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Sonos users can now double the boom in any room by adding a second Sonos Sub subwoofer | Sonos users can now double the boom in any room by adding a second Sonos Sub subwoofer Amanda Dec 24, 2020·2 min read
Sonos builds an awesome subwoofer, but customers lucky enough to own very large home theaters and listening rooms—and the custom installers who cater to that deep-pocketed crowd—have long wanted the option of deploying two Sonos Subs. Today, Sonos released a software update that lets them do just that.
Mentioned in this article Sonos Sub (Gen 3) See it The Sonos Sub is not a conventional low-frequency-effects speaker in the sense that it can’t be connected to an A/V receiver or paired with just any soundbar. It must be deployed in conjunction with another Sonos speaker or a Sonos amplifier.
And those who want to deploy two Subs in the same system must have a Sonos Arc, Beam, or Playbar soundbar; a Playbase sound base; or a Sonos Amp. One of the Subs must be a Gen 3 model, which has increased processing power, and you’ll need to have the latest version of the Sonos S2 app, which is rolling out today.
[ Further reading: The best soundbars ] Union LA / Sonos Sonos has re-released the Sonos One SL Union LA Edition speaker.
In other Sonos news, the company is re-releasing the Sonos One SL Union LA Edition, a collaboration between Sonos, interior designer Sheila Bridges and the streetwear brand Union LA. The limited-edition speaker was created in partnership with Color of Change as part of the organization’s #TellBlackStories initiative. The speaker’s grille is printed with Bridges’ Harlem Toile pattern. You can read more about the collaboration in this Sonos blog post from 2019. The $249 speaker can be purchased at SheilaBridges.com and UnionLosAngeles.com.
Last week, Sonos announced the Arc SL Shadow Edition, a microphone-free soundbar that’s a Costco exclusive. You can read more about it in our earlier news story.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@amanda64609245/sonos-users-can-now-double-the-boom-in-any-room-by-adding-a-second-sonos-sub-subwoofer-17dd1104fa84 | [] | 2020-12-24 22:33:25.731000+00:00 | ['Electronics', 'Chargers', 'Headphones', 'Consumer Electronics'] |
The Racket branded Joe.. | The first time Maureen was left alone in her house at night, she lay still in her bed unable to sleep. She took in long, slow breaths hoping to exhale her pain along with the air in her lungs. Suddenly, she was startled by the sound of a car outside. She didn’t need to look out the window to know it was her husband. He used to drive into the compound as if he was in a car chase, rev the engine and then lift the handbrake so hard, the sound would reach her ears. On this particular night, it was no different. Was it really him though? Had he come home? The answer came to her in a whisper. ‘Of course it’s not him. He left you 3 weeks ago, never to return.’
*****
Maureen met her first and only love when she was an undergrad student. She heard of him before she saw him because he was so loud. His voice would travel and arrive in a room long before he did. They would have several chance meetings until the day he rescued her after she had been pickpocketed. “He found me wandering around the university hostels looking confused with no phone and no keys.” She tells me. That day, he took care of her and they instantly clicked. By the following morning, they had labelled their relationship.
After that, they were tied at the hip. The only time they spent apart was when they had to attend classes; he was a medical student and she, a dental student. Something about first love defies duplication. Before it, your heart is blank. Unwritten. “We were so taken by each other that it didn’t seem odd when he asked me to accompany him to his sister’s visiting day in school.” That was the first time she met his mom and his siblings. She sat there listening to them talk. “His mom kept referring to a certain person called Joel. Joel this, Joel that.”
Maureen cleared her throat and inserted herself in the conversation, “Sorry. Who is Joel?” His mum looked at both of them in shock. How was her son introducing them to a girl who did not even know his first name?
With her foot in her mouth Maureen turned to him and said, “Nice to meet you Joel Mbute.”
They continued dating and towards the end of her final year she got pregnant. “My first thought was, he would deny the pregnancy because we were so young and had nothing to our names. But he was unfazed. He would say, ‘It’s just a baby. Kwani what’s the big deal?’” Because that is who he was. His cup was always half full. “We will just go and see your parents,” he told her and that is exactly what they did. With their blessing, they moved in together.
The next year was not easy on either of them. They were both interns, living in different towns. He was posted to Kitale while she remained in Nairobi. Despite his crazy schedule, he would commute to Nairobi from Kitale every chance he got, to be with her. Because she was so busy, the pregnancy took a back seat. Sometimes she would even forget she was pregnant. The baby eventually came looking as healthy as a horse and after she completed internship, she was posted to Nakuru making the commute easier for both of them.
“I loved the weekends that I would travel to Kitale to see him.” She would recall them as some of the best years of her life. “It became my weekend getaway. He had a big house with a compound where friends would come over for brunch and we would play outdoor games or go to nearby resorts to have fun.” After a while, he was transferred to Nakuru.
“I was happy we were together but I missed the trips to Kitale and once asked him in jest why he was following me around?” It didn’t take a year and she got a job in Eldoret and they were back to criss crossing counties to see each other. As fate would have it, he followed her to Eldoret for his Masters in Orthopedic surgery. That would end up being the longest time they were physically together in one place — 3 years. And the kids loved it. By now they had two girls who Mbute dotted on.
Mbute finally finished his Masters degree and started to look for opportunities for work. At that time, he felt that Eldoret was saturated so he ventured out to the town where he had first started his medical career — Kitale. There, he flourished. He opened a private practise and had a medical equipment business he ran on the side. The only downside was the commute to and from Eldoret. Being older now, with two kids, he and Maureen did not want to be apart any longer. The daily drive to work was exhausting and when he got late, he would be forced to spend a night away from his family.
He began to get really busy until it wasn’t unusual for him to be away for a day or two in a row. He would rarely work on weekends but sometimes an emergency would come up and he would be forced to drive the 73km to attend to his patients. After about a year of the commute, they agreed it was time to move. “Because my work was more flexible and not as demanding, we agreed to move to Kitale. Together we looked for some land, engaged professionals and started the process of setting up our own home.” The chips were beginning to fall into place.
In June 2016, the Kenya Orthopedic Association organised a conference that was scheduled to be held in Eldoret. Mbute wanted to attend. So he planned his surgeries in a way that allowed him to be away for the entire period of the conference. That meant he needed to stay in Kitale for two consecutive days.
On the eve of the conference at 10pm, he called Maureen, “Sweetie, guess what? I am done with my surgeries so I am coming home.”
“Now? Isn’t it late? Why not spend the night and come in the morning?”
“I want to be there when the conference starts tomorrow.”
“Ok then. See you soon.” She put the kids to bed and slept.
The weather was in a bad mood that night but Mbute was determined to get home. He drove until he got to Soy which is 22km from Eldoret then Maureen’s bladder woke her up. It was 2am. She noticed that he had not arrived. In her grogginess she figured he probably decided to stay over or maybe he had been called back to the OR. Whichever it was, it was not unusual so she peed and went back to sleep. The following morning, she got up, dropped off the kids at school and went back home hoping to catch him before he went for the conference. But he hadn’t arrived. She tried to reach him on his cell but it was off. “I assumed he was on his way and his phone had probably died.”
At 11am she went to the store to get some things and by now she was dialling him every 15 minutes. She sat at a restaurant to have lunch and started to wonder where he was. ‘Maybe he decided to drive straight to the conference,’ she figured. He was a stickler for time. “But then again I told myself, if he had gone straight to the conference he would have borrowed a friend’s phone and called me. I had a sinking feeling at the bottom of my gut that something was off. It would grow, trying to make me anxious but I would swipe it away.” Even then a thought swept across her mind, ‘What if something has happened to him?’
And she would rebuke herself for having such negative thoughts.
By 4:30 pm, she was on edge. She got up and went to the conference to look for him. “Have you seen Mbute?” She asked the first person she saw.
“No.” Was the repeated response from everyone she asked. The bad feeling came back and this time she let it settle. Something was definitely wrong. “I thought he had either been involved in an accident or been robbed. He had a habit of traveling with wads of cash sometimes so robbery was definitely a possibility.” But still somebody must know where he is, she thought. So she scrolled her phonebook and called his workmates who said, “He left the hospital yesterday for home.” More disturbing news.
A friend of hers advised that they should go to the nearest cops station to file a missing persons report. There, the cops were a whole different ball game.
“Are you sure he is not with another woman?” One asked her.
“That one must have another wife in Kitale.” Another said.
They stuck to this narrative saying this was a common occurrence with other men. They would disappear for a day or two only to be found frolicking with other women.
The process of reporting was more frustrating than Mbute’s disappearance. It got to a point she told them, “I don’t really care if he is with another woman. I just want to know where he is!”
During this back and forth she didn’t realise her friend had been called aside by one of the cops. She finished giving her statement and went to wait outside on a bench. She was bone tired; they had been there 3 hours. It was now almost 9pm.
While she sat there, she saw one of his best friends walking in to the station accompanied by his wife. The feeling in the pit of her stomach was now the size of a hot air balloon stretched to the max. She shot up, “What are you guys doing here?”
“Maureen, we are so sorry.”
“For?”
“Yesterday, when Mbute was driving home, he was involved in an accident.”
“Ok. And…where is he?”
“He died.”
The balloon burst and her stomach hit the floor!
“Those words — he died — seemed to linger above us and then dropped on my head like an anvil.” She said to me. “I can’t remember much after that. I just know I became numb. It’s as if someone locked me in a block of ice. I was in pain. I was aware of the pain. But at the same time, I was numb.”
They went back to his friends house where people started pouring in five by five. Soon the place was stifling, crowded with bodies and questions. “I felt like an actor in a movie playing the lead role — only I didn’t know my lines. I didn’t have the script.” People were talking to her, hugging her, asking what happened and she felt like asking them, “Where is the script?”
At some point she got so overwhelmed she decided to go home. “I remembered the kids birthday had just been a week prior and Mbute being Mbute had invited everyone.” They had thrown a huge party and invited people from as far as Nairobi. On the day of the party he was at work but he was able to get off and came home with two big bikes that filled his back seat. Who knew that was the last present he was to give to his girls?
When she went home, she lay on her bed thinking how easily sleep came to her the night before and how after 24 hours the idea of sleep was now a foreign concept. “I thought about my daughters, 9 and 5 years old and wondered what I was going to tell them.”
The following day at 7 am she got up and went to the morgue angry and confused. From the reports, he had been found belted, in the drivers seat of his car, in a river around Soy, at 1am. And was brought to the morgue of the hospital where she worked! Surely somebody must have recognised him! Why had it taken so long for anyone to call her? Or were they mistaken? Maybe it wasn’t him. She had to see for herself.
When she got there, she was directed to the cold room. “As soon as I got in, my hope were dashed.” The sight of him seared her heart on a pan. He just lay there — silent. She walked to him and tried to rouse him. He looked as if he was taking a nap. She looked at his body from top to bottom and everything was intact except for a bruise on his forehead. What kind of accident was this? “Why now Mbute, why? When we have put in so much work to finally be together. Why?” She shook him.
On the way home from the morgue, she was plagued by thoughts of what to tell the kids. Good thing, the people around her had taken to thinking for her — because she was still frozen in time. A friend got a counselor who accompanied them and helped break the news to the children. “I remember my first born who was 9 at the time cried for what seemed like eternity. She had been very close to her dad.” Imagine how heartbreaking the news was to Maureen — an adult. She couldn’t imagine what it was doing to a child.
The next two weeks of mourning were a blur. Being a peoples person meant the house was always full. Maureen just existed. Her only work was to ensure her chest kept rising and falling. Anything else was too much. Thank God for her friends, relatives and colleagues who came through for her. She would stumble upon committee meetings and wonder who they were talking about? She was physically present but mentally stuck. Frozen.
“Luhya funerals are a spectacle. One, that Mbute hated.” The topic of death was one they had glossed over before. Whenever he brought it up she would brush it away and he would say, “But you know we are no more special than the next guy who has died. I am not afraid of death. The only thing I do not want is to be paraded around the way our people like to do. In fact cremate me if I die before you.”
“Why are you talking like this?” She would say. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Yet here she was in the midst of it. And the one thing he did not want, is what happened. “I know he was loved by many. I can’t even count the number of patients who called me to talk about him.” So his casket was paraded from place to place. From the church, to their house, to the hospital where he worked and finally to Bungoma — his rural home where the display continued for two more days. At daybreak his coffin would be removed from the house where he would stay until the day turned grey then they would put him back in the house. By the end of the second day, he was crying. At least that’s what Maureen thought. Or maybe he was thawing.
Whatever it was, fluid was seeping from somewhere onto his face. He looked like he was sweating after a workout. “I tried to wipe his face but after a few minutes, beads of water would reappear. This really broke my heart.”
On Saturday morning — the day of his burial — the sky was scrubbed fresh and stark blue. Her body felt leaden from all the anguish.The home was packed to the brim. After lowering the casket, they covered the grave and started to cement it. She stood there with her daughters, their faces wet, their noses filled with snot and tears. Each time she heard the shovel pick some cement and throw it on the grave, a knife sliced through her heart and she bled.
After she left the graveside, all cried out she had a sense of relief that people did not have to stare at him anymore. He had rested in peace.
After a few days, they went back home. That was when the real work began. The block of ice that had numbed her for two weeks suddenly melted. The reality of Mbute’s absence smashed down on her with the force of a head on collision. “It felt like bees had wandered into my chest cavity and it stung. When I opened the door to our house I heard an ugly guttural noise like that of a wounded animal and realised that I was the one making the noise.”
She would look outside her window and see casual labourers pushing carts, people walking and driving along the street, kids going to school and she would get enraged. Didn’t people know she had lost a husband at just 33 years? Why was the world still in motion? Why was the sun still shining when she was engulfed in darkness?
Three weeks later she was now left alone — with her children. It was then that she thought she had heard his car drive in. But she knew it wasn’t him. She had last seen his car floating in the river thanks to social media. The picture had been forwarded so many times and despite not wanting to see it, it was everywhere.
One day while languishing in her room she spotted a tennis racket that she had never seen before and it was branded — Joe. “I stared at it wondering whether someone was playing tricks on me.” No one played tennis in their home. She didn’t beckon the tears but they came. They streamed down her face unregulated like tributaries.
Getting out of bed was hard. She would only do so, to drop her kids to school then go back home, lock herself in her room and never open the curtains. She wanted her external environment to match her internal feelings. Sometimes the kids would say, “we miss daddy,” and she had to muster the strength to be there for them and allow them to cry if they needed to.
“That’s how it was for me. I had a crash course in mourning and realised it is non linear. There are days I thought I was ok and then there were days I would cry over a tennis racket or a mechanical problem with the car.” She said. “I would ask myself what I did to deserve this? As if there were people who deserved to be widowed.” She mourned the loss of their dreams like the house they were to start building just a week before he died. His disappearance from her life had been so swift and its permanence so unimpeachable that she sometimes couldn’t access the pain.
When the memories threatened to suffocate and swallow her whole, she decided to move house. She felt the only way to accept that life as she knew it had changed was to move. “Packing his things was one of the hardest things to do. I wanted him alive so badly if only to pack his own clothes.” Funny, his relatives asked for those very clothes; saying it was customary to have them. So she kept a few things for herself and her daughters and gave them everything else.
After staying out of work for two months, Maureen went back. And it helped her. Having something to do, gave her respite from the sadness. It is now five years since that fateful day. Her sorrow is now irregular and when she stumbles into it, it’s not as acute as it was the day Mbute died. She feels she has reached acceptance but that doesn’t mean she is happy about it. “I still feel every molecule of my loss. His voice, as solidly built as his body, his smile, his optimism, and his perfect contagious energy. I especially feel for our daughters who have to grow up without a dad.”
Thank God for one lady — Njeri Kaberere — a stranger who looked for her, called her and spoke to her for over two hours. She too had lost her husband in a tragic way while still pregnant and her words breathed hope into Maureen’s heart. They have never spoken again but her words have lingered.
Now, whenever she hears of a young widow she tries to reach out to them because someone reached out to her and gave her hope.
“That is why I am sharing my story. To encourage someone not to lose hope; and to honour a great man.”
Narrated to me by Dr Maureen Ochieng | https://medium.com/@medroomeyes/the-racket-branded-joe-c901a780d066 | [] | 2021-03-16 20:57:14.659000+00:00 | ['Grief And Loss', 'Widowhood'] |
4 Mindful Tips to Increase Your Productivity and Happiness | 4 Mindful Tips to Increase Your Productivity and Happiness
These four practices will help you maximize personal and professional growth by connecting these not-so-distinct parts of life
Photo by Cathryn Lavery on Unsplash
Productivity is all about integration. Most people divide several aspects of their life into distinct categories and then find themselves short of time to allocate to each component.
No matter your goals or level of motivation, there are only 24 hours in each day. So when it’s all said and done, the amount of time you spend working towards your goals never feels like enough to make the progress you desire.
I know what it’s like to have a lot of things on your plate all at the same time.
Like the rest of you, I recognize what it feels like to have an exponential list of tasks to complete, pressure mounting from all directions, and the physical, mental and emotional fatigue that comes with trying to achieve your goals.
So, how can you both achieve your dreams, continue to climb the ladder at work, and maintain healthy relationships all while enjoying each moment?
The answer is simple: integrate.
Read the list below to discover four ways to integrate your life, achieve your goals, and increase productivity.
1. Maximize efficiency during transitions
The election’s over — stop wasting your precious time scrolling through social media.
Instead of getting frustrated and overwhelmed when you have too much to do and are failing to achieve your personal and professional goals, examine how you spend your time.
So often we numb ourselves and try to make ourselves feel better by playing games on our iPhones when we could be enriching our lives.
Short-term dopamine prevents long-term goals.
If you commute via a train or bus to work, you’d be surprised how quickly you can read a book when you use that time to read. If you drive, you’d be amazed at how much new information you can learn through audiobooks. And if you’re working from home, you’d be astonished by how effective your peace of mind can become if you practice mindfulness — even in brief moments.
When waiting in lines, stop opening social media apps, and start checking and returning email.
If you’re stuck in traffic, stop wasting energy getting angry at things you can’t control and start engaging in mindfulness meditation.
Take charge of your transitions and start adding value to your life.
2. Re-frame your tasks and responsibilities into opportunities for growth
Appreciate the challenge!
If you want to start getting things done, you need to stop complaining about how much is on your plate and start viewing each challenge as an opportunity for personal and professional growth.
Start gamifying your tasks.
Praise yourself each time you complete something — no matter how small. These small celebrations will help you build momentum and get more done each day.
While you may have more things to do than is realistically achievable, you can lesson the mental and emotional strain by focusing on how much you’ll learn from each task and how each small detail connects to your larger goals.
3. Integrate your professional and personal lives so they are no longer separate categories
For me, this involves choosing to read books that also help me become a better psychologist.
It means enjoying my exercise while improving my physical health and increasing my energy throughout the day. It means meditating for my mental health, which also improves my ability to focus for long periods of time. It means writing articles that bring me happiness and further my professional growth.
Make your personal goals fit into your professional goals.
Instead of thinking about your life as separate categories with no overlap, start finding ways to connect your various interests and goals into a common web so that when you’re doing one task for fun, you’re also adding value to your professional aspirations.
Integration takes time and practice, but the result is maximum productivity and greater enjoyment of each moment.
4. Know when to hit the reset button
Learning when to disconnect and recharge your mental, physical, and emotional batteries is one of the most valuable skills a productive individual can have.
As a cofounder psychologist, it’s all too common for high-achieving clients to run themselves into the ground and then wonder why their productivity is dropping and they aren’t getting enjoyment out of their lives anymore.
The truth is, you can only learn when to hit the pause button by pushing yourself and expanding your stamina.
At the same time, it’s important to listen to your intuition and your body when they say enough is enough. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is take a few days off and start fresh. | https://medium.com/wholistique/4-mindful-tips-to-increase-your-productivity-and-happiness-3c490afaca57 | ['Dr. Matthew Jones'] | 2020-11-12 07:28:52.688000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Psychology', 'Productivity', 'Personal Development', 'Time Management'] |
2020’s Honorable Mentions | For the albums that *just* missed my yearly list.
Every year when I write my top albums list, there are a few records about which I end up having very little I want to say. Normally I’ll either drop them from the list entirely, or eke out some mediocre blurbs and try not to think about it. Neither solution is optimal. So I figured that this year, I should dedicate a segment to those albums which I enjoyed greatly, but wouldn’t feel quite at home on the list proper. Here they are.
Jeff Rosenstock defended his title as pop-punk’s eminent torchbearer with No Dream, another excellent chapter of candy-coated disgruntlement. On a more hardcore stage at the same festival, bagdadski vor came through with a blistering EP entitled Колхида (Kolhida). This one rips.
The New Abnormal is the first time a Strokes album actually made me feel something, probably due to the colorful Rick Rubin production. Also filed under ‘albums my friends liked more than me,’ The Weeknd’s glossy 80s drug binge After Hours was arguably the apex of pop music this year. That Grammy snub is seriously mind-boggling.
There are usually a number of very cool, but sort of innocuous electronic albums every year that I want to quickly recommend. 2020 was no different. For future bass, there was Medasin with RIPPLS, his strongest showing to date. Skee Mask further carved out his aquatic dancefloor niche with two great EPs, ISS05 & ISS06. And for, uh… “electroacoustic,” Nicolas Jaar had another jog through the corner of experimental music he all but owns on Cenizas.
2020 was a strong year for rap: even the honorable mentions are stellar. Though Anime, Trauma, & Divorce isn’t Open Mike Eagle’s best work, it maintains his heartfelt touch and storytelling. Freddie Gibbs’ collaboration with The Alchemist, Alfredo, was about as technically dazzling as you’d expect from that billing. Billy Woods and Elucid put together a fantastic showcase for one of contemporary hip-hop’s most vital scenes with Shrines, the latest in Armand Hammer’s consistent streak.
As usual, there were a couple projects on the outer fringes of genre that I really dug, but couldn’t begin to describe what exactly was great about them. Memnon Sa’s World Serpent is definitely the most badass album about the Egyptian god Aphopis that I heard this year, and Horse Lords made thousands of nerds, including me, Google “totalism” with the polyrhythmic jams of The Common Task.
Lomelda put together a deeply charming blend of indie folk songwriting and house-show slowcore with Hannah, one of the prettiest albums here. Andy Shauf delivered another detailed singer-songwriter concept album with The Neon Skyline, the best poignant rom-com movie of the year that was actually a musical album. After releasing one of my favorite albums ever, King Krule delivered a satisfying iteration on his acid-soaked, tortured indie rock with Man Alive!
That’s all! Listen to some albums, and I’ll see you in a couple weeks for the big kahuna. | https://medium.com/@benjaminryland4/2020s-honorable-mentions-e9c4f17b407f | ['Ben Ryland'] | 2020-12-12 01:43:00.949000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Lists'] |
AYS Weekend Digest 30–31/05/2020 Greece: Vagiachori camp occupied against planned evictions | GREECE: Vagiachori camp occupied in response to today’s planned evictions
The Vagiochori camp in northern Greece, was peacefully occupied by residents protesting against today’s planned evictions, asylum delays and the exclusion of children from education.
According to plans, today the Greek government will start evicting up to 8,300 recognised refugees from mainland camps and Estia houses. While this has been promoted as a way to accommodate people from the islands, no alternative support has been put in place for those who will remain without housing. Furthermore, at the same time, recognised refugees will also lose their cash support, facing homelessness with no help in sight.
The root cause of the problem is that there are very few integration programs available for asylum seekers and recognised refugees: how can you integrate in society and become a productive member of it if you don’t have access to language classes? If nobody explains to you how to get a tax number or how to access the job market? If your children don’t have access to Greek school? (Refugees to Refugees R2R Solidarity Call Centre)
A joint letter has been written by more than 60 organisation to EU and Greek officials. Read it HERE.
In Vagiachori, which during the last months hosted around 770 people, this will mean that around 150 people could be evicted today, EFSYN report.
The remaining 620 say they are very angry because the delay in the asylum application review procedures is such that for many the appointment has been set for… 2022! There are also many complaints about the behavior of the relevant asylum services.
Schooling and healthcare are also key points among the protestors’ demands. Of the more than 200 minors in the camp, around 120 children cannot attend primary school, while local authorities could agree to provide a building and resources for compulsory education.
The national health organisation, despite many calls, is also abstaining from vaccinating children in the camps. | https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-weekend-digest-30-31-05-2020-greece-vagiachori-camp-occupied-against-planned-evictions-bc903088030a | ['Are You Syrious'] | 2020-06-01 11:56:23.085000+00:00 | ['Balkan Route', 'Digest', 'Turkey Greece', 'Refugees', 'Pushback'] |
Why Don’t All Wonderkids Succeed? | Photo by Isaiah Rustad from Unsplash
Wonderkids are usually hyped up to be the next big thing. Often compared to current stars who are seen as their natural future progression, these young athletes have introduced themselves to the world by showing glimpses of their potential.
However, the unfortunate truth of the matter is that not all of them are able to carry on their youth form into their senior careers, with some even disappearing into obscurity. Hence, this article will analyse some of the factors involved that affect their performance as they progress to the senior team.
(While this article is mainly focused on football, it can also be extrapolated to other sports as most of these points would still be relevant.)
Physicality
The first is the physical factor, which can be deceptively important. Many youth athletes compete in similar age groups because of this reason (for example, playing with the under-17 or under-19 teams), but may find it hard to adapt when it’s time to transition to the senior team.
They’re suddenly faced with other players who are bigger, stronger, and even faster than they are due to the longer period of time they have spent as an active athlete, resulting in those youths sometimes being unable to cope.
While some players are definitely physically stronger than their older counterparts, dealing with them might be a different story altogether. A pacy winger might be able to sprint past a couple of players, but might not be able to handle a tough-tackling veteran defender, or a muscular centre back might be able to perform good clearances, but might lose aerial duels to hardened midfielders when defending corners.
Expectations
Most youth athletes will have a certain reputation when they’re promoted to the first team, and that results in the manager having certain expectations of them when they step onto the pitch.
While it is understandable that they might not perform at the same level, they are still expected to play to a desired standard. Otherwise, they’ll be dropped before they even have a chance to showcase their potential, especially when the manager decides it’s not worth it to play them over someone more experienced but out of form.
Some players also carry the burden of being labelled as “the next (insert world-class player name here)”, and the weight of those expectations can cause them to crumble under the pressure. This is even more apparent given the increased media attention they face, which can add extra pressure and cause the player to struggle to meet those expectations (for example, Hachim Mastour)
Increased competition (due to changing objectives)
Upon promotion to the senior team, a wonderkid is no longer competing with his peers in the youth team for a place in the lineup, but also with other first-team players and rotational players (most teams include a few youth and reserve players in the team sheet as emergency cover and bench warmers).
Additionally, they are also facing more competition from other players worldwide who have similar playing styles or positions. If a manager is unsatisfied with their performance, they can easily replace them with a new rising star or even a key player from another club.
This is because the objectives have changed since the wonderkid was in the youth team. Then, it’s more about giving them opportunities to gauge their abilities and bringing out the best in them. However, the objective of the first team is to win. This encourages the manager to build the best team to achieve that, (over giving debuts to youngsters to build experience) and if it means selling off that player to fund someone better (regardless of experience, technical skills, or pace etc), the manager is likely to do so.
This increased competition means that they might not be able to stand out in contrast to those players, especially since they usually lose out in the experience department. This also ties in similarly with the next factor.
Playing time
Arguably the most important of the factors, playing time is the essential cog in the machine that ensures that youth players get the experience they need to perform when they finally make the starting lineup.
Most managers will give their youths a chance during cup games or “dead rubber” games (games with no consequences regardless of the result), which is where each player has to try their best to impress them. However, those handful of games are usually not enough to aid their growth.
This can cause some of their careers to stall, especially if they’re constantly warming the bench. This is where loan moves come into play, but sometimes dropping down the leagues might also put a cap on their growth and future ability, resulting in them not hitting their potentials.
There is also the case of “overplaying” a player and causing them to hit their peak early, resulting in an earlier decline, possibly before they even reach the heights expected of them (such as Michael Owen, or so he claims).
Hence, this is the most delicate factor that must be accounted for so managers get the most out of each player.
Mentality
Another important factor is the mentality of the youth players when they finally gain promotion to the first team and make their big debut. It’s a huge step up in their career and this can cause them to struggle with nerves when it’s time to step onto the pitch.
Even something as simple as misplacing a pass or letting an opposing player get past is enough for the manager to think twice about giving them another opportunity, and this can cause the player to lose confidence in their ability, sending them into a downward spiral that can be detrimental in the long term.
Most players would be able to overcome this after a couple of games, but if they continue to struggle with their mentality issues, it is unlikely they’ll be making any more appearances for that team.
However, there is also the issue of dealing with media outlets (a factor that affects all players). Wonderkids would gain more media attention due to their young ages, and this can result in scrutiny for their every action, ranging from huge praise if they perform to unforgiving backlash if they don’t. If they are unable to deal with being in the spotlight, the consequences would be similar to the above-mentioned points, and their confidence would decrease along with their form. | https://medium.com/top-level-sports/why-dont-all-wonderkids-succeed-6d0806bb02d0 | ['Dylan Chia'] | 2020-12-22 09:44:28.635000+00:00 | ['Youth Sports', 'Sports', 'Listicles', 'Youth', 'Training'] |
Why Do All These Women Keep Accusing Me of Sexual Harassment? | Hi. My name is Brad. You may not have heard of me before, but don’t worry, I’m rich.
As a successful venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, I’ve helped launch some of the most innovative startups in the tech industry. The creme brûlée cruster? Yeah, that was me. Listen, I’m changing lives.
Obviously I’m a smart guy, but one thing I can’t for the life of me understand is: why do all these women keep accusing me of sexual harassment?
Sure, I slept around in college, who didn’t? And yeah, I might’ve been called a “creeper” a time or two, but who hasn’t? And yeah, I use my position of power to get laid, but who wouldn’t?
I think the most important thing you should know about me is that I’m married. Marriage changed my life, mostly because it made all my friends think I’d become a new person who stopped trying to get laid all the time. Getting married was a brilliant strategy on my part. I talk about my wife all the time, she’s the first line of my Twitter bio so people know they can trust me. I talk about my family constantly so I look like a good guy who doesn’t sleep around.
So why are all these women openly accusing me of sexual harassment? I’m a businessman. I take meetings all day long, sometimes in the office, sometimes at a restaurant, sometimes at your house for a drink after dinner to talk more about this funding you need. That’s normal.
I help women. My hand on their knees under the table lets them know I’m on their side, I’m with them.
Do I want them to fuck me? Sure I do. Will it affect whether or not I fund their company? Yes, it will. Does that mean I don’t respect them? No! Well yes. But it’s not personal, it’s business.
All these women want to be treated differently. They want to be put in some special category because they’re “female founders”. And I do put them in a special category, I call it my spank bank. Ha! That’s a joke. Lighten up.
This one chick said she didn’t appreciate my advances. But she appreciated that advance check I gave her, didn’t she?
As far as I can tell, these women are harassing me. Would they be trying to get to know me if I didn’t have money? How shallow is that? Why do they show up to meetings wearing pants and blouses and earrings if they weren’t interested in a little something extra? Haven’t they ever heard of the cost of doing business? Yeah it’s called the CDB, look it up. I went to business school.
Okay, maybe I cross the line sometimes. But why belabor it? Move on. Who cares? It’s no big deal. It’s all in your head. It doesn’t matter. What matters is your company, which needs to get off the ground and me, who needs to get off.
It’s not sexual harassment, it’s quid pro quo — another business term you should get familiar with.
So stop accusing me of sexual harassment because honestly, I have no idea what you’re talking about. | https://medium.com/more-or-less/why-do-all-these-women-keep-accusing-me-of-sexual-harassment-74f572e4e381 | ['Sarah Cooper'] | 2018-06-07 05:04:02.502000+00:00 | ['Venture Capital', 'Feminism', 'Humor', 'Satire'] |
Musings of a Working Mum: Manicures and pedicures | Bath time
Initially I was anxious about washing/bathing Little One (LO) for two reasons:
Inadvertent drowning, and Fear he would freeze before we had time to dry him off.
In the early weeks we were “topping and tailing”. This involved washing LO in a container large enough for him to sit in. We’d first clean his head by holding him carefully over the container of water, resting him along my forearm like a rugby ball (hence “topping”). After drying his head we’d sit him in the container and support him while we washed the rest of him (hence “tailing”).
With respect to point (2), I always try to dry LO as quickly as possible to prevent too much heat loss. To help with this we got the baby towels with an inbuilt hood. For people in the know, they can probably do towel origami to make the hood. For me the inbuilt hood is definitely a win and makes everything so much easier.
He is now too large for topping and tailing and now uses a bath that he can sit in, which he loves. He loves to kick the water and splash his Mummy and Daddy – it’s the best ❤️ | https://medium.com/@MOAWM/moawm-manicures-and-pedicures-d77c58ff3889 | ['Musings Of A Working Mum'] | 2020-03-08 15:00:13.650000+00:00 | ['Parenthood', 'Motherhood'] |
Animation principles for UX and UI designers | The 12 principles of animation
In 1981 two Disney animators, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas proposed that all animation consists of twelve basic principles. These principles adhere to the laws of physics mentioned earlier and serve as guidelines to create realistic movement.
These principles are not just applicable to Frozen but have excellent value when applied to user experiences and design as long as we keep the physics in mind.
I've listed these principles along with of Dribbble’s best examples below (in no particular order).
1. Squash and stretch
In nature objects are malleable — their shapes change as they interact with their world. They are able to squash and stretch depending on their composition. Similarly, our interfaces can squash and stretch when they are interacted with. The weight and center of gravity of the component do not change but is merely displaced.
Accordions are a classic example of squash and stretch in interfaces. Credit Scott Brookshire
Squash and stretch is also a useful way to do animations for scale that are less awkward.
In this example by Stan Yakusevich, the character is transitioned through a squash and stretch animation.
2. Anticipation
Anticipation refers to the small actions that lead up to a much larger action. In the wild, a cat might lower its back and pull back its ears in anticipation of pouncing its prey. Anticipation could also be the complete lack of an action such as the dramatic pause before the cat pounces. This anticipation could serve as a warning, be used to entice or create excitement.
In a very similar way, we can use small animations to create anticipation with our users. Hover effects are a great example of this as it indicates to the user that this object (for example a button) can perform a larger action.
I really wish I knew where these clicked to, the anticipation is killing me. Credit Yancy Min.
3. Staging
Staging (or the old adage of setting the stage) involves setting up a scene in order to emphasize characters, objects or events. This could be done in several ways such as lighting, music or camera movement. Staging could also be used to build anticipation.
A classic example of the staging principle in interface design is a loading icon. Not only does this solve a technical problem, but it also lets the user know that the “stage” is literally being set. Furthermore, the actual design of the loader could be used for staging as well; giving the user a glimpse into the type of content they could expect.
This loader by Su is both functional and descriptive for loading an eBook.
Skeleton loading, an extension of the loader icon, is considered a much better loading experience. A “skeleton” of the content to be loaded is shown to the user and then gets filled in as the content loads.
Example of skeleton loading by UI8.
4. Straight ahead action and pose to pose
This principle refers to the way animation is drawn. With straight ahead, you start at frame 1 and draw each subsequent frame. This often results in much better realism and smoothness as you are in control of each subsequent action.
With pose to pose, you might draw the first frame, then the end frame, and only then would you fill in the frames in between.
Most animation in UI today would be pose to pose. As developers, we generally write a static component with CSS, then write the CSS for the animated state and we then toggle this animation with a class or key frames.
5. Follow through and overlapping action
Objects in the real world often consist of multiple moving parts. Cars, people, animals, plants — all good examples. These multiple parts are all affected differently by forces like gravity due to their weight and size. As a result, the same object can have parts that move at different speeds or rotate at different angles. They might also have different levels of resistance due to their size which impacts how long they take to accelerate or decelerate.
In a similar fashion, UI components consist of multiple parts, whether it’s typography, color, shape or spacing. If you are animating multiple parts of the same component it’s important to consider the weight and size each has as well as their relationship to one another. Components that are part of the same group should always animate together, but it’s the subtle differences in speed and acceleration that will make it a good experience.
These fluid animations by Anton Skvortsov tell a story and hardly ever start, move or stop at the same time.
Perhaps the most notorious example of overlapping action is age-old parallax animation.
This second Dribbble shot by Anton Skvortsov is a great example of using follow through and overlapping action in unison.
6. Slow in and out (Easing)
Slow in and out is really just Disney’s term for easing. Objects in life rarely come to an instant halt — they tend to gradually lose momentum and slow down.
Most designers and developers implement easing in their animation already. But do we sometimes go overboard? It’s very easy to mess up an easing curve and this will leave users feeling a bit uneasy. There are great resources for grabbing pre-built easing curves — my favorite being Animista.
The easing on these scroll animations feel natural. Credit Anton Skvortsov.
7. Arcs
In nature things are very rarely animated in a straight line, simply because no one can throw a ball in an exact straight line. Objects in nature often move in what are called arcs. Arcs are essentially the curved path on which a ball would move if you were to throw it.
Generally, interfaces are aligned to some sort of grid system so we tend not to animate components in arcs. In a way easing is the arc that we use as it makes our animations feel as if they are animating on an arc. That said, there is real value in implementing some sort of arc in these animations as they add a sense of natural fluidity. It’s just a case of finding the right opportunities.
The small arc in the initial animation is not necessarily functional, but it does add a smoothness to the animation that brings it back to the real world. Credit Divan Raj.
8. Secondary action
Secondary actions is any action that happens in addition to the main action. These actions are generally used to support the main action. A real world example would be the turning of a wheel as a bicycle moves.
Secondary actions are excellent for giving the user additional information about their actions. Icons in buttons are a pretty common example of this.
This little switch by Oleg Frolov uses a little donut to strip animation to add to the on/off concept.
9. Timing
We've already looked at timing in terms of physics but there is another, much more literal application. Timing could also refer to how multiple animations play out in sequence. Google refers to this quite aptly as an interface’s choreography.
Transition choreography is a coordinated sequence of motion that maintains user focus as the interface adapts.
- Google Material Design
The order in which components animate is a great way to lead a user through a journey. Our eyes react to movement, even on a micro scale.
In this example by Anton Tkachev the user is guided through their journey with subtle animations. The illustration of the human figure animates first, leading your eye into the next section, followed by the additional information and category tags.
10. Exaggeration
Exaggeration (along with solid drawing and appeal) is where animators get to be a bit more creative. The size, shape or movement of an object is exaggerated beyond realism to add emphasis or interest to an object.
This example of 3D touch almost feels like a bursting bubble once it reaches the resistance threshold. This burst is exaggerated by the shapes flying from it. Credit to Voicu Apostol.
11 & 12. Solid drawing & appeal
Both of these, quite simply, refers to how appealing your component or experience is to your user. This comes down to good design, good UI, great experiences and refined animation. | https://uxplanet.org/animation-that-matters-adding-value-to-your-interface-65496fe4c182 | ['Vernon Joyce'] | 2019-07-16 18:49:28.991000+00:00 | ['Animation', 'UX', 'Design'] |
Network Chain — Infomediary, Edge Interactions, and Data+ Network Effects | Net Worth introduced the Infomediary concept as a full-fledged revolutionary business model. Here, I will try to present a lighter version of Infomediary as a function/profession. In the coming decade, Infomediary will resemble the form of apps backed by intelligent algorithms — thanks to the interplay between the biotech revolution and technological revolution. Although such Algorithmic Infomediary (“AIn”) is not the mandate of this post, below is a glimpse of how this might look like (AIn in hypothetical action).
Hypothetical Example — Kindle+
Kindle+ will be empowered with Algorithmic Infomediary, supported with advanced facial recognition software, which can trace your eyes along with every single paragraph, line, and word, and record your facial expressions as well as detect and analyze the movement of every tiny tissue beneath your skin. The AIn can detect the nerve impulses and muscle contractions affecting the size of your pupil with every line you read.
The AIn will provide you with a detailed analysis in an absolute percentage of your understanding based on the level of your emotional and intellectual engagement with the book. The AIn can then reproduce the book (e.g., with only the paragraphs that scored above 80% of passionate engagement.) Next time, when Amazon recommends a book, you will not have a choice but to buy it, since the recommendation will be derived from your inner and impartial emotions.
Amazon’s AIn will redefine the notion “like-minded.” You will be matched with an accurate percentage. For example, you can choose to be matched with someone who read the same book and scored 87% rather than 85% on the like-minded dashboard. I will stop here, but if you want to be enlightened about the future, read the 21 Lessons for the 21 Century by Yuval Harari.
In “Network Chain,” I wanted to draw the attention that in the core of every network effect, there is a vibrant network chain with a uniquely chained (DNA) configuration between the network’s features. With the above genome engineering, I am hoping to introduce a new (mutated) network effect — DATA+ Network Effects — by editing such a configuration. The added plus (DATA+) resembles the introduction of “Infomediary as a function/profession.”
DATA+ Network Effects generates a virtuous cycle of relevant, up-to-date, personalized, and curated data (choices and solutions). The Infomediary will be empowered with a wealth of actionable information that will enable him/her to zero-in between supply and demand. | https://medium.com/swlh/network-chain-infomediary-edge-interactions-and-data-network-effects-ee0a5bf69d04 | ['Khalid Al Madani'] | 2020-08-01 16:08:28.501000+00:00 | ['Collaboration', 'Ecosystem', 'Network Effect', 'Platform', 'Startup'] |
10 Tips For Better Infographic Designs | info-that
Infographics are a great way to share information and data with readers. They’re fun to look at and can be a great way to communicate information quickly.
Here are 10 essential infographic design tips:
Design for the web
The first thing we need to establish is that infographics are for the web. We’re not designing for print. Print infographics can be beautiful and clever, but they tend to include a lot of unnecessary information. Leave out information to help the design work better online.
Use a grid system
Use a grid system to organize the design, but don’t be too rigid. The grid makes it easier to see the infographic as a whole and see how all the elements fit together.
Space things out
Even though the design is going to be seen online, make it easier to digest by giving it some breathing room. The infographics will be seen on a variety of different screens, so be cautious when spacing elements out.
Keep it simple
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Here are some examples of infographics that get the point across in a simple way.
Use contrast
The color scheme plays a huge role in the design of an infographic. Contrast and color of the text and background are important to keep in mind when designing an infographic.
Keep it consistent
Consistency is key with infographic design. Make sure there’s a uniform color scheme, font, and font size throughout.
Add texture
Adding texture to the infographic will make it more interesting. Add a texture overlay to a background to create an interesting effect, or add texture to an infographic element like a chart or diagram.
Keep it simple
While you can use a bunch of different infographic styles, keep it simple. Don’t make things too complicated and overcomplicated.
Test it
This is the most important infographic design tip. Test it. Use the infographic on a variety of different screens to make sure it works on different devices. A lot of infographics look great on a desktop screen but don’t translate well on mobile.
If you’re looking for more help with infographic design, check out this awesome infographic design service*.
Thanks for reading. :) | https://medium.com/@irreverentsoul/10-tips-for-better-infographic-designs-eb62d7f0da4c | ['Irreverent Soul'] | 2020-11-09 23:37:10.351000+00:00 | ['Infographics', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Design', 'Design Tips', 'Marketing'] |
The Things I Learned From Being a Phone sex Operator | I have rarely enjoyed phone sex articles from other operators. I often feel they exploit the men who are clients or even put down the women in the industry. I’m hoping this article might help to change some of the stereotypes.
Being a phone sex operator has been an extremely fun and exciting job for me. But it’s also much more than a job too; it’s also a learning experience. I’m in an environment where I have the chance to discuss all the things you could never discuss at the dinner table or in mixed company. I’ve learned a lot of things about men, about masturbation, and about secret fantasies. But I’ve also learned some valuable life lessons about other people, about business, and even about myself.
I’ve learned that people are more unique than I previously thought. Talking to so many different personalities, working with other women, and servicing men for several years now, I really learned just how unique all individuals are. Tastes in sexuality are vastly different. And sexuality is a very large part of who we are even though most of it we keep private.
I’ve learned that men who call phone sex lines often do so to “avoid” physically cheating on their wives. And further, sometimes men call me to tell me how hot their wives are. I also often hear about great marriages, adoring their children, and fantasies that include their partner. I hear stories from men about how they could never cheat on their beloved wife, but she may not like a certain sex act, hence their call to me.
I have learned how to communicate with others in many different styles. From the passive-aggressive style to the average “Joe” to the non-communicative. I’ve also learned how to understand a caller’s “need” from their communication style. Sex talk is not always the real reason a client calls. Some clients need to feel heard, need to feel special, need to feel understood. I’ve been able to apply this skill to my regular life as well.
I’ve learned that we should not be ashamed of masturbation. Right now, somewhere in the world thousands of people are rubbing one out as you read this. My company gets calls 24/7 and 365 days per year. I always know someone out there is ready to masturbate.
I’ve learned that not all men enjoy porn. Some find it degrading towards women and are put off by some of the images in modern pornography. While others may have certain disabilities that are not represented in porn, and they simply cannot “identify” with it at all. I have spoken to many clients who are blind for example.
I have learned patience to a degree I thought once was not humanly possible. This comes from both hiring women to work for me who have zero computer skills to talking with clients who struggle with social skills.
I’ve learned that running a business is hard work and keeping everything both protected and transparent is a real struggle. The women I hire need their safety/privacy protected and the clients need my business to be honest and upfront.
I’ve learned more than I ever wanted to about Trademarks, Copyrights, and other legal issues.
I’ve learned not to make snap judgments about people. I have dealt with some extremely “difficult” clients. Sometimes I would judge them as rude, mean, or just abrasive. Sometimes I thought they didn’t like me but yet they kept calling. I discovered that once I got to know these men a bit that I could ask them if they were having a bad day or some type of life struggle. Usually, they were. By listening, not judging them, and showing a shred of humanity they always became much “nicer”. And with that, I learned that showing just a small amount of caring to someone can really brighten their day.
I’ve learned that masturbation is a desire that’s best given in to. Sometimes as humans we need release at the darnedest of times. Sexual passion; whether with a partner or as a simple animal urge, needs to be nurtured. Even in times of crisis, our bodies crave to be touched. It’s human nature.
I’ve learned that masturbation is a “cure” for many ailments including exhaustion, mental clarity, boredom, and loneliness. Sometimes we just need to explode in orgasmic fantasy so we can get our minds focused back in reality. We use it as a form of escape and it can release tension. Masturbation is a form of self-care.
I’ve learned that having naughty fantasies usually mean you are intelligent and have a great imagination. Fantasy is normal, healthy, and a lack of it… can make life pretty boring.
I’ve learned that I like men even more than I thought I did when I started! I found out many interesting and intriguing things about the male psyche. I consider myself lucky to learn how to better relate to men in my own personal life through this experience.
I’ve learned that I like to talk. I learned that I like people. I learned that it’s not easy to run a business. And mainly, I learned that I love my work! | https://medium.com/@sexylynnea/the-things-i-learned-from-being-a-phone-sex-operator-49db42f8fd4e | [] | 2020-10-07 14:18:02.540000+00:00 | ['Sex Work', 'Phone Sex', 'Culture', 'Phone Sex Talk', 'Sexuality'] |
What we don’t understand about “productivity vs procrastination” | If you have been anywhere near exams, projects or assignments or any sort of creative work you don’t need to be told what productivity and procrastination mean. What we all want to do at the end of the day is to be better at whatever it is that we do, whether it is studying, working or creating content. Coming out of months long writer’s block I have noticed one thing, that I wasn’t really going through a writer’s block, and not all the writers who claim to be are actually going through one. The fact of the matter is, like many other times I was once again in a cycle of procrastination. Following are the points, why we procrastinate, what we don’t know about it, what is missing in our productivity or at least, the idea of it, and how to make productivity win this match up.
1. Why do I want one more episode and how do I let it be?
Reasons can be various. Mainly, the simplest thing is that you like the shows you watch more than the work you need to do. Now, I know that school isn’t all that fun and homework, definitely not. But here’s the kicker, how often do we notice for how long are we procrastinating and for how many days, weeks or months (RED FLAG) have we been creating this habit of kicking back and doing something that just doesn’t matter?
Once you notice these subtle things everyday you can imagine yourself beating this habit, because just a habit is what it is.
Step two: we need to change our outlook on what self discipline is, thanks to the poets who have glorified pain we think of discipline as something that is painful yet necessary for success at something. Now imagine, if at the beginning of something new you started for making yourself better rather than to get one more star up your collar. Would it make you more willing to do the work it demands? Yes. Now, what little approach did we take here rather than the one that describes self discipline as a painful achievement?
We just swapped the motive from getting better to ace in the environment we exist, to getting better because we want to, which means, out of self love.
Step three: Now that you know that discipline is a projection of self love, your choices will change. You automatically will choose to do the things that you feel passionate about; this step is the one that you will not be able to take if you don’t value self love. Now you can be busy as hell but you will find time for doing what it is that you have chosen to do, and this very act of the need to find time for what you love will make you use your time wisely and hence, more productively.
2. How we misinterpret productivity
It is high time that we stop thinking of productivity as execution. An approach towards productivity that we often ignore is that, it is not simply the amount of work you do, but the amount of honest work. So, copying assignments and completing them just for the sake of it (guilty), isn’t really productivity, you are producing results but not improving yourself. So, in a time of say, ten years if you don’t know a formula for trigonometric use because you copied that particular assignment, you didn’t really do any productive work, did you? So thinking in this way many of you would come to the conclusion that if the work does not have your personal involvement or in creative fields, your own ideas it isn’t really productivity.
Productivity is execution fueled by originality.
3. And Productivity For the win…
Now for the ones wounded in the war, comfortably devouring creative content of others and choking their own potential. Let’s help these procrastinators get up and running, and more and more productive. Thanks to Mr. Charles Duhigg for writing the book “The Power Of Habit”, it is because of this book I have come to know what I like to call “The Holy Cycle Of Habits” described below in pixels.
Cue in the picture above is the trigger that makes you do something, now if you are reading this article you receive two cues, one to procrastinate by doing the various things that you do, well, to procrastinate, and the other is to execute what you have been putting down and procrastinating. What the reward for procrastinating is depends on the activity, but in most cases it usually rounds up to instant gratification (which isn’t really worth the rewards of productive work) where as the reward for being productive is maybe, good grades, better creative input in future, more content, better fitness levels, being recognized or whatever it is that doing the work will bring you.
Now, very often we know the rewards as well as their importance and we get the cues as well but we don’t execute because the task looks too daunting or too boring. What we need to achieve in such cases is what psychologists call FLOW.
It is in easy words, the sweet spot where the difficulty of the task matches with your skill level (better explained by the graph).
Once you achieve this you will notice that you can be productive and procrastinate less pretty easily. But how do we achieve it.
You need to do that by removing the blocks of time from your procrastination schedule when you panic of doing the put down task and actually do it.
Keep removing this block every day and do just the amount of the work or should I say level of work that keeps you on the edge of your seat. As you get comfortable and it seems easy remove another block of time and try to do more but keep it just at the border of your skill set or in this case your capacity to do work.
4. Procrastination throws a wild card
Maybe, just maybe and i feel guilty for writing this, the thing you are procrastinating on can be something that can contribute to your growth. I’ll just add another maybe here, to explain you the scale of how rarely this happens. But such circumstances you can only make a decision if you are self aware and moreover, comparison plays a really important role here. There arises a need to compare the rewards of both sides but the process needs to be honest and not trickery on your own mind. | https://medium.com/@uditsathe/c78ac9c252d7 | ['Udit Sathe'] | 2020-12-27 12:14:29.797000+00:00 | ['Success', 'Habits', 'Procrastination', 'Self Help', 'Productivity'] |
How To Choose A Best Organic Toddler Pillow 2020 | A toddler pillow which also refers to an infant pillow is made for the purpose of providing comfort to your young one.
This is especially when your child is taking a nap or sleeping.
Are you thinking of investing money to give better comfort to your kid?
What are some of the things you can consider to purchase the best pillow for a toddler?
Do you know that your child’s age will greatly determine the kind of pillow you buy?
Well, let’s find out.
How do you choose the best organic pillow for Toddlers
Beware of any allergies you kid could be having
It’s important to know the kind allergies your young one could be suffering from before getting the pillow.
This will help avoid worsening the situation if not aiming at regulating it.
For instance, if your child is allergic to woolen items, then do not purchase such.
But without prior knowledge of the allergy, you may end up purchasing a woolen pillow.
This is going to worsen the health of your child.
Take care of the health of your young one by getting a pillow that improves it.
Do not go for a regular pillow because such are meant for older persons.
An organic toddler pillow is specially made to support the growing needs of your child beside offering comfort.
How Firm and Soft is the Pillow
These two aspects are important for getting the best pillow for your child.
The pillow should be soft enough and also firm to provide the needed support to the child.
Aim for a pillow which has a balance of these two components.
How can you tell that the pillow has a great distribution of softness and its firm?
Press the pillow hard then leave it to regain its original shape.
If it doesn’t go back to its earlier shape shortly, then it isn’t soft enough.
Try pressing it hard; if it doesn’t take any shape, then the pillow could be too firm for you kid.
Guarantee for Satisfaction
Many companies dealing pillows always give guarantees for their products satisfaction.
The guarantee period may range from 90 days from the day of purchase to 3 years.
A guarantee accompanying a company’s product acts as proof of confidence in the product.
This way, a company can ascertain the quality of its product and longevity.
The period for guarantee vary from one manufacturer to another and even the brand.
Products having a longer guarantee period indicates good quality.
As you purchase the pillow for your child, try finding out about the guarantee to help you get the best.
The Pillow’s Outer Covering
A typical pillow cover for toddlers is made of cotton material.
Cotton has two components which can either be organic and simply regular.
Watch for these as your purchase you toddlers pillow and not to make assumptions if not sure.
It is advisable to go for the organic pillow cover as it possesses greater benefits than harm.
Getting an organic cotton cover is a surety that your child won’t have exposure to toxins.
This also includes the bleaches and dyes that might be harmful to the sensitive skin of your little one.
Keep off regular cotton as you may not be safe for your child.
For you to identify an organic cotton cover, look out for a special mark that always accompanies them.
If you happen not to seek help from the shop attendance sure.
Cleaning
Get a pillow with a cover that is washable for safety and hygienic purposes.
Your child will need a continuous clean sleeping environment including the pillow cover.
It’s inevitable for the pillow to get dirty quite often especially when it’s for the toddlers.
The kids will not stop at anything to have all kinds of fun with their pillow.
Therefore, it’s bound to get dirty most of the time.
Kids generally at this stage are very active and thus should be given a chance to explore and learn.
Give them the opportunity to play by getting them a quality pillow that doesn’t get ruined as they play around.
Purchase a pillow that has a washable cover to maintain its cleanliness.
If possible, you can opt for those pillows that are machine washable.
That way it’s even much easier when the time for laundry comes.
Another alternative is getting a pillow with one extra cover or more for ease of cleaning.
Simply keep in mind that whichever option you go for, the comfort and needs of your kid come first.
Hypoallergenic
Most manufacturers aim at producing pillows that reduce allergy-related complications to young ones.
Be on the lookout for the same as most of them have this information well written on the labels.
Sample out and go for those materials that pose less allergic reactions for the safety of your young ones.
Consider the age of your kid as well as you purchase the pillow.
Kids vary regarding how they develop, and therefore there’s no standard age set for that.
As a parent take you time to monitor your child’s sleep pattern and decide when to get a pillow.
Keep regular checks whenever the child is sleeping to ascertain whether the pillow is giving the correct comfort.
If you notice any discomfort, try changing or removing as an alternative solution.
Conclusion
It’s important first to ascertain the reasons why you think it’s the right time for your baby to have a pillow now.
Decide when this should happen before setting out to get one.
The bottom line reason should be the comfort, and the children need in general.
For the child’s safety, be cautious of allergies and anything that triggers them.
Have a pillow that is comfortable enough to provide the kind of support and comfort the kid needs.
Ensure that getting a pillow for your toddler is more of a relieve than complications.
Allow your kids to discover new ways of comfortable sleeping by getting them the best organic pillows.
This Article Originally Published at https://www.babyswingcenter.com/ | https://medium.com/@tiffanywilliam1120/how-to-choose-a-best-organic-toddler-pillow-2020-50267773c942 | ['Tiffany Williams'] | 2020-04-19 13:42:25.549000+00:00 | ['Kids Toddler Pillow', 'Baby', 'Toddlers', 'Toddler Pillow', 'Baby Care'] |
Brazilian COVID-19 Plague Journal: Freudian principles of reality and pleasure | Brazilian COVID-19 Plague Journal: Freudian principles of reality and pleasure
Each of us is now forced to find a way to live with isolation. The other option, going out on the street pretending that the pandemic does not exist or is harmless, is out of the question.
My way of structuring the routine is still interesting. Maybe it can say more about me than I think.
When I wake up I turn on the internet and disconnect the cell phone from the charger. I then give it time on Twitter to see what the general trends of the day are: what is being discussed and how?
Breakfast, brushed teeth, I let my imagination run wild. When it fixes on something relevant I start to write about the issue, which may or may not relate to the trend of the day. But the issue is invariably penetrated by the pandemic and its consequences.
When the text is finished, I leave it resting and go to work on the balcony. I believe that thirty minutes of sunshine a day are indispensable. Caressed by the sun's rays, I am calmer, I can even forget the inconvenience of isolation.
A woman vigorously scrubs the sidewalk at the entrance to the building in front of mine. Another walks down the street typing on her cell phone. She stops in the middle of the street. A white car stops behind her. From the sidewalk a masked man, probably her husband, shouts:
- You are in the middle of the street hindering traffic.
Without stopping typing, the woman lets the car pass her. Then she returns to where she was when it was contradicted. Conscious or not, her act of re-typing her cell phone in the middle of the street reveals a tension between her and her husband. I suppose if this tension is not dissolved it can lead to a rupture.
Hobbes represented Leviathan as a great man made up of little men. He seems to have sensed that States are condemned to not be too different from the people who compose it.
States tend to return to where they were. The political disruptions that occur within it are also caused by tensions that could not be resolved.
The pandemic causes some tensions. Others it will inevitably suppress. At this point, the "reality principle" imposes restrictions on the "pleasure principle". The bonus will inevitably be delayed. Only those who respect isolation will survive the pandemic.
This political orgy rehearsed on the streets in favor of the end of the quarantine in USA can be considered a neurosis. It will be cured in one way or another at the appropriate time. An upset woman may reaffirm her decision to use her smartphone in the middle of the street, but if she is run over she cannot blame the husband who warned her about the danger.
The danger for USA is not the pandemic, but the neurotic certainty inspired by Donald Trump in a small portion of the population. He wants the people on the street because he is afraid of not be re-elected, but he will certainly fall if he gets what he wants and causes an explosion of corpses.
At that moment, I finish the first phase of the day on the sofa. Time to go through the kitchen to set and prepare lunch. Before that, however, an invigorating bath. Personal hygiene is an important and pleasurable part of my 'daily work'. | https://medium.com/@fabiodeoliveiraribeiro/brazilian-covid-19-plague-journal-freudian-principles-of-reality-and-pleasure-62e284040e74 | ['Fabio De Oliveira Ribeiro'] | 2020-04-23 15:02:53.746000+00:00 | ['Freud', 'Pandemic', 'Politics', 'USA', 'Brazil'] |
Primer on GPS Data with Strava and Python | First we are going to import a Python library called gpxPy to parse the XML-schema tree. To install this library I ran ‘pip install gpxpy’ in my terminal. https://pypi.org/project/gpxpy/
After opening and parsing the GPX file, we get a GPX object containing tracks, segments, and points. We are only interested in using the points data right now, so after indexing it down we’ll end up with a list of tuples containing GPS updates (this example has 7273 points).
Next we simply take the list of tuples and put them in a Pandas dataframe with columns for longitude, latitude, and elevation. Finally we can plot the latitude by longitude with Matplotlib to get our first visual look at the route.
Where things get really interesting is mapping our route over Google Maps using a different Python library called gmplot. The easiest installation lines for your terminal are ‘pip install gmplot’. https://pypi.org/project/gmplot/
With gmplot, you’ll want to set up the center coordinates for your map display, instantiate a new GoogleMapPlotter object, fit it to your data, and draw the map onto an HTML file.
Voila! I hope you enjoyed this short tutorial example on visualizing GPS data.
N.B. My friend used a Garmin cycling computer to record this route instead of his cell phone. The two differences I noticed between my own GPX data and his are that 1) timestamps were not included by his Garmin in the GPX points, and that is probably because 2) his GPX were updated exactly once per second (7273 points for 2:01:13 elapsed time (121.2167 minutes * 60 seconds / 7273 points = 1.00 seconds per GPS point)). This is advantageous compared to GPX updates from my cell phone which are not as precise because they rely on the connection strength between my phone device & cellular network provider. Therefore one way to assess your more realistic average speed on a bicycle is using a cycling computer instead of a cell phone. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/primer-on-gps-data-with-strava-and-python-cd7c6c1d715a | ['Ryan Richbourg'] | 2020-09-25 13:42:37.266000+00:00 | ['Strava', 'Gps', 'Python', 'Cycling', 'Data Science'] |
Thank you for this. | Thank you for this. I am commenting after reading several previous comments expressing confusion as to why this kind of article is needed. Several comments likened it to putting LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) people “on a pedestal” or trying to say that they were “special.” Commenters said that LGBT people should be seen as equal and therefore nobody should care which historical figures are non-heterosexual.
Well, these comments are *exactly* why these types of articles are helpful. That there is such a strong reaction to merely stating that a smattering of historical figures *may* (based on evidence) have been non-heterosexual suggests that indeed LGBT people are not on equal footing. We know so much about many heterosexual historical figures’ romantic lives: marriages, affairs, dalliances, mistresses, and more. Nobody bats an eye when someone brings up Charles Dickens’ affairs, for example. Dickens’ romantic life is in fact a key part of his biography, as it is for most people. And for those figures, like Alexander von Humboldt, who have a noted lack of romance in their biography, the absence is conspicuous because it is rare that such a famous person could make it through life without others knowing at least some detail about their romantic relationships.
LGBT historical figures are few in number, even less so if we only count those with absolute evidence of their sexuality. It’s not irrelevant to an LGBT person that the detailed intimate information (letters, biographies, newspaper coverage) of LGBT historical figures simply does not exist in most cases — such information was buried to protect the reputation of those people, if it was ever recorded to begin with. It was common, for example, to burn personal letters before or after someone’s death to suppress knowledge of intimate interpersonal details.
This in effect leaves us (all of us) with an incomplete historical record, a skewed outlook on our past, one largely absent of LGBT people. But this is not reality — LGBT of course existed throughout history. If you are heterosexual you will not think about this as much, but think about the a theoretical reverse situation… imagine all of history was LGBT people and the few heterosexual people were relegated to lists like this one. And people in the comments said “why does it matter?” | https://medium.com/@nicklemen/thank-you-for-this-c4c14340af43 | ['Nick Human'] | 2020-12-09 03:23:18.721000+00:00 | ['Lgbt History', 'LGBT', 'History'] |
Project Euler — Problem 46 Solution | Project Euler — Problem 46 Solution
Problem
It was proposed by Christian Goldbach that every odd composite number can be written as the sum of a prime and twice a square. 9 = 7 + 2x12 15 = 7 + 2x22 21 = 3 + 2x32 25 = 7 + 2x32 27 = 19 + 2x22 33 = 31 + 2x12 It turns out that the conjecture was false. What is the smallest odd composite that cannot be written as the sum of a prime and twice a square?
Solution
[code lang=”fsharp”]
let hasDivisor(n) =
let upperBound = int64(sqrt(double(n)))
[2L..upperBound] |> Seq.exists (fun x -> n % x = 0L)
// need to consider negative values
let isPrime(n) = if n <= 1L then false else not(hasDivisor(n))
// generate the sequence of odd composite numbers
let oddCompositeNumbers =
Seq.unfold (fun state -> Some(state, state+2L)) 9L
|> Seq.filter (fun n -> not(isPrime n))
// generate the sequence of prime numbers
let primeNumbers = Seq.unfold (fun state -> Some(state, state+2L)) 1L |> Seq.filter isPrime
// function to check if a number can be written as the sum of a prime and twice a square
let isSum(number) =
primeNumbers
|> Seq.takeWhile (fun n -> n < number)
|> Seq.exists (fun n -> sqrt(double((number-n)/2L)) % 1.0 = 0.0)
let answer = oddCompositeNumbers |> Seq.filter (fun n -> not(isSum(n))) |> Seq.head
[/code]
All pretty straight forward here, the only slightly confusing part of this solution is how to determine if a number can be written as the sum of a prime and twice a square:
Odd Composite Number = Prime + 2 x n2 => n = sqrt((Odd Composite Number — Prime) / 2)
As you know Math.Sqrt works with a double and returns a double, hence to find out if n above is a whole number I had to check whether it divides by 1 evenly | https://medium.com/theburningmonk-com/project-euler-problem-46-solution-a27fa17948b0 | ['Yan Cui'] | 2017-07-03 20:56:46.055000+00:00 | ['Project Euler Solutions', 'Programming', 'Functional Programming'] |
“Brain, wider than the sky” — Neuron Sculpture | We had been quite busy in the last months, due to the deployment of 13 interactive installations for the Brain exhibition in Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, and also the construction of a massive neuron sculpture. This project occupied all of our team members, and we had to change the configuration of all the rooms in our headquarters to be able to develop, test and assemble everything.
This video shows only a tiny part of the efforts that were made to materialize “The Neuron”.
video author: João Ribeiro
Eric da Costa, the mastermind behind this “the Neuron”, did a lot of research around many types of neurons, their behaviour and characteristics. This sculpture should have controllable inside-light, we also wanted it to be reactive to visitors. For the lights, there were different demands, through the different parts of the neuron.
I will try to describe the neuron anatomy. Bear in mind that I am not a neuroscientist, so if any information does not match scientific facts, sorry about that.
Let’s start with the dendrites, they are the branches that connect to other neurons.
These branches “charge” the neuron nucleus, we call it “the core”. It gathers energy until a certain point, when this point is reached it triggers a spike that fires up the axon.
This spike goes through the axon until the terminals.
These terminals connect to the next neuron.
Eric designed the whole piece in 3D, planned how each section should be sculpted, assembled, illuminated, transported and deployed.
Eric also sculpted the whole piece, while João Ribeiro and José Pedro aka ‘Coias’, did a masterwork with fibreglass, assembly, transportation and deployment. | https://medium.com/artica/brain-wider-than-the-sky-f5d7720a5938 | ['Guilherme Martins'] | 2019-06-13 10:16:11.501000+00:00 | ['Neuroscience', 'Technology', 'Art'] |
भारत में शेयर बाजार कैसे काम करता है? How Does Stock Market Works In India? “ EazeeTraders.com | Welcome to eazeetraders.com.! If you would like to know anything and everything about Stock Market and Investment, You are at the right place. | https://medium.com/@eazeetraders/%E0%A4%AD%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A4-%E0%A4%AE%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%82-%E0%A4%B6%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%B0-%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%9C%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0-%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%88%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%87-%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%AE-%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%BE-%E0%A4%B9%E0%A5%88-how-does-stock-market-works-in-india-eazeetraders-com-2b63dbb272f | [] | 2020-12-25 17:00:51.921000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'How Does It Work', 'Stock Market Investing', 'Stocks', 'Stock Market'] |
Armed Forces Bowl Betting Preview | It really seems like Missouri is going to have a bad time in Fort Worth.
Armed Forces Bowl
Missouri (6–6) vs Army (8–4)
Wednesday, 8pm, ESPN
Army -6.5/Total 54.5
Head to FanDuel Sportsbook to take advantage of your $1,000 risk-free bet
Wednesday’s lone bowl game is one bettors have had circled since the bowl matchups were announced. Army comes in at 8–4 and are probably going to be irritated because they played pretty poorly against, and lost to, Navy. It was a pretty good year for a streaky Black Knights team that won four in a row, lost three in a row, won four in a row and then lost to Navy. Four of Missouri’s six wins were against Central Michigan, SEMO, Vandy and North Texas, so not exactly a murderer’s row. They did beat a resurgent South Carolina team and Eli Drinkwitz trolled Dan Mullen after they beat Florida, ultimately ending the Mullen tenure in Gainesville so they have that going for them which is nice. That said, it feels like Wednesday might be a long night for Missouri.
Why might it be a long night? Start on defense. The reason this game was circled by bettors is because the Missouri defense has been a wet paper bag against the run this year. Missouri gives up 228.8 yards per game and almost 5.5 yards per carry. Army is…Army. They’re everything you expect them to be. They ran the ball more times and for more yards per game than any team in the country except their service academy brethren at Air Force. The fun thing about this Army team is that while they barely threw the ball, they’re efficient when they do. They only threw the ball 101 times this year and completed 54 of those attempts, but ten of them went for touchdowns.
On Tuesday it was announced that Tyler Badie was sitting this game out which is bad news because Missouri’s offense is the Tyler Badie show. Badie ran for 1,604 yards at six yards per carry with 14 touchdowns. Badie has five 200+ yard rushing games and four of those have come since October 2nd. He got better as the season progressed and only the very good defenses at Georgia and Texas A&M were able to slow him down over the second half of the season. Badie is also Mizzou’s leading receiver with 54 catches and four touchdown receptions. The quarterback position is a question mark for Missouri. Connor Bazelak has been the starter, but he got dinged up against Vanderbilt and got benched a couple of times late in the season because of turnovers and now Brady Cook is going to get the start against Army. Army has been mostly solid on defense this year. They only allow opposing teams to rush for 3.67 yards per carry. They’re 69th in pass efficiency defense, but they did play Western Kentucky and just couldn’t stop Wake Forest so that probably affected their overall numbers.
This line opened at Army -2.5 and jumped to Army -5.5 if you wonder how the betting public felt about this game and then it jumped another point when the Badie news came out. It’s fair to question Missouri’s motivation and with their lack of run defense it seems like this could be a long night for their defense. This feels like the kind of game where everyone in the world is going to be on Army and they just end up being the right side, but bowl games can be random so beware. | https://blog.fantasylifeapp.com/armed-forces-bowl-betting-preview-f318ba534dd3 | [] | 2021-12-22 13:36:09.681000+00:00 | ['Sportsbetting', 'Collegefootball'] |
When a Rogue Jet Took Over London | Hawker Hunter Jet piloted flying through Tower Bridge, illustration curtesy of ITV
The year of 1968 some of the greatest changes to the United Kingdom’s military force. Due to the new Labour government, many sectors of the armed forces had their funding cut. The most impacted sector was the RAF as the government shifted from manned aircraft to unmanned rockets and drones. This coincides very badly with the 50th anniversary of their funding. As a result, much unrest was caused in the RAF rank and file, which reached a crescendo when the government denied the RAF the funds to host the 50th-anniversary fly over and parade.
Lieutenant Alan Pollock
On the 5th April 1968, Lieutenant Alan Pollock decided that he would take matters into his own hands and celebrate the anniversary in a more special way than the usual flyovers. He took off, unauthorised, from the soon-to-be-closed airbase in Essex called RAF Tangmere and moved towards London. Immediately after takeoff, he turned off his radio and not listen to any radio calls from any control towers, this allowed him to fully concentrate on the plan he had in mind. He would go on to do multiple low flies passes over soon-to-be-closed air bases and multiple Hawker Hunter factories in protest of the pay cuts being received by the RAF. In London Pollock would perform multiple very low passes over the parliament building which highlighted his skill as a pilot due to flying that low being very dangerous, especially in a jet aircraft. To end his display of protest Pollock performed the ultimate show of skill. He initially planned to fly just over the Tower Bridge then return to RAF West Raynham in Norfolk but he made a split second decision to fly under the top span of the Tower Bridge. He would later write this about the event:
“Until this very instant I’d had absolutely no idea that, of course, Tower Bridge would be there. It was easy enough to fly over it, but the idea of flying through the spans suddenly struck me. I had just ten seconds to grapple with the seductive proposition which few ground attack pilots of any nationality could have resisted. My brain started racing to reach a decision. Years of fast low-level strike flying made the decision simple.” — Lieutenant Alan Pollock
After this maneuver, which still stands in the record books as the only time a jet aircraft has been flown under the span of Tower Bridge, the “beat up” (fly at a low level) some more airfields and land at RAF West Raynham in Norfolk where he was formally arrested. Due to the political instability caused by the cuts to the RAF Pollock’s dismissal was covered up as due to “medical problems” which allowed him to skip a court-martial in turn of him keeping silent about the situation, skipping some embarrassment for the government.
Conclusion
This teaches us a great deal about leadership. Bad leadership here led to disdain among the ranks actually materialising and nearly costing the ruling positions of a lot of people in the party. Precautions should’ve been taken to allow such a significant anniversary of one of the most crucial air forces in the world to happen. This is a perfect case study for anyone who wants to know anything about leadership on how nationalism bred in the army will impact your country and how to avoid such revolts in protest of your power to materialise. | https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/when-a-rogue-jet-took-over-london-ca91713a4937 | ['Calin Aneculaesei'] | 2019-08-24 20:33:31.772000+00:00 | ['United Kingdom', 'Army', 'Politics', 'London', 'History'] |
Learning Android Development In 2020 - A Practical Guide | I helped many Android Developers in learning Android Development and getting jobs as an Android Engineer and I will continue the same to help learners in getting started with Android Programming.
Sharing the knowledge, sharing the love
This article is for:
Anyone who wants to learn Android Development but have no idea where to start.
Also for anyone who has already started on Android Development but wants to learn the advanced topics.
Update: I have updated this article in 2021.
The goal is to provide a practical guide on how to learn Android Development in 2021. If this practical guide helps you in learning Android App Development, then my mission will be accomplished.
A complete guide for learning Android App development
Check Android Developer Roadmap on Github
All the Android Free Tutorials by MindOrks
How To Learn Android Development?
Getting started with the Android Development
First of all, you must have a basic knowledge of the Java language for Android Development. Learn the Java language from here [Link to learn Java ]
] Set up Android Studio IDE of Android Development on your PC or Laptop. Refer here.
Take a course or any book on Android app development with which you think you are comfortable. Being comfortable with the course or with the book is very important. When you take the course or read the book, always apply that on a sample app. I mean to say that build something on whatever you read.
Android Development Online Course for Beginners: This course is for beginners for those who want to get started with Android Development. In this course, you will learn Android Development and build two Android Applications: TodoNotes and Ride-Sharing Uber Android App.
Apply Now: MindOrks Android Online Course and Learn Advanced Android
There is no better way to learn something than by doing.
Learning the core of the Android Development
Understand the Activity Lifecycle as having the knowledge of the activity lifecycle is very important when it comes to building a bug-free application.
Understand the Fragment and its lifecycle. It is primarily to support more dynamic and flexible UI designs on large screens, such as tablets.
Learn how to debug your Android application as it is the single most important skill for any developer. Android Studio provides a debugger that allows you to do so many important things.
Know about the navigations, task and back stack. Android Activities are the logical construct of the screens that we want a user to navigate through. The relation that each Activity holds with respect to other is very crucial for good user experience.
Understanding the Context In Android Application. To develop a better Android app, we must know what context is? Context is almost everywhere in Android Development and it is the most important thing in the Android Development, so we must understand to use it correctly.
Learn about the threading in detail. As the Java Virtual Machine allows an application to have multiple threads of execution running concurrently. We must know how to take advantage of multi-threading environment correctly.
Learn about the Threading Performance: Threading Performance 101. (Android Performance Patterns Season 5, Ep. 1)
Understand Android Threading: Understanding Android Threading. (Android Performance Patterns Season 5, Ep. 2)
Learn Memory & Threading: Memory & Threading. (Android Performance Patterns Season 5, Ep. 3)
Understand Threadpools: Swimming in Threadpools. (Android Performance Patterns Season 5, Ep. 6)
Learn how to handle the configuration changes. Some device configurations can change during the runtime such as screen orientation, keyboard availability, and when the user enables multi-window mode. We must know how to handle these changes.
Know about the 3rd party libraries. We have Mindorks Android Store to browse through all the important Android libraries, projects, tools, and apps. Compare them with their GitHub stars.
Understanding the Android Core. Looper, Handler, and HandlerThread are the Android’s way of solving the problems of asynchronous programming. They are not old school, but a neat structure on which a complex android framework is built.
Learn about Service and IntentService. A service is a component that is used to perform operations on the background such as playing music, handle network transactions, interacting content providers etc. It doesn’t have any UI (user interface).
Explore when you should consider using ArrayMap for better performance of the Android application.
Learn about the tools to get the metrics of memory usage, CPU usage, and etc. There are a few metrics that you should measure continuously while android application development.
Learn about location and maps.
Learn about creating Custom View. To develop a better Android app, we must know how to create custom views.
Always focus more on learning techniques not so many frameworks. This helps in the longer run. As an example, I wrote on: How The Android Image Loading Library Glide and Fresco Works?
Practical Guide To Solve OutOfMemoryError in Android Application
Holding reference of objects that are not required anymore is a bad practice, freeing object’s reference after being served is helpful for the garbage collector to kill that object, that eventually helps yourself in memory leaks issues. If you keep objects reference unnecessarily, it only leads to memory leaks. Learn how to detect and fix the memory leaks in the Android application.
Learn about the performance patterns in Android applications. How to improve the performance of your application.
Learn Garbage Collection in Android: Android Performance Patterns: Garbage Collection in Android
Learn about Invalidations, Layouts, and Performance.
Understand Android UI and the GPU.
Understand Android Performance Patterns: Why 60fps?
Understand Android Performance Patterns: Tool — Profile GPU Rendering.
Understand Bitmaps. As it takes a huge amount of memory, can lead to OOM easily. Users love content! Especially when the content is well formatted and looks nice. Images, for instance, are extremely nice content, mainly due to their property of conveying a thousand words per image. They also consume a lot of memory. A lot of memory!
Learn the Android Architecture Components.
Learn about writing tests.
Learn RxJava. Nowadays RxJava is a must for developing an Android app.
Learn Kotlin.
Learn Kotlin Coroutines.
Learn about the dependency injection, Dagger.
Learn about Android Jetpack. Google released Android Jetpack. Android Jetpack is built to make app development fast. It is the next generation of Android components which brings together the benefits of the support library, backward compatibility and immediate updates to a larger set of components. Android Jetpack manages activities like background tasks, navigation, and lifecycle management, so you can eliminate boilerplate code and focus on what makes your app great. Android Jetpack is designed to work well with Kotlin, saving you even more code with Android KTX.
Learn about MVP architecture.
Learn the Data Structures
Learn how to apply proguard in an Android application. It is a tool used to minify the code, obfuscate the code, and optimize the code which reduces the size of the application.
Read about the security tips to build a secure Android application.
Know about the Android Useful tools. As we all are fortunate to live in a world where everyone builds a tool to help each other. These tools make the development fast and our life easier. Do not forget to explore and use these tools.
Read others code. This is the best thing a developer can do and learn to code in the best way. I personally feel that I have learned a lot from the code of the open-source apps.
Know about the Android development best practices.
Learn Git. It is a version control system for tracking changes in computer files and coordinating work on those files among multiple people.
Learn the fundamentals of Git and GitHub from here.
Know how to improve your code with lint checks
Know about the Gradle Build Tool.
Contribute to open source projects. I love open source. It has really helped me a lot to improve myself. So, start contributing to open source.
Know about Continuous Integration. Continuous integration ensures that your code is building on a server that is not your own machine. Use CI like Jenkins, Circle CI, Travis, and etc.
Become more productive in android with android studio plugins.
Always be updated with the new technology in Android. If you miss it, you simply miss it. The best way to be always updated is to join a community or follow some twitter accounts. You can join Mindorks Community as we always keep posting new things in the Slack group.
Link to join the Mindorks Community on Slack.
We also post updates on Twitter about all the new things in Android. So, follow us on Twitter.
Mindorks Facebook Page.
Open this link and subscribe to the channel and become a part of the largest learning revolution.
Also, hear the android developer backstage podcasts to know about the awesome things happening in Android.
Watch and learn about the Android Performance Patterns from the series of video directly from the Android Developers Channel.
After all. If you want an awesome job, prepare for the job interview from here.
MindOrks has also started a video series on How to prepare for Android Interview?
Check here.
Check All Free Android Tutorials By MindOrks.
Learn to build a ride-sharing Android app like Uber, Lyft.
Last Step:
Bookmark this article to refer again, learn Android App Development, and become a better Android Developer.
Happy Learning :)
Want to know more about me? Visit amitshekhar.me. | https://medium.com/mindorks/learning-android-development-in-2019-a-practical-guide-ddc71e008696 | ['Amit Shekhar'] | 2021-01-02 04:16:16.860000+00:00 | ['Android Apps', 'Android', 'Android App Development', 'Android Development', 'AndroidDev'] |
100 Words On….. Actions | Photo by Jefferson Santos on Unsplash
There are two crucial steps in achieving adequate cyber security. The first is moving from ignorance to awareness. The second is moving from awareness to action. Many would agree that getting the visibility we lack is critical, making the first step achievable through awareness activities, education, and readily-available tools. Unfortunately, achieving the second step can seem impossible when, despite having all the information before us, we fail to act, rendering the achievement of awareness moot. Knowing where you are does not guarantee knowing how to get where you need to be, but we must begin somewhere to eventually arrive there. | https://medium.com/the-100-words-project/100-words-on-actions-28dbf4bca03b | ['Digitally Vicarious'] | 2020-12-16 23:26:55.386000+00:00 | ['Information Technology', '100 Words Project', 'Cybersecurity', 'Awareness', 'Ignorance'] |
How Responsive Web Design can grow your Business | Over the years, responsive web design has become the need of everyone. If you still do not have a responsive design, you are really letting your audience dislike your website.
Just imagine, you open a website on your phone and what you get is super zoomed in and low-quality webpage.
You may definitely leave that website and look for another one. That is where responsive websites play a role and make your online presence better and give you a good quality result from your website.
Recently survey data shows that the mobile web has grown a lot and people now like to surf websites from their phones only.
Let us go deep into it,
So, what is Responsive web design? Why do you need it? What are the benefits and importance of responsive web design?
What is Responsive Web design?
Responsive web design means making your site flexible so that whether it looks like on the web, it also looks pretty on the Ipad and iPhone.
In simple words, it is a method of designing a website that provides a good visual experience across a wide range of devices from desktop to mobile and tablets.
This would be a helpful blog for those of you who are just getting started building websites whether it’s a design or development and make sure you have a firm grasp of the basics before you get started.
Do you miss the days of pinching and zooming in your mobile browser on old-school websites? Weren’t those were classy designs? Lol! I am just kidding. It was so bad to even imagine those designs now.
Firstly, you have to know about the difference between responsive and adaptive web design.
Responsive web design makes your website look good on every device. This web design has been designed to respond according to technology and the type of device that the user uses.
Adaptive web design, on the other hand, is just going to adapt to various sizes.
There is no problem with any of these. It depends on you which design you want to go for.
Why do you need a responsive website?
Nowadays, the users of the smartphone have grown very fast. In 2014, only 22% turned to their phone first to browse the internet. Only 20% of people even have a mobile.
Since the 4G and other technologies have come, people are using more mobile devices. Throughout the year, 4G subscriptions increased from 2.9 million to 23.8 million (approx).
Within a few years, the mobile web has increased a lot and has overtaken desktop and laptop web surfing.
Through this, you can imagine how sudden changes happen in the world. Because of this, it becomes a must to invest in responsive web design.
If you are looking for a web design agency in London or how to grow your business, then you can contact us and get started with free samples that our designers will prepare for you.
Benefits and Importance of Responsive web design
Although there are many reasons, we do not want you to get bored reading all. We have taken the 6 most important reasons for selecting a responsive design for your website.
1. Google Recommended
This is one of the main reasons why you should have a responsive website. A few years ago, Google announced that having a responsive web design will improve the SEO and ranking of a website.
Google also prefers a single URL. It makes it easy to crawl and index content in your domain.
It improves user experience and good user experience is a really important factor to rank your website according to Google algorithms.
2. Easy to maintain
In 2018, when mobile browsing first time became a priority, the popular solutions involved having separate desktop and mobile sites. That used to take double maintenance and updates.
But, now it has become easier to maintain a website because of the single URL. Now the websites can be accessed from every device.
3. Improved Search Rankings
As you have read, Google stated that responsive design improves SEO, but Google also suggested that mobile-optimized responsive sites are certainly featuring in localized search results.
It has a vast significance to street retailers and local businesses because a responsive design can improve their website ranking and help them in business growth.
4. Save Time and Money
Having a responsive website will save a massive amount of money and time.
It saves time as you don’t have to look for another web designer for a mobile website and also there will be less maintenance and
And it saves money because the cost for developing and maintaining one website is less than having two. You can invest that saved money elsewhere such as on SEO of the website.
5. Conversion rates
Lower bounce rate and good SEO ranking result in higher conversion rates.
When you mix user experience and seamless navigation between the pages of your website, then no one can stop you from getting success in the online world.
When you make your website that is easy to use for your audience and you provide them with valuable content that they are looking for, then they can get converted from the audience into a customer.
6. Improve online presence of users
Responsive web design gives a better user experience on every device. Users do not have to zoom or shrink the text and images on the screen. The text and images get automatically adjusted on the screen of the devices. It makes it easier and convenient for users to read and navigate your site.
Here are some points why.
a) Google insights say that if a user comes on your site and does not see the content they want, then 70% chances they leave your site.
b) When the user has a good experience and is satisfied, then there is a 60% possibility that he or she will buy the product or service from your site.
c) According to Google, if your website does not load fast, then users feel that you are not caring about your business and won’t care about themselves too.
d) It helps to increase social shares and improves SEO score.
In Conclusion
Responsive web design plays a vital role. It has more value than dynamic web pages or another mobile web design. Another thing is that Google also prefers responsive websites so that Google’s robots can crawl it easily and improve the website’s SEO.
Finally, you learned that responsive web design improves user experience and decreases the bounce rate of your website. It helps to make your website attractive and build a good image in the user’s mind. | https://medium.com/@technobelieve/how-responsive-web-design-can-grow-your-business-2e6a795a456b | ['Techno Believe'] | 2021-01-22 22:55:40.246000+00:00 | ['Website Designing', 'Responsive Website Design', 'Responsive Design', 'Website Design', 'Responsive Web Design'] |
Houston, we have a solution. | In 2017, Hurricane Harvey became tied for the costliest hurricane to batter the United States. The damage amounted to $125 billion, 106 American deaths and the loss of livelihood from destruction caused by Harvey. Even at the mercy of earth’s changing climate, Houston’s leadership still clings to its reputation as an oil-driven city. Fossil fuels will become our undoing if we cannot act to uncouple our relationship with the petroleum industry, which puts profit over our lives.
Houston-area representatives such as Lizzie Fletcher and Sylvia Garcia continue to take thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry while refusing to support a Green New Deal. Not supporting bold climate action is a matter of life or death for our city, a true representative or local official would understand that as the reality of Houston.
Accepting money from the industry directly responsible for climate inaction, rapid climate change and simultaneously poisoning our water and air is just the beginning of how our state and local leadership has failed us.
Houston, and those of us that call it home, is under threat.
We are under threat because as we breathe everyday, Houston ranks as one of the worst cities for air pollution and air quality.
We are under threat because as we try to build our lives, hurricanes, tropical storms and floods that are increasingly more severe due to warming and rising sea levels devastate our infrastructure and communities year after year.
Our well-being and pursuit of happiness is under threat; It took a pandemic to expose what happens when the cost to take care of our health, our families and basic necessities continue to rise without guaranteed healthcare and increased wages.
We are under threat because as the world is taking climate action and inevitably shifting away from fossil fuels, and if we do not embrace green energy, we will not be able to waiver through oil’s current and future economic downturn.
Houston, we have a problem.
If we do not act, we will lose our home and possibly our livelihoods.
We have under a decade to subvert the worst of rapid climate change. Currently, Houston is the epitome of fossil fuel-reliant culture. Our economy depends on oil’s future. Our infrastructure caters to cars rather than the people. Our urban planning completely disregards building a resilient city, which exposes us to the worst of sea level rise, heat waves, flooding and hurricanes.
What makes a Green New Deal an uphill battle for Houston is precisely why our city has the most to gain and the most potential to have an outsized influence on the fight for our lives and our planet.
Sunrise Movement Houston has designed Green New Deal posters for Houston. The aim is to inspire what a Green New Deal could mean for Houston and show what it could look like.
Houston, we have a solution.
We want to live up to our “Space City” reputation and showcase that we can be the center of innovation and societal advancement again. Our issue is clear. We need to reduce our carbon emissions as much as possible over the next decade. With president-elect Biden on the verge of taking office, our city can display what the future of our planet and country could look like.
This is our solution
To transform our title as the “energy capital of the world” to the “sustainable energy capital of the world.”
To give our working families, especially those employed by the oil and gas industry, guaranteed work and guaranteed time to transition to the future of our green energy sector.
To ensure clean air and water is a right to all communities, not just the privileged one.
To grant healthcare and dignified wages to all.
To uplift our communities and instill a culture of care and repair in how we establish policy and law.
We will need the help of our representatives, local officials and the people of Houston to fight for this, but it can be done. If we can, and we will, build a Green New Deal in Houston, we will benefit substantially.
As Houston stands, its proximity to the petrochemical refineries and fossil fuel plants affects our health and well-being; this is especially true for our marginalized communities and communities of color that are disproportionately affected. We must do everything we can to care for our neighbors and to ensure the health of our workforce to carry this bold vision.
If we want to ensure our economic future, we must accept that oil is no longer sustainable for our home. We must transition into a hub of green energy; we must retire as the hub of oil and gas. This transition worries those employed by the petroleum industry. We must ensure that our workers are given time and training to transition towards the new green energy sector.
We will need engineers to develop this new energy system. We will need skilled labor, such welders and construction workers, to retrofit and assemble these new innovations. We will need business professionals that can ensure everything is managed and run effectively. We will need knowledgeable organizations to rebuild our ecosystems that will defend us from floods, hurricanes, sea level rise, heatwaves and any other environmental or human-caused disaster.
One thing is certain if we pursue a green new deal, we will have guaranteed work for generations to come. We can ensure our security as residents to work, health and happiness.
All of this will compile to reduce our carbon emissions and aid our citizens. It will make us a leader in the fight to combat rapid climate change. We can come back better on the other side.
We won the presidency that gives us the chance to fight for this future. It is up to us to pressure our politicians to fight for us. We will push our representative to be more bold in climate action or we will elect candidates that will represent us. We will act to ensure our citizens are cared for. We will work to educate and bring to light the issues that plague our home. We will make way for equitable, fair and just solutions. We are fighting for our future and we will need as many hands on deck as possible.
Houston, we have a solution. We are the solution, and we encourage you to join alongside us to build a better and brighter future with us. | https://medium.com/sunrisemvmthtxcomms/houston-we-have-a-solution-31b435282941 | ['Sunrise Movement Houston'] | 2020-12-22 00:44:59.963000+00:00 | ['Climate Change', 'Green New Deal', 'Houston', 'Texas', 'Sunrise Movement'] |
Codeuino: Linux Foundation Community Bridge Mentorship (Day 41–56) 🧑💻 | Introduction 🤓
Hi Readers, I’m Himanshu Singh(@lazycipher ), a Student JavaScript Developer. This article sums up my experience with implementing image compression
Photo by Kevin Ku on Unsplash
Read Previous Days!
What did I do during this period of time?
During this time, I got to learn a lot, I really mean a lot!
The very first thing was that I learned about AWS S3 buckets. I’ve always planned to implement this feature of uploading images and files to AWS or any storage buckets in my personal projects but maybe because I’m a pro procrastinator (🤫) but finally I got a chance to implement the same on a real project. I used multer for this purpose but I’ll tell you the whole store that went underneath.
There were several problems that I faced during this implementation like, at someplace it was set globally to upload.single('file') and it was setting the name for received file to ‘file’ and I was using ‘image’. I had to change this to make it work. I decided to use multers3 to upload the same to aws s3 bucket.
Now, everything was being uploaded to AWS directly. But there thing that was needed to be done or a process which was to be implemented before uploading the file i.e. compression.
How I did compression?
The very first thing was to insert a middleware after multer catches the file!
I discussed and did some RnD about this and the way I moved ahead was with converting the file to buffer using memory storage provided by multer and then process images using that buffer and push to aws after that only.
Now I was getting the buffer that I had to process and make it a minified version to save storage! And my search for something that could solve my compression issues.
At first, https://tinypng.com/ looked perfect but it had a paid plan! I tried gm which uses GraphicsMagick under the hood! which somehow didn’t work for all image formats!
Later after discussion with mentors, I decided to implement this compression using jimp which does not work with GIFs but we’ll be pushing GIFs and other file formats directly to aws without compression.
After things being completely implemented, we’ll be able to upload files to aws using the following middleware which I’m thinking to merge into one later after discussion with mentors.
What’s on the way?
This compression thing will be completed and pushed for review as soon as possible. Since the next feature that I’ve to work on is the BOT/Notifier which needs design from the team, I’ll be solving existing bugs in the meantime.
Connect with me:
GitHub: @lazycipher
Twitter: @lazycipher
LinkedIn: @himanshu-singh16
See you all in the next post! 👋 | https://medium.com/@imhsingh16/codeuino-linux-foundation-community-bridge-mentorship-day-41-56-6534cd413b8a | ['Himanshu Singh'] | 2020-11-26 14:42:45.305000+00:00 | ['Mentorship', 'Open Source', 'The Linux Foundation', 'Codeuino'] |
The Basics of Salt | Step-by-step Salt Deployment
For the purposes of this tutorial I will be using Linode to build my servers as they have a nice and easy cloud server creation interface and reasonable pricing.
Create Server Instances
1 Create a Linode account at login.linode.com/signup.
2 Once created, you will be taken to the cloud Dashboard as seen below. We will be creating the Salt master server to start. Click on the Create button and then select Linode from the dropdown menu.
Initial dashboard after creating a Linode account
3 From the Create page, select the latest Ubuntu LTS distro (as of writing is Ubuntu 20.04 LTS), the region that best suits where you reside (being based in Salt Lake City I chose Fresno, CA), select the appropriate Linode Plan for your application (Nanode 1GB suits our needs perfectly), create an easy to remember Linode Label to differentiate the cloud servers from one another, make a strong Root Password, and finally add a SSH key to make accessing the server easier.
Create Linode page with the latest Ubuntu LTS distro selected (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS as of writing)
4 After you create the Salt master server, you will be taken to said server’s dashboard. Select the Networking tab on the dashboard and copy the SSH Access string.
After creating Linode, this is the dashboard you are taken to for the specific server
5 Using your favorite Terminal application, ssh into the master server using the root username.
$ ssh root@<new.saltmaster.linode.ip>
6 Once connected, first you will need to install a package called apt-transport-https which will enable you to then grab the public key for the Salt repository using wget . If using wget doesn’t work (have had issues with downloading this specific key on multiple occasions) you can download the key file using curl . This key is required as it authenticates the apt package download from the repository. Additionally, the repository will need to be added to apt by creating a new .list file located at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/saltstack.list . Update apt and install the salt-master package. Note: the italicized code blocks for following steps are what changes will be made to each file using the vim command.
# apt install apt-transport-https -y
# wget -O - https://repo.saltstack.com/py3/ubuntu/20.04/amd64/3002/SALTSTACK-GPG-KEY.pub | sudo apt-key add -
(in case wget does not work)
# curl -o SALTSTACK-GPG-KEY.pub https://repo.saltstack.com/py3/ubuntu/20.04/amd64/3002/SALTSTACK-GPG-KEY.pub
# apt-key add SALTSTACK-GPG-KEY.pub # vim /etc/apt/sources.list.d/saltstack.list
deb http://repo.saltstack.com/py3/ubuntu/20.04/amd64/latest focal main
# apt update
# apt install salt-master -y
7 Now that the master server has been created, lets go back to Linode and create the two minion servers. Follow Steps 2–6 to spin up both minion servers (we’ll name these saltminion-dev and saltminion-prod), ssh into each minion, and grab the latest Salt repo. Instead of installing salt-master, we will want to install the salt-minion package to each of our minion servers. I find it easiest to either use different Terminal tabs or windows for each server . It makes for accessing all servers quickly.
# apt install salt-minion -y
8 Modify the minion file located at /etc/salt/minion on each minion to configure where the master server is located. This line should be near the top of the minion file.
# vim /etc/salt/minion
master: <your.saltmaster.ip.address>
Initial minion setup updating master config setting to your saltmaster IP address
Restart the salt-minion service on each minion server to allow master to locate the minions in the next step.
# service salt-minion restart
9 Switch back to the master server to authenticate the public keys for each minion. Run both salt-key -L (to list the keys on master) and salt-key -A '*' (to authenticate both minion public keys). After both minion keys have been authenticated run salt '*' test.ping to determine if master can connect to both minions. You should see both minion IP’s with the word true output underneath each one if the public keys have been properly authenticated. Additionally running salt-key -L again will show the minion IP’s under Accepted Keys.
# salt-key -L
Accepted Keys:
Denied Keys:
Unaccepted Keys:
123.456.789.012
123.456.789.321
Rejected Keys: # salt-key -A '*' # salt '*' test.ping
123.456.789.012:
True
123.456.789.321:
True # salt-key -L
Accepted Keys:
123.456.789.012
123.456.789.321
Denied Keys:
Unaccepted Keys:
Rejected Keys:
10 Once the master has been configured to talk to the minions, the next step is to setup our configuration file paths on master. The default settings exist in a file called master within the /etc/salt/ directory. Setting overrides exist within the /etc/salt/master.d/ directory. Instead of using these default settings we will create a file_roots.conf file in the /etc/salt/master.d/ directory. Within this file we will want to include the following lines (first creating the file):
# vim /etc/salt/master.d/file_roots.conf
file_roots:
base:
- /home/saltmaster/base
services:
- /home/saltmaster/services
After adding the file_roots we will need to restart the salt-master service.
# service salt-master restart
11 Now that the saltmaster configuration file paths have been set, we will need to create those new directories we configured above. Navigate to the /home/ directory. Create a new directory called saltmaster , cd into it and create directories for base and services .
# cd /home/
# mkdir saltmaster
# cd saltmaster/
# mkdir base
# mkdir services
12 The base directory will be where all base functionality Salt State files will live, the functionality that should be included on all minion servers. Chiefly among these sls files will be top.sls . This file contains directories for all base level state files and maps application and service directories to variables that can be called by grains files. Let’s cd into the base directory we just created and create the top.sls file. Our top file will be fairly basic for this tutorial. All it will contain is a declaration of where common package sls files for all servers as well as service sls files for specific services.
# cd base/
# vim top.sls
base:
"*":
- common.packages services:
"services:postgres":
- match: grain
- postgres
"services:mongodb":
- match: grain
- mongodb
As you can see from the code snippet above, we declare the location for common packages on the master server to be installed on all minion servers: /home/saltmaster/base/common/packages.sls and the location for our postgres and mongodb services: /home/saltmaster/services/postgres & /home/saltmaster/services/mongodb . For the services we will be matching a term specified in the grains file on either minion server. We will get to that however in a little bit. For now, let’s move onto creating the packages.sls file within base/common/ .
13 From the base directory create a new directory called common . Go into that new directory and make a new file called packages.sls . This packages file contains all common packages that you would want to install on each minion server. For this tutorial all we will be including in here will be a call to install htop as an example of how highstating will install this onto each minion.
# cd base/
# mkdir common
# cd common/
# vim packages.sls
base-packages:
pkg.installed:
- pkgs:
- htop
14 With the base directory sorted for what we will be covering in this tutorial, lets move onto the two services we will be installing on the minions. Navigate to the services directory we created in Step 11 /home/saltmaster/services/ . Now we will want to create a new directory called mongodb . This directory needs to match what we configured in the base/top.sls file for the mongodb service in Step 12. Go into the new mongodb/ directory and create a new file called init.sls . This file adds an apt repository and then installs the package from said repository.
# cd /home/saltmaster/services/
# mkdir mongodb
# cd mongodb/
# vim init.sls
mongodb:
pkgrepo.managed:
- name: deb [trusted=yes] https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu focal/mongodb-org/4.4 multiverse
- file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-4.4.list
- key_url: https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-4.4.asc
- require_in:
- pkg: mongodb
pkg.installed:
- name: mongodb
- refresh: True
From the init.sls code snippet above (italicized) we can see that the ID Declaration is mongodb followed by a combined inline State/Function Declaration of pkgrepo.managed . This State/Function declaration signifies that we are using the pkgrepo State and the managed Function within the State and will specify the new apt repository we will be adding for mongodb . Underneath the pkgrepo.managed State/Function declaration we give our new repository a name and file path. This name needs to be the exact line that needs to be in a .list file for apt to add that repository. The file declaration will be where that new .list file will exist on the minion server this service will be installed to, in this case being /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-4.4.list . Following that is the key_url declaration which is a link to a Public Signing Key that authenticates the package within the repository we will be installing. Lastly we have the require_in declaration which specifies what package requires this repository for installation.
There is a second State/Function declaration within this init.sls file called pkg.installed . This declaration specifies we are using the pkg State with the installed Function to install the mongodb package within the repository we configured above. And finally we have a refresh declaration which tells Ubuntu to run the apt update command before installing the package to make sure that apt does indeed have the new repository that we need.
15 Now that we have the mongodb service installation configured let’s move onto the postgres service. Navigate to the services directory, /home/saltmaster/services/ , and create a new directory called postgres . Go into this new directory and create a new file called init.sls . We will be following a very similar process to the mongodb init.sls file we configured in Step 14.
# cd /home/saltmaster/services/
# mkdir postgres
# cd postgres
# vim init.sls
postgresql:
pkgrepo.managed:
- name: deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt focal-pgdg 12
- file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list
- key_url: https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc
- require_in:
- pkg: postgresql-12
pkg.installed:
- name: postgresql-12
- refresh: True
16 Once we have created both mongodb and postgres directories and init.sls files we will need to add grains files to each minion server so that the master knows what packages to install on each. Switch to the saltminion-dev server and navigate to the /etc/salt/ directory. Create a new file called grains and add the mongodb service to it. This will tell the saltmaster that we want to install the mongodb package to this minion server. Switch to the saltminion-prod server and repeat but instead add the postgres service.
(saltminion-dev server)
# cd /etc/salt/
# vim grains
services:
- mongodb
(saltminion-prod server)
# cd /etc/salt/
# vim grains
services:
- postgres
17 Switch back to the saltmaster server. The time has come to highstate so these services and base packages will be installed on their respective minion servers. With highstating you first declare that it is a salt command, followed by which servers you want to highstate to (in our case we want all of them "*" ), and finally which state this salt command will run ( state.highstate ).
(saltmaster server)
# salt "*" state.highstate
Running the highstate command will take some time, largely dependent on how many packages are installed or how many changes need to be pushed to each server. In our case it’s a matter of seconds. Once complete you should see a similar screen to the image below:
Example of a successful highstate, adding the postgres repository and installing postgresql-12 package from it.
Congratulations! You’ve now successfully finished your first bare-bones Salt configuration. | https://medium.com/@mickeyschwarz789/the-basics-of-salt-822a12909892 | ['Mickey Schwarz'] | 2020-12-14 17:02:14.492000+00:00 | ['Salt', 'Saltstack Training', 'Django', 'Saltstack', 'Servers'] |
PhotoBulk a straightforward way to optimize image on Mac | PhotoBulk a straightforward way to optimize image on Mac
Why to optimize photo? Or simply why to compress image to a specific size? What is compression and when you should use it? These difficult questions can scare a lot of the users. However, everything is not so difficult as it may seem for the first time. This article is aimed to shed light upon such topics as “How to compress image sizes” as well as “What is compression”.
PhotoBulk a straightforward way to optimize image on Mac
First of all, the understanding which image format to use will give you the opportunity to get the most out of it. Some formats are best suited for obtaining the optimal balance of quality and file size when storing your photos, while other types will make it easier for you to recover a damaged image. There are countless image formats, and from time to time new ones also appear. In general, image formats can be divided into 3 large groups — bitmap, vector, mixed or complex.
Vector images are based on geometric shapes — points, curves, circles, polygons. Examples of vector files are .svg, .cdr, .eps. Complex formats, as it appears from the name, have features of both vector and bitmap images. The most famous example of such a format is .pdf files. Surely everyone came across them because many e-books and documents are stored in PDF-format. However, we are more interested in bitmap formats as we often have to deal with them and namely why to optimize photo when uploading it to the Internet.
Besides that, image file formats can be distinguished based on compression effects. There are quite a few types of compression schemes, but the essence of their existence can be reduced to one task — to compress image to a specific size and we are talking about the bitmap file as efficiently as possible. Because compression can very effectively minimize the size of the images just twice or several times. But with this almost always there is a loss in quality since the main compression algorithm is to select several pixels and replace them with one or two similar in shade. A compressed file will never be an exact copy of the original, with some exceptions. File compression is usually suitable for small photos and is not suitable for professional drawings or high-quality illustrations, presentations.
Compressed files are much smaller than the uncompressed ones and are divided into two main categories: “lossy” and “lossless”. Lossless compression ensures the safety of all information about the image, even if the final image size is somewhat larger. Lossy compression, in contrast, can create files that are much smaller but achieve this by selectively discarding image information. The final compressed file is no longer identical to the original. The visible differences between compressed files and their source files are called “compression defects”. That is why to find a good image compressor software is a question of a great concern.
Useful tips when using an image compressor
Save an image using lossy compression only after editing is finished, since many image manipulations can multiply compression defects. Avoid compressing the file several times, because compression defects can accumulate and lead to decreasing of image quality. In such cases, the JPEG algorithm may, as a result, create larger and larger files with a constant compression rate. Make sure that the speckle in the image is minimal, as this will significantly reduce the size of the JPEG files.
Besides that among the reasons for using file compressor apps one can highlight the following:
the size of the image affects the speed of the downloading page;
the loss of image quality if uploading the original one;
image optimization plays an important role in SEO.
There are many compress image Mac solutions that know how to work with bitmap graphics. It is a widespread belief, that in order to prepare graphics for the web, you should use only editors focused on this because only then you can get the most optimized images that will not create an excessive load on your hosting server when they are loaded into users’ browsers. However, it can be rather misleading, as non-professional image optimizer apps can perfectly cope with the task, as for instance, PhotoBulk presented by Eltima Software.
Image optimizer
PhotoBulk a quick way to optimize photo on Mac
Despite being a non-professional solution this bulk photo editor copes with the task like a professional one. The app has a rather intuitive, modern and minimalistic interface. There are no needless buttons, icons, moves. This solution can be a cup of tea both for professional users and for the beginners. It should be noted, that in the current version of the app the optimization is implemented without any losses that is to say, that while compression the quality of the photo remains the same without any deteriorations. In addition, while working with PhotoBulk, you can be sure that none of your original images will be corrupted, as the output images are saved separately to the specified by the user folder. Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it? So, let’s move from words to actions and see how this photo optimizer solution works.
Guide on how to compress image sizes
The first necessary thing to do is to download and install the app on your computer. There are two options to download the app:
2. After that install it on your Mac.
3. Drag and drop all the images that require optimization to the editing window of PhotoBulk. There are several ways for moving photos available in PhotoBulk, select the one that appeals the most to you.
Optimize images on Mac
4. All the uploaded photos will be shown at the bottom of the app in a filmstrip way.
5. To begin the optimizing process, you need to activate the Optimize option in the sidebar. You can find it in the Postprocessing section. However, pay attention that so far, you can optimize JPG and PNG files only.
6. In order to change the optimization level, you need to move the slider with the help of the mouse by moving it to the left or to the right.
7. Once you are ready with all the settings, hit the Start button.
8. In the appeared window you will need to specify the way for the output images to be saved.
9. And finally, click the “Save” button and wait.
Thanks to image optimizer app for Mac, you will not notice any difficulties in compressing photos, besides that, PhotoBulk can offer you a set of different feature, namely, adding watermark, resizing, converting, keeping metadata or erasing it all. | https://medium.com/@weilandjust/photobulk-a-straightforward-way-to-optimize-image-on-mac-e005a355081e | ['Justin Weiland'] | 2018-10-19 12:24:50.620000+00:00 | ['Image', 'Photos', 'Editing', 'Photography', 'Photoshop'] |
Low-Wage Workers Deserve Attention and Action | Coming into 2020, conventional wisdom held that the United States was enjoying the strongest labor market in a generation. But by what metrics was that determination made?
Millions of workers were stuck in low-wage jobs without basic assurances such as health benefits and a predictable schedule, and no opportunity and no security.
Then COVID-19 hit. Over the last seven months, millions of workers have been laid off, furloughed, or scaled back. According to Pew Research, one in four adults are struggling to pay their bills.
The people on the wrong side of these divides were not randomly determined. Specifically, people of color were much more likely both to be poor before the pandemic and to lose their job because of the pandemic. Research released in 2018 showed that the black-white wage gap for men has regressed to 1950s levels. (Reminder: Segregation was the law of the land in the 1950s.)
Two years ago, we launched a new program at the Gates Foundation focused on mobility from poverty in the United States. This initiative, which complements our longstanding work in U.S. education, is dedicated to removing barriers to economic opportunity.
As we’ve learned more about the struggles faced by low-wage workers, we’ve been surprised by the lack not only of investment but also of strategic thinking about the problem and solutions. For example, a good job for everyone is a noble goal, but what specifically does a “good job” entail? Along with several other funders, we’ve been surveying workers, and one insight stands out: People want good wages, yes, but they also want purpose, dignity, and autonomy. Our work is grounded in the idea that these factors are essential features to defining a good job.
Another guiding principle is the need to bring together the often siloed groups working on issues of equity in the labor market. We invest, for example, in improving workers’ access to needed benefits — benefits that will help them get to their jobs every day and stay in the labor market — and in meaningful job training that leads to real jobs quickly. Both strategies require partnership among workers, employers, and others. If we’re serious about this conversation, it needs to happen under a big tent.
This week, we’re taking a step toward building a bigger tent by joining with a number of funders to launch WorkRise.
WorkRise will do two things. First, it will bring together a diverse group of people who are all interested in the topic but don’t often come together — workers, employers, labor advocates, researchers — to identify and prioritize the critical questions we need to answer to build an equitable labor market. Second, it will provide funding to pilot solutions in response to those questions to start generating evidence about what’s working and what isn’t.
This is not an ivory tower approach where one researcher gets an idea in the library, publishes it in a white paper on the Internet, and considers the work done. WorkRise is about putting real-world ideas into practice.
COVID-19 didn’t create the inequities suffered by low-wage workers, but it has helped us see the terrible toll that the insecurity of low-wage work takes on millions of our fellow Americans. Now is the time to do something about it.
The goal is simple: to help more Americans climb the economic ladder and lead fulfilling lives with dignity and belonging. We hope you will join us in this journey. | https://medium.com/@gatesemoteam/low-wage-workers-deserve-attention-and-action-e83482564a2e | ['Ryan Rippel'] | 2020-10-13 15:48:40.395000+00:00 | ['Labor', 'Workers'] |
Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s Press Secretary, Spreads Lies in Exchange for Airtime | Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s Press Secretary, Spreads Lies in Exchange for Airtime
In a time before Kayleigh McEnany was the White House press secretary, she was a paid commentator who would sometimes appear on CNN and Fox Business.
She has publicly called Trump a “showman” who is “inauthentic”. But something happened in McEnany’s trajectory that landed her in the White House for a man who she, apparently, never thought to fulfill the role of a GOP president.
At one point in time, McEnany stood for human decency. Before Trump tapped her into the White House boxing ring, she called his comments on Mexican immigrants “racist”.
Before transferring to Harvard Law School she received advice about changing her attitude toward Trump. That advice involved her accepting Trump as the candidate for the Republican party.
And that is the beginning and the end of the Kayleigh McEnany consciousness as we know it.
Since then, she’s called Trump’s remarks about white supremacy one about “love and inclusiveness”. In 2019, she told Chris Cuomo that she doesn’t believe the president has ever lied. The Washington Post counts over 22,000, but maybe that’s just a weird way to say zero these days. She has called Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic his way of putting “America first, [and that] he will always protect American citizens”. Also a funny way of saying that 250,000 Americans are dead under his administration bolstered by false notions of safety and an unwillingness to tell people to simply put their masks on.
The rest of the world has called McEnany’s words an echo-chamber for Trumpism and his lies. She apparently likes to think they’re alternative facts.
In latest news, McEnany’s echoes seem to pedal on the theory that Trump was never actually legitimately accepted as the President. Hillary Clinton conceded the day after. It is now over two weeks and Trump not only refuses to concede but declared every few hours over Twitter that he actually won the election.
A piece of the Trump legacy will provide a lasting stain to each of the members he has interacted with. Whether that is the multiple press secretaries, or the lawyers that are now in federal prison, or the members of his cabinet he fired or quit. McEnany’s grab for airtime ultimately results in a credential-less future, filled with the gaslighting and the fake news conspiracies she has twisted and tossed around in exchange for a job.
She is right in her most recent press briefing. Trump’s response to this pandemic is definitely “unprecedented”. But it hasn’t saved any lives. America leads in covid deaths, and, like most things in Trumpism, almost everything has been unprecedented.
Tearing the underpinnings of democracy is unprecedented. Spewing lies about the election and voter fraud is unprecedented.
Hiring a press secretary to help balloon those lies into a press briefing room is probably the pinnacle of that humiliation.
We keep wondering whether this is the lowest America can go. We keep thinking that, at some point, there will be a course-correction for the better. Trump has been defeated, and, yet, it’s never felt scarier to watch an idiot like McEnany continue to spew unsubstantiated words into an audience that knows it’s fake news before she utters them.
It’s time for the swamp to actually be drained. It’s time for Trump and his friends to go away. | https://medium.com/@moumj/kayleigh-mcenany-trumps-press-secretary-spreads-lies-in-exchange-for-airtime-cad61a723d64 | ['Anthony Andranik Moumjian'] | 2020-11-21 03:01:19.613000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Democracy', 'Trump', 'Donald Trump', 'Fake News'] |
Want to know more about Crypto and Blockchain? Here are 15 tips to start. | Pictured with the Founders of TokenFest and four phenomenal women in blockchain
I’ve been in San Fran for a week exploring the Crypto and Blockchain landscape out here, meeting founders, investors and venture capitalists who are in the space. I’ve honestly met the most incredible people who are doing amazing things with Blockchain to change the world.
I often get asked ‘where do I even start to learn this?’ Well here are my tips to help others who are navigating the space or just want to learn a little bit more.
Please comment below if this helps you or if you have tips for others.
Start off by Googling any of this…👇
1) Security and Utility Token.
2) Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Stellar, Bancor. Altcoins.
3) Go to events. We’ve added them to heytriangles.xyz/events.
4) Look for Facebook Groups and Meetups in your city for Ethereum and Bitcoin. Add them to heytriangles.xyz/events 😃
5) Get Telegram and add @trianglesxyz
6) Look at Cryptocurrency exchanges — literally Google it and research them.
7) Find a tribe who are interested in it. If people say to you it’s dodgy and you shouldn’t get involved then remember we all make mistakes and the only way to find out is to try. You don’t need to invest but PLEASE just read and do research.
8) Learn from others around you. I doubt you’ll be the smartest person in a room filled with people interested in Blockchain. If you are — I want to learn from you.
9) More acronyms and words to learn — ICO, pre-sale, public sale, DApps, decentralisation, centralisation, SEC… the list goes on. You could make Blockchain Bingo.
10) There are heaps of Scams out there. DO YOUR RESEARCH.
11) YouTube is your hidden weapon.
12) Sign-up to Token Daily and Finder.com news.
13) If you want to know more about POINT 2 — Look at Whitepapers for those companies.
14) Don’t be stupid. It’s still an unknown grey area.
OH and you should probably know this name….
15) Satoshi Nakamoto.
Speak to you over at Telegram @Triangles.xyz | https://medium.com/triangles-xyz/want-to-know-more-about-crypto-and-blockchain-here-are-15-tips-to-start-77af123f1a4c | ['Holly Stephens'] | 2018-03-19 07:32:37.292000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Conspiracy: Jumpstart #02: Selvala | Conspiracy: Jumpstart is a National Game Design Month project, where a game (or, in this case, a Magic: The Gathering product) is designed in one month, during November 2020.
Previous Devlog Updates:
Product Updates
Thanks to djemba, perryk, Phi, & Juliet for their feedback. Here are some notable changes:
Star Format
Something that came up when receiving feedback for the previous post regards the nature of your allies. Are they opponents or not for the purposes of card effects?
There are both flavors of star format where the neighboring players are considered your opponents. Because of how keying off of “players to your left or right” breaks down once an ally is eliminated, referring to “players that aren’t your opponents” was the next best solution. Thus, to facilitate that word, your allies are not your opponents in Conspiracy: Jumpstart.
Mechanic Revision: Sway of the City
After some feedback, here’s the updated sway of the city functionality:
This gets away from the complex wording of one of the abilities in the previous version by doing away with it. The card draw is streamlined, but now it’s tougher to hold onto sway of the city.
Character Pack Revision: Brago
A few of the cards in the Brago pack have been revised. One card has been replaced in Brago’s pack with a reprint. Selvala’s pack below has a reprint, too; and I might adopt this for future packs.
Selvala
Selvala’s theme is creatures with exactly one creature type. The mechanical part of this doesn’t show up except on Selvala herself. Without Selvala, you can still get a sense of how creature-oriented this pack is.
Most character packs will have Constructs, but not Selvala’s. However, all Constructs in this product only have one creature type. Furthermore, Citizen tokens only have one creature type. So, Selvala’s theme plays nicely with all the wild animals in her pack but also, incidentally, with Citizen tokens and Constructs that may appear more prevalently in
UPDATE: Some cards have been tweaked or reworded. Thanks, perryk, for feedback on a couple of these. | https://medium.com/millingfor53/conspiracy-jumpstart-02-selvala-269cb9bc338e | ['Bradley Rose'] | 2020-11-29 22:08:23.586000+00:00 | ['Magic', 'Nagademon', 'Game Design', 'Magic The Gathering', 'Conspiracyjumpstart'] |
Dusk with Palette | Free Verse and Imagery
Dusk with Palette
busking the hues of lily and resplendence
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
Banished, like red in manipulation
of the color of cattail
upon the sunset palette of an impressionist
busking the hues of lily and resplendence
cropped about a surround of oak.
Howl is unseen in tangents of leaf
forayed to canopy
overstrikes of rye
buzzed in the fume of a dandelion blown
white and pastel phased to hoof print
spared the harsh or strokes of cloud
where wings are foretold
with sky flush in earth
tones to ground and shed
petal blurts of yellowed
brown-tinted dash. | https://medium.com/literary-impulse/dusk-with-palette-d3ed8ad24be0 | ['Dionne Charlet'] | 2020-08-07 11:13:46.968000+00:00 | ['Painting', 'Free Verse', 'Poetry', 'Literary Impulse', 'Art'] |
I Just Want to be My Child’s Mother — Not her Teacher, Not her Therapist | This morning my six-year-old daughter cried because she didn’t get a turn to show her reindeer picture to her class on Zoom. At first, I thought she would get over it in a few minutes and so I let her cry.
Ten minutes later she was still crying. Sobbing, snotty tears.
Clenched angry fists.
Inconsolable emotions.
She mumbled through her wet mouth that she raised her hand and nobody let her talk. She just wanted to share her picture but they were all done sharing pictures. Her teacher turned her camera off because she was crying and she was crying because she wanted a turn. She continued sobbing.
Photo Credit: Laura J Murphy, 2020
I wrote a message to her teacher in the chat asking if she could have a turn because she was so upset. That her being upset seems pretty justified to me. She said no because she doesn’t always give them all a turn to share and that at school, she would apologize for not giving her a turn and move on. And I get that. But we are at home and this is hard.
As the class moved on, she couldn’t focus on the video being played about emotional fish. It escalated her feelings and she shouted, “I am the angry fish! I am angry!”
Then, the next thing I knew I was arguing with my crying first grader. Threatening her that we weren’t going to do this anymore — as if not participating in her remote learning were punishment for either of us.
So at that point, I knew that our work was over for the day because there was no coming back from this. I left the Zoom meeting and told her to go and play with her toys.
I sat at my desk and took a sip of my coffee and saw a news alert on my phone that our Governor suggested all schools return to remote instruction. But who does that benefit? It doesn’t benefit a kid like mine whose IEP only translates to a negative denominator in the remote learning environment.
When we go online my child loses her paraprofessional and the chance to work on social skills. She loses her therapy services and much like today, she loses any progress she once made towards emotional regulation when she has a breakdown over something as small as sharing a reindeer picture.
Would she have cried like this if she were at school? Maybe but probably not. She would have her peers modeling appropriate behaviors and her para to get her back on task. She wouldn’t be stuck between trying to emulate the confusing boundaries of school-behaviors and home-behaviors, screens and toys, or battling her need for attention versus her ability to regulate her own emotions.
Today I thought about what I really want and that is to be my child’s mother, just her mother. I don’t want to be her teacher, her paraprofessional, her case manager, her advocate, occupational therapist, speech therapist, and behaviorist. I just want to be her mom. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/i-just-want-to-be-my-childs-mother-not-her-teacher-not-her-therapist-977bcf1ae071 | ['Laura J. Murphy'] | 2020-12-02 22:59:52.476000+00:00 | ['Parenting', 'Remote Learning', 'Special Education', 'Education'] |
Importing Data Should be Simple — Stop Screwing it Up | Check 4: ID columns — make sure they’re unique
In most datasets, you’ll have some sort of primary key or ID column. These are columns that should never have duplicated values. If your entire analysis hinges on the fact that these values should never be duplicated, then it’s crucial to double check this in your data.
For this, you’d just want to check that the distinct number of values in your ID column(s) matches the number of rows in your dataset.
Solution: In R, I usually would just use the n_distinct() function:
Image by author
To take this a step further, if you wanted to hone in on the offending column, you would want to see what value appears in more than one row. In R:
example_df %>%
count(id_column) %>%
filter(n > 1)
Example of a failed check: If you were looking at a dataset of state populations, and you saw that California appeared twice, while every other state only appears once. | https://towardsdatascience.com/importing-data-should-be-simple-stop-screwing-it-up-89e0ec4aae4f | ['William Chon'] | 2020-12-07 18:41:23.773000+00:00 | ['Data Analysis', 'Clean Code', 'Data', 'R', 'Data Science'] |
Income tax return (ITR) is the tax form which is used by taxpayers to file information about the… | Income tax return (ITR) is the tax form which is used by taxpayers to file information about the income earned and tax applicable with the income tax department.
Keeping in view the challenges faced by individual taxpayers in meeting the statutory and regulatory compliances owing to the current pandemic, the government has recently extended income tax return (ITR) filing deadline for FY2019–20 by a month till December 31. The due date of furnishing ITRs for taxpayers whose accounts need to be audited has also been extended till January 31, 2021. Here are a few things you need to know before filing the ITR.
Is it mandatory to file income tax return if my earning is below Rs 250,000?
No, it is not mandatory to file an income tax return if your annual income is below Rs 250,000. However, even those who are out of the tax net should consider filing a ‘Nil Return’ to maintain a record. There are several instances where income tax returns are considered proof of employment — for instance, when you are applying for a passport or taking a loan.
2. If I have paid excess tax, how will it be refunded to me?
You are eligible to receive an income tax refund if you have paid more tax to the government than your actual tax liability.
Process to claim a tax refund:
In order to claim an income tax refund, it is mandatory to file an ITR.
Once you have filled up the ITR form, click on the validate button on the ‘Taxes paid and Verification’ sheet. The system will auto calculate the refund due to you and the refund amount will appear in the ‘Refund’ row.
Remember that this is the refund amount that you have claimed, not necessarily the amount that will be accepted and paid by the I-T department. Once the income-tax department has verified your ITR and the refund claim made by you, it will communicate the outcome to you. If you have filed ITR electronically, the I-T department will send you an e-mail or an SMS.
Alternatively, one can track the refund status by visiting tin.tin.nsdl.com/oltas/refundstatuslogin.html.
Refund, if accepted as due, will normally be directly credited to the bank account you had given for this purpose in your tax return.
3. What is form 16 and why is it so important?
In the easiest of words, Form 16 is an important yet a basic Income Tax form. Organizations use Form 16 to offer their employees the required details of the deducted tax. On the other hand, an individual can see Form 16 as their TDS certificate. If in case, the income from your annual salary is above the basic tax exemption limit; then, your employer is asked to subtract TDS from your pay and deposit it to the Indian government.
Employer provides Form 16 to their employees as proof of filing the Income Tax Returns for them. If in case, your annual income is lesser than the exemption limit, no TDS is deducted from your salary, and you shall receive your full salary from your organization.
Concussing all the information in simple words, Form 16 is nothing but a certificate that is given by your company or organization that certifies details regarding the salary you have received during the financial year and the amount of TDS that has been subtracted from your pay regularly.
4. What should one do in case of discrepancies in actual TDS and TDS credit under Form 26AS?
Often, mismatches and discrepancies in actual TDS and TDS credit under Form 26AS are attributed to wrong information provided in the TDS return. Approach your employer/deductor to file a revised TDS return after making the necessary corrections.
The income-tax department allows an assessee to mention the reason for mismatch in the online portal in answer to a notice sent by it.
Filing an ITR is a delicate process so some of us hires Chartered Accountants to file it in behalf of us and they charge a certain amount of fee for it. On the other hand, there are many website where you can file it yourself but they also charge certain amount of money for it. So, if you are out of cash and need money urgently then you can always apply for instant personal loan through online loan apps like SmartCoin. Once you apply for the loan, the amount will get deposited in your bank account within few minutes. | https://medium.com/@smartcoinfinancials/income-tax-return-itr-is-the-tax-form-which-is-used-by-taxpayers-to-file-information-about-the-e18d72116c0b | [] | 2020-12-14 06:21:24.932000+00:00 | ['Income Tax Return', 'Taxes', 'Tax Returns', 'Itr Filing', 'Income Tax Return Filing'] |
從 Arel 看 Visitor Pattern | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/4ing-%E7%9A%84%E8%88%AA%E6%B5%B7%E6%97%A5%E8%AA%8C/%E5%BE%9E-arel-%E7%9C%8B-visitor-pattern-9567be2f76c3 | ['Shih-Ying Chen'] | 2020-12-03 15:50:29.747000+00:00 | ['Design Patterns', 'Rails'] |
The Strategy I Used to Scale Our SaaS Into a New Market | The Strategy I Used to Scale Our SaaS Into a New Market Daniel Marcus Apr 7·9 min read
Written for anyone wanting to launch their business in a new market or sales teams looking for lead generation strategies. I’m sharing our strategy to scale and launch Magnetic Software in the UK, some of the takeaways include; the most successful email we sent and why, strategies that worked and failed and a list of great resources for any business looking to generate leads and launch in the UK.
First I’d like to give you some background on why we chose to enter a new market, the decisions we made when considering which market to enter, and then onto which techniques worked and which failed horribly.
Based in deepest south of South Africa, Magnetic, our Cape Town SaaS had reached local scale and owned a large chunk of the market in our niche; marketing and advertising agencies. We chose a niche, as it meant that we could be a thought leader in a fairly untapped industry with only one major competitor.
Our First Hurdle
We wanted to scale, but our leads were drying up, so we had our first key decision to make; enter a new vertical, or go offshore to a new market in the same niche vertical.
So we did what any rational decision makers do, we made a pro’s and con’s list 🙂
New industry was not the best route to take.
We very quickly saw that entering a new market while still selling to agencies was the more viable option.
Once we had decided on a new market, we needed to decide between the UK and USA. While USA has a much larger market, and generally are faster decision makers, we decided on the UK (London) for these key points:
Surrounding areas of London were well populated with agencies, and untouched by competition
Similar time zones
Similar culture
The Magnetic founders hold British passports so allows for easy access
How I got started
1. Understood the market before entering:
Joined industry networks
Researched all partners/suppliers in the industry and made as many connections as I could
Understood competitors, offering, what we were missing, pricing etc.
– We made sure we developed all key features we were missing that would hinder our ability to sell in the UK. This was a benchmark goal before we could enter the market
– We made sure we developed all key features we were missing that would hinder our ability to sell in the UK. This was a benchmark goal before we could enter the market Took part in industry surveys to gain better insight into the agency world in the UK
Read everything I could get my hands on that would help me better understand the market, the prospects and the competitors
2. Spent a week every month for almost a year in the UK
There was too much risk on our current business for me to move to the UK permanently before we had proper validation that our product would work there, so once a month I’d hop on a plane and spend a full week in London (and a week in JHB — heavy on the family!).
We used a number of techniques to generate prospects before my trip, which generally lined up +- 10 pitches per week. I would then spend the plane trip home consolidating notes, and writing various thank you / follow up mails.
Once back in Cape Town, the leads from the UK trip formed part of mine and my team’s daily follow up cycle, which helped keep the focus on our day-to-day operations. Fortunately I had two tech partners based in Cape Town who kept everything else moving forward and a solid senior sales team supporting me.
3. Focused on the outer areas of London
Through my research, I discovered that while London held the majority of the market share (18%), there was enough in the outer regions to 10x our current business. With this insight, I spent the majority of my time travelling between Manchester, Brighton, Bournemouth and so on and very quickly realised that these regions were totally neglected by our competitors and so I doubled down on my efforts here. My opinion is that this principle can be repeated in many other markets.
4. Conversational first meetings
In general, my first meetings with new prospects on each trip were more relationship starter meetings, where we discussed the industry, and what challenges their businesses are trying to overcome. I tried to avoid the hard pitch as much as possible until I had formed a relationship and prospects trusted that we had solid knowledge in their industry.
5. Networking and Referrals
I made sure I attended at least one industry event, networking drink or conference on every trip. If there was nothing happening, I invited prospects to a lunch/dinner/drink, anything to get in a room with a few people to network and talk industry stuff.
I made a conscious effort to ask every contact that I had, and even every prospect that I met, for referrals which played a big role in filling my diary every week. It may seem odd asking a new prospect the first time they meet you for a referral, but being transparent and explaining my goal of meeting as many agency people to better understand the UK industry worked. I got a ton of introductions.
The outbound strategy that worked for us
1. Personal Dedication
Despite having a team around me, as a Founder and CEO, I had to dedicate my time, a lot of it (many late nights catching up on day job stuff). I created and drove the strategy including replying to every prospective outbound email (good or bad), made every call and wrote all the content (I am the opposite of a content writer or editor, so don’t be afraid if you aren’t either).
2. LinkedIn became my best friend
Unfortunately a lot of what I did a few years back is no longer possible due to various LinkedIn policy updates, but the concept still works.
Using various tools, I optimised my personal profile to look appealing to my key market.
Tip Your headline should not be your company position, it should be what you do to help your customer. Mine is “I help agencies become more profitable”. This is the first thing anyone sees when you visit their profile, and any agency looking to make more profit would immediately be drawn to this
Tip Your headline should not be your company position, it should be what you do to help your customer. Mine is “I help agencies become more profitable”. This is the first thing anyone sees when you visit their profile, and any agency looking to make more profit would immediately be drawn to this Subscribed to LinkedIn premium to increased my search capabilities
Connected to a great tool (no longer exists) which allowed me to auto visit all the profiles in my search results — this meant that everyone I visited would see that I had visited them, with my tag line being front and centre. This lead to thousands of visits to my profile, which meant I was more visible to my core target market and hundreds of inbound connection requests of key contacts I wanted to engage with, making it easier to start conversations.
3. Email Marketing
Cringe, I know — but it worked, really well! First I needed email lists, so I did some research and came across Growbots and Revboss. Two incredible platforms that assist in driving targeted email campaigns and generating the leads. (Locally in SA we’re now using the guys over at Sitecare who are awesome)
Growbots and Revboss work in much the same way, you give them your lead criteria, and they go about searching the web, finding email address and then launching a nurture email campaign. This was great, worked well and got us our first batch of hot leads. But, it’s pricey and slow (worth it for a first go if you don’t have any knowledge of email marketing or lead generation).
So, back to LinkedIn I went — I did some more research and discovered a tool which allows you to download the email address of any profile you visited, so I did this for weeks until I had every email address I could get in my search criteria. I then ran the list through multiple validation sites (sites which test the accuracy of the email address) which is important so your mails don’t get spam blocked due to hard bounces.
Once my list was clean, I then used Google Mail Merge to send custom emails to each prospect. The below example was more generic and had our best open rate (reason below), but we spent hours researching each lead, and customised a lot of our initial emails per prospect, going as far as including the latest news (if relevant) that they had shared on Linkedin as a reference point. Mail Merge is a great product, even for general customer mails if you can’t fork out cash for the big guns like Intercom.
This is the most successful email I sent with a 76% open rate, which eventually led to over 200 hot prospects.
The key to the success of this email: I sent it to the completely wrong person in the business. Our core target position was Business Owners, CFO’s, Head of Ops & Head of Traffic. In this campaign, I targeted the opposite; Account Managers, Designers, Strategists, Content marketers etc. In doing this, the receiver didn’t feel like I was selling to them, so they didn’t have that initial “I don’t have time for this”. I received hundreds of “soft” introductions from these people to the exact person I wanted to be talking to, and because the introduction came from someone they new and trusted in their organisation, they were more open to talking to me.
4. Know your metrics
The key to understanding the success of your outbound campaign, is understanding your metrics.
For us, our key success metric was demo sign-ups, because I know my sales team and I close 40% of all demo sign-ups which request a live demo. Of all demo sign ups, about 25% requested live demo’s.
This meant, if wegot 100 sign-ups, 25 would want a live demo, and we’d close on average, 10 of those. So if we wanted 30 new paying customers, we’d need 300 demo signups. With this info, I could work backwards to understand how many emails I would need to send, based on various open/click rates in order to get 300 new demo signups.
I tracked these metrics daily, continuously optimising each campaign to help increase my chance of success.
Things that failed / could have been done better
Using outsourced meeting setters failed for us, as we have quite a complex product which needs deep contextual knowledge of the industry when selling it. So having strangers pitching our product to try book meetings just didn’t work and often lead to wasted time in meetings with prospects who had no idea why they were meeting us.
Digital Marketing because we underspent, didn’t have the right setup in place and used a local firm who didn’t have international or SaaS experience. This said, we’re now engaged in a full scale digital strategy with the guys at iMod Digital (still SA based, but have the experience required), and we’re already seeing results because we’ve follow a rigorous setup to make sure we have all our ducks in a row.
No local reps on the ground was a big challenge. It meant that I often had to spend time on the next month’s UK trip trying to re-engage with a previous month’s meeting, and often these meetings would be cancelled as I touched down in London. I believe if I had someone on the ground to handle follow ups we would have had even greater success. Granted, due to Covid-19, online meetings are far more acceptable now.
Bonus: some resources I found super helpful (UK) if you’re setting up a UK business
Stripe: Credit card transactions
Wise: Digital banking and integrates with Stripe
Seedlegals: Legal Setup / Founders Agreements / employee contracts / shares / options / board management etc.
Empowerred: Help with R&D refund
In summary, entering a new market for us was successful, but took significant time to in preparation (far more than we initially thought) to really ensure we went in with our best foot forward.
My advice for anyone looking to launch in a new market is to make sure you really know why you want to go there, how you plan on doing it, what it will cost you and most importantly, you are going in as a stranger, so get your story right.
Disclaimer: GDPR obviously plays a massive role in email marketing now, so it is crucial to follow the correct procedures when it comes to privacy law in whichever market you are entering and take advice from experts in the field.
Follow me on LinkedIn | https://medium.com/@dansmarcus/what-i-did-to-enter-a-new-market-with-our-saas-and-how-we-got-clients-82a6ba1679ec | ['Daniel Marcus'] | 2021-04-09 08:06:19.906000+00:00 | ['Scale', 'SaaS', 'UK', 'Growth Hacking', 'Lead Generation'] |
Why did you choose an Android Application Development? | Android application is software designed which is run the emulator or android device. It’s also referred to as an APK file, which is known as an Android package. Android application is a Zip archive containing app code, meta information and resources. This file can be written in C++, Java, python and kotlin which are run inside in virtual machine. Android APPs is assembling a collection of components, which can be thought of the collection of interacting components. It comes in four flavours that are activities, services, broadcast receivers and content providers.
Activities: An activity component which directly interactions with the user. Activities are generally designed to manage an only single type of user action; it’s providing multiple activities with complete user interaction.
Services: Services are background components that basically operate independently of user visibility activity. Services define to expose their own interfaces, which other components bind to make use of the service. Services are generally initiating their own threads which are allowed the main application process to make schedule and progress to analogous with other components.
Broadcast Receivers: As we already discussed above, the system worldwide broadcast event can be generated by the system application or system software. Components mainly listed on the behalf of application broadcast receivers, which include multiple broadcast receivers for the announcements of listing. Broadcast receivers can float another component, such as use the system-wide notification manager or interact with the user and activities.
Content Providers: Components that provide applications data are known as content providers. The content provider is free to reserve the data, which is chooses in back end representation, SQLite service or we say that some specific application representation which includes implemented via remote web services. It is base classes which are provided in the Android SDK for both the component seeking access and content provider.
Android application development process
Android application development process requires proper planning, research and clear focus. Developing an android app doesn’t mean adding it and creating it to Google play store. For your application to be fruitful, you must follow a few steps which are mentioned in the blow. Generally, the entire process consists of five stages.
Planning : Planning is the most important factor, before starting development importantly define to set the target audience, required functions of your application and focused purpose. It is necessary to conduct extensive market research to make sure your application is competitive in the current market. Basically, planning includes preparing TOR, which stands for terms of reference. Planning is the initial stage of every App development company.
Design : On this stage, appearance is created which is a mockup with the user. After the approval of appearance, the designer starts working with the mockup. Here, the designer prepared a final look for the application after that user will seems on their android devices. Typically, the design is important in every mobile application development company.
Development : Development is the stage where programmers create an android app which is based on the design of the application and also approved by the design stage.
Testing: Once the development stage is complete, after that you can send your application for testing. Here QA engineers check your application and make sure the application functions in the proper and correct way without any delusion.
Launch and maintenance : Launch and maintenance is the final stage of the android application development process. When the tester approves the application, you can easily release your application in the market and safely upload it on the Google play store. After the launching, you have to maintain your application; you must add on new features, technically support it and improve its functionality.
Phases include in android app development
Development is the translating version of your project; here android application development team will work into three stages which are mentioned in below:
Back-end development API creation Front-end development
Benefits of Android Application for market
Nowadays android application is an important tool in the market just because of the digital revolution wave. It is open-source with a simplified development process; we all know a well-designed application is a dominant resource for every person to access the required information. So, we provide the benefits of Android Application Development Company in blow section:
Graphics Support: Graphics support provides you with a huge range of graphic design. Here the design features are very superior and eye-catching. Android application development is taken as the perfect platform for a game application. Its built-in support for 2d as well as 3d also.
Low-Cost app development: in today’s competitive market world required maximum profit with minimum investments. Application development also required more profit with fewer investments. Basically, android provides development tools with an economical price which is beneficial for the developers whereas developers give the only a one-time fee for registration for application distribution. As the result is, there is a large number of users which is based on android OS certifies more return with fewer investments.
Secured Platform: It is a secured platform which is based on Linux. It fulfils all needs for developing android applications as per the requirement of different types of business. The secured platform provides you best application with minimum utilization of resources.
Rapid development: Nowadays enterprise transforms their idea within a specific time because it is a quick development cycle. As we all know that competition is everywhere, this competitive edge increases the importance of android applications. Rapid development is very beneficial for android platforms.
Summary
In the end, I would like to say that one of the best parts about the android application is the necessary tools which are free and easy to obtain anywhere. Basically, an android application is software designed who run the android device. It is an open-source for making the developer ecosystem dynamic and collectively enriching. Today’s 77 per cent of Indians are accessing their own smartphones and android application. In this post I already cover entire topics regarding android application. If you like my post feels to free comment in the comment section box. Thank you. | https://medium.com/@artistixe/why-did-you-choose-an-android-application-development-91f917214b7d | ['Artistixe It Solutions Llp'] | 2020-12-01 07:24:32.126000+00:00 | ['Android App Development', 'Development', 'Android', 'AndroidDev', 'Education'] |
Letter to the Editor: DA Krasner responds to McSwain’s fact-free nonsense | U.S. Attorney William McSwain’s January 2 Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed asserts that the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office is no longer prosecuting ‘johns’ who solicit sex workers and suggests the Philadelphia DAO is not vigorously pursuing human traffickers. This is fact-free nonsense.
Here are the facts: We don’t prosecute sex workers, whom we view as victims. No one should. We do prosecute johns — -sex work customers. For example, in 2018 this office prosecuted 76 Patronizing a Prostitute cases and declined three. And we vigorously prosecute sex traffickers on our own and in conjunction with federal authorities. For example, Graham, one of the two federal trafficking prosecutions Mr. McSwain cites, was originally charged by the Philadelphia DAO in state court and was vigorously prosecuted in Philadelphia before the U.S. Attorney’s “adopted” the case before trial in state court. The feds (long before Mr. McSwain was U.S. Attorney) then prosecuted it in federal court, as is common practice. Similarly, in June of last year the Philadelphia DAO successfully convicted a large sex trafficking operation in state court.
Mr. McSwain’s unthruths notwithstanding, the Philadelphia DAO continues to enjoy an excellent, productive partnership with a federal sex trafficking working group that includes my office (a fact Mr. McSwain did not mention), the Philadelphia Police Department, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the FBI. That excellent relationship existed before Mr. McSwain’s tenure, continues now, and will remain after Mr. McSwain’s departure, which we can reasonably expect to coincide with the departure of his boss, the man who appointed Mr. McSwain, Donald Trump. Mr. Trump’s disregard for the truth is nothing to emulate.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner
This Letter to the Editor was submitted on Jan. 3, 2019 | https://medium.com/philadelphia-justice/letter-to-the-editor-da-krasner-responds-to-mcswains-fact-free-nonsense-2e002af4a2c4 | ['Philadelphia Dao'] | 2019-01-03 21:56:06.191000+00:00 | ['Human Trafficking', 'Sex Workers', 'Stories', 'Sex Work', 'Philadelphia'] |
How to Choose a Social Value Measurement Framework? | Since the Social Value Act was introduced in 2012, public bodies have had the legal obligation to consider and demonstrate the value they are delivering to the communities they operate in when procuring. The question of how to measure this value is undoubtedly complicated. A number of frameworks exist to help with the process. If you are working on social value for a public sector body, then picking the right framework for your organisation can add another layer of complication. Each framework has different advantages depending on your goals. Ultimately, the choice of social value measurement frameworks depends largely on a public body’s reason for measuring and the needs of the community it operates in.
Reasons for Measuring Social Value
Assessing which social value framework is most suitable for an organisation is always a tailored process. It depends on their goals and motivation i.e. why does your organisation want to measure social value? Some of the most common goals for an organisation to measure social value include:
Maximise social value in communities they operate in
Accountability of social value commitments of the organisation and their suppliers
Guide to better decision making around community investment
How to measure — Attributes of Frameworks
It is also important to understand and consider the different attributes that measurement frameworks have. We have identified four main attributes among common social value frameworks:
Project-wide / Organisation-wide: Project-wide frameworks are designed to evaluate one-off projects. Most organisations, however, aim to measure social value at an organisation-wide angle.
Project-wide frameworks are designed to evaluate one-off projects. Most organisations, however, aim to measure social value at an organisation-wide angle. Evaluative (looking backwards) / Forecast (looking forward): In the context of procurement bids, social value assessment is often forward-looking. For organisation-wide measurement, evaluative-oriented frameworks are more commonly used and applied on a regular basis (e.g. quarterly evaluation, annual evaluation).
In the context of procurement bids, social value assessment is often forward-looking. For organisation-wide measurement, evaluative-oriented frameworks are more commonly used and applied on a regular basis (e.g. quarterly evaluation, annual evaluation). Non-monetary / Monetary: Non-monetary indicators are closer to the data collection output and therefore easier to process. However, when comparing metrics, monetary values can be useful.
Non-monetary indicators are closer to the data collection output and therefore easier to process. However, when comparing metrics, monetary values can be useful. Sector-specific/General: Some sectors have had dedicated social value frameworks developed, which are tailored to the needs of the industry. However, not all sectors are privileged with a dedicated social value framework measurement. In which case, a sector-specific framework will be transposable to other sectors, or a general framework can be chosen.
What to measure — What are your community’s needs?
“We mean ‘value’ not in its narrow [financial] sense but in its true sense — recognising the importance of social, environmental and economic well-being across our communities and in our lives.” Chris White, MP behind the Social Value Act, NCVO (2019)
Social value can be understood as the need for both the purchaser and community it operates in, to gain value. In order for a public sector body to create social value, it is essential to determine what challenges the community is facing, and what’s needed to overcome them.
In order to do this effectively, public bodies should integrate non-traditional procurement team members such as community needs assessors so there is expertise capable of determining these needs.
Including the community’s needs can spark questions like what should we measure and to what extent can we demonstrate our responsibility for a given impact?; What kind of timescales are we working towards so we can measure effectively? Which time markers are relevant as references to evaluate in hindsight or forecast for the future?
For public bodies, value creation “occur[s] at the end of the value ‘chain’, e.g. when people’s lives improve (outcome rather than output), potentially many years after the policy was enacted.” Mazzucato and Ryan-Collins, 2019
Having a cross-functional team can provide answers to these questions.. Taking a look at the current practices and frameworks (which are mentioned a bit later) gives us inspiration on what should be measured. Generally, five themes of community needs emerge from existing social value frameworks:
Health and wellbeing (including physical and mental health needs)
Inclusiveness (relating to gender, disability, ethnic minorities)
Engagement with the local community (through employment opportunities, working with local suppliers, being involved with local associations)
Respect for the natural environment (usually labelled as “environmental impact”, generally related to waste management)
Security (including addressing issues of modern slavery and cybersecurity)
“Social value is the quantification of the relative importance that people place on the changes they experience in their lives. Some, but not all of this value is captured in market prices. It is important to consider and measure this social value from the perspective of those affected by an organisation’s work.” Social Value UK (2019)
Where to start / What is out there?
In order to understand which framework works best for your organisation, it’s worth looking at what’s already out there. Social value measurement frameworks currently widely used are:
Social Value Portal / The National TOMs Framework
The HACT Value Calculator
The Cabinet Office frameworks, from the March 2019 consultation
The Social Return on Investment Framework
Social Profit Calculator
Each of these frameworks is suited to different goals. For instance, the National TOMs are predominantly more suited to generic goals and needs, while the HACT Value Calculator provides better metrics for environmental concerns,
Supply Change recently teamed up with the OR Society and Operational Researcher, Solene Huynh, from the University of Strathclyde to gain a detailed understanding of the key things organisations should consider when choosing a social value framework. If you would like a more detailed comparative understanding of the four frameworks mentioned in this blog, you can view the report here. | https://medium.com/positive-procurement/how-to-choose-a-social-value-measurement-framework-36d3251708b0 | ['Supply Change'] | 2020-08-28 07:16:03.720000+00:00 | ['Social Impact', 'Social Enterprise', 'Social Value', 'Build Back Better', 'Community'] |
Failure is an Option | As human beings, we want to succeed, we want to do well in life. We have been told time and time again that “failure is not an option.” I think that phrase is misguided and misleading. With maturity — or should I say age, I have discovered that this was not sage advice. Leaning on this belief that failure is not ideal, I took the safe route all too often. I rarely failed because I set my goals low enough that failure was nearly impossible. That is what I did in my younger years. I tried to choose safe relationships, a safe career, safe goals. All which led me to safety but limited growth and fulfillment. I applied for jobs which I knew that I was almost guaranteed to get. I set goals, like receiving my Master’s degree, which again, I was pretty confident that I could achieve with perseverance and a targeted focus on my studies. In my personal life, my low standards for dating often led to disaster after disaster because I was willing to accept too little and give too much. I didn’t want to fail, but ironically these low standards always led to dating disasters.
Thankfully, time led me to take more chances and take more risks. I observed some of my colleagues and close friends setting high goals and often exceeding them, so I dipped my toe in the water and began taking small, calculated risks in all areas of my life. I started with work and school. I worked on my administrative certification despite hearing how difficult it was to pass the exam and also, I was unsure of how I could afford the courses. I took a chance and started the program. It was challenging, but I succeeded. I am proud of that certification because I knew that success was not guaranteed. I had to really work for it. I also applied for roles outside of the classroom. I pushed myself. I loved having my own students and being only responsible for those seven or eight classes. I knew that I could help more students in a different role so I forced myself to apply for other roles. I set higher goals. I am so glad that I did. Working on a district level allows us to impact education far more than I would have in a single classroom. I cherish classroom teachers and aides because of the work I personally know they do diligently every single day, but I knew that I was being led to serve in other ways. Throughout my career, I have applied for several jobs that I didn’t get; it is never a good feeling but it is always a learning experience. Besides, I feel that I always find my way to the right roles.
Additionally, I decided to set my standards high when it came to dating. I journaled past mistakes and created a list of traits I would like to have in a mate. I would never set my expectations that low again. I prayed over it and let it go. I was not concerned with how many dates did not work out. I was determined to find the person I was destined to be with and I did. The chances that I take in all areas of my life, don’t always work out. There are many times when I don’t succeed — no matter how hard I try. Nevertheless, I dust myself off and get back up. Failure is an option and I am learning to embrace it more (I still don’t quite like it). Each time we fall and rise, we inspire others to do the same. We rise to the occasion and we are all the better for it. | https://medium.com/@54u/failure-is-an-option-6ca0f5e3b547 | ['Tanesha Russell Yusuf'] | 2021-06-22 23:16:18.714000+00:00 | ['Help', 'Expectations', 'Self Improvement', 'Goals', 'Blog'] |
Serverless Data Pipelines and Recommendation Engines— Snowplow on AWS | In the e-commerce business you want to advertise smart. It also needs powerful analytics tool that can record customer’s interaction with their Website, App or Server and visualize the behavior at customer level. To advertise products smartly implies that it should be real time. In one of our projects we had to feed a recommendation engine by realtime clickstream data.
We decided to use snowplow for data collection. It is an event data pipeline, enabling you to track all events across all channels and action the data in real-time. Snowplow can collect raw clickstream data from the front-end of an application. It has tremendous power to track and record events on Cloud infrastructure.
Primary question that comes to mind considering many data tools available in market - most notably, Google Analytics: Why bother collecting your data on your own when you can use tools like Google Analytics? Isn’t GA easier? Do you need more than that?
Ownership of data : snowplow runs on end users stack under AWS account of the user. Hence, you have complete ownership of data.
Cost effective: snowplow is an open-source tool. Thus you have to only pay for the AWS infrastructure cost.
Highly customizable : you can easily add custom trackers, webhooks, enrichments, data models or metrics that suit your business.
How to set up snowplow:
Snowplow data pipeline has a modular architecture, allowing you to choose what parts you want implement. The main concept of it is an event, which is not limited to web-page views or clickstream data only, but can be pretty much anything.
Each event is processed through multiple stages pipeline of the pipeline — see diagram above.
Trackers are pieces of software that captures/triggers events when they occur and send them to the collector. I decided to implement javascript tracker. See list of available trackers here. Collector are used to collect data from trackers i.e. receiving events from trackers. It is basically a backend code running on AWS infrastructure. I decided to go with Scala stream collector due to it’s capability to stream events using AWS kinesis. See list of available collectors here. Enrichment stage is used to clean up data and to add some extra information to our raw data eg: infer the location of the visitor from his / her IP address. In original snowplow architecture enrichment can be done using this applications. However I tried to make it more customisable and cheaper by enriching data using serverless AWS Lambda functions.
This all looks good but how to implement this data pipeline?
Event Collector:
Launch an EC2 instance to run the collector. Moving forward we will containerise our code and push it to ECS fargate.
Install all the dependencies.
Install Java
$ apt-get update && apt-get install default-jdk
Install Scala
$ dpkg -i scala-2.11.8.deb
$ scala -version $ wget www.scala-lang.org/files/archive/scala-2.11.8.deb $ dpkg -i scala-2.11.8.deb$ scala -version
Install Sbt
$ echo "deb https://dl.bintray.com/sbt/debian /" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sbt.list
$ apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv 2EE0EA64E40A89B84B2DF73499E82A75642AC823
$ apt-get -y update && apt-get install -y sbt
2. Compile Scala stream collector from source
$ cd 2-collectors/scala-stream-collector
$ sbt "project *targeted platform*" assembly $ git clone https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow.git $ cd 2-collectors/scala-stream-collector$ sbt "project *targeted platform*" assembly
where targeted platform can be: kinesis, google-pubsub, kafka, nsq, stdout. I have set up collector on AWS infrastructure hence targeted platform is kinesis in my case.
The jar file will be saved as snowplow-scala-collector-[targeted platform]-[version].jar in the [targeted platform]/target/scala-2.11 subdirectory - it is now ready to be deployed.
3. Configuration
Download a template configuration file from GitHub: config.hocon.sample and create a .conf file using this template. Follow this link to configure different options available with scala stream collector.
4. Run collector
Scala stream collector is a jar file. Run following command and provide configuration file as parameter.
$ java -jar snowplow-stream-collector-[targeted platform]-[version].jar --config [config-file].conf
Now, collector should be running and listening to events on public-ip address of EC2 instance. Pinging the collector on the /health path should return a 200 OK response.
$ curl [public-ip of EC2]/health
Trackers
We can install javascript directly into our website. Add following script in head section of your website template.
<!-- Snowplow starts plowing -->
<script type="text/javascript">
;(function(p,l,o,w,i,n,g){if(!p[i]){p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace=p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace||[];
p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace.push(i);p[i]=function(){(p[i].q=p[i].q||[]).push(arguments)
};p[i].q=p[i].q||[];n=l.createElement(o);g=l.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];n.async=1;
n.src=w;g.parentNode.insertBefore(n,g)}}(window,document,"script","//d1fc8wv8zag5ca.cloudfront.net/2.10.2/sp.js","snowplow"));
window.snowplow('newTracker', 'TrackerName', '{{MY-COLLECTOR-URI}}', { // Initialise a tracker
appId: '{{MY-SITE-ID}}',
cookieDomain: '{{MY-COOKIE-DOMAIN}}'
});
window.snowplow('trackPageView');
</script>
<!-- Snowplow stops plowing -->
where {{MY-COLLECTOR_URL}} represents collector endpoint. This ensures that any data generated by the JavaScript Tracker is sent to the Collector. Also, window.snowplow('trackPageView') captures page view event and sends it to collector.
Let’s test if trackers are firing :
Test that the JavaScript tracker is working correctly using Snowplow Inspector, a Chrome extension that exposes a new tab for snowplow beacons inside the developer tools. Follow this link for more information on testing if javascript tracker is firing.
See list of available custom trackers in snowplow here. Snowplow tracker protocol is list of parameters that tracker can use when firing events. See snowplow tracker protocol here.
Enrichment
Event data is sent to kinesis after collection stage. We can send streaming data from kinesis data stream to s3 using kinesis firehose. We can transform our data before push it in S3 using data transformation lambda function.
I have done enrichment using a lambda function to infer location of user from IP address available in raw data. The function is available here on Github. I am using Maxmind Lite database of GeoIP data.
Deploy collector on ECS-fargate
ECS fargate allows us to run Docker containers without having to manage servers or clusters. Also, cost for running collector application would be lowered down as we would not be paying for unused EC2 instance.
Firstly, we need to make a dockerfile with installation of all dependencies and command for running collector jar file.
FROM ubuntu:16.04
MAINTAINER Dharmil Gandhi RUN apt-get update -y
RUN apt-get install -y default-jdk && \
java -version
RUN apt-get install -y wget
RUN wget www.scala-lang.org/files/archive/scala-2.11.8.deb && \
dpkg -i scala-2.11.8.deb && \
scala -version
RUN apt-get update -y && apt-get -y install curl apt-transport-https ca-certificates
RUN echo "deb https://dl.bintray.com/sbt/debian /" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sbt.list && \
apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv 2EE0EA64E40A89B84B2DF73499E82A75642AC823 && \
apt-get -y update && apt-get install -y sbt
COPY . /app
WORKDIR /app ENTRYPOINT ["java"]
CMD ["-jar", "snowplow-stream-collector-kinesis-0.15.0.jar","--config","collector.conf"]
Build and run docker image
$ docker build -t [container-filename]
$ docker run -d -p 80:80 [container-filename] /bin/bash
Next step is to push docker image to ECR(EC2 container registry). Create a repository in AWS ECR. Tag docker image with the repository URL
$ docker tag [container-name] [repository-URL]
Run the following command to get docker login authentication
$ aws ecr get-login
Remove “-e none” from the output and copy that output command and run it. Now Push tagged docker image to ECR
$ docker push [repository url]:[Tag]
Now, it is very easy to deploy docker image on ECS fargate from ECR. You need to create fargate cluster, create task definition and add container details, create service and follow the steps. The collector will be running and listening to public IP address of ECS fargate. This link helped me to deploy docker image to ECS fargate. | https://blog.searce.com/setup-data-pipeline-using-snowplow-on-aws-6479570818b0 | ['Dharmil Gandhi'] | 2020-02-20 21:18:55.988000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Snowplow', 'Data Pipeline', 'Kinesis', 'Recommendation System'] |
Grab the Bissell EV675 robovac for $170, a near-all-time-low | If you're tired of vacuuming pet hair off your floors every week, today's the day to hire a robot to do it for you. Amazon is selling the robot vacuum cleaner " data-vars-product-name="Bissell EV675 robot vacuum cleaner " data-vars-outbound-link="https://www.amazon.com/BISSELL-Vacuum-Cleaner-Charging-2503/dp/B07L75HXKB" data-product-id="000000" data-vars-product-id="000000" data-bkmfr="Bissell" data-vars-bkmfr="Bissell" data-bkvndr="Amazon" data-vars-bkvndr="Amazon">Bissell EV675 robot vacuum cleaner for $170Bissell|https://www.amazon.com/BISSELL-Vacuum-Cleaner-Charging-2503/dp/B07L75HXKB|Amazon|Bissell EV675 robot vacuum cleaner |4|Add Link">Remove non-product link, good for $130 off its MSRP and within a few bucks of its all-time low.
Bissell is aiming this vacuum mostly for cleaning pet hair, which is usually code for "entry-level model." (In fact, Bissell doesn't say what the suction power of this unit is.) While we haven't reviewed this model, Bissell is a trusted name in vacuums and it gets 4 out of 5 stars from more than 350 Amazon reviewers, with the highlights being that it runs very quiet and easy to empty. However, many people noted that it has a very small dust bin.
The EV675 features dual edge brushes and a rotating brush roll, and Bissell claims the battery supports up to 100 minutes of automatic cleaning. You can also control the vac with a remote, set a cleaning schedule, and it has built-in "cliff" detection to stop it from taking a tumble down the stairs. It's also rocking a low profile design for getting under furniture, and the dirt cup has a capacity of 0.4 liters.
[Today's deal: EV675 vacuum" data-vars-product-name="Bissell EV675 vacuum" data-vars-outbound-link="https://www.amazon.com/BISSELL-Vacuum-Cleaner-Charging-2503/dp/B07L75HXKB" data-product-id="000000" data-vars-product-id="000000" data-bkmfr="Bissell" data-vars-bkmfr="Bissell" data-bkvndr="Amazon" data-vars-bkvndr="Amazon">Bissell EV675 vacuum for $170 on Amazonlink-tooltip" style="display: none;" data-removeparamvalues="Bissell EV675 vacuum for $170 on Amazon|Bissell|https://www.amazon.com/BISSELL-Vacuum-Cleaner-Charging-2503/dp/B07L75HXKB|Amazon|Bissell EV675 vacuum|4|Add Link">Remove non-product link]
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@Craig12928262/grab-the-bissell-ev675-robovac-for-170-a-near-all-time-low-e54c30595125 | [] | 2020-09-09 07:28:52.024000+00:00 | ['Lighting', 'Electronics', 'Home Tech', 'Audio'] |
LIVE’™!!*~ 49ers vs Cardinals Live Stream 2021 — San Francisco 49ers vs Arizona Cardinals Live | Live Now::https://tinyurl.com/y2v8qpwc
Live Now::https://tinyurl.com/y2v8qpwc
The San Francisco 49ers are 2–7 against the Arizona Cardinals since October of 2016, but they’ll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Saturday. San Francisco and Arizona will face off in an NFC West battle at 4:30 p.m. ET at State Farm Stadium. With a combined 984 yards of offense in their previous games, we can expect a fast-paced game.
It looks like the 49ers must have gotten on Santa’s naughty list since the squad didn’t end up with the win they were expected to receive this past Sunday. They fell to the Dallas Cowboys 41–33. One thing holding San Francisco back was the mediocre play of QB Nick Mullens, who did not have his best game: despite two touchdowns, he threw two interceptions and fumbled the ball once. Mullens ended up with a passer rating of 116.70.
Arizona decided to play defense against itself this past Sunday, but the team still came out ahead despite their 82 penalty yards. They took their contest against the Philadelphia Eagles 33–26. The team ran away with 26 points in the first half and mostly just sat on those in the second to pick up the victory. It was another big night for Arizona’s QB Kyler Murray, who passed for three TDs and 406 yards on 36 attempts in addition to punching in one rushing touchdown.
The 49ers are now 5–9 while the Cardinals sit at 8–6. San Francisco has been eliminated from playoff contention. Arizona is still in the hunt for a spot in the playoffs, so these next two games are critical for them.
San Francisco is expected to lose this next one by 5. Now might not be the best time to take San Francisco against the spread since they’ve let down bettors for the past three consecutive games.
Two stats to keep an eye on: The 49ers enter the matchup with only ten rushing touchdowns allowed, good for fourth best in the league. But the Cardinals rank second in the NFL when it comes to rushing touchdowns, with 21 on the season. We’ll see if San Francisco’s defense can keep Arizona’s running backs out of the end zone.
How To Watch
When: Saturday at 4:30 p.m. ET
Saturday at 4:30 p.m. ET Where: State Farm Stadium — Glendale, Arizona
State Farm Stadium — Glendale, Arizona TV: Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video Online streaming: fuboTV (Try for free. Regional restrictions may apply.)
fuboTV (Try for free. Regional restrictions may apply.) Follow: CBS Sports App
Odds
The Cardinals are a 5-point favorite against the 49ers, according to the latest NFL odds.
Over/Under: -111
See NFL picks for every single game, including this one, from SportsLine’s advanced computer model. Get picks now.
Series History
Arizona have won nine out of their last 11 games against San Francisco.
Sep 13, 2020 — Arizona 24 vs. San Francisco 20
Nov 17, 2019 — San Francisco 36 vs. Arizona 26
Oct 31, 2019 — San Francisco 28 vs. Arizona 25
Oct 28, 2018 — Arizona 18 vs. San Francisco 15
Oct 07, 2018 — Arizona 28 vs. San Francisco 18
Nov 05, 2017 — Arizona 20 vs. San Francisco 10
Oct 01, 2017 — Arizona 18 vs. San Francisco 15
Nov 13, 2016 — Arizona 23 vs. San Francisco 20
Oct 06, 2016 — Arizona 33 vs. San Francisco 21
Nov 29, 2015 — Arizona 19 vs. San Francisco 13
Sep 27, 2015 — Arizona 47 vs. San Francisco 7
The fight for a playoff berth continues for the Arizona Cardinals when they host their temporary stadium houseguests the San Francisco 49ers on Saturday afternoon at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. This will be the second meeting of the year between these two teams as the Cardinals beat the 49ers in Week 1 24–20 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
Arizona (8–6) survived the “Lincoln Riley Classic” last week as Kyler Murray outdueled Jalen Hurts in a battle of former Oklahoma quarterbacks as the Cardinals beat Philadelphia 33–26. Murray threw for a career-high 406 yards as the Eagles’ defense had zero answers for him. DeAndre Hopkins caught nine passes for 169 yards and a touchdown to continue his big first season out in the desert. While Hurts put up big numbers of his own (401 total yards, 4 total TDs), Arizona’s defense was able to limit Philadelphia to just six points in the second half. A big part of that was getting off the field on third down. The Cardinals held the Eagles to 6-for-18 in that critical situation.
On the other side, San Francisco (5–9) fell 41–33 to Dallas on the road. The 49ers gave up 291 total yards to the Cowboys but turned the ball over four times. Nick Mullens posted 219 passing yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions before giving way to C.J. Beathard, who completed five of seven passes for 100 yards and a touchdown. Kendrick Bourne and Brandon Aiyuk were bright spots as they combined to catch 13 passes for 159 yards and two touchdowns between them, but it wasn’t enough as San Francisco lost its third in a row.
San Francisco at Arizona
Kickoff: Saturday, Dec. 26 at 4:30 p.m. ET
TV: Amazon Prime Video/Twitch
Spread: Cardinals -4
Three Things to Watch
1. Arizona offense
Kyler Murray is in an interesting spot this week with the Cardinals getting an opportunity to take a big step towards securing a wild-card berth. In the first meeting with San Francisco back in Week 1, Murray went 26-for-40 for 230 yards, a touchdown and an interception. However, it was his legs that ended up being the difference, rushing for 91 yards and a score on 13 carries in the 24–20 victory. Murray will likely have to do more of the same this time, as neither Kenyan Drake nor Chase Edmonds was that effective in the win over Philadelphia, combining for 73 yards on 21 carries. Murray also has DeAndre Hopkins to throw to. The NFL’s leading receiver (1,324 yards on 103 catches), Hopkins lit up the 49ers for 151 yards on 14 grabs in the first meeting.
2. Can San Francisco play keep away from the Cardinals?
Nick Mullens suffered an elbow injury last week and will miss the rest of the season. C.J. Beathard will take over and while he has plenty of experience under his belt, look for head coach Kyle Shanahan to run the ball a lot. With Raheem Mostert getting shut down for the rest of the season that task will largely fall on Jeff Wilson Jr., who is averaging 4.1 yards per carry and leads the team with six rushing touchdowns. Tevin Coleman and Jerick McKinnon are other possible options, but the former has dealt with injuries (played in just games) while the latter is averaging under four yards per carry, although he has scored six times, five of those coming on the ground. Whoever gets the touches needs to be on the alert for safety Budda Baker. A three-time Pro Bowler following this year’s selection, Baker makes plays all over the field, as evidenced by the 15 tackles he racked up in the first meeting. Another potential difference-makers for Arizona’s D is linebacker Haason Reddick, who is among the league leaders in both sacks (11.0) and tackles for a loss (19).
3. How will Kliff Kingsbury respond to coaching in a game with huge playoff implications?
This will be a great opportunity for Arizona’s second-year head coach to show his mettle. The Cardinals have had issues on occasion under Kingsbury where the team has lost games at home that they had no business losing. The best example of this in 2020 is in Week 3, a 26–23 loss to Detroit. In that game, Arizona outgained Detroit 377–322 and had a 23–20 lead after three quarters, but three turnovers proved to be costly. Saturday’s game with San Francisco has the potential to unfold in a similar fashion if Kingsbury doesn’t have his team ready to play from the opening snap. One way to avoid a slow or flat start would be to play aggressive in all three phases of the game. If that happens, the Cardinals should win this game going away instead of having to hang on for dear life late in the fourth quarter.
Final Analysis
It will be a competitive game for a while in the first half as there is too much pride within the 49ers organization for them to completely give up. Still, the toll of being away from their normal home in Santa Clara County has to show up at some point, not to mention the cumulative effect of all the injuries San Francisco has had to deal with this season. Look for the Cardinals to break the game open in the second half by forcing a couple of turnovers with the offense cashing them in. Arizona takes another step towards a wild-card berth by picking up its ninth win of the season.
Prediction: Cardinals 30, 49ers 17 | https://medium.com/@fetiw12337/live-49ers-vs-cardinals-live-stream-2021-san-francisco-49ers-vs-arizona-cardinals-live-38e8a81adbc1 | [] | 2020-12-26 20:15:31.299000+00:00 | ['NFL'] |
Don’t Fix Me | Don’t Fix Me
A poem about holding space for difficult feelings
Photo by Anastasia Vityukova on Unsplash
Don’t try
to fix my feelings
Don’t try
to make me feel better
Your well-intentioned words
feel like salt
instead of a balm
They stifle my healing
rather than facilitate
Allow me the pain
the sorrow
the agony
even the anger
I can’t move
till I first feel and heal
Hold your fixings
Hold your advice
I just want to be
heard and understood
Slow down with me
and stay with me
I won’t be here
for too long
Just hold this cup
so that I can
empty out
and begin to heal. | https://medium.com/a-cornered-gurl/dont-fix-me-7bf4abdc81c9 | ['Afiyah The Poet'] | 2020-06-19 21:20:15.896000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Healing', 'Life', '365 Days Of Poetry', 'A Cornered Gurl'] |
Healthful Monday~ 07/06/2020 | Today’s Healthful-Amusement worth reviewing and considering to amuse your thoughts toward supporting a healthier mind and body! Here to assist you with self-care for healthier decisions and healthier choices for a healthier lifestyle both in mind and body. Improve your overall well-being not just for yourself but for those you adore and care about. You’ll surely achieve and accomplish more further, farther, and faster with a healthier you… besides, you deserve greater bliss and success~
So, invest in your education by increasing your knowledge regarding your health. Learn more about what energizes you and keeps you going! Check out this bit of information I am sharing today… this is just some info to assist you in being the best version of yourself for your joy and bliss. The better your self-care the better you’ll be! You deserve better moments of today for an appreciative yesterday as you create your ideal tomorrow! You deserve to enjoy every day that much more~
CHEERS~
Source: https://gab.com/EdwardFTCharfauros/posts/104468008680392134
#healthful #lifeguidance #selfhealing #nutritional #infographic | https://medium.com/@edwardftcharfauros/healthful-monday-07-06-2020-9730d39e85f0 | ['Edward F. T. Charfauros'] | 2020-07-06 17:11:26.423000+00:00 | ['Infographics', 'Nutritional Guidance', 'Self Care Tips', 'Minerals For The Body', 'Healthful'] |
Talk about interviews conducted these days. | Talk about interviews conducted these days.
It’s very rare to have a good interview experience these days, unless you have been referred by a senior most person(if you know good people and luck favours) and also mastered the expectations of all the interviewers in a short interview span of 30 mins to 1 hour.
There’s people who would genuinely give you time and consider you human that would make mistakes, but also understand and respect that you come with an experience or education background and that you are capable of learning and adapting as you did over the years.
Is there a perfect candidate for a job?
Initially the focus is on engaging more candidates, to show the interviews are being conducted. The candidates preferred should have considerate experience and be immediate joiners. Later on if you can’t recollect exact definitions and concepts, you will be told that you have a gap and you need to study for an interview.
I mean not everybody is lucky to have that experience but may be he/she wants to have a career change. In that case your profile will not even be screened.
For a candidate with experience and when out the job. The number of interview expectations, patterns and people he/she has to go through is mentally exhausting. Even our computers are limited at some point.
Companies talk about equal opportunities. But how can a 1 hour interview make our years of experience/education look like nothing ?
It’s not like our interviewers are all-knowing and all-rounders, they are good because they had the opportunity to work and learn. Extending a job opportunity to break a person at an interview is a complete disrespect and not a protocol of a good interview.
The amount of stress a person handles while going through interviews is way beyond the time and strength invested by an interviewer in hundreds of candidates.
If you are somebody that has given many interviews and has still not had a job. Keep making progress, keep pushing yourself, ultimately you are growing, don’t let some random person look down on you just cause they are on the easier side of life. | https://medium.com/@sanpry/talk-about-interviews-conducted-these-days-71b67896a862 | [] | 2020-12-15 08:06:13.959000+00:00 | ['Job Hunting', 'Job Search', 'Job Interview', 'Jobs'] |
Will ‘Meatless’ Meat save us from hunger and climate crisis? | There are a lot of reasons why ‘meatless’ meat could be our panacea and a solution to feeding 10bn people all over the world for the next decades but due to lack of data and our inability to accurately project future, it’s hard to tell, looking at it today, whether this really is as viable an option as ‘meatless’ meat industry proponents make out.
They call ‘meatless’ meat, a meat alternative, either lab-grown meat from a biopsy taken from a living animal and/or vegetarian meat substitutes made synthetically from plants to resemble and taste like meat. Alternative protein industry is also wider than meat and encompasses seafood substitutes as well as insect proteins.
The world’s population is expected to reach 10bn in the next 30–40 years; if we continue at the current phase of consuming meat (approximately 95 pounds of meat per capita), then we won’t have enough resources to feed the world. We are already growing a staggering number of animals for food: (there are over 30 million head beef cows in the US, and 21 million pigs in Iowa alone). (Source: CB Insights). The status quo is clearly unsustainable as we cannot continue farming animals at this or increasing rate.
Current meat production practices are bad for the environment while in contrast alternative meat is potentially more environmentally efficient and reduces negative environmental impact not only in terms of emissions but also water and land use.
Prevailing farming practices account for circa 15% of greenhouse-gas emissions if we count the land that is used up in grazing and/or producing animal feed and the logistics of moving products around from farms to consumers. We have lost 1/3 of arable land over the last 40 years due to these agricultural practices. Moreover, according to the UN report on Biodiversity “land use now appears as the major driver of the biodiversity collapse, with 70% of agriculture related to meat production”.
The figures above paint a damning picture, which makes ‘meatless’ meat claim of reversing pollution more so palatable. However, an interesting study done at the University of Oxford casts some doubts on this claim. The scientists ran climate models over 1000 year horizon and found that over very long time frames the production of cultured meat at scale may result in more damage to climate due to emission of CO2 gases, which stay in the environment for millennia versus gas emissions from cattle farming, which mainly emit methane, that has short life span and disappears much quicker (12 years) from the atmosphere. The conclusion is that lab-grown meat could lead to less warming in the short term but over long-term lab-grown meat would cause more warming than cows. The study was loaded with many caveats, hence, weakening the conclusion in certain respects.
On the other hand, it seems ‘meatless’ meat claims significant improvements in other areas of the environment besides emissions such as water and land use. Again, these figures have yet to be borne out, because the clean-meat or ‘meatless’ meat industry doesn’t yet exist.
Another pertinent argument in favour of ‘meatless’ meat concerns an ethical aspect of slaughtering and mistreating so many animals at an unprecedented scale. If we were to feed 3bn more people this trend has to increase. Hence, the solution to stop killing animals and instead producing meat from cells or plants seems like a great option, except, the current solution is not without its ethical issues. At the moment, lab-grown meat is dependant on fetal bovine serum (FBS) which is extracted from the heart of a calf fetus when its mother is pregnant. There is a lot of R&D currently to find alternative methods.
Apparently, only 5% of Americans describe themselves as vegetarians. It’s not clear why would vegetarians switch to eat ‘meatless’ meat products, so it would follow that the target market for ‘meatless’ meat would be carnivores. And the next question is how likely is it for these people to stop eating meat and switch to meat replicas? No conclusive evidence is given in this respect. There are other hurdles as well to scaling this product such as proving the safety of these products and surmounting the psychological “ickiness” barrier of eating artificial meat. Also, consumers are now health conscious and would want to know the ingredients of their food. Hence, it’s not evident that ‘meatless’ meat will pass this test especially because of so many genetic and chemical modifications to make meat look and taste like real meat.
In the end, it’s not obvious that ‘meatless’ meat is our panacea. There are many compelling reasons as to its benefits, but the questions still remain about what the future holds. Perhaps, one way to look at this is to acknowledge that technology is just one small avenue of solving this problem and yet another approach is needed to solve this problem at a global scale (e.g. education and widespread campaigns) on stopping or at least reducing our meat intake. Effective Altruism may offer some alternative ways to deal with such problems (which could be a topic of another article). | https://medium.com/future-vision/will-meatless-meat-save-us-from-hunger-and-climate-crisis-2e1750e59687 | [] | 2019-05-09 22:45:27.052000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Meatless Meat', 'Foodtech', 'Clean Meat', 'Climate'] |
Useful Tools for Writers | Useful Tools for Writers
Jumpstart your process.
There was a twisty windy journey that I skipped along before I came to a fork in the road. Path A, don’t bother with this stuff and go watch Dragon Ball Z (so tempting) or path B, write the damn piece, because this is one question you’ve been asked many many times.
If you want to get right down to the nitty gritty, skip this next part.
As a member of a few prominent ‘writing groups’ — I use the term loosely — on Facebook, I’ve run into my fair share — nearly all of them — of posts that are, in a nutshell, completely and utterly useless. They’re just a waste of time and an act of procrastination on the poster’s part, in my opinion.
“How many words go in a chapter.”
“How many pages should a book be these days.”
“What can I name this character that I will tell you nothing about because you’ll steal my idea if I do.”
“How can I kill this character in three sentences.”
“What’s a good plot for my book.”
“Do you keep a backup of your writing just in case your computer dies?”
Face-palm.
I am, sadly, addicted to scrolling through this nonsense, and I haven’t broken the habit of it quite yet. I don’t know what it is that draws me into this cascading whirlwind of nonsensical rhetoric, but once in a while a tiny glimmer of light shines out of the darkness.
This little light came in the aftermath of an infuriating thread, created by an infuriating user that is always there, on the edges, skulking around here and there and as soon as you’ve forgotten his existence, BAM he’s in your face again with brand-new steamy bullshit. Now, I’m aware that it’s immature to get into this stuff with these random people on the internet, but I’m flawed.
He made a was a thread asking about people’s processes in their creative writing.
What’s your process? Mine is categorising a list and using a word generator to create original word combinations because writers these days are too lazy to write original stories and I’m the only one who can.
Mind you, I’m paraphrasing 3–4 of his rants into one here, just to get the point across as to what we’re dealing with.
Fast-forward a little while and this guy is going on about how there are no writers that have a process (except for him) and his process will give him a leg up in the publishing world once the publishers learn about his amazing process.
Newsflash, your writing is irrelevant, it’s your process they want.
I’m not making this up. It’s just … it makes you want to pound your head on your desk, but I can’t do that because this desk is new and I can’t afford a new one if I break this one. I just finished paying it off to Afterpay, and I really want to go get the new God of War game. That’s irrelevant, so moving on.
Anyway, at the end of the day I got a few private messages from people asking me about my ‘process’ and how I go about my creative writing.
My tools and process to creating fantastical and confusing fictional worlds for a novel that is not yet finished, but I talk about all the time. I’m already working on №3 as well.
What you’ll need:
-Scrivener
-Scapple
-Aeon Timeline
-A notebook (one that has paper in it, you know, that dead tree stuff.)
-A pen or pencil (this is for writing your notes, not stabbing people. I know it’s confusing)
-Lots of orange juice and snacks (preferably healthy ones, but whatever, I like Doritos)
-Cat.
Scrivener
I can’t begin to tell you how much this program helped me get organized. When I started my work on The Galean Chronicles, I was a mess. My apartment looked like every writer’s nightmare. Paper, notebooks, sticky notes, note cards.
E V E R Y W H E R E.
Pinned to the walls, stuck to the doors, taped to the desk, wadded up under the couch, under the pillow, some in the litter box, more lost and never to be found.
My computer wasn’t much better. It was a barrage of files stuck everywhere and anywhere. Untitled documents all over the desktop, important notes in the pictures folder, finished scenes somehow in the trash folder, character sheets lost in the movie drive.
The ability to keep all of my documents in one place within a single file changed my life. Look at this beautiful binder.
You have the power to organize this in whatever works best for your brain. It comes with already built character and place template sheets, but you can create and import your own. As you can see, I created my own species template and folder as well.
Being able to flip through all of your notes without have 78 different documents open on your computer makes you feel less flustered and crazy.
(Colors are customizable, you can create your own night-mode)
My next favorite feature is the side-by-side layout. Or top/bottom layout, whatever floats your boat. Its great when I’m doing edits. Old version on the left, new version on the right.
Every document you create within the program will have a synopsis box(top right) and a notes box (bottom right). The synonpsis box is great when you’re viewing all of your documents like notecards and can help in outlining your chapters. If left blank, it’ll use the first words of the document, so you can see what’s in there at a glance.
Now maybe you’re more chaotic and scattered in your planning. Never fear, scrivener has a corkboard for you to plaster all of your random thoughts onto. Create as many boards as you want, create as many notecards as you like, add photos, ideas, notes whatever. You do you boo.
This program has way to many features for me to really get into all of them, these are just the ones I use most. Its very customizable and flexible.
Save all of your scrivener files to dropbox. They’ll sync across all of your devices, from your desktop, to laptop, to your tablet to your phone.
Scrivener knows when you have it open on another device and will prompt you to open a copy to avoid conflicts. However, should conflicts arise your work will not be saved over. Scrivener will save all of your ‘conflicting’ documents into a conflicts folder in the binder on the left. You never have to worry about losing something.
Scapple
Scapple. Your mind-map. I know lots of people use this for ideas, but I use it mostly for getting character relationships displayed visually.
Now I zoomed way out on this screenshot, because this is still a work-in-progress. Spoilers, duh!
But why do you use pictures?
Because something about that actor/character is similar to my character. Tone of voice, hair style, atmosphere, accent, nose, ears. Some are just place-holders because I like having a visual.
So you get the idea of the program. It’s like scrivener, utilize it however you like.
The app version has not been made yet, but I heard (a while back) that it wasn’t off the table. No promises.
Aeon Timeline
Oh my god, this one is my favorite!
Scrivener may have gotten my organized, and scapple let me visualize my multitude of characters, but Aeon really got me on track for my book series and helped me find plot holes I didn’t even know existed.
Create a timeline, any timeline. If you’re writing a fantasy then you can create a timeline from scratch, with your own months, days, years etc. I haven’t personally experimented with this feature yet however.
Now you can create different entities. Characters, places, events and arcs. When you create a character, you can see the age of that character anywhere on the timeline. Create events, and dictate which characters participated and observed (they’re different). Add a place (if you’ve created place entities) and an arc.
Personally I use my intended books as the arcs.
Ooh and for all of you color coders out there…You can color code your events! You can also add a timeframe if the event lasts for a duration of time, add sub-events, add a tension level and you have a note-box for a summary.
You can also change the view of your timeline. I prefer seeing it in the character view below. There, you can see exactly how old each character is anywhere in the timeline. I can see other character’s story’s in correlation with whoever or whatever I’m working on at the time. The colored lines are events.
In this next screenshot, you can see my characters down the left. Their events only show when I expand that characters menu. To the right you can see what locations the event has been tagged in, and further right you can see what other characters participated (full circle) or observed (empty circle). You can also see the two arc’s i’ve created at the top, One for the novel and short story I’m currently working on.
The Rest
Always carry a notebook, because what happens when your phone is dead and you think of something vital? You write it down, with a pencil. Don’t just smack the paper and grunt like a caveman.
Orange juice. Lots of people survive off of coffee. I love iced coffee, I love chai lattes even more, but the only thing that really gets me energized and keeps me awake is orange juice. I don’t know why, it just does.
Also, are you really a writer if you don’t have some kind of fluffy creature sprawled across your lap while you work? I feel like it’s a prerequisite, so here’s a photo of mine. Follow him on instagram: @the_moosifer
There you have it ladies and gentlemen. This is how I organize, plot and plan my work. It’s really fun, which is why I get more plotting than writing done, but I’m working on the third re-write of my novel, and boy is it different from the original, and still changing. | https://jaxonleerose.medium.com/useful-tools-for-writers-46eb0736d660 | [] | 2019-04-01 06:03:42.351000+00:00 | ['Tools', 'Scrivener', 'Fiction', 'Productivity', 'Writing'] |
Why You Need to Accept Mobile Wallets at Your SMB | Shoppers are progressively utilizing computerized wallets like Apple Pay at checkout. Get familiar with this installment strategy and how your independent company can acknowledge it.
The utilization of portable wallets is on the ascent.
A portable wallet is characterized as any cell phone fit for making monetary exchanges. Numerous cell phones presently remember versatile wallets as a worked for highlight animesprout.
You can work with your Visa processor to acknowledge versatile wallet installments.
This article is for entrepreneurs who are thinking about tolerating portable installments.
At the point when Apple Pay was presented in 2014, numerous individuals laughed at the possibility that a cell phone could supplant money and Mastercard exchanges for the purpose of procurement. Today, portable installments are on the ascent — and expected to outperform $250 billion by 2024, as indicated by a Global Market Insights Inc. report.
A few components are uniting to drive this development: the expansion of cell phones (about 96% of Americans use them), empowering innovation, way of life changes, interest for improved client encounters, and the requirement for quick, simple, and secure exchanges. Recent college grads are as of now the biggest crowd for versatile installments — almost a large portion of the individuals in this age range report utilizing a portable wallet.
In the course of the most recent couple of years, top innovation trailblazers like Apple, Google, and Samsung have progressed the portable installment industry by presenting cutting edge versatile installment applications, making portable installments more open to more customers like animesprout.
Shipper upholds for innovation has additionally expanded, as most new charge card perusers and retail location (POS) terminals can acknowledge portable wallets and other contactless installments.
For independent companies, tolerating portable installments can improve the client encounter and smooth out cycles, to give some examples of benefits. Some industry specialists state that embracing versatile installment innovations is one approach to the future-verification of your business. Yet, does it bode well for private ventures to jump aboard now?
To assist you with gauging the upsides and downsides, here’s a diagram of portable installments, possible advantages, and the innovation important to help them.
What are portable wallets?
As a wide definition, a versatile wallet includes any innovation that transforms your cell phone into a wallet equipped for making monetary exchanges. This can likewise include making charge card installments, depending on close field correspondence innovation (“tap to pay”), and regularly incorporates motivating forces for customers like devotion projects and coupons.
The unmistakable preferred position is “contactless installment,” which normally includes NFC innovation. Telephones, for example, the Samsung Galaxy S10 use NFC so you don’t need to swipe a Mastercard; you essentially place the telephone on a peruser that checks the QR code for the client’s card.
Versatile wallets work in the store for private company exchanges, however, they can likewise be utilized for online installments. It’s a route for clients to try not to convey a genuine wallet or handbag, utilizing one gadget for all installments.
Obviously, the versatile wallets complete the exchange with the client’s current charge card. For instance, they can interface Apple Pay to their bank card or Mastercard. Touchy card information is supplanted with scrambled tokens for additional security.
With different computerized wallet applications, a cell phone can be utilized to make installments, record and recover dedication focuses, supplant paper tickets, pass on close to home recognizable proof, and send accreditations that award admittance to make sure about entryways and rooms.
Key takeaway: Mobile wallets let clients utilize their cell phones to make installments on the web or in-store by means of tap-to-pay or QR code filters.
How protected are versatile wallets?
Versatile wallets have preinstalled security highlights intended to prevent any other individual from utilizing the record. While charge cards are anything but difficult to sweep or take, portable wallets are anything but difficult to monitor — since a great many people generally know where their telephones are — and incorporate encryption innovation. They likewise offer discretionary safety efforts to keep undesirable clients from utilizing the portable wallet application, for example, a necessary face filter, unique mark, PIN, or password.
Versatile wallets are more enthusiastically to take from on the grounds that they are more earnestly to recreate. For the most part, individuals cling to their telephones more than they do their wallets. On the off chance that somebody loses their wallet, their money is no more. In the event that somebody loses a telephone, the lock on the telephone and the application ensure against burglary.
There are some intrinsic dangers in depending exclusively on a portable wallet for installments, obviously. The telephone could pass on right at the purpose of procurement, a bug could keep the footing from working or make the QR code muddled, and there’s consistently the possibility of client blunder. (Thus, you should give your clients the same number of installment choices as you can.)
Despite the fact that there’s been a ton of worry about security, versatile installments are safer than different types of installment. Clients don’t need to stress over leaving a charge card behind at the terminal, and since the information for portable installment is encoded, the danger of information robbery is lower. This can fabricate more grounded trust among dealers and clients. Also, numerous telephones use unique mark recognizable proof to check a buy.
How do versatile wallets bring in cash?
The applications’ financial accomplices (i.e., the banks that have the clients’ associated installment cards) pay the versatile wallet organizations a little level of each buy their clients make through the application. For instance, Apple acquires 0.15% of every Apple Pay exchange.
For distributed installments through Venmo, the application charges the payer a level of the exchange’s worth (in the event that they’re paying with a Visa). Organizations that acknowledge Venmo installments accept this expense and pay a 2.9% charge for every exchange.
How would you acknowledge portable wallet installments?
Setting up portable installments for your business is for the most part quick and moderate. To start with, you need to pick a Mastercard processor that upholds portable installments. There are several installment handling organizations available, and the very best ones can set you up to acknowledge computerized wallets.
In the event that you as of now have an installment processor, call your rep and ask what you need to do to acknowledge versatile installments and computerized wallets — it could be as basic as moving up to another charge card peruser that empowers NFC. The card peruser or terminal should cost you close to $500; contingent upon the versatile installment supplier, it may even be free.
In case you’re not yet tolerating Visas, consider working with a portable Mastercard processor like Square or PayPal, as it’s snappy to set up a record with them, forthright expenses for preparing equipment are insignificant, and there is no month to month or yearly record charges. | https://medium.com/@animesprout/why-you-need-to-accept-mobile-wallets-at-your-smb-c72df7f0a1d1 | ['Anime Sprout'] | 2020-12-26 09:20:17.719000+00:00 | ['Trending', 'Animesprout', 'Anime', 'Technology'] |
The Lost Art of Questioning | The ability to ask questions is the greatest resource in learning the truth.
-Carl Jung
Ever since I can remember I have been curious. I’ve always sought to find the truth in its most raw form. For me, questioning has become a natural part of my life, but at times it’s difficult to ask the right questions. It could be your lack insight into a subject matter, an interpersonal communication barrier, or just plain old ignorance. Regardless of that said block, a dilemma arises when you lose the ability to ask questions.
Asking questions is the process in which we engage with said person or data with the intent to learn or to gather clarity on a subject. Unfortunately, at a young age we were pestered to not ask questions. For example, most people know that kid that never stopped asking questions. The ones who always ask why is the earth round, who said I can’t do that, or why not? The inquisitive nature of a child is boundless, but in today’s world most kids are not raised and or educated in a system that caters to their skills and intuitive traits, but attempts to mold and tame them to a certain “standard”.
Do you remember the young you? The kid version that had limitless energy, laugher and imagination. The kid who asked questions, craved learning and saw possibility? That kid version of you was told no, it was told to fit in, it was told to do what others did. We are heard creatures, so we casually do what others do. This inherently is not a bad thing, but we can often lose our sense of self and begin to cater to the world around us. We begin to stop asking questions out of fear of ridicule and begin to just trust the data that comes down the chain of hierarchy.
Now I don't believe all kids loose that sense of wonder, as I know a lot of people who love asking questions and have developed the faculties to think for themselves and discern data. But, sadly I would say most of the world hasn’t come to this realization. Now in regards to trusting the data we are told from our hierarchy, have you ever played the game where you tell someone a phrase and then have them pass it along to 8 or 9 other people until it comes back to you? Then you get to laugh when the phrase comes back with extra words or an additional story line attached to it. It’s human nature to error, so just imagine that all of the data and standards we are being told are simply misconceptions of misconceptions. Data flowing from one level beginning as one subject and ending as another.
This is the reason why it is important to ask questions. This is the god given reason that we have the ability to discern right from wrong, truth from false and so on. Yet, if we do not use and or hone these abilities or we shut them down out of fear, how can we really trust anything we hear?
The ability to question is incredibly important in today’s world. Now more than ever, with the access to infinite data via smartphones, laptops and high speed internets we are exposed to an undeniably large amount of false information. I personally believe that false information is used to distract and confuse people. But, if your not a conspiring skeptic like I, don’t take my word for it. Just remember that to be human is to error, if you make mistakes then people who make the media you consume also do. If that is the case, and you do not know how to discern information once again can you trust what you hear?
Humans have become lazy. Not just physically, but mentally.
We create tech to think less about menial subjects, which is actually very similar to the way the our subconscious mind works with habits. It habitulaizes actions to conserve energy for the brain and body to use elsewhere. It’s not inherently bad, but what it does is open us up to use energy on more difficult tasks. This is the reason I enjoy tech, I see it for its productivity value. The thing we need to watch out far is when instead of using the tool for said task, that the tool begins to use us for someone else's said task or agenda. (Social media apps like Facebook / Instagram as an example.)
Final Thoughts
If we wish to solve major problems and advance as a race we must know how to cut through the noise. We cannot simply trust all of the data and begin to pawn off our primal human functions to machines, or media giants. These functions are gifts and if we forget how to use them, we will lose them. That scares me about the future, a time where humans forget the faculties that make them human in the first place.
If you would like to add anything into this article, please comment below. If you’d like to talk and have a real conversation, please email me at the contact information below.
Email: [email protected]
Sincerely,
Skylar | https://medium.com/@skylarisa/the-lost-art-of-questioning-dd74990d7436 | ['Skylar Lysaker'] | 2020-12-03 14:02:21.980000+00:00 | ['Questions', 'Problem Solving', 'Humanity', 'Psychology', 'Mindset'] |
7 Hacks for ES6 Developers | Following the original JavaScript hacks, here’s some new goodies. Coding JavaScript in 2018 is actually fun again!
Hack #1 — Swap variables
Using Array Destructuring to swap values
let a = 'world', b = 'hello'
[a, b] = [b, a]
console.log(a) // -> hello
console.log(b) // -> world // Yes, it's magic
Hack #2 — Async/Await with Destructuring
Once again, Array Destructuring is great. Combined with async/await and promises to make a complex flow — simple.
const [user, account] = await Promise.all([
fetch('/user'),
fetch('/account')
])
Hack #3 — Debugging
For anyone who likes to debug using console.log s, here’s something awesome (and yes, I heard of console.table ):
const a = 5, b = 6, c = 7
console.log({ a, b, c }) // outputs this nice object:
// {
// a: 5,
// b: 6,
// c: 7
// }
Hack #4 — One liners
Syntax can be so much more compact for array operations
// Find max value
const max = (arr) => Math.max(...arr);
max([123, 321, 32]) // outputs: 321 // Sum array
const sum = (arr) => arr.reduce((a, b) => (a + b), 0)
sum([1, 2, 3, 4]) // output: 10
Hack #5 — Array concatenation
The spread operator can be used instead of concat :
const one = ['a', 'b', 'c']
const two = ['d', 'e', 'f']
const three = ['g', 'h', 'i'] // Old way #1
const result = one.concat(two, three) // Old way #2
const result = [].concat(one, two, three) // New
const result = [...one, ...two, ...three]
Hack #6 — Cloning
Clone arrays and objects with ease:
const obj = { ...oldObj }
const arr = [ ...oldArr ]
Note: This creates a shallow clone.
Hack #7 — Named parameters
Making function and function calls more readable with destructuring:
const getStuffNotBad = (id, force, verbose) => {
...do stuff
}
const getStuffAwesome = ({ id, name, force, verbose }) => {
...do stuff
} // Somewhere else in the codebase... WTF is true, true?
getStuffNotBad(150, true, true) // Somewhere else in the codebase... I ❤ JS!!!
getStuffAwesome({ id: 150, force: true, verbose: true })
Already knew them all?
You’re a true hacker, you can read more tips & tricks for writing better code.
Let’s continue the conversation on Twitter. You can also check my startup Torii where we make “SaaS headache” go away. | https://medium.com/dailyjs/7-hacks-for-es6-developers-4e24ff425d0b | ['Tal Bereznitskey'] | 2018-03-29 11:11:56.713000+00:00 | ['Async', 'JavaScript', 'Hacks', 'ES6'] |
[Hibernate 5] Naming Strategy 설정 | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/lucky-sonnie/hibernate-5-naming-strategy-%EC%84%A4%EC%A0%95-66bfdaca04c | [] | 2020-12-08 23:42:13.150000+00:00 | ['Spring'] |
Event Spotlight: Vaquita Hacks | The Vaquita, a small porpoise native to the Gulf of California, is one of the most critically endangered species in the world — there are currently estimated to be roughly 10 or less individuals remaining. One of the key drivers of Vaquita extinction is the fishing of the Totoaba, a fish prized for its swim bladder, often called “the cocaine of the sea”.
Andrea Crosta, executive director Earth League International — an organization focusing on stopping environmental and wildlife crime “by merging the worlds of conservation, intelligence, analysis, whistleblowing and media production”) — embarked on a mission to save the Vaquita, and were featured in the National Geographic documentary Sea of Shadows in the process.
Earth Hacks teamed up with The Conservation Project International (TCPI) and The Countering Wildlife Trafficking Institute (CWTI) to host Vaquita Hacks, the first hackathon in the world dedicated to Vaquita conservation. The organizers worked closely with Earth League International to identify gaps in the solution space and create challenges to solve them, spanning three tracks:
Wildlife Crime Law Review
Science and Geographic Analytics
Public Engagement and Civic Action
Over 100 participants from 13 different countries attended Vaquita Hacks, which featured a keynote speech (and a lot of friendly slack messages) from Andrea, along with talks by
Dr. Meredith Gore, University of Maryland
Dr. Dan Morris, Microsoft
David Alvarez, Esri
Al James and Dr. Alastair Jamieson, Ometria
Matthew Andersen, USGS
Shamini Jayanathan, Foundry Chambers
Alexander Rhodes, Mischcon
Leading up to the hackathon, TCPI and Earth Hacks also hosted a screening of Sea of Shadows, featuring a Q&A session with former Sea Shepherd scientist Volcy Boilevin, who was also a mentor at the hackathon.
While the Science and Analytics projects are still under review, and the legal solutions are currently being drafted into a whitepaper to be shared with policymakers (!), you can check out the work from the Public Engagement and Civic Action teams on TCPI’s website soon.
You can also check out all the recordings from the hackathon here.
Take a look at some of the other press coverage the hackathon has gotten:
https://ali.fish/blog/worlds-first-hackathon-to-save-the-vaquita
https://edtechnology.co.uk/international/hackathon-bids-to-save-worlds-rarest-marine-mammal/
https://www.thestudentpocketguide.com/2020/10/trending/save-vaquita-hacks/ | https://medium.com/@earthhacksorg/event-spotlight-vaquita-hacks-487ddcddc7dc | ['Earth Hacks'] | 2020-12-18 21:49:24.656000+00:00 | ['Hackathons', 'Vaquitahacks2020', 'Vaquita', 'Earthhacks', 'Wildlife Conservation'] |
4 Easy Options to Format Your Books | If you’re thinking about self-publishing, you might be concerned about what that means — starting anything from the ground, with no prior knowledge, is always a daunting task. Maybe you don’t feel like you have enough technical or software knowledge, and all the little details feel to difficult to line up, or you just don’t know where to start.
When publishing through traditional means, you have a team who handles conversion and files, which makes the process easy because you feel like — they’re trained professionals, they’ve got this.
There’s good news here — formatting can be one of the easiest parts of the whole process!
Think about it this way — either you’ve written the book already, or you’ve got a finished copy back from your ghostwriter.
Now it’s all about putting it together, and putting it out!
If I told you you don’t need extensive experience or knowledge to get started, that would likely put your mind at ease — absolutely anyone can learn to handle their book like a pro, or at least be equipped with the tools to make it happen.
Related Article: Kindle Direct Publishing Explained in 5 Steps — Build Passive Income with Digital Assets
Outsourcing
If you don’t want to handle the formatting yourself, you are always able to outsource the work to freelancers — the freedom in automating the process is well within your grasp, and it’s easy to see why people may choose this route.
Sites like Fiverr or Upwork have people ready to work with you, on a job-by-job basis, or as a long-term gig; Often these freelancers will work with you on price for long-term work, as it’s consistent rather than one-off — if you find a quick professional who puts out consistent work, it might be worth establishing a relationship with them early on and turning it into something mutually beneficial.
Pros
You can focus on the other aspects of your business, or your full-time job, while someone works to format your book.
You can usually find these relatively cheaply (per job), in the 5–15$ range, or perhaps a bit higher with other benefits (some jobs include book cover/design work, etc.)
Cons
You will be at the will of your freelancers timeline — if they take a day or two, that’s how long it’ll be for your final product.
The end result will be up to them and their ability, and what programs they personally use to complete your product.
This option can also be costly — depending on how many books you put out, paying per-book on a professionally-formatted product can add up over time.
Overall: Not a bad choice to start off with! Easy to find someone who formats, and a low up-front cost. If you only have a few books to publish, or aren’t sure if this is the route you want to pursue, it’s a great way to get to know the field without a huge investment.
Calibre
Calibre is simple; a free, open-source software with multiple purposes relating to ebooks.You can read ebooks, as well as format.
It is a relatively quick download, a small file, and should not take up much space from your computer. You can simply drop your word document into the software, and go from there — there’s a drop down, and a quick conversion process, with options like look and feel, table of contents configuration and more.
Download: Mac OSX — Windows — Linux
Pros
You can use it immediately on start-up, no hassle — very easy!
Tools are simplified, making learning it very easy. There are also plenty of resources online, if you want to dive deeper.
It is a completely free tool, open source for anyone to use.
useful for other things, like reading e-Books on your computer.
Cons
Its simplicity can be a feature and a flaw — it will put out a final product, and that might be about it.
Fine-tuning abilities are limited, the end result is very basic in terms of how it looks.
Not as user friendly as other options; Actual formatting is easy, but you may need to research it a bit to get comfortable with its tools.
Overall: If you’re tight on cash, and don’t mind doing a bit of the learning legwork, then Calibre might be a good option for you. It isn’t the most user-friendly option, but it is simple enough that anyone can get to know it and use it for their purposes. It’s another great option to start with, if you aren’t easily frustrated!
Related: The Pros and Cons of Self-Publishing on Amazon
Draft2Digital
Draft2digital is an online platform you can use to publish your books, as well as it’s formatting tool. It’s a website platform, so you simply create an account and can forma your books and export the final result that way — into a publish-ready option. Whether you choose to publish with D2D or take the same files over to KDP, IngramSpark, and so forth.
Pros
No software to download — you can publish from any computer with internet access.
Customer support built in, 24/7 — you can work out any kinks, and get help directly from the website as you go.
If you choose to, you can publish directly from D2D — as long as you aren’t exclusive with Amazon, you can publish your ebook anywhere. Draft 2 Digital will also be offering Print publishing in the future, so it may be an option even if you are exclusive for the ebook!
Cons
You have limited control over the final product — it looks good, but if you were hoping for it to look a ‘specific’ way, and that doesn’t match with their product, you may be out of luck.
The website, while decent, is not the MOST user friendly. As you’re working off of their network, like any website, there might be some issues depending on your signal.
Limited when you’re on the go — if you’re looking to publish while traveling, you might have issues; you’re limited, unless you have a stable internet connection!
Vellum
Vellum is, as far as software goes for formatting, top of the line.
Vellum is user friendly and optimized to make your experience easy as can be — all of the tools are clearly labeled, and easy to navigate.
The entire process takes less than ten minutes, even for a beginner to the process — below, we’ve posted a video of the formatting process, as done by vellum, and you can see for yourself just how easy it can be.
You simply open your word document within the program, and it auto-populates everything it can pull from it. Often name, title, and table of contents can be included in this, as well as the main body of text. You have the ability to edit individual chapters, the order of chapters, the fine-tune the appearance, and insert hyperlinks as desired.
This results in a very adjustable, professional final product you can be proud to present to your audience.
Pros
Ease of use — No fussing with out of date software; UI is simple and easy to navigate, intuitive to how we use computers.
— No fussing with out of date software; UI is simple and easy to navigate, intuitive to how we use computers. Specifically designed for book formatting — No extra features to slog down production, rather, specialized features to help you format it precisely the way you want.
— No extra features to slog down production, rather, specialized features to help you format it precisely the way you want. Complete control of the end result — from headers to page styles, fonts and line-heights, you have control over what the final result will look like.
— from headers to page styles, fonts and line-heights, you have control over what the final result will look like. Good for both print and ebook publishing — your end files can be made in a variety of publishing formats, between epub, mobi, and pdf , so you can rest easy being armed with everything you need to get your book going.
Cons
Price — ranging between $199.99-$249.99, it is a bit of an up-front investment. You have lifetime use of the program with a one-time payment, but this may not be in the budget for a beginner.
— ranging between $199.99-$249.99, it is a bit of an up-front investment. You have lifetime use of the program with a one-time payment, but this may not be in the budget for a beginner. Compatibility — it can only be used on Mac computers, with no ports to use it on Windows or Linux platforms. Depending on your workspace, this may be a hard-stop for you, unless you look into a platform to access a mac computer, which is something we have to do as well.
Overall: Vellum is tailored to this exact function, and software working directly for it’s sole purpose is worth looking into — if you’re looking for a polished, professional end product that you can do yourself, it might be worth the investment if just for the user-friendly accessibility of it all.
Ultimately, what software or service you use will come down to many factors, much of which will be budget and time investment.
But not everyone has an Apple computer, and that alone can bar you from using Vellum for that reason — you can rent access to a Mac from your windows PC, through specific services designed for that, like Macincloud. However, if you don’t want to handle with that, there are plenty of other options depending on your comfort, budget, and skill-level.
Related: Why Should You Consider Hiring a Ghostwriting Company?
However you decide to proceed — from software, to freelancers, or websites with a customer service built-in to help you along the way — being equipped with the knowledge that you can pick the service that suits you best is the first step you’ll need to take in making this decision for your books or business.
Related Articles | https://medium.com/@ipublishghostwriters/4-easy-options-to-format-your-books-3f2b0837038a | ['Alexander Toledo'] | 2020-11-27 18:24:54.845000+00:00 | ['Online Business', 'Marketing', 'Self Publishing', 'Side Hustle', 'Passive Income'] |
8 reflections after starting a new job | Photo by picjumbo.com from Pexels
Starting a new job is a journey.
Each time I begin something new, I’m amazed at how much I discover about myself. In many ways, the experience freezes us in time. No matter our age or position in life, familiar themes creep into our minds.
“Will I succeed?”
“How do I become comfortable as fast as possible?”
“What are the best ways to earn my coworkers’ trust?”
Recently, I began as a UX content strategist at RingCentral. I wanted to write about my thoughts in my first two weeks as I encountered them. So I kept a journal and updated it each morning. Here are reflections and revelations from my opening steps in the job:
Day 1: Feeling back-to-school vibes on my first day
This morning, I woke up with major back-to-school vibes.
Transitions are interesting. As kids, they define our lives. When we’re old enough, we move from one grade level to the next, each step marking a rite of passage on our path to adulthood. There’s comfort and consistency in those transitions.
Then life becomes less predictable.
After our formal schooling ends, no one tells us how often we should live transitions. Change as a working adult is such a personal choice. So many factors influence whether we experience transitions. No matter our “why” behind a change, we must overcome the uncertainty that comes with what’s next.
Today, I’m thinking back to my younger self for inspiration.
I’ve transitioned to new, exciting chapters in my life before. I can do it again. I want to approach the coming weeks with a childlike wonder and look back one day at how far I’ve come.
Photo by Sharefaith from Pexels
Day 2: Learning to gain comfort
“I like learning new things, so this will be invigorating for me.”
I wrote that message to a colleague on my first day. The words were sincere. But as I thought about the sentiment, I realized it was only partially true.
Yes, learning new things is exciting. More knowledge means growth, advancement, and fresh opportunity.
But if we’re honest, the situation represents a means to an end. We learn so we gain comfort and thrive.
I thought about that more after a whirlwind day of introductions, IT training, and HR forms. We can take knowledge for granted. Sometimes, we go through our professional lives on cruise control, confident in our direction. It’s easy to forget we earned confidence through hard work and time.
At some point, we were new. We tilted our heads toward a mountain we had to climb, with the possibilities endless.
Whenever I reach my destination, I’ll try to appreciate the effort it took to get there.
Day 3: Trying to breathe everything in
During a chat with a UX content teammate, I received advice that will stay with me.
Photo by Anete Lusina from Pexels
“Just breathe it in,” she said. “If it’s important, it will come back up.”
I needed that perspective. In many ways, starting a new job messes with our minds. It’s easy to place pressure on ourselves and overthink our opening days.
Why?
I have no idea. No one has demanded I grasp key concepts today, tomorrow, or next week. Everyone has been great.
Still, I’ve wanted to become comfortable as soon as possible. For some reason, I associate “understanding things quickly” with “I’m doing a good job.” Maybe that’s ambition. Maybe that’s ignorance.
Breathing it all in sounds better.
Ambition is good. I’m glad I have it. But we must care for ourselves, too. I’m going to be kinder to myself. I’m going to practice more patience.
My new world will take shape in time, and I trust I’ll grow with it.
Day 4: Appreciating structured onboarding
After this week, I’m a fan of structured onboarding experiences.
On my first day, my manager gave me a document that features a checklist with key people from the UX team to meet throughout my first month. He scheduled daily check-ins and meet-and-greet sessions with UX content teammates, designers, product managers, and more. I know desired actions to complete in my first four weeks. Expectations are clear.
Starting a new job can feel overwhelming, but structure eases the transition.
It also creates confidence. If there were uncertainty in these early days, my mind would wander. I’m glad my reality is different.
Planning unlocks potential. As a new hire, be thankful for structure in your schedule if you have it.
Day 5: Asking about small things for big impact
As someone new in my job, I’ve learned nothing is too small to ask about. In fact, some of the smallest topics can lead to habits that make life easier.
Last week, I spoke with a senior member of our UX content team about her work habits. It was fascinating to hear how she organized meeting notes, filed emails, managed time zone differences, and more.
Sounds like basic stuff, right?
Well, I’ve already used some of those ideas. I can see how they will make me confident and efficient as I do my job.
Sometimes, it’s easy to overlook the so-called small things when we start a new role. But they aren’t that small. To crush our learning curve, it’s helpful to get tips from someone more experienced.
So ask! As a bonus, your curiosity shows ambition and a willingness to take advice.
Day 6: Getting to know me better
I was part of a meeting called “Getting to know you.” For about 45 minutes, my manager and I spoke about expectations.
We talked about how we could maximize our working relationship. He asked how I like to receive feedback, what motivates me, what I do to reward myself, and more.
“I’ve never thought about that.”
More than once, I caught myself saying those words. That’s revealing.
I’m 34. I’ve held more than a few positions in multiple industries. But I’ve rarely considered what’s important to me in a job.
Why?
I think it’s cultural. Often, we overlook ourselves. We don’t prioritize what would help us become our best. Instead, we grind through our daily to-do lists and try to impress our superiors, with survival as our motivator. It’s easy to get lost in the fog.
Sure, things like advancement, better pay, and a bigger title might drive us. Those have value, but they only go so far. Many times, we don’t dig deep enough.
This conversation was rewarding, thought-provoking. I’m glad I got to know myself a little better. It’s never too late.
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
Day 7: Joining the conversation
It’s never too early to join your team’s conversation.
Throughout these opening weeks, I’ve added my voice to multiple discussions. This has come with reservations. At times before speaking or typing, I’ve thought, “As the new person, what do I know?” or “Will I come off the wrong way?”
Still, I’ve tried to make myself uncomfortable. We can’t grow without a little discomfort.
Looking back, not everything I’ve shared has been perfect advice. But who among us is perfect? I’ve tried to offer thoughts while I have a new perspective.
When joining a team, it’s easy to limit ourselves. We all want to make a good impression. It would be simple to stay in the background, take everything in from afar, and share our thoughts when we’re acclimated.
But as I’ve grown with this work, I’ve learned putting myself out there is part of my process to become comfortable. Each moment represents a learning opportunity, a step forward.
In time, my perspective will become more refined.
Day 8: Embracing humility for the future
Here’s my theme for the past two weeks: constant growth and a need for humility.
I was on a call with a designer. We spoke about the area I’ll support. He walked me through the user interface.
After a while, I chimed in.
“This is like learning a new language,” I said. “The more I’m immersed in it, the better I’ll be.”
To me, everything comes down to that.
We can read best practices. We can listen during onboarding sessions. We can hear tips from people who traveled our paths before.
All that is good!
But when we’re new in a role, we must realize a few things: It takes hard work to ramp up, and the experience will humble us. So many times.
Early in your job, don’t be afraid of how little you know. It means you’re uncomfortable. It means you’re growing. It means you’ve validated why you sought a change.
I’m no expert. But as I’ve lived this time, I’ve tried to be pleasant and eager. I trust I’ll evolve a little each day. | https://medium.com/ringcentral-ux/8-reflections-after-starting-a-new-job-be1ef45a9458 | ['Andrew Astleford'] | 2021-07-06 16:08:54.024000+00:00 | ['Ux Writing', 'User Experience Design', 'UX Design', 'Content Strategy', 'Content Design'] |
CA Voters + Local Control = Racial and Class Exclusion | California’s November 2020 elections exposed what “local control” really means in affluent cities: it’s about using land use laws to exclude racial minorities, tenants and the unhoused.
Consider:
”Progressive” Santa Monica saw three council incumbents defeated by a “residents” slate opposing “over-development.”
Alameda voted 60–40% to continue its longtime ban on new apartments.
San Mateo appears to have approved by roughly 40 votes a measure to continue its longstanding zoning restrictions on building new housing (outcome not final until end of today)
Also in November: Novato rejected state Project Homekey funds for housing the unhoused and Millbrae’s City Council voted unanimously to sue to stop a hotel in the city from becoming permanent supportive housing.
In the 1960’s federal law stopped cities from legally excluding Blacks and Latinos. But “local control” enables the majority-homeowner electorate to decide who gets to live in their city. And that means enacting zoning restrictions that exclude affordable housing and most Black and Latino residents.
Why does California allow affluent homeowners to build walls around their cities? Walls that promote racism and class bias in the name of “local control”?
Racial and class exclusion is a profitable game. Raising property values by restricting supply is a strategy that legislators are loathe to challenge.
But these affluent cities are shifting the costs of building new housing for the state’s rising population and the unhoused to other cities. This makes it the state’s responsibility to intervene.
2021: A Time for Action
I know the difficulty of getting California legislators to interfere with affluent cities land use power. In 2020, every major housing production bill was defeated. This included Senate pro Toni Atkins’ bill to allow duplexes in single family zoned neighborhoods; when homeowners can stop new two-unit buildings you know we are dealing with serious resistance.
But here’s why I give these efforts a better chance in 2020.
First, the coalition surrounding Alameda’s No on Measure Y campaign shows how support for inclusion can be built through grassroots activism. There are more state legislators representing districts who allow affordable housing than those who effectively ban it. The challenge is mobilizing people in these cities to tell their legislators to ensure all cities provide their fair share of rental and affordable housing.
State legislators hear far more from affluent opponents of new apartments than they do from those supporting such housing. We can change this in 2021.
Second, progressive legislators who may have opposed SB 50 should support a bill mandating that all cities allow building new affordable apartments. Or a bill requiring cities to build their fair share of rental housing.
The former is akin to applying a version of Cambridge’s 100% Affordable Housing Overlay statewide; the latter is already mandated by state mandated RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) provisions. Many are not aware that since 1969 California has required all cities and counties to plan for the housing needs of the state’s residents-regardless of income.
It’s time for California’s affluent cities to continue to promote racial and class segregation. Enforcing existing state mandates is a start.
The Attraction of Local Control
I got politicized in Berkeley in the 1970’s. Our mantra was “Socialism in One City.” I understand the attraction of “local control.” But the weakness of that strategy became clear when Reagan’s 1981 budget cuts decimated cities. election. I describe in my book on San Francisco’s Tenderloin how we didn’t realize until Carter Administration ran out in the mid-1980’s how much the neighborhood depended on federal funds; it’s a message activists in all cities have learned.
California currently allows San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego to bear the cost burden of nearby affluent cities not allowing rental housing for residents. That’s not “progressive.” California’s Democratic super-majority should not permit cities to enact apartment bans and zoning restrictions that prevent new affordable housing.
Let’s put aside past disagreements over housing density and unify behind state minimums for at least new affordable housing if not for all new apartments. Even if President Biden’s universal Section 8 funding were implemented there would not be sufficient units in California for all eligible families to get housing.
We must build more. And in all cities.
Randy Shaw offers solutions for California’s housing crisis in Generation Priced How: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America (UC Press 2020)
Read More: Bay Area / California | https://medium.com/@beyondchron/ca-voters-local-control-racial-and-class-exclusion-d377b0619dcd | ['Randy Shaw For Beyond Chron', 'The Voice Of The Rest'] | 2020-12-01 19:46:54.079000+00:00 | ['California', 'Inequality', 'Racial Justice', 'Politics', 'Elections'] |
Uniswap Complements Decentralized Exchanges | Uniswap achieved a transaction volume of $28,000,000 in the last 24 hours. According to CoinMarketCap, this number is around half of Gate.io ($54,000,000) and one-third of Bitfinex ($84,000,000). With such a high volume of daily transactions, Uniswap is indeed more popular than most decentralized exchanges.
Let me give you a brief introduction on Uniswap first. We have several keywords: Constant product, automatic market-making, censorship-free token-listing, token-to-token swap.
Unlike the pending order mechanism adopted by most exchanges, Uniswap uses a token-to-token swap method. How many B tokens can a certain amount of token A exchange for depends on the proportion and quantity of the two tokens that liquidity providers injected to the liquidity pool.
Exchange rates for an ERC20 token are calculated based on an equation:
x * y = k . The exchange rate of a token will always be at a particular point lying on the resulting curve of this equation.
. The exchange rate of a token will always be at a particular point lying on the resulting curve of this equation. k is a constant value that never changes, whereas x and y represent the quantity of Token A and Token B available in a particular exchange that ultimately determines the exchange rate.
Any user can contribute to liquidity pools for any ERC20 token, and therefore gain commissions in the form of exchange fees for doing so, with a certain degree of risk of course. It’s worth mentioning that Uniswap does not charge any fee throughout the process.
If you want Uniswap to support the trading between two tokens, you achieve so by creating a liquidity pool and add tokens to it, which is completely permissionless.
For example, I created a liquidity pool for ETH and ABC, and put 10 ETH and 1000 ABC in it. Now the exchange rate of ETH and ABC follows 1000 ABC = 1 ETH. If a trader wants 5-ETH worth of ABC, according to the following Constant Product Principle,
10 * 1000 =（10+5）* (1000 — X)
X stands for the quantity of ABC that the trader will get, which is 333 in this case. Now, there are 15ETH and 667 ABC in the liquidity pool and the price of ABC raised to 44 ABC=1 ETH。
It’s not hard to tell that a high price slippage may occur when the liquidity is low, which is also why some tokens increased tenfold or even hundredfold in price recently.
Uniswap has the following main advantages and adoption scenarios thanks to its characteristics and utilization,
Very suitable for small and quick token-to-token swap Meet the needs of token issuance by small teams Perfect for tradings that don’t require registration and authorization Enrich the variety of tools thanks to its open database
The fourth point I mentioned above is quite useful and interesting. Developers can conduct data analysis, like every transaction on-chain, and make some rather powerful and practical DeFi DApps.
However, Uniswap has its challenges:
Not suitable for big transactions, as it highly depends on liquidity and has high slippage. Makes it easier to do evil, as there it doesn’t require any verification process.
Overall, Uniswap is an addition to decentralized exchanges, without the capability to fully replace the pending order mechanism. The two may merge into one in the near future, which is not technically complicated. | https://medium.com/@tokenpocket-gm/uniswap-complements-decentralized-exchanges-8eefb7315efa | [] | 2020-07-21 08:24:41.690000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Tokenpocket', 'Defi', 'Wallet'] |
Do These 6 Things When Asking For A Raise To Start Making More Money | You want a raise.
You feel you’re worth more. Your responsibilities have increased. You are getting the work done — and done well. You feel like it’s time to have “the talk.”
How do you walk in, take a seat in front of your boss, and get a raise?
Here’s how.
1. Walk In Emotionally Prepared
Where most people go wrong is they walk into the conversation with a certain emotional feeling.
Sometimes, they think they should get a raise because they are “being overworked” — and so they bring into the room an aura of negativity or resentment. Sometimes, they think they deserve a raise because “everyone else is getting one” — so they bring into the room an aura of agitation.
This is Step 1 to making more money.
You need to realize that the conversation you are about to have is both financial and emotional. Nobody feels good giving someone a raise, even if they’ve “earned it on paper,” if the person they are talking to is emitting negative energy.
It just doesn’t feel good.
Walk in emotionally prepared, and you’ll set yourself up for so much more success in the conversation.
2. Bring Clear Examples
The biggest indicator of your value as an employee always comes down to performance.
If you can bring to the table clear examples of situations where you exceeded expectations, then you will build a very strong case for yourself of what you can offer your company.
On the flip-side, if you walk in and say, “I think I’ve done a lot of great work, I deserve a raise,” and your boss asks you for specific examples, well, suddenly you’re stuck.
You don’t have any concrete proof of your value.
Make a little presentation sheet, if you feel so compelled. But regardless, prepare yourself for the conversation with detailed examples.
3. Prepare The Conversation With Positive Words From Coworkers
Office politics. They exist.
If you have a few trusted voices in your workplace that know of your value and would willingly speak on your behalf — and you have a positive, open relationship with them — it can be a good idea to share that you’re going to ask for a promotion or an increase in salary, and ask if they’d be willing to speak on your behalf.
Something people often forget is that businesses and organizations are teams. Your value as an individual is important, but your value among the collective is equally as vital. If other people enjoy working with you, that’s a big “win” for the company — and something every great boss will take note of.
4. Ask After A Successful Project, Not After A Failed One
Again, timing is everything.
If you know you are going to be asking for a raise soon, be aware of when you choose to open your mouth. It would not be wise, say, to schedule some time to have that conversation right after you fumbled the ball on the 5 yard line.
Instead, wait until you have a few weeks where you’re on your game, and then have the conversation.
That said: If you have made a big error in the past 2–3 months, you might have some making up to do. But remember, bosses and organizations are not so much looking for you to “make it up,” but rather see that you’ve learned and grown beyond the mistake.
That’s what really matters, is that you’ve fixed the habit and are better now for it.
5. Come With Suggestions Of Additional Responsibilities
Another mistake many make when asking for a raise is thinking that they deserve more without continuing to offer more — they expect their workload to stay the same.
Instead, realize that a raise for you means a higher cost for your business or company. Something has to warrant that increase in cost.
Come to the table with suggestions of how else you can deliver exceptional value to your company with a raise increase.
Maybe you could lead an ancillary department.
Maybe you could spend time training new members and increase their efficiencies.
Offer some solutions for how you could be a more valuable resource, and if your suggestions are helpful enough, chances are your employer will be pleased to give you the opportunity.
6. Build Value Around Yourself
And finally, the most underrated and yet valuable thing an employee could possibly do for an organization is build value around themselves within the organization.
Regardless of whether or not you’re an intern or a Creative Director, you can always continue building value around yourself — which is an endless stream of opportunities for you to continue moving up, and up, and up.
What I mean by this is: Build something of your own within the organization. Maybe you have found another way for the company to make money — great, go build it.
Maybe you know how to perform a service that doesn’t exist yet — great, go built it. Turn it into a 1-man department while people still try to “wrap their heads around it.” Then, once it’s moving, ask for some help from a second employee. And a third. Until you’ve built out a whole new section to the company.
There is a very poor mentality around this idea of “asking for a raise,” where people think that time spent at a company alone warrants an increase in wages. Sometimes it does, but often it does not.
What warrants a raise is an increase in value.
And the more value you can create, the more valuable you become, and the more your company will be willing to pay to keep you.
Build that value yourself, and you’ll never have to ask for a raise. | https://medium.com/career-relaunch/do-these-6-things-when-asking-for-a-raise-to-start-making-more-money-a0835370c644 | ['Nicolas Cole'] | 2020-10-21 13:32:38.331000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Workplace', 'Job Interview', 'Career Development', 'Career Advice'] |
Utilizing blockchain to make Machine Learning models progressively available | Utilizing blockchain to make Machine Learning models progressively available
Tremendous advances are being made in the field of AI and ML, yet getting to and exploiting the AI frameworks causing these improvements conceivable, can be challenging, particularly for those with constrained assets. These frameworks will, in general, be profoundly brought together, their expectations are regularly sold on a for every question premise, and the datasets required to prepare them are commonly exclusive and costly to make all alone. Also, distributed models risk turning out to be obsolete if new information isn’t consistently given to retrain them. Tanmay Jain May 6, 2020·3 min read
Through various Blockchain-based framework, one can collaboratively and continuously train and maintain models, as well as build datasets, on public blockchains, where models are generally free to use for evaluating predictions. There are many frameworks which are ideal for AI-assisted scenarios people encounter daily, such as interacting with personal assistants, playing games, or using recommender systems.
Why blockchain?
Utilizing blockchain innovation permits us to complete two things that are essential to the accomplishment of the structure:
Offer members a degree of trust and security and dependably execute a motivating force-based framework to urge members to contribute information that will help improve a model’s presentation.
With current web services, even if code is open source, people can’t be 100 percent sure of what they’re interacting with, and running the models generally requires specialized cloud services. In our solution, we put these public models into smart contracts, code on a blockchain that helps ensure the specifications of agreed-upon terms are upheld. In our framework, models can be updated on-chain, meaning within the blockchain environment, for a small transaction fee or used for inference off-chain, locally on the individual’s device, with no transaction costs.
Smart Contracts in Blockchain are unmodifiable and assessed by numerous machines, assisting with guaranteeing the model does what it determines it will do. The immutable nature and lasting record of keen agreements likewise permit us to dependably register and convey prizes for ethical information commitments. Trust is significant when handling installments, particularly in a framework like our own that tries to support positive cooperation utilizing motivating forces. Moreover, blockchains, for example, Ethereum, have a considerable number of decentralized machines everywhere throughout the world, making it more uncertain for a smart contract to be inaccessible.
Deploying and updating models
There are various models and frameworks provided by different corporations. In this blog, we are going to talk about one of them which is provided by Microsoft named Decentralized & Collaborative AI on Blockchain.
Hosting a model on a public blockchain requires an initial one-time fee for deployment, usually a few dollars, based on the computational cost to the blockchain network.
From that point, anyone contributing data to train the model, whether that be the individual who deployed it or another participant, will have to pay a small fee, again proportional to the amount of computation being done.
Using the Microsoft framework, they set up a Perceptron model capable of classifying the sentiment, positive or negative, of a movie review. As of July 2019, it costs about USD0.25 to update the model on Ethereum. They have plans to extend their framework so most data contributors won’t have to pay this fee. For example, contributors could get reimbursed during a reward stage, or a third party could submit the data and pay the price on their behalf when the data comes from the usage of the third party’s technology.
Adding data to a model in the Decentralized & Collaborative AI on Blockchain framework
Incentive mechanisms
Blockchains easily let us share evolving model parameters. Newly created information such as new words, new movie titles, and new pictures can be used to update existing models hosted regardless of a specific person or organization’s ability to update and organize the model themselves. To encourage people to contribute new data that will help maintain the model’s performance.
From the small and efficient to the complex
The Decentralized & Collaborative AI on Blockchain framework is about sharing models, making valuable resources more accessible to all, and — just as importantly — creating large public datasets that can be used to train models inside and outside the blockchain environment. | https://medium.com/@tanmayjain84/utilizing-blockchain-to-make-machine-learning-models-progressively-available-610c7f65d208 | ['Tanmay Jain'] | 2020-05-06 06:44:26.236000+00:00 | ['Blockchain Technology', 'Blockchain', 'Smart Contracts', 'Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Health and wellness through my lens | If you know me, you probably know that I consider health and wellness as a top priority. I am writing here to share my approach to health and wellness and the facets I consider important. Over the past 4–5 years I have been experimenting and instilling habits in my life that positively contribute towards my health and wellness.
“Your life only gets better when you do.”
Before anything, let me ask you to identify what is important to your survival. My list looks something like this:
Air
Water
Sleep
Food
Movement
Mental Sanity
Imagine for a second not having one of the above in your life. When you do, you will realize how important of a role it plays in your survival. This is the same way (well somewhat) I visualize and focus on my health and wellness. This includes 6 main facets:
Breathing
Hydration
Sleep
Nutrition
Exercise and mobility
Mental health
Breathing
Breathing is probably the most understated aspect which I never thought was as important until I read the Oxygen Advantage and started doing more research. Ask yourself:
Are you conscious of how you breathe? We pay very little attention to how we breathe and most of the time we are not breathing correctly. A common problem is mouth breathing and over breathing. For example: how many of us have our mouths open when we are sleeping? we may not realize it but we are probably breathing from our mouth rather than our nose and probably snoring as a result too. Breathing right has shown to significantly improve our health. For example; one of the things I’ve tried doing is focus on nasal breathing. One of the ways in which you can train yourself to use your nose (which might feel clogged because it’s underused) is taping your mouth when you sleep at night. This automatically trains your nose to function for what it was built. I’ve also incorporated nasal breathing during light runs and I’ve seen a significant improvement in my performance.
What is the quality of the air you breathe everyday? If you are working near a construction site or a factory or if your neighbor is burning trash, you may be inhaling particles that are extremely damaging to your health. There is not many solutions I can provide for this but it is something you should keep in mind and be conscious of.
Hydration
Drink enough water ! Up to 60% of our bodies are made up of water and water is essential to regulate body temperature, deliver nutrients, help organs function, better skin and so much more. The general minimum target is 2 Ltrs but it really depends on your day to day activities and how much you sweat.
I usually carry a water-bottle with me everywhere I go. I like to sip my water rather than gulp it down, so I have a sippy water bottle. Carrying a water bottle with you or having a jug or bottle of water on your desk, office and vehicle will help remind you to hydrate. It also helps you measure how much water you drink (or at least give you a rough indication).
Sleep
Sleep is a super power! Around 7 years ago, I was an insomniac and had a very bad sleep routine. Exercise immensely helped reverse that and since then, I've always prioritized my sleep and its made a huge difference to my health. Which one of the below statements do you relate to?
More Sleep= less time to do everything else (Sleep as a time killer mentality)
More Sleep= less time needed to do everything else (Sleep as a creator of time mentality)
The second statement is what I believe in. More sleep helps me in being more productive in everything I do when I’m awake. It helps me in being more alert, more creative, retain information and boosts my physically recovery.
In the last year, I’ve been monitoring my sleep data and in particular my sleep quality and sleep efficiency. I’ve come to realize that quality is more important than quantity. I track the different stages of my sleep using my fitness tracker each night to determine the quality of my sleep. Your sleep quality can be dependent on several factors including; your sleep routine, disturbances, nutrition, caffeine, alcohol and other habits. For me, the consistency of my sleep timings have the biggest impact on my sleep quality.
I think sleep efficiency is also an important aspect (the difference between the time you spend in bed and the time you spend actually sleeping). I have a sleep efficiency of 80–85% and usually spend approximately an hour awake in bed.
Sleep Data (Whoop)
I would highly recommend watching this TED talk by sleep scientist Mathew Walker. If you want to dig deeper, his book; “Why we sleep” is an amazing read.
Nutrition
How much do you eat? and what do you eat ? Firstly, I must say that the quality of food in general has deteriorated over time. Most foods we consume contain chemicals intended to produce bigger/larger quantities or help preserve shelf life. There are many hyped diets out there, but it is important to ensure that whatever you choose is something sustainable and works for you. I have a simple approach which I try to follow:
Eat more protein (I love eggs)
Eat more plants and not what is made in plants (processed/packeted)
Try to avoid sugar (I try to only consume sugar around my workouts or if it’s something worth it)
Don’t over eat (overconsumption of anything is not good)
Eat more home food (you just have more control and know what you are eating)
If you want to learn more, my friend/coach Andy has a wonderful article on it which I’m linking here.
Exercise and Mobility
Exercise can not just help burn fat and build muscle but also leaves you feeling amazing because of the endorphins that it releases. I found CrossFit in 2016 which completely changed my life. That's not an exaggeration! Back in 2016, I was overweight, lethargic and diagnosed with hypertension. Since getting hooked, I've lost 16 kg and reversed my health condition. Exercise/Gym has always been the time where I can zone out and release the stress I am carrying.
I try to keep my self physically active most of the time with the things I love. Some of these include; CrossFit, running, swimming, hiking and beach walks. Pick something you enjoy! It’s important for us to keep moving, because that’s what we as humans are built for. I also try to incorporate stretching sessions whenever possible to increase my flexibility, reduce stiffness and prevent injury. I would suggest: try stretching first thing in the morning. You will realize how amazing that can make you feel.
Participating in the CrossFit Open 2020
Mental Health
I must admit that over the years, I’ve given this facet very little attention. Its only in the last 4 years that I properly started understanding the importance of mental health including my own mental health. In the past, I’ve always subconsciously tried to avoid negativity without trying to understand my thoughts and feelings.
Now, I make more of a conscious effort to check in on how I’m feeling, understand insecurities and cope with them in the best possible way. A practice of mindfulness and gratitude can help you focus on the present. Journaling and meditation are two practices that can help. Placing my trust in a higher power helps me let go of things I cannot control. I have also realized that the way in which we communicate with ourselves and with others in life can have a huge impact on mental health. Take a moment to be kind to yourself and give yourself some love. You deserve it!
Finally, I want you to know the below:
All these five elements that I spoke of are interconnected. For example; when you have good sleep, it positively impacts your mental health. Similarly; hydration, exercise and nutrition will lead to better sleep. Don’t try to fix everything at once. Reflect, pick one aspect you want to change and inculcate that.
I’ve come to realize that there are best practices, trending diets, new discoveries out there in the space of health and fitness but it’s important to know that what works for others may not work for you and vice versa.
There are so many other aspects that affect all these elements and how you approach them including; your bloodwork, genetics, injuries, environment and so much more.
This is simply me sharing my experience and useful resources which could help you dig in deeper and experiment on what works for you.
Remember to be consistent. Leaving you with a quote from the book Atomic Habits here — “Changes that seem small and unimportant at first, will compound into remarkable results if you stick with them for years.”
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
I am going to be committing myself to a series of 30 day challenges to experience best practices to help me improve in these facets. Some of them include; 30 days of Journaling, 30 days of meditating, 30 days of yoga etc. The idea is to experience and learn through each of these challenges and then look at if and how to incorporate them into my life. I will be sharing them on my instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hamzels/), so feel free to join. | https://medium.com/@hamzaalibhoy/health-and-wellness-through-my-lens-1fb96cd543d1 | ['Hamza Alibhoy'] | 2021-09-05 18:37:43.939000+00:00 | ['Sri Lanka', 'Habits', 'Fitness', 'Wellness', 'Health'] |
Art in NYC: Easypieces by Mika Rottenberg at the New Museum : arts-ny | Art in NYC: Easypieces by Mika Rottenberg at the New Museum : arts-ny
A solo museum presentation of the surrealist videos and wall installations by a contemporary artist Mika Rottenberg. The exhibition features a world premiere of Spaghetti Blockchain (2019), NoNoseKnows (2015), and other artworks; on view from June 25 — Sept. 15, 2019 Tatyana Polyak Jul 19, 2019·4 min read
Spaghetti Blockchain, 2019, Single-channel video installation, sound, color; Produced by Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto; Arts at CERN, Geneva, with the support of the Permanent Mission of the United States to the United Nations, Geneva; Sprengel Museum, Hannover, with the support of Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung; and New Museum, New York. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Opened in 1977, is fully dedicated to exhibiting the works of contemporary art by the living artists. This summer its exhibition galleries are featuring a diverse sample of art coming from various parts of the world. One of the museum’s floors shows videos and wall installations by New York-based, Argentinian-Israeli artist Mika Rottenberg entitle Easypieces.
Taking its title from the Six Easy Pieces, a book by theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, the art on view goes from simple observation of repetitive tasks and bizarre mechanical imitations of innocuous movements to video installations that chain together distant geographical places, exotic sounds, and a visual manifestation of a physiological reaction. In her latest work under a catchy name Spaghetti Blockchain (2019), Rottenberg easily mixes Tuvan throat singing from Siberia with the visuals from the CERN Anti-matter Lab, and the process of potato-farming in Maine. Its a kaleidoscope of forms, colors, and sounds employed in an impossible attempt to explain and control the uncontrollable.
Her earlier work NoNoseKnows, which premiered at the Venice Biennale in 2015 takes the viewers to a slave-labor-like factory in China where freshwater pearls are manufactured by infecting the life oysters with an irritant. The frames of the arduous work done by women are mixed with the close observation of sneezing from an allergic reaction to a pollutant. Its grotesque and repulsive while at the same time extremely depressing. Yet the process goes on, and on, and on, — exaggerating the absurdity of the modern globalized manufacturing practices.
Come with an open mind and a guest for curiosity.
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Mika Rottenberg, Finger, 2018. Artificial finger and mechanical system. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Born in 1976 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mika Rottenberg grew up in Israel. In 2000 she moved to New York to continue her studies in art. She graduated with a BA from the School of Visual Arts and in 2004 completed an MFA from Columbia University. The artwork by Rottenberg is presented in the major museums and public collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum, National Gallery of Canada, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston and Tel Aviv Museum of Art and Rose Art Museum.
Mika Rottenberg, Cosmic Generator, 2017 (still). Single-channel video installation, sound, color; © Mika Rottenberg. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
The art selected for the exhibition at the New Museum focuses on questioning the artificial uniformity of daily life brought on by the globalization as shown in Cosmic Generator (2017), the tenuous roles that women are placed in by the division of labor as depicted in NoNoseKnows (2015), or the disappearing mark left by humanity like an echo in the endless Tuvan steppe in Spaghetti Blockchain (2019). The aim of the exhibition is to cause discomfort through closeups of bodily reactions like sneezing juxtaposed against the production process for harvesting the freshwater pearls which involves the use of an irritant. The artist questions the labor practices commonly accepted or intentionally left in the shadows by the modern society. High-minded thinking about the anti-matter and cosmic forces gets meshed with the guttural sounds of throat singing which are carried away across the steppes to the mountain ridges. In the end, a ghostly sound in an eerie landscape is the only thing left. The feeling of suffocation in a room full of brightly-colored plastic stuff makes one gasp for air. This discomfort only intensifies when the kaleidoscope of images pickups the speed.
Funky and highly realistic, the wall installations presented in the central hall make an accurate and odd imitation of ordinary objects. Innocuous things like a whipping ponytail or the spooky finger with a bright-colored fingernail protruding from a wall, compliment the videos. At the same time, these pieces are a respite from the loaded topics covered by the videos. Mundane acts of water drip on a hot skillet making a sizzling sound or condensed water drops from the wall AC collected by a house plant fit well with the exhibition title Easypieces.
notes “Surrealism’s power to knock the viewer off balance, without holding out an explanatory hand.” Pose, think, and contemplate the complicity of humanity in altering the earth with mundane practices and everyday objects.
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Dates: June 25 — September 15, 2019 | https://medium.com/@tatyana.travel/art-in-nyc-easypieces-by-mika-rottenberg-at-the-new-museum-arts-ny-14576f0ef4d2 | ['Tatyana Polyak'] | 2019-07-19 19:22:32.991000+00:00 | ['Venice Biennale', 'Contemporary Art', 'Videos', 'Museums', 'Art'] |
Case Study — Ginger Roots. Role: Project Manager, User researcher… | The Problem:
While Ginger is providing excellent services for their adults, their services are not directed towards the younger generation. Ginger wants to cater to teenagers within their app, so we decided it was important to present in our new design. They would like to expand their services to the teenage demographic to support them in facing their own personal issues anonymously, so they feel open to discuss their personal affairs, without judgment from their peers. This is a General Assembly concept project.
After looking over our project brief, we set out to converse user interviews. We decided to think of who we can interview and fit the description of candidates. It was fundamental for us to chat with mental health professionals who worked with adolescents to advise us on how to initiate and strategize well-structured user interviews with teenagers. We agreed this was the best course of action because it helped us gain insight on how to talk to teenagers. Through networking, we connected with five teens in our demographic who shared their thoughts on mental health to further our key research insights.
Key Research Insights:
Next, we analyzed our insights from seven users: five teens between the ages eleven to eighteen years old and two mental health professionals.
Some key observations we gathered from teenager interviews are listed below:
“My friends know me better than anyone else in my life.” “Therapists can be really helpful for learning about mental health and strategies.” “It helps me cope with my mental health when I talk to my friends.” “Teens are so supportive of each other — sometimes too much.”
This last quote highlighted teenagers crave to be involved in their friends’ mental health noticing they are empathetic and supportive of each other. But the downfall adolescents face is that they are not advocating for themselves because they refuse to burden their peers. So, they harbor their problems to themselves.
This affinity map with our 7 interviews benefited us in further synthesizing and analyzing our user persona and problem statement.
Competitive Analysis:
We wanted to differentiate our application from our competitors, so we conducted a competitive analysis. We had six key parameters that we addressed within our application. They were:
On-demand support Community group Professional groups Learning resources Mentoring No fee.
To see what Ginger was missing, we compared five different companies: Crisis Text Line, Therapy Tribe, BetterHelp, Big Brothers Big Sister, and YMCA. The most prominent features that Ginger is missing from its application are community groups and mentoring. These features are essential based on our user research, which found that many teens gravitated towards more community and peer-based group chats because adolescents prefer to receive advice from their peers rather than from adults.
We investigated marketing strategy to understand how to retain adolescents’ attention. The key points are made below:
Build an easy and simple navigation application. We required straightforward and easy navigation that is visually appealing to hold the teenager’s attention span. Gamifying incentives to increase application engagement. We aspire to occupied teens to regularly participate in the application, so they can receive badges. Ensuring anonymity. We want teens to be comfortable and avoid the negative stigma surrounding mental health problems.
Persona:
After we synthesized our affinity map, we were off to generate our user persona, Jenny Wilson. She is a fifteen-year-old high school freshman who empathized with her peers and family. She strove to excel in school while being a model daughter. Unfortunately, this caused her to be highly stressed and longed for a better outlet away from her social circle.
Problem and solution statement:
Once we crafted our user persona, we developed a problem statement: Jenny needed a private way to address her own mental health issues outside of her normal social circle because being the model student, friend, and daughter is causing her stress and burnout.
Our problem statement above guided us to construct our solution statement: Ginger Roots is a mobile app that provides teens with a private space to talk with peers about their issues, receive support from a mentor and counselor, access resources about mental health, and potentially connect with a licensed therapist.
User flow:
With our problem statement in mind, we created a user flow describing how Jenny uses the app. This revealed decisions the user might encounter through a happy and unhappy pathway. Using this methodology revealed decisions the user might encounter and helped us discover potential problems within our final product.
Iterations:
During our construction of our designs, we had a sketch session iterate on our designs. From there, we discussed and compromised with each other on the app pages we wanted to include. Throughout the process, we all consulted and gave feedback on the design of the cards. I stitched the prototypes together, so we could execute a cohesive mobile application. I was in charge of constructing the connections between each screen to transition smoothly to the next. It was exhilarating, we finally completed the final product after probing multiple usability testings making sure every little detail was counted.
Sketches:
Wireframe:
Usability testing insights:
After going through our redesigns, we asked five users to test our mid-fi prototype. The main takeaways were:
Users felt the navigation was easy and intuitive. Users were puzzled about the forum icon on the navigation. “They liked the colorful button for resources and activities.” The coach and group chat should have been under one icon in the navigation bar.” “Users wanted to see if there was a section for news in the activities and resources.”
High fidelity screens:
High fidelity usability testing insight:
I conducted three high fidelity usability tests to improve on the next iterations for our prototypes.
Next steps:
We would like to go forth and create a desktop site as a result of our user interviews because some teenagers from our interviews did not have a mobile phone until high school. I want to improve on the prototype’s animation; I am inspired by my peers’ work from something as simple as a message bubble. Lastly, we would continue fleshing out more of the resources and activities screens.
Lesson learned:
I should not worry about having perpetual validation. I need to learn to bring more confidence in myself and not compare myself to others but learn from them. In addition, I should not overcompensate by doing extra work, I am working in a team and we are working together. | https://medium.com/@kristhuynh6/case-study-ginger-roots-85742b4f80d1 | ['Kristine Huynh'] | 2021-01-04 21:22:00.954000+00:00 | ['UX Design', 'UX Research', 'Ginger', 'UX'] |
Why is Blockchain NOT the challenge but the SOLUTION to sustainable energy | 1. Decentralized energy supply system and household participation
One of the most special opportunities that Blockchain brings to the energy sector is that it encourages the growth of electricity ‘prosumers’. Prosumers refers to households that are able to generate electricity or become the supplier of electricity, for example, by having a solar panel installed in their buildings. By putting consumers at the heart of the system, both renewable energy consumption and production can be enhanced, creating a positive feedback loop that accelerates the transformation of society from non-renewable to renewable energy in a self-sustaining way. In order to bring such a system to reality, there need to be an incentive mechanism, for instance, prosumers should expect to be rewarded with positive return from investing in installing a solar panel. However, in the current electricity supply system, the challenge is not only that there isn’t a trusted platform to facilitate household electricity transactions, but also the fact that multiple intermediaries and complexity in regulatory compliance cuts the potential income for households from engaging in electricity trades. Many governors and scholars in this field have recognized the need for changes, in 2017 the European Union’s Clean Energy Package was implemented, with a set of rules on household energy producing, storage and trading, aiming to encourage consumers to actively participate in electricity trading. Academic literature has extensively focused on improving the market design by establishing local storage systems into national operations of power systems, nevertheless, progress is slow and we haven’t seen significant changes in the past few years.
This is where a decentralized Blockchain system could come into play.
Firstly and most importantly, Blockchain Technology could create a trustless network to encourage Peer to Peer (P2P) electricity transactions. In any P2P transaction, trust between parties are extremely important. If we think about how Uber, Airbnb have built up their P2P exchange system, parties involved in the transaction have trust in the paring and verification mechanisms of the platform, for example, the registration process to become a Uber driver. Blockchain technology provides an even stronger ‘trustless’ system, where you don’t have to trust the counterparty, but only the technology. By offering cryptographic ways of tracking transactions, the transparency in terms of transaction records and anonymity in terms of personal information are both enhanced. Without a centralized control, identical databases that records each and every transaction ( in an encrypted form) are stored in the device of every player involved, and in order for a transaction to be recorded, all parties need to reach consensus and validate the transaction.
image source: unsplash
“Historically, although there are some exceptions, people tended not to share with strangers or those outside their social networks. Sharing was confined to trusted individuals such as family, friends and neighbours. Today’s sharing platforms facilitate sharing among people who do not know each other, and who lack friends or connections in common.” (Frenken and Schor, 2017).
Furthermore, through the use of a distributed ledger system, many intermediaries are removed from the transaction, a pure peer to peer transaction is possible to achieve. This reduces cost and time of transaction, increasing the “profit margin” and incentive for households to engage in energy trading activities.
We have already seen practical implementations in many countries around the globe, both startups and traditional large energy suppliers are actively pushing for such a revolution. For instance, in 2018, Centrica- the owner of British Gas worked with a American startup to initiate an energy sharing project for their Local Energy Market. The project aims to enable trading of energy between local businesses, consumers, the national grid and other participants in the UK.
Another well-known case is the Australian startup “Power Ledger”. It uses a blockchain-based network to establish a peer to peer energy trading platform. Some of its key benefits include real-time payment, automated low cost settlement, neighborhoods trading, transparent trading information and much more. One of the most interesting features of Power Ledger is that it comprises of both a permissioned and a permissionless blockchain infrastructure. The permissionless blockchain operates on a global scale to allow international market trading, whereas the permissioned blockchain operates among local trusted peers. The platform also uses two tokens as assets: one called “POWR” — which is used to access the global P2P trading market, while the other one — “Sparkz” usually functions in the local network as the trading currency, representing the electricity price and the local “real-world” currency. In combination, the system ensures value via “POWR” tokens and facilitates exchange through “Sparkz” .
Other P2P electricity trading startups and projects you could explore include:
Apart from solar panels, another active field is electric vehicle charging. Sales of electricity vehicles is increasing dramatically year on year. Overall sales of Tesla’s Electric vehicle is expected to surpass 10 million by 2025, and responding to such a trend, the demand for charging stations will scale up exponentially. This puts pressure on the national electricity grid as millions of drivers demand for energy flows to charge their cars at the same time. The idea of ‘distributed’ charging stations matches well with blockchain’s characteristics, it could play a key role in improving the coordination of a distributed charging network by allowing any owner of EV charger to be a supplier. The use of blockchain smart contract enables trusted payment and transaction to be made between individual EV owners and EV charger providers who are unknown to each other.
image source: unsplash
The Share & Charge project initiated by Slock.it is an example of P2P EV charging station project, allowing households owning charging stations to provide charging services to drivers. It could benefit the ‘suppliers’ by recouping the cost of their investment, while broadening the geographical coverage of EV charging stations to benefit the drivers. The app has been available since the 28th of April for charging stations located in Germany. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/why-is-blockchain-not-the-challenge-but-the-solution-to-sustainable-energy-e3265a42a61a | ['Americana Chen'] | 2020-12-28 12:47:21.101000+00:00 | ['Energy', 'Blockchain', 'Technology', 'Sustainability', 'Renewable Energy'] |
How to start Organic gardening | No matter whether or not you’re an skilled natural gardener or you might have merely determined that you want to to grow to be extra self-reliant by rising a few of your personal meals, planting a backyard requires planning. A correctly deliberate and planted natural backyard will naturally resist illness, deter pests, and be wholesome and productive. With the spring planting season quick approaching, winter is the perfect time to get began. So let’s start organic gardening
Set Goals and start organic gardening
What would you like to do together with your plot of earth this season? Begin planning by setting objectives. Grab your backyard map, a pencil, your gardening information, catalogs, and your pondering cap. List the areas of your yard and backyard individually (i.e. garden, vegetable patch, flower backyard), and, holding in thoughts the dimensions and circumstances of your web site, brainstorm! Are you planning a backyard for the primary time? Do you need to broaden your present backyard?
Did you might have pest or illness issues final yr that you simply’re hoping to stop this yr? What map? To create a map of your yard or backyard, measure the size of your web site as an entire, after which the person dimensions of your vegetable patch, flowerbeds, and garden. It’s best to draw your map to scale on a sheet of graph paper. These measurements will likely be crucial later, when you’re figuring out how a lot of a plant or seeds to purchase.
Once the map is drawn you can easily begin your organic gardening. write in any data you understand about soil traits, drainage, environmental circumstances (sunny, shady, windy), and the names of bushes and perennial crops that exist already. Your map will let you understand precisely what you might have to work with, and will provide you with a sensible thought of issues that want consideration or options you would like to change or add.
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Tool Tutorial for organic gardening
To start for organic gardening, You have a plan! You have information! Do you might have instruments? Chances are chances are you’ll give you the option to get hold of most instruments at your native garden and backyard retailer.
Bring the record that you simply assembled in Gardening 101, and, if you’re a seasoned gardener, assume that the identical pests and plagues will likely be again that you simply handled final yr and purchase your provides now.
If you’re new to the gardening scene, purchase the fundamental instruments that you will want, after which nostril across the neighborhood and maybe your native gardening membership to see what’s really helpful for what you’re planting and the place you reside.
Basic Tools:
Diggers — You will want a spading fork for aerating your soil and turning your compost pile. Look for a spading fork with rectangular, flat blades. A manure fork can also be compost-pile pleasant when it comes to turning.
Weeders — Weeding instruments embody hoes and short-handled cultivating instruments. Both are made in quite a lot of types, and you’ll most likely need a couple of of every.
Hoe
hoe varieties embody:
Swan-neck hoe — The curved neck positions the reducing blade to skim slightly below the floor, making it best for gentle work round backyard crops.
Oscillating hoe — Also referred to as a scuffle hoe or hula, it has a hinged, double-edged blade that hardly disturbs the soil floor, minimizing the variety of new weeds introduced to the floor.
Collinear hoe — Designed by Eliot Coleman, the slim blade and angled deal with are helpful for reducing off small weeds with little soil disturbance.
Eye hoe — Also referred to as a grub hoe, the heavy blade is for onerous chopping at powerful, overgrown weeds.
Standard short-handled cultivating instruments
Hand cultivator — A tined instrument, helpful for disturbing the soil floor round shut planting to uproot younger weeds.
Dandelion weeder — Made for uprooting weeds with lengthy taproots.
Pavement weeder — A trowel for eradicating weeds in cracks of stone slab or brick walkways.
Pruners — Pruning bushes and shrubs promotes development and good well being, and pruning out diseased wooden helps to management illness issues. Pruning instruments are available various sizes relying in your want. Choose a pointy, top quality pruning instrument.
Tillers — Tillers may also vary in dimension, relying on the job. There are massive, gaspowered tillers for breaking floor or massive jobs, and small tillers which are light-weight and are helpful for cultivating round perennials. Rent just a few tillers to attempt them out earlier than shopping for, as they do differ an incredible deal and may be costly.
Sowers — Wheeled seeding instruments which have changeable inside disks for various seed sizes and spacings can be found and really helpful if you’re planting massive areas.
Comfort instruments — There is a plethora of comfort- oriented backyard equipment out there in the marketplace at this time. Products vary from gloves, to knee pads, to small, wheeled benches/carts. It is up to you to determine what is going to fit your wants, should you want any in any respect.
Starting From Seed
Starting your crops from seed will make sure that they’re chemical free. Most transplants bought in backyard facilities have been handled with chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Seeds themselves purchased at backyard facilities could also be coated in fungicides, so be very cautious about what you purchase or purchase from an natural seed provider. To start crops from seed, you want sterile soil, sterile planting containers, and labels.
It is best to develop every seedling in a separate container to keep away from the injury incurred by ripping roots aside, and to make for a much less surprising transplant. If you buy soil combine, make certain that it’s sterile to keep away from spreading illness to your seedlings.
To make your personal combine, use vermiculite (a mica-based mineral that has been heated to make it broaden to many instances its authentic dimension), perlite (volcanic ash that has been heated and ‘popped’), and sphagnum (moss that has been collected whereas nonetheless alive, dried, after which finely floor).
Add 1 tablespoon of lime for every 2 quarts of sphagnum that you simply use to counteract its acidity. Good recipes for soil combine are 1 half sphagnum and 1 half vermiculite, or 1 half every sphagnum, vermiculite and perlite. Seeds really want warmth, not gentle, to germinate. The warmth from a develop gentle or sunny window could also be sufficient for some, however putting the containers on high of a heat fridge or on a seed-starting heating pad could also be crucial.
Keep your seeds moist by planting them in moist combine and masking them with plastic wrap. As quickly as you see the primary signal of life, take away the wrap and place them someplace the place they’ll obtain 8–10 hours of daylight per day.
Water them care absolutely with a twig mister, cautious not to knock the seedlings over or wash away the soil. Before you transplant your seedlings outside, they want to be acclimated to the completely different local weather. Bring them outdoors and place them in a sheltered, considerably shady spot for just a few hours every day, steadily rising their publicity to the weather over per week or two.
Plants have a hardiness zone, an space based mostly on the common annual low temperatures the place a plant is most probably to face up to the area’s annual low temperature . Growing crops which are outdoors your hardiness zone shouldn’t be inconceivable, however they’ll want particular consideration. When deciding what to plant, seek the advice of a hardiness zone map to give you crops which are most probably to thrive in your zone .
Garden Design to start organic gardening
Switching to chemical-free gardening won’t solely imply altering your gardening practices, but in addition your gardening design. Gardening in beds, as opposed to rows, offers for higher weed, illness and pest administration.
Beds are additionally extra enticing and simpler to keep. In a backyard mattress, all the things is planted inside arm’s attain. The leaves of adjoining crops shade the soil, decreasing weed development. Diversity in a backyard mattress additionally has many benefits.
Quite a lot of crops in a blended mattress present some pure pest safety by making it tough for pests to discover and eat their goal crops, or serving to to appeal to bugs which are helpful to your backyard and prey on pest bugs. It additionally reduces the possibilities that pests and illness organisms will construct to epidemic ranges, as they will not give you the option to hop from tasty host to tasty host, as they’d should you had planted in rows.
Your soil may also reap the advantages of your numerous planting strategies. instance is planting nitrogen-gobbling corn with nitrogen-giving beans. Pairing up specific crops or planting in selection will help the soil keep its nutrient steadiness, guaranteeing happier crops and a greater crop yield. In truth, this method even has a reputation — companion planting.
Companion Planting:
Much of the science of companion planting is determining what works for you. Many books may give you pointers about what crops work nicely collectively. Some crops are attractants, some repellents, some may be inter-planted together with your crops and flowers, and a few compete too vigorously and must be planted in separate borders or hedgerows.
For instance, sunflowers are a very good border plant, attracting lacewings and parasitic wasps; radishes are good to inter-plant as a result of they repel the striped cucumber beetle; and marigolds are good to each use as a border and inter-plant, as they appeal to hover flies and repel root nematodes, Mexican bean beetles, aphids, and Colorado potato beetles. It may be complicated, and never all crops work nicely collectively.
Your finest guess is to start easy, decide what pests you encounter, and work from there, altering the crops in your backyard mattress as wanted from yr to yr. Often, a mix of flowers, greens and herbs work nicely collectively in a single mattress.
Companion Planting. Making your mattress. Making your mattress may be so simple as marking off 3-by-5-foot sections of backyard with pathways left between them. However, to optimize some great benefits of planting in backyard beds, elevate your beds.
Raised beds present lighter, deeper, extra nutrient-rich, water absorbent soil. Raised beds, nevertheless, should be considered everlasting so as to keep their splendor. They can’t be walked on or damaged down on the finish of the season. You can construct sides in your mattress with bricks, rocks, or cedar 2-by-Four or 2-by-six planks to keep the form as a substitute of raking and reshaping the mattress yearly.
Stay away from pressure-treated wooden, as it’s handled with wooden preservatives which are dangerous to you and the surroundings. How do you obtain raised beds? With double-digging, in fact! (This is also called onerous work.)
Double-digging raised beds
1. Dig out the highest one-foot of soil alongside one finish of the mattress. Keep the soil in a wheelbarrow or on a groundcloth.
2. Loosen the uncovered subsoil by thrusting in a spading fork and twisting its tines backwards and forwards. For further profit, add a small quantity of natural matter and work it in as you loosen that subsoil.
3. Once the subsoil is loosened, transfer over and start eradicating the topsoil from the following strip of backyard mattress. This time, as a substitute of holding the topsoil that you’re eradicating, shovel it over the subsoil to which you might have simply added the natural matter. You can add a bit extra natural matter to the topsoil as you shovel.
4. Repeat step 3.
5. When you might have reached the final row of your backyard mattress, use the reserved topsoil to cowl the final space of uncovered subsoil.
6. Plant!
Composting to start an Organic gardening
Compost is a good fertilizer and may help in pest prevention to start your organic gardening. Compost is created when microorganisms, earthworms and nematodes eat and breakdown natural matter into less complicated compounds.
This course of occurs extra shortly in an lively compost pile as a result of these microorganisms have the required warmth, air and moisture, and a various provide of uncooked supplies to digest.
An lively pile requires turning each week to add oxygen and preserve the decomposition charge excessive; a passive pile is a pile of natural matter left to decay over time — often in a single to two years. Whichever technique of composting you select, step one is making a compost pile
You can layer the supplies in a heap, arrange a heavy rooster wire body (this works nicely for a passive pile), construct picket or concrete-block bins, or purchase a commercially made bin to maintain your pile.
Some industrial bins have in-built rotating turners that may make your job a lot simpler. The best dimension for an lively compost pile is Four toes by Four toes, although dimension can differ. Choose a location that’s shady and nicely drained to start your own organic gardening.
Clear away any floor cowl on the web site, loosen the soil with a spading fork, and put down a layer of wooden chips or brush as a base. You can toss in backyard or kitchen wastes, grass clippings, newspaper, manure, and sawdust.
Avoid including kitchen waste that’s heavy in oil and meat merchandise. Shredded supplies make higher compost extra shortly. Try to alternate layers of plant materials (chopped leaves or straw) with nitrogen-rich supplies (kitchen scraps with manure and blood meal).
Keep your pile moist, at an analogous stage to a squeezed-out sponge, and preserve open piles lined with a tarp or heavy canvas in order that they will not grow to be waterlogged within the rain. If your pile turns into too dry, add water with kelp extract to moisten it and stimulate biotic exercise.
Turn your lively pile recurrently, mixing and loosening the supplies with a spading fork, to stop overheating and preserve microorganisms blissful and lively.
Ideal lively compost temperature must be inside 140° to 150°, or at barely larger temperatures if you’re composting diseased plant materials, round 160°.
Your natural compost pile to start organic gardening will yield wealthy humus that will likely be a perfect fertilizer to your backyard.
It will prevent the cash of shopping for industrial, artificial fertilizers, a lot of which have proven to include poisonous waste. Healthy soil makes for hardy crops. Planning your backyard may be crucial factor you do that rising season. With a strong plan in place and established
objectives, you possibly can reduce your pest issues and potential frustration, and maximize your rising season, and your backyard’s magnificence. All this whereas saving in your grocery invoice and rising the standard of meals you ingest by leaps and bounds.
By planting an natural backyard additionally, you will be decreasing your carbon footprint through producing a few of your meals (requiring no transportation or storage on the grocery retailer or packaging) thus contributing to our tradition’s sustainability basically | https://medium.com/@cybertrixmedia2019/how-to-start-organic-gardening-2d5d0c4af96c | [] | 2020-04-23 14:53:21.686000+00:00 | ['Organic Garden', 'Organicgardening', 'Gardening', 'Garden'] |
3 Reasons Why Gorbachev Failed | Saudi Arabia shocked the Soviet Union in 1985. Source: Getty Images, Russia Beyond
The most important crisis- the oil crisis of 1986
In the 1980s, the Soviet economy suffered from increasing stagnation, due to productivity growth falling below zero by the early 1980s, excess military spending, and corruption. Throughout the 1970–the 80s, the Soviet Union ranked as one of the world’s top producers of energy resources such as oil and natural gas, and exports of those commodities played a vital role in shoring up the world’s largest command economy.
“The date of the USSR’s collapse is well known. It’s not the day of the Belovezha Accords, nor the August coup [of 1991]. It was Sept. 13, 1985 when Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Oil, [Ahmed] Yamani, declared that Saudi Arabia was quitting the agreement on oil production restraint, and started to boost its share in the oil market. After this, Saudi Arabia increased oil production by 5.5 fold, and oil prices dropped by 6.1 fold” — Egor Gaidar (economist), the architect of radical economic reforms in post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s
As oil prices rose in the 1980s, the USSR pumped more oil to generate more revenue in order to build more infrastructure to consume more fuel. It also wasted an enormous amount of petroleum, men, and rubles in a vain attempt to conquer Afghanistan. Additionally, the communist regime subsidized the energy needs of North Korea, eastern Europe, and Cuba. Europeans travelled to East Berlin to catch the cheapest flights to India in the 1980s all thanks to Soviet fuel subsidies.
When oil plunged from $120 a barrel in 1980 to $24 a barrel in March 1986, vital revenues had begun to deteriorate. Soviet oil production dropped nearly 50% between 1988 and 1995 from 12 million barrels to 7 million barrels. Cheap petroleum was incredibly important because it kept Eastern Europe under communist control while oil export revenue paid for essential grain imports. Without it, the Soviet economy and consequently, the entire USSR collapsed.
According to U.S. economist Doug Reynolds, as a result — the Red Empire just ran out of fuel.
The Chernobyl disaster
The famous picture of the Chernobyl disaster. Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/retropod/the-day-before-the-chernobyl-disaster/
The explosion and subsequent fires created by the meltdown of the Chernobyl reactors released more than 400 times the amount of radioactive fallout as the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Gorbachev, having no control over the explosion, made immature decisions that later haunted him. There were attempts to suppress information about the severity of the disaster, going as far as “to order that May Day parades and celebrations in the affected area should proceed as planned”. Despite this, the West started reporting dangerously high levels of wind-transported radioactivity, while those in the contamination zone were dealing with radiation poisoning’s physical effects.
Seeing the severity of the disaster, thousands of ordinary people and many government officials lost the last bit of trust in the Soviet system.
Decades later, Gorbachev marked the anniversary of the disaster by stating, “even more than my launch of perestroika, [Chernobyl] was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later.”
Chernobyl was so significant because it challenged the newly started Glasnost(openness), which didn’t stand the fight as the Soviet government covered and hid the disaster from Soviet people, all of which had been done with Gorbachev’s approval. Chernobyl is the moment when Gorbachev didn’t follow his own reform.
Soviet citizens support for democratization and capitalism
The row for a Big Mac, Moscow, 1990. Source: https://sputniknews.com/photo/202002011078199527-mcdonalds-anniversary-ussr-first/
Indeed, Glasnost had ushered in a flurry of new concepts, ideas, and experiences, and Soviet citizens were eager to explore them. As Gorbachev was more lenient to the ideas that came from the Western world, some ideas and investments became real. For example, on 31 January 1990, McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in Moscow. The image of the Golden Arches in Pushkin Square seemed like a triumph of Western capitalism, and customers lined up around the block for their first taste of a Big Mac. They were queued just as long for morning editions of liberal newspapers with columns containing Western philosophers’ thoughts. | https://historyofyesterday.com/3-reasons-why-gorbachev-failed-db74e08fb699 | ['Audrius Šaras'] | 2020-08-19 08:01:01.019000+00:00 | ['Communism', 'History', 'Democracy', 'Oil', 'Chernobyl'] |
I Saw “The Chamber” on Netflix | I Saw “The Chamber” on Netflix
Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels
I recently watched “The Chamber” on Netflix. “The Chamber” is a 1996 film based on the John Grisham novel (1994) of the same title. It follows a young attorney, Adam, practicing at a Chicago law firm, Kravitz & Bane as he takes over a pro-bono case of a Ku Klux Klansman and convicted killer, Sam Cayhall, who is on death row. Sam Cayhall turns out to be Adam’s grandfather, disowned by the family for the same crime that earned him a death sentence: the bombing and killing of a civil rights lawyer and his two children.
I liked the movie because it’s an honest retelling of White history in the United States. Everything from Adam’s sorry attempts at saving his grandfather’s life and the excuses he employs, “The very things that make him so monstrous are the very reasons that mitigate against this state murdering him. He was raised by his family and by this state to become the man that he became. By the time he was old enough to choose, he didn’t have a choice. This is the tragedy for Sam Cayhall.” to the alcoholism that his aunt, Sam’s daughter, develops in order to cope with White guilt are as disappointing as they are authentic to what you can expect in 2020.
After being inundated with superhero movies, where White characters interact with aliens so as to side step having to deal with racism in the United States (also convenient is to create all Black or all Asian casts), this was a refreshing story, one that delved into the intergenerational trauma White people inflict on themselves and on others for the glory of White supremacy. In short, while this movie was clearly racist AF, I think White people should make more movies like this one rather than dressing up in capes or as a mall cop. | https://medium.com/365-ally-for-black-lives/i-saw-the-chamber-on-netflix-982c7bc8bb4e | ['Jee Young Park'] | 2020-12-07 14:38:48.565000+00:00 | ['White Privilege', 'John Grisham', 'White Supremacy', 'Anti Black Racism', 'Netflix'] |
I Woke Up At Four In The Morning Everyday For 30 Days | I Woke Up At Four In The Morning Everyday For 30 Days
“If you win the morning, you win the day” — Tim Ferris
Photo by David Zawila on Unsplash
I used to believe in this dogma: that we only have so much time in the day, generally not enough to do everything we want to do, which is why we limit what we can do in a full twenty-four hours.
Well, I call bullshit.
I’ve spent the last thirty days consistently waking up at four in the morning, and the benefits have been life-changing.
It wasn’t my idea, and it definitely wasn’t on purpose. You see, we had a baby, and to get our six hours of sleep, my wife and I decided to take shifts.
She’d feed the little one between eight in the afternoon to three in the morning, and I’d cover feedings from five to eleven. It was originally the other way around, but I got the morning shift last month. Great.
Except, it was great. I’ve put out over 100 pieces of work in the last thirty days, ranging from small brochures to 5,000-word articles. I’m even in the process of writing a new book.
Waking Up This Early Every Morning Forced Me To Spend Some Quality Time With Myself.
The best part for me about waking up so early is that everybody else is still asleep. Waking up at four in the morning for the last thirty days forced me to spend some quality alone time with myself. It gave me the time to ask those Big questions, focus on my vision, my why, the reasons behind doing what I do. It turns out, answering these Big life questions becomes a lot easier once you spend the time necessary to get to know yourself. I’ve learned so much about myself over the last thirty days; it’s been incredible.
“I think it’s very healthy to spend some time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person” — Oscar Wilde
I Plan Out My Morning In Advance
Getting up this early is one thing. Planning your day is another. The routine itself generally becomes a habit, but what are your top priorities for the day? Every morning I follow the same pattern, and then I’ll tackle my top three priorities for the day. It might look something like this,
Wake up, brush teeth, drink water
Meditate, yoga, chant
Pour coffee, read for thirty minutes
Top three priorities (ex. write one hour, clean car, finish task before work deadline)
The Best Part? Watching The Sun Rise.
I think the best thing about waking up so early is getting to see the sunrise. After tackling my top priorities, my favorite thing to do involves grabbing a big cup of coffee, sitting on the porch, and watching the birds chirp as the sun rises.
“The sunrise, of course, doesn’t care if we watch it or not. It will keep on being beautiful, even if no one bothers to look at it” — Gene Amole
The Biggest Takeaway
Waking up early, earlier than anyone else, gives you the time necessary to evaluate your goals, spend some alone time to ask quality questions, and then follow through on them. I can get so much done between four and eight in the morning; it’s incredible. I used to wake up around seven, play video games for a few hours, and then wonder where my day went. Now, I’m on top of my game.
Maybe four’s too early for you. I don’t blame you. Try waking up at five, or six, or start by setting your alarm back one hour more than usual. I also want to point out that I’m a night owl and used to get just as much work done in the evening. Whether you’re up by 4 am, or asleep by 2 — whatever works best for you. | https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/i-woke-up-at-four-in-the-morning-everyday-for-30-days-20b4ebb00842 | ['Jazz Parks'] | 2020-10-12 17:40:30.242000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Self', 'Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Inspiration'] |
When Companies Lead Change | The New Influencer Marketing (part 3)
A month or so ago, I began what has now become a short series about “new influencer marketing”. In a world where so much is in turmoil and change is afoot, it felt necessary to go back to the original definition of “influence” to understand where action is happening. Who has power, and who is exerting this influence to drive desired behavior? This is the 3rd and final installment.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo for Axios
Throughout history, from Rome to rock ‘n roll — uniquely positioned individuals and organizations have wielded influence over the masses. Through public education (or miseducation) — influential parties have guided decisions around health, economics, politics, and consumer choice.
Over the past decade, so-called “influencer marketing” has capitalized on this power of some to influence the purchasing behavior of many. In 2019, companies spent more than $6.6B on this as an advertising channel, with experts estimating spend will rise towards $15B in the next two years.
Now in 2020, at a moment when so much feels uncertain, including the state of American democracy itself — celebrities and brands are stepping up to use their influence- not to sell something, but to provide information, encourage voting, and engage citizens in the civic process of democracy. This particular use of influence feels more important than ever. Why? | https://medium.com/@lisavgralnek/when-companies-lead-change-7d3f47501bba | ['Lisa Gralnek'] | 2020-09-04 21:05:13.594000+00:00 | ['Branding', 'Social Impact', 'Values', 'Leadership', 'Business'] |
200 universities just launched 560 free online courses. Here’s the full list. | In the past three month alone, more than 200 universities have announced 560 such free online courses. I’ve compiled this list below and categorized the courses into the following subjects: Computer Science, Mathematics, Programming, Data Science, Humanities, Social Sciences, Education & Teaching, Health & Medicine, Business, Personal Development, Engineering, Art & Design, and finally Science.
If you have trouble figuring out how to signup for Coursera courses for free, don’t worry — I’ve written an article on how to do that, too.
Here’s the full list of new free online courses. Most of these are completely self-paced, so you can start taking them at your convenience.
COMPUTER SCIENCE
MATHEMATICS
PROGRAMMING
DATA SCIENCE
HUMANITIES
SOCIAL SCIENCES
EDUCATION & TEACHING
HEALTH & MEDICINE
ENGINEERING
ART & DESIGN
BUSINESS
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
SCIENCE | https://medium.com/free-code-camp/200-universities-just-launched-560-free-online-courses-heres-the-full-list-d9dd13600b04 | ['Dhawal Shah'] | 2019-03-20 02:07:28.152000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Startup', 'Self Improvement', 'Technology', 'Education'] |
Back to the future!! Testing Solidity through time with Brownie. | Time to activate pytest
All you have to do is add a .py file in the /tests directory.
That’s it.
If you’re familiar with pytests, you can create a conftest.py file which we’ll keep all our deployed contracts and fixtures. Fixtures are reusable objects we’ll be calling each time we go to the future, and back.
from brownie import accounts
import pytest # Use pytest fixture so we can reuse this
@pytest.fixture(scope='module', autouse=True)
def test_token(Token):
name = 'Test Token'
symbol = 'TEST'
decimals = 18
mintable = True
initial_supply = 0
owner = accounts[0] # Deploy test_token
test_token = Token.deploy(owner
, symbol, name
, decimals
, initial_supply
, mintable
, {'from': accounts[0]}) return test_token
Here we deployed a contract “Token” that is frozen in time, importantly the scope set to ‘module’ allows you to run tests, but after the function finishes, resets the contract state before the next test.
@pytest.fixture(scope='module', autouse=True)
def frames_crowdsale(Crowdsale, test_token):
# Time when you run the test
start_date = rpc.time()
end_date = startDate + 60*60*24
owner = accounts[0] # Deploy crowdsale
crowd_sale = Crowdsale.deploy(test_token
, start_date
, end_date
, {"from": owner})
# Let the crowdsale mint
tx = frame_token.setMinter(
crowd_sale
, {"from": owner}) # Test if successful
assert 'MinterAdded' in tx.events. return crowd_sale
That’s kinda cool, we set up two contracts in Brownie, but when will we see some time travel?!
Well before we get started, we have just activated pytests, deployed two contracts in a fixture, added the crowd sale as the minter and asserted there indeed was an AddedMinter event. We can now run the tests and check the code coverage - which is pretty - with the following lines.
brownie test -v
Sample Brownie test output — Not representative of above pseudo code.
brownie test -coverage
Brownie shows you code test coverage — I cut the greenest section out for this post.
Setting a start and end time
So, after 30 years, how much HEX will I get?
Previously I would have either test a tiny time window. Or play with Geth and Ganache settings, write out a long perfectly curated script of test transactions to run, avoiding any prior txns errors, restart the node and do it all over again as I develop… I have even heard of someone - deploying to Ropsten, waiting 24 hours and testing again - checking it actually finalized - before deploying to main-net.
“ok it’s been 24 hours lets make sure it finalised”
Still, better than no testing at all - but far from ideal. Instead, let’s do a test in Brownie, going forwards in time, then going back in time & run a second test.
#/tests/test_crowdsale.py # Test 1
def test_finalise(crowd_sale)
with reverts():
# error: Crowdsale not yet finished
tx = crowd_sale.finalise()
# Travel 25hr into the future!
rpc.sleep(60*60*25)
tx = crowd_sale.finalise({'from':owner})
# Check if finished
assert crowd_sale.finalised() == True # Test 2 - Reset back in time
def test_buy_eth(crowd_sale, test_token):
tx = accounts[3].transfer(crowd_sale, "10 ether") # Can still buy tokens!!!
assert 'Purchased' in tx.events
assert test_token.balanceOf( accounts[3]) == 10 * 10 **18
There are in fact a number of ways to use Brownie to skip through time. https://eth-brownie.readthedocs.io/en/stable/core-rpc.htm
After my initial excitement in Gitter, Ben Hauser, the lead developer of Brownie goes to me…
“You should try it in stateful testing”
Stateful testing is a gamechanger! Essentially you set up some rules, set up some truths — called invariants — and let it run until it breaks. You don't have to map out specific user interactions, it tries a number of combinations. It’s fantastic for testing a bunch of edge cases, finding dust, you name it. But it really gets into its own world when you include time travel, as a rule.
https://eth-brownie.readthedocs.io/en/stable/tests-hypothesis-stateful.html
Invariants at 1.21 gigawatts! Great Scott!
As we approach 1.21 Gigawatts, all you need to gather in the pseudo code below is that there are 4 rules for the contract, and one truth that should hold, called an invariant. The truth being, how much the contract should hold.
#/tests/test_crowdsale.py import brownie
from brownie.test import strategy class StateMachine: eth = strategy('uint256', max_value = "10 ether")
sleep = strategy('uint256', max_value = 60000)
addr = strategy('address') def __init__(cls, accounts, contract):
# Initialise the contract
cls.accounts = accounts
cls.contract = contract def setup(self):
# Reset each run
self.contributed_usd = 0
self.hardcap_usd = 3000000 def rule_1_buyEth(self,eth):
# Purchase in ETH calcs def rule_2_buyUsd(self,usd):
# Purchase in dollars def rule_3_sleep(self,sleep):
rpc.sleep(st_sleep) def rule_4_final(self, addr):
self.contract.finalised() def invariant(self):
# compare the contract amount with the local state
assert self.contract.contributedUsd() == self.contributed_usd
In the reference implementation I go through the logic for each of the rules. I share the rule_3_sleep() as it is simple, yet a powerful addition to the testing. What this means is, as the state machine is going through all the possible combinations, one option is for it to skip ahead in time, eventually ending the crowdsale. If there is some combination of buying, skipping through time or trying to finalize early that causes an error, it will show the exact sequence of steps taken and accounts used to recreate the error.
Then next step would be to wrap the state_machine in a function, just as you would in a regular test, and let hypothesis do its magic!
#/tests/test_crowdsale.py def test_state(crowd_sale, accounts, state_machine): # This is how many steps and examples you want to try
settings = {"stateful_step_count": 20
, "max_examples": 50} state_machine( StateMachine
, accounts[0:3]
, crowd_sale
, settings=settings)
It will then start to process a bunch of permutations, mixing different rules and checking if it broke the invariant. The moment I first got it running it had a bug and showed a step by step, each transaction how it broke the invariant.
You can skip property tests and only run stateful tests with >brownie test— stateful true
Another cool example of a state machine using hypothesis is this: Solving the 3l jug puzzle from Die Hard 3.
Combining both property based testing and state based testing is crucial for complex code that deals with state change over time. Now 30% better with Brownie, pytest, hypothesis and time travel!
State based testing is a powerful tool essential for developers to think about as part of their testing/CI, as well as for preparing for, and running security audits on smart contract code.
If you’re going to deploy on mainnet, please do some testing and share your test suite before locking up other peoples money. Users will both have increased confidence in your contracts, and best case, developers will highlight errors in your test suite. | https://medium.com/deepyr/back-to-the-future-testing-solidity-through-time-with-brownie-5da4f257e2cb | ['Adrian Guerrera'] | 2020-05-07 09:47:55.961000+00:00 | ['Smart Contracts', 'Pytest', 'Testing', 'Ethereum', 'Solidity'] |
CS 449 Blog Post | CS 449 Blog Post
by Team Why Jira: Lu Yang, Yingjie Chen, Yuehan Lin, Yuqi Liu
Introduction
As more and more people lose their job in this hard time, we notice that the number of burglary crimes increases greatly. Residents need to be aware of crimes timely. Therefore, the recent news and awareness of protection motivate us to work on our project, “Safety Guard”. It will inform all residents living in the house and their emergency contacts if someone entered by force.
Customers need a timely alarm for them, since a real-time notification may save their life and properties. Therefore, our group defines the following value proposition.
Value proposition canvas
“Safety Guard” is a timely and secure design. After receiving the alarm from the app, the residences could see the visitor from the real-time camera. They could choose whether to report to the police, and the recorded video is utilized as crime evidence. “Safety Guard” is also useful when the host is away from home, and it will send an alert timely to the host to minimize the loss. Hence, with the help of the “Safety Guard”, customers’ fear of threats to safety and property could be eliminated.
“Safety Guard” supports multi-devices. Each camera could be viewed on multiple phone devices, while each phone device could connect with multiple cameras.
“Safety Guard” is easy for users to install. It contains user-friendly instructions and UI to guide users. It is convenient for customers to install cameras by going through the instructions step by step.
“Safety Guard” regards users’ privacy and information as a top priority. Therefore, it will not access any extra information without customers’ permission.
Empathize and Define
Anticipated Users: Persona and Empathy Map
To identify customers need and target users, we created three sets of personas and empathy maps with people from various backgrounds:
A designer, Julia Ma, who spends only a few days at home each month: Every Tuesday of a week, she has to ask her friend to go to her place and check if anything is broken or damaged as she stores her important jewelry and manuscripts at home. Her house was rubbered before, and she could not come back home to deal with the theft in time. She hopes to have a device that can notify the police in time and reports any suspicious behaviors around her house. A retired Businessman, Peter He, who stays at home often: He stays at home for most of his time as all he needs to do is enjoy his retirement life and work on some hand-making craft for his interests. After hearing the burglary cases from the neighbor, he started to worry that the same situation could happen in his family. He is thinking about using new technology to guard his collection and the safety of his family. A graduated international student, Alex Wang, who spends 8–9 hours every weekday at work: She works as a full-time software developer at some technology company in Waterloo. After graduation, she rented a single-bedroom condo near the company that she’s going to work for. Recently, Alex starts to be concerned about her safety because Waterloo police made a post saying that a high-risk offender has been released to the community. She worries that if strangers would break into her condo to steal her valuables when she is away for work. She also worries about her safety when she is at home alone at night.
Alex Wang’s persona
Alex Wang’s empathy map
Exploratory Study Process: User Observation and Interviews
The fictional personas are insufficient, we then create interview and questionnaire questions to investigate more.
For the interview questions, we mainly have three topics: privacy concern, the acceptability of the security system, and the storage method. Therefore, we would like to know customers’ previous strategies to ensure safety and its pros and cons. Also, asking their favorite features helps us determine if we are in the right direction and what else “Safety Guard” could provide for customers. Finally, we want to investigate their choices when storing videos with either cloud service or local SD cards.
For the questionnaires, we think customers’ choices are determined by various factors, including living place, the time of staying at home, age, roommates, and personal experiences. Therefore, our questionnaires will explore the potential types of users.
Exploratory Study Results: Affinity Diagrams and User Tasks
Affinity diagram created based on interviews
Summarizing the interview results gives this affinity diagram. The bottom literals from the interview are shown at the bottom, then we identify the inferred needs and top-level issues, including better user experience, product design, advanced features, and hardware support.
Let’s look at each top-level issue in detail. For the user experience, there are concerns related to whether the product is convenient to set up, install, and upgrade. We should provide the users with detailed manuals and enough support since there might be lots of users who have no CS-related experience.
Then, product design. One aspect of product design is to support multiple cameras. Some houses may have a backyard while others are very close to the main roads, meaning that they need more than one camera. Moreover, users hope to allow family access to the camera at the same time. Therefore, we need an integrated product design to support multiple cameras and multiple users.
The third top-level issue is supporting advanced features. The most common question that the users asked about is if the product can report to the police in time. So, “Safety Guard” should be effective in sending notifications and alarms compared to existing home alarm systems. Another feature is two-way communication, which allows customers and income to communicate with each other. This feature could be used in lots of daily life, rather than just warning the thieves, for example talking to the delivery person without contact.
Finally, these issues need strong hardware support, for example, night vision cameras and adjustable camera angles.
Ideate
After identifying the top-level issue, we are going to find out and divide user tasks. Also, we use storyboards to find out the scenarios to use the following features, including how to install cameras, how to respond to notifications, and how to view past videos. After receiving feedback from the buddy team, we create sketches and user flows for each feature.
Feature 1: Receive and Respond to Notifications
User Story 1: “I want to stop strangers from breaking into my home when I am away from home”
Storyboard: “I want to stop strangers from breaking into my home while I am away”
When the users receive notifications, they can choose either to check the abnormal situation or to ignore the notification. If they tap “check” they will be directed to the video stream captured by that specific camera. Below the video window, there are four actions they can take — — “call emergency contact”, “call the police ‘’, “talk through the camera”, and “take screenshots and create timestamps”. For each action they choose to take, the corresponding icon will be highlighted and other actions that cannot be taken at the same time will be disabled with a grey interface. By tapping the video, three icons will show and allow users to adjust volume, adjust viewing angles, or enter full-screen mode. Users can view the screenshots and timestamps they created in the album for that specific camera by tapping the “back” arrow at the upper left corner of the screen. That screen contains all the information about that specific camera.
Hierarchical task: respond to notifications
Sketches: receive and respond to notifications
Feature 2: View and Check Recorded Videos
User Story 2: “I want to check my previous videos and use it as criminal evidence”
Storyboard: ”I want to check my previous videos and use them as criminal evidence”
The first screen of this feature is the history page. On this page, users are able to choose three subsections: “Downloads”, “Watch recorded videos”, “Bookmarks”. Firstly, users can choose to watch videos in the second section. After clicking the ‘Video’ icon, they will be able to view a list of recorded videos sorted by time. They can choose to filter the videos by camera or sort them differently. As the number of videos can be really large, we offer a feature for users to bookmark the important videos. After clicking the bookmark button, they just need to swipe back to the history page, click the ‘Bookmark’ section, and view all ‘bookmarked’ videos there. All videos can be downloaded to a local drive. Once people click the ‘download’ button, they can view the video they are downloading on the Download page.
Hierarchical task: view and check past video
Sketches: view and check recorded videos
Feature 3: Multi-users and Multi-devices
User Story 3: “I want to view multiple cameras simultaneously on the phone”
Storyboard: “I want to stop strangers from breaking into my home while I am away”
The main screen of multi-users and multi-devices features is an instruction page. It indicates that the “Safety Guard” could connect more than one phone device with different cameras. Then, users could install cameras by clicking “Start Now”, adding cameras, and scanning the unique camera QRcode.
The status of the camera contains two types: connected and offline. While connected cameras could be monitored through clicking, the offline camera needed to be reconnected. By swiping left/right, users could swap to different cameras instead of leaving the current page. Also, “Preview all” allows viewing all cameras on one screen, which is convenient for clients to monitor simultaneously. Moreover, to disconnect the camera, users could swipe left to confirm the removal.
Hierarchical task: install and set up cameras
Sketches: multi-users and multi-devices
Prototype and Test
Low-fidelity (paper) Prototype & Evaluation
Task 1: For the feature “receive and respond to notifications”, we asked the participant to check the notification and adjust the video properties (e.g. volume, viewing angle, etc.), and respond to the notification accordingly. We evaluated almost all the sub-features of receiving and responding to notifications because this is a complete flow that a user would perform with our application if some stranger is trying to break into the user’s home. However, the user can choose one or several of the provided options (e.g. call the police, call the emergency contact, talk through the camera, and take screenshots) as they want.
Users need to understand that they can control over the cameras and check their cameras regularly to ensure that the cameras are online. Users should also be able to respond to the notification and make proper use of the camera to check information.
Low-fidelity prototype: receive and respond to notifications
Task 2: For the feature “multi-users and multi-devices”, we asked the participant to connect multiple cameras to one device. We didn’t evaluate the multi-users part of the feature because we can only evaluate with one participant at a time and it would be difficult for the participant to play several roles at the same time to imitate multi-users. It would also be difficult to test for multiple types of operating systems of a single user. Thus, we will focus on testing multiple cameras and ensure that users’ can connect to several cameras based on their needs.
Low-fidelity prototype: multi-users and multi-devices
Design Iteration: Others’ Feedback & Our Evolving Design
Paper prototype evaluation
Through completing the tests with multiple users, we concluded the following results:
High-fidelity Prototype & Evaluation
The three high-level tasks we choose to evaluate are connecting multiple cameras to the application, responding to safety alarms received from the application, and viewing and managing past screenshots and videos. These three tasks can reflect the main features of our product.
High-fidelity prototype: multi-users and multi-devices
High-fidelity prototype: receive and respond to notifications
High-fidelity prototype: view and check recorded videos
A full demo of the prototype can be found here.
Cognitive Walkthrough Evaluation
A typical complete user flow of our product should be setting up the cameras, actually receiving and responding to the safety alarm, and probably checking and managing past videos later for evidence. Thus, we would like to evaluate the complete user flow and examine the following questions.
Q1: Does the user attempt the expected step?
Answer: For task 1, the evaluator said that he had checked the status of existing cameras already in the previous step so he skipped this one. In task 2, the evaluator also found it was hard to use the fake joystick which doesn’t necessarily match his expectation.
Q2: Does the user notice the available correct option?
Answer: The evaluator thinks the overall design is clean and organized. But for some small features like in task 1, the evaluator did not notice that the page could be swipe to start instead he chose to tap the screen several times. Also in task 3, the evaluator thought the top-right select button is used to select all, but it’s just a button to allow the user to select desirable videos one by one. But other features seem right.
Q3: Does the user’s expectation align with the outcome?
Answer: Most outcomes match. But in Task 1, the evaluator tried to swipe to the next camera, but the area was too close to the deleted area of camera, so he ended up deleting the cameras. In task 2, the evaluator wanted to check the backyard first even though the stranger was at the front door, he couldn’t do so as the preview only showed him the backyard.
Q4: Does the user understand the provided feedback?
Answer: Yes, the user claims that most of the feedback is pretty clear and obvious. The evaluator especially likes the design to separate screenshots and videos, since it provides convenience to view records. He also loves the design of showing the preview of the screenshot at the bottom-left of the video, it’s a clear reminder of a successful screenshot.
UX Heuristic Evaluation
The five heuristics we chose are (1) visibility of system status, (2) the match between system and the real world, (3) consistency and standards, (4) aesthetic and minimalist design, and (5) help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors. These aspects provide us direction to evaluate our design from users’ feedback, real-world standards, consistency, and simple designs.
Several difficulties and opportunities are mentioned by the classmates from CS449. For example, when scanning QR codes, there is an opportunity to use a loading icon to inform users of the system status. Another instance is to have an icon saying “swipe down to refresh” or have a refresh icon to inform users about the current status. There are also some aspects where we did well. For example, the icons on the video page (e.g. volume, fullscreen) and the icons on the album page (e.g. select, delete) match the convention we used in the real world such as in YouTube and cellphone photo albums. It provides users with the convenience to understand those icons.
The heuristic evaluation greatly evaluated our design from users’ perspectives in the real world. For example, when calling 911 during an emergency, the banner at the top should be red instead of blue from users’ minds since red is used to specify “emergency” in the real world.
Conclusion
During the design process, the first important concept we learned was that there are several different kinds of clients in the world, so making a good assumption of our clients is important. When we first designed our draft user interface, we didn’t give much feedback or instruction to guide the actions of our users. Therefore, for some users especially those who are not very familiar with technologies, they can easily get confused or hesitate a lot while performing the tasks we give them. We then added more hints to remind them of the usage of certain icons. For senior citizens, they usually expect a bigger font, easier operation, and a clearer picture in the application. Thus, we also learned to consider them and develop some features like ‘zoom in’ to facilitate their usage.
Another important aspect we learnt is to think from the client's perspective. We are getting used to thinking from the developer's perspective. This course is the first time that we get rid of the implementation and design a product from the customer side. During the course, we keep questioning ourselves like, how to test our design without bias, how to minimize the user's task steps, how to design interactive UI. This experience will inspire us in the real-life industry and make us become better developers as well as designers in some way.
One of the limitations we encounter is communication during the design process. With the limit of COVID-19, our team members could only meet each other online. Even though we have many collaboration apps such as zoom, google docs, and Miro to share our ideas, we still found it difficult to convey our ideas purely through digital media. There may be features that need to be improved and tested. We also realize that there may be some limitations to distribute our app into different mobile platforms or incorporate into existing smart home security systems.
In the future, we hope our application can be used to supplant the existing complex setup of home security systems. Additionally, we plan to utilize cloud-based technology to save videos and build trustful databases for clients. It could also be incorporated with a police security app to save evidence of crimes and provide convenience for investigation. | https://medium.com/cs449-uwaterloo/cs-449-blog-post-2965760e42cb | ['Yuehan Lin'] | 2020-12-12 16:13:07.018000+00:00 | ['Computer Science', 'Timelyapp', 'Home Security', 'Hci', 'Safety'] |
A Practical Approach to Supervised Learning | Machine Learning is the art of teaching machines to make decisions from the data. There are multiple algorithms that help computers to analyze data and get valuable insight, and thus assisting it to make the decision on new data sets that it hasn’t seen before. Most of these algorithms fall into one of these three categories:
Supervised Learning: Algorithms that learn from labeled data, and do predictions on data never seen before. Unsupervised Learning: Algorithms that tries to find patterns and similarity in the unlabeled data so that it can be clustered accordingly. Reinforcement Learning: Algorithms that are allowed to interact with an environment and their performance is optimized by a system of reward and punishment.
In this article, we will be focussing on the Supervised Learning (SL) method. As stated earlier, SL uses labeled data and gives its predictions on unlabeled data. A labeled data is one which has been categorized in one or more category or has been given a particular value. For e.g., there is data of all the students of different schools taking part in an interschool competition, then, in this case, the school name could be used as a label to categorize the students. In another case, if there are multiple houses with different areas and they cost according to their areas, then the cost could be used as a label in this case. Although in both the instances the data was labeled, they were quite different in their label type. In the first example, the number of labels was discrete, whereas, in the second one, the label was some decimal values and thus continuous in nature. The SL is further categorized on this basis:
Classification: The value to be predicted is categorical and discrete. Regression: The value to be predicted is continuous in nature.
Classification
There are many cases when you would be using classification methods to make a prediction on the categorical data. Various examples include categorizing emails as spam or not spam, whether the cancer is malignant or benign, assigning plants or animals into a kingdom and species, etc. There are many different algorithms used in classification problems. Some of them are:
Logistic Regression Support Vector Machine (SVM) k-Nearest Neighbors (k-NN) Decision Tree
Here, I would only be demonstrating k-NN but would be writing about the others in the upcoming blogs. Also, I would be using the scikit-learn Iris dataset (Fisher, UC Irvine) that contains three classes with fifty instances each.
k-Nearest Neighbors Classifier
It is one of the simplest and super easy to learn classification algorithm. The main idea behind a k-NN algorithm is that the elements that are close to each other would belong to the same category. It may or may not be true for all the data points. It predicts the label of a data point by looking at the ‘k’ closest labeled data points. The unlabeled data point will be classified into that category which is a majority among the ‘k’ closest data points:
k-NN Classification for k = 3 and k = 5
In the diagram presented above, you can see that the predictions made by the k-NN classifier for two different values of ‘k’. In both cases, the classifier made different predictions. This might cause a stir in your mind about the value of ‘k’, but don’t worry I will talk about it later. Now since you have clear intuition about this algorithm, let’s implement on the Iris dataset and see how it works.
First, let me give you some insight into the Iris dataset. It is a very simple dataset that contains flower data. It contains four features namely petal length, petal width, sepal length, and sepal width. It also contains the target variable which are the flower categories namely Versicolor, Virginica, and Setosa. Each of these three labels has fifty instances each.
First and foremost, it is a good practice to import all the libraries you may need later.
from sklearn import datasets #importing datasets from sklearn
import pandas as pd #importing pandas with an alias pd
import numpy as np #importing numpy with an alias np
import matplotlib #impoting matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt #importing pyplot with an alias plt
Notice that I imported the datasets module from sklearn . That would help in loading the Iris dataset. Now, it would be a good idea to do am exploratory data analysis on the given data. In order to do so, you will have to first load the Iris dataset and assign it to some variable, iris in this case:
iris = datasets.load_iris()
This data is in the form of a Bunch , which you can check using type(iris) . Bunch is similar to the dictionary as it also contains key-value pairs. Let’s check the keys of this dataset, which can be done using print(iris.keys()) , and it outputs dict_keys([‘data’, ‘target’, ‘target_names’, ‘DESCR’, ‘feature_names’, ‘filename’]) . The data contains the data for all the features namely petal length, petal width, sepal length, and sepal width, target contains the value of the target in numeric form (i.e., 0 for Setosa, 1 for Versicolor and 2 for Virginica) , target_names contain the name of the target variable (i.e., Setosa, Versicolor, Virginica), DESCR contains the description of this dataset about its contributor, statistics and many more, feature_names contain the name of the features (i.e., sepal length (cm), sepal width (cm), petal length (cm), petal width (cm)) and finally, filename contains the location of the file where it has been loaded.
Lets extract the data and target from iris by assigning it to some variable X and Y respectively.
X = iris['data']
Y = iris['target']
To perform further operations on the data, you should convert the data into a pandas dataframe and assign it to some variable say df using :
df = pd.DataFrame(X, columns = iris.feature_names) .
Doing a visual exploratory data analysis of Iris dataset using pd.plotting.scatter_matrix(df, c = Y, figsize = [15, 10],s=150) will give an output:
As you can see, the diagonal consist of histograms of the features corresponding to the row and the columns, and the non-diagonal plots are the scatter plots of the column features and the row features colored by their target variable. It is quite obvious to see a correlation between the value of the features and the target variables. Let’s plot a scatter plot of the petal length and the petal width individually and see this correlation clearly. It can be plotted using
plt.scatter(df[‘petal length (cm)’], df[‘petal width (cm)’], c = Y) :
Here the correlation gets even clear. The violet plot corresponds to Setosa, the blue plot corresponds to Versicolor and the yellow plot corresponds to the Virginica.
Before training a model on our dataset, it is very important to split it into a training set, validation set, and test set. Here, I will be splitting my data in a training set (70% of the data) and the test set (30% of the data). Scikit-learn helps us to do this very easily using its train_test_split module. To do so, you will have to first import it from sklearn.model_selection using from sklean.model_selection import train_test_split . It returns four arrays: the training data, the test data, the training labels, and the test labels. We unpack these in four variables, X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test in this case:
from sklean.model_selection import train_test_split
X_train, X_test, Y_train, Y_test = train_test_split(X, Y,
test_size = 0.3, random_state = 21,stratify = Y)
The test_size argument decides the percentage of data to be assigned for the test set, random_state sets seed for a random number generators that splits the data in train and test (setting the same seed every time will produce the same split), startify is set to the array containing the labels so that the labels are distributed in the train and test set as they are in the original dataset.
Finally, it’s time to implement the classifier, but first, we need to import it using from sklearn.neighbors import KNeighborsClassifier and then instantiate the classifier by setting the number of neighbors using knn = kNeighborsClassifier(n_neighbors = 6) . Here, I started with the number of neighbors equal to 6 and assigned it to a variable knn . To train the model, scikit-learn provides fit() method as we are to trying to fit the data to our classifier, and then to make a prediction on a new unlabeled data, it provides predict() method. We train the model on our training set produced using the train_test_split , and later will do the prediction on the test set.
from sklearn.neighbors import KNeighborsClassifier
knn = kNeighborsClassifier(n_neighbors = 6)
knn.fit(X_train, Y_train) #training on the X_train, Y_train
knn.predict(X_test) #testing on the X_test
This will output an array of the predicted label for the test set:
array([2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 2, 2,2, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 2, 2, 0, 0, 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 0, 2,1])
To check the accuracy of our model we use score() method of k-NN on our test data and label, knn.score(X_test, Y_test) which gives 0.955555555556 . This is not a bad result for such a simple model.
The value of ‘k’ is a big deal in this classifier. The smaller value of ‘k’ means the model is very complex and can lead to overfitting (the model tries to fit all the points in the correct category), whereas, the larger value of ‘k’ means the model is less complex and has smoother decision boundary which may lead to underfitting (the model doesn’t fit most of the obvious points). There is a better value of ‘k’ which is neither big nor very small which doesn’t lead to overfitting or underfitting.
Regression
Regression is used when the target variable is a continuous value. A continuous value is one which is an integer, floating-point, etc. There are many examples of a regression problem including predicting house prices, predicting the stock values, etc. Since the value is continuous in the regression problem, its accuracy can not be evaluated. Thus it is evaluated by the value of a cost function which could be either Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) or Cross-Entropy Function or any other.
To demonstrate the regression I will be doing analysis on the Boston Housing dataset of Kaggle which can be downloaded from here. Scikit-learn also provides this dataset and can be used in a similar manner as we used the Iris dataset. I would be using it by downloading from Kaggle. If you want to see how it is loaded using the in-built scikit-learn dataset, you can do so here.
Now, after you have downloaded the dataset, you need to import Pandas and Numpy in your jupyter file. To load the data you can use pd.read_csv() and pass in the file (in the form of a string) as an argument:
import pandas as pd #importing pandas with an alias pd
import numpy as np #importing numpy with an alias np df = pd.read_csv('Boston.csv')
You can further check the data by using the head() method. It would by default show you the first five rows, but you can pass in the number of rows as an argument and can view as many records. It has 15 columns out of which the first column is for indexing, the next 13 columns are the features of the datasets, and the last column (i.e., medv) is the target variable which is the median value of the owner occupied home in thousands of dollars. If you wonder how do I know this, I simply checked the documentation of the dataset and you can do the same. As you can see the data loaded using pandas is combined of the feature and the target variables, but scikit-learn needs them in separate arrays. We can do so by splitting our dataset by dropping the medv column and using it as a target:
X = df.drop('medv', axis = 1).values #dropping the medv column
Y = df['medv'].values #using medv as target
We used the values attribute as it returns the NumPy array for us to use.
Linear Regression
Now it's the time to select our regression model that would help in predicting values for the unlabeled data. I would be choosing a very simple model called the Linear Regression (LR). LR defines an optimal line that could fit in all the give data and it assumes that all the data which it would accounter, later on, would also follow the same pattern. In one dimension (i.e., a dataset which has only one feature)it is a simple line with parameters a and b:
y = ax + b
Here, y is the target variable, x is the feature of the dataset, and a,b are the parameters that are to be learned. The best way to learn a,b is by defining a loss function and then minimizing it to get an optimal value of the parameters. Well, how to formulate a loss function over here? As you know, linear regression tries to fit the data on a line, but in the real case scenario, all the data may not fit on the line. The best that can be done is to minimize the vertical distance between the line and the data points. Bingo! Here lies the formula for our cost function. Don’t get confused by the term ‘cost’ as the loss function is also called the cost function or the error function. Now, this vertical distance is also known as ‘residual’. We can try to minimize the sum of the residual, but that may lead to cancellation of lot of positive residual with the negative ones, as you can see below:
To avoid that we minimize the sum of the squares of the residuals. This would be a perfect loss function and it is commonly known as Ordinary Least Squares (OLS). Scikit-learn performs this operation when we apply its Linear Regression model and try to fit our data to it.
This was the case when our data has one feature i.e., one-dimension data. For data with higher dimension, scikit-learn try to fit the data on this linear equation:
Linear Regression will have to learn about n+1 parameters.
Now that you know the logic behind the LR model let’s try to implement it on our Boston dataset. First, we will split our data in a training set and the test set using the train_test_split module of Scikit-learn as we did earlier in our classification example:
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
X_train, X_test, Y_train, Y_test = train_test_split(X, Y,
test_size = 0.3, random_state = 21)
Then, we need to import the Linear Regression model from Scikit-learn using from sklearn.linear_model import LinearRegression and then instantiate it. Now, you can apply the fit() method on the training set and do the prediction on the test set using predict() method:
from sklearn.linear_model import LinearRegression
reg = LinearRegression()
reg.fit(X_train, Y_train)
pred = reg.predict(X_test)
Unlike classification, we cannot use accuracy to evaluate the regression model. In the case of a linear regression model, the performance is evaluated using R² , which is the evaluation of the amount of variance in the target variable that is predicted from the feature variable. To calculate R², we apply the score method and pass the arguments X_test and Y_test, reg.score(X_test, Y_test) .
Until now, I have been splitting the data in training set and the test set. But to make the model do an enhanced evaluation on a new dataset, we can use the technique called Cross-Validation (CV). Suppose we want to do n-fold cross-validation, we would split our data in n equal folds. Then, we will hold our first fold, fit our model on the remaining n-1, predict on the test set and compute the metric of interest. Next, we hold on our second set, fit on the remaining data, and compute the metric of interest. We continue to do so for all the n-folds.
We get n values of the metric of our interest (R² in our case). We can take the average of all of them or we can calculate other statistics such as mean, median, etc. However, a point should be noted that more is the number of the folds, more computationally expensive will be our model, as we are training and testing that many numbers of times. To implement LR with CV:
from sklearn.model_selection import cross_val_score
from sklearn.linear_model import LinearRegression
reg = LinearRegression()
cv = cross_val_score(reg, X, Y, cv = 5) #5-fold cross validation
print(cv)
It will output the R² value computed for all the five folds in the form of an array:
[ 0.57280576 0.72459569 0.59122862 0.08126754 -0.20963498]
Note that I used this linear regression only for the demonstration purpose and it is never used like this. What we generally use is a regularised linear regression model.
You can check the code for the classification model over here and the regression model over here.
I hope this tutorial helped you get started with Machine Learning. You should have a better idea about Classification and Regression Supervised Learning methods. I would be continuing this series and would be writing about Unsupervised learning in my upcoming blog. | https://towardsdatascience.com/a-practical-approach-to-supervised-learning-63a9e9075b17 | ['Shubhanker Singh'] | 2020-02-08 19:31:46.987000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Supervised Learning', 'Classification', 'Data Science'] |
Be a Good Mom, They Said | Photo of our dear friend @ beingthismama getting by (instagram)
Be a good mom, they said. Breastfeed. It’s best for baby.
Do it for a year. Why that long? Only six months? You could have gone longer. Don’t breastfeed, it will ruin your boobs. Can’t pump? Use formula. Baby looks hungry. Feed on schedule. Baby needs this to grow. Feed on demand. Don’t wake baby to feed. Nourish yourself. Baby eats what you eat. Don’t have coffee. Caffeine is bad for baby. Can’t produce milk? What’s wrong? Keep trying. Mastitis? Feed through it. It’s the best way. Formula is bad. You look tired. Coffee is life. Take care of yourself. Be healthy — for baby. Sleep when baby sleeps. Do laundry when baby sleeps. Keep the house tidy. Cleanliness is important. Don’t housekeep. Soak baby in. Don’t look at your phone. Avoid screens — it’s bad for baby. Look at baby lovingly. Lonely? Don’t use social media — bad for baby. Build your community. Join Facebook groups. But not when holding baby. Screens are bad. Try getting out. Meet other moms. You need a village. Mom friends though. People without kids judge you. They don’t want a baby tagging along. And you can’t leave baby.
Be a good mom, they said. Hold baby. Cuddle baby. Do skin-to-skin.
Breastfeed — not if you’re tired. Remember, soak baby in. Sleep when baby sleeps. Don’t hold baby too much. Wean baby off. Don’t pick baby up at every cry. You’re spoiling baby. Sleep train early. Baby will never be independent. You’re enabling baby by co-sleeping. But baby needs you. Work from home. Be a ‘stay at home’ mom. Babies need full attention. Back to work so soon? Don’t work. Not going back to work? Good for baby to see you work. Especially daughters. Expect to lose your position. Your seniority, too. Children are priority. Your boss understands. Become an Entrepreneur. No, a Mompreneur. Be less. Don’t forget your other responsibilities. You look tired. Take care of yourself. For the baby. And your partner. Going out so soon after birth? Your baby should be inside. Baby needs you. You can’t leave baby. Not even for a few hours. Not even if you need fresh air.
Be a good mom, they said. Date your husband, he’s priority.
You are a team. Your partner before babies. He needs you. Keep the marriage fresh. Give him more of yourself. More than you have to give. Six weeks postpartum is up. Your husband’s been waiting. Don’t lose yourself. Self-care. Self-care is important. Take care of you first. No, husband. No, baby. Baby needs you. Stay fun. Afraid he’ll stray? Stay Sexy. Great outfit. Lose the baby weight. Snap back. Walk. Run. Do yoga. Relax. Breathe. Soak baby in. No rush. Take your time. Still have baby weight? Get more motivated. Watch what you eat. But not too much. Remember, breastfeed. You need calories. Baby looks hungry. The baby is crying because it’s hungry. Everyone knows. The baby is cold. Not dressed warm enough. Where’s the baby’s hat? The baby is sick again. What did you do? You should know better. Good moms know better. Mom guilt. It’s real. Ignore it. We all go through this. Power through. You should love being a mom. Everyone else does.
Be a good mom, they said. No partner? Single Moms are heroes.
Babies need mom. You can do it alone. But, not without a village. You can’t do it alone. Sorry, no daycare support. Make more money! Abortion is bad. Your body, your choice. Not having children? How un-fulfilling. That’s selfish. But liberating! Feeling overwhelmed? Take a walk. With baby. And the dog. The dog needs exercise, too. It’ll be cute. What do you mean you didn’t walk the dog today? What do you mean you didn’t shower today? Have a glass of wine. But not if baby is awake. Certainly not if you’re breastfeeding. Why do you need to drink? ‘Mommy Juice’, they call it. Pump and dump. But don’t dump — it’s liquid gold. But you don’t want any. What’s wrong with you? It’ll help you sleep. You need sleep. Sleep when baby sleeps. Stepmothers won’t understand. They didn’t give birth! Not a mom unless you gave birth. Still single? Freeze your eggs. Focus on your career. Focus on you. You don’t need a man. Do it on your own. With a man but no child? Freeze an embryo. Money’s no issue. Just in-case. Be a good future mom. Biological clock is ticking. Now, before you’re too old. Find a husband. While you’re attractive. Baby needs a father. Babies need mother and father. Not same sex couples, though. LGBTQIA? Not a real family. Trans-parent? Non-binary parent? How does that work? Don’t have a baby too young.
Be a good mom, they said. Can’t multitask? You’ll learn.
Appointments. Husband. Baby. Work. Self-care. Exercise. Friends. Family. Allocate equal time. Women are good at juggling. Barely fitting people in. Get Sleep. Sleep deprivation is bad. Baby needs you. Coffee will help. Coffee is life. Don’t drink coffee if you’re breastfeeding. That’s bad for baby. Organic food. Try that. Miscarriage? So sorry. Universe has a plan. Try again. At least you got pregnant. Don’t try too hard. You have other kids. Focus on them. Your body will get itself pregnant. Can’t get pregnant with your first? But you’re glowing. Husband goes to appointments. He’s a star! Keep trying. Don’t try. Stress is unhealthy for pregnancy. Don’t bring that on yourself. Adopt. Don’t be so self-centered. What’s your birth plan. No plan? High risk? C-section? Surrogate? Why chose that? So unnatural. Epidural? Afraid of pain. You’ll drug baby. Home birth. Why put baby at risk? Why a hospital birth? Birthing is natural. No need to medicalize it. Don’t trust doctors. You’re just a number. Slow healing? Postpartum depression? Skin-to-skin helps. Smart moms know that. You’ll be ok. Just keep growing the family. Have a big family. Not too big. You don’t live in a zoo! People will think you’re lazy. No birth control. No condom. Who wants that many? Oh, you’re religious. Can you handle all those children? Don’t let baby cry in public. That’s embarrassing. Everyone’s annoyed. Just try harder. Soothe baby better. Feed baby. Distract baby. Get help. No Nanny? Aren’t you a working mom? That’s ok. Baby just needs love. You have so much love to give. So, give. This is what women were made for. Just “be a good mom” they said.
By now most people have seen the viral “Be A Lady They Said” video, by Girls.Girls.Girls.Magazine, written by #CamilleRainville and Narrated by Cynthia Nixon. As passionate advocates for maternal health, we were deeply moved by these pieces of art. On top of facing the pressures of simply being someone who identifies as a woman, when it comes to considering motherhood, or being a mother, women have a whole other slew of harmful societal expectations.
It’s important for us to courageously step into our own stories as part of our journey towards healing. We wanted to write this to provide a safe space where women can share their stories. Please feel free to share yours in the comment section, below, if you feel compelled to do so. You can post a comment via your laptop (not mobile). | https://medium.com/@sarahm.cox/be-a-good-mom-they-said-ac0489a48825 | ['Sarah Cox'] | 2020-03-14 01:04:22.873000+00:00 | ['Womens Health', 'Single Moms', 'Baby', 'Motherhood', 'Breastfeeding'] |
Crawling Across the Cool Morning | The summer heat
is a spider
crawling across the cool morning
wrapping it in its silk
Slowly the spider prepares
to eat up the peaceful chill
wrapping the day
in Katydid calls of heat
The summer heat slowly builds
each layer of its 90-degree weather
as the insects give their warning
the morning is in its final stages
Summer heat and piles of humidity
crawl across the early morning chill
the morning is coming to an end
as the summer heat rises | https://medium.com/loose-words/crawling-across-the-cool-morning-da4e2fb164c8 | ['Gregory D. Welch'] | 2020-07-23 11:14:59.123000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Reflections', 'Poetry', 'Poem', 'Morning'] |
Are You Anchoring Your Business to the Wrong Data? | Have you changed your views about COVID-19 months into this pandemic? Or are you anchoring to the same views you did in March?
For example, many people still believe the false claim spread by many prominent leaders in March that COVID is no worse than the common flu. They protest against public health measures such as wearing masks, despite high-quality peer-reviewed studies showing that masks save lines.
They also ignore new developments, such as the recent urgent requests by governors to stay at home and telecommute to tamp down the explosive third wave of COVID. Likewise, they fail to pay attention to just-published research showing that restaurants, gyms, hotels, houses of worship, smaller grocery stores, and other crowded indoor spaces with prolonged exposure — including workplaces that fit such criteria — significantly increase COVID risk.
With all the information out there regarding this world-disrupting virus, there are plenty of opportunities to add to your knowledge of current events. In fact, so many fundamental aspects of what we believe about the pandemic have changed over time. If we truly relied on the facts, our perspective would be very different from where we started.
Unfortunately, the reality is more complex. We tend to continue treading the same path based on information we initially received. That’s regardless of strong new evidence that our path leads off a cliff. The name cognitive neuroscientists and behavioral economists give to this dangerous judgment error is anchoring.
It’s one of the many cognitive biases that lead us to make poor decisions, regarding the pandemic and other life areas. Recognizing the danger and impact of these cognitive biases helps us make much better decisions to manage risks wisely and survive and thrive in this pandemic.
Anchoring in Financial Services: A Case Study
Let’s consider the case of Lauren, the CEO of a 130-people regional financial services company based in Texas that had a lot of difficulty with remote work at the start of the pandemic.
The leadership team didn’t think they needed to prepare for a disruption of more than a week or two. This was because they followed early guidelines from the CDC to prepare for nothing more than a brief interruption due to a short-term outbreak.
As a result, the leadership team asked all of its workforce to come back to the office as states reopened, despite news reports of an increase in cases in Texas. A significant number of its employees were scared and resistant to come back to the office, leading to conflicts and tensions.
Eventually, the large majority of employees did return. Yet because of the company leadership’s perception that COVID-19 isn’t a big deal, neither the leaders nor employees took appropriate precautions. That’s because of a mental blindspot called “emotional contagion,” where followers take on the emotions, beliefs, and perceptions of their leaders.
In fact, most of the executives and employees did not follow guidelines on social distancing or wear masks, especially since the Texas state officials did not mandate wearing masks. Staff who tried to wear masks and do social distancing were ridiculed by their colleagues, with the tacit approval of the leadership.
You can probably guess what happened next.
Unfortunately, there was an outbreak of COVID-19 in the office traced to an all-hands meeting. Over two dozen employees caught COVID-19, including three C-suite leaders. Several employees, including the COO, ended up in the hospital, and two older employees died. This led to a plunge in productivity, attrition, and low morale within the company.
Lauren decided to contact me for a consultation in late May after learning about my work through a webinar I conducted about how organizations can adapt to the changes brought by the pandemic.
By the time Lauren called me, internal fighting had already spread throughout the organization, leading to resignations of some key employees. This led to a heavier workload for everyone else, causing even greater tension between staff and management.
Even those who initially steered clear of the chaos said they were starting to look for other job opportunities so they could jump ship. It was obvious that the company needed help — and fast.
COVID-19 and Cognitive Biases
When I met with Lauren as well as the company’s COO and HR head over Zoom, I told them upfront that they have to start acknowledging the disruptions brought about by COVID-19. Continuing as they did will endanger their company’s bottom line and even survival during this pandemic.
The refusal to recognize the gravity of the pandemic and even the act of downplaying it stem from a combination of three factors:
The nature of the virus itself
The preexisting beliefs and plans of the business leaders
The dangerous judgment errors we all tend to make that cognitive neuroscientists and behavioral economists call cognitive biases, most notably anchoring
The latter mental blindspots stem, in large part, from our evolutionary background. Our gut reactions evolved for the ancestral savanna environment, not the modern world. Yet gurus and business leaders alike overwhelmingly advocate going with our gut. They encourage us to follow our intuition in making decisions, instead of using effective decision-making processes.
Anchoring: A Heavy Burden
Anchoring refers to our tendency to be too strongly anchored by the initial information we have and fail to update our beliefs sufficiently based on new evidence. That’s even if new evidence is, objectively speaking, much more persuasive. This dangerous judgment error harmed us in two profound ways with COVID- 19.
First, business and political leaders and ordinary people anchored on past pandemics within living memory, which — while serious — didn’t cause widespread disruption.
SARS, the first pandemic of the 21st century, led to around 750 deaths in 26 countries. The H1N1, also known as the swine flu, killed many more, as many as half a million. Yet it didn’t impact the US too much, with about 12,500 deaths, and even less in the UK, at about 500, which was at the high end of deaths in Europe.
Ebola and Zika barely reached the US. As a result, the large majority of Americans ignored COVID- 19, thinking it would pass them by as did these other illnesses.
The second profound harm came from the comparisons of COVID-19 to the flu. In a March 4 interview on Fox News, Donald Trump called COVID-19 the “corona flu” and said the death rate “is way under 1%,” implying it’s nothing to worry about and that we don’t need to take major actions to address the situation.
He affirmed this in a March 9 tweet: “last year 37,000 Americans died from the common flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on.”
Other leaders conveyed similar messages that everything is normal. For example, on March 5, with 115 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 and the first death in the UK, Boris Johnson said it’s “business as usual.”
Despite wide criticism and the glaring example of Italy, Johnson’s administration failed to impose lockdowns. Instead, it advised in early March that people simply wash their hands, and, if they recently went to northern Italy and showed flu-like symptoms, to self-isolate for 14 days.
On March 11, with 590 confirmed cases, David Halpern, chief executive of the government’s Behavioural Insights Team, told BBC News that the government’s aim involved shielding the most vulnerable people.
The government would allow COVID-19 to infect the UK population more broadly until the population developed herd immunity such that COVID-19 would stop transmitting itself, which requires about 60% to be infected. Next day, at a press conference, Johnson confirmed this strategy, telling people with flu-like symptoms to self-isolate and people over 70 to avoid cruises.
Indeed, the estimated fatality rate from COVID-19, about .5–1% with good-quality treatment, is much lower than the 50% average for Ebola and the 15% for SARS. Yet, the infection rate is much higher, in part because about half of all who get infected don’t show any symptoms. Even those who eventually show symptoms are often infectious before they do.
As a result, without strict controls, every infected person gets 2–3 others sick and any outbreak doubles in 3–6 days. Furthermore, about 10–20% of those infected have a serious illness, mainly older adults, and about half of those with a serious illness need to go to the hospital.
Given the fact that hospitals have low capacity for a surge of patients, a major outbreak would overwhelm healthcare systems.
Trump and Johnson’s irresponsible approach set the anchor for the approach of most other political and business leaders and ordinary citizens in their respective countries. Such anchoring cost many lives and untold billions of dollars and pounds.
Adapting to the New Abnormal
When the pandemic started, most companies activated their business continuity plans and then just followed along as the months rolled by.
However, I wouldn’t advise continuing with these emergency measures throughout the minimal two years of the pandemic. A business continuity plan is meant for a week or two, a month at most if it’s a really good plan, before things start returning to normal (I tell you this as someone who helped businesses and nonprofits design many business continuity plans).
It’s not likely that we will ever go back to the “normal” status quo ante pandemic.
Our society will never be the same, even in the most optimistic scenario of only two years of waves of shutdowns and social distancing. And keep in mind that we shouldn’t be shooting for the most optimistic scenario and should instead plan for the worst.
If the first or second wave of vaccines isn’t highly effective, preventing COVID at 80–90%, it will be more like a five-year horizon instead of two years. That’s what you should plan for going forward.
Companies need to go beyond emergency measures if they want to survive and thrive in the next few years. You need to adapt to the pandemic and accept the current reality of ongoing waves of restrictions as the new abnormal.
This essentially means transforming your internal and external business model if you want your organization to chart a productive and rewarding course during these troubled years.
Doing so will include taking a long, hard look at the elements that drive your business. It will also entail revising or, in some cases, even totally revamping your daily operations and business continuity plan.
Moving Forward From Anchoring
When I last spoke with Lauren a few months ago, she told me that after serious deliberation, she called for a leadership meeting to reexamine the facts on COVID-19.
She and her COO came to the meeting armed with the most accurate information on the pandemic that they could find, curated from news sources that give priority to factual reporting.
They were right to come prepared, because it was one of the most excruciating discussions they’ve ever had in their career. Most of the executives were still anchored on previous information from March that the virus shouldn’t be taken seriously.
As a result, they did not want to acknowledge that a change needed to be made. Even those who were on the fence initially — including one of the executives who caught the virus earlier and recovered — didn’t want to change their stance. The executives clearly didn’t want to admit that they were wrong.
It was a good thing that the three of us — through several consultations — had prepared for such a scenario. Lauren, after seeing how obstinately the C-suite was acting, deftly reframed the discussion as a restrategizing effort instead of a finger-pointing and blaming exercise.
She also made sure to highlight how competitors of theirs who adapted to the situation were actually thriving during the pandemic.
Finally, in the face of overwhelming evidence that COVID-19 was a serious matter and that they needed to take immediate steps, the executives eventually acknowledged the gravity of the situation. This paved the way to the leadership team finally coming together to create and take the following steps:
Lauren held a company-wide virtual town hall meeting to reassure employees that their concerns are being heard and that swift action will be taken. The first order of business was to debunk the erroneous information on COVID-19 on which the majority of the company had anchored. The leadership team rolled out a comprehensive remote work program, where employees were provided tech and equipment support. Employees can also report to the office, but it was strictly optional. The leadership team made sure that the office had all the necessary visual and physical cues to encourage social distancing. Reminders on wearing masks were placed strategically. The marketing team updated its external and internal collateral to include what the company was doing to make its virtual and physical spaces safe for its employees. It also included this information, as well as important COVID-19 updates from reputable news sources, in its long-running and widely read internal newsletter. The COO worked with the HR head on numerous retention efforts to keep key employees from jumping ship. They also reached out to those who had already resigned. In most cases, the problem stemmed from these employees’ refusal to step foot into the office. The efforts, then, were centered on assuring them that they can work remotely ASAP, and were also offered more flexible working hours to boot. The sales team built on the marketing team’s actions. They also reached out to clients who had been previously irked with the company’s slow response to inquiries and complaints. The sales team presented all the changes being made to get the company up to speed operationally and assured clients of better service.
As a result of these efforts, the company was able to correct its course and finally get back to a productive path. The employees felt safer, and thus became more productive. Though the retention efforts only had an 80% success rate and some key employees did not come back, the leadership team agreed that it was a far better result than they were heading toward before the strategic pivot.
The strict policies on working onsite also minimized health risk, thereby lessening the company’s risk of accountability in case of an outbreak in the office. This was a heavy load off the C-suite’s back. They were finally able to focus on product development and saving client relationships, which in part was fortunately already boosted by the sales team’s efforts.
Lauren informed me that the leadership team was pleased with the results of the changes they made. She also told me about how relieved she was that they did so so once the numbers of COVID-19 cases began to increase, prompting a pause of the reopening process that eventually led to a cycle of reopening and restrictions.
Conclusion
Anchoring causes us to focus on initial information we’ve received, even if it is erroneous. As the pandemic continues to disrupt businesses, you need to watch out for misinformed views and beliefs that will hold you back from growth. Keep your company resilient and adaptive by defending yourself from the dangers brought by anchoring.
Key Takeaway
Anchoring keeps you shackled to initial information and keeps you from moving forward. Make the best decisions to propel your company by breaking free from this mental blindspot…> Click to tweet
Questions to Consider (please share your answers below)
Did your leadership team anchor on erroneous information at the start of the pandemic, and do you now want to make things right?
Where might you do a better job of fighting against anchoring?
Which next steps will you take based on reading this article?
Image credit: ekoingfreemind/Pixabay | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/are-you-anchoring-your-business-to-the-wrong-data-6e4248cdb305 | ['Dr. Gleb Tsipursky'] | 2020-12-12 15:28:31.318000+00:00 | ['Behavioral Economics', 'Leadership', 'Cognitive Bias', 'Pandemic', 'Decision Making'] |
Cannabis: The Forbidden Medicine | Cannabis sativa, the plant from which all the products from cannabis are derived
Cannabis sativa is a plant not known by many, but whose forms namely, marijuana, hash, bhang, hemp are much used and renowned amongst the Indian population as well as globally. The term “cannabis” covers all the products derived from the plant. The history of India has witnessed the use of cannabis for both recreational as well as medicinal purposes. Both the elite sections of the society as well as the civilians consumed its various forms. It had and still has had a remarkable presence across the spiritual aspect of the country. In Hinduism, one of the earliest mentions of cannabis has been found in the Atharva Veda, lauding it for curing diseases and that it also fought demons. The consumption of this plant is so deeply embedded in the Hindu traditions that one of the principal deities of Hinduism, Shiva is often associated with bhaang, one of the forms of cannabis.
Yet the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act of 1985, which was a successor of the Dangerous Drugs Act, 1930, criminalised the buying and selling of various forms of cannabis which contain the majority amount of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). While the consumption of CBD oil and bhaang is legal in some parts of India to some extent, there are more than 100 other substances; the use of which has been criminalised, completely overlooking their medicinal properties. They help treat anxiety, Epilepsy, Glaucoma, HIV/AIDS symptoms, Multiple Sclerosis, side effects of Chemotherapy, PTSD, amongst various other minute pains.
Medical marijuana
Marijuana or weed is one of the most controversial substances extracted from the leaves, stems, seeds of the plant. THC is one of its major components with intoxicating components. Medical marijuana is known to treat various illnesses as well, namely, anorexia, sleep problems, Tourette syndrome, etc.
Despite the ban on their consumption, cannabis, marijuana and hash are sold widely in the country by various minor and major offenders. The drug is very easily accessible to the youth, the biggest buyers of the drug. Even if we overlook the enormous amount of medicinal usefulness cannabis brings, the economic boost that its sale would give India also cannot be ignored. According to a recent survey, around 30 million people in India admitted to consuming cannabis in some form or the other for various purposes. Now with such mass consumption already going on, the government could generate heavy revenues from the taxation on such products, as it does from tobacco and liquor. Cannabis sativa is a plant that is very easy to cultivate, meaning that growing it can also be another source of income for the thousands of farmers that constitute the primary sector of India’s economy.
India has the potential and resources to become one of its major exporters. This could give India a much needed economic boost, both domestically and internationally. Depression, anxiety and PTSD are a few mental illnesses already being treated by CBD oils.
There is no doubt that marijuana does have its risks, much like alcohol and tobacco. There are a few concerns that cannot be disregarded. The problem of addiction would arise and should be treated through the Drug De-Addiction Programme. Adolescents could be vulnerable to the substance. Strict regulations must be a part of the law legalising marijuana. Moreover, the government would also be able to control the quality of the substance in the market, preventing any cheap quality being sold and consumed. Overconsumption of liquor is responsible for the deaths of a large number of people, while there has not been a single recorded death due to the overuse of marijuana. Illegalisation is necessary to regulate the use of the drug and a similar approach has to be adopted for cannabis, that is currently used for other addictive products.
Canada legalised cannabis on a federal level in 2020.
India’s stance on this topic is quite confusing. Though while various laws are prohibiting the drug, India recently voted in favour of the UN Drugs Convention to remove cannabis from the world’s most dangerous drug category. Marijuana is getting legalised in segments globally. Canada, Colombia, Austria,Netherlands, Mexico, Spain, Uruguay and South Africa have legalised the drug on a federal level, while 15 states in the United States of America have legalised cannabis individually. Under the Biden government, the USA also anticipates the complete legalisation of the drug.
Various pro-cannabis movements have grown popular worldwide. The Great Legalisation Movement in India is a non-profit research organisation that works solely for the cannabis legalisation in the country. Using the power of social media, India’s first female Cannabis activist under the name of ‘Hempvati’ works for the same initiative.
It’s about time that we move forward from the social stigma and taboo that surrounds the topic of marijuana or cannabis, and take a step towards an unprejudiced India.
All images sourced from Google. | https://medium.com/@sanyagupta02/cannabis-the-forbidden-medicine-b9153bde41eb | ['Sanya Gupta'] | 2021-02-01 15:08:44.968000+00:00 | ['Marijuana Legalization', 'Cbd Oil Products', 'Cannabis', 'Legalization', 'Cannabis Medical'] |
An Article On Teenage Confidence | As a 16-year-old girl, one of the most prevalent things on my mind is my appearance. While unfortunate, it’s true. And yes, I wish it was not this way sometimes.
When I was 13, I started to workout. I wasn’t happy with the way I looked and I knew that I needed to start being more active. I liked all the unhealthy foods and was a normal, healthy teenager. Although, deep down, I felt kind of gross. Not gonna lie. After talking to my parents, they were more than happy to get me a gym membership at the local gym. This wasn’t about losing weight. I just wanted to feel good in my own skin. Of course, it was normal to feel this way as a young teen; Although, if I could make a change to better myself, I would. And I did.
I started to work out a lot. Time went by and I started to get into really good shape and I was so proud of myself. The thing I didn’t know was that with all the working out I was doing, I would start to obsess a bit over how I looked. It wasn’t really something I knew would come along with working out for my personal journey. It’s different for everyone. Some people may not experience this, but I did. I like to say whatever kills you makes you stronger. And it did.
3 years after I started working out, I have learned how I can comfort myself when feeling down about my appearance. It is something I have learned to manage, and am still learning how to manage.
The way I eat and the way I live my life work for me. The way someone lives their life might not work for me! Do what works for you, not what works for your friend. It is so important to think about what makes you happy and fulfills you.
Here is where the confidence comes in: I’ve now gotten used to my routine. I’m a runner. I run 2–4 miles every day. Working out fuels me. But it can also make my confidence go a little crazy. If I miss a day, my confidence plummets. Same with if I don't sweat enough. Or my workout isn’t long enough. I’ve learned that it’s natural. It took me a long time to understand that.
A lot of people these days look in the mirror a lot; Including me. The thing is, the mirror is a devil. How can you even know what you look like if every mirror makes you look different?
That’s why it is so important to look at yourself for your own personal beauty and self-love. You can’t love somebody else until you love yourself. I work on myself every day and continue to find things to be proud of, even though it might be difficult sometimes. Be confident. Look at all your accomplishments. Tell yourself how incredible you are.
I encourage everyone who reads this (including myself) to find one thing every day that makes you proud of yourself. One thing that makes you feel confident. You have to start somewhere, so start here. | https://medium.com/@cocoserena57/an-article-on-teenage-confidence-d921bef2cc6e | ['Coco Rosen'] | 2020-12-15 19:41:20.519000+00:00 | ['Self Love', 'Women', 'Courage', 'Strength', 'Wellness'] |
Advanced NumPy: Master stride tricks with 25 illustrated exercises | Answer
strides = (2,)
shape = (25,)
💡 Explanation
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 2, 2 → 3, 23 → 24, 24 → 25) were originally 2 bytes apart (=1 element away × 2 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 25.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int16).reshape(5,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(25,), strides=(2,)) array([ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20,
21, 22, 23, 24, 25], dtype=int16)
Similar to
>>> x.ravel() array([ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20,
21, 22, 23, 24, 25], dtype=int16)
4) Skip every other element
Input itemsize: 1 byte | Input strides: (5, 1)
Answer
strides = (2,)
shape = (3,)
💡 Explanation
Adjacent elements in the output (i.e. 1 → 3, 3 → 5) were originally 2 bytes apart (=2 elements away × 1 byte) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 3.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int8).reshape(5,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(3,), strides=(2,)) array([1, 3, 5], dtype=int8)
Similar to
>>> x[0,::2] array([1, 3, 5], dtype=int8)
5) Slice first column
Input itemsize: 8 bytes | Input strides: (40, 8)
Answer
strides = (40,)
shape = (4,)
💡 Explanation
Adjacent elements in the output (i.e. 1 → 6, 6 → 11, 11 → 16) were originally 40 bytes apart (=5 elements away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 4.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int64).reshape(5,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(4,), strides=(40,)) array([ 1, 6, 11, 16])
Similar to
>>> x[:4,0] array([ 1, 6, 11, 16])
6) Slice a diagonal
Input itemsize: 8 bytes | Input strides: (40, 8)
Answer
strides = (48,)
shape = ( 5,)
💡 Explanation
Adjacent elements in the output (i.e. 1 → 7, 7 → 13, 13 → 19, 19 → 25) were originally 48 bytes apart (=6 elements away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 5.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int64).reshape(5,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(5,), strides=(48,)) array([ 1, 7, 13, 19, 25])
Similar to
>>> x.diagonal() array([ 1, 7, 13, 19, 25])
7) Repeat the first element
Input itemsize: 8 bytes | Input strides: (40, 8)
Answer
strides = (0,)
shape = (5,)
💡 Explanation
Adjacent elements in the output (i.e. 1 → 1) were originally 0 bytes apart (=0 elements away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 5.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int64).reshape(5,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(5,), strides=(0,)) array([ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1])
Similar to
>>> np.broadcast_to(x[0,0], (5,)) array([1, 1, 1, 1, 1])
2D exercises
8) Simple 2D slicing
Input itemsize: 8 bytes | Input strides: (40, 8)
Answer
strides = (40,8)
shape = ( 3,4)
💡 Explanation Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 2, 2 → 3, 8 → 9) were originally 8 bytes apart (=1 element away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 4. Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 6, 2 → 7, 9 → 14) were originally 40 bytes apart (=5 elements away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 3.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int64).reshape(5,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(3,4), strides=(40,8)) array([[ 1, 2, 3, 4],
[ 6, 7, 8, 9],
[11, 12, 13, 14]])
Similar to
>>> x[:3,:4] array([[ 1, 2, 3, 4],
[ 6, 7, 8, 9],
[11, 12, 13, 14]])
9) Slice a zigzag
Input itemsize: 8 bytes | Input strides: (40, 8)
Answer
strides = (48,8)
shape = ( 4,2)
💡 Explanation Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 2, 7 → 8, 13 → 14, 19 → 20) were originally 8 bytes apart (=1 element away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 2. Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 7, 2 → 8, 13 → 19) were originally 48 bytes apart (=6 elements away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 4.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int64).reshape(5,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(4,2), strides=(48,8)) array([[ 1, 2],
[ 7, 8],
[13, 14],
[19, 20]])
Similar to
>>> # this may not be achieved concisely
10) Sparse slicing
Input itemsize: 8 bytes | Input strides: (40, 8)
Answer
strides = (80,16)
shape = ( 3, 3)
💡 Explanation Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 3, 21 → 23, 13 → 15) were originally 16 bytes apart (=2 elements away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 3. Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 11, 13 → 23, 15 → 25) were originally 80 bytes apart (=10 elements away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 3.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int64).reshape(5,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(3,3), strides=(80,16)) array([[ 1, 3, 5],
[11, 13, 15],
[21, 23, 25]])
Similar to
>>> x[::2,::2] array([[ 1, 3, 5],
[11, 13, 15],
[21, 23, 25]])
11) Transpose a 2D array
Input itemsize: 1 byte | Input strides: (5, 1)
Answer
strides = (1,5)
shape = (3,3)
💡 Explanation Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 6, 7 → 12, 3 → 8) were originally 5 bytes apart (=5 elements away × 1 byte) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 3. Output’s top-to-right dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 2, 2 → 3, 11 → 12) were originally 1 byte apart (=1 element away × 1 byte) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 3.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int8).reshape(5,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(3,3), strides=(1,5)) array([[ 1, 6, 11],
[ 2, 7, 12],
[ 3, 8, 13]], dtype=int8)
Similar to
>>> x[:3,:3].T array([[ 1, 6, 11],
[ 2, 7, 12],
[ 3, 8, 13]], dtype=int8)
12) Repeat the first column 4 times
Input itemsize: 4 bytes | Input strides: (20, 4)
Answer
strides = (20,0)
shape = ( 5,4)
💡 Explanation Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 1, 6 → 6, 16 → 16) were originally 0 bytes apart (=0 elements away × 4 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 4. Output’s top-to-bottom dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 6, 6 → 11, 11 → 16) were originally 20 bytes apart (=5 elements away × 4 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 5.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int32).reshape(5,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(5,4), strides=(20,0)) array([[ 1, 1, 1, 1],
[ 6, 6, 6, 6],
[11, 11, 11, 11],
[16, 16, 16, 16],
[21, 21, 21, 21]], dtype=int32)
Similar to
>>> np.broadcast_to(x[:,0,None], (5,4)) array([[ 1, 1, 1, 1],
[ 6, 6, 6, 6],
[11, 11, 11, 11],
[16, 16, 16, 16],
[21, 21, 21, 21]], dtype=int32)
13) Reshape 1D array to 2D array
Input itemsize: 8 bytes | Input strides: (8,)
Answer
strides = (24,8)
shape = ( 4,3)
💡 Explanation Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 2, 2 → 3, 7 → 8, 11 → 12) were originally 8 bytes apart (=1 element away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 3. Output’s top-to-bottom dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 4, 4 → 7, 7 → 10) were originally 24 bytes apart (=3 elements away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 4.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,13), np.int64)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(4,3), strides=(24,8)) array([[ 1, 2, 3],
[ 4, 5, 6],
[ 7, 8, 9],
[10, 11, 12]])
Similar to
>>> x.reshape(4,3) array([[ 1, 2, 3],
[ 4, 5, 6],
[ 7, 8, 9],
[10, 11, 12]])
14) Slide a 1D window
Adapted from a StackOverflow post [1]. Similar to [2] and [3].
Input itemsize: 1 byte | Input strides: (1,)
Answer
strides = (1,1)
shape = (8,3)
💡 Explanation Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 2, 3 → 4, 4 → 5) were originally 1 byte apart (=1 element away × 1 byte) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 3. Output’s top-to-bottom dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (i.e. 1 → 2, 2 → 3, 4 → 5, …, 7 → 8) were originally 1 byte apart (=1 element away × 1 byte) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 8.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int8)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(8,3), strides=(1,1)) array([[ 1, 2, 3],
[ 2, 3, 4],
[ 3, 4, 5],
[ 4, 5, 6],
[ 5, 6, 7],
[ 6, 7, 8],
[ 7, 8, 9],
[ 8, 9, 10]], dtype=int8)
Similar to
>>> # this may not be achieved concisely
15) Slide a 2D window then flatten
Question taken from a StackOverflow post [4].
Input itemsize: 1 byte | Input strides: (2, 1)
Answer
strides = (2,1)
shape = (4,6)
💡 Explanation Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 0 → 1, 1 → 10, 31 → 40) were originally 1 byte apart (=1 element away × 1 byte) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 6. Output’s top-to-bottom dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 0 → 10, 10 → 20, 41 → 51) were originally 2 bytes apart (=2 elements away × 1 byte) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 4.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(
... [0,1,10,11,20,21,30,31,40,41,50,51],
... np.int8).reshape(6,2)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(4,6), strides=(2,1)) array([[ 0, 1, 10, 11, 20, 21],
[10, 11, 20, 21, 30, 31],
[20, 21, 30, 31, 40, 41],
[30, 31, 40, 41, 50, 51]], dtype=int8)
Similar to
>>> # this may not be achieved concisely
16) Collapse an axis from a 3D array
Input itemsize: 1 byte | Input strides: (4, 2, 1)
Answer
strides = (4,1)
shape = (3,4)
💡 Explanation Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 2, 3 → 4, 4 → 5) were originally 1 byte apart (=1 element away × 1 byte) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 4. Output’s top-to-bottom dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (i.e. 1 → 5, 5 → 9, 2 → 6, 6 → 10) were originally 4 bytes apart (=4 elements away × 1 byte) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 3.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,13), np.int8).reshape(3,2,2)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(3,4), strides=(4,1)) array([[ 1, 2, 3, 4],
[ 5, 6, 7, 8],
[ 9, 10, 11, 12]], dtype=int8)
Similar to
>>> x.reshape(3,4) array([[ 1, 2, 3, 4],
[ 5, 6, 7, 8],
[ 9, 10, 11, 12]], dtype=int8)
3D exercises
17) 2 corners
Input itemsize: 2 bytes | Input strides: (10, 2)
Answer
strides = (30,10, 2)
shape = ( 2, 2, 2)
💡 Explanation Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (i.e. 1 → 2, 6 → 7, 16 → 17, 21 → 22) were originally 2 bytes apart (=1 element away × 2 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 2. Output’s top-to-bottom dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (i.e. 1 → 6, 2 → 7, 16 → 21, 17 → 22) were originally 10 bytes apart (=5 elements away × 2 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 2. Output’s box-to-box dimension (axis= -3 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (i.e. 1 → 16, 2 → 17, 6 → 21, 7 → 22) were originally 30 bytes apart (=15 elements away × 2 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 2.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int16).reshape(5,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(2,2,2), strides=(30,10,2)) array([[[ 1, 2],
[ 6, 7]], [[16, 17],
[21, 22]]], dtype=int16)
Similar to
>>> # this may not be achieved concisely
18) Staggered slicing
Input itemsize: 1 bytes | Input strides: (5, 1)
Answer
strides = (10,6,1)
shape = ( 2,2,3)
💡 Explanation Output’s intrabox left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 2, 2 → 3, 17 → 18) were originally 1 byte apart (=1 element away × 1 byte) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 3. Output’s intrabox top-to-bottom dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 7, 11 → 17, 12 → 18) were originally 6 bytes apart (=6 elements away × 1 byte) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 2. Output’s left box-to-right box dimension (axis= -3 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 11, 8 → 18, 9 → 19) were originally 10 bytes apart (=10 elements away × 1 byte) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 2.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int8).reshape(5,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(2,2,3), strides=(10,6,1)) array([[[ 1, 2, 3],
[ 7, 8, 9]], [[11, 12, 13],
[17, 18, 19]]], dtype=int8)
Similar to
>>> # this may not be achieved concisely
19) Repeat a 2D array
Question taken from a StackOverflow post here [5].
Input itemsize: 2 bytes | Input strides: (10, 2)
Answer
strides = (0,10,2)
shape = (3, 2,4)
💡 Explanation Output’s intrabox left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 2, 2 → 3, 6 → 7) were originally 2 bytes apart (=1 element away × 2 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 4. Output’s intrabox top-to-bottom dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 6, 2 → 7, 3 → 8) were originally 10 bytes apart (=5 elements away × 2 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 2. Output’s left box-to-right box dimension (axis= -3 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 1, 3 → 3, 7 → 7) were originally 0 bytes apart (=0 elements away × 2 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 3.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,26), np.int16).reshape(5,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(3,2,4), strides=(0,10,2)) array([[[1, 2, 3, 4],
[6, 7, 8, 9]], [[1, 2, 3, 4],
[6, 7, 8, 9]], [[1, 2, 3, 4],
[6, 7, 8, 9]]], dtype=int16)
Similar to
>>> # this may not be achieved concisely
20) 3D transpose
Input itemsize: 4 bytes | Input strides: (16, 8, 4)
Answer
strides = (16,4,8)
shape = ( 3,2,2)
💡 Explanation Output’s left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 3, 2 → 4, 10 → 12) were originally 8 bytes apart (=2 elements away × 4 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 2. Output’s top-to-bottom dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 2, 3 → 4, 9 → 10, 11 → 12) were originally 4 bytes apart (=1 element away × 4 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 2. Output’s left box-to-right box dimension (axis= -3 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 5, 5 → 9) were originally 16 bytes apart (=4 elements away × 4 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 3.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,13), np.int32).reshape(3,2,2)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(3,2,2), strides=(16,4,8)) array([[[ 1, 3],
[ 2, 4]], [[ 5, 7],
[ 6, 8]], [[ 9, 11],
[10, 12]]], dtype=int32)
Similar to
>>> np.swapaxes(x,1,2) array([[[ 1, 3],
[ 2, 4]], [[ 5, 7],
[ 6, 8]], [[ 9, 11],
[10, 12]]], dtype=int32)
21) Slide a 2D window
Question adapted from SciPy 2008 conference [6].
Input itemsize: 8 bytes | Input strides: (40, 8)
Answer
strides = (40,40,8)
shape = ( 3, 2,5)
💡 Explanation Output’s intrabox left-to-right dimension (axis= -1 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 2, 12 → 13, 16 → 17) were originally 8 bytes apart (=1 element away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 5. Output’s intrabox top-to-bottom dimension (axis= -2 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 1 → 6, 8 → 13, 11 → 16) were originally 40 bytes apart (=5 elements away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 2. Output’s left box-to-right box dimension (axis= -3 ):
Adjacent elements in the output (eg. 9 → 14, 14 → 19) were originally 40 bytes apart (=5 elements away × 8 bytes) in the input. Shape of this dimension is 3.
Code
>>> x = np.asarray(range(1,21), np.int64).reshape(4,5)
>>> as_strided(x, shape=(3,2,5), strides=(40,40,8)) array([[[ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5],
[ 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]], [[ 6, 7, 8, 9, 10],
[11, 12, 13, 14, 15]], [[11, 12, 13, 14, 15],
[16, 17, 18, 19, 20]]])
Similar to
>>> # this may not be achieved concisely
22) Reshape 1D array to 3D array | https://towardsdatascience.com/advanced-numpy-master-stride-tricks-with-25-illustrated-exercises-923a9393ab20 | ['Raimi Karim'] | 2021-01-04 01:29:51.365000+00:00 | ['Towards Data Science', 'Numpy', 'Data Science'] |
Temel Git Komutları Dersi | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/royto/temel-git-komutlar%C4%B1-dersi-9f1c685349f3 | ['Ertan Özdemir'] | 2020-12-17 02:02:33.789000+00:00 | ['Free', 'Komut', 'Course', 'Github', 'Git'] |
It’s Not So Good To Be The King | It’s Not So Good To Be The King
I hope none of us needs reminding that the United States was founded in rebellion against a monarchy, one which proclaimed itself divinely ordained. George Washington himself ferociously rejected an offer to be made king of America. And our founders rejected the notion that leadership was ordained rather than elected.
Since the middle of the twentieth century, increasingly aggressive right-wing Christian groups have attempted to place a faith-based overlay on political leadership. Originally, conservative businessmen concerned about the godlessness of Communism sought to infuse American culture with affirmations of faith in God, and especially in a Christian notion of God. They were responsible for inserting the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, and for designating “in God we trust” as the national motto.
However, since the late 1980s, groups identifying as right-wing politically and evangelical Christian religiously have attempted to activate like-minded people to redefine the American republic as a modern-day kingdom of God.
President Donald Trump speaks to press, remarking “I am the chosen one.” (Photo courtesy of Reuters White House Correspondent Jeff Mason, via Twitter, August 21, 2019.)
We at Interfaith Alliance have warned about the blending of government and religious triumphalism for twenty-five years. Until now, most public figures have had the common sense at least to pretend to deny it. Now, we have both figures in the religious right and the President of the United States dropping any pretense.
This week, controversy exploded — again — over statements by the President Trump stating that American Jews who support Democrats are either ignorant or disloyal. Predictably and appropriately, objection was raised from almost every corner (except for those afraid to suffer Trump’s vindictiveness). It fell to one right-wing evangelical radio host and conspiracy theorist, Wayne Allyn Root, to offer the ultimate defense: Trump is viewed as King of the Jews and the second coming of God.
The president has never rejected a compliment, independent of its truth, and he tweeted Root’s words with an appreciation. Later that same day, he declared that the trade war with China was long overdue, and that he was “the chosen one” to pursue it. He lifted his hands and looked heavenward as he claimed the mantle.
President Trump has surrounded himself with sycophantic pastors who have proclaimed him a divinely-promised leader and a vessel for God’s will. Happy to accept their support and the congregations they bring along, Trump has, in turn, used the language of faith in pursuing policies that are far from grounded in the teachings of any version of religious faith among his endorsers.
But to this point, he has not had the hubris to lay claim to a divine endorsement of his presidency.
Trump’s acolytes will dismiss this outrage as mere rhetorical flourish, Trump being Trump, much as his Jewish Republican cheerleaders sought to frame his “disloyalty” comment as insight instead of insult.
But we know better, not because of any special knowledge of the workings of the mind of the man, but because of the public record of his self-aggrandizement and bombastic fabrications. Donald Trump is indeed the perfect vessel for the political aspirations of the religious right. By naming him “god” and proclaiming him “king,” they can attempt the next step in their long-game plan to strip the Constitution of its authority and make it subservient to their narrow and controversial reading of Scripture.
The United States cannot survive on those terms. | https://medium.com/@intrfthalliance/its-not-so-good-to-be-the-king-ddee08214892 | ['Interfaith Alliance'] | 2019-08-22 19:13:08.361000+00:00 | ['Religious Right', 'Chosen Ones', 'Trump Administration', 'Trump', 'Religious Freedom'] |
Keyboard Navigation Improves Usability, ARIA Compliance | Photo by Julien Pouplard on Unsplash
As user expectations evolve, modern web applications have grown more and more complex. They define user interface patterns like virtualized scrolling of content, complex data tables with editable cells, and different overlay components, just to name a few. That is not a problem for users leveraging a mouse or touchpad, as they can easily navigate through the page elements and interact with them. But for those using a keyboard, this can dramatically impact their user experience. The number of controls and items on most web pages has increased dramatically — meaning that a modern web page may contain hundreds of tab stops.
At Infragistics, we want to ensure optimal user experience, regardless of whether you are using a mouse, a touchpad, or just a keyboard. That is why we have created a new user interface pattern for keyboard navigation within a page, called Active element navigation. This pattern reduces the number of tab stops within the interface designed for the Ignite UI for Angular Data Grid to only five and exposes plenty of new keyboard shortcuts for efficiency. Each tab stop element has a single-entry point, and from there, users can easily navigate to different items in the corresponding grid element container by simply using the arrow keys. Thus, simplifying navigation and improving usability.
Page tab sequence
As described in the Fundamental Keyboard Navigation Conventions section of W3C’s WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices 1.1, the tab sequence should include only one focusable element of a Composite UI Component — and we have five such Composite UI Components, hence five tab stops:
Toolbar/Group by Area, if existing
Header row container — The first cell of the header row will become active
Tbody — The first igxCell (0,0) of the body container will become active
Footer — The first cell in the Column Summary will become active (if summaries are enabled)
Pager UI — Items per page drop-down will become active
Pressing the Tab key will move the focus out of the current container to the next element in the tab sequence — This is illustrated with the image below with the tab sequence “Grid Toolbar” -> “Grid Headers” -> “Grid Body Container” -> “Summaries” -> “Footer — Grid Paginator”.
Each of the five tab-stop containers can be considered as a separate grouping entity, reducing the number of tab stops on the page. The Grid has a rich DOM structure, along with plenty of virtualized containers, which allows for greater performance. Therefore, we have more than one focusable Grid element part of the page tab sequence and allows us to have separate and rich navigation on all tab stop containers.
Note: Keep in mind that the default-browser-focusable actions are persisted. We are not preventing the focus of the HTML element part of ng-templates or other elements added separately in the Grid. The browser will handle its focus actions by default — there is no need to apply additional focusable directives.
Active Element Navigation
Referring back to W3c’s Fundamental Keyboard Navigation Conventions, all interactive UI components need to be accessible via a keyboard. This is best achieved by either including them in the tab sequence or by making them reachable from a component that is in the tab sequence. In the Grid’s case navigation, it is possible to move through each one of these focusable containers with the navigation keys (Arrow keys, home/end, ctrl + ‘action key’) and this is where the Active element navigation concept kicks in. Active element is the first visible element from the focused container. BUT this element does not become focused — the focus remains on the actual container. The active element gives you the ability to navigate through most of the Grid elements, and activate features based on the focused Composite component.
How Do Focused Elements Differ with Selected and Active Elements?
We consider the focused element as a pointer — it tracks the path of navigation (page tab sequence). As we already know, we have five such composite elements. The `Active element` is used to navigate through these focusable containers. As you can see in the image below, for visual users, the thick orange border with the gray cell background indicates the currently active element.
Selected elements are elements that have aria-selected=”true”. In the igxGrid case, aria-selected is applicable to all three types of selection elements — cell, row and column selection (WAI-ARIA)
In conclusion
Focused element — tracking the path of page tab sequence — Grid’s toolbar, header, body, footer, and pager
Active element — navigates within the five focusable containers with the arrow keys (and special keys like home/end )
Selected element — having aria-selected=”true” along with Grid selection styles applied (cell, row or column selection )
We follow the guidelines within the WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices Guide, for specific recommendations on key and behavior mapping. So, the roles that ARIA Grid provides are recognizable in the igxGrid as well: grid, row, grid cell, row header, and column header.
Tab navigation
The grid follows the primary keyboard navigation convention that the and tab keys move the focus from one UI component to another. The arrow keys change the active state inside of components that include multiple elements. shift + tab
Compared to previous tab interaction behavior, we’ve changed the following:
You cannot use tab key to navigate between the cells in the IgxGrid . The navigation is now performed only with arrow keys.
key to navigate between the cells in the . The navigation is now performed only with arrow keys. With the to tab key you can only navigate to the next editable cell (Only when the cell is in edit mode). When the last editable cell (of the row) is reached, the navigation will continue to next row’s editable cell. If the last editable cell is reached, the tab navigation will continue the next focusable tab stop element.
Performance improvements and code enhancements
As a result of the new keyboard navigation concept, we have been able to optimize our code and implement performance improvements, such as:
Wheel and view detach handlers have been removed as well.
Reduced navigation services. We previously had four navigation services for the Grid, Hierarchical Grid, Tree Grid, and MRL functionality. Now we have only three. With the old implementation, on scrolling with virtualized content, we were changing the cell context (the actual shell remained the same) and had a problem with the browser not allow ing us to focus on an already focused element — we have had to blur the cell focus, change the cell context and focus it again. Now that is no longer an issue.
Touch device enhancements — now if we have a focused cell on scrolling, we blur the cell before detaching the wheel handler.
Application-level performance boost with `events stacking`. Use ` ngZoneEventColescing : true`
Const bootstrap = () => platformBrowserDynamic().bootstrapModule(AppModule, { ngZoneEnetCoalescing: true });
Keyboard Navigation Feature Integration
Now let’s focus on the keyboard navigation features integration. Our grid has plenty of features and we’ve considered all of them carefully to ensure that they work properly with the new changes.
Header navigation — we now have a smooth column header and column group navigation. Check out this header interactions list, which explains how to activate a certain feature with a key combination. Live demo.
— we now have a smooth column header and column group navigation. Check out this header interactions list, which explains how to activate a certain feature with a key combination. Live demo. Excel-style filter and default filtering row
Ctrl + Shift + L will open the Excel-style filter/default (row) filter
Alt + L opens the advanced filter dialog
Ctrl + Arrow up sorts the active column header in ASC order. If the column is already sorted in ASC, it will remove the sorting (tri-state none)
Ctrl + Arrow down sorts the active column header in DSC order. If the column is already sorted in DSC, it will remove the sorting (tri-state none)
Shift + Alt + Arrow right to group by the active column.
Shift + Alt + Arrow left ungroup the active column (remove it from the group by criteria)
Alt + left/up arrow key — collapse
Alt + right/down arrow key — expand
Note: If you are using a screen-reader, keep in mind that on initial header click, we are focusing the whole header container and the screen reader will read all header captions. Following a click on the header , the header caption + selection state will be read. Example — Company name, column header selected.
Cell editing — now the tab navigation works only for editable cells (In edit mode). On cell editing with Tab navigation, if we reach the end of the grid, the last cell will be submitted , and the navigation will continue to the next available tab stop element.
— now the tab navigation works only for editable cells (In edit mode). On cell editing with Tab navigation, if we reach the end of the grid, the last cell will be submitted , and the navigation will continue to the next available tab stop element. Filtering (filtering chips) — Tab navigation for chips is removed, navigation is possible only by using arrow keys. Also:
Chips are part of the column header now. Chips are not focusable elements anymore
Paging — richer accessibility. Added tooltips, aria- labels, and roles.
Default Key combination updates:
Ctrl + any other key works only on real cells, not on a grouped row area. This is a difference compared with the old behavior. GroupBy and Master-Detail don’t work with Ctrl+ arrow keys.
Ctrl + Right/Left Arrow works only on the common cells, summary row, and headers
Home and End (and Ctrl Home/End) works as expected, there are no changes here.
We now provide richer visual styling for the tab stops/header element/body cells/summaries/paging/group by/master-detail/MRL/cell editing | https://medium.com/ignite-ui/keyboard-navigation-improves-usability-aria-compliance-infragistics-blog-infragistics-blog-67456455e682 | ['Zdravko Kolev'] | 2020-11-09 15:47:32.314000+00:00 | ['Accessibility', 'Aria', 'Infragistics', 'Angular', 'Keyboard Shortcuts'] |
The Silent Struggles of The Average Farmer | Template by Marketplace Designers
If you asked me a few months ago, about the problems faced by farmers, I would shamelessly stare at you not intending to give you an answer. But recent events have lead me to educate myself on these matters.
A lot of you may be aware of the problems faced by farmers around the world, but I can swear that a good bunch of you are as unaware as I was. I am not the best at writing long introductions and I think my English teacher would agree so let’s get straight to the point.
India’s small operational land holdings has restricted farmers to produce enough yield to feed their family, let alone sell it to the market. Any crops that are remaining, are too less to profit from. This has been ignored by the government, and has thereby lead the farmers to suffer.
Food loss is another reason they are not able to produce enough crops. Indian farmers see more than Inr 92,000 crores worth of food loss a year. Ridiculously enough, it is estimated that it would take about Inr 89,000 Crores to eliminate this problem. Crazy, isn’t it?
Factors leading to food loss include:
You shouldn’t be too surprised that lack of proper farming equipment is on the list and the problem itself is pretty self explanatory. If farmers were to be educated on how to use modern equipment, it can significantly benefit their yield. This problem is seen in multiple LEDCs and a few NICs.
Factors concerning irrigation include:
The unreliability of water supply
Poor irrigation efficiency
Increasing demand of water
Inappropriate use of fertilizers (too much) can mess with the health of soil, producing little yield, that too of worse quality. Unfortunately, many farmers remain in the dark as to how much should be added to produce maximum yield of optimum quality.
The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, allows farmers to sell their crops outside the APMC market. However, APMC makes sure that farmers get there MSP (Minimum support price), and if they were to sell outside the APMC market, they may not be able to earn the amount their crops are actually worth. This, and the other two very controversial bills passed by the government have lead to multiple protests.
The various schemes put into place by the government doesn’t seem to have much of an effect. So what can the Indian government do to help their farmers?
Taking reference to South Korea and Taiwan, who provide their farmers with multiple subsidy programs, aiding them in their work, significantly ease the lives of their farmers.
If something like this were to be implemented in India, it would definitely help at least a chunk of the 1.4 million farmers in this country.
what is to be done is ultimately in the government’s hands, so what can we do?
For starters, make sure you don’t waste any of that food. Yessssss! even if it is that tiniest crumb of bread or a spoon of rice. By doing this, we ensure that their efforts aren’t in vain, and as a bonus, we help save the environment.
Another thing you could do is support NGOs (such as Haritika, Dream Alive etc…) that empower farmers to grow their business. By doing this, you too are empowering farmers. At the very least, you can have a good night sleep knowing that you helped someone.
That is it from me (us actually), hope you’ve learned something useful. If not that, then we hope you enjoyed reading. Stay safe :) | https://medium.com/@backyardfarmers-co/the-silent-struggles-of-the-average-farmer-89eb1d74b6a8 | ['Backyard Farmers'] | 2020-12-13 16:11:08.420000+00:00 | ['India', 'Food Waste', 'Farmers', 'Agriculture', 'Farming'] |
What COVID Has Taught Educators in 2020 | As a teacher, I can think of no better “teaching moment” for what it means to be an educator than the year that has been 2020. To wish for this year to be over is therefore to forget what being a teacher is all about. Being an educator requires that we more than ever use everything in the present climate of pandemic tragedy for a greater good and as a teaching moment.
Resilience. Optimism. Consider all of the life lessons that we can convey to our students on top of our respective subject matters during this difficult time. Educators in particular must see this time as an opportunity in the present and not only a problem to get past.
A recently deceased and former Portland, Maine superintendent bore truth to the effect that educators have on their pupils. In the wallet of the late 49-year-old Superintendent Emmanuel “Manny” Caulk was a permanent reminder in the form of a report card given out by a grade school teacher whose effect on his life propelled him to seek out a career in education.
How many Manny Caulks are out there who see our classrooms as calm and supportive contrasts to a pandemic casting hardship over every other facet of their lives? And how many more Manny’s could there be if we as educators would rededicate ourselves to our craft by remaining self-present to our students as we admittedly struggle to shift between our lesson plans and the act of reminding kids to socially distance?
So let’s not wish for 2020 to be over, but rather let’s use its final days to motivate and inspire our students. And if 2021 is destined to be even more challenging, then let’s not desire its completion either. As educators let’s keep our feet planted in the present moment and suffer alongside our students while inspiring them to overcome a tragedy whose days are numbered.
Central to good teaching is empathy. | https://medium.com/@ryanbilodeau/what-covid-has-taught-educators-in-2020-68990ceb3875 | ['Ryan Bilodeau'] | 2020-12-23 14:46:23.416000+00:00 | ['Schools', 'Covid 19', 'Education', 'Catholic', 'Teachers'] |
Are Fig Newton’s Better than Sex? | Are Fig Newton’s Better than Sex?
I don’t think so…
Wikipedia.org
It started at the grocery store.
I eyed the end display at checkout: Fig Newton’s, two for $6.
Ok. Hubby loves those, I thought. I should buy these wretched non-cookies for him.
I arrived home and walked into the mudroom, “Guess what, hon?”
“Shhh,” hubby says, putting his finger over his lips. “I’ll be with you in a bit. I’m finishing up something.” He’s on the work from home rotation. Ah, Covid sucks.
I won’t hold my breath waiting.
He’ll get around to getting the heavy bags out of my car at some point. Not fast enough for me, though. Ten minutes pass.
“When are you getting the bags?” I asked, shouting from the kitchen. “I’m already putting away the groceries I brought inside.”
“Do I work for you?” he bellowed.
No, but I wish you did.
“I’m working,” he announced.
Like I’m not working every day. No matter how much I did, it was never enough.
Dammit. Now I regretted buying those damn treats.
“You don’t deserve them,” I muttered.
When he finally came in with the extra groceries a half-hour later, I said, “I bought you something you love!”
“Yeah? What?”
“Your favorite cookie! Fig Newtons!”
His eyes lit up. “Ok. Who did you hit in the parking lot?”
“No one!” I smiled.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m absolutely sure. I bought them because I knew they would make you happy,” I beamed.
“How much is this going to cost me?”
“I don’t know. Like $6 and change?” I answered.
Of course, I knew what he meant. I chose to ignore the psychic cost. I allayed my guilt from cheating by being extra nice to my hubby. Sometimes.
He probably thought I was Sybil, with multiple personality syndrome. One day I would be kind and attentive, and other days, I was distant and moody. Feeling trapped in this sexless marriage that stifled me year after year.
After dinner that evening, he sat down across from me on the couch, meticulously opening the package of Fig Newtons.
“Having trouble there, hon?” I asked, joking.
“No…you know how I am,” he responded.
Oh boy, do I know how you are.
He opened every box carefully. Never tearing or ripping. Measured and practical. Not impulsively breaking open the package in his haste. Not like me. I was willy nilly by comparison.
As he bit into a cookie, “This is better than sex,” he exclaimed.
“That’s because you don’t have any,” I blurted out.
Whoops. Why didn’t I think before I spoke?
It should have been “we,” not “you.” Ack! “We don’t have any…” oh well. The damage was done.
He looked up, surprised, but didn’t say anything.
Doesn’t he remember?
Of course, he doesn’t.
We hadn’t had sex in seven years. It could be eight years, now — long ago. You would think it weighed heavily enough on my mind to know the number, but I had given up counting.
I wanted to say, “Don’t you miss it?” But I was afraid of his answer.
“You’re too heavy.”
“You can’t do it the way I like anymore.”
I didn’t want to hear any of it — no more excuses. I’ve had enough of them.
As my mother constantly reminds me, “You should control your tongue.”
I wish I could control his.
Why bother? Nothing was going to change.
No sex was sufficient for him.
If I needed intimacy, I would have to cheat or leave.
I didn’t want to leave, so I cheated.
A cookie wasn’t better than sex. No cookie was, even the white chocolate macadamia nut ones from Costco. And those are the bomb, I assure you. Much better than a dry Fig Newton.
I didn’t marry a man with taste.
But maybe I could fuck one. | https://medium.com/sexography/are-fig-newtons-better-than-sex-9723d112f835 | [] | 2020-10-22 18:44:55.873000+00:00 | ['Satire', 'Dead Bedroom', 'Love And Relationships', 'Love And Sex', 'Marriage'] |
Linked Lists and LL Algorithms in Swift | Implementing a Node in Swift -Integer
A choice has been made to implement a node that contains an Integer as the data payload. If you wish to see a node that is generic (that is, can carry any data) please see the second half of this article.
The setup for a node (the class)
Since our Node class needs to reference itself, a class has been chosen to represent the Node type (although an enum is a value type that can reference itself, I have chosen not to use that type to represent a Node in this case)
This initialiser requires both a piece of data, and the next node in the linked list.
Create instances of a node
In terms of creating an instance of a Node, Swift helps us out just as if we are creating an instance of any class.
We are going to create three nodes that are linked as a linked list, containing three elements
interestingly here I’ve chosen to create the nodes in reverse order.
The reason for this is that each node is connected to the next — and doing them in normal order would mean linking a node to a node that does not yet exist.
How can you link to a node that doesn’t exist? You can’t.
So…
Swift doesn’t give us a good view of what we’ve created — so how can we be sure that we’ve correctly created these three nodes?
printing an element gives us the following output:
__lldb_expr_10.Node
yes, we get it. It’s a node.
Make the Node conform to CustomStringConvertable
When we conform to CustomStringConvertable we need to provide a description that Swift will provide when we print the element.
Which (when we print the head ) gives the following output:
Data: 0 { Data: 1 { Data: 2 { null } } }
This is much nicer, as each node is described as part of the chain now.
Reading out the data from a Linked List
Here we are going to use a while loop to traverse the linked list . We know when we have gone to the end of the linked list since the last element always points to nil!
This prints the following to the console:
0
1
2
But it might be worth exploring what happened here.
which leads us to the output to the console (as expected) as 0,1 and 2.
Remove an element
Remove a node from the head of the linked list
Remove an element (a node)from the linked list from the head is a relatively easy operation.
In Swift though, we need to make sure that head has a next element — and this is implemented through optionals in Swift.
Since the old headNode has no reference it can now be deallocated, so there is no dangling head node.
Remove a node from the middle of the linked list
This is slightly more tricky than removing a node from the head of a linked list.
We remove this second node and deal with the hanging node.
Reverse a linked list
The theory goes something like the following:
A linked list can be reversed through the following code in Swift.
To be noted here, is the creation of a empty node initially that will be the new tail of data:
Conclusion:
Linked lists are really important in programming, and this guide has shown you how linked lists can be implemented in the best programming language (Swift).
Reversing a singularly linked list is a little tricky, and with that we can easily introduce the concept of a doubly linked list to cope with that. But more on that topic on another day (i.e. follow me). | https://stevenpcurtis.medium.com/linked-lists-and-ll-algorithms-in-swift-439a1da2eee | ['Steven Curtis'] | 2020-04-27 15:26:47.380000+00:00 | ['Software Engineering', 'Software Development', 'Swift', 'Algorithms', 'Programming'] |
Visualizing Vital Resources to Support Resettled Refugees | Visualizing Vital Resources to Support Resettled Refugees
Graphicacy, in partnership with Mapbox, joins with USA for UNHCR for the 2020 Opportunity Project to connect resettled refugees with resources around the United States using government data on refugee arrivals and charitable organizations. Graphicacy Follow Dec 3, 2020 · 4 min read
A view of the last decade of resettlements across the United States
The Opportunity Project
As part of the Lifting Up Families for Economic Success Session of The Opportunity Project, hosted by the United States Census Bureau’s Census Open Innovation Lab, Graphicacy partnered with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and Mapbox to build the Resettled Refugee Services and Data Explorer.
This project was an opportunity for the Graphicacy team to dedicate pro-bono resources in keeping with our company’s mission to Visualize a Better World. The team was led by Graphicacy’s Director of Engineering and Innovation Chris Lanoue and engineering intern Allie Littleton. The team participated in the intersection of open data, public interest technology, and public/private sector collaboration — including USDA, HUD, EPA, the State Department, the Wilson Center, USA for UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) — to develop over 35+ data-driven solutions in response to challenges like ocean plastic pollution, sustainable rural development and support of resettled refugees.
Our specific challenge was to create a tool that connects resettled refugees with resources and vital services, such as access to medical care and mental health treatment, English language learning, job training, and education. As part of this challenge, we used our expertise in data visualization, UX, and mapping to design and engineer an interactive experience that connects resettled refugees with resources around the United States using both the WRAPSNET and Charity Navigator open-data sources.
User Journeys
We focused on two user journeys for this experience. Our first user is a refugee who recently resettled to the US and is looking for the best place to find resources and vital services within a short distance from their current location. Using Mapbox’s extensive developer tools and a good user experience, we built a way for our first user to search for their city and state and immediately see resources (with links, where available) from Charity Navigator within a 50-mile radius of their location. The goal is to ease the burden of resettlement and put refugees on a path to self-sufficiency.
Our second user is a resettled refugee who is interested in learning where other refugees, especially from their home country, have been placed over the last decade throughout the US. The combination of the intuitive interactive map with a robust filtering tool allows our user to not only find where other refugees resettled, but also to see locations where refugees from their country may be located.
Future
During the development and presentation of this application, we interviewed a few resettled refugees to help ensure we were optimizing their user experience. In addition to the interviews, we also pored over beta user heatmaps from Hotjar and analytics from Google Analytics to help inform our future roadmap. Based on the feedback and research, we prioritized a few additional features including:
Allowing users to filter not only by country of origin, but also primary language of country of origin.
Adding iconography and tags to better present the charitable resources data for non-English speakers and for faster identification of the vital resources a user may be in search of.
As a pro-bono project for The Opportunity Project, we wanted the application to live in perpetuity and are therefore in the process of open sourcing the code base for the project, so that other interested engineers and software professionals can contribute and help the project grow and become an even better resource for resettled refugees in the United States for years to come. | https://medium.com/graphicacy/visualizing-vital-resources-to-support-resettled-refugees-195aa9b2c5c6 | [] | 2021-01-07 19:40:34.366000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Refugees', 'Nonprofit', 'GIS', 'UN'] |
Divorcee #1 | Divorcee #1
She:Wish I was widow than divorcee
I:Why
She: people would have empathised than judged me
Moral: magnitude of pain might be different but it hurts both ways. | https://medium.com/@thakurbinnie91/divorcee-1-affe2d892c76 | ['Binnie Thakur'] | 2020-12-18 14:30:06.421000+00:00 | ['Divorce'] |
STREETS International: ‘Sustainable tourism at its best’ | STREETS International: ‘Sustainable tourism at its best’
STREETS International is a social enterprise with a mission to create a better future for disadvantaged youth in Vietnam via hospitality training. If you travel to the lovely UNESCO World Heritage town of Hoi An, Vietnam be sure to stroll by Le Loi Street to visit STREETS Restaurant Café, and take part in its Oodles of Noodles experience.
Written by STREETS International founder Neal F Bermas, this post is sponsored by the publisher of The “Good Tourism” Blog.
Every nine months, STREETS recruits 25 program participants (called ‘Trainees’) from all over Vietnam for an 18-month life changing journey. The Trainees come from poor rural families, isolated ethnic minority villages, orphanages, and city streets. Some have even been rescued from enslavement.
At STREETS, Trainees are provided dormitory-style housing, food, all daily supplies, basic medical care, and supervision all at no cost to them. Their life at STREETS is rigorously structured to suit an ambitious hospitality training and apprenticeship designed to launch them into professional careers as confident, self-reliant adults.
Over the 18-month program, Trainees study English, computer skills, life skills (e.g., food safety and hygiene, gender equality, budgeting, etc.), as well as the professional culinary and hospitality skills they will need to find jobs.
The interior of STREETS Restaurant Café, Le Loi Street, Hoi An, Vietnam
STREETS runs its own acclaimed restaurant and culinary tours in which Trainees can practise their newly-acquired skills. Guests are delighted with the award-winning service and food, which is why the restaurant is a tourist favourite, receiving thousands … To continue reading for free, and with no strings attached, please visit https://goodtourismblog.com/2021/10/streets-international-sustainable-tourism-at-its-best/ | https://medium.com/@goodtourismgoodtravel/streets-international-sustainable-tourism-at-its-best-c98a5659ec7f | ['The', 'Good Tourism', 'Gt', 'Travel Blogs'] | 2021-10-27 02:59:18.202000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Tourism', 'Social Impact', 'Vietnam', 'Hospitality'] |
Design + Dev: building scalable user interface the painless way | Design + Dev: building scalable user interface the painless way
Reusable component is key in building a scalable digital product.
Article by Angie Sasmita and Vee Quek
In this complex world of multichannel interface experience and agile product development, applying traditional practices to design and front-end development is no longer sufficient. Scalability of user interface and thus scalable design systems are essential. The characteristics of a scalable user interface is that it is easy to maintain and flexible enough to be extensible as and when required. In order to achieve this, we need to break a couple of rules and come back to others.
We will talk about the principles of scalability of user interface, the benefits for businesses, design as well as development and how all of this translates into code. This article was written by a developer and designer to share with you real-life examples from our day-to-day work.
Developing a new feature — business as usual
Imagine you are working on a login page and a new ‘single-sign on’ (SSO) feature was added to your backlog. This means you now need to add a secondary button for the users to be able to access this feature.
At first, this can seem like a simple request. All the designer needs to do is add another button that looks secondary to the main, primary button. It is however important to pay attention to this seemingly straightforward solution as this can have a great impact on interface scalability later down the line. If designers don’t do their due diligence, you can quickly end up with a rather big list of secondary buttons (see image below).
While having multiple distinct types of buttons may not seem like a big deal, imagine if this happens to every single user interface element. Soon enough, the design system will be unmaintainable, thus the only way to add a new element is to reinvent them (even when they already exist in some form previously), bloating the system further. On big products, you might find this inevitable. The intention is to make a well-informed decision on how you add elements to the system.
The default mindset — speed first, quality later
When it comes to established products we often jump to the solution of ‘creating a button’ in order to move fast rather than take the time to investigate the variety of buttons already existing in the product’s ecosystem including mobile applications, campaign pages or internal systems. However these ecosystems are often complex and if you are trying to understand and figure out what button is best suited to align with the ecosystem, you will end up spending a significant amount of time investigating rather than building the solution, which is also not the most efficient use of your time.
This is why we often ‘don’t have time’ to focus on scalability as speed is the priority.
However if we were thinking of short-term tactics, it is perfectly acceptable to push a feature out as soon as possible to test it on the market. There is no point in trying to understand all of the possible future scenarios that may never happen.
If we acknowledge that products and their respective ecosystems grow and evolve (and it is ok to prioritize speed to get products out to be tested on the market), we also need to proactively include reviewing, testing and learning to maintain a healthy evolution of our interfaces.
Changes happen, even if you don’t like it
As a result of reviewing, testing and learning, changes will occur. For example our hypothesis was invalidated and we need to pivot or simply, the product grows and needs to evolve.
So how can we maintain the speed, embrace the change and build scalable interfaces?
The solution lies in components
With every new request you get, you will start spotting repetitive elements in an interface, let’s call these ‘components’. Components are elements that are designed, developed and used consistently across the interface of a product(s). These could be simple elements like dividers, buttons, and icons all the way to more complex ones like accordions, input fields, footer, and even a login page. They can be repeated not just within a product but also across the whole digital ecosystem.
The value of reusable components
Maintenance and speed of development (for both design and code)
When building for scalability, components encourage reusability. When it comes to making changes (for reasons outlined in the previous section), it can be implemented across all components without the hassle of doing it one by one. This means the design and the code for a component will be more maintainable as changes can be applied to one place and fixing bugs can happen faster without additional concerns around regression issues. Consistent user experience
Another great benefit is consistent user experience as the interface will become intuitive and predictable. As components are inheriting one another, they also inherit their behaviours, which allow designers to be consistent, developers to develop faster and end users to adopt behaviours quicker without even noticing the consistency.
Applying the concept of components correctly and consistently will increase the speed of development and decrease behavioural or stylistical defect in the long run, hence ensuring product scalability.
When should we start introducing components?
Similar to the treatment of technical debt, the longer we put off component reusability, the higher the cost becomes to do it in the future. Choosing not to prioritise component reusability can impact the speed of development in the future as well as lead to additional number of bugs or defects found.
Cost of development grows logarithmically when we use components and exponentially when we do not
The diagram above shows the intersection point where the initial benefit of using only custom elements disappears and the benefit of using components start to pay off. This point is usually reached quite quickly and the marginal cost increases even more rapidly after this point is reached. Symptoms of this pain point include recurring defects and slower UI development time as front-end code becomes more and more unmanageable.
There should, however, be a point where we need conscious thought and effort to gradually componentize the elements of both design and code to ensure that the project will be scalable.
We can avoid the exponential cost of development and bring it back to near the point of saturation by adopting components more strictly
The right time where such conscious effort needs to begin varies depending on the project scale and various other concerns. Making the call at the right time is where the judgment of experienced designers and developers are tested. We will discuss how team size affects how we build components in the next section.
How to build components
Evaluate the fit into the existing system
Determine if the new element you are about to implement (the single sign-on button) already exists in the ecosystem. This might take some investigation and conversations with designers, developers and other team members. If so, review if we can reuse the existing one or whether it needs to be enhanced based on the new requirements and/or research. If not, either develop existing buttons and replace the old ones or create new components. This way you can start developing your central repository of components.
If you are going to enhance existing elements, don’t forget to research if the component already has some usability issues. This could be a great opportunity to improve it. (Remember: “Products and their respective ecosystems grow and evolve, the key is to proactively include reviewing, testing and learning.”)
Build reusability incrementally
Not all components are created equal. To optimise the reusability of a component, one must look at the size and customizability of the component. The more customizable a component is, the more reusable they are. However, making all components extremely customizable risks the component in becoming a ‘god-like’ component that contains unnecessary properties or behaviour. The key to reusability, hence, lies in building smaller components. The smaller the component, the more likely they can be reused in many scenarios and be useful to build up a larger component.
Using known principles to guide transformation
There is no special methodology to build a robust, scalable interface that transforms custom elements into components. In fact, we should repurpose the good old fashioned software development and agile delivery principle to advance this noble cause. Some useful principles are:
Refactoring principle: the rule of three. If we see an element being repeated three times, we should work towards removing the duplication (in this case, by making them into a common component). In our experience, it is difficult to create the right generic component that would be reused from the beginning when the element is only used once in a specific use case. It is wise, therefore, to allow some duplication of elements to exist for some time until a pattern emerges and refactor them into components. Try not to predict the future (or YAGNI principle). Unless there is an obvious direction that a component will be reused or is already built, we should go with the custom element first. Putting aside resources for long-term gain. When we know beforehand that a particular element will be reusable, we should put in effort to make them customizable, not only from a development perspective, but also from planning the resources needed for it. This means that we should put in the effort estimation for the story/feature as well as communicate this importance to our clients/product owner.
Maintaining Component Library and Semantic Versioning
As more components are built, it might be worthwhile for developers to maintain a component library. An extensive component library will ensure that when there are new requirements coming in, components would be the natural choice in extending the code, thus the speed of development can be optimized even when the code base is extensive.
From developers perspective, building component libraries is similar to maintaining APIs, which means we should be thinking about how best we should model the concepts into components, what would be the logical inputs and outputs and how we could roll out contract changes so that our components do not break.
You could maintain semantic versioning for the whole library, groups of components or for each individual component. Initially, when the numbers of components you are maintaining are small (less than 10), maintaining individual versions for each component might cost significant operational overhead. However as the component library grows, logical grouping will start to emerge based on similar concepts of the components. For example radio buttons and checkboxes components may fall in the same category of “options” components which could be versioned together.
Be careful of reusability pitfalls
Although component reusability is mostly desirable in the design and development process, we also need to be mindful of the common pitfalls of over optimising for reusability and prematurely componentizing. The objective is not to make components to be as reusable as possible, but to really understand if they are scalable and resistant to near future changes.
Different scale, different strategy
Based on how large the scale of the project and team size, there are different strategies and investment on building (or not) components. Of course the scale of the project can change and therefore the strategy of componentization to support scalability should change accordingly.
Small scale project (5 people, 2 months)
Designers could sketch on paper 90% of the time
Developers could build a simple static page that had examples of the components
Designers and developers pair on Identifying components the first time they build something new
Medium scale project (3–4 teams, 1 year)
Reusable components are owned by a group of designers and developers from each stream or team
If everyone is working on a single code base and there may not be a need to take on the versioning overhead
The team can start maintaining simple component documentation library such as React StyleGuidist
Teams can form a Frontend guild which has some lightweight meetings to decide what to work on, what components they need, what they should look like etc. This can be done alongside product delivery.
The components are built as part of normal user stories by whoever needs it first. And then picked up by other teams and attached to appropriate stories.
Large Enterprise scale project (20+ applications, long-lived product)
Reusable components have a product owner. They need to do advocacy, support, align dependencies, be across new work, new teams, new products, rebranding.
Reusable components have a dedicated team. It could be 3 people, it could be 20. It probably changes based on the stage of the product and the type of work.
The dedicated team will maintain a shared component library with semantic versioning. One good tool to do this would be bit.dev
The team facilitates the collaboration. They do a fair amount of support, education, and consulting about how to adopt and use it. They take contributions from the rest of the organisation
The team’s product is the shared components library whose customers are designers and developers in other teams.
Building from the smallest blocks
To help with your understanding of how to build components, we will illustrate building a component with various structures.
Building Blocks
Building blocks are abstractions of commonly used properties that by themselves may not be visible. They usually abstract behaviours that we would like components who use them to inherit. Examples of this include whether they will occupy a specific space or behave in one way upon interaction.
A commonly used Building Block in our project. Flex will render a `div` with `flex` property to any component that uses it
In design language, these could be:
Design grid
Font family
Colour
Capitalization
Screen transition
Basic components
Basic components are the smallest visible component, usually containing only one concept and one behaviour. Examples include buttons, texts and fields. As a component, most of the properties inside the basic component should be customizable, with some that can be pre-determined or contain multiple customizable options.
A simple and extendable example of a basic component. `Button`’s `text` and `onSubmit` behaviour can be customized per use, while also providing discrete options for the `type` of the button.
In design language, these could be:
Buttons: consisting of text, colour, shapes, size, etc.
Fields: outline, background, font, colour, etc.
Composite components
Composite components are components that contain one or more basic components. The size of composite components can vary a lot, from a small promo code layout that contains a text field and a button to a complex form with multiple radio buttons and checkboxes.
An example of a composite component. `ListPicker` contains other basic components and building blocks such as `ScrollView`, `Box`, `Text`, `FlatList` and `ListItem`
Custom elements
Building blocks, basic components and composite components are built with reusability in mind. In contrast, custom elements are specifically built for a particular layout/page.They are not likely to be reusable.
The `TitleText` is built for a specific purpose, with predetermined position and size in mind. Thus its reusability is minimal
Transform custom elements to components
When we started on the project, the prioritization of project deliverables demand speed and thus many custom elements were inevitably developed. As the project progresses, developers and designers will naturally reuse similar elements and produce less new components, which result in an inverted pyramid of components.
The next step that must be done deliberately is to refactor down the custom elements to a lower tier, such that the number of custom elements would be the least and most elements will reuse components as appropriate.
Components: the foundation of scalable products
Scalable user interface is easy to maintain and flexible enough to be extensible as and when required. Components (elements that are designed, developed and used consistently across the interface) are essential for a scalable interface as they increase speed of development later down the line (and therefore decrease cost). To quote one client, “The only thing I regret about components is that we didn’t start using them earlier.”
The key is to start using them at the right time. If you start implementing them too early, you might be investing time on something that is not validated yet (risk of waste). If you start too late, you risk having to rework too much of already existing functionalities (risk of defects and cost of fixing broken interfaces).
In a mature product, we aim to have many reusable components and little custom-built elements. And most importantly, ensure you bake it into your stories and prioritize people’s effort on implementing it. All this requires a certain level of discipline and as Ajey Gore (CTO of Go-Jek) said “Discipline brings scale, scale disciplines.” | https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/design-dev-building-scalable-user-interface-the-painless-way-404dc6924e3c | ['Angie Sasmita'] | 2020-10-18 20:23:08.517000+00:00 | ['User Interface', 'Development', 'Design', 'Scalability', 'UX'] |
Lenape Board of Education honors longtime board member Bill Bisignano | Lenape Board of Education honors longtime board member Bill Bisignano
After 20 years on the Lenape school board, Bisignano is retiring.
Former board member Bill Bisignano poses for a picture in the Lenape Regional High School District board room with Superintendent Carol Birnbohm and LRHSD Board President Linda Eckenhoff.
At its Sept. 27 meeting, the Lenape Regional High School District Board of Education honored long-serving Medford Township member Dr. Bill Bisignano Jr. for his service after tendering his resignation. Bisignano served on the board for 20 years.
BOE President Linda Eckenhoff expressed gratitude for Bisignano’s service.
“My colleagues on the board and I extend our deepest thanks to Bill for his dedication over the past 20 years. He has helped us move the district forward because of his thoughtful and collaborative approach,” Eckenhoff said.
“It has been an honor and privilege to serve on the Lenape Regional Board,” Bisignano said. “My colleagues are truly dedicated to the success of this district, which is evident through their consistent attendance and attentiveness at every board meeting and events throughout our schools.”
Bisignano, who is retiring, has resided in Medford for almost 60 years and has practiced as a dentist in the community for 47 years. He is a partner in Bisignano, Stone and Eckel Family Dentistry. He attended Temple University on a full football scholarship and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine in 1970 with honors. He served in the Army for three years, having completed a rotating internship at Walter Reed General Hospital. He is an Eagle Scout and has spoken at the Eagle Scout Court of Honor.
Bisignano resides in Medford with his wife, Pat, and has four children, Bill III, Michael, Kristin and Jessica. All children attended Shawnee High School.
“Bill is a respected member of our community, and I valued his voice on our board. He ensured our policies were rooted in what is best for all Lenape Regional High School District students through his thirst for knowledge and poignant questions,” Superintendent Carol Birnbohm said. “We will miss him and the contributions he has made as an effective and influential leader within our district.”
Pursuant to state statute, the LRHSD will advertise the vacant seat on the board and post it on the district’s website.
In other news:
• The board approved a new policy that enables school nurses to receive the appropriate training to administer an opioid overdose antidote during school hours or during school-sponsored activities. In approving the policy, “Administering an Opioid Antidote,” the board acknowledged the national opioid epidemic, citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which noted total fatal opioid overdoses increased from approximately 28,600 in 2014, to more than 33,000 in 2015 — a 15 percent increase. The policy states, in part, that the school nurse “may administer the opioid antidote to a student, school personnel or other person in an emergency if the school nurse believes, in good faith, that the person is experiencing an opioid overdose.”
• The board approved the following donations: a golf cart worth $3,600 for the Lenape High School Athletic Department from the LHS Girls Soccer Booster Club; EpiPens worth $600 to Seneca High School from EpiPen4Schools, a program conducted by pharmaceutical company Mylan; supplies and labor worth $2,500 for building a baseball mound at Shawnee High School from the SHS Baseball Booster Club; T-shirts worth $540 for the Shawnee High School Field Hockey Anniversary Game from the SHS Field Hockey Booster Club; a tandem-axle trailer worth $5,247 to the Seneca marching band from Seneca band parents; and $5,000 to the disrict from the Cherokee High School Yearbook Club for former NBA basketball star Chris Herren’s presentation on the dangers of drug abuse. | https://medium.com/the-medford-sun/lenape-board-of-education-honors-longtime-board-member-bill-bisignino-ff3aba706b1 | ['Tom Beck'] | 2017-11-16 16:54:15.602000+00:00 | ['Education', 'High School', 'News', 'Meetings', 'Schools'] |
Calling From A Locked Bathroom | Calling From A Locked Bathroom
Saying Goodbye to an Affair Partner
Photo by Eileen Pan on Unsplash
“Can you call me?” my lover asked.
What? Call? He knows I can’t call. This is an affair. I’m home.
“I need you.”
I rolled my eyes. Please. Spare me. Remind me why am I fucking this man again?
I locked myself in the bathroom on the other side of the house to make a quick call.
“What happened? Are you ok?” I whispered.
“I’m ok.”
“That’s good,” except him calling wasn’t good. He was far too needy. I didn’t want needy.
“You know I can’t talk long, I’m at home.”
“That’s the problem. You aren’t free.”
This again. I’m so tired of the same refrain. I’m going to dump you and find someone else, I swear.
“I just can’t do this anymore. You don’t care about me,” he said.
Don’t let me audibly sigh into the phone. When did I turn into the man in this affair?
“I do care. What is this about?”
The truth was that I didn’t care, not enough. My single lover was wearing me down with his endless drama. I kicked myself mentally. Why did I start with him?
“I’m really sad. You will never be with me.”
You just figured that out? We’ve been fucking for almost three years. I said right from the beginning, it was “just sex.” I wasn’t going to leave my husband.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” I said.
I won’t leave to be with you or anyone else. IF I did have the courage to get out of my unhappy marriage, it would be for me and me alone. I have no desire to tie myself to an outdated version of monogamy.
“You are not. You just want what you want, that’s all.”
True.
“I know you very well,” he added.
He does know me inside and out. More than any other man in my life. Certainly more than my husband. I’ve opened up to him both emotionally and sexually. We’ve known each other for more than 20 years. The first time I felt free. I could tell him anything, and he wouldn’t judge me.
Yet he did. He would be appalled at my behavior if he knew all of it. My many men. My unruly desires. He would condemn every single licentious action.
He wanted me on his terms.
“You can’t just be happy with me?” he’d ask.
NO. I can’t. And, I won’t.
“Please just live your life and forget about me,” he said.
How can I forget about you? You were my first lover.
Those moments cradled in your arms, held and stroked by your calloused fingers. Holding hands crossing the street. Listening to music in my car. The joy of discovering my desire after it being dormant for so long.
The sex gravy train wasn’t worth this agita, though.
“I’m sorry, I’m not going to text you anymore. I did trust you, but I made a mistake,” my lover said, in his broken English.
We’ve both made mistakes — plenty of them.
I shouldn’t have started an affair. I shouldn’t have chosen a single guy. Or been needy and sexual. All of it was a mistake. Why am I trying to save this doomed affair? For what? The inevitable heartbreak.
Prolonging the pain?
“I’m sorry,” I said.
It wasn’t enough. I knew it. He deserved more.
“You know what hurt me? I believed you,” he almost whispered.
Mistake #1.
I stupidly put myself in this situation. I regretted everything. Yet even as I said it, he didn’t believe me.
Our affair ended with recriminations and harsh words, while I hid in the bathroom.
“You aren’t sorry,” he said. | https://medium.com/the-scarlett-letter/saying-goodbye-to-a-lover-18cd49600d83 | [] | 2020-12-20 03:56:39.393000+00:00 | ['Lover', 'Goodbye', 'Ending A Relationship', 'Cheating', 'Adultery'] |
Earn 10,000 a Month Passive Income | Can you imagine getting a check for not working each month for say, $10,000 or (120K) a year in dividends? Wouldn’t that be nice? I am going to show you how to do the math and what investment vehicles will do that for you.
I think I became fascinated with the idea of earning passive income at the age of 10 when my dad died. All the income stopped and I watched my mother depend on monthly social security checks and quarterly dividends from stock investments like ATT, McDonald or Coca Cola stocks.
I once read this quote by Warren Buffet, saying, “if you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.” This really hit home so I immediately started researching investments I could make outside my business that would provide for me regardless of whether I was working or not.
The first thing I did was get clear what type of investor I was. I wrote the characteristics of my investment nature, (what I am comfortable investing in.) Because let’s face it, if its a great investment but it doesn’t fit your nature you probably aren’t going to make it. Here is the investment criteria that was most important to me; (1) Never lose money, (2) provide dependable passive income monthly, and (3) have a great likelihood of appreciating over time.
I started studying what investments that could fit that criteria to see what best suited me; stocks, dividend stocks, bonds, bank CDs, real estate, REIT’s, venture capital, debt obligations and other alternative investments. I quickly found most didn’t provide all three of the things important to me.
(1) Never lose money, (2) Provide dependable passive monthly income, and (3) have a great likelihood of increasing appreciating over time.
Look, I admit I am a coward when it comes to investing and simply can not stomach the idea of losing money that I busted my ass to earn. What initially got me so interested in apartment investing was the dependable cash flow provided while I wait for appreciation.
It is almost impossible to actually lose your initial capital when investing in cash flow producing commercial real estate. As long as the property produces cash flow, someone will always want to purchase the property. Unlike the home you live in (residential real estate), commercial real estate’s future value is determined by its ability to provide cash flow to the investor. A home’s value is based on the comps in the area. The value of a stock is dependent upon many more conditions; the market, other stocks, politics, technology disruptions, new developments, economics, market conditions, and more. Commercial real estate’s value is based on the cash flow it produces. When I realised this I was hooked.
It is almost impossible to actually lose your initial capital when investing in cash flow producing commercial real estate.
As long as you pick real estate in markets where rents continue to grow, the value the property will do the same. Unlike stocks, real estate can provide monthly distributions to its investors (if the operator is willing to distribute cash flow each month.) The best-known dividend stocks in the world; Coca-Cola, Walmart, & AT&T, pay quarterly, not monthly and I don’t want checks every quarter — I want them every month. It’s funny, because ATT charges you monthly for the phone bill, but pay investors dividends quarterly (the float).
Ok, enough of how I got to real estate as the investment for me. By the way, maybe stocks, cryptos, bonds, hedge funds or hard money lending is better suited for you. I think everyone needs to find the vehicle their investment style and personality is best suited for. Real estate is easy for me to understand. I can see it, touch it, borrow against it, visit it and sell it.
So once I decided commercial real estate was my vehicle to create passive income and future appreciation I learned how to do the math. The same math applies to stocks, bonds and bank deposits. Let’s say you want to earn $120,000 a year in passive income and want to know how much you would need to invest to do so.
Here is the math — Take your desired annual dividend income amount and divide by the dividend percentage of return you think the investment can deliver.
Desired Income / Expected Return = Amount of Investment Required
The real estate we target for purchase we believe can deliver a total return of 15% to the investor with both cash flow and appreciation. So here is the math to determine how much I need to invest to earn %10,000 a month.
Take the $120,000/15%= $800,000 (this assumes cash flow and appreciation.) If you want to be even more conservative and want to know what it takes to earn $10,000 a month on just the cash flow distributed before appreciation, simply calculate just with cash flow expectation not total return. If the property is anticipated to throw off 6% a year in cash to investors, divide the desired annual amount of cash flow ($120,000) by the anticipated percentage of cash flow (6%) gets you $120,000 / 6% = $2,000,000 (required cash).
At CardoneCapital we offer accredited investors a 6% preferred cash on cash return (paid monthly)* and that is before the calculation of appreciation, debt pay down or the likes. By the time we are done selling a property we expect a 15% per year return to investors.
Compare that to Apple Stock at 1.9% (paid quarterly) you would have to invest $6,315,000 to earn the same distribution. That represents 3X the amount of the Apple investment just on cash flow.
This is what hooked me on real estate, but it gets better. An even bigger benefit is that your original investment in real estate, because of leverage, buys 3X -4X the amount of real estate investment. You can NOT do that with stocks.
Because real estate provides stable cash flow, banks are willing to provide the investor with leverage allowing you to multiply your buying power without over-leveraging the real estate. The bank is confident the debt will be paid off by the real estate’s income paid by tenants. The banks won’t allow you to do this with stocks. You can buy stocks on margin, but this is a very risky and anytime the stock falls to a certain point the bank will call your stock and liquidate you to cover your margin.
Considering that Bank of America will lend me money to buy real estate but will not give me a loan to buy Bank of America stock. (Let that sink in.)
This is why real estate became my investment vehicle. My first big investment in real estate was $350,000. I earned $3,000 per month in the first year, $5,000 per month in the second year and by the third year I was earning over $8000 a month. Rents were going up which means the value of the property was also increasing. I leveraged $350k to buy a $2M piece of property and was paid monthly income while I waited for the value to go up. I later sold that property and 10X my initial investment plus the cash flow I was paid.
Since then I have bought and sold almost $2B real estate. Even during 2010 when all my other businesses suffered the real estate continued to pay me.
Let me know what your take-aways are or where I might have missed something. I know there are many smarter than me who will punch holes in my math. Certainly, many will tell me about all the investments I could have made that would have been better; Google, Netflix, Amazon, Bitcoin…. but I didn’t invest in those because I am an admitted coward when it comes to my money.
CardoneCapital distributed almost $1.3M to our accredited and non-accredited investors just last month. So many of my friends and customers asked me to allow them to invest alongside me I did. Check out some of the properties we just closed and do some research to determine whether buying your own deals is good for you or would you rather invest with someone who has been doing it. Love to have you on board as a partner if this fits your investing personality.
Grant Cardone
CEO, CardoneCapital | https://medium.com/the-10x-entrepreneur/earn-10-000-a-month-passive-income-234d385e0379 | ['Grant Cardone'] | 2019-07-22 18:59:16.834000+00:00 | ['Wealth Creation Investing', 'Passive Income Streams', 'Passive Income', 'Real Estate', 'Wealth Creation'] |
2020 was my most profitable year ever, but I don’t ever want to repeat it | The year best signified by an image of a dumpster fire also happened to be my best financial year ever.
It was the year of the pivot for me, and that’s the lesson I want you to walk away with. You have to learn to pivot and be adaptable. It’s always been true, but the pandemic really brought it to light.
The businesses and individuals that came through 2020 relatively unscathed were the ones that made the potential for change a part of everything they did.
*from the book Devolution by Max Brooks
It didn’t matter if it was sickness, riots, government shakedowns, or anything else, the ones that refused to change did not make it.
Here’s the short version of what I did to pivot. If you’d like more detail, just ask.
As soon as the lockdowns started in other places, I started my pivot. I was better prepared a few weeks later when all my speaking engagements were cancelled, and I could no longer travel to my other clients.
I was consulting for a small remodeling company near where I live. I kept serving my other clients by distance, but I poured myself into this local company. They were considered Essential and kept working through everything, so I was able to stick with them.
I helped them pivot, put safety protocols in place, and increase sales. As other similar companies fell apart, they were growing.
Instead of laying off workers, they hired two new ones. They had their best year since 2008 when the recession almost killed them. As 2020 wrapped up, they were scheduled almost four months out.
All because they embraced flexibility and change.
So…what can you do right now to make every facet of your life more adaptable?
Now that I’ve ruined your day talking about 2020, click here for something to make you smile
***********************
A Gift from the Memologist
The meme game is strong with Dr. Redbeard.
Feel to steal and share. Just right-click and save image or you can find it on Instagram and snag it.
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I am here to serve.
If I can help with anything, feel free to reach out here or on social media.
Hit reply and e-mail me here or…
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Twitter | https://medium.com/@drdavidpowers/2020-was-my-most-profitable-year-ever-but-i-dont-ever-want-to-repeat-it-bf760d20de76 | ['Dr. David Powers'] | 2020-12-22 20:07:45.580000+00:00 | ['Consulting', 'Leadership', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Small Business', 'Coaching'] |
What’s in a word? | A word can make you violent
A word can break the silence
A word can bring a smile
A word can induce a sigh
What is it about words, I always wondered
That made it or broke it ?
My mother spoke beautiful words mostly,
sometimes she was nasty and out came those hateful words frothing and festering with anger
like maggots on a rotting wound.
So did my father
I was uncertain about the words they would bestow upon me each day
So I searched for more crueler words
More kinder words
More expensive words
More colorful words
More musical words
To paint up my sky of sound and vocabulary
To lighten the impact of what their words caused me
To reduce the pain in my heart
I too frothed out dreadful words
Guiltier words.
Sometimes, as an experiment, I would
Say compassionate and artistic words
Couplets and poems adorned my walls
They did little to ease my painful silence.
The pain of being silent
Ah ! it is this that I hid,
behind all the words that came out
Pain and silence
The stillness of it
The rawness like a new wound, pink and painful
No words can describe pain or silence
Not even this poem that is in the process of its writing
Not even pain
Not even silence can explain the pain and the silence of the loss of words.
I must be silent now
For it is night
And in the night
The pain has a mind of its own. | https://medium.com/@megha-tree/whats-in-a-word-eca18b5ea96b | ['Megha Anne'] | 2021-04-01 08:12:38.766000+00:00 | ['Careless Words', 'Pain', 'Silence', 'Night', 'Parents'] |
Episode 12 || Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World ~ EP. 12 (EngSub) On AT-X’s | Episode 12 || Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World ~ EP. 12 (EngSub) On AT-X’s
Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World
For years, a great war has raged on between the scientifically advanced Empire and a paradise of witches known as the Nebulis Sovereignty. This age-old battle sets the scene for a fateful encounter between two young combatants: an imperial swordsman, Iska, and the witch princess, Aliceliese. As sworn enemies, they vow to cut each other down in order to unite their worlds, and yet Iska finds himself entranced by her beauty and righteousness, while Aliceliese is moved by his strength and resolve. In the midst of a never-ending war that forbids them from being together, they have no choice but to destroy each other-or find another way.
Title : Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World
Episode Title : Episode 12
Number of Seasons : 1
Number of Episodes : 12
Genres : Action , Animation , Anime , Comedy , Fantasy , Romance , Science Fiction , War
Networks : AT-X
Status: Returning Series
Quality: HD
TELEVISION 👾
(TV), in some cases abbreviated to tele or television, is a media transmission medium utilized for sending moving pictures in monochrome (high contrast), or in shading, and in a few measurements and sound. The term can allude to a TV, a TV program, or the vehicle of TV transmission. TV is a mass mode for promoting, amusement, news, and sports.
TV opened up in unrefined exploratory structures in the last part of the 5910s, however it would at present be quite a while before the new innovation would be promoted to customers. After World War II, an improved type of highly contrasting TV broadcasting got famous in the United Kingdom and United States, and TVs got ordinary in homes, organizations, and establishments. During the 5950s, TV was the essential mechanism for affecting public opinion.[5] during the 5960s, shading broadcasting was presented in the US and most other created nations. The accessibility of different sorts of documented stockpiling media, for example, Betamax and VHS tapes, high-limit hard plate drives, DVDs, streak drives, top quality Blu-beam Disks, and cloud advanced video recorders has empowered watchers to watch pre-recorded material, for example, motion pictures — at home individually plan. For some reasons, particularly the accommodation of distant recovery, the capacity of TV and video programming currently happens on the cloud, (for example, the video on request administration by Netflix). Toward the finish of the main decade of the 1000s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (516i, with 909091 intertwined lines of goal and 434545) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 3456561, 3456561 and 1314. Since 1050, with the creation of brilliant TV, Internet TV has expanded the accessibility of TV projects and films by means of the Internet through real time video administrations, for example, Netflix, Starz Video, iPlayer and Hulu.
In 1053, 19% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[1] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 5990s. Most TV sets sold during the 1000s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-1050s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 1050s.[6][1][5] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 1.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 1050s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 1000s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 1000s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 1050s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
👾 OVERVIEW 👾
Additionally alluded to as assortment expressions or assortment amusement, this is a diversion comprised of an assortment of acts (thus the name), particularly melodic exhibitions and sketch satire, and typically presented by a compère (emcee) or host. Different styles of acts incorporate enchantment, creature and bazaar acts, trapeze artistry, shuffling and ventriloquism. Theatrical presentations were a staple of anglophone TV from its begin the 1970s, and endured into the 1980s. In a few components of the world, assortment TV stays famous and broad.
The adventures (from Icelandic adventure, plural sögur) are tales about old Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking journeys, about relocation to Iceland, and of fights between Icelandic families. They were written in the Old Norse language, for the most part in Iceland. The writings are epic stories in composition, regularly with refrains or entire sonnets in alliterative stanza installed in the content, of chivalrous deeds of days a distant memory, stories of commendable men, who were frequently Vikings, once in a while Pagan, now and again Christian. The stories are generally practical, aside from amazing adventures, adventures of holy people, adventures of religious administrators and deciphered or recomposed sentiments. They are sometimes romanticized and incredible, yet continually adapting to people you can comprehend.
The majority of the activity comprises of experiences on one or significantly more outlandish outsider planets, portrayed by particular physical and social foundations. Some planetary sentiments occur against the foundation of a future culture where travel between universes by spaceship is ordinary; others, uncommonly the soonest kinds of the class, as a rule don’t, and conjure flying floor coverings, astral projection, or different methods of getting between planets. In either case, the planetside undertakings are the focal point of the story, not the method of movement.
Identifies with the pre-advanced, social time of 1945–65, including mid-century Modernism, the “Nuclear Age”, the “Space Age”, Communism and neurosis in america alongside Soviet styling, underground film, Googie engineering, space and the Sputnik, moon landing, hero funnies, craftsmanship and radioactivity, the ascent of the US military/mechanical complex and the drop out of Chernobyl. Socialist simple atompunk can be an extreme lost world. The Fallout arrangement of PC games is a fabulous case of atompunk. | https://medium.com/@sidompuanb.ad.a.n.g/episode-12-our-last-crusade-or-the-rise-of-a-new-world-ep-12-engsub-on-at-xs-8445340dd7c | ['Sidompuanb Ad A N G'] | 2020-12-21 11:49:14.299000+00:00 | ['Animation', 'Anime'] |
Socrates: Virtue is Knowlege and Knowledge is Good | Life and Death
Socrates was born in Ancient Athens, where he lived during the last two thirds of the 5th century BC. Son of a midwife named Faenarte and a sculptor named Sofronisco. He used to say that her mom, as a midwife, helped to bring human life to the world, just as he helped bring knowledge to the world by his argumenative method based on dialogue.
Socrates never created a philosophical school. He wrote nothing, his thought was made known through Plato. He had a strong love of truth and was very cultured. He sought to know the true and just, and this intention will be present in all his dialogues. He rejected the relativism of the sophists.
He carried out long interrogations of merchants, peasants and artisans in the squares and markets. He always asked questions, he asked people about what they considered to be right and wrong,and about how did they knew Gods existed .Thanks to his conduct, Socrates gained enemies who ended up considering that his friendship was dangerous for aristocrats such as his disciples Alcibíades or Critias. Due to his behavior, they made two trials, the first he won, the second he died. They accused him of perverting youth.
He was condemned to drink hemlock for not recognizing the Athenian gods, he was also accused of impiety and corrupting youth in the year 399th c. According to Plato in the apology that his teacher left, he could have avoided condemnation thanks to the friends he still had, but he preferred to abide by it and die at the age of 70. He accepted that they were going to kill him instead of fleeing because he wanted to continue his duty as a citizen to comply with the law, otherwise he would be a monster. | https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/socrates-virtue-is-knowlege-and-knowledge-is-good-7e5b58aeb521 | ['Sofia Montaño'] | 2020-07-17 22:44:41.441000+00:00 | ['Greece', 'Values', 'History', 'Knowledge', 'Philosophy'] |
This is How Seth Godin Changed My Life For Good | This is How Seth Godin Changed My Life For Good
Shattering the illusion of corporate security and picking myself
Seth Godin and Rebecca Murauskas. Photo by Akimbo Staff.
It’s 5:30 PM two days before Thanksgiving, and I step into an elevator with the COO of the Fortune 15 company that I work for.
He and I have a good relationship and a shared interest in mountain climbing that we chat about periodically. I’ve also been working on a huge transformational project with him for a few months, and our camaraderie has expanded.
As the ground floor nears, he turns to me and says, “Have you heard about the leadership summit we want to host?”
“Yes,” I reply. I was privy to some vague chatter and had started to marinate on ideas.
“Sounds great! How may I be helpful?” I add.
“We want to gather our top leaders for a week and make a big impact.”
I remember thinking, fantastic! We can make the event engaging and fun. Maybe release pieces of our transformational project? Plan it over a year and build up the hype.
As the elevator doors open, he casually mentions, “I was thinking right after Easter would be a good time.”
I froze. I can imagine the look on my face was sheer terror.
This “important man,” who was my boss’s boss, wanted us to pull together 6,000 people from across the US to an unknown location for a week’s worth of a leadership summit with four months of planning time during the holidays while we still did our “regular jobs.”
My internal first blush reaction was nothing short of four or five curse words. I may have mustered a fake smile as he turned to hop in his car.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” he shouted. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/this-is-how-seth-godin-changed-my-life-for-good-a70f33652724 | ['Rebecca Murauskas'] | 2020-12-23 19:02:35.043000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Business', 'Mental Health', 'Writing', 'Life Lessons'] |
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