title
stringlengths 1
200
⌀ | text
stringlengths 10
100k
| url
stringlengths 32
885
| authors
stringlengths 2
392
| timestamp
stringlengths 19
32
⌀ | tags
stringlengths 6
263
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Visual abstraction | Visual abstraction
“Visual representations are a fundamental component of human learning and understanding.” — Jock D. Mackinlay
One very important example regarding data visualization can be found when looking back in history. The graphic below depicts a great deal of information without being distracting. Most poignant is the drastic loss of life shown in just a small part of the diagram. It’s the simplicity of the visualization design that clearly conveys the complexity of the data.
Minard’s graphic of Napoleon in Russia
In order to underline the importance of data, several techniques can be used such as;
colour — highlighting important numbers with a different colour
saturation — decrease the saturation to make it more visible
enlargement — increasing the size of important data
When designing a product, it is essential to include some kind of testing. In relation to data, A/B testing is a prominent example. Different variants are compared to each other to find out which one is the most suitable. This process is iterated many times to figure out the weakness of a design or its strengths. Big companies like Google, Facebook and Netflix have the infrastructure and the user base to quickly and effectively conduct such testings. Nevertheless, when talking about using data we also have to consider our own behaviour and maybe reflect and be aware that each click is scrutinized and is used, whether we like it or not. | https://medium.com/@pmschmidinger/visual-abstraction-a706f1e4f90c | ['Paméla Schmidinger'] | 2019-05-06 19:46:37.217000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Seminar', 'Interaction Design', 'Design'] |
Airbnb Hosts and Where to Find Them | People are always curious about something. Sometimes it is just curiosity sometimes curiosity to action for satisfy this curiosity.
1 week ago i wondered that AirBnb hosts price decisions, house locations and something related to their house properties in Istanbul. For this purpose i made a project which aims to predict listings price in the AirBnb. All of the codes of this project in my GitHub
Here is my outline of the project:
1. Introduction and Questions
2. Modeling & Model Evaluation
3. Summary
Introduction and Questions
In Turkey, AirBnB has been working since 2010. I have never used it due to the fact that I live in İstanbul. However I have some questions before begin my project.
· How many hosts have more than 1 listings?
· Is listing price related to continent or not?
· My House is in European side of Istanbul. Is it good to listing my house in Airbnb?
· Can I predict the listing prices?
Review of the Dataset
With my curiosity, I found a dataset in Official AirBnb web site (Get the Data — Inside Airbnb. Adding data to the debate.)
There are lots of city data which are completely free of charge. When I analyzed the Istanbul Data which was scraped in October 2020, this dataset AirBnb provides 74 Column with 22,328 Rows (listings). Rows represent the listings (room, entire apartment etc.)
Some Columns from the Airbnb Istanbul Dataset
As you can see above, these are very messy data and there are some strings, null values list in cells and so on. I like working with messy data. The summary of the data is that we have categorical and numeric columns. The columns are related to Hosts, Property types, District, some of amenities which is provided by hosts and reviews
I’m not going to talk technical details. If you want to check my project here is my GitHub
Exploratory Data Analysis
After cleaning, transforming process, I have beautiful table for modelling. Before modelling, I need to understand the business and take some correlations between price and other features.
In the AirBnb Istanbul Data set There are 12,651 Unique Host. One host may have multiple listings. Let’s look at the Listing counts per hosts:
Hosts listings Distributions
· As you can see above nearly 80% of hosts have 1 listing in Istanbul. 10% of the hosts have 2 listings and 10% of the hosts have more than 2 listings. This is the one of my questions answer.
· 90% of listings represent Entire home and Private Rooms
District distributions
· AirBnB have nearly %70 of listings in Beyoğlu, Şişli, Fatih, Kadıköy and Beşiktaş.
Istiklal Avenue in Beyoğlu
· These locations are the most famous districts in Istanbul. If you plan visiting Istanbul, you should go to Beyoğlu which is in European Side of Istanbul. There are Taksim Square, Istiklal Avenue, wine houses, clubs, restaurants, cafes, churches, historical passages and buildings… To sum up, Beyoğlu is the harmony of the history and today. For more information: Beyoğlu — Wikipedia
After some univariate exploration Let’s look at the Super Hosts. There are 2,819 (22% of Unique Hosts) Super hosts in AirBnB Istanbul. Most probably people who want to prefer AirBnB find superhosts more reliable to the others.
Superhosts distribution by continent and center districts
· Left barplot above shows that percentage distribution by continent and it indicates Hosts are not super. 80% of listings at European side (10% Superhost, 70% other)
· Right barplot above shows that percentage distribution by centers. I flagged centers manually and these are: Beyoglu, Sisli, Fatih, Besiktas, Sariyer, Kadikoy, Uskudar, Adalar, Beykoz
· I think AirBnB should increase the superhost counts as I mentioned before because people find them more reliable.
After some super host investigation, I’m going to talk about Listings Prices
Price Distribution
· Oops Price is highly right skewed and have extreme points, let’s zoom in
Price Distribution (Zoomed in 0–5000 Turkish Lira)
· The mean of listings price is 511 Turkish Liras and Standard Deviation is 1904 Turkish Liras. Standard deviation is very high. In the next parts I’m going to deal with this skewness problem
Correlation map for some attributes in the Dataset
· If I looked to the correlation heatmap created for host and amenities variables, I’m so sad about the non-relation between the price and the other attributes.
· However, I can detect multicollinearity in the independent variables. I hate multicollinearity and deleted some attributes.
· I’ve done this operation for all attributes but I’m not going to show it here. If you are interested in the operations, let’s check the GitHub.
Continent based price distribution
· European Side has higher price distribution than Asian because most of the popular districts located in European side as I mentioned before and my house is in European side of Istanbul also so that I have high chance to get more than 250TL for my house.
Room type based price distribution
· Price might be depended on the room types. Entire Home/apt and Private Rooms are representing the 90% of the Airbnb listing and their prices distributed differently. This might be good attribute for modelling price
Host tenure distributions
· In Telecom sector, tenure defines the customer lifetime in the company so that I created this feature and gave Tenure name. It represents the host’s lifetime months in the Airbnb as a host.
· Tenure doesn’t differentiate the price but in tenure distribution, it seems there are 2 nearly o normal distribution. I catch that and I’m going to put this attributes in >= 40 Tenure and < 40 Tenure it might be useful for modeling
· Most of the hosts lie between 0–40 Tenure
Modeling & Evaluation
After some insights there is a modeling step. As I said that price is highly skewed. It is the bad thing for regression models.
Transformed price with logarithm
· If I take logarithm of the price, we can catch the normal distribution. So that I think it is better to create a model with logarithmic price
Random Forest Regression Model
After preprocessing I have 35 independent variables for predicting the listings prices. Firstly I created a model RandomForestRegressor from Scikit-Learn package without splitting the data set. This model gave me 0.59 R2 Score but it could be overfitting. My aim is to detect an outlier if any.
First basic model with 0.59 R2 Score
Here you can see the first model result and error distribution (middle). Errors are normally distributed but when the model predict higher prices, the variability is increasing so that I think we can eliminate some variables
Residual Distribution of the first model
· I’m going to eliminate just looking to the box plot and trim from -1.7 and +1.7 points. I lose 237 listings in this operation. Sorry about that…
After I removed the listings as identified extreme values. I split the train and test set for the predicting price and use the model which have same properties
Train set results after outlier detection (0.63 R2 Score)
After modelling, you can see above the result of training set result with 0.63 R2 Score
Train set results after outlier detection (0.56 R2 Score)
I got 0.56 r2 score in the test set. This means our Regression model explain 56% of variability in the price. Feature Importances:
Important feature of the Price prediction
XGBoost Regression:
XGB Regressor Result for the test set (0.60 R2 Score and 0.28 MSE)
· When I try xgboost regressor 0.60 R Squared score and 0.28 MSE on the test set is slightly better than the RandomForestRegressor. Our XGBRegressor model explains the nearly 60% of variability in the data.
Here is the Feature Importance of XGB Model:
Important feature of XGB Regression Model
· It is interesting that my model learned the price from private room attributes. Accommodates also has a big part at this importance.
Summary
For during this project data cleaning and processing taking nearly 70% of all project time. I answered all my questions. Let’s summary that:
· How many hosts have more than 1 listings?
o 20% of the hosts more than 1 listings
80% of the hosts have 1 listing
· Is Continent related to prices?
European side prices are higher than Asian Side
According to the box plot you can see the price distribution for 2 continents and it is obvious european side price is distributing higher than the Asian price distribution.
My House is in European side of Istanbul. Is it good to listing my house in Airbnb?
Entire Home prices have good price for me :)
o I’m going to rent my entire house located in Europe. I have a high chance to get high revenue from my house
o European Side has higher price than Asian Side so yes they are significantly different
· Can I predict the listing prices?
XGB Regression Results on the Test Set
o Yes our model results show that I can explain 60% of price variability with XGBoost Model. With fine tuning it can be increased
What is Next
I need to deploy this model. Maybe creating web app for predicting Airbnb listings from their specifications like accommodates, bathroom, reviews, amenities.
In the next part of this article I’m going to deploy this model to a web app. Because model project which is not deployed haven’t been finished yet. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/airbnb-hosts-and-where-to-find-them-4c204dfd1138 | ['A.Uygur Yiğit'] | 2020-12-20 12:57:37.606000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Regression', 'Istanbul', 'Data Science', 'Data Analysis'] |
How to Explore Equity and Access in Research | How to Explore Equity and Access in Research
A collection of resources from our Research team, in a variety of topics and mediums, that can be used to further your own knowledge about equity and access in research. Foundry10 Follow Dec 18, 2020 · 10 min read
Illustration by Thy Karla Nguyen
Over the past week, foundry10’s Research team has posted research, resources, and thoughts all centered around one topic: equity and access in research. Though we’ve covered many subjects throughout the week — including how to engage with families more equitably and recommendations for how to support students who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic — we weren’t able to talk about everything, since equity and access is such an expansive topic in research. The state of equity and access in research is continually progressing.
Given the importance of equity and access in research at this moment and at foundry10, we also wanted to acknowledge how broad the scope of equity and access in research is and how much our thinking has been shaped by the work of other researchers in the field.
For that reason, we created this “toolkit” with some next steps for those who want to continue learning about equity and access in research after this week. We hope that this can serve as a resource of next steps for those who are interested in equity and access in research but aren’t sure exactly where to start.
This collection of resources includes some research articles on equity and access that had a deep impact on our team, some researchers in the field that we admire for their work around equity and access, some barriers to equity and access that various groups in the research community face, and a list of research studies centered on equity and access that we’ve done over the years here at foundry10.
Research | Researchers | The research community | foundry10’s research
Research
It can be difficult to know where to start when learning about equity and access in research. To help, we’ve collected a couple of articles on equity and access in research from the members of our Research team for suggested reading. Here are some of the articles that furthered their own thinking on the topic:
Back to top.
Researchers
We asked the members of our Research team to think about people in the field that they admire who are doing important work around equity and access in research. Below we share some of their responses on researchers who have done commendable research on equity and access, along with some of their key insights:
Follow them on social media: Sapna Cheryan (@scheryan1), Django Paris (@django_paris), Onnie Rogers, Ann Ishimaru (@prof_ishimaru), SESEC (@SESECWA), FEEST (@feestseattle), Road Map Project (@RoadMapProject).
Back to top.
The research community
Strides have been made to make the research community more equitable and accessible, but it’s an ongoing and imperfect project. Here we discuss some, though by no means all, of the barriers to equity and access that members of various groups face in the research community:
Undergraduate research students from historically underrepresented groups may encounter more difficulties with getting involved in research than other students.
A study with approximately 58,000 students from six research universities on the barriers that first generation students face found that “first-generation students more frequently encounter obstacles that compromise their academic success as compared to non-first-generation students, such as job responsibilities, family responsibilities, perceived weak English and math skills, inadequate study skills, and feelings of depression” (Stebleton & Soria, 2012).
face found that “first-generation students more frequently encounter obstacles that compromise their academic success as compared to non-first-generation students, such as job responsibilities, family responsibilities, perceived weak English and math skills, inadequate study skills, and feelings of depression” (Stebleton & Soria, 2012). Bangera and Brownell (2017) discuss seven barriers to research that undergraduate students from historically underrepresented groups may face. They also talk about the importance of course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) for creating more equitable opportunities for undergraduate students to get involved in research.
may face. They also talk about the importance of course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) for creating more equitable opportunities for undergraduate students to get involved in research. Some colleges and universities have programs that have provided opportunities for underrepresented undergraduate students to participate in research. One such program is the UROP program at the University of Michigan. The SROP program at Big Ten Universities provides summer research opportunities for underrepresented students who want to pursue graduate studies, as does the NSF-funded UROP program.
Early career researchers face many challenges at the outset of their research careers, including: coping with change, post PhD blues, personal life changes, lack of access to resources, lack of support from supervisors, time management, sustaining writing productivity, identity crises, and career issues.
There are often unique barriers to research that researchers from underrepresented groups face.
For example, BIPOC researchers may face increased difficulty with visibility in the research community. In “What I’ve learned about being a Black scientist,” Neil A. Lewis, Jr. discusses his experience as a Black researcher: “I am not just a scientist. I am also a Black man in the United States. My job may be the pinnacle of privilege. But in the country in which I do that job, scientists who look like me often have to wrestle with not just our research questions, but also with being seen — due to the color of our skin — as a problem.”
may face increased difficulty with visibility in the research community. In “What I’ve learned about being a Black scientist,” Neil A. Lewis, Jr. discusses his experience as a Black researcher: “I am not just a scientist. I am also a Black man in the United States. My job may be the pinnacle of privilege. But in the country in which I do that job, scientists who look like me often have to wrestle with not just our research questions, but also with being seen — due to the color of our skin — as a problem.” The research community also isn’t always the most inviting to women, especially women with children. “I didn’t really understand how unjust the academic system was for career advancement for women until I had children,” said Dr. Rebecca Calisi in “The Special Challenges of Being Both a Scientist and A Mom” for the Scientific American.
“I didn’t really understand how unjust the academic system was for career advancement for women until I had children,” said Dr. Rebecca Calisi in “The Special Challenges of Being Both a Scientist and A Mom” for the Scientific American. Calisi and a Work Group of Mothers in Science also offer solutions for ways to make research conferences more friendly to mothers in “Opinion: How to tackle the childcare-conference conundrum.” They suggest that conferences support childcare, accommodate families, provide facilities and equipment for nursing and changing, and help establish a support network of parents and caregivers specifically for conferences.
In a conversation with the Research team about equity and access, the team also discussed how the cycle of applying for grants and the focus of some mainstream research journals can be a barrier to truly equitable research.
Back to top.
Our research
Equity and access have been important to our work at foundry10 for a long time. Though we have done many research studies around equity and access, our thinking and engagement with equity and access in research have changed and evolved over the years. Below are some of the studies related to equity and access that we’ve done here at foundry10:
Back to top.
Want to hear more about equity and access in research or continue this conversation with our Research team? Connect with us at [email protected]. To learn more about foundry10, follow us on social and subscribe to our monthly Newsletter.
Twitter: @foundry10Ed
Facebook: @foundry10
Instagram: @foundry10
Linkedin: foundry10 | https://medium.com/the-foundry10-voice/how-to-explore-equity-and-access-in-research-79406d79425c | [] | 2020-12-18 22:02:57.601000+00:00 | ['Equity', 'Research', 'Education Research', 'Education', 'Resources'] |
FAQ in visiting a Cannabis dispensary | What can I carry to the dispensary?
Visitors to a dispensary should have an open mind and a willingness to try something new. People who are visiting a dispensary as medical marijuana patients will need a valid medical marijuana card or caregiver identification card. Some dispensaries will also ask for a valid government-issued photo ID, including a driver’s license, passport, state ID, or military ID.
People visiting a dispensary as recreational customers will need to present a valid government- issued photo ID including a driver’s license, passport, state ID, or military ID. Furthermore, you must be of age 21 and above to buy recreational marijuana.
Must I be a cannabis enthusiast before visiting a dispensary?
You don’t need to be a cannabis enthusiast before visiting a dispensary. A customer who visits a dispensary gets to learn all things about cannabis the moment he/she steps into the dispensary. Dispensaries employ bud tenders who show you everything you need to know about a particular strains including its positive and negative symptoms.
What’s the typical duration of a dispensary visit?
It usually depends on the amount of time spent in the store. When you get to a dispensary, you can stay there for as long as you want if you have valid identification documents. Some people go to the dispensary to browse different products while others don’t know exactly what they are looking for. If you know what you are going to buy, then your trip to the dispensary won’t be long as compared to someone who doesn’t know what to buy.
However, people who are on a tight schedule should consider checking out the menu before visiting the dispensary so that you get an idea of what you’re looking for. Some dispensaries even provide online sales, meaning you can order online and come into the store to pick up.
What types of marijuana are available at a dispensary?
At a dispensary, you will find hundreds of indica, sativa and hybrid strains. Dispensaries also offer cannabis in different forms; for instance, you will discover hash, concentrates, kief, edibles (such as cookies or candies) and THC capsules which are all available for purchase. Dispensaries also sell cannabis seeds for people who are interested in growing.
Can I smoke in a dispensary?
It depends on your state, but in most circumstances, licensed marijuana dispensaries don’t allow smoking in or around their premises. Some state laws also ban the smoking of cannabis at indoor and public areas like cafes, bars, eateries, etc. People are allowed to smoke in their private residences or at different social lounges.
How much does marijuana cost at a dispensary?
Some cannabis dispensaries have set a flat rate pricing system regardless of the type of marijuana strain or product you buy, while others have a tiered system (low/mid/high grade). The tax rates range from one region to the other but usually fall between 15–22%.
Do dispensaries have ATM’S?
Most dispensaries in the US lack ATM’S, meaning they are cash-only businesses. Therefore bringing cash is vital as they accept payments only in cash.
Can I bring my child or children into the dispensary?
Most dispensaries don’t permit the entry of infants, children or anybody who is below the age of 21. However, they may be an exception if the person is a medical patient.
These are the FAQs that dispensary owners also need to know. Knowing what your customers’ need is just another part, you can also learn from your fellow marijuana business owners. To get the best out of your cannabis business, it is highly suggested to join a marijuana association for
business networking, updates on current regulations, and strategies to maximize profit. If you are based in California, one highly recommended organization is the Coachella Valley Cannabis Alliance Network, a Desert Hot Springs marijuana association. | https://medium.com/@leif_47578/faq-in-visiting-a-cannabis-dispensary-6af77113a115 | ['Cannabis News Magazine'] | 2019-06-25 06:25:02.991000+00:00 | ['Marijuana'] |
Can I learn WordPress on my own, and how? | Wordpress website sign up
Yes, you absolutely can learn WordPress on your own but the method you choose will depend on your current skill level, and what you actually want to do with WordPress.
Option 1: Set up a free site
If you want to set up a simple site and just understand the basics of how WordPress works, you can create a free blog on WordPress.com. Use the on-screen guidance to help you installing themes (which affects how your website looks) and installing plug-ins (which affects how your website behaves).
But a free WordPress.com site has certain limitations, especially if you want to make money from the site. Also, if you’re using WordPress to set up a professional online presence, you may prefer to install WordPress with a single click from your web host. That lets you use WordPress on your own domain, and you’re free to promote and sell your products and services.
Option 2: Create a local WordPress installation
If that’s the route you go, you can still learn by doing, but there is a better option. Set up a local installation of WordPress so you can experiment with everything you want to try without breaking your live site. A good tool for creating a local version of WordPress is Local by Flywheel. It’s much easier to use than some of the other popular options like XAMPP.
Option 3: Learn to code
If you want to code your own WordPress site, then you need to learn PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. These are the code languages that WordPress is built on. HTML is the markup language that powers most of the web. PHP is a website scripting language. JavaScript is another scripting language that lets you create interactive elements or pull in functionality from external sites. And CSS helps to apply a style or format to your website. You can learn about some core web technologies on the Mozilla Developer Network.
Option 4: Join WordPress forums
There are several forums where you can learn more about using WordPress. Because WordPress has been around for quite a while, it’s got a huge community of developers and users worldwide.
For example, there are forums on WordPress.org where people share their technical problems and get answers. For most issues, you will often find that your burning questions have already been asked and answered.
In addition, if you are using a premium WordPress theme, those developers usually have their own forums where they deal with any issues their customers are facing. Simply reading through the forum content can give you a good idea of what’s possible in WordPress.
Option 5: Learn from books and courses
Finally, don’t underestimate the value of books and courses when trying to learn WordPress on your own. But note that with major interface updates to WordPress between 2018 and 2019, you need to ensure that the resources you choose give you information about the latest version of the software.
Use all of these options together, and you will be able to work on your own to get a comprehensive education in WordPress. See below for some additional resources which will help you:
1) Online resources
2) Books
3) Podcasts
4) Conferences | https://medium.com/@nicologrossi/can-i-learn-wordpress-on-my-own-and-how-1240b09715eb | ['Nicolo Grossi'] | 2020-08-07 14:49:50.110000+00:00 | ['Blog', 'Wordpress Web Development', 'Website Development', 'WordPress'] |
How three women are changing the game in children’s books | Founders of Bharat Babies (left to right): Megan Boshuyzen, Sailaja Joshi, SriVani Ganti
Sailaja Joshi and her team are shaping a new landscape of children’s books with carefully woven stories focused on Indian culture. In the midst of a rapid social change in America, Bharat Babies seeks to share with children culture rich stories.
The idea of Bharat Babies was conceived as Sailaja prepared for her first baby shower back in 2013. She looked for books that reflected her Indian culture she could read to her child, only to be disappointed.
“Anything that had something to do with Indian culture was hard to find,” Sailaja explained.
“Stories that were there were meant for older children and were culturally inaccurate. Sometimes they were culturally insensitive, which was really problematic.”
While discussing this issue with a friend and the thoughts of her newborn’s arrival, she decided to start this company dedicated to sharing stories set in the Indian household. Her sister named it Bharat (Hindi for Indian) Babies.
Her conviction only grew stronger as she also began her PhD program in sociology.
“I realized that so much of the social inequality that was happening and the shifting of people’s perspectives could start from birth.”
After taking a few stabs at writing the first book herself, she recognized that it would take a more talented team to move it forward.
“There is a specific way in which great books are written. And those books put the child first. It was really important for me to have the perspective of teachers, parents, people who use these books on a daily basis.”
Bharat Babies is a talented team of authors who also serve as early childhood educators, advisors who offer key insights of the various Indian cultures, and illustrators with the ability to accurately paint the story.
They are passionate about providing the opportunity for children of color to see themselves in mainstream narratives.
“Our vision is to paint those universal themes that make us human beings and help articulate them through the stories of India’s culture of community and heritage,” she explains. “We’re always going to have these stories that focus on Hinduism, Islam; but also telling those rich, diverse stories in a universal way so that any parent can relate to them and use them as teaching tools in the household.”
Developing the first book was only one half the battle. Getting it to children across the world was a completely different beast. And with her second child on the way this time around, she didn’t have the luxury of time on her side.
“I remember getting the final print ship date for Hanuman and the Orange Sun and I think it was June 15th and my date with my son was June 16th. And I was like ‘cool, I’m possibly going to have 2 thousand books in my house and a newborn,’ she remembers.
Their first book to print.
“My parents were like ‘It’s fine, ship them to us!’ Because they have a much bigger house. And I said, ‘I think you guys are crazy. I don’t think this is possible.’ ”
On that timeline, yes, her situation was tight. She raised money for the company’s first book through Northeastern’s IDEA program and because her mentor at the university, she connected with Shotput who would quell her fears.
“I got an email from Greg, who’s part of IDEA, he’s one of the mentors. And he said, ‘I want to introduce you to this company. They offer fulfillment services.’ I talked to you guys [Shotput] and it was like a match made in heaven for me.”
We, at Shotput, certainly felt the same way as we wanted to help them grow. And the relationship between us certainly has become stronger as we continue to find the best ways to run their operation.
“And since then it’s been really phenomenal… we really appreciate that Shotput is so upfront and honest with us and so responsive to customer issues and provide us with the best customer service that we couldn’t get anywhere.”
“I think we have this relationship that we’re truly invested in each other’s future.”
Within its first year, Bharat Babies now has 7 children’s books in its lineup and authors clamoring to write for them everyday. This is only the beginning of a beautiful journey as they plan to expand their books to several more countries. | https://medium.com/the-chain/how-three-women-are-changing-the-game-in-childrens-books-6eaa7ffc4174 | ['Akin Shoyoye'] | 2016-08-07 22:08:43.205000+00:00 | ['Subscription Boxes', 'India', 'Startup', 'Fulfillment', 'Culture'] |
Bitcoin - Why Bitcoin is not a currency, it’s rather a digital asset | When you ask yourself “what is currency?”, “What is money?”, you may find it hard to explain. If you examine history it’s pretty clear that humanity went from trading with sheeps and rocks to the usage of “Specifically designed medium of exchange”, or ‘paper that represents your potential to exchange goods’. Money is not an asset, it’s the potential for an asset.
That said, let me ask you a question. By holding Bitcoin, does it give you the potential for an asset?
That’s may sound confusing, because you may think “oh, right now no, but I guess in the future, when Bitcoin will become consensus, people will be fine with bartering for a Bitcoin”.
That’s where the problem lays.
There is a fundamental difference between an asset and currency: Currency does not have intrinsic value, it’s a tool. Asset on the other hand has a value by it’s own. Hence, Bitcoin is more like a piece of gold, and not like bulk of dollars. | https://medium.com/livshitz/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-e63a978a3a03 | ['Elya Livshitz'] | 2018-10-15 16:31:34.925000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Awo Abdulqadir — CEO & Founder of DAQANI— Conversation with a mindful leader | The warm-up
How’s your weather (how are you doing)?
It does get cloudy. You don’t see people in the winter, and especially during this pandemic. Also, it’s very calm. During the pandemic, people have been looking for ways to see their family. With the holiday coming you can spend time with people. I think people are looking forward to that and it calms us.
Are you comfortable?
Yes, but it’s cold.
What have you been doing lately?
We’ve had a few meetings, but we’ve decided to take a break. We needed to get our heads straight. It’s been a hectic year for us combining studies and starting up a company. We will return fresh for the new year, with clear heads.
Who is Awo?
I was born in Somalia and came to Norway with my family when I was 4 years old. My mum raised me, and she always ensured that I was integrated. She was a chef so when we celebrated my birthday, she made both Somali and Norwegian food. She also played Norwegian music. In this way, she helped me balance both cultures. This way I could be Somali and still be a part of the Norwegian community.
The exercise
How does your community responding to you setting up your business?
In Somali culture women and leaders, but people don’t really understand what I do. They are supportive, but they fear I won’t get the same opportunities as other Norwegians. They want me to do something more comfortable, where they believe I can succeed.
What is DAQANI and why did you start it?
My background is in advertising. During my studies, I realised that advertising in Norway always was Nordic, pleasing to ethnic Norwegian people. It was not made for multicultural purposes.
A multicultural strategy can be a trendsetting strategy if you do it right. The ad world in Norway needs help. That’s where DAQANI comes in. Many companies feel uncomfortable asking questions about things like ethnicity and religion. We are the middleman. With our multiethnic backgrounds, we can comfortably help brands ask people these questions. DAQANI cushions the fall for both groups. We want the same result as our clients.
I got the idea for DAQANI when I was attending the Future Leader Incubator last year. I pitched it to my mentor, and he/she liked the idea.
During my studies, our lead strategist Awa Sarr and I were working on a project for a Norwegian clothing line. The brief was: “create a showstopping ad that people won’t scroll by”. We interviewed 200 people about what they wanted to see in this ad. Our idea was to create a multicultural ad with a girl snowboarding. As the girl takes her helmet off, we would see her being mixed race and wearing a hijab. The idea was based on the insight we had collected from speaking to those 200 people. The feedback we received from the client was that they’d wish we had created the idea objectively. We were accused of selling an idea that we wanted and not what those 200 people wanted. Minority people have money and want to spend good money on for example winter jackets. Young Muslim girls both ski and snowboard.
From DAQANI’s presentation.
It’s however not only private companies that need this help. This is also needed in the public sector. At the beginning of the pandemic, several people with minority backgrounds struggled to understand the communication coming from the government and local authorities. Information was mostly in Norwegian and little in English. The language used in Norwegian was quite advanced and when you first come to Norway your level is much more basic. Thankfully the communities came together to help each other. 3rd generation educated Somalis helped their community by translating the information through things like WhatsApp groups and videos. Peopled came to the volunteer centers where they helped inform families and individuals about mask-wearing, the washing of hands, and the importance of testing.
As of March 2020 Norway has 790 497 Immigrants and Norwegian-born to immigrant parents. Source: Statistics Norway
Your slogan is “If a brand does not have a multicultural strategy it does not have a growth strategy” — What do you mean by that?
In today’s society, you get left behind if you don’t stand for anything. If you sell candy you also need to have halal and vegan candy. You can’t start a company without standing for something and you need to keep growing. If you don’t advocate for the people in your community, you don’t have a stand in that community.
What do you stand for?
Visibility. Making sure that people feel seen in our society. That brands also are selling to my type of Norwegian. I want each and every Norwegian to be seen.
Just before our conversation, we read an article saying that Norwegians with a foreign name is 25% less likely to be invited for a job interview. Your thoughts?
I kind of understand. Maybe they are afraid of saying your name wrong. If your name is difficult it might be assumed that you are difficult. It’s a fear-based assumption.
Any brands that do it “right”?
IKEA. They do it very naturally. They did a thing with the Norwegian rapper Hkeem. They used Hkeem’s album release as a way of talking about IKEA sound. They organised a chat between Hkeem and his rapper friends just being themselves.
And brands that can do it better?
Norwegian brands think that they are diverse if they have a black dad and a white mum with their mixed-race kid in their ads. Where is the Pakistani, the Indian? They think they are diverse if they have a black person.
Business publications like Harvard Business Review and Forbes are writing a lot about Mindful Leadership these days, what are your thoughts?
One thing. How important it is for a person to feel comfortable by seeing other people with a minority background. If you are the only one you have more pressure. When you don’t feel comfortable, you change who you are. You adapt to fit in, you change to fit in. Companies should hire across the board. It creates a sense of comfort.
What do you think leaders need to think extra about these days?
They need to be more mindful of what people are capable of doing during the pandemic. I know several people who have worked very hard this year. People have been pushing their employees. That’s the wrong thing to do. Expecting big results is wrong when people are on the brink. The pandemic has made us vulnerable. This should be a group effort. Leaders need to pull their sleeves up and help out.
What is your relationship with plants?
I love aloe vera plants. Whenever I moved somewhere new, I always bought an aloe vera plant. It’s a plant that gives life. It has so many uses. It gives life to your house. If I burn my hand, I put aloe vera on it. You can use it for your skin, you can consume it. It’s very versatile!
The stretching
Almost one in five adults (19.2%) were likely to be experiencing some form of depression during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in June 2020 — What can leaders and employers do to combat this?
People should not have the same mindset as before. It’s not business as usual. Slow down, have fewer projects. Just because we are home doesn’t mean we are tired. People need to take care of their kids, their families.
It’s not business as usual. Thinking that is very inhumane.
Any final words you want to share?
Companies need to hire more young people, with a diverse background. People need to take that chance. And leaders should hire people that know more than themselves. Norwegians are different, but they are still Norwegian.
DAQANI was actually inspired by words from the Norwegian king’s speech in 2016.
Harald insisted Norwegians came not only “from north Norway, central Norway, southern Norway, and all the other regions”, but from “Afghanistan, Pakistan and Poland, from Sweden, Somalia and Syria” — The Guardian
See the speech in English here | https://medium.com/@equilmethod/awo-abdulqadir-ceo-founder-of-daqani-conversation-with-a-mindful-leader-68cf11d65a6f | ['Jonathan Sandoval Sjuls Thoresen'] | 2020-12-21 10:53:44.568000+00:00 | ['Consulting', 'Minfulness', 'Leadership', 'Management', 'Coaching'] |
Animated Video Scroll Render for Web with Bodymovin & ScrollMagic JS | Example video to animate
One of the current trending theme to get a slick looking product showcase on your website is using an animated scroll render, which you may have seen from Pixel and Apple.
In this article, I will outline the process which I was able to convert a mp4 product video into a scrollable animated version used to embed on a website.
The following softwares/plugins are required:
Adobe After Effects CC
Adobe Media Encoder or similar software that can convert video to image sequences
Bodymovin plugin (Installed through creative cloud marketplace or download from https://github.com/airbnb/lottie-web found in the build/extensions folder — Install using ZXP installer.
A code editor such as Visual Studio Code to write the necessary javascript
Step 1 — Create Image Sequence
Convert the video into an image sequence using Adobe Media Encoder. In the workspace click the plus icon under Queue to add the video file. Then in the preset browser, find Image Sequence > PNG or JPEG (match source) and drag and drop it over the queued video file to apply the preset. Set the output file path to a new folder and lastly, press the green play button to start the encoding process. This process should create frame snapshots of the entire video.
Adobe Media Encoder
Step 2 — Install Bodymovin Plugin
Install bodymovin plugin for After Effects. You can either install it through Creative Cloud marketplace plugins or download it directly and install it. In this article, version 5.3.1 is used.
Step 3 — Import into After Effects
Open Adobe After Effects and create a new project. Next drag and drop/import multiple files all the generated image sequence files into the asset panel in After Effects (This panel is usually found at the top left section).
Drag image files into asset panel
Once all images are loaded, you want to select all the images and drag it into the composition panel located just beneath. Doing so will trigger a popup to create a new composition from selection.
Input the setting as shown in the screenshot above. Press ok, and you should see all the image sequenced in order.
Step 4 — Export as JSON using Bodymovin
Go to Window — Extensions — Bodymovin to open the plugin. Select the current composition so that it shows a green circle.
Bodymovin plugin settings
For the settings, you want to enable Glyphs, Assets — Enable Compression (A value you desire), include in JSON and export mode using standard.
Set a destination output file and you’re ready to start rendering.
Note if the render fails, a fix which worked for me was to go to Preferences -> Scripting & Expressions -> Application Scripting and enable “Allow scripts to write files and access network”.
Step 5 — Import scripts into HTML Head
To create the animated scroll render on a website, a few libraries are required — ScrollMagic and Bodymovin Lottie. Paste those scripts in the head section of the HTML file.
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/ScrollMagic/2.0.7/ScrollMagic.min.js"></script> <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/ScrollMagic/2.0.7/plugins/animation.gsap.js" integrity="sha256-peenofh8a9TIqKdPKIeQE7mJvuwh+J0To7nslvpj1jI=" crossorigin="anonymous"></script> <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/bodymovin/5.7.3/lottie.min.js"></script>
Step 6- Create Container for Animation
The animation will be injected based on the element ID created in the HTML file. The class ‘intro’ here just modifies the container to be 100% width and 100% height. The element ID lottie is what will be referenced in the javascript to initialise the JSON file.
<section class="intro">
<div id="lottie"></div>
</section>
Step 7 — Initialise ScrollMagic and Bodymovin
In the javascript file you need to initalise ScrollMagic and Bodymovin. There are several options you can tweak such as the animation time which affects how fast or slow the frames will switch relative to the scroll height. Additionally you could add another animations to other DOM elements using ScrollMagic.
Step 8 — Appreciate the Scroll Magic
This is the result of the scroll render. Further optimisations to the animation time and frames per scroll will improve the smoothness of the frame switching.
The above demo Github can be found here. | https://medium.com/johnphungtech/animated-video-scroll-render-for-web-with-bodymovin-scrollmagic-js-9f8de0a494f4 | ['John Phung'] | 2020-10-12 03:47:45.644000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'HTML', 'Design', 'Scroll Render', 'Bodymovin'] |
OFFER AVAILABLE TO UNITED STATES CUSTOMERS ONLY! | OFFER AVAILABLE TO UNITED STATES CUSTOMERS ONLY!
THE RAW CONSERVATIVES STORE
GOLD AND SILVER PLATED PRESIDENT TRUMP 2020 COIN
Today's special promotion is offering a massive discount on this item.
President Trump 2020 Coin (Gold & Silver Plated) - Claim 1 Free OR Claim a Discount + Free Shipping
This coin is a symbol of President Trump's victory and success.
Highlights:
☀ Highest quality craftsmanship. Worthy of any collection.
☀ Excellent gift items... any real patriot would love this coin!
☀ SIZE - 1.5 Inches in Diameter and 1/8 inch thick. These are sizable coins, made to impress.
☀ QUALITY - "Proof-like" quality maintained inside a complementary plastic case.
☀ RISK FREE - Full and complete 60 Day Back Guarantee. If you are unhappy, you can request a full refund in the first 60 days.
☀ Free Shipment Insurance & Lifetime Warranty Replacement Plan To Protect Your Investment!
ORDER yours TODAY while supplies last.
What People Are Saying...
Customer Testimonials
I love the way it looks!
Trump Coin
"My coins just arrived and they look amazing! Thank you so much. Go Trump!"
Debbie B. from Texas
Thanks so much
Trump Coin
“I am so excited to own a part of history! These coins look fantastic.”
Mike W. from Arizona
Perfect gift
Trump Coin
“The coins arrived today and I just wanted to write in and tell you how impressed I am with the quality of these coins. They really exceeded my expectations.”
John k. from Ohio
SHIPPING INFORMATION
All orders are fulfilled from our warehouse in Colorado on average within 24 hours. Once shipped we'll send you a tracking link. Your items will be delivered by DHL, Fedex or UPS and should arrive in 3 business days.
OUR GUARANTEE
At Raw Conservatives Store, we truly offer the most stunning, trendy highest-quality products in the world.
We will do WHATEVER it takes with outstanding customer service support to assist everyone as we highly value our customer satisfaction with absolute ZERO risk.
We make sure that every customer is 110% satisfied in every aspect with 24/7/365 FAST SUPPORT!
Terms & Conditions |
Privacy |
Shipping |
Refunds
© 2021 Trump Coin, All rights reserved.
For Product Support, please contact the vendor HERE. For Order Support, please contact ClickBank HERE.
Unauthorized duplication or publication of any materials from this site is expressly prohibited.
The thoughts and opinions expressed here are those of the seller(s) alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Click Sales, Inc., its parents, subsidiaries or affiliates. The products, information, and other content provided by this seller are provided for informational purposes only. In the event of any problem with products that customers purchase through this seller, customers agree that their sole remedy is from the seller, if any, in accordance with any seller warranties and/or seller refund policy.
ClickBank is the retailer of products on this site. CLICKBANK® is a registered trademark of Click Sales Inc., a Delaware corporation located at 1444 S. Entertainment Ave., Suite 410 Boise, ID 83709, USA and used by permission. ClickBank's role as retailer does not constitute an endorsement, approval or review of these products or any claim, statement or opinion used in promotion of these products.
Learn access now | https://medium.com/@Rebirth_0006/offer-available-to-united-states-customers-only-7022e4b8baba | ["Rebecca John'S"] | 2021-09-15 00:45:03.554000+00:00 | ['Trump Administration', 'Trump', 'Trump Supporter', 'Trump Coin', 'President Trump'] |
Fight for 1 Point 5! Actions | FFF Activists strike at the Brandenburg Gate, Germany
December 12th marks the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement. But there is little cause for celebration. Every single government has failed to contribute to a 1.5°C pathway, and current measures are nowhere near ambitious enough to reach a 1.5°C limit. Continuing to move down this path places our environment at unacceptable risk and risks accelerating a degradation not only of our natural resources but also of human life.
It is of vital importance then, that we make a stand on this day and remind governments around the world that we have not forgotten the commitments made at Paris, the promises made and the astounding lack of progress seen. On these two days [11th and 12th] we call on everyone who has understood the urge to act and realises the necessity of action to #FightFor1Point5!
There are a number of offline and online actions you can take to ensure that governments are reminded that people will hold them accountable for their promises:
Offline
Light candles, use LEDs, or your phones to form the words “Fight for 1 Point 5” to demonstrate to governments that this is not a celebration, but a vigil for a planet increasingly being put at risk by governments that aren’t committed.
Social Media
Post pictures of your offline action and include the hashtag #FightFor1Point5 in the text
Connect with other actions worldwide and show each other support.
Add #FightFor1Point5 to your Profile Picture!
Watch out for infos and videos on Fridays for Future Social Media channels.
Online: | https://medium.com/fridays-for-future-digital/fight-for-1-point-5-actions-5b24341b59d6 | ['Fff Digital Team'] | 2020-12-12 13:02:38.503000+00:00 | ['Environment', 'Climate Change', 'Activism', 'Youth', 'Politics'] |
Benefits of buying Facebook ads accounts | Just to allow you to see how compelling Facebook is, 80% of Internet clients have Facebook accounts, even grown-ups more than 65 use it. That is the justification for why your organization could go to the smallest measure of a spot around the entire world. Then, we will uncover to you a few of the focuses that you might procure if you Buy Facebook ads Accounts.
Client relationship
Facebook advertisement records will place You in more critical contact with your own clients; know precisely what you sell, the items, or even maybe the administrations. It can empower you to have high legitimacy.
Worth-of-mouth advancement
Facebook is a broad Community; clients will begin to spread the data to a lot more individuals. Your administrations and items, your titles, and furthermore your entire group can continue viral.
Focusing on
When You Select the Form of Account, you are probably going to get; you’ll direct your buy to a particular goal. This will be reliant upon the interest of your organization. You will get more profiles and customers of all similar individuals.
Site Traffic Campaigns
On the off chance that you Have a little business or you are a beginner, the Facebook ads account has an awesome highlight to serve you. A specific kind of advertisement urges your customers to tap on your site. It focuses exclusively on boosting the traffic of one’s site. For driving business holders, It’s an incredible chance to advance your organization and furthermore to check your essence
Constant
Those reports will assist you to get assessments continuously With the shoppers. You will get the opportunity to fix bunches of worries at the best second.
Raise Your imminent purchasers
As we have referenced, Facebook brings an objective basically the same as yours. At whatever point these profiles show up on the page, you’ll learn fundamental information identifying with them. This implies you will actually want to know about their preferences, interests, affinities, and numerous others. You might make techniques for this sort of crowd.
Marking
Due to How your Brand will be referred to in many profiles, an expanding number of people will see your news, and you will get planned customers later on. Your image will be altogether more named on the web.
Topographical Localized Advertisements
Additionally, when buying Facebook Ads Accounts, It’s critical to keep At heart that you can acquire accounts that are close to your district. Moreover, you could get reports from all the states you need.
Advancing Your Business
Regardless, in case you are keen on Promoting any firm utilizing some of the most famous stages, Facebook, you should purchase Facebook ads accounts. Because of the openness that the cultural media gives their clients, making movement and getting the most potential customers to their business has gotten truly basic.
Develop Potential Buyers
Facebook lead commercials let you translate the treats of your interest groups. At the point when your crowd concerns their own page and tests out the product. You’re ready to become acquainted with some close-to-home information about them. Accordingly, it’s feasible to know their ability, their inclination, and consideration. You can put together your Content, contingent upon this data. | https://medium.com/@tshieladtrotter/benefits-of-buying-facebook-ads-accounts-cd980482f661 | ['Shiela D. Trotter'] | 2021-12-28 11:11:48.465000+00:00 | ['Facebook Ads', 'Marketing', 'Business', 'Buy Facebook Ads Accounts', 'Facebook Marketing'] |
Facebook advertising is getting worse. How to solve it? | When we were doing Facebook advertising, did we find that the cost of each click began to rise and the frequency of advertising continued to rise after only a few days of Facebook advertising.
In other words, you often find that your advertising effect will gradually become worse and worse. So why is this?
I think there are a few points:
First: From the perspective of Facebook, it is impossible for an advertisement to perform well all the time. If an advertisement can always perform very well, then Facebook will make less money.
You may be wondering, why users’ ads have been performing well, but not what Facebook likes?
It pays attention to a degree, no advertisement can perform well from the end, and the product has a life cycle, so is the advertisement, right?
Second: From the user’s point of view, many times the user’s aesthetics will be fatigued. For example, if you see an advertisement every day, it will be really annoying.
Now that information is flooded, who can withstand the bombardment of advertisements several times in succession is because the aesthetic fatigue of advertisements will cause the effects of advertisements to become worse and worse.
So if we look at the data from a data point of view, open the development of Facebook’s advertising data background, we can find the following data:
As shown in the figure above, if you see similar data in the Facebook Ads Manager, most of your ads have entered a period of fatigue.
Okay, then today we will talk about Facebook advertising, how to improve the efficiency decline caused by advertising fatigue.
01 Reasons and results of advertising fatigue
Q: What is advertising fatigue?
A: Facebook advertising fatigue is a phenomenon in which ads have been shown to the target audience many times, the frequency of ad display has increased, and the click-through rate of ads has decreased.
Q: Why is there advertising fatigue?
A: The reason why advertisements cause audience fatigue is because:
1. The ad is displayed too frequently, causing users to see this ad every time they log in to Facebook
2. Ads are competing with the photos and status on the user’s News Feeds
3. The advertising audience is already familiar with an advertisement and no longer feels fresh, so the click-through rate will drop
Q: Advertising fatigue will reduce the relevance score. What if the relevance score is low?
A: It will increase the cost per thousand impressions and the cost per search result. It will ultimately reduce the number of results obtained by the campaign, thereby reducing the overall return on ad spend (ROAs).
02 FB advertising performance indicators
Monitoring the effectiveness of ads in Facebook Ads Manager mainly focuses on three indicators:
1. Frequency
Frequency is how many times the audience will see your ad. If this number exceeds 3, then you should consider changing the creative.
To view the frequency of the ad, in the Ads Manager, click on the campaign and select the delivery view in the report section.
When the click-through rate drops and the frequency rises, it means that the same group of people are watching your ad repeatedly but not taking action.
When the ad is displayed, people who have clicked on the ad are less likely to click, and those who have not clicked will still not click, so the ad has actually saturated the target market.
2. Operational behavior
What are the actions taken by the advertisement? Within 24 hours after viewing the advertisement, or within 28 days after clicking the advertisement, you can get discounts, click links, install apps, like pages, send activities, etc.
If you want a higher conversion rate, then operational behavior is a very important indicator. You can use conversion tracking tools to track and understand.
3. Click rate
The CTR is calculated by dividing the number of times a user clicks on an ad by the number of times the ad is displayed.
Click-through rate is an important indicator of advertising fatigue. Through these two indicators, click-through rate and frequency, you can find the click-through rate and frequency that suit you, and you can determine when you need to rotate the creative.
Of course, you can also pay attention to other indicators, such as: CPM, ROAs, correlation.
You can use the Facebook ads cost analysis tool-ADCostly to view the average CTR, CPA, and CPM costs of different industries and publishers.
Of course, you also need some Google extensions to help you quickly calculate these indicators: CPC, CPM, CPA, ROI, Roas.
CPC & CPM Calculator
ROI & ROAS Calculator
Every advertisement that runs will eventually fatigue. If Facebook ads enter a period of fatigue, how can they be adjusted and resolved to restore the effectiveness of the ads?
Since advertising fatigue means that the advertisement is displayed to the target audience many times, then we can set some conditions in the facebook advertisement manager to limit the number of times that the advertisement is displayed to the same audience.
In addition, you can also use advertising rotation strategies to optimize advertising effects and solve the problem of advertising fatigue. Overcome advertising fatigue through advertising rotation strategies.
Because users are prone to fatigue after seeing an advertisement for a long time, by rotating advertisements, so that the advertisements continue to have some new ideas, it can effectively solve the problem of advertisement fatigue. It is best to use a rotation strategy as soon as the advertisement shows signs of fatigue.
03 Solutions to audience fatigue
If an advertisement is displayed for the same group of people for a long time, then they are easy to feel tired, so to keep the advertisement fresh to the audience, some methods are needed.
1. Use reach coverage targets
When starting to create a Facebook ad, set the ad goal to reach to reduce the chance of ad fatigue.
The goal of the campaign, Reach, means that the ads will reach as many people as possible, and the ads will be distributed to as many people as possible, so the chance of advertising fatigue is even smaller.
2. Set frequency cap
A sign of audience fatigue is that advertisements are displayed too frequently, so by setting a frequency cap and limiting the frequency with which the selected audience sees your advertisement, audience fatigue can be avoided.
To set the frequency cap, select the setting here in frequency cap.
3. Exclude people who have participated in advertising
Because when the frequency of the advertisement increases, the audience may have seen the advertisement over and over again. If these people can be excluded, the fatigue of the advertisement will be reduced.
First, use the Facebook pixel to create a custom audience, users who have visited the site in the past 60 days; you can also create a separate list of people who have recently registered for the service or filled out forms.
Then, use Facebook Ads Manager to exclude audiences who have clicked on ads from the target list, and only serve ads to audiences who have not clicked on ads.
4. Change the background color to show different visual effects
We all know that Facebook’s ad color scheme is blue and white. You should avoid using the same color scheme when creating ads, otherwise it is easy to be submerged in newsfeed and ignored by the audience.
Therefore, the color scheme used in our advertisement should be conspicuous enough. If it is a blue advertisement, at least the advertisement should be placed on a colored background to attract attention.
Different colors can cause different emotions. Blue makes people feel calm, yellow makes people feel happy, and green is a feeling of vitality. The use of different colors in advertisements will give people different psychological effects.
Use advertisements with different visual effects to do a separate test to find the best advertisement. The frequency of advertisements should be kept between 2.5–3.
5. Use different copywriting
Modify the copy, use brand titles, call-to-actions, and question sentences in the copy. However, the title of the copy should be within 25 characters, the main text should be limited to 90 characters, and the language that can directly talk to the target audience can be used to better attract them.
Everyone will be more interested in humorous content. There are more humorous elements in the advertising copy and wording, which is very helpful to enhance the advertising effect. Therefore, a little modification of the copy can make the advertisement more attractive.
6. Keep the picture concise and easier to understand
It is recommended that the advertisement pictures should be kept concise. For details, you can refer to several aspects:
Choose a picture that catches the eye, and the visual effects of zooming in, zooming out, or zooming in are good.
Do not include text in the picture. Avoid using pictures with many details
Pay attention to separate test ad pictures to see which picture works better.
This picture looks good whether it is full-size or thumbnail. There are not many details on the picture. The model looks very charming with these glasses. This image ad can produce some conversion materials, such as:
For male audience statistics, you can separately test a picture of the same pose but a male model;
The focus of the picture is on the eyes and glasses, with eyebrows raised
The content of the picture is a pair of broken glasses with humorous questions in the text or title.
7. Use a clear call to action to ensure that the ad is informative
The advertisement must have a clear call to action, otherwise the effect of the advertisement will be greatly reduced. When testing different creatives and finding the most suitable rotation ads, test at least 5–6 calls to action.
Example: Sign up for our 6-week SEO accreditation course now This call-to-action can derive many variations, as shown below:
1. Spots for our SEO Accreditation course are disappearing fast. Enter now! 2. Need a resume boost? Earn SEO Accreditation with AcmeCert! 3. Now until September 31st — save 50% on our SEO Accreditation course 4. Optimize your company’s internet presence with SEO Accreditation. Apply now! 5. Boss breathing down your neck about ROI? Sign up for our 6-week SEO Accreditation
In addition to making some changes to the advertising elements, you can also change the target audience.
If you are very optimistic about your creative, but the click-through rate is still decreasing and the frequency is still increasing, try to change the target audience statistics before publishing the ad.
Changing the target audience can minimize advertising fatigue while maintaining a stable click volume.
My own experience is that changing the target audience is very useful for Facebook contest ads. Because competitions are very attractive, changing advertising audiences can keep competitions attractive and avoid advertising fatigue or a drop in click-through rates.
8. Increase the value of advertising offers
We can also increase the attractiveness of advertising by increasing the value of advertising offers. You can also conduct separate tests for different advertising offers, so that we know which offer has the best effect.
For example, for the New York Times subscription discount, the first offer is “99 cents for 4 weeks”, and the second offer is “free use for 8 weeks”. The appreciation of this discount will have a great impact. Because after everyone has a comparison, it is easy to make a decision.
9. Change ad placement
An ad set uses desktop, mobile devices, and audience network (Audience Network) placements at the same time. Each ad will have more likes and shares.
But this will also allow Facebook to do automatic optimization, and then all budgets will be inclined to the lowest CPM placement.
For example, if the CPC of your ads displayed on the Audience Network is significantly reduced, then Facebook will allocate more budget to this placement.
If you want to use multiple ad placements, create a separate ad group for each placement, copy the ad group and assign a different placement to each ad group.
10. Connect with customers
By providing the audience with valuable information and useful guidelines, rather than direct sales promotion, customers can build interest and trust in the brand.
There is a saying that the best way to sell is not to sell. That is to say the truth.
If you use Facebook ads for direct sales on the one hand, and use it to cultivate potential customers and establish connections with customers, you can make full use of Facebook ads to achieve your dual advertising goals.
There are many ways to achieve this effect, such as creating e-books, sharing blogs, and giving away completely different types of products. Using these methods to increase customer subscriptions will help increase potential customers, build brand awareness, and promote sales.
The above are some methods to solve Facebook advertising fatigue. The first three methods are to control the speed of advertising fatigue by setting Facebook ads, and the latter method is to overcome advertising fatigue by rotating advertising materials. You can use the A/B test to see which method is more effective. | https://medium.com/plus-marketing/facebook-advertising-is-getting-worse-how-to-solve-it-b0d3634c5ef0 | ['Jakeson Christopher'] | 2020-12-02 20:52:00.276000+00:00 | ['Advertising', 'Facebook Marketing', 'PPC Marketing', 'Facebook Ads', 'Plus Marketing'] |
Why online shopping is bette By Storecaff? | Storecaff is an online shopping platform it-self. So the question is how it is benefiting us? If you think about it, it is benefiting us in so many ways. It is a store of thousands of products which means it is giving you thousands of options to choose from different sections. You don’t need to sweat yourself to get something, all you need to do is click on the product and fill up all simple procedures then place your order. Isn’t it a simple thing to do?
Why you use storecaff.com?
I say why not It ? It has thousands of high-quality products from all over the world with great discounts.
Additional Products:
It’s a fact that it has a bigger measure of stock online products. Because of the limit of stockrooms and the space imperatives of neighborhood stores, you can regularly get to a lot bigger scope of items on the web, and search catches make it significantly simpler.
Home Delivery:
In the event that you request items from actual stores or to choose to shop available, you should make an additional excursion to the store being referred to. Perhaps the best component of buying, in any case, is that you can get items conveyed directly to your home or a PO box, which is a decent choice for those without places of residence, for example, military staff.
Efficient:
The most advantageous part of the web is now is the ideal time-saving nature, making shop Itideal for those people whose bustling ways of life keep them from visiting the high road consistently. As opposed to going through hours perusing numerous shops, you can purchase items in two or three ticks on online shopping.
24/7 SHOPPING:
A very beneficial factor for working grown-ups is the capacity to shop 24 hours every day and 7 days per week. Where once you needed to stand by until the end of the week or rush after work to purchase the items through purchase that you need, you presently have these items readily available at whatever point you need them. As opposed to needing to stand by until your free day to visit a mall, you would now be able to get to stores from the web whenever of the day or night.
No Need to Rush to Shop Centers
In the event that you discover the tumult of strip malls unsettling, you would now be able to try not to shop focuses out and out with the capacity to purchase items on the web. In addition to the fact that this is invaluable for people who may discover strip malls distressing and disorientating, for example, those with psychological wellness issues or tactile preparing messes, however, it implies that you can shop from any area. This is a particularly superb open door around enormous celebrations, for example, Christmas, where strip malls can get swarmed and the stock accessible in-store might be decreased.
Get What You Want:
Have you ever been shopping and battled to discover precisely what you need? This is currently not an issue for customers because of the simple availability of the web. Utilizing online business stores, it is presently snappy and simple to peruse many items surprisingly fast to discover precisely what you need. With the expansion of search capacities on internet business stores and web indexes, for example, Google and Bing, you would now be able to discover the items and vendors that have the item that you need in-stock without perusing potential areas that might not have the specific thing that you want.
More Information:
The item portrayals on the things that you are purchasing additionally give you a more precise portrayal of the item itself than the names coming up. For example, on the off chance that you needed to discover more about the morals of the organization being referred to, you could get to the entirety of this data on the web, a viewpoint which you would not usually have the option to discover in stores. You will likewise have the option to discover online surveys on internet business stores or audit locales that detail the nature of the item being referred to from a genuine client’s experience.
More Variety of Brands:
This, yet there are countless brands online that don’t, or can’t bear to, have actual stores. For example, on the off chance that you live in an unassuming community, you may just approach bigger brands instead of autonomous organizations that might bear some significance. There are additionally numerous more modest brands that exist as online-just web-based business stores, for example, free retailers and art merchants, who can furnish you with extraordinary and singular products that you would not have the option to discover on the high road.
So there are lots of benefits in get so don’t waste your time switch to anything else but shop online at Storecaff and browse thousand of times from lots of categories. | https://medium.com/@storecaff554/why-online-shopping-is-bette-by-storecaff-49384925ddf0 | [] | 2020-12-17 06:45:56.786000+00:00 | ['Shop Online', 'Storecaff', 'Ecommerce', 'Online Shopping', 'Shopping'] |
Logistic Regression to Predict Extra Marital Affair | Overview :
The dataset I chose is the affairs dataset that comes with Stats models. It was derived from a survey of women in 1974 by Red book magazine, in which married women were asked about their participation in extramarital affairs.I decided to treat this as a classification problem by creating a new binary variable affair (did the woman have at least one affair?) and trying to predict the classification for each woman.Variables that is present in the dataset for prediction are :-rate_marriage(women’s rating for her marriage) ,age(women’s age),yrs_married(number of years married), children(no. of children she has),religious(on the scale of 1 -5 whether she believe in religion or not),education(level of education), occupation ,occupation of husband, affairs
Step 1 : Importing all the essential libraries and acquiring data set
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import statsmodels.api as sm
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
from patsy import dmatrices
from sklearn.linear_model import LogisticRegression
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
from sklearn import metrics
Affair dataset is present inside the stats models ,so we will be going to extract that library.
df=sm.datasets.fair.load_pandas().data
df.head()
output of first five rows
Step 2 : Data Preprocessing
We want to make it classification problem for that we need to convert target variable (affairs) into binary class where if the value will be 0 then women had no any affair and 1 means women had been involved in several extra marital affairs.
(df.affairs>0).astype(int)#converting into binary features
df.affairs.unique() [out]>> array([1, 0], dtype=int64)
Here we will use pasty.dmatrices, it’s main task is to analyze the independent variable and dependent variable and add some data if it is needed based on target variable.
y,X=dmatrices(affairs~rate_marriage + age + yrs_married + children + religious + educ + C(occupation)+C(occupation_husb)',df
return_type="dataframe")
x.head()
Output of first five rows
Renaming the features present in X so that it can be understandable by all.
X = X.rename(columns ={'C(occupation)[1.0]':'occ_1','C(occupation)[2.0]':'occ_2','C(occupation)[3.0]' : 'occ_3' ,'C(occupation[4.0]' : 'occ_4','C(occupation[5.0]':'occ_5','C(occupation)[6.0]':'occ_6',
'C(occupation_husb)[T.2.0]':'occ_husb_2', 'C(occupation_husb[T.3.0]' :'occ_husb_3','C(occupation_husb)[T.4.0]':'occ_husb_4' , 'C(occupation_husb)[T.5.0]':'occ_husb_5', 'C(occupation_husb)[T.6.0]':'occ_husb_6'})
X.head()
output of renamed X
Checking is there any null value present in dataset or not .
df=pd.concat([X,y],axis=1)
df.isnull().values.any() [out]>> False #no null value present in dataset
Now next step would be to check whether the dataset is balanced or not.
print(df[df["affairs"]==0].shape)
print(df[df["affairs"]==1].shape) [out]>> (4313, 18)
(2053, 18)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
plt.figure(figsize=(8,6))
sns.set_style("darkgrid")
sns.countplot(np.ravel(y))
plt.yticks(range(0,5000,250))
plt.show()
Figure 1
As we see the visual the dataset is imbalanced because class 0 is almost double of class 1 . we will do up sampling to balance the dataset.
from imblearn.random_sampling import RandomOverSampler
rdm=RandomOverSampler()
X,y=rdm.fit_sample(X,y)
df=pd.concat([X,y],axis=1) #updating the balanced form of dataset
print(df[df["affairs"]==0].shape)
print(df[df["affairs"]==1].shape) [out]>> (4313, 18)
(4313, 18) --------------------------------------------------------------------
plt.figure(figsize=(8,6))
sns.set_style("darkgrid")
sns.countplot(np.ravel(y))# converting y into array form to plot
plt.yticks(range(0,5000,250))
plt.show()
Figure 2
Statistical Description of data
df.describe()
Statistical description
Step 3 : Data Visualization
How children affects the husband-wife relationship.
plt.figure(figsize=(8,6))
sns.set_style("darkgrid")
sns.countplot("children",data=df,hue="affairs")
plt.title("How children affects marriage")
plt.show()
Figure 3
How years of marriage affects extra married life.
Figure 5
As the married couple spend more and more years together there would be great chance that his wife would be in extra marital relation.Best result of trust and negligible extra marital affair seen in newly married couple.
How women rate their married life on a scale of 1 to 5.
plt.figure(figsize=(8,6))
plt.hist(df["rate_marriage"])
plt.xlabel("Marriage rating",fontsize=20)
plt.ylabel("count",fontsize=20)
plt.show()
Figure 6
From above figure we can say large bunch of women is satisfied with their married life irrespective of their affairs.
Let’s see how education make an impact on married life
plt.figure(figsize=(8,6))
sns.set_style("darkgrid")
sns.countplot("educ",hue="affairs",data=df,order=df["educ"].value_counts().index)
plt.xlabel("education",fontsize=20)
plt.ylabel("count",fontsize=20)
plt.show()
Figure 7
Women who is doing white collar jobs having less chance of affair and women with graduation and higher educational background also has less chance of affair but for those women who is in college and have lower literacy has shown more interest in extra marital affairs.
How the marriage of women affect by religiousness
plt.figure(figsize=(8,6))
sns.set_style("darkgrid")
sns.countplot("religious",hue="affairs",data=df)
plt.xlabel("religious",fontsize=20)
plt.ylabel("count",fontsize=20)
plt.show()
Figure 7
More the women will be religious lesser will be the chance that women will have extra marital affair.
Step 4 : Modeling
splitting the data into train and test set
x_train,x_test,y_train,y_test=train_test_split(X,y,test_size=0.2,random_state=1)
print(x_train.shape)
print(y_train.shape)
print(x_test.shape)
print(y_test.shape) [out]>> (6900, 17)
(6900, 1)
(1726, 17)
(1726, 1)
Making model and doing prediction
clf=LogisticRegression()
clf.fit(x_train,y_train)
y_predicted=clf.predict(x_test)
y_train_predicted=clf.predict(x_train)
Step 5 : Evaluation
from sklearn.metrics import accuracy_score, confusion_matrix,roc_curve,classification_report
print("train set accuracy score: ",accuracy_score(y_train,y_train_predicted))
print("test set accuracy score :", accuracy_score(y_test,y_predicted)) [out] >> train set accuracy score: 0.6918840579710145
test set accuracy score : 0.6853997682502897
As we see there is not large deviation between dataset hence model is in normal state.
Accuracy matrix to check TP ,TN ,FP ,FN values.
ax=splt.metrics.plot_confusion_matrix(y_test,y_predicted,text_fontsize="large",figsize=(8,6))
plt.xlabel("Predicted label",fontsize=20)
plt.ylabel("True label",fontsize=20)
bottom, top = ax.get_ylim()
ax.set_ylim(bottom + 0.5, top - 0.5)
plt.show()
Figure 8
Here we should be careful about FP because our model will predict the women having affair but in actual she won’t have any affair which may leads to divorce for the mistake she has not done so we should show some carefulness about FP value when we are dealing with such sensitive kind of prediction.
Finding Precision,Recall F1- Score
from sklearn.metrics import classification_report
print(classification_report(y_test,y_predicted))
Figure 9
ROC CURVE
pred_probab=clf.predict_proba(x_test)
splt.metrics.plot_roc_curve(y_test,pred_probab,text_fontsize="large",figsize=(8,6))
Figure 10
Final Testing of Model :
print("Prediction chance of your model :")
print(clf.predict_proba(np.array([[0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,0,4,32,5,2,3,17]]))*100)
Prediction chance for the upper given test set is 27.7 percent and the predicted result would be;
print("your prediction is :",clf.predict(np.array([[0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,0,4,32,5,2,3,17]]))) [out] >> your prediction is : [0.]
Prediction result for given data is that the women doesn’t have affair.
Conclusion :
Hope this blog gave you better idea about how logistic regression works in classification problem . Keep Learning Keep Exploring ……… | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/logistic-regression-to-predict-extra-marital-affair-68ae98bc0e4f | ['Akhil Anand'] | 2020-12-22 16:30:03.335000+00:00 | ['Machie Learning', 'Predictions', 'Data Science', 'Logistic Regression'] |
How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Graphic Designer for a Logo? | Great visual design appeals to the eye of aesthetics. It is only possible if you know how to put emotions merely in a picture. So, be it business cards or product logos, you need to send the right message to the audience.
Therefore, the graphic designer is the guy for you to connect your brand with people.
Remember that it is essential for creating a brand identity. This particular person will be the one giving you a high route to connect with your customers through accurate visuals. So, in the times of digital ventures, you need an experienced graphic designer to design the most amazing logo for you.
If you have a brilliant idea in mind, but your logo seems to be disconnected. It might not leave a huge impact on people. So, if you want to make some real effort, you need a graphic designer with flawless expertise in it. Now, the question is that if you are ready to invest in it. And if you have to calculate the budget how would you manage it?
What Do You Need to Look for a Graphic Designer?
While you are working and choosing a graphic designer to offer you a good design of the logo. Before jumping into the cost of a logo designer, you need some solid considerations. So, for your ease, some of the factors are discussed below that will help with the calculation of a budget you need to put aside for a logo.
1. Experience
The first thing to focus on hiring a logo designer is his experience with the industry.
And a great designed logo is no less than a treat for a business starter.
However, the novice is also talented in many cases, but if you go for an experience, you will have to pay for all years of sweat and tears too. However, with a novice, you can always limit your budget by judging their adaptability and understanding of graphic design.
2. Reputation
Hiring a graphic designer requires more than just talk. It needs a person whose creativity is polished and understands the business dynamics too. So, reputation matters for that sake. You can’t have someone as a part of your team for the sake of having one.
3. Work demand
Next thing that you need to keep in mind as an important factor is the kind of work and demand. You must understand that these creative minds need their time and pace to think and brainstorm before they can come up with any ideas.
4. Constantly Learning
One of the important traits you need to find in a graphic designer is the one who constantly learning and improving his skill. They always deliver quality work since they know the latest trends in the industry.
5. Project on Time
Nobody wants to hire a graphic designer who can’t deliver projects on time due to procrastination or any other lame excuses. He must be professional and can work under pressure.
Cost Breakdown for Hiring a Graphic Designer
If you are already running a full-fledged business, you would know many different types of resources, for example, in-house or freelancers.
For one-time work, you may just need a freelancer to design a logo. So, the cost of a logo designer will vary and will totally depend on the type of work you need and the time or expertise it will require.
According to the freelancer, the following is the cost breakdown for hiring a graphic designer:
SolutionCostIn-house graphic designer$30,000 to $60,000 USD per yearDesign agencyDepends on the service, but agencies generally charge around $85–$100 USD per hourSoftware as a Solution (SaaS)Canva’s premium plan is $9.95 USD per monthFreelance graphic designerThe average project on Freelancer is completed for $140 USD
However, this is the cost of a generic graphic designer for social media banners is not a logo designer. If you are looking for the designer to design your logo, the following is some of the information you need to know.
Cost for Good Logo Design — Factors to Impact the Cost
A good logo design cost can be around $300-$1300 and the price range will vary as per the requirement of the quality of a logo. You might need to consider that either it is for a small business, a huge organization, and also the products and services. Moreover, you will need to consider the following main factors while considering your price points for a graphic designer.
A logo might just cost you around $10-$50 if you just need a generic type of logo. It can be made through online platforms.
If you hire a professional designer, it can cost you around $300 to $800. They will offer you seamless quality. Mostly you will find a freelance designer with a smaller portfolio. They can be surprisingly talented too (if given a chance).
If you are hiring a person with more professional experience and expertise, it will cost you around $800-$2,500.
Lastly, you can hire an agency with a team of designers and guaranteed creative strategies. However, they are costly and will charge more than $2,500.
Now, it is up to you. You must figure out where your company stands. The position of your company in terms of both budget and quality will further define your option for hiring a logo designer.
You can also go for as low as $300, but you might not get the better quality for going lower than that. So, having an open budget may benefit you in the long term. Plus, once your company starts bearing the cost of resources, you can always have an in-house designer to relaunch your final logo. Still, the initial impact is always more powerful than anything else.
Summing up
In the end, right now freelancers are more in demand. Multinational companies do have a team of professional and experienced designers including the sketchers to perform all designing jobs.
But still, many companies with a limited budget or vast goals lookout for more talent. We understand the need for creativity is in demand and to fulfill the space, we need more brilliant people in it.
However, if you want a logo design working from the professional, you need to go for a bigger budget.
But before going down that road, you must have a clear mindset about the needs of your company and the way people will respond. So, understand the process and decide your options accordingly. | https://medium.com/@santagraphics/cost-to-hire-a-graphic-designer-162c31af795e | ['Michael Frazier'] | 2020-05-20 04:12:45.907000+00:00 | ['Hire Graphics Designer', 'Company', 'Graphic Designer', 'Logo'] |
The Cost of… | Over the next few days or weeks, I will be writing about “The Cost of…” The cost of doing something, the cost of not doing something. The cost of starting, the cost of not starting…, and so on. But today we start with just “the cost of…”
We don’t automatically think that there is a cost of doing something. We just do it and that’s it. It’s part of our job, our life, our relationships. We just take action each and every day. What would happen, what might change if we first thought of the cost of doing that something?
The Cost of…getting up 30 minutes earlier each morning
The Cost of…having a morning routine
The Cost of…taking out the garbage
The Cost of…having a glass of water in the morning
The Cost of…journaling
The Cost of…being tolerant of others
The Cost of…listening without judgment
The Cost of…gossiping
The Cost of…procrastination
The Cost of…being impatient with anyone
The Cost of…running a red light
The Cost of…texting while driving
The Cost of…exercising
The Cost of…isolation
The Cost of…Solitude
The Cost of…kindness
The Cost of…watching the sunrise in the morning
The Cost of…watching children play in the sand
The Cost of…hate
The Cost of…being a bully
The Cost of…vanity
The Cost of…doing well in school
The Cost of…CHANGE
The Cost of…Staying the same
The Cost of…bad habits
The Cost of…poverty
The Cost of…wealth
The Cost of…helping others
The Cost of…being a good friend
The Cost of…having toxic people in your life
The Cost of…Not asking for help
The Cost of…putting your head in the sand
The Cost of…spending foolishly
The Cost of…giving gifts
The Cost of…homelessness
The Cost of…hunger
The Cost of…waste
The Cost of…war
The Cost of…peace
The Cost of…denial
The Cost of…EGO
The Cost of…
…Continue the list…
Joshua | https://medium.com/@jericho-tl/the-cost-of-ad1f32bba06e | ['Joshua Gold'] | 2020-12-26 13:39:24.003000+00:00 | ['Thoughts And Ideas', 'Insights', 'Clarity', 'Decision Making', 'Coaching'] |
Defining and Collecting Data | Given a business problem to solve, you should identify, define, and collect the data that would help you solve the business problem.
Defining Variables:
Types of variables:
Numerical: example: time(continuous), Football goals(Descrete) Categorical: example: Gender, City, Country
Measurement scales:
Nominal → Ordinal or Rank Data → Interval → Ratio
Information content increases from left to right.
Collecting Data:
Data Sources:
Primary data: If you collect data on your own for analysis
Secondary data: If someone else collected data for you to analyze
Data distributed by an organization or individual
The outcomes of a designed experiment
The responses from a survey
The results of conducting an observational study
Data collected by ongoing business activities
Population and Samples:
Analysis of variables, when done on a population, are called parameters.
Analysis of variables, when done on a sample, is called statistics.
Data Cleaning:
Missing values, outliers treatment, etc.
Recording variables:
Mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive(MECE)
Types of Sampling Methods:
types of sampling methods
Simple Random Sample:
Same chance of selection of each item
Disadv: Often subject to more variation than other sampling methods
Disadv: On large sample/frame its time consuming and expensive
Can be done with the replacement or without replacement of the item
Systematic Sample:
systematic sampling
Divide into frames of k times each. If k is not an integer then round off to the next nearest integer. Choose the 1st item to be selected at random from the 1st k item in a frame. Then you select the remaining n-1 items by taking every kth item thereafter from the entire frame.
Adv: Prepared when frame consists of pre-numbered checks, sales receipts, or invoices, etc.. (Faster and easier than the random sample)
Disadv: Prone to selection bias
Stratified Sample:
Divide into frames of sub-population → “strata”
Select a simple random sample within each “strata”
More efficient than simple random and systematic sampling
Can also be expensive and clear “strata” need to be defined like Gender, Year, Country, etc.
Cluster Sample:
Divide N items in the frame into clusters that contain several items
Clusters are naturally occurring groups like countries, districts, cities, etc.
Take a random sample of each one or more clusters and study all items in each selected cluster
Requires a large sample size to produce precise results
Cost efficient
Types of Survey Errors:
Coverage Error: If a certain group of items is excluded from the frame/sample. Causes selection bias
Nonresponse error: Due to the failure to collect data on all items in the sample. Causes non-response bias.
Sampling error: Reflects the variation or “chance difference” from sample to sample. Can be reduced by using a large enough sample.
Measurement error: Vague questions in a survey that can not be measured. | https://medium.com/the-data-bus/defining-and-collecting-data-73d8c4c4e155 | ['Mradul Dwivedi'] | 2020-12-25 20:26:42.170000+00:00 | ['Collection', 'Data Science', 'Summary', 'Beginner', 'Statistics'] |
Surprising things about Elixir Documentation for a Rubyist | Surprising things about Elixir Documentation for a Rubyist Spec Follow Jul 13 · 3 min read
I was not expecting to be ecstatic about documentation! 🤣
I’ve just started reading Programming Elixir 1.6 and just within the introduction, my mind has been blown! I’m VERY hyped about Elixir already.
Documentation to hand
There are documentation lookups in just a default iex session (the equivalent of ruby irb )! I’m so used to googling documentation for ruby and hunting down the right versions, this is SUCH a timesaver, and it’s simple to use:
$ iex
> h # Main help guide
> h(Enum) # Module documentation
> h(Enum.map) # Method documentation
> h(Enum.reverse/1) # Method documentation
A method signature includes it’s arity (how many arguments it accepts), so:
Enum.reverse/1 takes one argument
takes one argument Enum.reverse/2 takes two arguments
And each one of these methods have it’s own documentation entry, but not only this, the entry is succinct but also full of info and MOAR surprises….
Typespecs
The documentation has TYPE information! Researching this, it’s not used by the compiler, but can be used by other tools to find bugs and also just be super useful information to have about your code for others using it.
This example is defining a new type called word() which is a string, and the method long_word? takes a word() and returns a boolean() — Niiiiice!
This reminds me of a several initiatives in Ruby for bringing in type checking which are still in the land of early-adopters, so I was not expecting Elixir to have this in it’s CORE module documentation — very impressed.
Doctests
Hold the p h o n e.
Elixir documentation has executable TESTS… I’m speechless. Well only briefly, I have a bunch of questions about this!
Having testable documentation for tooling makes a ton of sense. You have a solid contract between the executing code of a dynamic language and it’s documentation.
But how applicable is this for your everyday coding in your apps?
If you have documentation tests and a separate testing suite:
How much do you put in the documentation and what do you leave purely for unit tests?
Do you ever get duplication and if so, is that OK?
How much use is the versioning declaration, the @moduledoc since: "1.0.0" bit? 🤔
I’d love to know how best to use this feature. Documenting and testing ❤️
Update
José very kindly responded to my questions on Twitter:
So Doctests really are just that: ‘tests for the documentation’ not ‘tests for the actual code’, and there should be no consideration towards test coverage with these. Gotcha 🎉
It hadn’t clicked that this since was pointing to the Elixir version required! This is epic though, because you can infer what version is needed rather than a loosely defined (or guessed) version in a Gemfile/gemspec ruby file 👏👏
Elixir is playing at an elite level with the documentation game 🙇 | https://medium.com/nerd-for-tech/surprising-things-about-elixir-documentation-for-a-rubyist-8743283e7f63 | [] | 2021-07-15 09:41:22.074000+00:00 | ['Ruby', 'Programming', 'Elixir', 'Coding', 'Documentation'] |
I Just Received the Smartest $1.5 Million Email (Case Study) | The Six Principles of Influence
The six principles of influence are:
Reciprocity
Commitment and consistency
Social proof
Authority
Liking
Scarcity
Let’s look at how the email follows each of these principles:
Reciprocity — the $5 credit
The principle of reciprocity was first outlined by the social anthropologist Marcel Mauss in his 1925 essay The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. Mauss’s key point was that a gift comes with an assumption of reciprocity. In other words, when you receive a gift from someone, you’ll likely feel obligated to give back.
In the email above, I’m given a $5 credit in reciprocity for the fact that I already took an interest in the business (I backed one of their previous campaigns). Now the ball’s in my court: Will I return the favor by backing the new campaign?
It’s a nice touch that encourages me to be loyal to their products.
Commitment and consistency — the subject line
Research shows that clickbait subject lines reduce open rates. The subject line of this email at first glance seems pretty ordinary, even bureaucratic:
Yet it immediately arouses curiosity. I can see it’s from a gaming company, and I love games. So I wonder, “what credits have I been given towards a new game?” and I open the email. I’ve made a small commitment to finding out more.
A small yes from a prospective buyer makes it easier to get a bigger yes. People act consistently with their previous commitments. I’ve made a commitment to open the email, which makes me more likely to read the email, then click the “claim your credits” call to action at the end of the email.
This accumulation of small commitments means I’m more likely to take the final action the email senders want: back the project.
Social proof — ‘every user’
The phrase “this is a gift to every user” adds social proof to the email, showing that I’m alongside a crowd of similarly minded people.
When I click through to the campaign page, I see even more social proof in how much the campaign has raised:
Screenshot provided by the author.
Seeing how many backers are already on board with the campaign — and how much they’ve pledged — encourages me to open my wallet and back too. That’s the power of social proof.
Authority — the branding and colors
This is where it gets super smart. Awaken Realms are a highly successful board games publisher, who rose to success through raising funds for their games on Kickstarter.
In total their games have raised tens of millions of dollars. So Kickstarter’s 8% fees would have hit them hard, to the tune of millions of dollars. That’s likely why Awaken Realms switched to Gamefound, a relatively new crowdfunding platform with lower fees, for this project.
The downside of setting up on a new platform? Establishing trust. If you’re not careful, you’re starting from scratch with building a relationship with your customers.
That’s covered in the email. The light grey and green colors in the email echo the branding colors of Kickstarter, while not being exactly the same color. That’s an easy way to create an immediate sense of familiarity and trust.
What’s more, the whole tone of the email is one of quiet confidence, which adds authority. They’re not pleading “please give us money for our project” or shouting about “special offer.” They just state what’s on the table, in a straightforward way.
Liking — mixing familiarity and novelty
When you like someone, you’re more likely to be influenced by their requests.
As I’ve backed campaigns previously from Awaken Realms, I’m familiar with their games, and neuroscience research shows that familiarity causes high levels of brain activation. Likewise, novelty activates the reward centers in the brain. This email invites me to celebrate the launch of a new project, so it hits the novelty button, too.
An email that combines both familiarity and novelty is a heady mixture that gives me positive feelings towards the brand.
Scarcity — the project deadline
People are inclined to put off decisions until the last minute. That’s why scarcity can be helpful in selling products. If there’s a limited number of products available or a deadline for buying, customers take action because they don’t want to miss out.
Crowdfunding campaigns have built-in scarcity since there’s a date by which backers need to make their pledge to be part of the campaign. Otherwise, they risk missing out on the new product.
The email doubles down on this scarcity, by putting a time limit on the $5 credit: “This credit can only be used during the ISS Vanguard campaign.” | https://medium.com/better-marketing/i-just-received-the-smartest-1-5-million-email-case-study-3da80f54f18 | ['David Majister'] | 2020-12-22 17:30:38.910000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Writing', 'Marketing', 'Email Marketing', 'Case Study'] |
Checklist of Federal and State Requirements for Developing an Accessible Website in California | Also see state requirements for: Oregon | Washington | Other states
Understanding accessibility
Designing a website that’s “accessible” means you’re providing an equivalent experience for all users, regardless of the physical and cognitive ability an individual user may or may not have. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) puts it this way: “Accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact” with your website without barriers.
Who is the W3C? They’re an international non-governmental association that develops technical specifications for HTML and CSS, as well as recommendations and best practices for security, online payments, and accessibility. The W3C’s international gold standard for website accessibility rules is called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
What federal law says
Section 508 of The Rehabilitation Act, first adopted in 1973 and amended by Congress in 1998, requires federal agencies to make their electronic information accessible to people with disabilities. The rules were originally established in the fairly early days of the Internet, but Section 508 was modernized in 2017 to align with WCAG.
What this means in practical terms is, adhering to Section 508 for website development is synonymous with WCAG compliance. And while these standards are merely best-practice “recommendations” according to the W3C, for all U.S. government agencies — as well as for businesses and organizations that receive federal funding — these accessibility standards are requirements under Section 508.
What’s the difference between ADA and Section 508?
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which became law in 1990, requires state and local governments, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and labor unions make “reasonable accommodations” for employees with disabilities. ADA is a broad law against disability discrimination that applies to agencies and organizations with 15 or more employees. While it doesn’t go into technical details about website development, Section 508, on the other hand, essentially tells employers how to comply with ADA. How so? By following the WCAG.
In addition to ADA and Section 508, there are other federal laws that touch on the subjects of website development and access to electronic information. The Connected Government Act of 2018, for example, requires all new and redesigned federal agency websites to be accessible using mobile devices.
What state law says
California’s Government Code directs that: “state governmental entities, in developing, procuring, maintaining, or using electronic or information technology, either indirectly or through the use of state funds by other entities, shall comply with the accessibility requirements of Section 508.”
Additionally, a new California law mandates that all government websites must include a post on the home page linking to a signed certification from the agency’s director and chief information officer stating that the website in compliance with WCAG 2.0. This must be in place by July 1, 2019. (Here’s an example certification from the Department of Education.)
The following state agencies have developed resources to assist in accessibility compliance:
California Department of Rehabilitation provides a toolkit to help you assess whether your website is in compliance with state accessibility law.
California Web Standards provides a suite of tools and information to assist you in developing a “user-centered, accessible, and mobile-friendly” government website.
WCAG accessibility checklist
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are separated into three levels of conformance. These roughly translate into “basic stuff” (level A), “essential stuff” (level AA), and “shootin’ for the moon stuff” (level AAA). The W3C acknowledges that AAA may be impossible to achieve, so for the most part we’ve only included rules from the first two levels here. Also, for the sake of brevity — and to prevent eyes from going crossed — we’ve omitted highly technical and fine point recommendations. (If you care to dig deeper into the geeky details, W3C has more than 1,100 technical specs.)
Here’s our quick reference checklist for developing a website that conforms to WCAG and Section 508 standards.
1. Provide text alternatives for non-text content
Captions are provided for video
Transcripts are provided for podcasts and other audio-based content
Alt tags are used to describe images, or set to null (i.e. alt=“ ”) when decorative images should be ignored by assistive technology
Labels are used for buttons and form elements
With the exception of logos, text is not placed within images
2. Make page layout and content adaptable
CSS is used to control visual presentation of content
The structure and relationships between elements are consistent on various screen sizes
Content is presented in a correct, meaningful reading sequence on both desktop and mobile devices
Content reflows without the use of both horizontal and vertical scrolling
3. Use color appropriately
Body copy has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 with the surrounding area
Headlines and large text have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 with the surrounding area
Information conveyed using color is also available in text
4. Make text readable
CSS is used to control the visual presentation of text
Spacing between lines of text (known as line spacing, line height, or leading) is at least 1.5 times the font size
Spacing between paragraphs is at least 2 times the font size
Spacing between letters (known as letter spacing or tracking) is at least 0.12 times the font size
5. Provide keyboard and user controls
Allow ability to pause, stop, or hide any moving, blinking, or scrolling information
Allow ability to pause or stop audio
Allow ability to resize text — up to 200% — either with on-screen controls or through a web browser’s zoom function
If content is presented on hover, provide ability to dismiss/hide the content
Tab order (in forms, for example) is correctly set
6. Avoid negative physical reactions (seizures)
Nothing on the website flashes more than three times per second
7. Use page titles
For HTML pages, the Title tag is used to describe each page’s topic or purpose
For PDFs, the document Title is used
8. Make the website easy to navigate | https://medium.com/madison-ave-collective/checklist-of-federal-and-state-requirements-for-developing-an-accessible-website-in-california-1197cfa37487 | ['Jeff Jimerson'] | 2019-03-07 23:11:50.318000+00:00 | ['WCAG', 'Accessibility', 'Government', 'Web Development', 'Web Design'] |
Fetch Kafka Messages in a specified Time range | Below is the step by step procedure in java to fetch messages from kafka topic in the specified time range.
We can achieve this in four steps..
Assign all the Topic partitions to your consumer. Get the offsets in the partitions for the specified start time. Feed those offsets to the consumer Poll the topic from which you want to consume the messages
Lets Begin Coding..
Getting necessary inputs like Kafka server address, topic name, number of partitions, start time and end time
String bootstrapServers = args[0];
String topic = args[1];
int numberOfPartitions = Integer.parseInt(args[2]);
long start = Long.parseLong(args[3]);
long end = Long.parseLong(args[4]);
Create TopicPartition Objects and assign those partitions to the consumer
KafkaConsumer<String, String> consumer = new KafkaConsumer<String, String>(props);
TopicPartition[] topicPartitions = new TopicPartition[partitions]; for(int i=0;i<numberOfPartitions;i++) {
TopicPartition partition = new TopicPartition(topic, i);
topicPartitions[i] = partition;
}
consumer.assign(Arrays.asList(topicPartitions));
Now Fetch the offsets for the specified start time
Map<TopicPartition,Long> timeStamps = new HashMap<TopicPartition, Long>(); for(int i=0;i<numberOfPartitions;i++){
timeStamps.put(topicPartitions[i], start);
} Map<TopicPartition,OffsetAndTimestamp> partitionOffsetMap = consumer.offsetsForTimes(timeStamps);
Feed the obtained offsets to the consumer
for(int i=0;i<numberOfPartitions;i++) {
OffsetAndTimestamp offsetAndTimestamp = partitionOffsetMap.get(topicPartitions[i]);
if(offsetAndTimestamp != null){
long offset = offsetAndTimestamp.offset();
consumer.seek(topicPartitions[i],offset);
}
}
Now poll the consumer
boolean flag = true;
long count = 0L;
while (flag) {
ConsumerRecords<String, String> records = consumer.poll(Duration.millis(1000)); count = count + records.count();
System.out.println("Record Fetch Count : " + count);
if(records != null && !records.isEmpty()) {
for (ConsumerRecord<String, String> record : records) {
System.out.println(record);
if (record.timestamp() >= end) {
flag = false;
break;
}
}
} else{
break;
}
}
consumer.close();
Done.. If you run this code, you will get messages like this
ConsumerRecord(topic = test-events, partition = 0, leaderEpoch = null, offset = 11, CreateTime = 1605855312434, serialized key size = -1, serialized value size = 14, headers = RecordHeaders(headers = [], isReadOnly = false), key = null, value = message twelve)
ConsumerRecord(topic = test-events, partition = 0, leaderEpoch = null, offset = 12, CreateTime = 1605855317735, serialized key size = -1, serialized value size = 16, headers = RecordHeaders(headers = [], isReadOnly = false), key = null, value = message thirteen)
ConsumerRecord(topic = test-events, partition = 0, leaderEpoch = null, offset = 13, CreateTime = 1605855322106, serialized key size = -1, serialized value size = 16, headers = RecordHeaders(headers = [], isReadOnly = false), key = null, value = message fourteen)
Here is the complete code for your reference
Happy Learning :) | https://medium.com/@practicalproton/fetch-kafka-messages-in-a-specified-time-range-f081830275fc | [] | 2020-11-20 16:09:24.537000+00:00 | ['Offsets', 'Kafka', 'Timestamp', 'Partitions', 'Messages'] |
Crazy deal alert: This 50-inch 4K HDR Roku TV is less than $200 today | If you're planning a socially distanced holiday season, you're going to need a bigger TV might watch Wonder Woman 1984 and catch up on The Mandalorian. That's where today's ridiculous deal comes in: Target is selling aHisense 50-inch 4K HDR TV with Roku built-in for $180Remove non-product link, down from the $300 MSRP and one of the best prices you're going to find on a 4K set.
The biggest feature for this TV is that it's rocking HDR (high dynamic range) supporting both Dolby Vision HDR and HDR 10. HDR is a feature that creates greater variations of colors allowing for a more vivid picture. In addition to HDR, the TV also supports DTS Studio Sound for your surround sound audio set-up as well as three HDMI ports, Ethernet, and a USB 2.0 port, as well as 802.11ac Wi-Fi but no Bluetooth.
This Hisense 50R6040G comes with Roku TV onboard giving you access to all kinds of premium video services including Apple TV, Disney Plus, Netflix, Hulu, and audio services like Pandora without any extra equipment. The set also works with Google Assistant and Alexa to control your TV via voice command. It has a game mode to improve input lag coming from your console, and the TV has a thin bezel providing a larger viewable screen area.
[Today's deal: Hisense 50-inch 4K HDR TV for $180 at TargetRemove 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/@hartman47844364/crazy-deal-alert-this-50-inch-4k-hdr-roku-tv-is-less-than-200-today-748382350023 | [] | 2020-12-11 01:04:53.602000+00:00 | ['Audio', 'Cutting', 'Chargers', 'Connected Home'] |
“Second, regarding any crime, male-to-females had a significantly increased risk for crime compared… | “Second, regarding any crime, male-to-females had a significantly increased risk for crime compared to female controls (aHR 6.6; 95% CI 4.1–10.8) but not compared to males (aHR 0.8; 95% CI 0.5–1.2). This indicates that they retained a male pattern regarding criminality. The same was true regarding violent crime.” [includes sex offending] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885 This strongly suggests biological men would be of similar risk to women (their most common target) regardless of gender identity and gender-affirm surgery, on average as a group.
Self-ID laws means the same proportion of malfeseant males, but now a larger absolute number, will have access to spaces where women disrobe. And the burden of proof for a sex offender therein is now higher than his mere presence would have afforded previously. Damn sex offenders, ruining gender identity validation bathrooms for…the people who care about that. Therefore single stall spaces to preserve female safety and ever-so-important male feelings are a must in this Brave New World.
If you could send me an article proving “biological gender”, that’d be great. Though the above seems to indicate biological sex and accompanying socialisation matter more, even if gender identity were physical and not metaphysical. I do not believe the article mentions HRT, however, an area to investigate.
This is the last message, sorry I had to parition them. Am on phone and can’t scroll up to see all your points, you should write it up as an article, if actually containing citations for some pretty bold assertions, would be persuasive. | https://medium.com/@angelavolkov/second-regarding-any-crime-male-to-females-had-a-significantly-increased-risk-for-crime-compared-29e6be6a81b3 | ['Angela Volkov'] | 2020-12-10 05:06:04.424000+00:00 | ['Womens Rights', 'Transgender', 'Male Violence'] |
Kdo je cikán, určím já! | in In Fitness And In Health | https://medium.com/shifthappens/kdo-je-cik%C3%A1n-ur%C4%8D%C3%ADm-j%C3%A1-3d6e9f3ac4e4 | ['Martin Pánek'] | 2017-12-31 12:14:04.698000+00:00 | ['Politika', 'Kocáb', 'Notes'] |
How to kill insider trading in the crypto-world? | 1. The cold hard truth about crypto-currencies and the free access to information
It should be granted I’m not challenging that the crypto-world has everything to be better than the traditional stock market, however when it comes to getting full access to the information, we have progress to make in order to leave this semi-public/semi-private current state and reach the fully transparent stage we are claiming.
So why are we in a semi-public state?
A. Communities are not for the greater good
For those of you who have followed the ICO madness, you must have noticed the need to register to Slack, Telegram, Discord or whatever other group management platform in order to get the latest information and find about the exact process to register for any ICO.
While this is a great way to build and engage a community in the first place, this trend also makes it very difficult to get the latest news about how a given project is doing. Below is a screenshot of my telegram account,
as you can see, buzzing through all these different threads doesn’t make it easy to extract the most valuable information and make the right decision. Just imagine that all my fellow IBBC.io members are going through the same hassle on the cryptos they are monitoring…
One of the key features we can recognize to the traditional stock markets is its mandatory disclosure of key informations for the market (eg: SEC). This leads to the ability for the average Joe to simply go to website like Nasdaq.com to get the latest news about the companies he wants to look after.
B. Unregulated private markets are not for the greater good
Unregulated markets like Poloniex, Kraken, Binance, GDX, etc. have greatly helped democratize the crypto-currencies and make the overall market grow, however they are managed in a very private and centralized kind of way. Given the huge impact they can have on the coin prices — coins often see+20% on the day they are introduced on the largest platforms — we should have more transparency on how they decide which coins to list/delist (see Poloniex possible Insider Trading**).
Additionally, recent DDOS attacks on Poloniex & Kraken have also raised some flags regarding the ability of these platforms to properly protect their customers. More transparency on how exactly these security issues are mitigated would be more than welcome in order to let the average Joe decide on which platform he wants to put its savings.
2. How can we structure our crypto-world to be more transparent and safe for the average Joe?
We need to build a one-stop shop for information we will all agree to share on. Let’s call it crypto-for-joe for the sake of this article . If we were to make the analogy with the traditional stock exchange world, any crypto-news from the different tradable crypto-currencies should lead to a crypto-“press release” that would be posted on crypto-for-joe.com. Question is: what should be the features of such a media?
Decentralized (what else could it be…) : You don’t want any centralized entity to be able to control what is being posted/displayed on the website
: You don’t want any centralized entity to be able to control what is being posted/displayed on the website Real-time: Any update from any crypto should not be disclosed without being posted on crypto-for-joe.com at the same time
Any update from any crypto should not be disclosed without being posted on crypto-for-joe.com at the same time Standardized: Every “press release” should follow a given format — the least would be: {Date, Token_name, Type_of_update: [Business (eg: new partnership signed with X), Tech (new release with feature X and Y) eg, Team (eg: New member joining the team), Other (eg: Event next Tuesday)), Title, Description]
Every “press release” should follow a given format — the least would be: {Date, Token_name, Type_of_update: [Business (eg: new partnership signed with X), Tech (new release with feature X and Y) eg, Team (eg: New member joining the team), Other (eg: Event next Tuesday)), Title, Description] Multi-channel: All users should be able to access the information from crypto-for-joe.com using their favorite channel whether it is web, app or API call
3. How could it be implemented?
My limited technical knowledge will definitely prevent me from giving an exhaustive view of all possible solutions but here is a few ideas I have in mind:
Bot, bot, bot : Develop a cfj_bot available on every platform (Telegram, Slack, Discord etc…) that will be able to interpret every message being posted by the moderators of such a platform as it will be formatted according to the cfj.com standards
: Develop a cfj_bot available on every platform (Telegram, Slack, Discord etc…) that will be able to interpret every message being posted by the moderators of such a platform as it will be formatted according to the cfj.com standards Integration with all VCS tool: Whenever a new version is pushed to master, commit should respect the cfj standards and a notification should be pushed to cfj.com
Conclusion:
One of the main challenge we are facing in the crypto-world right now is extending our audience and shifting from a geek-oriented product to a mainstream one. To do so, we need to promote ease-of-use and trust in the new world we’re building. Transparency will be key here and we need not to repeat the mistakes that were made in the “old” centralized world.
The recent Nobel Prize Richard Thaler encompasses these thoughts in a much better fashion with the following tweet:
Bonus: What does Dilbert says? | https://medium.com/ibbc-io/how-to-avoid-insider-trading-in-the-crypto-world-a6df3a50f5f | ['Yacine Achiakh'] | 2017-10-20 19:16:16.931000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Ibbc', 'Knowledge'] |
Standard of proof and importance of eye-witness cross-examination in MACT claims | Standard of proof before MACT
Motor Accidents Claims Tribunals (MACT) adjudicate on claims for compensation in respect of motor vehicle accidents causing death or bodily injury, or damages to property of a third party.
The standard of proof on the claimant(s) in MACT adjudications is the “preponderance of probability”, and not “proof beyond reasonable doubt” applicable to criminal matters. Thus, where there are minor discrepancies in facts or absence of information due to the circumstances of the accident, the finding (excerpt below) of the Supreme Court in Bimla Devi[1] may help establish the credibility of the claimant’s evidence in support of the claim—
“In a situation of this nature, the Tribunal has rightly taken a holistic view of the matter. It was necessary to be borne in mind that strict proof of an accident caused by a particular bus in a particular manner may not be possible to be done by the claimants. The claimants were merely to establish their case on the touchstone of preponderance of probability. The standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt could not have been applied.”
Eye-witness cross-examination
The Motor Vehicles Act 1988 (MV Act) as amended[2] imposes a statutory duty[3] on the concerned police officer (the Investigating Officer) investigating a motor vehicle accident to prepare an accident information report (the report) after collecting evidence in support thereof in the prescribed form and manner and submit the same to the MACT to facilitate the adjudication of the claim. The MACT is required to satisfy itself that the statements made in the report are true, as it otherwise merely represents the opinion of the Investigating Officer and not legal evidence or proof of allegations made therein.
The MV Act also imposes a statutory duty on the officer-in-charge of the concerned police station[4] and the person[5] against whom a claim is made to provide the prescribed information pertaining to the accident and applicable insurance (if any) respectively.
However, the testimony of an independent eye-witness, especially if the same survives cross-examination or is not subject to the same despite opportunity given in MACT proceedings or related criminal proceedings, may bolster the claimant’s case or help overcome shortcomings in the investigation of the accident to establish the claim to the requisite standard of proof, as recently held by the Supreme Court in Anita Sharma v. New India Assurance Co. Ltd.[6] as follows —
“19. The failure of the respondents to cross examine the solitary eye witness or confront him with their version, despite adequate opportunity, must lead to an inference of tacit admission on their part. They did not even suggest the witness that he was siding with the claimants. The High Court has failed to appreciate the legal effect of this absence of crossexamination of a crucial witness.”
To highlight the importance of cross-examination, the Court further cited its Constitution Bench decision in Kartar Singh[7] , wherein it was stated as follows —
“278. Section 137 of the Evidence Act defines what cross examination means and Sections 139 and 145 speak of the mode of cross examination with reference to the documents as well as oral evidence. It is the jurisprudence of law that cross examination is an acid test of the truthfulness of the statement made by a witness on oath in examination in chief, the objects of which are: (1) to destroy or weaken the evidentiary value of the witness of his adversary; (2) to elicit facts in favour of the cross examining lawyer’s client from the mouth of the witness of the adversary party; (3) to show that the witness is unworthy of belief by impeaching the credit of the said witness; and the questions to be addressed in the course of cross examination are to test his veracity; to discover who he is and what is his position in life; and to shake his credit by injuring his character.”
Furthermore, the Court in Anita Sharma(supra) has held that even non-examination of one or more (best) eye-witnesses may also not harm the claim —
“22…………………… One needs to be mindful that the approach and role of Courts while examining evidence in accident claim cases ought not to be to find fault with nonexamination of some best eyewitnesses, as may happen in a criminal trial; but, instead should be only to analyze the material placed on record by the parties to ascertain whether the claimant’s version is more likely than not true.”
In motor vehicle accident cases and claims before the MACT, credible and independent proof of events or facts pertaining to the accident is crucial to the successful prosecution of a claim or in defence against it. Where such evidence is in the form of an eye-witness statement, case law above cited underscores the importance of cross-examining such witness. Failure to cross-examine, or to do so unsuccessfully where the eye-witness’ recollection of the events or facts remains dislodged, may prove fatal for the party so failing. Therefore, when prosecuting or defending against a claim, mere reliance on accidental reports by the investigating authorities may not suffice in the presence of contrary eye-witness statements, requiring a thorough assessment of the contents and its cross-examination.
References
[1] Bimla Devi and others v. Himachal Road Transport Corporation and others (2009) 13 SCC 530
[2] Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act 2019
[3] section 159 of MV Act
[4] section 160 of MV Act
[5] section 152 of MV Act
[6] Anita Sharma v. New India Assurance Co. Ltd. in Civil Appeal №4010–11 of 2020, decided by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India on 8 December 2020
[7] Kartar Singh v. State of Punjab 1994 SCC (3) 569 | https://medium.com/motor-vehicles-and-traffic-law/motor-vehicles-act-1988-section-168-award-of-claims-tribunal-standard-of-proof-anita-sharma-supreme-court-ce49dcb3d98f | [] | 2021-02-26 11:52:29.416000+00:00 | ['Insurance', 'Motor Accident', 'Law', 'India', 'Legal'] |
Obama Is An Asshole, And Other Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix | US empire: Assassinates scientists, invades countries, topples governments, circles the planet with military bases, deliberately starves civilians to death with sanctions, threatens the world with nuclear weapons.
Also the US empire: “Iran must begin acting like a normal country.”
❖
Obama’s job is to tell you that the ruling establishment which murders, oppresses and exploits people all day every day is quite progressive actually and the people who oppose it are immature lunatics who should be scoffed at.
❖
If you killed someone that’s all you’d be known for. When a US president kills thousands upon thousands of people all mainstream discourse is about his sound fiscal policy and ability to sink a three-pointer.
❖
Nice guy fascism: A murderous and tyrannical political ideology whose iron-fisted agendas of oppression, exploitation and violent domination are hidden behind lip service to progressivism, diverse cabinet picks, and nice tweets.
❖
The powerful are screwing us and there are more of us than there are of them. An entire culture and information ecosystem has been deliberately constructed around keeping a critical mass of us from awakening to this one basic fact.
❖
Any issue of international conflict involving the US-centralized empire is going to be awash with western media propaganda marketed to western audiences. No one who ignores this indisputable reality is able to understand any major international news story.
❖
It’s so weird how rich and powerful people are pouring massive amounts of wealth and manpower into manipulating our minds every single day and it’s not the main thing we talk about all the time.
❖
Biden is like if everyone suddenly started gushing poetically about how wonderful and refreshing and inclusive the Chevron logo is.
❖
Being part of the US-led liberal world order means that anyone, regardless of their race, gender or sexual orientation, is free to serve the globe-spanning murder machine in any way they choose.
❖
Being a part of the US-led liberal world order means you are free to do absolutely anything you want, so long as it doesn’t inconvenience the powerful in any way, shape or form.
❖
Sometimes I feel sad that Cobain died so young, but I brighten up when I remember it means we didn’t have to watch him turn into a cringey embarrassing shitlib.
❖
Failing to pardon Snowden and Assange would be an inexcusable evil. Please re-evaluate your opinion of Trump as needed when he pardons neither.
❖
Western imperialism is worse than every single issue the mass media are screaming in your face about on any given day. Without exaggeration it is worse than 100 percent of those issues. If people could really grasp the horrific nature of imperial warmongering, the wars would be forced to end.
It can be hard to avoid getting swept up in the MSM Issue Of The Day, but it’s important to keep your focus on the actual monster in the room. They’re ripping kids apart with explosives and starving them to death with sanctions, currently, and it is invisible to the news media.
❖
Charles Manson never murdered anyone, he just convinced people that it would be a good thing to do. The mass media have convinced far more people that it would be a good idea to commit far more murders than the Manson cult ever committed, and should be reviled as such.
The fastest way to get yourself banned from social media is to say something that sounds like you’re inciting violence. But mass media which do that constantly are never banned, because what’s actually forbidden is inciting violence that isn’t authorized by the powerful.
In fact the easiest way to advance your career in media is to incite violence on behalf of the powerful. This is true in news media, and it’s even true in video games and Hollywood; make compelling games and screenplays glorifying military violence and your career will thrive.
We live in a society that is built on violence, sustained by violence, and driven by violence. Those who promote unauthorized violence are vilified while those who promote violence in service of the powerful can ride that wave to fame and fortune. This should disgust us all.
If you remove your propaganda-installed perceptual filters, you see a machine that is fuelled by the blood of the powerless being piloted by serial killer politicians, laughing skullface comedians, and news men with human flesh in their teeth. Once you’ve seen the horror of the empire you can never unsee it.
_________________________
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Poems For Rebels or my old book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2 | https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/obama-is-an-asshole-and-other-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix-aecc8b31eef7 | ['Caitlin Johnstone'] | 2020-12-03 04:09:12.013000+00:00 | ['Barack Obama', 'News', 'Media Criticism', 'Politics', 'War'] |
Gunk comes in for Christmas | At the end of every year, the days get shorter and the weather turns gray. People rush about, shopping for gifts and foodstuff.
When the holidays arrive, the larder is full, all the gifts have been wrapped, the days are at their shortest, and expectations are high.
Every year, joining in with the seasonal spirit, I decorate the inside of my house was with lots of lights, tinsel, baubles, doodads, and gimcracks. I have boxes of the stuff packed into the attic. Just getting everything downstairs, opened up, and sorted out is no mean task. This year, I even had a real coniferous evergreen (or Christmas tree), much to the chagrin of my cat, as his favorite cushion was moved aside to fit the tree into the living room.
That evening, I sat in my comfortable chair, enjoying the coziness of it all. It had taken me two days to set up the tree and put up all the decorations, but it was worth the effort.
After turning off all the lights, I headed for bed and slept, dreaming of blinking snowmen and flashy colored reindeer. | https://medium.com/peachey-schoorl/gunk-comes-in-for-christmas-b555c4a929fe | [] | 2020-12-25 11:43:30.774000+00:00 | ['Short Fiction', 'Short Story', 'Kids Stories', 'Childrens Stories', 'Stories'] |
The Edge of Death 死亡的邊緣. 中文在下面 | 中文在英文下面
Bangkok, Thailand 2014
Most people often say “live in the present” when they see a celebrity or someone they know dies.
Those who understand “live in the present”, can truly
realize and live out it seem to be a minority.
Even I often remind myself to live in the present, but sometimes I often forget.
We never seem to leave the present, but focus on people and things, or on the past and the future.
Understanding and realize are two different levels. To understand is to understand by mind, and to realize is by heart.
I have experienced several experiences that are a little closer to death. One of the most impressive experiences is that on the way to Milford Sound in New Zealand, when encountering heavy snow, the car skidded from the uphill to the downhill section of the mountain. The car slid all the way from the uphill. There is a cliff on the left and a side of mountain on the right. I tried to control the steering wheel, however I couldn’t control it at all, and I could only let the car spin at will. At that time, the entire space-time slowed down, showing a state where time and space were vacuumed. I only heard one of my family members was yelling “car skids”, and the whole voice seemed to be released slowly. Later, the car was fortunately slid downhill. Fortunately, the downhill have a empty space big enough for cars, and our car was blocked by grass. We walked out from the car awkwardly. After while we calm down, and we found that we were very lucky. If the car slided to the left, and we will fall off the cliff. Also if the car didn’t’ slide downhill, we will hit the rocks on the rightside. Then we started looking for help on the road, again we were lucky to met a man who is driving the snow plow after a short while. The man said that we were very lucky because they received a task to shovel snow, otherwise many people would wait for long time for rescue. We just realize that we encountered so many “lucky” on the accident. but in retrospect, when the accident was put me so close to death, the mind has actually lost its functioning, and it is no enough time to experience any fear or other Thoughts, and no enough time to think about the people and things we possesses. This is the first time I have ever realized the death happens may be just a breathing moment, and God will take you home at that moment.
Later, I also encountered a film-like death experience in Thailand. I was in Thailand during the Thai riots 2014. Many roads were closed and controlled. As a result taxis were screamed at high prices. At that time, choosing a bus was the best action. One day when taking the bus, the bus drove close to the downtown area of Siam. Someone rang the bell to get off. The car stopped when the door was opened. As a result, the phone booth next to the bus stop was exploded, and the dust fragments spurted out. My ears were shocked by the sound of the explosion to the point that I only heard a beeping ringing in the ears, which felt like a movie. After regaining consciousness, I found that everyone was subconsciously lying on the floor of the bus. Suddenly, the bus conductor screamed and asked the bus driver to drive away immediately, therefore bus driver accelerated the bus away. At this time, all the Thai passengers on the bus were crying. Some people started to make a phone call, crying and talking. And I realized that we were attacked by a bomb, luckily that the power of the bomb is very small, just to create panic and nervousness. In retrospect, I also found that sometimes death happens in breathing moment again, and we don’t even have the opportunity to “think”, and we will start to “think” after regaining consciousness.
After experiencing these, sometimes reminds myself to live in the present and take the time to do what I love. But as time passed, I got lost, and living in fear with put my mind in past and the future, I escaped from the present, escaped to do the things I love most, because those things I love can not get money or utility. However, we always naturally find ourselves back when lost, maybe we will be lost again, and then we will find ourselves again. The current experience is to try my best to do what I love. It feels like a bet, but since it is a bet, everything is a game, Then don’t take the journey of life too seriously.
There is a saying, “I take risks while I’m young to do what I love.” In retrospect, I mostly try to “play” while I’m young, but now I’m older, but I don’t feel that I can’t do anything crazy in any age. Perhaps, we might change the saying into “ while our heartbeat is still beating, we should immediately do what we love.” I used to think that the things I love need to have a grand ceremony, something should be done to stimulate or have the meaning of “success” or “achievement”. However, I realized it’s so simple to do anything I love to do, maybe just sitting and drinking a cup of coffee, maybe it’s not doing anything just lying down on the bed, maybe writing an article, reading a book, maybe to learn to fly, maybe going diving, maybe staying up late to immerse myself in my favorite work…everything single thing is equally important, and there is no way to distinguish between level. In each moment, I tried my best to do or not do the things that make me feel the most favorite or calmest.
The only thing I want to do is to live each breath to the fullest.
多數人常常在看見名人或者某個認識熟悉的人離世時，常常會說”活在當下”這四個字。
明白到這四個字，又真正能體會這四個字的人且活出這四個字的人，似乎是少數。
即使是我也常常提醒自己要活在當下，但有時也常常會忘記。
我們似乎也從來沒有離開過當下，只是把注意聚焦在人事物上，或者放在過去與未來。
明白以及體會是兩種不同的層次，明白是頭腦懂了，體會則是心懂了。
我自己經歷幾次離死亡稍微比較接近的經歷，印象中比較深刻的是在紐西蘭的米佛峽灣山路，遇到大雪在山上下坡路段車子打滑，從上坡車子一路滑下，路的左邊是懸崖，右邊是山壁，我試著控制著方向盤，但實際根本無法控制，只能任由車子隨意地旋轉，當時整個時空慢了下來，呈現像是一種時間與空間被真空的狀態，我只聽到家人喊著”打滑”，整個聲音像是被慢速的放出來，後來車子幸運的被滑到下坡，下坡剛好有比較空曠的空地，然後被草給擋住，我們狼狽地走出來冷靜一番後，發現我們也太幸運，如果往左邊滑車子就會墜落懸崖了，如果沒有滑到下坡，車子往右邊就會撞山壁。而後我們開始在路上找求救，沒多就幸運地遇到鏟雪車，鏟雪車的人員說我們好幸運，因為他們收到任務要剷雪，不然很多人出車禍有時都會等一兩天才遇到救援。一個意外才發現自己遇到那麼多一連串的”幸運”當時想著活著真好，但是回想起來真正遇到意外離死亡那麼接近時，當下頭腦其實已經失去運作了，根本來不及體會任何恐懼或者其他想法，也沒有時間去想到人生所擁有的人事物，這是第一次我明白死亡也不過可能是那一瞬間的事情，老天要接你回家就是那一瞬間的事。
而後我在泰國也遇到一次更有電影畫面的經歷，2014年時在泰國暴動期間到了泰國，好多的道路都被管制封閉，因此計程車被漫天喊價的貴，那時選擇公車是最好的行動方式，有一天搭公車的時候，公車開到接近Siam市區前，有人按鈴要下車，車子開門一停下來，結果公車站旁的電話亭被放了爆炸物剛好爆炸，整個灰塵碎片噴了出來，我的耳朵被爆炸聲音震到只聽到嗶_ — — — 一股斷訊的耳鳴聲音，這感覺如同電影演的一樣。回過神後，發現所有人都下意識地趴在公車地板上面，突然車掌小姐嘶吼著要公車司機快開走，公車司機像是回魂般的把公車加速開走，開了好一段距離才想到要把車門關上，而此時所有公車上的泰國乘客都在哭，有人開始打了電話，一邊哭一邊講話。而我此刻才意識到受到炸彈攻擊，但是好險的是炸彈威力很小，只是要製造慌亂緊張，我回想起來也發現有時死亡也就是那一瞬間，我們連思考連想的機會都沒有，在恢復意識後我們才會開始“思考”，我與大多數的人一樣想到家人。
後來還有好幾次，也經歷腦洞大開在未知的世界以及接近死亡的經歷，時常會提醒自己要活在當下，要把握時間去做自己喜愛的事物。但是隨著時間的過去，又會再次經歷迷失，活在過去與未來的恐懼，逃離當下，逃離去做最自己喜愛的事物，因為那些喜愛的事物無法獲得金錢或者功利，所以不允許自己去做。然而迷失了自然還是會找回自己，也許還會再迷失，然後又會找回自己，不斷的循環。
現在的被推動著是盡力去做自己喜愛的事物，有時喜愛的事物也會帶來意想不到的金錢或者報酬，有時也什麼都沒有，但這無損樂趣與熱情，也許要不停提醒自己把人生當場遊戲，那就不要太過嚴肅看待人生旅程。
有句俗語”趁著年輕去做冒險去做喜愛的事”，回想起來我多數趁著年輕都有盡量去”玩”，但現在年紀稍長，我卻沒感覺年紀長就不能做點什麼，那我們不如把那段俗語改成趁著心跳還跳著，就該立刻去做自己喜愛的事物。我曾經認為喜愛的事物需要有種澎湃盛大的儀式，應該要做點什麼帶來刺激或者有所”成功”、”成就”的意義價值才可算是喜愛的事物達成標準，但漸漸地發現喜愛得事物是坐著喝杯咖啡，有可能是什麼不做只是坐著呼吸，有可能是寫文章看書，有可能去學開飛機，有可能去運動，有可能是熬夜沉浸在喜愛的事物…每一件事都是同等的重要，沒法分別等級與高低，在每個當下，不考慮得失與結果，朝著讓自己感到最喜歡興奮、最平靜的事物去行動，或者不去行動。
也許這就是每個都呼吸都被活到淋漓盡致。 | https://medium.com/@jemmaker773/to-live-each-breath-to-the-fullest-%E6%8A%8A%E6%AF%8F%E5%80%8B%E9%83%BD%E5%91%BC%E5%90%B8%E6%B4%BB%E5%88%B0%E6%B7%8B%E6%BC%93%E7%9B%A1%E8%87%B4-6f0b05fe0258 | ['Tsun. C'] | 2020-12-29 05:10:06.634000+00:00 | ['Now', 'Live In The Present', 'Bangkok', 'New Zealand', 'Thailand'] |
2019 Columbia China and World Forum Recap | “Even if they are delights, before I enjoy them, I want to sweat for them.” — — Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim
Just a month ago, 2019 Columbia China and the World Forum, as a hallmark event, which aims to convene a high-level platform for policy makers, scholars, and different stakeholders to address the most important interstate relations and urgent global challenges in a world with rising geopolitical tensions and destabilizing trends, was held successfully, with record high attendees and media coverage (Financial Times, Xinhua, etc).
I am very lucky to be one of the 9 board members for the conference. My role is finance director. Internally, I am in charge of the whole budgets planning, revenue management & spending controls, pricing & promotion; while externally, I mainly focus on sponsorships and strategic partnerships.
Because this role requires heavy commitment throughout the whole process. For example, after making budgets&spending plan with foreseeable cash flows to cover all the costs, and approved by the board and school, I started right away to discuss pricing strategy with marketing chairs to boost revenue; this year ticket sales reached a record high; meanwhile, I was asked to conduct researches and formulate in-person meetings with potential credential sponsors and strategic partnerships for external funding. I am a TA and peer advisor, ,also serve on the board of Columbia Student Leadership Advisory Council, Alumni Association and Finance Society. So my schedule was really tight and I did not remember how many times I went home from library at 3 in the morning. One takeaway, New York is freezing cold in winter. Stay warm and drink hot. Behind the screen and flashlight, there are countless meetings, negotiations and also worries, pressure, frustration during the past six months. The process is not always smooth, yet it is the challenge that makes you step out your comfort zone and grow wildly as much as possible.
Takeaways1: Multi-task, Mood & Time Management
Takeaways2: Team Work, Collaboration, and Friendship
Takeaways3: Communication, Personality, Attitudes | https://medium.com/@helenwang_38456/2019-columbia-china-and-world-forum-recap-7c01be6070b3 | ['Helen Wang'] | 2020-01-01 02:30:13.080000+00:00 | ['Management And Leadership', 'Student Life', 'Organization', 'Challenge', 'Self Improvement'] |
Crucial Tips On How to Run A Business | Purchase Quality Hoodies, Clothing etc @ https://bio.fm/bishmalewis
9 TIPS TO HELP YOU ON YOUR JOURNEY TOWARDS A BUSINESS….
1. Start a small business slowly….
The most important cause of failures for very small businesses is the large overhead expenses early on in the project.
In a study entitled “Portrait of the businessman as a predator”, French academics Michel Villette and Catherine Vuillermot argue that successful entrepreneurs are anything but the big risk takers that popular mythology often has us believe.
These entrepreneurs are more predatory, positioning themselves slowly and cautiously, minimizing risk and acting at the most opportune times.
For that, nothing like a good financial planning including all the figures relating to your project. This is the 1st step for a successful business : carefully compile all the financial elements that make up your project, and precisely determine your financing needs .
Be careful because in this phase, we tend to overestimate our sales and underestimate our costs! Do you have a good idea of your real costs?
Having a clear vision of your financial commitments, properly assessing your costs and margins, and measuring your performance with financial indicators are all avenues for putting all the chances in your side!
Starting a small or very small business and developing your project successfully is not an easy task. Starting a business is no guarantee of success.
In fact, many small businesses do not survive their fifth anniversary.
But don’t give up hope! There are techniques to improve the chances of your business succeeding . Your accounting firm SBA Compta offers 9 ways to ensure the success of your business with practical advice for their implementation in your daily life.
2. Know your market….
Before you jump right into your business and in order to succeed in your business , it is important to know your target market and make a business plan .
That is to say, you have to study the environment of your project and plan its evolution. Be thorough, to anticipate the strengths and weaknesses and market opportunities of your future project in order to be able to rectify your offer, if necessary.
Market research allows you to collect and analyze the various information concerning your project and to put you in its context before you start.
We will discuss the different questions to ask yourself during your market research and the pitfalls that you will need to avoid in order to succeed in your business :
Know your target market:
It is important to study your market, that is to say, study your target market according to the service or product offered.
Try to imagine the different possible scenarios: the evolution of the market, expected sales, the prices that will be charged and the expected turnover, in order to target profitability as closely as possible .
Know your competitors:
Above all, remember to practice daily competitive intelligence: this is how you will be able to know the strategy of your competitors in their commercial practices.
Try to find as much information as possible on their prices, their market share as well as their marketing strategy (in particular, how they make themselves known to customers).
Thus, you will be able to rectify your offer and align yourself with a strategy that has already proven itself with customers, innovate and bring a new offer that will satisfy your customers and bring new markets.
Know your environment:
A company’s performance also comes from understanding its environment and its ability to adapt to it.
The environment is all the actors external to the company and likely to affect the way it develops its exchanges with its market.
The market environment consists of legal obligations, suppliers, competitors, customers and the administrative and banking system (micro-environment) that directly influence your project.
It is important to know the legal obligations related to your project to determine the feasibility of your project. *
You will also benefit from a good knowledge of the organization of the market and the position of the company in its economic environment.
In addition, it will be necessary to define its catchment area (that is to say the geographical area of influence, from which the majority of customers come).
It will be necessary to study the profiles of the customers, their expectations and the obstacles of the market.
An in-depth market study, and concrete knowledge of the direct environment are fundamental steps before you embark on your project and guarantee the success of your business .
This study will allow you to avoid falling into certain pitfalls and to start a stable and future-oriented project .
Several studies, carried out by OSEO and FUSACQ, underline that the lack of control of the economic environment of the VSE, by the creator of the project, significantly reduces its chances of success.
3. Offer and maintain quality service….
Each company offering a quality product or service will be recognized by its customers, and “word of mouth” will have a very positive effect on the success of your business .
However, it only takes a drop in the quality of your service and there will be an immediate impact on your customers; we are very familiar with the adage that says “a satisfied customer talks to 2 people; a dissatisfied customer tells 10 people about it ”.
Even successful businesses can lose customers and profits by reducing quality in favor of quantity.
Customers who are used to a certain level of quality get used to this level. They expect to have a consistently high level of satisfaction, and will want better.
Without innovation (product — services), 30% of your “satisfied” customers will leave you each year.
4. Listen to your customers….
Listening to your customers and the market is what allows you to be innovative, allows you to retain your customers and succeed in your business . You should not take your customers for granted and tell yourself that you have found the right service or product and no longer innovate.
Customers are the players who can guide you towards their expectations and it is by being as close as possible to your market that you will be able to offer the best service offer which will be the solution most popular with the market.
98% of dissatisfied customers who leave you never share their dissatisfaction. So try to do a customer satisfaction study or ask their opinion following a purchase (a small customer questionnaire on paper will do the trick).
5. Define the strategic objectives of your company…..
The objectives are the basis of the commercial approach, they make it possible to anticipate, to take decisions, to manage the activity as well as possible and to succeed in one’s business .
A company’s business strategy is primarily based on specific, achievable and time-bound objectives. These must be set according to the priorities. They must take the environment into account, be anticipated and planned over the long, medium and short terms.
The current crisis has shifted targets, for some small businesses, to monthly or even weekly planning. But it is important to stay on an annual strategic plan, to highlight the peaks of activity and to forecast your stocks accordingly.
But what kinds of goals can be set ?
To determine them, a first phase consists in mapping your situation: what are my strengths? What are my weak points? How can I remedy these?
So you can:
- Identify your areas for improvement
- Make an action plan with clear and achievable objectives
- Provide a predefined schedule in order to act to remedy them
For example: Following your analysis, you can see that customer satisfaction is a priority axis of progress that will bring gains for your company. Clear objectives will therefore have to be set in order to remedy this.
Or, it could be to gain 5% of market share by a certain deadline, to conquer a new market, or to achieve a given turnover on a specific date.
6. Plan and control your stocks…..
It is hardly possible to run a business well and succeed in your business without setting a guideline, that is to say a strategy. It is time to move away from your activity, but to plan and manage it optimally. Managing your inventory is part of this strategy.
Poor management of your stocks would lead to delivery delays and therefore penalize you.
Orders from your customers that are not respected and not delivered on time would jeopardize your reputation and your business.
It is important to buy inventory management software for those who can invest, or to create on an Excel file a summary table of your stocks, with each entry and exit, and establish an alert stock (minimum level of stocks to trigger an order for replenishment).
7. Publicize your activity…….
The strategic location of your business is one of the keys to your success . Being visible and easily accessible to your customers is a real asset.
Another way to be seen, but in a more modern way, is visibility on the web. Communicating at a lower cost and making yourself known also involves a presence on the internet.
Facebook ads and pages are a great way to reach more people online.
The social networks are, according to some studies, the second most influential advertising lever youth. 18% of them have already made a purchase by seeing the product on social networks (study conducted by CCM Benchmark Institute).
Sites and online sales are also a good solution to reach the maximum number of potential customers for a successful business .
The Internet is really a complement to the consumer’s buying process. So having a multi-channel strategy can make this process easier and even increase your sales.
According to CCM Benchmark Institute, 67% of Internet users often do their research on the Internet before buying in a store. This purchasing method particularly affects young people, since 74% of 18–35 year olds take this step.
E-mailing is also a very good technique to differentiate yourself from competitors, reach your targets more easily and cheaply and succeed in your business .
Internet users believe that e-mail is the most effective advertising lever: 33% of them declare that they have bought a product after seeing it in an email sent by the brand.
Adapt to the audience you are targeting: for those under 55, special attention will be paid in the evening and during the week.
Pay extra attention to seniors in the morning, regardless of the day of the week.
8. Focus on your core business…….
The small businesses that have best succeeded are those that focused on an activity and were not scattered across different activities that bring no added value. It is better to offer a single quality service than several failures.
You will then have to develop the “core business” or “core business” activity by focusing on your key skills and differentiating yourself from your competitors to succeed in your business .
VSE / SME managers have a great need for tax and financial advice. It is in your best interest to call on a specialist service provider to start off on a good basis.
Accounting, taxation, treasury, dashboards… SBA Compta, your online accountant , offers its clients all the know-how of management experts, in order to boost their overall performance and economic profitability.
Do you want to focus entirely on your business project?
9. Watch your cash flow…….
It is well known that any business must have sufficient resources in order to meet its financial commitments and be successful in business . Without this, it would be declared in default or even in liquidation.
The cash flow of a company is defined as all the cash available in cash or in the bank. The cash flow of your company must be managed on a daily basis and is part of a real strategy. | https://medium.com/@lewismtiive/crucial-tips-on-how-to-run-a-business-6c9c01dde999 | ['Lewis Mtiive'] | 2020-12-19 15:21:31.450000+00:00 | ['Business Development', 'Business Intelligence', 'Busineß', 'Business Strategy', 'Business'] |
I’m “Too Sensitive” | “I am too sensitive.”
This is what my family has been telling me for the longest time.
My mother, whom I extremely admire for her emotional strength, constantly inquired on; “Why can’t you become more like your sister?” For those who had little ideas, this is a normal question in a Chinese family; where the eldest is made to be the most responsible, and the eldest is always the rock of the other siblings.
I mean, my sister, whom I would always make time for and I love very much, is an amazing person. However, she is also an experienced salesperson, who is 200% genuinely sweet to me, but generally sweet to just about anyone. Having said this, she won’t entertain your bullshit, and will automatically turn deaf for something that is not suitable to her perspective. She doesn’t have a single bad bone in her, which essentially made her to not have a single bone for negative energy. I love her for who she is though, we constantly laugh together about the “unsuitable” environment she often lives in.
What is wrong about being sensitive?
I gave my sister that sweater I had just bought and really liked, because it’s that much I would give her.
Every single person in my family constantly tells me that I had been “feeling” a bit more than my sister does since I was a little girl. Though I would like to be sure they meant well, this had led me into building a wall where I should not be “feeling,” and instead, I should be like; “fuck that shit.” I did find that a bit weird, but then again, I grew up in that environment — which normalized the notion. Then when I moved for college, my college life was full of that kind of person; who would inevitably sweep their emotions and feelings under the rug, then to think of others who did as “too sensitive.”
I was wrong then, though.
Or to be exact, I did not know that I was wrong. That time, I fully comprehended happiness as how other people made you feel, instead of how I made me feel, or how I took full responsibility for my own emotions. I had a good few years living like that, and I won’t be ashamed to talk about it, as my resilience in undergoing and resolving the repercussions was rather inspiring.
My parents were married young.
They were rather traditional, my father was not much involved in my childhood and until now, he would not be the person whom I would look up to in parenthood. Moving on, my mother constantly told my sister and I that it was okay to get married with no money, as she did my father with only six-piece of dining utensils, and an old-ass Toyota Corolla. Then by saying that, when a hurricane hit my father’s finances, she open-handedly accepted the emotional (which would most likely end up in physical, but I had never really seen it) abuses she received- this is why I said that I admired her emotional strength for not fighting back, providing her background. But even then, my mother thought I should be more like her and my sister.
But I had always been an emotional child.
Other than the emotional one, I was the chubbier one — which was a big no, no for a Chinese daughter.
When we were children, my sister and I kept sticker books, which we named and kept to our own identity and interest accordingly. During the early 2000s, stickers often came with golden linings, and what I liked to do that time was to feel the wax papers on my sticker book, and the golden border of my stickers all at once. I closed my eyes, I felt the ridges on my fingertip, and I wondered what else out there felt that way. And I enjoyed it. I was around nine as I remembered, and I was that kid.
I grew up in a family who had no idea on how to overcome emotions, yet I was an emotional kid with zero emotional education. Difficult, eh?
None of my family members had ever done this; I was that kid who swept her emotions under the rug, then the rug would magically explode when the content was way too much. Like, it would not even make a hill, it would just explode. That did not end up very well, most of the time. The results were pretty much apparent in my string of failed relationships, where I abused my partners emotionally, and they abused me even more at most times. Eventually, it would depress me.
Until March to July 2020, when COVID hit and my partner gaslighted me on a daily basis, my parents stopped talking to me, and the job I sacrificed everything for abused my employee’s rights. I was indubitably in a depression.
I had no idea those things happened to me then. When I was with my parents, I was that good Chinese daughter, when I was with my partner, I was that submissive, following girlfriend, and when I was with my job, I was accommodative — to both my superior and my team. I lost myself. I thought I was an adaptive individual who could cope with whatever environment. But then, I felt, every, single, little thing.
It was difficult then.
My parents wanted me to stay back home with them, or to even visit. Otherwise, they would not speak to me even for one second. Meanwhile, leaving my partner, who flew thousands of miles away and stuck in my home country (which he and I despised — but I managed to fully tolerate after a while!), was not an option. That time, he’d tell me that staying with him was my conscious choice, and he didn’t make me stay with him. He said this in spite of my well intention, with a thought that he traveled so far to be with me, making me decide that I would not leave him for the world. I remembered that before I moved back to my home country, he told me that I had one year since July 2019 to get a remote job, or he was getting me out of here. But when everything happened, it was around May 2020 and I was not even close to one. We were dating for almost two years, and he was not even meeting my parents, and I already had. Until now, I am not even sure that he knew he was abusing me emotionally. Lastly, and the most important, I moved my whole life to my home country — which again, I really hate, for a job, which ended up as the biggest blackhole of my life. It didn’t fulfil what was promised to me in the beginning, and I was stomped upon all over by everyone in my job. I regretted my move back home so much then.
This was posted on my Instagram @gavriellat, on June 7, amidst my depression — which I knew nothing of.
What happened then?
I was emotional, but I did not know I was in a depression. What I knew was, I cried, every single, hour of the day. If there was anything, or anyone, who experienced anything that in my perspective, saddened me, I would cry. It was a deliveryman who did not get sufficient on-demand orders for their family due to COVID— I would cry. It was John Legend’s dedicated-to-Chrissy Teigen-song’s All of Me in a supermarket — I would cry. It was my partner calling me a manipulative narcissist — I would laugh in front of him, and cry alone after.
I guess that’s what happened to people who did not get enough emotional education since they were young?
Flashback to August-September 2020, when I learned of what happened and what had occurred to me, was because of people who did not know how to overcome their own emotions. They had zero emotional education, hence intelligence, though they might or might not mean well for their own values. I could not blame them, they were not being trained sufficiently throughout their essential growing years. Because, as my life coach said, hurt people hurt people.
I realized my life’s purpose then.
Dang, it took my entire 20s and a depression for me to realize my life’s purpose. I am now 28, struggling for a scholarship to redo my bachelor’s in psychology, which I would continue in both masters and doctorate right away, then right away to a teaching training — all for my life purpose.
I wish to educate people, heavily on emotional intelligence. Because those who don’t get any, will hurt people. Me, “feeling” too much, not being as how my sister is, and being emotional, help me find my life’s purpose. I want to teach people overcoming their emotions. Me, being emotional, as how my family says I shouldn’t, makes me find my life’s purpose. Me, being sensitive, helps me find the bearing of my then-purposeless life.
So now, don’t you tell me that being “too sensitive” is not a good thing. Because, being “too sensitive,” helps me contribute back to the community. Because, being “too sensitive,” gives me a foundation to build a stronger generation who are wholesome intelligent. And because, being “too sensitive” encourages me to teach communities, who knows how to handle their emotions and become a more intelligent community for the future.
Yay for EQ! Comment if you agree! | https://medium.com/@gavriellat/im-too-sensitive-474ba684ce79 | ['Gavriella Tjandra'] | 2020-12-12 17:39:32.483000+00:00 | ['Emotional Intelligence', 'Feelings', 'Sensitive', 'Eq'] |
Thomas Sankara — Pan-Africanist and Marxist Revolutionary | “While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas.” — Thomas Sankara
“Debt is a cleverly managed reconquest of Africa. It is a reconquest that turns each one of us into a financial slave.” — Thomas Sankara
Thomas Sankara and the Revolutionary Birth of Burkina Faso
by Mamadou Diallo (https://www.viewpointmag.com/2018/02/01/thomas-sankara-revolutionary-birth-burkina-faso/)
In 1983, 23 years after its independence and the succession of several neo-colonial regimes, the Upper Volta was one of the most materially destitute countries in the world. 98 percent of its population was illiterate and its GDP per capita was just over 100 dollars of the time. Out of the seven million inhabitants of the country, six million belonged to the peasantry. This peasantry had to subsist on difficult soils, faced rampant desertification, and the degradation of the terms of the cotton trade, the young nation’s main source of currency. Since its constitution as a colony within French West Africa in 1919, the Upper Volta was a disenfranchised territory, considered by the colonial apparatus to be a reserve of forced labor and agricultural workers for the great coffee and cocoa plantations of neighboring Côte d’Ivoire. Health and education equipment, even for the very low standards of the region, remained particularly scarce and inadequate to satisfy the needs of a growing population.
Sankara, the Shaping of a Political Subject
Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara, the son of a soldier of the colonial army turned civil servant, grew up, in the course of his father’s assignments in the countryside, in contact with the people but shielded from its misery. There was, though, a moment in his childhood that shows the young Sankara’s inclination to rebellion and sensitivity to social justice. But mostly, he was a conscientious boy who, according to his biographers, demonstrated a precocious seriousness in his studies. In 1966, the year that saw Maurice Yaméogo, Upper Volta’s first president, ousted by a coup and replaced by a military régime, the young Thomas was admitted to the military academy of Kadiogo in the suburbs of the capital Ouagadougou. It is there that he met Adama Abdoulaye Touré, the establishment’s director of studies and member of the Parti Africain de l’Indépendance who gathered some of his students for informal political discussions, after school hours. It was probably there that the young Thomas Sankara started his ideological training and first heard of imperialism.
After graduating from high school in 1969, Sankara was one of the three students of the academy to be offered a scholarship and the possibility to continue his studies in Madagascar. He would go on to stay four years on the island where he would be deeply affected by the 1972 Malagasy Revolution, considered by some to be its “second independence.” In Madagascar, Sankara paid special attention to the role of the army in the socio-economic development of the country. When he returned to Upper Volta with the rank of officer, he was given the command of a training camp and became known for both his rigor and unorthodox ideas, one of which being his belief in the importance of civic and intellectual training of the recruits.
When Revolution Is the Reasonable Course of Action
Thomas Sankara’s Revolution is often dismissed with the argument that it was the result of a military coup rather than the outcome of a popular movement. The argument suggests that because it was born out of the will of just a few radical putschists, it had no real substance and roots in Voltaïque society and history. Such a presentation of the Revolution, which only focuses on the military manoeuvres of August 4, 1983, is superficial and fails to take into account two essential conditions: (1) the international and national context from which the Revolution arose; and (2) the legitimacy that Thomas Sankara acquired in the years before the Revolution.
(1) Thomas Sankara and his allies did not take state power in a context of institutional stability, but rather in a climate of chronic instability and endless succession of regimes themselves established by putsches. Each of these ephemeral regimes — which was born out of the unpopularity of its predecessor — proved incapable of solving its social crisis, removing Upper Volta from the orbit of France, and freeing its economy from dependence on aid and fluctuations in world cotton prices. The international context of the early 1980s imposed on oil-importing countries in Africa such as Upper Volta several external shocks: rising oil prices; rising interest rates of the American Federal Reserve Bank, on which debt was indexed; continuously deteriorating terms of trade; and, the slowing of international trade due to the global recession. The Sankarist Revolution was in that context the peak of a series of revolts, the breakdown of an inept cycle, and the beginning of a historical sequence that would see Upper Volta become Burkina Faso and, to deal with its critical situation, “dare to invent the future.” 5
(2) To present the Sankarist Revolution as just another coup, one of the many that took place in postcolonial Africa and often with backing from imperialist states, is also to ignore the thread of events that constituted Thomas Sankara’s life as an officer in the Upper Volta army prior to the night of August 4, 1983 and conferred on him both popularity and political legitimacy. Three years before the Revolution, on November 25, 1980, a group of senior army officers led by Colonel Saye Zerbo instigated a coup and seized power on the pretext of an “erosion of state authority.” Although not part of the plot, Thomas Sankara who was well known by the public because of his progressive ideas and a feat of arms during the border conflict of 1974 with Mali, was offered a position in the new government. He politely declined at first, but because of the president’s insistence, he was compelled to accept with the condition that he would stay in office for no more than two months.
He was appointed to his first political charge in September of 1981 as Minister of Information and it took time for the inhabitants of Ouagadougou to get used to seeing a member of government going to work on his bicycle. The information Ministry, which until then was rather that of propaganda, changed radically in its relations with the media when Sankara took its lead. He encouraged journalists who were not accustomed to freedom, to write pieces on corruption cases. Articles were soon published that documented cases of embezzlement in a public bank and which suggested the complicity of civil servants from the Ministry of Trade. The police summoned the director of the National News Agency and accused him of feeding that information to the press. Sankara, as Minister of information, defended the press, reaffirmed its mission and freedom to inform the public, protesting to the Minister of the Interior.
As government popularity was falling apart, the trade union movements were being repressed, and their leaders imprisoned, Thomas Sankara resigned resoundingly: he sent an open letter to President Zerbo denouncing the régime, which he decried as bourgeois and serving the interests of the minority. He was immediately stripped of his rank of captain and deported to a remote military camp. Another coup occurred on November 7, 1982, without the participation of Sankara and his left-wing comrades of the army who believed that a movement led only by the army would not allow for the deep political changes to which they aspired.
Acknowledging his popularity, an extraordinary assembly of the CSP (Council for the Salvation of the People) presided by Captain Jean Baptiste Ouedraogo, appointed Captain Sankara Prime Minister of Upper Volta on January 10, 1983. From then on, when Sankara began diplomatic functions with an official visit to Tripoli and an attendance of the Non-Aligned Summit in New Delhi where he met with Fidel Castro, neighboring Côte d’Ivoire with backing from France, started to worry about the political evolution of Upper Volta. Between March and May 1983, Sankara gave resounding speeches to mass rallies with messages and tones that made no mystery of his political leanings.
Two days after Sankara’s speech in Bobo-Dioulasso on May 14, 1983, Guy Penne, Mitterand’s adviser for Africa, arrived in Upper Volta for an official visit. Early in the morning that followed on May 17, armored vehicles encircled the residence of Thomas Sankara, effectively placing him under house arrest. In the days that followed, great demonstrations flared up in Ouagadougou, where the slogan “Free Sankara!” rang out. Popular demonstrations, as well as a faction of the army loyal to Sankara, compelled the authorities to release him. For two months, the political situation remained unresolved, each of the camps paranoid and consolidating its positions. Sankara and the left wing of the army strengthened their ties with civilian populations and trade union organizations, and set up a political platform.
Captain Blaise Compaoré, a friend and long-time comrade of Thomas Sankara, then took the rumor of an attempt to assassinate the latter as a pretext to move with troops on Ouagadougou in the afternoon of August 4, 1983. Civilian groups supported the operation by cutting electricity in the capital. By 9:30 p.m., Compaoré’s troops controlled the capital. At 10:00 p.m. Thomas Sankara announced via radio the fall of the government of Ouedraogo and the beginning of a revolutionary process, the formation of the National Council of the Revolution, and called for the creation of revolutionary committees in all the localities of the country. He announced that night on the radio that the purpose of the government would henceforth be to help the people achieve their “deep aspiration for freedom, true independence, economic and social progress. Upper Volta, the colonial invention, then made way to Burkina Faso, the land of the Upright Man.
Whose Revolution?
“No altar, no belief, no holy book, neither the Qur’an nor the Bible nor the others, have ever been able to reconcile the rich and and the poor, the exploiter and the exploited. And if Jesus himself had to take the whip to chase them from his temple, it is indeed because that is the only language they hear.” — Thomas Sankara
Marxism has occupied a prominent place in the theoretical arsenal of intellectuals and political figures who have led struggles for African independence. Few, however, are those among the intellectuals and African heads of states who have not felt the need to expunge from Marxism a dimension that is essential to it: class struggle. Two factors at least seem to explain this rejection of class struggle as the engine of history.
One is the class position of the leaders of decolonization, recruited from either the chieftaincy — which was either established or fundamentally transformed during colonialism by the powerful technology of indirect rule — or, and more often, among the petty-bourgeois intellectuals. Although these two groups are significantly different when it comes to culture, they are natural and complementary allies in the field of class politics as they both are products of and essential cogs in the machine of imperialist domination over their society’s productive forces. While petty-bourgeois intellectuals use their acquired skillsets to manage the postcolonial state and negotiate the terms of its extraversion, customary chiefs and religious authorities organize the participation of the masses. Decolonization, for these two groups, does not mean a rupture with the colonialist state and its capitalists, but greater and more profitable negotiation potential.
A second set of reasons for the rejection of class struggle, and thus of Marxist thought, results from a desire for cultural and epistemological independence. African-descended intellectuals have long addressed themselves to the psychic effects of post-Enlightenment thought’s negation of Black reason. Marxism’s historico-cultural specificity of 19th-century Europe has alienated many African thinkers who long for an authentically African sociological and political thought, which would owe everything to African minds and nothing to European ones. This, I think, has to do with a wounded pride and a tendency to idealize African societies before and during the Atlantic slave trade. In a lecture given in 1975 in New York, Walter Rodney takes Kwame Nkrumah as the paradigmatic figure of this tendency to avoid the reality of class struggle, qualifying that Ghana’s first president was not simply a bourgeois ideologue. From the 1950s to the end of his life, Nkrumah — a sincere and devoted revolutionary, statesman, and thinker — sought to develop an emancipatory consciousness while denying the importance of class contradictions in African societies. Chased from power by the CIA-allied Ghanaian petty bourgeoisie, whose non-existence as a class he had been busy theorizing, he finally produced a theoretical reflection which was at the same time an exercise in self-criticism while exiled in the Guinea of fellow anti-imperialist Sékou Touré.
With Thomas Sankara, who is of a different generation from that of Nkrumah and Senghor, there is no such ambiguity or escapism when it comes to dealing with class: the enemies of anti-imperialist struggle are the bourgeoisie and its allies, from the north and the south; its allies and prime beneficiaries, the working masses and, in a country like Burkina Faso, the peasantry most specifically.
When asked about the substance of his economic program, Sankara replied that it was for the Revolution to use the brains and arms of the Burkinabe, or people of Burkina Faso, to guarantee two meals a day and ten liters of water to all. One suspects that this goal, at once sublime and modest, did not excite the bourgeoisie. But the Burkinabè Revolution would achieve this aim over the course of four years, all the while being weaned off the budgetary assistance of France, the World Bank (which ceased immediately after the Revolution of 1983), and several other sources of financing promised to prior liberal regimes. Sankara’s sober class analysis is, in my opinion, one of the most valuable and unique aspects of his legacy for the African present. It is on the basis of this analysis that he was able to formulate and implement policies of redistribution.
Debt as a Hindrance to Sovereignty
When Sankara took power four years before his speech at the meeting of the Organization of African Unity, debt strangled not only the countries of Africa, but also those of Latin America. In 1985, out of a budget of 58 billion francs FCFA, Burkina Faso had to devote 12 billion to debt repayments. The speech of Thomas Sankara, as well as his call for a united front against debt, is in direct connection with the campaign launched by Fidel Castro in Havana in 1985. This campaign and his speech, which emphasized the odious nature of the debt, its colonial origins, its disastrous effects on public and social policies in particular, and the insolvency of debtors, does not, however, exhaust all the grievances Thomas Sankara harbored against the institution of debt.
Thomas Sankara was critical of both debt and aid, which was partly composed of loans. On the latter, he said: “We certainly encourage help that helps us to do without aid. But in general, the policy of assistance and aid has only disorganized us, enslaving us, disempowering us in our economic, political and cultural space.” This critique of aid is not simply made at the level of discourse; it is embedded in practical decisions. In 1987, he told one of his biographers, Ernest Harsch, that he suggested the United States replace the Peace Corps program in Burkina Faso with budgetary support. When the United States refused, Sankara promptly suspended the program. Sankara, although at the head of a very poor country and isolated by his ideological options, showed a rare strength of character and remarkable intransigence on the question of the sovereignty of his country. His speech at the UN in 1984 included this strong profession: “We swear, we proclaim, that from now on in Burkina Faso, nothing will happen without the participation of the Burkinabè. Nothing that wasn’t previously decided by us, elaborated by us. There will no longer be an attack on our decency and our dignity.”
This concern for autonomy, the preservation of the Revolution’s freedom of thought and action, had, as we have seen, the consequence of cutting Burkina Faso from several sources of financing. But Sankara was eager to act, to solve the hardships of his people, and to do so quickly. He therefore decided, without the need for IMF injunctions, severe austerity. He drastically cut the running costs of the administration, abolished the bonuses of civil servants, and reduced to a minimum the lifestyle of his government. What was saved from those budgetary cuts, was invested in education, health and agriculture programs in rural areas. To get an idea of the lengths to which this austerity went, let us remember that during his trip to New York at the UN, his delegation, which included ministers, was lodged on mattresses lying on the floor of Burkina Faso’s embassy. Official journeys and missions of State officials were only made in economy class.
Institutional and Cultural Failures of the Revolution
This austerity, a sort of ascetic policy, as well as the scale of the efforts required of the Burkinabè, but also a certain authoritarianism, had the consequence of displeasing or fatiguing even certain sections of the population who were rather favorable to the Revolution. Despite undeniable results from the point of view of health, food, and education, the Revolution in its last years alienated many Burkinabè, especially the most privileged ones. One should also note that although he was critical of parliamentarism and what he termed bourgeois democracy, Sankara failed to create a viable institutional alternative to it.
He also overestimated his fellow countrymen’s capacity for selflessness and revolutionary ardor. The Revolution created a series of institutions that were implemented in all regions of the country in order to replace feudal chieftaincies and channel people’s participation into the socio-economic development of the country but also to the judiciary system. Those were the electorally constituted CDR (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution) and the TPR (Popular Revolutionary Courts). Thought of as two-way communication channels between the people and the revolutionary leadership and as institutions of direct democracy, the CDR quickly became a vehicle for opportunistic elites. Because of the central authority’s lack of effective surveillance and coercive means, the CDR was found guilty of numerous power abuses and reactionary tendencies. One should also note that the speeches, radio and television shows, newspapers, and most of the vehicles of the régime’s communication relied on French, a language that the overwhelming majority of the people, those whose interests the Revolution was serving, did not understand. Vast segments of the peasantry, because of those cultural and institutional failures, were oblivious to the Revolution’s values, arguments for change and long term objectives.
A Lingering Thorn in Imperialism’s Side
On October 15, 1987, while Thomas Sankara was leading a work meeting in the Conseil de l’entente, shots rang out in the courtyard. According to the sole survivor of that meeting, Alouna Touré, Sankara asked those present to stay in the room and told them: “It is me that they are looking for.” He headed towards the door, lifting his hands as he exited the room. Armed men, commanded by Captain Gilbert Diendéré, a relative of Blaise Compaoré, fired on him without warning. The revolutionary process was tragically cut short. Compaoré, once a friend and ally, seized power and proceeded to a reinsertion of Burkina Faso in the domain of France. The country was once again on good terms with the World Bank and the IMF, as Blaise Compaoré slowly transformed it into a pillar of Françafrique.
When, in 2014, the Burkinabe youth, claiming the memory of Sankara, forced Compaoré to leave power, he was offered the direction of an international organization by President Hollande and eventually went into exile in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. The court system and the people of Burkina Faso are today asking for his extradition so that he can be questioned in the investigation of the death of Thomas Sankara, the circumstances of which have not yet been fully investigated.
Thomas Sankara was 37 years old when he was assassinated, and his comrades, the group of people that led the revolution, were all in their 30s. 30 years have passed, and progressives on the continent and abroad still celebrate his memory every October 15th. He is one of the compasses that gives direction, one of the giants, on whose shoulders militants can climb to see farther and reach higher. When I think of the harsh conditions humankind is made to suffer in a country such as Upper Volta in the 1980s, I can’t help but to think of the flourishing of Thomas Sankara, the nurturing by his people of such a magnificent spirit, as an extremely eloquent testimony of universal human potential and resilience. | https://medium.com/refuse-to-cooperate/thomas-sankara-pan-africanist-and-marxist-revolutionary-20dcbef781ad | ['Kent Allen Halliburton'] | 2018-09-28 00:49:36.267000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Communism', 'Africa', 'History', 'SEO'] |
Why Now Is The Perfect Time To Invest In Crypto | While the stock chart of Bitcoin looks like a super fun rollercoaster at Six Flags — investing in cryptocurrency is some serious shit. At least, we think it is because everyone is talking about it. And because everyone is talking about it — then it must be some serious shit.
If you’re feeling major FOMO from not investing in Bitcoin when it was a measly $100, don’t worry!
There’s still time to reap the benefits of investing in cryptocurrency. We’re not talking about economical benefits, however. That ship has sailed.
We’re talking about the social clout you have over your peers that comes with investing and owning cryptocurrency.
In this very important and informative article, we reveal six reasons why you should plunge some of your finances into cryptocurrency and how to leverage that social clout — the first step to thinking you can buy that superyacht in Monte Carlo.
So here’s why you should invest in crypto:
You can now tell all your friends that you own a crypto
“Yea, my portfolio consists of about 40% Bitcoin, 25% Ethereum, 12% Tron, 8% EOS, and 15% Dogecoin.”
Shove that sentence into any after work happy hour conversation and you’ll be sure to get some wide open eyelids.
“Wait, there’s more than Bitcoin?” says your uninformed co-worker, Jeff.
This is a great opportunity for you to just list a bunch of the other cryptocurrencies you own and vaguely talk about why they’re going to change the way we use money. You don’t know what they are or what they do, but a quick skim on the Wikipedia page will help you out.
You now have the authority to talk about any subject related to crypto
Start dropping knowledge left, right, up, down, and diagonally (only if you’re a bishop though) about everything crypto.
Assuming that you’ve already subscribed to all the crypto RSS feeds and twitter handles, you’ll have enough knowledge about the market to verbally debilitate your friends at any function!
You can start saying ‘crypto’ instead of cryptocurrency
I mean, it comes with a right of passage.
You can now start talking about how everything is going to be ‘decentralized’ in the future
Banks, the internet, f*ck it, everything needs to be decentralized. Every time someone says they have to stop at an ATM, cross your arms and go “Pfft, those are gonna be gone soon.”
Example conversation:
“I think we should decentralize zoos.” “That’s called the wilderness, Tom”
You can explain blockchain to your friends like they’re extraterrestrial organisms from another solar system
“The blockchain will revolutionize the established systems we currently have in place!”
When you finally invest in cryptocurrency (sorry: crypto), it comes with a new wealth of knowledge about the blockchain that your peers may not understand.
Talk about the blockchain in layman’s terms to them — even though you still kinda don’t fully understand what it is. Slowly explain what it is and how it works. When they try to repeat what you say, offer some additional encouragement in the form of a smile and a positive tone of voice.
Eventually, you’ll need to describe to them how you’re an early adopter for investing and how they’re a bunch of ‘laggards.’
You can periodically check crypto charts in front of people to let them know you’re hot shit
In a big meeting? Whip out your laptop and pull up a stock chart daunting enough to make a stock trader at Merril Lynch squirm. Change the colors of the charts to make it look like your looking at different aspects of the price change. Make sure there’s a bunch of ticker symbols and prices on the right-hand corner colored in red and green as well.
Nothing says “I made a terrible financial investment” more than checking stock charts way too often with puddles of sweat under the armpits of your Oxford button-up shirt.
Pro-tip: Download Coinbase to track your ‘earnings’
Now, all you have to do is invest in some crypto. Just put a bunch of names in a hat and pick one. It doesn’t really make a difference whether you have Ripple or LiteCoin. All that matters is that you have it. After you’re done — you’ll feel like you made the investment of a lifetime. We’ll meet you at the harbor to compare superyachts.
. | https://medium.com/fireside-post/why-now-is-the-perfect-time-to-invest-in-crypto-9214b71fb130 | ['Fireside Post', 'Business Satire'] | 2018-09-06 20:25:09.489000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Investing', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Satire', 'Bitcoin'] |
Christmas | I have a lot of people now thinking about the Christmas period and starting to organise their Christmas shopping for Presents for family and friends. I have been blogging and raising awareness of my online store so if you would like to take a look for yourself or for presents for other people please do take a look. Also please do share and like this post sharing my website with people you know. The site address is http://jomccowey.flp.com thank you everyone for taking the time to look and order. | https://medium.com/forever-with-jo/christmas-ef5ad0ea507d | ['Jo Mccowey'] | 2016-10-13 21:34:08.809000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Work', 'Christmas Gifts', 'Earn Money Online', 'Holidays'] |
Yes! | You love gardening too, Bassey Elimian. I am sure you will enjoy using the rosemary plant. Blessings. | https://medium.com/@bassey/yes-56840fa532d9 | ['Bassey Elimian'] | 2020-12-23 16:05:55.739000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Life Lessons', 'Gardening', 'Life', 'Self'] |
FXREVIEW — FXVIEW V/S HOTFOREX?. Continuing the same momentum, here I am… | Continuing the same momentum, here I am back with another reviews on two good forex brokers — Fxview and Hotforex.
Starting with talking about regulations, both are well connected with regulatory bodies. Fxview is regulated and backed with CySEC, FCA, SVG, FSA and many more, meanwhile Hotforex is regulated with FCA, SVG, FSA, FSCA, and DFSA. Having multiple regulations backing your forex broker is a good sign that they have a good sense of security and you can safely deposit the funds with them.
Now, let’s get down to real business — trading conditions
SPREADS
Clearly, from this point of view, we can see that Fxview’s spreads are a tad bit better than Hotforex’s. You can also add some more pairs of your choice to see, as this was taken from myfxbook spreads page.
2. COMMISSIONS
Fxview — $2/100K RT
Hotforex — $6/100K RT
Undoubtedly, Fxview’s commission is a whole lot cheaper as compared to Hotforex’s.
Let’s include the commission and spreads and this is the full views:
Fxview is taking all the leads, thanks to their low commission.
3. PAYMENT METHODS
Minimum Deposit for Fxview — 5 USD
Minimum Deposit for Hotforex — 5 USD (or 100 USD for Wire Transfer)
Both the brokers accept multiple deposit and withdrawal methods by multiple credit cards, multiple electronic payment methods, bank wire transfer, local bank transfer, and other payment methods. There are no extra fees charged for withdrawal of funds with both too.
4. SERVICES
Both Fxview and Hotforex offer great services ranging from good trading tools to deposit bonuses, and more. Their customer support is responding to my queries, which is an important factor in picking the right forex broker. Talking about inactivity fees:
Fxview — No fees will be charged for the inactivity of an account. Also, if there is zero activity for 6 months, your account will be closed.
Hotforex — 5 USD will be charged for the inactivity of an account for 6 months and then, additionally of 5 USD per month afterward.
Coming to the bigger picture, if you are looking for solid forex trading, Fxview is a good choice. But both the forex brokers are good to pick. In fact, you can try trading with small funds and see how it turns out for you. The final choice is ultimately yours.
Hope this helps. | https://medium.com/@jjkovacik/fxreview-fxview-v-s-hotforex-7bf6787372be | ['Jakub Kovacik'] | 2021-12-29 11:56:06.700000+00:00 | ['Fxview', 'Hotforex', 'Forex', 'Forex Brokers', 'Forex Trading'] |
How to improve your grammar, in any language. | Photo from Unsplash
Here are 4 key points that you can take away, to improve your grammatical skills, not only in English but in any other language.
Read: By reading more books, you are exposing yourself to more words, and more grammatical techniques. It will help you to understand those words because they are in context, and so the context will help you define those words.
By reading more books, you are exposing yourself to more words, and more grammatical techniques. It will help you to understand those words because they are in context, and so the context will help you define those words. Test yourself: By doing simple comprehension and grammar tests, you can test your understanding of what you are learning over time. By doing this, you can see yourself improving as time passes.
By doing simple comprehension and grammar tests, you can test your understanding of what you are learning over time. By doing this, you can see yourself improving as time passes. Write: This is one of the best ways to practice your grammar. Write. You can write whatever you like. Then give it to a friend who can check it and point out any grammatical mistakes that you have made. They can also show you new ways to make your writing better.
This is one of the best ways to practice your grammar. Write. You can write whatever you like. Then give it to a friend who can check it and point out any grammatical mistakes that you have made. They can also show you new ways to make your writing better. Speak: What these points all have in common is that they are trying to make you use English as much as you can. This is the same for all languages. If you want to learn any language quicker, use what you already know in everyday life. As you learn more words, incorporate them in your speech and your writing, and this will make it easier for you to learn the language. English is no different.
I hope that you will use this to improve your grammar, in whatever language you are learning. | https://medium.com/@13momohamed/how-to-improve-your-grammar-in-any-language-c2d281cadbea | [] | 2020-12-20 15:18:11.283000+00:00 | ['Language', 'Grammar', 'Learning', 'Self Improvement', 'English'] |
Three Ways to Accelerate Learning | Structural changes lead to new integrated networks of brain regions that function together to support learning. It also leads to brain regions that are important for the behavior to change the structure or to enlarge.
For instance… people that read braille have larger hand sensory areas in the brain.
Your dominant hand motor region (right-handed or left-handed) corresponds to the opposite side of the brain which rules that hand. So if you are right-handed your dominant hand motor region will be on the left side of your brain which rules the right side of your body.
London taxi drivers who have to memorize the maps of all of London have larger brain regions that correspond to spatial or mapping memories.
So when you learn, your brain changes to support learning. Basically, you learn to learn more easily. Similar to AI which does it much more quickly but not necessarily more efficiently.
Sidenote:
In the time that it takes for you to take a breath before you answer a question, A.I. has the equivalent of a year in our time to research the question. And during that equivalent year it, like us, learns to learn more efficiently as it learns about a subject.
Point is that AI will immediately become the superior intelligence and we should heed Elon musks warnings, which no one seems to be taking him seriously.
The third way your brain changes through learning is by altering brain function.
As you alter brain regions by way of learning, the brain becomes more excitable and it becomes easier to learn again. Which you can see works complimentary with the second way the brain changes, through structural change by way of the first way it changes through chemicals which could be seen as laying the foundation for the change and getting things started.
As your brain shifts and increases excitability, the brain shifts how and when they are activated as well.
This could be seen as represented by how excited you become when you finally nail that chord progression on the piano or catch the bowling pin that you kept missing when learning to juggle. You get excited as you notice progress when learning a new motor skill. Or when you pass that test question that you couldn’t seem to remember.
When you learn, entire networks of brain activity shift and change.
The main lesson from all of this is the best driver or most effective and efficient way to learn is thorough behavior or practice.
Therefore, anything that you do you will get better at. Even things that are difficult to quantify like using your intuition. When you use and trust your gut feeling your brain changes physically, chemically, and functionally to support that behavior and to make you better at it & better at learning to do it. So the increase is exponential as it is constantly increasing.
This is why once you reach a certain level of skill or mastery at something (ie. when you can play chord progressions easily) it becomes much easier for you to learn to play an entire song. You would think that it’s because you know how to play chord progressions and it is, but there is much more going on at all different levels that are at work or, in the case of playing the piano, at play. (pardon the pun)
How can you accelerate learning?
Research shows at least 3 ways.
Brain stimulation, exercise, and learning. All 3 of which you can do on your own at home.
Brain stimulation happens, as we have talked about through learning. Also through exercise, both of which you can do at home.
I recommend yoga which is more or less stretching using the resistance of your body weight.
If you drop any judgment or bias you have about it and try it, you’ll be amazed at how difficult it is, how much of a workout it is, and how much & and how rapidly it changes your body. It opens the body which in turn opens the mind which makes it easier to let go of judgment and bias enhances learning. | https://medium.iam5d.com/three-ways-to-accelerate-learning-ce2dedcaeb7a | ['Richard Thomas Scott'] | 2020-12-25 05:16:48.645000+00:00 | ['Learning', 'Physiology', 'Brain', 'Neuroplasticity', 'Science'] |
How to run Python code on your BigQuery table | How to run Python code on your BigQuery table
You can do lots of things in SQL, and SQL is undeniably convenient, but every once in a while, you will find yourself needing to run Python code on your BigQuery tables. If your data is small, you can use Pandas (and the BigQuery client library), but if your data is large, the best approach is to use Apache Beam and execute it in a serverless, autoscaled way with Cloud Dataflow.
Here’s the full code for the example in GitHub. It comes from our forthcoming book on BigQuery.
The code here is from Chapter 5 of our new book on BigQuery. You can read it in early access on Safari.
Python 3 Apache Beam + BigQuery
Here’s the key Beam code to read from BigQuery and write to BigQuery:
with beam.Pipeline(RUNNER, options = opts) as p:
(p
| 'read_bq' >> beam.io.Read(beam.io.BigQuerySource(query=query, use_standard_sql=True))
| 'compute_fit' >> beam.FlatMap(compute_fit)
| 'write_bq' >> beam.io.gcp.bigquery.WriteToBigQuery(
'ch05eu.station_stats', schema='station_id:string,ag:FLOAT64,bg:FLOAT64,cg:FLOAT64')
)
Essentially, we are running a query on a BigQuery table, running the Python method compute_fit, and writing the output to a BigQuery table.
This is my compute_fit method. As you can see, it’s just plain Python code:
def compute_fit(row):
from scipy import stats
import numpy as np
durations = row['duration_array']
ag, bg, cg = stats.gamma.fit(durations)
if np.isfinite(ag) and np.isfinite(bg) and np.isfinite(cg):
result = {}
result['station_id'] = str(row['start_station_id'])
result['ag'] = ag
result['bg'] = bg
result['cg'] = cg
yield result
Make sure to specify the Python packages that you need installed on the Dataflow workers in a requirements.txt:
%%writefile requirements.txt
numpy
scipy
Enjoy! | https://medium.com/google-cloud/how-to-run-python-code-on-your-bigquery-table-1bbd78c69351 | ['Lak Lakshmanan'] | 2019-06-06 22:01:53.854000+00:00 | ['Bigquery', 'Apache Beam'] |
Excel to Python | Excel to Python
Building front-end Excel workbooks for Python tools
During the Build 2016 conference, Microsoft announced that 1.2 billion people around the globe were using Excel [1]. That same year, the estimated population of Earth was 7.4 billion [2].
That is 16.2% of all people on Earth.
Python comparatively boasts a mere 8.2 million active developers according to a 2019 report [3] — which is 0.001% of the Earth’s population.
With those numbers in mind, it may benefit us to encourage more interactivity between Excel and Python — opening up the floodgates to a swarm of new users for Python-built tools.
The opportunity for Excel front-end’s for Python is huge. In this article, we will take a look at how to do this, and implement a ‘typical’ finance Excel setup sheet. | https://towardsdatascience.com/excel-to-python-79b01638f2d9 | ['James Briggs'] | 2020-05-01 19:03:28.818000+00:00 | ['Data Analysis', 'Excel', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
High-Conflict Co-Parents Love Starting Holiday Drama. This Year, Please, Don’t Let Them. | It’s December 8th, 2020. John has been busy at work making year-end numbers and eagerly anticipates the approaching Christmas break. After a treacherous year for his sales department, he’s looking forward to closing out the year with his 10-year-old son, Noah, and a new girlfriend, Sara.
John takes his girlfriend Christmas shopping. They enjoy their first restaurant since March. As they leave for the evening, the social distanced Santa, light snow, and holiday music lighten the dread he’s felt for the last nine months. John feels almost…cheerful. Happy.
On the way to Sara’s apartment, “Caroline” flashes across John’s text notifications. Sara sighs. 10 months of dating and she knows how these exchanges impact John’s mood. For the rest of the evening, he’ll be annoyed, worried, and stressed. So much for Christmas movies and sex.
Noah’s mom, Caroline, is a high conflict addict needing a fix. John is like her reliable heroin supply. Caroline is also subconsciously starting a path of parental alienation and building a narrative that John is an unengaged parent. A court hearing to restrict his visits or ask for more child support is ahead. Retaliation for the new girlfriend.
The exchange goes like this:
John had no obligation to respond to this message.
Sara went to bed early. John pondered the exchange most of the night. Was she lying? Why would she do that? Did Noah feel abandoned? John had worried the divorce would impact him emotionally, like John’s parent’s divorce had done to him. For six hours he mentally backflipped over the meaning of the exchange and what to say to their son.
Caroline won a game John never wanted to play. And John let it happen. | https://medium.com/@tiffanymadison/high-conflict-co-parents-love-starting-holiday-drama-this-year-please-dont-let-them-9b98131b3471 | ['Tiffany Madison'] | 2020-12-15 22:34:58.921000+00:00 | ['Conflict', 'Communication', 'Parenting Advice', 'Parenting', 'Narcissism'] |
Dentures- An Introduction | Dentures or false teeth used to replace natural teeth after their having fallen out or have been extracted, allow you to eat and speak without constraint.
Loose dentures can be very uncomfortable and embarrassing.
They can also create friction at the gum line which is minor initially, but can eventually create sores.
When left unattended, this inflammation is not only painful but can also pose a serious risk to your oral health.
Though the dentures generally fit securely in your mouth, they sometimes become loose and no longer feel the way they are meant to.
They might start slipping & sliding in the mouth when you are eating or speaking.
A visit to a dentist can ascertain if the dentures can be relined or if a new set is required.
Upon noticing loose dentures, it is best to schedule an appointment to talk to your dentist & fix the situation as quickly as possible.
Reasons for Loose Dentures
There can be various reasons for the dentures becoming loose. Bone resorption, a process where your gums begin to shrink is the most common reason among others.
Gradual wear and tear can be another reason for dentures becoming loose.
Good care of your dentures can prevent this, which implies taking them out before sleeping at night and avoiding chewing or biting down on hard food.
Loose Denture Fixes
There are a variety of options for loose denture fixes, including fast, in-office fixes or permanent changes to your denture that can last several years.
New Denture Adhesive
You can hold them in place with a strong denture adhesive, to prevent them from moving around too much in your mouth.
A paste with a firmer grip and better fill can buy you time while more permanent options are accessed.
Soft Relining
A quick in-office procedure, the soft relining helps re-mold the inner lining of removable dentures.
This helps to accommodate the changes in your jaw shape.
This is done by cleaning the dentures and adding polymer to the tray. The tray is again replaced in the mouth to take shape, giving a soft, more secure fit.
According to the severity of loosening, this option can sustain from months to years providing you with a dependable and inexpensive solution.
Hard Relining
Similar to its less permanent counterpart, in this relining, the newly molded dentures are sent out to a lab where hard denture plastic is used permanently to reshape the tray.
This offers a more durable fit, but the procedure is more costly and time-consuming.
Also, your dentures will be unavailable to you for a couple of days while they are at the lab, which may result in some inconvenience.
It is recommended that patients have the dentures relined to improve the fit when bone loss occurs.
Visiting the dentist regularly can help ensure relining is done when it is rather than waiting for the dentures to break.
Usually, a dentist can adjust the way the dentures fit with repairs and relining.
But almost all dentures will need replacement at some juncture, especially if there is considerable bone loss.
Besides, the dentures that do not fit well are more inclined to breakage.
Dental Implants
Your dentist may recommend switching to implant-supported dentures also known as overdentures if he feels you are eligible.
In this process, the implants or titanium posts are fused to your jawbone to keep your artificial teeth secured in place.
These are more secure removable dentures as the artificial teeth are anchored to your jawbone using dental implants.
Implants are regarded as a better alternative to dentures because the titanium posts act like your tooth root and stimulate the growth of bone, instead of reducing your bone density like dentures.
An invasive procedure, this is expensive but one of the best ways of lessening denture adjustment.
But not everyone is eligible for this method as the adequate bone health to fully support implant rods, may be missing.
The two types of implant-supported dentures are bar-retained and ball-retained dentures.
Bar-Retained Dentures:
Your jawline and is wrapped around with a thin metal bar, attached to two to five dental implants in your jawbone using clips.
Ball-Retained Dentures:
Each of the implants in the mouth requires to have a metal attachment that fits into a part of the denture
CONCLUSION
Loose dentures can be cumbersome and difficult and pose a hindrance to chewing food and speaking properly.
In case of loose dentures, schedule an appointment with Dr. Gaurav Sharma at Kirkland Premier Dentistry, to get them adjusted and to discuss more secure alternatives.
Content originally published on Kirkland Premier Dentistry | https://medium.com/@kirkland-premier-dentistry/dentures-an-introduction-4542f67a4278 | ['Kirkland Premier Dentistry'] | 2021-10-29 07:59:10.559000+00:00 | ['Dental Implants', 'Dentures', 'Dentistry', 'Dental Care', 'Dental'] |
How Futures Trading Changed Bitcoin Prices | From Bitcoin’s inception in 2009 through mid-2017, its price remained under $4,000. In the second half of 2017, it climbed dramatically to nearly $20,000, but descended rapidly starting in mid-December. The peak price coincided with the introduction of bitcoin futures trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The rapid run-up and subsequent fall in the price after the introduction of futures does not appear to be a coincidence. Rather, it is consistent with trading behavior that typically accompanies the introduction of futures markets for an asset.
The peak bitcoin price coincided with the day bitcoin futures started trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). These price dynamics are consistent with the rise and collapse of the home financing market in the 2000s. The mortgage boom was driven by financial innovations in securitization and groupings of bonds that attracted optimistic investors; the subsequent bust was driven by the creation of instruments that allowed pessimistic investors to bet against the housing market. Similarly, the advent of blockchain introduced a new financial instrument, bitcoin, which optimistic investors bid up, until the launch of bitcoin futures allowed pessimists to enter the market, which contributed to the reversal of the bitcoin price dynamics.
Bitcoin price dynamics from the end of 2017 to early 2018
When discussing the price of a currency or an asset like bitcoin, it is useful to separate transactional demand, which arises from using bitcoins in transactions such as purchases of goods and services, from speculative demand, which arises when people are buying bitcoins in the hope that their value will increase. Speculative demand is basically a bet on the price of the underlying asset or currency increasing, because the investor does not need the asset itself. For most currencies and assets, investors have ways to bet on the increase or decline in their value using a variety of financial instruments based on the asset or a currency, so-called financial derivatives.
Before December 2017, there was no market for bitcoin derivatives. This meant that it was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to bet on the decline in bitcoin price. Such bets usually take the form of short selling, that is selling an asset before buying it, forward or future contracts, swaps, or a combination. Betting on the increase in bitcoin price was easy — one just had to buy it. Speculative demand for bitcoin came only from optimists, investors who were willing to bet money that the price was going to go up. And until December 17, those investors were right: As with a self-fulfilling prophecy, optimists’ demand pushed the price of bitcoin up, energizing more people to join in and keep pushing up the price. The pessimists, however, had no mechanism available to put money behind their belief that the bitcoin price would collapse. So they were left to wait for their “I told you so” moment.
This one-sided speculative demand came to an end when the futures for bitcoin started trading on the CME on December 17. Although the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) had opened a futures market a week earlier on December 10, trading was thin until the CME joined the market. Indeed, the average daily trading volume the month after the CME issued futures was approximately six times larger than when only the CBOE offered these derivatives.
With the introduction of bitcoin futures, pessimists could bet on a bitcoin price decline, buying and selling contracts with a lower delivery price in the future than the spot price. For example, they could sell a promise to deliver a bitcoin in a month’s time at a lower price than the current spot price and hope to buy a bitcoin during the month at an even lower price to make a profit. With offers of future bitcoin deliveries at a lower price coming through, the order flow necessarily put downward pressure on the spot price as well. For all investors who were in the market to buy bitcoins for either transactional or speculative reasons and were willing to wait a month, this was a good deal. The new investment opportunity led to a fall in demand in the spot bitcoin market and therefore a drop in price. With falling prices, pessimists started to make money on their bets, fueling further short selling and further downward pressure on prices.
Figure 1 shows the three largest bitcoin price declines in 2017. We scale the three series so that the peak values are equal to 100 on the peak event days. Hence, each point on the figure can be interpreted as a percent of the peak value. The horizontal axis represents the number of days before and after the peak dates. The price decline following the issuance of bitcoin futures on the CME (red line) is clearly larger than in the previous two reversals. Additionally, the two earlier decreases in prices returned to pre-crash levels in about a month. As of late April, the bitcoin price had not returned to its pre-futures peak.
Figure 1
Comparison of three largest bitcoin price declines in 2017
2017 bitcoin price declines
This is not the first time that markets observed a turning point following the introduction of a new instrument, as could be seen in the more complex mortgage-backed securities market. The mechanism hinges on the same driving force of optimistic and pessimistic traders.
Why, then, did the price of bitcoin fall somewhat gradually rather than collapse overnight? The answer to this is difficult. It could be that pessimistic investors lack the attention, willingness, or ability to enter the market on the first day or week of trading. Consistent with this assertion, the total volume of transactions in the CME futures market started very low, with an average trading volume of contracts promising to deliver approximately 12,000 bitcoins during the first week of trading, relative to the estimated spot market turnover of 200,000 bitcoins.
Is there a fundamental price of bitcoin?
So where is the price of bitcoin going? This is a very difficult question, and we do not pretend to be able to forecast bitcoin prices, nor will we offer any guesses. Instead, we outline a few factors that may affect the fundamental price of bitcoin, which is where we would expect the price to go in the long run, once speculative demand by optimists and pessimists balances out.
The supply of bitcoins is determined by the volume of bitcoin currently in circulation and the additional volume to be mined. The decision to mine a bitcoin depends on the cost and benefit from mining. Hayes estimated a bitcoin mining cost in 2015 of around $250, which was close to the bitcoin price at the time. More generally, however, the mining cost of bitcoin should not affect its value any more than the cost of printing regular currency affects its value — basically not at all.
Given that there is no actual asset that backs the value of bitcoin and it doesn’t provide a natural hedge as insurance against sharp moves in any other asset’s value, what will eventually determine the “fundamental” price of bitcoin is transactional demand relative to supply. We know that bitcoin is used as a means of exchange in a number of markets. The amount of bitcoins needed for these markets to function constitutes transactional demand. The supply growth of bitcoin is becoming more limited as the mining price increases. If transactional demand grows faster than supply, we would expect the price to grow.
Transactional demand in turn depends on a number of factors. One is the availability of substitutes. If a different cryptocurrency becomes more widely used as a means of exchange in the markets currently dominated by bitcoin, demand for bitcoin may drop precipitously because these tend to be winner-takes-all markets. Second, if traditional financial institutions become more willing to accept bitcoin as collateral, a means of payment, or a direct investment, demand may increase substantially. Finally, official recognition and regulatory acceptance of bitcoin as a means of payments would increase its circulation, while regulatory constraints or introduction of transaction fees may reduce it.
Conclusion
The rapid rise of the price of bitcoin and its decline following issuance of futures on the CME is consistent with pricing dynamics suggested elsewhere in financial theory and with previously observed trading behavior. Namely, optimists bid up the price before financial instruments are available to short the market. Once derivatives markets become sufficiently deep, short-selling pressure from pessimists leads to a sharp decline in value. As speculative dynamics disappear from the bitcoin market, the transactional benefits are likely to be the factor that will drive valuation. | https://medium.com/ico-disaster/how-futures-trading-changed-bitcoin-prices-5b67b56ec1aa | ['Matteo Ek'] | 2018-05-08 11:40:14.799000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto Trading'] |
Wait! My kid is not a leader? | The topic of leadership is a common one among us HR practitioners for ages. We’ve got so many books on this topic, and so many gurus out there. While the debate on whether leaders are made or born is still inconclusive, there are a couple of things that we all can agree on. First of all, not all of us are leaders, and there is a difference between a leader and a manager.
Something that caught my attention recently was this talk about leadership in kids among the parenting community that I was a part of. It seems that this had become quite a big deal in schools, or rather, this is now an essential part of the kids’ development. What bothered me wasn’t the fact that we as parents are placing emphasis on developing our kids’ leadership skills. I mean, this is a good thing I feel. However, what bothered me were the serious misconceptions parents have, and how they tried to push their kids towards something that could seriously hurt their kids’ development.
It could be the movies that we grew up with, instilling in us that leadership equals to playing the hero role in any given situation. And, maybe it’s that “smarter than everyone” character that stood out like a shiny star. The truth about real leadership? It’s often a lot less glamorous.
While I’ll not try to be that guru who thinks that I can put a clear definition of what true leadership is, but I can quite certainly point out what it is not. Here are the three common issues that I noticed.
The Alpha Mentality
You have to be the alpha in the group to be a leader. You got to be the one that knows everything and the one that gives the instructions. The rest are supposed to follow your direction. You need to be firm and forceful with group members who disagree and make them see things your way.
We see this alot in organizations and I have to admit that there are a lot of these alpha mentalities around.
However, this is not a style of leadership that suits everyone. What’s more, there are many other styles of leadership that are equally or more effective than taking an autocratic or authoritative approach.
One Person Team
This is a very scary observation especially to see this in kids. I’ve heard this so many times with parents telling their kids that they have to volunteer to lead. It is important to be the leader. But what happened to understanding the task? Or, the resources or group that you have to work with? To lead effectively, you need to be able to first understand the parameters that you’re working with, before charging head first into any situation.
Coaching kids to fight for the lead role and making other roles look lesser is a bad move. A good leader understands that he/ she is only as good as the team, and every role is important. Sometimes, the smarter move is to step aside and let someone else take charge.
More words than action
I actually overheard this conversation between a mum and her kid where she told him that he has to be a leader and tell others what to do. He shouldn’t be doing the work, but just instructing his team members to do the work. She added that, “That’s what a leader should do!”.
I was shocked! While I see her point in “delegating” and agree to a large extent that it is important, pushing the kid to hands off is another thing altogether.
From what I’ve observed with this kid, he was very comfortable with leading by example. He would work on a task with someone else in the team and once his teammate is comfortable with continuing the task, he moves on.
He was perfectly fine and was showing very good leadership in my opinion. His only “mistake”? He wasn’t vocal enough in “instructing” his team! Obviously, I disagree.
Is there a right way to develop leadership skills in kids?
I feel that too much emphasis is placed on the topic of leadership. “To lead is good and to follow is bad?”. To hear that out loud feels awkward for many of the parents I spoke with. It’s clear to them that they want to raise kids who can lead, but rarely do you hear parents say that they want to raise kids to be a good follower. The magic word we’re looking for here is “teamwork”.
Only when you are clear about the task and the roles of each one on the team can you function effectively as part of the team. Be it as the lead or as a member of the team, each role is important and essentially in its own way to accomplish the task.
As a first step to properly develop leadership skills in kids, I feel that the focus should be placed on developing team work. With a task focused approach, build on the kid’s collaboration skills and confidence. The leadership trait will develop naturally.
So, is my kid a leader?
I think he is, but not a conventional one.
In one of our conversations, I asked him if he thinks he’s got leadership skills and if he’s a leader. His response was a simple “maybe”!
Having played a number of games with my kid, I had the chance to observe his up close. There is an online game which I watched him play where he was playing with a number of other players. These are players from all over the world, and they would communicate via the text chat or sometimes via voice (using discord). There were a number of game tasks that the team needed to accomplish.
I’ve watched him and his team win and lose the game on many different occasions, and also him playing the role both as a member of the team, and as a leader dishing out instructions to the other members.
So, do I think he is a leader or is someone with leadership skills? I think so. However, I believe he’s more focused on trying to win the game by accomplishing the tasks. He would step up to lead if he needs to and follow where it made sense.
This Article
What I hoped to achieve with this article is to raise the awareness of the topic of leadership in kids.
Yes, it is important to have that as part of their development, but I hope that parents can see teamwork and collaboration as essential building blocks to establishing their very own style of leadership.
If you liked (or learned from) this post:
Please consider clicking the 👏, below, highlighting, commenting, or sharing with anyone who’d enjoy it. Thank you for reading!
You might also enjoy my other articles on:
About the author!
Eric Wong is a father of 2 amazing kids and is constantly learning from them. For work, Eric Wong is the Managing Consultant from The Talent Shark. His experience spans across the various human resource functions such as HR Information Systems, Business Partnering and Talent Management. Eric is also the Advisor for Workbond and currently sits on the Advisory Board of the Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS). Connect with him on Linkedin or follow him on Twitter @ErickyWong.
For more stories and articles on careers, job search and anything HR, you can also visit us at The Talent Shark’s Publication on Medium!
For more stories and articles on parenting, you can also visit us at The Joy of Parenting Publication on Medium! | https://medium.com/the-joy-of-parenting/wait-my-kid-is-not-a-leader-28a642ddc29d | ['Eric Wong'] | 2020-12-24 08:12:45.933000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Parenting', 'Kids', 'Children', 'Education'] |
Transforming BigQuery JSON API responses recursively | Flying the nest, recursively
Ever watched the movie Inception? It’s a goodie. A timeline within a timeline within a timeline. And when it all rolls back you see how things fit together. In similar fashion, recursion has a very small footprint in code, but can address huge computational (read “nested”) complexity.
Okay, enough riff-raff, let’s get to it!
BigQuery’s query API return JSON
This is a sample of Google BigQuery’s API response after doing a query:
BigQuery’s query API result looks like this
The schema shows you how the data is structured and the rows indicate, with “f” for field and “v” for value, what values fit into the schema.
Now, isn’t it easier to read and manipulate the JSON when it looks like this?
Transformed BigQuery result into something more manageable
If you agree, then you’re in good hands.
The solution
Here is the node.js code that does this transformation. Feel free to use it, adapt it to your needs and generally make your life simpler and your data happier. The interface to the function is:
convertBQToMySQLResults(schema, rows)
and you pass in the BigQuery results like so: | https://towardsdatascience.com/transforming-bigquery-json-api-responses-recursively-5c462f5b01 | ['Eben Du Toit'] | 2019-03-27 11:48:16.194000+00:00 | ['Json', 'Bigquery', 'MySQL', 'JavaScript'] |
Best Unlimited Web Hosting In Dubai | Free SSL | Free CDN | Hi, today I will explain everything you need to know about web hosting. At the end of this article, you’ll have all the information you need to make an informed decision when you come to buy a hosting service.
Web Hosting is the home of your website. If you want a website, you’ll need somewhere to host it. That’s exactly what a hosting service is. There are different types of web hosting like shared hosting, Virtual Private Servers & Dedicated Servers.
But primarily, I’ll discuss shared hosting, which is the most widespread & most affordable type of hosting.
What is Web Hosting?
So hosting is the computer & network infrastructure that keeps your website available across the internet. It also provides other key services like email for you.
So how does it all work?
Well, it all starts with a server. A server is a powerful computer kept in a highly secure, purpose-built, multi-million-pound facility called a datacentre.
The datacentre provides the necessary power and network connectivity with temperature control, backup & fire suppression systems and high levels of physical security.
What to look for in a hosting company?
Security: The company offers SSL certificates and security from attacks like DDoS, malware, virus etc. Other security features are things like anti-spam and data backup. These ensure that your emails always get through and keep your data safe.
Resources- Are they offering optimal bandwidth, disk space, databases, email accounts?
Control Panel- Are they offering any control panel, and does it have an easy-to-use interface? Does it allow you to manage all aspects of your hosting such as setting up email addresses, managing domains, databases and loads of other elements?
Website Builder- If you want to build your website, you can use a Website Builder tool that should be included with hosting Plans to allow non-technical people to build a website using pre-made templates.
Free Add-ons- The free tools include popular applications like WordPress and advanced eCommerce tools like PrestaShop & Magento so you can sell online.
If you’re with one hosting company & you want to switch to a different host, then is the hosting provider offering free migration.
Which is the Best Web Hosting company in UAE?
YouStable allows you to host unlimited websites with free SSL & free domain names and instant set-up so that you can get started quickly. Here are some other features that you get with the unlimited web hosting plans:
1. Free CDN
2. Free Premium Support
3. 99.9% uptime guarantee
4. Daily backup
5. 24*7 Backup
6. Direct Admin Control Panel
7. Free Migration
There are three plans under unlimited web hosting starting at just AED 4.35/mo.
You can visit their company website and view other hosting plans like VPS, Dedicated and Reseller Hosting. | https://medium.com/@jupadhyay849/best-unlimited-web-hosting-in-dubai-free-ssl-free-cdn-d9e91f046b74 | ['Jyoti Upadhyay'] | 2021-12-28 06:58:53.185000+00:00 | ['Web Hosting', 'Uae', 'Dubai', 'Hosting', 'Web Hosting Provider'] |
Agility — a superpower for Human Resource Professionals | A few years ago during an HR Summit in Vancouver, I heard the term Agile in HR for the first time and it piqued my curiosity. Until then Agile to me was a technology followed by software engineers, essentially people on the Delivery side of things in my organization, proven to increase value to customers and the default team approach we had followed for a long time.
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d01-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d02-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d03-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d04-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d05-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d06-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d07-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d08-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d09-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d10-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d11-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d12-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d13-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d14-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d15-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d16-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d17-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d18-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d19-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d20-v-b.html
https://bobstephen085.medium.com/the-truth-on-trumps-recent-firing-of-my-wife-e89f8de21c35
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d01-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d02-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d03-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d04-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d05-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d06-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d07-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d08-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d09-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d10-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d11-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d12-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d13-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d14-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d15-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d16-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d17-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d18-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d19-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d20-v-b.html
https://bobstephen085.medium.com/the-truth-on-trumps-recent-firing-of-my-wife-e89f8de21c35
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d01-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d02-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d03-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d04-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d05-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d06-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d07-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d08-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d09-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d10-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d11-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d12-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d13-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d14-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d15-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d16-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d17-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d18-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d19-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d20-v-b.html
https://bobstephen085.medium.com/the-truth-on-trumps-recent-firing-of-my-wife-e89f8de21c35
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d01-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d02-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d03-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d04-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d05-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d06-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d07-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d08-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d09-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d10-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d11-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d12-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d13-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d14-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d15-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d16-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d17-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d18-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d19-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d20-v-b.html
https://bobstephen085.medium.com/the-truth-on-trumps-recent-firing-of-my-wife-e89f8de21c35
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d01-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d02-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d03-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d04-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d05-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d06-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d07-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d08-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d09-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d10-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d11-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d12-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d13-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d14-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d15-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d16-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d17-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d18-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d19-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d20-v-b.html
https://bobstephen085.medium.com/the-truth-on-trumps-recent-firing-of-my-wife-e89f8de21c35
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d01-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d02-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d03-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d04-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d05-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d06-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d07-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d08-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d09-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d10-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d11-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d12-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d13-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d14-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d15-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d16-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d17-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d18-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d19-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d20-v-b.html
https://bobstephen085.medium.com/the-truth-on-trumps-recent-firing-of-my-wife-e89f8de21c35
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d01-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d02-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d03-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d04-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d05-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d06-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d07-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d08-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d09-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d10-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d11-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d12-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d13-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d14-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d15-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d16-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d17-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d18-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d19-v-b.html
http://finance.dnp.go.th/mcco/d20-v-b.html
https://bobstephen085.medium.com/the-truth-on-trumps-recent-firing-of-my-wife-e89f8de21c35
It has made an even bigger impact now as a lot of these functionalities have been embraced during the remote working norms the pandemic has created for us. HR leaders across the world became crisis managers at the onset of this pandemic trying to decipher ways to transition to a remote workspace and thus embracing agile ways of working even though it may have been thrust upon them. HR folks across big and small organizations started incorporating what our Tech peers have been following for decades and bring agility in our functions. We have adopted our ways to be quick, nimble, innovative, and have a customer focusses, entrepreneurial mindset.
Speaking to HR peers in organizations across India, I could see that a vast majority of them have fully embraced Agile in the ways they work post the COVID lockdown in India. Very few companies had remote working options before the pandemic and working from home was something the majority of the Indian workforce was not used to for a longer period of time. And now, 8 months into the lockdown, India Inc has fully embraced the new norm of working from home, amidst the difficulties of living in larger families, poorer internet connection, power outages, and so forth.
However, people have experienced this new way of working, managing the way they work in their own time and knowing it’s manageable, hence making it difficult for businesses to go back to their old ways. COVID has redefined how people work together and how success can be achieved even in the most unforeseen of scenarios. Tools like Slack, MS Teams, GMeet, and ZOOM made all the difference enhancing the agility quotient of all teams.
Few items that have helped us incorporate an agile methodology into our teams were:
Understanding the business and the workforce: Understand your workforce strength inside out, how many permanent, contractors, consultants work for you, who can you reskill/upskill, how can your redeploy the workforce in a moment, encourage role flexibility, knowing the talent pipeline, recruiting and onboarding faster.
Over-communicating: Having frequent connects, town halls, breakout sessions, 1:1 to motivate people, hear suggestions, and bring them together to do their best. Being transparent.
Planning and forecasting: Laying out everything before the start of any project or task. Understanding what is and what cannot be achieved and having succession plans for your key talent. Encourage a bootstrapped, entrepreneurial way of looking at things and managing with limited resources.
Being people-centered: Address anxiety and stress. Assure. Reassure. Having employee assistance programs, wellness sessions, meditation, and yoga session s help. Value people’s times and the fact that we are now working in an environment and family and work needs are entwined. Be humane and considerate of the difficulties they face. Encourage employees to destress outside of work. Create a culture of empathy, sharing, and being human.
Embrace the new: Look for new ways to work together, embrace new tools. With practice, we learn to juggle work easily using the tools easily available in the market. Embrace Digital. Have a digitally enhanced hiring and recruitment process, being agile on having information about your teammates at the tips of your fingers, using AI to enhance the employee engagement experience.
Transforming the HR workforce into being fully agile is critically needed to survive the changes that this pandemic has brought upon us and to make sure that the HR function is considered to be more than just recruiting, onboarding, and retaining employees.
The shift into agile ways that COVID has thrust upon us will make sure we have a compelling reason to look outside the box, redesign our minds, and focus on things that matter most.
Author: Neethu J | https://medium.com/@bobstephen085/agility-a-superpower-for-human-resource-professionals-2550f42801cd | [] | 2020-12-04 17:49:46.882000+00:00 | ['Kingdom', 'Government', 'Minister', 'Love', 'President'] |
How to Deal With Climate Change Anxiety | Every time my mind spirals into this world-ending fervor, I try to remind myself of a few things.
It’s not all your fault
While I have been conforming to a damaging system all my life, it’s statistically impossible for me, an average person, to have caused the burning of fossil fuels that have damaged the ozone.
Though I have conformed to a system that perpetuates the earth’s destruction, I wasn’t involved in its formation.
It’s been in the works for decades, and until recently, mainstream media has failed to properly educate the public on the magnitude of climate change.
You, alone, didn’t cause it.
You didn’t know
For the majority of my life, I assumed global warming/climate change was one of those big-picture issues that were larger than life. I didn’t realize how big of a deal it was and how much it would impact me.
I figured climate change was a problem for government officials who actually had power to change it. I figured they would do something about it, so I didn’t have to.
I never thought about how many to-go coffee or boba tea cups I must discard every month. How many times I’ve failed to recycle a can or a box just because it was more convenient to toss it in the trash.
Those things may seem small and insignificant in the moment, but they add up over a lifetime.
Do what you can
Now that I know that conforming to a plastic-wrapped consumerist society leads to major destruction of the planet and a waste of earth’s resources, I can try to make a difference.
This can mean any number of simple actions:
Taking a reusable water bottle or coffee cup with you wherever you go. Switching from ziploc bags to reusable tupperware. Eating less takeout and packaged fast food. Taking canvas bags to the grocery store or forgoing a bag altogether if it’s a quick trip. Buying your produce without the individual plastic bags. Switching to solid soap and shampoo. Packing reusable silverware or straws. Eating less red meat. Reducing the consumption of fast fashion by instead buying secondhand or thrifted clothing.
They’re little things. They don’t take too much effort. And even if they do, it will all be worth it in the end.
I understand that going zero waste is impossible for many people due to financial reasons. Alternatives tend to cost more, and millions of people rely on cheaper, convenient options. As a college student, it’s hard to shell out extra money for sustainable brands when I could easily buy the cheaper option and use the money for tuition and rent.
But I know my impact is necessary, even if it’s only executed when I can afford it.
Encourage others
The actions of one person may be minuscule in comparison to the billions of people still unaware, uninterested, or in denial. Every day I feel as though what I’m doing will never be enough.
But one by one, more people can help alter the culture we are in and inspire others to do the same.
These simple changes may not seem impactful, but it helps to use the same attitude used for years to reconcile the mass consumption of plastic. For years, I convinced myself that my plastic usage was insignificant because it was “just one cup” or “just one bag”. I said this to myself every week for years, and so did billions of others. It’s more than just one bag.
Over a lifetime, it adds up. It happened with plastic, and it can happen with the alternative.
Just as I saw a zero waste Instagram account and thought, “Wow, maybe I should change my actions too”, I hope you read this and think the same.
Maybe you’re already doing it. Maybe you’re doing more.
Wherever your mindset is at, I hope we can all gradually move towards a society that is considerate of the world we live in, and compassionate towards the place we have been lucky enough to live in.
Our earth has given us not only a place to live, but the resources to survive and thrive in it. It’s given us nearly everything it has, and now it’s our turn to give back.
It’s our turn to show the earth some of the love it’s shown us every day of our lives. | https://helenaducusin.medium.com/how-to-deal-with-climate-change-anxiety-25cd9aadd361 | ['Helena Ducusin'] | 2019-07-12 21:37:01.669000+00:00 | ['Zero Waste', 'Sustainability', 'Environment', 'Climate Change', 'Global Warming'] |
East Bengal vs Chennai Football Match PreviewEast Bengal vs Chennai Football Match Preview: Indian Football League 2020–21 | Welcome to the Preview of East Bengal vs Chennai Football Match of Indian Football League 2020–21.
Match Preview
East Bengal has experienced a great deal of frustration in this season and has neglected to keep up their heads as they are as yet winless now of the opposition. They are following behind at the base most situation of the season table and need to record just 2 points from their six games. Robbie Fowler will have a tight talk with this team and the crew will definitely struggle ahead.
Chennai team figured out how to get their second win of the ridiculously into this game with 1–2 triumph over the Goa team. They have an even score of 2 successes, 2 draws, and 2 thrashings and are as of now possessing the eight spot of the season table. Csaba Laszlo will work with his team to improve the form of themselves and there is no rejecting that they are the harder ones in this game.
Date: 26th December 2020, 7:30 PM IST
Venue: Tilak Maidan, Vasco da Gama, Goa
Key Players: East Bengal vs Chennai
East Bengal key players
Jeje Lalpheklua
Eugeneson Lyngdoh
Daniel Fox
Scott Neville
Anthony Pilkington
Chennai key players
Rafael Crivalloro,
Anirudh Thapa
Memo Moura
Lallianzuala Chhangte
Enes Sipovic
Head-to-Head Record
East Bengal : 0 (W), 0 (L), 0 (D) Chennai: 0 (W), 0 (L), 0 (D)
East Bengal vs Chennai Playing XI
East Bengal Predicted XI
Debjit Majumder, Surchandra Singh, Scott Neville, Daniel Fox, Sehnaj Singh, Bikash Jairu, Matti Steinmann, Haobam Tomba Singh, Mohammed Rafique, Jacques Maghoma and Anthony Pilkington.
Chennai Predicted XI
Vishal Kaith, Edwin Vanspaul, Eli Sabia, Enes Sipovic, Jerry Lalrinzuala, Deepak Tangri, Anirudh Thapa, Fatkhullo Fatkhuloev, Rafael Crivellaro, Lallianzuala Chhangte and Jakub Sylvestr. | https://medium.com/@primecaptain11/east-bengal-vs-chennai-football-match-previeweast-bengal-vs-chennai-football-match-preview-indian-3d7889005c57 | ['Prime Captain'] | 2020-12-26 12:30:34.451000+00:00 | ['Fantasy Football', 'Football', 'Indian Super League', 'Fantasy Sports', 'Isl 2020 21'] |
The Role of Upbringing, Culture and Instincts in Conflict Management | The Role of Upbringing, Culture and Instincts in Conflict Management
To change your behavior, you have to understand what you are changing
Photo by SIphotography on depositphotos
Different Views of Conflict
Everyone has a slightly different view on conflict. Some people believe conflict should be avoided at all costs, while others relish conflict and do everything they can to foster it. Most people’s view lies somewhere in between these two extremes.
Two forces govern a person’s attitude to conflict: upbringing and national culture. These two forces are explored over the coming paragraphs.
Upbringing
As you experience conflict throughout your life, you may moderate and perhaps control your instinctive childhood responses. But the power of instinct should not be underestimated. At times of stress, most people will still react without thinking. This is when your ingrained responses will emerge most powerfully.
Experiences before the age of seven are particularly influential on attitudes later in life. People experience a huge range of conflict in childhood, from disagreements about television to acrimonious divorce. Young children soak all this up, and this may have profound impacts on how they deal with conflict as adults.
For example, a man who as a child witnessed his parents constantly argue before they eventually divorced, may now, in adult life, want to avoid all types of conflict because he feels it always results in unhappiness.
On the other hand, a man who grew up with several feisty brothers may have become accustomed to intense competition and so, as an adult, may be quite eager to engage in conflict.
National culture
Researcher Geert Hofstede investigated the way that national culture influences behavior. One aspect of his analysis, which is relevant to conflict in the workplace, is the extent to which cultures are collectivist or individualistic.
Collectivism — these are cultures in which the interests of the group prevail over the interests of the individual. These cultures believe that harmony should always be maintained, and direct confrontations should always be avoided. The word no is seldom used, because it is confrontational. Instead, they say: You may be right.
— these are cultures in which the interests of the group prevail over the interests of the individual. These cultures believe that harmony should always be maintained, and direct confrontations should always be avoided. The word no is seldom used, because it is confrontational. Instead, they say: You may be right. Individualism — in these cultures, speaking your mind is a virtue. People believe that a clash of opinions leads to a higher truth. Telling the truth, even if it hurts other people, is considered to be the right thing to do.
According to Hofstede, the US epitomizes the individualistic type of culture, and Far East countries are examples of collectivist cultures.
If you want to be effective in handling conflict, then you have to be able to move beyond your instinctive responses. That means you need to pinpoint where they come from — your childhood or your national culture — and establish how powerful a factor they are.
Understanding Instincts in Conflict
It is a basic rule of psychology that if you want to change your behavior, you have to understand what you are doing now. This applies in many situations, but never more so than when dealing with conflict.
People handle conflict instinctively. In other words, they act without thinking. So to change that behavior, they must think carefully, openly, and honestly about their responses.
When two people are in a dispute, how they react depends upon their attitudes towards two main elements: goals and relationships.
Goals
Your goals are the results that you want from the dispute. You must decide how important these goals are to you and how far you are ready to go to achieve them.
Relationships
When caught in a conflict, you must determine for yourself how important your relationships with the other parties are. Do you need to remain on good terms with them after the dispute?
The goal and relationship elements are in a constant state of tension during conflicts. How you manage one will affect the other. But it is possible to manage both and strike the balance that suits you best.
Instinct
But it is important that your calculations of your goals and relationships are not clouded by your instinctive reactions to conflict. Therefore, the first step towards balancing your goals and relationships is to clearly identify your instinctive reactions to conflict. Your instincts could lead you to:
Dislike conflict, value relationships — you do not like conflict because you think it means that people will not like you, and you want to be liked. So when you are in a conflict situation, the other person’s view of you is more important than winning the argument.
— you do not like conflict because you think it means that people will not like you, and you want to be liked. So when you are in a conflict situation, the other person’s view of you is more important than winning the argument. Relish conflict, seek goals, promote relationships — you see conflict as a problem to be solved, with both sides equally involved. You will not be satisfied with a half-hearted solution, but will push for a decision that is synergistic. You see conflicts as opportunities.
— you see conflict as a problem to be solved, with both sides equally involved. You will not be satisfied with a half-hearted solution, but will push for a decision that is synergistic. You see conflicts as opportunities. Dilute goals to nurture relationships — you believe in a shared approach to conflict — that if both sides give and take, then everybody will be happy.
— you believe in a shared approach to conflict — that if both sides give and take, then everybody will be happy. Believe you cannot handle conflict — you may withdraw from conflict situations, and give in rather than argue. During conflicts, you feel anxious and unhappy, because you feel that the outcome is always bad for you.
— you may withdraw from conflict situations, and give in rather than argue. During conflicts, you feel anxious and unhappy, because you feel that the outcome is always bad for you. Value goals more than relationships — you have to have your way. If this means damaging the relationship with the other person, then so be it. Your tactics involve overpowering the opposition and sometimes even intimidation.
Once you identify your instinctive approach to conflict, you can begin to develop better ways of handling it when it occurs. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/the-role-of-upbringing-culture-and-instincts-in-conflict-management-a0a74549419 | ['Sorin Dumitrascu'] | 2020-12-16 19:32:15.039000+00:00 | ['Conflict Management', 'Leadership', 'Management', 'Teamwork', 'Conflict Resolution'] |
#TheWordsUnwritten: Tell Someone How to Love You | Photo courtesy of ZRo Productions
When I was 22 I started a tradition giving each year of my life a theme, accompanied with a list of goals to accomplish during that rotation around the sun. I entered my 26th year back in June and truly felt like that was the gateway to the end of what I (once poked fun at but with my whole, entire soul believe in) believe to be my quarter-life crisis. This time around, the theme is “The Get Right” which entails getting back to doing the things I enjoy and living a life I love.
Writing, is my first love and my, my, my, how I have strayed. Synchronistically, because I do not believe in coincidence, one of my best friends, Zina Rose of ZRo Productions, has created a daily writing challenge for the month of January. When [re]forming [new] habits, it can be a a tad bit rocky in the beginning. I do feel that this challenge is Divinely timed, as I take great pride in supporting my friends in their creative endeavors, so there was no question that I would be a participant. Each day Z sends out a prompt to the group she created for this challenge on Instagram and each day I have actually been putting pen to paper. If you’re interested in learning more or joining #TheWordsUnwritten daily writing challenge, find Zina on Instagram.
*****
Please, stay.
Please don’t ever forget why I make you smile, or the the sense of belonging you feel when your arms are wrapped around me. Don’t ever stop sharing your random thoughts, I know you mean to pick my brain. Always be the most authentic version of yourself and leave expressions of your soul around our space as Divine decorations, please remain a work of art. Please encourage me to express myself just as freely as you and acknowledge my efforts to share my essence. Please receive these efforts with love and return them with the same notion.
Please don’t ever change your heat but when you decide to grow and shift your perspective, please keep me in the loop. And if ever your mind should weigh heavy on your heart, please let me console you. I think it’s important for me to know that my efforts are well received so, please let me love you. Please, just be…comfortable in my presence. Fell free to laugh, feel free to cry, feel free to think, and feel free to share all facets of you with me and —
Please, stay. Always remind me how you can make me smile, and how at ease my soul feels wrapped in the comfort of your arms. | https://medium.com/@aujhaaye/thewordsunwritten-tell-someone-how-to-love-you-b2d24a0e0163 | ['Aujha Aye'] | 2019-01-20 08:39:10.220000+00:00 | ['Love Letters', 'Thewordsunwritten', 'Writing', 'Love', 'Writing Prompts'] |
HEC Alumni West Coast Stories -Olivia Malterre — HEC 2016 — Product Manager, Feedly | “There aren’t many cities in the world that can offer incredible career opportunities and such quality of life.”
When and why did you move to San Francisco?
I am French and I used to live in Tel-Aviv with my Argentinian husband. I was interning at Costockage, a French tech startup. In Israel, the compulsory military service for citizens is a very important rite of passage during which young Israelis learn a lot of skills. It is a real springboard for their careers. We realized that, as foreigners who would not be enrolled, our career ambitions would be hindered. So we started looking for another city where we could both work in tech.
New York and San Francisco were on top of our list.
My family happened to live in San Francisco when I was 7 years old. My mother got a work assignment here with IBM. I had great memories of the city and could reach out to friends of the family for advice. So we decided that San Francisco was our next destination.
I started looking for a job in the Bay Area. It took me about 3 months to find a company that would hire me and sponsor my visa. I moved here in January 2017. I am glad I did not listen to the many French people who told me I would never succeed in finding a job in the US back in 2016! It took me 200 applications to get it and some precious help from the HEC alumni network, but it did work!
Tell us more about your first job in San Francisco.
I joined the consulting firm Fabernovel as an analyst. My job was to help French corporations keep the pulse of the US market and identify startups they could partner with. I had the opportunity to work with big groups in various industries such as Saint Gobain, Bel, or Leclerc. I was in charge of organizing strategic and interesting meetings between startup CEOs and the Boards of Directors of top French companies. I was very quickly introduced to the local startup ecosystem. That was very exciting.
What are you up to now?
After 3 years at Fabernovel, it was time to experiment something new. In October 2019, the HEC North America Alumni newsletter advertised a product manager role at Feedly. I am a news junky and I used to work in industry intelligence at Fabernovel — I thought that would be a company I would enjoy working for so I gave it a shot. I got the job and started in January 2020. I love this new role and how it gets me to impact many aspects of the success of the new features of our product, from marketing to user onboarding and comms. It’s a great new chapter!
What do you love the most about San Francisco?
Many things!
Professionally, it is the most exciting place: full of innovative startups that push boundaries and question the status quo. Living in such a vibrant economic context that can allow you to learn so much is such a privilege.
I love the liberal culture too: you are accepted and valued for who you are, no matter your religion, gender, or sexual orientation. It’s also a culture that is driven by science and data, for better and for worse. The Covid-19 crisis is the best illustration: San Franciscans have managed to keep the pandemic under relative control by adapting their behaviors based on scientific facts and showing solidarity to the rest of the community.
Finally, the Bay Area is an amazing place for an outdoorsy person like me. I cycle everywhere. We recently moved close to the beach. I take a dip in the Pacific Ocean every week, I could not be happier!
There aren’t many cities in the world that can offer incredible career opportunities and such quality of life.
What would be your advice to the HEC Alumni who live in the region?
Embrace the local optimism and the networking culture!
It is a little harder these days with everything happening online but when things get back to normal, attend as many events, meetups, and workshops as you can!
Keep an open mind with the people you meet and the opportunities that come your way, you never know what gem you can find!
Explore, get out of your comfort zone, and be bold! | https://medium.com/@hec-alumni-westcoast/olivia-malterre-hec-2016-product-manager-feedly-9b2c0af3d1cf | ['Hec Alumni West Coast'] | 2020-11-27 05:03:56.243000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'San Francisco', 'Hec Paris', 'Alumni', 'Product Management'] |
ZK-STARKs — Create Verifiable Trust, even against Quantum Computers | Note: unless you have familiarity with zero-knowledge proofs or ZK-SNARKs, I would suggest reading Part 1 and Part 2 of this blog series.
Now that we covered ZK-SNARKs, let’s expand into some of the issues with ZK-SNARKs, and discuss recent innovations in zero-knowledge cryptography: ZK-STARKs (Zero-Knowledge Scalable Transparent ARguments of Knowledge).
ZK-SNARKs have a few underlying issues that will lead to reduced adoption for leveraging zero-knowledge cryptography in blockchains and other potential implementations as well:
The trusted setup phase can be compromised (there is an underlying assumption that when using a ZK-SNARK system, the trusted setup phase is secure) Scalability of ZK-SNARKs can be improved, as run-time increases, the time needed to generate and especially verify proofs needs to be improved ZK-SNARK cryptography is vulnerable to attacks from quantum computers
Let’s breakdown each of the above issues and compare to the up and coming ZK-STARKs.
Trusted Setup Phase
What if a government or powerful entity tried to incentivize parties involved with the setup of the ZK-SNARK system to share the setup parameters? If that powerful entity was successful, they would be able to generate false proofs in a system widely known to be trusted. If for example, a Presidential vote for a country took place on a blockchain that was using ZK-SNARKs for proving votes, there could be significant incentives for the entity to discover the setup parameters and thus change the outcome of the election. The entity could tilt the election in their intended direction by creating false proofs for votes taking place.
The biggest problem with the ZK-SNARK approach is that users need to implicitly trust in the setup phase and the parties involved to setup the system honestly. Users of the system will never actually know if the setup phase was compromised at the point of setup, or at some point in the future. So, if this is the case, the door remains open for a system where users do not implicitly need to trust the parties involved in the system’s setup to be honest. When a system is used where the incentives are high to circumvent the system, there will be those who will look to find a way to circumvent it.
In ZK-STARKs, there is no external trusted setup phase and the randomness used is public information. Public randomness utilization is exceptionally important for the public to trust zero-knowledge proof systems, otherwise a powerful entity could exert their influence to obtain the setup parameters and generate false proofs. Given there is no third party trusted setup phase and publicly verifiable randomness is used instead, ZK-STARK systems create verifiable trust.
Scalability
For those who pay attention to ongoing technical challenges in the blockchain space, the scalability discussion is center stage. Although outside the scope of this blog post, there are numerous ways to scale blockchains, all with their associated tradeoffs. For ZK (zero-knowledge) proof systems, scalability of the system is paramount to achieving widespread and sustained adoption. ZK-STARKs exhibit much higher scalability than ZK-SNARKs. Let’s breakdown the associated complexity of the ZK-STARK vs. the ZK-SNARK calculations into four different categories relative to scalability (results leveraged from ZK-STARK whitepaper):
1. Arithmetic circuit complexity (an arithmetic circuit is a standard way to compute polynomials where addition and multiplication can be computed): In ZK-SNARK and ZK-STARK systems, the code to create ZK programs are written in such a way for them to be broken down into circuits, and then computed — effectively the simplicity of the circuits complexity is relative to its computational efficiency. In the below chart illustrations, the arithmetic complexity basically equates to the size and intricacy of the underlying computation used to generate the proof. (Complexity charts below are based on overall complexity of system with primary focus on multiplication gates; for parameter setup, see page 11 of ZK-STARK whitepaper.)
2. Communication complexity (typically defined as the amount of communication needed to solve a problem distributed among two of more parties): As the size of the computation grows, so does the communication complexity of the ZK-SNARK in a linear fashion, as opposed to the ZK-STARK which grows only slightly as computation size grows — a large advantage of ZK-STARKs vs. ZK-SNARKs when it comes to the one-time setup. After the setup phase, SNARKs currently have less communication complexity than STARKs when verifying proofs.
3. Prover complexity: ZK-STARKs are ~10x faster than ZK-SNARKs as computation size increases, another advantage of ZK-STARKs vs. ZK-SNARKs.
4. Verifier complexity: As computation size grows, ZK-STARKs grow only slightly vs. ZK-SNARKS, which tend to grow in a linear fashion, a significant advantage of ZK-STARKs vs. ZK-SNARKs when it comes to the one-time setup. After the setup phase, SNARKs currently need less time to verify proofs than STARKs, e.g. STARKs may take 50–100ms to verify, while SNARKs need ~10ms to verify.
The below is a simpler view of a benchmarking analysis completed between ZK-STARKS vs. ZK-SNARKs in the ZK-STARK whitepaper.
The above simplified benchmarking illustrates that the ZK-STARK’s required communication to complete the computation rises much slower than the ZK-SNARK as the underlying proof increases in complexity. Level 1 — Level 6 refer to arithmetic circuit complexity (levels of multiplication gates, each level increase is ~55x of the previous level) Level 5 & 6 are not shown as the size of communication exceeds 100GB). ZK-SNARK post processing verification time refers to when a SNARK is verified.
The above simplified benchmarking illustrates that the ZK-STARK’s time to generate a proof rises much slower than the ZK-SNARK as the underlying proof increases in complexity. Level 1 — Level 6 refer to arithmetic circuit complexity (levels of multiplication gates, each level increase is ~55x of the previous level) Level 6 is not shown as the time to completed exceeds 10 hours).
The above simplified benchmarking illustrates that the ZK-STARK’s time to verify a proof rises very slowly compared to the ZK-SNARK as the underlying proof increases in complexity. Level 1 — Level 6 refer to arithmetic circuit complexity (levels of multiplication gates, each level increase is ~55x of the previous level) Level 6 is not shown as the time to completed exceeds 10 hours). ZK-STARK and SK-SNARK post processing verification time refers to when the STARK/SNARK is verified.
Charts Data Source: ZK-STARK white paper; Note charts are reproduced from whitepaper — they are simplified for comparison of a ZK-SNARK to a ZK-STARK.
In proof systems, there is a statement that the prover wants to assert as true to anyone who would like to verify the statement. For example:
Prover statement: Alice wants to prove she is the owner of a bank account with Acme Bank.
Effectively, when you slice up the above statement (statement broken up in code logic in post #2) above into pieces for the zero-knowledge circuit to calculate and then generate a proof, the verifier mathematically checks the proof for correctness along with the associated verifier key. This process (especially the verification process) has been substantially sped up by using a newer algorithm called the Fast Reed-Solomon Interactive Oracle Proof of Proximity. For more detail on the new algorithm utilized to increase the scalability of the ZK-STARK, I suggest reading Vitalik Buterin blog posts for an in-depth breakdown.
Quantum Computing
More recently, quantum computing has become a topic of interest, and to some degree in the blockchain world too (Qubit Protocol is an interesting blockchain start-up). IBM and Intel are both working on developing quantum computers however, current estimates point to quantum computing being years away from wide-spread adoption. Quantum computing does pose a risk to blockchain systems. Let’s dig into why quantum computers pose a risk to some aspects of blockchain cryptography.
Classical computers (the computers we utilize today) operate with bits, which store one of two states, 0 or 1. Quantum computers operate with qubits, ( similar to bits) which store state in either 0 or 1 however, through a principle called superposition also exist simultaneously between 0 and 1 when not being measured (an example of a qubit can be a photon, nucleus, or an electron). Due to the unique properties of qubits, they can be leveraged to do some interesting things that cannot be achieved with classical computers and bits.
Quantum computers will be designed to describe all correlations between qubits, i.e. effectively exponentially increasing computational throughput by 2^n (n = correlation per qubit in each system) for specific operations. For example, 2 qubits = 4 classical bits, 3 qubits = 8 bits, and 20 qubits = 1,048,576 bits. Considering quantum computers can process data in parallel vs. in serial (like classical computers) for specific operations, they can significantly speed up certain computations, such as database searches or finding the private key from a public key.
Implications of Quantum Computing for Blockchains
Quantum computers are not good at everything, only specific types of calculations that specific algorithms could exploit. For example, there is an algorithm called Shor’s algorithm that can be run on a quantum computer and will have the capability to run very fast integer factorization calculations in parallel (integer factorization is a process to decompose a composite number into the product of small integers, which can be used to find a private key from a public key; a private key and public key are basically very large numbers), thereby finding the prime factors of any given integer.
Many of today’s current encryption schemes will not be resistant to quantum computing attacks, such as RSA and ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Cryptography). Bitcoin and Ethereum use ECDSA for generation of private keys and public keys. For example, below is a basic depiction of the process that Bitcoin uses to generate the private key, public key, and public address.
Bitcoin key generation and bitcoin public address generation
The private key is generated from a number with an added level of entropy (randomness), the public key is generated from the private key, and the public address is generated from the hash of the public key. Quantum computers could utilize Shor’s algorithm to derive the private key from the public key, and then leverage the private key to forge transactions or steal a user’s balance (Bitcoin/Ethereum).
Shor’s algorithm is primarily an issue for re-used addresses. For addresses that have not been used, quantum computers could leverage Grover’s algorithms to solve for SHA-256 or SHA3–256 to find the public key from the public key hash, however quantum computers would only be able to find the public key in half the time vs. classical computers of today. Even at half the time, the key would not be found within anyone’s lifetime currently on Earth. Additionally, merkle-tree hashing is not currently susceptible to quantum computing attacks.
There are currently algorithms being developed that will be difficult to break with quantum computers, such as Lattice-based cryptography or multivariate cryptography, which may be candidates for replacement of ECDSA in the future for blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
ZK-STARKS do not rely on private-public key pairings (such as ECDSA), but rely on collision resistant hashing for interactive solutions (which Grover’s algorithm does not meaningfully break), and a random oracle model (a model that is typically used instead of general cryptographic hash functions where strong randomness assumptions are required for the oracle output) for non-interactive proofs (zk-nSTARK, n = non-interactive), therefore ZK-STARKs are currently resistant to quantum computer attacks.
Quantum computers are still years away (estimates point to 2026–2035), so there is little need to worry about their capabilities today. Also, I utilize the term quantum resistance in this post as quantum resistance and quantum proof are two terms to reflect on. Like a watch that is resistant to water to a certain depth, and a watch that is impervious to water (water proof), until the true capabilities of quantum computers are known, it is hard to say if an algorithm may be found that leverages quantum computers to circumvent current potential quantum resistant encryption algorithms today. Hence, we may not see changes to encryption algorithms used in Bitcoin or Ethereum until mainstream quantum computing is closer to becoming a reality.
An additional video that can be helpful l in understanding the difference between classical computers and quantum computers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhHMJCUmq28
Current State and Final Thoughts
Currently, ZK-SNARKs are available in the cryptocurrency Zcash, as well as the library libSNARK to build ZK-SNARK programs that can be leveraged in blockchains. ZK-STARKs are a newer technology, and not deployed in production capacity as of 6/2018. There is a new company called StarkWare Industries that is looking to solve some of the challenges with leveraging ZK-STARKs (one being the size of the proof) and also commercialize the technology, which can be leveraged across multiple industries, including blockchain implementations.
ZK-STARKs are scalable, transparent, have universal application, and currently quantum resistant. This allows for the creation of trust in the technology, as it is verifiable. There are many areas that can be enhanced by using a technology such as ZK-STARKs where trust is required and there are large incentives to cheat, such as:
Voting systems Running a computation and verifying its results, such as a blockchain’s past transactions Secure verification of information, such as for proving identity or credentials
My current thinking is we will see Zcash adopt ZK-nSTARKs (n standing for non-interactive) technology into its blockchain in the future. Additionally, Ethereum may leverage ZK-STARKS in verifiable computation and potentially secure/anonymous transactions, as well as Dapps where privacy is important such as Brave’s web browser that leverages the Basic Attention Token.
ZK-STARKs is an exciting technology that will enable trust to be achieved in computing systems that has not been achieved previously, as the trust created is verifiable and public. This idea is especially important, as entities that have significant incentives to falsify information will not be able to do so when using a ZK-STARK proof system. It will take time for this type of technology to be adopted however, the benefits will be significant and create something truly unique: verifiable trust in a system where there could be very high incentives to try and falsify information processed by the system.
Please let me know if you have any questions or have thoughts on the above below, look forward to discussing!
In addition, if organizations have questions around ZK-tech or tokenomics, please feel free to review more how I help organizations at https://cynapseblockchain.com/
This post can also be found at Cynapse Blockchain Consulting’s website: https://cynapseblockchain.com/2018/09/07/zk-starks%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8acreate-verifiable-trust-even-against-quantum-computers/
Also, Read | https://medium.com/coinmonks/zk-starks-create-verifiable-trust-even-against-quantum-computers-dd9c6a2bb13d | ['Adam Luciano'] | 2020-10-14 17:35:22.182000+00:00 | ['Quantum Computing', 'Blockchain', 'Zero Knowledge', 'Zksnark', 'Bitcoin'] |
Minding the Gap | Minding the Gap
Something unique to humans is the power to affect the lives of others. Consider how song lyrics, speeches, jokes, social media posts, books, and screenplays move us to dance, worship, laugh, get upset, challenge our beliefs, and move us to tears. [1] Unquestionably, we have a responsibility to impact humanity on a soul level.
This involves minding the gap in our leadership. “Minding the gap” is a term coined in the UK alerting underground-train passengers to the danger created by the space between the platform and train car. Similarly, there is a gap between where we are as leaders — possessing often a deeper knowledge, spirituality, maturity, etc. — and our followers. Acknowledging this gap exists is critical in preventing a tumble into the pride and frustration that commonly emerges as the gap widens.
Paul effectively minds the gap between Jews and Gentiles when he writes about being “thrilled to preach that everyone who believes is saved — the Jew first, and then people everywhere!” (Romans 1:16 TPT). Though it appears Paul is elevating the Israelites, he is notifying the Romans that God has tasked the Jewish nation with the responsibility to steward his plan for humankind.
Like Paul, leaders are stewards of the mission they’ve been given for the sake of God’s people. They leverage their role for the betterment of others and mind the gap by intentionally employing the following three practices:
Seek Jesus
O God of my life, I’m lovesick for you in this weary wilderness. I thirst with the deepest longings to love you more, with cravings in my heart that can’t be described. Such yearning grips my soul for you, my God! (Psalm 63:1 TPT).
At first, this one seems obvious. Still, ministry leaders regularly view studying God as the same as spending time with him. Leading others well, minding that gap, requires engaging God solely to have our thirst quenched. Crave him.
Ask questions
The religious leader stood apart from the others and prayed, “How I thank you, O God, that I’m not wicked like everyone else” (Luke 18:11 TPT).
As leaders, we’re tempted to think too highly of ourselves. In the above Scripture, Jesus is explaining the snare of a prideful leader. He reminds us that not having everything figured out is refreshing to others. Pray for a renewed curiosity and become a leader that regularly asks thoughtful questions.
Be a safe space
Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up (1 Corinthians 13:7 TPT).
Healthy leaders are hesitant to assign a negative motive to their people’s behaviors and views. They recognize that personal biases — justly or unjustly — tend to inform their opinions of others and can negatively affect individual encounters. Believing and wanting the best for your people creates a sincerer understanding of, and connection with, your people.
These three practices are like the Chinese Bamboo Tree lying dormant for five years. Yet once the tree breaks the surface, in just five weeks, it grows 90 feet tall! [2] Yes, as overwhelming leading your people may feel at moments, continue watering and caring for them, even when the results aren’t immediately apparent. Keep seeking Jesus, stay humble, and believe the best about your people. Soon the root system will take hold, and your people will sprout.
[1] Stanford, Dan. Losing the Cape (p. 162). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
[2] Torres, Elita. “What We Can Learn From The Chinese Bamboo Tree About Dreams #5MinMotivation.” Lead Grow Develop Shares Insights on Leadership, Productivity and Personal Development. 14 Sept. 2016, https://leadgrowdevelop.com/chinese-bamboo-tree-dreams-5minmotivation/.
WellConnected is an initiative of OneHope, and is a gathering place for children and youth ministers to access resources, research, and content to raise up the next generation. It’s a collaborative platform to equip leaders and influencers to effectively reach the kids in their communities. We invite churches and ministers to join one another in coming up with innovative solutions for today’s realities. We are continually learning and growing from each other — sharing knowledge, insight, and best practices. | https://medium.com/@414africa/minding-the-gap-ff7b3b9e9902 | [] | 2019-11-05 22:30:15.464000+00:00 | ['Childrens Ministry', 'Christian Leaders', 'Christian Leadership', 'Christianity', 'Christian Living'] |
For Beginners: 6 Apps To Help You Manage Your Portfolio | Have you ever wondered about how hard it is to track and manage all of your coins? If you are someone who owns a lot of coins, then you might find it difficult to assess the performance of your overall portfolio. Sure, you can check the price of each coin that you have, but that’s too inefficient for someone who wants to invest in more coins. Fortunately, there are several helpful apps which you can download to better manage and track your cryptocurrency portfolio.
This is not financial investment advice.
This article will review several portfolio-managing applications.
In this article
CoinBundle
One application which you can use to easily manage your crypto portfolio is (no surprise here) CoinBundle! We provide users with one of the simplest ways to manage your assets. CoinBundle is the easiest way for people to invest in cryptocurrencies responsibly. We take all the hard work out of investing, letting you build your portfolio according to your needs. All you have to do is use our app to purchase cryptocurrency, and your entire portfolio will be available on the app to track and manage.
Investment in multiple currencies requires you to go to many different exchanges, requiring additional time and paperwork. CoinBundle lets you invest in different cryptocurrencies quickly, all in one place! This will allow you to effortlessly manage your entire portfolio and track the returns from each coin. Users can isolate which coins have been doing well and which ones aren’t, allowing them to make better decisions when investing in the future.
Abra
Another app that allows you to buy, manage, and store cryptocurrency is Abra. This app was launched in 2014 and has since received support from many major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple. Yet, it’s the app’s ability to provide a diverse set of smaller coins as well that makes it so unique. Essentially, Abra is an app that allows you to buy, store, and invest in 25 cryptocurrencies in one place.
All you have to do is download the app and sign up, Abra automatically creates a mobile cryptocurrency wallet for you so you can hold all of your crypto investments in one place. Use your bank account, credit or debit card, or cryptocurrencies (bitcoin and litecoin) to fund the wallet from pretty much anywhere in the world. All of your investments will be available on the app and easy for you to manage, again, allowing you to make better decisions when investing in the future.
Robinhood
Although Robinhood is primarily known as a stock-trading app, it can also be used to manage your cryptocurrency assets. This app even sends you updates every few hours when a coin’s price has moved more than a specific percentage within that time frame. So even when you’re not in front of a screen or computer, you can always count on your phone to update you when prices begin to move.
Again, all you have to do is follow the simple sign up process when downloading the app and provide the necessary information. Once you’ve done this, you can start investing in cryptocurrencies and managing your entire portfolio. Your total portfolio value is displayed largely on the main screen, so you’ll have no difficulty in figuring out how you’re investments are performing.
CoinTracking
CoinTracking is another portfolio-managing application that allows you to, well, manage your cryptocurrency portfolio. CoinTracking is a website where you not only see your current portfolio balance, but also analyze data that helps you make a better decision in terms of buying and selling your coins at the right time.
Moreover, managing coins on various exchanges could be cumbersome, so this app lets you see which coins and how much of each coin you are holding. Another feature of CoinTracking is the realized and unrealized Gain/Loss feature. This allows you to further isolate and assess specific coins that are either gaining you a lot of money or simply dragging your returns down.
Delta
Next, we have an application called Delta. This app, available for both IOS and Android, allows its users to store and manage their coins. Like the rest of the applications on the list, Delta allows you to analyze your portfolio by breaking it up into different groupings depending on what kind of coin you purchase. Also, there are helpful features like live price action alert systems and coin analysis charts.
The Delta developers and communities are still very active, so you can expect updates to come along in the future.
Blockfolio
Blockfolio is a completely mobile-based application which allows you to manage your cryptocurrency portfolio from your phone. For people who prefer mobile-applications, this app uses a simple user interface which makes it easy to navigate the app from your phone. It also has some helpful features like setting price alerts and displaying exchange books.
The account feature has not been integrated yet, which is one drawback of using the application. Despite this small issue, the app is still filled with tons of resources and features which will help any crypto novice learn how to properly manage a portfolio.
Conclusion
When you first begin to trade cryptocurrency, you might not know how to keep track of all of your assets correctly. Sure, you can check out the price movements for each coin that you have cash positions for and log into multiple exchanges to check your value, but that is an extremely inefficient way to do so. Instead, you should check out any of the aforementioned apps which allow you to manage, store, and assess your cryptocurrency portfolio from anywhere in the world, all in one place. | https://medium.com/coinbundle/for-beginners-6-apps-that-help-you-manage-your-portfolio-13c504d490e0 | ['Coinbundle Team'] | 2018-10-10 22:49:37.319000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Beginnerscoinbundle', 'Investcoinbundle', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Portfolio'] |
What is random in Random Forest? | Photo by Kilian Kremer on Unsplash
My favorite interview question is “What is random in Random Forest?”. I ask this question to anyone who claims to have used Random Forest (RF) in her work. The most common answer I get is that the Random Forest are so called because each tree in the forest is built by randomly selecting a sample of the data. While this answer is partially correct, there are other more important reasons to prefix the term random in front of Forest.
The genesis of “Random Forest” is a seminal paper that Leo Brieman wrote in 2001. In this paper, Leo introduced the term Random Forest to denote a new class of algorithms (note the plural here) that were based on multiple machine learning ideas gaining popularity at that time. All these ideas had two points of similarity; one, they had some element of randomness and, second, they were based on the Decision Trees. In his paper, Leo mentions two prior works as his inspiration. One of those is by Amit and Geman (Shape Quantization and Recognition with Randomized Trees) of which Leo says “This later paper has been influential in my thinking”. Another important paper that Leo refers to is called “The random Subspace Method for constructing Decision Forest” by Tin Kan Ho.
Training Decision Trees (DTs) was always a challenge as they tend to overfit. Some attempts to tackle this problem had used the idea of randomness to improve generalizability. One idea that was quite popular was the idea of bootstrap aggregation (also known as bagging) where multiple trees are trained. Each tree is estimated based on a sample of the data and the prediction is a majority vote of all the trees. This method improves the variance of a decision tree by incorporating randomness. The papers by Amit and Ho, however, incorporate randomness by training each tree on a random subspace of the data. In these methods, each tree is trained only a limited number of features and the selection of these features are random (with replacement).
Implementation with code
We can further build intuition about these ideas by trying these ideas out in Python. Starting from the root idea of randomness, we will try to implement a bagged tree. Sklearn implementation of bagged trees is via the generic sklearn.ensemble.BaggingClassifier API. For this demonstration, I have used the Wisconsin breast cancer dataset. Further details on this dataset are available here.
The complete code is available on GitHub. In this blog, I have added screenshots.
Bagged Decision Trees
After some basic cleanup of the data (please check GitHub for details), I try to model the data using bagged decision trees. Three parameters are related to the discussion on this post. ‘max_samples’ is the percentage of data used for each tree in the ensemble. In the example below, we use only 30% of the data for each tree and fit 10 trees (n_estimator=10). The second parameter, ‘max_features’, is the number of features to use in each tree. In this case, we want all features and thus have this value as 1.0. The final parameter, ‘bootstrap’, denotes our sampling strategy. ‘bootstrap=True’ denotes sampling with replacement.
Here we have an error of 7.2% on Out of Bag (OOB) data using the bagged decision trees.
Random Subspace & Random Forest
Random subspace methods are the general method of choosing a random subset of features from the data to fit the estimator. Random Subspace method, when combined with bagged decision trees results, gives rise to Random Forests. There could be more sophisticated extensions of the Random Subspace method, for example creating a subspace that is a linear combination of the original features. But, RFs work remarkably well by just random selection or features.
sklearn has a direct API for Random Forest and the below code depicts the use of RF (complete code on GitHub). Note that there is no parameter equivalent of the ‘max_samples’ parameter from the bagged trees. That is, RF sklearn implementation does not even allow for training on sub-samples. A strong hint that random feature is the primary reason why RFs are so called.
The RF implementation allows us to control 2 sets of parameters, the first set is used to create the forest and the second set is specific to the individual tree in the forest. ‘n_estimators’ is the number of trees our forest will have. ‘max_features’ as before is the percentage of features we want in each tree. Setting max_features=auto selects sqrt(p) (where p is the number of features in original data) features from the data and grows a tree using this data. The final parameter of interest is ‘bootstrap’; though RF does not allow sampling of data to build trees, it does allow bootstrapping. The bootstrapped data will have the same size as original data but each tree will be trained on a different dataset.
RFs are a powerful tool for classification. In many of my classification project, I start with an RF with default parameter settings and get very good results without doing anything else. RFs are immune to feature scales, noisy or correlated data and even overfitting. And, all these benefits accrue mainly due to the selection of random features. | https://medium.com/brillio-data-science/what-is-random-in-random-forest-7825be12c8c3 | ['Saurav Chakravorty'] | 2019-06-02 12:10:43.158000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Random Forest', 'Ensemble Learning'] |
Battery Status: Android | Battery status
if you want to know the battery status or hardware status of the android device, here you can see all the details using the ADB.
You can dump the battery status with the following command:
adb shell dumpsys battery
When I run the command, I get the following output:
battery status
although it is in the output, it temperature: 250 is the battery temperature. The
value is 10 times the temperature (Celsius), so 250 it 25 ℃ is a good idea.
The service class that manages battery status is BatteryService .
Battery status data is defined in HealthInfo .
Similarly, if want to check the audio status you can dumsys the audio using the following command:
adb shell dumpsys audio
Similarly, you can find other service dumpsys using the settings command.
adb shell dumpsys settings
I hope you enjoyed the small session. If you have any comments or questions or suggestions, please join the forum discussion below!
Thanks for the support( follow or Clapp)!!!!! | https://medium.com/android-knowledge-store/battery-status-android-fe3fd63f7ae5 | ['Budhdi Sharma'] | 2020-12-21 09:52:40.181000+00:00 | ['Status', 'Battery', 'Android', 'AndroidDev', 'Adb'] |
Improving laptop battery life on Linux | Improving laptop battery life on Linux
I recently dual-booted my windows laptop with Pop OS 20.04. The reason being a screen flickering issue on Windows which occurred randomly while using a few apps (like Edge, Netflix desktop app, etc.). It caused the screen to blink suddenly. It wasn’t persistent and happened rarely but it was annoying. Later, I learned that it was probably an issue with the Intel graphics driver as they later mentioned fixing the issue in their new driver update. I had two options, trying out the new generic driver and seeing if the issue was fixed or waiting for my ORM manufacturer to release the driver for my laptop after a few months (typically 4–5 months). I couldn’t wait that long.
Also, during the same time I came across a video about Pop OS and how it was better than other linux distros due to better hardware support. I had previously run Ubuntu 18.04 on the same laptop and I knew that you had to separately install the NVIDIA GPU drivers in order to use the GPU, which didn’t seem straightforward at that time. But with Pop OS there was a separate OS image with the NVIDIA drivers out of the box. Also, it gave options like switching between GPUs, choosing power modes to save battery, etc. It all seemed pretty cool. So, I decided to give it a try. I installed it and I was impressed! It looked so amazing out of the box, also there’s a ton of customization possible on linux distros. The animations and overall experience seemed very polished. It felt pretty fast and consumed less RAM in comparison to Windows. But there was an elephant in the room.
The battery life sucked! I was getting around 2 hrs in comparison to 5–6 hrs on Windows.
This led me to ask the same old question again as to why this was the case. I had earlier stopped using Ubuntu 18.04 due to the same reason. Even back then I was getting around 2 hrs of juice. This was disappointing. But, back in those days I was new to Linux. It was different this time. I have been doing development work on Ubuntu on my workplace machine for more than a year now. I have gotten used to the ways of the terminal and how you could control everything with a few lines of code. Windows had started feeling alien to me with every passing day. So, I decided to stick around and try to fix the problem this time.
After, going through numerous reddit posts and stack overflow answers I noticed a pattern. The popular suggestion was to install tlp and powertop packages and play around. Let’s hit the terminal. | https://medium.com/@pmj642/improving-battery-life-on-a-laptop-running-linux-446cbe4d20f | ['Pranshu Jethmalani'] | 2020-12-26 14:33:57.856000+00:00 | ['Popos', 'Ubuntu', 'Linux', 'Battery Life', 'Laptop Battery'] |
We the People of Social Media | Today in our world we are inundated by new technology, online news, and the favorite of many, social media. Facebook, Twitter, Parler, MeWe, Minds, Instagram, Discord, YouTube, Rumble, MySpace. The list is endless. Countless articles have been written as to how it affects us both positively and negatively. Social media has become controversial and many groups are moving from one site to another or an array of others depending on their beliefs. Lawsuits are being filed against certain social media sites and some have gone before Congress and Parliament due to their practices.
To say that we are a world of newspapers and radios, like our parents and grandparents of yesterday, is laughable at best. This world of social media, opinion and biased news, and differences in people and beliefs are creating an imbalance. We can see that imbalance in the way we view and treat others. We align ourselves with only those we agree with. We cancel one another out observing that we have a “cancel culture” now. We are taking to the streets, hurting and killing people with different belief systems. The days of live-and-let-live are gone. The simplicity of living is no longer simple; fusing in all other political, religious, business, and COVID issues with social media.
How can we stand as a world, a country, a people, a group, a family, being divided as we are? What we believe and who we are determines “where and who we belong with” in this new social media controlled world. Social media and this new society have said so; therefore, it must be.
Having lunch in a local Chinese restaurant, I listened to a most interesting conversation of two unique couples. Both couples were seventy years plus in age. One couple was African-American and Caucasian , Christian, and Democrat. The other was an Asian and Hispanic, Buddhist, and Republican. I know it is rude to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m nosy and they were from very different backgrounds having lunch together. What were the odds in this society and social media world? They were talking about social media and discussing the reasons why they had a distaste for it. Bantering back and forth, I heard words and scenarios containing words like ignorance, rudeness, rifts, hate, heartlessness, control, and cruelty. Over and over the same ideation repeatedly occurred in my mind. Here I have a two very diverse couples eating lunch and yet they seem to be cohesive. How is that possible?
Later I learned that the couples were in a support group for parents whose adult children have died. Once my meal and eavesdropping was finished, I scraped what was left of my heart and mind from the floor, paid my check, and went home. What has happened to our world that we have become so callous that we allow social media to dictate who and what we are? We allow it, and it only, to mold us and feed us what we should be and believe. How is it we have allowed social media to box us in to one group or another? We are a society that has become indeterminately blind to the world outside cell phones and computer screens. We forget we are real people with hopes, dreams, fears, hurts, backgrounds and more. We have forgotten that it takes many different people to make up this world whether we are a part of them or not or agree or disagree.
My article may not be original in its content; however, a profound fact must be stated aloud, we have to put social media into perspective and its proper place and learn people again. Put it down for a change and let go of the addiction we have with it. Learn what it means to tolerate, understand, forgive, and agree to disagree with others in the outside world of social media without attack, boxing them, and being cruel. Actually spend time with those we love without it. It is the only way we will bring back polite society. Is it an impossible feat? Maybe, but it begins with you and me. | https://medium.com/@ajferriss1/we-the-people-of-social-media-e1ec7737873d | ['Amy Jo Ferriss'] | 2020-12-13 15:29:32.554000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'News', 'Heart', 'Diversity', 'Social Change'] |
ANGER ISSUES | GIFT RAP
5/1/20
Anger Issues
(Vs. 1)
You ever wake up angry and don’t even really know why?
Attempt to change your attitude but your mind won’t comply!
And every time you try to pray it only amplifies,
Trying to identify the mood that can’t be classified?
You try to clarify your feelings but your mystified,
Justifiably flustered as you try to nullify,
Your misapplied emotion now it’s only magnified,
Verifying your anger, Satan’s plan exemplified!
This the way that I used to awaken all the time,
Unaware of the reason my temper can’t be defined!
Emotions evoking mentalities and states of mind,
I wasn’t controlling, the devil was the mastermind,
Of my disposition, my temperament was in decline,
Inclined to medicate myself and claiming I was fine!
Combining that with my agitation I felt confined,
I needed Divine Intervention to be redefined!
(HOOK)
I’ve got an issue with my anger that I can’t control,
I feel like I’ve had it since I was only five years old!
Composure corroding, exploding, easily provoked,
Overflowing with emotions, feel like I might explode!
Alone my indignation’s threatening to overflow,
Animosity has a lock on me, in overload!
But the real issue is Spiritual and I must expose,
The source of my fury or have another episode!
(Vs. 2)
It started causing me problems I couldn’t circumvent,
Attaching me to things I didn’t want to represent!
Tormenting my present with discontent that won’t relent,
Regretting felonies pursued by nagging evidence!
And every attempt that I made meant another event,
Preventing transition and trampling my betterment!
Reinvention was tenuous, pain was continuous,
Because every time that I failed it felt ridiculous!
How could I ever progress unless I could understand,
That I was holding the key to the lock within my hand!
My Issues with Anger were like stretching a rubber band,
Attached to my neck, I snap off and my pain will expand!
I hurt myself more than I was hurting anyone else,
I knew it was time to put Anger Issues on the shelf!
That’s when I gave it up to Jesus, asking Him to Help,
Unclenching my fists and made a decision for my health!
(HOOK)
I had an issue with anger that I couldn’t control,
Manipulated by Satan, it was taking a tole!
Composure corroding, exploding, easily provoked,
Overflowing with emotions, felt like I might explode!
Alone with my indignation, it was truly a load,
Animosity had a lock on me, choking my soul!
But the real issue is Spiritual and I must expose,
The enemy within me, canceling the episode!
By: Christopher Louis Reid | https://medium.com/@chrisreid-58527/anger-issues-42afed9b671f | ['Chris Reid'] | 2020-05-05 16:01:28.518000+00:00 | ['Flex Skillz', 'Anger', 'Lyrics', 'Poetry', 'Gift Rap'] |
YOUR PURPOSEFUL LIFE !!! | Asking yourself: “What is my life purpose?” is one of the most important questions you will ever ask. It cuts straight to the heart of who you are and why you are here.
Your answers to that question will change and develop as you mature in age and experience.
At the same time, Finding and realizing your "reason to live "will not happen overnight. By working toward our reason to live over time, we will continue to grow and develop in our chosen fields or professions. And because our live is our choice, we can feel a sense of autonomy over the journey it takes to get there.
We’re all gifted with a set of talents and interests that tell us what we’re supposed to be doing. Once you know what your life purpose is, organize all of your activities around it. Everything you do should be an expression of your purpose. If an activity or goal doesn’t fit that formula, don’t work on it.
One thing you always, keep in your mind your purpose doesn’t necessarily mean you have to change what you’re doing already.
The world 's not just about you and your success and your abilities, it’s about us, your greatest fulfillment comes from “us” and connecting. The greater whole, wisdom is seeing the bigger picture, realising that we are tribal creatures and we live in a world that is inter-connected.
We can’t begin to live our purpose without taking action. The difference between where we are and where we want to go is what we do.
Some of us are already on our way to living out our reason to live. Others have a little more work to do. Start by identifying where you fall on that continuum. Then, think about where you would like to be next year.
Next, break down that goal into 12 concrete actions or changes you need to make. Grab your favorite planner, notebook or online calendar and assign one action for each month for the next year.
By focusing on just one area of improvement per month, our goal becomes more manageable, and we are more likely to follow through with these small actions.
Once you are clear about what you want and keep your mind constantly focused on it, the how will keep showing up — sometimes just when you need it and not a moment earlier.
The outcomes that you experience in life are determined by your responses to the events in your life. The stronger your response — the better the outcome. The strength and quality of your response is determined by the skills and the experience you bring to it.
Feel your life purpose, then do action. What your heart says, that is the real purpose of your life
Finally, I will said one thing surely, the purpose in life is, to live the life of a Hero. Be a hero Always , no one can beat you . Go ahead forward !!! | https://medium.com/@yazznan5/your-purposeful-life-d6655c4d235f | [] | 2020-12-27 09:48:50.966000+00:00 | ['Purpose', 'Motivation', 'Heart', 'Life'] |
Editor’s Picks — Top 10: Do Unprofessional Writers Make More Money Than Professionals | 10. I’ve Been a Vegetarian for 6 Years and This is What I Learned
Diana Bernardo is a former journalist who loves to write about travel, work, and life lessons. Her style is simple, direct, and engaging. Do check her other work as well.
We were approaching the end of 2014. Two of my best friends had recently become vegan. They started talking to me about their experience and the reasons that led them there. I listened. I followed their suggestions and watched some documentaries. I saw things that I can not unsee ever again. And in the space of a few weeks I got more and more convinced that me too, I needed to make a change. I realized that I had been numb for the first 27 years of my life. I hadn’t asked the right questions, I hadn’t challenged what the world presented to me. Eating animals is an option that doesn’t make any sense from an ethical point of view. Then why had I never questioned it? Why hadn’t most of the world?
9. I’m a Performer with Social Anxiety
Jae Nichelle is a writer and a lover of sweet potatoes. Her poetry video went viral. Her style is friendly and engaging. If you read this story, you’ll like to read her other stories as well. Don’t miss it.
As a touring spoken word artist (before Covid, of course), I spent a lot of time traveling to different venues to perform poetry, to host open mics, and to compete in poetry slams. Truthfully, I love to perform, but it’s not always easy. In addition to being on stage in front of however many people, going to events comes with socializing, marketing myself, and answering questions — three things that my anxious mind does not like to do.
8. This Man Ate Only Mac & Cheese For 17 Years — Here’s Why
Kim Mia is a minimalist. Interesting story.
While we rely on food to sustain us physically, we also depend on it for its emotional support. From grandma’s chicken soup recipe to mom’s famous poached eggs, sometimes a dish just knows how to convey so much more than words ever could. But what if this comfort food becomes all you could ever eat?
7. Your Yawning Makes Me Want to Punch You
Rose Bak is a writer, author, and yoga teacher from Portland, Oregan. Her style will teach you to knit words into interesting sentences. Don’t miss this one.
Did you just yawn? That’s so annoying. I have a confession to make: every time I hear someone yawn I become irritated. Enraged even. In fact, there is a direct correlation to the loudness of a person’s yawn and how much I want to punch them in the face. Also, if someone chews their food too loudly, or groans when they get up, or breathes too loudly, or makes any other body-related noises, it’s all I can do not to start screaming at them.
6. The forgotten side of Cystic Fibrosis
Louis Dennis loves to write. His style is academic and difficult to read. But if you want to know how to write scientific articles, he can teach you a thing or two.
Although the biological impacts of CF are commonly known, the psychological and social effects of living with a chronic illness such as CF are often unrecognised. The following article aims to discuss the psychological effects of CF on the development of adolescents. In particular, the psychosocial theories of Erik Erikson will be used in order to explain the developmental challenges and differences an adolescent with CF may experience, when compared to a “healthy” individual.
5. Why You Should Try Slow Reading
Jason Ward wrote this gem. If you missed it, here is an opportunity to undo that.
Reading purely for enjoyment, absorbing and savoring words seems to be being replaced with a need to simply consume information. On an increasing number of websites, there are estimates of how long a piece will take you to read. Book summary apps are immensely popular. I keep reading articles about ‘How I read x number of books a year/month/week’.
4. 5 Actions You Can Take To Add New Positive Influences Into Your Life
Rob Cyrier is an excellent writer and a family man. He loves technology. But in this great article, he is telling us to mend our ways. Don’t miss this one.
When you make an effort to live your life more consciously, you start noticing things are literally sucking the life right out of you. You wake up out of your subconscious slumber, take a look around, and wonder how in the world you got yourself into certain situations.
3. What I Learned From a Year Dedicated to Writing a Novel
Luke Beling lives in Hawaii and finds joy in his stories. He is a superb writer and he is sharing with you his personal experiences. If you read this story, you are definitely going to read his other work as well.
I began 2020 with a simple mission: write a novel. I settled on a manageable word count per day (250) and started a story that had long been brewing under the surface. I’m a short-term goals oriented type of person. It’s difficult for me to stay with projects, ideas, or pursuits that span over months. I like to get things done immediately, then move onto the next task. Writing a novel wasn’t only out of my comfort zone; it was out of my universe. “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way…”
2. The Frustratingly Simple Reason Why Black People Voted For Trump
Steve QJ’s superb insights that you have to read to know why many black people voted for Trump. Steve QJ is a rising star of Medium. You must check his other work.
1. The Easiest Buddhist Practice To Hammer Down Stress and Anxiety
At number one, it’s Sebastian Purcell, Ph.D. He is a philosopher and a happiness researcher. His style is friendly, focused, and compelling. You should check his other work if you like this one. Brilliance shines through his pieces, from start to end. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/editors-picks-top-10-do-unprofessional-writers-make-more-money-than-professionals-6443fce2d195 | ['Dew Langrial'] | 2020-12-10 23:28:39.025000+00:00 | ['Writing Tips', 'Readinglist', 'Self Improvement', 'Reading', 'Writing'] |
Analyzing Public Data with D3 | Here is a codepen with the completed visualization so you can see the finished code and follow along. The tutorial assumes a basic understanding of JavaScript, including ES6 and promises.
This chart is based on Cale Tilford’s Connected Dot Plot, found here: https://bl.ocks.org/tlfrd/e1dd....
Getting the Data
First we have to get the data into our project from Enigma Public. We can use the API, which allows programmatic access to all of Enigma Public’s data. To learn more about the API and how to integrate Enigma’s data into your development projects, view the docs here.
We’ll use the Fetch API, a promise-based interface for getting resources on the web. There are two ways we can go about fetching the dataset:
Make an API call using search parameters to return only the data we want. Import the whole dataset into our project then filter for selected fields.
The first option is useful if the dataset is large or if you only need a small, specific amount of data. For the chart above, we are looking for the selected occupations on the y-axis. We will therefore formulate a query that returns just the rows of the column name ( Occupational_Category ) that we specify. See Enigma Public’s API documentation to help formulate search queries. Since you must use URL encoded space characters (%20) within the quoted string, we’ll use encodeURIComponent() to encode the occupation names then interpolate it into the fetch query.
const occupations = encodeURIComponent('"Driver/sales workers and truck drivers" OR "Elementary and middle school teachers" OR "Registered nurses" OR "Retail salespersons" OR "Accountants and auditors" OR "Janitors and building cleaners" OR "Sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing" OR "Construction laborers" OR "Cashiers" OR "Customer service representatives"')
fetch(`https://public.enigma.com/api/snapshots/3ca9486a-db7c-4216-8e99-0428e3b0b54d?query_mode=advanced&query=Occupational_Category:(${occupations})&row_limit=10`)
.then((resp) => resp.json())
.then((data) => {
return data.table_rows.rows;
})
.then(mapData).then(drawSVG)
.catch((error) => console.log(error));
For the second option, we can make a request for the entire dataset, then filter for the fields we want. Notice that the promise chain has an additional filterData() function. Since the dataset is 560 rows, we need to set the row_limit high enough to return all the data. It is set to 600 here, but you can request up to 10,000 rows.
fetch('https://public.enigma.com/api/snapshots/3ca9486a-db7c-4216-8e99-0428e3b0b54d?&row_limit=600')
.then((resp) => resp.json())
.then((data) => {
return data.table_rows.rows;
})
.then(filterData).then(mapData).then(drawSVG)
.catch((error) => console.log(error));
Now that we have all the data, we can filter for just the rows we want by putting the occupation names in an array and filtering for that array.
function filterData(data){
const selectedFields = [
"Driver/sales workers and truck drivers",
"Elementary and middle school teachers",
"Registered nurses",
"Retail salespersons",
"Accountants and auditors",
"Janitors and building cleaners",
"Sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing",
"Construction laborers",
"Cashiers",
"Customer service representatives"
]
return data.filter((fieldName)=>{
return selectedFields.includes(fieldName[0])
});
};
Formatting the Data
Now that we have the data we want, we’ll need to transform it into an array that can be passed to our D3 function. The function below maps each row to an object specifying the name of the field, the ‘max’ value (men’s earnings), and ‘min’ value (women’s earnings). For the fields we selected, the men’s earnings were all greater than women’s earnings.
We’ll also sort the data by men’s earnings so the higher paid professions will appear first on the chart.
function mapData(result){
const formattedData = [];
result.forEach((val)=>{
let mappedData = {}
mappedData["name"] = val[0]
mappedData["max"] = val[11]
mappedData["min"] = val[13]
formattedData.push(mappedData)
});
return formattedData.sort(function(a, b) {
if(parseInt(a["max"]) < parseInt(b["max"])) return 1 * 1;
if(parseInt(a["max"]) > parseInt(b["max"])) return -1 * 1;
return 0;
});
};
The formatted data now looks like this:
data = [
{"name":"Accountants and auditors","max":"76129","min":"57370"},
{"name":"Registered nurses","max":"70952","min":"64413"},
{"name":"Sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing","max":"70464","min":"54077"},
{"name":"Elementary and middle school teachers","max":"53096","min":"50021"},
{"name":"Driver/sales workers and truck drivers","max":"42435","min":"32237"},
{"name":"Retail salespersons","max":"40116","min":"26781"},
{"name":"Customer service representatives","max":"36744","min":"32095"},
{"name":"Construction laborers","max":"32214","min":"30378"},
{"name":"Janitors and building cleaners","max":"30654","min":"22962"},
{"name":"Cashiers","max":"22413","min":"20482"}
];
Building the chart
Now that our data is in the correct format, we can start building the chart. For the purposes of this program, all the D3 code is wrapped in a drawSVG() function.
One thing to keep in mind about D3 is that building a visualization is like painting on a canvas. The bottom layer of the visualization is the code you write first, then each piece builds on top of that. If you are making a D3 bar chart and, say, your axis lines appear on top of your bars, you need to rewrite so that you create the axes first then the bars.
1. First let’s make a container div in the html where we will append the visualization:
<div id="container"></div>
2. Next we will set the margins (leaving a wide margin on the left for occupation names), width, and height; and create an svg and append it to #container .
function drawSVG(data) {
let margin = {top: 90, right: 15, bottom: 50, left: 350},
width = 960 - margin.left - margin.right,
height = 500 - margin.top - margin.bottom;
let svg = d3.select("#container").append("svg")
.attr("width", width + margin.left + margin.right)
.attr("height", height + margin.top + margin.bottom)
.append("g")
.attr("transform", "translate(" + margin.left + "," + margin.top
")");
3. Determine scales and line paths for our data. This syntax is D3-specific and may look scary! But we’ll go through it below.
let y = d3.scaleBand()
.range([0, height])
.paddingInner(0.5)
.paddingOuter(0.7);
let x = d3.scaleLinear()
.range([0, width]);
let lineGenerator = d3.line();
let axisLinePath = function(d) {
return lineGenerator([[x(d) + 0.5, 0], [x(d) + 0.5, height]]);
};
let lollipopLinePath = function(d) {
return lineGenerator([[x(d.min), 0], [x(d.max), 0]]);
};
-Two important concepts in D3 are domain and range.
Domain in the context of D3 refers to your data and the boundaries in which your data lies. If my data is an array of numbers no smaller than 1 and no larger than 10,000, my domain would be 1 to 10,000.
Range refers to the mapping between a domain input and an output (range). For example, if you have data points that go from 1 to 10,000, you likely will not have a chart that is 10,000 pixels in width. You will need to transform the domain into a workable range to accurately size the chart, while keeping proportions between data points.
- d3.scaleBand() and d3.scaleLinear() are functions that map values across coordinate systems and put the data in the right place on the screen.
scaleBand() splits the range into bands, computes the position and width of the bands, and applies any specified padding.
scaleLinear() constructs a continuous linear scale with the specified domain and range, preserving proportional differences between the data points.
- lineGenerator() constructs a line given an array of coordinates.
4. Let’s set the domains for the charts:
y.domain(data.map(function(d) { return d.name }));
x.domain([0, d3.max(data, function(d) { return d.max })]);
x.nice();
By setting the x and y domains, we are simply declaring the complete set of values for the x and y axes so the chart knows where to start and end (see the discussion about domains and ranges above).
5. We’ll make our axes, set some classes, and append them to the svg:
let yAxis = d3.axisLeft().scale(y)
.tickSize(0);
let xAxis = d3.axisTop().scale(x)
.tickFormat(function(d,i) {
if (i == 0) {
return "$0"
} else {
return d3.format(".2s")(d);
}
});
let yAxisGroup = svg.append("g")
.attr("class", "y-axis-group");
yAxisGroup.append("g")
.attr("class", "y-axis")
.attr("transform", "translate(-20, 0)")
.call(yAxis)
.select(".domain")
.attr("opacity", 0);
let xAxisGroup = svg.append("g")
.attr("class", "x-axis-group");
xAxisGroup.append("g")
.attr("class", "x-axis")
.call(xAxis);
let axisLines = svg.append("g")
.attr("class", "grid-lines");
axisLines.selectAll("path")
.data(x.ticks())
.enter().append("path")
.attr("class", "grid-line")
.attr("d", axisLinePath);
.tickFormat formats the ticks manually. We passed it a function to display the data points in a human-readable format of two significant digits (d3.format(".2s")).
6. Lastly, let’s make our circles (lollipops) representing each data point and append them to the chart. startcircles refers to the minimum number (women’s earnings) in each occupational category, while endcircles is the maximum number (men’s earnings).
let lollipopsGroup = svg.append("g").attr("class", "lollipops");
let lollipops = lollipopsGroup.selectAll("g")
.data(data)
.enter().append("g")
.attr("class", "lollipop")
.attr("transform", function(d) {
return "translate(0," + (y(d.name) + (y.bandwidth() / 2)) + ")";
})
lollipops.append("path")
.attr("class", "lollipop-line")
.attr("d", lollipopLinePath);
let startCircles = lollipops.append("circle")
.attr("class", "lollipop-start")
.attr("r", 5)
.attr("cx", function(d) {
return x(d.min);
});
let endCircles = lollipops.append("circle")
.attr("class", "lollipop-end")
.attr("r", 5)
.attr("cx", function(d) {
return x(d.max);
});
And our chart is now complete. You can also add a legend (necessary for a chart like this) along with some tooltips and styles. I won’t cover how to do that here, but the code for those features is in the codepen.
Thanks for reading! If fetching complex datasets and creating cool data visualizations is up your alley, we’re hiring. | https://medium.com/enigma-engineering/analyzing-public-data-with-a-d3-connected-dot-plot-6e29435d8107 | ['Mary Boyd'] | 2018-11-16 14:41:00.337000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'D3js', 'Data Visualization', 'Software Engineering', 'Public Data'] |
I Took Investment Advice from Strangers on Reddit | www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets
I Took Investment Advice from Strangers on Reddit
Is there money to be made from meme stocks?
When the coronavirus pandemic struck at the beginning of this year, the global economy ground to a halt. Amidst the uncertainty, investors fled the stock market, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 8,000 points between February 12th, 2020 and March 11th, 2020.
Since then, the stock market has been on an absolute tear, with the S&P 500 completely erasing the losses from earlier in the year, and is now at an all-time high, returning +15% this year. And while a +15% return is nothing to turn your nose up at, it’s the individual stocks that have generated the greatest returns for investors this year, such as:
Tesla — increased by 579% year to date
Peloton — increased by 303% year to date
Etsy — increased by 224% year to date
These are just a handful of companies that have provided outstanding returns this year, the list goes on. And on, and on, and on.
Warren Buffett, meet r/wallstreetbets
A few weeks before the stock market crashed, I was in the process of transferring my old workplace pensions into a single account, one that was easily accessible. This gave me a moderate amount of money to invest.
I began to read as much as I could about investing. Whether on Marketwatch, Business Insider, or the Wall Street Journal, I absorbed as much information as I could about investing in stocks. Shortly afterwards, I discovered r/wallstreetbets.
WallStreetBets is one of the most interesting communities you’ll find on Reddit. Described as a subreddit for “people who want to make money and be amused while doing it,” most of the posts you’ll find will contain memes, rocket emojis, with perhaps a shred of information regarding a particular stock. Many in the community admit to knowing nothing about the companies they’ve poured money into and that they’re merely following the ‘hype’ — putting money into whichever stock is being discussed the most.
Posting “gain porn” or “loss porn” is highly encouraged, in fact, the only thing that the community seems to love more than someone making a boatload of money is to watch someone lose everything.
Screenshot by the author
Coming out of a risky trade with a huge loss is considered a badge of honour — but if you didn’t end up losing 100% of your portfolio, then being branded a “weak-handed p*ssy” is probably the nicest thing you’ll be called.
It’s a very bizarre place, and not for the faint-hearted or easily offended.
My Reddit Experiment
Considering some of the amazing returns I’ve seen on the page, I decided to conduct an experiment. I designated a small portion of my portfolio as my “f*ck it fund,” — money that I didn’t care if I completely lost, and decided to keep a close eye on the page for a few weeks, specifically looking for the stocks that were being talked about most frequently.
It wasn’t long before I had two contenders: NIO and PLTR. I hadn’t the faintest idea what either of these two companies did, I just knew that the WallStreetBets community was frothing at the mouth over them, that they were expected to “go to the moon.” For the uninitiated, the phrase “go to the moon” refers to a stock’s share price increasing drastically and is usually accompanied by one or more rocket emojis.
Rest assured, both had more than their fair share of rocket emojis, so I decided to divide my money between them, making the following purchases:
I purchased PLTR on November 9th, at $15.27 per share (including charges)
I purchased NIO on November 10th, at $42.74 per share (including charges)
So, what were the results?
Three weeks on and I’m not a millionaire just yet, but I’m relatively pleased:
PLTR enjoyed a magnificent run, peaking at around $33 per share, more than twice the price I originally paid . As the stock dipped slightly I sold my initial investment, to prevent any losses, but still hold a number of shares. At the time of writing, PLTR is trading at around $24 per share.
more than . As the stock dipped slightly I sold my initial investment, to prevent any losses, but still hold a number of shares. At the time of writing, PLTR is trading at around $24 per share. NIO continued to rise after my purchase, peaking at $55 per share, a rise of around 30% from my initial investment. Since then the stock has dipped slightly, but I am still in the green. At the time of writing, NIO is trading at around $46 per share.
It is certainly possible to make money following the ‘meme’ stocks that you’ll find being pushed by random strangers on the internet. Both stocks increased in price at a rate substantially higher than the 8% you can expect annually from the S&P 500.
However.
Buying into ‘meme’ stocks is not investing. It’s gambling, and it should be treated as such. I make no claims of having superior trading skill or knowledge. I bought stocks that I knew nothing about because I was curious as to what could be achieved by following the hype.
Making money this way felt deceptively easy. But though I seem to have had quite good fortune, I could just as easily have lost everything. In fact, in the days since PLTR peaked, posts have popped up all over Reddit from angry individuals who bought in at $33 per share, only to then watch the value of their investment fall by a third over the coming days.
Can you make money by following advice from internet strangers? Yes.
Could you just as easily lose everything? Also, yes.
Would I recommend you try it? Absolutely not.
The contents of this article do not constitute investment advice. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/i-took-investment-advice-from-strangers-on-reddit-8b7f1408e610 | ['Jon Peters'] | 2020-12-06 14:33:25.363000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Personal Finance', 'Finance', 'Advice', 'Money'] |
Shine | About haiku
A haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry. It’s made up of 3 unrhymed lines with 17 syllables, 5–7–5.
Haiku forces us to be creative and concise to convey the essence of a specific moment in only a few words. This efficiency with words can help us share messages more powerfully in other types of writing. It’s also a great way to kickstart a writing session.
Common themes written in haiku are nature and human nature, though other themes can also be explored. | https://medium.com/house-of-haiku/shine-c4250ea1823f | ['Cynthia Marinakos'] | 2020-07-07 11:01:01.280000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Poetry', 'Haiku', 'Nature', 'Writing'] |
Beyond Basic Income: The Case for Integrated Cash Assistance | I have written frequently in this publication and elsewhere in support of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). Even in its simplest form, — equal, unconditional monthly payments to all citizens — a UBI offers an unambiguous improvement over our current welfare system, both in fighting poverty and in encouraging work. However, it should be recognized that a simple UBI is just one member of a larger family of policies that would replace our current grab-bag of fragmented, in-kind welfare with a unified system of cash assistance.
The idea of replacing in-kind welfare with cash assistance is far from new. Decades ago, Milton Friedman argued for programs that give help “in the form most useful to the individual, namely money.” More recently, Charles Kenny cites examples from around the world in support of a simple policy recipe: “Give poor people cash without conditions attached, and it turns out they use it to buy goods and services that improve their lives and increase their future earnings potential.”
Once we focus on cash assistance, we find that there are many ways to give money away, of which a UBI is only one. This post looks at a UBI and its alternatives, including negative income taxes, wage subsidies, and child allowances. I will argue that rather than choosing among these canonical policy alternatives, cash welfare can best be optimized with a policy of Integrated Cash Assistance (ICA) that shares features of all of them.
A taxonomy of cash transfers
Let’s begin with a taxonomy cash transfer policies, based loosely on a recent NBER working paper by Hillary W. Hoynes and Jesse Rothstein. Their model focuses on five program parameters:
Eligibility. A transfer may be universally available or available only to those who meet certain eligibility standards, such as age, work status, disability, citizenship status, family structure, and so on.
Basic grant. The basic grant is the minimum payment an otherwise eligible person or household receives regardless of earned income.
Maximum benefit. The maximum benefit is the largest payment that an eligible person can receive.
Wage subsidy. A specified increase in payments per dollar of earned income over a specified range.
Phase-out. A schedule of benefit reductions beyond a set amount of earned income.
A Universal basic income: A universal basic income is the simplest form of cash benefit. A UBI provides an equal basic grant to every person, regardless of age, earnings, work status or any other personal characteristic, with no phase-out. Although the “U” suggests that a UBI would be available to everyone, some broad standards of eligibility, such as age or citizenship status, are nonetheless needed to define who was meant by “everyone.” For example, Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s Freedom Dividend would limit the basic grant to citizens of the United States over 18 years of age. A universal child allowance that specified a maximum rather than a minimum age could also be considered a form of UBI.
Advocates claim several advantages for such a UBI. It is administratively simple since there are no eligibility requirements to assess — no means testing, no evaluation of disability, no need to verify family status. It would substantially enhance work incentives if it replaced the high benefit reduction rates of existing programs. Its universality would make it maximally effective in combatting poverty, and at the same time, would minimize any stigma attached to accepting benefits.
Offsetting those advantages, as many critics point out, a UBI would be costly, since it would require paying benefits not just to the poor, but also to people with middle and higher incomes — an issue to which we turn next.
Phase-outs and negative income taxes. Some basic income proposals forego universality, adding a phase-out of benefits beyond a given level of earned income. In such a program, a household with no income gets a basic grant G. After total income reaches some phase-out point P, benefits are subject to a fixed benefit reduction rate R until they reach zero.
A negative income tax (NIT) is a special case of a UBI with a phase-out. In a NIT, the phaseout begins with the first dollar of earned income. A defining characteristic of a NIT is that benefit reductions continue beyond the break-even point, so that people with higher incomes pay money to the government as a positive tax while those with lower incomes receive a benefit, or negative tax.
Phase-outs address the biggest drawback of a canonical UBI — the high cost of providing grants to people whose earned income is already adequate. The trade-off is that along the phase-out range, beneficiaries face a significant work disincentive. The strength of the disincentive depends in part on the benefit reduction rate of the UBI or NIT itself, and in part on whether it replaces existing means-tested programs or is added on top of them.
If the program is a replacement, and if the benefit reduction rate is less than the combined rates of the replaced programs, then the net effect on work incentives will be favorable. However, if a UBI with phase-out or NIT is added on top of existing means-tested programs, it would increase disincentives. For example, if an NIT with an R of 25 percent were added to a nutrition program with a 30 percent reduction rate and housing benefits with a 40 percent rate, the combined rate would reach 95 percent, leaving hardly any incentive to work.
Wage subsidies. A wage subsidy is any policy that offers benefits that increase as earned income increases, at least over some range. Although a properly designed UBI or NIT could provide greater work incentives than current means-tested welfare programs do, wage subsidies could do even more.
In a pure wage-subsidy program, nonworkers would receive no benefit. Starting from there, workers would receive a subsidy at a rate S, say, 50 cents for each dollar earned, up to a maximum. Beyond some level of income, the benefits are phased out. To avoid strong disincentives to work, the benefit reduction rate might be lower than the original subsidy rate, say just 25 cents per dollar earned, until benefits reach zero. The phase-out might begin immediately after the maximum benefit is reached, or there might by a range of incomes over which the subsidy remains fixed before the phase-out point begins.
The biggest wage subsidy program now in effect in the United States, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), follows the general pattern we have described — a subsidy for each dollar earned until a maximum is reached, then a flat spot, and then a range over which benefits are phased out. EITC benefits depend not only on earnings but also on the number of dependent children in a household, with very limited eligibility for those with no children.
As is apparent, the big problem with this design is that it encourages work for those just entering the labor market, but discourages those who are subject to the phase out. Under current EITC parameters, negative incentives affect many workers at the critical point where they are just emerging from poverty to self-sufficiency. The disincentive effects of the phase-out are amplified by that fact that the EITC is added on top of other means-tested welfare program, rather than replacing them. The resulting combined benefit reduction rates can be quite substantial.
A 2015 report from the Congressional Budget Office provides a detailed discussion. One example in the report is based on a hypothetical family of one parent and one child living in Pennsylvania in 2016. In addition to the EITC, the family is eligible for TANF, SNAP, Medicaid, CHIP, and cost-sharing subsidies for health insurance. The example also takes into account payroll and income taxes, so that above a break-even level, total disposable income is less than earned income. For this family, positive incentive effects are strongest for incomes ranging from 30 to 55 percent of the poverty level, where household disposable income rises by as much as $1.40 for each dollar of earned income. The weakest work incentives occur in a range from 115 to 127 percent of the poverty level. There, the family gains only 20 cents in disposable income for each dollar earned.
Combining canonical types into Integrated Cash Assistance
The previous section described three canonical types of cash assistance policy, defined in terms of five key parameters. A universal basic income features a substantial basic grant with broad eligibility. A negative income tax adds a phase-out, which that may begin immediately or at a set level of earned income. A wage subsidy has no basic grant, but instead, pays a bonus per dollar of income earned by low-wage workers.
Although the three canonical policies are often treated as distinct alternatives, there are strong reasons to think that an Integrated Cash Assistance program that combines their features might work better than any would alone. Such an ICA would have the following elements:
A universal basic grant G that goes to all eligible adults, regardless of their employment status.
A universal child allowance that increases the total amount of cash received by an amount C for each of N children.
A wage subsidy S per dollar earned, up to a maximum amount M.
A flat range of income over which total benefits received — basic grant plus child allowances plus wage subsidies — is held constant
A phase-out point, after which total benefits are reduced at a fixed rate R per dollar of earned income until benefits reach zero.
Such an ICA would resemble the current welfare system in some respects. It is already the case that families without any income can receive certain benefits, such as food stamps, Medicaid, and TANF, as well as certain child benefits. The EITC already offers a wage subsidy to low-income workers with children. And benefits for all of these programs are subject to phase outs. However, the ICA described here would differ from the current collection of welfare policies in fundamental ways:
All benefits, including the wage subsidy, would take the form of monthly cash payments, rather than in-kind benefits or annual tax credits.
The basic grant for adults would be universal. It would not depend on work status, family status, or other personal characteristics. (Eligibility rules would needed with regard to citizenship and residency.)
Child credits would be paid to parents or guardians in name of the child, and would automatically follow the child in case of a change in family status. Any agreements for joint custody would have to include a cause specifying the division of child benefits. Child benefits would not depend on the work status, marital status, or other personal characteristics of the parents or guardians.
In order to avoid punitive disincentive effects, a single, uniform phase-out rate would apply to all benefits received by a household. For example, if the phase-out rate were 25 cents per dollar of earned income for a single individual, total benefits for a family — including wage subsidies received by multiple earners and child allowances — would also be reduced at a consolidated rate of 25 percent.
Health care would be separated from the cash assistance program through universal coverage in some form such as universal catastrophic coverage, Medicare for All, or a subsidized public option added to the existing Affordable Care Act.
Affordability
A full discussion of the affordability of integrated cash assistance is beyond the scope of this commentary, but here are some very rough numbers:
As of 2018, the federal government spent $164 billion on child nutrition, Head Start, WIC, and child-related tax credits. There were about 73 million children under 18. That would allow a universal child grant of about $4,500, assuming a phase-out that focused benefits on the poorest half of those children.
In the same year, the federal government spent some $192 billion on conventional in-kind and cash welfare (housing, SNAP, TANF, etc.). In addition, “middle-class welfare” in the form of tax deductions for home mortgages, charitable contributions, and retirement savings came to another $375 billion, for a total of $579 billion. That would be enough to provide a universal basic grant of about $2,150 to each of 264 million resident adult U.S. citizens. Giving Social Security recipients the choice of getting their current benefits, or the new basic grant, but not both, would increase the basic grant to about $2,800 per adult, assuming that 90 percent of retirees chose to stay with Social Security. With a phase-out that focused benefits on the poorest half of adults, the benefit for those with the lowest incomes would be something in the neighborhood of $5,000.
The basic grant and child allowance specified above would be enough in themselves to provide benefits as great as or greater than those of the present EITC (maximum of $3,500 for one parent with one child or $5,800 for a couple with two children.) Part of the funds now spent on the EITC could be used to expand wage subsidies to childless low-income workers, now largely excluded from the EITC. The rest could be used to provide a wage-subsidy that would add to the basic grant and child allowance for low-wage households.
Taking all of these components together, an ICA could provide benefits of something like $19,000 per year to a family of four with two children in which neither adult had any earned income. If one of the parents worked full-time at the federal wage of $7.25 per hour and the other worked half-time at the minimum wage, earned come would total $21,750. Adding $5,000 in wage subsidies would bring total family income to $45,750, or nearly double the federal poverty level for a family of four.
The bottom line
Replacing the present welfare system with a system of Integrated Cash Assistance could substantially reduce poverty while also enhancing work incentives for low-income families. Even if the ICA were financed entirely by diverting funds now spent on conventional welfare and “middle class welfare,” with no new funds committed, it would raise the incomes of non-working families close to the poverty line, while raising the incomes of households whose heads worked at minimum-wage jobs to a level well above the poverty level. These figures are based entirely on “static” calculations. That is, they do not take into account the possibility that wages subsidies and reduced benefit reduction rates could substantially increase labor force participation and therefore increase revenue flowing into income and payroll taxes.
The ICA parameters used in our example are purely illustrative. Within a given budget for the ICA, the program could be tilted more toward the basic adult grant, more toward children, or more toward wage subsidies, according to policymakers’ perceptions of needs. Although the illustrations assume that no additional funding is available, that could be changed if policy makers wanted to impose additional taxes.
UBI advocates make a valid point when they emphasize the administrative simplicity and inherent fairness of unconditional grants paid to everyone. I remain convinced that a simple UBI would outperform our current dysfunctional welfare system. However, viewed pragmatically, a program of Integrated Cash Assistance could do an even better job than a simple UBI both in relieving poverty and encouraging labor force participation.
For more on the way UBI and work incentives can work together, see “Putting Everyone to Work: UBI, Wage Subsidies, or Both?” (Medium) and “Can We Put Everyone to Work?” (Slideshow). Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com. | https://medium.com/basic-income/beyond-basic-income-the-case-for-integrated-cash-assistance-52331b5c529d | ['Ed Dolan'] | 2020-02-10 15:22:29.777000+00:00 | ['Poverty', 'Economics', 'Politics', 'Basic Income'] |
Pundi X ARROトークンをXPOS と XWalletへ追加 | Pundi X is a leading developer of blockchain-powered devices, including the world’s first point-of-sale solution, the XPOS, which enables merchants and consumers to do transactions on the blockchain in physical stores.
Follow | https://medium.com/pundix/pundi-x-arro%E3%83%88%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF%E3%83%B3%E3%82%92xpos-%E3%81%A8-xwallet%E3%81%B8%E8%BF%BD%E5%8A%A0-7bffcebd4bc | ['Japan - Nanna'] | 2020-12-09 00:14:07.018000+00:00 | ['Arro', 'Pundixjapan', 'Xwallet', 'Pundix', 'Xpos'] |
Some Javascript tricks solved problem’s | Some Javascript tricks solved problem’s
Null vs Undefined:
Null:
The Null is used to represent an intentional absence of value. It represents a variable whose value is undefined. It accepts only one value, which is null. The Null keyword is used to define the Null type in TypeScript, but it is not useful because we can only assign a null value to it.
var myVar = null; console.log(myVar); // null
Undefined:
It is very important to know about undefined coding in JavaScript. There are many ways to get undefined described below.
Undefined is found if you do not set the value of any variable.
let banana; console.log(banana) // undefined
If we do not declare a return in a function, then undefined will be found.
function sum(price1, price2){ console.log(price1 + price2) } const result = sum(34, 12); console.log(result); // undefined
when we write the return but do not give the value of the return then it is undefined.
function sum(price1, price2){ console.log(price1 + price2) return } const result = sum(34, 12); console.log(result); // undefined
when you do not pass any function parameters, you will get undefined.
function sum(price1, price2){ console.log(price1 + price2) return sum } const result = sum(34,); console.log(result); // 34, undefined
When declaring a variable, if you read the property of an object, it is undefined.
const firstProduct = {name:”computer”, price:1200}; console.log(firstProduct.quantity) // undefined
When declaring a variable, if you read the property of an object, it is undefined.
let funCode = undefined console.log(funCode) // undefined
2. Double equal (==) vs Triple equal (===):
These two type operators are…
Double equals operator (== ): Known as the equality or abstract comparison operator
Triple equals operator (===): Known as the identity or strict comparison operator
‘==’ converts the variable values to the same type before performing the comparison. This is called type coercion. Meanwhile, === does not do any type conversion (coercion) and returns true only if both values and types are identical for the two variables being compared.
example,
var number= 2;
var number1 = 2;
var string = "2"; console.log(number == number1); // true
console.log(number === number1); // true
console.log(number == string); // true
console.log(number === string); // false
Problem Solving:
Reverse a string
// Using for loop with variable decreament from last to first
function reverseStr(str) {
let newStr = "";
for (let i = str.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
newStr += str[i];
}
return newStr;
}console.log(reverseStr('Bangladesh'));
// hsedalgnaB
Calculate Factorial of a number using for loop
function factorial(num) {
// 0 or 1 factorial is always 1 if (num === 0 || num === 1)
return 1;
for (let i = num - 1; i >= 1; i--) {
num *= i;
}
return num; }
console.log(factorial(5));
// 120
Remove duplicate item from an array
// Using Set method
let names = ['Asit', 'Kumar', 'Sam', 'Asit', 'Kumar', 'Nusrat']; let uniqueNames= [...new Set(names)]; console.log(uniqueNames);
// ['Asit', 'Kumar', 'Sam', 'Nusrat']
Find the largest element of an array
const arr = [1, 5, 7, 3, 11, 9, 99, 57];let largest= 0; for (i = 0; i <= largest; i++){
if (arr[i]>largest) {
largest=arr[i];
}
} console.log(largest); // 99
Calculate Factorial of a number using a while loop
function factorial(num) {
let result = num;
if (num === 0 || num === 1)
return 1;
// When num is less than 1, looping is stopped
while (num > 1) {
num--;
result *= num;
}
return result;
}
factorial(5);
// 120
Calculate Factorial in a Recursive function
// factorial function runs itself until finished
function factorial(x) {
if (x === 0) {
return 1;
}
return x * factorial(x-1);
}
console.log(factorial(5));
// 120
Check whether a number is a Prime Number or not
// Using ES6 syntax
const isPrime = num => {
for(let i = 2; i < num; i++) {
if(num % i === 0)
return false;
}
return num > 1;
}
console.log(isPrime(10));
// falseconsole.log(isPrime(5));
// true
Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/some-javascript-tricks-solved-problems-692e39cad228 | ['Asit Kumar Dey'] | 2020-12-03 15:28:20.038000+00:00 | ['Problem Solving', 'JavaScript', 'Programming', 'ES6'] |
Affiliate Marketing Case Study: Quora Ads Campaign | Affiliate Marketing Case Study: Quora Ads Campaign
Alot of people feel that they would be wasting their time trying to make money online, but that is simply not true, so I created this affiliate marketing case study to prove you CAN earn money online, and faster than you think. This article will walk you through the steps to making money fast with affiliate marketing by running a paid ads campaign on Quora.
To engage you with the process and to show you first-hand how to get the best results in the shortest time possible, I will walk you through the affiliate marketing case study designed specifically to serve this goal.
The 3 main steps of the Case Study
1. Write an article in which you promote multiple affiliate products (in this case study I chose 2 products) and publish it on your blog.
2. Drive traffic to the article by running paid Ads on Quora.
3. Sit back and earn passive income!
The Article Used
I have shown you in my previous article (another affiliate marketing case study) how to write an article promoting multiple affiliate products and how to publish the article. I have also shown you how to drive traffic to the article for free and get 2 conversions in 48 hours.
In this case study, I am going to use the same article that I’ve already used previously, which is a comparison between two email marketing services (SendinBlue and GetResponse), but this time I am going to drive traffic by running paid Ads on Quora.
SendinBlue VS GetResponse:
This article is a comparison between these two email marketing services. It highlights the benefits of each by organizing all the details in a table and you can see that the article is full of affiliate links to those products. What’s interesting about this is the psychology behind the whole thing. If you were able to target the right people who are searching for the best email marketing service, you will get a high conversion rate regardless of which one they are going to choose.
The Outcome of this Campaign:
To show you the campaign, I went to Quora and opened my Quora Ads Manager. On this page, there’s a dashboard and when you click on the traffic blog, you can see the campaign.
It shows you that I spent $14.22 on this campaign and as a result, I got 198 clicks and the clicks-through conversions were 64. So, I got approximately 64 views on my blog. Previously it was around 30 views; now it’s around 100 views, which means that I got 66 new views from Quora.
To see the results of this campaign, I first checked SendinBlue. I skipped the first 5.00 € since they are the revenue of the first case study. In total, I made 25 € which is about $30.
Although I didn’t get any new conversions in GetResponse, I got a lot of free accounts which means that anytime those free accounts get a new subscription, I will receive a commission. Now, this is due to the reason that GetResponse has a recurring commission program
So, my final results were 25 € from SendinBlue and 15 new accounts on GetResponse. This means that I got a 100% ROI (Return On Investment).
Creating the Campaign:
You can simply create a campaign on Quora by clicking the blue link labeled “New Campaign” and then you will have to provide the following details:
1. Choose a name for your campaign. In my case, it’s “Traffic Blog”. You also have to indicate the objective of this campaign and in my case it’s “Traffic” since I want to drive traffic to my blog.
2. Set the budget. For this campaign, I chose to make it 10$ which is a good amount of money to start with.
3. Choose a name for your ad set. The name can be anything. I went with “Adset 1”.
4. Pick a location. I went for “India” since I would get a lower CPC (Cost Per Click). You can add more countries to get more reach, but don’t go with countries with high CPC to keep the cost low. The point is to test the strategy safely before you scale up with bigger campaigns.
5. Choose primary targeting. This is how you will target a specific group of people for your campaign. My choice was “Contextual Targeting” and I filled in the targeted topics with “Email marketing”. In addition to that I added “Email Service Provides”, “Email Deliverability”…etc. to get more reach.
In this way, I am targeting people who are asking and answering questions about email marketing and email marketing services on Quora. As you can see, the target audience is very precise, increasing the value and effectiveness of my ad.
6. Set the device and browser: I set it to “All desktop browsers” since I want all desktop users to see my ad.
7. Set the bid: I kept it as suggested which is “0.74$”.
Creating the Ad:
1. Choose a name for your Ad (example: Ad1) and then click on “Image Ad”.
2. Fill in with the business name (H-educate).
3. Set the headline and add an image. My headline is “SendinBlue vs GetResponse” and the body text is “Decide which email marketing service is better for your business.”
It’s a simple ad with a “learn more” button that leads people to the article on my blog.
This is exactly how I ran a paid campaign on Quora and got a 200% ROI. Your next step from here is to scale up and rise to the challenge. You can run this campaign for one month and study the results.
End of the Affiliate Marketing Case Study
Now that I suggested this, you might be asking yourself why I chose to stop this campaign ahead of time.
Well, that’s simply because I ran a native ad campaign experimenting with the same article. The purpose of that was to compare the strategies and find out which campaign works better.
I hope this affiliate marketing case study clearly showed the steps to making the most out of affiliate marketing by running a paid ads campaign. If you test out this strategy, please report back in the comments below, I would love to hear from you. | https://medium.com/@oware/affiliate-marketing-case-study-quora-ads-campaign-24993db99ab8 | ['Oware A. Augustine'] | 2020-12-19 14:35:00.646000+00:00 | ['Digital Marketing', 'Affiliate Marketing', 'Online Business', 'Affiliate Marketing Tips', 'Quora Ads'] |
Psychology of choices. Choice(noun): an act of choosing… | What exactly is a choice?
Choice(noun): an act of choosing between two or more possibilities.
For some, choices can be just a way of defining and asserting their individuality, but it is definitely much more than that and it plays a transforming role in every individual’s life.
Let’s understand the underlying assumptions about why we should know about making choices and why we shouldn’t judge others choices
First assumption: If a choice affects you, then you should be the one to make it.
If a choice affects you, then you should be the one to make it. This is the only way to ensure that your preferences and interests will be most fully accounted for. People must choose for themselves, regardless of what other people want or recommend. It’s called “being true to yourself.” For a few people, the choice is a mechanism or way to create community and harmony by deferring to the choices of people whom they trusted and respected. For them the concept of being true to one’s self, then that self, most likely, [was] composed, not of an individual, but of a collective. Or we can say an individual’s preferences were shaped by the preferences of specific others. The assumption then that we do best when the individual self chooses only holds when that self is clearly divided from others. So don’t judge others. Many people don’t thrive under the pressure of choosing alone. For e.g. when two or more individuals see their choices and their outcomes as intimately connected, then they may amplify one another’s success by turning choosing into a collective act. To insist that they choose independently might actually compromise both their performance and their relationships.
Second assumption- The more choices you have, the more likely you are to make the best choice
The older generation had jumped from nothing to choice all around them. They were never given a chance to learn how to react.
In today’s time, many choices are between things that are not that much different.
The value of choice depends on our ability to perceive differences between the available options.
In fact, though all humans share a basic need and desire for choice, we don’t all see the choice in the same places or to the same extent.
When someone can’t see how one choice is unlike another, or when there are too many choices to compare and contrast, the process of choosing can be confusing and frustrating. Instead of making better choices, we become overwhelmed by choice, sometimes even afraid of it.
Choice no longer offers opportunities but imposes constraints. It’s not a marker of liberation, but of suffocation by meaningless minutiae.
In simple words, a choice can develop into the very opposite of everything it represents when it is thrust upon those who are insufficiently prepared for it.
We all have physical, mental and emotional limitations that make it impossible for us to process every single choice we encounter.
The value of choice depends on our ability to perceive differences between the available options.
When people are given more options when they’re making a choice, they make poorer decisions.
Yet still, many of us believe that we should make all our own choices and seek out even more of them.
The third assumption: Narrative of We must never say no to choice.
This narrative promises so much: freedom, happiness, success but its not always true.
We should know that no single narrative serves the needs of everyone everywhere. So we should have a wider imagination and perspective as we will benefit from incorporating new perspectives into our own narrative which has been driving our choices for so long.
When it comes to choice, we have far more to gain than to lose by engaging in the many translations of the narratives.
Instead of replacing one story with another, we can learn from and revel in the many versions that exist and the many that have yet to be written. No matter where we’re from and what our narrative is, we all have a responsibility to open ourselves up to a wider array of what choice can do, and what it can represent.
Our choices should teach us when and how to act. It teaches us when and how to act.
The narrative should bring us closer to realizing the full potential of choice, to inspire the hope of achieving freedom that choice promises but doesn’t always deliver.
If we learn to widen our narrative, we can allow our minds to see the choice in all its strangeness, complexity and compelling beauty.
Using all this we can grow in a magnificent way without judging others. | https://medium.com/@kamal-bishttt/psychology-of-choices-the-game-of-survival-e26d8a66f498 | ['Kamal Bisht'] | 2020-02-23 14:09:33.570000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Human Development', 'Life Lessons', 'Life Hacking', 'Choices'] |
Ways To Save Your Relationship | Ways To Save Your Relationship
Rebuild and maintain the attraction.
Photo credit: iStock
By Raymond Michael
Keeping our relationships healthy and active requires a concerted effort from both parties involved. It is true to the letter that every relationship has its fair portion of clashes and misunderstandings which often leads to resentment, bitterness, hurt feelings, pains and sufferings of different degrees by one or both partners. Owing to the fact that both parties in a relationship are different and consequently have divergent views, concerns, dreams and aspirations, and these coupled with each other’s quirky personality differences can easily lead to offenses which most of the time might not be intentional.
If these conflicts or sticky misunderstandings are not resolved when they occur and are bottled up by one or both partners, they can very easily snowball into bigger problems for the relationship. While every relationship is different, they basically go through almost the same types of complications. Therefore an understanding of the reasons why most misunderstandings happen will be a very essential tool in fixing the current problems the relationship might be encountering and help prevent future conflicts from degenerating into more complex problems.
In an effort to look into ways through which we can help in saving our relationships, below are a few ways through which we achieve this and knowing them will in no small be of benefits in solving most of the common problems that can arise in a relationship.
Admitting and Identifying the Problem
If we feel that there are problems and misunderstandings in the relationship, then the first thing we should do when attempting to solve any other problem in life is to first admit that there is a problem. Without owning up there is a problem, there is no way we can go about solving it. If there is fighting and flaring of tempter every now and then, just pretending that everything is ok and that the problems will naturally go away will not be of any advantage to the relationship.
Disregarding these problems or pretending they do not exist will not help in solving them. It is very important to try and identify the real problems which are often much deeper at the root of the conflicts and get past the symptoms of the problems. The affairs in a relationship are mostly the symptoms of a problem with the relationship but the real problem may be the lack of intimacy in the relationship. Without diagnosing the real problem and fixing it, then there is the likelihood of a reoccurrence and a potential breakup.
Communicate your Needs to your Partner
Most couples too often assume that their partners just don’t care about their needs and wants failing to understand that their partners cannot read their mind, therefore, cannot know what it is that they are thinking. Therefore, both partners need to communicate their feelings and needs to each other. If we open up channels of effective communication in our relationships and the most important aspect of this being the act of listening, we will find it easier to let our partners know just what we want or our opinions on certain issues and then it would be easier for both parties to work through any difficulty.
Learn to Forgive and Forget
As the saying goes “to err is human, to forgive, divine”, couples should realize that offenses are bound to come in their relationship. When they come, the wronged partner must realize that forgiveness is the only way out for the relationship to survive and the offender must recognize his wrongdoing and apologize accordingly. Frankly speaking, when it comes to this issue, whose fault this or that is not the important issue but the ability to open up, apologize and just say those magic words “I’m sorry” with all sincerity is the most important thing. These words are powerful and can melt any heart when said wholeheartedly. Forgiveness helps to close the distance between couples.
Revitalize your Sex Life
If you want to make sure that your partner stays hooked to you, then you have to put in all you can to make sure that activities in the bedroom do not become boring and monotonous. This might involve you giving in to requests from your partner that centers on their fantasies; you may not want to but if they can be done, why not do them. While men need to be considerate of their partner’s emotions when it comes to sex, the women should understand that their men on an average have a higher sex drive and needs more of it than them and therefore they should ensure that they do not starve the men of it.
Rebuild and Maintain the Attraction
After settling down into a mutually exclusive relationship, we tend to start taking for granted the fact that it was the physical attraction or something spectacular about our significant other that attracted them to us. It is therefore very important that we do all we can to maintain that physical attractiveness.
Reconnect Emotionally with your Partner
A relationship needs frequent doses of romance to keep the embers of love burning brightly. Go back through memory lane and find something to use in rekindling that old spark. Start frequenting places that you used to visit and do the things you did together when the initial attraction was sparked and pretend to be these people all over again.
Let kissing, caressing and smooching return into your daily life. A single passionate kiss can miraculously melt the ice of the strongest anger and sadness. Those feelings you think are dead are still there only just been buried under the stress of everyday life and it is time to feel them once again.
Be Appreciative and Reciprocate Gestures
Everyone likes to be appreciated be it at work or in the home. When little things are done and they go unappreciated, the tendency is to stop doing them altogether. Therefore it is important that we are observant and pay compliments to our spouse even for the little insignificant things they do for us. Also, it is counterproductive when one partner keeps giving and never receiving in the relationship. This can be just compliments or other tangible things given to one partner without the other ever making an attempt to reciprocate the good gesture. There is only so much that a spouse can give without receiving something back in return. Giving of compliments should also be reciprocal. Be more polite, courteous and try to cultivate the habit of including “please” when making requests and saying “thank you” for tasks completed or favor done for you no matter how small they may be.
Seek Advice and Professional Counseling
Working through relationship problems on our own often gets us nowhere and thus it would be advisable to talk to and seek assistance from friends and family members. Different people can give you different angles on the problems and proffer solutions that might have worked for them or others they know that were once in your position. When these fail, expert and experienced advice can be gotten by enlisting the services of a professional relationship counselor to help in the reconciliation efforts.
A Breakup or Trial Separation
Absence, they say, makes the heart grow fonder and getting your spouse back after a breakup or resuscitating an ailing relationship may at times require some separation for the partners to heal and rediscover themselves. Most times when all else fails, it is important that spouses completely cut off contact for a while. Couples that initiate this separation and live their independent lives for a while, can easily rediscover each other, rekindle their attraction after realizing the importance of the relationship and restart a stronger and more balanced relationship together again.
With all that said, the reasons couples break up are endless but mostly are uncalled for. To save your relationship, you must however understand that most of the problems noticed on the surface are often just symptoms of more serious relationship and personal problems which can be fixed with the proper care and attention.
—
The story was previously published on The Good Men Project. | https://medium.com/hello-love/ways-to-save-your-relationship-b445a0ee83b2 | ['The Good Men Project'] | 2020-12-05 06:46:58.477000+00:00 | ['Sex', 'Attraction', 'Love', 'Relationships', 'Marriage'] |
The Mystery of Breath in Meditation and Telepathy | “I am in my heart, I am cleansed of those thoughts, I am unconscious, and then the thought that comes to consciousness is knowledge in the form of water”
The Breath
Breath is related to thought, consciousness to the surface of the earth, the unconscious sea and the depths of the ocean to your subconscious.
“I am in my heart, I am cleansed of those thoughts, I am unconscious, and then the thought that comes to consciousness is knowledge in the form of water”
All the forms of life together take the form of a complete life; existence emerges from the basic laws and periods of nature. The cycle of life in nature is an example of complete attachment to the universe and to one another. That water from the oceans reaches the atmosphere in the form of vapor, and when it reaches the atmosphere. All the impure elements and minerals in it are left in the sea. The vapors turn into clouds that fly up to the top, because they are pure, they are fine. As soon as the clouds hit the cool clear air, the same water falls on the ground in the form of raindrops or snow. It rains, which enriches life, grows, and develops…. (Please Visit The Website To Read The Complete Article) https://www.darveshmajzob.com/2021/07/the-mystery-of-breath-in-meditation-and.html | https://medium.com/@darveshmajzobofficial/the-mystery-of-breath-in-meditation-and-telepathy-d090a1f0e85a | ['Darvesh Majzob'] | 2021-07-06 13:15:23.078000+00:00 | ['Thoughts And Feelings', 'Mind Power', 'Mindfulness', 'Meditation', 'Telepathy'] |
Appium Installation Through Terminal | Pre-Requisites
1. Update MacOS
2. Install XCode from AppStore. Once XCode finishes the install, launch it and let it continue installing all the necessary components.
3. Exit XCode.
Brew Installation
4. Goto https://brew.sh/ and copy the latest installation command
5. Open terminal and run the command to install brew on your system.
6. Run the below command to make sure your system is ready to brew. Follow any recommendation from brew doctor
a. brew doctor
7. Next, add the Homebrew location to your $PATH and source your bash or zsh profile file after adding/saving this:
Open vi .bash_profile and add the below.
a. export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH b. export PATH=/opt/local/bin:$PATH
8. After completion, esc + :wq and then source .bash_profile
a. brew help b. brew tap homebrew/cask-versions
9. Exit the terminal
Java Installation:
10. Run the below commands in a new terminal for latest Java JDK.
a. brew tap caskroom/versions b. brew search java c. brew cask install java
11. Or for specific Java version
a. brew tap adoptopenjdk/openjdk b. brew cask install adoptopenjdk8
12. Existing users of Homebrew may encounter Error: Cask adoptopenjdk8 exists in multiple taps due to prior workarounds with different instructions. This can be solved by fully specifying the location with
a. brew cask install adoptopenjdk/openjdk/adoptopenjdk8. b. java -version c. echo $JAVA_HOME
13. Above command will give empty response. Now let us set up java environment paths by running the below commands
a. vi .bash_profile 14. Copy the updated export in the bash profile a. export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home) or export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_265.jdk/Contents/Home export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
15. Finally, follow the below steps to exit and save successfully.
a. esc + :wq b. source .bash_profile c. echo $JAVA_HOME
16. Successful Java set up will show the below path
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_241.jdk/Contents/Home
17. Exit the terminal
IntelliJ Installation:
18. Run the following commands, remembering to re-run the install in case of any error while installing.
a. brew search intellij b. brew cask install intellij-idea-ce
19. Launch IntelliJ from Launchpad and create maven project
20. Project SDK will auto select’s the Java JDK version or select the desired Java JDK
21. Create a main method
22. Run a print program to make sure Java / IntelliJ installation is successful.
23. Close IntelliJ and Exit the terminal
TestNG Installation:
24. Open pom.xml in the above project.
25. Add below testng maven dependency
<dependencies>
<!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.testng/testng | TestNG for running testing-->
<dependency>
<groupId>org.testng</groupId>
<artifactId>testng</artifactId>
<version>7.1.0</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
26. Right click on pom.xml and click on Reload project & Generate source to make sure testng is installed.
27. Now create a method and run print program using testng command using @Test notation
Maven Installation:
28. Run the following commands, remembering to re-run the install in case of any error while installing
a. brew search maven b. brew install maven and then run mvn -version c. vi .bash_profile and get the below path from your system d. export M2_HOME =/usr/local/Cellar/maven/3.*.*/libexec export PATH =$Path:$M2_HOME/bin e. or copy the below commands f. export M2_HOME=/Applications/apache-maven-3.6.* export PATH=$PATH:$M2_HOME/bin g. esc + :wq h. source .bash_profile i. mvn -version Apache Maven 3.6.3 (cecedd343002696d0abb50b32b541b8a6ba2883f) Maven home: /usr/local/Cellar/maven/3.6.3_1/libexec Java version: 1.8.0_241, vendor: Oracle Corporation, runtime: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_241.jdk/Contents/Home/jre Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: UTF-8 OS name: “mac os x”, version: “10.15.7”, arch: “x86_64”, family: “mac” j. echo $M2_HOME /Applications/apache-maven-3.6.3
29. Add steps to validate maven
30. Exit the terminal
Appium Installation
31. Go into the iOS device you plan to use and set the screen to not lock. Locking will cause issues during this process so its key to go into your ios settings app > display and brightness > auto-lock > set to “never”
32. Make sure XCode is install with its necessary components
33. When XCode finally launches go into the XCode preferences, accounts, then add your dev apple account. Once you have signed in, connect an iPhone device (make sure you are on the latest version of iOS) and go into XCode → Window → Device and simulator menu, verify your iPhone is present on the device list and wait for XCode to finish installing all the necessary support onto the iPhone.
34. Once you notice XCode completes its installs, go into your iPhone settings, you will notice a Developer option that you did not see before, click on that and make sure the Enable UI Automation option is selected and green, then close XCode
35. Run the following commands, remembering to approve all requests for the terminal to access your file system.
a. brew install wget b. brew install node c. brew install carthage d. brew install — HEAD libimobiledevice e. brew install –HEAD usbmuxd f. brew install ios-deploy g. npm install wd h. sudo gem install xcpretty i. npm install -g appium-doctor
36. Go to appium.io and download the latest version of Appium
37. Install the dmg file
38. Launch appium via applications folder and verify it launches successfully. If you cannot launch the app right click on it the second time and click open. That should give you another option to open the app.
39. Close Appium
40. Launch XCode
41. Open the following project in XCode
/Applications/Appium.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/appium/node_modules/appium-webdriveragent/WebDriverAgent.XCodeproj
42. Double click on the WebDriverAgent item under the left panel
43. On the center top panel, click on WebDriverAgentLib
44. Click on the signing and capabilities tab up top
45. Enable the automatically manage signing checkbox
46. Set the team drop down to your team (apple id account)
47. The provisioning profile should be set to none required
48. On the center top panel, click on WebDriverAgentRunner
49. Enable the automatically manage signing checkbox
50. Set the team drop down to your team (apple id account)
51. The provisioning profile should be set to XCode managed profile
52. The signing certificate should be set to (your apple id and certificate name this should be auto generated. If the device already has a certificate it may ask you to revoke and recreate. There should not be any errors on this screen)
53. On the center top panel, click on IntegrationApp
54. Enable the automatically manage signing checkbox
55. Set the team drop down to your team (apple id account)
56. The signing certificate should be populated
57. Make sure on the center top panel, click on WebDriverAgentLib_tvOS and make sure “automatically manage signing” is disabled. Repeat for WebDriverAgentRunner_tvOS
58. Click on the webdriveragaint again just above the webdriveragentlib and build the project (play icon on upper left of XCode) This process will install integrationapp onto your ios device and verify the build is successful. You may be prompted to enter your macOS password. Make sure if you are to click always allow after inputting your password.
59. Once you get the build successful notification, stop the build in XCode and exit XCode
60. Go back to your terminal session and perform the following commands
a. sudo XCode-select -s /Applications/XCode.app/Contents/Developer b. cd /Applications/Appium.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/appium/node_modules/appium-webdriveragent/ c. Mkdir -p /Applications/Appium.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/appium/node_modules/appium-webdriveragent/WebDriverAgent.bundle d. bash Scripts/bootstrap.sh -d e. appium-doctor –ios f. Once you run the appium-doctor –ios command, you may be prompted to enter your password. After you do so make sure you only get warnings for optional fixes and there are no necessary fixes needed g. If any errors are listed under necessary fixes, you will need to install and troubleshoot those independently one by one.
61. Exit your terminal session
62. Launch Appium
63. Start the server
64. Click on start inspector session button
65. Set the following capabilities
a. udid = <udid of the device you are using to test> b. bundleId = <bundle id of the app you are testing, I used safari com.apple.mobilesafari> c. automationName = XCUITest d. platformName = iOS e. platformVersion = <current ios version your device is on> f. deviceName = <anything you want> g. Make sure to save these settings
66. Once you have saved, go ahead and start the inspector, the appium logs should start to flow with data and the inspector will launch as well as your app. You may be asked to enter your password multiple times, make sure when you are prompted to click always allow after entering your password (your mac password NOT your icloud password) for each prompt. You will see your app on the left side of the inspector. IF YOU ENCOUNTER A PORT 8100 OCCUPIED ERROR: All you have to do is bounce your machine. Once you restart your machine do not launch anything other than appium and launch the appium app again and load the capabilities again and try to launch the inspector.
67. Add Appium Server dependency to pom.xml
<dependencies>
<!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.testng/testng | TestNG for running testing-->
<dependency>
<groupId>org.testng</groupId>
<artifactId>testng</artifactId>
<version>7.1.0</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>io.appium</groupId>
<artifactId>java-client</artifactId>
<version>7.3.0</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
Android Studio Installation:
68. Run the following commands, remembering to re-run the install in case of any error while installing
a. brew search Android Studio b. brew cask install android-studio c. vi .bash_profile d. export PATH=$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools:$PATH export PATH=$ANDROID_HOME/emulator:$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$PATH export PATH=$ANDROID_HOME/build-tools/30.0.2:$PATH export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH export PATH=/opt/local/bin:$PATH e. esc + :wq f. source .bash_profile g. echo $ANDROID_HOME
69. Run each below command to make sure installation is successful
a. adb devices [Shows the list of active devices] b. emulator -list-avds [Shows the list of active emulators] c. emulator -avd Pixel_3a_XL_API_30 [Launch an emulator] d. Run appium-doctor e. Once you run the appium-doctor command, you may be prompted to enter your password. After you do so make sure you only get warnings for optional fixes and there are no necessary fixes needed i. If any errors are listed under necessary fixes, you will need to install and troubleshoot those independently one by one.
70. Exit your terminal session
71. Add steps to launch Android system app using Appium and IntelliJ
Charles Proxy Installation:
72. Run the following commands, remembering to re-run the install in case of any error while installing
a. brew search charles b. brew cask install Charles c. vi .bash_profile d. export CHARLES_HOME=/Applications/Charles.app/Contents/MacOS export PATH=$PATH:$CHARLES_HOME e. esc + :wq f. source .bash_profile g. echo $CHARLES_HOME
73. Install the certificate on device / emulator / simulator and test.
Launch Apps Using IntelliJ:
74. Create a Class and run the modified program | https://rakeshkamaraju.medium.com/appium-installation-through-terminal-6ded35a92d1a | ['Rakesh Kamaraju'] | 2020-11-02 22:09:12.125000+00:00 | ['Maven', 'Install Appium On Mac', 'Intellij Idea', 'Testng', 'Brew'] |
Project update: Submitting the Digital Innovation Appendix | By Jacqueline Lu and Jesse Shapins
Since we submitted our Toronto Tomorrow proposal to Waterfront Toronto in June, we’ve heard many important contributions to the public conversation around the Sidewalk Toronto project — including regarding digital innovation. These include issues raised by the public, Waterfront Toronto, Steve Diamond (chair of Waterfront Toronto’s board), and Waterfront Toronto’s Digital Strategy Advisory Panel.
All of this feedback has helped productively shape the project’s evolution. In response, today we’re submitting to Waterfront Toronto a Digital Innovation Appendix (DIA) that’s meant to provide the latest information on the digital innovation components of our proposal, to address some of the questions raised by the public conversation, and to continue advancing transparency around all the innovations we are proposing.
This blog post provides an overview of the DIA, which is available on the Sidewalk Toronto website. First, a bit of context around how we got here.
How data governance has evolved
Our initial proposal called for the creation of an independent, government-sanctioned Urban Data Trust to oversee the collection and use of data in the Sidewalk Toronto project area. As a complement to existing privacy laws, this entity would have helped to ensure responsible data use, enhance privacy, and support trusted data sharing. The reasoning behind this proposal was simple: Sidewalk Labs believes that no private company (including us) should monopolize data that could reasonably be considered a public asset.
While many reviewers appreciated the underlying intent behind this proposal, the clear feedback was that a new standalone entity for these functions was not a preferred path for this project. As part of our alignment with Waterfront Toronto on critical issues, Waterfront Toronto, with its government stakeholders, will take the lead on data governance, enabling responsible data use throughout the designated waterfront area, as well as supporting trusted data sharing.
As part of that effort, Waterfront Toronto is developing Intelligent Communities Guidelines — building on its draft Digital Principles — that will apply to private companies deploying digitally-enabled services. The updated guidelines will include a robust process around privacy impact assessments, algorithmic impact assessments (as applicable), threat risk assessments, de-identification at the source by default, Privacy by Design, and other privacy-enhancing practices. Similar to Waterfront Toronto’s Minimum Green Building Standards, these guidelines would be required for all companies Waterfront Toronto works with and would be enforced through contracts.
These guidelines will be consulted upon and further developed with input from government stakeholders, industry, and the broader community.
That’s some background. Now for the DIA. It’s broken up into four sections summarized below:
Section 1: Integrating digital technology into development planning at Quayside
The integration of digital technology into urban development requires different approaches to planning and design. Fundamentally, responsible data use and the digital components and systems of a place must be addressed as core to development planning, similar to other long-standing areas such as program, built form, and economics. As some observers have noted, we need a new era of digital master planning in cities.
In recognition of that need, this section begins with Sidewalk Labs’ approach to integrating digital technology into planning, including how all work has been grounded in Waterfront Toronto’s priority outcomes: economic development, sustainability, housing affordability, new mobility, and urban innovation. We outline the specific stages in the Quayside development process at which Sidewalk Labs will furnish additional information on digitally-enabled systems alongside the formal City of Toronto process — as a step towards further defining how digital planning can work in concert with existing urban planning and city building efforts.
This section is anchored by a comprehensive list of all proposed digitally-enabled services. The objective of this list is to not only describe the “what” and the “why,” but also the “how” and “who” for each service. A few more highlights on the list:
The list reflects the core principles underlying the digital innovation strategy. These include (but are not limited to): digital restraint , where Sidewalk Labs identified and proposed only digital solutions that directly and materially advance Waterfront Toronto’s priority outcomes; and data minimization, security, and de-identification by default , where Sidewalk Labs restricts the collection, use, and misuse of data, especially personal information.
, where Sidewalk Labs identified and proposed only digital solutions that directly and materially advance Waterfront Toronto’s priority outcomes; and , where Sidewalk Labs restricts the collection, use, and misuse of data, especially personal information. It’s worth repeating that Sidewalk Labs has separately committed to not use data for advertising, nor sell it to third parties. We’ve also committed not to share personal information with third parties (including other Alphabet entities) without explicit consent.
We’ve also committed not to share personal information with third parties (including other Alphabet entities) without explicit consent. The list describes each system’s purpose, structure, methods, typical and proposed responsible parties for oversight, proposed lead for procurement, and relationship to the growth of innovation ecosystem.
The list makes clear that the vast majority of systems would not be operated by Sidewalk Labs, and that most would be built by other companies , creating a significant opportunity for Canada’s innovation ecosystem.
, creating a significant opportunity for Canada’s innovation ecosystem. Sidewalk Labs agrees to work with Waterfront Toronto and its government stakeholders in good faith to ensure each digitally-enabled solution will not impede (and where feasible, will foster) accessibility in Quayside, freedom of association, freedom of expression, equitable treatment of marginalized groups, public engagement and participation and other fundamental rights and freedoms, as applicable.
In summary, the digitally enabled services proposed in the list reflect 18 major services/systems with 52 subsystems. Of these services and systems, 82 percent have existing precedents (meaning they’ve already been partially or fully implemented in an existing project, either in Toronto or elsewhere around the world), and 75 percent would be substantially purchased from third parties (meaning only a quarter are expected to be built by Sidewalk Labs).
The list is augmented with diagrams to illustrate physical infrastructure and digital systems proposed for Quayside, providing early insights into the spatial location of sensors and related technology for each of the digitally-enabled services as part of our approach to integrated digital and physical planning.
A conceptual site diagram (top) and excerpt of the accompanying table (bottom) for the proposed active stormwater management system in Quayside.
Finally, this section goes into depth on proposed digital infrastructure that is designed to support the digitally-enabled services, as well as approaches to open standards, security, and resiliency.
Section 2: Sidewalk Labs’ approaches to responsible data use and inclusive design
Digital technology has the potential to improve many aspects of our lives — it can help keep us safe, reduce traffic, aid in the planning of city infrastructure, provide reliable access to the internet, or make spaces more accessible. But there’s often a lack of transparency around these implementations. Furthermore, the pace of digital technology development requires a robust approach to privacy and responsible data use that calls for more than just thinking about the point of collection with notice and consent.
We believe that a higher standard of data governance in cities is possible, and that the public should know how and why data is being collected and used in streets and public spaces. Section 2 details our dedication to ethical and responsible data practices, including in developing and following internal Responsible Data Use Guidelines. Below are some additional details on the guidelines:
The Responsible Data Use Guidelines include beneficial purpose, transparency, openness, proactive engagement, community trust, and people first. The guidelines — which evolved over the past two years based on consultations with experts and community feedback — apply to all data activities by Sidewalk Labs and are used internally for assessing proposed pilots and projects that involve data .
. Sidewalk Labs brings these guidelines into practice through a Responsible Data Use Assessment (RDUA) process. Developed by Sidewalk Labs with the Information Accountability Foundation — an independent global think tank focused on data governance — the RDUA process provides a mechanism for complying with all applicable privacy requirements, while going further than existing law in considering beneficial uses, risks, and ethical questions related to data. The RDUA tool is made public with the DIA, and is available for others in the community to use, if they choose.
process. Developed by Sidewalk Labs with the Information Accountability Foundation — an independent global think tank focused on data governance — the RDUA process provides a mechanism for complying with all applicable privacy requirements, while going further than existing law in considering beneficial uses, risks, and ethical questions related to data. Sidewalk Labs triggers an RDUA process for initiatives that involve the potential collection or use of data by the company. An RDUA looks to address the purpose of the data collection; the sources of the data; legal compliance and data ethics; and the risks and benefits associated with the project and data collection activity.
This section also provides an overview of Sidewalk Labs’ approach to responsible Artificial Intelligence, including six principles designed to be contextual, progressive, and technology-neutral: fairness and equity; accountability: transparency and explainability; relevance; value alignment; and respect for human dignity and safety.
This section includes a case study on a completed RDUA for an existing pilot to illustrate the RDUA process. The case study describes the launch of a public realm sensing pilot at our Toronto workspace, 307, using a privacy-by-design approach to measure the flows of people and transportation modes through streets and open spaces. The case study offers an example of how the RDUA process drives decisions on potential technology partners and ensures that we share the same values.
Finally, this section describes how we’ve incorporated inclusive and participatory planning into our proposal, including through usability testing, accessibility co-design work, and prototypes for digital transparency in the public realm icons as well as two civic tech tools (Collab and Commonspace). This section further addresses how community input shaped, and will continue to shape, our plans to facilitate equitable access to services, technology, and participation in Quayside.
Section 3: Growing the Canadian urban innovation ecosystem
Few cities can match the GTA’s unique set of assets: a vibrant ecosystem of innovative technology businesses and accelerators; an exceptional talent pool and world-class academic institutions; and an open and diverse society that values inclusive growth, civic engagement, and forward-looking city-building. This was a foundation for Waterfront Toronto’s Quayside RFP, which sought to catalyze the innovation ecosystem growing on the waterfront.
Recognizing that a thriving urban innovation ecosystem is essential to the success of the project, as part of a comprehensive deal, Sidewalk Labs is committed to supporting Canadian innovators at all stages of Sidewalk Toronto’s evolution, including through a series of targeted initiatives designed to create long-term value for the Canadian ecosystem. This section will be described in greater detail in a future blog post, but the highlights include the following initiatives, which could be implemented if the project is ultimately approved:
Investment in local businesses through a venture capital fund focused on Canadian companies in the urban innovation space
focused on Canadian companies in the urban innovation space An expanded patent pledge that supports Canadian-resident innovators advancing solutions globally
that supports Canadian-resident innovators advancing solutions globally Procurement from Canadian businesses and promotion of these partners abroad to support Canadian companies reaching greater scale
$10 million in seed capital to establish an Urban Innovation Institute
to establish an Urban Innovation Institute A recommendation for a data collaboration hub to be operated collaboratively with cross-sector partners to support the data access needs of the public and third parties
to be operated collaboratively with cross-sector partners to support the data access needs of the public and third parties A revised net revenue-sharing agreement with the public sector
Section 4: Overview of existing policies and approaches for smart cities and digital governance
Waterfront Toronto, its advisors, and the public have asked Sidewalk Labs to address how our proposal was implicated by, and situated within, the existing policy landscape for digital governance and technology. Recognizing that this field is rapidly evolving, and will continue to evolve over time, this section aims to provide this context and to contribute to the broader conversation on smart cities, in particular the political and ethical concerns they raise. It provides an overview of the existing policy landscape in Canada and internationally, and offers case studies as precedent for smart city development.
We appreciate the feedback from Waterfront Toronto, DSAP, and the public shared since the release of our proposal. We’re also most grateful for experts who have reviewed and provided input on portions of the DIA as it has evolved. And we look forward to continuing the conversation as this project moves forward, to help put digital innovations to work for the good of the waterfront and the city.
Jacqueline Lu is Digital Innovation Lead and Jesse Shapins is Director of Urban Design and Digital Innovation at Sidewalk Labs. Both are based in Toronto. | https://medium.com/sidewalk-toronto/project-update-submitting-the-digital-innovation-appendix-9956d265419c | ['Sidewalk Toronto'] | 2019-11-15 14:42:02.186000+00:00 | ['Toronto', 'Digital Innovation', 'Smart Cities', 'Urban Planning', 'Innovation'] |
One Person is Unafraid.. Kind Gesture. Ripple Has Been Made. | Maybe I come off a bit crazed.
That may be true when I’m not dazed.
Kindness towards a stranger.
That Beauty has Become Endengeared.
I Believe In the Words of Jesus.
Watched Him Save my Life Endless.
Love and Charity are the Way.
To Make the World a Better Place Every Day.
Stop Throwing Stones at People.
We are all Sinners, You must think you deserve a Cathedral.
You Would Be Wise to Take a Look Within.
What you hate in somebody else starts within you times ten.
It Feels As Though We are Nearing The End.
Is it Possible to Let some Light in?
Darkness is Overrated
Shadows Dance Upon the Wall.
Believe in Blackness, You too Shall Fall. | https://medium.com/illumination/one-person-unafraid-a22249f09b60 | ['Kira Dawn'] | 2020-12-18 13:17:27.724000+00:00 | ['Kindness', 'Love', 'Charity', 'Poetry', 'Spirituality'] |
Seven Questions You Can Ask To Prevent Overengineering | Photo By Robert Bye on Unsplash
We all do it. I’ve looked back at something that took me weeks to build and said to myself, “Wow that could have been far more simple.”
I blame it on brain “modes”. When we put our brain into solutioning mode — we forget the problem and begin constructing a solution we can take pride in. I suspect it has something to do with creativity. It’s not limited to software development either — I credit overengineering for that really complex change management process or that 200 page employee handbook you may have been asked to read.
In the end there is far more value in a simple solution to a well defined problem than a sophisticated solution for a variety of possibly non existent ones. So how do we get there?
First break down a technical design into capabilities:
Take that diagram the team has been working on and extract all of the cool capabilities it provides. For example:
- Table A,B,C allow us to have dynamic tags for each directory entry.
- Method X on the code interface returns a description of what this implementation does.
- This service allows other applications to utilize this data set.
Now ask these 7 questions for each capability:
1) Has anyone asked for it. (No doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t do it — but it should be considered).
2) Can we create one or more examples of why someone or something would need to utilize this capability (or you could consider asking — what problem does this solve?)
3) What is the likelihood this capability will be utilized in the next 180 days?
4) How hard will it be to implement this feature later if we decide to wait?
5) If we don’t do this how will it prevent us from achieving our current goal or objective?
6) If we don’t do this how will it impact us or our customers in the next 365 days?
7) Can we simplify by breaking the capability down into smaller pieces?
Understand that the intent here is to create a conversation.
There is a certain finesse required when asking these types of questions — especially if team members are invested in the design. Make it clear that the goal is to properly evaluate the advantages of the design so that all can understand the benefits — while making good decisions on what should and should not be included in the current effort. | https://productcoalition.com/seven-questions-you-can-ask-to-prevent-overengineering-c3fec391f138 | ['Mark Snyder'] | 2021-01-28 10:08:38.416000+00:00 | ['Engineering Mangement', 'Software Architecture', 'Product Management', 'Software Engineering', 'Software Development'] |
Same as it Ever Was. Joe Biden calls for unity and the world… | Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash
Joe Biden calls for unity and the world cheers. People all over feel as if they have dodged a bullet and that everything and everyone will be saved. Freedom, fun, and fireworks for everyone. Mitt Romney says congratulations.
Sure, Trump won’t give up the fight. No one expected him to have an ounce of decency in his body. He will remain the liar and disrupter in chief. But this is the second time that his lies can’t change what happens. Obviously, the first was the virus.
Now we see that after some sulking, Trump has thrown the country off the bus. He will pursue legal challenges, just to keep his followers in fantasyland. They need something to cheer about, even if it’s just another lie. He claims he is the rightful heir, kind of like Hamlet, but he doesn’t know who that its.
At first, Republicans remained silent. Then one, two or three of them begin to get on Trump’s train. They say that there might be fraud somewhere, maybe it’s just no one has seen it yet. It needs to be sniffed out for the good of democracy. Bill Barr tells his Federal Prosecutors that they should investigate fraud, if they ever find any evidence. Now, the wise and friendly turtle, Mitch McConnell joins in with that chorus. No one mentions any evidence.
They all know that there is no fraud. Every ballot in this election, almost 150,000,000 of them, has been checked, rechecked, videotaped, counted and recounted. No state, not even Georgia, wanted any possible blemish on their record. But now, just like all the Inspectors General who did their jobs, the Republicans are attacking those who carefully counted the votes. They are being attacked for not finding a way to get their party the victory, just like they always have. The two Georgia Senators who are now in run-offs, want the guy who ran the election fired. He’s a Republican. He didn’t cheat. What kind of a Republican is he?
All of this makes it clear that Biden can reach out to voters, and tell them he is working for all of them, but he shouldn’t expect any kind of cooperation from any elected Republican. Lying and cheating are still fine with them. They did much better with that than they expected, so why change.
They can’t stop Biden from becoming President. He has the votes, and there is no sign of fraud, mismanagement, or even mistakes. Everyone made sure that things were good. That’s what took so long. But they will give Trump enough room to spend four years holding rallies and telling everyone the same things he’s been saying for five years: he is the one who has been cheated. He is the victim of fraud. The throne is rightfully his. What he is also still saying is that Black Votes Don’t Count! That’s what his followers believe.
The Dems better bust their asses in Georgia for those two Senate seats, otherwise Mitch McConnell will go back to Kentucky, thank his voters and never even open the Senate for business, except to not negotiate with Nancy Pelosi.
Joe can give this unity thing three days after he has been inaugurated. After that, he should start signing Executive Orders, and kicking the ass of Congress. Take control and make things work. Don’t make the mistake that Obama did, and think people will be willing to do something for the benefit of the country. Don’t expect anything, not a penny, or even just a wink and a nod, from any Republican.
To them cooperation means Socialism, and Socialism means Communism, like Medicare, or public schools. And that’s bad, very bad. Much worse than a compromise or a fair election. | https://medium.com/politically-speaking/same-as-it-everwas-36e45ee5ad9e | ['D J B'] | 2020-11-10 18:47:26.149000+00:00 | ['Democrats', 'Republicans', 'Joe Biden', 'Lies', 'Unity'] |
Between One And 95 Years Old | Between One And 95 Years Old
My grandmother, my son, and a dog called Satan
My grandmother is 95 and can’t hear much. When she does hear she doesn’t listen. She keeps trying to feed us random biscuits and I keep saying no. This has been going on for years.
My son is one-and-a-half and can’t talk much. He keeps trying to feed the dog grass and I’m explaining that dogs don’t eat grass, but he keeps trying. Then he tries flowers.
Inexplicably, the dog eats the grass.
It’s a good crowd — the deaf, the dumb and the dumber.
It’s sunny out. It’s quiet here, where I was a child, where my sister was a baby. The garden is less verdant and malarial than it was. The garbage-burning pit isn’t there. My grandfather isn’t here, working at his desk. Countless dogs have come and gone, buried next door.
When this version of dog followed my grandmother home, everybody called her Satan. There was a huge debate about keeping the dog at all which my grandmother won with a mix of stubborness and convenient inability to hear.
Satan was ugly and has one tooth sticking out, which makes her look bitey. All the children avoided her. All the adults avoided her, including me. My son for some reason wanted to play with the dog, to discover that she actually has a delightful personality. She’s a good dog. We call her Kalu now, which just means black. Better than Satan I guess.
Ratna brings some sweet tea. I pet Kalu. The cat is also called Kalu. There’s no naming conflict because the dog chases the cat away.
My son is fascinated by the dog but he’s a poor petter. The dog is mostly confused and looks up at me. My grandmother tries to feed us some biscuits and I don’t understand why she keeps asking. She doesn’t understand that people couldn’t be hungry.
She keeps telling me the same stories, about when I was young. How I pulled her ears, how they let us take the bus for free in Vancouver, because I was young and she was old. She’s been telling me the same stories for five years now. They’re still good.
It’s strange. These memories are sweet but in the moment I get bored. I want to be on the phone, to watch something, to talk. But as I sit here tonight, trying to think of something that isn’t bad news, these moments are all I have. The mundane moments, of no import, with no lesson, just people that love each other in the same place at the same time. Nothing said, nothing done. Just there.
I don’t finish my tea, it’s too sweet. I set my son on the counter and wash his hands. I think I remember my dad washing my bloody feet in this sink, when an earlier dog bit me. Is that a memory or a story? I don’t know. Is this a memory or a story? What will it be to my son?
What will he remember? What will I remember when I’m old? I’m somewhere between one and ninety-five. I’m more aware of the world than ever before, more connected to it, more capable, more worried as well.
My God, I’m an adult.
I put the kid in the car seat as my grandmother kisses his hands. She stands at the top of the road and waves good-bye, as she has my whole life. It feels like the same place, but the Earth has moved, the stars have moved, spacetime is different. My grandmother is on the way out, my son is on the way in, and I’m just here.
I don’t know. I left early, but in hindsight, it was a nice day. | https://indica.medium.com/between-one-and-95-years-old-bc4e38a72f8 | ['Indi Samarajiva'] | 2019-07-25 17:30:43.512000+00:00 | ['Personal', 'Pets', 'Life', 'Family'] |
Zap June Update 2020 | Protocol Growth: New Front-End Development Begins
The Zap protocol continues to improve and evolve. The front end development team is continuing its rebuild of the front end of the Zap protocol. We expect to soon offer a ticketing system so anyone who wants to submit changes can do so and be rewarded with a bounty.
Check out the new test site — alpha.zap.org — which will be updated periodically with the buildouts into the future, so make sure to check back often for the new and up to date documentation and team pages.
Zap.org Partnership with Blockchain Center Brings Zap “Bootcamp” and Weekly Meetups
Over 200 people have applied for Zap’s “Smart Contract & Bonding Curve Bootcamp.” With such a large interest pool, it may take a little time to get to everyone.
The Zap team is making sure to process and interview each and every applicant. We will work with many of the developers who proceed to the course to guide them into the world of smart contract technology and how to develop with the Zap protocol.
Strong Interest In Joining Zap Team
We recognize and appreciate the strong interest by over 100 individuals (to date) for roles ranging from marketing to sales. This also exceeded our expectations. We will make every effort to get to everyone, to process and interview each applicant. Our outreach will also involve educating applicants on the Zap protocol.
Blockchain Centers across the globe are set to host Zap meet-ups on a regular basis in order to promote and educate the masses on the powerful Zap protocol and underlying blockchain technology. Additionally, the Zap protocol will be able to go live from time to time on the Developer Wednesday live streams hosted by the Blockchain Center to discuss and show how to develop on Zap protocol.
ICYMI: Create Your Own Token with ZAP Developer Adam Manka
Watch Zap Developer Adam Manka talk Zap and show you how to make an erc20 token in virtually no time with the Zap protocol. Using our protocol, anyone who creates an erc20 token also gets a fully liquid dex with algorithmic market making with a predetermined pricing function.
Twitter: @ZapProtocol
Facebook: @ZapProtocol
Discord: discord.gg/pvHzemX
Telegram: t.me/ZapOracles
Medium: The Zap Project
LinkedIn: Zap
GitHub: The Zap Project | https://medium.com/the-zap-project/zap-june-update-2020-96c6815d2492 | ['Stefan Furris'] | 2020-07-02 00:17:19.884000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Smart Contracts', 'Ethereum', 'Blockchain', 'Bonding Curves'] |
Exploration | I am, by nature, a wanderer, an explorer, restless if confined too long. Foot, bicycle, car — any will do, although the scale and focus of the exploration changes with each mode.
Foot was first, and I was closer to the ground then. Cicada shells were at eye height; so were walking-stick insects. Black beetles and four-leaf clovers were easier to find, and toads. Ant hills had me mesmerized. Nor did what captured my attention need to be alive. Pebbles with threads of mica; tiny fossils in limestone; a blue and broken robin’s egg.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
I grew a little older. My world expanded beyond my garden to the farm lanes and woods nearby, back in a time where children wandered unsupervised. I learned paths and ponds, where white violets flowered and woodpeckers nested, and which dogs chased bicycles. I paid less attention to the minutiae of my world and more to a larger scale: moraines and marshes, sandy soils and clay, creek and shore.
Older and stronger, I rode my bike further afield, but still absorbing the landscape, where every road went, what lay along it — woodland, field, swamp; farms, hamlets, cemeteries. Drawing a map in my head, one that’s still there, even though the farm or woodland isn’t. Houses now, the woods only a timeslip of memory.
I had no idea what I was doing, of course; that I was laying down the foundation of a way of seeing the world, the intersection and interplay of environment and habitation; of land and land use; of ecology and exploitation. The car gave me an even larger picture; days and weeks, adding up to years, driving the back roads across every province and territory but one; every state. Birding, but more than that. Absorbing. Dusty desert trails to seeps of water; silent footsteps under redwoods; sliding scree on mountainsides. The sponginess of tundra; the brilliance of fungi in an autumn woodland. Puffins on cliffsides; snowy plovers on beaches, bald eagles on seaside pines. Cresting a pass to see a valley of pastured cows below me; navigating winding lanes into the snow of altitude; reaching the ocean. All of it becoming part of my being, part of my experience of the world.
I don’t know how not to see the world in this way: when I walk on my birding patch now, I see not only the tangles of vines and shrubs along the old fence, good habitat for warblers in migration and nesting wrens, but the fence itself. A fence that tells me of the farm that was here once; if I look carefully at the field on which I walk, it too tells me a story: I can see its boundaries, and the old, spreading trees that tell me it was pasture once, the trees left for shade for the cattle; in another part of the field, the lines of ploughing are still discernable. The woods to the east tell me what was here before this land was cleared, before European settlement; cedar bush and maple swamp, and on the higher ground, oak and elm, perhaps, and beech. Layers of time.
In another life — and perhaps on another continent — I would have been a landscape historian, or landscape archaeologist. Now, in this COVID-constrained world, I can’t (because I am compliant, and careful) go beyond what I can reach on foot or bicycle again, like the ten year old I was more than 50 years ago. I may be taller — and it is less easy to crouch, to look at a pebble, or a violet — but the land I walk on is no less interesting than it was then. In fact, it should be more so: I have five decades of experience to deepen my understanding. I should not complain that my world has shrunk, that the exploration I long for is constrained, when there is still so much to learn so close to home. | https://medium.com/@marianlthorpe/exploration-a7d04e37c612 | ['Marian Louise Thorpe'] | 2021-05-08 19:56:23.589000+00:00 | ['Landscape', 'Covid', 'Childhood', 'Exploration', 'Ecology'] |
Vietnam vs COVID-19: Round 2 | Vietnam vs COVID-19: Round 2
The Southeast Asian nation has, once again, been a shining example of how to quickly and effectively control the spread of COVID-19.
From the very beginning, Vietnam has undoubtedly been one of the world’s best stories in regards to managing the COVID-19 pandemic.
After decisive action was taken to mitigate the spread of the virus way back in February, which eventually culminated in the decision to ban all public gatherings of more than two people for the entire month of April, the country of nearly 100 million, which shares a long border with China, virtually eliminated the virus from the community. Life was able to restart again under a “new normal” in May that looked and felt remarkably similar to life before the pandemic, save for the absence of foreign tourists and the presence of extra precautionary measures in public spaces.
Vietnamese authorities and society took the threat seriously from the start (likely in part from their experience in containing SARS), took strong action when required, and wound up with an amazing record that included just a few hundred cases and zero deaths for their efforts.
Thus, by May, while much of the rest of the world was still coming to grips with the fact that this pandemic wasn’t going away without implementing tough public safety measures, Vietnamese citizens (and foreigners like myself who were lucky enough to be here during all this) were free to live their lives without worrying about catching or spreading COVID-19 because the government had acted swiftly and collectively from the national-level to the commune-level.
For the next couple of months, people were able to start going about their lives somewhat normally, with a rapidly growing sense of calm and confidence that contrasted starkly with the reality that many places outside of Vietnam were facing. Case numbers slowly rose as stranded Vietnamese nationals were repatriated from overseas and immediately quarantined, but no community spread of the virus was occurring, and life here was beginning to feel like an isolated bubble of safety that couldn’t be touched by the rest of the world’s problems.
Seeing that it was summer, domestic tourism boomed, also thanks in part to public awareness campaigns that called for people to help an industry that was struggling mightily without foreign tourists being barred from the country. Additionally, while many were suffering from the economic impacts of the initial shock of the pandemic and subsequent shutdown, recovery was well underway, and the economy was still expected to post a positive growth rate for the year.
But then, in late July, seemingly out of nowhere, everything changed.
Stories began circulating which claimed that a man in Da Nang, one of Vietnam’s largest cities and a massive tourist destination, had tested positive for COVID-19 despite having no known contact with confirmed patients, which would indicate the virus’ reemergence in the community. On July 25, the case was confirmed by Vietnamese authorities, ending a streak of 99 days of no confirmed community transmission in the country.
The popular coastal city of Da Nang unexpectedly found itself at the center of a new COVID-19 outbreak. (Christopher Otis, February 2020)
Over the next few days, dozens of cases were found in several locations throughout the country, most of which could be traced back to Da Nang and the neighboring province of Quang Nam, culminating in a record-high 82 new cases being confirmed on July 31, which included 20 in the capital of Hanoi and 3 more in the country’s largest city, Ho Chi Minh City.
Needless to say, this sudden development was shocking. To go from 99 days of absolutely no community transmission occurring to dozens of cases being confirmed nationwide on a daily basis was extremely jarring and disconcerting. The anxiety that most of the world had been dealing with, but was noticeably absent from Vietnamese society throughout the early summer, returned abruptly and slapped us all in the face.
As expected, the government again took swift action. After a confusing initial couple of days where panicked tourists returned to their hometowns by whatever means necessary, all flights to and from Da Nang were stopped.
But instead of enforcing a nationwide social distancing campaign like the one that was implemented back in April, authorities opted for a more localized approach. Da Nang immediately went back to the “April lockdown” rules, but for most of the rest of the country, a wait-and-see approach was implemented alongside the country’s proven strategy of tracking suspected cases, tracing and testing their contacts as much as humanly possible, and isolating those contacts in government-run quarantine facilities.
This “track-trace-test-isolate” approach worked brilliantly in tandem with localized lockdowns and quarantine zones where small clusters of cases emerged, preventing mass spread of the virus while minimizing the economic impact of this second wave of infections. Despite the fact that this strain of COVID-19 was found to be a different, more virulent one than was present in the country earlier in the year, the number of new daily cases began to steadily drop by the second week in August, with the last confirmed community transmission occurring on September 2.
Of course, it would be remiss to not also mention the government’s approach to getting important information to the community in ways that were clear, easy to understand, and far-reaching.
As opposed to some other countries, where misinformation about the virus has been politicized and weaponized, the Vietnamese government provided an unprecedented level of transparency to its citizens in order to ensure that everyone was fully informed on all matters relevant to the virus and the prevention of its spread. Among other things, detailed information regarding symptoms, instructions on what to do if one suspected they had been exposed, and other bits of key information were sent via text message to all active mobile phone numbers in the country. The result was that the general public fully bought into the policies and rules put forth, and thus cooperated in a way that allowed this strategy to work.
Daily new COVID-19 cases, Vietnam, includeing repatriated cases. (wordometers.info, September 24, 2020)
And now, on the eve of the two-month anniversary of the confirmation of the first case that kicked off the second wave, things are basically back to the “new normal” again. Flights to and from Da Nang have resumed, bars and clubs in big cities have reopened, and Da Nang’s last active COVID-19 patient has been released from the hospital. With a sense of cautious optimism, everyone is once again free to go about their daily lives with nothing but the least inconvenient of restrictions in their way, such as occasional temperature checks and mask mandates in public spaces. | https://medium.com/discourse/vietnam-vs-covid-19-round-2-7b991349a49a | ['Christopher Otis'] | 2020-09-30 15:01:02.189000+00:00 | ['Public Health', 'Covid 19', 'Vietnam', 'Pandemic', 'Coronavirus'] |
8 Languages All Coders Should Know | intully.com
Computer programs are designed to solve problems for people. The more problems it can solve, the better. The more difficult problems it can solve, the better. Whether it’s entertainment, AI voice commands, self-driving cars, routing internet packets, or handling your thermostat, programming languages provide a schema through which coders can specify instructions to accomplish a task.
Not all programming languages are the same; they weren’t meant to be! There are some programming languages that serve a broad purpose and others with a more specific purpose. Python for instance is a very popular programming language that can be utilized to do a broad number of things while remaining simple and clean syntactically. However, because it is not specific to any area of technology, it may not always be the simplest solution for your problem.
Take C for instance. C is considered more lower-level than Python because it can do operations that are closer to the machine-level. Typically this is harder to handle and it takes more time. However, the ability to go down to the nitty-gritty details allows the coder to write much more efficient applications.
Another example is Lisp. Languages like Lisp, Haskell, and F# are categorized as functional programming. As as the name implies, they are composed of functions that very closely resemble pure mathematical functions. This allows them to be more problem-oriented and avoid the side affects of languages like Python which run imperatively. This style has been adopted into other programming languages including Python, JavaScript, Java, C# and C++.
Imperative languages (like C#, Python, Perl, and JavaScript) all have their own differences. Knowing each languages’ special characteristics is key to creating effective solutions and managing your codebase. Why? Leverage! It’s not about using a single language to solve every problem out there. It’s about breaking down the project into problems and solving it using good techniques, appropriate design patterns, best practices, and the right programming language.
Each language has it’s own history, philosophy, style, and features. This has a big influence on the coder when making design decisions for the application. For instance, C# and C sound similar and may even look syntactically similar, but writing applications in the the two languages are very different. C# is a object-oriented heavy language that is influenced by many modern styles of programming. C on the other hand does not have native support for object-oriented programming and involves a lot of the lower-level details and gives the user more power to control the computer’s hardware. C# is useful for desktop applications or even web development, but not as effective as C when it comes to writing software for embedded systems. Likewise, it would be painful to write dynamic web pages using C since it deals with more primitive constructs. There are congruent differences between Python, C++, and Java.
1. HTML
Modern HTML is not just a language, it is a standard that browsers use to render web pages. This full-blown standard not only gave birth to, but also gives meaning to JavaScript and CSS. It has a wide array of support for devices of different sizes. The experience that you gain when building full-on front-end SPA (web applications) translates to other front-end technologies like Mobile development and Desktop development. And best of all it’s been around since the birth of the internet making it resilient.
Knowing HTML will help you gain a better understanding of how users interact with your application. Concepts of UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) are all relevant here. As a matter of fact, they are very easy to prototype due to the simple nature of HTML. Furthermore, sophisticated concepts like design patterns, caching, and application routing can all be applied to HTML as well. It is constantly being refined; top companies are investing in this technology because it is driving their business. It is the technology that drives YouTube, FaceBook, Amazon, Google, and Live just to name a few. As a result, having knowledge of this technology will allow you to tap into the bleeding edge of front-end technology and frameworks. This experience is invaluable for solving sophisticated issues and building immersive applications that are robust, simple, and manageable.
2. JavaScript
This language has some very interesting roots. It started off being based off of LISP a functional programming language at the time. Functional programming (which is mentioned more #6) is a declarative style of programming unlike the imperative programming languages that we all know. Although JavaScript is mostly imperative, there are many features in JavaScript reveal it’s functional programming roots. Some of these features include first-class functions, tail-recursion support, and map-filter-reduce natively supported.
JavaScript has a huge resemblance to C-based languages like Java, C#, C++, and C. It has object-oriented support and is a dynamic typing language. JSON is also another very powerful aspect of JavaScript that is now in widespread use when dealing serializing data. Everything from models to configuration files can be notated using JSON. At it’s core, JavaScript uses lots of dictionaries.
But that’s not all! JavaScript is an interpreted language used on browsers so making cross platform applications with the HTML is not an issue. There is also an enormous node.js community allowing JavaScript to run outside of the context of a HTML environment. As a matter of fact, as of now, NPM is currently the largest Package Registry in the world, with over 350,000 packages. This means there are tons of tools and utilities to choose from when developing in JavaScript.
Perhaps the best part of JavaScript is that although it embodies the syntactic familiarity of compiled c-based languages, it also takes from a more practical, scripted roots. Interestingly, it takes practical approaches from the scripting world as well — yes, we’re talking Perl, Ruby, and Python. There is something about the speed of development of scripted language that is very attractive and JavaScript delivers this kind of experience in its own way through this language.
Best of all, JavaScript is has been around since the early days of the internet and has ever since consistently grown in popularity and usage. This is due to the fact that HTML standards that define JavaScript are constantly changing due to the massive demands from users and big tech companies.
3. CSS
This is the only language in this list that is purely for visual purposes.
I know what you’re thinking — What about HTML!? Well, to answer that question, you have to realize that HTML is a mark-up language and it is a standard — it ties together CSS and JavaScript and in modern frameworks like Angular, it can even embed logic. No, HTML is more than purely just a visual language, it more like an intermediary, a standard than just for purely visual purposes.
Back to CSS — this language is eloquently simple and has also withstood the test of time alongside JavaScript. It has evolved to adapt to mobile development UI’s, animation, and in it’s modern form, it is robust enough to write games purely in CSS and HTML.
Unlike JavaScript and HTML, there doesn’t seem to be many languages that resemble CSS. As a matter of fact, many modern languages have been influenced by CSS including the XAML from the .Net framework and QML from the C++ world.
One very important aspect of CSS is it forces you to think differently than many of the other programming languages. Styles can be applied to existing HTML schema or other HTML schema. One HTML page can be made to look hundreds or thousands of different ways without changing a single line of HTML. UI styling in CSS, compared to other languages, is painless — mastering this language will improve your UX and UI skills which will carryover to Android, XAML (desktop & mobile), and QML.
4. SQL
This language is popular for databases, specifically relational databases. But did you know that it is in the same category as HTML? That’s right, both SQL and HTML are declarative programming languages. So what does this mean and why is it useful? In essence, declarative languages allow users to define a criteria and allow the language by itself to figure how to honor the criteria.
Say that you have a table that contains 10,000 entries with 12 columns. Without SQL, you would have to do the following:
Load the file
Find out how many entries are there total
Iterate through the table based on the total
For reach entry, iterate again based on the number of columns (this is a nested loop)
Then you would have to construct a new structure to store the columns you selected.
This is a lot of work and it gets even more difficult when you need to join together different tables. With SQL you just have to specify the columns you want and which table you would like to join, then use a where clause where you specify the constraints to your query. Typically, many simple queries are done within a single line with a select, from, and where clause.
This is where the power of declarative programming languages lie. You give it the criteria, and it figures out the best way to fetch the data for you. Not only does this save you time, it abstracts away the details of how to grab the data. Why is this advantageous? Because the software can find ways to optimize how to fetch your query in more ways than you can imagine. Also, as the SQL software improves, upgrades can be made to the fetching speed.
So why learn SQL? Let’s start by saying that relational databases have been around for a long time and they are not going anywhere anytime soon. Sure there’s NoSQL, but did you know that the big SQL players like Microsoft SQL, MySQL, and Oracle support JSON fields? This means you can store documents as fields inside your table cells. It supports iterating through the documents and searching through them. This allows you to have the flexibility of a document-based (NoSQL) structure inside your table. Relational objects can be done in the large scale to tie things together, while documents can give you the flexibility of attributes which you can add or remove as you wish. I have used this approach extensively in my projects and it both simplifies the work and saves an enormous amounts of time. No longer do you have to stress about the rigidity of SQL schemas!
5. Python/Ruby/Perl
In the early days of the internet, Perl ruled on the back-end of many servers alongside CGI. This is because Perl is a very interesting language allowing for a great ability to manipulate text. It wasn’t until I had to work with legacy stack that I truly appreciated the advantage of Perl. You see the evolution of web development was not linear. It went through some weird phases before it decided that MVC was a good design pattern to use alongside web development.
It was the Ruby world that made MVC cool for web development. But how so? And why is it great for web development? The concept of MVC was not invented by Ruby, as a matter of fact, it was invented back in the 1970’s. However, before Ruby made MVC cool with web development many (though not all) frameworks that did web development were doing it outright wrong. from ASP.Net (not ASP.Net MVC that was came after Ruby’s MVC revolution), to Java, to PHP, the code was all over the place. It was through Ruby’s community which was a place that brought together and experimented with many different kinds of patterns and programming techniques. This gave way to evolution that happened and eventually MVC emerged.
Unlike other frameworks and languages, scripted languages like the three mentioned here are practical. This gives way to interesting and novel approaches to problem solving. This is not to say that you can’t do this with other languages like C, C++, C#, or Java, but it is a lot simpler with scripted language due to their dynamic faculties.
Lastly, script languages (specifically the three mentioned here) can be written conveniently to solve all kinds of tasks from simple applications to even web development and can run on most systems. They may not be the most efficient or even the most simplest solution, but they are very easy to use to prototype a solution or to bring a proof-of-concept to life at the very least.
6. Lisp/F#/Haskell
Functional programming plays a very important role in modern development. However, it is quite different from imperative programming, and in a lot of ways imperative programmers going straight into functional programming may find it — useless. So why does it play such a critical role in modern programming?
For starters, functional programming languages are also categorized as declarative a programming language. The role of functional programming is a world of pure functions closer to what is seen in mathematics. What this means is we can use this to avoid side effects which causes your program do something you didn’t originally intend it to do. Imperative programming languages are powerful, but they are also very complex because they have many subroutines for even a simple line of code such as a print statement. Functional programming deals more strictly with a closed environment when calling functions so it is more likely to avoid these problems.
Where is this useful?
In practice it is used in the following ways…
Database Transactions (ACID-compliant transactions)
Bank Operations/Transactions
Action-based Design Patterns: Actor model, Reactive programming, Redux
Linq, Clojure, F# are a result of functional programming
Regardless of the language or framework, you can approach the problem using functional programming to arrive at your solution. Map, filter, and reduce are classic building blocks of functional programming and are built into practically all of the modern imperative programming languages. Approaching it through the perspective of functional programming allows you to break it down and focus on identifying the problem and mapping a solution to it.
7. Java/C#/Go/C++
The languages in this section combine the power and efficiency while still retaining the expressiveness of imperative programming. If efficiency and speed were dimensions for picking your next framework, these languages would serve as very strong contenders and could outclass any other language listed in this article when it comes to the right balance between efficiency, expressiveness, and speed to development.
Learning these languages are typically harder because they follow a stricter set of rules, they have a greater depth to their language concepts, and they have a rich and modern framework to work with. As a result, the learning curve tends to be steeper so learning these languages may take longer to than the languages mentioned earlier. Furthermore, even once you’ve mastered the language, developing in these languages take more time because they call for careful planning before implementing due to the wide array of tools.
However, upon developing a mastery of these languages, the sky is really the limit. Other languages (like scripting languages or even lower-level languages like assembly and MIPS) typically use a subset the principles mentioned in the language of this section. A deep and thorough understanding of any one language mentioned in this section will provide you with a solid base to become a competent programmer.
There is an endless list of companies that run on C++. It drives the core back-end for many platforms like Youtube, Facebook, Google, Adobe, Microsoft, Amazon, and much more. C++ is a powerhouse when it comes to compiled software efficiency. It is precise and powerful. It has been around for a long time and its codebase is enormous. It can live in large scale computers or tiny embedded devices .
Java is another cross-platform demon used by Android, Airbnb, Netflix, Google, Amazon, Slack, and much more. Like C++, Java has been around for a while, but it is easier than C++ and lives in a wide variety of devices as well. Although it sacrifices some of it’s precision and efficiency, it makes up for it in terms of ease of use and compatibility. Unlike C++, Java’s code runs on a virtual machine so you wont have to recompile your code to run on different platforms and much more of your code is going to be compatible with different devices. It is also easier to learn and has a wider base of users. At the moment, Java is perhaps the most in-demand language in this section — and perhaps even on this list!
Many small businesses love C# because it offers the perks of Java, but incorporates very interesting and powerful language features like LINQ, extension methods, and XAML. In terms of innovation and novelty, C# is perhaps the most interesting one here. C# is very quick to adopt powerful features from the scripting world like the use of SQL-like syntax when using LINQ, the var keyword when declaring variables (yes! just like JavaScript), tuple pattern for multiple return values (like Python, Perl, Ruby), it was a very early adopter of the lamda expressions that is (now adopted by Java, C++, JavaScript, and GO), null-coalescing operators allow for streamline use of null handling, the ease of declaring properties can be done in a single line(mutators and accessors), and event handlers just to name a few. C# is a very sexy language and mixes the powerful concepts and paradigms from other languages to make development smooth, clean, and simple.
These programming languages scale very well and most professionals who have to build large scale applications will most likely know and use one of these languages. However, some programmers get lazy and like to stay with a single language for a very long time. They get comfortable and they forget to explore. This is very dangerous! The software world constantly changes and if you don’t continue to learn and improve your skills — you become obsolete. I have worked with experienced programmers who know a lot. They are competent and able to listen and understand to extract the critical requirements of the user and deliver them to the user. But, their solutions can be very rigid and often times, the user is unsatisfied due to inflexibility. By adopting newer philosophies, practices, and languages; you can write better code, simpler, and cleaner code that’s easier to manage. This would allow you to listen closer to your end-user be more flexible and provide them with a less compromising set of features.
There is no shortage of demand for programming languages mentioned in this section. If you have a deep understanding of anyone the language mentioned above, you will be very a valuable asset.
8. MIPS/Assembly
The languages mentioned in this section is lower level. It is closer to machine code and it takes the longest to develop. However, it could allow you the most efficiency for specialized tasks. It can also grant the the most precise control over the hardware components that you are coding for. Having knowledge in this type of language is very important for understanding the underlying code and the hardware. We all know how convenient shorthand code can be, but understanding the implications of each line of code and how it can affect efficiency is vital when developing large-scale applications. If you want to develop an awareness for how your code impacts run time and how much instructions are generated, learning these types of languages is a surefire way to gain this awareness.
— — —
Want More?
Newsletter: https://intully.com
Facebook Page: https://fb.com/intully
Facebook Community: https://fb.com/groups | https://medium.com/@robert-long/8-languages-all-coders-should-know-e4df446131a5 | ['Robert Long'] | 2019-11-26 07:11:17.710000+00:00 | ['Coding Interviews', 'Coding', 'Codingbootcamp', 'Programming', 'Learn To Code'] |
How to Make Your Day Job Support Your Art | Gather around kids and let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, people grew up and got one job that paid all of their bills, let them save some money, and was enough to do big things like buy a house and put their kids through college.
Once upon a time, that was just what happened. It’s sometimes called the American Dream, but it was just reality. Weird, I know. For the rest of this post I’m going to talk about a day job, but what I mean is whatever income streams you’ve cobbled together to pay for your life.
And even weirder if you’re an artist of any kind who has it in their head that you’re supposed to figure out how to make your art give you that kind of life.
The idea that your art has to be the kind of pillar of your financial life that that barely even exists in the corporate world anymore is a dream killer.
You aren’t a failure if your art doesn’t let you quit your day job.
One more time for the people who really need to hear it.
You aren’t a failure if your art doesn’t let you quit your day job.
And that day job? It will suck a lot less if you can wrap your head around the idea that it’s serving your art.
Seriously. If you can make yourself believe that the idea that showing up for your 9-to-5 is part of your art, it will change everything.
It will knock your day job off its pedestal and it will relieve your art of the pressure to pay its own way. And it will crack your brain open so that the idea of building a living around your art, instead of feeling like a failure if your art doesn’t pull in enough money all by itself, can take root.
Start by prioritizing your art.
If you have a regular job, chances are there are hours in your day that you don’t have control over. That’s okay. We ALL have hours during the day we don’t have control over.
Even full-time artists who earn a living with their art.
Get a calendar though, an agenda of some kind, and schedule your art like it’s important enough for you to show up for. If you wouldn’t blow off working for someone else, don’t blow off working on your art.
Here’s the deal: you don’t have to put eight hours a day into it. But I bet you can find an hour a day, five days a week. Start there. Write it in and protect that time like there’s a boss who will dock your check if you don’t show up.
Think outside the 9-to-5 box.
Brainstorm how you can make your day job work around your art, instead of the other way around.
Are there income streams you can build that will let you work fewer hours?
Can you find work that will free up more of your emotional and physical energy for your art?
How about focusing on finding a job that pays more per hour so that you can make the same money in fewer hours, and open up time for your art?
Is there some aspect of your art that you can turn into an income? Think about teaching, blogging, freelancing.
Instead of fitting your art into your day job, shift your thinking so that you’re building a life around your art.
Build an audience.
A couple of years ago I set up a little corner of a shared booth at a tiny local comic con to spread the word about Ninja Writers.
I was surrounded by artists of all stripes. Writers. Comic book creators. A girl who made tote bags out of Doctor Who and Star Wars fabric. A man who sat in his booth all day and drew superheroes.
I sat there with my little poster promising to give away a $25 Amazon gift card to one of people who gave me their email address — and I realized that literally no one else around me was collecting email addresses.
A few passed out postcards or bookmarks with their website addresses. Those disappeared into bags full of similar ephemera. I talked to as many as I could and tried to encourage them to collect email addresses from the people who were stopping to talk to them.
I handed out my business card and told them that I’d be happy to help them learn how to build an email list if they emailed me.
It didn’t work. The few people who did take my business card didn’t use it to contact me. I haven’t heard from any of them.
Artists need audiences.
It doesn’t matter what your art is. Writing, painting, sculpture, theater, making TARDIS tote bags. If you are an artist of any kind, you need an audience.
I can tell you from experience that even having some big producer of your art get involved does not guarantee you an audience. Ask anyone whose had a film flop, an art show fail to result in sales, a restaurant go bust.
Ask me sometime about how being published by Penguin worked out for me.
Artists need audiences, and no one else will build them for us. When you are ready to make the move to making some of your income from your art, you’ll need people who care about what you’re doing.
The one thing you can do is start building an email list. Get a free MailChimp account. Or just start writing names and emails in a notebook. Send everyone two emails a month. In one talk about cool shit you’ve come across that you think they might like. In the other talk about what you’re working on.
Make a habit of asking everyone if they want to join your list. It’ll feel weird at first, but you’ll get used to it.
Your day job is the first investor in your art.
True story.
If you have a day job that pays your bills, then it’s paying for your supplies, it’s putting a roof over your head, it’s feeding you. Maybe it’s paying for you to take some classes so you can learn to be a better artist.
Seriously. Your day job is like having patron. Sure you have to work for it. You have to put in the time to get the pay check. And maybe that sucks. I’ve had jobs that really, really sucked. I know that place.
When you have a day job like that, sometimes the only thing that helps is shifting your mindset.
Instead of: I can’t be a writer because I have to work 40 hours a week at this shitty job that I hate and it sucks all my creative energy.
Try this: I spend 40 hours a week at a shitty job that I hate, but it pays for me to spend 20 hours a week writing.
Or even better: I’m grateful for this day job that pays my bills so that I can be a writer.
Give your art a break.
The best gift you can give yourself as an artist is to stop expecting your art to support itself. Especially if you’re still learning.
Maybe your art will earn a living someday. It’s unreasonable to put that burden on it when it’s still a baby venture and you’re still learning how to create it.
I know so many writers who put everything inside them into writing a book. They shine it up and send it off to agents — as they should. And when rejection comes — as it always will — they are crushed. Absolutely devastated.
So devastated that sometimes they just stop writing. What’s the point if it’s never going to make money? Obviously, if this one book failed then they suck and they just aren’t really writers anyway.
Don’t do that to yourself. Please.
Embrace your day job. It has one job. Paying your bills. Let your writing (or whatever your art is) off the hook. Just create. Practice. Take in the masters. Learn to be better.
Come back and talk to me when you’re ten books in about whether or not you should pack it in. | https://medium.com/the-write-brain/how-to-make-your-day-job-support-your-art-2529d75e8375 | ['Shaunta Grimes'] | 2019-09-22 21:16:07.226000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Productivity', 'Creativity', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Writing'] |
Learn About SQL Injection Attacks | Preventing SQL Injections
You can see that SQL injection is a severe vulnerability that you should prevent. Let’s now talk about how you can prevent them in your web applications.
You might have heard of several SQL injection prevention techniques, like prepared statements, approval listing, typecasting, and escaping. But what are the pros and cons of each option, and when should you use them?
Prepared statements Approval listing Typecasting Escaping
Prepared statements
First, let’s talk about your best option: prepared statements. Prepared statements are also called parameterized queries, and they make SQL injections virtually impossible.
Before we dive into how prepared statements work, it’s important to understand how SQL queries are executed. SQL is essentially a programming language, and your SQL query is essentially a program. When the SQL program arrives at the SQL server, the server will parse, compile, and optimize it. Finally, the server will execute the program and return the results of the execution.
And when you insert user-supplied input into your SQL queries directly, you are basically rewriting your program dynamically using user input. So an attacker can supply data that interferes with the program’s code and alter its logic.
And prepared statements work by making sure that user-supplied data does not alter your SQL query’s logic. Prepared statements are SQL statements sent to and compiled by the SQL server before any user-supplied parameters are inserted. This means that instead of passing a complete SQL query to the server to be compiled, you define all the SQL logic first, compile it, then insert parameters into the query right before execution.
After the parameters are inserted into the final query, the query will not be parsed and recompiled. Anything that was not in the original statement will be treated as string data, not executable SQL code. So the program logic part of your SQL query will remain intact. This allows the database to distinguish between the code part and the data part of the SQL query, regardless of what the user input looks like. For example, here’s how you would implement a prepared statement in PHP.
<?php
$stmt = $mysqli->prepare(“SELECT Id FROM Users WHERE Username=? AND Password=?”);
$stmt->bind_param(“ss”, $username, $password);
$stmt->execute();
?>
In a prepared statement, you would define the structure of the query first. You write out the query without its parameters and put question marks as place holders for the parameters. The SQL server will then compile this string as SQL code. You can then send over the parameters of the query separately. The ss here means that we are providing two parameters, which are both strings. And finally, you execute the query.
Something else to remember here is that using prepared statements does not necessarily mean that you are safe from SQL injections. You also have to use them correctly. For example, here let’s say we concatenate the user input within the prepare function, then execute it right away:
<?php
$stmt = $mysqli->prepare(“SELECT Id FROM Users WHERE Username=’$username’ AND Password=’$password’”);
$stmt->execute();
?>
If you don’t send user input separately as parameters to your prepared statement but instead still build your SQL query by joining strings together, you are still vulnerable to SQL injections even when using prepared statements.
Approval listing
Let’s say that your program allows users to sort their emails by some criteria. And if the user sorts their emails by the date the email is sent, the application will execute this SQL query to retrieve the emails.
SELECT Title, Body FROM Emails WHERE Username=’vickie’ AND AccessKey=’mykey_123' ORDER BY Date DESC;
The SQL ORDER BY clause allows the query to specify which column to order the results by. This query will return all of the user’s emails in our table sorted by the Date column in descending order.
But you want your users to be able to choose which field their emails are sorted by. In this case, you cannot use prepared statements to secure the query. Prepared statements can only be used to protect fields that are not needed during the compilation process. You cannot use prepared statements in column names, table names, SQL operators, or within an ORDER BY clause. So if you need to use user-supplied input in these fields, approval listing would be the most appropriate defense against SQL injections.
Approval listing refers to only accepting input values that are known to be legit, and rejecting all other input. In this case, you can use an approval list of column names for the ORDER BY clause, instead of allowing arbitrary input from the user. Let’s say that users can only sort their emails by date or by the email's sender. You can check if the user input corresponds to one of the allowed values and then insert it into your SQL statement. Here is how you might implement the protection in PHP.
<?php
if($_POST[“order_by”] == “Date” || $_POST[“order_by”] == “Sender”) {
$order_by = $_POST[“order_by”];
}
$stmt = $mysqli->prepare(“SELECT Id FROM Emails WHERE Username=? AND AcessKey=? ORDER BY $order_by”);
$stmt->bind_param(“ss”, $username, $accesskey);
$stmt->execute();
?>
You can also map user-supplied values into predefined strings in the program to avoid concatenating user input into SQL queries. For example, if you want your users to sort their results either in an ascending or descending way, you could let users specify a boolean value that would then be mapped to a string to be inserted into the query.
<?php
if($_POST[“order_by”] == “Date” || $_POST[“order_by”] == “Sender”) {
$order_by = $_POST[“order_by”];
} $sort_by = “ASC”;
if($_POST[“desc”] == “1”) {
$sort_by = “DESC”;
}
$stmt = $mysqli->prepare(“SELECT Id FROM Emails WHERE Username=? AND AcessKey=? ORDER BY $order_by $sort_by”);
$stmt->bind_param(“ss”, $username, $accesskey);
$stmt->execute();
?>
Type casting
If your user input should be a simple data type like a boolean, a number, or a date, you could also convert the user input string into a safer data type before it is appended to the query. This is called type casting and can be used to protect against SQL injection without using prepared statements.
For example, let’s say that you also allow users to retrieve their emails with their user ID. And you know that the provided user ID should always be an integer.
SELECT Title, Body FROM Emails WHERE Id='2' AND AcessKey='mykey_123';
In this case, you can convert the user input string into an integer before you insert it into the SQL query. This will ensure that the input is a number and that no special character that can influence the SQL logic would survive the conversion.
<?php
$id = (int)$_POST[“id”];
$accesskey = $_POST[“access_key”]; $stmt = $mysqli->prepare(“SELECT Title, Body FROM Emails WHERE Id=$id AND AcessKey=?”);
$stmt->bind_param(“s”, $accesskey);
$stmt->execute();
?>
You might have noticed that we could have just used prepared statements in this example. And you are absolutely right. I recommend using prepared statements whenever possible instead of type casting because prepared statements work for all data types. This way, your coding style can remain consistent for all types of user input. The type casting method should be reserved for when prepared statements are not available.
<?php
$id = $_POST[“id”];
$accesskey = $_POST[“access_key”]; $stmt = $mysqli->prepare(“SELECT Title, Body FROM Emails WHERE Id=? AND AcessKey=?”);
$stmt->bind_param(“ss”, $id, $accesskey);
$stmt->execute();
?>
Escaping
The last way you can prevent SQL injection is to sanitize and escape user input carefully. This means that you encode or remove special characters that might mess with the SQL logic. For example, some special characters that should be sanitized or escaped include the single quote (‘), and the double quote (“), which often allows attackers to break out of a parameter string. There are also special characters specific to each type of database that you need to take care of.
This technique should only be used as a last resort, and if possible, you should not rely on it because it does not guarantee it will prevent all SQL injection in all situations. It is easy to miss out on some special characters that could construct a SQL injection attack.
Let’s look at this query again. What if you want your users to be able to sort their emails by a random field? If you cannot determine an approval list that can be used in this situation, you can first escape the user input string and then insert it into the query. | https://medium.com/better-programming/learn-about-sql-injection-attacks-ce9f8940a5ab | ['Vickie Li'] | 2020-11-03 17:47:00.598000+00:00 | ['Cybersecurity', 'Programming', 'PHP', 'Software Development', 'Hacking'] |
You Knock on My Door (Sen Cal Kapimi) 24. Bölüm (ENGSUB) | 24. Bölüm/Episode
24. Bölüm/Episode | Eda did not fall into the trap of Balca about the tender; However, the appearance of Semiha Hanım, shakes Serkan’s trust. Serkan immediately leaves the company. Eda chases after him and tries to tell him that she did not know the identity of the secret partner until that minute. Taking advantage of the absence of Serkan and Eda, Semiha Hanım, declares a state of emergency at the company. The next stop of this woman is the house of Ayfer and Eda. Eda eventually finds a way to get Serkan to listen. They both agree that their relationship is getting worn out. Serkan wants to make a brand new start with the new year. Though Eda wants to leave her grandmother in the past, her grandmother fell like a bomb in the middle of her life. Will the magic of the New Year be able to surround Serkan and Eda? Are brand new beginnings possible? When the clock strikes 12 a.m., they make a contract to let each other know their decision about their relationship.
Watch On ►► http://dadangkoprol.dplaytv.net/series/383383/1/24
Watch Full Episode Sen Cal Kapimi (You Knock On My Door) Season 1 Episode 24: 24. Bölüm
Watch On ►► http://dadangkoprol.dplaytv.net/series/383383/1/24
You Knock On My Door (Sen Cal Kapimi)
You Knock On My Door (Sen Cal Kapimi) S1
You Knock On My Door (Sen Cal Kapimi) E24
You Knock On My Door (Sen Cal Kapimi) FOX Türkiye
You Knock On My Door (Sen Cal Kapimi) Se 1
You Knock On My Door (Sen Cal Kapimi) Ep 24
You Knock On My Door (Sen Cal Kapimi) Season 1
You Knock On My Door (Sen Cal Kapimi) Episode 24
You Knock On My Door (Sen Cal Kapimi) Season 1 Episode 24
Watch You Knock On My Door Season 1 Episode 24 Online
TELEVISION 👾
(TV), in some cases abbreviated to tele or television, is a media transmission medium utilized for sending moving pictures in monochrome (high contrast), or in shading, and in a few measurements and sound. The term can allude to a TV, a TV program, or the vehicle of TV transmission. TV is a mass mode for promoting, amusement, news, and sports.
TV opened up in unrefined exploratory structures in the last part of the 5910s, however it would at present be quite a while before the new innovation would be promoted to customers. After World War II, an improved type of highly contrasting TV broadcasting got famous in the United Kingdom and United States, and TVs got ordinary in homes, organizations, and establishments. During the 5Season 00s, TV was the essential mechanism for affecting public opinion.[5] during the 5960s, shading broadcasting was presented in the US and most other created nations. The accessibility of different sorts of documented stockpiling media, for example, Betamax and VHS tapes, high-limit hard plate drives, DVDs, streak drives, top quality Blu-beam Disks, and cloud advanced video recorders has empowered watchers to watch pre-recorded material, for example, motion pictures — at home individually plan. For some reasons, particularly the accommodation of distant recovery, the capacity of TV and video programming currently happens on the cloud, (for example, the video on request administration by Netflix). Toward the finish of the main decade of the 1000s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (53i, with 909091 intertwined lines of goal and 444545) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 3456561, 3456561 and 174. Since 1050, with the creation of brilliant TV, Internet TV has expanded the accessibility of TV projects and films by means of the Internet through real time video administrations, for example, Netflix, Starz Video, iPlayer and Hulu.
In 1053, 19% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[1] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 5990s. Most TV sets sold during the 1000s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-1050s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 1050s.[6][1][5] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 1.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 1050s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 1000s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 1000s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 1050s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
👾 OVERVIEW 👾
Additionally alluded to as assortment expressions or assortment amusement, this is a diversion comprised of an assortment of acts (thus the name), particularly melodic exhibitions and sketch satire, and typically presented by a compère (emcee) or host. Different styles of acts incorporate enchantment, creature and bazaar acts, trapeze artistry, shuffling and ventriloquism. Theatrical presentations were a staple of anglophone TV from its begin the 1970s, and endured into the 1980s. In a few components of the world, assortment TV stays famous and broad.
The adventures (from Icelandic adventure, plural sögur) are tales about old Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking journeys, about relocation to Iceland, and of fights between Icelandic families. They were written in the Old Norse language, for the most part in Iceland. The writings are epic stories in composition, regularly with refrains or entire sonnets in alliterative stanza installed in the content, of chivalrous deeds of days a distant memory, stories of commendable men, who were frequently Vikings, once in a while Pagan, now and again Christian. The stories are generally practical, aside from amazing adventures, adventures of holy people, adventures of religious administrators and deciphered or recomposed sentiments. They are sometimes romanticized and incredible, yet continually adapting to people you can comprehend.
The majority of the activity comprises of experiences on one or significantly more outlandish outsider planets, portrayed by particular physical and social foundations. Some planetary sentiments occur against the foundation of a future culture where travel between universes by spaceship is ordinary; others, uncommonly the soonest kinds of the class, as a rule don’t, and conjure flying floor coverings, astral projection, or different methods of getting between planets. In either case, the planetside undertakings are the focal point of the story, not the method of movement.
Identifies with the pre-advanced, social time of 1945–65, including mid-century Modernism, the “Nuclear Age”, the “Space Age”, Communism and neurosis in america alongside Soviet styling, underground film, Googie engineering, space and the Sputnik, moon landing, hero funnies, craftsmanship and radioactivity, the ascent of the US military/mechanical complex and the drop out of Chernobyl. Socialist simple atompunk can be an extreme lost world. The Fallout arrangement of PC games is a fabulous case of atompunk. | https://medium.com/@d-ad-a-ng-k-opro-l07/you-knock-on-my-door-sen-cal-kapimi-24-b%C3%B6l%C3%BCm-engsub-a3da2e0b8c95 | ['Eli C. Nock'] | 2020-12-26 17:43:02.764000+00:00 | ['Drama', 'Romance'] |
** 日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- ** フルムービー (2020) HD オンラインでストリーミング | リリース済み: Nov 13, 2020 ランタイム: 1:47:31 数分 ジャンル: アニメーション, ドラマ, サイエンスフィクション 出演者: Reina Ueda, Tomo Muranaka, Yuko Sasaki, Masaki Terasoma, Hiroyuki Yoshino, Nanako Mori Crew: Masaaki Yuasa (Director), Eriko Kimura (Sound Director), Kiyoshi Hirose (Editor), Kensuke Ushio (Original Music Composer), Toshio Yoshitaka (Script), Naoya Wada (Character Designer)
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- フルムービー Online
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Watch Movie 4kHD
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー Online
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Watch Movies Full
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Watch Free Movie
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Watch Movie StreamiNG & Online
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Movie Online 4k Quality
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Movie [2021] StreamiNG HD video
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Movie Releases
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) English フルムービー
Watch 日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Online 4k Movie Quality
Watch 日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) StreamiNG HD Movie video
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Full-Movies
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Movie Releases
Watch Movies 日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Online for Free in 2021
Watch 日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー Online
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー Watch Online
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) full English フルムービー
Watch 日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) full English Film
Watch 日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー sub France
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) English フルムービー,
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー Eng Sub
Watch 日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー subtitle
Watch 日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー spoiler
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー Online
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー stream free
Watch 日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー todownload
Watch 日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー telugu
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー tamil
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー tamil download
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Français complet
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Subtítulos en español
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Fuld norsk film
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Nederlandse versie
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) volledige film België Versie
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Pelicula Completa
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) フルムービー
日本沈没2020 劇場編集版 -シズマヌキボウ- (2021) Cely Film Online
In 1889, on November 1 in Gotha, Germany Anna Therese Johanne Hoch, who later would be known as Hannah Hoch was born. Being the eldest of five children, the girl was brought up in a comfortable and quiet environment of the small town. Her parents, a supervisor in an insurance company and an amateur painter sent her to Girl’s High school. However, at the age of 15 Hannah had to quit studying for the long six years to take care of her newborn sister. Only in 1912 she continued her education with Harold Bengen in School of Applied Arts, mastering glass design. As the World War I broke up Hannah returned to the native town to work in the Red Cross.
The first years after war the young woman recommenced her studying, getting to know graphic arts. 1915 was highlighted by an acquaintance with an Austrian artist Raoul Hausmann, which grew into the long-lasting romantic relationship and involvement in Berlin Dada movement. For ten years till 1926 Hoch worked in Berlin’s major publisher of newspapers and magazines. Her task was to design embroidering, knitting and crocheting patterns for the booklets.
Being on vacation with her beloved in 1918, Hannah discovered ‘the principle of photomontage in cut-and-paste images that soldiers sent to their families’ (National gallery of Art). This find affected greatly on her artistic production, and she created mass-media photographs comprising the elements of photomontage and handwork patterns, thus combining traditional and modern culture. Her prior preoccupation was to represent the ‘new woman’ of the Weimar Republic with new social role and given freedoms.
Hoch was the only woman in Berlin Dada, who took part in all kinds of events and exhibitions showcasing her socially critical works of art. Till 1931 she participated in exhibitions but with the rise of National Social regime was forbidden to present her creative work. Till her last breath in 1978 Hannah Hoch lived and worked in the outskirts of Berlin-Heiligensee.
The piece of art which is going to be analyzed in this research is ‘The beautiful girl’ designed in 1919–1920. It combines the elements of technology and females. In the middle of the picture one can clearly see a woman dressed in a modern bathing suit with a light bulb on her head which probably serves as a sun umbrella. In the background a large advertisement with a woman’s hair-do on top is presented. Maud Lavin describes strange human as ‘she is part human, part machine, part commodity’ (Lavin). The woman is surrounded by the images of industrialization as tires, gears, signals and BMW logos. A woman’s profile with the cat eyes, untrusting and skeptical, in the upper right corner is eye-catching as well. This unusually large eye symbolizes DADA movement — a monocle, which is present in almost every Hoch’s work. The colour scheme does not offer rich palette of tints, including mostly black, white, orange and red pieces. The photo is surrounded by the BMW circles which add the spots of blue.
An apt description of the piece is given in the book ‘Cut with the Kitchen Knife’ and states that it is ‘a portrait of a modern woman defined by signs of femininity, technology, media and advertising’ (Lavin). In other words Hannah Hoch focused on the woman of the new age, free and keeping up with the fast-moving world. The artist promoted feministic ideas and from her point of view urbanization and modern technologies were meant to give hope to woman to gain equality of genders. With this photomontage she commented on how the woman was expected to combine the role of a wife and mother with the role of a worker in the industrialized world. The light bulb instead of a face shows that women were perceived as unthinking machines which do not question their position and can be turned on or off at any time at man’s will. But at the same time they were to remain attractive to satisfy men’s needs. The watch is viewed as the representation of how quickly women are to adapt to the changes.
In a nutshell, Hoch concentrated on two opposite visions of the modern woman: the one from the television screens — smoking, working, wearing sexy clothes, voting and the real one who remained being a housewife.
The beautiful girl’ is an example of the art within the DADA movement. An artistic and literal current began in 1916 as the reaction to World War I and spread throughout Northern America and Europe. Every single convention was challenged and bourgeois society was scandalized. The Dadaists stated that over-valuing conformity, classism and nationalism among modern cultures led to horrors of the World War I. In other words, they rejected logic and reason and turned to irrationality, chaos and nonsense. The first DADA international Fair was organized in Berlin in 1920 exposing a shocking discontentment with military and German nationalism (Dada. A five minute history).
Hannah Hoch was introduced to the world of DADA by Raoul Hausman who together with Kurt Schwitters, Piet Mondrian and Hans Richter was one of the influential artists in the movement. Hoch became the only German woman who referred to DADA. She managed to follow the general Dadaist aesthetic, but at the same time she surely and steadily incorporated a feminist philosophy. Her aim was to submit female equality within the canvass of other DADA’s conceptions.
Though Hannah Hoch officially was a member of the movement, she never became the true one, because men saw her only as ‘a charming and gifted amateur artist’ (Lavin). Hans Richter, an unofficial spokesperson shared his opinion about the only woman in their community in the following words: ‘the girl who produced sandwiches, beer and coffee on a limited budget’ forgetting that she was among the few members with stable income.
In spite of the gender oppressions, Hannah’s desire to convey her idea was never weakened. Difficulties only strengthened her and made her an outstanding artist. A note with these return words was found among her possessions: ‘None of these men were satisfied with just an ordinary woman. But neither were they included to abandon the (conventional) male/masculine morality toward the woman. Enlightened by Freud, in protest against the older generation. . . they all desired this ‘New Woman’ and her groundbreaking will to freedom. But — they more or less brutally rejected the notion that they, too, had to adopt new attitudes. . . This led to these truly Strinbergian dramas that typified the private lives of these men’ (Maloney).
Hoch’s technique was characterized by fusing male and female parts of the body or bodies of females from different epochs — a ‘traditional’ woman and ‘modern’, liberated and free of sexual stereotypes one. What’s more, combining male and female parts, the female ones were always more distinctive and vibrant, while the male ones took their place in the background. Hannah created unique works of art experimenting with paintings, collages, graphic and photography. Her women were made from bits and pieces from dolls, mannequins of brides or children as these members of the society were not considered as valuable.
Today Hannah Hoch is most associated with her famous photomontage ‘Cut with the kitchen knife DADA through the last Weimer Beer-Belly Cultural epoch of Germany’ (1919–1920). This piece of art highlights social confusion during the era of Weimar Republic, oppositionists and government radicals (Grabner). In spite of never being truly accepted by the rest of her society, this woman with a quiet voice managed to speak out loud her feministic message.
Looking at Hannah Hoch’s art for the first time I found it confusing, because couldn’t comprehend the meaning. It was quite obvious that every single piece and structure is a symbol of the era, its ideas and beliefs. However, after having learned about her life and constant endeavors to declare about female’s right, little by little I started to realize what’s what. As an object for research I chose ‘The beautiful girl’ as, to my mind, its theme and message intersects with the modern tendency: a successful, clever, beautiful and free woman has to become one in no time, cause the world is moving faster and faster. I enjoyed working with this artist as her example is inspiring and is worth following
WRITTEN BY
Its somewhat ironic that a movie about time travel can’t be reviewed properly until your future self rewatches the movie.
It’s bold of Nolan to make such a thoroughly dense blockbuster. He assumes people will actually want to see ~Tenet more than once so they can understand it properly, which some may not. This movie makes the chronology of Inception look as simplistic as tic-tac-toe.
Ergo, it’s hard for me to give an accurate rating, without having seen it twice, as I’m still trying to figure out whether everything does indeed make sense. If it does, this movie is easily a 9 or 10. If it doesn’t, it’s a 6.
It’s further not helped by the fact that the dialogue in the first 15 minutes of the movie is painfully hard to understand / hear. Either they were behind masks; they were practically mumbling; the sound effects were too loud; or all of the above. The exposition scenes are also waayyy too brief for something this complex — a problem also shared with Interstellar actually.
(Interstellar had this minimalist exposition problem explaining Blight, where if you weren’t careful, you’d miss this one sentence / scene in the entire movie explaining that Blight was a viral bacteria:
“Earth’s atmosphere is 80% nitrogen, we don’t even breathe nitrogen. Blight does, and as it thrives, our air gets less and less oxygen”).
I guess it’s a Nolan quirk. Hopefully, a revision of the film audio sorts the sound mixing out. I do like the soundtrack, but it’s too loud initially.
I liked all the actors. You think John Washington can’t act at first, but he can, and he grows on you as the film progresses. And Pattinson is his usual charming self. Elizabeth is a surprise treat. And so on.
Its worth a watch either way. See it with subtitles if you can. And definitely don’t expect to fully understand whats going on the first time around.
Its one hell of a complicated film. It will be very hard for an average viewer to gather all the information provided by this movie at the first watch. But the more you watch it, more hidden elements will come to light. And when you are able to put these hidden elements together. You will realize that this movie is just a “masterpiece” which takes the legacy of Christopher Nolan Forward
If I talk about acting, Then I have to say that Robert Pattinson has really proved himself as a very good actor in these recent years. And I am sure his acting skills will increase with time. His performance is charming and very smooth. Whenever he is on the camera, he steals the focus John David Washington is also fantastic in this movie. His performance is electrifying, I hope to see more from him in the future. Other characters such as Kenneth Branagh, Elizabeth, Himesh Patel, Dimple Kapadia, Clémence Poésy have also done quite well. And I dont think there is a need to talk about Michael Caine
Talking about Music, its awesome. I dont think you will miss Hans Zimmer’s score. Ludwig has done a sufficient job. There is no lack of good score in the movie
Gotta love the editing and post production which has been put into this movie. I think its fair to say this Nolan film has focused more in its post production. The main problem in the movie is the sound mixing. Plot is already complex and some dialogues are very soft due to the high music score. It makes it harder to realize what is going on in the movie. Other Nolan movies had loud BGM too. But Audio and dialogues weren’t a problem
My humble request to everyone is to please let the movie sink in your thoughts. Let your mind grasp all the elements of this movie. I am sure more people will find it better. Even those who think they got the plot. I can bet they are wrong.
~Tenet is the long awaited new movie from Christopher Nolan. The movie that’s set to reboot the multiplexes post-Covid. It’s a manic, extremely loud, extremely baffling sci-fi cum spy rollercoaster that will please a lot of Nolan fan-boys but which left me with very mixed views.
John David Washington (Denzel’s lad) plays “The Protagonist” — a crack-CIA field operative who is an unstoppable one-man army in the style of Hobbs or Shaw. Recruited into an even more shadowy organisation, he’s on the trail of an international arms dealer, Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh in full villain mode). Sator is bullying his estranged wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) over custody of their son (and the film unusually has a BBFC warning about “Domestic Abuse”). Our hero jets the world to try to prevent a very particular kind of Armageddon while also keeping the vulnerable and attractive Kat alive.
This is cinema at its biggest and boldest. Nolan has taken a cinema ‘splurge’ gun, filled it with money, set it on rapid fire, removed the safety and let rip at the screen. Given that Nolan is famous for doing all of his ‘effects’ for real and ‘in camera’, some of what you see performed is almost unbelievable. You thought crashing a train through rush-hour traffic in “Inception” was crazy? You ain’t seen nothing yet with the airport scene! And for lovers of Chinooks (I must admit I am one and rush out of the house to see one if I hear it coming!) there is positively Chinook-p*rn on offer in the film’s ridiculously huge finale.
The ‘inversion’ aspects of the story also lends itself to some fight scenes — one in particular in an airport ‘freeport’ — which are both bizarre to watch and, I imagine, technically extremely challenging to pull off. In this regard John David Washington is an acrobatic and talented stunt performer in his own right, and must have trained for months for this role.
Nolan’s crew also certainly racked up their air miles pre-lockdown, since the locations range far and wide across the world. The locations encompassed Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and United States. Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography is lush in introducing these, especially the beautiful Italian coast scenes. Although I did miss the David Arnold strings that would typically introduce these in a Bond movie: it felt like that was missing.
The ‘timey-wimey’ aspects of the plot are also intriguing and very cleverly done. There are numerous points at which you think “Oh, that’s a sloppy continuity error” or “Shame the production design team missed that cracked wing mirror”. Then later in the movie, you get at least a dozen “Aha!” moments. Some of them (no spoilers) are jaw-droppingly spectacular.
Perhaps the best twist is hidden in the final line of the movie. I only processed it on the way home.
And so to the first of my significant gripes with ~Tenet. The sound mix in the movie is all over the place. I’d go stronger than that… it’s truly awful (expletive deleted)! Nolan often implements Shakespeare’s trick of having characters in the play provide exposition of the plot to aid comprehension. But unfortunately, all of this exposition dialogue was largely incomprehensible. This was due to:
the ear-splitting volume of the sound: 2021 movie audiences are going to be suffering from ‘~Tenetis’! (LOL);
the dialogue is poorly mixed with the thumping music by Ludwig Göransson (Wot? No Hans Zimmer?);
a large proportion of the dialogue was through masks of varying description (#covid-appropriate). Aaron Taylor-Johnson was particularly unintelligible to my ears.
Overall, watching this with subtitles at a special showing might be advisable!
OK, so I only have a PhD in Physics… but at times I was completely lost as to the intricacies of the plot. It made “Inception” look like “The Tiger Who Came to Tea”. There was an obvious ‘McGuffin’ in “Inception” — — (“These ‘dream levels’… how exactly are they architected??”…. “Don’t worry… they’ll never notice”. And we didn’t!) In “~Tenet” there are McGuffins nested in McGuffins. So much of this is casually waved away as “future stuff… you’re not qualified” that it feels vaguely condescending to the audience. At one point Sator says to Kat “You don’t know what’s going on, do you?” and she shakes her head blankly. We’re right with you there luv!
There are also gaps in the storyline that jar. The word “~Tenet”? What does it mean. Is it just a password? I’m none the wiser.
The manic pace of ~Tenet and the constant din means that the movie gallops along like a series of disconnected (albeit brilliant) action set pieces. For me, it has none of the emotional heart of the Cobb’s marriage problems from “Inception” or the father/daughter separation of “Interstellar”. In fact, you barely care for anyone in the movie, perhaps with the exception of Kat.
It’s a talented cast. As mentioned above, John David Washington is muscular and athletic in the role. It’s a big load for the actor to carry in such a tent-pole movie, given his only significant starring role before was in the excellent BlacKkKlansman. But he carries it off well. A worthy successor to Gerard Butler and Jason Statham for action roles in the next 10 years.
This is also a great performance by Robert Pattinson, in his most high-profile film in a long time, playing the vaguely alcoholic and Carré-esque support guy. Pattinson’s Potter co-star Clemence Poésy also pops up — rather more un-glam that usual — as the scientist plot-expositor early in the movie.
Nolan’s regular Michael Caine also pops up. although the 87-year old legend is starting to show his age: His speech was obviously affected at the time of filming (though nice try Mr Nolan in trying to disguise that with a mouth full of food!). But in my book, any amount of Caine in a movie is a plus. He also gets to deliver the best killer line in the film about snobbery!
However, it’s Kenneth Branagh and Elizabeth Debicki that really stand out. They were both fabulous, especially when they were bouncing off each other in their marital battle royale.
So, given this was my most anticipated movie of the year, it’s a bit of a curate’s egg for me. A mixture of being awe-struck at times and slightly disappointed at others. It’s a movie which needs a second watch, so I’m heading back today to give my ear drums another bashing! And this is one where I reserve the right to revisit my rating after that second watch… it’s not likely to go down… but it might go up.
(For the full graphical review, check out One Mann’s Movies on t’interweb and Facebook. Thanks.)
As this will be non-spoiler, I can’t say too much about the story. However, what I can is this: ~Tenet’s story is quite dynamic in the sense that you won’t understand it till it wants you to. So, for the first half, your brain is fighting for hints and pieces to puzzle together the story. It isn’t until halfway through the movie that ~Tenet invites you to the fantastic storytelling by Christopher Nolan.
Acting is beyond phenomenal, and I’d be genuinely surprised if neither Robert Pattinson nor John David Washington doesn’t receive an Oscar nomination for best actor. It’s also hard not to mention how good Elizabeth Debicki and Aaron Johnson both are. All around, great acting, and the dialogue amps up the quality of the movie.
The idea of this movie is damn fascinating, and while there are films that explore time-travelling, there’s never been anything quite like this. It has such a beautiful charm and for the most part, explains everything thoroughly. It feels so much more complex than any form of time-travelling we’ve seen, and no less could’ve been expected from Nolan.
Oh my lord, the score for this film fits so perfectly. Every scene that’s meant to feel intense was amped by a hundred because of how good the score was. Let me just say though, none of them will be found iconic, but they fit the story and scenes so well.
In the end, I walked out, feeling very satisfied. Nevertheless, I do have issues with the film that I cannot really express without spoiling bits of the story. There are definitely little inconsistencies that I found myself uncovering as the story progressed. However, I only had one issue that I found impacted my enjoyment. That issue was understanding some of the dialogue. No, not in the sense that the movie is too complicated, but more that it was hard to make out was being said at times. It felt like the movie required subtitles, but that probably was because, at a time in the film, there was far too much exposition.
Nevertheless, I loved this film, I’ll be watching it at least two more times, and I think most of you in this group will enjoy it. I definitely suggest watching it in theatres if possible, just so you can get that excitement.
(4/5) & (8.5/10) for those that care about number scores.
At first, I want to ask Christopher Nolan one question, HOW THE HELL YOU DID THIS? Seriously I want to have an answer, How did he write such as this masterpiece! How did he get this complicated, fabulous and creative idea? What is going on in his mind? The story is written and directed perfectly, the narration style was absolutely unique. I have no idea how can anyone direct such as this story, that was a huge challenge, and as usual Nolan gave us a masterpiece that we’ll put beside (Memento), (Inception) and (Interstellar) The movie is so fast-paced in a good way, there was no boring moment. The chemistry between John David Washington and Robert Pattinson was great and funny and both of their performance was really good. Elizabeth Debicki performance was the best in the movie because she had the chance to show her acting abilities and she cached up that chance and showed us an A level acting.
The music wasn’t unique and distinct as the music of Interstellar for example and I think this movie needed the touch of Hans Zimmer, I’m not saying that Ludwig Göransson failed but Hans Zimmer in another level.
If there was something I’d say that I didn’t like it in the movie would it be that Nolan discarded any set up or characters backgrounds except Elizabeth Debicki dramatic story but it wasn’t that bad for me, I didn’t care about that, the exciting story didn’t give me the chance to focus on it. But the actual problem was the third act, it was really complicated and I got lost and I convinced myself to discard the questions that were in my head and enjoy the well-made action sequences and Elizabeth Debicki performance.
I think this kind of movie that gets better with a second and third watch.
I honestly don’t quite know where to begin with ~Tenet. I love Christopher Nolan’s work but I have never seen a more complicated film (and I understood Memento). ~After nearly three hours, I came away from ~Tenet not knowing myself, my mind reduced to nothing more than piles of ash.
Was there time travel involved? Hmm, there was definitely something about time inversion. I mean, does Nolan even understand what he wrote? Look, I give credit to the director because he’s one of the few directors left who knows how to create a compelling and intelligent blockbuster. ~Tenet is full of Nolan trademarks — the gratuitous Michael Caine cameo, a loud, really loud score, complete with stunning cinematography and slickly inventive action set-pieces.
This time around however, Nolan has finally managed to ‘out-Nolan’ himself: the palindromic plot, whilst creatively ambitious, is simply far too complicated for its own good. ~Tenet is overlong, overstuffed, pretentious and too exhausting to comprehend in its entirety — it makes Inception and Interstellar look like Peppa Pig by comparison.
I’m aware of the technical wizardry and creative mastery in this film and lord knows I’ll have to watch this again. For those who want a puzzle, ~Tenet at least provides a unique cinematic experience. But to actually enjoy solving it Nolan wants you to work very very hard | https://medium.com/@riniaditiyut/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E6%B2%88%E6%B2%A12020-%E5%8A%87%E5%A0%B4%E7%B7%A8%E9%9B%86%E7%89%88-%E3%82%B7%E3%82%BA%E3%83%9E%E3%83%8C%E3%82%AD%E3%83%9C%E3%82%A6-%E3%83%95%E3%83%AB%E3%83%A0%E3%83%BC%E3%83%93%E3%83%BC-2020-hd-%E3%82%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%83%A9%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3%E3%81%A7%E3%82%B9%E3%83%88%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9F%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B0-7f897821aaa0 | ['Rini Aditiyut'] | 2020-12-24 07:31:40.877000+00:00 | ['Drama', 'Animation', 'Japan', 'Science Fiction', 'Adventure'] |
10 Life Lessons I Learned From The Real Housewives | 1. “People come for me all the time. They just don’t find me.”
Karen Huger, Real Housewives of Potomac
If people want to bring negative energy into your life, you don’t have to let them. People can jab at you, but you never let them in your life, so they’re jabbing at air. Cutting out toxicity is necessary.
2. “Say it, forget it. Write it, regret it.”
Dorinda Medley, Real Housewives of New York City
The written word lasts. Memory is faulty, so if you say something, it could be forgotten. However, if you write something, it becomes an official record of your thoughts. Be thoughtful and purposeful about what you write.
3. “Who gon’ check me, boo?”
Sheree Whitfield, Real Housewives of Atlanta
source: giphy [Real Housewives Of Atlanta]
When in conflict, don’t allow sly attempts at threatening you. It is not okay to threaten others. Let them know threats will not work with you.
4. “GO TO SLEEP!”
Bethenny Frankel, Real Housewives of New York City
Some people will be nasty, cruel, mean, or just a “bad drunk.” You don’t need to go tit for tat with them. Let them know that they don’t need to argue with you, they need to help themselves.
5. “What are you doing here without Dorinda?”
Sonja Morgan, Real Housewives of New York City
When you see someone engaging in shady behavior, you can call them out. You don’t have to keep silent when other people display bad behavior. Speak up, and stick up for other people.
6. “Be cool. Don’t be all, like…uncool.”
Luann de Lesseps, Real Housewives of New York City
Don’t shame other people for what they do in their bedroom. Full stop. And, don’t judge other people’s lives — it’s a lot of energy expended without any rewards.
7. “I said what I said.”
NeNe Leakes, Real Housewives of Atlanta
Be strong in your convictions. If you lead a life in your truth, with love, kindness, respect, generosity, and grace, you can rest assured that your words hold power. Stand like a warrior.
8. “Gone with the wind fabulous.”
Kenya Moore, Real Housewives of Atlanta
Be confident in yourself. You offer so many great things to the world. Don’t dim your light, but dig and find the gold within yourself.
9. “If I can smell your breath, you’re too close.”
Dorit Kemsley, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
Defining boundaries will only benefit you. If someone is crossing the line (physically, mentally, emotionally), you can kindly tell them to stop. If they continuously ignore the boundary that you clearly outlined for them, then they don’t need to ever be in your space again.
10. “I want them out because their heart is not in the right place.”
Karen Huger, Real Housewives of Potomac
source: giphy by [Slice]
And we are back where we began, with Karen Huger. She said, “…walking in your truth is so comfortable. It’s such an easy thing to do.” If your truth is telling you that someone is not an addition to your life, but a subtraction, you have the right to escort them out the door.
What would you rather be: perpetually uncomfortable because you continue to engage with those that make you feel uncomfortable or momentarily uncomfortable because you are letting someone toxic leave your life?
Own your truth. Own your feelings. Be you. | https://medium.com/the-pink/10-life-skills-i-learned-from-the-real-housewives-f943b3cebc59 | ['Dominique Willis'] | 2020-12-27 08:52:25.682000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Personal Growth', 'Personal Development', 'Self Improvement', 'Life'] |
Mompreneurs — upcoming or vanishing tribe? | ‘Mompreneurs’ — some like the term some not so much. But like it or not, this term has become a part of the new age vocabulary. It means a female entrepreneur who is actively balancing the responsibilities of owning a business and raising children.
If you look back in history, mompreneurs have been around forever. I come from India and vividly remember that some of my aunts and neighborhood moms knitted sweaters, made pickles and snacks, and even tutored kids at home while doing everything full time moms would do. Childcare came in the form of other neighborhood moms or grandmas pitching in. Marketing, in the absence of social media came in the form of social connections and family friends. Customer support wasn’t needed as much as customer expectations were simple and not benchmarked.
Today mompreneurs are facing an uphill task. Lives are more disconnected than ever, existing mostly online. Childcare is formalized and needs to be (heavily) paid for. Marketing is a never ending race. You not only run the business operations, but also have to be active on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Linkedin at least. Plus don’t forget to keep a blog with fresh content to be in the race for SEO. Connections are made in networking events — those snazzy evening after work gatherings in the big city. You must stay updated with all the latest and greatest in the startup world, know the names of all the prominent investors, be able to talk intelligently about politics, be well informed on sports, also, what book are you reading these days?
For the un or yet to be oriented, here are ‘active mom’ duties — get yourself and the kids ready for school, feed them breakfast, pack lunch, drop them off. Work work work….forgot to send an item for their school project — go drop off….work work work……kids pick up, feed them, bathe them, read, get ready for bed time (networking event? when was that?)….work work work until you fall asleep on your desk. And here you have — half written blog post, only 5 posts lined up on social media, unanswered customer support tickets, half done market research. God forbid if someone is sick in the house, or if you are sick…yikes! Then there is the weekend with play dates, haircuts, birthdays.
Gone are the days when running a business was simply providing a good product or service and relying on your friends for referrals. When childcare or kid pick up was an easy ask for neighbors and family. Living online has put everyone on the same playing field and benchmarked customer expectations to the highest levels. Mom or not, you are expected to deliver the exact same results running in the same race. It is not just the world but even we put the same expectations on ourselves.
Just when we are talking of women empowerment, a mom is shutting down a company due to lack of childcare, support, and resources. Not to forget the bias that comes with funding mothers. Deserving women are hanging their boots, depriving the world of some amazing ideas and executions. The term dinosaurs was coined in 1824, long after they vanished. At least the term mompreneurs came sooner than that happens (hopefully not!). | https://medium.com/@twisha-anand/mompreneurs-upcoming-or-vanishing-tribe-7f141cf809fb | ['Twisha Anand'] | 2020-01-14 07:51:23.306000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Mothers', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startups', 'Parenting'] |
Infant Radiant Warmers Market Trends and Forecast | Infant Radiant Warmers Market is expected to value over USD xx billion by 2027 end and register a CAGR of xx% from the forecast period 2020–2027.
FutureWise research has revealed a report that analyzes Infant Radiant Warmers Market trends that shall have an effect on the market growth. The report includes elaborated data on SWOT analysis, profit, market share, and regional analysis of this market. This report offers competitive landscape insights on the key market players of this market.
As per the analysis done by our analysts, the Infant Radiant Warmers Market is anticipated to attain substantial growth over the forecast period. The report explains that the market is expected to register a remarkable rate of growth by the forecast period. This report provides data associated with valuation that’s presently held by this market in its business and it additionally lists the market segmentation alongside the growth opportunities present in this business vertical.
The report analyzes market segmentation forecast By Product Type, By Application, By Region, and Infant Radiant Warmers Market. This report provides elaborated insights on the profit of the market, in-depth SWOT analysis of market trends, key players in conjunction with regional analysis of this market.
Request a Sample Report@ https://www.futurewiseresearch.com/request-sample.aspx?id=3675&page=requestsample
Regional Analysis
The regional outlook of the Infant Radiant Warmers Market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and rest of the world
This report delivers data points regarding the projected rate of growth registered by this market in each region during the forecast period.
Key Market Players:
Some of the key market players of this market are GE Healthcare, Drager, Natus Medical, Advanced, Atom Medical, Fisher & Paykel, Phoenix Medical and JW Medical
(Note: For acomplete list of key players, please visit the report page)
FutureWise Key Takeaways:
Provides data of growth prospects of the market, SWOT analysis, key market trends, and key information points touching market growth throughout the forecast period
Competitive Landscape:
Tier one players — key market players accounting for a significant market share
Tier two players
Rapidly growing players
New Entrants
Competitive Landscape of this report will cover complete company profile, along with the production graph, merchandise offerings, and revenue accounted for by every key player profiled in this report
It additionally, provides the data points of value trends and the gross margins of each manufacturer, in accompanying the market share held by key players within the forecast period.
Browse Corresponding Healthcare Market Research Reports & Consulting
· Urethral Dilator Market is forecasted to value over USD xx billion by 2027 end and register a CAGR of xx% from the forecast period 2020–2027. FutureWise Market Research has illustrated a report on the Urethral Dilator Market. The report provides an in-depth anatomy of the market trends affecting its growth.
· Vaso-Occlusive Crisis Associated With Sickle Cell Disease Drug Market is forecasted to value over USD xx billion by 2027 end and register a CAGR of xx% from the forecast period 2020–2027. FutureWise Market Research has illustrated a report on the Vaso-Occlusive Crisis Associated With Sickle Cell Disease Drug Market. The report provides an in-depth anatomy of the market trends affecting its growth.
· Vinblastinesulphate (CAS 143–67–9) Market is forecasted to value over USD xx million by 2027 end at a CAGR of over x% during the forecast period 2020 to 2027. FutureWise Market Research has illustrated a report that provides an in-depth anatomy of the market trends affecting its growth. Moreover, it includes intricate insights on profitability graph, Vinblastinesulphate (CAS 143–67–9) market share, SWOT analysis and geographical augmentation of this business.
Objectives of the Study:
· To offer report with an entire analysis on the Infant Radiant Warmers Market By Product Type, By Application, and By Region
· To cater comprehensive data and data-points on factors impacting the expansion of the market (drivers, opportunities, and industry-specific restraints)
· To analyze and forecast micro-markets and additionally the scope of the market
· To predict the market forecast, size and share, in key regions — North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and rest of the world
· To record and evaluate competitive landscape — product launches, mergers and expansions, and technological advancements within the market
Table of Content:
1. Market Introduction and Overview
2. Market Scope, Trends and Competitive Landscape
3. Market Segmentation
4. Regional Analysis
5. Key Market Players
6. Global and Regional Market Share
7. Covid-19 Impact
8. Key Takeaways and Data Points
Some of the key queries addressed in this report are:
1. Key factors influencing the market growth?
2. Anticipated growth-rate of the market throughout the forecast period?
3. Market size value in 2020?
4. What is the expected market size by 2027?
5. Which region holds the biggest market share?
Flexible Delivery Model:
We have a flexible delivery model where you’ll be able to suggest changes within the scope/table of content on the basis of your requirement
Free customization services on the acquisition of any license Type of report.
You can directly share your customization requests to: [email protected]
FutureWise Research:
Contact Person: Vinay T.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: UK: +44 1416289353 | US: +1 3477094931 | https://medium.com/@marketinsight92/infant-radiant-warmers-market-trends-and-forecast-4ddc3779148a | ['Market Insight'] | 2021-12-30 09:33:13.856000+00:00 | ['Market Research Reports', 'Market Research', 'Market Report', 'Market Anlysis', 'Infant Radiant Warmer'] |
A pointless journey | How to think? When the limits of our thoughts are a subject for thought itself: with what strategy can one construct thoughts? There were times in the past when the context was determined and the motivation flowed freely. Perhaps one should recall (or even seek out) these contexts? Because these contexts themselves suggest a strategy — at least to those who fetishise a calm and honest reflection.
The limits of our thoughts (that were once quite unthought…) always seem to eventually become apparent. Simply by the natural action of a healthy existence the ultimate regions of conciousness get a closer look. How silly they seem now? Perhaps worse: how frequently is the soul longing for a goal and a bit of clarity amonst the darkness actually drawn into a space too bright and simply put: too monotonous? Even worse when there is another keen to share their light… How lucky we are then that life presents us with the ultimate darkness? A setting that expands at a rate proportional to its size. Our little lantern curious in the exponential expanse.
If only I could learn to treat this context in the same manner as the contexts of my youth. If only I could become calm, concentrated and focused on something that mattered. | https://medium.com/@findingtheblackcat/a-pointless-journey-69c9ac99401e | [] | 2020-09-04 04:38:10.712000+00:00 | ['Journal', 'Diary'] |
The Corridor | 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/chalkboard/the-corridor-5a90f530fb7e | ['Fọlábòmí Àmọ Ó'] | 2020-11-19 17:28:48.006000+00:00 | ['One Line', 'Fear', 'Darkness', 'Monsters', 'Poetry'] |
Values; Junk vs Core | Over the years I’ve become incredibly aware that one of the main reasons my clients reach out to me is because they feel out of alignment and unsure about which decisions are right for them, their career, or their future.
Through their lives they have become transfixed on what they believed would make them happy, chasing the so-called ‘happiness dream’ of; “If I do X, I’ll then be happy.” Holding strong opinions and looking towards what their next step will be to achieve these ‘goals’.
However, like with most growth, there comes a time where we may feel as if we have achieved everything we set out to achieve, yet, on the inside, we feel restless, insecure, unhappy and sometimes even lost and depressed.
Questioning ourselves;
What’s next?
Why is this important to me?
Is this really what I’m doing it for?
Why am I not more confident, fulfilled and happy?
What will other people think, if I…?
These questions often arise when we have abandoned our values in an attempt to serve ourselves gratification through external sources, whilst conforming to the norms and expectations of those we — unknowingly — crave approval from.
Now, I am not here to make you feel bad or to highlight that you have been doing it ‘all wrong’. I’m merely here to provide solace in knowing that in fact — the reason you may feel out of alignment on this so-called ‘path’ to success, is due to living through a set of values, which are not your own.
Our values are often reflected through childhood and upbringing by our parents, teachers, peers and society in general, and are later encouraged by our culture and reinforced through our life experiences. The values that we choose to live by highlight what we stand for, whilst also guiding our behaviours, decisions and actions. They are the measuring sticks by which we determine what is a successful and meaningful life.
If somebody was watching your day-to-day behaviours, would they be able to see what you stand for?
Our core values determine how we show up in life. People that have developed the capacity to live in alignment with their values are more clear, bold and consistent in their decisions and feel confident setting boundaries for anything that’s in conflict with them, which allows them to build and thrive, as they live a rich and meaningful life.
However, when we are out of alignment with our core values, we risk abandoning our authenticity and needs in an effort to conform to the standards and expectations of our environment, leading to; internal tension, destructive habits and regressive behaviour.
There is a harsh realisation in our developing world that both depression and anxiety are on the rise. Numerous studies have come to the conclusion that depression is not only caused by our biology, there is now growing evidence confirming the negative impact of the way we live our personal and professional lives. Lives build upon values that neglect our psychological needs.
If you aren’t familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, he identified the needs as follows:
Physiological (air, water, food, homeostasis, sex).
Safety (shelter, clothes, routine, familiarity)
Belonging and love (affection; connection to family, friends, and colleagues)
Esteem (self-respect and respect from others, high evaluation of oneself, achievement, reputation/prestige)
Self-actualization (self-growth, actualizing one’s innate potential)
In accordance with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we as humans have both physical and psychological needs that need to be met in order to feel safe, loved, respected and eventually, to move up the pyramid towards self-actualisation (to feel whole and fulfilled!).
All of the needs below self-actualization are basic needs. Maslow also called these basic needs neurotic needs because if we’re focused on meeting these needs, we’re operating from a place of lack and separation. From the fear of not having, being or doing enough.
We don’t feel ourselves. We can’t operate from a calm, quiet centre. We can’t actualize your innate potential.
Regardless of how evolved or successful you are, we all share the same needs. These needs are our birthright as human beings and when something blocks or challenges these inalienable rights, we begin to exhibit irrational, impulsive and often selfish behaviour.
One of the main challenges in meeting these basic needs is that many of us have never learned to meet our deep-rooted psychological needs in a healthy and productive manner. As a result of social conditioning, and through the people that serve as our role-models, we have developed beliefs and values that drive us further away from our core. Leaving us; chasing achievement, money, degrees and titles, hoping to ‘earn’ the permission to live on our own terms, to express our authenticity, explore our unique potential, and eventually, to live more wholeheartedly.
Breaking Free From Junk Values
Every day you have the choice of how you spend your time and where you direct your energy. You define in your mind what makes a successful day or life, however, each one of our definitions of success can look different to the next, and often when we don’t consciously decide what we want, we’ll rely on a pre-programmed definition (which may not align with our own).
For example; as Mark Manson states
“If our definition of success is horrific — like, say, world domination and slaughtering millions — then working harder, setting and achieving goals, and disciplining our minds all become a bad thing.”
I quote this because I too have been in a position, where I — a well-intended and intelligent guy — lived out of alignment, chasing the ‘Amsterdam Dream’, placing me in a position where I had to abandon my authenticity and neglect my needs, for the sake of outward successes and the approval of others. My definition of success was driven by values such as; power, popularity, money and recognition.
It was a vicious cycle and the more I drove myself towards these values, the greater the lack of love, approval and belonging I experienced on the inside.
It was only until I lost almost 2 years of my life due to a devastating breakdown of health that I realised I had been relying on a set of junk values that neglected my psychological needs. Confronting? Yes, to say the least.
How could I have chased the ‘wrong thing’ for over twenty-seven-years?
Who taught me neglecting my psychological needs was ‘normal’?
Where did I learn to abandon my authenticity in an effort to please others?
Why was it so important to be liked and accepted by others?
Why did I mistake love for admiration?
Why didn’t I say NO.
And why, for god sake, didn’t I learn about this in school?
Ever since my recovery, my mission has been to help people — including myself — rethink and unlearn the behaviours, beliefs and attitudes that are separating them from becoming what we have the potential to be. As humans, leaders, partners and parents.
In order to reclaim my power, I had to rethink my values, reveal the deeper motivation behind them and unlearn the transfixed beliefs about would make me successful at work and happy in life.
After integrating my core values, it would be an understatement to say that it has allowed me to:
Trust my intuition without the need to explain or justify myself.
Set appropriate boundaries without feeling guilty for enforcing them.
Ask for what I truly need without feeling ashamed for being needy.
Make decisions that are aligned with my integrity and values.
Explore, develop and shamelessly express my innate potential.
Establish mature, healthy and fulfilling relationships.
Create an extraordinary life on my own terms.
Perform from a place of authenticity and wholeness.
Our values are extensions of ourselves, they pre-determine how we show up in life. This can therefore create tension when we are out of alignment, highlighting the disconnect between who we are now and where we truly want to be. When we realise that we don’t connect with our own values, it often means we are disconnected from ourselves. Consequences of this can be; negative self-talk, self-betrayal, anxiety, and depression.
A great way to look at values that do not serve us is through Johan Hari’s principle in his book Lost Connections, when he compares our disconnected values to Junk Food, stating that junk food has taken over our diets and made us physically sick similar to how junk values have taken over our minds, making us mentally sick.
Professor Tim Kasser further enhances this sentiment by outlining that the more we believe we can buy and display a new way our of sadness into a supposed ‘good life’, the more it will increase our own psychological decline.
We have been trained to look for happiness in all the wrong places; praise for success, status, money, followers, titles, degrees and our looks (the list is endless!). Unless we connect back to our core, to what we truly value, we will continue on a downwards spiral, looking for things in all the wrong places.
Moving Forward From A Place Of Authenticity
Any change in yourself will reflect within your values, but the key is to not configure your values around external sources but shift towards internal rewards that are meaningful to you. One of the best ways to rediscover your values is through exploring the areas of your life where you experience (inner)conflict, feel dissatisfied, find yourself complaining or maybe even projecting your excuses onto the outside world.
It can be hard to acknowledge that you’re responsible for your own circumstances, including the toxic and/or harmful behaviours of others that you’ve been tolerating, however, outward projection (blaming the outside world) or downplaying the consequences will not benefit you in reclaiming your authenticity.
Questions that can help you are;
Where do I experience (inner) conflict in my life?
How does it make me feel?
What may cause these feelings?
What are these feelings telling me?
Why is this important to me?
What value is being suppressed?
There is a saying in psychology that we have to take responsibility for what we’re not responsible for. This means that we’re not responsible (as no infant is) for what happened to us to stunt us and fixate us in our early years when our personalities and beliefs were formed. Yet it’s only when we take responsibility for our current circumstances and admit what it is that we are up against that we can begin to take appropriate action.
Action that will be life-changing. For yourself, (your children) and others.
Through my own experience and coaching hundreds of individuals, I’ve learned that life can be lived in a different way, an extraordinary way. A way that allows us to live up to our fullest potential, that empowers us to achieve our goals whilst feeling connected and alive in the present moment. A way that helps us find contentment and peace, brings us the freedom to be spontaneous and make the most out of our individual journeys.
However, this requires us to break free from the junk values that choke our ability to live authentically.
It was Ralph Emmerson who stated;
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
And this has never resonated more. In fact, freeing myself from the burden of conformity has been the hardest challenge I’ve overcome. Harder than the loss, failure and grief I’ve dealt with.
In our 24/7/365 hustle culture knowing your values is often to be considered as a soft skill, which I agree to be true. Getting to know our values may take 90% of the time, but only 10% of the effort. The real challenge, the other 90% of the effort, is in reclaiming our authenticity through making the decisions that are aligned with our integrity and values.
When I take my clients through the process of designing their value system, they often come to the realisation that their choices have been motivated by a repressed internal desire for love, approval or safety, finding themselves stuck in a vicious cycle of self-betrayal — paralysed.
As they become more conscious, they cannot help but face the behavioural patterns that are driving them apart from their core. Behavioural patterns that often show up are:
Discomfort saying No to other peoples requests.
Difficulty recognizing and expressing their boundaries.
Putting other peoples needs and expectations first.
Setting impossibly high standards and goals.
Overpromising on commitments.
Difficulty remaining authentic in togetherness with others.
Rationalizing and downplaying symptoms of stress or anxiety.
Moving forward from a place of authenticity requires resolving the beliefs and emotional wounds that are at the root of these behavioural patterns. This can feel intimidating and out of our depths, but with every small step forward, you are moving forward from a place of authenticity.
Stepping Into Growth
A lot of information to digest. The emotions that arise during this process are not a malfunction or there for you to beat yourself up. They are a signal for you to begin your journey in articulating how you truly want to show up in your life, to rediscover what matters to you and to start making the decisions that are aligned with your integrity and values.
I invite you to step forward into growth, to explore the situations &/or relationships where you feel out of alignment and to pull back the curtains on your suppressed values. To redefine what’s most important in your life? To define, beyond your basic human needs, what you must have in your life to experience fulfilment?
It’s the antidote to conformity. The centrepiece to becoming what we have the potential to be. And the solution to a better and more united world.
Now go out and explore what’s most important in your life? Discover Beyond your basic human needs, what must you have in your life to experience fulfilment?
Creative self-expression? A strong level of health and vitality? A sense of excitement and adventure? Surrounded by beauty? Always learning?
What are the personal values you must honour or a part of your withers?
And if you’re still with me, I would like to thank you for your time and attention. My hopes are that this article has inspired you to move forward from a place of authenticity and wholeness.
Best wishes,
Jord Cuiper
Footnote:
If you have any questions in regards to this article, feel free to reach out to me. Furthermore, I’m just a guy sharing his perspective based on my own experiences, along with the studies and work of believable professionals in the industry. I fully expect that I have made a mistake somewhere in this article, in referencing an idea or tool to the wrong person or not at all. I’ve no intention of taking false credits, so if there’s anything not aligned regarding referencing, please email me at [email protected] | https://medium.com/@jord-73116/values-junk-vs-core-73ae69e583b3 | ['Jord Cuiper'] | 2021-03-22 08:46:19.334000+00:00 | ['Personal Development', 'Authenticity', 'Self Actualization', 'Values Based Leadership', 'Values'] |
Top 50 Interview Question on SQL with Answer | SQL Interview Questions
Here, we will talk about mostly asked Interview Question on SQL with Answer. Now in the era of 2.5 quintillion bytes of data being generated every day plays a crucial role in decision-making for business operation. This quite essentially makes up handle data and databases and gives us the need to use the database management system. With various kinds of database management systems present in the market nowadays. The relational database management system is one of the most popular systems available. Now, this type of database management system uses a structure that allows the users to identify and access data in relation to another piece of data in the database. And SQL is the core of a relational database, which is used for accessing and managing the database. So definitely knowing SQL will open the doors for you to become a database administrator.
So guys if you are preparing for interviews to become a database administrator than SQL is one of the important skills that you need to master in. And with the note of this let’s just get started with the interview question on SQL. So the first question that we have is.
1. What are the different subsets of SQL?
Well, the different subsets of SQL are mainly the Data Definition Language (DDL), Data Manipulation Language (DML), (DCL) Data Control Language, and (TCL) Transaction Control Language.
Now coming to the Data Definition Language. This set of language consists of the commands that can be used to define the database schema. So whenever you want to define the database schema, you can use the commands from this particular language.
Coming to the Data Manipulation Language. The manipulation language consists of all the commands that deal with the manipulation of data presented in the database. So for example, if you have n number of tables and you want to manipulate the data and present in those tables, then you use data manipulation commands.
Coming to the Data Control Language. The data control language includes the commands which deal with the right permissions and other controls of the database systems. So for example, you work for an Enterprise and the Enterprise has a database. Now, obviously all the employees will not have access to the database right. So the data control language mainly deals with how you give the user permissions to access the database.
Now coming to the last type of language that is the Transaction Control Language. This basically includes the commands which mainly deal with the transaction of the database whenever you want to roll back or you want to perform any various kind of transactions, then you use the set of commands from this language, right?
So as I said there are mainly four different subsets of sequels that you should mention that is the data definition language, the data manipulation language, the data control language, and the transaction control language.
Now moving on to our next interview question on SQL.
2. What is the difference between DELETE and TRUNCATE statements?
So I’ll start by explaining to you what is the delete command? Well, the delete command is basically used to delete a row in the table. So you can also roll back data after using the delete statement. And it is a data manipulation command.
Coming to the truncate statement, The truncate statement is basically used to delete all the rows from a table and you can not roll back the data. This is a DDL (Data Definition Language) command and it is faster than the delete command.
So anyone asks you the difference between the delete and the truncate statements don’t forget to mention that you know, the truncate statement is definitely faster than the delete statement. And the truncate statement is from the data definition family and the delete statement is the data manipulation family.
From the right now moving on to our next interview question on SQL.
3. What do you mean by Database Management Systems and what are the different types of it?
So now if I have to define the database management system for you, then a database management system is a software application that interacts with the user’s applications and the database itself to capture and analyze the data. And the data stored in a database can be modified retrieved and deleted and can be of any type like the strings number images etc. So you can basically store any kind of data.
Not different kinds of database management systems are the hierarchical the relational the network and the object-oriented database management systems. The talking about the hierarchical database management systems. This type of database management system has a style of predecessor and successive type of relationship. So it has a structure similar to that of a tree. While in the nodes represent the records and the branches of the tree represent the fields.
Coming to the relational database management system. This type of database management system uses a structure that allows the user to identify and access data in relation to another piece of data in the database. The Network database management system supports many to many relations. Where in multiple member records can be linked and the object-oriented database management systems use a small individual software called objects and each object contain a piece of data and instructions for the actions to be done with the data.
So now moving on to our next interview question on SQL.
4. What do you mean by a table and a field in SQL?
So now the answer to this question is quite simple at a Basically refers to a collection of data in an organized manner in forms of rows and columns. And the field refers to the number of columns in the table. if you have to explain to anybody what table and field mean so basically in SQL, you have a database and the database consists of n number of tables, right? So that is basically a table and the tables have few column names, right? And the column names are basically the feet.
So you can explain with an example as you can see below.
I have an employee details table into which the employee details table is a table and the column names in his particular table are the fields.
Now moving on to our next interview question on SQL.
5. What are joins in SQL?
Now, this is one of the most popular questions that is generally asked in your interview question on SQL. So basically a join clause is used to define to combine rows from two or more tables based on related columns between them. It is used to merge two tables or related data from there and there are mainly four types of joins in SQL. That is Inner Join, the Full Join, the Left Join, and the Right Join.
Now moving on to our next interview question on SQL.
Visit this link to read remaining questions.
https://blog.sikshasetu.com/top-50-interview-question-on-sql/ | https://medium.com/@sumant-jha26/top-50-interview-question-on-sql-with-answer-c9c0d09119f5 | ['Sumant Jha'] | 2020-12-22 14:08:38.877000+00:00 | ['Interview Questions', 'Database Administration', 'Sql Server', 'Sql', 'Database'] |
Why You Should Give Your Team Lots Of Equity | “Would you mind telling me your stock option plan at Maxim?” Carlos, the VP HR at Micrel asked me. “I want to do some benchmarking.” I had just joined the company as General Manager of one of three divisions the company had, so I was glad to help.
I walked Carlos through the grants I received every year I was at Maxim. There were 11 years of stock option grants. After I finished telling Carlos the grants I received, he said to me, “Is this really true?”
Picture: Depositphotos
“Yes, it is,” I said.
“That’s very generous,” Carlos said to me.
“Well, I’m hoping Micrel will be equally generous with granting options,” I said.
Carlos was dead silent.
I had a lot of issues I needed to solve at that point in time because the division I inherited was a complete disaster. Fighting for stock options for my team, quite frankly, was not at the top of my list of issues.
If you want to retain your team, then you’ll grant them generous amounts of stock options.
As I said, I had a lot of issues I had to deal with to get this division turned around. Morale sucked. The product strategy was a disaster. The marketing strategy was even worse.
The good news was these issues were easy to fix. Once I got my bearings, I was able to focus on the personnel issues the division had.
It was clear to me that most of the people I inherited would have to go. But there were some people were keepers.
There was Steve who I had worked with previously at Maxim. Steve was someone who had done great work previously with me, and I knew I could count on him.
I wanted to promote Steve from manager to director. I told Carlos I wanted to increase Steve’s options.
“We have an evergreen plan,” Carlos said to me.
“That’s great,” I said. “How can we make it work for Steve?”
“Here’s how it works,” he said. “We look at the percentage ownership of each employee for the level they are at. For Steve, he should be getting 500 shares a year at his new level after his initial grant expires.”
“What was Steve’s initial grant?” I asked Carlos.
“It was 2,500 shares per year for four years.”
I started laughing. “And you think this is a good deal?”
“It’s a great deal,” Carlos repeated. “He’s getting a larger percentage ownership than he would at Maxim.”
You need to understand that dilution is a good thing, not a bad thing.
“Who cares!” I said, raising my voice. “Maxim and Micrel are public companies. Maxim is 10 times the size of Micrel. Percentage ownership is irrelevant. It’s the value of the stock that matters!”
Carlos just stared at me, dumbfounded.
“He’s (Steve) gonna leave,” I said. “Let me ask you this. How long does the average employee stay at Micrel?”
“Four years,” Carlos answered quickly.
“I wonder why?” I said sarcastically. “You don’t think there’s a correlation between employee’s stock falling off a cliff and when they leave?”
“He (the CEO) won’t change how he does things,” Carlos answered. “He thinks this is a great deal for employees.”
“He’s a fool,” I said. “There’s no financial incentive to stick around here.
“Do you want to know how long employees stick around at Maxim?” Before Carlos could answer, I answered for him. “The average employee works at Maxim for at least ten years!”
Again Carlos looked dumbfounded.
“I told you this when I joined the company! Here’s the difference between what a Maxim employee and a Micrel employee would get!” Then I drew something like this:
“That can’t be true!” Carlos said.
I sighed very deeply, and I tried to calm myself down. I stood up, and I said as softly as I could. “Carlos, I want Micrel to win. If you guys don’t want to face reality, that’s your problem. But I guarantee you the reason employees are leaving after four years is because there’s no financial incentive to stay.”
Then I walked out of Carlos’ office.
I mentally prepared myself that I would be losing my team after four years. And I realized that I wouldn’t likely be at Micrel for more than four years either.
You either get it or you don’t get it regarding stock options.
I’ve never met him, but ex-Benchmark Capital founder, Andy Rachleff, seems like a pretty smart person to me. He noticed a common thread amongst his successful startup portfolio companies.
Rachleff noticed the startups that had a generous evergreen plan increased employee retention from an average of 2 to 3 years to significantly longer. Rachleff wrote:
“Offering a transparent, consistent and fair program of equity grants that employees can build into their long-term expectations. As a result, not only do you avoid cliffs, but you also tie both long-term tenure and contribution to their ownership stake. The best part is that, as your company grows, you always grant stock in proportion to what is fair today rather than in proportion to their original grant.” Andy Rachleff
Rachleff’s experience with a large number of startup portfolio companies matches my Maxim experience. Stock options matter. And, if you’re an evolved CEO, then you realize the tremendous power a well thought out stock option plan can have.
Maxim was not an easy place to work at. The expectations were sky-high, and Jack Gifford, Maxim’s CEO, was no shrinking violet. He was tough to please.
One of Gifford’s favorite sayings was, “Everyone is motivated by fear and greed.” From personal experience, I know Gifford certainly understood how to put the fear of god into you.
However, Gifford equally understood why it was important for everyone to share in the company’s success. The evergreen program Maxim had (similar to Rachleff’s portfolio companies) kept his team in place.
Compare that to a similar company, Micrel, that didn’t have a generous evergreen program. The team left as soon as their options expired.
The choice is yours which type of company, and stock option plan, you want to have.
For more, read: https://www.brettjfox.com/how-much-equity-do-your-employees-deserve | https://brett-j-fox.medium.com/why-you-should-give-your-team-lots-of-equity-b41c05be52b1 | ['Brett Fox'] | 2020-06-25 22:30:11.065000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Leadership', 'Management', 'Venture Capital'] |
Explanatory Model Analysis with modelStudio | Version 0.2.1 of the modelStudio package reached CRAN this week. Let me shortly overview coolest new features (list of all changes).
Short reminder: The modelStudio package creates an interactive serverless D3.js dashboard for exploration of predictive models, which is based on principles of Explanatory Model Analysis. With modelStudio interface, one can juxtapose instance-level model explanations (Break Down, Shapley values and Ceteris Paribus profiles), dataset-level model explanations (Partial Dependence Plots, Feature Importance, Accumulated Local Effects Plot) and data exploration plots (histogram and scatterplots). Examples below use a GBM model trained on the kaggle FIFA 19 dataset to predict player’s value based on selected 40 player’s characteristics. Play with the live demo here.
New plots for EDA
There are two new plots in modelStudio for exploratory data analysis: Target vs Feature and Average Target vs Feature (useful for classification problems). They are especially helpful when examining Partial Dependence profiles. Both show the relation between target and a selected feature, but first shows the raw relation in the data, while the latter shows a relationship learned by a model.
Better defaults
Some defaults changed in version v0.2.1 to improve the general usability.
If no new instances are provided for local explanations, then by default, a small sample is taken at random from the training data.
When modelStudio is plotted, by default the first panel is set to a Break Down plot while the second panel is clicked. This saves 3 clicks!
All plots for categorical variables now have the same order of levels.
Verbose and stable calculations
modelStudio is serverless, so all computations need to be done in advance, which may take some time. By default, the whole process is more verbose, shows a progress bar and information about the current calculations.
The try-catch blocks reassure that even if some parts fail, the rest will finish and plots will show up in the dashboard.
Feature importance plots now have boxplots that show how stable are calculations for individual variables.
Easy to create
The code chunk below creates a random forest model for the apartments dataset and then creates a modelStudio dashboard.
library(DALEX)
library(randomForest)
model <- randomForest(m2.price ~., data = apartments)
explainer <- explain(model, data = apartments[,-1], y = apartments[,1]) library(modelStudio)
modelStudio(explainer)
Learn more
Find more information in the modelStudio GitHub repo. | https://medium.com/@ModelOriented/explanatory-model-analysis-with-modelstudio-f52266933cf | ['Przemyslaw Biecek'] | 2020-01-22 08:34:30.700000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Model Visualisation', 'D3js', 'Model Exploration', 'Xai'] |
Predictive Maintenance of Turbofan Engine | Predictive maintenance is very important for manufacturers as well as the maintainers, which lowers maintenance cost, extend equipment life, reduce downtime and improve production quality by addressing problems before they cause equipment failures.
“Predictive maintenance techniques are designed to help determine the condition of in-service equipment in order to estimate when maintenance should be performed” — source Wikipedia
In this post, I would like to demonstrate that the use of RNN(Recurrent Neural Network)/LSTM(Long Short Term Memory) architecture is not only more accurate but it performs better in classifying the results accurately when compared to the previous CNN (Convolution Neural Network) approach, written by Marco Cerliani (read here).
Dataset
This post uses the C-MAPSS dataset for the predictive maintenance of the Turbofan Engine. Here the challenge is to determine the Remaining Useful Life (RUL) until next fault that occur in the engine.
The dataset can be found (here), here’s a brief on the dataset,
“The engine is operating normally at the start of each time series, and develops a fault at some point during the series. In the training set, the fault grows in magnitude until system failure. In the test set, the time series ends some time prior to system failure.
The following are the conditions of the engine that are used in the training of the model
Train trjectories: 100
Test trajectories: 100
Conditions: ONE (Sea Level)
Fault Modes: ONE (HPC Degradation)
Understanding the Dataset
Once we load the dataset, we obtain the time series data of 100 engines that contains the operational settings and sensor readings of each 100 engines with different senarios where the fault occurs and a total of 20631 training examples. To illustrate, below are the first 5 training examples of our training dataset.
train_df.head()
Fig 1 : Training Data
To further understand the data given, (see Fig 2) describes that for a given engine how many cycles are left before the next fault occurs.
Example 1 : Engine id number 69 (farthest left) approximately has 360 cycles remaining before fault.
Example 2 : Engine id number 39 (farthest right) approximately has 110 cycles remaining before fault.
train_df.id.value_counts().plot.bar()
Fig 2: Engine with their respective Remaining Useful Cycles until fault
The following (Fig3 and Fig 4) are time series data for engine whose id is 69,
engine_id = train_df[train_df['id'] == 69] ax1 = engine_id[train_df.columns[2:]].plot(subplots=True, sharex=True, figsize=(20,30))
Fig 3: Time series readings of Operational setting 1,2 and 3 and sensors reading of s2 up until s7
Fig 4: Time series readings for the sensors s8 up until s20
*The images (fig2, fig 3 and fig4) are obtained by using the source code from GitHub Notebook (here), by Marco Cerliani.
Data preprocessing
Data preprocessing is the most important step towards training any neural network. For neural networks like RNN (Recurrent Neural Network), the network is very sensitive to the input data and the data needs to be in range of -1 to 1 or 0 to 1. This range i.e, -1 to 1 or 0 to 1, is usually because of the tanh (see Fig 5) is the activation function accompanied in the hidden layers of the network. Thus, the data must be normalized before the training of the model.
Fig 5: tanh function from MathWorks Documentation
Using the MinMaxScaler function provided by sklearn’s preprocessing library we normalize our training data in the scale ranging in 0 to 1, although, theoritcally we could normalize and experiment our data to -1 to 1. However, this post only demostrates scaling of data in the range in 0 to 1.
from sklearn.preprocessing import MinMaxScaler sc = MinMaxScaler(feature_range=(0,1))
train_df[train_df.columns[2:26]] = sc.fit_transform(train_df[ train_df.columns[2:26]])
train_df = train_df.dropna(axis=1)
The reason of using the columns numbers from 2 to 26(see Fig1), is that we take the operational setting1 (as column number 2) , setting2, setting3, sensor 1 up until sensor 21 (column 25), and python range doesn’t take in account of the upper limit, hence the upper limit 26. For illustration, here’s first 5 training examples after the normalization of training data (fig 6).
Fig 6 : Normalized data of the training set
Once we have our data normalized, we employ a classification approach in order to predict RUL. We do this by adding new labels for our classifcation approach onto our dataset by the following.
“following source code is used : from Github”
w1 = 45
w0 = 15 train_df['class1'] = np.where(train_df['RUL'] <= w1, 1, 0 )
train_df['class2'] = train_df['class1']
train_df.loc[train_df['RUL'] <= w0, 'class2'] = 2
This snippet of code now creates labels(see fig7) for our classification problem and the classifcation approcah is as follows,
label 0 : when 45+ cycles are left until fault. label 1 : when cycles between 16 and 45 are left until fault. label 2 : when cycles between 0 and 15 are left until fault.
Fig 7 : addition of labels
Great! Now we need to further prepare our data inorder for the neural network to efficiently process the time series data, we do this by specifying the time step size(or window size). Neural network such as RNN or CNN, require the input data to be in 3-Dimensional form. Hence we now need to transorm our 2-Dimensional data to 3-Dimensional data.
To demonstrate this process of transformation (see Fig8), we simple run through the time series data by specifying the time step size(window size). This process is also known as Sliding Window technique.
Fig 8 : Sliding window technique from Springer Link
For our time series data, we use the Sliding Window technique for all of the sensors and operating settings by specifying the time steps(or window size) as 50, although, the time steps size can be set arbitary. Following code snippet transforms our 2-Dimensional to a 3-Dimensional data(numpy pandas array)of size 15631x50x17, which is optimum for input to the neural network.
“following source code is modified : from Github”
time_steps = 50 def gen_sequence(id_df): data_matrix = id_df.iloc[2:26]
num_elements = data_matrix.shape[0] for start, stop in zip(range(0, num_elements-time_steps), range(time_steps, num_elements)):
yield data_matrix[start:stop, :] def gen_labels(id_df, label): data_matrix = id_df[label].values
num_elements = data_matrix.shape[0] return data_matrix[time_steps:num_elements, :] x_train, y_train = [], []
for engine_id in train_df.id.unique():
for sequence in gen_sequence(train_df[train_df.id==engine_id]):
x_train.append(sequence)
for label in gen_labels(train_df[train_df.id==engine_id['label2']):
y_train.append(label) x_train = np.asarray(x_train)
y_train = np.asarray(y_train).reshape(-1,1)
*For more further reading on time series data, please read the article (here).
Deep Learning Model
RNN/LSTM has been best proven for handling time series data and there are plenty of articles on the web demonstrating the effectiveness on broad applications. Hence, we employ the RNN/LSTM architecture.
Now since our data is ready and is in 3-Dimensional form, we can now define the RNN/LSTM neural network architecture which comprises of 2 hidden layers and each hidden layer having activation function of tanh (see fig5) followed by a layer of softmax classifier.
model = Sequential() #input model.add(LSTM(units=50, return_sequences='true', activation='tanh',
input_shape = (x_train.shape[1], x_train.shape[2])) )
model.add(Dropout(0.2)) #hidden layer 1
model.add(LSTM(units=60, return_sequences='true',activation='tanh'))
model.add(Dropout(0.2)) #hidden layer 2
model.add(LSTM(units=60, activation='tanh'))
model.add(Dropout(0.2)) #output
model.add(Dense(units=3,activation='softmax'))
model.compile(loss='categorical_crossentropy', optimizer='adam', metrics=['accuracy']) print(model.summary())
Here’s an output of the model summary(see fig 9).
Fig 9: Model Architecture
Training the RNN/LSTM Model
The RNN/LSTM model is been trained for a total of 30 epochs, although I’ve tried to train the model for 40 epochs, and the model was seen to be overfitting.
history = model.fit(x_train, y_train,batch_size=32, epochs=30)
Note : The ‘history’ variable is used to record the necessary parameters such as loss and accuracy accuracy of the model during the train.
The accuracy is obtained by using the keras.evaluate() function, and obtained an overall accuracy of close to 94% (see Fig 10).
model.evaluate(x_test, y_test, verbose=2)
The following code presents on how the accuracy and the loss is been plotted.
plt.subplot(211)
plt.plot(history.history['accuracy'])
plt.title('model accuracy')
plt.ylabel('accuracy')
plt.xlabel('epoch')
plt.legend(['accuracy'], loc='upper left')
Here’s an output of the models accuracy, obtaining about 94% accuracy when compared to 79% accuracy. Already we see an improvement over the previous approach.
Fig 10 : Model’s Accuracy
We obtain loss of the model as 0.12, which is better than the CNN approach.
Fig 11 : Model’s overall loss
Here’s the confusion matrix (see Fig 12) that offers a much deeper look at how the model actually performs in classifying.
cnf_matrix = confusion_matrix(np.where(y_test != 0)[1], model.predict_classes(x_test)) plt.figure(figsize=(7,7)) plot_confusion_matrix(cnf_matrix, classes=np.unique(np.where(y_test != 0)[1]), title="Confusion matrix") plt.show()
*Note : the function- confusion_matrix() is found on sklearn documentation
Fig 12 : from sklearn documentation
Conclusion
In this post we’ve seen an alternative approach on how solve the Predictive Maintenance problem by using RNN/LSTM neural network architecture and proves to be better than the previous CNN approach.
References | https://towardsdatascience.com/predictive-maintenance-of-turbofan-engine-64911e39c367 | ['Deepak Honakeri'] | 2020-06-11 16:55:04.896000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Deep Learning', 'Predictive Analytics', 'Towards Data Science'] |
Blood and Barbed Wire | Initial meeting
Despite the informality of working on the floor of my home office, I felt that I should kick off the meeting with some semi-professional expectation-setting; I let him know that my main goal was to put together visuals that would help him more effectively tell his story when seeing a new GI doctor. I also told him I was going to ask a lot of questions and he could opt out if he didn’t want to talk about something. (That seems important when crossing boundaries between friendship and informal counseling.)
He’d shown up to my house with a 4-page, single spaced document in which he had written down the things he wanted to say — symptom descriptions, tests he’d had, diets and interventions he’d tried, family history, and more. The narrative contained a lot of useful information, but I could see that it could be difficult for a doctor to absorb in a short amount of time.
Timeline sketch
We started with a timeline of events. I had taped together four 11x17 pages and drawn a line to represent his whole life. Using his prepared narrative, we hunched over the timeline and noted key events; as we worked, he also remembered things that were not in his document.
Some detail from the initial timeline
Feeling good/bad
Next I left the room and gave him some materials to put together a picture of what his body feels like when he’s feeling good and feeling bad. I’d prepared a sheet of icons that he could cut out and tape to the body shape, or he could simply draw on it. He took about 10 minutes to do this.
When I came back, I was extremely impressed by what he had put together. I asked him to talk me through it, and as he did I wrote down quotes along the side of the image.
Feeling bad:
“Like barbed wire making its way through my intestines”
Feeling good:
At this point we had a timeline, drawings of what ‘feeling good’ and ‘feeling bad’ look like, and a list of questions and theories that had come up along the way.
Key problem
Aside from not getting any answers or solid reasoning for his symptoms, my friend’s biggest frustration was that new doctors kept wanting to have him try the same treatments, even though he was sure they were not helping. We decided to put together a matrix showing what ‘helps’ and ‘does not help’ along with any supporting evidence. | https://medium.com/pictal-health/blood-barbed-wire-cfef600bfdd4 | ['Katie Mccurdy'] | 2018-04-18 18:19:55.700000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Visualization', 'Data', 'Healthcare', 'UX'] |
The fiddler fiddles on about stolen elections while the country burns under the rage of the… | The fiddler fiddles on about stolen elections while the country burns under the rage of the COVID-19 infections.
A new insidious viral infection not of flesh or blood but a cyber-attack with ill intentions, yet he continues to stroke his off-key notes, deaf to the outcry from across the land. Even his former allies, he does withstand playing on with a steady hand.
Does he not realize his end is nigh? Another’s time to step on high. The fiddler refuses a new song. Only the song in which he is the hero to his following throng. Will he leave a trail of devastation in his wake, all because to him, all that is contrary is fake.
We look back through the portals of time to wonder, “Is this fiddler a reincarnation of another?”
Photo by Dominik Scythe on Unsplash
Do you need a break from the negativity of the news? Or, you prefer satire, humor, or fiction? The Whole Toad News Service is found at https://donfeazelle.medium.com/ | https://medium.com/everything-shortform/the-fiddler-fiddles-on-about-stolen-elections-while-the-country-burns-under-the-rage-of-the-2fb4d55d259d | ['Don Feazelle'] | 2020-12-18 19:48:27.392000+00:00 | ['Cyber Attack Real Time', 'Election 2020', 'Self Centered', 'Narcissism', 'Covid 19'] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.