fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Virgin Galactic: Awesome. But not so sustainable.
Tags: Sustainability, Impact Investing, Green Investment, Esg

On Sunday morning, Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE, profiled above) CEO Richard Branson touched the edge of space, beating Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos’s own escapade into suborbital space by nine days.

The journeys cap a race between billionaires Branson and Bezos to prove their companies are safe for commercial travel, paving the way for daily passenger trips by 2022. Amid the pandemic- and climate-related negative news of the last few months, finally a bright spot: space tourism has liftoff.

But is it a bright spot? The view from the mesosphere must be serene — assuming it’s hard to see the raging wildfires and diminishing icecaps. Soaring 86km above a drought-hit New Mexico, it’s unclear whether Branson had any of the epiphanies about the Earth’s fragility and unity so often relayed by astronauts.

Aerospace technology is exciting. Burning the required fossil fuels to launch rockets 86km above the earth every single day: not so much. Rockets individually produce up to 150 times more CO2 per launch per passenger than aircraft.

That seems unlikely to bring investor excitement back down to earth. In a note, Morgan Stanley today observed that “investor interest in space, which just two years ago was as vacuous as space itself, today seems to be on a path to become as crowded as an orbital debris field.”

Our analytics show the price of that enthusiasm. Virgin Galactic says emissions will be offset, but it’s still an enormous negative climate impact for a few minutes in zero gravity.
How does sustainable investing actually create change?
By: Vestive Staff
Tags: Sustainable Investing, Personal Finance, Investing, Impact Investing, Esg Investing

Financial Incentives

The first and maybe most obvious impact to companies is financial. Investing in companies has an impact on demand for their stocks and bonds, and therefore makes it easier for them to raise money to fund their growth. Conversely, divesting from other companies makes it harder and more expensive for them to raise money, hurting their growth prospects.

Shareholder Voting

The second and lesser known source of impact from sustainable investing is shareholder voting. Casual investors are often unaware that a number of significant issues can be voted on or influenced by shareholders. Individual investors rarely have the capacity to sway voting on a particular issue, but funds, made up of many investors, often can. If more people invest in funds that have an environmental and/or social objective, this pooled voice can influence companies through their voting power and change companies’ policies from within!

Media Attention

The last and potentially most impactful agent of change from sustainable investing is media attention. Every article about the growth of sustainable investing, every video, and every tweet showing the rise of consumers demanding more from their investments permeates and influences companies’ decision-making. Knowing that investors are holding companies accountable for more than just shareholder returns has an impact. Companies also see an opportunity to have a positive mark on our society and gain positive publicity by making sustainable business choices.
What does sustainable investing mean exactly?
By: Vestive Staff
Tags: Millenials, Sustainable Investing, Personal Finance, Impact Investing, Esg Investing

What we at Vestive call sustainable investing, others sometimes call impact investing. Or they might call it socially responsible, ethical, environmental or ESG investing. There are a lot of terms for the same basic idea.

So, what does this actually mean? It means that when making investment decisions, we consider a range of environmental and social factors, in addition to financial ones. At Vestive, we score our investments on factors like carbon emissions, alternative energy, high-impact fossil fuels, women in leadership, gun manufacturers, tobacco manufacturers and labor norms violations, among others.

For issues that are having a negative impact on our world, such as high-impact fossil fuels or companies with labor norms violations, we screen companies out. At the same time, we increase our investment in companies that have a positive impact, like those in the alternative energy industry.

Some versions of sustainable investing focus on just one issue, like climate change, but we take a broader approach. Otherwise, you might end up with a portfolio that has a low carbon footprint, for example, but has a terrible track record on how they treat their workers. Evaluating a fund’s impact holistically allows your money to have the greatest overall impact.

When evaluating a company we cannot only consider the end product produced. Often a significant portion of a business’ sustainability impact is driven by secondary factors like its supply chain, workforce diversity, and corporate governance. This approach ensures that companies that use an electric truck fleet, or have a diverse workforce and leadership, for example, can score better in our book and be a bigger part of Vestive portfolios.
“Responsible Business”; Newsflash! The Individual Still Pays
Tags: Venture Capital, Capital, Investing, Impact Investing, Business

I am increasingly seeing more and more companies popping up, delivering solutions to climate change. The problem is, many of these companies pass the onus of paying for climate reparations onto the individual.

Yes, you could argue that any company trying to create positive climate solutions is doing good; they are just trying to further the cause.

But, they are missing the whole point.

Just 100 companies on Earth are responsible for 71% of global GHG emissions since 1998 (The Carbon Majors Database, a report recently published by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). Why are we trying to solve the climate crisis by spreading responsibility out across 7.5 B people when just a couple thousand hold all the decision-making power?

It is true; some companies are attempting to right their wrongs. Increasingly, we are witnessing more conglomerates making public declarations to fight climate and inequity woes.

But, we must police how these companies are actually doing that. We must ensure they don’t pass the buck, again, to the consumer as they attempt to right their wrongs, climate or otherwise.

For example, JP Morgan Chase recently announced a $30 B fund to “advance racial equity.” Kudos to them. However, they internally announced that they were cutting all employee bonuses by 20% that very same morning.

I’m sure that these two data points are just a coincidence, but they point to a larger trend.

Companies don’t do well by people and by the planet, and if they do attempt to do well, they still pass the burden on to the individual.

Companies, new and incumbent, must stop creating climate and justice solutions that only encumber the individual.
Why Impact Investment is important — An individual’s perspective
By: Thomas August Stenger
Tags: Impact Investing, Sustainable Development, Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneurship

Now, let’s look at 5 reasons why impact investing is a good idea for any investor.

1. Better return-rates than you might think

Impact investing sometimes has to fight with the image that, while certainly doing good and helping people to face challenges such as poverty and lack of access to clean water, it doesn’t deliver on the financial side of things. This assumption has been proven to be wrong. According to a data provided by the Global Impact Investing Network, most impact investments are actually on equal footing when compared to the average market rate returns.

2. Diversify your risk

It might sound strange but investing in social impact funds can help you to diversify your risk and decrease the volatility of your portfolio. According to a study by Morgan Stanley called “The Business Case for Sustainable Investing”, these funds had equal or lower volatility than their traditional counterparts around 64% of the time for the period assessed.

3. Invest in a passion-driven cause

Since we cleared up the myth that impact investing can’t be profitable, what is there to wait for anymore? The new triple bottom line is called “people, planet, profit” and being able to combine profit with personal values is a luxury that responsible individual investors are finally able to indulge in. Familiarising yourself with the different UN SDGs and researching companies that help to tackle some of them is the first step toward a brighter future - for our planet as well as for your portfolio.

4. It is a growing investment area

Now if you think “Well, richer and more influential investors have probably already taken the lion’s share of this new investment sector,” be reassured that there is still plenty of space for investments. According to the UN, there is a gap of $2.5 trillion in annual investments and that is only in developing countries. This leaves a lot of room for private capital to get in on the action and to make a difference.

5. Save the planet

What more is there left to say but that our lives depend on each other and that we need to work together now to solve some of the biggest challenges our species is facing — many of which are expressed in the SDGs. As a responsible investor and human being everybody should help to make this transformation happen and to make sure that impact investing can unfold its full potential.
Building something the planet needs.
By: Planet A Ventures
Tags: Sustainability, VC, Founders, Climate, Impact Investing

I am excited. As I am always when I come up with something new to build. I am excited to share the vision of Planet A Ventures and our way to tackle the most urgent problems of our times by changing essential metrics of early stage funding.

When I started backing founders I realized that the way traditional investors are taught to look at numbers manoeuvred our economy and our planet into a substantial crisis. Because looking at numbers meant predominantly to look for financial return at all costs.

But looking at numbers also has the potential to save us. What we need to change is the kind of numbers we’re looking at and how we look at them.

Let me start from the beginning and give you a little more context.

It all began in 2017. I just came back from 120 days shooting “Founders Valley”, a 10-part documentary about founders in Asia. The idea was simple: A german entrepreneur (yours truly) meets entrepreneurs that try to tackle topics like climate change, water and food shortages or other big challenges of our time.

The trip completely changed my life and my perspective on the responsibility of entrepreneurs.

Up to that moment, my professional life consisted pretty much of building jimdo, a website builder that I started with two friends when I was 16 years old. We wanted to enable small enterprises and everyone else to build their own website. We are incredibly proud that our product and our company full of amazing talent helped over 25 mio people to do so.

But here’s the thing: When I turned 34 I realized that I had spent more than half of my life with jimdo. I just wanted to explore the world and the invitation to be part of “Founders Valley” appeared to be a pretty great opportunity to do so.

Together with an amazing crew I was lucky to experience things like living with eagle hunters in the rocky desert of Mongolia or staying overnight with indigenous people in the rainforest in Malaysia. But the trip was also a trip to the underbelly of our economic system. We witnessed the housing situation in Hong Kong where 500,000 people are forced to live in subdivided flats with very little to no space and privacy. It got even worse when we arrived in Central India. I interviewed a farmer that tried to commit suicide because he had little to no harvest the third year in a row due to the extreme weather conditions in the region. The correlation between changed weather patterns due to climate change and suicide rate couldn’t be more obvious and has even given the region a terrible name — Suicide Belt.

I could tell you about the working child that I was invited to follow for a couple of days and witness his factory life in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Or the endless waste dumps we filmed in India and Indonesia.
How to Invest in Cooperatives (Part 1)
By: Greg Brodsky
Tags: New Economy, Cooperatives, Investing, Impact Investing, Solidarity Economy

The limitations of debt & the startup valley of death

We observe two huge problems of why existing the financing landscape can not solve all the needs of the startup cooperatives we meet.

#1: Startups are riskier and require different financing: In reaction to the extreme wealth inequality all around us, we are seeing a new generation of entrepreneurs who want to share the wealth created by business. However every successful company has a start-up phase, with limited credit history, which is inherently riskier. Their lack of history makes these companies poor candidates for the criteria of many loan funds. This drives many startup entrepreneurs to fall into the debt-equity chasm”where they haven’t been around long enough to qualify for debt and don’t have the personal or network financial support to establish a credit history while bootstrapping.

We also need to acknowledge the stark differences in the personal wealth of our start-up entrepreneurs. Many entrepreneurs, but particularly entrepreneurs of color, often do not have the personal networks to tap into, and don’t have the luxury to wait around to build the corporate credit history many loan funds would like to see. (Ironically, if they had the history, they might not need the loan anymore!)

#2: Modern businesses accumulate fewer physical assets: Just as our economy has evolved to be more service and technology based, new types of cooperatives have emerged: platform coops in particular. These cooperatives generally lack physical assets, they often do not have a building, or inventory to borrow against. Like other tech companies, their assets are their technology and their network.

Through our accelerator, we are meeting platform cooperatives who are aspiring to compete against venture backed companies such as Uber, Lyft, Door Dash, Patreon, etc. However these virtual assets fall less easily into the lending framework of loan funds. And even when loan funds can provide a small start-up loan, the cooperatives are still far undercapitalized to compete against such massive venture backed companies. We are expecting entrepreneurs to achieve scale on a non-scale budget. Is it any wonder then why we see smaller success and scale of impact?

Many of these cooperatives need to raise a higher initial investment to build out their platforms and to gain traction, and as such these businesses could dramatically benefit from equity-based financing, the sort that has fueled the growth of technology companies over the last 20 years. Without outside equity investment, there would likely be no Google, Apple, Tesla, or Moderna. We may never know how many cooperatively owned start-ups failed to launch because they couldn’t find outside equity.

This phenomenon, sometimes referred to as the startup valley of death, is not entirely unique to cooperatives, however it feels even more challenging because of the gap in equity financing.
Software Intelligence For Better Healthcare
By: Jhonny Chamoun
Tags: Software Engineering, Coding, Healthcare, Full Stack, Web App Development

Since I was a kid, I dreamt of becoming a Physician, I wanted to help people feel better, and help them get better.

Growing up, that plan didn’t pay off. instead, I studied Software Engineering and I built solid technical expertise, across many different coding stacks…

Yet I still have a constant feeling driving me into healthcare, and I do believe that the best way we can use technology for the good of humanity is by creating healthcare solutions.

Journey

In August 2020, I enrolled in a Software Engineering Bootcamp with Flatiron School, wanting to hone my skills, brush up on what I know, and learn modern technologies and coding practices.

For my last project, my passion for healthcare hit me again, so I wanted to build a solution that aims at easing people’s pain and struggles.

Ideation

I started with wanting to create an app to make patients' lives easier, help them while they are in need.

But that not being enough, I had to do a lot of research, mainly digging into what’s already been developed, and what kind of healthcare solutions already exist there, and what would my app’s added value be.

Researching existing solutions proved important in finding the real value of proposed solutions.

Although there are a lot of medical/healthcare-related apps out there, I was able to categorize them into the following:

1- Lifestyle:

Including meditation, diet and weight loss, sleep monitoring, sports, and fitness…

2- Pharmacy:

Including e-pharmacy apps, glossary apps, medical advice…

3- Hospital/Clinic selection and appointment management.

Niche Idea

After the market research I did, I noticed a lack of solutions offering post-appointment care. And I remembered how frustrating it is to be sent home with a prescribed treatment with the hope of feeling better the next day but not having those expectations actually met.

A patient feeling worse on the second day of treatment and struggling with whether to reach out to his provider or waiting is unnecessary stress to add to the patient’s illness.

So I came up with a new way to facilitate adherence to treatment and corresponding action automation. In my prototype, the solution sends automatic emails signaling a need for intervention, but in future versions where AI is added to the solution, the decisions will be more accurate and the actions can be more than just an automated email.

Prototype

Below is a recording of my solution, which I built using Ruby on Rails API for backend, React, and Redux for frontend, along with CSS3 for styling.

I also implemented JWT for authentication, automatic authentication, and authorization.

For automated emails, I used Rails’ action mailer.

I will be adding more features to this app, and I am planning on developing a PWA for better accessibility and a better chance of integration with mobile phone extensions that help measuring vitals at home.

Stay Tuned, I will be publishing updates in upcoming articles.
Best Image Formats for Web Applications in 2021
By: Andrea Perera
Tags: Web Development, Image, Front End Development, Web Design, Web App Development

1. WebP — An exciting alternative for JPEG and PNG

WebP is an open-source image format developed by Google in 2010. Although it is not very popular, WebP is used by well-known organizations.

For example, Facebook was using WebP in the Android application, which reduced the image size by;

25–35% compared to JPEG

80% compared to PNG.

According to Google’s WebP study, WebP is 25–34% smaller than JPEG when it comes to lossy compression.

Besides, Google have observed 10% improvement in page speed when they moved Youtube thumbnails to WebP.

The advantages of WebP are as follows:

Supports both lossless and lossy compression.

The image file size is largely reduced compared to other image formats.

Supports lossless transparency.

Supports web animation.

But, you might wonder, why it’s not popular among developers yet?

The main reason is behind its browser support. Even though Chrome, Firefox, opera mini, and Edge supported WebP, Safari didn’t support it until recently. With safari support, we can expect rapid adoption of WebP in the coming years.
Hello Web! Your first web application using Spring-Boot.
By: Tabrez Shaikh
Tags: Web App Development, Spring, Java, Spring Boot

Want to get your first Spring Boot Web Application up and running? You have landed just at the right place. This blog is about to teach you how to write your first spring boot web application in a concise manner and short-and-sweet but to-the-point explanation. Lezz go!

Before jumping right into it and starting to write the code, this blog assumes that you are already familiar with the Java programming language and an expert in Spring Boot with 10+ years of professional experience. Just kidding, no prior experience with spring boot is required.

Tools required:

Java Development Kit - download JDK version 11 that is compatible with your operating system and install it with default settings and configurations. For more information on how to add environment variable and path variable watch this video here. Visual Studio Code - download the VS Code editor that is compatible with your operating system and install it in your preferred location. Spring Boot Extension Pack - to work with spring boot applications in VS Code, we need some extensions. Maven - is a project management tool used for building and managing dependencies in our Java project.

If you’re having difficulties in setting up your development environment, then go ahead and read my previous blog where I have given a complete setup guide on how to set your windows laptop up for developing spring boot applications with this link.

All right, assuming you are ready with your development environment with everything set up as expected, we are good to go.

Creating your project:

Open VS Code and make sure that VS Code and all its extensions are running the latest updates. If you are low on internet, the least you could do is update only the spring boot extension pack which will help us creating Maven projects smoothly.
Checklist For An Effective Website Development
By: Basil Eldho
Tags: Web App Development, Web Development, Web Design

What are the most vital needs for website development so as to increase brand awareness as well as to generate more sales leads. Our checklist for an effective website in order of priority given below:

Purpose & Goals

One of the most vital tasks of site-building is to find out the goals of your business website. Defining goals and purpose for your site helps to determine who your target audience is, what their challenges are, what they deem important, etc. Once you know the prime goals of your website, you can effectively organize and prioritize web page content.

Website Design & Navigation

Website design services plays a key role whenever you have online visitors whether you have a great product or service. Providing amazing user experience come through a great choice of design and interface. Ensure that you have great design and navigation and must test it yourself as a user. Besides, invite your family members and friends to test your website design India and make changes based on their experience.

Branding & Identification

Your site must express the value you bring and your unique competitive advantage. The website development company logo is prominently displayed on the header of each page. And the color scheme is compatible with the logo and overall brand. Besides, contact information should be connected to each page of the website.

Legal & Compliance

Do you have in place right terms and conditions of use? Do you collect any personal data via your website and what is it’s use? Does your website development company make use of cookies? Is your Intellectual Property adequately protected? How accessible is your website? These issues should be resolved in a site compliance audit. A copyright notice looks at the bottom of each web page. A permission is acquired for all the pictures used on your website.

Security & Technical

You need to use a secure credit card processing service as well as display the right logo to instill customer confidence. Ensure that all forms have tested and do function properly. Also, resulting in data from sales is stored in good order and easily accessed.

SEO Maximization

Each web page has a unique page title. Web page text also includes many keywords, which improves search engine ranking. You must provide a considerable amount of relevant and valuable content on your web pages for optimal SEO. Also, submit your site regularly to a search engine or use a submission service to do so. You need to determine if your website development company meets the criteria. This will engage your site visitors, and compel them to take action.

For More: https://serville.in
Creating a quiz using Flask-WTF
By: Aditya Chandavale
Tags: Flask, Flask Framework, Flask Wtf, Web App Development, Python

What is Flask-WTF and how to create a quiz in Python

Introduction

Flask is an API in Python that allows us to build up web applications. It depends on the Jinja template and Werkzeug WSGI toolkit.

It was developed by Armin Ronacher. It is simple to understand and easier to learn as it has less code base for implementing a single web application.

Flask-WTF allows integration with WTForms. The API also allows secure forms using CSRF protection, Recaptcha support, and file uploading.

Getting Started With Flask Installation

Flask supports Python 3.6 and newer versions. Following dependencies get installed when installing Flask:

Werkzeug implements WSGI, the standard Python interface between applications and servers.

Jinja is a template language that renders the pages your application serves.

MarkupSafe comes with Jinja. It escapes untrusted input when rendering templates to avoid injection attacks.

ItsDangerous securely signs data to ensure its integrity. This is used to protect Flask’s session cookie.

Click is a framework for writing command-line applications. It provides the flask command and allows adding custom management commands.

To install flask, create an environment using venv(optional) and use the command pip install Flask

Once Flask is installed you can verify the installation using

>> import flask

>> flask.__version__

Install Flask-WTF using the command pip install Flask-WTF

Note: If pip install does not work in this case, you can clone the repository then install using pip

git clone https://github.com/wtforms/flask-wtf

pip install -e ./flask-wtf

Creating a Directory Structure

Now that Flask and Flask-WTF are installed, let's move on to creating a directory structure. Why a directory structure? The answer is simple. As your project keeps getting bigger, it becomes overwhelming to have all files in a single folder. A folder structure allows you to have all files organized and sorted according to their types.

We will follow this structure for this project:
How to build a great app?
By: Anna Husieva
Tags: Apps, Web Development, Web App Development, App Development

If you are involved in web development then you may know about all stages of app building cycle. Every app has its own unique and long journey before a client gets it. The development process starts with the analysis of the idea and similar existing apps, then estimation of the project follows and the planning begins. Only after all those stages the team can proceed with the design and development itself. For more detailed info about the development process, check out our website: https://gbksoft.com/web-development

There is no need to discuss the necessity of mobile apps as they help us and simplify our lives greatly. Your mobile device can store tons of information and perform many actions for you (f.e. find you a convenient route, set an appointment at doctors office, book you a flat, count calories and micro and macro nutrients consumed by you per day). Web apps are required for many businesses too. For example, a decent well-built app can help you attract new customers, automatize certain work processes, boost your popularity, improve the quality of services that your company offers, etc.

Here are some main industries that can benefit from building an app: health and fitness businesses, digital media agencies, small and big businesses, educational institutions, gambling and betting agencies, employment agencies, logistics, travel and booking companies and many more.

Great reliable and highly functional app can be built only if the latest and utmost effective coding technologies are applied. Our team has advanced knowledge and 8+ years of practical experience with JavaScript, PHP, Node.js, Yii2, Angular.js. To provide the fast and high-quality project realization we also have a huge base of necessary modules and pre-made solutions. Since web development is a holistic process it requires the cooperation of many specialists. To create a great app you need a complete team which usually includes developers, designers, project managers, analytics, testers, quality controlling experts. Your app will be a success if a work of all team members is well-coordinated.
How to Create a Secure REST API in Node.js
By: Shaikh N
Tags: Webappdevelopment, Nodejs, Developingmobileapp

After the invention of WWW, several web technologies such as RPC and SOAP were introduced to implement web services.

However, these technologies were using heavy definitions for managing any communication task. That’s the reason why REST was introduced, it provided an architectural style in designing the network-based application along with reducing the complexities.

In this article, I’ll show you how you can build the REST API with the help of Node.js. I’ve chosen Node.js since it has revolutionized servers for the front-end developers across the world. But before we dive deep into it. Let’s see what REST actually is?

What is REST?

In simple words, REST is a design pattern, or and architectural style for APIs. Roy Fielding first coined it in his PhD dissertation in 2000.

A RESTful web application is known for exposing its own information as a form of information which belongs to its resources.

REST also enables its own clients to take actions on resources such as changing an existing resource (edit a post) or create new resource (create a new user).

To make your APIs RESTful, you must follow a set of constraints while writing them. REST’s set of constraints make the APIs easier to use and discover. It means that, the Nodejs developer who has just started to use your APIs will learn it easily and quickly.

Original Source :- How to Create a Secure REST API in Node.js
A Sonnet for your 30th birthday
By: Amrit Juneja
Tags: Life Lessons, Poem, Sonnet, Positivity, Birthday

Happy 30th!

Whether things are good or bad right now doesn’t matter, what matters is that you ought to realise that things will take their own course, while you got to take yours. Twenties are generally spent in chasing certain things and at the same time running away from others. You chase the love of your life, money, professional success and the likes while you are running away from your parents, people you don’t like, the job you hate.

As you mature into your thirties you should realise that there is much more to life than chasing and running, which is literally child’s play. You should learn to stay and focus on your actions, to make things move rather jumping around yourself. I’m not talking about ‘settling in’ or ‘making compromises’. And I’m certainly not suggesting giving up on your dreams or intentionally getting stuck in a location or a job — your ambition, desires and the physical aspect of movement is the essence of being and should never be abandoned. What I am talking about is more control. That you should, by means of your actions, embolden your position to a point where the right opportunities knock at your door, where you don’t feel the pressure to chase anything — be it the right job, the right life partner, the right professional network. Neither should you feel any urgency to run away from whatever bad you’re stuck with. Bad circumstances are like bullies, the more you fear or run away from them, the more they hurt you. You should feel complete within yourself, learn from what you did and didn’t do right in your twenties, and the rest will follow.

Thirty years old: you are either thriving,

Heaving otherwise, barely surviving

Or maybe a cocktail of highs and lows,

Much like a low amplitude sine wave goes.

You’re equipped with three decades of hindsight,

Know when to lose, or choose fight over flight,

Your tool must be familiarity

With your every peculiarity,

What goes well with you, who can gel with you,

What you’d love to versus what you‘ve got to.

Armed with this singular tool you should sculpt

With vigour, and not chase any result.

To seek is our essence, and seek you must,

But what you have is yours, that you should trust.
Life update or whatever
By: Jamie Fu
Tags: Summer, Internships, College, Vacation, NYC

Yes I realize I have been a disappointment

In as few words as possible:

Spring 2021 coursework

6.031 Software Construction :(

14.01 Microeconomics :/

15.401 Managerial Finance :/

18.600 Probability and Random Variables :/?

Harvard PHIL 156 Philosophy of Mind :/?

Spring 2021 everything else

Snow and snowmen

Blueprint 2021 (nice but stressful)

Long weekend trips — Halibut Point State Park, Castle Island, Cape Cod, Boundless Adventures, Walden Pond (and Phillips Andover), Six Flags New England

Running late to both vaccine appointments and now I have two vaccine cards because I forgot to bring mine for my second dose

The MFA Boston (and banh mi after)

Chess, Monopoly Deal, Hearts, Catan, Exploding Kittens

Dying my hair twice then bleaching it to see absolutely nothing happen

oh I turned 20

4 days at home

Hines Park

My brother ignoring me unless we’re playing chess

Summer 2021 NYC

Museum of Natural History and I view dinosaurs next to 3-year-olds

I start work at Bloomberg but it’s like 1.5 weeks of training and then I obtain office access and the office is heavenly and there’s free food and free views and free monitors to use and it’s just very nice in general

The Met and I need to go back because I missed like half of the exhibits including the Egyptian one

We foster a cat (@oooooopsy.daisy)

Times Square is whatever

MoMA and I obtain a pack of 100 postcards for 20 bucks

Chelsea Market and the infamous Los Tacos №1

$$$$ 1 Michelin star restaurant Gramercy Tavern

High Line

Little Island

The Strand in Union Square and I buy Madeline and a book on European philosophers, I spot some chess hustlers, I’m convinced to buy Nature Republic toner because they give me a $7 discount and my favorite Mark Lee is a cardboard cutout in the store

Flushing dim sum

Guggenheim Museum

Hudson Yards: looked at the Vessel and walked inside the Shops

Chinatown noodles

Macy’s fireworks on FDR Drive and a very sus journey home near midnight (rounded out at 15 miles of walking that day)

NY Public Library

A big Bloomingdale’s near my office and a lady inside Coach that pointed at a model’s dress in a promotional video and said “That one, I want that one”

Black Widow at 10:30pm in an AMC

Soho and I buy 3 t-shirts…

And a lot of guests: Vicky, Sanjeev, Tai, Ben, and Amy :)

And more to come…

**Rip my last post lol “in an effort to write” wow rip again as this kicker aptly states I am aware that I am a disappointment and it just can’t be helped.
Geometric Art by Lex Ngo
By: Lex Ngo
Tags: Geometry, Culture, Art, Painting, NYC

Shattered Delusions (2020)

I began painting under the alter ego Lex Ngo in the last couple of months. I’m technically more of a pianist-composer as that is what I’ve done for most of my life. My music (published under my legal name) is available on Spotify here.

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A Bit Rigid (2020)

I recently moved from Atlanta, Georgia to New York City. I trained as a concert pianist during high school at the Indiana University preparatory division and studied on a full-ride academic scholarship at Georgia State University. I love being in NYC and a lot of these paintings are inspired by the freshness of the city.

A Mountain of Triangles (2020)

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A Bit Dated (2020)

Medium in most people’s eyes is not the best online platform to promote artwork. Probably Instagram would make sense. But I think most people using these sites know the dangers of these sites (time consumption, addiction, ect). So I decided to put out my work here on Medium. While I would find reading Euclid’s Elements or a mathematical proof on geometry incredibly boring, I do love seeing how basic shapes can be presented in an artistic fashion.

Stairway (2020)

If you enjoy this kind of artwork, you might also like one of the Spotify playlists I am putting together of some great piano music. It features a wide range of composers and improvisers from around the world including classics like Art Tatum and Bill Evans and Frederic Chopin but also some of today’s up and coming pianists from Asia (Vietnam in particular), Europe, and the USA. Check it out here.

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Broken Keys (2020)

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Map (2020)

My email address is aclaussen@ymail.com.
NYC: Tracking the White Shadow
By: No Proscenium
Tags: Np Newswire, Dance, Art, NYC

NYC: Tracking the White Shadow

When: April 13, 27; May 4, 11

Where: Fou Gallery, 410 Jefferson Ave #1, Brooklyn, New York, NY 11221

Price: $29.75–35; all ages

Tags: #immersivetheatre, #dance, #food, #drink, #art, #MobilityAdvisory (see below)

Event Link

Fou Gallery is pleased to announce the immersive performance Tracking the White Shadow and culinary experience on Saturday afternoons during artist Han Qin’s solo exhibition Ethereal Evolution. In the performance, improvisational dancers perform on pre-coated paper and expose their body movement to light. Performers may also have improvisational creations of their own and respond to their surroundings. The audience will travel through the space as dancers move freely and interact with the paper, and witness the creation of a cyanotype on paper. The performance is also accompanied by a special culinary experience in collaboration with Junzi Kitchen’s chef Lucas Sin.

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Office facilities provided by Thymele Arts, in Los Angeles, CA.

Contact Level: None

Content Advisories: See menu on ticketing site for possible allergens.

Audience members should expect to be standing/walking during the performance. Venue is wheelchair-accessible.
Exploring Residential Noise Complaint Trends in 311 Requests with Python
By: Shen Xin
Tags: Python, Exploratory Data Analysis, Visualization, NYC

What is the annual and monthly trends in the total number of claims in New York City?

Let’s start from counting the number of requests each year. Since 2012, the annual number of claims in New York City is steadily climbing, just after two years of decreasing since 2010. The number peaked in 2018, at 2,747,951 a year, and saw a decrease in 2019. Average daily requests in the last decade ranges from 4,921 in 2012 to 7,528 in 2018.

The monthly chart helps to break down the annual trend and recognize some periodicity. Monthly number of claims is, in general, climbing, but we saw that within each year, the number of requests in each month goes up and down seasonally. It is also apparent that in the second half of the 2019 number of 311 requests dropped significantly.

In general, New Yorkers are filing more and more claims over the last decade.

2. What are some significant types of claims over the last decade?

311 has taken more than 100 types of claims over the years, yet some of them are mutually inclusive and others at some point fell out of use. We define a claim type as significant if it has made to the top 5 most-filed-claims of any year in the past decade. Then we figure out their trends over the years. Some complaint types are duplicate of each other and we sum them up as one single type of complaints. For example Heat and HEAT/HOT WATER as heat_hot_water , Plaster - Paint and PLASTER/PAINT as plaster_paint .

Below is the trends of significant complaint types over the last decade:
How COVID-19 changed Manhattanites’ complaints…and what has not changed
By: Urban Thoughts
Tags: Manhattan, 311, Urban Planning, Complaints, NYC

How COVID-19 changed Manhattanites’ complaints … and what has not changed

COVID-19 will reshape our world. We don’t yet know when the crisis will end. But we can be sure that by the time it does, our world will look very different. -Joseph Borell

As many infectious disease experts working on COVID-19 warn that the outbreak could have a historically unprecedented impact on life across the globe, we are going through a lot of changes in our daily lives.

In this unprecedented situation, how are New Yorkers adapting to their daily lives? Are there any differences?

Our attention was caught by one dataset in particular: 311 Service Request in NYC from 2010 to Present. 311 is a special telephone number that people can call to access non-emergency government services, a sort of 911 without the life-and-death factor. Originally implemented with a call center, it has evolved over the years with technology: you can now submit a request via website or mobile app in a few seconds. You can also follow the status of the request until it is closed.

Here are some interesting facts about 311 data of Manhattan from 2019 to 2020.
How to Find Servers for Hire on Short Notice in NYC
By: Julia Valler
Tags: Professional Bartenders, Wait Staff, Banquet Servers, NYC

How to Find Servers for Hire on Short Notice in NYC Julia Valler Aug 27·2 min read

The overall outcome of an event mainly depends on the quality of service. For everything to go as planned, it is necessary to prepare the room, set the tables correctly, and ensure that meals are served on time. These details are finalized by qualified servers. The experienced server commands a presence and this presence is acknowledged by guests. An experienced server swiftly clears tables, serves snacks effortlessly, and makes sure guest glasses are replenished in a timely manner. The professionalism of the servers for hire sets the mood for the event. If you are in NYC and you are planning an event, hiring bartenders, waitresses, and catering staff would be your initial step to ensuring your event runs smoothly.

Why do you need us?

The process of organizing events is extensive, requires multiple skills, and is time-consuming. You have to deal with the vast selection of additional professional staff. This entails new responsibilities such as interviewing, casting, and briefing arrangements. Therefore, many companies prefer to outsource the search for temporary staff to organizations specializing in servers for hire. Julia Valler Event Staffing is an agency that specializes in this type of service and during a short period of time became one of the best banquet server temp agencies. Our agency is known for being one of the event staffing agencies in NYC.

What servers do:

Detailed and Comprehensive help. Coordination of Servers for hospitality and staffing events in NYC at presentations and other events can be done on-site. Model staffing in NYC specializing in welcoming and treating guests at various events.

Coordination. Staff for events can coordinate product distribution, accomplish guest presentation, and design exhibition areas. Experienced professionals will help you create the right atmosphere.

Execution of orders. At a meeting or presentation, there is a need to bring inventory in a timely manner, organize reception of clients, and answer phone calls. For these tasks, you can request staff with experience in a specific area.

An outstanding server represents the following:

Prioritize the client;

Polished appearance;

Polite and skilled communicator;

Serviceable.

Julia Valler Event Staffing provides you with model servers for events that require a high level of service.

What we offer:

We offer a carefully selected team which includes bartending, catering, waitress services, wait staff for hire, wedding servers, etc. We employ qualified, highly experienced specialists with professional skills.

Contact us for your server for hire needs and your guests will leave having experienced a high-level staff event.
Movement Research at The Judson Church January 21, 2019
Tags: Judson Church, Dance, Movement Research, NYC

Tyler Rai, Yunkyung Hur¹¹, Jānis Putninš/Eva Kronberga^

glacial erratics/for laurentide

choreographer/director: Tyler Rai

performers: Leonid Galaganov, Sarah Lass, and Tyler Rai

music/composition: Leonid Galaganov (live), Aly Gear

costume: Tyler Rai with consultation from Anya Klepacki, indigo dye by codo ceramics + textiles

A special thanks to Emily Climer and Aaron Rourk for being critical components of this work’s evolution, to everyone who has supported past showings of this work, including my mother Jacey Raimondo, and to the Laurentide ice sheet, for its mighty will.

“Theatre of Miniature Spaces”

choreographed and performed by Yunkyung Hur¹¹

music composed by Kanghee Choi

With accumulated history of contact with space, body itself becomes a map that stores memories and information of different spaces. Or, let’s use it as a map. A moving body exists as a void or surface where temporary maps can be constantly drawn on, accumulated or erased. How does that shape the movement of here and now? Can space be projected on to body, as the body is projected on to space?

“LET ME GET ME” idea for work in progress

Choreographers & performers: Eva Kronberga and Jānis Putninš^

MUSIC: Andris Jeziks — Stop, Inese Berzina — Just Two Of Us, and Imlars Sterns — sketch 01 intro

Stillness to rush and noise to silence. This performance is experiment and movement research about states of body and mind saying yes and no at the same time, to share urges of understanding, exploring, and claiming rights of truth and being. Attempt to destroy patterns of artificial state of knowing and replicating the same thinking again and again. Energy interactions through dance.

¹¹MRX/Korea in partnership with Seoul Dance Center, Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture

^MR/GPS (Global Practice Sharing) in partnership with the Latvian Dance Information Center