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What is the Stored Procedure in MySQL? learn easy in 2 steps. | A procedure is also called a stored procedure in MySQL. It is a subroutine (like a subprogram) in a regular scripting language, which is stored in a database. In the case of MySQL, the procedures are written in MySQL and stored in the MySQL database/server. A MySQL procedure consists of a name, a parameter list, and a SQL statement (s).
The reason to use stored procedure in MySQL?
Stored procedures in MySQL are faster. MySQL takes some advantage of server caching, as do ready statements. The main speed advantage comes from the decrease in network traffic. If you have a repetitive task with no checking, looping, multiple statements, and no user interaction, do this with a call to a process that is stored on the server.
Stored procedures are portable. When you write your stored procedure in SQL, you know that it will run on every platform on which MySQL runs, forcing you to install additional run-environment packages or program execution in the operating system. Sets permissions for, or deploys different packages. If you have different computer types. This has the advantage of writing in SQL rather than in an external language like Java or C or PHP.
Stored procedures are basically available as ‘source code’ in the database itself. And it makes sense to link data to processes that run on data.
Stored Procedures Are Migrant! MySQL follows quite closely the SQL. Others (DB2, Oracle) also follow.
There are different types of MySQL Stored Procedure: | https://medium.com/@sumant-jha26/what-is-the-stored-procedure-in-mysql-learn-easy-in-2-steps-ed6578db0081 | ['Sumant Jha'] | 2020-11-26 02:09:13.867000+00:00 | ['MySQL', 'Stored Procedure', 'Sql', 'Mysql Server', 'Sql Server'] |
How To Host a React Static Website on Azure | How To Host a React Static Website on Azure
A step by step guide with an example project
Photo by Domenico Loia on Unsplash
There are a number of ways you can build a website with React such as Java with React, NodeJS with React, NGINX serving React, etc. For the single-page applications, all you need to do is to load the initial index.html. Once you load the index.html the React library kicks in and do the rest of the job like loading components, calling API calls, etc. What if there are no backend calls and you want to build a static website with React?
Azure CDN with blob storage is one of the options which provides low cost and highly reliable static website hosting solution. These static sites have only CCS, HTML, JS files, fonts, etc. In this post, we can see how we can build a static website with React and host that on Azure.
Example Project
Prerequisites
Host Static Website With Azure Blob Storage
Deliver With Azure CDN
Uploading With Azure CLI
Summary
Conclusion
Example Project
Here is an example project which we can put in the Azure blob storage for static website hosting. This is a simple profile page with a header and some sections.
git clone // clone the projectgit clone https://github.com/bbachi/my-profile-react.git // install dependencies and start the project
npm install
npm start
You can clone the project and run it on your machine. Here is the demonstration when you run it on your localhost and the port 3000. | https://medium.com/bb-tutorials-and-thoughts/how-to-host-a-react-static-website-on-azure-438e0a915295 | ['Bhargav Bachina'] | 2020-06-03 05:06:00.816000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Cloud Computing', 'Azure', 'Web Development', 'React'] |
Polar bear Extinction | Polar Bear extinction by 2100:Arctic warming
So the question is what can we do for now? Efforts are needed from each and every person of this society and if no… | https://medium.com/@2496pankaj/polar-bear-extinction-9882638eac0a | ['Pankaj Yadav'] | 2020-12-27 15:40:40.369000+00:00 | ['Global Warming', 'Climate Change', 'Bears'] |
Live shopping isn’t coming — it’s already here | Singles Day, the annual Chinese shopping festival that happens on November 11th, kicked off this year on October 21st. It might sound strange for a one day festival to start 3 weeks early, but Singles Day has grown into a nearly month long shopping season with multiple presales events that are celebrated throughout China and even in Southeast Asia and parts of Europe.
And in regions where it’s not celebrated, Singles Day is still closely watched because of the record setting sales volumes it generates. For example in 2019, Singles Day resulted in more parcels shipped (1.66 billion) than there are people in China. Alibaba alone sold over $38 billion worth of merchandise on Singles Day. That was more than 4 times the volume that every company in the US generated on Cyber Monday combined, which added up to a comparatively meager $9.4 billion in sales.
2020 will be no exception with Singles Day sure to post all sorts of eye popping numbers. In fact, Singles Day has already produced one remarkable stat from October 21st: Alibaba sold a staggering $1.1 billion in merchandise in 30 minutes through its Taobao Live video service. That’s $36.7 million in sales happening every minute through live video shopping streams from internet celebrity influencers. To put that number in perspective, Qurate (owners of QVC and HSN who originated the live shopping format in the US) generated $3.4 billion in revenue in its most recent quarter. Alibaba did almost a third of that entire 3 month haul in only half an hour.
Star live shopping influencers Viya Huang and Li Jiaqi have generated a combined $150 million in sales for Singles Day already
Last year’s Singles Day event was already a coming out party for live shopping in China as Alibaba disclosed impressive stats from Taobao Live for the first time, which included:
$2.8 billion in total live shopping sales
17,000 brands who live streamed during the event to more than a 500 million viewers
And even one live shopping stream that sold 55 cars in 1 second
But somehow, 2020 is poised to be an even bigger moment for video ecommerce. Covid-19 has boosted live shopping to even new heights in 2020 as Alibaba reported a 7x increase in new merchants live streaming on their platform this year, and 126 million more viewers of those live shopping streams. The overall live shopping industry is forecasted to grow more than 100% YoY to reach $129 billion this year. And coming back to Singles Day, Alibaba Vice President Liu Bo expects live shopping to “take center stage” on November 11th. At the current growth rate, we may see live shopping account for a full 25% of all Singles Day sales this year, up from zero just a few years ago.
So as live shopping is poised to breakout again during China’s biggest ecommerce event of the year, what’s the outlook for online live shopping in the US? When will we see the format have a similarly significant, multibillion dollar impact in this country. After all, we are responsible for the offline combination of video and commerce when HSN first began broadcasting in 1982. Given our nearly 40 year head start, why hasn’t online live shopping broken out yet in the US?
Maybe it already has.
Storytelling, Intimacy, and Authenticity
So what is it that makes live shopping special in the first place? The format, which combines video and commerce, has three important benefits:
Storytelling. Video itself, the combination of sight + sound + motion, has no peer in its ability to tell rich stories. This applies to live shopping as well, where products can be shown off in engaging, attention grabbing ways that often involve debuts or “first looks”. Intimacy. At QVC, the goal for the host is to create an “over the backyard fence” feeling to their broadcasts that draws viewers in as if they are listening to a conversation with an enthusiastic and knowledgeable friend. This same type of personal feel is even more pronounced online as hosts can interact with viewers to create an even more intimate relationship. Authenticity. It’s harder to fake things in video, compared to text and images. When a host shows a specific product doing a specific task in a live shopping stream, they most likely are in possession of that product and it is indeed doing that task. Video is simply more authentic than other media formats.
And these 3 benefits match exactly to a traditional purchasing funnel that maps out the steps a customer goes through when conducting commerce:
Awareness: the customer becomes aware that a product or service exists. Compelling video storytelling allows new products to stand out and be noticed by customers. Consideration: the customer learns more about the product or service to inform their decision. Intimacy with the shopping host who is explaining and endorsing a product gives the customer conviction around their purchase decision. Transaction: the customer decides to buy the product or service. Seeing the host they trust use the product in a video creates authenticity that the product is safe and legitimate to buy.
As commerce consultant Rick Watson eloquently says, online live shopping represents “the entire purchase funnel in one place”. It certainly does in China, where Alibaba will drive billions of dollars in online live shopping sales next week. But what about in the US, where the digital successor to QVC has yet to fully emerge?
Sure you can argue that online live shopping hasn’t had a defining moment yet stateside. But if you break down online live shopping into its individual benefits of storytelling, intimacy, and authenticity, there are actually clear examples of breakout momentum already happening in the US.
For storytelling, take Apple’s annual WWDC conference, which drew an online audience of 22 million this past June. That’s 22 million people (almost twice the number who tuned into the championship clinching Game 6 of the MLB World Series) that watched what was effectively a live commercial promoting Apple products through news and narrative. Every year, Apple brilliantly uses live video at WWDC to drive awareness of their products and services (as does Google with I/O, Facebook with Connect, Amazon with Alexa Live, and more).
Apple CEO Tim Cook at WWDC 2020
For intimacy, take the unboxing video category on YouTube and other video platforms, which is arguably the closest online reimagination of QVC with charismatic social media influencers expertly playing the role of shopping host as they open, use, review, and opine on products. While the unboxing happen both through live streams and ondemand videos, the effect is the same: users can listen and participate in conversations about products in an intimate setting that helps them develop conviction to buy or not. This has led to 68% of YouTube users reporting that they watch YouTube videos to help them make a purchase decision.
Recent live streams from YouTube tech unboxing star Linus Tech Tips
And that brings us to authenticity and the key difference currently between the China market and the US market for online live shopping: authenticity doesn’t solve an acute problem in the US. In both China and the US, live shopping provides tremendous user value with its storytelling and intimacy benefits. But only in China has the the authenticity benefit proven invaluable because of the greater prevalence of counterfeit and fraud with online transactions. This has led customers in China to purchase billions of dollars worth of products directly from live shopping videos, which offer a higher degree of authenticity. However in the US, where we have buyer protection programs, credit card disputes, and other ways to safeguard the purchaser, we don’t need live shopping’s authenticity to provide another solution. US shoppers are therefore perfectly comfortable completing the transaction and buying the product elsewhere, even though they may have discovered and developed conviction for that product from live shopping.
While online live shopping spans the full purchase funnel in China (awareness, consideration, and transaction steps), it’s an upper funnel experience in the US. Again that doesn’t mean that live shopping hasn’t seen big success in this country. It just means that success has been mostly within the awareness and consideration steps, instead of generating the kind of big sales numbers that China can tout which happen lower funnel.
The lower funnel is there, just indirect
As the world has been sheltering in place, video games have seen a spike in popularity as a way to both keep ourselves entertained and interact with others. Two games have enjoyed particularly noteworthy popularity during Covid-19: Fall Guys and Among Us.
Fall Guys became the number one game on Steam selling 7 million copies, and also became the most downloaded game of all time on PlayStation Plus — and that was all in its first month of release. Since September 1st, Among Us has been the number one overall iPhone app in the App Store for 52 days (and the past 42 consecutive days), making it more popular than Zoom, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube over that period. The app had over 84 million phone downloads in September alone. Combined, the two games have generated more than $200 million in revenue this fall.
In addition to both being created by independent game studios, Fall Guys and Among Us also shared another common characteristic: they both owe their breakout success to live shopping. Immediately upon its debut, Fall Guys became the most streamed party game with viewers watching as much as 6 million hours per day. Not to be outdone, Among Us took over the top position in September hitting a peak of 9 million hours watched per day. That’s hundreds of millions of hours watching live video streams of gamers playing and talking about Fall Guys and Among Us. Hundreds of millions of hours watching a host use and discuss a product over live video. Sound familiar?
Still don’t see the connection? Then take the hit game Fortnite, which earned nearly $1.8 billion in revenue last year, mostly from selling in-game virtual goods like character outfits (or skins). Early this year, Fortnite partnered with popular streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins on a custom skin, which Ninja promoted to his fans during his game streams. Ninja was literally selling a $15 product via a live video stream just like a live shopping host might.
For Among Us and Fall Guys, the live streams also functioned just like live shopping videos. The game streams are packed with engaging storytelling, creating tremendous awareness of those games. The streamers connect with their viewers through close, intimate conversations, which informs consideration on whether the games are worth owning and playing. And then those viewers, after watching those video streams, went off and purchased Fall Guys and Among Us in record numbers. Even though that transaction occurred on Steam instead of Twitch, it still occurred because of the live stream on Twitch.
This is just one of countless examples of awareness and consideration from online live shopping driving transactions. Apple generates huge sales in the weeks following WWDC and their other product events. Purchases. Toy company Zuru recently shared that unboxing videos that they posted on TikTok led to significant increases in their toy sales. More purchases. The lower funnel transactions do end up eventually happening even in the US market from online live shopping. They just end up happening later, indirectly, and mostly outside of the video experience.
But this will change. Although analog live shopping on TV is mature in the US, remember that online live shopping and the blending of video and ecommerce in general is still in its infancy. And with more time, there will sure to be more innovations that grow live shopping and video ecommerce to cover the entire purchase funnel.
Live shopping is here, but it’s also coming. | https://efeng.medium.com/live-shopping-isnt-coming-it-s-already-here-5f5b2230e5b2 | ['Eric Feng'] | 2020-11-09 00:13:54.523000+00:00 | ['Shopping', 'Live Streaming', 'Ecommerce', 'Alibaba', 'Live'] |
Pro-Abortion Hypocrisy Has Never Been Clearer | Your post is a good example of the hypocrisy of the Left: IVF should be against the law; it removes the one remaining evolutionary filter on the next generation: In sexual reproduction, the strongest, fastest sperm makes it to the ovum, ensuring the best chance for the resulting embryo to be healthy. Added to this is the obvious fact that both the male and the female need to be fertile. Survival of the Fittest is Darwin’s Law of evolution: it is unnatural and anti-evolution to artificially fertilise an egg with defective sperm in a test tube. If this practise becomes widespread, eventually no-one will be able to reproduce without IVF: do we really want that? And the morality of fertilising multiple eggs and then discarding the excess embryos as if they were garbage is just another reason IVF should be banned. Before IVF, adoption was common for would-be parents who were infertile: IVF is not the only solution.
Now to deal with your bizarre claim that Republican policy is “about controlling women, and the anti-abortion movement’s legislative apathy toward IVF proves it.” The solution is not more and easier abortions, it is to stop women getting pregnant in the first place. In 99% of unwanted pregnancies, the fault is the man’s for not wearing a condom. Simple: make it against the law for a man to have sex without a condom, unless in a committed relationship where children are wanted. The women can enforce this with a simple rule: do not consent to sex without a condom. “If it is not on, it is not on!”
“A woman’s right to choose” should be exercised before having sex, not afterwards. As a man I can guarantee that a man will choose to wear a condom if the alternative is to not have sex at all. It is time men took some responsibility for avoiding unwanted pregnancies, and avoiding the spread of STDs at the same time. The Pro-Abortion is very much about the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff: why not be proactive for once? Women own the power of consent: they should exercise it! | https://medium.com/@abs4fr/your-post-is-a-good-example-of-the-hypocrisy-of-the-left-ivf-should-be-against-the-law-it-removes-73f62d8d9d82 | ['Al Black'] | 2019-06-15 05:43:21.094000+00:00 | ['Abortion', 'Womens Rights', 'Politics', 'Contraception', 'Pro Life'] |
This account of childhood abandonment is compelling with details of a maternal relationship, as… | This account of childhood abandonment is compelling with details of a maternal relationship, as well as a Sicilian family’s instinct to protect and nurture. This writer has a talent to be intimate with the reader, which is a magnetic quality. | https://medium.com/@dechenkarlthurman/this-account-of-childhood-abandonment-is-compelling-with-details-of-a-maternal-relationship-as-650571ccba33 | ['Dechen Karl Thurman'] | 2020-12-18 14:42:46.911000+00:00 | ['Show Business', 'Sicilian', 'New York City', 'Grandmother', 'Childhood'] |
Musings & Mutterings | Hello, beautiful people! Welcome to A Cornered Gurl. If you have decided to take this journey with me, thank you. It is good to see you here and I am delighted to be in your presence. First things first… Why A Cornered Gurl? I have had the idea thrown at me to create my own publication for sometime now and I have often batted it because of apprehension. However, the time feels right, so I am going with the flow. Thus, here. we. are.
The name has been in use for about eleven years. It fits. It sticks. It is who I was and who I still am from time to time — a cornered girl. Backed into dark spaces until light comes for me. When I thought of a name for the pub, that one summoned my spirit and dutifully, I answered. A close second was Simple Soul Sister.
Now that we have gotten the formalities out and in the open, naked and unashamed, what will you find here?
Poetry/Prose/Fiction/Creative Nonfiction/Micropoetry/Collaborations (with permission from those who choose to collaborate with me)/& Heart Work
This space will be my very own playground and if you are feeling young and free, this space could be your escape. Letters will post once a month in “Pub News” informing you of the latest goings-on with the publication and what you can expect in the near future. In these letters, I will highlight Writers who are giving their all to Medium and could use a few more eyes on them or their work and perhaps one or two published works of mine. Let us begin with:
Jewel has recently taken on the beautiful form that is haiku and she is giving a new life to it that I am happy to witness. You will be happy too.
Tien Skye is taking on six word stories in his publication, Cracked Pieces and invites readers and Writers to participate. I have done so and it is a fun exercise in brevity that I will always love. Please check him out.
John Porter is coming out of his shell and serving us with massive fictional and poetry writing skills. His words are worth your time.
Finally, within this publication, an Audio Poem entitled “Hollywood To Go.” In this piece, I try to convey a young man’s dream to make it out of his neighborhood and on to bigger and better things with his lack of talent, but spirited drive.
This is your first Musings & Mutterings A Cornered Gurl informative letter. Any pub related inquiries can be submitted to acorneredgurl(AT)gmail(dot)com. I will respond within one business day. Thank you for your time, mind, and eyes. As always, peace and blessings. | https://medium.com/a-cornered-gurl/musings-mutterings-d2ee68b1677f | ['Tre L. Loadholt'] | 2017-10-08 23:38:01.990000+00:00 | ['Announcements', 'Publication', 'Letters', 'Community', 'A Cornered Gurl'] |
Trump Appointee Charged In Capitol Insurrection | Klein In FBI Online Wanted Poster Prior To His Identification
Two days after his inauguration Donald Trump appointed Federico Klein to a State Department position for which Klein was granted Top Secret clearance. He served in that position until January 19, 2021, resigning the day before Biden’s inauguration. So on January 6th Klein was still in his Top Secret clearance job that Trump appointed him to.
Yesterday (Thursday, March 4th) Klein was arrested in connection with the Capitol Hill riot. The charges include assaulting police officers to include assaulting them with a police shield that he stole. The charging documents also state that there are multiple videos of this member of the Trump Administration “inciting the mob.”
For two weeks after he participated in an insurrection, and (per charging documents) violently assaulted police with a dangerous or deadly weapon, this guy remained in the Trump Administration, collecting his tax payer funded salary. Prior to Trump’s appointment of him to this position Klein was employed by the Trump Campaign.
Can you imagine if this were reversed? Suppose a Biden appointee with a top secret clearance was arrested in a BLM riot. Can you imagine what Republicans in Congress would be saying? Can you imagine what Hannity, Tucker, and Pirro on Fox would be saying?
Can you imagine what Trump would be saying? | https://medium.com/@keithdb/two-days-after-his-inauguration-donald-trump-appointed-federico-klein-to-a-state-department-828ce90e111e | [] | 2021-03-05 18:08:38.005000+00:00 | ['Insurrection', 'Trump Administration', 'Politics', 'Capitol Riot', 'Election 2020'] |
Paid protester website highlights difference between disinformation and parody | A satirical website that claims to offer protesters-for-hire has ignited conspiracy theories among far-right Facebook groups suggesting the current protest actions in the United States are staged. The website, Protestjobs.com, has been shared over 30,000 times in Facebook posts since the start of the year, with the vast majority of these shares occurring after May 31.
Satirical news reports being mistaken for legitimate news is not a new phenomenon, with websites like The Onion (which grew out of its eponymous paper copy) and Clickhole occasionally being picked up by mainstream influencers or organizations as actual news. Comprehending the distinction is not always easy, as disclaimers on these satirical sources are not always straightforward or transparent.
The relationship between satire and disinformation is a funny one. Described above, some disinformants use existing satire and parody and hope their audience takes it as fact. While in other cases, we see the inverse: disinformants getting caught in the act, then claiming that it was all a joke. Their disinformation was a parody. The result is a convoluted information environment.
The Protestjobs.com website and its Twitter account (@protestjobs) has historically been used to troll people claiming that protesters are paid during a number of protests in the United States and around the world. The website has been openly studied as satire, and it has now ironically itself become “proof” that paid-for actors are used to agitate and amplify the protests.
Based on a tip from BuzzFeed, a DFRLab analysis shows that the parody website was mistaken for truth and used by pro-Trump, far-right, and conspiracist groups on Facebook to delegitimize the ongoing protests against police brutality, not only in the United States, but in Australia and Canada as well.
False flags and satire
The Protestjobs.com website was registered more than three years ago on February 2, 2017. Since its inception, little has changed; the website offers users the option to hire “millions of protesters” using one of several packages, ranging from the affordable “EZ-riot” (with an optional “car/dumpster fire” upgrade) to a tailor-made package that includes celebrity appearances and a tweet by National Parks. | https://medium.com/dfrlab/paid-protester-website-highlights-difference-between-disinformation-and-parody-d1ac41988551 | [] | 2020-06-05 00:13:44.020000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'George Floyd', 'Protest', 'Fake News', 'Facebook'] |
How does the “Asian” identity harm Southeast Asian Americans? | Images of activists from the Hmong, Lao, Khmer, Viet, and Mien communities in support of AB-1726, a California bill that proposed disaggregating demographic data within the Asian American community. (Image taken by the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center, which is not affiliated with this post.)
Content warning: this article contains a brief mention of suicide.
Let me start by saying that I do not identify as Asian American. I am Southeast Asian. When most folks think of “Asian” people, they’re mostly speaking about East Asians, that is to say Japanese, Chinese, and Korean people; South Asian, Pacific Islander, Central Asian, and Southeast Asian people are usually left out of consideration. For the purposes of this conversation, I will focus on the distinction between Southeast Asian Americans and the dominant East Asian American community, and why we should be intentional about properly addressing members of the Asian diaspora.
The differences between our two communities are largely rooted in hundreds of years of systemic oppression, including waves of American imperialist racism. As a whole, East Asian communities are wealthier, have higher levels of educational attainment, and have deeper roots in America compared to Southeast Asians — this success can be attributed to East Asian countries’ extensive colonization of other Asian countries (China colonized Viet Nam for approximately 1000 years in total), as well as the targeted waves of East Asian immigrants who came to the United States since the 1800s seeking work as physical laborers, or later, as waves of highly-skilled/educated immigrants following the 1965 Immigration Act. East Asians also dominate Asian beauty standards, so while many Southeast Asians have features like darker skin and flat noses, we are also beholden to these norms as well, largely due to previous colonization as well as current East Asian investment into our beauty and entertainment industries.
Compare this to the Southeast Asian refugees who came to the US in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. While there were some Southeast Asians who had come to the US as students or immigrants prior to 1975 (the end of America’s involvement in Viet Nam), for the most part, Southeast Asian people living in the US were fleeing turmoil in Laos, Cambodia, and Viet Nam. As a community, we shared trauma from war and colonization (including colonization by East Asian countries), substandard living conditions, inadequate governmental support, intra-Asian rejection from East Asian American communities, resentment from Americans who blamed us for America’s military involvement in Southeast Asia, all while our communities coped with a complete lack of existing cultural infrastructure such as churches, markets, or interpreting services.
I am not denying the suffering within East Asian communities, but rather acknowledging the need for Southeast Asian struggles to be counted separately in order to make sure our community can get the resources we need. Trying to live up to the East Asian “model minority” standard caused me to attempt to take my own life when I was a teenager, because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be academically excellent or conventionally attractive no matter how hard I tried, since the “Asian” narrative I was trying to live up to did not account for my family’s trauma from war and displacement, my inability to live up to East Asian beauty standards, or how my parents’ trauma and limited educational attainment impacted their ability to support me academically (especially when I pursued higher education). Again, projecting East Asian narratives and expectations onto Southeast Asians is incredibly harmful.
To add insult to injury, East Asian Americans have continually held Southeast Asian Americans back by fighting against government disaggregation of APIA (Asian Pacific Islander American) data, largely due to fears that this will impact East Asian college admissions, which is incredibly insulting to Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander communities, for whom accurate demographic data would mean more resources to improve our healthcare, educational access (like resources to help more of our people finish high school or access vocational training), and ability to secure housing assistance.
This is why most do not consider East Asians as BBIPOC (Black, Brown, Indigenous, People of Color), due to the combination of past and present colonization, as well as the current political dynamic between East Asians and BBIPOC. I implore you to, out of respect for Southeast Asians and other marginalized Asians, be intentional about how you speak about us and address us. Not all “Asians” have trauma from war. Not all “Asians” are refugees. And, as a result of our being viewed as a monolithic unit, not all Asians have the resources they need to succeed educationally, socially, and economically. The ways in which you address us acknowledge our humanity, struggles, and our history. | https://medium.com/@michellexo/how-does-the-asian-identity-harm-southeast-asians-e07a73ec7eb1 | ['Michelle Xèo'] | 2019-02-09 01:43:58.087000+00:00 | ['Asian American', 'Southeast Asia'] |
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Watch Spider-Man: No Way Home Miles Morales conjures his life between being a middle school student and becoming Spider-Man: No Way Home.
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He is someone we don’t see happening. Still, Brie Larson’s resume is impressive. The actress has been playing on TV and film sets since she was 11 years old. One of those confused with Swedish player Alicia Vikander (Tomb Raider) won an Oscar in 2016. She was the first Marvel movie star with a female leader. . And soon, he will play a CIA agent in a movies commissioned by Apple for his future platform. The movies he produced together.
Unknown to the general public in 2016, this “neighbor girl” won an Academy Ausd for best actress for her poignant appearance in the “Room”, the true story of a woman who was exiled with her child by predators. He had overtaken Cate Blanchett and Jennifer Lawrence, both of them hadAus out of statues, but also Charlotte Rampling and Saoirse Ronan.
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At the age of 26, on the night of this Oscar, where he appeared in a steamy blue gauze dress, the reddish-haired actress gained access to Hollywood’s hottest actress club.
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We begin at the beginning: It’s a lovely, late spring day in Smalltown USA. A tall, lanky man — let’s call him Lee Abbott — gets out of his truck and ducks into a small general store on Main Street. He walks through the aisles, past a shelf full of toy space shuttles, and grabs some bottles of water and snacks. The owner argues with a customer as Lee nods and whizzes out the door. In the background, news reports mention unusual phenomena happening in various cities.
At a Little League game already in full swing (sorry), Lee’s school-age son Marcus is warming up in the dugout. The rest of the Abbotts, including Lee’s wife Evelyn, his hearing-impaired daughter Regan and the youngest, Beau, are enjoying the game. Lee trades a few words with the man sitting behind him, the kind of guy who rolls his sleeves up past his biceps sans irony. His son is playing as well. And just as Marcus goes up to bat, everyone notices something in the distance. Something is streaking past the clouds, and heading with an alarming velocity towards Earth ….
You should soak in the prologue that kicks off Spider-Man: No Way Home: F9, John Krasinski’s follow-up to his out-of-nowhere 2018 hit — it’s a brilliant watch-the-skies movie in miniature, filled with lack-of-sound and fury, and it distills everything that made the original so unique and exhilarating into a single set piece. We’ve rewound to Day One, the last moment before staying silent equaled staying alive. The bewildered crowd has no sooner gathered on Main Street then those aliens, the ones that answer the eternal question “what would it look like if a daddy-long-legs spider mated with Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors,” make their presence known. Havoc ensues.
Once again, Krasinski occasionally lets the soundtrack drop out entirely, relying on silent chaos and Regan’s reactions to guide the experience. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’re familiar with the POV shot of an oncoming bus on a collision course with the Abbotts’ car, as one spindly arm reaches out of a cracked windshield. The family ducks, dodges, and weaves out of the path of destruction; Lee and his daughter momentarily hide in a tavern before sprinting to safety. Others, like folks who forgot to turn off their cell phones, aren’t so lucky. Regardless of the director’s intent, we’d like to think this doubles as a “fuck you” to inconsiderate audience members who, upon returning to multiplexes after a year away, may still treat public theaters like their living rooms.
Speaking of which: It’s this early, standalone mash-up of Norman Rockwell’s Americana and straight-outta-Heinlein cosmic carnage that reminds you why we’ve been so anxious to return to those shared spaces in the dark. Like a countless other films big and small, Spider-Man: No Way Home: F9 was set to be released last year before a real-life nightmare overtook the fictional ones we consider escapism. An opening salvo of everyday life interrupted by an out-of-nowhere threat, which then escalates quickly into emergency measures and confusion, plays slightly differently near the midpoint of 2021. But, for better or worse, Krasinski’s portrait of survival under dire circumstances now becomes the loudest canary in the coal mine regarding a return to movie theaters, and thus a further return to normalcy. Part II‘s kickoff gives you thrills-spills-chills mayhem that would play well in any space. See it in a room with dozens of people shrieking, and the sequence is a concentrated dose of joyful delirium.
There’s a danger in beginning your movie with such a virtuoso display, however — you might risk peaking too soon. (Just ask Zack Snyder.) After the rush of this Spider-Man: No Way Home, we’re whisked back to the present, a.k.a. minutes after the first movie’s climax. Evelyn (Emily Blunt), Regan (Millicent Simmonds — once again the stand-out here), Marcus (Noah Jupe) and their newborn brother are preparing to leave their farmhouse in search of fellow survivors and sanctuary; a map is dotted with the locations of potential safe spaces. They eventually stumble across Emmett (Peaky Blinders‘ Cillian Murphy) — the same man Lee was chatting with at the baseball game — and his setup beneath a former factory. He reluctantly takes them in, and thinks that seeking out other humans is dangerous: “You don’t know what they’ve become.” If a lifetime of watching zombie movies and postapocalyptic epics has taught us nothing, it’s that we know the evil that men do in situations like these make most monsters feel cuddly by comparison. The haggard gent has a point.
Still, Regan persists. The family has stumbled upon a transmission, broadcasting an endless loop of Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea.” She senses a clue in the title: Look for an island, and there’s your Eden. Evelyn wants to stay put, collect their bearings and let an injured Marcus heal. Her daughter takes off in the dead of night, against Mom’s wishes. Emmett goes after her, initially to bring her back. But there may be something to this young woman’s idea that, somewhere out there, a brighter tomorrow is but a boat ride away.
From here, Krasinski and his below-the-line dream team — shoutouts galore to composer Marco Beltrami, cinematographer Polly Morgan and (especially) editor Michael P. Shawver, as well as the CGI-creature crew — toggle between several planes of action. Regan and Emmett on the road. Evelyn on a supply run. Marcus and the baby back home, evading creepy-crawly predators. Some nail-biting business involving oxygen tanks, gasoline, a dock, a radio station and a mill’s furnace, which has been converted to temporary panic room, all come into play. Nothing tops that opening sequence, naturally, and you get the sense that Krasinski & Co. aren’t trying to. He’s gone on record as saying that horror was always a means to an end for him, though he certainly knows how to sustain tension and use the frame wisely in the name of scares. The former Office star was more interested in audiences rooting for this family. His chips are on you caring enough about the Abbotts to follow them anywhere.
And yet, after that go-for-broke preamble, it’s hard not to feel like Spider-Man: No Way Home: F9 is all dressed up and, even with its various inter-game missions and boss-level fights, left with nowhere really to go. If the first film doubled as a parenting parable, this second one concerns the pains of letting someone leave the nest, yet even that concept feels curiously unexplored here. Ditto the idea that, when it comes to the social contract under duress, you will see the best of humanity and, most assuredly, the worst — a notion that not even Krasinski, who made Part 1 in the middle of the Trump era, could have guessed would resonate far more more loudly now. (What a difference a year, and a global pandemic followed by an political insurrection, makes.) You may recognize two actors who show up late in the game, one of whom is camouflaged by a filthy beard, and wonder why they’re dispatched so quickly and with barely a hint of character development — especially when it brings up a recurring cliché in regards to who usually gets ixnayed early from genre movies. Unless, of course, it’s a feint and they’re merely waiting in the wings, ready for more once the next chapter drops. Which brings us to the movie’s biggest crime.
Without giving any specifics away (though if you’re sensitive to even the suggestion of spoilers, bye for now), Spider-Man: No Way Home: F9 ends on a cliffhanger. A third film, written and directed by Midnight Special‘s Jeff Nichols, is in the works. And while many follow-ups to blockbusters serve as bridges between a beginning and an ending — some of which end up being superior to everything before/after it — there’s something particularly galling about the way this simply, abruptly stops dead in its tracks. No amount of clever formalism or sheer glee at being back in a movie theater can enliven a narrative stalled in second gear, and no amount of investment in these family members can keep you from feeling like you’ve just sat through a placeholder, a time-killer.
A Quiet Place was a riff on alien invasion movies with chops and a heart, a lovely self-contained genre piece that struck a chord. Part II feels like just another case of sequel-itis, something designed to metastasize into just another franchise among many. Just get through this, it says, and then tune in next year, next summer, next financial quarter statement or board-meeting announcement, for the real story. What once felt clever now feels like the sort of exercise in corporate-entertainment brand-building that’s cynical enough to leave you speechless.
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I GUESS YOU WONDER WHERE I’VE BEEN- A TAROT INTERPRETATION OF THE BOBBY CALDWELL SONG | Love and Romance — the Soul source of Tarot
I guess you wonder where I’ve been, a popular song of the 70s, composed by Bobby Caldwell for the superhit album ‘What you won’t do for love’ lyrics. I am sure you guys are wondering why am I taking this song for writing an article on Tarot cards.
Well! it is simple, as simple as the feeling of love itself, or rather as complex as love can be. I will try to answer the following questions with the help of Tarot cards.
1. Can Tarot deck influence some one’s romantic life?
2. How can Tarot help in kindling the feeling of love?
3. What is the comparison between the expression of love and physical attraction with respect to Tarot cards?
4. Can Heart break be deciphered through Tarot cards?
5. Can Tarot cards indicate a person falling in love multiple times?
6. What about repairing hearts? Can Tarot cards work as a doctor to two separated souls?
7. Is there really something like True love in this world?
But let us first see what Bobby Caldwell has to say in the song ‘What you won’t do for love.’’
I guess you wonder where I’ve been,
I searched to find a love within
I came back to let you know
Got a thing for you and I can’t let go’
So goes the first stanza of the song which will go in parallel to our discussion. So what is love? In Tarot culture, love is like the sixth sense common to all human beings. It is influenced by and influences the five senses of the body and mind. A person in love eagerly awaits to enjoy the sense of touch of the partner, yearns for the sight and scent. awaits for beloved soul’s intimacy to hear the voice, needless to talk about the sense of taste.
In Tarot culture, the deck with 78 cards is divided into two Arcana. The Major Arcana comprises of 22 cards and can be referred to as destiny cards while the Minor Arcana totals to 56 cards, which is 14 cards each of Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles, beginning from the Aces or the 1s going up to the Kings. The Minor Arcana can also be referred to as the ‘Karma cards’ or the destiny you create for yourself in the world.
MAJOR ARCANA — PERSONA TAROT CARDS
In my experience, each card of the Major and the Minor arcana has its own unique contribution while interpreting the romance life of an individual. If we start discussing the details, we may need write a whole book to do the same, which certainly is not the purpose of this article, so I will directly jump to the point.
The Lovers card is the 6th card in Major arcana. While there are multiple Tarot decks which have been created since their advent, in modern times, one of the most popular is the Rider-Waite tarot deck. The Love card below is taken from the same deck.
Attribution-By Pamela Coleman Smith — a 1909 card scanned by Holly Voley (http://home.comcast.net/~vilex/) for the public domain, and retrieved from http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot (see note on that page regarding source of images), PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31022146
Take a close look at the card, as every inch of the picture will tell you a story. The Number 6 of the card represents victory, achievement or accomplishment of a project. You can see the Garden which can represent the Garden of Eden, with the first human lovers namely Adam and Eve standing on the right and left sides respectively. Above them is the owner of the Garden.
Now let us interpret the love card appearing in the Deck, for a querent, who’s curious question is about his or her mate. I had mentioned earlier, the love card is a Destiny card and is indicative of your romance angle of life as a reflection of your persona. In Zodiac, it is represented by the Sign of Gemini but we are not taking astrology approach here.
A person, whose spread has this card in prominence in the spread, is indicative of his/her romantic nature. Such a person is always seeking and is generally successful in love. Finding a soul mate may not be very difficult however this kind of a persona is generally seen to be a sacrificing human being . He or she is always ready to please the partner, no matter what ever it takes, and could often end up spending a large amount of their material and emotional wealth to make their lover happy. Such people are used to loving from their heart. They are equally good and committed friends to have.
If the lover card comes upside during a reading, and is supported with other cards giving it further strength, you can trust your partner to be truthful and committed. Voila! problem solved. but what if the card comes façade reversed? but what about the innocent mistakes or a bad decision taken in love?
There is a possibility that the card comes reversed while querying about the partner. Well, they may not drastically change qualities of the love tarot card, we discussed above, but yes, your partner is likely to be more practical in approach. He or she are not likely to be driven by pure sensation of the heartbeat but are the ones who are likely to be delving in the physical aspect of romance. They are likely to get physically attracted first to their partner, while the chords of the heart begin vibrating much later on.
If the love card appears reverse, then it could be an indication to take good care of yourself in terms of pepping up your dressing and looks. Wear the kind of perfume, which is likely to attract your partner more than anything else. Try interesting things as you would need bring both of you close to each other for a longer duration, where you can make use of the other senses to come closer to the heart.
Heart break deciphered through Tarot cards.
Oops! this could be not something anybody would like to experience, but sometimes, the environmental factors are not under anyone’s control. What is taken as the feeling of love by one partner could be pure infatuation for the other. The Devil card in Tarot deck again has a man and a woman in picture, but this time, the power in the background is not an angel unlike the lovers card, but that of a devil.
Attribution By Pamela Coleman Smith — a 1909 card scanned by Holly Voley (http://home.comcast.net/~vilex/) for the public domain, and retrieved from http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot (see note on that page regarding source of images)., PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17299722
Take a look at the card from the Rider-Waite tarot deck and compare the the love card with this card. Love card is No 6 while the Devil card is No 15 which is 1+5=6, so both end up with the key no six here. So what what’s so great about it? Well, the point I am trying to make here is that if this card appears on a question related to romance, the aspect of heart break may take over. However- if you deeply observe this card, the man and the woman are loosely chained to each other. Does it mean that their union is purely due to physical attraction between each other, and once the fires of passion are dowsed, the chain will break!
The other aspect of this card appearing throws a possibility that only half of the story is known, the other half is still a unknown, this is very often a reason behind most confrontations between partners- a misunderstanding. A suggestion here if this card appears- spend time with your partner, discuss every point and do not get up before you reach to a consensus. Very often, the issue would be,
‘’ I don’t like the coffee you make’’
‘’you don’t love me any more’’
‘’ you love your job more than me’’
“ I am fed up of your cell phone ringing”
Such things could be sorted out and love be rekindled, I would suggest, go for a short lazy vacation where both of you can give a lot of time to each other.
‘I came back to let you know
Got a thing for you and I can’t let go’
Can Tarot card indicate a person falling in love multiple times?
Take a look at the star card. It may appear for the querent, trying to gain some insights on a broken relationship. You can see a lady staring at water, observe deeply to realize that she is also pouring water into the lake. I am sure you would have heard of the popular adage,’ No point crying over spilled milk’. Yes, it is time to look forward to more stars that adorn the sky. Time to forget the past and move ahead in life. The soul in despair- look at the reflection of shining stars in the water and realize, that there can be so many opportunities waiting. So it is actually not worth grumbling about the past. Time to move ahead. Life is beautiful.
Attribution- By Pamela Coleman Smith — a 1909 card scanned by Holly Voley (http://home.comcast.net/~vilex/) for the public domain, and retrieved from http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot (see note on that page regarding source of images)., PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17299744
Here I will also bring the concept of the Minor Arcana Cards especially the Cups. As I had mentioned earlier, each card in the Façade Tarot card reading spread matters. There are no specific cards on every subject, but some cards can have a higher influence, Cup cards being one of them. Another aspect of Tarot cards is that they were also used to play games historically, with the Minor Arcana being similar to the playing cards, the Cup cards can be related to the Hearts.
You are my world meme
Please see the card below. It is taken from the RW Tarot deck.
By Authorship: Arthur Edward Waite, Pamela Coleman Smith was the artist and worked as an artist 'for hire.' Waite was the copyright holder and he died in 1942. — This image scanned by Holly Voley, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35262362
TWO OF CUPS
Once again, we have a man and a woman exchanging the cups while looking into each other’s eyes. In between them are snakes, wings and Lion head. representing the heroism as well as danger involved in this bonding. Two of Cards is also a representative of sexual attraction, which also leads to bonding. It can also represent potential bonding of ideas, other than just bodies, making the union stronger. A reverse card here may lead to hurdles in a relationship, or un necessary interventions from the divisive forces which could be both from within or outside.
Three of Cups is an indicator of a third person entering this bond, so this card has to be carefully interpreted. It may indicate celebration out of the union in terms of child birth, however it may also indicate in certain cases a third person entering between the two spoiling the relationship, especially if the card appears reversed.
Can Tarot cards work to bandage two separated souls?
Tarot cards are a representation of a person’s Karma. They can provide an insight and direction if stuck up in a situation, however the efforts will be needed from the person concerned.
Another stanza from the Bobby Caldwell — What You Won’t Do For Love
‘Some people go around the world for love
But they may never find what they dream of’
Most of the people don’t know what they want from their partner, or perhaps that there is nothing like the term, ‘perfect partner’. You may go around the globe searching for one, later or sooner to realize that nothing’s perfect in this world. Such person, if you are, I really cannot help, or rather no one in the world will be able to help.
If you are aware what your are dreaming of, if you are clear in your mind the kind of soul mate or romance partner you are looking for but are unable to fill the gaps in life, you can look forward for some meditation on Tarot cards. Meditation in this case is nothing but strengthening your ‘Karma energies’, to help you reach closer to your goal. It is like empowering the spirit within you to achieve a goal, with I yes I can do it attitude and trust me it is very simple.
Tarot cards, though can be related with astrology involving complex calculations of planetary movements etc. which however needs to be interpreted by a knowledgeable person, the cards spreads are an indicator of your mind and soul. The cards appearing in the spread at the time of the question gives a lot of insight of the sate of your mind.
I am sure you would agree that every life is nothing but a ‘song’ spun around a soul with a body. Tarot cards work in a similar way. All the energies of love and romance lie within our soul. Positive thoughts in your mind instigate the positive side of the energy and negative thoughts impact the negative side. How often have you realized that you thought negative and the negative happened… almost all the time, right? Here, we will try to accelerate the positive energy of the mind using Tarot cards.
Meditation for love with the help of Tarot cards
Step1
Take the picture of a person you love, we will call him or her the significator. Keep the picture in your hands to warm it up.
Step 2
Take your own picture and place it on the left.
Step 3
Place the Major Arcana Lover card Upright in between. It would be still better if you can make the significator (right) and your picture (left) face each other with the love card in between the two. Speak out the name of your significator.
Step 4
Meditate at the love card and bring positive thoughts in your mind. Use this time to think of the romantic adventures you would like to have with the special person in your thought. It would be like day dreaming The most ideal time to do this is before going to bed in the night time.
Step 5
Once you are done with your mediation, you can light thirteen red candles around the spread such that each candles adds to the positive thought. The candles are just embellishments, to create an aura of romance lighting up the red color. It is not a compulsion. Remember we have to focus on the meditation part rather than making this a ritual.
A word of caution here is — do this meditation in good faith, never attempt to eye on some one’s partner as it will not work with a selfish motive.
Nine of Cups Tarot card.
This is also one of a good cards to get in a spread. It is so positive that it usually means to same whether it appears upright or reverse. This card can also be used to meditate on your positive wishes. You have to imagine of a celebration of success wherein every one is happy.
By Authorship: [Arthur Edward Waite], Pamela Coleman Smith was the artist and worked as an artist 'for hire.' Waite was the copyright holder and he died in 1942. — This image scanned by Holly Voley, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35262346
Is there something like true love in this world?
A very very common question which is put across in multiple discussions and forums.
The last lines of the song ‘I guess you wonder where I’ve been’ go like this
‘In my world, only you make me do for love what I would not do’
Tarot believes in the theory of Karma. It is the urge to achieve something which generates Karma factor within you. Tarot cards can become catalyst of a reaction but not the reaction. It is the vibes in your thoughts which transform into a song which gets reflected in the Tarot card spread.
Love is also a Karma, you will need to perform it diligently in order to experience its true benefits.
An important piece of advice comes from already discussed The Star card- ‘Never give up’
You may write back with your comments on my mail id [email protected]
RAUL
Disclaimer- Posted for entertainment purposes only | https://medium.com/@raulinscope/i-guess-you-wonder-where-ive-been-a-tarot-interpretation-of-the-bobby-caldwell-song-d42652504bdc | ['Raul S'] | 2020-12-23 18:56:06.095000+00:00 | ['Romance', 'Heartbreak', 'Couples', 'Divorce', 'Love'] |
Couchbase Integration Testing for Golang via Testcontainers | Why we need integration tests?
The first step of applying test driven development is unit test. However, in some cases, unit tests are not enough. In some cases, you need to write component tests for understanding your units working together right. What if we are dependent on some third-party unit or a system like database, messaging queues etc. In these cases, integration testing will helps. You can simulate cases the same as production.
Testcontainers is the known solution for writing integration tests. You can start easily your third party dependent platforms as a docker container. But there is no preconfigured couchbase implementation in the current testcontainers golang solution.
Couchbase Integration Test for Golang
Testcontainers is allowing to run any docker image. In the official couchbase docker image is not configured via docker environment variables. You can initialize via user interface or command-line interface which is provided from couchbase. A configurable couchbase docker image with environment variable will be so useful when writing integration tests with testcontainers. For that reason, I’m going to use my customized couchbase docker image which can initialize via environment variables.
This image is open source and you can access it here over github. And also the image is using over dotnet-testcontainers pre-configured Couchbase solution which is contributed from me.
You can pull the image over docker hub like the following;
docker pull docker.io/trendyoltech/couchbase-testcontainer:6.5.1
Default values of environment variables are following;
You can override environment variables for customizing. Here is an example of couchbase integration test over golang via testcontainers;
In the above example, testcontainers generic container is starting Couchbase over Golang background context with customized environment variables. After that, you need to defer terminating of container. This will guarantee for you to destroy container after test. In this example, test expecting and implementation that returns Couchbase’s Cluster object. After that test can assert is Couchbase created with the expected configuration and bucket.
In my Couchbase docker image, you can see “couchbase-dev started” log if everything is fine.
wait.ForLog("couchbase-dev started").WithStartupTimeout(45 * time.Second)
Please be sure that you have enough resources for running Couchbase container which should be a minimum that is defined over docker image environment. Otherwise, container will not start and the test will fail after the startup timeout which you defined as above.
Test driven development approach steps are following the picture. Now the fail test is ready. Let’s write code and be sure that will be working on production fine.
Integrate Couchbase for Golang
Let’s check first how we can connect Couchbase and open bucket. Here is an example from Couchbase documentation.
func main() {
cluster, err := gocb.Connect("localhost", gocb.ClusterOptions{
Username: "User",
Password: "password",
})
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}
This is the first information we need. Now, this is the right time to consider that how the function will create cluster only one time. Right answer is “Singleton Pattern” but how? Golang provides “Once” object which is under sync package and Once is an object that will perform exactly one action. No need to worry about race conditions! The solution is following;
In the above code, we are creating a cluster like Couchbase’s documentation advice. “Once” is provides that the code block runs only one time. In the first call, this function creates a cluster and assigns over the global variable. After that function returns the same cluster in every call.
This is a sample application. You can make connection variables as an environment variable and you can override over on test. You may need to consider edge and boundary cases depending on your solution requirements like timeout etc.
You can access the sample project from the following gitlab repository;
https://gitlab.com/golang-testcontainers/integration-testing-couchbase-for-golang
Conclusion
This article will help to understand writing integration tests with test driven development approach for golang via testcontainers. You can write any integration test for any depend platform via following steps in this article. Testcontainers are useful for end-to-end tests too.
You can run your tests over pipeline like Gitlab pipeline. You can define a blocker step before deployment when tests fail. Because of that no one can destroy your solution accidentally. Tests are written in once but runs unlimited. This will helps you sleep more comfortable at night :)
Thanks for reading this article! Do not hesitate to make criticism with comments. | https://medium.com/trendyol-tech/couchbase-integration-testing-for-golang-via-testcontainers-25b906bc2c0d | ['Mustafa Onur Aydın'] | 2020-12-21 15:15:21.843000+00:00 | ['Integration Testing', 'Tdd', 'Golang', 'Couchbase', 'Testcontainer'] |
Distributed Redis caching in ASP.NET Core | In this article, we will see Distributed caching, Redis cache, and also Redis caching in ASP.NET Core.
Follow me on Github and Download source code from GitHub
Table of Content
What is distributed caching and its benefit
IDistributedCache interface
Framework provided to implement
Distributed Redis cache
Setting up Redis on Windows 10
Redis CLI commands
Steps to integrate Redis cache in ASP.NET core
Summary
What is distributed caching and its benefit
Distributed caching is when you want to handle caching outside of your application. This is also can be shared by one or more application/servers. Distributed cache is application-specific i.e., multiple cache providers that support distributed caches. To implement distributed cache, we can use Redis and NCache. We will see about Redis cache in detail.
A distributed cache can improve the performance and scalability of an ASP.NET Core app, especially when the app is hosted by a cloud service or a server farm.
Benefits
Data is consistent throughout multiple servers.
This is more suitable for microservice architecture
In case of loading balancing, this is recommended
Multiple Applications / Servers can use one instance of Redis Server to cache data. This reduces the cost of maintenance in the longer run
IDistributedCache interface
IDistributedCache Interface provides you with the following methods to perform actions on the actual cache
GetAsync — Gets the Value from the Cache Server based on the passed key. SetAsync — Accepts a key and Value and sets it to the Cache server RefreshAsync — Resets the Sliding Expiration Timer (more about this later in the article) if any. RemoveAsync — Deletes the cache data based on the key.
Framework provided to implement IDistributedCache
Register an implementation of IDistributedCache in Startup.ConfigureServices . Framework-provided implementations described in this topic include
Distributed Memory Cache
Distributed SQL Server cache
Distributed Redis cache
Distributed NCache cache
Distributed Redis cache
Redis is an open source in-memory data store, which is often used as a distributed cache. You can configure an Azure Redis Cache for an Azure-hosted ASP.NET Core app, and use an Azure Redis Cache for local development.
Redis supports quite lot of data structures like string, hashed, lists, queries and much more and it’s fast key value based database that is written in C. It’s a NoSQL database as well. For this purpose, it is being used in Stackoverflow, Github and so on.
Setting Up Redis
We will see how we can setup Redis in local machine via two approach (Currently I am using Window 10)
First Approach by redis-server.exe
Run redis-server.exe (Download from Github repo)
Minimize the Redis-server.exe and open Redis-cli.exe .
. To test, just enter command ping
2. Second Approach via Chocolatey
Other way to install Redis on a Windows machine is chocolatey. To install chocolatey in a local machine, run the command given below from PowerShell (with administrative mode).
This command downloads the chocalatey installer for Windows and using the command given below, we can install Redis on the local machine.
choco install redis-64
Once Redis Server is installed, use the command given below, where we can start Redis Server
redis-server
Running redis-server
I will use first approach to run server (ie., via redis-server.exe)
Go to the path and open up Powershell and run the following command
By default, Redis runs on the local 6379 port. To change port number
./redis-server --port {your_port}
Once Redis is running at your defined port, the Redis CLI would no longer work. This is because it tries to connect to 6379 by default. To override this, open up PowerShell again and enter the following command
./redis-cli -p {your_port}
Redis CLI Commands
Below are some command which is run on power shell
Setting a key with expiration time (in seconds) and ttl name is for Time left to expire
Steps to integrate Redis cache in ASP.NET core
Step 1: Make sure redis server is running
./redis-server --port 6000
Step 2: Install package that helps you communicate with the Redis server Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.StackExchangeRedis
Install-Package Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.StackExchangeRedis
Step 3: configure in application to support Redis cache with specific port.
In startup.cs/ConfigureServices method
Step 4: Implementing caching code snippet in Get call of WeatherForeCastController.
In Line 36, we check if key has a value in Redis, then convert it to a list of Weather list and send back the data and if the value does not exist in Redis, then access the database via efcore (in above code value is hardcoded), get the data and set it to redis.
If key has value then, the data will be stored in Redis as a byte array. We will be converting this array of a string. Which will be converts the string to an object of type, List (Line 38)
DistributedCacheEntryOptions
SetAbsoluteExpiration — Here you can set the expiration time of the cached object. SetSlidingExpiration — This is similar to Absolute Expiration. It expires as a cached object if it not being requested for a defined amount of time period. Note that Sliding Expiration should always be set lower than the absolute expiration
Summary
In this detailed article, we have seen Distributed Caching, Redis. You can find the completed source code here. I hope you learned something new and detailed in this article. Thanks and Happy Coding! | https://medium.com/@amit-naik/distributed-redis-caching-in-asp-net-core-7842d0e760bd | ['Amit Naik'] | 2021-05-23 12:38:42.485000+00:00 | ['Distributed Cache', 'Redis', 'Github repo', 'Aspnetcore'] |
My Learning About How to Raise a Baby Well | Our toddler is just over 1 year old. I want to share a bit about what I’ve learned over the last year.
Baby’s Best Chance
Most of the mainstream advice is great! We got this from health professionals, and from the book “Baby’s Best Chance”. I highly recommend this book!
If, like me, you want to know why, you may need to supplement this book with additional googling. i.e. Why are VitD drops and iron-rich foods important? Why should you feed allergens regularly?
Building a healthy microbiome
We now know that a healthy microbiome early in life is important for the healthy maturation of the immune system and to avoid health issues like allergies. However, the mainstream medical system still emphasizes sterility, even after a C-Section.
Until the mainstream system catches up, I would recommend reading “Let Them Eat Dirt” and consulting a Naturopath about an up-to-date microbiome seeding protocol in case of a C-Section birth.
Sleep
The mainstream advice is good here. We did the “don’t pick up” sleep training method it recommends at about 6 months.
I found the Huckleberry App. great for information about when to put baby down to sleep, particularly as he got older.
Once we got baby sleeping by himself in the crib, the Woolino sleep sack was very helpful for keeping him at the right temperature and sleeping well.
We found that a baby monitor with audio was essential, but video helped to better determine if he was likely to go back to sleep (and provided entertainment).
Information children
This organization provides 1–1 coaching for parents, plus workshops. There’s a lot to figure out as a parent, so I found both of these helpful! And it’s free!
Take paternity leave!
I’m happy I took some paternity leave and wish I had taken more. I found it a great experience to have a few months focusing on baby. Plus, I think my priorities shifted further towards caring well for him! | https://medium.com/@wbrucek/my-learning-about-how-to-raise-a-baby-well-fb2eb327ab2 | ['Bruce Krayenhoff'] | 2021-06-08 22:23:03.287000+00:00 | ['Baby Sleep', 'Baby Care'] |
Zcash: A most private revolution | By James Todaro, Joseph Todaro and John Todaro
An iteration on bitcoin’s privacy
The creation of money outside the control of sovereign states is inextricably linked to privacy. Satoshi Nakamoto recognized this when he carefully maintained his own anonymity, and dedicated an entire section of the Bitcoin white paper to privacy. Any amount of privacy previously associated with bitcoin has been all but eradicated by tightening identity requirements for cryptocurrency exchanges and bitcoin’s permanent ledger of on-chain transaction history. In essence, anyone who has executed a bitcoin transaction from an exchange registered in their legal name likely has most of their transaction history and bitcoin holdings reconstructed and recorded in an institutional database.
This was not the “peer-to-peer electronic cash system” that Satoshi envisioned. Satoshi encouraged privacy through the use of new key pairs, while acknowledging that this practice was suboptimal.
“As an additional firewall, a new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them from being linked to a common owner. Some linking is still unavoidable with multi-input transactions, which necessarily reveal that their inputs were owned by the same owner. The risk is that if the owner of a key is revealed, linking could reveal other transactions that belonged to the same owner.”
Financial privacy is a fundamental right. Personal net-worth and asset holdings are a taboo subject, and unwelcome disclosure can have financial and reputational repercussions. Nearly 80% of private companies do not share quarterly or annual financial reports with employees for risk of information leaking to competitors. Investment funds often invest privately to avoid revealing strategies. The litany of reasons for financial privacy is exhaustive, and most agree it should remain the status quo.
There is also a fundamental right to financial privacy from the state. In the US, this was formalized in the Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978, which gave US citizens some protection from surreptitious government investigations into personal financial information. Over the years, amendments to this privacy act, particularly the Patriot Act of 2001, have weakened it considerably.
It is critical that bitcoin does not facilitate any further erosion of financial privacy from the state. As bitcoin continues to capture value, it challenges the dominance of state-controlled currencies in what Nic Carter calls a most peaceful revolution. While simmering below the surface for years, this revolution erupted into the public spotlight in July 2019 when the POTUS delivered a tweet storm specifically addressing cryptocurrency, stating that the USD instead of bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency is the world’s dominant currency.
Bitcoin continues to face escalating regulatory scrutiny, which has been manifested in numerous US congressional hearings, by the FATF’s new banking guidelines surrounding the storage and transfer of cryptocurrencies, and cryptocurrency exchanges banned in China. Just recently, Elvira Nabiullina, head of the Bank of Russia, said she and the Russian Finance Ministry oppose the use of virtual currencies “as private money and money surrogates,” saying “this is necessary to protect the ruble as the single legal [means of] payment in Russia.”
In an increasingly adversarial relationship with central banks and governments, the state’s attempts to exploit bitcoin’s weaknesses will intensify. Bitcoin’s lack of privacy is one of its most critical vulnerabilities and is already being exploited by sovereign states and incumbent institutions with advances in blockchain analysis and KYC/AML identity requirements. | https://medium.com/greymatter/zcash-a-most-private-revolution-215e7ac9fce9 | ['Greymatter Capital'] | 2019-09-13 19:23:39.730000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Zcash', 'Banking', 'Privacy'] |
ISO 7064 in Go | ISO 7064 is a standard promulgated by the International Standards Organization that defines algorithms for calculating check digit characters. The checks should be applicable to alphanumeric strings and should be able to detect all single substitution errors, all or nearly all single local transposition errors, all or nearly all circular shift errors, a high proportion of double substitution errors, a high proportion of all other errors.
It is used in some other ISO standards like IBAN, ISTC, ISNI, LEI. In our everyday life we see it in IBAN, but also we can use it many other systems like identification systems (Croatia and China) and other.
So, I personally needed a library to verify and calculate those check digits in Go. After some research I’ve found out that there are a few libraries like digitorus/iso7064 and almerlucke/go-iban, but they are hardcoded for MOD97–10 (used in IBAN) and that is all. Other algorithms like MOD11–2, MOD37–2, MOD661–26 and MOD1271–36 are not implemented in them. So, I’ve decided to create a library which will fill my needs. First of all, implementation of all algorithms listed above.
Purpose
A library which will allow to calculate check digit characters according to ISO7064 using MOD11–2, MOD37–2, MOD97–10, MOD661–26, MOD1271–36 and also will allow to easily calculate and embed check digit characters for IBAN.
Implementation
Everything is based on interface called Calculator, which describes methods to verify, compute full string and compute check digit characters. You can see it’s code below:
Then there is a structure called BaseCalculator, which implements methods from Calculator interface implements ISO7064 base algorithm. It’s code is:
As you can see BaseCalculator structure has fields called Modulus, Radix, Charset and IsDouble. So, various combinations of these fields allow us to create different algorithms described in ISO7064 like MOD11–2, MOD37–2, MOD97–10, MOD661–26, MOD1271–36, but also use any other combination to create another nonstandard algorithm based on ISO7064 base algorithm. There is an example how to create BaseCalculator for ISO7064 MOD97–10:
So, by analogy, we can create BaseCalculators for other algorithms.
But also we should implement IBANCalculator which will do IBAN specific steps like rearranging and letter to integer conversion. There is it’s code:
It uses BaseController with MOD97–10 configuration to compute check digit characters and also rearranges and converts letter to integers in IBAN before the calculation.
Final
I’ve never written any articles on Medium or anywhere else, so thanks for until the end. The library itself is available on GitHub pkosilo/iso7064 under Apache License 2.0, so you can try it out, I wrote some tests, and it seems to work fine. If you have some ideas you can share them in Discussions or in comments and if you have spotted a bug, then file an issue on GitHub. Also, you create a pull request yourself and make the library better. | https://medium.com/@pkosilo/iso-7064-in-go-2df8dd9f66fc | ['Pavel Kosilo'] | 2020-12-27 15:47:34.361000+00:00 | ['Iban', 'Iso', 'Golang', 'Banking', 'Programming'] |
Evolution of the digital payment ecosystem: 7 key development points according to Bitupper | It is expected that the space of digital payments will change significantly in the very near future. Already, we can predict seven trends, aimed at transforming the payment system in developing countries over the next five years:
⠀1. Technologies will simplify digital payments: biometrics, tokenization, cloud computing and the Internet Things are just a few trends that will determine how consumers interact in the future;
⠀2. Expansion of the network of sellers accepting digital payments will grow by 10x by 2020: mobile payment solutions and own payment networks will stimulate the acquisition of trading companies;
⠀3. Payments will stimulate consumption, and not vice versa: they will provide access to transaction data of customers, which will allow payment services suppliers to offer buyers interesting deals and coupons;
⠀4. Consolidation of technologies will lead to widespread distribution of digital payments;
⠀5. The modified UPI will become the main player changing the conditions on the payment market: The Unified Payment Interface provides an excellent platform for the smooth functioning of payment service providers;
⠀6. Digital identification of the client will speed up the payment;
⠀7. The number of non-cash settlements will grow: in the next few years, the digitization of cash will accelerate — non-cash payment transactions, which now are about 22% of all consumer payments, will bypass cash settlements by 2023.
⠀
Digitizing payments is a great opportunity. It’s estimated that by 2020, total payments made using digital payment instruments, will increase up to $ 500 billion USD, which is 10X times the current level.
⠀
The Bitupper aim: to use all available opportunities for representing the world of cryptocurrency as simple, understandable and convenient for each market participant as possible, offering advanced online banking tools in an understandable and user-friendly interface on all platforms. ⠀
Bitupper — that simple, for everyone.
Join us on Telegram. | https://medium.com/bitupper/evolution-of-the-digital-payment-ecosystem-7-key-development-points-according-to-bitupper-f79cdc9670e7 | ['Maria Fomina'] | 2018-05-15 17:49:30.556000+00:00 | ['Ecommerce', 'Development', 'Payments', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
When Will Shopping Become Human? | How one legacy retailer is deepening relationships with online customers through interactive technology.
We love ecommerce for its brutal efficiency and maximum convenience. But does it capture the full appeal of shopping?
Have you noticed a new shopping button on your favorite app? New tools seem to be popping up on every platform, no matter how unlikely: from Flipboard and Microsoft Edge, to Bleacher Report and of course Instagram (to some user consternation). This flood of new shopping channels has brought ease and immediacy for consumers, and exponentially more access to customers for retailers. But as with many of the recent advances in shopping ease and technology, few of them address the human, emotional connections we’re all missing even more than usual this year.
What’s so human and emotional about shopping? Let’s take a break from wistfully refreshing that holiday package tracking information and look at what’s really missing here.
By some estimates, the earth-shaking changes of 2020 “vaulted [us] ten years ahead in consumer and business digital penetration in less than three months,” leaving merchants scrambling to accommodate a decade of consumer behavior shifts packed into half a year, on top of the busiest season for shopping. (Not to mention about a decade of news packed into the same amount of time 😓)
Retailers with the infrastructure to match this shopping tsunami (like original ecommerce player Amazon) saw astronomical growth. But smaller DTC brands with the right niche and excellent customer personalization have been quietly thriving as well, even if their core offerings weren’t directly correlated to pandemic priorities (comfy sweatpants, anyone?). And even ignoring new shopping buttons, the shift toward social commerce is only accelerating, eroding some of the last remaining friction between inspiration and purchase.
But recent trends indicate deeper consumer needs that aren’t being met by seamless 1-click purchases, curbside pickups, and free shipping (though those features are table stakes for any ecommerce operation). Retail sales actually declined 1.1% in November, typically the zenith of the shopping calendar. As Halie LeSavage of Morning Brew put it, “November’s results indicate that even record breaking digital holidays haven’t bridged the brick and mortar gap yet.”
With the sharp declines in in-person retail, the stakes of bridging that gap are higher than ever.
One legacy retailer has shown they understand what’s missing from e-commerce better than many of their contemporaries. Although Walmart shattered earnings expectations this year, they continue to grow through innovative interactive experiences, powered by eko. These experiences entertain, deepen customer relationships, prioritize personalization, and help busy shoppers discover new brands. Among these many applications are “inspiration hub” Cookshop, and “discovery engine” Baby Gift Finder. Powered by eko’s proprietary interactive technology and featuring seamless add-to-cart integration, they both capture multiple elements of what we miss about shopping IRL.
Especially in 2020, online shopping can feel more like online buying, and people want to shop, not just buy. Shopping is personal, curated, full of surprise and delight. Buying is a transaction, with maximum efficiency but minimal emotional engagement. Particularly in a year where both novelty and joy are hard to come by, this engagement is more important than you might think — especially during the holidays. With these eko-powered experiences, Walmart is showing you can have the best of both worlds.
At eko, we’re building the world’s most fulfilling shopping experiences for customers and sellers. We believe shopping online can be more useful, more fun and ultimately more human, through technology. If you want to learn more about what eko’s interactive platform can do for your brand, drop us a line. And, happy shopping!
Further reading: | https://blog.helloeko.com/when-will-shopping-become-human-958803d5c9eb | ['Kate Mountz'] | 2021-01-04 17:12:18.898000+00:00 | ['Shopping', 'Ecommerce', 'Interactive Content', 'Interactive Video', 'Online Shopping'] |
Two COVIDs | COVID-19 DIARIES, WEEK OF 20 NOVEMBER 2020
Two COVIDs
As we prepare for a coronavirus-truncated Thanksgiving this is a good a time to note that those less fortunate — especially those in poverty and people of color — suffer far worse consequences from the pandemic than relatively affluent whites.
As this graphic from the COVID Tracking Project shows, there are strong correlations between race and ethnicity and COVID-19 deaths. African-Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanic/Latino people are significantly more likely to die than whites or Asians.
I’m grateful to Andy Slavitt, a former insurance company executive and the top public-health official in the Obama administration, for his rant on COVID-19 inequality, which is well worth reading in full.
The coronavirus continued to rage out of control in the US, with all major indices rising sharply. New cases and hospitalizations are at record highs, and deaths — a trailing indicator — also rose 31% this past week.
California saw sharp increases this past week in new coronavirus cases and deaths, up 56% and 55% respectively. With more than 1 million cases in the state, infections are now at a record level.
At least thirteen states now have more than 1,000 infections per million people, by far the highest number of states at that level since the virus began. Kansas shows no cases due to a reporting gap; a week ago it had more than 2,000 cases per million and is likely the 14th state in the most infectious tier.
For those relatively well off, COVID-19 means working and shopping from home. White-collar employment has largely recovered over the past six months. Housing prices are higher. And after a sharp drop this spring, the Dow Jones index rebounded and is now around 850 points higher than in January.
It’s a very different picture for less affluent Americans. Some are classified as essential and have to work, often in places with less physical distancing — and that’s for those who have jobs.
As of mid-October, about 12.6 million Americans were out of work. Eight million Americans have fallen below the poverty line since May. With another COVID-19 relief bill unlikely before January, extended unemployment benefits and rent relief protections will end in December, if they haven’t already.
Because of inadequate housing and access to healthcare, the pandemic hits lower-income areas the hardest. A study published this summer in the Journal of the American Medical Association found significantly higher rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths in metropolitan areas where a high proportion of the population lives below the poverty line.
This pandemic has strong racial and ethnic divides as well as economic ones. African-Americans are hit hardest, with per-capita death rates about 2.1 times greater than those for whites, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
Native Americans are next hardest-hit. Science journalist Laurie Garrett notes the devastating effect on native American tribes across the Southwest, particularly the Navaho, Hopi, and Zuni nations. And the most infectious places in the world right now — the Great Plains states, especially North and South Dakota — are also home to sizable Native American populations.
Garrett notes that access to health care is a particular challenge on reservations, where long drives just to buy a gallon of milk are common. Access to adequate healthcare has been a challenge for decades. Providing enough hospital beds during a pandemic is a big enough problem; storing and distributing vaccines in places without sufficient cold storage may further extend the virus’ lifetime.
Latinos and Hispanics are the third major group suffering disproportionately. In California, these groups represent about 39% of the population, but account for 60% of coronavirus cases. Nationally, Latinos/Hispanics are 42% more likely to die of the virus than whites.
Public-health officials have said for decades that poverty and racism are health crises in and of themselves; COVID-19 brings those claims into sharp focus. | https://medium.com/@helpful-charcoal-dinosaur-974/two-covids-cbe2afa92b9f | ['David Robert Newman'] | 2020-11-22 22:10:27.928000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Coronavirus', 'California', 'Public Health', 'Covid Diaries'] |
The Importance of Data-Driven Design | This week on Medium, we discuss how we implemented our data-driven design approach into our work with PromoCell, to help them achieve their long term goals and satisfy their customers needs.
What Promocell Wanted
In November 2018, German-based biomedical research cell supplier, PromoCell came to us for help. They’d recently launched a new e-commerce website, however, the new site wasn’t performing effectively and did not fulfill PromoCell’s business objectives. We were brought in to rescue their newly launched site and help them achieve their goals. In addition to fixing technical issues on the site, PromoCell’s main strategic objectives were to:
Increase online sales.
Increase cross-selling of related products.
Increase user retention.
Improve the customer experience.
Our Data-driven Approach
We installed our user experience tracking software and conducted a full audit of PromoCell’s website, undertaking an in-depth analysis of their analytics and UX data, utilising interaction heat maps, scroll-depths and user testing to gain a deep understanding of how their customers used the site. It was clear from the discovery that several UX/UI issues could be improved on the current site.
What we Found
The Search: The main route to products was through the search engine, however, the current search functionality did not allow products to be found easily, specifically the method of search keywords such as product codes.
PromoCell’s contact information was hidden.
Localisation pop up feature.
Lower than average conversion rate.
Before we were brought in to help, PromoCell had little knowledge about how their customers were interacting with their website. Our UX research determined that most of Promocell’s customers used the search bar to locate products on the site, however, the current search did not allow products to be found by their product code, making it difficult for users to find what they were looking for. In addition, PromoCell’s website offered an extensive range of research papers and scientific resources to its users online, but the current website made it difficult to search for these papers and products.
PromoCell’s current website featured a localisation pop-up, whereby users had to manually enter their location. This was an important feature for PromoCell as the input of this information determined the appropriate currency, price and delivery options for that user. However, it was clear from the UX analytics that users’ were put-off by the localisation tool as it disrupted the customer journey at every page load.
The UX analysis also identified that most users struggled to find PromoCell’s contact information as it was hidden in their dropdown menu. At the time, a lot of PromoCell’s sales were done via the phone, so this was an important UX issue which needed to be resolved to increase sales in general.
What we Did
It was clear that the current search was not performing effectively, therefore, we replaced it with a new search function, designing a new advanced search experience that auto-detected search intent and among other improvements could autocomplete product codes. This made user search dramatically faster, enabling the user to search for any item on the site through product code, description or information source and return results whilst the user is still typing.
Auto-detection
We enabled a user’s location to be auto-detected when they entered the site, preventing disruption to the user journey and allowing them to have access to relevant prices, currency and distribution information for that location.
A New Website Reskin
Our data-driven approach helped determine how we could improve call to actions of the site and what content should be prioritised on the website. As a lot of PromoCell’s sales were created via the phone, it was vital that customers could easily find PromoCell’s contact information. We made the contact CTA more prominent, implementing it into PromoCell’s header to make it more visual to users. Using our data-driven approach, in collaboration with the branding agency SomeOne, we created a new reskin for PromoCell’s website. Providing a more professional representation of the brand and enhancing the trust and credibility of PromoCell.
The Results
Launching PromoCell’s new website has significantly increased PromoCell’s online sales in under 12 months, selling thousands of products to Germany, France and the United Kingdom. Also, PromoCell’s average order value (AOV) has grown by 25.54% over the first four quarters since the launch of the new site, signalling a positive increase in confidence from users buying online. Furthermore, website sessions have increased by 5.7% since the launch of the new site.
This is an ongoing project and we are continuously making improvements to ensure that the new website continues to achieves PromoCell’s business objectives and fulfills their customers needs based on a strategic roadmap we have designed for PromoCell. | https://medium.com/universlabs/the-importance-of-data-driven-design-1045e1f5a5c9 | ['Univers Labs'] | 2020-02-12 15:38:28.893000+00:00 | ['UX Design', 'Data Driven Design', 'UI Design', 'Website Development', 'Digital Design'] |
The Agency Developer | If you enjoy semantics-fueled tête-à-têtes, then I highly recommend The Atlantic article Programmers Should Not Call Themselves Engineers, and a response from Wired entitled Programmers, Let’s Earn the Right to Be Called Engineers. They both go on about accountability and burdens. Node is mentioned. It’s very interesting.
And I’ve come to realize that I don’t really consider myself a Programmer or an Engineer. I’ve always preferred the term Developer (Web Developer if you’re nasty). As I’ve grown in this industry and become more and more an agency man, that is, spending the majority of my career working for marketing agencies, I’ve come to have a special relationship with the term and all that it means to me.
But first, a quick sidetrack to look at what I think it isn’t.
A while back I toured the amazing Atlanta Tech Village, which included a look at one of the many companies taking up residence there. We walked in to a company of maybe 15 people and a found ourselves straddling the border between two warring factions. On one side, a bright room, with windows open and ears mostly un-headphoned, sat the marketers, project managers, and leadership. On the other side, in total darkness on a lovely summer day, sat the be-hoodied and silent programmers, dutifully tackling tickets and feature requests.
I’ve been writing code for about 12 years now. And it’s always with the lights on. I wear headphones, though usually with one ear uncovered so no one has to yell to get my attention. And look, no ill-will towards those guys (they were all guys) coding away in the dark. They build products and I know the focus it takes to hold something that massive and complex in your head while working on it.
But if you present yourself as someone who cannot be bothered, you won’t be. You won’t be invited to strategy meetings, or involved in client pitches, or pulled away from your daily work to secretly build something amazing.
It is my ardent hope to learn how to hire people that will gun for my job. So it occurred to me to simply write down what one would have to do in order to unseat me. And then you’ll know what being an agency developer means to me. | https://medium.com/morrison-writes/the-agency-developer-e2252b6d138c | ['Chris Davis'] | 2015-12-03 20:44:24.707000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Agencylife', 'Business Tips'] |
FUTUROV: REVOLUTIONIZING THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY USING DEFI AND NFT HUB | FUTUROV: REVOLUTIONIZING THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY USING DEFI AND NFT HUB
The development of blockchain technologies and decentralized finance into the world has brought a lot of benefits and opportunities to our various sectors both the economic, financial, health and even the entertainment sector was not left behind.
The entertainment industry is actually one of the industries that is important to human life, because it is actually the place where people derive 95% of fun and happiness from. Our everyday relaxation is based on the entertainment industry, and people seems as if they can't deal without this industry. Though sometimes due to high fee rate, and high cost of production, many people find it very difficult to actualize their dream in the entertainment industries . Their are so many script writer's , actors and so many other entertainers who has passion and dreams to produce their works but fail due to high level of demand from producers, leaving production amd entertainment in the hands of few rich people and killing people's dream and vision, and equally Making people to get their pleasure only in the hands of few people instead of variety of people.
Therefore in order to further improve the efficiency of the entertainment industries and make it open and less costly for everyone to be able to become producers of it's own, Decentralized finance was brought into the the entertainment industry to further improve the payments method and to stabilize the financial industry and also to provide a unique and transparent token that will aid production. To further improve the efficiency of the use of decentralized finance in to the entertainment industry, a unique and transparent ecosystem called FUTUROV,; a community owned entertainment aggregator and NFT hub , took it upon themselves to revolutionize the entertainment industry and make it easier and accessible for all.
FUTUROV- A PLATFORM THAT CHANGES THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY FOR GOOD
FUTUROV is a Decentralized and transparent community-owned entertainment aggregator producer and NFT Hub with a specialized token economy designed specifically to establish entertainers And users in the entertainment industry by being the world's most creative talent in the film and video industry by empowering everybody from grassroots to the ivory tower to create a powerful, jaw dropping and magical experiences.
FUTUROV is an innovative Platform designed with the main aim of becoming the largest producer without owing a single film set or studio, and this is achieved through the use of the Decentralized finance and smart contracts.
Futurov brought Decentralized finance into the entertainment industry in order to clearly give every user, script writer and entertainer the opportunity to launch and exhibit their talents without no restrictions of high funding. This is the reason why it has provided a means for new artists to launch their NFT films and iconic brands to launch VR/AR collectables from the comfort of their bedrooms.
FUTUROV is also a platform that has a Decentralized a d censorship resistant media, television and streaming provider that allows the community to govern and control their funds without experiencing any form of engagement from any centralized body.
THE SPECIAL FEATURES FUTUROV IS MADE OF
There are so many unique features that make this platform outstanding, some of them include
NFT LAUNCH PAD, MARKETPLACE, AND VR/AR SHOWCASE: this unique Platform aims to provide a suitable place where new artists will be able to launch their NFT films and iconic brands to launch VR/AR collectibles. Therefore enabling easy access to so many events and programs.
GAMEFIELD DEFI/LEARN AND EARN GAMES/EDUCATION STATION: Futurov platform also provides some basic facilities that enable users to earn cryptocurrency while learning about finances, politics, and crypto projects. It also provides a game field where users can just play games for fun and equally earn cryptocurrency. It equally provides users with educational and training videos for real. life professions, therefore widening the knowledge of people about so many things.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND P2P REVIEW NETWORK: this transparent community also provided an application known as the BETA LIVE app, where users can freely see movies and digital memorabilia collectors to share and connect.
Just to mention but few. There are still many unmentioned and amazing features that make this platform outstanding and I don't think you will ever want to lose out.
THE BENEFITS OF FUTUROV
FUTUROV being the dream of people and a changer of the entertainment industry has also so many unleashed benefits users of this Ecosystem will get to enjoy in this platform, some these benefits include:
GOVERNANCE: in the Futurov ecosystem, the governance of the community depends on the hands of the token holders. The token holders suggest, vote, and implement cancellations, renewal, and additions. So the token holders control the activities of the community.
Currency: Futurov being the major and most used Currency in the Decentralized application, facilitates and enables free and instant transactions, which means that there will not be any form of service hindrance.
REWARDS: the community-owned platform do not only bring decentralized finance in the entertainment industry, but it also rewards token holders with nonfungible tokens (NFTS) from tickets to event, March and collectibles.
STAKING: Futurov also encourages staking, that is, holders can hold and lock their tokens and at the same time earn profitable NFTs airdrops.
FILMANTHROPHY: in the Futurov community, a special TBD% of the fuel tokens are being allocated to industry-specific philanthropy.
All these and more benefits are what every token holder of the Futurov community will get to earn as being part of the Amazing community.
FUTUROV TOKEN
Futurov has a native governance token known as Futurov with the sticker FTV. It is a deflationary token that is based on the Binance smart Chain network.it has a total supply of 100,000,000 FTV tokens.
FTV serves as a reward to every member of the Futurov community and being a holder of FTV, means that you have become part of the governing body of the platform, that Is to say, that you have full right to vote, suggest, and implement. FTV holders are also allowed to make transactions using their tokens.
TOKEN DISTRIBUTION
CONCLUSION
FUTUROV is not just a platform that has come to make a profit, it is a selfless Platform that has come to favour the life of so many artists, entertainers, and even viewers. This is the more reason it is working aimlessly with its expertise to see that the user of Decentralized finance will fully dominate the entertainment industry. To add up to this, this platform has been able to bring in Decentralized news channels, live events, PPV events, and even documentaries.
FUTUROV is growing so rapidly and it is going to be its chain and network entirely and also will become the largest producer. With all its great work and achievement, Futurov is now the blockchain's first dully decentralized and censorship-resistant media, television, and service provider. And also a community that runs freely without requesting any KYC verification.
Therefore be part of this world-changing and stand a chance to earn greatly.
To know more about this platform click the following
Website
Twitter
Telegram
Instagram
Writer's information
Writer’s name: jennychuks98
Forum name: jennychuks1
Forum link
Proof of authentication | https://medium.com/@jennychuks98/futurov-revolutionizim-the-entertainment-industry-using-defi-and-nft-hub-307dcd644740 | [] | 2021-06-26 20:51:42.843000+00:00 | ['Bnb', 'Futurov', 'Binance', 'Ftv', 'Bsc'] |
9 Things Not to Tell an Investor | Disclaimer: I am not an investor, I just work at a Venture Capital firm.
Photo by Tool., Inc on Unsplash
I have probably met with more than 500 founders in the past two years, and every time I meet one, I get really excited. These entrepreneurs are so ambitious and positive that being around them gives you hope for a better future (especially the really impressive entrepreneurs). However, even the best entrepreneurs sometimes say things that make investors roll their eyes. As a result, my venture capitalist peers and I prepared a list of the things we hate hearing from entrepreneurs. I hope you find them useful!
1. “We will have to sign an NDA.”
The biggest rookie mistake founders can make is asking an investor to sign an NDA. These investors are seeing thousands of deals, so they won’t mind passing on your company. They will most likely not sign an NDA and tell you to have a good day. Remember investors want to invest in companies not steal their ideas, so just share your company’s information. Also, if you are the great entrepreneur that they must invest in, they must know that you are the only person who can execute your company’s vision.
Investors are people you should be willing to trust, if you do not trust them from the beginning they might be offended. Similarly, if you do not trust them, then do not go asking them for an investment.
2. “We have the best technology.”
That might be the case in many instances, but a founder cannot make that claim. If I go speak with your competitor, they would tell me the same thing. So, such a claim should not be said unless you can prove it during the first meeting. It is even worse when a non-technical founder tells me this. There is no way you have outsourced your technology and got the best in the business; even if you have an in-house tech team, you probably aren’t aware of how good they are.
Side note: investors really prefer a technical cofounder when investing in a technology startup.
3. “We don’t have any competition.”
It is extremely rare to find a company that has no competition; all companies have a competitor of some sort. Therefore, by saying this statement you are either 1) showing the investor that you came to the meeting unprepared and have not done any prior market research, or 2) that you are overly confident and think that your product is better than anything in the market. If it is the latter, then just remember that the market decides if you are better than your competitors.
4. “Our end goal is to be acquired.”
You would assume that an angel investor, accelerator, or venture capitalist would be happy to hear such a phrase. At the end of the day, that is how they get a return on their investment. Yet, that is not the case. Investors want to know that the founders are building something that they really believe in and that they want their company to grow as much as possible. Investors will not invest in a founder who just wants to get rich quick.
5. “All I need is capital, and I will grow.”
I hear this more often than you would expect. Many founders think their only restriction for growth is capital, yet that is far from true. What a founder needs in order to succeed is a great team, proper execution, a great product, etc. You cannot expect an investor to just believe in your company and give you the capital just because you think you have a great company but not enough cash. Capital is great, but it is not the only constraint for your growth.
I promise you, if you have a great team, a good product, and real traction, investors will be running after you. I have seen companies be able to fundraise in a few weeks because they were a solid company. Capital alone, is never the reason why a company is struggling.
6. Ridiculous Financial Growth
Recently, I sat with a company that had revenues of $30K in 2019, $40K in 2020, and an expected revenue of $1M in 2021. I thought it was crazy, I pointed out to the founder. They had an absurd answer that got me a little bit agitated. So I was quite rude and told them to come back to me next year when they hit that $1M in revenue. I wished them luck and ended the Zoom meeting. They were trying to convince me of something preposterous, especially since they have been in business for two years and I could see their historical number. Yes, VC money is risky money, but we are not stupid. We need things to make a little bit of sense, especially financially.
7. A High Valuation
This is my most common argument with entrepreneurs. Founders believe that their companies are worth millions when all they have is just an idea or a little bit of traction. Some founders have revenues of $100K and tell me their valuation is $10M. Their logic behind it is so funny actually:
“We will become a billion dollar company, so this is a great valuation to get in on now.” “Company X got acquired in the US for $1.2 billion. We could potentially be acquired like them.” “An investor that comes onboard at the early stage should understand that we have a long term vision.”
All of these excuses are horrible. By using them, you are doing one of three things: 1) You do not understand how the market prices companies. 2) You are surrounded by bad investors that are giving horrible advice. 3) Or you think investors are foolish, and you can pull one over them. High valuations will make an investor only focus on that and they will lose interest in your company quickly.
A few founders told me that they put high valuations because investors will negotiate it down. That is often the case if you are in a reasonable range, but if you are not, then you’re just shooting yourself in the foot.
8. “We will be closing our round soon.”
Some founders try to create a false urgency around their fundraise to create this “fear of missing out” effect. Usually companies that do this are bluffing and we know it. The entrepreneur would not be coming to us if they are about to close their round or if they are over subscribed; actually we would be looking for them. As a result, if you want to do this trick, make sure you do close your round by the deadline. Reputation is very important in the startup world, so try to keep it as clean as possible. A false urgency is not worth the reputational risk.
9. Lies
Investors can easily tell if you are lying or not. They rarely do any investments on the spot; they usually want to do some due diligence first. Therefore, if you hid anything or just lied, know that you will be caught. When you do get caught, you will automatically lose their investments. Investors must trust you with their money, so any red flags that could make them feel that you are not trustworthy is a deal breaker; so just be honest and transparent.
Bonus Tip: Be Humble!
Every once in a while, I meet founders that are quite arrogant and think that they know everything. These founders are frustrating and they make me want to end the meeting as quick as possible. Investors are really annoyed by egotistical entrepreneurs. Investors want to find long lasting partners that they can work easily and happily with. If supporting you seems like it is going to be a pain , investors will avoid working with you completely.
During my career I realized that most of the successful entrepreneurs I know are really down to earth people. | https://medium.com/@omarbilleh/9-things-not-to-tell-an-investor-a5fb8a3fe0d7 | ['Omar Billeh'] | 2021-04-29 16:35:15.600000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Fundraising', 'Investors', 'Startups', 'Mistakes'] |
Three months — Post coding bootcamp: The algorithms and the take home struggle | Three Months — What’s new?
This week marks 3 months since I graduated General Assembly’s Software Engineering Immersive. Last month, I was in the midst of what most people would probably consider a “hell week”, on top of that I was preparing for a powerlifting meet (which I took first place btw, I’ll have a blog post about that in a while, it’s in my drafts) . I had 2 interviews one which is pretty difficult and another I had to do a take home assignment for it, all while it being in the middle of Thanksgiving, instead of me relaxing and spending time with family, I spent it stressing out and studying and doing a take-home. I’ll be getting into those details in a bit because I definitely learned a lot of things from that experience.
The interview process — Algos vs Takehome assignments
If you remember in my last entry, I mentioned that I was preparing for a big interview at the beginning of December. On top of that too, towards the end of November, I began the process with another company and instead their big thing was a take-home assignment.
As someone going into tech or as a career changer, more often than not we hear of the horror stories of technical interviews, specifically at the FAANG caliber companies where you’re thrown into the deep end to white board, and it would take months of practice to actually do well enough in the interview to pass. On the other hand, there are take home assignments which are controversial in its own way, due to the amount of time it would sometimes take to do.
Unfortunately for me, both of these opportunities fell through. But let’s talk about the processes I sat through.
The big interview I was preparing for is a big tech company that is considered “FAANG” in their industry. As such, their first round interview was a phone screen via a hackerrank, where I would collaborate with a software engineer. The first question, they asked about my background and technical projects that I’ve done in the past, and asking what I would do when it comes to something I don’t know (Google and documentation for the win!) Then came the technical question.
I was often told by friends in the industry that a certain data structure is very important and often gets asked in coding interviews. What data structure am I talking about? I’m talking about Binary Search Trees.
If you’re unfamiliar with Binary Search Trees, the oversimplified version of this, a tree has a root node at the top aka the parent node. The root node will contain a maximum of two children nodes, but the left side node should be less than its parent node and the right node is greater. So an example:
8
/. \
3. 10
/ \. \
1. 6. 14
So above is what is considered a valid BST. The left nodes are all less than the root node, and the right nodes are all greater than the root node.
So what question was I asked?
Exactly what I just clarified above. Write out code to check if a BST is a valid BST. Without me getting too much into detail, the way to solve this would be using recursion to use BFS to traverse the tree.
I personally thought it was pretty collaborative with my interviewer pointing me in the right direction at times. I got the code correct, but in the end they told me I need to work on my Data structures a little bit more and invited me to apply again in the future. No lie, I was really upset about that. Still, compared to how I was months ago in my first technical interview back in March and even last year. I saw how much I grew as a developer and found that I was better at talking things out and explaining what was going on in my head.
The Take Home Assignment
Oh yeah, and did I mention while I was prepping for the interview I just talked about above I was also starting the process at another company?
As I mentioned in the beginning of this entry, November was a crazy month. For this particular position, I applied for it at the start of November, got the email right away to schedule a phone screen, and the dates that were given to me was either Nov 13 (which I couldn’t do) or at some point in the end of the month. I chose the mid point.
The first phone screen was pretty straightforward, I moved on to the next round, then had another phone screen with the team lead, it was a little bit more difficult, but then I was moved onto the next round which was the technical take home. Without getting too much into detail, the take home assignment took up a LOT of time. The timing of it couldn’t be any worse either since it was during Thanksgiving too.
The take home assignment told us that we had to implement their product in any way we wanted to so we can get creative with it, as well as answering other questions.
Now, I was balancing out this take home assignment while also studying for another interview as I mentioned above. Due to the nature of this assignment, I ended up spending a lot of time working on it. It got so bad that one of my best friends started singing “Take a break” from Hamilton. It was definitely a test of patience, documentation, and investigation skills, things an aspiring developer should have, I guess.
After doing this assignment, I definitely have a deeper appreciation for those who do DevOps, I learned the importance of documentation and making sure it was well organized so if you need to backtrack, you can backtrack and find out what was wrong.
I could definitely see the appeal and the usage of the platform that I was working with when I did this, and thought of a wide variety of uses at the gym and even in the gaming industry.
As with the one above, unfortunately this did not pan out the way I wanted it to go as well. Despite failing the process after the take-home, I learned a lot from it.
What did I learn in both of these experiences?
So I experienced the best and the worst of I guess the technical interview spectrum. What did I learn?
Talk out your damn thoughts during the coding question.
I already knew this coming into this but, I’m not very good at expressing my thoughts. In a technical interview, it definitely helps if you talk out loud while you are coding so that way your interviewer knows what’s going on in your head and your thought processes, so that way they can point you in the right direction. If I stayed silent and just kept mumbling under my breath, I definitely wouldn’t have gotten as far with my solution.
2. Taking a break is important/Take your damn time
When you have a big interview coming up and you also have to do a take home assignment, you wanna spend all your time trying to knock out the take home right away. This was one of the biggest mistakes I made, I practically had two weeks to do the assignment due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Could I have actually sat down and relaxed? Most definitely, instead I powered through it and in the end, that’s probably what cost me from moving onto the next round.
3. In the end its you vs you.
Okay, so this definitely did not work out the way I hoped it would. I was honestly hoping that as a Christmas gift I would end up finally getting my wish of getting a job in the tech industry and starting off 2021 on a good note, being able to continue taking up my hobbies, and all that fun stuff.
Instead I’m walking into 2021 still funemployed and constantly searching for that one opportunity. It’s depressing. But now when I look back at both of these interviews, I came out as a better developer than I was at the start of November. I’m a lot more confident in talking things out and my thought processes after going through that and am a little bit more confident in my ability with data structures and algorithms ( I still need practice though) I can explain everything, but translating things to code is pretty hard.
So yeah, that’s what I learned sitting through these, there was definitely a lot more but I couldn’t remember it from the top of my head. | https://medium.com/@kathleen-bongco/three-months-post-coding-bootcamp-the-algorithms-and-the-take-home-struggle-7d2a2fd6b | ['Kathleen B'] | 2020-12-22 03:15:49.505000+00:00 | ['Career Change', 'Coding Interviews', 'Software Engineering'] |
What are the growth disorders problem in children? | What is Growth Disorder?
A growing problem in children or growth disorders in children means that a child lacks either below or above the average range of growth for a child’s age, sex, family history, or racial environment or background.
What causes growth disorders problems in children?
Growth disorders can have many reasons. Reasons usually fall into one of the following groups:
Familial short stature. This means a child’s height is part of his or her family’s pattern of coming into a short height.
Familial tall stature. This means a child’s height is part of his or her family’s pattern of coming into tall height.
Constitutional delay of growth and young development. This means a child to be likely to be shorter than average and to enter a young age later than average while growing at a normal rate. These children usually catch up in time and reach their normal adult height.
A sickness that affects the whole body (systemic disease). This comprises constant malnutrition, digestive tract diseases, kidney disease, heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, or chronic severe stress.
Endocrine (hormone) diseases. Growth can be affected by some circumstances that disrupt hormones. Growth hormone insufficiency can result from injuries to the pituitary gland or brain. Cushing syndrome can damage height growth and can cause weight gain. Giantism. Children will grow faster than usual if their pituitary gland makes too much growth hormone.
Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). This means the development of a baby in the uterus is slowed. This can be caused by many reasons, such as smoking during pregnancy or not enough as the care must be there. The baby is born undersized in weight and length than usual.
Genetic disorders. This comprises Turner syndrome, Down syndrome, and achondroplasia. Turner syndrome is when having too many, too few, or damaged chromosomes affect health problems. It’s an often genetic disorder that occurs only in girls. It causes poor growth.
Source | https://medium.com/@doctifyindia/what-are-the-growth-disorders-problem-in-children-33c3ed6c04a0 | ['Doctify India'] | 2020-12-22 05:33:01.323000+00:00 | ['Growth Mindset', 'Growth Hacking', 'Growth Marketing', 'Growing Up'] |
What was Puccini like? | Puccini in 1924: the year of the composer’s death
Short Biography
Lucca, embedded in the Tuscan hills; renaissance architecture and Puccini. Born there on the 22nd of December 1858, the roots of a quintessentially Italian style are unobscured. Puccini, being of a long line of Luccan church musicians was put to work as an organist at the age of 14, but did not engage with the traditionally insipid catholic style. Instead, discovering the wonders of Verdi upon walking 20 kilometres to his local opera house in Pisa, his dispassion thawed.
Puccini studied composition in Milan from 1880 to 1883. As his first project, he wrote an opera: Le Villi, for a local competition, did not win, did not get mentioned, but was nonetheless approached with staging it by the publisher Giulio Ricordi.
In 1884, he eloped with the already married Elvira Gemignani (née Bonturi), a fellow Luccan.
Elvira was said to be a set, jealous woman- in parallel to Tosca (though without the concordant set of murderous instincts towards Roman police chiefs). In 1891, she heard neighbourhood rumours that Puccini was declaiming himself bored of her. A series of arguments opened up in response. Though Puccini publicly cheated on her later, he paradoxically tried to keep it under wraps from her, but not the entire rest of the public.
After writing Edgar in 1888: a second opera and a second stinker, he finally hit it with the public in 1892 with Manon Lescaut.
Then the behemoths of Bohème, Tosca and Butterfly.
During his lifetime, he amassed a fortune of around 100 million in today’s money, spending it on fast cars; De Dion-Boutons and Fiats, amassing speeding tickets, and a wide portfolio of houses, many around Lucca.
After Il Trittico, his final work was Turandot, which he died before completing after a failed operation for throat cancer.
His Character
Puccini, as his music, was of intense complexity and contradictions. Though the choice of opera was no doubt an inevitably of his nation, training and exposure, the genre seems to suit him uniquely: the incessant returning and re-returning of the same motif; within it uncertainty liberated into highest exaltation, breaking away into shrieks of despair.
Opera is historically the occupation of the middle and upper classes. Given his life dedication to it, you would assume that they were his favourite people. In fact, he was blasé with high society mainly through his distaste for pretension, large social situations, and the urban in general. “He always felt constrained and ill at ease among the bourgeoisie, even in artistic circles”, would “pant for the fragrant woodlands”, “loved hunting and walking alone” and “simply could not bear to live anywhere but the country” as was said.
Puccini, though working for the northern cities, predominantly did not work in them. His primary residence was in Torre del Lago: a sleepy seaside town near Lucca, on the other side backing onto a typically northern lake. Part of his comfort in the country lay in the absence of the pressure of the cities. Puccini “bit his nails during moments of nervous impatience or tormenting doubt”. Speaking publicly “he found the greatest difficulty through stammering”.
Unlike his contemporaries, or indeed most, he prefered to ride on consecutive waves of inspiration, only to sit in idleness until another came along. Tosca took 11 years to write, though half of it constituted artistic clashes. He had an “insuperable tendency to speak his mind.”
Giuseppe Giacosa, his librettist/poet, nicknamed Buddha by him in a quip relating to an abandoned opera project of theirs was introduced to him, along with the partner by Ricordo. Giacosa was some years his senior: always loved by Puccini like an uncle. He would write the words, whilst Luigi Illica worked mainly on the structuring of scenes and dramatic touches: like the Gavotta in Bohème being interrupted by Musetta and the sick Mimí, rather starting with her bedridden, as the composer insisted. Puccini’s relationship with Illica was not comfortable. They liked each other, yet would inexorably digress into arguing, often questioning the other’s artistic validity. Giacosa, one might call mediator over librettist. Given, it is unsurprising that their working relationship did not survive Giacosa’s death.
Much of the time, supposedly quintessentially Puccini dramatic irony is quintessentially Illca. What people often forget about his operas is that they are not only the labour of one man.
Much of the time, supposedly quintessentially Puccini dramatic irony is quintessentially Illca. What people often forget about his operas is that they are not only the labour of one man.
In the evenings, Puccini would compose in the parlour, usually in the society of his “friends, simple men in an atmosphere of unpretentious jollity.” “In such company, he would feel quite at ease”. “He almost always kept his hat on, even in the house, and while working at the piano or his writing-table.” Suddenly having thought of something, Puccini would stop his other task, and then rush to the piano. His teachers in the conservatory emphasised his laziness though it can also be construed as thinking time.
In 1920, Puccini visited Vienna for the German Language premiere of Il Trittico, or rather “Das Triptychon”.
Here is Richard Specht’s account of him:
“He was now resting in an arm-chair, a little weary with a happy sparkle in his fine, dark eyes, veiled from time to time by their heavy lids, and with a pleasant smile on his fastidious mouth, often drawn into an expression of melancholy” “It was a face that need not necessarily have belonged to an artist, though it was unquestionably that of a man of breeding, with an active brain, easily kindled sensibilities, and an eager receptivity, at once shy and conscious
of his own worth, full of strong vitality, sensuous curiosity, and
an instinctive repugnance for all that is vulgar; a man, too, in
whom primitive, popular elements were combined with a subtle
culture, an unconstrained naivety with the acquired exterior- of
a man of the world and a dash of eternal youthfulness that made
an enchanting mixture.”
Puccini spoke French well, but his German was about as good as his English. As a result, he had the same meal the whole time in Vienna because the only words he knew in German were “Koteletts mit Kartoffeln”
There “he was most anxious to acquaint himself more thoroughly with Arnold Schoenberg’s work.” Puccini held a healthy appetite for “present-day musicians” speaking of “Stravinsky and Debussy, who, as he always freely acknowledged, had exerted a decisive influence on his own harmonic and melodic style”. The truth was however that it was Wagner that had the most decisive impact on him. Despite his “unbounded admiration of Beethoven”, his favourite work, was forever Tristan und Isolde.
In Vienna, Specht said of him to have remarked:
“Ah! How hard is my life! And yet to many I seem happy. But my successes? They pass away, and there remains little. They are ephemeral things. Life slips away and descends swiftly towards the abyss.”
By this, Puccini probably did not declare personal unhappiness, but rather a creeping occasional unhappiness at the nihilistic nature of things. His music is full of genuine feeling, eminent among them is melancholy.
It is quite contradictory for maybe the most sincere composer about love to have cheated on his own wife so enduringly. Puccini maintained throughout his life that he loved Elvira dearly, so it is hard to see how he was able to turn a blind eye to the effect that it was having on her. In 1909, spurred on by intense paranoia, Elvira hounded their poor servant girl for having an affair with him, despite evidence to the contrary. The girl eventually committed suicide as a result, leading, as you can imagine, to an unsettled dynamic, eventually a separation. Her reconciliation was an uneasy exchange for legal assistance against the girl’s family.
In his defence, Puccini’s lovers were never chosen shallowly; they were intelligent cultural people. “I need a friend but do not have one,” he said. It is evident that Elvira did not satisfy him fully in some intellectual way. Though they were close, there was a lack of understanding between the two of them, somewhat driven by her comparatively low immagination. Puccini would “exactly calculate and weigh every accent, the value of every note and every nuance of timbre”, all in the pursuit of a point in creation where his sensibilities would no longer bug him over deficiency. His last words were concerning her: “Elvira- poor woman”. Leave no doubt as to where his heart lay. | https://medium.com/@noahbradl3y/what-was-puccini-like-8b9acb81e9ed | ['Noah Bradley'] | 2021-05-27 20:42:53.225000+00:00 | ['History', 'Italy', 'Classical Music', 'Music', 'Opera'] |
Stop, collaborate and listen. | Healthcare’s digital renaissance will see successful technology programs evolve from organizations’ ability to embrace interagency partnerships.
Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash
By now, it is a well accepted notion that “every company is now a tech company.” Thinking of technology as a monolithic industry is a vestige of a time when most companies based out of Silicon Valley did, in fact, traffic in silicon.
This puts traditionally techno-phobic industries, the most egregious example of which is healthcare, in a unique position. A position of rarity. This rarity invites attention and a lot of it. In just the third quarter of 2020, $8.4b of private equity flowed into privately held digital healthcare. A global pandemic has accelerated its trajectory to become the next trillion dollar industry. With those kinds of resources floating around, organizations need to move quickly to compete.
This need for speed puts new firms in the impossible position of trying to build a team, while garnering as much velocity from it as possible. There is no substitute for a well oiled internal technology team, yet this frantic pace flies directly in the face of the right way to build one. Getting the right people on the proverbial bus takes time. Time to find talented individuals in line with your organizational goals. Time for that team to coalesce. And time for domain knowledge transfer. Particularly in heavily regulated industries like healthcare.
One of the best ways to address this challenge is through external agencies. They can quickly create velocity and build a foundation for your team once it is ready. A fact which is not lost on the global technology consultant market which has grown by $10b over the last decade to a whopping $53b.
It is important, however, to understand that an agency is not a magic wand. There is preparation and a few key considerations to take into account before moving forward.
Create organizational anchor points
If an agency is building the engine which is powering your organization, you will need strong engine mounts to ensure maximum efficiency. They should be strong, flexible and placed judiciously for optimal support. These individuals should clearly understand both the strategic and tactical implications of technology decisions. This requires dedicated, senior individuals well versed in software development practices to absorb the output of the agency.
Foster strong communication channels
Trusting a consulting agency with building a foundational piece of technology for your firm unequivocally requires a strong relationship between your organizations. There is nothing more important in building trust within a relationship than communication. This is as true for business as it is for personal affairs. Regular check-ins, face to face when possible, are instrumental. It is easy to fall into the trap of treating a vendor as an “other” which only serves as a barrier for true collaboration. Successes as well as failures should be openly shared. This breeds a deep and meaningful connection which is a powerful motivator for cooperation.
Technology literacy plays an important role here since understanding is another pillar of effective communication. Your firm needs to be able to grasp the concepts and technologies introduced by the agency with enough confidence to embrace or, if necessary, challenge them.
Know when to detach
As with many relationships in life, there invariably comes a time when parties involved must part ways. Severing ties too early, risks your organization being ill prepared to absorb the agency’s work. Too late, and the spectre of codependency can rear its head. A clear and accurate project roadmap is fundamental for ensuring a timely and orderly disconnect.
It is an incredibly exciting time to be in digital health care. It is my hope that we can use the lessons of the past decade to transform this vital industry into the accessible, efficient, and universally available one that it needs to be. | https://medium.com/@arturorobles/stop-collaborate-and-listen-73b2eb9f857 | ['Arturo Robles'] | 2020-12-07 16:25:13.271000+00:00 | ['Digital Transformation', 'Consulting', 'Technology', 'Healthcare'] |
Type in a Foreign Language on a Windows, Mac, or Mobile | While learning a foreign language, you will reach a stage where you need to type that language. That is when you will realize that your device only supports English. Fortunately, you can easily set up your Windows or Mac computer to support many other layouts and languages. Follow this guide, and you will soon be typing in whatever language you choose.
Windows PC
Skip to the Mac or Mobile section depending on device
For this example, we will add the Korean language to Windows and its Hangul keyboard layout. This guide also uses the US keyboard layout as the default. Other default keyboard layouts should work the same way.
Type language in the search bar and click Language Settings
2. Click Add a language
3. Search for your language, click it, and then click Next
4. Click Install
5. Preferred Languages should now include your chosen language
6. Click Keyboard
7. Choose Microsoft IME
8. The final step assigns a universal hot key enabling you to switch between languages while you are editing text. Follow the steps in the screen shot below and finally click OK on each window.
Typing on the PC With Your New Keyboard Layout
You can now type with your new language in any app. The language bar will change as you open an editor window. Press Left-ALT + Shift to switch between US and foreign keyboards.
Mac
For this example, we will add the Korean language to Windows and its Hangul keyboard layout. This guide also uses the US keyboard layout as the default. Other default keyboard layouts should work the same way.
Open Keyboard settings and add 2-Set Korean as an Input Source
2. Make sure Show input menu in menu bar is checked and optionally Use the Caps Lock key. Use the Caps Lock key is available for non-Latin languages for easy toggle between English and foreign language keyboard layouts. All other languages can use ^Space (CTRL+Space) to switch languages.
Typing on the Mac With Your New Keyboard Layout
You can now type with your new language in any app. The language bar will change as you open an editor window. Press CTRL+Space to switch between US and foreign keyboards.
Mobile
It is easy to add a new language to both iPhone and Android devices. The following screen shots will help you find the appropriate setting on your phone. Just add the the language the new language will be available whenever the on-screen keyboard appears.
iPhone
Android
Conclusion
Finally, you can practice your typing skills at www.typebuddy.com. Try printing a picture of the keyboard layout. Practice until you can type without looking at the keyboard. You have memorized the new keyboard layout once you achieve at least 15–20 WPM. Good luck!
This story was originally published at Type Buddy Blog. | https://medium.com/@wade_44949/type-in-a-foreign-language-on-a-windows-mac-or-mobile-f2a2ee2f4cf9 | [] | 2020-12-21 00:31:53.790000+00:00 | ['Keyboard Layout', 'iPhone', 'Mac', 'Korean', 'Windows'] |
Reasons Why I Share Startup Ideas | Whether it be any startup idea i.e. mobile, web based or youtube video ideas, several people ask me that why do you share startup ideas on https://auntyshout.com? Some ask because of their curiosity, willingness to know; some ask to taunt, laugh at me and my ideas; and claim in a grumpy way that if such ideas may worth millions then why would someone be sharing for free and openly or why not you just make them and become rich by yourself, quickly or get quick rich overnight. So, instead of answering them individually, I decided that through this article all their doubts, curiosity whether negative or positive can be answered, all together and at once.
Too Many Ideas to Be Implemented By A Single Person
You might be thinking why not I just implement these ideas and become rich, why do I have to share startup ideas? well the answers are simple, I get so many ideas that it is not possible for me as a single person or two to implement and manage all of them from development to marketing etc. So, what is the benefit of thinking about solutions, if you are unable to implement them. I don’t want to be called a dreamer whole life, so, it’s better to keep things distributed, moving and feel the happiness of ideas getting implemented. If I can’t implement the ideas, better to share the idea.
Sharing is Caring
If I am blessed with such qualities then why not just share knowledge, ideas with other peoples and society. I believe, the solutions of problems and creation of opportunities are more important. It’s better to share the knowledge with the world, guide others, help the world instead of being greedy, limiting knowledge to yourself and then die. After-all sharing is caring and the blessings of returning back to society and people are enormous, at-least the humanity will be benefited.
If I will neither implement nor share, someone else will one day able to generate idea and solve the problems because I am not the only person who can generate the idea to solve the specific problem. There are millions of problems and millions of survivors similarly anyone can either stand from the survivors or the one who will notice and work on that. So, it’s better to get the happiness and blessings of sharing than to regret.
Better Implementation of Raw Ideas
There is always a space of improvement and betterment. Keeping that in mind, I share many ideas which may not be fully mature from each and every perspective, I may not have the deep insights about the industry to which the startup idea belong or the pros and cons of the idea but still I share whatever I think may be possible or could improve the system and society positively. Who knows, there might be thousands of industry experts, wannapreneur, students who can improve or polish that raw idea and implement it which in return solve problems of thousands of peoples. Who knows there might be millions of peoples desperately waiting or dreaming for such idea to be implemented or existed in real life. It’s really hard to know and realize all the problems of millions of peoples. So instead of thinking and asking too much, wasting time in ambiguity, I just share the idea and leave it open to all the genius, creative minds all around the world. There might be possibility that a small seed level concept of idea can be reason of some other big and creative startup ideas which can help to millions of peoples and bring millions of opportunities, create new industries and revolutionize the world. Possibilities can be endless. It might be possible that your raw idea can become a single dot of someone’s connecting dots.
Hope you found this article helpful. Please do let me know your views about this article and visit https://auntyshout.com/ for more interesting articles i.e. productivity, real life experience, startup ideas, mobile apps ideas, website ideas and youtube video ideas.
Originally published at https://auntyshout.com | https://medium.com/@auntyshout/reasons-why-i-share-startup-ideas-ac399bf688f6 | ['Aunty Shout'] | 2020-12-10 21:00:42.051000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Startup Ideas', 'Startup Lessons', 'Product Development', 'Productivity'] |
A Black Hole in Our Solar System | There are only gentle signs at first. The outer planets would careen off their usual orbits and on Earth we’d notice the night sky is threaded with the metallic glint of more and more comets as the days go on. The comets have been torn out of their silent beds in the Oort cloud, sent towards the belly of the Solar System where they might strike any planet and rend gaping craters on the rocky surfaces. A black hole moving fast enough will be unaffected by the sun’s gravity and will leave without much more damage than that. But if the sun — that massive gold jewel that makes up the majority of our Solar System’s mass — attracts the black hole, a devastating story begins to unfold.
Lunar and planetary orbits deform into wild, tangled paths with the approach of the black hole. Gravitational effects change the landscape all around us with the Earth quite literally parting in extreme earthquakes and the molten fire of volcanic eruptions. Seasons become extreme as our path around the sun grows closer or further away. The tides shift; we are bound to our home planet which could be sent into the sun to burn. Otherwise the Earth might be pushed into the empty, exotic darkness of the cosmos where our fate will be a stony and suffocating freeze without the heat of our star. Jupiter — larger than the black hole but less massive — will have its thick, brass-colored clouds sucked away and made swirling into a hot and luminous disk.
The black hole continues onto the asteroid belt.
Were life still around, we’d now be able to see the nearing monster and the light bending around it. The black hole is drenched in x-ray radiation from the disk of Jupiter’s gas. If our planet hasn’t streamed either into the sun or into space, we will be consumed by the black hole, unable to see its final meeting with the sun. Our star’s gas and light are stolen into the event horizon and this marks the final wound and death of our Solar System.
A simulation shows the gravitational lensing effects of a black hole passing in front of a galaxy and distorting its light. Image by Urbane Legend.
While black holes can traverse the galaxy and disrupt any star systems in their path, the chances of it happening are fortunately small. This is true especially towards the hem of the galaxy where we reside and where the number of black holes greatly diminishes. A nightmarish scenario like the one above is sensational by nature but unlikely. Instead, the black hole which may exist in our Solar System takes on a very different shape.
Data from half a decade of OGLE (Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment) revealed a large number of lensing events. During these events objects are magnified by large masses in front of them, providing astronomers with a better view of the more distant objects behind. The survey attempts to detect changes in brightness from distant stars and galaxies. It revealed a strange population of small, nearby lenses in the Milky Way with a mass of .5 to 20 times that of the Earth. This aligns perfectly with predictions of Planet Nine. New research suggests Planet Nine and all its disruptions in our Solar System might not be a planet at all, but something much rarer.
The search for the elusive world known as Planet Nine is based primarily on the behavior of a dozen Trans-Neptunian bodies (objects swirling in the outer reaches of the Solar System, past Neptune). The objects have clustered orbits with similar tilts and at their closest to the sun, they pass by the same area. These orbits are clustered, in theory, due to the gravitational influence of a ninth as-yet-undiscovered planet. The probability that the behavior of the TNOs is pure chance is a paltry 0.007%. Neither can Neptune be the answer since the bodies aren’t close enough to the dense, blue giant. The hypothetical orbit of Planet Nine is seen here with the present day orbit of TNOs. Image by R. Hurt/JPL-Caltech.
There are three ways in which Planet Nine could have entered our Solar System: it could have formed as-is, in its current orbit, or it could have formed within the inner Solar System before being ostracized to its current position as much as 120 billion km (75 billion miles) from the sun. At this distance from any starlight, it becomes difficult to see. Both of these are unlikely. The most favorable scenario involves Planet Nine forming outside the Solar System as a free-floating planet before being drawn in by the gravity of the sun. There is speculation, however, that what the sun captured was a rare kind of black hole.
The chances of the sun having ensnared a free-floating planet are roughly the same as it ensnaring a primordial black hole. The gift of the primordial black holes is that not only would it explain the clustering of the TNOs, but it would also explain the lensing events of the OGLE survey.
Primordial black holes are still only hypothetical, but are believed to have formed less than a second after the brazen eruption of the Big Bang. Quantum fluctuations during this early and tentative time would have caused matter to distribute unevenly with the more densely packed regions collapsing and giving way to the first ancient population of black holes. They would have ornamented the universe long before stars, long before any sparkling galaxy. To this day they would remain compact and countless, but difficult to find due to their distance and lack of light.
A black hole with a mass of Planet Nine (about five times that of Earth) would measure only 9 cm (3.5 inches) across. This is thanks to the black hole’s great density, allowing it to have visible, gravitational effects even at the size of a baseball. Calculations and computer simulations can only, after all, tell us the mass and not the composition of any object responsible for the TNO anomalies. The figure above is to scale for the proposed primordial black hole. Image by Jakub Scholtz and James Unwin.
To find this primordial black hole is possible but, requires a very different route than the one we’ve so far taken. Searching for a planet involves infrared and microwave surveys; searching for a black hole is a little more experimental. As dark matter and its antimatter pair met and annihilated around the black hole they would form a distinctive halo lit by flashes of gamma radiation. The halo would stretch and saunter a billion kilometers (621 million miles) out in every direction. This is about the distance between Earth and Saturn. These gamma rays might be picked up by current technology like the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope, though any moving sources in x-rays and high energy cosmic rays should also be considered.
There are even more exotic theories of what may be stringing the TNOs along in their peculiar paths. What lies at the edges of our Solar System could be something as strange as a Bose star — cool, collected orbs of dark matter that would provide a way to better understand our galaxy and every other. Whatever may be the answer to this mystery — a bizarre star or an undiscovered super-Earth — will be something new and something revolutionary. In this way the story of Planet Nine unfolds like the tale of an approaching black hole, its sweeping presence giving us a chance to be part of something tremendous. | https://medium.com/predict/a-black-hole-in-our-solar-system-cdfd5f699f4c | ['Ella Alderson'] | 2019-11-07 02:00:29.151000+00:00 | ['Science', 'Space', 'Physics', 'Cosmos', 'Universe'] |
I have the same problem, it’s a bit bizarre, I’ll check multiple times a day like I’m going to… | I have the same problem, it’s a bit bizarre, I’ll check multiple times a day like I’m going to learn something valuable 😂
Blocksite is a chrome extension that helps block specific pages:
For when you compulsively check your stats
https://medium.com/the-daily-practice/for-when-you-compulsively-check-your-stats-2c9d1029b483 | https://medium.com/@zanedickens/i-have-the-same-problem-its-a-bit-bizarre-i-ll-check-multiple-times-a-day-like-i-m-going-to-53d1cac2c5c | ['Zane Dickens'] | 2020-12-24 05:14:26.735000+00:00 | ['Writing Tips', 'Writing', 'Writing Life'] |
Why It Is Important to See Labels As a Tool, Not a Destiny | Why It Is Important to See Labels As a Tool, Not a Destiny
A label paves the way to understanding
Years ago, when my husband and I were first trying to piece together the different aspects of our daughter’s developmental delays and emotional problems, a friend recommended we seek an assessment from my area’s Early Intervention department. We filled out the paperwork and scheduled the assessment, but in the back of our minds was a worry.
We both had grown up in a time when learning disabilities were poorly understood and kids who had them were usually educated in the LD classroom with the other “dumb” kids. The label of a learning disability was a stigma, a sentence to live out the rest of one’s years separated from the “normal” kids.
Mental health issues were even more difficult for teachers to wrap their heads around. The closest we really ever got was to acknowledging the effect of a child’s mental health on her school performance was the broad diagnosis of “Behavioral Disorder.” And, likewise, those kids would go into the BD classroom with the BD teacher so they didn’t disrupt the learning of the “normal” kids.
And that was if your issue was ever detected, diagnosed, and treated. Many kids with learning disabilities were never diagnosed, and they were left to their own devices in a general education classroom, where they would flail and fall behind. Kids like me with emotional disorders that didn’t get in the way of other kids’ learning were never even really addressed, aside from the odd visit to see the guidance counselor.
We didn’t want our daughter to end up with a label that would determine her destiny. But we couldn’t sit around and watch her struggle, either.
We needed help. We needed answers. And if a label helped us get those things, then that’s what we needed to find.
Over the years, with assessment after assessment, many different labels have made their way into our vernacular. Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Speech articulation disorder. Cognitive delay. Developmental delay. ADHD. Social pragmatic delay. Nonverbal learning disorder. Anxiety. Depression.
The names have been confusing, scary, and disheartening at times. But I can honestly say that, while the relentless search for a name to describe my daughter’s many idiosyncrasies was exhausting, I wouldn’t trade the results for anything.
A label can help you find identity and community
When I started to suspect my daughter had Childhood Apraxia of Speech, the first thing I did was to join an online community for parents whose kids also had it. I suddenly had a place to ask questions, to find a practitioner who could evaluate and work with her, and to commiserate with the fact that parenting a child who can’t communicate her needs is hard.
Before then, I had nowhere to go with my questions — nowhere, that is, unless I wanted to wait in an eight-month-long queue to see a developmental pediatrician. Questions, at that age, cannot wait eight months. By then, my initial question would be resolved and dozens of others would have taken its place.
Each time we have refined her diagnosis, I’ve been fortunate to find online or in-person groups for parents like me and our children. I get to hear from people who identify with the learning or mental health issues my daughter has, and with parents who identify with my own struggle to help her navigate the acronym soup that surrounds her.
When my daughter gets older, she will be able to join these groups, as well. She’ll be able to talk with others who share the same mental health issues and who are taking the same classes in school. She’ll find community in a way she never would be able to if she didn’t have a label to synthesize her struggles.
In fact, time after time I’ve seen recently-diagnosed adults in these groups — with anything from ADHD to bipolar disorder — express feeling seen for the first time. There is a certain comfort in looking down a list of symptoms, ticking them off in your head, and finally knowing you’re not alone.
A label helps you understand and advocate for what you need
My daughter has made a significant amount of progress since her diagnosis of ADHD, Nonverbal Learning Disorder, anxiety and depression two years ago. Still, each time we see her developmental pediatrician, he issues the same words of caution.
“We know,” he’ll say, “that students with this profile often begin to struggle when things begin to get more abstract,” and, “Make sure to keep an eye on her friendships because she’s very susceptible to bullying.” He knows these things, and we as parents now know them, because there is a framework that outlines the characteristics of the average person with her diagnoses. Without a label, it would be much more difficult to identify the suite of needs out daughter has and the specific interventions that can be put in place to support her.
No one will ever identify with every single characteristic of each label she carries. But being able to look at our daughter’s needs through those lenses has been immensely helpful when trying to communicate with her school, her outside therapists, and other support providers. For example, we can tell the school we don’t want to pull back on in-person math support just because she’s memorized her times tables, because we know longer multiplication problems will likely cause her to get lost and frustrated, and we can be sure the teachers are keeping an eye on her on the playground to be sure her friendships are staying positive.
Equally, she can get to know her own characteristics as a learner and as a friend, and as she gets more confident she can advocate for her own needs — both at school and in relationships.
Your label is a description, not your destiny
While having a label to describe yourself can open up access to a world of information and support, it’s important not to over-identify with these labels. It can be easy to develop a fixed mindset and think, for example, “Well, my disorder says I’m bad at this, so I might as well not even try.” Things may be slow going. Things might not come as easily to you as they do to other people. But you are capable of learning and growing, even in your disability area.
One way we help our daughter to avoid this tendency is to frame her disability and mental health issues not in terms of a label, but instead in terms of her strengths and struggles.
She knows that some parts math can be hard for her, but that she really nails some other parts and has learned a ton in the last few years, even in her weaker areas. She knows it’s hard to keep friends, but she has been able to practice sticking up for herself. She knows she has anxiety, but she also has strategies to lessen those feelings.
She is still young, and we won’t be able to avoid sharing her specific labels with her forever. Hopefully, though, by showing her how possible it is to work to bolster her weaknesses while embracing her strengths, we are paving the way to her being able to separate herself from her disability when she gets older.
A statement I heard in a special education training ages ago comes to mind as I think about my daughter and her various struggles. The trainer said, “Put the person before the disability.” We can develop more empathy when we begin seeing people as people first, rather than their differences being their primary defining characteristic. My daughter isn’t “an ADHD kid.” She’s a child — a beautiful, empathetic, sweet, bright child — with ADHD.
Similarly, how individuals think about themselves can change when they think of themselves as individuals first, before applying that disability or mental health label. Your diagnoses are only a part of who you are. It may feel like they run your life a lot of the time, but they can only do that if you let them.
A label says nothing about who you are destined to be. Rather, a label should be used as a tool — one which can help you learn about yourself and what you need, so you can grow into the best version of yourself you can be. | https://medium.com/invisible-illness/why-it-is-important-to-see-labels-as-a-tool-not-a-destiny-e08d92e93f19 | ['Nikki Kay'] | 2020-10-12 09:01:05.699000+00:00 | ['Disability', 'Mental Health', 'Learning Disability', 'Education', 'Parenting'] |
Silicon Valley Is Using Our Own Intelligence to Make Us Obsolete | Silicon Valley Is Using Our Own Intelligence to Make Us Obsolete
How workers unknowingly train their robot replacements
Photo: Donald Iain Smith/Getty Images
In the future envisioned by Wall Street and Silicon Valley alike, humans are just another externality. There are too many of us, asking for salaries and health care and meaningful work. Each victory we win for human labor, such as an increase in the minimum wage, makes us that much more expensive to employ, and supports the calculus through which checkout workers are replaced by touchscreen kiosks.
Where humans remain valuable, at least temporarily, is in training their replacements. Back in the era of outsourcing, domestic workers would cry foul when they were asked to train the lower-wage foreign workers who would shortly replace them. Today, workers are hardly aware of the way digital surveillance technologies are used to teach their jobs to algorithms.
This is what all the hoopla about “machine learning” is really about. The things we want our robots to do — like driving in traffic, translating languages, or collaborating with humans — are mind-bogglingly complex. We can’t devise a set of explicit instructions that covers every possible situation. What computers lack in improvisational logic, they must make up for with massive computational power. So computer scientists feed the algorithms reams and reams of data, and let them recognize patterns and draw conclusions themselves.
They get this data by monitoring human workers doing their jobs. The ride-hailing app on cab drivers’ phones also serves as a recording device, detailing the way they handle various road situations. The algorithms then parse data culled from thousands of drivers to write their own autonomous vehicle programs. Online task systems pay people pennies per task to do things that computers can’t yet do, such as translate certain phrases, label the storefronts in photos, or identify abusive social media posts. The companies paying for the millions of human micro-tasks may not actually need any of the answers themselves. The answers are being fed directly into machine learning routines.
The humans’ only real job is to make themselves obsolete. | https://medium.com/team-human/silicon-valley-is-using-our-own-intelligence-to-make-us-obsolete-813c7a4ac2fd | ['Douglas Rushkoff'] | 2020-10-22 19:29:28.317000+00:00 | ['Silicon Valley', 'Technology', 'Book Excerpt', 'Robots', 'Future'] |
Vulnerability in the Context of Masculinity, Manhood, and Fatherhood | LMB: Now, I know because I’ve read enough about the two of you that your backgrounds are… not that they’re so different, but you have differences certainly. It isn’t as though you agree on everything. Why do you think the two of you… Robert, this one will be for you since John just gave us some of his perspective, why do you think the two of you were able to develop such a solid friendship even though you have many differences?
RJ: John’s a bright individual, and I’m attracted to that. I’m attracted to bright people. By bright, I don’t mean just intellect, it’s more than that, emotional capacity, capacity for live, capacity for love and living. I sensed that immediately. I would almost call it in the spiritual realm of things, a spiritual sense of things. I wasn’t afraid to reach out to him. I wasn’t afraid to share things with him that most people I think at the beginning of a friendship might not share.
LMB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
RJ: I felt a comfort with him that was evident pretty soon after we met, and that builds. When you can build on a foundation like that, it makes it stronger and stronger I think going forward, and there’s a dependence and a reliance on the person. I mean, John and I, it’s not like we’re on the phone or seeing each other every other week. We have about almost an hour apart, but when we get together, it could have been two months, three months, four months since we last saw each other, and we just pick right back up.
***
LMB: What can other men learn from reading your book about friendship and compassion?
JR: That’s a really good question. For me, we as men, even in our enlightened days, as we tend to think they’re enlightened now, we’re still taught at least implicitly to some of those classic male, masculine attributes around strength and protection. Those are valid and necessary, and can also get in the way of being open and vulnerable, especially with another man. I don’t know if there’s a secret or not, but there’s something I think courageous and brave in being vulnerable. It’s not like I say, “I’m going to be courageous and brave and be vulnerable today.” It doesn’t really work that way, for me at least.
JR: I don’t know if it was my background, my parents, or what, or the DNA. I’m 54 years old now, so I’m not sure this has been always true, but at this point in my life, when Robert and I met, which was 18 years ago, even then I think that we somehow let out clues to each other that we had had some life experiences that weren’t fun, and rather than focus on politics and religion where people tend to shut down, we were able to see past that, and see that we’re connected through the broad experience of human life, and suffering that comes with that.
JR: That sounds big and fancy I think hearing myself say it, but I think that’s what attracted me to Robert was he was able to share what was going on in his life at the time. Fairly quickly it was like, “Okay, this is a deep thinker,” as Robert was complimenting me, I appreciate that. Robert is also a deep thinker, extremely well-read, maybe the most well-read person I know of personally. I don’t know, I don’t have this same friendship with all men. I think there was something in the way we were able to connect, but I think we both came to the table like this, just being able to open up just enough. It wasn’t like we were just jumping into our own personal 12-step program right away. It wasn’t like that.
LMB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
JR: But there was just enough of, “Oh, tell me about your kids,” or, “Are you married, or what’s going on? Oh, I see. Life’s a little more complicated than it looks like on the outside.” You know? Things like that.
LMB: Robert?
RJ: For me, I’ll start out with the caveat like John did that this is for me personally. I’m a poet and a novelist, so by those definitions alone and by what I do, I tend to think more, grapple with life, question more than your average bear, and it’s taken me some time to understand that and feel comfortable enough in my own skin to own that. It was about that time when I was meeting John, soon after that going through my own divorce, and it was almost like a rebirth for me to come into my own. And really to shed previous thinking, previous modes of being, if I want to call it that. It sounds like a cliché, but embrace who you are and to feel comfortable in your own skin, and that’s okay. For me it was nothing more complicated than that. Meeting John was fortuitous maybe in that timing that maybe he came into my life at the time that I needed to have a good friend like that. [crosstalk 00:10:37]
LMB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Go ahead, John.
JR: Not all my male friendships are like… I do have other close male friendships, I just wanted to be clear.
LMB: Okay.
JR: I have other close male friends who might be watching this thing.
LMB: Good point, sure, that’s fair.
JR: My friendship with Robert is distinct in its own merit, you know what I’m saying? So I could count two or three other men with whom I have close relationships that are distinct on their own merit.
LMB: Okay.
JR: You know what I’m saying?
LMB: Yeah.
JR: But not all my male friendships have that same… I just can’t, I don’t think. You know?
LMB: Let’s continue with that then, because what I want to know is what are some of the elements those friendships have in common with the friendship that you have with Robert. Is it about the vulnerability and the trust? What do you think are the commonalities?
JR: There is a level of trust. I think oftentimes in male friendships there is an undercurrent, maybe a competitiveness, an undercurrent.
LMB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
JR: Even if it’s not stated. But I don’t feel that. Sometimes I do, but it’s not a prevailing emotional undercurrent with those relationships. They’re free to be sort of how they are. I think these friendships are ones that came to me, not at the exact same time in my life, but in my… you know, I had already become an adult. I have some close friends from my youth, but those are different too. I think I was able to make these friendships or be a partner in those friendships from a different adult stance, if you will, as a man having, I went through a divorce in my 20s, getting married again, just whatever lumps, bruises, and scars we accumulate as we grow.
LMB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
JR: Enough of that had happened that I didn’t feel like I had to be somebody I wasn’t necessarily.
LMB: So authenticity is a factor as well.
JR: I think so, I think so, to the extent that we know who we are.
LMB: Yeah.
JR: Like any of us. | https://medium.com/modernidentities/vulnerability-in-the-context-of-masculinity-manhood-and-fatherhood-1f5c2163365 | ['Agents Of Change'] | 2021-01-12 22:09:03.596000+00:00 | ['Death', 'Life Lessons', 'Vulnerability', 'Men', 'Friendship'] |
20 Little Things I’m Grateful For That Made 2020 Better For Me Than 2019 | I don’t need to say again that 2020 was a shit year for the vast majority of people. It was a year that not only exacerbated the brokenness of the system but also exposed what has been previously wrong with it for decades.
But still, I hope you are encouraged to make a list of things that went right for you just to keep yourself going in the midst of oppressive opposition and draining negativity from all forces around you. It may sound silly or superficial for you, but I find it more conducive to my personal growth when I am not 100% negative or putting myself down all the time — ya know?
I am aware that fall into the privileged but not privileged category. I am fortunate to be living with family during this time while others don’t have the privilege and are being evicted from their apartments. I am still employed and able to work from home. I don’t face blatant racial discrimination. I live in a relatively safe area. I don’t have to work on the front lines during this pandemic.
However, even though I benefit from middle-class privilege, the future statistically is bleak for me. I don’t earn enough to live on my own. I have pondered whether or not I am chronically ill due to my persistent fatigue that makes me work half as much as a normal healthy, able-bodied person and leaves me bedridden for 2/5 of the day (excluding nighttime sleeping hours). I haven’t seen the doctor for four years. I am not in a position of power or influence and I’m pretty sure elites controlling certain industries would hate my guts if they knew my personal views on certain things that I am unwilling to compromise on.
In the grand scheme of things, I am pretty much powerless (what offends me the most is not Asian jokes but when people assume I’m like a “rich white girl blogger” and I’m not even white or rich and an influencer’s outfit on Instagram is worth more than what I earn a month — but that’s beside the point). But I am also aware that I am fortunate that I am able to have things that many others don’t, including safety, food, shelter, and some time to think of my dreams (even if it is not as much as I’d like).
It’s easy to stew in negativity. It’s easy to think about ways you are falling behind in life due to things beyond your control. My limited level of privilege may give me a slight advantage, but I still feel like I am falling behind other people who are richer, more successful, more productive, more charismatic, more well-connected, and more powerful than me. There will always be many people in society who are above me — financially, socially, and mentally — and there is nothing I can do to catch up to them, even if I double down my effort to be like them (but over time, I realize that the only person that is worth being is a better version of myself, nothing unrealistic).
My mental health has been down the toilet for the vast majority of the year and I’ve been in far too many creative ruts to count and admittedly couldn’t control how much I felt frustrated about it.
However, as much as I skew heavily to believing in the most pessimistic things and hate toxic positivity along with forcing myself to feel happy when I’m clearly not, showing gratitude from time to time is a genuine way to help me get out of an overly negative rut that drains me and keeps me in a self-destructive cycle of hopelessness, paralyzing self-doubt that prevents me from reaching the point where I’d like to be — flourishing creatively and authentically, and analysis-paralysis that stifles me and makes keeping the creative momentum harder to maintain.
There is a time for releasing repressed emotions and a time for acknowledging what went right to give yourself hope because in times like these, hope may be all you have to hold onto and to remind yourself that you are not a disaster-in-the-making, a lost cause, or worthless compared to people who seem to have it all together.
If anything, I’ve learned that it is far more productive to remind myself of how far I’ve come, compared to when I first started to make real changes in my life, instead of beating myself down to the ground so hard that I feel like I can’t ever get back up.
Without further ado, here are 20 little things that went right for me this year: | https://medium.com/song-of-the-lark/20-little-things-that-went-right-for-me-in-2020-82c6317d3cb | ['Lark Morrigan'] | 2020-12-22 19:41:02.741000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Self', 'Mental Health', '2020'] |
Christmas Almost Wasn’t Going To Happen This Year | Christmas Almost Wasn’t Going To Happen This Year
(But It Will, Thanks To Coach Rudolph, That Crafty Reindeer)
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
Central News Service Exclusive: The “Rudolph song” lyrics needed to change in 2020
At the North Pole, things weren’t quite right.
Trouble was brewing, soon to be a fight.
Most of the reindeer had gotten out of hand;
And Santa, poor soul, couldn’t understand.
First up, Dasher made fun of Prancer,
Said he wasn’t a very good dancer.
Teasing him in an unmerciful way,
Prancer got dizzy, started to swoon and sway.
Then Donner told a joke on Cupid,
“Santa’s going to change your name to Stupid.”
And when Cupid didn’t know what to say,
Donner said, “Can’t wait to be pullin’ that sleigh!”
Then Comet did much the same with Vixen,
That’s when hoofs started flyin’ from Blitzen.
Alas, a big fight was about under way,
Until Rudolph knew just what to say.
Do you think Santa knew what to do?
I can tell you he didn’t have a clue.
“Should I ask them to pull the sleigh?
Surely I can’t save the day.”
That’s when Rudolph took things in hand,
Putting things in a way they could all understand.
He unleashed, in his most Southern way:
“Y’all get yo’ asses hitched to that sleigh!”
(“Not you, Santa.”)
“I’m the coach now; what I say goes!
And forget about any nose that glows.
We’re gonna practice, then practice some more,
We’re gonna practice ’til your asses are sore.”
(“You just sit over there, Santa.”)
Coach Rudolph got them to practice in a way,
That will keep them busy until the big day.
So yes, there will be Christmas this year,
Just thank coach Rudolph for bringing in the cheer.
And if you all promise to be good girls and boys,
You too can look forward to plenty of toys.
And Christmas will unfold as it should,
“If y’all just remember to be good!”
(Don’t make me call Coach Rudolph!!!)
And Now The New Rudolph Song:
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen,
Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen,
But do you recall
The most heroic reindeer of all?
Rudolph the red nosed reindeer
Had a very wise old nose,
And if you ever saw it,
You’d say it belonged in the pros.
All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names.
They didn’t know how Rudolph
Could win all their Reindeer games.
Then one foggy Christmas Eve,
Santa came to say:
“Rudolph, with your nose that knows,
Please stop them from coming to blows.”
Then how the reindeer loved him,
As they shouted out with glee:
“Rudolph the Nose-Knows Reindeer,
You’re the baddest ass in history!!!” | https://medium.com/no-crime-in-rhymin/christmas-almost-wasnt-going-to-happen-this-year-f48e005c1b91 | ['Speaking Fiction To Power'] | 2020-12-23 09:42:09.414000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Funny', 'Christmas'] |
Why I left Facebook. Because we all deserve a safe, private and freer way to connect. | How to reach me online from this point forward:
I’m not closing my Facebook, Whatsapp or Instagram account only because of the network effect it still possesses and is still useful as a means of finding me online. However, most of my thoughts & posts will now live here on Medium: https://medium.com/@phil_knows. I prefer not to use my Whatsapp but unfortunately the large network effect includes close friends/family so I will still have to use it for non-secure messages. If anybody can find a good alternative to Instagram though, I’d love to hear from you. Til then, I’m still available there.
Cryptographically secured & verified methods are the best way of reaching me. This is why I highly recommend something like Keybase for chat + emails. When an app such as Whatsapp says they have end-to-end encryption on your chats, you can take that with a grain of salt. End-to-end encryption is a marketing term used by these big tech companies. The only way to authentically ensure your data is secured online is for you to generate your own cryptographic keys and manage/hold them yourself.
Keybase acts as a key directory that maps your social media presence through proven identities. When I mean proven, I mean it’s publicly verifiable proofs through the use of cryptography. Basically, it’s very hard for someone to spoof your identity or for anyone to intercept & decrypt your data without your half of the key that you keep private. Even supercomputers will have a hard time trying to break it… if it’s even worth the electricity bill.
In fact, through Keybase, you can send me encrypted e-mails that can only be decrypted from the key I possess. It’s this simple to ensure Gmail is not snooping through our conversation. You can e-mail me by using this to type your message, then copy, paste and send the encrypted code to me via your favourite e-mail provider.
Although information security is never 100% fail-safe, you just have to be slightly safer than the next person to deter hackers. The goal is to make it not worth their time by putting up extra (no matter how big/small) barriers of protection. Your privacy and security is more important than ever on an increasingly untrustworthy world wide web. I’m always available to teach and demonstrate how to keep yourself & your data safe online. First thing’s first though: You have to start by taking action.
Bye bye Facebook. | https://medium.com/@philknows/why-i-left-facebook-because-we-all-deserve-a-safer-better-way-to-connect-88af593edbf3 | ['Phil Ngo'] | 2019-06-09 20:26:31.179000+00:00 | ['Encryption', 'Security', 'Cryptography', 'Privacy', 'Infosec'] |
How to fix SearchMine virus | You gotta love teens. You tell them, “don’t download sketchy stuff”, and they do it anyways. Why is it that they think someone would spend lots of time and money creating a nice-looking website for illegal movie downloads? Out of the goodness of their heart — or to run a scam?
Here sucker sucker…
So of course, my teen ignored my advice and got the SearchMine virus/malware embedded into his Google Chrome instance on his Mac. SearchMine is super dangerous because it insert search results to malicious websites that have you install more malware to steal data, encryption your hard drive for ransom, and more.
The gateway to digital hell
SearchMine is also one check of a tough virus to remove.
Why is SearchMine hard to remove?
Here’s what I tried, to no avail:
Removed Chrome completely, by doing into Terminal and running sudo rm -rf on everything I could find on Stackoverflow and SuperUser and Google Chrome and Chromium forums that was even vaguely related to Google Chrome, removing profiles, etc.
on everything I could find on Stackoverflow and SuperUser and Google Chrome and Chromium forums that was even vaguely related to Google Chrome, removing profiles, etc. Ran Malwarebytes and Bitdefender. Bitdefender found nothing, but Malwarebytes found the SearchMine virus pretty quickly. I removed it, ran all the above Terminal commands again to fully remove Chrome just to be sure, and rebooted.
Reinstalled macOS Catalina.
But none of this worked. Crazy.
As I type this, I’ve given full disk access to Terminal, and am in the process of running:
sudo grep -i -r searchmine /
sudo grep -i -r anysearch /
sudo grep -i -r mycouponsmart /
sudo grep -i -r profile.json /
… to see if there’s something that turns up that the virus checkers don’t find. For those not familiar, here’s that these commands are doing:
sudo — run as superuser, i.e., with extra privileges
— run as superuser, i.e., with extra privileges grep — look within all files
— look within all files -i — ignore case
— ignore case -r — run recursively, that is, go through each directly
— run recursively, that is, go through each directly searchmine — the text to look for
— the text to look for / — start at the topmost directory
I’m also running the above grep pattern on the GUIDs that are in the Chrome profile.json that SearchMine is using.
I’ll update if something turns up. But don’t hold your breath.
Given how SearchMine keeps coming back, it feels like something that’s lodged into code that’s been covertly inserted into memory and/or firmware. It’s a tough little piece of sh@%.
But that said…
How to block SearchMine
Here’s a relatively simple hack to block this persistent little MF of a virus: edit your /etc/hosts file to map searchmine and its associated domains to your localhost. Here’s my complete /etc/hosts file:
##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting. Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 searchmine.net
127.0.0.1 searchmine.com
127.0.0.1 searchmine.io
127.0.0.1 anysearch.com
127.0.0.1 mycouponsmart.com
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost
If you’re not super technical, here are some simple steps to edit this:
Go to google.com (this is important; remember, SearchMine is hijacking your search results) In Google’s search field, type in download vs code (assuming you don’t already have it, or some other code editor like vim) Install vs code per the instructions. (vs code is Microsoft’s code editor. I’m recommending it here since it’s relatively easy to use but you can still run it from the command line.) Go back to Google.com and search for run vs code command line Follow the instructions Run the Terminal program. (Not sure how? Go to google.com and type in how to run terminal in macos) Now type sudo code /etc/hosts Add the lines above that are missing ( 127.0.0.1 searchmine.net , etc.) Save, reboot
How the SearchMine block works
This won’t remove the SearchMine virus, but it will cripple it. Every time the SearchMine virus tries to redirect your browser to searchmine.net/.com/.io, or anysearch.com, or mycouponsmart.com, your browser will redirect that request to your laptop. (Every laptop’s Internet address is 127.0.0.1.)
Without being able to reach its server, SearchMine can’t deliver its malicious search results. You can still search with other search engines, like Google.
If SearchMine evolves — and I’d count on it, these guys are smart — then as they add new domains to redirect to, keep updating your /etc/hosts file.
How to get SearchMine to block itself
The makers of SearchMine really want you to access their site. So, let’s oblige them. (Note to any SearchMine folks reading this: careful what you wish for!)
On a machine where you have not changed /etc/hosts to block the SearchMine-related domains, open Terminal and paste this command in. A few dozen times. :)
while true; do curl -s -L --retry 1000 -H 'Cache-Control: no-cache' --user-agent Mozilla/5.0 --limit-rate 1k " https://www.searchmine.net/search/?asset=ds&wtguid=27232702344415973&wtmacid=f1e36c6706297c31241eed3bfb229073&wtsrc=4583&wtdt=011620&wtbr=1&wtpl=10.15.2.0&v=6.0&q=34523452389-8392380490485092348539840598234-09582340-958239-485-2390485928340-985239048539840598340-9582390-850239-852398509830958230-95830-9485023-98503909-85029348509385930-59230-59203945023952390-48504239850-23984502349859-850923-489523-9582-394582390-4852390-483995230-94582039850-3348509385930-59230-59203945023952390-48504239850-23984502349859-850923-489523-9582-394582390-4852390-483995230-94582039850-3348509385930-59230-59203945023952390-48504239850-23984502349859-850923-489523-9582-394582390-4852390-483995230-94582039850-3348509385930-59230-59203945023952390-48504239850-23984502349859-850923-489523-9582-394582390-4852390-483995230[1-10000 ] & " > /dev/null ; done &
What this does is continually request search results from one of the URLs in SearchMine’s profile.json file. curl has the following flags set:
-s : work silently, so our Terminal doesn’t have to display output, and we use less memory and CPU on our side.
: work silently, so our Terminal doesn’t have to display output, and we use less memory and CPU on our side. -L : follow redirects. This matters since the URL above initially yields a 302 redirect. We want SearchMine to burn up CPU, memory, and network resources to deliver an actual page.
: follow redirects. This matters since the URL above initially yields a 302 redirect. We want SearchMine to burn up CPU, memory, and network resources to deliver an actual page. --retry 1000 : retry up to 1000 times if needed. Again, SearchMine really wants us to visit their page, we’ll make an honest effort.
: retry up to 1000 times if needed. Again, SearchMine really wants us to visit their page, we’ll make an honest effort. -H ‘Cache-Control : no-cache’: ask the server not to send a cached version. Because we want to ensure we’re always seeing the latest, best content SearchMine has to offer.
: no-cache’: ask the server not to send a cached version. Because we want to ensure we’re always seeing the latest, best content SearchMine has to offer. --user-agent Mozilla/5.0 : make curl look like a Google Chrome browser. Because that’s their main target browser.
: make curl look like a Google Chrome browser. Because that’s their main target browser. --limit-rate 1k : run really slowly, at 1kpbs, like a dial-up modem from 1989. This way we can fully savor the experience of downloading a page from SearchMine.
: run really slowly, at 1kpbs, like a dial-up modem from 1989. This way we can fully savor the experience of downloading a page from SearchMine. > /dev/null : ignore all output so that we consume less memory on our side.
: ignore all output so that we consume less memory on our side. & : run in the background, so you can paste this command into your terminal window a few dozen times
… plus it has a nice long search string that will fill up their log files nice and quick.
On the surface, this might look like a curl script. But what it really is is a persistent request for the folks at SearchMine to block your IP address from their website, thus deactivating their virus. It is also communicating that, if they don’t block you, you will be a very expensive user for them in terms of consuming server and network resources, and that it might be more economical for them to simply deactivate their virus by blocking your IP.
Because SearchMine doesn’t provide any contact information — as evidenced by their screenshot above — this is the only means we have of communicating with them. Of course, if SearchMine did provide contact information, where we could request that they deactivate their virus, and they complied, I would not be publishing the above script.
For these reasons, I believe these requests to SearchMine are, for United States residents, communications protected under the First Amendment.
It works!
And sure enough, after asking enough times, the good folks at SearchMine have now blocked one of my machines from accessing the malware on their website.
“uncle!”
How kind of them! (And thanks Cloudflare for doing business with known virus creators. Glad to see your commitment to free speech.)
Think like a virus creator
Notice I’m not giving any links in the guide above, but I’m directing you to go to Google to type in your searches. This is important! When you have a redirect virus, it’s important that you assume that the virus creators are creating fake virus removal guides that include links to sites that have you to download more malware.
You basically have to have this mindset:
It’s from the 90s; Google it
Think like a virus creator. And don’t be naive.
Hope this helps. And I hope that the browser makers find a way to fix this very dangerous piece of malware. | https://medium.com/@alsargent/how-to-fix-searchmine-virus-be4f3926eab4 | ['Al Sargent'] | 2020-01-21 16:50:03.699000+00:00 | ['Anysearch', 'Malware', 'Virus', 'Mycouponsmart', 'Searchmine'] |
Create effective data visualizations of proportions | Create effective data visualizations of proportions
Best ways to see individual contributions to a whole and changes over time, at various dataset sizes — (includes simple, visual demonstrations, code & data)
Various visualisations of proportions
Plotting proportions of a whole might be one of the most common tasks in data visualisation. Examples include regional differences in happiness, economic indicators or crime, demographic differences in voting patterns, income or spending, or contributions of parts of a business to its bottom line. Often, the data also describes changes over time, which may be months, quarters, years or decades.
Even though they all relate to proportions of a whole, there often isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach that would work for everything.
In this article, I describe what I think are effective techniques for communicating proportions of a whole, and also changes to them over time. I will also explore changes in charts’ effectiveness as the number of data points or series change.
As always, this article will also include examples so that you can follow along and create your own, interesting, data visualisations.
For the code, I am going to use the famous Gapminder dataset, and some data of basketball shot shares for the Toronto Raptors during last season. These are simply examples of datasets showing proportions, so you need not know anything about economics or basketball to follow along!
Before we get started
Data
I include the code and data in my GitLab repo here (viz_proportions directory). So please feel free to play with it / improve upon it.
Packages
I assume you’re familiar with python. Even if you’re relatively new, this tutorial shouldn’t be too tricky, though.
You’ll need pandas and plotly . Install each (in your virtual environment) with a simple pip install [PACKAGE_NAME] .
Visualising simple proportions
Load & Inspect Data
Handily, the plotly package provides a few toy data sets for us to play with, the Gapminder dataset being one of them. We can load it with:
import plotly.express as px
gap_df = px.data.gapminder()
Inspect the data with gap_df.info() , and gap_df.head() , and we will see that it shows data for multiple countries in each year.
It includes population, and the GDP per capita — so let’s multiply the two to get the GDP data.
gap_df = gap_df.assign(gdp=gap_df['pop'] * gap_df['gdpPercap'])
Visualising single year data only
For the very first visualisations, let’s compare a few different types of charts. The initial data includes data from 1952, across 142 countries. Let’s simplify the data to collect data by continents, and for the latest year only, into cont_df .
year_df = gap_df[gap_df.year == max(gap_df.year)]
cont_df = year_df.groupby('continent').agg({'gdp': 'sum'})
cont_df.reset_index(inplace=True)
Here, the dataframe is grouped by continent, and reset the index because it is easier to deal with a ‘flat’ dataframe in Plotly Express.
The data can be now plotted, using Plotly Express. The code to plot these basic graphs are very basic. I note that for the bubble chart, I add an arbitrary variable called dataType , simply so that it can be used to align the bubbles in the Y direction.
# Pie chart
fig = px.pie(cont_df, values='gdp', names='continent')
fig.show()
# Bar chart
fig = px.bar(cont_df, color='continent', x='continent', y='gdp')
fig.show()
# Horizontal bar chart - stacked
fig = px.bar(cont_df, color='continent', x='gdp', orientation='h')
fig.show()
# Bubble chart
fig = px.scatter(cont_df.assign(dataType='GDP'), color='continent', x='continent', y='dataType', size='gdp', size_max=50)
fig.show()
I have collected the results here:
A comparison of chart types for simple, proportional data
All charts, save for column graphs, do not do well in indicating comparative sizes.
When data points are close in size, as the GDP data for Asia, Americas, Europe are, stacked bar charts and pie charts do not allow easy comparisons between the data points, as they begin from different references.
Pie charts are also problematic in that differences in angles are notoriously difficult to perceive accurately — so we will just ignore them going forward.
Bubble charts do slightly better, but because the size of the bubble relates to the size of the dataset, the differences in radii become smaller than with the column graphs (by a square root).
What happens when we add a dimension of time?
Visualising data over time
For this portion, we will need a dataframe with multiple years’ worth of data. We could use the entire dataset, but let’s still keep it simple, with just a small number of years’ data.
The dataset contains multiple years, but not from each year. We can use gap_df.year.unique() to see which years’ data are available, and choose years after 1985, which is five different years.
Our summary dataframe can be built as follows:
mul_yrs_df = gap_df[gap_df.year > 1985]
mul_yr_cont_df = mul_yrs_df.groupby(['continent', 'year']).agg({'gdp': 'sum'})
mul_yr_cont_df.reset_index(inplace=True)
The groupby method will create a multi-index dataframe, which can be best thought of as a nested index of (continent, year) (if you would like to learn more about hierarchical/multi-index, this is a great resource). Then the index is flattened again, before we plot them.
# Bar chart
mul_yr_cont_df = mul_yr_cont_df.assign(yrstr=mul_yr_cont_df.year.astype(str))
fig = px.bar(mul_yr_cont_df, color='continent', y='gdp', x='yrstr', barmode='group')
fig.show()
# Horizontal bar chart - stacked
fig = px.bar(mul_yr_cont_df, color='continent', x='gdp', orientation='h', y='yrstr')
fig.show()
# Bubble chart
fig = px.scatter(mul_yr_cont_df, y='continent', x='yrstr', color='continent', size='gdp', size_max=50)
fig.show()
Grouped columns
Stacked bars
Bubble chart
With these, the previous properties still hold true with regards to the ease with which relative proportions can be seen in bar graphs. But, new observations can be made with the addition of another dimension to the data.
The stacked bar comes into its own in being able to demonstrate changes in size to the overall sample size, although sizes each series are still very difficult to compare.
As far as grouped bar charts go, grouping along the x-axis becomes important, as comparisons between different groups become more difficult while within the same group remains easy. Try plotting and comparing these two:
fig = px.bar(mul_yr_cont_df, color='continent', y='gdp', x='yrstr', barmode='group')
fig.show()
fig = px.bar(mul_yr_cont_df, color='yrstr', y='gdp', x='continent', barmode='group')
fig.show()
Prioritising comparisons across continents
Prioritising comparisons across years
In the top figure, comparisons across years are prioritised at a detriment to comparisons across continents, and vice versa on the bottom figure.
For comparisons across both axes, the bubble chart lays out the data in a grid, which makes it easier to compare changes across both dimensions.
If the size variations in bubble charts are not perceptible enough, gridded (subplots) of bar charts might work better:
fig = px.bar(mul_yr_cont_df, color='continent', facet_col='continent', x='gdp', orientation='h', facet_row='yrstr')
fig.update_yaxes(showticklabels=False)
fig.show()
Gridded subplots
That’s great. But often, there are more than 5 data points in each axis. So, what happens if the number of series is increased?
Visualising larger data sets
Let’s repeat the plots, for all data across the 12 years of the dataset (code not shown here for brevity — see the git repo).
Here, we can already start to see some space limitations with grouped bar graphs. Comparisons across different groups are becoming more difficult also, as individual bars get lost in a forest of towering colour bars, and the relative changes in the adjacent bars play tricks with our minds.
Although this dataset visually scales relatively well with size, helped by the increases in GDP with time, it is easy to see the limitations.
As a last point, let’s take a look at a larger dataset that is less ordered.
Bonus plots: Basketball shot shares (2019 Toronto Raptors)
Over the course of an NBA season, of 82, 48 minute-long regulation minutes, a team takes about 7000 shots. In the case of the Toronto Raptors, they had 14 players take at least 1% of those shots. The resulting 15 ‘players’ (14 + 1 ‘Others’) are shown below, split up to each 2-minute segments.
This dataset is also slightly different from the above, as I will be showing distributions of percentages.
What do they look like in each of the above plot types?
Grouped bar chart
Stacked bar chart
Gridded bar subplots
Bubble chart
As the data points become more numerous across both dimensions, and as the ratios of maximum to minimum sizes increase, the bubble chart in a grid comes into its own.
In the bubble chart, what would have been a 1 to 25 change in height in a bar graph becomes a 1 to 5 change in radius. The fact that a change in size is translated to a change in radius in effect compresses the visual disparity and helps display larger ranges. It (along with the bar subplot approach) also has an added advantage of being able to demonstrate the fourth variable as the colour, as the spatial location specifies its two dimensions.
As you might be able to tell, I prefer this type of subplot approach as the dataset sizes become larger — especially as the dataset gets larger. But as you saw earlier, in other situations, other types of visualisations work eminently better.
So — what to choose?
You might have seen this coming, but in my view, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. And I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of this area in visualising proportions — of scaling, different approaches to using colours, symbol types, utilising overall distribution shapes and highlighting proportions, etc.
But I hope that these examples were at least useful to you in seeing different types of visualisations, and how their efficacy might change over sample sizes. I find that there’s nothing quite like practicing to really learn data visualisation and get better at it. So pick a dataset and go for it — the more familiar you are with the subject area, the better. | https://towardsdatascience.com/create-effective-data-visualizations-of-proportions-94b69ad34410 | ['Jp Hwang'] | 2020-02-19 06:00:03.796000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Technology'] |
The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger | The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger
I was inspired to read this book by my professor Pavan Soni. When I bought this book and saw its cover, my initial thought was that it would be a success story of Robert Iger (CEO of The Walt Disney company). When I started reading, I covered few initial chapters in an hour with a hot cup of steaming coffee in my other hand. Not sure, if it was the magic of coffee that made me so much engrossed or just the content of book.
On further reading, I realized it’s not a usual career progression story of a person. Robert has given a detailed description about moving from one stage of his career to another, from the lowest ranks to the leadership roles and the CEO. There is so much to learn from it not only about business but also in terms of attitude towards life and work.
Part A: A Common Man Life
The first part illustrates the origins of his career, from part-time jobs to his real beginning at ABC, where he started moving towards the management ladder. He has also given certain insights about his personal life as a student, which makes us believe even more that we can Make it Big in life, no matter what. He also highlights how the habits we develop are important for right usage of time and lateral thinking, like an entry in the 5 AM club.
As he says “It’s vital to create space in each day to let your thoughts wander beyond your immediate job responsibilities. I am certain I’d be less productive and less creative in my work if I didn’t also spend those first hours away from the emails and text messages and phone calls that require so much attention as the day goes on.”
The journey of Robert from an ordinary boy to the CEO and Executive Chairman of The Walt Disney Company just tells each of us that we do not need to have a pre-developed skillset for being a leader. Leadership is an individual’s journey made of humility, listening and practicing.
As he says “True authority and true leadership come from knowing who you are and not pretending to be anything else.”
Part B: Leadership at its core
As a person who led Disney’s acquisition of Pixar, Lucasfilm (all Star Wars work), Marvel and most of 21st Century Fox, Robert gives you working of a massive media company and shows how he thought upon by building on its strengths and shoring up its weaknesses.
Robert Iger became the CEO of The Walt Disney company in 2005, during a difficult time. Competition was more intense then ever and technology was changing faster than any time in history. He realized at the start only that the decisions you make need not be safe always but should feel right to you for the people and self.
As he says “Chronic indecision is not only inefficient and counterproductive, but it is deeply corrosive to morale.”
Robert not only focused on developing the existing strengths of company, but also reshaped the overall strategy into 3 points as a vision for the organization:
Recommit to concept that Quality matters.
2. Embrace technology instead of fighting it.
3. Think bigger, think Global and turn Disney into a stronger brand in international markets.
As he says: “Don’t start negatively, and don’t start small. People will often focus on little details as a way of masking a lack of any clear, coherent, big thoughts. If you start petty, you seem petty.”
His first big step towards the vision of organization was to buy the most successful animation company out there in market: Pixar, whose CEO and majority owner was Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
In 2006, finally, when the day of merger had come and half an hour before press release Steve informs Robert about his illness and says: “I am about to become your biggest shareholder and a member of your board, And I think I owe you the right, given this knowledge, to back out of the deal.”
Robert decides to go through it, as his key focus was to accomplish the goal of reaffirming the centrality of Disney with animation. This shows how much CEO’s decisions are down to very human relationships.
As he says“If you approach and engage people with respect and empathy, the seemingly impossible can become real.”
2 -3 years down the line, Disney re-established at the cutting edge of animation with the successes of movies like Ratatouille, The Incredibles, and Toy Story 3!
Robert did not relax and settle down there.
In 2009, Disney made the purchase of Marvel final for a little over $4 billion. Others critiqued this decision as the deal couldn’t include many important characters. Spider-Man, for example, was owned by Columbia Pictures. And Fox owned X-Men and The Incredible Hulk.
Robert was smart and knew that the untold stories of characters in the Marvel Universe would be a hit. And he was right. In 2019, as the 20th movie in the franchise, Avengers: Endgame became the highest-grossing film of all time, making $2 billion.
As he says “Don’t be in the business of playing it safe. Be in the business of creating possibilities of greatness”
Robert had to make another tough decision in summer 2016 when Disney almost acquired Twitter. He had seen it as a distribution platform for content. He had also won the OK from the board, but then realized the significant issues in managing hate speech, fake profiles and in general a “freedom of expression” Twitter had that was not in tune with Disney’s culture, so he walked back from the deal.
As he says “If something doesn’t feel right to you, then it’s probably not right for you”
All this while Robert always took care of the reward system being in place for the employees as it is ultimately the people who make the business grow. This is an essential aspect to be taken care by executive leaders to keep the people motivated.
As he says “If leaders don’t articulate their priorities clearly, then the people around them don’t know what their own priorities should be. Time and energy and capital get wasted.”
After having focused on securing content with the acquisitions, Robert explains how he wanted to dramatically shift Disney to a new future based on technological innovation. He made a big bet with investing in BAMTech, using the company platform to launch a new subscription service, today called Diseny+.
As he says “The decision to disrupt businesses that are fundamentally working but whose future is in question — intentionally taking on short-term losses in the hope of generating long-term growth — requires no small amount of courage.”
What would this move mean for the current standard TV programs? Would it be their end? Robert sees it very pragmatically: investment would continue until profit would still exist, but future growth would come from somewhere else. Robert lives by the fact he learnt from his initial mentors here.
As he says “Innovate or die, and there’s no innovation if you operate out of fear of the new or untested.”
To conclude , a couple of examples that resonated with me include owning up to your mistakes — you can learn from them, and it can make others respect you more.
As he says “Take responsibility of your own mistakes”
My favorite — choosing Decency over Dollars something that was key to Robert’s success in achieving his personal and business goals.
As he says “Integrity is everything”
I highly recommend this book. It has a good balance of both personal and professional insights and experiences. A global corporate leader is a human being at the end of the day. Robert describes his grief when a little boy died tragically at one of Disney’s Orlando resorts, and his sadness when Steve Jobs shared with him that he was sick with cancer. It is an inspiring and valuable read for everyone who wants to advance in their career. If you want to learn what it takes to steer and change a traditional organization with an enormous cultural heritage, then this book is a must read for you. | https://medium.com/@shipra-chaturvedi/the-ride-of-a-lifetime-by-robert-iger-e5a5333b15b | ['Shipra Chaturvedi'] | 2021-09-01 19:46:57.272000+00:00 | ['Business Strategy', 'Leadership Skills', 'Disney', 'Leadership', 'Business'] |
All this Microsoft Membership Identity stuff — what’s it about? | I originally started blogging because I was answering the same questions over and over on stackoverflow. I decided to write it up once and then point to the post for future questions.
Hence this post — I get tons of questions about all the Identity functionality that Microsoft provides and how the components differ and when should you use what.
A number of these questions are around the Membership providers.
This post is from the PoV of Membership and hopefully shows how it can integrate with the rest of the stack.
Imagine you are asked to create a web site for a lot of users and they all need to authenticate with a logon and password and have some kind of role handling for authorisation. The credentials are stored in a repository — typically a SQL database.
Membership
Now you could write all the authentication yourself but since this was such a common use case, Microsoft provided the ASP.NET Membership feature. This provided all the required functionality OOTB and all you had to do was hook into it.
It included an ASP.NET Role provider.
“ ASP.NET membership gives you a built-in way to validate and store user credentials. ASP.NET membership therefore helps you manage user authentication in your Web sites. You can use ASP.NET membership with ASP.NET Forms authentication or with the ASP.NET login controls to create a complete system for authenticating users.”
If you didn’t like the OOTB features, you could write a custom membership provider e.g. using some other database.
There’s a good summary here and it also covers ASP.NET simple membership and ASP.NET Universal Providers.
There were some issues with Membership and this resulted in an open-source implementation called MembershipReboot.
“ MembershipReboot is a user identity management and authentication library. It has nothing to do with the ASP.NET Membership Provider, but was inspired by it due to frustrations with the built-in ASP.NET Membership system. The goals are to improve upon and provide missing features from ASP.NET Membership. It is designed to encapsulate the important security logic while leaving most of the other aspects of account management either configurable or extensible for application developers to customize as needed.”
(Note: “As of 2017 MembershipReboot will no longer be maintained. It has served its purpose, and ASP.NET Identity has finally caught up (and surpassed) this library in terms of security and functionality”).
Microsoft took all the feedback on-board and this resulted in ASP.NET Identity.
Among its advantages are:
ASP.NET Identity can be used with all of the ASP.NET frameworks, such as ASP.NET MVC, Web Forms, Web Pages, Web API, and SignalR
ASP.NET Identity can be used when you are building web, phone, store, or hybrid applications
ASP.NET Identity supports claims-based authentication, where the user’s identity is represented as a set of claims
ASP.NET authentication is now based on OWIN middleware that can be used on any OWIN-based host
So now you have a web site and you can use the above to handle all the credentials and roles securely for you.
And then your boss comes along and asks:
“We are partnering with another company and they need access to our application”.
Which means that their credentials need to be in your database. And that’s non-optimal because their credentials are already in their own company database. Why can’t we just use those?
With the above membership providers, you can’t authenticate with external providers.
But you can do this if you add an Identity Provider (IDP).
An Identity Provider has its own credential repository and supports a set of Identity protocols:
OpenID Connect / OAuth 2.0
WS-Federation
SAML 2.0
Using these protocols, different IDP can talk to each other using federation.
IDP
In the Microsoft world, these include:
I compared these products in a previous post.
Very basically:
AAD is Identity as a service for corporates so typically domain joined accounts e.g. [email protected]. It’s cloud based. The repository is accessed via a Graph API.
AAD B2C is Identity as a service for a corporate’s customers so typically not domain joined accounts e.g. [email protected]. It’s cloud based. The repository is accessed via a Graph API.
ADFS is on-premises for corporates so typically domain joined accounts. The repository is AD and is accessed via LDAP.
With that overview, back to the bosses question.
IdentityServer
The IDP product for ASP.NET Identity that is referenced in the Microsoft documentation is IdentityServer.
If you are using ASP.NET Identity, you can use IdentityServer 3.
If you are using ASP.NET Core Identity, you can use IdentityServer 4.
“ IdentityServer4 is an OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0 framework for ASP.NET Core.
It has support for a federation gateway. This provides support for external identity providers like Azure Active Directory, Google, Facebook etc.”.
IdentityServer handles the federation protocol aspect. It does not have support for user provisioning i.e. user CRUD. That’s why the IdentityServer 4 template for ASP.NET Core Identity has a seed option to add some test users to the database.
ASP.NET Core Identity provides CRUD support. It can be augmented via the scaffolding option.
Scaffolding adds:
The email confirmation and password reset functionality requires you to complete the email code.
Notice you also get multi-factor authentication (2FA) with a code or you can add a QR code.
By using IdentityServer 4 and ASP.NET Core Identity together, you get the best of both worlds.
If you are looking for a commercial product to do provisioning for IdentityServer, have a look at AdminUI.
And IdentityServer can federate with other IDP including the Microsoft ones mentioned above.
You need to modify the existing application to talk to IdentityServer 4. As it still talks to the ASP.NET Identity database, the users and credentials are still the same.
Microsoft Identity Platform
As an aside, the documentation also refers to the “Microsoft identity platform. This is:
“An evolution of the Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) developer platform
Unrelated to ASP.NET Core Identity”
Essentially, it’s a collection of client side libraries used to communicate to the Microsoft IDP above via the protocols above.
It comprises:
Azure Active Directory Authentication Library (ADAL) v1.0
Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) v2.0
As you’ve probably already figured out, the reason that the platform is unrelated to ASP.NET Core Identity is because ASP.NET Core Identity has no support for the Identity protocols. This support is what IdentityServer provides.
Social providers
I didn’t mention this above because it would just muddy the waters.
Some of the Membership providers also allow you to integrate with social logins e.g. Google, Facebook, Twitter etc.
If you need social provider integration and you have added IdentityServer, rather use IdentityServer to provide this so that all the authentication is in one place and you then get SSO.
Hope this helps.
All good! | https://medium.com/the-new-control-plane/all-this-microsoft-membership-identity-stuff-whats-it-about-4db18dccd9d8 | ['Rory Braybrook'] | 2019-12-11 19:20:48.028000+00:00 | ['Identityserver4', 'Microsoft', 'Aspnetcore', 'Aspnet', 'Membership'] |
A terrifying guide to the broken minds of your grandchildren | Filter dysmorphia
CREDIT: Splitshire on Pixabay
The rise of social media has seen an explosion in the number of photographs taken. The word selfie has only been with us since 2002. So pervasive is the world of social media that by 2013 it was the word of the year and added to the OED.
There are plenty of mental health issues that come with taking countless pictures of yourself. Consider that the mirror in its current form has only been with us since the 1830s and you’ll see the problem. Never in the history of humanity have we been so obsessed with ourselves and how we look.
This is changing. We are now able to alter and augment our realities. Filters are becoming ever more sophisticated and commonplace. The initial filters of a decade ago were no more than colour washes or saturation changes. These have given way to a panoply of complex augmented reality filters.
This is going to supercharge Body Dysmorphia Disorder. This can affect both men and women and usually in different ways. Eating disorders in both women and men have co-morbidity with BDD. As do muscle disorders. It is an intense simplification to suggest that many women feel they are too large and many men feel they are too small.
But it’s a simplification that helps.
The interplay between eating disorders/muscle disorders and BDD is complex and outside the scope of this article. It is best explained as a disconnect between objectivity and subjectivity. How a person looks and how they think they look.
You may be able to see where I’m going with BDD and what filters do. They augment reality and change perception. I expect eating disorders, steroid abuse, and body modification to skyrocket. This will be a crisis for our teen population in particular. Teens growing up and able to document a fictional version of themselves will always find reality disappointing.
BDD has co-morbidity with social anxiety. It is hard to be confident and at ease with people if you feel judged all the time. People struggling with objectivity often interpret the behaviour of others as covert criticism. Expect high levels of social avoidance plus rising suicide rates in our teens. I would argue this may have already started and we’re at the first swell of a wave.
Filters aren’t flagged as the danger they pose. | https://medium.com/recycled/a-terrifying-guide-to-the-broken-minds-of-your-grandchildren-526009243dbf | ['Argumentative Penguin'] | 2019-06-20 15:02:09.363000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Social Media', 'Future', 'Life'] |
The Four Threats to Your Financial Future — Part Three of Four | Threat #3 — Disorganization
Life is chaotic, complicated, and messy. It can wreak havoc on how well we see things financially.
I had a client who brought her financial paperwork to me in grocery bags, which I think we can all agree is the epitome of disorganization. Still, the goal of getting our finances in order isn’t necessarily to assemble all your financial information on a tidy spreadsheet. It’s better than a Ralph’s bag, but not nearly good enough.
There’s another form of disorganization that is equally dangerous, and it is the appearance of being organized.
We have some new clients who come in with a complete spreadsheet of their finances and cash flow. They have all their documents in neat file folders. On one level, they are organized.
But essential ingredients are missing. To see what’s missing, it’s critical to step back and look at the whole picture, not merely the impeccable details. Because if you look at how they currently make their financial decisions, you see that it more closely resembles a junk drawer.
It’s similar to a chef in a kitchen. He may have all of his ingredients and spices appropriately labeled on the shelf. But when it comes time to cook, how is he using those ingredients? What amounts? What’s behind each decision?
Unless he understands how everything interacts and has a purposeful, organized process, his dish probably won’t taste good.
If there is no order to the decisions made and no priority to the cash flow allocations, your financial masterpiece will not satisfy anyone.
A common manifestation of financial disorganization is past decisions that made sense within the circumstances but no longer fit the present reality.
For example, when we first examined a prospective client’s portfolio, he had about 2 million in assets. His auto insurance only had a liability protection limit of $25,000. If he were sued, it exposed his 2 million to substantial loss. He agreed to the auto insurance limits many years before when his income and assets were far less.
It was never addressed because the man had one financial institution caring for his assets and another for his insurance. Neither asked about the other. Each financial institution was only focused on its area, unaware of how decisions might affect other aspects.
This disorganization and lack of coordination are common across the spectrum of assets building, liability management, cash flow choices, and protection issues.
In the end, you want an organized system and a tested process that allows you to organize your finances holistically within a hierarchical structure. From that starting point, you are then able to test and synergize the different elements.
These threats can be scary and challenging to face. Still, they can be overcome.
Through careful planning, accurate information, and an organized holistic approach, you can defeat these four threats to your financial future.
That’s where the process of Optimal Financial Wellness can help. It’s a multi-faceted approach to wealth management that anticipates the pitfalls and plans accordingly. Because yes, beyond here, they may be dragons, but dragons can be beaten. You just need courage and a plan.
Next…Threat #4 Your True Cost of Living | https://medium.com/@j-scott-foster/the-four-threat-to-your-financial-future-part-three-of-four-4c4aeb8b5b15 | ['J Scott Foster'] | 2020-12-14 18:38:07.667000+00:00 | ['Personal Finance', 'Financial Danger', 'Financial Planning', 'Financial Advisor', 'Financial Wellness'] |
Reimagining SF Bay SMART Trains | Sonoma-Marin Area Rapid Transit (SMART) is ridiculed as the “train to nowhere” and risks losing ridership and funding. However, if SMART trains were run on the bridges and ferries, while cooperating with neighboring transit districts, it could be a direct ride to BART and/or SF/East Bay Urban Centers
SMART is sleek and exciting, but is currently limited to Santa Rosa-Larkspur, not linking with BART
There has been a great deal in the press recently about the viability of SMART and justifications for a sales tax increase to keep it running. In the same way California High Speed Rail may be a few technological increments away from competing with air travel, SMART would seem to be a few innovations away from getting people out of their cars for San Francisco and East Bay travel. It would seem that while raising North Bay sales taxes to make improvements, SMART would have to eventually shed its label as a “train to nowhere”. SMART has also generated it’s eighth pedestrian fatality, which is a rather alarming rate for its short history.
While most agree that mass transit travel is a necessity in this age of congestion, pollution, and global warming, we in the Bay Area have yet to reach the mass transit convenience levels of many European and Asian capitals, New York City and Chicago. Proximity to the Bay creates unique, but not insurmountable challenges.
The original BART plan in 1960 was hoping to run a North Bay line over the Golden Gate Bridge, which was shot down by the Golden Gate Bridge Authority (allegedly for political reasons, as they didn’t want to lose bridge revenue). This was tragic as BART was built using exclusive Right of Way with no at-grade crossings, which made it a speedier and safer option than the current SMART system, not to mention the critical San Francisco link, which by extension now links most of the Bay Area. Whatever North Bay taxpayers saved at the time they will surely have to spend many fold to implement an equivalent system today.
In an attempt to resolve this dilemma, I will first use the premises that commuters prefer seamless commutes (a minimum of transit changing conveyances between home and work, so as to keep one’s seat and not be bothered), SMART cars have as much right to the roadway as any car or bus (using Muni Metro logic) when funds are lacking, and some bold/futuristic thinking may be in order. Along these lines, SMART could greatly improve the viability of its system by doing three things, although each would be expensive and requiring Federal Grants well beyond the sales tax extension being sought, in addition to the cooperation of neighboring transit districts:
1) Allow SMART to run on the Golden Gate Bridge, either on a modified lower deck or in a traffic lane on the top deck (similar to the way some Muni Metro lines run with traffic). The lower portion of the bridge, originally envisioned to run trains the way the Bay Bridge used to run trains on the lower deck through the 50s, would need structural modifications to make this possible (after the failure of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940 due to high winds, the Golden Gate Bridge lower portion was retrofitted with obstructing lateral-load bracing in the early 50s). Hopefully, once reaching SF, SMART could run on joint-use Muni tracks (with joint-use funding) to run down Park Presidio/19th Ave and join up with the N-Judah line, while someday hoping to reach the Balboa BART station or completing a loop by running on N-Judah line back to Embarcadero/Ferry Building. This option would cost into the billions, and have no hope of implementation without Federal funds or Muni cooperation. A stripped-down option would be to terminate SMART at Geary/19th and hope that a Geary Muni-Metro is someday built. Note here that SMART is the same gauge as Muni (4–8–1/2”) and theoretically compatible. (Brinklow, 2016),(Lytton, Rudick, 2017)
2) Allow SMART to run on ferries to the East Bay and/or Embarcadero, where it could possibly run on short tracks to Richmond BART or the Trans Bay Terminal. It is common for trains to run on ferries in some European and Asian countries. In time, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge could be modified to allow SMART passage. This would seem to be a relatively cheap option, and State/Federally-fundable. There is a portion of abandoned railroad right of way in Richmond that could possibly be used as a route to Richmond BART, or SMART cars could again run with traffic, like the Muni Metro. (Hennessey, Marshall, Bidder, Shipway, Geary, et al, n.d.)
3) Elevate some rail sections through Santa Rosa, Petaluma, and San Rafael, eliminating most at-grade crossings. Caltrain was having a similar problem with fatalities at at-grade crossings, which triggered Federal grants to build $25 million plus grade separations. Elevating substantial lengths of track would be a cheaper long-term solution, and hopefully the Feds would provide the money as a preventative. If not, look for continued fatalities at crossings, and slower service. This would not come cheap, but may be feasible with Federal funding. A relatively cheap option would be to reroute portions of SMART onto the Highway 101 median (note that BART has highway median portions on Highway 580 near Pleasanton, Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley-Oakland and elsewhere). This is a lengthy subject that could best be addressed in another article. (policy.tti.tamu.edu,n.d.)
SMART sales-tax arguments have lined up along the “Renew tax, it’s working” and “Don’t renew tax, it’ll never work” lines, when the truth is somewhere in the middle. There may be a chance for a relatively seamless SMART commute to the SF Transbay Terminal, Richmond BART, or even MUNI/19th Ave. in our future if we continue to innovate, fund with local and Federal dollars, and cooperate with other transit agencies like MUNI and the Golden Gate Bridge Authority. The alternative would be polluted and congested car commutes, out of step with the rest of Bay Area transit. If we abandon SMART now, we’ll likely pay a higher price in future environmental health and cleanup issues, lower productivity and quality of life.
Like this article? Read more in Vern Scott’s new book “Civil (Engineering) Disobedience”, available on Amazon.com | https://medium.com/@scottvern/reimagining-sf-bay-smart-trains-9832d090147e | ['Vern Scott'] | 2021-02-07 01:37:07.860000+00:00 | ['San Francisco Bay Area', 'Sonoma County', 'Rails', 'Light Rail', 'Marin County'] |
Verifiable Credentials on the Blockchain | The world needs a new system to record, house, curate, secure, and distribute evidence of learning. That new system is the global blockchain and every individual is a lifelong registrar.
The MIT Media Lab and Learning Machine have been working on a collaborative project for issuing official records to recipients, and anchoring them onto the Bitcoin blockchain. We’ve just open-sourced the first version of that project and named it Blockcerts. It allows education providers, employers, and others to issue official certificates that supply proof of membership, completion, or achievement. These certificates can be collected by individuals and shared directly with anyone who requires official documents. The Bitcoin blockchain is currently being used as the secure anchor of trust to ensure that each certificate is authentic, unchanged, and still valid. If another open, immutable data store is proven reliable — for example, Ethereum’s public blockchain — issuing to those resources can easily be included.
Our goal is to help create an entirely new environment where individuals are the custodians of their official records and can easily share those records with others.
The example below was created to illustrate how the verification process works. Ultimately this verification process wouldn’t only be a button on the certificate display, but also verifiable through independent service providers. | https://medium.com/learning-machine-blog/blockchain-credentials-b4cf5d02bbb7 | [] | 2019-01-25 16:20:05.393000+00:00 | ['Learning', 'Higher Education', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Education Reform'] |
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Thank you! | https://medium.com/@skillfrontcom/skillfront-skill-platform-for-entrepreneurs-professionals-89b27a3cfc91 | ['Skillfront', 'Skill Platform For Professionals'] | 2020-12-14 15:52:33.539000+00:00 | ['Skillfront', 'Certification', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Training', 'Business'] |
Marketing planning for Wineries | Marketing planning for Wineries
Recent innovations in digital marketing have opened a whole new manner of how companies interact with consumers and their demanding needs.
However, it seems that the wine sector is still lagging a bit, especially the Old World wineries. A recent study¹ shows wineries are not fully utilising social network tools to better position their product or to reap the benefits of increased sales from a clear communication strategy.
Addressing the right needs
The core benefits consumers seek from wine are dependent on: the role of wine in culture, its image compared to other alcoholic beverages, and the influence of wine in the major religion of that country.²
To dive in deeper let us take a look at “The Benefits Spectrum for Wine” to see how it all comes together into a decision to purchase your wine instead of your competitors wine.
Benefits Spectrum for Wine: Consumer behaviour expressed in layers
Viewing a bottle of wine as a product, it is a bundle of benefits which in combination satisfy a consumer requirement. Core benefit is why a person choses to drink wine. The tangible features are there to appeal to the senses of touch, sight and smell where intangible features are the way the product is differentiated from its competition. So in essence: it is important that this bundle of benefits are complementary and promoted clearly to influence buyers perception of the product in the marketplace. A failure to do so can result in a disadvantage, for example: promoting certificates of excellence but choosing discount outlets stores that offer lower prices over quality will surely backfire.
From Production Orientation to Market Orientation
Perhaps most due to the industry’s volatile seasonality, the wine industry is still production-based. Meaning the marketing decisions are based on product and its benefits.
As a result it fails to facilitate change and adjust to an increasingly competitive marketplace.
Marketing orientation should be adopted to create products that satisfy consumer needs. When exporting wines globally this aspect becomes more compelling as you want to answer to a world-wide need with a marketing strategy catering the different values and consumption habits per country/region. Read more on adapting a market orientation for exporters and how to manage communication.
So by this point you should have a general idea of your wineries values and brand image. You know which features you wish to push forward and all that is left is to choose a medium to transfer this message.
Social media is essential
Looking at recent figures it all points to a digital renaissance.
Whoever you are trying to reach — your best bet is on digital!
Social media offers advertisers access to 80% of global consumer expenditures.
B2C companies that blogged 11+ times per month got more than four times as many leads than those that blog only four to five times per month.³
90% of searchers have not made their mind up about a brand before starting their search³.
75% of social media users admitted that wine-associated social media interactions can influence their purchases and increase spending on an individual wine purchase.⁴
47% of buyers viewed 3–5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales representative.³
How wineries use social media
The profile of a digital winery in 2016 includes the use of a webpage, social media, online services and e-commerce. Moreover, wineries use social media in order to not to loose the opportunities of this communication tool, but most of the wineries are starting in social media without a well-defined strategy.
The wineries do not segment and target their social media which would allow wineries to focus on task groups increasing the efficiency of each action. In the era of communication with plenty of information available to focus on the target group, SM communication strategy could be optimised.¹
We will publish an article where we will more thoroughly examine digital media best practices for winemakers and how to incorporate them into your marketing team.
Meanwhile, take a look at what U.S. wineries are currently using for their digital promotion:
Conclusion
Designing a marketing strategy requires a lot of data and time. Correctly executing is even harder, so we prepared a few steps to help you out with the planning and which goals to gradually reach.
Figure out your brand identity and values you wish to put forward. Find your target audience and their needs & wants, segment them. Create a marketing plan. Choose your mediums depending on your revenue stream Use Gantt Charts to communicate activities and deadlines and to delegate responsibility among your team. Negotiate the time-frames with the winemaker, bottling hall manager or accountant to ensure they are realistic. Implement. Monitor: get acquainted with your KPI’s. Adjust
PS. We hope this helps, and if you need some more tips and guidelines for your marketing department or if this is all to overwhelming contact us here at Mineral!
Let us guide you through marketing strategies specialised for the wine and spirits industry. | https://blog.mineral.agency/marketing-planning-for-wineries-58338ea50649 | ['Irena Semenic'] | 2019-06-17 08:24:09.937000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Wine', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Marketing', 'Wineries'] |
DApps 101 | In the world of blockchain, cryptocurrencies get all the attention. But dapps are what blockchain is all about!
What are dapps?
‘Dapps’ = ‘decentralized applications.’ Told you it was cooler. Quick recap — blockchain is a distributed ledger that no single person controls. Dapps are built on a blockchain. Because of this, dapps are apps that no single person or entity controls. This is huge! Who controls a dapp? Everyone. And, I do mean everyone. The creators. The programmers. The users. All those people have a say. There is no centralized control over a dapp.
Why do I care?
You know when you use a social media website, and then somewhere down the road you get updated terms of conditions you must agree to? That’s because a centralized group of people decided that they want to change the way you use the website. They may also want to change the way they use your data. When this happens you are left with two choices: accept the new conditions or stop using it. Not fair! So, if a website decides they want to start selling your personal data, or making big changes, you don’t get much say over their decision. With dapps, you do! You can see what changes are being made, when, by whom, and why. You may even be able to vote on it. How cool is that?
Example please?
Example time! YouTube. Come on…you know YouTube! YouTube is a centralized app. YouTube controls everything about their site. If YouTube decided to stop monetizing content (basically, YouTube makes money based off of peoples’ uploads), it could, and you couldn’t do much about it. However, if there were a dapp version of YouTube, you’d be able to vote on if that happened or not.
More details
We covered the basics of dapps, but there’s more. The definition of a dapp is still changing because it is so new. For now, there are five basic criteria that need to be met for an application to be considered a dapp:
Be completely open-source, without any one person or group owning a majority Have rules for future changes, and all changes must be voted on by the users. You have control! Keep records of the application and store it in a public blockchain Use bitcoin or a unique currency — like Ethereum The application usually generate tokens, but it is not required
You can read more about dapps here: https://www.coindesk.com/information/what-is-a-decentralized-application-dapp/
The CLEARR :
Expect to see more Dapps in the App Store and discussed over cocktails. | https://medium.com/cryptoclearr/dapps-101-bd35bf6839d3 | [] | 2018-06-02 01:03:50.453000+00:00 | ['Dapps', 'Crypto', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin'] |
How COVID Affecting Working Mothers? | Since COVID is showing no signs of ceasing, the current scenario has affected the lifestyle of every single individual across the globe. According to the survey held for Coronavirus, job losses in almost every field have affected the mental grief of people. Women, specifically working ones are struggling and failing worse than men in their respective fields since the beginning period of this pandemic.
Let’s know-how!
Working mothers are continuously striving through this tough time and trying to maintain an equitable balance between personal and professional lives, surrounded by the kids at home all the time. The various analysis made during this tough situation has represented the plight of women, losing their jobs, or have been sacked and face the greater responsibility of their child during this pandemic period. It has also been observed that the working hours of women have reduced and a major proportion of their time is devoted to childcare, disrupting their work time.
As the situation of COVID has lead children to stay at home, the responsibility and dedication towards the child have given rise to family pressure or extra burden on family members. The study has reported that many of the working mothers, providing care to the children, have become a victim of cognitive affliction as compared to those who don’t have children. The current position may make an abiding effect on the anticipation of working mothers.
What leads the working mother to struggle so much?
Well, there are several reasons concerning the current COVID-19 disaster, and the coexisting downturns in the fields have unfairly affected working mothers.
Primarily, the crisis of COVID has demolished the income service-oriented sectors; those women were a major part of. Mothers, who were in such paid work before this lockdown situation has either lost the job now. Some also had to do a job quit for their family due to the closure of schools and nurseries. The lockdown period has made it difficult for other family members to help. As a result, there is an increase in the struggle of a working mother.
Though women were earlier also responsible for taking care of their children, the pandemic has increased these demands even more! Looking after their children and balancing their work simultaneously is resulting in high family burdens! If not by the deadly virus, but still working mothers are bearing the adverse effect of COVID, mentally.
Is there any possibility of high job loss for less-educated women? Probably yes!
There is proof that less-educated women had to face high job losses after the COVID period has begun and there is a drop seen in employment April afterward as compared to March month. There is another report stating that the engagement of women in the labor market is less seen than men, resulting in emotional anxiety. The pandemic has increased the level of mental aches in women with children than men. The cases have seen a huge hike in early April — when the lockdown started and working mothers had struggled unequal impact caused by the deadly virus.
Working mothers are seen to be more indulged in child care as the lockdown period started as compared to men. In the early month of April, a major proportion of women have worked as the only household member, according to studies. Additionally, women were not equally taken into consideration in economic life activities; there are chances of getting affected by this COVID pandemic. The current situation has forced working mothers, similar to other professionals to actively work from home, which has hit them tough as they have to invest on family and work both!
Loyce Atim | https://medium.com/@loyceatim0/how-covid-affecting-working-mothers-2a543e257ea3 | ['Loyce Atim'] | 2020-09-21 18:15:23.355000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Coronavirus', 'Corona'] |
Childhoods “The End?”. If you watch children play in a… | And as we grow older, we are told to “Grow Up.” What we once did as children, we can no longer ‘afford’ to do as ‘adults.’ And so the ‘growing up’ process transitions into Growing Old. At ‘Retirement Age,’ we look back on our life and wonder where it all went to. Of course, we remember, but… Our Bodies no longer function as they once did. Our Minds start becoming fear-full of the advance of senility, even if it is only someone’s admonition of something on the horizon.
The World is like that playground. Where people exist for whom there has not been either the admonition of ‘fear everyone different,’ there is still Joy and Play. For the most part though, the ‘lessons’ learned were not of the positive, life-affirming type. The Bully’s have grown up, and are in positions of Authority, perhaps even in Government.
For these, and all who fall prey to their words, War is always on the horizon. There are always Enemies looking to Take What They Want, and we have to prepare ourselves to Defend What Is Ours. There is always a Shadow of Evil to be routed out and defended against. This Fear sells Weapons, sells children forced to Defend Our Possessions.
And meanwhile, the Planet is growing more and more polluted. What are Resources that we cannot afford to have destroyed, are at greater and greater risk for being just that. Those Bully’s who have the power and the money to force/enforce that ‘Threat’ that needs to be constantly ‘addressed’ with Taking Up Arms. They Disrupt the International Stage as they once disrupted the playground of their youth. Their techniques are more subtle and persuasive (maybe), but their intent is still the same.
We are at that moment where, if a ‘miracle’ does not occur, our lives will. Our Planet needs Bold Solutions and not the same old agitprop with the same old “Enemies.” Those Enemies will suffer the consequences just as much as ‘We’ will. We have come to the end of Childhood, and we need to have that miracle happen and happen soon (if not Now). We are no longer with the luxury of ‘there is still time.’ Either Childhood must End, or We will.
And there is still time to get back to that joyous and playful life we knew as children. But it requires that the majority of us start becoming more “Child-Like” instead of Childish. The Bully’s need to be put where they belong — in Detention (of the Criminal Sort) and our National and International priorities return to Cooperation and Positive Interaction away from intended Conflict. That is the only way that we can survive.
Along with a miracle or two. Or three. | https://medium.com/@robinchappell-thewriter/childhoods-end-44719e16da1d | ['Robin Chappell'] | 2020-05-22 23:41:40.238000+00:00 | ['Save The Environment', 'Childhood', 'Politics', 'War', 'Bullying'] |
A Call To Revolution | A Call To Revolution
From with the witnessing of society’s motions towards the realization of a divinely perfect future, we are witnessing the vast interregnum of possibilities unto the nature of global universal revelations.
Humanity is approaching the sequence of events only be characterized into description as A Revolution.
A revolution in motion upon all a sphere of universal discernment without any concept of bias of privilege or concept of elevation and social entitlement.
The Final Revolution, social transformation progress defined by an approach of sequential events currently in the form described within current vernacular junctures as our great civilization within its pre-revolutionary genesis.
The series of these revelations of which is upon the open battlefield it’s birthing pains to reinvigorate all current prevailing social truths: the open awareness we shall decry the end of all seemingly unending eternal conflicts.
The long-sought cure for seemingly unending witnessed antagonisms readily cries and action what is right and necessary for humanity to fabricate end solutions to survive and indeed prosper as a civilization.
Its direct manifestation is the human society’s urge to manifest the formative birth and lay the foundation for the perfect state of Utopia.
Utopia, the open prospects of a more viscerally real future is but an urge for form this conceptual realization to build and proceed development of perfect future humanity we have gathered collective hearken unto the current point of time we are at in history.
All assigned requisite importance of a discussion between all of society without any form of the current set of social concepts lie unto social exclusions to free for The Discussion.
A direction of consensus in which our society nations and civilization pay attention to the needs of the masses, in collected efforts reform and question cancers of our importance of societal failures.
This veracity of the discussion is most unbelievably still waiting to begin, To All present textured contextualities directed into visible etherealities of what defines us as human and discernibly and our collective spirit as uniquely transcendent.
The discussion waiting to utter are in context is discourse is found part within the first steps towards realizing aims of The Final Revolution itself: the urge to openly question all current imagined concepts that permeate the fabric of our civilization.
Within all current perceptions of mainstream society lies the permeable motions that will characterize the contextualities of this most important discussion to be held, the final class struggles to bring universal and eternal freedom of mankind from self-imposed, self-manifested shackles.
The vast varieties of our open freedoms of complex unveiling monstrosities of endless hidden perpetual wars,
All that we have allowed becoming real we indeed have brought to ourselves to bear the diseases of society iniquities of unnatural dread and fear of the irrationally unknown we have frighteningly become.
To this envisionment of the discussion we are being sought to lay the foundation for the vision to realize a better paradigm of human consciousness, ourselves towards consensus for a universally agreed demarcation of an enlightened society, our Utopia now being guided into its procession and eventual birth.
To which I posit to you the first question: Can we openly say come to universal agreement that we live in such a definition of society and civilization?
Certainly, many arguments can be made to the point that we live in a world with more freedom than ever imagined, but there is much lacking to define the greater picture to progress yet to be attained real.
Our civilization in the sought of many reflections is in such vast disarray of chaos, our values are tainted by the vestiges of the towering authoritative symbol of The Man, far from within the abode of his current incorporeal residence — The Establishment.
The Man has for centuries sown the seeds of control: natural divine array of values which have stood for centuries and oft millennium are now in upheaval in favour, to which many institutions are defining promotion of universally Sacred Values, which are eternal, cosmic and transcendental before the very seeds are self- enforced whom only The System of Capitalism introduces to as the only demarcation of the status quo.
To more and more of the order natural realities are being sold out in favor of the popular drugs presented to us within part of the 21st century: the abject machinery of technologies we are becoming verily realized and intoned into.
The fleeting moments of drugs of entertainment that we erroneously en-masse perceive as the only possible way things can and should be.
Perhaps there is a simpler and universal way of subsistence we can achieve destination towards?
Perhaps what we consider as the norm in all actualities are realities truths as concepts approached from wrong given perspectives?
Society is being blinded into the chasms of the Glamours of Capital: absolute greed the wield of all power humanity is being seduced back further into the slavery of corporate organization, further deep in the waiting Cage controlled by the corrupted proponents continuing all processes within the status quo of The System itself.
The veiled existences of forgotten galleries of retired sacred values, the congruence which has taken many forms coalesce as fallen permanent energies: the remedies for the cancers we have sown to fruition and have entered the false portals to become.
To which a set of remedies whose juncture unto fathom to appreciate the cancers and aim to synthesize antidotes for the self-failing found self-destructing in conceptual systems founded in a gallery of spaces of historical periods found in retroactive histories of antiquities.
The array of the order of these antiquities lays self-conformities from the creation of our institutions as sacrifices to the masses as continuing the disease of society’s seemingly all-pervading postmodernism.
The prevailing efficacy resultant found from the grand denial of the problems of our mind’s realities presently in form from the values in present reflection found in Capitalism and The System’s failure to assure directions vast and social progress.
The System within the now in base characterization is in itself a complex value interrelation of structural values, concepts, institutions, and positions of power.
Such is its structure is a vastly found in the interrelating arrangement of these supposedly automatically correct values, proffered by The Man, proffered by the vast arrayed corrupted proponents of the current path to perfection found in the status quo in the order of the current and present day.
The reality of the values is mindless regressive primitive arrangements of values founded in fear and universal and the hidden global architecture of conformities.
To which this eternal dream lies of perfection waiting in moments eternal all but waiting to be imagined and immediately seized if we want our revolution to manifest in the most perfect and grandest of forms.
The vast prevalence of the outright deceptions we face from our so-called all-knowing always superior political leaders, the corrupted gallery of individual representations of corporations, and greed-obsessed gambling banksters.
These ideas are justly paramount and a vicious our insult to our collective enlightenment, of intelligence and self-born strength of possible universal unity.
These set of deceptive concepts we unerringly that we mass subscribe to being the logical and true, and never widely considered, never collectively questioned towards motions realizing of The Truth (viz. the real, the perfect and eternal) in all civilization and societies.
The current vehicles of social progress championed as Capitalism, whose reality is never questioned, whose satanic Esoteric Glamours distort reality.
They assail our frail minds to misguide our own natural and divine prediction of the grand human procession towards the glory of the self-unveiling light.
Thusly our ordained dreams of the future are being sold in the name of an agenda of monetary obsessed capitalism and to keep the eternal secrets of heaven to themselves vastly hidden from the status quo and the average individual themselves.
the picturesque gallery of which is found unto all found radical social deviances mirrored as universal global social conformities I characterize the System further:
A selection of unerring concepts that are subscribed to as confluently logical and true. A sworn reality entertained or questioned as possible and inherently false by the unquestioning unawakened masses of society.
When shall such a gallery of connected questions begin without censure or a response of universal silence?
When does the discussion itself in manifestations appear?
Where indeed is the state of this Revolution?
Where is the cry for to remedy fallen disparate ways of progress unachieved while the gallery of men continues the exploitation unhindered, unquestioned?
How can we citizens of civilization enter and guide The Revolution into a rightful form closer to the masses?
To entertain these questions into consideration of mind, the open inquest to complete external and internal all-pervasive all necessary questioning lies confluent to the mysteries of the greater universe, questions posited lying waiting like a door waiting to be opened to the blinding light of the open door of the paradise of Utopia.
To which to many of our pertaining realities, society must hasten the discussion inner worlds to all-composite sectors of human civilization with no proverbial stone left unturned: the longing to cast out all pariahs that we within consensus decide is not part of our celebrated future of Utopia and en-action the events towards the metaphysical grand processions of man.
All manners paths to describe and intuit denotations of the grand procession itself acts as guiding forces aims towards the final intonations of the goals into the entrance of the portal of the Final Revolution’s revealing Utopia.
To what society must immediately desire to form towards the final revolution is necessary for survival.
The profound gathering legions of the disenfranchised and downtrodden enemies of human Capitalism, abject Materialism, politicians and corporate representatives, the proponent’s civilization are rightly ordained direction to process the decisions, the changes that must be enacted to save ourselves from the possibility of eternal dystopia.
To whom the forces of the systems rejection and failure of the non-conformists, the misfits, the intellectual social scientists, the radicals whom in mind and heart have rejected social conformities have always sought to bring correctly directed change and meaning to perfection are amassing in vision and strength towards universal social dissension.
The formation of these armies within passages of every ending day indeed strengthening in numbers.
We should fear nothing in our existence, and those who continue the grand exploitation should fear us those who control and maintain their crooked methods and abuse of attained power and verily those who sell out humanity in desires to continue the path within society’s status quo.
Our society must admit that our leaders and failing institutions do not care about the masses desires and dreams
As long as their positions and usage of power entwined with increasing capital is kept in continued social advancement.
Decisions made into by such gathering, must not and will not be taken either lightly or with a minuscule amount of naivety for they will affect the masses.
For awareness is not enough, for Discussion is not enough only universal action will satiate the procession to completion.
The Requisitions for Actions rightly orientated iconoclastically are to be carefully sought to represent our various sectors of collecting societies and nations without the corrupting influence that attachment to concepts that only Capitalism has brought into the fold. Actions to manifest correctly destines of not of addiction to capital, not of materialistic urge or addiction of end productual of Capitalism but of demarcating true societal progress.
The onset of our aims of Utopia is true to such a definition.
To still is massing upon the battlefield a conflict to be fought to enact basic universal rights of the masses regardless of any perceivable difference or is the dream we must accept and endeavor to inaugurate.
The public universal establishment of universal inalienable rights is but a simple precursory step and preliminary aim of the coming final revolution.
The abject elevation of this perfect dream of universal rights eternal I as a result of decrying indeed as possible and a readily achievable goal when humanity accepts the prospect of true eternal brotherhood is accepted and furthered into the human paradigm.
To which whom much and many of the gathering citizens of earth will openly deride as laughable, naively unrealistic in its scope or verily indeed, impossible to manifest yet is the only first aim we should gather to search.
For it is in the unity of strength that shall guide us through the precursory of embryonic state of the pre-revolutionary stage.
The mark of its birth may not acquiesce without considerable pain if we do not collectively embrace our destined and the correct changes necessary unity with much due haste.
The means to enact universal rights, equal rights are measures accessible through perceptions of universal compassion.
Which brings us to the first set of questions I shall entertain you to posit, the first set of questions.
Initial questions:
The preliminary steps to attain The Final Revolution
The exquisite blinding radiance of the incoming sacred cloth that is yet to be found worn by those who wish to seek to represent the Revolution itself in bear witness the motion of our Utopia shall be our final eventide of the portal we must willingly entertain into questions:
Why do I decry this Revolution as one in the concept of finality?
What is true, the seeming context and field of this final revolution?
How can we secure the dreams of the masses, How can we quicken the pace of the masses to arouse from their ignorance and slumber in global representation?
What are the true paths to assist and further increase endeavors to realize the finalizes and the aims goals of this Final Revolution?
How can the masses act the incoming dissenting radicalizes voice their views and opinion to the people who control the movements in society?
And lastly, how can the vast array of individuals and assembled humanity help guide the of imagined revelations, the revolution to unveil reveal the final image of the incoming nature of this Utopia?
The massive inquest for these questions are emotive movements to manifest, the final revolution is found born from the ashes of societies failures of yesterday, to be realized in the dreams of what Is possible by such social deviants, tomorrow.
For with no deviance from the norm introduced to the mainstream, there is no progress achieved upon the whole.
The Revolution is in the description as the last in finality as it is the precursor to universal Cosmic Harmonic Convergence: A encountering point of the universal light and the bridging foundation of the unique destiny of man.
The scope and domain of which is not barred to a single nation-state but global, universal and thus the conflict to unify is far more complex beyond imagination.
The path to universal Global Revolution is found through our united brotherhood and passage of organization, ideas founded to embrace the faster rate of systematic eternal vibrational revolutionary progress.
From within a distance afar the beating hearts open power from the incarnating young finer inquisitive souls, the reality of the masses who dream of universal peace something more than chains to the slavery of work are being thought into a revision of how society functions to bring such progress.
The abject transcendence of the destructive end of values of The System within and freedom from the recesses found in the manifestation of the individuals caught with the recesses of The Human Cage.
The Cage is but a construction of imagination, the illusionary nature of the human existing in the Human Matrix of our individual’s hearts and minds, it is real as far as only what you believe it to be.
To which I ask in continued intonations of measured patience, the secondary line of questions we must begin I openly solicit you to inquire and question further into the very core of your being:
Tertiary questions:
Precorusory investigations to the foundation of Utopia
How can we individuals and well-meaning organizations guide the current of miasmatic insanities to the state of humanity to our Utopia?
In what definitions of progress do the most ephemeral directions of our paradise and future lie?
How will all sections of society come together in attuning revelations of to the self-revealing steps that shall ascend the possible furtherance of enlightened progress, the unveiling necessary decisions of the folds of the most divine holiest dreams of Utopia?
Which currently present forms, social emotions, which systems, concepts, ideas, ideals, comprehensions relating to reality will survive the incoming leveling of the coming social fabrics of man to merit as founded cornerstones of our paradise yet to come?
What will to interlocal the apparent structure of founded core values, what truths will embody that will take occur in the final revolution towards the eternal paradise of Utopia we are altogether seeking?
Which earnest line of final questioning shall finally end to the cancerous diseases that plague our society for we shall attempt to find final remedies?
And lastly, What set obstacles problems, issues and open maladies blocks our way the progress and true realization of our most perfect destiny?
The direction of the formation of Utopia is not assembled from the simplest of conceptual forms or even consistently found from a capitalistically arranged societal value.
True valuations of all things are found from realizing indictive usefulness to allow the furtherance of the revolution eternal.
Like as all endearing eternal concepts of The truth and perfection are and is indeed found that humanity in egoism has readily complicated.
The path for our future will require indeed approach only accessible with conceptual radicalism: The strictest severities of caution to decisions that will guide the lives and realities of the verdant wakening masses.
The passage unto a true pilgrimage of inner discovery and the act towards mass societal dissension that populate our distinctive imaginations, the false perspectives hold up our false imagination of society today, of what paradise is currently envisioned as viewed as currently and erroneously real -
The Five Sentinels.
The fourth line of questioning for The Five Sentinels:
The metaphysical obstacles to Utopia
To What characterization do I attain to introduce into consideration as
The Five sentinels?
What concept am I trying to convey as this interrelated system of realities, the values of institutions and positions in society found in self-importance hinder our future paradise?
How can I characterize the five sentinels to further impartation the requisition self- emphasize into individual self-epiphanies?
And what are the most insidious obstacles that bar the forward distinction of the paradise we in collective unity, we should openly seek?
The discussion of concepts that bar our societies way to Paradise, Utopia are complications with the most erudite manner and descriptions.
The Five Sentinels in the description from a fallen perspective, a vision are the all societal self-pervading pillars irrationally towering from our failed own construction.
Descriptive of our collection of concepts that in confirmative control that continue to persist as pariahs of truth in today’s modern society.
The edifice of our societies cornerstones of non-confluent irrationalities that bear given energies to unto the false grand illusionary dream.
The dream who has an obscured set of visions that clouds our understanding of pervasive realities.
Unto the mandatory worship of the towering pillars is a description of The Systems of our valued truths, that in our weakened attempt to solve our origination of perfected flaws have given systems power and control since the dawn of order and civilization.
Many of such aspects of the five sentinels are more than social ills and are exemplified as the visage of the ever-changing faces of evil.
The description of Five Sentinel here are speculatively posited in simplification (to be further explored in the future work — The Five Sentinels currently in progress)
The Five Sentinels to further define into the form: the exploratory description of the five complexly inherently erroneous interrelated conglomerate of archetypal fusion:
1. The means of social progress through the now useless and failed broken System of Capitalism.
2. The current vehicle of human progress of Capitalism through corporeal corporations and transnational entities.
3. Separated systems of Political governance by warring nationalized found in core disparate democracies.
4. The avenue of universal conceptualities and exposition found through an approach of the overtly simplified doctrine of modern science and the base physically obsessed scientific method.
5. The approach for individual human progress deified through the root of materialism and productual obsessions.
These set of evils are concepts we have fought for millennia who are directly expressed representational of the problematic cancers we in occasions battle and others seek to protect.
These Evils have been taken into the architectural form of values and expressed meanings in our societies institutions: corruption greed, selfishness, apathy, ignorance indolence and symbolic attachment to construed pillars man-made and concepts entirely unreal.
Evils within a direct gallery of origination from certain currently popularized illogicalisms within the status quo.
The preliminary present primitive splendors of non-confluent irrationalities that we unendingly to give our collective power, en-masse by thorough deliverance were given power and energy to further embodiment and due part of the metaphysical construction of the aforementioned illusionary dream.
The Five Sentinels, in a more accessible readied definition: the pertaining organizational arrangement of values in structure and interrelations — the current vestiges of vastly forgotten perspective are points of view and linchpins of perspectives of truth in a play of the status quo.
Five pillars which can found in visual represented in The Great Diagram:
An exploration of explaining into the comprehension of all values and concepts into a gross physicalized form.
The Diagram is a carefully painted depiction of the social structural scenery which has been obscured from all humanity and has no future usefulness for us as a civilization and must be retired from importance and view.
To this readying end, we must apply open awareness, discuss and repair the broken edifice of social values, who are open of radiance of self-decay to begin the formation of a new set of values in current gestation genesis — The New System being formed by the armed forces of the disenfranchised and dissentives.
The application of all current systems is in part only an applied application of universal and transcendent sacred values and an exemplification of profoundly sacred truths: truths found from exotic histories of possible sacred cultures.
Truths who will require a gallery of complete and complex discussion of voices of the voiceless whose cries must be heard to dissipate the glamours found in the future Utopian paradigm.
Verily, it is no lie that we have arrived at the height of a climax and summit point of our collective evolution.
The attainment step of socio-spiritual maturity, to which feelings of something universally great is being born.
The call to revolution is to seek out all that lies in obstacles to our future through aggrandized careful self-applied systems and an approach of globalized social engineering.
From behind the vastly hidden worlds has been the sceneries themselves has been transposed, metamorphosized the exploitations of the masses continues unabated without universal social expression.
The global lessons that we in society have indeed been instructed to saturation ad infinitum, unto complete saturation of the current plane of sentience.
Perspectives we have collected whose application of values we have held within our close grasp are no longer of any current usage for us in the to us whole as a species heading towards an expression of incomparable enlightenment that we are now ascending to.
To which there are indeed many man-made obstacles we must overcome to survive and win the game from the satanic array of individuals who desire themselves our eternal masters.
Thusly enters into the field of positation the Five sentinels into a descriptive view:
The unveiling of these linchpins in society are all such pillory concepts, which shall provide impetus towards a direct central fusion of five central pure concepts, a collection of social dominance as the symbol literal of current abominable control found in the relationships and the constructional core of the current Human Matrix.
The vestiges of this Matrix’s reality, are directly from the core aspects of the reflection of the five sentinels themselves.
These failed doctrines fall into the architecture of social status quo are complex complete without flaw: the values that raise higher the sanctities of life are eternally who are more vastly real, and inherently more important than the transactional passages of capitalism and mere fleetingly passing as physical wealth.
For the enduring light of eternal wealth and riches is vastly more real than what society attains in the definition of our concept of the materialistic exposition of temporary wealth.
By every passing moment, the passages of every day wasted by the inordinate legions of the disgusting self-indulged practiced by the masses.
The apathy of the ultra-entertained, ultra-exciting place attachment or personal disregard of possessions that capitalism and only capitalism has brought into the fold of our societies prevalence.
Capitalism, as a precise definition as the five sentinels, has indeed verily brought the masses to their very knees, one set of societies of the world lay starving on the streets while on the other side lay obese bellies from self- promoted consumption.
Is this a symbol of the world we want to abide by?
Is this the world we want to discuss when our children ask us when they ask if we are proud of our society and civilization?
Or in absolute audacities, can we dream to exceed into something far more primal and universal?
We have indeed forgotten our own natural way, as we give power to the emanations of peering eternally artificial screen of technological construction.
The eternally haunting spectre of its unified existence one must begin to comprehend the applications of what progress and development are currently in widespread consensus: The System.
To which the second line of questions emerges unspoken into universal intonation:
What pertains to this possible conceptual reality and referential analysis I posited in grand reference to as “The System?”
A set of questions shall relate to its existence shall be asked into the furtherance
An inquest into the fifth set of questions:
The brief characterization of The System and its social relevancies.
From the importance of the past array of discussions attributed to the revelations to social revolutions, given light by various social scientists, it is not enough in society today to simply provide a means of describe and procession of enlightened discuss abject absolute failures of bourgeoisie economy and the abject failures profound within Capitalist Means of Production within corporate and transnational manufacture and the unerring inferior means of progress through transnational nature of monetary currencies.
The solemn urge to decipher the meanings communicate the metamorphic secrets of the universe, the inner meanings of the collective environment, the paths of our current social sceneries have gotten relentlessly considerably more complicated.
The scenery vastly intricate and metamorphosed into a far more complicity complicated world: the entire picture of society is coming to a revelation before our social scientists to describe and inform the masses realize that the revelation input here will transform society completely.
Unto our societies relationship with the system eternal and current means of production and the systemic means of manufacture, the entire processes of the grand social architecture in distinction is in requisition for widespread an in-depth reflection and analysis:
The motion here presented as such — the current incarnated version of The System is identified as the core root of the majority of our diseases and the wrong direction of possible understanding of concepts in realities.
The System I shall further attempt to define into a more simplified subsequent explanation:
A current incarnation of interacted values assigned to hierarchical structural knowledge in the imparting of the evolutional coherence of all centrality of our collective group consciousness.
the vast differential compartmentalization of our explanations of values is born undivine, a mandatory requisition of the obsession and the resultant product of Capitalism and the materialism of the current round of modernism.
Such values who are used to perform conformity for the massing humanity, to maintain order and civility is nothing but a farcical lie to persist unquestioned order and automatic obedience to figures of mass authority.
The System here upon it’s unified social constructions, interrelated set of values that defined progress to our “perfect” cherished society, the progress of our currently imperfect human civilization.
From the scenery of the current social perspective and modernist contextual point of view, to which I add in vast addendum I postulate another pure simplification:
The System is wrong.
Towards The System’s current embodiment, towards its personification commonly agreed as involution of laws created to arrange and to maintain civilize order and utter following of conformities and unrequited obedience to authority is in broken disrepair and evidence of the fallacies of the Human Dream.
To which the future paradigm must be automatically re-envisioned as a newer means for society to progress: The New System.
Another distinction I shall try and analyze into a respective definition:
This progressive interrelation of possibilities is to gather and conceive of distant future energies and ancient still complete sacred values, the correct guiding force of future society is universally found through the implicated study of how concepts, institutions, social values, ideas, and ideals interact unto each other to the interrelate with of our collective consciousness.
Such vast social engineering of the current structure of The System to the shape and form of the next epoch and sentient paradigm is one which we must be collectively aware of the structure of the current ideas of its transition.
To you, I shall further entertain more obstacles for our Utopia the hidden nature of well guarded esoteric concepts.
Further questions — humanity relating to The hidden fulcrums and set controls of The Machine
For it is verily indeed our failing interpretation of valuations of The System that demarcate decadence in society are found depicted from the v hidden fulcrums of an illusionary nature: a set of vaunted hidden controls.
For who utilizes and ministers these controls and fulcrums the methods in the grand exploitation of the masses?
Who controls the Machine that keeps society asleep from awareness of its true nature?
A forgotten primeval reference to further control the individualized soul and the group consciousness of the masses: The Man lay waiting within his eternal abode the dwelling of The Establishment.
The path to intuit the inner workings of society’s true methods of operations. The complex controls and fulcrums to how actual all inner working within society eventuate. A reality, relating to the motions of cogs within the internal workings of The Machine.
For far too many and too little for the few, society within its currently worn cloth of a crassly materialistic and modern values has been approached of values found of society whom individuals, it has become a failure is akin to the failure that Capitalism (and all other associated other Sentinels) have brought humanity into the fold.
The clandestine nature of these unseen fulcrums who are used to minister humans concepts and hidden authority, whose to continue enforced conformism and an eternal hidden desire to manipulate in absolute control of humanity forever in the verisimilitude of the idea to further machinery in exampled physicalized exampled.
The compositely mass veiled existence of The Machine and it’s the application to pervert society’s true intentions is being unveiled by those who dream the dream of freedom from all that is wrong.
Lies of false evolutionary means and tantamount of external oppression, the all-pervasive pervading presence of the continuance of the grand exploitations of the sheep herd of the masses themselves.
The eternal struggle of mankind to prevent the System and its direct representation (of what lies within the core machine fulcrums that whose controls), the system and The Establishment itself is the very inception of the sum urge for civilization to fight for the Revolution and the manifesting realization of our Utopia.
The emotional universality of further discernment, of which is requisite for us to exercise shall lead to further questions, questions that lead to answers that shall rectify our cage and prison to freedom and eternal liberation from all physical incarnated form.
The most sacrosanct of possible acts towards dissension and becoming aligned with the aims of human social progress remark into the sanctities of our final revolution.
Vast social enforcement and prerogative veils mass obedience to authority and obedience to society through such collective and individual figures shall not be born as a segment of our Utopia.
The incoming energies of captivation vision of our true dreams, the grand eloquence presented by grand whispers of heaven which murmur truths not seen in the current order of The Human Matrix and a vestige of our dreams tainted illusionary.
Further questions are left which are necessitated to enter the stream of consciousness, to which I shall attempt to entertain…
Further related questions revealing the System
What would we dream of if all our natural desires were met? We would still desire absolute power to minister and oppress? Would we still desire money to attain and covet?
In furthering the dialogue and grand social discourse I ask why is there no pertinent mass publicized discussion to the System within set actions of the transmissions of the MSM mainstream status quo?
Can the current relativities of the modern incarnation of the System and its current expressions of ideas juxtaposed values be remedied into an architecture of interrelation of more finer, perfect, universal and divinely eclectic perspectives, allow to be re-expressions of new valued truths?
Eternal human brethren for further development to engineer the quickening of truths in future pulsations, raising vibrations of possible unified human consciousness, the rightful pulsing acceleration towards infinite eternal revolution for humanity.
We will need to meet the future conflict now, as it is indeed rising beyond comparable imaginations.
The deified description to which the final arrival of The Revolution is indeed arriving at the point of open coalescence where it’s grand procession can be argued into unveiling form from an unrestrained decor.
The global recognition for inalienable rights as the only acceptable dream for the people’s future and the public acceptance of these rights that we will be the laying foundation for the utopia to come to agree is necessary and is logical and recognize as self-evident.
This compulsion to the vast restore of vital energies unto our society is self-effacing, powerfully euphoric and powerfully directive of our destiny, but for guiding of the masses lacks evident caution, intelligent guidance and open dialogue from people without censorship of restraint of the vast gallery of the corrupt.
The emergence of such iconoclastic and radicalized are future pioneers are bringing their truths to balance from newer revelations to newer envisionment. A New valuing of what our reality could
For those who are indeed awakening from the chasms of all slumbers: of capitalist technology, the thralls of materialism, the unending entertainment and the lack of awareness and the urge to attain self-mastery and the
ephemeral glory found unto traversing into the great spaces of the void beyond.
From which the quietest whispers of heaven have been whispering unto the unopen hearts and minds of humanity for centuries, millennia if not smaller measures of time eternal.
We have only seen portions of the veritable flashing glimpses of this perfection attainable in moments of the annals of our own history, but we have never witnessed the radiant fullness of the picture realized in its most grand portrayal a portal we must gather and awaken to witness and enter.
This gathering of dissentives as mentioned earlier who are openly seeking public representation upon this emerging plane stage for their perspectives seek this change altruistic and unselfishly without ego. They do not consider the Cage or the Prison in part of our kind’s future
Of this new emergence, expositing values outside the tender fabrics of nonconformity or the current political establishment and out of the mindset and confined avenues of transnational entities come to speak their minds without rebuke or any manner of reproach or evident apologies.
All cadre of such individuals who are seeking their own vision of social representation, carrying with them various pieces of the greater puzzle and desire to complete it, and ideas in aim to re-envision of what progress should truly subsist of.
To break down the current avenue of chosen destinations, to which I shall now return to the mention and discussion unto the existence of the five sentinels…
The current assemblage of the embodiment of these five pillars of progress — the outset of all Institutions has failed to reassert our lives the paradise we have yearned and enduringly dreamed of for so long.
Being the forms of disparate nationalized democracies and the system of the production of manufacture. The diseases of man have compounded failures to provide the destiny we seek.
The system our people slowly gave voice and power to — The system of Corporations legally rape and violated the re-splendid sanctities of our planet; our governments are not, and our social representatives have sold their souls for the experience of temporary experiences that capitalism power and technology have brought.
All roads to which all signs lead to the veils the fight for absolute control of truth is found in the corrupted diseased hegemony of Capitalism and the realization of the Five Sentinels.
The Era of Capitalism exceptionalism has ended. It cannot be saved from the fall it is about to be witnessed. The fear of what will replace it is infinitely regressing the current assorted array of people in control of The System.
The has been held in regard to its place as the core infostructure of all linchpins, sentinel of society will be transformed into a future socialistic explanation.
It is reaching its usefulness as a means to create our definition of progress in society and human civilization, have come within the hearts of the minds of the future awakening.
It cannot be saved from the fall or from its own self crisis, its self-destructive ways. A further revision of its values will come to another valuation the symbol needs to be broken from within.
found from complexities of the leveling to come Far to the order to weaponize the eternal truth for the benevolence towards the will of the people, an action to bear will be of no small measure of effort but must struggle to endeavor to manifest the first steps.
The ordinance to explain through an understanding perceivable to the mind can be simplified to understand. Broken down of its complex unified separation of expressions of The Five sentinels themselves.
The motion to contain the noise of anarchies professed simple and the shrill cacophonies of eternal epiphanies
The prevention of universally aligned truth manifesting into the current beating heart of said status quo, an antithesis of eras which no-one remembers cares or cares to change as long as their capital increases, possessions, and mindless entertainment continue to increase.
Capitalism and Utopia:
The direct adversarial opposition archetypes of social forces
It is indeed a growing truism in our society that many can perceive that the end of Capitalism is nearing.
it is an apt truism of to also which I would desire to bring into further questioning and formative analysis:
Has the current reigning system of Capitalism brought us to the hallowed future we truly have truly desired?
Has Capitalism brought us to the perfunctory seat of a universally agreed perfect society?
Are we truly deeply embedded in the viscera of the verdant transcendental dream, the full attainment of a perfect society we have vainly sought?
Has the system of advanced bourgeois economy and Capitalism brought us to steps to the ascension of Utopia?
In the global village that is in future equalities within the beating hand of a universally agreed perfect society, the ascent of the dream of Utopia we have sought to imagined we have struggled to envision for centuries and millennia?
Certainly, various degrees of arguments may coalesce to light that such concepts have brought us some definable pertinent progress.
Progress in its truest form that we subsist in a better world but to what form has this definition of progress can we characterize?
Materialism the drug of the 21st century, the endless artificial excitement of the senses does not fill the void eternally.
To which the majority argumentation’s nonsensical drivel will escape lips unbidden to individuals who have been indeed compositely corrupted.
Seduced by unnatural energies of Esoteric Glamour found in an array within the world itself will desire to keep their ill-gotten Capital and continue the raising scenery of the grand exploitation.
Capitalism has indeed brought some minor forms of progress, but the destination of this progress has been secondary to radiant decay found in wealth attributed to our perceivable realities and the ravaged destruction to our physical world.
That there is no means to change the current System of order, that in all discussions, capitalism is beneficial and in decidedly self-right and its system of values is self-evident and should never be questioned in any manner or form.
Perhaps there is a better way for society to progress? A new path to manifest explanation of all that is currently in physical and metaphysical reign?
To which in vastest deferences, in further postulation it is no small conjecture that the further description of the gathering armies of the various disenfranchised (to whom In regard I advance that The System has indeed absolutely failed)
I would further suggest to you, that the purities of The Dream Eternal realizations of paradise ephemerally eternal has been overtly tainted, clandestinely obfuscated and sold to you in temporary measures by a gallery of the grandest of human charlatans who represent The Man.
Symphonies of all-natural harmonies departed from view through ignorances of paid poor attention, of what we see as truth and be replaced by the never satiating drug of materialistic capitalist consumerism.
To which the positation of the Five pillars who I exposit perhaps in verily gross simplification there herein belies four unique steps will guide the universality of alignment we in feel grows from our hearts desire.
Four steps of that shall arm us the power of tools to allow visual appreciation of the ascending the steps to Utopia we in unity shall seek:
The urge to find an applied 1.Comprehension of our realities through detailed unequivocal detached analysis, equally distinct universal 2. Discussion on all pertaining matters, the further realization of 3.Consensus on all cancers that plague society so and finally motion to seek and discover the rightly aligned towards universal rightful 4.Actions to guide and alleviate the problems eternal referential to the nature of the social fabric and the masses themselves.
For the rampant corruption of the manner glamour and to the evident decay of such scenery, the current reigning order of those who hold and wield the power a capitalist class is in such dispositions is not all but assured.
The Capitalists, the 1% should not own the power to the future and must be downed in their capacity to oppress and exploit the masses.
Unto the raised unifying resounding march towards our Utopia, there are some questions regarding it as much.
The final pertaining Questions
To characterize the further battlefield for the final revolution ahead
Still many further questions pertaining to steps to the realization Utopia to come must be answered from the vast subconscious nature of the universe itself.
The importance of practicing self-awareness and reflection of inner self-inquiry, the revealing passage to question all things cannot be overstated and in light of this endeavor to bring perfection to form.
What values will come into subsistence and valuations the core of our future epoch civilization in current pre-revolutionary genesis?
What future values in a newer paradigm system shall come to replace it?
For what will come to pass as the universally representative of the dreams of the masses who trust us to bring paradise?
How will these dreams come to pass?
What future system of values will re-imagine our current condition to the guidance of a definition of purities of ideas?
By vast social integration of and grandest of possibilities of a universally equitable future concept into the synthesis of a future paradigm of an organizational arrangement of new structures of values hereby introduced as — variables from the laying foundation and groundwork of The New System which is indeed a better revisionistic incarnation of laws,rules, ideas, concepts feelings and values.
Towards the forming of revision perspectives and perceptions of our world, an interrelation of these relationships should be an incarnation of universal sacred values, a more enlightened perspective collection of concepts and institutions will be formed as inherently correctly aligned with we discern as universally righteous and attain.
The dream shall harken imagined future hearts and minds of the masses, finally, awakening from their eternal slumbers, perhaps the current five sentinels and Capitalism can be partially salvaged from the self-destruction itself from its self-perpetuation of crises.
The New System within the current genesis of its form shall be a reflection of our purest visions and desires the collection of implementations of values that represent a more level playing field fairness, equivalence, and entirely free from the diseases present within the power, money, and control through the vestiges of power.
Our collective failures found in the ideological diatribe to keep maintain the abject evils that consist as values from the status quo, preservation of consumption of all purchase and exchange of products is the only possible way to manifest progress in society is used as a fulcrum to herd the sheep-like masses, the malice to control, to keep our civilization unaware from its true nature and the destinies of its true purpose.
The Universally equitable harmony, the inception of the procession of the people towards justice and social systems unto a society destructing in a failing spiral.
The foundation of this following this self-destruction is the awakening impetus to realize the change we must in unity assail.
To which the usefulness of advice I can freely give, be excited, dwell in the manifesting euphoria present and readily accessible by all, but pay careful direct attention and of illusions self-education of a vastly unmentioned inner realms of man.
Question all and everything without any predisposition or pre-conceptions in any possible manner of mind, without any arrogance of sentiments of attachment to egoism.
Approach everyone you meet with the love and respect you would ask yourself and act with awareness and caution. Let foresight guide your thoughts, words, and future actions, together We shall indeed find the salvation we seek.
Be eternally wary for the set of motions to come, believe in the power latent within your soul and the possibilities available of finding in the audacities of united universal brotherhood for as if we fail here, today, there shall be no future Utopia to celebrate.
My dreams are to realize yours,
For a New Age is dawning,
For the Revolution has come,
And the glory is ours,
Shantanu Iyer | https://medium.com/@shaniyer/a-call-to-revolution-be61acc019da | ['Shan Iyer'] | 2019-06-19 06:33:19.731000+00:00 | ['Utopia', 'Socialism', 'Revolution'] |
What’s New in SF Symbols 2 | What’s New in SF Symbols 2
It’s not as big as Big Sur, but it’s still really big
Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash
Before SF Symbols, making icons for iOS apps used to present a major hassle for both the designer and the developer. A workflow would often look along the lines of this:
Plan the icon. Design it and make sure it aligns with your app’s message. Or go online and find an icon instead… … which would probably mean purchasing a license. After all the work, you can finally embed it into your app — only to find the font weight is off and you need to tweak it.
Google’s Material Design icons have been around since 2014, and websites like Font Awesome were launched even earlier. So when would Apple jump into the icon battle?
In 2019, Apple debuted their own set of icons, called SF Symbols. It was a huge gift for developers and designers alike, as in a truly Apple way, they were easier to use than any other icon pack.
Now, in 2020, Apple has decided it was time for a refresh. At WWDC20, they released the second generation of SF Symbols: SF Symbols 2. Here’s what’s new. | https://medium.com/better-programming/whats-new-in-sf-symbols-2-b5e49eee7f0a | [] | 2020-07-26 03:25:46.484000+00:00 | ['Mobile', 'Xcode', 'Swift', 'Sf Symbols', 'Programming'] |
Faith into Action | Mercy in action: Actions speak loudest. How we spend time and money signals what we treasure. Believers took “You Say’’ to a record number 1. Fathom is testing two faith films nationwide on October 28 and November 6.
“Acting is all about decisions,’’ says Director Robert Orlando. “You can change the entire perspective with one decision.’’
Faith is what we believe and what we do, and the tiniest actions and gestures can make a huge difference. Melissa Villalobos prayed “make the bleeding stop’’ to Cardinal John Henry Newman, and it did. That miracle made him a saint.
Buying a movie ticket can save a soul when the film sends the right message. Little acts move people. Simply praying in front of an abortion clinic has repeatedly changed hearts, making young women choose to keep their children.
A Coast to Coast Rosary across America and in 50 nations marked the 102nd anniversary of Fatima’s Miracle of the Sun, a supernatural event seen across Europe. Everyone from Protestants to Muslims keeping asking Orlando about Fatima, a key part of The Divine Plan, which gets nationwide showings Nov. 6.
Every institution is under attack in these cynical times. But individual gestures and actions, people to people influence others. More than 128 people representing 28 parishes came to see Orlando’s new film about how two actors' actions averted World War II, transforming the globe.
But more importantly, the film shows how we take our freedom for granted, how such apathy takes down great nations. Ronald Reagan and St. John Paul the Great focused instead on praying to God, seeking his higher purpose and Divine Plan. That helped them remake the entire world.
“You know The Divine Will in retrospect,’’ Orlando says. “You can only know by living it. Faith is an action. It's not a teaching… This is what loves looks like…’’
Two actors on a stage. Orlando was fascinated by the fact that Reagan and John Paul were both actors open to reading scripts and taking directions from a higher director. We disparage actors today, but Orlando’s theological background taught him that acting in plays goes back thousands of years as a method for helping us find meaning from life.
“It’s all about acting,’’ Orlando says. “We have a bias toward theater but if you go back to the Greeks, where it all started: the theater is where they performed their religious rituals, so the idea that you had to wear a mask to perform a role to find your identity in the world was not seen as ‘that’s a superficial thing.’ It was actually part of the dynamic of being human.’’
Why less is more
Our pride tells us we can’t make a difference unless we do something massive and time-consuming, so we often give up without trying. Often, less is one. One simple, humble act moves hearts like. And a string of little acts leads to major changes:
More 250,000 students nationwide joined together on football fields to encourage others to pray via “Fields of Faith’’ events. In Fatima 102 years ago, Our Lady of Fatima appeared to three small shepherd children roughly once a month from May 13 through October 13, 1917. Most doubted these acts until the October 13 Miracle of the Sun. Over the course of the next century, it took numerous smaller actions to change hearts. Reagan and St. John Paul, we learn in The Divine Plan, believed in these messages, and that belief helped save their lives from twin assassination attempts that nearly killed both men six weeks apart in spring 1981. Our friend Dr. Ed, an orthopedic surgeon, does big things: he formed Livingston Men on Fire to bring out great Catholic speakers. He’s started restaurants and saved lives. When his wife died suddenly September 5 (the Feast of Mother Teresa of Calcutta), more than 1,200 came to pay their respects, praying a decade of the Rosary with him. But he took our breath away days later when he quietly sat in the pews a few days later, praying alone in Adoration, sitting alone in morning Mass.
“It’s more about who eat with than what you know,’’ Orlando says. “How do you carry on your life?’’
The Divine Plan plays nationwide on one night only, November 6. If enough people order tickets in advance, the film will be extended to bigger audiences. | https://medium.com/catholic-way-home/say-the-word-faith-into-action-5b5082e78870 | ['Joseph Serwach'] | 2020-10-13 18:00:29.285000+00:00 | ['Mercy In Action', 'Film', 'Fátima', 'Faith', 'Religion'] |
Circus Strongwomen of the 19th Century | Such performers and their success are an often cited element of counter culture, in response to rigid victorian era expressions of femininity.
Elise Serafin Luftmann
Luftmann is one of the earliest documented strongwomen circus performers, touring Europe in the 1830s.
It is worth noting that Luftmann didn’t share the same muscular, bodybuilder-esque appearance of her successors. Her appeal lay in the element of surprise, her ability to perform strength acts whilst still upholding victorian feminine ideals of grace, beauty and delicacy.
She was famed for the supposed juxtaposition of her femininity, and her strength and skill. It would take time for society to be ready for the acts of those to follow.
2. Katie Sandwina (Lady Hercules)
Katarina Brumbach was born in Vienna, in 1884 to Bavarian parents who were part of the German circus circuit. As part of her act, she would ask for male volunteers, then wrestle them, and compete in a ‘lift off’ against them
She remained undefeated until retirement and thus proved she wasn’t merely ‘strong for a girl’ to anyone who dared to doubt it.
One of the men to volunteer themselves at her show was Eugene Sandow — often considered the father of modern bodybuilding. It was after this famed victory against Sandow that Brumbach created the stage name Katie Sandwina. Sandwina is to this day considered to be one of the strongest female athletes to have ever lived.
She was also the subject of one of the first positive articles on this topic, written by Kate Carew, one of the first women of popular culture interviews, in April 1911.
3. Josephine Shauer Blatt (Minerva)
Minerva is most famous for her 1895 contribution to the Guinness Book of World Records, for the largest weight ever moved by a female — a staggering 3,564lbs. She regularly performed deadlifts of 700lbs, and single arm snatches of 100lbs on stage.
Minerva grew up training gymnastics and got into bodybuilding at an early age. She married an American strongman, Charles B. Platt and the couple toured the US as a husband and wife strength show.
Along with her rival Vulcana, Minerva was one of the first strongwomen to amass enough in wages to actually retire and raise a family with fiscal ease. This — inconceivable to Luftmann only half a century prior — showed the degree of rising popularity that such circus acts benefitted from as a growing form of counterculture.
Truly, circus strongwoman performers were the first exposure many of their audience members had to the notion that women could be celebrated for traditionally masculine traits. These women started to pry open male spaces, and demonstrated that women could in fact have autonomous lives, in a career of their own prerogative.
In this way they pioneered the inclusion of women in the fitness industry of the 20th century. In particular, they can be credited with starting the womens’ competitive strength sports movement. Circus strongwomen were celebrated for their strength over 100 years before women were able to compete internationally in Weightlifting, Powerlifting or Strongman.
Many arguments were made throughout the 20th century that weight training would de-feminise women, make them infertile, prevent them from fulfilling ‘maternal duties’, and even ‘turn’ them homosexual…
Most of these, naturally, came from men who felt de-masculinated by women athletes, who felt authority, control and privilege slipping through their fingers in the boom of and subsequent quasi-democratisation of the fitness industry.
All of these arguments were disproven over time but the misconception that weight training will make women ‘bulky’ still lingers, and is still deterring many women from ‘lifting heavy’ today.
Despite the greatly commendable feminist overtones of their work, and their incredible achievements, the sad truth is that such women were treated rather badly.
They were seen largely through a patriarchal lens — as human oddities, essentially ‘freaks’ to be exhibited, exploited, objectified, and laughed at in the name of entertainment. | https://medium.com/@Laynadatham/circus-strongwomen-of-the-19th-century-9b9307d93791 | ['Dayna Latham'] | 2019-10-17 09:50:29.777000+00:00 | ['Strength', 'Feminism', 'Cultural Studies', 'Fitness', 'Counterculture'] |
Revival of Giants | Analyzing the effects of COVID-19 on Ola Cabs and What we can learn from it
Setbacks are nothing but cues for innovation and change.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
The Corona virus pandemic has been almost like an invasion into our lives. It has wreaked havoc not only in personal lives but also in social, economic and financial sectors along with a dozen others. But it’s the 21st century and fortunately we do have technological advancements to survive. Although is it enough to beat the lockdown crisis? Speaking of technology, how could one forget about the revolution brought about by companies like Ola and Uber which provided us with rides at the comfort of just a click? To understand this better, let us analyze the post Covid situation of app based cab aggregators in India and how they have been affected.
Companies like Ola have always dominated the Indian market in the transportation industry. It has been one of the leading service providers for local as well as long distance transports, that too at affordable prices. But the statutory nationwide lockdown imposed by the government due to the viral outbreak in March lead to a halt in the company’s business and growth.
No doubt there were hard struck financial implications on the cab companies. This was clearly visible when Ola suffered a drop of almost 95 per cent of its revenues within two months. This was followed by a decline in its ride sharing market to almost 50 to 60 per cent. Owing to such tensions amid the pandemic and its consequences on the company’s revenue, Ola co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal was forced to fire 1400 employees to cut down on superfluous expenses. Besides he had also raised a fund and decided to forgo his own salary for a year to help the nationwide drivers to his best capabilities.
However due to the very obvious and evident consequences of the lockdown, the riderships of Ola (which usually averaged around 1.5 to 1.7 million rides per day) reached at an all time low. This led to lowering of fares and became a major concern steering dissatisfaction and anxiety amongst the cab drivers. Protests and rallies following this were nothing but inevitable corollaries of this dire situation.
Although after the new guidelines of lockdown 4 came in May, few relaxations were made in hopes to revive the economic losses faced by various sectors of the economy. Cab companies left no stone unturned to reopen their businesses and slowly made their way to acclimatize with the new normal. Online portals for booking cabs was made accessible for users across various cities which slowly grew in number.
Due to the horrendous aftermath of the pandemic, public services are now compelled to invest in preventive measures. Ola has invested around 500 crores in establishing the extra facilities and safety measures which are currently being undertaken to maintain appropriate hygiene. This includes regular sanitation of seats and disinfecting surfaces after every ride, strict use of masks by drivers as well as riders and other safety protocols mandated by the government.
Although the foreseeable future still remains unclear, but since the government has laid down it’s unlock guidelines, the per day riderships of transportation companies have started to shoot up recently. It is estimated that Ola would steadily regain its market value by 2021–22.
Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal had said, “With the severe impact of COVID 19 especially in the travel and transport sector, it would take time for people to go out and travel like before”. With this in mind, he also plans to rebuild his business and come out of it better equipped than before.
Even though post Covid revival would be difficult, but he aims to cut his extra costs and expenses to manage the company and enhance its standards. To capture the market again, the company would need to reach out to the reopening localities and adapt to the new standards with more agility.
Surely today we feel surrounded by the unknown and dark. But perhaps this could be the time to pioneer into a new era with better solutions and advancements. Maybe renting vehicles for personal use would become a better solution, than that with a driver, in the local transportation industry, as it would cost cheaper and prove to be much safer in the prevalent outbreak. This period could simply be a reminder to explore other areas and perhaps find innovative ways to actually expand businesses. After all one must remember what Albert Einstein said, | https://medium.com/@ruchi11/revival-of-giants-97f1ba0e2ba3 | [] | 2020-12-22 11:58:40.306000+00:00 | ['Business Analysis', 'Startup Lessons', 'Life Lessons', 'Statistics', 'Covid 19'] |
Distracted Driver Detection Using Machine and Deep Learning Techniques | Introduction
Hello ML enthusiasts! We are a group of students from IIITD pursuing Masters in CSE. In this article, We have proposed a comparative analysis between Deep Leaning techniques and ML Algorithms to solve a computer vision Kaggle challenge.
Team Members:
Akanksha Shrimal, Akhil Mahajan , Prabal Jain
Driving a car is a complex task, and it requires complete attention. Distracted driving is any activity that takes away the driver’s attention from the road. Approximately 1.35 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes.
Road traffic crashes cost most countries 3% of their gross domestic product So, our aim/goal in this project is to detect if the car driver is driving safe or performing any activity that might result in an accident or any harm to others, by using various Machine Learning Models to classify the provided images into different categories of Distraction.
Dataset
The dataset used is State Farm Distracted Driver Detection taken from https://www.kaggle.com/c/state-farm-distracted-driver-detection/data.
The dataset has 22424 training images, 79727 testing images and has 10 classes. The images are coloured and are of size 640×480 pixels. The classes are labelled as follows:
c0 : safe driving
: safe driving c1 : texting — right
: texting — right c2 : talking on the phone — right
: talking on the phone — right c3 : texting — left
: texting — left c4 : talking on the phone — left
: talking on the phone — left c5 : operating the radio
: operating the radio c6 : drinking
: drinking c7 : reaching behind
: reaching behind c8 : hair and makeup
: hair and makeup c9: talking to a passenger
Dataset Visualization
Data Pre-processing
Images are resized to 64 × 64 × 3 using CV2 in order to improve the computing efficiency of the classifier.
Stratified splitting is used to split the dataset into 80:20 Training-Testing ratio. The training dataset is further split into 90:10 Training-Validation set.
Thus, the final training set has 16145 images; the final validation set has 1794 images and the final testing set has 4485 images.
Workflow
Detecting Distracted Driver — Flow Chart
Feature Extraction
Following feature extraction techniques were used for extracting features from the images:
HOG — The histogram of oriented gradients
(HOG) is a feature descriptor used in computer vision and image processing for the purpose of object detection. The technique counts occurrences of gradient orientation in localized portions of an image.
LBP — Local Binary Pattern (LBP)
LBP is a simple yet very efficient texture operator which labels the pixels of an image by thresholding the neighbourhood of each pixel and considers the result as a binary number.
SURF
The SURF method (Speeded Up Robust Features) is a fast and robust algorithm for local, similarity invariant representation and comparison of images. The main interest of the SURF approach lies in its fast computation of operators using box filters, thus enabling real-time applications such as tracking and object recognition.
Color Histogram
A color histogram is a representation of the distribution of colors in an image. For digital images, a color histogram represents the number of pixels that have colors in each of a fixed list of color ranges, that span the image’s color space.
KAZE
KAZE is a 2D feature detection and description method that operates completely in nonlinear scale space.
Features extracted using Feature Extraction Techniques
Normalization: Min-Max Normalization
In this technique of data normalization, a linear transformation is performed on the original data. Minimum and maximum value from data is fetched and each value is replaced according to the following formula:
where x is the original value and x’ is the normalized value.
Dimensionality Reduction
We have used three dimensionality reduction techniques which are stated below:
PCA
Principal component analysis (PCA) is a technique for reducing the dimensionality of datasets, increasing interpretability but at the same time minimizing information loss.
After applying feature extraction techniques, PCA with n_components = 100 components is applied to features extracted from each extraction technique individually and then later combined together to form a combined feature set of 700 features.
LDA
Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is a generalization of Fisher’s linear discriminant, a method used in statistics and other fields, to find a linear combination of features that characterizes or separates two or more classes of objects or events.
LDA over PCA
LDA is applied on combined features which are obtained after applying PCA to further reduce the features, get a better class separation and to increase computational efficiency.
Models
Following Models were used for classification of our dataset:
Traditional ML Models
Decision Tree
Decision Tree is an important non-parametric method for image mining, This method uses several simple decision rules of the image to provide a path for image classification.
Support Vector Machine
SVM’s are supervised learning models with associated learning algorithms that analyze data for classification and regression analysis.
KNN
The KNN algorithm assumes that similar things exist in close proximity. In other words, similar things are near to each other KNN captures the idea of similarity (sometimes called distance, proximity, or closeness)
Ensembling Methods
XGBoost
XGBoost is a decision-tree-based ensemble Machine Learning algorithm that uses a gradient boosting framework. In prediction problems involving unstructured data (images, text, etc.) artificial neural networks tend to outperform all other algorithms or frameworks.
Bagging
Bootstrap aggregating also called bagging (from bootstrap aggregating), is a machine learning ensemble meta-algorithm designed to improve the stability and accuracy of machine learning algorithms used in statistical classification and regression. It also reduces variance and helps to avoid overfitting.
ADABoost
AdaBoost algorithm, short for Adaptive Boosting, is a Boosting technique that is used as an Ensemble Method in Machine Learning. It is called Adaptive Boosting as the weights are re-assigned to each instance, with higher weights to incorrectly classified instances.
Deep Learning Techniques
CNN
Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) has proven to be very effective in areas such as image recognition and classification. The advantage of using CNN is that it can automatically learn a complex feature utilizing massive simple neurons and backpropagation.
CNN architecture that was implemented for classification is shown below:
CNN Architecture
Transfer Learning: ResNet-101
Transfer learning is a technique in deep learning where one model that is trained on a task is repurposed to fit another task. ResNet-101 was applied with 2 strategies:
Strategy-1(S1)
Retrain only the last classifier layer of the pre-trained model and freeze all other parameters.
Strategy-2(S2)
Retrain the last few layers of the model including the classifier layer.
Result and Analysis
Grid Search
Optimal parameters obtained after hyperparameter tuning using GridSearchCV were :
Hyper-parameters obtained after tuning
ROC curves
ROC curves for each model after applying PCA
ROC curves for each model after applying LDA
ROC curves for each model after applying LDA over PCA
Classification Report
After applying PCA
After applying LDA
After applying LDA over PCA
Plots of Training and Validation Loss
CNN
ResNet-101: Stratergy 1 (left) and Stratergy 2 (right)
Confusion Matrix
CNN
ResNet-101: Stratergy 1 (left) and Stratergy 2 (right)
CAM
Class activation maps (CAMs) is a way to highlight the regions within an image that a CNN uses to make a classification decision for that particular image.
Class Activation Map for ResNet-101 — S2
Conclusion
PCA gave better results than LDA and LDA over PCA. Combination of features from various feature extractions gave better accuracy than taking individual features. Adaboost performed poorly for classification on this dataset as boosting techniques usually perform better on high variance datasets which is contrary to our data set which has low variance. After plotting the ROC curves for various traditional models, the best AUC-ROC score was found for SVM. ResNet-101 S2 performed much better than ResNet-101 S1 which is also higher than the accuracy obtained using CNN. Data Augmentation and Data Extraction techniques helped the classifier to perform better.
Blog Authors and Their Contributions:
Akhil Mahajan: Extracted features using HOG. Combined features and applied feature reduction techniques like PCA, LDA and LDA over PCA. Found optimized parameters for Decision Tree and XGBoost. Plotted ROC curves. Appendix
Akanksha Shrimal: Extracted features using SURF and LDB. Found optimized parameters for AdaBoost and SVM. Implemented ResNet-101, plotted loss vs epoch and confusion matrices. Implemented CAM and CNN. Presentations.
Prabal Jain: Extracted features using KAZE and Color Histogram. Found optimized parameters for BaggingClassifier and KNN. Implemented CNN and plotted loss vs epoch for it. Made presentations.
Combined work: Literature Survey, Abstract, Inference, Report, Data Analysis, References, Blog Writing
Under the guidance of
Professor: linkedin.com/in/tanmoy-chakraborty-89553324 Prof. Website: faculty.iiitd.ac.in/~tanmoy/ Teaching Fellow: Ms Ishita Bajaj Teaching Assistants: Shiv Kumar Gehlot, Vivek Reddy, Pragya Srivastava, Chhavi Jain, Shikha Singh and Nirav Diwan.
References:
[1] : http://cs229.stanford.edu/proj2019spr/report/24.pdf
[2]:https://github.com/Raj1036/ML_Distracted_Driver_Detection/blob/master/CS539_DistractedDriverDetetion_FinalProject.pdf
[3] : H. Eraqi, Y. Abouelnaga, M. Saad, and M. Moustafa, “Driver Distraction Identification with an Ensemble of Convolutional Neural Networks”, Journal of Advanced Transportation 2019, 1–12; doi: 10.1155/2019/4125865
[4] : https://snappishproductions.com/blog/2018/01/03/class-activation-mapping-in-pytorch.html.html
[5] : https://medium.com/@sam.bell_43711/distracted-driver-detection- using-deep-learning-ecc7216ae8d0
[6] : https://kharshit.github.io/blog/2018/09/07/skip-connections-and-residual-blocks
[7] : http://cs229.stanford.edu/proj2016/report/SamCenLuo-ClassificationOfDriverDistraction-report.pdf | https://ai.plainenglish.io/distracted-driver-detection-using-machine-and-deep-learning-techniques-1ba7e7ce0225 | ['Akhil Mahajan'] | 2021-01-06 04:49:23.366000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Robotics', 'Machine Learning', 'Automation', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Pansexuality’s Troubled Past and Present | The “Pansexual” Label: A(n Abridged) Timeline
Here, I exclusively look at the word “pansexual” when it’s used as a human sexual orientation and a clear description of its meaning (and/or a contrast with bisexuality) is also given. For further brevity’s sake, I only include direct quotes. Click on each year for the source. Sources that direct to scientific journal articles behind paywalls can be accessed in full via a Sci-Hub URL. Access to old New York Times articles may require an account.
1970s
1973: “…all my friends had been what I would call pansexual, avoiding the older term bi-sexual, which is meaningless when you can count more than two sexes.”
January 1974: “A psychiatric profile labeled [Alton Coleman] a ‘pansexual, willing to have intercourse with any object … man, woman, child, whatever…’”
April 1, 1974: “Whether you call a person who is able to have sex with a male or female bisexual, AC-DC, a switch-hitter, ambisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, or, in Freud’s words, ‘polymorphous perverse,’ his or her sexual persuasion is certainly nothing new.”
April 16, 1974: “Going bisexual, are we? It’s a mere beginning, a mere toe‐dipping into the great blue waters of erotica. I know what comes next season. It’s pansexuality. How’s that for loving? Jonquils, lovebirds, trained seals, the whole rich range of our furred and feathered friends.”
August 1974: “The prefix ‘pan’ means that you’re open to all kinds of sexual experiences, with all kinds of people. It means an end to restrictions, it means you could relate sexually to any human being…”
1980s
1982: Rita Mae Brown says she was kicked out of her university for her “pansexuality,” as she put it. “I was open to loving anybody… ‘I don’t care if I fall in love with a black or a white or a man or a woman or an old or young person. I just care that they have a good heart…’”
Late-1980s*: “Coming out as bisexual in the late 80s, when I first came across the label pansexual it didn’t involve any kind of gender nuance: it was how someone explained their bisexuality feeling interwoven with their Pagan beliefs.”
1986: “Colette (1873–1954) possessed pansexual appetites, failing to discriminate between male and female, old and young, so long as the flesh moved her.”
*The quote itself is from 2015.
1990s
1990: “Pansexual: Two definitions are floating around now-a-days: 1) One who recognizes that one’s sexual capabilities transcend humanity; that inanimate objects, animals, plants, and concepts can also be sexually exciting, or 2) One whose sexual interests include people who are gender minorities, i.e. not male or female… Since the second of these definitions is usually implied by the word Bisexual, I think that the first is more useful.” (The term “gender minority” here seems to refer to intersex people.)
January 1996: “I’m increasingly coming to regard myself as a pansexual or omnisexual. I find the term bisexual ever more limiting and far too binary as I explore the fluidity of gender and orientation…”
1997: “The term pansexual attractions is a liberating and newly coined reference to individuals who are primarily attracted to all individuals and all sexes.”
Spring 1998: “Some have proposed the term ‘pansexual’ as more inclusive than bisexual… is ‘bisexual’ limiting because it implies only two, fixed genders?”
May 1999: “A newer term, pansexual, has been adopted to include transsexuals and all other persons whose gender, sexual orientation, and affective orientation do not coincide with societal norms.”
June 1999: “Pan-sexual — Lacking highly specific sexual orientations or preferences; open to a range of sexual activities.”
2000s
2000: “‘I consider Little Richard to be the most famous pansexual,’ said Leon. ‘He was not about genders. He was about beautiful and not beautiful. If there was a cute boy and a homely girl, he’d talk to the boy. If the girl was pretty, he’d talk to her.’”
2001: “I don’t identify as bisexual for a few reasons… I firmly believe there are not two genders. So identifying as bisexual is counterproductive to my gender politics. So when people ask me, ‘Are you bisexual? gay?’ I’m like, ‘I’m equal opportunity. I sleep with people of all genders.’ … I identify with pansexual.”
May 2002: “Bisexuality identifies persons who are attracted to women and men, to varying degrees. Pansexuality or polysexuality represents the broader sense [of] attraction to persons of diverse gender attributes. For example, a pansexual woman may be attracted at times to some biological women, to biological men, and to some transgender women[.]”
June 2002: “Pansexuality includes all kinds of sexuality that can exist in a human being, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transexual, transgender, heterosexual…”
June 12, 2002: “[P]ansexual (a person whose sexual feelings and behaviors are fluid, ranging from heterosexual to bisexual to homosexual).”
June 13, 2002: “Pansexuals love people of all genders, male and female, but unlike bisexuals, pansexuals love transgendered, androgynous and gender fluid people, people who don’t fit into the categories of male or female.”
2003: “…pansexual men who like sex and do not care whether their partners are men or women.”
February 2003: “Pansexual or Pan: is used to describe anyone romantically and sexually attracted to people of all genders.”
March 2003: “…someone who is bisexual is attracted to both men and women. But how do we define a trans person’s own sexual attractions, as well as those of someone who is attracted to a trans person? …Current models of sexuality and language are slow to embrace the diversity in gender and gender identities, and to include trans people and their experiences. Additional sexual orientations that may speak to this are the terms: omnisexual (omni is from Latin origins meaning all), and pansexual (pan is from Greek origins meaning all). Thus, someone who is omnisexual or pansexual can be attracted to all genders, or a variety of gender identities.”
April 2003: “Pansexual is a person who is open to sexual activity of many kinds; pansexual people espouse their freedom of choice and imagination in sexual relations, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.”
May 2003: “Pansexuality is a neologism that expresses essentially the same concept as bisexuality. The difference is that it refers to someone who is attracted to all sexes/genders, rather than both sexes, so a pansexual could be sexually attracted to a transsexual, for example.”
December 2003: “[B]eing pansexual means that you identify as having a sexual orientation towards all people potentially. It is a much broader term that would encompass being attracted to people who don’t identify as either male or female. It may also suggest that you acknowledge that you could be sexually aroused by a beautiful painting, or the sound of a babbling brook.”
2004: “Pansexual — A person who is sexually attracted to all or many gender expressions.”
January 2004: “[Robert Rauschenberg] ‘does not identify as homosexual… [Walter Hopps] described the artist as ‘pansexual.’ ‘He’s had intimate, long relationships with women, men, his beloved dogs and the very Earth itself[.]”
July 2004: “[P]olyamory (multipartner relations), pansexuality (openness to all forms of sexuality) and other forms of responsible nonmonogamy are being pioneered by bisexuals.”
2005: “The term ‘bisexual’ implies a sexual attraction towards people whose biological sex is different than and the same as one’s own. Since, however, there are more than two genders, some people do not self-identify as bisexual, finding themselves attracted to people across a spectrum of genders. These people have adopted different terms, including pansexual, a term that can also apply to people whose gender is fluid or who consider themselves genderqueer (or genderless).”
September 2005: “Pansexuality is a sexual orientation, distinct from bisexuality and characterized by potential aesthetic attraction, romantic love and sexual desire for anybody, including those people who don’t fit into the gender binary of male/female implied by bisexual attraction.”
November 2005:
The term pansexual refers to individuals that feel sexual attraction to an array of individuals regardless of sex, gender or gender identity. Bisexual was the previously accepted label for individuals attracted to either gender or gender identity, but the term pansexual allows for the fluidity of sex/gender. In acknowledging pansexuality one is recognizing that there may be more than two sexes/genders and their partners may be free in identifying themselves. An online dictionary states that adjective pansexual is defined as “equal acceptance of all major human sexual orientations and identities, including homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality, as well as transgender, transsexual and Intersex people.” The second use of the term is “a sexual orientation towards basically everybody, without the two-gender restriction implied by bisexual.” This term allows fluidity among gender identity and sexuality as well as sex.
May 2006: “Pansexuals are known as the most open-minded, non-judgemental, and fluid of sexualities. […] Pansexual men tend to enjoy any individual on the orientation spectrum, with a strong preference towards the feminine — be it a tran[s]sexual female, transgendered female, or female… A pansexual may be attracted to all genders and sexes, but has a strong preference toward transexual men, butch lesbians, intersexed persons, etc.”
September 2006: “Pansexuality: Is sexual attraction, sexual desire, romantic love, or emotional attraction toward people of any sex or gender identity. Individuals who are pansexual refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are insignificant or irrelevant in determining whether they will be attracted to others.”
November 2006: “Bisexual means someone attracted to both men and women. Pansexual means someone attracted to people of any gender at all.”
March 17, 2008: “Pansexual/omnisexual: Attracted to ‘people, not parts’. Used instead of ‘bisexual’ (because ‘bi’ means ‘two’, and there aren‘t two sexes/genders). Indicates the potential to be attracted to anyone regardless of their sex, gender identity, or gender expression.”
March 29, 2008: “Bisexual relies on two genders, and I don’t really believe in that anymore… So I think [identifying as pansexual/omnisexual] is more about saying it doesn’t really make a difference what their gender is, it’s more about who you’re attracted to.”
April 2008: “[P]ansexuality includes potential attraction to people (such as transgender individuals) who do not fit into the gender binary of male/female. […] “Pansexuality is inclusive of bisexuality (attraction to both males and females) but additionally includes attraction to other genders and sexes such as those identifying as transgender, genderqueer, bigender, intersex, or genderfuck.”
August 2008: “Fujiko, 36, described herself as ‘pansexual,’ meaning that she was open to different sexual orientations and gender identities in her sexual partners.”
October 2008: “Pansexual means an attraction to individuals of any of the five sexes (male, female, intersexed, transsexed); additionally, it is a term which goes beyond the self orientation identity of bisexual to include the orientation of transensual [i.e., ‘sexually and/or romantically attracted to transpeople. A form of sexual orientation distinct from hetero-, homo- or bisexual.’].”
2009: “Whereas bisexuality implies a dichotomy, pansexuality suggests the possibility of attraction to a spectrum of gender identities.”
2010s
2010: “PANSEXUALITY: attraction and/or sexual preference to males, females, and those who do not fall inside the gender or sex binary. Attraction ‘regardless of sex/gender’, or specific attraction to varied sex/gender spectrum… Alternative: omnisexuality.”
April 2010: “[Polysexuals] do not wish to be known as bisexual as it implies that there are only two binary sexes… Pansexuality- Is the sexual attraction towards people regardless of gender[,] also known as omnisexuality[.]”
September 2010: “Pansexuality recognizes that there are more than just the two distinct genders and that gender identity and expression are flexible and fluid… This flexibility allows people to develop physical and emotional relationships not only to men and women, but also to transsexuals, androgynes, and transgender individuals who do not conform to conventional gender identities.”
2011: “Pansexuality describes a sexual orientation wherein a person has the ability to be attracted to a diverse range of people across sex and gender spectrums. Pansexuals describe their attraction as different from bisexuality, which only considers the gender binary — if you are bisexual, by definition you are attracted to either men or women. Thus it is often claimed that pansexuals are ‘gender blind’…”
December 2011: “Bisexual– Interested in both sexes. Pansexual– Interested in any combination of sexual and gender perception and expression.”
August 2012: “[T]hough many might describe [Mary] Gonzalez’s orientation as bisexual, pansexuals [like Gonzalez] don’t believe in a ‘gender binary,’ and hence can be attracted to all gender identities. […] ‘As I started to recognize the gender spectrum and dated along the gender spectrum, I was searching for words that connected to that reality, for words that embraced the spectrum. At the time I didn’t feel as if the term bisexual was encompassing of a gender spectrum that I was dating and attracted to.’
December 2012: “Some transgender individuals identify as pansexual rather than bisexual, as bisexual presumes two genders.”
February 2013:
pansexuality differs from bi-sexuality, as the understanding of attraction is not limited to dualistic social constructions of male/female and man/woman. […] This rejection of the gender and sex binaries was also apparent in the way in which they related their pansexuality to bisexual and monosexual orientations. Respondents suggested that pansexuality could be seen as an ‘advanced’ version of bisexuality; one that has a broader scope for attraction[.] […] [R]esearch respondents also suggested that bisexuality invested in gender and sex binaries, and therefore was different than pansexuality. When asked whether being pansexual was different from being lesbian, gay or bisexual, respondents situated their pansexual orientation in contrast to these other orientations, mainly in terms of rejecting binaries of gender and sex[.]
November 12, 2013: “[P]ansexuals may be attracted to those of all biological sexes or gender identities — including men, women, those who don’t identify with a specific sex or gender or those who are transsexual or transgender. This differentiates pansexuality from bisexuality, which denotes attraction to people of just two different sexes — male and female.”
February 2014: “Pansexuality encompasses attraction to members of all sexes and gender identities. It is broader than bisexuality, which implies that one can only be attracted to biological males and females.”
November 12, 2014: “[S]omeone who identifies as pansexual, no matter what their gender or sex is, can potentially be attracted to cis men, intersex men, trans men, agender people, genderqueer people or any other non-binary person, trans women, intersex women, cis women, or any other combination of sex, gender, and gender performance.”
November 12, 2014: “Sometimes referred to as omnisexual, pansexual describes an attraction to a person regardless of sex or gender. People who use this label may describe themselves as ‘gender blind’ or as being attracted to a person’s personality rather than his or her sex. The term also acknowledges a space for intersexed and transgendered people in an otherwise binary understanding of sexuality and gender.”
February 2015:
Pansexuals are attracted to males, females, and then they may be sexually attracted to individuals who identify as intersex, third gender, androgynous, transsexual, and many other sexual and gender identities. The topic of pansexuality is not only controversial to the general public, but to the bisexual community as well. The bisexual community argues that bisexuality is already inclusive of any and all genders and sexes. […] The pansexual and bisexual community strongly distances [sic] themselves from each other. They have their own different flags, colors, and ideologies. In short, pansexuality is more accommodating for all and any gender[s], while bisexuality is more directed towards just males and females and being attracted to either or both. Aside from who pansexuals are attracted to, they also see gender and sexuality differently. More specifically, they do not see it… A pansexual individual is attracted to a person, not a gender. It seems very similar to bisexuality. BUT, bisexuality, for the most part does not include genders aside from male and female, which is what the main difference is with the two.
November 2015: “In response to the question: ‘What does pansexual mean?’ I’ve seen countless people reply: ‘I’m attracted to people of more than two genders. Not bisexual.’ […] I also frequently see cisgender pansexuals managing to be both transphobic and biphobic in their definitions. They say pansexuals are different to bisexuals because pansexuals are attracted to ‘men, women and transgender people,’ as if binary trans people aren’t really men and women, and bisexuals couldn’t possibly be attracted to them anyway.”
February 2016: “Bisexuality is generally defined as the sexual attraction to two genders: generally both men and women. Pansexuality, however, is the capability for sexual attraction regardless of gender identity. A person identifying as pansexual can be attracted to anyone of any gender or biological sex. In short, they do not need to know about how a person identifies in order to be attracted to them!”
March 2016:
Pansexual: A person who is romantically and/or sexually attracted to both men and women. A person who experiences sexual, romantic, physical, and/or spiritual attraction for members of all gender identities/expressions, not just people who fit into the standard gender binary. […] A pansexual person can love not only the traditional male and female genders, but also transgendered, transsexual, cross-dressing, androgynous and gender-fluid people and all other variations of gender identification, including those who feel they do not have a gender. It is often confused with or included within the definition of bisexuality, but it is a more fluid and much broader form of sexual orientation in which the pansexual individual experiences sexual attraction towards members of all genders. […] [P]ansexual[:] One whose sexual orientation includes all kinds of sexual expression and sexual relationships that can exist in humans.
July 2016: “For GSA members, bisexual and pansexual identity labels were not interchangeable terms; bisexuality was associated with the fe/male binary and pansexuality served as a personal contestation to this dichotomy.” One student said: “…if you say you’re bi, they’re like, ‘Oh, so you like both genders.’ And usually from there, I go off and I say like, ‘Okay, I will date transgender.’”
September 2016:
Virtually all of the data points we were able to identify had an element of comparing bisexual and pansexual identities. Most identified pansexuality as a subset or component of a bisexual identity, “Pansexual people are bisexual, in-fact; however, bisexuality does not place the same emphasis on sexual and gender identity awareness, but more simply indicates attraction to the two (generally accepted) biological sexes.” Some discuss the difference between the two as focused on gender, such as this statement: “It’s different from bisexuality. Bisexuality refers to people attracted to men and women. With more people identifying across the gender spectrum between men and women, pansexuality has emerged as a catch-all that includes everyone else.”
May 2017: “Pansexuality: Is sexual attraction, sexual desire, romantic love, or emotional attraction toward people of any sex or gender identity. Individuals who are pansexual refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are insignificant or irrelevant in determining whether they will be attracted to others.”
May 25, 2017: “[P]ansexual means that you are capable of being attracted to any and all genders. What makes it different to bisexuality is the acceptance that people exist outside the gender binary.”
October 2017: “Pansexual is basically a more liberal version of bisexual. It means you don’t care about someone’s gender or identity or sexuality, you just like them for them. For instance, I am dating a guy right now, but I would be open to dating a female, or someone who is transgender.”
2018: “I knew I was bisexual in highschool [sic], when I had crushes on both girls and boys. I figured out that I am pansexual when my husband transitioned to being my wife.”
April 2018: “A pansexual person is someone who is attracted to people of all genders — not just cisgender and transgender men and women, but nonbinary people, gender-nonconforming people, and anyone whose gender falls outside of the gender binary, or beyond traditional definitions of what it means to be a ‘man’ or ‘woman.’”
May 2018: “Bisexual folks are specifically attracted to men and women, often times for their gender presentation too. Pansexual individuals are attracted to everything and everyone. This includes non-binary people and all those other gender non-conforming folks. It makes more sense than being bisexual to me because it’s gender-inclusive.”
June 2018: “The meaning of pansexual is clear: someone who is attracted — either emotionally, physically or both — to all genders. This includes cisgender, transgender, agender and gender[-]nonconforming individuals.”
December 2018: “Gg, 21: ‘I [identify] as pansexual because when I am attracted to people it’s usually more down to their personality or attitude, not their gender or even their looks.’ […] Laura, 24: ‘I don’t care what their genitals look like. It’s the person I’m attracted to.’ […] Bronagh, 21: ‘Being pan is being attracted to someone’s personality over everything else such as looks.’”
2019: “No, bisexuality is so binary. Being pansexual means my sexual preference isn’t limited by gender identity… if you’re bisexual, you like tacos and burritos. But I’m saying I like tacos and burritos, and I could be into a taco that was born a burrito, or a burrito that is transitioning into a taco, comprende?”
2019: “A pansexual is someone who can be attracted to males, females, transgender people and those who identify as non-binary (not female or male).”
2019: “Bisexual — Attracted to the gender binary (male and female), but some use it to describe attraction to two genders, part of the gender binary or not… Pansexual — Attracted regardless of gender.”
February 6, 2019: Use of this term [pansexual] to describe one’s sexual identity indicates an active rejection of the gender binary and attraction to gender-diverse individuals (i.e., noncisgender: people who identify as a gender which does not align with their assigned sex at birth or identify with a gender outside of the gender binary).”
January 2019: “Just like bisexuality, pansexuals are sexually attracted to men and women. But the key difference is that pansexual people tend to consider themselves as more ‘gender fluid.’ They may also be drawn to those who identify as intersex, third-gender, androgynous or transgender.”
February 12, 2019: “People who are pansexual can be attracted to people who identify as male, female, androgynous, transgender, or intersex, taking it a step further than the traditional view of bisexuality.”
February 18, 2019: “But bisexual is more specific in that it refers to someone who is interested in both men and women. If you’re bisexual you are sexually drawn to people of both genders — you are not exclusively hetero- or homosexual. You are both. You are attracted to more than one gender. Pansexual is not the same thing. If you are pansexual you are attracted to people of all genders, not just male and female, and your attraction occurs regardless of gender identity.”
February 21, 2019: “When it came to fancying someone, I didn’t really think about what that person’s body was like or what it might be like to have sex with them, my view of a person was more complex. I also knew I felt especially attracted to people who were androgynous, as well as liking trans people. […] [My best friend told me that] pansexuality meant you could feel attracted to people of all genders — boys, girls, transgender people, non-binary people… A key characteristic of pansexuality is that pan people don’t really ‘notice’ gender; it doesn’t really cross their mind when experiencing attraction.”
March 12, 2019: “[P]ansexuality is not saying you’re attracted to gender or orientation, it’s saying you’re attracted to people, regardless of whether they’re a man, a woman, gender-expansive or transgender.”
March 17, 2019: “The term ‘bisexual’ can therefore be considered theoretically as reductive by some because it implies a binary term, the classic ‘man or woman.’ … On the other hand, the term ‘pansexual’ includes all genders and all sexes: man, woman, transgender, intersex…”
May 13, 2019: “[Pansexual] has since been adopted by some people as a more inclusive term than bisexual, a term that implies that there are only two genders (male and female). Pansexuals, on the other hand, can be attracted to transmen and women, intersex people, androgynous people, and cisgendered people, among others.”
June 8, 2019: “Pansexuality basically means it’s about hearts, not parts. It doesn’t matter if you’re male, female, trans male, trans female, nonbinary — everyone’s hot to me.”
June 11, 2019: “As a pansexual person, as well as fancying males, females, and other genders, I feel I experience sexual attraction differently to the average person. I never look at someone and think, ‘I wonder what it’d be like to fuck them? I wonder what their genitals look like.’ That thought doesn’t enter my head.”
June 25, 2019: “[P]ansexuality, which has come into wider use in recent years, intends to explicitly refer to attraction to all genders, not just cisgender people…”
July 11, 2019: “[A] pansexual person would be attracted to cisgender, transgender, gender nonbinary, genderfluid, and agender folks (a person who doesn’t identify with any gender).”
July 16, 2019: “Pansexuals are attracted to the person, not their physical form… [they] can sometimes think they’re just bisexual. It can take time for them to realize that their sexual orientation is all-encompassing. [Pansexuals can] love all people and don’t look at gender as being the most important aspect. [They] can be sexually and/or romantically attracted to someone who is transgender, non-binary, or gender fluid.”
2020s
2020: “Bisexuality is feeling attraction to people whether they are male or female. That’s important. It only is those two genders (some even say Bi only includes cis-gender, [but] that’s not the point). Pansexuality is when it doesn’t matter what gender someone has.”
January 2020: “Often confused with bisexuality, pansexuality is where gender isn’t factored into attraction at all. In contrast, those who identify as bisexual are attracted to both genders.”
April 21, 2020:
[Danielle:] It never felt right for me to identify as bisexual. I know so many people who are asexual or two-spirited, and I’m open to being with someone who is trans. I never wanted to alienate anyone in my sexual exploration. Even though I have never been with anyone who is trans, I’m open to it. For me it’s more of a political decision. I think everyone, regardless of who they are with, should identify as pansexual. [HB:] I had identified as bisexual for most of my life, but as an adult, I heard the term pansexual and I realized it was a more accurate description of the way I felt. I’d say the best definition would be that my sexual attraction is not based on gender assignment or gender expression. I am attracted to men and women as well as nonbinary people who don’t identify as either.
April 25, 2020:
Over the years, as we’ve grown together in our polyamory, I’ve reevaluated my sexuality and gender time and again. And I finally realized something: my attraction to folks has little to do with their gender presentation, and everything to do with their essence, their swagger. For lack of a better word, their “vibe.” Bisexual suddenly didn’t cut it. My sexual orientation was unfolding in a new direction: I began to identify as pansexual. […] While bisexuality’s definitions vary, the common thread is that a bi person’s attraction is influenced by gender. In a positive way, gender is still a factor that informs their attraction. Pansexuality, on the other hand, doesn’t hinge on gender, and our attraction to others has nothing to do with our own gender identity. In fact, while we can be deeply aroused by someone’s gender expression, it doesn’t factor into how or why we’re attracted to them. And unlike bisexuality, pansexuality doesn’t factor in your own gender identity. It’s not a matter of yearning after someone who looks like or feels like me.
May 2020: “While pansexuality is sometimes conflated or used interchangeably with bisexuality, some have distinguished between bisexuality as binary and pansexuality as non-binary.”
June 13, 2020: “The prefix ‘bi’ means two — Bisexual is attracted to both sexes by both men and women — Attractiveness is related to gender. The prefix ‘pan’ means everything — Pansexual is attracted to all, including transsexuals — Sex does not play any role.”
June 17, 2020: “Pansexuality means being romantically and/or sexually attracted to people regardless of their gender — including transgender and gender-nonconforming people.”
June 18, 2020: “Madison [Bailey] proceeds to explain that a pansexual person can be attracted to all different kinds of people, including ‘girls, boys, trans girls, trans boys, and nonbinary babies’. The term pansexual is viewed as being much more inclusive than ‘bisexual’, because it does not assume that a person is only attracted to men or women, but also those who don’t identify with a specific gender.”
Unknown Years
Unknown: “Pansexuals… may be sexually attracted to individuals who identify as male or female; however, they may also be attracted to those who identify as intersex, third-gender, androgynous, transsexual, or the many other sexual and gender identities. The latter distinction is what draws the line between pansexuality and bisexuality… Pansexual people are bisexual, in-fact; however, bisexuality does not place the same emphasis on sexual and gender identity awareness, but more simply indicates attraction to the two (generally accepted) biological sexes.”
Unknown: “Sexual orientation associated with desiring/loving a person’s personality primarily, and specific bodily features secondarily.”
Unknown: “Pansexual — sexual and/or emotional attraction without reference to gender or biological sex. The more commonly used term ‘bisexual’ limits those identifying with it to two genders or sexes, something pansexual’s [sic] reject.”
Unknown: “Pansexual — a person who recognizes more than two genders and can be drawn to a person of any gender identity or expression.”
Unknown: “Bisexual (n) - Individuals attracted to members of the male and female sex. […] Pansexual- A sexual orientation where a person desires sexual partners based on personalized attraction to specific physical traits, bodies, identities, and/or personality features which may or may not be aligned to the gender and sex binary.”
Unknown: “Being pansexual is all about being attracted to other humans without getting too hung up on what bits they’ve got, who they like to hook up with or how they define themselves. […] So those who identify as pansexual could be up for cuddles and stuff with someone who is male, female, transgender, intersex, agender, genderqueer, or any other gender identity or sex… The key difference with bisexuality is that it recognises those gender constructs. For example, a bisexual cis woman might be attracted to a cis man or woman, whereas a pansexual would be attracted to a cis person. That’s why some people use the term ‘gender blind’ to explain pansexuality.” | https://medium.com/an-injustice/the-history-and-troubling-present-of-the-pansexual-label-9e535e15277 | ['Kravitz M.'] | 2020-12-15 00:55:00.313000+00:00 | ['Social Justice', 'Kravitz M', 'Sexuality', 'Queer', 'LGBTQ'] |
5 Tips on How to Have the Most Impact Through Charitable Giving | 5 Tips on How to Have the Most Impact Through Charitable Giving
Ask your favorite nonprofit exactly what they need before making your next donation.
Photo by Igal Ness on Unsplash
Thanksgiving is right around the corner. This is typically the time of year when people give more thought to charitable giving. Whether you choose to support organizations dedicated to health and human services, arts and culture, youth and education, or animal welfare, each and every nonprofit has its own unique wish list. Thanks to COVID-19, their needs are even greater right now.
I’ve spent most of my career working in development in the nonprofit sector and it’s been heartwarming to witness the outpouring of endless generosity. While a cash donation always allows an organization the most flexibility, many donors prefer to make a more restricted gift. This is never more apparent during holiday time when most charities are usually hosting a variety of community programs.
Take for instance the social services agency I used to manage. We had donors who gave turkeys every year to provide a traditional Thanksgiving meal for our families. Others gave presents for the children at Christmas or warm socks and blankets to distribute to the homeless. Each and every one of those gifts was very much appreciated and always put to good use.
However, here are some things to consider before making your next donation.
1. Do your homework on the charity first.
Many donors prefer to make a restricted gift for a particular purpose or an in-kind gift (i.e., donation of goods/services) over an outright, unrestricted cash donation to ensure their contribution is used wisely. But does that really help the nonprofit in the most impactful way?
One of the most important things a nonprofit organization can do is establish trust with its donors. Long-term relationships are critical in sustaining support year after year.
If you already have an established relationship with your favorite charity, shouldn’t that be enough? If they’ve earned your trust to the point where you’re considering a gift, why not take it one step further and allow the agency to make the decision on how to use it? I loved receiving checks with a note in the MEMO line that simply stated “use where needed most.” We must have been doing something right for that donor to entrust us with their hard-earned cash to use at our discretion.
If you’re still learning about a nonprofit — you love their mission but haven’t had enough experience with them — there are plenty of resources to help you do your homework.
Familiarize yourself with their website, their annual report and their board of directors.
Check out GuideStar and look at their IRS Form 990.
Head to the government agency in your state to make sure they’re up to date on their nonprofit filings.
Call the local Better Business Bureau to make sure there have been no complaints against them.
You get the picture.
Nonprofit organizations couldn’t succeed without lots of community support, so their reputations are everything. Find the best way to give yourself peace of mind that you’ve made the right choice in terms of who to support. After that, it’s okay to step aside and let them do the rest.
On a related note, this is also the time of year when a list of the highest paid nonprofit CEOs makes its rounds across the Internet. Don’t be deterred from supporting an organization just because its leader is paid well. Programs don’t run themselves, and it takes strong leadership to do good work in any business. Checking out a nonprofit’s administrative fees can give a good picture of how much they spend on operating fees versus program expenses. Generally speaking, anything below 15% for overhead is usually considered good, but there are other variables to consider too. Again, do your homework.
2. Don’t try to be a mind-reader.
Ask the organization what they need. Their staff will always know best what they need at any given time. They’re the boots on the ground and they’ve made plans that depend on donation projections.
Speaking of projections, a nonprofit budgets a certain amount of money each year for particular programs, a process that factors in a great deal of guesswork as no one really knows how much money will come through the door each year. Although it’s similar to making sales projections at a for-profit company, a nonprofit promotes causes instead of products and there are plenty of unknowns involved in trying to rely on revenue that’s entirely dependent on the goodwill of others. Especially during a global pandemic.
The same can be said of in-kind donations too. For instance, a food pantry always needs certain staples, like peanut butter, canned soup and breakfast cereal. If there’s a shortage of those items, they may dip into their own cash to purchase them. Meanwhile, donations of things like tofu and quinoa might not be “bestsellers” at the pantry. Just because you like them, the majority of people probably don’t. Rather than wasting your money on items that might expire on the pantry shelves, call ahead and ask what they’re short on.
This applies to all kinds of nonprofits orgs. I’m currently doing work for a historical society, and I can’t tell you how many calls they get asking whether they’d like a donation of the newspaper edition featuring a front-page story about a tornado that hit the town in 1924. It’s an interesting piece of local history and a neat artifact, but they only need a few copies.
3. Check out the nonprofit’s donation timelines and abide by them.
If you want to support a particular program that’s time sensitive, be sure to familiarize yourself with their deadlines. For instance, if a group is collecting school supplies and gearing up for a big distribution, please don’t walk through the door with your donation the day before school starts. Even if they get some last-minute needs, chances are you’re not the only one who missed the deadline for donations, and excess supplies would most likely be saved for the following year. Backpacks and binders can take up a lot of space, something that’s usually at a premium for most nonprofits.
This piece of advice always conjures up a “funny” memory for me from my days at the social services agency. A longstanding board member once waltzed in the door on December 23rd, twenty minutes before closing time, with three large garbage bags filled with toys. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but we had done our Christmas distributions weeks earlier, trying to allow as much time for our client families to prepare for their holidays—not to mention the fact that my staff and I have our own families and we were all anxious to start preparing for our own Christmas gatherings. No doubt this board member meant well, but we came up empty trying to figure out what to do with those gifts in the eleventh hour, even after calling around to several other organizations. They too had planned ahead.
4. Think twice before requesting special accommodations.
Most nonprofits are stretched thin. Many employees wear multiple hats and the capacity to stray too far from normal operations just isn’t there. So, if you’d like someone to meet you outside office hours to accept your donation, please think twice. Or, if you have a large filing cabinet in your basement that you’re trying to get rid of, and you think the local nonprofit could use it, please try to figure out a way to deliver it before requesting a pick-up.
Nonprofit staffers often move mountains to get their hands on worthy donations, which doesn’t always lead to smart decision-making. The lawyer in me would always advise against an employee or volunteer driving to someone’s house to pick up a donation. What if they got in a car crash on the way there? Dropped the filing cabinet on their foot while loading it into their truck? Sometimes good intentions aren’t enough and nonprofits need to be protected against liability just like any other corporate entity.
5. Always consider cash.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, my suggestion is to always donate “cash.” It’s easier, offers the greatest flexibility in fulfilling the organization’s needs, doesn’t require storage space and can be sent via check through the mail or via credit card online.
But regardless of how you choose to give to your favorite charity this year, keep in mind how hard-hit the nonprofits have been by this global pandemic. If you’re in a position to do so, open your wallets wide to support the causes closest to your heart. | https://shppoole.medium.com/5-tips-on-how-to-have-the-most-impact-through-charitable-giving-235458f39149 | ['Susan Poole'] | 2020-10-20 12:15:22.721000+00:00 | ['Philanthropy', 'Fundraising', 'Nonprofit', 'Charity', 'Giving'] |
5 Wealth Management Mistakes You Shouldn’t Make | 2. Only Invest in Intangible Assets
Many people only think the investments should be stocks, securities, and bonds only. Perhaps these investments are cheaper for entry and higher liquidity, it does not mean that these types of investments are the best in the market.
Many investors understand the values of physical assets, such as properties, and they have been investing in private and commercial real estate in different places. Likewise, they have been investing in land, gold, expensive watches, artworks, and even wines.
Real estate is the most popular assets in their portfolios because it can balance out the volatility of stocks. Also, some stocks are considered as high-risk investments. Although it is important to invest physical assets, the lack of liquidity and the high investment price turn off many smaller investors.
On the other hand, the physical assets are not susceptible to market swings. They pay off over the long-term (i.e. 10 years or even longer). | https://medium.com/business-startup-development-and-more/5-wealth-management-mistakes-you-shouldnt-make-42c206cd1b24 | ['Tony Yeung'] | 2017-04-03 10:34:42.647000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Business', 'Money', 'Wealth Management', 'Finance'] |
SmartCash 2.0 Horizon | The 2.0 release isn’t just a new wallet. It is a better way to move money. This new generation of SmartCash decentralizes every single system.
Services will be decentralized.
We worked hard to change everything. We started reducing all costs. Centralization means high costs. High costs generate dumps to cover costs. Costs are paid in fiat, which makes it even worse with high expenses. Going forwards, we look forward to a platform with minimal ongoing costs and a maximum utility for users and 3rd parties.
SAPI enables decentralization.
SAPI is an application layer that runs inside the node wallet, which stores the entire blockchain.
You may already be using the node wallet and have the pain of syncing the blockchain every time it is opened. Instead of depending on every wallet to store the blockchain, we added a server on the node wallets to give that information to light wallets and other applications. So where are the SAPI servers?
If you are running a SmartNode, then you are hosting a SAPI server.
Including the SAPI server to SmartNodes did require SmartNodes to upgrade RAM and disk space and allow an additional communications port, but we believe the benefit is putting the grunt work on the SmartNodes to make communicating with 3rd party and light wallets easy.
Nodes are not made to help any hosting company, but to help our network to run!
SmartHub is the fastest way to use SmartCash!
SmartHub will be a wallet where you don’t need to sync the blockchain. The wallet is based on ElectronJS technology, which makes it very easy to port to all operating systems, including mobile devices.
Isn’t that like the Electrum wallet? Electrum clients need Electrum servers running special software along with a full node with ssl encryption. It is prone to attacks on the servers and requires updates on clients and servers on every new network update.
SmartHub, on the other hand, depends on SmartNodes. That is not a problem since SmartCash has more than 500 active SmartNodes. It also can run on a local node wallet you are running yourself.
You will never need to sync the blockchain with SmartHub, and private keys will never be exposed online. Actually, any message will be signed offline and only broadcasted to the network. You can even copy the raw transaction and broadcast yourself.
It all happens on your own device!
New SAPI Explorer!
We created a decentralized explorer to use the SAPI, which can start and sync in just a few minutes compared to almost a full day with the old indexing method. The initial version uses just one SAPI node, but the later versions will distribute calls to different SmartNodes.
Web site is now open-source!
We created an open-source website using GitHub pages. Now anyone from the community can contribute directly to our repository.
BusyBee.Auction is released!
A new concept of tasks was released this year where people work, deliver, and get paid in crypto for their contributions.
This is very simple. You see a task, submit a bid. If you win, then you start remote work, deliver and receive crypto. This is brilliant!
Give to it a try: https://busybee.auction | https://medium.com/@enrique-souza/smartcash-2-0-horizon-ba4dc3784f60 | ['Enrique Souza'] | 2020-12-23 05:33:25.769000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Cryptocurrency News', 'Crypto', 'Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Blockchain'] |
by Suryaraghuvanshi | About
Think of when you have to set-up a meeting. You need to go through your schedule and then see if the other person is available at the same time as you. This brings a lot of chaos and due to this, you end up having meetings at odd times of the day. What if an app did it for you?? Think of it this way, an app that scans your schedule and the schedule of everyone you want to have a meeting with and gives you a favorable time at which everyone will be available and can fix the meeting for you.
Meet — S scans your and everyone’s schedule and gives you a favorable time at which all of you are available and fix a meeting for you.
Market Demand
Nowadays due to the coronavirus, most things have gone virtual. All the classes, meetings, and conferences are organized on a virtual medium and due to the hectic schedule, it is hard to point out a particular time at which you are available. This sometimes results in having multiple meetings at a particular time which can be a lot of stress. Our app will provide you with a suitable time at which all users who are having the meet are available and can attend the meeting without having multiple meetings at the same time
Relevant Product
Products like Google calendar and Microsoft calendar provide you with a feature to fix a meeting, cancel a meeting, or see the meeting on the calendar. Here we are providing an extra feature in which you will be able to check the time at which all the users who must attend the meeting are available excluding the odd hours. Our product will scan the schedule of every user who has to attend the meeting and give you a suitable time at which you will be able to arrange the meeting.
Target Users
Our main target users are the users who are having regular meetings and classes. Due to Corona Situation, Most of the classes are taken online and are on a strict schedule but sometimes teachers due to some reasons might not be able to take the class at that time and they think of taking the classes at some other time which might be uncomfortable to some students. With our app, teachers will be able to see at what time the students are free and take the class at a convenient time for all of them. Similarly, when a user needs to set a meeting, they will be able to access (With the consent of the other users) the schedule of all the other users and fix a meeting at the time all users are available.
Solution
Meet — S is an app that makes your life much more organized. Our app will check for the free the available in your schedule and bring the time available in both or all your busy schedules. It can be used on any calendar and set up a meeting directly from our app. The app works as such:
· The app will ask you the duration of the meeting you want
· The app will ask the mail of the people you want to have a meeting with
· The app will ask your permission to access your schedule just for seeing the time you are available at
· Similar will happen to the user you selected to have a meeting with
· If people do not respond in time the app will use its algorithm and find a suitable time for the people who responded
· The algorithm used here is that the app will scan for the time everyone is busy and distribute them. Then the app eliminates the time at which anyone is busy. The app will then eliminate the uncomfortable times (like late at night or very early in the morning). Then the app will take out times with the selected duration and gives you the option to select the time frame.
· If you are comfortable with the time it will send the notification to every user invited to the meeting
· You will have the option to set the meeting directly through the app or you can do it your self
Estimated Budget
Our estimated budget depends on different phases
People Working on the App:
1) Graphic Designer: $140
2) App Designer: $250
3) Website Designer: $200
Extra Costs:
1) Google app store: $ 25
2) App Store: $99
3) App Maintenance: $ 50 / year
4) Domain name: $ 100 / year
Product Pricing
The Product will be free of cost and most of the revenue collected will be from the advertisement. Even the extension will be free of cost.
Marketing Plan
Our marketing strategy will include
· A great website
· Social media marketing
· Video marketing
· Content marketing
· Search engine optimization (SEO)
· Pay per click advertising (PPC)
· Event marketing
· Affiliates and partnerships
· Remarketing
· Marketing automation (including email marketing)
Risk Analysis
Two risks might be considered. The first risk is we are unable to connect to Google or Microsoft or any other major companies to use their calendars. The other major risk is this will only be limited to meetings. We can expand our app to add more things like checking your schedule a particular work, but it will take the app in a whole new direction.
Milestone and Timeline
With Meet — S we want to cover the whole world and make a life for you one step more comfortable. We want our app to expand across the world and reach as many people as possible, but we will start with small steps.
We want to bring the app as soon as possible. We have currently not set any Fixed time at which we want to release the app because we do not want to compromise with the performance and give everyone the best experience that we can. Even though we have thought it to be limited to meetings, but we will look at all the advancements that we can make and improve our app more and more. | https://medium.com/@suryaraghuvanshi02/meet-s-375256fa37dc | [] | 2020-12-16 04:45:28.040000+00:00 | ['Python Programming', 'Schedule', 'Meetings', 'Projects', 'Technology'] |
How to copy to clipboard in Vue 3 | Copy any text to the clipboard in Vue 3 with the new Vue composition API.
Photo by Kelly on Unsplash
TL;DR: Use vue-clipboard3 (I maintain this package)
Today I needed to copy some text to the clipboard in my new Vue app where I’m using Vue 3 and the composition api.
I didn’t want to use a Vue directive as this seems a little messy and not so declarative, and the existing solutions either don’t work in Vue 3, don’t have good typescript support, are used as a Vue plugin binding to ‘this’ or are a hack of a Vue 2 solution.
So I set about writing a new composable that uses the trusted clipboard.js under the hood, is fully typed, is simple and has no side effects, is declarative and easy to use, and follows the spirit of Vue 3 and the composition API.
It turned out to be extremely easy to make! I just installed clipboard.js and it’s types:
$ yarn add clipboard
$ yarn add --dev @types/clipboard
And make a single composable file
// composables/useClipboard.ts import Clipboard from 'clipboard' interface Options {
/** Fixes IE by appending element to body */
appendToBody: boolean
} export default (opts?: Options) => {
// default appendToBody true
const appendToBody = opts?.appendToBody === undefined ? true : opts.appendToBody
return {
toClipboard(text: string, container?: HTMLElement) {
return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
// make fake element
const fakeEl = document.createElement('button')
// setup a new Clipboard.js
const clipboard = new Clipboard(fakeEl, {
text: () => text,
action: () => 'copy',
container: container !== undefined ? container : document.body
})
clipboard.on('success', (e) => {
clipboard.destroy()
resolve(e)
})
clipboard.on('error', (e) => {
clipboard.destroy()
reject(e)
})
// appendToBody fixes IE
if (appendToBody) document.body.appendChild(fakeEl)
// simulate click
fakeEl.click()
// remove from body if appended
if (appendToBody) document.body.removeChild(fakeEl)
})
}
}
}
Then in my Vue component I use it like this (simplified version):
<template lang="html">
<button @click="copy">Copy!</button>
</template>
<script lang="ts">
import { defineComponent } from '@vue/composition-api'
import useClipboard from '~/composables/useClipboard'
export default defineComponent({
setup() {
const { toClipboard } = useClipboard()
const copy = async () => {
try {
await toClipboard('Any text you like')
console.log('Copied to clipboard')
} catch (e) {
console.error(e)
}
}
return { copy }
}
})
</script>
Made something useful? Open-source it!
I figured this may be useful to a lot of people as we transition from Vue 2 to Vue 3 and the composition API. So I open-sourced it!
Now you can simply:
$ yarn add vue-clipboard3
And
import useClipboard from 'vue-clipboard3'
Check out the repo and examples here:
And if you find any problems or have any feature requests, drop me an issue on the repo:
Happy clipboarding! 📋 | https://medium.com/@jamiecurnow/how-to-copy-to-clipboard-in-vue-3-85feb3d9e5d6 | ['Jamie Curnow'] | 2020-12-16 13:48:59.632000+00:00 | ['NPM', 'Front End Development', 'Vuejs', 'Open Source', 'Clipboard'] |
How to Keep Your Ethics in the Workplace | Do the right thing
Ethics are the guiding values and beliefs that influence how we conduct ourselves, and they’re especially important in the workplace, where ethics violations can mean violations of the law. A strong code of ethics ensures that workers feel safe and valued and can thrive in their work.
In order to create a healthy and ethical workplace, everyone, from the CEO to the summer intern, has to do their part.
What to do when your boss asks you to violate your ethics
Sometimes, you might be asked to break the rules at work. It can be awkward if you want to please your boss but you know you’ll violate your company’s ethics-and your own-if you do what they’re asking. Know that if you get caught doing something unethical or illegal, saying, I was just following the boss’ orders, isn’t necessarily going to get you out of trouble. Whether it’s fudging an account statement or covering for an office affair, here’s how you stand up for what’s right.
Come right out and say it
The best way to avoid an ethically questionable situation is to say that it is or feels unethical. Clearly identify the behavior that is unethical and cite the company code of ethics or employee handbook (if applicable) or even law that the behavior violates.
I have always admired your great sense of leadership and responsibility. When you [situation where they were a great leader], you demonstrated strong ethics and excellent judgment. I don’t feel comfortable doing what you’re asking of me right now, and I think you know it’s wrong too. I’m uncomfortable reporting those numbers the way you’ve asked me to. It inflates the results in a way that misleads the client. Not only is that wrong, it could damage our reputation and cost us this account. I know this isn’t stated directly in our code of ethics, but this goes against my own moral compass. Is there a different option/resolution we can agree on? I witnessed a conversation yesterday that I believe is in violation of company ethics and potentially in violation of the law. It was suggested that the reason a certain employee would not be considered for the promotion was because of her status as a parent. I wanted you to be aware of this discriminatory behavior.
Read more: What Happened When I Practiced Integrity at Work
Document the behavior, especially if it persists
If the situation escalates or the behavior persists and you need to go to HR, to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), or to a lawyer, you’ll need documentation of the ethical violation.
Write down dates, times, what was said/done, the context, who was present, etc. And be sure to keep all documentation not at work or on a work phone or computer, which the company can confiscate.
Read more: Why You Should Keep A Work Journal
How to keep your ethics in the workplace if you’re the boss
Lead by example
If you want an ethical workplace, that behavior starts with you. If you mess up, fess up. If you’re making a decision that you wouldn’t want anyone to know about, don’t do it. No shady behavior.
Make ethics part of the hiring and training processes
Set expectations from the get-go. When interviewing prospective employees, add ethical situational interview questions to the mix to gauge how important ethics are to them. When training new employees, clearly define expectations around honesty, integrity, compliance, inclusivity, discrimination, harassment, etc.
Bonus tip: When advertising open positions, consider instructing applicants to omit information about things like their graduation date or even their school, which can give away age and financial background.
Create a code of ethics and enforce it
Clearly document and define what you mean when you say ethics, which should comprise more than just sexual harassment and gender discrimination. Your ethics code might include hiring and promotion policies and procedures, paid time off policies, how employees are paid (fairly and equally) and how you ensure that remains true over time, and even dating in the workplace. Give employees a clear process for reporting these ethics violations, and build in checks and balances to those procedures.
Publish your numbers
You can show your employees (and the world) that you walk the ethics talk. Publish your gender pay gap statistics and make a commitment to closing it. Publish your numbers around gender and race distribution in your workforce. Measure your own compliance to ethics and talk about it publicly.
Reward ethical behavior
If one of your employees has demonstrated excellent ethical judgement, publicly praise them for it. If it’s not appropriate to publicly praise them, a handwritten thank-you note can go a long way. Explain how their ethical behavior positively impacts their fellow coworkers as well as the company on a larger scale.
How to keep your ethics in the workplace if you’re not the boss
Even if you’re not the boss, you can influence your company culture.
Write your own code of ethics
The code of ethics doesn’t have to come from top management. Set an example for other coworkers by writing your own code of ethics that outlines how you promise to act in the workplace and how you’d like others to reciprocate. Think of it like an honor code.
Move to create a system to report unethical behavior
If there’s not already one in place, talk to your boss or HR about creating an anonymous platform-anything from a simple “suggestion box”-style system to an online platform-where employees can report any iffy behavior in the workplace. If you see something, say something.
Be an ally
Maybe you weren’t on the receiving end of unethical behavior, but you were witness to an ethics violation. Approach the victim in private and offer your support in reporting the problem. You might say: I overheard what Micha said to you yesterday, and it’s not okay. I think you should report it to our boss. I’ll even serve as a witness for you. If you’re not comfortable reporting it, would you be okay if I did?
Request ethics training
Ask your boss or HR to hold an ethics training session for all employees. There are plenty of third-party organizations that run seminars like these.
Read more: How to Influence Your Company Culture, Even if You’re Not the CEO
How to find a company that shares your ethics
Do your research. If you’re interested in working for a specific company, do some digging to find out if they have a mission statement, a code of ethics, or any advocacy work in the community. Dig a little further on social media to get a feel for their voice and values. Do a little Google search to see if the company has made any headlines in the news, and what for.
But don’t stop there.
Talk to people who work there about the company. First-hand experience is key in understanding what a workplace is really like. Comprehensive research on the company’s values and past actions may reveal if you share the same ethics.
And read reviews. You may not know anyone who works there, and if you do, they may not feel totally comfortable sharing with you everything they’ve experienced. Read anonymous company reviews from current and former employees to get the inside scoop on company culture, ethics, and how women are treated within a company.
Read more: How to Survive a Boss You Hate | https://medium.com/@inhersightresources/how-to-keep-your-ethics-in-the-workplace-6b9eeaa38c53 | [] | 2020-01-14 00:06:24.237000+00:00 | ['Code Of Ethics', 'Ethics', 'Ethical Business', 'Workplace Culture', 'Feedback'] |
2020 — An opportunity for change we can ill afford to waste | By William Cadbury, CFO, Kerry Foods
William Cadbury, CFO, Kerry Foods
There are many ways to describe 2020 but the word ‘challenging’ comes to mind as probably the most commonly felt experience for the majority of people.
For millions, ‘challenging’ is a genuine reflection of what they’ve felt and endured. There’s been so much difficulty, pain and hardship. Sadly, for some, this will continue into 2021 and beyond.
However, in 2020, we also found inspiration and a connection to the important things too.
Whether that was with ourselves, our loved ones, nature, or a much-needed rebalance and respect for people who genuinely contribute to society, such as our health practitioners at the NHS. It was incredibly moving and inspiring, to see such deep pride and support reflected in the collective clapping for those on the front line.
We also witnessed a much-needed explosion and awakening of community spirit. A spirit that we haven’t seen so visibly in a long time. Neighbours, who were once distant, busy strangers, started looking out for vulnerable people on their own street. People took time to listen and to connect with others.
Accelerated change
One thing is clear though, it turns out that we have incredible collective ability to be resilient and adapt at pace, demonstrated by entire workforces having to adapt to new ways of working, including working from home.
With crises come opportunities
2020 has shown how adaptive people and businesses can be when required.
Who would have predicted whole office buildings, indeed whole city centres could be shut down? And that businesses only needed a mere 24 hours to get everything back up and running, with barely an interruption in services.
It was incredible to witness. Furthermore, many organisations went on to transfer the physical to a virtual business world. Delivery organisations worked at incredible capacity levels to make sure there was provision of equipment to enable home working.
We had to deal with flexible working and support home-schooling. At the same time, we got to grips with on-line engagement of teams and with virtual Hiit/Yoga/Quizzes thrown in for good measure.
Businesses offered mental health and wellbeing support. There were parent support groups and virtual coffee connects etc. All have been part of how businesses have responded to help ‘keep going’.
It’s been very impressive to see how rapidly businesses have adapted.
But there’s also a reflection point that I wish to highlight to fellow business leaders, which is this…
Homeworking. A new balance
How many business leaders believed, stated even, that remote working wouldn’t work for ‘their organisation’?
I’d lay money on it being a significant number.
And yet the evidence has proved them wrong. Change was possible. But who was really resistant to that change? The leaders, or the organisations?
The test, post lockdown, when the ‘new normal’ finally returns, will be to see how “sticky” the changes are.
An example of this, for me, is closer to home.
As with many people having cut out a long commute, I’ve benefited hugely from having more time — with my family, to exercise, but also to work better, more productively. The thought of returning to my previous routine brings a deep sense of impending dread.
I’m already clear that isn’t what I am going to go back to. And I don’t think I am alone. Of course, I will return to the office, and I look forward to more human contact, but I won’t be going back in the same way.
I foresee, fewer days will be spent in the office. I for one will be organising my time differently, to ensure that ‘in office’ days are for collaboration, face-to-face connections and bigger team or group meetings. There is no doubt that meeting in person is beneficial for dealing with knotty issues, creative briefs, for building on each other’s ideas or supporting and developing early-career colleagues, which don’t work so well in the virtual world. But the other stuff?
The commute has been the one part of my life that I’ve felt unhappy about for years. I’ve proved to myself that I can change. But it has taken Covid to instil a change that we must now take into the future and make into a “sticky” change.
The winners will be those that learn and change
There’s been a lot of talk about future ways of working that reflect a similar scenario to my own. Less time in offices, more time working from home, balancing the work-life agenda.
In many cases, leaders are acknowledging and accepting that this will be the case. Ensuring that people feel part of something bigger, creating positive, connected cultures, giving people opportunities to develop and learn from each other are all important factors that will benefit from people coming back together physically, and are high on most business leaders’ agendas.
The leaders that will ‘win’ from the 2020 crisis, will be those that find a new balance and take the learnings of what has inspired people/organisations to make the changes and apply those to the things they need to change going forward…
Diversity and Inclusion
One such area is the Inclusion and Diversity agenda. In Daniel Snell’s recent articles, he’s highlighted the archaic nature of the old boys’ network, the uniformity on many boards and leadership teams, as well as the changing demands of Generation Z to fulfil their goals of a more balanced and purposeful life. The #BLM movement has undoubtedly created a wave of high-profile corporate statements, committing to making a change for the positive.
However, there were similar — albeit on a smaller scale — commitments made in the aftermath of the London riots of 2011, again, something that Daniel was deeply connected to through his #notinourname movement which he created at the time. Not much changed after those. So, what’s the difference now? Will the commitments be met, and will they be sustainable?
The speed with which messages, and actions, become visible through social media, bring a level of accountability not experienced in previous decades. Change needs to be Leader-led. Now that leaders have had their eyes opened to the ‘art of the possible’, other traditions, cultures and norms can be reviewed and changed with a different pace and vigour. Not only is it morally right for businesses to champion diversity, but diversity of talent also adds commercial value, (the ‘Diversity Dividend’). It’s a strong and compelling argument, but one that too many businesses still pay lip service too
A New Perspective
My own experience of partnering with Arrival in a development programme opened my eyes and my understanding of issues I’d never been exposed to. The first meeting between managers/leaders and the students had a huge impact.
Our introduction to our student partner involved a 10 minutes sharing of our life experiences to date. I recall sitting in stunned silence as I heard a 16-year-old share a set of life experiences most people won’t have in their lifetime. It really brought home to me how sheltered, privileged and consistent my own life and experiences had been.
It was also clear from the start the resilience and adaptability that shone through from nearly all the students present on the day. When one steps back and considers the strengths we seek in future leaders, that group of students we met that day could already demonstrate those 2 key spikes (resilience and adaptability) that take many a career to hone, and many struggle to achieve at all.
The experience resulted in a 2-way coaching partnership. The opportunity to hear about the response to challenging life experiences, the coping mechanisms, the cultural traits that impacted behavioural perceptions have all been vital to shaping the way I think and act in support of my team and colleagues. The links into someone with such a different background and experiences compared to me was really valuable in helping to understand more about what businesses can and should be doing to develop their L&D agendas. I know it’s helped me.
A way forward
Watching the progress of the Arrival programme recently completed with the Tesco leadership team has been truly inspiring. It has been clear that the team has embraced the facts. They need to do something different to create a more diverse team beyond the operational cohort. The immersion of the team in the life of those they were partnered with, visiting their home community and experiencing the culture and environment in which they have grown up, looks to have had a profound impact on their leadership team and the whole organisation.
The stretching of comfort zones, listening to uncomfortable truths and getting feedback from a different perspective must all have taken courage. The diverse team working with the Tesco Leadership now have the opportunity to hold them to account by continuing to engage with them to hear what progress they are making and what their plans are for the future. A brilliant model!
2020 — We must not waste the opportunities
Although 2020 will go down as a seminal year in the history books, it will also be a year that many people will just want to forget.
Those of us in leadership positions, who have the influence and ability to create change, must not waste the opportunities we have to do things better and differently. If we can take the positive learnings from this year, challenge our assumptions and beliefs, tune into new ideas and different approaches in every area of our work, then not only will our businesses emerge stronger and fitter, but we will be able to say that although challenging and hard, 2020 was the moment that forced the radical change that perhaps we needed.
Burning platforms and crises are incredibly powerful things that often lead to huge innovation and change. Those leaders who embrace the changes and adapt to the new environment, and continue to do so beyond the crisis, will be the ones whose businesses emerge fitter and stronger. | https://medium.com/arrival-education/2020-an-opportunity-for-change-we-can-ill-afford-to-waste-b016fb2e9b9a | ['Arrival Education'] | 2020-12-08 11:03:10.302000+00:00 | ['Inclusive Leadership', 'The Inclusion', 'Diversity And Inclusion', 'Arrival Education'] |
Almost Love Letter | I’m trying so hard to believe there’s enough love in the world.
For both of us.
I grit my teeth and silently wish I was magic.
Able to slip in and out of this reality.
Into another where rejection was someone I barley knew.
A brunette passing me by in the night.
Blurred movements as I rush to the show.
Those tickets were so damn expensive.
It’ll be so much fun to experience this with you though.
Moon and stars hanging over us.
Dressed to the nines.
We’ll retreat to my place after it’s over.
Watch a movie and share our smiles.
Intimate images flicker through my mind.
In and out they go.
Frequent and vivid.
I wish they’d coalesce into a bridge.
Shimmering under the twilight hour.
Letting me walk across and away.
From this world where I wasn’t good enough.
Deficient and unwanted.
I’ll probably never know exactly why you said no.
But I know I have control over my feet.
As long as this bridge keeps forming.
I can someday make it to the world in my dreams.
The one where I was finally good enough.
The sun finally able to set on my isolation. | https://jeauxzephwrites.medium.com/almost-love-letter-32634fa083e8 | ['Joseph Coco'] | 2019-06-16 23:40:47.167000+00:00 | ['Love Letters', 'Writing', 'Poetry', 'Love', 'Breakups'] |
Weeknotes S03E02 | Back at it again with my week-noting, when a change to my role happened and it felt bittersweet, so this is in part an ode to my lovely friend and colleague Simon and his awesome content design team.
Content no more
When I joined Citizens Advice almost two years ago, I took on leadership of the delivery function but also the content design team. This was an entirely new discipline to take on leadership of for me, but thankfully I had the wonderful Simon Kaplan doing all the hard work — I just had to make sure he was OK and had everything he needed.
Well this week, Simon was promoted to Head of Content Design (a role created after a re-shuffling of some of the customer journey leadership team) and I could not be happier for him. It’s absolutely bittersweet though because it’s been an absolute pleasure to work closely with Simon over the last couple of years. He’s worked so hard and has such an incredible dedication to the clients and advisers we serve as well as his team, so it’s with a tear in my eye I now say goodbye to him as one of my team. Luckily I still have him nearby as he joins the customer journey leadership team as my peer.
Reflecting on my 2 years
I always like to make time to reflect when significant changes happen in my career, to remind myself of what I have achieved but more importantly what the team have achieved and some of that includes (in my opinion):
Masses of recruitment, including shifting our dependency on fixed term contracts, stabalising the team in substantive posts and lots of internal promotions and external hires
Reorganising the team, introducing a new role to take on strategic leadership across advice content projects
Introducing new content design principles for the team and encouraging more sharing
Raised the profile of our work across the organisation and started to define the role of content design in product teams (a work in progress)
Battled the brexit and then COVID-19 storms together (holding on to each other and keeping each other going)
Improve collaboration with colleagues in other disciplines including our expert advice teams, user research, delivery and product design
Continued to maintain and develop our advice content more broadly, responding to user feedback and working on the accuracy across the vast amount of advice content we are responsible for
And overall keeping the good advice content ship going, delivering masses and masses of new and updated content to help people find a way forward. It’s emotional thinking about the numbers of people we have helped and I’ll always be very grateful for the opportunity to play a role in leading the wonderful content design team.
My future role
I started to think about my role moving forward now that I no longer have content design in my area — and I’m excited! Earlier this year delivery managers from technology and expert advice came together with my team and I’ve not had the time, space and focus to bring that team together in the right way. Luckily Jo has been doing such a great deal of work with the delivery community of practice that I think a lot of stuff I’d normally want to achieve (feeling like a team, defining purposes, roles etc) has happened somewhat organically through the community of practice work, but I’m looking forward to (at some point) having space to think about how I can build on the great work already done and what delivery at Citizens Advice means in the new year!
Public speaking
I did a quick lightning talk at the organisation’s show and tell session about remote working on Thursday, sharing what we’ve done in Customer Journey to support our team working remotely. I am not a very confident public speaker and get quite anxious about it (which a lot of people find hard to believe — it is true) and I got all worked up about it and am frustrated with how I did so that’s annoying. I wont beat myself up about it too much though and will let it go — in the grand scheme of things, it does not matter.
I also did a little presenting at the customer journey away afternoon on Thursday, giving an update on our latest staff survey results. Leanne then introduced a session for the team to help us with action planning and what good would look like against some of the themes we have scored well on, but have some ‘detractor’ comments about.
Areas from our staff survey that we did some work on at the away afternoon
The time we spend together as a team is always so nice — people generated loads of great ideas we can take forward and so I’m looking forward to bringing work on those forward with the rest of the extended leadership team in the coming months.
The away afternoon also had a section where we spent time reflecting on what we were proudest as well as an opportunity to thank each other. Reading through the jamboards was very emotional and acted as a helpful reminder of how much we have to be proud of as a team. We have achieved a huge amount during a really trying year, with such a focus on delivering for our clients and advisers. A very proud moment.
Could not agree more Giulia
Friday
Fridays are generally my time to catch up on the week that was, but today was a bit hectic — I chaired our weekly extended leadership team meeting where we discuss cross team things like wellbeing, staff survey, strategy, line management things and our EDI and anti-racism work.
I then had to record our weekly leadership team video — each member of the extended leadership team records a weekly update for the team, giving a round up of goings on, what we have been discussing and pointing to any important things we need people to do, as well as a question for some engagement like what’s your favourite lockdown discovery. I guess that was more public speaking for me — brutal!
I finished the day doing an end of year retrospective with Jo in my team using this festive themed retro, but tailoring it slightly. Jo and I catch up weekly and in the before times we used to have an offsite 90 minute monthly catch up to discuss broader development and objectives. These have not happened enough during remote working times so I was glad to make the space for some big thinking chats.
I think Jo and I work well together, so I enjoyed taking time out to reflect on all the wonderful things she has achieved this year. Particular highlights for me include:
her leadership of the delivery community of practice as well as leading the cross community of practice for most of the year
her work on remote interviewing which went far and wide, helping loads of others across the org (and twitter`) learn from her experience
her work supporting her team through difficult years — reflected in lots of amazing feedback from them and thank yous in the away afternoon yesterday
her support in taking on numerous cross team initiatives, being a genuine and authentic leader whilst being so brilliant at her job
Jo also qualified as a coach this week so I’m super proud of her for that achievement.
Weekly watches
This week I have mostly been watching:
Defending Jacob on Apple TV — it’s so expensive looking, and a bit of an apple advert but I love Michelle Dochery and will watch her in anything.
Re-watching Real Housewives of New York — the first few seasons are on Netflix but if you want to dive in and watch all of the franchises (like I have) then join HayU.
This weekend
I have big plans to see some lovely humans for walks, and to meet this incredibly adorable ball of floof for the first time! | https://weeknot.es/weeknotes-s03e02-3b3ac90c5714 | ['Matt White'] | 2020-11-27 17:46:17.741000+00:00 | ['Content Design', 'Public Speaking', 'Weeknotes', 'Delivery', 'Citizens Advice'] |
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Using VPN for illegal purposes is a thing to worry about. Most easy and accessible features make it one of the best VPNs around here. The best internet speed of its servers and use of more than one server is included in its main features. | https://medium.com/@bugtraq18_17390/turbo-vpn-premium-apk-fb362d805002 | ['Qandeel Javaid'] | 2021-04-21 00:21:53.039000+00:00 | ['Turbo Vpn For Windows', 'VPN', 'Apps', 'Accesibility'] |
The End of iTunes | The End of iTunes
Another year, another CES. Which I didn’t go to — I’ve still amazingly never been, and I could not be less sad about that.¹ Anyway, it’s beyond old hat to rag on CES these days. And there was news out of the event that I found interesting this year — and yes, it involved Apple.²
It was actually before the show even kicked off that a rather startling announcement was made: Apple would be releasing an app for a third-party television maker. And that maker would be Samsung. Yes, the company Apple is more likely to be found in a courtroom with.³ And that app is iTunes.
iTunes! The software Apple launched in 2001. And the service they launched in 2003 to kick off the (legal) digital music revolution. This service is now coming to Samsung televisions.
Wait, what?
From the release:
With the new iTunes Movies and TV Shows app on Samsung Smart TVs, Samsung customers can access their existing iTunes library and browse the iTunes Store to buy or rent from a selection of hundreds of thousands of movies and TV episodes — including the largest selection of 4K HDR movies. iTunes Movies and TV Shows will work seamlessly with Samsung’s Smart TV Services, such as Universal Guide, the New Bixby and Search, to create a consistent experience across Samsung’s platform.
The key is what you don’t see: music. In fact, music is only mentioned in the announcement in relation to AirPlay 2 also coming to the devices (and many other televisions, as it turns out). This is all about movies and TV shows, as they very clearly state. Humorously, the release even features a mock-up of a (horrible) “iTunes Movies and TV Shows” icon.⁴
Once again, Apple finds itself in a branding quagmire. Just as the MacBook Air is no longer the thinnest or lightest MacBook (that would confusingly be the MacBook itself). In this case it’s iTunes, hold the tunes.
Look, I get the argument that Apple has clearly gone with in such situations in the past: let’s not over-think it — people know and love the brand we have, so let’s stick with it.
But here, while people certainly know the iTunes brand, I’d argue that it has been a long while since they’ve loved that brand. And that is Apple’s own fault: they haven’t shown the brand love in a long time. Basically since the iPod withered away. iTunes, the software, is now one big, bloated mess.
And so I have to believe that a change is coming. I have no actual inside information here, but this really is common sense: “iTunes Movies and TV Shows” is silly, and we all know a new premium streaming video service from Apple is coming. Therefore, I think this new “iTunes” on Samsung TVs is simply a placeholder — or an “exclusive” PR stunt… “In an industry first…” — until Apple is ready to unveil the video counterpart to Apple Music.
Yes, Apple has up until now put their toe dips in streaming video under the Apple Music brand and product. And yes, this is also ridiculous. But I also believe there’s a reason Apple and Samsung didn’t announce that Apple Music was coming to the televisions. It probably is, but the focus is on the video offerings, which I’m guessing are about to be called something different.
And yes, movies and television currently live on Macs (and PCs) within iTunes. As does Apple Music. This is long overdue for a change — an Apple Music macOS app (a “Marzipan” 2.0 showcase)? And if this happens — again, just a guess based on some obvious signals — I think we may finally get an actual revamp or rethinking of iTunes itself.
That is to say, I think this new iTunes announcement finally signals the end of iTunes as we know it.
Now, Apple may and likely will keep the brand — and product — around. Again, per above, everyone knows it. If you’re not an Apple Music user, it’s the way to manage music on your devices. Hell, on a computer, it’s still the way to manage your devices, period.
This could still be the case going forward. One imagines a stripped-down iTunes legacy product for that functionality specifically. But stripped out of it will be Apple Music and Apple Video (or whatever they call the new streaming service). Maybe the App Store stays, if only so as not to confuse folks with the Mac App Store. Plus, again, in this scenario, iTunes is still how you would manage your iOS devices on a computer.
Less clear is if the ability to buy music and movies still resides inside of iTunes. I could see this happening as that’s a known consumer behavior right now. But it’s also one that is and will continue to dwindle over time. The real wild card is if renting new movies — the one video service Apple currently offers that still makes sense, at least for now — stays in iTunes or goes under Apple Video. I could see it going either way. If it’s the former, maybe there will be this “iTunes” app on Samsung TVs. Even though the name makes no sense.⁵
But again, I suspect the iTunes brand shifts towards the legacy stuff. I think Apple will use this opportunity to finally start obsoleting the iTunes product. Which will be music to all of our ears. | https://500ish.com/the-end-of-itunes-2b69d812d861 | ['M.G. Siegler'] | 2019-01-15 23:39:53.841000+00:00 | ['iTunes', 'CES', 'Apple', 'Samsung', 'Tech'] |
A Little Tour Through One Gay Man’s Life | Kevin and the Dog House
I knew at five that I was gay. That is to say, I vividly recall feelings and desires I had at five that I now know to have been homosexual in nature.
Most people believe that one cannot remember something that occurred that early. They have no such memories. They allow their subjective experience to fix their judgment of others who relate a contrary experience. They discount them.
So, discount me if you like when I tell you that I’ve always been gay, that I have a genuine memory of the time when, at five, I not only felt “that” way but also acted on it. Discount if you will, the true story of Kevin and the dog house that I relate to you in Five Years Old and Gay in Rural, Western Kansas. Or not.
From Premed to Computer Science in One Semester
I matriculated at Johns Hopkins University as a premed student, but switched in my freshman year, second semester to computer science and mathematics. It was for the best. I think sophomore-year Biochem wouldn’t have been all that agreeable.
After graduating in 1970, I moved to Washington, DC. I worked for four years as a computer systems analyst/programmer. For the last two years, I was an independent consultant. I had no fixed office. I ran the projects in my tennis whites from my bicycle and backpack. I was raking in cash but found the work unsatisfying.
It was in DC that I came out and quickly met my two first lovers, Michael and Tommy. For three years, we were an inseparable triad. Needing to find some other part of himself, Tommy ended that after ten years with Michael, the last three also with me. Michael and I spent the next year together until I made an elephantine mistake. I entered a Ph.D. program at Cornell. The manner in which I did it cost me Michael. A little bit of that story appears in Hello? Past? This is me calling Michael. The rest is yet to be told.
Life and death at Cornell
On the way to Cornell, Michael and I toured New England. In a hotel in Boston, we saved a 13-year-old, pregnant girl from her attempted suicide.
One cold and snowy day that winter, I was hiking up a gorge to campus. A freshman leapt off a bridge high above as I passed under. He landed spread-eagle in front of me on the jagged rocks. Snow fell as I held him. The blood running from his wounds made an ugly stain on God’s pristine, white blanket around us. I cradled his head in the crook of my arm as he died. He had gotten a failing grade in one course and couldn’t face telling his parents. Afterward, I volunteered at the suicide-prevention hotline.
I had a full course-load, a thesis to write, and a paid teaching assistantship in Finite Mathematics, which I had not taken at Johns Hopkins. I had to learn it as I taught it. I kept two chapters ahead of the current lesson, and all was well.
Although I was enrolled in the Engineering School, I took a wine-tasting course at the Hotel School. I audited a creative writing course at Ithaca College that Rod Serling was teaching. He was predictably fascinating.
I ran cross-country — six days a week, six miles a day, six-minute miles. I swam for an hour at lunchtime. I biked on Saturdays and Sundays. At 26, I was in the best condition of my life.
I found the local coed, nude, mixed gay/straight swimming hole. I met several Cornell luminaries and their families there plus a gay couple I later slept with in both meanings of the word.
I joined the Gay Students’ Union. We went around to the freshman houses. Standing before 100 of them at a time, we let them see two real, live homosexuals. We let them hear the timber of our voices and gauge our gait. We let them know that we were among them just as some would discover that they were among us.
We did the same for the Lions Club. The Lion Tamer arranged for us to come, but told none of the members who we were or why we were there. After lunch, to their surprise and discomfiture, we gave our little presentation. We took questions, which, at first, were made either reticently or with some hostility. But, the members became more interested. The inquiries became genuine and personal. After an hour and a half, the club president closed the meeting. Several members gathered round, asking us to stay longer.
On our way out, one Lion approached me. He told me that he had a gay, 17-year-old son. He said he had been angry and disappointed with his son. Having fathered a homosexual had made him feel like a failure. Looking directly into my eyes, he thanked me for helping him understand. He was going to talk with the boy and tell him that whatever his sexuality, it was OK. He would support him in coming out and coming to terms with being gay. A tear rolled down his cheek. We did a good thing that day.
I was unhappy at Cornell. My department chairman had lied to me, thinking that I would join him in his research once I was there. I wasn’t interested; I had my own to pursue. At the end of that first year, I did a hard, left dogleg to law school in San Francisco and found a calling.
Absorbed and Engrossed in Law School in San Francisco
I arrived in San Francisco in 1975, eager to start law school and more eager to launch myself into life in what was the gay Mecca of the U.S. in its heyday. Tyler — The Man I Met Naked on the Quaking Ground, and Came to Love tells one of the stories of my three years there. Another is The Hilarious Thing My Mother Said on Coming Out to Her.
In my second year, I had a teaching assistantship in Appellate Advocacy, an unprecedented accomplishment. I spent my last (third) year as an intern law clerk to a District Court judge in the Northern District of California, also unprecedented. I had responsibilities and privileges coextensive with the paid clerks. I took no classes that year but got 18 credits for independent studies. I was the Moot Court Board president, an editor of the law review, and a member of the admissions and orientation committees.
A Judgeship, My Narrowly Missed Murder, and My Saving a Life in Fairbanks
At the end of my third year, I had two offers for clerkships, one from the chief judge of the Alaska Superior Court based in Fairbanks, and one from a judge from Idaho sitting on the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. A Ninth Circuit clerkship was a rare, extraordinary opportunity. It had gravitas; it carried resume power. On paper at least, an Alaskan trial-court clerkship was inferior.
I had a dilemma, take the Ninth Circuit appellate opportunity or accept the less prestigious Alaska offer. I already knew how to research and write appeals but had no trial court experience. I wanted to be a litigator, so Alaska made sense. Besides, who wanted to live in Idaho?
In Fairbanks, the chief judge asked that I revamp the court’s motion practice. The court had a six-month backlog. He was anxious to tame the beast. I redesigned the system and, in two months, cleared the backlog while staying current with the incoming motions.
He soon appointed me the court’s standing divorce master.
Alaska had a no-fault divorce statute. Either party could get a divorce so long as it was uncontested. The statutory language was that a party need only show “irreconcilable differences that caused an irremediable breakdown in the marriage.” It was sufficient that one party appear and testify.
The magic words were “irreconcilable differences” and “irremediable breakdown.”
It was my duty as standing master to take testimony evidencing that the statutory requirement had been met.
Although legal representation was not required, most parties came with counsel whose invariable practice was to have the party stand up, say the magic words, and sit down.
On one occasion, a grizzled old man, a gold-miner type with unkempt white hair and scraggly beard, walked in with his lawyer. He was dressed in dirty, worn, and torn miner’s overalls that came to his chest and had straps over his shoulders. He wore yesterday’s shirt, well frayed at the collar and cuffs.
When it came time, the lawyer had the man stand to say the magic words.
But the old man could not get them out. He stammered, stuttered, and sputtered over them while the lawyer prodded him in the ribs and whispered the words. I was certain that he had no inkling what the words meant. His tongue would not form them. It was no use.
I signaled to the lawyer to stop. I asked the man to tell me in his own words why he wanted a divorce.
“Because, if I have to sleep with the bitch one more night, I’m gonna kill her,” came the reply.
“That will do,” I told him. The gavel came down with me trying not to laugh.
After six months, my judge appointed me an acting District Court judge, that too being unprecedented. My duties were in addition to my law-clerk and standing-master appointments. There were several dozen criminal cases threatened with impending dismissal under Alaska’s strict speedy-trial rule. He assigned the other District Court judges exclusively to those trials. The rest of the court’s business he entrusted to me.
All this was an incredible professional growth experience. It could have happened nowhere else than in Alaska. I was elated at having declined the Ninth-Circuit clerkship.
That year in Alaska proved not only a professional growth opportunity but also an adventure.
I knew it would be cold, so, on the way up, I stopped in Seattle and bought an Eddie Bauer, heavyweight parka. It was down-filled. It had a hood and zippers and stays and drawstring ties around the face, wrists, waist, and mid-thigh hem. It was so big, thick, and heavy that, when I got in it all buttoned up, I had the look and mobility of a fire hydrant.
One day in early November, it was -5℉. I knew that because I had a thermometer calibrated to -40° sitting outside on the window sill. After scraping the ice off the inside of the windowpane, I saw that it read -5°. I figured that would be a day to wear my Eddie Bauer parka.
Crossing the courthouse parking lot, all sewn up in my down-filled, fire-hydrant parka, I met a litigator on his way to court. He looked at me, stopped short in his tracks, and smiled the broadest smile one could ever hope to see. The smile broke out into a wider grin; the grin morphed into a short, one-burst laugh before he stifled it. He said, “That’s cool, but … what are you going to do when it gets really cold?”
I thought he was joking. But, no, he was quite serious. In the third week of December, the mercury crawled into the thermometer’s bulb. It did not poke it’s nose out again until around the second week of February. For seven weeks, the air temperature was below 40 below. At its coldest, it was -60. Icicles formed on my mustache from the moisture in my breath as I exhaled. I carried full, arctic-survival gear in my car everywhere I went. If the car broke down even a half-mile (six blocks) from my apartment or the grocery store, I would die trying to walk the distance without the gear.
It was also pitch black 24/7. I came to understand why bears hibernate. In such cold and dark, all one wants to do is crawl under the electric blanket, assume the fetal position, turn the dial to nine, and not come out till May.
I had time on my hands despite all the work at court. I got a second job as the night and weekend manager of the racquetball club. I wanted to get lessons from the club pro, but couldn’t afford the membership or his fee. My judge knew the club owner. I prevailed upon him to prevail upon the owner to hire me. As an employee, I got free lessons. Playing every day, I progressed to the level of an A-minus professional player by the end of the year.
I volunteered three evenings a week for the crisis-intervention and suicide-prevention hotline. I narrowly escaped being murdered by the ex-husband of another volunteer he fatally shot before killing himself. Also, I saved an alcoholic’s life. He called the hotline from a phone in a bar. He was drunk. He told me that he was going to suicide by walking outside without protective clothing.
Although we weren’t supposed to get personally involved beyond the conversation, I could not let that happen. I called the police and told them the situation, but I did not know what bar it was. The officer asked what music was playing. When I told him, he said he knew where the man was. There was but one bar that played that music. The man had collapsed onto a snowbank in -30° cold. The policeman rescued him thanks to my disregarding the policy.
Practice in Philadelphia and the First Inkling I Was Getting Old
The second-in-command of a Philadelphia law firm, just then forming, headhunted me in June 1979, the end of my clerkship year. By the last week in September, I was a fledgling, genuine Philadelphia lawyer.
I was fortunate. Serendipity had taken me to the best place that I could have been for professional development. The firm was small, but thanks to the owner’s ability and reputation, garnered some of the biggest, most complex, and most important cases in Philadelphia. The litigation was advanced, visible, high-pressure, and stressful. I worked 3,000 to 3,500 billable hours (1.5 to 1.875 man years) a year. By my fifth year out of law school, I consistently bested lawyers seven or eight years out. The owner of a firm that once opposed us gave me the nickname “Trouble.” I kept getting his junior associate in hot water with the court.
For eight years, I never had the same type of case twice. Everything was new and adventuresome. One case had languished for three years in four lawyers’ hands. They were unable to find merit in it. Within a month, I developed three theories of liability and punitive damages against three defendants, Pepsi, Ford, and a truck body alteration company in Kansas City. It was the first million-dollar win I engineered. In another case, we sued the NFL in antitrust. We lost. In a third, I sued The Philadelphia Inquirer for tortious breach of contract, a notoriously difficult theory to win under. I won.
I operated at all ahead flank, 110% on the reactor, all the time. I thrived on, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
It was in Philadelphia that I had the first inkling I was getting old.
I regularly played racquetball at my club. In racquetball, one plays to 21; one has to win by at least 2 points. I was better than most.
One evening, I noticed a new fellow watching me through the glass back wall. As I left the court, he asked for a game. I said, “sure.” In our only game that evening, he beat me by 3. I wasn’t quite devastated, but it riled my competitive spirit.
We played for several weeks. I never beat him. Sometimes I came within 2 points. Mostly, it was 4 or 5. I went to the club pro.
“Doug, what’s wrong with my game,” I said.
“What do you mean,” he asked.
“My game is off,” I replied, “I need to know what I’m doing wrong. I can’t beat Jason.”
He gave me a curious look, the meaning of which soon became evident.
“How old are you,” he asked.
“Thirty-six,” I snapped as if that was germane to anything.
Doug snorted.
“Well, he’s 18. You’re never going to beat him.”
Ouch!
Wheat Fields, Cattle Ranches, Dairy Farms, and Litigation Galore
After eight years in Philadelphia, I accepted a position as the chief litigator in a boutique law firm headquartered in Fayetteville, Arkansas. We exclusively represented farmers being foreclosed upon by private and governmental lenders.
The practice was nearly as intensive as Philadelphia had been. At one point, I had litigations in 26 states, literally from Georgia to California, from Texas to North Dakota. The firm had its own plane. We flew to mega-cities and toy towns all across the country. I was gone from home for about two of every three months, always David against Goliath-type lenders and unsympathetic judges.
Run Over by a Train and Left Crumpled and Bleeding in Crisis
After five years of that, a monstrous and massively dark depression felled me. Onset was sudden. Wham! I felt as if I had been struck by a mile-long train with such momentum behind it that I laid like Humpty Dumpty irreparably in pieces and askew on the tracks.
All in all, I spent 13 years in both a physically debilitating and a life-threatening depression, in a world of mental and emotional devastation. The impulse to suicide was so great so many times. Once, I came as close to it as one can without pulling the trigger. Gun loaded, safety off, and in my hand. What stopped me were the thoughts of my sister’s lonely crying and of the mess I’d leave behind for people to clean up. Strange reasons to stay alive under those oppressive conditions, I thought. My psychiatrist told me, though, that often such reasons are why seriously suicidal people don’t go through with it.
Blessed Again by Fortune, or Perhaps Just Inattention
Though that experience was less than pleasant, I was fortunate in two respects.
First: I was 34 in 1982, hyper-sexed and versatile, often having been the receptive partner. That year, HIV appeared in Philadelphia. There was no treatment. HIV positive cases ineluctably advanced to AIDS and death, mostly within one to two years. I was certain that I was HIV positive and would be dead by my thirty-fifth birthday.
I bought the best medical insurance coverage I could, together with the best disability income insurance. I put COLA (cost of living adjustment) and “own-occupation” riders on the disability policy. (“Own occupation” meant that if I could not practice law because of a disability, I would be considered fully disabled even though I could work in other fields.) I bought a $500,000 life policy so that I would have something to leave my mother. I bought these before the insurance companies got wise and stopped insuring single men between 20 and 45.
I continued to work with no further thought given to my impending death. That was my nature.
Second: I’m what is called a long-term progressor. I stayed alive for 15 years after I should have died until the successful “three-drug cocktail” came along in 1997. By that time, though, my T-cells were less than 200/ml, which was diagnostic for AIDS. If the cocktail had been delayed one more year, I would be dead today.
Retirement, Wealth, and Dinosaurs
I kept the insurance policies less from planning than from inertia. Who knew that, a decade later, depression would leave me in need of the disability policy or that the riders would prove my salvation during a 13-year illness and the 16 years I’ve lived since? Because of them, I have a very comfortable retirement.
I’ve also been favored in that I have always had the opportunity to work with my mind. I have always loved doing what I was doing until I didn’t. Then, I found something better that I loved doing more.
Serendipity brought me all my many opportunities and salvation from the ravages of illnesses, both mental and physical. It brought me many men who came to love me. I broke all their hearts. It brought me five men whom I came to love so much. With one exception, they serially broke my heart. The exception died of AIDS 25 years ago, after a life of nine years together.
Sounds sad, doesn’t it? But, from my perspective looking at the whole canvas, it’s a damned fine watercolor. | https://medium.com/prismnpen/a-little-tour-across-one-gay-mans-life-6018a26e997f | ['Alex'] | 2020-11-07 22:15:43.078000+00:00 | ['Lawyers', 'LGBTQ', 'Gay', 'Autobiography', 'Creative Non Fiction'] |
Accounting Partners are just Franchisees | People get into public practice accounting for different reasons.
Job security.
The satisfaction of working in digits all day.
Interest in money and finances.
Understanding business.
Family expectations.
For me, it was a mix of all of those things.
I had a thing for numbers.
I wanted to learn about finance and eventually own a business.
I knew accounting was a safe career path (cue Benjamin Franklin idiom about death and taxes).
I have an Asian mother…
I had no idea WTF a Debit or a Credit was, or why Assets less Liabilities = Owners Equity
I just figured that accounting would tick the boxes for me.
After 6 months of of working in public practice, I quickly understood what ‘success’ looked like in a public practice firm.
It’s all about promotions.
You started as a graduate and your goal was to get all the way to the top — to Partner.
All the way to the top
Being a Partner was the ultimate. The very definition of success.
Partners got awesome perks. Exclusive silverware laden buffet lunches, exotic corporate retreats, nice cars, 7 figure salaries.
If you made Partner — you knew you were set for life.
You were untouchable.
As a young and naive grad, I too was lured into the idea of being a partner of a firm. It’s the kind of life that one aspires to achieve. I mean, why else would you bust your ass in public practice, working longer hours and receiving dismal pay compared to your peers that jumped ship into the ‘mundane’ world of Commerce?
After several years in the profession, I decided that being partner of a firm was not what I wanted. It was not a clear cut decision at the time, and a story better saved for another blog.
I left the ‘profession’ and started my business, which was the real reason why I pursued this career path in the first instance.
Yes, I still am an accountant (and proud to call myself one). I also own a business that provides accounting services.
However, nor I, my business partner, nor any of our team members refer to the term ‘Partner’.
Why? Because we run our business as owners, not Partners.
I believe there is a subtle difference. | https://medium.com/the-crunch/accounting-partners-are-just-franchisees-88551805976b | ['Jason Andrew'] | 2018-08-20 13:13:45.110000+00:00 | ['Finance', 'Accounting', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Franchise'] |
How your different muscle fibre types affect muscle development | If you’re into lifting, you’ve probably heard that you should train various muscles differently based on its predominant muscle fiber type.
For example, hamstrings should be trained with heavy weights and low reps because they’re 70% fast twitch, while the shoulders should be hit with low weights and high reps as they’re mostly slow twitch.
Should you, though?
Slow Twitch, Fast Twitch
Let’s start with a primer on muscle fiber types. It’ll be quick and painless, I promise!
In humans, there are two basic types of muscle fibers:
Type I muscle fibers (Slow Twitch)
Generally smaller
More fatigue-resistant
Type II muscle fibers (Fast Twitch)
Usually larger
Less fatigue-resistant
Fast twitch fibers can be further classified into type IIa and type IIx fibers.
Type IIx fibers excel at producing quick, powerful bursts of speed and are more explosive than type IIa muscle fibers. However, as the proportion of type IIx fibers is very tiny — even for highly trained athletes — you can assume that I’m referring to type IIa fibers when I mention fast twitch fibers.
The amount of force needed to be produced determines the activation of muscle fibers: slow twitch fibers are recruited by the nervous system first till they are overwhelmed. Then, fast twitch fibers are called upon for further force generation.
As we can see, the proposal that fast twitch fibers will experience higher degrees of growth with high-load resistance, and that slow twitch muscles will grow more with low-load resistance training is starting to make physiological sense.
The Case Against Fiber Type-Specific Growth
But there are three fundamental problems with this idea:
1. Most muscles have a 50/50 split of type I and type II muscle fibers
If you’re going to train your hamstrings differently from your shoulders, it’s probably helpful to be sure they actually have different predominant muscle fibers.
Well, I have some bad news for the dude who told me he was hitting his chest with the heaviest dumbbells he could find because “chest is predominantly fast twitch fibers.”
On average, type I and type II muscle fibers tend to be pretty evenly distributed in most muscles.
But wait — what about the calves? There’s no way they have an equal distribution of fibers, right?
There are a few exceptions, of course — the calves happen to be one of them. It is roughly 80% slow twitch. However, the main point is that most of the major muscles you’d want to train for growth have a pretty even split.
2. There’s no easy way to know your fiber type breakdown
Sure, most people might have 50/50 muscle fiber distribution. But the variability between individuals and muscles means your fiber split could differ from the average person, right?
Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to find out for sure (unless you spend a fortune to get your muscles biopsied).
Numerous bodybuilding forums and sites claim that you can determine your muscle fiber type-dominance based on the number of reps you can perform at a given percentage of your 1 RM (One Rep Max).
But the following points explain why this approach is problematic.
1. The exercise itself influences how quickly you fatigue.
10 reps of knee extensions versus 10 reps of deadlifts: we all know which is more tiring.
2. Your familiarity with the exercise determines how quickly you fatigue.
If you’re unfamiliar with hip thrusts, your 1 RM is probably depressed in comparison to your true potential. This is the main reason why some new lifters can get more than 10 reps in at 90% of their 1 RM, while more experienced lifters can only grind out 3 to 5 reps.
3. Fiber type breakdown does not predict how many reps you can get with a percentage of your 1 RM.
A study performed in 2008 did not find a significant correlation between muscle fiber type composition and the number of repetitions performed at a percentage of 1 RM.
4. No conclusive findings on slow and fast twitch fibers’ responsiveness
Here comes the real kicker: there’s just not enough evidence that training in specific ways will lead to preferential growth of type I or type II muscle fibers.
While there are available studies that demonstrate that heavy training caused more type II fiber growth and that low load training caused more type I fiber growth, there have been many other studies that show mixed results.
Additionally, it has been shown that heavy training and light training both caused similar amounts of slow twitch fiber hypertrophy, and that fast twitch fibers have been shown to grow just as well when subjected to lighter training.
The overall picture is a murky one.
50 Reps For Delts — Yes Or No?
At the end of the day, it seems that all rep ranges and loads result in pretty similar amounts of muscle growth on their own and that a variety of rep ranges and training loads causes more hypertrophy than just sticking with one.
Ultimately, you shouldn’t change how you approach training based on a muscle’s fiber type composition.
Consistent, progressive overload is still the best way to build muscle.
Ensure that you’re tracking your progress in the gym with GymStreak: its clean and easy-to-use interface allows you to log all your lifting statistics, and performs live volume calculations for you in your active session.
GymStreak’s AI-powered personal trainer will push you harder every week and ensure that you’re building muscle and gaining strength in the most efficient way possible.
Receive your very own personalized workout plan by downloading GymStreak now!
GymStreak Mobile App
References
Campos, G. E. R., Luecke, T. J., Wendeln, H. K., Toma, K., Hagerman, F. C., Murray, T. F., … Staron, R. S. (2002). Muscular adaptations in response to three different resistance-training regimens: specificity of repetition maximum training zones. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 88(1–2), 50–60. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-002-0681-6
Mitchell, C. J., Churchward-Venne, T. A., West, D. W. D., Burd, N. A., Breen, L., Baker, S. K., & Phillips, S. M. (2012). Resistance exercise load does not determine training-mediated hypertrophic gains in young men. Journal of Applied Physiology, 113(1), 71–77. https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00307.2012
Morton, R. W., Oikawa, S. Y., Wavell, C. G., Mazara, N., McGlory, C., Quadrilatero, J., … Phillips, S. M. (2016). Neither load nor systemic hormones determine resistance training-mediated hypertrophy or strength gains in resistance-trained young men. Journal of Applied Physiology, 121(1), 129–138. https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00154.2016
Netreba, A. I., Popov, D. V., Liubaeva, E. V., Bravyĭ, I. R., Prostova, A. B., Lemesheva, I. S., & Vinogradova, O. L. (2007). [Physiological effects of using the low intensity strength training without relaxation in single-joint and multi-joint movements]. Rossiiskii Fiziologicheskii Zhurnal Imeni I.M. Sechenova, 93(1), 27–38.
Terzis, G., Spengos, K., Manta, P., Sarris, N., & Georgiadis, G. (2008). Fiber Type Composition and Capillary Density in Relation to Submaximal Number of Repetitions in Resistance Exercise. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 22(3), 845. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0b013e31816a5ee4 | https://medium.com/gymstreak/how-your-different-muscle-fibre-types-affect-muscle-growth-1f497dac8674 | [] | 2019-05-08 11:20:37.488000+00:00 | ['Apps', 'Bodybuilding', 'Workout', 'Fitness', 'Gym'] |
Haiti McDaniel, the first black actress to win an Oscar | , a black American made a name for herself in Hollywood and worldwide with her talents and art, but her journey was not an easy one. The reason was that by the time the black actress entered Hollywood, racism was on the rise in the United States. Under such circumstances, it was very difficult to make a place for oneself in the film industry.
Today’s developed and civilized societies were also victims of slavery, racial discrimination, and gender discrimination centuries ago and man has long struggled and sacrificed his life and property to eradicate them, but still, these societies Differences and distinctions exist in one form or another.
Recently, after the death of a black man at the hands of the police in the United States, once again discrimination on the basis of race and color was no longer a topic of discussion in American society.
The short story of Haiti McDaniel’s life and film career is that this great artist, born in 1893, will always be remembered in the history of Hollywood. She was the first black woman to begin her career as a singer on American radio. He later established himself as a songwriter and comedian.
Haiti has acted in about 300 Hollywood films, but most of them have minor roles. There were 83 films in which the name of the actress also appeared on the screen, but then the goddess of fortune became kind and the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress went to her. The movie was ‘Gone with the Wind’ in which the black actress played the role of a maid. It proved to be the most popular film of 1939.
Racial discrimination and prejudice against blacks were common in the United States at the time, but Haiti’s success encouraged blacks living there and gave them hope for their future.
made it to the Haiti McDaniel Oscars despite obstacles, and it wasn’t easy. Due to racial discrimination, she was not able to attend the premiere of the film and it is noteworthy that despite her brilliant performances in the film, she did not get a chance to play a major role later.
At the age of 59, the chapter of the life of this black American and actress was closed forever. This is 1952. The artist was later inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame for recognition. Haiti McDaniel was also featured on a commemorative stamp in 2006.
Most Beautiful Black ActressesSamuel L. Jackson Moves and Worth | https://medium.com/@ysheedi/haiti-mcdaniel-the-first-black-actress-to-win-an-oscar-b82b967cfa6a | ['Sheedi Yaqoob'] | 2020-12-12 16:11:08.571000+00:00 | ['Black Actress', 'Hollywood'] |
Bug Bounty Program Launched Offering up to $25,000 for Critical Vulnerabilities in Collaboration with Immunefi | Bug Bounty Program Launched Offering up to $25,000 for Critical Vulnerabilities in Collaboration with Immunefi Fuse Follow Feb 23 · 2 min read
Fuse Network has experienced explosive liquidity growth in recent months. With this in mind, the Fuse team is taking the security of its key smart contracts, in particular on FuseSwap and Fuse Rewards, very seriously.
The bug bounty will distribute rewards to those who report issues in accordance with Immunefi’s severity scale, as follows.
Critical: USD 25,000
Critical bugs require that a smart contract suffer a complete loss or freeze of funds.
High: USD 10,000
High bugs are those that result in significant temporary issues like transient consensus failures or temporary inability to send funds.
Medium: USD 5,000
Medium-level bugs include, among others, smart contracts failing to use gas appropriately, block stuffing, and DDoS attack vulnerabilities.
Low: USD 1,000
Low-level bugs involve cases where smart contracts fail to deliver the promised returns but do not lose funds.
Bug Bounty Rewards will be distributed directly by the Fuse team, and the payouts are denominated in USD but will be made in FUSE tokens. White-hat hackers looking for a more detailed description of the program are encouraged to consult Immunefi’s article here: | https://medium.com/fusenet/bug-bounty-program-launched-offering-up-to-25-000-for-critical-vulnerabilities-in-collaboration-fdbb3d0c5ec5 | [] | 2021-02-23 18:40:29.667000+00:00 | ['Solidity', 'Smart Contracts', 'Ethereum', 'Hacker', 'Bug Bounty'] |
National award recognition (NARIC) | National award recognition (NARIC)
My national award recognition was first written in 2006 and then rewritten in 2009, if it were rewritten again now it would say the same thing. Mark Benniman Dec 25, 2020·2 min read
I can say that having my national award recognition written in 2006 was an attempt to show the world the value of my UK qualifications and then getting it rewritten in 2009 was a way of saying I’m still here but nothing has changed when it probably should have.
I know it may sound bizarre and a bit like moaning but it seems to me that I’ve simply been ignored in the world of work for more than ten years now. Things like a NARIC award recognition are there to open doors, and people should be interested in what you have to offer as an educated person, it should be in their interests to consider employing you having met the challenges you’ve had to overcome in your university education. In 2009 government statistics in the UK said that only 7% of the adult population had a postgraduate education, I was 41 years old in 2009 and I had two postgraduate qualifications. | https://medium.com/@markbenniman/national-award-recognition-naric-6b102832c9d1 | ['Mark Benniman'] | 2020-12-26 14:12:32.642000+00:00 | ['Education', 'Life Lessons', 'UK', 'Employment Opportunities', 'Naric'] |
Permission to Take the Leap | Raise your hand if you’ve ever daydreamed about quitting your job and starting your own company. You’ve come up with product ideas with friends over drinks, even whiteboarded what a prototype would look like. Pitched your idea — to only those friends that wouldn’t judge you, or god forbid, steal it — even though both you and I know that stealing cannot possibly be a true concern because you have no real intention of starting this business and instead you’ll wake up, and continue to be an employee daydreaming about becoming a founder someday. OK, a little harsh.
I’ve always been “entrepreneurial” in nature. I use that word broadly, as a way to describe a character trait versus a person who has actually founded a successful company. I was raised by immigrant-entrepreneur parents, who of course guided me toward the most risk-managed professional paths — medicine, law, engineering…perhaps business if I was feeling frisky. As a result, I became a product of branded corporations — PepsiCo, McKinsey — yet I always found a way to finagle my way into entrepreneurial projects. That included managing a tiny, scrappy “fighter” brand at PepsiCo that no one wanted to touch, foraying into novel McKinsey digital engagements, and most recently joining M13 Company as the GM of our Launchpad, my first venture into the startup space.
When we set out to build the Launchpad at M13, we didn’t want to replicate accelerators and incubators that existed, because we weren’t building a program for the typical founder. We weren’t building a program for the founder who may max out their credit cards, go bankrupt, and eat ramen for a year to pursue their business passion. We were building for the founder who daydreamed about stepping out on their own but struggled to take the leap. Or worked at a startup before and knows what it takes to operate with limited structure. Or, like me, may have worked in corporate settings but sought out teams with a more entrepreneurial vibe.
Jane Lee, a thought partner and co-founder of Launch Pop, emphasized the difficulty of the leap and the entrepreneurial journey. “We work with founders to launch their D2C business. It’s a long, tough, yet incredibly rewarding experience, so before we work with them we take our time to understand their motivation and if they have the perseverance it takes to launch and grow a business. We see our founders sacrifice a ton. But having a support system and access to resources makes the journey so much more manageable and efficient.”
At M13, we’ve created a career-changing opportunity. It is, in a way, a cliché founder story. I had a problem of how to start a company in a risk-managed way, and our M13 Launchpad is the solution. The Venture Studio model we’ve built creates a win-win-win for M13, founders, and acquirers. We create partnerships with strategic corporations, in growth spaces we are jointly bullish on, and bring on founders to form teams and build scalable solutions in the identified growth spaces.
Steve Gotz, Partner at Silicon Foundry, published an article a few weeks ago on the Rise of the Venture Studio that explains the benefits of this model. “Venture Studios have an additional key quality, the ability to intentionally create exceptionally talented teams of entrepreneurial operators and point them, with a laser-like focus, at the most pressing challenges and largest growth opportunities. The best venture studios I’ve seen are focused and intentional about validating an opportunity and then methodically finding the best team of entrepreneurial athletes to maturely and methodically pursue the opportunity.”
Now, I invite you to apply to our M13 Launchpad summer program. We are assembling a team of entrepreneurial minds to spend the summer with us in Los Angeles, and build consumer and consumer-tech businesses that align with our mission. We are excited to partner this summer with Procter & Gamble to further our mission towards removing the stigma of underserved wellness conditions. Throughout the program, M13 will offer our founding teams unique access to our network of successful founders and resources, people development guidance, curated hands-on problem solving sessions with world class advisors, and so much more. We are fostering a culture of true collaborative entrepreneurship, utilizing the resources of both M13 and P&G along with the talent of our cohort founders to create the most viable and scalable businesses and teams.
We hope our model allows you to take the leap for the career opportunity you’ve been waiting for. | https://medium.com/@sabeenaladha/permission-to-take-the-leap-45034ae92432 | ['Sabeena Ladha'] | 2019-04-29 17:40:03.597000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Consumer', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Venture Capital', 'Career Change'] |
Russian Draft Bill Lacks Core Crypto Terms After Recent Edits | Russian Draft Bill Lacks Core Crypto Terms After Recent Edits https://is.gd/OCU5wC
Deputies of the Russian State Duma have removed a definition for crypto mining from the draft law “On Digital Financial Assets.”
Russian deputies have removed the definition of crypto mining from a draft bill on digital currency regulation ahead of its next reading in the State Duma, major local news agency Interfax reports Oct. 19. Consequently, the new law will not clarify tax issues for miners.
The chairman of the Duma Committee on Financial Markets Anatoly Aksakov briefly explained the reason behind the deputies’ decision to eliminate a core crypto term from the bill:
“Earlier we had some thoughts on Bitcoins, on their integration into our economic system. But as we decided we don’t need them, these ambiguous Bitcoins, therefore we don’t need mining as well.”
If the law were to define crypto mining, it consequently would also need to define cryptocurrencies, Aksakov told Interfax. He further added that it would be “senseless” to include mining in the regulation proposed by the government. He said mining should be brought under tax watchdog jurisdiction if needed.
It is not immediately clear whether definitions for tokens and Initial Coin Offerings (ICO), and rules for crypto exchanges — which were included in the initial draft — remain in the current version. The present draft law will proceed to the second of three readings in the Duma.
The bill “On Digital Financial Assets” was first introduced in January by the Russian Ministry of Finance. In March, a group of deputies headed by Aksakov proposed a modified version that established know your customer (KYC) regulations for customer identity verification on crypto exchanges, echoing current requirements in the U.S. A draft of the bill was approved by the State Duma in first of three hearings in May.
However, before the second hearing scheduled for the Duma’s autumn session, a definition of “cryptocurrency” was removed from bill. Mining then was defined as the “release of tokens to attract investment in capital.”
In September, a lobby group from the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) started working on an alternative crypto regulation bill. According to RSPP vice-president Elina Sidorenko, the new bill will divide digital assets in three groups and help eliminate contradictions in the state bill that she calls “unfinished and fragmented.”
Aksakov spoke to Interfax at Finnopolis 2018 — a fintech event that was held in the Russian city of Sochi this week. During the conference, state officials discussed crypto and its role in the country’s economy.
The head of the Russian central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, compared interest in crypto to a “fever” that was “fortunately” over. Herman Gref, CEO of Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, predicted that governments will not abandon centralized control of monetary policy and currencies to allow cryptocurrencies to flourish within the next ten years.
Source
cointelegraph
#Bitcoin #BTC #ETH #LTC #XRP | https://medium.com/bitnewslive/russian-draft-bill-lacks-core-crypto-terms-after-recent-edits-806a85bbefc | [] | 2018-10-20 00:19:40.441000+00:00 | ['Cointelegraph', 'Crypto', 'Bitcoin'] |
Comparison Between Smart Contracts and Live Contracts | Similar and different at the same time.
Smart Contracts
Smart contracts are if-else clauses that work if all the conditions are met. To illustrate an example, vending machines could be given as an example. Let’s think about a vending machine: to get the product, you need to enter the number of the product and pay for it to obtain the product. If you pay the right amount, it’ll give you the product right away. If you don’t give a sufficient amount, the machine requires you to put the funds unless it’s been fully paid. If you pay the machine more than the product, the machine will give you out the product and the change. And all these processes can’t be turned back.
Because smart contract processes can’t be turned back, there’s huge reliability on how the whole system will work. This has allowed automated business practices and helped companies to further secure their business processes. Especially when it comes to the supply chain, smart contracts could be used in full effect.
As smart contracts had some deficiencies, many companies had issues implementing them in various fields. Therefore, some other alternatives to smart contracts were born, and LTO Network became the first blockchain network offering alternatives to smart contracts.
Live Contracts
Live contracts work smart contracts in a similar way. But they can work even though all the conditions haven’t been met. Instead, these contracts decide the rules interact with all the parties involved in the contract. Therefore, these contracts are not binding, and it helps corporations in many ways.
As live contracts are flexible, many corporations started to implement Live contracts on their workflows. This has resulted in improvements for legal, notary, and leasing. While these fields are known for paper-based static processes that potentially having fraud. Live contracts are used as immutable evidence in these fields, and no counterfeit could ever occur. | https://medium.com/the-capital/comparison-between-smart-contracts-and-live-contracts-eebb7e1fbdc | ['Ata Tekeli'] | 2021-07-22 04:54:46.435000+00:00 | ['Smart Contracts', 'Live Contracts', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto', 'Blockchain'] |
Linear Regression Analysis in R | Introduction
R is a great free software environment for statistical analysis and graphics. In this blog, I will demonstrate how to do linear regression analysis in R by analyzing correlations between the independent variables and dependent variables, estimating and fitting a model, and evaluating the results' usefulness and effectiveness.
I think R studio's interface (the most commonly used editor for R) is more user friendly than the editors that I have used with Python. Moreover, I also personally believe that even though Python is a more powerful programming language in general, R is much easier to learn for starters and the way of coding is more straightforward.
I’ve used both Python and R to do the linear regression analysis for different projects and competitions. In the previous blog, I’ve also talked about conducting a linear regression analysis in Python. You may find the article here: Linear Regression Analysis on House Price in Python. If you are interested, you may read both articles and compare the similarities and differences.
Data Summary
I used a dataset from one of my assignments, which has information about 392 vehicles. The goal is to find a model to predict the variable mpg (= miles per gallon).
Here is the data dictionary of the possible independent variables:
cylinders = Number of cylinders between 4 and 8
displacement = Engine displacement (cu. inches)
horsepower = Engine horsepower
weight = Vehicle weight (lbs.)
acceleration = Time to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph (sec.)
year = Model year (modulo 100)
origin = Origin of the car (1. American, 2. European, 3. Japanese)
#Read the data
auto=read.csv("Auto.csv")
head(auto)
Figure 1: Partial View of the Data
Data Exploration
Since we are not using a high-dimensional dataset, one of the normal practice is to plot either scatter plots or boxplots to help understand the possible relationship between each of the independent variables and the dependent variable mpg.
#Tell R which table you are manipulating
attach(auto) # set the plotting area into a 4*2 array
par(mfrow=c(4,2)) # when you use "~" to connect the variables, Y variable goes first
plot(mpg~cylinders)
plot(mpg~displacement)
# "origin" is a categorical variable, so we use the boxplot
boxplot(mpg~as.factor(origin)) # when you use "," to connect the variables, X variable goes first
plot(horsepower,mpg)
plot(weight,mpg)
plot(acceleration,mpg)
plot(year,mpg)
Figure 2: Data Exploration Plots
Judging from the scatter plots above, I concluded a curved relationship between mpg and the three variables: weight, displacement, and horsepower; there was a linear relationship between mpg and another three variables: cylinders, acceleration, and year. For the boxplot, the medians were clearly different among the different origins, and the variation seemed relatively consistent; thus, origin would also be a good independent variable.
Model Estimating
When I estimate the model, I applied the poly( ) command, which helps avoid writing out a long formula with powers of the variables with a curved relationship with mpg.
fit=lm(formula = mpg ~ cylinders +
poly(displacement, 2) +
poly(horsepower,2) +
poly(weight, 2) +
acceleration +
year +
as.factor(origin), data = auto) summary(fit)
Figure 3: Estimating a Model
In this case, we mainly look into the p-values and the R-squared scores. P-value: It comes with 0 ~ 3 stars on the side, which indicates the level of statistical significance of the variable. We are looking for at least one star to keep the variable in the model. For the p-value itself, we are looking for values that are smaller than 0.05. Note: 2.2e-16 is the default number representing the extremely small number (infinitely close to 0). R-squared: It tells you how much Y is explained by the X in your model, normally we are looking for values that are at least larger than 0.5. The R-squared score will always increase if you add more data to your model Adjusted R-squared: It is an adjusted statistic based on the number of independent variables in the model. The Adjusted R-squared score will always be less than or equal to the R-squared score.
I excluded the variables that are not statistically significant. And the summary of the new model is in Figure 4:
# Exclude the variables that are not statistically significant
fit1=lm(mpg~poly(horsepower,2)+
poly(weight,2)+
year+poly(acceleration,2)+
origin, data = auto)
summary(fit1)
Figure 4: Summary of the New Model
As for now, all the variables are statistically significant.
Diagnostic Analysis and Transformation Test
For the diagnostic analysis, I essentially looked for evidence of whether the model followed a normal distribution.
## diagnostic analysis
par(mfrow=c(2,2))
plot(fit$res~fit$fitted)
hist(fit$res)
qqnorm(fit$res); qqline(fit$res, col = 2,lwd=2,lty=2)
shapiro.test(fit$res)
Figure 5: Res vs. Fitted Plot, Histogram Plot, QQNorm Plot
Figure 6: Shapiro-Wilk Normality Test
Residuals vs. Fitted Plot: I mainly looked for two things in this plot. First, if the plots violate linearity. Second, if the residuals randomly spread and the variance is constant. Histogram: This plot also measures if the residuals follow a normal distribution. A good plot should be a downward bell shape with a peak in the middle. Normal Q-Q Plot: This scatter plot also measures if the residuals follow a normal distribution. A good plot will have the scatters form a line. Shapiro-Wilk Normality Test: If the value of the test is larger than 0.05, the data follows a normal distribution.
Judging from the test results above, I had enough evidence that the model needs a transformation. Then, I applied the boxcox() test.
## boxcox test
library(MASS)
boxcox(mpg~poly(horsepower,2)+
poly(weight,2)+
year+
poly(acceleration,2)+
origin, data = auto)
Figure 7: BoxCox Test
Lambda: This value indicates what kind of transformation the dependent variable needs. For example, if the plot suggests lambda is equal to -2, then we need to take a root square of Y.
In this case, the plot suggests lambda equals 0, which means a log transformation is needed.
## Log Transformation
auto$logmpg=log(auto$mpg)
fit2=lm(logmpg~horsepower+
weight+
year+
poly(acceleration,2)+
origin, data = auto)
summary(fit2)
Figure 8: Summary of the Transformed Model
All the variables were statistically significant.
Figure 9: Diagnostic Plots of the Transformed Model
Figure 10: Shapiro-Wilk Normality Test of the Transformed Model
The results of the diagnostic tests of the transformed model were still not perfect, but a great improvement from the previous model presented.
Conclusion
In this blog, I talked about implementing linear regression analysis in R in three steps: explore the data, estimate a model, and evaluate the results.
For estimating the linear regression model, I talked about the p-value and R-squared score.
I talked about residuals vs. fitted value plot, qqnorm plot, histogram plot, Shapiro-Wilk normality test, and boxcox plot for diagnostic analysis.
Special thanks to Prof. Steve Hillmer, one of my favorite professors at KU business school, who taught me everything about data mining in R.
Related Blogs
Linear Regression Analysis on House Price in Python
Use R to Calculate Boilerplate for Accounting Analysis | https://towardsdatascience.com/linear-regression-analysis-in-r-fdd59295d4a8 | ['Jinhang Jiang'] | 2020-12-08 17:54:46.282000+00:00 | ['Supervised Learning', 'Statistical Analysis', 'R', 'Linear Regression', 'Data Analysis'] |
Get Started with Flutter Authentication in WSO2 Identity Server | Get Started with Flutter Authentication in WSO2 Identity Server Yasin Jan 27·8 min read
Flutter is the Google’s new UI toolkit created for developers to build beautiful cross-platform applications. In this article, you will learn how to secure your Flutter application with WSO2 Identity Server using the open-source Flutter flutter_appauth plugin that wraps the native AppAuth library. You can find code developed throughout the article in this GitHub repository.
First Things First
Before proceeding with this article, you need a working knowledge of Flutter (for the most part). If you need help getting started, you can follow the beginners guide in Flutter website. For state management we utilize the BLoC pattern to handle our application events and states. For that, we use the awesome library called flutter_bloc.
What You’ll Build?
In this article, you will build an application that allows users to log in or sign up using basic authentication credentials. As you can see in the below figures login and signup forms are already developed for you. The application will use the authentication portal provided by WSO2 Identity Server.
Sample Application Screenshots
Clone the Sample Application
You can scaffold a brand new project using the Flutter CLI tool and work your way up till the end. But however, I recommend you to clone the sample application and focus on the service and logic layer of the application instead of the UI.
Structure of the Application
Below figure illustrates how our sample application is structured. We use this structure to separate the business logic layer and data layer from our UI layer.
Application Structure
bloc/ — This package contains all the bloc related files. Under this package we have only one folder called auth/ which is responsible for handling the authentication logic events and state.
This package contains all the bloc related files. Under this package we have only one folder called which is responsible for handling the authentication logic events and state. data/ — This package contains all the models, services, etc. required to handle the authentication requests. In a typical flutter project folders under this package will scatter in lib/ but I think this approach is much more scalable and maintainable.
This package contains all the models, services, etc. required to handle the authentication requests. In a typical flutter project folders under this package will scatter in but I think this approach is much more scalable and maintainable. ui/ — This package contains all the presentation related files and folders. We will list all the screens under screens/ folder and for reusable widgets we use the widgets/ folder.
This sample application has a completely decoupled layers that can be reused in you own project. If you aren’t really interested in the UI then you can just reuse the bloc/ and data/ folders in to your project. Alright, now we know how our sample application is structured. Let’s focus on integrating the WSO2 Identity Server authentication into our application.
Throughout the article we will be focusing more on the BLoC and Data layers since UI is not our main focus here…
Installing Dependencies
This sample Flutter project requires below dependencies.
flutter_appauth — A wrapper package for flutter which uses AppAuth as the underneath implementation. Developed by Michael Bui. flutter_secure_storage — A wrapper package for flutter which uses KeyStore and KeyChain. Developed by German Saprykin flutter_bloc — A pure dart package for maintaining Flutter application state. Developed by Felix Angelov. equatable — Another dart package developed by Felix Angelov to deep compare equalities in dart objects. dio — A HTTP client library package developed by Flutter China Community jiffy — A date time package inspired by momentJS for parsing, manipulating, querying and formatting dates. pretty_json — A small wrapper library for pretty printing JSON objects in a more human readable format.
Then you can add these dependencies into your pubspec.yaml file located under the project root directory.
dependencies:
flutter:
sdk: flutter
flutter_appauth: ^0.9.2+6
flutter_secure_storage: ^3.3.5
flutter_bloc: ^6.1.1
equatable: ^1.2.5
dio: ^3.0.10
jiffy: ^3.0.1
pretty_json:
# UI Dependencies
flutter_svg: ^0.18.1
google_fonts: ^1.1.2
flutter_easyloading: ^2.2.2
Configure Dependencies
flutter_appauth — Since this package wraps AppAuth native libraries, it requires some additional platform level configurations. We need to configure a callback URL to receive the authentication code once the user successfully authenticated with the WSO2 Identity Server.
A callback URL is a mechanism by which an authorization server communicates back to your application. Or in WSO2 Identity Server, it is the exact location in the service provider’s application where an access token would be sent.
You need to have a unique redirect scheme for your application. For example, com.domain.sample.app Once you have a unique scheme you can add below configurations to relevant files as follows: -
Update the app level build.gradle file located under android/app/build.gradle
defaultConfig {
...
manifestPlaceholders = [
// Replace with your own custom scheme
'appAuthRedirectScheme': 'org.wso2.cloud.flutterdemo'
]
}
Update the Info.plist file located under ios/Runner/Info.plist You need add these values to the top level <dict>
<key>CFBundleURLTypes</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
<string>Editor</string>
<key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
<array>
<string>org.wso2.cloud.flutterdemo</string>
</array>
</dict>
</array>
2. flutter_secure_storage — Finally, you need to bump the android minSdkVersion from 18 to 19 to compile flutter_secure_storage dependency.
defaultConfig {
applicationId "com.wso2.flutterauth"
minSdkVersion 19
...
}
If you run into any issue make sure you have followed the steps above correctly. Also, for Android if you plan to compile your project for AndroidX then you need to configure <queries> as explained in the flutter_appauth documentation. You can find these configurations in the sample application as well.
Setup WSO2 Identity Server
WSO2 Identity Server is an identity and entitlement management server that facilitates security while connecting and managing multiple identities across with multi tenancy support and different application stacks.
In order to integrate WSO2 Identity Server into your Flutter application, you need to have a working pack (presumably 5.11.0 ). If you do not have a pack yet then you can download the latest one for free.
After setting up the server you can follow the steps below to setup an custom application to support flutter authentication: -
Go to the service providers section in your management console.
section in your management console. Click on the Add button.
button. Enter a name for your application (e.g., FlutterSampleApp)
Mandate allowed grant types using the checkbox-es.
using the checkbox-es. Configure the callback URL and enable PKCE mandatory checkbox.
and enable checkbox. Check allow authentication without client secret
Setting up a WSO2 Identity Server Service Provider
Sometimes you may run into SSL issues if you are trying to up the server locally and integrating it to flutter_appauth. You can follow this article to overcome those issues.
Integrating WSO2 Identity Server with Flutter | https://medium.com/@wytm97/get-started-with-flutter-authentication-in-wso2-identity-server-ea4b645289c0 | [] | 2021-01-27 16:03:34.806000+00:00 | ['Oauth2', 'Oidc', 'Wso2 Identity Server', 'Flutter', 'Dart'] |
Guida ai sistemi operativi di Hollywood | Nota scritta il 3 settembre 2009
/************************************/
/* Guidelines to development */
/* on the */
/* HOLLYWOOD OPERATING SYSTEM */
/************************************/
1. Any PERMISSION DENIED has an OVERRIDE function.
2. Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be
accomplished in under three seconds. In the movies, modems transmit
data at two gigabytes per second.
3. When the power plant/missile site/whatever overheats, all the
control panels will explode, as will the entire building.
4. If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file,
it also disappears from the screen. There are no ways to copy a
backup file — and there are no undelete utilities.
Corollary: Deleting a file instantly removes all copies of said file from
disks, memory, frame buffers and caches across all computers in the universe.
5. If a disk has got encrypted files, you are automatically asked for
a password when you try to access it.
6. No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it’ll be readable by
any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all
computer platforms.
7. The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it has. However,
everyone must have been highly trained, because the buttons aren’t labeled.
8. Most computers, no matter how small, have reality-defying three-dimensional,
real-time, photo-realistic animated graphics capability.
9. Laptops, for some strange reason, always seem to have amazing real-time
video phone capabilities and the performance of a CRAY.
10. Whenever a character looks at a terminal, the image is so bright that it
projects itself onto his/her face.
11. Computers never crash during key, high-intensity activities. Humans
operating computers never make mistakes under stress.
12. (From Independence Day) No matter what kind of virus it is, any computer
can be infected with it — even an alien spaceship’s computer — simply by
running a virus upload program on a laptop.
13. (From Jurassic Park) A custom system with millions of lines of code
controlling a multimillion dollar theme park can be operated by a 13 year
old who has seen a Unix system before. Seeing an operating system means you
know how to run any application on that system, even custom apps.
Note: What OS was it really running?
(1) “These are super computers”. A CrayOS?
(2) “Quicktime movie, Apple logo, trash can.” MacOS?
(3) “Reboot. System ready. C:\” DOS?
(4) “Hey, this is Unix. I know this” Unix?
The computers in Jurassic Park were Cray supercomputers running the MacOS
as a graphical shell of DOS all layered on top of a Unix base.
14. You cannot stop a destructive program or virus by unplugging the computer.
Presumably the virus has it’s own built-in power supply.
15. You cannot stop a destructive program downloading onto your system by
unplugging the phone line. You must figure out the mandatory “back door”
all evil virus programmers put in.
16. Computers only crash if a virus or a hacker is involved.
17. All text must be at least 72 point.
18. Word processors do not have an insert point.
19. The only way to reboot is to shut off the main power to the building.
20. Passwords can be guessed in three and exactly three tries. If you cannot
guess the password in three tries, you must give up immediately.
21. Any task or program can be executed by simply pressing Enter, no matter
which program or window is in the foreground.
22. All scanners, video cameras and digital cameras have a resolution of
approximately 500 megapixels. Any image can be infinitely magnified with
no pixelization.
23. Security will not improve over time. Nonaffialiated personnel can take
over a space ship without needing an account or access control.
Corollary: Anyone can override access control lists in the future.
24. All hackers wear black T-shirts or Hawaiian shirts.
25. Incoming messages are displayed letter by letter. Email over the Internet
works like telegraphs.
26. Microsoft Windows doesn’t exist. Macintosh has a 75% market share.
27. GUI operations, such as image selection and manipulation, can be handled
easily and quickly via the keyboard.
28. If a robot’s eyes turn red, it becomes evil.
29. Cell phones and laptops have infinite battery life, until you need to
call for help.
30. Latency does not exist. Voice and data can be sent to Mars in real time. | https://medium.com/@luvi/guida-ai-sistemi-operativi-di-hollywood-32e555046aa | ['Lucio Virzì'] | 2020-12-14 08:18:19.941000+00:00 | ['Film', 'Hacker', 'Hollywood', 'Operating Systems', 'Movies'] |
3D Print Your COVID-19 Solution | I have a personal belief that, when bad things happen, the best reaction is to channel your energy into being one of the “helpers,” as Mr. Rogers put it. So, when the COVID-19 crescendo started to build in the United States, I found stability in redirecting my helplessness and anxiety into what I believe to be a force for good: crowdsourcing and open innovation.
If you’re reading this, you probably already know: That also happens to be what we do for a living here at IdeaScale. What was energizing to me was to see that my colleagues, and our outstanding clients, felt the same way: Let’s lean into this to see how this thing we do everyday can help contribute solutions to today’s most urgent global problem: COVID-19.
So we organized as a team, and as a network. We crowdsourced problem statements and statement starters, we’ve held two webinars, we’re even offering complimentary services to support our clients’ COVID-19 response efforts.
Then came this: An airman in the U.S. Air Force, an IdeaScale client, is spending all day every day 3D printing face shields and face masks to help protect his colleagues. So, how might we help here? What if we expand the types of attachments our platform allows to include common 3D-printing template file types? This would enable him to upload his template to their Innovation platform to more easily share it with other AF innovators.
Enter our Product Team. They classified this as a QTAT (Quick Turnaround Time), and, in less than two weeks, it was designed, built, tested and released. IdeaScale now supports file types .OBJ, .STL, and .STP.
Right now the Air Force is working on printing face shields and face masks, but you can make tons of amazing things with 3D printing technology that might be able to help during this chaotic and creative time: oxygen valves for ventilators, respirators, hands-free door handle attachments, and even quarantine booths to help hospitals.
Do you have 3D printers in your network with capacity to spare? Any 3D-printing hobbyists in your community looking for a way to help out? Would the ability to share 3D-printing templates across your organization help in the fight against COVID-19? Stand up a campaign. Empower your community members to share their time and talents and become change-makers, aka “helpers.”
This article was originally published on the IdeaScale blog here. | https://medium.com/@ideascalenation/3d-print-your-covid-19-solution-ab34e7fb7496 | [] | 2020-05-06 14:06:00.908000+00:00 | ['Innovation', 'Covid', 'Printing', 'Co Vid'] |
Need an eye-catching infographic chart but stuck with Excel? No problems! | Need an eye-catching infographic chart but stuck with Excel? No problems!
Sometimes you need something eye-catching for a data presentation, annual report or an infographic. You don’t want to go overboard, but are sick of bar chart after bar chart. Maybe you just want to impress your boss and make them think — how did you do that?!!
Few of us have graphic designers on hand, know how to program JavaScript, or even have some fancy data viz software. But all is not lost. Excel to the rescue! Yes, I said Excel. Microsoft Excel. And not some fancy add-in that you need to pay for or entices you in but then leaves you wondering whether they had a 3 year old design their color scheme! No, just plain old vanilla Excel!
A challenge
A few months back I saw this cool animated chart on the SEQWater website. Simple, but effective. It attracts your attention to the most important statistic on their website — dam levels. Too low means drought and the introduction of restrictions on water use. Too high and water releases from the dams cause river levels to rise and perhaps even flooding.
Some of the animated charts on the SEQWater website
So I challenged myself to see if I could recreate this in Excel. Minus the animation, though I have some ideas for how I could use Powerpoint to do that. I want it to be updateable so I can update it and use it in an Excel dashboard as well — so no cheating by just using shapes.
Here’s how I did, step by step, so you can create your own version!
Whether you use this example as is, or borrow elements for your own design, just remember to not limit yourself to the defaults in Excel. If all you have is Excel you can still create some cool stuff! | https://medium.com/@tessica.dall/need-an-eye-catching-infographic-chart-but-stuck-with-excel-no-problems-15308e40fc4b | ['Tessica Dall'] | 2020-12-23 08:06:08.749000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Charts', 'Excel', 'Data', 'Data Visualization'] |
Co-Sleeping: Should Your Child Sleep In Your Bed? | Co-Sleeping: Should Your Child Sleep In Your Bed?
Co-sleeping is the practice where the child sleeps in bed with his parents. Not surprisingly, it is one of the most hotly debated and controversial topics related to pediatric sleep. Let’s see why.
Some people argue that co-sleeping is the right and natural way to raise a child because the practice fosters a stronger bond and a more secure attachment.
Click Here To Watch The Training Here
Conversely, others will tell you that co-sleeping is risky, ridiculous, or even dangerous and they don’t want it for their family.
So, which approach holds the truth?
First, it’s important to understand that co-sleeping is not magic. Although some proponents of the family bed would disagree, numerous couples have reported that their babies did not necessarily sleep deeper or longer because their parents were close by. In fact, some parents found that their child slept longer and woke less frequently when they stopped co-sleeping and moved him into his own crib.
However, whether families choose to co-sleep or have their children sleep independently is a personal decision, and if both parents and child are safe, rested, and fulfilled, then co-sleeping is nothing to worry about.
If you decide do co-sleep, this commitment requires some very careful thinking about what you and your spouse feel is right for you as individuals, as a couple, and as a family.
Ask yourselves the following questions:
• Is it nice to think about enjoying the coziness of sleeping in close proximity, or does one or more of us tend to stay active during sleeping — potentially disrupting the others?
• Does everyone in our family want to co-sleep, or are we leaning toward it because one of us feels strongly?
• Are we willing to commit to being quiet after our child falls asleep, or do we like to watch TV or talk in bed?
• Will we enjoy being able to feed our baby more often throughout the night, or will having him next to us make it tougher to wean nighttime feeds?
• Are we agreeable to getting into bed when our child does, to ensure his safety?
• For working parents, does sleeping next to our child allow us to feel more connected to him?
As expected, co-sleeping has both advantages and disadvantages.
Let’s take a closer look at them.
Advantages:
• Constant closeness whenever the child is awake. Many children and parents enjoy this feeling.
• Immediate action and support for any sleep-related problem
• The ability to nurse and respond to other nighttime wakings without getting up
• More time to spend with the child
• Possibly better sleep for both the child and the parents, if the child was sleeping poorly to begin with
Disadvantages:
• Parents may sleep poorly if their children are restless sleepers
• Parents may end up sleeping in separate rooms, and they may become angry at their child or with each other
• Children’s and adults’ sleep cycles do not coincide
• Parents may have to go to bed at a very early hour with their children and be left with little time for their own evening activities
• Parents have little privacy
• There may be a slight increase in the risk to the infant from SIDS and related causes.
The decision to co-sleep should be yours, made by the parent — or parents — and based on your own personal philosophies, not on pressure from your child or anyone else. Another family’s good or bad experience with co-sleeping should not influence your decision: your child is unique and your family is not the same.
Disclaimer: this article contains an affiliate link if you make purchase we will earn a small commission. | https://medium.com/@lovelanguage/co-sleeping-should-your-child-sleep-in-your-bed-e2f0f6d362c | [] | 2020-11-24 06:35:24.764000+00:00 | ['Baby', 'Baby Boomers', 'Baby Sleep Training', 'Childrens Books'] |
Why You Will Still Hear the Name “Trump” For Many Years to Come | He undoubtedly set American politics on a new course in 2016. He showed that a presidential candidate could vilify women and get away with it. He showed that a president could place travel bans on citizens of other countries simply because of their faith and get away with it. He could ridicule those with special needs, tell white supremacists to “stand back and stand by,” and lock children in cages. And that no one would hold him accountable.
He told the Right to be scared of the Left. The Left were “violent fascists who would ruin America.” He scare-mongered the nation to a point where civil war became imaginable.
This is not normal. This does not happen in civil societies. This is radicalising. And unfortunately for America, it was coming from the man who was supposed to protect it from all of this in the first place.
So does it even come as a surprise that the country is now on a collision course? Even Americans would be hard-pressed to remember a time when Democrats and Republicans were at such odds with one another.
This is what you call “divide and conquer.”
But Trump didn’t stop there. Gaslighting the nation wasn’t enough. He wanted to break the law. He tested the limits of presidential power. He gauged how far he could bend the law and how far he could push constitutional limits on his power before he was called out. Yes, I’m aware that, given what he wanted to achieve, he’s largely failed.
But that’s not the issue here. American democracy wasn’t on the line simply because Trump was in with a shout of winning. It wasn’t simply because he could hang onto power despite what you wanted. Those are the end results. It all starts with the fact that a sitting president is trying to divide the nation and bypass the rule of law in the first place.
And that’s what’s going to shift the course of American politics. | https://medium.com/the-purple-giraffe/why-you-will-still-hear-the-name-trump-for-many-years-to-come-d5b2cdb80d12 | ['Sikander Hayat Khan'] | 2020-11-20 21:35:42.833000+00:00 | ['World', 'Politics', 'Donald Trump', 'Election 2020', 'Government'] |
Why Vertical Farming may be the Future of Food Production. | WRITTEN BY
Dawdu M. Amantanah
Food scarcity and access to nutritional products are becoming a global issue as man moves further into the 21st century. The way we grow food will have to change to meet the growing population which sits around 7.7 billion people and counting. According to the UN, it’s predicted that the human population could reach 10 billion people by the year 2050. The current way we grow crops is archaic, to say the least, and overdue for an upgrade in the wake of climate change and soil erosion.
Roughly one billion people are unable to gain access to food or are combating hunger in some form. One would think the uber-rich would have solved the problem of world hunger decades ago. Jeff Bezos for example makes estimates of three hundred and twenty-one million dollars a day which is more than enough to feed millions if not billions of people. The Amazon fresh grocery store is a step in the right direction but much work still has to be done to curb worldwide hunger.
Water is essential in agriculture
Traditional farming uses a lot of freshwater to keep crops hydrated and vibrant for harvest. Upwards of 70% of all freshwater goes towards agriculture which isn’t sustainable and poses a challenge to scale new farm produce demand. For centuries if humans wanted to produce more food they cut down forests or plowed grasslands to clear land for crops. Arable land is shrinking and to date, man has cleared an area as large as South America to produce crops. Vertical farming plans to use less water, no soil, and less landmass through a series of methods such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics.
Vertical farming is the practice of producing crops on vertical or horizontal inclined layers or trays that are integrated into common structures like shipping containers and repurposed warehouses. A climate-controlled environment where crops are grown in areas that lack constant sunlight or access to large amounts of fresh water can be found with the influx of vertical farms. There are articles out there claiming vertical farming is an unnatural form of agriculture and cannot compare to natural sunlight, dirt and rain but breakthroughs are being made. The sun emits white light which is a combination of all colors in the wavelength spectrum but plants only use a few of these wavelengths for photosynthesis. LED bulbs have become very efficient at getting the correct wavelengths that allow plants to grow.
Studies have shown red and blue light specifically make plants grow. Vertical farmers learned to increase energy efficiency by using bulbs that emit these two colors combined giving a distinct purple glow seen at most vertical farm growing beds. Using nutrient-rich water, no soil and even artificial intelligence to monitor timing, temperature, and pest control allows vertical farms to literally be placed anywhere. Independent of climate conditions vertical farms can grow crops year-round can feed people at a faster rate with better yield something a growing population will need in major cities miles away from farmers markets or cropland.
Major companies and investors are getting onboard the vertical farming industry bandwagon with some amazing results. Bowery Farming Inc is a leading company in the indoor farming market and we can only assume the trend will continue to grow as more developed country’s populations increase with hungry mouths to feed. Hopefully, as the industry continues to grow impoverished communities and food deserts across America will dry up and people have will access to quality food ubiquitously in the near future. In order to come up with better new innovative ways to provide food for all of humanity. It will take a lot of hard work and research on the science behind vertical farming.
Like what you just read? If you enjoyed this story, please smash the 👏 button below and share to help others find it! Feel free to leave a comment below.
About The Author
Dawdu M. Amantanah is a banker turned web developer and freelance writer of several books and articles. He is passionate about travel, hip-hop, technology, economics, radical entrepreneurship and whatever else he finds interesting at the time. You can connect with him on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Have questions about entrepreneurship, writing, investing, music, tech or any various forms of social currency? Get in touch at Dawdu | https://medium.com/@dawdu/why-vertical-farming-may-be-the-future-of-food-production-390ba3d4b173 | [] | 2020-12-25 01:52:37.011000+00:00 | ['Vegetables', 'Bowery Farming', 'Agriculture', 'Climate Change', 'Vertical Farming'] |
Minimalist Art: When Less is More | Dan Flavin via The Cut
Sometimes it’s a square on a blank surface. Other times it’s a set of carefully arranged neon lights or metal cubes placed on the gallery floor. Regardless of the form, minimalist art often confuses people, who question its meaning and relevancy. Simple and unpretentious, often made of industrial materials, minimalist art baffles the viewers, who often wonder why exactly, are these “lines and cubes” even considered art. In this blog post, we’ll help you understand all those puzzling art pieces, so you can enjoy the aesthetics of minimalism, just as much as we do.
Frank Stella via Art Gallery NSW
What is Minimalist Art?
Rather than representing something from the outside world, (a person, a landscape, an item, a symbol, etc.), minimalist art pieces represent a reality of their own. Minimalist artists have introduced a revolutionary idea, that the material and medium of the artwork, are its only reality. The emphasis is on viewers’ immediate response to what’s in front of them — the material, the form, colors, and texture of the painting, and not the artist’s expression.
Instead of making art inspired by emotions, events, or experiences, minimalist artists create works that are impersonal and as neutral as possible. In order to achieve the qualities of neutrality and impersonality, artists try to remove any trace of self-expression from the artworks (including composition, themes, social commentary, metaphorical associations, references, sentiments, etc.)
That’s why, many artworks have geometric repetitive forms that can’t be misinterpreted as representations of the outside world. Since abstract minimalist art is meant to be impersonal, the artists are known to use monochromatic primary color pallets as they are considered the most neutral of colors.
Another way of eliminating the evidence of artists’ involvement is by using readymade, shop-bought materials. Artist Dan Flavin, for instance, used factory manufactured fluorescent bulbs to create his minimalist art pieces. Gerhard Richter, on the other hand, used glossy enamel paint to replicate industrial paint sample cards, he saw at a hardware store.
Celebrated American painter, sculptor and printmaker Frank Stella is responsible for the renaissance of minimalist art in the contemporary art world. His 1958 series of black enamel stripe paintings, was created as a response to Abstract expressionism, a popular art movement that used art to express emotions. In the meantime, minimalism has expanded way beyond visual art and has encompassed almost every sphere of our lives. Minimalism has found fruitful fields in architecture and design, and its traces can be found in other arts as well, including music and literature.
Design — Athena Calderone, art — Marilina Marchica via Architectural Digest
Minimalist Art and Interior Design
Minimalist art can fit perfectly into any interior design project, as it is very space aware (created to engage with the surrounding space). Minimalist artworks accentuate the architecture of a place, whether it’s a gallery, home, or an office. Minimalist art placed in corners, walls or the floor makes the residents aware of the space they are in, and other elements that surround them.
Minimalist art comes in all shapes and sizes making it highly adaptable, and easy to incorporate into a variety of spaces. Minimalist art can add color and liveliness to your interior, without distracting too much from other elements in the room. Instead of cluttering a space, minimalist art features clean lines and texture, which create a calming and inviting atmosphere. Looking at minimalist pieces is known to relax a viewer, and spark creativity and contemplation, making it perfect for office areas.
The colors, lines and silhouettes of minimalist art pieces, can create a visual link between different elements of the room and bring the entire space together. And since minimalist pieces go along great with other types of artworks such as landscapes, portraits, figurative pieces, they offer a lot of opportunities for mix and match.
Why Collect Minimalist Art?
Despite popular belief, minimalist art is, in fact, quite easy to understand. Unbound by reality and greater ideas, minimalist art doesn’t require any knowledge about art history, or current events to uncover its true meaning. Instead, minimalist art is, what it is.
An object made of paint, canvas, steel, and other materials. By focusing on these essential elements of an object, viewers can project their own emotions, stories, and ideas onto the art piece. This makes minimalist pieces a great option for new collectors, whose knowledge about art history and the art market is limited.
Also, minimalist art comes in a variety of forms, from paintings to sculptures, prints, photography, and much more. The prices also vary a lot depending on the medium, material, and the reputation of the artist. This leaves you with a lot of versatile artworks for collecting, and you can easily pick the perfect piece that fits your specific desires, taste, and your budget.
Antoine Puisais via Art Acacia Gallery
Minimalism as a Lifestyle
For many people, minimalism has become a way of life. In a world where there’s an abundance of products, services, information, etc., people are increasingly craving for a more simple life. They reject all redundant possessions and focus on things they really need. Minimalist art pieces complement this lifestyle to perfection. By shying away from complex ideas, concepts, and compositions, and focusing on simplicity, symmetry, and harmony, minimalist artworks can help you create a relaxing oasis, free from the stress of everyday life. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/minimalist-art-when-less-is-more-ad7fa199e366 | ['Art Acacia'] | 2020-09-08 18:36:43.474000+00:00 | ['Art', 'Artist', 'Minimalism', 'Minimalist', 'Minimalist Interior'] |
New Internet of Things Cybersecurity Legislation Brings Changes to the Industry | Source: Touro College News
Touro Healthcare Cybersecurity Director Joe Giordano Says Bill Increases Need for Security Experts
As of late, the Senate passed by consistent assent H.R. 1668, the Internet of Things (IoT) Cybersecurity Improvement Act. This significant bill coordinates the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create rules on the utilization of IoT gadgets and the administration of their weaknesses.
A New Potential Cybersecurity Law for IoT Security
This bill requests that NIST create and distribute norms and rules for how the central government should utilize and oversee IoT gadgets associated with data frameworks, including “least data security prerequisites for overseeing network safety chances related with such gadgets.” This online protection enactment guides NIST to think about current industry principles, rules, and best practices.
While this is an extraordinary first step in quite a while of making sure about IoT gadgets, it is significant that there is authorization so the principles and rules are paid attention to and followed. Too often previously, principles and rules have been avoided or even overlooked. The stakes are excessively high here as the quantity of IoT gadgets increments and safety efforts are painfully inadequate.
IoT Device Security in Healthcare
Touro College Illinois’ imaginative medical care network protection graduate endorsement has a course devoted to making sure about IoT gadgets. The Touro seminar on IoT security gives understudies primary ideas and understanding identified with the application and effects of IoT gadgets inside the medical care climate. Clinical IoT gadgets as of now exist in numerous parts of medical care today. This incorporates complex clinical gadgets and methods, for example, CT sweeps and MRI frameworks to basic gadgets, for example, pulse and temperature recording instruments that impart and record estimations straightforwardly into the patient diagram.
Progressively, clinical IoT gadgets, for example, heart screens are being put on patients for stretched out timeframes to screen vacillations continuously as they approach their every day lives. These gadgets report ongoing readings to medical services conditions for guaranteed assessment and emergency. The security and wellbeing of these gadgets are fundamental and require definite approval and steady observing. Basic inquiries in regards to the existence pattern of these gadgets from the turn of events, store network, gadget refreshes, and the joining with data frameworks will be shrouded in this course.
Medical care conditions are another territory of security concern. As clinic staff, contractual workers, patients and their families enter the climate, they carry with them a large group of IoT gadgets that may introduce a security as well as wellbeing danger to any medical care climate.
As online protection enactment establishes the framework for improving IoT gadget security, we need very much prepared online protection trained professionals and specialists to lead future advancement and guard our medical services organizations.
Joe Giordano is the Director of the Healthcare Cybersecurity Certification Program in Touro College Illinois.
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https://pastelink.net/2eu3t | https://medium.com/@aitaishailifa/new-internet-of-things-cybersecurity-legislation-brings-changes-to-the-industry-35b61e606727 | [] | 2020-12-22 09:40:59.327000+00:00 | ['News', 'Industry', 'Internet', 'Technology', 'Legislation'] |
This Will Fundamentally Change the Way You Look at Childhood Pictures | What if there was a way to travel in time and see what we would become, would you try?
Take a moment, a moment to look at this house on the right side of the picture, there are two windows, one intact and another one still holding on the broken wall, waiting for the moment to say goodbye. The intact window was my favourite window when I visited my nana every summer from Mumbai.
My parents would take an evening train from Mumbai central with all of us, we would pack ‘thepla’ (a Gujarati must-have travel food), which my mom would prepare in the noon and ‘batata’ potato mix to eat along. The 22-hour journey was full of watching the cities go by the window, well I will write about the train journey some other time. I was shorter than an average kid of my age, I used to stand at the window and look at the people and cows below walking by, occasionally when I felt naughty I screamed and hid away from the window, the people looked up, maybe waited for few seconds before moving along, I observed the cows never looked up so I never screamed at them. I made friends with a few men across the street who used to sit at the shop, they were also friends with my uncle (my mother’s brother). Somedays they launched a 5-star, it is a brand of chocolate bars, at me. I loved it. My mother was scared that I might fall out of the window while catching the 5-star.
And the above Preset view from inside. I was as tall as the aluminium barrel in the picture, so you can imagine why my mother was scared and that’s why she used to sit next to the window holding my shirt with her hand. The interior of the house was different than what you see in the picture, there were a sofa, 2 big chairs and a table on which radio was placed but now it looks like a warzone chemical weapon storage room. My nana used to sit the sofa with his bags full of work paper kept next to him, he always dressed in white shirt and pant, with a Gandhi topi to cover his bald head, I have no memory of seeing him in hair, maybe lost his hair before I was born, we didn’t have a digital camera and taking a picture was a project in itself, it required a going to a studio, posing, getting light flashed in your eyes without warning and then in a couple of days we would get the printed photos, so my nana probably had the only handful of pictures in his lifetime, but now times are different, my niece has more photos taken in an hour than my Nana every had of him in his life. My Nani sat on the chair or on the floor in front of the sofa, she came prepared with a glass of water and a cup of tea whenever my nana came home in the evening. My mom would then pull me down from the window while she went to the kitchen to get snacks for everyone.
One of the bags my nana always carried was filled with snacks for his children and grandchildren, and you must be guessed it’s colour by now, it was white as well. The shelf that you see in the picture, I remember my Nani stored pickles, dried chillies, dried mangoes and seasonal spices which she should need in future.
I don’t remember the color of the walls, i think they were a shade of cream or white, I later learnt that a shade of color which was very popular was called off-white, I still never understood the purpose of coloring the house off-white and not just white.
Come let me take you the room next to it.
This is the hall way, we just exited the my Nana’s room on the left of the picture and the close door you see is my uncle’s room, where he lived with his small family, he was married and had 3 children who lived there. This hallway was my playground sometimes, it wasn’t empty like in the picture above, me along with my cousins played in this space as it was the only open place for us to hop around. Well now after the furniture has been moved, it has a bigger space but no children to play there.
Come lets go into the room,
This room was a fully equipped for a family for 5 to live happily, it has a small TV which I never saw working. I used to play with my sister and cousins when my uncle was away at work. Sometimes, I took a nap with my cousins after lunch till my mother came and woke me up to go out with my another uncle for a evening drive on his motorbike. We went to the somnath temple on Mondays, then goto a cricket playground where local tournament was a spectacle, the teams played under the floodlights, it gave a stadium ambience, the spectators were watching along the boundary rope standing, sitting on the ground, sitting on a parked bike or car. Right behind the spectators were the street food vendors, flavoured icicle vendors, spicy snack vendors, and the most popular of them all were the paan shops which sold tobbaco and betel leaves stuffed with Arcea Nut’ or something which give a happy high. I always looked forward to going to watch the cricket matches and get pampered with icicle.
Come, Let me take you the kitchen, where the food for almost over 20 people was cooked by my Nani and my aunts.
Do you see those ceramic pots placed upside down on the floor? those were treasure pots for me, I was a disinterested eater as a child, but those pots had something which made my plain rice palatable, one of them had a sun dried mango pickle which infused over time with oil, chilies, carrots and many other ingredients. I loved mixing it with my rice and eat it, I would ignore every other dishes cooked in the kitchen. My sisters and cousins loved the pickle as well. It is called ‘Raiti’. Last 10 years, I have been cooking on a electric cooking equipment, when our ancestors discovered fire and used it to cook, it was species evolving moment, the cooked food brought many physical and life style changes in homo sapiens. But for last hundreds of years, we people, especially women who ran the kitchen, cooked food in a clay stove by burning dry wood or coal. The food may taste authentic and rich but the cooking experience isn’t, mainly when the kitchen is indoors. The fumes from the burning wood or coal were damaging their lungs at a slow and consistent pace and that was one reason i didn’t like going to the kitchen, as I would cough my lungs out.
The subtle mass transition from wooden to natural gas went unnoticed in last 6 years.
My Nani, my mum and aunts would make tea, breakfast, tea, lunch, tea, snacks, tea, dinner for everyone, this was their daily schedule, they would have to work extra long on weekends, when the men of the house or visitors were visiting on weekends. I don’t think they got weekends off, it was assumed a holiday for the men of the house but my Nani, mum and aunts were never given a holiday in their daily tasks.
The utensils, glasses, pans, pots lying in chaos on the floor depicts the picture of the how the big family was sent in to a spiral chaos.
Lets go to the next room, where I never went or was allowed to go. It is the storage room.
Rice, wheat, grains and oil were stored in this room in those big barrels. I noticed, we would have 3–4 months supply every time I visited the house, as I grew older I realized it was a normal practise in the community to store food supply. My generation would never understand why someone would need to store so much food, when one can basically get the food delivered in 24 hours- I have to point out that 2020 pandemic threw a glass of water on our faces to wake up and reconsider this practise and got me thinking that every practise we see our parents, grand parents or elders follow is because they had experienced a situation which led them to adopt that practice or tradition, whether it should evolve or change with time is the debate for the wise but traditions built over time should not be broken in a flash.
At this point you must be wondering how big is the house? well let me show you a perspective of it. The picture below give one view of the house from the terrace.
The we are standing right about the Nana’s room and right on the bottom left you can see the kitchen door. The rooms visible in the centre was occupied by one of my uncles and aunts, they were unmarried at that time. The room on the top left was empty, I don’t know why it was empty and the room which is partially visible on the top center is where one of uncle and his wife were staying who I always saw arguing with everyone else in the house. I didn’t like going there even when we were playing hide and seek. If someone asked my opinion on why the house is abandoned, I would point towards them as the initiators of the end, but no one would ask me. so that’s that.
I along with my sisters and cousins would run around the small open area right outside the kitchen door, it was favorite space and it had natural light and place to jump around. I was small so this space looked like a park to me, compared to my house in Mumbai, where we shared open space with my fathers family.
and the last picture for this story, the rubble of memories lies to be collected and throw away. If you ask any of the family members about one super wish, I would bet each one of them would say “I want old our times back”. | https://medium.com/@ourvoices/my-childhood-in-8-pictures-f803f3fbc9c6 | [] | 2021-01-23 21:04:26.754000+00:00 | ['Future', 'Children', 'Memories', 'Travel', 'Journal'] |
How to Develop the Letting Go Mindset | How to Develop the Letting Go Mindset
Photo by Fernando Brasil on Unsplash
Letting go is a free feeling where we create a space in our hearts and fill it with light and love. It’s a feeling of liberation.
But we don’t find it easy to let go of the hurt so quickly. It feels like emotional quicksand. The harder we try, the more we fail.
So, why it’s so difficult to let go of things?
It is not because of our inability to let go but lack of correct understanding and deep-ingrained wrong belief systems.
Whenever we are hurt or pained, it creates a deep groove in our minds. The hurt and pain remind us of the time and energy invested in the relationships or endeavors. This irreparable loss of time and energy also prevents us from reciprocating further in life.
Letting go means to replace the old stuff with the new, not just letting go of the old. The space inside our minds can’t remain empty. We need to fill that void either through spiritual knowledge, understanding, positive self-love thoughts, or adopt some mindful practices.
However, most of the time, we fail to get a complimentary replacement; thus, we hold onto the pain and suffering as armor to protect our mental stability. Through this negative shield, we resist positive changes.
“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.” — Herman Hesse
Moreover, we have adopted a belief system from either movies or social media, or our friends that holding onto the pain makes us strong. Besides, we have forgotten to consider the consequences of holding pain.
But have you ever felt that holding pain empowers you?
Have you felt that holding grudges or devising revenge plans gives peace?
I guess the obvious answer is NO. The inner conscience bites, sooner or later.
“The truth is unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” — Steve Maraboli
Because we have entered into a negative comfort zone by holding onto the pain, we do not want to leave it. Besides, the fear of getting worse pain causes us to hold onto that problem more tightly. e.g., People don’t easily and quickly invest in relationships after a broken marriage or a breakup because of the fear of trusting. As a result, they hold on to the past hurt forever, which doesn't allow them to love and trust others.
We keep on churning the hurt and pain in our minds and believe that we are drawing strength from it. But we are depleting ourselves internally. And this negative thinking gives birth to rude behavior, negative talking, mood polarities, mental stress, anxiety, panic attacks, etc.
A research study at the American Psychological Association suggests that letting go (detaching from hurtful feelings and emotions) improves mental health.
But there are times when we often find it extremely difficult to let go. These situations are mostly in the form of:
Any situation that we are unable to accept the way it is. Persons who have hurt, betrayed, cheated, or harmed us in any way we think were wrong. Memories or events where we got involved with anyone (our dear ones mostly) who got harmed. (Cases of War survivors, road accidents, etc.) Loss of a loved one or a material thing. Past bitter memory or a bad experience. (Failures, Injuries, etc.)
There can be plenty of them, but most of them fall under this umbrella.
Besides, it is not the above factors that pull us down from letting go, but the thought patterns associated with it causes more trouble.
I’ll try to explain it with my personal story.
My Story
I (seven years old) and my cousin (twelve years old) were playing in a park. He asked me to sit on the merry go round. I don’t know if he empowered and educated me with safety instructions for sitting on the merry-go-round, but then the main thing happened. He used his full power to rotate it.
Within a blink of my eye, I launched like a rocket and fell afar, breaking my left leg. Due to tender age and growing bones, doctors could have healed my leg, but they suggested otherwise.
I incurred a permanent loss in my patella that doctors couldn’t fix. Because of this childhood injury, I still suffer from chronic pains due to which I can’t run for long distances or jump like an athlete.
I could not walk until I was eight. I lost one year of my childhood, and I kept blaming my cousin for that until the age of twenty-four. I held onto that mental pain, which didn’t allow me to reciprocate further in my life.
This negativity wasn’t letting me trust him, love him, or even talk to him. Though he even suggested I do the same to him, I couldn’t— the significant conscience issues.
Living with that agony was making my life from bad to worse. Physical pain was transforming more into a mental one. One day, I decided not to live that way because every time I saw him or heard his name, the whole incident played in my mind again and again.
I wanted to release him and myself from this twisted knot. I thought, “though he had apologized a zillion times to me, why am I not able to forgive him.”
After years of self-help and studying spiritual knowledge from the Brahmakumaris (The World Spiritual University), I realized that my thinking about him was not letting me forgive him. I also learned some techniques to recognize the cause of not letting go and ways to overcome them. (I am going to talk about it elaborately in the ensuing paragraphs)
I realized that these following thoughts pained me more than my physical discomfort:
“He is my cousin and isn't supposed to hurt me. He did it on purpose. He wanted me to suffer. He did not love me because I was the center of attraction in our home. (I was the youngest, and we lived in a joint family.), etc.”
Ignorantly, I held onto this negativity within me that forced an offensive behavior externally. But by following some practical exercises, I was able to transform my negativity into positivity and embrace my relationship with my cousin. However, it took me sixteen years to figure out the cause of pain, replace my inner void with love, and let go of the past.
But, I am sharing my lifetime research and experience that could help you let go of your past grievances quicker than I. Though it might be challenging to implement instantly, a real heart and regular practice will fetch the desired mental peace results within a short time. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/how-to-develop-the-letting-go-mindset-c50217d37c77 | ['Darshak Rana'] | 2020-12-20 18:02:28.159000+00:00 | ['Mental Illness', 'Personal Development', 'Mental Health', 'Self Improvement', 'Letting Go'] |
The Islands of Saint Lazarus | The knight found himself staring at the remnants of his meal. Pork from the Thieves’ Island prepared in honor of Saint Lazarus. Antonio muttered a quick prayer of thanks for the saint’s intercession in their mournful journey across the Pacific Sea. And he chucked into the brush a leathery piece of fat he had been chewing on. He was grateful that they no longer needed to live off the barest scraps of animals like they had done over the long winter at sea.
His tired gaze drifted over to the tent housing the sickest crew members. God willing, this island’s air would set their humors right… Antonio watched the Captain-General passing among the sick, giving each of them care and attention. He would make sure each one had their dinner, however little they could swallow.
Something offshore caught the Captain-General’s attention. He stood suddenly and gazed out intently. “QUIET, EVERYONE!” he commanded, while Antonio turned his head to see what startled the captain: a single boat was approaching, carrying several men.
As the general clamor came to silence and all heads collectively turned towards the sea, the Captain-General continued in his sternest, driest voice, “No one move. No one say anything or do anything unless I say.”
He spoke without even turning his head to see who would listen; the Captain-General of the Armada de Molucca expected obedience. And he received it. He strode forward out from under the tent with his eyes still locked on the approaching boat. All the other men, dozens of them including the knight of Rhodes, Antonio Pigafetta, stood like statues. Men sitting at the cooking fire stood and let the firewood crackle and crumble. Men preparing more firewood held still with one hand on the lumber, the other gripping their hatchets. Some of the sick stood from their piled rags. Even the ones closest to death propped themselves up and opened their eyes wide. Sentries nearer to the shore (who lacked the eyes or the wits of their commander) turned and gripped either lances upright in one hand, or crossbows patiently in two hands. The whole Armada seemed to hold its breath.
Antonio wore his long knife on his left hip. The woodcutter’s tools were a few steps away, if he needed them. The knight counted nine men on the boat. Four with paddles. Five others dressed in bright colors. One among them stood in the prow, his arms stretched to the sides with his palms upraised and empty. Antonio saw a yellowish glimmer off the islander’s arms, neck, and ears. A golden glimmer. His face was smiling. The knight prayed it was a smile his Captain-General could trust…
The boat scraped the rough sand on the island’s edge and came to a stop. The islander who had been standing disembarked nimbly, though not in a rush. Four followed him with straight faces and four stayed near the boat. The smiling leader approached.
Captain-General Fernão Magalhães stood firmly in the sand, loosely flanked by his sentries with spears and crossbows.
“Maupay!” | https://medium.com/@josephcmw/the-islands-of-saint-lazarus-4479d95e2c40 | ['Joseph Cmw'] | 2021-09-11 19:21:44.463000+00:00 | ['History', 'Philippines', 'Asian Representation', 'Colonialism', 'Southeast Asian'] |
Bharat Desai Biography | Net Worth | GujaratCelebs | Bharat Desai is not just a name but a whole brand. Along with his wife, Neerja Sethi, Desai founded Syntel in 1980. The multinational IT service and consulting provider company have become a phenomenally successful investment making Bharat Desai one of the renowned billionaires in the United States of America. Together, the power couple stood as the masterminds for their success. So, let’s read Bharat Desai's biography.
Early Life
Desai was born in Kenya into a Gujarati origin family. His childhood was mostly spent in Mombasa and Ahmedabad. Bharat Desai completed his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He had also pursued an MBA in finance from Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
He went to the States as a programmer for TATA in 1976. Later in 1980, he co-founded his own IT service organization Syntel with his wife, Neerja Sethi. The business was based in Troy, Michigan. Sethi stands as one of the richest businesswomen in America. At present, Desai is 68 and is the father of two children. Currently, they are residing at Fisher Island, Florida in the USA.
Business & Net Worth
Syntel was stared up with an investment of $2000 in 1980. In the very first year, it earned a total of $30,000, making the business a success. It is one of the first US-based IT service companies that employed a Global Delivery model. By 2005, Syntel had its global development centers in major cities in India that are Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, and Phoenix, Arizona. It also opened technology campuses in Chennai and Pune.
Read: Manoj Joshi Biography
Desai held the position of Chairman of Syntel. In 2018 the company merged with French IT provider Atos S.E. and started operating as Atos Syntel. The merging gained $3.4 billion. Before the merging, Syntel’s annual revenue increased to $900 million.
Desai’s name became more eminent when he stood among Forbes’ ‘Richest in Tech 2016’, and ‘Forbes 400 2016’. He was named in Forbes’ ‘Billionaires 2020’. As of 2020, his total net worth is $1.4 billion.
Desai has joined board memberships of multiple educational institutions that are John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), Stephen M. Ross School of the Business at the University of City Michigan.
Sum UP
The power couple Bharat Desai and Neerja Sethi have risen the bar of triumph. Desai remains one of the most successful Indian originated American billionaires. His achievements are something that every rising entrepreneur dream of. His journey and wit are recognized globally.
If you are interested to know more success stories of people around the world who are making India Proud every day, scroll down the page. You can find biographies of influential honorary humans who aimed and achieved their goals. | https://medium.com/@gujaratcelebs/bharat-desai-biography-net-worth-gujaratcelebs-1ce42adef3de | [] | 2020-12-14 03:29:18.936000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Biography', 'America', 'Michigan', 'Net Worth'] |
The number one cause of chronic pain and excessive medical expenses | What’s the number one cause of chronic pain and excessive medical expenses in the United States today? Arthritis? Nope. Obesity? Wrong again. It’s spinal ligament injuries. Shocking right? As a matter of fact, spinal ligament injuries in the low back are the number one cause of pain and disability in the world today. Ligament injuries in the neck are the 3rd leading cause of pain and disability in the world.
How do these injuries occur? Any time a ligament has been stretched beyond its normal elastic limits (anything greater than a grade one sprain such as a grade two or three) the ligament is unable to return to its original length and therefore is unable to handle the natural load it is intended to bear, nor it is able to effectively handle the stress and strain that activities of daily living cause it, not to mention any athletic endeavors. What can cause this? The most common cause of this can be from trauma such as accidents, whiplash, slip and falls, or sport-related injuries. These slack ligaments can also be caused by certain types of autoimmune conditions that weaken the ligaments.
(Link to more information)
Medscape, the largest online medical resource provides common symptomatic complaints associated with these injuries. Many of these symptoms may seem totally unrelated to your injury.
(Link to more information)
So, what’s the solution? The first step is getting an accurate diagnosis, and while it may seem natural that an MRI should be able to detect an injury like this, an MRI is not sufficient to the task of diagnosing the problem. Further testing is needed. Spine stress x-rays are necessary. These are exactly what they sound like. The spine is put into natural stress positions, and an x-ray is taken to access for excessive motion.
These x-rays must then be sent to a board-certified medical radiologist who then performs an analysis called a Computerized Radiographic Measurement Analysis, or CRMA, to determine if there are areas of excessive spinal motion which as a result of these damaged ligaments. There are several companies across the U.S. that perform these procedures, however, we use a company called Spinal Kinetics because of their quality control measures and standards for excellence.
Ok. You’ve been diagnosed, but what are your treatment options?
Restoring normal biomechanical motion utilizing rehabilitative procedures including spinal manipulative therapy often performed by board-certified licensed chiropractors to get the best possible outcome is the first course of care. However, just like a chronic severe ankle sprain that is still weak and tender years later, the spinal ligaments are no different and the reason why they are the number one and 3rd cause for chronic pain and disability.
A common medical choice many people take for this chronic pain is the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs NSAIDs or cortisone injections. Although these procedures are capable of temporally lessening the pain, they cannot address the problem and often lead to a whole host of other disorders such as advancing the degeneration of the spine.
We have found that incorporating the use of Regenerative Medicine procedures in conjunction with spinal manipulation and rehabilitative exercise to be the best treatment options effective at doing exactly what the term ‘regenerative medicine’ implies. Through the use of treatments such as allograph injections containing stem cells, it is now possible to actually repair the damaged overstretched weak ligaments and restore their lost ability to maintain the spine in alignment while it is under load. All of this can occur without the need for long term pain medication and having to live a life of disability.
(Link to more information)
So what’s the point of all this?
Number One: if you’re experiencing chronic pain, impairment in your ability to function due to a spinal injury, such as whiplash from a car accident, sports injury or slip and fall, you are most definitely not alone.
Number Two: the problem isn’t just some nebulous issue that you’re dealing with and it will go away on its own. The true root of the problem can actually be diagnosed, and diagnosis is the first step towards finding a true solution to the problem.
Number Three: regenerative medicine may actually have the solution you’ve been needing or perhaps even searching for.
I am a member of the SmartInjury™ network who’s primary mission is simple: To help eradicate the misinformation, misdiagnosis, and the dismal treatment results of the most common and most expensive injury in the market today — the spinal ligament injury.
For more information regarding this topic, don’t hesitate to contact our office at 774–409–5055 or visit us at www.StemCellTherapyInMA.com
Dr. Brian R. Petrie | https://medium.com/@regenmedraynham/the-number-one-cause-of-chronic-pain-and-excessive-medical-expenses-83366caee57d | ['Regenerative Medicine Of Raynham Llc'] | 2020-05-20 01:25:38.426000+00:00 | ['Stem Cells', 'Chronic Pain', 'STEM', 'Regenerative Medicine', 'Medical'] |
A Little Phil Spector Trivia | A Little Phil Spector Trivia
Watch out for the Hell’s Angels
Pixabay — Pexels
For almost anybody familiar with popular music, Phil Spector is an iconic figure worthy of admiration. And any backstory or gossip about Phil is of interest. Well, because I played behind a couple of acts he discovered and popularized — and my father worked with Phil back in the olden days when he was current — I have some good anecdotes.
Like daddy used to tell me: “Ya know…you hippies didn’t invent marijuana.” Milly Vanilli and company didn’t invent having one individual sing on the record — and another do the live gigs! Phil had his A-list singers for the records…and his B-listers to hit the road.
When I was with The Shirelles, I asked Beverly (one of the originals) how she became part of the group. I was curious — because really…she could barely sing at all. If talent had anything to do with becoming a teen idol, Beverly shouldn’t have been within 1000 miles of a hit record!
She responded that Phil Spector went to (I believe it was) Paramus High School to find girls to form a group. And at age 14 — with not very much talent and obviously no experience — Beverly became a recording star! Some 13 years after all their hits, I was hired to lead the backup band and came to discover that of the three originals still touring, only one could actually sing!
The situation was similar with The Crystals. Of the 4 girls fronting the act, only one (Dee Dee) was an original, and she did not sing lead for our shows! That job was handed to a ringer many years her junior! More than a decade later, Dee Dee still wasn’t ready for prime time, though I saw a video on You Tube today with her doing an excellent job on a recent version of Da Do Ron Ron — a much better job than she could have done 35 years ago.
Anyway…my old man had the best Phil Spector story. Back in the early 60’s, the rock and roll business was much smaller and more independent than it is today. Most of the hits came out of indy record labels with offices at 1619 and 1650 Broadway. And almost everybody in the biz knew everybody else. Given that my old man was writing arrangements for almost all those artists (including Phil’s), he knew Spector and related a story that the legend had confessed to my old man.
Phil’s first hit was “To Know Know Know Him,” and he himself went on the road as one of the singers for The Teddy Bears, the act who’d recorded the hit.
One night while they were touring — playing some dive or other — Phil went to the bathroom to take a leak. And while he was draining the lizard, a bunch of Hell’s Angels walked in and upon seeing the diminutive singer, whipped it out and pissed on him!
Now, how’s that for the downside of being a rock star? Popsicle had no attitude about Mr. Spector when he related the tale…so I assume it’s true.
I guess the moral of the story is thàt if you’re a little guy in a rough bar and you have to take a leak? Use the stall and pretend you’re taking a dump. Then you won’t get pissed off for getting pissed on! | https://medium.com/my-life-on-the-road/a-little-phil-spector-trivia-16ae8964d122 | ['William', 'Dollar Bill'] | 2020-12-14 14:20:52.957000+00:00 | ['Phil Spector', 'Music Business', 'Nonfiction', 'Memoir', 'Culture'] |
Episode 69: The Evolution of Mix Tapes, with Audius | Press play! And be sure to subscribe no matter where you’re listening.
On this episode of BlockChannel, McKie, Dr. Petty and Dee finally may have found someone who can bring crypto + music & audio to the masses. We’re joined by Roneil Rumburg, CEO of Audius, and an all around incredibly nice guy. He’s sharp: he understands Ethereum; he built on Bitcoin back in the day; and is familiar with the music industry. His team realizes the barriers that stand between Audius, and mass adoption — and we think he just might succeed. We discuss the platform, his vision for the future, and have some laughs along the way.
Show Link(s):
Audius Website: https://audius.co
Intro/Outro Music “On The Way” by OvaEastMeech:
https://soundcloud.com/ovaeastmeech/im-on-the-way-1
Show Sponsor(s):
Amentum: amentum.org
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, it is an engaged discussion on new technology; BlockChannel reminds you to always do your own due diligence before investing in any crypto-related project in the industry.
More ways to listen to BlockChannel 🎧:
⚡️Overcast: Subscribe on Overcast
⚡️Spotify: Subscribe on Spotify
⚡️iTunes: Subscribe on iTunes
⚡️Stitcher: Subscribe on Stitcher
⚡️Google Play: Subscribe on the Play Store
⚡️Tunein: Listen on Tunein | https://medium.com/blockchannel/episode-69-the-evolution-of-mix-tapes-with-audius-53627d9d5e6b | [] | 2020-04-01 03:47:46.729000+00:00 | ['Audius', 'Blockchanneltv', 'Ethereum', 'Music', 'Entertainment'] |
How to Increase Running Stamina | Are you looking for ways to increase running stamina for running and ways to increase stamina. If you want to run and complete a marathon then you need a better Stamina. If you start running just a little and your heart starts beating fast, you may find it difficult to complete a marathon. For this you need to increase endurance and stamina. In this article you will know the ways to increase your running ability and stamina. These remedies help strengthen your lungs and increase their capacity. Apart from this, you can also strengthen your muscles by using them. Let us know how you can increase your running power and speed.
Do Warm Up
Your sprinting depends on whether you warmed up your body before running. Warm up is very important for you, you can not consider it as an option. If you want to run fast, then allow 10 minutes to warm up your muscles. For this you rotate your neck, your hands and shoulders also. Apart from this, you can move your feet and hands while doing light jogging. If warmed up properly, there will be a clear difference on your heart rate and muscle performance. Before running in this way, you can warm up your body well and increase the stamina for running.
Maintain Proper Posture for Fast Running
If you run according to the correct posture, then it can help you to run long distances and long distances. Along with this, it also reduces the chances of getting hurt. You should also move your shoulders according to your steps, look straight in front, lift your chest upwards. Also, while running, leave your neck and hands loose and tie hands fist. This position helps you run faster.
Check Your Breathing Technique
Some people believe that running is also a type of meditation. If you want to become skilled at running and want to increase the running stamina, then manage your breathing system for this. Doing this can increase your ability to run. It is not easy for beginners to run fast. They need to practice slowly. But when they focus on their breathing it helps them to run. For this, while running, breathe slowly and release the breath slowly. During this time, he should also calculate how many steps he took on breathing and how many steps he took on exhaling. Doing this exercise can definitely help you run faster.
Interval Runs
This is the best way to increase your stamina. All you have to do is make time for running and walking to practice running. For this, you run 1 minute and walk 2 minutes. This way you can run for long periods without any discomfort and fatigue. Because by doing this you do not feel tired. So that you can run longer and plan ahead. Interval running is the best way to increase your running stamina.
Running Slow But Steady
You need patience to increase the stamina and running time. Because your stamina cannot be increased in a day or two. During the exercise of running, try to increase the distance by 10 percent. Because if you travel long distances together it can be harmful for you. So to increase the running stamina you can increase your running ability by gradually increasing your running speed and distance.
Listen Music
You can also practice with some general to increase your running stamina and run faster. These exercises also include listening to music or singing while running. Often listening to music while doing something can be a good source of inspiration. Rhythmic and motivational songs can help increase your running speed and stamina. In this way, you will also feel less pain due to running. Because your mind is happy during this time. In this way you can adopt it in a way to increase the stamina for running.
Practice Regularly
It is true that regular practice can make the most difficult task easier. This is a good option that can effectively increase your running ability. For this, you start running regularly every day. If you cannot run every day, then you must run at least 3 days a week. The more you run, the more your stamina will run.
Drink Enough Water
If you want to run fast then for this you need to work hard. But before running you need to drink sufficient amount of water. Because during fast running your body is more likely to lack water. Therefore, to overcome this deficiency it is necessary to drink enough water. Therefore, drinking water while practicing running can contribute to your endurance.
Stretching
If you run regularly, you should stretch or cool off. This is as important as warm-up for you. Stretching can reduce muscle fatigue to some extent during running. For this, you can stretch your neck, shoulders, legs, hands, waist etc. It is also helpful in reducing the pain of your body.
Diet
You cannot increase your running ability or stamina just by doing physical work. For this you also need adequate diet. If you do not include nutritious and staple foods in your diet then your muscle endurance cannot increase. For this, you should consume whole grains, starchy vegetables, lean proteins, healthy fats, and nuts. Apart from this, you should stay away from alcohol, smoking, fatty and more sweet foods. Because in order to increase stamina it is necessary for your heart to be healthy. In this way, you can get benefits by making such changes in your daily diet. | https://medium.com/@rohitnimbekar/how-to-increase-running-stamina-aef2cac293ce | ['Rohit Nimbekar'] | 2020-12-20 13:39:25.595000+00:00 | ['Running Tips', 'Running', 'Stamina'] |
Breeze | Breeze
Photo by Fernando Brasil on Unsplash
Voices in the wind softly calling
do you remember when we used to dance
and thread the light fantastic through treetops
and symbiotic meetings were perchance.
In between the pages of chapters
messages are written in the breeze
reflections refracted by sun and moonbeams
glowing in the stars and blossoming in the trees.
There are pauses in the hush of the evening
after midnight the air slows to a stroll
soft zephyrs seep lazily o’er the ocean
and magic spells melt into my soul.
The new breeze picks up in the morning
and stirs leaves and ripples the sea
I stand back and watch from my window
the moon dancing as I stand in her lee.
Out on the Bay breeze is generating
and moving young waves to the shore
splish splash and the clap of the breakers
then I hear her tip tap on my door.
I set sail and skip across waters
driven gently by the new breeze
I scud across waves in exultation
and weave my way through the broken seas.
I wake with a feeling of refreshment
sated by the breeze along the track
I’ve drifted through dreams in the nighttime
then in the morning I gently fly back.
©
David Rudder
24th December 2020
Thanks for reading. | https://medium.com/blueinsight/breeze-dcaa34b74c13 | ['David Rudder'] | 2020-12-23 07:49:15.646000+00:00 | ['Blue Insights', 'Breeze', 'Sea', 'Poetry', 'Spirituality'] |
They Will Only Be This Little Today | This morning just as I as about to tell my family it was time to leave for work and give them hugs, my three year old daughter asked me to read a book to her.
I said that it was probably time to go to work, but sure, I’d read it to her, so I scooped her up and put her on my lap.
My wife, watching this happen, wisely observed “she’ll only be this little today.”
The world is marked by relentless change. You need to take the time to appreciate the preciousness of impermanence. | https://medium.com/the-paperless-journal/they-will-only-be-this-little-today-222075ef56de | ['Matthew Kent'] | 2019-07-24 14:39:17.696000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Love', 'Children', 'Parenting', 'Life'] |
UI/UX Design: Converting Users | How to successfully convert users
There are three things that you need in order to successfully convert users and make your app profitable:
You need to offer an outcome that your users really need and want. You need to offer it in a way that is simple, straightforward, and easy to get to. The outcome you offer and the way your users access it needs to be unique enough that your process is the obvious choice.
These are the prerequisites for a successful monetization attempt. Failure to adhere to these principles will result in failure to monetize.
I will use Uber and Facebook as cases in point.
Uber
Hailing a cab, dealing with fare, and all the B.S. that entailed sucked. Uber thought: “Hey, what if we can offer an outcome that people need (transportation), but in a way that is straightforward and easy to get to (application/platform), that we position for ease of access and usage (solid UI/UX principles)?”
As you can see, they adhered to the rules, and now their company is worth billions, and it didn’t happen by accident.
Facebook
“What about Facebook? People don’t pay for that platform but they’re still highly valued!” Yes, that’s because certain users don’t pay, while others do. Advertising users pay Facebook to push ads to users who use the platform for free; which makes them, in turn, the product.
Again, Facebook abstracted online marketing, put everything you need in one spot, built a monopoly around it, and have so far done a very nice job defending that monopoly from other companies.
They followed the rules, and they got the reward. You can too. | https://uxplanet.org/ui-ux-business-converting-users-860fbaf31d2f | ['Nick Lawrence'] | 2020-12-17 17:48:07.671000+00:00 | ['Ui Ux Design'] |
This teenage girl seduced Nazis then shot them. | This teenage girl seduced Nazis then shot them. Freddie Oversteegen was 14 when she and her sister were recruited to the Dutch Resistance to lure SS soldiers to their death.
Her hair in pigtails, Freddie rode her bicycle — basket loaded with guns — down the streets of Haarlem in North Holland. She looked two years younger than her age, and was rarely questioned by Nazi officers.
Freddie and her sister actively seduced Nazi soldiers, leading them to the woods to be executed. The men were mostly killed by older resistance members, but sometimes the sisters pulled the trigger themselves.
When asked why and how many she killed, Freddie’s response was, | https://medium.com/rule-of-one/this-teenage-girl-seduced-nazis-then-shot-them-73c961a5207a | ['Toni Tails'] | 2020-12-27 12:35:21.285000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'History', 'Family', 'Feminism', 'Life'] |
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