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Unique Sorting in Solidity using Value Arrays

Unique Sorting in Solidity using Value Arrays This article considers using value arrays to improve sorting in Solidity, the defacto smart contract language for the Ethereum blockchain. Photo by the author Background In my article “Sorting in Solidity without Comparison”, I compared various sorting techniques on Solidity memory arrays. In summary, my conclusion, according to the provided code, data and tests, was that the Unique Sort on dynamic uint memory arrays was most suitable for my particular application. If you need to sort Solidity storage arrays, consider the article “Shadowing Solidity Storage Variables in Memory” which illustrates the best technique. Following my further articles “Value Arrays in Solidity” and “Dynamic Value Arrays in Solidity”, I revisit the Unique Sort algorithm here, to determine whether using value arrays can improve performance further. Discussion A Value Array is simply an array held in a value type, as opposed to a reference array. Solidity runs on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) which has a very large machine word of 256bits (32bytes). It is this latter feature that enables us to consider using Value Arrays. Here is the Unique Sort algorithm from the sorting article above: function unique(uint[] memory data, uint setSize) internal pure { uint length = data.length; bool[] memory set = new bool[](setSize); for (uint i = 0; i < length; i++) { set[data[i]] = true; } uint n = 0; for (uint i = 0; i < setSize; i++) { if (set[i]) { data[n] = i; if (++n >= length) break; } } } This generally sorts unique data using the least gas, according to my measurements of Quick Sort, Insertion Sort, Counting Sort and Unique Sort algorithms on dynamic uint arrays of lengths 10, 13 and 17 elements, whether the code is non-optimised or optimised: Measuring gas cost of different Sorting Algorithms and array lengths The Unique Sort data is represented by the red columns. There are 2 aspects worth considering for improvements in the Unique Sort algorithm. If the data set is small enough (setSize not more than 256 elements), we could possibly use a value array to represent the booleans indicating the presence or absence (the inclusion) of a number in the set. The data is an array of uints, and so we could possibly use a value array to represent the data. Value arrays are great for reducing gas consumption in storage and memory, but will they be helpful when there is a lot of accessing and swapping individual elements? Value Array Representing the Inclusion Set The code is trivially refactored as: function unique(uint[] memory data, uint setSize) internal pure { require(setSize <= 256); uint length = data.length; uint set; for (uint i = 0; i < length; i++) { set |= 1 << data[i]; } uint n = 0; uint mask = 1; for (uint i = 0; i < setSize; i++) { if ((set & mask) != 0) { data[n] = i; if (++n >= length) break; } mask <<= 1; } } I compiled the test harness, described in “Gas Cost of Solidity Functions” and the test code using Solidity Istanbul v0.6.12. And here is the effect on the performance compared with my previous measurements: Measuring gas cost of different Sorting Algorithms and array lengths Quite a helpful change, the Unique Sort function now consumes approximately 20% less gas. Value Array Representing the Data This is a much more complex change, also requiring considerable changes to the test harness. We use a bytes32 type to contain the array values, since that has a compiler facility to read individual bytes using array-style indexing, such as data[i], although we still need to provide a function to set individual bytes: function sortUnique(bytes32 data, uint length, uint setSize) internal pure returns (bytes32) { uint set; for (uint i = 0; i < length; i++) { set |= 1 << uint(uint8(data[i])); } uint n = 0; uint mask = 1; for (uint i = 0; i < setSize; i++) { if ((set & mask) != 0) { data = bytes32lib.set(data, n, byte(uint8(i))); if (++n >= length) break; } mask <<= 1; } return data; } The bytes32lib.set() library function sets the nth byte in the value array. It is provided in the article “Value Arrays in Solidity”. And here is the effect on the performance: Measuring gas cost of different Sorting Algorithms and array lengths Wow! This shows just how much gas those bit-fiddling library functions consume. The modified Unique Sort function is 8 times slower than simple assignment. Conclusions I have provided and measured code for sorting small unique sets of numbers in Solidity bytes32 variables. Yes, we can reduce our gas consumption using a Value Array for the inclusion set. Where our Solidity smart contracts carry out a large number of array accesses, for example during sorting, then the use of the library functions required for Value Arrays is likely to consume more gas than reference arrays. Bio Jules Goddard is a founder of Datona Labs, who provide smart contracts to protect your digital information from abuse. website — twitter — discord — GitHub Also, Read

https://medium.com/coinmonks/unique-sorting-in-solidity-using-value-arrays-519546c84092

['Jules Goddard']

2020-12-28 17:53:20.819000+00:00

['Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'Smart Contracts', 'Programming', 'Solidity']

Top 5 Reasons For Data Science Project Failure

Whether you are a seasoned data scientist or a business executive with a significant investment in analytics, chances are you’ve seen the powerful impact of analytics as well as the failures. So what drives an analytics project’s failure or success? Data Science projects fail when they produce no actionable insights. Even a seasoned analyst’s efforts to coax insights from the data can be futile unless a number of key factors come together to increase the odds of success. Let’s talk about the top 5 reasons analytics fail. 1. Starting with data instead of the question. The most common misunderstanding about analytics is that if you look at data hard enough, you will find insights. Staring at daily dashboards in the hope that insights will miraculously reveal themselves is often overwhelming, confusing and unsuccessful. Successful analytics start by identifying the question you’re trying to answer from the data. For example, if site conversion is an issue, instead of studying your website data hoping to find reasons for low conversion, narrow down your efforts to a specific question. In this case, it might be “How can we increase conversion from 23% to 26%?” This approach allows you to focus on finding actionable drivers of conversion that can have impact. 2. An exploratory approach to analytics. Once you have identified the question you are trying to answer, do you explore all the data at hand in the hopes of finding insights or do you identify which data to study by using hypotheses as guard rails? The exploratory approach often fails to find any insights and if it does, is a lengthy process. On the other hand, using hypotheses to narrow down both the scope of the project and the data set needed, leads to the answers quickly. This process also generates secondary questions to ask data to further refine the insights. In our example, the hypotheses might involve certain pages or experiences thought to be driving lower conversion. These hypotheses are then used to identify the data needed to find segments of low conversion, and, once proven, address them. 3. Weak hypotheses. A data science project can still fail even when it begins with a business question and a structured approach for analysis if the hypotheses used to narrow down the scope of the problem are weak. Weak hypotheses result from failure to follow due process with the right stakeholder. 4. Unengaged or absent stakeholders. Successful analytics projects deliver actionable insights that are then used to make changes in the product or customer experience and ultimately drive business results. Any successful data science project, therefore, requires active engagement of the right stakeholders — the decision makers and owners of the business processes involved in the problem being studied. Working with the wrong or absent stakeholders leads to weak hypotheses, long cycles to analysis and wasted or no insights. In the conversion example, the product manager responsible for conversion, the product dev team making site changes, as well as the analyst need to be involved to make sure any actionable insights are acted upon promptly. 5. Inaccessible or bad data. Lastly, analytics can fail even after following a hypothesis-driven structured approach with involved stakeholders if the organization doesn’t have easy access to clean and reliable data. The data needn’t be perfect for successful analytics, just cleaner and with fewer data issues. Data maturity is thus a prerequisite for analytics maturity. Thank you for reading my post. I am passionate about using data to build better products and create amazing customer experiences. I write about my learnings at LinkedIn and at Forbes. To read my future posts, simply join my network here or click ‘Follow’ or join me on Twitter. About Piyanka Jain A highly-regarded industry thought leader in data analytics, Piyanka Jain is an internationally acclaimed best-selling author and a frequent keynote speaker on using data-driven decision-making for competitive advantage at both corporate leadership summit as well as business conferences. At Aryng, she leads her SWAT Data Science team to solve complex business problems, develop organizational Data Literacy, and deliver rapid ROI using machine learning, deep learning, and AI. Her client list includes companies like Google, Box, Here, Applied Materials, Abbott Labs, GE. As a highly-regarded industry thought leader in analytics, she writes for publications including Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and InsideHR.

https://medium.com/dataseries/top-5-reasons-for-data-science-project-failure-4a6a4f363f35

['Piyanka Jain']

2019-03-13 23:12:35.819000+00:00

['Data Science', 'Data Literacy']

State of Canadian Cannabis

State of Canadian Cannabis — 2021 2020 was a rollercoaster year for Canadian Cannabis, like most business sectors. There’s a lot to be excited about in 2021. Here’s the good, the bad, and the opportunities for growth in 2021 as I see them. The Good The market has been steadily growing since legalization, and still has plenty of room left to grow as it matures. Even in an extremely turbulent year with a pandemic and economic headwinds, we’ve seen great growth. The country has seen an average of a 10% increase each month in the number of patients signed up to receive medical cannabis. Recreational sales reached $270 million in October 2020 as the pace of total monthly sales growth accelerated to 5.1% nationwide. That’s an annual run rate of $3.24 billion. Ontario led in terms of monthly sales growth, with October sales increasing by 7.6% over September to $83.9 million. ArcView Market Research expects the recreational market to reach over $3 billion in 2021 (a CAGR of 77.9% from 2018–2021). CIBC analysts put that figure closer to $4 billion. COVID-19 hasn’t impacted the consumer market at all in terms of sales; people tend to consume pot (and alcohol) at steady numbers no matter the economic conditions. Cannabis retailers were actually designated as essential services by the government; from Illicit to essential in 2 years. The Bad The year has not been without turbulence and negative news. The fallout from high valuations early in the cannabis boom is becoming apparent, and COVID made growing and distributing much harder. We’ve seen mass layoffs across most major LPs and downsizing and shutting down facilities. The illicit market has lost some market share but remains resilient; LPs have turned to low-margin, commoditized, value priced dried flower to compete. This is why margins have been low, and why revenue figures have been poor, despite retail sales hitting all-time highs. Even though Canada is the first industrialized country to green light recreational cannabis, we’ve failed to build a “coca cola of cannabis” — recognizable brands that have global potential (largely due to advertising restrictions), and we’ve failed to provide the blueprint for other countries to follow. I think it’s safe to say that at this point we’ve blown our lead on the world stage. Outlook for 2021 We’ll see further consolidation, bankruptcies and mergers among LP’s. Expect more deals like the Aphria/Tilray merger and takeovers by well capitalized players with healthy balance sheets. There will be more ‘asset shedding’ as a way to streamline and focus — the recent canopy rivers / canopy growth deal is a good example of this. Exports from Canada will grow, albeit at a slower rate than executives hoped; the demand is smaller and competition is bigger than anticipated. Domestically we no longer have a distribution issue because of restrictions on retailers/licenses, and more stores will continue to come online (we could actually move to over saturation in some areas). Recreational sales will continue to grow as forecasted. New production and product innovations will roll out, with advancements like nanotechnology for reduced onset time. More value-added (2.0) products will come to market; beverages, extracts, and gummies. Stats Canada’s latest sales and inventory numbers for September 2020 show that interest in dried cannabis is relatively steady, whilst appetite for extracts and edibles is increasing. We’ll start to see winners and losers, in formats and brands. There will continue to be an oversupply of Cannabis, which drives the price down. Cannabis is like any other CPG product; good margins come from brand differentiation and product innovation. Consumers can and will be increasingly selective. Effective brand building and marketing (made tougher by the regulations), is essential to attract consumer attention and drive sales. And when the US brand machine really comes online; we’ll have to be at the top of our game to compete. We’re also seeing major changes Internationally, that could be very positive for Canadian cannabis. The U.N. reclassified cannabis as a less dangerous drug. The EUs highest court ruled that CBD is not a narcotic drug. South of the border, more states are becoming more weed friendly and there is excitement over the possibility of federal legalization. This presents huge opportunities for well positioned Canadian companies. The U.S. market has always been the endgame, and the reason why the LP valuations were so high; they were being valued for what the broader cannabis market offered in the near future. The U.S. is closer than it has ever been to federally legalizing, but I don’t see it being pushed over the line in the short term. With everything Biden is inheriting and has to deal with — COVID, race relations, the economy teetering on recession, repairing foreign relations — In terms of priority, I think Cannabis legalization is low on the list. Not to mention the fact that Biden has historically been either negative or at least ambivalent about the issue. What I think is far more likely for the US is more and more states open up independent of the feds. For example, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced a proposal to legalize and create a system to oversee and regulate cannabis in New York. We’ll see growing opportunities for Canadian LPS with access to those markets as they come online. As red, blue and purple states build consensus on the issue, eventually it will require zero political capital to get federal legalization done. Will that be this year? I doubt it. First and foremost, Canadian companies should focus on winning at home — with great products and brands that drive meaningful revenue and margin— whilst looking for targeted opportunities abroad in jurisdictions where they have the most chance of success/have a strategic advantage. There’s plenty of growth still to come in Canada, and there are lots of reasons to be bullish on international expansion. We have an exciting year ahead.

https://medium.com/@peterreitano/state-of-canadian-cannabis-502c5eec3875

['Peter Reitano']

2021-02-09 15:55:59.454000+00:00

['Marijuana', 'Public Markets', 'Cannabis', 'Cannabis Legalization']

How to Install Jenkins on Ubuntu

How to Install Jenkins on Ubuntu In this article, we’ll explain how to install Jenkins on Ubuntu 20.04 Jenkins is a free and open source automation server. Jenkins provides hundreds of plugins to support building, deploying and automating any project. Jenkins is Java-based, installed from Ubuntu packages or by downloading and running its web application archive (WAR) file — a collection of files that make up a complete web application to run on a server. Prerequisites A Ubuntu 20.04 installed dedicated server or KVM VPS. A root user access or normal user with administrative privileges. How to Install Jenkins on Ubuntu Step 1 — Keep your server up to date # apt-get update -y # apt-get upgrade -y Step 2 — Install Java Next, we will install OpenJDK 11. # apt-get install -y default-jre To verify the installation, check the version using following command: # java -version The output will be similar to the following: openjdk version “11.0.10” 2021–01–19 OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 11.0.10+9-Ubuntu-0ubuntu1.20.04) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.0.10+9-Ubuntu-0ubuntu1.20.04, mixed mode, sharing) Step 3 — Install Jenkins Following command will install LTS release. LTS is chosen every 12 weeks from the stream of regular releases as the stable release for that time period. Use following commands to install Jenkins: # wget -q -O — https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable/jenkins.io.key | sudo apt-key add - # sudo sh -c ‘echo deb https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable binary/ > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jenkins.list’ # sudo apt-get update # sudo apt-get install jenkins -y Now that Jenkins and its dependencies are in place, we’ll start the Jenkins server. Step 4 — Start and enable Jenkins We need to start and enable Jenkins service. Use following commands: # systemctl start jenkins # systemctl enable jenkins Step 5 — Configure Firewall (Optional) Assuming that you are using UFW firewall. By default, Jenkins runs on port 8080. We’ll open that port using ufw: # ufw allow 8080 Check ufw’s status to confirm the new rules: # ufw status Step 5 — Setup Jenkins First, we need to get default administrator password. # cat /var/lib/jenkins/secrets/initialAdminPassword Above command will display administrator password. Copy the 32-character alphanumeric password from the terminal and paste it into the Administrator password field, then click Continue. Install Jenkins on Ubuntu Once you click to continue, you will get two options. You can select any option as per your choice or we suggest to go with Install Suggested Plugins. Once you click the Install suggested plugins option, which will immediately begin the installation process. After that it will ask to create admin user. It’s possible to skip this step and continue as admin using the initial password we used above, but we recommend to take a moment to create the user. Next, you’ll receive an Instance Configuration page that will ask you to confirm the preferred URL for your Jenkins instance. Confirm either the domain name for your server or your server’s IP address. After confirming the appropriate information, click Save and Finish. You’ll receive a confirmation page confirming that “Jenkins is Ready!” That’s it. The installation and configuration process has been completed successfully. In this article, we have seen how to install Jenkins on Ubuntu 20.04.

https://medium.com/@hostnextra/how-to-install-jenkins-on-ubuntu-f4839ef27fe8

['Hostnextra Technologies']

2021-03-19 15:01:28.931000+00:00

['Opensource', 'Java', 'Jenkins', 'Ubuntu', 'Hostnextra']

Script-less vs Script-able Automation

script-able vs script-less With the introduction of the selenium, software industry made progress to make the life cycle of the software development more efficient. Most of the companies used automation testing whereas test engineers used open source tools or commercial tools to create a script-able workflow where it covers the manual flow of the application. With introduction of the devops model and using CI/CD processes it played a key factor of revolutionized the current software development life cycle. However critics were there since traditional testing is challenged with technology factors where one or more programming skills is a must to write the test scripts. So the barrier has been created with non technical and technical stake holders where testing more involves with these non technical parties. Later the industry have gone for solution to bridge this gap introducing more behavioral language scripts ATDD(Acceptance test driven development)or BDD(behavioral driven development) where tests are hidden underneath.How ever it was not the ideal solution and most of the testing tool vendors have other ideas to develop test with minimum technical effort. So script-less automation came into play where it is said that it will far more efficient for testers develop tests and run them. While working on a product company where it has build test tools for testers had the opportunity to using both tools. And there were pros & cons with both of them which i thought very valuable to share. Scrip-table Automation Testers have to get used to the framework and best practices Testers have the control over the script. They can use logic and do any operations Most of the time script will single paradigm. This mean it can scope only for one test type since they have different applications in different platforms(web/mobile/desktop/api) Test management support with running capability should be included with framework. Most of the time 3rd party tool have to be taken as the test manager and it can integrate to CI/CD keeping the scripts in shareable place. Scripts are shareable and may can be used in other frameworks as well. Script-less Automation Tester will record a workflow using tool ,but script will not be available. Tester will not have over all control over the script. Only some tools may provide these features as an example adding if logic and values may important to tester to a given scenario for his test. Super efficient than any other, in my experience it can create test with 4 different pages in less than 15 minutes. With the same script in traditional tool will take at least 4 hours. So it reduces the time Most of the script-less tool provide the test manager and the running capability. So testers do not have to think about the managing and running those most of the times these scripts are compatible only for that particular tool only. Scripts are mostly not shareable As per my final conclusion, tool is very much align with your objective. As a example if the mostly your testers are non technical background and you have to work in very tight deadline you may see the opportunity to use script-less automation tool. And if your testers are technical and they may get board after some time using this tool,since it may not challenging for them. Most of the companies in the industry have there own in house built tool because of below points Cost Talented engineers Return on Investment (ROI) Efficiency Since most of these tools are very expensive they do not much see any ROI there with out any significant advantages. As testing professional it have to see through lot of areas when selecting a tool otherwise it will be a disaster.

https://medium.com/@malikpathirana/script-less-vs-scripatable-automation-8536f2525b10

['Malik Pathirana']

2020-04-23 09:54:59.042000+00:00

['Automation Tools', 'Test Automation', 'Quality Engineering', 'Testing', 'Software Testing']

Blockchain and food aid — making humanitarian assistance more efficient

Blockchain and food aid — making humanitarian assistance more efficient How distributed ledger technology helps the UN to provide quicker and safer options for refugees to obtain food Sayuri Moodliar Oct 31, 2020·4 min read Earlier this month, the World Food Programme (WFP) of the United Nations was awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in fighting hunger and improving conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas. One of the ways that the WFP provides aid for refugees is to enable them to buy food at local grocery stores using blockchain technology. Overcoming the challenges of providing food aid Organizations providing food assistance for refugees have faced several difficulties. To give recipients a choice of food or grocery items (rather than uniform food parcels), cash or vouchers need to be distributed — but there are often long queues for collection. Where bank transfers can be arranged, there are typically long waits and high transaction costs involved. In addition, the identity information of aid recipients is vulnerable, and the risk of corruption and theft is high. The WFP has been rolling out blockchain technology to overcome these challenges. In 2016, it launched a pilot project called Building Blocks for Syrian refugees in camps in Jordan. The project works as follows: Refugees register for food assistance using their biometric data, which is encrypted for security. Food vouchers are allocated to linked accounts at grocery stores. The recipients choose items at the grocery store, and proceed to the cash register. An iris scanner reads their biometric data, enabling them to access and spend the food vouchers. What are the benefits of using blockchain? Blockchain technology stores transactional records in a public database in the form of a digital ledger. Each transaction in this ledger is authorized and authenticated by the digital signature of the owner, which makes it a more secure system. In addition, personal data are encrypted for security. The fact that the database is decentralized also contributes to reducing the risk of fraud, theft and corruption. This is made possible due to the following factors: Each transaction is subject to scrutiny by multiple users because data are stored globally on multiple servers, and everyone on the network can see entries made in real time Hacking of the system or retrospective changing of data is difficult because of distributed duplicate records, and because entries are time-stamped and immutable The use of blockchain has had significant cost benefits in the Building Blocks Project. The WFP estimates that transaction costs have been almost totally eliminated, with a reduction of 98 percent of bank transaction costs. Using open source code also contributes to reduced costs of running the system. The project has resulted in the following benefits for improved efficiency: The instant transfer of vouchers has eliminated waiting periods for bank transfers as well as queues for cash or voucher collection. The allocation and spending of vouchers are also more efficient since blockchain technology automatically progresses the process without any need for paperwork. The database keeps track of each step of the process, with tracking and tracing to easily identify and investigate problems. Since all data are recorded digitally, the database can also be used to identify trends and for forecasting future funding needs. What next for technology and food security? One of the shortcomings of food assistance programmes has been the fact that many recipients struggle to end dependence on these after a crisis (e.g. war, drought or flooding) has been resolved. Advances in technology provide many opportunities to find more sustainable solutions to end hunger, and make poorer or vulnerable communities independent of humanitarian aid. The livelihoods of refugee communities can be improved in the long-term by introducing innovative methods of growing food in constrained spaces, for example, by using hydroponic farming techniques. Blockchain can be used more extensively in food supply chains to reduce corruption, and to ensure that smallholder farmers receive the proceeds to which they are entitled from the sale of produce. This has already been implemented in several food supply chains throughout the world, from coffee in Brazil to bourbon vanilla in Madagascar. Solutions may also be found by using existing and accessible technological tools like mobile phones. For example, the WFP provided seed funding to prototype and pilot the Virtual Farmers Market mobile app platform to enable smallholder rural farmers in Zambia to sell their produce, thereby increasing the income of these farmers and helping them to build relationships with buyers. While food assistance programmes do invaluable work, we need to find long-term solutions to provide sustainable food security. For this to happen, innovative disruption is required in agriculture and food supply chains.

https://medium.com/@sayuri-moodliar/blockchain-and-food-aid-making-humanitarian-assistance-more-efficient-f47cbcb0edcf

['Sayuri Moodliar']

2020-11-03 17:43:02.441000+00:00

['Distributed Ledgers', 'Humanitarian', 'Technology', 'Blockchain', 'Food Security']

A Goofy Movie: The Overlooked Disney Classic

A Goofy Movie: The Overlooked Disney Classic © Walt Disney Pictures. Image taken from Animation Screencaps (There will be spoilers ahead) The 1990s went down as one of most important time periods for Disney. More commonly known as the Renaissance, it was the turning point that brought Disney back from its financial and critical slump and firmly re-established Disney as the animation giant it continues to be today. Beloved films such as Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, are films from the era that Disney showcases as their best. Those aren’t the only animated films Disney released in the decade, one of them didn’t gain as widespread of praise as the aforementioned films did but has won the hearts of fans over the years. That movie is A Goofy Movie. It is the last day of classes and Max, Goofy’s son, dedicated to go all out to impress his crush, Roxanne, dresses up as his favorite artist, Powerline, and perform while getting into trouble with school authority. Max impresses Roxanne and they plan to go out together and he gains the respect of the entire student body. Meanwhile, Goofy, afraid of the bad influences in Max’s life leading him to disaster, forcibly takes him on a fishing trip to establish a more special bond with his son, much to Max’s utter dismay. Before leaving, Max lies to Roxanne that his dad is taking him to the Powerline concert. The trip doesn’t go well for the most part until Max changes the destinations on the map, unbeknownst to Goofy’s knowledge. Things go great for them until Goofy finds out about Max’s changing of the map. They eventually reconcile and Goofy takes Max to the Powerline concert where the duo dance onstage with the Powerline himself to the delight of Max’s friends and Pete’s bafflement. All ends well for Max and Roxanne and she finally meets Goofy. One look at the movie and it’s obvious why it isn’t in those Disney highlight reels of films, it made $35 million at the box office and received mixed reviews, it’s not as grand as any of the Renaissance films and was apparently a mere contractual obligation to the then-fired Jeffrey Katzenburg. Fortunately, it grew in popularity over the years and has been acknowledged more by Disney again. To me, A Goofy Movie has qualities that put it on par with at least half of the Renaissance classics. First is comedy. When your characters are Goofy and his family/friends, expect hilarity. The movie does have its great comedic moments whether it be his interactions with Max, his scenes with Pete and the supporting characters’ own quips. It all works for the movie’s favor. Next are the songs. Every Renaissance film comes with their iconic soundtracks that stick to the minds of fans for years. They serve the purpose of establishing the world around them and expressing the characters’ emotion and motivation. At the same time, the songs, especially Powerline’s, are good pop songs in their own right. For example, Powerline’s “I2I” is a great, catchy finale song that encapsulates all the lessons Max and Goofy learned throughout the movie. Honestly, the film does a much better job with its songs than latter Renaissance films like Hercules, Tarzan and Pocahontas. It conveys character motivation and world-building more effectively than they do. But that’s just me. © Walt Disney Pictures. Image taken from Animation Screencaps Finally, the best aspect of this film is just how good its emotional weight is. Aside from the comedy, the film is thrilling, sad and joyful. The themes of fatherhood, adolescence and all the awkwardness that comes along with it is done excellently in this film. It does a great job in making Max relatable with all the things he goes through like impressing a crush, impressing his peers and not being humiliated by his uncool parent. I do love that the movie makes an obvious contrast of Pete’s authoritarian, fear-based parenting as compared to Goofy’s passive parenting, at least until the third act where Goofy learns to accept that Max will grow up from the kid he once knew and adapt his mindset and also, stop taking fatherhood advice from Pete. All this is carried by the film’s smart writing that makes our characters sympathetic and relatable and thus, a story that resonates with its audience. A Goofy Movie is one of the many Disney films I owned on DVD. I never got tired watching it over and over. I am glad to know it gained a cult following over the past few years from kids like myself who grew up to appreciate the underappreciated classic that it is. It’s a great coming-of-age film that stands out from the numerous classics Disney’s produced at the time. It has great emotional weight, smart writing, real characters that you can relate to and memorable music. All the qualities of a great Disney film that I hope they capitalize on and families will grow to love as well.

https://medium.com/@carlosangelo/a-goofy-movie-the-overlooked-disney-classic-65a344324575

['Carlos Dorado']

2020-12-12 12:32:51.455000+00:00

['Movies', 'Disney', 'Entertainment', 'Teens', 'Childhood']

The Boston View — Data, architecture and the (new?) working age

A column by Paolo Ciuccarelli Invisible digital infrastructures are constantly mapping people’s connections and their behavior: from IP communication to the sensors that check occupancy or ensure indoor climate quality, offices and other working spaces especially are equipped with an intricate network of devices and cables. Analyzing the data they produce and visualizing them — within the boundaries of laws and norms (a.k.a. privacy) — can reveal the impact of the forced changes in working dynamics. And eventually lead to (re)consider the role and the value of space and physical-social relationships in productivity. This was the topic of a short seminar by Carlo Ratti and Martina Mazzarello at MIT Senseable City Lab earlier in May, it’s worth reconsidering it now as we are going to be back — sooner or later — to our workplaces. Or maybe not? The talk, available here, summarizes the first results of a broader research based on data collected from MIT students, professors, and administrators during the pandemic. The researchers built two models of the same social network, analyzing people’s interactions before access to campus was banned and during the shutdown. One key emerging point is the (ir)reproducibility of the serendipitous encounters that randomly happen in a physical space — often leading to interesting conversations, unplanned knowledge sharing and ultimately new ideas and innovation. That’s something that seems to be hard to replicate online, where every activity is tight to a schedule, everything is — and needs to be — planned, and we usually connect for a specific purpose. Within these conditions one more luckily cultivates the closer circle of solid relationships and gets less exposed to the ‘weak ties’ of the broader unplanned network that usually grows through the random connections we build in public spaces, or in the transit between the private and the public. So depending on your business domain and the importance of leveraging on the unexpected, the decision on whether to come back to the physical working habits or not might be even more difficult. Adding competences related to analysis and visualization could help make sense of all the data produced by the sensors and the processes that silently capture indoor activities and the ‘behavior’ of buildings and spaces. That’s also where information designers can aim at having a more direct impact on people’s wellbeing and more broadly on sustainability. Paolo Ciuccarelli Center for Design, Northeastern University

https://medium.com/the-visual-agency/the-boston-view-data-architecture-and-the-new-working-age-b9c18e3e492f

['Paolo Ciuccarelli']

2020-07-20 07:21:41.525000+00:00

['Work', 'Data Visualization', 'Office', 'Data', 'Architecture']

How Can I Improve On My Writing?

‘Creating A Masterpiece’ How can I improve on my writing? Which is the best format, style and technique to use? Where can I get the ideas to write about? These are just some of the questions I have asked myself as I embark upon my curious writing adventure. I realize that perhaps I should have created this particular piece first, ahead of the previous two articles I recently produced, asked some of the above questions before jumping in and writing whatever was on my mind at the time. But I didn’t, so…. Where It Began My interest in writing has only recently been triggered again, I do not know why and I do not know what it was that ignited that smoldering ember, but I’m here now, intrigued as to what will come of this recurring interest. Writing first became of interest to myself in my school days, as I imagine was the case for the majority of people. A rebel without a cause, the class clown, slouched in my seat at the front of the class (so as the teacher could see what I was up to), shirt hanging out, top button undone and tie in a loose knot all accompanied by a far away glaze in my eyes that signaled to the educator, ‘I am just not that interested in retaining the information that is being forced upon me.’ In my naive ‘know it all’ teenage brain, all teachers had nothing useful to say and they were saying it all too loud! This was my opinion in each of my classes bar one, English. Perhaps it was the 6’3, square shouldered, balding giant of a teacher who conduced the class that compelled me to straighten up, smarten up and pay attention. That and he was also the vice principle of the school. Working our way through the various case studies of the school curriculum was when writing first engaged my curiosity. A Quick Fix? Jump forward a few years, 10 (and a bit) roughly, which brings us to present day, 2018. Besides the bare minimum at work or a social media post while under the influence, when we all become a deep and spiritual individual with the answers to all of life’s big questions, I have done next to nothing when it comes to writing, until now. I have decided to write as often as I can or whenever there is a moment of silence at home, which isn’t a common occurrence with a boisterous 1-year-old running amok and a prepubescent 10-year-old moping around like a lost soul. As a result of this decision, I have been eager to answer the questions previously mentioned and most commonly asked it seems: ‘How can I improve my writing?’ ‘Which is the best format, style and technique to use?’ ‘Where can I get the ideas to write about?’ to name a few. It then occurred to me, everyone already knows the answers to these questions deep down, the real question that is being asked is: ‘I need a quick fix to becoming a successful writer, where can I find it?’ As I am a complete newbie to writing I am not going to say for certain that I know this answer, but I would hazard a guess and say, ‘There is no quick fix’ Solutions? Through researching and on the quest to increase my knowledge on writing, I have come up with a few personal opinions on how to improve on my writing. 1. Practice — The only way to improve at anything, whether it be writing, sports, driving, you name it, is to practice. Repetition is the key. You will never master a task if you never perform the task, so get writing as often as possible, emails, social media posts, blogs will all contribute to increasing your writing capabilities. 2. Reading — Lately I have been paying closer attention to how pieces are written and formatted. By reading books, articles, blog posts, advertisements in magazines and newspapers, bill boards, anything were the creator/author of the content is trying to evoke an emotion I have not only been reading, but also thinking about why this has been put together in this particular style, what is the author trying to achieve, what can I learn from this etc. 3. Listening — This is the digital era and there is no shortage of podcasts, videos and audiobooks, to name a few, on almost any subject you could possibly think of. I have been listening to podcasts and interviews from professional writers on my daily commute, whilst I work and even as I drift of to sleep. The beauty of listening is it can be done on the move and be done whilst multitasking with the option to playback any thing you may have missed. 4. Online Courses — I haven’t looked to deeply into any of the online courses that are on offer as I believe there is more than enough free content to learn from for someone at my stage of their writing journey. 5. Where to get ideas — I have set up a Google Docs folder on my phone that I use to note ideas that I hear in my daily life. Perhaps I hear a certain subject mentioned on the radio that triggers an idea I could write about, I jot it down right there and then so as not to forget. There are ideas surrounding you every day, you just have to listen. Maybe you don’t wear your ear buds the next time you use the bus or train for example and just listen to what’s going around you, anything can set off a thought pattern in your mind and next thing you know you have 5 or 6 ideas to write about, give it a go. The points listed above include some of the steps which I use when I wish to learn or improve at anything in life and I believe the same methods will be just as rewarding as I seek to improve on my own writing skills. I would love to hear of any other methods you use to help increase your knowledge and skills when it comes to writing or anything that you have tried in the past that has been of immense value and help in moving you forward toward your writing goals.

https://weejusty.medium.com/how-can-i-improve-on-my-writing-37544ae10f89

['Ryan Justin']

2019-05-03 01:35:57.289000+00:00

['Ideas', 'Practice', 'Writing', 'Reading', 'Productivity']

How To Fix ‘Missing Travis CI Build’ On GitHub

Background Travis CI was no longer showing up in my GitHub PR’s (pull requests). What I did to make the build show up again was to reset the Travis CI application access to my GitHub account. Revoke Access Open Settings: Then go to Applications > Authorized OAuth Apps: Click Revoke from the Travis CI for Open Source dropdown: Reauthorize Application Sign out of Travis CI, log back in, and reauthorize the application’s access to the GitHub account: After opening a new PR, I was able to see the Travis CI build next to the Merge pull request button.

https://javascript.plainenglish.io/fix-missing-travis-ci-build-on-github-3fcd1508411b

[]

2020-11-19 17:56:58.860000+00:00

['Github', 'Continuous Integration', 'Travis Ci', 'Software Development', 'Pull Request']

AYS Special: Frontex and Human Rights — How did we arrive here? Part 3 (2020-Present)

December 22: A new article by Der Spiegel shows the reluctance of German Interior Minister Seehofer to provide detailed information regarding the pushback off Samos island witnessed by a German federal police vessel on August 10, despite an internal document of the ministry proving that he had full knowledge of the events of that day. December 18: Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) releases the ‘Black Book of Pushbacks’, two volumes (for a total of 1,500 pages), compiled by the BVMN thanks to the contributions of 15 organisations, which exposes in detail the illegal practice of violent pushbacks of migrants which have been taking place over many months at the EU’s external borders — with full impunity. The book, made in collaboration with the United Left (GUE/NGL) block of the European Parliament, brings the voices of 12,654 victims to European institutions as well as governments, and it aims to hold them accountable for the torture, the inhumane and degrading treatment, and the violation of the right to life that people seeking safety in the European Union are faced with. December 15: Danish media report about indications that the Danish coastguard patrols deployed within Frontex operations in the Aegean sea will be moved away from the most ‘active’ zones to less ‘controversial’ areas, “because they refuse to use the violent push-back method to force migrant boats away.” December 10: Josoor, a member of BVMN, report of an exchange with Frontex regarding a group of 70 people, who were pushed back onto an islet in the Evros river on November 11. Situated between Greece and Turkey, the islet “became a site of improvised detention, with neither authority allowing the transit group to leave … Josoor led calls on behalf of BVMN for the EU agency to act. Josoor requested timely intervention from Frontex”, alerting the authorities with specific information. A first letter directed to the Frontex Executive Director and several other emails were ignored. For 48 hours the group was forced to stay on the islet. On the evening of 13th November, a day after the group was finally able to leave the island to Turkish territory, Leggeri finally sent a reply to Josoor’s urgent letter. The letter outlined that the location given did not fall under the Frontex operational area but that a Frontex team was deployed 32km away. He further stated that Frontex had transmitted the message to the responsible Greek authorities. According to the letter, the Greek authorities had informed Frontex that “there was a group of people spotted in the Turkish territory during the day of 11.11.2020, but they did not cross the border to the Greece territory”, failing to recognise that it was Greek authorities who had placed the group in this dangerous position on the island in the first place. This statement raises more questions than it answers, and represents an abdication of all responsibility on the part of Frontex. Given the recent revelations of Frontex complicity, and even contribution, in pushbacks from Greece, /Josoor is/ deeply concerned by this latest reply. While the agency states that it places fundamental rights at the core of its approach, this image is significantly undercut by its daily practice at borders such as Evros. December 9: The composition of the sub-group of Frontex’s Management Board that will inquire into the agency’s involvement in pushbacks is announced by journalist Giorgos Christides. A representative of Germany will act as chair, with representatives of France, the EU Commission, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Romania, Sweden & Switzerland. December 8: The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) publishes “Migration: Fundamental Rights issues at land borders”, a report which looks at fundamental rights compliance and the correct application of the human rights safeguards in the European asylum acquis and the provisions of the Schengen Borders Code at the EU external land borders, including rivers and lakes. It was requested by the European Parliament on January 30. Regarding Frontex SIR and individual complaint mechanisms, it states: In 2019, eight of the nine Serious Incidents Reports that reached the Frontex Fundamental Rights Officer related to land border surveillance activities. These are reports submitted by participants in Frontex activities or working in Frontex operations who come across fundamental rights violations during their work. In 2020, by 1 October, the Frontex Fundamental Rights Officer coordinated three such Serious Incidents Reports, two of which concerned land border surveillance. As regards the Frontex complaints mechanism, between January and August 2020, Frontex received 20 complaints (not all admissible) under Article 111 of the EBCG Regulation, six relating to land borders. December 7: A Spanish media outlet publishes an article in which it claims to have had access to an 18-page report written by Frontex which details 33 possible pushbacks in the Aegean, 11 of which were witnessed by the agency. These possible pushbacks, which are reportedly described as ‘prevention of departures’ are different cases to the ones reported by the media. The report is to be analysed at the next Management Board meeting. December 2: Arne Semsrott and Luiza Izuzquiza, freedom of information activists, reveal that Frontex has filed a case against them “before the General Court of the European Union in order to force” them to pay over €23,000 of legal fees, after they lost a lawsuit for information about Frontex ships in the Mediterranean. Already on January 31, Frontex had asked them to pay the legal fees. December 1: Frontex Executive Director is called for questions in front of the LIBE Committee at the European Parliament, discussing ‘Recent allegations on pushbacks during Frontex operations in the Eastern Mediterranean’. He reiterates the defence that the agency expressed previously: that Frontex has no information regarding the pushbacks reported by media; that no Serious Incident Report (SIR) has been filed regarding those events; that the SIR mechanism is activated, national authorities are alerted and asked to investigate every time a suspected violation of human rights is witnessed; that not all interceptions are to be considered SAR events, meaning that they do not require rescue and therefore ‘returns’ cannot be considered pushbacks; that the agency needs to consider hybrid threats in the stretch of Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey. He also goes into details regarding the reported pushback of the night between April 28 and 29, stating that Frontex surveillance aircraft G-WKTH did not fly that night. Two days later, Der Spiegel publishes an article in which it cites an internal report to Frontex’s Management Board containing details about the flight of the aircraft on the night in question: Less than 48 hours after the meeting, it is clear that Leggeri was not telling the truth. Either the Frontex boss deliberately lied to the European Parliament or misled it due to a mistake that was difficult to explain Following the meeting, several Members of the European Parliament call for his resignation. November 28: Der Spiegel publishes details of Frontex’s internal communication regarding the pushback of August 10. This also feeds into the concerns regarding the effectiveness of Frontex’s SIR mechanism. November 26: The Romanian interior minister denies any wrongdoing in the case of the Romanian vessel MAI 113 implicated in the pushback off Lesvos of June 8. November 23: In a letter addressed to the LIBE committee, Frontex Executive Director does not exclude that Frontex vessels or aircraft were in the vicinity of pushbacks. He minimises the documentation provided by Bellingcat, Lighthouse Reports, Der Spiegel, ARD and TV Asahi and confirms that no SIR was filed following these events. On the same day, Der Spiegel publishes details on the pushback off the coast of Lesvos that was carried out by the Greek coast guard on April 18. As shown in the article, an internal Frontex Serious Incident Report reveals that it was followed minute-by-minute by a Frontex aircraft. November 19: Following a visit to Greece in March, The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) publishes a report on the situation of the immigration detention system, in which it calls for a reform to the system and for an end to pushbacks. It questions Frontex’s role in supporting Greek authorities at the countries’ borders, especially regarding the lack of monitoring officers within Joint Operation POSEIDON and “about the precise terms of engagement of FRONTEX vessels with boats carrying migrants that have been agreed between FRONTEX and Greece.” November 10: European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly opens an inquiry as a follow-up of her 2013 Special Report and Recommendations regarding the functioning of Frontex’s complaints mechanism. She writes: Seven years on from my Special Report, and aware of concerns having been expressed, I believe it is timely to assess how the Complaints Mechanism is functioning and have therefore decided to launch an inquiry on my own initiative. She asks Frontex to reply to her questions by 15 January 2021 and “to organise an electronic inspection of documents relating to the Complaints Mechanism, including those setting out how Frontex followed up on reports sent to the Fundamental Rights Officer, either by Frontex or by national authorities”. She also asks the Fundamental Rights Officer to reply on “how Frontex ensures respect for fundamental rights in joint return operations”. On the same day, an extraordinary meeting of the Frontex Management Board is held. At this meeting, Frontex is presented with a series of questions to be answered by the end of the month. As reported in a letter from Frontex Executive Director to the President of the European Parliament dated November 11: As I informed the participants of the [Management Board] meeting, the preliminary findings of the inquiry conclude that there is no evidence of a direct or indirect participation of Frontex staff or officers deployed by Member States under Frontex operations in alleged “pushbacks” in the Aegean Sea. The Management Board asks the Executive Director to ensure that the internal reporting system is solid and effective in order to allow for an immediate follow-up in case of incidents. It is decided to “set up a sub-group to the Management Board to further investigate the accusations of involvement in pushbacks in the Aegean. Frontex Executive Director releases a statement in which no attention is paid to such accusations. Instead he calls “for the creation of an evaluation committee to consider legal questions related to the Agency’s surveillance of external sea borders and accommodating the concerns raised by Member States about ‘hybrid threats’ affecting their national security at external borders where the European Border and Coast Guard Agency will deploy its standing corps”. Reading between the lines, this call will set the tone of Frontex’s refusal of pushback accusations to date, which will be repeated and reinforced in the following weeks. It is based on four main points: ◆ Frontex has no information regarding the cases reported by media on October 23, because no Serious Incident Report (SIR) has been filed; ◆ where suspected violations of human rights are witnessed, the SIR mechanism is activated, national authorities are alerted and asked to investigate; ◆ not all interceptions are to be considered SAR events, meaning that they do not require rescue and therefore ‘returns’ can not be considered pushbacks. Only emergency situations and distress calls communicated through official channels (MRCCs) fall into this restrictive interpretation of SAR; ◆ Greece, and Frontex with it, considers itself to be a target of hybrid threats, meaning that people on the move are used and ‘weaponised’ by Turkey, turning situations that appear to be SAR events into quasi-military actions, to be dealt with through different frameworks. November 4: Seven Frontex officers are deployed in the Canary Islands to support Spanish authorities with the increased number of arrivals. Talks and negotiations start today to define the limits and details of further deployment in the area, which could mean resuming Joint Operation HERA II. October 28: As a result of the joint investigation by Bellingcat, Lighthouse Reports, Der Spiegel, ARD and TV Asahi, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson requests “an urgent extraordinary Frontex Management Board meeting on November 10, to discuss alleged pushback incidents in Greece and fundamental rights protection.” October 27: Frontex launches an internal inquiry into the alleged involvement in pushbacks in the Aegean sea documented by Bellingcat, Lighthouse Reports, Der Spiegel, ARD and TV Asahi. In the same press release, it announces that “so far, no documents or other materials have been found to substantiate any accusations of violations of the law”. The release carries on: Earlier this year, […] Frontex Executive Director had already asked [Greek] authorities to investigate two events near its islands in the eastern Aegean Sea. They found no proof of any illegal acts in one incident and are still looking into another one. [He] also alerted the members of the European Parliament of an incident earlier this year when a crew of the Danish vessels deployed by the agency was given incorrect instructions by the officers of the Hellenic Coast Guard. Following the incident Frontex contacted the Greek authorities and the misunderstanding was clarified with the Hellenic Coast Guard. At this point of time, the still ongoing inquiry has not identified other suspicious cases than those already reported by the Executive Director to Greek authorities. October 23: The joint investigation by Bellingcat, Lighthouse Reports, Der Spiegel, ARD and TV Asahi is published. The details of the pushbacks in the Aegean sea of April 28–29, June 4–8, August 15, and August 19 are made public on this date, revealing that Frontex was aware of this illegal practice being carried out by the Greek authorities, and that the agency actively participated in a number of illegal pushbacks. October 14: Second operation in Montenegro, focused on the country’s sea border. Frontex will deploy aerial support, specialised officers and will provide technical and operational assistance in carrying out coast guard functions in international waters October 10: Frontex awards €100m to Airbus and Elbit for drone surveillance services in the eastern and central Mediterranean. October 2: Annual Report published by Frontex Consultative Forum. The Forum remains highly concerned about: ◆ the functioning of the Frontex Serious Incident Reporting mechanism, which has demonstrated its shortcomings more than once; ◆ the continued postponement in the revision of the agency’s Fundamental Rights Strategy; ◆ the impact of aerial surveillance in the central Mediterranean and the subsequent provision of information to the Libyan authorities, leading to increased numbers of people returned to the country to face indiscriminate detention and degrading conditions; ◆ the impact of the agency’s Multipurpose Aerial Surveillance on the Bosnian/Croatian borders, given the documentation of the violent and abusive behaviour of Croatian authorities; ◆ persistent allegations of pushbacks at the Greek-Turkish border in Evros and the low number of serious incidents reported through the Agency’s mechanism, “which Frontex attributed to the fact that officers deployed by the Agency were not deployed on the frontline where pushbacks have been reported”; ◆ the agency’s support to Hungarian authorities at the country’s border with Serbia and with return operations. The request to suspend the operations in the country, already stated in previous years, has become more urgent given the EU Commission’s infringement procedure against Hungary. “Against the Consultative Forum’s repeated advice, the Agency maintained its operational support to Hungary, suggesting that its presence on the ground could improve the situation. The Consultative Forum noted, however, that even though the situation did not improve, the Agency increased the number of staff deployed at the Serbia-Hungary border. ◆ The Report includes and external evaluation of the Forum itself. It “identified some existing challenges such as the high dependency of the Consultative Forum on the Agency’s willingness to seek its advice and to act upon recommendations, and the limitation posed to its work by an understaffed Consultative Forum Secretariat.” September 23: The EU Commission proposes “The New Pact on Migration and Asylum”: a series of legislative measures that provide the framework of the EU migration and asylum policies for the years to come. According to the Commission: It provides a comprehensive approach, bringing together policy in the areas of migration, asylum, integration and border management … It aims to create faster, seamless migration processes and stronger governance of migration and border policies, supported by modern IT systems and more effective agencies. It aims to reduce unsafe and irregular routes and promote sustainable and safe legal pathways for those in need of protection … This common response also needs to include the EU’s relationship with third countries. It is presented alongside a roadmap for its implementation which covers the end of 2020 and the whole of 2021. The Pact foresees the recast of the 2008 Return Directive (which has been in negotiation since 2018), a full integration of the EU Return policy with its Readmission and Voluntary return policies and further effective operational support by Frontex: Frontex must play a leading role in the common EU system for returns, making returns work well in practice. It should be a priority for Frontex to become the operational arm of EU return policy, with the appointment of a dedicated Deputy Executive Director and integrating more return expertise into the Management Board. The deployment of the new standing corps will also assist return. Frontex will also support the introduction of a return case management system at EU and national level, covering all steps of the procedure from the detection of an irregular stay to readmission and reintegration in third countries. In this way the Agency can realise its full potential to support return, linking up operational cooperation with Member States and effective readmission cooperation with third countries. (2.5) It also intends to boost “Frontex’s access to naval and aerial capacity”. (4.3) Frontex’s enhanced mandate should now be used to make cooperation with partners operational: Cooperation with the Western Balkans, including through EU status agreements with the Western Balkan partners, will enable Frontex border guards to work together with national border guards on the territory of a partner country. Frontex can also now provide practical support to develop partners’ border management capacity and to cooperate with partners to optimise voluntary return. The Commission will continue encouraging agreements with its neighbours (6.4) The Pact has been analysed and commented on by countless individuals, groups, media, and NGOs. Mainly it has been described as a missed opportunity to provide real change in policy direction and in addressing the concerns related to the mistreatment of people on the move. Here are the analyses of BVMN and HRW. August 15–19: Two more pushbacks at sea off the coast of Lesvos are uncovered by Bellingcat, Lighthouse Report, Der Spiegel, ARD and TV Asahi. ◆ On August 15, the Greek coast guard approached a boat that was close to the northern shore of Lesvos. They tried to push the boat away, then “masked Greek border guards boarded the boat, destroyed the engine, threatened the passengers at gun point and forced them to tie the boat to a speed-boat.” They were then towed into Turkish waters. The Turkish coast guard witnessed the scene but did not intervene for hours. The MAI 1102 was located only a few hundred meters away from the refugee boat. The boat can be clearly identified in a photo. A German navy ship on a NATO mission that observed the incident reported it to the German government. ◆ On August 19, “a dinghy was reported to have been pushed back from Northern Lesvos. The Portuguese vessel Molivos was five km away and appears to have changed course and headed towards the pushback before its transponder either lost the signal or was turned off.” August 10: A pushback off the coast of Samos island takes place with the involvement of a German Federal Police vessel deployed with Frontex. The pushback is detailed in a Frontex internal report and published by Der Spiegel: ◆ At 6am, the Greek observation post “Praso” spot a rubber dinghy “clearly already in Greek waters.” ◆ 15 minutes later, the crew of the German ship BP62, Taufnahme “Uckermark”, arrived at the reported location. “The federal police found an overcrowded rubber dinghy with 40 people on board and stopped it. But they did not save the occupants from the sea, did not take them on board … The “Uckermark” blocked their journey until the Greeks ‘took over’ the incident” and then left. ◆ Two hours later, the Turkish Coast Guard is recorded intercepting the same dinghy in Turkish waters and dragging it back to shore. ◆ The document carries on, showing that the German authorities “sent an e-mail to the Maritime Coordination Center in Piraeus, responsible for the units at sea [asking] what had happened to the refugees.” ◆ In response, the Greek authorities stated that: “The rubber dinghy with migrants on board changed course when it saw the ship of the Greek coast guard and drove back towards Turkey,” and that the Greek Coast Guard used “border protection measures taken to prevent the arrival on Samos”. ◆ In an internal document of the German federal ministry of the interior reported by The Spiegel (article published on December 22), the version of the Greek authorities is contradicted: the federal police observed “that the (…) Greek forces physically took migrants on board” and moved them onto a Greek coast guard vessel. July 24: Frontex Executive Director tells the LIBE Committee at the European Parliament that the agency had observed and recorded just a single incident which may have been a pushback in the Aegean. July 15: Frontex launches a deployment in Montengro. It is the second operation of the agency in a non-EU country. Several officers are deployed to support Montenegro’s border guards at the border with Croatia. Operational plans include the expansion of the agency’s presence to border control activities at sea, including support in search and rescue. June: First ‘voluntary’ return organised by Frontex, from Cyprus to Georgia, via scheduled flight. In July, Frontex will support France with a return operation via charter flights, returning 209 people to Albania. In September, Frontex will support Germany, Belgium, France and the Netherlands in the agency’s first joint ‘voluntary’ return operation, returning 50 people to Iraq. June 10: In line with the 2019 Regulation, Frontex and the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) sign an agreement to “work together to establish fundamental rights monitors, design their training programme and integrate them into Frontex activities.” The agencies aim to establish as many as 40 monitors by the end of the year and to integrate them within the Frontex Fundamental Rights Office. In reality, the first selection notices for these roles (1, 2) will be published on November 20 (first appointments expected for April/May 2021). June 4–8: As reported in a joint investigation by Bellingcat, Lighthouse Reports, Der Spiegel, ARD and TV Asahi, between June 4 and June 8, four pushbacks are documented near Lesvos. In all cases, a Frontex vessel or aircraft is present and witnesses or participates in the illegal action. In particular, on June 8, a Romanian vessel MAI 1103, deployed within Frontex Operation Poseidon, actively participates in a pushback in the Aegean sea near Lesvos, directly blocking a boat with people on the move on board without proceeding with the rescue operation. Instead the vessel MAI 1103 moves away and leaves the Greek coast guard to carry out the pushback. The actions are recorded in a video by the Turkish coast guard. May 29-June 1: BVMN publish three testimonies of abuses and pushbacks from Albania to Greece which took place over 72 hours. ◆ In the first, on May 29, a group of nine people was stopped by Slovenian and Albanian officers after having crossed the border from Greece, threatened with guns and then pushed back to Greece. The testimony indicates the presence of Frontex patrol cars on the scene. ◆ One day later, the group crossed the border a second time and was apprehended again in Albanian territory, by three officers: “one from Albania, one from Poland and one from Romania.” They were taken to Bilshit police station and “they were detained in this station for around five hours. At approximately 06:00, the authorities drove the group to the border in a 4×4 vehicle and ordered them back onto Greek territory.” ◆ On May 31, after having crossed the border from Greece into Albania, a group of 7 people is apprehended in the Albanian town of Miras, just two km from the Greek border. The ‘respondents’ recognised the distinctive armbands worn by the agency’s officers. According to the respondent, those who stopped the group were equipped with night vision goggles. The respondent said that when the group were captured, the treatment was very “racist”. The authorities kept them waiting on the ground while laughing among each other, which “makes them feel without dignity”. The respondent claims that the Albanian police treated them well, that those who made them feel badly treated were Frontex officers. … Of the seven who were captured, some tried to flee. However, these people were beaten by officers, with the use of a “kind of truncheon but like metal”. The group was taken to the police station in Bilshit, denied food, fingerprinted, questioned, strip-searched and detained for the night. At 7.00 h on June 1st, “two Albanian and two Frontex police officers took them to the border area” with Greece. May 28: In a written answer to the European Parliament, Frontex confirms that “sometimes due to tactical reasons for missions, law enforcement assets are not made visible. Making them visible might, especially if combined with other information, disclose sensitive operational information and thus undermine the operational objectives”. This feeds into many reports on the cooperation between Frontex and the Libyan coast guard and the lack of cooperation of the Agency with civil rescue vessels in the central Mediterranean (1, 2, 3). May 13: Status Agreements with Montenegro and Serbia signed in 2019 are now operative after having been approved by the European Parliament March-April: Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN), Amnesty and HRW report on the situation at the Evros border. HRW testimonies “describe 38 deportation incidents involving almost 4,000 people, although some of these could be double counts.” April 28–29: As part of the joint investigation by Bellingcat, Lighthouse Report, Der Spiegel, ARD and TV Asahi, the presence of a Frontex aircraft is revealed during a push-back initiated after a group of people landed on Samos. Greek authorities dragged them back to sea on a life-raft and pushed them towards Turkish waters. Frontex’s surveillance plane flew over the area twice while this pushback took place. April 27: Statewatch releases an internal report circulated by Frontex to EU government delegations entitled ‘State-of-play report on the implementation of the 2019 regulation’. As Statewatch note: The state-of-play-report acknowledges a number of legal ambiguities surrounding some of the more controversial powers outlined in Frontex’s 2019 Regulation, highlighting perhaps that political ambition, rather than serious consideration and assessment, propelled the legislation, overtaking adequate procedure and oversight. The incentive to enact the legislation within a short timeframe is cited as a reason that no impact assessment was carried out on the proposed recast to the agency’s mandate. This draft was rushed through negotiations and approved in an unprecedented six-month period, and the details lost in its wake are now coming to light. The major legal ambiguities are: ◆ Regarding service weapons and “non-lethal equipment” (Art. 82), the Agency saught legal analysis, which confirmed that the 2019 Regulation does “not provide sufficient legal basis for the Agency to acquire, register, store and transport firearms in Poland. None of the Polish legal acts either directly or indirectly mentions the Agency as an entity which is entitled to acquire (possess) firearms or ammunition for the purpose of fulfilment of its statutory tasks and duties, without a permit issued by the Polish authorities.” ◆ Regarding the establishment of a new supervisory mechanism on the use of force (Art. 55), the agency found that such provisions are inconsistent with the standard rules on administrative enquiries and disciplinary measures concerned, lacking due independency and secrecy from the Agency. Frontex add that the “Standing corps being the first uniformed service of the EU will require different treatment in comparison to the regular officials working in the EU Institutions”. ◆ Frontex seek special treatment regarding immunities and privileges. “Protocol No 7 on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union annexed to the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and to the TFEU” applies to the agency and its statutory staff. However, Frontex is not satisfied because the Protocol does not apply to non-EU states, nor does it “offer a full protection, or take into account a need for the inviolability of assets owned by Frontex (service vehicles, vessels, aircraft)”. ◆ Frontex lacks legal basis for conducting ‘voluntary returns’, since the 2019 Regulation refers to the ‘return’ definition set by the 2008 Return Directive and this does not cover ‘voluntary returns.’ April 18: A pushback of a boat carrying 30 people is carried out by the Greek coast guard off the coast of Lesvos during the night. Frontex internal documents reveal that a Serious Incident Report was filed on May 8 and the pushback was followed minute-by-minute by a Frontex surveillance aircraft. The internal document is published by Der Spiegel. April 10: According to Amnesty’s report “Malta: Waves of impunity”, Frontex is implicated in the ‘Easter Monday pushback’. Amnesty concludes that the European Commission and Frontex propose a restrictive position of Frontex competence regarding search and rescue. According to this interpretation, search and rescue is the responsibility of member states and the Frontex mandate only requires the agency to promptly communicate relevant information to the competent maritime authorities (interpretation stated in writing by the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs and by Frontex Executive Director to the LIBE Committee and reiterated by Frontex Executive Director in a written reply to Amnesty). April 2: In a meeting of the LIBE committee, Frontex Executive director describes the events of March 3, when a Danish vessel refused to execute a pushback that was ordered by the Greek Liaison officer, as “apparently a misunderstanding.” March 14: Alarm Phone reports of a pull-back in the Central Mediterranean carried out by the Libyan coast guard and organised and coordinated by Frontex and MRCC Malta: ◆ At 15:33h CET, Alarm Phone received a distress call from 49 people … They shared their GPS position with us, which clearly showed them within the Maltese SAR zone … We immediately informed RCC Malta and the Italian coastguard via email. ◆ At 17:42h, RCC Malta confirmed via phone that they had sent two patrol boats … ◆ At 17:45h, we talked to the 49 people on the boat who told us that they could see a boat heading in their direction. Unfortunately, the conversation broke off and we were not able to clarify further details. This was our last contact to the people in distress after which we could not reach them any longer. Since then, we have tried to obtain further details from RCC Malta, but they claim not to have any information. However, confidential sources have informed us that a Frontex aerial asset had spotted the migrant boat already at 6:00h when it was still in the contested Libyan SAR zone. ◆ At 18.04h, the Libyan coastguard vessel Ras Al Jadar intercepted the boat in the Maltese SAR zone This means that the European border agency Frontex, MRCC Rome as well as RCC Malta were all aware of this boat in distress and colluded with the Libyan authorities to enter Maltese SAR and intercept the migrant boat. March 13: Human Rights Watch informs Frontex about alleged abuse by non-Greek forces and asked about its deployments along the border: All those interviewed said that within hours after they crossed in boats or waded through the river, armed men wearing various law enforcement uniforms or in civilian clothes, including all in black with balaclavas, intercepted everyone in their group. All said the men detained them in official or informal detention centers, or on the roadside, and stole their money, mobile phones, and bags before summarily pushing them back to Turkey. Seventeen described how the men assaulted them and others, including women and children, through electric shocks, beating with wooden or metal rods, prolonged beating of the soles of feet, punching, kicking, and stomping. The agency replied saying that it did not have the requested information and that it would respond as soon as it did. March 12: Frontex deploys an additional 100 border guards at the Greek land border with Turkey as part of a rapid border intervention requested by Greece one week earlier. On 3rd April the deployment is extended. At that date, 624 officers are deployed by Frontex at Greek sea and land external borders. Critics argue that this deployment “lacks legal basis”, because the suspension of asylum and the widespread violence documented at the border fail to meet the required Fundamental Rights standards. Among others, Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN), Amnesty and HRW report extensively on the situation at the Evros border. HRW testimonies “describe 38 deportation incidents involving almost 4,000 people, although some of these could be double counts.” March 2: A Danish vessel, deployed in the Aegean within Frontex’s operation Poseidon, refuses an order received by Hellenic Coast Guard Liaison Officer at Frontex HQ, to push back to Turkish waters 33 people they had just rescued in Greek waters. Through the efforts of individuals, NGOs and other organisations it is discovered that no Serious Incident Report was filed and that Frontex HQ requested more information about the events only following media coverage, as shown by an internal chain of emails. In less than four hours from the first email the incident was considered ‘isolated’ and the case was closed. March 1: Greece introduces emergency measures in response to increasing pressure at its land border, among them the “temporary suspension, for one month from of this Decision, of the lodging of asylum by those entering the country illegally”. February 27: Following statements from the Turkish authorities that the country’s borders with the EU would be opened, thousands of people rush to the border region with Greece. February 20: The signing of the Status Agreement between the EU and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would allow Frontex to be deployed in the country, is halted by Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of the state presidency of the country. As media report: At the last session of the three-member Bosnian presidency, Dodik voted against all decisions that were on the agenda. One was the proposal of the Minister of Security, Fahrudin Radoncic, to accept an “Status Agreement between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union on Actions Executed by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency in Bosnia and Herzegovina”. January 31: Frontex requests two freedom of information activists of the German platform Frag Der Staat (Ask the State), Luisa Izuzquiza and Arne Semsrott, to pay €23,700 in legal costs, after the Agency won a case at the General Court of the European Union, in which the two activists were seeking access to information related to Joint Operation Triton in 2017.

https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-special-frontex-and-human-rights-how-did-we-arrive-here-part-3-2020-present-706438d8e29

['Are You Syrious']

2020-12-26 16:10:33.598000+00:00

['European Union', 'Special', 'Frontex', 'Pushback', 'Human Rights']

How to Make a Sticky Connection With Your Biggest Fans

We don’t know where our first impressions come from or precisely what they mean, so we don’t always appreciate their fragility. — Malcolm Gladwell First impressions matter, of course. That’s why you’ll find all kinds of advice about how to put your best foot forward as a writer. How to make your work look its best. How to properly format it for whoever you’re sending it to, and for your readers. But what comes next? First impressions, like Malcolm Gladwell said, might be fragile. But I think it’s worse than that. I think they’re often either transparent or slick. Either readers don’t remember their first impression of us or they’re drawn in by something, but the surface of the impression is too slippery to stick to them if it’s challenged later. The best we can hope for on first impression is that they’ll come back. Read a little more. Or maybe just think about us again, when a friend needs a book to read. Remember us when they see our name again. It’s the second impression — the chance we get when someone comes back for a second look — that matters most. It’s our opportunity to make a sticky connection with them. One that will make them remember us. How we manage those followers who actually become fans is so important. I had this experience once. There’s an author I really admire. I read his newsletter. I own all of his books. I’ve bought every single thing he’s ever tried to sell me. And I’ve hand sold his stuff all over creation. My first impression of him was lovely. Shiny and slick. I was going to be in his city a couple of years ago and we’re colleagues enough that I decided to email and introduced myself. I told him I’d love to buy him coffee. He wrote back, several days later and said that he was sorry, but he’d have to decline. Okay. He was under no obligation to meet me. His reply was polite. First impression intact. One day, several months later, I checked my Amazon affiliate links and realized that I’d hand sold more than 100 copies of his books that month. I wrote him again and told him that awesome news, showed him proof, and said that since my audience obviously loves him, I’d love to interview him. Could I send him a few questions via email that he could answer at his leisure? He wrote back, several days later and said that he was sorry, but he’d have to decline. The exact same email. Still polite, but now obviously a cut and paste, since I had two of them. Now, intellectually, I don’t expect everyone (or anyone) to do what I want or I’m going to hate them forever. He’s a busy, famous dude. He gets to say no, period. But I’m human and I can’t help that the tarnish is off the shine of that first impression. That’s just the breaks. I started out feeling like this man’s work was mine, in a small way, because I loved it so much. I had a connection to it that made me excited to spread the news about it. I shared it with people who trust me to send them to cool stuff, because it was sort of like sharing something of mine. I still appreciate his work, but it doesn’t feel like it’s mine at all anymore. I was a kind of cosmic-level fan. Pat Flynn calls that a superfan. My second impression of this author wasn’t very sticky. I fact, my first impression was stickier. These days I’m more of a regular fan. Here’s another experience. I signed up for a program that I was excited about starting. It was an innovative kind of mastermind community that I’d never really heard of before. I’d been to a conference put on by the guys running the program and I was jazzed to be part of it. My first impression, again, was pretty. Nice and shiny and slick. The first couple of days were rocky. The program’s owner had a thing about Facebook. He didn’t like it. At all. But in the lead up the program starting, he’d started a temporary Facebook group for people to start to get to know each other and it was really active and exciting. But then he pulled the plug on it — deleted it completely — and moved to a forum on his own site. The forum was far less interactive and more slow paced. It was a complete dud. So, first impression was spotty at best. But then I got an email from one of the guys who was running the program. In it was a one-minute welcome video where the man addressed me by name, talked specifically about why he was happy that I’d joined his program and what he thought I’d get out of it and how much he was looking forward to what I could bring to it. One little video and suddenly I felt connected to the program again. I was willing to wait through the growing pains with the forum, at least for a little while. That forum, btw, was the program’s ultimate undoing I think. The momentum that started on Facebook never reignited. At least it didn’t for me. But, because the person who’d developed the program took the time to make a good second impression on me, when he had something else to offer years later, I was excited to take a look. My second impression here was sticky. Even though the first thing I did with them didn’t work out, they’d made a fan. It’s the same for all kinds of marketing. Even for writers. We have the chance to make a first impression, of course. We put our work out there. People read it and they enjoy it or they don’t. They share it or they don’t. They tell their friends about it or they don’t. We put our best foot forward and aim for those good, shiny first impressions. But it’s the second impression that matters even more. The second impression is what’s really at the heart of marketing for writers. Those readers who are intrigued enough to come back or to reach out for a little more — they want to be inspired. They want a sticky experience. If you give them a chance, they’ll become your fan. Most of your readers won’t give you the chance to have a sticky second-impression interaction with them. That’s okay. It’s the way the game is played. Most will read and move on, and you’ll never really know they were there beyond some statistic maybe. If you think of your readers arranged in a pyramid, casual readers who only read something if they happen to come across it are at the bottom. A nice, sturdy base. But some will seek you out on social media. Or they’ll join your email list. Or they’ll look for your next book. They’ll talk to a friend about what they read. They’ll ask a question. There’s this advice about social media that says that you shouldn’t follow as many people as follow you. That you need, I suppose, to give the impression that you’re popular. But I always remember that when my older daughter was in middle school and Twitter was a bright new thing, her favorite author followed her. Meg Cabot (or probably her assistant) followed my kid and she was over the moon. And you know what? She still loves Meg Cabot. And you know what else? I still love Meg Cabot. She made my daughter a reader on a whole other level. That one little follow garnered her two deeper connections with readers than she would have otherwise had. That was long before I had any published books, but I realized then that I wanted to make people feel the way Meg Cabot made my daughter feel that day. So, what does it all mean? I think it means, for writers, that you can read all the advice and strategy guides and tip listicles there are — and none if it will really matter if you’re not making a connection. You don’t necessarily need to make a personal, one-on-one connection with every reader. I mean, you’re only one person. But you can remember that your readers are people who have chosen to spend their free time with you. You can throw away the adages about how many people you should follow. You can pay attention to your readers, so that your work becomes a conversation with them, instead of you pontificating and getting upset when no one listens. When I think about sticky novelists, I think about Meg Cabot following my kid on Twitter. And Chuck Palahniuk teaching me about thought verbs. And Stephen King’s letters to his Constant Readers. I think about Ellen Hopkins traveling all year long to schools to meet her young readers. I also think about Ray Bradbury and Octavia Butler and Judy Blume and a hundred other authors who told stories that invited me in. And that’s harder to do, of course. Way harder than following someone on Twitter. But it’s what I meant about being in conversation with your reader. It wasn’t the first impression that mattered to me the most for any of those writers. I don’t remember which Judy Blume book I read first. Freckle Juice, maybe. But I will never forget reading Tiger Eyes when it was brand new in 1981. It was the first time I ever read anything that made me think — oh, my god, this author knows me. I was ten years old. I’ve bought all of Blume’s books for my children. I’ve shared them with young friends my entire adult life. My daughters and I stood in line for hours to meet her at a book event and it was worth every minute. She made a sticky impression on me in the sixth grade.

https://medium.com/the-write-brain/how-to-make-a-sticky-connection-with-your-biggest-fans-47126c3c56dc

['Shaunta Grimes']

2019-09-24 18:54:46.456000+00:00

['Creativity', 'Writing', 'Fiction', 'Productivity', 'Marketing']

Convert Web Pages Into PDFs With Puppeteer and Node.js

Convert Web Pages to PDF Now we get to the exciting part of the tutorial. With Puppeteer, we only need a few lines of code to convert web pages into PDF. First, create a browser instance using Puppeteer’s launch function: const browser = await puppeteer.launch(); Then, we create a new page instance and visit the given page URL using Puppeteer: const webPage = await browser.newPage(); const url = "https://livecodestream.dev/post"; await webPage.goto(url, { waitUntil: "networkidle0" }); We have set the waitUntil option to networkidle0 . When we use the networkidle0 option, Puppeteer waits until there are no new network connections within the last 500 ms. It is a way to determine whether the site has finished loading. It’s not exact and Puppeteer offers other options, but it is reliable for most cases. Finally, we create the PDF from the crawled page content and save it to our device: The print to PDF function is quite complicated and allows for a lot of customization, which is fantastic. Here are some of the options we used: printBackground : When this option is set to true , Puppeteer prints any background colors or images you have used on the web page to the PDF. : When this option is set to , Puppeteer prints any background colors or images you have used on the web page to the PDF. path : This specifies where to save the generated PDF file. You can also store it into a memory stream to avoid writing to disk. : This specifies where to save the generated PDF file. You can also store it into a memory stream to avoid writing to disk. format : You can set the PDF format to one of the given options: Letter , A4 , A3 , A2 , etc. : You can set the PDF format to one of the given options: , , , , etc. margin : You can specify a margin for the generated PDF with this option.

https://medium.com/better-programming/convert-web-pages-into-pdfs-with-puppeteer-and-node-js-8e72fb3d0bd2

['Juan Cruz Martinez']

2020-12-28 16:57:54.055000+00:00

['Programming', 'Nodejs', 'Web Development', 'JavaScript', 'Typescript']

Using Unique SSH Keys for Multiple GitHub Accounts

As a software engineer and all-around nerd, I’m pretty picky about computers. The Mac Mini provided by my company is fine, but, let’s face it, my custom-built desktop gaming rig and my Dell XPS 15 laptop (MacBook power at half the price — seriously, you should check it out!) both blow it out of the water in terms of performance. Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and the VS Code ecosystem have both matured to the point where I can use Windows for development (without dual-booting Linux!). Since the pandemic started, I‘ve been using my personal equipment for work, and it’s been fabulous. So I was excited to start working on some new side projects this week during my vacation. People, IT SUCKS. Seriously. It’s painful. I have separate GitHub accounts for work and personal projects, each of which requires a unique SSH key. Since I already had my work SSH key set up on my machine, I couldn’t actually work with any of my personal repos. GitHub doesn’t like multiple accounts. :( Googling “how to use different ssh keys for different GitHub accounts” led to a lot of instructions for messing with my SSH config that didn’t even work, and actually broke the GitHub SSH connection on my work account. Luckily, a random sighting in the comments of an SO thread, plus a deep dive into the git config documentation led to an epiphany: includeIf. This innocuous-looking command was the key to my GitHub conundrum. With a single GitHub account, you have a single .gitconfig file. This is usually located in your home directory. It defines things like your name, email address, and other random git settings. However, if you’re like me and need to juggle multiple GitHub accounts, it’s not quite enough. This is where includeIf comes in. By adding it to my main .gitconfig , I was able to conditionally include other config files based on the current directory. Combined with the core.sshCommand option, this was the perfect fix for my GitHub woes. Here’s how I did it: (Note: the commands below worked on my WSL setup powered by Ubuntu 20.04. If you’re using macOS or a different Linux distro, you might need to tweak them a bit. And if you’re using plain ol’ Windows, I’m sorry.) Start by copying your current .gitconfig file, once for each profile you need to create. Since I have work and personal profiles, I made two. cp ~/.gitconfig ~/.gitconfig-work cp ~/.gitconfig ~/.gitconfig-personal You should now have three separate files. Open them all in your editor of choice. If you’re using VS Code (and you’ve added it to your path), you can open them all in one shot like this: code ~/.gitconfig ~/.gitconfig-work ~/.gitconfig-personal In your main .gitconfig file, remove any account-specific settings. I left anything that would be the same across both accounts, like my pull.rebase setting. At the top of your cleaned-up file, add the following block once for each profile. Make sure to edit your paths and file names as necessary: [includeIf "gitdir:~/work/**"] path = ~/.gitconfig-work In your .gitconfig-work and .gitconfig-personal files, remove any shared configuration, and edit the user name and email. Add the following snippet to each, making sure to change the key names accordingly. [core] sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa -F /dev/null My final files look like this: My .gitconfig-work file Now, close your terminal, open a new one, and test it out! You should be able to push and pull all your repos, as long as they are below the directory that matches your includeIf statement for the account that has access to them. Doesn’t it feel good to solve a problem? Have you solved any interesting problems recently? I’d love to hear about them!

https://adevcalledamanda.medium.com/using-unique-ssh-keys-for-multiple-github-accounts-be48d50aad2e

['Amanda Reilly']

2020-11-30 21:48:09.942000+00:00

['Software Development', 'Github', 'Git', 'Ssh Keys', 'Multiple Accounts']

Are we ever too late for a Second Chance?

This isn’t just another day, it’s another chance for you to get it right. And suddenly you recognize that it’s time to start afresh and trust the charm of new beginnings. Life is not a bed of roses. How often have we heard that line? Even so, when life takes a toll on us, we cannot just conform to it. What’s interesting to note is that it is perfectly normal. The most beautiful thing in the world, kindness, can touch lives in the most gentle yet influential way. An individual is but a cluster of cells with a package of feelings inside. Voicing them is not going to make us any less competent as a human being. Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash Some people consider a partially filled glass as half full while others assume it as being half empty. Relying on negative thoughts is the sole paramount obstacle to a successful outcome. If we focus on the hurt, we continue to endure. Supposing we focus on the experience, we will only go on nurturing. Just as a roller-coaster ride has its ups and downs, so does life! All we have to do is to take custody on how to control the speed and remain in the track. Pledge for yourself another inception — ample time to rejuvenate you and reasonably short to fetch you back in the race. In the voyage of not demonstrating whatsoever to anybody else, but you that not only is the upshot worthy of the endeavor, but that YOU are worth it. Regardless of whether or not you change your destiny, you should be in a position to say that you gave it the fight it deserves. As Courtney Giardina, in Holding on to Georgia says,

https://medium.com/@diyanagchaudhury/are-we-ever-too-late-for-a-second-chance-f7a51367960f

['Diya Nag Chaudhury']

2020-03-12 17:43:15.731000+00:00

['Happiness', 'New Beginnings', 'Inspiration', 'Positivity', 'Life']

Single Mother: Things I Must Teach My Boys

Single Mother: Things I Must Teach My Boys My advice on raising boys to grow into good men. I have been a single parent to my children in one form or another most of my life. Turning my rowdy boys into good men falls squarely on my shoulders. I’m not going to lie. It is extremely overwhelming to have that all riding on me. I’ve been known to screw up a lot. And this is something that I just cannot get wrong. I am blessed to have a good husband now, but my kids are older and I really could have used him about ten years ago. How To Treat Women My main goal in life is to make sure my boys treat the women, or significant other, in their life the way they should. Knowing they saw the way I was treated bothers me and I hope that they don’t resort to those methods when they are frustrated or angry. And, God forbid, I ever find out if my boys have hit a woman or verbally abused her. My boys are sweet and smart young men so I really don’t think I have anything to worry about. But that’s what all stupid parents say. How To Be Sensitive My boys will never be shamed for crying or showing emotion. I want them to know from day one that they are able to process their emotions as they see fit and deal with them in their own manner. Obviously, I will work hard to ensure that their manner of dealing with life and its ugly side is legal and healthy, but suppressing emotions will not be encouraged. They will be taught that real men are vulnerable. Housework They are just now getting used to having a man in the house again with us, but they see him cooking and cleaning as often as I do. He works shorter hours than I do so oftentimes, he does more than I do. I want them to know that no matter how they choose to live their grown-up lives, they need to be able to handle all or most of the chores themselves. The ladies (or men or whoever) will thank me later because there is nothing sexier than watching a man do housework. Balance Having balance in every aspect of your life is a lesson it took me many, many years to learn. I hope especially that they understand the importance of balance in relationships. Treating women, or whoever they may be with, the right way is hugely important. It’s also important that they know that in a two-person relationship someone always gives more than the other. So, logically, someone else also takes more than the other. It’s important to set boundaries and not give away too much of your heart or life before it has been earned. I would hate to see them getting stomped all over because then I will be going to jail. And I don’t have the mouth for surviving in jail. Sexuality I hope to be able to teach my sons to be secure in their skin no matter if they are straight or homosexual. They will know not to judge anyone based on who they love, the color of their skin, or what their genitalia may be. This life is hard enough without grasping for reasons to hate our fellow man. At the end of the day, I hope all of my children will know I did the best I could. I showed up every day, even when I didn’t want to or was sick. I know I made mistakes, but I am proud of all four of my children and I know that they know how much I love them. That much I can be sure of.

https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/single-mother-things-i-must-teach-my-boys-d5fead0f1199

['Kylie Craft']

2020-07-10 22:01:00.980000+00:00

['Family', 'Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Parenting', 'Children']

The American Health Care System is Stupid

Despite popular belief, American health care is not the best in the world. Americans spend more per person annually on health care than any developed nation. A big part of the reason is that American Hospitals overcharge patients massively. For example, a neck brace, normally, costs $20, but a hospital will charge $154. An I.V. bag costs less than a dollar, but hospitals charge $137. Unlike most issues in America, this is not the government’s fault. The problem started with something called “the chargemaster”. The chargemaster is a secret document full of insane prices that hospitals use to charge patients whatever they want. 100 years ago, hospital pricing was simple. They would take the cost of providing car and add a little on top in order to make a profit. For example, amputation would cost the hospital $5, so they would charge patients $6.50. After the rise of insurance companies, hospital billing got complicated, in part because the gigantic corporations demanded large discounts. To please the powerful insurance companies, hospitals created really high fake prices and gave the insurance companies discounts on that. And in less than a century, health care prices went from reasonable to nonsensical. They made one Tylenol $37 and three stitches $2,200. These crazy inflated prices are kept in the hospital’s chargemaster. If someone does not have insurance, they are actually charged the fake prices. Even if someone does have insurance, they can get billed chargemaster prices if they go out-of-network, and anything can be out of network: the hospital they go to, the equipment used to treat them, even the doctors they see. Hospitals make a ton of money overcharging out-of-network patients. Even worse, every hospital has its own chargemaster. For example, a treatment that costs $7,000 at one hospital could cost $100,000 at another. One cannot comparison shop when their dying. Plus, since insurance companies face inflated costs, that could trickle down to the individual in the form of higher premiums. Hospitals can easily get away with this. The health care industry spends more on lobbying than the oil and defense industry combined. There is nothing one can do about it. Everyone needs to go to the hospital at some point or another. Hospitals have no incentive to change how they do business. And politicians have spent decades arguing over how to pay the bill instead of asking why the bill is so high. Until they do, Americans are stuck with this system.

https://medium.com/@rileylopez/the-american-health-care-system-is-stupid-ab1a201aced4

['Riley Lopez']

2020-12-17 05:30:20.218000+00:00

['America', 'Capitalism', 'Healthcare']

Communication is a two way street

Bite sized leadership advice Communication is a two-way street. Listen hard to your team, *really* listen to understand. Ask open questions. This applies more than ever in a virtual world where you are missing many of the reference points you have. Take a moment to check in and understand how the other person is or thinks before you start. Humans can’t help speaking or being influenced by what is front of their mind, which is typically someting which is stressing them out, a problem to be solved. Do not be afraid of pauses or silences, try six seconds to promote the other person to speak. Adapt your message based on what you learn, rather than leaping in. Once you have communicated, measure the effectiveness of what you have communicated. Not just the message, which can be repeated easily. Take a moment to ask questions which demonstrate understanding. Look for the person you are communicating with to translate the message into their own language and actions. One to watch out for, a trap we can often fall into; whoever speaks the most in a two way interaction believes that they have the better relationship with the other person. A good balance is 50/50, depending on the purpose of the conversation. If you are at 80/20 with you projecting 80% of the time, take a moment. Is this appropriate. If you are looking for advice on how to lead through a crisis, then this long form Medium article (10 mins read) has all the good stuff that will make the difference to you and your leadership. This is part of our Leadership Wizdom series, bite sized leadership advice for leaders who wish to improve their leadership, but don’t have much time. For more indepth articles check out The Change Wizard

https://medium.com/leadership-wizdom/communication-is-a-two-way-street-33d0fcd4e59c

['Ed Pike']

2020-04-13 11:01:01.317000+00:00

['Entrepreneurship', 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Leadership', 'Communication']

Survival analysis and the stratified sample

Part II: Case-control sampling and regression strategy Due to resource constraints, it is unrealistic to perform logistic regression on data sets with millions of observations, and dozens (or even hundreds) of explanatory variables. Luckily, there are proven methods of data compression that allow for accurate, unbiased model generation. Traditional logistic case-control Case-control sampling is a method that builds a model based on random subsamples of “cases” (such as responses) and “controls” (such as non-responses). Regardless of subsample size, the effect of explanatory variables remains constant between the cases and controls, so long as the subsample is taken in a truly random fashion. For example, if women are twice as likely to respond as men, this relationship would be borne out just as accurately in the case-control data set as in the full population-level data set. Thus, we can get an accurate sense of what types of people are likely to respond, and what types of people will not respond. After the logistic model has been built on the compressed case-control data set, only the model’s intercept needs to be adjusted. While relative probabilities do not change (for example male/female differences), absolute probabilities do change. For example, take​​​ a population with 5 million subjects, and 5,000 responses. If the case-control data set contains all 5,000 responses, plus 5,000 non-responses (for a total of 10,000 observations), the model would predict that response probability is 1/2, when in reality it is 1/1000. When all responses are used in the case-control set, the offset added to the logistic model’s intercept is shown below: Here, N_0 is equal to the number of non-events in the population, while n_0 is equal to the non-events in the case-control set. As a reminder, in survival analysis we are dealing with a data set whose unit of analysis is not the individual, but the individual*week. The following very simple data set demonstrates the proper way to think about sampling: This technique incorrectly picks a few individuals and follows them over time. This technique captures much more variability by randomly selecting individual observations from the data set. Survival analysis case-control and the stratified sample Things become more complicated when dealing with survival analysis data sets, specifically because of the hazard rate. For example, if an individual is twice as likely to respond in week 2 as they are in week 4, this information needs to be preserved in the case-control set. And the best way to preserve it is through a stratified sample. With stratified sampling, we hand-pick the number of cases and controls for each week, so that the relative response probabilities from week to week are fixed between the population-level data set and the case-control set. This way, we don’t accidentally skew the hazard function when we build a logistic model. This can easily be done by taking a set number of non-responses from each week (for example 1,000). This method requires that a variable offset be used, instead of the fixed offset seen in the simple random sample. The offset value changes by week and is shown below: Again, the formula is the same as in the simple random sample, except that instead of looking at response and non-response counts across the whole data set, we look at the counts on a weekly level, and generate different offsets for each week j. Because the offset is different for each week, this technique guarantees that data from week j are calibrated to the hazard rate for week j. Code for logistic regression The following R code reflects what was used to generate the data (the only difference was the sampling method used to generate sampled_data_frame ): glm_object = glm(response ~ age + income + factor(week), data = sampled_data_frame, family = "binomial")

https://towardsdatascience.com/survival-analysis-and-the-stratified-sample-2c2582aa9805

['Edward Wagner']

2019-04-18 19:00:24.336000+00:00

['Logistic Regression', 'Survival Analysis', 'R', 'Data Science']

Two years into VC Platform. The future of VC is data driven. This…

TL;DR: The post aims to highlight my role at Inventure and how we are trying to change the way a seed VC fund operates. Do VCs really add values to the portfolio? And how? Inventure’s work on VC platform has evolved during the last year into a more structured and data driven value creation exercise Inventure’s portfolio companies now go through an on-boarding workshop to define priorities and how we will be supporting them We have run over 170 value creation “programs” so far this year with more to come in the coming months How my role has evolved: I divide my time sparring with CXOs on operations and fundraising themes to help building the right processes and frameworks (or at least trying to :) ) In the coming months we will continue focusing on hands on advisory/support and programmatic knowledge sharing Let’s dig in I published ”One year into VC Platform” roughly one year ago. A post to reflect on our progress on the “platform initiative” and what that meant for both us as a team at Inventure and for our portfolio. It is time for a “Two years into VC Platform” post to check our progress and our plans forward. For the purpose of clarity, I would define platform/value creation work as those activities a fund does to help the portfolio companies’ growth path and ultimately increase their value. During this path, there are two types of “hard” checkpoints. The first ones being add-on funding rounds, a market signal of a value increase on paper. The second, an actual exit, the moment of truth of VCs when actual money flows back to LPs. It takes time to reach these hard checkpoints, and a lot of the activities done in the meantime are difficult to correlate to success. What we want to focus on is what companies will prioritize to reach those validation moments and what we should help them with on the way. To do that, we kickstarted an on-boarding workshop for all new companies joining Inventure portfolio. During an on-boarding workshop, myself and the case manager will sit down the core of the management team of the company to go through a few things: What it means to join Inventure portfolio What are the companies’ goals by the next funding round Where the company is today and what are the short term priorities in the coming months What it means to join Inventure portfolio The picture above is an extract from our on-boarding tool kit. A summary of the different perks a company receives when joining Inventure portfolio. In detail: Corporate partnerships : Overall, we estimated companies can unlock over € 500k worth of offers/discounts through the corporate partnership programs currently active via Inventure : Overall, we estimated companies can unlock over € 500k worth of offers/discounts through the corporate partnership programs currently active via Inventure Events : We believe in small, online, theme-based workshops rather than big events. We try not to burden our companies with too many events but focus solely on value added discussions driven by burning needs in the portfolio and organise ad-hoc workshops around those topics. : We believe in small, online, theme-based workshops rather than big events. We try not to burden our companies with too many events but focus solely on value added discussions driven by burning needs in the portfolio and organise ad-hoc workshops around those topics. Database & communication : this section hasn’t changed much from last year. We will re-new some sections of Inventure Awake in the coming months and we keep using the portfolio Slack channel. Moreover, we are keen to explore a cross VC Slack initiative with theme/position based communities, (marketing, sales, finance, product, etc) to actually give the experts in their portfolio a peer network of relevant size : this section hasn’t changed much from last year. We will re-new some sections of Inventure Awake in the coming months and we keep using the portfolio Slack channel. Moreover, we are keen to explore a cross VC Slack initiative with theme/position based communities, (marketing, sales, finance, product, etc) to actually give the experts in their portfolio a peer network of relevant size Tailored plan: honestly, this is the part I am most proud of, and also the core of the whole value creation work. We have been tracking what we do with the companies and broke it down into categories. We then discuss what the company will prioritize and what will remain in the backburner. Also, this is an important moment for the entrepreneurs to tell us where they want our help and where, instead, we should back off and let the company work. A VC that wants to be helpful in everything will end up being helpful in anything. A plan for value creation Let’s next deep dive into what we actually do from a value creation point of view. AKA, how does Inventure helps the portfolio companies beside money? I believe that question is better asked with two sub-questions: What do we do? Who does it? What do we do? We spent now roughly two years piloting different categorizations for the action points we do with the portfolio companies. A part of the overall work and discussion deals with vision setting and long term strategy but that quickly breaks down in different macro areas which we have summarized as: Sales & Business Development : anything to do with the business model of the company, how the company will sell the product/service and all the processes around it. In short, making sure things work and growth happens : anything to do with the business model of the company, how the company will sell the product/service and all the processes around it. In short, making sure things work and growth happens Talent : this area covers both board activity as well as support in hiring the team (often management team). To be noted here, we are not head hunter ourselves but we strive to match the companies with the best options in the market : this area covers both board activity as well as support in hiring the team (often management team). To be noted here, we are not head hunter ourselves but we strive to match the companies with the best options in the market Product : as a fairly generalist fund, we are not able to help with the details of the tech but we support with a strong imprint on the product roadmap as well as the necessary introductions from our networks : as a fairly generalist fund, we are not able to help with the details of the tech but we support with a strong imprint on the product roadmap as well as the necessary introductions from our networks Access to financing: this covers different types of financing with equity add-on funding being the case for most of the companies. Basically, helping the companies building the fundraising story and executing the round by building a long list of potential investors and introducing them to the CEO All these action points are fairly high level as too much detail would make us spend more time logging things in rather than helping the portfolio. They are programs and ongoing discussions we have with our startups to help them overcome a certain issue. So far, in 2019, we have completed over 170 of these programs and we have quite many more planned for Q4 and Q1. Helping companies on different topics from fine tuning their go to market strategy to planning and executing an add on funding round. Each logging represents an activity over a certain period of time that often includes one or more people from Inventure’s team, the portfolio company team and externals (head hunters, other investors, etc). Some examples from our pipeline are: Talent: Support in hiring the CMO. Job profile and possible candidates. Intro to Person from Company to discuss about similar job profiles Go to market: Helping the CMO to launch New Product. Validating ideal customer profile and plan and monitor launch strategy Fundraising: Prepare for round, vision, deck & investor long list. Support execution with relevant introduction, feedback and support throughout the round We review our planned activities for the whole portfolio at least quarterly and make sure we mark the ones that are completed and add new ones for the coming quarters. The process is done through a pipeline on Pipedrive, simple to use and visualize and not much hassle to keep up to date. Who does all of this? We are proud of our diversity at Inventure as it allows us to adapt to different needs of the portfolio both in term of business skills and personality fit. We are still learning but our goal is to work as a team to provide the best source of knowledge to the portfolio. That means a fluid communication between the investment and value creation team to identify what the companies needs and then who is the most suited person to answer that need. That person is often an internal resource, at times someone from the portfolio or an external who has encountered a similar issue in the past. As a frame of reference, most of my time at work is split between sparring with CXOs about the processes and best practices to support growth, sales and business development as well as helping some of our companies in the planning and execution of their funding round. Do entrepreneurs like this? We asked our entrepreneurs (active CXOs of fund II & III) for feedback and for suggestions on how to improve. The feedback from the portfolio has been very encouraging with high level of satisfaction and net promoter score. It is a good start but we want to improve those scores in the future. If we compare the picture above with the previous one, we clearly see how we score better in the areas where we spend more time (financing and sales & BD), while we are clearly not too strong in topics we cover less (product is a perfect example of this). Some areas still need work from our side to strengthen our offering to the entrepreneurs. What is next? In the last two years the core of my job, as well as the essence of the Inventure Platform, has evolved radically. As we expand the scope and size of the job, “Platform” might not even be the term we will call our value creation support in the coming months (hint ;) ). The bottom line, however, is that we will keep focusing on helping the entrepreneurs where we add more value. Standing by their side in building the processes for growth and executing the funding rounds. We are also working on some cool stuff to re-address our weaknesses. Quality and focus will trump quantity in the long term. Furthermore, events will still be important but we will re-think the concept. We will move towards a more programmatic, master class based format and reduce the “beer & networking” gatherings typical of the industry. Reach out: Finally, I do believe that the way VC work is changing and we are working to position Inventure at the forefront of this trend. I would be happy to work with fellow seed and early stage VCs and hear your feedback about what we are building. Also, We are planning to pilot two Nordic wide initiatives for all VCs to better support the portfolio and test the interest from fellow investors : Cross- portfolio theme based communication channels: for CXOs of the same types to achieve broader scale in the discussion Cross-portfolio service providers lists: lists of executive search firms, marketing and PR agencies, accountants and so on, to share feedback and provide better quality information to our companies If you are interested in a chat or in joining one of the cross-portfolio initiatives feel free to reach out to andrea@inventure.fi for a chat. Where can you find me? Helsinki, most of the time London on week 46 at the EU VC Platform Summit Slush on week 47 On Twitter -> @a_adp PS: We are also organising VC Platform drinks at Slush on November 20th. If you work in this role and you are not in the list yet, feel free to reach out!

https://medium.com/@a-adp/two-years-into-vc-platform-value-creation-for-inventure-portfolio-a15362e14456

['Andrea Di Pietrantonio']

2019-11-18 23:08:08.953000+00:00

['Venture Capital', 'Platform', 'Startup', 'Innovation', 'VC']

BEST 4 HIGHLY CRYPTOCURRENCY COURSE & SYSTEM

BEST 4 HIGHLY CRYPTOCURRENCY COURSE & SYSTEM NUMBER 1. UNDERSTANDING, BUYING AND TRADING CRYPTOCURRENCIES MADE EASY http://bit.ly/BuyCrypto4you Crypto4you eBook: Understanding, buying and trading cryptocurrencies made easy: The ultimate guide for beginners Cryptocurrencies? Aren’t these those Bitcoins? Yes exactly! And by the way, probably the biggest technical revolution since the invention of the Internet, maybe even its true and full maturity. Did you ever want to deal with the subject of cryptos? But you have little to no prior knowledge and you are not really a computer genius? No problem! This book is for absolute beginners. It fetches you where you are. It leads you from the history of money through the economical and technical basics like blockchain and co. directly in to practical application while using simple explanations and everyday life’s analogies. I lay all cards on the table and let you plainly participate in my many beginner’s mistakes, so you do not have to go through them as well. Millionaire overnight is not possible even with cryptos! The reader is guided step by step from the first purchase of a crypto coin, to creating a wallet and trading on an exchange. In addition to introductory knowledge on the crypto market, I also want to address questions, fears and doubts by providing education. I want to convey to the reader security as well as a confident handling in the crypto world. The reader should develop both justified skepticism and reasonable optimism. Theoretical and practical advices and warnings as well as a view into the future complete the whole thing and make this book for you a successful start into the crypto world. Friends can buy the product via the url link in the description of this video. NUMBER 2. BITCOIN BREAKTHROUGH SYSTEM http://bit.ly/BuyBitcoinBreakthroughSystem Earn over $9 per month from A SINGLE FREE SIGN UP/ FREE TRIAL SIGN UP! That means if you get 1000 Free Sign Ups. We would pay you over $9000 per month! We are making the easiest offer to sell on Digistore24 in the investment niche. Plus Bitcoin Is A Hot Topic This Year. So It Has Become Increasingly Easy To Sell. Product Information: A 30 part video series considering 3 sections. This video course will show you the best way to obtain Bitcoins and the best investment strategies. Friends can buy the product via the url link in the description of this video. NUMBER 3. BITCOIN FAMILY CRYPTOCURRENCY COURSE http://bit.ly/BuyBitcoinFamilyCryptocurrencyCourse START A CRYPTOCURRENCY COURSE WITH THE BITCOIN FAMILY We will take you by the hand. A lot of people fear the cypto world . It is new. It will change the world. Become an early adaptor and benefit from my experience and knowledge. We will teach you in our video course how to get started with crypto, how to make money with day trading and give you a lookout to the future of the crypto world. Join me now. Friends can buy the product via the url link in the description of this video. NUMBER 4. INTELLIGENT CRYPTOCURRENCY http://bit.ly/BuyIntelligentCryptocurrencyMasterclass Intelligent Cryptocurrency is a premium education & community membership to help beginners & advanced get started with cryptocurrencies. The membership includes: A monthly 25+ page cryptocurrency newsletter Monthly video updates of markets and updates An 18-lesson cryptocurrency beginners course A 20-lesson trading & technical analysis course Multiple topic-specific special reports Access to members-only private Discord chat groups Access to the creator's personal buy/sell movements. Based on over 3 years of experience in the cryptocurrency education space, Intelligent Cryptocurrency is arguably the best place to join if people want to learn about cryptocurrencies and have access to the latest information, research and community. Friends can buy the product via the url link in the description of this video. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Follow us: ► Website bansco.wordpress.com ► Instagram instagram.com/andrias_saputro ► Merchandise - instagram.com/bansmerchand - shp.ee/6e3npnv ► Twitter twitter.com/Andrias_Saputro ► Pinterest pinterest.com/AndriasSaputro ► Facebook facebook.com/bang.ndreass.5 ► Tik Tok tiktok.com/@andrias_saputro ► LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/andriassaputro ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Business inquiries, please contact us at bangndreass.ads@gmail.com

https://medium.com/@andrias_saputro/best-4-highly-cryptocurrency-course-system-dad017bb2391

['Bang Ndreass']

2021-04-01 05:19:35.983000+00:00

['Cryptocurrency', 'Cryptocurrency Mining', 'Bitcoin Mining', 'Dogecoin', 'Free Bitcoin']

Few Things to Know Before Enrolling in Coding School

Coding is really popular nowadays — if you know how to code, you can be picky about choosing your job. If you aren’t very good at coding and you want to learn, there are different ways to start. But how to choose the right one? There are lots of coding schools and online courses claiming that you can learn to code in 7 days or create your first mobile app within a few hours. Well, I hate to break to you, but that just isn’t true. You can’t learn to do anything correctly in few hours — you even didn’t know how to walk for a few months! You will have to be persistent and confident in order to overcome setbacks that will come. And, oh boy, will they come. You will spend hours looking at code and asking yourself ”Am I stupid or what?” Still in for the journey? Great! Coding is beautiful because you can get to create something amazing from nothing! Since I’ve been both student and teacher, I will try to suggest a few steps which should help you take the maximum value out of a coding school. I started my coding career as self-taught web developer and when first $$$ arrived, I decided to improve my knowledge and fill in the gaps. I invested some money in learning and enrolled in a coding school that lasted ~3 months. Since I already knew some basics, I was probably one of more advanced students in the class. But that didn’t stop me from asking questions and giving my teacher a hard time with lots of ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. Don’t start a journey you don’t want to finish! In my teaching career I saw different types of students and now I can clearly see when someone is attending classes just because he/she has to be there (e.g. company paid the course so they can maintain their website or parents invested in their child’s education). Seriously, why waste the time? You’re sitting there 2/3 hours a day just because someone told you to do so? You are (either directly on indirectly) paying money for it (time is money). Why not learn as much as you can if you are already sitting there. Learn the basics on your own There are different course types with different durations — some that last a few days to some that last 12 months. If you really want to do your best, you will have to spend a lot of time practicing and learning on your own. This is why I suggest all of my students learn the basics before enrolling in the course. Do you want to learn how to code a website for example? Cool, learn first about tech stack used (HTML, CSS, JS) basics of Internet, HTTP protocol, and other keywords. It’s out there, on the web. Google it. This will help you to follow along with the material. If you start your course as a tabula rasa, you will struggle with understanding terms and concepts. There are other people in the class, nobody is going to wait for you because the class would get nothing done. You could end up falling behind or even quitting the course and being mad about it. Learning is full-time job Forget about learning how to code in 15 mins a day. It doesn’t work that way. Clean up your schedule while attending the course and be dedicated to learning. Of course, to do that, find something that you have an interest in. You will not be able to follow a course about a subject that you don’t care about. Make sure you understand everything you type, everything your teacher says. If you don’t — ask! This is probably the only time you will have the opportunity to ask a professional for advice without paying money for it. Give yourself time to grow Don’t be hard on yourself just because you don’t know something. All professionals had been there. `Hello world` is the most used line for beginners, don’t expect to build space shuttle after two weeks of coding. Embrace the fact that the end product may not be the most polished product in the world. And please, don’t call yourself developer/programmer/engineer after completing the course. You’re at the beginning of a long trip, enjoy the ride and stop rushing to be a senior ninja full-stack consultant or any other fancy title. Being a newbie is awesome — you get to learn at a rate you will never again achieve.

https://medium.com/it-works-locally/few-things-to-know-before-enrolling-in-coding-school-dab783044eda

['Zoran Antolović']

2016-11-01 00:20:35.673000+00:00

['Coding', 'Programming Languages', 'Programming', 'Learning To Code']

What To Do With Your Second Stimulus Check

What To Do With Your Second Stimulus Check Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash On December 29, 2020, the US Treasury began distributing the second stimulus package via electronic transfers. Paper checks began to be mailed on December 30. Similar to the first round, the method and amount of payment is based on your 2019 tax returns. If you provided your bank account information to the IRS you will receive a direct deposit, if not you will get a check in the mail. You can check the status of your payment here. The amount of the stimulus check is based on your 2019 Tax Return Adjusted Gross Income: individuals who earned less than $75,000 and joint filing couples who earned less than $150,000 are eligible for the full amount of $600 per person to include dependents below 16 years old. Those who earned more than those thresholds ($75,000/$150,000) will get progressively less, while joint filers who made more than $174,000 and individuals who made more than $87,000 are not eligible for a second stimulus. One should consider where to put this money. Individual considerations will drive your decision to make an optimal choice. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs starts with a foundation of basic physiological survival items: food, water, and shelter. For anyone in dire circumstances, focus on meeting these needs: putting food on the table or paying rent/mortgage payments. After basic needs are met, you can focus on safety and security. This is where I will focus the rest of this article.

https://themakingofamillionaire.com/what-to-do-with-your-second-stimulus-check-2de3723d2583

['Citizen Upgrade']

2020-12-30 19:27:40.141000+00:00

['Personal Finance', 'Real Estate', 'Saving', 'Investment', 'Debt']

The Brilliant Scientist Who Stopped the Roman Army

The story of Archimedes Archimedes was the resident of the city-state of Syracuse on the east coast of Sicily, founded in 734 BCE. During his time the state was a powerhouse of art, science, and commerce even rivaling Athens. Archimedes shared a close relationship with the king and was often called to suggest solutions to civic problems within the city. From inventing a water pump to remove rainwater from ships to testing the amount of gold in the king’s crown (remember the Eureka moment when he ran naked?), Archimedes’s brilliance made him the most respected scientist of his time. It was around this time that the Romans attacked the state. A huge Roman army under their famous general Marcellus laid siege outside the walls of Syracuse. Well versed in siege warfare, the Romans expected the conquering of the city-state to be a cakewalk as ships carrying ladders and grappling hooks sailed toward the city with the intention of scaling its walls. But they had grossly underestimated the brilliance of Archimedes. Archimedes devised a series of devious engineering marvels that repulsed Marcellus and his army in every assault. What was expected to finish in two days went on for two years with the Roman army waiting outside the walls, frustrated and terrorized by a ‘local’ engineer as they called Archimedes. Some of his marvelous creations were simply too brilliant even for today’s times. The Archimedes Claw The Archimedes Claw was a notorious invention in which huge beams could be swung out over the walls and some of also dropped huge weights, punching holes through the ships and sinking them. Others had a claw or grappling hook, which grabbed hold of the rigging or rails of a galley, raising it, shaking it, and capsizing it. The terrifying spectacle of a ship being lifted and thrown stuck terror within the Romans. The Archimedes Catapult Engine The historian Plutarch describes the catapult engine as a series of “engines” designed to hurl arrows and rocks at attacking Roman troops and ships. According to him, some of the rocks hurled from Archimedes’s catapults weighed as much as 10 talents — around 700 pounds. He also describes different types of catapult engines with varied ability to hurl or shoot projectiles at attackers both at great range and directly under the city’s walls. The Archimedes Death Ray This was the most lethal of Archimedes inventions. The invention involved a huge mirror that could focus sunlight onto the wooden Roman ships and cause them to burst into flames. The device consisted of a large array of highly polished bronze or copper shields arranged in a parabola, concentrating sunlight into a single, intense beam. This single device spread havoc among Roman sailors who even mutinied rather than getting burnt to death. Marcellus could not afford any more direct attacks and he suffered heavy losses. What began as a short siege had become a stalemate that went on for two years.

https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-brilliant-scientist-who-stopped-the-roman-army-f85f295063c3

['Mythili The Dreamer']

2020-11-06 19:35:45.848000+00:00

['World', 'Culture', 'Technology', 'Science', 'History']

Scott Sage, Co Founder of Crane Venture Partners | Q and A

1. What inspired you to become a VC and was there a particular ‘lightbulb’ moment? I didn’t go to Harvard, I’m not technical and I have a short attention span. Oh, and I’m from Texas. When I finished school, I wanted to figure out who I was and have life experiences. So I moved to London and had the opportunity to work at a big co for a year.. Thereafter, I was a nanny (I suppose one would say manny), worked in an antique shop, worked in A&R and haphazardly became a researcher and learned how to use MATLAB (I thought I had always hated math until I had a good teacher). This led me to a commercial role at a startup and the rest is history. 2. You describe Crane as a “thematic” investment firm, what does this mean? We only invest into founders building enterprise companies. How can Crane support these founders if we’re generalists investing into D2C brands, food delivery or healthcare? We have a deep bench of investors and company builders who can help any one of our companies at any stage of their go-to-market. Now that European founders have a choice of who to take money from at the seed stage, we’ve found that they would rather partner with a specialist investor than the other options. 3. What particular DNA do you look for in a Founder/team? Every team we have backed to date is deeply technical and has experienced the problem they have committed their working lives to solve. But, a lot of geniuses do not have the ability to build a system or architecture to enable their company to thrive. So we also look for founders who not only have a relentless drive to win through attracting the best talent and providing the most value to their customers, but they are humble. They can’t hog the limelight and they implicitly understand how important it is to build a team and let them shine. 4. Most seed funds invest in their core market plus maybe one other country. Why does Crane invest on a Pan European basis? My co-founder Krishna and I invested in 7 European countries before we founded Crane. It was there that we witnessed a talent explosion. We love investing in places like Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen and Madrid, but London does have a dominant role to play in Europe. There are thousands of experienced people working in or around London for cloud companies or the largest global tech companies, not only in engineering, but in sales, marketing and ops. So it’s the easiest place to scale a business in Europe, but we see this changing as there are more exits across the Continent. 5. What advice do you have for younger VCs just starting their investing career? Become indispensable to your team and to the founders you support through leveraging your own unique talent. Figure out what that is and sharpen it. Also, be patient. It takes years to master this craft. I passed the 10 year mark earlier this year and still have a lot of growing left. If you don’t wake up every single morning looking forward to working with founders, I highly suggest taking some time out to find yourself (or become a nanny).

https://medium.com/@siliconroundabout/scott-sage-co-founder-of-crane-venture-partners-q-and-a-8283c7a9e687

['Silicon Roundabout']

2020-12-14 08:00:30.881000+00:00

['Venture Capital', 'Entrepreneur', 'Startup', 'Founders', 'Funding']

How To Automate Web Scraping using BeautifulSoup for Dummies

1. Using Requests to download page To start scraping a web page, first we need to download the page using the Python requests library . The requests library will make a GET request to a web server, which will download the HTML contents of a given web page for us. There are several different types of requests we can make using requests, of which GET is just one. You can easily install the library by running code below pip install requests 2. Using BeautifulSoup to parse the HTML content To parse our HTML document and extract the 50 div containers, we’ll need to install a Python module called BeautifulSoup: pip install BeautifulSoup4 Then, we will: Import the BeautifulSoup class creator from the package bs4. Parse response.text by creating a BeautifulSoup object, and assign this object to html_soup . 3. Understanding the HTML structure Before you get all hyped up for web scraping, you need to understand the HTML of the website which you want to scrape from. Take note that every website has different structure. Hover to the items you want to reach its HTML code Right click on the website Left click on Inspect Turn on the hover cursor button on top left. Each movie is in a div tag with class lister-item-mode-advanced . Let’s use the find_all() method to extract all the div containers that have a class attribute of lister-item mode-advanced : As shown, there are 50 containers, meaning to say 50 movies listed on each page. Now we’ll select only the first container, and extract, by turn, each item of interest: The name of the movie. The year of release. The IMDB rating. The Metascore. Directors The number of votes. Gross Let’s get started with the first_movie 4. Scraping Data From the first_movie html which we had stored, we are going to use find and find_all with str slicing to work out the magic. The name of the movie. The year of release. IMDB rating Metascore Directors This is more complicated as this class contains Directors and Stars. So I used slicing and splitting to extract only the directors. You may use the same logic to extract Stars as well. The number of votes Gross 5. Changing the URL’s parameters (Where automation starts) The URLs follow a certain logic as the web pages change. As we are making the requests, we’ll only have to vary the values of only two parameters of the URL: release_date : Create a list called years_url and populate it with the strings corresponding to the years 2000-2017. : Create a list called and populate it with the strings corresponding to the years 2000-2017. page : Create a list called pages, and populate it with the strings corresponding to the first 4 pages. 6. Controlling the crawl-rate We need 2 functions: sleep() : Control the loop’s rate. It will pause the execution of the loop for a specified amount of seconds. randint() : To mimic human behavior, we’ll vary the amount of waiting time between requests. It randomly generates integers within a specified interval. 7. Monitoring the loop as it’s still going Monitoring is very helpful in the testing and debugging process, especially if you are going to scrape hundreds or thousands of web pages in a single code run. Here are the following parameters that we are gonna monitor: The frequency (speed) of requests: make sure our program is not overloading the server. Frequency value = the number of requests / the time elapsed since the first request. The number of requests : can halt the loop in case the number of expected requests is exceeded. : can halt the loop in case the number of expected requests is exceeded. The status code of our requests: make sure the server is sending back the proper responses. Let’s experiment with this monitoring technique at a small scale first. 8. Piece everything together (Loops) 🎉 Phew~ Tough work is done, now let’s piece together everything we’ve done so far. Import necessary libraries Re-declare the lists variables so they become empty again. Prepare the loop. Loop through the years_url list in the interval 2010–2019 and loop through the pages list in the interval 1–4. Make the GET requests within the pages loop Give the headers parameter the right value to make sure we get only English content. Pause the loop for a time interval between 8 and 15 seconds. Throw a warning for non-200 status codes. Break the loop if the number of requests is greater than expected. Convert the response‘s HTML content to a BeautifulSoup object. Extract all movie containers from this BeautifulSoup object. Loop through all these containers. Extract the data if a container has a Metascore. Extract the data if a container has a Gross, or else append(“-”). 9. Transform the scraped data into CSV In the next code block we: Merge the data into a pandas DataFrame. Print some information about the newly created DataFrame. Show the last 10 entries. Sneak peak of the dataset Last but not least, save the DataFrame to CSV, so that we can do data wrangling and EDA later on: FREE access to all running code Here’s the GitHub link to get the Python code. 👉 To be published next: Data Wrangling and EDA of movie ratings dataset Stay tuned! 😊

https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/automated-web-scraping-using-beautifulsoup-for-dummies-free-python-code-41925125774e

['Shan Yi Tan']

2020-05-30 14:03:46.415000+00:00

['Python', 'Automation', 'Data Science', 'Web Scraping', 'Data Visualization']

EU says: Turkey’s activities are compounding the contention over the gas investigation in the Mediterranean

The European Union’s unfamiliar pastor says Turkey has neglected to assume a function in settling the disagreement regarding petroleum gas assets in the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey has deliberately ignored the European Union’s danger to force sanctions on its contested energy investigation exercises in the eastern Mediterranean. EU pioneers have taken steps to force sanctions on Turkey in the event that it neglects to stop what European nations see as unlawful examination concerning the waters guaranteed by Cyprus and Greece. The 27 EU clergymen, entrusted with evaluating the explanations behind overwhelming assents on Turkey, focused on that Turkey was worsening pressures and was not prepared to be important for the arrangement. Turkey has not yet come up with a climate of shared agreement and adaptability after EU pioneers voiced the dangers of assents against Erdogan’s administration. In the interim, Greece’s unfamiliar pastor this week blamed Turkey for attacking European solidness and directing military tasks in the area. He said Turkey was giving over fear-based oppressors to European nations and had delivered a large number of travelers who could endanger European security. It was as of late that the Turkish president proposed a change of his nation’s legal strategy in light of political weight from the worldwide network. The move, in the interim, has been deciphered as a demonstration of adaptability for recently chose US President Joe Biden and the tension on European countries.EU Commissioner Josep Borrell told columnists two months prior that it was “tragic” that no advancement had been made on the sea contest among Turkey and Greece when EU pioneers gave Ankara time to locate a strategic arrangement. He additionally said there was no adjustment in Turkish hostility conduct. All things being equal, the circumstance has compounded. The European Governments, in light of Turkey’s investigation of the contested waters, have proposed a resumption of talks or endorses because of Turkey’s aspirations. Then, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his nation would not “prostrate to dangers and terrorizing from European nations” yet repeated his call for chats on the contested regional waters between Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey and Turkish rights to accessible energy sources. The meeting said that the EU offers Turkey expectations and close ties and exchange collaboration if Ankara “goes into the discourse in compliance with common decency”. Ankara, then, has not yet straightforwardly acknowledged the EU’s call. He contends that marine assets are his right.

https://medium.com/@hiramenon93/eu-says-turkeys-activities-are-compounding-the-contention-over-the-gas-investigation-in-the-550de7a97a8

['Hira Menon']

2020-12-09 05:42:34.940000+00:00

['European Union', 'Greece', 'Josep Borrell', 'Erdogan', 'Turkey']

My Six Month Medium Review

My Six Month Medium Review author’s own photo I joined Medium in June 2020. I was feeling a little tired by the repetitiveness of the days and saddened by the inability to meet up and continue my creative writing group. There had been various Medium posts on my news feeds for some time, but I hadn’t really grasped what Medium was until then. I had been finding it hard to write. As many others have also discovered, the constant anxiety that the pandemic had brought into our lives made it difficult to take that leap from reality into the comforts of letting loose all those accumulated thoughts and hoped for pearls of wisdom. What had I got to lose? Nothing. And so I signed up for the start of a journey into an unknown region. At first, I simply read lots. I explored the vast numbers of pages and topics. I looked for a place that would be comfortable for me. I found Illumination and realised that the ethos of this publication met so many of my ideals that it would be a perfect home. And so it proved to be. One of the few publications that embraced every aspect of writing, particularly encouraged poetry, shouted out to writers from every possible background to share their words and experiences, and was a growing concern. I began to make friends. I had found somewhere to spend time which felt good and, provided I didn’t read all the posts about Covid, gave me a haven away from the worries of the world. I have never been one for blowing my own trumpet. I am happier trundling along in the background. I am not comfortable with having friends who are not really friends, having thousands of supposed followers, the artificial hype of social media. It seems to be an essential part of living these days. Not only must you be yourself, but you must also have an on-line persona. What I have discovered with Medium is that there is a genuine appreciation of each others writing which adds a personal value to the concept of followers. By October I had posted many stories and was approached by Liam Ireland to consider joining the editorial team of Illumination. This has become a lifeline through the long, wet, autumn and winter so far. I love helping new writers make their mark. I get a perverse pleasure in identifying plagiarists and outing them. There is huge joy in discovering exciting, stimulating stories and I have found the other editors and Dr Mehmet Yildiz to be a delight to work with. You may ask if I have made my fortune on Medium? Definitely not. The story that has earned the most is How to Fill Your Store-Cupboard of Ideas | by Thewriteyard | ILLUMINATION-Curated | Oct, 2020 | Medium and that earned the princely sum of $1.44. The story that got the most views was , You Don’t Always Have to Be in Front | by Thewriteyard | ILLUMINATION-Curated | Medium with 214 views. Only one of my stories so far has been curated, and that was one I wrote for the publication Being Well . How My Experiences in Medicine Induced an Underachievement Mindset | by Thewriteyard | BeingWell | Medium Did that bring me fame? No, it did not. But it did help to boost my morale. 99 views, so hardly a success on the popularity front.

https://medium.com/illumination/my-six-month-medium-review-fae66f12356b

[]

2020-12-26 11:10:34.785000+00:00

['Review', 'Creative Writing', 'Illumination', 'Progress']

Trends in Blockchain Application Development

Ever since the inception of the world’s first cryptocurrency Bitcoin in 2009, blockchain technology has remained hidden and out of the public eye until well into 2017. The resulting resurgence of popularity during the end of last year not only saw a massive spike in digital asset prices but an avalanche of investor funding, resulting in a glut of new blockchain start-ups hoping to take advantage of what seemed to be the newest gold rush. Compared to 2014, where there was less than $20,000,000 in ICO funding, 2017 saw over $6 billion spread out in over 870 ICO’s — with 2018 estimated to at least double last years funding figures. What this also means is that the world of blockchain development has changed significantly over the past few years. In the years to come, blockchain start-ups will be hindered, assisted by, and otherwise influenced by these upcoming trends in the industry. Ever Increasing Demand For Fewer Applicants Two subareas within the field of information technology are sorely in need of professional developers — machine learning and blockchain. No matter where one looks, there is an overabundance of openings for blockchain engineers and developers and not enough professionals to fill them. Some statistics say that there are 14 open jobs for every blockchain engineer out there. Freelance platform Upwork saw Blockchain as the most in-demand skill for freelancers, showing a 35,000 percent increase in comparison to last year, with many of them charging over $200/hour for their services. Salaries for blockchain engineers in Silicon Valley average at around $150,000, 10 to 25 percent higher than their regular counterparts. While this means that at present there is a considerable employee shortage for blockchain start-ups looking for talent. However, as is always the case of market shortages, an increase in demand for labor will drive up offered compensation until enough labor is provided by the market. In the years to come, the next generations of programmers and developers will begin jumping into the blockchain industry looking for secure, lucrative employment in an area sorely in need of professionals. This expected trend will also apply to other auxiliary services within the blockchain world as well. Lawyers versed in digital assets, crypto-oriented copywriters, and other jobs and services will see an increase in applicants in the years to come as the field becomes increasingly lucrative — assuming that the billions in ICO funding don’t run dry. Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence As mentioned before, machine learning and AI is the other IT field sorely in need of qualified developers. However, these two areas also heavily influence each other, and as machine learning becomes ever more advanced, one of blockchain’s most promising case areas lie in its ability to facilitate certain parts of safe, efficient AI implementation. For those interested in learning more, feel free to look through our previous article on how blockchain technology will change AI. However, as the years go on, more start-ups are going to be jumping into this area. In order for any artificial intelligence to function, vast quantities of information are required, which makes the production of AI’s economically impossible (save for large tech companies that engage in data mining). Blockchain technology can change this predicament by allowing regular individuals to willingly auction their data on blockchain-powered data exchanges, where companies can purchase data directly from end-providers. This kind of hypothetical arrangement allows for more transparent, ethical transactions of data between companies and regular individuals. Considering that governments all across the world are working up to an AI “arms-race” of sorts, blockchain technology is going to be increasingly called upon in this area. Blockchain and Internet of Things Another trending area for blockchain start-ups is the upcoming Internet of Things (IoT) transition. Some experts estimate that as many as 20% of all IoT applications that get deployed will rely on some level of blockchain services to function. At the same time, the biggest security risks of future IoT deployments revolve around authentication and connections. Hackers in the past have succeeded in disabling cars remotely, hacking into implanted cardiac devices, as well as other problems. This is precisely where blockchain technology can come in. Decentralized technology can do much to stabilize otherwise complex and vulnerable IoT systems, as well as ensure that there is no risk of a single point of failure in an IoT network if malicious parties launch an attack. As the IoT becomes one of the largest trends in the tech world, blockchain start-ups will find a lot of potential applications of their technology in this field. The Rise (and Possible Fall) of Ethereum Whereas Bitcoin used to be the flag-bearer for the blockchain world, it’s usefulness in the ecosystem is strictly limited to its function as a medium of exchange. As the price of bitcoin continues to fall at the time of this article, Ethereum has now taken the mantle one of the most important platforms in the industry. Ethereum, a platform which allows executable smart contracts to be programmed into its altcoins, has opened the gateway to a number of different applications in the industry. Additionally, Ethereum was designed with a powerful programming dialect called Solidity, which is mainly used in programming said smart contracts. As for why smart contracts are so desirable for real-world applications, there are three reasons for this — unrivaled security, fast execution, and the fact that it’s distributed across the network. However, while the Ethereum platform and it’s personal brand of smart contracts promises to remain as a pillar in the development community for the coming year(s), there are still some problems. For one, the Ethereum blockchain in its current form is highly inefficient in terms of processing power, something that other platforms are hoping to be able to beat. Some developers are turning to alternatives, such as NEO and Hyperledger, instead of Ethereum. NEO offers an advantage over its mainstream rival in that it uses an extremely energy efficient consensus algorithm known as dBFT (decentralized Byzantium Fault Tolerance). As such, NEO can process 10,000 transactions per second, while also supporting other programming languages such as C# and Python as opposed to Ethereum’s solidity, which is the only language the platform allows. Hyperledger takes a different approach, allowing developers to launch their own private, “mini-blockchains” onto the companies “main” blockchain — a revolutionary concept that is beginning to see traction. Regardless, the blockchain development world will have alternatives to Ethereum in the coming years, opening up new development tools that otherwise aren’t available at the moment. New Blockchain Markets While Europe and North America have been the main markets for blockchain technology, other areas such as Asia and the Middle East will open up in the coming years. As legal rulings surrounding cryptocurrencies become more lenient, countries that formerly restricted these digital assets will find new industries springing up dedicated to this technology. Russia, which used to be extremely cautious in this area, now boasts one of the most prominent blockchain industries in the world. It’s only a matter of time before new markets of both potential customers, sources of talent, as well as budding competitors will enter the blockchain world. Moving from Promises to Production For the past couple of years, the blockchain ecosystem has been oriented around ICO’s, securing funding, developing concepts as well as building prototypes of their projects. However, as time goes on, hundreds of blockchain start-ups will be transitioning from the earlier concept/funding/alpha stages of their product cycle’s to actually developing and launching their offerings onto the market. Whereas blockchain technology has partially remained conceptual, the upcoming years are going to show markets, industries, as well as the general public just how applicable this technology can be to their daily life. Although a good number of projects might fizzle out and fail, if enough of these companies prove to the world the practicality of this technology, it will serve to only reinforce further waves of funding and completely legitimize this industry once and for all. Conclusion On the whole, blockchain technology has a promising future ahead of itself, and most of the aforementioned trends are a positive sign for the industry. In summary, blockchain start-ups can expect a larger pool of applicants to draw from in the future despite a seeming shortage at the moment. Many industries, not just AI and IoT, will demand blockchain technology solutions as they innovate, something that developers will be more easily able to do as more development tools become available for their use. Lastly, new markets grow the market as a whole while most of the current generation of ICOs move into finally putting finished version of their projects onto the market.

https://medium.com/kapitalized/trends-in-blockchain-application-development-51a438f46941

['Ivan Mantelli']

2018-07-07 01:22:27.563000+00:00

['Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'Application Development', 'AI', 'Cryptocurrency']

Press Release: New Privacy International investigation exposes the role of Kenyan government surveillance in facilitating torture and extrajudicial killings

Key points: For press inquiries please email press@privacyinternational.org or call +44 (0) 20 3422 4321 Today, Privacy International publishes a new investigation about state surveillance in Kenya, highlighting that a pretext of counter-terrorism is leading to gross human rights abuses and a cycle of arrests, torture and disappearances. The report, entitled ‘Track, Capture, Kill: Inside Communications Surveillance and Counterterrorism in Kenya’ shines a light on the techniques, tools and culture of Kenyan police and intelligence agencies’ surveillance capabilities. The report specifically details the routine unregulated intelligence sharing between government agencies. Key Revelations: Dr Gus Hosein, Executive Director of Privacy International said: “This report lifts the lid on the Kenyan government’s uncontrolled powers of surveillance, by collecting unprecedented testimony from current and former law enforcement, military, and intelligence personnel. “Communications surveillance in Kenya is conducted outside any effective regulatory oversight. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) in particular is operating outside of any meaningful constraints on its far-reaching surveillance powers. Our sources informed us that sensitive surveillance data is shared with police units, including the GSU-Recce company and Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, and used in counter-terrorism operations in which suspects are routinely and gravely mistreated. Surveillance is facilitating the violation of rights guaranteed by the Kenyan constitution: freedom from torture; cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; and the right to a fair trial. “The spectre of highly intrusive surveillance can create a chilling effect on freedom of assembly and speech in the run up to elections. In these times of uncertainty and insecurity in Kenya, the practice of communications surveillance must be reformed to uphold the rule of law, and instill public confidence that the government respects the constitution and fundamental human rights.”

https://medium.com/privacy-international/press-release-new-privacy-international-investigation-exposes-the-role-of-kenyan-government-f08dff4f0630

['Privacy International']

2017-03-15 10:19:00.182000+00:00

['Kenya', 'Privacy', 'Surveillance', 'Human Rights']

Let’s Talk About “Pretty” Privilege

“If only our eyes saw souls instead of bodies, how very different our ideals of beauty would be.” — Unknown The way we look impacts whether an interview goes well. In entertainment, it impacts whether a rising artist gets signed. Most intimately, it affects who wants to be your friend. Sometimes you see an entire friend group or cohort of professional students and ask yourself “why is everyone in this circle so physically attractive?”. Why is it that a staple trope in many well-known movies is the leading lady getting a makeover as part of her character development? In subconscious and fully conscious ways, we are often extremely shallow. As someone who identifies as a woman, I have explored this end of the gender spectrum most closely. Human society has always been visual. In the 1800s, full-figured or “desirably plump” women were a symbol of wealth and being well-fed. When I was growing up, large breasts and thigh gaps were what a lot of girls wanted. Today, big hips and tiny waists are what many women strive towards. It never ends, it just evolves. It can never be as simple as, do you feel good, strong, and healthy? Important disclaimer: The point of my post is not to promote disdain for all the conventionally attractive people in our lives. Rather, I want to start more honest dialogue and perhaps wake us up to the societal environment we all live in. I hope we all can have a conversation with a friend or loved one about pretty privilege and its implications. This article is not to give you permission to spew hate on those you think do not deserve their achievements. This article for me is to remind us all of this form of privilege and check our biases in interactions hereafter. What is pretty privilege? I use the term pretty privilege but, in my mind, I see it more as the benefits of being conventionally attractive according to societal beauty standards. I suppose that is a mouthful. However, I feel conventionally attractive is more all-encompassing than “pretty.” There is no “pretty” and “ugly”, there are only standards that we have been subconsciously fed our entire lives through movies, television, and other forms of mass media. I think the term pretty privilege and the connotation around the word “pretty” also leaves out an important fact: masculine people can have this privilege too. We just as often see conventionally attractive masculine figures achieving more success than their counterparts. Pretty privilege is like all other forms of privilege (male privilege, white privilege, able-bodied privilege, etc.) in that it is unearned, societal benefits from an aspect of oneself that you cannot really control — the way they look. This aspect of society fuels the beauty and cosmetics industry, I mean look at the empire that is Sephora. Ultimately, it comes down to who wins the “genetic lottery” or who can afford the products or plastic surgery to amass this privilege. If we want to get nitty-gritty, there is research on this topic. Attractive people get paid more. Attractive people get lesser criminal sentences. Even attractive kids and youth reap the benefits from teachers in school. This is not a benign form of privilege and we see it in the people who often are among the highest rewarded or highest achieving in society. There are sometimes implications that folks who are pretty, especially femme-identifying individuals, have “more to prove” or are perceived as “less able.” In fact, the present data shows this is quite the contrary. It is found within society’s preference towards certain body types — and these body types often change. Body type standards disproportionately impact women and we see this in the prevalence of eating disorders and body dysmorphia. AOC Brilliant women may also have some element of pretty privilege. AOC discusses the politics of beauty in her video with vogue. Why is pretty privilege so hard to talk about? In my opinion, it is difficult to talk about because it is an odd feeling for someone to acknowledge their own conventional attractiveness. Many grappling with self-esteem and body image issues themselves, may not even realize that they fall into this category. Since checking our privilege is crucial to talking about, it, I will uncomfortably admit that I think I live with some “pretty privilege.” There is nuance to pretty privilege and its intersections with Blackness (coming up!) but its validity in my life does not strip all of the internal work I have done for myself. Pretty privilege has implications to some folks that everything you may have earned, you only earned because of how you look. This is not true in my eyes. You can be incredibly ambitious, hardworking, and competent — but also have pretty privilege. If you “work hard”, you should not be threatened by the idea of a world where merit wins over our conventional standards of beauty. Pretty Privilege, Colorism, and the Black Community Colorism: prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) A pivotal yet complicated layer to this topic is how it applies to the Black community. I feel it is complicated because often Blackness and attractiveness have been treated as mutually exclusive. Black women are the farthest away from our white-centric beauty standards, particularly dark-skinned Black women. However, it would be naive to deny that pretty privilege does not exist within my community. Many would say it manifests most through colorism and I would agree. However, there are other facets to conventional attractiveness — certain body types, specific eye shapes, facial symmetry, clear skin — that impact which Black women we find attractive as well. Living as a Black woman, I still grapple with the idea of my own pretty privilege. Growing up as a little Black girl in Western society is essentially being told for your entire life that most people at baseline are probably not attracted to you. It is often parsing out, does this person find Black women attractive? In the age of social media, I feel for the young girls these days being succumb to “Dark Skin vs. Light Skin” videos on TikTok. As I have grown up, I have come to realize my worth is not tied to any societal beauty standards and my confidence is rooted in self-assuredness above anything else. The way we Black women “win” is by rejecting that notion entirely and coming into our own — comfortable within our skin, not wanting to trade it for anything. I may not shout from the rooftops how much pride I have in my “melanin” but I truly feel it every day when I look in the mirror and that personal feeling for me is everything and more. Pretty privilege often compounds with racism and colorism. For instance, we see many Black women succeed because they have some kind of physical appeal along with their talent. We primarily see light-skinned Black women receiving praise in the media. Being beautiful does not take away the talent that women like Beyoncé and Rihanna have — their talent is simply undeniable. It does make me ask, how much talent are we missing when “making it” is precluded by how much how you look will sell? (Probably a lot.) What can we even do about pretty privilege? There’s a lot of privilege being brought up these days and you feel like you can’t keep up. This form of privilege is a bit different because unlike other forms of privilege, this one is not as objective. What constitutes “pretty” is different to a lot of people and often how people carry themselves can profoundly shape if they are perceived as “pretty.” Like anything else I will talk about on here, mindfulness is key. When you are speaking to someone new or conducting an interview, if you happen to find the person physically attractive, notice that. Likewise, if you do not find someone attractive by your beauty standards, remind yourself not to let that cloud your perceptions of the person — the human being in front of you. Learning to give non-physical compliments is your friend. A society that does not value people based only on how they look starts in our mind. We can choose to complement people on their generosity, patience, hard work, and more. Finally, do not stop looking your version of your best to feel your best. Do not stop being happy with how you look and accepting yourself. Definitely do not stop being hygienic and keeping yourself clean or “polished” in whatever way that means for you. Sometimes people we see as “pretty” are just aware of how they present themselves and carry themselves with confidence. However, when you encounter others who seem just as happy and comfortable in their skin, let them be — regardless of what standards you feel inclined to impose in your head. People do not need to look like our conventional standards to be valuable human beings. There should not be secret benefits to simply winning the genetic lottery that is physical appearance. I hope this post initiates some fun conversations within your own circles. Thank you for reading and remember to take a screen break if you need today. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — - P.S. A donation opportunity this holiday season: https://prisonfellowship.ca/angel-tree-christmas/ “There are 357,000 hidden victims of crime across Canada — the children of incarcerated parents. These children, often forgotten in their community, experience challenges like shame, isolation, developmental delays, poor school attendance and performance, poverty, addictions, homelessness and more because they have a parent that has been or is incarcerated.” Donating here helps connect children with gifts and support during this time of year. Hope you choose to give a little! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — - Other articles and videos on this topic: 1. Women’s Ideal Body Types in the Last 100 Years- Natacha Océane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY9BxTuYtcY&t=483s&ab_channel=NatachaOc%C3%A9ane 2. Pretty Privilege Is the Most Useless Privilege: https://medium.com/an-injustice/pretty-privilege-is-the-most-useless-privilege-e1d446caa373 *Do not love the title, but good content. 3. Is “Pretty Privilege” Real? — Not Even Emily: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoPihs0nDRE&ab_channel=NotEvenEmily 4. AOC’s video: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Guide to Her Signature Red Lip | Beauty Secrets | Vogue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXqZllqGWGQ&t=1s&ab_channel=Vogue 5. Why Women in Movies Get Makeovers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJClnOgtdJ8&ab_channel=TheTake

https://medium.com/@ikunwosu/lets-talk-about-pretty-privilege-6b21ea6542ee

['Iku Nwosu']

2021-01-10 14:45:02.986000+00:00

['Mindfulness', 'Pretty Privilege', 'Beauty Standards', 'Body Image', 'Confidence']

Political Reddit Climates in the US versus UK

What Political Redditors Are Reading To find which news sources were most popular, we grouped each link into domain names, and then counted how many times a unique domain was shared. We then plotted the top 10 domains for each subreddit. Figure 1 shows the 10 most posted sources for each subreddit, and serves as a good baseline for further research. Figure 1: Bar graph comparing the different domains that reached popular on /r/politics /r/ukpolitics. It’s particularly interesting to note that there are almost no shared subreddits besides the Independent. In addition, the UK subreddit has many domains that are platforms themselves, rather than news websites, such as Twitter, Imgur, and Reddit. This is most strikingly seen in the most frequent source for both subreddits where the US politics top source is The Hill, a newspaper specializing in US political news, the top source for UK politics is Twitter. The UK subreddit seems to share tweets from government officials regularly as well as political cartoons (Imgur), however, this is also affected by their rules; while the US political subreddit only allows official publications, the UK subreddit is a lot looser in its limitations, allowing posts with a platform post. A possible explanation for this is their size: /r/politics is a default subreddit, meaning that a lot more content is shared, and is difficult to manage whereas /r/ukpolitics is much smaller, and may need looser submission rules and a more decentralized nature to maintain activity. Looking at Figure 1, we can see that /r/politics is a more reliable source of information as compared to /r/ukpolitics as they do a better job of keeping posts relevant and from official news sources. News Source Analysis Figure 2, seen below, indicates the political leaning of each news source. Red indicates right-leaning, blue indicates left-leaning, purple indicates independent/center-leaning, and gray indicates a platform, such as Twitter. Analyses from allsides.com and mediabiasfactcheck.com as well as adfontesmedia.com were used to find leanings. Figure 2: Table of top 10 news sources and their political leanings for the US and UK political subreddits. It is interesting to see that /r/politics has so many left-leaning sources, but on the other hand, a right-leaning source seems to reach popularity at a significantly higher rate. Looking at the most popular source, one can argue that the subreddit is right-leaning, but if you look at the number of left-leaning sources within the top 10, one can argue that the sub is left-leaning. Looking at /r/ukpolitics, there are more left-leaning sources in total, and they reach popularity at a higher rate than right-leaning sources thus we would argue that /r/ukpolitics is a left-leaning subreddit. Compared to the US, the UK’s popularity of individuals using platforms such as Twitter, /r/ukpolitics, Reddit and Imgur to share political opinions is quite interesting. In a way, it makes us question if individuals in the UK see social platforms as a faster way to share political opinions? Do they view these sites as reliable? In order to assess bias and political leaning, we cross referenced the domains with adfontesmedia, allsides and mediabiasfactcheck. During our analysis on top Reddit news sources, as shown above, a survey by YouGov in 2017 which asked respondents to rate political leanings in the UK corresponded with what we came across during our background studies on UK politics and UK news sources in 2021 (Figure 3).

https://medium.com/@gherma/political-reddit-climates-in-the-us-versus-uk-7c1776d9fb00

['Alex Gherman']

2021-12-10 21:23:28.624000+00:00

['UK Politics', 'Data Visualization', 'USA', 'Reddit', 'Politics']

How To Set Up Mongoose With Express.js

In the previous article, I demonstrated how to set up Nunjucks template engine in your express project. I decided to make this a full-fledged web app development series of articles by progressively building the example application. In this article, we are going to connect the app to a MongoDB database using Mongoose. Mongoose is an ODM (Object Document Mapper) that allows interaction with MongoDB databases using JavaScript objects. It provides extra functionality (such as static methods on the schema) that allows us to enhance database interactions and write cleaner code. At the time of writing this article, the latest stable version of Mongoose is v5.11.8. This will most likely be different at the time of reading although most of the information here should still be relevant. Makes sure you have a MongoDB server installed and running on your system before following along. If not, you can sign up for a free cluster at MongoDB Atlas and connect to that instead. Mongoose setup First install Mongoose and dotenv using the following command: npm install mongoose dotenv Dotenv allows us to load environment variables into our application. We are going to place the MongoDB URI in an environment variable file instead of hard-coding it. Doing this allows us to connect to different MongoDB instances in different environments by only changing this URI in the environment variable without changing the code itself. Create a file called “.env” in the root of your project. The contents of the files should be as follows: PORT=8000 MONGO_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/app We’ve defined the port here along with the MongoDB URI. make sure to change the values according to your setup. Now go back to your index.js file (or the file in which your app instance is initialised) and add the following line at the beginning of the file: if (process.env.ENV === 'dev') require('dotenv').config() This loads the .env file in our project if we’re in the development environment. We can access each environment variable using “process.env.<variable_name>”. The dotenv package will look for the .env file in our project when the config method is invoked. Placing this at the top of the entry point file ensures the environment variables are available to the entire application when we decide to go with a modular approach with our route organisation. Now import mongoose: const mongoose = require('mongoose') Create a mongoose connection by inserting the following code before the route definitions: const connection = mongoose.connect(process.env.MONGO_URI, { useNewUrlParser: true, useUnifiedTopology: true }) /* Display message in the console if the connection is successful. */ mongoose.connection.once('open', () => { console.log('connected!') }) Models Our mongoose connection has been established. The next step is to define our models. Models are object representations of the documents that will reside in our database. Models in mongoose require a schema. A schema specifies the structure of the document. If you’re familiar with NoSQL databases, particularly MongoDB, you might be aware that one of the benefits is that the schema is dynamic. Meaning you can add new fields to a document on the fly upon creation/update. This may be a good idea depending on your use case but mongoose requires schemas in order to define the shape of the documents in the collection. This ensures we have consistency in a collection and a reference point for what properties are contained in each document. Let’s begin setting up our models by creating a folder in the root of our project named ‘model’. Next, create a file inside this folder called ‘User.js’. It’s a good idea to separate models into their own files. Inside User.js, add the following code: const { Schema, model } = require('mongoose') var userSchema = new Schema({ name: { type: Schema.Types.String, required: [true, 'You must provide a name'] }, email: { type: Schema.Types.String, required: [true, 'Email address is required'] }, username: { type: Schema.Types.String, required: [true, 'Username is required'] }, password: { type: Schema.Types.String, required: [true, 'You must provide a password'] } }) const User = model('User', userSchema) Let’s walk through the contents of this file: Import Schema and model from mongoose. Create a schema instance that defines the structure of the user document in the User collection. Create a model instance and pass it the collection name and schema. Export the user model for use in routes. Now create an index file within the models directory. This file will import all of the models from its sibling files and export them in an object. We’re doing this to reduce the number of require statements in other files when importing models. You can certainly import models directly from their respective files, but this is definitely a cleaner way of doing it. The contents of this index.js file should look like this for now: const User = require('./User') module.exports = { User } Using the models It’s time to test if this works. We’re going to insert a user into the collection if the collection is empty and retrieve the users in the collection otherwise. In the app entry file, import the User model from the models index file as follows: // Import models const { User } = require('./models') Update the home route to the following: const users = await User.find({}) if (users.length) { /* Log users if users exists. */ console.log(users) } else { /* If no users exist, save new user and log saved user on the console. */ let newUser = new User({ name: 'Kelvin Mwinuka', email: ' username: 'kelvin', password: 'password' }) let savedUser = await newUser.save() console.log(savedUser) } res.render('home.html') }) app.get('/', async (req, res) => {const users = await User.find({})if (users.length) {/* Log users if users exists. */console.log(users)} else {/* If no users exist, save new user and log saved user on the console. */let newUser = new User({name: 'Kelvin Mwinuka',email: ' email@kelvinmwinuka.com ',username: 'kelvin',password: 'password'})let savedUser = await newUser.save()console.log(savedUser)res.render('home.html')}) Navigate to this route in the browser and you should notice that for the first time, a single object is printed to the console: When you refresh the page, the results should now be as follows: Notice this is an array of current documents and no new user is created/saved. That’s it. We’ve successfully set up mongoose and we’re ready to start persisting data in our MongoDB database! Conclusion In this article, we’ve gone over connecting our express application to a MongoDB database, creating mongoose models and using those models to save data into our database. In the next article, I will be going over user registration and authentication using Passport JS. You can track the progress of this project on Github. If you enjoyed this article, consider following my personal website for early access to my content before it gets published on Medium (don’t worry, it’s still free with no annoying pop-up ads!). Also, feel free to comment on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

https://javascript.plainenglish.io/how-to-set-up-mongoose-with-expressjs-da2cc34c9219

[]

2020-12-26 17:10:52.665000+00:00

['Nodejs', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Expressjs', 'Programming']

Enabling client independence through a custom R Shiny app

No one likes being dependent on someone else for their day-to-day work. It leads to inefficiencies, a cycle of endless change requests, and a general feeling of powerlessness. Unfortunately, this type of dependency often occurs when data scientists and decision-makers are working together to tackle a problem. Data scientists hold the keys to data stored in complex databases, as well as the tool sets for analysis, so non-technical decision-makers have to send requests for new models, analyses, and visualizations that they cannot produce themselves. At Civis, we love it when users ask data-driven questions. However, we seek to avoid the dreaded situation of dependency as much as possible by building tools that hand over data to business users and key decision-makers. They can explore trends and generate insights without depending on data scientists, providing data teams resources to improve their data pipelines, test out new models, and implement better approaches to analysis and visualization. The Problem My team recently found ourselves with a dependency problem. We partner with our client to conduct weekly survey research, measuring KPIs such as brand sentiment, product usage and consideration, understanding and awareness of new features, and other data for strategic decision making. Our client is very data-driven and technically savvy, which leads them to request many complex survey questions that cannot be answered with a single static memo or presentation. Rather, Civis has developed custom analysis methods and visualizations over multiple years. Since our client could not independently explore the data, Civis Applied Data Scientists had to generate custom tables and visualizations through multiple iterations of analysis and feedback, which led to inefficiency. The Solution Realizing that we needed a way to give decision-makers the ability to explore the data and answer key questions quickly and directly, my team invested the past several months in building a custom application, Research Toolkit. Research Toolkit is a custom R Shiny application, hosted in Civis Platform, which has transformed the way that our team collaborates with our client. As we collect new survey data, the responses are automatically fed into Research Toolkit, where our client can easily track key metrics and identify important trends. When we add a new question to the survey, the data is readily available for our client. They can immediately answer business questions and generate visualizations of the findings to present to key stakeholders. Rather than having the Civis team analyze the data based on our understanding of the business questions and then coming back with follow-up requests, our client now has an uninterrupted workflow of data exploration and analysis, all without writing a single line of code.

https://medium.com/civis-analytics/enabling-client-independence-through-a-custom-r-shiny-app-4dafd82735dd

['Civis Analytics']

2019-06-12 19:52:49.095000+00:00

['Product Development', 'R Shiny', 'Data Science', 'User Research']

The Case for Angry Shopping, or How to Buy a Telfar Bag

First of all, disclaimer: I’m against “shopping”. I’m very for making your own stuff. I’m in favour of shopping as sustainably as possible, shopping local, shopping vintage or second hand, and shopping from artisans and small businesses. I’m also a big fan of looting my mum’s old clothes from when she was my age. That being said, these last 3ish years I’ve been on quite a strict no shopping diet. I’ve reluctantly shopped basics on the high street, and mostly delved into the world of vintage stores. I’ve never been keen on online shopping, something about its unpredictability irks me. I also had to come back to Romania during the pandemic, where I trust online shopping even less than back in the Netherlands. So unlike the people who manically online shopped come lockdown, I’ve just been spending these last few months indoors, in house clothes, shopping for nothing but second-hand fabrics to make some clothes. Back in October, I got through a painstaking selection process and managed to get an internship at a place that sounded really cool. It even held the promise of 500 eur a month which, while it’s not much, is significantly more than all the unpaid internships I’ve done before. Needless to say, not all that glitters is gold and I realised, only a few days in, that the workplace environment was seriously fucked up. The power dynamics were odd, and the boss managed to blend not guiding us with being the fiercest micromanager I’ve ever even heard of (yes, it’s possible). I had at least a handful of breakdowns. I spent at least 3 afternoons and evenings crying my eyes out. I met some very nice co-workers online, but my spirit was being challenged and almost broken. I came into conflict with the boss, something that I’m not proud of. It was really not worth it, so two weeks in, the boss and I agreed that it just wasn’t the time and place for me. I’m not sure whether I got fired or if I resigned, but it doesn’t really matter. All that matters was the sheer relief I got afterwards and the fact that right after that happened, I got offered an internship at one of my dream workplaces, where I’m currently doing great, according to my supervisors. (In the meantime, a bunch of my former co-workers got fired en masse about a month after my departure). So, when I got my 250 eur for the time spent there, despite the fact that I could do with saving it, I had to be rid of it. I didn’t want the money. I hate the connection formed in my brain that says that the torment I went through is worth 250 eur. I had to be rid of it. In parallel to this, I’ve been a long time fashion enthusiast. I research, I follow bloggers and vloggers and magazines and companies, and importantly, I make my own clothes at times (for practice, sustainability, and due to being an unemployed uni graduate who lives at home). So there’s been a purchase that’s been on my mind for quite a while now. The Telfar shopping bags have been on my mind a lot in 2020. They’re so sexy. And this is coming from someone who’s strictly anti-nice-bag — whatever I need to carry, I can put it either in a tote bag or, if it’s too much, in a backpack. Strictly no proper bags. And yet Telfar’s message and craftsmanship intrigued me (despite my disappointment when I found out the bags were faux leather — I prefer leather, and as a lifetime vegetarian, this is a luxury I will afford myself, sue me). Importantly, the Telfar shopping bags are a relatively attainable luxury IT-item that I cannot make myself (unlike the designer clothes I try to copy for myself — please don’t sue me). After long debates with myself about whether I should be getting an expensive bag, I gave in. I decided that my anger money from that cursed paycheck would go toward purchasing a Telfar bag. So how do you buy a Telfar bag, especially from outside the US? First, I scanned the website in order to fully decide on the item I wanted. I wanted a nicely sized daily bag, that could hold a laptop and hefty water bottle, basically a glorified tote bag. So, size Medium it is. Then, the issue was what colour to choose! Telfar shopping bags come in a wide range of colours, from flashy to fantastical to classics. I overcame my desire to accumulate statement pieces (you can’t make a real wardrobe solely out of statement pieces, as I sadly discovered) and focused on the classics. Now, the age-old question appeared: should I be matching my shoes with my bag? I’m a big fan of leather shoes, which aren’t even all in one colour. Hopeless to pursue that lead. So I just watched review videos and decided on the rich, dark Chocolate shade. The essential next step is to sign up for email notifications when they restock and make sure you are getting those e-mails in your inbox as a top priority. The drops are usually at 9AM NYC time, which for me was a convenient 4 in the afternoon. Make sure to check what time the drops are in your time zone! I had received the e-mail notifying me about the drop about 12 hours beforehand. It’s also very useful to make sure everything logistical is in order, so set up your Telfar account and make sure your PayPal or ApplePay are linked, as those are faster than filling in your card details. I don’t know whether they eject you if you take too long to fill in your info, but I didn’t wanna risk it. Also, for those who move around a lot, it’s good to have your complete address on hand so you don’t spend too long looking up your ZIP code. I opened the website about 5 minutes before the drop, and refreshed the tab with the Medium Chocolate Shopping Bag anxiously until the clock hit sharp and the re-stock became available. Then I moved lightning-fast through the check out and managed to get a hold of one on my very first try! According to what I’ve seen on the internet, this is miraculous. One piece of information that I couldn’t find anywhere online, in any language I searched, was how much international shipping costs for the Telfar Shopping Bag. Why was this such a well-kept secret? I decided to go into the purchase without the knowledge of how much their announced “flat rate shipping” was. Since they cover customs and shipping from the US to halfway around the world, I decided 50 eur would be my limit. Well, lucky me because the sum, while uncomfortably large, wasn’t far from that — international shipping for a Telfar Shopping Bag is 65 USD, or around 53 EUR. That still fit into my anger money budget. I said “fuck it” and purchased it. Will I get buyer’s remorse soon, thinking of how much money I spent? Probably. Am I also incredibly relieved to be rid of that money? Absolutely. Did PayPal also offer me a horrible exchange rate, in which I lost about 10 eur? You betcha. I probably should have just taken the extra minute to fill in my card details. Fuck you, PayPal. In any case, now all that’s left to do is wait for my bag to get here. I can’t tell you what compelled me to write an essay-length piece about buying a bag. I hope it’s as nice in real life as it is on the internet.

https://medium.com/@sabinasancu/the-case-for-angry-shopping-or-how-to-buy-a-telfar-bag-38fa78c580b8

['Sabina Șancu']

2020-12-22 15:05:04.721000+00:00

['Telfar Bag', 'Online Shopping', 'Telfar', 'Luxury', 'Fashion']

Fostering habits in remote teams

Most of what we do from day to day can be linked back to habits. For example, I have my alarm clock go off at 6:00AM, this gives me a chance to wake up and get ready for work. When the weekend comes and I have a chance to have a lie in, as there are no commitments the next day, guess what time I generally wake up? Around 6:00AM. This is because waking up at that time has become a habit and a weekend off isn’t enough to change that (more’s the pity). The same can be said for a lot of things. But why are we talking about my waking arrangements? Simple, habits are an important part of how we operate, 40% of our daily activities are habits. Having these habits can ensure that we’re up in time for work (see it was relevant), that we set aside enough time to accomplish tasks within deadlines and so on. Some habits we work on and build ourselves, some can be impressed upon us, for a manager, this can be a useful tool to have in your arsenal. You can use this to help foster habits in your team, whether it’s adding a new process into their daily routines (e.g. create a to-do list each morning), or get them to start using a new app, this helps build adoption. You want these to become second nature so that your team do them automatically. But they don’t simply build overnight, there are a few things you need to do. Repeat, repeat, repeat One of the most important parts of forming a habit is repetition, by getting your team to perform an action, again and again. This helps ingrain the action/habit into your teams subconscious. When trying to get your team to adopt a new habit, you need to enforce this repetition to the point where it seems redundant. However, the likelihood is that you’re not simply going to get all of your team into the mindest to keep repeating the habit out of nowhere. It’s going to take a little push, which brings us to. Use cues and prompts Habits don’t simply happen out of thin air, they can take some time to build up and get used to. Employees aren’t going to suddenly start using/doing something that they are not accustomed to, they won’t open an app they don’t normally use, they aren’t going to create a to-do list at the beginning of each day at the drop of a hat. They have other responsibilities to consider and something newly introduced isn’t necessarily going to stick straight away. The habit needs to be triggered. A study found that to form a habit, there needs to be: Context — By performing a task within the same circumstances, can help it become a habit. — By performing a task within the same circumstances, can help it become a habit. Reward — It’s important to understand why what you’re team is (trying) to become a habit is important. How it helps, the benefits it brings. — It’s important to understand why what you’re team is (trying) to become a habit is important. How it helps, the benefits it brings. Sequences — habits can be part of a sequence that triggers other habits, helping to build a chain of habits. It’s not enough to tell your team to start doing something, they need to be trained to respond with the new habit in a specific context. When trying to introduce a new tool for them to use for example, it’s important to tell your team why, how it’s important and how it helps. Then, you want to introduce a trigger, so for your team to write their to-do list, have them set 10 minutes aside first thing in the morning to write it. You can tie it into an existing habit, for example, if you have a new video conferecing tool, get them to use the new video calling app (new habit), for your weekly team catchups (existing habit). Outside of that, you might need to provide a little reminder from time to time. This could be something as simple as pinging a quick reminder via Slack to mentioning it to everyone at the end of your weekly meetings. Which brings us to our final point. Make the change small It’s about taking baby steps, put something too big to your team, you may overwhelm them and fail to maintain uptake. It takes motivation to get your employees into the new habit and the more it takes, the more difficult it is. As a manager, you have limited control over your team’s motivation, much of that comes internally, from their own desire to from the habit. So, the change needs to be small enough so it’s easy to incorporate into their routine. You see, smaller habits are stored in a different part of the brain than other habits. They are stored in the basal ganglia, which is directly linked to muscle control, posture, and, oddly enough, cursing. Some examples of keeping the habit small might be:

https://blog.pukkateam.com/fostering-habits-in-remote-teams-494975f05feb

['The Pukkateam Staff']

2019-11-08 11:52:27.454000+00:00

['Habit Building', 'Remote Working']

Cry of Fear: Modded Horror at its Finest

Cry of Fear: Modded Horror at its Finest This might be classed as cheating considering Halloween has passed us now but for a horror fanatic such as myself, every day is an opportunity to scare myself senseless by playing some obscure horror game that I’ve mistakenly found on the internet. Unfortunately for my heart rate, I recently stumbled across an indie horror title known as Cry of Fear, an appropriate name for the sick and twisted hell that I was unknowingly stepping into. This isn’t the first time that I’ve run into Cry of Fear. I’ve been aware of it’s existence ever since it first released back in 2012 as a mod developed by Team Psykskallar for the original Half Life. Due to my lack of courage and sheer ignorance, I pretty much ignored CoF up until recently when I was frantically trying to find something obscure to write about for Halloween. After discovering that it was free I decided to jump head first into arguably the most disturbing and depraved horror title that I’ve ever played through.

https://medium.com/super-jump/cry-of-fear-modded-horror-at-its-finest-ded02445847a

['Anthony Wright']

2020-11-08 00:07:32.219000+00:00

['Features', 'Halloween', 'Gaming', 'Culture', 'Horror']

Biological Systems, Organizational Systems, and Catalyzing Change w/ Matt Craig

Recored by Dave Prior In this episode of SoundNotes, Matt Craig joins Dave for a discussion that centers around comparing the way biological systems and businesses function and respond to change. In a biological system, enzymes bring elements together that catalyze reactions and keep iterating until they find an effective response. (Think of the body’s immune system learning to fight off a cold.) At LeadingAgile, our coaches and consultants serve in a similar manner helping to catalyze change within our client’s organizations. Matt is a Principal Consultant at LeadingAgile and he specializes in strategic and sustainable organizational health and improvement. But his background also includes the study of medicine and this has led to compelling insights into the parallels that exist between biological and organizational systems and how they respond to foreign elements and change. Contacting Matt Contacting Dave We Need Reviews If you like this podcast, we’d be very grateful for reviews or feedback on iTunes. It will help us create more visibility for this podcast so that we can reach more people. Click here to leave us a review or post feedback. Feedback/Questions If you have comments on the podcast or have questions for the LeadingAgile coaches that you’d like to have addressed in a future episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, you can reach Dave at dave.prior@leadingagile.com LeadingAgile CSM and CSPO Classes For information on LeadingAgile’s upcoming public CSM and CSPO classes, please go to http://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/ Use the discount code: LA_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

https://medium.com/@leadingagile/biological-systems-organizational-systems-and-catalyzing-change-w-matt-craig-471b75e75ac6

[]

2021-02-04 15:18:10.802000+00:00

['Agile', 'Change Management', 'Agile Transformation']

16 Creative Reward Ideas To Recognize Your Best Employees

According to an O.C. Tanner Learning Group white paper, 79% of people who quit their jobs say they did so due to “lack of appreciation.” Furthermore, a poll by Gallup revealed that out of the one billion full-time workers globally, only 15% of them are actively engaged at work, meaning 85% of them dislike their job — and more specifically, their boss. In more simple terms: most people hate their jobs. And if they quit, it’s most likely because they don’t feel appreciated. And with the continuous rise of online jobs, it’s easier than ever to walk away from an unsatisfying nine to five. Disliking work doesn’t just affect the unsatisfied employee, though — it affects the entire team, work atmosphere, and eventually, the whole company. Luckily, there’s a simple solution that’s bound to leave your employees feeling more appreciated (and thus, more motivated) — employee rewards. Recognize and appreciate your employees on a bigger scale. Switch to ProofHub today. If you’re looking for creative ways to express employee recognition, look no further. Here are 16 employee rewards you can use right away. Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash 1. Gift cards Everyone loves saving money with gift cards. And with almost every store (both brick-and-mortar and online) offering them, they consistently prove helpful. You can never go wrong with gift cards to e-commerce stores like Amazon or general stores like Walmart or Target. And, of course, Visa cards are always well-appreciated. But if you want your reward to be even more meaningful, give your employees gift cards to places you know they enjoy or regularly frequent. Ideas for gift cards to more niche stores include Bath and Body Works, specific restaurants, gaming or tech stores like Best Buy, Home Depot, and more. 2. Monthly subscription services Monthly subscriptions — the small $5-$10 fees that don’t seem like a lot of money but can add up. Ask anyone if they pay monthly for an item or service, and you’ll likely find that most (if not all) of your interviewees do. As a reward for excellence at work, you can offer to pay for one of your employee’s monthly subscriptions or grant them a new one. Here are a few I’d recommend: Headspace Headspace is a popular mental health app that offers over 500 guided meditations, tips for relieving stress and anxiety, sleep sounds and exercises, and more. Studies show that regularly practicing meditation is associated with changes in the physical brain structure, leading to benefits like increased productivity. A Headspace subscription only costs $12.99 per month or $69.99 a year, making it an affordable employee reward. Spotify or Apple Music With a Spotify or Apple Music subscription, your employees can listen to their favorite songs without having to pay for each download (or CDs, if anyone still does that anymore). Plus, the ability to stream music offline. Many of your employees likely already have an account with one of these services. If so, consider offering to pay for their existing subscription. Skillshare Skillshare has risen to popularity over the last few years because of its incredible amount of online courses that allow users to explore their creativity, advance their careers, and develop new skills. With course genres like Animation, Creative Writing, Business Analytics, Leadership & Management, Graphic Design, Marketing, and many more, Skillshare makes for the perfect reward. Not only will it benefit your employees, but the skills they develop through their new subscription could greatly benefit the company down the line. 3. Club memberships and subscription boxes Similar to the last reward idea, club memberships or subscription boxes are paid for monthly. But instead of offering a digital service, these subscriptions ship boxes of physical products to their subscribers’ doors each month. There are various options out there, which means you can choose a subscription that any of your employees would enjoy (like skincare or meal deliveries) or one that speaks to a specific employee’s passions or hobbies (like books or knitting). Some of the most popular boxes include FabFitFun, Goldbelly, and Book of the Month. 4. Gym memberships When most people think of gym memberships, they expect the price to be outrageously high. But luckily, depending on the gym you choose and the plan you get, they can be surprisingly cheap. More and more companies are including gym memberships in their employee benefits, making it one of the best employee rewards if yours hasn’t yet. Even employees who aren’t fitness freaks are bound to enjoy the benefits that come with a membership, like gym classes or the ability to bring a friend for free. Plus, by adding gym memberships to your list of employee rewards, you’ll be appreciating your team’s hard work AND promoting health simultaneously. 5. Care packages A care package can be as simple or extravagant as you want it to be. There’s a multitude of websites that offer pre-made packages, or you can make one yourself by collecting little gifts that your rewarded employee is bound to love. If you’d rather take the convenient route of online ordering but still want to choose gifts that speak to your employee, consider using a service like Happy Box. Happy Box lets you build your own care package by selecting a box design, specific gifts, and a card. If you need ideas of items you can include in a care package; some popular ones include snacks, skincare products, hand sanitizer, candles, office supplies, and candy. 6. “Employee of the month” One of the most traditional ways to honor a hardworking employee is to grant them the title of “employee of the month,” but there are many ways you can get creative with it. For one, consider starting a “wall of fame” that includes the name (and maybe even the picture and bio) of employees who stand out in their excellence at work. This can be physical or virtual, such as on the company website. Another idea is to feature your employee of the month in your newsletter program. You can even interview them or highlight their successes. Lastly, consider promoting your employee’s creative works or hobbies that they participate in outside of the office. For example, if they love to write, allow them to send in their favorite short story or poem that can be shared with the team. Do they have a YouTube channel, blog, or social media account that displays their artwork? Give them recognition for it! Make company-wide announcements and recognize your employees for a job well done with ProofHub. Sign up for free. 7. Online courses and training Say your employee finds a digital marketing course and thinks it’ll be valuable for her and for the company’s growth. But it’s expensive or time-consuming, so she doubts she’d be able to do it. What do you do? If a hardworking employee expresses interest in advancing their knowledge, consider starting a developmental budget that allows them to do so. It’s simple: your employee finds a course, online training, seminar, or conference they want to join, and the company agrees to pay for it (partially or entirely). Not only is this a fantastic way to reward eager and diligent employees, but it also motivates them to continue learning and inspires team growth. 8. Lunch or dinner with whoever they want Instead of purchasing a gift, reward your employees with a free meal. They get to choose the time and place of the meal and who in the company they want to eat with. 9. Bring your pet to workday Assuming no one in the office has severe allergies, reward your team by allowing them to bring their furry friends to work! To make it even more exciting, you can allow employees “playtime” breaks where they’re excused from work to spend time with their pets for a few minutes. Since not everyone in your office may have pets, another fun idea is to hire an animal service or shelter to bring pets to the workplace. Who knows — maybe one of your petless employees will clock out with a new friend. 10. Out-of-the-office team building Another reward for the whole team is to take work outside of the office for a day. Think of a place where you can still be productive and have fun at the same time. This can be anywhere that has a business or conference room, lobby, or area safe for laptops. Your team will likely already enjoy the nice change of scenery, but you can add to the fun by participating in team-building activities. Take rock climbing, trampoline parks, and skating rinks as examples. 11. Activity tickets Is there a sports team your hardworking employee is a fan of? A concert they want to attend? A movie they’d like to see? If so, buy them tickets (and maybe even give them part of the day off!). 12. Mental health day Why not reward employees with something that they won’t just enjoy but will also better their health and assist them at work? We’ve been paying much more attention to mental health as a society, but it’s still easy to get caught up in the busyness of life to the point of stress, fatigue, and burnout. And since your employees have put so much effort into the work they’ve done, perhaps the best way to give back is to help them refresh and relax with a mental health day! On mental health days, consider doing mindful activities like group meditation, taking longer breaks, leaving work early, or even taking a yoga class as a team. 13. Run a 5K as a team Circling back to the team-building activities, consider entering your team in a 5K. Not only is participating in a fun run the perfect way to get closer as colleagues, but many 5Ks also raise money for great causes. To look for fun runs and other activities in your area, use a site like Active.com. When viewing the available runs, you’ll also see which causes they’re supporting. There are multiple for raising awareness around issues like child abuse, autism, and breast cancer. If running or walking doesn’t interest you or your team, consider sponsoring anyone who does show interest or is already signed up for a race. 14. Let your employees choose their reward Too many creative employee rewards to choose from? Choose them all — and then let your employee(s) decide which one they’d like most! Letting your team choose their own rewards doesn’t just take the pressure off of you. It also ensures they’re receiving something they thoroughly enjoy, making it more meaningful. 15. Handwritten “thank you” note This idea can be the reward itself or an addition to another, but regardless, it’s worth mentioning. Handwritten notes are classic, but in today’s digital society, they’re also rare. The amount of time, effort, and thought you put into an old-fashioned appreciation letter is bound to touch your deserving employee. 16. Time off Last but certainly not least, nothing quite says “I appreciate you” like “here’s some time off.” Giving your employees time off as a reward for hard work is the perfect incentive for them to keep going. And more than likely, after they return from the time off (whether it be one day or a full week), they’ll be ready to get back to work with the assurance that their diligence doesn’t go unnoticed. An alternative to giving an employee one day off is adding onto their PTO (paid time off) if the company has it — and if it doesn’t, consider starting it. Sometimes the perfect reward is that of no responsibilities for a day. Employee Rewards are the Key to an Ideal Work Environment All employees should feel appreciated, as nothing demotivates them more than feeling as if nothing they do is good enough. Plus, having to go to work from nine to five every day easily gets exhausting without any sort of recognition. Employee rewards are a must if you want superb employee satisfaction and a harmonious team that trusts each other, cooperates well, and enjoys coming to work every day. Simply engaging in small employee assessments will be proof enough. And with these 16 ideas, you’re well-equipped to start handing them out to those who shine. Author Bio Freya Kuka is a personal finance expert and founder of the CollectingCents website that teaches readers how to grow their passive income, save money, improve their credit score, and manage debt. She has been featured in publications like Business Insider, Fox Business, the Huffington Post, and GoBankingRates.

https://blog.proofhub.com/16-creative-reward-ideas-to-recognize-your-best-employees-ea7c5ac1042

[]

2021-09-07 10:31:42.846000+00:00

['Employee Engagement', 'Employees', 'Management', 'Employee Appreciation', 'Employee Benefits']

2019, the Rise of a New Tour, the Exploration Game by Questo

A long long time ago, people started exploring the world… For thousands of years, people have explored the world in search of food, water, land, treasures or magic rings. Then, during the Renaissance, exploration went one step further and people started traveling more and more for cultural and enlightenment purposes. More recently, in 1841, Thomas Cook — an English gentleman organized an excursion from Leicester to Loughborough. Not long after, he created a company for leisure travel and launched a pack-offer combining a rail journey with a travel handbook— an early version of the travel guide. Fast forward to 2019, exploration went from food and land searches to more than 750 million people traveling around the world every year just for leisure. As for the travel guide, people went from using paper guides to digital ones, as nowadays, pretty much everyone has a mobile phone in their pockets. This is the result of technology, which made travel more easy and accessible. Today, people can plan their entire journey using the internet for booking flights, accommodations, restaurants and tour guides. In more recent times, people explore through play Playing games is a fundamental activity for human development that helped us develop essential skills for our survival, such as coordination, social interaction, problem-solving, better memory, or attention to details. We play games for thousands of years, but just like travel, games have also been impacted by technology in recent times. Today, we play games on mobile devices, desktops or VR headsets that allow us to engage in immersive experiences and explore worlds of imagination. And we can play these games indoors, but also while walking around the city. Pokemon GO is a great example of an exploration game that got millions of people of all ages to explore cities through play. And by doing so, it helped them walk more, discover new places, interact with their friends and have fun. When we want something, we want it now! More about Instant Gratification on this WaitButWhy article. Mobile phones and games have changed our behavior in many ways and instant gratification is one of them. When we want to… learn something, we google it check our friends, we go on Instagram or Facebook interact with our friends, we message them play with our friends, we play an online game We can do all of these instantly and on our own. Now, think about what happens when you travel. First, you book your flight and accommodation, then you stop your booking plans for activities for up to a few days before your arrival. 46% of travelers book their activities up to 2 days in advance. 80% up to 7 days. Your schedule when traveling for leisure is unknown and open until you arrive at your destination. And this is normal. You’re visiting a new destination and you don’t know what places you’ll enjoy best and where you’d like to spend more time. And so, the alternative would be to book a tour guide when you arrive. When we want something, we need flexibility But, by booking a tour guide, you get tied to a schedule that will take you on a tight itinerary that you might or might not enjoy. This also means that if you enjoy a place and want to spend more time at it, you can’t really do so because you have a clear schedule to follow. Of course, you could choose a more flexible private tour guide, but then it becomes a matter of budget. 50% of people book travel on their smartphones because they look for a better price And on top of the budget issue, there’s one more thing…

https://medium.com/@Questo/2019-the-starting-point-of-exploration-games-28fb4b518778

['Alex Govoreanu']

2020-01-01 20:16:52.621000+00:00

['Travel', 'Startup', 'Tourism', 'Tour', 'Games']

Reflections

Watery murals paint gazebo ceiling, splashing glazed reflections of the pond onto cedar panels. Sways go the waves, as moving pictures dance across clockwork dimensions in refracting light. A haunting strobe light paces upon octagonal beams with the watery vibe, the passing rhythm a song for waltzing. The fountain sings a quiet melody for night gazers to enjoy. Two friends sit under moonlit gazebo writing poems on watery landscapes, as frogs start to blanket sound with soothing, idle chatter. “Pop, gurgle, pop,” The frogs sing! Fish start to splash and breathe in deep the hazy, watery glimmer, iridescent in the night light. The cicadas start to come to life, buzzing, buzzing. The crickets begin to strum their wings, chirping, chirping, chirping. The lights around the lake form a halo of golden light that glistens off the water. But then the clock strikes nine and the life of the pond begins to change. The fountain stops, on an automatic timer, and the pond goes to sleep with a glossy filter dashed across its surface. The frogs die down, the waves die down, and the clockwork murals cease their movements and paint a placid scene on the gazebo canopy. The stargazers notice a faint hum of night birds in the air, off in the distance. They gaze up at their lovely gazebo murals and take one last moment to enjoy the effect of water reflecting off of cedar before they leave for the night. As they do, they remind themselves that tonight they truly lived, for what is life without a little reflection?

https://medium.com/scribe/reflections-1ecf34ba5cc2

['Sarah E Sturgis']

2019-09-09 16:22:16.299000+00:00

['Imagination', 'Nature Writing', 'Reflections', 'Writing', 'Imagery']

To Be Happier, You Need to Have Problems to Solve

You want to change when your old problems become stale. Working in retail is pretty straightforward. You need to show up, be polite and know how to operate a till. All problems relatively easily solved. Where’s the challenge? At the start of my old job, I had a lot of training to do. As it was in a health store, there were specific qualifications I needed to acquire so I could advise customers. So, those problems took a while to solve. I was ok with it. A few months in, however, I’d solved all the problems. It was easy, and I knew I could do more. That, in itself, created new issues. It brought up problems I didn’t know how to solve — what do I want to do with my life? What will make me happy? My life had become stale. It’s why I knew I needed to move on. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says to achieve a state of flow; you need to choose a difficult, but not impossible task. A middle ground. Whereas before my problems were neither challenging nor rewarding, my new ones are. I’m not smiling while I type this, but I can feel my happiness growing. I’m beginning to enjoy the grind. I’m willing to suffer. In his book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, author Mark Manson writes: “True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.” Merely having problems is not going to make you happy. Solving them will. As Manson also writes: “Happiness is a form of action; it’s an activity, not something that is passively bestowed upon you, not something that you magically discover.” He has a point. Feelings of sadness have risen by up to 27% worldwide from 2010–2017, according to the World Happiness Report. Far too often, people lay in motion waiting for the next milestone to make them happy. This, in effect, is avoiding your problems. By avoiding them, you won’t have any to solve. Happiness does come at a price — you need to suffer the right amount.

https://medium.com/the-ascent/to-be-happier-you-need-to-have-problems-to-solve-5b0f47011c60

['Max Phillips']

2020-10-03 15:33:06.838000+00:00

['Self Improvement', 'Creativity', 'Life', 'Lifestyle', 'Happiness']

SaaS Metrics.

Monitoring the right metrics requires a sound business strategy. First, ask yourself what your companies’ goal is. Here it is vital to be as precise as possible. For example, “increasing revenue” is a poorly drafted goal since everybody has a different opinion of what increasing revenue means. However, if you state it like “increase this years’ revenue by 3%, compared to last year”, it is clear what you are trying to achieve. Based on your overall goal, start creating key performance indicators. Key performance indicators (KPIs) represent the most critical metrics in your company and help you measure your growth. This goal may be to increase sales, reduce costs, or expand into a new market. KPIs are metrics that move the needle, therefore keep them limited. ‍ After you have defined your KPIs, ask yourself what underlying metrics will help you reach your goal. For example, your goal could be to increase customer lifetime value by 2% by the end of this year. A possible underlying metric that directly influences this goal is the average order size per customer. ‍ Once you have a list of underlying metrics, start prioritizing these metrics based on impact and viability. For instance, if you measure the effectiveness of your e-mail campaign (which directly affects your sales), it is crucial to measure the open rate, click-through rate, and click-to-open rate. Yet, only the overall conversion rate shows you if you are moving closer to your goal. So keep in mind to prioritize the metrics that support your companies’ success. What is the suitable benchmark for SaaS metrics? Especially when you start, it isn’t easy to know what growth numbers are reasonable and what goal you can achieve. There is little sense in setting arbitrary goals without further exploration. Instead, research industry benchmarks in your area to get a feeling, what numbers make sense, and what goal you can set for your company. If we look at revenue growth for example, according to SaaS-capital, “a $2 million SaaS company needs to be growing at over 90% year-over-year to be in the top 25% of its peers.” However, do not be scared off by those numbers. These benchmarks are good to get the first indication for growth. Yet, it is more important to measure your own numbers and compare them to your companies’ results. For example, track your key metrics for February and compare them to January’s results to see what growth rate is realistic for your firm. How to monitor your metrics Once you know which metrics impact your business and which metrics to track, monitor the KPIs in a dashboard. Keeping an overview is easier this way, and you can share it with your team regularly, so everyone is on the same page. To make the most out of your dashboards, keep these two steps in mind: Group similar KPIs and metrics: Grouping similar metrics in your dashboard has the advantage that you can use the dashboard in a task-oriented way. For example, if you focus on the acquisition phase and want to get people on your website, group metrics like organic reach, visits, traffic sources, etc. Suppose you focus on the Retention phase and want people to continuously visit your website, grouping metrics like returning visitors or logins might go well together. Make it easy to understand: One of the prime mistakes of creating a dashboard is making it too complicated to assess the situation immediately. To avoid this, make sure only to use the important metrics and provide them in a comprehensible way that can be interpreted easily. Let’s have a look at the metrics that are valuable to measure:

https://medium.com/@oskar-bader/saas-metrics-2f076d3bd2e0

['Oskar Bader']

2021-07-05 08:28:32.460000+00:00

['Startup', 'Growth Hacking', 'Growth', 'SaaS', 'Metrics']

Everything You Need To Know About Rental Income — FIbyREI

Rental units can be a great way to build an income stream. You’ll find that rental income is typically less active than a day job. But it will still require some planning and effort to get the ball rolling. As you start to build your real estate portfolio, it is important to understand exactly what rental income is and how it can affect your finances. Here’s what you need to know. What type of income is rental? According to the IRS , rental income is any income that you receive for the use or occupation of property. Essentially, if you are renting out space to a tenant of any kind, that income would qualify as rental income. You might be renting out space on a short-term or long-term basis to commercial or residential tenants. But as long as you are receiving a payment for the tenant to use the space, you’ll need to claim this as rental income. Is rental income passive income? Rental income is often thought of as a passive investment. Although some rental income arrangements are passive, not all rental income is completely passive. In most cases, there will be some form of interaction with the property that creates a little bit of active work. If you are actively managing your properties, then rental income will not feel passive at all. You might find it more passive than a regular day job. In fact, you will likely have busy periods of turning over the unit between tenants. If you want a more passive rental income experience, then you can hire a property manager . With a competent property manager in place, you can take a more hands-off approach to the property. However, you should still expect to do some upfront work to find the right property manager for your situation. Check out what questions you should ask before you hire a property manager to minimize any future headaches. Is rental income an asset? Rental income is not an asset. Instead, rental income is income that you can produce with the help of an asset. However, the income you receive from a rental unit is not an asset by itself. Do you have to report rental income to the IRS? If you are bringing a rental income, then you will need to report this to the IRS at tax time. The income you receive from a rental will impact your total tax liabilities for the year. In many cases, you’ll be able to deduct the expenses of maintaining a rental property. This can help to lower your overall tax burden. Of course, everyone’s tax situation is different. With that, you should seek the guidance of a tax professional when considering your tax planning strategies . How to generate rental income If you are interested in generating real income, then you can take steps to start today. Here’s what you’ll need to do. Find property First, you’ll need to find the space that you can rent out. In some cases, you might be able to pursue house hacking by renting out space in your current home. If you own your home, take a look around to see if there are any suitable areas for a tenant. You might be able to set up a separate space for more privacy or simply rent out extra bedrooms. House hacking can be a viable way to start producing a rental income immediately. If house hacking isn’t possible in your current situation, then you will need to find a property to rent out. You could look for any property that is able to produce a rental income. Take some time to learn about the rental market in your target area before diving in. You may want to expand your search to include locations with a better return on investment. Buy property After you’ve located a property that will work for you, it’s time to close. Luckily, there are numerous financing opportunities to help you get started. This is especially true if you are seeking out a property that you plan to house hack. As an owner-occupant, you can unlock very attractive financing. But there are still opportunities for investors if you are willing to look. For example, owner financing could be a good option . Find tenants You’ve closed on the property — now what? You may need to spend some time updating the space. However, this will depend on the property. Once the updates are complete, you can look for tenants to fill the space. You can seek out tenants in various ways, including Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, word of mouth, a property manager, and more. Don’t be afraid to get creative when looking for tenants. You might decide to pursue short-term rental strategies through Airbnb or VRBO instead of a long-term arrangement depending on your inclination and the opportunities in your area. Before you allow a potential long-term tenant to sign a lease, make sure they are able to meet your criteria. You may want to run a credit check and verify their income to ensure they’ll be able to afford rent. You don’t want to end up with a tenant who cannot keep up with their monthly rent payments. Collect rent Once you have tenants in place, hopefully, collecting rent is a breeze. A bad tenant can make this part difficult. But you can set up self-managed systems to easily accept rent payments. Or consider working with a property manager to avoid the hassle of collecting rent. Maintain the property Although this is not technically required to build a rental income stream, it is vital to maintain the property if you want the rental income to continue flowing. Tenants expect a clean and safe place to live. Take the time to ensure that the property is well maintained. A strong desire to provide a nice home for your tenants will likely lead to better returns over time. After all, many of us would be willing to pay more in rent for a well-maintained place over the years. The bottom line Rental income can be a boon to your income. With this increase in somewhat passive income, you’ll find that you have more financial freedom. Over time, you can build a real estate portfolio that generates more and more rental income. Luckily, anyone can get started in real estate. Not sure how to dive in? Check out our guide to real estate investing for beginners .

https://medium.com/@fibyrei/everything-you-need-to-know-about-rental-income-fibyrei-afa396491c8e

['Andrew Kerr']

2021-01-11 21:57:02.791000+00:00

['Real Estate Investing', 'Property Investment', 'Personal Finance', 'Rental Income']

Black Swan

Out of sight, out of might Amidst our brief stay in the surface of this spheric stone that spins around an energy agglomerate of relatively dismal mass, many phenomena are revealed to our perception. Some things are more frequent than others and, as our mind loves regularities, those more rarified immediately receive more attention and become objects of obsession, fear or both. That is why we coat such events with a layer of mythology that seeks to cover the apparent irrationality their inherent unpredictability brings to our lives. We usually call it superstition and it involves several habits — of thought or action — organised around rituals. Hence our will to address a phenomenon so rare that it was named Black Swan, an occurrence so outlandish within the normality of our daily affairs that it becomes an anomaly worthy of special consideration. This term was updated by bully-statistician and makeshift historian of philosophy Nassim Nichoals Taleb to designate: “The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology. The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities). The psychological biases that blind people, both individually and collectively, to uncertainty and to a rare event’s massive role in historical affairs.” Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory The Black Swan metaphor refers to an unexpected, remarkable event that is rationalised in a hamfisted manner a posteriori. It takes inspiration from an old say in which one assumes that such animals did not exist and, after discovering them in reality, is reinterpreted to illustrate something completely alien to its original meaning. In nuce, an accident made up of so many improbabilities that it far surpasses both our cognitive and technological capacities to predict it. And, as we all know, predict (or foresee) is one of mankind’s dearest activities in society, especially when the means to its survival and greed are at stake. Say “triskaidekaphobia” 13 times The number 13 itself has a very curious — and recurring, mind you — place in that repertoire that aims to handle symbolically our brief misadventure in this spinning rock covered in water, especially if we focus on that great mishap we like to call “Western History”. It reappears with impressive consistency in innumerable moments, from the Last Supper to Tupac’s murder all the way through the Original Sin, but it is its very persistence as superstiosion that fascinates us. We even arrive at the mindless idea of removing the thirteenth floors that carry the stigma of being numbered with such a nefarious compound of algarisms or ignore their existence in the configuration of airplane seats in commercial flights, all of that in the hopes of avoiding the probable evils — some of them quite lethal — its presence might bring about. https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2973/do-hotels-omit-the-13th-floor However, far from being a number that would “mark” the Black Swans that dwell in the tragedy of humans’ trajectory in the world, it betokens our obsession with regularities and our vain hopes in trying to control variables, as disparate as they can be and, as cuah, avoid the unavoidable or even to be prepared to deal with it. There are people who believe Bitcoin is one of such rare and enthralling creatures, fulfilling all prerequisites that allow it to be deemed as a phenomenon that fits that theory: “The event is a surprise: The release of Bitcoin in the global market, to the observer, was a complete surprise. Because until Bitcoin came about, nobody thought that such a currency could exist, let alone flourish. So, yes, it was a surprise. The event has a major effect: Bitcoin, in ten years has become the largest and first cryptocurrency in the market. The cryptocurrency has also amassed quite a following and a huge tight-knit community worldwide. Bitcoin, alone, has been the subject of many a debate in parliaments and governments across the world. With that being said, Bitcoin has also spawned a market with over 2000 individual cryptocurrencies and also has a side startup industry based on the blockchain. So, yes, it did and does have a major effect. After the first recorded instance of the event, it is rationalized by hindsight, as if it could have been expected: If we were to take under consideration the timing of Bitcoin’s introduction into the world and how it has become almost a threat to the financial structures of the world, it can be rationalised by hindsight. Because people were extremely disgusted by the financial structure failing them and leading the world into a financial crisis, Bitcoin (a government free, trustless currency) managed to do so well. So with that in mind, it seems as though the invention of a currency that is free of the government and required no middleman was bound to happen.” Source: https://hackernoon.com/is-bitcoin-a-black-swan-event-ea0e05f0c52a This inference can be deemed plausible to a certain extent, even if greatly imbued with that amount of wishful thinking that is the quintessence of the kind of magical thinking informing any form of rationalisation that ends up being superstitious. And maybe this is what made us use this space to talk about such a peculiar phenomenon in such a picturesque day… maybe not. After all, Bitcoin itself is very close to us for what it is, but also quite distante for what it does. Anyhow, it is only natural that many hopes are placed upon blockchain and the virtualities it brings forth at each new application made possible within its innovative architecture or even the daily tasks of our lives advanced through it. But what is worth saying here is: if Bitcoin can be understood as a manifestation of that phenomenon, of its singular and revolutionary nature, it is also where we start towards more consistent and constant improvements. Rhizom lies at this very stage.

https://medium.com/rhizomfoundation/black-swan-68946042baa

['Rhizom Foundation']

2019-12-14 12:48:09.186000+00:00

['Smart Contracts', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Nassim Taleb', 'Black Swan']

[EBOOK]-The Gynae Geek. “Millions of books have been published…

DOWNLOAD>>>>>> http://co.readingbooks.host??book=000830517X The Gynae Geek READ>>>>> http://co.readingbooks.host??book=000830517X Information is everywhere and yet many women still don’t truly understand how our bodies work and specifically, how our lower genital tract works. Dr Anita Mitra, AKA The Gynae Geek, believes that we can only be empowered about our health when we have accurate information. This book will be that source.This book takes you from your first period to the onset of menopause and explains everything along the way. From straightforward information about whether the pill is safe, which diet is best for PCOS, what an abnormal smear actually means, if heavy periods are a sign of cancer, right through to extraordinary tales from the Clinic. This straight to the heart, sharp shooting guide will become the go-to reference book for all young women seeking answers about reproductive health as well as a way to dispel the swathe of misinformation that’s out there.Dr Anita Mitra shares her personal experiences with stress and anxiety and her learnings about how the gynaecological health of women can be influenced by lifestyle choices. Books are a valuable source of knowledge that affects society in different ways. Whether you are reading a masterpiece by an award-winning author or narrating a bedtime story to children, the significance of books cannot be overemphasized. Human beings need to learn and stay informed, which are crucial needs that books can fulfill. They are also essential for entertainment and enable individuals to develop wholesome mindsets throughout their lives. “Millions of books have been published over the years and they continue to be an integral aspect of people’s lives around the globe. From making it easier to understand different aspects of life to serve as worthwhile companions that take you through challenging times, books have proven to be precious commodities. Books are essential in a variety of ways that go beyond enriching your mind or entertaining you. They have stood the test of time as reliable references for centuries. They stimulate your senses and promote good mental health. Other benefits include enhancing your vocabulary, allowing you to travel through words, and inspiring positivity through motivational literature. While the internet and television are useful in their own ways, nothing can compare to a great book. Books ignite your imagination, give you new ideas, challenge your perspectives, provide solutions, and share wisdom. At every stage of your existence, you can find a relevant book that will add value to your personal and professional life. Books are filled with knowledge and they teach you valuable lessons about life. They give you insight into how to navigate aspects of fear, love, challenges, and virtually every part of life. Books have been in existence since time immemorial and they hold secrets of the past while providing a glimpse of the cultures of previous civilizations. A book has the power to change or reinforce how you feel about your surroundings. It is a therapeutic resource that can equip you with the tools you need to stay on track and maintain a good attitude. Whether you want to learn a new language or delve into the intrigues of nature, there is a book for every situation. There are numerous reasons why books are important. Reading books is a popular hobby as people around the world rely on them for relief and entertainment. Books contain records of history and are used to spread vital information. Reading books helps to improve your communication skills and learn new things. It can be useful for easing anxiety among students and professionals. Other reasons that highlight how important books are in their positive impact on intelligence, writing abilities, and analytical skills. Books give people a great way to escape into another dimension. They are packed with endless possibilities for adventure and experiences that would be difficult to access in reality. It is essential for people to strive to include books in their daily lives aside from using them for academic or professional purposes. They aid emotional and mental growth, boost confidence, and sharpen your memory. It is natural for people to be curious and want to learn more, which is why books are still significant today. Books are a valuable source of knowledge that affects society in different ways. Whether you are reading a masterpiece by an award-winning author or narrating a bedtime story to children, the significance of books cannot be overemphasized. Human beings need to learn and stay informed, which are crucial needs that books can fulfill. They are also essential for entertainment and enable individuals to develop wholesome mindsets throughout their lives. “

https://medium.com/@huwobogo/download-http-co-readingbooks-host-book-000830517x-69505dccb201

[]

2021-12-13 02:34:02.267000+00:00

['Download', 'Reading', 'Book', 'Read', 'eBook']

My Daughter is a Drag Queen

Misty became OBSESSED with Ru Paul’s Drag Race in their final year of school. Everything about it appealed to them. It sang to their inner drama queen (and Misty sure is one of those!). All their life they have managed to make a drama out of everything. This is partly to do with their incredible sensory issues which meant sometimes even getting dressed as a little one was hard: soft fabrics only, socks inside out, no jeans, no hard seams — that kind of thing. The journey to this point has seen Misty challenge gender stereotypes, societal expectations and find a way of expressing themselves. Those lashes! (photo: Misty Pical) I had to do my research on this “women in drag” idea and I discovered journalist Kashmira Ghanda, who explored the world of drag herself for an article, posing that it “comes down to the fact that drag is about more than just a man wearing a dress, but about questioning gender stereotypes and the norms we are expected to conform to — norms that can stifle us all — all while putting on a blinding show.” It makes sense to me. My daughter echoes Ghanda’s words, proposing that drag has evolved now to be more than men/women exploring hyper-femininity, now it’s really about exploring gender expression, realizing that gender isn’t binary. Basically Misty thinks it’s a big F**k You! to gender norms and expectations. And the results are spectacular!

https://medium.com/an-injustice/my-daughter-is-a-drag-queen-dbe935c19096

['Lisa Bolin']

2020-06-25 08:03:10.878000+00:00

['LGBTQ', 'Language', 'Drag Queens', 'Family', 'Life']

A.I. Engineers Must Open Their Designs To Democratic Control

A.I. Engineers Must Open Their Designs To Democratic Control When it comes to A.I., we need to keep humans in the loop. Joi Ito — Director of MIT Media Lab APRIL 2, 2018 | 11:00 AM In many ways, the most pressing issues of society today — increasing income disparity, chronic health problems, and climate change — are the result of the dramatic gains in higher productivity we’ve achieved with technology and science. The internet, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, crypto-currencies, and other technologies are providing us with ever more tools to change the world around us. But there is a cost. We’re now awakening to the implications that many of these technologies have for individuals and society. We can directly see, for instance, the effect artificial intelligence and the use of algorithms have on our lives, whether through the phones in our pockets or Alexa on our coffee table. AI is now making decisions for judges about the risks that someone accused of a crime will violate the terms of his pretrial probation, even though a growing body of research has shown flaws in such decisions made by machines. An AI program that set school schedules in Boston was scrapped after outcry from working parents and others who objected to its disregard of their schedules. That’s why, at the M.I.T. Media Lab, we are starting to refer to such technology as “extended intelligence” rather than “artificial intelligence.” The term “extended intelligence” better reflects the expanding relationship between humans and society, on the one hand, and technologies like AI, blockchain, and genetic engineering on the other. Think of it as the principle of bringing society or humans into the loop. Typically, machines are “trained” by AI engineers using huge amounts of data. Engineers decide what data is used, how it’s weighted, the type of learning algorithm used, and a variety of other parameters used to create a model that is accurate and efficient in making decisions and providing accurate insights. The goal is to teach machines how to learn like we do. Facebook’s algorithms, for instance, have observed my activity on the site and figured out that I’m interested in cryptocurrencies and online gaming. The people training those machines to think are not usually experts in setting pretrial probation terms or planning the schedule of a working parent. Because AI — or more specifically, machine learning — is still very difficult to program, the people training the machines to think are usually experts in coding and engineering. They train the machine using data, and then the trained machine is often tested later by experts in the fields where they will be deployed. A significant problem is that any biases or errors in the data the engineers used to teach the machine will result in outcomes that reflect those biases. My colleague Joy Buolamwini found, for example, that facial analysis software that classifies gender easily identifies white men, but it has a harder time distinguishing people of color and women — especially women of color. Another colleague, Karthik Dinakar, is trying to involve a variety of experts in training machines to learn, in order to create what he calls “human-in-the-loop” learning systems. This requires either allowing different types of experts to do the training or creating machines that interact with experts who teach them. At the heart of human-in-the-loop computation is the idea of building models not just from data, but also from the expert perspective on the data. If an engineer were building algorithms to set terms for pretrial probation, for instance, she might ask a judge to assess the data she’s using. Karthik calls this process of extracting a variety of perspectives “lensing.” He works to fit the “lens” of an expert in a given field into algorithms that can then learn to incorporate that expertise in their models. We believe this has implications for making tools that are both easier for humans to understand and can better reflect relevant factors. Iyad Rahwan, a faculty member at the Media Lab, and his group are running a program called “Moral Machines.” Moral Machines uses a website to crowd-source millions of opinions on variants of the “trolley problem,” asking what tradeoffs in public safety might be ethically acceptable in the case of self-driving cars. Some have dismissed such tradeoffs as unlikely or theoretical, but Google filed a patent in 2015 called “Consideration of risks in active sensing for an autonomous vehicle,” which describes how a computer could assign weights, for example, to the risk and cost of a car hitting a pedestrian versus that car getting hit by an oncoming vehicle. In March, a pedestrian was killed by a self-driving car, the first such death recorded. Kevin Esvelt, a genetic engineer and Media Lab faculty member, won praise for seeking input from residents of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard on his ideas for engineering a mouse that would be resistant to Lyme disease. He invited communities to govern the project, including the ability to terminate it at any time. His team would be the “technical hands,” which could mean working on a technology for a decade or more and then not being able to deploy it. That’s a big step for science. We also need humans in the loop to develop the metrics that will fairly assess the costs and benefits of new technology. We know that many of the metrics we use to measure the success of the economy — for example gross domestic product, rates of unemployment, the rise and fall of the stock market — don’t include external costs to society and the environment. Already, technology and automation are reinforcing and exacerbating social injustice in the name of accuracy, speed, and economic progress. Factories that once employed 300 people can now employ 20 because robots are much more efficient, much less prone to error, and faster at doing work. Some 2 million truck drivers may be wondering when they will be replaced by autonomous vehicles or drones. Emails now offer a menu of potential responses based on the AI in our computers and phones. How long until our inboxes decide to answer without consulting us? Restoring balance within, between, and among systems will take time and effort, but more technologists are beginning to realize that their creations have dark sides. Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Sam Altman, and others are putting money and resources into trying to understand and mitigate the impact of AI. And there are technical ideas being investigated, like ways for civil society to “plug in” to platforms like Facebook and Google to conduct audits and monitor algorithms. Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation, which becomes enforceable on May 28, will require social platforms to change the way they collect, store, and deploy the data they collect from their customers. These are small, promising steps, but they are, in essence, efforts to put the genie back in the bottle. We need social advocates, lawyers, artists, philosophers, and other citizens to engage in designing extended intelligence from the outset. That may be the only way to reduce the social costs and increase the benefits of AI as it becomes embedded in our culture. Joi Ito is director of the MIT Media Lab, coauthor of Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future, and a columnist for WIRED. This piece is part of a series exploring the impacts of artificial intelligence on civil liberties. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the ACLU.

https://medium.com/aclu/a-i-engineers-must-open-their-designs-to-democratic-control-b596496b4599

['Joi Ito']

2018-04-16 17:14:47.191000+00:00

['Artificial Intelligence', 'Ai And Civil Liberties', 'Productivity', 'Technology', 'Algorithms']

Announcing Winners — The November Writing Challenge

The Collector — November Writing Challenge Announcing Winners — The November Writing Challenge Theme — Influence of Art on History and Culture Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash The November writing challenge yet again proved the incredible endeavors of our writers and making our publication better every day. The theme for this month’s challenge was the ‘Influence of Art on History and Culture’. The main objective was to portray an interesting fact or drama in art, interpreting the symbolic meaning of that art or if that art has left an indelible mark in history (feminism, culture, etc.) The editors and the judge thoroughly enjoyed reading the detailed and well-researched articles from our brilliant writers. And such an amazing collection of stories not only made the competition cut-throat but gave a hard time to our judge picking the winners. So first and foremost, you all accomplished far more than you realize.Look back and pat yourself on the back. Winning or losing is just part of the process The writing challenges are super fun and so winning and losing is just a part of the process. Embracing rejection and working towards the next writing goals is part and parcel of a writer’s life. How Were the Winning Entries Selected? To ensure complete impartiality, the shortlisted entries were anonymously sent to our challenge judge. The entries were judged on historical accuracy, references, grammar, and prose style along with the uniqueness of the topics. Thank you note to our judge We know we have mentioned this before, but still — we want to send a HUGE THANK YOU to our challenge judge Jhemmylrut Teng. Her swift response, skillful judgment, and brief notes to our participants will definitely help them to take their writing to the next level. Thank you for sparing your time and efforts. Now drumrolls for our Winner who is….

https://medium.com/the-collector/announcing-winners-the-november-writing-challenge-9f5ab809ddf6

['Kamna Kirti']

2020-11-23 16:54:52.068000+00:00

['Writing Challenge', 'Art', 'Publication', 'Promotion', 'Writing']

4 Famous Women Who Played Hard to Get With the Men in Their Lives

4 Famous Women Who Played Hard to Get With the Men in Their Lives These women knew how to play the game and win Photo by Yamil Duba from Pexels Have you ever heard of a self-help and dating book called All the Rules: Time Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right which was first written by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider in 1995? When this book came out, it was really controversial. Despite all the strides that women had made in their personal and professional lives, the book talked about some dating ground rules that seemed to set women back into the Dark Ages. The key precept of the book was that men should chase women when it came to love and relationships. It emphasized that a relationship was doomed to fail if the women so much as even made the first move by even uttering the word “hello”. According to The Rules book, the woman should never even call a man. The man should always lead, pay for dates, say “I love you” first and of course be the first one to propose. Basically, the book advocated for the extreme version of playing hard to get. There is still a lot of discussion in psychology and behavioral science as to whether playing hard to get really works. You can always find a case where it works and just as likely, you could find another case where playing hard to get is the worst thing that a man or woman could do. However, in real life and in fiction and literature, you can always come across women who do play hard to get and end up winning in love and in life. I came across these 4 examples of famous women from history, fiction, celebrity culture, and royalty.

https://medium.com/indian-thoughts/4-famous-women-who-played-hard-to-get-with-the-men-in-their-lives-a0b9342ee710

['Anita Durairaj']

2020-12-20 14:44:44.115000+00:00

['Self', 'Life Lessons', 'Love', 'Psychology', 'Life']

Excellence is not perfection

The recent period has seen me taking a big life decision, which involved leaving my job in a startup where I’ve worked at for over six years (this calls for a dedicated blog post, which I’ll write once things have settled down for a bit). As a result, in order to make clarity on what to look for in my next gig, I found myself thinking about what I value in my work. For context, I have worked for 10+ years in software development and engineering leadership, and my last role has been Engineering Manager in the aforementioned company. Given my background, I made a list of what I consider important and one of the topics that quickly popped in my mind was “technical excellence”. It sounds like one of the cool things to say these days and, as often when this happens, it got me thinking: why am I saying this in the first place? What is excellence anyway? While I think many people can intuitively relate to the idea of (technical) excellence, I found it an interesting question to dig deeper into and, potentially, agree upon. Dictionaries define “excellence” as «the quality of being outstanding or extremely good». So we can call something “excellent” when it stands out from the average or the usual (i.e. being good in an unexpected or surprising way). What I find interesting in the breakdown of the definition above is that there seem to be no particular reference to any lack of flaws, or even for something to be in a complete state. In other word, something can be excellent while not being “perfect”. How come we get the two concepts mixed up? Perfection is a very hard state to achieve for right about anything: it is usually a rather arbitrary definition of how our work (or ourselves) should look like in the end. If it sounds to you just like a really good Definition of Done (DoD), you might want to think again, for two reasons: When striving for perfection, our DoD remains, well, undefined. With every new edge case we spot and we need to take care of right now, we can’t seem to let go of that sense of “unfinished”, even when the edge case (as such) has limited to no impact on the final outcome (think of the Pareto rule). Language is a powerful tool and choosing the wrong word (i.e. “perfect” vs “excellent”) can make you strive for an outcome that is unattainable or simply not realistic given the constraint we are inevitably subject to. In a nutshell, perfection prevents you from making valuable tradeoffs and therefore being able to say “this is good enough” when it actually is. If we want a realistic definition of excellence then, we could say that excellence is about “being better than the rest”. Great, then the question becomes: what is this “rest” we are comparing our work (or ourselves) with? Let’s see a few ideas. 1. Our past selves Doing something better than we did before doesn’t sound necessarily like excellence. We tend to compare our outcomes to other people’s, though I’d argue that the first step to create something excellent is to improve ourselves. A few questions you can ask yourself that might guide you towards a state of personal excellence: What is something similar to what I’m working on that really made a great impression on me? What makes it so good in my eyes? What is one tool or piece of knowledge that would help me understand better the problem I’m solving or get closer to the solution I’m implementing? Who is someone (person, team, company) I admire for their work? How can I connect with them and get guidance in some shape or form? Who is someone (person, team, company) that works in a mediocre way and I better disconnect from? 2. The competition Whether we feel good about the way we work and the people we surround ourselves with, often we tend to compare our work with the ones others did, especially if there is a direct business benefit in offering a better solution than others do. While this can be a great push for winning clients or selling more, it can often reduce our effort to meeting the arbitrary expectations of not yet validated ideas that come as requirements. Sentences like “the competition has feature X, we need to be on par” or “that’s what everybody does” (or, heavens forbid, “that’s what Megacorp does”) are the driver of long stretches of effort to chase the illusion of perfection. What can then drive a better outcome? Start by collecting as much data as you can, and pay attention to distinguishing between quantitive and qualitative. For instance, let’s imagine you’re building a digital product: a few user sessions can tell you a lot about your users’ behavior but they won’t make it up for statistical significance just because you run an A/B test. On the other hand, while they will not help you make a specific customer happy, tons of data can highlight frequent patterns and become the lighthouse for big decisions. Long story short, you will need both. Do take a look around for inspiration but be clear what you are trying to achieve: CoolNewApp might have a great way to show information on a map, but if that doesn’t serve in the direction of achieving your current goals, it’s a nice-to-have that you can consider later. Define your “good enough” before starting to work on the problem and have checkpoints on the way to see whether there’s evidence you’re still working on the right problem. If you really think there’s an application in your product/work for what you see in other products or someone else’s work, reach out to the people who built it and ask them questions. It’s not always possible, when it is people are usually happy to share their leanings and you’ll save time on figuring out the nitty gritty details once you know their rationale for the decisions they made. 3. Learn to know when to stop Sometimes, the real excellence shows up in doing what you promised, on time and with a high level of quality. You can ride the extra mile only when you run all the miles before it, and often you don’t have to. In fact, when you reach that magical place called “good enough”, you can direct any extra effort to: polish your work make it more efficient document it (for your future self and others) Do (some of) these and you’ll get an excellent result. Bonus: you want to be excellent? Sleep on it! In many cultures, an idea exists that a night of sleep will bring you advice on what it is the right thing to do. While our ancestors might not have known why, research has shown us that sleep is a fundamental tool for our body and especially our brain to function at the highest level (with terrifying consequences when you don’t). Though it’s indeed important to have a healthy lifestyle across the board (i.e. eat well, exercise, have a social life, etc), sleep might be the first thing for you to look after, in that it takes a relatively small effort to take control over it and it can yield gigantic benefits in a short amount of time. My knowledge on the topic in a nutshell: Be consistent in your schedule, go to bed (and wake up) at the same time every day, even on the weekend Sleep in a dark, cold, and quiet room Invest in a great mattress and pillow When possible, keep a window open to prevent CO2 from accumulating in the room You can read all about the science around sleep in the book “Why we sleep” by Matthew Walker, or watch one of his many interviews online. The reason why I’m pointing these things out is that, in my experience, great sleep quality leads to great results. Resting properly and as often as you need will make you see things clearly and go for the best tradeoffs more likely than not, as well as giving you the energy you need to accomplish your goals. TL;DR Aiming at excellence is an approach that can take you and your work to great lengths. On the way to excellence, we risk to take the road to perfection, which is often a longer way that leads to an arbitrary unattainable level of quality through frustration and unreasonable efforts. We can move towards excellence by improving ourselves and the way we work, learning from others, and knowing when to stop. Like it? Share it! I hope you enjoyed reading this post. Feel free to leave any comments on the topic and share this article with your friends on your favourite social media :)

https://medium.com/compound-interests/excellence-is-not-perfection-32573c8fcea8

['Luca Canducci']

2020-05-05 19:11:00.180000+00:00

['Excellence', 'Sleep', 'Improvement', 'Engineering', 'Product']

The University of Nottingham’s Sexual Misconduct Panel is Letting Rape Victims Down

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham’s Sexual Misconduct Panel is Letting Rape Victims Down Photo by Joanne Adela Low from Pexels I never thought I would be writing this story, but here I am. 1 in 3 women. You see that statistic and you think: “That is horrible. I hope I don’t become a number.” You protect yourself as best as you can, walking home in pairs, keys clutched in between your fingers, memories of the music in the bar dancing through your mind. And it is still not enough. And when that moment comes, you are always utterly unprepared. Because it was not the monster in the shadows that was the threat all along. In the weeks that come next, you want to believe in a system that is meant to protect you, but that is not always the case. I am a student at the University of Nottingham, and for the most part, I love my university to bits. Modern, mental health-focused, prestigious and encouraging with a beautiful campus. I have felt supported and looked after while at Nottingham. And when I joined the 1 in 3 women, I was ready for my university to support me the way they had before. Instead, when the Sexual Misconduct panel gave me 2 sentences. From an investigator. On a Microsoft Teams call. To start with, I wasn’t aware the call was even going to be about the verdict. I got an email from a Conduct and Investigations Manager that simply said “Hi Luwa do you have time to meet on teams. Regards”. No mention that the investigation had closed, or that the meeting was important. That was why I got to hear the verdict alone without any support from my loved ones. I woke up sad, but ready to say my piece, ready to give my evidence to the investigator. Instead of a moment where I could have my voice heard, I was told flatly the investigation was over and it was ‘reasonable’ to assume I consented. Photo by Lucas Pezeta from Pexels This is my first complaint. Sexual misconduct is a traumatic event, and it helps to be supported afterwards. If I had known what the meeting was about, I would have then asked my friends to be with me to support me, and booked in a therapy session afterwards. A distinct feeling I got throughout the call was that since the panel had made their decision, everyone felt it was job done, time for tea now. It seemed no regards were taken as to how I would be feeling left in the dust while the system moved on to the next. I have no idea why it wouldn’t be policy to keep parties of sexual misconduct investigations informed and updated the whole way through, or at least offer the option. So, I took the call alone and received some pretty awful news, completely and utterly abandoned by the system meant to protect me. To make matters worse, I had to chase updates throughout the process, making it confusing and stressful. Rather than simply asking me to provide relevant evidence, I was only informed that I could submit evidence, by what seems like a complete accident. After emailing for an update, the uni investigator sent a simple email: “Hi Luwa I am currently reviewing the content of the mediation recording and seeking guidance from the sexual misconduct panel. I have also gathered social media content. Once I have an update I will contact you. Regards”. I had to then email back asking what he meant by evidence. His reply came on the 9th of November: “Hi Luwa if you forward any social media content that you believe would be relevant that would be helpful. Many thanks. Regards”. I remember staring at the email in confusion for a minute or two, and thinking I was the one who asked for this investigation, why wasn’t I asked to provide my own evidence? Clearly, the other party had provided theirs and that was enough for the investigation. This was super distressing to hear and I decided to take some time to recover and send evidence later after I had finished the uni work I had to do that week. I was given no deadline or more information than the two lines I quoted in this article. If I had known that two days later on the 11th, I would get an innocuous email about scheduling a call, I would have prioritized sending evidence over my uni work momentarily. Instead, the investigation ended without me knowing. I expected the video call with the investigator to be about the evidence I was planning to submit, instead, the video call was about a verdict received without my formal statement or extra evidence from me. I was told during the call if I wished to submit evidence, I could do so anyway and if it was relevant the investigator ‘would take another look’. I was left with the option of sending evidence after the investigation was closed, and given a couple of sentences of a verdict. The sexual misconduct panel felt that it ‘may have been reasonable for the other party to think’ I was consenting and ‘they did not feel like that had enough evidence’ to go any further. That is okay. I am not writing this because I want to overturn that. Hearing this verdict was heartbreaking, but expected. The majority of rape cases don’t even see a day in court, let alone a guilty verdict, and that is in the legal system, let alone university investigations. It is hard for a case where things are clear cut, with a ‘perfect victim’, and I am no perfect victim. However, the way that this information was given to me was, in my opinion, inappropriate. There was no written email, or letter explaining further. In fact, there was no physical evidence of how the investigation ended at all. This allowed the other party in the case to start messaging my friends to inform them that I was ‘falsely accusing them’ and ‘spreading lies’ despite the fact I had not been. The investigation did not find out that I consented, or lied. But something in the way the news was delivered to the other party clearly was incorrect and I didn’t have any letter or proof to clear my name. Photo by Kat Jayne from Pexels One of the most horrifying parts of being the victim to sexual conduct is the lack of autonomy throughout it, your choices are taken away and you are made to feel powerless. Therefore, investigations to deal with these issues should go out of their way to empower victims and make sure they are comfortable. I feel that all parties in a sexual misconduct investigation should be told when the investigation starts, when statements are being taken, when evidence is being collected, and when it has finished being collected as well as being made aware of any deadlines before the investigation ends. I believe that regardless of what evidence is given in, all parties should be able to make a personal statement or given the option and given more than two days to submit evidence, especially at university where two days could be filled with lectures and work. I believe that victims of sexual misconduct deserve better, especially from the institutions we trust. And deserve to be respected as human beings. What happened to me was horrible, and no person should have to go through it. I am so blessed to have an amazing support system I could call on during these weeks. I want to thank my friends and family for looking after me. I also want to thank the university staff who did support and encourage me, such as my sexual assault councillor and my personal tutor, who went above and beyond to help make sure this event didn’t ruin my academic year. Finally, I want to thank you! Thank you for reading this and allowing my voice and story to be finally heard.

https://aninjusticemag.com/the-university-of-nottinghams-sexual-misconduct-panel-is-letting-rape-victims-down-68a5509f78ea

['Luwa Adebanjo']

2020-12-31 04:22:28.096000+00:00

['Rape', 'Healing From Trauma', 'Students', 'Change', 'University']

An Institution Plagiarized My Stories — Here Is How I Removed Them From Their Website

I often google search my popular content to know if there are any plagiarized stories on the web. Until last month, there were none, but when an institution plagiarized one of my recently published Better Marketing posts, I was clueless. Previously in the Facebook group, I had heard writers talking about their content plagiarized by many external websites, but very few explained how to solve such issues. The website had published my article with no modifications and no credit to me. What is worse, that particular pirated post had a higher rank on google search than the original content. I informed Medium support of the issue and also the Better Marketing editors. The reply I got from Medium was: Hi Suraj, Sorry you are experiencing that. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything Medium can do to prevent people from copy and pasting, and in essence, “stealing”, the text from the Medium post page. We are actively working to identify and stop these sites right now. As good citizens of the internet, Medium completely honors the DMCA and all takedowns we receive. So when we are alerted to copyright infringement that occurs on Medium, we remove it until the matter can be resolved legally. We offer a public form to initiate this process. This site that has taken your work does not appear to have that in place, nor any contact information even, and embrace anonymity above all else. That’s troubling. So what can you do? As the copyright owner, you need to make a claim against them for copying your work. As there is no contact information on the site, you can do a Whois lookup to find any other information on the site: https://www.whois.com and https://hostingchecker.com/ You may need to start higher up the food chain, possibly by contacting their DNS registrar, as copyright violation should be against their terms. Again, we are working to identify and stop this behavior. However, you, as the copyright owner, have much more power than us as an interested third-party, but non-copyright holder. I received a follow up from the editors of Better Marketing too, but there was nothing that they could do. I thought it is only one article, and I can wait for editors to take the steps. In essence, I ignored it. I got restless when one of my friends informed me about another instance of plagiarism. The same institution had copied my other post within an hour of publishing, and there were a handful of other posts also, all from Better Marketing. I knew that if I ignored the issue, they would continue to plagiarize my work. My friend suggested that I contact the server host, so I took multiple steps without delay. As a result, the institution removed all Better Marketing plagiarized content within twenty-four hours of my intensive complaints. I’m not sure what exactly made it happen, but it worked. Let me explain to you my steps so that you can repeat the same if you ever encounter such problems. Online support with the host-server There was no email address to contact the institution. So, I got the host server's name, searched them on google, browsed their site, and waited for online support. I then explained my concern to their representative through chat. Although they had asked me to email my issues, I told them I have no time to follow up on their progress report. They registered my complaints and promised to resolve them. Complain through email To leave no stones unturned, I also emailed the host-server. Emailing them serves as proof. They responded to my email, saying they would contact the institution as soon as possible. Reaching the institution’s guardian through social media The only clues I had to reach the institution were a few officers mentioned on their website. So, I contacted the head of the institution on Twitter and Linkedin. I know it was a harsh and bold step, but I believed they were also responsible if their organization is doing such illegal activities. They needed to know about the issue, and they should be the ones to make sure it wouldn’t ever happen again. I expressed my discomfort through both Linkedin posts and tweets.

https://medium.com/better-marketing/an-institution-plagiarized-my-stories-here-is-how-i-removed-them-from-their-website-ca31c92254f4

['Suraj Ghimire']

2020-10-27 14:31:29.640000+00:00

['Writing', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Blogging', 'This Happened To Me', 'Plagiarism']

We don’t need to teach our kids to code, we need to teach them how to dream

I wrote this for GQ. Despite other pieces I’ve written being picked up and going viral, this is my favorite piece I’ve ever written. I hope you like it. Life is becoming increasingly less predictable. From the political volatility of Donald Trump and Brexit to the vast societal changes of globalization, drastic, seismic change is in the air. While unpredictability is already problematic for many, for future generations there are no signs of things calming. If we accept that the role of education is to furnish our children with the best understanding, skills and values for a prosperous and happy life, then how do we arm them for a future that we can’t imagine? Do we even need knowledge in a world of Alexa and Siri? Is the skill of agility now more valuable than gaining knowledge? We’ve prioritized the acquisition of knowledge around what we assume society would deem most “worthy”. For much of history, knowledge was rooted in theology: it was about explaining the world in a supernatural way, seeing goodness as a tenet. The industrial revolution saw a vast shift away from this to a way of maximizing return on investment in a production-centric environment. In recent years, we have considered maths, reading, and writing as the basic building blocks for survival; the best levers for our labour to produce value. This value has, however, eroded over the years. Businesses have complained about the poor skills of school-leavers, and we’ve assumed the way forward is to ensure that more people study for longer. I think that the changing world means that we need to prepare kids in a totally different way. A 5-year-old today will enter a working world in 2030 that is so incomprehensible that we need an existential re-imagination of the very foundation of education. It’s the cliched hope of the paranoid parent that teaching Chinese will best prepare kids for a future of different power structures in geopolitics, but is that essential in a world of Google translate? Many thinking teaching kids to code is the solution, but won’t soon software be written by software? Our vision for the future needs to include more imagination. It’s staggering to me as to how much the world has changed, and how little education has. The digital age means a different world. Think of people’s mental faculties as a set of concentric circles. At the core is the very essence of who we are: our values, how we think, what’s important to us, our personality and our behaviors. Over this layer, our skills are formed. Are we adaptable? Can we build relationships? Are we fast learning, good at music, great at languages, can we see things from different points of view? Around this we form technical abilities: the gathering of facts, vocabulary, and the processes of life. Current schooling seems outward-in. We prioritize knowledge above all else. It is tested in exams. The best in school are those who can most easily recall information. Which was pretty helpful until like now, where information is immediate, everywhere and abundant. In a world of Fake news, being able to form opinions, criticize, evaluate, and see both sides of the story are far more vital than merely knowing things, absorbing stuff and parlaying it back robotically. For kids growing up today, let alone tomorrow, we’re living in a world where we outsource knowledge and skills to the Internet. I’m not saying that it’s a waste of time to have good handwriting when we’re more likely to be interacting with voices and keyboards, but I’m not sure that it’s a priority to be perfect at it. Kids will struggle to communicate if they can’t spell at all, but when spell-checkers auto translate and software handles voice-to-text, maybe it’s not something to take up much time. Maths and the logic from it is essential, but perhaps we need to think of it more philosophically. These are things to question, rather than easy changes to make. The future is less about what to remove, but rather what to refocus on. I believe that there are five key attributes to develop, these are values at the core of who we are. This is an inside out approach to developing robust, happy, balanced people fit to embrace the modern age. Relationships The reality of the modern working world will, for many, exist not as an employee, but as a creator of value through relationships. I don’t need to know how to code or shoot in 360 degrees or big rights to music, but I do need to know the very best people who can. Education for the future needs to focus on ways to ensure people can build lasting, trusted, human relationships. The current environment where text messaging replaces phone calls, where emails replace meetings, where a generation stare nonchalantly and lonelily into phones needs to be curtailed by a focus on relationships. We need to learn how to listen, how to converse again. Curiosity When smartphones access everything, what limits our knowledge and depth of thought is curiosity. It fuels our interest and forms the need for relationships with experts. If there is one attribute that we are born with and yet dies as we mature, then it’s our innate human thirst to know more. We must embrace this. Agility We can’t begin to imagine a career in 2020, let alone 2030. We’ve no idea what skills will be needed, what jobs will exist, it’s a bold person who thinks that life will be slower. We’re all going to have to get better at being more malleable and adept at change. It’s not beyond the realms of imagination that even a 25 year old today may have 30 different jobs in several different careers in their life. They may earn money from 10 companies at the same time. We need to get better at this flexibility. Creativity Each and every one of us is born curious and creative. Schooling, friends, and “proper jobs” somewhat dilutes that. We can make anything, but it’s imagination that drives everything. The greatest lever of value that we’ve ever known is the power of an idea. We need to give paramount importance to creativity and ideas in the future. Empathy We need to know what it’s like to be different, how to relate to each other, and how to exceed the expectations, hopes and ambitions of others. In a world more divided and polarized than ever, we need to build bridges and commonalities. Empathy is our tool to do so. If we foster creativity, fuel curiosity and help people relate via relationships and empathy, then we empower kids to be totally self-reliant. They will be agile: adaptable to change in a world that we can’t yet foresee. The reality of the modern age is that I learned more in one year of a well-curated Twitter feed than in my entire masters degree. I have better relationships from LinkedIn than from university. We don’t need to change everything now, but we do need to start forgetting the assumptions that we have made. The future is more uncertain than ever, but we need to make our kids as balanced, agile, and as self-reliant as ever in order to thrive in it.

https://medium.com/startup-grind/we-dont-need-to-teach-our-kids-to-code-we-need-to-teach-them-how-to-dream-9f42349c9709

['Tom Goodwin']

2017-01-26 00:35:51.815000+00:00

['Tech', 'Life Lessons', 'Future', 'Education', 'Life']

1:37 AM

Photo by Brina Blum on Unsplash Eyes wide open during closing hours. Something is different tonight. My eyes find focus in a corner of the living room, fixated on my collection of plants. 16 to be exact. My plants look so dead. Withering, neglected. And that’s so unlike me. I care deeply about my plant family. Staring at the green and brown congregation, I realize I can’t rest until I fix my fixation. I start with the plant that looks most disconnected from its once joyful existence. I begin to water it, but quickly bring myself to a halt. Looking around, I notice something new. I feel it too. I feel the imbalance. I feel the emptiness of small plants in large pots, isolated from the closeness — no familiar leaves brushing up against them throughout the day. Silent. Still. All plants need space to grow and extend Some need to grow alone Some need to be next to their friends Thriving together in their shared elements I turn on the music in my mind and I hear Erykah Badu. This is strange because the last time I heard her mainstream, my eyes couldn’t hear her and my ears couldn’t see the words being spoken directly to me. The song in my mind is Bag Lady. Is this song about me? Of course, it is. The Bag Lady is all of us to some degree. Track by track as my mind reacts, I pick up one of the spider plants. Chlorophytum Comosum. When I first bought this plant, it was already dying The woman at the store said it wouldn’t live, no use in trying but I knew in my spirit she was unintentionally lying I couldn’t accept her advice as truth Three years later, that same plant speaks with vibrancy and youth. The underlying issue was multiple plants overcrowding one pot — treated as if they were all the same. Nothing left to gain. Lacking attention and love I uprooted those plants, finding hope in each bulb I knew they would be just fine One story gently divided into five And each story thrived A similar thing happened with the mass cane plants. Dracaenas. The plants I’m now pruning. Overcrowded without enough light, I created new space for them. Now they sit just right. Epipremnum aureum. Devil’s ivy plants are supposedly some of the easiest plants to grow. Adaptable. Versatile. Living in water without soil, I bear witness to their roots growing longer and stronger through the transparent shallow glass. Vines sprouting forward in beautiful overlays. The money trees. Pachira aquatica. Watered. Leaves spritzed. They stand strong even when dismissed. Rise up. Resist. On to the Jade plant. Crassula ovata. A small stem and one leaf when we met, I thought you would die I was never certain I could keep you alive Upon first glance, little to no progress Until I looked a little closer to the left New leaves. Evidence emerged This one moves quickly when love is the verb This cycle continued until all 16 plants were watered. And by the next day They look so much more alive More green, less grey With a new realization, I apologize to them all When I lose my footing, everything close to me feels the fall

https://princellatalley.medium.com/1-37-am-937cfb045f4d

['Princella Talley']

2020-07-13 01:25:13.810000+00:00

['Writing', 'Creative Writing', 'Poetry', 'Culture', 'Life']

How would you like an electric car for free?

The increase in state subsidies to buy electric vehicles in some European countries has reached the point in that in Germany you can go to a dealer, sign a two-year lease contract and drive away in an electric Renault Zoe for free, with the cost of the deposit and the €125 euro monthly payment covered by the subsidy, which was recently doubled. You will have to insure it separately, and pay a little more if you want to keep it after two years, but yes, your eyes aren’t deceiving you, and there’s no catch, in Germany misleading advertising is subject to heavy fines: it’s an electric car, for free. Unsurprisingly, the company that has launched the offer (pdf), König, has been avalanched with thousands of requests for information and with more than three hundred contracts already signed (due to lack of personnel), says it cannot meet demand in the short-term. Other electric models, such as the Mini Cooper SE, are being offered by some distributors for about €26 euros a month, with a BMW i3 going for €115. The tiny Smart EQ at another German dealer, CarFellows, costs €9.90 euros per month (pdf). Other European countries have also increased subsidies for electric cars: in Croatia, €11,800; in Romania, €11,100; in Germany and Poland, €9,900; in France, €7,700. What is Spain doing in the meantime? Continuing to subsidize diesel and petrol vehicles, making it a dumping ground for cars other countries can’t sell. At this rate, when a vehicle’s emission levels are too high, they will all be sent to Spain. For car makers, putting electric vehicles on the road is essential to anticipate the change in emission standards next year, when the EU will place a limit 96 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer in new vehicles, or impose heavy fines. In the Netherlands, where Amsterdam has banned the circulation of non-electric cars from 2030, the €10 million fund set up to finance the purchase of electric vehicles ran out in just eight days. Although it’s not happening as quickly as it should, the decarbonization of transportation is advancing, and diesel and petrol vehicles will soon be museum pieces, seen by most people as retrograde, which is only right, given that they are essentially mobile air poisoners. In a very few years, from about the middle of this decade, electric vehicles will be significantly cheaper to buy and run than fossil fuel vehicles (in many cases, if we take into account the cost of electricity versus diesel or gasoline and maintenance costs, they already are). From there, of course, the market will take off, even without government subsidies. If you doubted the future of the automotive market, wake up and smell the fresh air.

https://medium.com/enrique-dans/how-would-you-like-an-electric-car-for-free-fbe4b0f8fac9

['Enrique Dans']

2020-07-25 09:18:47.355000+00:00

['Transportation', 'Electric Vehicles', 'Automotive', 'Electric Car', 'Europe']

The Counterintuitive Walk

Probability theory is full of surprising results. Often times, these results go against our nature yet reveal key aspects of how the world works. My personal favorite, first introduced to me by the Feynman Lectures, is the random walk. The setup is incredibly simple, yet it yields an interesting outcome that is key for understanding uncertainty. Let’s set the scene. Imagine you are standing in a line and can choose to take one step either forward or backward. You pick randomly with equal probability of each and continue to do so for a total of n times. Assuming that each step is the same distance (we will refer to this distance as 1 and ignore units) you will be some distance D from the original line. See Figure 1 for some examples. Figure 1: Two Random Walks It does not make sense to say that D is a function of n, because this process is not deterministic. D could be drastically different for two walks, even at the same n. Instead, we can talk about what we expect to happen. How far away are we on average after n steps? To specify this value, we will use <D(n)>. The symbols “<>” specify an expectation value. That is, what we get when we average over a very large number of random walks. Since this is no longer random, we can now think of it as a function of n, the number of steps taken. There’s one more thing to consider before we starting calculating a value. It is meaningless to differentiate between getting far away in the negative direction and positive direction. We could choose to solve for the expectation value of the absolute value of D (wow that’s a mouthful) which is <|D(n)|>. Instead, we’ll use the square of D and solve for <D(n)²>. Squaring the distance will also satisfy our goal of ignoring the difference between positive and negative values. The reasons for taking the square instead of the absolute value will become clear later. We can actually explicitly define this value for n = 1. Since it’s the first step, our walk either took us 1 step forward (+1) or one step backward (-1). Both give the same number when squared, so <D(1)²> = 1. But what about the next step? Let’s take a break from expectation values and think about what specifically is happening here. Assume that we know the value of D(n-1). Then, D(n) is either equal to D(n-1)+1, or D(n-1)-1 depending on which way we randomly walked. Squaring this gives us the following two options. Either D(n)² = D(n-1)²-2*D(n-1)+1 or D(n-1)²+2*D(n-1)+1. Both outcomes are equally likely, so the expectation value of D(n)² is just the average of the two. This gives a surprisingly simple result of <D(n)²> = <D(n-1)²>+1. Hopefully, now you see why we squared <D(n)> instead of taking the absolute value. This process would be much more difficult with the latter! Using this relationship and the fact that <D(1)²> = 1, induction tells us that <D(n)²> = n. Note that I just skipped over some mathematical formalities. If you want to learn about induction and how it would apply to this situation, check out this article. We’re going to simplify these results by taking the root mean square to get <D(n)> = sqrt(n). Cool! But what does this tell us? As an example, say we have taken 16 steps in total using the random walk as described earlier. Then we expect to be 4 steps away from our starting point. This is not deterministic! If our process is truly random, then there is no way to anticipate our location after 16 steps. We can, however, get a rough idea of where we should be. I find this outcome pretty interesting. Our average distance will still be 0, since walking forward or backward is equally likely. However, as we continue to take more steps, we expect to have a greater and greater spread of distances from this center.

https://www.cantorsparadise.com/the-counterintuitive-walk-d864574cf55d

[]

2021-08-03 20:17:00.535000+00:00

['Statistics', 'Mathematics', 'Data Science', 'Probability', 'Science']

Drill Down into Spring Boot Actuator metrics

We’ve only seen this very useful feature documented in the official Spring Actuator API Documentation, so maybe not many are aware that you actually have some control over what the Spring Actuator metrics return to your requesting client. The Spring Actuator API allows you to expose several useful metrics that you can use to monitor your Spring-based application. You can use these metrics to monitor your application health, the last few HTTP requests processed, system load, and so on. All this is rather well documented both by Spring themselves and other bloggers. However, when consuming the … Read more at David’s Blog

https://medium.com/david-vassallos-blog-posts/drill-down-into-spring-boot-actuator-metrics-bc4f0fcd660c

['David Vassallo']

2018-07-09 14:12:53.361000+00:00

['Developer', 'Development', 'Opensource', 'Java']

The triple currency passive income system aiming to bridge the gap between crypto and FIAT.

The triple currency passive income system aiming to bridge the gap between crypto and FIAT. Note: this is not your ordinary RFI fork. DeFi has seen a huge wave of investment with each new innovation driving the technology forward. Notably, the implementation of stakeless reward payments adopted by Reflect Finance, has seen mass utilization by various RFI forks and projects within the DeFi space. Despite their early success, many of these projects do not progress in an interesting or sustainable manner, ultimately contributing to their financial demise. As a result, a new way to counter and overcome these short-comings is necessary. Trifl3ct Protocol Trifl3ct Protocol proposes solutions for this issue through: The potential for real-world utility. Dividend payments in USDT to encourage TFLCT’s use as a store of value and passive income generator. Sustainable, goal oriented growth. The experimental basis of this solution is underpinned by the incorporation of all core RFI principles, along with functionality derived from Trinity Protocol (TRI). These modifications inherently differentiates Trifl3ct from typical RFI forks. To support the price and growth of TFLCT, exchangeable automated buy-backs will be utilised to support and raise the price floor. Essentially, TFLCT exists in an ecosystem comprising of automated buys and sells between an ETH pool and a smaller, private USDT pool controlled by a smart contract. The buy-back functionality serves two primary purposes: Dividend reward payments to TFCLT holders in USDT. Raising/reversing the price at time of purchase to maintain positive/stable price movements. This process is supported through the taxation scheme, which is outlined in the “Trifl3ct Core Functionality” section below. At the core of this ideology, the aim is to create sustainability and utility. How does this work? Trifl3ct Protocol will incorporate two liquidity pools for the TFLCT token — one for Ethereum and the other for USDT. Buy backs are generated based upon consistently bearish price movements, wherein a significant percentage of TFLCT is purchased through an automated process, via treasury funds. During this process, the buy-back incurs a higher burn fee (7.5%) than a typical transaction, consequently creating anti-inflation mechanism through reducing the total supply. As a result, the ‘price floor’ is also permanently raised. Tokens acquired through buy-backs are sold into a private USDT/TFLCT smart contract pool, which only the automated buy-back contract has access to. Following this, a portion of the final USDT amount is redistributed to TFLCT holders, and a portion is reallocated to the treasury for future funding/ETH pool buy-backs. The amount of USDT which is redistributed to holders is dependent upon the market cap at the time of the buy back and the amount of TFLCT holders. Trifl3ct Core Functionality 5% tax on buys and sells: Sells 2.25% of TFLCT distributed to TFLCT holders. 2.25% of TFLCT permanently distributed to Uniswap liquidity. 0.5% of TFLCT distributed to the treasury for community rewards. Buys 1.5% of Ethereum used to buy TFLCT permanently distributed to the Uniswap liquidity. 3.5% of Ethereum used to buy TFLCT is automatically sold into USDT and added to USDT/TFLCT smart contract pool. Trifl3ct Protocol Launch Strategy Phase A Whitelist. Pre-sale. Community engagement and rewards. Phase B Uniswap listing (ETH/TFLCT). Monitoring of ETH/TFLCT core functionality. Begin marketing campaign. Phase c Deployment of USDT/TFLCT smart contract. Monitoring of USDT/TFLCT functionality. Testing of buy-back mechanism. Phase D (TBA) TBA Trifl3ct Utility Trifl3ct Protocol aims to bridge the gap between DeFi and FIAT, wherein investors can stake and earn passive income in a stable currency, while freely being able to interchange between the two. Consequently, this makes TFLCT inherently valuable as an intangible store of value, and creates a link between blockchain and a tangible, and readily useable currency. Some future applications of this technology which TFLCT aims to explore include: Credit cards Hedge funds Online P2P/P2B/B2B transactions FIAT currency conversions Ultimately, the intention of TFLCT is to become a seamless, flexible intermediary between the blockchain and FIAT. Trifl3ct Tokenomics Total supply 500 000 TFCLT Pre-sale allocation: 200 000 TFLCT. Uniswap liquidity (ETH/TFLCT): 108 000. Uniswap liquidity (USDT/TFLCT): 142 000. Whitelist: 40 000 TFLCT (all contributed ETH to be used for future buy-backs). Community reward fund: 10 000 TFLCT. Trifl3ct Pre-sale information Soft cap: 50ETH Hard cap: 75ETH Liquidity (ETH pool): 60% Liquidity (USDT pool): 20% Marketing allocation: 10% Development fund: 10% Whitelist price: 1 500 TFLCT per ETH. Pre-sale price: 1 333 TFLCT per ETH (maximum 2.5ETH/minimim 0.5 ETH). Listing price: 1200 TFLCT per ETH. All unsold TFLCT will be burnt. 100% of liquidity will be locked. Join our community! Telegram: https://t.me/Trifl3ct Website: coming soon! Relevant Links Reflect Finance (RFI) Medium article — to understand the foundational principles of TFLCT. Trinity Protocol (TRI) Medium article — to understand the basis of TFCLT’s buy-back functionality. TFLCT verified token contract: TBA TFLCT Uniswap link: TBA TFLCT DEXT link: TBA TFLCT Unicrypt link: TBA Reinventing DeFi.

https://medium.com/@triflectprotocol/the-triple-currency-passive-income-system-aiming-to-bridge-the-gap-between-crypto-and-fiat-957ada628f3c

[]

2020-12-24 00:40:22.737000+00:00

['Ethereum', 'Uniswap V2', 'Uniswap', 'Eth', 'Uniswap Gems']

The Right And Wrong Lessons From Afghanistan: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

The Right And Wrong Lessons From Afghanistan: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix Caitlin Johnstone Jun 24·6 min read Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ Your efforts to understand the world will fail unless you account for the fact that (A) echo chamber dynamics have a vastly under-appreciated effect on the way we all take in information, and (B) that rich and powerful people are actively trying to manipulate your perception of reality. ❖ The correct lesson from Afghanistan instantly beginning to revert back to Taliban control the moment the western occupation ends is not that the occupation needs to continue, it’s that it should never have happened in the first place. “Oh no, bad things are happening because we’re leaving!” No, bad things are happening because you went in. You spent two decades hammering that poor nation with bombs and war crimes, and now they’re just going right back to where they were before you inflicted that upon them. Everything that’s happening in Afghanistan today is the fault of the invaders. The argument that the occupation has been a boon for human rights is just plain false, and is premised on the idea that the western empire should invade every nation with illiberal cultural values and force it to change at gunpoint. Even if that ridiculous premise were accepted, it has been clearly established that such a thing is impossible. How fucking obnoxious is it that westerners are now wringing their hands over the fact that when they stop forcing Afghanistan to be a certain way at gunpoint, the fate of Afghanistan starts being determined by Afghans? Enough with this white man’s burden bullshit, freaks. ❖ Don’t tell people not to fantasize about Jeff Bezos’ icy body spinning through the vacuum of space for all eternity. It’s kink-shaming. ❖ How to be an American leftist: Focus exclusively on domestic policy in the most warmongering nation on earth Criticize governments who are resisting US interventionism instead of US interventionism Pay more attention to obscure abstract concepts than nonstop mass murder ❖ US politicians always have Twitter bios like “Father of Kelly, husband of Leanne (she’s the real boss!), VERY amateur shower singer,” instead of like, “Rapist of Syria, murderer of Yemeni kids, destroyer of your children’s future.” ❖ Yemen alone completely invalidates the moral authority of the US-centralized power alliance to determine what rules the world should play by. ❖ It’s not actually possible to be excessively critical of the US empire. There’s a common notion that there needs to be some kind of “balance” between criticism of the US power alliance and its enemies. No there doesn’t; the US government is objectively far worse than any other. No other government is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases, working to destroy any nation which disobeys it, and waging nonstop wars which have killed millions and displaced tens of millions just since the turn of this century. Criticizing the US empire far more than its rivals is balance; criticizing it the same as you’d criticize US-targeted governments is what would be imbalanced, because the US and its allies are far, far more murderous and destructive than anyone else. It should be criticized more. You’re not being impartial if you pretend the US is as bad as China, Russia, Iran, etc; you’re being heavily biased in favor of the US, because you’re greatly helping to advance the interests of the far worse government by placing it on equal footing with the others. You see so many dry, elitist wankers acting like they’re being detached and impartial by treating all governments equally, when in reality they’re being anything but. All governments are not equal; one is clearly and demonstrably far, far more destructive than any of the others. ❖ It’s just so amazing how many leftists yell at journalists like Aaron Maté and Glenn Greenwald for using Tucker Carlson’s show to get important perspectives out to a mainstream audience compared to how few leftists yell at other mass media outlets for refusing to platform those important perspectives at all. Like there’s a whole sector of Twitter which seems to spend all its energy bitching about anti-imperialists going on Carlson to share anti-imperialist perspectives, and if you search their tweets you’ll find zero posts yelling at CNN or MSNBC for never platforming anti-imperialists. Dissident ideas need to get out to the mainstream. The fact that no other outlets ever platform those ideas besides Tucker Carlson is the thing which should outrage people. ❖ If you’re not despised by the Intercept-TYT-Bellingcat media faction, your work probably isn’t that good. ❖ So much of what the CIA used to do covertly it now does overtly; NED, working in media punditry, etc. Pretty soon they’ll just be openly selling narcotics door to door like Girl Scout cookies. ❖ Fun fact: among people who tell you you’re only socialist because you’ve never studied economics, exactly zero percent of them have ever read a book by a Marxian economist. ❖ If I were a thieving oligarch or a murderous imperialist I would be very happy that Americans are all focused on arguing about critical race theory. ❖ Come read my superintelligent Marxist essay about why the left should remain a highly exclusive club no bigger than the size of a public library speaking event. Medium says it’s just a 97-minute read. It’s got over six views and counting. Hope you like footnotes! ❖ Hey remember when Wonder Woman came out the same year Hillary Clinton was supposed to become president and invade Syria, and the villain was a guy who murders villagers with poison gas, including children? That was a bit weird, huh? Like there was literally a scene where Wonder Woman finds a village of civilians killed with poison gas, and screams about how awful the bad guys are for “Killing people they cannot see! Children. Children!!” How many other superhero movies have you seen where the bad guy just kills kids with poison gas? Hillary had been openly planning to invade Syria with tens of thousands of US troops to cripple Assad’s air defenses and control Syrian air space, a very dangerous and deadly move which would have required a lot of consent manufacturing. And you can say well it was set in World War 1, poison gas was a big thing then. Okay, but why set it in World War 1? The character Wonder Woman didn’t exist until 1941. There was no reason it had to be set during a time when poison gas was a big thing, but they chose to anyway. ❖ They say youth is wasted on the young. No, youth is wasted on schoolwork. ❖ Psychedelics are useful not for the hallucinations they provide but for the hallucinations they remove. ❖ I have a conspiracy theory that plutocrats conspire with secretive government agencies to advance murderous and exploitative agendas, and I have another conspiracy theory that some deep force of nature within us is conspiring to awaken humanity from the propaganda of our rulers. Humanity is becoming more conscious. Awkwardly, sloppily, like a toddler, we’re becoming more and more aware of what’s going on inside us and what’s going on outside us. There are a lot of ugly things which wish to remain hidden as the light expands, but they can’t hide forever. _________________________ 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, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. 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. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2 Featured image via Wikimedia Commons.

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-right-and-wrong-lessons-from-afghanistan-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix-d39d7f280a04

['Caitlin Johnstone']

2021-06-24 12:21:55.559000+00:00

['War', 'Afghanistan', 'News', 'Politics', 'America']

PM MODI GOT A LETTER TO CHANGE INDIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM “JANA GANA MANA"

PM MODI GOT A LETTER TO CHANGE INDIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM “JANA GANA MANA" Indian national anthem "JANA GANA MANA" written by one of the most famous writer Rabindranath Tagore. It was first sang in 1911 in Calcutta. The song was adopted by Indian Constituent Assembly on 24 January 1950 as India’s national anthem. A letter written by Subramanyam Swamy member of Rajya Sabha (BJP) to PM Modi. He request to PM for remove few words in current national anthem. Also he give a suggestion to replace those words by a another song that was composed and sung by the Late Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and his INA forces. Same kind of request also previously raised by Markandey Katju a former judge of supreme court and Ripun Bora (INC) a member of Rajya Sabha. Current national anthem have words like "Sindh", "Adhinayak ". Reason for this request is the word "Sindh" indicates the area Sindh province of Pakistan, currently which is not a integral part of India or any disputed area of India. The song was written when India was not divided into two parts. Also he mentions current demographic doesn't match with the anthem as there is nothing mentioned about North-East India. So we can use a word that can indicate the area of North-East India. Also he said the word "Adhinayak " word indicates the British king George -V. There is some controversy regarding those two words as in India there is a community called Sindhi, who are living all over India. So the remove of Sindh word they interpret as a devaluing contribution of Sindhis. Also many people arguing that Rabindranath not a supporter of British raj so why he would wrote the word 'Adhinayak' for British king. There is no evidence that can support claims of anyone. Check out below link: https://hotcurrentissues.blogspot.com/2020/12/letter-sent-to-pm-modi-for-change.html

https://medium.com/@sunmandal001/pm-modi-got-a-letter-to-change-indian-national-anthem-jana-gana-mana-81acb46210c3

['Sushanta Mandal']

2020-12-16 04:56:23.393000+00:00

['Indian Politics', 'Nationalism', 'Congress', 'Indian National Anthem', 'Pm Modi']

5 Factors To Consider While Selecting An SEO Services Provider Company

The assistance from the SEO service provider is a must for small business owners. It appears that the financial status has always been the villain for the smaller business providers, although there is no time for the recession. Every business houses are on the lookout to attain their online visibility, and this is only possible by hiring an SEO service provider agency. There are several factors that you have to analyze while considering the services of a digital marketing company, specifically in the niche of SEO. Let us check them out! Strategic Approach The established SEO services provider company will have the knowledge of the best SEO practices to attain the ranking of the site. They have the right experience in several important areas, such as keyword research along with link building. They can easily predict with this knowledge to a specific extent about the strategies that would work wonders for you. The process is, therefore, streamlined, unlike the novice who is mingling with several metrics. Analysis and Reports Through digital marketing, you can now make the result analysis. You should make sure that the SEO company is offering you’re the regular report and analysis that would quantify the progress. It will allow you to stay on track of the outcomes by comparing them to the plans that are documented and to determine whether the agency is working on its promises or not. Buying Cycle Your buying cycle should be optimized with the help of the Digital Marketing Service. The actual process of sales should be shortened. It will be decreasing the count of abandoned carts. You can go ahead, optimize and study the control flow by further reducing the cart abandonment. The number of returning customers for buy your product is the vital metric for your success. It also depends partially on their earlier buying experience with you. Market Impact You need to maintain the ranking for the relevant keywords after reaching the desired ranking. It is only possible through effective SEO services. It is simply an incremental step and also a distinctive achievement in terms of having a better ranking. As you achieve higher rankings on search engines, you thereby get more traffic. Therefore, it brings about a cumulative effect that takes the form of a multiplicative impact on the market. Cost-Effective Best SEO service providers are considered as one of the cost-effective means of marketing your business digitally. It is since the results obtained are completely organic without any kind of paid or advertising promotions. It is also considered one of the most important techniques that you can use. Start implementing this at the initial stages of your marketing process. Conclusion It is not a process that should be followed in making a leap from one provider to the other. You should always attain the best measures to avoid this kind of choice. Analyze your goals of the business as you figure out the requirements of your marketing. Select your prospective agency and know about the way they will be achieving all the aspects of digital marketing.

https://medium.com/@txenelsoft/5-factors-to-consider-while-selecting-an-seo-services-provider-company-f2dd693465c8

[]

2021-12-29 10:50:37.626000+00:00

['Seo Services Company', 'Seo Service Company', 'Seo Services', 'Best Seo Agency', 'Seo Service Providers']

Python Set

Overview A set is a collection of unique items that are unordered and unindexed. This means that there are no duplicates and cannot access items as you would a list or dictionary. Once you add an item into the set it cannot be changed but you can remove and add a new item. Create To create a set you can use curly braces or use the set constructor. newset1 = {"one", "two", "three"} newset2 = set(("one", "two", "three")) print(newset1 == newset2) >> True Insert To add an item using the add() method. newset = {"one", "two", "three"} newset.add("four") print(newset) >> {'one', 'four', 'three', 'two'} To add multiple items use the update() method. newset = {"one", "two", "three"} newset.update(["five", "six"]) print(newset) >> {'five', 'six', 'one', 'two', 'three'} If you try to add a duplicate item using the add() or update() method you will not get an error but the duplicate will not be in the set. Read To access items in the set you can loop through the set. newset = {"one", "two", "three"} for num in newset: print(num) >> one >> two >> three To check if an item is in the set use the in keyword. newset = {"one", "two", "three"} print("one" in newset) >> True print("four" in newset) >> False Delete To remove a specific item from the set you can use the remove() method. It will throw an error if the item is not in the set. newset = {"one", "two", "three"} newset.remove("one") print(newset) >> {'two', 'three'} Similarly you can use the discard() method to remove a specific element as well but it will not throw an error if it is not in the set. newset = {"one", "two", "three"} newset.discard("one") print(newset) >> {'two', 'three'} To remove the last item in the set you can use the pop() method. The pop() method will also return the item that was removed from the set.However, sets are unordered so the item might not be what you expect. newset = {"one", "two", "three"} x = newset.pop() print(x) >> two print(newset) >> {'one', 'three'} To remove all items from the set you can use the clear() method. newset = {"one", "two", "three"} newset.clear() print(newset) >> set() To remove the set itself you can use the del keyword newset = {"one", "two", "three"} del newset # Error will be thrown because newset does not exist anymore print(newset) Length To get the length of the set you can use the len() method. newset = {"one", "two", "three"} print(len(newset)) >> 3 Joining Sets To join two sets you can use the union() method which will return a new set. newset1 = {"one", "two", "three"} newset2 = {1, 2, 3} print(newset1.union(newset2)) >> {1, 'one', 2, 3, 'two', 'three'} You can use the update() method to items from one set into another. newset1 = {"one", "two", "three"} newset2 = {1, 2, 3} newset1.update(newset2) print(newset1) >> {1, 2, 3, 'three', 'two', 'one'} Conclusion Like other languages set is a data structure that is unordered, unindexed and has no duplicates. Items in sets are hashed so it is O(1) for inserting, reading and removing. If you do not care about duplicates and order you would want to use a set.

https://medium.com/dev-genius/python-set-9b21a0f496eb

['Daniel Liu']

2020-09-10 20:18:37.439000+00:00

['Data Structures', 'Python', 'Set', 'Python Set', 'Python Programming']

What Was Normal Before Covid-19. 1. Being more cautious about how we…

We have all been in our homes staying safe for at least a month now, some longer than others and we have been advised to continue doing this for another month. Parents are now being teachers to the children, dads are staying home who normally would be out working all day. Moms and dads are trying to think of ways to keep the kids active and busy without hanging out with there friends. Some mothers are going to work longer hours in essential jobs, terrified that they may bring this horrible disease home to their families. Nurses and doctors are staying away from their families to avoid bringing it home to their loved ones. What is normal? I hear a lot of people saying they can’t wait to get back to normal. What we thought WAS normal obviously wasn’t working. I believe we need to make major changes. Here are some of the changes that I know we will be making. 1. Being more cautious about how we greet others. 2. Shopping local supporting smaller businesses. 3. Doing bigger shopping lists to limit how many times we have to go to the stores. 4. Being more grateful for the little things in life. 5. Telling people how we feel about them more, picking up the phone to hear them instead of always texting. 6. We have used reusable bags for some time, but I will be continuing to use these and discontinue using the little plastic vegetable clear bag, I have picked up mesh bags to use going forward and washing them after. Too many people touch the plastic ones and they are not good for the environment anyways. With families hanging out together more and eating dinner together more than they did before, I hope that this new way of life for families, strengthens the family bond. Maybe people will be more thankful and appreciate others more, treat others as they wish to be treated. I truly hope that we can all learn to be grateful for everything that we do have, family, friends, children, love, jobs, being thankful for the ones who have helped us get threw this ~ the essential workers. Truck drivers, grocery store workers, doctors, nurses, hydro workers, delivery truck drivers. If I missed any essential workers it was not my intention, you are all important. I know myself, I plan to be more kind to the essential workers, to always be thankful for all that I have. I plan to reach out to others by calling them more. I plan to also find a way to reach out to others, to be able to help others threw my yoga teachings and meditation retreats to allow people to find the inner peace that they deserve. I hope everyone is finding peace and love threw these trying times. Stay Calm And Breathe~ It Looks Good On You. Tonia Aldworth

https://medium.com/@staycalmyoga/we-have-all-been-in-our-homes-staying-safe-for-at-least-a-month-now-some-longer-than-others-and-c10defa56c9f

[]

2020-12-26 14:20:14.769000+00:00

['Yoga', 'Yoga Teacher', 'Pandemic', 'Covid 19', 'Normal']

What I — A Youngish Person — Thinks the Future Should Look Like

And what archaic cheese packaging has to do with it. I am unashamedly a grandma’s boy. I visit her every other day and sit at her kitchen counter as she plates tasteless spaghetti in front of me and talks about what most grandmas love to talk about. Simpler times. Were advancing, fast! According to Moore’s law, every 18 or so months, computer processing speeds double. What does that mean? Well, according to your big billionaire tech heroes, communication gets quicker, smartphones work faster, and rockets get hurled farther. What does that mean to me? An unaccomplished undergrad working part-time at a grocery store. Well, marketers develop better ways to claw into your human behavior and desires. Fast food scientists develop better tasting foods that exploit your salt, fat and sugar-based palette. And big tech develops more useless apps and products to become addicted to so you can ignore the slave labor that creates them, the plastic packaging filling up our oceans and landfills, and your growing waistline. If this is now, what were those simpler times my grandma loves to relish in? Just the other day, we were rummaging through an old barn that has been in our family for generations. We were trying to find an old crate I could furnish my room with to give it that bucolic homestead vibe Chip and Joanna rave about. I came across a wooden 5lb cheese crate. Too small for a coffee table, but perfect for me to admire for its craftsmanship, ingenuity, simplicity and functionality. All wood, with dozens of half-blind dovetail cuts binding the pieces together. No nails, glue, plastic, or “follow us on IG to hear about our latest products” print. Just a box for some cheese. But why did the producer put so much intricacy and effort into a cheese vessel? “They had to work with what they had!” grandma chirped. People wanted cheese and the producer gave them cheese. But then competition came. Things got a little cutthroat and now we have processed cheese foods containing less than 51% cheese and pre-grated parmesans being pulled from shelves for containing cheap cheddar and wood pulp. All wrapped up in a plastic package that subtly asks to be hopelessly recycled. “It's apricots!” my grandma would say, a fresh new take on nuts. What upsets me here is the insincerity corporations have towards humanity. People are treated as consumers, not humans. Corporations cut corners and disregard ethics to turn a quick buck. But then people catch on. What do these corporations do? They give a quick PR apology and slap an organic, handmade, gourmet or sustainably produced label on their product to show they have changed. Look at eggs. Nobody liked seeing those videos of sad caged chickens defecating on each other, confined so tightly they were unable to spread their wings. People got upset. Some took to the streets, busted down barn doors, and said, “treat chickens humanely, as living things!” Big business apologized and started selling cage-free eggs. Victory! The Humane Society did a little investigating however and found that the only requirements to put a cage-free sticker on a product are that each chicken needs one square foot (144 inches) of space. Chickens are held in dark barns, shoulder to shoulder, knee-deep in their neighbors’ poop, but better off than their caged brothers, which still exist. I work at a popular grocery store that has a special’s isle — for non-grocery related items. Now, do not tell my boss, but all of its trash. Plastic microwavable omelet cookers, fiber-board furniture, cheap clothing and an endless supply of crummy knock-off children’s toys that will bore after 15 minutes of disappointing playtime. These are the everyday purchases of consumers living in the most advanced society the world has ever known. This is what the 21st century has to offer. This is what we are putting our ingenuity, recourses and innovation towards. Wine toppers, flatscreens and senseless self-help apps. Improving the well-being and security of millions can wait. I know by now I must sound like the most inconsiderate, unappreciative snob you have ever heard. But I sincerely do not see the point. Humanity's current goal is to turn a profit. Exploit who you can and manipulate the masses into thinking they still need to keep up with the Joneses. No sense in complaining anymore about corporate responsibility or our throw-away consumer society. I suppose there are people working on it and why worry about issues of humanity when I can just bury my nose in Instagram and stare at internet trends for hours. My main contention and question here is what is the point of humanity? Economic and technological advancement? Towards what? Cheap meaningless goods? Class mobility is diminishing, 35 million Americans suffer from some form of food insecurity, 40% struggle with obesity and an increasing endemic of anxiety and depression is sweeping among the youth. All while the race to the peak of the money pile sits on everyone’s mind. Like every other time, it is time for a change. The Reformation brought a political uprising and we advanced. The Scientific Revolution brought modern science and we moved on. The Industrial Revolution brought glory and we progressed. It is time for the Technological Revolution to die. We need to move on and reorient humanity's goals. It is time for a new age of enlightenment. Where do we start? How about we look at what humans truly need and capitalize on that instead of the selfish race to the top. How we can spread well-being and security to as many people as possible. Cheap knick-knacks and 8K resolution TV’s are not the answer but thank you for the smartphone, laptop and air conditioning. Sincerely, Generation Z.

https://medium.com/@mrcrist2526/what-i-a-youngish-person-thinks-the-future-should-look-like-22e53aab2103

['Mason Crist']

2021-01-05 21:11:33.699000+00:00

['Generation Z', 'Change', 'Politics', 'Future', 'Youth']

StrollersBOB REVOLUTION PRO JOGGING BABY STROLLER

The BOB Revolution Pro Jogging Baby Stroller might be the top Jogging Stroller that has numerous one of a kind highlights that make it stand apart from its rivals. Right now, we will survey the best highlights, evaluating, security appraisals and considerably more. When in the market for another carriage, picking the best buggy. The Bob Revolution Pro Baby Stroller is the best wagered. In the case of strolling, running, voyaging, or climbing, this carriage has all you are searching for. TheBob Revolution Pro Jogging The stroller handles all territories effortlessly, crumples and rises effectively, and it is intended to move as you move. Without any difficulty of utilization and solace for infants, you can unhesitatingly convey this carriage with you from the introduction of the infant until outgrown! For the client, there is a huge stockpiling pocket and pockets to hold your vital things. Triangular system configuration takes into consideration simplicity of development, and brisk turns that a customary square frame doesn’t. Best Safety Ratings/Recalls The latest review is from July 2019 with respect to the through jolt pivot. Substitutions were sent to the individuals who bought the buggy. The issue requiring fix was prudent as the through jolt could crack while strolling/running on any territory. The security of the through jolt was brought into question after protests in 2018 expressing that the front wheel has been tumbling off because of the absence of imperative. The front-wheel falling off mid-run can represent a risk to a youngster riding just as to the grown-up pushing. In any case, there were no recorded cases of serious injury or passing. The through jolt was supplanted because of review, and the issue was not viewed as being one of extraordinary nature. The wellbeing issue with respect to the through jolt in the front wheel has been settled as of September 2015. The review was for buggies produced using December 2011-September 2015. One may have an issue with a buggy whenever made going before September 2015 and got the carriage through a leftover blessing or purchased second hand at a carport deal. Unique Features of BOB Revolution Pro Having a buggy with across the board alternatives and high convenience permits families to go anyplace with an infant! The BobRevolution Baby Stroller is constantly fit to be utilized and delighted in, in the case of utilizing at the shopping center, having a climb in the mountains or in the midst of a get-away with the blended landscape. BOB Revolution Pro Features as A red handle will show up from the back; pull it in reverse. The carriage will crumple to a minimized size. Utilize the wrist wrap found on the handlebars to tie up the carriage for capacity. In the wake of causing it to go round to make a firm wrap, fix the velcro, so it doesn’t come unraveled. Your Bob Revolution Pro is currently fit to be put away or moved in the storage compartment of your vehicle. Warrantee of Bob Revolution Pro The texture and extras of the carriage are under guarantee for one year. The guarantee just covers issues under typical utilization, issues for the first client, and for the individuals who have confirmation of procurement. Claim Warranty of Bob Revolution Pro In the occasion, you are involved with a carriage with a flawed casing or extra, you may record a guarantee through an approved seller of BobBaby Stroller. You may likewise record a guarantee through Britax Customer Service. Cases are possibly satisfied when due shortcoming can appear on the first development of the edge and adornments. Cases can’t be petitioned for a guarantee when the client adjusted the hardware in any capacity. Not all families depend on the Strollers for Hiking Families need the carriage to have the option to deal with neighborhood lanes, the recreation center, the market, and can be put back in the vehicle effectively in the wake of a difficult day! Pockets and capacity all through the carriage just for a speedy snatch and go things. The carriage is cherished for its capacity to convey all things and free the hands, hips, shoulders, and backs of guardians. In light of negative client surveys for the Bob Revolution Pro Stroller, clients discover the carriage costly for everyday use. Quality High-End Jogging Stroller The buggy is $499, making the value point high for some families. The value point is high for the individuals who will utilize the buggy sparingly, who may have just a single youngster, and for the individuals who don’t anticipate extending their family? Other negative audits were with respect to the front tire coming free and potentially tumbling off. The tire being withdrawn and afterward having the casing collide with the ground can be a disrupting hazard for some. This issue has not happened regularly and is uncommon, however, the danger of injury, if enough to kill numerous clients, as indicated by the surveys. Pros of Bob Revolution Pro Cons of Bob Revolution Pro Final Conclusion about Bob Revolution Pro The Bob Revolution Pro Baby Stroller is one that gives the best quality to the cost. Your family gets a top of the line carriage at a mid-run cost, just as the highlights that make the Bob buggy interesting.

https://medium.com/@harryoscar786/bob-revolution-pro-jogging-baby-stroller-6fd306283ca9

['Harry Oscar']

2020-03-03 10:59:58.653000+00:00

['Stroller', 'Baby', 'Jogging', 'Parenting', 'Child']

POV of a 15 year old

Lonely I feel so lonely but why. I am always surrounded with good people, who make me laugh but what does it actually mean to be lonely. Is it the sensation of being with no one or the sensation of not telling anyone how you feeling, your real thoughts what’s actually going on with you. Maybe that’s what being lonely is like. Not being able to share your true self and being isolated in someone you are supposed to be. Bomb Everyday my bones feel worse, its like my body is dying. But I can cure myself, I can actually save me but, I can’t. Why? I don’t have the answer yet. It’s simply human’s nature of self destruction. Always a time bomb waiting to explode. Pain Realising that it can’tgo the same way it went once, is the most hurtful thing of all, ’cause after all you still have hope. That hope is what keeps us alive. Hope in getting better. But the problem is, when you loose it, you have nothing left. Then again, what is nothing? Is it having everything but feel empty or the feeling of emptiness when you actually don’t have anything. Guess I never lost hope. I still have some there left, and it doest mean that I will never have the relationship that I’m wishing for, but I’m going to have a better one. I promise. I just hope she can forgive me, and also forgive herself. I am so scared, for a tiny instance she was my best friend, now is hard to think of her being a friend at all. Boy Issues I have a lot of doubts. Didi he feel the same things I did, and I f he did, why is he not talking to me anymore. I know that night was special to him, it was really special to me too. But we are back at the same kind of shit. Doing what we hate the most instead of what we love due to fear. Fear of rejection I guess. But doesn’t he get it? I would never reject him. Guess is time to move on. Said this words a thousand times this past 2 years but guess what. Still here.

https://medium.com/@genesishuamanleyva/pov-of-a-15-year-old-fbf766d31609

['Emma James Ram']

2020-12-21 15:29:47.927000+00:00

['Teens']

Back to the Activities You Once Loved With Physical Therapy | Fitness Lab

Let Physical Therapy Help You Get Back to the Activities You Love! Struggling To Live Life on Your Own Terms? Physical Therapy Can Help! Your golf friends wonder if you’re ever going to join them for another nine holes. That oil painting you started way back when still awaits the finishing touches. You bought a guitar last year, but you can’t stand the thought of trying to play it. Your tennis game got rusty shortly after your elbow did the same. Do these scenarios, or similar ones, strike a little close to home? Chronic pain, stiffness and injuries can draw strict lines governing what you can and can’t do. It’s a situation that has been seen time and time again and that countless individuals suffer from daily. At times, the emotional pain of not being able to do the things you love with the people you love can be hurt more than the physical. Taking painkillers offers little more than a stopgap solution, while major surgery could actually set you back further instead of letting you get past your problem. But what if I told you there is another option for returning to the activities you love and living the life you deserve? What if I told you you could skip all of the short-term solutions for your chronic pain and get to the very root of your pain and stop it in its tracks? Well, the good news is you can do all of that, and you can do it with physical therapy. How Painful Problems Can Limit Your Freedom and Lifestyle The human body is capable of an extraordinary range of physical actions, thanks to the muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints in your body that make motion possible. Unfortunately, this amazing structure is prone to run into problems from time to time — problems that restrict your range of motion, making even the smallest of actions too painful to contemplate. Let’s look at how issues affecting different body parts can limit your lifestyle. Lower extremities — Any physical activity that involves running, jumping, or even standing still can become impossible if your hips, knees, or feet are in pain. Osteoarthritis most notably affects weight-bearing joints. Another possibility could also be runner’s knee, sciatica, or plantar fasciitis. — Any physical activity that involves running, jumping, or even standing still can become impossible if your hips, knees, or feet are in pain. Osteoarthritis most notably affects weight-bearing joints. Another possibility could also be runner’s knee, sciatica, or plantar fasciitis. Elbows and shoulders — Because of constant and repeated stress on specific parts of their bodies, athletes regularly struggle with motion injuries, bursitis, or tendinitis in the elbows or shoulders. 38 million Americans suffer from the two classic examples include golfer’s elbow and tennis elbow, two similar forms of chronic tendon damage and inflammation. — Because of constant and repeated stress on specific parts of their bodies, athletes regularly struggle with motion injuries, bursitis, or tendinitis in the elbows or shoulders. 38 million Americans suffer from the two classic examples include golfer’s elbow and tennis elbow, two similar forms of chronic tendon damage and inflammation. Neck and back — Does your favorite activity require you to crane your neck or twist your back constantly? It may be impossible to do either if you’re suffering from a herniated disc, a strained back, overstressed neck muscles, or degenerative spinal joint issues. — Does your favorite activity require you to crane your neck or twist your back constantly? It may be impossible to do either if you’re suffering from a herniated disc, a strained back, overstressed neck muscles, or degenerative spinal joint issues. Hands — It’s not easy to think of any artistic endeavor that doesn’t require limber hands and fingers. Arthritis can stiffen your digits to the point where you can’t play an instrument, draw, or create handicrafts. Carpal tunnel syndrome makes even holding a pen a painful and agonizing experience The Goal of Pain-Free Function Is Attainable With Our Physical Therapists! Physical therapy makes a natural first line of care for anyone looking to regain lost strength, dexterity, or range of motion. Many people turn to physical therapy to take away the limits imposed by chronic pain or injuries so that they can return to their favorite activities. Our physical therapist makes a point of going above and beyond physical exams and symptom evaluations, tailoring the treatment by speaking with you about your specific frustrations, limitations, goals, and hopes for relief. We can then arrange a detailed, personalized physical therapy plan that targets those ailments and objectives. Physical therapy uses a variety of tools and strategies that work together to achieve a desired result. For example: A combination of massage therapy, stretches, heat therapy and cold therapy can ease pain in your hands and wrists. Strength training, chiropractic treatment, and corrective exercises may be recommended to soothe pain and prevent further injury in the neck or back. Walking, cycling or swimming can improve the pain-free range of motion in your weight-bearing joints. Orthotic shoe inserts can help you come back from plantar fasciitis. With The Help Of A Physical Therapist, You Can Enjoy Your Favorite Activities Without Pain! Chronic pain can be an unparalleled detriment to your life and the thing you want to do in it. Talking about your struggles and pain you’ve faced is the first step to taking your life back. Once you’ve taken that step, you are making a choice to not let the pain control you. Don’t settle for being a spectator where your favorite activities are concerned. Jump back into the things you love by contacting our physical therapist at the Fitness Lab for treatment today! Sources:

https://medium.com/@hsophia848/back-to-the-activities-you-once-loved-with-physical-therapy-fitness-lab-4f2de0ec07af

[]

2020-12-28 11:04:29.250000+00:00

['Health', 'Physical Therapy', 'Pain Free', 'Exercise', 'Fitness']

Chartify: A Quick Review

Chartify is a new plotting library that was recently open-sourced by Spotify Labs. You can read their announcement article here. Chartify is intended to make it easy for Python users to create standard chart types, including line, bar and area charts, and is built on top of Bokeh. As a Bokeh core contributor, I quickly experimented with Chartify to see what it’s like. tl;dr I’m impressed. Chartify offers a clean API to ingest tidy data and generate a variety of visually pleasing charts, while also exposing the underlying Bokeh figure for further customization. I’m excited about this addition to the Python data visualization ecosystem. (taken from the Chartify Examples Notebook) Why does Chartify build on Bokeh? Bokeh is a tool for creating web-based, interactive visualizations and offers a lot of primitives (like lines and circles) that users combine into highly customized visualizations. However, using primitives means that users may be required to do extra data manipulation to create their desired plot. For example, there’s no from bokeh import StackedBarChart . Users can certainly create such a chart using Bokeh, but doing so requires figuring out how to transform their data into beginning and end positions for the stacked bars. Chartify aims to abstract away this data transformation step for users making standard chart types. Using Tidy Data: Chartify consumes tidy data, a data formatting concept that originated in the R ecosystem. You can read the whole explanation here, but synopsis is that a tidy dataset is one that is structured where: Each variable forms a column Each observation forms a row Each type of observational unit forms a table To fully understand, it might be easier to look at an example of each: Tidy Data Example: Untidy Data Example: You can see that each row in the tidy dataset contains a unique observation, composed of values for each variable. In the untidy dataset, each row corresponds to the summary of a different type of fruit and not unique observations. Data analysis tools like Pandas are generally designed to consume data that matches this standard. Since Chartify is a Python library, you can read about about tidying data in Pandas from Pandas core contributor Tom Augspurger here. This is especially relevant because Chartify ingests tidy Pandas DataFrames for plotting, which is hugely valuable because users don’t have to do any special data transformation in order create visualizations. The Chartify API The allowed axis types: x_axis_type (enum, str): linear log datetime categorical density y_axis_type (enum, str): linear log categorical density As of release 2.3.5, Chartify offers the following chart types for the corresponding x and y axis types: (Note: both area and bar include stacked area and bar charts) While there’s endless the potential to add more, I think Chartify more than covers the necessary charts for general report generation. Using the “chartify.Chart.plot” methods Users pass their tidy dataframe into their chosen plotting method and specify which column names correspond visualization properties using keyword arguments. In this case, I created a grouped bar chart by specifying the "country" and "fruit" columns for the groupings and the "quantity" column for the data value. Additionally, I passed in optional kwargs to set the bar colors and ordering. quantity_by_fruit_and_country = (tidy_data.groupby( ['fruit', 'country'])['quantity'].sum().reset_index()) ch = chartify.Chart(blank_labels=True, x_axis_type='categorical', y_axis_type='linear') ch.set_title("Fruit by Country") ch.set_subtitle("Change categorical order with 'categorical_order_by'.") ch.plot.bar( data_frame=quantity_by_fruit_and_country, categorical_columns=['country', 'fruit'], numeric_column='quantity', color_column='country', ## optional categorical_order_by='labels', ## optional categorical_order_ascending=True ## optional ) ch.axes.set_xaxis_tick_orientation('vertical') ch.show() I’ve very excited that Chartify exposes the Bokeh Figure object that it creates on the chart’s .figure property. This means users get the wonderful functionality of a nice charting API while also being able to drop down to Bokeh-level APIs to further customize their plots. In this example, I modified a Chartify scatter plot to add a custom HoverTool and make the figure size be responsive. (You can test this by hovering over the plot and dragging the browser window larger and smaller.) from bokeh.models import HoverTool ch = chartify.Chart(blank_labels=True, x_axis_type='datetime', y_axis_type='linear') ch.plot.scatter( data_frame=tidy_data, x_column="date", y_column="total_price", size_column='quantity', color_column='fruit') ("Total Price (M $)", " ("Quantity Sold (M Units)", " ]) hover = HoverTool(tooltips=[("Total Price (M $)", " @total_price "),("Quantity Sold (M Units)", " @quantity "),]) ### access Bokeh.Figure object ch.figure.add_tools(hover) ch.figure.sizing_mode = 'scale_width' ch.show() Beyond the Chart.plot methods and accessing the Bokeh figure via Chart.figure , Chartify also offers interfaces to modify plots styles, add annotations, and format the axes: the chartify.Chart methods: Styling (.style) Plotting (.plot) Callouts (.callout) Axes (.axes) Bokeh figure (.figure) You can views more demonstrations of these in Chartify’s examples notebook here. Summation Chartify offers a pleasant high-level interface for ingesting tidy data and generating a variety of visually pleasing charts, while also exposing the underlying Bokeh object for further customization. I’m excited about this addition to the Python data visualization ecosystem. Thanks, Luke Canavan

https://medium.com/bokeh/chartify-a-quick-review-1cc5f95ab7ef

[]

2020-07-05 13:09:57.308000+00:00

['Python', 'Open Source', 'Data Science', 'Bokeh', 'Data Visualization']

Amber Heard’s Attorney Jumps Ship #WithdrewToo

So why now? One of the primary reasons for Kaplan’s Judas moment may have come in the shape of Adam Waldman, Depp’s attorney. Waldman has been merciless and persistent in highlighting Kaplan’s ties to Harvey Weinstein and other questionable past clients, including Jussie Smollet. On the heels of the news, Waldman was quick to exact his pound of flesh, a biting tweet from him on Twitter ending with #WithdrewToo, a parting shot at Kaplan’s association with #MeToo.His current Twitter stream reflects a list of damning documents, entitled ‘in memoriam’. For Kaplan, the need to protect her reputation, at least for the sake of appearances and her Times Up fund, has been seriously eroded by her involvement with Heard. It’s hard to campaign for the rights of abused women when you’re representing an abuser. Particularly one that’s a woman. Amber Heard is rapidly becoming a liability for Hollywood and those who would assume to dangle on its coattails. Kaplan may simply have made the only realistic PR decision left open to her. Distance. For those of you that don’t follow the glitter rags, here’s a quick recap of events to bring you up to speed. Johnny Depp decided to sue Amber Heard for damages over allegations Heard made. She claimed Depp had abused her physically. Evidence presented by Depp’s attorney during the trial has clearly shown Heard to be the actual abuser. Waldman has thwarted Kaplan at every turn, exposing her questionable ties to past clients and questioning her motives. The trial had started moving a little too close to home for Kaplan’s comfort. Faced with the emerging guilt of her client, a fact she was almost certainly aware of from the outset, she’s opted for the only logical choice. Feed Heard to the wolves. How she intends to justify this and still retain a shred of credibility remains to be seen. The effects of her decision on the trial will be minimal. Heard has backed herself into a corner, as years of her intentionally crafted lies and fictions have been torn apart in full view of the public. She has tied herself to the wheel of her own ship and as it sinks beneath the waves I know one pirate that’s going to watching from the deck of the Black Pearl. Vindicated and with a growing sense of restored honour. If perchance you’re strolling along the shoreline this evening and you happen upon a long line of very bedraggled rats dragging their sorry, fur soaked butts out of the water, now you’ll know where they came from.

https://medium.com/lighterside/amber-heards-attorney-jumps-ship-withdrewtoo-9cdebacf3c95

['Robert Turner']

2020-06-14 12:40:12.091000+00:00

['Johnny Depp', 'Culture', 'Media', 'Film', 'Amber Heard']

What would a supermarket just for guys look like?

We do most of our grocery shopping online, but this still applies. Why is the site showing me 10 different colors of soap? I buy the same one each time (don’t ask me what it’s called, it’s the one my wife puts on the list…). The paradox of choice (watch the great TED talk below if you haven’t yet), states plainly that too much choice isn’t good for us, so why isn’t there a shopping establishment (off or online) that offers me only one choice?! How many types of bread do I need to see before I pull a bun of the shelf? How many types of cereal do I need? I want a shop that knows me and displays to me only the items I buy, don’t try to have me move to a different product, that’s a slippery slope, simply show me only the brand of coffee I drink, all the rest is noise! I couldn’t care less about how many types of yogurt you keep in stock, I care about you making it thoughtless (effortless) for me to find it. Save me time, save me grief and I’ll be loyal!

https://medium.com/on-banking/what-would-a-supermarket-just-for-guys-look-like-3a819e54ea1d

['Eitan Gersh Kaplawi']

2015-12-13 22:10:32.676000+00:00

['Online Shopping', 'Supermarkets', 'Ecommerce']

Before We Had Google, There Was Googie Architecture

Before We Had Google, There Was Googie Architecture Few things are more representative of the modern zeitgeist than Google. But there was a time when the same thing was said about Googie architecture. Between the late 1950’s and early 1960’s Googie was the undisputed “look of tomorrow.” While Kennedy spoke of Man going to the Moon, it was Googie-style architecture that made the Space Age come to life via cantilevered elements, parabolic boomerang shapes, bold colors and whiz-bang angles. Famous examples of Googie Architecture are the Theme Building at LAX, the Space Needle in Seattle, Space Mountain at Disney and the TWA Terminal at JFK Airport. But Googie design elements became directly accessible to the everyday consumer at places like the Original McDonald’s restaurants. You can see the Googie influence in both the architecture and cars in the parking lot. The mecca of Googie-style was Southern California, and architects like Eldon Davis and Stanley Metson brought the space-age to the every-day. Gas stations, bowling alleys, movie theaters, motels and restaurants like Norm’s, Pann’s, Chips’ and Googie’s (the style’s namesake), became the iconic epicenters of a future that was already here today. Googie was pure, eye-sugar escapism. At a glance, we could escape the mundane with the rush of the future. To the business-owner, Googie meant profits. From a design standpoint, Googie combined the groundbreaking architectural design use of cantilevered concrete, steel and plate-glass popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright — with the abstract art of painter Wassily Kandinsky. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, designed in 1935. Those iconic Googie signs are like the 3D rendering of a Kandinsky painting. You will see the same bold, primary color patterns, shapes and raygun zaniness. Points, 1920, by Wassily Kandinsky. Note the Golden Arches! The true impetus behind Googie-style was the boom of American car-culture. Even in the 1950’s, L.A. was a driving city. And the eye-catching Googie designs and bright neon helped businesses entice patrons from the road. ‘Norms’ by Ashok Sinha Successful Advertising and Commerce helped move architectural design choices and car culture in a similar direction as the entire Googie aesthetic emerged. And cars of the 1950’s became the rocket ship of the Everyman. 1959 Chevy There was a moment in time when you could drive to Disneyland Anaheim for vacation in your ’59 Chevy and be utterly immersed in a Googie world of the future. Gas up at a Googie filling station, grab lunch at a Googie burger joint, go to Tomorrowland at Disney, catch a movie at the Googie cinema, go bowling at Googie Lanes, then head back for a swim at the Googie Motel. The Future was awesome. Imagining a life inside a futuro-fantasy is not entirely unlike our world today. Only now, we’re immersed in Google’s brand of escapism. The entire world at our fingertips on Google Search, Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail — all on a Google Smartphone.

https://briandeines.medium.com/before-there-was-google-there-was-googie-6146bd973509

['Brian Deines']

2020-01-13 21:21:30.236000+00:00

['Architecture', 'Art', 'Google', 'Design', 'Tech']

My Story — part 2. Choice

Image by Jim Semonik from Pixabay Choice A couple of years after the clearing [see part 1] I came across an advertisement for a group meditation held at the church where I had received the message. Thinking meditation was all that was involved I toddled along in time for the next class and asked to join. I was certainly welcome enough, but the woman taking the group [Lorraine] seemed confused as to why I hadn’t brought a flower with me. The advertisement had stated that the next meeting would be flowers. I didn’t know what that meant but assumed we would be using the imagery of flowers for the meditation, but no, an actual flower was needed so I was told to get a flower from one of the car-park's bushes without allowing anyone to see what I had picked. Once inside everyone covertly placed their flowers under a cloth on a tray. A few formalities followed, everyone settled, and the meditation began. I hadn’t spent much time in group meditation so I, at first, felt a little awkward, the group energy that began to build soon took care of that, I calmed and relaxed. It is a nice way to meditate. A short discussion of experiences took place at the meditations end, then the covered tray was passed around the circle with each person taking any one of the flowers not their own. At this point I still didn’t know what the flowers were for. Lorraine began talking something about impressions, feelings, emotions. Finally, I got it. We were expected to read the flower, or really, the energy of the person who had brought the flower. I had never heard of such a thing. I had of heard psychometry, of course, but not with a flower. This wasn’t what I had expected, I had come for the meditation. I began to panic a bit, but even through the panic I could feel information bubbling up into my awareness. So, against all past belief or reasoning I sat there and calmly read the flower. No-one in the circle seemed at all surprised, but I sure was. I had known, of course, that I had some ability, it’s just that I had never been asked to perform on the spot and I didn’t know I could. I had thought my form of psychic knowing had to be gifted to me at the appropriate times rather than be called up at will. Looking back, it’s as if before this episode I believed I didn’t have any choice in the matter. Possessing the ability to read others at will was a revelation to me. I stayed with the group for quite some time, they were a lovely bunch of people. I had great fun reading all sorts of objects and learned much from this association. Eventually, for reasons I do not know, the group dissolved. I felt a little lost for a while, even though I hadn’t ever expected to actually “go” anywhere with this new knowledge, I again wondered why the cosmos should lead me to this beneficial situation only for it to dwindle away. Maybe I simply needed to be shown what I was capable of when automatically accepted and encouraged. Maybe, or perhaps the teaching here really was about choice. I realized through this episode that up until then I had been living a huge amount of my life switched off to anything other than accepted reality. I still do, apart from the time I spend channelling my awareness and perception is reined in, closed up. I don’t feel that this is a necessarily bad thing, as I am sure any fellow empath would agree. I am guessing this reining in, probably, unconsciously began in early life. If this is so I bear no regret. The human survival instinct is strong in all of us from the moment of birth, and if my younger self deemed this action necessary it’s okay with this older self. The obvious difference now is that I am fully aware of my right of conscious choice. Not just in this matter, but in all matters, we have much say in our way of being. When I lost the outlet provided by the group I could have sought out another group, I could have looked for a mentor to help hone my abilities, I could have , perhaps, become confident enough to begin reading for clients, but I happily did none of this. I instead returned for a while to ordinariness. I do not believe it to be true that only a few are gifted with psychic ability, levels may differ, awareness of ability may differ, but everyone possesses the raw form of it. Its expression may be suppressed for many reasons, not all of them negative, sometimes its muteness is part of a teaching for a life plan. Few people live without basic intuition though, and I think that is often enough. Some very talented people can easily walk their chosen path with one foot in each of the worlds. I have the greatest respect for those who do, and for the gifts they are willing to share. I know I have benefited greatly from any readings I have been fortunate enough to receive and I certainly do not mean to dismiss the worth of the comfort good readings can provide to someone in need, but I believe many people often do not need to know the things they are told through them. Sometimes it is best to rely on our own intuitive knowing while living a life in solid, ordinary reality, that is what most of us are mainly here for after all. So, with these sentiments in mind my return to ordinariness proved no hardship. About four years ago I did, however, join another group that, among other things, involved psychic development. Again, with a lovely group of people who taught and gave me much. It was through this association that the channelling came to the fore. I hadn’t known that those I channelled for myself over years were capable of delivering broader teachings to anyone who would “trigger” them. With this development I again seemed to be confronted with a choice. Do I continue to hone my reading skills or do I concentrate on the teachings coming through? As I was, and am, a terrible tarot reader [really useless, give me an object any day] and as I felt the teachings held more depth, this choice was easy to make. So, for now, I hold fast to this choice, the choice I have so far consciously made twice. I wonder how many more times I will be presented with the same choice. One thing I know for sure is that I won’t be trying to read my own tarot cards to find the answer — no point. So, I think, as I believe so many of us should, that I will just keep toddling along not really knowing what to expect. Who knows maybe I’ll find something even more surprising than talking flowers. Claire.

https://medium.com/illumination/my-story-part-2-2371faca083c

['Claire Elaine']

2020-07-10 05:23:08.264000+00:00

['Personal Growth', 'Spirituality', 'Awareness', 'Biography', 'Choices']

e-Money Network Upgrade

The e-Money network is scheduled to relaunch with an upgraded protocol on Nov 4, 2020 at 16:00 UTC. There will be noteworthy changes, such as new issuance NGM tokens for stakers, and NGM will be unlocked and freely transferable. See our FAQs for more information. What is e-Money? e-Money bills itself as the “Next Generation of Money”. e-Money brings innovative, currency backed tokens to the market. In addition to the currency backed tokens, e-Money will issue its Next Generation of Money token “NGM” for the purpose of staking in order to secure the network. The currency backed tokens are: Fully backed by bank deposits and government bonds. Multi currency, supporting major global currencies. Interest-bearing (both positive and negative). Transparent through quarterly EY proof of funds. Protected by an insolvency fund to guarantee proper unwinding. e-Money is built as a zone in the Cosmos ecosystem, which means anyone within the Cosmos ecosystem is free to use e-Money tokens as a means of payment and a store of value. Other use cases outside of the Cosmos ecosystem include cross border payments/remittances, and E-commerce. How will e-Money change after relaunching? NGM Token While the e-Money mainnet launched in March 2020 with an NGM token which was not fully transferable and liquid, it will be possible to transfer and trade NGM easily on both centralized exchanges and the e-Money DEX after Nov 4, 2020. e-Money’s staking token, NGM, will be minted at a rate of 10% of the total supply per year, distributed pro rata to NGM stakers. e-Money’s currency-backed stablecoins will be inflated by 1% per year to buy back and burn NGM tokens. e-Money DEX The e-money DEX will support market orders in addition to limit orders. There will be further customization of order behaviours: Good Until Canceled (GTC) — the order is good until it is filled or it is canceled. Immediate or Cancel (IOC) — the order is filled as much as possible right now, then, any unfilled portion of the order is canceled. Fill or Kill (FOK) — the order is either filled in its entirety right now, or it is canceled. Where can I explore the e-Money network and create an e-Money wallet? Wallet: https://app.lunie.io/emoney/portfolio Explorer: https://e-money.network Figment has developed e-Money Hubble.When are e-Money staking rewards enabled? When are transfers enabled? We expect e-Money staking rewards and transfers to go live on November 4, 2020 sometime after 13:00 UTC.What is the name of the asset being staked? e-Money’s native token, NGM, is used to stake. What are the NGM staking rewards? Vesting tokens may be staked. The rewards from staking NGM tokens come from three sources: new issuance NGM tokens transaction fees and a markup on the currency-backed tokens. New NGM will be minted at a rate of 10% of the total supply each year, which will be distributed entirely to stakers. Transaction fees can be paid with NGM or in any of the currency-backed tokens and we expect trading activities on the DEX to be the primary source of these. The markup consists of an annual 1% inflation on each currency-backed token. The markup is applied continuously and distributed pro-rata to staked NGM token holders. In short, the rewards that are distributed to staked NGM tokens are tied directly to the amount of issued currency-backed tokens. Current stable asset currencies that are supported are: EUR, CHF, DKK, SEK, and NOK, and there are plans to support more currencies in the future. Do I maintain custody of my NGM tokens? Who or what controls my staked NGM tokens? You can self-custody your e-Money NGM tokens, ideally using a Ledger hardware wallet. Here are instructions for using your Ledger wallet with e-Money. Figment has partnerships with a number of top-in-class custodians: support@figment.io The e-Money protocol takes control of your NGM tokens while you are staking. If you unbond your tokens, this process will take 21 days before the protocol returns your tokens to you. How long does it take to unstake? From the moment you initiate the unbonding process, it takes 21 days to unstake. During this time you will not earn rewards. When the process is complete, you can transfer/trade your NGM tokens. Can my staked NGM be slashed (seized or destroyed)? Yes, a portion of your staked NGM can be destroyed. There are two ways this can happen: If you delegate to a validator that is offline for over six (6) minutes during 1 hour, you will lose 0.01% of the tokens you have delegated to that validator. If you delegate to a validator that signs the same block twice with the same key, you will lose 5% of the tokens you have delegated to that validator. Can I lose potential staking rewards? Yes. If the validator you delegate to is offline for over six (6) minutes during 1 hour, you will not earn rewards for at least an hour or however much longer it takes for your validator to resume operations. What is the rate of new issuance (aka “annual inflation”) for NGM? How does the token supply change? The e-Money network first launched on Mar 25, 2020 with a fixed token supply of 100M NGM. As of Nov 4, 2020, e-Money will begin issuing new tokens at an annual rate of 10% of the total supply, all of which will be distributed to stakers. e-Money’s currency-backed stablecoins will be inflated by 1% per year, and these additional stablecoins will be used to buy back and burn NGM tokens. The NGM are bought on e-Money’s DEX and will act as a deflationary counterbalance to the inflation of NGM. Where can I learn more about how e-Money works? Check out our ‘First Look’ article here. The e-Money team has a set of frequently-asked questions (FAQs) here. Here are the changes being enacted on November 4, 2020. Twitter: https://twitter.com/emoney_com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/e-money/ GitHub: https://github.com/e-money Telegram: http://t.me/emoney_com

https://medium.com/figment/e-money-network-upgrade-5f0f733562d4

['Clayton Menzel']

2020-11-03 14:53:00.989000+00:00

['Cosmos Network', 'Emoney', 'Stable Coin', 'Ibc', 'Figment']

Happy Birthday Mom!

Mom would have turned 67 today. She passed nearly 4 years ago, and so this morning I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for standing up for me all the times I felt so misunderstood as a kid. I never thought I’d get caught stealing those ghettoblasters. God knew I was planning on giving one of them away to less fortunate kids. Less fortunate in that, too bad they were going to be receiving the broken one that had fallen from my bike, during my attempt to abscond. The modern day Robin Hood I was, you knew it. That nosed punch you ploughed the clerk with, after you found out he’d collared me, made me feel special — protagonistically protected. Heck, it almost made me cry. That time you told the preacher I was only joking around, pleading my righteous case, after I’d assigned a numerical ranking system of hotness to all the girls in my Sunday school class — handing out their herum punch cards, to be redeemed at a day of my choosing. You could see I was simply trying to better my world. A modern day Christ. And that time I got caught pickpocketing from grandma, when she veggie-like lied there — nothing but drool for a year. You believed me. She was basically begging me to go buy us slurpees at the store again, her glassy-eyed jaw-hanging gaze practically gave it away. Plus, she loved the purple straws I’d bring us back. And even though I always finished hers first — on my pedal home, she still found the effort endearing. You knew this. You saw my sainthood. You believed the best. And for these things, and many others, Mom, I thank you. No one else ever bled, blistered, or broke skin for me. You alone, still stand a giant among midgets.

https://medium.com/@amosbracewell/happy-birthday-mom-37696dcfe042

['Amos Bracewell']

2020-12-04 17:04:29.775000+00:00

['Moms', 'Humor', 'Life', 'Family', 'Love']

Top Five Methods to Identify Outliers in Data

Outliers — the twisted tale of data! But what is an outlier? As defined by Wikipedia, “an outlier is a data point that differs significantly from other observations. An outlier may be due to variability in the measurement or it may indicate the experimental error; the latter are sometimes excluded from the data set. An outlier can cause serious problems in statistical analyses.” Outliers can also be referred to as observations that are unlike any other observations. They are certain data points that do not belong in a specific population. Such observations are often abnormal and lie stranded from other values. An outlier is a data which is inherently different as compared to the other data, also termed as anomalies. For instance, [24, 27, 19, 28, 1300, 20, 18] You can easily identify the outlier from the above figures, right? Well, if it is just a bunch of numbers, identifying outliers can be easy, but tough when there are thousands of multi-dimensions. You will need to streamline the methods to detect anomalies in those cases. An outlier affects the efficiency of every model, thus influencing the model’s performance. This is one major reason why it is highly important to remove outliers or anomalies in a dataset. 👉Anomalies/outliers, should we care? Well, with data growing at a rapid pace, it has made us rethink the way we can approach these anomalies. With the spread of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, it is going to be even more challenging. Here’s an example, most people use smartwatches to keep track of their heartbeat every second. If there’s a way we can detect an anomaly in the data produced by the heartbeat, it can be easily used in predicting heart disease. In traffic, they could be used to prevent accidents. Is there a way to deal with outliers in Python? Yes, there is a way to detect outliers in Python. In the first step, you need to import the library (NumPy and Pandas) are two models crucial in this step. Then followed by creating a DataFrame. The data frame must be empty named “xyz”. Once this is created, you can add the feature and values to it. Detecting outliers in Python requires you to know methods such as: · Rescaling the data · Marking the outliers · Dropping outliers Well, these were methods to detect an outlier in Python. Let us further delve deeper and explore the other common and simplest methods used in identifying outliers in the dataset. 👉Boxplots Boxplot is a graphical representation of numerical data depicted through their quartiles or quantiles. It is a simple yet highly effective method to detect any anomaly or outlier. Take the lower and upper whisker to be the boundary of the data distribution. Now any data that is seen below the lower whisker or upper whisker is considered an anomaly. The anatomy of boxplots works on the concept of the Interquartile Range (IQR), making it possible to build boxplot graphs. The IQR holds strong significance in identifying outliers. 👉Robust Random Cut Forest Tech giant Amazon uses the “Robust Random Cut Forest” algorithm to detect an outlier or any type of anomaly. The algorithm functions by going through an anomaly score. An indication of a low score means the data point as normal. However, if the score is on a higher level, it indicates the presence of an anomaly. The low and high score truly depends upon the application, but common practices always suggest a score that goes above three standard deviations from the mean score is definitely an anomaly. An even interesting fact about this algorithm is that it works well with even high dimensional data, offline data, and real-time streaming data. 👉Isolation Forest The Isolation Forest uses the unsupervised machine learning algorithm belonging to the ensemble decision tree family. The methods used in this approach is different from the other methods. Most of the methods first tried to identify the normal region of the data then moved forward to identifying anything that seemed out of place. However, with isolation forest, things are different. The approach used here first separates the anomalies rather than profiling normal regions. An added advantage, this method works best with high dimensional data and is proven highly effective. 👉Standard Deviation Perhaps we all know how standard deviation works. For instance, when the data distribution is normal, around 68 percent of the data value is said to lie within one standard deviation of the mean, while 95 percent happens to be within two standard deviations, and 99.7 percent within three standard deviations. Thus, having any data point which is three times more than the standard deviation, then those points can be identified as outliers. 👉DBScan Clustering The name of the method itself denotes that this approach involves a clustering algorithm. The algorithm is used in identifying outliers using a density-based anomaly detection method. This method is ideal for both single and multi-dimensional data. Some of the other clustering algorithms used to detect anomalies include names like hierarchal clustering and k-means. DBScan strictly follows three crucial concepts – Core points — to understand this concept, you first need to know the hyperparameters used in defining DBScan job i.e. [HP] min_samples (for a minimum number of core points require to form a cluster) and [HP] eps. eps (for the maximum distance between two samples required to form a cluster). — to understand this concept, you first need to know the hyperparameters used in defining DBScan job i.e. [HP] min_samples (for a minimum number of core points require to form a cluster) and [HP] eps. eps (for the maximum distance between two samples required to form a cluster). Border points — almost similar cluster as the core points but much farther from the center of the cluster. — almost similar cluster as the core points but much farther from the center of the cluster. Noise points — any data point that does not belong to any type of cluster can be called noise points. This can either be anomalous or non-anomalous, however, further investigation would be highly required. Outliers indicate bad data. Therefore, for you to obtain actionable insights and make the right prediction, detecting anomalies and outliers is crucial for every data scientist. Bad data can mess up your prediction.

https://medium.com/swlh/top-five-methods-to-identify-outliers-in-data-2777a87dd7fe

['Mark Taylor']

2020-12-16 06:52:28.064000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Outliers', 'Data Science', 'Big Data', 'Python']

9 seater, 12 seater, 15 seater Tempo Traveller Rental in Gurgaon

tempo traveller Nowadays, it is very difficult to visit anywhere easily because there is huge traffic on the roads. So, if you want to avoid this traffic and hassle, you need to book a private tourist vehicle on rent. Car Yatri is the best Tempo Traveller on Rent service provider in Gurgaon that operates Tour and Travels service for a long time and has made a good reputation in the Travel industry. We offer our vehicle hire service not only for sightseeing but also provide Tempo Traveller booking in Gurgaon. There are many benefits to hire minibus as you can Travel easily without any problem, no worry about driving, enjoy a wonderful journey, etc. There are many Tour and Travels Company in Delhi that provides tourist vehicle rental service. Car Yatri is one of them and has made a reliable name in the travel industry to provide 9 seater Tempo Traveller on Rent service in Gurgaon. We are providing a vehicle rental service from the last many years to all local and international customers. Our main motive is to satisfy our customers to provide them the best service according to their requirements and budget. So, if you are thinking to travel with a large group together, you need to book a 9 seater Tempo Traveller in Gurgaon to avoid all traffic and hassle from your journey and make it happier as you want. Car Yatri is the best option to hire a 12 seater Tempo Traveller on Rent if you want to go outstation with your friend’s group. We provide bus rental service at a reasonable price for a small amount of your time. We charge from our respective client’s economical rent and offer them a wonderful Tour and Travel service. You can book easily our 12 seater Tempo Traveller in Gurgaon just make complete some steps. You can call us directly or make an inquiry about your tour package. We will respond to you as soon as possible and provide you the best price for our bus rental service. Our all representatives are specialists in providing a good deal for rental services. Car Yatri plays an important role in Tour and Travels to providing various types of tourist vehicles like Tempo Traveller, Toyota Innova Car, Volvo bus coach, etc. We provide 15 seater Tempo Traveller on Rent From Gurgaon to outstation that is the best option to explore any tourist destination or weekend getaways in India. You can easily reach to hire our 15 seater Tempo Traveller in Gurgaon at your destinations without any hassle. Our all chauffeurs are well educated, friendly behavior and treatment with you as a Travel guide. We ensure you that you will get a memorable moment and a wonderful ride during our Travel service that will be one of the best trips of your life. Our tourist vehicle is the best option for a comfortable and safe journey for your family group traveling.

https://medium.com/@tempotravellergurgaon/9-seater-12-seater-15-seater-tempo-traveller-rental-in-gurgaon-9f3ca5ab3415

['Tempo Traveller Gurgaon']

2020-02-21 09:09:57.875000+00:00

['Travel Writing', 'Travel', 'Tourism', 'Travel Tips', 'Traveling']

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES FOR CONTENT WRITERS

With the advancement of technology everything is available online. With one click you can find any information online. There is a lot of content available online. Thus there is a great demand for content writers in today’s era. Social Media Writing As a social media writer you need to write content for the organization you work for. The main purpose is to promote the brand you work for. You job is to create posts on various social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat and write captions for the posts. News Reporter A person with a degree in Journalism is mostly preferred for this job. For this job you need to be focused on details of event. Mostly you need to write the report in inverted pyramid form. You report should cover up the 5W’s and 1H. News writing could be done for a newspaper, magazine or online. Blogging As a blogger you are much free. You are not compiled to work under pressure of any organization. You can write in whatever style you prefer. But blogging is a tough competition. No one can guarantee you success if you are not a constant writer, good at promoting your content or couldn’t keep the interest of your audience. Editing To be an editor you need to be good at grammar and Punctuations. You need to ensure that the content is error free. Your main job is proof reading all the content. You should know how to make the content presentable and easy to read. Scriptwriter As a script writer, you work independently to form a script. The script is your own creativity. You can write it according to your preference. Then you pitch the script to production teams. The script is usually for movies, TV series, plays or a book, etc Academic writer To be an academic writer you need to have a vast knowledge of the subject you write about. You write about educational materials that can help students to boast their knowledge and help them in studies. You may write some books or a column in magazine. Film critic You need to have a vast Knowledge of film Industry. You need to write content that people could trust so that they consider you a reliable source to refer. You need to build an informative review. You should be thoughtful enough to judge the film correctly. Hope you guys could choose the best career for yourself as a content writer😉 #contentwriting #careersincontentwriting #contentwritingcareers #contentwriter

https://medium.com/@schanana4/career-opportunities-for-content-writers-9f2830e87f4d

['Sakshi Chanana']

2020-12-20 18:11:17.674000+00:00

['Content Writer', 'Content Writing Jobs', 'Content Writing Services', 'Content Writing']

Today Top Stories || ‘Twitter Killer’ Sentenced To Death | Israel Want To Start War | The European Union, Tough Rules For Major Technology Companies

Today Top Stories || ‘Twitter Killer’ Sentenced To Death | Israel Want To Start War | The European Union, Tough Rules For Major Technology Companies zaviews Dec 16, 2020·4 min read A Tokyo court has sentenced a Japanese man known as the “Twitter killer” to death for killing and dismembering people he met on social media platforms. AFP reported the killing of 30-year-old takahyru Shiraishi become the prey of youth and dedication to these pieces Were a woman to whom. The Japanese man’s behavior revealed that he was targeting social media users who posted about taking their own lives. Takahiro Shiraishi used to tell him that he could help with their plan or even die with them. His lawyers objected that his client should be sentenced to prison instead of death because his victims were between 15 and 26 years old and had expressed suicidal thoughts on social media. Were and they were willing to die. However, public broadcaster NHK said the judge rejected the objection and sentenced him to death for the 2017 crimes, calling it “smart and cruel.” The NHK reported that the judge said that none of the nine victims had expressed any consent, including tacit consent to die. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has blamed Israel for killing the country’s nuclear scientist, saying Mohsen Fakhrizada was targeted in the last days of US President Donald Trump’s term for waging war. According to the AP news agency, Hassan Rouhani claimed in a press conference in Tehran that Israel was behind the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizada, the scientist who founded the country’s nuclear program in 2000, which was aimed at the last of the Trump administration. The war has to start in days. The real motive of the Zionist regime behind this assassination was to escalate the war and instability in the last days of the Trump administration For the first time since the assassination of the scientist, Hassan Rouhani directly accused Israel and vowed to take revenge. We will not allow Israel to decide the time or place of such aggression He said Iran would not allow instability in the region. Israel, on the other hand, has not yet commented on the allegations against the Iranian scientist. We believe that the situation will change under the new US administration Referring to the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. It should be noted that last month, Iran’s famous nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizada was shot dead near the capital Tehran. Iranian state media said gunmen opened fire on Mohsen Fakhrizada’s car, seriously injuring him and killing him in hospital. Mohsen Fakhrizada has been described by the West, Israel and Iran’s exiled enemies as a suspected mastermind of Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program, although Iran has long denied developing nuclear weapons. He said the missile program and regional issues had nothing to do with the nuclear deal and were not negotiations at all. The European Union has drafted tough rules for major technology companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple, whose influence is seen as a threat to competition and democracy. These landmark laws come at a time when US technology companies are facing global scrutiny and will face fines or sanctions of up to 10% of their annual revenue if they do not comply. Margaret Westerger, head of the European Union’s Competition Commission, said the bill was aimed at normalizing the situation by regulating the internet and curbing online “gatekeepers” who have a monopoly on the market. “Freedom of expression will be protected by the Digital Services Act and the Digital Market Act by creating secure and reliable services,” he told a news conference. According to the EU, these laws would impose fines of up to 10 per cent of revenue on major internet companies for violating competition rules, while a proposal for a 6 per cent revenue or a temporary ban in the EU is also part of the draft. This will happen at a time when companies are threatening the security of European citizens and committing serious and persistent violations of the law. The Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act will prohibit Internet companies in 27 EU countries from blocking misleading content and hate speech, and will end the monopoly of large companies. EU Commission sources said the term “gatekeepers” had been used for 10 companies and that specific regulations and strict rules would be applied to their monopolies. These companies include Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, SnapChat, Alibaba, Byte Dance, Samsung and Booking.com.

https://medium.com/@zaviews/today-top-stories-twitter-killer-sentenced-to-death-israel-want-to-start-war-the-european-4fc39e4745b4

[]

2020-12-16 13:03:15.055000+00:00

['Japan', 'News', 'Twitter', 'Iran', 'Israel']

Australia: Wildfire Blazes Through Fraser Island Heritage Site

Jonny Rogers investigates how tourism has contributed to destroying this island’s beautiful and rare ecosystem. Photo by Jo-Anne McArthur At least 75 firefighters, 21 air vehicles and 30 fire trucks have been called to the island , and will continue to operate until the fire is subdued. However, the resultant smoke has affected both visibility and air quality in the area. “Almost 1 million litres of water and gel have been dropped on Fraser Island in the last few days alone. More drops are occurring today and until the fire is put out.” — Mark Ryan, Queensland’s Fire and Emergency Services Minister Visitors have safely returned to the mainland, but the island will remain closed until at least mid-December. It is said that, no properties have been damaged so far. Damage to a Sensitive Ecosystem Laying just off the east coast of mainland Australia, Fraser Island became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992. As the world’s largest sand island, its geographical features include long stretches of clear sand beaches, rainforest vegetation, mangrove forests and freshwater lakes. Covering a total 1,840 square-kilometres, the island’s varied ecosystem is home to around 50 species of mammals, 350 species of birds and 80 species of reptiles. It has also been inhabited by human communities for thousands of years, earning the name ‘K’gari’, meaning ‘Paradise’, from the native Butchulla people. However, only in the past few centuries has human activity begun to compromise the island’s ecology. Hundreds of thousands of campers and tourists visit the island in an average year, though this will undoubtedly be adversely impacted by the recent fires. Popular tourist attractions include whale watching, exploring rainforests, swimming in lakes and driving along the 75-mile beach. The deposit of faeces, urine, sunscreen, disposable products and vehicular emissions has turned the island into ‘one big toilet’. Managing Future Threats At the end of last year, bushfires began to sweep through millions of hectares of land in Australia, causing the death or displacement of billions of animals and destroying thousands of homes and buildings. The World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) declared these fires to be one of the “worst wildlife disasters in modern history.” With at least 33 direct human casualties, journalists named it the ‘Black Summer’. The recent fire, which was likely caused by campers, has already burned through at least 80,000 hectares of the island, or 800 square-kilometres, undoubtedly causing severe and irreversible damage to its ecosystem. Even creatures that are not harmed by the fire itself will struggle to find food, shelter and resources as a result of habitat loss. Many are concerned that the fire on Fraser Island is both a troubling reminder of last year’s tragedies, as well as a sign of things to come. As Bill Hare, director of , : “If that explodes again, it’s going to be very damaging economically and also psychologically. I think people are scarcely recovering from the bushfires last year and early this year. So, when you’re looking at these regions now, you can see the damage has not been undone.” However, a new system — the aptly-titled ‘Australian Warning System’ — is set to be introduced to monitor and govern the public response to future threats of flooding, storms, cyclones, heatwaves, and bushfires. As a standardised national code, it will be implemented in response to confusion over the differences between warning systems in various states and areas. Nevertheless, even the most efficient of codes will remain ineffective as long as tourists refuse to change their behaviour. Similar: Australian Government Ignored Fire Warnings By Climate Activists At least 75 firefighters, 21 air vehicles and 30 fire trucks ating for topics that matter, whilst supporting wider planetary change and acknowledgement. Support our journalism by considering becoming an advocate from just £1.

https://medium.com/@wearetru/australia-wildfire-blazes-through-fraser-island-heritage-site-2bdb21403842

[]

2020-12-23 00:01:14.946000+00:00

['Climate Change', 'Wildfires', 'Australia', 'Climate', 'Environment']

New family on the block: a novel group of glycosidic enzymes

New family on the block: a novel group of glycosidic enzymes Scientists discover a candidate for a potential new “family” of enzymes that break down carbohydrates A group of researchers from Japan has recently discovered a novel enzyme from a soil fungus. In their study, they speculate that this enzyme plays important roles in the soil ecosystem, and then describe its structure and action. A group of researchers from Japan has recently discovered a novel enzyme from a soil fungus. In their study published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry, they speculate that this enzyme plays important roles in the soil ecosystem, and then describe its structure and action. They also think that once the usefulness of the main product of this enzyme is better understood in the future, this enzyme could also be exploited for industrial purposes. The researchers state, “Our study sheds light on the fact that new enzymes are still being discovered. It possibly lays the foundation for further research to identify new enzymes that yield carbohydrates that were once thought to be extremely difficult to prepare.” Carbohydrates are probably the most versatile organic molecules on the planet, as they play various roles in organisms. Accordingly, the functions and structures of enzymes related to carbohydrate are just as diverse. Glycoside hydrolases (GHs) are enzymes that break “glycosidic bonds” in carbohydrates or sugars. GHs are the largest known group of carbohydrate-related enzymes, and the group keeps expanding. A novel family, GH144, was identified by the same research group in the past from a soil bacterium Chitinophaga pinensis and called CpSGL. The enzyme endo-β-1,2-glucanase (SGL), a member of the GH family, is involved in the metabolism of β-1,2-glucan, which is a polysaccharide (sugar chain) composed of β-1,2-linked glucose units. β-1,2-glucan serves as an extracellular carbohydrate that plays important roles in the symbiosis or infectivity of some bacteria. However, the role of SGLs in eukaryotic cells and their relationship with bacterial SGLs are not well understood. This group of Japanese scientists from different universities and a research institute, working on a collaborative project led by Masahiro Nakajima, has discovered a novel SGL enzyme from a soil fungus, Talaromyces funiculosus. The enzyme, hereafter called TfSGL, showed no significant sequence similarity to other known GH families. However, it showed significant similarities to other eukaryotic proteins with unknown functions. The researchers thus propose that TfSGL and these related GH enzymes be classified into a new family, which they call GH162. Usually when scientists find a novel protein — in this case, an enzyme — they further clone the gene containing the sequence that encodes it to better understand its functionality. This clone is called a “recombinant” sequence. The recombinant TfSGL protein (TfSGLr) was found to break down both linear and cyclic β-1,2-glucans to sophorose, a simpler and smaller carbohydrate.

https://tokyouniversityofscience.medium.com/new-family-on-the-block-a-novel-group-of-glycosidic-enzymes-582a5c0bed42

['Tokyo University Of Science']

2019-06-20 06:17:52.314000+00:00

['Eukaryotic Dna', 'Carbohydrates', 'Science', 'Enzyme']

~»Sex and Zen ‘2020’ ONLINE. [Unlimited-Download] »»HD_Streaming.Free

❖Sex and Zen Online Free 2020 DOWNLOAD!! Sex and Zen Online Free ‘2020’ Title : Sex and Zen Full Movie Online Free Release : 1991–11–30 Runtime : 99 min. Genre : Drama, Adventure, Comedy, Romance Country : Hong Kong Stars : Lawrence Ng, Kent Cheng, Elvis Tsui, Amy Yip, Isabelle Chow Wang, Rena Murakami Overview : A recently married scholar goes on a quest for knowledge of other people’s wives, based on his philosophical differences with the Sack Monk. He encounters the Flying Thief, who agrees to help him find women, but only if he attains a penis as big as a horse’s. The scholar has a surgeon attach said unit, and he’s off and running on his mission, only to find that there are obstacles to his new lifestyle, such as jealous husbands and treacherous females.

https://medium.com/@anastasyamelisa12/sex-and-zen-2020-online-unlimited-download-hd-streaming-free-a1e993b8d07f

[]

2020-12-11 22:29:13.227000+00:00

['Movies', 'Filmmaking', 'Full', 'Film', 'Film Reviews']

The Ancient Philosophy of Free Will

Although the topic of free will was debated avidly among ancient philosophers, a direct reference to the term is difficult to find. Free will did not originate until much later. However, the schools of thought that underline free will; determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism, have been formed for over 2000 years. Before we start, it is useful to define the terms mentioned, as these form the basis of the philosophical debate of choice. Determinism, the theory that all events, including moral choices, are determined by previously existing causes. This theory is based on the presumption that humans cannot act otherwise than they do. the theory that all events, including moral choices, are determined by previously existing causes. This theory is based on the presumption that humans cannot act otherwise than they do. Libertarianism , in the context of free will, is the belief that free will is incompatible with causal determinism, and agents have free will. They, therefore, reject causal determinism. , in the context of free will, is the belief that free will is incompatible with causal determinism, and agents have free will. They, therefore, reject causal determinism. Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent. Now that we understand the terminology within the philosophy of free will, we can explore the debate of choice in antiquity. Plato — The Republic Plato is perhaps most famous for his writing on justice, the just man, and the order and character of the just city-state. He summarises these writings in his Socratic dialogue — The Republic. In Book IV of this dialogue, Plato describes, through Socrates, the various aspects of the human soul. He states that the wise person strives for ‘inner justice’. Plato believed that there is a constant battle with one’s base desires. To achieve inner justice, an individual must liberate themselves from these impulses by acquiring the virtues of wisdom, courage, and temperance. Once an individual has mastered one’s self, only then can that individual express free will. While Plato never expressly mentions free will, we can presume this is his meaning with the mastery of one’s self, overcoming desires which prohibit our reasoned mind. It would be reasonable to surmise that Plato believed in the possibility of free will, though only once certain conditions had been overcome. If one cannot overcome their base desires then one is left enslaved to their emotions, prohibiting their ability to make decisions freely. It is interesting that Plato separates these emotions from the self as if they were that of another disruptive being. It is this principle that stoicism, which we will revisit later in this article, is based on. Aristotle — Nicomachean Ethics While Aristotle holds value in the development of virtues, he does not agree with Plato that unless one achieves inner justice then they are a slave to themselves. While not having a definitive view on free will, he applies particular attention to the role of choice. These choices, over time, culminating in the development of habits. Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, describes an individual as having the power to do or not to do. He believes we can act voluntarily, and the essence of these decisions lie within us. Aristotle states that mature humans will deliberate about potential courses of action, and decide based on their personal experiences and beliefs. He proposes that individuals develop consistency in their decisions, either deciding consistently well or consistently poorly. From this, they develop into either a virtuous or vicious character, though at no point are they not in control of their decisions. The Hellenistic era In the subsequent years of the Hellenistic Era, concepts proposed by Plato and Aristotle were developed by the Epicureans, Stoics, and Academic Skeptics. The debates between these areas of thought dominated the era. Most notably, Stoics and Epicureans believed that the human soul was corporeal and adhered to natural laws and principles. Zeno of Citium, the father of Stoicism, built on the causal chain, a principle originally postulated by Aristotle. Zeno believed that all events had a cause, given the same circumstances, the cause would always result in the same event. It is impossible that the cause be present yet that of which it is the cause not obtain — Zeno of Citium Uncomfortable with the restricted nature of this theory, Chrysippus, adapted it in such a way as to allow for freedom of will, attempting to unshackle the bonds of absolute determinism. Chrysippus wanted to strengthen the argument for moral responsibility. While he accepted that the past is unchangeable, Chrysippus argued that future events do not occur from external factors alone, but may also depend on the individual. Importantly, Chrysippus argued that one can assent or not to act. Essentially, Chrysippus believed that our actions are determined and fated. While these may seem by their very nature, mutually exclusive, it is qualified. The determined is made up, in part, of the self as a cause, and the fated being that of God’s foreknowledge. While he allows room for religious belief of the era within his theory, he reiterates that these actions are not necessitated — meaning they are not predetermined by a distant past. Many believe Chrysippus’ theory to be the earliest example of compatibilism. I will not spend long discussing the theories of Epicurus as they lack detail and his meaning is still the matter of philosophical debate. Essentially, Epicurus and his followers believed that all things, including the human soul, were built from atoms. These atoms adhered to fixed rules restricting the behaviour of all objects made of such atoms. Despite this, Epicurus opposed determinism. Epicurus proposed that these atoms were susceptible to ‘swerves’ from their usual path. It is this explanation that some have used as proof of Epicurus’ belief in free will, though there is a distinct lack of detail on the matter and to discuss further would be pure conjecture. Alexander of Aphrodisias The most famous ancient commentator of Aristotle’s philosophy, Alexander of Aphrodisias, wrote in the era of the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics. He is viewed by many as the founder of the libertarian view on moral responsibility, otherwise known as libertarianism. Alexander drew a delineation between Aristotle and the Stoics, believing that Aristotle was not a strict determinist, as were the Stoics. He argued that man is responsible for self-caused decisions and that events do not always have predetermined causes. He believed that man is capable of a choice whether or not to act, much like Chrysippus. However, Alexander rejected the concept of foreknowledge of events attributed to God. This foreknowledge is central to the Stoic identification of God and Nature and is a key differentiator between the schools of thought.

https://thedevdoctor.medium.com/an-ancient-view-of-free-will-79faeea7690e

['Dr. Matt', 'Mbbs Bsc']

2019-08-14 15:14:32.120000+00:00

['Science', 'Choices', 'History', 'Ancient Greece', 'Philosophy']

Living in the Shadow of a Spy

Living in the Shadow of a Spy It’s a choice for the parent but not for the kids — we’re born into secrecy Me and my dad in Athens in 1966 Years ago, I learned Stewart Copeland (drummer for ‘80s rock band The Police) had a dad in the CIA. I felt an instant kinship. It’s a unique club, the spy child one. We have more members than you might think, but not everyone talks. Actually, few do. Every time I listened to a song of theirs, I thought about Copeland. I wondered what it was like for him. Was it similar or different from my own experiences growing up with a CIA dad? Things got a touch surreal when a London-based producer approached me recently to be interviewed for a podcast about Copeland and his dad. The show wanted a counterpoint to Copeland’s take on having a spy parent, which was generally positive. They had read some of my essays and thought I would have something different to say. I can only ever tell my side of things — my story — but I said I’d be happy to share. What I didn’t say was how relieved I was to see the kids getting some attention. We tend to be stuck behind the scenes, living in the shadow of our spy parent, in my case, my dad. It can be hard to feel heard. And seen. Especially given the proliferation of Hollywood myths about spydom — car chases, shootouts, gorgeous location shots. What they all have in common is that they have little to do with actual intelligence work. My father told me that spy work was often tedious: “There are a lot of reports you have to write.” I can believe it. Hollywood doesn’t usually get what it’s like to be a spy right, which means it never accurately captures what it’s like to be the child of one. And seeing all the spy content now available is weird. I never get used to it. It’s like knowing that there’s this huge story out there that seemingly touches on my life but that in truth bears little resemblance to it. Like I said — weird. So when Audible Book’s podcast My Dad the Spy was released in the U.S. last week, I was encouraged. credit: Audible Copeland and his siblings were getting a chance to report on their experiences first hand; the series wasn’t going to just tell the spy’s side of the story. This time it was all about the kids. When the point of view changes, interesting things come to light. Like how Copeland and his sister, Lennie, found out their dad was a spy in the first place (hint: it wasn’t from their father). They had always been told their father was a businessman, something they accepted — that is until a friend came running up to Lennie, a teenager at the time, waving a book their Dad had published about his work as a spy. “Your dad’s a spy,” the friend announced breathlessly. Their father had published a whole book about who he really was and what he really did without saying a word to them. But then my dad wasn’t the one who told me either. I was in college and had just come back from a semester abroad. Dad picked me up from Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia and said he was taking me to his new house. We chatted on the car ride and everything seemed normal until he pulled up to a small guardhouse in the woods. I wondered where we were but didn’t say anything. That’s a spy-child thing. Don’t question. Go with silence. Dad got out of the car to talk to the guard. A minute later the man waved for me to get out of the car. I stepped into the muggy late summer afternoon. Somewhere in the distance, I heard popping sounds. Were those guns? The man ushered me into the room, lifted a clipboard from his desk, and said matter-of-factly that this was a CIA base and that everyone who lived there had to sign a form saying they wouldn’t disclose this information to anyone. Before that moment, Dad said he was with the State Department or the Pentagon or the Defense Department. I had always been suspicious and unsure. Why all the different titles? Now I knew. And it felt good. It didn’t even matter that it was a stranger telling me this. It just mattered that I was finally being told. But then I noticed the guard was waiting for my signature promising to keep my father’s secret. I signed the form, my head spinning. Strange is how the Copelands describe their upbringing. Sure, it was full of luxury — getting to travel and live internationally — but it was also a bit crazy. Unexplained things happen in spy families. Like the story about how a Persian rug in the Copeland household came to be full of bullet holes. Was that just one of their dad’s tall tales or were the bullet holes actually connected to an orchestrated mission? Strange things happened at my house too. Like the night my dad left the house in a hurry around midnight, saying, “Do not, under any circumstance, answer the phone. Don’t pick it up. You got that?” I was fourteen. I don’t remember if it actually rang while he was away. What I recall is wondering why I shouldn’t pick it up. And what would have happened if I did? And like a few years later, when as a freshman in college Dad called to tell me the U.S. was about to invade the Caribbean island country of Grenada. “I’m telling you before it hits the news so you know where I am and how to reach me,” he said. He gave me the phone number for a hotel on Barbados. Hours later I watched footage of the invasion in the dorm lounge and pretended I was learning about it for the first time like everyone else. It’s just what you do as the child of a spy. You pretend. Copeland and I have unusual experiences like these in common, but one thing that strikes me is how different our dads were. Copeland’s dad liked to tell stories, bending events from his career into entertaining anecdotes. My dad, on the other hand, was by the book. He retired from the agency, taught at universities, and published books about being in the CIA too. But his accounts read more like history and less like novels. Copeland’s dad seemed to love talking about the CIA. He made it sound exciting. My dad, on the other hand, was always changing the subject and trying to make being a spy sound boring. Nevertheless, there’s one story my dad did tell — and it was far from boring. Unlike Copeland’s father’s interview, which included background checks and a battery of psychological tests, Dad’s interview with the CIA involved a guy who looked like a stern prep school dean (probably a former OSS officer) and a brightly colored bird. My Dad could never remember if it was a parrot or a toucan. It was 1962 and my dad was working in the city manager’s office of San Antonio, his hometown. But the Cold War was heating up and he felt like the days of the U.S. were numbered, so he flew to D.C. and set up a series of interviews. His last was with the man and the bird inside an old Army barrack. Dad said the man began with typical questions — where had he gone to college, what had he studied — but each time he asked a question he tossed a sunflower seed from a mound in his palm to the bird. “That bird caught everything — fastballs, line drives, curveballs,” Dad said, laughing. The man said he couldn't tell my father anything about what he would be doing or where he would live. “So why the hell do you want to join the Agency?” “I have no idea. You haven’t told me a thing,” was my father’s reply. Two weeks later, Dad got his acceptance letter. That was it. I think of that moment and how it set the course for our family. It surprises me too, to see my twenty-something father undecided and open. Joining the CIA hadn’t been a calculated act. More like a giant leap of faith. The decision that determined his life and shaped so much of mine was the result of happenstance — a random interview with a guy and a bird. So different from Copeland’s dad. But that’s the point. There’s no single kind of spy just like there’s no one type of spy family. Whenever I am contacted by other children of spies, usually in response to something I’ve written, they tell me their story. Then they tell me not so share it with anyone. In many ways, the children of spies hold the secret more deeply than the spies themselves. After all, the spy joined the agency of their own volition. It was a job and at some point, they retired. But children of spies are born into secrecy. It’s not a job for us. It’s our childhood. Sharing it can feel like a betrayal. Stepping out of the shadows as a spy kid is a good thing. At least it is for me. I feel lighter and at the same time more grounded. My childhood wasn’t exactly like Stewart Copeland’s — or other children of spies — but that’s okay. At least the kids are talking. And being heard. That’s a good start.

https://medium.com/make-it-personal/living-in-the-shadow-of-a-spy-434a18d6d139

['Leslie Absher']

2020-09-10 21:19:03.624000+00:00

['Childhood', 'Family', 'True Crime', 'Dads', 'CIA']

Quick Geographical Visualization of Your Customer Base

In my previous article, I explained how young startups can easily utilize their data without the need to hire a Data Analyst. Data can help you in your decision making even when your database is of modest size. In this article, I will guide you through a simple geographical visualization of your customer base that you can code in a few minutes and can be used for Sales and Marketing decision making. Getting the Data I have used mock data for GROM’s customer base within the APAC region. Data extraction and storage depends on your database infrastructure. In this example, I extracted the location for each order in the prescription data and stored it in an Excel file. I used the Pandas library on Python to read the data into a dataframe. Sorting the Data If your data is of modest size, it’s easier to manually clean it on the Excel file. Otherwise, use python for data cleaning. To obtain the number of orders in each city, I used the pivot table function to group the data by city and created a new dataframe. Adding Longitude and Latitude for each City This code uses Basemap which requires longitude and latitude values for each location. I used Geopy’s geolocator to create longitude and latitude values for each city and append them in the dataset under new columns. Creating and Plotting Basemap Figure To geographically visualize the data, I created a scatter plot of the longitude and latitude values of each city on a world map and changed the size of each scatters according to the number of orders. This visualization gives a rough image of where our customers are based and to what extent they contribute in the total order volume. It can be used for decision making particularly for Sales and Marketing. Should we allocate more resources in emerging markets to increase the volume or in current markets to decrease churn? Is it worth putting in time and money in smaller, isolated markets like Mongolia? Is it the right time to enter completely new markets like Australia? At GROM, we listen to our gut and verify with data. Perhaps, that’s why we have observed up to 172% YoY growth over the past year. This approach does not prevent you from making mistakes, but it certainly makes the uncertain journey of any startup more certain.

https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/quick-geographical-visualization-of-your-customer-base-7f8d9e01b9ac

['Ali Javaid']

2019-06-06 15:32:45.878000+00:00

['Startup', 'Data Analytics', 'Customer Data', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization']

Buying Custom Cases for Your Retro Collection

Buying Custom Cases for Your Retro Collection Make your games look even more beautiful Do me a favor and take a look at your retro games sitting on the shelf. Pretty cool looking right? They might have a layer of dust on them, but they’re still such unique items. What if you could give that collection a fresh look, and add some protection? Well, my friend, you’re going to want to strap in, and listen to a tale of how I bought custom cases for all my retro game cartridges, and how you should, too. The Start I started my retro collection years ago. I used to trade-in and sell all of my old gaming items (a few exceptions) when I was done playing with them. I was younger and much poorer, so it only made sense. I started buying up some old cartridges on Craigslist and putting them on my bookcase. I smiled, but it looked a little…weird. Some cartridges were bigger, had a sleeve, or had the original box/case they came in. I stared at them for a while before shrugging and walking away. One item did strike me: X-Men for the Sega Genesis. I really love this game, and its case. The Sega Genesis would package games (originally) in these plastic cases until they decided it was cheaper to use a box. These old cases were great and protected your game while providing a nice look on your shelf. Inside the Genesis game case. As time went on, I wondered if I could find some solution for my games somewhere online. And, oh boy, did I. You Can Find Anything on the Internet A few searches brought me to some different pages on Etsy, a site that I actually love to buy from. I found a seller that had great selections for multiple different consoles, with deals if I bought so many. I bought a few and waited for their arrival. When they came, I realized that I was holding something well made. The cases were strong (I ordered an assortment of NES, SNES, even some Super Famicom, and N64), and the printing was superb. I decided that this was something I would do to my entire collection (over time, as it was a little costly). As of today, none of my old cartridges sit on a shelf caseless. I even ordered some cases for PSP games I’ve picked up along the way, and they look fantastic! Here are a couple of images of my Final Fantasy Mystic Quest Super Famicom case: Not a super game, but still some great art! Nice and secure! Again, there are multiple sellers on Etsy that do this. I actually order from a few, as one does a whole host of custom art and such, which I find really cool! The choice is really yours. In case you’re interested, here are a couple of Etsy stores that I order from: The DIYer Just like anyone else, I wondered “Could I make these?”, and yes, you can! I found a site that holds a pretty decent database of the inserts for these cases: Here, you can find a series of really nice box art inserts that you can use for your own enjoyment. However, I chose not to do this. I don’t have a great printer and I didn’t want the collection to look subpar. However, if you’re all about this, then, by all means, go for it! When it comes to your game collection, half of the fun is knowing what you have, and being able to display it. I have some other display ideas that I’ll talk about another time, but get some custom cases and really make that collection shine! Have you done something like this with your collection? Let me know!

https://medium.com/super-jump/buy-custom-cases-for-your-retro-collection-f6e733a1e675

['Joe Lavoie']

2020-12-27 08:48:14.557000+00:00

['Gaming', 'Features', 'Retro', 'Nostalgia', 'Videogames']

-> All-in-One PMP Exam Prep Kit: Based on 6th Ed. PMBOK Guide (Test Prep Series) by Andy Crowe -> Available in Hardcover \ Kindle \ Paperback \ AudioBook

-> All-in-One PMP Exam Prep Kit: Based on 6th Ed. PMBOK Guide (Test Prep Series) by Andy Crowe -> Available in Hardcover \ Kindle \ Paperback \ AudioBook Ossianic Oct 17, 2019·1 min read Just For Today get free read 30 days !!! This all-inclusive, self-study guide for the PMI’s Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam provides all the information project managers need to thoroughly prepare for the test. It contains the book The PMP Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try; flash card App to help with memorization of key points; a laminated quick reference guide; a trial version subscription to the PMP course in InSite (the top PMP e-learning site); and downloadable audio CDs featuring experts Andy Crowe, Bill Yates, and Louis Alderman discussing the main points and concepts for the exam. The included learning materials cover all the processes, inputs, tools, and outputs that will be tested, along with insider secrets, test tricks and tips, hundreds of sample questions, and exercises designed to strengthen mastery of key concepts to help you pass the exam with confidence. … (More info! -> https://dinamisebookpdf.blogspot.com/?book=0990907481)

https://medium.com/@ossianic/all-in-one-pmp-exam-prep-kit-based-on-6th-ed-3ed714e4545f

[]

2019-10-17 08:36:09.543000+00:00

['Certification']

Popping the Cherry

To this day, his abiding memory of her is of her mouth. Those luscious pouty lips, red and heavily glossed like how he imagined a wet and inviting cunt would look. Her serpentine tongue would peek and poke at the corners of her mouth, as though beckoning him inside. He still recalls standing slack-jawed in front of the magazine racks watching as she stood there behind the counter, in her tight white t-shirt (no bra, pert nipples, mouth-watering!) and Daisy Duke shorts, sucking slowly on licorice as though she were fellating it, or rolling chocolate-covered cherries between those ruby lips. This one day, with an erection building in his school trousers, he picked up a copy of the Radio Times for his Dad and a Crunchie for himself, and nervously stood in front of her at the counter. She barely gave him a second glance, but instead continued to thumb through a copy of Cosmopolitan as she rung up his purchases in the till. He watched her mouth, imagined kissing those bright red lips. As a thousand teenage fantasies swirled in his mind, he saw her bite down into a cherry liqueur. A spurt of rich red liquid burst from her mouth, and began to run down the her chin. Inside his trousers, his prick jumped. Wordless and blushing, he dumped a handful of coins on the counter, turned, and practically ran all the way home. After dumping his dad’s magazine on the kitchen table, he bolted upstairs to the bathroom, and masturbated furiously, all the while picturing that drop of ruby red liquid that had dripped like blood from a vampire’s kiss.

https://medium.com/wtf-moments/popping-the-cherry-233c0d5eb397

['Jupiter Grant']

2020-12-25 17:19:50.227000+00:00

['Crush', 'Sex', 'Short Read', 'Erotica', 'Masturbation']

Leading Your Clients Through Tough Decisions: Learnings from “The Bachelor”

Design is about making decisions. As designers, we have many tools to help us evaluate our options. We work with a team of people — other designers, product owners, stakeholders, and developers — to go through this process together, and, ideally, feel confident in the final direction. But it’s pretty unrealistic to think that everyone will always agree, especially when people have different visions and objectives. So how do we make informed decisions and keep everyone aligned? Fortunately, there are now 20+ case studies featuring a similar dilemma, painstakingly documented on the famous American reality television show, The Bachelor. Every season, our protagonist conducts a series of tests to narrow down 26 contestants to one in a 12-week sprint. The journey highlights many of the same challenges we face in the design process. First, it underscores the need for wide exploration along with a rigorous selection process, scrutinizing your options before “settling down.” Second, it’s a reminder that, even with the most rational process, you have to acknowledge everyone’s considerations, from project managers’ budget concerns, to your parents who didn’t want you quitting your job for reality TV. It’s easier to find your happily-ever-after when everyone is aligned. Every project has its thorns and, while I can’t guarantee love, there are some methods we can learn from The Bachelor to help us achieve a smoother and more efficient design process.

https://medium.com/design-intelligence/leading-your-clients-through-tough-decisions-learnings-from-the-bachelor-1ac8db80d625

['Limor Zisbrod']

2016-07-18 12:01:01.808000+00:00

['Design Process', 'Storytelling', 'The Bachelor', 'UX', 'Design']

Hagia Sophia

Located on the historic peninsula in the Sultanahmet region, Hagia Sophia is one of the oldest and most important landmarks of Istanbul. Originally built in the 6th century as a Greek Orthodox cathedral of the Byzantine Empire, the building was converted into a mosque during the Ottoman years and later into a museum in modern day Turkey. The building sits centrally in Sultanahmet with a commanding view of the entrance to the Bosphorus. You can hardly appreciate the size and splendour of Hagia Sophia from the outside when you are standing next to it. Inside, visitors are stunned by its 32-meter dome, its marbles and columns, and large beautifully preserved mosaics. The building today also has four minarets added by the Ottomans during its conversion to an imperial mosque after the conquest of Istanbul in 1453. The Turkish name for Hagia Sophia is “Ayasofya”.

https://medium.com/@virtualistanbul/hagia-sophia-83cae39ff5de

['Virtual Istanbul']

2020-12-26 16:34:00.265000+00:00

['Sultanahmet', 'Mosque', 'Church', 'Hagia Sophia', 'Dome']

A Beginner’s Guide to Creating Fast Prototypes

A UX portfolio is the story of your journey. But words alone detailing your project work will not garner as much interest as visually compelling prototypes. As a UX writer and content strategist, I am usually evaluating design work without having to create design of my own. However, as someone looking to upgrade my portfolio with dynamic prototypes, I needed an easy-to-use design tool that won’t break the bank to revamp my app ideas below. UI project app UX project app Creating beautiful, usable design as a beginner is more challenging when competing with professional designers with years of experience under their belt. UX tools have a career-saving impact on your life, and choosing the wrong one will cause both to suffer. A cost analysis of the most popular prototyping tools on the market are: InVision = $15 a month for three prototypes Figma = $15 a month or $144 annually Sketch = $99 for lifetime access So, to narrow my choices for an ideal tool, I gave myself three simple benchmarkers. The design tool had to be: fast easy free Enter, Wondershare Mockitt. This incredible graphic design tool simplifies a complicated process that allows users to create prototypes, collaborate with team members, and browse a library of assets and templates. Let’s dive into some of its exciting features. Easy to create prototypes Creating high-quality prototypes without having to write any code is always great news for beginner and professional designers. I got started by creating a new project after registering on Wondershare Mockitt. It was simple to browse the dashboard of UI assets to drag and drop what I needed. With these keyboard shortcuts, I rearranged the entire interface in 30 minutes. The vast and icon library made it easy to align UI elements under Material Design guidelines. Collaboration saves you time Beginners and experts can benefit from receiving feedback on their work from friends or colleagues. Wondershare Mockitt allows you to not just create interfaces and prototypes, but also makes it easy to check their reliability. Instead of hopping on the phone to explain my app idea, I left comments on the interface so that we could work on the same page, literally. You can also speed up the process of sharing or the handoff to developers by creating links. I shared my work with a designer friend who added comments by just double-clicking. Free to try In a time where almost everything is mobile-first, learning how to create an app can benefit you. Yet, the design tools are skewed in favor of people who can afford them. For people with little to no experience to experts, saving time and money can take the stress out of trying out another design tool. You don’t have to learn or hire graphic designers to do the job. Wondershare Mockitt has helped millions of users create, edit, and share their great app idea. And you can try it for free. The free plan allows you to create three projects with 20 screens for each. Don’t worry about inputting your credit card information and forgetting to cancel. You won’t have to. My search for a great prototyping design tool is reminiscent of what users look for in their products. Simple, fast, and less expensive or free software or tools are hallmarks of great user experience. Whether people are upgrading their professional portfolios or breathing life into an app idea, finding an efficient tool with accessible pricing breaks barriers. So, what is your next big app idea? Breathe life into your prototypes for free with Mockitt.

https://medium.com/@foziaakter/a-beginners-guide-to-creating-fast-prototypes-ef46406c5e92

['Fozia Akter']

2020-11-20 20:48:03.747000+00:00

['UX Design', 'Prototyping', 'Beginners Guide', 'UX', 'Portfolio']

Live Stream: DeSoto vs Spring | Texas High School Football LIVE 12/26/2020

Eagles @ Lions Watch Live Here> http://advertisement.sportfb.com/hsfootball.php < How To Watch Live Stream: DeSoto vs Spring | Texas High School Football LIVE 12/26/2020 Watch Live Here>http://advertisement.sportfb.com/hsfootball.php< Eagles 9–1 Lions 9–0 The Spring (TX) varsity football team has a home playoff game vs. DeSoto (TX) on Saturday, December 26 @ 7p. Game Details: McLane Stadium, Baylor University Waco, Texas This game is a part of the “2020 Football State Championships — 2020 Football Conference 6A D1 “ tournament.

https://medium.com/@dewiirizqy/live-stream-desoto-vs-spring-texas-high-school-football-live-12-26-2020-2f26654fb106

['Dewii Rizqy']

2020-12-22 02:50:09.315000+00:00

['Americanfootball', 'Texas', 'Highschoolfootball']

AI Isn’t the Freelancer’s Enemy- It Will Help You Reach Your Goals!

We are now in the age of the freelancer. Freelancers across the globe have been a tonic to the immense disruption caused by COVID-19, and as countries, work places, public spaces and entire industries have slowed down or shuttered completely, the freelancing market has exploded. As companies pivoted to freelancers and portfolio-based workers to supplement their disrupted work load, they slimmed work forces and focused efforts on survival. But now, in the New Normal, they are focusing on growth, and freelancers will be a big part of that. Freelancers across the EU were, for many industries, absolutely instrumental in maintaining business continuity. The flexibility of talented freelancers, from designers to tech support, programmers to coders and project managers, has been a boon to the tech world and beyond, especially as companies move toward remote work and pressures mount on service feasibility, productivity, team management, and the supply chain. Is AI the enemy? Prior to COVID, the topic on everyone’s mind was the inexorable rise of Artificial Intelligence. AI seems to be a thorn in the side of every freelancer. Due to automation, bots, and machine learning, freelancers in the digital world, and increasingly in the physical workplace, are seeing some of their roles be eroded by the unstoppable march of AI. But at BeGreator we look at it differently. We believe AI can actually be a huge asset to your career. After all, no matter how smart AI seems, there are still fundamental skills that can only be delivered by a real person. Below we discuss the challenges that AI can help solve, as well as how it can help YOU in supplementing and building up your unique talents and skill sets. Here’s how we think AI can be an integral part of your freelance business Objectivity vs. Subjectivity An AI driven hiring or skills sourcing platform is uniquely qualified to assess individuals based on their skill sets, and to support you in presenting the right information at every stage to your customer. So the look of your CV or portfolio won’t matter– the relevant information will be delivered to the manager or team leader who is engaging with you, making the process of sourcing relevant work that much easier. Inclusivity and the End of Bias AI can step in with automated marketing tools, website builds and bot-led customer service programmes, but nothing changes the essential and unchanging rule of doing business, winning a new contract or delivering a project pitch: people buy from people. However, people can harbour biases, even unconsciously. AI is already levelling the playing field as recruiters, HR teams and hiring managers look to AI to remove bias from the hiring practice and help organizations lead with inclusivity. AI Can Aid the Finding Process A customer in dire need of a specific skill set, a certain niche talent or a qualified personality will struggle to quickly and confidently fill that spot. AI, however, can faithfully check through and qualify reams of data in an instant. So AI can sit in the middle, between worker and customer, and makes them finding you or you finding them that much easier. The Machine and your Career As we’ve highlighted above, data analysis will always be a machine’s forte, and you can use this to your career advantage. AI can help you to find and highlight market trends, skills shortages and industry insights to prepare you for working now and in the future. You can use AI to suggest where to develop, and remain ahead of the curve for your customers. It will have a massive effect in helping you reach your career goals. The rise of AI continues, and COVID-19 has certainly ushered in a New Normal of companies looking to freelancers to help grow their business. Savvy freelancers will be able to turn the situation to their advantage. Those who make AI their friend will be able to stay on top of market demands and present an attractive option to customers at all times.

https://medium.com/be-greator/ai-isnt-the-freelancer-s-enemy-it-will-help-you-reach-your-goals-8abf75772ade

['Begreator Community']

2020-10-27 09:59:07.630000+00:00

['Freelance', 'Diversity And Inclusion', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Diversity In Tech', 'Developer']

Python’s Sorted and Sort. A short and sweet study

Let’s take a look at how this works on real data. Here is the head of my coffee data frame: First two partial rows of my coffee reviews data frame From the data frame, I created a simple list of the ‘Coffee Country’ (the column ‘Coffee Country’ can not be seen in the data frame above, but it’s there to the far right) : coffee_country_list = list(df[‘Coffee Country’]) The coffee_country_list looks partially like this (remember, it’s 2195 entries long!): A partial list of ‘Coffee Country’ from the data frame and in my Jupyter notebook I tried out sort and sorted: sorted(coffee_country_list) coffee_country_list.sort() The result is the same: A partial list of results from using list.sort() and sorted() However, even though the result is the same, there is actually a difference between the two sorts. Upon applying the sorted() function on the coffee_country_list the list is unchanged. The function does not modify the list that is passed in and if I call coffee_country_list again the original is unchanged: coffee_country_list unchanged with sorted() The coffee_country_list that had .sort() applied, on the other hand, is changed permanently. The sort method changes the original list to create a new one:

https://medium.com/swlh/python-sorted-and-sort-515918b5d0da

['Annika Noren']

2020-10-02 18:37:52.273000+00:00

['Python', 'Data Science']

I Am a Superstar

I am a superstar Yes, I lived in the dark Until I let it shine, my underlying spark Whether it took too long Yes, I was dreaming hard A castle, like of blowing cards That exists for too short Until I reach my clue A castle build by glue My dream no more an illusion We are the dimmest stars Have sealed our brains and hearts in the jars Bidding them, but they have no price The shine of money makes us roll like dice We feel safe on earth Despite giving Atom Bomb a birth Getting ready for some more World Wars Because we own a rugged land on Mars It took too long for us To realize our thirst When we are two steps from the graveyard When the body and the soul apart I want my words so strong To revolutionize what is wrong I’d like to have a smoke in my hand A state when minds don’t understand But I have a different stand Even call me a silly man Whether I don’t possess Apple iPhone or any other brand But a valuable Paper and Pen

https://medium.com/illumination/i-am-a-superstar-2b7f8920e80d

['Ijlal Saleem']

2020-08-29 22:33:41.266000+00:00

['Life Lessons', 'Self Improvement', 'Poetry', 'Self Realization', 'Life']

Building a Low Effort, High Impact Prototype for Hackfest: Online Code Editor for ACLScript

ACLScript is a scripting language, similar to SQL used for various data analysis purposes. It is processed by Galvanize’s Analytics engine on the various Galvanize platforms, one of which is the ACL Robotics Platform, https://www.wegalvanize.com/robotic-process-automation/. It is a domain specific language (DSL) and is unique to Galvanize. Users package their ACLScripts in the form of a ‘Robot’ to be sent to ACL Robotics Platform for scheduling jobs to run on a remote Analytics engine machine. The current development mode workflow in Galvanize’s ACL Robotics Platform requires users to download all the scripts contained with a Robot package just to edit a single line in a script to make a change or fix an error. The change must then be re-committed back to ACL Robotics Platform for subsequent iteration of execution. The apparent problem is that the user’s download directory gets cluttered with many Robots. Moreover, one needs to have a corresponding and matching encoding (non-Unicode/Unicode) of Analytics application installed just to open, edit and commit the changes. The trivial solution to this problem is to have an online ACLScript code-editor in the Robotics Platform to eliminate the intermediate steps of taking a user from a problem-state to a desired-end-state. With the use of an existing open-source library this was a low-effort and high-impact project to work on. In fact, it was an ideal project for a two day hackfest event to showcase how a simple and trivial solution can add high value to our existing product and also make the code-run-debug-fix cycle far less tedious. Design and Interaction With react-monaco-editor We created a React Application and used react-monaco-editor library for the code editor features. This library has multiple functionalities out of the box like syntax highlighting, language theme, auto-completion, IntelliSense, validation and a diff-editor mode. For a reference, the popular IDE Visual Studio Code is also powered by Monaco-editor. All that needed to be done was to add our ACLScript DSL language. All of the following examples are related to integrating react-monaco-editor into existing application. Teaching Monaco About the Keywords in AClScript In order for the react-monaco-editor to successfully highlight the code, we must specify a list of keywords within the ACLScript language. We created a separate file to contain the syntax definitions for the ACLScript language. With the definitions in place, the setMonarchTokensProvider method is used to set the language with the API from editor.api as mentioned in the import statement. See the code below. The ACLScript keywords were added as part of the tokenizer attribute. This method sets the keyword validation for syntax highlighting and also detects comments within the code. Adding Auto-Completion Implementation To better understand the problem and solution, let’s take a quick look at auto-completion example for ACLScript:

https://medium.com/galvanize/building-a-low-effort-high-impact-prototype-for-hackfest-online-code-editor-for-aclscript-a2005bb9f83b

['Pasang Dawa Lama Sherpa']

2019-05-24 00:18:54.557000+00:00

['JavaScript', 'Software Engineering', 'Software Development', 'Hackathons']

How to Find Time to Write 3–5 Articles a Week Even While Working a Full-time Job

Why Write 3–5 Stories a Week If you want to be a top writer on Medium, you’ll need to put in the work, which includes contributing well-written stories high in both quality and quantity. Think about it. It’s just like anything else where consistency and commitment pays off. The more quality stories you write, the more people will want to read what you have to offer. Another reason is the more active you are on the platform, the more likely the Medium algorithm will pick up your stories to show up in the feeds and recommendations. Also, the more you write and contribute positively to the platform with value-added content, the more positivity will come back to you. What you put in is what you can expect to get out of this. You should also be encouraged to read more on the platform, just as much as you write, as that is also a way to get noticed and reap the benefits of networking with your fellow writers. Writing and publishing 3–5 stories a week can help you reach your goals as a Medium writer.

https://medium.com/illumination-curated/how-to-find-time-to-write-3-5-medium-stories-a-week-while-working-a-full-time-job-6d2dad1570fa

['Audrey Malone']

2020-12-30 17:47:05.200000+00:00

['Time Management', 'Business', 'Writing', 'Self Improvement', 'Writing Tips']

When it comes to success in any field, the mentality is everything

It is difficult to say in categorical terms what the formula for success is. Nobody knows. But there is what is common to all successful people, they have a success mentality. To be successful, you have to believe and be confident that you will be successful and will act accordingly. This is what I call a success mentality. Successful people see challenges as opportunities and embrace them while unsuccessful people try to avoid them. Successful people see failures as feedback which they use to improve the next time. But the unsuccessful people are afraid of failure so they never try or continue to try. Successful people value their time and health more than money, while unsuccessful people value money more than their time. Successful take full responsibility for the current outcome of their lives while unsuccessful people blame others. They blame the government, their parents, partners or other things for their current realities. It’s all about mentality and attitude. Our belief system is a product of our mentality. And like Jesus said, “it will be unto you according to your belief” No more no less. So if things will start changing for you, you have to start by changing your mindset

https://medium.com/@yinkadeniran/when-it-comes-to-success-in-any-field-the-mentality-is-everything-498342ca1319

['Yinka Adeniran']

2020-12-26 22:03:45.897000+00:00

['Attitude', 'Mentality Shift', 'Mindset']

Addressing EV Access and Equity is Critical to Reducing Pollution and Promoting Economic Health in Underserved Communities

Addressing EV Access and Equity is Critical to Reducing Pollution and Promoting Economic Health in Underserved Communities Dan English Follow Dec 9, 2020 · 4 min read A 2016 report by Environment Missouri Research and Policy Center reveals that 27% of Missouri’s total greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation. Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are the major contributors to climate change. Reducing emissions from transportation can put a big dent in Missouri’s total output of greenhouse gases. Widespread adoption of electric vehicles would allow the state to reduce its carbon footprint. Electric vehicles (EVs) are becoming more and more popular in the United States because of their increased horsepower, torque, and efficiency over vehicles with internal combustion engines. EVs also cost less to maintain and own. Ford Motor Company is making significant investments in Missouri at their Claycomo Assembly Plant. Claycomo is the new production hub for Ford’s E Transit van. The battery-powered van will travel nearly 130 miles on each charge and provide a power backup for tools at a construction site. Pricing for the new E Transit van is around $5,000 higher for the electric version than the van’s internal combustion version. The extra cost may put it out of reach for many large families and business owners. Another barrier to EVs is the lack of EV infrastructure. Charging stations are simply not available in many low-income housing areas, rural areas, and apartments. Lower-income earners are also far less likely to charge their vehicles at their place of business. There is a growing number of EV charging stations in Missouri’s urban areas and along major highways. Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe cut the ribbon on a new set of EV charging stations at the Marriott Hotel in Jefferson City. Ameren Energy is building a network of charging stations along interstates 70, 40, and 55. Ameren reports the new charging stations will be ready by the end of 2020. Evergy is also in partnership with other utilities and manufacturers to bring more charging stations to the Kansas City area. EV manufacturer Tesla has a network of 56 charging stations around the state. However, the overwhelming majority of charging stations are located in more affluent and populated areas, leaving little alternative to low-income and rural populations. EV charging stations are great for our state. Located at the intersection of highways 50, 63 & 54 these Marriott hotel charging stations will provide cleaner travel & support motorists going in all directions. Thank you @AmerenMissouri & the Charge Ahead program. #MissouriProud pic.twitter.com/h1ctv8Iigp - Mike Kehoe (@LtGovMikeKehoe) November 19, 2020 Increasing EV adoption in low-income and rural areas is also critical to improving Missouri communities’ overall health. People in lower-income and rural areas are more likely to suffer respiratory ailments caused by air pollution from vehicles. Low-income communities are more likely to be located near high traffic areas, giving them higher exposure to internal combustion engines’ pollutants. Rural populations are more likely to have exposure to fumes from diesel engines emitting soot and carcinogens. Wider adoption of EVs will reduce pollutants in Missouri and enable Missourians to live healthier lives. Barriers to owning EVs are much higher for Missouri’s economically challenged communities. EVs tend to be thousands of dollars more expensive than equivalent internal combustion models. However, Consumer Reports estimates the total cost of ownership for an EV is much lower than for an internal combustion car. EVs don’t require expensive gas. They don’t need scheduled maintenance, like oil changes. Brake pads on EVs last much longer than internal combustion cars because of regenerative braking technology that recharges the battery as you stop. EV batteries on many models are proven to last for hundreds of thousands of miles of real-world driving. The higher initial cost to own an EV can make it impossible for lower-income families to take advantage of long term EV savings. Access to reliable transportation is one of the main predictors for individuals’ ability to break out of poverty and earn their way up to the middle class. As more higher-income families can afford EVs and take advantage of long-term EV savings, there is a higher potential for widening the wealth gap and increasing inequality in Missouri. More widespread EV adoption among lower-income families ensures they don’t fall too far behind in the wealth gap. States and cities can address these potential barriers in several ways. First, making charging stations available at apartment complexes, in low-income neighborhoods, or more prevalent in rural areas would provide infrastructure for more EV use in these areas. Property taxes associated with EVs may also be prohibitive and reduce long-term cost benefits for EV owners. EVs are not a silver bullet to solving the climate crisis, but are becoming an attractive alternative to combustion engine vehicles and can provide health benefits to many Missourians.

https://medium.com/mostpolicyinitiative/addressing-ev-access-and-equity-is-critical-to-reducing-pollution-and-promoting-economic-health-in-e794b4e9a58

['Dan English']

2021-02-02 01:29:29.613000+00:00

['Sci4mo', 'Electric Car', 'Ev', 'Missouri']

Core Concepts of Combine

Core Concepts of Combine Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash No matter your coding background, you will need to get to grips with some of the core concepts of Combine , what it does and how to perform some programming tasks in the same. This article is here to help you! What is Combine? Combine is about what to do with values over time, including how they can fail. This means that Combine uses many of the functional reactive concepts that are used by RxSwift (if you are familiar with that), but is Apple’s implementation is baked-in to the iOS SDK meaning it has the advantages of Swift, being type-safe and usable with any asynchronous API . In addition to functional programming primitives like map , filter , and reduce you can split and merge streams of data. These steams are important as we can visualise events (keyboard taps, touches etc.) as such a stream that can be observed. The observer pattern watches an object over time, notifying changes — and applied over time this would produce a stream of objects. So Combine helps developers implement code that functionally describes actions that should be taken when data is received in such a stream. When applied to an API , Combine allows us to handle errors as they happen and more easily process data that relies on asynchronous API . Applied to a UI, we can think of the user actions as a stream, and even test particular states that a host App can be in. A good partner for Combine is SwiftUI , yet there is no reason why you can’t use UIKit to use Combine , the same way as we could happily use RxSwift with UIKit . I’ve created an example with a network manager that you might like to take a look at. Understood. Let me describe them: The core concepts Publishers These generate the value(s) in question, and allow the registration of a subscriber. Under the hood, Publishers conform to the protocol Publisher that defines two associatedtype , that is output is the value that is produced by the publisher and a Failure that represents the error produced by a publisher . So a Publisher provides data when available (and also potentially on request). A Combine publisher that does not have any subscribers will not provide any data. So you might create a publisher that returns a boolean and an error type. If you don’t need the error, you can use Never: var validLengthPassword: AnyPublisher<Bool, Never> which could also be represented by any instance of an Error type (where you have declared MyError somewhere with something like struct MyError: Error {} ): var validLengthPassword: AnyPublisher<Bool, MyError> Subscribers Subscribers subscribe to a Publisher . Under the hood, Subscribers also have two associatedtype , that is input that is the value that is produced by the publisher and a Failure that represents the error produced by a publisher . A subscriber subscribes to a Publisher , and in effect requests updates about a data stream (including any failures). The Subscriber makes requests of the Publisher (and without such a subscription data will not be generated and passed). To make this clear, when a Publisher subscribes to a Subscriber the types of each (the Publisher and Subscriber ) must match: Output-Input Failure-Failure. Operators Publishers have operators and act on the values received from a Publisher and effectively republishes the results. This means that between Publisher and Subscribers there can be any number Operators that chain sequences of actions. But how can we make this practical? The Examples Just What if we want something simple, that can’t fail. Something that will emit a single value and then finish. let myPublisher = Just(13) now this is a Just<Int>(output: 13) but since this is a Publisher it won’t emit anything without a Subscriber , so we need to fix that. We would expect a subscriber to receive the value 13. Happily: let subscribeMyPublisher = myPublisher.sink { int in print("Value: \(int)") } Does indeed print Value: 13 Empty Empty never emits and (as per default) immediately completes. This means the following compiles just fine: let empty = Empty<Int, Never>() let subscribeEmpty = empty.sink { int in print(“Value: \(int)”) } However, the value will never be printed. Of course, there will also be no Error type either. Fail If we wish to immediately fail without emitting a type, Fail has us covered. let fail = Fail<Any, MyError>(error: MyError()) sink You can see in the examples above, .sink which is the code that receives data, completion events or errors from a publisher and processes them. There are two parts to the sink , that is we can subscribe to the Just 13 publisher described above (repeated here but you don’t need to repeat it if you are following along with the code). let myPublisher = Just(13) let cancellable: AnyCancellable = myPublisher.sink( receiveCompletion: { completion in print("cancellable completion \(completion)") }, receiveValue: { value in print("cancellable value \(value)") } ) The code then outputs the following: cancellable value 13 cancellable completion finished .publisher , subscribed to Any Sequence ( Array , or anything that conforms to the Sequence Protocol ) let integerPublisher = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5].publisher let subscribeInteger = integerPublisher.sink { value in print ("Values from integerPublisher \(value)") } Now subscribeInteger is of type AnyCancellable which is a token for a new subscription . This token must be retained, since as soon as the token is deallocated the subscription will be cancelled — hence the Cancellable part of the type! Therefore it is prudent to (in implementation) to separate out the declaration as in: let storeCancellable: AnyCancellable storeCancellable = integerPublisher .sink { value in print (“Values from storeCancellable \(value)”) } So then this can be stored outside the method that it is being called from. var cancellableCollection = [AnyCancellable]() integerPublisher .sink { value in print (“Values from storeCancellable \(value)”) }.store(in: &cancellableCollection) Now in terms of memory management AnyCancellable calls cancel() on deinit to prevent reference cycles. Awesome! These are exactly the same when observed as the property of an object so something like the following is implicitly valid: class LoginViewModel { var shouldNav: AnyPublisher<Bool, Never>? } PassthroughSubject A PassthroughSubject is an instance that can have several subscribers attached, and is an Operator as described above. PassthroughSubject itself does not maintain a state, but rather (as the name suggests) pass through a value. A send() call will send values to Subscribers (previous to this, subscribers will not receive any values). This is so useful in creating tests, but also in converting imperative code to be used in the world of Combine . The bare bones of this can be expressed with the following code: var passThroughSubject = PassthroughSubject<Int, Never>() let pass = passThroughSubject.sink( receiveValue: value in { print("passThroughSubject \(value)" ) } ) passThroughSubject.send(1) which of course prints passThroughSubject 1 CurrentValueSubject This is another Operator , but if you require some semblance of state, that is the current value we can use CurrentValueSubject var currentSubject = CurrentValueSubject<Int, Never>(10) let current = currentSubject.sink(receiveValue: { value in print(“currentSubject \(value)” ) } ) currentSubject.send(1) Since we have a current value this can be changed and retrieved with the following: print ( currentSubject.value ) currentSubject.value = 5 handleEvents This, well, handles events through closures. The events themselves are the following: receiveSubscription: Executed when the publisher receives the subscription receives the receiveOutput: Executed when the publisher receives a value from the upstream publisher receives a value from the upstream receiveCompletion: Executed when the publisher receives the completion from the upstream publisher receives the completion from the upstream receiveCancel: Executed when the downstream receiver cancels publishing receiveRequest: Executed when the publisher receives a request for more elements This works as following (using MyError() as described above) let passString = PassthroughSubject<String, MyError>() let stringCancellable = passString.handleEvents(receiveSubscription: { (subscription) in print("receiveSubscription!") }, receiveOutput: { _ in print("receiveOutput!") }, receiveCompletion: { _ in print("receiveCompletion") }, receiveCancel: { print("receiveCancel") }) .replaceError(with: "Failure") .sink { (value) in print("Subscriber received value: \(value)") } passString.send("Hello, World!") passString.send(completion: .failure(MyError())) This generates the following output: receiveSubscription! receiveOutput! Subscriber received value: Hello, World! receiveCompletion Subscriber received value: Failure Combining operators let usernamePublisher = PassthroughSubject<String, Never>() let passwordPublisher = PassthroughSubject<String, Never>() let validatCancellable = Publishers .CombineLatest(usernamePublisher, passwordPublisher) .map { (username, password) -> Bool in username.count > 6 && password.count > 6 } .eraseToAnyPublisher() This features eraseToAnyPublisher which makes the publisher visible to a downstream publisher . Would I use the above? Not exactly, as in my example using Combine and URLSession I preferred the following approach (where validLengthUsername and validLengthPassword are both AnyPublisher types: var userValidation: AnyPublisher<Bool, Never> { validLengthUsername .zip(validLengthPassword) .map { $0 && $1 } .eraseToAnyPublisher() } .zip waits until both publishers have emitted, .map provides a transformative closure and as before .eraseToAnyPublisher() transforms the Publisher to be visible downstream. Now each of validLengthPassword and validLengthUsername are similar (and I’ll show you the latter here): @Published var username: String = "" var validLengthUsername: AnyPublisher<Bool, Never> { return $username.debounce(for: 0.2, scheduler: RunLoop.main) .removeDuplicates() .map{$0.count >= passwordLength ? true : false} .eraseToAnyPublisher() } now username is bound to a UITextField , meaning that debounce only receives elements when the user pauses or stops typing. removeDuplicates ensures that only distinct elements are used. Future A future is a Publisher that only emits a single value (eventually!). The argument for a future is a closure that takes an argument for a single value. A good use for future is where we wait for something asynchronous (perhaps a network call). Here are the rules of futures in Combine : futures immediately execute on creation immediately execute on creation futures only run their closure once only run their closure once multiple subscriptions to a future give the same result to each subscriber Therefore we can create the following: let future = Future<Bool, Never> { promise in DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 1) { promise(.success(true)) } } let fut = future.sink( receiveCompletion: { val in print(“Future \(val)”) } , receiveValue: { val in print(“Received \(val)”) }) In this case promise(.success(true)) returns after a predetermined length of time (1 second in this case). Bind to components This could almost be a separate article in itself I’ll provide a single example here let validationSub = loginViewModel?.userValidation .receive(on: RunLoop.main) .assign(to: \.isEnabled, on: loginView.loginButton) Here we are attaching to a AnyPublisher<Bool, Never> in a view model, and when we observe a change we change the loginButton accordingly. This uses keypaths, and works as might be expected. Debugging You might like to set a breakpoint in a .sink , which is tricky. Fear not, Apple have some code that can help you set a breakpoint under a certain condition. Behold! let publisher = PassthroughSubject<String?, Never>() let cancellable = publisher .breakpoint( receiveOutput: { value in return value == "DEBUGGER" } ) .breakpointOnError() .sink { print("\(String(describing: $0))" , terminator: " ") } publisher.send("DEBUGGER") Watch out for that .breakpointnError() code in any case, though and we can print the current state with .print(“Current state”) Why would you use Combine, anyway? It comes down to: maintainability readability However, you use of something like Combine relies upon knowledge of event-driven code and of course overcome any difficulties in testing the same. The idea is that we can eliminate some of the common coding problems in Swift, like nested closures and callbacks. However, when and where you use it is entirely down to you, the developer. Conclusion This article is all about Combine . Now since Combine has been available for longer than a year it is filtering into production code. Isn’t it time you got with the program? People do like Apple’s documentation on this topic, and you might want to go there if you wish to get more information on this topic. If you’ve any questions, comments or suggestions please hit me up on Twitter

https://medium.com/@stevenpcurtis/core-concepts-of-combine-71d6b13d43e2

['Steven Curtis']

2020-11-24 09:24:12.047000+00:00

['Swiftui', 'Combine', 'Swift']