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Flutter responsive design: Size doesn’t (always) matter | Designing an application may be a real struggle when you have to made it to smartphones, tablets and web. Commonly, you may define general layout by retrieving the device screen size through the MediaQueryData instance.
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
final screenWidth = MediaQuery.of(context).size.width;
if (screenWidth < 600.0) {
return _buildPhoneLayout();
}
else if (screenWidth < 1000.0) {
return _buildTabletLayout();
}
else {
return _buildDesktopLayout();
}
}
This example above a simple but pragmatic way to lay out your application page. The only thing I don’t like so much is that you have to define limits for device detection (devices under 600.0 logical pixels width are considered as phones in this example). Not so straightforward, as I’m not able to find a concrete answer in Flutter documentation…
Using this method for every widgets you create can be a waste of time, source of errors in UI and of course pain to develop. Do you really want to scatter responsive design logic into your widgets? How do you ensure code homogeneity ?
Me, after having developed my first responsive layout.
A good approach is to make widgets responsive to its parent size and constraints, in a transparent way (I mean without developing any specific code handling parent allowed size, screen size, et cetera…).
The Flutter SDK has an answer for you, in the form of a widget: the OverflowBar !
This widget will display its children horizontally, as Row widget does, if it has enough space. If not, it display children vertically, as a Column widget. Added to that, some other input parameters allows you to set a spacing between every child. | https://medium.com/flutter-community/flutter-responsive-design-size-doesnt-always-matter-6cd88b5e6f2c | ['David Gonzalez'] | 2021-02-10 10:04:06.994000+00:00 | ['Development', 'Flutter', 'Mobile', 'Responsive Design', 'Flutter Widget'] |
Data quality the ‘salt’ in your business dish! | Photo by Franki Chamaki on Unsplash
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a focal system of an organization. One of its quests is to be the single source of truth when it comes to data. Therefore, it is of foremost importance that this data is reliable and truly reflects the organization whether it is in terms of internal data such as employee information or external data such as customer details.
Consequently, there is no debating how important data is for all businesses across industries. As much as it is pointless to argue on the value of data, much can be said on the importance of data quality. As typically referred to, good data is useful however bad data is not only useless, but it can also have a negative impact specially in terms of undermining the customer experience.
There are various ways that data administrators or data owners can use their CRM to help them achieve an acceptable and reliable database. Salesforce CRM can be an important ally in making this happen. There are various ways that Salesforce can help you manage your data. Some of these are as follows:
Structured data capture
Many often underestimate the paramount importance of visual representation. While often mistaken as a benign feature, Salesforce provides the user with the flexibility to have various types of layouts that can help to control the appearance of fields. Some of the layouts available are Page Layout — display of the object, Search Layout — display fields of an object in various result lists, Compact Layout — highlight a record’s important fields amongst others.
The advantages that this feature can bring are diverse, especially when it is known that businesses and their focus can vary. In a gist, the user can customize the order in which the fields appear, which fields are visible, read only or mandatory and how to display standard and custom buttons on the page.
Visual markings to indicate sections of data capture, mandatory fields etc.
Simple one would say — a red asterisk symbol (*) next to a required field.
Think about it, a form containing multiple fields needs to be filled. Every time the user saves the form, an alert is displayed that field xx is missing. After a few attempts, the user is annoyed and decides to either quit or postpone for later. A common scenario that can be avoided with some simple manipulation. Why not mark the fields such that the user can immediately see which fields are required and needs to be filled for successful submission? Just like that you have gained points and improved your customer/employee experience.
Automation by using matching and duplicate rules
When one thinks about improving data quality, duplicate records come in mind as a deterrent. Everyone has doubles or trebles of the same information; it is not intentional but with time, users inadvertently end up creating the same record multiple times. Having duplicate records not only paints an inaccurate picture of the business but it can also have a ripple effect when linked with other records making the subsequent data unreliable.
To circumvent this, Salesforce provides users with the possibility to create matching and duplicate rules. These are set up by the users and magic happens in the background. Duplicate rules and matching rules work together to identify and show duplicates. Basically, matching rules provide the basis on which a record should be identified as a duplicate record, e.g., Accounts name are the same, or Account name and email address are the same etc. Duplicate rules then complement this by defining what needs to be done when a duplicate record is found, should it alert the user with a warning message or block the user from creating the record.
Validation rules
Validation rules can be another means to maintain data integrity. It’s a way to put some logic tests on fields or on the page and if these conditions are not met, the user gets alerted.
The possibilities are diverse, it provides for means on how data input can be controlled through pre-set rules that follow a certain convention and is conform.
Some simple examples are telephone format — to specify the number of digits, email address — to specify a typical email format or on a more complex level, only certain users can change selected fields.
Data Import Wizard
All the above features will work nicely when records are being entered one by one. However, what happens when multiple records need to beinput at a time. An example could be that an event takes place where a bunch of potential customers are identified, lets call them leads. These leads now need to be input into Salesforce for follow up. A feature that will be handy in such a case is the ‘Data Import Wizard’. A standard feature in Salesforce, this user-friendly wizard helps to easily import data for many objects such as Accounts, Contacts, Leads and even custom objects. As many as 50,000 records can be uploaded at a time using this wizard. And as a cherry on the cake, it will even do duplicate matching and prevent these data from being loaded.
Find any of the above interesting, let Spoon Consulting help you to get a better insight and start working on improving the data quality in your CRM.
For more information, kindly visit our website https://www.spoonconsulting.com | https://blog.spoonconsulting.com/data-quality-the-salt-in-your-business-dish-af8af10f2ba9 | ['Vasseenee Moonien'] | 2021-09-13 08:18:10.061000+00:00 | ['Data', 'Salesforce', 'CRM'] |
Winning NaNoWriMo 4: Keeping Track | The NaNoWriMo community on Medium. We share and support each other through November's madness and beyond. We welcome submissions about your experience during NaNoWriMo and how it has impacted you.
Follow | https://medium.com/nanowrimo/winning-nanowrimo-4-keeping-track-f6c0d9982bbc | ['Michael Coorlim'] | 2017-10-16 14:46:59.514000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'NaNoWriMo', 'Writing', 'How To', 'Videos'] |
“Suicide Prevention” | “ Place your hand over your heart, can you feel it? That is called purpose. You are alive for a purpose, Don’t ever give up!”
Did you know? According to World Health Organization, close to 800,000 people die by suicide every year. Furthermore, for each suicide there are more than 20 attempts. Imagine the pain a person has to go through to eventually make a decision to not live anymore. How tough it is to imagine even, but people, they experience it. People around us laughing, smiling and enjoying apparently might be fighting suicidal ideation in their heads. The emotional overwhelm, the severe distress and the constant disturbances among people we tend to neglect everyday considering it a personality flaw or attention seeking behavior or lack of faith only, leads so many of them to lose hope, make them never want to wake up again and decide to give up. They choose to die rather than live. They lose the courage to live through the roughness and toughness of life but gain the courage to face death.
Having someone near and dear to lose to suicide is the most traumatic experience a human being can go through. Here are some ways you can prevent suicide on any level on which you are able to:
1. Normalize mental health problems. More problems grow when people are kept from sharing and talking. Mental health is important just as any other health.
2. Educate yourself enough on mental health to identify your signs and symptoms. Don’t consider a mental discomfort as something that will be alright. Nothing can be alright unless you want it to be.
3. Be a good listener. The least you can do to prevent something as serious as suicide is to listen without judgements, be there for people who don’t ask, understand and give space.
4. Encourage them to seek professional help. Connect them to any organization you know about that is working to treat mental health illnesses. In an era of digital world, there are many online platforms such as SOCH which create a safe space for people having mental health problems, include a panel of competent psychologists that provides therapy.
5. Never leave them alone. Once you know and are aware of someone being suicidal, it is your responsibility to either stay by their side or provide them with a safe and secure environment. By doing so, we are implanting a seed of hope and hope is what they need the most.
Everyday, we meet people who carry a beautiful smile while their whole world is falling apart. Everyday, if we choose to be kind, everyday, if we be less judgmental and more considerate and everyday we hold hands of people who have no hands to hold; we can make this world a better place to live!
“Be kind for Allah loves those who are kind to HIS creation.” | https://medium.com/@mominahambreen/suicide-prevention-f773cb3ec527 | ['Mominah Ambreen'] | 2020-12-23 06:11:37.260000+00:00 | ['Suicide', 'Mental Health Awareness', 'Suicide Prevention', 'Suicide Awareness', 'Mental Health'] |
What Does It Take To Be A Mass-Murderer? | Duch’s story is a remarkable one, the maths teacher turned brutal prison commandant responsible for the deaths of an estimated 12,000 people.
His evasion of Cambodian and international authorities for twenty years, before being brought to justice for his part in one of the most harrowing episodes of the twentieth century is a tale of justice finally being served.
Ironically, the former maths teacher was in charge of the most notorious prison, S-21, before the rise of the Khmer Rouge when it had been a school.
Within the confined walls of S-21, Duch wielded all the power and was in charge of the prisoner’s lives. He had the final say over whether they would be executed or whether they would remain in their cramped cells.
Though Duch was not a high-ranking official within the Khmer Rouge, he was single-handedly responsible for the loss of thousands of lives. The licence that he was permitted within the S-21 prison was terrifying.
Numerous torture techniques were perfected by Duch’s men, including the horrific ordeal of waterboarding, where the prisoner was immobilised with their heads facing downwards. Water was then poured over their head causing the prisoner to feel as if they were drowning.
The levels of Duch’s scrupulousness were absurd; he set aside days for killing specific types of people. One day he would kill the wives of enemies, the next children and another for factory workers.
Not only was Duch’s brutality astounding, but so was his documentation of the atrocities that took place within the prison. Every prisoner who entered S-21 was photographed, and this was also the case before they died. When the Khmer Rouge fell in 1979, Duch was ordered to destroy his documentation of the prisoners; he forgot and was subsequently demoted.
The photographs of the victims now adorn the walls of the prison, which is a memorial to the atrocities that occurred there.
Such was the brutal nature of S-21 that there are only thought to be seven known survivors of the prison, from the estimated 15,000 that perished there. This minuscule number highlights the brutality and viciousness that Duch and his men orchestrated within the walls of the S-21 prison.
During the early years of the prison, corpses were buried, however, due to the profligacy of the prison in exterminating its prisoners, they had to be transported to the Choeung Ek extermination centre by the end of 1979.
When the Khmer Rouge collapsed in 1979, Duch and his men fled S-21 and the capital Phnom Penh and retreated to the border with Thailand. Duch managed to avoid the authorities for twenty years taking on different aliases and even returning to teaching.
He was eventually tracked down in 1999 and he handed himself over to the authorities after his discovery.
Following the death of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in captivity in 1998, Duch became the first perpetrator to be tried for his part in the Cambodian genocide. He was charged with “personally overseeing the systematic torture of more than 15,000 prisoners.”
Throughout his trial, Duch constantly pled for forgiveness, stating that he felt “heartfelt sorrow” for the crimes he had committed and was willing to co-operate fully with the tribunal. He was also taken to the scene of his crimes where he broke down in tears.
Duch’s trial was significant as he was the first person connected to the genocide to be tried and subsequently charged for his part in the genocide. The fact it took nearly thirty years for him to be tried was not ideal, but it’s a sign that you can’t run from your past. | https://tom-stevenson.medium.com/what-does-it-take-to-be-a-mass-murderer-7edd5c4c5716 | ['Tom Stevenson'] | 2020-07-12 20:15:43.068000+00:00 | ['Genocide', 'War', 'Murder', 'History', 'Cambodia'] |
JOY: The Third Saturday of Advent | I am frequently asked about ways to maintain the joy of Christ in our lives. I am a student of faith. I consistently call on the name of Jesus, not only as a friend but as a Savior. I am in need every day of his power and greatness. Calling on Christ may be new to you, and you may feel you’ve mastered a perfect registration on the joy meter — but I would love to propose that there is more. None of us have made it to our destination. As long as our feet are on the earth, there is more to learn, more profound love to pour out on Christ, and more joy to fill our hearts and minds. We are not dead yet — so as we live, let’s live in joy, and these are five steps of how to get to a deeper place of joy — together.
1. LOVE HIM
It is easy to call on God but maybe not as easy to love him. If you just like the idea of God, you will really love yourself, as opposed to loving God — which brings about the desire of surrendering self. This is the place where faith comes in. We have to trust his ways and offer our preferences over to his sovereignty (control).
In the book: Love Does, by my friend, Bob Goff. Bob says: “…I see myself floating in a massive sea of God’s love. The circle of His grace and forgiveness is big enough, and the line leading to Him is long enough that I don’t always need to be measuring latitude and longitude to find myself. It’s a pretty easy calculation each day, actually. I stay somewhere in that circle.”
2. SPEND TIME
When you desperately want another person to notice you, you do anything you can to gain their attention. Most often, this takes the form of putting oneself directly in the path of that person. We can be in Jesus’ presence at any time — anywhere. Call on him, and he will answer.
3. REFLECT
Those in long-term relationships with someone often begin to resemble each other — this reflection is a concrete place where his joy becomes ours. The longer we know Christ, the more we know him, the more we resemble him, especially in what we say and do.
4. COMMUNICATE
Think about the example of the wise men who see the star, then realize they don’t see it anymore, and then see it again. Think about John the Baptist, who recognizes Jesus because of the joy he feels in his presence, and when he is in doubt, sends his friends to Jesus to have his doubt answered. This all came through communication with God. One through a star (faith) and one through a relationship with the creator (wonder). Communication takes various forms, do not get bent on it being the same way every time.
5. RECOGNIZE
When Jesus comes, we recognize him. This recognition is often accompanied by deep joy and proof of our love, time, reflection, and communication. Stay strong; his arrival is near! | https://medium.com/advent-journey/joy-the-third-saturday-of-advent-980b398c9626 | ['Jeremi Richardson'] | 2020-12-21 11:54:01.322000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Joy', 'Advent', 'Saturday'] |
How Jewel-Osco Will Finally Attract Millennial’s with New Brand Position | Brand Positioning Statement
Jewel-Osco has no problem getting older generations into their door. On the other hand, their competitors have figured out how to get the attention of millennial's whereas Jewel-Osco has not. They now need a new approach on how to position their brand or else Jewel-Osco will be beat out by all of their competitors. The brand positioning statement that I came up with is:
For millennial's who want to experience exotic food adventures, Jewel-Osco is the grocery store that best delivers on bringing the taste of the world to your local grocery store, because Jewel-Osco, and only Jewel-Osco, brings in foods and beverages from around the globe you can let your taste buds experience the world.
Areas Where Jewel-Osco Must Improve
There are many ways that Jewel-Osco could improve to achieve this position. My group and I have strictly been researching this new position in order to gain the attention of millennial's. One of the biggest aspects that Jewel-Osco can improve on is listening to the feedback of their customers. By simply sending out a survey, we found that a great deal of young experiencers love the idea of having food and beverages around the world at a local grocery store. The research I found states that millennial's are attracted to new and exciting things. Additionally, they love to try something that they never have before. By offering something to them that has never been done before in a grocery store, it attracts new customers, especially millennial’s.
I also think that they could improve on the layout of their store. By strictly having a part of the store that is dedicated to the foods around the world, it allows a fun experience for the customers. Grocery shopping can be seen as a chore, but giving the customers a great experience while they are shopping will change that perspective. By bringing in new exotic foods and beverages and changing the overall layout of the store so customers can have a great shopping experience, this new position could make Jewel-Osco completely stand out from its competitors and attract millennial’s. | https://medium.com/@nicolesims1342/how-jewel-osco-will-finally-attract-millennials-with-new-brand-position-e9bdc4986b52 | ['Nicole Szymczak'] | 2019-11-15 21:15:31.208000+00:00 | ['Startup'] |
Where Digital Marketing Meets Outreach for Government Services | Where Digital Marketing Meets Outreach for Government Services
Introducing Code for America’s Digital Outreach Playbook
Before I came to work at Code for America, I worked in local government for more than a decade. I loved each of the roles I had there, but I took the job at Code for America for many reasons — besides the great people, and the secure room where I get to park my extra-long cargo bike, it was an opportunity to learn from a tech-first organization. I could go on and on describing the amazing work that we do to build and deliver services that are effective and easy to use, but these products are only useful if we can actually reach the people we are trying to serve. And at Code for America, the people we’re trying to serve are among the most vulnerable in our society. So what I really want to talk about is the amazing work we have done on digital outreach to people who need government services like SNAP, or workforce services, or record clearance help, and need to be able to access those services online.
While people selling shoes, food delivery, car rentals, or plane tickets have mastered the art of internet advertising, digital advertising isn’t something most people running a direct service program think about, at least not in the non-profit and government spaces. Yet this is just another form of outreach. It’s one that meets people where they are — online — and one that, with a little bit of know-how, can be very cost effective. So, with the help of the James Irvine Foundation, we wrote a Digital Outreach Playbook to translate the world of digital advertising into digital outreach specifically for the populations that local governments serve. In Code for America’s case, that includes people who are eligible for safety-net services, people who are low-income, people who are in contact with the criminal justice system.
The concept of cultural competence has long been embraced by program leaders and direct service staff wanting to engage clients in taking up a variety of services; that is, the idea that you must take into account the circumstances that inform people’s lives and meet them where they are. The same principles apply to digital outreach. We strive to use tech-competence to understand our users — what they are searching for, what language they are using to search for help — and make sure we are meeting them where they are online. And we constantly examine our data to be more effective in reaching them. We tested, we iterated, we worked hard to find people who might be in need of the services that our products are focused on.
When I worked in local government there was a big push around increasing our social media presence, and I was so proud of helping my department dip its toe into the waters of digital practices. We built up our social media presence, especially on Facebook, in an effort to meet potential clients and engage residents. But we never thought about trying any Facebook advertising for our services. Our efforts were spent trying to get people to like our Facebook page, but that wasn’t the message we really needed to be putting out there. Once they got to our Facebook, they might see posts that told them about the service we could provide, but we could have just skipped that step by running ads saying “Do you need this service?” (Not in those words, of course.)
We also did a lot of paper outreach: posting flyers in libraries, or clinics, or sending them home with kids at school. We did this mostly because we knew it worked, but over time these strategies have become less effective. People talk about the expense of digital advertising, but in fact printing is often more expensive. One of the great advantages of digital advertising is it provides you with data and metrics to measure success and think about where your costs are, and how to make them go down over time. (More on that in our CTO Lou Moore’s data dive in the Playbook.)
Our hope is to provide real proof points, including case studies about two of our products, so you can make the case that digital outreach can and does work. And this playbook is issue-agnostic. We focus on two products that help with nutrition assistance and record clearance, but the principles and best practices we provide could easily apply to people who need mental health services, or people who need Medicaid, or parents who need summer meal programs, or free vaccinations, or after-school programs…
Want to find out more? Read the whole playbook here. | https://medium.com/code-for-america/where-digital-marketing-meets-outreach-for-government-services-6f86b1f73def | ['Sarat Mayer'] | 2018-11-07 15:51:01.115000+00:00 | ['Government', 'Code For America', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Cfa Research', 'Digital Marketing'] |
The strategies a freelance designer used to attract clients and earn $200,000 in her second year of self-employment | The strategies a freelance designer used to attract clients and earn $200,000 in her second year of self-employment Adrienne Johnston May 15·4 min read
The strategies a freelance designer used to attract clients and earn $200,000 in her second year of self-employment
Adrienne Johnston left her six-figure career leading Operations for a wealth management firm to pursue freelance design in late 2017.
In her second year, she earned over $200,000 by establishing trust with her clients and providing a collaborative client experience.
When starting as a freelancer, she recommended focusing on a niche in which you can scale.
She also recommends investing in lead generation strategies that bring clients on auto-pilot and prevent the feast or famine cycle.
Adrienne Johnston decided to make a significant career shift at the end of 2017. After three-and-a-half years as vice president of operations at BIP Wealth — the Seattlite let go of her stable, $130,000-a-year job to become a freelance graphic designer.
While she was well paid and worked with a remarkable team, the role left Johnston feeling both “unfulfilled and drained.”
“It wasn’t the company or team’s fault, I just wasn’t in my zone of excellence, and I constantly struggled to find joy in my work,” she said.
Johnston admitted that she had no idea what her next chapter would look like, but she knew she needed one. One afternoon, she told her boss that she wanted to openly pursue other opportunities and figure out a transition plan that made sense for the organization and her.
Johnston began looking for new opportunities with a four-month transition runway, but none of her leads worked out. Not wanting to dip into her savings, she decided to try freelancing in an area she already possessed skills: design.
“Design had been a hobby of mine for over 15 years. On nights and weekends, I was playing in Photoshop or After Effects,” Johnston explained. “In past roles, I worked in smaller companies where there was always a need for design work that I would take on simply because I liked it. And, being high on the introversion scale, I’d always loved the idea of working from home and making my own schedule.”
In January 2018, Johnston formally began her new endeavor as a freelance graphic designer with no clients, no website, no portfolio, and no experience. She went on to make just over $200,000 in 2019, her second year of freelancing.
Launching her business from ground zero was no easy feat, but she was highly motivated to succeed. In the first few months of freelancing, she used the global freelancing platform Upwork to find new projects and clients.
While she was making more money than she expected out of the gate, about five-thousand dollars a month, it wasn’t enough to replace her previous income. The opportunity was apparent, but she had to figure out how to capitalize on it the right way.
“I started by dissecting my obvious challenges. In my previous roles, I was leading teams that optimized delivery performance, so I instinctively knew where I was going wrong.”
Johnston says she identified three big mistakes she needed to correct in her business:
She was trying to offer a wide range of design services to maximize the number of potential projects she could work on. Ultimately Johnston realized the learning curve was preventing her from delivering work efficiently and reaching her earning potential. As a self-proclaimed introvert, she was relying on freelancing platforms to make introductions on her behalf. Those platforms came with commissions that cannibalized her profitability and competition that positioned her skills as a low-value commodity. Johnston underestimated how apprehensive buyers are when making significant purchases from online service providers they do not know personally.
“Recognizing these inefficiencies and limitations in my current structure, I developed a three-pronged strategy to transform my business from ‘freelancer barely getting by’ to ‘successful business owner,” Johnston said.
The three strategies Johnston says any freelance designer can use to scale their business to the next level:
Niche: Streamline your offerings to have one or two things you do well and can do relatively quickly. She says freelancers may be hesitant to take this route out of fear of losing out on other projects but reminds freelancers to consider the advantages. The opportunities they will be a fit for are the types of jobs they are qualified to do well and quickly, allowing them to earn more in less time. The Right Lead Generation Method: Based on her hesitation with sales and cold outreach, Johnston decided to optimize her site for search engines so that clients searching for her services could find her quickly and easily. While this is a longer-term strategy, Johnston says the investment of time was worth it because now she has five ideal clients emailing her each weekday. Online Presence: While not a huge social media buff, Johnston says she realized it was important that her online presence was consistent and trustworthy. Being active on different social media sites and freelancer platforms enables potential clients to check out her testimonials and previous work to develop trust and confidence in her abilities and experience.
Want to learn more about the strategies Johnston implemented to reach multi-six-figures in her design business? Join her masterclass: How I Built a Six-Figure Design Business. | https://medium.com/@adriennejohnston/the-strategies-a-freelance-designer-used-to-attract-clients-and-earn-200-000-in-her-second-year-of-f96a47af583d | ['Adrienne Johnston'] | 2021-05-21 19:05:04.561000+00:00 | ['Small Business', 'Graphic Design', 'Freelance', 'Self Employed', 'Women In Business'] |
America is in the Mind; Philippines is in the Heart | 01 Generational friction
“Dad, what do you think it means to be a Filipino American man?”
I’m not sure what prompted me to text my dad this question. But around the time I asked it, I had moved from Greenwich, CT, where 70% of the population is White and 7%, Asian to Baltimore, MD where 62% of the population is Black or African American and 3%, Asian.
“For me, the concept of a Filipino American is an amorphous one. As you are aware the United States except for the American Indian at some point all came from different countries. Distinguishing your origin, appreciating and respecting it is very commendable. However, I think that the more important thing to realize and determine is what it is to be a true American. I find that being a true American means espousing and reflecting our society’s value of hard work, pursuing our dream of a better life, honesty, freedom, seek success, educate ourselves, to be family-centered, to care for other individuals and most importantly to pursue God’s work and make this whole world a better place to live. Hence, I do not look at myself as a Filipino American but as a true American because to me these are values that I pursue as a man, as a father, as a citizen and as a believer.”
My dad came to the U.S. from the Philippines at 21 with $400 in his pocket. Over a few decades, he went from folding people’s underwear to working in finance in New York. I can’t knock his hustle. Nor would I invalidate how he chooses to identify. He had to work hard, keep his head down but distinguish himself simultaneously. Not an easy feat.
As a result, it made him think that being a Filipino American is different than being a “true” American. For me, it’s not. I acknowledge that I’m able to say that because of the sacrifices he made.
Today, our shared values aren’t what makes us “true” Americans. It is the respect, love, acceptance and tension between different traditions & beliefs that make us Americans. I forged this belief through the iron of my experiences.
To understand how I got here, let me take you back to 1996. | https://medium.com/@benliongson/america-is-in-the-mind-philippines-is-in-the-heart-30f654b0f9be | ['Ben Liongson'] | 2020-03-02 03:33:56.579000+00:00 | ['America', 'Philippines', 'Millenials', 'Identity', 'Reflections'] |
Is a Sedation Dentist a Good Option for You? | Sedation Dentist
Do you have a fear of seeing the dentist? If you feel this way, you are not alone. An analogous disorder known as true dental fear affects approximately 10% of adults in the United States. If you fit this description, you should seek the services of a sedation dentist Morrisville. How can you know if this is the right kind of dentistry for you?
You’ve put off getting your teeth cleaned for a long time.
If you’ve been putting off critical dental care because of anxiety, it’s time to find a sedation dentist. If you are afraid of the dentist, having a considerable amount of dental work done in one sitting is impossible. You’ll just be too tense. If you complete all of your work while sleeping, you will be able to complete it all at once and with little to no stress. Your teeth will be sparkling clean when you “wake up” from anesthesia.
You’ll have to put in a lot of effort.
Even if you only go to the dentist when required, you may find yourself in a situation where you require extensive work. Any anxiety you feel about going to the dentist will be heightened if you are awake for a lengthy, drawn-out procedure. This is a perfect time to seek the services of a sedation dentist so that you can complete the work without the concern of losing your teeth.
Fear has taken over your life.
If you are terrified of the dental chair to the extent that you avoid going to the dentist, you may benefit from being sedated. It is far preferable to pay a little more for an anesthetic than to skip the dentist and risk overlooking potential problems. If you require a root canal, a filling today will save you money and time later. Don’t forget that your oral health is essential to your daily enjoyment of life, so don’t overlook it.
The Advantages of Sedated Dentistry
If you visit a sedation dentist, you don’t have to be entirely asleep to have your mouth worked on. While this is certainly an option, you can also be sedated lightly. You will feel serene and comfortable while the dental operation is being performed, but you will remain aware of your surroundings. If you want to be sedated during your dental operation, discuss your options with your dentist. You’ll almost probably find a remedy that alleviates your concerns without sedating you beyond your comfort level.
Keep in mind that oral health is really important. Your dentist can not only keep your pearly whites sparkling but can also screen you for potentially life-threatening diseases including heart disease and certain malignancies. So, don’t let your fear of the dental appointment prevent you from getting this vital surgery done. Locate a nearby sedation dentist and relax while your dental professionals work on your mouth.
FAQ
Is it true that dentists sedate you before pulling your teeth?
If you are having your teeth extracted, your dentist may use general anesthesia to put you to sleep for the procedure. You may feel some pressure during tooth extractions if you are awake, but you should not be in any pain. | https://medium.com/@dongpeter/is-a-sedation-dentist-a-good-option-for-you-920ad558a98b | [] | 2021-12-31 16:20:51.096000+00:00 | ['Sedation Dentist', 'Sedation Dentistry', 'Dentistry', 'Dentist'] |
Iranian men and women push boundaries to express newly discovered power in a rigid society | By: Ashley Miznazi
Photo belongs to Shaparak Shajarizadeh, shown waving a white flag in protest of the compulsory hijab
When I was in elementary school, I visited Tehran to meet my Iranian relatives for the first time. I remember busy streets, mountains in the distance, historic palaces and modern shopping malls. My most salient memory from that summer, however, was seeing how the women in my family expressed themselves when they knew no outsiders were watching.
When the men in my family left the house to work or visit friends, my aunts and female cousins would unravel their hair from their hijabs and singing and dancing would fill the house like a sweet spell. I learned it wasn’t that they hated their husbands or were celebrating their absence; these women were simply acting out freedoms denied to them in public. The occasional red lip-stick would come out, and the women would enjoy the afternoon talking and applying each other’s makeup.
Many Americans misunderstand Iran because Western news coverage often focuses on its adversarial relations with the U.S., including its nuclear deals, economic sanctions and oil crises. This lack of coverage has led to a scarcity of knowledge on Iranian culture. Westerners often believe Iranian people and culture are “backwards,” expecting women to be obedient and submissive. Beyond the politics and stereotypes however, there is a rising movement of young Iranian men and women fighting for personal freedom and expression.
Understanding the modern women’s movement in Iran requires a trip back in time. The 1979 Iranian Revolution deposed the Western-backed monarchy and replaced it with an Islamic republic. In the weeks after the monarchy was overthrown, crackdowns on dress code drew thousands of women to the streets to protest the new law requiring women to wear the veil, regardless of religion or nationality.
Eventually the protests died down and women became invisible. The government required women to wear dark, long, baggy cloaks with socks and sensible shoes. Not a strand of hair could show, and nail polish and lipstick were also forbidden. Those mandates continue to this day, enforced by an agency known as the “morality police.” While women can and do protest these restrictions, the dress code is a weapon of control in Iran.
For example, if a man claims in a divorce hearing that his wife removed her hijab in a gathering, he has the upper hand to gain custody and control of the family’s assets, said Shaparak Shajarizadeh, a member of the Iran Transition Council, in a phone interview. She said when she divorced her husband in Tehran in 2001, the judge did not let her speak.
Shajarizadeh said her personal experiences with prejudice is why she continues to take part in protests. In 2018, Shajarizadeh joined the campaign #WhiteWednesday where journalist Masih Alinejad provided a platform for women to share photos either wearing white or no headscarf to protest the mandated dress code. Men participated in the movement too, wearing scarves posing next to a woman unveiled. The campaign was a statement that the hijab has become a political symbol of oppression, Shajarizadeh said.
The movement gained traction and encouraged some to even remove their hair covers in public areas, Shajarizadeh said. Women switched from just wearing white hijabs to unveiling entirely, including Shajarizadeh, who went months without wearing a headscarf.
For showing resistance to the government “in its face,” Shajarizadeh said she was arrested and charged with encouraging prostitution, propaganda against the government and acting against national security. She was beaten and interrogated before being sentenced to two years imprisonment and 18 years of probation. She now lives as a refugee in Canada after serving a two-month term.
“Everybody knows that this oppression of women was not just on women,” Shajarizadeh said. “It was to suppress half of society.”
Things are changing, however. Shahla Talebi lived through the revolution and was a political prisoner in Iran for almost a decade before being released in 1992 for participating in pro-women’s rights movements. Talebi is now an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University and believes the passion stirring today is different from the one protesters felt in 1979.
“I went back to Iran and all these young women were walking out literally giving their phone numbers to these young men, flirting with them very openly,” Talebi said in a Zoom interview. “It has become normalized to push the boundaries even in your personal everyday life.”
For instance, Iranians drink and mixed gender parties go on, but the hosts might beg neighbors and pay local police to turn a blind eye. For young couples, living together unwed has become an illegal phenomenon commonly referred to as “white marriage.”
Technology plays a large role in modern protests. Young men and women in the country have begun using an app to share the location of the morality police to enable each other to evade punishment for taking off garments in public. The app, Gershad, gives Iranians the ability to tag the morality police’s location on a Google map with a bearded man. Although the government blocked the app, tech-savvy Iranians use virtual private networks to bypass the restrictions.
Both men and women of the younger generation are breaking norms in droves, said Santa Clara University professor Mary Hegland, and there are too many of them for police to keep track of and punish.
“Their hair is just wild with a little slip of a colorful printed scarf, their jeans are so tight, they wear high-heels, they love makeup and dresses,” said Hegland in a Zoom interview. Hegland conducted field research during the revolution and is one of the few American researchers still with access to the country.
The West has a traditional view of Iran that men are against women, said Hegland, but men and women are banding together today to fight for more personal freedoms.
“Very religious men and women in the community where I work say the hijab should not be forced,” Hegland said. “They’re really against these things even if they choose to be modest.”
Desperately, Iranian women such as Shajarizadeh want the world to stand with them and not their government. Whether the rebellious efforts of Iranian women and men will amount to larger scale political reform is anyone’s guess, but there is an undeniable opening for progress now. | https://medium.com/@amiznazi/iranian-men-and-women-push-boundaries-to-express-newly-discovered-power-in-a-rigid-society-28e22293ceb8 | ['Ashley Miznazi'] | 2020-12-16 23:13:26.159000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Political Prisoners', 'Protest', 'Iran', 'Hijab'] |
How Spotify’s changing the production and marketing of music | For the first time in the 21st Century, music executives are expressing an emotion that many within the industry assumed had permanently evaporated: optimism. That’s because, after more than 15 years of declining revenue, the music industry recently saw its first gains. This can almost entirely be attributed to the rise of streaming apps like Spotify. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, music revenue increased by 16.5 percent in 2017, the second straight year of gains, with music streaming services representing two-thirds of overall revenue.
But not everyone is breaking out the champagne bottles. The industry isn’t simply reverting to its pre-2000 self — what the labels would consider the golden age before Napster gutted music sales and iTunes atomized the expensive album into its 99 cent song components, further eroding revenue. The subscription-based approach that’s been adopted by most streaming services has not only led to a change in music consumption habits, but it’s also impacted how music is produced and distributed. Unsurprisingly, industry shifts this large produce both winners and losers.
Case in point: while industry revenue is on the rise, songwriters are feeling the squeeze. A recent piece in Pacific Standard detailed the case of Andre Lindal, a songwriter who composed “As Long as You Love Me,” a pop song that was performed by Justin Bieber and subsequently hit №3 on Billboard’s Top 40 rankings.
Streaming numbers were Lindal’s friend that year, at least until he got paid. When he did, he found that the 34 million YouTube views had earned him $218, and the 38 million Pandora streams had netted him only $278. Dismayed, he sidelined his decade-long songwriting career and started a firm that develops artists as musicians and brands, which he called “a necessity, given what the songwriter income is.”
It turns out that royalty rates for songwriters were established in the early 20th Century, back when the radio was still a burgeoning medium and long before the establishment of the current music landscape. While 75 cents of every dollar Spotify generates goes to music royalties, a paltry portion of this flows toward the songwriters themselves. “The performance royalty rates paid by Spotify, YouTube, and other ‘interactive’ streaming services are actually the only form of songwriter royalty pay rates that aren’t set by the government,” wrote Pacific Standard. This means that songwriters are only receiving $90 for every 1 million streams on Spotify. Given these harsh economics, it’s becoming increasingly impossible to make a living from songwriting alone.
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Streaming apps are also changing how new music is discovered — in a way that I would argue is for the better. For several decades, whether a song became a hit was almost entirely dependent on it being discovered and played by radio DJs. This was all fine and good when there were thousands of locally-owned radio stations spread out across the U.S., which ensured multiple potential entry points for a new song, but loosened regulations in the 80s and 90s, first enacted by the FCC and further cemented into law by the 1996 Telecommunications Act, ensured a massive consolidation of media ownership that further led to a decline in music diversity across the airwaves. Before the law passed, media companies could only own a maximum of 40 stations, but the Telecommunications Act opened the doors to virtually limitless acquisitions. A 1999 article in Washington Monthly reported that, in the year following the passage of the Telecommunications Act, 2,045 radio stations were sold to larger conglomerates. Just two companies account for half of all radio station ownership.
And with the consolidation of radio station ownership came the homogenization of radio playlists. Once-independent DJs who had been accustomed to choosing their own song lineups were given corporate-approved titles to play instead. Playlist song overlap between stations owned by the same company is as high as 76 percent. This means that a very small number of radio executives are serving as the gatekeepers, determining which songs become hits and which ones fall quickly into obscurity.
Streaming apps have changed the equation considerably. Spotify playlists, which are maintained by a mixture of users, Spotify staff, and algorithms, account for the majority of music listening on the app, and there have been several cases in which a previously-unknown artist has been catapulted onto the Billboard charts after getting prime placement on one of them.
This has led to more song diversity among the top hits. An engineer named Michael Tauberg performed an analysis comparing the Billboard charts in the eight years leading up to the launch of Spotify to the eight subsequent years. “In the pre-Spotify era of the 2000s, there were a total of only 3,092 songs on the Hot-100,” he wrote on Medium. “In the same amount of time from 2009–2018, there were 3,933 songs on the chart, an increase of 27%.” Songs spent less time, on average, on the list, but that meant more artists had a shot at breaking out into the mainstream.
Of course, this hasn’t eliminated all problems pertaining to music diversity. Because a song needs to make it onto multiple influential playlists in order to achieve virality, songwriters are composing songs that can fit within several categories at once, a trend that some would argue leads to bland compositions that don’t take chances or break out of already-established genres. Also, the rising influence of playlists has resulted in the establishment of a pay-for-play black market in which the curators for influential playlists are paid off in exchange for prominent placement of a new song — something that was outlawed years ago and is against Spotify’s terms of service.
So yes, the music industry is on the upswing, but this renaissance brings with it a paradigm shift for how music gets made and how we as consumers discover it. With Big Radio no longer maintaining a stranglehold over the Billboard Top 100, we’re seeing more diversity in our music offerings, but at the same time songwriters, the lifeblood of the industry, are struggling to make ends meet. Streaming just may well save the music business, but it’s important to stay mindful of those who, without the proper interventions, could end up getting left behind.
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Simon Owens is a tech and media journalist living in Washington, DC. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Email him at simonowens@gmail.com. For a full bio, go here. | https://medium.com/the-business-of-content/how-spotifys-changing-the-production-and-marketing-of-music-34c02c5c4061 | ['Simon Owens'] | 2019-05-13 17:56:19.139000+00:00 | ['Spotify', 'Marketing', 'Music', 'Media', 'Streaming'] |
Project Retrospective | Analyzing projects
When you face a problem in your project, don’t get frustrated. Take another perspective: It’s an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to improve yourself or your team. Failure, however painful and stressful, is a resource, so embrace it.
Of course, in order for problems to benefit you, you should take time to review and learn from the experience. To simplify the learning process, start collecting postmortem data from the very beginning. Along with the project plan, set up everything to make gathering feedback as easy as possible.
Below is the minimum set of data I usually collect and review on my projects. I do it during the project execution while my and my team’s memories are still fresh.
Issue List
This list is designed to store all the issues discovered during the project execution. Every issue belongs to a defined category. When you start the analysis, you can easily identify some common patterns (for instance, which types of issues cause you the most trouble). Having this data handy not only helps prevent the same issues from happening in the future but also helps make positive process changes at the organizational level. It’s pure gold!
Risk List
Similar to the issues, the risks grouped by categories will give you insights. The next step is to collect data on the risks that became issues later on and try to understand why they turned into issues even though they were discovered early on.
Schedule Variance
Projects don’t always follow their schedules exactly, and it’s always interesting to see the variance between the baseline and the actual dates. For that, you need to define the baseline start and end dates. When the project is done, compare those dates to the actual start and end dates.
One step further is to match delays to the issues from the list above. A report like this will give you an understanding of which issues caused the timeline slippage.
Lessons Learned and Action Items
When you’re looking back at the issues, you typically form an idea of what you could have done better. For each issue, write down a lesson worth reflecting on. Sometimes it might require an action item for your team or a change request at the organizational level. Take action to really benefit from the lessons learned.
When the project is done, schedule a meeting with the internal stakeholders to review the collected data, have a good discussion, and think of ways of how to improve.
To conclude, I’ve written this note from a project manager’s perspective, but I do not believe retrospectives are something that only PMs need to do. All team members who are keen to learn from their experiences should do them to some extent. Simply journaling your thoughts and issues throughout your workdays will provide lots of benefits. Happy learning!
Originally published on bgdn.me on 31 July 2019. | https://medium.com/@bogdan-suchok/project-retrospective-ac968793cbfe | ['Bogdan Suchok'] | 2020-12-23 16:22:33.171000+00:00 | ['Retrospectives', 'Project Management'] |
“A Muslim Jesus?” | “And relate the story of Mary as mentioned in the Book. When she withdrew from her people to a place to the east, and screened herself off from them, then We sent Our angel to her, and he appeared to her in the form of a perfect man. She said, ‘I seek refuge with the Gracious God from thee if indeed thou dost fear Him.’ He replied, ‘I am only a Messenger of thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a righteous son.’ She said, ‘How can I have a son when no man has touched me, neither have I been unchaste?’ He replied, ‘Thus it is.’ But says thy Lord, ‘It is easy for Me; and We shall do so that We may make him a Sign unto men, and a mercy from Us, and it is a thing decreed.’”
You ask, what part of the New Testament are these verses from? What will you say if I tell you that these verses are not from the New Testament but are from the Muslim holy Scripture, the Qur’an, chapter 19, titled, Maryam (verses 17–22)? Surprised? Well, many Christians are unaware that Jesus (peace be on him), known as Isa in Arabic, holds a very special place in Islam. The Muslims know him as a prophet of God, honored in this world and the next and his mother, Mary, has been held in high esteem.
Now, compare the Qur’anic verses to the one from the New Testament, Gospel of Luke:
“…God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus…”. “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (1:26–35)
It were the verses quoted above from the Qur’an which brought tears to the eyes of the Abyssinian ruler, Negus, when he heard them for the first time from a Muslim who had come to him to seek asylum. Negus, who was caught by surprise at the mention of his Lord Jesus, knew without any hesitation that the small group of Muslims, who fled Mecca due to persecution, could not be telling lies and thereby granted them refuge in his land.
One may find it interesting that the Qur’an mentions Jesus many more times than the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be on him). It is indeed an article of faith that the Muslims believe in Jesus as a prophet. His life is as much a model for the followers of Islam as is emulating the Prophet Muhammad himself. He has been said to be strengthened with the Holy Spirit. The Qur’an supports this in chapter 2, verse 88.
“…and to Jesus, son of Mary, We gave manifest Signs, and strengthened him with the Spirit of holiness.”
He has been honored in this life and the next. We read in the Qur’an, “When the angels said, ‘O Mary, God gives thee glad tidings of a word from Him; his name shall be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, honored in this world and in the next, and of those who are granted nearness to God;” (3:46).
Even, as a Muslim, if I don’t celebrate Christmas I can’t help feeling good during this time of the year. It is a great joy to see the neighborhood light up with beautiful sparkling lights. Each house owner seems to want to outdo the other down the street. Children are waiting to see what gifts Santa will bring them. Mothers are already planning the menu for the family dinner. In the midst of the commercialism that Christmas has brought we should reflect upon the true meaning of this great holiday. Just as Jesus came to spread peace in the world, so should we endeavor to achieve the same. This Christmas would be a perfect time to see Jesus through the eyes of a Muslim. | https://medium.com/@sbashir222/a-muslim-jesus-a1e36fa2fb6 | ['Shahina Bashir'] | 2020-12-25 01:42:51.900000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Jesus'] |
kin ch. 2 | kin ch. 2
more to say
did your kin ever threaten your expression before it dare leak?
forbid overland excursions not traditionally traversed?
tell you to calm down?
to swell in the rain, but never sob in the sun?
and remind you to not make it too easy on yours?
//
I think we’re regimenting mass graves
dirt in the throats of children not harkened to
four triangles on every chest
crossed arms that only opened to girls
caskets fashioned from doors of intimacy closed to boys
\\
I think ghosts of corporal punishment are re-enslaving our spirit
training us to expect abuse
inscribing in us that its love’s strongest ally
summoning monsters for comparison
and slandering that it isn’t that bad
//
can we stop proving what hells we can survive?
can we kill the illusion of isolation?
smother the whispers of doubt?
trumpet worthiness and opulence?
and chill out with the war stories?
\\
I want us to share love
and not scars
share hands
and not chains
let’s do that — we might just like it | https://medium.com/kephri/kin-ch-2-54cd0a72c70d | ['Over'] | 2019-06-10 23:15:56.111000+00:00 | ['Family', 'Poetry', 'Parents'] |
Nugget of the week — Turning a funding failure into a win | This nugget was pulled from episode 160 from an interview with Brett Crosby, co-founder & COO of PeerStreet. This nugget is on turning a funding failure into a win.
Subscribe to Bank On It podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify and iHeartRadio and you’ll get these nuggets delivered every Wednesday morning.
What happens when a failed funding round occurs? Sometimes it means systemic failure, and sometimes it means one door closed for a better one to open.
This happens all the time, but building a company from scratch only to have a funding round disappear at the last moment can be painful. But if we’re prepared and paying attention, something better shows up. Luck is a mixture of hard work, preparation and being in the right place at the right time. In this clip Brett talks about a failed A round at his company Urchin Software. And then selling to Google, which became the origin of Google Analytics.
What is a nugget of the week?:
To date I’ve recorded over 300 episodes on my shows Bank On It & Before the A fintech podcasts where I interview founders building the future of fintech and the VCS/Angels who fund them.
With each interview there’s this wow moment when the person interviewed has shared something really special, unique or a reminder on how founders or investors should think. So, here we are delivering those moments to you in the form of a bite sized nugget.
This nugget is about 11 minutes:
About Brett Crosby:
Brett is the co-founder and COO of PeerStreet, a platform for investing in real estate-backed loans. Crosby was previously the director of product marketing at Google, where he co-founded Google Analytics, helped start Google’s mobile advertising business and recently ran the global marketing teams responsible for the growth of Chrome, Gmail, Docs and Drive.
About me:
I’m the host of the ‘Bank On It’ podcast recorded onsite in Wall Street at OpenFin and ‘Before the A’ podcast recorded onsite in Flat Iron at Barclays/Techstars Rise NYC. Stay in the fintech know by subscribing to ‘Bank On It’, ‘Before the A’
Follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium | https://medium.com/bank-on-it/nugget-of-the-week-turning-a-funding-failure-into-a-win-8467c985ed1f | ['John Siracusa'] | 2020-03-11 08:31:00.797000+00:00 | ['Podcast', 'Fundraising', 'Founders', 'Google Analytics', 'Fintech'] |
11,000 Scientists Declare a Climate Emergency in One Voice | 11,000 Scientists Declare a Climate Emergency in One Voice
But an investment banker writing for ‘The National Review’ doesn’t believe them
Photo by Xavier Balderas Cejudo on Unsplash
Early this morning, The National Review Online published an analysis of the United Nations’ 2014 Intragovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The article, titled “We Have Time to Prevent Climate Change,” argues that Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and other politicians on the left exaggerate the impending consequences of global warming. It further claims that they do so in direct contradiction to the science cited in the IPCC’s “5th Assessment.”
The story’s author, investment banker William Levin, contends that nuclear substitution for coal power over the next 50 years will reduce carbon emissions to acceptable levels long before disaster strikes. He adds that as-yet undeveloped technology, such as low-cost carbon sequestration systems and solar distributed battery storage, will also play a vital role in preventing a climate catastrophe.
Finally, Levin concludes that there is “plenty of time” to do what is necessary, implies that politicians who advocate for aggressive environmental measures are criminals, and claims that the left’s agenda on climate change will prove to be the “greatest avoidable burden imposed on the world, ever.” No word from Levin, however, on the avoidable burdens imposed on Americans by unregulated investment banking. | https://medium.com/discourse/11-000-scientists-declare-climate-emergency-in-one-voice-9518388f0ef7 | ['Dustin T. Cox'] | 2020-12-17 03:24:15.840000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'World', 'Climate Change', 'Energy', 'Science'] |
4 Ways You Dance With Desire | SOMETIMES there are outlooks on life you have and you don’t know you have them. Your outlook on life is a seriously potent force. In the absence of awareness, how you see, your outlook, who you think you are, your identity and what’s motivating, how desire is living in you, are a triad collaboratively and covertly sourcing your sense of self, purpose and meaning. All of us are seeing and experiencing life with a particular pair of eyes, too often not knowing what pair of eyes we’re seeing and experiencing through. Logics we live in, hidden stances, perspectives so intimate they aren’t on the self-reflection radar. In Zen we say, “ the eye that sees can’t see itself” This is subtle. We can rarely get outside of our outlook enough to get perspective on it. Sometimes someone points it out to us and sometimes life points it out, but the opportunity to see and the desire to see rarely converge. The particular outlooks I want to unfold are 4 ways you dance with desire.
The first way i’m calling object or object orientation. In Buddhist texts, there’s a lot of talk about subject and object. Subject is the sense of ‘I Am’ , the ubiquitous sense of being one who experiences, who is impressed upon, a conscious agent within a world. Sometimes we call it the sense of self. They talk about objects as all the things that subjects orient towards or experience. The whole problem of human life is boiled down to misunderstandings about the nature of this subject and object. In this object orientation, we have various objects we desire, objects that we want or want to avoid , as well as objectives we want to fulfill. An object can be an empty bladder, a nap or a meal. It can be meaningfulness in work or success in career. It could be approval or love or other inchoates. Our wanting can get more refined — wanting individuation, Nirvana, awakening, spiritual growth, etc.
The object orientation typically thinks, “What I want is not here. What I want is not here. What is meaningful to me is elsewhere.. “ “ I am in a state where I need to make contact with that which is satisfying or meaningful and I don’t have it yet. “ That can be something we consider sublime or something really ordinary. Lately, i’m fixated on Blue Star donuts here in Portland. These are fantastic donuts. I would call them sublime objects. So I get fixated on these donuts. . Another version of object orientation is “ The work that I want to do is to be done later, over there, this is not the place that I want to impact, or is worth impacting. That’s over there, in another place, somewhere in the future. We also do this with states of mind. We feel like our current state of mind is of lesser value than some other state of mind and so we orient towards the better state of mind.
This object orientation is so basic, it’s kind of redundant to write about and tease apart. But there’s some interesting questions around it. Is this just the way human life is — chasing after objects? Did this somehow happen by accident? There are spiritual mythologies that talk about some primordial time when we were in Union and had not yet split off from life as separate subjects. There was a mergedness that we lived within and then we lost it. There are various propositions of how that came to be. Most of them point to the arising of language and the sense of self co-arising with language, naming things. I can think of myself as a discreet entity because I start distinguishing things as different than me. By labeling other, not-me, me is created. Some of these not-me’s I want to contact and consume, some I want to avoid or destroy. This is a simplistic but sober summation of an unconscious human life.
The questions of how we ended up in this object orientation presuppose that it’s wrong. We’re taught about this as a fallen state and that we can or should get back to the reality before the Fall. But how do we know it’s wrong, a fallen condition? One piece of feedback is that we just can’t figure out how to feel good. Something feels off about our way of life and the object orientation towards life is pointed to as the culprit. It’s a potent logic. In some contemplative philosophies this situation is viewed as an eternal trap. Maya, the play of illusion, Samsara. The dissatisfying object orientation is perpetually self renewing, just keeps happening, you just keep wanting that Blue Star donut. We’re invited to look directly at this self-renewing dance of desire and dissatisfaction. These philosophies point out that it’s a folly to think you can ever be truly satiated because that’s presupposes there’s some solid thing in you that can be filled like a vessel. If it were like that, then great, you would fill it up, but it’s just not how it works, the self is not like a bucket. We might believe that there is some object out there with enduring qualities that will consistently hit the spot, but there isn’t. We believe that if we satisfy one part of us, we will satisfy the whole of us, but it doesn’t. Different parts of us have different desires for different objects. There’s not just one part of us that desires. We contain multitudes and thus are full of conflict and contradiction. The proposition of these contemplative philosophies is that if we let go of the object orientation, we’re free from the stress of seeking and what remains is peace, bliss, or fulfillment. Think about moments of intense pleasure and the moment after, when a new desire has not yet risen up to take its place, what’s the condition of your being? How do you feel? Maybe what you really wanted was not the thing or experience, but to extinguish the wanting for that thing or experience. Does that mean that Blue Star donuts are actually a means to Nirvana?
Sublimation is what happens when we let go of a particular object orientation so our desire flows towards an object we feel is more worthy. We start to want smarter. I like that phrase. We want smarter. Through our reflection, we know what’s worth wanting, at least for the time being, because we can’t actually rely on our desires to be consistent, can we? For example, when you’re in your twenties and you’re getting an education, you desire to go in one direction and then 10 years later, that direction is no longer meaningful to you. There’s some flavor of what’s called eternalism in this object orientation- that there is something that stays the same, that there is something that is always. With awareness you find that what you desire is mercurial, nebulous, only temporarily coalescing in patterns that bring you alive, though there certainly are life long themes. Another consequence of eternalism can be believing objects you desire are the right or the worthy ones, so you judge those who don’t share the same belief. For example, it’s not uncommon with spiritual practitioners to hold the outlook that cultivating the heart is the most meaningful thing and therefore part of them is like, “ Man, those other people don’t know what life’s really about…” “ They don’t know what really matters… if they only knew…. “
I read that we’ve been hunter gatherers for 99% of our existence as human beings. The current agricultural and post-sustenance living is relatively new. So I think we are just wired for seeking, venturing forth into the adventure of touching and relating with and consuming the world. Collectively, we’ve done this seeking for survival and pleasure for a long, long, long time. This everyday dance of desire makes juicy our slice of the drama. When this juice is absent it catches our attention, for sure. Whether it’s the root of misery, the source of everything good, both or neither, Desire is a force. Dreaming, deciding, anticipating, acquiring, repeat is juicy, it gives tangible purpose, each of us endlessly imaginating and inhabiting our own dance of a delicious life.
The next way you dance with desire i’m calling Objectless. The 13th century Japanese Zen Master Dogen Zenji said “ Don’t practice the Dharma to benefit yourself and don’t even practice it to benefit other people, practice the Dharma for the sake of the Dharma, practice the Way for the sake of the Way.… “ Dharma means truth, awareness, a bright, right-relationship intimacy with what is. In the Objectless dance you’re experiencing awareness not as medicine or a tool or an instrument to improve your or anyone else’s life. That’s an object orientation. Experiencing awareness, not as a medicine or a tool, seeing itself has meaningfulness, seeing itself is bright.
Just to see, just to experience, is the fulfillment of life.
There’s a discipline of this called objectless meditation. In Zen, it’s called shikantaza. There’s really two things to it. First, you don’t focus on anything in particular. You let awareness rest in its own nature. Second, you don’t have a goal. They come together, awareness and no goal, because as long as you have a goal, then what is really here, you can’t fully experience it, you’re oriented, however subtly, away from what is happening. When you have a goal than a goal parameters your body, your heart and your mind. You can see that when you sit and meditate with the orientation of no goal, how much instinct, impulse and habit there is to correct experience, the orientation towards comfort. “ My mind needs to be a little bit more… my body needs to be a little bit more … “ With objectless meditation, you’re feeding on the space of being. You’re nourished by the energy of your own existing. The universe enjoys itself with utmost nearness. This is uncommonly empowering. These practices arose outside of a capitalist context and are especially beautiful within this capitalist context- a practice that is about being nourished by the energy of your own existing.
Now the tricky thing is that this very way of being tends to become an object you desire. As soon as you hear it’s a good thing, you go chasing it. For example, “ I’m chasing donuts. I’d rather not chase donuts. I’d rather feed on my own energy. That sounds much more spiritual. “ It happens like that. The new, more spiritual object presents to your mind as desirable. Reflect on your life- when you aren’t motivated by object desire, in that interval, how are you motivated? I like to think about desires as animating us. A particular desire is living through you and when there isn’t a desire living through you, what is living through you? What’s it like when you don’t want things to be different, not even an iota? What is animating you at that time? You’re still alive.
We’re always dealing with dualities. Anything you can say or conceive falls on one side or another of a polarity. Now we’re talking about the objectless orientation, but that implicates the object orientation. The Asian traditions say that desirelessness is liberation. In that, do you have nothing you desire or a different relationship to what you desire? Is it a different relationship to the experience, the energy of desire itself? Because in awareness we can have desire and have some room to choose how we respond to it. It’s not necessarily that you have to extinguish desire but how you respond to the arising of desire in the moment. When desire arises in an accommodating ,welcoming mind and body, it’s an invigorating, deepening force.
With this objectless way, you become available to be of service. You’re available to serve because your energy and attention are less object oriented. Inner space and energy are freed up. There’s room to see where you might best be of service. This is a practice in itself, this is definitely a practice in monasteries and ashrams. I think this might be the practice of mothers and fathers and any caretaker. When it’s healthy, you transcend yourself. You’re freed from the object orientation through a whole hearted offering of your being. Usually my attitude towards this is, “ Oh, I really don’t want to do that because my desires are important and I want to fulfill them. “ But when I’m in a situation where I’m consenting to service, i’m lifted out of my desires and it’s a big relief. It all depends on whether you consent to the situation or not.
Of course, service can be object oriented. We can so easily slide into that. I find it hard to believe that any teacher or parent doesn’t ever work with the desire to want their child or their student to be healed or happy or transformed in the way they desire them to be healed or happy or transformed. We’re in the freedom of objectless service and the object orientation slips in. We want to see the result of our service. What then happens, energy is drained, drained by disappointment, leaked in the futile effort to control. The one object you have the least control over is a human being, who they become and how they unfold.
There’s a certain magic I’ve seen in people that are holding a vision of their service’s outcome. This magic is holding a vision of its outcome, having a particular aspiration and working towards it, really wanting to see the change- to see the project come to fruition, to see the healing, and yet they do this with a freedom from hope and disappointment. It’s magic because usually when we don’t have expectation, we disinvest our energy from a relationship or endeavor. To fully live, to give fully, without expectation is something marvelous.
The next way you dance with desire I’ll call Co-Creation. To set the stage, I want to take a little detour into Buddhist philosophy. In essence, Buddhism is about being freed from the belief in eternalism and belief in nihilism. I want to context this within purpose. Desiring purpose or meaning is a desire that is hard or perhaps impossible to shake, right? Most people feel that life should have purpose. When you’re in the belief and outlook of eternalism, you feel that there is an inherent purpose to life or there is one true purpose for you or other people or the world. That life is for X. That’s what it is for everyone, all the time, not just for you at this moment.
Thinking that there is some thing, person or way of being that will never let you down or will always infuse your life with purpose is also eternalism. It’s not true. For it to be true, you would have to be able to press pause on the flow of reality. But your mind is a living entity, permeating and being permeated by the world, knowing no stasis. In nihilism, on the other hand, you not only see and feel that there is no inherent purpose, there’s no making of purpose or sense of purpose that’s not self-delusional. No matter actually matters. People are fooling themselves, nihlism thinks, life is empty, hollow and it’s best for them to get on with bearing this.
In the mode of Co-Creation, you’re not seeing or feeling purpose as a given or as non-existent or delusional. It’s not divinely ordained or built into existence, neither you nor anyone else were born with an unchanging, inherent meaning to your life. Yet you know you can respond to your circumstances and make those meaningful. Being free from purposelessness and inherent purpose, you creatively author an engaged life. You see clearly the nature of desire, you understand the rules of the game. You know that things can’t be leaned on too much, you get that, you’re okay with that, and still you decide not to leave desire behind. You fully engage in life for its juice. You know you don’t lack anything fundamentally yet you still choose the work of shaping your life one way or another. You know that no thing, action or way of being is the final solution or ultimate way for you or anyone else, yet you still choose to engage wholeheartedly. You are choosing what you will lose and suffer loss over. But now it’s conscious. You choose the way you’d like to wander in the dream of life. You make meaning or purpose for yourself in a conscious participation in the comedy of life. It doesn’t mean for a time that a project or work or relationship is not desired or meaningful. It means exactly that- for a time, this project, this relationship, this activity is desirable or meaningful. You know that it’s going to transform and still you choose to engage an ongoing co-creation of meaning with life.
The last way you dance i’m calling Play. Play is when you have no orientation. You’re unhooked from the past and the future. You’re unhooked from the polarity of the object or objectless orientation. Desires aren’t yanking your body and mind around. Ideals aren’t shrouding you. Shame isn’t shaping your heart because shame needs something from the past to be ashamed of. In Play, you’re untethered from the past, present with no reference, and thus your world is enchanted with a neverbeforeness. I remember being in the mountains, encountering a cloud and being struck wordless, suspended in a virgin moment, seeing for the time. Play can spontaneously animate you.You might hear your name and feel that what that name refers to is a vastness such that whatever you call it is correct. The idea that you are unworthy or unholy or needing improvement or redemption or enlightenment isn’t there. The idea that you are worthy, you are enlightened, you are a badass, isn’t shaping your actions. You’re lighthearted because your heart is not carrying the weight of desire in the form of should be. You’re not shoulding upon yourself or accepting the shoulds of others.
Think about the obstacles to Play. Consensus reality and the people under its spell find this mode of play strange or offensive to their adult sensibilities. It’s threatening. If you’re serious in your affect and outlook or if you are heavy hearted, you tend to think that everyone should be heavy hearted — it’s the proper, sober response to the seriousness of life. Someone who’s not serious may fall in love, criticize or be at odds with the Playful. They think they’re doing life wrong, violating a sacred principle of maturity. Culturally, we only allow children and clowns and actors and some mystics the ability to be this way for more than a few moments. Misery loves company, right? We want grown people to be serious and heavy hearted like us because if they’re not, it invites an introspective look at this seriousness.
Play is childlike, but not childish. A critic might say, “ This is just regression to a primitive or a childish stage or development. “ Perhaps sometimes that’s whats happening with folks, but not here. Play is not irresponsibility. It’s a responsiveness free of self-righteousness and it’s biases and indifference and it’s numbness. You have a healthy ego, but it’s light. The self, world and objects are there, but they’re there lightly and you’re holding them lightly, if at all. The self and the world are not decided on as being one way or another. Say you have a belief that it’s a Dog Eat Dog World. Your grandfather had that belief and your grandmother, and then your mother inherited it and transmitted it to you. It got deeply embedded and you unknowingly see through those eyes. In contrast, you don’t know if the world is Dog Eat Dog or not and you don’t need to know if it is or not. You don’t need to have a position about anything and that’s why you can play, trusting your portion of being and the world arising from trusting your portion of being. Speaking of the arising world, the worlds of contemplative practice and socio-political engagement are beginning to really intersect in our times so the playful activist is emerging and inspiring- a freely shapeshifting, when necessary code-switching, big-hearted human, stresslessly sparking change with a Coyote laughter.
So those are 4 ways you dance with desire. It goes without saying this is not an authoritative statement about who you are or how desire is. All of the aforementioned dances may be, after all, the same. Or there might be 7 ways to dance with desire and 30 ways to view those dances. There may not even be such a thing as desire, when we look real close. I wrote this because it seems a desire to amplify awareness in the world animates me. I want people to be happy and free, thus I’ve tried to convince you to desire an awakened relationship with desire. Because you can live your dance and simultaneously be empowered with metacognition of your dance, seeing how you’re doing the dance as you do it. You work and you love and at the same time you see how and why you’re working, how and why you’re loving. You see the orientation you’re in and with that seeing another way to do you can open up. I believe you have tasted all these states of being, if only in a dream. In a waking dream, Plato taught that the universe and all its creatures are animated by Eros, the archetypal force of desire. Desire. How is it dancing you? | https://medium.com/@adam-jogen-salzberg/4-ways-you-dance-with-desire-eb66500af96 | ['Adam Jogen Salzberg'] | 2020-12-23 20:46:12.418000+00:00 | ['Meaning', 'Identity', 'Play', 'Buddhism', 'Desire'] |
AYS Daily Digest 10/6/19: Illegal and violent pushback for a family of 15 people by the Croatian Police | AYS Daily Digest 10/6/19: Illegal and violent pushback for a family of 15 people by the Croatian Police
Deprivation of liberty in Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina // New fence at the border of Croatia // Boat of 100 people ignored by Malta // Turkish Coast Guard pick ups // the continuing causalities in the Syrian Civil War // and more… Sanja Sanja Follow Jun 11, 2019 · 5 min read
Are You Syrious?
Jun 11
Featured
Croatia has erected a spiked metal fence on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina near the crossings Gejkovac and Pašin Potok yesteday.
That is surely the effect of the EU’s support to enforcing Croatian “discouragement” tactics that are basically illegal collective expulsions and violence imposed on the people who are found at the border area, but also within the country.
No Name Kitchen reports on a disturbing and ILLEGAL pushback by the Croatian police of a family of 15 people:
“They explained to the volunteers that when the family was caught by the Croatian police in the forest, after around 10 km walked after the border, they were pushed back — we insist that there are no safe routes for people to access Western Europe, leaving them no other choice but to walk through the forests, hidden during 10 or 15 days to get the chance to apply for asylum. Once they were near the Bosnian border, the men were forced to take off their shoes and hand them to the police officers. One of the women had a black eye. She told the volunteers that she was slapped on the face by a police officer just when they were about to humiliate the men by leaving them barefoot in the forest near the border.”
“After the deportation, one of the men, the father of the girl in the picture, was pushed by a police officer and he stumbled and felt on top of her daughter, who returned to Bosnia with a heavy pain in her elbow. She went to the hospital and, althought she had no x-ray, her parents were worried that she had a fractured bone and she was bandaged.” Photo by No Name Kitchen
In Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as we reported yesterday, the situation has escalated at the cost of the most vulnerable groups of people. The camp is now reportedly closed, without the possibility of freely moving in or out for the people stuck there. Limited movement has also been imposed on the people who are outside the camp and deprived of any humanitarian or legal remedies from the nominally responsible organisation.
These conditions are by no means compliant with any Human Rights obligations, or humanitarian approach of any sort. The country has decided to literally imprison people and the international community obviously benefits from that, considering the vague — if any — reactions and no actions to oppose these decisions.
Funding and money questions should certainly not keep anyone from standing up to injustice and ill-treatment amounting to torture at this point.
In yesterday’s news digest we wrote about the boy who fell from a tall construction site building leaving him with severe consequences. This is the building. If this is seen as a safe heaven, there is no need to say much more. (Photo: Udruženje Solidarnost — Bosnia)
Syria
In some updates from the White Helmets (Syria’s Civil Defense) one can truly see the destruction many Syrians fled from in coming to Europe.
AYS continues to stand in solidarity, and will always do so.
They report that:
→ A woman was killed while her four children were injured in the attack on the town Kafr Battikh in southern Idlib Monday afternoon
→ Three men were killed and three others were injured in the Russian warplane attack near khan Sheikhoun City in southern Idlib Monday morning
→ A pregnant woman was killed and 24 people (including 16 children) were injured in a regime attack on the town of Maar Shoreen in southern Idlib on Monday
Turkey
Aegean Boat Report confirms that a boat with 54 people (27 children, 13 women and 13 men) was picked up by the Turkish Coast Guard on Friday morning.
“The route from Karaburun and Fokaia was frequently used last summer, and has now started up again. The distance is 40 kilometers, and is considered the most dangerous route towards Lesvos. Apart from the distance, there is no cellphone coverage and it’s a heavily trafficked shipping lane. In the past week many boats have been stopped in this area.”
Sea
Sea Watch International reports that at 1pm on Monday, Alarm Phone warned them of a boat with 100 people. The boat was in distress for three days. Yet the Maltese army only intervened two hours after their request was sent.
Alarm Phone adds:
“The people on board report that they have run out of food and water, and that some are panicking. Some are very sick and need immediate medical attention. There are children on board as well as women, some of whom are pregnant.”
Salvamento Marítimo rescued 50 men and two women on Sunday in the Alboran Sea. They were taken to the fishing port of Almería. Learn more here.
Greece
Athens
An open discussion is planned on Tuesday, June 11, at 18h at the Polytechnic faculty, on how to act collectively against current and future evictions. Affected people are extremely welcome to come and share their story, and think of ways of supporting them together.
Safe Space International’s community centre for LGBTQ+ persons (mentioned in the article tweeted above) needs your support! Click here to find out more about how you can help the first LGBTQ+ community centre in the capital.
Apart from daily news in English, we also publish weekly summaries in Arabic and Persian. Find them all on our Medium page.
We strive to echo correct news from the ground through collaboration and fairness. Every effort has been made to credit organizations and individuals with regard to the supply of information, video, and photo material (in cases where the source wanted to be accredited). Please notify us regarding corrections.
If there’s anything you want to share or comment, contact us through Facebook or write to: areyousyrious@gmail.com | https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-daily-digest-10-6-19-illegal-and-violent-pushback-for-a-family-of-15-people-by-the-croatian-b5bf9a4ecf4a | ['Sanja Sanja'] | 2019-06-11 15:46:16.381000+00:00 | ['Refugees', 'Digest', 'Greece', 'Bosnia', 'Turkey'] |
Emotion Prediction Web App to Heroku Deployment | The dataset has 14000+ words with their translation in other languages and the emotion they represent. For our applicaation we only consider the English word and the emotions it represents.
required data
The emotions with which we deal in this problem are Positive, Negative, Anger, Anticipation, Disgust, Fear, Joy, Sadness, Surprise and Trust.
To begin with we load the dataset in pandas dataframe, and select the required columns.
database=pd.read_csv('data.csv')
database=database[['English(en)','Positive','Negative',\
'Anger','Anticipation',\
'Disgust', 'Fear', 'Joy', 'Sadness',\ Surprise','Trust']]
spaCy is a free, open-source library for advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Python. We use this library for the tokenization of the raw text and its lemmatization. For our use we download the English small pretrained model. It assigns context-specific token vectors, POS tags, dependency parse and named entities.
The model can be downloaded by running the code:
python -m spacy download en_core_web_sm
For more information regarding spacy visit their website, https://spacy.io/usage/spacy-101
We load this model into our program and separeate out the stopwords.Stopwords are those words which do not carry any specific meaning of their own, they are used as fillers in sentences. So removing the stopwords from our raw text saves us computational time.
nlp=spacy.load('en_core_web_sm')
stopwords=nlp.Defaults.stop_words
The stopwords predefined in Spacy are,
Stopwords
We than split the raw text, using the builtin string method .split() which splits the sentence on ‘ spaces‘ and returns a list of words, and then remove the stopwords from the list of words and also remove the punctuations presents in the list.
txt=txt.split()
for i in txt:
if i in stopwords:
txt.remove(i)
if i in string.punctuation:
txt.remove(i)
The list of words are joined and then the sentence is given to the NLP model.
txt=' '.join(txt)
doc=nlp(txt)
Consider the sentence, ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away.’ After performing the above mentioned operations we will have the output sentence as,
This doc object contains tokens, we are interested in tokens and their lemma (base words). i.e. if in our sentence we have the word running, its base word ‘run’ will be returned. Same will be for other words like ran, runs etc.
So we loop over the doc object to get each and every token , and compare each token with our dataset of words present to get the emotion present with it. For example for the word — Doctor we will get,
The word ‘Doctor’ shows or signifies emotions like Trust and Positive vibes. This is done for all the words in the sentence and a count of all the emotions occuring in the sentence is kept.
emotions=[]
for token in doc:
a=0
a=database.loc[database['English (en)']==token.lemma_]
a=a.values
a=a[:,1:]
a=sum(a.tolist(),[])
columns=['Positive', 'Negative', 'Anger', 'Anticipation',
'Disgust', 'Fear', 'Joy', 'Sadness', 'Surprise','Trust']
dictionary={}
for A,B in zip(columns,a):
dictionary[A]=B
for key, value in dictionary.items():
if value == 1:
emotions.append(key)
So for our above sentence we get the following output,
The count of each emotion is taken using Counter and it is visually represented using matplotlib’s barplot.
The x-axis represents the Emotions and y-axis reperesents the count of emotions occuring. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/emotion-prediction-web-app-to-heroku-deployment-a33d9dbafd71 | [] | 2020-10-27 13:10:24.203000+00:00 | ['Sentiment Analysis', 'Python', 'Flask', 'NLP', 'Heroku'] |
How NASA Uses Social Media to Bring Space to Everyone | Social Media Lead Stephanie L. Smith outlines her best practices for using social media to further the agency’s mission — sharing science with the greatest number of people possible.
NASA sent a robotic spacecraft called Phoenix to the north polar region of Mars. The solar-powered lander’s mission was to explore the planet’s habitability and history of water. Its landing on Mars was big news, but news that fell on Memorial Day weekend, when most science and technology reporters were more likely to be at barbecues than at their desks. So Veronica McGregor, the agency’s news and social media manager, made a radical decision: She announced the event on Twitter.
“Twitter was a really new thing at that point, and she thought, ‘What the heck. It doesn’t cost anything. I’m going to give it a whirl,’” says Stephanie L. Smith, the social media lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). As a rule, NASA headquarters breaks its own news, and McGregor saw to it that her blow-by-blow tweets of Phoenix’s Mars landing followed the agency’s policies and procedures for the release of information. Since McGregor’s pioneering mission onto Twitter, social media has been one of the principal ways that NASA communicates with the media and the public around the world. Today, the agency has more than 700 social accounts distributed across 10 U.S. field centers.
Smith is the chief liaison between social media at JPL in Pasadena, California, and the social media team at NASA headquarters and other NASA centers. Together, they advance the agency’s mission of sharing its science investigations, engineering marvels, and space activities with the widest audience possible. Smith follows strict rules, a feature of any federal entity, but she also abides by her own playbook for telling compelling stories that will grab readers’ attention. Here, Smith details her strategy for keeping NASA fans engaged and trolls at bay.
Stephanie L. Smith, Social Media Lead,
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Match your tone and timing to the subject matter and audience.
This is Communications 101, right? Know who your audience is and the message you’re trying to communicate, then let your word choice and your timing and the tools flow from there. We would never have the kind of light-hearted fun that we do on a Curiosity tweet from Mars that might have song lyrics in it or a reference to some awesome ’80s movie if we’re talking about a natural disaster that’s led to loss of life and property. Veronica learned quickly that the audience on one of our accounts, @AsteroidWatch, is very different from the average space fan. These people are worried about low-flying asteroids headed for planet Earth. (Note: There are no known asteroids headed for Earth.) At one point, I believe a period for applications was closing, and Veronica started her tweet with “Hurry.” The followers freaked out. They said, “Please never ever ever start a tweet with that word here.”
Social media is a two-way conversation.
Before venturing onto social media, we would only get national and international pickups if something was launching, something was landing, or something blew up. But the kind of day-to-day operations of science and engineering wasn’t something the average assignment editor was going to pick up and use to greenlight a story. Social media gave us a chance to start pulling back the curtain a little bit and showing what incremental science and exploration looks like on a day-to-day basis.
That said, the nature of the medium is to be a conversation. Nobody wants to talk to someone at the party who only talks about themselves and then walks away. We try to listen as much as we speak.
Don’t feed the trolls.
That’s the number-one rule I tell my team, and that’s what I tell people at JPL when advising them on their use of social media. When you get down into the muck, nobody wins. That said, it’s always worth testing that relationship, because sometimes someone might phrase something in a way online that you’re not sure if they’re trying to troll you or if they have a legitimate question. But pretty soon into the interaction, you can figure out the level of earnestness. One of my favorite things to do is to explain something to somebody that maybe they didn’t get before, or they just didn’t have access to the information. Then you can feel the light bulb go on when they get it.
A well-timed AMA (short for “ask me anything”) can be a beautiful thing.
I love doing AMAs (a subreddit for question-and-answer interactive interviews). We don’t do them often. We do them when we have really big news to share. My favorite timing for them is maybe one to two hours after major news has broken, when headlines are starting to circulate and people are seeing it in their feeds, and they have just enough information to be able to formulate some really good questions. That’s when we’ll show up in an AMA and say, “Hey, we’re scientists and engineers from NASA to talk about [insert news of the day].” We did this when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had evidence of liquid water flowing on Mars. And we did this after the discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system, the seven Earth-size planets about 40 light-years from Earth. Those conversations were incredible, because people had just heard about it, and then we were with the actual experts to be able to take on the questions.
Over more than 14 years, Oppy transmitted 217,594 images, including a selfie.
Don’t be a robot — even when you are one.
With credit to David-Michel Davies at the Webby Awards for that one, which is what he said after he interviewed me and Veronica about the work that we do here, and then put together a report for the Webbys. It’s absolutely true. We do have a lot of accounts in the first person, like the Phoenix and Curiosity accounts. It’s easy to anthropomorphize a rover because we always have stereoscopic cameras on them, which means it looks like they have eyes. From eyes, it’s easy to imagine a face. There’s this natural human response to look at these little robots almost like Wall-E and feel a personal connection to them. Then, when they’re tweeting in first person and telling you what they did at work today, it’s easy to cheer for them.
Recognize a story’s epic potential.
The Opportunity Mars rover lasted a really long time and far longer than it was expected to last. It was made for a 90-day mission, or 90 sols, really. A sol is a Martian day, which is 24 hours and 39 minutes long. But both Spirit and Opportunity were only designed to be up there and working for about three months. Spirit lasted more than six years, and Opportunity was active and moving on the surface for more than 14 years. That’s a really long time to be out there in the news, to be sharing science and pictures — such beautiful pictures from the surface of Mars. Opportunity showed us sunrises and sunsets and clouds moving and dust devils. These are pictures that would come in a raw feed directly from the spacecraft to the mission website.
Opportunity’s demise was very operatic in its scale. Your hero can only be as great as the foe they’re facing. In Opportunity’s case, the dust storm was the baddie. So we’ve got this intrepid rover that has lasted many times over its original-design life facing the worst dust storm in recorded Martian history. It was incredible, and it was epic in the formal sense of those words. If we had to say good-bye, I think that it was a fitting and awesome thing to be the final chapter for that very storied mission.
Magenta is a publication of Huge. | https://magenta.as/how-nasa-uses-social-media-to-bring-space-to-everyone-74c8eae38a34 | ['Belinda Lanks'] | 2019-07-10 18:08:52.140000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Space', 'NASA', 'Mars', 'Science'] |
Deep Cloning Objects and Arrays in Javascript | There are times when we need to create a copy of the data inside a variable so that we can manipulate it without the risk of changing the original data referenced.
Now, more often than not, when you initiate the copy of a variable into another one, you expect that if you modify the new one, the original will keep the same value. In Javascript, this is easy if we are working with primitive values, but if we want to copy Arrays or Objects, reaching our goal becomes a little bit trickier.
In JavaScript, there are two ways to copy a variable value:
Shallow clone
Deep clone
Before we define what a Shallow Clone and Deep Clone are, I’m going to talk about copying primitive data types.
When we are working with primitive values, we don’t need to worry about shallow or deep cloning when copying variables, because when you create a copy of them, there will always be a brand new copy of its value on the receiver’s end.
Primitive data types are the building blocks of many programming languages and in JavaScript, they are defined by:
Boolean
String
Number
Undefined
Null
Symbol (this one is new in ES6)
Let’s see an example:
As you can see above, when we copy a primitive value and then we update the new variable, the original reference doesn’t get affected by the change.
So now that we have proven that primitive values don’t modify the original one, we need to define what is a Shallow or a Deep Clone when we try to copy an Object or an Array.
What is Shallow Cloning?
When we do a Shallow Clone, a new Array or Object is not created, instead a copy of the references is created i.e., only the memory addresses are copied. So if we were to make changes to the entries or members of the new copy, then effectively we will be making changes to the data referenced by the original one, as both variables will be pointing to the same memory space.
What is Deep Cloning?
A Deep Clone means actually creating a brand new Array or Object and iteratively copying over the values into new structures; this way, changes to it will never affect the original one and vice-versa.
Let’s take a look at how this works, say we have a simple array with Primitive Values inside, for example:
const simpleArray = [1,2,3];
If we copy this array to another variable and then we modify the new one, we can see that both arrays were affected.
In the example above we made a Shallow Clone. This could be a problem sometimes if we expect the original variable will not be affected by changes into the new copy. It is very common to get a problem like this one and we can spend a lot of time debugging until we realize that we are actually doing a Shallow Clone.
Now, we can get the same error with an Object, for example:
It is important to say that when we copy Arrays and/or Objects, we are copying them by reference instead of by value.
So, how can I avoid this? Well, it’s pretty easy! We can use the spread operator (ES5+).
The Spread Operator on arrays works as
The Spread Operator on Objects work as
Also, for Object’s data we can use Object.assign, for example:
So, what about nested Objects and Arrays?
The nested objects inside of that object or array will still be a reference/pointer to the original, so if we make a copy and then we update the new one, it will update the original as well. For example:
So, what can we do if we have nested Arrays and Objects?
We can use our secret weapon JSON.parse() and JSON.stringify(). First, we turn an object into a string and then we parse it to an object again, doing it this way ensures that we can create a complete new nested array and/or object.
We just did our deep clone successfully 🎉.
I hope this helps you, saves you lots of hours of debugging and testing, and it made for an insightful reading 😉 | https://medium.com/leafgrowio-engineering/deep-cloning-objects-and-arrays-in-javascript-3e8936c3aefe | ['Kevin Mora Gamboa'] | 2019-05-24 16:26:48.343000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Arrays', 'Cloning'] |
Divine for dummies | Divine for dummies
Humans are social learners. We influence and learn from each other.
This can be seen best in a newborn.
When it comes into the world, it has no idea as to what to do with the wiggling parts of its own body. Or how to use them.
It looks at our moving palms as if they were aliens dancing to a folk song.
It is intrigued by our body that looks similar, yet bigger than its own.
Slowly, It learns to move its fingers, palms, legs…
All just by imitation of its fellow beings. Because imitation is the foremost tool for learning.
The surrounding that it learns from, also sets the limitations and the direction of growth for the newborn in the initial stages.
Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash
Think about it:
If the humans around the baby walked on all fours, the newborn would believe that the maximum capacity of its body is walking on all fours.
As we grow up, we are not much different from an infant in how we learn.
We still learn a lot through imitation.
Imitation is the form of social learning that leads to the “development of traditions, and ultimately our culture”
We are influenced by our culture in how we think and behave. And this comes from imitating the others in our own culture.
We imitate the person that we like the most. It could be a family member, sports, or a movie star. We study them, analyze their behavior, and in this process inevitably imitate them. And this changes our outlook and behavior.
When a person near us or a friend has surpassed the obstacles that we are facing, we feel like our mental blocks are removed.
We now know the way to easily get past the obstacle in front of us; if it’s similar to what our friend had faced. Our friend could do it. That means we could do it too. We then look at our own obstacle with ease. This would have been difficult if we have not seen someone else solve such a problem for themselves in the first place.
Travel with a businessman and you might start to think that money need not be tough to make. And it becomes your reality. Our understanding of money changes. We change.
So If we learn from others by imitation, WHO could be the most ideal person to imitate?
Because the person we choose to imitate sets the ceiling for us as to what extent we can grow as a person.
We cannot grow beyond the ideal that we set for ourselves.
This is why we need to be careful of who we are a “fan” of.
We let them influence us subconsciously.
Our ancestors have foreseen this problem. They have known that we all need an unchanging, unaffected, pure entity that we all can idealize, learn, and celebrate - so that the characteristics of that ideal could seep into us. And this ideal cannot be another human being. Because a human is fragile and prone to changing with his surroundings.
Could this be why humans needed the idea of God in the first place?
Think about it. Humans are creative beings. To serve a purpose we could name the entity in different names. But ultimately this entity is the one worthy of our idealization and imitation.
This entity sets the infinite potential for our growth.
We are all derived from an underlying core of perfection. A pristine, incorruptible core that remains immaculate, no matter what we do or suffer. When we go astray, it is because we forget this core which is our true nature, which is effortlessly and genuinely moral, fair, unafraid, and immensely powerful - Nekesa Ouma Namulu
Different groups of people could have a different set of characteristics set for this perfect identity that they connect with. For some, It could be Jesus. For some, It could be Allah. For some others, it could be Krishna, Shiva, etc. Many cultures have many different ideals created according to their own culture/environment etc.
If we constantly study and observe the behavior/nature of this perfect entity, we are influenced by this perfect self.
This is called the Michelangelo effect in Psychology: “When we envision a reality that seems a million miles away from a less than ideal present, we give the brain something to work with, triggering new trains of thought and beginning the magical process of transforming our lives” — Nekesa Ouma Namulu
The knowledge that we then gain would surpass the knowledge we gain from reading books or humans around us.
Our behavior would change.
And as we keep imitating and adopting the features of this entity, we slowly become that entity itself. And by studying the divine, you are closer to divine than before. So maybe in the process we become one with the divine!
By studying the divine, you become one with the divine.
Namaste!
Dharani Mallikarjunan
P.S — I understand that divine is a personal experience and I have only tried to bring out my understanding of how we can all begin our journey towards the divine. What do you think? Share your thoughts here! | https://medium.com/@atmayogashala/divine-for-dummies-d96619fdd7d6 | ['Atma Yoga Shala'] | 2020-12-23 07:02:17.839000+00:00 | ['Divine', 'Psychology', 'Yoga', 'God', 'Humanity'] |
Fuck Me Mindless | You straddle my shoulders, aligning your balls to my mouth. I’m dizzy with your smell and automatically start painting your balls with my tongue making them dripping wet. I look up to see you’ve got a firm grip on your cock and you’re stroking, pulling your balls up, and grinding down as I suck one and then the other, then both. My mouth is full and I swirl my tongue and gently suck, my eyes locking with yours.
You push up to release your balls from my mouth and I whimper and fight to keep them, but you win and they release with a pop. You run your now wet sack all over my mouth, cheeks and nose, then move down a little so you’re straddling my chest and roughly grab and pinch my hard nipples, positioning my tits and nuzzling your hard black cock between them.
Looking down into my blue eyes, you make a carnal sound before you prepare my chest by spitting on it so you can easily slide your cock between my tits.
My pussy is so hot and wet. Reaching down I rub my clit, just like the way you taught me to, the way that makes my pussy soaking wet, you love to watch and listen to how wet I get. I am perfectly sensitive and needy.
I tuck my neck down and open my mouth waiting, I need to taste you. You stroke up and thrust between my tits right into my hot, wet, waiting mouth. I align the rhythm of my moans so that your cock slides through my tits and hits the back of my throat. You moan against my humming vibrations.
I can’t stand how hot you look, the noises were making, the pressure on my tits. You’re fucking my throat, and it’s amazing. You’re moaning and thrusting and telling me “You’re gonna get all this cum, where do you want it Nia? Fucking, tell me where you want it?” you demand.
I can’t think. I can’t talk. I am so turned on. I’m concentrating on too many things at once. I look into your eyes with need and I know instantly that you’re going to cum.
I clamp down on your cock as it hits my throat again deep. You’re fucking my mouth fast and hard as your cum gushes into my waiting mouth. I swallow fast and cum hard as my fingers speed across my clit in a frenzy.
You withdraw stroking my hair, that sexy smirk I’ll never tire of, decorates your face. You leant in kissing me, you know how crazy it makes me when you taste yourself in a kiss. I moan against your mouth. Our bodies glisten with a sheen of perspiration.
You leave my mouth to suck my nipples hard, biting and nipping them, kissing my neck. I feel cherished and used and needy again.
“You need to cum again? Maybe I’ll make you my precious little slut?” you tease.
You know my body so well and slide a finger inside me, feeling how much my pussy needs your cock buried deep, how it clenches against your finger, pretending it’s your cock and attempting to milk you dry with my tightness.
You tell me to hold my pussy lips open so you can watch my hard little clit dance while you try to add another finger into my tight sensitive puss.
I moan and squirm around your long fingers begging for more, but you torture me staying perfectly still, except for scissoring your two fingers trying to make room for one more.
Your fingers are burning hot inside me and dripping wet, you slowly withdraw all three fingers and then with a corkscrew motion you quickly shove them deep inside. When you’re buried as far as you can go you wiggle your middle finger against my G-spot for a count of three and then slowly slide out of me.
I am loosing my mind, you’re keeping me on the cusp of a huge orgasm and its fucking torture.
“You’re not allowed to cum yet Nia” you tell me “I won’t let you cum until it’s my dick buried even further inside of you. I want to feel you cum all over my big cock” all the while pushing me closer and closer by slapping my poor sensitive clit with your cock.
I’m begging you so pretty, to “please…please let me cum on your cock. “Please shove it deep inside me so I can cum all over you” I beg. I need you so bad tears are streaming down my face from trying so hard to hold back.
You love watching me suffer in pleasure, begging for release. You wish you could keep it up, but you can’t wait to bury yourself inside me.
You suddenly slide your fingers out and slide your cock in as fast and hard as you can, pushing as deep as you can go, making me scream.
You can’t believe how fucking tight and hot my pussy feels, your toes curl as it takes everything inside you to glide your big fat cock out of me slowly, until just the head, is nuzzled inside. You feel my pussy gripping you trying desperately not to let you leave me.
“that’s right baby, you wanna cum all over the tip of this big cock?” you ask me “you going to thank me for this cock with your cum?” you taunt.
When you reach up and pull and pinch on my hard nipples my hand automatically goes to my clit and I rub so hard. When you feel the beginning of my orgasm you slide in and fuck me hard and fast against the convulsions of my orgasm and my pussy squirts all over you. My cheeks burn with heady addictive release and borderline shame, that only comes from letting you own my pleasure so completely.
You repeat this three times — loving how I can’t stop cumming how each orgasm builds, ebbs, brakes and builds again.
But you demand more. You pull out suddenly until it’s just the tip again.
“you want more of this dick baby” you groan “then you know what I need from you. Tell me what I want to hear.” You demand.
I don’t miss a beat because I need you so badly.
“Fuck my ass I whimper, please fuck my ass hard”. You don’t hesitate and slide your dripping wet cock right into my ass. I’d let you do anything to my body in this state, I’m overwhelmed by how dirty, hot and sexy you always make me feel.
It’s so tight you don’t make it more than 4 strokes until you’re filling my ass with your hot cum. It feels amazing, a soothing balm that pushes me over then instantly calms me as I gently float back down to earth.
You collapse on top of me, still buried deep enjoying the aftershocks of my weak, limp body.
You know exactly how to fuck me mindless. | https://medium.com/erotic-prose-poetry/fuck-me-mindless-f0bbd4f160a9 | ['Nia Amara'] | 2015-09-07 10:07:09.472000+00:00 | ['Erotica', 'Interracial', 'Sex'] |
BEST WAYS TO ELIMINATE A STUBBORN DOUBLE CHIN | Constantly covering up your neck with scarves? Terrified of being caught in profile in a photo? Spend months dieting and exercising, only to find that your chin is still larger than you’d like? Countless people struggle with a double chin. In a 2015 American Society for Dermatologic Surgery survey, 67% of the participants said they were bothered by submental fullness. This means that just as many people dislike their chin as do fine lines and wrinkles. But not all resign themselves to a chin that saps their confidence.
Today’s double chin treatment options are extensive, and there’s one that will perfectly suit your needs. How do you figure out exactly what that is? Research, reflection, and professional guidance. Get started on those first two steps with our double chin primer below. And schedule a complimentary consultation to talk treatments — and take advantage of our October jawline sculpting specials. Don’t put up with a profile that makes feel anything less than beautiful.
DOUBLE CHIN CAUSES
You may feel particularly frustrated if you’re generally slim, but have a layer of fat beneath the chin. This is more common than you might expect. A series of factors play into submental fullness, and while weight gain is one of them, it’s by no means the primary cause.
Weight — Subcutaneous fat gathers directly under the skin and gradually sags over time. Those carrying extra weight on their frames are more likely to see a double chin because of the additional fatty tissue.
gathers directly under the skin and gradually sags over time. Those carrying extra weight on their frames are more likely to see a double chin because of the additional fatty tissue. Age — Aging has a slew of negative effects on the skin, and the area under the chin is not immune. Internal scaffolding structures and support systems like collagen and elastin cause the face and neck to sag downwards. Wrinkles form around the chin, making fat in the area more noticeable. The muscles in the chin also weaken, releasing some of their hold on the skin.
Genetics — If your relatives tend to develop submental fullness, you’re likely to follow suit. This is likely true whether or not you’re overweight. Genetic factors impact the way your body stores fat, and where.
While it is largely an aesthetic concern, a double chin may also be linked to several health conditions. It may intensify sleep apnea, making it more difficult to breathe while sleeping and keep the airway open. Weak muscles in the chin and neck which worsen a double chin can also lower the position of the hyoid bone, the bone which anchors the tongue. This makes it more difficult to swallow and brings accompanying health risks. If you feel that your double chin is impacting your daily life or activities, see your doctor.
TREATING A DOUBLE CHIN AT HOME — DIET & EXERCISE TIPS
It is possible to reduce submental fullness at home. Remember that results won’t be as dramatic as if you receive professional double chin treatment.
Follow a low-fat diet — Tailor your daily eating to be low in saturated fat, trans fats, cholesterol, and sugar. These bad guys cause fatty deposits to build up throughout the body, and have an overall negative impact on your health. No more than 10% of your daily diet should come from saturated fat — choose lean proteins over beef and pork and try to limit dairy consumption. Choose foods high in monounsaturated fat for your fatty intake — oily fish, nuts, and olive oil are all good options. As always, prioritize whole grains as well as fresh fruit and vegetables.
Exercise regularly — Perform regular cardiovascular exercise, choosing activities that raise your heart rate and tone your muscles. If possible, get an hour of exercise every day.
Perform chin and neck-specific stretches — Try some muscle-strengthening exercises for your chin and neck. Chew on air in a gulping motion, push on your forehead to experience neck resistance, or tilt your head back and hold the position for 10 seconds at a time. Repeat these throughout the day — they’re easy to do anywhere, including your desk.
Professional Double Chin Treatment Yields Best Results
If you’re ready to truly leave your double chin behind, in-office treatments will help you accomplish your goals. There’s now a collection of treatment for submental fullness available — to learn which is best for you, speak with a provider.
Radiance Skincare & Laser Medspa is proud to offer two distinct double chin treatments: | https://medium.com/@radiancemedspawheatonil/best-ways-to-eliminate-a-stubborn-double-chin-ee6fafe84341 | ['Radiance Skincare', 'Laser Medspa'] | 2021-04-25 19:48:12.277000+00:00 | ['Double Chin', 'Chin', 'Skin', 'Skincare'] |
Rain | A crazy collection of haikus from traditional ‘5-7-5' 3-liners to modern adaptations and interpretations. Topics range from humorous to melancholy, the whole shebang.
Follow | https://medium.com/haiku-fusion/rain-8d4f9c3b47fb | ['Kahli Bree Adams'] | 2020-09-23 00:33:24.865000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Haiku', 'Love', 'Haiku Fusion', 'Life'] |
Christmas, Football and Covid: What Grounds Will Be Welcoming Fans in 2020 ?— Chris Norminton | The Covid-19 pandemic continues to cause massive disruption to the lives of everybody in the UK and throughout the world. Christmas would normally be a time to ‘get together’ with family and friends. 2020 will be different and it will impact the huge Boxing day football program in the UK.
What are the rules regarding football grounds welcoming fans?
The answer to this question is “it depends where in the country the stadium is”. The UK government has introduced a ‘tier’ system which identifies various parts of the country as being:
Tier 1 — A Medium Risk Area
Tier 2 — A High-Risk Area
Tier 3 — A High-Risk area
Tier 4 — A Very High-Risk Area
In alignment with the above tier system people will be able to attend football stadiums in the following numbers:
In tier 1 the maximum allowed attendance for an outside football match would be 4,000 people or 50% of the stadium capacity (whichever is the smaller). In tier 2 the maximum is 2,000 fans (or 50% as above). No spectators are allowed to attend games taking place in tier 3 and 4 stadiums.
People in the South East of the country for example are restricted from non-essential travel due to coronavirus restrictions in Tier 4. Although it is not a good outcome, it is to ensure the safety of people is maintained and the infection rate is kept as low as possible.
How are football clubs handling the situation?
The clubs which are located in tier 1 and 2 areas are inviting their season ticket holders to apply, on a first-come, first-served, basis, in order to be considered for a ticket for a particular match. Most of which would be the premier league and Europa League.
Social distancing is strongly enforced with seating spread to allow at least a 1-meter distance between all seated supporters. In addition to this, rapid testing may come into force in the near future to ensure that no fans are tested positive and if this is the came are to go home immediately with everyone else surrounded to follow the same advice.
The clubs have mostly decided not to serve food and drink within the stadiums in order to assist with social distancing requirements. Those who are able to obtain tickets for a particular match are advised to arrive at the ground earlier than they normally would in order to comply with any extra checks which may be required by stadium staff.
There is a ‘recommendation’ to wear a face mask during the times that the spectators are interacting within and around the stadium.
Sporting event financial expert, Chris Norminton has worked with many clubs, both prior to and during the Covid-19 pandemic, to allow the introduction of ‘cashless’ transactions which are safer than using notes and coins as these are possibly spreading the virus as they change hands.
As the vaccination program within the UK gets underway, companies such as those of Chris Norminton will no doubt be required to provide support to the football and other sporting clubs who wish to create ‘cashless’ stadiums.
Christmas and beyond
There is no doubt that the pandemic has led to people changing the ways in which they do so many things. Online purchases have soared with the use of ‘home delivery’ services for food and other items becoming well established.
Within the sporting context, stadiums have been moving towards becoming ‘cashless’ for some time and the pandemic will only accelerate that process. The likes of Chris Norminton will be in demand to allow even the smaller clubs to develop cashless stadiums.
As the world moves on to the ‘new normal’, cashless commerce will become the norm rather than the exception. Maybe we will see this more clearly in stadiums during the Christmas program of 2021. | https://medium.com/chris-norminton/christmas-football-and-covid-what-grounds-will-be-welcoming-fans-in-2020-chris-norminton-f737e4a0d7ad | ['Chris Norminton'] | 2020-12-25 11:30:51.649000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'Chris Norminton', 'Banking', 'Cashless'] |
A Comprehensive List of My True Crime Articles | Man Killed Infant by Zipping Her in Backpack in Car Trunk
Child protective services had allegedly been called three times before the murder.
A Weekend Camping Trip Gone Wrong: The Bega Schoolgirl Murders
The popular camping grounds were considered “safe,” but is anywhere truly safe?
He Shot His Mother and Then Danced With His Sister
He claimed someone told him to do it — but who?
Florida Fugitive Started a GoFundMe to Flee the Country
He tried to crowdfund his escape after breaking his bail conditions.
A Japanese Telephone Dating Club Rivalry Ended in Fire
Kayoko Nakai ordered an attack on her rival’s club, which killed four people.
Russian YouTuber’s Pregnant Girlfriend Died on Live Stream
He locked her outside in subzero weather for $1,000.
Neglected Teenager Starved to Death in Home Filled With Food
After being convicted of manslaughter, his mother was released *years* early.
A Christmas Witch Hunt: The Murder of Kristy Bamu
A family holiday turned into a deadly witch hunt.
Mentally Ill Woman, Inspired by Horror Movies, Decapitates Mom
She was found not guilty of murder.
3 Teen Satanists Murder Classmate to Earn the Devil’s Favor
They thought the devil would grant them stardom if they killed a virgin.
Retired Security Guard Murders Unarmed Teen Burglars on Thanksgiving Day
He recorded the murders on a tape recorder.
Former High School Classmates Kidnapped Frank Sinatra Jr. in 1963
The kidnapping had a lasting effect on his father for 30 more years.
Teen Inspired by Michael Myers — Murders Mother and Sister
When he wrote his 4-page confession, he confessed to being inspired by the “Halloween” remake.
“Eccentric” Professor Mummified 26 Dead Girls and Turned Them Into Dolls
He wanted to bring them back to life.
“Fun-Loving” Grandma Murders Husband, Then Kills Lookalike While on the Run
A 10-day nationwide manhunt finally stopped her.
The Tragic, True Story Behind “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”
Both medicine and religion failed the real victim.
Her Ex’s Murder Was So Brutal It Was Called “Overkill”
She stalked him for nearly a year, then murdered him post-sex.
Florida Man Attacks With a Samurai Sword Over Missing Shrimp
He said, “I went Code Red.”
Burglar Eaten by Alligator, Resident Calls It “Poetic Justice”
A true crime story about Matthew Riggins.
Prosecutors called her a Personification of Evil
Did she commit patricide for love, money, or both? | https://medium.com/@malindafusco/a-comprehensive-list-of-my-true-crime-articles-eed44a575e0 | ['Malinda Fusco'] | 2021-03-03 10:24:40.320000+00:00 | ['Nonfiction', 'True Story', 'True Crime', 'Crime', 'Murder'] |
Ideas in the Wild: How Dr. Nina Ahuja is Aims To Change The Culture of Silence About The Stress Physicians Face | What happened that made you decide to write the book? What was the exact moment when you realized these ideas needed to get out there?
Medical school was one of the most challenging periods in my life, so I’ve always had a soft spot for medical students and residents. When COVID-19 happened, as a senior leader in our academic department, I was very aware of the stresses that not only medical students and residents were facing, but also physicians and surgeons in practice.
The shutdowns resulted in disrupted streams in medical and residency education, and many in practice were impacted by closures of elective medical and surgical services. This in turn impacted wait lists and wait times for patients, as well as medical and residency teaching at academic centers. During our many executive meetings I learned that many physicians and surgeons were personally struggling with the closures, not knowing what to do with themselves since their world revolved around being a doctor.
With my practice being impacted by the closures, I often took long walks and began reflecting on my own experiences over the years. I found that many were reflected in what I had been hearing at various meetings, as well as the experiences shared in various blogs that were being posted by medical students, residents and physicians.
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https://www.servier.ie/sites/default/files/webform/video-National-v-Ekiden-liv10.pdf
https://www.servier.ie/sites/default/files/webform/video-National-v-Ekiden-liv09.pdf
https://www.servier.ie/sites/default/files/webform/video-National-v-Ekiden-liv08.pdf
https://www.servier.ie/sites/default/files/webform/video-Canelo-v-Smith-En-Viv03.pdf
https://www.servier.ie/sites/default/files/webform/video-Canelo-v-Smith-En-Viv06.pdf
https://www.servier.ie/sites/default/files/webform/video-Canelo-v-Smith-En-Viv11.pdf
https://www.servier.ie/sites/default/files/webform/video-National-v-Ekiden-liv0.pdf
https://www.servier.ie/sites/default/files/webform/video-National-v-Ekiden-liv3.pdf
https://www.servier.ie/sites/default/files/webform/video-71st-NHK-Men-Ekiden-liv-jp-tbs7.pdf
https://www.servier.ie/sites/default/files/webform/video-71st-NHK-Men-Ekiden-liv-jp-tbs6.pdf
https://www.servier.ie/sites/default/files/webform/video-71st-NHK-Men-Ekiden-liv-jp-tbs3.pdf
https://www.mcvvftrentino.it/sites/default/files/webform/moto%20club/video-71st-NHK-Men-Ekiden-liv-jp-tbs4.pdf
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/video-National-v-Ekiden-liv05.pdf
https://www.mcvvftrentino.it/sites/default/files/webform/moto%20club/video-Canelo-v-Smith-En-Viv06.pdf
It was during one of these early morning walks when I was thinking about things, that I realized that the challenges I experienced needed to be shared. With the challenges of COVID-19 compounding the usual stresses we face, I felt it was important to talk about the issue in a way that was relatable, accessible and hopefully helpful to others experiencing significant stress.
What’s your favorite specific, actionable idea in the book?
When I first decided to write this book and began to reflect more on my own stressful periods, I realized that challenges I faced could be categorized into five phases of experience. This realization led me to create my ADMIT framework which summarizes strategies I’ve learned to manage my own stress over the years. The book explores each of these phases — Adapting to New Ways, Doing the Work, Measuring Success, Introspection, and Transformation — along with common challenges we face within each phase from a psychological perspective.
The goal of the framework is to offer a constructive tool to help readers assess their own responses to stressful situations, and to learn how to conquer them more effectively. Since stressful experiences often have multiple factors that contribute to them, the benefit of the framework is that it offers an organized way to detangle the jumble of emotions we often feel in these moments. If we’re able to consider what we’re experiencing with some structure, stressful moments can feel more manageable. The ADMIT framework therefore offers an approach to stress that can help readers feel more empowered in challenging circumstances.
What’s a story of how you’ve applied this lesson in your own life? What has this lesson done for you?
Through personal stories and insights, I actually share a number of examples within the book, on how I have applied elements of this framework in various contexts. Having said that, an additional example I can share is how I decided to present the content of my book before I even began writing it. Many books written by academics are anchored in formal scientific and clinical research. However, as readers will learn when they read Stress in Medicine, my book is part memoir and part self-improvement. It draws on many psychological concepts and is anchored in personal engagement, with the intention of creating a work that was still informative though less academic, and more of a helpful resource in stressful times. This decision was intentional and challenged me to think in new ways. It changed my approach in how I prepared for writing the book, the tone of my writing, and also how I would measure the book’s success.
After long periods of active reflection and introspection, I successfully transformed my mindset and produced a work that is accessible, relatable and relevant to all readers. And if it serves to help even one person better manage their stress, my book will have achieved success. | https://medium.com/@coctrelsdtt/ideas-in-the-wild-how-dr-dd94a6a436e6 | [] | 2020-12-20 00:31:02.465000+00:00 | ['Healthcare', 'Wellness', 'Authors', 'Doctors', 'Medicine'] |
Auditing with Mediator Pipelines in ASP.NET Core | The project
From my previous articles, were I explained how to use the mediator and implement transversal behavior with pipelines, we are going to continue and expand the source code to audit commands and store into the events table anything broadcasted by the mediator without having a specific handler for each event.
As a reminder, we implemented an endpoint to manage products with the following:
GET /products — search for products using some filters ( SearchProductsQuery );
); GET /products/{id} — get a product by its unique identifier ( GetProductByIdQuery );
); POST /products — create a product ( CreateProductCommand and CreatedProductEvent );
and ); PUT /products/{id} — update a product by its unique identifier ( UpdateProductCommand and UpdatedProductEvent );
and ); DELETE /products/{id} — delete a product by its unique identifier ( DeleteProductCommand and DeletedProductEvent );
You can check them out here:
The source code is available on GitHub, feel free to give it a look.
Auditing
Since in this article we will only audit API actions that mutate state, we are going to intercept commands and store information we find relevant into a specific table:
ExternalId — the unique identifier for each command, available via Command.Id or Command<TResult>.Id ;
— the unique identifier for each command, available via or ; Name — the command type name from typeof(TCommand).Name ;
the command type name from ; Payload — the command serialized as JSON;
the command serialized as JSON; Result — if available, the command result serialized as JSON;
if available, the command result serialized as JSON; CreatedOn — date and time when the command was sent into the mediator, available via Command.CreatedOn or Command<TResult>.CreatedOn ;
date and time when the command was sent into the mediator, available via or ; CreatedBy — username from the current request user property, available via Command.CreatedBy or Command<TResult>.CreatedBy ;
username from the current request user property, available via or ; ExecutionTime — elapsed time the handler spent processing the command;
Because events are broadcasted by commands, which are now audited into the database, we are also going to extend the events table and introduce the foreign key CommandId , referencing the commands.
The Database Model
Inside the Database folder create a CommandEntity class and add the new CommandId property to the existing EventEntity :
Open the ApiDbContext file, configure the mappings for the CommandEntity and add a required one-to-many relation between this tables:
User Information
By design, all POCOs provided in this library are immutable and only provide a protected setter for the properties Id , CreatedOn and CreatedBy . This ensures the developer is free to decide either by immutable commands, queries and events, initializing all properties in the constructor, or to expose a public setter instead.
Since we haven’t made our POCOs immutable, and for demo purposes, we are going to expose a public setter for the CreatedBy property by implementing our own command, query and event classes.
Inside the Handlers folder create a Command.cs , Query.cs and Event.cs files and extend the corresponding Command , Command<TResult> , Query<TResult> and Event classes, creating a new setter ao getter for CreatedBy . Since your classes have the same name than the ones provided by Simplesoft.Mediator , your existing classes will automatically extend from them and expose the new setters without a single change:
The project solution should look like this:
Open your ProductsController.cs file and set the CreatedBy property of all the commands and queries with the property User.Identity.Name .
Please keep in your mind that, since we haven’t configured authentication in this API, the username value will always be null.
After changes, your controller actions should look as follows:
We also want to pass the same username to all of our events, so open the command handlers and set the event CreatedBy property with the same value from the command, as exemplified by the following handler:
The Audit Pipeline
Now that we are passing the user information into the mediator we can create the audit pipeline that will have the following behavior when intercepting commands:
Serialize and insert a new entry into the commands table; Add both the command and entry ids into an AsyncLocal<T> scope to be used if an event is broadcast; Invoke the next pipe; If available, serialize the result, calculate the execution time and update the table entry;
When intercepting events, which are sent by commands, it will do the following:
Get the command id from the current AsyncLocal<T> scope; Serialize the event and insert a new entry into the events table, referencing the command entry; Invoke the next pipe;
Inside the Pipelines folder, create an AuditPipeline class extending Pipeline . The implementation should be similar to the following:
Open the Startup.cs file and register this pipeline to be run after all the existing ones, right before the commands or events are handled.
Because this pipeline is also serializing all events, the existing handlers for CreatedProductEvent , DeletedProductEvent and UpdatedProductEvent can now either be deleted or stop storing their events into the table to prevent duplicated data:
AsyncLocal<T>
When comparing the audit pipeline with the previous ones we implemented, the biggest difference is the usage of AsyncLocal<T> to store an instance of the CommandScope class holding both the command external id and the primary key value for the audit entry into the table.
If you aren’t familiar with this class, it is available since .NET Framework 4.6 and .NET standard 1.3, and was introduced to help sharing global flow state when implementing asynchronous code with Task Parallel Library (TPL). Because TPL relies on the thread pool and, by default, asynchronous code in ASP.NET Core applications can be resumed by any available thread, we can’t rely on mechanisms like the ThreadLocal class to store global state.
Simply put, the idea of AsyncLocal<T> is to create a static instance that can hold some T value and, as long you use the async and await keywords, the runtime will consider your code execution to be a logical flow, despite asynchronous, and will ensure the value is shared even if the flow has been resumed by a different thread.
Because we want to share data between the command and event interceptor code, the flow is asynchronous, and since only commands broadcast events, the AsyncLocal<T> class is an elegant solution to prevent changing all the events to include an CommandId property that has to be set on every broadcast.
As an example, this is usually the solution implemented by some logging frameworks to support the creation of scopes, enabling some information to be written on every log without having to pass it every time, like when the using Microsoft façade Logger.BeginScope("X:{x} Y:{y}", x, y) .
For more details and examples, give a look to the AsyncLocal<T> class documentation:
Audits Controller
To make it easier to test and check our system audits, we are going to implement the following endpoint:
GET /audits — search for command audits using some filters ( SearchAuditsQuery );
); GET /audits/{id} — get a command audit by its unique identifier and all the associated events ( GetAuditByIdQuery );
Inside the Handlers folder create an Audits folder and create the queries for searching or getting an audit by its external id:
Inside the Controllers folder create an Audit folder and an AuditController that will use the previous queries:
The project structure should look as follows:
Open the Swagger endpoint (ex: https://localhost:44380/swagger) and you should see the audits endpoint:
Create, update or delete products with the help of Swagger UI, and then check if all the commands and events have been properly audited:
Conclusion
I hope this article gave you a good idea on how to use mediator pipelines to simplify the auditing of user actions without having to replicate code across all commands.
We also ensured events were always stored before being broadcasted and a reference to the command was kept without adding properties to our POCOs, providing a more clean approach. | https://medium.com/geekculture/auditing-with-mediator-pipelines-in-asp-net-core-be34cf3551b | ['João Simões'] | 2021-03-10 05:33:01.955000+00:00 | ['Aspnetcore', 'Software Development', 'Software Engineering', 'Csharp', 'Programming'] |
The End of the Girlboss Is Here | The importance of making feminism marketable was made clear to me when I co-founded Out of the Binders, a feminist 501(c)(3) in 2014, right around when Sophia Amoruso was in her prime. We organized bicoastal writing conferences called BinderCon and one of our major donors was a philanthropic organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls. It provided us with necessary funding; in return, we gave them brand placement on our livestream and signage.
When the organization’s consultant on contemporary feminism asked me who in Hollywood I’d like an introduction to, if she could make it happen, I said Shonda Rhimes. We hoped to invite her as a keynote speaker. The consultant said our website wasn’t attractive enough to email to Rhimes, so we redesigned it. Then I stopped hearing back from the consultant, because she was busy with everything the organization was doing at Sundance. (The consultant went on to start a lifestyle brand and venture capital firm that “invests in women” via an e-commerce site where you can buy products made by other girlbosses.)
As Jessa Crispin writes in her 2017 manifesto Why I’m Not a Feminist, when you make feminism so accessible and palatable it can be universally adopted, you put the “focus on labels and identity, rather than on the philosophical and political content of the movement, [and] what becomes most important are the things on the surface.” Things like Chanel products, velvet chairs, and pretty websites.
The modes of diversity that can be visually represented by race and ethnicity, gender, or size play a big role in the girlboss aesthetic, which is targeted at millennial consumers. If you visited The Wing’s website today without knowing anything about the company, you might assume 75% of their members are women of color. This not only invites more women of color to join — it also signals to white women that The Wing is woke.
She saw gender inequity everywhere she looked; this gave her something to wage war against. Racial inequity was never really on her radar. That was someone else’s problem to solve.
While Gelman and Kassan raised millions, I was trying to fundraise enough money to put on two conferences a year and pay a single staff person, me, a $40,000 salary. (The most I would make in a year as the executive director of the organization was $12,500.) The Washington Post named me a “leading feminist.” A marketing consultant encouraged me to work on my personal brand so I could get on the paid speaking circuit. I was told to update my LinkedIn profile to say I was a millennial thought leader. “Why are you guys a 501(c)(3) and not a B-corp?” someone asked me. I’d never heard of a B-corp. What she was really asking was: Why aren’t you trying to make money off this? Why aren’t you a girlboss?
There was no money in what I wanted to do, which was feminist organizing, building an inclusive and accessible event that would provide networking opportunities to a diverse community of writers. I couldn’t find any organization that would pay me to do this. (I even applied for a community manager position at The Wing but didn’t get an interview.) Demoralized, burnt out, on antidepressants, and $8,000 in debt, I resigned in 2017.
During the fall of 2017, as the #MeToo movement gained momentum, the spotlight was off powerful women and back on powerful men. Reports of sexual assault and harassment at work — not just from celebrities but from everyone you knew on social media — were all anyone could talk about. Men were very bad and bad men were everywhere. It seemed like every lunch conversation I had that fall was about trauma. In the stories I heard, the perpetrators were always men and the victims always women.
An obvious solution to men abusing their power in the workplace was to put more women in charge. But the women who leaned into their ambition and founded their own companies were not necessarily any more virtuous, ethical, or respectful than their male counterparts. Though unlikely to be serial sexual predators like Harvey Weinstein, girlbosses could abuse their power in the workplace, too.
It was during this time that I started writing my satirical novel Self Care, about female founders of a wellness startup and how feminist values can be distorted by those in power. For research I collected the stories of abusive girlbosses: Miki Agrawal, self-proclaimed She-E-O of the underwear brand Thinx, was accused of sexual harassment in the workplace, including touching an employee’s breasts. At the end of last year, The Verge reported on the toxic workplace culture at Away, a direct-to-consumer luggage brand founded by Stephanie Korey and Jen Rubio. In addition to requiring 16-hour days from the customer experience team members and holding holiday vacation days hostage, employees were not allowed to email each other, which “created a culture of intimidation and constant surveillance.”
“I went to work for Outdoor Voices because it was my dream company and Ty [Heaney] was my dream CEO. A young female founder who was so inspiring, and I believed so much in what her company stood for,” one former employee told BuzzFeed News. But Heaney “spoke to me like I was in an abusive relationship.”
The problem with making girlboss feminism a part of your brand in order to appeal to customers was that those customers were going to expect you to put your values into practice.
On March 17, the New York Times published an exposé about workplace culture at The Wing. The hourly employees who worked the front desk, washed dishes, and scrubbed toilets described being treated like “the help” by members, and at the same time were scouted by management to model “THE JOY OF SISTERHOOD” T-shirts on the company website. (In my novel, a Black employee checks the company blog to make sure it meets her white boss’s standard “of two stock photos with women of color for every one stock photo of all white women.”) The same day the Times piece came out, Mayor de Blasio told New Yorkers to prepare for a stay-at-home order. Seemingly overnight, America changed in response to the virus. A women-only co-working space already seems like a relic from another era.
In recent weeks, nationwide protests for Black lives and against police corruption and brutality have coincided with a racial reckoning in media and corporate culture that is playing out live, on social media. Brands “are listening” and have quickly come around to the fact that feminism is out, anti-racism is in.
Journalist Phoebe Maltz Bovy observes that the culture pivoted from championing a self-empowerment mode of feminism that’s all about assertiveness and persistence, to deriding Karen, a meme that can stand in for a racist white woman, an entitled white woman, or really any “woman who makes too much of a fuss, or makes a fuss for an inappropriate reason.”
On June 1, The Wing announced a $200,000 donation to three racial justice organizations. That same day, as reported by the New York Times, the company told staff members that it had run out of funds in its Employee Relief Fund and couldn’t offer any more one-time assistance grants of $500. The response online was variations on a theme: performative AF.
In two weeks, support for Black Lives Matter increased almost as much as it had over the previous two years. Now that racism is on her radar, the girlboss is on an apology tour, donating to bail funds and sharing the mic. So why do I find myself bracing to find out how anti-racism becomes the branding for her next for-profit venture?
Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility is number one on the New York Times bestseller list and it’s poised to become the Lean In of the 2020s, a book by a white woman, for white women, that says: See this big systemic problem? Start by working on yourself. White Fragility is social justice through the lens of self-improvement and, as is always the case with self-improvement programs marketed to white women, there’s money to be made here. DiAngelo is available to speak to your organization for a $30,000 to $40,000 fee. If you want anti-racist education in the comfort of your own home, Saira Rao and Regina Jackson will come to your dinner party for $2,500. The Wing may never recover as a luxurious in-person hub for ambitious go-getters, but working on your white privilege is fast becoming the next elite social club.
The end of the girlboss does not represent the failure of women to make corporate America more diverse, inclusive, and equitable in 10 years or less. That would be asking a lot of her (and nothing from the men at the top). The rise and fall of the girlboss says more about how comfortable we’ve become mixing capitalism with social justice, as we look to corporations to implement social changes because we’ve lost faith in our public institutions to do so. As Americans become less religious, and our distrust in politicians grows, we increasingly turn to corporations and influencers for moral leadership.
Woke capitalism lets the elites maintain the status quo while paying lip service to the demands of activists, and, as ethical consumers, millennials get to feel like they’re making a difference every time they go shopping. Until this country is willing to reckon with its extraordinary wealth inequality, and our government requires corporations to pay their fair share in taxes, we will continue to see reincarnations of the girlboss because she’s a manifestation of the American myth that says if you’re not succeeding, it must be because you’re not trying hard enough. | https://gen.medium.com/the-end-of-the-girlboss-is-nigh-4591dec34ed8 | ['Leigh Stein'] | 2020-06-26 13:32:27.508000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Culture', 'Women', 'Business', 'Startups'] |
👀Huobi x CoinMarketCal👀A Coin To Keep An Eye On! | CoinMarketCal has selected ATOM as the coin to keep an eye on this week!
🔹What is (Cosmos) ATOM?
The Cosmos (ATOM) is a cryptocurrency that is positioning itself as a decentralized network of independent blockchains that operate on the basis of Byzantine fault tolerance algorithms (BFT). Tendermint BFT is a byzantine fault-tolerant consensus engine that powers Cosmos Proof-of-Stake. These blockchains interact with each other through the Cosmos network, called the “Internet of blockchains.” Cosmos Hub is the first blockchain launched in Cosmos, and its main task is to interconnect other blockchains in the ecosystem. Tokens can be safely and quickly transferred from one blockchain to another within the Cosmos Hub.
ATOM | USDT 1D Oct 4th 20:20 EDT
📅Event: On Oct 5th Cosmos had an AMA with @chjango about Cosmos with @kyle_vbc.
📈Analysis
After a meteoric 245% rise in July alone, ATOM has almost fully retraced and could form a reversal.
The bullish trendline, consolidation area, and 62% fib retracement converge near a former price inefficiency near $4.256. This level provided support — and also provided the base to what many traders may view as a potential inverse head and shoulders pattern reversal.
Bulls might take positions in the current area or on a pullback toward the previous week’s low. Targets include a previous week’s high and probable resistance levels up to $6.978.
Bears could enter near the bearish trendline and a previous week’s high near $5.596. Targets range from the previous weekly low down to price inefficiency near $4.304.
🔹Trade ATOM on Huobi
👀Follow Us On Twitter @HuobiGlobal + @CoinMarketCal
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Risk Reminder:
1. Trading in digital assets comes with high risks due to huge price fluctuations. Users should be fully aware of the risks associated with digital asset trading and make prudent trading decisions.
2. Huobi Global’s announcements and information do not constitute investment advice, and Huobi will not bear responsibility or provide compensation for direct or indirect losses arising from trading decisions whilst relying on this information. | https://medium.com/huobi-global/huobi-x-coinmarketcal-a-coin-to-keep-an-eye-on-ca0e367f39a1 | ['Huobi Global'] | 2020-10-06 03:19:04.888000+00:00 | ['Huobi', 'Buyatom', 'Coinmarketcal', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Cosmos'] |
Lifelong Learning não é hype | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/inventos-digitais/thecode-005-lifelong-learning-n%C3%A3o-%C3%A9-hype-f8b5ce333696 | ['Inventos Digitais'] | 2020-12-06 13:58:58.648000+00:00 | ['Empreendedorismo', 'Founder', 'Lifelong Learning', 'CEO', 'Startup'] |
Leaving His Body: | The Impossibility of the American Dream in The Best We Could Do
Thi Bui in The Best We Could Do uses the form of a graphic novel to describe her family’s journey as refugees of the Vietnam War and their adjustments with life in the U.S. in their newfound Vietnamese-American bodies. Perhaps less explicitly stated in the graphic novel is the discourse on the expected American Dream, the journey towards achieving that dream and its implications, and a radical uproot of that dream through the narrative of refugees. Bui shares as she begins the memoir: “My parents escaped Vietnam on a boat so their children could grow up in freedom” (Bui 30). It’s a sentiment of liberation, gratitude, and the promise of a better tomorrow that is known all too well for many refugees and migrants. In chapter three “Feeling Asian/American: Ambivalent Attachments in Asia Diasporic Narratives” of Racial Feelings, Jeffrey Santa Ana analyzes different cultural forms, such as fiction, graphic narrative, film, and advertising to examine the negative impact of the aspirational U.S. capitalism and multiculturalism. He asserts that the American Dream that arises from upward mobility and economic success is a desire that is rooted in wanting to “feel normal, a yearning to belong in neoliberal America without regard to race, ethnicity, and national origin” (Santa Ana 129). Thus, Santa Ana argues that the pursuit of this very American Dream calls for refugees to “negate origins and forget the past” to be as connected to American culture as possible (Santa Ana 148). Jeffrey Santa Ana’s analysis of the American Dream lends itself well to an interpretation of Thi Bui’s graphic memoir — that despite moving away to distant land in hopes of “making [their own way” (Bui 292), it is nearly impossible for Bui and her family members to erase the homeland and all sentiments connected with it, further denouncing the unrealistic American Dream.
The American Dream has long been associated with freedom, happiness, and a sense of home and belonging. It remains constitutive of the Asian American experience — what it means to lead a life with wealth, well-being, and comfort. To get there, the Asian American individual must embrace U.S. liberal democracy, have deep faith in the promises of “equality and equivalence under citizenship — faith in the normative aspiration to belong as ordinary Americans” (Santa Ana 125). However, as Jeffrey Santa Ana notes, there exists a certain “tension between accommodating the ideal of belonging as an ordinary person in America’s color-blind society and maintaining attachments to ethnic identity, [resulting in] the Asian American subject’s ambivalence” (Santa Ana 126). Consequently, when this ambivalence becomes much to endure, the subject chooses one identity over the other. The fine balancing act that seems so fundamental to being an Asian individual in America becomes the active erasure of one’s past — the trauma, the joy, the tradition, and all the moments in-between. Santa Ana reflects that this causes the “immobility” of Asian Americans and proves the American Dream to be a myth, an impossibility that cannot be achieved in a racialized America (Santa Ana 128).
Members of the Asian American diaspora experience this failure of the American Dream differently. In the particular narrative of the Vietnamese diasporic subjects, it can be easy to mark them as embodiments of the neoliberal ideology of assimilation that function through a willful forgetting of the violence that brought them to American shores in the first place. Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do, however, affectively allows the readers to interpret the contrary. She intervenes in the impossible narrative of the American Dream by highlighting how the pressures that amass differently impact Vietnamese men, women, and children during and after relocation and resettlement. As she states in the beginning of the graphic novel: “I keep looking toward the past, tracing our journey in reverse over the ocean, through the war, seeking an origin story” (Bui 38–41). The memoir itself can be perceived as an act of defiance against the imagined state of the American Dream. To showcase the impossible nature of the American Dream that demands a letting go of the past, Bui closely details the stories of herself and her family, whose experiences are not used as promotions to fit within narratives of U.S. citizenship and history, but rather as complex subjects laced with loss, trauma, and hope. In particular, Bui’s father, or as she lovingly calls him, Bố, is the most salient example of the impossibility of the American Dream. While her mother, or Má’s, life has been marked with wealth and prestige since a young age and a great sense of sacrifice and ambition that continues even through her stay in the United States, her father’s life is riddled with despair and brokenness. He is unassimilable to the American Dream standards because his past is written all over him. His standoffishness is evidence of childhood trauma, and a lack of family ties leaves him a subject of Bui’s fear and curiosity throughout the memoir.
Once in the United States and released from daily life in Vietnam, Bui’s father becomes paranoid and depressed. The narrative of Bố “leaving his body” at night in his sleep shows his projection pointing toward Vietnam, his roots, something that he was supposed to forget but could not do so (Bui 85). One splash page substitutes Nam’s boyhood silhouette for the coastline of Vietnam, centering his profile on the page as if drifting in the churning waters of the Pacific Ocean (Bui 85). Bui writes that Bố has spirits who possess him at night, and when these moments of recurring trauma are not in his head, he manifests them through the way he spends time with Bui and her brother in their youth. As she describes, he used to smoke, lash out at them, or play with them on occasions as he was at home taking care of them. No matter what he is doing, his physical presence seems to be there, but his mind is elsewhere. He is drawn wearing a white t-shirt with cigarette smoke coming from his mouth. He sits all day, watching as the children interact with one another. His hair is disheveled, and his eyes are aloof yet focused, as if he is always in his head thinking about something (Bui 72). The only time Bố comes alive is when he tells scary stories to Bui and her brother. He transforms into somebody animate, with hand motions leading and adding to his stories (Bui 73). These stories become one of Bố’s only modes of reconnecting with his Vietnamese roots, his own special way of escaping the present and leaning into the past.
Through the narrative of Bui’s father, the American Dream is refuted, continuing to be an impossibility that no one can reach. While Bố stands out as the epitome of the far-reaching nature of the American Dream, it is not to say that Má, the author, or any of her siblings are perfectly assimilable and immune to their past. For each character throughout the graphic novel, their trauma manifests differently; no matter how far they might travel, home will always find a way to haunt them. But what happens when memory is on the run, demanding to be compiled neatly and pushed back? Bui demonstrates this craving to run away from the past through the story of her family’s adjustment to the new house in California. With their own apartment and slow habits built over time to make their integration easier, Bui remarks that they have finally “built a bubble… a home” for themselves (Bui 294). Interestingly, as the family constructs what seems to be a perfect new beginning for themselves, they are making an active effort to destroy all that was of them, keeping “sparse records of [their] existence” (Bui 296). In a brown file folder, they have their most important possessions there — their birth certificates, green cards, and Social Security cards. This convenient rendering of their identity is a way to assemble their lives neatly, disregarding the messes that still hold true of them but are not revered in American society and simplifying their experiences to be more palatable for a white America. In other words, this small brown folder that constitutes their Vietnamese identity is an attempt to live the American Dream, pushing away past self and memories and trying to take a step forward.
Despite vehement efforts to stay on the run and disregard the past, it is not possible for Bui nor her family members to detach nor divorce themselves from their identity. One way or another, where each family member came from — the messes, the trauma, the joys, the gratitude — lingers, leaving it once again impossible to keep up with the American Dream. When Bui’s family house is lit on fire due to the old couple downstairs lighting up cigarettes and falling asleep, the family runs, leaving almost all their possessions behind but taking with them that small brown folder of who they truly are. The identity that they skillfully compressed, and ultimately suppressed, is the same identity that they cannot run away from. The brown folder, no matter how small it is, will be in their hands, running with them through fires, across the oceans and seas, and in life. This is further made clear when Bui uses the term “refugee reflex” to describe her family’s reaction to the fire (Bui 305). This term explains her instinct to flee at the face of danger, something that developed naturally being a refugee who should be ready to face any sort of atrocities at any point of time. The refugee reflex implies a haunting, a scarring from past experiences that one can never recover from and will continue to pass on through generations.
Such language around roots passed through generations and scarring that knows no boundaries of space and time can be discouraging, especially when it comes to reaching for that American Dream that many refugees and migrants are yearning for in a new land. It is not to say, however, that it is impossible to disconnect with the roots and break the chain. At the same time that Bui herself experiences a refugee reflex, she is conscious as to raise her son in a way that prioritizes freedom from the burden of the past. As she reflects at the end of the graphic novel: “What becomes of us after we die? Do we live on in what we leave to our children? How much of ME is my own, and how much is stamped into my blood and bone, predestined?” (Bui 324). Perhaps the self-awareness of the possibility of a past that defines her will help her break free from that past. But this very discourse on Thi Bui’s ethnic memory and history itself further allows readers to interpret The Best We Could Do as a paramount link to Santa Ana’s discourse on the impossibility of the American Dream. For Bui, it is not a matter of whether the roots live within her or not — that is a given; rather, it is a matter of how she handles the knowledge and feelings possessed through those roots. The American Dream, the promise of economic and social prosperity and uplift, proves to be out of reach for Bui and many other Vietnamese-American refugees, who cannot deny their past selves. The narratives of Bố leaving his body and Bui’s family reaction to the fire in The Best We Could Do show that the American Dream might not be the end goal of these journeys of mobility. Even when their feet are constantly shifting, they are paralyzed, stuck in the past. But even when their soul is leaving their body to try to tap into the past, they could still keep trying — doing the best they could do. | https://medium.com/@nguyen_tram/leaving-his-body-4cc477181a69 | ['Ngọc Trâm Nguyễn'] | 2021-12-20 22:12:26.645000+00:00 | ['American Dream', 'Refugees', 'War', 'Vietnam', 'Migrants'] |
WITH CIYOTA, ALUMNI RETURN TO GIVE BACK TO ITS SUCCESS | Nziyonvira Ntakamaze, executive director of COBURWAS International Youth Organization to Transform Africa (CIYOTA). Ntakamze grew up in the same refugee camp that he returned to work in.
One of the biggest success stories coming out of COBURWAS International Youth Organization to Transform Africa (CIYOTA) is in the form of the organization’s own executive director, Nziyonvira Ntakamaze, who is also a graduate of the program.
Ntakamaze and his family escaped from the North Kivu region of the Democratic of Congo in December 1998 when he was just nine-years-old. And he vividly remembers arriving in the area that later turned into Kyangwali Refugee Settlement in Western Uganda.
“We were living in the bush with monkeys and baboons,” he said.” We had no protection. I remember there were many mosquitos and lots of people died from many diseases. It was very hard”.
Today, Kyangwali, located in Hoima district, now houses up to 90,000 people, 80 percent of whom are Congolese.
For nine-year-old Ntakamaze, he thought his time in Uganda would be brief. But soon this strange land became home.
“When I looked at the bush around us, it was hard to imagine being here forever,” he said “I always thought that each year we would go back. But as time moved on, we saw we wouldn’t go back.”
Luckily, he was always a good student and excelled at a primary school in the settlement. For secondary school, he won a United Nations scholarship, and later an EDUCATE! scholarship to attend a school 50 miles outside the camp.
While there, he met the CIYOTA founders in 2005 and they bonded over finding solutions to refugee problems. Why are people not going to school? What are the other challenges in the refugee settlement? How can we be part of the solution?
Years later, he became one of the few from the camp to go to university. He started his coursework in veterinary science at Makerere University before a Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program scholarship sent him to the University of Rochester in the U.S. to study mechanical engineering in 2013.
The cold Rochester winters were a shock, but Ntakamaze was further taken aback at how unprepared he was for the education system. He recalls a time when a professor assigned homework from the Blackboard Learning, a Web-based virtual learning environment that is common in education systems in the U.S.
But Ntakamaze did not know the program as he had never owned a computer. “So I missed the assignment,” he laughed as he remembered that time.
Despite the difficulties, he was still involved in CIYOTA even from afar. He would skype into the online meetings and even help with fundraising from America.
He later graduated with his mechanical engineering degree and moving to Tennessee to work in manufacturing. His family, by then, had also been resettled in Tennessee as refugees.
“I was making decent money, and my family was comfortable, but I could not stop thinking of Kyangwali,” he said.
“I knew in the refugee resettlement, there were so many students who did not have the chance that I had to get a scholarship to go to school. I knew I needed to come back and give back. “
“I may not be able to help thousands of people. But if we have we maybe help 500 this year, those 500 are going to help others. So in the long run, we will have a bigger impact.”
In 2018, he returned to take on the executive director role of the organization.
But his story is not unique within the CIYOTA ecosystem. There are other administrators within the program who were also CIYOTA graduates that returned to work in the organization as it has grown. Favourite Regina, a Congolese refugee, also earned a Mastercard Foundation scholarship to attend the United States International University Kenya. She now leads community building at CIYOTA. All this is possible through the Come Back and Give Back program, which gives alumni a chance to get involved.
“This organization has been led by students right from the beginning, so this is why this happens,” Ntakamaze said, referencing CIYOTA’s own founders, Benson Wereje, Bahati Kanyamanza, and Daniel Muhwezi, who came from the camp. “Even if we can wait for other people to come and help us, we also have a bigger responsibility or a role to play in creating our own solutions.”
Since Ntakamaze’s return for his new role, CIYOTA has won the prestigious Ockenden International Prize, which rewards successful on-the-ground projects for refugees and displaced people around the world, boosting the organization to do other great things. The win couldn’t have arrived at a better time as a new influx of Congolese refugees started coming to Kyangwali starting in December 2018.
As he drives through Kywangali, Ntakamaze passed by the first house his family ever built in the settlement. It is a tiny brick bungalow with a tin roof.
“It has been 21 years and my family has come far,” he said. “But in many ways, Kyangwali is still my home.” | https://medium.com/@tina_80612/with-ciyota-alumni-return-to-give-back-to-its-success-8bfd3688a423 | ['The Partnership', 'Psipse'] | 2019-11-14 06:51:33.941000+00:00 | ['Heroes', 'Life Skills', 'Sdgs', 'Refugees', 'Education'] |
In Response To Stephen Zunes False Allegations on Foreign Policy | In an uncanny article appeared the 9th of December on Foreign Policy about Western Sahara territorial dispute “imagined” by Mr Stephen Zunes, I encouraged myself this time to decamp from my silent observer quarters because of the number of disguised interpretations of many UN resolutions and Zunes blatant intentional facts dismissal, it is highly worrying to witness such as level of truth twisting practised by a “scholar” of international relations on account of my firm belief that history will retain individuals who stood against division and deception.
I will refrain from personal attacks as a self-imposed courtesy towards someone who already lost his entire intellectual credibility and objectiveness; Stephen must have his valid untold reasons for his fallacy prize-winner approach; what amused many observers and international relations scholars is the stubbornness of Mr Zunes to hide the sun with his thumb, not very effective as strategy many will factually argue.
We are blight to live in this fake news era where voices against historic rights of nations victims of colonialism need to justify their obvious and undeniable historic rights.
Mr Zunes started his article talking about “occupying Moroccan forces” he couldn’t be more intentionally “wrong”, let’s engage in a historical fact check; in 1965 before the existence of anything called Polisario, the late King Hassan II of Morocco requested Spain to decolonise the Spanish Sahara Territory (Spain occupied in 1934)₂ through the UN General Assembly under the (Resolution 2072 (XX) of 17 Dec. 1965)₃.
Therefore, Morocco was never described as an occupying force by the UN despite Stephen unaware claims since Spain was de facto the real occupying power; consequently, the legal term “decolonization” was used by the UN to describe this territory conjuncture at that specific time, anyone can read through all fact-checked UN resolution signifying that Morocco was never described as an occupying force; in fact, Morocco was always given the legal term of the administrator of the said disputed territory.
First, let’s breakdown the term “occupation” in international law to understand its misuse by many opportunistic entities; colonization means a recognized country occupying another existing recognised country, Spain in this case because they colonized a historic extension of the kingdom of Morocco back in 1934; after Spain left this territory, the UN documents speak about Moroccan “annexation” not “occupation” of this desertic territory, there’s nowhere to find in all UN resolutions any reference to Morocco as an occupying force but the denomination of administrator of this desertic territory.
Historic documents proved that Spain was well aware of Moroccan claims over its Saharan territory, this is why in 1958₄ after the visit of late King Mohamed V to the said region where he was warmly received by all local Saharawi tribes which exercised a traditional Islamic ritual of allegiance and grated him their blessing as their sole ruler; not long afterwards, the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco ceded Tarfaya and “Spanish Southern Morocco” back to the kingdom of Morocco after witnessing local resistance and threat to the Spanish interests in this region.
Mr Zunes claim that Franco’s Spain was under American pressures to not give the territory to a leftist independent movement (it wasn’t called Polisario yet); Zunes couldn’t be more wrong as all historic records show that Franco didn’t want Morocco to recover this territory this is why he decided to run a referendum of self-determination to create a vessel state under Spanish control, unsurprisingly this very same strategy is still followed by Algeria until today; in 1975 Morocco executed its plans of the Green March₅ to recover peacefully this stolen part of Morocco’s national soil.
Mr Zunes wrote “In early 1976, the Polisario established the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which has been recognized by 80 countries” thus, he omitted to continue by saying that since 2007, the year in which Morocco presented his Autonomy plan to the UN, a vast number of countries which were misled by “Algeria’s efforts to become the regional hegemon (study in this link)” withdrew their recognition to the SADR; Morocco’s autonomy plan was described by all UN permanent members as a serious and credible solution capable of solving this 45 years old dispute. when it comes to the number of countries recognizing SADR, I presume that Mr Zunes gathered this number from Wikipedia which anyone could log in with a Gmail account and change it at will.
The SADR self-declared₆ statehood has no legal basis to be recognized as such by the UN based in international law₇, furthermore, the UN never recognised this pseudo-SADR-state, still Mr Zunes “forgot” again to emphasize that the Polisario recognition is shrinking by days, 48 countries withdrew already their recognition since the collapse of the URSS and also because of what was mentioned earlier about Moroccan Autonomy proposal; it is fit for purpose to add that the US and other 17 countries opened consular delegations in this region as formal recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over its historic Saharan soil, Mr Zunes is kindly invited to read the US Presidential Proclamation recognizing the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Morocco over Western Sahara.
Based on the UN decision of the 31st of December 1991 (3025th meeting): resolution 725 (1991)₈ a ceasefire agreement was signed between Morocco, the UN and Polisario; sadly for global peace efforts, two weeks ago the separatist group backed firmly by Algeria, unilaterally cancelled this 29 years old ceasefire agreement challenging consequently the UN bodies and the whole international community.
Mr Zunes stated “Virtually no country recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara” long story dryly shortened, as follows the countries that opened general consulates in the Sahara recognizing Moroccan sovereignty: USA₉, UAE₁₁, Bahrain₁₂, Jordan₁₃, Comoros Islands₁₄, Gabon₁₅ Central African Republic₁₆, Ivory Coast₁₇ Burundi₁₈, Zambia₁₉, Estwani₂₁ Sao Tome and Principe₂₂, Djibouti₂₃, Burkina Faso₂₄, Liberia₂₅ Guinea Bissau₂₆ Haiti₂₇.
Mr Zunes continued by saying “Starting on Oct. 21 this year, scores of Sahrawi civilians engaged in a nonviolent sit-in to block the highway” FP readers should know that the so-called “civilians” came from Tindouf camps (Algeria) which is 1700miles far from this border passage where this trade route blockade took place, it is paramount that this article readers know that this desert is one of the most inhospitable places in this planet, which pushes us to ask, how could this group of “poor refugees living in tents” come all this way down to this area without any consented logistical effort? right after the same “civilians” started blocking civilian traffic, stealing truck drivers and destroying the road linking Morocco to Mauritania. How could we dismiss daylight presence of armed members of Polisario supporting these illegal actions under the watch of the UN peacekeeping mission called MINURSO? Even Spain, one of the traditional reticent to Moroccan sovereignty over the Saharan region denounced this blockade in ELPAIS newspaper.
The author of FP article said as well “violently dispersed by Moroccan troops two weeks later” another flagrant untrue statement as the Polisario blocked this road for over three weeks this time in a repetitive manner for the last 4 years coinciding every time with the UN General Assembly discussions over MINURSO peacekeeping mission duties renewal; Morocco ran this operation under the UN peacekeeping mission watch peacefully without any human casualties as stated in this other Spanish article and MINURSO eye witness reports.
I cannot but show more scepticism and irony regarding these allegations and I quote Mr Zunes again “It appears that the Moroccan armed forces were unprepared for the Polisario’s coordinated attacks” Inside this Article you can watch EURONEWS original Video report about all the false attacks that Polisario and Algerian media claimed they were carried out; all the videos they used to prove their attacks tuned to be taken from Kashmir, Yemen and Syrian wars, all videos were debunked in less than two hours by international media.
Perhaps Mr Zunes could explain to us in his way why Polisario front unilaterally cancelled the 29 years old UN ceasefire agreement without consulting with any UN bodies, and why Joachim Schuster the EU German MP resigned yesterday and condemned Polisario front unilateral decision; Mr Joachim Schuster was the president of “Western Sahara EU parliament Intergroup”.
Of course, Mr Zunes omit as well to denounce the corruption reigning in the Polisario Tindouf camps in Algeria denounced formally by the EU, as the Polisario leaders were selling these aides to neighbouring countries under the complicit watch of Algerian authorities.
I genuinely believe that Mr Zunes could do better, I respect his opinions in general thus I value more standing for the truth.
By Jalal Nali
https://publicaciones.defensa.gob.es/media/downloadable/files/links/P/D/PDF69.pdf
https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/2072(XX)
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/81626535.pdf
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Green-March
https://www.britannica.com/place/Sahrawi-Arab-Democratic-Republic
https://www.sldinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Western-Sahara-and-European-Security.pdf
https://minurso.unmissions.org/resolution-725-1991
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-recognizing-sovereignty-kingdom-morocco-western-sahara/
https://www.diplomatie.ma/en/united-arab-emirates-inaugurates-consulate-general-laayoune
https://www.mofa.gov.bh/Default.aspx?tabid=7824&language=en-US&ItemId=15012
https://petra.gov.jo/Include/InnerPage.jsp?ID=30825&lang=en&name=en_news
https://www.embassypages.com/comoros-consulategeneral-laayoune-morocco
https://www.embassypages.com/gabon-consulategeneral-laayoune-morocco
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https://www.embassypages.com/liberia-consulate-dakhla-morocco
https://www.consulate-info.com/consulate/31679/Burkina-Faso-in-Dakhla
http://article19.ma/en/index.php/2020/03/13/sahara-the-republic-of-liberia-opens-consulate-general-in-dakhla/
https://www.diplomatie.ma/en/opening-guinea-bissau%E2%80%99s-consulate-general-dakhla
https://www.mapnews.ma/en/actualites/politics/haiti-opens-consulate-general-dakhla
https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/gaspd695.doc.htm
https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5282&context=etd
https://www.euronews.com/2020/11/17/sahrawi-arab-democratic-republic-declares-war-on-morocco-over-western-sahara-region
https://www.mapnews.ma/en/actualites/politics/main-support-polisario-european-parliament-falling-apart
https://elpais.com/espana/2020-11-05/el-bloqueo-del-frente-polisario-en-la-frontera-sur-del-sahara-occidental-afecta-a-ocho-barcos-espanoles.html
https://www.noticiasdenavarra.com/actualidad/mundo/2020/11/19/marruecos-construye-carretera-unira-guerguerat/1096238.html | https://medium.com/@jalalnali/in-response-to-stephen-zunes-false-allegations-on-his-foreign-policy-article-253f6dc1f3a3 | ['Jalal Nali'] | 2020-12-16 17:18:04.022000+00:00 | ['USA', 'Western Sahara', 'Stephen Zunes', 'Morocco', 'Foreign Policy'] |
Peloton Wants to Make Fitness Equipment Faster, So It’s Buying Precor | For $420 million, Peloton gets 625,000 square feet of manufacturing capacity and nearly 100 dedicated R&D staff.
By Matthew Humphries
Peloton specializes in offering exercise equipment and services allowing people to work out remotely, meaning the pandemic has seen demand for products such as the Peloton Bike+ soar. Now the fitness company wants to produce new equipment faster, so it went directly to the source and decided to acquire manufacturer Precor.
As CNBC reports, the deal was announced by Peloton yesterday, offering $420 million to acquire Precor with a view to closing the deal early next year. If everything goes to plan, Precor will become a business unit within Peloton. In return, Peloton gains control of Precor’s “significant U.S. manufacturing presence,” which includes 625,000 square feet of manufacturing capacity complete with “in-house tooling and fabrication, product development, and quality assurance capabilities in Whitsett, North Carolina and Woodinville, Washington.”
“Precor embodies the Peloton mission of putting Members first. Over the last few months, we’ve gotten to know the team and saw firsthand how much they care about their products, customers and, last but not least, their employees. By combining our talented and committed R&D and Supply Chain teams with the incredibly capable Precor team and their decades of experience, we believe we will be able to lead the global connected fitness market in both innovation and scale,” said William Lynch, Peloton’s President. “We’re looking forward to integrating the Precor team into Peloton and excited about what this means for the future of our brand and our ability to continue delivering world-class Member experiences.”
As well as a big boost to production, Peloton will benefit from the nearly 100 dedicated research and development employees at Precor. They will work with Peloton’s existing R&D team and will also be beneficial in helping Peloton understand how Precor’s design-to-manufacturing process currently functions.
“Precor is driven to create personalized health and fitness experiences that help people live the lives they desire. That passion has led us to create highly customizable solutions running on the fitness industry’s largest commercial network,” said Rob Barker, Precor’s President. “The Precor team is excited to combine our manufacturing expertise and more than 40 years of equipment innovations with Peloton’s award winning workout experiences to help commercial customers succeed and keep exercisers moving.” | https://medium.com/pcmag-access/peloton-wants-to-make-fitness-equipment-faster-so-its-buying-precor-cbc19afe6f93 | [] | 2020-12-23 01:22:41.267000+00:00 | ['Peloton', 'Fitness', 'Exercise', 'Technology'] |
181 CEOs Have Sworn Off Profit-Centric Leadership | 181 CEOs Have Sworn Off Profit-Centric Leadership
What does it mean for the future of brand-building?
Photo by Lucas Davies on Unsplash
This past August, the Business Roundtable, a group of roughly 190 CEOs from some of the largest companies in the U.S. issued a landmark announcement on the purpose of a corporation — essentially proclaiming the death of Milton Friedman economics. The Business Roundtable is not a group of eco-conscious, granola-eating CEOs but rather the leaders of the most visible, revered, and at times reviled brands, and they’re saying they/we need to change.
Signed by 181 CEOs, the proclamation states that business needs to work for the benefit of all stakeholders, including “customers, employees, suppliers, community, and shareholders.” Much has been written about it since its release. Many have hailed it, and many have expressed deep skepticism, given the nature of these companies and their past business practices.
There is good cause to be skeptical, but we also have to ask ourselves why would they release such a proclamation. Could it be a mere PR strategy? I think not.
Let’s assume for a moment that there are a few signatories who are joining the group in the hopes of gaining some positive spin for their brands. Let’s also assume that maybe a large percentage of the group signed with a genuine desire to move their companies in the direction of working for the benefit of all stakeholders, while also entertaining a little voice in the back of the mind that promises some good vibes from the media as a fringe benefit. Maybe only a small percentage of these CEOs are 100% on board regardless of what it may mean for the strength of their brands, share price, or positive press.
We can’t say for sure, but wouldn’t it be better to give them the benefit of the doubt, that change has to start somewhere, and where better than with 181 of some of the largest and most powerful institutions in the country?
As a brand strategist with a focus on working with companies to hardwire authenticity into their companies, I believe there is always a point in the process where an awareness comes to light that goes something like this: “So, if we say we’re about these values (fill in the blank), then we have to truly be that kind of company?”
Yes, that’s the point. We proclaim what we stand for, we acknowledge that these values are aspirational (that we may not get it right all the time) but that we will strive individually and collectively to be that kind of company.
Authentic brand-building is not for the faint of heart. It requires that we go deep into the psyche of a company, to touch the soul of an organization, and then as a collective to put words to it, to define it, and then to take the scary step of proclaiming it to our stakeholders: customers, employees, suppliers, community, and shareholders.
This is the key point in the journey of transforming a brand from mediocre to exceptional. We announce it to the world so we’re on the hook. Our stakeholders can now hold us accountable because they have something definitive to hold us to.
Saying we’re customer-centric but not providing a way to reach an actual person on the phone is not living up to our values. Saying we care about equality, for example, requires leaders to look within to uncover deeply engrained ways of thinking, and being willing to question our most basic beliefs related to gender, ethnicity, culture, lifestyles, and so on.
The Business Roundtable’s announcement places them on the hook — 181 CEOs of some of our largest organizations are saying, “This is what we’re about.” Now it’s up to us and all of their stakeholders to hold them accountable. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/181-ceos-have-sworn-off-profit-centric-leadership-fc20bb60690d | ['Glenn Geffcken'] | 2019-11-16 16:47:03.572000+00:00 | ['Brand Strategy', 'Authenticity', 'Leadership', 'Change Management'] |
5 Reasons to Volunteer While in College | College students should consider volunteering based on the following information.
Helps People in Need
College students can use their skills to help the community. For example, they can help immigrants with their English skills. They can also help high schoolers study for college entrance exams. Additionally, students can accompany senior citizens on their daily walks to the park. By donating their time and doing good deeds, students can positively impact society.
Creates Connections
Volunteer participants come from all walks of life. Some attendees may be working professionals, while others may be retirees. College students can ask about their experiences and see if a career track is right for them. They can keep in touch with new acquaintances after the volunteer event and establish a networking relationship.
Strengthens Resume
College students can use community service to stand out from other job applicants. Companies want to hire interesting people because they help strengthen corporate culture. Some people see their co-workers more than their own family. Therefore, they want to work with individuals who are easy to talk to. Community service can be used as a conversation starter. Job applicants can talk about their volunteer experience along with their hobbies and interests.
Volunteering can also be used to fill a resume gap. Companies want to know what candidates do when they are not busy. Students can provide a clear explanation by writing down community service.
Boosts Mental Health
College students can use community service to improve their mental health. Cleaning up the local park or serving meals at a senior center can serve as exercise. The body releases endorphins during physical activity. These natural chemicals can help relieve stress and pain. Also, being outside on a sunny day increases the body’s vitamin D levels. This nutrient can help fight disease and reduce depression. Finally, talking to other volunteers can make students laugh and smile.
Fulfills Academic Requirements
Some colleges may require community service to graduate with a certain degree. For example, honors students may need to complete a specified number of service honors to receive their diplomas. Students should take care of these requirements as soon as possible. Procrastination may lead to forgetfulness and stress.
Overall, volunteering can help students make the most of their college years.
Originally published: https://sarahlaud.org/5-reasons-to-volunteer-while-in-college/ | https://medium.com/sarah-laud/5-reasons-to-volunteer-while-in-college-b0ad6d2d881f | ['Sarah Laud'] | 2021-03-08 20:04:08.489000+00:00 | ['Volunteering', 'Philanthropy', 'Charity'] |
Christmas Isn’t Perfect | marketingberatung in Unsplash
We woke up yesterday morning to my husband yelling…It’s Christmas day!! We slept in to a whopping 7:00 AM.
Groggily wolfing down pancakes, sausage and coffee, my husband laid the gifts out in the family room and got his phone ready.
“After we open all of our gifts, we are going to Facetime everyone in the family to open theirs and to say Merry Christmas.”
The kids and I steeled ourselves phone call after phone call, where two weary hours later, we put on a the new movie “Soul” and sat, while resting. Facetime provided a sad and somewhat effective (yet lonely) way to celebrate the most important holiday of the year.
While watching the movie, I looked around the family room. The family was peaceful, and appeared to be content. You could sense the underlying pain we all felt but could do nothing about. It reminded me in so many ways of the vast imperfections that Christmas held every year before this one. By setting up the largest, looming-est expectations, you almost set yourself up for failure every year hoping this holiday could compensate for the other aspects of your life that are lacking.
It got me thinking of all the other aspects of my life I usually struggle with during the holidays. I don’t talk to my brother anymore. My father passed away five years ago. Several of my relatives don’t even celebrate Christmas. Old friends disappear and the number of Christmas cards we receive in the mail lessen year after year. And if you are really adding in yearly pain, I can’t remember the last time I got a raise at work.
The sadness seeps in while the holiday music blares in the background, and as the inflatables light up the street, I remember what my husband said to me one random holiday year: Christmas isn’t perfect.
It’s something to think about this year as we lament the loss of people, time, money, the ability to travel; this holiday never did give us 100% did it? It could never compensate for what was missing, but it did buoy us — it held us (me) up above that line — for a little while anyway.
It has not been the best year, but this day has brought me a level of hope. As I sit here wearing my new dangling sloth earrings, doing laundry as I prep for the work week to begin, I remember why I celebrate Christmas in the first place: gratitude for what I have in this exact moment. | https://medium.com/@llmiguel/christmas-isnt-perfect-34a3d90c8418 | ['Ll Miguel'] | 2020-12-27 00:16:27.865000+00:00 | ['Perfection', 'Gratitude', 'Family', 'Christmas'] |
Qoorio: a marketplace for knowledge and experience | In August 2018, over dinner and wine in the home of Justas Janauskas and Gabija Grušaite, I learned about the idea that would become Qoorio. Justas and Gabija had reflected on how the world could be a better place and how people had retreated from face-to-face conversations into their smartphones for advice. Their exploratory conversations with potential users elicited a very enthusiastic response. A year later, Change Ventures had led the pre-seed round for what was originally named HumansApp, now rebranded as Qoorio, and the business had completed a successful pilot launch in Vilnius, Lithuania.
In 2008, Justas co-founded a pre-loved clothing marketplace that later became known as Vinted (Kleiderkreisel in Germany). As CEO, he led the company through the early years of experimentation and growth, including a challenging period when the company’s growth stalled and they hired a new CEO to pivot the business model. His relationship with Change Ventures began when he joined as venture partner for Fund I, where his angel investment activity regularly surfaced new startups for us to evaluate. During this process we got talking about his new venture.
Justas had stepped back from a day-to-day operational role at Vinted in late 2017 to serve on the board, at which point he had more time to reflect on new opportunities. Together with Gabija, they discussed what they saw as one of the big challenges of our time — the tendency of technology to lower face-to-face interaction between human beings and the parallel growth in the global problem of loneliness. They theorised that technology could perhaps also address these challenges but that the right solution was not available at the time. I saw the same issues and was intrigued by their idea of a marketplace that would connect people with one another for a face-to-face interaction. Further, it was my strong belief that this would extend beyond face-to-face interactions and also grow into an online model. | https://medium.com/change-ventures/qoorio-a-marketplace-for-knowledge-and-experience-d955be2a3430 | ['Change Ventures'] | 2019-11-05 07:26:00.408000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Lithuania', 'Marketplaces', 'Justas Janauskas', 'Change Ventures'] |
Email advertising is the focusing of clients through messages. | Email advertising is the focusing of clients through messages. Each email shipped off a potential clients can be considered as email promoting. Email showcasing includes sending a limited time email or an advertisement to a supporter. Through his email address. A lot of associations today use email advertising. Significantly more bloggers do utilize email showcasing today than any time in recent memory. For instance, have you ever been perusing on a site, and you see some field where you are approached to present your name and email to get a free eBook or update? That is the forward portion of email advertising.
Most bloggers use email promoting on the grounds that it upgrades the client experience. With an all-around focused email show, you can arrive at set up clients and imminent ones as well. Some random endorser will be educated better and all the more effectively through email. The email will have a more prominent perceivability than a Facebook post. The Facebook post will be suffocated in a surge of substance in the minutes following its posting. | https://medium.com/@ranjithranju659/email-advertising-is-the-focusing-of-clients-through-messages-d660c8766bf7 | ['Ranjith S'] | 2020-12-16 16:35:59.286000+00:00 | ['Marketing Strategies', 'Email Marketing Strategy', 'Email Marketing', 'Email', 'Email Marketing Services'] |
WFH Optimizations — The budget based Indian version | Like it or hate it, WFH is here to stay. Decided to pen a few of my experiences and tips in enhancing my WFH environment.
80% of this story is purely technical oriented and attempts to address issues like “zoom call freezes after x amount of time” or “my back, my back, my damn back” :)
Divided into sections Internet Optimization, Eye n Back care, Audio Video & other Peripherals.
Remember, this is the budget based Indian version. Recommendations lean towards moderately priced artifacts with an emphasis on “Value for Money”.
Internet Optimization
I use Airtel broadband, and at times suffered from zoom calls freezing at the “apt” times. My Plan is the Rs. 1149 — 300 Mbps unlimited one. Airtel service in BLR is quite good.
Upgrade your router : Call your ISP and ask for a free router upgrade. My Old Wifi router was this : TOTO Link + an ADSL modem
and my new router is this Nokia ONT GPON (G2425G-A) dual band AC1200 wifi i.e. N300+AC800
The new router has a much better 5 ghz range than my previous router. The 5 ghz band (300 mbps for me) gives you higher speeds than the 2.4 ghz band (50 mbps for me), however, its wifi coverage area is less i.e. if your router is near your laptop choose the 5 ghz band, else choose the 2.4 ghz band. Tip : Remember to plead, beg and cry to retain your old WIFI router from your ISP provider…will explain soon, why this is very useful.
2. Check if your fiber optics Rx Signal Level is correct (should be between -18 to -25)
Login to your router (mostly 192.168.1.1, u/p=admin/admin) . Mine was -32 and my ISP Airtel had to change the fiber optics wire from their junction box to my router.
The TX (transmit) optical power refers to the output optical power of the transceiver at the transmitting end, and the RX (receive) optical power means the input optical power at the receiving end. Both of them are important parameters that affect the signal transmission distance.
3. Get Cat6 wiring done : Got an electrician to pull two cat6 wires from my router to my probable places of work. This needs two people, which typically cost 800 for service and Rs.15 per meter for Cat6 Cables.
Tip : Remember to also get Cat6 Sockets (cost Rs. 350)and Gigabit devices (in my case, I had to get a Cat6, usb 2, VGA to USB C adapter) as i have a Lenovo Yoga 920 personal laptop which does supports high speeds (my work one — Dell does not support gigabit speeds) - As they say in Networking, “You are as fast as your slowest link”.
Tips to increase Speed (I did not do this) Change Channel — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufMNDMlHpC0 Change MCU — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK2PHpKI9M4
4. Use the Old WIFI Router as a fast Access Point : If your Cat6 cabling is done, you can now connect the New Router to the Old Router using the LAN ports on both the routers. Ensure that you turn off DHCP on your old Router. | https://medium.com/@callingashley/wfh-optimizations-the-budget-based-indian-version-1286b225242 | ['Ashley Fernandes'] | 2020-12-26 14:36:10.455000+00:00 | ['Internet', 'Efficiency', 'WFH', 'Optimization'] |
5 Eclectic Approaches to Corporate Diversity and Inclusion | Continuing on in my research into how companies are approaching societal profit, I came across an encouraging number of initiatives by American corporations that took of all different shapes, sizes and degrees.
In particular, many of the programs I came across were dated in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in particular. In this time period, many companies produced diversity-focused advertising campaigns, made donations (typically $500k to $1 million) to BLM-related philanthropic causes, reiterated their diversity and inclusion policies, touted their D&I executives, and produced D&I reports. Yet some approaches went beyond this common set, standing out for their uniqueness.
Here is a summary of several of the most interesting instances I found of companies taking novel approaches to innovating in their pursuit of racial and gender-based societal profit, from both equality and equity-based perspectives.
Microsoft — Diversity and Inclusions Efforts of the World’s Most Valuable Corporation
Microsoft is arguably the world’s most valuable company, and is a company injected with the corporate ethos of one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, who plowed $37 billion of his own money into his namesake charity. Given its wealth of resources, global footprint, and ability to exert influence as a corporate role model, Microsoft is also uniquely positioned to make a highly substantive impact on the norms, values, and reality of society at-large.
From my experiences working for the software giant in the 2010s, I saw firsthand how Microsoft had come a long way from its portrayal in stories from days as the corporate bully of early Silicon Valley. In this millennium, Microsoft has made and continues to make clear commitments to growing its societal profits in addition to its dollar profit. Of all the D&I news I found, I came away with the feeling that Microsoft’s efforts are the most noteworthy for their scope and specificity, and can serve as an excellent case study into the strategy and tactics of how a large corporation can pursue societal profit. Furthermore, the fact that the world’s most successful company by stock price terms values societal profit is a ringing repudiation of the Milton Friedman doctrine, which urges the leverage of every dollar a company has access to in order to return the maximum profits possible to its investors.
In the wake of the racial tragedies of 2020, Microsoft’s expanded D&I efforts were detailed in a letter from CEO Satya Nadella, which began by calling out its immediate increase in its investment into its own diversity and inclusion efforts by $150 million over the next five years. This expands Microsoft’s investment into D&I efforts by another 50% on top of its previously reported $300 million commitment of 2018. On a related tangent, Apple and Walmart each also announced commitments, to the tune of $100 million each for the creation of D&I research centers and other efforts.
Microsoft’s new $150 million investment is revealed throughout the rest of the letter to stand on top of close to $1 billion in other commitments to other, external efforts, which are broken down into the following three pillars of action:
Raising leadership diversity:
Rolling out a required D&I training, which includes coverage of the specific experiences of the Black and African American community.
This idea of actually immersing people in the experiences and shoes of others to deepen the training is particularly interesting. This addition could be an innovative way to establish connections to affected communities and build new, two-way streets of structured interaction, discussion, and learning that wouldn’t otherwise exist.
Doubling the number of Black and African American managers and leaders (Satya commented that Microsoft’s D&I efforts would expand to Hispanic and Latinx over the next five years).
For context, Microsoft’s current Black and African American leadership rate sits at ~2.7% (of ~4.5% company-wide). This initiative also includes specific efforts to plan structured career pathways, such as from mid-level management to director, and director to general manager. When paired with Microsoft’s commitment to expand the diversity of its talent and supplier pipelines (covered below), the expansion in leadership may hopefully create a virtuous cycle in normalizing the presence of Black and African Americans in all areas of the company’s workforce and operations, which could help Microsoft (and the broader tech industry the company is a leader within) ultimately align company workforce participation rates closer to the Black American labor participation rate of 12.3% as of 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Increasing the D&I component of senior leader compensation/promotional decisions, as well as assigning leaders coaching aimed to help them grow their performance against D&I goals.
This follows a rising trend of expanding executive compensation from profits/growth to D&I performance outcomes, and is phenomenal to see growing in adoption. Microsoft’s addition of D&I coaching may be a luxury affordable by its high profit margins, but the purpose (padding added executive requirements with key support in figuring out how to achieve their new performance goals) may also be able to be accomplished by other means for other businesses which cannot afford coaches for all relevant stakeholders.
Supporting Black and African American businesses:
Doubling the number of Black and African American-owned suppliers that Microsoft works with, as well as increasing its investment into these suppliers by $500M. As part of these efforts, Microsoft elaborated that it would also ensure minority business were represented in incoming RFPs, adjust diversity weights in the selection process, and even evaluate the D&I efforts within it top 100 suppliers as part of the RFP process.
The last detail of this particular strategy is a fascinating and indeed bold extension of the influence of Microsoft’s D&I commitments into the operations of other companies it works with. While the argument for over-reach may be made here, it should be considered that the free market works both ways and that this is a prime example of a free-market mechanism. Given that Microsoft is not only a seller but a powerful customer as well, it should be afforded the same right as end-customers to decide who to buy from, and free to wield its influence according to its own internal decision-making criteria. It’s easy to see how this type of RFP weighting is easily translatable to other areas of societal profit, such as L’Oreal’s RFP requirements of suppliers to support its own efforts to achieve its Zero deforestation goal.
Doubling Microsoft cashflows invested through Black and African American-owned financial institutions, furthermore committing $100 million in investments into minority-run financial institutions and $50 million for Black and African American small businesses. Microsoft will also increase its number of Black and African American owned partners by 20% (partners are companies that sell, service, or otherwise leverage Microsoft products in their own core business models), as well as investing $73 million in financial support for partners.
Satya points out actions such as these represent another vehicle in which Microsoft can extend its influence as a large buyer into other participants in the industries it buys from, such as incentivizing investors considering minority-owned financial businesses.
In fact, after Netflix announced that it would deploy $100 million of its cash stockpile into Black financial institutions, Bloomberg found that stocks of multiple Black-owned financial institutions immediately popped, underscoring the real-world impact of these corporate D&I efforts.
Both Broadway Financial and Carver Bankcorp listed above have retained their D&I share price pop through today
Tackling the talent pipeline issue at its root:
Committing $50 million into criminal justice reform, increasing the reach of its STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education and training programs in K-12 and college institutions, skills training programs for adults seeking new jobs, and $5 million in grants for non-profits empowering skills training programs in global communities of color.
Working with partners to provide more affordable devices and access in urban communities, and supporting non-profit organizations led by people of color via technology cost credits and grants.
In another article, Microsoft explained how some of its efforts and technologies were deployed into efforts to reform the criminal justice system, including:
Developing tools to allow researchers, NGOs and governments to better study racial sentencing disparities, and also inform the decisions courts make in criminal cases involving minorities, such as when meting out so-called “Legal Financial Obligations” (i.e. fines, costs, restitution from criminal cases), and what level of these obligations is truly fair and just.
Providing software and expertise to facilitate surveys that listen to community members’ feedback on how they perceive the criminal justice system, in order to fuel reform efforts.
Leveraging virtual reality in order to help inmates simulate scenarios of re-entering society after release.
Microsoft’s efforts here round out a third group of Black and African Americans, seeking to impact the lives of not only people working for or selling to Microsoft, but also people in the innumerable communities that Microsoft’s overall corporate footprint touches.
Microsoft’s D&I efforts were so bold, in fact that the Trump administration’s Department of Labor sent Microsoft a letter investigating into whether its practices might be found to be reverse discrimination (see Microsoft’s response).
US Department of Labor investigates Microsoft’s D&I efforts to double the Black and African American makeup in its leadership ranks
For more insights, check out Microsoft’s 2019 Annual Diversity and Inclusion Report.
Yelp — Highlighting Black-Owned Business to End-Customers
Beyond investments of money and recruiting lies an interesting new approach, which centers on the idea of empowering customers to see how their own dollars can support Black and African American-owned businesses.
After the death of George Floyd, Yelp not only made donations to BLM-related efforts, but also put its product teams to work innovating to support the minority community in any other ways it could. In the end, the Yelp team rolled out an option that would allow Black-owned businesses to add a badge to their profile to identify their Black ownership and allow customers to decide to spend their own dollars in support of Black-owned businesses. DoorDash and Shopify also followed in Yelp’s footsteps, releasing similar Black-owned business flags in their user experiences.
Yelp’s Black-owned business badge
Soon after its initial release, Yelp followed up with a second feature aimed at addressing racial bias by alerting users of businesses that are accused of racist behavior, informed by media reports.
Yelp’s racist behavior warning
This approach to D&I innovation demonstrated by Yelp belongs to an emerging new class of D&I efforts: those that go beyond the more widely adopted but less integrated approaches of throwing donation money at D&I or even rolling out a standard D&I training risk being relegated to a “check the box” activity: done whenever PR pressure mounts or an issue occurs, but with little follow-up otherwise.
Yelp took a bold step to internalize the importance of D&I into a company’s culture by diverting resources (its product team at that, rather than free cashflows or one hour for training) that could otherwise be utilized in more direct profit-driving workstreams and also weaving the initiative into the company’s core product, where changes attain a high level of visibility and create lasting implications.
Buffer — Creating Full Transparency in Compensation
In one example that occurred long before 2020, Buffer demonstrated how transparency can be a tool for equality by removing the shadows in which bias and discrimination can hide. Even in the D&I Reports that I found I didn’t find this level of transparency; most, if they touched on pay comparisons, referred to high-level findings, such as whether pay was or was not equal, or rolled up pay gap percentages.
In 2013, the CEO of Buffer published a spreadsheet that revealed the salaries of all of its employees, along with the formulas and supporting logic which determined each salary rate. The disclosure was an outcome based squarely on Buffer’s core values and fell in with other value-driven actions, such as an open book policy for Buffer’s revenues and user numbers, as well as company-wide access to all emails, which was inspired by Stripe’s open email policy.
Buffer’s example of radical compensation transparency may be risky, given that some employees may not wish for their income to be public knowledge, and the act of volunteering information that is not legally required is anathema to companies in highly competitive industries. Yet, it is this high degree of transparency that is precisely what is so innovative and can be effective at discouraging discrimination, or at the least offering hard data to facilitate objective discussions about potential discrimination or unfair treatment between employees on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, and even company role/seniority/level.
Years later in 2017, Buffer continued building on its core values by sharing its profitability figures and creating an employee profit-sharing pool, as well as carve-outs for charitable donations. Buffer pointed to examples from other companies offering employee profit-sharing plans including Basecamp, Mailchimp, and Southwest Airlines.
Airbnb — Protecting Customers From Discrimination
With the rise of the gig economy, technology marketplaces have found themselves at the center of complaints of discrimination, such as suppliers declining service to minority groups. Gig economy companies such as Uber have responded with a variety of means to combat racism, such as anti-discrimination policies and training for corporate employees and gig workers, specialized customer support, D&I recruiting/leadership targets and goal-based compensation tie-ins, and others.
And while Uber’s approach in particular is certainly notable given its goals to doubling Black leadership rates and continue pressing its executive compensation tie-in commitments, I found Airbnb’s approach to addressing D&I to be another interesting study for pushing the envelop of D&I a bit further than other marketplace companies.
First, Airbnb grounds its anti-discrimination work in a specialized team (which is not novel to the industry approach). What is novel (or is at least marketed well) is that Airbnb clearly takes pains to ground this team’s work with expert input from and collaboration with relevant organizations across a diversity of racial and ethnic focuses. Trying to tackle the D&I problem internally is noble; but trying to tackle the problem with help enlisted from organizations who have been on the front lines of the topic for much, much longer than a company has been in operations is both admirable and intelligent.
One particular project from its anti-discrimination team, called Operation Lighthouse leverages a 3rd party to categorize the perceptions of guests and hosts by race, based on inputs like name and profile picture, with the goal of identifying bias decision-making on the platform, which can be used as data to inform future decisions by Airbnb anti-discrimination teams.
For instance, one decision that Airbnb took was to change its reservation flow to prevent customer profile pictures from being shown to suppliers before bookings are confirmed, to reduce visual bias. Also, as a result of its anti-discrimination research, Airbnb reports that it has removed 1.3 million suppliers from its platform due to bias-based behavior.
It will be interesting to keep tabs on Airbnb’s expert-informed partnership to see what other innovations in D&I they think up.
Notably, news from Bloomberg indicated that Airbnb was considering dual-listing on the Long Term Stock Exchange, underscoring Airbnb’s commitment to social responsibility.
Ideas from LinkedIn for Cultivating Diversity and Inclusion
Lastly, I came across an imaginative article published on LinkedIn, which covered 50+ ideas for cultivating corporate diversity. Here were several that I found particularly interesting:
Ensure that office supply needs are included that cover all employee needs, such as including tampons in restrooms. Consider surveying employees to determine the best mix of supplies to provide. Create a Diversity and Inclusion Slack channel or other communication vehicle to create a dedicated space and help instill discussions in this vein as a normal value in company culture. Bring expertise and experiences into your organization by inviting a D&I speaker to touch on important topics in a guest speaker session with your team, including leadership. Encourage employees to politely point out interruptions during meetings, in order to heighten awareness and encourage a socially-accountable evolution in the communication patterns of employees (such as males) who tend to speak over and discourage others from sharing their own opinions. Also, consider using a round robin technique to encourage people who don’t normally volunteer to speak in meetings — or consider implementing a follow up process that provides the opportunity for people who didn’t get a chance to speak to be able to add their 2 cents. Hang a poster in highly visible area of offices (or on the walls behind leadership members’ home offices during the age of WFH) that highlight the D&I policies and initiatives that your company runs to maximize the chances that employees are made aware of your company’s D&I efforts, and once more — to normalize thinking about D&I every day.
Stay tuned for part 3 to the Evolving American Capitalism essay series, as well as one similar to this exploring innovations in planet sustainability. | https://medium.com/@incipiagabe/5-eclectic-approaches-to-corporate-diversity-and-inclusion-c34b1c1a0544 | ['Gabe Kwakyi'] | 2020-11-12 22:52:43.274000+00:00 | ['Diversity', 'Social Responsibility', 'Diversity And Inclusion', 'Esg', 'Diversity In Tech'] |
Diet And Exercising For Weight Loss | Obesity is now being called an epidemic in the health community. In fact, it will soon be the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, even ahead of cigarette smoking. Obesity leads to type two diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease or stroke and even an increased risk of cancer. With all of these health risks, as well as the general improvement in the quality of life that can occur, losing weight is one of the best things that you can do for yourself.
Watch The Short Video To Learn How To Delicious, Easy-To-Make Smoothies For Rapid Weight Loss, Increased Energy, & Incredible Health!
No matter what we would like to believe, there simply isn’t a magic solution to losing weight. The body will shed excess fat when it needs more calories to function through the demands you place on it in a given day than the amount of calories that you feed it. It’s that simple. So, in order to lose weight, you need to decrease the number of calories that you eat as well as increase the amount that you burn.
There is a wide range of options to choose from when looking for a weight loss program. All of them often spend a lot of time explaining what to eat, in what amounts and even at what times or in what combinations. But few of them emphasize the importance of exercise — not just for losing weight, but for your general health and wellbeing. Exercise is vital when trying to lose weight for several reasons:
Watch The Short Video To Learn How To Delicious, Easy-To-Make Smoothies For Rapid Weight Loss, Increased Energy, & Incredible Health!
First, as you start to eat less, your metabolism will slow down somewhat. Exercising helps to elevate your metabolism back to an efficient level.Second, as mentioned, exercise burns more calories so that you can lose weight faster and stay motivated in your efforts.Third, exercise actually releases endorphins, chemicals that keep your mood elevated.
Exercise doesn’t have to mean spending hours at the gym or straining through exhausting workouts. In fact, in order for you to stick with it on the long run, exercising should be something that you enjoy. Start by increasing your activity level in an overall way. Take the stairs when you can. Park further from the mall door when you go shopping. Go for a walk in the park or through a neighborhood you love and bring a dog or a friend along for company. Take dance or martial arts lessons.
Watch The Short Video To Learn How To Delicious, Easy-To-Make Smoothies For Rapid Weight Loss, Increased Energy, & Incredible Health!
Once you become more active in general, you’ll find it easier and more natural to move into regular exercise. Which you’ll need to do eventually in order to get regular, noticeable health benefits. You need to raise your heart rate to a fat burning level and keep it there for at least 20 minutes, 3 times or more a week. However, if you don’t want to go to a gym, there are other options. Videos and DVDs are now available in all kinds of exercise types. That way you can change your routine whenever you want so that you don’t get bored with what you’re doing. Try a range of aerobics, kickboxing, yoga, or pretty much any activity you want right in the comfort of your own home.
If you have physical limitations that would keep you off from exercising, you can still find a way to increase your activity level. Water aerobics is a wonderful option for those who have joint problems or limited mobility because it relieves the pressure on your body that your weight provides. But you still get the resistance to challenge your muscles from the water. There are even classes and videos available that let you exercise in a seated position.
Whatever kind of exercise you choose, it’s important to stay motivated and keep it fun. Try gathering a group together to make it a social event. Or get a pedometer, a device that tracks how far you walk, and see how many miles you can walk a week. Make a competition amongst your friends or family members and treat the winner with something special (not food related!). Make the experience of exercising something that you look forward to, and it will soon become a regular part of your healthier lifestyle.
Watch The Short Video To Learn How To Delicious, Easy-To-Make Smoothies For Rapid Weight Loss, Increased Energy, & Incredible Health! | https://medium.com/@roniaswani07/diet-and-exercising-for-weight-loss-4eab7370f37a | [] | 2021-12-30 18:47:18.486000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss', 'Weight Loss Supplements', 'Weightloss Recipe', 'Weightloss Foods', 'Weight Loss Tips'] |
How Facebook Set the Gold Standard for Acquisitions, Until Now | Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in the early days
When Facebook bought Instagram in 2012, they did this really remarkable thing: They left them alone. You didn’t see your Instagram automagically suddenly showing up in your FB feed. You didn’t get all those cool filters on your FB photos. And you weren’t giving over massive amounts of data through your Insta feed.
This. Never. Happens.
Here’s how it usually goes down: Buyers believe they know more about the business than those who were running it, pushing the founders aside and taking over. Sometimes, as in the case of Julie Clark, the founder of Baby Einstein, they give you the title of creative consultant — but fail to consult you or appreciate your creativity (listen to Julie’s story on The Exit Club podcast). Other times, as with Dave Will, who sold online learning platform Peach New Media, they say they’re acquiring your culture of openness, transparency and inclusion — and then proceed to make decisions behind closed doors. Founders of an organic juice business were surprised when their books were being cooked, by their new parent company, and had to hire a forensic accountant and sue to get the earn-out payments they were due.
In other words, the Facebook acquisition was a bed of roses for Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.
The Facebook Acquisition Blueprint
Facebook left Instagram completely alone. They gave them money and resources and that’s why the founders stayed put instead of jumping ship within a year as so many founders — especially those who create really big-deal things — often do.
It wasn’t always certain this is the way it would go. When the deal happened, in 2012, Mark Zuckerberg wrote something that sounded like more integration was in the offing:
This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.
And yet, they really didn’t bring the two companies together. Early on, they added a way for Instagram users to also post to Facebook — though there are many similar integrations that happened for about a billion dollars less than this one. And in 2016, four years after the deal, they developed an integrated dashboard for business customers to manage campaigns across Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. Certainly, this was a promise of the power of uniting two social media juggernauts into a powerful marketing ecosystem with a broader view into consumer habits.
But that has basically been about it. Six years, a few ho-hum integrations and a massive increase in the value of Instagram, from the $1 billion Facebook paid to north of $100 billion today. For all the slagging that goes on when it comes to Facebook, they pretty much set the gold standard here on how to handle acquisitions. (Until recently, when they began to pull back on Instagram’s autonomy, following so many other acquirers down this fraught path.)
Facebook’s Acquisition Challenge Going Forward
What Facebook does next may or may not have any material impact on the experience most users have. Though it could easily go the way of so many acquisitions and leave employees and users alienated, it does seem as though it would be difficult to dismantle the success that is Instagram. After all, how many times have you heard that another Facebook will come along to replace Facebook?
Now, here’s what could go wrong if FB ignores it:
If Insta employees were attached only to Kevin and Mike, they may have a hard time taking orders from new leadership, and they are well past their vesting period that might otherwise keep them there. On Oct. 1, Facebook named longtime exec Adam Mosseri as Instagram’s new CEO. At least the title indicates independence.
If Facebook is now calling the shots from on high for every business it acquires, startups with other options may be less interested in working with them. The founder of WhatsApp left earlier this year after conflicts over data privacy and the messaging app’s business model (not surprisingly, Facebook wanted to run ads). Still, WhatsApp remains pretty popular around the world.
So, is this the “end of Instagram as we know it,” as The Verge has claimed? Maybe. But if you’re a founder, this story still has a very good ending.
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by + 374,357 people.
Subscribe to receive our top stories here. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-facebook-has-set-the-gold-standard-on-acquisitions-until-now-34e1ad8cfa4b | ['Laura Rich'] | 2018-10-03 04:17:19.514000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Instagram', 'Startup Life', 'Mergers And Acquisitions', 'Facebook'] |
Disgust | dis·gust/disˈɡəst/noun
a feeling of revulsion or strong disapproval aroused by something unpleasant or offensive.
synonyms: revulsion, repugnance, aversion, distaste, abhorrence, loathing, detestation,odium, execration, horror, nausea
A few weeks ago, I attended a self-love seminar. It was really amazing, and even in the last two weeks has been trans-formative. We were taught mirror work. To look ourselves in the eye, and treat ourselves as we would our best friend. There was more, but that’s the gist of it. It’s so not easy, it’s a practice, that eventually will become a habit. I am really glad I went and have been practicing.
During this seminar, we were told to look into the mirror and recognize what we were feeling and practice saying something nice to ourselves. I did say something nice to myself. It felt… scary and then I really looked into my eyes and all I felt was disgust. Absolute disgust. Then I felt physically nauseous.
I struggled with that feeling for a few days. Attempting to find the source and work my way through it. I went to my therapy appointment, and talked about the experience. My therapist said “whose voice was it?” and I told her, I wanted to say my Dad or Harry… but it wasn’t their voices, it was my Mom’s voice. There I was working to be kind and loving to myself and her disgust for me, reared up at that moment.
My Mother the one person I should have been able to count on unconditionally loving me, literally put me into the arms of a monster and turned and walked away, fully knowing he would sexually violate me. Not once or twice, an uncountable number of times. Over and over again, she turned the other way and allowed him to hurt me.
She was filled with self-disgust, but not being brave enough to face it, she projected that onto me. A child, the most vulnerable being. I had no way to protect myself. I had no choice but to take that disgust into myself and believe it. I have been carrying her disgust, as mine, my whole life.
I peel back the layers of my trauma and find more layers. I can remember her telling me I was disgusting. She gave me to my Dad to do with as he wished, and he told me it was love. All I wanted was to be loved. So I did what he told me, and I did whatever I could to earn his love… and she loathed me for it. For loving him and wanting him to love me. I never knew anything different. All I ever knew was abuse, disguised as love.
When they divorced, she pretended nothing happened. No one talked about it. No one talked to me. I was 4 years old…? I had created a coping mechanism for myself. Whenever I had bad feelings I would masturbate. Because a clitoris is a bundle of nerves, that feels good when stimulated. It didn’t necessarily have to be sexual, but it was. It was, because my Dad conditioned me to want that good feeling when something felt bad. When he was hurting me, he also made me feel good. When I knew it was wrong, he was making me feel good. So, as a way to cope with feelings I was too young to understand or process on my own, I would masturbate.
When she would find me masturbating, she shamed me. She told me it was dirty and I was disgusting. She didn’t talk to me, try to help me, take responsibility for her part in any of it. No, she let me carry it all. How can a 4 year old, process and carry all of that pain? It didn’t end there. With no help, and a Mother projecting her self-disgust on me, I carried that — always. That disgust, has been with me, my whole life.
First as a child, I masturbated whenever I felt bad. The sexual violation may have stopped, but not the memories. With no one to talk to, and no way to understand what happened. I felt bad a lot. Can you imagine? I remember being so sad because I wanted my Dad to love me, but I couldn’t even see him. How could I do what he wanted and make him love me? Why did I have trouble falling asleep? How could I miss something that hurt. Why didn’t he love me? Why didn’t my mom love me?
I remember a nightmare I had when I lived in our farmhouse. I might have been 5 or 6. My mom wanted to murder us. My oldest sister hid the rest of us in the house under couch cushions, and I could see my mom outside walking around the house, looking for a way inside and she had an ax and was going to chop us up. But my oldest sister protected us.
There were family friends who saw me masturbate, and I even told them “it’s okay, my daddy does it”. No one helped me then. I was in 2nd grade and I remember a janitor catching me masturbate in the bathroom at school… no help then either. Over the years, I continued to masturbate, whenever I was upset. Which was a lot. I didn’t understand that what I had experienced wasn’t normal. Because, to me, it was. No one talked to me about it, it stayed secret. I couldn’t connect to my peers… they didn’t know the same traumas I did. I saw the world differently. I wanted to be loved so bad, and I had a Dad who sexually violated me then disappeared. I had a mom who I couldn’t connect with because she was repulsed by me. I erroneously thought it was my fault.
Pre-teen years… what a mess I was. I wanted so bad to have friends and connect with my peers. I’d seen my Dad sporadically over the years, in my mind he was still my daddy. Someone who I wanted to love me more than anything in this world. I remember one time, my mom asking if I wanted to see him. I said yes! She said “you know he’s a child molester, right?” I said yeah. But I had no idea what she was talking about. In my mind molester meant minstrel. Someone who plays music! Because we NEVER talked about it. EVER!
I couldn’t connect with anyone. Peers didn’t have my same cares. Adults “knew” something was off, but they didn’t want to be bothered with my trauma. I wanted love so bad, I was needy, desperate… and they found it repulsive and pushed me away. I had a Mom who hated me, because she couldn’t face her own guilt and shame. I was utterly alone, left to try to make sense of all of this.
Young teen years, wow. A sexually violated girl, going through puberty, with absolutely no idea what had happened to her, still masturbating. I was so confused. In my mind, sex was love. My peers were talking about sex. Finally, maybe I could be loved. Ha! No, I was shamed again by my peers. I was called a slut, of course. Conditioned my whole life to believe you payed for love by allowing yourself to be used for sexual acts, and at the same time conditioned to believe you were disgusting if it felt good. Conditioned to believe I was unworthy of love. Never understanding relationships, or myself.
High School for any ordinary kid is usually horrendous at best… for me? It was torture. My first serious relationships… absolute disasters. I still didn’t know how to connect. All my worth was tied up in sex, and a desperation to be loved. I couldn’t relate to anyone. I was emotionally stunted. I would have sex with anyone who showed the least amount of interest, because I had no idea how to say no. I didn’t even think I could say no. I would do anything to feel love, even for that small moment.
What my parents did to me, can never be excused. My dad sexually violated me. My Mother knew exactly what was going on and allowed it over and over. Then she pretended nothing happened, while projecting her self-disgust onto me. There is no child in the world who can process that. She left me to survive as I could, without her help. Or anyone’s help. There is no way I could process that on my own. There is only finding coping mechanisms, if you are lucky, and surviving until you are in a safe place, to unravel the complexities, and weave together self-acceptance and self-love from what is left.
I am not responsible for what they did to me. I did not deserve what they did. I am not disgusting. | https://medium.com/@cary.bach/disgust-44e5a4b11f2f | ['Cary Bach Donahou'] | 2019-08-22 04:18:24.142000+00:00 | ['Sexual Abuse', 'Childhood Sexual Abuse', 'This Happened To Me', 'Metoo', 'PTSD'] |
Configure Hadoop and start Cluster Service Using Ansible Playbook | Hello Learner👨🏻💻!!!!
Here is one more article, so we all know ansible is an extra intelligent tool so in this article we configure the Hadoop cluster using Ansible playbook without going to DataNode and NameNode manually.
So Lets Start Article,
First, we discuss what is Hadoop? what is NameNode and what is DataNode?
🔰 Hadoop
Apache Hadoop is an open-source framework that is used to efficiently store and process large datasets ranging in size from gigabytes to petabytes of data. Instead of using one large computer to store and process the data, Hadoop allows clustering multiple computers to analyze massive datasets in parallel more quickly.
🔰 DataNode
DataNodes are the slave nodes in HDFS. Unlike NameNode, DataNode is commodity hardware, that is, a non-expensive system that is not of high quality or high-availability
🔰 NameNode
NameNode is the centerpiece of an HDFS file system. It keeps the directory tree of all files in the file system, and tracks where across the cluster the file data is kept. It does not store the data of these files itself.
So in this module, we launch the Hadoop cluster using Ansible Playbook over the AWS. Well, it is not so difficult to perform.
Let us understand step by step how we can do the 11.1 task:
For this, we can use AWS AMI which is available on AWS.
AWS Instance
So for this task, we create three instances one is the Controller node and two managed nodes for configuring Hadoop Cluster.
🔰 11.1 Configure Hadoop and start cluster services using Ansible Playbook
First of all, we install ansible in our controller node for that we move to the root of AWS Linux and then we install ansible using the below command:
# sudo amazon-linux-extras install ansible2
ansible installed
Now,we check ansible successfully install or not using the below command:
# ansible — version
Successfully installed Ansible
Creating Inventory in the controller node to manage or configure other nodes
Ansible inventory file defines the hosts and groups of hosts upon which commands, modules, and tasks in a playbook operate.
for this first write the detail in ansible.cfg file below the figure:
Go to vim/etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
When you press enter, you will find [defaults]. and write the text as shown in the image.
ansible.cfg
Now create an inventory file and write the details about IP address, Username, and Connection in the file.
Inventory
So in AWS something is different for connectivity, for that we have not provided any security key till now so the next step to providing a security key is completely different as compare to local VMs.
for that In the Controller, node go to ssh and create security
# cd .ssh
# ssh-keygen
Key_Generation
go to the authorized_keys file and copy the content and paste in the target node authorized
Authorized_Keys
Copy the content in the target node
so come back to the controller node and check the connectivity using the below command:
# ansible all -m ping
Successfully Connected Both nodes
Now, we write the Playbook to configure the Hadoop cluster.
For that we need to install some software:
Install JDK.
Install Hadoop.
Configure the core-sitx.xml and hdfs-site.xml file.
Create Directory.
Format the NameNode Only.
Start the Hadoop service in both Node.
Check the Report.
I write a playbook for all the steps and run this playbook in both target node. In these two target nodes, one is the slave node and the other is the master node we write both names with different IP in the ip.txt file.
Steup
DataNode
NameNode
Here is the output to configure both nodes:
output
output
output
so here is successfully completed task 11
Thank you for reading this article.
The complete yml code is available on my git profile:
https://github.com/Simi16/Configure_Hadoop_using_Playbook
Keep Learning👨🏻💻 | https://medium.com/@simshrivas4/configure-hadoop-and-start-cluster-service-using-ansible-playbook-b1f8b12773e8 | ['Simran Shrivas'] | 2020-12-15 13:41:45.442000+00:00 | ['Learning', 'Hadoop', 'Ansible Automation'] |
Wolf Pack | Wolf Pack, 10x14 watercolor on paper, ©V.Plut
We don’t pack ready-to-eat meals
and gaze in awe upon the landscape
No need for us to capture the moment with camera and brush —
it already belongs to us
Our pups cry near the den for meat
and play at the hunt
Comfort and beauty comes in warm blood
of elk and deer
We find the unsteady gait of the baby buffalo endearing
only to our sense of survival
The trees look with favor upon us
as those who graze her offspring are taken down in red
The green is abundant along the creek now
Thank you!
©V. Plut
All Rights Reserved | https://vplut.medium.com/wolf-pack-15412af1db93 | ['V. Plut'] | 2020-01-28 13:24:15.744000+00:00 | ['Lit', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Free Verse', 'Outdoors', 'Nature Writing'] |
Eat, Sleep, Paint, Repeat | Left: On Kawara, MAY 20, 1981. “Wednesday.” New York. From Today, 1966–2013. Acrylic on canvas. 18 x 24 in. (45.7 x 61 cm). Pictured with artist-made cardboard storage boxes. 24 5/8 x 18 5/8 x 2 in. (62.5 x 47.3 x 5 cm). Private collection. Photo: Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London. Right: On Kawara, DEC. 29, 1977. “Thursday.” New York. From Today, 1966–2013. Acrylic on canvas. 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm). Pictured with artist-made cardboard storage boxes, 10 1/2 x 10 3/4 x 2 inches (26.8 x 27.2 x 5 cm). Private collection. Photo: Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London.
On Kawara started his Today series — more often known as his ‘Date Paintings’ — on 4 January 1966, and completed his last in 2013. Each painting features the date of its creation and took the artist a single day to produce: if a painting wasn’t finished before the day was out, it was destroyed. When not being exhibited, the completed painting is stored in a handmade cardboard box lined with a cutting taken from a newspaper that day.
Some of the paintings are black, some blue. A few, around the 1969 moon landings, are red. Only the artist knew why. He marked each day that he produced a date painting on a vast One Hundred Years Calendar of his own invention using a system of coloured dots.
Alongside the I am still alive telegrams that the artist sent friends, or the I got up postcards that he sent every day to people all around the world, On Kawara’s Today paintings would seem to place him firmly in the Conceptual Art movement of the 1960s. Certainly, his One million years, two books that list every year between 998,031 BC and 1969 AD, and 1993 AD to 1,001,992 AD, would suggest the cerebral and systematic approach seen in the Minimal, or ABC art movements of the time.
But unlike the sole-function cardboard boxes that the artist made for his paintings, ‘movements’ are mostly clumsily-packed archive boxes designed to allow uncomplicated study. The corners of On Kawara’s Today paintings rise up and prevent the lid on the Conceptual Art box from lying flat, to the annoyance of many. | https://medium.com/@james-tate/eat-sleep-paint-repeat-bace1a297417 | ['James Tate'] | 2020-12-20 13:53:47.316000+00:00 | ['Lockdown', 'Contemporary Art', 'Meditation', 'On Kawara', 'Painting'] |
What is GAC? | The Global Assembly Cache (GAC) is a local cache maintained by the .NET Framework where strong-named assemblies (their name is composed by: name of assembly, version number, culture and public key token) that are designated to be shared by all the applications executed on a system will be stored.
The concept of GAC is the result of the .NET architecture which design solves the issue of DLL hell that existed in COM (Component Object Model).
What’s DLL Hell?
DLL Hell refers to a set of problems caused when multiple applications attempt to share a common dynamic link library (DLL). With COMs, when an application tried to install a DLL which was already stored in the registry, the system let prevail the latest version by overriding the oldest with the newest. Since DLLs doesn’t have any built-in mechanism for backwards comparability, this override caused the existing applications that rely on the shared DLL to crash. By strongly name each dynamic link library (.dll), the GAC solved this problem.
Examples
A scenario where DLL hell occurs is:
On your machine there is an application which use an assembly called SharedAssembly.dll I install a new application which install a new version of SharedAssembly.dll causing the replacement of the existing DLL The first application stop working properly due to the newer version of SharedAssembly.dll.
Figure 1: Example of DLL hell
GAC Tool (gacutil.exe)
The Global Assembly Cache tool is a tool automatically installed with Visual Studio which allows a developer to check for assembly existence, view and manipulate the contents of the global assembly cache.
To run the tool, open the Developer Command Prompt for Visual Studio as Administrator and execute the command
gacutil
Immediately a helper with all the available flags and their related descriptions will be prompted. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/what-is-gac-859f7348169b | ['Ivan Porta'] | 2020-08-23 14:42:54.300000+00:00 | ['Memory Improvement', 'Codingbootcamp', 'Coding', 'Software Development', 'Dotnet'] |
your cup | Your cup sits on the bookshelf beside the bed
photo by Larry Fallon
It sits where you left it
weeks ago
I wake at night and sometimes smile remembering the evening you drank that tea comforting me.
I wake at night and a tear, sometimes tears, flow wondering why you can’t return.
I picked it up once to return it to the kitchen but I had to put it back. I adjusted it so the handle would be at the same angle as you placed it.
Your cup is a comforting reminder
Your cup is a disturbing reminder
When you come back please put your cup away. | https://dralas.medium.com/your-cup-ae6d221f920c | ['Larry Fallon'] | 2019-01-03 19:52:58.897000+00:00 | ['Poetry'] |
The Lutras — Give It Up For Christmas | Don’t worry. I’m not going to start spamming you with holidays-themed songs. You can get plenty of those pretty much everywhere else. The thing with Give It Up For Christmas is that it got a couple of nice things going for it: first of all, it is actually a really good song, and, on top of that, it is a charity single with ALL proceeds being split between the Music VenuesTrust campaign and Shelter. The catchy single was released earlier this month and counted with the collaboration of over 40 musicians and artists, including Edinburgh’s The Phoenix Choir. If you like alternative rock songs, you’ll like this track regardless of your position towards Christmas tunes. The fact that Give It Up For Christmas supports two well-deserving charities is just the cherry on top.
With regards to , they’re one of Scotland’s hottest emerging rock bands, topping a public vote across nearly 1000 artists to be crown winners of Firestone’s annual search for the UK’s best independent music artist in 2019. After originally starting in 2013, it wasn’t until 2016 that this 4-piece band recorded its debut EP and things really started to take off in 2018. This year was lining up to be huge for them with a really busy schedule but then coronavirus happened. Luckily, from the sound of their latest single, it seems The Lutras will be able to pick things up right where they left off.
Featured on the following mixtapes: | https://medium.com/@thealternativemixtapes/the-lutras-give-it-up-for-christmas-df609ca16846 | ['The Alternative Mixtapes'] | 2020-12-21 13:53:39.829000+00:00 | ['Rock', 'Christmas', 'Scottish', 'Alternative', 'Charity'] |
UK authorizes Pfizer vaccine for emergency use | Pfizer and BioNTech say they’ve won permission Wednesday for emergency use of their COVID-19 vaccine in Britain, the world’s first coronavirus shot that’s backed by rigorous science — and a major step toward eventually ending the pandemic.
The move makes Britain one of the first countries to begin vaccinating its population as it tries to curb Europe’s deadliest COVID-19 outbreak.
Other countries aren’t far behind: The U.S. and the European Union also are vetting the Pfizer shot along with a similar vaccine made by competitor Moderna Inc.
Pfizer said it would immediately begin shipping limited supplies to the U.K. — and has been gearing up for even wider distribution if given a similar nod by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a decision expected as early as next week.
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https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmx/video-c-psg-ol-lyon-x-v1.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmx/video-psg-v-lyon-uu-fr02.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmx/video-psg-v-lyon-uu-fr03.html
http://frenchdigitaltour.org/krox/video-psg-v-lyon-uu-fr01.html
http://frenchdigitaltour.org/krox/video-psg-v-lyon-uu-fr02.html
http://frenchdigitaltour.org/krox/video-psg-v-lyon-uu-fr03.html
http://frenchdigitaltour.org/krox/video-psg-v-lyon-uu-fr04.html
http://frenchdigitaltour.org/krox/video-psg-v-lyon-uu-fr05.html
http://frenchdigitaltour.org/krox/video-c-psg-ol-lyon-x-v1.html
http://frenchdigitaltour.org/krox/video-psg-v-lyon-uu-fr02.html
http://frenchdigitaltour.org/krox/video-psg-v-lyon-uu-fr03.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-ind-v-las-liv-us-nfl301.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-ind-v-las-liv-us-nfl302.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-ind-v-las-liv-us-nfl303.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-ind-v-las-liv-us-nfl304.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-ind-v-las-liv-us-nfl305.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-new-v-sea-liv-us-nfl301.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-new-v-sea-liv-us-nfl302.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-new-v-sea-liv-us-nfl303.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-new-v-sea-liv-us-nfl304.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-new-v-sea-liv-us-nfl305.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-gre-v-det-liv-us-nfl301.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-gre-v-det-liv-us-nfl302.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-gre-v-det-liv-us-nfl303.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-gre-v-det-liv-us-nfl304.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-gre-v-det-liv-us-nfl305.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-sai-v-phi-liv-us-nfl301.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-sai-v-phi-liv-us-nfl302.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-sai-v-phi-liv-us-nfl303.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-sai-v-phi-liv-us-nfl304.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-sai-v-phi-liv-us-nfl305.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-atl-v-los-liv-us-nfl301.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-atl-v-los-liv-us-nfl302.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-atl-v-los-liv-us-nfl303.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-atl-v-los-liv-us-nfl304.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-atl-v-los-liv-us-nfl305.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-was-v-san-liv-us-nfl301.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-was-v-san-liv-us-nfl302.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-was-v-san-liv-us-nfl303.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-was-v-san-liv-us-nfl304.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vmc/video-was-v-san-liv-us-nfl305.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vms/video-atl-v-orl-liv-us-nba305.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vms/video-bro-v-was-liv-us-nba305.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vms/video-det-v-new-liv-us-nba301.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vms/video-chi-v-hus-liv-us-nba301.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vms/video-los-v-ang-liv-us-nba301.html
https://shelbycounty.iowa.gov/vms/video-por-v-sac-liv-us-nba301.html
But doses everywhere are scarce, and initial supplies will be rationed until more is manufactured in the first several months of next year.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla called the U.K. decision “a historic moment.”
“We are focusing on moving with the same level of urgency to safely supply a high-quality vaccine around the world,” Bourla said in a statement.
While the U.K. has ordered enough Pfizer vaccine for 20 million people, it’s not clear how many will arrive by year’s end and adding to the distribution challenges is that it must be stored at ultra-cold temperatures.
Two doses three weeks apart are required for protection. First in line, the U.K. government says, are frontline health care workers and nursing home residents, followed by older adults.
British regulators also are considering another shot made by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned “we must first navigate a hard winter” of restrictions to try to curb the virus until there’s enough vaccine to go around.
Every country has different rules for determining when an experimental vaccine is safe and effective enough to use. Intense political pressure to be the first to roll out a rigorously scientifically tested shot colored the race in the U.S. and Britain, even as researchers pledged to cut no corners. In contrast, China and Russia have offered different vaccinations to their citizens ahead of late-stage testing.
The shots made by U.S.-based Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech were tested in tens of thousands of people. And while that study isn’t complete, early results suggest the vaccine is 95% effective at preventing mild to severe COVID-19 disease. The companies told regulators that of the first 170 infections detected in study volunteers, only eight were among people who’d received the actual vaccine and the rest had gotten a dummy shot.
“This is an extraordinarily strong protection,” Dr. Ugur Sahin, BioNTech’s CEO, recently told The Associated Press.
The companies also reported no serious side effects, although vaccine recipients may experience temporary pain and flu-like reactions immediately after injections.
But experts caution that a vaccine cleared for emergency use is still experimental and the final testing must be completed. Still to be determined is whether the Pfizer-BioNTech shots protect against people spreading the coronavirus without showing symptoms. Another question is how long protection lasts.
The vaccine also has been tested in only a small number of children, none younger than 12, and there’s no information on its effects in pregnant women. | https://medium.com/@friluft/uk-authorizes-pfizer-vaccine-for-emergency-use-995ac82c2906 | [] | 2020-12-13 19:41:20.245000+00:00 | ['Biotechnology', 'Pfizer', 'Healthcare', 'Covid 19', 'Vaccines'] |
What the Soul Wishes Coming Here? | Attachment: prompt
What the Soul Wishes Coming Here?
Not being trapped in an infinite loop that we call karma
Photo by DDP on Unsplash
The trap in 3D is to be attached. Our 3D personality is longing for the infinity our soul felt on the other side before incarnation. We feel the need for more permanency. Our attachment is the awkward reflection of Love, of the Divine Love we lived in before.
We are us each a fragment of the Source and we do meet again those we loved here, in the Source. If we are attached, we project an illusion, and this projection may lead us to another loop here. | https://medium.com/queen-s-children/what-the-soul-wishes-coming-here-3700d8e93c5c | ['Jean Carfantan'] | 2020-10-06 14:01:57.707000+00:00 | ['Sacred Feminine', 'Discernment', 'Energy', 'Triggering', 'Newsletter'] |
I will do shopify marketing, promotion and facebook marketing to a large audience | I will do shopify marketing, promotion and facebook marketing to a large audience Dolapo ruth Jul 6·1 min read
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I Didn’t Reach my Fitness Goals | I Didn’t Reach my Fitness Goals
Photo by M. on Unsplash
At the beginning of 2020, I set some major goals I wanted to achieve by December. One of them was getting in the best shape of my life and having a healthy lifestyle. Back then didn’t expect that I will be led down a spiral of detrimental habits, guilt, and disappointment that wouldn’t leave me alone.
The diet
Following some questionable advice found on the Internet, I started undernourishing myself. First, I committed to finishing my meals until I was 80% full. But a sense of accomplishment crept it whenever I would do that. “The less I eat, the better”, I thought. It got to a point where half a bowl of soup would make me full. The most bizarre thing is I never felt hungry because my organism adjusted itself to those smaller portions.
Every week I would treat myself to a cheat meal( or two). Those were the times when I would go full-on making the most indulgent, sugary treats possible. Cocoa brownies with peanut butter and chocolate on top, 3 slices of cream cheesecake, etc. I would count the days until I was able to stuff my face with dessert. In my toxic relationship with food, I found a sense of reward.
The months went by and it was finally June. Putting a photo of myself next to one I took in March, I smiled brightly. I saw my flat stomach and slim legs and that’s when it hit me- I was in the best shape of my life.
Things didn’t stop here. It wasn’t a diet for me, it was a way of life and I wasn’t planning on giving it up any time soon. The people I was closest to started pressuring me to eat more. They were saying I was skinny when my sister looked almost exactly like me. I got tired of their comments. I hated people telling me what I should be eating for days on end. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like the less attractive sibling and I didn’t want to lose this newfound confidence.
Going downhill
In July I lost my menstruation. My period would skip a month or two before so it didn’t bother me until it happened again in August and then September, and October, and November.
And to make matters even worse, that summer my hair began falling out. Before I knew it I could effortlessly pull a small strand of hair out of my head. Now that freaked me out.
Around July was when Coronavirus depression hit me like a truck. I can’t point out exactly what caused it, but for most of the summer crippling anxiety overtook my life. It shattered the ways I thought I was, happy and optimistic, and then I slowly went down the spiral of binge-eating.
Every day I would feel it taking over me. With my heart pounding faster against my chest and my thoughts racing around my head, I sat helplessly. I was so afraid of my own mind. It wouldn’t pass for at least an hour and when it finally did, I was drained, moody and immensely tired. I started reaching for sugary snacks in hope of regaining some energy but soon found out they also comforted me.
In August and early September, I went on a few visits to a local endocrinologist and tested my hormones in two different labs to understand what was wrong with my menstruation. The endocrinologist was a middle-aged woman with a dull voice. One day I was in her office while she was reading the results from my second test. She went on to explain what the different hormones meant until she saw my blood sugar levels test results.
“Your blood sugar is out of the norm. I’m afraid you are prediabetic.”
Now that was a good motivation for me to stay away from sugar for a while…but it didn’t last long. Anxiety was still there and my mind was like a bomb that could explore at any time. My sugar addiction reappeared. I became the queen of starting over, I can’t even remember the number of times I’ve decided to quit junk food.
Aren’t you eating too much?
The worst part was that everyone in my family saw what I was eating. And while a few months ago they were telling me to eat more, now I was asked if I wasn’t eating too much sugar. Guilt was looking at me in the eyes, my heart was throbbing whenever I gave in and reached for a snack. I would hide and wait to be alone before opening the cabinet. But I was never alone. My worrying mind kept me company as it played the words of the endocrinologist over and over again like a broken record. I felt like I was harming myself.
But light always outshines the darkness.
Taking matters in my own hands
It was around November when I started making some real changes. My mental health was a lot better, which allowed me to have some more faith that I can be healthy again. I began eating more fruit and vegetables and soon remembered how much I loved them. I quit meat, something I wanted to do for such a long time. My passion for cooking reappeared. Just before a few days, I got my period back and my hair isn’t falling anymore.
Although I wish I could say it was a snap-of-a-finger, that’s far from the truth. I still have a long way to go before I can call myself healthy. I still struggle with sugar cravings, I sometimes feel like I’ve never left that vicious cycle of binging. I am still ashamed whenever I reach for the cabinet.
It’s almost the end of 2020 and I know I didn’t reach my goal. When I look in the mirror I pause. I see all the choices I made visible on my body — my double chin and chubbier face, my arms, legs, my stomach... These twelve months were anything but what I’ve imagined. I never knew I would fight so many battles with food and with myself. | https://medium.com/illumination/i-didnt-reach-my-fitness-goals-93a9f384b78c | ['Yoana Kircheva'] | 2020-12-29 16:16:52.017000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Weight Loss', 'Illumination', 'Self', 'Self Improvement'] |
George Washington’s Greatest Act | On this day, December 23, in 1783, General George Washington tendered his resignation as Commander-in-Chief of the American Continental Army and headed home for Mount Vernon as a private citizen.
In so doing, he became one of the only victorious leaders of an armed insurrection or revolutionary movement in world history to voluntarily surrender power. He also confirmed some very longstanding traditions in American democracy for which all Americans — of every color, status, background, and perspective — should be grateful today.
There has been a considerable amount of controversy these last few years, especially this year (2020) over how we should remember our past and how we should view past political leaders, especially the men we know as the Founding Fathers.
For all their accomplishments, the Founders were all white men, and most of them were men of privilege. And they weren’t exactly “woke.” Women didn’t enjoy anywhere near the level of political rights or social opportunities of today. Racial equality? Forget it. In fact, many of our leaders from the founding era, including Washington, held men and women of color as enslaved persons. Progressive activists and proponents of social justice can’t exactly hold up the American founding era as a beacon of the kind of world they seek to create today.
There’s no question that the Founding Fathers fell short in many areas. They were mortal, flawed human beings. Like all of us, they had their sins and shortcomings. And some of the sins many of them practiced, such as slavery, were indeed egregious.
George Washington was not a perfect man, but history is full of imperfect men and women. In fact, all of history is made up of imperfect people.
Anyone who fashions himself or herself a progressive should believe in progress. And should give credit for such progress when it’s made. Thus, we should all give credit to George Washington who most certainly progressed on issues such as slavery — and who also moved the needle forward on issues such as democracy, the rule of law, and basic civil rights.
Without George Washington, we wouldn’t even have a United States of America today.
And on December 23, Washington did something that very few leaders (past or present) would have the character, humility, our courage to do. He walked away from power.
By resigning his commission, Washington confirmed two longstanding traditions, including:
democracy over dictatorship
civilian oversight of the military
Most of all, he signaled to the world that the American Revolution was birthing a new kind of nation — something extraordinary and remarkable — a nation “of the people, by the people, and for the people” (as Abraham Lincoln would later say).
Washington did this, mind you, at a time when many — including many voices in the army — wanted him to become a king or dictator for America.
Not only did he walk away from power at the end of the American Revolution, but he did it again years later when he declined a third term as President.
Despite his flaws (and everyone has some), George Washington remains the greatest American hero. And all Americans today should be grateful to him. | https://medium.com/@briantubbs/george-washingtons-greatest-act-a6bd5f2d5a2b | ['Brian Tubbs'] | 2020-12-23 20:48:04.282000+00:00 | ['George Washington', 'On This Day', 'Politics', 'Otd', 'American History'] |
Monitoring Your Email Bounces and Bounce Rate using Amazon SES, Lambda, SNS, and DynamoDB | Monitoring Your Email Bounces and Bounce Rate using Amazon SES, Lambda, SNS, and DynamoDB Serhii Zahranychnyi Follow Nov 11 · 3 min read
When using Amazon SES, a situation may occur where your Account status in the Amazon SES Reputation Dashboard changes from HEALTHY, causing Amazon to stop the ability to send emails. To prevent this, it is better to start monitoring your Reputation right after going into production.
An adequate bundle of services for this includes AWS Lambda, Amazon SNS, and Amazon DynamoDB.
Amazon SNS will get events to form Amazon SES and trigger Lambda.
The Lambda function will store data to DynamoDB and do other things that you want — for example, remove an email address from a subscription list via an API, or send a message to Slack/Telegram/Messenger.
Firstly, in the Notifications settings of your domain, add Amazon SNS Topics for the Bounces, Complaints and Deliveries events.
SES → Domains → Notifications → Edit Configuration
You can use 1 topic for all events, separating is optional. For example, if you want to send Complaint events to Lambda and the email of the administrator, it is better to separate.
In the next step, we should create a Lambda function.
Let’s name it ses-notification-nodejs.
Use Node.js 12.x Runtime with default settings — it is enough for this task.
Creating a Lambda function
Then we should create a DynamoDB table. Let’s name it mailing. The primary key will be UserId.
Default settings will be enough for a start. You can fine-tune it later.
DynamoDB table
Now you need to go to IAM and add a permission to the Lambda role.
The best option for this is to add the permission to exactly one table.
You can read more about this here:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference_policies_examples_dynamodb_specific-table.html
or here:
https://aws.amazon.com/ru/blogs/security/how-to-create-an-aws-iam-policy-to-grant-aws-lambda-access-to-an-amazon-dynamodb-table/
After you update your role permission your code will look like this:
Code example for Lambda:
You can also find examples with the telegram notification in my repository for this feature.
That’s it, now you can monitor all Bounce and Compliant events from your SES service and keep your Amazon SES in a healthy state.
You can find more useful information about technologies, startups and IT in our Edicasoft blog. | https://medium.com/swlh/monitoring-your-email-bounces-and-bounce-rate-using-amazon-ses-lambda-sns-and-dynamodb-ce74859da18f | ['Serhii Zahranychnyi'] | 2020-11-14 06:09:18.153000+00:00 | ['AWS Lambda', 'Tutorial', 'AWS', 'Aws Ses', 'Aws Dynamodb'] |
Our Experiences “Zooming” a Wedding | Well, we are in the midst of the global pandemic and just had socially distanced wedding. This is a write up what and why we did it so that you might learn from our successes and mistakes.
This article gets quite lengthy, and requires some know-how, nerdiness, and a friend to take on the role of streaming coordinator. GOOD NEWS! Kyle, our groomsman who helped set all this up, is for hire! He can coach you through this process, and help run the wedding on your day. http://pushpullpixel.com/
Backstory
My fiancee (now wife!) and I started our wedding planning roughly a year in advance. We followed the traditional path of planning: venue, catering, DJ, save the dates ~9 months in advance. We were on track for a September 20th wedding, until a global pandemic hit in March.
Things started shutting down 6 months ahead of our wedding. Our immediate reaction was to panic, just like everyone else. What do we do? Cancel everything? Grab wedding insurance? Continue like nothing has happened? We decided that it was best to hold off on changing plans until 3 months in advance to assess the state of the world. This decision helped reduce the fear, uncertainty, and doubt around the wedding. This also allowed us to sound a bit more collected when the family asked “are you still having that wedding?” by responding that we were deciding on June 20th.
The weekend of June 20th, we collected everything that we saw as pros/cons and made the decision to cancel and stream the wedding. Major factors were:
Over 95% of attendees would be remote, and from all across the US (California, New Mexico, Illinois, Florida, New York, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Michigan)
Members of the immediate family were immuno-compromised
As the wedding hosts, we felt as though it was our social obligation to cancel the in-person wedding and do our best to make it available. Additionally, we are planning to do an in-person event 1 year in the future (public health conditions permitting). Tears were had, phone calls to family happened, but everyone understood and said it was the right call.
Re-Planning Everything
All of our vendors understood that we were postponing our wedding due to health and safety concerns, and didn’t mind moving everything 1 year out. Score! We lost $0 in deposits and paid no additional rescheduling fees. That said, most of the vendors are small/local businesses, so we are still betting on the fact that their business can stay afloat 1 year out. We make it a point to continue to support our wedding vendors during this pandemic. Additional purchases were made for this ceremony, in addition to next year:
An “engagement session” with the photographer, for reduced wedding ceremony (photographing 2 people for 3 hours is much less than 75+ people for 8)
A bouquet/boutonniere set from the florist
A 6" round cake based on our wedding cake
The harder part of the conversation is how to proceed with a virtual wedding. We figured we had to:
Communicate changes in plans
Figure out how to run a virtual wedding
Running a Virtual Wedding
Our view, wedding night
Key decision 1: Who gets to attend?
To start planning to run a virtual wedding, we had to separate out who can be in person, and who couldn’t be. We also did our best to make things fair on both sides of the family. One side of the family was immuno-compromised, so both sides weren’t invited to be in person.
We created a Google spreadsheet of mailing lists with emails and phone numbers, and used that for the communications to respective parties.
Key decision 2: What events to stream?
Early on, we figured that we would stream the wedding. The issue is that do you just stream the wedding or reception, rehearsal, bachelor or bachelorette parties, etc? We had the following considerations below:
Bachelor and Bachelorette Virtual Parties
We didn’t do this, but in retrospect it would have been a good idea. This could easily be accomplished over zoom/webex/hangouts/etc. Jackbox Party Packs work suprisingly well over video streaming and players elsewhere.
Rehearsal Dinner Stream
This event may not make sense at first, but ended up being our 2nd best event (the first being the wedding). There wasn’t a dinner or rehearsal at the rehearsal dinner stream. It was really there for family and close friends to see who the important folks are that shaped us. I think there may be a bonus here that these are the people that are more comfortable with you, and ended up making a lively and wonderful session.
To help spur discussion, we had a list of topics (agenda items) to cover during the rehearsal dinner stream:
Thank everyone for coming and understanding
Go around the room for introductions to get family and friends to know each other. Plan the order for this ahead of time. Ours should have been: groom’ parents, bride’s parents, wedding party, etc.
Toasting, if you’d like to do that sort of thing (prepare folks in advance)
Play a game (we had Maid of Honor do a “He Said or She Said” /Also known as “The Shoe Game”)
By this point, the crowd should be comfortable with each other and embarrassing stories about the bride and groom will be swapped.
(See the “Home Studio for Reception/Rehearsal” section for tips on how we changed our dining room into a home studio)
Reception Stream(s)
This is a great event to hold; decisions here depend on how you’d like have folks on a zoom. We figured that more conversation would happen in smaller groups, so we broke the reception into 3 events: groom’s family, bride’s family, and friends. We separated them out into 1 hour chunks, 7–8pm, 8–9pm, 9pm-onwards. In those reception events, we had the following goals:
Toast and thank everyone for joining us on the wedding day
Thank the family for letting the other half join
Get a screenshot of everyone in gallery view
Cut cake
Perhaps dance
We had learned a day ahead of time that Zoom Pro subscriptions will boot folks out when the host joins a second meeting. This wasn’t great, as weddings aren’t sometimes used for a family reunion. This may have been better to use the breakout rooms feature in Zoom.
Wedding Stream
This section honestly deserves the most, and will be the longest. Let’s start with who all helped us make this happen.
We had 4 people physically present for the wedding: bride, groom, photographer, and officiant. We had another “attendee,” Kyle, who was physically across the country but ran the wedding stream. Let’s call Kyle the stream coordinator. I’d also like to call out that we could have used another person physically present to be the hands/eyes/ears of the stream coordinator or done a double check of the mics while the camera was rolling but before the ceremony officially started.
What did the stream coordinator do? For us, he ensured that the video stream was up and running; transitioned from pre-wedding slideshow to actual in-person event (this even included live webcams of cities from bride/groom’s hometowns/college towns); recorded the video session; he spurred discussion within the chat; and prepared folks to unmute when the bride/groom kissed. This role is 100% necessary, and we cannot speak highly enough of Kyle who took on this task.
We were lucky enough to have picked a wedding venue with great cellular coverage. It was an outdoor park, with a gazebo. If you are still selecting a wedding venue and intend on streaming, you should be assessing three things in addition to all the other millions of things you are also considering: internet connection, lighting, and audio.
For your internet connection, you are looking for some sort of strong connection to cellular or Wi-Fi. In addition to a strong signal, you will likely want to test the connection, as more bars doesn’t always mean more speed. I’d test it by hitting a speed check, and even firing up a video chat with friend while onsite. If it’s a shared Wi-Fi (aka some local business), you shouldn’t risk running off of it.
For lighting, consider where you, the camera, and lights (sun or overhead lights) will be. If possible, put the camera between you and the lights. Look for drastic shadows being cast where the camera may be pointed. If you are outside, you will want to look at sunrise and sunset times to know where the sun will be. You will also want to consider if the sun will hit equipment (we had a cellphone disconnect from Zoom in testing, due to thermal issues). If you need help, ask a photographer (or Kyle) for some more tips.
For audio, just sit and listen at ambient noise. Microphones are notoriously good at picking up the exact opposite of what you want. Consider time of day (road noise during commute times?), seasonality (are birds migrating or resting for the day?), bystanders (near a playground with kids), weather, and likely more.
The last thing to keep in mind is that we are in a pandemic, no venue is perfect, and whatever you ultimately decide will work. Balance the best you can, and don’t stress.
Setting up a Wedding Stream
Let’s start with the gear, and get to the purpose of it. We opted to throw as much as we can at this. Breakdown was:
Zoom Pro account
4x cell phones (1 as camera, two as microphones, 1 for coordination)
2x tripods (one with a cell phone mount)
2x lapel microphones
1x DSLR camera for a local recording (B-Roll)
1x Wi-Fi hotspot to cover phones that lacked a data plan
Why so much gear?
Redundancy was part of our strategy for dealing with risk. This was beneficial, as the microphone for the officiant did not get unmuted before the ceremony began. However, she was able to be picked up by the microphone that I had on me. Also, the second recording from the DSLR camera for the local recording did pick up on the officiant’s voice, so we are hoping via some video editing we will be able to splice the two audio sections together for one comprehensive recording.
So how was this all connected?
We used a DSLR camera to have a local capture of the event, in case there was an outage that impacted our ability to stream the wedding. Luckily, this backup mechanism wasn’t needed, but may be used for editing streams together. I used a Canon T3 (~$100 on ebay), with the magic lantern firmware installed. Magic lantern enabled an auto-resume feature of video. There are supposedly ways to go past predefined limits of recording, but this ended up restarting the stream at 4GB. This was placed on a tripod, at eye level. It was centered where the bride and groom were standing. The captured video isn’t great, because we had a giant shadow in the background. In retrospect, this could have been handled better.
We used a Zoom account to handle streaming. We purchased 1 month’s worth of Zoom Pro for $15 and shared the password with the streaming coordinator. This allowed the streaming coordinator to have a meeting longer than 40 minutes and allowed for 1 GB of cloud recording. We were expecting the cloud recording to get us ~2 hours of worth of streams. The streaming coordinator ended up doing a local recording, which I think improved the entire copy.
Getting into streaming equipment, we had a Pixel 4 setup as a streaming video camera. This cell phone had an unlimited data plan, and had the best camera. It was placed on a tripod, set above eye level, and pointed towards the bride and groom. I purchased a couple cases from Amazon, and settled on this one. The mount worked well with just the clamp, and not the arm. To avoid heat, it was placed in the shadow of a support column for the gazebo and had its case off. This camera had its audio disconnected in the zoom client.
The officiant had a Motorola g6, without a data plan, paired to a cellular hotspot. This was an old cell phone from a few years ago, which was still kicking. Upfront, we asked the officiant if she would feel comfortable wearing a microphone connected to a cell phone that we provided (she would need a pocket) and she agreed to do so. We purchased 2 cheap wired lapel mics and with foam muffs. Their pickup was excellent. Too good, as we could hear geese and road noise. The lapel mic stopped any audio out from the cell phone. This helped avoid feedback.
For the hotspot, we used an old Verizon MiFI 6620L hotspot picked from ebay for $22. The groom used to use the hotspot play Ingress. It’s been dormant and unused since Ingress Prime. It had a Google Fi data-only sim. Getting a data only sim: https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6330195?hl=en
For mic’ing the wedding couple, we used a Pixel 3a. This cell phone was the groom’s personal cell phone. It was on a Google Fi dataplan, so it was only used for audio and some coordination. It had the same lapel mic as the officiant. The microphone was placed in the boutonniere, which may have helped with any breeze. The lapel mic stopped any audio out from the cell phone. This helped avoid feedback.
The last cell phone we were counting was the bride’s cellphone, which was used to communicate with the stream coordinator. This was kept in the bride’s pocket (yes, she wants to point out her dress had pockets!) and “do not disturb” mode was kicked on once we got the all clear to begin from the stream coordinator
Handling the Wedding Stream Day-Of
You know that one person who has two clients at the meeting and creates a feedback loop which makes all sorts of noise? We intentionally wanted to not allow anyone to connect their mics. Also, no audio from the stream was present on-site to avoid audio feedback loops.
Since our streaming coordinator was disconnected from the rest of us, we had to establish a protocol to kick off the wedding stream. We needed to synchronize a go/no-go kind of situation when all was ready to start.
Home Studio for Reception/Rehearsal
We repurposed our dining room into a home studio. We specifically planned our space with the following three things in mind:
What activities will you need to support?
What will the camera see?
What noises will be heard?
What activities will you need to support?
In our case, we specifically planned for:
Dancing: We pushed the dining room table against the wall so that we had room in view of the camera to support dancing.
Cake cutting: We got a small cake, and planned on cutting it on the wedding reception, so tools were nearby. Napkins were also nearby in case of accidents
Chat with people: We brought out a large monitor to help us see all attendees easily.
Champagne: Bubbly was had, and so the bubbly was nearby on ice.
What will the camera see?
The bride obscured the hallway with 8x4 foot doorway streamers found at your local Walmart, Target, party store, etc. We also made sure the bouquet was in view of the camera. To be a bit more thematic to a wedding, we put white pillow cases over the backs of chairs to emulate chair covers.
Lighting everything was super important, so we borrowed lamps from other rooms and put them behind the camera. It was a bit painful the nights before the wedding to wander around the house in the dark, but it improves what the camera can pickup on.
Get the best camera you can justify for yourself. We were lucky enough to find a Logitech C920 at Office Max the day of the rehearsal.
What noises will be heard?
Our cat normally wears a bell, which the microphone would pick up on from far away. We took off her collar while on these streams. Luckily, the bride’s mother made a wedding- themed cat collar with a tiny veil!
Another thing you should do is test this setup repeatedly. On every call, ask for feedback. How do things look? How do we sound? (Our Maid of Honor was a champ whenever we messaged her and said “have time for a Zoom chat to test?”)
We ended up using a Shure MV5 microphone to handle the at-home events. Both the webcam and laptop mic were not great.
Post Wedding
Now that it’s after the wedding, you should take care of a few things in addition to other wedding wrap-up:
Save all the things to cloud storage as soon as you can. Don’t let it get lost.
Share the gallery photos from zoom events as you see fit.
Blog about your experience; I’d like to hear if we helped.
What worked and what didn’t?
Overall, this stream was a success. We got married, and many folks joined us. We had a successful audio and video capture, and two local recordings. But let’s discuss what didn’t work well, and how you might improve upon it:
DSLR Video capture: Where I placed the DSLR camera was a little different than the camera phone, and it had a drastic line where sunlight and shadow met through the middle of it. The camera focused on the lit grass behind us, causing the couple to be underexposed/dark.
DSLR Audio capture: If you are into making movies, you might have a better audio pickup for a DSLR. If you aren’t sure what to use, then someone online might know. I certainly don’t.
Streaming protocol: The officiant’s mic got muted right before the ceremony started. She was a bit soft on the zoom stream. In retrospect, some remote access solution for the cell phone might be a perfect solution here. That or some streaming thing that allows the streaming coordinator to force unmute a microphone, instead of asking to unmute. Another streaming service might have a better option for this.
A physically present day-of event coordinator would also be able to coordinate with the streaming coordinator, and would be able to address these issues.
Establishing rules with partner while on stream calls, to determine when it is ok to mute or kick someone. We all have those friends and family members who enjoy themselves a little too much in a social gathering. Take the time to make a plan, just in case you need to handle kicking an individual off the Zoom meeting.
All said and done, we are super happy with what we’ve been able to accomplish. It was thrown together with spare technology that we had lying around, and came together at a reasonable cost. I also totally acknowledge that the groom is a nerd of sorts, and had the hobbies to support this. | https://medium.com/@amcphall/our-experiences-zooming-a-wedding-2b0c5c7fadd4 | ['Aaron Mcphall'] | 2020-10-13 00:11:07.847000+00:00 | ['Zoom', 'Weddings', 'Covid 19'] |
Lithium-ion Battery Market Size USD 129.3 Billion By 2027 At A CAGR of 18.0% | Valuates Reports | The global lithium-ion battery market was valued at USD 36.7 billion in 2019 and is projected to hit USD 129.3 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 18% from 2020 to 2027.
Major factors driving the growth of lithium-ion battery market size are growing R&D initiatives, increasing consumer electronics adoption, increasing demand for plug-in vehicles, rising need for automation, and battery-operated material-handling equipment in industries.
Advocacy for public and private investment in hybrid cars and electric vehicles has resulted in an increase in research and development (R&D) aimed at producing more efficient and cost-effective lithium-ion batteries. This high level of interest has also led to a rapid expansion of the battery production capacity and has resulted in overcapacity and fragmentation in the Lithium-ion battery market.
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TRENDS INFLUENCING THE LITHIUM-ION BATTERY MARKET SIZE
The recycling initiative that has been started is expected to increase the lithium-ion battery market size. Recycled Li-ion batteries are expected to protect the supply of raw materials, such as lithium and cobalt, and to reduce the dependency on mining and processing materials from natural resources. The recycling of lithium-ion batteries currently used in electric vehicles offers an excellent opportunity for companies to use the refined constituent materials to manufacture lithium-ion batteries to be used in energy storage systems (ESS).
Li-ion batteries can be recharged hundreds of times and are more stable. They seem to have a higher energy density, voltage power and lower self-discharge rates than other rechargeable batteries. This increases power efficiency as a single cell has more charge retention than other forms of batteries. These features are, in turn, expected to fuel the growth of the Li-ion battery market size.
Electrical Vehicles, Large-scale energy storage and stationary standby applications such as UPS and switchgear & control are expected to drive Lithium-ion battery market size.
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LITHIUM-ION BATTERY MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS
Asia-Pacific region is expected to hold the largest Lithium-ion battery market share. This dominance of the Asia Pacific region is an attribute to the growing technological changes and increasing government emphasis on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The area also has a well-established infrastructure that allows for faster adoption of advanced technologies. In addition, the increasing number of manufacturers supplying lithium-ion batteries at relatively lower prices is another major driver of the growth of the lithium-ion battery market in the region.
North America is expected to see considerable growth over the projected period due to increasing consumer electronics and automobile sales across countries such as the United States and Mexico. The rising demand for lithium-ion batteries in cell phones due to improved performance and extended battery life is expected to drive the Lithium-ion market size in the North American region. Europe and North America are major consumer segments due to a high degree of recognition of the need for energy-efficient batteries.
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KEY SEGMENTATION
By Component
Cathode
Anode
Electrolytic Solution
Others
By End-use Industry
Electrical & Electronics
Smartphones &Tablet/PC
UPS
Others
Automotive
Cars, Buses, & Trucks
Scooters & Bikes
Trains & Aircraft
Industrial
Cranes & Forklift
Mining Equipment
Smart Grid & Renewable Energy Storage
By Region
North America
U.S.
Canada
Mexico
Europe
Germany
UK
France
Spain
Russia
Rest of Europe
Asia-Pacific
China
Japan
India
South Korea
Rest of Asia-Pacific
LAMEA
Brazil
Saudi Arabia
South Africa
Rest of LAMEA
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We have introduced a tailor-made subscription for our customers. Please leave a note in the Comment Section to know about our subscription plans. | https://medium.com/@valuatesmarketreports/lithium-ion-battery-market-size-usd-129-3-billion-by-2027-at-a-cagr-of-18-0-valuates-reports-bef958428ac9 | ['Valuates Reports'] | 2021-12-30 04:14:23.858000+00:00 | ['Electric Vehicles', 'Market Analysis', 'Market Research Reports', 'Lithium Ion Battery'] |
How To Create And Maintain A Family Budget — Part 2 | In part 1, we discussed about the importance of the budgeting process on your family’s financial wellbeing, and some of the immediate steps that you can take to improve it.
Refer to this article if you missed it previously:
https://www.moneyparentsg.com/post/how-to-create-and-maintain-a-family-budget-part-1
Today, we are back with more tips, and steps to help you and your family budget more efficiently!
#4 Pay Less
After identifying which expenses are potential unnecessary black holes, it is vital that we trim our expenses in that area.
For example, dining out can be a drain on many budgets. Menu planning can be valuable in this case, where we can reduce costs of food through bulk sales on groceries. While it can be effective, lifestyle costs such as these are variable, and we will need more conscientious effort to reduce them, and thus more likely to lapse as most of us find sticking to one thing challenging.
Fixed expenses are usually the go-to to trim, and it can be trimmed more effectively at that too. For example, mobile plans and subscription services like Netflix, has a regular monthly payment. Reducing the costs of these plans are usually more effective and lasting, as it doesn’t require constant monitoring and effort to reduce on your part. Just set up a GIRO for a new cheaper plan, and you are set, reinforcing discipline.
Another fixed expense that many people do not know can be reduced significantly, is insurance costs. Insurance can often be a fixed expense that many family over pay, and it can take up a sizable chunk of your family’s monthly cash flow. It is not to say that you cut your insurance, as insurance coverage is a very important aspect of your financial portfolio, but rather optimize it by cutting away unnecessary or repeated coverage, and getting the most cost effective plans for yourself. Hence, it is important to review your portfolios regularly, and make sure your plans are optimized according to your budget and needs.
#5 Building Savings
Savings should be the next priority after your expenses are settled. It is important to have a minimum of at least three to six months of expenses in cash in case when you need it.
After an emergency fund, retirement is the next priority. While retirement is something that is far away, it is important that we work towards it as soon as possible, as the later we start, the more cash outflow we will need to set aside to save up towards retirement in the future. Start early, and you can afford to set aside little every month, to build towards it.
The remaining cash flow, can then be set aside to settle your goals.
#6 Settle Bad Debt
Many people often want to clear debt as fast as possible. However, not all debts are bad debts, and going out of your way to clear good debts can even set you back further from achieving your goals.
Here are two simple questions to ask yourself to see if you are having a good or a bad debt:
Is the interest higher than my returns that I am potentially getting from my investments? Is the debt being utilized to pay for a stable (ie. not volatile) asset?
If the answers to either question is a no, you have a debt that should be cleared as soon as possible.
For example, if the debt require you to pay a monthly amount every month that is higher than what you can earn passively through your investments, your debt is taking away cash flow every month. This isn’t so much an issue if the debt is used to pay for an asset that can generate cash flow or give you a roof over your head in the future, as it allows you to possess the asset with lesser capital, however make sure the interests are low enough for financial sense! Ideally, you would want the debt interests to be low enough, so that the asset that you bought with the borrowed money, can generate more returns than the rate of loan repayment. Thing to note though, the asset shouldn’t be volatile (eg. taking a loan to invest in a stock), as if things go south you may be forced into a margin call.
In all cases, be sure to juggle your cash flow appropriately for both your goals, and to clear your debt. For better clarity, speak with your personal financial advisor on how best to plan your moves to optimize your family’s financial situation.
Source:
https://www.moneyparentsg.com/post/how-to-create-and-maintain-a-family-budget-part-2 | https://medium.com/@moneyparentsg/how-to-create-and-maintain-a-family-budget-part-2-7f652583e317 | ['Money Parent Sg'] | 2020-12-27 04:22:55.613000+00:00 | ['Budget', 'Children', 'Parenting', 'Finance', 'Family'] |
Naïve Bayes Algorithm | To understand Naïve Bayes we need to first know about Bayesian Inference. Bayesian Inference is a method where Bayes theorem is used to update probability for a hypothesis. Bayes theorem is used to calculate the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. Say you want to calculate the probability of getting a parking space on Sunday at 5 PM. Then how will you calculate probability of this event? Yes you are right! Bayes theorem!.
Mathematically Bayes theorem is written as:
Bayes Theorem
Here ‘B’ is a condition and ‘A’ is an event. In above example ‘B’ can be either “Sunday” or “at 5pm” as these are the two conditions that affect the outcome that is ‘A’: whether you will get a parking space or not. But what if you want to consider both the conditions simultaneously? This is where Bayes theorem runs into problem. In order to make use of Bayes theorem when considering both the conditions simultaneously we have to make an assumption.
Assumption:- All my conditions should be “conditionally independent”.
I specifically mentioned the term conditionally independence and not mutual independence because there is a difference. Conditional independence means that outcome value (whether you will get a parking space or not) should explain all the dependence between conditions. For example:- getting parking space on Sunday and getting parking space at 5 PM are not mutually independent. One condition may lead to other. That is the chance to get parking may reduce at 5 PM if it is Sunday. But if I check conditional independence both features dependence is explained by outcome attribute that is getting a parking space. Therefore I can say that both are conditionally independent.
Naïve Bayes uses Bayes Theorem at it’s core for predicting outcome value which is dependent on several features simultaneously and to do so it has to follow the above assumption. That’s why it’s called naïve!
Practical Application of Naïve Bayes
In almost all real world examples most of features are dependent on each other. This would make Naïve Bayes almost impossible to implement in real life. So where is it even used? You might have heard that tasks like document retrieval systems , text based sentiment classifiers are the best place to use Naïve Bayes algorithms. But why? It is because most of words that we extract out of documents are independent of each other. Moreover Naïve Bayes works lightning fast even when there are lots of features and in text based classifiers one can easily get over 40,000–50,000 unique words which means 40k-50k features! Reason for lightning fast speed of naïve Bayes is that it is computationally inexpensive as it only has to compute probabilities. | https://medium.com/swlh/na%C3%AFve-bayes-algorithm-3e6673bf85c5 | ['Mitul Tandon'] | 2020-09-29 12:52:50.101000+00:00 | ['Statistics', 'Naive Bayes', 'Probability', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
What Are Non-Fungible Tokens?. Non-Fungible tokens is a term you may… | Non-Fungible tokens is a term you may not have come across in the crypto space. You may however, have heard about projects that employ this type of token.
To understand what a non-fungible token is, we must understand what fungibility is:
In economics, fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are essentially interchangeable.
If a good, asset or token in this case, is fungible, then it can be interchanged or replaced by another identical token. Being non-fungible therefore means that a token is absolutely unique and is distinguishable from any other token.
The $USD is fungible in nature. $1 is exchangeable for $1. These individual dollars are essentially indistinguishable from one another. Fungibility is a core characteristic of all fiat currencies.
Non-fungible tokens are therefore completely unique expressions of an asset on a blockchain. In reading and learning about the Ethereum platform, you may have heard about Crypto Kitties. Collectibles are one early implementation of non-fungible tokens and the analogy of baseball cards is often used to describe how non-fungible collectables work. Many people are familiar with the idea of limited edition baseball cards. Non-fungible tokens work in the same way and are unique representations of an asset.
Working with Blockchain technology, these unique tokens are public and verifiable on the blockchain network. Non-fungible tokens create a form of digital scarcity that can be verified without the need for a centralised authority to confirm validity. It is this fundamental scarcity that gives the tokens their value.
Project Examples
Crypto Kitties
The famous Crypto Kitties projects is widely known across the cryptocurrency space. Back in December of 2017, the Crypto Kitties game created a huge amount of congestion on the Ethereum network, causing it to reach all time highs in transaction throughput and slow it down significantly. However, it is the perfect example of a non-fungible token.
“CryptoKitties is a game centered around breedable, collectible, and oh-so-adorable creatures we call CryptoKitties! Each cat is one-of-a-kind and 100% owned by you; it cannot be replicated, taken away, or destroyed.”
As with Crypto Kitties, Non-fungible tokens can be created on the Ethereum network. Moat NFT’s utilise Ethereum’s ERC-721 protocol. The ERC-721 protocol sets out a standard set of criteria and functions in the form of a smart contract that must be met to be owned, managed, and traded.
Decentraland
Another project in the crypto space that utilises non-fungible tokens is Decentraland. A play on words for decentralised land, Decentraland issues unique plots of virtual land on the blockchain. According to their website, it is a virtual world that runs on open standards:
“…you can purchase land through the Ethereum blockchain, creating an immutable record of ownership. No one can limit what you build. With full control over your land, you can create unique experiences unlike anything in existence. Your imagination is the limit: go to a casino, watch live music, attend a workshop, shop with friends, start a business, test drive a car, visit an underwater resort, and much, much more”
What’s more is that Decentraland is fully immersible through Virtual Reality (VR). You can use your own VR headset to become fully immersed in a 3D interactive world.
Again, with Decentraland, you lay claim to your own unique plot of virtual land. Utilising non-fungible tokens for a virtual world is a very interesting use of this technology. With the rising popularity of Virtual Reality, virtual land on the blockchain my just be good investment for years to come.
Other Use Cases
There are a whole host of other use cases of non-fungible tokens. Anywhere that unique
Ticketing — Plane tickets, concert tickets, tickets to go and see your favourite sports team. All of these are unique and can be represented on the blockchain with a non-fungible token. Expressing tickets on the blockchain with NFT’s would also help to reduce the amount of fraud ticketing for events.
Property Titles — This is another area that is ripe for disruption. Smart contracts and NFT’s can be used to uniquely express ownership of real estate as well as land on the blockchain.
Art — As is the nature of the digital world we now live in, a lot of art that is created is digital in nature. But how can we prevent digital copies being made of digital art? Non Fungible Tokens can represent the original unique pieces of digital art and prevent the copy, distribution and sale of counterfeits. Projects like Po.et are vying to make this use case a reality for artists.
Identity — Our identity is intrinsically unique to each of us. Again, NFT’s can help to create a digital representation of our unique identity on the blockchain. Over 16 million people were victims of identity fraud in 2016 in the USA alone. Projects like The Key are solving the problem of identity fraud on the blockchain.
We are still in the early stages of not only blockchain, but the use of Non-Fungible Tokens. Some of the use cases mentioned above serve to solve real world problems by creating a more transparent and immutable way of tracking validity of assets. No doubt, future use cases will also emerge, but the time and cost savings that could be achieved with these examples could be very compelling. | https://medium.com/cryptosuss/what-are-non-fungible-tokens-unique-digital-assets-on-the-blockchain-e68cc9efce5 | ['Crypto Suss'] | 2018-10-06 13:45:00.662000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain'] |
Lock Account after “x” amount of attempts — Spring Security | A simple solution to a simple problem. I expected a concise answer to already be out there but I could not find it; so I wrote it.
Album Art for Crush by Floating Points
If you are interested in the details surrounding this solution, read on after the code snippets.
Config class extending WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter:
@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
curity(prePostEnabled = true, proxyTargetClass = true)
public class ServerSecurityConfig extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter { @EnableGlobalMethodSe curity(prePostEnabled = true, proxyTargetClass = true)public class ServerSecurityConfig extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
@Bean
public DaoAuthenticationProvider authenticationProvider(final PreAuthPasswordChecker preAuthPasswordChecker,
final PostAuthPasswordChecker postAuthPasswordChecker) {
DaoAuthenticationProvider provider = new DaoAuthenticationProvider();
provider.setPreAuthenticationChecks(preAuthPasswordChecker);
provider.setPostAuthenticationChecks(postAuthPasswordChecker);
return provider;
} ....public DaoAuthenticationProvider authenticationProvider(final PreAuthPasswordChecker preAuthPasswordChecker,final PostAuthPasswordChecker postAuthPasswordChecker) {DaoAuthenticationProvider provider = new DaoAuthenticationProvider();preAuthPasswordCheckerpostAuthPasswordCheckerreturn provider; ....
}
PreAuthPasswordChecker
import org.springframework.security.core.userdetails.UserDetails;
import org.springframework.security.core.userdetails.UserDetailsChecker;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
@Component
public class PreAuthPasswordChecker implements UserDetailsChecker {
@Override
public void check(UserDetails userDetails) {
String username = userDetails .getUsername(); // perform your logic here
}
}
PostAuthPasswordChecker
import org.springframework.security.core.userdetails.UserDetails;
import org.springframework.security.core.userdetails.UserDetailsChecker;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
@Component
public class PostAuthPasswordChecker implements UserDetailsChecker {
@Override
public void check(UserDetails userDetails) {
String username = userDetails .getUsername();
// perform your logic here }
}
Locking a user’s account after a certain amount of incorrect password attempts is a common requirement for an application. To my surprise —because Spring is what I consider to be magic — Spring Security does not possess out-of-the-box functionality to achieve this. There is, however (of course), a mechanism for developers to implement such behavior.
Oddly my Google searches did not turn up any surefire solutions. The answers I found were all spurious; either being outdated or behaving incorrectly.
The first attempt
@Component
public class BadListener implements ApplicationListener<AuthenticationFailureBadCredentialsEvent> {
@Override
public void onApplicationEvent(AuthenticationFailureBadCredentialsEvent authenticationFailureBadCredentialsEvent) {
Worked perfectly for the error scenario. The success scenario was where we realized that an ApplicationListener type solution was not viable.
@Component
public class GoodListener implements ApplicationListener<InteractiveAuthenticationSuccessEvent> {
@Override
public void onApplicationEvent(InteractiveAuthenticationSuccessEvent e) {
The Event above would not fire at all, and AuthenticationSuccessEvent would fire even when the password was incorrect. So, AuthenticationFailureBadCredentialsEvent would fire, followed by AuthenticationSuccessEvent which is obviously incorrect. Perhaps I do not understand how these events truly behave but regardless, their respective names are rather misleading.
Getting back to the decided upon solution:
setPostAuthenticationChecks: runs only after a user has supplied valid credentials.
setPreAuthenticationChecks: runs before the supplied credentials are validated. NOTE: this checker is executed after loadUserByUsername which means that the username value present on the UserDetails argument will be valid — assuming you throw an exception in loadUserByUsername if the username is incorrect —so you just need to validate the password at this point.
The two methods above are the fundamental strategies required. The password logic you implement in the overridden check does not have to be identical to ours. For those of you interested in our implementation:
Pre Authentication
Inject UserRepository into the Checker call findByUsername. NOTE: we throw an exception in loadUserByUsername, so at this point, the validity of the username is incontrovertible If the number of attempts ≥ 3, set status to AccountStatus.LOCKED and throw an AccountLockedException. If not, increment the passwordCounter, irrespective of whether the password is valid. We increment regardless of password validity because if the User is authenticated (the password is valid), the post authentication checker will run and reset the counter. Create an ExceptionHandler for AccountLockedException so that a suitable error response may be returned to the clien
Post Authentication
At this point we know that the supplied credentials are valid Inject UserRepository into the Checker Call findByUsername Set the passwordCounter field on UserDetails to 0, set status field to UserStatus.ACTIVE, and update the entry
Please feel free to ask any questions. I am always open to suggestions pertaining to the improvement of my writing
Thanks for reading | https://medium.com/@banjojo/lock-account-after-x-amount-of-attempts-spring-security-b29c7d747345 | ['B A N J O Obe'] | 2020-12-01 10:43:59.622000+00:00 | ['Java', 'Spring Security', 'Spring Boot', 'Password Security', 'Spring'] |
Reviewing for Machine Learning Conferences Explained | I wrote this article based on the Research Methodology course that I teach to Master’s degree students in machine learning. One of its lectures goes as follows: we read the paper together paragraph by paragraph and I explain to what particular parts of it a reviewer has to pay attention. As an example, I use the paper from the ICLR’19 conference entitled “Learning what and where to attend with humans in the loop” (its first submitted version can be found here). I chose this paper for two reasons: 1) it is not in one of my areas of primary expertise, and 2) it remains largely accessible to anybody having a general background in ML. I thought that the first point was very important as most of the future Ph.D. students will start their reviewer’s career in similar conditions and without a longstanding prior experience in any particular ML field.
I now propose you to follow me through the paper in order to understand how to write a review for it. To do this, I suggest you read full sections of the paper indicated in the titles below before reading my comments on it.
Abstract
The abstract is one of the most important things in the paper for a reviewer as it gives a general outline of what he/she will find in it. When reading this part, I note every promise made by authors and expect that authors supported it by facts in the main body of their work. Let’s see the abstract of our paper.
Image by Author based on the original paper.
I put important things in bold here. What information this abstract gives me as a reviewer? First, it defines the general area of the submission, which is the study of attention mechanisms in DCNs. Second, and most importantly, it puts forward two claims which I will want to verify, namely: 1) attention mechanisms with human supervision significantly improve the DCN’s performance, 2) learned features, in this case, are more interpretable. I note it and move on to the introduction.
Introduction
The introduction is an extended version of the abstract that includes hints to previous works and provides more details on the proposed contribution. In this paper, the introduction contains several things that attract my attention.
Images by Author based on the original paper.
Images by Author based on the original paper.
First, I identify several closely related prior works mentioned numerous times in the second paragraph, namely: (Linsley et al. ’17) and (Jiang et al. ‘15). As a reviewer, I would now briefly go through the contents of these two papers with a particular emphasis on the first one because 1) it is more recent and most likely will include a comparison to other related works mentioned in the introduction, and 2) the authors compare to it singularly.
Second, I note the positioning of proposed contributions w.r.t. state-of-the-art, namely: 1) the authors propose a more efficient strategy implemented on ClickMe.ai platform to obtain attention maps for large-scale datasets when compared to Salicon dataset and Linsley et al.’s work; 2) the authors propose a novel module for DCNs based on the idea of combining global contextual guidance with local saliency; 3) the authors improve performance with human-in-the-loop attention. Once again, as a reviewer, I will now seek arguments that support each of these claims.
Section 2: Description of ClickMe.ai
This section is very important, as it is entirely devoted to supporting the first claim mentioned above. On the one hand, it is supposed to show that the proposed strategy used to collect attention maps scales better than previous work. On the other hand, it should show that the obtained “top-down” maps are superior to “bottom-up” ones collected previously. Here is my resume for the first part.
Image by Author based on the original paper.
You may note that I put the ClickMe.ai strategy proposed by the authors as a strength of the paper as it involves only one human being contrary to two from Linsley et al., and allows to collect more attention maps. A downside to this is that the comparison with Linsley at al. allows me to discover the identities of the authors who mention ClickMe.ai in their previous paper.
Here is my summary of the second claim.
Source: original paper.
As shown above, “top-down” features (ClickMe maps) seem to perform better than “bottom-up” features (Salicon maps) when revealed to human observers. This supports the author’s claim about their superior performance w.r.t. the maps from the Salicon dataset. So far, I am only praising the strengths of the paper, but is there something to say about the weaknesses? Here are some of my remarks to be included in the review.
Image by Author.
The authors say that the ClickMe game scales better than the Clicktionary game of Linsley et al., but they never mention how many maps were collected using the latter. The second point is that the authors also use those maps that didn’t allow DCN to recognize the object correctly. Is it reasonable? Why do we consider these maps useful later? The other two minor points are that the authors often talk about “top-down” and “bottom-up” features, but they never explain the difference between the two (I had to google it). Finally, the authors claim that these features are “sufficient for human object recognition”. This may be too strong of a statement as the overall recognition accuracy never reaches 70%, which is far from what is considered human-level performance. I note it and move to Section 3.
Section 3: Proposed network architecture
This section describes the module inspired by the idea of “combining local saliency and global contextual signals to guide attention towards image regions that are diagnostic for object recognition”. I am not an expert in attention mechanisms for DCNs, and I cannot judge the soundness of what is proposed by the authors and its novelty. At this point, I start to think that my confidence score for this paper won’t be very high if I were its official reviewer and that I would have to indicate it clearly in my review to the area chair (AC). Despite this, I still notice the following phrase of the authors:
Images by Author based on the original paper.
They do not explain how they choose these layers, while omitting low-level layers altogether: an ablative study might be useful to back it up in this context. One more thing to add to the review as such discussion can be highly useful for researchers who may decide to implement their module for architectures other than ResNet-50.
Section 4: Training with humans-in-the-loop
This section presents most of the experimental results for the architecture proposed in Section 3 with additional regularization that forces learned maps to look similar to those provided by human participants of ClickMe.ai. Here is my short resume for this part.
Images by Author.
I note that most of the results indeed seem to back up the third claim from authors: human-in-the-loop supervision improves the performance on popular object recognition datasets. Even though I would tend to be convinced by the experimental results, I still notice several inconsistencies.
Images by Author.
The first remark is rather obvious. Why using the magic number 6 for the regularization parameter? The second question is related to Table 1 from the paper that shows significant improvement in terms of both the classification accuracy on the ILSVRC12 dataset and the ability to learn features similar to ClickMe maps. What’s inconsistent here? Well, the latter improvement seems to be quite obvious to me as it merely indicates that the regularization forcing learned features to look like ClickMe maps works well. Other baselines do not particularly seek to force such behavior, and this performance gain should be presented rather as an argument justifying the chosen regularization strength. Third, the authors mention that with a reduced set of ClickMe maps (Table 4 in Appendix), their method also performs better than all other baselines, but one can see that in this case, the performance gap becomes very small. Finally, the authors mention that “Without additional training, the model’s attention localized foreground objects in Microsoft COCO 2014 (Lin et al., 2014)” but do not provide quantitative results on this dataset and show only 6 derived maps in Figure 4 (this was improved in the published version).
Putting it all together
After explaining how I went through this paper, it is now time to put it all into a review ready to be submitted to the conference website. As required by many conferences, I start with the summary of the paper.
Image by Author.
Note that the summary is very important as it shows the authors that you understand their work. Then, I provide its strengths and weakness.
Image by Author.
I find it crucial to give some positive feedback even if I plan to suggest rejecting the paper in the end. This shows the authors what parts of their work were appreciated by the reviewers. I then continue with several detailed comments.
Image by Author.
Image by Author.
Image by Author.
You may note that all of the review’s contents are just the remarks that I was writing down while reading the paper. Usually, I will make a first draft of a review in around 3 hours and then I will go back to the paper at least twice before the deadline to make sure that I didn’t miss something.
What do other reviewers say?
The good thing about how the reviewing process works nowadays is that you can often see the reviews for a given paper once it was accepted/rejected. In the case of this submission, you can check the reviews here. After reading them, you may notice that other reviewers raise similar concerns to what I mention in my review, namely: 1) lack of motivation/justification for many design choices and 2) qualitative results for the interpretability. Note also that similar to me Reviewer 2 admits that he/she is not an expert in attention mechanisms for DCNs and puts a confidence score of 3/5 to indicate this to the area chair. This is very important as an unknowledgeable reviewer with high confidence is a nightmare for both the authors and the ACs. And it goes the other way around too: if you review a paper from your narrow area of expertise, you should clearly indicate it so that the AC will be able to identify the most informative reviews.
What do the authors do then?
I did the review of the first submitted version of this paper on purpose so that you can see the camera-ready version submitted by the authors once their paper was accepted. You may notice several differences in it compared to the first version: the title has changed to “Learning what and where to attend” as suggested by Reviewer 1, and many details were added throughout the whole text to make the paper clearer following the reviewers’ remarks (you can see it in the diff file between the final version and the original version). Overall, it shows you that your duty as a reviewer is not only to criticize somebody else’s work but rather to help them to improve it with your feedback.
This last phrase is what I see as a major source of bad reviews.
A bad reviewer often sees himself not as a peer of the authors with whom he or she wants to advance the state of research in his or her area, but as an ultimate (and sometimes superior) referee who is there to judge other’s work.
The first approach to reviews takes time, requires patience and more than a pinch of goodwill. The second requires none of it and leads to a destructive half-random reviewing process where it can take years for important contributions to be actually published. Luckily, however, it is up to all of us to choose how we want it to be in the end.
Afternote
This article explains my approach to reviewing papers, but I am not the highest authority in this matter and I do not claim that it is the only right way to do it. There can be other opinions on how a good review should look like, as well as people who will find my reviews bad and uninformative. Also, there are different types of papers and reviewing a theoretical research paper may be very different from reviewing an applied research paper. The goal of this article was to show one possible way of how to do it hoping that it can be helpful for those who will find it suitable personally to them. | https://towardsdatascience.com/reviewing-for-machine-learning-conferences-explained-f73bc037babc | ['Ievgen Redko'] | 2020-12-07 17:31:36.673000+00:00 | ['Review', 'Science', 'Research', 'Conference', 'Machine Learning'] |
A Response To ‘Why Faux-Queens Deserve A Place In Drag Culture’ | By Alex Verman
Following the publication of Amanda Scriver’s piece — Why Faux-Queens Deserve A Place In Drag Culture — Alex Verman, a writer, researcher, and organizer in the Toronto queer community, submitted the following response, which we’re sharing below to further the dialogue surrounding the topic of bio-queens.
***
“I’m here to spill the tea on the fact that women can perform drag . . . as women.”
This was the bold lead to Amanda Scriver’s article in celebration of “bio-queens.” These are women assigned female at birth who perform as drag queens, and who Scriver argues ought to be represented and appreciated more widely in the world of drag, which she says has historically been “an art form made by and performed for gay men.”
Scriver’s thesis is that when “biological women” take on the exaggerated femininity of drag, they are pioneering a novel form of resistance against the expectations placed on women by society’s predatory male gaze. The entree of “biological women” to the world of drag, according to Scriver, newly renders drag a queer phenomenon of resistance, an act that is now political where it was once merely performative.
This reading of drag and its relationship with bodies, politics, and performance, sounds good on paper. But in reality, Scriver’s article stands in direct opposition to the generations of women who have used the political power of drag to resist straightness, whiteness, and colonialism.
Actually, women have always been doing drag. Trans women, cis women, queer and gender non-conforming folks of all identities — all have been deeply embedded in drag communities since the development of the North American drag landscape. From Stormé DeLarvarie performing at Stonewall, to Tracey Africa Norman and Octavia St. Laurent serving legendary face, to Amber Rose mugging at the Legend Ball, drag has been shaped and shared by women throughout history.
***
Scriver’s article opens with an unattributed quote, “You don’t have to be a man in a dress to perform drag,” a paraphrasing of Bianca Del Rio, who is hardly new to making transphobic comments. Bianca Del Rio won season six of RuPaul’s Drag Race, a reality TV show with drag queen contestants.
But even those who know nothing about drag beyond what they’ve seen on Drag Race would know that this comment is patently untrue. To many queens past and present, the distinction between gender performance and gender non-conformance is blurry, if it exists at all. Several Drag Race participants have publicly identified as transgender or as gender non-conforming, and have articulated their drag as political, including Violet Chachki, Gia Gunn, Jinkx Monsoon, Courtney Act, and BenDeLaCreme.
Moreover, no fewer than five drag queens who have been on the show have since come out as trans women: Carmen Carrera, Monica Beverly Hillz, Stacey Lane Matthews, Jiggly Caliente (Bianca Castro), and Sonique. Even the freedom fighting women of the Stonewall Inn, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, called themselves “drag queens.” What would it mean to call these women “men”? As Laverne Cox remarked during her 2014 Creating Change speech, “When a trans woman is called a man, that is an act of violence.” Part of the power of drag is in its capacity to empower femininity for those who have traditionally been excluded and attacked for their relationship to it.
Drag has always had the power to create spaces for endangered femininity in the face of violence. Drag Race contestant Jujubee spoke about the empowering femininity of drag on the show:
“People don’t hate gay guys because they’re gay, they hate anything that’s ‘feminine.’ They see anything that’s girly, or feminine, or woman-like as something that’s weak. And that’s why I think we do drag, because we want to empower that deity, feminine focus.”
When white women speak of the necessity and novelty of “bio-queens” courageously claiming space in resistance of the male gaze, it’s easy to forget that drag is always and already serving that exact same function for queer and trans folks. Tatianna on Drag Race put it succinctly, recalling the first time she was called a slur as a child and reacted by turning to drag. “Literally, I started getting called ‘f*ggot’ when I was in first grade,” she says. “So in my head, I’m thinking, ‘my femininity is not okay to the outside world if I’m dressed as a boy.’”
Many of the modern roots of drag can be traced to ball culture, an American Black and Latinx LGBT subculture characterized by gender performance and nonconformance. As represented in the 1990 documentary, Paris is Burning, balls are competitions and cultural hubs around which Black and Latinx LGBT folks create intentional communities of refuge and solidarity in the face of racism, poverty, homophobia, and transphobia.
Throughout the film, we are reminded of the constant dangers faced by Black and Latinx queer folks. Our most vivid encounter with this reality comes in the form of Venus Xtravaganza, a trans woman and drag queen with the house of Xtravaganza, who was brutally murdered partway through the documentary’s filming.
When we think about drag and its relationship to creating spaces apart from social violence, it does us all a dangerous disservice to forget that these spaces were created out of necessity by people of color and trans women — in particular, trans women of color, who are at an incredibly high risk of violence and who have historically made up the bulk of what Scriver terms the “drag community.”
Implying that these women and trans folks performing drag have ever been safe from the male gaze is a cruel misreading of their daily reality. This is particularly true for Black and Latinx queer people, for whom ballrooms and drag communities were necessary spaces of refuge and self-actualization. As Dorian Corey comments in Paris is Burning, “Black people have a hard time getting anywhere and those that do are usually straight. In a ballroom you can be anything you want.”
Similarly, it’s worth reminding ourselves that:
Women have always been performing drag, and they have always been performing drag politically. The difference is that these women — as trans women of color — do not have the option of choosing to see their drag as political; it has always been political and it has always been necessary in the face of the violence that they encounter on a daily basis.
From Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, to Dorian Corey and Venus Xtravaganza, to Monica Beverly Hillz and Carmen Carrera, women have always been performing drag. There is an intrinsic connection between gender performance and non-conformance, and more than anywhere, that has historically been articulated in Black and Latinx LGBT communities.
Thus, while it may seem that Scriver’s “bio-queens” are underrepresented, this understanding overlooks a long history wherein the femininity of members of the drag community have been repressed and oppressed, as Black women, as trans women, and others. Drag offers them a chance to speak to their own experiences in a space specifically marked off from society’s predatory gaze. What Scriver is suggesting is to offer cis women a chance to take the stage and reaffirm their own experiences as natural at the expense of the femininity others articulate through drag.
Do women perform drag? Of course. Do women participate in drag communities? Of course. They always have and they always will. But when a white cis woman writes that “biological women” deserve space in drag communities, it’s worth asking ourselves which women she considers to be woman enough that they deserve the space that Black women, Latinx women, queer woman, and trans women have spent their lives fighting to create.
***
Lead image: Portrait of Violet Chachki by Brandon Schultz
Flickr/ Ŧhe ₵oincidental Ðandy | https://medium.com/the-establishment/a-response-to-why-faux-queens-deserve-a-place-in-drag-culture-53aed987d90f | ['The Establishment'] | 2016-12-09 00:23:25.246000+00:00 | ['Feature', 'Drag Race', 'Non Binary', 'Faux Queens', 'Society Politics'] |
Three Reasons Why I Won’t Go Back to Siargao, Philippines | Three Reasons Why I Won’t Go Back to Siargao, Philippines
sdPhoto by Louise Burton on Unsplash
After traveling to several Southeast Asian countries, I have been to my fair share of islands. The Philippines was never on the top of my list, but some friends were going last year and I decided to join them. The company was lovely. Siargao itself was lacking.
Here are three reasons I wouldn’t go back.
1. It’s not cheap.
The accommodations we found after scouring Airbnb, Agoda, and Booking.com were discouraging. They paled in comparison to what you can find for the same price in Bali or Thailand. We were a group of six and you can usually find some pretty epic villas that once divided up are reasonable. Where we stayed in Siargao cost more than we would have liked and was underwhelming.
2. It’s not for beginner surfers.
I took my first surf lesson at Cloud 9. My teacher was a local Filipino, high on life among other things. After giving a brief lesson on the beach on how to pop up, he took me into the water and pushed me into the waves. I didn’t learn anything, but I stood up. In the next few days, I wanted to try again without having to pay for a lucrative surf school with the prices to go with it. There was nowhere to go for beginners to practice. You would get yelled off the line up for not having a guide or almost die on the reef break. I’m scarred for life, but it’s cool.
3. There isn’t a beach.
For those of us who were not going to surf, there was nowhere for us to go to relax and curl up with a good beach read. At least, we never found one. If pristine, sandy beaches are hard to find on an island, this is never a good thing. It’s standard for you to rent a boat in the Philippines. The boat will take you out and you can jump into the water from there and snorkel. Again, this gets expensive and doesn’t compare to a free beach. | https://farewellalarms.com/three-reasons-why-i-wont-go-back-to-siargao-philippines-33ba69490fdf | ['Taylor Ashley'] | 2020-09-03 09:34:59.184000+00:00 | ['Philippines', 'Travel', 'Travel Tips'] |
Integrate YouTube’s IFrame Player API in Angular | Integrate YouTube’s IFrame Player API in Angular
A simple guide to add a YouTube IFrame Player in an Angular application
Photo by Szabo Victor on Unsplash
When it comes to integrating the YouTube IFrame Player API with component-based frameworks like Angular, it’s a bit difficult and tricky. Here, we’re going to see how we can implement this. I’ll try to discuss all of the problems and challenges I faced while integrating the YouTube IFrame Player API into my Angular application.
First, let’s just create a dummy Angular app using the following command. If you already have a running application, just skip this step.
ng new YTIFrameAPI-with-Angular
Once the app is ready, create a div with id="player" (or whatever you want) in your template file, like this:
Note: Of course, you can change the template as per your requirements. Just make sure the div has an id because the iframe (and video player) will replace this div.
Now, declare some useful variables and create an init function to initialize the YouTube IFrame API, like this :
The code in init() is used to load the API’s JavaScript code. As shown above, when the API is ready, we’re calling startVideo() . This method will define a global variable, "player" , which refers to the video player you’re embedding and the function then constructs the video player object.
Now, once the player is ready, onPlayerReady() will be called. In this example, we’re just playing the video once the player is ready, like this:
Using the API, we can track when the player changes its state. The API will call onPlayerStateChange() when the player’s state changes, which may indicate the player is playing, paused, finished, and so forth. It can be useful for you if you want to perform some actions when the player changes its state.
Note: In the following code snippet, we have two extra methods, cleanTime() and onPlayerError(event) . These methods are used to read and calculate the player’s current timestamp and record an error, respectively.
Now, simply use the component’s ngOnInit() method to initialize a video ID, and call the init() method.
Now if you run ng serve and go to the localhost URL, you’ll see the player is created, and a YouTube video is embedded in this.
In my case, it looks something like this:
Note: For the sake of this demo, I’m using a YouTube video from the Avenger’s Movie Clips YouTube channel. | https://medium.com/better-programming/integrate-youtubes-iframe-player-api-in-angular-4e87f0ec98f4 | ['Gourav Kajal'] | 2020-12-23 17:22:09.433000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Angular', 'JavaScript', 'Nodejs', 'Web Development'] |
Israeli’s sold the elusive “Dubai dream” could be walking into a nightmare | The normalisation of diplomatic relations between the UAE and Israel has been touted as a great stride towards peace in the Middle East. While Israel and the Emirates have had an informal cooperative relationship for many years, the official establishment of diplomatic ties certainly goes a long way to spread regional acceptance of Israel, which should help ease tensions. The UAE immediately embarked upon fresh campaigns directed at Israeli investors and businesses, hoping to entice entrepreneurs to expand their activities into the untapped Middle Eastern economy.
And the Israeli commerce sector is equally excited for reciprocal trade and commerce, looking forward to openly accepting Arab investors into local activities. But what does the future hold for unsuspecting Israelis?
What are the risks of doing business in the UAE? Radha Stirling, founder of Detained in Dubai and the Gulf in Justice Podcast discusses. Radha Stirling is a leading human rights advocate, crisis manager and policy consultant, focusing on the UAE and the wider Middle East. She is the founder and CEO of British based organisation Detained in Dubai and its subsidiaries, (which have helped thousands of victims of injustice over the past thirteen years). Criminal & Civil Justice Specialist, Expert Witness, Speaker, Founder of Due Process International, Detained in Dubai, IPEX Reform and Gulf Investment Monitor
Gulf in Justice Podcast: www.gulfinjustice.news | https://medium.com/@radhastirling-90634/israelis-sold-the-elusive-dubai-dream-could-be-walking-into-a-nightmare-52285efdf835 | ['Radha Stirling'] | 2020-12-20 13:38:32.932000+00:00 | ['Israel Bank', 'Investment', 'Israel', 'Dubai', 'Peace Deal'] |
How to Brand a New Business. Steps to Building a Successful Brand | Most people in the street would tell you that identity is an attractive logo in your business card. And they would be surprised to learn that it actually begins with a basic idea and ends with its proper representation, which makes it a very complicated process. It is a multilevel strategy, like in some wargame, yet there are no enemies, only rivaling companies. Your position understanding, market data, or purposeful visuals application are all parts of your branding strategy. It is something that enables your goods to be recognized and purchased. Alas, ordinary goods, devoid of uniqueness are simply incompetent anymore as the market has been glutted a long time ago. As you probably have already guessed, we are going to tell you about how to increase brand awareness for a new business.
Improve your positioning on the market
So, how can one endow a design with all the required messages? If you face trouble getting how to place all the data you have into one little picture, we have got some good news for you. We receive only 20% of the information from the world around us by verbal means. First of all, a proper logo intended to brand new business should reflect your mood. What kind of company do you own? Is it noisy and full of life? Or perhaps it’s conservative, full of strict people? What voice would be perfect to personify your logo? Is it some happy child or a romantic youth? Think of your target group in order to find an answer to these questions. These modern days of rivalry, it is the only way to get through.
And all of those questions are related to a far more profound notion than just a slogan in your card. Also, you can’t use ideas of wisdom and clarity if your slogan sounds like “Sober up and strive for more”. You should monitor what is posted on social media, what information about your company can be found on the Internet, and even what kind of language your employees use while addressing your customers. For instance, a fast-food worker shouldn’t be formal and serious as it would lose lots of customers. A lawyer who drinks beer in his office, putting legs on the table isn’t the most trustworthy ally when it comes to legislation, you know. The point is that if don’t follow the basic concept of your image, you surely are doomed to face one failure after the other.
Psychology — a weapon of a new world
What kind of branding is needed for a new business? It’s more important to feel what people really want and their moods rather than having some skills in designing or drawing. It is crucial to understand the gist of people’s demands. Lots of business owners believe that it’s a job for a marketing expert team, but they are terribly mistaken. Consider the following. Each famous and successful corporation always has a charismatic leader capable of attracting people’s attention. And should the company lose such a person, just like in the case with Steve Jobs, its market success suddenly becomes questionable.
Understanding of psychology makes you confident and your moves become firm too. And customers always feel uncertainty. Apple Corporation has done many mistakes while developing its devices but its customers have always believed in Apple. And it is Steve Jobs who is to be thanked by the new board. Customers are loyal to his genius even after his death.
Everything matters
Observing and scrutinizing people’s behavior, you can define some behavior patterns. And that means we can affect customers’ perceptions. You should consider every color used in branding. Each of them, just like their combinations as well, causes certain feelings and emotions. Pay attention to geometry too. For instance, a circle is the most pleasing to the eye figure. We really prefer round shape items.
Proportions, golden section technique, and symmetry are very important for a new business branding design. Customers never read documentation, manuals, or terms, but they always notice new marketing techniques. If you won’t get through to people’s feelings all the info about your goods will never reach the minds of your customers. Which means that your branding never was worth trying.
Originally published at https://turbologo.com on September 11, 2020. | https://medium.com/turbologo/how-to-brand-a-new-business-steps-to-building-a-successful-brand-6191432cdb59 | ['Ilya Lavrov'] | 2020-12-22 03:02:13.671000+00:00 | ['Brands', 'Bussiness', 'Branding', 'Brand Strategy'] |
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AgriFoodTech Alchemy Issue 11 — Transition, full speed ahead on harvest automation. | Issue 11 is going to be different, and so are future issues of AgriFoodTech Alchemy. I joined Western Growers as VP of Innovation on October 19. Transitioning from consulting for SVG-THRIVE and AgriFoodTech startups to full-time executive status at WGA driving Innovation is a great opportunity for me to take a lot of my experience and expertise and help accelerate innovation across multiple agriculture problems. It also means the time I have available for research and analysis of AgriFoodTech Alchemy will be reduced. I am excited about the opportunity at WGA. I’m also pragmatic enough to realize that my time commitments are changing in real time.
I plan to continue publishing the Newsletter, but it will change in format. I will be moving to shorter pieces focused on the “so what” piece with more thought content than data analytics. So look for 5–10 minute pieces, still on single topics and with analysis, but less front-end data content. It’s also not clear how many of these pieces I will be able to fit into the schedule. I am making the decision to prioritize quality over quantity, so it may or may not be on a weekly basis (and with travel commitments it is looking very likely that most will not be weekly). The first few weeks at WGA have been great. The team is full of great people, we have some really solid partners, and everyone understands the challenges facing growers (and grower-shippers) as well as the opportunity that driving innovation faster presents.
Before I discuss the opportunity, let me review how my experience provides me with a relatively unique perspective. First, as a fifth generation family farmer, I understand the problems growers face. Our ranch has 1,400 acres of wine grapes, 3,000 acres of specialty crops, and a 300 head cow-calf operation. When I write that labor, water, and food safety are the top problems growers face, I know first-hand what an impact these problems can have and that the top problems have been the same for decades. I know the costs involved with all 3 problems, and how they have changed over time. I am familiar with the regulatory framework that impacts all 3 problems, as well as the costs involved with compliance.
In addition to the ranch, I have over 25 years of startup experience in Silicon Valley at multiple startups, including eBay and two others that were acquired. This operator experience has given me experience with scaling startups, building products, and setting strategy and executing go-to market plans at scale. The last few years have been focused on the intersection of these two areas, helping grow and build the #1 AgriFoodTech Accelerator at THRIVE and working with the startup cohorts on strategy, fundraising, product, and sales/marketing execution. The combination of agriculture, technology startup, and AgriFoodTech experience provides me with a somewhat unique perspective.
The Western Grower role is focused on accelerating innovation. At a high level, this means potentially working to accelerate commercialization from the earliest stages of University research to the stages beyond that around IP, licensing, and team formation to the later stages around launching and scaling the company. It can also involve efforts to create innovation if that is the best strategic path forward. My role is going to focus on two of the three key ag problems — labor and food safety. The labor solutions will be focused on harvest activity for fresh field produce and the food safety solutions will be focused on identifying and fixing food problem challenges such as e.coli (not just testing and identifying problems — solving is a lot more valuable).
The first step for both of these items is to set the baseline. How big is the harvest labor problem for specialty crops? Which crops use the most labor, and how much do they use, what does it cost, and what’s going to happen to that cost over time? Once we understand that, we have the total addressable market for solving the labor problem for all specialty crops. As you can guess, given increased regulatory costs and decreased availability, labor costs are going up the next several years for every specialty crop. This baseline analysis will develop an overall financial framework for sizing the labor problem. Similarly, for food safety how much are outbreaks and recalls costing the industry on an annual basis, and what is happening to those costs over time?
The second step is to identify existing innovators that are already in the market place with labor and food safety solutions. This means taking inventory on a lot of startups at various stages of product development, sales and marketing, and fundraising. It also means identifying the most promising and coming up with programs that can help them scale. The good news is this plays to one of WGA’s greatest strengths — our members. The growers and grower-shippers that are WGA members will be directly involved with working with the most promising startups in each of these areas. They will help with testing product, providing feedback, evaluating financial and economic models, and many times becoming a customer.
This is important for two reasons. First, there is nothing that can replace a test on a live farming environment. Startups can do all the work in the lab they want, but real field tests have significantly more impact. Second, farmers listen to one information source over all others — other farmers. They value input from pest control advisors, crop advisors, and equipment dealers. But for startups, the best thing you can provide a sales team with is a case study from another farmer that got value from your product.
The third step is evaluating the overall innovation ecosystem in these two areas. This is particularly important for harvest automation. The current consensus among many in the agriculture and AgTech segments is that the technology is closer to scale for activities like weeding and thinning to happen at large scale, but capital, manufacturing expertise, and execution are required to make it happen.
Harvest, on the other hand, does not seem as positive in terms of results or acceleration. For example, with strawberries there have been dozens of startups and well over $100M raised, and yet on an annual basis a very small percentage of strawberries are picked by robots (<1–2% industry wide). So the current pace and cost metrics do not bode well for a global adoption of robot harvesters any time soon. A new approach is needed. This is why the ecosystem must be re-examined.
Think about the harvest solutions in the market. In most cases, they build an entire technology stack as part of their solution, including the tractor mechanism for moving the harvester, visioning technology to help the harvest mechanism know which plants to harvest, AI/ML technology to determine “plant or weed” and “ready to harvest v not ready”, and the actual harvesting mechanism. The resulting machine often takes 5–10 years to get to market and routinely costs $250,000 or more. This is a big capital commitment and a long time frame for getting to market.
So there are a lot of factors that make the current harvest automation solutions challenging — high cost, long development cycles, lots of capital, and low market penetration. At this trajectory, it would take hundreds of millions of investment dollars and 10–20 years to make a meaningful impact on just the amount of strawberries harvested. Remember that strawberries are just one of many specialty crops. There is a consensus among many in agriculture and AgTech that there is some good technology and some smart people in the startups, but the model is going to be hard to scale. Especially because each almost all of the harvesters can only work on one crop type because the harvesting processes are so different from crop to crop.
So clearly there is a need to fundamentally alter the trajectory the startups are operating and scaling. Building the whole machine once and manufacturing each new machine with all of the components being built by the startup engineering team creates no efficiencies and requires massive amounts of capital. It seems possible to build a common platform for some of the key elements so startups can leverage standard components and really focus their effort on key IP efforts around the harvesting process — visioning, AI/ML, and harvest mechanism. It also seems possible that open source can be used to share development efforts on items that are commoditized so startups can focus on the really hard stuff that has the largest impact. We are going to consider a wide range of options.
So now to the so what part — why is it so important that we solve harvest labor?
It’s the largest problem facing agriculture at the moment — with rising costs and decreasing availability while the work force ages. We need to prove that this can be solved before we solve others. It has a direct impact on the food supply chain and food waste. Without adequate labor or an automation solution, food goes unharvested and food waste increases. Agriculture will need more investment for innovators and founders that launch startups and hope to scale. These investments will be easier to get and investors will view the space much more favorably with some successful startups and some exits. These exits will only happen if we can help existing and future startups solve harvest labor and get to scale. There are some serious other agricultural challenges — food safety and water at the top of the list. The collective agriculture industry’s ability to solve the others accelerates once we begin to effectively solve harvest labor. I believe the playbook we are working on for harvest labor will work equally well for other ag problems.
So that is the so what — solve harvest labor and we help solve food supply and food waste challenges, help startups scale to potential exits, and can begin to develop solutions more quickly for other agriculture challenges. Fail to solve harvest labor and funding and startup activity will slow down, making it much harder for startups to develop solutions and scale to solve the problems.
The effort will take more than a small village to pull off. Many future newsletters will be focused on the details of how and who we will be working with to solve the labor challenge. I am excited about the opportunity and look forward to sharing the results as we make progress. | https://medium.com/agrifoodtech-innovation-and-commercialization/agrifoodtech-alchemy-issue-11-transition-full-speed-ahead-on-harvest-automation-a251ebf4ab91 | ['Walt Duflock'] | 2020-12-12 21:08:06.861000+00:00 | ['Agtech', 'Robots', 'Agriculture'] |
Role of Stacks and Queues in Problem Solving | Introduction to Stacks and Queues
Stack is a container of objects that are inserted and removed according to the last-in first-out (LIFO) principle. Queue is a container of objects (a linear collection) that are inserted and removed according to the first-in first-out (FIFO) principle.
In the pushdown stacks only two operations are allowed: push the item into the stack, and pop the item out of the stack. A stack is a limited access data structure — elements can be added and removed from the stack only at the top. push adds an item to the top of the stack, pop removes the item from the top. A helpful analogy is to think of a stack of books; you can remove only the top book, also you can add a new book on the top.
An excellent example of a queue is a line of students in the food court of the UC. New additions to a line made to the back of the queue, while removal (or serving) happens in the front. In the queue only two operations are allowed enqueue and dequeue. Enqueue means to insert an item into the back of the queue, dequeue means removing the front item. The picture demonstrates the FIFO access. The difference between stacks and queues is in removing. In a stack we remove the item the most recently added; in a queue, we remove the item the least recently added.
Analogy of Stack and Queue in Real Life
Stack :
Queue :
FIFO & LILO and LIFO & FILO Principles
Queue: First In First Out (FIFO): The first object into a queue is the first object to leave the queue, used by a queue.
Stack: Last In First Out (LIFO): The last object into a stack is the first object to leave the stack, used by a stack
OR
Stack: Last In First Out (FILO): The First object or item in a stack is the last object or item to leave the stack.
Queue: Last In First Out (LILO): The last object or item in a queue is the last object or item to leave the queue.
How Stack Solves Real World Problems ?
Expression Evaluation
Stack is used to evaluate prefix, postfix and infix expressions.
Expression Conversion
An expression can be represented in prefix, postfix or infix notation. Stack can be used to convert one form of expression to another.
Syntax Parsing
Many compilers use a stack for parsing the syntax of expressions, program blocks etc. before translating into low level code.
Parenthesis Checking
Stack is used to check the proper opening and closing of parenthesis.
Backtracking
Suppose we are finding a path for solving maze problem. We choose a path and after following it we realize that it is wrong. Now we need to go back to the beginning of the path to start with new path. This can be done with the help of stack.
String Reversal
Stack is used to reverse a string. We push the characters of string one by one into stack and then pop character from stack.
Function Call
Stack is used to keep information about the active functions or subroutines in an operating system.
How Queue Solves Real World Problems ?
Queue, as the name suggests is used whenever we need to manage any group of objects in an order in which the first one coming in, also gets out first while the others wait for their turn, like in the following scenarios
Operating System
Serving requests on a single shared resource, like a printer, CPU task scheduling etc.
Handling of interrupts in real-time systems. The interrupts are handled in the same order as they arrive i.e First come first served.
Call Centers
In real life scenario, Call Center phone systems uses Queues to hold people calling them in an order, until a service representative is free.
Demonstration of Stack Problem
Infix to Postfix ( Expression Conversion Problem) :
The complex arithmetic operations can be converted into polish notation using stacks which then can be executed in two operands and an operator form.
Infix Expression
It follows the scheme of <operand><operator><operand> i.e. an <operator> is preceded and succeeded by an <operand>. Such an expression is termed infix expression. E.g., A+B
Postfix Expression
It follows the scheme of <operand><operand><operator> i.e. an <operator> is succeeded by both the <operand>. E.g., AB+
Algorithm :
Let, X is an arithmetic expression written in infix notation. This algorithm finds the equivalent postfix expression Y.
1. Push “(“onto Stack, and add “)” to the end of X.
2. Scan X from left to right and repeat Step 3 to 6 for each element of X until the Stack is empty.
3. If an operand is encountered, add it to Y.
4. If a left parenthesis is encountered, push it onto Stack.
5. If an operator is encountered ,then:
a. Repeatedly pop from Stack and add to Y each operator (on the top of Stack) which has the same precedence as or higher precedence than operator.
b. Add operator to Stack.
6. If a right parenthesis is encountered ,then:
a. Repeatedly pop from Stack and add to Y each operator (on the top of Stack) until a left parenthesis is encountered.
b. Remove the left Parenthesis.
7. END.
Advantage of Postfix Expression over Infix Expression
An infix expression is difficult for the machine to know and keep track of precedence of operators. On the other hand, a postfix expression itself determines the precedence of operators (as the placement of operators in a postfix expression depends upon its precedence).Therefore, for the machine it is easier to carry out a postfix expression than an infix expression.
Let’s take an example to better understand the algorithm
Infix Expression: A+ (B*C-(D/E^F)*G)*H, where ^ is an exponential operator
Resultant Postfix Expression: ABC*DEF^/G*-H*+
Demonstration of Queue Problem
Round Robin Scheduling (CPU Task Scheduling)
Round Robin Scheduling is a scheduling algorithm used by the system to schedule CPU utilization. This is a preemptive algorithm. There exist a fixed time slice associated with each request called the quantum. The job scheduler saves the progress of the job that is being executed currently and moves to the next job present in the queue when a particular process is executed for a given time quantum.
Algorithm
· We first have a queue where the processes are arranged in first come first serve order.
· A quantum value is allocated to execute each process.
· The first process is executed until the end of the quantum value. After this, an interrupt is generated and the state is saved.
· The CPU then moves to the next process and the same method is followed.
· Same steps are repeated till all the processes are over. | https://medium.com/@zaid23/role-of-stacks-and-queues-in-problem-solving-989d7d68f0d6 | ['Zaid Shaikh'] | 2020-12-17 12:17:52.873000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'Datastrucutre', 'Problem Solving', 'Coding Interviews', 'Algorithms'] |
True Friendship Is Never a Performance | Certainly, we’ve all had experiences with less-than-ideal friend groups and soul-shattering rejection. But real friends, lifelong friends, aren’t simply the mainstays of your social circle. True friends move your life forward in formidable and tangible ways.
Here are six ways to know you have a true friend — and how to be one, too.
1. A true friend supports you, and holds you accountable
A true friend supports your goals and ambitions. When you present them with a new idea or a dream for the future, the first words you hear are encouraging. These people instinctively think of ways to make your dreams possible, not reasons why they are impossible. Even if they are honest with you about how difficult something may be, a real friend is a supporter, not a negater.
What’s more, real friends don’t placate. It’s counterintuitive, but your true friends are the ones willing to call you out on your bullshit. This is not the same as stirring up drama or intentionally embarrassing you.
The friend who holds you accountable is the one who privately, and gracefully, points out your patterns, tells you that you deserve better, who reminds you of commitments you didn’t follow through with.
A big part of this is not what’s said, but how it’s said. A true friend will be the one to correct you quietly, but an untrue friend would want everyone to know you were wrong in the first place.
2. You feel happier and energized when you’re around them
Even if you are an introvert, your friends should energize you. If you feel exhausted and frustrated every time you hang out with them, you are not spending your time with the right people. Exhaustion and frustration are signs that you’re tensing up when you’re around them — and that you’re acting as a persona rather than showing up authentically.
When someone tires you out, it may be because you cannot be your real self around them.
A really good tell of someone’s value is whether or not you feel the need to impress them. If you feel a need to impress someone, it may be because they’re trying to get you to earn your place in their lives. They may be the type of person who evaluates people, and relationships, based on what they can contribute to their overall status or appearance.
You will probably notice that you don’t think much about how to impress your true friends. It’s you both against the world — not you against them.
3. They accept you as you are
If they were to show up at your house when you’re wearing your ratty robe and haven’t tidied in ages, you would be happy to welcome them in.
Though you’d prefer to be put-together, there’s no “putting on a show” with them. You are not trying to convince them that you are something, or someone, you are not.
Similar to not being worried about everything seeming perfect, with a true friend, you don’t have to self-monitor as much as you might with someone else. You feel comfortable allowing yourself to relax and be honest. Even if you say something you don’t quite mean, you know your true friend will understand you, or at the very least give you an opportunity to clarify.
The more you have to self-edit, the less authentic your connection is.
4. You‘re not afraid to be honest with them
A true friend is someone you’re able to be open and honest with—even when it comes to the tough stuff. If you disagree with something they’ve said, you can share it at that moment and then be done with it.
When you cannot do that, it’s because you assume one rift might end your relationship, and so you don’t bring it up. That’s not true friendship.
In an authentic relationship, you express your emotions and resolve your issues in real time. If you don’t, you’ll end up with a lot of passive aggression, tension, and picked fights over insignificant things that are not actually the problem. Long story short, your relationship gets less healthy the less open you can be.
5. You aren’t trying to compete with them
Sure, a bit of healthy competition isn’t bad, and it’s totally normal to have a sense of envy every now and again. However, something that differentiates real friendships from the rest is that you’re not actively and consistently trying to compete with, or one-up, each other.
True friends can see one another’s strengths and weaknesses honestly, and they value them in each other. It’s not about who is better than who, it’s about seeing each person for the individual they are and honoring and appreciating those parts of them.
A friend you always want to be better than is a friend you already think might be beneath you.
6. They show up for you
Especially right now, it’s not always possible to see the people you love most. And if we’re being honest, it’s not always realistic to keep in touch every day. With a true friend, that doesn’t matter.
No matter where you are in the world or how long it’s been since you’ve been able to see one another, you know that person cares about you, and they know you care about them. That’s all that matters.
Words and sentiments are nice, but the truth is that the real measure of friendship is who shows up for you and when. A real friend puts aside almost anything in front of them to show up when you really need it—whatever form that “showing up” takes.
After all, it’s people’s actions that reveal their true intents. | https://humanparts.medium.com/true-friendship-is-never-a-performance-a68c059e4b45 | ['Brianna Wiest'] | 2020-05-12 15:11:29.728000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Life', 'Friendship', 'Personal Development', 'Self Improvement'] |
Satoshi’s dream .01 — What is Bitcoin? | According to bitcoin.org, “Bitcoin is an innovative payment network and a new kind of money”.
.01
Sounds simple, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.
To cut through some of the confusion surrounding bitcoin, we need to separate it into two components. On the one hand, you have bitcoin-the-token, a snippet of code that represents ownership of a digital concept — sort of like a virtual IOU. On the other hand, you have bitcoin-the-protocol, a distributed network that maintains a ledger of balances of bitcoin-the-token. Both are referred to as “bitcoin.”
The system enables payments to be sent between users without passing through a central authority, such as a bank or payment gateway. It is created and held electronically. Bitcoins aren’t printed, like dollars or euros — they’re produced by computers all around the world, using free software.
It was the first example of what we today call cryptocurrencies, a growing asset class that shares some characteristics of traditional currencies, with verification based on cryptography.
Source
Next: Who created Bitcoin? | https://medium.com/satoshis-dream/satoshis-dream-01-what-is-bitcoin-7674a789e95b | [] | 2018-06-17 10:46:26.969000+00:00 | ['Satoshi', 'Blockchain', 'Finance', 'Money', 'Bitcoin'] |
Get Your Git in Order | Git is essential part of any developer’s life(unless you are using a different Version Control System). It makes our life and work(especially when you are working with others) so much simpler and efficient but to new developers it could be extremely difficult and troublesome. I have learned few lessons on Git best practices the hard way and here are some of the lessons I have learned.
1. Please, PLEASE hide your API
This one is a no brainer, yet if you have couple of sleepless nights coding or get caught up in fixing a bug for several hours, you might just forget it too. That’s what happened to me. At that point, I had already heard of many horrors stories about people who have failed to hide their API key and got charged tens of thousands of dollars in matter of hours, so I knew that I should take care not to publish my API keys, but it still happened. I just totally and completely forgot about it. Luckily for me though, Google(it was a Google Cloud Vision API key) caught it right away, as well as GitGuardian(which I was not subscribing at the time), a third party GitHub application that safeguards API keys, and informed me of the fact that my API key is out in the public. Again, thankfully, I was still at my computer when they sent me the notification and was able to discard the exposed API key and hide my new API key right away so there was no damage done to me. However, you shouldn’t rely on luck when it comes to API keys. Even if you avoid getting billed for thousands of dollars for exposed API key, it could makes your project look a little sloppy. Always get in habit of NEVER writing your API keys or tokens in your code in any place other than ENV file. There are already thousands of extremely well-written guides on how to hide any important information in your code, so I’m not going to write it too. Refer to this article on how to hide your API key: https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-hide-your-api-keys-c2b952bc07e6
2. Branch out
Branching can be one your greatest allies when working on Git. We you are part of a team, it lets you work on something at the same time as your colleague without conflicts and makes it easy to keep track of what everyone is working on. It promotes collaboration between members of your team because when you know who is working on what in where and when each member’s work is neatly organized in to branches, it’s easier to have discussions to improve code that people are writing. Even when you are working alone on a project, making and committing to branch instead of master is important because even if you mess up something in efforts to fix a minor bug, you still have a place to go back to. Also, keeping separate branches for different features and bug fixes helps you move from one agenda to the other more easily. If everything happens in master, it is very easy for you to loose track of what you were doing before you got pulled to fixing a bug. So no matter how you are working(as a team or alone), get in a habit of making branches when you start working one something new and closing/deleting that branch once that part of work is finished and everything is merged to keep your repository clean.
3. Commit to your commit messages
As project gets bigger and bigger, what you(or your teammate) worked on yesterday can be quickly forgotten. When something starts to not work and you have no record of what you did the past day other than hundreds of lines of code you have written, finding out where things went wrong can get pretty stressful. That’s why you need to commit often and write descriptive commit messages each time. Your code needs neat yet descriptive comments and so does your commits. It will not only save you some time when you have to back track what you did to fix bugs but it will also help your teammates to know what you did and maybe even how you did it so that they can be aware of the impact it could have on the part that they are working on. | https://medium.com/@mintholic1/get-your-git-in-order-1a9a0578aad2 | ['Seoyoung Chloe Kim'] | 2020-12-21 22:42:14.935000+00:00 | ['Github', 'Git', 'Software Engineering', 'Software Development', 'Coding'] |
How we’ve improved our AppStore rating with Firebase A/B Test and Remote Config | As I explained in a previous post, Gympass App in 2018 was a full-screen WebView, with a poor User Experience, slow rendered and no usage metrics. No surprise that our Play Store rating was 2.3 and the AppStore below 2.0. This means our users hated Gympass? No! Actually, no. Our users love our product, but they hated our platform.
Nobody gives a 1 star rating to Facebook because they don’t like it’s content, people are sending a message that there is something wrong happening (with the platform or product support, in our case). Let’s be honest, you may have one or other user rating 1 star because they didn’t like your product, but not a thousand ratings like this.
Well, we’ve already had 1k ratings with 1 star! That used to represent 90% of our ratings.
However, now that we’re moving forward to develop a new experience, and the main features are already live (many enrolled users only use Gympass app to login and check-in) it’s time to ask those users to rate and review our app new experience!
Our check-in process is like publishing a content on instagram: the final result is a post to your followers, but there are many ways of building this content. Some users will see the final result of the post in their own timeline, other users won’t see it anymore. The same happens to check-in: some users will have to wait for the gym to confirm (countdown flow), and many of them won't wait with the app opened (validated flow).
So if you had to ask for users to rate your app, in which of these steps would you do it? Is there a best time to ask it? I DON’T KNOW, but maybe I know how to find it!
By using Firebase Analytics to track our users behaviour and Firebase A/B Test to measure the goal for two or more different groups.
I've also explained in the previous article how we have used Firebase Remote Config to choose which experience our users are going to see. Now we’ve created a new flag for which step the app may ask users to rate. There were two possible options:
And of course another key for turning this feature on/off.
To complete the environment, we would like to ask for reviews only if the user has had one or more good experiences. Thus, we’ve created another Firebase User Property to store how many times a user have checked in so far.
Now it’s easy to build our A/B Test.
For example, I want to know if users are rating and reviewing my app in the complete flow more than in the countdown flow.
My control group had the remote config flag to “countdown” and the A group to “validated”.
The event goal was ‘app_rated’.
DONE. After 2 weeks running the experiment we found that users were much more willing to rate our app in the countdown flow, and so we've decided to go on with that.
Still, we’ve seen some countries rating a lot and other countries with no ratings at all.
WHY? WHY, WHY, WHY!
Although we were happy to do our first A/B test, we’ve ignored a very important check-in business rule: some countries don't see the “countdown flow”, consequently they would never rate the app.
HUM, SO?!
We've decided to change the value of our remote config User-rating-flow for those countries that had few reviews, and BANG!
It's raining 5 star ratings
Now, we are back to the game ;)
To sum up, the A/B test did work for us to decide which flow was performing better in countries where both scenarios existed. But as in our product some countries have only one of the scenarios, Remote Config could solve this problem.
In this example, let’s say that German users should always see the dialog at the validation step and all other users at countdown:
That's it. That’s how we achieve 4.7 stars on AppStore when adopting ReactNative!
Have you ever faced a problem like that? Please, clap your hands if you have liked it and follow Gympass on Medium! | https://medium.com/gympass/how-we-improved-our-appstore-rating-with-firebase-a-b-test-and-remote-config-5a58f00095a4 | [] | 2020-04-29 13:53:15.822000+00:00 | ['Firebase', 'A B Testing', 'Firebase Remote Config', 'Mobile App Development', 'App Store Optimization'] |
Low Tide | Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
We go out into the cold
and black of a new-moon night
climbing down slick boulders
to feel our way toward the sea,
three women seeking treasure.
We are blind except for the lamps
arrowing through curtains of fog
we make with our breath.
We follow instinct toward the water’s edge
which has receded so far
we cannot reach it.
The smell of her, though: brine
and blood, seaweed and salt
tells us Ocean is near. She
mirrors our own scent and soul
and we cannot steal from her
without stealing from ourselves.
We set our buckets down and begin to dig
standing on the spades to pierce
the skin of the earth: gravel meets us
then mud
then at last, water wells up like blood
and the treasure waits there.
Little glowing half-moons rise
to our questing fingers
most whole, but some broken open
showing pale flesh that glows
like dying pearls in the lamplight.
Forgive me, little ones.
I will give thanks as I eat
your brothers and sisters
your children, your mothers.
I will not take too many. I will not tell
where to find you.
Before leaving, we fill every hole
repairing the earth where we wounded her.
We give thanks.
Climbing up the rocks
we sing the clams to sleep in their buckets:
sirens in the night
making clouds with our breath. | https://medium.com/@kbimle/low-tide-f5939f07d30d | ['Kara B. Imle'] | 2020-12-14 19:43:08.372000+00:00 | ['Poems On Medium', 'Nature', 'Poetry', 'Outdoors', 'Thankfulness'] |
Let The Journey Begin! | Day One
My journey to being a data scientist started on the 19th of April 2021. We were received by the staff of the famous and arguably the best IT training centre in Nigeria. Shortly after we were addressed, we proceeded to our classes and reality dawned on me. The journey has truly begun!
Not long after we settled, our class tutor, Inyang Attah entered and gave us the blueprint of our stay as a student of Univelcity, which I will share with you briefly.
In the first 6weeks, we will be introduced to the Programming language of choice-PYTON. In the course of the first 6 weeks, we learn the fundamentals of python, variables, Data Structures, Object-Oriented Programming(OOP), functions, Built-ins and external packages.
We will then dive deeper into Data Storage and PreProcessing in the next two weeks that follow. pfiles(csv,excel), API’s, Databases(MySQL),Web scraping will be discussed in details.
Data Visualization will be thoroughly discussed. The major topic of discussion under data visualization will be data processing, data Visualization, data Plotting, Wranling, and Munging. And these will be carried out using Pandas, Numpy, Matplolib, Seaborn.
We will then discuss how Data are Analyzed. Algorithms Model, modeling prediction, classification, Sci-kit Learn will be our focus during our time learning how to analyse data.
Day Two
We started day two by installing Python, Git, Vscode, and creating individual account for Github. Then we dived straight into the usage of these softwares. We learnt the difference between git and Github, how to create a repository in Vscode, Github and pushed and pull either way. The term cloning, init, commit was explained to us. we then created our first code using vscode.
Really excited about this new journey. It's definitely going to be challenging but it's worth it.
We go at it again this week to learn new things, I will be back shortly to gist you.
CIAO.
Tunde Talabi | https://medium.com/@babatundetalabi/let-the-journey-begin-ddda9597ac98 | [] | 2021-04-25 14:58:33.831000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Univelcity', 'Data Scientist'] |
Wuthering Heights | Literary-minded boys read gothic romance, and learn all the wrong things.
They learn that women are magical, intuitive creatures who should be able to read their minds. They learn that men must prove their manhood, generally through violent military or capitalist conquest. They learn that women expect this. They learn that disappearing — for one, or five, or ten years — need not interrupt a romantic relationship, if the woman’s heart is true.
Men read romantic classics, and learn all the wrong things. They learn to mistrust women. They learn women are cruel and capricious, unless the woman is worthy, in which case she is a paragon of domestic virtue. They learn to disappear — when they feel shame, or misery, or confusion. They learn their disappearance need not cost them ‘the girl.’
Men read romantic classics, and discount the woman’s side.
Heathcliff overhears half of a conversation and flees. He flees for years on end. When he returns, Cathy is already married. How dare she?
Or, Heathcliff mishears what Cathy says. He does not stick around to understand. He does not confront her. He does not ask her for clarification. He is a man. He does not stop to ask for directions.
He is a man. He cannot have hurt feelings and a logical head, all at once. He cannot maintain a relationship with a woman who can hurt him, even if by accident, even if while sorting through her own feelings, even if in private conversation with someone else.
Cathy, who is capricious and vain because she is a teenager not because she is a woman. Cathy, who really, truly loves him, who would have found some way to be with him, probably, if he had given her the chance. Cathy, who was not perfect, but nor is any human being. His imperfections are commonly attributed to his maleness, and therefore explained away as inevitabilities he cannot control and ought not be blamed for. Her imperfections are commonly attributed to her femaleness, and therefore explained as inevitabilities she ought to control and ought to be ashamed of. Both the products of their conditioning about what it means to be a ‘good’ man or what it means to be a ‘good’ woman. What it means to be a man worthy of love, or a woman who is.
When I masquerade as a woman, I know what I am doing, but subconsciously. I am trying to be a flirty and fun California beach surfer girl without a care in the world. I am trying to seem less like myself, and more like a Sweet Valley High Wakefield twin raised with the privilege and obliviousness of the tanned thin blonde rich blessed few I grew up with. I am not like that. I am artistic and moody. I am too smart to be a cute girl but too damaged to be a brainiac. I was a nerd in high school, sort of, but really I was an artist. Really I was always an artist, underneath the surface.
I masquerade very well. I know how much I am supposed to care and I try to calibrate my passions down to that level. A woman who is overly passionate is angry, bad, shameful. A woman who is overly mad is prey to her own madness, is crazy. A woman who expresses the lust she feels when she feels it, is wild, unrestrained, slutty. The assumption always that she is mad for no reason. That she has conjured the source of her madness from inside her own foolish brain. That she can either be wholly virginal or wholly mad with lust, that her lust has no subject only an object upon whom she fixes her passion out of some perverse need to possess and control him. That she cannot be passionate about a man because she cares about him. Women like this do not care about anyone.
Women like this have broken their commitments and ruined everything. No longer Agnes in David Copperfield with her keys and her steadfastness and her willingness to wait through David’s first marriage to a cute blonde vapid thing. Women like this want it all. We want it now. We want it on our own terms. We inspire passion, and so many men fear passion so completely.
Women like this inspire fear, because we see the truth beneath the masquerade of masculinity. I see who he really is. And someday, I might tell the whole world. Maybe that is a good reason for him to be afraid of me.
But it’s funny how we reshape the world with our own actions. Once upon a time I was a girl who told everyone how much I wanted him, and he seemed to want me but said he did not, and was I crazy? Once upon a time I told ‘the story of us’ to two then five then ten other people. Because he made me feel like I was crazy. And I wanted more input than that. I wanted to know if I was or I wasn’t. And I felt I could not trust my own mind to tell me.
Once upon a time, he turned me into a nightmare by believing I already was one. The man he thought I was sleeping with or wanted to sleep with, the longest conversation I ever had with that man was a conversation about wanting him and feeling lonely. The other man who touched me, I fled to when the man I really wanted rejected me, or I thought he had, for a girl who would do a better job of being bouncy and cute and unreproachable and all the things he and I both were taught a good girl should be.
I was taught being a good woman means doing and saying certain things. I was taught being a good girl means doing and saying other things. The two conflict. I think I often got it wrong.
But I am not a magical, intuitive creature. Not always. Not when I am sleep-deprived and overwhelmed. Not so as any man ought to rely on my intuition to save him from having to identify and name what he feels. The emotional component of relationships cannot be avoided. And it is not labor I am willing to do for him, or for any man.
Still he thinks I am a thing out of nightmares and I suppose that is true, now. I spoke and spoke about his feelings for me, or lack thereof, and mine for him. I told our story many times. I made it angry. I made it shameful. I made him into precisely the villain he was afraid I might make him into. I did that because I was hurting, and sad. I did that because he made me feel ashamed to be a person who had ever wanted him.
Women do not care about men’s performance of masculinity. Not grown-up women. Not really. We do not care about the size of a man’s dick or how aggressive he is against other men or how assertive he is or the color of his hair or how many stereotyped-feminine traits he has. We do not care whether he was a nerd in school, or an athlete. We do not care how much he can bench-press or whether he can carry us across the threshold after we get married.
We care whether he makes us feel ashamed of our femininity, or not. We care whether he understands that male bonding in a misogynistic society is about putting women down, that survival in relationships with other men is about not being the ‘pussy.’ We care whether he realizes that we are the girl. We will always, always be ‘the pussy.’ Every joke he has ever made about women, that’s a joke about us. Every time he laughs at somebody’s actions for being overly sentimental or overly emotional, he’s laughing at us too.
Men expect women to hold the same values they do. To value their performance of masculinity in the same way, and by the same measurements, as they do. We do not.
I am a creature out of nightmare, but I am also the creature who ends the nightmare, if he would only let me. Walking around in a world of dangerous men is much worse if you think there is anything they could do or say to make the people who love you, stop.
Anyway, the truth is typically not so dangerous or so scary as men believe. Heathcliff overheard a few lines of conversation and fled. He fled before he could hear the rest. He fled before he could ask Cathy whether she loved him back. He fled because he did not have faith in himself or the woman he loved. That does not mean she was unworthy of that faith.
Women do not care whether a man is a ‘pussy.’ Whether he likes to look up at the stars and name them to himself. Or whether he has read Wuthering Heights. Or whether he prefers the new Golden Compass tv show over Vikings. Or whether he has ever seen The Sopranos. Or whether the other guys at work make him feel small. Or whether he does not know how to fight back against them, so he finds a hot girl to date so they’ll admire him and lay off. Except that maybe there should be a better reason to date someone than fear. Maybe there should be a better reason to live than fear.
I know the kind of tomorrow I’m fighting for.
And I know that Cathy is not perfect. I know that she was very, very wrong about what being a good woman means. But at the end of the book, she died, because when she tried to say what she wanted, no one was listening. | https://medium.com/@arwolf-88575/wuthering-heights-f876e03ccf28 | ['Rivka Wolf'] | 2020-12-25 17:21:17.250000+00:00 | ['Toxic Masculinity', 'Masculinity', 'Romance', 'Relationships', 'Wuthering Heights'] |
This Past Decade in Education Reform | This article serves as a reflection on the education reform journey AoA has taken over the years. I believe I started writing on Medium in 2014 or 2015 and started this publication around 2015. So it has been a while of managing, editing, and curating these amazing articles that get sent to me. I am so grateful for all of the awesome people I have met along the way. It wasn’t a full decade to reflect on but we are excited to start this new decade with an open-mind.
This is a collection of some of the most popular articles featured in AoA over the past 5+ years. These articles show how we struggle with school and its systems but also want to so badly change these systems for the better. These stories help highlight how we want to push for positive change with social justice, environmentalism, and STEM education as our base.
These stories help show how we are striving for ways to improve the way we learn, improve the systems in which we learn in, and how we take a hard look at the faults in our systems. These past 5+ years have shown us that there are so many different ways to learn, that learning never does stop, and that learning how to learn is often overlooked.
This past year especially has highlighted many faults in our systems. The pandemic really put schools and education under the microscope. It has exposed the racist roots and aspects of our systems. It has highlighted the opportunity inequality between many school districts and states. It has highlighted the grievances of parents that have been ignored for too long. And now it is helping lead us to solutions for all, not just for some.
This next decade, AoA wants to keep in mind these grievances and issues and push for solutions in education reform. We want to help unite the ideas and movements that are shaping the world of learning for the better. The following are some of the articles from the past 5 years that help highlight education and its reform, as seen through the eyes of AoA:
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
We hope you enjoyed reading (or rereading) some of the articles listed above. We invite you to check out some of the other works and authors on Age of Awareness and to keep up with our efforts in 2021 (and beyond). | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/this-past-decade-in-education-reform-f5037465b507 | ['Stephen Muskett'] | 2020-12-18 17:36:32.390000+00:00 | ['Learning', 'Schools', 'Education', 'Teaching', 'Education Reform'] |
Mempercepat launch Aplikasi Android, dengan App-Startup⚡️ | love to build things from nothing, i have second account kadaluarsa.medium.com | https://medium.com/@dony-evermos/mempercepat-launch-aplikasi-android-dengan-app-startup-%EF%B8%8F-27a2879a5b89 | ['Dony Nuransyah'] | 2020-12-05 19:22:03.573000+00:00 | ['Android App Development', 'Androidbandung', 'AndroidDev', 'Evermostech', 'Evermos'] |
Leadership: Expectations vs Reality | Daydreaming is part of the human experience. It helps us get through difficult days, giving us hope for the future. As kids, we daydream about fantastical scenarios of our adult life. We dream of living in Africa, running wild with our pet cheetah. Instead, we grow up to live in Brooklyn hunched over a laptop 12 hours a day.
When we want something, we imagine how good we’ll feel, how having this thing will change our lives. When reality doesn’t match our imagination, we’re disappointed. One of the best film representations of the chasm between expectations and reality is 500 Days of Summer. In the film Tom spends the better part of a year courting Summer. He puts all his hopes and dreams into building a relationship with her. She breaks up with him. He’s bitterly disappointed. A few months later they run into each other at a wedding. After they spend the evening laughing, dancing and reminiscing about their past she invites him to a party at her apartment. He arrives excited about the promise of a reunion. He imagines all the fun they’ll have, expecting they’ll be back together for good. His expectations fall apart almost as soon as he enters the apartment. Instead of a passionate kiss she greets him with a friendly hug. Rather than spending the party arm-in-arm he pours stiff drinks by himself. The final gut punch comes when he realizes she’s engaged to someone else. Reality takes over, his hopes for the relationship dashed. He sinks into a depression, leaving his bed only for junk food and whiskey.
We may not be lovesick young adults hoping our crush likes us back. Still, how we feel when starting a new relationship is similar to how we feel taking our first leadership position. We bring a load of expectations along with us. We’re hopeful this role will give us the career satisfaction we seek. The gap between expectations and reality is one of the most common reasons for coaching. While a leader might say they want help with working with other execs, having influence or making better decisions, what they often mean is: leadership isn’t what I expected and I don’t know how to deal with it. The dream slides away, leaving shadows of what could have been. More than one has confessed that the reality of leadership was too much, they longed to return to being part of the team.
Common leadership expectations vs reality gaps
Expectation: More autonomy
Reality: Less control than you think
You do get some more autonomy in your area, it’s not as much as you hope. You’ll have to include outside factors like other teams or larger company goals and often won’t be the final decision maker. While it might be due to a controlling boss, the bigger factor is a larger role in organizational planning. Leadership increases organizational demands, widening the complexity of decision making, reducing an individual leader’s autonomy. As you work through the tangle of organizational conflict and decision making you need to hone those collaboration skills. Instead of focusing on having control, you need to concentrate on building strong relationships. The faster you lose the ego and focus on others, the better experience you’ll have as a leader. | https://medium.com/swlh/leadership-expectations-vs-reality-766f746925dd | ['Suzan Bond'] | 2020-12-22 17:23:33.858000+00:00 | ['Management', 'Startup', 'Self', 'Leadership', 'Work'] |
International Parental Child Abduction and the Problem with the Hague Convention | On June 6, 2004, David Goldman watched as his wife and four-year-old son, Sean boarded an airplane to visit friends and family in his wife’s native Brazil. After this, David Goldman did not see his son again until December 2009. Thus began a protracted parental rights dispute. International parental rights disputes are an ongoing problem for the international community. So much so that in 1979 the Hague Conference convened to discuss the issue; from that meeting was born the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, adopted on October 25, 1980, by a unanimous vote of the twenty-three member countries.
The United States ratified the treaty on July 1, 1988, via implementing legislation enacted on April 29, 1988. The Hague Convention is a jurisdictional treaty intended to guarantee that all signatory nations respect each other’s custody laws. The purpose of the Convention is to ensure that the partner country will return wrongfully removed children according to the custody rights ordered in the child’s home state. As of July 2019, there are hundred and one U.S. Hague Convention treaty partners; Brazil became a partner on December 1, 2003. As treaty partners, both the United States and Brazil must comply with the Convention, where applicable, and return the child to the mandated jurisdiction.
However, contravention of the Hague Convention by signatory countries happens more often than one would think. The U.S. State Department lists the following countries as non-compliant: Argentina; The Bahamas; Brazil; the Dominican Republic; Ecuador; Japan; Morocco; and Peru. As it stands today, there are no enforcement remedies in place to guarantee compliance by non-compliant countries. Enforcement of the Convention relies on the cooperation and willingness of the partner country to comply. The partner country can refuse to comply without fear of consequences or repercussions, leaving the left-behind parent without recourse. | https://medium.com/@klaverne70/international-parental-child-abduction-and-the-problem-with-the-hague-convention-1a7607b55e7c | ['Kim Castellano'] | 2020-10-16 02:58:39.124000+00:00 | ['Law', 'International Relations', 'Lawyers', 'Custody Battle'] |
Everything We Know (and Don’t) About Trump’s Health Right Now | Everything We Know (and Don’t) About Trump’s Health Right Now
Here’s what the president’s doctors said — and didn’t say
President Trump drives past supporters in a motorcade outside of Walter Reed Medical Center. Credit: ALEX EDELMAN / Getty Images
Updated 3:50 pm 10/5/20: There were no significant changes regarding Trump’s health made public at the Monday news conference. Dr. Conley provided no additional information on the president’s medications, scans, or date of disease onset. He said Trump’s tweets are an indication of his mental status.
Donald Trump is not doing well. Or he’s doing great! Depends on whom you ask. The President’s medical team has been cagey and at times deliberately misleading about his condition, but we do have some information about the progression of his illness over the weekend.
Despite the rosy picture painted by the White House physicians, Trump — who is in several high-risk categories based on his age, weight, sex, and medical history — is currently being treated as if his case of Covid-19 is severe. In a briefing given Sunday, however, it sounded as if his condition is improving.
What are his vitals?
Fever
On Sunday, White House physician Sean Conley, DO, stated the president had a high fever on Friday, but he would not say how high it had been. Pulmonologist Sean Dooley, MD, followed up to say that Trump had been fever-free since then. Neither physician provided information about whether Trump had been given medication to lower his temperature, although the president does take a daily aspirin, which can act as a fever reducer at high doses.
Celine Gounder, MD, an infectious disease expert at NYU Langone, says the question of whether Trump has taken another fever-reducing medication, such as Advil (ibuprofen) or Tylenol (acetaminophen), is important. “If the fever came down on its own, that’s a very good sign prognostically. If the fever required medication to come down […] it wouldn’t necessarily mean he’s getting better, it would just mean he’s gotten rid of the fever,” she says.
Blood oxygen
The president’s medical team also admitted that on Friday and Saturday, Trump had an oxygen saturation under 94%, which is considered to be a sign of severe Covid-19. They did not say how low his oxygen levels had gotten, leading Gounder to speculate that it could have dipped into the upper 80s. After obfuscating about the question on Saturday, Conley confirmed that Trump had received supplemental oxygen both times. According to Conley, Trump’s oxygen levels on Sunday were back up to 98%.
Scans
The doctors said that Trump had a lung X-ray, a lung CT, and an ultrasound, although they didn’t say of which organ. Despite multiple questions from the press, the results of the scans have not been provided, but Dooley did say the lung CT was consistent with Covid-19. Gounder says this implies the president could have ground-glass opacities in his lungs — an abnormal pattern that can be seen when the lungs are sick — but this has not been confirmed.
Other vital signs
Dooley reported on Sunday that Trump’s kidney, liver, and cardiovascular functioning were “normal or improving.” Later, another member of the president’s medical team, Brian Garibaldi, MD, stated that his liver and kidney functions were normal. If the president’s health was a deductive logic puzzle, one could imply that Trump had cardiovascular abnormalities over the weekend that were now improving.
Heart function is a major concern with Covid-19 and is one of the primary causes of death from the disease. The virus can cause heart failure, heart attacks, blood clots, inflammation of the heart, and even directly infect heart cells themselves. Trump has a common, moderate form of heart disease, which puts him at high risk for cardiovascular complications from the coronavirus.
Gounder said that in addition to the information provided, she would like details about the president’s white blood cell and platelet count, as well as his levels of inflammatory markers and blood clot tests. “I think his condition is more severe than they are communicating to us,” she says. “There’s no reason not to release more details like blood tests unless they’re wanting to withhold that kind of information. If the numbers are normal, this would put things to rest and reassure people, so they’re withholding that for a reason.”
“They really should keep him in the hospital until about 10 days into his illness just to make sure he doesn’t get worse. Usually that’s when patients decompensate, and they can decompensate very quickly.”
What medications has he received?
Monoclonal antibodies
Trump received one dose of a monoclonal antibody cocktail on Friday. This experimental drug, developed by the pharmaceutical company Regeneron, has shown promise in an early clinical trial, but it is not approved by the FDA for Covid-19 or any other diseases. It consists of two types of antibodies — specialized proteins made by the immune system — that prevent the virus from infecting more cells in the body. However, these monoclonal antibodies were made in a lab rather than being taken from the plasma of a recovered patient.
Monoclonal antibodies work best at the beginning of an infection before the virus has had much chance to spread throughout the body.
Remdesivir
Friday evening, Trump’s doctors announced that he had been started on a five-day course of remdesivir. This antiviral drug also works to stop the virus from spreading, and it is one of the few therapies that has been approved by the FDA to treat Covid-19. It’s an intravenous drug that is typically given to moderate to severe patients, however, Gounder says that it can also be effective in the earlier stages of the disease.
Dexamethasone
Most alarming, Conley said that because of Trump’s drop in oxygen levels, he had been started on the steroid dexamethasone on Saturday. Dexamethasone, which is only given in severe cases because it suppresses the immune system, signifies that the president has progressed in his illness. It suggests that his doctors are no longer only trying to stop the virus from replicating, but also attempting to prevent or stop a hyper-inflammatory immune response.
Several physicians took to Twitter to express their concern about the president receiving the steroid. Most pressing is the fact that dexamethasone can cause confusion, delirium, and hyperactivity.
Gounder says she would like to know what other medications Trump is taking in addition to these three drugs, particularly whether he’s been given a blood thinner or a cardiovascular medication. “I suspect that the med list we got was not a complete med list and that it was only including medications that were directly related to his Covid treatment,” she says.
When will he be discharged?
Trump’s doctors said he could be released as early as today. This prognosis looks overly optimistic for several reasons. For one, the president is on day three of a five-day course of remdesivir, which needs to be given intravenously. He’s also on a hefty cocktail of medications, all of which can have serious side effects, including liver and kidney toxicity, for which he should be monitored closely.
Also, if the timeline the White House has provided is accurate (which is up for debate), Trump is on day five of the disease. Many people who have severe cases of Covid-19 have initial symptoms, a brief recovery, and then appear to relapse around days 7 to 10 of the infection.
“They really should keep him in the hospital until about 10 days into his illness just to make sure he doesn’t get worse,” Gounder says, because that’s when patients usually decompensate. But, she adds, “What Trump decides to do is anybody’s guess.”
Update 2:40 pm : Trump announced on Twitter that he would be leaving Walter Reed Medical Center this evening. | https://elemental.medium.com/everything-we-know-and-dont-about-trump-s-health-right-now-cddbe8cdc106 | ['Dana G Smith'] | 2020-10-06 13:31:44.198000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Trump Administration', 'Trump'] |
Delegate to Any Cosmos Validator Using Your Ledger on Hubble | You can now securely delegate Cosmos Atoms to your favorite Validator using your Ledger in Hubble. No need to compile code and learn the command line. You can also quickly withdraw and redelegate to Validators to compound your earnings.
Step by Step Tutorial
First, find the Validator you want to delegate to on Hubble. For example, here is the Figment Validator.
Click on the white “Delegate Now” button in the top right corner.
2. Next you will be asked to plug in your Ledger to your computer, unlock the device, and open the Cosmos app.
3. Now you will be asked if you’d like to delegate to a new Validator or withdraw and redelegate to an existing Validator.
4. If you click on New Delegation, you’ll next simply fill out how many Atoms you want to delegate and then click the blue “Sign with Ledger” button.
5. Now you need to pick up your Ledger and confirm the transaction on the device. The computer browser will show the loading screen below while waiting for you to confirm on the Ledger. You can click the white “View Raw Transaction” button to verify all the details before confirming on the Ledger.
6. Success! You’ve now delegated and can view the transaction confirmation by clicking the blue “View Transaction” button.
The process for withdraw and redelegate is similar, except you don’t have to type in an amount of Atoms. It automatically redelegates any pending rewards for that Validator. | https://medium.com/figment/delegate-to-any-cosmos-validator-using-your-ledger-on-hubble-b69e268d0f30 | ['Andrew Cronk'] | 2019-03-21 20:36:34.498000+00:00 | ['Ledger Nano S', 'Cosmos Network', 'Proof Of Stake', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain'] |
My First Python Trading Bot | Stonks are c00l!
I have always been deeply fascinated by the mystique of hedge funds. Who works there? Why are they so secretive? Why do the wealthiest in the world trust them with large portions of their assets? And lastly, why are they so darn good?
Website for 3rd largest hedge fund in the world.
In today’s world, almost all hedge funds are algorithm based. Very rarely do you have hedge funds that make investment decisions based off traditional security analysis. Machine learning algorithms, Ph.D.’s, even quantum computers are at the crux of most hedge funds today, attempting to beat the market daily and achieve maximum return for their investors and ultimately themselves. One day I hope to tell you the story from the inside, but for now we will start by building our own Python trading algorithm.
The investment strategy that the algorithm will be based on is called the Three White Soldiers pattern. We will define a closing price as a candlestick. If we have three candlesticks in a row that consecutively increase in price, then we have our Three White Soldiers pattern in front of us. See the image below for a visualization of the pattern:
Three candlesticks in an upward trend signify there may be a change in market sentiment.
We will be using an Alpaca brokerage account with paper money(not real money). First we set up our API so we can get real time data from the stock market:
API_KEY is a unique key given to you when you sign up for Alpaca, and Tickers is Peloton:PTON.
After we set up our connection successfully we want to actually see how the algorithm will function:
In the beginning of the algorithm we created an empty list of all minute candlesticks. In the first section of code we are making sure that we are actually getting our ticks. If the current tick’s price is higher than the current candlestick price we assign the current tick as the new high and vice versa.
Then in the next big section of code we are checking if there are three higher closes minute by minute and assigning names to them for easier understanding.
Lastly, we are going to compare and see if each candlestick is actually a higher price than the previous one, and if so then we execute our trade. We then will take our profit at 2x the distance between the last candle close and the first candle open. Lets see this in action: | https://medium.com/@mrozenva/my-first-python-trading-bot-b8957ae24c66 | ['Michael Rozenvasser'] | 2020-12-22 18:30:28.572000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Stocks', 'Algorithms'] |
A 3-Min Intro to AI Ethics | A Brief Background
Without sticking our noses down too many philosophical rabbit holes, the basic argument of the story runs like this:
Us humans parse information from our natural sensor array (sight, touch, etc.) and our memories, then we make decisions based on the patterns we recognise. We do this all the time, often non-consciously. Machines too are trained to make decisions based on available information, from sensors, data input or memory. No human decision is value-free, each one carries consequences and considerations. Thus, automated decision-making also engenders ethical values. As automated decision-making increasingly influences our lives, we need to train our machines in ethics. But first, we probably need to work out our own, since we still can’t agree on them.
Our original pitch for the video was to cover a wide range of ethical frameworks, philosophical thought exercises and geeky cultural references via a frenetic, machine-gun narrative. But we toned it down once we stared to see what it was looking like. In the end, we settled on just two main motifs: the Trolley Problem and the Paperclip Factory. They both do a good job of illustrating not just how ethical values can be loaded into systems and run like algorithms, but also how they can spin out of control when they are played repeatedly or reframed with conflicting parameters.
We bookending the story with real-world scenes, in which a person engages in a very mundane, quotidian instance of AI-enabled human-machine interaction: asking their mobile for directions. In the brief moments that their mapping app takes to settle on a response, we could have gone into hours of discourse on the different ethical considerations that even a “simple” decision like that brings with it. But we tried to keep it punchy, hopefully you think we did okay.
I’m proud to say that our wee team made the whole thing – script, filming, acting, animation, music… This was one of the most enjoyable projects I can remember working on, despite huge pressure to build it in our nonexistent free time. Doing creative work with my best mates on a subject that matters, well, it’s a blessing. So we’re happy to explore new topics if you have any you think we should attack…
And if you want to read on, here’s the full script. | https://medium.com/@ben-bland/a-3-min-intro-to-ai-ethics-a30cb1e15b55 | ['Ben Bland'] | 2020-12-17 09:47:45.803000+00:00 | ['Videos', 'AI', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Ethics', 'Ai Ethics'] |
I Got Fired From My Dream Job | I Got Fired From My Dream Job
I thought it would be the end of me. It wasn’t.
Image by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash
It was December 2017, and I had just graduated college with a Bachelor’s in Psychology. My goal was to find a research assistant position at a prestigious research university.
Five months of job searching happened… and I got it.
My “Dream” Job
I ended up beating all the applicants who did their undergrad from the very same institution to work at a top 20 national university and world renowned research institution as a research technician in a psychology and neuroscience laboratory. I couldn’t have been more enthralled. I had worked so hard to get to this point, switching between four different schools before doing two empirical research projects and volunteering in a psychology laboratory for two years so that I could build this experience to prepare me for graduate school. In the academic industry, it is standard for students to work that hard during their undergrad degree so they can a) apply straight to graduate school or b) get a position like I had found.
It was my first “Big Girl” job right out of college. I had a salary (even though my wage was below the poverty line), and I worked around 40 hours a week. I was running fMRI scans, analyzing the data, recruiting people for our lab’s study, and working on my own research. I was set to work there for two years before applying to graduate school.
But then, things started to go south.
You see, I have two disabilities, specifically in mental illness. I didn’t tell anyone at work what those illnesses were, but on my job application under the disabilities inquiry, I did mark “Yes, I have a disability”.
I remembered this disabilities tab when I began having triggers. At work, I was starting to get panic attacks in certain environments. I would be working with two or three other people, and my mind would get so frantic I wouldn’t even be able to concentrate. I was working with real people with real expensive technology, so I was concerned about the safety of the participants as well as us. I thought of my rights as a person with a disability, so I wanted to communicate my experience to others.
I told my coworker. She expressed so much empathy. She encouraged me to keep telling.
I told my other coworker. He was not as empathetic, but both of them encouraged me to tell our principal investigator, which is the PhD expert that runs the lab, and in that type of work setting, that is also the boss.
So I told him. The first thing he asked was, “Do you think you need to take a break from working to figure this stuff out?” He went on. “I just worry that this will continue getting worse. It’s not a bad thing to leave a job. I won’t hold it against you. I will fill the position if you leave but would be happy to recommend you to another position if you feel better at some point.” I realized what he was doing. He was trying to talk me out of my job.
I refused. I said, “No, no. I was just wondering if I could get some kind of accommodation, because this is disability related.” I told him what I might potentially need, to hopefully have an open conversation about how best to help me. He then refused. “I cannot accommodate that… We will have to see how things work out. Thanks for telling me.” I was dismissed from his office.
My mistakes from then on out were watched with an eagle’s eye. After that incident, I was late to a meeting, and then I had trouble implementing a computer programming script onto my computer. I required help, and that, I assumed, was what a normal new person would need. It was my first job and I was still getting used to the structure and roles. It was also a really substantial job, full of heavy responsibilities. I thought I was proud of myself, despite my mistakes here and there. Mistakes are normal when first starting out, right?
That was the last I heard of that for a few weeks. Then one day, the lab manager marched into my office space within earshot of three other people and started yelling at me in front of everyone! I had made the mistake of bypassing her to contact the higher-ups in the hierarchy of the research division where participants get paid. She had originally told me that it was wrong to directly contact the higher ups. At my alma mater, I was always able to have open communication with everyone from any level of the employee chain, so this was definitely a culture difference. I guess I just wasn’t used to working at a multi million dollar research institution with several departments handling things my smaller university would have fewer people with smaller titles to handle.
Anyways, I misunderstood what she was saying, and I CCd her on an email to the higher up so that she would be included in the conversation. Apparently that is what set her off. She berated me in front of my coworkers. “You do NOT contact that person! I have told you once and you have disobeyed me! This is NOT okay. Your P.I. will be hearing about this!” I was so shook and nervous.
I sent both my P.I. and my lab manager an email asking them if they had any issues with me, if they could please do so in private. When I was late to the previous aforementioned meeting, the P.I. said out loud how disappointed he was with me and told me that I had to work hard to earn his trust in front of the other two employees. After I was late to the meeting, he wrote me an email saying he thought I was late because I didn’t want to pick up any more responsibilities and that I was shying from my duties in the lab. How wrong he was! I was completely ecstatic to be receiving more responsibility as time went on. This was my dream job, after all! I was eager to impress. But unfortunately, that didn’t seem to happen.
After I sent the email to my lab manager and my P.I., two days later I was called into the office. When I went in, both my P.I. and my lab manager were sitting in the room also with a “witness” from administration. I sat down with my notebook and pen, thinking this was going to be a regular check-in.
My P.I. handed me a piece of paper. “I’m sorry to tell you that I’m terminating you from this position.” My heart sunk. “I just don’t think you will get up to speed with the requirements of this position in the six month probation period.”
I nearly cried, but I didn’t. I thanked him and told him I was grateful to work in his lab. I asked him for feedback. What could I have done differently? What specifically did I do wrong? What kind of job would be better suited for me? He ignored the first two questions and said, “I think a job with less responsibility would be best.”
I left that day and was escorted out of the office by the head scientist. “No one was even expecting this was going to happen,” she told me. “Everyone is in shock.” I knew in my heart that this was unfair.
But somehow I didn’t internalize it that way. After that, I thought I was the worst employee in the world. I thought I had failed neuroscience as my career. I thought neuroscience wasn’t for me. I thought it was truly all my fault, that I did in fact do everything wrong and that I was just a terrible employee. Maybe the 9–5 life wasn’t for me, I thought. Maybe my illnesses are truly a hindrance to me functioning in the real world. Maybe the stereotypes are true — people with mental illness really cannot function in the working world, and it truly is all our fault.
New Job Search
I ended up being depressed for four months while trying to find a new job in a different lab at the same university, but the university policy was that if you were terminated you had to work elsewhere for a year to get “good employment” status before applying there again. I wanted to stay in my hometown because I was still dealing with psychological issues and wanted the support of my family, but this was the only research institution that hired research assistants as a full time job in my hometown. So I spent the next two years working different full time jobs in other industries: working as a conflicts analyst at a top law firm before I quit the 9–5 desk life and working as a community manager for a creative technology start-up that was a little more fast paced and nontraditional, but quit that too because of a toxic boss.
Today, I am in graduate school. I am earning my Master’s in behavioral neuroscience. Getting fired from a neuroscience job apparently didn’t stop me from continuing down my professional road within the field.
I learned so much by working those other jobs — how a real company with an HR department is supposed to work, how to talk to your bosses about your disability (or how to bypass them and go directly to HR), experienced different company cultures (a big corporation compared to a small start-up), and tried out different fields before realizing that it was neuroscience that I wanted to commit to.
I wouldn’t have gotten those other opportunities if I hadn’t gotten fired. Was I the perfect employee? No, but I believed that I was doing my best and could have received better training and accommodation. I spent months in a mode of self blame before realizing that this was entirely a gaslighting experience that unfortunately had high stakes professional ramifications.
I know this will not be the end of me. I will still make it as a neuroscience professional, no matter how many hurdles come my way. I hope that if you ever find yourself terminated from a position, you too can separate out the realities of your own responsibilities and capabilities as an employee with the expectations and culture of your work environment. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out, and that’s okay. It will not be the end of you. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/i-got-fired-from-my-dream-job-59a1c61e17e8 | ['Sarah Myers'] | 2020-10-04 21:33:07.868000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Academia', 'Science', 'Self Improvement'] |
CEO of Porn: How deepfake pornstars became crypto-tokens | © Harem Token
Have you ever dreamed of becoming a porn magnate? Of having a vast supply of computer generated nudes to be traded in the blockchain? To create content from scratch catering to your a-priori, pre-defined preferences? Then enter the zone of Harem Token:
“who of you bought 3 jasmines yesterday? only 2 left now lol”
“you also gonna put in men an trannies bro? need disabled also. people with no arms or legs… even a missing ear”
“need more teeth representation. too many with good white teeth. need more snaggletoothed bitches”
“speaking of racism, can we get more representation bro. need some browns yellows n black with big tits”
These are all quotes living inside a Telegram group chat created by Harem Token, a start-up that generates deepfake pornstars that can be traded as Non-Fungible Tokens in the Ethereum blockchain. One of their earliest experiments was baptized Anna, now operating as the company’s poster-face. Alike Magic: The Gathering cards, each nude is a collectible that can be exchanged for different amounts of money depending on its rarity. Money also cashes in every time a NFT is picked from Harem’s public domain and deepfaked into a source, giving its owner a percentage for allowing the image to be used by others, acting as some sort of crypto-pimp.
Non-Fungible Tokens are digital goods, unique items or collectibles on the Ethereum blockchain that are reshaping how creative content can be distributed, bought and sold online. Alike cryptocurrencies, they are offering new gold-rush possibilities, in a period where global crisis has made them that much enticing. If a given NFT turns out to be on high demand, it could potentially sell for an inflated value, much like what happened in 2018 when Dragon, a CryptoKitty, was sold for 600 ETH (approx. $170,000)*, signaling the new trends of online pyramid schemes, where some players in the game can be left with massively overpriced, worthless assets. In Harem’s case, instead of Cryptokitties, the company seems glad to introduce instead the financial capacities of Cryptotitties.
Inside the chat, Steve, the CEO, Johnny K and Max answer a miscellaneous of questions, create quizzes, allowing members to decide what girls they prefer, setting up contests where the names and backstories of GAN generated females are disputed amongst members. The images circulating in the group, emojis and memes created by the Harem team, have inherited much of 4-chan’s iconography: Anna’s face photoshopped into Pepe the Frog, sitting in an office table with the tag “CEO of Porn”, Roko´s Basilisk inspired memes, with Anna’s face attached to a robotic figure, arriving to dethrone and destroy all THOTs (That Hoe Over There). Then there’s the visual representation of the actual tokens: dozens of newly AI generated female nudes, images of topless women standing against a white backdrop, lit by a clinical, uniform, all revealing light. In fact, it has been speculated where start-ups like Harem scrap their images from, which is most often from websites like czechcasting.com, a porn company accused of containing non-consensual porn, allowing these algorithms to train based on images of sex-workers without their consent, forming what writer Samanta Cole* has described as the algorithmic meat grinder of rape, abuse and non-consensual sex.
© Harem Token
© Harem Token
If the images Harem creates are fake, the women’s hustle behind them is real and so is theirs. Crypto is a world that can attract the dissatisfied, independent minded iconoclasts. Those who are not shy about riding legal and ethical loopholes. When asked about whether they day-dreamed of a Silicon-Valley office, Steve replied, “absolutely not. I don’t want to pay $5k a month for some co-working space filled with wantrepreneurs drinking soy-cum lattes and talking about how their newest twist on the SaaS model is sure to work. If we ever have an office it will be a dirty cheap warehouse in LatAm or Asia.” Countries in the global south have long seen crypto has a rescue boat from turbulent economies, so it comes as no surprise that Harem only has 3 full-time workers on remote mode and around “6 contractors from third-world countries that work on data labelling, curation and sorting”.
As a report from BPN Paribas* points out, “from a geopolitical perspective, these online economies are becoming essential revenue streams for survival. In crisis-stricken Venezuela, citizens are turning to virtual economies in order to generate income”. The only full-timers, Johnny K, Max and Steve are a blend of entrepreneurs and AI developers who saw porn and the marine trench hiding its official profit estimates as a territory with much potential and not many competitors, despite the early stage funding difficulties because, as Steve points, to investors, “porn is icky”. In a way, porn and crypto are the perfect volatility storm: on one hand there’s porn’s capacity of weaponizing reputation, a phenomena that Emily Rosamond* describes as reputation warfare, a new paradigm within online reputation where “systemic actors rely on systemic volatility produced by reputation’s ubiquitous online calculation and contestation”, on the other, there’s the volatility of crypto-tokens, which value can fluctuate several percentile numbers per day. If one concept is volatile enough per-se, the two concepts, crypto and porn, combined, seem capable of unfolding endless volatile re-configurations, to which Harem Token is a mere tip of the iceberg.
For Harem’s founders, there’s been other difficulties along the way. When asked about the reactions by women in their lives, the answers are pretty disparate. Johnny K. says when his girlfriend saw hundreds of nude pictures on his laptop, she made made him an ultimatum, “let’s say the AI won” he admits. As for Steve, he attests that if a woman asks him what he does, he claims to work for the government in top secret operations and if he revealed what he does he would have to kill her, Max seems the only one with positive reinforcement in his life, sharing that his sister and female friends had nothing but supportive words for his entrepreneurial endeavors. But what is the actual vision behind Harem Token? It is revealing that the company tags their NFT’s as “art”, sampling how digital artworks can be viewed, shared, and capitalized on the web, via porn’s speed of circulation. Crypto allows art’s existence on a fully digital logic, where image and value are two parts of the same (digital) coin. And as the BPN paribas* report explains, “the Ethereum blockchain made it easy and cheap to issue a token and create services with just a few lines of code, without the need for users to build their own infrastructure (…) unlike other tokens like cryptocurrencies, NFTs are not interchangeable — they can’t replace or be replaced by another identical item”, which is a way to say that NFTs are digital assets capable of mirroring the matrix of contemporary art’s traditional market via accredited authenticity and scarcity.
As for Harem’s art, for Steve it’s about creating “an unlimited supply of women so you can select the one you love the most, from a producer point of view — out of one movie you can make multiple movies. If you liked the video but you wished the girl had bigger tits or a prettier face for example”. It’s about creating “girls from nothing that can be deep faked into videos of your choice”, and the advantage of buying $Harem is that it provides a discount in video creation that allows to generate infinite and varied content “at a price no human creators on earth could possibly match”*. So the more $Harem, the more content, at leasts inside this platform locked mechanism revolving around their own currency and collectibles. Steve also believes that the future of content creation is to be fully AI generated: influencers, musicians, actors, directors, producers, podcasters, news anchors and pornstars will all be people who do not exist. As another member in the group points out, “algorithms know what content hits and what doesn’t, so why not create content that hits 100% all of the time?” For now, as Harem’s Telegram group chat steadily grows, the team is planning to create several social-media accounts on TikTok, Twitter and Instagram for the Harem “girls” as a marketing strategy, to share their background stories and make them interact with a potential audience. In the end, maybe this is just yet another opportunistic project with a strain of Silicon-Valley megalomania and misogynistic tics, maybe Harem Token will indeed deliver those armed with $Harem the actual profits to become real CEOs of porn, right from the comfort of their couches. Eitherway, the hustle is real and if the future Harem predicts is coming, then get rich or die Porning.
sources_
all quotes taken from inside Harem Token’s official Telegram, where I inquired the team for days in a row and tried to have them create a NFT with my name.
other sources_
*1- Nguyen, Chuong (2018) Cat got your wallet? Cryptokitties virtual feline fetches $170k in crypto cash [online] available at: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/09/05/most-expensivecryptokitty/
*2- Cole, Samanta (2020) Frankenstein’s Monster: Images of Sexual Abuse are Fueling Algorithmic Porn [online] available at: https://www.vice.com/en/article/akdgnp/sexual-abusefueling-ai-porn-deepfake-czech-casting-girls-do-porn
*3- BPN Paribas report [online] available at: https://group.bnpparibas/en/press-release/l-atelierbnp-paribas-report-highlights-digital-innovations-helping-meet-environmental-socialchallenges-asia
*4- Emily Rosamond on ‘From Reputation Capital to Reputation Warfare’ Youtube Video. 04:21. Posted [October 2019] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz5VFnZVhEQ
*5- BPN Paribas report [online] available at: https://group.bnpparibas/en/press-release/l-atelierbnp-paribas-report-highlights-digital-innovations-helping-meet-environmental-socialchallenges-asia
*6- Harem Technology and Token light paper [online] available at: https://b3167b99- a6f3–4d79–8b40–363f4c245dac.filesusr.com/ugd/ 5ea561_63b6ea1bba724f059f79cb4356c642c4.pdf | https://medium.com/@sandraalub/ceo-of-porn-how-deepfake-pornstars-became-crypto-tokens-224d9697e375 | [] | 2020-12-24 18:27:43.165000+00:00 | ['Haremtoken', 'Nft Collectibles', 'Token', 'Cryptoporn', 'Crypto'] |
Guiding Junior Developers is pretty Similar to Managing Relationship | Photo by CoWomen on Unsplash
I am waiting for my wife at the subway station. It was 5 pm evening and the weather is hot and humid.
In addition, I am sweating, getting a bit impatient and the clock seems ticks slower than usual. I could feel inside myself my emotion could escalate to frustration soon (Ya. I can’t stand heat).
Scenario A: Waiting for my wife at Subway Station
Some facts that I knew in this situation.
I knew that my wife is reaching soon, she was just a few stations away from me.
I knew that if I expressed my frustration when we meet up, it will spoil our evening and worsen our relationship.
Isn’t these facts are having some resemblance to the scenario of mentoring your junior developers?
Scenario B: Mentoring Your Junior Developers
We knew that the junior dev is learning and growing, he/she just needed a bit more time to settle down. Then, they will be ready to contribute.
We knew that if we expressed our frustration during the mentoring phase, he/she might stress out. He or she might lose some self-confidence and the worst-case scenario, they might quit the job and you lose some talented candidate.
Actionable Advice
This is what you can do to prevent you from making wrong actions or decisions in this scenario.
Feed Your Patience . Shift your focus from the waiting frustration.
. Shift your focus from the waiting frustration. Say or Do something positive before the conversation started.
Feed Your Patience
Instead of focusing on the waiting, do something you to feed your patience.
Scenario A: Waiting for my wife at Subway Station
Feed your patience by reading your favorite novel, browse your Instagram stories and etc. Move your focus away from the waiting frustration and uncomfortable environment.
Scenario B: Mentoring Your Junior Developers
Prepare them a small win daily. This small win could be some defined progress in the task.
For e.g, if you are able to get a response from this API by the end of the day, you are already doing a good job.
This small win does not only boost the confidence for your junior dev, but it also feeds your patience when they’re achieving things and completing the task.
Say or Do Something Positive Before the Conversation Started
This advice was a bit personal.
Scenario A: Waiting for my wife at Subway Station
Whenever I see my wife walking from far away, I wave my hand and whisper “Hi!” from far away.
When you did this, your frustration somehow gets suppressed or goes away and it ends up in a pretty positive outcome. You don’t say something hurtful to your loved ones.
Scenario B: Mentoring Your Junior Developers
I have a phrase that I said every time I meet with someone that I am familiar with. I would say “Hey man!!” in a positive tone.
It was pretty hard to say something bad when you started the conversation in a positive manner. It works pretty well so far.
Conclusion
This article inspired by some random thought of the day. Lastly, I wish this actionable advice does help you.
As always, feedback and opinion are always welcome.
Thanks for reading and see you next time. ✋😁 | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/guiding-junior-developers-is-pretty-similar-to-managing-relationship-6ca0d6997d4 | ['Tek Loon'] | 2020-01-08 00:08:50.435000+00:00 | ['Mentorship', 'Programming', 'Web Development', 'Leadership', 'Software Development'] |
How to properly love yourself | Loving yourself.
Such an abused topic.
On social media, you will see people talk incessantly about it. It’s talked about so often, it makes me cringe reading about it.
If self-love is talked about so much, why do so many people have little of it?
This question has come up in my head, but I was never able to give an articulate answer. So I just let it sit in the back of my head.
Well, a few days ago I got a copy of this one book called Restoring Pride: The Lost Virtue of our Age by Richard Taylor. And this book gave me the answer I have been looking for.
The answer is simple and can be easily understood by everyone.
The reason why people struggle with loving themselves is that it is not justified.
Why would someone love themselves when all they do is browse social media, binge Netflix, hang out with the same people, and work a similar job over the years.
There is no creation that comes out of the person’s time.
There is no self-investment that comes out of the person’s time.
There is no seeking new experiences that come out of the person’s time.
Photo by Content Pixie on Unsplash
And guys, I am not talking about getting an amazing career, building a business, or getting famous, in order to find justified self-love.
What I am talking about is fulfilling your potential as a human being.
And from all the efforts and results, you can love yourself proudly. Because instead of drifting in life, you decide to create yourself into something. And in that creation, you were able to accomplish things.
But the results were never the goal.
Fulfilling your true capacity is.
When you can see yourself becoming what you can be, self-love comes easy.
The problem with people is that they think they can get everything passively, even self-love. You have to be active in creating your life. You can’t just sit down doing nothing year in and year out, then wonder why you don’t love yourself.
There isn’t much to love!
I am being harsh, but it’s the reality.
Every single one of us has the capacity to do something uniquely our own. Yet, we squander our one opportunity in life to bring anything into creation.
Don’t be like the masses that will go on living life, never to do anything genuinely their own.
Instead, be like the countless individuals from the past, some known (many unknown), who in their short time on Earth, brought out creations that were from their own unique talents.
It’s people like that that can look back on their deathbed and feel proud of their lives.
They did something.
And regardless of the fame or recognition, they can die in peace knowing they used their full capacities.
If there isn’t a better way to die, I don’t know what is.
So with the remaining time you have on earth, fulfill your potential and go create something you, and only you can be proud of.
(If you enjoyed this short article, then click here to join my email list where you get a daily boost of confidence every morning plus the free Self-Improvement Cheat Sheet for Nerds.) | https://medium.com/@bulcha-17804/how-to-properly-love-yourself-704180e16ccc | ['Bulcha', 'The Charismatic Nerd'] | 2020-12-15 18:15:33.600000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Confidence', 'Inspiration', 'Life Lessons', 'Self Development'] |
A LinkedIn Limerick | Photo by Jay Clark on Unsplash
Let’s all scream about our personal brand!
“It’s all about ME!”, give no one a hand
But when the likes disappear
And the comments are all smear
Maybe the #LinkedInlife ain’t all that grand | https://medium.com/snarketing/a-linkedin-limerick-5d833ce759bb | ['Brett Cb'] | 2018-07-26 15:37:05.420000+00:00 | ['Branding', 'Funny', 'Marketing', 'LinkedIn', 'Humor'] |
Reflection of a First Semester Transfer Student | Academic
But for me, it’s definitely been quite the semester. Things that have definitely been draining for me has definitely been class structure at times. With the first week, I was rather intimidated as I had days where I had 5-hour classes. At first, they were rather scary. Over time, I got used to them as there were still regular breaks.
How ArtCenter also worked was that there were studio classes in addition to gen ed courses. The studio classes allowed us to refine our craft when it came to design overall.
Having said that, with studio classes, it also mean another thing: critiques. I found that over time I became more comfortable with critiques overall and over time was rather comfortable with that.
Social
I feel like with social activity that every college is the same right now. What I mean by that is that everyone is suffering through Zoom University at the moment with the context that everyone is online. How I deal with that is through reaching out to peers in addition to reaching out to later-term students. There are also clubs on the regular to check out.
I also find that if you’re of Asian American descent that the students there frequent WeChat, a Chinese social app. Within recent, people of student government have been trying to port it over to Discord but I’d say there was definitely more activity on WeChat.
Reflection
Honestly, I think it was a pretty good first semester. I got introduced to how art schools approach teaching and met designers along the way. It was definitely really intriguing and I look forward to the next semester. | https://medium.com/@m-deng/reflection-of-a-first-semester-transfer-student-f2e9acf567c8 | ['Mike Deng'] | 2020-12-25 17:29:59.550000+00:00 | ['University', 'College Life', 'College', 'Transfers', 'Art School'] |
Demystify Employee Leaving with EDA | Demystify Employee Leaving with EDA
Img from pixabay via link
In previous posts, I tried to predict if a bank customer is likely to leave, OR if an app user is likely to churn or subscribe. Now I will share recent work in the human resource domain to bring some predictive power to any firm struggling to retain their employees.
In this first post, I will focus on exploring datasets for any interesting patterns. As always, it is split into below:
1. Problem Statement
2. Data Review
3. Distribution Analysis
4. Independent Variable Correlation Analysis
5. Response Variable Correlation Analysis
6. Takeaways
Let’s begin the journey 🏃♂️🏃♀️.
1. Problem Statement
If you are from the Human Resources department, you may agree that hiring and retaining employees are complex tasks that require capital, time, and skills.
According to toggle hire, companies spend 15%-20% of the employee’s salary to recruit a new candidate. Hiring an employee in a company in a company with 0–500 people costs an average of $7,645 🙀🙀.
As a data scientist, you are tasked to develop a model that could predict which employees are more likely to quit. Your findings will support more effective and efficient employee retainment.
2. Data Review
The dataset used here is IBM HR Analytics dataset from Kaggle. There are 1470 records with 35 features. Check the video below to have a real touch on the raw dataset.
To better understand the meaning of each feature, I made an easy-to-view figure below.
Fig.1 Data variable overview
To understand the distribution of numerical variables, use below.
employee_df.describe()
For data quality check (if there is any NULL or missing data in each column) and view the data type, use below:
employee_df.info()
Note that you can also use below to check if there are any NA values in a dataframe:
employee_df.isna().any()
employee_df.isnull().any()
With all the above, we found 26 numerical variables and 9 categorical variables with no missing values.
3. Distribution Analysis
We use the histogram as a simple visualization for numerical variable distribution analysis.
First, let’s convert binary categorical data into numerical. Use a one-line function with lambda to apply to the whole column. Then, pandas built-in plot function to create a histogram. Specifically,
employee_df[‘Attrition’] = employee_df[‘Attrition’].apply(lambda x: 1 if x == ‘Yes’ else 0)
employee_df[‘OverTime’] = employee_df[‘OverTime’].apply(lambda x: 1 if x == ‘Yes’ else 0)
employee_df[‘Over18’] = employee_df[‘Over18’].apply(lambda x: 1 if x == ‘Y’ else 0)
employee_df.hist(bins = 30, figsize= (15, 15), color = 'r')
Fig.2 Distribution analysis for numerical variables
Reviewing Fig.2, you may find column ‘EmployeeCount’, ‘Over18’, and ‘StandardHours’ is of no value because these remain the same for all employees. So let’s remove them:
employee_df.drop([‘EmployeeCount’, ‘EmployeeNumber’, ‘Over18’, ‘StandardHours’], axis = 1, inplace = True)
4. Independent Variable Correlation Analysis
Variables correlation is an important issue that is worth every data scientist’s nerve.
In general, correlated features don’t improve model performance. It is wise to remove correlated features considering the curse of dimensionality and the interpretability of the model. To perform correlation analysis, use:
correlations = employee_df.corr()
plt.subplots(figsize = (20, 20))
sns.heatmap(correlations, annot = True)
Fig.3 shows some sensible correlations. For instance, ‘TotalWorkingYears’ is strongly correlated with ‘JobLevel’ and ‘MonthlyIncome’. In general, we can see quite a lot of variables are poorly correlated. Great, because it is desirable to train a predictive model with features that are not highly correlated with each other.
Fig.3 Correlation analysis for predictors
5. Response Variable Correlation Analysis
To analyze how each feature impacts employee leaves, we can inspect each variable’s distribution with respect to the response variable.
First, for employee ‘Age’, let’s use countplot,
plt.figure(figsize = (25, 10), dpi = 300)
sns.countplot(x = ‘Age’, hue = ‘Attrition’, data = employee_df )
Fig.4 shows employees between 25–35, show a high leave ratio compared to the rest ages. Below 21, a very high leave percentage can be spotted, indicating young professionals are more likely to leave the firm 🤭.
Fig.4 Employee Leave Countplot Vs Age
Second, for ‘JobRole’, count plot is:
sns.countplot(x = ‘JobRole’, hue = ‘Attrition’, data = employee_df)
Fig.5 shows ‘sales executive’, ‘sales representative’, and ‘lab technician’ are more likely to leave compared to other roles.
Fig.5 Employee Leave Countplot Vs JobRole
Third, let’s use KDE (Kernel Density Estimate) to analyze the probability density function of the numerical variables.
KDE takes bandwidth and a kernel function to approximate the true distribution of the population by weighing the distances near each sample. The more data points nearby, the estimate is high, indicating the probability of seeing a point. Bandwidth determines how ‘smooth’ the resulting curve is. A lower bandwidth means only points close to the current position are given weight. Enough of the explanation, if you want more introduction, try this link. Let’s see how to achieve it.
For the variable ‘DistanceFromHome’,
sns.kdeplot(left_df[‘DistanceFromHome’], label = ‘Employee left’, shade = True, color = ‘r’, )
sns.kdeplot(stayed_df[‘DistanceFromHome’], label = ‘Employee stay’, shade = True, color = ‘b’)
As shown in Fig.6, more employees tend to leave when the distance from home is more than 10 km 🆒🆒.
Fig.6 KDE plot for Distance
For the variable ‘YearsWithCurrManager’, more employees tend to leave with less than 2 years with the current managers and tend to stay if having more than 5 years experience 🧨🧨, as shown in Fig.7.
Fig.7 KDE plot for YearsWithCurrManager
For the variable ‘ TotalWorkingYears’, more employees tend to leave with less than 7 years of experience ️📣, as shown in Fig.8.
Fig.8 KDE plot for TotalWorkingYears
Now, let’s use boxplot to visualize and compare the distribution of ‘MonthlyIncome’ between ‘Gender’. As shown in Fig.9, female and male monthly income shows a similar variability with similar median, 75%, and 25% quartile values 👏👏, as shown in Fig.9.
Fig.9 Boxplot for MonthlyIncome btw Gender
At last, let’s see different ‘JobRole’ income distribution. Fig.10 shows the monthly income distribution and variability of different roles. Interestingly, we found ‘Sales Representative’ shows a compact distribution, with income broadly lower than other roles 🙀. This could explain why ‘Sales Representative’ tends to leave more as shown in Fig.5.
Fig.10 Boxplot for MonthlyIncome btw JobRoles
6. Takeaway
Data quality check tells us that our dataset is quite clean with no missing values.
Independent variable correlation analysis indicates quite a lot of features seem to be poorly correlated with one another.
Interesting patterns between independent and response variables show some hints on why employees may leave.
Hopefully, this sheds some light on how to better understand your employee or colleague's decision when it comes to leaving.
Great! End of this journey. In the next one, we will focus on the real fun part: modeling. See you there💕💕 | https://towardsdatascience.com/demystify-employee-leaving-with-eda-2ed96525f3a7 | ['Luke Sun'] | 2020-10-10 21:58:29.629000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Exploratory Data Analysis', 'Binary Classification', 'Correlation', 'Data Visualization'] |
The above picture has the entire crew on deck for photo op. | The above picture has the entire crew on deck for photo op. My dad is sitting up on top of the battery/gun..that was the biggest and he was assigned as the gunner and the cook.
A tribute to all who served with my pops on the USS Admiral H.T.Mayo AP-125-WWII
A tribute to all who served with my pops on the USS Mayo -
This crew saw and lived through some very close calls and many ops took place under the cover of darkness- dropping off and picking up small squads for commando missions. Several times having to out maneuver subs.
Above — (circa 1947 )this is the ship my dad served on during WWII , but was refitted at the end of 1946 and became of the Army as a transport ship primarily in the Pacific.
I wanted to share this photo … the USS Mayo. This was my dad’s ship during World War II … The ship itself was a part of the US Coast Guard. In fact WWII was the last time that the Coast Guard was part of the military. He was the head cook and a gunner. So you did not want to get him mad . Since he was making your food and food for another 699 mouths….
Below- this was an invite to the commissioning of the USS Mayo on the 26th of April,1945
The USS Mayo was a unique ship with a unique crew- Made up of one commanding officer- plus a small division of US Marines,Army & Navy. It was manned by Coast Guard personnel and seamen, along with the Public Health Service( a full functioning hospital was contained aboard.
Left- A “complete” history of the USS Mayo, it’s construction(ht, width etc)and an overview of it’s duties and missions during WWII.
The ship itself was built in California by Bethlehem Steel Corp.
Some vintage ads that appeared in various magazines and establishments.
Below as you can see some of the ads may have been aimed at the service men..considering that this is pretty close to a pin up. And they were popular.
Here we have Paulette Goddard advertising Royal Crown Cola=RC for short.
**Goddard starred in two of the best Horror comedies-The Cat and the Canary and The Ghost Breakers both co-starring Bob Hope.
Left- who knew one of the duties as a sailor was battling germs as well ….an ad for Listerine Antiseptic
A newsreel theater — 35 cents a seat. Remember there was no Television-not at all like today… no 24 hr let alone a nightly 6 pm newscast. People went to the theater or read the newspaper to keep up with what was happening locally and around the world.
Cinema goers were being treated to some light and leavening performances to keep their minds off the war…below Danny Kaye and Dinah Shore belt out a fun Zoot suit song in a film that is primarily about a couple of “Joes” who just enlisted in the service and no body does quirky characters better than Kaye. Here they both are in a clip from Up In Arms ( 1944)
Above — Boston Blackie’s Rendezvous- part of the 14 films in the series for Columbia Pictures. These were a very popular type of B-Movie coming in around usually 60 mins-all with Chester Morris(academy nominated) . He also reprise-ed his role on the Radio series as well. They were full of fun.mystery and a few shocks and surprises. Perfect escapism for the public.
This a video clip tribute to Boston Blackie- a popular film franchise that starred Chester Morris as a reformed thief who helps solve crimes usually ones he is suspected of committing in the first place. There were two that premiered at the box-office the year of 1945
See this full list of films 1945-
What we were jamming to on the radio and at the ice cream parlor…
I hope the above vintage ads and the Music has given you a little window on what it was like in 1945…
My pop came aboard in May of 1945 just after the USS Mayo had been commissioned. He had tried two times prior to enlist in the Coast Guard but to no avail being that he was under age both times. The ID did not fool .. you see the gang he used to hand around were a little older and had all enlisted.
Left- on shoe leave in France
The first month or so was spent transport men who had been prisoners of war in Europe/Germany back home to the states. so a fairly uneventful first seasoning for all the new recruits. making it probably easier to get their “sea legs” A couple of trips across the Atlantic will do just that.
And knowing how life is- you just never know who you are going to meet or serve with… He had the pleasure of sharing the open sea right in the heart of the Pacific Theater with actor Victor Mature(Chief Petty Officer). So how cool is that, the mighty Samson was watching over them… and the neat thing is Victor was just a regular guy…😎😇
Left — insert for Kiss of Death featuring a very menacing Richard Widmark. Making Victor look even more the hero.Which he had no problem doing. Directed by the great Henry Hathaway.
Left-Victor Mature on shore leave… One of those times while on shore leave in New York City landed Victor in a big fight with Caesar Romero(Joker-Batman 1966)…But that is another story… What I will say about Victor Mature is that he was a regular guy. Although he held the position of Chief Petty Officer he most himself when spending time with the enlisted men. Victor actually invited my dad and several others to his ranch out in California- to take place after they all got back from the service. Now not everyone was able to go. But it was the fact that Victor offered and was sincere.
Somethings I can tell you that did occur during that time spent in Pacific were some of the most nail biting and dangerous times for the crew and their”cargo”….Troops-commando units-midnight runs… dropping and picking up special details. Involving departures to small islands and coves/lagoons. Either gathering information about the Japanese movements and locations throughout the region. These fact finding missions were under stealth conditions, secret and need to know. It also involved maintaining complete radio silence until that particular assignment was over. Another was as a Sub-Chaser. In fact my dad indicated that there were several times when the Mayo was being chased themselves. The tables being turned.. but none the less.The Mayo coming out on top or out running their would be pursuers.
Below: three of my dads best friends on board — from left to right- Chuck, Al and Tony.
Now all this cloak and dagger was mixed with regular troop transport also. Especially as the war in the Pacific was changing and the Allies were able to advance and the Japanese were falling back towards their homeland.
During all this my dad had acquired a pet bird-a parrot. The bird was living in a locker next to his. He was one a few who a 2nd locker because of his double duties as a gunner and cook. Now the parrot was not regulations which for my dad to break those policies was not usual. The crew took a liking the parrot. But this was kept hush hush. The parrot was named Polly believe it or not. Polly could talk and liked most everyone. However there was one “wise “ guy who liked to antagonize Polly. My dad had warned this guy many times to leave the parrot alone. You see Polly could very easily defend herself. Well the inevitable happened. One night while the Mayo was docked and my pops was out on shore leave with a bunch of his buddies Mr Wise Guy showed up and wondered down to where my dads locker and gear was stowed. Wanting to show off his “bird” handling skills which all he manged to do was rile Polly.. in the encounter Polly bit the guys nose and proceeded to fly and squawk up a storm. My dad was summoned back to the ship .. by some of the crew thank goodness. He was able to calm Polly and Mr Wiseguy did not fare so well. My dad a was scrappy little guy, but he had a good right. A good thing because Wiseguy had pulled out his 45 and was going to shoot Polly. Whew!!! This does have a ending because after all the feathers were done falling Polly was still alive. Thank the lord. As for Wiseguy I can say that he never bothered anyone again. Te crew was not happy and he decided to curtail his shenanigans. It also meant goodbye to Polly. So on the next port of call my pop made sure she had a good home and possibly a return to the wild…
A major event that brought the Mayo, it’s crew and many other allied ships together happened towards the end of the war. a message was sent to all the ships and their commanders stating the invasion of Japan. This would be the last major offensive of WWII. The tide had already turned in Europe and Germany had surrendered. Japan was not about to. There were hundreds of vessels gathering off the coast of Japan … loaded with far too many troops to count in addition to the tremendous fire power. This may have turned out to be another Normandy. But what was at risk was 1000s of lives on both sides. And what could have been another couple of years. The Japanese were dug in. And fierce opponents. As plans were being worked out and calculated. This to determine right time to strike with tensions mounting among the all the inevitable and need less to say unpreventable happened.
A major typhoon came out of nowhere with barely enough warning to get all the ships out of harms way.
Left — Footage of a typhoon that battered the US Navy during the days of WWII- This is the USS Pittsburgh being pummeled by massive waves. The entire fleet everything from battleships to cruisers to destroyers experienced damage and were in need of repairs.This newsreel provides you an idea what might have happened had the task force stuck around.
The typhoon drove the task force out to sea. There to wait out it’s wrath. All the while contemplating the return to the positions all the ships had held prior to. The initial thought was to move swiftly after the storm past. This would give the Allies the element of surprise. It was never to happen.
The invasion that had been planned so well was canceled. President Truman had made the decision along with the rest of the Allied command to bomb Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Unleashing the Atomic Age. For good or for bad. What had transgressed prior was an unnerving 10 days . The sea boiled, frothy. with immensely high waves and turbulent waters. My dad is no picnic-even for the sailors who were the seasoned vets aboard. So having gone through this prior to the invasion would they have been ready.. and more than likely many casualties would have been the result.
Among all the events that did occur during WWII you hardly ever hear anything mentioned about this time period. A time that was not at all certain for it’s possible outcome..
Below- My pops at home after being discharged in 1946- one of the happy endings of that era…
so this is more than just a salute to those who served with my dad but to all have served period .. we owe a debt of gratitude to those individuals… officers, enlisted personnel…men & women alike not only during the trying times, a war or what may have an action… but right now those who are there at a beckons call when they are needed. The people of the all branches of service. Thank you for keeping us safe at all times. And providing a peace of mind for when it is necessary to heed the call of duty…Happy Veterans Day!!!!
Thanks to all of the crew and a happy Veterans Day…
😎🙏
Below —
more info on the USS Admiral H.T. Mayo including some of the daily newsletters/News paper that was distributed on board the ship and was prepared.written and edited right there on the spot.
It consisted of information directly affecting the crew & pertaining to such things as to when payday was that week, what was happening back home and around the globe.
Left-
Or how about for you folks at home-a day in the life of the USS Mayo or any other run of the mill military ship.
For example — The mayo travels at 25 mph-at that time the entire population of Las Vegas could fit on board. 5,000 lbs of ham to provide a meal in one day and for breakfast — 14,760 eggs and all morning to crack them..scrambled is a favorite among the crew…
Next door-
One such article was directly from the very popular and The Sporting News publisher himself- J.G Taylor Spink-as he would go on to wish everyone on board and the ship itself nothing but the best. As well as providing 250 copies of the Overseas edition of Sporting News throughout their voyages. And that the crew had been adopted by the town where the publication resided. There actually were several of the local residents as part of the USS Mayo crew. | https://medium.com/@docdrwho/the-above-picture-has-the-entire-crew-on-deck-for-photo-op-c2e1128bafe5 | ['Chris Nersinger'] | 2020-11-11 20:57:27.277000+00:00 | ['Veterans', 'Vintage', 'Creative Writing', 'World War II', 'Pop Culture'] |
6 ‘Quick’ Ways to Super Impress Your Boss And Gain Their Trust | “People don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses.”
You may have heard it before, but do you also know as per research…
57% of employees quit because of their boss (apnews.com).
75% of people say their immediate supervisor is the most stressful part of their job (hogan assessment).
Indeed you can’t control your bosses' bad behavior, but you can certainly put an effort to have a healthy relationship with them and create psychological safety for yourself.
I’m in a servant-leader role for eight years now. In this tenure, I observed many bosses with different traits like taskmasters, result-oriented, people-friendly, empowering leaders, and so on.
Their expectations differ based on their maturity, personal style, and the current need. And to gain your boss's trust, there is no silver bullet that works all the time.
However, here are the six ways I’ve tried that work with most of the personalities, and these may help you as well:
1) Prefer Questions Over Statements
Asking the right question creates the impression that you want to know more, and you don’t assume. It creates a safe environment where you don’t judge people. Moreover, it prevents confusion and brings clarity in the conversations.
“Questions are really powerful in creating safety because they indicate to someone that you actually want to hear their voice.” — Amy Edmondson
To elaborate on the power of asking questions, here is an example.
Boss asks: “Can you work with John on the hand over process and start helping the team sooner than later?”
Here are the two different ways a conversation can go.
Use more questions
Your reply: “Did you mean to take over the work from John first and then start helping other people in the team thereafter?”
If the boss says “Yes.”
Your next reply: “Okay sure, by when you are looking to finish the handover? And to accomplish the work, I need so and so…”
Use statements
Your reply: “Okay, sure. I’ll ask John to handover, and I’ll work with the team.”
Boss says “Thank you.” And the conversation ends.
The first option clearly shows you are someone who doesn’t jump to conclusions fast. You prefer to clarify before commitment. You are curious and attentive.
The second option says you follow what is said to you, not more, not less. You may sound committed but not curious. You assume and execute. But, not every assumption turns right, which causes a delay, and your boss may not like it.
In the first option, use the questions in moderation, or else it makes the impression that you don’t understand what’s said in the first instance.
Asking the right questions at the right time will justify your deep interest in any conversations at work. Your boss will love you for this valuable trait.
Want to experiment with it?
2) Clarify the Expectations
Have you ever noticed your boss casually asked you to finish up work, but you weren’t clear and didn’t take any action on it? Later you got surprised when the boss checked the status with you.
Yes, this is where setting the right expectations, mode of operation, mutual understanding is crucial. If the boss hasn’t done it, you need to do it.
How? You can meet them and find out…
What updates they need from you, and how often?
What are their short-term and long-term expectations from you?
How they will measure your performance?
And so on…
Find out what’s your boss thinking about you, but don’t get disappointed if you didn’t get the answers in your first few meetings, keep on checking. If they haven’t thought about it, allow them to come back with details.
If you meet a tough or empowering boss, they may counter ask, what are your expectations from me, and what are your plans? So be ready with your answers before such meetings.
Once you meet your bosses’ basic expectations, look forward to checking, what are the top problems they are currently dealing with, where can you help them? And this will be like icing on the cake.
With these strategic actions, your boss is compelled to think that you are not here for routine mundane work.
Finally, positive results will only prove that you are trustworthy to them.
3) Communicate Indirectly
Not every boss is approachable and easy to meet you. That’s how few leaders operate, and you can’t help it. So you need to earn their attention and time.
How? Instead of you speaking about yourself, let others speak up good things about you. One thing you can try is listen-to-understand and don’t judge anyone. It’s a great way to build a quick rapport.
In other situations, if you are a subject expert and you get tempted to help your peers then offer if they can’t do their own. You think that you are supporting here, but actually, you are interrupting. You are indirectly saying you know the subject better, and this may hurt your peers.
There are many small actions you can take. Like, give credit when someone helps, always be the first one to join the meetings, take notes in the meeting, and so on.
These small yet valuable actions will get noticed by your boss. Don’t forget that they are always observing your valuable traits — directly or indirectly.
4) Commit for Known
If you aren’t 100 percent sure to fulfill your bosses’ demand, then never commit on the spot. Your boss may have high expectations from you, but missing on the promises will damage more than building up. So prefer to get clarity on the work rather than a blind commitment.
How? Understand the eco-system, talk with people, and collect information. If you feel stuck, tell them what help you need to get unstuck on the assignment. It will reassure your boss that you are committed to working.
Beware of result-oriented leaders. They care a damn about small transactional issues, they worry about the outcome. They may feel, why aren’t you trying to find your own ways. So make sure — before you reach out — you keep a summary of your past efforts along with your plans. The best is to make your own judgment when you deal with different types of bosses.
At last, promise what you can fulfill. Repeated such cases will strengthen your credibility, and it will be one of the best foundations of trust.
5) Over-communicate if Uncertain
Your boss will not like you if you fumble on an important assignment because you weren’t clear. In such cases, we often assume and make our own decisions, but every decision may not go right.
So, what can you do?
Practice proactive communications. You never know what your boss is up to, and they may handover key information that may ease out your job.
Also, over-communication is always better than missing out. Don’t worry about buzzing too often. If they have any expectations, they will be waiting for you to reach them.
In other situations, if you are going to miss the deadlines, just inform back early, what are you up to, and what’s next. I know it’s not easy to be very honest with tough bosses, but as long as you have solid reasons, they will understand. Communicate enough so that you can openly talk with them.
Remember, these timely communications will immensely help your boss to manage organizational risks.
And they will love your energy and proactiveness.
6) Discover and Demonstrate
Let me ask you this, will you trust a non-technical person to deliver a software architect?
At least I won’t. Having the right skills and ability is one of the elements to gain trust. Yes, if you want to earn trust, then develop the technical or tactical skills. I would say demonstrate both but in a smart way.
How? First, identify any important but not so urgent problem. Imagine everyone is busy in their mundane work, but you are busy to deliver immediate value, that no one is thinking over.
I remember in one of the organizations, a smart fellow has saved an effort of five man-days per week. He has replaced year old dumb process with a simple macro-enabled Excel file. This change was highly appreciated by everyone.
Likewise, you need to observe and innovate. Focus on something small yet valuable to everyone.
Performance beyond your bosses’ expectations will prove your worthiness. It will not only add credibility but will also make you a trusted advisor to your boss. | https://medium.com/be-unique/6-quick-ways-to-super-impress-your-boss-and-gain-their-trust-d7e47eb35ded | ['Kapil Goel'] | 2020-11-05 01:40:33.025000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Relationships', 'Trust', 'Advice', 'Workplace'] |
Investor Risk Profiling | Our risk profiling method is a process for finding the optimal level of investment risk for your client by balancing their risk required, risk capacity and their individual risk tolerance.
Risk Required is the risk associated with the return required to achieve the client’s goals from the financial resources available. Based on the client’s goal to say have X amount in n years we determine the required rate of return based on his income and assets and classify him in a conservative, moderate or aggressive investor group and give him allocation to risky and risk-averse assets based on that.
Risk Capacity is the level of financial risk the client can afford to take. Following are the key metrics on which we base the risk taking capacity -
Measure of Wealth: Also subjective, partly depends on investor’s perception of their wealth relative to needs
Time Horizon/Stage of Life: The longer your time horizon (the younger you are) the greater your ability to take risk
Family Members/Dependents
Qualifications and ability to generate a steady income
Ability to withstand portfolio losses: The larger the shortfall an investor can tolerate before jeopardising their goals the greater their ability to take risk.
Risk Tolerance is the level of financial risk the client is emotionally comfortable with. This is more of a behavioural aspect of the client risk preferences and can be determined using a psychometric questionnaire. A sample questionnaire is attached in the appendix.
We evaluate the user risk profile based on following criteria:
Stage in Life
Which of the following describes your current stage in life?
Knowledge
How familiar are you with investment matters?
Experience
How long have you been investing, not counting your home or bank type deposits?
Investment Horizon
How long would you invest the majority of your money before you think you would need access to it?
Spending
Once you start using your invested money, how long would you need it to last?
Extreme Risk Scenario
In January 2008, the Indian share market fell by more than 17% during a month. If the share market component of your portfolio fell by more than 20% what would you do ?
Short Term Drawdown
If your investment fell by more than 6% over a short period you would?
Choice of Portfolio
Which scenario is most preferable?
Investment Preference
Which one of the following statements describes your feelings towards choosing an investment?
Security
How secure is your current and future income from sources such as salary, pensions & other investments?
Score
Add up the points you scored for each answer. Based on your score, your risk profile is defined as:
Head on to https://www.wrightresearch.in/update with a user account to explore! | https://medium.com/wright-research/investor-risk-profiling-b5d051f5ba26 | ['Wright Research'] | 2020-07-04 17:59:55.107000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Risk Assessment', 'Risk', 'Risk Management', 'Risk Analysis'] |