog.
Taking the lead of the ever-fascinating David Manheim, I’ll be trying my hand at out-forecasting Vox in 2020. This is the first time I’m making public forecasts and I’m really excited to put my cognitive toolkit to the test.
It’s been a couple of years since I read Superforecasting, but I’m hoping that my ongoing efforts to be a good Bayesian and my curated collection of mental models will help me out in this endeavour.
Being a newbie to public forecasts of world events, I want to try something a little different to what I see others doing. I’m going to go through Vox’s list of 19 statements and make an intuitive estimate for each. The idea is to spend 20–30 seconds thinking about the nature of the question without doing any research and then just making an estimate. Once that’s done, I’ll think about each question a little more, look into the measurement criteria, and employ some adversarial techniques to refine my intuitions (priors) to more informed estimates (posteriors). This may involve various iterations, so I’m going to make my initial predictions now, but allow myself to update this post until Friday 17 January 2020 at 23:59 PM local time. From there, my estimates are locked in for the year. I’ll be using the definitions specified by Vox and only update any constraints if they do.
When Vox publish the follow-up article at the end of the year, I’ll calculate Brier scores for both my “priors” and “posteriors” and see how I did. I’m excited!
UPDATE: I’ve locked in my predictions as of 2020–01–17 6PM local time. I’ve also recorded them on Metaculus for the 17 questions that are reflected there. Let the wait begin.
Prior: 70%, Posterior: 55%
Interestingly, my intuitive prior of 70% tracks perfectly with the historical incumbent reelection rate (when accounting for Obama) of 69%. That drops to around 67% if we only look at reelections since 1960. Trump seems to have low approval ratings, but the US economy is fairly strong. These may balance out. Incorporating evidence from the Democratic contenders is difficult as they’re numerous and the polls are quite divided. The PredictWise distillation of US presidential election odds across betting/prediction platforms have Trump at only 55%. However, at this point, he’s effectively running against the sum of every Democrat’s favourite candidate, not the one he’ll actually run against. If a polarising candidate wins the DRC nomination, Trump might pick up votes from defecting Democrats.
Okay, but to win reelection he has to run for reelection. According to the definition, “if Trump dies or is removed from office by any means prior to the election, question resolves negative.” According to some reports, he’s in pretty decent health. That said, the impeachment question complicates things—typically, it would encourage me to update downwards on his chances, but with Republican control of the Senate, I’ve heard that it may even strengthen his 2020 run? I’m not sure what to make of that, but it’s certainly another free variable and that makes me think that tending closer to 50% might be wise.
Prior: 65%, Posterior: 55%
Source: predictwise.com
The PredictWise distillation of US presidential election odds across betting/prediction platforms suggests that Sanders leads Biden by a few percentage points in the DRC nomination race. But they do seem to fluctuate greatly from week to week—presumably due to the news cycle—so I’m not updating too much from the “Biden is the best known” heuristic that informed my initial estimate.
Prior: 75%, Posterior: 65%
Having done a bit more research, it seems that Senate seats track a lot more to the presidential race than I was originally aware. At 53–47* it’s also much closer than I initially thought. Definitely updating down.
But I also noticed there’s an asymmetry to the number of seats up for reelection across parties. The way I’m currently framing this, the Republicans have 2x the “risk” the Democrats do. But then a cross-reference on PredictWise puts current estimates at 71% Republican majority. So I’ll bump my estimate back up a little.
Prior: 55%, Posterior: 75%
My prior was quite uninformed here. Trump has already made 2 nominations. Bush and Obama each had 2 nominations over their double terms. So recent trends seem to suggest Trump won’t get to make another nomination. However, Ginsberg is pretty old and there has been talk of Sotomayor retiring for health reasons.
In other words, the majority of the confidence on this forecast would come from estimating the union of the probabilities of Ginsburg or Sotomayor retiring/dying. Given their ages and what I could find about their health, their all-cause mortality risks for the next 10 years are about 15% and 40%. Assuming linearity in how that maps to annual risk (which is probably a bit dodgy), that’s a union of under 7%. That said, just because they have a low risk of actually dying this year, doesn’t mean they (or someone else) won’t retire.
Prior: 55%, Posterior: 65%
Reading into the detailed definition, it seems this is a lot more likely than my prior (which was informed by tendency to status quo). Given reports that GOP reps. are urging SCOTUS to overrule Roe v. Wade, it seems more likely that at least some additional restrictions could be passed. I’m not well-informed on this topic at all, so I’m maintaining a lower estimate.
Prior: 50%, Posterior: 55%
*According to the definition, “This question resolves positively if electionbettingodds.com assigns one candidate at least 90% of winning the Democratic primary at some point within one week after Super Tuesday.”
The idea behind the forecast is that having a greater number of candidates increases the likelihood that an early lead will consolidate power behind one candidate and end the race early. I’m not sure where I can find good historical data for this one, so I’m going to mainly go on instinct and speculation, tempered with a conservative upper bound.
Prior: 75%, Posterior: 70%
Definition: “Will we see fewer than 734.5M people in extreme poverty, worldwide in the year 2020, according to World Bank estimates?”
Playing with some data, it seems like the trend toward increased income (and therefore decreased poverty) is pretty steady, despite some mention that it might decline. Given my “the world’s getting better on average” model, I’d feel pretty confident with this one. But others are more conservative, so I probably need to find more data.
Prior: 80%, Posterior: 90%
According to the definition, this is accepted if there’s either (1) a “hard” Brexit, or (2) a withdrawal agreement with a transition period. The fact that Brexit has been repeatedly deferred for years made be quite bearish in my initial estimates. But it seems like things are different this time, and a quick look at the betting markets makes me pretty confident it will go ahead sometime in 2020.
Prior: 30%, Posterior: 20%
The definition of this one actually differs quite a lot to what Vox’s forecast is. As with all these forecasts, I’ll follow the rigorous definitions of Metaculus. But I hadn’t looked that up when I set my (now inverted from 70% for the negation) prior. I thought it likely that the US wouldn’t invade Iran, but to avoid the conjunction fallacy I should now be even more sure that they won’t invade and enforce a regime change. Adding the regime change conditions reduces the affirmative set to a subset of the original “US invades Iran” set.
I’m already quite bearish on a US invasion occurring, as Iran seems to be backing down since they shot down the Ukranian airliner. Moreover, if the US invades but doesn’t officially call for Khamenei’s resignation before the end of the year, the statement evaluates in the negative.
Prior: 70%, Posterior: 80%
This one also has a very different definition from the specification in the Vox article. I based my initial prior on the original statement. By definition, China would need to lower the inmate population by 200k or reduce the number of camps by 200. From what I could find, the latest estimates are between 1 and 3 million interred. Requiring a 6–20% reduction in the interred seems viable in a single year if it were an explicit goal. But even as a reluctant (signalling) effort, I’d expect lower. China is powerful and influential in the world in recent years, and I don’t see any major players forcing them to make changes. From what I know, their own populace is also not in a position to oppose national agendas, so pressure from within is not strong either. I doubt international opinion on social media platforms (that are banned in China) will have much influence on national interests. But perhaps they would trade this interest for another. It’s low-hanging fruit for international relations.
Prior: 70%, Posterior: 55%
Netanyahu’s party seems to be trailing the opposition in opinion polls and, with his recent indictments, it seems like public opinion could sway against him. That said, maintenance of the status quo is typically more likely as a general rule. I’m not very well-informed on this one anyway, so I’m tending down toward 50%.
Prior: 70%, Posterior: 80%
I actually have some background here, but whilst that makes me familiar with the concept and caveats of gene drives, it doesn’t help me predict the major causal factor here—whether humans in organisations try to implement one in the wild. I think there is wonderful potential for good here, so I’m bullish on the concept, especially in the context of malaria prevention. I probably need to counter for that preference when forecasting. Predicting the ecological effects that an IRL gene drive would have is difficult. I think approaches that render the offending species extinct (by making them infertile) are more dangerous. We’d be better served by conferring malaria resistance genes without removing species from their ecological niche. From what I understand of the problem, that’s more difficult to do, which decreases the chance that a gene drive will be implemented this year.
Prior: 45%, Posterior: 75%
Once again, I have at least some domain knowledge here. I’ve long maintained that editing embryos to remove disease risk would be the justifiable beginning of human genetic engineering and would eventually trigger a genetic arms race. All that was needed was one rogue group to defy the status quo and trigger the cascade. In 2019, I thought He Jiankui had done just that. But it seems that my prediction was wrong (or at least that there is some lag time).
One of my few controversial theories is that a lot of human gene editing probably occurs out of the public eye. I think that may very well involve CRISPR-edited babies in 2020. I think China publicly punishing He may have been a signalling strategy—the scapegoat who triggered the events many were waiting for. However, this forecast only applies to publicly-announced births. Because of that (and the present unpopularity of this concept in popular discourse), I don’t really expect any announcements this year. But some shady labs might be discovered, which I expect would result in something that qualifies as a public announcement. So I’m leaving some probability density on the table for that eventuality.
14. The number of drug-resistant infections will increase
Prior: 75%, Posterior: 85%
There isn’t a formal definition for this question on Metaculus, so I’m going off what Vox say in the article. To me, this seems obvious. Species tend to diversify. Drug-resistance is highly selected for (especially within hospitals). Short of some breakthrough in antibiotics that applies to a wide spectrum of bacteria, it seems like a given that there will be more kinds of drug-resistant bacteria. But what it seems like Vox are forecasting here is the number of reported cases of a patient with a drug-resistant infection. This is only slightly-correlated with the number of drug-resistant bacteria subspecies. So it’s not a given, but it’s still quite likely.
Prior: 65%, Posterior: 65%
There appear to be two competing trends here. Firstly, the majority of Americans trust city law enforcement to use facial recognition responsibly. And the maturation of the technology in recent years makes it a highly valuable asset in the toolkit of any city department. Secondly, multiple US cities have already banned facial recognition use (by city departments).
The question is which trend will dominate in 2020. The more I look into it, the happier I am to stick with my prior here. Only two cities, Portland and Springfield, are apparently considering bans, but they might not pass them before the end of the year.
16. Beyond Meat will outperform the general stock market
Prior: 40%, Posterior: 55%
Once again, there’s no Metaculus definition for this one, so I’ll rely on the (very little) information in Vox’s original post. I don’t know what they’re defining the “general stock market” as, but I know that beating the market over time is really really hard and that informed my prior. But one year is not “over time,” and the “general stock market” might mean something other than S&P 500. But plant-based diets are increasingly in vogue and Beyond Meat might just ride that wave in 2020, so I’ll give them a slight forecast advantage over the negative case.
Prior: 70%, Posterior: 85%
This also seems like a given to me, but the fact that it’s a forecast question made me set a more conservative prior. In almost all recent years, the estimated emissions have been higher than the previous year. In general, emissions increase year-on-year. But, fortunately, it seems like the second derivative of emissions is negative. That is to say, the rate at which emissions are increasing is slowing down. That does cast some doubt on this forecast, but I’m gonna bump up my estimate.
Prior: 60%, Posterior: 55%
This one is a little less obvious than global emissions. The weather is definitely correlated with the climate, which is correlated with global emissions. But there are two layers of chaotic systems separating them. As you can see in the figures below, the general trend in average temperature is clear, but from year to year there’s a lot of “wobble.” Given that, it makes sense to have only a slight expectation that 2020 will be hotter than 2019. It’s like a slightly-loaded coin.
Source: e IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)
Prior: 45%, Posterior: 58%
“The overall trend in California is troubling too. Six of California’s 10 most destructive wildfires on record have hit in just the past three years” (source).
But regression to the mean is also a thing. Just because you had 10 heads in a row, doesn’t mean you’re more likely to get heads again. But coin flips are considered truly independent events. Wildfire is definitely linked to changes in climate and human activity.
Moreover, the trend of “there’s a record fire every other year” becomes harder and harder the more extreme the recent fires are. But it’s hard to grasp without looking at the data.
Top Californian wildfires since ~1923. Source: https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/5511/top20_destruction.pdf
The thing about this forecast is that it’s evaluated on the number of structures destroyed, which is a pretty weird way to quantify the severity of the fire. But regardless, here is a plot of the 10 worst fires in terms of destroyed structures.
I took the top 10 historical wildfires and plotted the number of structures destroyed.
2018 was outrageously extreme. But then there’s this long tail of sub-3000 fires. So breaking into this top-10 list isn’t actually that difficult for now. Moreover, the wildfires are treated as independent, so some of these are from the same year. There may be more than one wildfire outbreak in 2020, so it’s an additive probability. Even if we assume a uniform distribution of wildfires, there’s over a 10% chance that any year’s worst fire would be in the top 10 (given records dating back to 1923). But the current top-10 list is 70% composed of fires from 2015–2018. So I’m kinda unsure which way to update my prior here, but upwards seems more reasonable.
However, since 2017 and 2018 were awful years for fires, I’d presume way more resources are being thrown at the problem now. Preventative measures and early-response systems are in place, so it’s less likely that 2020 fires would cause as much damage. The fires were often caused by electrical and powerline issues, which PG&E are probably working fairly hard to address. It’s typically cheaper to prevent issues than pay for the resulting lawsuits.
Moreover, the most vulnerable structures and regions were likely destroyed in 2017 and 2018 and either no longer exist or are now built to be more fire-resistant. It’s kinda like that story of where to place armour on WWII era planes. Once again, the severity of fires is measured in terms of structures (barns, sheds, homes, etc.) destroyed. A fire bigger than any in recent history might destroy fewer structures simply because the structures are different/absent. Because of those effects, I’ll temper my update. | https://medium.com/@quantified-vagabond/gianlucas-predictions-for-2020-b12c0690ffb3 | ['Gianluca Truda'] | 2021-05-07 14:34:24.329000+00:00 | ['Bayesian', 'Rationalist', 'Superforecasting', 'Forecasting', 'Predictions'] |
Software Engineering Tips and Best Practices for Data Science | The problems with Jupyter Notebook ⛔️
Quite often, things may not go the way you intend if you want to take your jupyter prototyping to the next level. Here are some situations I myself encountered while using this tool and that should sound familiar to you:
With all the objects (functions or classes) defined and instantiated in one place, maintainability becomes really hard : even if you want to make a small change to a function, you have to locate it somewhere in the notebook, fix it and rerun the code all over again. You don’t want that, believe me. Wouldn’t be simple to have your logic and processing functions separated in external scripts?
: even if you want to make a small change to a function, you have to locate it somewhere in the notebook, fix it and rerun the code all over again. You don’t want that, believe me. Wouldn’t be simple to have your logic and processing functions separated in external scripts? Because of its interactivity and instant feedback, jupyter notebooks push data scientists to declare variables in the global namespace instead of using functions. This is considered bad practice in python development because it limits effective code reuse. It also harms reproducibility because your notebook turns into a large state machine holding all your variables. In this configuration, you’ll have to remember which result is cached and which is not and you’ll also have to expect other users to follow your cell execution order.
It also harms reproducibility because your notebook turns into a large state machine holding all your variables. In this configuration, you’ll have to remember which result is cached and which is not and you’ll also have to expect other users to follow your cell execution order. The way notebooks are formatted behind the scenes (JSON objects) makes code versioning difficult. This is why I rarely see data scientists using GIT to commit different versions of a notebook or merging branches for specific features. Consequently, team collaboration becomes inefficient and clunky: team members start exchanging code snippets and notebooks via e-mail or Slack, rolling back to a previous version of the code is a nightmare, and the file organization starts to be messy. Here’s what I commonly see in projects after two or three weeks of using a jupyter notebook without proper versioning:
analysis.ipynb
analysis_COPY(1).ipynb
analysis_COPY(2).ipynb
analysis_FINAL.ipynb
analysis_FINAL_2.ipynb
This is why I rarely see data scientists using GIT to commit different versions of a notebook or merging branches for specific features. Consequently, team collaboration becomes inefficient and clunky: team members start exchanging code snippets and notebooks via e-mail or Slack, rolling back to a previous version of the code is a nightmare, and the file organization starts to be messy. Here’s what I commonly see in projects after two or three weeks of using a jupyter notebook without proper versioning: Jupyter notebooks are good for exploration and quick prototyping. They’re certainly not designed for reusability or production-use . If you developed a data processing pipeline using a jupyter notebook, the best you can state is that your code is only working on your laptop or your VM in a linear synchronous fashion following the execution order of the cells. This doesn’t say anything about the way your code would behave in a more complex environment with, for instance, larger input datasets, other asynchronous parallel tasks, or less allocated resources.
Notebooks are in fact hard to test since their behavior is sometimes unpredictable.
. If you developed a data processing pipeline using a jupyter notebook, the best you can state is that your code is only working on your laptop or your VM in a linear synchronous fashion following the execution order of the cells. This doesn’t say anything about the way your code would behave in a more complex environment with, for instance, larger input datasets, other asynchronous parallel tasks, or less allocated resources. As someone who spends most of his time on VSCode taking advantage of powerful extensions for code linting, style formatting, code structuring, autocompletion, and codebase search, I can’t help but feel a bit powerless when switching back to jupyter.
Compared to VSCode, jupyter notebook lacks extensions that enforce coding best practices.
Ok folks, enough bashing for now. I honestly love jupyter and I think it’s great for what’s designed to do. You can definitely use it to bootstrap small projects or quickly prototype ideas.
But in order to ship these ideas in an industrial fashion, you have to follow software engineering principles that happen to get lost when data scientists use notebooks. So let’s review some of them together and see why they’re important.
Tips to make your code great again 🚀
*These tips have been compiled from different projects, meetups I attended, and discussions with software engineers and architects I’ve worked with by the past. If you have other suggestions and ideas to share, feel free to bring your contributions in the comment section and I’ll credit your answer in the post.
*The following sections assume that we’re writing python scripts. Not notebooks.
1 —Clean your code 🧼️
Photo by Florian Olivo on Unsplash
One of the most important aspects of code quality is clarity. Clear and readable code is crucial for collaboration and maintainability.
Here’s what may help you have a cleaner code:
Use meaningful variable names that are descriptive and imply type. For example, if you’re declaring a boolean variable about an attribute (age for example) to check whether a person is old, you can make it both descriptive and type-informative by using is_old.
The same goes for the way you declare your data: make it explanatory.
# not good ...
import pandas as pd
df = pd.read_csv(path) # better!
transactions = pd.read_csv(path)
Avoid abbreviations that no one but you can understand and long variable names that no one can bear.
that no one but you can understand and that no one can bear. Don’t hard code “magic numbers” directly in code. Define them in a variable so that everyone can understand what they refer to.
# not good ...
optimizer = SGD(0.0045, momentum=True) # better !
learning_rate = 0.0045
optimizer = SGD(learning_rate, momentum=True)
Follow PEP8 conventions when naming your objects: for example, functions and methods names are in lowercase and words are separated by an underscore, class names follow the UpperCaseCamelCase convention, constants are fully capitalized, etc.
Learn more about these conventions here.
when naming your objects: for example, functions and methods names are in lowercase and words are separated by an underscore, class names follow the UpperCaseCamelCase convention, constants are fully capitalized, etc. Learn more about these conventions here. Use indentation and whitespaces to let your code breathe. There are standard conventions such as “using 4 space for each indent”, “separate sections should have additional blank lines”… Since I never remember those, I use a very nice VSCode extension called prettier that automatically reformat my code when pressing ctrl+s.
2 — Make your code modular 📁
When you start building something that you feel can be reused in the same or other projects, you’ll have to organize your code into logical functions and modules. This helps for better organization and maintainability.
For example, you’re working on an NLP project and you may have different processing functions to handle text data (tokenizing, stripping URLs, lemmatizing, etc.). You can put all these units in a python module called text_processing.py and import them from it. Your main program will be way lighter!
These are some good tips I learned about writing modular code:
DRY: Don’t Repeat Yourself. Generalize and consolidate your code whenever possible.
Generalize and consolidate your code whenever possible. Functions should do one thing . If a function does multiple operations, it becomes more difficult to generalize.
. If a function does multiple operations, it becomes more difficult to generalize. Abstract your logic in functions but without over-engineering it: there’s the slight possibility that you’ll end up with too many modules. Use your judgment, and if you’re inexperienced, have a look at popular GitHub repositories such as scikit-learn and check out their coding style.
3 — Refactor your code 📦
Refactoring aims at reorganizing the internal structure of the code without altering its functionalities. It’s usually done on a working (but still not fully organized) version of the code. It helps de-duplicate functions, reorganize the file structure, and add more abstraction.
To learn more about python refactoring, this article is a great resource.
4 — Make your code efficient ⏱
Writing efficient code that executes fast and consumes less memory and storage is another important skill in software development.
Writing efficient code takes years of experience, but here are some quick tips that may help your find out if your code is running slow and how to boost it:
Before running anything, check the complexity of your algorithm to evaluate its execution time
Check the possible bottlenecks of your script by inspecting the running time of every operation
Avoid for-loops as much as possible and vectorize your operations, especially if you’re using libraries such as NumPy or pandas
Leverage the CPU cores of your machine by using multiprocessing
5 — Use GIT or any other version control system 🔨
In my personal experience, using GIT + Github helped me improve my coding skills and better organize my projects. Since I used it while collaborating with friends and/or colleagues, it made me stick to standards I didn’t obey to in the past.
There are lots of benefits to using a version control system, be it in data science or software development.
Keeping track of your changes
Rolling back to any previous version of the code
Efficient collaboration between team members via merge and pull requests
Increase of code quality
Code review
Assigning tasks to team members and monitoring their progress over time
Platforms such as Github or Gitlab go even further and provide, among other things, Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery hooks to automatically build and deploy your projects.
If you’re new to Git I recommend having a look at this tutorial.
Or you can have a look at this cheat sheet:
If you want to specifically learn about how to version machine learning models, have a look at this article.
6 — Test your code 📐
If you’re building a data pipeline that executes a series of operations, one way to make sure it performs according to what it’s designed to do, is to write tests that check an expected behavior.
Tests can be as simple as checking an output shape or an expected value returned by a function.
Writing tests for your functions and modules brings many benefits:
It improves the stability of the code and makes mistakes easier to spot
It prevents unexpected outputs
It helps to detect edge cases
It prevents from pushing broken code to production
7 —Use logging 🗞
Once the first version of your code is running, you definitely want to monitor it at every step to understand what happens, track the progress, or spot faulty behavior. Here’s where you can use logging.
Here are some tips on efficiently using logging:
Use different levels (debug, info, warning) depending on the nature of the message you want to log
Provide useful information in the logs to help solve the related issues.
import logging
logging.basicConfig(filename='example.log',level=logging.DEBUG)
logging.debug('This message should go to the log file')
logging.info('So should this')
logging.warning('And this, too')
References
Conclusion
Long gone the days when data scientists found their way around by producing reports and jupyter notebooks that didn’t communicate in any way with the company systems and infrastructure.
Nowadays, data scientists start producing testable and runnable code that seamlessly integrates with the IT systems. Following software engineering best practices becomes therefore a must.
I hope this article gave you an overview of what these best practices are.
Thanks for reading! | https://medium.com/swlh/software-engineering-tips-and-best-practices-for-data-science-5d85dbcf87fd | ['Ahmed Besbes'] | 2020-10-11 05:23:06.301000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Programming', 'Python', 'Data Science'] |
10 Tips for becoming a better software engineer | When you hear the word pragmatism in software engineering it is usually in reference to the great book by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas — Pragmatic Programmer (highly recommended), but we let’s take a shortcuts for the sake of brevity, and use the philosophical meaning in the context of engineering: a pattern is only useful after it has proven utility in a measurable form.
Tip 1: Pragmatism == utility. For example; The S.O.L.I.D principles provide proven techniques for achieving a decouple and scalable systems. And because they are proven by we start to see frameworks adoption it. Now we don’t have to think about Dependency Inversion. Do not write, design, or create unless there is measurable utility.
Tip 2: Software engineering is a craft. As a point of comparison consider the effort it takes to make a car by hand. Now consider how many of those cars have the potential to be recalled? Now consider the alternative — an automated plant cranking hundreds of cars a day. Good software requires knowledge, skill, and experience.
Tip 3: Ownership is everything. In my first job as a developer fourteen plus years ago, I accidentally truncated a production table. I rush to the managers office with the database administrator, and got it all sorted out. In order to be great, it is important to own our mistakes; even the ownership is shouldered by the team (in a team setting we all sink or swim together!).
Tip 4: Growth happens after ego is gone. If you are like me and many other engineers, most likely you hone your skills to be the best and your opinion is everything. In a field where frameworks, languages, tools, and devops are always changing there will always be someone that knows more and if we are open to it — we can learn a great deal.
Tip 5: Optimism and estimates do not mix. When delivering a product for a business it is important to pad estimates for any unforeseeable delays. For example, a component may be behind, team member is running into complications and now a story is block. The reason doesn’t matter — it is easier to have padded timeframe than it is to set business expectations.
Tip 6: You only want to code! No problem, but learn about management. Learning effective communication strategies, estimating, budgets, etc. can help you understand and negotiate with the higher ups.
Tip 7: Mentoring is often equally beneficial. When you mentor your team mates by creating exercises, knowledge sharing, or good old pull request review— you’ll have a better idea of the thinking process your team member follows and in some cases they might even adjust your world view on certain practices, standards, language feature.
Tip 8: Have a hobby! Depending on the industry you are working on games or business, startup or fortune 500 — odds are you’ll work in places with crazy deadlines and overtime. Don’t burn out, go fishing, paint, or code but something completely different than your daily job. For example, I like making games in MonoGame and Unity.
Tip 9: Remember or learn the basics. Don’t neglect a solid grasp on the foundations: data structures and algorithms. This helps to not fall in the reinventing the wheel cycle more often than not.
Tip 10: [Cliche] With great power…what I really mean is understand your domain. If you are working on a banking app — make sure your work is covered and risks are minimized by good practices, error handling, privacy, and testing. This will become increasingly important with software controlling critical systems in self driving cards, and planes to name a few.
Leave me a comment if you have questions or feedback!
Take a look at:
The Clean Coder by Robert C. Martin
Code Complete by Steve McConnell
Design It! by Michael Keeling | https://medium.com/@codingdistilled/10-tips-for-becoming-a-better-software-engineer-debf57cf3e22 | ['Felipe Ramos'] | 2020-11-17 08:44:05.485000+00:00 | ['Computer Science', 'Clean Code', 'Tips', 'Software Engineering', 'Software Development'] |
Data Analytics Trend : 5 Key Data Analytics Trends For 2021 | 2020 was a year when the COVID-19 pandemic shook up the world of business and commerce, adversely affecting almost every sector save data analytics. In the new year, the pandemic will continue to remain on everybody’s minds, despite vaccines in the market. The virus’ lingering after-effects will continue to impact businesses.
2020 will also go down in history as the year when businesses and customers were forced to go digital. From hereon, we at Express Analytics foresee that every enterprise will have to be proactive (not reactive as we saw prior to 2020) where data and analytics are concerned. That’s the new normal.
Businesses must look at the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity; a chance to implement, if not done already, digital technology to tackle the market chaos.
Keeping this in mind, here are 5 trends we forecast for 2021 with tips on how to use them to your business’ advantage:
1. Yes, Data and Analytics Are Moving To The Cloud
Initially, enterprises were reluctant to move their data storage to the cloud. One reason for this was that the cloud was built for transactional purposes, not for the memory-hogging analytics.
That is no longer the case. With cloud technology getting swifter, smarter and flexible, this year saw many organizations moving their data warehouses into the cloud or go the hybrid way, i.e. use a combination of cloud and on-premise warehouse.
Earlier, data warehouses were to be found in physical storage servers like Oracle Exadata. Now, some of them at least have moved on to the cloud, availing of services by providers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
Aiding this journey is the advent of commercial homomorphic encryption. This permits the performance of computational tasks on data without ever having to decrypt it. Which means — without compromising data security. Which also means the holder of the decryption key does not necessarily have to be in the same room, figuratively speaking, as the person doing the analysis.
Data security is one of the last hurdles in the way of cloud computing. Many organizations were not adopting the cloud because of security issues since processes like mining and the analysis of data in the cloud cannot happen if the data is encrypted. Homomorphic encryption helps solve this fundamental problem now.
Here’s what Gartner has to say about the cloud: It’s a given. Public cloud services will be essential for 90% of data and analytics innovation by 2022. Cloud-based AI will increase 5x between 2019 and 2023.
What’s in it for your business: Today’s cloud-based data warehouses offer you the option of deciding what data goes to the cloud and what stays on-premise. Most offer end-to-end data warehousing which allows your business to enjoy the benefits of data analytics right out of the box. All of it also means making your enterprise more agile.
2. Data And Analytics Will Be Even More Democratized
Even before COVID-19, the lines between the IT department and the rest of the enterprises had started to blur where data utilization was concerned. The pandemic riddled 2020 has softened that line even more.
Data is no longer the sole purview of the IT team nor is analytics limited to the CSuite. In 2021, more efforts will be put into seamlessly integrating data platforms, including easy-to-understand visualization boards within an enterprise. The business of self-service analytics tools, too, will continue to grow.
We are in the age of the truly data-empowered. Data has become more democratic as enterprises have started allowing employees at various levels to explore and analyze data literally from their desktops or on their hand-held devices. Today, with the advancement in technology and computing, enterprises are deploying self service business intelligence (BI) models. These empower the line employee to find patterns in his data, find context, and collaborate with other team members to effectively realize the maximum value provided by the insights.
The modern-day version of BI platforms is driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and are almost fully automated. What’s more, such self service tools help increase collaborative efforts between all departments — from IT to Sales.
What’s in it for your business: Traditional BI delivery models do not offer the level of agility that today’s global business environment demands. With data channels and data volumes multiplying in real time today, your business could do well by introducing self service tools to leverage the full value of this data. Such tools are also cord-cutters, being less reliant on IT.
3. 2021 Will See Faster, More Automated AI & ML, And More Of NLP
In 2021, both, data classification as well as data modeling will get even more automated. Which, in turn, will result in even more accurate and actionable insights. When businesses are able to pick up market trends early, it will help them stay ahead of the competition.
NLP has made analysis more user friendly by translating natural language queries into the language needed to obtain results. It can help extract vast amounts of unstructured data that have been made available by the ever-increasing use of social media use, online reviews, etc.
NLP now allows a computer to understand the language of humans, thus making sense of customer conversations, and categorizing them. Which means, the use of NLP in online social conversations can help recognize a sentiment on a particular subject, probably in real-time, thus giving the brand an opportunity to change course on a product, midway through its marketing campaign.
Gartner has forecast that 75% of enterprises will shift from piloting to operationalizing AI by the end of 2024, driving a 5x increase in streaming data and analytics infrastructures. There are challenges with current approaches. Pre-COVID models based on large amounts of historical data may no longer be valid.
What’s in it for your business: The increase in the sophistication of the NLP will see a proliferation in user interfaces using natural language and NLP-based analytics applications in 2021. As AI technology matures, the computer will get better at “understanding” human language queries, learn about the various semantic relations and inferences in a query, and start delivering even real-time business intelligence to users. All this means your business can use AI, ML and NLP to turn complex data into actionable business intelligence. NLP, especially, will lead to the transformation of analytics results into stories, thus speeding up the implementation of analytics in every sphere of life, and in every unit of your enterprise, helping you achieve your business goals even faster.
4. Customer Personalization Will Put Consumers Firmly In Driver’s Seat
The way 2020 played out, it put consumers firmly in control, be it in retail or in healthcare. More customers/users came online than ever before because of work-from-home routines, forcing businesses to digitize. Digitization meant more data and a better view of your customer.
Data science is now rewriting the dynamics of business. In the coming year, we will see more businesses focus on delivering a highly personalized experience to their customers — the right offer at the right time in a customer’s buying journey.
What’s in it for your business: With increased digitization, it is clear that customer personalization must become part of a company’s business strategy in 2021. You need to meet your customers where they are. To succeed at customer personalization, your brand needs to design a data-driven “Personalized Customer Experience Plan”. After all, an “engaged” customer will eventually be a happy customer.
5. Customer Data Platform Landscape Will Continue To Grow
Because of the increased digitization that 2020 saw customer data platforms (CDP) were much in demand. A CDP is a sophisticated data hub where all things related to data converge — from data sources to customer information. Every customer inevitably leaves behind information while interacting with a brand. When they surf the Internet or interact with companies using other online and offline channels like websites, e-commerce platforms and in-store interactions, their footprints can be tracked.
We foresee the popularity of the CDP continue to grow in 2021, too, and even beyond. In fact, contrary to popular thought that a CDP is only for B2C businesses, we saw many more B2B companies, too, deploying the same this year. There’s no going back from transacting online, which means more data flowing into your enterprise.
A customer data platform provides a 360-degree view of your customers’ journey and captures their interactions with your brand. It also updates your data base as new data comes in from various channels. A CDP then gives structure to this data and matches it to customer profiles to help businesses better engage with their customers.
What’s in it for your business: To help build loyal relationships with your customers in order to offer them the product or service they are looking out for, your business will have to invest in a customer data platform. A CDP can help you visualize instant insights from your data in real time. You may drill down as much as you want to capture the “connect” between what looks like unrelated data.
It also helps you with customer identity resolution and customer segmentation, which, in turn, will help your business develop focused strategies to hold on to its top-paying customers. Or, to re-engage those clients who haven’t purchased in a while.
In conclusion: COVID-19 has accelerated digitization, setting a new norm of doing business. Data is now, more than ever, a key ally of industry. The new year will see sustained efforts in bridging the gap between data analytics and industry needs. Actionable insights will be the focus. For that, businesses will be investing in AI/ML run platforms and visualization techniques that make analysis easy to understand throughout the enterprise. | https://medium.com/@expressanalytics/data-analytics-trend-5-key-data-analytics-trends-for-2021-b8e3bdcfb7b9 | ['Express Analytics'] | 2021-03-08 06:21:09.058000+00:00 | ['Data', 'Big Data', 'Data Analytics'] |
How To Build The Ideal Home-Office | For a while, WFH has become the new standard, but has our way of working advanced to this normality? You’re probably finishing your job on time, but do you have perfection and concentration in the office?
Build The Ideal Home-Office
Let’s further discuss this. The job of almost all has come home and we have learned to find a balance between living and working.
Some individuals may not miss the workplace, but they are bound to want a workstation that will support their job and help them focus better.
Ergonomic furniture such as the right chair, the height-adjustable desk in the right corner of the house can make work effective and also prevent body aches. Our everyday home furnishings are not meant to be as conducive to healthy work.
Although comfort is necessary in any workplace, the ability to do things may be seriously impeded by too casual an office. You have to find a way to separate yourself and all other normal and natural home sounds and interruptions from the rest of the domestic goings-on.
That means that when working from home, we may have left the ideal workspace behind.
Needless to say, in the new standard, having a good workspace in form and function, right at home, is necessary. Via Atmosphere, we therefore give the very suitably named Work from Home Furniture. It is our special set of furniture that suits from home to work.
In terms of comfort, aesthetics and aspirations for an ideal home workspace, each piece has been designed to meet your needs.
Among other items, the relaxing and posture-saving armchair features elegant, customizable tables and chairs in the designer middle.
To get you started, here are some of the solutions for designing your own modern and experimental workspaces.
Desk & Chair ergonomics
The right desk and chair with ergonomic features and a welcoming environment are key for an ideal office setup to ensure that your working day sails smoothly forward.
Desk
Your health, protection and wellbeing are important. To help your health and safety while using them, the items you choose should also be ergonomically made. In terms of adjustability and comfort, designers have made big improvements for computer users.
The Partner Ultimate Storage
Using a combination of a display cabinet and a desk with plenty of storage to provide a basic workstation is important. Structured storage should help make it easier to function and maximise space for your workstation.
Partner Ultimate Storage
The correct combination of open and closed storage allows you to arrange the necessities of your office in the open units, while the other items may be within the drawers to prevent clutter.
Tables and Multifunctional Stools
As we all spend all of our time at home, our living rooms are the new playground for the family. Also the children’s dinner table or study table is the coffee table.
Consider using multi-functional nesting stools and tables that serve as extra seats and keep your living room clean without eating in your room. Use a coffee table with smaller stools that are easy to pass around and have online classes or a home-office table with extra room.
From your living room, work
There’s no privilege for those of us to build a dedicated home office. We can turn our living room into an oasis of efficiency through quick updates. Use a support pillow to make sure you’re sitting and not slouching on your sofa while working.
When required, a small table that transforms your living room into a laptop table ensures that there is no extra furniture or clutter in it. Adapting to virtual meetings and work from home training was a challenge for most of us. Without a dedicated office, having the job done at home can be even more difficult.
Are you ready for your home-office set-up?
Invest in some small improvements without taking up much room space or upsetting your current setup, which will turn your home into a positive zone. Stay successful, and remain stable.
Our selection of convertible and ergonomic products is designed to meet the flexible requirements of any customer. It is time for your home workstation to be transformed. It’s time, when working from home, we align our minds and backbones in peace and comfort for greater concentration and efficiency. | https://medium.com/@atmosphere-work/how-to-build-the-ideal-home-office-f0344f161d42 | [] | 2020-12-15 06:16:05.476000+00:00 | ['Work From Home', 'Workplace Culture', 'Office', 'Workplace', 'Office Furniture'] |
Parched | Drained of everything
I need, my lips crack
And burn into the sun.
I have watched my words
Find a home in the clouds,
Buried among the stars.
Surrendering is an honor
No longer bestowed upon
The hard-headed, too engulfed
In the flames of intense love.
I stand guarded, waiting for
The right moment to
Signal you in for safety.
Landing gear exposes itself,
I bide my time in
Solid coffins of oak.
Under each lid, is a note
Carved by a younger you,
Full of wit and shine.
I follow the scent
Of memories, yearning
For water
In a tall glass,
Half empty and half full.
Your arrival flatlines me.
Waiting has taken
Too many turns I can’t
Navigate, game
Became lifestyle.
I no longer know how
To squint down the sun
Before pale stars yank
Me into lost stories,
Clutched to chest
When lampposts go out.
My stolen fire held
Captive, out of reach.
The chisels of your eyes
Set to work on my chin.
After a time my gaze
Braves yours and recalls
The outline of your face;
You break me back to life.
Stepping carefully out
Of my shattered shell,
I tremble as your hand
Finds my lips, bringing
The plump oasis.
I follow the scent
Of today, and yearn
For fluid clay to yield
More pots, overflown
With our saturation.
Guilty of loving you
Too much —
Of holding on
Too long —
I let go
And watch my world
Run back to the source.
Thirsty, no more. | https://medium.com/a-cornered-gurl/parched-9a0c5a7691ed | ['Tre L. Loadholt'] | 2018-01-29 12:01:02.351000+00:00 | ['Breakups', 'Music', 'Collaboration', 'Love', 'A Cornered Gurl'] |
Controller Pattern on Flutter | I am Jimmy lau, I am an Android developer. Flutter got popular this day so my company decided to do a little project on Flutter. I started learn flutter in recent days.
I am here to talk about a specific method which I found it is really common on Flutter -> Controller 😊
If you had experience on Android, you must be familiar with the declarative programming.
View view = View();
view.target = 666;
Here is a quick sample of how Android modifies field inside your view.
But Flutter as we know is reactive programming (everything is a widget 😊)
We do not modify your widget directly in this way.
Widget widget = SmallWidget();
widget.height = 123;
The code above obvious doesn’t work, widget does not give you the access to control view property, it is just a wrapper for Element.
Also the attributes inside your widget in immutable.
What we can do is do some hacking on Element, which is your buildContext
context.findRenderObject().size.height
Element object has a reference of its renderObject, you can get something like widget size or some other object related to rendering view.
Well, for developer, if we want to change attribute on your StatefulWidget, you can simply call setState() , it tells the flutter framework to rebuild your widget.
But what if we have a complex widget tree and the widget we want to target is too deep on the widget tree ?
Controller is here to help.
...
ScrollController _scrollerController = ScrollController(); child: ListView(
controller: _scrollerController,
... )
We must write this code really often.
We can add a listener callback every time a specific event happened inside the widget or we can change attribute in their widget directly through controller.
For instance
_scroller.initialScrollOffset = 0;
This is super flexible if you are writing a flutter library and you want your users to dynamically control something in your widget.
Here is a simple sample for controller pattern.
class ChristmasTree extends StatefulWidget { final Colors color; ChristmasTree({this.color}); @override State<StatefulWidget> createState() { throw UnimplementedError(); } } class TreeState extends State<ChristmasTree> { @override Widget build(BuildContext context) { return Container(); } }
We have a statefulWidget only with a color attribute on it.
What if we want to modify the color outside ?
We add a controller on it.
class ColorController { ValueChanged listener; void initState(ValueChanged listener) { this.listener = listener; } void changeColor(Color color) { listener (color); } }
Add controller as parameter
final ColorController controller; ChristmasTree({this.color, this.controller}); ...
@override void initState() { listener = (color) { setState() { this.color = color; } }; widget.controller.initState(lisnter); }; super.initState(); }
Finally, if we want to change color outside, we can simply call the controller !
TreeController controller = TreeController();
controller.changeColor(Colors.green);
That’s it ! Thank you for reading. If you like this article, please clap for a second, I would continue to publish flutter article like this. | https://medium.com/@jimmyleo/controller-pattern-on-flutter-c35d58630d7d | ['Jimmy Leo'] | 2020-12-26 04:36:16.364000+00:00 | ['Android', 'Flutter'] |
Practice These 5 Things And Be A Success When You Change Playing From Your Sports Team To Another | Practice These 5 Things And Be A Success When You Change Playing From Your Sports Team To Another
Photo by Rosie yang on Unsplash
Changing sporting allegiances is difficult but it is not confusing if the player understands their reasons and sees no option but to change.
When I was nineteen years old I changed from my childhood club to their arch-rivals and I never once regretted it. I played for both teams at the highest level and I even played for the second team against my original team, but it wasn’t easy.
As a result, I can recall not being able to stand up straight for a week after we clashed on the field and I had pains in my legs and upper body as well as a few bruises and broken connections with people in my life.
Still, we won the game.
Here are five things that you will need if you are playing against your former teammates. These will begin to get you through the test. And, don’t be fooled into thinking that it is not a ‘test’, because it is, and a huge one at that.
1. Confidence:
You must have self-confidence in your ability. This is easy to talk about and easy to think about, but when it comes to deciding to make the move you must as the well-worn Nike slogan urged ‘just do it!’. It’s so true though. This is a test of your self-confidence, not just in your playing ability but in your ability to relate to others in your new club and to explain things to your former teammates too.
I found out soon after my move to the other club what my natural level of self-confidence was, both as a player and as a person. It is a testing time and the experience teaches you a lot about yourself.
2. Commitment:
If you are deciding to leave your sports team you need to commit to seeing it through. You can be guaranteed that the first thing that will happen when you communicate your decision to leave the first club is that people attached to that club will want to see you fail.
It happened to me and although you`re probably expecting it to happen, you`ll be very surprised with who will want to see you fail.
If you think you’ve put in a lot of commitment in the first club that you`ve played for and that you won’t have to increase that level of commitment in the second club to begin to prove you`re good enough, then think again. Even though you`re joining a new club or organization I can honestly say there will be people at your new club that will not like to see you there too.
I trained harder than I ever trained for the first couple of years after joining the second team because, in my mind, I had something to prove. Although deciding to leave was very difficult, it can be done very quickly. Whereas, the aftermath of that decision can challenge your commitment for a long time to come.
3. Teamwork:
Even people that have never played sport know that the words ‘sport’ and ‘teamwork’ are intrinsically linked. In many cases this is true, but of course, the sports teams that are successful are ones that usually have better and more effective teamwork. This often turns out to be one of the reasons why they are victorious.
But, teamwork is not necessarily linked with a new player who joins a new sports team.
If you perform well at the new team you will threaten other positions on that team who feel they have given loyalty to the team in a time gone by. This can have ramifications on the teamwork and dressing room morale and unbeknownst to yourself, you can be the reason.
Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash
4.Friendship:
Great coaches or managers know the value of friendship in sport. Unfortunately, too many don`t understand it when it comes to building a successful club and competing to be a great team. If you are truly committing to playing sport at the highest level, or even the highest level of your ability, you will have to give it everything. This often has knock-on effects on your personal life. Relationships and friendships can suffer.
I know for me they suffered a lot. Not only did I lose so-called ‘friends’ when I moved from one club to another but, my actions were not best received by certain family members either.
5.Empathy:
I mention empathy at this point because I firmly believe; I save the best till last.
If you change sporting clubs and go to your rivals, then empathy will certainly be tested. This test happens for both you as the player who has moved and for other people in both clubs too.
When you move from one club to another you stir up a lot of emotion in people. As sport usually gets by with players practicing and training together closely, often people will not say anything to you but instead, just carry on with the physical rigors of the game.
Sure, if a player has the ability other players will pass them a ball because they have spent years doing this since they were a child. But, if some players feel they have enough time on the ball they’ll consciously avoid passing it to you too, even to the detriment of their team.
From my experience, empathy in sports matters in bringing others together. Being together builds trust and in turn, trust can then progress and improve a team. Yet, the odd thing is in any competition of sport there is only one winner, and the ones that lose often fail to truly understand one another in the first place. | https://medium.com/@drconorhogan/practice-these-5-things-and-be-a-success-when-you-change-playing-from-your-sports-team-to-another-f75a77e074bc | ['Dr. Conor Hogan Ph.D.'] | 2020-12-21 19:10:00.661000+00:00 | ['First Year Player Draft', 'Empathy In Sport', 'Teamwork', 'Youth Sports', 'Sports Management'] |
Plant Yourself to Sleep | Disclaimer: This blog post is proudly sponsored by NuCalm but all opinions are my own. NuCalm is the world’s only patented neuroscience technology clinically proven to resolve stress and improve sleep quality — without drugs. NuCalm is used by the U.S. Military & the FBI, 49 Professional Sports Teams and recommended by 98% of patients. If you aren’t familiar, NuCalm is only $29.99 a month, and they offer a 30-day risk-free guarantee. Our readers can also get 3 months free with coupon code Recharge25. As a NuCalm affiliate, we may receive compensation, if you purchase products or services through the links provided, at no extra cost to you. This helps support the running of the blog.
Surely you have already read and heard a lot about the importance of sleep (mostly from me I hope) and why it is so important to treat sleep disorders seriously and treat them, like actually take steps to fix your sleep, the subject would’ve already made you sleepy if you weren’t an insomniac. And, and, and you must’ve noticed by now, like come on, you love my stuff, you read it religiously, it’d be a little creepy if it wasn’t so flattering (I’m kidding, please don’t stop reading my stuff) anyway, that my last three posts concurrently talk about this one, beautiful, brilliant, blissful experience. Sloth, I mean sleep.
The reason, well reasons for this are two-fold, one, need I even say it? I love, fricking luuuuv sleep, and secondly, sleep deprivation is a B***h, with a capital B! But how is a process in which we spend practically a third of our lives not going to be important? Like, come on guys!? While we sleep, many processes and functions of the brain are consolidated, such as memory and learning, that is why when suffering from insomnia or other sleep disorders, our functioning during the day is clearly affected.
When talking about insomnia treatments, most people think of sleeping pills, but many do not like this idea and for good reason, yes they work, and yes again, they are a legitimate way to deal with the issue, however, it should only ever be used as a last resort, due to their capacity to be devastatingly addictive. Being dependent on drugs even to go to sleep, when until recently I only needed my teddy bear and a lamp in my room is not the direction I want to go.
Thankfully there are plenty of alternatives to this problem on the market, some are sold as miracle products, claiming they could knock out a horse, some probably could, others are simple scams, fortunately, some do what they say on the metaphoric tin, but the question remains which ones work? It depends on you. But luckily you don’t have to part with your precious cash go and buy test each of these bad boys out to see which one works for you without knowing anything about them, you can read this *amazing* the review that someone wrote for you in this blog (hey, that’s me!).
In A New Chapter In The Saga Of Harry Potter And The Mystery Of Why I Can’t Sleep: Light Therapy
Photo by Jessica Fadel on Unsplash
Light therapy involves being exposed to a bright white light source of at least 10,000 lux for a few minutes a day. And that’s it, you just need water and light. You are basically an anxious plant.
You only need a few minutes a day and you will start to notice changes. This light source should not be strobe or flicker, without magnetic effects or ultraviolet light.
So why light? What I said about us being anxious plants is not just me being funny, although I’m utterly hilarious. We need light to control our biological cycles, including our Circadian cycle, which is what happens while we sleep. When this light is captured by our eyes, it becomes a stimulus that causes the secretion of melatonin in the pineal gland, which is crucial in the sleep process. So being exposed for at least two weeks, every morning by this light, will mean you’ll have better-regulated sleep cycles.
Sleep problems can be associated with our internal clock, which tells us when to go to sleep and wake up, being poorly adjusted. What light therapy does is calibrate this, so that it will eventually adjust to our desired sleep patterns.
Let There Be Light!
Photo by Gian D. on Unsplash
How to use Light Therapy lights? Very easy:
Place the luminic screen/light so that it is one foot or 30 centimeters from the eyes
Switch on in the minimum intensity position
Increase intensity to the maximum
When the maximum intensity has been reached, keep your distance for 30 minutes
You don’t need to look directly, so you can do other activities while keeping your eyes open.
Do this when you wake up every morning and you should start noticing an improvement in your sleeping quality in only a few weeks.
Why Buy A Lamp And Not Just Use… The Sun?
Photo by noah eleazar on Unsplash
There are several studies that have proven that the climate and the weather directly affect our moods and our performance during the day. It’s normal that during a clear and sunny day we want to go out, be outdoors, be on the move, and on cloudy and rainy days you prefer to be indoors, become a burrito of sheets in our bed and stay nice and toasty. Mmm, burrito bed. The influence of this is such that it can have a prolonged effect on the personality of inhabitants of certain regions, it is believed that that is why people who live in cloudy cities like London can be more calm and serene (note the infamous British stiff upper lip) and those who live in tropical cities where there are only two seasons of the year: hot and hotter, they can be more energetic and vibrant (see every South American since ever!)
Light therapy will allow you to control your biological cycles without depending on the weather, it is like having your own tropical sun in your room, so you can have energy and motivation even on the rainiest of day.
It is because of this that light therapy also turns out to be highly effective in other disorders such as jet lag, SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and even in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s
Conclusion: Light It Up!
Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash
Studies have shown that patients who are exposed to light screens for at least half an hour for two weeks achieve a better sleep cycle, in addition to feeling in a better mood and waking up with more energy.
Light therapy not only acts in the aiding of the best god damn sleep of your life but also has multiple secondary benefits, such as:
If you want to try one of these bad boys, I highly recommend this one, they’re portable light therapy glasses and have been highly rated, even featuring on ABC News. I’ll link it here.
Or if you prefer the standalone lamp, this is the one I really like these two. You can find them here and here.
This blog post is proudly sponsored by NuCalm but all opinions are my own. NuCalm is the world’s only patented neuroscience technology clinically proven to resolve stress and improve sleep quality — without drugs. NuCalm is used by the U.S. Military & the FBI, 49 Professional Sports Teams and recommended by 98% of patients. If you aren’t familiar, NuCalm is only $29.99 a month, and they offer a 30-day risk-free guarantee. Our readers can also get 3 months free with coupon code Recharge25. As a NuCalm affiliate, we may receive compensation, if you purchase products or services through the links provided, at no extra cost to you. This helps support the running of the blog. | https://medium.com/@mindsmatterinc/plant-yourself-to-sleep-sad-light-therapy-review-b02f7807f093 | [] | 2021-03-14 10:52:22.378000+00:00 | ['Sleep', 'Life Hacking', 'Light Therapy', 'Therapy', 'Sleeping'] |
The Canary in Higher Education’s Coal Mine | Last week, Melissa Korn reported in the Wall Street Journal that Oberlin, the University of Chicago, George Washington University, Washington University, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, among others, have extended their January application deadlines.
She notes, “Some offered the extra time only to seniors who began but didn’t submit applications. Others sent broad blasts after buying students’ contact information from standardized test companies.”
Explanations for these decisions varied but the two most common were the increasing competition among highly selective colleges and universities and the stress that students place themselves under during the application process.
Students note with anxiety the low acceptance rates at elite American institutions; indeed, according to the WSJ, an astonishing “35% of seniors applied to at least seven schools in 2016, up from 18% a decade earlier. In that same time span, the yield, or share of admitted students who enrolled at a given four-year college, fell to 34% from 45%.”
Ms. Korn offers two conclusions:
Delayed deadlines are a sign of the growing pressure many schools face to fill their incoming classes, and
Application deadlines indicate a broken process, with colleges increasing the volume of applications but still rejecting many qualified candidates.
She further surmises that higher education institutions behave this way because they must meet their enrollment targets to make their annual budgets. And that’s the problem in a nutshell. Enrollment is both a science and an art, but it presumes a stable marketplace with a growing population of students from which to choose.
The art of enrollment, together with changes in the marketplace, makes the science of enrollment especially difficult. It’s hard to be precise when the foundation of prospective students is so shaky.
The Wolf Is At the Door For All Higher Education
There has been a great deal of discussion lately about the spate of college closings and mergers, in both the higher education media and in regional news sources, especially in the Northeast. Many of the arguments made about these closings suggest that demographics, poor management, and rising tuition overmatched by steep financial aid discounts, effectively forecasts the closings and mergers.
What has largely escaped attention, however, is that the problem is not the so-called “bottom feeders” in higher education but more of a systemic issue that is beginning to affect all levels of quality, pricing, and perceived rank.
If this is true, there are some indicators that stand out as a warning to higher education, especially four-year undergraduate institutions:
Almost half of the first-time college-going student population begins or has already had experience at community colleges.
Financial aid discount rates are above 65% at many heavily-dependent tuition-driven colleges, including a good number with strong reputations and storied histories.
Elite universities, with sticker prices approaching $75,000 per annum, compete for an increasingly smaller pool of ZIP code-primed recruits, relying heavily on merit aid to discount even for their top students.
Many others focus on increasing the number of international students and their accompanying full-tuition payments — a risky proposition given the political dysfunction surrounding immigration policy.
The application deadline delays at America’s elite universities support the conclusion of one highly-respected CFO, who told me recently that “the wolf is at the door” for all of us, with only the circumstances differing among higher education institutions.
It may be that consumers are forcing a shake-out among even the most elite schools, with only a handful ultimately remaining who will be able to charge what a shriveling application market will bear. If so, it will likely be some mix of reputation, endowment-backed financial aid policy, and consumer-perceived differentiation that will protect their version of the status quo.
The End Isn’t Near But “Business as Usual” Isn’t Working
Yet it is shortsighted to stammer around claiming that this is the end of the residential college or that degrees will give way to certificate programs. But it suggests that the era in which pricing policies, backed by greater financial aid discounts, are coming to an end.
In recent times, most higher education officials assumed that some combination of new programs, expanded enrollment outreach, efficiencies and economies of scale, and better marketing would improve their situation, at least incrementally. But the problem is the incremental nature of this approach.
Incrementalism Will Not Make Colleges More Sustainable
Each institution will need to find its own unique solution to how to become a more sustainable place and do so at an orderly pace. The colleges and universities that recognize that incrementalism won’t work are the most likely to be nimble and agile enough to prosper.
But make no mistake about it. The future of American higher education on balance is a bright one but only if America’s colleges and universities are willing to face and shape it. | https://medium.com/academic-innovators/college-application-delays-warning-f9a613831bbb | ['Brian C. Mitchell'] | 2019-02-04 14:44:37.146000+00:00 | ['College Admissions', 'Higher Education', 'College Application'] |
Merry Christmas from the whole team of BambooDeFi ! | This 2020 is a challenge to us on many levels, full of problems and difficulties, but thanks to the effort, dedication and work well done, we are on the verge of finishing it. To celebrate, we will be launching our IEO on ChainX during 25DEC!
During this day we will count the tokens sold at the pre-sale and burn the ones that are still unsold as described in our WhitePaper.
Thank you very much to everyone who supports us ! Merry Christmas and stay panda! | https://medium.com/@bamboodefi/merry-christmas-from-the-whole-team-of-bamboodefi-8949e837d580 | ['Bamboodefi Official'] | 2020-12-24 23:12:42.258000+00:00 | ['Defi', 'Blockchain', 'Ieo', 'Merry Christmas Greetings', 'Eth'] |
Astell&Kern KANN Alpha review: This digital audio player delivers the high-res goods | The KANN Alpha is the third model in Astell&Kern’s acclaimed KANN series, following the KANN (reviewed in 2018) and the KANN Cube (reviewed in 2019). These are high-end, high-res digital audio players (DAP) designed to deliver pristine audio to just about any headphone you might decide to pair it with—regardless of impedance.
The Alpha continues the KANN line’s superlative pedigree, but only a select audience will be willing to hand over $1,099 to attain its drool-worthy feature set and very high performance. This player is perfect for owners of difficult-to-drive headphones; music lovers who demand the latest advancements in wireless audio, including Bluetooth 5.0; people who demand broad high-res codec support; audiophiles who want to take full advantage of 4.4mm balanced audio support.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best mobile digital audio players, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.Cutting-edge features, unrivaled codec supportHaving reviewed Astell&Kern’s previous two KANN models, it’s clear that each model has a specific focus. Whereas the KANN Cube was geared towards the audiophile demanding no-compromise performance and balanced audio connections to high-end audio gear, the KANN Alpha seems targeted towards the audiophile who demands the latest high tech features and wireless standards.
The KANN Alpha uses USB-C for all digital connectivity and charging. That’s a welcome sight given the original KANN’s dual-personality with both micro-USB and USB-C connectors—each with different purposes. Connect the USB-C to your computer and you can use the KANN Alpha as an all-in-one headphone amp and DAC.
Theo Nicolakis / IDGThe heart of the Alpha is an ESS Sabre ES9066AS DAC. The ES9066AS is a 32-bit stereo DAC with MQA rendering. The DAC will decode MQA, FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, WAV, and every major legacy audio format, including native DSD256 decoding.
The KANN Alpha’s wireless codec support is unrivaled. The Alpha supports LDAC, MQA, aptX HD, aptX, AAC, and—of course—SBC Bluetooth codecs. The Alpha even supports MQA-CD playback when playing MQA-CD’s via Astell&Kern’s CD-Ripper.
Mentioned in this article Astell&Kern KANN Cube Read TechHive's reviewMSRP $1,499.00See it Codec support doesn’t stop there. The Alpha’s settings menu allows you to select a preferred codec for all your wireless connections. When it comes to LDAC, you have a choice between audio quality optimization or connection quality optimization. If one of the Alpha’s onboard codecs isn’t supported by your headphones or other Bluetooth receiver, then the Alpha will switch to a mutually supported codec.
Bluetooth 5.0 is on board, giving you a huge advantage in wireless operating range, speed, low power consumption, and security features. You’ll see a theoretical maximum of 800 feet in open spaces and about 130 feet in typical indoor spaces—that’s a far cry from the 33 or so feet in Bluetooth 4.2. Likewise, Bluetooth 5.0 delivers twice the speed of Bluetooth 4.2: 2Mbps vs. 1Mbps.
Astell&Kern touts the KANN Alpha’s quad-core CPU. In my testing, Astell&Kern either needs to bump the processor’s performance or optimize the underlying operating system a bit more. While the KANN Alpha is generally responsive, there were times where the player would just lag. I couldn’t find a consistent rhyme or reason. I sometimes found myself clicking things two or three times, unsure if the player had registered my input. While the lag is nowhere near the dog-awful performance of the now defunct AK Jr, for a player in this price range, performance should be snappy and precise.
It’s worth noting that the KANN Alpha retains the rich feature set of all Astell&Kern players, including DLNA network streaming. I’ll point you to my AK70 review for a more in-depth discussion of all those features.
Introducing 4.4mm balanced audio outputThe KANN Alpha sports familiar 3.5mm unbalanced and 2.5mm balanced outputs. The Alpha is the first Astell&Kern DAP to sport a 4.4mm balanced headphone connection. Astell&Kern says its 4.4mm implementation is unique and noise-free because the Alpha physically separates the 2.5mm and 4.4mm outputs using microrelays. The Alpha’s design prevents noise and interference from outputs that aren’t in use by switching them off. Smart.
Theo Nicolakis / IDG Detailed view of the KANN Alpha’s 2.5mm, 3.5mm, and 4.4mm headphone outputs.
Power and battery lifeClean power is the measure of any high-performance audio system, and the Alpha’s amplifiaction is superb. The Alpha’s internal amplifier has three gain settings—low, medium, and high—so you can match the amplifier’s output to your headphone’s impedance. Setting the amplifier to high and using the KANN’s balanced output, you’ll be able to take advantage of the Alpha’s 12Vrms output, which is the same output as the massive KANN Cube. Setting the amplifier to high will drain the battery quickly and Astell&Kern recommends connecting the USB-C charging cable if you use the amplifier in the high gain setting.
[ Further reading: The best headphones you can buy ]Draining the battery quickly is a relative term and will depend on several factors including the types of audio files you’re playing and volume levels you’re playing them at. Battery life is rate at 14.5 hours of continuous playback. You can get a full charge in about 3.5 hours. In real-world use, I sometimes went days without needing to recharge the KANN Alpha.
Protecting your hearingHearing is a precious gift. Thankfully, protecting our hearing is getting a bit easier. For the first time, an Astell&Kern DAP gave me a loudness warning. If I set the player above 50 with the 2.5mm balanced connection, or 60 with the 3.5mm output, the player warned me I could permanently damage my hearing. I had the option to defeat that warning message or enable volume limits in settings.
Doubles as an artistic statementThe KANN Alpha’s gorgeous design continues Astell&Kern’s seemingly endless play with geometric design and textures. When you buy an Astell&Kern high-res player, you’re buying a work of art as much as you are a DAP. To me, the KANN Alpha’s design is a synthesis of the KANN Cube and elements of the SA700.
The player’s all-aluminum casing has different finishes on each side. The back sports a black, brushed-aluminum finish with the words KANN machine engraved into the player’s body. The name Astell&Kern, with model and power requirements, are laser engraved. That lettering, however, only becomes visible when you shine a light on it, much like the One Ring’s Tengwar script from the Fellowship of the Ring, which appeared only when heated in fire.
Theo Nicolakis / IDGThe player’s sides and bottom are matte-finished and untextured. This time around, Astell&Kern chose to protrude the front glass ever so slightly from the player’s body and round the glass sides and edges. The tactile experience is amazing and the rounded edges create a singular line of light that complements the player’s beveled, aluminum edge.
Astell&Kern seems to be joining the 1980s throwback party by including a ceramic black, mirrored finish along the KANN Alpha’s top. Gold circular accents around the three heapdhone inputs complement the black mirrored finish. The gold color pallet reminded me of the similar black and gold color pallet on legendary high-end audio gear from Nakamichi and Pioneer Elite.
Astell&Kern says there is a special coating applied to the ceramic surface to prevent fingerprints and smudging, but I didn’t find it to be effective. In my hands, the KANN Alpha’s high gloss ceramic finish and front glass were far from oleophobic. They both collected fingerprints easily and at a far higher rate than my iPhone 12. I found myself wiping the high gloss finish and glass every now and then.
Ephe Nicolakis / IDG Top view of the KANN Alpha’s high gloss ceramic finish.
The KANN Alpha maintains the same mesmerizing LED illumination around the player’s volume knob that I first experienced in my review of Astell&Kern’s SA700 DAP. Unlike the SA700, where the LED ring took center stage, Astell&Kern has given it a more subdued role, recessing the LED ring almost inside the player’s casing. You’ll notice it if you look at the KANN Alpha from the side, but the LED ring is largely shielded from view when you look at the player head on.
Theo Nicolakis / IDG A recessed LED illuminates to tell you the resolution of the file you’re playing.
As with the SA700, the LED ring isn’t just a design element, it gives you a visual indication of the file format you’re playing. Red indicates you’re playing a 16-bit file; green, 24-bit; blue, 32-bit, and purple indicates DSD. If you don’t like the LED feature, you can turn it off through the settings menu. The LED temporarily changes to a red color pallet when you adjust the volume. The LED increases saturation to a light-saber red as you turn the volume louder, and it de-saturates towards a light rose color as you turn the volume down.
The LEDs worked as expected with local files and the Open APP version of Tidal, but I encountered an anomaly with Quobuz. With that service, both CD-quality and all high-res files up to 24-bit/192kHz showed only a red LED. Either Quobuz wasn’t streaming the high-res files advertised, or there’s a bug in the Quobuz app that isn’t registering properly with the Alpha.
Three rectangular buttons on the left side (in contrast to the KANN Cube, where the buttons sit below the volume knob on the right) are unmarked. By now, Astell&Kern assumes everyone knows the top button is previous track, the middle is play/pause, and the bottom is next track.
Open APP ServiceA valid criticism of Astell&Kern players over the years would have rightly been the dearth of apps and supported music services. In the past, I would have been paying more careful attention to the KANN Alpha’s 64GB internal storage and 1TB micro SD card support. But now, with the introduction of Astell&Kern’s Open APP feature and support for streaming services with high-res audio files, that’s less of a pressing issue.
Astell&Kern’s Open APP lets you install just about any major streaming service onto the player. I first experienced Open App in my Astell&Kern SR15 review. As of this writing, 10 Astell&Kern players support Open APP.
Ephe Nicolakis / IDG Rear view of the KANN Alpha’s multi-angled, multi-textured aluminum body and physical button controls.
I have a serious love-hate conflict with Open APP. The good news about Open APP is that you can install Apple Music, Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon Music, Spotify, and a dozen more streaming services to suit your taste or current subscription. The downside is that the Open APP installation process remains clunky and requires a computer. You can indulge yourself in the step-by-step installation process here.
I’m sure you’ll agree that you shouldn’t have to go through a nine-step installation process on a $1,000+ DAP. At some point in Open APP’s evolution, Astell&Kern should pre-load all these apps into the player as “ready to install,” and then provide the end user the ability to perform an over-the-air (OTA) installation over Wi-Fi. The other approach would be to pre-install a dozen or so of the most popular and allow the end user to turn them on or off. Astell&Kern just needs to make it easier for the user to get the music services they want.
While I’m truly thankful that Astell&Kern has Open APP, it’s clunky implementation sticks out like a sore thumb against the meticulous detail A&K pays to the rest of the user experience.
Effortless, musical blissI used Focal Clear, Bowers & Wilkins P9 Signature, Oppo PM-2, and Beyerdynamic Amiron Home headphones with the KANN Alpha. I used a Kimber Cable Axios 2.5mm balanced cable with the Focal Clear. Though I also paired the KANN Alpha with a pair of Bowers & Wilkins PX Wireless headphones, my comments below pertain to my wired listening.
The KANN Alpha’s effortlessness is astonishing. The Alpha’s firm, unrelenting sonic grip on every single headphone was completely insane. The KANN Alpha’s control revealed ripples and textures on the classic bass lines in James Blake’s “Limit to your Love.” The Alpha articulated the details and decay of bass strings on Ingrid Michaelson’s “The Way I Am.” I noted deep, controlled, pulsating bass on Katie Melua’s “Sailing Ships from Heaven.” No matter the track, there was no smearing and no muddiness. It goes without saying that to get the most of the KANN Alpha’s bass performance, you’ll want to use closed-back headphones. The Focal Clear and Oppo PM-2 open-back headphones couldn’t deliver the deep bass performance their closed-back counterparts were capable of.
That sonic grip comes at a price: The KANN Alpha is a brutally honest customer. It won’t cuddle you or euphonize sub-par headphones. It will lay bare any shortcomings in your headphones and your source material.
Theo Nicolakis / IDG Detailed view of the KANN’s knurled volume and multi-angled industrial design.
I shook my head again and again, track after track at the attack, detail, and bass control on anything I threw at it. Music seems to emanate from a velvety black background with this player. The noise floor and channel separation are superb, allowing you to peer deeply into the music. Rebecca Pidgeon’s “Spanish Harlem,” by Chesky Records, is a reference-grade recording. It was easy to follow the subtlest decays of Ms. Pidgeon’s vocals through the KANN Alpha.
Ephe Nicolakis / IDG The KANN Alpha’s display is bright, but it’s UI exhibited some lag at times.
In fact, the KANN Alpha’s sound is so clean and distortion-free that you’ll be tempted to bathe yourself in sound for hours. You can easily lose track of how loud you’re listening to it.
The KANN Alpha’s presentation is consistent with other ESS Sabre-based players I’ve reviewed. The presentation won’t woo you with warmth; rather, the music is clean, transparent, and detailed with airy highs and tight, controlled bass. Astell&Kern hasn’t added any artificial bumps or overemphasis.
I will note that during my review period, the KANN Alpha’s body had a tendency to get warm to quite warm. How warm will depend on your headphone’s impedance and if you’re decoding DSD and high-res files.
A grand slamAstell&Kern’s KANN Alpha hits a grand slam—though not without a few stumbles around the bases. The Alpha earns its place among the finest high-res audio players I’ve reviewed. By any measure, the KANN Alpha is a superlative high-res DAP.
If you’re an audiophile who wants the freedom to connect any high-end headphone, you also want to connect your high-res DAP to your stand-alone setup, you might find the KANN Cube a better fit. If portability in a slimmer form factor is a higher priority, then you should add the SA700 to your short list.
But if you’re looking for a middle ground, something that can drive any headphone, fit in the palm of your hand, and deliver cutting-edge wireless audio tech, the Alpha is your ticket.
The Alpha’s gorgeous design; high-powered amplification; 40-meter wireless range with Bluetooth 5.0; unparalleled high-res wireless codec support; generous battery life; 2.5 and 4.4mm balanced audio connections; and effortless sound with dual ESS ES9068AS DACs are just the introduction to a long list of specs and features that truly make this the “Alpha” player among its peers. Its occasional sluggishness, clunky Open APP architecture, and fingerprint-prone surfaces are minor annoyances; they certainly aren’t enough to dampen my spirits about this superlative-sounding high-res DAP.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@donna13903373/astell-kern-kann-alpha-review-this-digital-audio-player-delivers-the-high-res-goods-45228a8db948 | [] | 2020-12-23 22:28:23.218000+00:00 | ['Audio', 'Consumer Electronics', 'Entertainment', 'Streaming'] |
SaaS margins — where they should be | The general rule of thumb for spending in SaaS is 40/40/20. In other words, 40% of operating expense should be on R&D, 40% should be on sales and marketing, and 20% should be on G&A. Rules of thumb are just generalizations, so we wanted to see what the data really is. 28 SaaS companies have gone public from 2018 to today and below are their margins. Perhaps the rule of thumb should be 30/50/20. The data is below.
30/50/20. On median, 30% of opex is R&D, 47% is on sales and marketing, and 22% is on G&A. The rule is therefore “30/50/20” may be more accurate.
There are outliers. Rules of thumb are just general guidelines, and sure enough there are significant outliers. 45% of Dropbox’s spend was on R&D while only 13% of Zoom’s spend is on R&D. Similarly, 73% of Zoom’s spend was on sales & marketing, Dropbox spent only 37% on S&M, and Bill.com spent 28% on S&M. Snowflake spent a whopping 130% of revenue on S&M and indeed their EBITDA margin is the worst of the bunch at -192%.
Don’t let G&A be the outlier. Obviously you should minimize spend on G&A. Building product and selling it should be the priorities. Cloudflare, Sendgrid, Snowflake, and Palantir I’m looking at you (they spend 36%, 34%, and 37%, and 43% of opex on G&A).
COGS isn’t 20%. The other rule of thumb that needs to be debunked is that COGS is 20% of revenue. As you can see, the median and averages are 25% and 27% respectively.
Where is the profitability? We put together simplified EBITDA calculations based on the data (Revenue — COGS — R&D — S&M — G&A). Only 3 out of the 28 companies have positive EBITDA. Not only that, but the median and average EBITDA margins are an anemic -28% and -34%. Even more alarming, the average EBITDA margin of the last 6 companies to go public was -74% (if you exclude Snowflake, it’s still a very bad -50%).
Indeed, software is forgiving: so long as you’re growing fast, have excellent retention, and marquee customers you’re allowed to burn cash as recurring revenue that doesn’t churn is an annuity with tremendous value.
Overall we found the data to be really compelling: 30/50/20 is the new 40/40/20 for more established SaaS businesses, unprofitability is ok so long as your business fundamentals are solid and you’re growing, and COGS is allowed to be slightly higher than 20% of revenue.
Visit us at blossomstreetventures.com and email us directly with Series A or B opportunities at [email protected]. We invest $1mm to $1.5mm in growth rounds, inside rounds, small rounds, cap table restructurings, note clean outs, and other ‘special situations’ all over the US & Canada. Feel free to connect with Sammy Abdullah on LI. | https://blossomstreetventures.medium.com/saas-margins-where-they-should-be-ad90c44c1536 | ['Sammy Abdullah'] | 2020-11-30 14:31:39.806000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Software', 'Venture Capital', 'SaaS'] |
UX & Psychology go hand in hand— How Gestalt theory appears in UX design | In the age of AI and “Human Centered Machine Learning”, it’s essential that we understand the needs and behaviour of our users. This is doubly true as a UX designer. In order to create work that better serves the needs of our users, it’s important to understand some basic psychological principles. Which is why I want to share with you Gestalt theory. With this toolkit under our belt, we can consciously design user experiences that truly fit the users.
Introduction of Gestalt psychology
Gestalt theory was founded by Max Wertheimer at early 20th century. This psychological philosophy addresses with perception, perceptual experiences, and related patterns of stimulation. The motto of the gestalt philosophy is:
“The whole is other than the sum of the parts.” — Kurt Koffka
When human perception meets with complex elements, we recognise the whole before we see the individual parts. As a designer if we understand these psychological principles, we can be more conscious during the design phase. One of the basic document of Gestalt principles stated by Max Wertheimer in 1923, called Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms defined some basic principles (laws) that show how the mind tends to perceive visual stimuli.
Law of Proximity
“Law of Proximity” states when objects are close to each other and they tend to be perceived together in one group. Basically proximity is closeness. If we use clear structure and visual hierarchy we will be less charged by the limited cognitive resource of users, so they will be able to quickly recognise and react. | https://uxdesign.cc/ux-psychology-go-hand-in-hand-how-gestalt-theory-appears-in-ux-design-18b727343da8 | ['Norbi Gaal'] | 2018-04-24 04:45:44.880000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Gestalt', 'User Experience', 'Psychology', 'UX'] |
Monifa. | Drawing of a black woman’s face with an orange background and the word ‘Monifa.’ in bold text
‘O Monifa, my sweet baby Monifa’, I can still hear my mother’s sweet and raspy voice, singing my name over and over. She sang this to me while she soothed my tears, while she drove me to school, while she gave me a bath, she sang this continuously. Monifa, Nifa for short, means ‘I am lucky’ in my mother tongue.
She would always tell me how lucky she was to have a child like me, reminding me what it was like to have three miscarriages until she finally gave birth to this larger-than-life baby that held on to her left calf for years. I was her good luck charm, a gift from God, the wine cork that popped and came with an overflow of joy, for after me she had six other girls
I can already hear Sade exclaim, “six other girls!” finishing the sentence of what would have to be my one-hundredth egotistical rendition of my name’s origin.
This conversation happened to fall upon the ears of the poor souls stood along the pavement by this “retro new age” bar that she had dragged us to on a grey Tuesday night.
‘Retro and new age’ must be code for small and dingy with barely any space for barstools and tables.
What was meant to be an evening celebrating Sade’s engagement to her girlfriend of 5 years had ended up with our friend Molly knelt down over the gutter trying not to puke while Lola, Sade’s younger sister, held her hair back.
Weirdly, the sight of the two of them crouching below as we stood guard, distracting them with some random conversation, warmed my heart.
It had become a common occurrence on our nights out, several of which I had missed lately after making up bullshit excuses last minute as to why I could not make either Lola’s promotion dinner or our usual Friday night bar crawls.
Seeing this again made me feel like I had not missed out on anything.
These girls were what I described to my therapist as “my safe place” and for the past few weeks I had been holed up in my apartment, denying myself the opportunity to see them, almost as if I were punishing myself.
But of course, I had to make it this evening; my dearest friend was getting married.
Something that she had talked my ears off about since she could start piecing words together as a toddler.
Sade is my oldest friend. I always say that she popped out of the womb with me, and at this she rolls her eyes, but it holds some truth to it.
Our mothers were close even before either of us was born. I hung off her mother’s hip just as she hung off mine.
So, it was no surprise that we crawled side by side as babies, bled together as teenagers, and lived together when we had just graduated from the hell hole that was university.
Home for us was our two single mothers surrounded by all our sisters, an unusual dynamic but home, nevertheless. I can only define our friendship, sorry sisterhood, as something held together by hot glue, shared trauma and stories that we can’t bear repeating to a new set of ears.
The cold air is biting at my thighs and I’m struggling to pull down this short dress that I had shoved at the back of my closet, thinking it would never see the light of day. Yet here I am, hoping that putting it on would ignite a confidence within me that felt long gone, but I just felt exposed. All it did was hold onto my body rolls for dear life and its hem was an inch away from giving the whole bar audience a show.
“I’m gonna call a cab, Molly is too out of it to get on a train tonight” Lola shouts up, attempting to lift both herself and Molly off the ground but failing.
“I’ll come with” Sade says.
She slings Molly’s other arm over her neck and lifts her off the ground in mere seconds.
In a way this describes the dynamic between the two sisters — Sade, the one who was seemingly good at everything she did and Lola, always falling into her older sister’s shadow.
The bar scene behind us begins to wind down as people are stumbling out laughing at the top of their lungs, Ubers are piling up along the street and the music finally fades from an upbeat tempo to a more soulful swing.
A new and different crowd will soon be occupying that same space.
I could already feel myself hesitating; I was not ready to leave. This was my first night out in a while and I had spent half of it bent over, holding my knees for support as I laughed from my belly. I had not felt such a moment of joy in a long time, and I missed the feeling of love and support I felt whenever I was with these girls.
I realise I am still yet to announce my travel plans when I see three sets of eyes staring at me amidst the calm but almost chaotic scene of an unwinding night.
I am in no rush to return to my soulless apartment.
“I’ll probably just get the tube, need the fresh air”
Over the next few minutes, my friends do their best to convince me to come home with them.
Molly is able to lift her head for a split second to echo their pleading before she leans back into the seat, snoring ensues.
This is followed by reluctant goodnight kisses, more pleading, instructions to text when I get back to mine and ends with me stood alone at the curb, watching the cab pull away while Sade and Lola wave and tap at the back of the window.
As the car gets further and further out of view, so does my moment of joy. I can feel my smile slip away from me as I come to the realisation that I am back to being alone.
The loud music is barely a whisper, the previous bustling presence of the pavement has died down and it suddenly feels colder.
I wrap myself up in my coat and make my way down to the underground station.
I put my earphones in and tuck my phone away in my pocket without pressing play on whatever song I had been listening to last. It’s a new trick I had picked up in therapy as a way to be more present. A simple gesture to make it clear that I do not want to be disturbed whilst also allowing me the peace that comes with hearing the sounds of the night. I can hear people laugh as they walk past me, probably all returning home or maybe just starting their night. Cars speed off into the night, leaving smoke behind in their place and old streetlights buzz overhead as I walk under their warm yellow light.
I approach the glass archway that is the entrance to Canary Wharf, a station that is usually crowded and full of life during the day but is now dreary and empty, except for the few like myself that have wound up here tonight. The man stood to my right is dressed in a full suit, tie done up and a briefcase in hand.
The time on the boards announcing train arrivals showed that it was almost midnight and here I was decked down in what my mother would describe as a few strings sewn together and there was this man ready to take over the corporate world.
Same train. Same night. Clearly different lives.
This was the beauty of the tube, why I took it so often. It was the place where people from all different walks of life converged for a fleeting moment, where you could see someone who had just had the worst day of their life stood next to someone who had just won the lottery.
It was the best place to step out of yourself and detach from life by observing others and taking a moment to step into their shoes, creating endless stories about their evenings and what had led them there.
‘TO STANMORE’
The coach was busier than I expected, to my left was a group of rowdy, clearly drunk men, belting out lyrics to a song that I could not recognise. Any sane person would tell you that a fat, black woman stuck in a tight space with drunk white men was only a recipe for disaster. A hate crime waiting to happen.
I made my way to the opposite end of the coach and settled across from a mother and her son, a chubby little fellow that had fallen asleep on her shoulder.
I could see that she herself wasn’t too far off from sleep. The tired look in her eyes reminded me of my mother’s when she would catch countless late-night trains on her way back from working at the shops. Trudging into the house with her eyes struggling to stay open, only to see the beaming eyes of all her little children waiting to keep her up for another hour or so.
I share an endearing smile with the boy’s mum, which she returns lazily.
Ever since my mum passed, I’ve seen parts of her in everything. From every person walking past me, to the windows of the grocery shops that she would work at, to the songs she loved to sing around the house.
She was my safe place.
I let my eyes wander to the interracial couple that is sat a few seats down from me.
They are sharing a kiss and to a passer-byer they would have looked like the epitome of love. I am quick to notice the wedding band on the black man’s hand. Before I am able to check for a similar band on the hand of his partner, I become acutely aware of a pair of eyes on me, the feeling almost like the slow crawling of a small insect along my back. This feeling breaks my half trance of observing people throughout the coach. I turn to my left to meet the eyes of a middle-aged white man. He too is wearing a suit like the man I saw back at the station.
But unlike that stranger, he looks dishevelled. His tie is pulled to one side and the ends of his collared shirt have been tugged out from his wrinkled trousers.
From a hard day at work I presume, or maybe just an evening full of drinking.
His face is dark with shadows of what must have been a two-day-old shave. His elbows are balanced on his knees, propping his torso up as he turns very slightly to face my direction.
I instinctively pull my dress down and place my purse over my thighs. I feel his eyes following my every move.
I have begun to see you everywhere as well.
Except unlike my mother and friends, you beget a feeling of fear and panic.
The space seems smaller now. Like it is just this man and I, when in reality there are still several people flowing in and out with every stop, but he remains, eyes glued on me.
I focus my attention on the tube map overhead, pretending to search for a station even though I had taken this train for years on end. But I am simply trying to keep my thoughts from spiralling, this was not the first time that a man had made me feel uncomfortable in a public space, yet each time provoked the same shortness of breath and increase in heart rate.
The mother and her son get off at the stop before mine, giving me a little wave, and that is when the panic sets in.
I begin to pick at my inner thighs, a habit I had picked up over the past few months as a way to cope with what my therapist would describe as PTSD symptoms.
‘THE NEXT STOP IS FINCHLEY ROAD STATION’
I can see the train approaching the station from the corner of my eye, but I sit still. Purse still over my thighs, eyes looking forward, trying my best not to make any suggestions via my body language that this was indeed my stop.
I hear the doors open and remain seated. He does the same.
This is not his stop.
A beeping to alert the closing of the tube doors rings throughout the coach and without blinking I get up from my seat and fling myself through the doors.
I do not bother looking back as I break into a light jog; through the empty dark station, up the stairs, past the ticket barriers and out on to the street.
It feels like I have exhausted all the air in my lungs as I double over with a stitch in my side and lean on to a pole for support.
As I catch my breath. I think of how if Lola were here, she would have made a sly remark about my capacity for anything that required physical exertion.
“That’s what happens when you turn down my invitations to come running with me” she would mock, and I would have a go at her but all I needed right now was her protective presence.
I notice a lanky suited figure emerging from the ticket barriers that I had just left behind me.
My head shoots up to catch his eye and as he edges closer to me, I can’t help but notice the slight grin playing at the corner of his lips. It reminds me of the grin that you had that night. In this moment, I can’t help but to question why I denied my friends’ invitation to go home with them.
Any moment of peace that followed my brief escape was washed away and replaced with that common, ever present feeling of fear.
With high amounts of adrenaline now pumping through my veins, I take a deep breath in before straightening up and heading in the opposite direction of my home.
Was it my dress?
I wonder what you would think of this dress. It is not very different from the one I wore when we first met. Equally as revealing and provocative, maybe that is what made you, like him, feel so entitled to my body and space.
I weave through groups of people littered along the street as I make my way closer to a familiar bus stop, lengthening the gap between my new stalker and me.
The stop is stationed in front of the neighbourhood Waitrose and the harsh white light pouring out from the store illuminates the stop. There are three people sat waiting, an old black woman and two younger white girls.
The girls, dressed in clubbing outfits similar to mine, do not look far off from my age. I consider approaching them and pulling off an act where I pretend that they are my friends when my eyes meet that of the older lady. Her tight greying locs cascading down her slumped shoulders with a tightly wound scarf around her neck remind me of my mother. As I approach her, frantically looking behind me to determine the status of my current situation, I notice her looking me up and down with something close to a grimace on her face, clearly judging my choice of clothing. This feels familial as I remember the same shaming looks my Nigerian aunties would give me whenever I wore anything that exposed even the slightest bit of skin.
And although it made me cower before her, I somehow felt safe in the presence of this stranger whilst being chased by another.
The difference was in the way they looked at me you see.
One, very predatory and entitled, like the way you would look at me.
The other from a learned place of fear, almost caring and protective.
She follows my eye line and we both watch as my stalker steps into the light of the bus stop.
He is now openly smiling at me.
I slowly take a seat, keeping my eyes straight on him, determined not to show any sign of fear, when I suddenly feel something woolly against my skin.
The old woman has unwound the scarf that was hanging from her neck and is now laying it down across my lap.
“Fine young gyals like yuhself nuh fi dress like this” she says as she adjusts the piece of clothing to cover my thighs completely.
Her voice is deep and cracked, heavy with a Jamaican accent that I can only recognise after years of going on holiday with Molly and her family.
And although her accent is nothing like the thick Yoruba one my mother had, I feel the maternal and protective energy of her seeping out from this woman that I’ve only just met and will probably never see again.
And at that moment, I think of you both.
My mother, who spent years building up my sense of safety.
And you, who took minutes slowly tearing away at any form of self that I had.
The bus approaches and I help the woman on to her feet. She keeps hold of my arm till the bus comes to a complete stop.
He struts to make his way behind the two girls in the short line that has formed and brushes my arm as he walks by.
The hairs on my arm prickle as he leans in and I feel his hot breath against my ear.
“Sorry darling.”
I wish I could describe to you what true fear feels like, what you so easily inflicted upon me. I wonder if you think of how I felt in that moment.
Of how my heart sunk to my stomach and I could barely breathe.
Of how it felt to have my body no longer be mine, to have it torn apart, bit by bit, till it felt no longer like home but like a shallow grave.
I feel the old woman tog on my arm, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I help her onto the bus and catch a glimpse of the man switching his gaze between me and the two girls stood between us.
The bus driver, a plump older white lady, has dull and almost lifeless eyes as she leans against the wheel, not bothering to pay attention to any of the new boarding passengers.
“I need your help.”
The lady looks over to me, confused but now alert, as I slip my coins for a single ticket into the box between us.
“That man has been following me all night.”
I say this, with a panicked look, almost like a deer caught in headlights, as she slowly hands me my ticket.
She glances over my shoulder and returns her gaze back to me.
Her eyes shine with something that I cannot read as she gives me a simple nod, gesturing for me to go down into the bus.
I keep my eyes forward as I walk towards the back of the bus. I can feel his eyes searing against my skin through the windows, following my every move.
My palms are sweaty and what initially seemed like a good attempt of escape now seems futile.
What did I expect from this random bus lady?
Not only had I exposed everyone on the bus to the harm that this stranger could possibly cause, but I was now en route to my home.
My home, where you had taken away my safety.
Was I in some way subconsciously leading this man in the direction of doing the same?
I watch as the girls that were behind paid for their tickets, and within the blink of an eye, the doors shut behind them, slamming against my stalker’s face.
Whispering ensues.
He starts to bang against the glass, screaming at the driver first before turning to where I was sat and screaming at me instead.
I can feel all-new sets of eyes watching me now. Everyone on the bus is hearing this strange man screaming and calling me things I haven’t been called since you.
It was mortifying then, and it is mortifying now.
As the bus takes off, my eyes settle on the only familiar pair.
The look of judgement has left her face and been replaced with a knowing look.
This breaks my heart.
I don’t realise I am picking away at my thighs till I hear the stop before mine being called.
I make my way to the front of the bus fully aware of the eyes on me and stop at the driver’s seat.
“Thank you.”
Before I turn my back to her, she grabs my hand through the gap in the window that divides us and shares the same knowing look.
I struggle to hold back the tears that had been threatening to break loose all night as I realised that it was this random stranger’s leap to action that had got me home safely.
They finally do as I make my way towards my apartment building, frequently turning back to see through blurred vision whether there was any sign of this man who had decided to ruin what was supposed to be an amazing night.
I throw my heels to one side of my small attic studio as I slam the door shut and let myself sink onto the floor.
Opposite me is a full-length mirror, propped up by old sticky command tabs and a pile of books that I am yet to read.
I take myself in for a moment.
My dress has bunched up around my waist and as I sit legs wide apart, I can see dark patches and dried blood between my thighs, where I had been picking at all night.
What was a newly healed scar from my last relapse had already been ruined and there would be a new fresh wound right next to it by the time the sun came up.
And I will need to explain to my therapist what had made me cut.
She will ask why, and I will say it was because of you.
It was because I saw you in every man.
In those that walked by me harmlessly. In those that catcalled me. In those that showed even just the slightest bit of interest in me.
I will tell her that you had begun to overshadow every experience I have with men.
And she will ask me about this specific experience tonight and I will still say it was because of you.
That although this stranger scared me, he was only a reminder of the harm that you caused me.
You were the one that held me down and broke me.
You were the one that tore away at me, bit by bit.
You were the one that instilled this ever-present fear in my life.
You were the one that raped me.
And I will retell her the meaning of my name.
And I will ask her what it meant to be lucky?
Because you taught me that no such thing ever existed. | https://medium.com/@ifeoyed/monifa-e2ba54b4baf9 | [] | 2021-06-20 18:15:41.806000+00:00 | ['Rape Culture', 'Self Harm', 'Black Women', 'Trigger Warning', 'Sexual Assault'] |
Likes, Comments, Shares Aren’t a Reliable Proxy for Success, Period. | On social platforms like Facebook, engagements — likes, comments, shares, and click-throughs long dominated conversation around the particular success of a post. Yet, as Facebook writes:
“Online engagement metrics are a proxy for interest, but they are not a reliable indicator of the content’s persuasiveness. Persuasive content influences your audience in a way that helps move your business.”
In reality, these engagements do not effectively correlate with business results for brand content. Facebook research has found that “content doesn’t need to be persuasive to elicit an engagement.” and inversely, “not all persuasive content elicits an engagement”.
Campaigns that wish to drive brand awareness cannot therefore be measured by the level of engagement, as a potential customer can inherently notice and be influenced by that content without interacting with it. In fact, a 2012 Facebook & Datalogix ROI study found that:
“more than 90% of offline sales come from people who don’t interact with ads during the campaign.”
Engagement on Facebook — When it Matters
Engagements Don’t Represent Your Audience
One of the biggest issues with engagements is that they may be more indicative of a user’s behaviors (e.g. a “clicky” user) rather than the effectiveness of the content. In fact, analysis of content from major brands at BBDO increasingly shows that those engaging with content registered outside of the target audience the brand wished to impact.
For example, we took real-life Brand X and looked at the demographics of people who engaged with its promoted content, which included all formats across Facebook and Instagram.
While this brand’s target skewed relatively young, data showed that the engagement rate for those under 34 was at 3%, but the highest engagers were 64+ at 22%, with the engagement rate increasing dramatically with every new age block. However, when we examined Estimated Ad Recall Lift by age, we found all blocks consistently performed at or above benchmarks.
Depending on who you are targeting, engagements may be more of a red herring than they are an indicator of positive responses from your target.
Invest in Equitable Measures of Success
As brands shift away from shiny engagement metrics on Facebook, it is essential to invest in studies that can more concretely and more thoroughly measure the impact of campaign efforts on consumers.
Nielsen Brand Effects studies, for instance, have long been used to analyze the impact of Facebook ads in key brand metrics. Consumers see a piece of advertising and shortly thereafter answer a survey to help determine the impact of an ad in shifting awareness, attitudes, favorability, intent, or preference.
Brands also have the ability to track the effect of their work in driving business objectives through studies such as Datalogix or marketing mix modeling. Datalogix studies can help marketers understand how their Facebook spends impact offline sales by matching purchasing data for 70 million American households via loyalty cards and programs. By pulling and anonymizing information associated with their Facebook accounts, marketers can start to see the difference in sales when someone is exposed to a Facebook ad.
Marketing mix modeling studies can also pinpoint the value of social marketing in driving business objectives, but are not available in the short term.
However, as short-term metrics continue to dominate marketing, brands have the opportunity to track metrics that demonstrate the largest probability of success — namely the 10 Second Retention Rate and Estimated Ad Recall Lift.
10-SECOND RETENTION RATE:
The Facebook Marketing Science commissioned Nielsen to analyze the value of Facebook video in driving three key brand metrics: lifts in ad recall, brand awareness, and purchase intent.
Initial data analysis showed that from the moment a video was viewed, there were statistical lifts across each of the three metrics, even amongst those who did not watch the video but did see the impression.
Further investigation then focused on how video duration potentially impacted the metrics outlined. The results revealed a notice lift in cumulative impact when viewers were retained to the :3 second mark. The most statistically significant results, however, came from users who were retained to the :10 mark, with massive lifts seen across ad recall, brand awareness, and purchase intent.
The longer a user is engaged with a piece of content the larger the effect. Yet, the strong correlation between 10-second with impact-led metrics demonstrates a huge opportunity for marketers to measure effectiveness and optimizes their work on the platform in the short-game.
ESTIMATED AD RECALL LIFT:
Marketers can also track a Facebook-calculated proxy metric known as “estimated ad recall lift” (EARL), which measures the impact of ads on driving ad recall by comparing the reach of an ad, coupled with the relative time users spend looking at the ad. This is then weighted against historical data for ad recall taken from 300 previous campaigns. This metric offers a more effective proxy for real-time measurement of the lift in ad recall a brand can expect to gain from a campaign. Importantly, EARL normalizes for users’ scrolling habits, so the quick scroll a younger user might be used to and the slower scroll of an older user are taken into account, along with historical ad recall lift data.
While an attractive measurement, brands should not rely on this metric alone, given that estimates employ a degree of probability.
To gain a more robust look at the effectiveness of work in driving awareness and return on investment, further tracking studies should be employed alongside.
This article is part three of a five part series highlighting BBDO Comms Planning’s latest report, About Face: A New Approach to Facebook for Big Brands.
To download this white paper, click here. | https://medium.com/comms-planning/likes-comments-shares-arent-a-reliable-proxy-for-success-period-65426c2ea524 | ['James Mullally'] | 2016-09-28 14:17:01.124000+00:00 | ['Advertising', 'Measurement', 'Marketing', 'Facebook', 'Social Media'] |
“How we can develop a growth mindset?” | “How we can develop a growth mindset?” There can be many answers to this question but here are five pro tips that can help one to develop a growth mindset. Let’s have a look on them.
1.Self-Talk:
The best way to motivate yourself to do something great is positive self-talk. The words we say to ourselves either motivate us, or if they are negative, they refrain us from attaining our goals. Our negative thoughts are a restriction in developing growth mindset.
2.Get out of your comfort zone:
Being in comfort zone is a major reason that hinders the development of growth mindset. When we are in comfort zone, our brain does not want things to change, rather it remains busy in daily activities and we become lazy.
3.Ask people for help
Having a company with people who have a growth mindset and seeking their help is a good idea. These are the people who motivate you to change your steady mindset to growth mindset.
4.Create new habits
A great saying is
“If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.”
So developing new habits and learning new things is a pro tip for developing a growth mindset.
5.Fake it till you make it
Changing mindset is not a one-day task. It takes time. But we can practice it even if we don’t have it. Once we start practicing it, our brain gets uses to it and we can actually have a growth mindset.
Reflection on Amal Totkay:
1. How did I find these 5 tips
These tips are very beneficial if I start to implement them in my daily life.
2. What are my takeaways
I always remain in my comfort zone, so I’ll try to get out of it.
3. What are my favorite tips
My favorite tips are self-talk, getting out of comfort zone and ask people for help
4. What I have started implementing already
I have started implementing two of these totkay, which are
1. Self-talk
2. Ask people for help | https://medium.com/@wardatu.zahra202/how-we-can-develop-a-growth-mindset-eea59c0abea5 | ['Warda Tu Zahra'] | 2021-08-23 14:24:45.470000+00:00 | ['Amal Totkay'] |
WAX Announces Quarterly Token Circulation Update | Read this article in German, Russian or Chinese
WAX today announced its quarterly token circulation update. As scheduled, WAX Token supply has increased over the quarter to a total of 618,948,388 tokens. The tokens have been, and will continue to be, distributed in a manner consistent with the token usage guidelines in WAX’s technical white paper.
When the lock-up period for certain contributors and advisors ends in June 2018, WAX expects to have between 825 and 850 million tokens in circulation out of their 1.85 billion total tokens. The remaining one billion WAX Tokens will be used over a number of years for development of the market.
WAX will continue to update its token circulation on CoinMarketCap.com on a quarterly basis at the end of each quarter. The increase in reported circulation at the end of the quarter represents the tokens released throughout the quarter. These updates will remain consistent and are in accordance with existing WAX policy.
About WAX
WAX is a functional utility token that supports a decentralized platform, enabling anyone to operate a fully functioning virtual marketplace with zero investment in security, infrastructure or payment processing. Developed by the founders of OPSkins, the world’s leading marketplace for online video game assets, WAX is designed to serve the 400+ million online players who already collect and trade video game assets and Crypto Collectibles. With the inclusion of the WAX simple exchange widget, gamers will have access to a worldwide market with blockchain trust and transaction verification. For more information, please visit https://wax.io and http://www.opskins.com | https://medium.com/wax-io/wax-announces-quarterly-token-circulation-update-d1edeef74930 | ['Wax Io'] | 2018-07-26 15:03:54.746000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin'] |
Fighting for the future: Experts discuss health care, education and media reforms | Health care reform
The moderator of the discussion, Svitlana Bubenchykova, independent expert, started the conversation with the industry budget for 2021. It amounts to UAH 123 billion, which is 6% more than in 2020. Discussions covered the search for sources and mechanisms for additional funding, the necessary legal framework, the potential of public-private medicine partnerships, public health initiatives and medical education.
Mykhailo Radutskyi, MP, Head of the Parliament Committee on Public Health, Medical Assistance and Medical Insurance, noted that without sufficient funding it makes no sense to talk about health care reform. According to him, the COVID-19 pandemic showed miscalculations and needs for reform.
Suggestions for raising additional funds:
introduction of separate address excises on strong alcoholic beverages and tobacco products (including electronic);
provided 25% for health care in the law on legalization of gambling;
share from the Large-scale Privatization Program;
Institute of surcharges — a bill is being prepared, which regulates the system of surcharges and co-payments, paid medical services, voluntary contributions and insurance, etc.
According to the people’s deputy, given the global crisis and pandemic with the help of these sources, the required 225 billion UAH in 2021 will not work, but expect 2022.
Elina Dale, Adviser on Health Policy at World Health Organization Representative in Ukraine, noted that in the light of world experience, common taxes should be part of the path to universal health care, and states should find this path. Excise taxes are supported by the WHO. There is also an option of voluntary additional insurance.
“The key lesson for all countries in the world is not to rely on voluntary health insurance to provide financial protection for your population and access to quality services,” she said.
Mykhailo Radutskyi called for tax benefits and an explanation of why such insurance is needed as the only incentive for voluntary health insurance. The speaker also said that the important reform law draft №4142 “On Public Health” is ready for the first reading, designed to rebuild the system. The People’s Deputy noted that he supports the system of additional payment for services, as it works in many countries: the state guarantees high-quality affordable service, but if the patient wants an additional service — he must pay extra.
“The best public-private partnership can be in concessions. When the state remains the owner and thus does not violate the Constitution. When the network does not shrink, does not change the profile, but an investor comes who wants to renovate the hospital, buy additional equipment and thus earn more and fulfill orders of the National Health Insurance Fund and the Ministry of Health, it is the only working mechanism, “said Mykhailo Radutsky.
Relevant relationships in medicine are possible thanks to the updated Law “On Concession”. [Concession — is an agreement on the transfer of natural resources, enterprises, other economic objects belonging to the state or territorial community, for temporary operation to other states, foreign firms, individuals — RPR Coalition].
Andriy Vilensky, Head of the National Health Service of Ukraine, noted that in addition to increasing funding for the Health Guarantee Program, the reform requires changes in the behavior of service providers, teams and patients.
“In the first stages of the reform, we said that institutions should get used to the new form of relations with the National Health Insurance Fund, work with contracts, to the form of payment for work performed. Next we need to talk — primarily in the interests of patients — to use tools to improve the quality of care. We propose to take into account the quality indicators — the coefficient for the next year in the tariff for the payment of services for primary health care. ” An internal discussion is currently underway to calculate it, the speaker said.
The head of the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU) added that the process of replenishment / reorganization of institutions that do not meet the requirements for the provision of relevant services is underway. Complaints are actively monitored. “We see 2021 as a year of e-health development, as well as a year of actual monitoring for patients’ rights.”
In addition to specific issues in the field, the speakers spoke about the general vision of the system in Ukraine. In particular, Elina Dale first noted that many countries are reforming the medical sector in the same way. In order to implement the plan, funding is needed first; to this end, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Health and the government must be allies, the quality of services must be improved to encourage voluntary insurance, and the system of taxation and distribution of budget funds must be improved. The speaker called Ukraine’s desire to ensure equal rights for citizens an achievement. According to Elina Dale, the second phase of the reform failed to some extent, in particular due to the pandemic, but the Minister and the system were able to adapt to the changing situation. The expert stressed the importance of considering institutions at all levels as a single system in accordance with the 2030 Strategy, clearly dividing roles between institutions, as well as harmonizing health care reform with decentralization reform.
Andrii Skipalsky, Head of the Board, NGO “Life”, noted that the mentioned bill №4142 is the highest priority and should be considered as a basic law for building the public health system. The speaker outlined the public’s attitude to the reform and drew attention to the problem of prevention: “Politically, everything is very right. Structurally — you need to invest a lot in the prevention and prevention of disease, maintaining duration and increasing quality of life. How to do it is a big challenge, and it should be part of the reform. “
What to do next: the Public Health System Act, the Biosafety and Biosecurity Act, the Blood Safety System, the implementation of the Tobacco Directive.
Olena Kucheruk, Public Health Program Expert, International Renaissance Foundation, singled out the launch of a public health system made possible by the reform. She emphasized:
It is important to maintain system networking, especially in a decentralized environment. Prevention of non-communicable diseases should be one of the key priorities. As part of the public health system, it is important to carry out epidemiological surveillance.
The speaker stressed that over the past 5–10 years, views, prejudices and myths against vaccination and immunoprophylaxis have become popular. They can stand in the way of victory in a pandemic. According to Olena Kucheruk, the role of governments and the responsibility of the media are important in counteracting these views.
Tetyana Yurochko, Professor at the School of Public Health at National University of Kyiv-Mohyla, said that a breakthrough and a challenge in building a public health system is the introduction of this specialty in educational institutions.
“International standards of training, the establishment of criteria for evaluating graduates of programs — is a way to ensure the quality of these personnel,” — said the speaker.
To this end, an English-language master’s program in global health is currently being developed, which aims to raise European standards, ensure the exchange of speakers and teachers during the educational process, and establish a process of joint research. Tetyana Yurochko noted that the demand for quality managers of the healthcare system is growing, so educational institutions should establish cooperation with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education and Science and medical institutions.
Education reform
The moderator Mykola Skyba, expert of the Education and Skills of the Future programme at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, noted the key topics of discussion: harmonization of legislation with the challenges of time, quality of pedagogical education, and linkages between the labor market and education.
Volodymyr Bakhrushyn, Independent Expert, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, professor , noted that changes in the education system should be coordinated with economic strategy and international standards. The expert noted that in recent years the key problems of education could not be solved, but significant steps have been taken in this direction. In particular, the adoption of the law “On complete general secondary education”. In order to train modern professionals, the system must modernize the content of education, strengthen material and financial support, links with business, the labor market and other sectors of the economy. Currently, there is no common systemic vision among educators.
Andiy Vitrenko, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, noted that the ministry’s team is not going to stop any reforms. He recalled 5 key priorities: preschool, New Ukrainian School, vocational education, higher education and adult education, Ukraine’s involvement in the Euro-Atlantic scientific environment. The speaker added to them the granting of greater autonomy to institutions and work with children from the temporarily occupied territories, as well as the willingness to cooperate for the development of the national education system.
Serhiy Babak, MP, Head of the Parliament Committee on Education, Science and Innovations, said that the amendments to the law on higher education and the renewal of the law on general secondary education laid the foundation for qualitative changes in the two parts. The speaker stressed the need for continuity of both the education of the citizen and the reform of its system. Innovations in this direction are already included in the legislation, such as formulas for financing higher education institutions, KPI for heads of higher education institutions, introduction of indicative cost of education, etc. Promising draft laws in the parliament — on vocational education, on vocational education; working groups are working to develop initiatives for preschool and adult education. According to the people’s deputy, the parliament should not slow down, and the government should increase the pace in order to pilot new high schools from 2024.
Iryna Zhdanova, Executive Director of the Open Policy Foundation, praised the progress in reforming the education system. She noted that the results of the reform can be measured in a few years. The speaker compared the reform of education in Ukraine with a startup in terms of experiments, examinations and testing of ideas and stressed that stories of success and mistakes are important.
Key theses:
During the war, distance learning was the most effective means of providing access to education for students from the temporarily occupied territories. The speaker welcomes the changes in the regulatory framework. The quality of content and methods, love and enthusiasm of teachers are the main indicators for determining the effectiveness of distance, non-distance and blended learning. The speaker praised the association of educators in the regions who support the reforms, despite the significant number of conservative educators who see only shortcomings in the reform. A positive factor is more involvement of parents in the educational process. This created an opportunity for a better examination of the process. The expert supported the thesis voiced by the majority of speakers about the importance of involving all stakeholders, including parents, in the process of creating a quality education system.
The biggest challenges, including secondary education, remain online management, technical support and teachers’ willingness to change. The main problem of the reforms, according to the speaker, is the “bricks of distrust” and narratives of disunity in society.
Svitlana Suprun, Civic Education Expert at Pact/ENGAGE, noted that during the 4 years of the MES project, it was open to international cooperation, study of world experience and implementation of best practices.
The speaker praised the introduction of a remote online school as a quick response to the closure of schools in a pandemic. Then the community began to develop online courses in various areas to make the school and teachers better prepared for the lockdown. However, in this process, according to the expert, the Ministry of Education and Science and the government should work better. It is about waiting for a single online platform, which as of September 1 has not been created. Currently, this platform is created and filled with content — said Andiy Vitrenko.
Svitlana Suprun stressed the importance of monitoring the impact of the reform on the education system and communicating the results of such observations with citizens.
Media reform
Under the chairmanship of moderator Andrii Kulakov, programme director at the Internews-Ukraine, experts discussed the state of harmonization of Ukrainian legislation with the international one, assessed the progress of the reform, and outlined the next desired steps of the authorities. The key issues are the financing of the Public Broadcaster, the regulation of online media, control over the transparency of funding, the fight against misinformation and media literacy of the population.
Mykyta Poturaev, MP, Head of the Parliament Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, called the prepared text of the draft law “On Media” a positive development after numerous discussions. The negative point is the opposite. The People’s Deputy hopes that the bill will be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada in late 2020 or early 2021.
The speaker reminded of a package of adopted bills in support of creative industries in the context of the corona crisis.
In addition, according to the People’s Deputy, the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy is completing work on an updated version of the law “On Outdoor Advertising”. It was prepared by the last parliament, now industry representatives are supplementing it. The committee plans to develop a new version of the law “On Advertising”.
Nikita Poturaev summed up that these initiatives are aimed at overcoming key market challenges — the difficult conditions of the pandemic, the outflow of advertising money abroad, the expansion of the Ukrainian market with Russian content and more. An important point for the future is to counteract misinformation, as the topic is also relevant in Europe.
Taras Shevchenko, Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, added that the adoption of the draft law “On Media” is mandatory under the Association Agreement with the EU (implementation of the EU Directive on audiovisual media services).
Among the completed processes — ratification by Ukraine of the Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents (Tromo Convention); it will enter into force on 1 December for all signatory countries. In this process, “failed” by the previous government, civil society took an active part — said the speaker.
“I am glad that we are talking not only about events in the media and information sphere that concern Ukraine, but also about those events that concern the Council of Europe, when Ukraine is on a positive agenda in European countries and international organizations. Not only when we are reminded of unfulfilled duties, but when we directly have leadership positions,” Taras Shevchenko explained.
The speaker reminded that before the conference in Toronto, civil society prepared a document “Principles of Toronto” as a guarantee of the irreversibility of the course of reforms. According to the Deputy Minister, media reform has not rolled back. However, discussions on increasing the independence and financial transparency of the Ukrainian media, a transparent model of financing the Public Broadcaster, and regulating the Internet remain relevant. The priority for the next year for the Ministry of Culture is to increase the level of media literacy and critical thinking of citizens through educational programs.
Inna Hrebeniuk, Member of the Board of the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (UA:PBC), emphasized that the reform of the public service broadcaster cannot be avoided when reforming the media sphere.
“Although 3 years have passed since the creation of the public broadcaster, in reality we are still struggling for the government and society to understand its importance, mission and values,” the speaker said.
Inna Grebenyuk says that this is a fundamental issue that does not need to be proved, because the public broadcaster is an indicator of the country’s democracy.
In 2020, the issue became more acute. In a pandemic, public service broadcasters have done a good job, research shows. However, a study by the European Language Union showed that the Ukrainian public broadcaster is the only one whose funding has been reduced, not increased.
Among the plans are to raise the bar of professionalism, build a more stable financing model, elect a new supervisory board with a balanced representation.
Natalia Lyhachova, Chairwoman of the Detector Media, voiced the key principles and desirable next steps of the government:
Ensuring in 2021 full, statutory funding of the public broadcaster and work on a bill on a new model of its financing. Absolute transparency and public discussion of plans for cooperation with Euronews in Ukraine. The expert reminded that such an experience was negative: Ukraine paid its debt for a long time and could not fulfill its obligations. In addition, the owner of the TV channel is currently a private person. Work on bills that would prevent large-scale misinformation, fakes and manipulations in the traditional and online media of Ukraine. Adoption in the first reading, revision to the second reading of the bill “On Media”. Financial transparency, balanced regulation of online media, introduction of media literacy — the first steps to combat misinformation now.
“We need to talk about extending some regulation to online content. I absolutely agree with the proposals contained in the bill “On Media”. But we must act very carefully. I would go for the introduction of voluntary registration of online resources, — said Natalia Lyhachova. — By strengthening media literacy programs, we can at least show our audience: these online media are registered and take responsibility, but these are not registered. Why? They do not want to be responsible for their content because they are manipulating. That is, there will be a mechanism that will allow us to work more effectively with the adult audience. “
Regarding media literacy, the head of the NGO “Detector Media” stressed that the state should become a lobbyist for children and adolescents, and donors and NGOs — with adults.
Ihor Rozkladai, Deputy Director, Chief Expert on Media Law at the Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law, singled out the goals for 2021:
Development of amendments to the law “On access to information” (it celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2021) and its harmonization with the law “On personal data protection”. Transparent election of a new composition of the Supervisory Board and the Board of the Public Broadcaster. The adoption of the law “On Media”, its history has lasted for eight years; fulfill Ukraine’s overdue commitments to the EU.
The expert called the following areas work for the future:
Transparency of media funding. Adequate mechanisms for cooperation with international players (Facebook, YouTube and others). Creating Ukrainian content for children, which is lacking on all platforms. Media literacy work should start with children. “It’s a long-term area where both the state and civil society should unite, because otherwise why are we changing the law.” Countering misinformation. Passing a law or going the other way is a matter for discussion.
It was Natalia Ligachova and Ihor Rozkladay who wrote the sectoral analytical brief for the Ukraine Reform Conference 2020 in Vilnius.
Read the sectoral briefs on reforms prepared for Ukraine Reform Conference 2020/2021
The Forum is organized by the RPR Coalition in partnership with the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania. The Forum is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania, the European Union, the EU Project Pravo-Justice, «Civil Society for Enhanced Democracy and Human Rights in Ukraine» project implemented by UNDP Ukraine under financial support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, and the Embassy of Canada in Ukraine. The Forum is organized within the framework of the project “Core Support of the Reanimation Package of Reforms Coalition” carried out by the RPR Coalition and is made possible by the generous support of the American people through The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) within the Ukraine Civil Society Sectoral Support Activity, implemented by The Initiative Center to Support Social Action “Ednannia” in partnership with the Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research and the Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law. | https://medium.com/coalition-rpr/fighting-for-the-future-experts-discuss-health-care-education-and-media-reforms-ab8a5b14f575 | ['Reanimation Package Of Reforms Coalition'] | 2020-12-08 12:34:45.184000+00:00 | ['Education Reform', 'Ukraine', 'Health Care Reform', 'Médiá'] |
Techniques for Subtour Elimination in Traveling Salesman Problem: Theory and Implementation in Python | Techniques for Subtour Elimination in Traveling Salesman Problem: Theory and Implementation in Python Aayush Aggarwal Follow Dec 6 · 9 min read
INTRODUCTION
In this article, I will explain and implement the well-known Traveling Salesman Problem aka TSP with a special focus on subtour elimination methods. We will use python to implement the MILP formulation. The dataset contains the coordinates of various cities of India. The aim is to find the shortest path that covers all cities. We will cover the following points in this article
Input the data and visualize the problem Model TSP as ILP formulation w/o Subtour constraints Implement Subtour Elimination Method 1: MTZ’s Approach Implement Subtour Elimination Method 2: DFJ’s Approach Compare MTZ’s formulation and DFJ’s formulation Conclusion
The GitHub codes for this article can be found on the link: https://github.com/Ayaush/TSP-ILP
1 Input the data and problem visualization
The CSV file “tsp_city_data.csv” contains the names of cities in India with their latitude and longitude information. The first city “Delhi” is assumed to be the starting point of the trip (depot). The data input to TSP model is the distance matrix which stores the distance (or travel time or cost) from each city (location) to every other city. Thus, for a traveling salesman problem for N cities (location), the distance matrix is of size N x N. The variable no_of_locs in the code is used to define the first n no. of cities we want to include in our TSP problem data. The value is set at 6 for now. The python pandas library is used to read CSV file and distance matrix “dis_mat”.
#import libraries
%matplotlib inline
import pulp
import pandas as pd
from scipy.spatial import distance_matrix
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import time
import copy
The function “plot_fig” is used to plot the data and visualize the problem and the function “get_plan” takes the LP solution and returns all the subtours present in the solution.
#This function takes locations as input and plot a scatter plot def plot_fig(loc,heading="plot"): plt.figure(figsize=(10,10))
for i,row in loc.iterrows():
if i==0:
plt.scatter(row["x"],row["y"],c='r')
plt.text(row["x"]+0.2, row["y"]+0.2, 'DELHI (depot) ')
else:
plt.scatter(row["x"], row["y"], c='black')
plt.text(row["x"] + 0.2, row["y"] + 0.2,full_data.loc[i]['CITy'] )
plt.ylim(6,36)
plt.xlim(66,96)
plt.title(heading) # this function find all the subtour in the LP solution. def get_plan(r0):
r=copy.copy(r0)
route = []
while len(r) != 0:
plan = [r[0]]
del (r[0])
l = 0
while len(plan) > l:
l = len(plan)
for i, j in enumerate(r):
if plan[-1][1] == j[0]:
plan.append(j)
del (r[i])
route.append(plan)
return(route)
The following code below reads data from the CSV file and creates a distance matrix for TSP problem.
# set no of cities
no_of_locs=6
data=pd.read_csv("tsp_city_data.csv")
full_data=data.iloc[0:no_of_locs,:]
d=full_data[['x','y']]
dis_mat=pd.DataFrame(distance_matrix(d.values,d.values),\
index=d.index,columns=d.index)
print("----------data--------------")
print(full_data)
print("-----------------------------")
plot_fig(d,heading="Problem Visualization")
plt.show()
2 Model TSP in ILP without Subtour elimination constraints
TSP problem can be modeled as Integer Linear Program. The LP model is explained as follows
Data
N= Number of location including depot (starting point)
Ci,j = Edge cost from node i to node j where i,j= [1…N]
Decision Variable
xi,j = 1 if solution has direct path from node i to j, otherwise 0
The LP model is formulated as follows
The objective (1) minimize the cost of the tour. Constraints (2) and (3) ensures that for each node, there is only one outflow and inflow edge respectively. Thus, each node is visited only once. Constraint (3) restrict outflow to one’s own node.
In this article, python’s PuLP library is used for implementing MILP model in python. PuLP is an LP modeler written in Python. PuLP can call a variety of LP solvers like CBC, CPLEX, GUROBI, SCIP to solve linear problems. It can be installed from the link “https://pypi.org/project/PuLP/”. The CBC solver is preinstalled in the PuLP library while one has to install other solvers like GUROBI, CPLEX separately to use in PuLP. In this implementation, CBC is used as LP solver.
model=pulp.LpProblem('tsp',pulp.LpMinimize)
#define variable
x=pulp.LpVariable.dicts("x",((i,j) for i in range(no_of_locs) \
for j in range(no_of_locs)),\
cat='Binary') #set objective
model+=pulp.lpSum(dis_mat[i][j]* x[i,j] for i in range(no_of_locs) \
for j in range(no_of_locs))
# st constraints
for i in range(no_of_locs):
model+=x[i,i]==0
model+=pulp.lpSum(x[i,j] for j in range(no_of_locs))==1
model += pulp.lpSum(x[j, i] for j in range(no_of_locs)) == 1 status=model.solve()
#status=model.solver()
print("-----------------")
print(status,pulp.LpStatus[status],pulp.value(model.objective))
route=[(i,j) for i in range(no_of_locs) \
for j in range(no_of_locs) if pulp.value(x[i,j])==1]
print(get_plan(route))
plot_fig(d,heading="solution Visualization")
arrowprops = dict(arrowstyle='->', connectionstyle='arc3', edgecolor='blue')
for i, j in route:
plt.annotate('', xy=[d.iloc[j]['x'], d.iloc[j]['y']],\
xytext=[d.iloc[i]['x'], d.iloc[i]['y']],\
arrowprops=arrowprops)
The optimal solution given by the LP model has subtours i.e
Tour 1 : Delhi > Nagpur > Rajkot Tour 2 : Kolkata > Dispur > Agartala
The solution given by the model has 2 tours but what required is the single tour that starts with the depot (Delhi) and visits all locations one by one and ends at Delhi. To solve this problem and to get the desired single tour, the subtour elimination constraints need to be added in the LP Model.
There are 2 well-known formulations DSF and MTZ (named after their authors). This article covers both the ideas and the implementation in python.
3. MTZ Method for subtour elimination
This formulation was proposed by Miller, Tucker, Zemlin. To eliminate subtours, continuous decision variables representing times at which a location is visited is added. Variable for all locations except depot node is added. ti= time at which location i is visited, i =[2,…N] Finally what is required are the constraint
How does constraint (5) remove subtours ?
Lets takes an previous example and take the subtour Kolkata (k) > Dispur(d) > Agartala(a)
So adding constraint (5) will eliminate the subtour.
The complete Lp model is formulated as follows
Data
N= Number of location including depot (starting point)
Ci,j = Edge cost from node i to node j where i,j= [1…N]
Decision Variable
xi,j = 1 if solution has direct path from node i to j, otherwise 0
ti = time at which location i is visited , i =[2,…N]
The LP model is formulated as follows
The MTZ’s formulation is implemented in python as shown below.
start_t=time.time()
model=pulp.LpProblem('tsp',pulp.LpMinimize)
#define variable
x=pulp.LpVariable.dicts("x",((i,j) for i in range(no_of_locs) \
for j in range(no_of_locs)),\
cat='Binary') t = pulp.LpVariable.dicts("t", (i for i in range(no_of_locs)), \
lowBound=1,upBound= no_of_locs, cat='Continuous')
#set objective
model+=pulp.lpSum(dis_mat[i][j]* x[i,j] for i in range(no_of_locs) \
for j in range(no_of_locs))
# st constraints
for i in range(no_of_locs):
model+=x[i,i]==0
model+=pulp.lpSum(x[i,j] for j in range(no_of_locs))==1
model += pulp.lpSum(x[j, i] for j in range(no_of_locs)) == 1
#eliminate subtour
for i in range(no_of_locs):
for j in range(no_of_locs):
if i!=j and (i!=0 and j!=0):
model+=t[j]>=t[i]+1 - (2*no_of_locs)*(1-x[i,j])
status=model.solve()
#status=model.solver()
print("-----------------")
print(status,pulp.LpStatus[status],pulp.value(model.objective))
route=[(i,j) for i in range(no_of_locs) \
for j in range(no_of_locs) if pulp.value(x[i,j])==1]
print(route)
plot_fig(d,heading="solution Visualization")
arrowprops = dict(arrowstyle='->', connectionstyle='arc3', edgecolor='blue')
for i, j in route:
plt.annotate('', xy=[d.iloc[j]['x'], d.iloc[j]['y']],\
xytext=[d.iloc[i]['x'], d.iloc[i]['y']],\
arrowprops=arrowprops)
print("time taken by MTZ formulation = ", time.time()-start_t)
4. DFJ Method for subtour elimination
This formulation was proposed by Dantzig, Fulkerson, Jhonson. To eliminate subtours, for every set S of cities, add a constraint saying that the tour leaves S at least once.
How does this constraint eliminate subtours?
Let's take the same example and take a set Si= {kolkata, Dispur, Agartala} and the rest of the cities be represented by s′i={ Delhi(del), Rajkot(r), Nagpur(n)}
Now as per constraint (15), the new constraint added is as follows
since there is no edge going to any other node in this set (due to subtour), this equation is not satisfied for the set Si= {{kolkata, Dispur, Agartala}. So, by adding constraint (15), this solution becomes infeasible and all subtours will be eliminated.
Modification in DFJ Method
For N cities, the number of possible sets adds up to 2^n i.e the number of constraints grows exponentially. So, instead of adding constraints for all the possible sets, only some constraints are added. Given a solution to LP model(without having subtour elimination constraints) with subtours, one can quickly find the subset for which DFJ subtour constraint is eliminated. In the example above, one needs to add only 2 constraints and not 2^5 constraints.
So, the higher-level algorithm is as follows
Higher-level Algorithm for DFJ
step 1. Solve TSP problem with LP formulation w/o Subtour Constraints
step 2. If no subtour present in the current solution, goto step 6
step 3. Add subtour constraint only for the subtours present in the current solution.
step 4. Solve TSP problem with newly added constraint.
step 5. goto step 2
step 6. Return the final TSP solution
The above-mentioned algorithm is implemented as follows
start_t_1=time.time()
model=pulp.LpProblem('tsp',pulp.LpMinimize)
#define variable
x=pulp.LpVariable.dicts("x",((i,j) for i in range(no_of_locs) \
for j in range(no_of_locs)),\
cat='Binary') #set objective
model+=pulp.lpSum(dis_mat[i][j]* x[i,j] for i in range(no_of_locs) \
for j in range(no_of_locs))
# st constraints
for i in range(no_of_locs):
model+=x[i,i]==0
model+=pulp.lpSum(x[i,j] for j in range(no_of_locs))==1
model += pulp.lpSum(x[j, i] for j in range(no_of_locs)) == 1
status=model.solve() route=[(i,j) for i in range(no_of_locs) \
for j in range(no_of_locs) if pulp.value(x[i,j])==1]
route_plan=get_plan(route)
subtour=[]
while len(route_plan)!=1:
for i in range(len(route_plan)):
#print(route_plan[i]) model+=pulp.lpSum(x[route_plan[i][j][0],route_plan[i][j][1]]\
for j in range(len(route_plan[i])))<=\
len(route_plan[i])-1
status=model.solve()
route = [(i, j) for i in range(no_of_locs) \
for j in range(no_of_locs) if pulp.value(x[i, j]) == 1] route_plan = get_plan(route)
subtour.append(len(route_plan))
print("-----------------")
print(status,pulp.LpStatus[status],pulp.value(model.objective))
print(route_plan)
print("no. of times LP model is solved = ",len(subtour))
print("subtour log (no. of subtours in each solution))",subtour)
print("Time taken by DFJ formulation = ", time.time()-start_t_1)
plot_fig(d,heading="solution Visualization")
arrowprops = dict(arrowstyle='->', connectionstyle='arc3', edgecolor='blue')
for i, j in route_plan[0]:
plt.annotate('', xy=[d.iloc[j]['x'], d.iloc[j]['y']],\
xytext=[d.iloc[i]['x'], d.iloc[i]['y']],
arrowprops=arrowprops)
plt.show() #print("total time = ",time.time()-start)
Compare MTZ’s Formulation vs DFJ’s formulation
Since two approaches for subtour elimination have been discussed in this article, it's time to compare the two. MTZ’s approach introduces n² constraints (one for each pair (i,j) where i, j=[1..n]) while DFJ’s approach introduces subtour constraints for all possible sets of locations i.e 2^n for n locations. Thus, MTZ’s approach adds a polynomial number of constraints while DFJ’s approach introduces an exponential number of constraints.
In terms of decision variables, MTZ approach introduces n new decision variables (titi for i =[1..n]).ON the other hand, DFJ introduces no new decision variable. MTZ’s approach has to be solved only once to get an optimal solution While DFJ is generally implemented as a modified version and it is solved iteratively ( i.e LP model has to be solved multiple times with new subtour constraints added every time).
There is no clear winner among the two. For some problems, DFJ gives solutions faster than MTZ and for some problems, MTZ is faster. But DFJ has an efficient branch and bound approach due to which it becomes more efficient than MTZ. Also, MTZ’s formulation is weaker i.e the feasible region has the same integer points but includes more fractional points.
Conclusion
In this article, MILP formulation of TSP is explained with a special focus on subtour elimination approaches. TSP problem is a special case of Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) with no. of vehicle equal to 1. But, subtour elimination is a core issue in VRP as well which is solved by using the same techniques. In this article, the TSP problem is solved for only 6 cities to simplify the explanation of subtour elimination. The CSV file uploaded in the Github repository contains data of 27 cities. One can try to solve the problem for more number of cities. | https://medium.com/swlh/techniques-for-subtour-elimination-in-traveling-salesman-problem-theory-and-implementation-in-71942e0baf0c | ['Aayush Aggarwal'] | 2020-12-06 22:35:02.606000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Optimization', 'Analytics', 'Travelling Salesman'] |
What You and TAP Can Do Together | Building Respectful Civic Communities For Change
written by 9/11 TAP Staff
The Truth Action Project (TAP) grew out of a recognition that a grassroots organization was needed to enable us to respond to what really happened to all of us on 9/11.
Sooner or later, we all moved beyond fascination with the unanswered questions about the events of that day, to pondering what it meant about today’s world.
Initially, we felt powerless, but we knew that we needed a plan, and needed to organize. We knew that we couldn’t trust the media or the political parties. We knew that someone was messing with our minds, in ways we couldn’t fully understand.
Meanwhile, those responsible for 9/11 were not standing still. They had carried out the deed for a reason; they were prepared to act and they did. The appeal to fear and anger, the Patriot Act to stifle dissent, the constant repetition of the emergency-call number summoning us to perpetual war — it all happened so quickly. By the time questions about the War on Terror could no longer be stifled, a new Cold War was launched, reviving our hatred and fear of Russia.
By now, it seems that the government really doesn’t care whether the people want wars or not, neither Democrats nor Republicans — our views don’t matter! We’ve become so passive that propaganda seems almost unnecessary.
But the world was not standing still either. A “rogue” President was elected, who unnerved the agencies that were managing our minds. The phrase “Deep State”, once the exclusive property of a few dissenters, entered our vocabulary, as did “Fake News” — as if it had never existed before. People became aware that no matter who was president, the tides of war kept running in the same direction.
Neither was our resistance standing still. In April 2018, the Lawyers Committee for 9/11 Inquiry demanded a Grand Jury investigation of 9/11, and later that year, sued the Justice Department. AE911 Truth joined them in a successful fundraising appeal; and 9/11 TAP supplied volunteers and contributors for these efforts.
But these actions were not enough of a response to the forces behind the War on Terror. In TAP, we knew that we had taken on the hardest task of all: to develop the counter-narrative, take it to the country, and build a civic movement to apply it.
The narrative is really simple: that 9/11 was a psychological operation to promote wars of aggression and render us incapable of stopping them. Techniques developed to overthrow foreign governments and pacify their populations have been deployed at home, and they are working. As a result, an oligopoly of large corporations and the National Security State control the media, Congress, and the courts on matters important to them. They control public opinion through the media and university teaching and research through philanthropy and grants. Dissidents are weeded out.
But there is a catch. Ultimately, these techniques didn’t work in Vietnam. They didn’t work in Iran, or Syria. They’re not working in Libya, or Ukraine, or Venezuela, because people stood up. And they won’t work in America — unless we let them.
That’s where TAP — and you — come in.
Over the past two years, TAP has re-organized and learned some lessons.
By September, we want to have at least thirty Truth Action Groups in place around the country, to man “Truth Booths” and then become ongoing support groups for a growing movement. You are needed to make this happen in your town. The purpose is to build respectful civic communities, of people with diverse views about many things — but convinced that we need institutions we “own” and trust: media, websites, teams, and alliances, and eventually — elected leaders whose allegiance is to us. They won’t be the people who’ve started this movement, but new leaders, chosen by their peers, to form new political structures unlike today’s parties.
Please check out www.911tap.org, sign our petition calling for a new investigation, subscribe to our newsletter, and maybe make a donation. | https://medium.com/@janetzampieri/what-you-and-tap-can-do-together-4d2b47892255 | ['Janet Zampieri'] | 2019-07-01 22:55:51.656000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Propaganda', 'Humanity', 'September 11', 'Government'] |
How to Create an End to End Object Detector using Yolov5? | Creating Custom Dataset
You can forgo the first step if you have your image Dataset. Since I don’t have images, I am downloading data from the Open Image Dataset(OID), which is an excellent resource for getting annotated image data that can be used for classification as well as detection. Note that we won’t be using the provided annotations from OID and create our own for the sake of learning.
1. OIDv4 Download Images:
To download images from the Open Image dataset, we start by cloning the OIDv4_ToolKit and installing all requirements.
cd
pip install -r requirements.txt git clone https://github.com/EscVM/OIDv4_ToolKit cd OIDv4_ToolKit pip install -r requirements.txt
We can now use the main.py script within this folder to download images as well as labels for multiple classes.
Below I am downloading the data for Cricketball and Football to create our Custom Dataset. That is, we will be creating a dataset with footballs and cricket balls, and the learning task is to detect these balls.
python3 main.py downloader --classes Cricket_ball Football --type_csv all -y --limit 500
The below command creates a directory named “OID” with the following structure:
OID directory structure. We will take only the image files(.jpgs) from here and not the labels as we will annotate manually to create our Custom Dataset, though we can use them if required for a different project.
Before we continue, we will need to copy all the images in the same folder to start our labeling exercise from Scratch. You can choose to do this manually, but this can also be quickly done programmatically using recursive glob function:
import os
from glob import glob os.system("mkdir Images")
images = glob(r'OID/**/*.jpg', recursive=True)
for img in images:
os.system(f"cp {img} Images/")
2. Label Images with HyperLabel
We will use a tool called Hyperlabel to label our images. In the past, I have used many tools to create annotations like labelimg, labelbox, etc. but never came across a tool so straightforward and that too open source. The only downside is that you cannot get this tool for Linux and only for Mac and Windows, but I guess that is fine for most of us. | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-create-an-end-to-end-object-detector-using-yolov5-35fbb1a02810 | ['Rahul Agarwal'] | 2020-10-19 18:00:07.636000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
Using Observability Tools with Envoy | Photo by Alex Eckermann on Unsplash
This is the second Envoy & Open Policy Agent (OPA) Getting Started Guide. Each guide is intended to explore a single Envoy or OPA feature and walk through a simple implementation. Each guide builds on the concepts explored in the previous guide with the goal of creating a very powerful authorization service by the end of the series. Be sure to check out the first guide of this series on Medium.
While our solution is still very simple, it is a great time to show how to make our solution observable with log aggregation. This makes it easier to think about how to scale and productionize our solution. As we start to develop and apply authorization rules at scale it will be handy to have all of the logs aggregated and displayed in one place for development and troubleshooting activities. In this article we will walk through how to set up the ElasticSearch FluentBit, Kibana (EFK) stack to pull your logs together from all of the docker containers in your local development environment.
All of the source code for this getting started example is located on GitHub. → Envoy & OPA GS # 2
SOLUTION OVERVIEW
The solution that we will build in this blog is shown below. We will send docker logs into an EFK stack that is also running inside docker. Each of the containers in our solution simply send logs to Standard out and / or Standard Error. No agents nor other special software is requirements are imposed on the observed applications. | https://medium.com/cloudx-at-fidelity/using-observability-tools-with-envoy-148802b26668 | ['Mike Dunn'] | 2021-08-27 13:14:58.066000+00:00 | ['Envoy Proxy', 'Kibana', 'Elasticsearch'] |
Brooklyn Nights | …And he puts out the joint with the last inhale for the night. Twitter kept his attention while he scrolled for countless hours only to come up with the though of calling it a night. “What time is it ?”. He sleeps in a room maintained to the best of abilities. Books everywhere at opposite locations of the room with multiple notes taken from doing hours of late night research. They look like they haven’t been touched in weeks. His mind is heavily disorganized. “To be honest, it’s getting late.” He has Netflix on, but he’s laying down staring at the ceiling. His phone faced flat on top of the dresser at the front of the room. He reaches for it and notices a number he doesn’t recognized is calling. Letting it ring out, He remains unfazed, lays his phone by his ribcage facing up. Out the blue a shriek loud enough to alert the neighborhood there’s a altercation outside is heard. He turns his head to the left of the room, staring at the curtains. Uninterested, he returned back to his resting posture.” No one is going to help you”. And no one did. The screaming had progressed into an aggressive argument. As the yelling continued, His eyes were beginning to lower. At short notice, sirens rang out from a distance. Bang ! Bang ! The air is suddenly heavy. Eyes wide open in distraught, Heart racing, and his mind is at a standstill. The sirens grew louder as the vehicles came closer. They finally approached the house and continued driving. As the sirens dissipated, the air became less heavier than it was. “Crazy night”. He spoke after remaining silent for an hour. His phone buzzed with an Alert. “Baby you awake ?”. He glanced over the text. He writes back “Yeah” She replies “I’ll be over in 10”. “Cool, let me know when you’re here”. The high begins to kick in. “Slow rise huh”. He can feel himself feeling slightly disoriented. “ Wait” He feels the high intensifying. “This is different, I’m way too high right now” He starts to move towards the right side of the bed to stand up still. As he stood up, He leaned to the right till he eventually fell on his head. The sound of landing on ground shook the first floor, but no one came into the room. Instantly, he’s knocked out. At last footsteps are being heard walking towards the room as the door knob is twisting slightly to the right. She walks into the room and finds him on the ground. Her reaction was quick as she ran to him to check if he was okay. She rushed as she searched her bag for her phone and dialed 911. “911 How can we help you”. As she is explaining the situation, she felt his hand tap her knee, she stares down at him and he begins to seize. “Quick, He’s having a seizure, what do I do ?” Hysterically crying, The dispatcher instructs her of a quick maneuver to help ensure he survives from the seizure. Finally the ambulance has arrived and she rushes downstairs to let them in. 2 uniformed EMT’s rush into the house “Where is he” they asked hastily. “He’s upstairs in the room to the left” and they ran up the stairs in a militant manner. As they reached the room, they found him laid out on his stomach with foam from the side of his mouth. One of the EMT rushed to him and quickly put their fingers on his neck. “WE HAVE A PULSE” She yelled out. “But it’s weak, if we don’t get him out of here now, he won’t make it”. “Mike help me get him” The second EMT grabbed him up and they carried him down the stairs. She stayed downstairs and kept her composure by the door as she sees them rushing downstairs with him in their arms. They put him on the stretcher and lifted him out the house. “I’m coming with you” she said as they were leaving. She ran up the stairs, grabbed her jacket and bag and ran downstairs out the house. She runs to the ambulance and they let her in. “It’s time for him to see a therapist” she says to herself under her cracking voice as they closed the door and drove off.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Adversity Builds Character | https://medium.com/@brilliantmind/brooklyn-nights-f15b03878462 | [] | 2021-07-06 19:13:05.254000+00:00 | ['Book Writing', 'Fiction Series', 'Urban Life', 'Weed', 'Stories'] |
Attacking Sites Using CSRF | From CSRF to user information leak, XSS and full account takeover.
The criticality of a CSRF vulnerability depends heavily on where the vulnerability is located. Sometimes, faulty CSRF protection mechanisms lead to inconsequential issues like unauthorized setting changes or emptying a user’s cart. Other times, they lead to much bigger issues: user information leak, XSS and even one-click account takeovers.
Here are a few cases that I have encountered in the wild of CSRFs leading to severe security issues. Often, these are a combination of CSRF and other minor design flaws.
Critical CSRF #1: Leaking user information using CSRFPermalink
CSRF sometimes causes information leaks as a side effect. Applications often send or disclose information according to user preferences. If these setting endpoints are not protected from CSRFs, they can pave the way to sensitive information disclosures. One way of achieving CSRF based info leaks is to play with these requests.
For example, a paid service on a web app that I have worked on sends monthly billing emails to a user-designated email address. These emails include the street addresses, phone numbers, and limited credit card information of the user. The email address to which these billing emails are sent can be changed via the following request:
POST /change_billing_email REQUEST BODY:
email=NEW_EMAIL &csrftok=12345
The CSRF validation on this endpoint was broken. The server accepts a blank token and the request would succeed even if the csrftok field is left empty. After making a victim send the following request, all future billing emails would then be sent to ATTACKER_EMAIL (until the victim notices the unauthorized change), thereby leaking the street address and phone numbers associated with the account to the attacker.
POST /change_billing_email REQUEST BODY:
email=ATTACKER_EMAIL &csrftok=
Critical CSRF #2: Stored Self-XSS using CSRFPermalink
Self-XSS is almost always regarded by security teams as a non-issue because they are difficult to exploit. However, when combined with a CSRF, self-XSS can often be turned into a stored-XSS.
For example, on a financial site that I have come across, users are given the ability to create nicknames for each of their linked bank accounts. The account nickname field is vulnerable to self-XSS: there is no sanitization, validation or escaping for user input on the field. However, this is a field that only the authorized user can edit and see, so there is no way for an attacker to trigger the XSS directly.
Unfortunately, a CSRF bug also exists on the endpoint used to change the account nicknames. The application does not properly validate the existence of the CSRF token, so simply omitting the token parameter in the request will bypass CSRF protection. For example:
POST /change_account_nickname REQUEST BODY:
nickname=<XSS PAYLOAD> &csrftok=WRONG_TOKEN
This request would fail.
POST /change_account_nickname REQUEST BODY:
nickname=<XSS PAYLOAD>
While this request would successfully change the user’s account nickname, and store the XSS payload. The next time a user logs into the account and view her dashboard, the XSS would be triggered.
Critical CSRF #3: Taking over user accounts using CSRFPermalink
These are some of the easiest account takeovers that I have discovered. And these situations are not uncommon either. Account takeover issues occur when there is a CSRF issue in an account validating functionality like creating a password, changing the password, changing the email address, or resetting the password.
For example, here’s a bug that I have discovered in a client’s web app.
The web app allows social media sign-ups. And after a user signs up via social media, they have the option to set a password via the following request:
POST /password_change REQUEST BODY:
oldpassword= &newpassword=XXXXX &csrftok=12345
Since the user signed up via their social media account, no old password is needed to set the new password. So if CSRF protection fails on this endpoint, an attacker would have the ability to set a password for anyone who signed up via their social media account and has not set a password.
And unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened on this particular endpoint. The application does not validate the CSRF token properly and accepts an empty value as the csrftok parameter. So essentially, the following request will set the password of anyone (who doesn’t already have a password set) to ATTACKER_PASS.
POST /password_change REQUEST BODY:
oldpassword= &newpassword=ATTACKER_PASS &csrftok=
Now all an attacker has to do is to embed this request on pages frequented by users of the site, and she can automatically assign the password of any user who visits those pages to ATTACKER_PASS. After that, the attacker is free to log in as any victim with their newly assigned password.
ConclusionPermalink
CSRFs are super common and very easy to exploit. While the majority of CSRFs that I have encountered proved to be low severity issues, sometimes an oversight on critical endpoints can lead to severe consequences.
If you are a developer, pay extra attention to the CSRF protection mechanisms deployed on critical endpoints.
If you are a hacker, think about what role the functionality plays in the context of the entire application when you encounter a CSRF. How does the endpoint affect the rest of the application? How could you escalate the vulnerability based on that knowledge?
Categories: CSRF
Updated: December 19, 2020 | https://medium.com/@josephmusando8/attacking-sites-using-csrf-8b15801b8bb1 | ['Joseph Musando'] | 2020-12-19 04:52:15.310000+00:00 | ['Attack', 'Web'] |
Clean Drinking Water and the Fight to Save It | If there is one thing every American tends to take for granted, it’s a clean glass of drinking water drawn from a household tap. However, the availability of clean water is under assault across the country due to lax government regulation and outdated methods of handling sewage and toxic chemicals.
A case in point is Teton County in Wyoming. The drinking water for the residents of that community is derived from a single source: the Snake River Aquifer. While this underground water resource has been providing clean drinking water for centuries, it averages a depth of just five feet below the ground surface. That has made the Snake River Aquifer vulnerable to pollution coming from thousands of home septic tanks that have grown old, damaged, or leaky. Raw sewage is increasingly finding its way into the underground aquifer — that water then gets pumped up for in-home use.
Even though water delivered to cities and towns is treated by municipal water plant treatment centers, the end result continues to be more pollutant agents finding their way inside the homes of Wyoming residents. Luckily, the residents of Teton County are not taking this sitting down. Civic action groups have formed, including Protect Our Water Jackson Hole (POWJH). This group has teamed up with the Wyoming Outdoor Council to put pressure on public officials to remedy problems with septic tank leakage.
The Wyoming case demonstrates that maintaining clean drinking water is a matter of good government management combined with mustering the political will to take action. Failing clean water infrastructures, such as the famous example of the lead-tainted water of Flint, Michigan, is the result of government oversight that goes lax. Some of it is caused by misguided efforts to save money on expensive municipal projects in an effort to cut budgets so that politicians can brag about “keeping tax rates low.”
However, when it comes to clean water, there is no substitute for spending what needs to be spent in order to upgrade failing systems and maintain existing water treatment facilities. Getting government leaders to act requires organization. That means citizens taking action to create pressure on government regulators to do the right thing, find the money needed, and put in place sound water delivery and treatment systems. | https://medium.com/@barrynerhus/clean-drinking-water-and-the-fight-to-save-it-b0709803dad9 | ['Barry Nerhus'] | 2020-12-23 21:13:21.711000+00:00 | ['Environment', 'Barry Nerhus', 'Water'] |
One, two, three and 1000 | Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Where will a few steps take you — we never know. So, while I was on my morning walk I realized that I could go a km, or two or three. Personally, I did not want to go for a long one but I had to get in enough steps for round one to make the 10,000 cumulative. Now there is a parallel to this though, isn’t every one of us walking towards something — we call it a goal, a destination, a career, a person, or simply a lifestyle. And how far do we go in that direction over the course of our lives? Sometimes quite far and then other times not enough to be measured with tangible outcomes.
To all those destinations which have been elusive to us for so long and maybe we have already given up on them — Have you ever asked why did you not get through? Give it a moment to settle in, How interesting life would be if we had made it to those experiences. Personally, my life would have been more fulfilling if I could spend time with my parents especially when they were growing old, if I could have made more meaningful relationships with my friends back then, if I could have had the courage to ask the girl I liked so much, out for a coffee instead of just sitting in the library like a dumb kid.
Well, I really miss those times when I had the chance and all those things were right in front of me and all I had to do was go out and just do it. One of the reasons why we do not do things we so much want to is — afraid of the outcomes. What was the worst that could have happened, maybe a no for the wish asked for or a bargain for a much less significant opportunity? We never do think through the things that we most want, and just give in to the first fear of losing it when in reality — that thing never existed in the first place.
Now, over to how not repeat that kind of behavior in the first place. I will share a few thoughts in bullets to deal with it.
Know that you do not have anything to lose, I know it is easier said than done but, think of how it will help you grow as a person even you end up not having that thing
“Rome wasn't built in a day”, same goes with life and more so for a meaningful and rewarding life for sure. You see, when we go out and see people living all those nicer moments with all these pretty things, it's not something that rained on them from the sky, they are responsible for it and it took them time to get there. So, take a step or two daily and consistently and soon you will have covered a thousand miles distance in that direction.
Photo by Pro Church Media on Unsplash
Pay attention to how you feel, and do it honestly. You know the magic about feeling, we do not have to think hard to know if we are doing something right or wrong, it is an easy & quick way to check upon yourself — how you feel and take the steps from that those observations to keep yourself healthy.
This is not to suggest you can indulge with substances or materialistic infatuations for feeling good just for the sake of feeling good, once in a while it is okay to let the feelings slip through but in the long run — it is about knowing what you need to do with your feelings to be able to live a fulfilling life. For example, if I feel bad I will exercise or eat some nice food but that is not going to take care of the feelings of their source by any means. It will just give temporary relief to me and that’s all there is to it.
Be yourself, I know it sounds so simple but how often you have said or done things, not to be likable but to just not hurt someone else. Maybe a couple of times you have been that nice soul, and it is fine as long as it does not affect your personal values or integrity in any way whatsoever. How will you know, well you need to know what are your “values” and “rules of life” are in the first place and then take care of it like rose petals.
It is not easy and I myself struggle through it even though I am writing it but that’s more of the reason to share it — coz it is something we have to learn from & grow through that, “You will cover 1000 miles if you take a one, two, three steps a day and then do it every day going forward. It will look insignificant today when you look at its for its one-piece but let it all come together and form that beautiful picture in your life.
I hope you are able to live more of those desired experiences that you so much hope for in your life. | https://medium.com/@sidberry/one-two-three-and-1000-cbccd2576bff | ['Sid Berry'] | 2020-12-24 22:54:41.150000+00:00 | ['Fear', 'Milestones', 'Opportunity', 'Bargain', 'Parents'] |
Cryptocurrency Investments Are More Profitable Than It Seems To Be | There is a common opinion that cryptocurrency is not a safe kind of investment and can be even a speculative instrument. The fact that authoritative regulators are talking about the serious impact of cryptocurrencies on the modern financial market, and the launch of the national digital currencies definitely confirm that fact. Financial market is now at a stage of development when it is difficult to imagine a serious investment portfolio without cryptocurrencies.
Below we will explain why.
Cryptocurrencies are more stable than stocks
Investing in Bitcoin is more profitable than investing in shares of the world’s largest banks. This paradoxical conclusion was reached by Messari — the company specializing in cryptocurrency market research. “They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But this is worth five: Long bitcoin, short the bankers ” — commented Jack Purdy.
What does this graph say?
If you’d invested 1 BTC in the shares of any of these banks 5 years ago, and you sold your shares in order to buy BTC again today — you would get about minus 89.5% profit (i.e., money from the sale of shares JP Morgan today cost now equivalent to buying 0.1 BTC). It turns out that in the long run it is more profitable to invest in BTC than in shares of traditional banks.
Bitcoin is so-called “digital gold”, implying its attractiveness as a protective financial asset. “The key characteristics of bitcoin (censorship resistance, verifiable ownership, immutability make it an attractive alternative to today’s instruments for hedging against inflation or storing one’s wealth without risk of seizure,” says Bitcoin’s Delphi Digital study scarce, disinflationary characteristics make it an attractive alternative to gold.”
Bitcoin stands ahead of gold by many characteristics, such as censorship resistance, divisibility, portability, verifiability, and fiat currencies are far behind — which confirms its attractiveness as a financial instrument.
The graph below indicates that a steady correlation has been observed between the exchange rate of BTC and gold since the beginning of the summer. It suggests that investors Buy and Sell BTC in the same period as gold, thereby recognizing its investment attractiveness.
Let’s summarize: Bitcoin is a more stable investment for the long run than investments in gold. Chasing the course and winning on volatility no longer seems such a profitable strategy. Add bitcoin to your portfolio, have patience and wait.
While traditional markets are falling, Bitcoin (BTC) is growing
World markets reacted sharply to the news that the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 25 basis points: for example, oil broke a nine-year negative record in one hour, and the second national bank went bankrupt in China early in August. Against this background, the Bitcoin exchange rate has grown — and this story is not repeated for the first time (for example, the news of the harsh US sanctions against China coincided with record drops in stock indices and an increase in the rate of Bitcoin early in May).
Can cryptocurrencies be used for money laundering? You’ll be surprised!
Traditional fiat currencies are used for money laundering much more often than digital currencies — this conclusion was made by experts of the same research company Messari, based on the data from Chainanalysis and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. For every dollar spent in the darknet on money laundering using bitcoin, there is $ 800 “laundered” using fiat currencies.
So, the reputation of Bitcoin, as the main means of payment in the criminal world, is greatly exaggerated.
Crypto as a national currency is possible in the near future
National governments and world leaders are talking about the possibility of creating national cryptocurrencies. The European Parliament Committee on Economics and Currencies has taken up the issue of introducing national currencies of the central banks of the EU countries. “Each new maximum of leading cryptocurrencies leads to their even greater distribution, which will ultimately make BTC and ETH ideal defense mechanisms,” MPs rightly believe.
Cryptocurrencies are rapidly moving towards becoming a generally accepted financial instrument. Until this happens, it’s time to add them to your portfolio to be at the peak of the trend.
Is it true that cryptocurrencies are not applicable in the real world?
Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies are gradually strengthening their position as a means of payment in everyday life. It’s not only about countries with limited access to traditional financial instruments or if the population invests in crypto due to the catastrophic devaluation of national currencies.
For example, people from Zadar (Croatia) can exchange BTC, ETH, Stellar, Ripple, XRP or EOS for fiat as simple as buying a postage stamp — you just need to fill out a form and scan the QR code in one of the city’s post offices.
Citizens of Fortaleza (Brazil) can pay for public transport via Bitcoins. However, there are many such examples in Brazil: crypto became popular due to the weakness of the national currency.
It is expected that despite the high volatility of the courses, digital money would be widely used in the near future as a convenient and attractive means of payment.
Whether we like it or not, cryptocurrencies are already becoming a part of everyday life. And this is only the beginning. Do not hesitate: further situation will change it even more!
Where to Buy crypto: TOP-platforms review
Experienced investors no longer doubt that cryptocurrencies should be present in a modern investment portfolio. You can consider them as a long-term investment or Buy/Sell making money on the volatility of courses. Whatever strategy you choose, first you need to decide which platform will you trade on.
When reviewing and evaluating cryptocurrency exchanges, the emphasis should be on reliability and security, note that trading volume and number of active traders are also important. We have compiled a small rating of exchanges, which is worth paying attention to a novice crypto-trader. | https://medium.com/exmo-official/cryptocurrency-investments-are-more-profitable-than-it-seems-to-be-f3dd73f9232e | ['Valeriya Kolomiychenko'] | 2019-10-25 13:01:40.253000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto', 'Bitcoin', 'Investing'] |
Mirror, Mirror… | Witch — Not A Vampire…BAHAHAHA!- Author’s photo
October 2017:
A while back my therapist gave me some homework. I was to go shopping with a friend and find a mirror. A beautiful mirror and hang it in my house in a prominent place. I was to look at myself in that mirror every day and see Real Ann — the person my friends see and love, not the person I imagine myself to be when my inner critic is turned on at full volume.
This assignment came about when I realized that other people actually decorated their homes with mirrors. On purpose. I have three mirrors in my home — they are over my bathroom sinks and exist mostly to make sure I don’t have spinach stuck between my teeth.
As the discussion with my therapist ensued, he was truly perplexed at my lack of decorative mirrors. And my long history of never having mirrors in my home. I joked about my past life as a vampire. He was not amused at my attempt to derail his observations. Therapists are like dogs with bones, once they get their teeth into a thing, well, there’s no letting go of it.
I can’t really tell you why mirrors have never appealed to my inner interior decorator. My home looks more like a warm and welcoming Ye Old English Pub than anything out of a design magazine. Warm wood and leather set against earth tones is the theme. Somehow mirrors seem out of sync with that Earth Mother vibe.
At least that’s what I tell myself.
Or maybe my therapist had a valid point. Perhaps I just wasn’t interested in looking too hard at myself. Maybe I just didn’t want to see what other people saw when they looked at me. He might have been right when he postulated that I was content to let the voices in my head run the show without taking stock of reality — my actual external self. I was too hard on myself he stated — being very hard on me — I might add.
Irony runs The Universe, have you ever noticed that?
This was all before Said Universe sat me down and made me look at my life. Not just my external self. All of it. Every last bit of it. And encouraged me to cut myself some slack.
In the last six months, I’ve had a long look at my inner workings. Its time to do my homework and take a look at my outer self now as well, through the eyes of the people who love me. And see myself with compassion and love, not judgment.
You don’t need a magic mirror — tomorrow morning look yourself in the eye, acknowledge the strength it took you to get this far. Give yourself credit for all the battles you’ve survived. Find the soft edges where you can still offer your heart to those worthy of its gifts. And breathe.
In the movie “The Help” the nanny tells her charges every day — “You is smart, you is beautiful — you is important — you is loved.” If no one ever told you that, look in the mirror and tell yourself that, because you are. Say it every day. Because your peeps believe that about you and they aren’t fools. The Humans in our lives who love us are here to remind us what we really look like, who we really are. Inside and out.
Namaste.
Addendum: I eventually found The Mirror. It’s a perfect circle — because Life — the earth — seasons — everything is a circle. It has a frame made of beautiful bits and pieces of glass chips — not quite stained glass but a similar aesthetic. It sits eye-level on the wall at the bottom of where my staircase makes a small turn. I see myself descend those stairs every day. And I remember. I am smart. I am beautiful. I am important. And most of all — I am loved. | https://medium.com/recycled/mirror-mirror-e14de220a2ad | ['Ann Litts'] | 2020-10-02 21:00:08.848000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Mental Health', 'Self Love', 'Healing', 'Women'] |
About Zulie Rane | Tools I use
Writing
I do all my personal writing inside of Medium’s editor. If you are wondering how to get started, I created a video here that walks you through the basics.
I do most of my professional writing inside Google docs.
My email list lives on ConvertKit. If you want to start building your email list (and I highly, highly recommend you do!) ConvertKit was what got me started. It’s super easy, visual, intuitive, and helps me feel like I’m writing emails to real people, not just a list. The free plan gives you 1,000 subscribers — here’s the link to sign up.
This is an affiliate link, which means if you do go beyond 1,000 subscribers and upgrade to a paid plan, I’ll earn some money. It’s free for you.
Research
My favorite tools are Google Scholar and NCBI, which lets you search for full scientific articles. I firmly believe the best writing is research-backed, and those two tools give me access to all the information I need to write accurate, interesting, and useful articles.
Videos
For my videos, I use Canva to create the thumbnails. I edit videos using iMovie on Mac. I film using this camera, this tripod, and this microphone.
These are affiliate links. If you buy them from Amazon, I make a small amount of money at no cost to you.
When I create live streams, I use StreamYard. I can’t express how much I love StreamYard — it’s easy to use, it lets me really connect with the folks who are interested in what I do, and the version I use is 100% free and does everything I need it to.
Professional Designers
I have a lot of skills to my name — design and websites are not one of them. I hired Jada Dreyfus to create my website, my Medium banner, my YouTube banner, and my logo. If you like what you see, feel free to contact her at dreyfusjada (at) gmail dot com. | https://medium.com/zulie-writes/about-zulie-rane-ffcef8ef0ba2 | ['Zulie Rane'] | 2020-12-28 20:08:24.518000+00:00 | ['Zulie Rane', 'Medium Partner Program', 'Medium'] |
25 proverbs in AI language | 25 proverbs in AI language
Training of a 1000 epochs begins with a single gradient descent
It is fascinating how so many proverbs have endured the test of time and are still used in literature and daily conversations. The beauty of proverbs is that so many people can relate to them. This can be observed both from the abundance of synonymous proverbs and the number of proverbs that have spread cross-culture and cross-language.
As a research student who spends time with neural networks, I thought it would be fun to rephrase some of these well-known proverbs using AI terminology, and see how well they preserve the meaning of the original. The hope is that this will make neural network jargon more relatable and approachable. The meaning of the proverb is written beneath each translation, so whether you are knowledgeable in the field, you can try to guess the original proverbs from the description.
All the below translations are my own work. Feel free to use these quotes in your daily life (at your own personal risk of scaring away your friends), but please reference/link this article if you want to use any of these in written form.
Disclaimer: some of the quotes below are not technically-speaking always true, but that goes the same with proverbs, so please take it easy. I’d be opened to any suggestions for improvements:)
1. Training of a 1000 epochs begins with a single gradient descent
Even the longest and most difficult ventures have a starting point; something which begins with one first step. —[see answer]
An epoch refers to one cycle through the full training dataset. Usually each epoch is further broken down into several mini-batches. A neural network is trained by applying gradient descent to its parameters for every mini-batch.
2. All that has a derivative of zero is not a global optimum
Not everything that looks precious or true (or optimal) turns out to be so. — [see answer]
The goal of machine learning is to find a set of parameters which optimises an objective function. At a global optimum (the best possible solution), the derivative of the objective function becomes zero, but that is also true for local minima, maxima and saddle points.
3. Set a stupid objective function, get a stupid prediction
If one asks a strange or nonsensical question, the listener will probably respond with a similarly strange or nonsensical answer. — [see answer]
The objective function should define the problem an AI should solve; otherwise the prediction that the AI makes will be meaningless.
4. Bad gradients propagate fast
Bad news circulates quickly because people often spread it everywhere. — [see answer
Out-of-distribution training samples, often known as outliers, will most likely result in large losses and gradients. Regularisation techniques and dropout may be good measures to counter overfitting to these samples.
5. Interpretability lies in the eyes of the researcher
Different people have different views on what is beautiful (or interpretable). — [see answer]
It is often not clear how a neural network is making a prediction just by inspecting its parameters and intermediate outputs. Many methods have been developed to make it more interpretable, but it remains an actively investigated topic in AI research.
6. Convergence of loss comes to those who wait
A patient person will be satisfied in due time; patience is a virtue. — [see answer]
Big neural networks can take a very long time to converge, but when it does, it often outperforms smaller ones.
7. A watched plot never improves
A process appears to go more slowly if one waits for it rather than engaging in other activities. — [see answer]
Here, a plot means a graph that shows the loss over training.
8. Data leakage leads to overfitting
One does not profit by cheating. — [see answer]
In machine learning, it is common practice to split data into training, validation and test datasets, and only use the training dataset for training. One could cheat by leaking information from the validation and test datasets into the training dataset, but then the model will most likely fail in real-world settings because it has overfitted to the dataset.
9. Don’t delete your checkpoints
Don’t do something which forces you to continue with a particular course of action, and make it impossible for you to return to an earlier situation. — [see answer]
Checkpoints are network parameters that are saved during training after every couple of epochs.
10. There’s no point crying over killed processes
To worry about unfortunate events which have already happened and which cannot be changed. — [see answer]
Always save your intermediate results to avoid having to start from scratch if your process dies mid-training:(
11. Don’t change model architectures in mid-training
To change one’s plan or approach when an effort is already underway or at another inopportune time. — [see answer]
Usually, once you define your model, you won’t be able to change it mid-training if you don’t want to start from scratch again. (Instead, you can turn the training on and off for sub-components of your model.)
12. Don’t judge a network by the number of parameters
One shouldn’t prejudge the worth or value of something by its outward appearance alone. — [see answer]
Unfortunately, size does matter for neural networks, but that’s not all. A cleverly designed architecture with shared parameters and additional constraints can go a long way, and also makes the network more robust and generalisable.
13. Don’t put all your weights on one feature
To make everything dependent on only one thing; to place all one’s resources in one place, account, etc. — [see answer]
Typically you would have many channels in a neural network layer, each channel computing some kind of feature. A robust network will not rely on one channel or feature alone, but makes its decision based on a combination of different features. Dropout is one strategy to ensure such robustness.
14. Don’t filter out the signal together with noise
To discard, especially inadvertently, something valuable while in the process of removing or rejecting something unwanted. — [see answer]
15. Don’t try to segment before you can classify
You must master a basic skill before you are able to learn more complex things. — [see answer]
Image classification is simpler and is a necessary step to image segmentation, which is a problem of classifying every pixel in an image instead of just classifying the entire image.
16. Reinitialise pre-trained embeddings
To spoil one’s plans or hope of success. — [see answer]
Pre-trained embeddings are learnt features that can help accelerate downstream tasks.
17. Returns are maximised by agents who self-play
You cannot depend solely on divine help, but must work yourself to get what you want. — [see answer]
A return is a discounted sum of future rewards. In reinforcement learning, the objective is to find a strategy to maximise the expected return. In the famous example of AlphaZero, an AI learnt to play Go, chess and Shogi at a super-human level, just by playing against itself.
18. It’s all neural network parameters to me
A way of saying that something is difficult to understand. — [see answer]
19. No model can be optimised for two objective functions
You cannot work for two different people, organisations, or purposes in good faith, because you will end up favoring one over the other. — [see answer]
An objective function defines the problem the AI must solve. If you give it two objectives that contradict each other, the AI can’t give an optimal solution to both simultaneously.
20. The gradient is always steeper on the other side
People always think they would be happier in a different set of circumstances. — [see answer]
Steep gradients are good because that means you have more scope to improve your parameters and reach a better solution (but not too steep).
21. Adversary and loss make a network wise
We gain wisdom faster in difficult times than in prosperous times. — [see answer]
Defining a loss as an objective to minimise is a typical way to train a neural network. A family of networks called Generative Adversarial Networks also employs adversity to train itself. Typical applications are for realistic image generation.
22. GPT-3 wasn’t trained in a day
It takes a lot of time to achieve something important. — [see answer]
GPT-3 is a massive state-of-the-art network that can perform a variety of language-related tasks.
23. Multi-head attention is better than single-head
It is better to have the power of two people’s minds to solve a problem or come up with an idea than just one person on their own. — [see answer]
Multi-head attention is a mechanism used in Transformers, a neural network architecture that has been shown to be highly effective at capturing the complexity of language. GPT-3 uses Transformers as its building block.
24. Where there’s a gradient, there’s a loss
Every rumor has some foundation; when things appear suspicious, something is wrong. — [see answer]
25. Don’t put a fully-connected layer before a convolutional layer
Do not do things in the wrong order. — [see answer]
Convolutional layers typically appear in computer vision tasks. It is very likely that a fully-connected layer comes after a convolutional layer, not before (although nothing is impossible). | https://medium.com/tech-to-inspire/25-proverbs-in-ai-language-949ab9531202 | [] | 2020-12-21 12:20:38.240000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Life', 'Deep Learning'] |
What the Success of Shadowlands Means for the Future of Warcraft | The third factor here is that Blizzard themselves undertook a pretty significant rework of what modern World of Warcraft looks like ahead in 2020. The pre-patch for Shadowlands reduced the level cap from 120 to 50, introduced the new Exile’s Reach starting area and recalibrated the relationship between the content introduced by each of the game’s seven major expansions.
Rather than pressure new or returning players to play through everything to catch up, Blizzard gave them a newfound degree of choice of which region they wanted to experience. New players were fast-forwarded into the latest and greatest Battle for Azeroth quest-line. Older players got the option of reliving older eras of the game through their alts.
These recent changes have made World of Warcraft a much more approachable game than it previously was and the role that this likely played in the success of Shadowlands shouldn’t be discounted because it is so clearly reflected in the data we have about the game’s present popularity.
Ahead of the launch of Shadowlands, Activison-Blizzard says that total player time in game this year to date has nearly doubled compared to the same period last year and that players have spent more time in Azeroth this year to date than in the same period of any of the last 10 years. According to the company:
In the months leading up to the expansion’s release and the time since launch, the game reached and has sustained its highest number of players on monthly or longer-term subscriptions compared to the same period ahead of and following any WoW expansion in the past decade, in both the West and the East.
None of the above trends can individually explain the resurgence of popularity around World of Warcraft. Nevertheless, together they provide an explanation of sorts for why Shadowlands has been as popular as it is.
What does this mean?
Well, the most basic takeaway here is that World of Warcraft still has an audience. As old as it is, it’s probably not going away any time soon.
The high sales of Shadowlands validate Blizzard’s strategy of providing not only ongoing support for the 14-year old MMORPG but also continuing to invest resources into developing new content for it. At this stage, it is extremely likely that this will continue. It’s probably safe to predict that there will be a ninth expansion for World of Warcraft in about 18–24 months time.
The other thing that’s being validated here is the specific direction that Blizzard have taken the game with Shadowlands. As opposed to the last few expansions for the game, it represents an injection of genuinely new lore, characters and locations for the wider Warcraft franchise. | https://medium.com/super-jump/what-the-success-of-shadowlands-means-for-the-future-of-warcraft-4766abac73ff | ['Fergus Halliday'] | 2020-12-20 10:16:15.199000+00:00 | ['Videogames', 'Mmorpg', 'Gaming', 'Features', 'Business'] |
A PLACE CALLED FRIENDS | She moves her eyebrows like the waves of the ocean
And when she is around me, she exercises caution
Her skin is dark as if scorched by the sun,
She moves with style, she provides so much fun,
But when you approach her, she produces a gun,
And says ‘Hands up, you better run,’
And I reply and say you have won. | https://medium.com/@docbulozi/a-place-called-friends-726fe4c25ce9 | ['Blessing Njodzi'] | 2021-01-29 21:44:10.458000+00:00 | ['Mess Up', 'Friends', 'Émotion'] |
Why I (love to) hate the English Language | I speak three languages, write in
Two, dream in one.
Don’t write in English, they said, English is
Not your mother-tongue. Why not leave
Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,
Every one of you? Why not let me speak in
Any language I like? The language I speak,
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses
All mine, mine alone.
— Kamala Das
Ever since I can remember, I’ve spoken English.
Despite my effortlessness, I learned the language as a child, by sheer overwhelming exposure to what I later in life came to understand as a symptom of the American/European imperialism.
I’ve never formally studied English. And yet, somehow, I became an English Teacher in a Portuguese speaking country which is surrounded by Spanish speaking countries.
Now how did that happen?
Granted, I was born and grew up in Latin America’s largest city, so the amount of culture I’ve been exposed to is undoubtedly root cause for my acquisition of the language. However, — and I have no plan on providing nothing but questions and assumptions in this text — why is it that most of the content I had access to in my country was made by and to English speaking people?
That question popped into my mind about ten years ago, when I started teaching and was confronted multiple times with the question “how did you learn English?”.
My first response was simple: “I don’t know, I just know it.”. But that wasn’t enough for inquiring minds.
I started to reflect upon all the content I’d normally consume and started to realize that I — like so many people of my generation and social condition — had an actual aversion to any content produced in my own native language. Now, I’m no culture scientist, but I believe this is how culture dies. When the people of a country start to hate their own culture and language and start to worship another’s, we may have a problem — especially if you’re an artist in that country.
Teacher’s life was busy enough to keep me from actually going deeper into that question (throughout the first years I was usually in class for about ten hours a day), but it did spark in me a thirst for actively seeking content and culture produced by and to people of my own country, which led me to discover amazing things that I’d been missing out due to my own closed view of the world.
It was a tough task. I realized that culture in my country was never handed to you unless it was made by an American. It was so easy to have access to American culture and it was so hard to even fathom what my own culture was. Everything that was produced here had little to no funding and the internet hadn’t quite taken off at the time so it was a heroic task to keep up-to-date with what was happening here in the culture field.
That ease of access to American culture to the detriment of my own country’s sure enough planted a seed of hatred towards the English language and the fact that I only learned how to speak it so well by renegating the mother tongue in me.
That hatred grew stronger when in 2012 I had a stress breakdown at work and ‘forgot’ how to speak my mother language (spoiler alert: it came back).
In my quest to get to know more about my own culture, I came across an artistic movement in the early 20th century that had as central pillar the assimilation of foreign culture. They are known as the ‘modernists’ (free translation). Their history and ideas started to change the way I felt about the English language, but not my conception that it was wrong to have so much foreign culture whilst having so little of my native culture in the mainstream media.
I no longer feel bad about having learned English as a child by sheer exposure. I now have made a commitment to myself to do whatever is within my reach to assimilate that foreign culture into my own culture. Thus creating something new.
Not American, not African, not Asian, not South-American, not European. Something new.
If you are looking for language partners to improve your foreign language skills you can find it on swaplanguage.com. | https://medium.com/swap-language/why-i-love-to-hate-the-english-language-719484023f98 | ['Rafael Cocchini'] | 2019-12-03 12:14:10.606000+00:00 | ['Cultural Appropriation', 'Culture', 'Language', 'English', 'Language Learning'] |
Love | You ask me if I am in love with you, and I question why you even have to ask.
Am I in love with you?
I have loved you since the first moment your voice spoke my name.
I have been in love with you for so long now that I think of you with every love song that my heart sings along to.
You are like the sunrise on a perfect morning, and the sunset that my eyes would want to see even if were the last I ever glanced at.
Am I in love with you?
Yes.
How could I possibly not be.
Because you, to me, are everything.
Everything that is good and beautiful,
In a world that can often seem far too cold.
I am in love with you and I understand,
That you will never be able to love me back.
Sometimes the heart makes sacrifices,
And plastic hearts get broke in half.
You ask me if I am in love with you,
Ask me again tomorrow, and the next day.
The answer will forever be yes. | https://psiloveyou.xyz/love-15f196459ab7 | ['Lost Angiest'] | 2020-12-13 13:02:34.970000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Poetry Sunday', 'Love', 'Life', 'Love Poems'] |
How To Get The Most Out of Audiobooks | Tips for Retaining what you’ve Listened to
When it comes to audiobooks, retention is queen.
Enjoyment is king.
If you aren’t enjoying what you’re listening to, then maybe consider switching books. Remember, don’t just ditch the whole practice of audiobooks based on one bad menu item.
But right behind enjoyment is retention.
If you aren’t remembering or retaining what you are listening to, why are you listening? With reading and audiobooks becoming more and more popular in leadership circles these days, the temptation is there to jump on the bandwagon just because everyone is doing it and it sounds good to be able to say you’re a “reader.”
That’s called hollow reading. And it probably won’t help you in the long run.
You want to have your imagination sparked. You want to remember what it feels like to laugh out loud when great writing captures your heart and tickles your mind. You want to feel the deep emotions that comes with powerful storytelling and get to know the characters, places, and circumstances that are awaiting you on every page or every minute of audio storytelling.
Sink into the books and the audio and be someone who not only is touched by the content but someone who carries that content with them as you set off to touch the lives of others around you.
If you are on board for retaining what you listen to, here are some tips for how you can do that.
1. Pause Button
This is one of the most beautiful buttons on your audiobook screen. It is the equivalent of setting down your book on your kitchen table with the spine open as you take a short break before you come back to it again.
When I listen to audiobooks, one of the biggest temptations I face is to keep listening. Which ultimately you need to do to finish the book. But I’ve found that after a particularly impactful minute or chapter, I’ve really enjoyed hitting the pause button and creating space for my brain to catch up to what I just heard.
I like to roll the words over in my head and make sure that I am processing what the author is saying, not just allowing words to come in one ear and out the other.
So if you are new to audiobooks, don’t be afraid of the pause button. Pause as much as you like. It’s your book. It’s your adventure.
2. Three Sentence Summary
For every audiobook that I listen to, as soon as I’m done, I try to write out what I think would be a three-sentence summary of the book. I know what you’re thinking… only three sentences!! But here’s why this practice can be helpful to me and to you:
short sentences require you to be precise and brief
short sentences are easier to remember
short sentences are easier to share with other people when they ask
short sentences are less time for you in the long run
short sentences are do-able by everyone.
That last point is important. Everyone can write down three sentences about something. This post is full of sentences. This tip isn’t asking you to write a 12 page single-spaced summary of the books you’re reading. That would be daunting.
Writing three sentences will help transform your understanding of the book and how you can keep that information close at hand for months and years to come.
3. Summary Sheets
This is the next step up from point number two. Once you get in the rhythm of writing out your three sentences for each audiobook, you can start to think about building out a short, one-page summary sheet for each book you listen to.
For me, my preferred tool to do this is Evernote. I have a folder titled “audiobooks” (creative, right?) where I make a new note for most books that I start. For fiction books, I don’t feel like I need a summary page since I’m not taking away a lot of practical and applicable contextual points. For most other categories, I try to make this summary sheet where I can write down some of the notes that stand out to me while I’m listening to that particular audiobook.
If this sounds daunting and you don’t know what notes you would put down on your summary sheet, a good place to start that I’ve found is with the chapter titles and any list headers that the author uses in his book. It can be as simple as a table of contents.
Basically, your summary sheet should be unique to you and should hopefully be a short cheat-sheet of shorts that allows you to remember and recall more of what you are listening to.
When I am listening to a book, I often keep a note on my phone open and pause the book to write down items I want on my summary sheet. Then I transfer over to Evernote. Eventually, when I finish my audiobook, I go back and clean up my summary sheet!
And viola! Building out a summary sheet is a massive help in your journey towards retaining what you listen to.
4. Bookmark your Reading
This is a tip that is dependent on what platform you are using to listen to your audiobooks. Maybe you don’t have the ability to jot down notes as you listen, especially if you are in the car or doing something like mowing the grass.
Most audiobook platforms will allow you to put in a bookmark if you are listening which serves as an indicator of a section that you liked and that you want to return back to.
If I have time, as I’m listening, I will drop occasional bookmarks and will then go back towards the end of the audiobook and re-listen to those sections that were particularly impactful.
5. Follow Along with a Physical Copy
I’ve only done this a handful of times, but it’s been helpful when I have had the space and time to employ this step.
Retention can be increased by associating what you are seeking to remember with multiple senses. If you can see and smell something, odds are that you have a better chance of remembering that item than if you could only see it. Same goes for reading and listening.
If you are still struggling to retain what you are reading, maybe consider taking an audiobook and getting the physical copy as well. That way, when you listen to your book, you can also read along and engage multiple senses in the process. | https://medium.com/the-post-grad-survival-guide/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-audiobooks-7cbc2e738012 | ['Jake Daghe'] | 2019-10-03 12:01:01.201000+00:00 | ['Coaching Corner', 'Coaching', 'Leadership Development', 'Growth', 'Books'] |
Hierarchical TimeSeries Reconciliation | What are hierarchical time series ?
Hierarchical time series(HTS) are a set of time series that are linked by a hierarchical structure. This means that we can represent this set of time series with a tree structure, where one node is a time series and whose leafs are time series themselves :
Hierarchical Time Series with 7 time series
We generally assume that all the time series follow the same temporality.
HTS are found in all industries, and their analysis give valuable insight regarding business /operational matters.
Supply chain: Forecasting the demand across all hierarchical levels is paramount for optimal supply anticipation and effectively managing the shortage/overstock risk. Typical example : in retail, you have time series at various hierarchical levels ( Total sales, sales per state, sales per store, sales per category of product etc.). Yield management: Having an accurate insight into the upcoming demand in service or product helps for dynamic pricing purposes. Typical examples: a hotels group would have time series predicting the attendance at various levels ( worldwide, country-wide, region-wise, hotel-wise). Operational maters: Forecasting accurately the demand across all hierarchical levels is useful for anticipating needs such as workforce and equipment. Typical example : in the transportation industry, companies such as public transport operators within a city, have to adapt the frequency of bus/train/subway according to the demand throughout all hierarchical levels (city as a whole, district, line, station).
This valuable insight can be provided with forecasting techniques, also know as time series analysis, a field that gathers statistical and machine learning models. You will find here a remarkable overview of methods for time series analysis and forecasting.
What is reconciliation ?
We are at this point : we have a set of time series linked by a hierarchical structure, and for each one of these time series we have computed a model for time series forecasting. The models do not have to be similar, each was just chosen according to the best results it yielded in forecasting the time series it is associated with. Hence, we gather forecasts that were generated independently, but we generally face the following issue : the forecasts are incoherent. This means that the sum of the forecasts of the leaves of a given node is not equal to the forecast generated by the model associated to the node.
For example, if the forecast AA + forecast AB from the example tree structure above are not equal to the forecast A, then the forecasts generated by the models are incoherent. On the one hand, it highlights the bias of our models, on the other hand, from a business perspective, this can be embarrassing : how come you predict 5 shoes sale for store A and 4 shoes sale for store B, and tell me that you forecast 10 shoes sale in total ?
We can attempt to overcome this biais by exploiting the information contained in the tree structure, and here comes the field of reconciliation.
HTS reconciliation is a field of study that aims at readjusting the forecasts yielded by independent models on a set of hierarchically-linked time series, in order to improve the forecasts and ensure that they are coherent and sum up correctly.
Reconciliation is a tool that comes after the forecasts process, and slightly modifies the output of your statistical or machine learning models.
Understanding when reconciliation intervenes. Forecast here is done for time t
Mathematical framework
Base forecasts Ỹ : The vector of forecasts yielded by the statistical/machine learning models ( step 1 in image above).
Reconciled forecasts Ŷ : The new vector of forecast after the reconciliation step.
Summing matrix S : The matrix that characterizes the hierarchical structure. Multiplying a vector of forecasts by S guarantees that the new vector of forecast is coherent.
Reconciliation matrix G : The whole reconciliation process comes down to determining the right G matrix.
Overview of methods (including state-of-the-art)
Bottom-up : This reconciliation method only sums up the bottom forecasts ( AA/AB/BA/BB) altogether in order to compute the higher levels forecasts. You will find the complete mathematical details of the method right here. Top-Down : This method uses only the time series at the top of the tree and aims at computing how to split recursively the forecast while you go downwards in the hierarchy. You will find the complete mathematical details of the method right here. Middle-out : This method combines both Bottom-up and Top-Down approaches in order. You will find the complete mathematical details of the method right here. MinT methods : These are a set of methods that were developed in in the years 2018–2020. Assuming that our base forecasts are unbiaised, this paper proved that in order to minimize the variance of the error of our reconciled forecasts (and hence recover better forecasts), the matrix G must be the following :
Where W is the covariance matrix of the error of the bases forecasts. Having said that, estimating the matrix W is quite demanding. Hence, various approximations exist : OLS / Structural Scaling / Variance Scaling / MinTSample / MinTShrink
You can find the mathematical details of these methods right here.
At that point, high level implementation of these methods can be found implemented in R, with the package fabletools (part of CRAN). You can find the documentation right here.
However, if you want to try reconciliation with Python, scikit-hts is a package easy to handle with a scikit-learn familiar API. It allows you do to reconciliation of hierarchical time series. However, there are two major drawbacks with this package. First, it does not dissociate the prediction step from the reconciliation step. You have to choose a predictor from a short-list of predictors (auto ARIMA, SARIMAX, Facebook Prophet and Holt-Winter’s model). Hence, if you have a specific or complex dataset for which you want to develop your own predictors ( stacked predictors, neural networks, gradient boosting -based etc.), then you can not try reconciliation. Secondly, it only implements a limited number of reconciliation methods, excluding the MinTSample and MinTShrink that are the state-of-the-art methods today.
For this reason, a new Python package was developed in order to fill this gap : reconciliation-hts. | https://medium.com/@adeforceville_96412/hierarchical-timeseries-reconciliation-58addce2aeb7 | [] | 2021-09-10 10:14:15.331000+00:00 | ['Time Series Forecasting', 'Python', 'Reconciliation', 'Machine Learning', 'Hierarchical'] |
How do you engage and train your global workforce? The Magic Memories story | How do you capture the engagement of your globally dispersed workforce? Specialists in Global Tourism, Magic Memories, defied the odds and turned their intranet into a system that grew their employees as well as their organization.
Founded in 1995, Magic Memories is an organization with a mission to capture once-in-a-lifetime moments across the globe.
As a global leader in “making people smile”, Magic Memories is always striving for innovative ways to personalize the experiences of all their customers, but with rapid growth and an increased need for company-wide collaboration, the crusade for engagement grew challenging.
The challenge: meeting the needs of a growing workforce
Because Magic Memories hosted a small staff of roughly 500–700 employees at the beginning of implementation, problems did not arise with their legacy intranet until they acquired another organization in the US In 2016 and grew by 50%.
This rapid growth drew attention to the deficiencies in their legacy system, especially since it was only meeting the needs of around 40% of their 2,500 person workforce. They quickly realized that when they initially launched their old system, they did not launch with a plan in mind. Because of this, the system ended up being used mainly as just a document storage site with the odd news story being published.
Lack of engagement was rampant, and ultimately, the company and its mission suffered.
A collaboration based solution
Recognizing the need to cater to their entire organization in their pursuit of a globally connected workforce, Magic Memories began to look elsewhere. After performing extensive research and talking to organizations across the globe. Magic Memories decided to partner with Interact to achieve its company-wide collaboration goals.
For me, after I narrowed my search down, Interact was head and shoulders above the rest in terms of what they could offer. By that I mean look and feel, accessibility and also ultimately value for money we were able to get 2,500 employees onto the internet for the same price we were getting 500 to 700 for the old provider right, so to me that’s a no-brainer. Nick Holmes — Group Learning & Development Lead, Magic Memories
From the beginning of the process, Magic memories set the design of their new intranet, “Click”, as a high priority. Teamwork was key. Magic connected their design teams with Interact’s to develop an intranet system that was tailored to the needs of their brand as well as that of their entire workforce.
Collaboration was readily available, the support of the Interact team making the process easy. “If we want to add or change or remove certain bits it’s literally just an email away,” says Nick. “If you’ve got anything you want to update, change, move they’re really receptive to helping us on the design.”
A single source of truth
Click became the single platform to connect every single Magic Memories employee. Access was frequent, and the information was current and relevant.
Employees now have a place to go to find out what is actually going on within the organization, a significant change since their massive 2016 growth. With Click, brand new materials on the intranet are getting seen for the first time by more than 70% of all their workforce.
Magic Memories tailors the employee experience even further by using Click regionally. The homepage is kept global so that everyone, regardless of location, can be connected to the business in the same way. However, they also created different pages for different members of the organizations. The information is split regionally and they can provide employees with exclusive and relevant news.
Before integrating Interact technology, the hundreds of venues that they housed across the world were largely unsynchronized; without a clear idea of what fits their brand. Now, employees have the option to go onto the intranet and see a video, how-to guides and first-hand instruction on what the proper practices are for their organization.
Virtual Learning College
The organizational improvements did not stop at intranet design and collaboration. Magic Memories put a lot of effort into creating a global learn leadership program on the intranet that not only connected their employees, but also enhanced them.
Stats have shown that companies that use e-learning technology receive an 18% boost in employee engagement and Magic Memories is an example of e-learning done right.
Magic’s legacy internet system hosted little to no training documents, so when Click launched in October, their priority was developing a training toolbox. Every tool that was established as best practice became available with the click of a button.
From this, a leadership development program was developed, and Click was transformed into a virtual learning college (VLC) that proved to be highly productive and cost-efficient.
In terms of cost saving now, for example, we have essentially saved 50 percent in terms of switching to Interact because previously we had probably half the amount of staff and we were spending the same amount of money on the old provider. Also, anytime you get a great LMS or learning management system you’re looking at a cost of 50 grand upwards, but we don’t need that now because we can drive our learning through interact, through being creative and using the different options in there. Nick Holmes — Group Learning & Development Lead, Magic Memories
A private team page was made for each group going through the program, and the functionality in that was made to resemble a VLC. For employees going through the leadership program, the first module is done in-house, where a program can be custom-made for their needs. The remaining modules are completed through distance learning at the pace of the user. All modules are video episode learning and accessible from any location via Click.
This unlimited access gives employees a chance to learn alongside their colleagues, at any speed, from any location.
Magical results
Building a powerful intranet that can reach your distributed staff goes beyond the software or design. In order to fully engage employees and deliver value, it needs to be tailored to the unique needs of employees and the organization as a whole.
Magic Memories’ efforts were widely appreciated by their staff, garnering positive feedback that far surpassed their legacy system.
“Finally, we have a place where we can actually talk to people and ask the questions that we’ve wanted to ask and get the information we wanted to get,” says Nick.
For Magic Memories, evolution is the goal, whether it be in the form of professional development for employees or providing employees with a deeper understanding of their role in the company.
We’re not perfect by any means, but we’re getting there, and Click is definitely the first step into getting people engaged. If you’re a global organization of people across different markets and different sites and different locations, or if you’re a small to medium-sized organization with everyone in one place, I couldn’t recommend Interact highly enough. It connects your people; they give you the tools to be able to manage the intranet yourself, but they’re also there and support you when you need it most, which is absolutely critical. Nick Holmes — Group Learning & Development Lead, Magic Memories
Want to hear more about Click? See the full video case study on Magic Memories’ journey here. | https://medium.com/interact-software/how-do-you-engage-and-train-your-global-workforce-the-magic-memories-story-9f5b6436275a | [] | 2018-07-31 10:21:18.754000+00:00 | ['Distributed Workforces', 'Intranet Best Practice', 'Employee Engagement', 'Customer Examples', 'Intranet'] |
The unofficial onboarding guide for new Peloton owners | The unofficial onboarding guide for new Peloton owners
If Medium is blocking the viewing of this post, find it at www.worklifekids.com
I’m not kidding about the sub-title. Even though peloton does have a 96% retention rate, it’s not uncommon that the bike doesn’t get as much mileage as it should. This guide will cover recommendations from the gear perspective (the easy part) to all the tricks stuff you need to know to keep riding consistently (the hard part).
Not ready to take the plunge? Read my experience about why I love peloton even though it has very little to do with the bike.
What to spend your $100 referral credit on
Shoes ($125): The peloton cycling shoes are actually a decent deal because it comes with LOOK delta cleats. If you look hard enough you can find even better deals. I got my shoes on closeout at REI for $56. Buying it at REI also gives me the confidence that I can exchange it easily if it’s not working out for me. Shoes are a very personal thing, so if you have finicky feet, buy it elsewhere. Peloton uses LOOK delta cleats, not SPD. Already have SPDs? Not a big deal, just buy new pedals to switch them out with.
Delta shoe cages ($50): An unadvertised accessory is the delta shoe cages. This allows anyone with sneakers to get on the bike. Yes, even kids as long as they’re 4’11”. This will also help you buy some time if you’re still trying to hunt for the perfect shoes. I highly recommend this accessory because it is actually worth its value. This item is only available for other on the phone or in-store.
Mat: If you have an old yoga or exercise mat lying around, that would work just fine. Here’s a comparable one from amazon. For those who have carpet, you’re going to need a piece of plywood under your mat to stabilize your bike.
Weights: These are MUCH cheaper at target or an entire set of three weights at amazon.
Heart rate monitor : You’ll need this especially if you‘re a quantified-self geek like me. However, there has been mixed reviews on its quality. We ended up purchasing the wahoo heart monitor and even though it is an annoying chest strap, it has a battery and doesn’t need to be charged for a long time. Many on OPP (official peloton page) also recommend the Sorsche Rhythm+ arm band and the Wahoo Tickr Fit armband which has a better battery life.
Wireless earbuds: If you don’t have to be sensitive about noise in your home, this purchase can wait. The bike’s monitor do have built-in external speakers, but… they suck. The speakers face out, away from the bike. I have little kids I can’t wake up at 5am, so headphones are a must for me. If you like in-ear headphones, their headphones are probably decent. For me, earphones do not stay in my ears so there are only a handful that work for me. As a earphone snob, my personal favorite is the AfterShokz bone conduction earphones.
Other gear to consider buying
You don’t have to buy these right away but once you get into the groove, you’ll need them.
Pre-delivery check list
You have about a week before your bike arrives. There’s plenty of stuff you can do in preparation for a big day.
Join the Official Peloton Facebook group: This group is a great place to get started and get tips. Many of them I have already summarized in this article for you. Use this group to help you find the right tribes or get ideas for when you get stuck. I will warn you that this group is very large, which lends itself to more trolls like most any community out there. Other incredibly supportive places to start are The Official Peloton Moms Facebook group and subreddit r/pelotoncycle. Make space for it: You’ll need a relative large 3’x5’ spot in your house somewhere. I reconfigured the guest room so I could place it by a window. The room will stink up so make sure you’re going to get great ventilation. Tape out various spots with some painters tape so you can visualize how it’s going to look. If you have little kids, the bike is virtually silent but clipping in/out is loud. I recommend leaving your shoes clipped-in if you plan to ride at zero dark. | https://medium.com/@joannasim/how-to-make-sure-your-peloton-does-not-become-a-fancy-clothes-hanger-a5cc835784b3 | ['Joanna Sim'] | 2019-09-06 12:52:18.332000+00:00 | ['Guide', 'Cycling', 'Peloton'] |
Schooling has never been about Students | — By Siddhi Malviya
A few days ago, I received a proposal from my English teacher to compose a 180-word article on the fondest memories I’d enthusiastically managed to collect throughout my school journey (a torturous one it has been, really) and to which I, skillfully playing the role of an obedient student, responded with a ‘Sure! I’d love to.’
To put it rather bluntly, the below-average article overflowed with lies. I was asked to document all the things I wish to cherish, all the memories and life-long friends I’d met along the way — ones I’d occasionally find myself thinking about in college. Ironically enough, getting through such an article was agonizingly difficult solely because the more lines I typed, the more I found myself disagreeing with everything that appeared on my desktop screen.
I’ve always disliked school, and having to write about something I dislike is evidently not something I’ve ever been fond of or great at. So, I did the next best, and the only logical thing to do — I decided to write an article on the innumerous things I detest about School.
To be fair, detest is a powerful word. I don’t entirely hate every aspect of schooling. I’ve met several people whom I’ve learned a lot from, individuals I wish I never cross paths with ever again, and teachers who truthfully, have saved me from failing certain subjects. I’ve witnessed a lot in these few years and I’ve met many. Yet, I find myself repeatedly questioning whether people lie every time they utter the sentence “School years are truly the best years.”
After a point (fifth grade), schooling started to feel less like a place I was invited to and more a place I was forced to be in. My schooling years have singlehandedly felt like a repetitive cycle of wake up early, get to your seat, school work, school work, eat, come back, homework, eat, sleep, wake up early. That is all that comes to mind when I ponder over the supposed fond memories I’ve gathered. Furthermore, I’ve had a dozen, ostensibly very wise, individuals advise me on how students are to do absolutely nothing but stick their noses into their books at this age. Why? Because it makes so much sense to behave as if we are nothing but flesh and bones who shouldn’t hesitate to respect such customs.
Inherently, this restrictive system has compelled us to stop questioning and start adhering.
The schools of today are not magnitudes away from schools of the past. Teachers teach, students listen, and then we head home. This cycle repeats and that is essentially the root cause of the problem. Nothing changes. We are educated, but learning has long become extinct. Such a schooling system has successfully manipulated the majority into believing that only good grades are the epitome of a high IQ and an increased level of intelligence, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
From a more personal perspective, schools have become a battlefield of social class. You could have a talent and you could have ambition, but if you don’t live up to a particular standard, you’re next to nothing.
These highlighted matters are certainly not exhaustive, and they’re not supposed to be ‘right’. All of this has been spewed on paper from a very personal point of view. I don’t hate school, definitely not as much as I hate the fundamental ground it has been instituted on.
The education system was never carved out for the students and that is precisely the issue. | https://medium.com/@siddhimalviya/schooling-has-never-been-about-the-students-a02f73bd4cf8 | ['Siddhi Malviya'] | 2020-12-21 20:44:47.943000+00:00 | ['Study', 'Students', 'Teenagers', 'Schools', 'Education'] |
Making Bread in a Pandemic | Making Bread in a Pandemic
Feed Your Yeastie Beasties
Photo by author
I treat my starter like my pet. Yes, he even has a name — Herman. He’s easy going, likes to act up occasionally, but mostly he’s content.
Like any pet, this has more to do with me, than with him. If I feed him on time, maintain his environment, or neglected him, he will react.
But he isn’t nearly as temperamental as my cat, Neko, who quite literally yells at you if you are not doing what she expects: feeding on time, letting her outside, letting her inside, giving her a treat. Well, you get the picture.
Daily Feedings
In my last post, I showed you how to set up your starter for the first day. Today, you will begin regular feedings. Here is my post for beginning your sourdough starter.
1. Add purified water to yesterday’s starter.
The total weight of the water that you add should equal the total weight of the additional flour. You will need 25 grams of water. A tablespoon of water weighs 14 grams, so that is roughly 2 tablespoons.
Remember that chlorine kills the yeast, so if you are using tap water, and you haven’t left it out for 24 hours, your yeast will die. The first time I tried to make a starter, I didn’t take this seriously, and my starter never became strong enough to make bread.
2. Add flour to your starter and water mixture.
Be sure the flour you use is unbleached and as high protein as you can afford. Like any pet, the quality of the food you use can affect its health. I like to use King Arthur brand flours for the high protein content.
Use a combination of whole wheat and all-purpose flour in a 1:2 ratio, one part whole wheat (8 grams) to two parts all-purpose (16 grams). A tablespoon of flour weighs 7.5 grams, so that is roughly 1 tablespoon whole wheat and two tablespoons all-purpose flours.
You can use straight all-purpose flour, if that is what you have on hand. It may take longer for your starter to get strong.
Helpful Tips and Reminders
I like to measure the water first and stir it into my existing starter to get it smooth before I add the flour. You can also mix the flour and water together and then mix the starter into it.
The main thing is to stir them together completely so that all the yeast has something to feed on and it gets thoroughly oxygenated.
Stir your starter two or three times during the day in the early stages to add oxygen into the starter and make sure the feeding is distributed. Stirring will help to strengthen it faster.
Your starter should be about the consistency of pancake batter. It should not just run all over the place, maybe just ooze a little when you tilt the jar to the side.
If it is too thin, you can add a 1/2 teaspoon of flour (about 3 grams) at a time until it looks right. If it is too thick, add a 1/4 teaspoon of water (about 3 grams) at a time.
Using whole wheat flour may make the starter a little too thick because it tends to soak up more moisture, so it isn’t a problem if you add 24 grams of flour to 28 grams of water. It should be just fine.
Feed at roughly the same time every day, just like you would your furry friend. Yeast needs to feed or it will die, so feeding it on-time will keep any of your yeast from expiring.
If you don’t, it’s not a huge problem. It will just take a bit longer for your starter to get strong enough to make your bread rise.
See? It’s not to fussy.
Keep with it
You will repeat the feeding above for the next three days. You should begin to see activity (meaning bubbles) tomorrow, but if not, don’t give up.
Also, notice that you are not discarding any starter yet. Right now it is just building up. Today you have double what you had yesterday, about 1/3 cup of starter total. No waste so far.
Because you started small and are adding just a little at a time, you are not getting rid of any active yeast, therefore your yeast should get stronger more quickly.
Once your starter begins to rise up (double) between feedings, you can transfer it to your 2 quart jar to prevent it from overflowing. Putting a rubber band or hair tie at the level of your starter right after feeding helps you gauge the rise.
Here is a schedule that I use for the first six days and beyond.
This process takes time and patience, but not much effort. Once you get into the routine, it actually is quite interesting to see how it will turn out. | https://medium.com/simply-living-and-living-simply/making-bread-in-a-pandemic-feed-your-yeastie-beasties-41f5dedd3512 | ['Patricia Davis'] | 2020-09-10 21:19:17.760000+00:00 | ['Cooking', 'Sourdough', 'Baking', 'Ｍedium', 'Ninja Writers Byob'] |
Make the Most of SugarCRM with Cloud Backup on Box | As a business, the customers’ data is the most important thing to manage. Be it a critical sale that needs to be pushed over the line, or a lead that needs to be qualified, the time critical nature of these processes makes it important that the sales team has easy access to all the material they may need related to the potential clients.
We know that CRM is a great tool to manage customer data in an organised manner, providing us the ability to link records with particular documents and vice versa, providing important context for each case. How do we make it so the documents are more accessible as well as easy to manage in the structure the CRM creates for us with modules? Luckily, there’s an answer.
Cloud Storage
The most popular solution to the conundrum of accessibility is cloud storage. Cloud storage enables any data to be saved in the cloud, so that you can access it online whenever you like.
Cloud backup is a popular practice among businesses where the documents are accessed and edited in different platforms, but in the end they are saved onto the cloud as well for added convenience.
Box Cloud Storage
Box is a cloud storage solution that offers all the portability and accessibility of the typical cloud solutions with enhanced security features, putting you in control of what is accessible to whom. It has emerged as a popular choice among businesses because it offers integrations for several different workflow applications.
Importantly, one of the applications that benefits from integration with Box is SugarCRM. What is critical is to keep the data as organized as it is within a CRM hierarchy.
Introducing RT SugarBox
RT SugarBox is a one-of-a-kind solution that combines the portability of cloud storage with the organisation of CRM. With a simple set-up, you can synchronise your CRM documents with cloud storage such that linked records are organised by folder hierarchies, meaning you can find a document in its specific folder if it’s been associated with a contact, account, or opportunity etc. The hierarchical nature of storage enables easy management and control of documents. The CRM scheduler works to periodically back up all data, including any changes that may have been made.
Bidirectional Sync
SugarBox syncs documents both ways.
One of the best features of SugarBox is that not only can you back up documents from Sugar to Box, but also the other way round. Add a document to Box and it gets synced to your CRM without any complications, providing a flexible solution for organization on the go.
Easy Integration
SugarBox is a simple plugin that simplifies Box integration with CRM. Immediately upon installing the plugin, you are asked for permission to access your Box account, and with a single click, the synchronization is started.
Organization
SugarBox organizes documents by modules.
The biggest advantage of SugarBox is its ability to organize your documents for you. If your documents are linked to a specific module, say a contact, SugarBox will create a folder for that contact name inside a folder named Contacts, and place the document there. The same is done for other modules, such as Accounts, Opportunities and Leads. You can easily find any documents by looking for the related module folder.
Get RT SugarBox for SugarCRM
To get the most out of your CRM with the help of Box cloud storage, download the RT SugarBox plugin here. We also offer a similar solution for SuiteCRM, the free and open-source alternative to Sugar, on Suite Store.
For any further enquiries, and for CRM solutions tailor made for your needs, reach out to Rolustech at [email protected] or visit our website www.rolustech.com. | https://medium.com/@pt_rolustech/make-the-most-of-sugarcrm-with-cloud-backup-on-box-a99b0e3d9c2c | ['Plugin Team'] | 2021-12-27 11:49:23.966000+00:00 | ['Box', 'CRM', 'Crm Tool', 'Technology', 'SugarCRM'] |
What are Autoencoders? Learn How to Enhance a Blurred Image using an Autoencoder! | Overview
What are autoencoders? How do autoencoders work? This article will answer your questions
We will explore the concept of autoencoders using a case study of how to improve the resolution of a blurry image
Introduction
Do you remember the pre-digital camera era? It was a mystical process that only photographers and experts were able to navigate. We only saw a dark room bathed in dim red light. In short, retrieving photos was a time-consuming process.
Then the digital camera revolution began and we haven’t looked back since! We don’t even bother getting our pictures printed anymore — most of us have our photos in our smartphones, laptops or in some cloud storage.
A Darkroom
You might be wondering what do photographs have to do with autoencoders? Well — it’s autoencoders that enable us to enhance and improve the quality of digital photographs!
Even now, we come across (and click) pictures that are hazy, pixelated and blurry. I’m definitely guilty of this and I know a lot of you struggle with clicking the perfect picture. This is where deep learning, and the concept of autoencoders, help us.
We’ll learn what autoencoders are and how they work under the hood. Then, we’ll work on a real-world problem of enhancing an image’s resolution using autoencoders in Python.
Prerequisites: Familiarity with Keras, image classification using neural networks, and convolutional layers
Table of Contents
What is an Autoencoder? Architecture of an Autoencoder (acts as a PCA with linear activations and MSE) A Sneak-Peek into Image Denoising Autoencoder Problem Statement — Enhance Image Resolution using Autoencoder Implementing an Autoencoder using Python
What is an Autoencoder?
As per this article by Pulkit Sharma:
“Autoencoders are essentially neural network architectures built with the objective of learning the lower-dimensional feature representations of the input data.”
Autoencoders are comprised of two connected networks — encoder and decoder. The aim of an encoder is to take an input (x) and produce a feature map (z):
The size or length of this feature map (z) is usually smaller than that of x. Why do you think this happens?
Since we want z to capture only the meaningful factors of variations that can describe the input data, the shape of z is usually smaller than x.
Now, the question is how do we learn this feature representation (z)? How do we train this model? For that, we can add a decoder network on top of the extracted features and then train the model:
This is what a typical autoencoder network looks like. This network is trained in such a way that the features (z) can be used to reconstruct the original input data (x). If the output (Ẋ) is different from the input (x), the loss penalizes it and helps to reconstruct the input data.
A Sneak-Peek into Image Denoising Autoencoder
The problem we will solve in this article is linked to the functioning of an image denoising autoencoder. Let’s understand in detail how an autoencoder can be deployed to remove noise from any given image.
Let’s say we have a set of images of hand-written digits and some of them have become corrupted. Below are a few images with noise (corruption):
Removing this noise from the images is known as an image denoising problem. The desired output is clean images with the majority of the noise removed from it, as you can see below:
But how would an autoencoder remove this kind of noise from images?
As we have already seen in the previous section, the autoencoder tries to reconstruct the input data. So, if we give corrupted images as input, the autoencoder will try to reconstruct noisy images only.
So, what shall we do know? Change the architecture? Not really!
A small tweak is all that is required here. Instead of using the input and the reconstructed output to compute the loss, we can calculate the loss by using the ground truth image and the reconstructed image. This diagram illustrates my point wonderfully:
Image Denoising Autoencoder
Now that you are familiar with the functioning of a denoising autoencoder, let’s move on to the problem that we want to solve by using autoencoders.
Problem Statement — Enhance Image Resolution using Autoencoder
You’ll be quite familiar with the problem statement here. most of us have struggled with clicking blurred images and struggling to enhance their resolution. Well, we’ll solve that problem using autoencoders here!
Let’s say we have a set of images of people’s faces in low resolution. Our task is to enhance the resolution of these images. It can be done with the help of photo editing tools such as Photoshop. However, when there are thousands of images at hand, we need a much smarter way to do this task.
Here are a few sample images along with their ground truth:
Implementing an Autoencoder using Python
Let’s open up our Jupyter notebook and import the required libraries:
Download Dataset
We will work on the popular “Labeled Faces in the Wild” dataset. It is a database of face photographs designed for studying the problem of unconstrained face recognition. However, here our objective is not face recognition but to build a model to improve image resolution.
Let’s download and extract the dataset:
! wget # download dataset! wget http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/lfw/lfw.tgz # extract dataset
! tar -xvzf lfw.tgz
This dataset will be extracted in multiple folders. Therefore, it is important to capture the file path of all the images. We can do this easily with the help of the glob library:
#capture paths to images
face_images = glob.glob('lfw/**/*.jpg')
Load and Preprocess Images
The original size of the images is 250 x 250 pixels. However, it would take quite a lot of computing power to use these images on a system with modest configuration. Therefore, I will reduce the size of all the images:
Data Preparation for Model Training
Next, we will split the dataset (images) into two sets — training and validation. We will use the training set to train our model and the validation set to evaluate the model’s performance:
Let’s have a look at an image from the dataset:
The idea of this exercise is quite similar to that used in denoising autoencoders.
We will apply some modifications in the input image and calculate the loss using the original image. Since it is a resolution enhancement task, we will lower the resolution of the original image and feed it as an input to the model.
This is what the input will look like:
We will use the function below to lower the resolution of all the images and create a separate set of low resolution images.
Let’s lower the resolution of all the images. We will do it for both the training set and the validation set:
Model Building
Let’s define the structure of the model:
Feel free to modify this architecture if you want. You can change the number of layers, change the type of layers, use regularization, and do a lot more. For the time being, let’s move ahead with this architecture.
It is always a good practice to visualize the model architecture as it helps in debugging (in case there is an error). In Keras, it’s pretty simple — just execute <model name>.summary( ):
autoencoder.summary()
We can finally train our model:
Make Predictions (Enhance Images)
predictions = autoencoder.predict(val_x_px)
End Notes
In this tutorial on autoencoders, we implemented the idea of image denoising for image resolution enhancement. This task has multiple use cases.
For example, we can use this technique to enhance the quality of low-resolution videos as well. So, even without labels, we can work with the image data and solve several real-world problems. If you have any other use case or technique to work with image data in an unsupervised way, then please share it in the comments section below. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/what-are-autoencoders-learn-how-to-enhance-a-blurred-image-using-an-autoencoder-58f45149e1f1 | ['Prateek Joshi'] | 2020-02-27 09:12:56.894000+00:00 | ['Unsupervised Learning', 'Computer Vision', 'Deep Learning', 'Data Science'] |
Quadrant on technology triple play at Singapore Digital (SG:D) Industry Day | CEO Mike Davie outlined potential of combining of AI, blockchain and data at presentation on day of Mainnet launch
Singapore Digital (SG:D) Industry Day hosted by the Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA), our CEO Mike Davie shared his insights on how the combination of Artificial Intelligence, blockchain and big data will change for good decision-making processes, both in the public and private spheres.
It was a special event for us because that very same day Quadrant launched on November 22 its Mainnet, which will host a new data ecosystem where innovators, companies and policy-makers can map, verify and distribute high-quality data products.
Quadrant is already supporting IMDA’s nationwide initiative to strengthen Singapore’s digitalization efforts amid the Digital Economy Framework for Action. In May, we signed a two-year partnership with the IMDA to implement a commercial AI and microservice layer on Quadrant.io and powered by Quadrant Protocol. In front of a full auditorium, Mike explained the potential and capabilities of Quadrant’s improved technology and how our blockchain-powered protocol can play a crucial role addressing the data problems of business, government and organizations, in line with SG:D strategy goals.
The triple somersault revolution
We believe the next big revolution in the innovation economy won’t be a new technology, but the intersection of three existing ones — the combination of AI, data and blockchain. As our world relies more than ever on data, these sometimes over-used buzzwords are crystallizing into multibillion dollar markets.
And this is just the beginning. The incessantly growing flow of information from our connected devices, from our smarter cities and from our increasingly sophisticated business models is feeding a new generation of algorithms that are changing the way we make decisions.
But, to make the right choices, this new data powered determination needs new tools to manage, filter and process all that info. And that is where AI and blockchain can bring big data to the next level.
New defining technologies
Three concurrent phenomena have shaped the tech landscape during the last decade: social, mobile and cloud. We are now starting to witness a shift into the new defining technologies of our time: AI, blockchain and the Internet of Things.
Real-time big data is the key value proposition for all use cases and AI is the tool to provide actionable and efficient data outputs. But for the real change to occur, we need to build first a new data ecosystem. One that is not dominated by a handful of big players or limited by AI developments. And that is where blockchain technology can help fill the gap.
At Quadrant we are convinced of this. That’s why we have created two powerful tools to help the innovators in the datasphere thrive. Quadrant.io is a platform where data users can access a new data ecosystem and Quadrant Protocol is our blockchain tech designed to authenticate and stamp data.
Watch the video recap of the entire event here: | https://medium.com/quadrantprotocol/quadrant-on-technology-triple-play-at-singapore-digital-sg-d-industry-day-8e701e2c051b | ['Nikos', 'Quadrant Protocol'] | 2018-12-16 23:31:00.631000+00:00 | ['Presentations', 'Events', 'Blockchain', 'Big Data', 'Mainnet'] |
How Tokopedia Cultivates Kindness Through Its Platform | How Tokopedia Cultivates Kindness Through Its Platform
The holy month of Ramadan has finally come to an end. All month long, it was a period where everyone is rallying to give back and lend their support. It is also a month of mercy, where we are implored to treat those around us with love and kindness in a hope to get spiritual comfort in this peaceful time.
In light of these, Tokopedia’s Top Donasi has made its return to invite more and more people join a beautiful act of kindness during Ramadan. Top Donasi is a donation platform for every purchase in Tokopedia, where consumers can voluntarily set aside Rp. 200 for each transaction that later will be channeled to foundations in need.
We believe that through Tokopedia, anyone can help make a difference and spread their kindness and compassion through our platform.
Previously, Top Donasi has worked with several reliable partners in regards to leveraging our social mission. From renovating school with PKPU Human Initiative, supporting Small and Medium Enterprises in Salemba Penitentiary with Yayasan Tangan Pengharapan, to educating digital literacy for youth in YCAB Foundation.
Previous Top Donasi with Yayasan Tangan Pengharapan
Double the Kindness through Top Donasi 500
During the last Ramadan, Tokopedia increased the amount of donation from Rp. 200 to Rp. 500 to accommodate people’s needs in giving compassionate contribution. Thanks to the generosity of Tokopedia users, we are able to drive an even bigger impact to the society.
This time, we are able to generate Rp. 173.951.300 — an increase more than twofold from the previous donation where we generated Rp. 65.043.800 in one month span!
The donations are funneled to Nara Kreatif, a social entrepreneurship that focuses on providing education access to the underprivileged. Nara Kreatif empowers the homeless, orphans, dropouts, disabled, and many others to be financially independent by developing their skills in turning waste into valuable products. They also provide non-formal education for them to have a better chance in life.
Prior to this, Tokopedia and Nara Kreatif have been working closely in several projects. This includes Nakamate where Tokopedia’s Nakama were directly involved in sharing their knowledge and experience to Nara Kreatif’s Youth that were getting non-formal education.
Learning session in Nara Kreatif (Photo Credit to Nara Kreatif)
Each and every donation made on Top Donasi are 100% generated from Tokopedia users. All these times, we realized that Tokopedia can serve as a bridge that connects people from wherever they are. Not only it connects people to find whatever they look for, it also serves as a place where people can reach out to those in need by making a donation.
Nezatullah, founder of Nara Kreatif, shared how this feature has brought tremendous help for Nara Kreatif. “We are very grateful to be Tokopedia’s partner for Top Donasi feature. This opportunity has helped many of our children to get better access of education and to achieve a better livelihood. We hope more collaborations to come”, said Neza.
Siti Fauziah, Tokopedia Senior Communications Lead, shared her experience managing Top Donasi. “We hope that this feature could help many Indonesian children access education and live a much better life. Tokopedia is always making a constant effort in leveraging our platform for an even greater cause,” said Siti.
Regular class for students in Nara Kreatif (Photo Credit to Nara Kreatif) | https://medium.com/life-at-tokopedia/how-tokopedia-cultivates-kindness-through-its-platform-edfb07c37273 | ['Nadira Wandari'] | 2019-06-13 02:46:49.768000+00:00 | ['Tokopedia', 'Social Impact', 'Empowerment', 'Education', 'Donations'] |
Repetition: Humanity’s Downward Spiral. | On a Sunday such as this, five days from Christmas day, it is inevitable that we shall begin to muse over the year to come: what it will bring us, what will be different, what will change in our lives. Obviously this last three hundred and fifty-four days or so have not been everyone’s cup of tea, yet as humans we are driven by this hope of change.
In amongst many other things, the end of the Earth’s cyclical orbit around our star is one of many repeating sequences and patterns that beset our lives with the driving motivation that maybe, just maybe, next time will be better.
Cycles and patterns are in everything we do. They are in our so-called ‘routines’, in the structure and creation of art, the way buildings are made, the way legal claims are settled, the academic year, religious festivals, birthdays, weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs. Everything. Every repeating event throughout the year repeats itself every time that every event throughout the year repeats itself that every event throughout the year etc. (you get the point).
Even now as I write this article, I have used this same format of listing in a paragraph as I did so yesterday, and probably will continue to do so, in almost everything I write.
So why do we repeat ourselves so much? I mean, we don’t become bored out of our mind every Christmas, even though (thanks to tradition) it’s pretty much performed in the same format each year. In my opinion, it is purely because of two key factors: failure, and nostalgia…
1. Failure:
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of visiting a divorced-twice, taco-bell-eating, Apple-Pay-utilising, African-tribal-music-listening life coach’s dwelling, you are probably awfully familiar with the plethora of quote marks, overly saturated landscape photos, and a change in font almost every word. Yes, the politically correct cultural phenomenon of the “inspirational quote”. For the innocent reader protected from such social miscarriages, some examples:
(As a request from the writer, please read each out-loud with an overly irreverent, sarcastic tone)
— The unforgettable: “It’s not the number of breaths we take, but the number of moments that take our breath away”
— The short but sweet: “Live, laugh, love”
— And of course, who could forget the smoothin’ & groovin’ poetry of: “You have to look through the rain to see the rainbow”
Now, I would’ve liked to accompany each with a GIF expressing my inferno of rage at each of these demonic sequences of words, but that would only render them victorious, in their quest to produce such a discomfort, such woe, such a cringe. Instead, it is my duty I suppose to just “keep calm and carry on”, because ‘guys’ you know just, like don’t sweat the vibe and stuff dawg. I’m just really not digging like,’ this negative, like, energy maaann “when life gives you lemons, you make some lemonad-
“Oh no. they’ve got me. I’ve become trapped in an endless cycle of italics and quote marks, drifting like debris through space. I am nothing, but a soulless, hollow shell, spreading mindless dopamine to every human I encounter. I have FAILED”
And what do we do when failure strikes? We “try and try again”. We simply repeat ourselves.
In asking myself why, I concluded that it was purely just another steppingstone in our infinite trail that we think will end with an open door to total, true, eternal happiness. But…No…It’s not. In my opinion, you’ve got an average of 79 years to try new shit, learn new shit, and try as best you can to not be a steaming pile of shit to everyone around you. We shouldn’t be repeating ourselves. If you fail at something, you learn from your failure. If at some point you come across the same situation again by chance, then you’ve got the opportunity to face it with a fresh set of eyes. Our main objective in life shouldn’t be to perfect our ‘morning routine’ or, get the best phone, or the best house or car. We shouldn’t just be gold-plating memories we already have. As the saying goes: “One life, live it.” (saw that on the back of some old guy’s van). Make new memories, have new experiences. Don’t just embellish old ones on Twitter or Instagram, then cry yourself to sleep because you know that all you’re doing is lying to yourself and others around you. You decide to leave town and move to Sweden, because everyone’s so nice there and just fits in (it’s like their personalities themselves are ergonomic). However, you arrive there, only to find some pig-tailed goblin with a face that’s always shrivelled up in anger like she’s been in the bath for the last four months, and that Swedish meatballs aren’t actually Swedish. Your life is a lie, your whole opinion of Sweden corrupted by the media. Now you’re there, you can’t escape, there’s no one who can help you…*
* Failure is just an obstacle. Shove it the fuck out of your way and move on. Don’t dwell on it. Don’t base your whole life upon your failures, but still learn from them.
2. Nostalgia:
Twenty Twenty. Two thousand and Twenty. Dos mil Viente. Whatever you call it. I’m sure you’ve been witness to at least four and a half of these things throughout this past year…
— The Netflix Series, Stranger Things
— Merciless boom in ‘Friends’ Re-runs
— FLARES (the jeans, not the shit you light)
— Weird vapour gram filters (making up for a low photography budget)
— “Lo-Fi” (or low-fidelity) hip-hop (especially that video on YouTube with the anime girl studying or whatever)
— College students strutting their stuff in Notorious B.I.G shirts four sizes too big for them, without knowing who he actually is.
— YOUTUBE REWIND!!!
— Fresh Prince of Belair (to be fair, it is a great show)
— Cassette tapes (for some reason)
— INSTAX!!
— Spherical Glasses
etc., etc., etc. The list goes on…
Every trend in that list above, all of it, is related to, or stems from, nostalgia. Some readers may be yearning at my very feet: “Will, what’s nostalgia, old bean?! We must know!!!”. Well, “Eureka!” ‘Dictionary.com’ exists.
According to their electric-blue, linked-in-ad-filled webpage, ‘nostalgia’ is used as an adjective to mean: “a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time.” This links exactly to what I said above in the ‘Failure section’ of this article: we embellish and warp memories and eras- some that we haven’t even lived in, with ‘rosy-coloured spectacles’ (probably spherical ones) and basically, we live in the past. Constantly.
That’s all Dos Mil Viente has been. A weak, watered down call back to the seventies, eighties, nineties, noughties etc. with no cultural advancements of our own. Nothing:
— Literature: Endless detective novels…
— TV: ‘Friends’
— Film: Disney bought Star Wars. Yeh.
— Music: Vapourwave (Speaks for itself)
— Clothing: FLARES…AGAIN.
In conclusion, nostalgia has prevented us, from creating new experiences, and growing culturally as we have in accepting each other, especially this year. If we continue, we won’t change the way others think, and we won’t change the way the act in their daily lives, for the better. Failure and the way people interact with it, has prevented us from ever growing even an inch, as human beings. We must stop besetting our situation as humans, with embellishments- lies. We can only change people through what the public hear on their radios, watch on their TVs, see in art galleries. We can make popular culture the thing that saves our species, rather than the thing that destroys it. Because in the end, it is popular culture, and only this, that can prevent the glorious gathering of humanity, from being wiped out.
If we continue to repeat ourselves, to carry on our mundane, destructive cycle of living, we will be no more.
I thank you, dear reader, for your time. | https://medium.com/@inverseandnoise/repetition-humanitys-downward-spiral-382857082cc | ['Will R Howard'] | 2020-12-20 19:46:10.440000+00:00 | ['Failure', 'Nostalgic', 'Repetition', 'Failure To Success', 'Nostalgia'] |
Know the simple steps to tackle the homework for kids | The battle of homework is the most common and oldest battle for students. It makes every student tired and stresses due to their daily routine. During the school-age, it is almost very common for every student to do homework on a daily basis. For most of the students, it is one of the most boring things to do due to their on-going schedule. However, Homework is one of the most significant things that develop the student’s knowledge. It also brings a great opportunity for the student to learn and develop themselves with new things. Therefore, it is the responsibility of both parents and teachers to provide the best guidance during the homework completion. In this blog, we will discuss some of the 5 easy steps to tackle the homework for kids.
Create proper planning & schedule
Planning is one of the biggest things that bring a lot of opportunities for aspirant’s success. Hence, it is always important to execute proper planning before the initiation of any goals and objectives. Proper planning or schedule brings different ideas, creativity, and process for the particular goals and objectives of the students. Hence, proper planning and schedule are very important in terms of completing homework for their kids. Several CBSE affiliated schools in Howrah provide the best planning and schedule to the students that can easily tackle the homework and other curriculum activities for personal growth and development.
Provide sufficient space for study
Every person needs the proper amount of space for doing their job in their own way. Similarly, a student also needs an amount of space for their best study and achievement. The cause of interference could damage the study with distraction, limitation, and much more offence. Hence, it is the responsibility of the parents to provide a limited amount of space during the study and also provide a special study room for the best result.
Avoid social networking while the study
All Social networking Such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and many more gaming apps distract the student during the study. Hence, it is important for the student to understand that maximum access to social networking could impact their examination result. Therefore, they need to be in control while accessing all these social networking.
Similarly, for the child excess use of mobile phones and gaming could also impact their studies, growth, and development. Therefore, let them use everything but in a limited period of time. Every CBSE school in Howrah always maintains discipline inside the school premises and strictly not allowed to access any mobiles during the study.
Eat healthy food
Getting healthy food is one of the best things that bring energy into the body of your child. By having healthy and proper nutrient food, you can bring the best changes in your child’s life. The healthy food will make them fit and energetic enough to unloose their body. It also makes your child happy by doing several things. It is one of the best ways to tackle the problem of doing homework.
Fixed your timing for daily homework
Our children might have so many works to do during their daily lives. Hence, we need to figure out all their works and make the best timing for their daily homework. As we discussed above that planning and schedule are very important and also playing a crucial role in developing our child. Therefore, fixing timing for the student could also be very crucial while developing the child. It also helps in segregating multiple works at a time suppose Reading, coaching, playing, eating, and other works. Some of the list of CBSE school in Howrah initiates and provide proper guidance on the development of their child.
Hence, these are some of the important 5 easy steps to tackle the homework for kids. Homework is a very important thing in our child’s life that can bring thousands of knowledge and opportunities together. All these steps that are mentioned above are giving the best result in tackling the problems of homework for the kids. However, the guidance of the school and its teacher influence also giving the best opportunity to develop and understand the valuation of Homework. Get school admission in Howrah that has the best resources and development for your child’s future.
Originally published at https://sudhirmemorialinstituteliluah.com on December 24, 2020. | https://medium.com/@sudhirmemoriall/know-the-simple-steps-to-tackle-the-homework-for-kids-cd292df66fe4 | ['Sudhir Memorial Institute'] | 2020-12-24 06:35:00.015000+00:00 | ['Child Skill Development', 'Cbse School', 'Students', 'English Medium School', 'Homework'] |
DIY No-Sew Face Masks | Fashion Furniture Rental | COVID-19 restrictions are being lifted across the country as states are working to try and get life back to normal (or as normal as we possibly can, given the circumstances). In order to continue to keep our communities safe, the CDC recommends that the public continues to wear face masks when going outside and running errands: think going to the store, picking up to-go orders, being around groups of people not in your household. (States have varying restrictions, please check with your local and state government for details). Instead of purchasing medical masks-please leave those for healthcare workers!-here are some easy, no sewing required DIY face masks you can make at home to keep you and your family safe:
No-Sew Bandana Mask
Have a bandana lying around? Put it to work! Here’s what you need:
Bandana
2 rubber bands, hair elastics, or something similar
Fold bandana in half
Fold the top of the bandana down, fold the bottom of the bandana up.
Place rubber bands or hair ties 6 inches apart
Fold sides to the middle and tuck
Your mask is ready to wear!
Images and directions via CDC
No-Sew T-Shirt Mask
Don’t have a bandana? No sweat. Grab a t-shirt you’re willing to sacrifice for the greater good and get to cutting!
You’ll need:
One t-shirt
Pair of scissors
Lay t-shirt flat and cut off the bottom 7–8 inches
Cut a 6–7 inch rectangle on the side of your fabric (this will be for the opening and the strings). Cut the edge of the fabric to make the strings that will tie around your face.
Instructions and images from the CDC How should a mask fit?
A mask should go as high as the bridge of your nose and cover your mouth down to your chin. According to medical experts, you want to make sure you have a good seal around your mouth to protect yourself and others.
Cleaning Your Mask
One of the benefits of making your own cloth face mask is they are easy to clean. You can hand-wash it in the sink or throw it in the washer with the rest of the laundry (mesh laundry bags would be perfect!) whenever your mask needs a refresh. The CDC recommends you wash your mask once a day, for example, at the end of the day when you’re done with errands-and always wash your mask before you wear it for the first time.
We hope that these tips provide useful information to keep you and your family safe. For more information about COVID-19, please visit the CDC website.
If you have questions about renting furniture and Fashion’s policies during COVID-19, | https://medium.com/@fashionfurniturerental/diy-no-sew-face-masks-fashion-furniture-rental-ec7945068458 | ['Fashion Furniture Rental'] | 2020-08-31 20:47:36.535000+00:00 | ['Masks', 'DIY', 'Covid 19'] |
Why Agriculture Education Should Be a Requisite in Today’s High Schools | Why Agriculture Education Should Be a Requisite in Today’s High Schools
In today’s world, nearly everything is at our fingertips with the help of technology. From knowledge to online shopping, you can get a lot done with a smart phone. One of those being food! Nearly every restaurant offers an app, where you can place an order to be picked up or for delivery. With food being so easily accessible, it doesn’t often cross ones mind where that food came from or how it got there. Such a simple question, yet most couldn’t answer it. If more people were educated in the agriculture field, they would have a general idea of where and how their food came about.
In today’s education system, our students are being asked to learn and memorize topics such as…
-the periodic table of elements
- Pi
-the names of the U.S. presidents
-types of rocks
While we may think all these topics are important for our youth to learn, they aren’t more important than agriculture. Yet we see little to no requirements about agriculture education.
A majority of today’s high schoolers would be able to explain the process of photosynthesis in great detail to you but, they more than likely couldn’t tell you where their own food comes from and how it’s made. Inner city high schoolers need the education most, as they don’t come face to face with agriculture like rural students do. Rural teens are also more apt to take agriculture electives because they see it in their day to day lives, spiking the interests of the students.
Consequences of Agriculture Illiteracy
Why should everybody, even the most inner city people, have a good knowledge of agriculture? The agriculture illiteracy of the average American adult is at an all time high. Agriculture illiteracy is defined as not possessing the knowledge and understanding of our food and fiber system that keeps our country running. Because of this, concepts like genetically modified organisms and ranching practices are blown out of proportion. People all across America are following a gluten free diet, but couldn’t tell you what gluten is or why they must avoid it, ask Jimmy Kimmel.
Like gluten, GMO’s are also often misunderstood, the majority of people don’t know what GMO stands for! Millions of people are under the assumption that they shouldn’t eat genetically modified organisms because they believe they are allergic to them. Little do they know, changing the genetics of an organism does not affect the allergens. It is baffling people on the agriculture side how uneducated these people are. When people are raised in the inner city with no exposure to agriculture, and no requirements to learn about agriculture, we must face the repercussions.
Knowing The Basics
People should know the basics of where their food comes from, how its grown, harvested, and processed. People would understand what exactly is going into their body, helping people make smarter and safer eating habits. They will realize why fruits and veggies are better for your body than over processed food, helping with our obesity rates in the United States.
Another pro of agriculture education is that once people understand the effort and heart farmers put into their products, they will have a greater appreciation for each meal, fabric, or product they have. People would understand how vital agriculture is to our existence, giving our farmers and ranchers the credit they deserve. People have slowly become disconnected from agriculture, making them look down upon farmers instead of praising them. It is time we change that.
We also need agriculture education to expand the reach of agricultural based careers. Our population is ever growing, and to keep all these people fed, we will need to increase the productivity of our foods. Once again, inner city children may never be exposed to career paths involving agriculture, mainly because it is not seen as a necessity where they are. How are we supposed to expand our reach without people even knowing about all the possibilities careers in the agricultural field will offer to you?
Working in the agricultural field doesn’t mean you are, literally, in a field. There are many other job opportunities such as…
Farm accountants/farm managers
seed sales
equipment sales
equipment mechanics
agriculture teachers
and so much more!
People don’t realize how many job areas are directly involved with agriculture, and how big of a part they play in feeding America.
Wrapping Up
Agriculture education is so much more than farming and ranching. Knowing where your food comes from is a simple yet vital piece of information everybody should know, more vital than knowing the types of rock. (Sorry science teachers!) It’s time we start teaching our high schoolers about subjects they will use throughout their life, and that we are letting our students explore all career options.
It is time agriculture education becomes a requisite in high schools across our country, because there is no country without agriculture. | https://medium.com/@kelseyweakland15/why-agriculture-education-is-important-for-todays-youth-a8dd4d351b86 | ['Kelsey Weakland'] | 2020-12-17 01:57:37.026000+00:00 | ['Ag Ed', 'Agriculture', 'Farming', 'Schools', 'Requirements'] |
QuarkChain CEO Qi Zhou Participated in LA Blockchain Summit and Joined Unfolding China’s Decentralized Finance Landscape Panel | QuarkChain CEO Qi Zhou Participated in LA Blockchain Summit and Joined Unfolding China’s Decentralized Finance Landscape Panel QuarkChain Follow Oct 26 · 2 min read
LA Blockchain Summit was held on Oct 06 — Oct 07, 2020. This year’s summit was an online event. The Summit is the leading conference & expo focused on blockchain investing, building and mainstream adoption. It’s an exclusive, curated, high-impact informative and thought-provoking event presented by some of the world’s foremost innovators, change makers and prominent leaders in the blockchain ecosystem. Dr. Qi Zhou, QuarkChain’s founder and CEO, was invited to participate in the summit and presented his opinions at a panel discussion, chatting with the most accomplished, powerful and astounding list of industry leaders and speakers.
The panel Dr. Qi Zhou presented was “Unfolding China’s Decentralized Finance Landscape”. The panel was started with concerns about constant rivalry primarily between the US and China, as well as the rest of the world. The participants shared their opinions about the competitions in blockchain technology and why would China want to adopt a truly decentralized technology.
In the panel discussion, Qi Zhou introduced QuarkChain’s DeFi designs and features. He pointed out that a mature DeFi platform must have the following features: high efficiency, low gas fee, secure, easy to use, and easy combination. He explained QuarkChain’s unique solution: Multi-chain Heterogeneous + DeFi + Multi-native tokens. Besides, Qi also introduced the design concept of Equalizer, an AMM DEX with equal and self-adjusting governance token distribution. It was the first Dex project that QuarkChain supported, and enriches QuarkChain’s ecosystem.
To learn more details about the panel, please watch the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eHoqvb3H0E&list=PLFJJb69BM_KJhE-Z-1whIOASAkfTf2j_M&index=26&ab_channel=LABlockchainSummit | https://medium.com/quarkchain-official/quarkchain-ceo-qi-zhou-participated-in-la-blockchain-summit-and-joined-unfolding-chinas-27e9a5028e37 | [] | 2020-10-26 21:27:21.775000+00:00 | ['Blockchain Summit', 'Defi', 'Quarkchain', 'Blockchain Technology'] |
623. Add One Row to Tree | LeetCode level medium question involving BFS and binary trees
Given the root of a binary tree, then value v and depth d , you need to add a row of nodes with value v at the given depth d . The root node is at depth 1.
The adding rule is: given a positive integer depth d , for each NOT null tree nodes N in depth d-1 , create two tree nodes with value v as N's left subtree root and right subtree root. And N's original left subtree should be the left subtree of the new left subtree root, its original right subtree should be the right subtree of the new right subtree root. If depth d is 1 that means there is no depth d-1 at all, then create a tree node with value v as the new root of the whole original tree, and the original tree is the new root's left subtree.
Example 1:
Input:
A binary tree as following:
4
/ \
2 6
/ \ /
3 1 5 v = 1 d = 2 Output:
4
/ \
1 1
/ \
2 6
/ \ /
3 1 5
Example 2:
Input:
A binary tree as following:
4
/
2
/ \
3 1 v = 1 d = 3 Output:
4
/
2
/ \
1 1
/ \
3 1
Note:
The given d is in range [1, maximum depth of the given tree + 1]. The given binary tree has at least one tree node.
Result:
Success Details Runtime: 0 ms, faster than 100.00% of Java online submissions for Add One Row to Tree. Memory Usage: 38.6 MB, less than 87.71% of Java online submissions for Add One Row to Tree.
Solution: | https://medium.com/@jesus-patinoflores/623-add-one-row-to-tree-727f39e89fa1 | ['Jesus Pf'] | 2020-12-10 18:15:44.011000+00:00 | ['Leetcode', 'Software', 'Interview', 'Bfs', 'Facebook Interview'] |
Wyze Labs shakes up home security with an inexpensive pro service for 2021 | Wyze Labs is shaking up yet another market with an incredibly inexpensive product and service offering. The company is taking preorders on a home security system with professional monitoring for just $60 per year that will be delivered in March 2021—and buyers will get the basic starter kit for free.
Customers who don’t want to commit to a full year of service will be given the option to pay $60 for the starter kit and $5 per month for the service. Either way, the monitoring service—which will be provided by a third party, Noonlight—will cost exactly half what Ring charges customers who opt in to monitoring for its Ring Alarm product line. And a similar Ring Alarm starter kit costs $200 (although they’re currently on sale for less).
Wyze Labs Users will arm and disarm the system using either the Wyze app or this keypad.
Mentioned in this article Wyze Cam v3 Read TechHive's review$19.99MSRP $19.99See iton Wyze Labs A Noonlight dispatcher will be notified when the system goes into an alarm state, and the dispatcher will attempt to contact the subscriber and coordinate help from first responders (police, fire, or ambulance) if there’s an emergency, including routing information to the appropriate 911 call center. If the subscriber can’t be reached, Noonlight will automatically summon an emergency response to the subscriber’s home.
The Wyze Home Monitoring Core Starter Kit will include a Wyze Sense V2 hub (the brains of the system and the bridge to your home network), a Wyze Sense keypad (for arming/disarming the system), two Wyze Sense V2 entry sensors (for doors or windows), and a Wyze Sense V2 motion sensor. The hub will operate on AC power with a battery backup good for about 10 hours. It will connect to your home network via ethernet or 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (2.4GHz only), though it also supports Bluetooth 4.1 and Bluetooth Low Energy 5.1.
[ Further reading: The best smart home systems ]The system can be armed and disarmed from the keypad or via the Wyze app on a mobile device. The system will have Home and Away monitoring modes, so that the motion sensor won’t trigger an alarm while you’re home. The hub will have an 82dB siren onboard, which doesn’t strike us as very loud (the Ring Alarm siren puts out 105dB, and even that isn’t as loud as you might want). Perhaps more importantly, the Wyze hub doesn’t have an LTE radio onboard, so there’s no failover in case your broadband connection goes down (seasoned burglars know to cut your telephone and/or cable lines before breaking in).
Wyze Labs The Wyze Labs Home Monitoring System Hub has a battery backup, but there’s no LTE radio onboard for broadband backup.
The hub communicates with Wyze’s new sensors using unlicensed radio spectrum at 915MHz, which should provide excellent range (Wyze claims 500 feet for the keypad and sensors).
Mentioned in this article Ring Alarm Read TechHive's reviewMSRP $199.00See it Those outboard sensors can be configured to trigger cameras to begin recording video, but the motion sensors on the cameras cannot trigger an alarm state (a Wyze spokesperson said such a feature might be added down the road). Subscribers will receive one license for Wyze’s Cam Plus service, which brings AI notifications such as person detection along with event recordings of unlimited length on Wyze cameras. Additional licenses will be made available to subscribers at a discount.
Users will also be able to integrate other Wyze products—including its inexpensive smart bulb—into the Home Monitoring System, so that the system’s sensors will be able to trigger the bulb to turn on. And IFTTT users will be able to tie the Wyze system together with devices and systems from other vendors that also support IFTTT. Wyze says it intends to expand the system with water leak sensors (to mitigate water damage) and temperature sensors (to help avoid frozen pipes).
You’ll find more information about Wyze Home Monitoring Service at Wyze Labs’ website. We’re looking forward to getting a system in for an in-depth evaluation. Stay tuned.
Updated shortly after publication to clarify how the sensors on Wyze cameras interact with the system.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@rhonda78037424/wyze-labs-shakes-up-home-security-with-an-inexpensive-pro-service-for-2021-2e01a3602cf | [] | 2020-12-24 05:10:09.346000+00:00 | ['Mobile', 'Connected Home', 'Services', 'Electronics'] |
Five Questions with Ganesh Krishnan | (Image created and owned by Walmart Global Tech)
At Walmart Global Tech, we want to know what makes our Leadership team tick. What drives them? What lessons have been important in their careers? In this installment I sat down with Ganesh Krishnan, the VP of Engineering, Item & Supplier, to find out.
1. What separates a manager from a leader?
I agree with the classic saying: managers are about getting things done right, and leaders are about doing the right thing.
2. What’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned in your career thus far?
The importance of feedback from others.
3. If you could go back to your 20-year-old self and give one piece of advice, what would you say?
I was really focused on technology then, so I’d say to give more attention to softer skills. I’d place more emphasis on ownership and how to think through ownership. It’s a whole mindset, and it’s important.
4. What sets Walmart apart from other companies you’ve worked at?
The people, absolutely. We have really good people — friendly, committed to the company, smart. A good set of folks.
5. If you could have one super power what would it be, and why?
Since I can’t actually have a super power, I just want to always do my best. | https://medium.com/walmartglobaltech/five-questions-with-ganesh-krishnan-1e563cc07294 | ['Brittani Conley'] | 2020-11-05 14:38:22.375000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Management', 'Engineering'] |
A Minute Each Day | Each day when I cry
you come for a minute
to gather
my tears and yours
and wash away
my bruises.
Each day when I fall
you come for a minute
to make me remember
how to support
my heavy head
so I can stand.
Each day when I disappear
from my mind
you come for a minute,
look for the light-consuming
matter in my heart,
and find me.
Each day when I die
you come for a minute
to whisper
a reason for me
to come back alive.
You come for a minute.
I just wish you’d stay for two sometimes. | https://medium.com/scribe/a-minute-each-day-dee135a86925 | ['Veronica Georgieva'] | 2020-12-29 19:14:05.822000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Love', 'Poems On Medium', 'Relationships', 'Poem'] |
Are you effectively evangelizing your data? | You may have heard, data has become a thing. The space has quickly grown, and its popularity, and interest has never been bigger.
However as in demand as data may be, you may be surprised how much excitement you will need to build for your Data and Analytics (DNA) practice, in order to effectively communicate its outcomes. Effectively evangelising your teams mission and outputs should be a key focus area, in order to give your work the exposure it needs to scale. You may not think about it now, but part of your role is to educate people on how data can be used and manage the conversation around data.
Here are some helpful hints on how you can achieve this.
Dashboards Galore.
Ok, maybe not galore. You don’t want to have too many dashboards, but those that you do should be both eye catching and informative. The primary purpose of dashboards is to automate any rote reporting that you are getting requests for. The secondary purpose, however is visibility.
Dashboards are the most immediate and visible representation of your teams work. They often will remain accessible even after your team has gone home for the day, and, as is becoming increasingly popular in many organisations, can be found turned on and displayed across monitors scattered across your office — as if on a trading floor. Given their visibility, put some time into designing them so that they capture your audience’s attention and convey the messages that have a clear, defined and valuable purpose while showcasing how data is being used within your organisation.
Go old school — and communicate analog in order to build relationships
I believe there is a lot of value in high quality, human interaction. In a world where everything is digital — a world that has vastly enabled the work that you are doing, finding ways to identify and enhance analog communication channels can be of great benefit. If you want to evangelize — there is an advantage of doing it face to face.
One way to do this is to find ways that encourage people to submit work requests or problem statements or hypothesis that they want you to address, in person, rather than digitally. This has many benefits. First, they get to meet you and your team. Second, you will find people think through questions more rigorously, when it takes more effort to submit them. A simple change like this can increase the quality of questions that you begin to receive. Lastly, you are able to begin the conversation and gain valuable context from the source straight away. The flow of the conversation may go in many directions leaving you and your counter party better informed — a win for all parties involved.
Finding little pockets of opportunities like this will enhance your teams visibility and effectiveness.
Unknown Unknowns
With many an organisation’s data growing dramatically, it is hard for the non data person to keep up with what’s available. Whether you know it or not, part of your remit is to educate people on what data is out there, and how it can be used. The more visibility of what data exists, the quicker your stakeholder’s minds will start ticking over and crafting questions for your team to tackle. Which means more engagement and visibility for you! Take it upon yourself to inspire non-tech people by making these data points known, and piquing people’s curiosity.
This can be done by featuring them on the aforementioned dashboards. It can also be done by showcasing insights from other parts of the business, so that your audience members can get an understanding of what data is being used, and which problems are being solved in parts of the organisation, other than their own
Parlez vous data?
The more people you get talking using the language of data the better. Part of a good data scientists remit (and in some organisations a completely seperate role) is to be a good data translator. This job can become easier if there are less things to translate. So take it upon yourself to periodically teach non data people about your methodology. Spend time talking about the methodology that you used, and the reasons for any choices that you made along the way — and not just the results that you achieved. Explicitly point out how the work that you have done should be used and what it means, including how it may be misinterpreted. Effectively you will be summarizing your own work — to make it more digestible for others.
So, take your role in communicating your teams outcomes as seriously as that of generating those outcomes. Make sure that you are leading the conversation as it helps shape how effectively data gets used within your organisation
This story originally appeared here | https://towardsdatascience.com/communicating-and-building-excitement-in-your-data-practice-52e3c7a554ea | ['Damjan Vlastelica'] | 2020-01-31 14:36:55.209000+00:00 | ['Dashboard', 'Analytics', 'Data Science', 'Data', 'Data Visualization'] |
Kirchner Impact Foundation and Centro Fox Host Highly Acclaimed Kirchner Investment Academy | Kirchner Impact Foundation continues to work with local organizations to enhance the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Mexico
San Francisco del Rincon, Guanajuato México and Birmingham, Alabama — February 19 2020–Kirchner Impact Foundation, one of the ‘returning arms’ of traditional merchant bank Kirchner Group, in collaboration with Centro Fox, is pleased to announce the success of their Kirchner Investment Academy hosted February 7–9, 2020.
This edition was held at Centro Fox, an innovation and leadership campus founded by former president of Mexico Vicente Fox and his wife, Marta Sahagun.
“Mexico needs to generate more local investment funds and projects and the view on business and knowledge that Kirchner brings with this academy will help develop the local investment ecosystem” mentioned Vicente Fox, Former president of Mexico and president of Centro Fox during a candid meeting over lunch where he got the chance to hear about attendees projects and reflect on his experience in public service and entrepreneurship. “We are very thankful to President Fox for our continuing and impactful collaboration with Centro Fox. The success of this Kirchner Investment Academy is a great illustration of our aligned desire to help the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Central Mexico,” mentioned Blair G. Kirchner, Managing Director and Co-Head of Impact Activities at Kirchner Group.
The Academy is an intensive, 25-hour program for individuals seeking to gain knowledge about the relevance, importance and process of venture capital allocation in developing and rural entrepreneurial ecosystems. The program seeks to demystify investment to entrepreneurs and dispel often perpetuated myths.
“This was the most precise financial course I have taken in relation to capital funding and startups, it is a course that every entrepreneur should take,” mentioned participant Sergio López, Entrepreneur founder of Rayo Bio-energía.
The program follows an intensive incubator-type model, where entrepreneurs learn about investment from the perspective of investors. During the three days more than 20 attendees learned investment vocabulary, the basics of how to evaluate possible investments as well as develop criteria to attract and structure investments for projects and startups. The program also introduced the importance of capital efficiency and sustainability within a socially aware context, promoting Kirchner´s iconic vision of creating value while promoting values.
Complementing the 10 traditional modules included in the academy´s program attendees got the chance to participate in video presentations from international experts in topics like investor-entrepreneur dynamics, company mistakes and exit strategies. Thanks to a scholarship provided by the Innovation Secretary of the State of Guanjauato (Secretaría de Innovación, Ciencia y Educación Superior del Estado de Guanjuato -SICES) and promoted by NOVAERA all the attendees stayed at the beautiful Hacienda San Cristobal Hotel, where they got the chance to continue their networking outside of the program.
“It was a very useful bootcamp in which, in addition to networking with the participants and the organizers we gained very relevant knowledge on how to prepare and successfully complete a capital raising process for a Startup,” said participant Ramiro Quezada Diaz, Director of the Tec de Monterrey Entrepreneurship Institute.
The Academy is part of the Kirchner Impact Foundation’s continuing initiatives in the region that include the annual Mexico Agtech competition, this year on May 23rdin León, Guanajuato as well as their flagship Kirchner Food Fellowship program which will commence recruitment of university students on March 1st for their 2020–2021 programs.
To view a video recap of the academy click here.
For more information on the Kirchner Investment Academy, contact Adrian Garcia: [email protected]
Kirchner Impact Foundation
Kirchner Impact Foundation (KIF), is a non-profit organization that serves as one of the “returning” arms of Kirchner Group. KIF harnesses the positive power of enterprise to make a difference in addressing some of the most important issues of today and reflects our belief that all businesses should contribute to a positive human future.
Through the Kirchner Impact Model (“returning” with head, hip and heart), the foundation promotes capital efficiency and sustainable enterprises. KIF activities aim to generate a measurable, social and/or environmental benefit, primarily across four sectors: Agriculture/Food, Health/Life Science, Energy/Resources and Education. www.kirchnerimpact.com/impact-model/
Steve Dauphin | Director | +1 205.602.9845| [email protected]
Centro Fox
Centro Fox has opted for the formation of compassionate leaders for creating a better world. They believe that we are all leaders and we can provide that leadership at various times in our lives and be that little difference that makes big changes. Their goal is to contribute to the formation of new leaders through social values that promote equity, thus promoting the ideas and actions of our people, projecting it nationally and internationally. They work with great enthusiasm and commitment to each of their projects because they are convinced that we all have tremendous potential to help us build a country and a better world. www.centrofox.org.mx
Gabriela González | [email protected]
Kirchner Group
Kirchner Group was founded in 1985 as a boutique firm and today operates various subsidiaries, providing advisory services (M&A, assessments, diligence) and operational support (interim management, workouts, turnarounds) as well as asset management (dedicated, portfolio optimization) — all leveraging a proprietary approach that dovetails domain and process expertise.
Throughout the decades Kirchner Group has been internationally recognized for its unique business model centered around creating value while promoting values: “earning while returning.” The firm has also established an iconic reputation for building and rebuilding important business and social paradigms based on its deep entrepreneurial orientation.
Kirchner Group’s clients and partners include early stage to mid-market companies, venture capital and private equity firms, as well as family offices and some of the world’s largest insurance companies, commercial banks and institutional investors. www.kirchnergroup.com
Stay up to date on the firm’s initiatives and activities by following us on LinkedIn.
Blair Kirchner | Managing Director & Co-Head of Impact Activities | Kirchner Group | 902.817.2405 | [email protected] | https://medium.com/@adriangarcia.m/kirchner-impact-foundation-and-centro-fox-host-highly-acclaimed-kirchner-investment-academy-68eec43c56c8 | ['Adrián García'] | 2020-02-20 13:31:24.308000+00:00 | ['Impact', 'Impact Investing', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Education', 'Investing'] |
While this supposedly erudite writer tries to impart the importance of proper argumentation, he… | While this supposedly erudite writer tries to impart the importance of proper argumentation, he commits one long ad hominem fallacy. These liberal Trump-haters see themselves as intellectual and moral superiors while doing the very things they condemn us “deplorable” Trump supporters for.
Throughout the article he takes aim at Trump’s appearance, repeatedly, which is exactly what the left decries Trump for doing. He pretends that Obama is the exemplar of the modern thinker by referring to his call for a “shared humanity” then calls half the country stupid.
This arrogant sesquipedalian blowhard follows the same playbook as the rest of the liberal media: be insulting and divisive as hell, then ridicule Trump non-stop for being insulting and divisive as hell.
No wonder Trump won in 2016, and will again in 2020. People like this so-called sophisticate may play well at dinner parties in upper-Manhattan, but to the all-important swing-state voters, he symbolizes everything wrong with the modern Democrat party. | https://medium.com/@bruth112/while-this-supposedly-erudite-writer-tries-to-impart-the-importance-of-proper-argumentation-he-72b986582722 | ['Bill Rutherford'] | 2020-01-12 00:37:05.283000+00:00 | ['Critical Thinking', 'Trump Administration', 'Trump', 'Liberalism', 'Media'] |
IOTA and ClimateCHECK launch new DigitalMRV solution and strategic partnership | At IOTA, we believe in the positive impact of IoT technologies on our economic system and day-to-day lives alike. However, it is often hard to pin-point how these technologies provide value today by helping to solve challenges we have right here, right now. Following nearly two years of collaboration, the IOTA Foundation and ClimateCHECK, a leading international provider of climate and cleantech services and solutions, are excited to announce a strategic partnership to expand our collaboration to create innovative technologies for climate change, clean technologies and sustainability that foster an open ecosystem around sustainable DLT protocols. We are also excited to share the first results of our joint ambition to create the DigitalMRVTM solution that streamlines and digitizes a process known as Measurement, Reporting and Verification, in short MRV.
The IOTA Foundation and ClimateCHECK have been collaborating through various initiatives such as the Climate Chain Coalition or INATBA based on their joint vision of democratizing access to climate technologies and building multi-stakeholder ecosystems pursuant to open and transparent processes for environmental accounting. As an important measure to mobilize the global community in the fight against climate change, carbon credits and certification is one of the most important market instruments to incentivize investments in clean, sustainable activities. Today, the need for high assurance in this system involves costly, time-consuming certification processes. Especially in developing economies, this certification process often restricts the positive incentives of being able to qualify carbon reductions as actual carbon credits due to the prohibitive cost.
Tom Baumann, CEO of ClimateCHECK commented on the initiative: “We have been working on climate change issues since 1998 in various roles and with a focus since 2009 on integrating digital solutions into measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) systems. Digital innovations are rapidly advancing and becoming more important for efficient and effective scaling of climate actions and nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement, as well as climate-smart technologies, carbon markets, carbon border adjustments, climate disclosure and finance — to name a few examples. We look forward to expanding our strategic partnership with IOTA and its robust digital ecosystems to set the standard with DigitalMRVTM for nextgen assurance to enable innovative solutions for climate change, cleantech and sustainability.”
We started our collaboration with a 14-month joint pilot project to deploy DigitalMRV at a landfill gas capture and utilization site in Chile which is funded by the Canadian government through Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) as part of the Reciclos Organicos project. IOTA is working jointly with MRV experts at ClimateCHECK, as well as Arcadis, ENC Energy, ImplementaSur and the Chilean government, to showcase how digitizing MRV activities by integrating the IOTA protocol on gateway devices can dramatically decrease the cost of MRV and improve downstream use of carbon credit certification by introducing a single version of truth in sensor readings in real-time. We believe that this is a huge step in proving the feasibility of Distributed Ledgers, and more importantly, permissionless protocols for climate action and sustainable transformation of our economic systems. Through this process, we actualize the core requirements to establish a trustworthy digital twin of the landfill gas (LFG) site through immutable near real-time data streams from a number of sensors on site.
Franck Portalupi, Manager of Technology Partnerships at Environment and Climate Change Canada commented on the pilot project: “Canada is proud to support Chile’s pilot project which is demonstrating state-of-the-art methods to track emission reductions in real-time. This is an excellent example of how Canada’s climate finance is helping countries meet their climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.’’
IOTA — A Sustainable Ledger
Ultimately, environmental challenges affect all of us. We at the IOTA Foundation fundamentally believe that this brings not only challenges but also opportunities. With our technology integrated into the core of Digital MRV, we aim to make these opportunities available to as many people as possible. In contrast to permissioned ecosystems, the Digital MRV solution leverages IOTA´s permissionless architecture while maintaining the privacy of sensitive industrial processes through IOTA Streams. Traditional centralized data stream solutions have a myriad of single points of failure inherent in their process and are open for numerous points of data manipulation along the data trail and pipeline. However, by leveraging tamper-proof capabilities the data streams can be secured from the point of data creation and relayed over a trusted, permissionless and feeless network. This allows for a granular level of near real-time accountability and transparency in what the facility is doing which directly benefits the creation and verification of carbon credits. Its design also ensures that there is no introduction of new vulnerabilities in the existing Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems.
The use of tamper-proof data is enabled through the project’s integration of IOTA Streams and the IOTA Tangle. With IOTA Streams, the data is formatted into easily digestible data structures where the data is generated in the plant. It is then secured through cryptographic integrations built into the Streams functionality and pushed over the IOTA Tangle as a data transfer mechanism. Using the IOTA Tangle as the transfer mechanism allows for near real-time access to the data from the plant, a tamper-proof historical record of the data that’s generated, a scalable core that can be expanded for any other type of climate data, and a level of interoperable infrastructure that requires no core fees to use or push this data over.
For future work, the actualization of trusted carbon credits can be enabled through the use of tokenized digital asset frameworks currently being built into the core functionality of the IOTA protocol. This will create a holistic approach to the creation of verifiable carbon credits and incentivizing sustainable economic growth through directly correlating those carbon credits to the impact that those earning the carbon credits are making on the environment. At its current stage, the pilot allows a deep level of testing of inherent security for new digital twin processes to build off of, allowing the creation of a single source of truth for environmental data from the edge in. It also removes concerns on data privacy due to no central hosting authority, which has the dual benefit of removing the traditional issue of vendor lock-in. The core IOTA Protocol is open-source, permissionless, feeless, and scalable. So this solution can continue to grow throughout the landfill gas industry to establish new standards and levels of collaboration that have historically been difficult to accomplish due to ownership and accountability disputes.
Dominik Schiener, Co-Founder of the IOTA Foundation: “Since we have started the IOTA Foundation, we have been focused on creating not only a free protocol but also to use our technology to help address the big human challenges of the 21st century. We are very proud that together with our partner ClimateCHECK and support of the Canadian Department of Environment and Climate Change (ECCC) we were able to demonstrate the feasibility of IOTA in contributing to increased trust and reduced cost in the climate change sector, freeing up resources to directly contribute to climate action. Not only does the solution provide insight into next-generation monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions, it also highlights the unique selling point of the IOTA protocol and its capabilities for the Internet of Things. Our collaboration with ClimateCHECK empowered us to combine years of experience around climate standards and assurance with our front running position in combining IoT and DLT technology to showcase the potential of IOTA as a sustainable protocol.
We hope to stimulate additional innovation in the spectrum of DigitalMRV and expand our work to more industrial use cases in other environmental sectors, as well as include smaller, community-driven projects from our ecosystem in future integrations. Furthermore, the value of digitizing MRV is most powerful, when combining feeless value transfer with tamper-proof data transfer capabilities in one single protocol allowing a unification of tokenized carbon credit standards globally. Lastly, IOTA´s low resource requirements allow us to take trust in environmental data as close as possible to the edge. While ensuring that this can grow using a distributed ledger technology that also has a low carbon footprint due to its collaborative consensus model and energy-efficient design.
What’s next?
This pilot project is just another step in IOTA´s quest for a sustainable Internet of Things and building scalable sustainability solutions with our partners. While we plan to roll the project out to more plants and different industries in the next 6 months, we also plan to increase the scope and capabilities of the project in the future together with ClimateCHECK and our wider ecosystem. Stay tuned for more announcements in the coming months or reach out if you want to join our mission to build open-source technologies that solve the challenges of the 21st Century.
Authors: Florian Doebler & Mathew Yarger | https://medium.com/iotatangle/iota-and-climatecheck-launch-new-digitalmrv-solution-and-strategic-partnership-e3c4f55c8958 | ['Florian Doebler'] | 2020-12-08 18:07:48.142000+00:00 | ['Iota', 'Climatecheck', 'Partnerships', 'Announcements', 'Digitalmrv'] |
The Money Mindset That Leads to Financial Flexibility, if Not Freedom | Financial flexibility. I prefer it to freedom:
The financial freedom crowd thinks your goal should be to make enough money so you can choose to not work anymore. For most of us, this is unrealistic. You’re more likely to attain financial flexibility. The idea that you keep pots of money to pay expenses, cover periods of reduced income, and achieve your short- and long-term goals and desires. You become financially flexible when you can tap the goals and desires money without digging into your living expense, emergency, or invested money.
Over my lifetime of fits, starts, mistakes, flat dumb decisions, and blowing stuff up, I came to realize it’s tough to follow a meticulously methodical plan without a focused mindset. You can’t execute if you don’t play some flavor of psychological tricks on yourself.
On the ground, we can water this idea down to “prepare for the worst, hope for the best.” But there’s more nuance than that. I like to take it to somewhat of an extreme. I situate my personal finance in anticipation of a crisis. While I enjoy the good times, I try not to ride the euphoric wave they alluringly offer.
It’s sort of like winning a sports championship after a long, hard season but getting right back in the gym or on the practice field the next morning. Even if you’re hungover.
When we’re doing well with money — or anything really — we tend to want to savor it. We don’t think much about things going awry. People often tell us not to think about stuff going south. That’s too pessimistic. And you require a positive attitude to will the good times to continue. If only.
I attempt to properly situate the anticipation of an ongoing or looming crisis (take your pick) alongside my personal finance. I don’t obsess over the prospect of crisis looming. Instead, I try to productively channel my anxiety to ensure I’m not caught off guard when money-related shit does go down.
You can do this by giving yourself wiggle room. So if your personal financial situation becomes less than ideal, it doesn’t feel less than ideal. In fact, if you make a personal financial tweak, there’s no personal economic impact.
This way of approaching money presents another contradictory word pairing of sorts. When you’re always calmly, coolly, and collectedly anticipating crisis, you don’t experience crisis quite as hard — at least not a personal financial one.
It’s at this somewhat theoretical juncture where the practical importance of sound income allocation — the importance of keeping various pots of money — enters the equation.
Pots of money. Here’s what that means:
To be financially flexible, you need pots of money. One pot of money to consistently satisfy your monthly living expenses for 1.5 to 2 months (subsistence fund). One pot of money to cover reduced or a total loss of income for 3 to 6 months (emergency fund). Other pots of money to pay for discretionary needs and wants (a new apartment or continuing education fund). And another pot of money to fund the aforementioned starts, stops, and restarts (transition fund).
So you’ve got cash to live by the month. You’ve got cash for an emergency fund, earmarked for nothing other than periods of reduced income (e.g., unemployment). This excerpt leaves out the all-important rainy day fund. It’s truly life-changing when you embrace the distinction between emergency and rainy day fund. You’ve got cash for other discretionary needs, wants, and desires. You have cash to cover periods where you choose to not work or work less (transition or temporary retirement).
It’s quite an endeavor and achievement to fill all of these funds. It’s not for everyone. Even if it is, a lot of people will quit — or at least cut meaningful corners — before they get there. But getting there is critical to attaining financial flexibility and making the pessimistically optimistic lifestyle work for you.
Because when bad stuff goes down that requires a financial fix, you have all of this money behind you. You’re not taking a knife to a gunfight (nod to the great Taylor Swift) like so many people do with money matters. We’re often ill-equipped to deal with financial emergencies or even relatively tiny financial blips. We all have seen the data — 40% of Americans don’t have enough cash on hand to meet a $400 emergency expense.
If you put pressure on yourself (there’s a storm coming — even if there’s not!) to obsessively allocate your income the way I describe (or however you choose to do it), you’ll find you’re nimble. When you’re nimble, a crisis doesn’t feel like a crisis.
You can use your pots of money for what you originally intended them for OR you can adapt and adjust on the fly. Like Bruce Springsteen calling a setlist audible during one of his four-hour marathon rock concerts as his well-oiled E Street Band responds flawlessly. It’s a thing of beauty.
While it might seem stressful to take on a pessimistically optimistic mindset that focuses on the possibility of crisis at every turn, it’s actually not. It beats the heck out of spending pretty much your entire life focused on “retirement.” On worrying about something there’s a good chance you’ll never do — such as save well over a million dollars. The so-called experts say you need this kind of money to retire.
They’re wrong.
You’re not going to retire traditionally. And you don’t need a million bucks.
You can eschew the outdated mindsets that lock you into conventional notions of retirement. You can do it by taking a seemingly odd psychological approach. You have to be a little odd to go there. I am and I have. It’s working for me. I hope it or something like it can work for you. | https://themakingofamillionaire.com/the-money-mindset-that-leads-to-financial-flexibility-if-not-freedom-4d6ab303b7d1 | ['Rocco Pendola'] | 2020-12-03 13:21:20.072000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Budget', 'Personal Finance', 'Saving', 'Self'] |
Double Gratitude | Double Gratitude
We loved it here, and then Covid happened
We had only been in New Zealand about nine months before returning to Seattle for the first time. Our friends were naturally curious. Was New Zealand as awesome as they heard? Were we happy we did it? Should they move too? They were eager to hear every detail, and we obliged.
But questions like that can lead to awkward answers. There’s a fine line between loving Wellington and implying that we don’t love Seattle. It’s easy to celebrate all the things we love, but hard not to slip into comparisons that might be hurtful. We loved Seattle, and still do, but Wellington fits us better.
So I found myself pointing out New Zealand’s flaws as a way to avoid mentioning America’s. I’d stress that there’s no Amazon and watch my friend’s jaw drop. But I’d be thinking “I am happier in a world where I can’t buy anything I want on Amazon at any time. And I have less crap in my house.” Or I’d point out how the build quality of the houses is really poor, and let my friends feel better about their decision to stay in the States. That was a much easier conversation to have. | https://medium.com/new-zealand-immigrant/double-gratitude-302e408a7370 | ['Jon Bell'] | 2020-12-20 07:58:09.019000+00:00 | ['Expat', 'Immigrants', 'New Zealand'] |
Samsung’s 110-inch MicroLED TV brings The Wall to your living room | Samsung delights in scoring splashy headlines at CES with its mammoth micro-LED displays, with the company springing a humongous 292-inch model of “The Wall” on CES attendees back in January. But while its earlier micro-LED panels arrived in modules that needed to be professionally assembled, its new 110-inch MicroLED TV will come ready to watch, right out of the (giant) box.
Related product Samsung Q90T 4K UHD TV (55-inch model) Read TechHive's reviewSee it Slated to ship globally in the first quarter of 2021, the Samsung MicroLED TV is based on micro-LED display technology: self-emitting pixels that offer vivid colors and perfect blacks similar to OLED, because they can be turned on and off individually. Unlike the organic pixels in OLED panels, however, micro-LED panels are not susceptible to burn-in.
Samsung has been touting its micro-LED-based “The Wall” displays for a couple of years now, with the company offering sizes from a crazy-big 292-inch panel down to a more reasonable 75 inches.
[ Further reading: TechHive’s top picks in smart TVs ]Previous versions of Samsung’s micro-LED displays have been saddled with a couple of key problems. For starters, due to the difficulties inherent in micro-LED manufacturing, the displays usually arrive in separate modules that must be assembled by a professional installer. Second, Samsung’s micro-LED displays are prohibitively expensive (think six figures), which means they’ve been aimed mainly at business and luxury customers.
Enter the 110-inch MicroLED, a TV that promises to fix the first problem with Samsung’s micro-LED displays by eliminating the need to assemble multiple panels. Instead, the new TV comes as a complete, prefabricated unit, with Samsung boasting that it has developed a new production process to streamline micro-LED panel manufacturing. With this new set, you’ll need only to take it out of the box, plug it in, and turn it on—although, given that we’re talking about a 110-inch TV, removing it from the box could prove to be quite the operation.
Whether the MicroLED TV addresses the second problem with Samsung’s micro-LED displays—the exorbitant price tag—remains to be seen: Samsung has yet to reveal pricing. (Honestly, we’re not holding our breath for affordability.)
Samsung promises that the MicroLED will deliver “stunning,” “bright,” and “vivid” images, thanks to a new Micro AI Processor. It’s worth noting, however, that this 110-inch TV is only capable of 4K maximum resolution, not 8K like Samsung’s larger “The Wall” displays or its pricier LED-based QLED TVs.
The MicroLED will boast a near bezel-less display with a 99.99-percent screen-to-body ratio, Samsung says. In addition to watching one giant image, you’ll also be able to split the display into four 55-inch screens, ideal for NFL Sunday Ticket junkies.
Besides the images, Samsung says the TV’s integrated Majestic Sound System with Object Tracking Sound Pro functionality can crank out realistic (if virtualized) 5.1-channel sound without the need for external speakers.
All very impressive, but we’ve yet to see (or hear) the 110-inch MicroLED in action, nor do we know how much Samsung plans to charge for its giant new set. Given that Samsung’s 98-inch Q900 QLED TV, an 8K set based on traditional LED technology, goes for a breathtaking $60,000 (and that after a 40-percent discount), we’re steeling ourselves for the MicroLED’s eventual price tag.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@kim00567182/samsungs-110-inch-microled-tv-brings-the-wall-to-your-living-room-14122c7c998d | [] | 2020-12-23 21:13:57.043000+00:00 | ['Connected Home', 'Entertainment', 'Chargers', 'Services'] |
Exploding German Identity Politics | The hysteria was predictable. Posing as both concentration camp inmates and their Nazi executioners, the video for Rammstein’s new song “Deutschland” was destined to infuriate one demographic, just as selecting a black actress, Ruby Commey, to personify Germania, was bound to piss off another.
But, following over six million views of the video, and critical responses from the likes of German government anti-Semitism czar Felix Klein, and Israel’s Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, misunderstood or not, “Deutschland” has become a political event in its own right.
Rammstein have been pushing buttons since their debut in the early 1990s. Growing up in the former East Germany, the Neue Deutsche Härte band’s founding members were inundated with totalitarian iconography and developed an irresistible urge to turn it on its head, exploring the perversity hidden in the folds of state propaganda.
Unlike many of their counterparts in the West, who had been brought up under the delusion that it is both possible and desirable to be “post-ideological”, Rammstein had learned to trace all cultural phenomena back to their political underpinnings.
Whereas West Germans saw the years following unification as an occasion to bring their East German brethren up to speed in a world where national pride has been reduced to a function of financial probity, Ossis (‘Easterners’) recognized that they were being trampled underfoot by the victory march of a political system.
Even if both the national government of Germany and the supranational government of a German-dominated European Union were ultimately working on behalf of the ‘globalists’, they still had to exist independently of the marketplace in order to police it successfully.
As many commentators have noted, the simultaneous failure of post-1989 European governments to develop compelling new cultural expressions of nationhood while also suppressing the powerful iconography of fascism and communism alike created a vacuum in which the past eventually rushed in to flood the social imaginary.
Although this return of the repressed was delayed in Germany, thanks largely to its strong economy, it eventually arrived with the force of a dam burst.
As waves of immigration increased anxiety about the preservation of German culture and the machinations of the EU became increasingly criticised by the country’s right, even moderate Germans found themselves drawn to politics that had been either strongly discouraged or outright forbidden, such as that of the neo-fascist PEGIDA and Alternative für Deutschland.
Like Till Lindemann’s lyrics for “Deutschland”, the video does not endorse a particular interpretation of German history. Rather, it seeks to capture the disorienting free-for-all that accompanied the flooding of that cultural vacuum.
If members of the band appear as both working-class labourers and corporate leaders, Comintern bureaucrats and downtrodden peoples, and, yes, Jews and their SS killers, it is in order to testify to the sense that today’s Germans are overwhelmed by identities that seem mutually exclusive, yet coexist in a real world where every sense of belonging has to be cobbled together from spare parts.
Like their forebears in the avant-garde Slovenian band Laibach, Rammstein have long promoted a kind of ironic nationalism. They know better than to reject the often horrific legacy of Germany history in favour of some diluted Eurovision worldview seemingly disconnected from what ordinary people truly care about.
The need to feel a part of something bigger may be too strong to resist. But the desire not to feel like one has been dissolved into a featureless heterogeneity cannot be suppressed either. Something in between is required, no matter how outdated the concept of the nation-state may seem in an era of relentless globalization.
It is surely no accident that Rammstein, one of the most prominent groups to achieve international success singing in German, titled their 2011 greatest hits collection Made in Germany, the English phrase that distils postwar Germany’s imperialism-by-other-means to an essence.
All that time when Germany was suppressing its troubled past, it was selling the idea that nationalism can be reduced to a marketing concept.
Unfortunately, though, people outside of Germany came to identify “Made in Germany” not only with the nation’s industrial commodities like automobiles, electrical equipment, and chemicals, but also its pop music. Rammstein’s tongue-in-cheek take on totalitarianism, so incisive for those who know Germany from the inside, was often perceived as an earnest longing for totalitarianism, its ironic nationalism as utterly sincere.
Now, after an eight-year break, the band is returning to the marketplace at a time when the distorted conception of Germany that the band inadvertently promoted with its musical exports has been internalised by German populists who could not find a coherent national identity close to home.
In this peculiar environment, “Made in Germany” has become the seal for a nationalist authenticity that the country’s government keeps working to suppress. Germans increasingly want to be the Germans that people of other nations perceive them as, even if that means embracing the role of stock villain once more.
Watching the video for “Deutschland”, which becomes both more powerful and more confusing with each viewing, it is abundantly clear that Rammstein want to engage with this paradoxical dynamic without dismantling their capacity to maintain ironic distance from their source material.
The fact that they chose a black actress from Bertolt Brecht’s DDR-era home theatre, to play Germania, makes perfect sense in this regard. Like the great playwright, they want to have it both ways, simultaneously provoking a visceral response while also inspiring cerebral reflection on it.
That kind of double vision is difficult to pull off. But the fact that Rammstein are getting so many people to debate the meaning of “Deutschland” indicates that they may have accomplished their goal.
The deeper question is whether the song’s Moebius-strip like exploration of German identity politics will suffer the same ironic fate as the band’s previous work did on the international stage, flattened into a German-ness that does not do justice to its complexity.
Charlie Bertsch is co-director of Souciant. He teaches literature and humanities at the University of Arizona. Screenshot courtesy of Rammstein. All rights reserved. | https://medium.com/thebattleground/exploding-german-identity-politics-a31114f59638 | ['The Battleground'] | 2019-04-05 11:53:10.267000+00:00 | ['Fascism', 'Germany', 'Music', 'Rammstein', 'Sounds Like Now'] |
Meta-Masks and Meta-Archetypes | “Man is something that should be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?” - Thus Spoke Zarathrustra, Friedrich Nietzsche
The world is not always rational, there are phantasms of reality that can elude the most logical and rational of men. It persists as not always objective. Not a world that is governed by the unyielding demands of pure, rational science. Nor a world that functions in the manner that the mathematicians, biologists, physicists, and chemists would declare it to — that is, through abiding by the laws of simple, functional logic.
You create reality, by the very notions of existence, you input and abstract the external, these can be known as biases. You by abstracting, create thought structures, these thought structures bleed through and imprint the reality you abstract, your perception is in flux.
The reality tunnel we go through affects the perception of our entire umwelt, our reality tunnels are already different to other animals. Trying to explain a dream, it is inevitable some meaning will get lost in translation. In this post internet world, I press keys on some metal, and make appear symbols that do not exist, and thus communicate directly to your mind the words that have translated my “memes”. By virtue of existing, human beings enter the world-as-is and contaminate it with their memes, thereby transforming it. No meme is abstracted in isolation. We build off others, we build off ourselves.
Without realising you choose your masks. This behaviour is universal: we all have masks, and origins of these masks — these identifiable patterns known as archetypes — go back millennia, you’ll see patterns emerging. Most of them are easy to understand, we are embedded in the contextual memesphere, we cannot escape “ideas”. We are content with when we find ourselves embodying them or engaging with those who are embodying them.
These archetypes exist within all of our minds in some capacity, and play themselves out in all dimensions where the narratological structure of the mind is able to be unleashed. But there is one archetype that stands out, for its ability to avoid being pinned down and understood. The understanding of an archetype that bypasses the simplistic, mask-like properties of all other archetypes. Due to its nature of a fractal like mask transcending into a meta mask. A mask that is able to change its mask or archetype.
This archetype is something of a contradiction, it recognises the notion of masks and fulfilling these archetypes, but it is not pinned down by this. It recognises the notion of time frame iterations, the idea that masks can be adorned and cultivated.
A man of perfect balance between mind, body, and spirit. There is some form of morality here, but it is not born of some ethereal desire to live forever in the lands of some kindly god: it is born of skill.
The Competent Man, the meta mask archetype is a rebellious polymath. The Competent Man strives with every ounce of his being to become a master of all things, in the process transforms himself into a monumental force of nature in the world.
The movement from the static position of the mortal towards the electric speed of Nietzsche’s Übermensch. Within the Competent Man, we find the scientific genius, master artist, wise magician, and cunning trickster combined in a singular dynamic entity — his metamask is that of the man who can wear all the masks perfectly and switch between them seamlessly. As such, we must consider the Competent Man to be a meta-archetype.
The meta-archetype.
A biography, an actor plays a real person, but by playing the person he creates a new character, it has become semi-fictional, the meta-archetype is semi-fictional. This understanding of the meta-archetype has some implications, most prominent being the meta-archetype can only really be accessed in its totality when all other possible archetypes have been engaged with on a deep enough level to allow for necessary development. With this in mind, we can therefore proceed with an investigation into the meta-archetype of the Competent Man — but a caveat.
Signifying the move into meta-modernity, the notion that everyone can adorn meta masks seems apt. You get to choose your own reality, you have an exceeded ability to manipulate your reality tunnel and thus your meta mask, and thus your perceived archetype. It exists in multiplicities. There is no one meta-archetype, just like there is no meta mask. There are a multitude that exist in combination of many other archetypes.
Call to action! | https://medium.com/meditations-observations/meta-masks-and-meta-archetypes-358c6b24cc70 | [] | 2019-02-07 00:47:20.944000+00:00 | ['Archetypes', 'Masks', 'Metamasks', 'Meta Archetypes', 'Metamodernism'] |
Creating a Game Frontend: Setting up Protos and Services in C# | This post is part of a series of posts on Open Match. If you want to follow from the beginning start with the Overview and then read the Deep Dive
Open Match enables you to customize and design a matchmaker, but there is functionality that it does not offer. For example, Open Match is not responsible for player data nor other game components such as inventory, friends lists, or leaderboards. This creates the need for a service to interact with Open Match that can access these components. If you haven’t figured it out from the title of this blog post, I’m talking about a Game Frontend.
A Game Frontend serves two essential purposes when designing your matchmaker. The first is handling what Open Match does not: interactions with other game components. The other is providing a layer between game clients and Open Match. You do not want game clients to interact with Open Match directly, because it would allow users to potentially submit a request with unvalidated information. Imagine a player who has a skill rating of 1000 submitting a request with a skill rating of 3500; not fun. The Game Frontend enables you to submit matchmaking requests with authenticated user data from your game components. To connect with players online, we must first create a ticket to represent a matchmaking request.
Setup
To create this Game Frontend sample, we will use the following resources:
Visual Studio 2017 Community: C# console app
Open Match Messages proto file
gRPC
Create Two C# Console Applications
To simulate the Game Frontend and client, we will create two C# console applications. Name them “Game Client” and “Game Frontend.” They will represent our client and server, respectively. If you’re unfamiliar with creating a C# application in Visual Studio, check out Tutorial: Create a simple C# console app in Visual Studio..
Install Necessary Nuget Packages
Once you have made the two console applications, we should install the gRPC Nuget packages. The packages to install are:
gRPC by The gRPC Authors
gRPC.Tools by The gRPC Authors
Google.Protobuf by Google Inc.
Setup a Project for Generating Protos
The next step is to create a folder in your solution in Visual Studio to hold the proto files. Right-click the solution, add a “solution folder”, and name it protos.
These next steps can be a bit tedious if you’ve never edited a .csproj file. Here is what you need to do:
Right-click the client project and select Unload Project. Right-click the client project and select “edit client.csproj”. Scroll down and find the item group that contains the “Program.cs” within it. Add the following snippet right above the item group. Save and close the client.csproj file Repeat steps 1–5 for the server.csproj file. Right-click each of the projects and select Reload Project. Right-click each of the projects and add a folder to each named models. Right-click both projects and build them (you will get a couple of errors for a missing file, but we will resolve them).
To recap, we have defined for the project both the proto file locations and where the generated .cs will be saved.
Now we are all set up to create a game frontend. If you haven’t cloned Open Match, please do. Locate messages.proto (open-match/api/messages.proto), which we will be using to create a ticket (in a later blog post), and copy it into the protos directory you’ve made. An additional dependency is required, located in third-party/google/rpc/status.proto, so be sure to place that file in the protos directory as well.
Great! Now that you’ve finished the initial setup, let’s implement the proto file we need to define our messages and services for the game frontend.
Implementing the FindMatch RPC service
To kick things off, create gamefrontend.proto in the protos folder, which will be used to implement the gRPC service you’ll need to communicate with Open Match and the game client. Here is a snippet of code to paste in the file:
We import the messages.proto to get some of the essential definitions needed to submit requests to Open Match. The FindMatch service handles a request containing a player id (and any other relevant info required to matchmake) and returns an Assignment, the game server address the client will use to connect for the game.
Save the file and build the client and server to generate the classes (gamefrontendgrpc.cs and gamefrontend.cs) needed to implement our services.
To begin implementation, right-click, and add a class to the server project named gamefrontendservice.cs. Copy the code snippet below:
In the snippet above, we add a reference to our OpenMatch and Gamefrontend namespaces. This allows us to implement our FindMatch service using message definitions. We accomplish the following in this code:
Define our FindMatch Service functionality. Accept the ID of the game client requesting a match (for player info lookup). Generate a dummy IP address that the game client will connect to. Create an Assignment message containing the dummy IP address. Return the Assignment as a response.
Now that we’ve implemented the service let’s finalize our Game Frontend server-side code.
Wrapping up the Game Frontend (Server-side)
Begin by opening Program.cs for the Game Frontend. In this application, we want to create our server and bind our FindMatch service. We also define the ports our server will run on (localhost on port 50051 for now). Here is a snippet that accomplishes these goals:
Now that we’ve completed our server-side code, let’s write our client-side code to connect and submit a match request.
Game Client (client-side)
This client code is used to implement the game clients that will be submitting requests to the Game Frontend service. Open Program.cs for the Game Client application and paste the following snippet:
We accomplish the following in this snippet:
Establish a connection with the Game Frontend. Generate a player id for player data lookup. Submit a FindMatch request to the Game Frontend. Process the response and output the Assignment received.
We need to load player data when submitting our ticket to Open Match, so we’ll handle it on the server side. To perform a lookup for the player data, we provide the game client/player id as part of our request. We sit back and wait for the Game Frontend (and Open Match) to assign the client a game server address.
Wrapping up
Now that we have finished building out the Game Frontend let’s do a quick test. Run and start your Game Frontend application first. It will begin listening for incoming connections/requests. Next, start your Game Client application to connect and await for an assignment (which should happen pretty quickly). When it does, you should see output similar to this:
This is a simulation of what we should expect from the full Game Frontend service, and it’s a great stopping point until the next blog post, in which we’ll connect our Game Frontend with Open Match.
You can find the source code for this sample: GitHub
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to message me on Twitter. | https://medium.com/@jonfoust/creating-a-game-frontend-setting-up-protos-and-services-in-c-214aefbeb106 | ['Jon Foust'] | 2020-12-15 01:05:02.799000+00:00 | ['C Sharp Programming', 'Services', 'Grpc', 'Gaming'] |
Chicken or egg? Digital transformation and fundamental behavioural shifts during COVID-19 | Chicken or egg? Digital transformation and fundamental behavioural shifts during COVID-19
Commercial landscapes adjust to every new innovation. In the last 20 years especially, though some industries have done so more quickly than others, business has been steadily transitioning to digital operations. Enter 2020 and the uptake of digital tools and transformation hit an all-time high.
Communications are a critical part of operations now more than ever, and digital tools can enhance the way we communicate within the organisation and engage with customers. During the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, those businesses that have already undergone digital transformation are infinitely the most likely to prosper, whereas those lagging behind are now racing to survive.
Transformational leadership
Strong leadership includes always looking for opportunities to evolve and being prepared to adapt those parts of the business that can be integrated and improved — in this case with the use of technology.
Technology has always dictated that change must occur for growth to take place, and COVID-19 has placed more emphasis on change and communication than ever. It’s forcing businesses to adopt technologies faster to survive.
Unfortunately for some businesses, structurally, they can’t change, because they can’t structurally or physically operate in a COVID-19 world. Tourism (especially internationally) and hospitality have taken huge hits, for example, purely because you can’t put bums on seats while airlines are grounded and border restrictions are in place. But online training and education, shopping and entertainment streaming services are thriving.
The impact of consumer behaviour
Australia’s ‘Big Four’ are global organisations in broad industries that have adopted more technological changes than any other industry, so they will remain strong and successful. Elsewhere, consumer behaviour plays a vital role in business’ survival. While the fintech industry has been slow to adapt over the last 20 years, it has immense resources to throw at technology R&D.
More recently, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, consumer behaviour has undergone a dramatic shift towards online across a huge number of industries and those industries’ capacity for providing a seamless UX or purchasing experience has been put to the test.
Emerging business models
Adaptation tends to be a slow process. It’s rare that any business picks one change and ‘nails it’. But it’s the commitment to flexible thinking and an agile business model that’s most important.
During COVID, some businesses have adapted faster, while others will struggle to maintain a best practice sufficient to remain competitive. Similarly, while some have disappeared overnight, others have only had to refine their practices to get by; streamlining and concentrating on the parts of the business that work, and cutting out those that aren’t critical.
One timely example of the changing business landscape is the rapid uptake of working from home. It’s now the status quo. We will see further changes to the business and CBD landscape, including the office rental market, that will revolutionise the way that we work and operate in business.
Innovation in context
Innovation must solve a problem; it’s not an evolution. It will identify a series of mitigating factors that can be either a challenge or a threat.
Much innovation is in the technology space. Take Blockchain, for example, which has emerged in recent years. It is still yet to truly find its feet because it’s not currently solving a problem (challenge).
The other challenge with innovation is inspiring your teams and staff to get on board with new practices and products or services. Your people need to be invested, inspired and excited to be part of the innovation. Having the right people will always have more impact on your organisation’s ability to change, innovate, and succeed regardless of any technological advances that are adopted.
Making business ‘culture ready’ for digital transformation
Sharing information and communication will garner inspiration and buy-in from your people.
Transformation by its nature involves change, and as humans we are often resistant to change. It’s difficult! So how we adopt change, and communicate the need for it, for buy-in from your teams, is that matters. Transparency will garner trust from those that are going to be most heavily impacted by the changes; both your staff and your customers.
Reassurance and open dialogue are critical for those that are affected adversely by the change. Information needs to be communicated clearly to ensure cooperation and support. Often those directly involved are key to ensuring that change is adopted successfully, so clarity in communication will help allay uncertainty and fear.
The culture of your organisation is imperative for innovation. Highly diverse and heterogeneous cultures have far better problem-solving skills than those which don’t, as innovation and transformation rely on problem-solving skills. Developing operations in a foreign country, for example, can pose a challenge until the local market and culture is taken into account and adapted to. Agility, flexibility and open-mindedness will help you achieve this level of diversity and better enable transformation.
The best people — and the ability to readily implement operational, structural, and cultural changes — combined with digital transformation, are the fundamental facts of any successful business. COVID-19 has forced evolution on an immediate and global scale, and at this rate, only the strong will survive! | https://medium.com/@powerfulpoints/chicken-or-egg-digital-transformation-and-fundamental-behavioural-shifts-during-covid-19-b802d95fb727 | ['Lee Featherby'] | 2020-12-08 04:59:37.748000+00:00 | ['Change Management', 'Digital Transformation', 'Visual Communication', 'Consumer Behavior', 'Organizational Culture'] |
Floating in Space (#1) | Floating in Space (#1)
I should start recording my interesting thoughts when I’m high on here, instead of on my personal Samsung notes like I recently started about a month ago. My last poem “brb.” was actually just one of my thoughts that I formatted and fixed up a little bit. | https://medium.com/@loverboyinspace/floating-in-space-1-73748d2f93d0 | ['Lover Boy In Space'] | 2021-01-17 21:48:39.991000+00:00 | ['Weed', 'Man On The Moon', 'Journal', 'Curiosity', 'Marijuana'] |
10 Must Have Chrome Extensions for Front-End Developers | 10 Must Have Chrome Extensions for Front-End Developers
Clear Cache, JSONView, and more
Google Chrome logo
Most of the Web Developers use Chrome for their development. According to Wikipedia about 65% of the world population seem to use Chrome, this is one of the reasons why developers choose Chrome to test an application built by them. So if you’re a developer who uses Chrome a lot, here’s a bunch of Chrome extensions that would make your life a lot easier. | https://medium.com/better-programming/10-must-have-chrome-extensions-for-front-end-developers-8f841034506e | ['Harsha Vardhan'] | 2020-11-21 17:25:10.030000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'UI', 'Web Development'] |
At Their Mercy | At Their Mercy
Lessons for Indonesia from the Japanese Invasion of the East Indies, 1942.
R. Bayuputra for Le Citoyen
DISCLAIMER: I am of the opinion that a war between Indonesia and China is definitely remote; increased economic cooperation between the two countries ever since C-AFTA along with multiple Chinese investments in many Indonesian projects have effectively ruled out an all-out attack. But assuming the situation with US-Iran tensions, China’s continuous breach of treaty obligations as ruled by the PCA in Philippines v. The People’s Republic of China in 2013 as well as the recent escalation of tensions in the Natuna Sea, the chance grows more and more likely as the days go by…
Kalidjati, 8th March 1942. The capitulation of Lieutenant-General Hein ter Poorten, commander of the Royal East Indies Army to General Hitoshi Imamura of the Imperial Japanese Army at Kalidjati is an image that many Indonesians–even the schoolchildren who actively learn it as a simple date to memorise in the history books–seem to overlook and forget. 8 March 1942 marks the defeat of one colonial power by another and the total, unconditional transfer of power from the Dutch colonial government to the Empire of Japan and thus put what is today ‘Indonesia’ into Japanese hands.
Regardless of the terrible fate the Indonesian people would face under their ‘new masters’–the forced labour, the secret police, institutionalised and forced prostitution–for many defence analysts and professionals, the conquest of the impossibly large archipelago of the East Indies in the span of 60 days’ time was nothing less than an admirable feat and a great example of military strategy. The Japanese, coming in from the North, in captured Malaya and the Philippines, released a whipping flash of an attack that decimated a combined Allied strike force in the Battle of the Java Sea, following suit with the conquest of the Dutch colonial heartlands of Java.[1]
The swiftness of the Japanese offensive, backed by a decade’s experience in modern wars in China, Korea, and Manchuria, had taken the Dutch by ultimate surprise.[2] It was, in the words of famous Indonesian publicist, P.K. Ojong,[3] an astounding, admirable victory against the odds, which was, by all means caused, by incoordination of Allied resources and the exposure of the deep unreadiness of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army (K.N.I.L.) and other allied forces in facing the Japanese onslaught.
Recent events have put the fear of global conflict back into the hearts of people from both the West and East. With the great powers in play: US-Iran tensions skyrocketing at the wake of the bombing of General Soleimani, Turkey sending troops to Libya, unending war in the Middle East after the Arab Spring, Russian expeditions in eastern Europe, and the PRC’s continuous and relentless creeping expansionism in the South China Sea (and previous trade wars with America, among other things), the turn of the decade (to 2020) makes of a world that seems to be again, at the brink of war.
This recent escalation of tensions between Indonesia and the People’s Republic of China (‘China’ for short) over EEZ claims in the Natuna Sea,[4] and with a military large enough to project force simulating the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia in 1942 (and beyond that),[5] similar events should not be ruled out; Indonesia still remains a strategically-placed country with an abundance of strategic resources. What should, based on the precedent of the 1942 invasion, the Indonesian government do prior to and during a similar situation? This article plans to expand on this question.
A. The 1942 Invasion of the East Indies
(i) Dutch East Indies-Japan relations prior to the Second World War
Japan’s intentions to charge for the East Indies was done at the backdrop of several reasons. Prior to Japan’s participation in the Second World War by attacking Pearl Harbour, American and Great Britain was in a series of trade wars with Japan, as a result of Anglo-American disfavour to Japanese expansionism in China (starting from the ‘Manchuria Incident’ of 1931).
Thus, by 1940, Anglo-American trade embargoes to Japan as well as the cancellation of a number of important trade and economics-related treaties[6] had put the Dutch East Indies as the sole trading partner of Japan in supplying raw materials such as (among others) bauxite, nickel, and oil.[7] However, even the pro-commerce and neutral Dutch (at the time, the Dutch were regarded by many as a neutral power, as demonstrated by their neutrality in World War I) slowly ceded support to the Japanese, in favour of being on the Anglo-American side of things:[8]
On 2 February 1940, Japan made requests to the Dutch government on matters concerning reciprocal trade, the relaxation or abolition of immigration restrictions, and the granting of facilities for business investment or their enlargement. […] The amount of oil which Japan was importing from the Dutch East Indies at the time had been diminishing year by year from about 870,000 tons in 1937 to about 670,000 tons in 1938 and about 570,000 tons in 1939.
Dutch-Japanese relations soon went abysmal. Germany, as part of the Blitzkrieg that took France and Belgium by surprise, conquered continental Netherlands in May 1940, putting the Dutch government and royalty to exile in Britain.[9] This and the signing of the Tripartite Agreement between Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan itself, pushed the Dutch into the American sphere, albeit somewhat reluctantly.[10]
The Dutch had always tried to maintain a neutral position in world affairs and focused on commercial activities instead of those of a military nature.[11] This policy is not exactly in place as of today with the Netherlands being one of the most active members of NATO as well as having fought on the Allied side in World War II completely (unlike, for example, Vichy France). An interesting fact is that the Indonesian bebas-aktif (independent-active) policy mirrors pre-1940 Dutch trade policies,[12] something that we will examine in the latter parts of this article and puts Indonesia in a very unique, yet tedious, position on the map.
The result of this ‘stay neutral’ policy would later cost the Dutch dearly after the Japanese began their strike south. Pulling out of such positions late, instead of picking a side to begin with, would cost them everything they had. In January 1942, when the guns started firing in Southeast Asia, the Dutch East Indies–protected by the colonial Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) and the Royal Netherlands Navy (KM)–had too little time to prepare.
(ii) Mounting an impossible defence: ABDACOM and the impending peril
After the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941 (as commemorated in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous speech), the Allies scrambled to protect its Pacific and Southeast Asian possessions. British Hong Kong fell before the turn of the year and Japanese troops had marched into Malaya with armour, horse, and bicycle three. Someway in the east, the American naval air base at Wake Island stood little chance.
The Japanese attacks mirrored that of the German Blitzkrieg in the West: swift, unexpected, relentless, with a strong emphasis on combined-arms warfare. This sudden ‘alien’ attack by the Empire of the Rising Sun had taken not only the Allies, but also the World, by surprise. Japan was swallowing Asia and the Pacific whole.
At the turn of 1942, precisely on 1 January, the Allies congregated a joint HQ called the ‘American-British-Dutch-Australian Command,’ or, for short, ABDACOM, which put what available military resources in Southeast Asia under one command structure, with General Sir Archibald Wavell, having been previously been the officer commanding of British Middle Eastern Command, famous for his exploits in pushing the Italians back into the Western Desert. ABDACOM had one purpose: stopping the Japanese advance at the Malay Barrier (modern Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia). History will tell that ABDACOM failed and it was not until the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway, ways deep into 1942, that the Japanese were finally stopped.
After several small-scale victories, such as the US Navy’s successful attack on the Japanese transport fleet at Balikpapan,[13] ABDACOM had managed to stall Japanese advances for a month before ABDACOM HQ in Singapore fell on 15 February 1942. After the fall of Singapore, however, instead of reorganising remaining resources, ABDACOM collapsed and individual commanders were left to their own to defend the Malay barrier: amongst them was Dutch Royal Navy Admiral Karel Doorman and KNIL General Hein ter Poorten, who were left to defend the East Indies–now with Java and Sumatra being the frontline.
(iii) Defeat at the Java Sea
‘I wish to impress upon all of you the need for every effort against the enemy to prevent his landing on Java.’
- Rear Admiral Karel Doorman (Dutch), Fleet Order, 22 February 1942
Despite giving out bitter resistance, KNIL and other ABDACOM forces were overrun in Sumatra in February 1942, not long after the fall of Singapore, which dispersed ABDACOM’s command element.[14] This left Allied naval forces with one point in the map where they could halt the Japanese attack that would prevent the fall of Java, and thus, the East Indies: the sea off the northern coast of Java.[15] General Wavell himself, however, was so struck by the fall of Singapore, that ‘Gibraltar of the East,’ that he stated Java unsaveable. In a message to Churchill:[16]
I AM AFRAID THAT THE DEFENCE OF ABDA AREA HAS BROKEN DOWN AND THAT DEFENCE OF JAVA CANNOT NOW LAST LONG. IT ALWAYS HINGED ON THE AIR BATTLE … ANYTHING PUT INTO JAVA NOW CAN DO LITTLE TO PROLONG THE STRUGGLE: IT IS MORE QUESTION FOR WHAT YOU WILL CHOOSE TO SAVE … I SEE LITTLE FURTHER USEFULNESS FOR THIS HQ … I HATE THE IDEA OF LEAVING THESE STOUT-HEARTED DUTCHMEN AND WILL REMAIN HERE AND FIGHT IT OUT WITH THEM AS LONG AS POSSIBLE IF YOU WOULD CONSIDER THIS WOULD HELP AT ALL.
The British were not too enthusiastic in assisting the defence of Java even if the Dutch had actively assisted the British in the land, sea, and air during the defence of Singapore and Malaya.[17] Java was the closest thing for the Dutch to a homeland with the fall of continental Netherlands and aside from being the only unconquered territory aside from the Papuan landmass, had deep sentimental value to the Dutch. Wavell, at the core of the non-enthusiasm, was dismissed then as CiC ABDACOM by Dutch request, and Dutch Vice-Admiral Conrad Helfrich was put at the helm of whatever remained of the scattered ABDACOM.[18] Rear-Admiral Karel Doorman headed naval operations with the combined allied fleet patrolling the Java Sea in anticipation of a Japanese advance.[19]
As the Japanese invasion of Java slowly trickling upon the horizon, Doorman’s plan was to lead the strike force and dismantle the Japanese the transport convoy which transported troops to Java, as well as the task force protecting it. Doorman led a multinational force of two heavy cruisers (HMS Exeter and USS Houston), three light cruisers (Doorman’s flagship HNLMS De Ruyter, HNLMS Java, HMAS Perth, and nine destroyers (HMS Electra, HMS Encounter, HMS Jupiter, HNLMS Kortenaer, HNLMS Witte de With, USS Alden, USS John D. Edwards, USS John D. Ford, and USS Paul Jones), facing against a Japanese task force protecting the conoy, commanded by Rear-Admiral Takeo Takagi, consisting of two heavy (Nachi and Haguro) and two light cruisers (Naka and Jintsū) and 14 destroyers (Yūdachi, Samidare, Murasame, Harusame, Minegumo, Asagumo, Yukikaze, Tokitsukaze, Amatsukaze, Hatsukaze, Yamakaze, Kawakaze, Sazanami, and Ushio) including the 4th Destroyer Squadron under the command of Rear Admiral Shoji Nishimura.[20]
Although the Allies were outnumbered only by a small margin, they were outclassed. The Japanese fleet, in particular its cruisers, had more powerful guns and aside from that, was a combination of two separate fleets tasked with taking Malaya and the Philippines, thus contributing to its superior numbers. Added with the recent string of victories, they were charged for battle. The resulting engagement was a desperate fight: a last gasp of ABDA in Pacific Southeast Asia.
The two forces clashed off the Javanese northern coast on 27th February, and continuous cat and mouse chases went on until the 28th. The engagement resulted in but one Japanese cruiser lost; for the Allies, two light cruisers and three destroyers were sunk with one heavy cruiser heavily damaged. The light cruiser HNLMS de Ruyter, Doorman’s flagship, was also sunk. Doorman had come into the battle sick with a certain tropical fever, and after his ship was heavily damaged by Japanese torpedo attacks, he ordered that the light cruiser be abandoned, though he personally refused to evacuate the vessel. Doorman died with his ship.
After the Battle of the Java Sea, the ABDA flotilla was scattered. Desperate attempts were made to escape, or to stall the invasion of Java, though to little effect. Cruisers USS Houston and HMS Perth were destroyed intercepting invading Japanese forces at the Sunda Strait;[21] others were subsequently destroyed in engagements in the Java Sea.[22] Whatever remained of the Allied fleet escaped to the Australian port of Fremantle.
Although ABDACOM did indeed fail, Jeffery Cox in Rising Sun, Falling Skies: the Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II, concluded that the Dutch attempt to protect Java was no less than pulling off a Thermopylae so that the other Allies could reorganise in the face of Japanese defeat and perform meaningful counteroffensives.[23] Citing T.J. Cain of the HMS Electra:[24]
“We knew we couldn’t win, not in the ultimate. But at least we could fight, and fulfil our obligations. We knew that we couldn’t stop an invasion, but we were still pretty confident that we’d take our toll of the invaders. We knew that the Nip was formidable, but we were sick of being chivvied around by him … British, Australian, American, Dutch, we were all in it together.”
B. Lessons Learnt: Avoiding Another Java Sea
Like Father, Like Son
The events circling Indonesia today is deeply similar to that of the Dutch East Indies in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It acts as a neutral, trying to cooperate with greater powers in all circumstances; then, it was the Anglo-Americans and the Japanese. Now it is the Anglo-American-Korean-Japanese industrial complex and the Chinese complex. Indonesia has received investment deals from all corners: the Chinese and the American Bloc (Japan, South Korea, and Singapore) being the predominant actors.[25]
Such ‘double-alignments’ could be argued to be based on the nature of the Indonesian foreign policy doctrine ‘independent and active’ (politik bebas aktif) which pivots Indonesian foreign policy in international cooperation through a non-partisan stance except in the elimination of colonialism and other forms of oppression[26] as found in the preamble to the Indonesian Constitution of 1945. Aside from that, just like the East Indies of the past, Indonesia is in great demand for foreign capital inflow to further economic growth.[27]
Being supplier and consumer of both the Western Bloc and China puts Indonesia right in the crosshairs of both in the event of war. What, then, should Indonesia do to prevent its fall if China, forever expanding, decides to put its foot to the pedal?
ABDACOM’s failures
ABDACOM’s failures lie in its miscoordinations born out of mistrust. The British and American position to assist the East Indies had always been unclear until December 1941.[28] On the other hand, Dutch commercial opportunism to the Japanese further invigorated these suspicions. Military assistance by any means did not reach the East Indies in time until early 1942, when it had been way too late. The East Indies played their money cards as if they had a strong military to back them up. The fact was, the Royal Netherlands Navy was far away and was deeply underpowered in comparison to the Japanese and the KNIL may have had the personnel, but they lacked both the experience and equipment to fight off the Japanese on their own… The KNIL itself was tasked with internal defence, that being, to quell uprisings and insurgencies, instead of facing foreign enemies much like Japan.
Strong Diplomatic Alliances
The disastrous Java Sea campaign could be contributed to the lack of trust and cooperation between the newly-instituted ABDACOM members. Concurrently, strong alliances, or at least the will to reach out for alliances, should have been taken. Indonesia should take this step.
If Communist China decides to realise its geopolitical ambitions through conventional means, Indonesia needs to ‘bunch up’ with other Southeast Asian nations, and if need be, Western powers such as Australia and the ever-present United States. The People’s Republic stands second in the world’s military budget, trailing on America; aside from that and unlike Japan, modern-day China is a more venerable adversary in terms of economics: strong, growing, and ever-expanding on a global scale.
While trade and commerce may be something on a ‘need-to-have’ basis and limiting cooperation with other nations would certainly contradict Indonesia’s independent-active foreign policy doctrine, Indonesia must, in the face of Chinese aggression, find military alliances to turn to. It is not a secret that although the Indonesian Navy has shown its steel in recent years–with interception and destruction of foreign vessels by patrol boats and corvettes–the Indonesian Army and the Indonesian Air Force perhaps have been devoid of a conventional conflict since the East Timor Intervention in 1975, facing mostly non-international conflicts against guerrillas and insurgents, making it similar, if not in the same situation as the KNIL in 1942.
Additionally, serious logistical concerns have always been an issue with the Indonesian military. A 2015 report by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) stated that due to the severe lack of maintenance, ammunition, and war materiel, with the contemporary state of the Indonesian armed forces, Indonesia would fall in about a week from a foreign invading force as significant as the United States or China.[29] Indonesia would have to up its logistics game–Historian Stephen Ambrose states in Citizen Soldiers, that the American soldier’s morale is uplifted more with warm boots, abundant ammunition, rather than his training, say, being as skilful as the German. And this, too, like anything else, demands monetary strength: another reason for military cooperation with foreign countries.
However, in the face of foreign intervention, Indonesia would turn to its Sishankamrata (citizens defence and security system), or in other words, guerrilla warfare supported by the entirety of its populace, something that had succeeded well in the Indonesian Revolution. Though popular support to fight a guerrilla war may have been true in 1945–1949, nobody could be so sure that support for the government had stayed the same in 2020.
C. CONCLUSION
Indonesia’s unique position in the geopolitical map, abundant natural resources, as well as its unique foreign policy has put it at the crosshairs of great powers for decades. It has been a ground for proxy war, trade wars, and wars fought with bank credits and ideas instead of machineguns and artillery. However, when it comes to that, unless the Indonesian government is suddenly in surplus of weaponry, supplies, and money, Indonesia cannot fight alone. Not against the Chinese.
References
Books
Hornfischer, James D. Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston, FDR’s Legendary Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of Her Survivors. New York, NY: Random House Publishing, 2017.
Weinstein, Franklin B. Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma to Dependence: From Soekarno to Soeharto. Equinox Publishing, 2007.
Quispel, H.V. Nederlansch-Indie in den Tweeden Wereldoorlog (London, UK: The Netherland Publishing Company Ltd., 1945)
Tarling, Nicholas. Britain, Southeast Asia and the onset of the Pacific War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Ojong, P.K. Perang Pasifik, 5th ed. Jakarta, Indonesia: Penerbit Buku Kompas, 2001.
Remmelink, Willem. The Invasion of the Dutch East Indies. Leiden, the Netherlands: Leiden University Press, 2015.
Cox, Jeffery. Rising Sun, Falling Skies: the Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II. Osprey Publishing, 2014
ACADEMIC JOURNALS
Newmyer, Jacqueline. “Oil, Arms, and Influence: The Indirect Strategy Behind Chinese Military Modernization” Orbis (Elsevier) (on behalf of the Foreign Policy Research Institute) Vol. 53 Issue 2 2009 204–219
ONLINE NEWSPAPERS
BBC. (bbc.co.uk)
Radio Free Asia. (Rfa.com)
MISCELLANEOUS
UNCTAD Indonesian Investment Policy Review 2018 (https://www.oecd.org/investment/investmentfordevelopment/indonesia-investmentpolicyreview-oecd.htm)
[1] P.K. Ojong, Perang Pasifik, 5th ed. (Jakarta, Indonesia: Penerbit Buku Kompas, 2001) pp. 17–23
[2] Willem Remmelink, The Invasion of the Dutch East Indies (Leiden, the Netherlands: Leiden University Press, 2015) pp. 587–589.
[3] P.K. Ojong, Perang Pasifik, p. 23.
[4] Indonesia Boosts Patrols Near Natuna Islands, as Row with China Escalate. Radio Free Asia, published 6 January 2020. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/indonesia-natuna-01062020105107.html
[5] Jacqueline Newmyer, “Oil, Arms, and Influence: The Indirect Strategy Behind Chinese Military
Modernization” Orbis (Elsevier) (on behalf of the Foreign Policy Research Institute) Vol. 53 Issue 2 2009 204–219; at p. 205
[6] Willem Remmelink, The Invasion of the Dutch East Indies (Leiden, the Netherlands: Leiden University Press, 2015) pp. 1–3
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Nicholas Tarling, Britain, Southeast Asia and the onset of the Pacific War (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996) pp. 21–25
[12] Franklin B. Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma to Dependence: From Soekarno to Soeharto (Equinox Publishing, 2007) pp. 161–162.
[13] See: Jeffery Cox, Rising Sun, Falling Skies: the Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II (Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2014) pp. 151–162
[14] Ibid. p. 240
[15] Ibid., p. 284
[16] Ibid., p. 244
[17] Ibid. p. 244–246
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] BBC Fact File: Battle of the Java Sea. https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a1122300.shtml
[21] See: James D. Hornfischer, Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston, FDR’s Legendary Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of Her Survivors. (New York, NY: Random House Publishing, 2017).
[22] Cox, Rising Sun, Falling Skies, pp. 353–367.
[23] Ibid. pp. 408.
[24] Ibid. pp. 410–411.
[25] Indonesia: Foreign Investment https://santandertrade.com/en/portal/establish-overseas/indonesia/foreign-investment retrieved 6 January 2020.
[26] Franklin B. Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma to Dependence: From Soekarno to Soeharto (Equinox Publishing, 2007) pp. 161–162.
[27] See: UNCTAD Indonesian Investment Policy Review 2018 https://www.oecd.org/investment/investmentfordevelopment/indonesia-investmentpolicyreview-oecd.htm accessed 1 January 2020. In its executive summary: “Indonesia is actively promoting investment and has worked to streamline investment approval procedures through a one-stop integrated service. Administration and promotion of investment is vested in the Indonesian Investment Co-ordination Board, while a National Team on Export and Investment Promotion has been formed to advance reforms. Local investment promotion agencies vary in capacity, and decentralisation of power has led to uneven policy implementation.”
[28] Nicholas Tarling, Britain, Southeast Asia and the onset of the Pacific War (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996) at pp. 146–148.
[29] LIPI: Jangankan 3 Hari, Indonesia Perang Selama 5 Jam Saja Keteteran. Republika, published Sunday 22 February 2015. https://nasional.republika.co.id/berita/nasional/umum/15/02/22/nk6gb2-lipi-jangankan-3-hari-indonesia-perang-selama-5-jam-sajaem-keteteranem accessed 7 January 2020. | https://medium.com/le-citoyen/at-their-mercy-a4b3e39b0667 | ['Cornelius Hamilton'] | 2020-01-15 10:33:48.886000+00:00 | ['World War II', 'Politics', 'Lc Society', 'Indonesia', 'History'] |
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