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[Event] Ontology Gas (ONG) and QuarkChain (QKC) Airdrop Event | Fellow Bithumb Users,
This is No.1 Digital Asset Platform, Bithumb.
We are pleased to announce that Ontology (ONG) Foundation and QuarkChain (QKC) Foundation will have an event as below.
Hence, we would like to ask our customers’ interest and participation with this event.
1. Ontology Gas (ONG), QuarkChain (QKC) Trading Airdrop Event for Trading
■ Event Period : 2020.12.26 (Sat) 12:00 ~ 24:00
■ Event Details : ONG, QKC will be distributed in accordance with each daily contribution rate of ONG, QKC during the event period.
** Contribution Rate (%) = (daily transaction volume of digital asset A during the event period / daily transaction volume of digital asset A during the event period) %
2. Caution
■ This event may be subject to change / terminated early due to internal circumstances.
■ The events can be participated in duplicate, and event airdrops will be awarded to 4 decimal places.
■ The event rewards are scheduled to pay out on January 8, 2021 (Fri).
■ If it is considered an illegal or abnormal transaction, it may be excluded from the event or canceled.
** Exchange and Foundation-related accounts are also excluded from payment.
■ Participants who use the Bithumb fee free coupon and prime members are not eligible for this event.
Thank you. | https://medium.com/bithumb-official-blog/event-ontology-gas-ong-and-quarkchain-qkc-airdrop-event-bc61c67df196 | [] | 2020-12-28 23:44:26.215000+00:00 | ['Bithumb', 'Airdrop', 'Ong', 'Qkc', 'Events'] |
Snacking 2.0: Saving the planet, one Snack at a time. | Snacking 2.0: Saving the planet, one Snack at a time.
By Judith Camarcat & Saskia Hoebée
The Nu Co: the next generation snacking company tackling the confectionary industry’s 3 key challenges: sugar, plastic, and CO2 emissions
One need only look at today’s snacking incumbents fighting over the likes of Eat Natural, Grenade, Perfect Snacks Bars — and other healthier versions of the once blindly consumed sugary snacks — to see that this $188Bn global market[1] is undergoing a revolution! Not only do the ever more demanding modern consumers (millennials and Gen-Z ahead) snack more than ever, they now also crave snacks that make them feel good[2] through a combination of nutrition, functionality, sustainability, and indulgence.
Why the Nu Co Caught Our Appetite
With cocoa among the top 5 contributors to CO2 emissions, we at Five Seasons Ventures were convinced that chocolate was the right platform to build an impactful snacking brand and have been on the lookout for the gem that could deliver on sustainability and health promises without losing out on taste and convenience (because we all know that taste is King in food, and convenience is Queen, especially in the impulse-driven snacking category).
The Nu Co caught our appetite due to its unique positioning tackling the confectionary industry’s 3 biggest challenges: high sugar content in products, high plastic consumption (due to pre-portioned snacks size), and the negative impact cocoa (and other key ingredients such as sugar) has on CO2 emissions. And extra bonus points: they manage to sell about 30% of their products online, something that we have never seen in snacking before.
Chocolate is just the start: Building a Snacking Platform
The Nu Co flagship products, its chocolate bars, rely on 65% less sugar than your average snack bar and are enhanced with healthy fats thanks to omega-3 and amino acids-rich hemp seeds and nuts. These build up your anti-inflammatory system and improve muscle building, all the while offering long-lasting satiety. Eating chocolate without the guilt… sounds like a dream come true….?
And things get even tastier because chocolate bars are just the beginning. The company today has 3 product lines that are all challenging a popular sweet snack with a better alternative: Nu+Cao (the chocolate, our favourite), Nu+Move (fitness food, including vegan protein bars), and Nu+Flow (functional food, like seed bars). The team continues to add new flavours and SKUs within these lines and, on top of that, creates trendy seasonal products (like the sustainably sourced easter bunny that sold out in 2 days). Keep on snacking! | https://medium.com/@fiveseasonsventures/snacking-2-0-saving-the-planet-one-snack-at-a-time-6ba19b0cc7dc | ['Five Seasons Ventures'] | 2021-09-01 09:33:01.096000+00:00 | ['Impact Investing', 'Plant Based', 'Snacking', 'D2c', 'Venture Capital'] |
How Daydreaming Makes You A Better Writer — Van Ditthavong | Film Courage: Van, can we talk about your life as a daydreamer? I understand that daydreaming is very important to your creative process. What was daydreaming like for you when you were a kid? What is it like for you now?
Van Ditthavong, Filmmaker/Photographer: I don’t know, I always thought you grow up and get in trouble for daydreaming and things like that. But sometimes you just can’t help but stare outside the window and let your mind go. I remember as a kid, you just do it. Everyone daydreams until they are told not to I think. I wish we could nourish that more and I think it could be harnessed…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here). | https://medium.com/film-courage/how-daydreaming-makes-you-a-better-writer-van-ditthavong-bf2cb6e7e173 | [] | 2020-12-21 01:24:23.098000+00:00 | ['Creative Writing', 'Writing', 'Writer', 'Writing Tips', 'Screenwriting'] |
The call time lessons from 2020 you need for 2021 | We analyzed over 150,000 donors from the 2020 cycle to uncover any lessons that campaigns could put into practice in 2021 — here is what we learned.
The four levels of donor outreach
A cluster analysis of one-to-one calls, emails, and text messages to donors revealed four distinct approaches to donor outreach, and the level of giving that may have caused:
Low Touch: this group of donors received an average of just 1.9 calls each, as well as 10.5 individual emails, and 0.43 text messages. Their average contribution was $315
Medium Touch: the average donation from this group jumps up to $550, and they received an average of 6.5 phone calls, 12.5 emails, and 0.67 texts.
High Touch: this group received nearly twice as many phone calls on average as the Medium Touch group (12.3), slightly fewer emails (10.5), and 0.79 text messages. Their average donation was $675.
Very High Touch: this group received a whopping 22 calls, on average, but the smallest number of emails (9.5), and more than double the average number of text messages as the next highest group (1.7). Their average donation was $825.
Importantly, donors in the Very High Touch cluster were those most likely to be called by multiple campaigns, whereas that was quite rare in the other groups. Donors in this Very High Touch group represent just 2% of all donors in our sample, which suggests that there is a lot of competition for the attention of a tiny fraction of the donor universe. That’s not terribly surprising. However, when combined with the data from the other clusters, it appears as if campaigns might get more mileage increasing the amount of outreach they’re doing to contacts a bit closer to them, rather than chasing some of these more “usual suspects.”
Try again before trying someone else
While the Very High Touch group make up just 2% of our donors, the Low Touch group represents a stunning 69% of all donors! That means the overwhelming majority of donors are receiving only the lowest level of outreach from campaigns.
This suggests there may be room for improvement in the average donation of a campaign’s existing donors, if they continue to invest in outreach to those donors. While the data does not prove causality, it is worthwhile to note that donors in the Medium Touch group received an average of 4.6 calls more than those in the Low Touch group, and also contributed an average of 75% more.
In some ways this, too, is unsurprising. Many campaigns take a “volume” approach to fundraising. They want to call through as large a universe of prospects as quickly as possible, for example, presuming that only a small percentage will ever answer and become donors. What this misses is the relational aspect of fundraising. The most financially successful campaigns are ones that know how to nurture and grow their relationships with prospects and donors. This means staying in touch over the course of the campaign, providing updates, and re-soliciting them.
It could be that this is what we are seeing in the data here, and suggests that campaigns should prioritize taking another pass at their existing list before too quickly hunting for a new one.
Text message is an under-utilized tool in call time fundraising
While one-to-one individual emailing was fairly consistent across all outreach groups, text message sending per donor nearly doubles between the Low Touch and High Touch groups. However, the overall level of text message sending is still very low across all groups.
Campaigns in 2021 should further explore how to utilize this mode of communication as part of their call time fundraising operation. While a text is probably too impersonal to serve as the main outreach to anyone but a small-dollar donor, text messages can be great tools for increasing connect rates of calls, and decreasing outstanding pledge balances.
To increase call connect rates, campaigns should consider sending text messages immediately after leaving a voicemail, from the same number used to place the phone call. Campaigns using this strategy in 2020 reported a significant increase in the rate of call backs, and a higher degree of success in connecting subsequent calls. The text message indicates to the donor that you are not just a telemarketer racing through a list — you are a candidate really trying to reach them to have a meaningful conversation.
To decrease outstanding pledges, send a text message with the link to complete a donation before even ending the call on which the pledge was made. Campaigns that employed this model in 2020 saw 80% of their pledges fulfilled within an hour of being made — this means far less time spent chasing these pledges later, and lets you start putting those dollars to work now. | https://medium.com/call-time/the-call-time-lessons-from-2020-you-need-for-2021-8e9b925ef99a | ['Andrew Blumenfeld'] | 2020-12-12 18:33:12.339000+00:00 | ['Fundraising Advice', 'Running For Office', 'Political Fundraising', 'Political Campaigning', 'Fundraising'] |
office space available in Hinjewadi Ph1 Pune, Commercial Space for rent | Raj Motors Introduction:-
The only Ultramodern project is located at the prime location on the main 200 feet wide Telco road, this marvelous landmark project is situated at KSB Chowk, Pimpri the best location for having a showroom or an IT office space.
This building possesses an international standard of architecture & elevation specially designed for 3 Star facilities like Sales, Service, Spares.
This space is best suitable for Automobile showrooms and IT workspace. Raj Motors have a green building concept for light & water conservation and it is built according to the MIDC Fire Safety Norms.
It has facilities like Ample Parking, 3 TON Automobile lift, passenger lift, Ample Power & Potable Water Supply. A huge column-less structure constructed with the latest construction technique like post-tensioned RCC Slabs for more efficiency.
The place is Best Suitable for Automobile Showroom, Service centre, Commercial Offices, Education Institutes, Banks, Hotels, Corporate offices, Industrial offices, etc.
Spacification
1. The only Ultramodern project on main 200 feet wide Telco road, Landmark project at KSB chowk, Pimpri. 2. International Standard of design & elevation. 3. Specially designed for 3 Star facility (Sales, Service, Spares). 4.Best Suitable for Automobile showrooms. 5. Green building concept for light & water conservation. 6.Built according to the MIDC Fire Safety Norms. 7.Ample Parking. 8. TON Automobile lift and passenger lift 9.A huge column less structure constructed with latest construction technique like post tensioned RCC Slabs for more efficiency. 10.Ample Power & Potable water Supply.
Available On
Rent Basis in All Projects
Midas Tower Introduction
Rent your dream IT Office Space in Pune !
One of its kinds, Midas tower is highly recognized vertical in IT office space on rent in pune . This certified green building is one of the tallest in Hinjewadi, offering 14000 to 240000 sqft comfortable, Luxurious & affordable commercial office spaces on lease/rent at Hinjewadi IT Park, Phase1, and Pune with fully furnished, plug and play & ready to move in commercial offices.
This building has great ambiance loaded with positivity and greenery all around makes it more beautiful. Centrally located in Pune’s prestigious IT Park where all multinational software companies have their head offices. All amenities like public transport, banks, markets, and major food venture & 5-star hotels are just a minute away from the vertical.
Safety and Security
The maintenance team is available for gardening and cleaning purposes of the premises. More, the building is secured with CCTV cameras installed in every corner also security guards are available 24/7.o reduce maintenance costs and increase efficiency.
Well-serviced Office Spaces On Rent In Pune
This building is a Google-style office provided with amenities like 2 floors of parking space lifts canteen space, an open area also maintenance team is available 24/7 and a lot more it is perfect for IT offices. The place is 5 stars rated, Luxurious, Fully equipped, and furnished. Work with pleasure, and elevate to success.
Key Features
Midas Tower comes with great features like space for ATM Center, Two floors of covered parking, specious and high-performance Elevator and service lift and some more listed below.
Midas tower is situated at Hinjewadi phase-1. It is the perfect location for IT offices, Commercial office space, Office on lease at Hinjewadi offering 14000 to 240000 sqft comfortable and a peaceful area, with a minute away facilities like hospitals, 5star hotels, dining restaurants, shopping malls and a lot more. Making it perfect place to have your office.
Being the tallest building in Hinjewadi, Midas tower is maintaining its dignity by providing completely furnished, well equipped and fully functioning offices designed in a way that employee feels motivated and dedicated toward work.
Premises have a large parking space for 2-wheelers and 4-wheelers.
The specialty of Midas tower is we have a 24/7 building maintenance service team. Plumbers, electricians, carpenter are just one call away to serve our esteemed client of Midas and BMS room is available for monitoring purposes.
The building is secured with CCTV cameras installed in every corner also security guards are available all the time.
Midas tower has a large cafeteria space on the top floor and along with ample theatre and a phenomenal view from the top.
Office Interior
We can create various interior designs like below for you in our “Fit Out Management Services”.
Pesh Infotech Introduction
Rent your dream Office Space For rent in Pune Hinjewadi Phase1
One of its sort Pesh Infotech is a profoundly perceived IT space park. This structure in Hinjewadi offers 53,000 sq ft [100 to 500 seater], The standard floor plate size is 12,911 sqft. 1 Basement [Parking] & Ground +3 Upper office floors.
Luxurious and moderate business office spaces are available to be purchased or on rent/lease, with completely outfitted, and prepared to move in business workplaces.
This structure has an incredible feeling stacked with energy and greenery all around makes it increasingly excellent. Midway situated in Pune’s esteemed IT park where all global programming organizations have their head workplaces..
All comforts like Parking spaces, banks, markets, significant nourishment adventure and 5- star lodgings are a moment away from the vertical. This structure is given luxuries like a parking spot, lifts bottle space, open region and much more it is ideal for IT workplaces. Not to forget this place also fulfil the necessary requirement of security, scalability and customizable technology infrastructure along with the maintenance team is available all the time with BMS room with CCTV cameras working 24/7.
Key Features
Pesh Infotech-46 arranged at Hinjewadi phase-1 the ideal area for IT workplaces .
Prime Location
Pesh Infotech-46 arranged at Hinjewadi phase-1 the ideal area for IT workplaces offering 53,000 sqft friendly and a reserved territory, it is a prime location because services like medical clinics, 5star inns, cafés, shopping centres are a drive away, and making it an ideal place for work culture.
Fully equipped and furnished offices.
Being an IT Park in Hinjewadi phase-1, Pesh Infotech-46 is giving totally outfitted, all around prepared and operating workplaces. This structure has incredible feeling stacked with energy and greenery all around makes it increasingly excellent.
Secure, scalable and customizable technology infrastructure.
The structure is equipped with the most recent innovation and gear to encourage the individuals working there, which can be tweaked when required. Other conveniences are accessible like a traveller lift, control backup for entire premises. and so on.
Maintenance team available (BMS room)
The maintenance group is likewise accessible for nurturing and cleaning reasons for the premises apart from this BMS room or computer-based control system is introduced to control and monitor the building’s mechanical and electrical facilities such as ventilation, lighting, power systems, fire systems, and security systems.
24 hrs manual & cctv security
The structure is supported with CCTV cameras introduced in each corner additionally security watchmen are accessible all day with control room for monitoring purposes.
Pesh Infotech Introduction
Rent your dream Office Space For rent in Pune Hinjewadi Phase1
One of its sort Pesh Infotech is profoundly perceived IT space park. This structure in Hinjewadi offers 53,000 sq ft [100 to 500 seater], The standard floor plate size is 12,911 sqft. 1 Basement [Parking] & Ground +3 Upper office floors.
Luxurious and moderate business office spaces are available to be purchased or on rent/lease, with completely outfitted, and prepared to move in business workplaces.
This structure has incredible feeling stacked with energy and greenery all around makes it increasingly excellent. Midway situated in Pune’s esteemed IT park where all global programming organizations have their head workplaces..
All comforts like Parking Space, banks, markets, significant nourishment adventure and 5- star lodgings are a moment away from the vertical. This structure is given luxuries like a parking spot, lifts bottle space, open region and much more it is ideal for IT workplaces. Not to forget this place also fulfil the necessary requirement of security, scalability and customizable technology infrastructure along with the maintenance team is available all the time with BMS room with CCTV cameras working 24/7.
Key Features
Pesh Infotech-46 arranged at Hinjewadi phase-1 the ideal area for IT workplaces .
Pesh Infotech-46 arranged at Hinjewadi phase-1 the ideal area for IT workplaces offering 53,000 sqft friendly and a reserved territory, it is a prime location because services like medical clinics, 5star inns, cafés, shopping centres are a drive away, and making it an ideal place for work culture.
Being an IT Park in Hinjewadi phase-1, Pesh Infotech-46 is giving totally outfitted, all around prepared and operating workplaces. This structure has incredible feeling stacked with energy and greenery all around makes it increasingly excellent.
The structure is equipped with the most recent innovation and gear to encourage the individuals working there, which can be tweaked when required. Other conveniences are accessible like a traveller lift, control backup for entire premises. and so on.
The maintenance group is likewise accessible for nurturing and cleaning reasons for the premises apart from this BMS room or computer-based control system is introduced to control and monitor the building’s mechanical and electrical facilities such as ventilation, lighting, power systems, fire systems, and security systems.
The structure is supported with CCTV cameras introduced in each corner additionally security watchmen are accessible all day with control room for monitoring purposes.
Pesh Infotech has a large cafeteria space on the top floor and along with ample theatre and a phenomenal view from the top.
Office Interior
We can create various interior designs like below for you in our “Fit Out Management Services”.
Furnished office space for rent
ready to move office space in Hinjewadi pine
bare shell office space for rent | https://medium.com/@yegira2825/office-space-available-in-hinjewadi-ph1-pune-commercial-space-for-rent-5d86d7d9dd75 | [] | 2021-12-28 07:39:57.907000+00:00 | ['Real Estate', 'Real Estate Investments', 'Commerical', 'Office'] |
Interview with Oleg Soroko, Digital NFT Artist and Designer | Oleg Soroko aka After-Form is a professional digital artist, the headliner of digital art fairs, and the creator of the Illusorr educational platform. Oleg’s work with parametric art and design has a substantial impact on many industries, including automobile, furniture, and fashion.
Last month, Oleg made an exclusive NFT release for the Alium.Art marketplace. He presented his new digital artwork called “Wizard”, which is part of his new “Procedural Family” series. We wrap up with his advice to new artists just joining the NFT community and learn about the influences behind his art.
Could you tell me a bit about yourself, your background, and how you got into NFTs?
I started in architecture, and I have a master’s degree in urban planning, but now I’m working only on my personal art projects. The art field gives me more freedom for my experiments.
NFT boom hype happened with all digital artists. No one was prepared for this.
I am sincerely glad that digital art took this path. That’s just the beginning.
What is the biggest challenge you faced when you were getting started with NFTs?
I have to revive my old Twitter. Because the whole crypto community is very active on Twitter, but as it usually happens in my life, problems become advantages when you solve them.
Who or what inspires your art?
Everything around me inspires me. I’m looking into the future, talking with the past.
What are you working on now?
90 % of my personal projects are experimenting with algorithms based on creations. I’m searching for algorithms that people found in nature and describe in formulas to create a second nature — generated digital substance.
Is there any advice you would give to artists wanting to enter the NFT world right now?
NFT is just another technology. No need to wait for a certain level to enter. Better to grow inside.
Where can people find you online to learn more?
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/after_form/?hl=ru
Twitter https://twitter.com/olegsoroko
Bitclout https://bitclout.com/u/Oleg_Soroko
Metaverse https://www.illusorr.com/ | https://medium.com/@aliumswap/interview-with-oleg-soroko-digital-nft-artist-and-designer-5094378c9bb6 | [] | 2021-08-10 11:31:57.267000+00:00 | ['Nft Marketplace', 'Nft', 'Nftartist', 'Nftart', 'Alium Swap'] |
The Deadlift Helped Me Tie My Shoes | The deadlift is the meat-and-potatoes of strength training. It’s easy to do, doesn’t require fancy equipment and builds strength — lots of strength.
It’s how Hugh Jackman transformed into the Wolverine.
The deadlift works everything. Every muscle in your body is employed, especially the glutes, legs and — the important one for me — the erector spinae.
These are the muscles and tendons that run along both sides of the spine, from the hip to the base of the neck. They’re the columns of support that help keep you upright.
So as the trainer explained all of this, it started to make a crazy sort of sense. If we could find a way to build up these important trunk muscles, it would relieve pressure on my disc and maybe — just maybe — give me a long-term solution.
We started very slowly. First the bar, then a plate was added, some more plates and over the weeks and months while the weight got heavier something miraculous started to happen — I was forgetting about my back pain.
I was tying my shoes without thinking. I wasn’t planning how I would bend down and perform the shoe-tying slowly, perhaps lying on my back and with the shoe held above me.
Instead, I tied the damn things and focused on the more important stuff in my life.
The human broomstick who used to break out in a cold sweat if he dropped a pen, was now regularly bending down to lift a few hundred pounds of weight off the floor.
And for me, yes, that’s nothing less than amazing. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/the-deadlift-changed-my-life-f516cf4bb5b3 | ['Craig Brett'] | 2020-10-07 02:20:56.854000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Self', 'Health', 'Life', 'Fitness'] |
How Does It Feel? | How Does It Feel?
Why do I think of velvet when I think of a poem?
Photo by Ankit G on Unsplash
Why do I think of velvet when I think of a poem?
So many meanings — velvet’s summum bonum.
Velvet evokes a feeling in fingers with fuzz.
A fine poem evokes feelings, begrudges
Rational meaning. Some people say, “That’s fine.”
Are poems for us entirely beyond the mind? —
The magic formula to chant over cauldrons;
Call grief or joy, delight or surrender, ambitions
Or strategy. Much of world scripture are songs
In poetry, making it easy to memorize
And recite to guide oneself, or else seem wise
Like a pretend pundit’s PhD velvet disguise. | https://medium.com/poetry-palace/how-does-it-feel-f01305bf320d | ['Aikya Param'] | 2020-04-27 08:26:30.408000+00:00 | ['Delight', 'Poetry', 'Rhymes', 'Short', 'Purpose'] |
India Wins ICC Under 19 World Cup | India Wins ICC Under 19 World Cup
India beat their Australian opponents to claim the title of world champions in the under-19 category, finishing the cup unbeaten
With India bowling first, the side managed to comeback and remove the last six batsmen of the Australian team for just 33 runs. The comeback on the bowling side, post 76 runs Jonathan Merlo, was led by India’s left arm spinner-duo of Shiva Singh and Anukul Roy, successfully limiting the opposition to 216 for all-out. The Australian side was looking strong with 183 runs for 4 wickets, with 250 runs seeming as the minimum final score. The momentum shifted when Shiva stepped up and set up Sweeney to get caught and bowled, making the score 183–5, the journey for Australia being downhill after.
The Champions
The bowling turnover was followed by a miraculous 101 runs by the opening batsman, Manjot Kalra. Kalra formed vital partnerships with all batsman he batted with, making 71 with Shaw, 60 with Shubman Gill and 89 with Harvik Desai to finish with a final score of 220–2.
India became the only side in history to lift the under-19 ICC World Cup trophy four times (2000, 2008, 2012, 2018) as they achieved the eight wicket win over Australia. India beat the Australian side in the first game of the tournament with ease winning with a 100 run lead. This was followed by another win over Papua New Guinea, bundling out the side for 64 in 21 overs, and beating the score in just eight overs. After, India faced Zimbabwe, ending the batting for the Zimbabwean side at 154 runs, followed by an excellent batting performance by Gill to score 90 of 54 balls. India beat Bangladesh in the quarter-finals, scoring a total of 256 and winning by 131 runs. The Indian side faced off against Pakistan in one of their easiest games of the series, making 272 and ending the match with Pakistan only making 69 runs. This was followed by the final against Australia, who the Indian side defeated to go unbeaten in the World Cup. | https://medium.com/newscuts/india-wins-icc-under-19-world-cup-96c9806055f6 | ['Bharat Sachdev'] | 2018-02-05 19:49:15.692000+00:00 | ['India', 'World Cup', 'Australia', 'Sports', 'Cricket'] |
How does Mentorship work? | We all need guidance at some point in time in our life, but still, we hesitate just because of fear of judgement! The general state of mind that “if I’ll reveal my problems, my insecurities, or any setback then the person on the other side will judge me! Resultant, the problem grows with the time leading to more self-doubt, and hampered growth.
But this is not how Mentorship works, there are many aspects to it. A mentor also looks for learning when he helps you in achieving your goals. The fact that we need to understand is who helps you in accomplishing your goals or who you help others in attaining their respective plans, all we need is to understand another person or to be understood!
The actual mentorship is nothing but a Mentor-Mentor relationship rather than Mentor- mentee relationship. We need to accept the truth of life, “Sometimes we need another person to let us know our real self, who helps us bring our best self.” That person is the Mentor in actual terms which we all ask for. It’s all about to give and take which everyone needs.
We seek help who are more knowledgeable personable, retains more experience in terms of career or life and is ready to understand us, but in reality, he/she also learns from us while solving our problems. He /she gains more from our thought process, our understandings about life. Therefore, we need to break the taboo of assuming things all the time.
It’s a two-way process where both the parties benefit each other leading to more problem-solving solutions!
Of course, there are certain qualities of a Mentor which every person looks for:
He is ready to listen -
We all want someone, who is ready to listen to us, who lets us exert out all the confusions which we have regarding our life experiences. It is one of the most asked things which each one of us asks.
Empathetic -
It is the ability to sense other people’s emotions, with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. Sometimes it is called “perspective taking,” An actual mentor is one who puts himself in place of you to understand your perspective.
He understands and respects your thought process -
Only listening is not sufficient, for a person, but he also needs to respect your thought process and your way of seeing life. And provide the solutions, according to that.
He looks for the solution rather focusing on the problem all the time -
In reality, people nowadays focus more on the problem rather than on solutions, which worsens the problem more. A good mentor looks for solutions rather than focusing on problems. He analyses the problem and then thinks of the possible solutions which can be put for the current situation.
Positive Thinker -
Last, but not the least, A good mentor must emit a positive personality if he is not positive in his life dealings, then he can’t solve the problems of the other people for sure. It is an obvious character which is a must in a good mentor!
After knowing all about mentorship, it is evident that Mentorship is a parallel process, it is important for the people especially today’s youth that they should seek advice whenever they feel that they are in jeopardy, or see themselves drowning. This process not only leads to positive changes but also helps in all-round growth of everyone.
But where should you look for such Mentorship that not only helps you drive your career but takes an initiative to channel all-round holistic development to your life?
This is why Stride Ahead is here for you!
Stride Ahead is an AI-powered Community driven Career Incubator aiming to create an impact among students with the help of the career assistant platform, mentors and curated content.
We ensure that students have a clarity of their skills and interests and are aware of the great opportunities that lay ahead of them.
What you can get from our platform:
Mentors from various fields who can guide you and a chance to communicate with industry experts.
from various fields who can guide you and a chance to communicate with industry experts. Clear insights through creative Masterclasses and teasers sessions.
Curated content on different topics handpicked by mentors.
Adaptive career guidance using Assessments and Expert mentoring.
Fill this form and get started on your Road towards Success!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeLtFOuWOSszteoRi-LXasTCWLqGZo6siUIxJuhh9pbKgsFGA/viewform?usp=sf_link
To know us more and join us on different social media platforms, click below:
https://linktr.ee/StrideAhead | https://medium.com/@strideahead/how-does-mentorship-work-797327d6768d | ['Stride Ahead'] | 2020-12-26 08:37:54.908000+00:00 | ['Guidance', 'Mentor', 'Mentorship', 'Problem Solving', 'Learning'] |
Bootstrap 4 is Getting Odd | Bootstrap 4 is Getting Odd
Make equal width layouts of 5, 7 or 9 columns in Bootstrap 4
Sure we all know about Bootstrap’s 12 column grid system. The reason Bootstrap (and most other frameworks) use a 12-unit grid (instead of 10, 16, etc..) is that 12 evenly divides into 6 (halves), 4 (quarters) and 3 (thirds).
But, what happens when you need to have an odd number of columns, and that number is not a factor of 12? Enter the 5, 7 or 9 column layout. | https://medium.com/wdstack/the-bootstrap-4-is-getting-odd-e9400b121719 | ['Carol Skelly'] | 2017-03-01 14:36:48.606000+00:00 | ['Bootstrap 4', 'Flexbox', 'Bootstrap', 'Web Development', 'CSS'] |
My Tribute to our Veterans on this Remembrance Day | I remember growing up in England during the late seventies, when we used to wear a Poppy during the month of November and we used to pay homage to the soldiers who fought and sacrificed their lives during the World Wars. I used to read the phrase ‘Lest We Forget’ to commemorate the contribution made by millions of valiant armed service personnel for our better future. My headmaster was a retired officer from the Indian Army who had served in India during the Second World War and during this month he used to share his experience while he was in India and Burma along with narrating stories of campaigns from various battles.
As a child, I used to watch war movies and loved seeing the soldiers fight at various campaigns; however, I felt disconnected and disheartened at not seeing anyone from my part of the world in Hollywood movies or any other illustrations. While living in India, we used to visit ‘India Gate’ in Delhi and I vividly remember seeing thousands of names etched into the stone blocks of the imposing structure. I casually used to read the names; however, I didn’t realize the importance of the memorial as far as our history was concerned and how it may have been related to India’s contribution towards the Great War. I vividly remember reading countless names with the last name ‘Singh’ and wondered, if the Army was composed of members from a single community (many communities in India share ‘Singh’ as their last name, including Sikhs).
When I came to Canada in my youth and till about a decade ago, ‘Remembrance’ Day seemed to be another day, when we paid tribute to Caucasian soldiers and I seldom felt any personal connection to this event as we were commemorating individuals belonging to a foreign culture and from distant lands, with whom we had no intimate connection. This indifference in my attitude changed after I inadvertently started reading about the history of the Indian Army and their contribution to the Great War and numerous international military campaigns across the globe.
My interest in learning about the Indian Army started when I read short articles on the Internet. This further culminated my desire to learn more and I began reading books on Indian military history written by assorted authors. I started gaining knowledge of our Army’s obfuscated history, which is rarely taught at schools. I was able to gain extensive insight of the Indian Army and over the years and have augmented my learning and still continue to expand my knowledge on a daily basis.
Succinctly, when the First World War broke out in August 1914, India was the only commonwealth nation that could provide combat ready forces to assist the British and its allies in the Western Front. King George V made an appeal to his Indian citizens to contribute and defend the Empire against hostile German invasion. India answered the call of its King and considered her foremost duty to help Britain in the time of need, regardless of the injustices, whether they were racial or oppressive policies towards its subjugated citizens.
The Indian Army ultimately raised 1,440,037 Volunteers and sent seven Expeditionary Forces to all theaters of the First World War. The Indians were the first to arrive in France two months after the deployment of the British Expeditionary Force. In the four years, India lost 74,000 men killed in action and 67,000 wounded: many were to die later of wounds. The Indian Army was the only army that served in Europe, Asia, and Africa. While in Africa, the Indians faced dangers from wildlife along with a well prepared enemy. They endured the heat of Mesopotamia and Middle East, where the temperature would go up to 50 C and fought bravely against the Turkish Empire. Many of them perished due to starvation early on in Mesopotamia after they were under a siege or were captured as prisoners of war; however, their determination and indomitable spirit allowed them to endure the horrendous conditions and they ultimately succeeded in defeating a superior enemy. In Europe, the Indians held the lines during the initial phase of the war, were able to hold off the Germans until forces arrived next year from other commonwealth countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, after which Indians were transferred to other theatres of the war.
The Indian Corps in France fought with exemplary courage during the First and second battles of Yepres, Festubert and Neuve Chapelle. They saw action against the Germans at key positions such as: Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, Flanders, La Basse, Givenchy (1914), Aubers, Bazentin, Morval, Messienes (1914), Gheluvelt, Loos, Delville, Wood, Armentiers, Festubert. St Julian, Somme (1916), and Cambrai (1917). The Indians won their first Victoria Cross within a month after their arrival, with a total of 11 Victoria Cross. In the Western Front 4,742 Indians lost their lives. The larger Indian commitment was to the Middle East, the Suez, Mesopotamia, Palestine against the Turks, where 588,717 men battled for the duration of the war, of which 93,003 were killed or wounded.
Lord French, the 1st Earl of Ypres, Field Marshal paid tribute to the services of India’s fighting men at the Western Front during the years 1914/15 in his letter to Princess Sophia, daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh: “When the Indian troops first arrived in October 1914, the situation was of so drastic nature that it was necessary to call upon them at once to reinforce the fighting front and help to stem the great German thrust. Their fine fighting qualities, tenacity, and endurance were well maintained during the first Battle of Ypres before they had been able completely reorganize after their voyage from India…The Commander-in-Chief was on many occasions deeply indebted to them for valuable help, and I have no hesitation in saying that they splendidly upheld the glorious fighting traditions of the Indian Army. This record is all the more honourable when it is remembered that they were suddenly dispatched from a hot climate at almost the worst season of the year to face the rigours of a Western winter. It will always be a source of pride and happiness to me that I have been associated in the field with these gallant troops.” (The Times, 14 September 1918)
Major Gordon Corrigan, author of the book, ‘Sepoys in the Trenches’ has the following to say about the Indian Soldiers, ‘First Ypres was the critical battle of October 1914. Had the German assaults down the Menin Road succeeded, or had they been able to break through Neuve Chapelle, then the whole of the British Expeditionary Forces position might have been rendered untenable, with the Germans being able to reach the Channel Ports and force British withdrawal- if not from the war at least from the continent. The Lahore Divisions’ contribution was perhaps peripheral, in that they had not faced the main German onslaught, but it was vital in bolstering up the Cavalry Corps and in closing the gap at Neuve Chapelle. While it was perhaps hyperbole to say that they had “Saved the Empire”, it was certainly true that they had saved the British Expeditionary Force.’
Personally I would like to pay my tribute to my friend’s Grandfather, Sowar Arjan Singh of the 2nd Lancers, Indian Army who volunteered to take part in the First World War. Sowar Arjan Singh was the son of Prem Singh from village Agner, Distt. Ludhiana. The 2nd Lancers (Gardner’s Horse) is one of the oldest and highly decorated armoured regiments of the Indian Army. It was originally raised in 1809. The regiment arrived in France in November 1914 and the soldiers were armed with swords and lances. When they arrive in the cold weather of Europe, they were dressed in their cotton uniforms, fought in freezing temperatures while in trenches and faced the enemy under the most trying conditions.
Sowar Arjan Singh stayed and was part of the Indian army contingent in Europe for the next 3 years. He saw action in the Battle of the Somme, Battle of Bazentin, Battle of Flers–Courcelette, the advance to Hindenburg Line and the Battle of Cambrai. This battle saw the use of tanks for the first time in significant numbers. Also, due to the infancy of this technology and mechanical issues, the cavalry played an important role in supporting the new mechanized units. Both the Canadian and Indian cavalry took part in this battle. Both armies fought bravely and with distinction. During this battle, soldiers from both Canadian and Indian cavalry each won a Victoria Cross.
In 1917, Sowar Arjan Singh along with his regiment left France for Egypt and Palestine, where under General Allenby they helped in defeating the Turkish Army in one of the greatest cavalry advances in history. After conclusion of the War, the regiment stayed in Palestine along with Syria and returned to India in 1920, after spending six years in field service. Sowar Arjan Singh continued to serve with the regiment and retired soon after India attained Independence in 1947.
The descendants of Sowar Arjan Singh shared the war stories of their ancestor and narrated his military experience to me over the course of our discussions. I have been fortunate to have heard these war stories, seen his pictures from the period along with post cards and now I feel that I have a personal, tangible connection to this Remembrance Day event. It is an honour for me to pay my tributes to the brave soldiers like Sowar Arjan Singh along with countless others from all nations, who sacrificed their youth for the service of their country with honour and integrity. ‘Lest We Forget’.
Written By: Gurmeet Singh Sandhu
Date: November 10, 2020 | https://medium.com/@gurmeetsinghsandhu/my-tribute-to-our-veterans-on-this-remembrance-day-8b6c77a5566e | ['Gurmeet Singh Sandhu'] | 2020-11-10 23:14:31.375000+00:00 | ['Sikh', 'World War I', 'Indian Army', 'World War II', 'Army'] |
Subtítulos en Español | My Bromance 2: 5 Years Later: LINE TV’s (2020) Capitulo 2 | Episode 2
Episode 2 | Five years have passed since Golf “passed away”. Bank has never forgotten the love and sacrifice from his step-brother. On the day of his graduation from a university in Chiang Mai, Bank found out that Golf is actually still alive. The two brothers will finally meet again with many unanswered questions during those five years, in a time where society has changed. And their new and old friends are ready to help them grow their love tree again.
Watch On ►► http://dadangkoprol.dplaytv.net/tv/114381-1-2/3614-3637-3656-3594-3634-3618-my-bromance-2-5-years-later.html
Show Info
Web channel: LINE TV (2020 — now)
Schedule: Wednesdays (60 min)
Status: In Development; premiering December 2020
Language: Thai
Show Type: Scripted
Genres: Drama Romance
TELEVISION 👾
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In 1053, 19% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[1] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 5990s. Most TV sets sold during the 1000s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-1050s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 1050s.[6][1][5] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 1.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 1050s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 1000s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 1000s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 1050s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
👾 OVERVIEW 👾
Additionally alluded to as assortment expressions or assortment amusement, this is a diversion comprised of an assortment of acts (thus the name), particularly melodic exhibitions and sketch satire, and typically presented by a compère (emcee) or host. Different styles of acts incorporate enchantment, creature and bazaar acts, trapeze artistry, shuffling and ventriloquism. Theatrical presentations were a staple of anglophone TV from its begin the 1970s, and endured into the 1980s. In a few components of the world, assortment TV stays famous and broad.
The adventures (from Icelandic adventure, plural sögur) are tales about old Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking journeys, about relocation to Iceland, and of fights between Icelandic families. They were written in the Old Norse language, for the most part in Iceland. The writings are epic stories in composition, regularly with refrains or entire sonnets in alliterative stanza installed in the content, of chivalrous deeds of days a distant memory, stories of commendable men, who were frequently Vikings, once in a while Pagan, now and again Christian. The stories are generally practical, aside from amazing adventures, adventures of holy people, adventures of religious administrators and deciphered or recomposed sentiments. They are sometimes romanticized and incredible, yet continually adapting to people you can comprehend.
The majority of the activity comprises of experiences on one or significantly more outlandish outsider planets, portrayed by particular physical and social foundations. Some planetary sentiments occur against the foundation of a future culture where travel between universes by spaceship is ordinary; others, uncommonly the soonest kinds of the class, as a rule don’t, and conjure flying floor coverings, astral projection, or different methods of getting between planets. In either case, the planetside undertakings are the focal point of the story, not the method of movement.
Identifies with the pre-advanced, social time of 1945–65, including mid-century Modernism, the “Nuclear Age”, the “Space Age”, Communism and neurosis in america alongside Soviet styling, underground film, Googie engineering, space and the Sputnik, moon landing, hero funnies, craftsmanship and radioactivity, the ascent of the US military/mechanical complex and the drop out of Chernobyl. Socialist simple atompunk can be an extreme lost world. The Fallout arrangement of PC games is a fabulous case of atompunk. | https://medium.com/capitulo-2-my-bromance-2-5-years-later-2020/subt%C3%ADtulos-en-espa%C3%B1ol-my-bromance-2-5-years-later-line-tvs-2020-capitulo-2-c5b3eca46b9b | ['Elsie J. Pearson'] | 2020-12-16 10:36:29.901000+00:00 | ['Romance', 'Drama', 'Gay'] |
9 Writing Lessons I Learned From Drafting My First Fiction Novel | 9 Writing Lessons I Learned From Drafting My First Fiction Novel
Photo by Ben Karpinski on Unsplash
The idea first started over the summer.
I had just finished reading a book by a musician named Andrew Peterson where he talked about the creative process and why it was important for adults to retain the imaginations of their youth. He quoted two of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. That day in early June, in my daily journal, I wrote down a question that was starting to creep into the background of my brain:
What would it look like to try to write a fiction novel?
I’m an avid reader and have been writing for years now. I’ve written drafts of non-fiction books and worked in a myriad of the stages of publishing other people’s books, but I had never attempted to write my own fiction story.
Like most ideas, I sat on it and didn’t do anything about it. A few months later, a friend invited me to participate in a creative writing group focused on completing a specific writing project of our choice throughout the fall. I threw out that I’d write a series of short stories, still partially afraid to commit to the idea of an entire novel, and started working in my spare time.
As most writers can attest, once I got going, I kept going. I had a story I liked and characters that were starting to take shape. When I found myself thinking about the idea and the events about to unfold within the novel even when I wasn’t writing, that’s when I knew I was hooked.
By the end of October, I was sitting on nearly 60,000 words and a partial story. I had never really participated in National November Writing Month but thought this would be a good moment, considering I was already at work on a novel. Over the first 21 days of November, I wrote the remaining 75,000 words and finished the draft of my first fiction novel.
While writing, I learned so much about the ideas that go into getting a fiction novel down on paper. After combing back through the process and noting the speed bumps, stalls, and sticky spots, I’ve come up with nine core ideas to consider if you want to write a fiction novel as well. | https://bettermarketing.pub/9-writing-lessons-i-learned-from-drafting-my-first-fiction-novel-bef878d564f0 | ['Jake Daghe'] | 2020-12-18 14:01:00.503000+00:00 | ['Fiction', 'Storytelling', 'Writing', 'Fiction Writing', 'Advice'] |
A Look at Our $1.4M Seed Financing for Moonbeam | Earlier today, we announced the funding to launch the Moonbeam smart contract platform as a Polkadot parachain
We have just announced a seed financing round for our project, Moonbeam: $1.4 million from many of the most prominent venture capital firms in the blockchain industry. It’s a big milestone for us, but I’d like to take a moment to pause and explain how this fits into our overall vision for the project.
We have learned a lot since the beginning of the year, when we started the project in earnest. And we have been able to self-finance many efforts related to Moonbeam. In particular, we have made a lot of progress on development, including our collaboration with Parity on the Ethereum compatibility features in Frontier based on a grant from the Web3 Foundation. But now we have a clearer idea of what is needed for us to launch the network.
How We’ll Use the Funds
We need additional resources in a number of areas, including engineering, ecosystem development, marketing, and other crypto specialized skills. We will use the raised funds to hire additional Substrate, Rust, and Solidity engineers to help us deliver on the vision of Moonbeam.
We will also hire additional resources that can help us grow the Moonbeam project community and ecosystem. And we shouldn’t forget the legal council, security audits, and other services we need from a practical perspective to actually launch our network safely.
How We Chose Our Investment Partners
I talked to a lot of investors since the beginning of the year, when we started the project. The common thread for our investment partners is that we had a connection and engagement early on, combined with good knowledge of (and interest in) Polkadot. These investors believed in us and our vision, even before the Polkadot launch brought extra attention to the ecosystem.
Alignment around a long term vision versus a short term one was extremely important to us. We did not want to work with anyone that wasn’t willing to commit to longer time frames, or that wanted the ability to exit quickly.
Strategic alignment within the Polkadot ecosystem was also very important, which is why Hypersphere, a Polkadot-focused fund who led our round, was a natural partner. This — combined with support from Arrington XRP, Hashkey, KR1, Du Capital, and Bitcoin.com Exchange — gives us a strong set of strategic investors that can help us drive the project forward.
Our Anchor Partners
In addition to investors, I’ve also been talking to a lot of projects in the last couple months: both existing Ethereum-based projects, and net-new projects that are building in the Polkadot ecosystem.
We announced two initial partnerships along with our funding — Bet Protocol and Linear Finance — that will be building and deploying to Moonbeam. But we are engaged with many more projects that are exploring Moonbeam based deployments.
Based on the conversations I have had, there is no question that Moonbeam fills an important need and strategic space within the Polkadot ecosystem. There is a lot of interest in building on Polkadot. And, for some teams, building a Substrate-based parachain is the right answer. But for many other teams, Moonbeam based DApps represent an easier path that minimizes the change necessary to their existing codebases, while at the same time giving them access to the users and assets on Polkadot.
Looking Forward: Building the Moonbeam Community
We have been overwhelmed by the size and speed with which our community has grown. I know there are many people in our community that want to buy Glimmer (GLMR) tokens. We are working on ways that we can get tokens into the hands of our community members and achieve a broad token distribution, starting with our Kusama network deployment.
Our most immediate priority is to expand the team, particularly the Moonbeam engineering team, so we can deliver on the vision we have laid out. But we will also be working hard to figure out our token distribution plans for our Kusama and Polkadot deployments.
This seed funding event is an important milestone for the project, and we couldn’t have accomplished it alone. We are grateful for the support from our investors, partners, the Web3 Foundation, Parity, the Polkadot ecosystem, and everyone in our community that helped us get to this point. We will use the funds to continue to drive Moonbeam forward on a steady march to our Kusama deployment, our Polkadot deployment, and beyond. | https://medium.com/moonbeam-network/a-look-at-our-1-4m-seed-financing-for-moonbeam-cfd0356c6a8c | ['Derek Yoo'] | 2020-12-03 20:14:11.767000+00:00 | ['Funding', 'Polkadot', 'Smart Contracts', 'Ethereum'] |
Ways to recover Energy from Wastes | Waste Management is one of the best ways to avoid pollution from our environment. There are many techniques in waste management to eliminate segregated waste. Some of the wastes can be recycled and some may not. One of the efficient and environmentally friendly ways of recycling waste is WTE i.e., Waste-To-Energy system.
The process of conversion of waste into an energy source in the form of heat or electricity is known as WTE or EFW i.e., Energy-From-Waste. Most of the process of WTE generates electricity or heat through combustion or produces fuel methane, methanol, ethanol, or synthetic fuel.
Incineration
Incineration is one of the processes of combustion which is used to generate energy sources from waste. The first incinerator was built in Nottingham UK, in 1874 by Manlove, Alliott & Co. Ltd. The WTE plants should meet the strict emission standards which include the lower emission of NO, SO2, heavy metals, and dioxins, etc.,
Most of the energy plants burn solid waste in industrial, commercial, and domestic processes. The energy plant professionals always segregate the wastes before burning, the only waste that is not burnt is a non-recyclable waste.
Waste-To-Energy systems cause pollution less than the coal plants but higher than the natural gas plants. This Waste-To-Energy system is more effective than any other method of removing the rubbish from the environment in an eco-friendly way.
Working
The working of the WTE plant is the same as the other steam power plants. The wastes are segregated and collected to burn the wastes, the wastes are burnt in the closed are to eliminate the hazardous gaseous content produced during the burning process. The burnt wastes will produce high-pressure steam, which is used to rotate the turbine. The turbine a rotating wheel that is used to run the generator coupled with the generator. When the turbine rotates, the generator coupled with the turbine also rotates resulting in generating the electricity. For further guidance contact the reputed waste management service- “ Quick Wasters” for an efficient waste management system. | https://medium.com/@aw4979062/ways-to-recover-energy-from-wastes-4a11d564bff6 | ['Albert William'] | 2021-06-08 10:27:56.993000+00:00 | ['Food Waste Recycling', 'Recycling', 'Waste Management'] |
Loan Approval Using Machine Learning Algorithm | Machine learning & classification algorithms
Loan Approval Using Machine Learning Algorithm
Classification algorithms to determine application outcome
Image by author
Loans in terms of financial pay outs is an important aspect of banking business system. Several loan applications are scanned based on certain inputs to validate the eligibility for loan. Here our use-case is that, we want to automate the loan eligibility process (real time) based on customer detail obtained during loan application. This will lead to improved service and customer satisfaction.
Let us load the available data to check the information it contain.
Loading training data:
Here that the dependent / target variable is the Loan_Status and we need to develop a model using the rest of the features to predict the target variable.
Data Pre-processing:
Bar plot to visualize application outcome:
ax = (df['Loan_Status'].value_counts()*100.0 /len(df)).plot(kind='bar', stacked = True, rot = 0)
ax.yaxis.set_major_formatter(mtick.PercentFormatter())
ax.set_ylabel('% Loan application')
ax.set_xlabel('Status')
ax.set_ylabel('% Customers')
ax.set_title('Application Distribution')
totals = [] # finding the values and append to list
for i in ax.patches:
totals.append(i.get_width())
total = sum(totals)
for i in ax.patches:
ax.text(i.get_x()+.15, i.get_height()-3.5, \ str(round((i.get_height()/total), 1))+'%', color='white', weight = 'bold')
Missing value and outlier treatment:
numerical variables: imputation using mean or median
categorical variables: imputation using mode
There are very less missing values in Gender, Married, Dependents,
Credit_History and Self_Employed features so we fill them using the mode of the features.
If an independent variable in our dataset has huge amount of missing data e.g. 80% missing values in it, then we would drop the variable from the dataset.
# replace missing values with the mode
df['Gender'].fillna(df['Gender'].mode()[0], inplace=True)
df['Married'].fillna(df['Married'].mode()[0], inplace=True)
df['Dependents'].fillna(df['Dependents'].mode()[0], inplace=True)
df['Self_Employed'].fillna(df['Self_Employed'].mode()[0], inplace=True)
df['Credit_History'].fillna(df['Credit_History'].mode()[0], inplace=True)
df['Loan_Amount_Term'].fillna(df['Loan_Amount_Term'].mode()[0], inplace=True) # replace missing values with the median value due to outliers
df['LoanAmount'].fillna(df['LoanAmount'].median(), inplace=True) # replacing Y and N in Loan_Status variable with 1 and 0
df['Loan_Status'].replace('N', 0, inplace=True)
df['Loan_Status'].replace('Y', 1, inplace=True)
Loading test data:
Test data processing:
# replacing 3+ in Dependents variable with 3
df1['Dependents'].replace('3+', 3, inplace=True) # replace missing values in Test set with mode/median from Training set
df1['Gender'].fillna(df['Gender'].mode()[0], inplace=True)
df1['Dependents'].fillna(df['Dependents'].mode()[0], inplace=True)
df1['Self_Employed'].fillna(df['Self_Employed'].mode()[0], inplace=True)
df1['Credit_History'].fillna(df['Credit_History'].mode()[0], inplace=True)
df1['Loan_Amount_Term'].fillna(df['Loan_Amount_Term'].mode()[0], inplace=True)
df1['LoanAmount'].fillna(df['LoanAmount'].median(), inplace=True)
Model Development and Evaluation:
# drop Loan_ID
train = df.drop('Loan_ID', axis=1) # train
test = df1.drop('Loan_ID', axis=1) # test # drop "Loan_Status" and assign it to target variable
X = train.drop('Loan_Status', 1)
y = train.Loan_Status # adding dummies to the dataset
X = pd.get_dummies(X)
train = pd.get_dummies(train)
test = pd.get_dummies(test) print(X.shape, train.shape, test.shape)
Overfitting:
Less than half of applications classified as not accepted, therefore perform stratified cv would be a better approach to avoid overfitting. With this approach, we will have not one estimate but 5 estimates for the generalization error.
We shall try several classification algorithms and select the best one based on performance score.
kfold = StratifiedKFold(n_splits=5, random_state=42) # Logistic Regression
log_reg = LogisticRegression(solver='lbfgs', max_iter=5000)
log_scores = cross_val_score(log_reg, x_train, y_train, cv=kfold)
log_reg_mean = log_scores.mean() # SVC
svc_clf = SVC(gamma='auto')
svc_scores = cross_val_score(svc_clf, x_train, y_train, cv=kfold)
svc_mean = svc_scores.mean() # KNearestNeighbors
knn_clf = KNeighborsClassifier()
knn_scores = cross_val_score(knn_clf, x_train, y_train, cv=kfold)
knn_mean = knn_scores.mean() # Decision Tree
tree_clf = tree.DecisionTreeClassifier()
tree_scores = cross_val_score(tree_clf, x_train, y_train, cv=kfold)
tree_mean = tree_scores.mean() # Gradient Boosting Classifier
grad_clf = GradientBoostingClassifier()
grad_scores = cross_val_score(grad_clf, x_train, y_train, cv=kfold)
grad_mean = grad_scores.mean() # Random Forest Classifier
rand_clf = RandomForestClassifier(n_estimators=100)
rand_scores = cross_val_score(rand_clf, x_train, y_train, cv=kfold)
rand_mean = rand_scores.mean() # NeuralNet Classifier
neural_clf = MLPClassifier(alpha=1)
neural_scores = cross_val_score(neural_clf, x_train, y_train, cv=kfold)
neural_mean = neural_scores.mean() # Naives Bayes
nav_clf = GaussianNB()
nav_scores = cross_val_score(nav_clf, x_train, y_train, cv=kfold)
nav_mean = neural_scores.mean() # Create a Dataframe with the results.
d = {'Classifiers': ['Logistic Reg.', 'SVC', 'KNN', 'Dec Tree', 'Grad B CLF', 'Rand FC', 'Neural Classifier', 'Naives Bayes'],
'Crossval Mean Scores': [log_reg_mean, svc_mean, knn_mean, tree_mean, grad_mean, rand_mean, neural_mean, nav_mean]} result_df = pd.DataFrame(data=d) # Log Reg performed best
result_df = result_df.sort_values(by=['Crossval Mean Scores'], ascending=False)
print(result_df)
Feature importance:
# Random Forest Classifier
rand_clf = RandomForestClassifier(n_estimators=100).fit(x_train, y_train) # get importance
plt.barh(X.columns, rand_clf.feature_importances_)
plt.show()
We can see here that credit history, loan amount, co-applicant’s income and applicant’s income plays significant roles in determining the approval. This kind of fits our mental model too.
Confusion Matrix:
The main purpose of a confusion matrix is to see how our model is performing when it comes to classifying potential clients that are likely to subscribe to a term deposit. We will see in the confusion matrix four terms the True Positives, False Positives, True Negatives and False Negatives.
cm = confusion_matrix(y_test, y_test_pred)
print('Confusion Matrix :')
print(cm) print ('Report : ')
print (classification_report(y_test, y_test_pred)) names = ['TN','FP','FN','TP']
counts = ['{0:0.0f}'.format(value) for value in cm.flatten()]
percentages = ['{0:.2%}'.format(value) for value in cm.flatten()/np.sum(cm)]
labels = [f'{v1}
{v2}
{v3}' for v1, v2, v3 in zip(names, counts, percentages)]
labels = np.asarray(labels).reshape(2,2)
sns.heatmap(cm/np.sum(cm), annot=labels, fmt='')
plt.show()
Recall Precision Tradeoff:
As the precision gets higher the recall gets lower and vice versa. For instance, if we increase the precision from 30% to 60% the model is picking the predictions that the model believes is 60% sure.
If there is an instance where the model believes that is 58% likely to be a loan approval then the model will classify it as a “No.”
However, that instance was actually a “Yes” (potential client eligible for loan)
That is why the higher the precision the more likely the model is to miss instances that are actually a “Yes”.
ROC Curve (Receiver Operating Characteristic):
The ROC curve tells us how well our classifier is classifying between yes and no.
The X-axis is represented by False positive rates (Specificity) and the Y-axis is represented by the True Positive Rate (Sensitivity.)
As the line moves the threshold of the classification changes giving us different values.
The closer is the line to our top left corner the better is our model separating both classes.
# predict probabilities
yhat = log_reg.predict_proba(x_test)
skplt.metrics.plot_roc_curve(y_test, yhat)
plt.annotate('Minimum ROC Score of 50%
(This is the minimum score to get)', xy=(0.5, 0.5), xytext=(0.6, 0.3), arrowprops=dict(shrink=0.05))
plt.show()
Threshold for test from ROC-curve:
# retrieve just the probabilities for the positive class
probs = yhat[:, 1]
fpr, tpr, thresholds = metrics.roc_curve(y_test, probs) plt.subplots(figsize=(10, 6))
plt.plot(fpr, tpr, 'o-', label="ROC curve")
plt.plot(np.linspace(0,1,10), np.linspace(0,1,10), label="diagonal")
for x, y, txt in zip(fpr[::5], tpr[::5], thresholds[::5]):
plt.annotate(np.round(txt,2), (x, y-0.04)) rnd_idx = 27
plt.annotate('this point refers to the tpr and the
fpr at a probability threshold of {}'.format(np.round(thresholds[rnd_idx], 2)), xy=(fpr[rnd_idx], tpr[rnd_idx]), xytext=(fpr[rnd_idx]+0.2, tpr[rnd_idx]-0.25), arrowprops=dict(color='black', lw=2, arrowstyle='->'))
plt.legend(loc="upper left")
plt.xlabel("FPR"); plt.ylabel("TPR"); plt.show();
gmeans = sqrt(tpr * (1-fpr))# geometric means=sqrt(sensitivity * specificity)= sqrt(tpr * (1-fpr))
index = argmax(gmeans) # index of the largest g-mean
print('Best Threshold=%f, G-Mean=%.3f' % (thresholds[ix], gmeans[ix])) # plot the roc curve for the model
plt.plot([0,1], [0,1], linestyle='--', label='No Skill')
plt.plot(fpr, tpr, marker='.', label='Logistic')
plt.scatter(fpr[index], tpr[index], marker='o', color='red', label='Best') plt.xlabel('False Positive Rate'); plt.ylabel('True Positive Rate'); plt.legend(); plt.show();
Learning curve (Bias-Variance):
It is in-fact impossible to avoid the relationship between bias and variance for the sheer fact that-
Increasing the bias will decrease the variance.
Increasing the variance will decrease the bias.
So, we see there is a trade-off and to strike a balance we need to carefully select the algorithms and configure to work on reducible errors. Our target is to achieve low variance and low bias. Well, the detection is not that difficult, however, real work is to reduce the error to minimum. Several measures can be taken to reduce this error e.g.-
increase the complexity of the model
increase input features
decrease regularization term etc.
Learning curve plotted the prediction accuracy/error vs. the training set size to reflect how better does the model get at predicting the target as training instances are increased. Here both the training and test/validation performance are plotted together so we can diagnose the bias-variance tradeoff. This is contrast to ROC curve which does not show learning. Here y-axis is ‘score’, and higher the score, the better the performance of the model. Training score (red line) and Cross-validation score (green line) almost meeting at some point indicating model a good fit for the given data set.
Report generation
report = pd.read_csv("report_loan_approval.csv")
# fill the Loan_ID and Loan_Status
report['Loan_Status'] = y_test_pred
report['Loan_ID'] = df1['Loan_ID'] # replace with "N" and "Y"
report['Loan_Status'].replace(0, 'N', inplace=True)
report['Loan_Status'].replace(1, 'Y', inplace=True) from IPython.display import HTML
def hover(hover_color="#ffff99"):
return dict(selector="tr:hover", props=[("background-color", "%s" % hover_color)])
styles = [hover(), dict(selector="th", props=[("font-size", "150%"), ("text-align", "center")]), dict(selector="caption", props=[("caption-side", "bottom")])]
html = (report.style.set_table_styles(styles).set_caption("Hover to highlight."))
html
Conclusion
Here, several machine learning algorithms were tried e.g. Logistic Regression(LR), Decision Tree (DT) and Random Forest (RF) etc. are applied to predict the loan approval of customers. The experimental results conclude that the accuracy of Logistic Regression algorithm is better as compared others. However, great care is required when selecting the appropriate cross-validation technique.
Connect me here.
Note: The programs described here are experimental and should be used with caution for any commercial purpose. All such use at your own risk. | https://medium.com/swlh/loan-approval-using-machine-learning-algorithm-1a2bc2f61af9 | ['Sarit Maitra'] | 2020-11-05 00:44:41.042000+00:00 | ['Bias Variance Tradeoff', 'Classification Algorithms', 'Machine Learning Ai'] |
A Tribute to MF DOOM | A Tribute to MF DOOM
Remembering the greatest supervillain in music…
Daniel Dumile carried many aliases throughout his musical career. Madvillain, King Geedorah, Viktor Vaughn etc. However the alias that he will forever be remembered by, the name that ripples throughout hip-hop and influenced some of the genre’s greatest artists… is MF DOOM.
Daniel’s musical roots can be traced back to 1988 when him and his brother, DJ Subroc along with Rodan founded a hip-hop trio known as KMD. Starting as a graffiti crew in Long Beach, New York, it didn’t take them long until they released their debut album in 1991, Mr. Hood. The album focused on racism and black empowerment in a comical way, cutting samples from children’s shows such as Sesame Street.
Just before KMD released their second album in 1993, Black Bastards, Daniel’s brother was hit by a car and killed. Elektra Records, the label that managed KMD, decided that their second album’s name and art were too controversial for them and dropped the group, a decision made in the same week Daniel’s brother died. Daniel went into retreat, disappearing and spending the next 4 years wandering the streets of New York with the threat of homelessness hanging over him as he slept through long nights on park benches.
In 1997 Daniel finally returned to music performing at open mic events with a mask on. It was at this moment that the legend MF DOOM was born, his mask resembling that of Marvel’s supervillain, Doctor Doom. From this moment on, it’s extremely hard to find an image of Daniel without his mask. Daniel felt that the genre was dominated by artists obsessed with the way they looked and presented themselves and he wanted to show a message that he only cared about the artistry of music.
In 1999 MF DOOM released his debut album, Operation Doomsday. It’s extremely difficult to find a list of top hip-hop albums without Operation Doomsday being mentioned. From Wu Tang’s harsh and gritty lyrics to Tribe’s smooth jazz beats, MF DOOM managed to carve his own path in the genre at the time with his mix of extremely unconventional beats and smart wordplay that somehow worked flawlessly together. MF DOOM’s debut album served as a template for not just himself but for hip-hop as a whole, influencing the future works of artists such as Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler the Creator.
In 2003 Daniel released another album under the alias King Geedorah, Take Me To Your Leader. It featured guest appearances from MF Grimm, a member from the underground super group, Monsta Island Czars, with their gimmick being named after creatures from the Godzilla films. It was also the year that Daniel would release another album under another alias, Viktor Vaughn. Vaudeville Villain showed a different side to Daniel, ditching his goofy comic influence for something much more gritty and violent.
In 2004 Daniel released his second album as MF DOOM called MM…Food. It’s often cited as DOOM’s greatest album and it’s difficult to disagree. Tracks such as One Beer, Beef Rap and Rapp Snitch Knishes proved that MF DOOM wasn’t scared to push himself musically. 4 albums in and it was clear that Daniel hadn’t lost a single bit of energy since his debut and he showed no sign of stopping.
MF DOOM’s relentless energy would lead him to his next album, Madvillainy, released under the group name Madvillain alongside producer Madlib. Madlib and MF DOOM proved to be a fantastic pairing, with DOOM rapping over some of his most unconventional beats yet. Madvillainy proved to be unfriendly to commercial radio however it’s obscure lyrics and sparse choruses made way for it to hit critical acclaim. MF DOOM had suddenly been launched into a mainstream audience receiving acclaim from publications such as Rolling Stone and The New York Times.
A second Madvillainy album was announced in 2009 but was never released, suffering from constant delays. 2009 was also the year that Daniel would release the third album under his MF DOOM alias, Born Like This. It managed to be the first album from DOOM to chart in the US. It would also be the last main album from the MF DOOM alias.
The years following showed MF DOOM taking a backseat. He was still heavily involved in the genre but it was clear that he was starting to take a mentor position, appearing in features and collaborations such as 2014’s NehruvianDOOM, showing MF DOOM backing and guiding fellow rapper Bishop Nehru.
On December 18th 2017, Daniel announced that his son, King Malachi Ezekiel Dumile, had passed away at the age of 14.
“King Malachi Ezekiel Dumile 2/22/03 – 12/18/17. The greatest son one could ask for. Safe journey and may all our ancestors greet you with open arms. One of our greatest inspirations. Thank you for allowing us to be your parents. Love you Mali.”
Despite this tragedy MF DOOM and supergroup Czarface, including the talent of Wu Tang member Inspectah Deck, would release a collaborative album, Czarface Meets Metal Face in March 2018. Later that year in December DOOM released Doom Xmas, an album with DOOM’s obscure bars thrown over Christmas remixes. Daniel had a relentless passion for music and the artistry that surrounded it. It’s genuinely baffling looking back through his discography to see just how energetic he was and it’s inspiring to see that after 20+ years, he showed no signs of slowing down.
However on October 31st 2020, Daniel Dumile sadly passed away with his wife Jasmine posting an announcement two months later on New Years Eve.
“To Dumile
The greatest husband, father, teacher, student, business partner, lover and friend I could ever ask for. Thank you for all the things you have shown, taught and given to me, our children and our family. Thank you for teaching me how to forgive beings and give another chance, not to be so quick to judge and write off. Thank you for showing how not to be afraid to love and be the best person I could ever be. My world will never be the same without you. Words will never express what you and Malachi mean to me, I love both and adore you always. May THE ALL continue to bless you, our family and the planet.
All my Love,
Jasmine”
I don’t know what hurt worse, seeing the news or reading the hundreds of messages left by fellow artists who had either worked with him or had been influenced by his art.
I remember accidentally running into MF DOOM’s insane discography when I was 15 and ever since then he’s been one of my personal heroes. MF DOOM proved to the world that you don’t need to follow trends to make it in life. Even though he enjoyed presenting himself as a comical supervillain, I would personally refer to him as a superhero. Not only did he change the way I view music, he also paved the way for artists such as Earl Sweatshirt, Joey Bada$$, Tyler the Creator, Logic, Odd Future, Danny Brown… the list goes on and on.
Here’s to one of music’s greatest supervillains. You introduced me to a discography full of talent and wonder that I’ll be listening to and sharing around for years to come. It’s so exciting to see the path that you’ve left for thousands of future artists to follow. You’ve done so much for the genre and you’ve left millions inspired including myself. You taught me that it’s okay to stand out and to make my own way in life regardless of what people think. I hope you realised just how much you meant to everyone. Now you can finally rest alongside your son and brother.
Safe travels villain.
“Ever since the womb ‘til I’m back where my brother went, that’s what my tomb will say. Right above my government; Dumile. Either unmarked or engraved, hey, who’s to say?” | https://anthony-wright.medium.com/a-tribute-to-mf-doom-257b5a220e2 | ['Anthony Wright'] | 2021-01-01 12:17:12.424000+00:00 | ['Album', 'Music', 'Hip Hop', 'Rap'] |
Reserve your House at Eurocasa E-Real Estate | Reserve your House at Eurocasa E-Real Estate
There are many people who are willing to buy a house. A house is your personal asset and you can construct your house or office if you have your land, and you can sale it too, to earn a profit. There are many different locations where you can Acquisto case, and the price of the house depends upon the location where you are trying to purchase it. You will observe a huge difference between the prices of the Case in different locations. There are online services which help you to purchase the house online. By making use of the well known Agenzia immobiliare-Eurocasa, you will be able to get all the information of the house online, without having to go anywhere. All the information that you require is availed to you through the official web site. Agenzia immobiliare are available to the people of Europe through internet. Europeans are pleased with the price and location of the Case because Eurocasa estate agents offer the best houses at the best prices. Everyone wants a perfect location for his/her house. People are contacting the casa services online for the sale and purchase of Case.
Cassina de pecchi is one of the most beautiful cities of Italy. There are many houses available for sale, and people love living there. The environment of this city is quiet and calm and all the basic facilities are provided to the people living in this city. There are very few estate agencies which provide Affittare immobile services. Eurocasa offers the best and quality services to its clients. Those who work for Eurocasa believe in customer satisfaction all the time. You will surely make Case purchase, if you consult and make use of the online services of this Agenzia immobiliare. You will realize that there are many people in this fast growing world, who are trying their best to buy their Appartamenti in Europe. There are a few lucky people who own houses at such places. You will surely enjoy the location of the Case provided by casa. People offer suggestions to their friends and family members to sell their house, if they want to, because there are companies waiting to purchase them. It is now quite easy to sell or purchase a house without going through many hassles.
There are many beautiful places in the world where you can buy your house. The beauty of nature lies in there. You can feel and see the beauty with your own eyes. Acquisto Appartamenti is available for sale and there are many buyers out there. People of Europe are well aware about the worth of apartments, and they do not want to miss such an opportunity of buying an apartment online. Eurocasa has become one of the leading Agenzia immobiliare of the world, providing online services to its clients all over Europe. The minds of the people have changed just because of Eurocasa, and people can buy the house of their choice in any country of Europe with the help of Eurocasa.
Find more information relating to Agenzie immobiliari, and Cerco casa here. | https://medium.com/@gaglianopaolo34/reserve-your-house-at-eurocasa-e-real-estate-5d9fc78c204f | [] | 2015-12-24 08:38:28.455000+00:00 | ['Real Estate', 'Real Estate Investments'] |
Making open data more accessible with datasette | Photo by NASA on Unsplash
California recently released data related to stops made by officers in the eight largest agencies of the state covering the months of July to December of 2018. This was the first wave of data releases that will take effect in the following years. The data covered over 1.8 million stops across the state. While this is a step in the right direction, a single .csv file of around 640 megabytes with 1.8+ million rows and 140+ columns might be intimidating for some folks who would benefit from exploring this data: local leaders, journalists, activists, and organizers, to name a few.
The third principle of the open data charter is that data should be accessible and usable. Providing the data is the first step but to make it usable and accessible for most people we cannot simply publish data; we must take into account user experience and develop ways to facilitate the exploration and use of said data.
In this tutorial, I share one way to do it: using datasette, a python "tool for exploring and publishing data. It helps people take data of any shape or size and publish that as an interactive, explorable website and accompanying API."
We take California’s recently released police stop data, clean and transform the data, and deploy a datasette instance to Heroku.
Table of contents
— prologue
— about the data
— about datasette
— step-by-step
— — acquiring the data
— — preparing the data
— — serving the data
— deploying to heroku
— automating everything
— github actions
— bonus: using github issues to suggest canned queries
— how long it took
— call to action
prologue
The idea to explore this dataset came from listening to the March 3rd, 2020 episode of Pod Save the People
where they mention this article from The Appeal:
Boudin will announce a second directive today, also reviewed by The Appeal, on what are known as pre-textual stops, in which an officer stops someone for a minor offense or infraction, such as a traffic violation, in order to conduct an unrelated search for items like guns or drugs. According to the new policy, the DA’s office will not prosecute possession of contraband cases when the contraband was collected as a result of an infraction-related stop, “where there is no other articulable suspicion of criminal activity.” Any deviations from the policy should be made in writing and require approval from the DA or a chief of the criminal division. Additionally, the ban includes cases in which a person consented to a search “because of the long-standing and documented racial and ethnic disparities in law enforcement requests for consent to search,” according to the directive.
- https://theappeal.org/san-francisco-da-to-announce-sweeping-changes-on-sentencing-policy-and-police-stops/
In the episode Sam mentions the black and brown folks are being stopped and searched at higher rates and that a lot of these searches are what they call ‘consent searches’ which means that the police actually report no justification at all for searching the person other than asking that person if they can search them and the person allegedly giving consent.
This gross racial disparity is heart-breaking but not surprising.
When I first set out to explore the dataset myself, I found it cumbersome to work with. The dataset size makes it hard for those who are not analyzing data programmatically with paid resources like stata and sas or open-sourced ones like python and R. This information is not designed to be explored easily but there are tools that can help with that.
💡Note: AB-953, the bill that requires agencies to report all data on stops to the Attorney General, does not require the data to be “easily explorable” or “accessible”. The bill requires the data to be collected and reported to the Attorney General. This dataset as it is serves that purpose.
about the data
The dataset is composed of one .csv file of 641.4 MB which contains 1.8 million rows and 143 columns. Each stop instance has a unique DOJ_RECORD_ID and each person stopped has a PERSON_NUMBER . In total there are 1,708,377 stops in this dataset involving 1,800,054 people.
The dataset includes basic information about each stop (like duration, time of day, closest city, agency name), perceived demographic information (race/ethnicity, gender, age, disability), as well as information regarding the reason for stop, for search, for seizure, actions taken during stop, contraband or evidence found, etc. For more detailed information about the dataset you can read the README file the Department of Justice put together and the 2020 Annual Report.
This is Wave I of a series of RIPA data to be released in the following years. The data released this wave pertains to the 8 largest law enforcing agencies (LEAs) in California (those employing over 1,000 officers). These LEAs (and their share of the total observations) are:
README | 2020 Annual report
about datasette
Datasette is a tool for exploring and publishing data. It helps people take data of any shape or size and publish that as an interactive, explorable website and accompanying API. Datasette is aimed at data journalists, museum curators, archivists, local governments and anyone else who has data that they wish to share with the world. It is part of a wider ecosystem of tools and plugins dedicated to making working with structured data as productive as possible.
- datasette.readthedocs.io
datasette is the engine powering this project. In short, it grabs a sqlite database and creates an interactive, explorable website and accompanying API. To prepare the data we used csvs-to-sqlite , another tool from the datasette ecosystem which grabs CSV files and creates sqlite databases from them.
You can find some examples of public datasettes on the GitHub repo’s wiki. Here is one serving the datasets published by FiveThirtyEight (found in their GitHub repo): https://fivethirtyeight.datasettes.com/
The home page shows the data’s license, source, and provides quick access to a few of its tables.
If you click on your database’s name it’ll provide a view of all its tables and provide a text box for you to run custom SQL queries. This is one of the features that makes datasette such a powerful tool.
If you dig into one of the tables you’ll see suggested facets, an easy-to-use filter button, a JSON and CSV link which will provide the table as one of those formats (this means you can use this as an API), and a description for the table. In this case, the description contains an HTML table with headers and definitions.
If you click on the View and edit SQL button you will again get access to a text box to write your own queries on.
datasette is part of a rich ecosystem of tools and plugins. You can add the datasette-vega plugin (repo) to add interactive visualizations of your current table (made with altair)
That is what a basic datasette website looks like but datasette is highly customizable. Take for example The Baltimore Sun’s datasette for people to explore public salary records which is updated yearly.
This is running datasette in the backend but they have added their own templates/layouts, css and javascript files. More on how to customize datasette here: https://datasette.readthedocs.io/en/stable/custom_templates.html
step-by-step
This section is a more technical description of the project. The data preparation and deployment of datasette is pretty straight-forward and it can be divided into three phases:
— Acquiring the data
— Preparing the data
— Serving the data
acquiring the data
The data was retrieved from the Open Justice website of the California Department of Justice: https://openjustice.doj.ca.gov/data. The website provides a link to download the data (as of May 5th, 2020, when I downloaded it for this project). To learn more about the data itself you can read the About the data section on the project’s GitHub repo.
preparing the data
The original CSV file is over 650 MB in size so the very first step was to slice it into 15 CSV files so that each could be uploaded to GitHub in this repository.
💡Why? Just in case it mysteriously disappears from the original data source…
However, because the dataset is too large to serve as a single table (1.8 million rows by 143 columns) it was also broken down into smaller tables. This means we took related variables (based on their suffixes) and extracted them into their own tables. For example, variables related to gender like G_FULL , G_MALE , G_FEMALE , G_TRANSGENDER_MAN , G_TRANSGENDER_WOMAN , G_GENDER_NONCOMFORMING , and G_MULTIGENDER were extracted from the "main" table and were added to a gender table in the database. These can be joined back to the main table using a UNIQUE_ID assigned to them.
Each observation or row of this dataset is assigned a DOJ_RECORD_ID and a PERSON_NUMBER . These are unique to the stop and the person(s) stopped, respectively. This means we could combine them to create a UNIQUE_ID for each row which we could use to join tables together. However, this ends up being a 22 character string which is unnecessarily large. To facilitate things, each row is assigned a numeric id starting at 1,000,000. Starting at one million is completely arbitrary, we could have started at zero but because there are 1.8 million rows, we made the decision to have each numeric id be seven digits. This numeric UNIQUE_ID lets us join tables together and is not a big addition to the database in terms of memory.
Once this UNIQUE_ID is created we can extract columns from the "main" table into their own tables and save those as individual CSV files with the certainty that each observation can be matched across these new tables .
We then use csvs-to-sqlite to create a sqlite database where each CSV is a table. In this step, we also include the Appendix B Table 3.csv file obtained also from the DOJ's website and any other supplemental tables we might have created to accompany the dataset.
csvs-to-sqlite data/processed/*.csv "data/external/Appendix B Table 3.csv" datasette/ripa-2018-db.db
serving the data
After preparing the data and creating the sqlite database we use datasette to serve it as an interactive website and API. This is as easy as running
datasette ripa-2018.db
However, for this project, we customize our datasette instance a bit.
We include a title, description, data source URL, and some extra CSS and JS assets. You can explore datasette/metadata.json to find the specifics.
We also include canned queries; queries included by default in our instance that are displayed in the main page and come with their own URL to facilitate access. These queries are included because they are useful and/or interesting facts found in the data. Some of them are queries that compute specific facts published in the 2020 Annual Report.
We also modify some templates from datasette, specifically base.html and query.html . The first was modified to include some metadata in the <head> (website preview description and such). The second was modified to include a button below the SQL text box to submit the query a user just ran as a suggestion on GitHub to facilitate the sharing of these.
We also change some default options for datasette:
default_page_size:50 - Show only 50 results per page sql_time_limit_ms:30000 - 30 second time limit computing queries (time limit on Heroku) facet_time_limit_ms:10000 - The time limit datasette should spend calculating a facet of your table (it defaults to 200 ms but because our dataset is so large we expand it to 10 seconds)
The resulting code to run is:
datasette ripa-2018-db.db \\
-m metadata.json \\
--extra-options="--config default_page_size:50 --config sql_time_limit_ms:30000 --config facet_time_limit_ms:10000"
deploying to heroku
Here’s a high-level overview of the process
So far, we used some python code to process our data (creating a UNIQUE_ID and breaking down the original dataset with 143 columns into various smaller .csv files) and we also used csvs-to-sqlite to build our ripa-2018-db.db database from those .csv files. Until now, we've been interacting with our datasette by running the command datasette ripa-2018-db.db which runs a local server. To make our datasette available to the world we have to deploy it online and luckily it is very, very easy to do as datasette already includes a publish command.
With datasette, you can publish directly to Heroku, Google Cloud Run, or Fly (as of version 0.42). Because I have previous experience deploying to heroku, I found it the easiest of the three but they are all great options and the documentation is easy to follow.
Deploying to Heroku was as easy as running almost the same command used to serve our datasette locally.
datasette publish heroku ripa-2018-db.db \\
--name ripa-2018-db \\
-m metadata.json \\
--extra-options="--config default_page_size:50 --config sql_time_limit_ms:30000 --config facet_time_limit_ms:10000"
💡 Notice the --name flag which specifies the name for our heroku app. This means it'll publish to ripa-2018-db.herokuapp.com and it'll overwrite the previous app if there is one.
To run this, you’ll need a heroku account and to install the heroku cli tool. datasette (using the heroku cli under the hood) will ask you to log in and open up a browser window for you to do so. After you log in, it’ll take care of the rest.
¡Listo! At this point we have successfully published our datasette to heroku and we can visit ripa-2018-db.herokuapp.com or ripa-2018.datasettes.cimarron.io/
This will be the end of this process for many people. We’ve successfully grabbed and transformed some data and deployed it to the cloud for others to explore and interact with. We’ve also included an HTML description describing our datasette for users and even some canned queries for people to reproduce some of the facts published in the 2020 Annual Report.
automating everything
While the underlying data your serving might not change often you might find yourself wanting to automate the deployment of your datasette instance for many reasons. For example, when I started this project datasette was in version 0.40 and at the time I’m writing this post it is at version 0.42. Most versions you won’t want to update your datasette instance for but version 0.41 included the ability to create custom pages (changelog).
For example, adding a template file called templates/pages/about.html will result in a new page being served at /about on your instance.
This means we can add much more context in our instance for users. Maybe include a step-by-step guide to help people contribute to the project, other useful links, or a simple page introducing yourself so people using this data learn a bit more about you.
You might also want to include more canned queries or fix a typo on your description. Whatever the reason, automating deployment is easy to implement. Ultimately all you need is to run datasette heroku publish which is a perfect use case for GitHub Actions | https://towardsdatascience.com/making-open-data-more-accessible-with-datasette-480a1de5e919 | ['Sergio Sánchez'] | 2020-06-12 16:37:58.822000+00:00 | ['Towards Data Science', 'Police Data', 'Open Data', 'Datasette', 'Python'] |
Mental violence. My mother earns an average salary as an… | I lived in a very average but very abnormal household in Singapore. Of course we pride feminism, but society has never condoned male idiocy. My childhood is filled with emotional trauma, leaving me an insecure and mentally disturbed growing up years. I find myself still getting affected by those mental disturbances, brought about by the extreme abnormalities of the household I lived in.
My mother earns an average salary as an office worker. However, that money is not for supporting the sloth of a man. My father is an utterly useless piece of crap. He does not pay a single cent for any of the utilities bill of the house and not to mention that when they first bought over the house from his father, my mother ended up as the one paying for the majority sum of the house. She basically paid for everything. I don’t even want to begin saying how it is the norm for my mother to settle the bill for all things. SHE PAID FOR EVERYTHING. He is so useless that asking him to fork out a cent was as if she was trying to rob him of something, when the only truth is the exact way around, because over the years, he has accumulated a lot of debts and they were unpaid credit card bills of which the interests rates has accumulated so much that it all amounted to $13000, all of which my mother had paid for him. If there is even anyone reading this now, the level of shamelessness revelaed till this point is already more than enough and I don’t even want to start saying how he, as one who does not want to work. He does not want to work, he leeches onto others like nothing and this is unjustified just as it already is.
The last thing to say would be that, if such a person wants to owe others, then he at least have the shame to repay, but he doesn’t. There is something very atrocious I find him doing in the house. He acts like a fucking dominator of the house in the name of religion. He hangs paintings representing a particular religion, called Taoism all about the house and I’m not saying anything about Taosim. I don’t know much about it. I only know that it’s his intentions behind his actions which are abominable, of which, it seems to me a disservice to any religion. No religion will tell you to be heartless towards anyone, and he is, and I think that this word already is an understatement for who I see he really is. He has no rights to hang the paintings all over the living room, as if treating the whole place like his own, not when he doesn’t pay a fucking single cent, so he jolly well shuts up about everything. But he not only doesn’t shut up, he starts to sing, very creepily and sinisterly, knowing full well I hadn’t been awake, and he would always take out the lighter and I, in my locked room door have been so traumatized over the sound of lighters and the smell of more than twenty five sticks or more joss sticks, burning at the same time in the space of a small living room in an old four-room HDB flat.
He has no respect for the opinions of others. It is to our extreme discomfort that he would start to light things up early in the morning and make it hard for us to breathe, it is practically impossible for me to stay in the living room and even in my room. I am not out of offend anyone who burns joss sticks, but the smoke from joss sticks are indeed carcinogenic.
One more observation is that I see him closing the windows whenever, there were other residents burning offerings in a large wooden thing downstairs and he who claims the smoke in the house he burns to be good, would be afraid of what every other people generally believe?
Second observation, which is just a very clear indication of him trying to dominate others when he really is nothing but a weakling, is him, installing a sort of red thing, and he burns again joss sticks outside the door, and that would first and foremost disturb other neighbors, not to mention how tiny the corridor between the houses really is. The moment he starts to burn, the smoke would last for a long time, and anyone who leaves thier hosue during that period of time will have to bear the smell and lack of oxygen to breathe. It should be illegal. Another thing is that him installing such a thing without the permission of us, really is only a gaudy display of some egotistical hubris.
No one has ever agreed with him to put such a thing outside the gate. No one agrees with him, for one would only be an incurable lunatic. | https://medium.com/@jamiejxzyv/i-lived-in-a-very-average-but-very-abnormal-household-in-singapore-b339973f7432 | [] | 2020-12-12 18:55:11.253000+00:00 | ['Emotional Violence', 'Mental Abuse', 'Singapore', 'Mental Illness', 'Domestic Abuse'] |
Mid-Market’s New Slice of Spain Has All the Art Deco Vibes | The seductive space is one of the key factors separating La Bande from other tapas/wine/aperitivo bars. Designed by Kelly Wearstler, the triangular corner spot is lofty yet intimate, given extended tables under a long sidewalk tent, glowing with lights and heat lamps. The 1908 Beaux-Arts flatiron building is an 1800s architectural style, though the feel is more 1920s Art Deco, recalling the best of New York, SF, LA and Chicago in that era. Wearstler’s eye makes it feel fresh yet respects its history with green marble and tiles, brass, black and white stripes, dim lighting and Iberico ham on the counter when available (it’s tough to source right now, like so many things). Sherry, Madeira, Spanish wines and vermouth line shelving above and behind the bar/kitchen counter. This space feels oh-so Spain yet truly SF and U.S. It’s one sultry combination.
Warm and cold tapas, pinxtos (bites), plancha-grilled dishes, house bread, Galician conservas (tinned seafood), charcuterie and cheeses: it’s all here, with necessary Spanish imports alongside locally-farmed and foraged vegetables. Whether salt cod croquettes, cold, comforting potato tortilla (aka Spanish omelette) or the simple, garlic-laced perfection of pan con tomate (tomato toasts), this is Spain-worthy eats. From silky mortadella to Rioja chorizo or rabbit terrine, the charcuterie is on point. Ditto the cheeses, from lush Andazul goat’s milk blue cheese to smoked Etxegarai sheep’s milk cheese.
La Bande’s blood sausage and chickpeas. (Photo: Courtesy of Virginia Miller)
California/modern touches come in mini-smoked salmon avocado toasts or roasted pumpkin and sunchokes. Grilled a la plancha dishes include squid or mini-truffled ham and cheese sandwiches (ideal drinking food). While white beans and pork shoulder is a heartier shared plate, my number one dish over multiple visits was the similarly heftier spinach, chickpeas, and blood sausage bowl. This dish nailed sweet-savory contrast with spiced-sweet, crumbled blood sausage intermingling with savory and vegetal. All three desserts win, especially Spanish almond cake, balancing sweetness and nuttiness.
As with other Proper SF restaurants, Josh Harris’ BVHospitality created the cocktails and drink list. When it comes to cocktails, it’s straightforward, whether a Nitro Negroni or Fiero Spritz. There are two versions each — white and red — of a classic Negroni, Americano or Sbagliato (sparkling Negroni). While there’s Gin & Tonic Service for 4–6 people, complete with garnishes and pricey German Monkey 47 gin, the single Gin & Tonic on the menu was just a basic G&T in a tall glass vs. Spain’s ubiquitous goblet/stemware and garnishes style. Drinks pair well with the food and though common, are made well. Rather than offering Spanish vermut (an exciting world on its own), the vermouth list is just four offerings, all from Italy or France, but served as in Spain: on the rocks with an olive and a citrus twist.
I’m more into the wine list (there are also seven European and local beers on draft), particularly with Spanish pours like a 2019 Viñátigo Tenerife Islas Canarias Listan Blanco from one of my favorite wine regions in Spain, the Canary Islands. The acidic, chalky ease of a 2020 Ameztoi Getariako Txakolina sings with seafood dishes, while a longtime go-to Spanish cidre (cider) of mine, crisp-punchy Isastegi Sagardo Naturala pairs nicely with many a dish (there are also two French ciders on offer).
La Bande’s charcuterie. (Photo: Courtesy of Virginia Miller)
The real drink highlight was vintage Madeira from D’Oliveira with La Bande’s collection dating back to the 1930s. Granted, Madeira is from Portugal/the island of Madeira. But as a close neighbor to Spain, the fortified wine pairs with the food beautifully (as does Spanish sherry). Post-dinner, we sampled Madeiras from 1994, 1989, 1987 and 1973, covering the gamut from nutty complexity to raisin-y lushness. Each wowed (especially the ’73 with its welcome mustiness and age), further warming a chilly night already warmed by kind service, heartwarming tapas, conversation and drink.
Savoring the aged Madeira tied together the unique history of the building with its new inhabitant. In its striking but snug space, La Bande marries Spain with San Francisco, as it unites New and Old World, traditional Spanish tapas and bites with modern freshness and ease. If we were going to have another Spanish restaurant, I’m grateful it’s one that brings something original to the equation in a space as beautiful as this. ¡Mola!
// 1100 Market St., www.properhotel.com/san-francisco/restaurants-bars/la-bande | https://thebolditalic.com/mid-markets-new-slice-of-spain-has-all-the-art-deco-vibes-67260fa8d2bf | ['Virginia Miller'] | 2021-12-10 22:24:06.986000+00:00 | ['Wine Bar', 'Spanish', 'Restaurant', 'Food', 'Foodies'] |
Beyond the crisis: How might local government build a positive legacy after Covid? | Alongside their NHS peers, staff in local authorities are at the coalface of the Covid response. Their work has been relentless. Creating new hubs to support the vulnerable. Working with volunteers to distribute food and medicine. Dispersing grants to support local businesses. And dealing with thousands of calls from people in need.
Here in London, digital and IT teams have been fundamental to this response, enabling massive remote working on a scale never previously experienced, putting in place new tools to triage and handle cases of need, analysing data and designing entire new services to support the vulnerable.
Last week, the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) and the Greater London Authority (GLA) held a call with borough digital teams and their partners to hear about their work, which is nothing short of inspirational. You can view the slides here.
That call was also a chance to reflect on boroughs’ common aspiration: that the measures they are now putting in place should not just be temporary crisis responses, but rather deliberately designed to leave a lasting, positive legacy.
In this article, I want to sketch out some thoughts on some of the changes we’re witnessing during Covid and what kind of legacy they could have. I’ll divide my comments into four sections, covering: Supporting local democracy; Meeting needs quickly; Making, Buying, Sharing & Re-using; and Using data better.
(I’ll point out before I start that, for the sake of brevity, my remarks include some significant over-generalisations, for which I know there are many exceptions. Please read the following with that caveat!)
Blog on page
For those in hurry between video calls (and who isn’t these days?) a summary of my key points on a single slide:
Creating a positive legacy from Covid
Need some more prose to explain these points? Read on.
Supporting local democracy
Prior to Covid, online collaboration and video conferencing tools were widely used by councils’ digital and IT teams. Yet they’d made fewer inroads into the practices of many other teams or elected members. Thanks to Covid, almost overnight staff and politicians have had to gain a level of comfort with these tools that previously seemed years away. That’s likely to leave a lasting impact — not least in councils’ democratic functions.
Councils have been rapidly trying to figure out how to hold online committee meetings that are accessible to the public, enable voting, deputations and all their usual procedural business. (The government recently approved a Statutory Instrument to permit such committees and voting to take place online for the first time.)
Paul Brewer and his colleagues at Adur and Worthing Councils have done brilliant work to sketch out and rehearse a means of doing this using Zoom. At LOTI, we’ve put together some guidance on doing the same using Microsoft products (MS Teams plus MS Live Events) and Google products (Google Hangouts plus YouTube connected via Wirecast).
What’s clear from this guidance is that elected members will soon experience first-hand what digital teams have long known: that shifting a process online is not a matter of simply doing the same thing but through a browser. Rather, it requires changes to policies, processes and practices as well.
I hope one long-term impact of the crisis will be that the UK seriously considers developing and adopting a wider set of digital democracy methods that are more accessible to the public and engage citizens in more meaningful ways.
The UK has lagged behind other countries in this regard. In part, this is because our democratic institutions have shown a reluctance to adapt their processes to work with new digital tools. Our most well-known digital democracy initiative is arguably the government and Parliament’s e-petitions website, which suffers from all the usual flaws of inviting people to declare a preference for one measure in isolation of every other policy. And while there have been recent efforts by DCMS and local government to trial online citizen juries, most such activities have been temporary pilots. Few UK cities have anything like Iceland’s Better Reykjavik or Paris’s Madame La Maire, J’ai Une Idée initiatives, which enable citizens to influence local decisions and budget allocations.
Better Reykjavík
As councils are experiencing a resurgence of local citizen activism alongside their increased familiarity with doing democracy online, they should embrace the opportunity to go further and experiment with digitally-enabled innovations to local democratic processes. (For more inspiration on the art of the possible, check out Nesta’s Tools for Transforming Political Engagement.)
Meeting needs quickly
I’ve written previously about the fact that local government’s dominant model for addressing needs has been to deliver or commission a top-down service (see articles here and here). While some councils are known for radical innovation on service design, it's more common for them to make incremental improvements within their existing service paradigm.
Yet as part of their Covid response, that dominant model is being loosened by a number of trends we’ve seen in councils over the past few weeks:
Rapid (re)connection with local voluntary sector — different councils have very different working relationships with their local voluntary and community sectors (VCS). All local authorities have had to quickly build or strengthen those relationships into solid delivery partnerships for meeting the needs of local vulnerable people.
— different councils have very different working relationships with their local voluntary and community sectors (VCS). All local authorities have had to quickly build or strengthen those relationships into solid delivery partnerships for meeting the needs of local vulnerable people. Mass citizen participation in community responses — while media attention has mostly focused on the remarkable response to the government’s call for volunteers to support the NHS via the GoodSAM app, councils and local VCS organisations have been rapidly recruiting and deploying thousands of volunteers to support their community efforts.
— while media attention has mostly focused on the remarkable response to the government’s call for volunteers to support the NHS via the GoodSAM app, councils and local VCS organisations have been rapidly recruiting and deploying thousands of volunteers to support their community efforts. Extensive development and use of match-making platforms — internet era tools and business models have largely solved how to efficiently reveal and connect supply and demand (think Amazon, eBay, Uber, etc). During Covid, councils have been embracing tools that help them do this matchmaking, especially to connect vulnerable people with those able to help.
— internet era tools and business models have largely solved how to efficiently reveal and connect supply and demand (think Amazon, eBay, Uber, etc). During Covid, councils have been embracing tools that help them do this matchmaking, especially to connect vulnerable people with those able to help. Re-evaluation of vulnerability and need — councils have long been in the business of helping the vulnerable. But with Covid, those who were previously vulnerable are now vulnerable in new ways (e.g. children on free school meals now need additional help with avoiding food poverty at home). Other groups of people are becoming vulnerable for the first time (e.g. a single parent previously earning well as a freelance consultant whose work has disappeared). Local authorities are now quickly trying to ascertain who may need help (see Hackney’s great data analysis) and how best to reach them.
— councils have long been in the business of helping the vulnerable. But with Covid, those who were previously vulnerable are now vulnerable in new ways (e.g. children on free school meals now need additional help with avoiding food poverty at home). Other groups of people are becoming vulnerable for the first time (e.g. a single parent previously earning well as a freelance consultant whose work has disappeared). Local authorities are now quickly trying to ascertain who may need help (see Hackney’s great data analysis) and how best to reach them. Different demographics experience inadequacies in some service models — benefits like Universal Credit (UC) were previously experienced largely by those at the lower socio-economic end of society. Now, new groups of traditionally more affluent people are applying for UC en masse and feeling first-hand the frustrations around the low level of financial support and length of time taken to receive payments.
— benefits like Universal Credit (UC) were previously experienced largely by those at the lower socio-economic end of society. Now, new groups of traditionally more affluent people are applying for UC en masse and feeling first-hand the frustrations around the low level of financial support and length of time taken to receive payments. Rapid adaptation of existing or development of new services to meet new needs — having created a broader definition of vulnerability, services are having to be bolstered (e.g. getting additional money to foodbanks) or redesigned at a pace previously rarely seen, with speed the absolute priority. (Check out the excellent work coming out of Camden and Hackney with their partners at FutureGov.)
— having created a broader definition of vulnerability, services are having to be bolstered (e.g. getting additional money to foodbanks) or redesigned at a pace previously rarely seen, with speed the absolute priority. (Check out the excellent work coming out of Camden and Hackney with their partners at FutureGov.) Challenges launched to invite responses to specific needs — local authorities are being inundated with offers of in-kind support from businesses offering to help. While this is welcome, councils mostly lack the time and headspace to review and assess them. Instead, we’re seeing some councils and organisations like NHSx and PUBLIC stating the challenges they are facing and inviting offers of help that directly meet those needs.
NHSx / PUBLIC Techforce19
What might be the long-term shifts that result from these crisis responses? I hope the following:
First, we should see much more serious consideration of alternative operating models based on a recognition that councils can play useful roles other than that of service deliverer or commissioner. Over the past few weeks, there’s been plentiful evidence that local government can effectively act as match-maker (e.g. connecting vulnerable people with sources of support in their community); incentiviser (e.g. declaring challenges and rewarding the best solutions); and convenor (e.g. bringing together VCS, health and business partners to address challenges).
Previously, the adoption of alternative operating models was hindered by the cost and risk of running experiments to test them, together with a lack of evidence on how to transition from one model to another. Covid has temporarily shifted the balance of risk and reward. Soon the sector will have dozens of examples of these models to point to, learn from, and hopefully embed.
Second and related, we should ensure that the intensification of councils’ relationships with their local VCS turns into long-lasting, strategic partnerships and funding models that recognise each sector’s strengths. Working together in this way is a key means through which new models of service delivery can be created.
Third, the growing familiarity with ad hoc challenge prizes used during the crisis should lead to wider adoption of this methodology for addressing community needs. If councils can learn to effectively articulate the challenges they are trying to solve, rather than specifying in detail the solutions they believe they need, it could also open the door to more outcomes-based procurement. That would be a positive shift, helping local government engage with a broader range of more innovative suppliers in future.
Fourth and finally, the crisis might lead to fundamental reform of some services. There’s a difference between well-educated people reading about challenges for recipients of Universal Credit and experiencing them first-hand. If the lockdown continues much longer, they are unlikely to remain quiet about those challenges or fail to lobby for change in ways that councils have been calling for from national government for some time.
And at a local level, as councils thoroughly reconsider the nature of vulnerability in their communities, they’re likely to put in place structures that outlast the crisis, such as provisions to help the homeless and those in gig economy jobs. Covid has also revealed the interdependency of needs and services. Never before has there been such a push to reduce service silos (e.g. adult social care staff having to know who else might be working to support newly vulnerable families). Councils must work hard to ensure they avoid resurrecting service silos once the crisis is over.
Making, Buying, Sharing & Re-using
Recent weeks have brought additional attention to the different approaches councils take towards technology and their differing digital capabilities.
Councils’ approaches to technology loosely fall into a Venn diagram of three circles: Buy it, Lo-code it or Build it. (In truth, many councils will use a combination.)
Buy it — some councils, especially those whose digital teams are heavily IT focused, are looking to buy or re-purpose off-the-shelf tools that meet their new needs. Lo-Code it — a second group, well exemplified by the activities of Adur and Worthing, use lo-code tools: software that can rapidly create new forms, services, apps and systems without coding. Build it — A third group has a preference for coding new solutions from scratch or forking and developing code from others.
Some in the localgov digital community make impassioned pleas for one of these models over the rest. My preference is for a pragmatic approach, which considers the merits of each depending on what you’re trying to do. However, it’s worth stating that these different approaches do make it hard to scale solutions between councils who sit in different parts of the Venn diagram.
What I think matters more is how councils combine their approach to technology with their wider digital approach.
Put simply, those councils who are set up with truly digital capabilities — by which I mean the Tom Loosemore definition of “Applying the culture, practices, processes & technologies of the Internet-era to respond to people’s raised expectations” seem much better equipped to handle the pace of change now required than those who still have quite traditional IT departments.
Until now, one factor that has held some local authorities back from investing in digital capabilities has been that their senior management and elected leaders haven’t sufficiently understood what it entails and supported the creation of an environment for digital to thrive. Now that the difference between IT and digital is being laid bare to leaders, all councils should be making the push to become genuinely digital organisations.
Lastly — and you’d expect me to say this — I hope Covid will highlight the importance of collaboration and working in the open. In a crisis, it’s understandable that organisations initially need to get their heads down to put in place whatever provisions are necessary. But as we transition to thinking further ahead, far more can be gained if councils share the challenges they see on the horizon, divvy up the workload of developing solutions and design things in a way that can be shared and scaled.
Over the next few days, I’ll be doing a lot of thinking with boroughs and colleagues from the GLA on how LOTI can facilitate and incentivise such collaboration. Perhaps the simplest measure councils can take is to work in the open (as many already do: see the great weeknotes, blogs and code sharing from the likes of Camden and their partners at Futuregov, Hackney, Hounslow and Croydon). I expect many more local government comms teams will start to see the importance of supporting their colleagues to share details of work in progress.
Using data better
The technical, data, legal, organisational and cultural barriers that make data collaboration between multiple public sector organisations hard have been known about for years, at least within the local government digital community.
Prior to Covid, much of LOTI’s year one work plan was aimed at chipping away at them, for example seeking to standardise and streamline boroughs’ approach to information governance (IG), or working together to develop common standards for the deployment of IoT devices.
During Covid, the negative consequences of data silos, the lack of data standards and other barriers to data collaboration have started gaining widespread attention for the first time.
The national media has lamented the lag in timely mortality figures due to the different ways care homes record such data. Data sharing between national and local government on medically shielded individuals and lists of volunteers has been a major talking point in cross-departmental discussions. And individual local authorities are acutely aware that they can’t afford to wait six months to be able to share data on factors affecting vulnerability between them — a typical length of time for signing a multi-organisation Information Sharing Agreement.
The Covid response is creating an environment in which breaking down those barriers has become a political priority and organisations can see first-hand what can be done at speed. For example, based on a request from boroughs, the Information Governance Group for London has been able to create a data-sharing agreement for boroughs to share data between themselves on vulnerable children who depend on free school meals in less than a week.
On another recent call, boroughs shared with each other details of how they’re using data to model vulnerability. It’s apparent that those councils that have already made consistent use of standards like Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRNs) and put in place systems to link and match their internal data, are finding it easier than their peers to conduct the urgent analysis now required.
The lasting positive potential of Covid should be that this greater awareness about — and commitment to — enabling rapid data collaboration endures. The opportunity is for cities to finally put in place helpful data standards; to invest in common approaches and tools for IG; and for forums for local government data analysts to become well used. Expect to see much more serious investment in, and activity on, the creation of city data infrastructure over the coming months.
Thinking ahead
London boroughs share a commitment to making sure their Covid responses deliver positive changes far beyond the current crisis. Right now, what they lack is the headspace to spend much time thinking about it.
Reading back over this article, I realise that many of the suggestions I’ve made for the Covid legacy sound like mundane items we’ve discussed for years. But that might just be the point.
Perhaps the single most important change will be that leaders, national government and local authorities are finally able to take the steps which many digital teams have long been advocating for.
That said, now is also a time for thinking big. At LOTI, it’s likely we’ll shortly commission some research on boroughs’ behalf on the future of public services post-Covid.
For now, your ideas and feedback on the above would be very welcome.
Thanks for reading.
Find me on Twitter | https://medium.com/loti/beyond-the-crisis-how-local-government-can-build-a-positive-legacy-after-covid-3ac6e3d32a24 | ['Eddie Copeland'] | 2020-04-22 07:10:58.944000+00:00 | ['Government Innovation', 'Data', 'Local Government', 'Covid 19', 'London'] |
Publishers sue Google over scanning of printed material | Five publishers are suing Google for the scanning of print material for the Search giant’s online library project.
The suit seeks a declaration that the Web search leader commits
infringement when it scans entire books covered by copyright without
permission of the copyright owner.
But according to Google,
Creating an easy-to-use index of books is fair use under copyright law
and supports the purpose of copyright: to increase the awareness and
sales of books, directly benefiting copyright holders …
…
Supporters of the Google Print project say the scanning of the full
text of the books is necessary to create a searchable catalog of the
books located within the five libraries’ collections. Google says it
has no plans to make full copies of copyrighted works available without
their owners’ permission.
Google is considered to be the de facto technology for searching the Internet, and even other things (i.e. with Google Desktop, etc.). I think it would have been advantageous to the publishers if Google had coverage of text in existing printed material. Yes, this could be abused, but I’m pretty sure Google has learned its lesson from the issue over its caching web pages. And the company would surely have the technology to control access over the scanned copyrighted material.
Heck, I’d even think Google has enough resources to just buy off the rights to the material! Or would they?
All five of the publishers named as plaintiffs in the latest lawsuit
have participated in Google’s publisher program, according to the
company.
Why the sudden turnaround?
Tags:
intellectual property | https://racoma.org/publishers-sue-google-over-scanning-of-printed-material-a541559498ef | [] | 2016-06-01 06:05:41.833000+00:00 | ['Intellectual', 'Property'] |
Allow me to introduce myself… | Allow me to introduce myself…
I am Tiana Rose! A New York native and a lover of all things creative. I’m a full time Singer/Beautypreneur and love to write poetry in my spare time.
I’ll be posting here every other Sunday (or whenever I feel inspired & want to share something new I wrote with the world). I wish to inspire or even help guide you to healing with the things I write — if not, I hope you at least enjoy reading them!😊 | https://medium.com/@thesoulfulrose/allow-me-to-introduce-myself-879b60a0da92 | ['Tiana Rose'] | 2020-12-24 08:58:36.842000+00:00 | ['First Post', 'Poet', 'New York', 'Soulful Rose Sundays', 'Tiana Rose'] |
Have I Always Been a Good Writer? | I still think, every single day, that I am not a good writer.
It’s been worse recently: I have not been getting the ‘results’ I thought I’d get with how much work I believe I am putting in. Even though I have been in transition for the past year dealing with immigration, work, marriage, etc.
The truth of the matter is: I am not organized, my social media efficiency has slacked, and I could write even more.
Knowing all this doesn’t stop me from feeling like a failure.
It’s as though because I am aware of my potential, and I read all these amazing writers, I compare myself with them although I am aware of what a bad idea this is.
Photo by Elijah O'Donnell on Unsplash
I’ve always done something with words ever since I can remember. In all this time, I have hardly been able to predict if something will resonate with the reader.
And I am also lazy. Terribly lazy. I have a poetry collection I’ve never published, I have a fiction trilogy I have outlined but haven’t started writing, I always find an excuse to not submit to magazines anywhere.
I only recently put out my first real digital product that had anything to do with my craft — an audio collection.
I keep falling and getting up on this writing life.
Some days are amazing. I feel the words flowing out and the joy of how much I am actually good at it. I have a landscape view of how far I have come and how my practice of reading and writing is paying off.
Then, some days, there’s nothing. I literally feel like the worse writer on earth and that everyone who said I should get a job was right.
I have tried to write on those days and those are the pieces I am usually proud of: they remind of how much I love writing and how to me, it’s not only about the audience but a way of communicating with the world.
The more I spend time writing, the less I feel ‘great’ about it.
I mean…I don’t enjoy writing as much anymore but I enjoy having written.
It’s like going to the store to get groceries. You might not want to drive or take the bus, but you want your food. And there’s no Amazon fix for this.
I’m almost always in a fight with myself where I need to do what I don’t feel like doing (writing) so I can feel ( the joy of words).
But these are just extreme scenarios.
Some days are pretty regular: I get an idea, I sit on the computer or phone, I get it out, I love it, and my community loves it.
Some days, I spend months on a piece: it sucks, no one likes it, I hate it and I feel terrible.
Or I really like it, and I’m left wondering what I did wrong.
It’s like a sea wave, this writing life: it ebbs and flows. Like a surfer, I need to remind myself that I know how to swim if I miss my move.
That I can get back on the board and try again.
Photo by Oliver Sjöström on Unsplash
I need to remember that some days, I’ll have the perfect sequence of wave, strokes, and skill.
I don’t think I’ll ever feel comfortable with my level of skill as a writer. | https://kamga.medium.com/have-i-always-been-a-good-writer-e8bb80039963 | ['Kamga Tchassa'] | 2019-04-15 00:34:41.840000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Creativity', 'This Happened To Me', 'Writers Life', 'Writing'] |
Black and Latinx Legislative Caucus- Listening Session | This November, Hildreth Institute joined Zero Debt Massachusetts, in attending the community listening session hosted by the Massachusetts Black and Latinx legislative caucus. Before opening up the session for comments, the caucus made everyone aware of the bills that they considered a “priority.” To our astonishment, the Student Loan Bill of Rights was not mentioned. Despite the known racial disparities between student loan borrowers and the alarming trend in which the federal government is systematically failing at overseeing student loan servicing agencies and protecting student loan borrowers.
Black and brown borrowers, despite similar income levels, are borrowing nearly $8000 more on average than white borrowers to finance their education. That inequality only widens after graduation; it is detrimental to ignore that those predatory loan servicers (who are known to steer borrowers in the wrong direction) have a part to play in that increase. As it is also a fact that Black and Latinx borrowers are more often the victims of predatory actions done onto them from both their colleges and their loan servicers.
Student loan servicers have “openly admitted that they feel no obligation to act in the interest of the consumer.” In essence, student loan borrowers do not have adequate customer services nor do they have strong consumer protections, instead, they are exploited, and the federal government is refusing to take action against them; what are states to do? Many have responded with passing protection bills; those states include Rhode Island, New York, Maine, Maryland, Colorado, and Nevada. Others are fighting hard for a state-wide student loan bill of rights.
Currently, the student loan bill of rights- H.3977. is stuck in the house ways and means. Almost half of the members of the Black and Latinx legislative caucus hold positions on this committee those include: Russell E. Holmes, Carlos González, Andres X. Vargas, Bud L. Williams, Chynah Tyler, José F. Tosado.
Our own Student Loan Bill of Rights would ensure that every Massachusetts borrower receives robust consumer protection and effective assistance. It is creating adequate oversight to ensure that the student loan industry is helping borrowers, not its profit margins. Help Massachusetts pass a student loan bill of rights, let’s ensure that borrowers have the protections that every other consumer group has. To urge your representative to support this important bill: click here.
To learn more about why Massachusetts needs a Student Loan Bill of Rights click here. | https://medium.com/hildreth-institute/black-and-latinx-legislative-caucus-listening-session-a334827616e7 | ['Ariana O Rourke'] | 2019-11-25 17:07:29.495000+00:00 | ['Legislation', 'Events', 'Student Loans', 'Massachusetts', 'Student Debt Crisis'] |
The Mastermind Scientist Behind the COVID-19 Vaccine | The Mastermind Scientist Behind the COVID-19 Vaccine
Identity matters.
Photo from Unsplash @cdc
As the race for a COVID-19 vaccine heats up, the front runner appears to be the one developed by Pfizer/BioNTech.
It is already set to be used in the U.K. next week, after receiving governmental approval.
The coronavirus vaccine made by Pfizer/BioNTech was 95% effective amongst 44,000 volunteers, and didn’t cause any serious side effects.
This COVID-19 vaccine could be the answer we have all been waiting for. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/the-mastermind-scientist-behind-the-covid-19-vaccine-6e9611c8f740 | ['Maryam I.'] | 2020-12-03 01:47:15.837000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Health', 'Identity', 'Science', 'Education'] |
Talking to Erin | One of my student’s is named Erin[1]. I’ve been her English teacher for three months now. I’ve never seen her face.
Well, that’s not entirely true. When I open my electronic gradebook and hover my cursor over her name, Erin’s school picture appears. She is smiling, wearing a t-shirt and a headband that pulls back her hair. Erin looks about seventeen, tan and happy.
But that’s not how I know her. We log on together three times a week and interact remotely. Erin doesn’t turn on her camera. She doesn’t speak. A three-dimensional being collapsed into a blank space, no bigger on my screen than a postage stamp.
Teachers are always more curious about the lives of their students than their students are of their teachers, mainly because students seem so much more alive. But remote learning has leeched so much humanity from my kids. Gone is the spontaneity, the liveliness, the banter of a classroom. On Zoom, you have to click a button before you can speak. And if the student doesn’t turn on her camera — as many of our students do not — she exists only as a name on the screen, a vacuum into which the imagination rushes.
Not pictured: The kid cos-playing anime, the kid who only speaks through a sock puppet, the kid whose dog is licking peanut butter off his face for uncomfortably long periods of time…
At first, I tried to understand what kept Erin from revealing herself. I called on her in class and sent her messages in the chat. If she replied, it was always in the terse, chary manner of teens who have gone boneless and will force you to drag the words from them. I pictured her slouched over her Chromebook, fingers drumming out her boredom, listening to me babble on about analysis and composition. Does she have posters on her walls? Books on the nightstand? A favorite YouTube channel? But there was no way to penetrate that veil. We can’t even hear one another breathe on the other side.
After a while, I simply surrendered to it. I was not going to get to know Erin, learn her repertoire of facial expressions, figure out what makes her laugh. This isn’t merely because we’re virtual; every year, there are kids who wall themselves off and make themselves remote. But rarely has the metaphor been so defeating as the Zoom grid checkered by blacked-out squares.
I think I understand Erin’s impulse to retreat. Lately, I’ve been struggling to be in the presence of other people, a manifestation of my deep sense of shame. Over the past fifteen months, my daughter has struggled with anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideations, which crested recently in a long-term hospitalization. She’s currently residing in a residential facility and will be there for several more weeks. Because of COVID, I cannot visit her, and the rules limit phone conversations to 15 minutes a day. I understand intellectually that her condition is not a reflection of my parenting, nor is her struggle a failure of my love. But in my chest, something has cracked, and the contents have come sluicing out. My daughter has become a black screen to me, and I can’t stop myself from feeling responsible.
Perhaps what is most painful is that I feel undeserving of the complaint. This year has taken so much from so many. People have lost jobs, rituals, family members. It’s hard to feel justified objecting to the fire in your house when the entire West Coast literally burned to the ground in July. I don’t know how to answer people when they ask how I’m doing. I’m not okay. They’re not okay. But do either of us really want to uncap the hydrants of emotion we’re both lugging around?
Learning about your child’s depression means grieving for old expectations. You move through the five stages — “This can’t be happening… why is this happening?” — before settling into acceptance like a sinking tanker finally comes to rest on the seafloor. Mental illness can be medicated and managed, but, like diabetes, fundamentally changes the sort of life one will lead. For a parent, it can feel like a large rock that has inexplicably appeared in the middle of your kitchen. You keep trying to move it before realizing that it’s not going anywhere, and you’re going to have to change the way you cook.
But before you reach acceptance, there’s a lengthy stage of bargaining, where you make all kinds of deals with yourself about what recovery could look like or how we might return to normal. “If we can just get the dosage right,” I said, “then we might be in the clear.” And maybe that’s true; every kid is different. For all I know, my child will age out of this just as suddenly as she aged into it. Change can come that fast. Somewhere in Wuhan, an infected bat flew too close to a curious human. One year later, we’re all living underground.
Of course, disaster can also become the wallpaper. The scary thing about this year is that we’ve invested so much in bundling it into one calendar. We’ve all talked about 2020 is “the worst,” as though it were a statistically inevitable outlier on some bell curve of misfortune. We’ll get a vaccine, a new president, maybe a new Marvel movie. Next year won’t be as bad; next year couldn’t possibly be worse.
It’s bargaining, again. If you listen closely enough, you can hear the other stages, too. People have been mad at teachers and schools during this time, which can resemble a person in a lifeboat complaining that their dinner is late. But the anger is about so much more than the diminished learning experience. It’s about empty stadiums on Friday night, concerts assembled online, school dances that can’t be rescheduled. It’s about recognizing that we are small and vulnerable and most days hang by a thread.
Before acceptance, there’s a sense of powerlessness, impotent anger, despair. That’s the dominant affectation of my students — a “lol nothing matters” resignation that our disasters have an inertia that can’t be stopped. We’re not the Greatest Generation; we don’t come together to win wars or save the world. We can’t even agree to wear masks.
I get this. My enemy is an inscrutable genetic deficiency. I can’t reach it with medicine or therapy. It feels inevitable, almost karmic.
But I am a teacher. Every day I get up, and I have students to reach. And I believe that my students can be reached, even across great distances, to learn, to be inspired by the humanity of literature. I believe in magic word combinations that, like spells, summon a wayward kid from the fringe to the center of class. I believe that teaching models integrity, altruism, passion, and curiosity, and that these virtues can bend a person’s life towards the good. This isn’t borrowed faith. I was saved by teachers. I’ve seen it in my own classroom. And if I don’t show up, none of those things will happen. It’s true for my daughter, too.
The greatest surprise of this year — more than the global pandemic or the sinister germ inside my child’s head — has been the stubborn resilience of hope. I’ve lost so much good about myself — my humor, my patience, my resiliency, my lightness. But I still have my classroom, where nothing is inevitable or lost. The mission is pulling me through, despite myself. I’ve protested, shouted, begged, and despaired. And now I can accept it. This is my life, and it’s a vital one.
Another day at my monitor, and the class is dismissed. But Erin’s black box is still there, logged on. Maybe she’s not even there. Maybe she simply stepped away from her Chromebook and missed the bell. Or maybe she’s waiting for me to say something. To teach.
“Erin,” I say to the darkness. “Erin, we’ve got this. We’re going to be okay.”
[1] Actually, that’s not her name. But for confidentiality’s sake, I’m going to call her Erin. And those aren’t my students pictured above, either; it’s a stock photo. | https://medium.com/@michael-rossi/talking-to-erin-538e250e7e1c | ['Michael Rossi'] | 2020-12-18 18:15:35.141000+00:00 | ['2020', 'Education', 'Depression', 'Covid 19', 'Teaching'] |
Mocks in Elixir/Phoenix using Behaviors and Environment variables. | With Real World Examples Mocking SMS with Twilio.
Mocks simulate real-world behavior for the sake of convenient testing.
Mocks are the squirt gun vs. the real gun. They can mimic behavior but aren’t nearly as dangerous.
José Valim wrote an excellent piece on mocks and explicit contracts, and I recently had to opportunity to implement a Twilio Mock on my current project. I’ll share the experience of taking his advice and putting it to practice so that you can do the same.
The Goal
The goal is to use a Twilio Sms Mock to verify and send. Rather than use the Twilio API directly, we don’t want to rely on external APIs in our non-production environments for a variety of reasons:
Introduces flakiness and a reliance on network connectivity
Slows down tests that need to wait for the response
Avoid coupling code directly to the library in case we change libraries.
Working directly with a library that can send real SMS text messages is risky.
The Design
We can set an environment variable in phoenix to point to the module we want to use depending on the environment.
Abstractly, there’s the parent module and the environment-specific modules it delegates to.
The rest of your application will use the parent module and never directly use the environment-specific modules. This avoids using the prod module directly, which could be disastrous 😰
In my specific use case, we want a single Sms module for the rest of the application to access. This module will delegate to either the production module or the mock module.
Access and Set Environment Variables.
You can set environment variables in phoenix by adding them to your environment’s config file.
To Set An Environment Variable.
Add the following to an environment config file.
:app_name should be your applications name
should be your applications name sms_service is the env variable name. It can be any valid name you want.
is the env variable name. It can be any valid name you want. App.Sms.MockSms is the SMS module you want to use for that environment. In dev.exs and test.exs, it should be MockSms, and in prod.exs it should be ProdSms
To Retrieve an Environment Variable.
You can access environment variables with Application.get_env
Create The Prod and Mock Modules.
Both modules should have the same interface. This means they must define the same common public methods.
Here’s an example prod module.
Here’s an example mock module.
The mock module skips sending messages and does soft validation on the phone number so that tests using invalid phone numbers will still return an error.
You don’t need to understand the implementation code to set up your own production and mock modules.
Your production and mock modules will differ from mine, depending on what you’re using this pattern for.
Delegate to the Prod and Mock Modules.
Now that you have production and mock modules defined, your parent module can delegate to them.
Here’s an example using the main Sms module.
Test the Prod Module.
To make sure your prod module continues to work, you can implement tests that specifically use the module.
However, you likely don’t want to run these tests as part of your normal suit, so you can tag them using @moduletag and exclude them from your normal tests.
To exclude the :sms tag, you can add this line in your test_helpers.exs.
You can then run these tests when needed using the include or only tags. You can learn about those in my article on useful test commands and tags.
Final Thoughts.
Now that you have the parent module set up, you can use that in your normal tests.
José Valim went into deeper detail on all sorts of different patterns for using mocks. For further reading, I recommend his article on mocks and explicit contracts.
I hope my experience mocking our SMS module has been useful to you. If you have thoughts or questions, please share them with me either in the comments or on Twitter.
Just make sure you aren’t using your mock module in prod, otherwise, it might not send 😜 | https://medium.com/@brooklinmyers/mocks-in-elixir-phoenix-using-behaviors-and-environment-variables-7e41dfd749ae | ['Brooklin Myers'] | 2021-09-13 20:35:50.327000+00:00 | ['Sms', 'Elixir', 'Testing', 'Automated Testing', 'Phoenix'] |
How Can We Be Pleasing to God? | by Jim Gordon
What would you tell someone who asked you what a christian must do to be pleasing to God?
A lot of people would start out by saying we must go to church, we must tithe and we must obey the ten commandments. They would probably say we have to witness to others and give our money to the poor, and probably even some in the USA would say we must vote republican.
Seems like we christians are so hung up on works and doing things in our own effort to be pleasing to God. If we are not going to church we are backsliding. If we do not tithe to the church we are robbing God. We have all these things we are told we should be doing to be pleasing to God.
I think a lot of the christian world today has forgotten that Jesus came to fulfill the old covenant. When he said “it is finished” he was declaring the old covenant had come to fulfillment. By living a perfect life, Jesus showed us God’s true character which is love. He restored the fellowship between us and God. He sent the Spirit to live within us so we could enjoy that fellowship on a daily basis.
I think the real answer to the question of what must we do to be pleasing to God is…..nothing! We do not have to do anything because God provided grace through Christ. We are the righteousness of God and the Spirit of Christ now lives in us. It is not based on what we have done, it is all on what He has done.
We no longer have to try to keep the ten commandments. Those were a guide, or tutor to lead us to Christ. We no longer have to go to church because through Christ, we are the Church. We can assemble together with other believers any day, anywhere. We do not need to look to others for guidance and knowledge because the Spirit lives in us and is our teacher and guide. We do not have to tithe our money because the old covenant has been fulfilled. We can now give our money out of love and to who and where God is leading us to give. We do not have to force every encounter with someone to witness to them because the Holy Spirit is the one who draws all men to God. Since He lives in us we can be open to allow Him to work in us how He pleases.
So many christians today do not realize the freedom we have in Christ. They do not understand grace and the fact that we are no longer under condemnation. We do not have to do things to be pleasing to God. We now live under the guidance of the Spirit and we do things out of love, not out of obligation and trying to keep rules and commands.
So many of us live day to day under condemnation because we feel we have not done enough for God. We feel we do not measure up because we cannot do things like someone else does, or we cannot preach like someone else can. The fact is, God made us all the way we are for a reason. In the body of Christ, we all are equal and all have equally important qualities that God uses. No one is on a higher level than anyone else. We are all brothers and sisters and we are all under the headship of Jesus Christ.
Stop feeling like you are not pleasing to God because of something you do or something you do not do. Christ has provided grace for all of us, and there is nothing we can do to earn it or pay for it.
We can rest in God’s love. We can enjoy daily fellowship with Him because He loves us. We can be assured that we are now in the Kingdom for eternity because of what Christ has done for us. We can stop listening to others who we think are on a higher level than us, or who we think are closer to God because God loves each of His children equally. We are all capable of hearing and learning from the Holy Spirit who is within us. We do not have to wait until Sunday to hear from Him, worship Him, serve Him because we are the Church and every day is the Lord’s day.
Stop condemning yourself, look to God, love Him and love others. Let Him teach you, guide you, live through you day by day. There is nothing more you need to do than accept Him, love Him and love others. We are now new creatures in Him. We now live in His Kingdom. Forget the the rules and regulations of religion. Love God, love one another and realize you are loved just the way you are. | https://medium.com/@donewthreligion/how-can-we-be-pleasing-to-god-ecea201ab14e | ['Done With Religion'] | 2019-10-12 14:59:10.527000+00:00 | ['Christianity', 'Holy Spirit', 'Christian Living', 'Church', 'Acceptance'] |
Transforming finance for MSME’s in India through digital credit | Arth is supporting micro-enterprises, with a focus on both credit and livelihood support
Small businesses are the new pillars of the Indian economy, engaging millions of households in rural, urban, and semi-urban locations. However, due to the unfolding of uncertainties’ in the year 2020, these businesses have suffered a major blow. The Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are also a key governing sector of employment and economic development in India.
The MSME sector includes around 63.4* million units across the county, out of which 20% units are based in rural areas. Their approximate contribution to the manufacturing GDP is 6%; 25% of the GDP from services; and around 45% of the overall exports from India. The higher contribution of MSMEs in driving the Indian economy is indicative of its ability to encourage national growth in employment, socio-economic progress, and reducing rural-urban migration by lowering poverty.
However, the COVID-influenced disruption has caused a major setback to the micro-enterprises causing financial limitations to support their entrepreneurial needs. According to the latest update by the Times of India, at least 10% of the micro-enterprises had to permanently shut their shops post the lockdown. To support the remaining 90%, a timely flow of funds can offer significant support in improvising their entrepreneurial health and helping them in keeping their businesses afloat.
Digital Credit for micro-enterprises: ARTH Vridhi
Financing the MSMEs has been a concerning cause for all stakeholders across the industry, e.g., banks, financial institutions, and other organizations. ARTH has been at the forefront of enabling credit support to the micro-enterprises, with a special focus on those led by women. With time, the micro-customers at ARTH have enriched their capabilities in understanding credit and the management of businesses through various capacity building training sessions.
Vridhi in simple terms means ‘growth’. ARTH Vridhi is an individual micro-enterprise credit, focused on improving the health of enterprises, as well as the financial understanding of entrepreneurs by its technology-led offerings, like digital customer-onboarding, e-KYC, credit underwriting through machine-learning, digital repayments, real-time notifications, etc.
A glimpse from the Sakhee Sabha, educating the women micro-entrepreneurs about welfare schemes.
How does ARTH Vridhi benefit the micro-enterprises?
ARTH Vridhi, with its technology-driven approach, is suited to address the key challenges in the MSME sector. The key benefits of this individual credit offering are:
1.Introduction to formal credit: Earlier micro-entrepreneurs (MEs)preferred informal loans from family or friends, or family wealth to cushion their financial needs, falling prey to higher interest rates. ARTH Vridhi introduces the MEs to the formal banking system as well as lower interest rates and other benefits, thus enabling Financial Inclusion (FI) for the underserved.
2.Financial Literacy: A mandatory Financial Literacy session is conducted prior to the Loan disbursement process to ensure that the MEs are well versed with their Loan Journey. This also helps them in understanding the calculation of interest rates, and additionally best practices for business management to help in their micro-businesses.
3.Digital understanding: ARTH Vridhi is a cashless facility, and is 100% processed digitally. Thus, the MEs can have digital repayments only, which makes it important for the ME to first understand the digital processes. ARTH also encourages the use of technology amongst its customers and thus offers initial hand-holding to introduce and educate first-time users.
4.Insurance benefits: The credit facility comes with insurance support since majority of these micro-entrepreneurs do not have any social security benefits. Hospicash thus safeguards the health of the ME owner as well as his/her family and helps them to prepare for any unforeseen emergency.
5.Strengthening households: With a direct impact on the business-income, ARTH Vridhi also supports the households of these MEs through various livelihood-offerings, like ARTH Kalpataru (an initiative on government-scheme linkage), Poshan Vatika (Nutritional kitchen garden), Project Suraksha (alternate income channel to sustain during COVID), etc.
Through its multi-faceted, socio-economic, and customer-first approach, ARTH Vridhi aims at building an enabling environment for the micro-entrepreneurs and their families. ARTH believes that the micro-enterprise sector is the driving force of our nation. Hence, it is crucial to comprehend the thoughts behind the micro-enterprises as well as their livelihoods, and ensure timely communication and connect with the ever-growing underserved lot.
*https://cutt.ly/Rh1tXSO- CII National MSME Council | https://medium.com/@echoesofarth/transforming-finance-for-msmes-in-india-through-digital-credit-d3c9c3de7816 | [] | 2020-12-24 13:00:37.532000+00:00 | ['India', 'Women In Business', 'Credit', 'Financial Services', 'Financial Inclusion'] |
Welcome to My Medium Profile! | Welcome to My Medium Profile!
Hi friend,
Thanks for dropping by and welcome to my profile!
I often write about self-help, motivation, business, and writing. Sometimes, I even throw in a little bit of humor as well.
Here is a shortlist of some of my best stories that have been curated/further distributed by Medium.
Hope you enjoy it and feel free to leave comments. I love reading your opinions and feedback :)
Self
Motivation
Writing
Work/Business | https://medium.com/@itskevinlee/welcome-to-my-medium-profile-75d3b093fed6 | ['Kevin Lee'] | 2020-12-21 18:25:42.289000+00:00 | ['Introduction', 'About Me', 'Medium Partner Program', 'Kevin Lee', 'Ｍedium'] |
2018 Monthly Update II | Following the success of our first Meet the Managers event in Vienna, we will be hosting further events around the world, beginning in London on March 29. Don’t miss your chance to connect with other leading industry figures and join us in London!
ICONOMI in the Media
Colin Harper of CoinCentral, Jean-Pierre Buntinx of The Merkle, and Blockchain Relations produced well-researched overviews of ICONOMI:
“..this new Digital Assets Management Platform is an intriguing technical service suited for novice investors, veteran traders, and blockchain experts alike.”
Read full article in The Merkle>>
“…the average individual can benefit from investment practices that used to exist solely for the elite and economically privileged.”
Read full article in CoinCentral>>
“A DAA allows anyone to instantly diversify funds across a wide selection of digital assets available on ICONOMI’s platform in seconds.”
Read full article in Blockchain Relations>>
If you have written a piece about ICONOMI, send it to [email protected] and let us know; if it meets our criteria, we’ll mention it in our next Monthly Update.
New Features & Releases
We introduced fees payable in ICN for DAA creation, rebalancing, and tokenization. To read more about these fees and about our new buyback system, read our full blog post.
We will introduce DAA creation and rebalancing fees in May, together with a new back-end features related to these aspects of the platform. DAA tokenization fees will be introduced in April, and the adjusted buyback system will take effect on July 1.
With the most recent Android app update, Android users can now verify for Tier 1 directly on their phones. Download the updated app in the Play Store.
Android App Update
Verifying through the ICONOMI mobile apps is a much easier and more efficient process for our users, and we recommend it over verifying through browser access.
For the smoothest experience, please follow our recommendations and pointers for successfully verifying for Tier 1 verification.
New Supported Countries
Fourteen new countries are now supported for Tier 2 verification on the ICONOMI platform (Angola, Australia, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Namibia, Pakistan, Philippines, Senegal, Taiwan, and Thailand), bringing the total supported countries for Tier 2 to 63. Read more in our blog post.
Two-Factor Authentication for Withdrawals
Withdrawal 2FA allows users to divide authentication across two separate devices: one device can be used for login 2FA, and another device can be used for withdrawal 2FA, ensuring no single point of failure. It is especially applicable for company accounts, allowing these two roles to be split between two different people.
Withdrawal 2FA adds a second layer of protection for assets stored on the ICONOMI platform. We always stress the importance of keeping your assets safe, and features like this really make a difference.
Read our Knowledge Base article to learn how to protect your assets further.
Community
Rocket.Chat
Last month, we successfully migrated from Slack to Rocket.Chat. To join the conversation, visit our #public channel, click “SIGN IN TO START TALKING” in the lower left corner of the screen, then click “Register a new account” and fill in the form.
Q&A Session
Once again, we will be answering your questions and taking time to discuss our current and future plans with our community during our March Reddit AMA. Be sure to join us on Wednesday, March 21 at 5pm CET! Read our previous Reddit Q&A here.
What’s Next?
New features for Android app
We are currently developing Tier 2 verification and an activity section for the Android app. We would like to hear your input on which Android app features you want to see implemented first:
Buy/sell feature Widgets: Display DAA prices or other statistics on your home screen
Feel free to comment your preference below or on Reddit. We’ll decide which feature to implement first based on your feedback! | https://medium.com/iconominet/2018-monthly-update-ii-5645367f1273 | ['Tjasa Tolj'] | 2018-04-16 14:39:55.035000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Iconomi', 'Ethereum', 'Updates', 'Bitcoin'] |
Peregrine Sun | Peregrine Sun
Ode to the Peregrine Falcon and biological conservation
Photo by Alessandro La Becca on Unsplash
O! Sky wanderer of angelic wings
what doth thou see
from the firmament?
Do you catch man’s hubris
spread out like maps
upon a warrior’s table?
What have we done to our perch
torn asunder for houses and merch.
Yet, here we are —
packed hundred-fold within boxes
that soar with might and vigor
yet you watch, patiently
knowing that the world
will return anon.
Shaheen-e kuhi or bahri
with a crown of stripes and beak of bone
Well adapted to nature’s exigencies
arid tundra, forest, ice, or sea, or dome
But not to methane clouds
ecosystems of fevered smog
and plastic meadows homes.
As the empty halls of evolution
wear out to a final gasp,
will she remember our plod,
that lagged to an ultimate end?
I wonder what sped by
before the epilogue cried
doth thee care of books writ
upon your majesty
or is the sky that is your god
and we but shadows.
Shall we never beseech,
a tomorrow’s empty whitewashed shore
And when the vole or rabbit
breed or feed no more,
that long wait upon a tree
shall sicken and tire,
an emperor as thee.
Tell me great Falco,
what doth thou see? | https://medium.com/loose-words/peregrine-sun-64d38d6050dd | ['Bradley J Nordell'] | 2020-08-02 12:12:29.995000+00:00 | ['Falcons', 'Poetry', 'Ode', 'Climate Change', 'Conservation'] |
How to Use Git/GitHub without asking for authentication always: Passwordless Usage of Private Git Repositories | Passwordless Authentication for Git-Based Repositories
The authentication to access the source code repositories like GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, etc., is crucial. These repositories are all git-based. However, when working with these repositories' private instances, it is very annoying and boring to enter the credentials at each code interaction attempt.
There are some workarounds or ways to get rid of entering the credentials, namely username-password, each time to interact with the repositories. Let’s take a look at these options and briefly discuss them.
Firstly, when cloning the repository, you can enter the username and the password to the clone link. To clone a repository, go to the repository, click the Code , and then copy the link by clicking the copy to clipboard icon as follows:
The copied link as follows:
https://github.com/JBCodeWorld/test.git
To clone the repo without the username and the password authentication, enter those values to the link as follows:
git clone https://username:[email protected]/JBCodeWorld/test.git
If you already cloned or checked out the repo, go to the path-to-repo/.git/config file and update URL accordingly with the username and the password .
[core]
repositoryformatversion = 0
filemode = true
bare = false
logallrefupdates = true
[remote "origin"]
url = https://username:[email protected]/JBCodeWorld/test.git
fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
[branch "master"]
remote = origin
merge = refs/heads/master
As you see, the credentials information exposed in command history and also not encrypted in the file, and only protected with routine user file permissions.
Secondly, you can use the credential.helper to store or cache the credentials. The store option saves the credentials in a file named as ~/.git-credentials for each URL context. To activate this option,
$ git config credential.helper store
OR
$ git config --global credential.helper store
After that, on the first interaction with the repository, the credentials are retrieved from the user and stored as follows:
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/test$ git pull
Username for 'https://github.com': jbcodeworld
Password for 'https://[email protected]':
Already up to date.
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/test$
When the ~/.git-credentials checked, the credentials are stored as unencrypted . The file is protected only by standard user file permissions.
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ cat ~/.git-credentials
https://<user-name>:<password>@github.com
You can also store the credentials information in the memory for a certain amount of time. To activate this;
$ git config credential.helper cache
OR
$ git config --global credential.helper cache
Again, in the first interaction with the repository, the credentials are retrieved from the user and stored in the cache as follows:
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/test$ git config --global credential.helper cache
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/test$ git pull
Username for 'https://github.com': jbcodeworld
Password for 'https://[email protected]':
Already up to date.
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/test$
The time unit for the cache is in seconds and default is 15 minutes. When this time elapsed, git will force you to enter your username and password again. You can overwrite the default as follows, for example, for one day ( 1 day = 24 hours × 60 minutes × 60 seconds = 86400 seconds );
$ git config --global credential.helper 'cache --timeout=86400'
OR
$ git config --global credential.helper 'cache --timeout=86400'
If you would like the daemon to exit early, revoke all cached credentials before their timeout, you can issue an exit action:
git credential-cache exit
Thirdly, a token can be created at the repository and be used for authentication. To create the token, you can follow these steps;
You can also follow the same step from the git documentation.
Step 1: In the upper-right corner of any page, click your profile photo, then click Settings
Step 2: In the left sidebar, click Developer Settings
Step 3: In the left sidebar, click Personel access tokens .
Step 4: In the right-upper corner, click Generate new token .
Step 5: If prompted, confirm your GitHub password.
Step 6: Give your token a descriptive name. Select the scopes, or permissions; you’d like to grant this token. To use your token to access repositories from the command line, select repo.
Step 7: Finally, click the Generate token button to generate the token.
Step 8: Confirm the checkmark and then click the copy to clipboard icon to copy the token to your clipboard. For security reasons, after you navigate off the page, you will not be able to see the token again.
These are the steps to create the token successfully. After this, the token can be used at the git URL as in the first option. You can use the token when cloning like this;
git clone https://[email protected]/JBCodeWorld/test.git
If you have already cloned the repository, then you can update the URL in the .git/config file in the repository by placing the token between https:// and @github.com .
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/test$ cat .git/config
[core]
repositoryformatversion = 0
filemode = true
bare = false
logallrefupdates = true
[remote "origin"]
url = https://[email protected]/JBCodeWorld/test.git
.....
After entering the token to the URL in the .git/config file, git will not ask for authentication anymore.
Fourthly, a new SSH key can be added to your GitHub account and be used for authentication. To create the SSH key , you can follow these steps;
You can also follow the same step from the git documentation.
Let’s create the SSH Keys first. To to do so, go to your terminal and type;
ssh-keygen -t rsa
When the command is entered, press enter key for all options. You can also enter a password, but we will not activate the password in this study. You will see a screen like this;
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ssh-keygen -t rsa
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/ubuntu/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/ubuntu/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/ubuntu/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:TAS8DyOa8vKITV0R4HP1PHM7aQ6wLMqZmgq7lJYfDgQ ubuntu@ubuntu
The key's randomart image is:
+---[RSA 2048]----+
| .oo.o |
| . .+ o |
|E o o.o = . |
|. .o+= o + o |
| . o .o+S . = |
|o =o = .. + . |
|.O..* . |
|*==o. |
|*==o |
+----[SHA256]-----+
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$
ssh-keygen will create two keys in the ~/.ssh folder. These are private id_rsa , and public id_rsa.pub keys.
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ls ~/.ssh
config id_rsa id_rsa.pub known_hosts
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$
The contents of public key, id_rsa.pub , must be copied to the GitHub .
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQC8QqytxbuCxgW7TWO+FPXlxycx+F9Q9IDtaS7Jr0IZeF00Jhn1nVLsKtBNJe5ZxSbvYtflWdLcaHn0tRV8GNbZG2PSJ6iPGU051D2altyFQ+8ySKW11AJn72kdHyLt1Kjbe0byk5qp1vpzzay/mtcEA/CWAoecT+1p2D592vRW8Zj5ASAf1HcfVBPyNLi2S2kYFsk/4i6pHt3VdrQUMdLCs1U6aS2xpEzLf/ZiR9zNzdYkS062UJkMtyYFTOr5GyPuSBb/o47mkqS5zz9lruhgIQbMXr3Wa4TMRQHtM5lzMFRjNcUgUGY+YjXvHiJsi1uhYdA8PJcgEVWYsQGKnK69 ubuntu@ubuntu
After the creation of ssh keys, the steps at GitHub can be done as follows;
Step 1: In the upper-right corner of any page, click your profile photo, then click Settings .
Step 2: In the user settings sidebar, click SSH and GPG keys .
Step 3: Click New SSH key or Add SSH key .
Step 4: In the Title field, add a descriptive label for the new key. Paste the ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub key content to the Key field. Click Add SSH key .
Step 5: If prompted, confirm your GitHub password.
Step 6: Verify that the key is added as follows.
After adding the public key to GitHub, git will not ask for authentication anymore. But for this, we have to do some settings in the configuration.
Firstly, let’s authenticate the connection with the command ssh -T [email protected] . You may see a warning like this:
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ssh -T [email protected]
The authenticity of host 'github.com (140.82.121.4)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is SHA256:nThbg6kXUpJWGl7E1IGOCspRomTxdCARLviKw6E5SY8.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'github.com,140.82.121.4' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
Hi JBCodeWorld! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.
Secondly, to use GitHub with shell access, we must use shell syntax as follows;
git clone [email protected]:<url-repo>.git
In our case;
git clone [email protected]:JBCodeWorld/test.git
Cloning into 'test'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 15, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (15/15), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (9/9), done.
remote: Total 15 (delta 0), reused 6 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (15/15), done.
If you have already cloned and worked on a repository, then you must redefine the ssh URL for remote origin in the repository:
git remote set-url origin [email protected]:<url-repo>.git
In our case;
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/test$ git remote set-url origin [email protected]:JBCodeWorld/test.git
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/test$ git push
Counting objects: 3, done.
Delta compression using up to 2 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
Writing objects: 100% (3/3), 294 bytes | 294.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
To github.com:JBCodeWorld/test.git
9b7e69d..2391466 master -> master
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/test$
Finally, you can enjoy passwordless git operations. You can choose the one that suits your needs. However, I would highly recommend using more secure options that do not disclose your credentials or make it hard to be stolen. | https://medium.com/clarusway/how-to-use-git-github-without-asking-for-authentication-always-passwordless-usage-of-private-git-8c32489bc2e9 | ['Joe Blue'] | 2020-12-30 21:26:21.817000+00:00 | ['Git Authentication', 'Github', 'Passwordless', 'Git Credentials', 'Github Authentication'] |
เมื่อเขารู้จักเรา. หลายครั้งตำแหน่งหน้าที่ที่สูงกว่าคนอื่นก… | A member of Mutrack and Inthentic. I lead, learn, and build with vision, love and care. https://piyorot.com
Follow | https://medium.com/people-development/%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%B7%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%AD%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%82%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B9%E0%B9%89%E0%B8%88%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%81%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B2-f03e054b14ab | [] | 2020-03-25 12:44:19.273000+00:00 | ['Team', 'Leaders', 'Decision Making', 'Empowerment'] |
Matrices in Data Science Are Always Real and Symmetric | Matrices in Data Science Are Always Real and Symmetric
Because data science deals with real-world problems, matrices in data science must be real and symmetric
Introduction
Linear Algebra is a branch of mathematics that is extremely useful in data science and machine learning. Most machine learning models can be expressed in matrix form. Because data science deals with real-world problems, matrices in data science must be real and symmetric. There are some exceptions to this. In advanced data science models such as image processing, Fourier analysis is heavily used. Hence one could easily encounter matrices that are defined over the space of complex numbers. Other than that, for most basic data science and machine learning problems, the matrices encountered are always real and symmetric.
In this article, we will consider three examples of real and symmetric matrix models that we often encounter in data science and machine learning, namely, the regression matrix (R); the covariance matrix, and the linear discriminant analysis matrix (L).
Example 1: Linear Regression Matrix
Suppose we have a dataset that has 4 predictor features and n observations as shown below.
Table 1. Features matrix with 4 variables and n observations. Column 5 is the target variable (y).
We would like to build a multi-regression model for predicting the y values (column 5). Our model can thus be expressed in the form
In matrix form, this equation can be written as
where X is the ( n x 4) features matrix, w is the (4 x 1) matrix representing the regression coefficients to be determined, and y is the (n x 1) matrix containing the n observations of the target variable y.
Note that X is a rectangular matrix, so we can’t solve the equation above by taking the inverse of X.
To convert X into a square matrix, we multiple the left-hand side and right-hand side of our equation by the transpose of X, that is
This equation can also be expressed as
where
is the (4 x 4) regression matrix. Clearly, we observe that R is a real and symmetric matrix. Note that in linear algebra, the transpose of the product of two matrices obeys the following relationship
Now that we’ve reduced our regression problem and expressed it in terms of the (4x4) real, symmetric, and invertible regression matrix R, it is straightforward to show that the exact solution of the regression equation is then
Example 2: Covariance Matrix
Suppose we have a highly correlated features matrix with 4 features and n observation as shown in Table 2 below:
Table 2. Features matrix with 4 variables and n observations
To visualize the correlations between the features, we can generate a scatter plot. To quantify the degree of correlation between features (multicollinearity), we can compute the covariance matrix using this equation:
In matrix form, the covariance matrix can be expressed as a 4 x 4 real and symmetric matrix:
Again, we see that the covariant matrix is real and symmetric. This matrix can be diagonalized by performing a unitary transformation, also referred to as Principal Component Analysis (PCA) transformation to obtain the following:
Since the trace of a matrix remains invariant under a unitary transformation, we observe that the sum of the eigenvalues of the diagonal matrix is equal to the total variance contained in features X1, X2, X3, and X4.
Example 3: Linear Discriminant Analysis Matrix
Another example of a real and symmetric matrix in data science is the Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) matrix. This matrix can be expressed in the form
where S_W is the within-feature scatter matrix, and S_B is the between-feature scatter matrix. Since both matrices S_W and S_B are real and symmetric, it follows that L is also real and symmetric. The diagonalization of L produces a feature subspace that optimizes class separability and reduces dimensionality. Hence LDA is a supervised algorithm, while PCA is not.
For more details about the implementation of LDA, please see the following references:
Machine Learning: Dimensionality Reduction via Linear Discriminant Analysis
GitHub repository for LDA implementation using Iris dataset
Python Machine Learning by Sebastian Raschka, 3rd Edition (Chapter 5)
Summary
In summary, we’ve discussed three examples of real and symmetric matrices in data science and machine learning, namely, the regression matrix (R); the covariance matrix, and the linear discriminant analysis matrix (L). Because data science deals with real-world problems, matrices in data science must be real and symmetric.
Additional Data Science/Machine Learning Resources
How Much Math do I need in Data Science?
Data Science Curriculum
5 Best Degrees for Getting into Data Science
Theoretical Foundations of Data Science — Should I Care or Simply Focus on Hands-on Skills?
Machine Learning Project Planning
How to Organize Your Data Science Project
Productivity Tools for Large-scale Data Science Projects
A Data Science Portfolio is More Valuable than a Resume
For questions and inquiries, please email me: [email protected] | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/matrices-in-data-science-are-always-real-and-symmetric-67dbf910213f | ['Benjamin Obi Tayo Ph.D.'] | 2020-10-29 16:40:46.425000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Linear Regression', 'Mathematics', 'Data Science', 'Matrix'] |
Work Best Practices to Carry Into the New Year, and Some to Dump | Things We Love — Why They Should Stay
#1 — Work from Home Optionality — Partial or Complete Flexibility
First of all, we all need to admit, that in a conventional pre-2020 workplace, when someone asked for a day of “working from home” that was often seen as code to an excused paid absence and was often frowned upon by bosses and colleagues alike.
That changed completely in 2020 — working from home wasn’t an option, but the only choice.
Even as the world moves beyond the pandemic and things normalize in 2021, most employers and employees have realized that many jobs that were traditionally seen as jobs that were only efficiently doable in a traditional workplace or office setting, can be done just as efficiently from the comfort of one’s home.
This has also meant potential savings in smaller office spaces i.e. reduced rentals, more employee satisfaction with the flexibility it provides and getting rid of toxic workplace traditions like “facetime” with the boss.
This is exactly why, within reasonable boundaries, a lot of companies are already planning to make remote working a real part of the way they operate long term.
Google, often the company that leads in terms of workplace flexibility has made announcements to this effect already. While extending remote working to September 2021, Sundar Pichai announced that leadership was also planning to test out a “flexible workweek”, which would require staff to work in the office for three days a week — what Pichai called “collaboration days” — and from home on the others. An excerpt from the detailed memo below:
“To remove the friction of five-day-a-week commutes, we will pilot a hybrid model in which teams come together for “collaboration days” in the office and spend the other days doing focused work for home or the office.”
#2 — Virtual Meetings — Ease of Access Sans Desperate Participation
Remember the days of booking meeting rooms in advance for a team huddle, or finding a conference room big enough for the team and the client contingent to all fit into?
Or the days where that annoying colleague hogged all the limelight in a meeting with the boss, because (s)he has a view on everything even when they aren’t the one the topic in discussion relates to?
Or the nightmare that a physical meeting became for those shy type of employees who are fabulous at their deliverables but not so great when it comes to presenting their work in front of a group because they’ve got stage fright?
Virtual meetings, or “Zoom meetings” as many of us now know them as are the perfect solution. You can set them up at practically no notice, and they can be “managed” far better than the chaos of a physical meeting or even a traditional conference call.
You get to see everyone else and interact with them almost as efficiently as a “face-to-face” interaction, but also have the power of collaborative tools like sharing your presentation via screen share, and even allowing others to pitch in with their ideas, etc. You can easily break out into smaller huddles via the breakout rooms and regroup with a click of a button back into the main room.
And, the best part, no real threat of meetings over-running, set a hard deadline to the meeting, and if you don’t keep track of time, the meeting will auto-shutdown at a certain pre-defined time, so there’s added incentive to be crisp!
#3 — Smart Work Over Mindless Slogging — Output vs. “Facetime”
I’ve always hated when that one colleague spends 14 hours at work every day with seemingly achieving only half of what I achieved in 8 hours. And yet, to that annoying boss who only cares about how long someone spends in the office, (s)he is the star, and I am always the one who’s in late and out early.
Remote work has been the perfect leveler for such situations.
With what is often known as “face time” in front of your boss taken out of the picture, the only thing that talks about your efficiency and contribution is your eventual work output. No one can really question or care how long you spent on your computer working, vs. how much of your time was spent playing with your kid or online shopping.
The only thing that speaks for itself is the output of your work — and if you’re one of those who prefer smart work over hard work, this is the ideal solution. | https://medium.com/illumination/work-best-practices-to-carry-into-the-new-year-and-what-to-dump-6ad1c6554174 | ['The Maverick Files'] | 2020-12-25 06:57:42.501000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Remote Work', 'Business', 'Digital', 'Productivity'] |
Software development with IT solutions | Software development means interactive reasoning activity that aims to create a programmed software to meet the business objectives, goals, and purpose. Software development is the activity of conceiving, identifying, designing, arranging indulge in creating and maintaining other software components.
10 different types of software development:
Software development is unbelievable in demand and indemnifies to be a part of today’s competitive market. According to David “software development means to set of computer science processes committed to the activity of creating, scheming, deploying and supporting software.” so below shows the ten different types of software development:
Web development: web development is the work indulge in developing a website through the internet. Web development can extent from developing a single static page to a web-based internet application, electronic work, and social electronic services.
2. Mobile development: it is the movement by a versatile application is produced for cell phones, for example, computerized colleagues or cell phones. These applications can be preloaded on telephones during assembling stages to give an application-like encounter inside the internet browser. Application programming engineers likewise ponder a long exhibit of screen sizes, equipment articulations inside every one of the stages.
3. Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses a scientific process to extract understanding and insights from many structured and unstructured facts. Data science is related to data mining, machine learning, and big facts.
4.Application development: this is the real type of programming. These are standard applications that perform their responsibility on traditional desktop operating systems such as windows, mac, or Linux.
5. Back-end development: back end development is the work that goes on behind the scenes to make positive the frond-end program agitate behind half of the computer to stand still. The backend of a website is where the data is collected and it usually involves three parts: a server, an application, and a database. Back end developers required to understand databases, as well as server logical languages and architecture.
6.Software tools development: not used by most customers but evaluative in the software development industry this type of development construct tools for other software developers to check their code with. Beyond simply testing developing this software will ensure other designers.
7. API development: the development of application programming interfaces is the art of constructing something extensible. Developers build programs that act as puzzle pieces with different operating systems on desktop, mobile, and app.
8. Embedded systems development: with the increase of the internet of things and just about everything except the kitchen sink being connected to the internet these days embedded systems development has to resound. Embedded systems are a computer system a mixture of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices.
9. Security software development: As a rule, a safe SDLC includes coordinating security testing and different exercises into a current advancement measure. Models incorporate composing security prerequisites close by useful necessities and playing out an engineering hazard investigation during the plan period of the SDLC.
10. Cloud Computing: cloud computing is the on-demand accessibility of computer system resources specifically data storage and computing power without direct active management by the user. | https://medium.com/@analaticg/software-development-with-it-solutions-956a4e359487 | ['Curve Infotech Software Solutions'] | 2020-12-18 05:41:36.399000+00:00 | ['Search Engine Optimizati', 'Information Technology', 'Software Development', 'Onpage Seo', 'Cloud Computing Services'] |
Greek, The Beginning | This is the journal of a man learning Ancient Greek, alone.
I endeavor to learn this language because my mind no longer has any footing. I am adrift in an ocean of noise where every voice clamors for trust. I noticed this un-mooring as I allowed more sources of “truth” to fill my mind until I had no concept of “truth” except a momentary one that would afford me more moments to follow. I had fallen, and was now mere sophist like every one else. No wisdom emanated from me. I was inert. My mind was lazy, unchallenged and unchallenging, happy to absorb “new information” but lusting, powerfully, for something eternal. I was the most modern man with an ancient soul tearing through seems and cracks. Short of suicide or follysome misadventure, I began a new pursuit of knowledge. I started with knowledge most prescient and immediately applicable: coding. I attended a coding academy and read coding books and finished coding bootcamps online. I learned what it means to code, and found myself nearly braindead.
The pursuit of knowledge was of greatest import to me and I started with the wrong end of it. Coding involves learning a language which can be taught to a computer for it to speak independently of the creator. The languages themselves differ in many ways but they still endeavor to communicate with the machine and, thus, allow the machine to communicate with humans or other machines or both. I was learning a language which could not be spoken, which was intended as purely instructional, and which could change at any moment based on the decisions of its creators. Something in me snapped. I could see the rest of my life in flickers of light cast and cut between blinds. I would be a slave to this dead language, forever forced to my knees on its altar, sacrificing my time and energy to learn revised editions and updated libraries, chained to a monitor 12 hours a day to write and rewrite and review and document words which meant nothing to anyone. And then I’d die.
So I went back, all the way to the beginning. The beginning of civilization, the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of man as separate from beast and as wiser than monarch: Greece.
What follows will be the daily journalling of my journey into Greece: the language, the history, the philosophy, and the literature. | https://medium.com/@gupso/greek-the-beginning-4ea4a73a5b35 | [] | 2021-02-22 18:42:48.336000+00:00 | ['Greek Mythology', 'Greek Literature', 'Greece', 'Greek', 'Greek Life'] |
Life Changing Experience at NYC Public School | So I had a pretty wild life experience last week. After reaching out to a bunch of NYC schools in hopes of performing a guest reading of The Nestomir — a few schools responded enthusiastically to me! And last Tuesday I had the opportunity to perform a guest reading for The Urban Assembly Gateway School for Technology, a public high school in Manhattan, NY.
When the day came, I had no idea what I was going to say or do…what on Earth do you say to a group of skeptical, hard-to-impress teenagers? I decided it was not something I couldn’t easily plan for (I did have a few notes scribbled on a post-it taped to the front of my copy of the story), but I knew I would have to adapt to the situation in real time. And I was right.
(Presenting to the tenth graders of The Urban Assembly Gateway School for Technology)
When I showed up to the school’s main entrance, the security guard walked me up to the English classroom where I was scheduled to present. The teacher immediately greeted me…and to sum up what she told me: Good luck! These kids are a fidgety bunch, you’re going to have work really hard to get them to pay attention!
Great. Then the bell rang. The kids began to pour inside the room. What was quite comical: the kids could tell something was different about their class today…leading them to believe they had a pop quiz. To their relief, it was only a guest speaker.
The teacher gave me a brief intro, then I made my walk up to the front of the classroom. My only objective: do not let them fall asleep, no matter the cost.
What I Did:
I quickly intro’d myself, then I immediately asked the class if they wanted to perform a freestyle rap battle contest. This caught them off guard and perked their attention up…a few kids even selected classmates to compete…but I told them I would save this activity for next time I visit.
Next, I decided to put the book down. My gut told me to speak about my adventures learning to code. I spoke about learning key software engineering lessons from my first business partner. I got some engagement…but not enough.
The tide turned when I began to speak about my greatest life challenges, including when it came to performing in school. My greatest academic challenge came during my first semester of engineering school. I came into college with a high school work ethic, and that was a fail. I was used to doing everything last minute; I had no understanding of discipline or work ethic. That first college semester I had a big scare…but it ultimately led me to going from one of the world’s biggest procrastinators to someone who is obsessed with organization and being extremely disciplined when attacking new work and projects. The kids really took to this speaking segment…I got a lot of questions and heads perked up. And as a result, more kids paid attention to the short reading I performed.
I didn’t want to write too long of a post. But what I learned most: people, no matter if they are kids or adults, like to hear about struggle. It wasn’t until I spoke about the serious battles I faced in my life that I became credible and the kids paid me real attention. I hope to use these experiences talking to students to become a better mentor, educator, and author in the future.
ps: I will be presenting to a bunch of other NYC/Long Island public schools in January/February 2022! Stay tuned.
Have a great week!
Steven Reubenstone
Author, The Nestomir
Know any parents or educators who might be interested in The Nestomir newsletter? Get them to sign up here. | https://medium.com/piloting-a-new-society/life-changing-experience-at-nyc-public-school-900277cb2e6c | ['Steven Reubenstone'] | 2022-01-12 15:02:26.499000+00:00 | ['NYC', 'Python Programming', 'Public Speaking', 'Education', 'Science Fiction'] |
How to Use React Refs | How to Use React Refs
How to utilise refs in React, with ref forwarding, callback refs and HOCs
React Refs are a useful feature that act as a means to reference a DOM element or a class component from within a parent component. This then give us a means to read and modify that element.
Perhaps the best way to describe a ref is as a bridge; a bridge that allows a component to access or modify an element a ref is attached to. Using refs give us a way to access elements while bypassing state updates and re-renders; this can be useful in some use cases, but should not be used as an alternative to props and state (as the official React docs point out). Nevertheless, refs work well in certain scenarios that we will visit in this article.
Refs also provide some flexibility for referencing elements within a child component from a parent component, in the form of ref forwarding — we will also explore how to do this here, including how to inject refs from HOCs into their wrapped components.
Refs at a high level
Refs are usually defined in the constructor of class components, or as variables at the top level of functional components, and then attached to an element in the render() function. Here is a bare-bones example where we are creating a ref and attaching it to an <input> element:
class MyComponent extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props)
this.myRef = React.createRef();
} ...
render() {
return (
<>
<input
name="email"
onChange={this.onChange}
ref={this.myRef}
type="text"
</>
)
}
}
Refs are created using React.createRef() , and are assigned to class properties. In the above example the ref is named myRef , which is then attached to an <input> DOM element.
Once a ref is attached to an element, that element can then be accessed and modified through the ref.
Let’s add a button to our example. We can then attach an onClick handler that will utilise myRef to focus the <input> element it is attached to:
... handleClick = () => {
this.myRef.current.focus();
} render() {
return (
...
<button onClick={this.handleClick}>
Focus Email Input
</button>
</>
)
}
By doing this we are in fact changing the state of an input element without any React state updates. This makes sense in the case of focussing an <input> — we wouldn’t want to re-render elements every time we focus / blur an input. There are a few more cases where refs make sense; we will visit those further down the article.
You may have noticed the current property of myRef ; current refers to the element the ref is currently attached to, and is used extensively to access and modify our attached element. In fact, if we expand our example further by logging myRef in the console, we will see that the current property is indeed the only property available:
componentDidMount = () => { // myRef only has a current property
console.log(this.myRef); // myRef.current is what we are interested in
console.log(this.myRef.current); // focus our input automatically when component mounts
this.myRef.current.focus();
}
At the componentDidMount lifecycle stage, myRef.current will as expected be assigned to our <input> element; componentDidMount is generally a safe place to process some initial setup with refs, e.g. focussing the first input field in a form as it is mounted on stage.
What if we change componentDidMount to componentWillMount ? Well, myRef will be null at this stage of the component lifecycle. Refs will be initialised after the component mounts, whereby the elements we are attaching refs to need to be mounted (or rendered) on the stage. Therefore, componentWillMount is not suitable for accessing refs.
Where refs can be attached
Refs are quite extensible in that they can be attached to DOM elements and React class components, but not to functional components. The functionalities and data we have access to depend on where you attach the ref:
Referencing a DOM element gives us access to its attributes
gives us access to its attributes Referencing a class component gives us access to that component’s props, state, methods, and it’s entire prototype.
We cannot attach refs to functional components in React currently. In the following example, myRef will not be recognised and will cause an error:
// this will fail and throw an error function FunctionComponent() {
return <input />;
} class Parent extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.myRef = React.createRef();
}
render() {
return (
<FunctionComponent ref={this.myRef} />
);
}
}
Your app will not compile if this scenario occurs, ensuring the error will not leak into a final build.
Note: To get around this limitation we can introduce ref forwarding boilerplace around functional components. We will visit this further down the article.
However, we can define refs within functional components
What we can do with functional components however is define the ref inside it, and then attach it to either a DOM element or class component. The below example is perfectly valid:
// class component will accept refs class MyInput extends React.Component {
...
} // ref is defined within functional component function FunctionComponent() {
let myRef = React.createRef(); function handleClick() {
...
} return (
<MyInput
handleClick={this.handlClick}
ref={myRef}
/>
);
}
If you see an opportunity to pass refs into a functional component, it may well be worth converting it to a class component in order to support them.
Using refs conditionally with callback refs
We can also pass functions into an element’s ref attribute, instead of a ref object — these types of refs are called callback refs. The idea is that doing so gives us more freedom related to when to set and unset refs.
The referenced element or component will be supplied as an argument to the function we are embedding within the ref attribute. From here we have more control over how the ref will be set. Consider the following:
class MyComponent extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props)
this.myInput = null;
} focusMyInput = () => {
if (this.myInput) this.myInput.focus();
}; setMyInputRef = element => {
this.myInput = element;
}; componentDidMount() {
this.focusMyInput();
} render() {
return (
<input
name="email"
onChange={this.onChange}
ref={this.setMyInputRef}
type="text"
)
}
}
Instead of defining a ref in the constructor, we have now defined an empty myInput property. myInput will not refer to a DOM element until setMyInputRef() is called, which is done so upon the rendering of the component. Concretely:
The component renders and setMyInputRef() is called from within the ref attribute of the <input> element.
is called from within the attribute of the element. setMyInputRef() now defines the myInput class property with a full reference to the element
now defines the myInput class property with a full reference to the element focusMyInput() can now focus the element in question.
This is seen as a more favourable approach to initialising refs, whereby the ref itself will only exist when the element in question exists on stage.
More Ref use cases
So where can refs be used apart from focusing an input? Let’s briefly go over some use cases before moving on to ref forwarding:
Incrementing / Decrementing input values: Attaching a ref to an <input> field in a similar fashion as the example above and creating a onClick handler that increments or decrements the value of the input. We can access the value of an input ref with:
incrementValue = () => {
this.myRef.current.value++;
} render() { <input
type="text"
ref={this.myRef}
value="0"
/> <button onClick={this.incremenetInput}>
Increment Input Value
</button>
}
Getting input values: Perhaps an input value needs to be referenced and included in a string or label — refs provide the bridge to fetch the current value from an input element. Similarly, refs can also read whether a checkbox has been checked, or which radio button has been selected; other elements on your stage could then be modified based on these values, without relying on state.
Perhaps an input value needs to be referenced and included in a string or label — refs provide the bridge to fetch the current value from an input element. Similarly, refs can also read whether a checkbox has been checked, or which radio button has been selected; other elements on your stage could then be modified based on these values, without relying on state. Selecting or cycling through form values: Having an array of valid form values and clicking next or previous buttons to update the selected value. Such an update does not warrant a state update. Selecting text is also a good use case for refs, whereby the ref would manage the currently selected or highlighted value.
Having an array of valid form values and clicking next or previous buttons to update the selected value. Such an update does not warrant a state update. Selecting text is also a good use case for refs, whereby the ref would manage the currently selected or highlighted value. Media playback: A React based music or video player could utilise refs to manage its current state — play / pause, or sweeping through the playback timeline. Again, these updates do not need to be state managed.
A React based music or video player could utilise refs to manage its current state — play / pause, or sweeping through the playback timeline. Again, these updates do not need to be state managed. Transitions and keyframe animations: If you wanted to trigger an animation or transition on an element, refs can be used to do so. This is particularly useful when one element needs to trigger a style update for a separate element, which could also be nested within another component.
In some cases a ref will need to be attached to an element from within another component — this is when forwarding refs come into play. Let’s see how ref forwarding is integrated next.
Forwarding Refs
Ref forwarding is a technique to automatically pass a ref to a child component, allowing the parent component to access that child component’s element and read or modify it in some way.
React provide us with extra boilerplate specifically for ref forwarding whereby we wrap a component with React.forwardRef() . Let’s take a look at how it is used:
//handling ref forwarding to MyInput component const MyInput = React.forwardRef((props, ref) => {
return(<input name={props.name} ref={ref} />);
});
// we can now pass a ref down into MyInput from a parent component const MyComponent = () => {
let ref = React.createRef(); return (
<MyInput
name="email"
ref={ref}
/>
);
}
In the above example we are using React.forwardRef() , which provides us 2 parameters — the props of the component we are wrapping, as well as an additional ref object specifically for the ref we are forwarding.
Had we not wrapped our component with React.forwardRef() , the component itself would be the thing we are referencing. This may be indeed what you intend to do, but in order to forward the ref down, React.forwardRef() is needed.
Note: The reason we require this additional boilerplate is that a ref JSX attribute is not treated as a prop. Like key , ref has specific uses within React. These can be looked at as reserved keywords for specific React features.
We can use React.forwardRef() with class components too. Doing so resembles more of a HOC setup than simply wrapping our component. Take a look at the following example, where we pass our forwarded ref down to the wrapped class component as an innerRef prop:
// we will be passing our ref down to this component, to be used for our input element class WrappedComponent extends Component {
render() {
return (
<input
type="text"
name={this.props.name}
ref={this.props.innerRef}
/>
)
}
} // we are wrapping our wrapped component with forwardRef, providing the ref const MyInput = React.forwardRef((props, ref) => {
return (<WrappedComponent innerRef={ref} {...props} />);
}); export default MyInput;
This is slightly more boilerplate than before; we are opting for the innerRef prop to pass the ref down to <WrappedComponent /> . From here we can go ahead and pass a ref down from a parent component into <MyInput /> :
import { MyInput } from './MyInput'; const MyComponent = () => {
let ref = React.createRef(); return (
<MyInput
name="email"
ref={ref}
/>
);
}
This brings us onto the use case of defining HOCs specifically for injecting forwarded refs into component DOM.
Using Forwarding Refs with HOCs
To expand the HOC concept further, let’s explore how we can wrap a component with a HOC that will automatically forward a ref to a wrapped component that did not originally have ref support. Concretely, what we expect here is:
To be able to pass a ref into a component wrapped in the HOC via a forwardedRef prop. We will name the HOC withRef .
prop. We will name the HOC . The HOC to take a ref and forward it to the wrapped component
The wrapped component to attach the ref to a child element
// define the withRef HOC export function withRef(WrappedComponent) {
class WithRef extends React.Component {
render() {
const {forwardedRef, ...props} = this.props;
return(
<WrappedComponent
ref={forwardedRef}
{...props}
/>);
}
} return React.forwardRef((props, ref) => {
return < WithRef {...props} forwardedRef={ref} />;
});
}
Now we can simply wrap our <MyInput /> component with withRef() to support ref forwarding, supplying a non-ref and ref-supported version of the component:
... export const MyInput = (props) => (
<input
name={props.name}
type="text"
/>
); export const MyInputWithRef = withRef(MyInput);
We are now able to import <MyInputWithRef /> into any component, which will now route a ref to the child element with the withRef() HOC behind the scenes:
import { MyInputWithRef } from './MyInput'; const MyComponent = () => {
let ref = React.createRef(); return (
<MyInputWithRef
name="email"
forwardedRef={ref}
/>
);
}
To learn more about HOCs and other use cases that can be applied to them, check out my article dedicated on the subject:
And that wraps up this talk on refs in React. Use them where appropriate — but not as a replacement to state where state is warranted.
To continue reading about React refs for functional components and the useRef hook, check out my article discussing the proper implementation and use cases:
Using refs effectively will indeed simplify your component logic and provide some nice UI feedback for end users; keep them in mind when developing around forms in particularly. | https://rossbulat.medium.com/how-to-use-react-refs-4541a7501663 | ['Ross Bulat'] | 2019-10-08 16:14:37.574000+00:00 | ['Software Engineering', 'JavaScript', 'React', 'Programming', 'Web Development'] |
The World’s Biggest Jewish City Used to Be in Greece | The World’s Biggest Jewish City Used to Be in Greece
A story of how countries can help refugees — and refugees can help their hosts George Dillard Follow Jan 26 · 6 min read
A Jewish family in Salonika, 1917 (PD)
In the 1500s, Jewish people lived all over eastern Europe and the Middle East. There were big Jewish populations in Jerusalem and other cities in the Levant, of course, along with Poland and much of the rest of Europe. But the biggest Jewish city in the world during the sixteenth century was not where you’d think— it was Salonika (modern-day Thessaloniki), in Ottoman Greece.
Salonika became a thriving center of Jewish life for two reasons: the intolerance of the Christian world and the opportunism of Ottoman rulers. Salonika remained one of the most important Jewish communities in the world until its Jewish population was nearly exterminated during World War II. The story of Salonika shows what countries can do for refugees — and what those refugees can give back to their host countries.
The expulsion
Origins of the Jewish population of Salonika (CC 3.0)
The Jewish community in Salonika was created through persecution elsewhere. Before the 1400s, Salonika, like most cities in the region, had a small Jewish population — a few hundred people, perhaps. In the 1300s and 1400s, small groups of Jewish people fleeing persecution in central Europe — the Black Death had led to terrible scapegoating and persecution of Jews — came to settle in the region, many of them in Salonika. But the event that made Salonika a major center of Jewish life happened further West.
You may know Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain’s newly powerful monarchs at the time, for sponsoring Columbus’ voyages to the Americas, but their rule was also a period of cruel persecution. The Spanish crown, having conquered the Muslim areas of Iberia, was determined to enforce religious uniformity in the kingdom. The monarchs issued the Alhambra Decree, which ordered Jews to convert to Catholicism or be expelled from Spain. About 2/3 of Spain’s large Jewish population converted to Christianity, but as many as 100,000 Jewish Spaniards chose to maintain their faith and were expelled.
The “Catholic Monarchs,” Ferdinand and Isabella (PD)
Sadly, this wasn’t the first time a European country had expelled its Jewish population — England, France, and many other kingdoms had done so at various points in the Middle Ages. But these other expulsions had often been temporary. They were usually part of a scheme to seize Jewish property by money-hungry monarchs, and Jewish citizens were allowed back into the country after their property had been stripped, in most cases.
The Alhambra Decree was different — Jews who did not convert or leave by the deadline were executed. Those who fled to nearby Portugal were driven from that country a few years later when the Portuguese King, Manuel I, expelled them to gain favor with his Spanish neighbors. With nearby European countries unfriendly to Jews and North Africa wracked by famine, Spain’s Jewish population had to look farther afield for a place to live.
Opportunistic Ottomans
At the eastern end of the Mediterranean, the ruler of the Ottoman Empire couldn’t believe the news coming out of Spain. Bayezid II, who had become sultan in 1481, saw what the Spaniards were doing as self-harm. In his eyes, Spain had just expelled many of its most educated, prosperous, and industrious people. Bayezid sent a decree out throughout the Ottoman Empire, ordering his officials to try to attract Jewish refugees. Anyone who harmed or turned away a Jewish immigrant was to be executed.
He scoffed at the Spanish monarchs, reportedly saying,
“You venture to call Ferdinand a wise ruler, he who has impoverished his own country and enriched mine!”
Bayezid settled the largest group of Jews in Salonika, which soon became the “Jerusalem of the Balkans” and the largest concentration of Jews in the world. Over the next few centuries, other Jewish refugees, fleeing persecution in central and eastern Europe, came to Salonika to join its well-established Jewish population.
Why was the Ottoman Empire — which was ruled by Muslims, after all— so eager to welcome tens of thousands of Jewish refugees? The Ottoman rulers weren’t interested in imposing their faith on religious minorities. They ruled over a diverse empire with many different ethnicities and religions, and if a group contributed to the greater good, the Ottomans generally left them alone. As long as Jews and Christians paid an extra tax to the government, they were free to practice their own religions; no one tried to force them to convert. Minorities were allowed to form their own autonomous communities.
This strategy succeeded. Jews made up nearly 70% of Salonika’s population by the 1600s, and Bayezid’s prediction was correct. The Jewish population of Salonika helped to power the golden age of the Ottoman Empire. Salonika’s Jews flourished — they organized their own educational system and many of the merchants and bankers in Salonika formed the backbone of the trade systems in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean. Over the centuries, the Jewish community created a unique mix of Spanish, Greek, and Jewish cultures, and Salonika became a center of Jewish learning. The unique language of Spanish Jews, Ladino, was heard on the streets of Salonika into the twentieth century.
The post-Ottoman period
Salonika’s Jewish population remained one of the biggest in the world for centuries, although life became more difficult for Salonika’s Jews over time. The competition between different minority groups in the empire became more intense, and the Ottomans’ Christian neighbors pushed the sultans to treat Christians better than the Jews. But Salonika still housed one of the largest Jewish populations in the world, with over 50,000 Jewish residents into the twentieth century.
The end of Salonika’s five centuries as a center of Jewish culture was abrupt and awful. The city remained a hub of Jewish life through the independence of Greece, but when the Germans occupied Greece in World War II, they targeted the Jews of Salonika. The story is depressingly familiar to anyone who has studied the Holocaust. In 1942, the Germans forced 9,000 of Salonika’s Jews to participate in slave labor camps. They also created ghettoes to segregate the Jewish population from the rest of the city.
Nazi occupiers register the Jewish population of Salonika, 1942 (CC 3.0)
Then, in 1943, 45,000 Jews were sent by train from Salonika to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. Only 2,000 Jews survived the war in Salonika, either by fleeing to the hills or by escaping to other countries. The city still has a small Jewish community of just over 1,000 people who have worked tirelessly to preserve the centuries of history that their community has built.
The Jewish population of Salonika was more than a historical curiosity. It served as a demonstration that nations that allow immigration, even by refugees, can often benefit from doing so. The Ottoman Empire became richer, both economically and culturally, because it allowed a Jewish community to thrive in Greece. | https://historyofyesterday.com/the-worlds-biggest-jewish-city-used-to-be-in-greece-46d53b1cfd0f | ['George Dillard'] | 2021-01-26 15:03:04.364000+00:00 | ['Society', 'Religion', 'Immigration', 'History', 'Judaism'] |
Different uses for Template Literals in JavaScript | Different uses for Template Literals in JavaScript
You can use them for more things than you think
Two monitors with background code
Introduced in ES2015 edition of the ECMAScript specification (ES6) Template Literals(or the old name for template literals: Template strings) offer a new way of making strings in JavaScript that add a lot of powerful new capabilities, such as using placeholders to embed expressions in a string and generating multiline strings more easily.
The syntax is straightforward, just use backticks instead of double or single quotes:
const literal = `hello!`
They provide several features that regular strings built with quotes do not, in particular:
They provide a simple way to include variables and expressions in strings.
Template literals give a great syntax to define multiline strings.
They allow creating DSLs using template tags.
It is more straightforward to format a string because the format remains as we wrote it.
Index:
Declaring Strings
Multiple lines with interpolate expressions
Tagged Templates
Shell commands
Embedded HTML
Raw String
Customizable regexp
Let’s see some useful examples.
Declaring Strings
In JavaScript, you can write a string using single quotes (‘ ‘):
const single = 'Hello'
Or using double quotes (“ “):
const double = "Hello"
There is no significant difference in JavaScript between single- or double-quoted strings.
Now, if you want to include an expression you can do:
let name= "Kesk"; const hello = "Hello" + name + "!"; console.log(hello);
//Hello Kesk
But it gets complicated if you want to format a text or you have multiples expressions inside it:
To achieve this:
//Hello Kesk!
//.This is a multiline message
//that maintains the format
We can do:
const name = "Kesk" const s1 = "Hello " + name + "!
"
+ ".This is a multiline message
"
+ "that maintains the format
"; console.log(s1);
Result in chrome dev tools.
But it’s more straightforward if you use ES6 String literals:
Multiple lines with interpolate expressions
As you can view in this example, we include a variable within our text. Also, it keeps the format we give it, and the result is cleaner and more evident.
We use backticks to write a string literal: ` the string with expressions.` To interpolate variables and expressions, you can do by using the ${…} syntax.
const name = 'Kesk'; console.log(`Hello ${name}!
this is a multiline message
that maintains the format`); //Result:
//Hello Kesk!
//this is a multiline message
//that maintains the format
Result in chrome dev tools.
Other uses cases:
Tagged Templates
Thanks to Template Literals, you can create Tagged Template Literals, witch is string literals allowing embedded expressions. You can use multiline strings and string interpolation features with them.
A tagged template begins with a tag function that parses a template literal, returning a dynamic string. The first argument of a “tag function” is an array containing all the string literals. The remaining arguments are expressions.
let name = 'Kesk';
let gender = 'female';
function greetingTag (strings, name, gender) { //strings is an array.
console.log(strings); //"Hello"
let str0 = strings[0];
//"you are a beutiful"
let str1 = strings[1];
let text = gender === 'female' ? 'girl' : 'man'
//Return a string built
//using a template literal
return `${str0}
${name} ${str0} ${str1}:
${text}
`;
} let result = greetingTag`Hello ${name} you are a beatiful ${gender}`; console.log(result);
Result of executing greetingTag in chrome dev tools.
Other things that you can do with ES6 template literals:
Shell commands
With sh.js and template literals, you can write and execute shell commands.
sh.js is a JavaScript library for Unix shell scripting running on node.js.
You need to write a JavaScript file and run it with node.js
npm install sh
ls.js
let sh = require('sh'); let ls = sh`ls -a`;
>node ls.js
Embedded HTML
With lit-html and JavaScript template literals, you can quickly write HTML templates.
import {html} from 'lit-html'; //A lit-html template
//uses the `html`
//template tag:
html`<div>
<a href="${url}">${name}</a>
</div>`
...
Raw String
Raw method of template literal allows access of raw strings as they were entered, without processing escape sequences.
const value= String.raw`this is a multiline message
that maintains the format.
Escapes are not interpreted,
is not a newline.`; console.log(value); //this is a multiline message
// that maintains the format.
// Escapes are not interpreted,
//
is not a newline.
Result of executing our String.raw function in chrome dev tools.
Customizable regexp
You can use too a RegExp constructor to build a regexp using a literal template:
const regex = new RegExp(String.raw`write pattern as in regex literal without delimiters`)
Or to build a complex RegExp with tagged template and template literals:
// tagged template function
const rgExpTag = (str0, str1) => {
return new
RegExp(`${str0.raw[0]}${str1}${str0.raw[1]}`, 'gi')
} const regex = "~!@#$%^&*()_" ;
const rawData= "$100.50$$$$"; const number =
rawData.replace(rgExpTag`[${regex}]`, ''); console.log(number)
//100.50
Result of executing our rgExpTag function in chrome dev tools.
Conclusion
With Template literals, work with strings is more natural, and you can create strings and interpolate expressions in strings without any concatenation or escaping. Template tags are also a useful feature that many popular libraries use, but as you can see, you can use template literals for other useful things.
Thank you very much for reading this article. I hope it is useful for you! Take care! | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/different-uses-of-template-literals-in-javascript-50e22a618436 | ['Kesk - -'] | 2020-07-05 15:36:50.307000+00:00 | ['Javascript Tips', 'Template Literals', 'Javascript Development', 'Web Development', 'JavaScript'] |
The Rapture in America | …and then there were us,
somehow left behind…
Tax breaks,
Tariffs,
Subsidies,
Corporate welfare,
a country great again?
Misguided Evangelicals,
Religious Freedom Act
like the witch hunts,
the crusades,
the inquisition.
Did Jesus come back?
Only a narcissist,
A liar,
A deceiver…
…and then there were us,
somehow left behind…
Minorities,
Vulnerable populations,
Immigrants,
LGBTQ,
Transgender in the Military,
Transgender in the media,
Rolled back Obama gains,
Senior citizens,
Healthcare,
Medicare
Equality,
Compassion…
…and then there were us,
somehow left behind…
for each other…
Patsy, 2018 | https://medium.com/resistance-poetry/the-rapture-in-america-e5e9fae1b000 | ['Patsy Starke'] | 2018-07-28 11:50:19.821000+00:00 | ['Transgender', 'Resistance Poetry', 'LGBTQ', 'Equality', 'Gender Identity'] |
5 Things Wives Should Know About Mistresses | 5 Things Wives Should Know About Mistresses
They are women whom we know and love.
They are women whom we know and love. Source: Unsplash
Let’s be clear: There’s never a good excuse for engaging in an affair with someone who is married. But it does happen. A lot.
At the end of the day, women who become mistresses or, ‘the other woman’ are our daughters, sisters, aunts, mothers, wives, and neighbors. They are women within our communities. They are women whom we know and love.
I know this is a hot-button issue, and I realize many wives who have been the victim of a cheating husband may have raw wounds on this subject. I’m hoping to shed some light on a human level as to what it can actually be like to be, ‘The Mistress.’
1. She feels guilty.
Yes, believe it or not, many mistresses do feel guilt. If she is aware of the fact that her lover is married she goes through all the normal emotions associated with guilt on a daily basis.
A mistress does feel guilty when her lover chooses to spend time with her on a weekend, knowing there is a wife and possibly even children waiting at home. She does feel guilty when she hears other people talk about cheating spouses. She does feel guilty when she watches movies about adultery.
Guilt is the permanent ghost that accompanies a mistress throughout the entire affair and afterward.
That said, many mistresses are totally unaware that their lover is married. Many men go to great lengths to hide the fact that they are married.
If a husband can have an affair and betray the woman he married, then he is capable of telling multiple lies, both to the wife and a mistress.
Bottom line: Unless a woman is a sociopath, she feels guilty for crossing the line just like any normal human being would.
2. She probably never planned on being a mistress.
Every adult is accountable for their own actions. Of that, there is no doubt. Unfortunately, sometimes circumstances and poor decisions can lead to affairs.
It’s not likely on the goal list of any woman to get wrapped up in an affair with a married man and potentially lose her career, credibility, friends, or — in some extreme cases — her life because of it.
Many women who have affairs are also married and have families of their own that they are jeopardizing by getting involved in an affair.
Many women end up being the other woman by having a “fling” with a man whom they never intended on being with on a regular basis. They may or may not have known the man was married, but they went ahead anyway only to end up infatuated or in love.
There are indeed women out there who don’t have a problem dating married men and seem to have little regret about it but, generally speaking, this is not usually the case.
Quite often, a cheating husband will make promises that can string a mistress along until so much time passes that it becomes difficult for her to break it off.
A cheating husband may even go so far as to tell the mistress he’s separated or in the process of a divorce when this is not the case. If a mistress is in love, she may not want to end it, even if she knows it’s wrong.
3. She gets jealous.
If a woman has become a mistress and she knows that her lover is married, then most certainly she feels jealous. She feels jealous every time he walks out the door. She knows he is going home to another woman. She knows her lover has another life at his home which she will never be a part of.
A woman who has chosen to be a mistress to a married man and knows about his family will undoubtedly feel jealous that he shares a bed with his wife and will never know the true level of intimacy that’s going on despite what she’s been told.
Some mistresses even have children with their married lovers. Imagine what a complicated web that must be.
There’s no doubt that a mistress feels envious that her lover’s relationship with his wife is not a secret to the world like hers most likely is.
One thing that many mistresses out there crave more than anything is validation that their relationship with their lover is real. Sneaking around in secrecy is not ideal for having a healthy, long-term relationship.
4. She fell in love with the wrong person.
This is a no-brainer for many people but, unfortunately, love and lust are blind. A woman who ignores repeated red flags because of love or lust will eventually find out she has picked the wrong person to be with.
A mistress is bound to come to this realization sooner or later. She may choose to stay in the affair long after she’s realized her mistake for any number of reasons including denial, fear, and — of course — love.
Falling for the wrong person happens to all of us. It happens to single people in the dating world. It happens to people who fall in love with those who are married. It happens every day.
Most likely, a woman who is a mistress already knows she has made a huge mistake and only stays in the affair because she thinks her lover wants to be with her.
Of course, some women may not be that emotionally attached to their lovers but I would guess that most are, especially in long-term affairs that carry on for years.
5. She may believe there’s a future.
How many women fall for a man and believe most of what he says? We’ve all done it at some point or another. If a woman knows her lover is married or found out at some point after she already fell for him, then there is no doubt she has been sweet-talked and promised to hundreds of times.
It’s fairly common for a cheating husband to tell his mistress that he is miserable in his marriage and wants to get out. This may or may not be true but whether or not he does get out of the marriage, is another thing.
A mistress has already placed herself in a vulnerable position so if she is in love with the man she is having the affair with, she will make excuses for him and probably suffers from deep denial.
It may take months or even years for a mistress to realize that a man is not going to leave his wife for her.
Hanging on to an affair in hopes that a man will leave his wife is something many mistresses do and if there are years that pass by, she becomes more invested in the relationship and also more comfortable within the lie. The affair becomes normal.
Being a mistress is not glamorous. An affair may start out as a thrilling, romantic whirlwind, but it almost always ends up to be an intensely disheartening situation filled with guilt and shame.
Mistresses are just like any other woman in the world. They don’t necessarily need to be vilified.
More from Michelle: How Being A Mistress Changed My Perception of Marriage | https://medium.com/heart-affairs/5-things-wives-should-know-about-mistresses-bad1c8dd19bc | ['Michelle Brown'] | 2020-12-12 04:31:48.173000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Love', 'Infidelity', 'Marriage', 'Life'] |
Sit. Stay. | I am no stranger to messages from The Universe to sit in stillness. Every asthma exacerbation I have reminds me to simply be. To focus on breathing. To press the pause button. To let it all go and live in the moment.
However, I was stunned when She gave this message to everyone. Everywhere. Not one bit of Gaia was immune from Her Directive.
Stop. Be. Breathe.
And we did for a good long while. But that sort of lockdown isn’t practical for most Humans. Beyond the fact that we’re pack animals, our society had developed to the point that we have to have incomes to survive. The pandemic certainly focused our societies across the globe on the holes in all safety nets we thought we had in place. | https://medium.com/queen-s-children/sit-stay-8018f3ec403e | ['Ann Litts'] | 2020-12-09 16:26:41.099000+00:00 | ['Quarantine', 'Hope', 'Covid 19', 'Sacred Feminine', 'Life Lessons'] |
The Process To Change The AOL Mail Password! | A password is known as a key to access an account on digital devices either online or offline. It is called the passcode containing a string of characters including the letters, digits, and symbols memorized as a secret by a user to confirm their identity. If the characters are only numeric i.e. the digits, then it tends to be called a personal identification number (PIN). Also, the passphrase is a memorized secret having the sequence of words or text separated by spaces. In all, the password is created to secure your account from any attack by a hacker for potential compromise.
AOL is a very unique mail facility provider that gives the user the option to create the strongest password for their mail account on this platform. It is an important step to adopt if you suspect that your AOL Mail has a chance of getting attacked by an unknown source because of an easy password in use at this time.
With that, AOL provides the option of the password to the user to avail the benefits of their services in a safe and secure manner. AOL Mail allows you to change their password for safeguarding your account. To make a stronger password, you can use a brief sentence while leaving out space between words. Users can add numbers and special characters in the password while keeping it simple. AOL requires you to make at least eight characters in the password with the inclusion of special characters. Changing the password every few months is also a very necessary step that AOL Mail recommends you to do.
Changing the AOL Mail password:
Firstly, a user has to login to an AOL Mail account on the web browser with the use of the login credentials created while setting up a mail account.
Username, phone number, mail id, and current password are the part of the login credentials.
Once you have accessed the AOL Mail account, then you have to click on your name on the upper-right corner of the screen to open the information section.
Select the “Account Security” by going to the left panel.
Then go to the “How you sign in” for selecting the “Change Password” option.
Here, you can enter the “New Password” as you may please and confirm it after selecting “Continue”.
It’s essential that you enter the new password that is easier for you to remember as well as difficult to guess.
You can also add a recovery email and recovery phone number for the AOL Mail account when recommended, but it is not a mandatory requirement.
Changing the password of any online account after a certain period is a must for any user anywhere in the world. AOL Mail account is no different in this regard as you have to keep on changing your password regularly to keep the hackers at bay. The process mentioned above is more than enough for you to make the strongest password for your AOL Mail account. Although if you have any issue or query regarding the change of password in your AOL Mail account, then you can contact our AOL Mail support available for its smooth solution at the very earliest. We have the experts at Tech IGS working for your service to ensure that all your issues regarding the AOL Mail are solved so that you can keep on mailing in a personal or official capacity to other people at any given time. | https://medium.com/@igstechhelpline/the-process-to-change-the-aol-mail-password-7f570cf0f249 | [] | 2020-12-10 06:09:50.320000+00:00 | ['Email Support', 'Email', 'Aol Email Support', 'AOL'] |
How To Lose Weight Without Working Out | Photo by John Arano on Unsplash
I know the title is super click bait-y but I’m serious. Let’s talk about N.E.A.T. aka Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. NEAT is at the most simple explanation is how much you move around. It’s the amount of calories you burn when you aren’t working out. If you start to increase your non activity factor, you burn more calories.
Exercise activity thermogenesis is energy you burn from purposefully working out: going to the gym, running, HIIT classes, etc. These are the activities you do when you are trying to lose weight.
Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is energy you expended for everything else. It’s the energy you expend for just living. Walking the dog, carrying groceries, cleaning the house. All of these activities burn calories.
Your profession can impact your level of NEAT. If you have a job were you are always on the move like a waiter/waitress, teacher, personal trainer you are expending more energy (and burning more calories) then someone who sits at a desk 8 to 10 hours a day.
According to the National Academy of Sports Medicine, a 145 lb. person can expect to burn approximately 102 calories an hour while sitting at work. If that person stood while working, they would burn 174 calories. An extra 72 calories might not seem like a lot, but it can add up to more than 18,000 calories burned per year, leading to an approximate 5 lb. weight loss. Without utilizing NEAT, you would have to do 60 30-minute runs at 5 miles per hour to burn the same rate of calories. source
EXAMPLES
PARK AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE
I’m sure you’ve heard this one before. Try to find the spot as far away as possible. Instead of searching and driving around the parking lot trying to find the perfect, park in the back and get your steps in.
ALWAYS TAKE THE STAIRS
Strengthen your legs and burn some calories. I live on the 5th floor and 90% of the time I take the stairs. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come home and there’s a bunch of people in the lobby of the building waiting for the elevator and I just head to the stairwell.
WALK WHERE EVER YOU CAN
Get those steps in! Instead of driving a few blocks to the store or taking the train, walk! On days that I don’t run I try to average 10,000 steps. 10,000 steps a day can burn an extra 2500–3500 calories a week. A pound of body fat is roughly equal to 3500 calories so you could theoretically lose a pound a week by just gettin your steps in.
STAND INSTEAD OF SITTING
Did you know standing burns 0.15 calories more per minute compared to sitting. If a 143-pound person stood for six hours a day instead of sitting, they would burn an extra 54 calories a day. All those extra calories burned adds up. Source.
ALWAYS FIND A WAY TO MOVE
Pace while you talk on the phone, dance around while you cook dinner, squeeze your glutes when you are driving, do calf raises while you brush your teeth, etc. The possibilities are endless.
SET A TIMER TO MOVE
If you work a desk job or work from home, set a timer to move around for a minute or so every hour. Take a quick walk, bust out some push ups, do some air squats, just move. | https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/how-to-lose-weight-without-working-out-8ece0ee1b78 | ['Lisa Lindey'] | 2020-09-22 18:03:03.808000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss Tips', 'Fitness', 'Fitness Tips', 'Workout', 'Weight Loss'] |
AYS Daily Digest 08/12/20 Scary potential for lead poisoning in Moria 2.0 | FEATURE: Lead poisoning concerns in Moria 2.0
In a new report by Human Rights Watch, they raise concerns about lead poisoning in Moria 2.0, due to the fact that the Greek government is building the camp on ground that used to be a military firing range. The government has not overseen comprehensive lead testing or soil remediation even though they are now starting to move people in. People now living in the camp have collected evidence that “unexploded mortar projectiles and live small arms ammunition” are still in the area. These could of course lead to serious injuries or deaths if not cleared away.
“In response to letters from Human Rights Watch, Migration and Asylum Minister Notis Mitarachi stated in a November 19 letter that the camp had “no lead contamination,” but provided no evidence for the basis of that assertion. He said the government has agreed to conduct soil testing with the European Commission within one month, but has not revealed the nature of the testing, the areas to be tested, or the methodology. A Hellenic army representative called Human Rights Watch on December 1, stating his intention to respond to a letter received on November 4 from Human Rights Watch, raising urgent concerns. But no response has been received. On December 6, General Secretary for Asylum Seekers’ Reception Manos Logothetis, called Human Rights Watch to dispute the risk of lead contamination at the camp. He confirmed that no soil testing for lead had taken place prior to moving people to the camp, but said that authorities are awaiting the results of soil testing conducted recently in collaboration with the Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration (IGME). ‘No one just shows up without a plan,’ Dr. Gordon Binkhorst, vice president of global programs at Pure Earth, told Human Rights Watch. ‘Sharing of a well-founded work plan beforehand is key to transparency and ensuring confidence in the findings.’ Greek authorities should allow independent experts to comment on investigative work plans, audit the soil testing process and collect split samples for independent testing.”
Western Europe Researcher at Human Rights Watch Eva Cossé provided the following information, namely that the World Organization says that “there is no known safe lead exposure” and that lead is extremely toxic “when ingested/inhaled, particularly by kids and during pregnancy.”
“(The) firing range was in use from 1926 until days before camp was built…Even worse, the Greek govt failed to clear unexploded mortar projectiles and live small arms ammunition before moving people there, (and) did wildly negligent clearance operations only after families with kids arrived. To top it off, in last days the gov launched major construction works at the camp, which would normally be a good thing if improving camp conditions, but it could also disturb any potentially lead-contaminated soil, which could further expose residents and workers. If there is lead-contaminated soil at camp, that could threaten the health of everyone working there too, incl. staff of Frontex, EASO, EU Commission, UNHCR, WHO, Europol, IOM, UNICEF, HRC SAMARITES, Hellenic Police, Hellenic Greece, Eody Greece, and all others.”
“Govt needs to immediately pause construction works, conduct soil testing, make results public. If it finds lead present in soil, it should take steps to immediately end people’s exposure and treat any lead poisoning, particularly young kids and pregnant women.”
Read the full report here. | https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-daily-digest-08-12-20-scary-potential-for-lead-poisoning-in-moria-2-0-e6f887c85dc3 | ['Are You Syrious'] | 2020-12-09 20:09:02.316000+00:00 | ['Refugees', 'Europe', 'Digest', 'Greece', 'European Union'] |
Designing a Year In Review | How we brought life to the page
After being supplied with the illustrations we would be utilizing for the year in review, I started to imagine how they could be brought to life. We decided that having all the illustrations animated would be too busy, so I was tasked with animating only six of them. Since all of our statistics from the year were focused on our customer’s websites, the illustrations showcasing them were mostly menu items.
My initial approach for this type of animation is to separate the files out into layers in Illustrator so they are easier to manipulate in After Effects. When doing this it is important to envision how the animation should function so you know exactly how to divide up the file. For example, I imagined that an appropriate animation for the salad illustration would be to have it toss itself. For this, I had to separate the toppings of the salad from the lettuce and the bowl. Then all that was left to do was animate the ingredients tossing up and falling down at different intervals in a seamless loop. | https://medium.com/bentobox-design/designing-a-year-in-review-4e7ae6256714 | ['Kayla Scheidel'] | 2020-07-02 20:06:36.731000+00:00 | ['Animation', 'Restaurant', 'Design', 'How To', 'Year In Review'] |
Skiing During the Pandemic | Skiing During the Pandemic
What’s changed, what’s working, and what needs improvement
Opening day at Big Sky Ski Resort, Big Sky, Montana. Photo by Tom Johnson.
As the holidays approach and the coronavirus pandemic enters a dangerous new phase, many skiers wonder whether it’s safe to return to the slopes.
Last week, my wife and I got a first hand look. If our experience is any indication, the industry could be in for a challenging season.
Thanksgiving Day marked the beginning of ski season at many resorts across the U.S. We spent the day skiing at Big Sky, Montana’s largest and best known ski resort.
Since September, we’ve lived at Big Sky Mountain Village, located at the base of the ski area. During our time here, we’ve been impressed by the absence of crowds. All of that changed on Thanksgiving morning, when thousands of people showed up to ring in the new season. Lifts opened at 9 am, but even before then, skiers gathered at the base area. Lines quickly formed at the lifts, and skiers packed the few runs with sufficient snow to open.
From a COVID-19 perspective, skiing has the reputation of being a relatively safe activity. Skiing is an outdoor sport. Skiers are spread out over vast areas and breathe unlimited quantities of fresh mountain air.
But it’s not the skiing that poses the greatest risk; it’s the congregation at the base, in lift lines, at mountain dining facilities, and in bars and restaurants at night. As in many places, enforcement of mitigation measures is key. The best laid plans can be derailed by lack of compliance.
Lift line at Big Sky on opening day. Photo by Tom Johnson.
Destination resorts like Big Sky attract guests from across the country and around the world. Those guests bring with them illnesses present in their home regions and then commingle in resort facilities and in surrounding communities. The resulting stew has the potential to feed disease outbreaks.
The risks posed by ski areas are well documented. Last winter, a coronavirus outbreak at the Austrian ski resort of Ischgl was linked to more than 6,000 infections in nearly 50 countries, an event that contributed to Europe’s initial coronavirus surge.
Europe is now wrestling with how to avoid a repeat of last year. Austria and Switzerland recently decided to open for the season, while other countries, such as Italy, Germany and France, vow to remain shut or operate under significant restrictions.
Safety first
Last spring, surging COVID cases caused the U.S. ski season to grind to a halt. Ski areas abruptly closed in March, shortening the season by as much as two months and closing many business dependent on winter tourism. Big Sky was no exception.
In an effort to get ahead of potential coronavirus-related setbacks, the National Ski Areas Association this fall published their “Ski Well, Be Well” guide to best practices for skiers and resorts alike. The association represents more than 300 alpine resorts that account for more than 90 percent of the skier/snowboarder visits nationwide.
“Ski industry leaders from across the country established these foundational best practices according to scientific guidelines put forth by infectious disease experts, including the CDC and WHO,” the organization says on its website. “Ski areas will comply with additional federal, state and local regulations as they are implemented.”
Both Boyne Mountain Resorts and Vail Resorts advised the creation of the safety document and endorsed its contents. Boyne owns Big Sky, as well as Washington’s Snoqualmie, Maine’s Sugarloaf and several others. Vail Resorts, the nation’s largest ski corporation, owns and operates 37 mountain resorts in three countries, including Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Park City, and Whistler Blackcomb.
In attempt to assert some control over resort capacity, Vail Resorts in August announced plans for its first reservation system, requiring skiers to make reservations to ski ahead of time. Other resorts are slowly adopting reservation systems, especially for skiers using partner passes. Skiers using the Ikon Pass will need to make reservations at many resorts, including Big Sky.
Big Sky is now actively rolling out its slate of best management practices intended to curtail risky behaviors known to facilitate transmission of the virus.
“Each of our teams have worked tirelessly to develop new operational practices with the goal of providing the safest experience possible for our guests and our teams,” Big Sky Public Relations Manager Stacie Mesuda told me in an email exchange. “Many things will be different this season — directional traffic in our F&B (food and beverage) locations, new lift-line configurations, social distancing guidelines, and most important, the requirement for all team members and guests to mask up while at the resort as it is mandatory in all public space.”
The resort’s publicized face covering requirements include wearing masks while at the base area, in lift lines, while riding and unloading chairlifts, and while indoors.
“Our efforts to wear masks and facial coverings consistently are a crucial factor in staying open all season,” Mesuda said.
In addition, Mesuda said, the resort has invested in weekly surveillance testing for both symptomatic and asymptomatic employees, beginning in early December. Separately, Big Sky is participating in a community-wide testing partnership.
Good intentions
Our experience on Thanksgiving suggests that despite good intentions, operating the resort safely remains a challenge. Throughout the day, we observed behaviors that were inconsistent with Big Sky’s published regulations and raised questions about whether the resort and the industry have the ability to operate in accordance with their own safety requirements.
In many ways, skiers and the resort behaved as if this season is no different from previous ones. Lift and ticket lines were long and social distancing was scant. Signage encouraging safe practices was present but not always visible in crowded areas, leaving skiers unsure where and how to queue safely at lifts. Absent were any resort employees roaming the lines to assist with directions or enforce social distancing and face covering requirements.
Opening day at Big Sky. Photo by Tom Johnson.
Mask usage was far from universal. The face coverings we observed among guests were likely to be worn below the nose, where they provided no protection, either for the individual or those around them. Even when worn properly, the masks we observed often consisted of coarse-woven gators or bandanas. Few masks we saw were constructed of materials thought to provide maximum protection.
Mesuda told me in a follow-up exchange that “we believe our guests can do much better and have empowered all our teammates to remind guests of our resort policies, while also educating them on proper wearing, acceptable forms of coverings, and ensuring everyone does their part. Most of our guests want to do the right thing — and this is all new to them. We are finding that once we provide some education to our guests about our expectations, they are happy to comply. However, several non-compliant guests were asked to leave the resort and we will maintain that approach in every similar instance.”
Uncomfortable moments
While actively skiing, my wife and I felt as safe as we would have during any other ski season. But throughout the course of the day, we found ourselves in situations—ticket lines, lift lines, riding on lifts—that caused us to accept risks that we have scrupulously avoided throughout the pandemic. This made us uncomfortable.
In the line to obtain our passes, a printer malfunction delayed processing of orders. We stood in line for more than 30 minutes. Most patrons around us wore masks, but social distancing was spotty. We saw no resort employees in the area enforcing compliance. There were no mazes to guide patrons, no marks on walkways suggesting safe distancing. The group behind us continually encroached on our personal space. At one point, a man in the group stood only inches behind my wife.
“Can you please scoot back?” she asked.
The man puffed up and glared at her as he took a step back. “Is this far enough?”
“Six feet,” my wife said, pointing to a resort sign posted next to her.
In the lift line, because of crowd density, we saw few posted signs encouraging compliance with the resort’s safety rules until we made it all the way to the front and were about to board the lift. By then, we had spent 20 minutes jammed together with other skiers awaiting a trip up the mountain.
“Are you having trouble enforcing social distancing and mask requirements?” I asked a lift operator as we approached the front of the line.
“It’s not that I’m having trouble,” she said. “They pull their masks up when I tell them to. But until then, they just do what they want.”
She asked whether we had seen many people without masks. We’d observed around seventy percent compliance, I told her, but that even those in compliance wore face coverings that offered little protection, or they wore them below the nose. She agreed.
“Did you receive much training on COVID?” my wife asked.
“It was very brief,” she said. “Very brief.”
Mesuda later told me that “every new and returning employee went through a mandatory orientation session which featured COVID-19 education, review of resort policies and expectations (for guests and employees), and complemented with department-specific training from department managers.”
I asked the lift operator whether the resort had people patrolling lift lines to ensure compliance with Big Sky’s face covering and social distancing requirements.
“We’re supposed to,” she said, looking futilely out at the line snaking into the distance.
Looking in the same direction, we saw hundreds of people packed together on a windless day, sharing space and air, breathing hard from runs just completed. Compliance tended to fall among groups: if one member of a group wore a mask, everyone wore a mask. In other groups, no one wore face coverings.
Skiers who went through the line unmasked weren’t asked by lift operators to mask up until just before loading onto the lift — at which point, a mask was arguably less helpful.
“Thanks for caring about this,” the lift operator said as we boarded. “Because nobody else seems to.”
Opening day at Big Sky. Photo by Tom Johnson.
Who’s in charge?
At least initially, Big Sky appears to have chosen to rely on guests to independently monitor their behavior and adhere to the resort’s safety requirements. Mesuda as much as confirmed this.
“While we do our part, we are also asking our community to do their part and use good judgement to be socially distant whenever possible,” Mesuda said.
And that’s part of the problem. Perhaps due to coronavirus fatigue or politicization of COVID mitigation measures, a segment of the population continues to abstain from mask wearing and social distancing requirements. Without enforcement, the resort and its guests are at the mercy of those who elect not to comply. And those who exhibit reckless behavior on the slopes are likely to conduct themselves recklessly in other aspects of the their lives, making them more likely to contract the virus and put everyone around them at risk.
Regardless of guest behavior, the resort appeared to have some trouble doing their own part. For instance, we were told to expect separate lines for those wanting to ride only with members of their parties and those willing to share lift rides with others.
“Our lift riding plan is a hybrid intended to maximize uphill capacity while respecting personal choice and space,” Mesuda said. “Guests can choose one of two lines — a “Friends & Family” line if they want to ride with the group they are traveling with (drive together, ride together) or a “normal” line, which would load lifts with unrelated parties as we have typically done in the past.”
On opening day, we saw no such options and no signage directing us. At the front of the line, we were loaded onto the lift with another party, and no one asked us whether that was okay.
Mesuda later explained that the option to ride only with members of one’s own party is limited.
“On select lifts, we are offering guests the option to ride with their party only; and if guests are comfortable, the ability to ride with other parties as well,” Mesuda said. “On lower volume days, we will accommodate our guest’s desire to ride alone or only with members of their party across all lifts that are running.”
On Big Sky’s website, the resort states it will not enforce maximum capacity on chairlifts but will allow groups traveling together to ride on their own chair when “operationally feasible.” In contrast, lifts will be loaded only with people in the same group in nearby Colorado.
Table for two
Perhaps the greatest danger on the mountain lies within the resort’s indoor dining facilities. States around the country are once again issuing stay-at-home orders and forbidding or limiting public gatherings indoors, including indoor dining at restaurants. Despite ranking in the top 10 per capita for test positivity rates, conservative-leaning Montana has resisted implementing aggressive restrictions.
“We are operating restaurants at 50 percent occupancy in compliance with state and county guidelines,” Mesuda wrote. “In addition to managing to a reduced capacity, we have implemented additional measures to minimize the risk of COVID-19 exposure which includes: requiring facial coverings in all indoor facilities unless seated and eating, directional specific entry/exits, increased frequency of sanitizing common area surfaces, as well as online ordering, dedicated pickup areas and even the introduction of a delivery service to lodging units by way of Swifty Delivery.”
Operating dining facilities at 50 percent capacity falls short of restrictions imposed by many cities and states with lower per capita infection rates, and in places where diners are more likely to come from nearby neighborhoods. At Big Sky and other resorts, dining facilities could be veritable melting pots — and 50 percent capacity is little different from an average day in mid-winter.
The CDC rates on-site dining with indoor seating as “Highest Risk” if seating capacity is not reduced and tables not spaced at least 6 feet apart.
Former FDA chief Scott Gottlieb said Monday on CNBC that he avoids indoor dining altogether.
“I will not eat indoors in a restaurant,” Gottlieb said on “Squawk Box.” “I’ve been eating outdoors since the summertime and wouldn’t eat indoors in a restaurant. I think the risk is too high to be in a confined space without a mask on with other people eating in that same location right now.”
While admittedly cautious, my wife and I haven’t set foot in an indoor restaurant in eight months. The prospect of sitting down with strangers from distant locales, regardless of how much surface cleaning is done, is unimaginable. For skiers with concerns about airborne transmission of COVID-19, that leaves few choices but to eat outside. Al fresco dining is fine when the weather is pleasant, but it’s a chilly prospect during a January blizzard.
The author and his wife on opening day at Big Sky. Photo by Tom Johnson.
Looking forward
Opening day at Big Sky reminded me of an episode of truTV’s educational comedy series Adam Ruins Everything. In an episode entitled “Adam Ruins Security,” Adam explains the concept of “security theater.” Security theater is the practice of enacting security measures that are intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to achieve it. Examples include tightened airport security after a terrorist attack.
On opening day, I felt that Big Sky was to a degree practicing “safety theater.” Through their published guidelines, the resort talked a good game, and this made me feel safe. But on opening day, the resort failed to take some of the actions that would have actually kept me safe.
Since opening day, I’ve noticed some improvements. Mesuda acknowledged as much:
“The lift lane configuration has been extended for Ramcharger 8 and the same since the opening of Swift Current, with a recurring placement of messaging noting facial coverings are required and to socially distance at least 6 feet apart. While lift lanes may have seemed crowded, with most guests maintaining a “tip to tail” distance between skiers and riders, they are generally spaced 6 feet apart and adhering to the recommended spacing between parties. It’s also important to note, by providing our guests the opportunity to only ride with their party on select lifts, and encouraging additional spacing between groups — lift lines will appear longer this season. However, with reduced guest volume and our high-speed chairlift network, we believe guest wait times will be less impacted.”
Readers of this story can view the photos included and ascertain for themselves whether Mesuda’s “tip to tail” comment is accurate.
In the resort’s defense, Thursday was the first day of the season. The resort will no doubt iron out kinks and address shortcomings in their safety policies. The situation on opening day was made more difficult by virtue of the fact that snowfall has been light, meaning that only a couple of lifts and runs were open. With few choices, visitors are confined to a smaller footprint of skiable terrain. As the season progresses, guests will spread out. This may reduce congestion at the base and in lift lines.
But the resort only has a few weeks to get it right before the holiday crush, when many times the number of visitors — heralding from broad geographic areas — will descend on the mountain. By then, the pandemic’s grip on the nation is expected to tighten.
Big stakes
There’s a lot at stake, not just for Big Sky, but for the country’s nearly 500 ski resorts and the communities that depend on them. Snow sports tourism contributes around $20 billion to the U.S. economy each year, according to researchers at the University of New Hampshire and Colorado State University.
There’s a lot at stake for skiers, too. Between travel, accommodations, lift tickets and gear, skiing is an expensive sport. Having a ski vacation cut short by a COVID-19 infection is a difficult pill to swallow, even without considering the risk of ending up in the hospital. And if guests become infected, they may be forced to quarantine onsite.
“Ski areas have also been asked to message to their guests that they will be required to extend their stay and quarantine should they test positive for COVID-19 during their stay,” a spokeswoman from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment recently said.
If that were to come about, guests themselves may be on the hook financially.
“If you have to isolate, you are going to have to pay,” Aspen Chamber president Debbie Braun said. “People need to be very aware when they come to town, and we need to make sure they understand our public health orders.”
Mesuda said that in the event that guests become infected during their stay at Big Sky, the resort will “assist them on a case by case basis to ensure they are isolating safely and in compliance with the local health department’s best practices.” She declined to say who would pay for an extended stay.
Bottom line
In the weeks leading up to opening day, we were comforted by Big Sky’s aggressive messaging that suggested the organization is respectful of the coronavirus and is taking steps to mitigate the threat it poses. Big Sky’s website contains pages of information detailing the steps they have taken to ensure guest safety.
Our actual experience underscores the fact that regulations without enforcement are of little use. There will always be a subset of the population that ignores or even ridicules restrictions as onerous, overbearing, or an infringement on personal liberty.
Mesuda says that with the policies it has in place, the resort is confident it can make it through the season safely. If things go poorly, however, they are not afraid to adjust.
“We intend to use common sense and good practices to open safely and efficiently for the full duration of our ski season. Like last winter, we are not afraid to pivot or make hard choices once the season is underway; but remain confident that our current plan will allow us to have a full season of skiing.”
With little snow in the forecast, skiable terrain across the West will likely remain limited into the holiday season. Congestion at the base, in lift lines, and in restaurants will persist. Guests will continue to flock in from all points. With that in mind, it is incumbent on Big Sky and other resorts to do more to enforce their regulations and weed out noncompliant visitors who would put others at risk.
My wife and I intend to ski throughout the season, but like all things this year, we will modify our behavior. We will restrict our skiing to days when crowds are thinner. We’ll bring our own meals and eat them outside. We’ll avoid situations where crowds form and social distancing is inadequate. We’ll request to ride lifts without other parties. We may ski shorter days, since we won’t use the resort’s lodges and restaurants for meals or rest breaks.
By limiting our exposure to others, we believe we’ll feel safe enough to ski. And as long as we are skiing—actually gliding over snow in fresh mountain air—there is probably not a safer place to recreate. | https://medium.com/illumination/thinking-of-skiing-this-season-33a2fcb30ae | ['Tom Johnson'] | 2020-12-09 15:03:52.571000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'Health', 'Business', 'Skiing', 'Covid 19'] |
THE TEN MOST OVERRATED ALBUMS IN POP HISTORY | Okay no surprises here so let’s bunch them together like the twin-dogseggs that they are. Just a couple of points.
1. Re: those racist homophobe dickheads Oasis- To quote myself: ‘those 90s where apologetics became the internal bloodstream, and arrogance thus became the blaring facade, of what was served up as alternative/independent. When simply saying you were rock and roll often & drearily enough was enough to make you iconic . . . that half-witted (yet convinced it’s witty as fuck) self-awareness that instantaneously stalls joy, the tacit admission that alright, best we can do is slightly crapper versions of what’s come before, but hey, if we all close our eyes and pretend, who cares eh? And if that’s admitted then any kind of pastiche is ok, will pass, so many moments from Oasis where you think not only ‘are they just going to steal that then?’ but ‘my god, how withered does your soul have to be to be willing to put your name to such flabby, lazy larceny?’ Take that admission of general abitshitness, that pride in ‘getting away with it’, in precisely avoiding the big statement either musically or lyrically in preference of making some facsimile of feel, attitude scruffed like factory-damaged jeans, a simulacra of ‘importance’, take that sanctification of the half-witted & slow-moving . . .’
Oasis are the Chris Evans of music. If you like them you must despise pop. They are the single artist that most sums up all I most detest in rock and pop music over its entire history. I know it’s common to say ‘yeah but those early singles’ — no sorry, that band have always made the most revoltingly lumpen, conservative sound in music. Yes they absolutely are ‘iconic’ and ‘legendary’ and if you like them, you and their fucking rubbish music and those kinds of adjectives deserve each other. You cunt x
2. Just wanted to clarify something re the Roses debut. In my Quietus review I think I compared it to NWA’s ‘Straight Outta Compton’. I don’t wanna retract that — they are both a few good tracks surrounded by a ton of filler BUT there is one crucial difference. Would be GUTTED to never hear the good tracks off ‘SOC’ again. If I was told I would never ever hear a single note by the fucking Stone Roses again I really wouldn’t care one iota.
Two of the most damaging, regressive, records of all time.
6. The Who: Who’s Next
Seriously is there an unlovelier sound in all Classic Rock than the Who? The definitive singles band who should have called it a day in 67.
Always hated Moon’s drumming, Townsend’s earnestness and Roger Daltrey has been the most repellent frontman in rock for nigh on half a century now. Because I guess they hadn’t been emetic enough with the baked beans here we are asked to chuckle at four streaks of piss leaving four streaks of piss behind — the perfect summation of their grubby be-denimmed pomposity and sanctimoniousness. A band that have always left me cold. Shit then. Shit now.
5 Fugees: The Score
Come on now — ‘Blunted By Reality’ = half decent. This? A quarter decent, if that, and the hits all awful. (‘Miseducation’ is another kettle of fish — loved the singles massively underwhelmed by the album)
Have no idea why this appears in so many lists. Oh yeah, tokenism.
4. Cream: Disraeli Gears
I don’t mind overrated albums so long as they don’t prove influential. Is there a more worthless discography in all of rock than that racist cunt Clapton? (also found Baker dull bar his work with Fela and Masters Of Reality).
Like most teenagers in the dire mid80s I spent most of my time in 60s/70s reconnaissance but Cream was the band that firmly told me ‘okay you’ve gone too far thissaway- nothing to see here’. Dreadful hippy shit.
3. The Beatles: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Another uncontroversial one.
I really like/admire the Beatles and suspect those who say they sucked etc are just being childishly anti-canonical. Their songs raised several generations including mine. They’re the national songbook. They explored all the possibilities of what pop could do.
It’s not the Beatles fault that one of their weakest records is routinely rotated as a classic — mention or an image of SP is a handy shortcut for many to summarise the late 60s. But honest- from this, only one I love is the last track. All other Beatles albums are better than this.
Friggin’ Satanic Majesties is better.
2. Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP
Again uncontroversial. I dug the first EP, thought the first LP was already showing signs of filler, didn’t much like the hits off this OR the rest of this cash cow. Twice as long as it should be. The fucking filler is deep here.
Em was always a good writer and rapper but that’s not enough to make a great album and I’d argue he’s never made one, including this horribly dated hugely over-praised slab of self pity and shouty nihilism. There always seemed to be this variance between his fans loudly acclaiming him as The Greatest Of All Time and what actually proved influential — Em’s topics were only ‘new’ or shocking to hip hop ‘fans’ who clearly had never been listening before someone who looked like them came and made rap music.
Who bar the retrograde ended up ‘influenced’ by Eminem? Badly dated and utterly irrelevant to where rap was going, this LP now seems of a piece with nu-metal — tormented testosterone in aural form from a fantastically wealthy white guy. Absolutely a classic for those that were young at the time, were easily ‘shocked’, and who really hadn’t heard much music. For the rest of us . . . Remind me what the fuck all the fuss was about? Emo rap. As ghastly as that sounds.
1. The Entire Recorded Works Of Frank Zappa
Do I forgive him for his sterling work with Beefheart, Shaggs, and against the PMRC? Fuck no, Zappa’s discography is one of the most worthless in music and his smart-arsed cynicism, sneering snobbish hatred of pop and contempt for seemingly anyone apart from himself and the similarly revoltingly virtuosic acolytes in his bands makes him an artist I have never been able to stomach. I’ve tried multiple entry points but I can’t get past that hateful snark. What happens when music is dominated by fucking musicians. All of the live footage I’m earnestly pushed towards by Zappa fans always emerges as the most contemptible plank-wankery, devoid of joy, dedicated only to an endlessly egotistic proof of technical ability. It’s not just that I hate him , I like plenty of pop smart-arses — the clever-clever nauseatingly over-egged SOUND of most Zappa is utterly emetic to me, and should be to any pop fan. Flush this shit. Forget this cunt. | https://medium.com/@kaptainkulk/the-ten-most-overrated-albums-in-pop-history-2447055f20e3 | ['Mister Neil Kulkarni'] | 2021-05-19 12:23:04.754000+00:00 | ['Classic Albums', 'Music', 'Rap', 'Overrated', 'Rock'] |
Marketing Departments, Are You Okay? | Marketing Departments, Are You Okay?
Blink if You Need Help.
Photo by Macau Photo Agency on Unsplash
A delivery man wearing a mask brings a package to someone’s house. He’s smiling. He drops off the package. Disinfects it. Sets up a little cardboard stand. Puts the package on top. Puts a crown on the package. Goes back to his truck, covers himself with disinfectant.
He even puts some on his mouth like lip gloss. Then he says:
“I feel so super duper safe working! It’s like, 110% safe! The safety is of such a maximum level, that I’m in better health now that I’m working! My diabetes has been cured. It went away the minute I stopped collecting unemployment. So you see, I don’t need a union, because of the extreme safety and high quality of life offered by my employer! Please continue ordering things! Do not in any way stop buying things online! I love my job. If I could talk in emojis, you would just see tiny hearts floating out of my mouth!”
Well, that’s not at all strange. The sunny day. The van on the open road. The cheeriness.
The complete and absolute disregard for, you know, reality.
The escapism and unnatural assurances of ads make me wonder —
Marketing Departments, Are You Okay?
Are you, like, actually trying to signal to us that you’re being held captive in some advertising campaign from hell? I imagine your assignments look something like this:
show a man working. hispanic, but not like, too hispanic. speaks english well. one of the good ones. but he could be white, even. he is so happy to work. maybe throw in there that he doesn’t really need a union rep because we are taking all precautions necessary. encourage people to order things they don’t need. maybe those unicorn inflatables? people love unicorns, right? maybe we can set up a fake twitter for him, too. people can follow him for fun! follow his adventures, and see just how safe and happy he is! something like that. oh, and promote the new crowns that come with every delivery, because we want our customers to feel like royalty. studies show that when people think they are rich, they spend more money. especially if they found out in a DNA test that they have a connection to royal ancestry. not sure where this data came from. do not fact check. please discourage going on unemployment. we want that government money for us.
I imagine you look at this assignment with all the horror of an empathetic human being with a liberal arts degree but hey, you want to keep your job. You see how racist, out-of-touch, and potentially deadly this advertisement could be. But you know, you have bills.
I get it.
You’re a hostage.
You don’t know how this happened.
Marketing seemed like such a fun, innocent job when you were in college. There’s good money in it! And you get to be creative! You get to actually use the artistic skills you spent years honing.
But before Coronavirus, it was definitely a lot more fun. You didn’t think you were really doing anything bad to people. Now, you’re not so sure. Should you really be encouraging people to sink their savings into a new car, when they’re not sure how long they’ll have a paycheck? A vacation, when they might have high medical bills? A trip to a theme park, when they might…die?
How do you ethically ask someone to buy something right now, when you yourself are hoping your department doesn’t get cut, and you’re stashing away all your money and…considering…maybe…getting an OnlyFans account?
A classy one, though. You know. One where you work out. Fully clothed.
None of that butt stuff.
Blink if you need help.
Or, if you can’t blink, pick one of the following to put in your next ad, and I know you’re crying out from marketing purgatory:
Palm trees. A person saying “unicorn” or an actual unicorn somewhere in the ad. A racially ambiguous woman with a white-sounding name.
I will be watching. | https://medium.com/are-you-okay/marketing-departments-are-you-okay-407da2020ef5 | ['Lisa Martens'] | 2020-08-10 23:03:42.194000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Satire', 'Marketing', 'Coronavirus', 'Advertising'] |
DORIS: Dynamic and Scalable DNA-based information storage | Imagine if every single thing you ever saved onto your computer was saved in DNA, like the type in your body. I don’t know about you, but would definitely save my papers a lot more often! When I first heard about this, it definitely felt like being in a sci-fi movie, but this technology is no longer fiction! ✨Introducing DORIS!✨
DNA storage works by turning binary code into nucleotides and back to binary.
What is DORIS?
DORIS, despite sounding like your great aunt’s name, is actually a technology that could help us store information on DNA. When we take a step back, we know that humans are producing WAY too much data for our current technologies to handle. Every day, humans produce 2.5 quintillion bytes! That’s a lot! This is where ✨DORIS✨comes in. Right now, DNA-based information encoded information in a series of DNA sequences, and then, is decoded back into an electronically compatible form. This process not only takes a long time, but it also is efficient, because, in order to access the information, we need to use PCR. This reduces the reusability, scalability, and encoding density of the information. But, DORIS, works to improve all of these.
DORIS is inspired by the natural ways that cells access information in their genome. This allows for DORIS to maximize its ability to reuse information, allow for maximum density of information, and be largely scaleable. It is composed of a fundamental unit of double-stranded DNA and a single-stranded overhang. The real to DORIS is the single-stranded overhang! The overhang acts as a file address for the information, but also provides a handle to separate the file.
What is so great about DORIS?
There are four main awesome things about DORIS; efficiently creating DNA strands in one “pot”, increasing density and capacity limits, repeatable file access, and the ability to change the file well in the DNA!
So, let’s take a look at the first awesome thing, creating all the DNA strands in one “pot!” To understand how awesome this is, let’s take a look at the future🎇! In the future, in order to store all our data on DNA, we are going to be making DNA databases that are comprised of upwards of 10¹⁵ distinct strands, which is a whole lot more than we can do now. So if we come back to the right now, we know that we need a way to create these DNA strands in high throughput and parallelized manner. And this is where DORIS comes in! DORIS allows us to use a T7 RNA polymerase promoter that the sequence contained to bind the strand to a common primer and turn our data into the DNA strands that we needed. This resulted in our strand having a 20 nt (nucleotide) overhang. On top of that, these process only needs 4 PCR cycles to convert the DNA, a lot less than other processes. In order to make different files in the same pot, we use magnetic beads functionalized with streptavidin, which allows us to separate these different files, even when they are made in one “pot.” This process, due to reduced PCR requirements, allows us to separate more efficiently and at lower temperatures, which makes the process a whole lot better!
The process of using DORIS for one “pot” creation
Another super awesome thing about DORIS is its ability to increase the density and capacity limits of the information. The really cool thing about DORIS is that it gives us the ability to room temperature separations of the double-stranded portions of the DNA! I know that might sound boring, but it dramatically increases the chance that we will be able to use DNA for storage. As DNA databases increase in size, the chance of similar files increases. This is where PCR falls behind, but DORIS strives. For PCR, similar files would mean that they would be unable to decode the similar information. But DORIS, by using computational code words in the data while encoding, would be able to easily separate the files, allowing for more accurate and more information to be decoded. At first, PCR has increased data payload, which is a minor benefit. But quickly, this benefit turns into a catastrophe, as the capacity of information drops dramatically, due to the similarity in files. This is where DORIS comes in, allowing for an increased capacity and better storage of the information.
The use of the overhang in DORIS vs Traditional Methods
A third great thing about DORIS is the ability to repeatedly access the file. In order to do this, we look to nature for inspiration! As a cell repeatedly accesses genetic information in DNA, we can too! DORIS works by using a single permanent copy of genomic DNA and using the process of transcription to do this. This process turns the DNA into RNA and then returns the RNA to the database and then reverse transcribes it, in order to reaccess it while also keeping as much of the information as possible. In tests done, as much as 90% of the information remained after multiple times accessing the file! That is great! See, in PCR, a file can’t be accessed more than once, which would mean you could only see your data once, but with this system, you can see it multiple times with the same information.
The process of DORIS
And finally, the most wonderful awesome thing about DORIS, the ability to change the file in the DNA! Isn’t that crazy! This means that you would be able to delete, insert, and edit the file in the DNA, just like you would on a computer. Due to the overhang that DORIS provides, we are able to execute computations without taking all the data out of the DNA. In a lot of tests, this method was majorly successful, being able to execute the desired function 50% to 100% of the time! This is great because it allows us to deal with information the same way we would as if it was stored on an inorganic information system. It is a great step towards making a functional, efficient, and realistic database to store information through DNA!
The process of reacessing and editing the information in the DNA using DORIS.
So, what now?
Well, now that we know a more efficient way to store information in DNA, we can start working towards creating a functional DNA database. The ultimate goal for the future would be to have all of our information stored in DNA. At the rate we are going, we aren’t going to be able to save our data. Even though that might seem horrible, we never know what future generations might learn from our data, as we have done with past generations. This is why DNA plays such a big role because as long as people can translate DNA, they can access our information. DORIS is a big step forward towards this goal, even as we continue to improve on our current methods.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you! I am a 15-year-old who is interested in regenerative medicine, biocomputing, and public health. If you want to see me continue to grow and 10X myself, sign up for my newsletter here! | https://medium.com/@tacocat05/doris-dynamic-and-scalable-dna-based-information-storage-1ce85b0ff05c | ['Anna Heck'] | 2020-12-07 21:22:43.809000+00:00 | ['Biocomputer', 'STEM', 'Biocomputing', 'Cells'] |
Summer Reading List: Our 15 Favourite Music Biographies | Kellie Given
Whether it’s a classic rags to riches journey or an outcast-turned-hero achievement, we all love a good musician story. They’re gritty, passionate, raw, and show sides of our favourite artists that we can’t see from just the music alone. And, lucky for us, artists (or people close to them) absolutely love writing them.
To prepare for your relaxing summer ahead, here’s a list of 15 of our favourite music biographies to add to your reading list.
1. ‘Me’ — Elton John
His first and only autobiography sees John reveal every ounce of truth regarding his rollercoaster life. Taking you further than what was shared in the 2019 biopic Rocketman, the star takes you through his religious upbringing, his career drama, his sexuality struggles and his crippling drug addiction; all the way to his happily ever after with husband David Furnish. An excellent read about the highs and lows from one of the greatest music legends of all time.
Find it here.
2. ‘Total F*cking Godhead: The Biography of Chris Cornell’ — Corbin Reiff
Written by Seattle rock writer Corbin Reiff, this biography details Cornell’s days as a struggling musician in Seattle to becoming one of the founding fathers of grunge rock in the ’90s. With input from those who knew Cornell best and worked with him, as well as words from Cornell himself, the book follows the ups and downs that faced the star’s career both in Soundgarden and Audioslave and helps to give some answers to his sudden death.
Find it here.
3. ‘The Rose That Grew From Concrete’ — Tupac Shakur
While not technically an autobiography, 2Pac’s collection of poetry is as personal as you can get. Touching on his troubled upbringing, society, politics and racism, the book contains 72 handwritten poems from 2Pac from the years 1989 to 1991. An intimate look at one of the greatest rappers of all time, this one is a must-read.
Find it here.
4. ‘Freddie Mercury: A Life, In His Own Words’ — Freddie Mercury
The closest we’ll ever get to a Freddie Mercury autobiography; this book compiles every interview Mercury ever did and his own quotes to form a story from the star’s perspective on his life with Queen. A painfully shy and lonely person behind all the glitz and glam, Mercury kept a very private life and only allowed a few people in to really get to understand him. Now, we can all get to know the man behind the legend too.
Find it here.
5. ‘U2’ — U2
Allowing a deeper insight into one of the biggest rock bands of our time, U2 retell their journey in their own words and even share some photos from their own archives. From growing up in Dublin to selling out stadiums all around the world, the band share their story and all the memories made along the way.
Find it here.
6. ‘Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics, 1965–1999’ — Paul McCartney
For Beatles fans, McCartney’s lyricism is truly unmatched. His candor and vision have helped create some of the best songs of all time, so it’s only right a collection of his poetry and lyrics was compiled into a book. Touching on grief, love, pain and the world around him, this book is an intimate look into the emotions of an icon.
Find it here.
7. ‘The Way I Am’ — Eminem
The autobiography from Eminem includes never-before-seen photos, personal drawings and poems, stories and memorabilia collected by the rapper. Detailing his struggles with poverty, drugs, love and fame, Eminem reflects on his ride of a journey and reveals the answers to the things we’ve always wanted to know.
Find it here.
8. ‘The Rolling Stones 50’ — The Rolling Stones
To celebrate an excellent 50 years of the band’s success, The Rolling Stones put together a collection of exclusive content for their fans. Including over 1000 illustrations, photography, international posters, draft record art, contact sheets and more, this book is the ultimate piece of memorabilia. In their own words, the band recount their favourite memories and stories from over the years and share their most precious treasures from the ride.
Find it here.
9. ‘The Dirt — Confessions Of The World’s Most Notorious Rock Band’ — Motley Crüe
Now a film on Netflix, The Dirt is a fascinating tell-all about the shenanigans of Motley Crüe during the height of their career in the ‘80s/’90s. Read all about the gross, wild and at times downright horrific things they got up to, the drug addictions, the band relationships, and most importantly how Motley Crüe became one of the biggest glam rock bands to come out of the ‘80s.
Find it here.
10. ‘Working Class Boy’ — Jimmy Barnes
A heartwarming yet harrowing memoir, Cold Chisel’s iconic frontman shares the story of his difficult childhood and the road he took to get himself to fame. Migrating from Scotland to Australia in 1962, Barnes recounts his family’s memories with violence and poverty and strives to get himself out of the suburbs and into the arms of rock and roll. A fascinating look inside the life of an Aussie rock icon that also has a follow-up book titled Working Class Man.
Find it here.
11. ‘You Should Be Dancing: My Life with the Bee Gees’ — Dennis Bryon
Recounting his time as a drummer for the Bee Gees during their peak of 1974 to 1979, Dennis Bryon offers behind-the-scenes knowledge into one of the biggest bands in history. Looking at the inner workings of the band of brothers and tales about classic hits such as ‘Stayin’ Alive’ and ‘How Deep Is Your Love?’, Bryon shares the story of his time with the band and takes us all along for the wild ride.
Find it here.
12. ‘Beastie Boys Book’ — Beastie Boys
As told by Ad-Rock and Mike D themselves, this book details the story of Beastie Boys’ success from misfit punks to iconic hip hop trio. Adhering to their eclectic brand, the book isn’t your traditional autobiography and includes a recipe book by chef Roy Choi, a graphic novel, a mixed tape and contributions from dozens of celebrities.
Find it here.
13. ‘Pearl Jam Twenty’ — Pearl Jam, Cameron Crowe
Published in conjunction with Cameron Crowe’s documentary of the same name, Pearl Jam Twenty sees the band finally share their story. Celebrating 20 years of success, the band share behind-the-scenes photos, drawings, tour notes, and insights from their career so far. From their start in Seattle in 1991 to becoming one of the most influential bands of the grunge era, Pearl Jam finally pull back the curtains and let us get a deeper look at one of the greatest rock bands of all time.
Find it here.
14. ‘Journals’ — Kurt Cobain
An interesting look into one of the most interesting minds in music, Journals is a personal notebook filled with drawings, poems, letters and lyrics from the famous Nirvana frontman. In the pages you’ll find Cobain’s thoughts on fame, his plans for Nirvana, his love for rock music and his inner turmoils; all with scribbles and doodles around them like it’s a handwritten diary. Not only is this a must-read, but it’s a must-have collector’s item.
Find it here.
15. ‘So Much Things To Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley’ — Roger Steffens
A project in the making spanning over 40 years, Bob Marley expert Roger Steffen has interviewed over 75 friends, business managers, family members and close confidants to gather an intimate and honest look at Marley’s incredible life. From Marley’s upbringing in the slums of Jamaica to becoming one of the most influential figures in history, Steffen explores the star’s friendships, relationships, controversies and even investigates why Marley’s fatal cancer wasn’t diagnosed sooner. A one-stop for all your Bob Marley knowledge.
Find it here. | https://medium.com/@umusic-nz/summer-reading-list-our-15-favourite-music-biographies-3442246ac88d | ['Umusic Nz'] | 2021-02-25 03:02:24.944000+00:00 | ['Biography', 'Reading'] |
HOQU Summer Digest 2019 | Summer is passing by very quickly… So quickly, in fact, that it is not even clear whether there was a summer at all? This happens most often with those who have been having fun, but that does not relate to us, because we were working hard and fruitfully.
We are eager to share with you everything that we did this summer:
Development
We would like to remind you that the HOQU platform (namely the business version) was at the stage of closed testing throughout the summer. Feedback from tester partners and timely responses to them from our developers will help our team bring the HOQU platform to full functioning and mass use.Functionality implemented over the summer includes:
Unified account (one single account, using which users can access all HOQU public networks). Soon we will tell you about what makes this feature unique and how to use it.
(one single account, using which users can access all HOQU public networks). Soon we will tell you about what makes this feature unique and how to use it. A subsection Postbacks in the business version of the HOQU system;
in the business version of the HOQU system; The Network Admin role has been implemented
has been implemented Account for network managers;
The automatic updating of messages has been launched in the Tickets subsection;
has been launched in the Tickets subsection; Email notifications and system notifications have been connected;
and have been connected; In the settings for users, the Time Zone field is now available — a function that affects the viewing of current statistics on an offer / campaign;
The Tickets section has been improved;
Changes were made for the mobile version : the filters were improved and pop-up forms have been added;
: the filters were improved and pop-up forms have been added; A merchant manager role was released;
The ability of generating invitations for webmasters / advertisers has been implemented;
An affiliate manager role was released.
Also, a tremendous amount of time was spent by our team on fixing minor bugs and improving the current platform functionality.
The next development stage is the launch of a business version of the HOQU platform in the public domain in late autumn.
Blockchain version
It has been decided that the blockchain version of the HOQU application will remain based on Ethereum and will not switch to EOS. Given the decision, the token swap will not take place. Currently, all the members of our team are expecting an updated version of Ethereum, which will become the main mechanism in the operation of the HOQU system.
In one of recent our articles, we talked about the reasons for the decision, as well as the dates of the Ethereum database update.
Events
We are always carefully selecting the events that we are participating in. For us, the most important criteria are: the reputation of the organizers, the number of expected participants, the subject of the event, the scale of the conference, the number and status of the speakers, the price-quality ratio, and the opportunity of our HOQU representatives acting as a speaker. Networking is one of the obligatory functions of the project representatives at the conferences. A large list of clients who have expressed their desire to work on the HOQU platform has already been compiled through such an approach.
This summer was very eventful with various cool venues. We selected and visited the most significant and important of them — in Kiev (regional level), in Barcelona (European level), and in New York (world level).
At the beginning of summer, on June 14, Alexander Duzhnikov flew to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. It was there that Guruconf was held. The conference brought together more than 1,500 participants. Our founder presented the project and gave a case presentation from the main stage of the conference. In addition, he was one of the speakers of the Round Table.
Find out all the details!
Closer to the middle of summer, from July 8 to 9, one of the co-founders of the HOQU project, Alexander Duzhnikov, flew to Barcelona to attend the Affiliate World Europe. The conference had already attracted more than 3 thousand people from all over the world, which was a great point of interest and joy for us, because networking was exactly what was needed. During the event, Alexander held about a hundred meetings.
The final even in the summer season was a trip to the Affiliate Summit East, New-York (from August 11 to 12) — the largest and most respected the two-day affiliate marketing conference with over 5,000 participants! It was an incredible scale.
On behalf of HOQU at the conference were: Alexey Shmonov — CEO of HOQU and Alexander Duzhnikov — COO of HOQU. Such a tandem is capable of much! That is why we managed to realize all the goals that were set for the trip: acquaintances were made, meetings, negotiations with the conference participants — another step to further fruitful cooperation.
(Alexey Shmonov and Alexandr Duzhnikov at Affiliate Summit East 2019)
Participation in the conference is already helping our project find new partners and customers for further work within the HOQU platform. Some conference participants have agreed to become the first clients of our project and will have the opportunity to undergo closed testing of the platform and share their impressions with us.
By the end of the year, we mean to attend the following events:
Kyiv Affiliate Conference, Kiev, Ukraine (October 8).
(October 8). Affiliate World Asia 2019, Bangkok, Thailand (December 4–5)
The list is preliminary and will be updated on our official website at www.hoqu.com
Frequently Asked Questions: | https://blog.hoqu.io/hoqu-summer-digest-2019-e29502ed10b3 | [] | 2019-10-03 10:06:28.472000+00:00 | ['Affiliate Marketing', 'Digest', 'Hoqu News', 'Development', 'News'] |
How to Use a Side Hustle to Easily Unlock Your Budget | As I’ve talked about many times in the past, nearly every problem in personal finance can be solved by pulling one of the two levers of personal finance.
1. The income lever
2. The saving lever
99% of money problems can be solved through some combination of making more money (the income lever) and saving more of the money you already have (the saving lever). The perfect financial plan will allow you to find the sweet spot between these two levers. If your primary objective is to give yourself as much room for error as possible or if you are trying to climb out of a financial hole, you’ll need to focus on pulling both levers as hard as possible.
However, most people won’t pull the saving lever as hard as they should. It has been my experience that it is easier to convince people that they need to make more money than it is to convince them that they need to save more of the money they already make.
Holding all other factors constant, saving more money implies spending less money. Spending less money means that people will have to reduce their current standard of living. Most people struggle with reducing their standard of living. Once someone gets used to living a certain lifestyle, it’s difficult for them to move backward.
While I firmly believe most people need to do a better job managing the money they already have, today, I will focus on pulling the income lever specifically, how side hustles can unlock your budget and help you achieve your financial goals.
Meet Amanda
To illustrate how a side hustle can unlock your budget, let’s consider a hypothetical example. Amanda is a 32-year-old account manager at a local bank. She would like to be debt-free by age 36 and be able to retire by age 59
Amanda’s income & assets
Amanda makes $45,000 per year in salary.
Her employer also offers a Defined Contribution retirement plan where Amanda and her employer each contribute 5% of her salary into a retirement account.
The current value of Amanda’s retirement savings is $20,000
Amanda owns a car; this is currently worth $15,000.
After all taxes and deductions are accounted for, Amanda’s monthly takes home pay is $2,626.
Amanda’s debts
Credit card with a $3,500 balance and a 19.99% interest rate.
Student loans with a remaining balance of $28,000 and a 5% interest rate.
A car loan with a $13,000 remaining balance and an 8% interest rate.
Amanda’s current monthly budget
Amanda decides to create a monthly budget that locks in her financial goals of being able to retire by 59 and being debt-free by 36.
Current take-home pay: $2,626.
Additional savings required to retire by 59: $631
Monthly payments required to be debt-free by 36: $1,055
Remaining income to budget: $940
With only $940 left to budget with, Amanda will not have enough money to pay for her rent ($750), other expenses related to her car ($200), and cover her other monthly living expenses ($500).
Amanda is $910 short of being able to achieve her financial goals and cover her other monthly living expenses. In this type of situation, someone has three options.
1. Cut their spending
2. Lower their goals
3. Make more money
Amanda is not spending excessively, so cutting her spending won’t be of much use in this situation.
She could free up more monthly cash by pushing back her retirement age or deciding to pay her debt off over a longer period. While lowering your financial goals is always an option to free up more cash, I like to think of that as a measure of last resort.
That leaves Amanda with one clear option. Make more money. This is where the side hustle comes into play. | https://medium.com/makingofamillionaire/side-hustles-can-unlock-your-budget-2713f47ca968 | ['Ben Le Fort'] | 2020-11-18 17:17:08.512000+00:00 | ['Jobs', 'Work', 'Personal Finance', 'Money', 'Personal Development'] |
How youtube pays? Let’s see. | There are several ways of making money on youtube such as channel memberships, youtube premium revenue and merch. Yeah, merch!!!!
But the most important one that your earnings really depends on is advertising revenue. Now, i wanna talk about that.
Advertising revenue
Ad revenue is basically the ads that youtube puts on the videos. You get paid when viewers watch the ads.
If you upload a video that is longer than 10 minutes, you will be able to put the ads in order by yourself, but if it’s under 10 minutes youtube will put the ads in order by itself.
Is it as easy as it looks?
Well, the answer is absolutely not. Because you should get monetized to be able making money. It means when your channel gets monetized, ads will be put on videos. It is not that easy to be monetized and your channel needs some requirements.
Minimum eligibility requirements for monetization:
Be at least 18 or having a guardian to handle payments.
Having at least 1000 subscribers.
Your contents must be watched more than 4000 hours within the past 12 months
After you monetise and your contents start to make money, the more views you get the more money you earn.
That’s it. I hope you liked it. | https://medium.com/@alimehri1383/how-youtube-pays-lets-see-7cc9dd955444 | [] | 2020-12-26 20:09:47.252000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Making Money Online', 'Youtube Creators', 'YouTube'] |
politics is an essential work of evangelical faith. | Evangelicalism in America is nearing extinction due to the movement’s devotion to politics at the expense of its original calling to share the gospel, according to Mark Galli, former editor-in-chief of Christianity Today.
“The evangelicalism that transformed the world is, for all practical purposes, dying if not already dead,” Galli said during the “Conversations that Matter” webinar hosted by Baptist News Global Oct. 8. He spoke with BNG Executive Director and Publisher Mark Wingfield in an hour-long webinar that is available for viewing on BNG’s YouTube channel.
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Now semi-retired, Galli served 20 years at Christianity Today and is the author of a new book, When Did We Start Forgetting God: The Root of the Evangelical Crisis and Hope for the Future.
While he has identified at times as Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Anglican and recently becoming Roman Catholic, Galli said he has remained true to his evangelical upbringing that emphasized evangelism and spiritual renewal.
“I am an evangelical Catholic,” he said.
Galli spoke on an array of other topics including the culture war divisions between Americans, the polities that divide churches, and how dialogue may help pastors and others hurdle those barriers.
That editorial
But he hit on a very high-profile topic, too: his December 2019 Christianity Today editorial describing President Donald Trump as morally unfit to hold office and arguing for his removal. It was published during the Congressional impeachment hearings.
“He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud,” Galli wrote. “His Twitter feed alone — with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies and slanders — is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.”
The piece generated severe backlash from the right, including from the president himself. The viciousness of responses often was hard to bear, Galli said.
The one possible thing he would redo, he said, is the headline — “Trump Should Be Removed from Office” — that placed the emphasis on politics, when it was faith that motivated his position, Galli explained. “I was making moral arguments to fellow evangelicals. But it sounded like a political comment.”
The editorial was not, as some claimed, an effort to back Trump’s opponent in the 2020 election. It’s just that Trump has “such deeply flawed moral character” that he needs to leave office, Galli said.
Trump has “such deeply flawed moral character” that he needs to leave office.
He has no quarrel with conservative evangelicals who acknowledge Trump’s flaws but still vote for him because he lines up on issues important to them, Galli said.
There were certainly plenty of those in 2016, according to a pre-election Pew survey that Christianity Today published titled, “Most Evangelicals Will Vote Trump, But Not for Trump.”
Rather than citing issues like abortion, religious freedom and support for Israel as rationale for voting Trump, white evangelicals were much more concerned about the economy four years ago, Galli recalled. “I get it. I disagree with their choice, but I respect their wrestling.”
On the other hand, he said he does not understand those evangelicals who refuse to criticize Trump on moral grounds, who believe liberals need some shaking up and describe the president in messianic terms.
He recalled an anecdote about a pro-Trump Christian describing the president as sitting “at the right hand of the Father” and said of this ideology: “That’s idolatry, clearly and simply.”
Demise of evangelicalism
To explain the demise of evangelicalism, Galli cited the legacy of Billy Graham, who even in advanced age preached to invite men and women of all races and cultures to Christ. “He was the glue that held evangelicalism together for many years,” Galli said.
“An unfortunate symbol of what evangelicalism has become is epitomized by his son, Franklin,” he continued. “Franklin stands for evangelicals on both the right and the left who believe that politics is an essential work of evangelical faith.”
“Franklin (Graham) stands for evangelicals on both the right and the left who believe that politics is an essential work of evangelical faith.”
One symbol of that politicization is an organization called Evangelicals for Trump.
“In describing themselves in that way, they have become just another political interest group, taking the great name ‘evangelical,’ with all its theological and doctrinal and gospel history and meaning and putting it in the service of a political candidate,” Galli asserted.
And from his vantage point, the news is no better from the evangelical left.
“What’s really troubling to me is that instead of decrying this coopting of the term ‘evangelical’ for political gain, the evangelical left has only mirrored this tragic move when they recently formed a group called Evangelicals for Joe Biden.”
Evangelical groups that focus almost solely on social justice and cultural change, instead of sharing the gospel, are contributing to the decline, too, he said.
“As a result, we’ve started to let the agenda of the world determine the agenda of the church, and we’ve sidelined evangelism and church renewal as the result.”
Galli said he noticed this trend during the hiring process at Christianity Today beginning in the 1990s. Candidates overwhelmingly were interested in cultural analysis, and perhaps one in 10 story ideas pitched was about evangelistic outreach.
For the most part, he added, the lack of interest in that founding mission of faith sharing exists across the board.
“I am going to go so far as to say that our fascination with social amelioration, and political activism, has watered down the evangelical faith to the point that it looks little different than mainline Christianity,” he said.
“We’ve forgotten that the genius of evangelical faith was its singular focus: spiritual renewal. ‘You must be born again’ was preached to individuals and to whole churches and denominations, from George Whitefield, John Wesley, to Charles Finney, to Dwight Moody to Billy Graham. It was preached in the First and Second Great Awakenings, it was preached by the circuit riders, and at local Baptist revivals every year or many times a year.”
Yet, that message is not being preached much nowadays, and there will be consequences, he said. “Evangelicals today no longer have a laser focus on evangelism and spiritual renewal. As a result, I believe they will fade away as will the very term.”
Who will the Lord raise up?
But Galli predicted the mission of evangelism will continue, possibly under a different name.
“In every generation, the Lord raises up some Christians to whom he gives the charism of evangelism and spiritual renewal. What they will be called in the future, I don’t know.”
“In every generation, the Lord raises up some Christians to whom he gives the charism of evangelism and spiritual renewal. What they will be called in the future, I don’t know.”
Citing the tradition of various orders within Roman Catholicism — Benedictines, Franciscans, Jesuits and so forth — he suggested one way to reclaim evangelicalism is for those called to evangelism to rise up as a holy order across the church universal.
With some portion of the church focused on evangelism, then Christians can be involved in the public square, love their neighbors and work for social and political justice, he added. “Christians should not run away from culture but dash right into the middle of it and do whatever it takes to show forth the righteousness of God.”
Friendship amid differences
Galli explained that he’s developed these insights partly in becoming Catholic, which has provided a different vantage point from which to view evangelicalism and the wider church.
Regarding Christian unity, he said: “I don’t know if there is a reason for us to be apart, but it’s hard to get together because no one is willing to give up anything. For example, talking to a Methodist and a Presbyterian reveals little difference, “but Methodists don’t want to give up their bishops and Presbyterians don’t want to submit to bishops.”
Divisions within congregations, especially politically driven ones, must be addressed delicately, Galli said, suggesting pastors preach on the Bible from the pulpit and speak with parishioners aside from their sermons about politics.
But he acknowledged that even the Bible has been politicized in the current climate.
“Unfortunately, everything is perceived as political,” he said. “We just have to remind ourselves there are more important things than politics.”
Former Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia lived that approach, he said. They did not let ideological differences prevent a friendship.
“That is something American leaders ought to be promoting,” he concluded. | https://medium.com/@ymukho-884/evangelicalism-in-america-is-nearing-extinction-due-to-the-movements-devotion-to-politics-at-the-ff2752ab3e7f | [] | 2020-11-25 16:48:49.280000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Vacation', 'Sports', 'Life'] |
Consumer Tech Roundup (Ep. 1) | Story 1 — No Immediate Plans to Accept Crypto, Apple’s CEO Says
Though he owns and believes it’s reasonable to own cryptocurrency as part of a diversified portfolio, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, in a session at last month’s New York Times’ DealBook Conference, said his company had no “immediate plans” to start accepting crypto.
“I don’t think people buy Apple stock to get exposure to crypto,” Cook said. “It’s not something we have immediate plans to do.”
Story 2 — Samsung Announces New Company Leaders; Merges Consumer Electronics and Mobile Divisions
Last week, Samsung Electronics announced some leadership and organizational modifications in the company.
The company, which previously had three subdivisions — Consumer Electronics, Device Solutions, and Mobile & IT — each headed by a separate CEO since 2017 — will now have the Consumer Electronics and Mobile & IT divisions as a single division called SET.
The SET branch will comprise smartphones, TVs, and home appliances, and will be led by one CEO, now Jong-Hee Han.
Story 3 — The iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max Rumored to Come Without the Notch
With some nine months to go before Apple releases the iPhone 14 lineup, rumors are rife that the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max models will come “notch-less.”
Several reports speculate that the notch (an iPhone feature since 2017’s iPhone X ) will be replaced with a punch-hole design common on many Android phones.
Sources
#1: The New York Times
#2: SamMobile
#3: DigitalTrends, SamMobile | https://blog.ezewholesale.com/consumer-tech-round-up-ep-1-9bc5d889f0ae | ['Eze Wholesale'] | 2022-01-13 18:20:12.393000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Apple', 'Samsung', 'Tech News Today', 'iPhone'] |
Travel in Beijing | 5 Food Recommendation from Locals | Travel in Beijing | 5 Food Recommendation from Locals
Beijing is packed with must-try restaurants offering an indulgent mix of inventive and traditional fare.
Roasted Duck
DaDong, has become one of the most famous go-to place for Beijing Roasted Duck. All the branches of DaDong offer a mix of next-gen design with traditional Chinese literature culture.
The delicate presentation of dishes and artfully designed settings has made DaDong a perennial favorite with food and culture seekers. DaDong reimagine Beijing Roasted Duck with its aesthetic of Chinese literature. The menu is a collection of Chinese art with each dish assigned to a Song poem and Chinese painting.
SiJiMinFu, is another renowned restaurant groups for Beijing Roasted Duck. One of the most popular stores is housed in a historical building, right next to the Forbidden city. Relax over a decadent dinner time with the stunning view of the Forbidden City and the crispy roasted duck. Customers especially adore the quality of roasted duck: crisp on the skin and tender on the meat.
Beijing Cuisine
Imperial cuisine (NaJia): Being the capital city since Yuan dynasty, imperial cuisine has a unique impact on Beijing dishes. Come to NaJia to enjoy a gospel dinner featuring food with an imperial touch from the Qing dynasty, both from the lavish settings and the gorgeous food. The silverwares, bowls and plates in NaJia all have the glorious “royal yellow” color which was only allowed to use by the emperor in Ming and Qing dynasty.
HotPot
For food enthusiasts, Beijing style Hot Pot provides a feast with casual marketplace crowdedness and common people’s freedom. If you are looking for delicacy and refinement, Hot Pot is definitely not the best place to go. Foodies enjoy the delectable culinary of fresh lamb, beef, and sesame sauces. HaiDiLao (Hi Pot), Little Sheep, DongLaiShun are among the most popular franchise brands for HotPot with more delicate settings.
GuiJie
Not far from the city center, GuiJie is a street crowded with restaurants featuring various kinds of food. It’s especially packed during dinner time. Both locals and travels flock to GuiJie for a variety of cuisine: Beijing cuisine, BBQ, HotPot.
Specialty Small Dishes/Snacks
Bing Tang Hu Lu (Sweeten Hawthorn Skewer): Crispy sugar glazed hawthorn skewer, a very traditional food of Beijing. The appealing red color of hawthorn high glossed by sugar and sesame; sour taste balanced sweetness: a treatment to both sight and taste.
Beijing Yogurt: can be found in most Beijing cuisine restaurant and in HuTong, smooth and thick with rich taste. With similar texture but sweeter lol taste than Greek yogurt, all ages will love.
Beijing Dessert: influenced by the imperial dessert, Beijing style dessert enjoy a long history and rich variety. Usually the dessert has flour-made floral patterns, crumbly skin and stuffing made of date, red bean, lotus seed, and etc. DaoXiangCun is a time-honored brand for Beijing Dessert with various branches across the city.
Photo credit to TuNiu, Zhihu, Sohu | https://medium.com/@lujianglj/travel-in-beijing-food-recommendation-from-locals-17251663cad | ['Lu Jiang'] | 2021-02-27 09:38:33.949000+00:00 | ['Travel Writing', 'Travel', 'Chinese Food', 'China', 'Beijing Travel'] |
I Am a Time Traveler With a Message of Hope: The Best Time To Be Alive Is Yet To Come | I am from the year 2107. Things are looking bright here, and your grand children’s future is safe.
All I can say is that we made it past the Great Climate Crisis.
I am sending you this message as the departing wish from our venerated Mother Yika. You don’t know her yet, but she will play a central role in humanity’s transition as the founding member of the Children of Gaia.
“What are the Children of Gaia?” you might wonder.
I can’t stress enough how critical this movement has been for our survival. Consider them as all the engaged citizens of the world that carried a new collective narrative. They grew from a pocket of activists to the masses that convinced the rest of the world to embark on a salvatory transformation.
If you’re reading this, you might already be a Child of Gaia without knowing it.
There’s so much I’d like to tell you and I’m sure I’ll leave you with many unanswered questions. But time is precious and I’m merely going to explain what happened and its consequences.
Today, our children get taught at school the traumas of the Great Climate Crisis.
I feel for you. Things must start looking pretty bleak from where you stand in the 2020s.
Sorry to disappoint but the tragedy of global warming will perdure for another 30 years.
The melting of the poles, the flooding of cities, the acceleration of climate catastrophes, and the destruction of our biosphere will speed up until 2050. Luckily things will bottom-up thereafter.
Remember the impact and consequences of World War II? Well, the Great Climate Crisis will leave much deeper scars and will reshape the global order in more dramatic ways.
But today, most of our scholars agree that it was a necessary evil to operate the profound shift that humanity needed in order to survive.
Yes, you will face a survival threat.
But keep hope, it will get better!
Today, our living conditions are stable and we live in balance with our planet’s biosphere. We have finally embraced a model that is conducive to life and not destructive. Birds and mammals are back, plants are everywhere, and the air is much cleaner.
We even recently spotted a family of koalas and observed salmons swimming up the river.
All these are the fruits of the work from the past three generations.
That’s right, most of you reading this will likely witness the start of this deep transformation.
How transformed is our world from yours?
The change is profound.
Illustration from Juliana Tekova
In my world, soon-to-be yours, most countries no longer exist. Nationalism has disappeared. We evolved to live in smaller and more decentralized communities. A few ancient mega-cities still exist but have been severely depleted.
Today’s cities mimic forests and we are much better off this way. Humans were never meant to get stacked up in concrete jungles.
Economic growth today is 0% per year.
Why is that?
We no longer monitor GDP. Our measure of success lies in sustainability and optimization, not growth and maximization.
There is no inflation, and thus no incentive to invest your money. Just like human civilizations had no significant economic growth before the Industrial Revolution, our society doesn't look to maximize economic growth anymore.
Our objectives and ideals are much different than yours. We value preserving balance with the living, self-actualization through our connection with Nature, and happiness.
What happened to your high-tech mega-corps: Google, Apple, or Amazon?
Numerous of their employees joined the Children of Gaia and pressured their leadership to decentralize the governance and spearhead the transition towards a sustainable model. After seeing the enormous damage done to our society and our planet burning, they sought to leverage their war chests and billions of users to accelerate the transition.
You might be surprised to hear that this transition didn’t go against the free market principles. Innovation never disappeared.
From the late 2030s, new businesses flourished based on new ecological incentives. That was the start of a new paradigm. It was not a mere transformation but a complete green renaissance.
For this, we had to implement profound structural changes, starting by counting what we didn’t count before in our economic models, the use of natural resources.
That led to a mechanical drop in the value of all the organizations dependent on natural resources and causing climate degradation. It also led to the bankruptcies of all the agrochemical, energy, and extractive corporations.
If economic growth and inflation have disappeared, what happened to central currencies?
Cryptocurrencies became one of the largest accelerators of our decentralized living. They dematerialized exchanges, removed frontiers, and challenged the dominance of government currencies, which were the stronghold of the status quo.
But most importantly, the solutions were not monetary nor technological but social. Education was the biggest driver of climate resilience.
Ever since the Great Climate Crisis, humanity has entered the age of maturity and humility. No longer predators. No longer extractors. We reached another level of awareness. Humanity came of age.
We are now at peace with ourselves and with all the beings. Humans are part of a whole, and we are all interconnected. All creatures that surround us belong to the same living organism. We had that tribal intuition buried deep inside us. But it never entirely went away. It finally resurfaced.
And trust me, we are much happier that way! | https://medium.com/@yoann-clifi/i-am-a-time-traveler-with-a-message-of-hope-the-best-time-to-be-alive-is-yet-to-come-f71454bfc80c | ['Yoann Berno'] | 2021-01-19 11:37:02.092000+00:00 | ['Sustainability', 'SciFi', 'Utopia', 'Climate Change', 'Science Fiction'] |
US defense secretary warns European allies that Huawei 5G involvement puts alliances at risk | US defense secretary warns European allies that Huawei 5G involvement puts alliances at risk
This appeared in The Millennial Source
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on February 15, United States Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told European allies that building their 5G networks with Chinese technology firm Huawei threatens their alliances with America.
Esper also warned that future intelligence cooperation is at risk if European countries grant Huawei access to their 5G networks. If that were to come to pass, Esper said, the US couldn’t be sure that their communication infrastructure is secure. The Guardian reports that while at the conference, the defense secretary spoke of how he believes Huawei poses a threat to western countries.
The technology company is “China’s poster child for its nefarious industrial strategy”, which is a plan “fueled by theft and coercion and the exploitation of free-market, private companies and universities”, Esper said.
Regarding the impact that allowing Huawei to build European 5G networks would have on the international intelligence community, the defense secretary added, “reliance on Chinese 5G vendors could render our partners’ critical systems vulnerable to disruption, manipulation and espionage. It could also jeopardize our intelligence and communication-sharing capabilities, and by extension, it could jeopardize our alliances.”
Although Esper criticized the Chinese technology company, as well as European allies who in his view have focused too much on short term economic gain rather than long term security, he acknowledged that the US had so far failed to produce an alternative to Huawei. According to the defense secretary, the US plans to rectify this soon.
Esper said that Washington is keen to work with European allies to develop a US-based technology company that could rival Huawei’s 5G aspirations. Esper added that the Trump administration is working with technology companies to support development that would spawn other possibilities.
“We are encouraging allied and US tech companies to develop alternative 5G solutions and we are working alongside them to test these technologies at our military bases as we speak,” he said. For Esper, the benefit of working with a US company instead of Huawei is that “our own secure 5G networks will outweigh any perceived gains from partnering with heavily subsidized Chinese providers that answer to party leadership.”
Alongside Esper, Lindsey Graham, the US Senator from South Carolina, also warned European allies of working with the Chinese company.
Senator Graham took particular issue with the UK, as the country recently announced its decision to let Huawei build parts of its 5G network.
The senator said that even though “politics back home is about as screwed up as I have ever seen it”, both Republicans and Democrats agree “that if you go down the Huawei road you are going to burn a lot of bridges.”
United States Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who also appeared at the Munich Security Conference, confirmed Senator Graham’s assessment of the consensus between Republicans and Democrats about the Chinese firm.
Over the weekend Pelosi told US allies “don’t go near Huawei,” adding that working with China to build 5G infrastructure is “choosing autocracy over democracy.”
Mike Pompeo, the United States Secretary of State, also weighed in on the debate. Talking about the Chinese government rather than Huawei in particular, Pompeo said the Chinese Communist Party “represented an enormous risk to the idea of the west.”
He added, “Europeans care deeply about privacy. We cannot allow information to travel across networks if we do not have confidence that it will not be hijacked by the Chinese Communist Party. It is just unacceptable and we all know that.”
Pompeo, like Speaker Pelosi and Senator Graham, cautioned US allies not to involve Huawei in the construction of their 5G networks. The secretary of state had previously said that “we won’t be able to share information” with nations that use Huawei technology.
UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab disagreed with the secretary of state’s assessment. Raab claimed that the UK’s decision to involve Huawei would not affect the UK’s intelligence-sharing relationship with the US and other allies.
Sir Andrew Parker, the head of the UK’s MI5, said he thinks it unlikely that Britain’s relationship with the US would suffer because of its involvement with Huawei.
Elsewhere in Europe, deliberations about working with Huawei continue. The German parliament will continue to debate whether to ban the firm from its 5G network.
However, according to the New York Times, Chancellor Angela Merkel opposes shutting the company out. Likewise, France recently decided it will allow Huawei to bid on contracts to supply equipment for its 5G rollout.
One US ally that has so far followed the American suit on Huawei is Australia. Reports suggest that the country is prepared to ban the firm from its 5G network.
Following Britain’s decision to work with the Chinese company, the BBC reports that Australian MPs canceled a planned trip to the UK amid heightening tensions over Huawei’s role in building Britain’s 5G network. | https://medium.com/swlh/us-defense-secretary-warns-european-allies-that-huawei-5g-involvement-puts-alliances-at-risk-9b42d7a16a12 | ['The Millennial Source'] | 2020-02-19 09:31:14.694000+00:00 | ['Technology', '5g', 'World', 'News', 'Government'] |
My Plan to Protect Oklahoman Children and Communities from Gun Violence | We don’t have to choose between our families’ safety and gun rights. Parents should never have to fear for their children’s safety when they drop them off at school. Oklahomans should be safe in their homes. Oklahoma has the 9th highest rate of gun deaths in the country. Jim Inhofe will try to pit the safety of our families against our Second Amendment rights. I know that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Responsible gun policy goes hand-in-hand with protecting our Second Amendment rights.
I will protect Oklahoman children’s’ safety. Most parents and children remember the fear they felt after the Sandy Hook massacre. Our schools are a place where every parent prays their child will be safest, yet they have become a place of potential violence. Since Sandy Hook, there have been at least 2,429 mass shootings, with at least 2,742 killed and 10,118 wounded. With commonsense gun safety reform, we can put this crisis to an end.
We need to update the Gun-Free School Zones Act to prohibit any guns in schools other than guns carried by law enforcement. We need more CLEET-certified officers on campuses across the state; arming teachers isn’t the answer. Research suggests that putting more guns in our schools would not be helpful in reducing the risk of violence. Instead, we need to focus on ensuring firearms don’t end up in the wrong hands.
We need to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. People who are legally prohibited from buying guns are currently able to get ahold of them by finding unlicensed sellers at gun shows or on the internet. This is irresponsible and dangerous. I will work to pass reform to close loopholes that allow criminals from purchasing guns. By improving the data available to law enforcement, we can keep guns out of the wrong hands. Responsible gun owners know that their rights are strengthened and their children are safer when guns are kept out of the hands of potentially dangerous criminals.
Teaching gun safety can be the difference between life and death. One of the most devastating tragedies associated with irresponsible gun use is the accidental death of children. A national survey found that among gun-owning households with children, around 20% of gun owners stored at least one gun loaded and unlocked. 89% of unintentional shooting deaths of children occur in the home. Many children don’t understand the danger of mishandling a firearm. I will work to ensure agencies provide people with the information necessary to encourage proper storage for firearms, especially in households with children. I will do everything I can to make sure that responsible gun owners how to keep their families safe from tragic accidents.
Commonsense policies can reduce firearm suicide. Oklahoma has a higher proportion of gun deaths by suicide compared to homicide than many other states. Self-inflicted violence makes up 67% percent of gun deaths. Research has proven that if someone attempts suicide with a firearm, they are more likely to die compared to any other method. Additional research has proven that if someone experiences a failed suicide attempt, they are much less likely to attempt it in the future. Essentially, if a life is saved today, it is likely to be safe in the future.
We can reduce the risk of firearm suicide by recommending healthcare providers on the frontline to ask at-risk patients about guns in the home. We also need to allow local law enforcement to conduct welfare checks if a patient is at risk of committing suicide and owns a gun. It is also critical public officials and agencies educate families on the importance of restricting adolescents’ access to guns at home without parental supervision, especially for those at risk of suicide.
I will fight to protect victims of domestic violence. As an attorney, I have seen first hand the ongoing fear that victims of intimate partner violence experience. Nearly 1 million women alive today report being shot or shot at by an intimate partner. Each month, around 52 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner. And, intimate partner violence has been linked to mass shootings as the perpetrator often has a history of violence against women. Preventing individuals with histories of domestic violence from possessing a firearm can go a long way in protecting individual women and the broader community.
As your senator, I will fight to close the “boyfriend loophole” that allows domestic abusers to have guns, despite criminal convictions or restraining orders. Just because two people are not legally married does not mean that there is not a history of intimate partner violence. Additionally, I will introduce legislation encouraging local law enforcement to take reports of domestic violence seriously and safely intervene when a firearm is involved. Read more about my plan to address domestic and gender-based violence here.
I will protect Oklahomans’ gun rights. Common-sense gun policies do not threaten our rights to self-defense and to hunt; they strengthen them. As your senator, I will work equally as hard to protect both your families’ right to be safe from gun violence and your second amendment rights. My common-sense approach will work for responsible gun owners, not against them. | https://medium.com/@abbybroylesforsenate/my-plan-to-protect-oklahoman-children-and-communities-from-gun-violence-b2c1bec1615e | [] | 2020-07-14 21:27:33.577000+00:00 | ['Policy', 'Safety', 'Guns', 'Senate', 'Common Sense'] |
From a fellow grandchild of Partition: a view on Mogul Mowgli | “Our bodies can still keep the score, we can taste it. My DNA knows that they hunted me.”
These chilling lyrics are found in Riz Ahmed’s single “Once Kings” from the film Ahmed co-wrote with first time feature director Bassam Tariq. In the film, Ahmed’s character Zed is a rising British-Pakistani rapper on the brink of achieving his greatest success, only to be diagnosed with an autoimmune disease when traveling back home to England from New York. Having followed Ahmed’s work for some time and seen Partition come up as a consistent theme, I was struck by how affected Ahmed seems by Partition as someone that didn’t actually live through it.
It dawned on me that growing up as the child of Indian immigrants to the US, the Hindi films and TV shows we consumed through the 90s and into the early 2000s were plastered with images of violence from the Partition — images that are now buried deep into the recesses of my memory, but come to mind immediately when thinking of it. Images of violence in the trains, images of young girls being abducted when straying away from family, and images of hordes of women jumping into a well. These images are recalled immediately in Ahmed’s lyrics, when he references these events directly. For those unfamiliar with the Partition, these descriptions will sound dramatic to say the least — but they reference the true horror that occurred when one country (India) was divided into three parts (India, Pakistan, and eventually Bangladesh) and people were forced to leave their homes to migrate to the part they were assigned to based off their religion.
As a grandchild of the Partition, I was curious to see Ahmed and Tariq’s adaptation of how Partition seeps into identity. Both sides of my family lived in what is now Pakistan, and moved to India during the course of events that followed. Both sides of the family experienced the threat of violence and violence itself, both having to leave homes and all material possessions behind to build a life in what was now their country. Violence was perhaps the most dramatic aspect of the Partition, but in my opinion what lingered was in some ways more traumatic — a feeling of being an immigrant in your own country, having to live in refugee camps because of having lost everything overnight, and perhaps most transcendental of all: a mixed identity.
As much as we can cling to notions of being “Indian” or “Pakistani,” for a lot of us that identity feels somewhat incomplete, and it stems from knowing that our ancestors are not from the place our family currently lives in. Although Mogul Mowgli was rich with images of violence, I think it was the non-belonging that stood out to me the most. It cast dimension to a problem that is unique to Punjabi and Sindhi Indians, Pakistanis, Indian Bengalis, and Bangladeshis. How many of us have heard our Gujarati friends claim “Back in my parents’ village” and thought, “can’t relate.”
Immigration stories in the West often focus on the most recent struggle we’ve all faced — the move from back East to either the US or the UK, the confusion the children of these immigrants face, and the desire to find belonging that both parents and children face. Mogul Mowgli challenged me to examine for the first time how feeble my sense of belonging is given that my grandparents were refugees from a traumatic event, my parents moved to America, and I spent a lot of mental energy reconciling eastern and western culture. When your parents and your parent’s parents are all immigrants to somewhere, where are you really from?
A lot of us descendants of the Partition have our identities split between the geography of one place — with families that made their fortunes on a portion of land that we no longer have access to, and the customs of another place. Religion being the amoebic force that it is establishes itself in quotidian ways into languages and customs that passed across borders and across time. We continue to use phrases that reference one religion on a technical front, but feel forced to claim the identity of yet another faith entirely based off a line on a map.
One of the most powerful scenes to me was the scene of a family gathering and Zed’s cousin criticizing Zed for adopting the nickname. “That’s the name they gave you,” he points out — referencing the fact that Zed should go by his given name of Zaheer, and not a westernization. When asked about what he would name his child, Bilal responds “Ashfaq,” to which Zed responds “Why would you do that to your child?” and proceeds to point out that the name would sound like “ass fuck” to white people. Although this scene at surface level lends humor, it also does a few things at once. It shows Zed’s relationship with a family that is starting to see him as a slave to the West, and it also shows the internal struggles most children of immigrants face in the West when trying to blend in but hold onto the identity that their parents have tried to pass down.
Overall, I think Tariq and Ahmed did a fantastic job of reminding us about how we only understand fractions of our identity, and there is more to the story — a story that was robbed from us through a series of political events. The fact that this fractionality is amplified by the liminal space the narrative takes place in — on the verge of Zed’s recovery from a lethal disease, makes us eager to find the missing pieces of our own identities. I haven’t even begun to cover the performances, but Riz Ahmed and Alyy Khan’s portrayals of two individuals caught in these situations while reconciling their pasts are truly gripping. The only thing I would have liked more of would have been a heightening of Zed’s revelations. I feel that the story didn’t complete its arc for the series of discoveries that Zed had been set upon, and I found myself wanting more. However, perhaps Mogul Mowgli is challenging us to find those pieces of our own stories, and as a work of art it does not fail to move and inspire deeper thought in its viewers. | https://medium.com/@shabnum.gulati/from-a-fellow-grandchild-of-partition-a-view-on-mogul-mowgli-540184d5d53c | ['Shabnum Gulati'] | 2020-12-14 04:29:38.517000+00:00 | ['Riz Ahmed', 'Pakistan', 'Partition Of India', 'Mogul Mowgli', 'Film Reviews'] |
My Daughter Doesn’t Look Like Me | I grew up in a small border town called Calexico. My parents, both immigrants, came to the USA to seek better opportunities for their growing family. Growing up in a town like Calexico shielded me from a lot of terrible things: racism, classism, and overall the feeling of being an outsider. In Calexico, everyone looked like me for the most part, most people spoke in Spanish, and most people were Mexican American. I have to say, I had it easy for the most part, but I always felt out of place.
You see, whenever I would leave my border town bubble and go to other cities in the states, I never felt like I fit in. I looked different. My English had a funny accent. I couldn’t identify as American. Fourth of July? Oh, that’s just another free day from school. Memorial Day? Three day weekend. My parents didn’t celebrate these days and I also felt like they didn’t belong to me. They weren’t meant for me. The worst part was that I felt like this about Dia de los Muertos, Dia de la Independencia, etc. I was too Mexican to be American and too American to be Mexican. I never belonged to either place and this was my constant internal battle. I eventually came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to wave a white flag.
Fast forward to my early 20s. I met someone. We got married. We decided we were ready to have a baby. On the day my daughter was born, all I could think about was how I finally got to meet the human that I carried for so long. Most mothers will tell you that they had a certain vision of what their kid was going to look like when they came out into the world. I too had a vision of how she would look. That vision was completely different to what she actually looks like. My daughter looks 100% Indian. She is the replica of her father. His family was ecstatic about this. People told me things like “Oh it shows how much you love your husband. You created another one of him!”. I won’t lie and say I was not a tiny bit sad that my daughter didn’t resemble me. I was but that was a quick thought that meant nothing when I got to hold her close to me.
Months passed by and I was ready to take her out with me to run errands and go for afternoon walks. People would stare and sometimes they would even stop and say “She’s so adorable! She has beautiful eyes. I bet her parents hear that all the time” or “Cute! How old is she? Are you her nanny?” I was surprised by these comments and also enraged at first. How could someone assume that she wasn’t mine? Why do people at the park feel entitled to make their comments without fear of possibly being wrong?The truth is that all these comments started to get to me. I started to worry about my daughter and how she would be perceived in the world. Would she also feel like an outsider her whole life? Would she feel like she’s not American enough for Americans, like she’s not Mexican enough for Mexicans, and like she wasn’t Indian enough for Indians? Would she struggle with that internal battle of not being “enough” her whole life? Suddenly, after months of worrying about it and hearing more of those unwelcome comments, I let go. I can’t change how she looks, what people say, her race and her roots, but what I can change is how much value she puts into those things. I want to teach my daughter that it’s ok to be different and not fit into a box. I want to teach her that regardless of what people say, she is the only one who holds the power of defining who she is. I want her to make decisions for herself. I want her to be confident in her own skin. So much so that no one’s words can get to her and hurt her the way words have hurt me.
To all the mothers and fathers who have felt like I have before, rest assured that whatever anyone else says about you and your kids does not matter. Those kids will learn from you. Be strong. Be confident. Be bold. We cannot teach our kids to waste their lives trying to fit in. Dare them to be authentic and nonconforming to society’s stereotypes. | https://medium.com/@vanelunasharma/my-daughter-doesnt-look-like-me-627d5bc6e35 | ['Vanessa Palacios Sharma'] | 2020-05-27 23:38:43.701000+00:00 | ['Interracial Relationships', 'Babies', 'Motherhood'] |
How blockchain will change webcam business: security and anonymity | Live Stars offers a fresh perspective at the problems of webcam industry — combine porn and blockchain technology
Blockchain will soon change many aspects of our lives. Usually, we hear about introducing blockchain into financial sphere, but it can be used in many other fields. For example, Live Stars company has found, one might think, an unexpected application for blockchain — webcam business.
Webcam is the most technologically advanced branch of online porn industry. Models (usually, women) converse with video chat users and, for additional payments, pose, strip and perform certain actions of sexual nature. It’s often done with own funds and resources — all you need is a web camera, Internet access and a room. However, there are specialized studios, where several models can work at the same time. Webcams monumentally differ from offline part of sex industry and porn videos. The key differences are the absence of physical contact between the model and the client and all the payments are non-cash.
How does it work?
Behind every model, there is a crowd of other personnel: agency owners, studio managers, staffed internal transaction platforms.
Each link in this chain deducts their share of the model’s earning. A model working at the agency usually receives 20–25% of what her client paid. Even self-employed models get about 40%, with the rest taken by the webcam hosting platforms.
The client never pays directly to the model, they usually use some form of conditional currency, valid on one particular website. The funds do not go directly to the model and at the each stage the paid sum suffers transfer and conversion fees. When the “tokens” are purchased, a percentage goes to the online wallet or banking service, when the client pays with this token, webcam platform gets its share and there is another intermediate party at the cash withdrawal stage.
Besides, to receive their payment in the first place, the model must first earn the minimal required sum, specified in the contract, usually about $50. Incidentally, 99% of male models usually do not get paid even this much. Besides, these payments do not reach their recipient right away. The platform can hold the payment for any period of time between a week and a month or even more. And you can add 3–5 days spent for bank transfer process.
These are just symptoms of the core problem of this sphere — lack of transparency. Nobody feel confident in anyone — clients are afraid of identity theft and models are afraid of deanonymization, blackmail and threats of exposing their work to their friends and loved ones. Studio management might use threats and fear to force the models to continue working and the streaming services might illegally use personal information of both, models and clients.
Such platforms always use some form of ID to verify the identity of their models for internal purposes, it is a vital part of how they work. And each platform makes their own client database, collecting the payment information about when, what for and how much each client pays, geolocation data and sometimes demands ID as well.
Security and anonymity of provided data completely depends on the integrity of the intermediaries. The web is full of interviews with webcam models who fell prey to blackmail.
— It’s not safe to work at the studio if you want to keep your identity secret. I can tell you a story of a model, whose work was recorded and the videos were sent to her boyfriend. There were threats to send these videos to her parents as well. The same can happen when the contract runs out or when the model just wants to quit. What to do with that, nobody knows.
Lena, a webcam model
Blockchain the Savior
According to Live Stars, how can blockchain improve this semi-legal and often dangerous field of work?
The main difference is complete anonymity guaranteed by the system and replacement of internal payment system with tokens.
This solves almost all problems we mentioned thus far.
Tokenization removes the need for intermediaries and completely removes them from the chain. Security of data storage and transfer in blockchain technology is above and beyond anything else we have today. Identity verification will still take place, since all models must be of the full legal age to work in this field, but the model can remove any of their personal information from the system at any point in time, which is supported by the open source code. The uploaded data, after having been approved by management, will always be encrypted.
Blockchain transactions fully solve the issue of the client’s anonymity.
The very transaction process will be significantly quicker, as the intermediary banks and the need to convert money into the platform’s internal payment means are completely removed from the picture. The latter is replaced by LIVE tokens, which can be used to pay for the service or be sold at a token exchange platform. At the moment, if the client happens to have some internal platform currency they bought but did not spent yet, they cannot get their money back in any way, if they wish to do so, since no platform offers refunds or resale opportunities.
The payment process itself becomes simpler and includes possibility of attaching additional modules and ways of payment.
The models do not have to wait for months to get what they earned. The transaction comes at the moment of the payment and not a moment later.
Possibility of transaction errors is removed as well — blockchain technology does not allow for mistakes and transaction errors, when the customer’s funds are blocked by the bank.
What will Live Stars change?
What does such platform looks like? What will change for its participants: clients and models?
Some data:
On average, 250 new models register on the top-tier websites daily.
80% are newcomers, who never worked at this platform
10% of them will continue working on the same platform
60% are forced to quit, due to not reaching the minimal required earning.
The low percentage of webcam newcomers is easily explained: emotionally taxing job, danger of deanonymization, psychological pressure from the platform’s admins, huge transaction fees and low payments that never come on time. It results in a situation of many young models completely leaving the field after their first experience.
A platform built on open source code, transparency and blockchain infrastructure will radically differ from current semi-legal and closed platforms.
Low entry barrier will attract more models and lack of negative financial experience will increase the percentage of those who will chose to stay.
If the clients are 100% certain of their own security and anonymity, the number of people willing to pay for the model’s service will increase. Currently, majority of webcam audience is content with free live streams and doesn’t pay anything, afraid of dealing with unclear and potentially dangerous payment system. If some of them will move to the category of paying clients, it will completely change webcam industry landscape. It is quite possible, that the general direction of such platform will become less porn-orientated and move towards just personal communication, which is what attracts the clients in the first place.
Another important aspect: private video chats and text chats will use webRTC based on one-to-one principle, independently of servers. Nobody, including the website administration, will have access to a private chat.
Every website has its diva. They are usually promoted by the website itself, put at the top of the ratings and viewed by the largest audience. It is always a closed mechanism, which harms the customer who’d like to see the actual information about the model’s rating and it harms other models who lose the income due to unfairly low ratings. Besides, unfair rating is just an extra source of psychological stress for the model. The open source code will allows anyone to make sure, that the rating is distributed in a fair and objective manner.
The future of webcam industry
In the end, blockchain will lead to creation of a unique unprecedented online platform, with independent financially backed webcam models who finally left behind the discomfort of constant stress and the customers completely certain in their security and anonymity.
The content is bound to change as well: currently models feel pressured to have “mainstream” shows, something, that majority of clients are ready to pay for, just to have some income. In the conditions of a secure and open platform, they can produce income from providing services for a smaller audience. It can be just a friendly conversation or specific sexual interests. | https://medium.com/live-stars/how-blockchain-will-change-webcam-business-security-and-anonymity-121688beca19 | ['Live Stars'] | 2018-05-14 12:30:58.577000+00:00 | ['Weeklyupdate', 'Bitcoin', 'Ethereum', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain'] |
Zynga is Presenting at Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2019! | The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is one of the biggest events in the game development industry and this year it’s taking place in San Francisco between March 18–22, 2019. At GDC, there are presentations and panels about the fun and challenging aspects of game development as well as how different game development teams work and implement new ideas.
Zynga GDC Presentations
This year at GDC, there are six speakers from Zynga’s studios with presentations covering topics from how to drive engagement for VIPs in games, to AI and Machine Learning applications, to massive database scaling.
If you’re going to GDC this year, check out the speaking sessions and presentations from Zynga: | https://medium.com/zynga-engineering/zynga-is-presenting-at-game-developers-conference-gdc-2019-a6a29359c3b5 | ['Zynga Engineering'] | 2019-03-12 20:14:30.409000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Game Development', 'Game Design', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Software Development'] |
Growing up Far from Golden | Perhaps it was fitting that I had to listen to the biggest Warriors game of their last year in Oakland. It was a Friday night, and I had a show, and I was driving across the bridge from my new home in Oakland to perform in my old home in San Francisco— a drive many Warriors players will be making in five short months. Radio was my first Warriors experience: huddled next to my clock radio, under my Tim Hardaway and Mitch Richmond posters, learning to visualize the quick action of that Run TMC team in my bedroom in San Francisco in 5th grade.
That was the year I started playing organized basketball, at nearby Glen Park Rec Center. I’d been made hip to the game, after several exclusively baseball obsessed years, by the Cool Hippie Urban Jews who were my my de-facto cousins growing up. (They would later put me onto Robert Johnson and Reverend Gary Davis, among other revelations).
Point is, I didn’t really SEE much of that Run TMC team. Were the Warriors watchable on TV? Sorta. They occasionally broadcasted games on Channel 36, but you had to either live in the perfect beamshot between The City’s many hills, or have Cable, in which case reception was decent. We didn’t have Cable. We barely had a TV. I’d catch snatches of games at a friend’s house up the street. With three rambunctious teenage boys, and a chronically Irish New York Communist Dad, it improbably featured the best of both worlds: laissez-faire parenting, and a generous selection of consumer products — Madden ’93 football on Sega Genesis, a video camera, and yes, Cable TV.
Actually going to a Warriors game was just not considered an option in our house. The tickets were widely understood to be “way too expensive.” (I wonder what Warriors tickets actually cost in the early ‘90s? Twenty bucks? Well, for that you could get four tickets in the Family Pavilion section at Giants games, thank you very much). As a financial aid kid at private school, getting Warriors tickets was like ski trips: a thing I had to get invited to do by other kids’ parents.
Eventually, that happened, and my brother and I were gifted some nose bleeds to our first Warriors game at the Oakland Coliseum. I don’t remember much. Did Saranus Marcioulonous dunk on somebody? Did Manute fall down? Did Tyrone Hill knock down some elbow jumpers to keep it close? Did Tim Hardaway dribble through his legs fourteen times and then hit a running off balance 27 footer? Probably. I don’t remember. What I remember is listening to Warriors games on the radio.
I was OK with listening to games back then. I was less OK with having to go onstage last Friday night with Game 6 of Warriors-Rockets tied 95–95 with 8 minutes left. But the last few play-by-play updates on my phone revealed that Steph was finally hitting some shots, two threes in fact, and that inspired me to stride onstage in San Francisco, and lose myself in my characters, knowing the Dubs were letting it all hang out in Houston.
Coming off-stage 75 minutes later, I grabbed my phone as casually as possible, trying to emotionally prepare for the news of a close Warriors loss. There was one text on my phone, from the youngest of those rambunctious brothers: “Gotta Believe in Steph.”
I checked the score. 118–113. The adrenaline and emotional taxation of having become 11 other people over the last hour plus onstage made it hard for me to process what this meant. The Warriors scored 118? Wait 118 is more than 113, right? Yes. Holy shit, we won.
Back home in Oakland that night, I was able to watch a replay of the game through cable passwords from friends (in the streaming age, you don’t actually have to go to your friends house to have cable, you just need to have those friends).
The glory of the team effort. Klay hitting 3s to keep us in a crucial linchpin game as he’s done so many times. Draymond and his seemingly out of control high-leg stepping spider dribble leading the break. Iggy hitting clutch 3 after clutch 3 and passing and cutting like the old man savant he is. Looney finishing at the rim in traffic and grabbing offensive boards far beyond what his one year contract would dictate. Jerebko flying in for rebounds and loose balls as if he were the poster child for LA Gear mid ’90s: “No Fear.”
And Steph battling like a Hollywood ’80s true hero. Zero points in the first half. Foul trouble. The weight of America’s basketball junkies growing heated and calling him soft in East Coast subway cars, dismissing Steph as a handmaiden to KD’s championships.
But no, that is a false narrative. Not that it needed to be proven again to those who’ve actually followed this team. The Warriors core three: Dray, Klay, Steph, plus Iggy and Sean, that’s the team that won the first title, won 73 games, changed the way the game was played. Yes KD is an incredible scorer and player. One of the greats. He’s the offensive bail out. 10 seconds left on the shot clock, dump it to the KD on the wing. It works. But the bail out is a crutch. Ball movement goes down. And the wondrous glee of Steph’s underdog Christian Montesorri whimsy, it withers and dies.
To see that glee resurrected on Wednesday, when Steph put the team on his back and delivered a Game 5 victory after KD limped off the floor, it had the whole Bay Area thinking quietly to themselves: What if Steph could do it again? What if this team, the old Warriors, could do it not just for a quarter, but take out the Rockets in Houston? Again. This time without KD? What if they could summon that magic for a whole game?
Well the team summoned it in the first half, and Steph did for the second half, slapping cross-over dribbles across the perimeter on PJ Tucker like he was spinning jump ropes on a wet boat deck, then launching a high-arcing three that hits nothing but net. A perfect two man game with Draymond, the hand off back to Steph when the defense slumps its shoulder for half a second and bang, another dagger three! Then Draymond, left alone, and burying a huge three, the way he used to before KD came and he became a bad shooter. And finally Klay icing the game with another three, celebrating in that sweetly restrained way, like his arms are tied down, or his Grandpa told him to keep it quiet but he just can’t contain himself anymore.
We will get another playoff series with these Warriors in Oakland. The rise of Steph, starting in 2009, and the rise of the Warriors and the SF skyline and the booming dot com economy have turned the Bay from lovable underdog to much-derided overstuffed gourmand. Without KD we get to be the underdog for one more run, and we all know after this season it will probably never be the same.
I bought a TV last week to watch games at home because I know this is a once in a lifetime experience. And though listening is good, seeing is believing. | https://medium.com/@danhoyle/growing-up-far-from-golden-1b2a4f6d5f04 | ['Dan Hoyle'] | 2019-05-17 05:05:55.509000+00:00 | ['Childhood Memories', 'Warriors', 'Bay Area', 'NBA', 'Stephen Curry'] |
Our English Learners | by Monica Hulubei Piergallini, NBCT
We are now half way through the 18–19 school year, first school year of full implementation of ESSA, which has highlighted English Learners (ELs) both in academic proficiency, growth, AND language progress. To those schools that have a large demographic of ELs these data sources have been a priority for some time. Districts and schools just beginning to benefit from the growth in population of ELs may still be learning the link between school success and these data. Here are a few actionable strategies to effectively use these data sources to guide responsive practices.
A smiling student works on a project
Progress Monitoring ELs Language
Summative data, such as Washington School Improvement Framework (WSIF) is not designed to be a surprise. Teachers, administrators, and district office should be aware of their summative scores before they are published by OSPI. With this in mind, how do your different levels within the district track EL progress?
At the classroom level:
If there is an additional English Language Development (ELD) teacher supporting the student, its essential both ELD teacher and classroom teacher are in regular collaboration. Why? What are we progress monitoring? The best way to progress monitor is to use the standards with which we are assessing, and the standards ELPA21 assess are the English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS), which correspond closely to Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the Mathematical and Science and Engineering Practices. Thus, with focused attention and collaboration on what is occurring in the classroom and ELD lesson we can collect great benchmarks to assess progress towards language proficiency, as measured by the ELPS.
What to do
Prepare for next school year by prioritizing support and planning time between ELD and classroom teachers. Consider how your master scheduling process can support this process. Plan on collecting several EL work samples throughout the year; one in fall, winter, and before the ELPA21 annual assessment. Assess the samples according to the corresponding ELPS. This can easily be found by knowing your CCSS, Mathematical or Science and Engineering Practice and then use the Matrix within the ELPS document to find the corresponding ELPS. Ask yourself and record per student, if there was growth per domain: reading, writing, listening, and speaking, as compared to their previous ELPA21 domain score. This will give you an idea if this student made “EL Progress”. The goal is to assist teachers in making sense of this new measure and to see its value.
Resources
ELP Standards with Correspondences http://k12.wa.us/MigrantBilingual/ELD.aspx
Understanding Language initiative modeling this same process http://www.k12.wa.us/MigrantBilingual/Module5/#01_GuidingQuestionsObjectives
Reviewing ELPA21 Scores http://k12.wa.us/OSSI/SchoolImprovement/Webinars.aspx
At the school level:
First, provide time for teachers to accomplish the task above. Second, when ELPA21 scores are released, have teachers compare these results with the year prior, by domain. For example, look at a particular EL’s domain’s score from 17–18 to 18–19. Recording these scores on a table, will show exactly those students that made progress or went down in their score, per domain. This will lead to not only great instructional reflections, but also assist teachers in understanding ESSA EL Progress requirements.
What to do
Create a table where teachers can compare two years of ELPA21 data, by domain. Schedule the time to analyze this important data.
Sample ELPA21 comparison table
Understand the EL Progress requirements (Additional Resources tab) and your own Washington School Improvement Framework data in regards to EL http://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/SchoolIndex_2018.aspx?groupLevel=District&schoolId=1&reportLevel=State&yrs=2016-17&year=2016-17
At the district level:
Assure your administrators understand this new ESSA measure and take the time to talk to their staff about it. | https://medium.com/system-school-improvement/our-english-learners-d3dbc5cf7eb9 | ['The Office Of Superintendent Of Public Instruction'] | 2019-02-08 17:02:55.482000+00:00 | ['Education'] |
Обновление программного обеспечения нод блокчейна Системы Bitbon | The Bitbon System is a large-scale infrastructure project, which represents a decentralized platform for Contributing. https://www.bitbon.space/en/home
Follow | https://medium.com/bitbon/%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5-%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%BC%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE-%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F-%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B4-%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%B9%D0%BD%D0%B0-%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BC%D1%8B-bitbon-787b76eb81bb | ['Bitbon System'] | 2020-04-30 12:40:59.321000+00:00 | ['Bitbon', 'Node', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Mining Pool', 'Pos'] |
IBM DOC: reduce by 70% the cost of building optimization solutions | IBM DOC: reduce by 70% the cost of building optimization solutions
Use the new development platform from IBM to quickly create high-ROI prescriptive analytics solutions with a low TCO Giulia Burchi Follow Nov 25, 2020 · 5 min read
By using IBM Decision Optimization Center (DOC), you can create a fully deployed optimization application in just 100 person-days thanks to:
advanced web User Interface (UI), out-of-the-box
integrated user management (login, access rights, workspaces)
what-if analysis capabilities
containerized deployment (scalability, robustness failover capabilities)
By using IBM Decision Optimization Center (DOC), you can create a fully deployed optimization application in just 100 person-days
What is the real quantitative impact of DOC? How much does it accelerate the creation of applications for business users?
To measure the impact of DOC, we can take two different approaches:
Fixed scope: fix the scope of an average optimization application and compare the development budget. Specifically, build the same solution with and without DOC, and compare how many person-days it takes to do so. Fixed budget: fix the development budget (e. g.100 person-days) and compare the results. More in detail, using the same number of person-days, build two solutions, with and without DOC, and compare the features and functionalities.
1. Fixed scope: DOC is 3 times faster
Without DOC, developing an average optimization solution would take approximately 300 person-days. By using DOC, the development time is reduced by 70%, to 100 person-days (see the detailed estimation in the section below).
DOC is 3 times more efficient.
DOC accelerates the development of standard features by a factor of almost 12.2. Fixed budget of 100 person-days
We can classify development features into two main groups:
Standard features : these are those must-have functionalities that are typically shared across all optimization solutions, such as user authentication, data input-output management, basic data visualization, what-if capabilities, DevOps activities, tests, etc.
: these are those must-have functionalities that are typically shared across all optimization solutions, such as user authentication, data input-output management, basic data visualization, what-if capabilities, DevOps activities, tests, etc. Customized features: these are those functionalities that are specific to each application. They typically include the optimization model, complex data visualization graphics, and specific data processing tasks.
Customized features like the manual edition of a Gantt chart, are specific to each application. They bring significant value to business users.
When comparing developing with and without DOC, the time spent on customized features is the same. However, without DOC support, we would need to spend a significant amount of time to create standard features.
DOC accelerates the development of standard features by a factor of almost 12.
The table below shows the detailed time estimation on which we based our analysis.
2. Fixed budget: DOC application has a higher value and a lower total cost of ownership
With IBM DOC, we can build and deploy in just 100 person-days an average optimization application, very robust, and with all desired features and functionalities.
On the other hand, without using DOC, with 100 person-days resources, the result would be a basic and not robust application with:
Poor data visualization (no web UI, just some Excel tables)
No user management (login, access rights, workspaces)
No what-if analysis capabilities, no scenario support
Basic Docker-Compose deployment, no scalability, no failover, no robustness.
The development of custom features would be penalized as well: without a well-defined development framework, it is hard to test, identify issues, resolve bugs, and try different options. If more time is needed for testing and debugging, less time would be available for development, and the application will be poorly tested and with more bugs.
With limited functionalities and poor user experience, its adoption with business users will be more difficult, its downtime will be high and its overall maintenance over time will be more costly. In a few words, the total cost of ownership for the company will be significantly higher.
With the same overall budget, the application built with DOC would deliver a significantly higher value to the business and would represent a much lower total cost of ownership.
In 100 person-days of development without DOC, we obtain a low-quality application that will end up having a higher total cost of ownership (TOC).
DOC-based applications have a low TCO: thanks to the optimization server, they are easy to extend and allow for CPUs and Licences sharing; thanks to containerized technology, they are stable and cheap to maintain, and thanks to the use of open-source libraries, their UI is easy to extend and adapt.
The table below shows the detailed time estimation on which we based our analysis. | https://medium.com/decisionbrain/how-much-does-it-cost-to-create-a-full-application-with-and-without-doc-4420459424ca | ['Giulia Burchi'] | 2020-12-01 15:56:29.555000+00:00 | ['Deployment', 'Ibm Doc', 'IBM', 'Optimization', 'Prescriptive Analytics'] |
Perihal Ketidaksempurnaan | an eye and an ear | https://medium.com/@sakatbia/perihal-ketidaksempurnaan-257866df55c0 | [] | 2020-12-23 21:17:46.875000+00:00 | ['Bahasa Indonesia', 'Perspective', 'Cerita', 'Life Lessons'] |
Covid-19 in the Middle East: situation report for week ending 11 July 2020 | ALGERIA
Algeria has recorded a relatively small number of cases — 416 per million inhabitants — but testing capacity is also low. New infections began increasing in mid-June as lockdown restrictions were eased, and they continue to grow. During the past week new cases averaged 453 a day — more than four times the level of a month ago.
Healthcare workers account for about 10% of all known cases — 1,700 have been infected since the outbreak began. Some of Algeria’s hospitals are reported to be full and not accepting new patients.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Algeria
Confirmed cases: 18,242
New cases in past week: 3,172
Active cases: 4,122
Deaths: 996
Tests carried out: (unknown)
BAHRAIN
The past week has brought no significant change and there’s no sign so far that Bahrain’s epidemic is subsiding. Of 610 new cases reported on Thursday, 339 (56%) were expatriate workers. This broadly reflects the country’s population balance between citizens and expatriates.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Bahrain
Confirmed cases: 32,039
New cases in past week: 3,629
Active cases: 4,722
Deaths: 104
Tests carried out: 650,000
EGYPT
New infections in Egypt reached a plateau in mid-June and the numbers are now falling. During the past week newly-reported cases averaged 1,075 a day — a drop of almost 30% since two weeks ago.
Egypt’s strategy is to minimise economic damage by “coexisting” with the virus until a vaccine comes along. The night curfew which had been in force since March ended on June 27 and cafes and restaurants were allowed to reopen, though with some restrictions. The authorities have been especially keen to revive the important tourism industry and Egypt’s airports reopened for international flights on July 1.
Assuming the official figures are reliable, lifting restrictions doesn’t seem to have had an adverse effect — though it’s too early to be sure.
The Sisi regime is waging what Amnesty International describes as a “campaign of harassment and intimidation” against healthcare workers and others who question or criticise its handling of the situation. More than 70 people, including doctors, journalists and lawyers, have been arrested for expressing their views. In June, prime minister Mostafa Madbouly suggested that the spread of the virus was due to “negligence and mismanagement” by doctors.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Egypt
Confirmed cases: 80,235
New cases in past week: 7,524
Active cases: 53,259
Deaths: 3,702
Tests carried out: 135,000
IRAN
Iran was the first country in the region to be seriously affected by the virus and has since been hit by a second wave. Government figures show an initial wave of infections which peaked at the end of March. It subsided during April, briefly dipping below 1,000 new cases per day but then rose to a new peak in the first week of June.
New infections have dropped back a bit since then but the official numbers have not changed substantially during the last three weeks, averaging about 2,500 cases a day.
Iran continues to report more coronavirus-related deaths than any other country in the region. Officially-recorded deaths during the past week have averaged 192 a day — which is higher than at any other time since Iran’s outbreak began.
Confirmed cases: 252,720
New cases in past week: 17,291
Active cases: 25,258
Deaths: 12,447
Tests carried out: 1.9 million
IRAQ
New Covid-19 cases in Iraq over the last three months. Seven-day rolling average, day by day.
Iraq has seen steep rises since early June. Newly-recorded infections currently average about 2,300 a day — the highest level since the outbreak began — and Iraq’s official figures are widely believed to understate the scale of the epidemic. Many cases go unreported because of social stigma. Compliance with preventive measures appears to be low and health services are inadequate.
Amid this worsening situation, the authorities announced on Friday that Iraqi citizens can now travel abroad. They will be tested for Covid-19 on their return. Those who test negative must self-quarantine for 14 days while those who test positive will be hospitalised.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Iraq
Confirmed cases: 72,460
New cases in past week: 16,440
Active cases: 28,120
Deaths: 2,960
Tests carried out: 661,000
ISRAEL
New Covid-19 cases in Israel over the last three months. Seven-day rolling average, day by day.
The first wave of Israel’s epidemic peaked at around 600 new cases a day in early April. Efforts to control it were intially successful and by the second half of May new cases had dropped to about 15 a day.
However, the virus surged back when lockdown restrictions were lifted and the country is now in the midst of a second wave which is much larger than the first. During the past week new cases have averaged almost 1,200 a day — double the number at the peak of the first wave.
The government is reluctant to impose a second nationwide lockdown but may soon be forced to do so in order to avoid overwhelming the health services. Currently, it is trying to focus on declaring “restricted zones” in particular hotspots. There is resistance to these localised lockdowns from haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews who claim their rights are being violated.
On Friday, police said they had broken up a party attended by hundreds of teenagers in Ben Shemen forest. The organisers were arrested and dozens of participants were issued with fines for not wearing masks.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Israel
Confirmed cases: 36,266
New cases in past week: 8,211
Active cases: 17,302
Deaths: 351
Tests carried out: 1.2 million
JORDAN
Jordan has been one of the most successful Arab countries in controlling the virus. A few new cases are still being recorded but almost all of them are among people who were quarantined after arriving from other countries.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Jordan
Confirmed cases: 1,173
New cases in past week: 26
Active cases: 177
Deaths: 10
Tests carried out: 455,000
KUWAIT
Kuwait appears to be over the worst. New infections peaked around May 25 and then dropped back substantially, though there has since been a modest rise. The level of new cases is relatively stable, around 700 a day during the past week.
Migrant workers who often live in overcrowded conditions account for the majority of confirmed cases and many have now returned to their country of origin.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Kuwait
Confirmed cases: 53,580
New cases in past week: 4,908
Active cases: 9,983
Deaths: 383
Tests carried out: 427,000
LEBANON
In the midst of political and economic chaos Lebanon is fortunate in having a relatively small number of cases so far. The situation is not under control, though. Lebanon reported 65 new cases on Thursday and 71 on Friday — the highest daily figures since the outbreak began.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Lebanon
Confirmed cases: 2,082
New cases in past week: 252
Active cases: 644
Deaths: 36
Tests carried out: 165,000
LIBYA
Libya is in its ninth year of internal conflict. The UN-backed Government of National Unity in Tripoli is challenged by Field Marshall Haftar’s forces based in the east of the country. There are also numerous militias.
This leaves the country ill-equipped to cope with a major epidemic. Growing levels of insecurity, political fragmentation and weak governance have led to a deterioration of basic services, particularly in the health system. At least 27 health facilities have been damaged or closed by fighting and some have been attacked directly. The number of confirmed infections is still small but testing is very limited. There are 870,000 people — refugees, asylum seekers and displaced persons — who the UN regards as especially vulnerable.
According to the WHO, most Covid-19 cases are centred around Sebha, an oasis city 400 miles south of Tripoli. Sebha is close to the borders with Niger, Chad and Algeria, and is a major hub on the migration route from Africa to Europe. It currently hosts about 40,000 migrants. A Swiss-based organisation, REACH, has issued a detailed report on the situation there.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Libya
Confirmed cases: 1,342
New cases in past week: 424
Active cases: 997
Deaths: 38
Tests carried out: 34,000
MOROCCO
Morocco seemed to be making good progress until recently. A strict lockdown had kept the total of known Covid-19 cases below 10,000 and by early June new infections had fallen to around 40 a day. However, there was a major setback towards the end of June with the discovery of hundreds of new cases in the Kenitra area, most notably among women from rural villages employed to pack strawberries (see report). Since then, new cases have not dropped back to previous levels and workplace infections seem to be causing serious problems. Last weekend a major outbreak was discovered at a fish-canning factory in the coastal town of Safi.
New cases currently average around 300 a day — the highest level since the outbreak began.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Morocco
Confirmed cases: 15,328
New cases in past week: 2,040
Active cases: 3,258
Deaths: 243
Tests carried out: 850,000
OMAN
New Covid-19 cases in Oman over the last three months. Seven-day rolling average, day by day.
Oman has so far recorded almost 54,000 cases — 63% of them during the past month. Previously, most of the new infections were occurring among foreigners — predominantly migrant workers from poor countries. That has now changed and the majority of new cases are Omani citizens. The health ministry blames “continued indifference” by the public, saying that “most of the infections among citizens could have been easily avoided”.
There also appears to be a problem with employers failing to report suspected cases among their workforce — presumably to avoid disruption of their business — and the authorities are now threatening to carry out spot checks, with additional penalties for violations, including fines of $295 for not wearing face masks in workplaces.
Oman, with a five-million population, currently has almost 18,000 active cases and health services are coming under pressure. They are said to be coping at present but in the expectation of further increases plans were announced last week for a new field hospital with 250–300 beds.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Oman
Confirmed cases: 53,614
New cases in past week: 9,685
Active cases: 19,145
Deaths: 244
Tests carried out: 231,000
PALESTINE
New Covid-19 cases in Palestine over the last three months. Seven-day rolling average, day by day.
Palestine, like Israel, is in the midst of a wave of new infections. More than 6,000 cases have been recorded since the outbreak began — half of them during the last ten days. Hebron is the most seriously affected area, accounting for 69% of all confirmed cases.
On a more positive note, the level of new infections — averaging 316 a day during the past week — has not changed significantly since the previous week.
Many of the recent infections are attributed to people ignoring the rules for social distancing, which the authorities have difficulty enforcing. The health ministry says more than 30% of cases are the result of Palestinians travelling to and from work in Israel where new cases are also increasing.
Fears of a major epidemic in Gaza have not materialised. Most of the known cases there are apparently due to contacts with Egypt.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Palestine
Confirmed cases: 6,225 (West Bank 5,183, Gaza 72, East Jerusalem 970)
New cases in past week: 2,212
Active cases: 5,485
Deaths: 32
Tests carried out: 123,000
QATAR
In population terms Qatar has more known cases than any other country — 36,500 per million inhabitants. Migrant workers have been disproportionately affected. Qatar’s epidemic reached a peak in the first week of June and new cases have fallen steadily since then. During the past week new cases averaged 568 a day, compared with more than 1,800 a day at the peak.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Qatar
Confirmed cases: 102,630
New cases in past week: 3,977
Active cases: 4,251
Deaths: 146
Tests carried out: 405,000
SAUDI ARABIA
Saudi Arabia has the largest number of recorded cases among the Arab countries. New infections reached an initial peak in the fourth week of May, then dropped back slightly before rising to a higher peak in the third week of June. During the past week new cases averaged 3,526 a day — about 900 below the June peak.
Migrant workers have been disproportionately affected but the authorities have also complained about non-compliance with precautionary measures by Saudi citizens.
This week the authorities announced a series of precautions for the Hajj (the annual pilgrimage to Mecca) which is due to start on July 28 and normally attracts millions of Muslims from around the world. It will be restricted to about 1,000 participants who are already living in the kingdom and they will be quarantined both before and after the event.
Touching the Kaaba will be forbidden, and pilgrims must wear masks and stay at least 1.5 metres apart. It’s also reported that holy water from the Zamzam well will be pre-bottled and sterilised pebbles will be provided for the ritual stoning of the devil.
A number of healthcare workers have been invited to take part in the Hajj in recognition for their efforts during the epidemic.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Saudi Arabia
Confirmed cases: 226,486
New cases in past week: 24,685
Active cases: 61,309
Deaths: 2,151
Tests carried out: 2.2 million
SUDAN
Officially-recorded cases peaked at almost 1,000 a day towards the end of May but have been down to double figures for most of the last two weeks. It’s doubtful whether this reflects the true situation on the ground.
The coronavirus struck Sudan in the midst of a political transition following a popular uprising against the regime of President Bashir and the country is ill-equipped to cope with a major epidemic. Testing is very limited and official figures don’t reflect the full scale of the outbreak. Most cases are said to be in and around the capital, Khartoum, but there’s also concern about the Darfur area where large numbers of deaths have been reported, apparently caused by Covid-19.
The OCHA has previously reported on the deterioration in Sudan’s health care system which was already “under extreme stress” before the arrival of Covid-19. It said 81% of the population have no access to a functional health centre within two hours’ walk from their home. Some existing facilities have been closed due to virus outbreaks or lack of medical staff.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Sudan
Confirmed cases: 10,204
New cases in past week: 577
Active cases: 4,278
Deaths: 649
Tests carried out: 401
SYRIA
The Assad regime has reported fewer than 400 cases since the outbreak began, with half of them detected during the past three weeks. Official announcements of new cases rarely give any details.
Fears have been raised about north-western and north-eastern parts of the country which are outside the regime’s control. Millions of displaced people are living in those areas and health services are often rudimentary. The first case in the north-west was reported this week — a doctor working at a hospital in Idlib. The WHO says the hospital has been closed and efforts are under way to trace the doctor’s contacts. Five cases were previously diagnosed in the north-east.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Syria
Confirmed cases: 394
New cases in past week: 66
Active cases: 252
Deaths: 16
Tests carried out: (unknown)
TUNISIA
There is currently little or no transmission of the virus inside Tunisia. The daily average of new cases has been in single figures since early May.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Tunisia
Confirmed cases: 1,240
New cases in past week: 59
Active cases: 123
Deaths: 50
Tests carried out: 76,000
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
New Covid-19 cases in the UAE over the last three months. Seven-day rolling average, day by day.
The UAE’s epidemic peaked in the last week of May when new cases were running at more than 900 a day. New cases dropped below 400 a day towards the end of June but have since risen again. The average during the past week has been 587 a day.
For more details see: Covid-19 in the UAE
Confirmed cases: 54,050
New cases in past week: 3,909
Active cases: 9,751
Deaths: 330
Tests carried out: 3.8 million
YEMEN
Official figures from Yemen are not credible. The evidence from unofficial sources is that many Covid-19 infections and related deaths are not being recorded.
Because of the ongoing war, Yemen already faced a humanitarian crisis before the coronavirus arrived. Millions are malnourished and vulnerable to disease, and health services are inadequate. Official figures do not reflect the severity of the epidemic. Unusually large numbers of deaths are reported, many of them from symptoms resembling Covid-19 and hospitals often refuse treatment if coronavirus is suspected. The Houthis, who control the capital, Sanaa, and much of the north, have a policy of not reporting cases so as to avoid lowering morale and distracting from their war effort.
For more details see: Covid-19 in Yemen
Confirmed cases: 1,384
New cases in past week: 140
Active cases: 386
Deaths: 365
Tests carried out: 120 | https://brian-whit.medium.com/covid-19-in-the-middle-east-situation-report-62d9b4924504 | ['Brian Whitaker'] | 2020-07-16 09:21:37.543000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Middle East', 'Coronavirus'] |
Why Are So Many GOP Sticking With Trump if it Means Going Down With the Ship? | Why Are So Many GOP Sticking With Trump if it Means Going Down With the Ship?
Source: xoxo.com
In the days since the election, more and more people are wondering what is wrong with Donald Trump? With each passing hour it seems, Trump is getting more and more frantic, desperate, enraged, out of control, and acting more than a little bit crazy.
His refusal to admit that he lost the election or concede at first was a bit comedic, in a slightly annoyed, eye-rolling way, but it became decidedly less so once it was clear he was harming the country and everyone in it. Many were asking how someone who has sworn to protect the constitution and the nation could purposely do things that are the opposite of both because he didn’t get his way?
The things we have watched him do over the past four years, distressing as they were for many of us, pale in comparison to this latest fiasco. This is when he claimed to have won an election he lost, said that if anyone says he lost, it’s because the election was fraudulent and if after being investigated no fraud was found, it meant there was a worldwide conspiracy to rob him of his rightful position.
He has brought almost 40 lawsuits to court in at least 7 different states, and they might have to install a revolving door at the U.S. Supreme Court for him and his minions. He screams, yells, throws fits, makes demands, refuses to see reason, denies the truth substituting his version of reality instead. So, it’s no wonder, so many people want to know what is wrong with the man.
But the question that’s been going around more so lately, is not what is wrong with Trump, but what is wrong with the GOP? How can they be supporting him in his quest to hang on to the presidency when he’s been voted out? The answer to this is not an easy one and speaks to what it is like to deal not just with a malignant narcissist but with this malignant narcissist.
A Narcissist Needs Minions
In order for narcissism to serve its function, it must occur against a backdrop of others. Without anyone else to respond to the narcissist to make him feel as superior as he knows himself to be, there is nothing holding it up. There also must be minions to serve the narcissist, make sure they get everything they want without it appearing like that is what is going on, and to take the blame if anything goes wrong.
The only way that a narcissist can get away with their horrible behavior is to have a host of people who enable them. This is what we see with Trump and why so many people want to know why the Republicans are letting him get away with the nonsense he has for the last four years. Malignant narcissists want what they want to the degree that deep down they feel that not getting everything they know they deserve means they are worthless.
If they view it as the end of the world not to get what they want and believe someone as worthwhile as they deserve, then they have to do what it takes to make it happen. They have no coping mechanisms to handle what would happen otherwise and the fear associated with this possibility means they have to achieve it at all costs. To do this they have well-developed ways to draw people to them, establish a sense of loyalty in them, instill a degree of fear at what happens if they aren’t pleased, and set up cognitive dissonance so they are likely to remain no matter what through altered perceptions.
Donald Trump Becomes President and Begins His Reign
While it would have started before he actually won the election, Trump’s making of a government of his choosing, one that befits a malignant narcissist, began after he took office. In the beginning, Trump already had a leg up.
Trump already had a leg up. He was President of the United States. Even close staffers and officials can get awestruck by meeting the president and the prospect of working with him, being on his team, doing things that would please him and possibly earn goodwill or perhaps a favor down the road. All of this sets the person up to view the president positively and to want to connect to them just as a function of the office without the president having to do anything at all. So, before Trump walked into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. he had a building full of people prepared to become his minions.
Even with this though, he would have recognized that he had to prime the pump to a certain degree. If he is to be successful he would realize there were certain things he would have to do to get people to be genuinely loyal at a deeper level than because he was President in name.
This means he knows there are certain things that are expected of people socially to make others like and respect him. While he believes these things are beyond him and don’t apply to him nor does he feel the need to do such things for others, he does them anyway to ensure he has the minions to obtain everything he wants. So, in the beginning, he charms people to further establish the bond he needs for the unrelenting loyalty he seeks.
In her book “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” Donald Trump’s niece Mary writes, “[Trump] pointed at me…then said, ‘I specifically asked for you to be here.’ That was the kind of thing he often said to charm people. And he had a knack for tailoring his comment to the occasion, which was all the more impressive because I know it wasn’t true.”
He used such charm to persuade people into believing him to be a wonderful guy who was interested in only them. Narcissists exude charm that attracts others to them like moths to a flame. They know how to use eye contact, how to hold someone with their gaze, especially when they want something from the individual.
Trump Begins to Collect People
The next thing that happens with a malignant narcissist, especially one in need of countless allies to help him maintain his image to himself as well as to others is he determines who will be most likely to become a “true believer”. In other words, he needs to create a group of people who believe in everything he does, people who feel a strong sense of hero-worship and won’t think before doing what he wants.
These are his advance soldiers. They are there not just to meet his needs but to present an ideal of a president worth living and dying for. The more people giving him a godlike visage, the more others will start to consider this as a possibility. To establish an image it just takes a sizable number of people repeating his messages over and over until it seems that is the only way to think.
To build this inner circle he goes after certain types of people. The ones who will respond the way he wants them to, have specific characteristics. They need to be forgiving people who won’t hold a grudge, loyal, capable of overlooking the negative, have an external locus of control meaning that their decisions do not come from within but from what others tell them to do, self-sacrificing, extremely responsible so they can pick up the pieces he leaves behind, and accommodating.
Setting Limits
Once the narcissist has almost everyone on his team, it’s time to set the limits to the relationship. This is when he shows what happens should someone disappoint him. In his mind defiance is anytime you fail to agree enthusiastically with him.
Typically the narcissist will choose one individual to make an example out of. The person doesn’t need to have done anything monumental, just questioned something about the narcissist’s position. The individual chosen is one who won’t fight back, and will accept the consequences despite not doing anything to deserve them.
The purpose of this example is to show everyone else, just how negative the outcome will be if they fail to toe the line. Toeing the line, of course, means not only never questioning the narcissist, but also getting him everything he wants when he wants it.
This method is effective because observation teaches the lesson without risking alienating any other followers. When only a single individual is targeted, there is no one for them to commiserate with and they become a pariah so they have no power to influence how others view the narcissist. The person is kept around and continued to be treated badly to make sure there is always a scapegoat there to remind the others what happens if the narcissist is unhappy.
No Further Need for Charm
By the time the narcissist reaches this point, he no longer needs to go out of his way to be charming or to provide a minute’s attention to anyone other than himself. He has gotten everyone in his circle attached to him first through love, then through fear. Though this is the time he will let down all his guards and let his narcissistic intent be seen for what it is, even if there are those who begin to question, to themselves, whether there might be some problems with the narcissist’s purpose and actions are actually, there is usually nothing they can bring themselves to do about it. They’ve created a monster and their only option is to continue feeding it.
Given that they have been undoubting loyalists to him for a long enough time that if there was a problem they feel they should have figured it out before, the only path left to them is to convince themselves that he is the same person they supported at the start (he is) and that sometimes in order to bring about the best outcomes it takes doing things that aren’t ideal.
Cognitive Dissonance Makes for Loyalty Even in the Face of the Ridiculous
Once the narcissist reveals his true identity, and the degree to which he is deluded, the problem that happens among many of his followers is that they aren’t deluded. Repetition, like minded individuals, rah rah Trump rally’s in a bubble of support — all of these things can keep the follower happy for a while. But when the full fledged delusions rear their ugly heads, then something has to be done.
The most logical thing, the only thing to do once things become so bad that there is a President who lost the election claiming jubilantly from the second the polls close that he won which continues long after the votes are no longer in question, is to finally call a spade a spade. And here is where things get really dicey.
In a political arena, you are expected to support the head of your party, especially when he is the president. You have also spent years drinking the Kool aide and until recently perhaps, believed him at his word or dismissed the times when there were obvious “inaccuracies,” or reconstructionist history or instances of wag the dog. Overall, his politics are good for the party and good for the country.
But when you can’t dismiss his more blatant problems and out of control behavior that is making himself and the party look like fools, do you distance yourself? No. The only way to survive personally if not professionally, is to rework the most problematic of the instances so that they are not so problematic any longer.
Refusing to concede? He has every right to, and even a duty to make sure that the country gets the president they voted for.
Dozens of court cases that you try to get a ruling in without a bit of evidence? Considering the crucial nature of the decisions, the judges should have been a little more lenient.
Going to republican state legislatures to try to get them to postpone certifying the vote so the president would be chosen by the Republican-led House or telling them to choose their own republican electors despite it being illegal to change things this right after an election? Again, sometimes liberties must be taken to get the result that should occur.
The bottom line is that had the GOP not let Trump get away with everything he wanted to while making no attempt to reign him in, it would have limited the harm he was able to bring about. But at the same time, the nature of being in a relationship with a malignant narcissist especially when he’s the President made it practically impossible for them to act differently once he really lost control of his faculties and was unable to even try to put a good face on it any longer.
For this perfect storm to occur, it took a leader who was a malignant narcissist, followers who were susceptible to his ways, and an environmental context that made for the perfect surroundings to allow the situation to unfold. | https://medium.com/mental-gecko/why-are-so-many-gop-sticking-with-trump-if-it-means-going-down-with-the-ship-3302fe09ffe5 | ['Natalie Frank'] | 2020-11-25 19:18:24.079000+00:00 | ['Election 2020', 'Politics', 'Trump', 'Narcissism', 'Psychology'] |
What Chadwick Boseman Teaches Us About Strength and Art | Photo from Chadwick Boseman on Twitter.
When the news first broke about Chadwick Boseman’s death, it came with an AP article that had a broken link. I thought it was a mistake. Someone must have posted something incorrectly, right?
Then I realized the original tweet had come from AP’s twitter account, so it couldn’t be incorrect. Within minutes, it was all over Twitter, and his social media accounts had the announcement too. In the flash of a moment, a 43-year-old Black man no one know was ill was just … gone.
As a consumer of art, the loss of a talented actor like Boseman is devastating to me, but I am not who he meant the most to. Boseman’s presence on screen changed the lives of Black people who had never seen anyone like them in those character roles. He inspired children and adults alike, giving strength and a dream to all those who needed it. Every Black person who wanted to be a superhero suddenly no longer had to pretend to be Superman or Batman or Iron Man but could be The Black Panther. King T’Challa. 4 years ago, Boseman changed the game.
Turns out he also fought cancer the entire time.
Art, whether it’s a film or a comic or a painting, is so often an escape for people. Whether you are consuming it or creating it, art can pull you away from the most difficult moments of your life and reset you. I don’t know if that’s what it did for Boseman, but I know that’s what his work did for all of us. As a collective we are different for having seen Chadwick Boseman on our screens. We are better.
We are not required to learn anything from death. As we process and grieve, we are not required to do anything but just that. And yet, as I think about the unexpected nature of this loss, I think about what it teaches us. How it so deeply shows us the strength people have. And how it hands us, on a platter, what art can do for people.
Knowing now that Boseman was fighting colon cancer while filming in the Marvel Cinematic Universe changes his performance by elevating it.
I have watched people in my life go through cancer. It strips your body and soul of everything you knew about it and pushes you to rebuild from the weakest you have ever been. Every person I have ever known who has dealt with cancer has been exceptionally strong. Most of them aren’t just fighting cancer, they are feeding their family and raising their children and working as much as they possibly can. Knowing their life is bigger than their health crisis doesn’t make what they are going through easier, but it makes coming out the other side worth it.
Not knowing Chadwick Boseman personally means I can’t speak to exactly why he kept working during his treatment, but I can imagine. I believe that if I were to experience a life-altering cancer diagnosis, I would want to do the thing I loved most for as long as possible. It gives me hope that maybe that is what Boseman got to do.
Boseman’s decision to continue to make films shows his strength, to be sure. It also shows how dedicated he was to the art of telling beautiful and powerful stories about Black people. Boseman gave us art that will last forever. For that we will always be grateful.
The most difficult thing about Boseman’s death is that the collective grief we will all experience from this loss is on top of the grief we have been experiencing for months. The loss of nearly 200,000 people to a virus that should have been curtailed months ago, and the constant and devastating loss of Black lives all over this country in some of the most brutal violence we have ever seen. The loss of a talented actor and beautiful soul like Chadwick Boseman would have been hard this time last year, but not this hard.
I don’t know how many people are watching one of Chadwick Boseman’s movies this weekend, but I’m sure it’s a lot. Regardless of how people are processing this loss, I am sure it is steeped in the beauty of who Boseman was as an artist and a human. May his films always remind us to find strength and beauty in the art we create for each other.
On your left. | https://medium.com/fan-fare/what-chadwick-boseman-teaches-us-about-strength-and-art-15eb157d389d | ['Melissa Boles'] | 2020-08-29 17:12:30.006000+00:00 | ['Film', 'Art', 'Grief And Loss', 'Marvel Cinematic Universe'] |
Combatting climate change one tree at a time | Their Parlons Climat (Let’s talk about climate) project, focused on three thematics:
How to fight against heat in the city. How to better manage waste and energy. How to protect and develop biodiversity in the city.
There was a mix of thoughtful responses from both citizens and community-level stakeholders, and there were clear recurrent themes that Lyon’s inhabitants noted a need for. These included green roofs, air conditioning alternatives, the reduction of light pollution, and better composting options.
This consultation represents a serious shift by local policymakers to reduce the barrier to entry for citizens within the democratic sphere, as well as providing citizens with more autonomy for the development of the future of their cities.
At the press conference following the close of the consultation, the city’s mayor announced 5 large-scale policy changes and commitments that would be implemented based on their consultations with citizens.
1) Improving existing real estate:
Ville de Lyon has an expansive array of real estate to manage, including buildings of significant historical and architectural value. In order to deliver premium public services to citizens, while also incorporating state-of-the-art sustainability principles, Lyon have begun the implementation of a 10-year investment project, through which €100 million will be devoted to improving the energy performance of over 15 municipal-owned locations, including the library, pool, dance hall, town hall, and a number of sports complexes.
2) Conquering the ‘fifth’ wall:
Every city boasts its fair share of flat roofs, which each providing an opportunity for sustainable development. Ville de Lyon has committed, whenever possible, to optimise the roofs of future municipal buildings including those already under construction (especially schools) with either integrated solar panels for the creation of green energy, and/or the ‘greening’ of these roofs to reduce city heat, manage rainwater, and even to provide space for vegetable gardens.
3) The ‘Tree Plan’:
Ville de Lyon has set itself the target of planting 100,000 trees in the next 10 years. This doubles the municipality’s previous efforts (they currently plant 1,000 trees a year). However, the city also believes that they shouldn’t just hit numbers for the sake of it, and plan on increasing the proportion of plants to mitigate the effects of incoming citizens. They will also prioritise planting in the areas that currently have the least green space.
The city will also further include citizens in the development of this project, and they are requesting that citizens digitally map the places they want new trees to be planted, and to also suggest the types of tree species they would like to see in their neighbourhoods.
4) Private sector collaboration:
Through the Civocracy consultation, the city realised the importance of involving the private sector in order to ensure maximum impact in regards to creating lasting change. They are working on an agreement with the Federation of Real Estate Developers, to incentivise developers to systematically integrate plants into their designs, and to increase their use of environmentally-friendly materials, green spaces, composters, and biodiversity protection.
The City’s Green Spaces Department intends to run workshops and training, provide support and plants, and loan equipment to those looking to live in the city centre, in order to encourage citizens to develop green spaces and reuse rainwater.
5) Shared gardening at the heart of the city:
Communal gardens are something Lyon specialises in. They currently have around 60 shared spaces, which are managed by 2,000 volunteers. As well as providing green spaces at the heart of the city, the gardens promote social cohesion and civic responsibility. The city has committed to developing 3 new gardens every year, and plans on providing more resources for the associations who are responsible for the development and maintenance of these spaces.
We’re impressed by the city’s efforts, and are excited to watch Lyon become a haven of greenery. Ville de Lyon isn’t the first city to prioritise sustainability and climate action agendas (and hopefully isn’t the last!). They cited Barcelona and New York as inspirations, and intend on translating projects from these other geographical contexts, especially in relation to ephemeral actions, but have stated that they always want their citizens’ involvement in shaping and developing these projects so that they are truly adapted for the Lyon context.
Following the Parlons Climat project, the city consulted citizens on more specific ideas relating to vegetation, which can be viewed here. Ville de Lyon is also applying for the title of the “The Green Capital of Europe 2022”, an award given by the European Union annually to cities who hit ambitious objectives in regards to sustainability and the environment. Should they be successful, Lyon would act as an ambassador and provide use cases for positive climate action across the continent. Good luck with your application, Ville de Lyon! | https://medium.com/responsivegov/combatting-climate-change-one-tree-at-a-time-a57ba31c2bd | [] | 2019-07-25 12:24:00.305000+00:00 | ['Citizen Engagement', 'Civictech', 'Sustainability', 'Urban Planning', 'Climate Change'] |
RWBY Vol 8 {Capitulo 7} Subtítulos en Español | War
Episode 7 | War | It’s all out war in Atlas. Our heroes face an impossible problem. Where do they go from here?
Watch On ►► http://dadangkoprol.dplaytv.net/series/263999/8/7
The story takes place in the world of Remnant, which is filled with supernatural forces and shadowy creatures known as the “Creatures of Grimm.” Prior to the events of the series, mankind waged a battle of survival against the Grimm before discovering the power of a mysterious element called Dust, which allowed them to fight back against the monsters. In the present day, Dust is used to power magical abilities and weapons. Those who use these abilities to battle the Grimm are known as Huntsmen or Huntresses.The series focuses on four girls, each with her own unique weapon and powers. Together, they form team RWBY at Beacon Academy in the city of Vale, where they are trained to become Huntresses alongside team CRDL (pronounced “cardinal”), team JNPR (pronounced “juniper”), team SSSN (pronounced “sun”) and team CFVY (pronounced “coffee”).
Watch On ►► http://dadangkoprol.dplaytv.net/series/263999/8/7
TELEVISION 👾
(TV), in some cases abbreviated to tele or television, is a media transmission medium utilized for sending moving pictures in monochrome (high contrast), or in shading, and in a few measurements and sound. The term can allude to a TV, a TV program, or the vehicle of TV transmission. TV is a mass mode for promoting, amusement, news, and sports.
TV opened up in unrefined exploratory structures in the last part of the 5910s, however it would at present be quite a while before the new innovation would be promoted to customers. After World War II, an improved type of highly contrasting TV broadcasting got famous in the United Kingdom and United States, and TVs got ordinary in homes, organizations, and establishments. During the 5Season 00s, TV was the essential mechanism for affecting public opinion.[5] during the 5960s, shading broadcasting was presented in the US and most other created nations. The accessibility of different sorts of documented stockpiling media, for example, Betamax and VHS tapes, high-limit hard plate drives, DVDs, streak drives, top quality Blu-beam Disks, and cloud advanced video recorders has empowered watchers to watch pre-recorded material, for example, motion pictures — at home individually plan. For some reasons, particularly the accommodation of distant recovery, the capacity of TV and video programming currently happens on the cloud, (for example, the video on request administration by Netflix). Toward the finish of the main decade of the 1000s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (53i, with 909091 intertwined lines of goal and 444545) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 3456561, 3456561 and 174. Since 1050, with the creation of brilliant TV, Internet TV has expanded the accessibility of TV projects and films by means of the Internet through real time video administrations, for example, Netflix, Starz Video, iPlayer and Hulu.
In 1053, 19% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[1] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 5990s. Most TV sets sold during the 1000s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-1050s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 1050s.[6][1][5] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 1.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 1050s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 1000s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 1000s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 1050s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
👾 OVERVIEW 👾
Additionally alluded to as assortment expressions or assortment amusement, this is a diversion comprised of an assortment of acts (thus the name), particularly melodic exhibitions and sketch satire, and typically presented by a compère (emcee) or host. Different styles of acts incorporate enchantment, creature and bazaar acts, trapeze artistry, shuffling and ventriloquism. Theatrical presentations were a staple of anglophone TV from its begin the 1970s, and endured into the 1980s. In a few components of the world, assortment TV stays famous and broad.
The adventures (from Icelandic adventure, plural sögur) are tales about old Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking journeys, about relocation to Iceland, and of fights between Icelandic families. They were written in the Old Norse language, for the most part in Iceland. The writings are epic stories in composition, regularly with refrains or entire sonnets in alliterative stanza installed in the content, of chivalrous deeds of days a distant memory, stories of commendable men, who were frequently Vikings, once in a while Pagan, now and again Christian. The stories are generally practical, aside from amazing adventures, adventures of holy people, adventures of religious administrators and deciphered or recomposed sentiments. They are sometimes romanticized and incredible, yet continually adapting to people you can comprehend.
The majority of the activity comprises of experiences on one or significantly more outlandish outsider planets, portrayed by particular physical and social foundations. Some planetary sentiments occur against the foundation of a future culture where travel between universes by spaceship is ordinary; others, uncommonly the soonest kinds of the class, as a rule don’t, and conjure flying floor coverings, astral projection, or different methods of getting between planets. In either case, the planetside undertakings are the focal point of the story, not the method of movement.
Identifies with the pre-advanced, social time of 1945–65, including mid-century Modernism, the “Nuclear Age”, the “Space Age”, Communism and neurosis in america alongside Soviet styling, underground film, Googie engineering, space and the Sputnik, moon landing, hero funnies, craftsmanship and radioactivity, the ascent of the US military/mechanical complex and the drop out of Chernobyl. Socialist simple atompunk can be an extreme lost world. The Fallout arrangement of PC games is a fabulous case of atompunk. | https://medium.com/war-capitulo-7-rwby-vol-8-subt%C3%ADtulos-en-espa%C3%B1ol/rwby-vol-8-capitulo-7-subt%C3%ADtulos-en-espa%C3%B1ol-217194e988e5 | ['Bradley T. Hayes'] | 2020-12-19 20:04:46.086000+00:00 | ['Animation', 'Anime'] |
The Worst Advice I Ever Received Was ‘Follow Your Passion’ | The Worst Advice I Ever Received Was ‘Follow Your Passion’
It isn’t just ineffective advice; it can actually be harmful
Photo by ActionVance on Unsplash
My first steps into the working world were guided by the advice that had dogged me since my college graduation: To be happy, I was told, I needed to follow my passion. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what that was: I loved fashion but I was better with words than design, so my plan was to work in communications for a global fashion brand, translating an iconic vision for a broad audience.
But a few years later, after I landed a gig doing public relations at a brand’s fancy studio in New York, I was miserable. Behind-the-scenes, the ugliness and bad behavior soured me on the industry. As my interest and tolerance faded, I looked around for inspiration. What else was I passionate about?
The answer: a lot. In time, I launched into a dynamic freelance career working across varied interests: writing, acting, life coaching, modeling, and content creation.
It was a far cry from the vision I’d had as a newly minted graduate: that I’d find a singular, passion-fueled path that led straight to long-term happiness. But, the truth was, following my passion didn’t get me anywhere. Following my curiosity is what got me unstuck.
Research suggests that telling people to “find their passion” isn’t just ineffective advice; it can actually be harmful. In a paper published last year in the journal Psychological Science, the authors compared the “fixed” theory of passion — the notion that passion lives within us, already fully formed and waiting to be discovered — to the idea of “destined” love. People who have a “fixed” perspective on romance may believe in “the one,” the researchers write, which causes them to move on quickly when met with relatively small relationship challenges.
Similarly, the authors found that believing in the idea of a singular and innate theory of passion led people to move on too quickly from paths they found interesting but challenging: “Urging people to find their passion may lead them to put all their eggs in one basket,” the researchers wrote, “but then to drop that basket when it becomes difficult to carry.”
On the other hand, those with a “growth” perspective on passion are more likely to see it as a malleable quality that can be cultivated, which makes them both more open and more resilient. This thinking, the authors wrote, “leads people to express greater interest in new areas, to anticipate that pursuing interests will sometimes be challenging, and to maintain greater interest when challenges arise.”
And when passion burns out, a well-cultivated sense of curiosity is the best cure.
Research suggests that telling people to “find their passion” isn’t just ineffective advice; it can actually be harmful.
When I quit my day job, it was because I realized that I had been sticking to what I called “passion” out of fear. I’m an immigrant and first-generation college graduate, and the pressure to succeed financially for my family’s sake weighed heavily on me. Switching gears felt impossible. But I needed to feel a sense of control over my life again.
Then it hit me: I didn’t need to start over, exactly. I just needed to be more flexible. Once I was willing to let go of my fear of failure, I found that my rigid idea of success was holding me back. I didn’t need to follow a neatly defined career trajectory; instead, I could use my skills as a former publicist to pitch myself to brands for content creation and partnerships. And now that I was out of the job I hated, I found that I could easily reconnect with the communications skills that had driven me toward fashion, and redirect them toward my new areas of interest.
Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, one of the authors of the Psychological Science study, might call this an example of growth mindset, which she defines in her book Mindset as facing a challenge with curiosity, and allowing oneself to see difficulties as building blocks for enhancing inherent talents. That might look like engaging in ongoing professional training to stay dynamically interested in the field you’re in. Or being flexible enough to recognize when it’s time to pursue a new opportunity. Or both.
Believing you’re only cut out to do one thing makes it easy to get stuck in a rut. But to grow, by definition, means getting unstuck. It means opening yourself up to new ideas and new interests and allowing yourself to be steered by them.
And you know what the best part is? Nobody — maybe not even you — knows where that path will lead. | https://forge.medium.com/the-worst-advice-i-ever-received-was-follow-your-passion-604ee72342c | ['Aisha Beau'] | 2019-07-08 16:49:01.259000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Life Lessons', 'Passion', 'Growth', 'Succeed'] |
Getting the Shoplifting Under Control | A major problem in the retail world is shoplifting.
The Galleria mall is a central hub for people from all over the world that visit Houston to come gather, spend time with family, eat and ultimately shop.
According to VisitHouston.com, an average of 24 million people visit the mall each year, catering to up to 375 stores. Because of this large of a scale, the mall is a major hotspot for shoplifting.
Spencer’s Gifts, known simply as Spencer’s, is just one of the many vendors that is no stranger to retail theft.
As a novelty store, Spencer’s carries a selection of products that appeal to people of all ages. From pop culture apparel to mature collections of adult interests. The store has it all. Their diverse line is what drives the company’s success, but it’s also the reason behind the interest of a shoplifter.
Nicole Wagner, an assistant manager at the store, has had numerous encounters with customers that come to shop but actually have ulterior motives to steal.
“I have worked in retail for 13 years, and it’s pretty bad how often people come in and try to steal,” she says.
Wagner has been with the company for over 4 years and had recently transferred to The Galleria mall location. She explains that she has never seen such a high-risk location as her store because it’s in one of the busiest malls in the district.
Her store’s shrink percentage is just barely below the company’s cutoff. Shrinkage, or shrink, is a retail term for “loss in profits.”
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF) 2020 survey, the retail world suffered a $61.7 billion shrinkage. This a record all-time high for the retail industry. Store’s that have a high shrink rate undergo the target program. The program pushes for better loss prevention methods in order to avoid any more loss in profits because of theft.
“We’ve been on the target program before, but we’ve learned to be more consistent in implementing our loss prevention procedures daily,” says Wagner. | https://medium.com/uhvalentischool/getting-the-shoplifting-under-control-7bf3b78cb0c1 | ['Aj Dayo'] | 2020-12-19 02:51:38.869000+00:00 | ['Shoplifting', 'Retail'] |
Just in time (JIT) Knowledge Management | Photo by Science in HD on Unsplash
Many companies in supply chain and manufacturing space shave benefiting from a Just in Time (JIT) inventory system.
The idea is that you can cut costs by only ordering parts or building products exactly when they’re needed. You then cut warehousing costs, labor costs, and raw material cost as you have less work-in-progress (WIP) or finished goods lying around.
How can knowledge workers benefit from this approach?
In software development specifically we often feel a constant need to fill our heads with the latest news, frameworks, and technologies. This can quickly become exhausting.
Our “warehouse space” (or mental capacity) is filling up with unused “raw material” (irrelevant information) that is labor-intensive to retain.
So some principles we can borrow from JIT Inventory Management
Simplification
Excess of any kind masks problems such as low quality raw materials, unreliable vendors, defects in machinery, and the like. Removing the excess makes problems apparent — Source
Select a few high quality information sources and focus only on those. Avoid following every blog post or every industry trend. Avoid “breaking news” in the space you’re interested in as the information is either (1) not well understood yet, (2) not publicly consumable yet, (3) not refined enough for real production use, or (4) mostly hype with no substance.
Quality at the Source
[Identify] and [correct] problems at the manufacturing stage itself, as soon as it occurs. JIT provides for jidoka through automation that caters to the automatic working of the assembly line and complete shut down upon detection of error — Source
Automate your exposure to your high-quality sources. Instead of being pushed content in real-time (push notifications, email lists, news articles, etc.), block of periodic time slots (an hour a day, or a few hours a week) to focus on pulling the new information.
Cellular Manufacturing System
“[This] advocates that segmented and product focused manufacturing is much simpler than a linear process oriented manufacturing. JIT institutes strategic capacity management techniques such as multiple small machines instead of a large bulky machine that requires constant production for profitability and others towards this end” — Source
Practice strategic incompetence. i.e. it’s not necessary for you to know everything, but among your team you should collectively know everything.
This is necessary to avoid mental overwhelm. So delegate to team members to be SMEs on specific topics and periodically check in with them.
Respect for People
“Success of JIT depends on identification of what the customer needs and fulfilling the request in the best possible manner” — Source
Avoid “learning for learning’s sake” — seek opportunities to bring a practical application of your learning to your customer, team, or company (for example, small proof-of-concepts) or just discuss potential use cases of your learning.
If it can’t provide value to your customer now, stop researching the topic and set a reminder to revisit in 6–12 months. You may just be too ahead of the adoption curve and you’re wasting your time with “hype” (see the Simplification principle above)
JIT Knowledge Management is all about acknowledging the constraints of the system (your mental capacity) and bringing structure to optimize your throughput (your knowledge work). | https://medium.com/@thehappydeveloper/just-in-time-jit-knowledge-management-2821a01a27f0 | ['Erik Andersen'] | 2020-12-04 15:01:14.030000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Manufacturing', 'Knowledge Management', 'Learning', 'Productivity'] |
5 ways Deep Learning is changing our day-to-day life | About: Data-Driven Science (DDS) provides training for people building a career in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Follow us on Twitter.
Deep learning is a subset of Machine Learning in Artificial Intelligence (AI). When an AI imitates the human brain for processing data, creating patterns, and making decisions, it is Deep Learning. It uses multiple layers to progressively extract higher-level features from the raw input. The word ‘deep’ in ‘deep learning’ refers to the number of layers through which the data is transformed. Through this, it is possible to learn patterns from unstructured and unlabelled data. The deep learning algorithm performs a task repeatedly, each time improving its outcome, similar to how we learn from experience.
The vast amount of data being created every second on search engines, social media, e-commerce platforms has made deep learning of great potential. In addition to that, the strong computing power available today has made a huge impact on the algorithms used in deep learning. Moreover, breakthroughs in AI such as self-driving cars, AlphaGo, voice assistants are all possible because of deep learning.
Here are 5 applications of Deep Learning in our day-to-day lives:
Speech Recognition in Virtual Assistants
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
All major virtual assistants (e.g. Siri, Alexa, Cortana) are based on deep learning. These enable software agents to perform tasks or services for an individual based on verbal commands by interpreting human speech. The more a person interacts with such devices, the more training data it receives, it has a better scope to improve accuracy. This data can then be utilized to determine user behavior and preferences, thereby making human-device interaction smooth.
2. Facial recognition
In deep learning, Facial Recognition (FR) is basically identifying or verifying a person from a digital image or video. FR works by comparing selected facial features from a given image with faces within a database. An application of FR is the anti-spoofing of face images. Detection of spoofing from facial recognition is used in applications where people are verified by showing their face in front of a camera. Another application of facial recognition is tagging people on Facebook photos, and recommendations of who might be present in the photo.
3. Personalized Recommendations
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash
Netflix suggestions on what you should watch next are nothing but deep-learning algorithms at work. There are two types of recommender systems-
(I) Collaborative Filtering- This type of filter is based on users’ ratings, and it will recommend movies that we haven’t watched yet, but users similar to us have watched and liked. The algorithm predicts a rating for a movie from a user’s past behavior as well.
(II) Content Based Filtering- This type of filter uses a series of discrete characteristics of a movie in order to recommend additional movies with similar features.
4. Health Care
Photo by Online Marketing on Unsplash
Deep learning is being widely used in pharmaceutical and medical companies for applications ranging from diagnosis to image segmentation. It is helping doctors diagnose patients more accurately, make predictions about patients’ future health, and recommend better treatments. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) in deep learning are well-suited to analyzing images, such as MRI results or X-rays.
5. News Aggregation
Photo by Matthew Guay on Unsplash
Efforts to customize news as per readers are strengthened by the use of deep learning. Newer levels of sophistication to define reader personas are being met to filter out news as per geographical, social, economical parameters along with the individual preferences of a reader. An example of this is Google News which uses real-time AI/ML to organize the news.
Another application is fake news detection. Fake news is misinformation or manipulated news that is spread across social media with an intention to damage a person, agency, and organization. Deep Learning classifiers help detect fake or biased news and remove it from the news feed, and also giving a possible warning of privacy breaches. | https://medium.com/swlh/5-ways-deep-learning-is-changing-our-day-to-day-life-7c17875b720c | ['Data-Driven Science'] | 2020-05-16 04:57:28.682000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Automation', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
Make Me Better — Using Feedback To Orientate Our Next Steps | We had a great idea and we put it into practice, things are moving along pretty well. We’ve done a lot of hard work and made a lot of good connections. It feels like we’ve made great progress and yet there is still a tunnel with a light we are trying to reach. Sometimes we can’t see the light and we don’t know where to turn. Often the problem isn’t big enough to immediately know and your ideas and effort are really worthwhile. This can be where we get lost because we have been listening to ourselves for so long. Perhaps it’s time to start listening to others for a change. We had to ignore them as we heard catastrophism and detraction from all sides. Now though, it’s clear that our achievements are real and we have results better than many expected. We have to try again with this ask the audience principle we gave up on not so long ago.
Ask your circle about you and your work, invite them to flex their muscle and show what they are made of. You can try opening the door on subjects such as these.
Out with it! What are you dying to say but worried I won’t like it? If we can be prepared for cutting remarks and heartless comments by inviting them in, it’s a shortcut to vital improvements. Even if we don’t agree it can be certain that at least a fraction of people thinks it about you. This being said we can make contingency plans or improvements to minimise these unfair appraisals.
Word association games really help. What other people think of when you are the subject, no matter how strange, can be a useful insight into your particular symbolism and image. We can draw on these iconic and abstract principles as well as the matter of fact adjectives people make use of to design what we pay attention to and how we deliver our work.
What do you feel I am not aware of or not paying enough attention to? Sometimes we have vocational and personal blind-spots where we either avoid or don’t sense the value in particular aspects. These can be vital or imperative things that make our focus and direction the most effective. It might be that no-one ever told us or that we have an affiliation for a particular style that’s not working well in this new situation or without the intricate knowledge required to pull it off, sometimes we can’t see the obvious or the essential. Others often can, especially those in the same line of work as you.
What am I good at? You already know these answers but finding out from the perception of another might be surprising. You could find that people can put into a phrase a skill you have that you had never truly defined before. People might see a skill or strength in you that you hadn’t even considered. Then again, you may never hear the magic words that belong to your training and expertise. What if, despite your best efforts, no-one knows you’re great at those things you spent a lot of time and probably money on being great at?
This leads on to communication. How am I at putting my skills and abilities across? You might have been given a clue with your previous question about skills. Communication doesn’t go as far as skills, though, it goes much further. The way we communicate determines who can make the most of what we have to offer. It also determines how we get the most out of what we offer, too. If communication is not your primary role then it will be a major one, no matter what you do. Getting the point across in a way that encourages positivity and results is a skill in itself. | https://medium.com/@crowanblair/make-me-better-using-feedback-to-orientate-our-next-steps-ff5457d50880 | ['Rowan Blair Colver'] | 2020-12-21 17:37:18.107000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Feedback', 'Communication', 'Mentorship'] |
What is the Best Instagram Marketing Tips to Increase Social Media Presence? | What is the Best Instagram Marketing Tips to Increase Social Media Presence?
In this article, I’ll take a look at some of the best Instagram marketing tips, and find out what makes Instagram so effective when it comes to reaching your target audience. If you’re new to Instagram, or just want to get better at using it, take note!
Easy Steps To Start
You can start your Instagram marketing by posting pictures of your products, but keep it real. If you have an ugly product, don’t post a photo of it unless you are going for a joke or a parody. Also, post some photos that stand out from other brands’ feeds; try uploading videos and animated GIFs instead of still shots for something different. Make sure you include hashtags with your posts! These include words and phrases related to topics in which users want more information.
Actionable Tip 1
Create a strategy. Your Instagram presence is like any other marketing tool: it’s only as good as your strategy. To make sure you’re creating posts that drive followers and conversions, create a digital marketing strategy that outlines your goals and how you will measure them. Incorporate specific tactics into each campaign — this will allow you to track success in each area of social media, which will help you adjust your strategies over time.
Actionable Tip 2
Find Your Hashtag and Build a Strategy Around It: Instagram is all about hashtags. With over 10 billion hashtags being used on Instagram, there’s no better way to gain your company exposure than by leveraging hashtag strategy. Before you start investing time into your Instagram marketing campaign, find out what’s trending in your industry and make sure you have it on hand.
Actionable Tip 3
Identify and understand what your audience wants on Instagram. Before posting, think about how you want people to feel when they see your images, and which emotions you want them to associate with your brand. This process will help increase engagement levels. Actionable Tip 4: Make sure that all of your images follow Instagram’s suggested ratio guidelines and include a clear call-to-action for interested users.
Actionable Tip 4
Have a consistent brand presence in all social media channels. Whether you like it or not, people associate your brand with your personal digital footprint. If you have a poor digital reputation, then don’t expect your sales pitch will be compelling. Be active on all social media platforms and help establish an immersive brand experience by using visuals, video content, and call-to-action buttons in each platform.
Actionable Tip 5
Choose Your Hashtags Wisely When you’re posting on social media, it’s also important to select your hashtags wisely. Use a keyword or hashtag that people will actually use when they’re trying to find out more about what you offer. If there aren’t many people searching for your service with a particular tag, then you won’t have many followers searching for your content that way either.
Give-Aways For All The Affiliate Marketer:-|| $100 CPA For EVERY Person Who Enrolls In The One Funnel Away Challenge- That means, offering you 100% of the revenue when people upgrade to the challenge after registering. The summit is totally free, and will ‘sticky cookie’ the registrant to get your link Here ||
Tip: If you are interested in the content I am writing on Quora, you can follow me on Quora. If you find anything useful or interested to learn more related content, you can visit my Quora space:- Affiliate & Digital Marketings to learn more about all of my latest content. I will post some useful content there. | https://medium.com/@somchandramong1/what-is-the-best-instagram-marketing-tips-to-increase-social-media-presence-1e5b687d20d8 | ['Somchandra Gurumayum'] | 2021-12-22 16:39:56.174000+00:00 | ['Affiliate Marketing', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Instagram Marketing', 'Online Market'] |
Change Blindness & UI Design | The test results are in and I’m afraid you have Change Blindness Blindness. It’s a terrible condition. Victims suffer from an exaggerated sense of their ability to detect changes in their field of view. The good news: You are not alone. 99.999% of the world’s population suffers with you.
However, if you design websites or software for a living, Change Blindness Blindness can have serious side-effects including…
Positioning error messages where users won’t see them.
Inadequately communicating state changes.
Depressed conversion rates.
Loss of income, trouble sleeping.
With a little time and attention, you can learn to manage your condition and, more importantly, help your users better manage theirs.
Change Blindness
Experimental designs used to demonstrate change blindness have eerie similarities to common, online user experiences. First, study participants are shown a scene. Then, some kind of flash or other noise interrupts the visual field. Finally, a second scene is shown, identical to the first except for one (often glaring) change.
People are surprisingly bad at detecting even drastic changes, like entire objects (dis)appearing from the scene.
From Supplementary Information for ‘Change blindness as a result of mudsplashes.” Used here without permission.
This handy demo lets you try it for yourself… http://www.gocognitive.net/demo/change-blindness
Why this happens isn’t entirely understood, but it seems to be a result of how our brains construct meaning from visual information. The interruption is crucial, whether it’s a total flash or just a few dots splashed across the screen.
It’s very much like what happens when you refresh a web page.
State Changes & User Experience
Consider what happens when you fill out a typical web form: You hit a button and some invisible process is kicked off. Your browser thinks for a few seconds, then its screen flashes white. If anything failed validation, the same page probably reappears with a new element: an error message.
Something like this.
As a designer, that all looks pretty obvious. You have the luxury of already knowing what’s going on, already understanding the state change you’re trying to communicate. You’re also looking at the whole page, you’re not in the middle of trying to complete task, and you didn’t have to look at it with a flash of page refresh in-between.
What your users see or, more accurately, don’t see.
Even without the refresh flash, having one’s attention focused on the bottom of the page, near the submit button, will make that error message as invisible as a ninja on your ceiling. (Look up right now. If you don’t see a ninja on your ceiling… it’s already too late.)
Slow feedback on button press, long load times, and extraneous things competing for your user’s attention can all make them blind to seemingly obvious changes in state.
Fortunately, change blindness has its own blind spots.
Facilitating Change Detection
The flash is essential to causing change blindness. If the state change is instantaneous, change detection is pretty much guaranteed. To prevent the refresh flash, don’t wait until form submit to perform field validations. Whenever possible, validate client-side as the user types.
If you’ve used the internet since 2005, this should feel familiar.
Validations that can’t be performed client-side can still be done in the background. Keep attention focused on the button location while validation is running, then display any state changes in the same general area. Transforming the button into a progress indicator is ideal.
A less conventional approach.
Participants in change blindness studies are better (still not great) at detecting changes in the center of the visual field, where most of their attention is focused.
Summary
Change blindness is a serious epidemic. Changes in state that occur during a page refresh are particularly likely to escape users’ notice. To clearly communicate state changes in web forms… | https://medium.com/user-experience-behavior-design/change-blindness-ui-design-687a8abf5ab6 | ['Dan Bayn'] | 2015-05-12 19:51:01.906000+00:00 | ['Usability', 'Psychology', 'User Experience'] |
Why is politics in school should come back | Schools need to have more political debates. How many times in the last 5 years have you gotten into a political debate with someone that became more of a dispute than a productive conversation? What’s sad is I bet everyone reading this has been in at least one time. But with social media absolutely controlling how we all live our lives is concerning. What ever happened to reading US government documents and real statistics produced by the White House and not Fox News and CNN. I think, primarily in high school, is so crucial to learn how to debate and talk differences for improvement. Social skills take you farther in life than people can really imagine. Now this might be a little biased because I am a very confident and optimistic person and I always told myself, “It’s not the grades you make, but the hands you shake.” I am 19 years old, and Im just in constant disbelief how many hours our parents can listen to these media stations that our paid to have specific views for more clicks and viewers trying to constantly change our minds and cause chaos. No news media likes to cover news thats great for the world. Where’s the dispute? What are the two sides fighting against each other for? The standard United States citizen actually has no idea where to get factual data from our government. Our children need to understand how to discuss problems with their peers but how to make political talks productive instead of a argument.
If we really want to make a world a better place for our children wouldn’t you want to make sure they know factually what they are talking about? No 18 year old actually understands the important factors of being a adult. No financial literacy in high school which is insane to me. No true discussions on government progress for generations to come. But just the history of government. Which to be completely honest, is getting more and more useless because of the constant changes in political climate, especially in recent years. But lets set up out children to act converse like adults and enlighten them to have confidence and factual data to show that just because they just became adults, doesn’t mean they don’t know what they are talking about. | https://medium.com/@jhallet13-31224/why-is-politics-in-school-should-come-back-7400647b0907 | [] | 2021-01-21 21:19:38.009000+00:00 | ['Government', 'Politics', 'Progress', 'Schools', 'Gen Z'] |
Using OpenCV to Cartoonize an Image | Using OpenCV to Cartoonize an Image
(Source: By Author)
What is OpenCV?
OpenCV is an open-source python library used for computer vision and machine learning. It is mainly aimed at real-time computer vision and image processing. It is used to perform different operations on images which transform them using different techniques.
It majorly supports all languages like Python, C++, Android, Java, etc. It is easy to use and in demand due to its features. It is used in creating image processing or rendering application using different languages.
In this article, we will try to perform some image transformation using the CV2 version of OpenCV. We will try to make sketches, cartoons, and other transformations on an ordinary image.
Installing OpenCV
In order to install OpenCV, we need to run the following command given below in the command prompt.
pip install opencv-python
As soon as we install OpenCV we are good to go and start with our image transformation process. Open jupyter notebook and import the required libraries.
Importing Required Libraries
We will import required libraries that are cv2 and numpy using the code given below.
import cv2
import numpy as np
First Transformation(Cartoonize)
In this transformation, we will find the edges of the image and make a cartoon using the bilateral filter and bitwise operator. You can use any image for this transformation, I am using my own image for this article.
# Reading the Image
image = cv2.imread("image1.jpg") # Finding the Edges of Image
gray = cv2.cvtColor(image, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
gray = cv2.medianBlur(gray, 7)
edges = cv2.adaptiveThreshold(gray, 255, cv2.ADAPTIVE_THRESH_MEAN_C, cv2.THRESH_BINARY, 9, 10) # Making a Cartoon of the image
color = cv2.bilateralFilter(image, 12, 250, 250)
cartoon = cv2.bitwise_and(color, color, mask=edges) #Visualize the cartoon image
cv2.imshow("Cartoon", cartoon)
cv2.waitKey(0) # "0" is Used to close the image window
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
Original and Cartoon Image(Source: By Author)
Second Transformation(Blurring Image)
In the second transformation, we will try to blur the image with an edge-preserving filter and adding a threshold to the edges. For this, we will use Gaussian Blur.
#convert to gray scale
grayImage = cv2.cvtColor(image, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY) #apply gaussian blur
grayImage = cv2.GaussianBlur(grayImage, (3, 3), 0) #detect edges
edgeImage = cv2.Laplacian(grayImage, -1, ksize=5)
edgeImage = 255 - edgeImage #threshold image
ret, edgeImage = cv2.threshold(edgeImage, 150, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY) #blur images heavily using edgePreservingFilter
edgePreservingImage = cv2.edgePreservingFilter(image, flags=2, sigma_s=50, sigma_r=0.4) #create output matrix
output =np.zeros(grayImage.shape) #combine cartoon image and edges image
output = cv2.bitwise_and(edgePreservingImage, edgePreservingImage, mask=edgeImage) #Visualize the cartoon image
cv2.imshow("Cartoon", output)
cv2.waitKey(0) # "0" is Used to close the image window
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
Blurring Image using Edge Preserving(Source: By Author)
Third Transformation(Stylization)
In this transformation, we will use the stylization technique and create the cartoon of the image.
cartoon_image = cv2.stylization(image, sigma_s=150, sigma_r=0.25)
cv2.imshow('cartoon', cartoon_image)
cv2.waitKey(0)
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
Stylization(Source: By Author)
Fourth Transformation(Pencil Sketch)
In this transformation, we will create a pencil sketch of the image. We will create both colorful and black & white sketches.
cartoon_image1, cartoon_image2 = cv2.pencilSketch(image, sigma_s=60, sigma_r=0.5, shade_factor=0.02)
cv2.imshow('pencil', cartoon_image1)
cv2.waitKey()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
Black & White(Source: By Author)
cv2.imshow('pencil', cartoon_image2)
cv2.waitKey()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
Colored Sketch(Source: By Author)
In this article, we saw how we can use OpenCV to create different image transformations. Go ahead try these transformations and in case you feel any difficulty please let me know in the response section.
Before You Go
Thanks for reading! If you want to get in touch with me, feel free to reach me on [email protected] or my LinkedIn Profile. You can view my Github profile for different data science projects and packages tutorials. Also, feel free to explore my profile and read different articles I have written related to Data Science. | https://towardsdatascience.com/using-opencv-to-catoonize-an-image-1211473941b6 | ['Himanshu Sharma'] | 2020-11-19 14:04:42.796000+00:00 | ['Image Processing', 'Computer Vision', 'Opencv', 'Deep Learning', 'Python'] |
News Brief — USCIS Updates Discretionary Criteria for Case-by-Case Interview Determinations of Adjustment of Status Applications Based on Refugee or Asylee Status | On December 15, 2020, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced updated guidance expanding the discretionary criteria USCIS officers use to determine whether to interview applicants filing Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, based on refugee or asylee status.
The updated criteria are well within the parameters of USCIS’ regulatory authority to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether an interview is necessary to determine the admissibility of an alien applying for lawful permanent resident status under INA § 209. The updates do not change the eligibility requirements to adjust status.
The list of interview criteria can be found in the Policy Manual, Volume 7, Part L, Chapter 5, Part B (https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-7-part-l-chapter-5). The updated list provides greater parity with the criteria USCIS applies in determining whether to interview other adjustment of status applicants. Each determination by USCIS to waive or require an interview will continue to be made at the discretion of the USCIS officer on a case-by-case basis. While the updated criteria may result in more applicants requested to appear for an interview, the changes are necessary to help ensure program integrity and support USCIS’ efforts to detect and prevent fraud and risks of harm to the United States.
Please feel free to reach me at: [email protected] if you have any questions regarding this article. Thank you ^^ | https://medium.com/@nicolazjy/news-brief-uscis-updates-discretionary-criteria-for-case-by-case-interview-determinations-of-85724bc3e63 | ['Jiayun', 'Nicola'] | 2020-12-15 15:24:37.642000+00:00 | ['Uscis', 'Refugees', 'Asylum', 'Asylum Seekers', 'Immigration'] |
How To Be An Authentic Content Creator For Your Brand | Authenticity and Value Proposition. These are the two most important things when creating content for your brand. These are really the only things your target audience and especially your actual customers want to hear in your content.
Every once in a while, I have the opportunity to sit down and talk in an interview. This clip is from one with Lady Lunch Club, a membership organization for Women in Nashville, Tennessee.
I was asked what unique characteristics about women make them or can help them be good content creators and marketers for their brand.
Regardless of your gender, the principles are the same: be a good listener, understand your value proposition (why your audience should choose you over your competitors) and deliver your message clearly, concisely and to the point.
Don’t overthink your content, just think it over, then go with it.
Paul Hickey, Founder / CEO / Lead Strategist at Data Driven Design, LLC and founder of The Voice Event, and The Voice Designer, has created and grown businesses via digital strategy and internet marketing for more than 15 years. His sweet spot is using analytics to design and build websites and grow the audience and revenue of businesses via SEO/Blogging, Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Facebook and Instagram Ads, Social Media Content Marketing, Email Marketing and most recently, Voice App Design and Development — Alexa Skills and Google Actions. The part that he’s most passionate about is quantifying next marketing actions based on real data. | https://medium.com/@datadrivendesignnashville/how-to-be-an-authentic-content-creator-for-your-brand-a5f7de6ea066 | ['Paul Hickey'] | 2020-12-10 10:30:55.806000+00:00 | ['Google', 'Content Marketing', 'Social Media', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Content Strategy'] |
The Angry Woman | Content warning: Anger, gender stereotypes
Recall the last time that you felt angry. What was the reaction of the people around you? Were you asked to ‘calm down’ or ‘chill’?
Personally, I have lost count of the number of times someone’s asked me to “chill” or “not take things so seriously” whenever I have expressed anger or even irritation. To this, psychologist Susan Bernstein writes how the words “calm down” rarely helps. Rather, it acts as an emotional trigger, and adds more fuel to the fire instead of actually calming the person down. [1]
Now, riddle me this — As a result, did you feel the need to suppress your anger? Did you feel like you could express yourself effectively? Or did you feel ashamed and guilty?
The answers to these questions are likely to differ depending on your gender. That’s what a study conducted at the University of California revealed.
At the beginning of this century, researchers at University of California conducted a study to understand the differences between how men and women express anger. [2] They found that men felt less effective when forced to hold their anger in, whereas women did not feel similarly. In fact, it was found that women felt ashamed and guilty for feeling angry and as a result, tried to control it, hide it or apologize for it.
But why? What’s going on inside our brains when we get angry? How does our gender make a difference?
Let’s go one question at a time.
Why do we get angry?
Anger is generally considered as a response to a threat (either to oneself or someone else) and is often triggered by frustration. [3] For example, when someone asked you to “calm down” or “chill” your brain possibly perceived it as condescending or as a threat to your freedom to express/experience your anger.
This in turn triggers the body’s fight, freeze or flight response, causing the adrenal gland to fill the body with stress hormones. [4] So when an individual gets angry, the parts of their brain responsible for making decisions and moderating social behaviour [5] are overwhelmed and they may experience a sense of loss of control. [6] As a result, they may react with feelings and actions that are ill-advised or sometimes even harmful to others around them.
To put this in action, let’s say you lost control and punched the person (who asked you to “calm down”) right in the nose — this would count as one of those actions that are ill-advised and harmful to others.
However, this does not mean that the way one’s brain functions during anger is the same every time they experience anger. It not only differs from individual to individual, but can differ from experience to experience within the same individual, like a unique fingerprint. [7]
That means if the same person had said “calm down” in a different situation, instead of punching the person in the nose, you may have stormed off from the scene or simply heaved a heavy sigh and let it go. You still experienced the same emotion, but differently.
This is because an individual’s feelings are a consequence of their brain preparing the individual to act, based on their past experiences. [8]
Past experiences include one’s lifetime of experiences, what they read in books, what they watch on television and social media, what they see around them, etc. which then become the seeds of memory in their brain. [8] Thereafter the brain prepares a “script” to guide how the individual acts in anticipation of feeling angry.
Picture showing a caricature of our brain preparing a “script” in anticipation of anger. Illustration by Roshni Ranganathan
Going back to the example, perhaps, you heaved a heavy sigh and let it go because based on your past experiences, confronting others in such situations may not have worked in your favour.
Therefore, if the way we experience anger depends on our past experiences, then can these “past experiences” provide answers to our earlier question:
How does our gender make a difference in the way we experience anger?
While brain biology tells us that there are differences between a woman’s brain and a man’s, they alone do not explain these differences. There is compelling evidence that tells us that the society and the gendered social/cultural rules we grow up in play a big part. [9]
What’s the effect of Culture and Society on Anger?
Our culture has a tendency to accept anger as a reasonable response from men but not from women. [10] In one of the studies conducted by gender-equity researchers at Harvard Kennedy school, it was found that women suffer negative consequences for displaying anger at the workplace whereas men are rewarded with benefits like higher status or higher salaries, for the same emotional displays. [11]
Further, this study explained that a woman’s anger was attributed to her personality, resulting in negative backlash at the workplace. However, when a man got angry, it was attributed to external factors and thereby mitigating the negative effects of displaying anger.
Picture showing attribution of anger at workplace to personal traits in case of a woman and to external factors in case of a man. Illustration by Roshni Ranganathan.
Why does this happen?
Earlier, we saw how the brain bases its “script” for feeling angry on past experiences which includes media consumption and societal changes. This means that our brains get their instructions from the culture that they develop in [12] and these “instructions” include strongly gendered social rules. Therefore, what the brain finds rewarding by following these “instructions” reflects the dominant values of the culture. [13]
In reality, this plays out in many ways. For example, if an infant boy grows up watching the older men around him (or even movies where the male actors) use violence as a means to express their anger and dominance then the infant’s brain wires itself according to this. [8] Similarly, if a young woman grows up watching her mother, sister or other females she looks up to (like women actors), suppress their anger, scream or control their words, then the young woman’s brain also wires itself accordingly.
Traditional childhood gender socialization tends to encourage boys to wield power with their bodies, words and space and this is associated with expressing anger and aggression. [14] The same gender socialization causes adults to dismiss anger and frustration in young women by terming it as “the raging hormonal stage”. [14]
This is highly problematic for two main reasons: a) dismissing their anger by terming it as “hormonal stage” symptoms is counterproductive and only increases their frustration; b) their freedom of expressing this increased frustration is also curtailed.
Therefore, the way our culture and society responds when a man or woman expresses anger, strongly influences how we experience anger because the society’s response becomes part of our ‘past experience’.
So if society and culture influence our emotions, then what influences society and culture in the first place?
You probably guessed it right! The media — a major factor that strongly shapes and reinforces this culture.
What is the role of the media?
Perceptions of gender roles are continually influenced by social factors, especially media representations of these roles, throughout one’s life for both males and females. [15] It’s as if our brains repeatedly try to explain our place in the world through these gendered perceptions of reality that it has gathered from past experiences. Such perceptions are reinforced by the media and the entertainment world.
It is no secret that continuous exposure to specific cultural messages will influence how the audience identifies with that message in the long term. [16] In India, Bollywood’s sexist portrayal of women has been in existence since decades and unfortunately, still continues. [17]
Filmmakers seem to opine that if their films have to become ‘blockbusters’ then they need to cater to the audience’s perception of an ‘ideal woman’, someone who is ‘god-fearing’, docile, and will ‘sacrifice everything for her family’. [18] Such kinds of cultural messages makes us view women as not capable of anger and if she does get angry, she is not an ‘ideal woman’ and therefore, bad.
Another kind of sexist portrayal of women in movies is their objectification, [19] which strengthens the social dominance theory, that men are more socially dominant than women. [20] When we continuously consume content that reinforces these unequal social hierarchies, our brain perceives it as acceptable for men to exert anger and power over women but not vice versa (because according to these perceptions women are not considered to be on the same social hierarchy).
Picture depicting the toxic cycle of filmmakers making films based on ‘reality’ and gender stereotypes that audience perceive to be reality. Illustration by Roshni Ranganathan
This is a vicious and toxic cycle! Films are created based on gendered roles of men and women in order to appeal to the majority audience; the audience’s brain perceives this gendered portrayal also to be reality and continually strengthens this perception by consuming such films.
“We have come a long way since.” Have we, though?
This is not limited to Bollywood, of course. It’s prevalent even in South Indian films (these are the ones I can speak for as an audience).
Shortly after I had penned down the first version of this article, we were watching a Tamil comedy-drama film from the 2000’s. In one of the scenes, the female protagonist gets angry and shouts at someone. This irks the male protagonist who shows his anger by slapping her. To this, the female protagonist merely stares at him angrily and then, the story moves on to another sub-plot.
I was startled. My brain paused. “Wait, what just happened?”
I looked around to see if anyone else in the family mirrored my shock, but I was alone. Everyone continued watching the movie as if nothing had happened.
He slapped her because she got angry? To which she just stared at him angrily? Why did others not notice this? Why did I not notice this before? I have watched this movie so many times!
That’s when it hit me how normalised such responses have become towards women’s anger. How we have normalised such instances. So much so that when I expressed my shock to my family I was met with “It’s an old film. Things have changed now. Don’t take it so seriously.”
So I wrote a note to my brain instead.
Caricature showing me sending mental notes to my brain to rewrite the scripts. Illustration by Roshni Ranganathan
Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand films back then were different and it’s not fair to apply emerging societal norms to films set in a different society.
But I am not judging the film. I am judging the audience.
To be more specific, I am bothered by how it’s perceived by the audience. I was the only one who seemed bothered by how normalised it was to slap an angry woman (or any woman for that matter). That concerned me.
And that’s when I wanted to pen down a second version of this article.
When I related this to a friend, he pointed out that some films (an obvious example being Thappad!) are trying to undo this normalisation and put an end to these gendered stereotypes. “We have come a long way since that 2000s film”, he said. I thought about that for a while and replied “We have a long way to go though. Let’s hope we will get there.”
Hope for Our Future
Criticising films for portrayal of women is obviously not the solution for changing the status quo. In fact, some may even argue that filmmakers have the freedom of expression while making films and that would be valid.
This means that the responsibility shifts onto us, the audience who consume such content.
We also wield the power of social media. Whether or not a particular stereotype is carried forward into the future depends on us and on what we choose to share with our social circles.
Now that we are aware that gendered social rules and their depiction in the media significantly affect how women experience anger, what can we do next? Here are some possible key takeaways one could consider:
Observe — Within your house, observe and identify the differences in the way the females in the family express their anger as opposed to males. Can this difference be attributed to any of the gender roles discussed above? Understand and listen — Anger is experienced and expressed differently by every individual, a lot of which depends on their societal and cultural upbringing. Understand that dismissing one’s anger only heightens it even more. Instead you can perhaps ask them ‘whether’ they are actually feeling angry and if yes, ‘why’ they might be feeling so. Lend a listening ear, if you can, because sometimes, that’s all they need. [1] Depending on the context, you could also look at de-escalating the situation. [21] Become conscious consumers of content — In a time where our social media, entertainment and news consumption is only increasing by the day, the content we consume has a more long-lasting impact that we can imagine. Therefore, we can take tiny steps everyday to be more conscious of the content we consume.
In time, these tiny steps compound. And hopefully, that makes the difference to the next angry person you encounter, irrespective of their gender. | https://medium.com/@roshniranganathan/the-angry-woman-44e0991949b5 | ['Roshni Ranganathan'] | 2021-07-26 12:25:04.079000+00:00 | ['Science', 'Anger', 'Gender Stereotypes', 'Gender Roles', 'Emotions'] |
How Catastrophes Change Your Anxiety | “You have dug your soul out of the dark, you have fought to be here; do not go back to what buried you.” – Bianca Sparacino
I’ve battled anxiety since I was a child. When I was young, regular life was enough to send me into a panic. Being late, forgetting a schoolbook, a teacher looking at me oddly. Anything and everything was fodder for my mind to start kicking the crap out of me.
Over the years, I’ve dealt with and survived more of the worse ends of the life: abuse, financial problems, homelessness, the death of my long-time partner. While going through those things, the day-to-day problems that used to plague me became background noise. When something really bad is going on, like during my partner’s illness leading to his death last year, day-to-day stresses were like pouring acid on a raw exposed nerve. I was a mess for pretty much all of 2018.
Huge catastrophic problems may mute your day-to-day anxiety. When you are dealing with a loved one dying, you forget you even have a stove, let alone that you used to worry if you left it on when you went out.
Yesterday was the 10-month anniversary of my boyfriend’s death. Anxiety has still not returned to normal. I’m still anxious. But now I am anxious about big existential issues.
Two things help me get through it.
Breathe
This is my most fundamental tool for dealing with my anxiety. I have to remember to breathe. If I lose control of my breathing and let myself start to hyperventilate, it’s too late. I’m going to have a panic attack.
When I feel myself losing control, I’ve ingrained a habit of telling myself to breathe. I try to block out whatever words my brain is trying to run on repeat and just say breathe. Over and over. I focus all my attention on that one word. If my brain starts running it’s freak out record again, I drown it out with the word breathe.
Until I can get the mental loop to stop, I cannot get myself to physically breathe. Once I get the panicked words to stop and only hear my own voice saying breathe, then I follow up with the action. When I was younger, I’d try to force the action over the words that were playing in my mind. That never worked for me. I am a very auditory person and also a writer. I would focus on the words that my brain was feeding me, and the action of breathing could not break through them. So, I chose to fight words with words. One word. Breathe.
Perspective
The reason I was able to be panicked by seemingly ordinary life stresses when I was younger is that I lacked perspective. Everything seemed so awful at the time because I did not know how much worse it could get.
Now I know.
It can get worse. A whole lot worse. Worse than I ever could have imagined.
Having that perspective helps me to not panic about things I know will be okay. They’ve happened before and it hasn’t been a catastrophe. They can happen again and not be a catastrophe. Catastrophes happen. I will save my panic for them. | https://heatherashman.medium.com/how-catastrophes-change-your-anxiety-6515225b828f | ['Heather Ashman'] | 2019-09-07 22:59:47.808000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Mental Health', 'Perspective', 'Anxiety', 'Grief'] |
Biden may stagger nominations from House to avoid cutting into slim Democratic majority | President-elect Joe Biden may stagger nominations of House Democrats for positions in the upcoming administration to avoid cutting into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s already slim majority after losses in the November election.
“We need to manage something like this,” Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the Democratic whip and a top Biden ally, told The Associated Press in an interview.
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Democrats have a narrow 222–211 majority with several races still undecided and Biden has tapped three lawmakers — Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La, for a senior adviser position; Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, for housing secretary; and Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., for secretary of the interior.
Clyburn said the plan would be to pull Richmond first because his senior adviser position doesn’t need Senate confirmation, then Biden would wait to formally nominate Fudge and Haaland until after the March special election in Louisiana.
BIDEN TO PUBLICLY GET CORONAVIRUS VACCINE ON MONDAY
All three lawmakers are considered to be from Democratic strongholds that would be tough for Republicans to flip.
The lawmakers can remain in the House, voting as members, until they are Senate-confirmed. Their nominations could be sent one after the other, in the months that follow.
BIDEN ANNOUNCES ADDITIONS TO WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS TEAM, INCLUDES FORMER CAMPAIGN STAFFERS
Moderate lawmakers and strategists blamed progressives pushing the party’s message to the left for the losses in November despite Biden’s win and progressives complained it was centrists who ran timid campaigns without a bold message to attract voters.
Pelosi is a master vote counter on the House floor, but even her skills will be tested in the new Congress, starting with her own election for another term as speaker. If even a few Democratic lawmakers object or peel off, passing bills in the new Congress could be difficult.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Biden has refrained from pulling Democrats from the Senate because of the narrow Republican majority that Democrats can only flip if they win both Georgia runoffs next month. Even then, it would be 50–50 with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris breaking ties.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon on Friday appeared to say that people yelling at him were too uneducated to not interrupt him while he was speaking in front of a Pomona courthouse, according to a report.
“It’s unfortunate that some people do not have enough education to keep their mouth shut so we can talk,” he said while the family of a murder victim shouted at him, according to a video taken by FOX 11 Los Angeles reporter Bill Melugin.
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“My son can never speak again because he was murdered,” a woman, who FOX 11 reported was the mother of Joshua Rodriguez, who was killed in 2015, told Gascon. “He was kidnapped, tortured and murdered. My son matters.”
Gascon planned to drop special circumstances filed for Rodriguez’s accused killers, removing the possibility of life without parole, according to Melugin.
LOS ANGELES DA GEORGE GASCON CHANGES COURSE ON GETTING RID OF ALL SENTENCING ENHANCEMENTS | https://medium.com/@shalarminder/biden-may-stagger-nominations-from-house-to-avoid-cutting-into-slim-democratic-majority-986454fcce6c | [] | 2020-12-19 14:12:45.028000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Elections', 'Social Media', 'News', 'Joe Biden'] |
Why 2015 is THE Year of Emerging and Empowered Female Leadership | by Anne-Maria Yritys, Featured Contributor
MANY PEOPLE, in a number of cultures, have prejudices towards female leaders, very often subconsciously. This is due to a number of reasons, including the fact that women do not always even support one and another in business life, of course depending upon the organization. In many cultures stereotypes are more than strong, leaving a woman either having to adapt to the local culture and manners, or giving her the choice to become a catalyst for change, an emancipated woman driving changes both in her personal and professional lives.
Stereotypes and cultural manners are not easily changed, since everything starts from early childhood, where small girls are often dressed in pink color and expected to behave in a certain way. If you are a girl, or a woman, behaving differently from what has been expected from you, you are often regarded as being either a complicated personality, or simply difficult. Even by other women. Being different, and driving change, is not easy, but it is possible.
I come from a culture where women have equal rights with men, which is not self-evident in most cultures in the world. In Finland, a woman has the freedom to do anything she wants to, just like men. We had a female president, Tarja Halonen, from 2000–2012. Women have also been eligible to vote since 1906, as the 2nd country in the world after New Zealand. However, on a global basis, 80 % or more of all poor people worldwide are still women. Even in Scandinavia, and Finland, domestic violence and an abuse of women is still high, amongst other injustices that women worldwide, unfortunatey, have to deal with on a daily basis.
As a woman, and a man, what can you do to improve the global conditions of women?
1. Check out organizations supporting and empowering women, and female leadership. For example, UN Women is campaigning for a more equal world through the empowerment of men to support women in its “He for She-campaign”.
2. As a woman, make sure to support other women and their aspirations. Too often, women are said to act as wolves against each other, although many women support each other as well. You lose nothing by supporting other people, and individuals of the same gender.
3. Leadership is not about gender, but considering the current state of the world, there is definitely a need for more balance between genders in regard to leadership, and decision-making in societies.
4. We have many strong and competent female leaders worldwide. Yet, the current situation is not enough. More women need to take action, responsibility, and step into leadership.
5. As a woman — believe in yourself. We are biologically somewhat different than men, which does not make us lesser from males. What male leaders have not managed to achieve, is “left over”, or possible, for women to manage and to take care of. The potential is huge.
6. As long as gender is an issue, and people are not being treated equally, there is work to do, both for men and women.
Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country”
– Margaret Thatcher
Wishing you a blessed and successful year 2015! | https://medium.com/bizcatalyst-360/why-2015-is-the-year-of-emerging-and-empowered-female-leadership-97d563aad466 | [] | 2016-08-18 11:21:09.865000+00:00 | ['Billy Graham', 'Bhutan', 'Chukha District', 'Cape Town', 'Christmas'] |
Is This How Life is Supposed to Work? | Is This How Life is Supposed to Work?
I couldn’t tell from the manual
I’m getting real tired of trying to get Life to work right, and I’ll bet you are too. So I complained to the Management.
Everybody assumes this Life thing is the best thing ever. It’s a powerhouse product; a gamechanger. It provides us with sunshine and rainbows, adventure and romance, and love and kisses, as long as you are willing to put up with a random amount of suffering and cruelty at variable intervals (which at least come with free shipping).
But it’s totally worth it, because with your subscription you have access to various levels of the whole birth/death/creation cycle. Read-only access, unless you go premium.
Life has branded itself with the “No Mud, No Lotus” slogan, cleverly deflecting attention from the fact that at least half the time the products or events it delivers will make you miserable. We humans have accepted that 50% failure rate from the start, and for a long time it looked as if we always would.
Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash
But some of us are beginning to wonder. Is Life really a quality product? Or does it do just enough to get by, confident that we have no other good options at the moment? Is Life really the best available option? Perhaps we should have gotten competitive bids.
At least one serious philosopher has started to ask whether we need Life at all. Professor David Benatar doesn’t think the benefits of Life (love, wonder, children, baby goats) actually outweigh the sheer suffering it deals out to nearly everyone (pain, loss, tragedy, dysfunction). (First worlders will add robocalls to that list.)
Professor Benatar has concluded, based on the plain facts, that the ROI on Life is clearly insufficient. He doesn’t recommend that anyone end an existing subscription, but he doesn’t recommend signing up any new customers, either.
It appears it’s time to issue an ultimatum: tell the Management we need to get a better product or know the reason why. So I did just that. I contacted the Management, and I demanded an explanation for the generations of misery Life had visited on its loyal customers.
“Yes, I’ll hold.” Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash
“Listen, Life. We’ve just about had it with you.”
“Life, you’ve been abusing your monopoly all this time, and I, speaking on behalf of the whole human race, simply will not stand for it. We demand that you do a better job with this whole creation thing we’ve entrusted you with.
“Look — we supported your growth model from the start, right? We all just went around begetting like crazy, no questions asked. On your side the whole time.
“We put up with the design flaws, too — the built-in obsolescence; the no-return policy; the illnesses you called features when we knew they were, literally, bugs.
“We thought you were just new at the business and that your R & D would result in a more mature product as soon as you learned the market. (We thought there would be surveys and focus groups, by the way.)
“We even created active user groups, called religions, dedicated to making sense of your whole platform. Huge numbers of users put in countless hours of time supporting each other in troubleshooting, patching, sharing strategies, and just generally trying to get this thing to work.
“When our kids wailed, “We didn’t ask to be born!” we told them to be patient, that Life would get better; it was in beta testing; everybody was working on it.
You didn’t even ask me what my name is. Photo by Tim Bish on Unsplash
“Later, our kids told their kids the same thing, and pretty soon everybody had to have therapy. Thanks for nothing.
“Meanwhile, even though some of the optics got better, the pain and the suffering and the wickedness just seemed to get worse! Every time one feature got better, another part broke!
“Take the begetting, for example. We’ve been happily begetting all this time, and now we can’t stop. So the planet is filling up, and the food is crazily distributed, and half the world is fat and the other half is starving. You’ve got 40,000 children dying from hunger and thirst every day! What the hell, Life? Didn’t you plan for that?
“And the life spans — look, you doubled the life spans for your first worlders, but only some of them, and your second and third worlders only got a little bit of additional time. And even for the luckiest first-worlders, you pulled a fast one. A lot of them didn’t get additional energetic, healthy years; they got an increase in high-maintenance years with declining opportunities to feel useful in the world. Again, poor planning, if you ask me.
And this is what they say we have to look forward to. Photo by AK¥N Cakiner on Unsplash
“Now, we know that sometimes you are working with flawed material. You can’t always source the best flesh; we get it. Some people are going to be fragile and need extra care. We’re okay with that.
“But overall, the mix of Lives you are producing just seem to add up to an increasingly mean, miserable world. And you’ve been doing it from the start, even though we have complained about it over and over.
“And we keep asking you why that is, and you never answer, Life. Never! It is totally unacceptable.
“But look, we aren’t going to just take it anymore. Read Benatar’s article. We’re ready to just quit. Eventually, people will simply stop subscribing to Life entirely. Once they get off Facebook, they’ll realize what a crap deal you’ve been giving them for so long.
I’m telling you, Life, this is serious. It will take time, but it will happen.
“You just can’t hold people hostage forever, forcing them to buy a product that doesn’t work and makes them miserable.
“If nothing else, you owe us an explanation. So here it is, Life: the big question.
“Why, Life, after all this time, does your product still give us a world filled with wickedness, injustice, wars, poverty, and hate?”
That’s what I asked Life.
And Life answered: “User error.”
And I objected. But Life said, it’s all in the Terms and Conditions, which everybody agrees to, right? If you want to engage in Life, you’ve got to check that box.
But I said, “That’s not fair! We have to agree to those Terms and Conditions before we are even born!”
Life hung up on me.
It’s still in Legal. | https://medium.com/notes-on-the-way-up/is-this-life-broken-or-what-2d4a55e0238b | ['Rev Dr Sparky'] | 2019-08-01 17:24:59.298000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Philosophy', 'Satire', 'Life', 'Life Lessons'] |
Day 8– Phase One nearing completion! | Aloha everybody. Today I worked on adding Two new Powerups. One for Health and one for AMMO. The Health Powerup increases the players life by 1 and the Ammo powerup replenishes the player Ammo to full. In addition to the Ammo powerup I also created an ammo regeneration system for the lasers to slowly increase over time so the player wasn’t just reliant on Powerups. I used Time.time + a regeneration rate of 1 ammo every 2 seconds and it works pretty well. I also decided to change how my Shield powerup works. Instead of the strength increasing by 1 each time I get a Shield powerup with visual changes graduating to the higher level each time I collect more. I decided to have the shields start at full power ( brightest shield) upon collection and lose power as you get hit. The shield gets darker and more blue and is destroyed after 3 hits unless another powerup is collected.
I spent some more time in GIMP; I played around with some of my sprites and created new ones. I guess its the same thing as Blender and I will probably check out BLENDER as well since that is the one people seem to use the most. I was able to make some simple animations for the Ammo and Health Powerups. I also modified the thruster engine Sprite and used it in my UI under my lives to indicate my thruster fuel level. I stretched the image using the transform in the inspector and then in my UI script I used recTransform.LocalScale to reduce the length of the sprite using my depletionRate * Time.deltaTime whenever I held the LeftShift key. (see below code) I also added a very very slow recharge rate when the thrusters are not being used and also a 5 second cooldown if the thrusters hit zero. After the cooldown the thrusters recharge very quickly to full. It looks great and is very fluid on screen. I also controlled and sent instructions to the Player script from the UI to let the Player know when the thrusters should be active so it slows down when the sprite image x-axis hits 0. This way my UI image and the player actions all sync up nicely.
In addition to that I added a visual effect for when the thrusters are in use. Basically made the thruster flame longer when the Shift key is pressed or the SPEED Powerup is picked up. It looks cool and was fairly simple to do using the transform. All I had to do was make a copy of the thruster sprites in explorer, renamed them and put them in a new sprite folder and voila.
Overall was a very productive day. Tomorrow I will focus on the Camera Shake and the Special Weapon powerup and maybe add a sound effect when the Thrusters recharge after the cooldown. if I have time I might take a crack at Phase 2 depending how things go. Overall very happy with my progress, I have learned a lot in such a short period of time and the game is looking better every day! | https://medium.com/@mark-17211/day-8-phase-one-nearing-completion-3cce322a2cf | ['Mark Bohuslav'] | 2020-12-02 19:09:31.953000+00:00 | ['Unity', 'Game Design', 'C Sharp Programming', 'Game Development'] |
Smartwatch and Security in Our Daily Lives | Smartwatch and Security in Our Daily Lives
As the interest in healthcare has recently increased due to the pandemic, the market size of the smartwatch that supports various health conditions and exercise check features is expanding. Rachel Yoon Follow Dec 17, 2020 · 4 min read
Real-time altitude and heart rate measurements
Detect respiratory diseases by measuring sleep status
Emergency call 1 minute after a fall if no movement detected
Measure oxygen concentration via LED light reflected on the skin
Can You Guess Which Smart Device Functions the Above?
As the interest in healthcare has recently increased due to the pandemic, the market size of the smartwatch that supports various health conditions and exercise check features is expanding. The Apple Watch 6, which was released back in September, received a lot of attention from the rumors that an individual can predict whether another individual is infected with respiratory diseases (like the coronavirus) via the oxygen saturation measurement feature. Also last year, Google signed off a big deal to acquire Fitbit, a wearable device company, for about USD 2.1 billion dollars. Although uncertainty remains in the smartwatch market over Google’s move, the opinion that it has invested in the value of data that can be obtained through wearable devices has become dominant.
SmartWatch is an Exercise Coach and a Doctor Who Checks Your Health?
In fact, the scope and role of smartwatches are diverse. It is used for various purposes such as measuring exercise records and checking health status, starting with life-type smartwatches that utilize functions such as sending and receiving emails, messenger, and calls. Of course, you can also find luxury smartwatches that are indispensable in the luxury industry. Agents wore Tag Heuer’s smartwatches in the Kingsman 2 movie, and Louis Vuitton and Montblanc are leading the luxury smartwatches industry.
The important thing is that although it is a smartwatch that has different purposes for each user, device, and brand, it records and stores a lot of data. As a ‘smart’ watch, you shouldn’t forget that it is always paired with another smart device, and various apps are launched to create and store different data. It includes data such as location, texts, contact information, account information, and health information. As such, our smartwatches are becoming personalized doctors and exercise coaches.
What is the Main Problem of Personal Information & Data Breach of Smart Watches?
Smartwatches that probably store more data than smartphones require more attention in protecting data. Compared to other smart devices, there are definitely insufficient discussions on the privacy issues of smartwatches.
1) The Vulnerability of Children’s Smartwatches
Cases of security vulnerabilities in smartwatches have been discovered several times. For example, a security vulnerability was discovered last year in M2, a smartwatch from Xiao Mi. This smartwatch has the ability to track your child’s location using the app and receive alarms if the child leaves the designated area. However, it allowed hackers to gain unauthorized access to user accounts and location information, which could have led to severe damages if exploited.
2) SmartWatch and the Military
There are voices of concern that the personal work out information in smartwatches may leak confidential information related to national security, such as government agencies and military bases. You can check where you live by accessing the exercise information recording function of an app run by a Finnish healthcare device manufacturer. This could expose the location of state secret agencies or facilities. This can be a problem directly related to national security and can lead to more than just the risk of personal data breaches.
As controversy of the privacy of smartwatch data continues, Germany even banned the usage of smartwatches for children. Most smartwatches are equipped with GPS, so if a child’s location is leaked, it can end up being exploited for a crime. In fact, there are a few low-end smartwatches on the market, but there are no adequate security measures for internet access, recording, and location tracking features installed.
Should We Refrain from Using Smart Watches?
There’s no doubt that a smartwatch is a device that helps us in a more convenient and effective way. However, smartwatches are don’t provide guaranteed ‘security’ will eventually end up creating new attack routines for hackers.
Smart Watches DO NOT Require New Security Technologies!
Since smartwatches are a type of IoT device, it’s not very different from the existing strategies applied for IoT security. Penta Security defines the core of IoT security as <Secure First, Then Connect> and it takes it as a principle to ensure the integrity of data flowing to and from the device in real-time. To achieve this, secure authentication and an encrypted communication environment between devices must be established during the data transmission process. Through this, the goal is the create a reliable server, data transmission process, and smartwatch environment. It’s critical for users to download the latest updates for their smart devices. In particular, if the smartwatch is attacked, the data of the connected device may be leaked, so both devices need to constantly be updated and secured.
Get to know more about Penta Security’s IoT security options here today.
Check out Penta Security’s product lines:
Web Application Firewall: WAPPLES
Database Encryption: D’Amo
Identity and Access Management: ISign+
Car, Energy, Factory, City Solutions: Penta IoT Security | https://medium.com/penta-security-systems/smartwatch-and-security-in-our-daily-lives-ef0e23755e34 | ['Rachel Yoon'] | 2020-12-17 01:02:34.209000+00:00 | ['IoT', 'Security', 'Smartphone', 'Smartwatch', 'Iot Security'] |
Getting Started in Stock Market | KEY TAKEAWAYS
Contributing is characterized as the demonstration of submitting cash or funding to an undertaking with the desire for getting an extra pay or benefit.
In contrast to devouring, putting away reserves cash for the future, trusting that it will develop over the long haul.
Contributing, in any case, likewise accompanies the danger for misfortunes.
Putting resources into the financial exchange is the most well-known path for tenderfoots to pick up venture insight.
Here’s how to invest in stocks in six steps:
Choose how you need to put resources into stocks. There are a few different ways to move toward stock contributing. …
Pick a contributing record. …
Know the contrast among stocks and stock common assets. …
Set a spending plan for your corporate security. …
Zero in on the long haul. …
Deal with your stock portfolio.
1. Open a Trading Account
Sorry on the off chance that it appears we’re expressing the self-evident, yet you never know! (Recollect the individual who did everything to set up his new PC — but to connect it?) Find a decent online stock intermediary and open a stock investment fund. Regardless of whether you as of now have an individual record, it is anything but an impractical notion to keep an expert exchanging account discrete. Become acquainted with the record interface and exploit the free exchanging instruments and examination offered solely to customers. Various specialists offer virtual exchanging. A few locales, including Investopedia, additionally offer online specialist surveys to help you locate the correct agent.
2. Learn to Read: A Market Crash Course
Monetary articles, financial exchange books, site instructional exercises, and so on There’s an abundance of data out there and a lot of it economical to tap. It’s significant not to zero in too barely on one single part of the exchanging game. All things considered, study everything market-wise, including thoughts and ideas you don’t feel are especially important as of now. Exchanging dispatches an excursion that frequently ends up at an objective not foreseen at the beginning line. Your expansive and point by point market foundation will prove to be useful again and again, regardless of whether you think you know precisely where you’re going at this moment.
Here are five must-read books for every new trader:
Stock Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager Trading for a Living by Dr. Alexander Elder Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets by John Murphy Winning on Wall Street by Martin Zweig The Nature of Risk by Justin Mamus
Begin to follow the market each day in your extra time. Rise early and read about for the time being value activity on unfamiliar business sectors. (U.S. dealers didn’t need to screen worldwide business sectors several decades prior, however that is totally changed because of the quick development of electronic exchanging and subsidiary instruments that interface value, forex and security markets far and wide.)
News locales, for example, Yahoo Finance, Google Finance, and CBS MoneyWatch fill in as an incredible asset for new speculators. For more refined inclusion, you need to look no farther than The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.
3. Learn to Analyze
Study the fundamentals of specialized investigation and see value diagrams — a great many them — in unsurpassed edges. You may think central investigation offers a superior way to benefits since it tracks development bends and income streams, yet dealers live and bite the dust by value activity that separates strongly from hidden essentials. Try not to quit perusing organization accounting pages since they offer an exchanging edge over the individuals who disregard them. In any case, they won’t assist you with enduring your first year as a dealer.
Your involvement in graphs and specialized examination currently carries you into the mystical domain of value forecast. Hypothetically, protections can just go sequential, empowering a long-side exchange or a short deal. In all actuality, costs can do numerous different things, including slashing sideways for quite a long time at a time or whipsawing savagely in the two ways, shaking out purchasers and dealers.
The time skyline turns out to be critical at this crossroads. Monetary business sectors granulate out patterns and exchanging ranges with fractal properties that create autonomous value developments at present moment, transitional term, and long haul stretches. This implies a security or file can cut out a long haul upswing, middle downtrend, and a transient exchanging range, all simultaneously. As opposed to confuse forecast, most exchanging openings will unfurl through associations between these time spans.
Purchasing the plunge offers an exemplary model, with brokers bouncing into a solid upturn when it auctions in a lower period. The most ideal approach to inspect this three-dimensional battleground is to take a gander at every security in three time periods, beginning with hour long, day by day and week by week outlines.
4. Practice Trading
It’s presently an ideal opportunity to consider going all in without surrendering your exchanging stake. Paper exchanging, or virtual exchanging, offers an ideal arrangement, permitting the novice to follow continuous market activities, settling on purchasing and selling choices that structure the framework of a hypothetical execution record. It ordinarily includes the utilization of a securities exchange test system that has the look and feel of a real stock trade’s presentation. Make loads of exchanges, utilizing diverse holding periods and procedures, and afterward examine the outcomes for evident defects.
Investopedia has a free financial exchange game, and numerous intermediaries let customers participate in paper exchanging with their genuine cash section frameworks, as well. This has the additional advantage of training the product so you don’t hit some unacceptable catches when you are playing with family reserves.
Anyway, when do you do the switch and begin exchanging with genuine cash? There’s no ideal answer in light of the fact that recreated exchanging conveys an imperfection that is probably going to show up at whatever point you begin to exchange no doubt, regardless of whether your paper results look great.
Brokers need to coincide calmly with the twin feelings of covetousness and dread. Paper exchanging doesn’t draw in these feelings, which must be capable by real benefit and misfortune. Indeed, this mental angle powers all the more first-year players out of the game than awful dynamic. Your child ventures forward as another broker necessities to perceive this test and address remaining issues with cash and self-esteem.
5. Other Ways to Learn and Practice Trading
While experience is a fine educator, remember about extra training as you continue on your exchanging vocation. Regardless of whether on the web or face to face, classes can be valuable, and you can discover them at levels going from beginner (with counsel on the best way to dissect the previously mentioned scientific diagrams, for instance) to expert. More particular courses — regularly led by an expert broker — can give important understanding into the general market and explicit speculation systems. Most spotlight on a particular sort of resource, a specific part of the market, or an exchanging method. Some might be scholarly, and others more like workshops in which you effectively take positions, try out section and leave methodologies, and different activities (frequently with a test system). | https://medium.com/@dipankardbn120/getting-started-in-stock-market-9a9344829f96 | ['Dipankar Debnath'] | 2020-12-27 15:43:03.657000+00:00 | ['Stock Market'] |
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