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https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.09278

Evidence of an exponential speed-up in the solution of hard optimization problems

Traversa; Fabio L; Cicotti; Pietro; Sheldon; Forrest; Di Ventra; Massimiliano

# Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence [Submitted on 23 Oct 2017] # Title:Evidence of an exponential speed-up in the solution of hard optimization problems View PDFAbstract:Optimization problems pervade essentially every scientific discipline and industry. Many such problems require finding a solution that maximizes the number of constraints satisfied. Often, these problems are particularly difficult to solve because they belong to the NP-hard class, namely algorithms that always find a solution in polynomial time are not known. Over the past decades, research has focused on developing heuristic approaches that attempt to find an approximation to the solution. However, despite numerous research efforts, in many cases even approximations to the optimal solution are hard to find, as the computational time for further refining a candidate solution grows exponentially with input size. Here, we show a non-combinatorial approach to hard optimization problems that achieves an exponential speed-up and finds better approximations than the current state-of-the-art. First, we map the optimization problem into a boolean circuit made of specially designed, self-organizing logic gates, which can be built with (non-quantum) electronic components; the equilibrium points of the circuit represent the approximation to the problem at hand. Then, we solve its associated non-linear ordinary differential equations numerically, towards the equilibrium points. We demonstrate this exponential gain by comparing a sequential MatLab implementation of our solver with the winners of the 2016 Max-SAT competition on a variety of hard optimization instances. We show empirical evidence that our solver scales linearly with the size of the problem, both in time and memory, and argue that this property derives from the collective behavior of the simulated physical circuit. Our approach can be applied to other types of optimization problems and the results presented here have far-reaching consequences in many fields. ## Submission history From: Fabio Lorenzo Traversa Ph.D. [view email]**[v1]**Mon, 23 Oct 2017 06:23:09 UTC (366 KB) # Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer *(What is the Explorer?)* Litmaps *(What is Litmaps?)* scite Smart Citations *(What are Smart Citations?)*# Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers *(What is CatalyzeX?)* DagsHub *(What is DagsHub?)* Gotit.pub *(What is GotitPub?)* Papers with Code *(What is Papers with Code?)* ScienceCast *(What is ScienceCast?)*# Demos # Recommenders and Search Tools Influence Flower *(What are Influence Flowers?)* Connected Papers *(What is Connected Papers?)* CORE Recommender *(What is CORE?)*# arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? **Learn more about arXivLabs**.

Optimization problems pervade essentially every scientific discipline and industry. Many such problems require finding a solution that maximizes the number of constraints satisfied. Often, these problems are particularly difficult to solve because they belong to the NP-hard class, namely algorithms that always find a solution in polynomial time are not known. Over the past decades, research has focused on developing heuristic approaches that attempt to find an approximation to the solution. However, despite numerous research efforts, in many cases even approximations to the optimal solution are hard to find, as the computational time for further refining a candidate solution grows exponentially with input size. Here, we show a non-combinatorial approach to hard optimization problems that achieves an exponential speed-up and finds better approximations than the current state-of-the-art. First, we map the optimization problem into a boolean circuit made of specially designed, self-organizing logic gates, which can be built with (non-quantum) electronic components; the equilibrium points of the circuit represent the approximation to the problem at hand. Then, we solve its associated non-linear ordinary differential equations numerically, towards the equilibrium points. We demonstrate this exponential gain by comparing a sequential MatLab implementation of our solver with the winners of the 2016 Max-SAT competition on a variety of hard optimization instances. We show empirical evidence that our solver scales linearly with the size of the problem, both in time and memory, and argue that this property derives from the collective behavior of the simulated physical circuit. Our approach can be applied to other types of optimization problems and the results presented here have far-reaching consequences in many fields.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2017-10-23 00:00:00

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website

arxiv.org

arXiv.org

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601487/qa-john-chambers/?set=601680

Q&A: John Chambers

Jason Pontin

# Q&A: John Chambers Cisco Systems designs, makes, and sells the routers, switches, and other networking equipment with which businesses connect their computers, manage data centers, and access the Internet. Since its founding in 1983 as a maker of multiprotocol routers, it has survived every market change through aggressive acquisition, sometimes of competing technologies. John Chambers, who led much of Cisco’s growth, retired as CEO in 2015, after 20 years, but continues to serve as executive chairman. Jason Pontin, *MIT Technology Review’*s editor in chief, spoke to Chambers in India, where he was conferring with Narendra Modi about the prime minister’s campaign to bring Internet access and services to the country’s vast population. **What are the challenges in giving online access to nearly everyone in the world?** The number one objective is that people who make the investment in digitization, whether they are governments or service providers, get a reasonable return. Some programs have not moved as aggressively as I would like, like in the United States. Others are very aggressive, like India’s. The numbers in Andhra Pradesh are just amazing. They think they can bring 10 to 15 megabytes to the home for $2.50 per month. That’s a magical number in terms of local family income, because anything below 2 percent per capita income is when you really get broad penetration. If it’s successful, India will be a model for other countries to follow. **How important is the industrial Internet —the Internet of things—to Cisco’s future?** Extremely important. It’s connectivity that really makes the industrial Internet work: it’s giving the right information at the right time to the right person or right machine to make the right decision. That decision can be on the manufacturing shop floor. It can be in a supply chain. It can be in the retail store to your customer. It can be in how you service that product remotely, either in a home or a mining site. **Aren’t you a little concerned about the security of these devices?** Organized crime and rogue nation states and terrorists are very much focused on the Internet of things. The challenge that goes with connectivity is always security. The bad guys go wherever the return is, and now it’s more lucrative for bad guys to focus on cybercrime than traditional crime. Japan had 54 billion cyberattacks and issues last year, up 100 percent over the prior year. **Edward Snowden showed that the NSA intercepted Cisco equipment and installed backdoors. You complained that the NSA had undermined trust in U.S. tech companies. Do you see evidence that any standards of conduct on government surveillance will be approved?** It’s taking longer than all of us, including government leaders, would like. But I think the discussion between the president of China and the president of the U.S. was constructive. They are making reasonable progress on corporate espionage by coming together with what we call rules of the road. Governments will always spy on each other; that’s been going on from the very beginning of time. For that, you want rules for acceptable, legal intercept, which has to be done by court order. But in terms of corporate espionage, we need conduct that people can count on. **Was Apple right to refuse the FBI’s demand to unlock the San Bernardino gunman’s iPhone?** Once you put in backdoors, once you allow a government to intercept anything they want, you have to give it to other governments around the world. Once you do that, there is no privacy, there is no security, there is no protection for democracy. So be very careful what you wish for: you might get it. And that’s why I think Tim Cook was courageous to say “There’s got to be a better way,” because doing carte blanche was not going to be acceptable. **You’re still an active chairman, but when you look back on your tenure as CEO, what was your biggest success?** The people and the culture we built at Cisco. At Cisco we are able reinvent ourselves every three to five years. We can do innovation at a speed that our peers over time have not kept up with, and that’s why we have no competitors from 15 years ago. We encourage a healthy paranoia. **How much risk is acceptable in managing market transitions?** The penalty for missing them is much more than the risk of going after them aggressively. **Between Trump and Clinton, who has the better technology policies?** If you’re asking, “How do you give middle-class America a pay raise? How do you create opportunities? How do you make the country more competitive on a global basis in a way that allows everybody to benefit? How do you change health care and education?”—well, those questions are all about a digital agenda, and yet I’ve not heard a single candidate articulate a vision on that. ### Keep Reading ### Most Popular ### Happy birthday, baby! What the future holds for those born today An intelligent digital agent could be a companion for life—and other predictions for the next 125 years. ### This researcher wants to replace your brain, little by little The US government just hired a researcher who thinks we can beat aging with fresh cloned bodies and brain updates. ### How to break free of Spotify’s algorithm By delivering what people seem to want, has Spotify killed the joy of music discovery? ### Stay connected ## Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

The executive chairman of Cisco has become a Silicon Valley statesman, whether he’s promoting the expansion of digital networks or calling for limits on government surveillance.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2016-06-14 00:00:00

article

technologyreview.com

MIT Technology Review

http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2011-10.html#e2011-10-27T18_44_41.htm

Knowing and Doing

I occasionally read or hear someone say, "X is a pretty good Lisp", where X is a programming language. Usually, it's a newish language that is more powerful than the languages many of us learned in school. For a good example, see Why Ruby is an acceptable LISP. A more recent article, Ruby is beautiful (but I'm moving to Python) doesn't go quite that far. It says only "almost": Ruby does not revel in structures or minutiae. It is flexible. And powerful. It really almost is a Lisp. First, let me say that I like both of these posts. They tell us about how we can do functional programming in Ruby, especially through its support for higher-order functions. As a result, I have found both posts to be useful reading for students. And, of course, I love Ruby, and like Python well enough. But that's not all there is to Lisp. It's probably not even the most important thing. Kenny Tilton tells a story about John McCarthy's one-question rebuttal to such claims at the very end of his testimonial on adopting Lisp, Ooh! Ooh! My turn! Why Lisp?: ... [McCarthy] simply asked if Python could gracefully manipulate Python code as data. "No, John, it can't," said Peter [Norvig] and nothing more... That's the key: data == program. It really is the Big Idea that sets Lisp apart from the other programming languages we use. I've never been a 100% full-time Lisper, and as a result I don't think I fully appreciate the full power to which Lisp programmers put this language feature. But I've programmed enough with and without macros to be able to glimpse what they see in the ability to gracefully manipulate their code -- all code -- as data. In the "acceptable Lisp" article linked above, Kidd does address this shortcoming and says that "Ruby gives you about 80% of what you want from macros". Ruby's rather diverse syntax lets us create readable DSLs such as Treetop and Rake, which is one of the big wins that Lisp and Scheme macros give us. In this sense, Ruby code can feel generative, much as macros do. Unfortunately, Ruby, Python, and other "pretty good Lisps" miss out on the other side of the code-as-data equation, the side McCarthy drew out in his question: manipulation. Ruby syntax is too irregular to generate "by hand" or to read and manipulate gracefully. We can fake it, of course, but to a Lisp programmer it always feels fake. I think what most people mean when they say a language is a pretty good Lisp is that it can be used as a pretty good functional programming language. But Lisp is not only an FP language. Many would claim it is not even *primarily* a functional programming language. I love Ruby. But it's not a pretty good Lisp. It is a fine programming languages, perhaps my favorite these days, with strengths that take it beyond the system programming languages that most of us cut our teeth on. Among those strengths are excellent support for a functional programming style. It also has its weaknesses, like every other programming language. Neither is Python a pretty good Lisp. Nor is most anything else, for that matter. That's okay. All I ask is this: When you are reading articles like the ones linked above, don't dismiss every comment you see that says, "No, it's not, and here's why" as the ranting of a smug Lisp weenie. It may be a rant, and it may be written by a smug Lisp weenie. But it may instead be written by a perfectly sane programmer who is trying to teach you that there is more to Lisp than higher-order functions, and that the more you've missed is a whole lot more. We can learn from some of those comments, and think about how to make our programming languages even better. *And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.* I spent the entire day teaching and preparing to teach, including writing some very satisfying code. It was a way to spend a birthday. With so much attention devoted to watching my students learn, I found myself thinking consciously about my teaching and also about some learning I have been doing lately, including remembering how to write idiomatic Ruby. Many of my students really want to be able to write solid, idiomatic Scheme programs to process little languages. I see them struggle with the gap between their desire and their ability. It brought to mind something poet Mary Jo Bang said in recent interview about her long effort to become a good writer: For a long time the desire to write and knowing how to write well remained two separate things. I recognized good writing when I saw it but I didn't know how to create it. I do all I can to give students examples of good programs from which they can learn, and also to help them with the process of good programming. In the end, the only way to close the gap is to write a lot of code. Writing deliberately and reflectively can shorten the path. Bang sees the same in her students: Industriousness can compensate for a lot. And industry plus imagination is a very promising combination. Hard work is the one variable we all control while learning something new. Some of us are blessed with more natural capacity to imagine, but I think we can stretch our imaginations with practice. Some CS students think that they are learning to "engineer" software, a cold, calculating process. But imagination plays a huge role in understanding difficult problems, abstract problems. Together, industry and time eventually close the gap between desire and ability: And I saw how, if you steadily worked at something, what you don't know gradually erodes and what you do know slowly grows and at some point you've gained a degree of mastery. What you know becomes what you are. You know photography and you are a photographer. You know writing and you are a writer. ... You know programming, and you are a programmer. Erosion and growth can be slow processes. As time passes, we sometimes find our learning accelerates, a sort of negative splits for mental exercise. We work hardest when we are passionate about what we do. It's hard for homework assigned in school to arouse passion, but many of us professors do what we can. The best way to have passion is to pick the thing *you* want to do. Many of my best students have had a passion for something and then found ways to focus their energies on assigned work in the interest of learning the skills and gaining the experience they need to fulfill their passion. One last passage from Bang captures perfectly for me what educators should strive to make "school": It was the perfect place to cultivate an obsession that has lasted until the present. As a teacher, I see a large gap between my desire to create the perfect place to cultivate an obsession and my ability to deliver. For, now the desire and the ability remain two separate things. I recognize good learning experiences when I see them, and occasionally I stumble into creating one, but I don't yet know how to create them reliably. Hard work and imagination... I'll keep at it. If this isn't nice, I don't know what is. It's been a tough couple of weeks for the computer science community. First we lost Steve Jobs, then Dennis Ritchie. Now word comes that John McCarthy, the creator of Lisp, died late Sunday night at the age of 84. I'm teaching Programming Languages this semester based on the idea of implementing small language interpreters, and we are using Scheme. McCarthy's ideas and language are at the heart of what my students and I are doing every day. Scheme is a Lisp, so McCarthy is its grandfather. Lisp is different from just about every other programming language. It's not just the parentheses, which are only syntax. In Lisp and Scheme, programs and data are the same. To be more specific, the representation of a Lisp program is the the same representation used to represent Lisp data. The equivalence of data and program is one of the truly Big Ideas of computer science, one which I wrote about in Basic Concepts: The Unity of Data and Program. This idea is crucial to many areas of computer science, even ones in which programmers do not take direct advantage of it through their programming language. We also owe McCarthy for the idea that we can write a language interpreter *in the language being interpreted*. Actually, McCarthy did more: he stated the features of Lisp in terms of the language features themselves. Such a program defines the language in which the program is written. This is the idea of meta-circular interpreter, in which two procedures: Last week, the CS world lost Dennis Ritchie, the creator of the C programming language. By all accounts I've read and heard, McCarthy and Ritchie were very different kinds of people. Ritchie was an engineer through and through, while McCarthy was an academic's academic. So, too, are the languages they created very different. Yet they are without question the two most influential programming languages ever created. One taught us about simplicity and made programming across multiple platforms practical and efficient; the other taught us about simplicity made programming a matter of expressiveness and concision. Though McCarthy created Lisp, he did not implement the first Lisp interpreter. As Paul Graham relates in Revenge of the Nerds, McCarthy first developed Lisp as a theoretical exercise, an attempt to create an alternative to the Turing Machine. Steve Russell, one of McCarthy's grad students, suggested that he could implement the theory in an IBM 704 machine language program. McCarthy laughed and told him, "You're confusing theory with practice..." Russell did it any way. (Thanks to Russell and the IBM 704, we also have `car` and `cdr`!) McCarthy and Russell soon discovered that Lisp was more powerful than the language they had planned to build after their theoretical exercise, and the history of computing was forever changed. If you'd like, take a look at my Scheme implementation of John McCarthy's Lisp written in Lisp. It is remarkable how much can be built out of so little. Alan Kay has often compared this interpreter to Maxwell's equations in physics. To me, its parts usually feel like the basic particles out of which all matter is built. Out of these few primitives, all programs are built. I first learned of McCarthy not from Lisp but from my first love, AI. McCarthy coined the term "Artificial Intelligence" when organizing (along with Minsky, Rochester, and Shannon) the 1956 Dartmouth conference that gave birth to the field. I studied McCarthy's work in AI using the language he had created. To me, he was a giant of AI long before I recognized that he was giant of programming languages, too. Like many pioneers of our field, he laid the groundwork in many subdisciplines. They had no choice; they had to build their work out of ideas using only the rawest materials. McCarthy is even credited with the first public descriptions of time-sharing systems and what we now call cloud computing. (For McCarthy's 1970-era predictions about home computers and the cloud, see his The Home Information Terminal, reprinted in 2000.) Our discipline has lost a giant. A few years ago, I heard a deacon give a rather compelling talk to a group of college students on campus. When confronted with a recommended way to live or act, students will often say that living or acting that way is hard. These same students are frustrated with the people who recommend that way of living or acting, because the recommenders -- often their parents or teachers -- act as if it is easy to live or act that way. The deacon told the students that their parents and teachers don't think it is easy, but they might well think it is simple. How can this be? The students were confounding "simple" and "easy". A lot of times, life is simple, because we know what we should do. But that does not make life easy, because doing a simple thing may be quite difficult. This made an impression on me, because I recognized that conflict in my own life. Often, I know just what to do. That part is simple. Yet I don't really want to do it. To do it requires sacrifice or pain, at least in the short term. To do it means not doing something else, and I am not ready or willing to forego that something. That part is difficult. Switch the verb from "do" to "be", and the conflict becomes even harder to reconcile. I may know what I want to **be**. However, the gap between who I am and who I want to be may be quite large. Do I really want to do what it takes to get there? There may be a lot of steps to take which individually are difficult. The knowing is simple, but the doing is hard. This gap surely faces college students, too, whether it means wanting to get better grades, wanting to live a healthier life, or wanting to reach a specific ambitious goal. When I heard the deacon's story, I immediately thought of some of my friends, who like very much the idea of being a "writer" or a "programmer", but they don't really want to do the hard work that is writing or programming. Too much work, too much disappointment. I thought of myself, too. We all face this conflict in all aspects of life, not just as it relates to personal choices and values. I see it in my teaching and learning. I see it in building software. I thought of this old story today when I watched Rich Hickey's talk from StrangeLoop 2011, Simple Made Easy. I had put off watching this for a few days, after tiring of a big fuss that blew up a few weeks ago over Hickey's purported views about agile software development techniques. I knew, though, that the dust-up was about more than just Hickey's talk, and several of my friends recommended it strongly. So today I watched. I'm glad I did; it is a good talk. I recommend it to you! Based only on what I heard in this talk, I would guess that Hickey misunderstands the key ideas behind XP's practices of test-driven development and refactoring. But this could well be a product of how some agilistas talk about them. Proponents of agile and XP need to be careful not to imply that tests and refactoring make change or any other part of software development easy. They don't. The programmer still has to understand the domain and be able to think deeply about the code. Fortunately, I don't base what I think about XP practices on what other people think, even if they are people I admire for other reasons. And if you can skip or ignore any references Hickey makes to "tests as guard rails" or to statements that imply refactoring is debugging, I think you will find this really is a very good talk. Hickey's important point is that simple/complex and easy/hard are *different dimensions*. Simplicity should be our goal when writing code, not complexity. Doing something that is hard should be our goal when it makes us better, especially when it makes us better able to create simplicity. Simplicity and complexity are about the interconnectedness of a system. In this dimension, we can imagine objective measures. Ease and difficulty are about what is most readily at hand, what is most familiar. Defined as they are in terms of a person's experience or environment, this dimension is almost entirely subjective. And that is good because, as Hickey says a couple of times in the talk, "You can solve the familiarity problem for yourself." We are not limited to our previous experience or our current environment; we can take on a difficult challenge and grow. Alan Kay often talks about how it is worth learning to play a musical instrument, even though playing is difficult, at least at the start. Without that skill, we are limited in our ability to "make music" to turning on the radio or firing up YouTube. With it, you are able *make* music. Likewise riding a bicycle versus walking, or learning to fly an airplane versus learning to drive a car. None of these skills is necessarily difficult once we learn them, and they enable new kinds of behaviors that can be simple or complex in their own right. One of the things I try to help my students see is the value in learning a new, seemingly more difficult language: it empowers us to think new and different thoughts. Likewise making the move from imperative procedural style to OOP or to functional programming. Doing so stretches us. We think and program differently afterward. A bonus is that something that seemed difficult before is now less daunting. We are able to work more effectively in a bigger world. In retrospect, what Hickey says about simplicity and complexity is actually quite compatible with the key principles of XP and other agile methods. Writing tests is a part of how we create systems that are as simple as we can in the local neighborhood of a new feature. Tests can also help us to recognize complexity as it seeps into our program, though they are not enough by themselves to help us see complexity. Refactoring is an essential part of how we eliminate complexity by improving design globally. Refactoring in the presence of unit tests does not make programming easy. It doesn't replace thinking about design; indeed, it **is** thinking about design. Unit tests and refactoring do help us to grapple with complexity in our code. Also in retrospect, I gotta make sure I get down to St. Louis for StrangeLoop 2012. I missed the energy this year. This morning, John Cook posted a blog entry on the leading digits of factorials and how, despite what might be our intuition, they follow Benford's Law. He whipped up some Python code and showed the results of his run for factorials up to 500. I have linked to his graphic at the right. As I am , I decided to whip up a quick Scheme version of Cook's experiment. He mentioned some implementation issues involving the sizes of integers and floating-point numbers in Python, and I wondered how well Scheme would fare. For my first attempt, I did the simplest thing that would possibly work. I already had a tail-recursive `factorial` function and so wrote a procedure that would call it *n* times and record the first digit of each: (define benford-factorials (lambda (n) (let ((counts (make-vector 10 0))) (letrec ((foreach (lambda (n) (if (zero? n) counts (let ((lead-digit (first-digit (factorial n)))) (vector-set! counts lead-digit (+ 1 (vector-ref counts lead-digit))) (foreach (- n 1))))))) (foreach n))))) This gets the answers for us: > (benford-factorials 500) #(0 148 93 67 38 34 43 24 28 25) Of course, it is wildly inefficient. My naive implementation computes and acts on each factorial independently, which means that it recomputes (*n*-1)!, (*n*-2)!, ... for each value less than *n*. As a result, `benford-factorials` becomes unnecessarily sluggish for even relatively small values of *n*. How can I do better? I decided to create a new factorial function, one that caches the smaller factorials it creates on the way to *n*!. I call it `all-factorials-up-to`: (define all-factorials-up-to (lambda (n) (letrec ((aps (lambda (i acc) (if (> i n) acc (aps (+ i 1) (cons (* i (car acc)) acc)))))) (aps 2 '(1))))) Now, `benford-factorials` can use a more functional approach: map `first-digit` over the list of factorials, and then map a count incrementer over the list of first digits. (define benford-factorials (lambda (n) (let ((counts (make-vector 10 0)) (first-digits (map first-digit (all-factorials-up-to n)))) (map (lambda (digit) (vector-set! counts digit (+ 1 (vector-ref counts digit)))) first-digits) counts))) (We can, of course, do without the temporary variable `first-digit` by dropping the first `map` right into the second. I often create an explaining temporary variable such as this one to make my code easier for me to write and read.) How does this one perform? It gets the right answers and runs more comfortably on larger *n*: > (benford-factorials 500) #(0 148 93 67 38 34 43 24 28 25) > (benford-factorials 1000) #(0 293 176 124 102 69 87 51 51 47) > (benford-factorials 2000) #(0 591 335 250 204 161 156 107 102 94) > (benford-factorials 3000) #(0 901 515 361 301 244 233 163 147 135) > (benford-factorials 4000) #(0 1192 707 482 389 311 316 227 201 175) > (benford-factorials 5000) #(0 1491 892 605 477 396 387 282 255 215) This procedure begins to be sluggish for *n* ≥ 3000 on my iMac. Cook's graph shows how closely the predictions of Benford's Law fit for factorials up to 500. How well do the actual counts match the predicted values for the larger sets of factorials? Here is a comparison for *n* = 3000, 4000, and 5000: n = 3000 digit 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 actual 901 515 361 301 244 233 163 147 135 predicted 903 528 375 291 238 201 174 153 137 n = 4000 digit 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 actual 1192 707 482 389 311 316 227 201 175 predicted 1204 704 500 388 317 268 232 205 183 n = 5000 digit 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 actual 1491 892 605 477 396 387 282 255 215 predicted 1505 880 625 485 396 335 290 256 229 That looks pretty close to the naked eye. I've always found Benford's Law to be almost magic, even though mathematicians can give a reasonable account of why it holds. Seeing it work so well with something seemingly as arbitrary as factorials only reinforces my sense of wonder. If you would like play with these ideas, feel free to start with my Scheme code. It has everything you need to replicate my results above. If you improve on my code or take it farther, please let me know! I recently ran across Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed, based on the author's experience working as an entrepreneur in the education sector. He admits upfront that he isn't offering objective data to support his conclusions, so we should take them with a grain of salt. Still, I found his ideas interesting. Here is the take-home point in sentences: Most entrepreneurs in education build the wrong type of business, because entrepreneurs think of education as a quality problem. The average person thinks of it as a cost problem. That disconnect creates a disconnect between the expectations of sellers and buyers, which ends up hurting, even killing, most education start-ups. The old AI guy in me latched on to this paragraph: Interestingly, in the US, the people who are most willing to try new things are the poor and uneducated because they have a similar incentive structure to a person in rural India. Their default state is "screwed." If a poor person doesn't do something dramatic, they are going to stay screwed. Many parents and teachers in these communities understand this. So the communities are often willing to try new, experimental things -- online education, charter schools, longer school days, no summer vacation, co-op programs -- even if they may not work. Why? Because their students default state is "screwed", and they need something dramatically better. Doing something significantly higher quality is the only way to overcome the inertia of already being screwed. The affordable, but poor quality approaches just aren't good enough. These communities are on the hunt for dramatically better approaches and willing to try new things. I've seen other discussions of the economic behavior of people in the lowest socioeconomic categories that fit this model. Among them were the consumption of lottery tickets in lieu of saving, and more generally the trade-off between savings and consumption. If a small improvement won't help a people much, then it seems they are more likely willing to gamble on big improvements or to simply enjoy short-term rewards of spending. This mindset immediately brought to mind the AI search technique known as hill climbing. When you know you are on a local maximum that is significantly lower than the global maximum, you are willing to take big steps in search of a better hill to climb, even if that weakens your position in the short-term. Baby steps won't get you there. This is a small example of unexpected computational thinking in the real world. Psychologically, it seems, that we are often hill climbers. I recently passed this classic by Reg Braithwaite to a grad student who is reading in the areas of functional programming and Ruby. I love how Braithwaite prefaces the technical content of the entry with an exhortation to learners: ... to obtain the deepest benefit from learning a new language, you must learn to think in the new language, not just learn to translate your favourite programming language syntax and idioms into it. The more different the thing you are learning from what you already know, the more important this advice. You are already good at solving the problems your current languages solve well! And worse, when a new tool is applied to a problem you think you know well, you will probably dismiss the things the new tool does well. Look at how many people dismiss brevity of code. Note that all of the people ignore the statistics about the constant ratio between bugs and lines of code use verbose languages. Look at how many people dismiss continuation-based servers as a design approach. Note that all of them use programming languages bereft of control flow abstractions. This is great advice for people trying to learn functional programming, which is all the rage these days. Many people come to a language like Scheme, find it lacking for the problems they have been solving in Python, C, and Java, and assume something is wrong with Scheme, or with functional programming more generally. It's easy to forget that the languages you know and the problems you solve are usually connected in a variety of ways, not the least of which for university students is that we teach them to solve problems most easily solved by the languages we teach them! If you keep working on the problems your current language solves well, then you miss out on the strengths of something different. You need to stretch not only your skill set but also your *imagination*. If you buy this argument, schedule some time to work through Braithwaite's derivation of the Y combinator in Ruby. It will, as my daughter likes to say, make your brain hurt. That's a good thing. Just like with physical exercise, sometimes we need to stretch our minds, and make them hurt a bit, on the way to making them stronger. *TL;DR version*: Yes. Yesterday, I retweeted a message that is a common theme here: Teaching students how to operate software, but not produce software, is like teaching kids to read & not write. (via @KevlinHenney) It got a lot more action than my usual fare, both retweets and replies. Who knew? One of the common responses questioned the analogy by making another, usually of this sort: Yeah, that would be like teaching kids how to drive a car, but not build a car. Oh, wait... This is a sounds like a reasonable comparison. A car is a tool. A computer is a tool. We use tools to perform tasks we value. We do not always want to make our own tools. But this analogy misses out on the most important feature of computation. People don't make many things with their cars. People make things with a computer. When people speak of "using a computer", they usually mean using software that runs on a computer: a web browser, a word processor, a spreadsheet program. And people use many of these tools to make things. As soon as we move into the realm of creation, we start to bump into limits. What if the tool we are given doesn't allow us to say or do what we want? Consider the spreadsheet, a general data management tool. Some people use it simply as a formatted data entry tool, but it is more. Every spreadsheet program gives us a formula language for going beyond what the creators of Excel or Numbers imagined. But what about the rest of our tools? Must we limit what we say to what our tool affords us -- to what our *tool builders* afford us? A computer is not *just* a tool. It is also a **medium of expression**, and an increasingly important one. If you think of programming as C or Java, then the idea of teaching everyone to program may seem silly. Even I am not willing to make that case here. But *there are different kinds of programming*. Even professional programmers write code at many levels of abstraction, from assembly language to the highest high-level language. Non-programmers such as physicists and economists use scripting languages like Python. Kids of all ages are learning to program Scratch. Scratch is a good example of what I was thinking when I retweeted. Scratch is programming. But Scratch is really **a way to tell stories**. Just like writing and speaking. Alfred Thompson summed up this viewpoint succinctly: [S]tudents need to be creators and not just consumers. Kids today understand this without question. They want to make video mash-ups and interactive web pages and cutting-edge presentations. They need to know that they can do more than just use the tools we deign to give them. One respondent wrote: As society evolves there is an increasing gap between those that use technology and those that can create technology. Whilst this is a concern, it's not the lowest common denominator for communication: speaking, reading and writing. The first sentence is certainly true. The question for me is: on which side of this technology divide does computing live? If you think of computation as "just" technology, then the second sentence seems perfectly reasonable. People use Office to do their jobs. It's "just a tool". It could, however, be a *better* tool. Many scientists and business people write small scripts or programs to support their work. Many others could, too, if they had the skills. What about teachers? Many routine tasks could be automated in order to give them more time to do what they do best, teach. We can write software packages for them, but then we limit them to being consumers of what we provide. They could create, too. Is computing "just tech", or more? Most of the world acts like it is the former. The result is, indeed, an ever increasing gap between the haves and the have nots. Actually, the gap is between the **can dos** and the **cannots**. I, and many others, think computation is more than simply a tool. In the wake of Steve Jobs's death last week, many people posted his famous quote that computing is a liberal art. Alan Kay, one of my inspirations, has long preached that computing is a new medium on the order of reading and writing. The list of people in the trenches working to make this happen is too numerous to include. More practically, software and computer technology are the basis of much innovation these days. If we teach the new medium to only a few, the "5 percent of the population over in the corner" to whom Jobs refers, we exclude the other 95% from participating fully in the economy. That restricts economic growth and hurts everyone. It is also not humane, because it restricts people's personal growth. Everyone has a right to the keys to the kingdom. I stand in solidarity with the original tweeter and retweeter. Teaching students how to operate software, but not produce software, is like teaching kids to read but not to write. We can do better. Earlier today, @johndmitchell retweeted a link from Tara "Miss Rogue" Hunt: RT @missrogue: My presentation from this morning at #ennovation: The 10 Mistakes I've made...so you don't have to http://t.co/QE0DzF9tw I liked the title and so followed the link to the slide deck. The talk includes a few good quotes and communicates some solid experience on how to fail as a start-up, and also how to succeed. I was glad to have read. The title notwithstanding, though, be prepared. Other people making mistakes will not -- cannot -- save you from making the same mistakes. You'll have to make them yourself. There are certain kinds of mistakes that don't need to be made again, but that happens when we eliminate an entire class of problems. As a programmer, I mostly don't have to re-make the mistakes my forebears made when writing code in assembly. They learned from their mistakes and *made tools* that shield me from the problems I faced. Now, I write code in a higher-level language and let the tools implement the right solution for me. Of course, that means I face a new class of problems, or an old class of problems in a new way. So I make new kinds of mistakes. In the case of assembly and compilers, I am more comfortable working at that level and am thus glad to have been shielded from those old error traps, by the pioneers who preceded me. Starting a start up isn't the sort of problem we are able to bypass so easily. Collectively, we aren't good at all at reliably creating successful start-ups. Because the challenges involve other people and economic forces, they will likely remain a challenge well into our future. Even though Hunt and other people who have tried and failed at start-ups can't save us from making these mistakes, they still do us a service when they reflect on their experiences and share with us. They put up guideposts that say "Danger ahead!" and "Don't go there!" Why isn't that enough to save us? We may miss the signs in the noise of our world and walk into the thicket on our own. We may see the warning sign, think "My situation is different...", and proceed anyway. We may heed their advice, do everything we can to avoid the pitfall, and fail anyway. Perhaps we misunderstood the signs. Perhaps we aren't smart enough yet to solve the problem. Perhaps no one is, yet. Sometimes, we won't be until we have made the mistake once ourselves -- or thrice. Despite this, it is valuable to read about our forebears' experiences. Perhaps we will recognize the problem part of the way in and realize that we need to turn around before going any farther. Knowing other people's experiences can leave us better prepared not to go too far down into the abyss. A mistake partially made is often better than a mistake made all the way. If nothing else, we fail and are better able to recognize our mistake after we have made it. Other people's experience can help us put our own mistake into context. We may be able to understand the problem and solution better by bringing those other experiences to bear on our own experience. While I know that we have to make mistakes to learn, I don't romanticize failure. We should take reasonable measures to avoid problems and to recognize them as soon as possible. That's the ultimate value in learning what Hunt and other people can teach us. A few weeks ago I wrote a few entries that made connections to Roger Rosenblatt's *Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing*. As I am prone to doing, I found a lot of connections between writing, as described by Rosenblatt, and programming. I also saw connections between teaching of writers and teaching of programmers. The most recent entry in that series highlighted how teachers want their students to learn how to think the same way, not how to write the same way. Rosenblatt also occasionally explores similarities between writing and teaching. Toward the end of the book, he points out a very important difference between the two: Wouldn't it be nice if you knew that your teaching had shape and unity, and that when a semester came to an end, you could see that every individual thing you said had coalesced into one overarching statement? But who knows? I liken teaching to writing, but the two enterprises diverge here, because any perception of a grand scheme depends on what the students pick up. You may intend a lovely consistency in what you're tossing them, but they still have to catch it. In fact, I do see unity to my teaching. Whattheysee, I have no clue. It probably doesn't matter if they accept the parts without the whole. A few things are learned, and my wish for more may be plain vanity. Novelists, poets, and essayists can achieve closure and create a particular whole. Their raw material are words and ideas, which the writer can make to dance. The writer can have an overarching statement in mind, and making it real is just a matter of hard work and time. Programmers have that sort of control over their raw material, too. As a programmer, I relish taken on the challenge of a hard problem and creating a solution that meets the needs of a person. If I have a goal for a program, I can almost always make it happen. I like that. Teachers may have a grand scheme in mind, too, but they have no reliable way of making sure that their scheme comes true. Their raw material consists not only of words and ideas. Indeed, their most important raw material, their most unpredictable raw material, are students. Try as they might, teachers don't control what students do, learn, or think. I am acutely aware of this thought as we wrap up the first half of our programming languages course. I have introduced students to functional programming and recursive programming techniques. I have a pretty good idea what I hope they know and can do now, but that scheme remains in my head. Rosenblatt is right. It is vanity for us teachers to expect students to learn exactly what we want for them. It's okay if they don't. Our job is to do what we can to help them grow. After that, we have to step aside and let them run. Students will create their own wholes. They will assemble their wholes from the parts they catch from us, but also from parts they catch everywhere else. This is a good thing, because the world has a lot more to teach than I can teach them on my own. Recognizing this makes it a lot easier for me as a teacher to do the best I can to help them grow and then get out of their way. Last April I mentioned *The Programming Historian*, a textbook aimed at a specific set of non-programmers who want or need to learn how to program in order to do their job in the digital age. I was browsing through the textbook today and came across a paragraph that applies to more than just historians or so-called applied programmers: Many books about programming fall into one of two categories: (1) books about particular programming languages, and (2) books about computer science that demonstrate abstract ideas using a particular programming language. When you're first getting started, it's easy to lose patience with both of these kinds of books. On the one hand, a systematic tour of the features of a given language and the style(s) of programming that it supports can seem rather remote from the tasks that you'd like to accomplish. On the other hand, you may find it hard to see how the abstractions of computer science are related to your specific application. I don't think this feeling is limited to people with a specific job to do, like historians or economists. Students who come to the university intending to major in Computer Science lose patience with many of our CS1 textbooks and CS1 courses for the very same reasons. Focusing too much on all the features of a language is overkill when you are just trying to make something work. The abstractions we throw at them don't have a home in their understanding of programming or CS yet and so seem, well, too abstract. Writing for the aspiring applied programmer has an advantage over writing for CS1: your readers have something specific they want to do, and they know just what it is. Turkel and MacEachern can teach a subset of several tools, including Python and Javascript, focused on what historians want to be able to do. Greg Wilson and his colleagues can teach what scientists want and need to know, even if the book is pitched more broadly. In CS1, your students don't have a specific task in mind and do eventually need to take a systematic tour of a language's features and to learn a programming style or three. They do, eventually, need to learn a set of abstractions and make sense of them in the context of several languages. But when they start, they are much like any other person learning to program: they would like to do *something* that matters. The problems we ask them to solve matter. Guzdial, Ericson, and their colleagues have used media computation as context in which to learn how to program, with the idea that many students, CS majors and non-majors alike, can be enticed to manipulate images, sounds, and video, the raw materials out of which students' digital lives are now constructed. It's not quite the same -- students still need to be enticed, rather than starting with their own motivation -- but it's a shorter leap to caring than the run-off-the-mill CS textbook has to make. Some faculty argue that we need a CS0 course that all students take, in which they can learn basic programming skills in a selected context before moving onto the major's first course. The context can be general enough, say, media manipulation or simple text processing on the web, that the tools students learn will be useful after the course whether they continue on or not. Students who elect to major in CS move on to take a systematic tour of a language's features, to learn about OO or FP style, and to begin learning the abstractions of the discipline. My university used to follow this approach, back in the early and mid 1990s. Students had to take a one-year HS programming course or a one-semester programming course at the university before taking CS1. We dropped this requirement when faculty began asking, why shouldn't we put the same care into teaching low-level programming skills in CS1 as we do into teaching CS0? The new approach hasn't always been as successful as we hoped, due to the difficulty of finding contexts that motivate students as well as we want, but I think the approach is fundamentally sound. It means that CS1 may not teach all the things that it did when the course had a prerequisite. That said, students who take one of our non-majors programming courses, C and Visual Basic, and then move decide to major in CS perform better on average in CS1 than students who come in fresh. We have work to do. Finally, one sentence from *The Programming Historian* made me smile. It embodies the "programming for all" theme that permeates this blog: Programming is for digital historians what sketching is for artists or architects: a mode of creative expression and a means of exploration. I once said that being able to program is like having superhuman strength. But it is both more mundane and more magical than that. For digital historians, being able to program means being able to do the mundane, everyday tasks of manipulating text. It also gives digital historians a way to express themselves creatively and to explore ideas in ways hard to imagine otherwise. **Update**: This entry originally appeared on September 29. I bungled my blog directory and lost two posts, and the simplest way to get the content back on-line is to repost. I remember back in the late 1990s and early 2000s when patterns were still a hot topic in the software world, and many pattern writers trying to make the conceptual move to pattern languages. It was a fun time to talk about software design. At some point, there was a long and illuminating discussion on the patterns mailing list about whether patterns should describe *what* to build or *how* to build. Richard Gabriel and Ron Goldman -- creators of the marvelous essay-as-performance-art Mob Software -- patiently taught the community that the ultimate goal is **what**. Of course, if we move to a higher level of abstraction, a **what**-pattern becomes a **how**-pattern. But the most valuable pattern languages teach us what to build and when, with some freedom in the how. This is the real challenge that novice programmers face, in courses like CS1 or in self-education: figuring out what to build. It is easy enough for many students to "get" the syntax of the programming language they are learning. Knowing when to use a loop, or a procedure, or a class -- that's the bigger challenge. Our CS students are usually in the same situation even later in their studies. They are still learning what to build, even as we teach them new libraries, new languages, and new styles. I see this a lot when students who are learning to program in a functional style. Mentally, many think they are focused on the how (e.g., *How do I write this in Scheme?*). But when we probe deeper, we usually find that they are really struggling with what to say. We spend some time talking about the problem, and they begin to see more clearly what they are trying to accomplish. Suddenly, writing the code becomes a lot easier, if not downright easy. This is one of the things I really respect in the How to Design Programs curriculum. Its design recipes give beginning students a detailed, complete, repeatable process for thinking about problems and what they need to solve a new problem. Data, contracts, and examples are essential elements in understanding what to build. Template solutions help bridge the what and the how, but even they are, at the student's current level of abstraction, more about what than how. The structural recursion patterns I use in my course are an attempt to help students think about what to build. The how usually follows directly from that. As students become fluent in their functional programming language, the how is almost incidental. **Update**: This entry originally appeared on September 28. I bungled my blog directory and lost two posts, and the simplest way to get the content back on-line is to repost. John Cook recently reported that he has bundled up some of his earlier writings about the **soft maximum** as a tech report. The soft maximum is "a smooth approximation to the maximum of two real variables": softmax(x, y) = log(exp(x) + exp(y)) When John posted his first blog entry about the softmax, I grabbed the idea and made it a homework problem for my students, who were writing their first Scheme procedures. I gave them a link to John's page, so they had access to this basic formula as well as a Python implementation of it. That was fine with me, because I was simply trying to help students become more comfortable using Scheme's unusual syntax: (define softmax (lambda (x y) (log (+ (exp x) (exp y))))) On the next assignment, I asked students to generalize the definition of softmax to more than two variables. This gave them an opportunity to write a **variable arity** procedure in Scheme. At that point, they had seen only a couple simple examples of variable arity, such as this implementation of addition using a binary ** +** operator: (define plus ;; notice: no parentheses around (lambda args ;; the args parameter in lambda (if (null? args) 0 (+ (car args) (apply plus (cdr args))) ))) Many students followed this pattern directly for softmax: (define softmax-var (lambda args (if (null? (cdr args)) (car args) (softmax (car args) (apply softmax-var (cdr args)))))) Some of their friends tried a different approach. They saw that they could use **higher-order procedures** to solve the problem -- without explicitly using recursion: (define softmax-var (lambda args (log (apply + (map exp args))))) When students saw each other's solutions, they wondered -- as students often do -- which one is correct? John's original blog post on the softmax tells us that the function generalizes as we might expect: softmax(x1, x2, ..., xn) = log(exp(x1) + exp(x2) + ... + exp(xn)) Not many students had looked back for that formula, I think, but we can see that it matches the higher-order softmax almost perfectly. ** (map exp args)** constructs a list of the What about the recursive solution? If we look at how its recursive calls unfold, we see that this procedure computes: softmax(x1, softmax(x2, ..., softmax(xn-1, xn)...)) This is an interesting take on the idea of a soft maximum, but it is not what John's generalized definition says, nor is it particularly faithful to the original 2-argument function. How might we roll our own recursive solution that computes the generalized function faithfully? The key is to realize that the function needs to iterate not over the maximizing behavior but the *summing* behavior. So we might write: (define softmax-var (lambda args (log (accumulate-exps args)))) (define accumulate-exps (lambda (args) (if (null? args) 0 (+ (exp (car args)) (accumulate-exps (cdr args)))))) This solution turns ** softmax-var** into interface procedure and then uses structural recursion over a flat list of arguments. One advantage of using an interface procedure is that the recursive procedure It was remarkable to me and some of my students just how close the answers produced by the two student implementations of softmax were, given how different the underlying behaviors are. Often, the answers were identical. When different, they differed only in the 12th or 15th decimal digit. As several blog readers pointed out, softmax is associative, so the two solutions are identical mathematically. The differences in the values of the functions result from the vagaries of floating-point precision. The programmer in me left the exercise impressed by the smoothness of the soft maximum. The idea is resilient across multiple implementations, which makes it seem all the more useful to me. More important, though, this programming exercise led to several interesting discussions with students about programming techniques, higher-order procedures, and the importance of implementing solutions that are faithful to the problem domain. The teacher in me left the exercise pleased. This About Me page, on Ana Nelson's web site, is a great example of how computing can sneak up on people: Having fallen in love with programming while studying for my Ph.D. in economics, I now develop open source software to explore and explain data. I am the creator of Dexy, a new tool for reproducible research and document automation. A lot of disciplines explore and explain data, from particular domains and within particular models. I'm not surprised when I encounter someone in one of those disciplines who finds she likes exploring and explaining data more than the specific domain or model. Programming is a tool that lets rise above disciplinary silos and consider data, patterns, and ideas across the intellectual landscape.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2011-10-31 00:00:00

http://scripting.com/stories/2011/12/11/ifYourAppEmitsRss.html

Dave Winer; December

The other day I posted an idea for titles of feeds for personal or corporate feeds, wishing that they would say, in the title whose feed it is. It would make for better rivers. Now here's a similar idea for web services that produce RSS feeds (which by the way we are Example: Pinterest feed for Dave Winer Now, consider the title of the actual feed. It's just Dave Winer. When an item from that feed shows up in a river there's no easy way to know if it came from Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Posterous, Path, Quora or Pinterest. Much better to spell it out: Dave Winer's Pinterest feed. Finally, I just want to say how happy I was to see that Pinterest is producing a good RSS 2.0 feed for this very fast-growing service. That means we can integrate it into the work that we're doing, and you can integrate it in work that |

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2011-12-11 00:00:00

https://koyastack.com/2020/08/10/319/

http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/08/05/new-pipejump-sales-app-is-basecamp-meets-salesforce/

https://www.tezos.com/

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WHAT'S TEZOS? Tezos is designed to power the Web3 revolution. The future of the internet is being built on Tezos–with user participation and governance at its core. Users can directly and frictionlessly interface with each other over a decentralized network, exchanging value and interacting with various applications, without the need for intermediaries. On Tezos, Web3 can be a truly user-governed and user-centric movement, the way it was meant to be. United’s First Official Digital Collectible, powered by Tezos. A new resource for Tezos Spotlight is a content channel featuring news and activity within the Tezos ecosystem. Explore Spotlight MEET TEZOS Smart Contracts. Smart Governance. Smart Design. Tezos is an open-source platform that addresses key barriers facing blockchain adoption for assets and applications backed by a global community of validators, researchers, and builders. By design, Tezos embraces long-term upgradability, open participation, collaboration, and smart contract safety. Tez (XTZ) is the native token of the Tezos blockchain. It is used to interact with dApps, pay for fees, secure the network through staking, and provide a basic accounting unit on the Tezos platform. Powered by **TzKT API** A community governed, ever-evolving technological vision. Tezos continuously adds the latest innovation, seamlessly leveling up to deliver novel and new capabilities within the space through its upgrade mechanism. See how far we’ve come and help us imagine where Tezos will go in the future. The Tezos protocol was activated successfully on 04 June, 2024. Paris Reduced minimal block time to 10 seconds for lower latency and faster finality on Layer 1. The Data-Availability Layer is enabled on mainnet to boost Smart Rollups throughput. The introduction of Adaptive Issance, a new Staking mechanism and Adaptive Slashing overhauls the foundations of Tezos' Proof-of-Stake. The 15th upgrade to the Tezos protocol brings three key changes: the introduction of Private Smart Rollups, refinements to Proof-of-Stake, and the re-enablement of Timelocks. Learn more Up to 8x increase in on-chain operations per second bandwidth for transactions and smart contract calls, with an improved gas model for cryptographic signatures. Smart rollups can now evolve in lockstep with layer 1 protocol upgrades. Faster propagation of pre-attestations to reach consensus earlier. Learn more Block times cut in half to 15 seconds with the completion of improved block validation pipelining. Smart Rollups fully activated on Mainnet which will support dramatic gains in throughput, and allow anyone to deploy decentralized WebAssembly applications. Tickets can now be transferred between user (implicit) accounts, and more. Learn more CAREERS Help us change the world. One block at a time. Browse the latest job postings across the Tezos ecosystem. Tezos is the product of many organizations across the globe working together on an open-source project. Don’t see the perfect role for you but want to work on Tezos? Reach out to the Work on Tezos mailbox - include your resume, what you’re looking for, and why you’re excited to work on Tezos. Resumes are shared with a number of organizations in the Tezos ecosystem. Note: Listings are provided by each team separately. If you are an organization in the Tezos ecosystem that is hiring and interested in listing your open roles here, please email the Work on Tezos mailbox. Catch the latest news from around the Tezos ecosystem, from exciting partnerships to insightful and educational articles about the technology that makes Tezos truly special. FOLLOW US Feedback or comments? Get in touch with us at **reachout@tezos.com** For media inquiries please contact **communications@tezos.foundation**

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2024-10-12 00:00:00

2024-08-27 00:00:00

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG3KuqDbmhM

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2024/07/24/on-astronomical-accidents-and-the-proxima-centauri-signal-that-wasnt/

On Astronomical Accidents, and the Proxima Centauri ‘Signal’ that Wasn’t

Paul Gilster

One night a few years back I had a late night call from a friend who was involved in Breakthrough Starshot, the attempt to design a probe that could reach nearby stars and return data with transit times of decades rather than centuries. His news was surprising. The Parkes radio dish in Australia, then being used by the Breakthrough Listen SETI project, had detected a signal that seemed to come from Proxima Centauri. “What’s interesting,” said he, “is that when you move the dish off Proxima, the signal disappears.” You probably remember this episode, which had a brief moment in the news and may well live on among the conspiracy-minded in the wackier regions of cyberspace. We know now that the signal was some form of radio frequency interference, commonly abbreviated RFI. In any case, our conversation was relatively tame because the idea of a terrestrial explanation seemed inevitable, no matter how tantalizing the first look at this signal. After all, with all the years of SETI effort since the original Project Ozma, was it likely that we would pick up a signal from the nearest of all stars? What were the odds that there would be a radio-using civilization so close to home? Here I’m being deliberately provocative, because in fact we couldn’t know the odds. We know absolutely nothing about alien civilizations including whether or not they exist. To go science fictional, suppose Earth had triggered a nearby ‘lurker’ probe that had been in our Solar System monitoring our activities and had learned about our interest in the Alpha Centauri system. Would they possibly use a signal from Proxima as an introduction to first contact? Maybe from a lurker probe in that system? The scenarios can get as wild as anyone might wish. Best, then, to keep an eye on that signal. It’s instructive to see what happened following the Proxima ‘detection,’ which occurred on April 29, 2019, and I’m reminded of it by Chris Lintott’s fine new book *Accidental Astronomy* (Basic Books, 2024). An astrophysicist at Oxford and well known television presenter for the BBC program ‘Sky at Night,’ Lintott writes with his usual grace about the often serendipitous way astronomical discoveries happen, from the appearance of ‘Oumuamua to the surprises Cassini found at Enceladus. The overall point is that you have to look to find something, and in astronomy keeping the lenses pointed without preconceptions often churns up something rare and strange. So what was interesting about the April 29, 2019 event? One eye-catching thing was that the radio signature was extremely narrow, an interesting fact given that naturally emitted radio waves tend to cover a wide range of wavelengths. Narrow-band signals are the kind of thing we think of as the stuff of radio broadcasts. In other words, technologies. I mentioned that the signal disappeared when the Parkes dish was moved off Proxima, and it also reappeared when the dish was returned to the target. This process, known as ‘nodding,’ is a handy way to rule out background radio sources. So the signal definitely had the attention of the scientists at Breakthrough Listen, who dubbed it BLC1 (Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1). It also seemed to show a Doppler effect, changing in frequency slightly as time passed in ways that would be expected for a transmitter on a planet orbiting a star. If you think back to the famous ‘Wow!” signal of August 1977, detected at the Big Ear radio telescope run by Ohio State University, you can place it and BLC1 in context. The key is to look for signals that are narrowband, and if they repeat, so much the better. The Wow! Signal didn’t repeat, but BLC1 showed up more than once in 2019. After that, the repetitions ceased, with no appearances in the following years. Now what? Transmissions from Earth satellites were ruled out given their much greater frequency drift, and deep space probes like the Voyagers and New Horizons were not aligned to match the Proxima signal. At this point scientists were turning over rarer and rarer explanations, including a transmitter on an asteroid, or an Earth-based transmitter that was deliberately being used to mimic a legitimate SETI signal. None of this fit BLC1, which in any case tracked Proxima’s motion across the sky. The problem with anomalies like this one is that they go up in smoke if similar events occur with mundane explanations. When analyzed more closely, the Parkes data from the relevant period between April and May of 2019 contained four new detections of BLC1. But they also contained the same signal some fifteen times during periods in which the telescope was not pointing at Proxima. And at least one of these detections persisted as the telescope moved on and then off the target, which ruled out a signal from an alien civilization and pointed to an explanation much closer to home. Looking for similar signals at different frequencies then popped up many more examples of what Lintott calls “annoying chirps, caused by human-made sources emitting at many frequencies at once, interfering with the quest for aliens.” Too bad. It was exciting for a while, but frankly, everyone I know who is mixed up with SETI studies more or less assumed that while an explanation had to be found, it would be one that involved RFI, and so it was. But notice what happened around this event. The news of the data-delving re Proxima Centauri got out to the *Guardian*, whose reporting on it eschewed sensationalism but nonetheless made a point: Almost anything that happens within a project exploring subjects as sensitive as SETI will come to someone’s attention outside the community sooner than you think. That makes any idea that a future ‘first contact’ will be covered up by scientists or governments rather ludicrous. Lintott comments: The idea of a clandestine network squirreling away evidence of signals in the sky is hard to reconcile with the fact that the most interesting signal found by SETI in decades ended up in the press almost immediately. There are something like fifteen thousand professional astronomers in the world, including PhD students, making up essentially a small village, and news travels fast, especially when telescopes are pressed into service globally to follow some new occurrence in the sky. As Lintott notes, the same thing happened in 2017, when a gravitational wave event was matched with a visual signal detected by spaceborne instruments. This was the first time that newly detected gravitational waves could be correlated with a visual event, which swung telescopes worldwide in its direction. You can’t put a worldwide effort to study a single object into effect without thousands of people becoming aware of it, if only because these observations need to be coordinated. **Image:** This picture combines a view of the southern skies over the ESO 3.6-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile with images of the stars Proxima Centauri (lower-right) and the double star Alpha Centauri AB (lower-left) from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Solar System and is orbited by the planet Proxima b, which was discovered using the HARPS instrument on the ESO 3.6-metre telescope. Credit: Y. Beletsky (LCO)/ESO/ESA/NASA/M. Zamani. There is much in *Accidental Astronomy* that will bring anyone with a casual interest in the field up to date quickly. Current controversies and surprises include interstellar visitors like ‘Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, the former of which produced a slight acceleration that inevitably raised questions (Lintott is circumspect in his treatment and clearly supports a natural explanation, though an open-minded one). Dyson spheres come up in the discussion of Boyajian’s Star, with its odd changes in brightness that are now thought to be unusual bands of dust that themselves are unexplained. The panoply of observing techniques and deep sky searches come into play in lucid and friendly prose. Befitting his BBC work, Lintott is a fine communicator. The overall theme is a healthy one. Keep your eyes open, your lens covers off, your mind open. The inevitable corollary is: Don’t get locked into your own thinking to the point that you spend your career defending a hypothesis just because it’s yours. I always think of Voyager approaching Io and sending back images of volcanoes that only one team – Stan Peale, Patrick Cassen, and R. T. Reynolds – had thought would be there. Their paper in *Nature* appeared with Voyager 1 just three days out from the Jovian system. Talk about timing! Here’s Lintott on the matter: We astronomers like being surprised, to wallow for the moment in the sense that there is more to understand. It’s a different feeling, utterly, from the way science and scientific progress are often portrayed on screen or in print, where you’re likely to hear stories about singularly clever people who have been blessed, with some clap of thunder, with a dose of cosmic truth before spending their careers trying to prove themselves right. The astronomy I know and love is more likely to involve a bunch of people staring at a screen and looking confused than to feature someone running down a corridor shouting “Eureka.” So here’s to looking confused. Chris Lintott should be able to keep expanding on this theme in future editions because as the James Webb Space Telescope reminds us, every time we significantly upgrade our hardware, we see things we hadn’t expected to see. Ahead of us is the Vera Rubin Observatory, not to mention a generation of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) that should be able to delve into exoplanet atmospheres around the closest stars. In a few scant decades we’ve gone from the idea that exoplanets are probably uncommon to the realization that they are ubiquitous. Who knows what the next transient in optical or radio wavelengths may bring? I’ve seen a couple of different sources talking about exoplanets once being believed to be scarce. I was unaware of this being any common belief and unsure why it would be. Without any real data and our system being the only observable I’m puzzled why this would have been the case. One problem was that back in the day (I’m going back some decades here), the mechanisms for planet formation were still not well understood. So the question of their abundance couldn’t really be determined. When I was a kid, I can remember being told by a teacher that the formation of the Solar System was probably a huge fluke, caused by a passing star, and that we shouldn’t expect to find many more examples of it. In the book series Foundations of Sciencethe “The Majesty of the Heavens” (pub 1965), in the chapterFormation of the Solar System, the catastrophe theories of the solar system is included when a passing star is the cause of the formation of the planets. These theories were devised at the beginning of the 20th century after Laplace’s theory was abandoned. The catastrophe was either a passing star or that the sun was a binary, one of which was disrupted by the passing star which pulled the planets into their current orbits.I delight in these older science books, particularly the Frontiers of Scienceseries of cartoon-style explanations by Butler, Bresciani, and Raymond. Even Hoyle’s mid-century explanations of astronomical observations are fascinating given which ones were largely correct and the ones proved wrong.Hi Alex “Frontiers of Science” was produced by the University of Sydney. It’s all available online here: Frontiers of Science Was my introduction to many advanced SETI concepts, including Bracewell Probes and the Dyson Swarm. @Adam, I have visited that site in the past when I was looking to replace the Frontiers of Science ppbk that I had in the UK but got lost during moves abroad. The story I always remembered and I wanted to use to track down the book was this Rockets, in particular the rocket exhausting light in the image on the right, 2nd from the bottom. I don’t have the complete set, but I currently have (in different formats): Frontiers of Science More Frontiers of Science Introduction to Physics Introduction to Earth Sciences Introduction to Astronomy The Family of the Sun The Energy Explosion I really liked the style and how the stories were presented. Even though these have dated, they are a lovely snapshot of thinking at the time and I loved the optimism for the future expressed in these stories. One of the first mechanisms proposed for the formation of the solar system is a condensation of the solar nebula to a disk, and the eventual formation of concentric rings of debris which became planets. The same process repeated for the satellites of the planets. As it turned out, this is pretty much what happened! But when this idea was scrutinized, it turned out that our present solar system had nowhere near the amount of angular momentum required for such a formation. Today we know the excess angular momentum was dispersed by magnetic phenomena. The solar system, when viewed from the North, is composed of objects rotating counter-clockwise and revolving counter clockwise, both in the individual planets, the sun and in the satellites as well. There are exceptions, of course, but this pattern is almost ubiquitous to all the major bodies. The orbital eccentricities are almost circular, and most bodies revolve and rotate very close to the ecliptic. This all suggests some dynamical process related to stellar formation was responsible for these features, so most stars should have planets–they are a normal by-product of star formation. However, the inability to explain how the excess angular momentum of the original nebula was dissipated led us astray. When I was an astronomy student in the 1960s this topic was still being debated–along with the existence of Martian canals and seasonal vegetation, and the possibility Venus was a jungle world shrouded by perpetual rain clouds. Even as a child, I always wondered how the strict geometrical architecture of the solar system could be the result of a chance tidal encounter between two stars passing by each other. But that was the favored theory in all the astronomy books I read. 550 years after Copernicus and we as a collective society still have trouble with the idea that we are not special to the rest of the Cosmos. This is one reason why it took so long for astronomers (among others) to accept that there may be more than one solar system. Hey, they didn’t fully accept there could be more than one galaxy in the Universe until 1920 – mind boggling! Now we know, thanks to HST, that most stars have worlds circling them. And our current estimate at the number of galaxies in the Cosmos has jumped from 100 billion in 2005 – also due to Hubble – to over 2 trillion! And just imagine if the Multiverse is true. Even mars was a exoplanet, it’s right next to earth Perhaps the earliest best seller book on extraterrestrial life and civilizations is Walter Sullivan’s “We Are Not Alone”. Published in 1964 it is the first book to show the habitable zones around different types of stars. One fallacy it made was that planets may only be around slow rotating stars. We have come a long way since then, some 60 years ago. We still have a lot of controversy about just how common life is but ideas are improving and technology is making it easier to see the details of what exists. Hopefully with new large widefield optical telescopes coming online and many smaller and very large field nightly surveys instruments, more data will cure our blindness. Some results may show the Holy Grail, an actual artificial signal from another star or a lurker in our solar system… Yes, and if I’m remembering right, Sullivan’s book was the first title I ever bought on this subject. Wasn’t the rotational velocity of the stars a theory of Thomas Gold’s? The idea was that the angular momentum had to be distributed by flinging out material to form planets. The analogy of using arms to slow or speed up the rotation of an ice skater. Thus fast rotating stars had not gone through that process and therefore had no planets. Observations always trump theory. The better instruments we have, the more and better observations we make, and theories get discarded if they fail to predict the observations. I am hoping that spectrographic data will help to indicate if exoplanets in the [C]HZ are living or not. Interesting new evidence that may have a large impact on where life and intelligence may develop. “Dark Oxygen’ Discovered Coming from Mineral Deposits on Deep Seafloor” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-oxygen-discovered-coming-from-mineral-deposits-on-deep-seafloor/ Natural batteries producing oxygen seems so far-fetched that the scientist could not believe his instruments… “He sent the instruments back to the manufacturer to be recalibrated. “This happened four or five times” over the course of five years”! Something that may be going on in places like Europa and exoplanets around M dwarfs where huge amounts of energy are being delivered from flares and in the case of Jupiter geomagnetic activity caused by solar flares. On earth the current solar maximum is charging rocks on the earths surface and causing problems. Are these battery nodules on the deep ocean floor being charged by solar storms? “Solar storms can be even worse if you live near certain rocks. New USGS data show how cities have higher or lower risks of blackouts during a powerful sun storm depending on their regional geology.” https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/solar-storms-worse-damage-if-you-live-near-certain-rocks-geology This could make for a whole new science for places we now have very little knowledge of. Europa plumes for example, powered by its giant core battery… @Michael I had read the paper on these nodules but I hadn’t be able to get any useful information of the importance of the O2. The SciAm article you referenced indicated that it was significant, but what does that mean in context? Ocean circulation image. As you can see from the referenced image, abyssal currents are initially highly oxygenated as they are created from the cooling waters of the N. Atlantic. While abyssal metazoan life is sparse, the rain of detritus feeds the bacteria in the sea floor ooze depleting the O2. It is a long way for this circulation to reach the Pacific where these nodules primarily exist. This opens up a question as to whether this O2 production has a large effect on the O2 concentration near the ocean floor in the Pacific as the currents flow over the nodule beds. The paper has an equation for the O2 production which might offer some BOE calculations, if the findings are real and not some artifact of nodule extraction from the depths. Have you found anything about this? If oxygen depletion does occur with the circulation, oceanographic surveys must have done readings that might show this. If O2 is mostly constant, then this might reduce any ecological effect of any nodule O2 production. Have you discovered anything along this line of thought? Well right of the bat, you are talking about a planet only 300 million years old that covers more or less 3/4th of this planet. Yes, we are lost on our ancient earths crust but do not see the rest of the planet…. See map and you may notice where the oldest part of the ocean floor is: https://useruploads.socratic.org/epGYlAtQ3qhnPC9zyM2k_age_oceanic_lith.jpg The history of the ocean floor has gone to the depths of hell in subduction. We are only seeing a very small percentage on land on what the earth was doing billions of years ago. Our knowledge is very little if not at all when we look at the deep abyss. Could the levels in the early oceans O2 created the conditions for life to form. Early earth was a very active planet with major impacts, erosion levels would be high, that is how the nodules form along with hydrothermal vents. Something that our crust bound life forgets is the giant impactors would create huge circler areas of geothermal activity in the ocean crust and supply the metals that would form these nodules. Basically none of this exist now in our present day thinking. https://www.geomar.de/en/discover/marine-resources/manganese-nodules The sun was also very active back then contrary to some reports, but as we see in most young stars large and very active flaring. The oceans would give a protective layer against the high energy and geomagnetic activity helping life to develop. Charging from above through the earths Dragon Currents from the sun would energize the deep oceans and create needed elements such as O2. I still believe that slow gyrating magnetic fields in and around the earth may have initiated the fine weave for RNA and DNA to develop… https://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/focus-areas/recent-research/catastrophes-for-life-from-sun/ Hi Paul Another very interesting post, I can remember reading up on this one at the time, gosh pre covid too, It seems like a lifetime ago now. There was some very interesting speculation at the time and you have alluded to one of these in your post. I think the next biggest mystery to solve is Browns “Planet 9” out there or not something the Vera Rubin should answer and who know what else it might find. Cheers Edwin A very good summary on several levels. None the least the sentence “……you have to look to find something, and in astronomy keeping the lenses pointed without preconceptions often churns up something rare and strange.” Which is the basis for my own support that we should keep looking for any kind of civ out there, even though I fully know we are extremely unlikely to find anything in the rather short detection range of a mere 100 to 1000’s of lightyears we got – and depending if any such civ is extremely noisy or not. And while the grapevine about something new and interesting travel fast, there’s one additional reason that an actual detection never would be hidden. Everyone in working in science want their name associated with such a major finding, that an non-peer reviewed paper would pop up almost immediately on arXiv.org. Technology, such as megastructures would likely be more durable perhaps by billions of years over other indicators of contemporaneous civilization, with the downside of increasing likelihood that the civilization may be gone. A search for such artifacts may also be rewarding. What is a pity is that the events astro that are a little out of the ordinary are today immediately distorted by the media to make sensational in the eyes of the general public. Very often this “buzz” is unfortunately quickly forgotten by the majority of the population, disappointed – or relieved – not to see E.T out of its saucer. All this does not encourage scientific thinking, especially since we are soaked in a “Hollywood culture” that distorts reasoning. Very few people in France have tried to understand the trajectory of Oumuamua or its composition when they understood that it was not a spaceship. As for those who still know the WOW signal (so few !) no one questioned the complexity of a possible radio transmission by an ETI or tried to read what J Erhman wrote here http://www.bigear.org/wow20th.htm In a way it’s a loss of creative possibilities if you consider the millions of human brains. You can do astronomy with very little. Pablo Picasso said, “I don’t look; I find.” I think the issue is more nuanced. Any fictional representation will distort reality. Plots in novels distort reality in any number of ways, whether science fiction, fantasy, historical, bodice-rippers, or mainstream. Seeing is even more persuasive, but it isn’t just “Hollywood”. I have a number of French films that stretch reality and require leaving your rational brain before watching. Suspending disbelief is inherent in all stories. This suspension of disbelief is age-old, from stories around the camp fire, to the stories and histories handed down even before the written word froze them. Sensationalism has also long been with humanity. It is used to help rise above the noise of competing stories or interests. Now we have clickbait headlines and breathy stories that tend not to show the circumspection needed by unbiased reality, especially of tentative findings of science. The other issue is that the scientific knowledge of the world accumulates exponentially. The possibility of knowing about everything has long gone, and we are, at best, reasonably expert in very limited domains, with partial, distorted knowledge of many more. Access to knowledge is far easier today than ever before, but it still takes more time to look up facts than it takes to blather half-truths or total nonsense. And you need time to do this in a culture that is generating ever more distractions at a faster pace. I used to have a book by Saul Wurman called “Information Overload” with instructions on how to manage this firehose of information. But reality is that most of us have no real grasp of things beyond the human scale in size and distance, and concepts need to be simple enough to understand and retain. Representations of astronomical distances are either done with human-scale analogies or using log10 scales that visually distort what we see represented. No wonder we may think that Mars is close by, and the nearest stars just hop, skip, and jump further. Herb Simon once said that we use “satisfice” strategies to reduce the costs of search. With the deluge of information, those strategies increasingly look like Daniel Kahneman’s “fast thinking”. We grasp the first things we think we know because we may not have time to do more. And then the proverbial average person on the Clapham Omnibus is not curious and wouldn’t look up anything even if they had a neural link to a global knowledge base. Wasn’t simplicity , but filled with inaccuracies, the joke about the Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy? Ford Prefect was just updating the slim volume’s entry for Earth people from “harmless” to “mostly harmless”. ;-) In relation to the radio signal that some thought was from Alpha Centauri but wasn’t, I would like to know what became of another SETI event that took place in 2016: https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2016/08/27/an-interesting-seti-candidate-in-hercules/ A big deal was made by the Russians that they had detected a transmission from HD164595, a star similar to Sol just 95 light years away in the constellation of Hercules. They were even getting ready to release a paper at an upcoming science conference. Then, suddenly, the paper was withdrawn and the Russians declared it was actually a signal from an old spysat of theirs. The mainstream media took their explanation without further question (I saw none of them even attempting to inquire what kind of satellite may have tripped them up) and everyone else seemed to drop the subject. So I ask, eight years later, has anyone bothered to do a followup on this event? If it was a terrestrial satellite and not an ETI signal, which one was the culprit? If not, has anyone continued to examine HD164595? The big deal SETI researchers always make is that a real ETI signal needs to be detected more than once to confirm its identity. So, which SETI groups are doing followups? Or SETI still in the token efforts phase after all this time?

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2024-07-24 00:00:00

centauri-dreams.org

centauri-dreams.org

http://clearbridgemobile.com/the-top-4-reasons-you-should-be-using-j2objc/

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54074733

UN report: Covid crisis does little to slow climate change

Matt McGrath

# UN report: Covid crisis does little to slow climate change **The global response to Covid-19 has barely made a dent in the causes of climate change, according to a major new report. ** While emissions of CO2 plummeted during lockdown, concentrations of the long-lasting gas have continued to rise in the atmosphere. The period from 2016 to 2020 will likely be the warmest five years on record, the study finds. The authors say "irreversible" climate change impacts are increasing. The United in Science report brings together experts from a large number of international organisations, including the UN and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), to give an updated snapshot of the state of the global climate. The study shows that global lockdowns had a significant and immediate impact on emissions of greenhouse gases, with daily levels in April 2020 falling by 17% compared with 2019. But this steep drop hasn't been maintained. As the world returned to work, emissions rose and by June were within 5% of the previous year. Over 2020, the expectation is that emissions will fall 4-7%. While emissions can tell us what is happening on the ground, it is the concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere that makes all the difference for global temperatures. Because CO2 can last for centuries, adding even a reduced amount to the air increases the warming potential of all the gas that has built up over decades. This new study shows that is exactly what's happened at a couple of key monitoring stations around the world. At the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, the amount of CO2 measured in air samples has increased from 411 parts per million (ppm) in July 2019 to 414ppm in July this year. Similarly, at Cape Grim monitoring station in Tasmania, concentrations were also up from 407 to 410ppm in the year to July. A full global picture on atmospheric concentrations of warming gases won't be available until later this year - but experts say the direction of travel is clear. "Greenhouse gas concentrations - which are already at their highest levels in three million years - have continued to rise," said WMO Secretary-General, Prof Petteri Taalas. "Meanwhile, large swathes of Siberia have seen a prolonged and remarkable heatwave during the first half of 2020, which would have been very unlikely without anthropogenic climate change. "And now 2016-2020 is set to be the warmest five-year period on record. This report shows that whilst many aspects of our lives have been disrupted in 2020, climate change has continued unabated," he said. The report also highlights the growing gap between the action that's needed to keep under temperature thresholds and the reality of efforts to cut emissions. To keep the world from going beyond 1.5C of warming (since preindustrial times) this century, greenhouse gas production needs to be slashed, urgently. The study says that by 2030, the world would need to cut the combined emissions of the top six carbon-producing countries to have a reasonable chance of staying below the 1.5C "guard rail". While not impossible, the report says it would essentially require a pandemic-sized carbon slowdown every year from now until the end of the decade. All the while, the authors say, the evidence of the impacts of climate change continues to grow. Global sea levels are rising much faster than previously recorded. Between 2016 and 2020 the rate of increase was 4.8mm per year, an increase over the 4.1mm recorded between 2011 and 2015. The extent of sea-ice in the Arctic has continued to decline, at a rate of 13% per decade. Rising temperatures have also seen droughts and heatwaves and have increased the risk of wildfires. In Siberia, a recent attribution study has shown that the heat that persisted between January and June this year was made at least 600 times more likely by human-driven climate change. "Never before has it been so clear that we need long-term, inclusive, clean transitions to tackle the climate crisis and achieve sustainable development," said UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, in a foreword to the report. "We must turn the recovery from the pandemic into a real opportunity to build a better future," he wrote. "We need science, solidarity and solutions." Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc.

Global lockdowns disrupted CO2 emissions temporarily say scientists but they didn't stop climate change.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2020-09-09 00:00:00

reportagenewsarticle

bbc.com

BBC News

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20190724-00/?p=102730

Adventures in application compatibility: Calling an internal function - The Old New Thing

Raymond Chen

We try hard to make sure applications continue to work, but some things that applications do are so egregious that there’s no practical way of getting them to work. Today, we’ll learn about one such. The program bills itself as “the most advanced Windows optimization toolkit in the universe!” If you say so. One of their awesome optimizations, it appears, is to reset file associations to match their concept of what file associations should be in an ideal world. This ideal world probably is one in which their application is the default handler for a lot of popular and contentious file types. The application compatibility team reported that this program crashed when you asked it to reset file associations. Windows goes to some lengths to make it hard for programs to change file associations programmatically, and instead of trying to reverse-engineer how Windows protects the settings in the registry, they instead opted to reverse-engineer the code that manages the settings. Specifically, they scanned memory looking for the internal function that sets the file associations, and then called it. Now, searching all of memory is a daunting task, but they were able to take a shortcut: They got their hands on an `IApplicationAssociationRegistration` object, which is the documented interface for managing application defaults. They used the vtable as a clue as to where the application defaults management code is, and focused their search on that region of memory. I’m not quite sure exactly how they found the internal function; perhaps they disassembled the code looking for `call` instructions, and assumed that the third `call` (say) was to a handy function, and then they disassembled the handy function and assumed that the second `call` (say) was to the secret internal function. Of course, searching memory for a function to call is not exactly something documented and supported. Windows made some changes to how these functions operate, and that threw off their code that grovels the binary, and they ended up calling the wrong function. Instead of creating a decoy that keeps their crazy algorithm working, the team opted to let the program crash when you pushed the button to reset file associations to their ideal state. This was an older version of a program still under active development, and the failure mode made it rather clear to the user that the program was at fault: It crashes when you press a specific button. The initial inclination is to blame that button. Therefore, the user will contact the vendor for an update. Now that everything is online, shifting the cost of a vendor’s mistake to the vendor’s support infrastructure has become a viable alternative to patching the operating system to work around a single program. But you have to admit: that was pretty impressive. I bet the team was rather happy to let this program keep crashing. Oh the times you spied on windows messages to write a program that automates another that doesn’t have a public API (I’m looking at you, [popular communication program]) As bad a practice as that is, I can definitely see the allure of it - it's just clever enough and into system details to where you can almost feel like you're outsmarting the Windows team, even though you're outsmarting yourself in the long run. I've fallen into the temptation in .Net by using GetType().GetMethod(BindingFlags.NonPublic|...) a couple of times as *temporary* workarounds, but at least in those cases, the technique is mundane enough to where... I really dislike writing about internals. The last time I did it, I basically disproved every assumption someone made on the behaviour of the VirtualAlloc family of functions when you don’t use a base address. I tend to hate doing this the other way around because people then seem to take this as a sign that someone is giving their approval and somehow means that Microsoft will never change this behaviour. I’m wondering how do you call such an internal function? Just load the DLL and jump to an offset? Or they make the memory search each time they need to call it? Anyway, it seems pretty fragile as solution. I’m surprised they released in production. Believe me, its never a pretty solution but sometimes it's surprisingly useful. Once i worked with a framework for interface components in Delphi and the only solution i could work out for a random crash was a patch on the fly to call an internal initialization function and then overwrite the first bytes of the function to write a ret to disable further calls. Over 5 senior developers tried to read the actual code to... > trying to reverse-engineer how Windows protects the settings in the registry “Choose defaults by file type” -> .gz -> “Choose a default” -> “Look for a program in the microsoft store” Dude let me type a command line here. (I really want to type in c:\cygwin64\bin\gzip.exe -k) Dude let me change the icon of a file. After a couple times I screwed myself over with “optimization” tools (hey, we all were gullible when looking back long enough) and a countless couple times more I’ve been cleaning up trash on family & friends’ computers, I dare to say than an “optimization” tool not working anymore is in fact an advancement, something to celebrate. Even more so if it’s “advanced”.

Clearly wandering into unsupported implementation details.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2019-07-24 00:00:00

article

microsoft.com

The Old New Thing

https://helloanou.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/making-a-post-office-profitable-for-the-first-time/

Making a Post Office Profitable, For the First Time

Anou

About 400 meters up the road from the Association Nahda’s workshop is a small, aging post office. But don’t let the modest exterior fool you, this post office has the highest volume of outgoing shipments of all post offices in the Ifrane Province. In fact, in 2015, the Oued Ifrane post office was profitable for the first time in its entire existence — a rare feat for a rural post office. The anomaly caught the attention of a senior executive of the Moroccan Post. Earlier this year, he opened up a fact finding mission to determine why a post office in such an unassuming place was doing so well. The executive traveled to Oued Ifrane to interview the post office director. The story goes that when the executive asked the director why the post office was doing so well, all the director had to do was point because at that exact moment a group of women from Association Nahda were walking in with another packaged rug, ready to be shipped. Oued Ifrane is not unique. An increasing number post offices in Anou artisan villages are processing the most outgoing shipments in their province. The post office in Tabant, Ait Bouguemez processed more outgoing shipments than any other post office in the Azilal Province beginning in late 2014. All of this activity transforms each post office’s bottom line. And as each post office’s revenue increases, so does the budget they have to hire more people and provide better essential services to the local population. Everyone in Oued Ifrane depends on the post office for one thing or another, whether it be pensions or state subsides for school supplies. Post offices with an Anou artisan group near by are often better equipped to provide those essential services, benefitting the community at large. The post office in Tabant, Ait Bouguemez now has enough cash on hand to pay out pensioners in a timely manner, rather than having villagers come back everyday for a week or two to see if the post office has received another cash transfer from Rabat. Stories like these bring light to the often overlooked benefit of buying direct from artisans and the effect it has on the wider communities in which they live. As Anou grows and scales, we aim to integrate as many local institutions as possible so we can cast the largest ripple effect in all communities across Morocco. With your support and purchases this is not such a distant reality. When the women finished shipping their rug at the post office in Oued Ifrane, the senior executive ordered the director of the post office to “take care of these women — they are important.” Indeed, they are.

About 400 meters up the road from the Association Nahda’s workshop is a small, aging post office. But don’t let the modest exterior fool you, this post office has the highest volume of …

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2016-05-02 00:00:00

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wordpress.com

The Anou Cooperative Blog

https://github.com/nathan-lafreniere/git-gh

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/12/climate/california-rain-storm.html

The Coming California Megastorm (Published 2022)

Raymond Zhong

# The Coming California Megastorm California Megastorm **Raymond Zhong**| Graphics by **Mira Rojanasakul**Photographs by **Erin Schaff** California, where earthquakes, droughts and wildfires have shaped life for generations, also faces the growing threat of another kind of calamity, one whose fury would be felt across the entire state. This one will come from the sky. According to new research, it will very likely take shape one winter in the Pacific, near Hawaii. No one knows exactly when, but from the vast expanse of tropical air around the Equator, atmospheric currents will pluck out a long tendril of water vapor and funnel it toward the West Coast. This vapor plume will be enormous, hundreds of miles wide and more than 1,200 miles long, and seething with ferocious winds. It will be carrying so much water that if you converted it all to liquid, its flow would be about 26 times what the Mississippi River discharges into the Gulf of Mexico at any given moment. When this torpedo of moisture reaches California, it will crash into the mountains and be forced upward. This will cool its payload of vapor and kick off weeks and waves of rain and snow. The superstorm that Californians have long feared will have begun. In centuries past, great rains deluged the Pacific Coast, and strong storms in recent decades have caused havoc and ruin. But, because of climate change, this one would be worse than any in living memory. Drenching rain will pummel cities and towns. At times, the hills around Los Angeles could get nearly two inches of rain an hour. Heavy rain and snow in the Sierra Nevada will test dams in the Central Valley, one of the world’s most productive farm belts. While all this has been happening, another filament of moisture-laden air will have formed over the Pacific and hurtled toward California. Then another. And another. After a month, nearly 16 inches of precipitation, on average, will have fallen across the state. Large swaths of mountainous areas will have gotten much more. Communities might be ravaged beyond resettling. None of the state’s major industries, from tech and Hollywood to farming and oil, will be untouched. The coming superstorm — really, a rapid procession of what scientists call atmospheric rivers — will be the ultimate test of the dams, levees and bypasses California has built to impound nature’s might. ### Listen to This Article But in a state where scarcity of water has long been the central fact of existence, global warming is not only worsening droughts and wildfires. Because warmer air can hold more moisture, atmospheric rivers can carry bigger cargoes of precipitation. The infrastructure design standards, hazard maps and disaster response plans that protected California from flooding in the past might soon be out of date. As humans burn fossil fuels and heat up the planet, we have already increased the chances each year that California will experience a monthlong, statewide megastorm of this severity to roughly 1 in 50, according to a new study published Friday. (The hypothetical storm visualized here is based on computer modeling from this study.) In the coming decades, if global average temperatures climb by another 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1 degree Celsius — and current trends suggest they might — then the likelihood of such storms will go up further, to nearly 1 in 30. At the same time, the risk of megastorms that are rarer but even stronger, with much fiercer downpours, will rise as well. 2016 2072 These are alarming possibilities. But geological evidence suggests the West has been struck by cataclysmic floods several times over the past millennium, and the new study provides the most advanced look yet at how this threat is evolving in the age of human-caused global warming. The researchers specifically considered hypothetical storms that are extreme but realistic, and which would probably strain California’s flood preparations. According to their findings, powerful storms that once would not have been expected to occur in an average human lifetime are fast becoming ones with significant risks of happening during the span of a home mortgage. “We got kind of lucky to avoid it in the 20th century,” said Daniel L. Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who prepared the new study with Xingying Huang of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “I would be very surprised to avoid it occurring in the 21st.” Unlike a giant earthquake, the other “Big One” threatening California, an atmospheric river superstorm will not sneak up on the state. Forecasters can now spot incoming atmospheric rivers five days to a week in advance, though they don’t always know exactly where they’ll hit or how intense they’ll be. Using Dr. Huang and Dr. Swain’s findings, California hopes to be ready even earlier. Aided by supercomputers, state officials plan to map out how all that precipitation will work its way through rivers and over land. They will hunt for gaps in evacuation plans and emergency services. The last time government agencies studied a hypothetical California megaflood, more than a decade ago, they estimated it could cause $725 billion in property damage and economic disruption. That was three times the projected fallout from a severe San Andreas Fault earthquake, and five times the economic damage from Hurricane Katrina, which left much of New Orleans underwater for weeks in 2005. Dr. Swain and Dr. Huang have handed California a new script for what could be one of its most challenging months in history. Now begin the dress rehearsals. “Mother Nature has no obligation to wait for us,” said Michael Anderson, California’s state climatologist. In fact, nature has not been wasting any time testing California’s defenses. And when it comes to risks to the water system, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is hardly the state’s only foe. tk tk ## THE ULTIMATE CURVEBALL On Feb. 12, 2017, almost 190,000 people living north of Sacramento received an urgent order: Get out. Now. Part of the tallest dam in America was verging on collapse. That day, Ronald Stork was in another part of the state, where he was worrying about precisely this kind of disaster — at a different dam. Standing with binoculars near California’s New Exchequer Dam, he dreaded what might happen if large amounts of water were ever sent through the dam’s spillways. Mr. Stork, a policy expert with the conservation group Friends of the River, had seen on a previous visit to Exchequer that the nearby earth was fractured and could be easily eroded. If enough water rushed through, it might cause major erosion and destabilize the spillways. He only learned later that his fears were playing out in real time, 150 miles north. At the Oroville Dam, a 770-foot-tall facility built in the 1960s, water from atmospheric rivers was washing away the soil and rock beneath the dam’s emergency spillway, which is essentially a hillside next to the main chute that acts like an overflow drain in a bathtub. The top of the emergency spillway looked like it might buckle, which would send a wall of water cascading toward the cities below. Mr. Stork had no idea this was happening until he got home to Sacramento and found his neighbor in a panic. The neighbor’s mother lived downriver from Oroville. She didn’t drive anymore. How was he going to get her out? OROVILLE DAM Sacramento NEW EXCHEQUER DAM San Francisco Firebaugh Los Angeles Mr. Stork had filed motions and written letters to officials, starting in 2001, about vulnerabilities at Oroville. People were now in danger because nobody had listened. “It was nearly soul crushing,” he said. “With flood hazard, it’s never the fastball that hits you,” said Nicholas Pinter, an earth scientist at the University of California, Davis. “It’s the curveball that comes from a direction you don’t anticipate. And Oroville was one of those.” Such perils had lurked at Oroville for so long because California’s Department of Water Resources had been “overconfident and complacent” about its infrastructure, tending to react to problems rather than pre-empt them, independent investigators later wrote in a report. It is not clear this culture is changing, even as the 21st-century climate threatens to test the state’s aging dams in new ways. One recent study estimated that climate change had boosted precipitation from the 2017 storms at Oroville by up to 15 percent. A year and a half after the crisis, crews were busy rebuilding Oroville’s emergency spillway when the federal hydropower regulator wrote to the state with some unsettling news: The reconstructed emergency spillway will not be big enough to safely handle the “probable maximum flood,” or the largest amount of water that might ever fall there. Cumulative precipitation Bigger Storms at Oroville 16 in. New modeling suggests that a 30-day megastorm could deliver about twice the amount of precipitation that preceded the 2017 Oroville Dam spillover. 12 in. 30-DAY MEGASTORM Modeled estimate 8 in. 2017 PRECIPITATION Jan. 8 to Feb. 7, 2017 4 in. 0 10 20 30 days Cumulative precipitation Bigger Storms at Oroville New modeling suggests that a 30-day megastorm could deliver about twice the amount of precipitation that preceded the 2017 Oroville Dam spillover. 16 in. 30-DAY MEGASTORM Modeled estimate 12 in. 8 in. 2017 PRECIPITATION Jan. 8 to Feb. 7, 2017 4 in. 0 10 20 30 days Bigger Storms at Oroville New modeling suggests that a 30-day megastorm could deliver about twice the amount of precipitation that preceded the 2017 Oroville Dam spillover. Cumulative precipitation 16 in. 30-DAY MEGASTORM Modeled estimate 12 in. 8 in. 2017 PRECIPITATION Jan. 8 to Feb. 7, 2017 4 in. 0 10 20 30 days This is the standard most major hydroelectric projects in the United States have to meet. The idea is that spillways should basically never fail because of excessive rain. Today, scientists say they believe climate change might be increasing “probable maximum” precipitation levels at many dams. When the Oroville evacuation was ordered in 2017, nowhere near that much water had been flowing through the dam’s emergency spillway. Yet California officials have downplayed these concerns about the capacity of Oroville’s emergency spillway, which were raised by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Such extreme flows are a “remote” possibility, they argued in a letter last year. Therefore, further upgrades at Oroville aren’t urgently needed. In a curt reply last month, the commission said this position was “not acceptable.” It gave the state until mid-September to submit a plan for addressing the issue. The Department of Water Resources told The Times it would continue studying the matter. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission declined to comment. “People could die,” Mr. Stork said. “And it bothers the hell out of me.” tk tk ## WETTER WET YEARS Donald G. Sullivan was lying in bed one night, early in his career as a scientist, when he realized his data might hold a startling secret. For his master’s research at the University of California, Berkeley, he had sampled the sediment beneath a remote lake in the Sacramento Valley and was hoping to study the history of vegetation in the area. But a lot of the pollen in his sediment cores didn’t seem to be from nearby. How had it gotten there? When he X-rayed the cores, he found layers where the sediment was denser. Maybe, he surmised, these layers were filled with sand and silt that had washed in during floods. It was only late that night that he tried to estimate the ages of the layers. They lined up neatly with other records of West Coast megafloods. “That’s when it clicked,” said Dr. Sullivan, who is now at the University of Denver. His findings, from 1982, showed that major floods hadn’t been exceptionally rare occurrences over the past eight centuries. They took place every 100 to 200 years. And in the decades since, advancements in modeling have helped scientists evaluate how quickly the risks are rising because of climate change. For their new study, which was published in the journal Science Advances, Dr. Huang and Dr. Swain replayed portions of the 20th and 21st centuries using 40 simulations of the global climate. Extreme weather events, by definition, don’t occur very often. So by using computer models to create realistic alternate histories of the past, present and future climate, scientists can study a longer record of events than the real world offers. Dr. Swain and Dr. Huang looked at all the monthlong California storms that took place during two time segments in the simulations, one in the recent past and the other in a future with high global warming, and chose one of the most intense events from each period. They then used a weather model to produce detailed play-by-plays of where and when the storms dump their water. Those details matter. There are “so many different factors” that make an atmospheric river deadly or benign, Dr. Huang said. In the high Sierras, for example, atmospheric rivers today largely bring snow. But higher temperatures are shifting the balance toward rain. Some of this rain can fall on snowpack that accumulated earlier, melting it and sending even more water toward towns and cities below. Climate change might be affecting atmospheric rivers in other ways, too, said F. Martin Ralph of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. How strong their winds are, for instance. Or how long they last: Some storms stall, barraging an area for days on end, while others blow through quickly. Scientists are also working to improve atmospheric river forecasts, which is no easy task as the West experiences increasingly sharp shifts from very dry conditions to very wet and back again. In October, strong storms broke records in Sacramento and other places. Yet this January through March was the driest in the Sierra Nevada in more than a century. “My scientific gut says there’s change happening,” Dr. Ralph said. “And we just haven’t quite pinned down how to detect it adequately.” Better forecasting is already helping California run some of its reservoirs more efficiently, a crucial step toward coping with wetter wet years and drier dry ones. On the last day of 2016, Wes Monier was looking at forecasts on his iPad and getting a sinking feeling. Mr. Monier is chief hydrologist for the Turlock Irrigation District, which operates the New Don Pedro Reservoir near Modesto. The Tuolumne River, where the Don Pedro sits, was coming out of its driest four years in a millennium. Now, some terrifying rainfall projections were rolling in. First, 23.2 inches over the next 16 days. A day later: 28.8 inches. Then 37.1 inches, roughly what the area normally received in a full year. If Mr. Monier started releasing Don Pedro’s water too quickly, homes and farms downstream would flood. Release too much and he would be accused of squandering water that would be precious come summer. But the forecasts helped him time his flood releases precisely enough that, after weeks of rain, the water in the dam ended up just shy of capacity. Barely a drop was wasted, although some orchards were flooded, and growers took a financial hit. The next storm might be even bigger, though. And even the best data and forecasts might not allow Mr. Monier to stop it from causing destruction. “There’s a point there where I can’t do anything,” he said. tk tk ## KATRINA 2.0 How do you protect a place as vast as California from a storm as colossal as that? Two ways, said David Peterson, a veteran engineer. Change where the water goes, or change where the people are. Ideally, both. But neither is easy. Firebaugh is a quiet, mostly Hispanic city of 8,100 people, one of many small communities that power the Central Valley’s prodigious agricultural economy. Many residents work at nearby facilities that process almonds, pistachios, garlic and tomatoes. Firebaugh also sits right on the San Joaquin River. For a sleepless stretch of early 2017, Ben Gallegos, Firebaugh’s city manager, did little but watch the river rise and debate whether to evacuate half the town. Water from winter storms had already turned the town’s cherished rodeo grounds into a swamp. Now it was threatening homes, schools, churches and the wastewater treatment plant. If that flooded, people would be unable to flush their toilets. Raw sewage would flow down the San Joaquin. Luckily, the river stopped rising. Still, the experience led Mr. Gallegos to apply for tens of millions in funding for new and improved levees around Firebaugh. Levees change where the water goes, giving rivers more room to swell before they inundate the land. Levee failures in New Orleans were what turned Katrina into an epochal catastrophe, and after that storm, California toughened levee standards in urbanized areas of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, two major river basins of the Central Valley. The idea is to keep people out of places where the levees don’t protect against 200-year storms, or those with a 0.5 percent chance of occurring in any year. To account for rising seas and the shifting climate, California requires that levees be recertified as providing this level of defense at least every 20 years. The problem is that once levees are strengthened, the areas behind them often become particularly attractive for development: fancier homes, bigger buildings, more people. The likelihood of a disaster is reduced, but the consequences, should one strike, are increased. Federal agencies try to stop this by not funding infrastructure projects that induce growth in flood zones. But “it’s almost impossible to generate the local funds to raise that levee if you don’t facilitate some sort of growth behind the levee,” Mr. Peterson said. “You need that economic activity to pay for the project,” he said. “It puts you in a Catch-22.” A project to provide 200-year protection to the Mossdale Tract, a large area south of Stockton, one of the San Joaquin Valley’s major cities, has been on pause for years because the Army Corps of Engineers fears it would spur growth, said Chris Elias, executive director of the San Joaquin Area Flood Control Agency, which is leading the project. City planners have agreed to freeze development across thousands of acres, but the Corps still hasn’t given its final blessing. The Corps and state and local agencies will begin studying how best to protect the area this fall, said Tyler M. Stalker, a spokesman for the Corps’s Sacramento District. The plodding pace of work in the San Joaquin Valley has set people on edge. At a recent public hearing in Stockton on flood risk, Mr. Elias stood up and highlighted some troubling math. The Department of Water Resources says up to $30 billion in investment is needed over the next 30 years to keep the Central Valley safe. Yet over the past 15 years, the state managed to spend only $3.5 billion. “We have to find ways to get ahead of the curve,” Mr. Elias said. “We don’t want to have a Katrina 2.0 play out right here in the heart of Stockton.” As Mr. Elias waits for projects to be approved and budgets to come through, heat and moisture will continue to churn over the Pacific. Government agencies, battling the forces of inertia, indifference and delay, will make plans and update policies. And Stockton and the Central Valley, which runs through the heart of California, will count down the days and years until the inevitable storm. ## Sources The megastorm simulation is based on the “ARkHist” storm modeled by Huang and Swain, Science Advances (2022), a hypothetical statewide, 30-day atmospheric river storm sequence over California with an approximately 2 percent likelihood of occurring each year in the present climate. Data was generated using the Weather Research and Forecasting model and global climate simulations from the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble. The chart of precipitation at Oroville compares cumulative rainfall at the Oroville weather station before the 2017 crisis with cumulative rainfall at the closest data point in ARkHist. The rainfall visualization compares observed hourly rainfall in December 2016 from the Los Angeles Downtown weather station with rainfall at the closest data point in a hypothetical future megastorm, the ARkFuture scenario in Huang and Swain (2022). This storm would be a rare but plausible event in the second half of the 21st century if nations continue on a path of high greenhouse-gas emissions. ## Additional credits The 3D rainfall visualization and augmented reality effect by Nia Adurogbola, Jeffrey Gray, Evan Grothjan, Lydia Jessup, Max Lauter, Daniel Mangosing, Noah Pisner, James Surdam and Raymond Zhong. Photo editing by Matt McCann. Produced by Sarah Graham, Claire O’Neill, Jesse Pesta and Nadja Popovich. Audio produced by Kate Winslett.

A different ‘Big One’ is approaching. Climate change is hastening its arrival.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2022-08-12 00:00:00

article

nytimes.com

The New York Times

http://www.tracgene.com/shiloh-methodist-churchcemetery-bennettsville-south-carolina/

https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-63-3

http://luckyapps.com/blog/?p=12

http://vimeo.com/105879806

https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novemberdecember-2017/what-j-d-vance-doesnt-get-about-appalachia/

What J. D. Vance Doesn’t Get About Appalachia | Washington Monthly

Alec MacGillis

We are, one hears, spending too much time on Appalachia. There are too many dispatches from woebegone towns, coastal reporters parachuting in to ascertain that, yes, the hard-bitten locals are still with their man Donald Trump. There are too many odes to the beleaguered coal miner, even though that entire industry now employs fewer people than Arby’s. Enough already, says the exasperated urban liberal. Frank Rich captured this sentiment in March in a *New York *magazine piece entitled “No Sympathy for the Hillbilly.” “Maybe,” he mused, “they’ll keep voting against their own interests until the industrial poisons left unregulated by their favored politicians finish them off altogether. Either way, the best course for Democrats may be to respect their right to choose.” The superficial “downtrodden Trump voter” story has indeed become an unproductive cliché. And upheavals in industries with larger, more diverse workforces than coal, such as retail, deserve close attention as well. But our decades-long fixation with Appalachia is still justified. For starters, the political transformation of the region is genuinely stunning. West Virginia was one of just six states that voted for Jimmy Carter in 1980; last year, it gave Trump his second-largest margin of victory, forty-two points. More importantly, the region’s afflictions cannot simply be cordoned off and left to burn out. The opioid epidemic that now grips whole swaths of the Northeast and Midwest got its start around the turn of the century in central Appalachia, with the shameless targeting of a vulnerable customer base by pharmaceutical companies hawking their potent painkillers. The epidemic spread outward from there, sure as an inkblot on a map. People like Frank Rich may be callous enough to want to consign Appalachians to their “poisons,” but the quarantine is not that easy. We should be thankful, then, for what Steven Stoll, a historian at Fordham University, has delivered in *Ramp Hollow*: not just another account of Appalachia’s current plight, but a journey deeper in time to help us understand how the region came to be the way it is. For while much has been written about the region of late, the historical roots of its troubles have received relatively little recent scrutiny. *Hillbilly Elegy*, J. D. Vance’s best-selling memoir of growing up in an Appalachian family transplanted from eastern Kentucky to the flatlands of southwestern Ohio, cast his people’s afflictions largely as a matter of a culture gone awry, of ornery self-reliance turned to resentful self-destruction. In *White Trash*, the historian Nancy Isenberg traced the history of the country’s white underclass to the nation’s earliest days, but she focused more on how that underclass was depicted and scorned than on the material particulars of its existence. Stoll offers the ideal complement. He has set out to tell the story of how the people of a sprawling region of our country—one of its most physically captivating and ecologically bountiful—went from enjoying a modest but self-sufficient existence as small-scale agrarians for much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to a dreary dependency on the indulgence of coal barons or the alms of the government. Stoll refuses to accept that there is something intrinsically lacking in Appalachians—people who, after all, managed to carve out a life on such challenging, mountainous terrain. Something was done to them, and he is going to figure out who did it. He links their fate to other threatened agrarian communities, from rice growers in the Philippines to English peasants at the time of the Enclosure Acts. “Whenever we see hunger and deprivation among rural people, we need to ask a simple question: What went on just before the crisis that might have caused it?” he writes. “Seeing the world without the past would be like visiting a city after a devastating hurricane and declaring that the people there have always lived in ruins.” The missing history is above all a story about land and dispossession. For roughly a century, starting before the country’s founding, the settlers of central Appalachia—defined by Stoll as the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania and most of West Virginia—managed a makeshift life as smallholders. The terms of that “holding” were murky, to say the least: property claims in the region were a tangled patchwork of grants awarded to French and Indian or Revolutionary War generals and other notables, which were commonly diced and sliced among speculators, and the de facto claims made by those actually inhabiting the land. In some cases, those settlers managed to get official deeds by the legal doctrine of “adverse possession”; in many others, they were simply allowed to keep working the land by distant landlords who had never laid eyes on it. Regardless of the legal letter, the settlers carved out their “homeplace,” as Stoll calls it. He is evocative in describing their existence, but stops short of romanticizing it, and takes pains to note that their presence was itself founded on the dispossession of the natives. They practiced “swidden” agriculture—burning out one clearing for cultivation, then letting it regenerate while rotating to another area—likely introduced by Scandinavians mixed in with the predominant Scots-Irish. Survival depended on shared use of the boundless forest beyond one’s own hollow or ridge—the “commons”—for hunting game, raising livestock, small-scale logging, and foraging bounties such as uganost (wild greens), toothworth, corn salad, and ramps. “People with control over a robust landscape work hard, but they don’t go hungry,” remarks Stoll. Yet it was the area’s very natural bounty that would ultimately spell the end of this self-sufficiency. The Civil War’s incursions into the Shenandoah Valley and westward exposed the region’s riches in exactly the minerals demanded by a growing industrial economy. (By 1880, there were 56,500 steam engines in the country, all voracious for coal.) “Her hills and valleys are full of wealth which only needs development to attract capitalists like a magnet,” declared one joint-stock company. In swarmed said capitalists, often in cahoots with local power brokers from Charleston and Wheeling. The confused legal property claims offered the aspiring coal barons a window: they could approach longtime inhabitants and say, essentially, “Look, we all know you don’t have full title to this land, but if you sell us the mineral rights, we’ll let you stay.” With population growth starting to crimp the wide-ranging agrarian existence, some extra cash in hand was hard to reject. Not that it was very much: one farmer turned over his 740 acres for a mere $3.58 per acre—around $80 today. By 1889, a single company, Flat Top Land Trust, had amassed rights to 200,000 acres in McDowell County in southern West Virginia; just thirteen years later, McDowell was producing more than five million tons of coal per year. The coal industry had a positively soft touch in the early going, though, compared to timber. Stoll describes the arrival of the “steam skidder,” which “looks like a locomotive with a ship’s mast.” It “clanks and spits, chugs steam, and sweats grease from its wheels and pistons” as workers use cables extending from the mast to grab fallen trees, “pulling or skidding the logs hundreds of feet to a railroad flatbed.” The steam skidder crews would cut everything they could, “leaving the slopes barren but for the stumps, branches, and bark that burned whenever a spark from a railroad wheel or glowing ash from a tinderbox fell on the detritus.” The harvest was staggering: “Of the 10 million acres that had never been cut in 1870, only 1.5 million stood in 1910.” Stoll quotes one witness from the time: “One sees these beautiful hills and valleys stripped of nature’s adornment; the hills denuded of their forests, the valleys lighted by the flames of coke-ovens and smelting furnaces; their vegetation seared and blackened . . . and one could wish that such an Arcadia might have been spared such ravishment. But the needs of the race are insatiable and unceasing.” Indeed, they were. As one northern lumberman put it: “All we want here is to get the most we can out of this country, as quick as we can, and then get out.” Such rapaciousness did not leave much of the commons that had sustained the makeshift agrarian existence. Of course, there was a new life to replace it: mining coal or logging trees. By 1929, 100,000 men, out of a total state population of only 1.7 million, worked in 830 mines across West Virginia alone. But it is in that very shift that Stoll identifies the region’s turn toward immiseration. With the land spoiled and few non-coal jobs available, workers were at the mercy of whichever coal company dominated their corner of the region. They lived in camps and were paid in scrip usable only at the company store; even the small gardens they were allowed in the camps were geared less toward self-reliance than toward cutting the company’s costs to feed them. Stoll quotes a professor at Berea College in eastern Kentucky who captured the new reality in a 1924 book: The miner “had not realized that he would have to buy all his food. . . He has to pay even for water to drink.” Having moved their families to a shanty in the camp, miners owed rent even when the mine closed in the industry’s cyclical downturns, which served to “bind them as tenants by compulsion . . . under leases by which they can be turned out with their wives and children on the mountainside in midwinter if they strike.” As Stoll sums it up, “Their dependency on company housing and company money spent for food in company-owned stores amounted to a constant threat of eviction and starvation.” Of course, Merle Travis had this dynamic nailed way back in his 1947 classic, “Sixteen Tons”: “You load sixteen tons, what do you get? / Another day older and deeper in debt. / Saint Peter, don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go, / I owe my soul to the company store.” Nor did the industries bring even a modicum of mass prosperity to compensate for this dependency. By 1960, more than half the homes in central Appalachia still lacked central plumbing, helping give rise to all manner of cruel stereotypes and harsh commentary, such as this, from the British historian Arnold Toynbee: “The Appalachians present the melancholy spectacle of a people who have acquired civilization and then lost it.” An extensive 1981 study of eighty Appalachian counties by the Highlander Research and Educational Center in Tennessee confirmed that, in Stoll’s summary, coal company capital had brought “stagnation, not human betterment,” and a “correlation between corporate control and inadequate housing.” “Banks in coal counties couldn’t invest in home construction or other local improvements because the greater share of their deposits belonged to the companies,” Stoll writes. “No sooner did that capital flow in than it flowed out, depriving banks of funds stable enough for community lending.” Not only had the coal industry, along with timber, supplanted an earlier existence, but it was actively stifling other forms of growth and development. Stoll recounts a scene from 1988, when a man named Julian Martin got up at a public hearing to oppose a proposed strip-mining project in West Virginia. Martin described the disappearance of Bull Creek along the Coal River, which he had explored as a kid decades earlier. He pointed out that places that had seen the most strip mining had also become the very poorest in the state. “My daddy was a coal miner, and I understand being out of work, okay?” Martin said. “I’ve been down that road myself. And I know you’ve got to provide for your family. But I’m saying they’re only giving us two options. They’re saying, ‘Either starve—or destroy West Virginia.’ And surely to God there must be another option.” It’s a powerful moment, and it captures the tragic political irony that is one of the most lasting fruits of the region’s dependency: despite all the depredations of resource extraction—all the mine collapses and explosions (twenty-nine killed at Upper Big Branch in 2010) and slurry floods (125 killed in the Buffalo Creek disaster of 1972) and chemical spills (thousands without drinking water after the contamination of the Elk River in 2014)—many inhabitants, and their elected representatives, remain fiercely protective of the responsible industries. Even the empathetic Stoll can’t help let his frustration show, as he urges the “white working class of the southern mountains to stop identifying their interests with those of the rich and powerful, a position that leaves them poorer and more powerless than they have ever been.” Well, yes, but many a book has been written to explain why exactly the opposite trend has been happening, as Appalachia turns ever redder. It shouldn’t be *that* hard to make sense of the coal-related part of this political turn, and voters’ rightful assessment that coastal Democrats are hostile to the industry. The region has been dominated by mining for so long that coal has become deeply interwoven with its whole sense of self. Just last month, I was speaking with a couple of retired union miners in Fairmont, West Virginia, who are highly critical of both coal companies and Trump, and suffer the typical physical ailments from decades spent underground. Yet both said without hesitation that they missed the work for the camaraderie and sense of purpose it provided. Their ancestors identified as agrarians; they identified as miners. Stoll is on more original and compelling ground as he tries to determine what that “other option” might be for the region. He imagines a “Commons Communities Act,” under which land would be set aside for shared use, not unlike the great forests of old—farming, timber harvesting, hunting and gathering, vegetable gardening, cattle grazing—by a specified number of families. Residents would own their own homes and could pursue whatever sort of work they cared to beyond their use of the commons. Social services and education in the communities would be paid for by a surcharge on the top 1 percent of U.S. households and an “industrial abandonment tax” on any corporation that “closed its operations in any city or region of the United States within the last twenty years . . . and moved elsewhere, leaving behind toxic waste and poverty.” It is an admittedly fantastical vision that will fare better with Wendell Berry than with Congress or the West Virginia legislature. But in one sense, it is not so far-fetched after all. Coal *is* on the wane in central Appalachia, however much uptick it enjoys in the Trump era. Not only is it being undercut by natural gas, but the easily obtainable reserves are gradually tapping out, at long last. Coal’s decline is having wrenching effects on its dependents, not least the depletion of local government and school coffers. Something will have to replace it, and the odds of Amazon picking Morgantown or Charleston for its second headquarters are slim. West Virginia’s population has fallen by nearly 10 percent from its peak in 1950, a reversal of the crowding that helped bring the agrarian existence to an end more than a century ago. So perhaps it is not so crazy after all to suppose that a region so proud of its heritage could reach back to an earlier, almost-forgotten part of it, before the steam skidder showed up, and lay new claim to its land. *This piece was co-published by ProPublica.*

A new history shows how Big Coal created a culture of dependence.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2017-10-29 00:00:00

article

washingtonmonthly.com

Washington Monthly

http://www.getmailbird.com/alternative-to-windows-10-mail-app/

Best Alternative to Windows 10 Mail App in 2024

# Windows Mail App Top Alternatives in 2024 Though it has significant improvements compared to Windows Live Mail, the new Windows 10 Mail app still has drawbacks with its user experience. If the app’s downsides impact your email productivity, it’s worth considering these eight solid Windows 10 Mail alternatives, including Mailbird. Though it has significant improvements compared to Windows Live Mail, the new Windows 10 Mail app still has drawbacks with its user experience. If the app's downsides impact your email productivity, it's worth considering these eight solid Windows 10 Mail alternatives, including Mailbird. In this article, we will compare different email clients side-by-side so that you can choose an effective replacement for Windows 10. We will highlight key features, pricing, and user reviews. So let's see which email client ticks all the boxes for your unique needs. ## Windows Mail Overview Windows Mail is a built-in email client you can use by default on Windows 10 devices. This might be the best free email client you get by default and a decent contender to commercial email clients because it offers various productivity features with every Windows OS version at no additional cost. - Features - - Multiple calendars - Pin email to the top - Inbox linking - Personalized notifications - Keyword shortcuts - Phonetic search - Drag and drop attachment - Customizable backgrounds - Focused inbox - User Experience - - Simple user interface - Standard three-pane screen layout - Syncs with Microsoft Office 365 - Available on Mac and mobile - Out-dated user interface - Very limited customization - Limited flexibility with integration interface - Configuration - - Enables IMAP and POP3 exchanges - Improved new user walk-through - Slow configuration - Problems with contact integration - Issues with mail synchronization - Limited software updates - Email Management - - Unified inbox - Advanced search - Send later feature - Archive feature - Swiping gestures for mobile - No keyboard shortcuts - Basic filters - No customization - Moves slow - Customization - - Change layout colors - Add email signature - Change the font - Major lack of customization - No templates - Security - - Constantly updating security - Two factor verification option - Major security concerns - No technical support ## 7 Windows Mail App Alternatives In this article, we are reviewing these seven email clients that are great alternatives to Windows 10 Mail: - Mailbird - clean design and powerful features - Thunderbird - versatile free option - Outlook - an alternative for Windows loyalists - Kiwi - exclusive to Gmail accounts - Spark - team collaboration functionality - Evolution - simple, no-frills interface - Claws Mail - an open-source option Let's see how they compare to each other ### Mailbird Mailbird is a powerful email client that lets you connect and manage all POP/IMAP accounts from one unified inbox. Mailbird helps you handle all your email accounts and productivity apps from one unified dashboard, keeping your focus on work at its highest. This email client integrates with various productivity tools such as Asana, Evernote, Google Suite, and many more, so you can quickly eliminate unnecessary distractions and focus on important or unread messages. #### Features - Unified inbox - Native unified calendar - Advanced contact management - Rich filtering and labeling options - Undo send - Email tracking - Speed reader - Rich integration options - Unsubscribe button - Spam filtering - Folders - Keyboard shortcuts - Snooze - Send later - Spellchecker - Attachment reminder - Moving emails between accounts - Rich customization options #### User reviews ProductHunt - 4.7/5 #### Pricing Plans start at $3.25/per user monthly or $189.99 for lifetime access. #### Mailbird vs. Windows Mail App Capabilities | Mailbird | Windows Mail App | ---|---|---| Setup and onboarding | 5/5 | 4/5 | Customization | 5/5 | 4/5 | Email and contact management | 5/5 | 3/5 | Productivity features | 5/5 | 4/5 | Integrations | 5/5 | 3/5 | User Reviews | 4.7/5 | n/a | Pricing | From $3.25 | free | #### Verdict Mailbird and the Windows Mail app let you manage multiple email accounts and calendars. However, Mailbird offers many more productivity features than the Windows 10 email app. It also enables you to personalize your interface more due to rich customization options; it's more user-friendly and intuitive. While Mailbird doesn't have a free version, this email client's monthly subscription is affordable for everyone. ### Thunderbird Thunderbird is a free email client with many useful features, including a unified inbox and calendar. In addition, it can be a suitable replacement for Windows 10 Mail due to its robust security options and productivity tools. #### Features - Multiple account support - Multiple calendars - Spam filtering - Virus protection - Contact management - Tabbed email - One-click address book - Attachment reminder - Filtering - Large file management - Phishing protection #### Reviews G2 - 4.3/5 (296 reviews - December 2022) #### Pricing The free version is limited to two email accounts. free Capabilities | Thunderbird | Windows Mail App | ---|---|---| Setup and onboarding | 4/5 | 4/5 | Customization | 3/5 | 4/5 | Email and contact management | 4/5 | 3/5 | Productivity features | 3/5 | 4/5 | Integrations | 3/5 | 3/5 | User Reviews | 4.3/5 | n/a | Pricing | free | free | #### Verdict Similar to Windows Mail, Thunderbird is simple to use and navigate, and it's free. In some areas, this email client works much better than the Windows 10 default client; it offers more robust security and spam protection options. However, its productivity features are limited, and it doesn't provide a controlled product development app, as there is no team behind the project. ### Outlook Outlook is an advanced email client offering many productivity options. With the abundance of functions similar to Windows 10 Mail, Outlook could be a more user-friendly and intuitive tool. However, this email client is worth considering due to its rich integrations and features. #### Features - Simple configuration - Support of multiple accounts - Integrated calendars - Spam filtering - Phishing protection - Smart lookup - To-do lists - Smart alerts - Email recall #### Reviews G2 - 4.4/5 (2145 reviews - December 2022) #### Pricing You can access individual and business plans in Outlook. The personal plan costs $69.99 yearly or $6.99 monthly, while the business plan costs $6 per user. Capabilities | Outlook | Windows Mail App | ---|---|---| Setup and onboarding | 4/5 | 4/5 | Customization | 4/5 | 4/5 | Email and contact management | 4/5 | 3/5 | Productivity features | 4/5 | 4/5 | Integrations | 4/5 | 3/5 | User Reviews | 4.4/5 | n/a | Pricing | from $6 | free | #### Verdict Outlook offers rich productivity features, making it one of the best Windows 10 mail alternatives among commercial email clients. However, you can easily get lost in the abundance of features that negatively impact your productivity. While Windows 10 Mail is often viewed as simple, Outlook is a much more complex tool to navigate. ### Kiwi Kiwi is a desktop application that works only with Gmail accounts. It enhances various Gmail functions and integrates with Gmail applications such as Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive more effectively. #### Features - Clean compose window - 1-click launch - Document recall - Quick Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive launch - Customization - Focus-filtered inbox - Do not disturb mode - Shortcuts - Extensions #### User Reviews Capterra - 4.5/5 #### Pricing The monthly plan costs $2.75. Yearly plans vary from $30 to $58.99, depending on the number of accounts and functionalities. Capabilities | Kiwi for Gmail | Windows Mail App | ---|---|---| Setup and onboarding | 4/5 | 4/5 | Customization | 3/5 | 4/5 | Email and contact management | 4/5 | 3/5 | Productivity features | 3/5 | 4/5 | Integrations | 3/5 | 3/5 | User Reviews | n/a | n/a | Pricing | from $2.75 | free | #### Verdict Kiwi is an email tool used to enhance work with Gmail accounts. It doesn't support other email providers, which limits its capacity to add and manage accounts and calendars. However, if Gmail is the only email provider you use, Kiwi can become a helpful tool for more effective email management. It's much more intuitive and easy to use compared to the Windows 10 app. ### Spark Spark is an email client offering various productivity features, such as team comments or email delegations, that are useful for teams. This tool lets you connect unlimited accounts belonging to different email providers. It's much more user-friendly and attractive than Windows 10 Mail. #### Features - Unified inbox - Unified calendar - Templates - Natural language search - Snooze emails - Automated email categorization - Private team comments - Send later - Follow-up reminders - Link to email - Smart notifications #### Reviews App Store - 4.8/5 (36,167 reviews - December 2022) #### Pricing Free with limited functionalities. Paid plans start at $59.99/year. Capabilities | Spark | Windows Mail App | ---|---|---| Setup and onboarding | 5/5 | 4/5 | Customization | 4/5 | 4/5 | Email and contact management | 4/5 | 3/5 | Productivity features | 4/5 | 4/5 | Integrations | 3/5 | 3/5 | User Reviews | 4.8/5 | n/a | Pricing | from $59.99 | free | #### Verdict Spark is a much more intuitive and user-friendly email client compared to the Windows Mail app. This tool lets you integrate with various third-party tools and boost your work's effectiveness with various productivity features. However, it's expensive compared to other email clients. ### Evolution Evolution is an open-source client that helps you manage several accounts, calendars, contacts, notes, and tasks. #### Features - IMAP and POP3 support - Encrypted email - Multiple accounts - Built-in themes - Email tracking - Multiple calendars - Junk and spam filtering - Working offline - Shortcuts - Sorting, filtering, searching - Email read receipts - Spell checking - Message templates - Advanced contact management #### User Reviews n/a #### Pricing It's a free email client Capabilities | Evolution | Windows Mail App | ---|---|---| Setup and onboarding | 4/5 | 4/5 | Customization | 3/5 | 4/5 | Email and contact management | 3/5 | 3/5 | Productivity features | 4/5 | 4/5 | Integrations | 3/5 | 3/5 | User Reviews | n/a | n/a | Pricing | free | free | #### Verdict Evolution offers useful features that can take your productivity to a new level. But its interface is outdated and can't compete with Windows 10 Mail regarding customization options. However, Evolution is also free. ### Claws Mail Claws Mail is a lightweight email client with various productivity options. Compared to the often slow Windows 10 Mail, Claws Mail can feel surprisingly speedy and easy to navigate. #### Features - Multiple accounts - IMAP/POP3 support - Colour labels - Templates - Message scoring - Automated message saving - Filtering options - Quick response - Intuitive navigation - Sophisticated interface #### Reviews G2 - 4.5/5 #### Pricing Free Capabilities | Claws Mail | Windows Mail App | ---|---|---| Setup and onboarding | 4/5 | 4/5 | Customization | 4/5 | 4/5 | Email and contact management | 3/5 | 3/5 | Productivity features | 4/5 | 4/5 | Integrations | 3/5 | 3/5 | User Reviews | n/a | n/a | Pricing | free | free | #### Verdict Claws Mail is more outdated than Windows Mail, but it offers many useful features for free. It also lets you label and group your incoming and outgoing messages-features that are unavailable in Windows 10 Mail. So consider this email client if you want a free Windows Mail app alternative. Capabilities | Windows Mail | Mailbird | Thunderbird | Outlook | Kiwi | Spark | Evolution | Claws Mail | ---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| Setup and onboarding | 4/5 | 5/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | 5/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | Customization | 4/5 | 5/5 | 3/5 | 4/5 | 3/5 | 4/5 | 3/5 | 4/5 | Email and contact management | 3/5 | 5/5 | 3/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | Productivity features | 3/5 | 5/5 | 3/5 | 4/5 | 3/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | Ingerations | 3/5 | 5/5 | 3/5 | 4/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | Price | Free | From $3.25/month | Free | $6 | from $2.75 | from $59.99 | free | free | ## What Is the Best Replacement for the Windows Mail App? Windows Mail is simple and offers basic features many users find sufficient for managing multiple accounts. However, Windows 10 Mail has its drawbacks, such as a lack of intuitiveness and advanced productivity features. Fortunately, plenty of Windows Mail app alternatives are adequate replacements. After checking out a complete comparison of the reviewed apps, you will notice that Mailbird is the strongest contender. That's because it offers the most productivity features organized in an intuitive and user-friendly way. You can start using this email client immediately-no need to watch tutorials. In addition, it lets you connect dozens of external apps, such as Asana or Evernote, and manage the tools from one productivity dashboard-something other email clients don't always let you do. ## Who Is Mailbird Made For? If you're looking for an alternative mail app to Windows 10 then Mailbird fits the bill. As you can tell, Mailbird is made for users who want a unified inbox to manage their email accounts, regardless of how tech-savvy they are. With added features, integrations and customization, Mailbird works with you, allowing you to create a productive inbox workspace to get more done without coding it all in. We offer far more accessible features, setup, and tools when compared to Windows Mail app when it comes to email management, accessibility, and security. Feel free to review the table that reviews everything we've covered so far to see the comparison between Windows Mail app and Mailbird: Criteria | Windows Mail App | Mailbird | ---|---|---| Price | Basic - FreeBusiness Basic - $5.00 user/monthBusiness Standard - $12.50 user/monthBusiness Premium - $20.00 user/month | Personal - $3.25/MonthBusiness - $4.92/MonthOne Time Payment - $79 | Account Set up | IMAP and Office 365 | IMAP, Office 365, Exchange, POP Auto-Detects Email Settings for Quick Setup | Email Management Features | Unified Inbox Advanced Search Send Later Feature Archive Feature Swiping Gestures for Mobile | Unified Inbox Shortcuts Advanced Search Email Tracking Unsubscribe Button Snooze Send Later Speed Reader | Custom Settings | Themes Layout Signatures Templates | Themes Layout Mail Rules Shortcuts Notifications Languages Signatures Integrations | Integrations | Only with Microsoft Office. Some knowledge of plugins is required. | 30 +apps are easy to integrate almost instantly. They include: Task Management Apps Chat and Video Conferencing Calendars Google Workspace Apps, and more | Support | Premium Support for Microsoft 365 users | Email Support Knowledge Base Premium Support for Business | If you want to try Mailbird, you can install and set it up in just five simple steps that don't require any technical knowledge: - Download the Mailbird email client on the official website. - Enter your primary email account details and configure your email box. - In this account, let Mailbird automatically detect the incoming mail server SMTP and outgoing mail server settings. - Add additional email accounts (if any). - Customize the accounts per your needs and preferences (optional). ### Frequently Asked Questions about Microsoft Outlook ## Does Windows 10 have a built-in email app? Yes, Windows 10 comes with its free email client called Mail. You can access the Windows 10 mail app by typing Mail in your Windows search box. But it's not the best free desktop email client. In fact, any free program will come with a lot of synchronization, speed, and security issues, as well as limited functionality. This is because, with paid products, you get technical support and frequent software updates. ## Is the Windows 10 Mail app any good? The Windows 10 Mail app is a simple email client that lets you connect various email accounts from different email providers. However, it's quite limited in productivity features and lacks intuitiveness. Mailbird is a good alternative to the Windows app, as it offers many more productivity features, such as speed reader, spellchecker, localization, and undo send. ## How do I use the Mail app in Windows 10? You have to follow these steps to start using the Mail app in Windows 10: - Select Start. Next, type Mail. - Once you enter the app, you will be asked to add a new account if you are using this email client for the first time. - Proceed to Add Account. - Choose the account type and click Sign in. - Click Done. ## Where do I find Windows Mail in Windows 10? All Windows 10 computers come with the Windows Mail app preinstalled on your computer. You can find Windows Mail in the Windows search box by typing Mail. Likewise you can select an alternative to Windows 10 mail app for your Windows computer. ## How to Set Up an Email on Windows 10? If you're wondering how to install email address you can follow these easy steps. - Step 1: Open Windows 10 Mail Firstly, you'll need to open Windows 10 Mail by clicking on the Start button, then clicking on 'Mail'. - Step 2: Choose 'Settings' Once Windows 10 Mail has opened, choose the 'Settings' icon (the cog) from the menu located at the bottom of the app. - Step 3: Choose 'Manage Accounts' Then simple choose 'Manage Accounts' from the settings menu that appears on the right hand side of the screen. - Step 4: Choose 'Add account' Then simple click on the option labelled 'Add Account'. - Step 5: Choose 'Advanced setup' After you have entered your e-mail address and password, choose 'Advanced setup' from the list of different account types. - Step 6: Choose 'Internet email' Then choose 'Internet email' to set up your account details. ## Is Windows 10 Mail the Same as Outlook? Windows 10 Mail app's interface is similar to Outlook but it acts as an email client for email apps like Outlook, Gmail and Yahoo. If you have issues with Outlook's interface feel free to check out Mailbird, an alternative to Windows 10 mail app.

Though it has significant improvements compared to Windows Live Mail, the new Windows 10 Mail app still has drawbacks with its user experience. If the app’s downsides impact your email productivity, it’s worth considering these eight solid Windows 10 Mail

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2024-01-15 00:00:00

website

getmailbird.com

Mailbird

https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/the-behavioral-economics-guide-2018/

The Behavioral Economics Guide 2018

BehavioralEconomics com

Editor: Alain Samson ## CONTENTS Why the World Is Turning to Behavioral Science Behavioral Economics Under the Microscope - The Nuts and Bolts of Behavioral Insights Units - D.R.I.V.E.: A Practical Framework for Applying Behavioural Science in Strategy - Consumers’ Decision Process and Their Utility Expectation: How Can You Measure It? - Having the Energy to Make Better Consumer Decisions - Super Behaviour: Designing Australia’s Superannuation System - Battling for Buyers: How Banks Can Combat the Threat of Fintechs - How to Double Savings Rates: A Case Study in Nudging for Good - Risk Seeker or Risk Averse? Cross-Country Differences in Risk Attitudes Towards Financial Investment - “Piggy-Banking” on Friends: Finding Sub-Optimal Lending Among Peers - How Humans Predict Behavior (And Why This Matters to Practitioners!) - A Positive Typology of Irrational Decision Strategies - Selected Behavioral Science Concepts - Postgraduate Programs - TED/TEDx Talks - Scholarly Journals - Author Profiles - Contributing Organizations **Free download via archive:** Please enter your email address to be added to our newsletter mailing list* and receive download links for the Behavioral Economics Guides 2014 to 2023. An email with the downloads will be sent to you straight away. ** **You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of the newsletter. We won’t share your information with third parties.*

The newest edition of the popular guide, featuring an introduction by Robert Cialdini, a guest editorial by Robert Metcalfe, and contributions by leading practitioners from five continents. Edited by Alain Samson.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2024-09-02 00:00:00

article

behavioraleconomics.com

BehavioralEconomics.com | The BE Hub

https://csferrie.medium.com/how-game-development-changed-the-way-i-teach-quantum-computing-a27a2aaa462c

https://madusudanan.com/blog/scala-articles-index/

https://blog.checkpoint.com/2021/12/13/the-numbers-behind-a-cyber-pandemic-detailed-dive/

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/not-even-the-people-who-write-algorithms-really-know-how-they-work/406099/?single_page=true

The Algorithms That Power the Web Are Only Getting More Mysterious

Adrienne LaFrance

# Not Even the People Who Write Algorithms Really Know How They Work The web's information filters are making assumptions about you based on details that you might not even notice yourself. Sometimes there’s a little crack in the web that is just big enough to catch a glimpse of who the robots running the show think you are. You might deduce, for example, that the tracking software that watches you browse has figured out you’re shopping for a Halloween costume. Lo and behold, ads for gorilla suits and fairy wings start popping up in the margins of every other website you visit. Or maybe you just rewatched a bunch of *Twilight Zone *episodes on Netflix. It makes sense that the site then recommends *Black Mirror* and *Quantum Leap. * But much of the time, there’s no way to tell why information is filtered the way it is online. Why is one person’s status update on Facebook prioritized in your News Feed over another’s? Why does Google return a different order of search results for you than for the person sitting next to you, googling the same thing? These are the mysteries of the algorithms that rule the web. And the weird thing is, they aren’t just inscrutable to the people clicking and scrolling around the Internet. Even the engineers who develop algorithms can’t tell you exactly how they work. And it’s going to get more convoluted before it gets clearer. In fact, for a few reasons, it probably won't get clearer *ever*. First of all, there’s virtually no regulation of data-collection in the United States, meaning companies can create detailed profiles of individuals based on huge troves of personal data—without those individuals knowing what’s being collected or how that information is being used. “This is getting worse,” said Andrew Moore, the dean of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. Which means, Moore told me, we are “moving away from, not toward the world where you can immediately give a clear diagnosis” for what a data-fed algorithm is doing with a person’s web behaviors. I once explored the idea that we might eventually be able to subscribe to one algorithm over another on Facebook as a way to know exactly how the information filter was working. A nice thought experiment, perhaps, but one that assumes the people who write algorithms know with any level of precision or individuality how they work. “You might be overestimating how much the content-providers understand how their own systems work,” said Moore, who is also a former vice president at Google. He didn’t want to talk about Google in particular, but he did present another hypothetical: Imagine a company showing movie recommendations. “You might want to say, ‘Why did you recommend this movie?’ When you're using machine-learning models, the model trains itself by using huge amounts of information from previous people,” he said. “Everything from the color of the pixels on the movie poster through to maybe the physical proximity to other people who enjoyed this movie. It’s the averaging effect of all these things.” These things, the bits of information that a machine-learning model picks through and prioritizes, might include 2,000 data points or 100,000 of them. “One of the researchers at Carnegie Mellon,” Moore said, “just launched a new machine-learning system which can handle putting together *tens of billions* of little pieces of evidence.” Which means the systems that determine what you see on the web are becoming more complex than ever. Factor in questions about how those algorithms might hurt people and the picture is murkier still. Consider, for example, Facebook's patent for technology that could trace a person’s social network—a tool that lenders could use to consider the credit ratings of a person’s Facebook friends in deciding whether to approve a loan application. “If the average credit rating of these members is at least a minimum credit score, the lender continues to process the loan application,” Facebook wrote in the patent filing. “Otherwise, the loan application is rejected.” “That is a really difficult problem,” Moore said. "You’re asking a computer that’s obviously not that smart in the first place to predict whether this person is a risk based on what we know about them—but [you’re telling it], ‘Please exclude these features that, as a society, we think would be illegal.’ But it’s very hard or impossible for the engineers to know for sure that the computer hasn’t inadvertently used some piece of evidence which it shouldn’t.” All this means that as algorithms become more complex, they become more dangerous. The assumptions these filters make end up having real impact on the individual level, but they’re based on oceans of data that no one person, not even the person who designed them, can ever fully interpret.

The web's information filters are making assumptions about you based on details that you might not even notice yourself.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2015-09-18 00:00:00

article

theatlantic.com

The Atlantic

https://loading.io/flexbox/

http://startup.supercoolschool.com/classes/330

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2024-10-12 00:00:00

https://www.aquariumofpacific.org/onlinelearningcenter/species/tripod_fish

Tripod Fish

# Tripod Fish *Bathypterois grallator* From the cold, dark depths of the ocean comes a peculiar yet interesting looking fish called the tripod fish. Known as a “stilt walker,” this unusual fish perches over the substrate in the deep ocean floor most of its life hunting for food. Using three elongated projections from its modified fins, it stands over the seafloor like a tripod, giving it its common name, tripod fish. ## SPECIES IN DETAIL ### Tripod Fish *Bathypterois grallator* CONSERVATION STATUS: **Safe for Now** CLIMATE CHANGE: **Uncertain** ### Geographic Distribution Worldwide distribution in temperate and tropical oceans from the 40° northern latitude to the 40° southern latitude. ### Habitat Known to be a resident of the midnight and abyssal zones, tripod fish inhabit the deep ocean floor at depths ranging from about 900 to 4,700 m (2,950 to 15,400 ft). ### Physical Characteristics This relatively small fish has modified pelvic and caudal fins that are elongated at the tips, called rays or elements. These extremely long rays stick out of the pelvic fins as well as the lower caudal, or tail, fin. These rays are rigid while the fish perches over the substrate, but appear to be flexible when the fish swims away. Its pectoral fins, known as tactile organs, extend upward to detect prey much like antennae. The eyes have been significantly reduced and almost disappeared since it lives in the deep ocean where it is dark. Their color ranges from bronze to pale with gray on the head, belly, and along the lower back. ### Size The common body length is around 30.0 cm (12 in.) with a maximum length of about 37 cm (14 in.). The modified fins grow to about 1 m (3.3 ft) or approximately three times its body length. ### Diet Tripod fish spends most of their life perched on its fins on the ocean floor waiting for a meal to come by. It depends on its long and feathery pectoral fins to alert it when it senses food. Acting as hands, these long pectoral fins will then capture the food and direct it towards its mouth, which has a large gape. They will eat small planktonic crustaceans, zooplankton, and any tiny organism that drifts through the current. To increase its chances of obtaining food, the tripod fish faces into the direction of water movement, staying still, and waiting for food to arrive. ### Reproduction Tripod fish are simultaneously or synchronously hermaphroditic, possessing both male and female reproductive organs that mature at the same time. If this fish cannot find a mate due to its predominantly solitary existence in a harsh environment, it can fertilize its own eggs, thus ensuring the survival of the species. When self-fertilization occurs, the tripod fish spawns both sperm and eggs into the water column. When two tripod fish mate, one broadcasts sperm and the other eggs into the water column. ### Behavior Tripod fish are mainly a solitary benthic species, living alone close to the ocean floor throughout their adult life. While hunting, it will face the current, standing on the substrate and perching about 3 ft above the seafloor with its elongated fins. This is important because currents are very slow or virtually non-existent on the ocean floor or just centimeters above it. This is why they need to be above the substrate, high enough where there is more current. Their elongated rays will stiffen while in hunting mode, and become flexible when it swims. In the event that a mate cannot be found, tripod fish will fertilize their ### Adaptation The elongated pelvic and caudal fin rays found on the tripod fish are an adaptation that has allowed these fish to hunt effectively so close to the deep ocean floor. These rays become soft and limp as the fish swims away, trailing behind it like flaccid tails. Scientists are not sure how this mechanism works, but they suspect fluid is pumped through the extremely long rays, making them rigid and allowing tripod fish to balance while standing over the substrate during hunting. As a result of living in virtually complete darkness, these “eyeless” fish have developed long pectoral fins that extend upward like antennae, and serve as tactile organs, or hands, when it searches for food. Since this type of hunting requires very little energy, it is an essential adaptation for a predator that lives under the extreme pressure, near to freezing water temperatures, and in the darkness of the deep ocean. ### Conservation Although relatively more is now known about tripod fish as a result of new technology for deep-sea exploration, scientists continue to learn more about this species from photographs and submersible observations. Tripod fish do not have any importance commercially, and do not appear to be threatened or endangered. However, the IUCN (International Union For Conservation of Nature) Red List has not yet assessed its conservation status. ### Special Notes The tripod fish’s scientific name, Bathypterois grallator, is derived from Greek and Latin. The Greek work “bathy” means ‘deep’ for its deep ocean habitat, and “pterois” meaning ‘feathery’ for its long feathery fins. From Latin, “grallator” means ‘one who walks on stilts’, which relates to the tripod configuration this species exhibits when hunting. ## SPECIES IN DETAIL | Print full entry ### Tripod Fish *Bathypterois grallator* CONSERVATION STATUS: **Safe for Now** CLIMATE CHANGE: **Uncertain** Worldwide distribution in temperate and tropical oceans from the 40° northern latitude to the 40° southern latitude. Known to be a resident of the midnight and abyssal zones, tripod fish inhabit the deep ocean floor at depths ranging from about 900 to 4,700 m (2,950 to 15,400 ft). This relatively small fish has modified pelvic and caudal fins that are elongated at the tips, called rays or elements. These extremely long rays stick out of the pelvic fins as well as the lower caudal, or tail, fin. These rays are rigid while the fish perches over the substrate, but appear to be flexible when the fish swims away. Its pectoral fins, known as tactile organs, extend upward to detect prey much like antennae. The eyes have been significantly reduced and almost disappeared since it lives in the deep ocean where it is dark. Their color ranges from bronze to pale with gray on the head, belly, and along the lower back. The common body length is around 30.0 cm (12 in.) with a maximum length of about 37 cm (14 in.). The modified fins grow to about 1 m (3.3 ft) or approximately three times its body length. Tripod fish spends most of their life perched on its fins on the ocean floor waiting for a meal to come by. It depends on its long and feathery pectoral fins to alert it when it senses food. Acting as hands, these long pectoral fins will then capture the food and direct it towards its mouth, which has a large gape. They will eat small planktonic crustaceans, zooplankton, and any tiny organism that drifts through the current. To increase its chances of obtaining food, the tripod fish faces into the direction of water movement, staying still, and waiting for food to arrive. Tripod fish are simultaneously or synchronously hermaphroditic, possessing both male and female reproductive organs that mature at the same time. If this fish cannot find a mate due to its predominantly solitary existence in a harsh environment, it can fertilize its own eggs, thus ensuring the survival of the species. When self-fertilization occurs, the tripod fish spawns both sperm and eggs into the water column. When two tripod fish mate, one broadcasts sperm and the other eggs into the water column. Tripod fish are mainly a solitary benthic species, living alone close to the ocean floor throughout their adult life. While hunting, it will face the current, standing on the substrate and perching about 3 ft above the seafloor with its elongated fins. This is important because currents are very slow or virtually non-existent on the ocean floor or just centimeters above it. This is why they need to be above the substrate, high enough where there is more current. Their elongated rays will stiffen while in hunting mode, and become flexible when it swims. In the event that a mate cannot be found, tripod fish will fertilize their The elongated pelvic and caudal fin rays found on the tripod fish are an adaptation that has allowed these fish to hunt effectively so close to the deep ocean floor. These rays become soft and limp as the fish swims away, trailing behind it like flaccid tails. Scientists are not sure how this mechanism works, but they suspect fluid is pumped through the extremely long rays, making them rigid and allowing tripod fish to balance while standing over the substrate during hunting. As a result of living in virtually complete darkness, these “eyeless” fish have developed long pectoral fins that extend upward like antennae, and serve as tactile organs, or hands, when it searches for food. Since this type of hunting requires very little energy, it is an essential adaptation for a predator that lives under the extreme pressure, near to freezing water temperatures, and in the darkness of the deep ocean. Although relatively more is now known about tripod fish as a result of new technology for deep-sea exploration, scientists continue to learn more about this species from photographs and submersible observations. Tripod fish do not have any importance commercially, and do not appear to be threatened or endangered. However, the IUCN (International Union For Conservation of Nature) Red List has not yet assessed its conservation status. The tripod fish’s scientific name, Bathypterois grallator, is derived from Greek and Latin. The Greek work “bathy” means ‘deep’ for its deep ocean habitat, and “pterois” meaning ‘feathery’ for its long feathery fins. From Latin, “grallator” means ‘one who walks on stilts’, which relates to the tripod configuration this species exhibits when hunting.

Take a journey of discovery through the world’s largest ocean at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2024-01-01 00:00:00

article

aquariumofpacific.org

https://www.aquariumofpacific.org

https://github.com/jarun/bcal

GitHub - jarun/bcal: :1234: Bits, bytes and address calculator

Jarun

`bcal` (*Byte CALculator*) is a REPL CLI utility for storage expression (e.g. `"(2GiB * 2) / (2KiB >> 2)"` ) evaluation, SI/IEC conversion, byte address calculation, base conversion and LBA/CHS calculation. It's very useful for those who deal with bits, bytes, addresses and binary prefixes frequently. It has a `bc` mode for general-purpose numerical calculations. Alternatively, it can also invoke the more featured `calc` which works better with expressions involving multiple bases. `bcal` uses SI and IEC binary prefixes and supports 64-bit Operating Systems only. - REPL and single execution modes - evaluate arithmetic expressions involving storage units - perform general purpose calculations (using bc or calc) - works with piped input or file redirection - convert to IEC/SI standard data storage units - interactive mode with the last valid result stored for reuse - show the address in bytes - show address as LBA:OFFSET - convert CHS to LBA and *vice versa* - base conversion to binary, decimal and hex - custom sector size, max heads/cylinder and max sectors/track - minimal dependencies `bcal` is written in C and depends on standard libc and GNU Readline (or BSD Editline). It invokes GNU `bc` or `calc` for non-storage expressions. To use `calc` : ``` export BCAL_USE_CALC=1 ``` Install `bcal` from your package manager. If the version available is dated try an alternative installation method. If you have git installed, clone this repository. Otherwise, download the latest stable release or development version (*risky*). Install to default location (`/usr/local` ): ``` $ sudo make strip install ``` To link to libedit: ``` $ sudo make O_EL=1 strip install ``` To uninstall, run: ``` $ sudo make uninstall ``` `PREFIX` is supported, in case you want to install to a different location. `bcal` can be compiled and installed from source in the Termux environment on `aarch64` Android devices. Instructions: ``` $ wget https://github.com/jarun/bcal/archive/master.zip $ unzip bcal-master.zip $ cd bcal-master/ $ pkg install make clang readline-dev $ make strip install ``` ``` usage: bcal [-c N] [-f loc] [-s bytes] [expr] [N [unit]] [-b [expr]] [-m] [-d] [-h] Storage expression calculator. positional arguments: expr expression in decimal/hex operands N [unit] capacity in B/KiB/MiB/GiB/TiB/kB/MB/GB/TB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix default unit is B (byte), case is ignored N can be decimal or '0x' prefixed hex value optional arguments: -c N show +ve integer N in binary, decimal, hex -f loc convert CHS to LBA or LBA to CHS refer to the operational notes in man page -s bytes sector size [default 512] -b [expr] enter bc mode or evaluate expression in bc -m show minimal output (e.g. decimal bytes) -d enable debug information and logs -h show this help prompt keys: b toggle bc mode r show result from last operation s show sizes of storage types ? show prompt help q/double ↵ quit program ``` **Interactive mode**:`bcal` enters the REPL mode if no arguments are provided. Storage unit conversion, base conversion and expression evaluation are supported in this mode. The last valid result is stored in the variable**r**.**Expression**: Expression passed as argument in one-shot mode must be within double quotes. Inner spaces are ignored. Supported operators:`+` ,`-` ,`*` ,`/` ,`%` and C bitwise operators (except`~` due to storage width dependency).**N [unit]**:`N` can be a decimal or '0x' prefixed hex value.`unit` can be B/KiB/MiB/GiB/TiB/kB/MB/GB/TB. Default is Byte. As all of these tokens are unique,`unit` is case-insensitive.**Numeric representation**: Decimal and hex are recognized in expressions and unit conversions. Binary is also recognized in other operations.**Syntax**: Prefix hex inputs with`0x` , binary inputs with`0b` .**Precision**: 128 bits if`__uint128_t` is available or 64 bits for numerical conversions. Floating point operations use`long double` . Negative values in storage expressions are unsupported. Only 64-bit operating systems are supported.**Fractional bytes do not exist**because they can't be addressed.`bcal` shows the floor value of non-integer*bytes*.**CHS and LBA syntax**:- LBA: `lLBA-MAX_HEAD-MAX_SECTOR` [NOTE: LBA starts with`l` (case ignored)] - CHS: `cC-H-S-MAX_HEAD-MAX_SECTOR` [NOTE: CHS starts with`c` (case ignored)] - Format conversion arguments must be hyphen separated. - Any unspecified value, including the one preceding the first `-` to the one following the last`-` , is considered`0` (zero). - Examples: `c-50--0x12-` -> C = 0, H = 50, S = 0, MH = 0x12, MS = 0`l50-0x12` -> LBA = 50, MH = 0x12, MS = 0 - LBA: **Default values**:- sector size: 0x200 (512) - max heads per cylinder: 0x10 (16) - max sectors per track: 0x3f (63) **bc variables**:`scale` = 10,`ibase` = 10.`r` is synced and can be used in expressions.`bc` is not called in minimal output mode. - Evaluate arithmetic expression of storage units. `$ bcal "(5kb+2mb)/3" $ bcal "5 tb / 12" $ bcal "2.5mb*3" $ bcal "(2giB * 2) / (2kib >> 2)"` - Convert storage capacity to other units and get address, LBA. `$ bcal 20140115 b $ bcal 0x1335053 B $ bcal 0xaabbcc kb $ bcal 0xdef Gib` Note that the units are case-insensitive. - Convert storage capacity, set sector size to 4096 to calculate LBA. `$ bcal 0xaabbcc kb -s 4096` - Convert LBA to CHS. `$ bcal -f l500 $ bcal -f l0x600-18-0x7e $ bcal -f l0x300-0x12-0x7e` - Convert CHS to LBA. `$ bcal -f c10-10-10 $ bcal -f c0x10-0x10-0x10 $ bcal -f c0x10-10-2-0x12 $ bcal -f c-10-2-0x12 $ bcal -f c0x10-10--0x12` - Show binary, decimal and hex representations of a number. `$ bcal -c 20140115 $ bcal -c 0b1001100110101000001010011 $ bcal -c 0x1335053 bcal> c 20140115 // Interactive mode` - Invoke `bc` .`$ bcal -b '3.5 * 2.1 + 5.7' bcal> b // Interactive mode bc vars: scale = 10, ibase = 10, last = r bc> 3.5 * 2.1 + 5.7` - Pipe input. `$ printf '15 kib + 15 gib \n r / 5' | bcal -m $ printf '15 + 15 + 2' | bcal -bm` - Redirect from file. `$ cat expr 15 gib + 15 kib r / 5 $ bcal -m < expr` - Use as a general-purpose calculator. `$ bcal -b` Due to the nature of the project, it's extremely important to test existing functionality before raising any PR. `bcal` has several test cases written in `test.py` . To execute the test cases locally, install `pytest` and run: ``` $ make $ python3 -m pytest test.py ``` Copyright © 2016 Arun Prakash Jana

:1234: Bits, bytes and address calculator. Contribute to jarun/bcal development by creating an account on GitHub.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2016-09-21 00:00:00

https://opengraph.githubassets.com/a4ddb1fe2ba7cc81162b34a941648fec2246e58767e88a00b880c754139907d0/jarun/bcal

object

github.com

GitHub

https://psmag.com/environment/the-planet-now-has-more-trees-than-it-did-35-years-ago

The Planet Now Has More Trees Than It Did 35 Years Ago

Rhett A Butler

Despite ongoing deforestation, fires, drought-induced die-offs, and insect outbreaks, the world’s tree cover actually increased by 2.24 million square kilometers—an area the size of Texas and Alaska combined—over the past 35 years, finds a paper published in the journal *Nature*. But the research also confirms large-scale loss of the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems, especially tropical forests. The study, led by Xiao-Peng Song and Matthew Hansen of the University of Maryland, is based on analysis of satellite data from 1982 to 2016. The researchers broke land cover into three categories: tall vegetation consisting of trees of at least 16 feet in height; short vegetation under 16 feet in height including shrubs, grass, and agricultural crops; and “bare ground,” including urban areas, sand, tundra, and rock. While the classification may seem simplistic, powerful conclusions can be drawn from the data, including assessing agricultural expansion, climate-driven expansion and contraction of ecosystems, and forest clearing and recovery. “The results of this study reflect a human-dominated Earth system,” the researchers write. “Direct human action on landscapes is found over large areas on every continent, from intensification and extensification of agriculture to increases in forestry and urban land uses, with implications for the maintenance of ecosystem services.” Overall, the study found that tree cover loss in the tropics was outweighed by tree cover gain in subtropical, temperate, boreal, and polar regions. Tree cover gain is being driven by agricultural abandonment in parts of Europe, Asia, and North America; warming temperatures that are enabling forests to move poleward; and China’s massive tree planting program. Tree cover is also increasing globally in montane areas. The biggest gains in tree cover occurred in temperate continental forest (+726,000 square kilometers), boreal coniferous forest (+463,000 square kilometers), subtropical humid forest (+280,000 square kilometers). Russia (+790,000 square kilometers), China (+324,000 square kilometers), and the United States (+301,000 square kilometers) experienced the largest increase in tree cover among countries during the period. By contrast, the tropics saw substantial losses in tree cover, led by tropical moist deciduous forest (-373,000 square kilometers), tropical rainforest (-332,000 square kilometers), and tropical dry forest (-184,000 square kilometers). Tropical dry forest had the highest rate of loss over the 35 years at 15 percent. Brazil led the world by far in tree cover loss, losing 399,000 kilometers, more than the combined total loss of the next four countries on the list (Canada, Russia, Argentina, and Paraguay). The study estimates gross tree canopy loss globally at 1.33 million square kilometers, or 4.2 percent of 1982 tree cover. But adding in gains, the planet’s total area of tree cover increased by 2.24 million square kilometers, or 7.1 percent, from 31 million to 33 million square kilometers. The authors note these numbers “contradict” data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which collects national forest data from countries’ forestry departments and has historically been seen as the most consistent source of informations on forest cover: “A global net gain in tree canopy contradicts current understanding of long-term forest area change; the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reported a net forest loss between 1990 and 2015. However, our gross tree canopy loss estimate (−1.33 million square kilometers, −4.2%) agrees in magnitude with the FAO’s estimate of net forest area change (−1.29 million square kilometers, −3%), despite differences in the time period covered and definition of forest.” All the tree cover data comes with an important caveat, however: Tree cover is not necessarily forest cover. Industrial timber plantations, mature oil palm estates, and other non-natural “planted forests” qualify as tree cover. For example, cutting down a 100-hectare tract of primary forest and replacing it with a 100-hectare palm plantation will show up in the data as no net change in forest cover: the 100-hectare loss is perfectly offset by the 100-hectare gain in tree cover. That activity would be counted as “deforestation” by the FAO. Therefore, tree cover loss does not directly translate to deforestation in all cases. Nonetheless, establishing a record of change in land cover will enable researchers to eventually distinguish between different types of activities. And the data in the current study does offer insights when there is a change between vegetation types. “Deforestation for agricultural expansion is often manifested as tree canopy loss and short vegetation gain, whereas land degradation may simultaneously result in short vegetation loss and bare ground gain,” write the researchers, who used sampling to create models that enabled them to attribute land use change to direct human activities or indirect drivers like climate. The study concludes that 60 percent of all change during the study period were associated with human activities. Attribution varied across biomes, with direct human impact associated for 70 percent of tree canopy loss (e.g. deforestation), but only 36 percent of bare ground gain (e.g. tundra being colonized by poleward migrating vegetation as temperatures climb). The authors review how the findings reflect some of the major global land use trends. “Expansion of the agricultural frontier is the primary driver of deforestation in the tropics,” they write. “The ‘arc of deforestation’ along the southeastern edge of the Amazon has been well-documented. Clearing of natural vegetation for export-oriented industrial agriculture also prevailed in the Cerrado and the Gran Chaco. Spatially clustered hotspots of deforestation are also found in Queensland, Australia, and in Southeast Asia—including Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia—diminishing the already scarce primary forests of the region. In sub-Saharan Africa, tree cover loss was pervasive across the Congolian rainforests and the Miombo woodlands, historically related to smallholder agriculture and increasingly to commodity crop cultivation. Forests in boreal Canada, eastern Alaska, and central Siberia exhibited large patches of tree canopy loss and short vegetation gain, similar to the tropics. However, these are the result of persistent disturbances from wildfires and subsequent recovery of natural vegetation.” Beyond driving tree cover loss in the tropics, the footprint of agriculture shows up in other parts of the data, notably the replacement of bare ground cover with short vegetation cover. “India and China had the largest bare ground loss among all countries,” the researchers write. “India also ranked second in short vegetation gain (+195,000 km2, +9%), after Brazil (+396,000 km2, +12%). While the short vegetation gain in Brazil is mainly due to the expansion of agricultural frontiers into natural ecosystems, short vegetation gain in India is primarily due to intensification of existing agricultural lands—a continuation of the ‘Green Revolution.’ Some of the observed bare ground gain can be attributed to resource extraction and urban sprawl, most notably in eastern China. However, at the global scale, the growth of urban areas accounts for a small fraction of all land changes.” Bare earth is also declining in deserts, mountainous areas, and tundra, indicating the influence of climate change, which is creating conditions that support the growth of grasses, shrubs, and trees. Those shifts are contributing to an overall greening trend, whereby bare ground cover declined by 3.1 percent since 1982. That “greening,” however, masks the ecological impacts of replacing diverse natural landscapes with monoculture crops. So while Earth may presently have more trees than 35 years ago, the study confirms that some of its most productive and biodiverse biomes—especially tropical forests and savannas—are significantly more damaged and degraded, reducing their resilience and capacity to afford ecosystem services. *This **story** originally appeared at the website of global conservation news service **Mongabay.com**. Get updates on their stories **delivered to your inbox**, or follow @Mongabay on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.*

Tree cover loss in the tropics was outweighed by tree cover gain in subtropical, temperate, boreal, and polar regions.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2018-08-17 00:00:00

article

psmag.com

Pacific Standard

https://twitter.com/mold_time/status/1412827768329494528

x.com

2024-10-12 00:00:00

X (formerly Twitter)

https://github.com/aostiles/astro-webauthn-starter

GitHub - aostiles/astro-webauthn-starter: Starter template for a serverless website using Astro, WebAuthn, and Cloudflare D1.

Aostiles

This is a template repository for creating a personal website with Astro hosted on Cloudflare Pages. Here's how you may expect your site to look: Check out my site for a live demo. Read more about lessons I learned creating my site. This template will create for you a site with the following features: **Serverless**: No webservers or databases to manage.**WebAuthn login**: Login without relying on third-party services or storing passwords.**Private friends area**: Post updates to your friends without sharing to the entire world.**Spam-free contact form**: Let strangers reach out without revealing your email address. Protected by Turnstile.**Admin dashboard**: See who has contacted you. - Follow these instructions to create a new GitHub repository from this template. - Follow these instructions to connect Cloudflare Pages to your GitHub account. **Note that you'll need to set**Your first build will likely fail because we haven't yet setup the D1 database or necessary environment variables.`NODE_VERSION` to at least`16.12.0` . - Follow the following two subsections to set up the D1 database and environment variables - Trigger a re-deploy with a dummy commit: `git commit -m "dummy commit" --allow-empty` D1 is Cloudflare's serverless database based on SQLite. You'll want their command-line tool to create a database: ``` cd <this repo> npm install # includes wrangler npx wrangler login npx wrangler d1 create site # create a new db and call it 'site' npx wrangler d1 execute SITE_DB --file=./schema.sql # set up the schema on the remote database ``` Now create a binding in the Cloudflare dashboard: The code in this repo assumes the name `SITE_DB` . Create a `wrangler.toml` file in the root of this repo with the following contents: ``` [[d1_databases]] binding = "SITE_DB" database_name = "site" database_id = "<database ID from the D1 dashboard>" ``` Go to the Cloudflare dashboard for your site and set up the following environment variables. Here's what mine look like: Here's what some of the variables do. The `PUBLIC_` prefix is a quirk of Astro and can be ignored. Variable | Description | ---|---| PUBLIC_SITE_NAME | The name of your site. Used in the header and title. | PUBLIC_SITE_OWNER | Used to allow only a certain username in to the admin section. | PUBLIC_SITE_TAGLINE_TITLECASE | Used to display the tagline in the header. | PUBLIC_TURNSTILE_SECRET_KEY | Used to validate contact form submissions. | PUBLIC_TURNSTILE_SITE_KEY | Used when initializing Turnstile on the client. | I haven't coded a UI for this. I use the online D1 console. You can find it at https://dash.cloudflare.com. Click on "Workers & Pages" and then on "D1". ``` INSERT INTO users (username) SELECT username FROM reg_requests WHERE id=<reg_request id>; INSERT INTO creds (user_id, cred) SELECT users.id, reg_requests.cred FROM users, reg_requests WHERE users.username = <username you just created> AND reg_requests.id = <reg_request id>; ``` If you have any newsletter posts you'd like to display directly on your site, you can do so with: ``` INSERT INTO featured_posts (title, url, created_at) VALUES ('My Newsletter Post', 'https://', DATE('2023-06-27')); ``` I used https://github.com/passwordless-id/webauthn and found their library and docs helpful. This template includes their bundled client-side code at `public/webauthn.min.js` . That code is theirs and is covered by their (also MIT) license. Please see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Starter template for a serverless website using Astro, WebAuthn, and Cloudflare D1. - aostiles/astro-webauthn-starter

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2023-06-27 00:00:00

https://opengraph.githubassets.com/8617a7d3876ed78c0aabb1c27f72eb85a359cd49271e92408e63478307701bd9/aostiles/astro-webauthn-starter

object

github.com

GitHub

http://www.crisp360.com/hosted-infographic/which-college-degrees-are-worth-student-loan-debt-full

http://www.kdnuggets.com/2016/12/4-reasons-machine-learning-model-wrong.html

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/m/news/index.cfm?release=2013-107

https://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/soversion/

VERSION, SOVERSION, and Tiny x86 Minds – Logikal Blog

Seasoned Geek

The tiny x86 mindset keeps making the same mistakes over and over again. Lately they’ve done it with SOVERSION. It wouldn’t be so bad if their decisions didn’t jack up the world for at least a decade. These stupid decisions go all the way back to IBM and it’s first PC where they opted to place the address space for adapter cards (like video) in the address space 640-1024K, thus creating a 640K barrier for DOS and a perpetual memory hole until things finally went a little more Motorola linear memory. Because of the desire/requirement for backward compatibility with the original x86 instruction set, we in IT endured the fallout from that for a very long time. Everybody has wined and complained about Make since Make was first introduced. Be honest! We’ve all wined about make and source control systems at some point but Make seemed to suffer particularly venomous attacks. I think it is because, at least in the early days, every Linux distro tweaked it and the environment just a little bit. Many had different C/C++ compilers as well. You kids today so used to everything just using Gnu, that was a long journey with a lot of commercial products trying to shove out the OpenSource. ## Everybody Had Their Own Every PC based C/C++/Fortran compiler system had its own Make and link. It got really ugly with the different commercial overlay linkers trying to dance inside of that 384K above the great 640K barrier. Cross platform development was brutal. I remember not being able to fork over money fast enough for Watcom when their IDE allowed me to build for DOS-16, DOS-32, Windows 3.x, and OS/2. I even wrote some books on Zinc because it was one of the first real cross platform application frameworks on the market. Well, it was slightly more than a GUI and all of the others were just a GUI. ## Cross Platform Make So, yes, I understand the desire to have one cross platform make that will work everywhere. Sadly CMake already has a bunch of one-offs for Mac. It also kinds fails at library packaging which is where I found myself lately. I’ve gotten into Debian and RPM packaging after having been dragged there kicking and screaming. Now when I work on some new piece of OpenSource one of the first things I try to do is create packages for it. You don’t really understand how useful it is to have the packages until you create them. Knowing *you* have to create the packages influences your design. Knowing it has to work on Debian, RPM, and possibly Arch based systems means you stay in the center lanes. *Yes, I’m looking at you KDE developers!* One cannot install KATE on a non-KDE desktop without pulling in roughly two thirds of KDE or so it seems like with the list of additional dependencies. ## SOVERSION SOVERSION and SONAME were supposed to be a salve to help heal the wound that is library naming. An Elephant is a mouse designed by committee. We will skip discussing MAC since I don’t develop there. You can read the CMake documentation to learn of all the one-off things for MAC. In my fork of Scintilla to add CopperSpice support (called CsScintilla) I have a high level CMakeLists.txt containing this: In the source level CMakeLists.txt (anyone else find using the same file name at two different directory levels a real problem?): What gets created in the build directory is this: ``` roland@roland-HP-EliteDesk-800-G2-SFF:~/sf_projects/csscintilla_build$ ls -al total 3352 drwxrwxr-x 5 roland roland 4096 Aug 3 12:53 . drwxrwxr-x 29 roland roland 4096 Aug 3 12:53 .. -rw-rw-r-- 1 roland roland 77538 Aug 3 12:53 build.ninja -rw-rw-r-- 1 roland roland 19372 Aug 3 12:53 CMakeCache.txt drwxrwxr-x 4 roland roland 4096 Aug 3 12:53 CMakeFiles -rw-rw-r-- 1 roland roland 1734 Aug 3 12:53 cmake_install.cmake -rw-r--r-- 1 roland roland 3670 Aug 3 12:53 CPackConfig.cmake -rw-r--r-- 1 roland roland 4175 Aug 3 12:53 CPackSourceConfig.cmake -rw-r--r-- 1 roland roland 1683 Aug 3 12:53 csscintilla.spec drwxrwxr-x 2 roland roland 4096 Aug 3 12:53 deb_build.etc lrwxrwxrwx 1 roland roland 19 Aug 3 12:53 libCsScintilla.so -> libCsScintilla.so.5 -rwxrwxr-x 1 roland roland 3201664 Aug 3 12:53 libCsScintilla.so.1.0.1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 roland roland 23 Aug 3 12:53 libCsScintilla.so.5 -> libCsScintilla.so.1.0.1 -rw-rw-r-- 1 roland roland 75432 Aug 3 12:53 .ninja_deps -rw-rw-r-- 1 roland roland 5551 Aug 3 12:53 .ninja_log -rw-rw-r-- 1 roland roland 2237 Aug 3 12:53 rules.ninja drwxrwxr-x 3 roland roland 4096 Aug 3 12:53 src ``` ## Reality I’m sure somewhere in someone’s head linking the .so to the .so having the SOVERSION at the end made sense. I can even understand linking the SOVERSION back to the VERSION (build version). A SOVERSION of 5 was deliberately chosen because Scintilla is currently at version 5.x.y. Could not marry my build VERSION to Scintilla though as that would make it impossible to fix a bug in just CsScintilla. Most of the examples you will find always use the Major version of the build number as the SOVERSION. They do this to hide the fact SOVERSION is a bad design. ``` lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 Jan 5 2020 libmidori-core.so -> libmidori-core.so.0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Jan 5 2020 libmidori-core.so.0 -> libmidori-core.so.0.6 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 358616 Jan 5 2020 libmidori-core.so.0.6 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 22 2020 libqmi lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Mar 11 2020 libqscintilla2_qt5.so -> libqscintilla2_qt5.so.15.0.0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Mar 11 2020 libqscintilla2_qt5.so.15 -> libqscintilla2_qt5.so.15.0.0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Mar 11 2020 libqscintilla2_qt5.so.15.0 -> libqscintilla2_qt5.so.15.0.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6521056 Mar 11 2020 libqscintilla2_qt5.so.15.0.0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Mar 5 2017 libregina.so.3 -> libregina.so.3.6 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 458808 Mar 5 2017 libregina.so.3.6 ``` Please look at how Ubuntu names libraries. Just follow libqscintilla2. The .so links directly to the final target. Then, rather elegantly, and seemingly pointlessly, they stair step .so.Major to the final target. After that .so.Major.Minor gets linked there as well. It’s seemingly elegant. Kudos to whoever did it. Sadly, that is not the norm. ``` lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Dec 16 2020 libm.so.6 -> libm-2.31.so -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 104396 Dec 16 2020 libnsl-2.31.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Dec 16 2020 libnsl.so.1 -> libnsl-2.31.so -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 38804 Dec 16 2020 libnss_compat-2.31.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Dec 16 2020 libnss_compat.so.2 -> libnss_compat-2.31.so -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 26264 Dec 16 2020 libnss_dns-2.31.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Dec 16 2020 libnss_dns.so.2 -> libnss_dns-2.31.so -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 50920 Dec 16 2020 libnss_files-2.31.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 Dec 16 2020 libnss_files.so.2 -> libnss_files-2.31.so -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22188 Dec 16 2020 libnss_hesiod-2.31.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Dec 16 2020 libnss_hesiod.so.2 -> libnss_hesiod-2.31.so -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 55028 Dec 16 2020 libnss_nis-2.31.so -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 59096 Dec 16 2020 libnss_nisplus-2.31.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 Dec 16 2020 libnss_nisplus.so.2 -> libnss_nisplus-2.31.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Dec 16 2020 libnss_nis.so.2 -> libnss_nis-2.31.so -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13852 Dec 16 2020 libpcprofile.so -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2454116 Dec 16 2020 libpthread-2.31.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Dec 16 2020 libpthread.so.0 -> libpthread-2.31.so -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 88000 Dec 16 2020 libresolv-2.31.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 Dec 16 2020 libresolv.so.2 -> libresolv-2.31.so -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 38980 Dec 16 2020 librt-2.31.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Dec 16 2020 librt.so.1 -> librt-2.31.so -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22104 Dec 16 2020 libSegFault.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 May 29 02:49 libstdc++.so.6 -> libstdc++.so.6.0.28 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1947492 May 29 02:49 libstdc++.so.6.0.28 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 42940 Dec 16 2020 libthread_db-1.0.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 Dec 16 2020 libthread_db.so.1 -> libthread_db-1.0.so -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 14000 Dec 16 2020 libutil-2.31.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Dec 16 2020 libutil.so.1 -> libutil-2.31.so ``` Near the end of this list and scattered throughout it you will notice the .so is the final target. The .so.SOVERSION links back to the build. What really fries my bacon is the inconsistency when it comes to the placement of build version. I ASS-U-ME that 2.31 is the build and .so.1 is the SOVERSION, don’t you? CMake tried to straddle some unseen fence and didn’t do a good job. Perhaps the Linux version they started on had that wacky naming convention? I can get behind a .so.SOVERSION pointing to a .so.VERSION because you can easily upgrade/downgrade by changing the link. What is really annoying in all of this anarchy is the inconsistency of placement. ## ABI vs. API ABI = Application Binary Interface.This has to do with very low level binary things. When this changes it is generally not a subtle thing. From the days of the original IBM XT computer to the days well past the 486 based desktops every compiler defaulted to using the original x86 instruction set. This kept software locked into horrific SEGMENT:OFFSET memory addressing and rather trapped us into the DOS 640K world. When a developer (or the compiler vendor) decided to switch compiler default options to compile for 32-bit instead of 16-bit this was an ABI change. Stuff compiled to use SEGMENT:OFFSET addressing would no longer work. When it comes to ABI changes, the IT world tries to minimize the ones that break everything. We try to milk something for all it is worth. A really big ABI change in the Linux world happened with the move from libc5 to libc6. That caused a lot of pain and many rally cries to make the Linux kernel and the C library a single project. **API = Application Programming Interface.** In general, you can assume the API changes at least slightly every time you do a build. In C/C++ and many other languages the concept of optional parameters was introduced long ago. If you needed to add a parameter to some existing function or class method, you could add it to the end as an optional parameter. In this way you could add new behavior and capabilities without breaking old. That is how we are currently at version 2.34 of Gnu libc yet still putting forth a libc6 API. 6 would be the SOVERSION. It’s the API. 2.34 would be the build VERSION. ## The SOVERSION Linkage The linkage is basically the gist of this rant. The .so links to the .so.SOVERSION. Then the .so.SOVERSION links to the .so.VERSION. Unless the runtime environment is smart enough to track this down only once, I gotta believe there will be a wee bit of performance degradation. One would think that Debian could at least force a naming and linkage standard. Oh, all bets are off when you get to Windows and MAC.

The tiny x86 mindset keeps making the same mistakes over and over again. Lately they've done it with SOVERSION.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2021-08-04 00:00:00

article

logikalsolutions.com

Logikal Blog

https://packages.debian.org/sid/sysdig

Package: sysdig (0.38.1+repack-2 and others)

Debian Webmaster; Webmaster Org

**sid**] # Package: sysdig (0.38.1+repack-2 and others) ## Links for sysdig ### Debian Resources: ### Download Source Package sysdig: - [sysdig_0.38.1+repack-2.dsc] - [sysdig_0.38.1+repack.orig.tar.xz] - [sysdig_0.38.1+repack-2.debian.tar.xz] ### Maintainers: ### External Resources: - Homepage [www.sysdig.com] ### Similar packages: ## system-level exploration and troubleshooting tool Sysdig instruments your physical and virtual machines at the OS level by installing into the Linux kernel and capturing system calls and other OS events. Then, using sysdig's command line interface, you can filter and decode these events in order to extract useful information and statistics. Sysdig can be used to inspect live systems in real-time, or to generate trace files that can be analyzed at a later stage. This package contains the tool to inspect trace files. If you want to inspect a live system, you also need to install the according kernel module, shipped in the package falcosecurity-scap-dkms. ## Other Packages Related to sysdig | | | | - - dep: libb64-0d (>= 1.2) [alpha, hppa, ia64, m68k, sparc64] - base64 encoding/decoding library - runtime library - - dep: libc6 (>= 2.15) [sparc64] - GNU C Library: Shared libraries also a virtual package provided by libc6-udeb - dep: libc6 (>= 2.16) [x32] - dep: libc6 (>= 2.28) [hppa, m68k] - dep: libc6 (>= 2.33) [i386] - dep: libc6 (>= 2.34) [ppc64, ppc64el, riscv64] - dep: libc6 (>= 2.38) [amd64, arm64, armel, armhf, mips64el, s390x] - - dep: libc6.1 (>= 2.15) [alpha] - GNU C Library: Shared libraries also a virtual package provided by libc6.1-udeb - dep: libc6.1 (>= 2.26) [ia64] - - dep: libcurl3 (>= 7.18.2) [ia64] - Package not available - - dep: libcurl4 (>= 7.18.2) [alpha, hppa, m68k, sparc64] - easy-to-use client-side URL transfer library (OpenSSL flavour) - - dep: libelf1 (>= 0.131) [hppa, m68k, sparc64] - library to read and write ELF files - - dep: libfalcosecurity0 (>= 0.1.1dev+git20220316.e5c53d64) [i386] - Core libraries for Falco and Sysdig - - dep: libfalcosecurity0t64 (>= 0.14.1) [ppc64, ppc64el, riscv64] - Core libraries for Falco and Sysdig - dep: libfalcosecurity0t64 (>= 0.18.1) [amd64, arm64, armel, armhf, mips64el, s390x] - - dep: libgcc-s1 (>= 3.0) [amd64, arm64, mips64el, ppc64, ppc64el, s390x] - GCC support library - dep: libgcc-s1 (>= 3.4) [riscv64] - dep: libgcc-s1 (>= 3.5) [armel, armhf] - dep: libgcc-s1 (>= 4.2) [i386] - - dep: libgcc1 [x32] - Package not available - dep: libgcc1 (>= 1:3.4) [alpha, sparc64] - dep: libgcc1 (>= 1:4.2) [ia64] - - dep: libgcc2 (>= 4.2.1) [m68k] - Package not available - - dep: libgcc4 (>= 4.1.1) [hppa] - Package not available - - dep: libjq1 (>= 1.5) [alpha, hppa, ia64, m68k, sparc64] - lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor - shared library - - dep: libjsoncpp0 [x32] - Package not available - - dep: libjsoncpp1 (>= 1.7.4) [alpha, hppa, ia64, m68k, sparc64] - Package not available - - dep: libjsoncpp25 (>= 1.9.5) [i386, ppc64, ppc64el, riscv64] - library for reading and writing JSON for C++ - - dep: libjsoncpp26 (>= 1.9.6) [amd64, arm64, armel, armhf, mips64el, s390x] - library for reading and writing JSON for C++ - - dep: liblua5.1-0 [alpha, hppa, ia64, m68k, sparc64, x32] - Shared library for the Lua interpreter version 5.1 - - dep: libluajit-5.1-2 (>= 2.1.0) [amd64, arm64, armel, armhf, mips64el, s390x] - OpenResty-maintained branch of LuaJIT (shared objects) - or libluajit-5.1-2 (>= 2.1.0+openresty) - OpenResty-maintained branch of LuaJIT (shared objects) - - dep: libncurses5 (>= 6) [ia64] - Package not available - - dep: libncurses6 (>= 6) [not ia64, x32] - shared libraries for terminal handling - - dep: libssl1.1 (>= 1.1.0) [alpha, hppa, ia64, m68k, sparc64] - Package not available - - dep: libstdc++6 [x32] - GNU Standard C++ Library v3 - dep: libstdc++6 (>= 11) [i386] - dep: libstdc++6 (>= 13.1) [ppc64, ppc64el, riscv64] - dep: libstdc++6 (>= 14) [amd64, arm64, armel, armhf, mips64el, s390x] - dep: libstdc++6 (>= 5.2) [alpha, ia64] - dep: libstdc++6 (>= 7) [hppa, sparc64] - dep: libstdc++6 (>= 8.3.0-6) [m68k] - - dep: libtbb2 [hppa, m68k, sparc64] - Package not available - - dep: libtinfo5 (>= 6) [ia64] - Package not available - - dep: libtinfo6 (>= 6) [not ia64, x32] - shared low-level terminfo library for terminal handling - - dep: libunwind8 [ia64] - library to determine the call-chain of a program - runtime - - dep: libyaml-cpp0.7 (>= 0.7.0) [i386] - YAML parser and emitter for C++ - - dep: libyaml-cpp0.8 (>= 0.8.0+dfsg-6) [ppc64, ppc64el] - YAML parser and emitter for C++ - dep: libyaml-cpp0.8 (>= 0.8.0+dfsg-6+b1) [amd64, arm64, armel, armhf, mips64el, riscv64, s390x] - - dep: zlib1g (>= 1:1.2.6) [alpha, hppa, ia64, m68k, sparc64, x32] - compression library - runtime - - rec: falcosecurity-scap-dkms [not alpha, hppa, ia64, m68k, sparc64, x32] - Kernel driver for Falco and Sysdig - - rec: sysdig-dkms [alpha, hppa, ia64, m68k, sparc64, x32] - Package not available ## Download sysdig Architecture | Version | Package Size | Installed Size | Files | ---|---|---|---|---| alpha (unofficial port) | 0.21.0-1 | 1,048.4 kB | 7,251.0 kB | [list of files] | amd64 | 0.38.1+repack-2 | 391.8 kB | 1,762.0 kB | [list of files] | arm64 | 0.38.1+repack-2 | 340.6 kB | 1,630.0 kB | [list of files] | armel | 0.38.1+repack-2 | 330.4 kB | 1,543.0 kB | [list of files] | armhf | 0.38.1+repack-2 | 337.5 kB | 1,251.0 kB | [list of files] | hppa (unofficial port) | 0.24.1-3 | 1,042.8 kB | 6,737.0 kB | [list of files] | i386 | 0.29.3-1 | 262.9 kB | 1,123.0 kB | [list of files] | ia64 (unofficial port) | 0.19.1-1 | 1,171.1 kB | 10,639.0 kB | [list of files] | m68k (unofficial port) | 0.24.1-3 | 1,069.7 kB | 6,862.0 kB | [list of files] | mips64el | 0.38.1+repack-2 | 348.2 kB | 1,946.0 kB | [list of files] | ppc64 (unofficial port) | 0.35.0+repack-1.1 | 262.1 kB | 1,331.0 kB | [list of files] | ppc64el | 0.35.0+repack-1.1 | 263.4 kB | 1,331.0 kB | [list of files] | riscv64 | 0.35.0+repack-1.1 | 257.3 kB | 1,019.0 kB | [list of files] | s390x | 0.38.1+repack-2 | 363.8 kB | 1,722.0 kB | [list of files] | sparc64 (unofficial port) | 0.24.1-3 | 918.5 kB | 6,833.0 kB | [list of files] | x32 (unofficial port) | 0.1.85-2 | 173.0 kB | 774.0 kB | [list of files] |

system-level exploration and troubleshooting tool

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2022-03-16 00:00:00

https://github.com/abhiprojectz/SingularGPT

GitHub - abhiprojectz/SingularGPT: SingularGPT is a open source project that automates your device using ChatGPT & GPT-4.

Abhiprojectz

**SingularGPT** is a open source project that automates your device using ChatGPT & GPT-4. With 🚀 **SingularGPT** you can easily instruct your device with simple text based queries. For example: Let's say you need to click on button that have a text as 'File' just say it: **Query:** Hey, please click on the item with text File. It will perform the action by processing your query, turning them to its undernstandable instructions and execute them. ## yu.1.mp4 You may just run it in google colab with a GPU. **Follow these steps carefully** - - Install all the requirements ``` pip install -r requirements.txt ``` Make sure that you run this command in the same directory where the `requirements.txt` file is located. - - If you are in linux then install below libs ``` !sudo apt-get install xvfb xorg xserver-xorg scrot imagemagick x11-utils xdotool ``` - - Create a .env file and place your OPENAI_API and change your platform name in `config/CONFIG.py` - Create a .env file and place your OPENAI_API and change your platform name in if you are on linux set as: `_PLATFORM` as linux [By default is `windows` ] - - Run this file `main.py` by passing your query. - Run this file `python main.py` - - Use `SingularGPT` bot if you are stuck or raise a issue - Use - - Make sure your instructions are in `script.py` file. - Make sure your instructions are in Create a `.env` file with `OPENAI_API` and place your openai_api api there or pass as environment variable. Put automation scripts in `script.py` and run it. Write your prompt query in `Prompts/prompts.txt` file or, pass as a string in the `main.py` file. ``` # Run the main script. python main.py ``` **To visualize this see this bot on Poe** The old way using X_PATH or CSS/JS Selectors or by just co-ordinates. ``` element_xpath = driver.find_element(By.XPATH, "//a[@href='/login']") element_xpath.click() # or element_css = driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, "button.btn-primary") element_css.click() ``` No, it uses the new GUI element detection techniques. Nopes ! ``` zex.text('Menu').click() zex.text('Edit').FindLeftOf().click() # Used to locate the element that is just left side of the target element. ``` **Locate and perform actions to the element that is left or right or even the most nearest element to it.** ZexUI is a standalone library that uses image processing techniques for GUI automation. Here are some methods and thier usage. Sure! Here are the descriptions for each method: - `text()` : This method is used to locate a text element on the webpage based on the text content provided in the query. - `textRegex()` : This method is used to locate a text element on the webpage based on a regular expression provided in the query. - `textContains()` : This method is used to locate a text element on the webpage that contains a specific word provided in the query. - `image()` : This method is used to locate an image element on the webpage based on the image path provided in the query. - `findLeftOf()` : This method is used to locate an element that is to the left of the text/image provided in the query. - `findRightOf()` : This method is used to locate an element that is to the right of the text/image provided in the query. - `findTopOf()` : This method is used to locate an element that is above the text/image provided in the query. - `findBottomOf()` : This method is used to locate an element that is below the text/image provided in the query. - `findNearestTo()` : This method is used to locate the element that is nearest to the text/image provided in the query. - `click()` : This method is used to click on the element that is located using the text/image or any other method. - `mouseMove()` : This method is used to move the mouse to the element that is located using the text/image or any other method. - `scroll_up()` : This method is used to scroll up the webpage. - `scroll_down()` : This method is used to scroll down the webpage. - `scroll_left()` : This method is used to scroll left on the webpage. - `scroll_right()` : This method is used to scroll right on the webpage. ... More are on the docs. **This is what this project aims and tries to achieve the same.** 🌟 So, here's how the things works under the hood: - Converts Natural language query to automation scripts that further can be used to achieve the task - SingularGPT Process your screen, gets the required data what's being asked. - Generates commands to achieve the task. - Recognize what's on your screen - Even what's on your headless server using x11 - Can internally process them. - Build automations scripts by its own - Automates your device This projects is made possible with the help of various fields in computer science such as AI based vision, Custom libs, device automation and internal logic processing using the latest ChatGPT & GPT-4. In short: AI computer vision + Automation (ZexUI) + GPT - No crawling mechanism - Elements detection - Text detection - Components detection based on estimates - Automate your device using NLP instructions - Adds-on in a very lightweight presets - Works even headless on a x11 server Considering leaving a star. Help in writing the docs for the project.

SingularGPT is a open source project that automates your device using ChatGPT & GPT-4. - abhiprojectz/SingularGPT

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2023-04-07 00:00:00

https://opengraph.githubassets.com/d311b57523988c226481412f7d7b28ad6304c0b3a0472a7e12a44c54ff9daa4d/abhiprojectz/SingularGPT

object

github.com

GitHub

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2015/05/12/lego-datacenter/

Lego Datacenter

About

I am at a VMware R&D offsite this week and I saw an awesome thing I wanted to share (unfortunately the only thing I can share). Our architecture team had a booth which displayed a datacenter created from Lego. Yes someone spent some serious time building this during the weekend considering the detail that went in to it. Awesome work Amy and great way to kill some time I guess 😉 philjusthost says Totally awesome. But this might now start the race to built the best lego DC. Phil @the_vMonkey Matheus says Nice! hahaha They use vSAN David says If you fly me in I’ll bring some LEDs and Arduino with me and light it up! 😉 John P. says What is this???? A datacenter for ants? Fred Peterson says Love the little printouts of screens to show perf graphs etc David Gtz says everything is awasome! … jajaja #legomoviesong Jon says Now that’s creative! John says very lovely and Q.. I think my son will love it, if I have a son, 😛 Professor Cloud says Lighter side of the cloud. Loved the way you illustrated it! Awesome. kirsten burnett says this is sooooooo coool. i think i should do one of these for my office Jacques says where can I buy the element to build this? please email me: jklopper@rittal.co.za

I am at a VMware R&D offsite this week and I saw an awesome thing I wanted to share (unfortunately the only thing I can share). Our architecture team had a booth which displayed a datacenter cr…

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2015-05-12 00:00:00

article

yellow-bricks.com

Yellow Bricks

http://theodysseyonline.com/

The Odyssey Online

Mikayla Lasky

## 1. The importance of traditions. Sometimes traditions seem like a silly thing, but the fact of it is that it's part of who you are. You grew up this way and, more than likely, so did your parents. It is something that is part of your family history and that is more important than anything. women in street dancing Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash ## 2. How to be thankful for family and friends. No matter how many times they get on your nerves or make you mad, they are the ones who will always be there and you should never take that for granted. man and woman standing in front of louver door Photo by Lucas Lenzi on Unsplash ## 3. How to give back. When tragedy strikes in a small town, everyone feels obligated to help out because, whether directly or indirectly, it affects you too. It is easy in a bigger city to be able to disconnect from certain problems. But in a small town those problems affect everyone. man in black t-shirt holding coca cola bottle Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash ## 4. What the word "community" really means. Along the same lines as #3, everyone is always ready and willing to lend a helping hand when you need one in a small town and to me that is the true meaning of community. It's working together to build a better atmosphere, being there to raise each other up, build each other up, and pick each other up when someone is in need. A small town community is full of endless support whether it be after a tragedy or at a hometown sports game. Everyone shows up to show their support. red and white coca cola signage Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash ## 5. That it isn't about the destination, but the journey. People say this to others all the time, but it takes on a whole new meaning in a small town. It is true that life is about the journey, but when you're from a small town, you know it's about the journey because the journey probably takes longer than you spend at the destination. Everything is so far away that it is totally normal to spend a couple hours in the car on your way to some form of entertainment. And most of the time, you're gonna have as many, if not more, memories and laughs on the journey than at the destination. man holding luggage photo Photo by Mantas Hesthaven on Unsplash ## 6. The consequences of making bad choices. Word travels fast in a small town, so don't think you're gonna get away with anything. In fact, your parents probably know what you did before you even have a chance to get home and tell them. And forget about being scared of what your teacher, principle, or other authority figure is going to do, you're more afraid of what your parents are gonna do when you get home. topless boy in blue denim jeans riding red bicycle during daytime Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash ## 7. To trust people, until you have a reason not to. Everyone deserves a chance. Most people don't have ill-intentions and you can't live your life guarding against every one else just because a few people in your life have betrayed your trust. trust spelled with wooden letter blocks on a table Photo by Ronda Dorsey on Unsplash ## 8. To be welcoming and accepting of everyone. While small towns are not always extremely diverse, they do contain people with a lot of different stories, struggle, and backgrounds. In a small town, it is pretty hard to exclude anyone because of who they are or what they come from because there aren't many people to choose from. A small town teaches you that just because someone isn't the same as you, doesn't mean you can't be great friends. Everyone is Welcome signage Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash ## 9. How to be my own, individual person. In a small town, you learn that it's okay to be who you are and do your own thing. You learn that confidence isn't how beautiful you are or how much money you have, it's who you are on the inside. man with cap and background with red and pink wall l Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash ## 10. How to work for what I want. Nothing comes easy in life. They always say "gardens don't grow overnight" and if you're from a small town you know this both figuratively and literally. You certainly know gardens don't grow overnight because you've worked in a garden or two. But you also know that to get to the place you want to be in life it takes work and effort. It doesn't just happen because you want it to. difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations desk decor Photo by Nik on Unsplash ## 11. How to be great at giving directions. If you're from a small town, you know that you will probably only meet a handful of people in your life who ACTUALLY know where your town is. And forget about the people who accidentally enter into your town because of google maps. You've gotten really good at giving them directions right back to the interstate. photography of woman pointing her finger near an man Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash ## 12. How to be humble. My small town has definitely taught me how to be humble. It isn't always about you, and anyone who grows up in a small town knows that. Everyone gets their moment in the spotlight, and since there's so few of us, we're probably best friends with everyone so we are as excited when they get their moment of fame as we are when we get ours. closeup photography of woman smiling Photo by Michael Dam on Unsplash ## 13. To be well-rounded. Going to a small town high school definitely made me well-rounded. There isn't enough kids in the school to fill up all the clubs and sports teams individually so be ready to be a part of them all. a man doing a trick on a skateboard Photo by Ruben Christen on Unsplash ## 14. How to be great at conflict resolution. In a small town, good luck holding a grudge. In a bigger city you can just avoid a person you don't like or who you've had problems with. But not in a small town. You better resolve the issue fast because you're bound to see them at least 5 times a week. two men talking Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash ## 15. The beauty of getting outside and exploring. One of my favorite things about growing up in a rural area was being able to go outside and go exploring and not have to worry about being in danger. There is nothing more exciting then finding a new place somewhere in town or in the woods and just spending time there enjoying the natural beauty around you. running man on bridge Photo by Fabio Comparelli on Unsplash ## 16. To be prepared for anything. You never know what may happen. If you get a flat tire, you better know how to change it yourself because you never know if you will be able to get ahold of someone else to come fix it. Mechanics might be too busy, or more than likely you won't even have enough cell service to call one. orange white and black bag Photo by Mathurin NAPOLY / matnapo on Unsplash ## 17. That you don't always have to do it alone. It's okay to ask for help. One thing I realized when I moved away from my town for college, was how much my town has taught me that I could ask for help is I needed it. I got into a couple situations outside of my town where I couldn't find anyone to help me and found myself thinking, if I was in my town there would be tons of people ready to help me. And even though I couldn't find anyone to help, you better believe I wasn't afraid to ask. girl sitting on gray rocks Photo by George Bakos on Unsplash ## 18. How to be creative. When you're at least an hour away from normal forms of entertainment such as movie theaters and malls, you learn to get real creative in entertaining yourself. Whether it be a night looking at the stars in the bed of a pickup truck or having a movie marathon in a blanket fort at home, you know how to make your own good time. assorted-color painted wall with painting materials Photo by Matthieu Comoy on Unsplash ## 19. To brush off gossip. It's all about knowing the person you are and not letting others influence your opinion of yourself. In small towns, there is plenty of gossip. But as long as you know who you really are, it will always blow over. three women sitting on brown wooden bench Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Your voice matters. Be heard.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2013-01-11 00:00:00

website

theodysseyonline.com

The Odyssey Online

http://valentine.brace.io

2024-10-12 00:00:00

https://osmlab.github.io/show-me-the-way/

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2024-10-12 00:00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z41Wy5ZF4O8

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/modern-frontend-hacking-cheatsheets-df9c2566c72a

A practical guide to learning front end development for beginners

Freecodecamp

By Nikita Rudenko I started my coding journey in spring 2018, a bit less than one year ago. I earned some programming skills since that time but still, I understand there are many more things to learn ahead. Anyway, I decided to gather these tips in a single place to help future developers on their path. This article is the guide I would have liked to have found when I started my journey. **Before Starting** If you decided to study on your own, there is a lot of information on the Internet and it’s hard to wrap your head around everything. It’s important to have a structured plan and avoid wasting time by jumping from one resource to another. Please note that these are just the first steps into the front-end universe. It will help you get started but it’s not intended to be a complete guide. As a disclaimer, please note that the following resources are not an advertisement. I mention them because they helped me at some point and I personally recommend them. Most of them are free, otherwise, it will be specified. _Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@tateisimikito?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title="">Mikito Tateisi on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" rel="noopener" target="*blank" title=")* As a starting point, I recommend signing up on freeCodeCamp. And I will base the rest on their curriculum. I consider it to be a great resource for various reasons: **Curriculum.**This can be your main path. It’s a well-structured overview of the things you should learn and provides a good learning curve.**Exercises.**They are bite-sized so you can easily keep up the pace by doing a couple of them every day and keeping your heat map green.**Projects.**After completion of every chapter, you will build 5 projects to get your certification. It’s ideal to get some practice and consolidate your knowledge.**Community.**It’s more than just a learning platform. There is a forum, blog, and YouTube channel where developers of different levels share their knowledge and where you can find inspiration.**It’s free.**Money can be critical for many people and here, in any case, you won’t spend anything except time. Pro tip: you can create an account on Twitter ,if you don’t have one yet, and publicly commit to the 100DaysOfCode challenge. The reason is simple - there are many people doing this challenge. You will get motivation and support, and it will help you to keep up the pace. I highly recommend it, don’t be shy and enjoy the community? #### Now we are all set to start! ? _Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@bradencollum?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title="">Braden Collum on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" rel="noopener" target="*blank" title=")* ### Responsive Web Design The first section encompasses the very basics of how to build static sites and apply styles to them. **The Basics** Basic HTML and HTML5 and Basic CSS sections are the fundamentals of the modern Internet. Applied Visual Design, Applied Accessibility, and Responsive Web Design Principles will teach you the basics of writing good websites. Don’t rush and step carefully, those are the main building blocks in your knowledge. You can complement your studies with a great guide on Interneting Is Hard. Next, you are going to learn powerful layout techniques like CSS Flexbox and CSS Grid**.** Before moving on, complete this short guide to get an overview of different layout techniques that people used before the Flexbox-Grid era. It’s unlikely that you will ever need to use them, but it’s always good to be aware and appreciate the technologies we have today. #### CSS Flexbox I fell in love with Flexbox because of its simplicity and power. A lot of different properties may confuse you at first, so my suggestion is to put a cheat sheet near your computer so you can always easily look them up. Additionally, bookmark this interactive Flexbox cheat sheet. And finally, practice by playing the addictive Flexbox Froggy game. ? #### CSS Grid The Grid is more advanced and flexible but in most cases, Flexbox is quite enough. Anyway, you will have another powerful tool in your arsenal. Especially, if it’s that easy to understand when you grow your crops in Grid Garden. ? #### Practice Before moving on to the final projects, I recommend you to do this: - Create an account on Codepen **.**It’s a cool playground for the front end where you can build your projects, test your snippets, and practice. - Install a code editor on your machine and learn how to work with it. - Learn the basics of the command line from this video by Wes Bos or the Shell Workshop on Udacity. - Learn how to use Git in this playlist by NetNinja. - Get some guided practice. Choose any projects from this playlist by Traversy Media and code along. Build them until you feel confident. It would be great if you already use a code editor and version control, and upload your work to a special study repo on Github. #### Now you are ready to get your first certification! ? Go and build your final projects and share them ? _Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@ingle_jake?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title="">Jake Ingle on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" rel="noopener" target="*blank" title=")* ### Javascript Algorithms And Data Structures Now you know how to build static websites and it’s time to learn JavaScript. freeCodeCamp’s JavaScript section is great but I highly advise you to look at javascript.info as an additional reference. This is the best resource that provides comprehensive information for everything related to JavaScript. #### More recommendations - JavaScript Basics Course by Beau Carnes, if you prefer visual guides. - Regarding the new standard for JavaScript, my favorites are the great courses ES6 for everyone! (paid) by Wes Bos and Modern JavaScript by Beau Carnes. - Regular expressions course on Scrimba. - Object-Oriented JavaScript course by NetNinja was very helpful to me. #### Algorithms This is my favorite part of the certification. I remember how challenging they were when I just started to solve them. I could think about possible solutions all day. This is a great way to learn JavaScript and how to think like a programmer. As a little help, I advise you to watch JavaScript Cardio Sessions by Traversy Media. For more practice, I highly recommend you to sign up on CodeWars and set an initial goal to achieve **6kyu**. It’s very helpful because when you complete any challenge, you can look through other people’s solutions and discover new tricks, approaches, and ideas. To find other 100DaysOfCode challengers including me, go to your Account Settings and type in *#100DaysOfCode* into the Clan field. Before proceeding to the final projects, you have to be prepared for the final boss, the Cash Register. ? After you beat it I can say that… **…now you know how to work with JavaScript!** ? _Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@pankajpatel?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title="">Pankaj Patel on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" rel="noopener" target="*blank" title=")* ### Sticking things together Now it’s time to take the Javascript30 challenge by Wes Bos. This is the best way to learn how HTML, CSS, and JavaScript work together, polish your knowledge of fundamentals, and understand the DOM. Building these little projects was a great experience and really fun for me! ### Front End Libraries From this point, you are becoming a real front end developer ? #### Bootstrap The most popular CSS framework. Build a couple of websites along with guides on YouTube. Get used to Bootstrap’s famous column grid layout. #### jQuery Despite some people saying jQuery is dead, it will be always helpful when the solution in pure JavaScript is quirky and using a JS framework is too much. This will be another great tool in your arsenal. Build a couple of little apps with it for practice. #### Sass I didn’t fully appreciate CSS frameworks until I saw their real power. I wanted to learn advanced CSS techniques and bought an amazing Advanced CSS and Sass course (paid) by Jonas Schmedtmann. Highly recommended if you want to polish your CSS skills and understand the workflow. I’m still happy that I found it. **React & Redux** This is the main part of the Front End Libraries section. React is a great choice as your first JavaScript library to learn. Frankly, it’s hard to understand how to work with it in freeCodeCamp’s format since you can’t build anything from scratch and some things work under the hood. So take a course on React and Redux, and take your time to understand their ideas and tools. My personal favorites: - Complete React Tutorial (with Redux) by NetNinja - React for beginners (paid) by Wes Bos - React - The Complete Guide (paid) by Academind I hope you are excited to use your new knowledge on the final projects. **Now you can build anything you want** ? _Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@rawpixel?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title="">rawpixel on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" rel="noopener" target="*blank" title=")* ### Moving further You are a real front-end developer now and have enough skills to build great web applications. Maybe you are curious what to do next and the answer is as simple as *“Build, build, build!”*. Your current task is to create a portfolio for yourself and get more practice. Here are some tips for you on what to do next: - Get ideas for a project in the Take Home Projects section on freeCodeCamp. - Build any project along with a course, then modify and improve it by adding new features. - Tackle D3.js and Node.js to get the next freeCodeCamp certifications! - Read Eloquent JavaScript and You Don't Know JS to become a JavaScript ninja. - Improve your rank on Codewars. - Get a taste of advanced web design from this Web Design for Web Developers course. - Keep your GitHub account active and try to contribute to open source. If one of these resources doesn’t work for you, it’s okay. Don’t get frustrated, what works for someone doesn’t necessarily have to work for every single person. I hope this guide will help you with your learning, and hopefully save you time ?

By Nikita Rudenko I started my coding journey in spring 2018, a bit less than one year ago. I earned some programming skills since that time but still, I understand there are many more things to learn ahead. Anyway, I decided to gather these tips in ...

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2019-03-29 00:00:00

https://cdn-media-1.freecodecamp.org/images/0*TtYYyhF4qZTk2Bkj

article

freecodecamp.org

freeCodeCamp.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence

Limerence - Wikipedia

# Limerence Relationships (Outline) | ---| Part of a series on | Love | ---| **Limerence** is a state of mind resulting from romantic feelings for another person. It typically involves intrusive and melancholic thoughts, or tragic concerns for the object of one's affection, along with a desire for the reciprocation of one's feelings and to form a relationship with the object of love. Psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined the term "limerence" as an alteration of "amorance" without other etymologies[1] to describe a concept that had grown out of her work in the 1960s, when she interviewed over 500 people on the topic of love.[2][3][4] In her book *Love and Limerence*, she writes that "to be in a state of limerence is to feel what is usually termed 'being in love.'"[5] She coined the term to disambiguate the state from other less-overwhelming emotions, and to avoid the implication that those who do not experience it are not capable of experiencing love.[6][7] According to Tennov and others, limerence can be considered romantic love,[1][8][9][10][11] passionate love,[3][11][12] infatuation,[13][14][15] lovesickness[14][4][16][17] or even love madness.[18][19][14][20] It's also sometimes compared to a crush, but contrasted as being much more intense.[21][22] *Love and Limerence* has been called the seminal work on romantic love.[11] Anthropologist and author Helen Fisher wrote that data collection on romantic attraction started with Tennov collecting survey results, diaries, and other personal accounts.[23] Fisher, who knew Tennov and corresponded with her, has commented that Tennov's concept had a sad component to it.[24][25] Limerence is associated with dopamine reward circuits in the brain.[10][14][21] The early stage of romantic love has been called an altered mental state[26] and compared to a behavioral addiction[27][28] or an addiction to a person.[29] Brain scans suggest that people experience motivational salience in response to a loved one.[10][27] A long-running theory also compared the associated intrusive thinking to obsessive-compulsive disorder[30] with a hypothesis that this is related to lowered serotonin levels in the brain,[25] but the experimental evidence for that is ambiguous.[11] ## Overview [edit]Dorothy Tennov's concept represents a scientific attempt at studying the nature of romantic love.[31] She identified a suite of psychological traits associated with being in love, which she called limerence.[25][32] Other authors have also considered limerence to be an emotional and motivational state for focusing attention on a preferred mating partner[10] or an attachment process.[33][34] Joe Beam calls limerence the feeling of being madly in love.[20] Nicky Hayes describes it as "a kind of infatuated, all-absorbing passion," the type of love Dante felt towards Beatrice or that of Romeo and Juliet.[35] It is this unfulfilled, intense longing for the other person which defines limerence, where the individual becomes "more or less obsessed by that person and spends much of their time fantasising about them."[35] Hayes suggests that "it is the unobtainable nature of the goal which makes the feeling so powerful," and occasional, intermittent reinforcement may be required to support the underlying feelings.[35] Severus Snape's love for Lily Evans, the mother of Harry Potter, is a modern fictional representation of limerence.[36] Another famous historical example was the tumultuous affair between Lord Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb.[37] A central feature of limerence for Tennov was the fact that her participants really saw the object of their affection's personal flaws, but simply overlooked them or found them attractive.[38][39] Tennov calls this "crystallization," after a description by the French writer Stendhal. This "crystallized" version of a love object, with accentuated features, is what Tennov calls a "limerent object," or "LO."[40] Limerence has psychological properties akin to passionate love,[41][42][3][10] but in Tennov's conception, limerence always begins outside of a relationship and before the person experiencing it knows whether it's reciprocated.[43] Tennov observes that limerence is therefore frequently unrequited[44][35] and argues that some type of situational uncertainty is required for the intense mental preoccupation to occur.[45] Uncertainty could be, for example, barriers to the fulfillment of a relationship such as physical or emotional distance from the LO,[46] or uncertainty about how the LO reciprocates the feeling.[47] Some people may also fear intimacy so that they distance themselves and avoid a real connection.[48] For Tennov, sexual desire was an essential aspect of limerence;[49] however, the desire for emotional commitment is greater.[50] The sexual desires of Tennov's interviewees were overshadowed by their desire for their beloved to contact them, invite them out and reciprocate their passion.[51] More recent authors have also suggested that sexual desire is a separate (although related) phenomenon and that infatuations such as limerence can sometimes occur in the absence of sexual desire.[15][25] People are motivated to initiate a pair bond in a way that's different from the sex drive.[10] Not everyone experiences limerence.[52] Tennov estimates that 50% of women and 35% of men experience limerence based on answers to certain survey questions she administered.[53] Limerence can be difficult to understand for those who have never experienced it, and it is thus often derided and dismissed as undesirable, some kind of pathology, ridiculous fantasy or a construct of romantic fiction.[54] According to Tennov, limerence is not a mental illness, although it can be "highly disruptive and extremely painful," "irrational, silly, embarrassing, and abnormal" or sometimes "the greatest happiness" depending on who is asked.[55] ## Components [edit]The original components of limerence, from *Love and Limerence*, were:[56] - intrusive thinking about the object of your passionate desire (the limerent object or "LO"), who is a possible sexual partner - acute longing for reciprocation - dependency of mood on LO's actions or, more accurately, your interpretation of LO's actions with respect to the probability of reciprocation - inability to react limerentlyto more than one person at a time (exceptions occur only when limerence is at low ebb—early on or in the last fading)- some fleeting and transient relief from unrequited limerent passion through vivid imagination of action by LO that means reciprocation - fear of rejection and sometimes incapacitating but always unsettling shyness in LO's presence, especially in the beginning and whenever uncertainty strikes - intensification through adversity (at least, up to a point) - acute sensitivity to any act or thought or condition that can be interpreted favorably, and an extraordinary ability to devise or invent "reasonable" explanations for why the neutrality that the disinterested observer might see is in fact a sign of hidden passion in the LO - an aching of the "heart" (a region in the center front of the chest) when uncertainty is strong - buoyancy (a feeling of walking on air) when reciprocation seems evident - a general intensity of feeling that leaves other concerns in the background - a remarkable ability to emphasize what is truly admirable in LO and to avoid dwelling on the negative, even to respond with a compassion for the negative and render it, emotionally if not perceptually, into another positive attribute. ## Relation to other concepts [edit]### Love [edit]Dorothy Tennov gives several reasons for inventing a term for the state denoted by limerence (usually termed "being in love").[57] One principle reason is to resolve ambiguities with the word "love" being used both to refer to an act which is chosen, as well as to a state which is endured:[58] Many writers on love have complained about semantic difficulties. The dictionary lists two dozen different meanings of the word "love." And how does one distinguish between love and affection, liking, fondness, caring, concern, infatuation, attraction, or desire? [...] Acknowledgment of a distinction between love as a verb, as an action taken by the individual, and love as a state is awkward. Never having fallen in love is not at all a matter of not loving, if loving is defined as caring. Furthermore, this state of "being in love" included feelings that do not properly fit with love defined as concern. (The type of love that focuses on caring for others is called compassionate love or agape.)[59] The other principle reason given is that she encountered people who do not experience the state. The first such person Tennov discovered was a long-time friend, Helen Payne, whose unfamiliarity with the state of limerence emerged during a conversation on an airplane flight together.[60] Tennov writes that "describing the intricacies of romantic attachments" to Helen was "like trying to describe the color red to one blind from birth."[61] Tennov labels such people "nonlimerents" (a person not currently experiencing limerence), but cautions that it seemed to her that there is no nonlimerent personality and that potentially anyone could experience the state of limerence.[62] Tennov says:[63] I adopted the view that never being in this state was neither more nor less pathological than experiencing it. I wanted to be able to speak about this reliably identifiable condition without giving love's advocates the feeling something precious was being destroyed. Even more important, if using the term "love" denoted the presence of the state, there was the danger that absence of the state would receive negative connotations. Tennov addresses the issue of whether limerence is love in several other passages.[64] In one passage she clearly says that limerence is love, at least in certain cases:[65] In fully developed limerence, you feel additionallywhat is, in other contexts as well, called love—an extreme degree of feeling that you want LO to be safe, cared for, happy, and all those other positive and noble feelings that you might feel for your children, your parents, and your dearest friends. That's probably why limerence is called love in all languages. [...] Surely limerence is love at its highest and most glorious peak. However, Tennov then switches in tone and tells a fairly negative story of the pain felt by a woman reminiscing over the time she wasted pining for a man she now feels nothing towards, something which occupied her in a time when her father was still alive and her children "were adorable babies who needed their mother's attention." Tennov says this is why we distinguish limerence (this "love") from other loves.[66] In another passage, Tennov says that while affection and fondness do not demand anything in return, the return of feelings desired in the limerent state means that "Other aspects of your life, including love, are sacrificed in behalf of the all-consuming need." and that "While limerence has been called love, it is not love."[67] ### Passionate and companionate love [edit]Limerence has been related to passionate love, with Elaine Hatfield considering them synonymous[3] or commenting in 2016 that they are "much the same."[68] Passionate love is described as:[3][69] A state of intense longing for union with an other. Reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy. Unrequited love (separation) with emptiness; with anxiety, or despair. A state of profound physiological arousal. Helen Fisher has considered limerence and passionate love to be synonyms in her papers, but has commented that she prefers the term "romantic love" because she thinks it has meaning in society.[25][10][24] Academic literature has never universally adopted a single term for romantic love.[11] Many other authors also consider these terms synonymous, for example Bianca Acevedo & Arthur Aron:[10][11][15][12] Passionate love, “a state of intense longing for union with another” (Hatfield & Rapson, 1993, p. 5), also referred to as “being in love” (Meyers & Berscheid, 1997), “infatuation” (Fisher, 1998), and “limerence” (Tennov, 1979), includes an obsessive element, characterized by intrusive thinking, uncertainty, and mood swings. Passionate love is linked to *passion*, as in intense emotion, for example, joy and fulfillment, but also anguish and agony.[70] Hatfield notes that the original meaning of passion "*was* agony—as in Christ's passion."[70] Passionate love is contrasted with companionate love, which is "the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined."[3] Companionate love is felt less intensely and often follows after passionate love in a relationship.[11][68] In *Love and Limerence,* Dorothy Tennov also lists passionate love among several synonyms for limerence,[71] and refers to one of Hatfield's early writings on the subject.[72] However, Tennov says that one of the guiding points of her study was to focus on the aspects of love that produced distress.[73] She has also said that one of the problems she encountered in her studies is that her interview subjects would use terms like "passionate love," "romantic love" and "being in love" to refer to mental states other than what she refers to as limerence.[74] For example, some of her nonlimerent interviewees would use the word "obsession," yet not report the intrusive thoughts necessary to limerence, only that "thoughts of the person are frequent and pleasurable."[75] ### Infatuation [edit]Various authors have considered "infatuation" to be a synonym for limerence.[15][10][12][76] Dorothy Tennov has stated that she did not use the word "infatuation" because while there is overlap, the word evokes different connotations.[77] In *Love and Limerence*, Tennov considers "infatuation" to be a pejorative,[78] for example often being used as a label for teenage limerent fantasizing and obsession with a celebrity.[79] The word "infatuation" is sometimes used colloquially in contrast with "love." In this distinction, according to interviews conducted by Albert Ellis and Robert Harper, people use "love" to refer to relationships which are satisfactory or currently in progress and they use "infatuation" to refer to relationships which turn out to be unsatisfactory in hindsight or which they disapprove of. Elaine Hatfield has suggested that passionate love and infatuation are otherwise indistinguishable at the time one is experiencing them, and that the only difference is semantic.[80] In the triangular theory of love, by Robert Sternberg, "infatuation" refers to romantic passion without intimacy (or closeness) and without commitment.[76][81] Sternberg has stated that infatuation in his theory is essentially the same as limerence.[76] Another related concept (which also has qualities reminiscent of limerence)[82] is "fatuous love," which is romantic passion *with* a commitment made in the absence of intimacy. This can be, for example, lovers in the throes of new passion who commit to marry without really knowing each other well enough to know if they are suitable partners. In this situation, their passion usually wanes over time, turning into a commitment alone (called "empty love") and they become unhappy.[83] "Infatuation" can also refer to the feelings similar to passionate love,[84] measured by Sandra Langeslag's *Infatuation and Attachment Scales* (IAS).[85] Infatuation in this context is defined as "the overwhelming, amorous feeling for one individual that is typically most intense during the early stage of love (i.e., when individuals are not (yet) in a relationship with their beloved or are in a new relationship)."[84] Attachment is "the comforting feeling of emotional bonding with another individual that takes some time to develop."[84] The IAS has been used in Langeslag's EEG experiments on love regulation.[86] Love regulation is "the use of behavioral or cognitive strategies to change the intensity of current feelings of romantic love."[85] A series of experiments have demonstrated that regulating love feelings is possible using a technique called cognitive reappraisal.[84] For example, when love feelings are stronger than desired,[84] one can use a task called negative reappraisal where one focuses on negative qualities of the beloved ("he's lazy", "she's always late"), the relationship ("we fight a lot") or imagined future scenarios ("he'll cheat on me").[86][87] Negative reappraisal decreases feelings of infatuation and attachment,[87] but does not switch feelings on or off immediately, so the task must be repeated over time for a lasting change.[88] Negative reappraisal also decreases mood in the short-term, but a distraction task can help ameliorate this.[89] A therapist named Brandy Wyant has had her limerent clients list reasons their LO is not perfect, or reasons they and their LO are not compatible.[21] ### Attachment theory [edit]Attachment theory refers to John Bowlby's concept of an "attachment system," a system evolved to keep infants in proximity of their caregiver (or "attachment figure").[15][33][59] The person uses the attachment figure as a "secure base" to feel safe exploring the environment, seeks proximity with the attachment figure when threatened, and suffers distress when separated.[59][33] A prominent theory suggests this system is reused for adult pair bonds,[33] as an exaptation[15] or co-option,[90] whereby a given trait takes on a new purpose. In Helen Fisher's popular[90] love taxonomy, limerence and attachment are considered different systems with different purposes, with limerence comparable to passionate love and attachment comparable to companionate love.[25][10] In the past, other authors have also suggested that limerence could be related to the anxious attachment style;[33][34] however, in their original 1987 paper conceptualizing romantic love as an attachment process (and relating limerence to attachment style), Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver also caution that they are not implying that the early phase of romance is equivalent to being attached. They go on to say that "Our idea, which requires further development, is that romantic love is a biological process designed by evolution to facilitate attachment between adult sexual partners who, at the time love evolved, were likely to become parents of an infant who need their reliable care."[33] Attachment style refers to differences in attachment-related thoughts and behaviors, especially relating to the concept of security vs. insecurity.[91][33] This can be split into components of anxiety (worrying the partner is available, attentive and responsive) and avoidance (preference not to rely on others or open up emotionally).[91] The formation of attachment style is complicated,[91][92] for example it has been suggested that attachment style forms during childhood and adolescence, but twin studies have also suggested a heritable component[92] and attachment anxiety is substantially correlated with the personality trait neuroticism.[91] There is also a person-situation problem where people have different attachment styles with different partners, implying attachment style is not just a trait,[91] for example an avoidant partner could cause a secure partner to feel and act anxious.[33] A 1990 study found that the 15% of participants who self-reported an anxious attachment style scored highly on limerence measures (especially obsessive preoccupation and emotional dependence scales), but found considerable overlap of distributions between all three attachment styles and limerence.[34] Studies and a meta-analysis by Bianca Acevedo & Arthur Aron found that while romantic obsession is associated with relationship satisfaction in short-term relationships, it is associated with slightly decreased satisfaction over the long-term and they speculate this could be related to insecure attachment.[12] ### Erotomania [edit]Limerence is sometimes compared to erotomania;[14][93] however, erotomania is defined as a delusional disorder where the sufferer has a delusional belief that the object of their affection is madly in love with them when they are not.[27][94] A person suffering from erotomania might interpret subtle, irrelevant details (such as their love object wearing a particular accessory) as coded declarations of love, and the sufferer will invent ways to interpret outright rejections as unserious so they can continue believing the object is secretly in love with them.[95] According to Dorothy Tennov, a person experiencing limerence might misinterpret signals and falsely believe that their LO reciprocates the feeling when they do not, but they are receptive to negative cues, especially when receiving a clear rejection.[96] ### Love addiction [edit]Because limerence is compared to addiction, it's sometimes compared to or contrasted with what is called "love addiction," although according to modern research all romantic love may technically work similar to an addiction at the level of the brain.[97][98][27] "Love addiction" has had a somewhat amorphous meaning over the years and does not yet denote a psychiatric condition, but recently a definition has been developed that "Individuals addicted to love tend to experience negative moods and affects when away from their partners and have the strong urge and craving to see their partner as a way of coping with stressful situations."[99] This definition is given in terms of a relationship, but limerence is usually unrequited.[99][14] Sebastiano Costa et al. have developed an instrument to measure love addiction, based on the six components model of addiction (salience, tolerance, mood modification, relapse, withdrawal, and conflict). The inventory contains items such as urgent feelings to be with the partner, feeling the need to increase meetings, negative mood in the absence of the partner, staying with the partner to relieve negative mood, failing to reduce meetings with the partner and abandoning one's obligations to be with the partner.[99] ## Evolutionary purpose [edit]In a 1998 essay, as well as in *Love and Limerence*, Dorothy Tennov has speculated that limerence has an evolutionary purpose.[100][101] For what ultimate cause might the state of limerence be a proximate cause? In other words, why were people who became limerent successful, maybe more successful than others, in passing their genes on to succeeding generations back a few hundred thousand or million years ago when heads grew larger and fathers who left mother and child to fend for themselves were less "reproductively successful"—in the long run, that is (Morgan 1993). Did limerence evolve to cement a relationship long enough to get the offspring up and running? [...] The most consistent result of limerence is mating, not merely sexual interaction but also commitment, the establishment of a shared domicile in the form of a cozy nest built for the enjoyment of ecstasy, for reproduction, and for the rearing of children. [102] Helen Fisher's components of romantic attraction are largely derived from Tennov's components of limerence,[25] and in a similar vein as Tennov, Fisher has theorized that this 'attraction' system evolved to facilitate mammalian mate choice.[25][10] Tennov has suggested that if the neurophysiological "machinery" for limerence isn't a universal among all humans, then having both phenotypes (limerent and nonlimerent) in the population might be beneficial and an evolutionarily stable strategy.[103] ## Characteristics [edit]### Person addiction [edit]Limerence has been called an addiction.[104][21] The early stage of romantic love is comparable to a behavioral addiction (i.e. addiction to a non-substance) but the "substance" involved is the loved person.[29][27][105] A team led by Helen Fisher used fMRI to find that people who had "just fallen madly in love" showed activation in an area of the brain called the ventral tegmental area, which projects dopamine to other brain areas, while looking at a photograph of their beloved.[27][10] This as well as activity in other key areas supports the theory that people in love experience what is called incentive salience in response to the loved person, which could be a result of oxytocin activity in motivation pathways in the brain.[28][27][106] Incentive salience is the property by which cues in the environment stand out to a person and become attention-grabbing and attractive, like a "motivational magnet" which pulls a person towards a particular reward.[107][108] The phenomenon Tennov describes as a loved one taking on a "special meaning" to the person in love is believed to be related to this heightened salience in response to the loved one.[25][106] In addiction research, a distinction is also drawn between "wanting" a reward (i.e. incentive salience, tied to mesocorticolimbic dopamine) and "liking" a reward (i.e. pleasure, tied to hedonic hotspots), aspects which are dissociable.[107][108] People can be addicted to drugs and compulsively seek them out, even when taking the drug no longer results in a high or the addiction is detrimental to one's life.[27] They can also "want" (i.e. feel compelled towards, in the sense of incentive salience) something which they don't cognitively wish for.[107] In a similar way, people who are in love may "want" a loved person even when interactions with them are not pleasurable. For example, they may want to contact an ex-partner after a rejection, even when the experience will only be painful.[27] It's also possible for a person to be "in love" with somebody they don't like, or who treats them poorly.[109] Fisher's team proposes that romantic love is a "positive addiction" (i.e. not harmful) when requited and a "negative addiction" when unrequited or inappropriate.[27] In brain scans of long-term romantic love (involving subjects who professed to be "madly" in love, but were together with their partner 10 years or more), attraction similar to early-stage romantic love was associated with dopamine reward center activity ("wanting"), but long-term attachment was associated with the globus palludus, a site for opiate receptors identified as a hedonic hotspot ("liking"). Long-term romantic lovers also showed lower levels of obsession compared to those in the early stage.[110][12] ### Lovesickness [edit]Limerence is usually unrequited, and a horrible experience for the limerent person.[14] Limerence is debilitating for some people.[111] Lovesickness is a state of mind characterized by addictive cravings, frustration, depression, melancholy and intrusive thinking.[17] In Tennov's survey group, 42% reported being "severely depressed about a love affair."[112] Other effects are distraction and self-isolation.[113] Fisher's fMRI scans of rejected lovers showed activation in brain areas associated with physical pain, craving and assessing one's gains and losses.[27] Tennov describes being under the spell herself, saying "Before it happened, I couldn't have imagined it[.] Now, I wouldn't want to have it happen again."[4] Some people even described to her incidents of self-injury, but Tennov maintains that limerence on its own is normal and tragedies involve additional factors.[114] Lovesickness has been pathologized in previous centuries, but is not currently in the ICD-10, ICPC or DSM-5.[17] Author and psychologist Frank Tallis has made the argument that all love—even normal love—is largely indistinguishable from mental illness. In his view, the ethical dilemma behind the notion that love could be a psychopathology can be resolved by suggesting that there is no difference between "normal" and "abnormal" when it comes to love.[115] There is also an ethical debate over the implications of using modern drugs for this type of thing.[17][116] Bioethicist Brian Earp and colleagues have argued that the voluntary use of anti-love biotechnology (for example, a drug made to cause the person who uses it to fall out of love) could be ethical.[117] However, there is currently no drug which is a realistic candidate.[84] There is a scholarly debate about the involuntary nature of romantic love. The notion that falling in love is an involuntary process is different from the issue of whether one's behavior can be considered autonomous while in love.[118] A series of experiments by Sandra Langeslag have also demonstrated that controlling love feelings is actually possible.[84] Although limerence was not intended to denote an abnormal state and lovesickness is no longer recognized as a medical condition, symptoms still bear a resemblance to many entries in the DSM.[119] For example, when people fall in love, there are four core symptoms: preoccupation, episodes of melancholy, episodes of rapture and instability of mood.[120] These correspond with conventional diagnoses of obsessionality (or OCD), depression, mania (or hypomania) and manic depression.[121] Other examples are physical symptoms similar to panic attacks (pounding heart, trembling, shortness of breath and lightheadedness), excessive worry about the future which resembles generalized anxiety disorder, appetite disturbance and sensitivity about one's appearance which resembles anorexia nervosa, and the feeling that life has become a dream which resembles derealization and depersonalization.[122] Tallis argues that love evolved to override rationality so that one finds a lover and reproduces regardless of the personal costs of bearing and raising a child.[123] He uses the example of Charles Darwin who, never being romantic, is said to have sat and made a list of reasons to marry or not to marry.[124] Being accustomed to total freedom and worrying about such things as financial austerities that would limit his expenditure on books, Darwin found his reasons not to marry greatly outweighed his reasons to marry.[125] However, shortly thereafter Darwin unexpectedly fell in love, suddenly becoming preoccupied with cozy images of married life and thus quickly converting from bachelor to husband.[126] Tallis writes:[127] At first sight, it seems extraordinary that evolutionary forces might conspire to shape something that looks like a mental illness to ensure reproductive success. Yet, there are many reasons why love should have evolved to share with madness several features — the most notable of which is the loss of reason. Like the ancient humoral model of love sickness, evolutionary principles seem to have necessitated a blurring of the distinction between normal and abnormal states. Evolution expects us to love madly, lest we fail to love at all. According to Tennov, "Love has been called a madness and an affliction at least since the time of the ancient Greeks and probably earlier than that."[128] Historical accounts of lovesickness attribute it, for example, to being struck by an arrow shot by Eros, to a sickness entering through the eyes (similar to the evil eye), to an excess of black bile, or to spells, potions and other magic.[17] Attempts to treat lovesickness have been made throughout history using a variety of plants, natural products, charms and rituals.[17] The first known treatise on lovesickness is *Remedia Amoris*, by the poet Ovid.[17] ### Crystallization [edit]Crystallization, for Tennov, is the "remarkable ability to emphasize what is truly admirable in LO and to avoid dwelling on the negative, even to respond with a compassion for the negative and render it, emotionally if not perceptually, into another positive attribute."[129][25] Tennov borrows the term from the French writer Stendhal from his 1821 treatise on love, *De l'Amour*, in which he describes an analogy where a tree branch is tossed into a salt mine. After remaining there for several months, the tree branch (or twig) becomes covered in salt crystals which transform it "into an object of shimmering beauty." In the same way, unattractive characteristics of an LO are given little to no attention so that the LO is seen in the most favorable light.[130] One of Tennov's interviewees, Lenore, says:[131] "Yes I knew he gambled, I knew he sometimes drank too much, and I knew he didn't read a book from one year to the next. I knewand I didn't know. I knew it but I didn't incorporate it into the overall image. I dwelt on his wavy hair, the way he looked at me, the thought of his driving to work in the morning, his charm (that I believed must surely affect everyone he met), the flowers he sent, the considerations he had shown to my sister's children at the picnic last summer, the feeling I had when we were in close physical contact, the way he mixed a martini, his laugh, the hair on the back of his hand. Okay! I know it's crazy, that my list of 'positives' sounds silly, but thosearethe things I think of, remember, and, yes, want back again!" This kind of "misperception" or "love is blind" bias[11][132] is more often referred to as "idealization,"[133] which modern research considers to be a form of positive illusions.[11][134] For example, a 1996 study found that "Individuals were happier in their relationships when they idealized their partners and their partners idealized them."[134] However, Tennov argues against the term "idealization," because she says that it implies that the image seen by the person experiencing romantic passion "is molded to fit a preformed, externally derived, or emotionally needed conception."[135] In crystallization, she says, "the actual and existing features of LO merely undergo enhancement."[136] A limerent person may overlook red flags or incompatibilities.[22][48] Tennov notes that the bias can be an impediment to a limerent person wishing to recover from the condition, as another of her interviewees says:[137] "I decided to make a list in block letters of everything about Elsie that I found unpleasant or annoying. It was a very long list. On the other side of the paper, I listed her good points. It was a short list. But it didn't help at all. The good points seemed so much more important, and the bad things, well, in Elsie they weren't so bad, or they were things I felt I could help her with." ### Intrusive thinking and fantasy [edit]Intrusive thinking is an oft-reported feature of romantic love.[138][11][90] Tennov wrote that "Limerence is first and foremost a condition of cognitive obsession."[139] One study found that on average people in love spent 65% of their waking hours thinking about the beloved.[138] Arthur Aron says "It is obsessive-compulsive when you're feeling it. It's the center of your life."[9] At the height of obsessive fantasy, people experiencing limerence may spend 85 to nearly 100% of their days and nights doting on the LO, lose ability to focus on other tasks and become easily distracted.[39] A limerent person can spend time fantasizing about future events even if they never come true, as the anticipation on its own yields dopamine.[21] According to Tennov, limerent fantasy is unsatisfactory unless rooted in reality, because the fantasizer may want the fantasy to seem realistic enough to be somewhat possible.[140] The fantasies can nevertheless be wildly unrealistic, for example, one person related to her an elaborate rescue fantasy in which he saves an LO's 5-year-old cousin from a group of motorcycles only to be bitten by a snake and die in his LO's lap.[141] This fantasizing along with the replaying of actual memories forms a bridge between one's ordinary life and the eventual hoped for moment of consummation. Tennov says that limerent fantasy is "inescapable," something that just "happens" as opposed to something one "does."[142] One theory of obsessive thinking draws from the parallel with drug addiction: as the early stage of romantic love is compared to addiction to a person, and drug addicts also exhibit obsessive thinking about drug use.[28][143] Tennov has written that limerent fantasy based in reality "can be conceived as intricate strategy planning."[144] In the late 1990s, it had also been speculated that being in love may lower serotonin levels in the brain, which could cause the intrusive thoughts.[25][145] The serotonin hypothesis is based in part on a comparison to obsessive-compulsive disorder,[30][145] but the experimental evidence is ambiguous.[11] The experiments have tested blood levels of serotonin, with the first experiment finding lowered serotonin levels, but the second experiment finding that men and women were affected differently.[11][138][145] This second experiment found that obsessive thinking was actually associated with increased serotonin levels in women.[138] For some people who have a fear of intimacy or a history of trauma, limerent fantasy might be an escape or a means of having what feels like a relationship but without the threat of real intimacy.[98][48] ### Fear of rejection [edit]Tennov's conception of fear of rejection was characterized by nervous feelings and shyness around the limerent object, "worried that your own actions may bring about disaster."[146] Awkwardness, stammering, confusion and shyness predominate at the behavioral level.[147] She quotes the poet Sappho who writes "Sweat runs down in rivers, a tremor seizes [...] Lost in the love-trance."[148] One of Tennov's interviewees, a 28-year-old truck driver, said "It was like what you might call stage fright, like going up in front of an audience. [...] I was awkward as hell."[149] Fisher et al. has suggested that fear in the presence of the beloved is caused by elevated levels of dopamine.[10] Many of the people Tennov interviewed described being normally confident, but suddenly shy when the limerent object is around, or being only in this state of fear with certain limerent objects but not others.[150] Tennov wondered if fear of rejection even serves an evolutionary purpose, by drawing out the courtship process to ensure a greater chance of finding a compatible partner.[151] ### Uncertainty and hope [edit]According to Tennov, the goal of limerence is "oneness" with the LO, i.e. mutual reciprocation or return of feelings.[152] Limerence subsides in a relationship when the limerent person receives adequate reciprocation from the LO.[153] However, mutual reciprocation is a matter of perception on the part of the limerent person, therefore she says the goal of limerence is "removing uncertainty" about whether or not the LO reciprocates.[154] Some authors have conceptualized limerence as an attachment process.[33] In the early stages of romantic love, individuals may start out hypervigilant (hyperaware and sensitive to cues) due to uncertainty and novelty, but become synchronized over time as a relationship progresses. Bonding is thought to be in part facilitated by coordinated behaviors which display reciprocity and events which evoke beneficial stress (eustress), like a passionate kiss.[155] Experiments have been done which support the idea that the stress response is involved during the early stage of romantic love, although those measuring cortisol levels have been inconsistent with respect to cortisol being higher or lower.[26][155][11] During the early period of limerence (which may begin as a crush or with a physical attraction),[156][157] Tennov estimates the limerent person may spend up to 30% of their waking hours thinking about the LO,[158] feel a sense of freedom, elation and buoyancy, and enjoy the preoccupation.[159] Then, when elements of doubt and uncertainty are added to the situation, the time spent preoccupied can soar to even 100% of waking hours, provided there is always some hope the LO might return the feelings.[160] At 100%, this might be joy or despair, depending on whether the limerent person perceives the LO as returning the feelings or rejecting them.[161] One of Tennov's interviewees says "When I felt [Barry] loved me, I was intensely in love and deliriously happy; when he seemed rejecting, I was still intensely in love, only miserable beyond words."[162] Much of the time preoccupied is spent replaying events, searching for their meaning to determine this.[163] These thoughts are felt to be involuntary by the individual, occurring intrusively, even to the point of distraction.[164][165] Uncertainty can also be introduced by the presence of barriers to a relationship, or what Tennov calls "intensification through adversity."[166] She writes:[167] The recognition that some uncertainty must exist has been commented on and complained about by virtually everyone who has undertaken a serious study of the phenomenon of romantic love. Psychologists Ellen Bersheid and Elaine Walster discussed this common observation made, they note, by Socrates, Ovid, the Kama Sutra, and "Dear Abby," that the presentation of a hard-to-get as opposed to an immediately yielding exterior is a help in eliciting passion. The presence of barriers was crucial to the mutual limerence of Romeo and Juliet, hence this is often called "the Romeo and Juliet effect."[168] Helen Fisher calls this "frustration attraction,"[169][170] and suggests that attraction increases because dopamine levels increase in the brain when an expected reward is delayed.[171][10] Another theory promoted by Fisher is that separation evokes panic and stress, or activation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis.[172][173] Uncertainty can also come in the form of intermittent reinforcements, which prolong the duration of limerence, keeping the brain "hooked" in.[174][21] Robert Sternberg has written that passionate or infatuated love mainly operates under variable-ratio and variable-interval reinforcement principles, essentially thriving under these conditions:[174] The available evidence suggests that such love may survive only under conditions of intermittent reinforcement, when uncertainty reduction plays a key role in one's feelings for another (cf. Livingston, 1980). Tennov's (1979) analysis suggests that limerence can survive only under conditions in which full development and consummation of love is withheld and in which titillation of one kind or another continues over time. Once the relationship is allowed to develop or once the relationship becomes an utter impossibility, extinction seems to take place. Hence, Judson Brewer characterizes the uncertainty of receiving an occasional message from an LO as "gasoline poured on the fire."[21] "Limerence can live a long life sustained by crumbs," says Tennov, who compares this to the uncertainty of gambling: "Both gamblers and limerents find reason to hope in wild dreams."[175] Similarly, Hatfield has suggested that even being intermittently maltreated can increase passion or spark interest.[176] Consistency generates little emotion, she says, so "What would generate a spark of interest, however, is if our admiring friend suddenly started treating us with contempt—or if our arch enemy started inundating us with kindness."[177] Hatfield recommends that an individual who finds themself attracted to such a person should stay away, as such relationships "leave a residue of ugliness and pain."[178] Intermittent maltreatment is one of the components of trauma bonding.[179] Tennov writes "It is limerence, not love, that increases when lovers are able to meet only infrequently or when there is anger between them."[180] However, uncertainty can just be a matter of perception on the part of the limerent person, rather than it being based on actual obstacles or events.[181] One married couple Tennov interviewed was mutually limerent in high school, but each was too shy to make the first move so that each was unaware of the other's attraction. They then met again in college 5 years later and married, but only found out about their mutual limerence in high school through a chance conversation several years after that.[182] Tennov notes that there were no obstacles to their relationship, but suggests their inaccurate perceptions that each was not interested probably increased their limerence in high school.[183] According to Tennov, because limerence only occurs when there is at least some hope of reciprocation,[184] one can attempt to extinguish limerence by removing any hope that the LO will reciprocate.[185][153] For example, an individual who is the object of unwanted attraction should give the clearest possible rejection to the limerent person, and not say something such as "I like you as a friend, but..." which is too ambiguous.[186] ### Physiology [edit]The physiological effects of limerence can include trembling, pallor, flushing, weakness, sweating, butterflies in the stomach and a pounding heart.[187][188] A limerent person has excess energy, with heightened awareness and sustained alertness directed towards the goal of ascertaining reciprocation.[189] Tennov wrote that the sensation of limerence is associated primarily with the heart, even speculating that intrusive thinking results in mutual feedback where thinking of the limerent object causes an increase in heart rate, which in turn changes thought patterns.[190] She says: When I asked interviewees in the throes of the limerent condition to tell wherethey felt the sensation of limerence, they pointed unerringly to the midpoint in their chest. So consistently did this occur that it would seem to be another indication that the state described is indeed limerence, not affection (described by some as located "all over," or even in "the arms" when held out in a gesture of embrace) or in sexual feelings (located, appropriately enough, in the genitals).[191] ### Sexuality [edit]In Tennov's conception, sexual attraction was an essential component of limerence (as a generalization), although she noted that occasionally people described attractions to her which fit the overall pattern of limerence but did not involve sexual attraction.[192] However, limerence is not the same as sexual attraction,[193][15] and sex is not the central focus of limerence.[194] When in limerence, "emotional union trumps sexual desire."[195] Tennov stresses that "the most consistent result of limerence is mating, not merely sexual interaction but also commitment" and "the establishment of a shared domicile."[196][197] Psychologist Lisa Diamond has written that infatuations like limerence can occur in the absence of sexual desire, citing studies supporting the phenomenon, as well as referencing Helen Fisher's work.[15] Fisher's theory of independent emotions states that there are three primary systems involved with human reproduction and mating: *lust* (the sex drive), *attraction* (i.e. passionate love, infatuation or limerence) and *attachment* (i.e. companionate love), and these work somewhat independently.[25][10] Diamond argues that people can feel infatuation (in the sense of limerence) without sexual desire, even in contradiction to one's sexual orientation. According to Diamond, there is an evolutionary reason for this, which is that these brain systems are an exaption of mother-infant bonding, meaning the systems were repurposed through evolution. It would not be adaptive for a parent to only be able to bond with an opposite sex child, so the systems must have evolved independent of sexual orientation.[15] Tennov also drew distinctions between limerent fantasies and sexual fantasies.[198] Limerent fantasies, she says, are grounded in a possible reality, however unlikely, and actually desired to come true. However, sexual fantasies may involve entirely imaginative situations, and may not actually be desired in reality.[199] People also have more voluntary control over their sexual fantasies than their limerent ones, which occur more intrusively.[200] ### Loneliness [edit]Shaver and Hazan observed that those suffering from loneliness are more susceptible to limerence,[201] arguing that "if people have a large number of unmet social needs, and are not aware of this, then a sign that someone else might be interested is easily built up in that person's imagination into far more than the friendly social contact that it might have been. By dwelling on the memory of that social contact, the lonely person comes to magnify it into a deep emotional experience, which may be quite different from the reality of the event."[202] ### Duration [edit]Tennov estimates, based on both questionnaire and interview data, that limerence most commonly lasts between 18 months and three years with an average of two years, but may be as short as mere days or as long as a lifetime.[203] One woman wrote to Tennov about her mother's limerence which lasted 65 years.[4] Tennov calls it the worst case when the limerent person cannot get away, because the LO is a coworker or lives nearby.[4] Limerence can last indefinitely sometimes when it's unrequited, especially when reciprocation is uncertain. This could be such as when receiving mixed signals from an LO, or because of the intermittent reinforcement of an LO ignoring the limerent person for awhile and then suddenly calling.[14][174][21] Tennov's estimate of 18 months to 3 years is sometimes used as the normal duration of romantic love.[26][11] The other common estimate, 12-18 months, comes from Donatella Marazziti's experiment comparing the serotonin levels of people in love with OCD patients.[27][145] In this experiment, subjects who had fallen in love within the past 6 months (who were in a relationship) were measured to have serotonin levels which were different from controls, levels which returned to normal after 12-18 months.[145] According to Tennov, ideally limerence will be replaced by another type of love.[153] In this way, feelings may evolve over the duration of a relationship: "Those whose limerence was replaced by affectional bonding with the same partner might say, 'We were very much in love when we married; today we love each other very much.'"[204] The more stable type of love which is usually the characteristic of long-term relationships is commonly called companionate love, storge or attachment.[12][59][10] ## Controversy [edit]In 2008, Albert Wakin, a professor who knew Tennov at the University of Bridgeport but did not assist in her research, and Duyen Vo, a graduate student, suggested that limerence is similar to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and substance use disorder (SUD). They presented work to an American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences conference, but suggested that much more research is needed before it could be proposed to the APA that limerence be included in the DSM. They began conducting an unpublished study and reported to USA Today that about 25% or 30% of their participants had experienced a limerent relationship as they defined it.[9] While limerence and romantic love in general have been compared to OCD since 1998 according to a hypothesis invented by other authors, experimental evidence for a connection with serotonin is ambiguous.[25][30][11] This hypothesis was based on a superficial comparison between features of preoccupation shared between the two conditions, for example focusing on trivial details or worrying about the future.[30] Helen Fisher has commented on Wakin & Vo in 2008, stating that limerence is romantic love and that "They are associating the negative aspects of it with the term, and that can be a disorder."[9] Fisher is one of the original authors to compare limerence to OCD, and has proposed that romantic love is a "natural addiction" which can be either positive or negative depending on the situation.[27][25] Fisher stated again in 2024 that she does not think there is any difference between limerence and romantic love.[24] In 2017, Wakin has stated that he feels that brain scans of limerence would help establish it as "something unlike everything that has been diagnosed already,"[97] but brain scans have actually been described since as far back as 2002.[10][9] In Fisher et al.'s original brain scan experiments, all participants spent more than 85% of their waking hours thinking about their loved one.[27] Wakin also claims that a person experiencing limerence can never be satiated, even if their feelings are reciprocated.[97] Tennov found many cases of nonlimerent people who described their limerent partners being "stricken with a kind of insatiability" in this way, and that "no degree of attentiveness was ever sufficient."[205] However, according to Tennov's theory, the intensity of limerence diminishes when the limerent person perceives sustained reciprocation, so it's prolonged inside of a relationship when the LO behaves in a nonlimerent manner.[153][206] Other authors who are in the mainstream have speculated that unwanted obsession inside a relationship could be related to self-esteem and an insecure attachment style.[12][207][208] In the 1999 preface to her revised edition of *Love and Limerence*, Dorothy Tennov describes limerence as an aspect of basic human nature and remarks that "Reaction to limerence theory depends partly on acquaintance with the evidence for it and partly on personal experience. People who have not experienced limerence are baffled by descriptions of it and are often resistant to the evidence that it exists. To such outside observers, limerence seems pathological."[50] Tennov states that limerence is normal[209][210] and says that even those of her interviewees who experienced limerence of a distressing variety were "fully functioning, rational, emotionally stable, normal, nonneurotic, nonpathological members of society" and "could be characterized as responsible and quite sane." She suggests that limerence is too often interpreted as "mental illness" in psychiatry. Tragedies such as violence, she says, involve limerence when it is "augmented and distorted" by other conditions, which she contrasts with "pure limerence."[211] In a 2005 Q&A, Tennov is asked if limerence can ever lead to a situation such as depicted in the movie *Fatal Attraction*, but Tennov replies that the movie character seemed to her to be a caricature.[212] Most romantic stalkers are an ex-partner, erotomanic, have a personality disorder, are intellectually limited or socially incompetent.[27][213] ## See also [edit]- Broken heart – Intense stress or pain one feels at experiencing longing - Crystallization (love) – The "falling in love" process - Eros (concept) – Ancient Greek philosophical concept of sensual or passionate love - Erotomania – Romantic delusional disorder - Infatuation – Intense but shallow attraction - Love addiction – Pathological passion-related behavior involving the feeling of being in love - Lovesickness – Negative feelings from experiencing unrequited love or loss of love - New relationship energy – State of mind during new relationship - Obsessive love disorder – Excessive desire to possess and protect another person - Passionate and companionate love – Two types of love in romantic relationships - Puppy love – Feelings of love, romance, or infatuation felt by young people - Relationship obsessive–compulsive disorder – Form of obsessive–compulsive disorder focusing on close or intimate relationships - Unrequited love – Love that is not reciprocated by the receiver ## References [edit]- ^ **a**"Will limerence take the place of love?".**b***The Observer*. 11 September 1977.One of the most illuminating sessions was when Dorothy Tennov [...] described her attempts to find a suitable term for 'romantic love.' [...] 'I first used the term "amorance" then changed it back to "limerence,"' she told her audience. 'It has no roots whatsoever. It looks nice. It works well in French. Take it from me it has no etymology whatsoever.' **^**Tennov, Dorothy (1999).*Love and Limerence: the Experience of Being in Love*. Scarborough House. ISBN 978-0-8128-6286-7. Archived from the original on 27 March 2023. Retrieved 12 March 2011.- ^ **a****b****c****d****e**Hatfield, Elaine (1988). "Passionate and Companionate Love".**f***The Psychology of Love*. Yale University Press. pp. 191–217. ISBN 9780300045895. Archived from the original on 2024-05-25. Retrieved 2024-05-16. - ^ **a****b****c****d**Brady, James (13 Feb 1990). "LOVESICKNESS A CHRONIC CONDITION" (web).**e***The Washington Post*. Archived from the original on 27 August 2017. Retrieved 24 May 2024. **^**Tennov 1999, p. 16**^**"That crazy little thing called love".*The Guardian*. 14 December 2003. Archived from the original on 25 May 2024. 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(ed.),*Compatible and Incompatible Relationships*, Springer, New York, NY, pp. 163–184, doi:10.1007/978-1-4612-5044-9_8, ISBN 978-1-4612-9538-9**^**Hayes 2000, p. 460**^**Tennov 1999, p. 141-142**^**Tennov 1999, p. 243**^**Tennov 1999, pp. 136–137**^**Tennov 1999, p. 135**^**Acevedo, Bianca (5 May 2016). "Is It Love or Desire?".*Psychology Today*. Retrieved 9 July 2024.**^**Derrow, Paula (20 January 2014). "When Normal Love Turns Obsessive".*Cosmopolitan (magazine)*. Archived from the original on 25 September 2024. Retrieved 25 September 2024.**^**Tennov 1999, p. 180**^**Tennov 1998, p. 80**^**Tennov 1999, pp. 89–90**^**Tennov 2005, p. 371**^**Mullen, Paul; Path, Michele; Purcell, Rosemary; Stuart, Geoffrey (1 August 1999). "Study of Stalkers".*The American Journal of Psychiatry*.**156**(8): 1244–1249. doi:10.1176/ajp.156.8.1244. PMID 10450267. ### Bibliography [edit]- Ågmo, Anders (17 August 2007). *Functional and dysfunctional sexual behavior: a synthesis of neuroscience and comparative psychology*. Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-370590-7. Retrieved 12 March 2011. - Leggett, John C.; Malm, Suzanne (March 1995). *The Eighteen Stages of Love: Its Natural History, Fragrance, Celebration and Chase*. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-882289-33-2. Retrieved 12 March 2011. - Moore, Robert L. (1998). "Love and Limerence with Chinese Characteristics: Student Romance in the PRC". In De Munck, Victor C. (ed.). *Romantic Love and Sexual Behavior: Perspectives from the Social Sciences*. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 251–283. ISBN 978-0-275-95726-1. Retrieved 12 March 2011. - Tennov, Dorothy (1998). "Love Madness". In De Munck, Victor C. (ed.). *Romantic Love and Sexual Behavior: Perspectives from the Social Sciences*. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 77–88. ISBN 978-0-275-95726-1. Retrieved 8 September 2024. - Morris, Desmond (2 June 1994). *The naked ape trilogy*. J. Cape. ISBN 978-0-224-04140-9. Retrieved 12 March 2011. - Tennov, Dorothy (2005). "A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It "Limerence": The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov". Greenwich, Ct.: The Great American Publishing Society. - Berscheid, Ellen; Walster, Elaine (1974). "A Little Bit about Love". In Huston, Ted L. (ed.). *Foundations of Interpersonal Attraction*. Academic Press. pp. 355–381. ISBN 9780123629500. - Hatfield, Elaine; Walster, G. William (1985). *A New Look at Love*. University Press of America. ISBN 9780819149572. Retrieved 3 July 2024. - Fisher, Helen (2004). *Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love*. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-0-8050-7796-4. Archived from the original on 23 May 2024. Retrieved 5 May 2024. - Tallis, Frank (2004). *Love Sick: Love as a Mental Illness*. Century. ISBN 9780712629041. Retrieved 8 September 2024. *in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.* **limerence**

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2002-12-03 00:00:00

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http://sdtimes.com/an-inside-look-at-how-netflix-builds-code/

An inside look at how Netflix builds code - SD Times

Madison Moore

Netflix is known as a place to binge watch television, but behind the scenes, there’s much going on before everyone’s favorite shows can be streamed. There are many tools and techniques the company uses to go from source code to a deployed service that sends shows and movies to more than 75 million global Netflix subscribers. Some of the engineers at Netflix teamed up to write a blog post that gives developers and Netflix enthusiasts an inside look at what happens before a line of code is deployed to the cloud. This is just one of the many technical posts the Netflix engineering team will release to the public. **(Related: Netflix previews Falcor)** According to Netflix’s blog, Netflix engineers have to do the following things before deploying code to Spinnaker, the Continuous Delivery platform they use: - Code is built and tested locally using Nebula - Changes are committed to a central Git repository - A Jenkins job executes Nebula, which builds, tests and packages the application for deployment - Builds are “baked” into Amazon Machine Images - Spinnaker pipelines are used to deploy and promote the code change Netflix’s culture is based on “freedom and responsibility,” said the Netflix engineers, and it empowers them to figure out which tools are best for each task. Before they accept a tool, they consider the value and determine if it reduces the overall cognitive load for the majority of Netflix engineers. Back in 2008, Netflix began migrating to its streaming service to Amazon Web Services (AWS) as it converted its monolithic, datacenter-based Java application to the cloud. The first step to deploying an application or service is building. Netflix created Nebula, a set of plug-ins for the Gradle build system, that “help with the heavy-lifting around building applications,” said the engineers. “Gradle provides first-class support for building, testing and packaging Java applications, which covers the majority of our code. Gradle was chosen because it was easy to write testable plug-ins, while reducing the size of a project’s build file. Nebula extends the robust build automation functionality provided by Gradle with a suite of open-source plug-ins for dependency management, release management, packaging, and much more.” The team wrote that a future blog post will dive into Nebula and the features they’ve open-sourced. Once the code has been built and tested locally using Nebula, the team pushes the updated source code to a Git repository. Jenkins is used throughout Netflix for automation tasks, so once a change is committed, a Jenkins job is triggered. Every deployment at Netflix begins with the creation of an Amazon Machine Image, and to generate them from source, Netflix created what it calls “the Bakery.” It exposes an API that facilitates the creation of AMIs globally, according to the blog. When it comes time to deploy and after the “baking” is complete, teams will use Spinnaker to manage multi-region deployments, canary releases, and red/black deployments. “Suffice to say that Spinnaker pipelines provide teams with immense flexibility to control how they deploy code,” said the engineers. Netflix is continuing to look at the developer experience and determine how it can improve. One challenge it faces is managing binary dependences and addressing the bake time. Netflix said that containers could provide a solution, and the engineering team is looking into how containers can help improve the current build, bake and deploy experience. In the future, the Netflix engineering team will release updates to address other challenges it faces.

As part of a series of blog posts, Netflix is giving developers an inside look at how it deploys and builds its code

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2016-03-11 00:00:00

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SD Times

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https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/california-dream-dying/619509/

The California Dream Is Dying

Conor Friedersdorf

# The California Dream Is Dying The once-dynamic state is closing the door on economic opportunity. *Updated at 7:30pm ET on July 30, 2021*. Behold California, colossus of the West Coast: the most populous American state; the world’s fifth-largest economy; and arguably the most culturally influential, exporting Google searches and Instagram feeds and iPhones and Teslas and Netflix Originals and kimchi quesadillas. This place inspires awe. If I close my eyes I can see silhouettes of Joshua trees against a desert sunrise; seals playing in La Jolla’s craggy coves of sun-spangled, emerald seawater; fog rolling over the rugged Sonoma County coast at sunset into primeval groves of redwoods that John Steinbeck called “ambassadors from another time.” This landscape is bejeweled with engineering feats: the California Aqueduct; the Golden Gate Bridge; and the ribbon of Pacific Coast Highway that stretches south of Monterey, clings to the cliffs of Big Sur, and descends the kelp-strewn Central Coast, where William Hearst built his Xanadu on a hillside where his zebras still graze. No dreamscape better inspires dreamers. Millions still immigrate to my beloved home to improve both their prospects and ours. Yet I fear for California’s future. The generations that reaped the benefits of the postwar era in what was the most dynamic place in the world should be striving to ensure that future generations can pursue happiness as they did. Instead, they are poised to take the California Dream to their graves by betraying a promise the state has offered from the start. The writer Carey McWilliams captured that promise in *California: The Great Exception*, the definitive celebration of California’s founding myth—the way the Golden State long preferred to understand itself. Published in 1949, just ahead of the state’s centennial, it told the story of California’s rise from a sparsely populated Spanish territory to a world-altering force. McWilliams’s tale begins on the eve of statehood with the discovery of gold on a river near the western slopes of the Sierras. That find sparked the Gold Rush and then a mass migration that transformed the Pacific Rim. Northern and southern whites mingled with free Blacks, runaway slaves, newly naturalized immigrants, and foreign dreamers from the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe. “We have here in our midst a mixed mass of human beings from every part of the wide earth, of different habits, manners, customs, and opinions, all, however, impelled onward by the same feverish desire of fortune-making,” wrote Peter H. Burnett, who soon became the state’s first governor. By 1850, when California entered the union with a constitution that banned slave labor by consensus, the features that would define the state were already established: It attracted a wildly diverse population and offered everyone save its Native tribes unprecedented opportunity, if not yet equal rights. California, the social scientist Davis McEntire observed, meant to America what America meant to the rest of the world. The Gold Rush made San Francisco a global capital. And in its earliest years, the city was more closely connected to the Pacific Rim than to the East Coast establishment, permitting it to enter the global stage on its own terms. “Of all the marvelous phases of the Present,” the poet Bayard Taylor wrote, “San Francisco will most tax the belief of the Future,” as it “seemed to have accomplished in a day the growth of half a century.” In the 1850s, McWilliams wrote, the city published more books than the rest of the U.S. west of the Mississippi, printed more newspapers than London, and popped seven bottles of champagne for each one opened in Boston, thanks to North America’s highest per capita income. Circa 1860, with the transcontinental railroad incomplete and the Panama Canal a distant dream, four people out of five residing in California were born elsewhere. Mexicans had just been overtaken as the largest foreign-born group––that year, every 10th person in California was Chinese, and both would soon be overtaken by the Irish. The easy gold didn’t last forever, but the state continued to thrive. “In California the lights went on all at once, in a blaze,” McWilliams wrote, “and they have never been dimmed.” Across its first century, California kept attracting fortune seekers both foreign and domestic, its population always growing.** **Then came World War II and the postwar boom, transforming Southern California as dramatically as the Gold Rush had changed the Bay Area. Of course, that celebratory narrative elides California’s many failures to do right by its wildly diverse inhabitants. The Gold Rush devastated Indigenous people in mining regions and coincided with atrocities against Native tribes. Californians later played an outsize role in lobbying for the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act. During the 1930s, Angelenos were so resistant to Dust Bowl migrants that they deployed a posse of Los Angeles Police Department officers to the state lines to turn back “Okies” and other “undesirables.” And Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps during the war years. Yet even when its intolerance was waxing rather than waning, the state was often more diverse and inclusive than the rest of the world. On one hand, Jefferson Edmonds, the editor of a newspaper serving Los Angeles’s Black community, declared in 1902 that “California is the greatest state for the Negro,” and W. E. B. Du Bois echoed the sentiment in 1913, writing, Los Angeles was wonderful. The air was scented with orange blossoms and the beautiful homes lay low crouching on the earth as though they loved its scents and flowers. Nowhere in the United States is the Negro so well and beautifully housed, nor the average efficiency and intelligence in the colored population so high. Here is an aggressive, hopeful group––with some wealth, large industrial opportunity and a buoyant spirit. On the other hand, the optimism of African Americans who moved to the state in the first decades of the 20th century gave way to feelings of betrayal at subjugation, famously boiling over in riots in 1965 and again in 1992. As recently as the 1990s, the state appeared to be trending less toward easygoing diversity than toward violent balkanization and draconian crackdowns on undocumented immigrants. As murders spiked, doomsayers talked as if additional newcomers would make the state more dangerous. Yet more immigrants came. Those most uncomfortable with diversity left. Crime fell significantly. And the xenophilia that followed––the relaxed attitude so many Californians exhibit in the face of difference––is a triumph. Californians are more committed than ever to equality under the law. Past mistreatment of Indigenous peoples, Chinese nationals, African Americans, Dust Bowl transplants, Japanese Americans, Hispanic immigrants, gays and lesbians, and trans people are now appropriately sources of shame. Enormous inequalities of opportunity remain, and the state is far from perfect. Still, California continues to welcome fortune seekers of widely varying backgrounds, and has never come so close to living up to half of its mythic inheritance. But even as California began to truly embrace its diversity, laying part of the foundation for a better future, the state’s leaders and residents shut the door on economic opportunity, betraying the other half of the state’s foundational promise. They forgot that California has always thrived by embracing both cultural *and* economic dynamism. There are still neighborhoods enough to house the wealthy. The brightest still thrive at Stanford, Berkeley, and UCLA. Tech investors and innovators still strike gold in Silicon Valley. Alas, the economic prospects for the typical resident have dimmed. Millions of people lack adequate housing, education, or jobs. College-educated Millennials can’t afford homes of their own. Poverty-stricken Californians dwell in growing tent cities. During the pandemic, something occured that McWilliams would have found unthinkable: a net loss in population. California is still forecast to add millions of additional residents in coming years, but though they may be treated more equally than in the past, the state is unprepared to offer them upward mobility. If California fails to offer young people and newcomers the opportunity to improve their lot, the consequences will be catastrophic—and not only for California. The end of the California Dream would deal a devastating blow to the proposition that such a widely diverse polity can thrive. Indeed, blue America’s model faces its most consequential stress test in one of its safest states, where a spectacular run of almost unbroken prosperity could be killed by a miserly approach to opportunity. Russell Renier was born on the eve of the Depression to a poor Cajun family in Lafayette, Louisiana. World War II ended just before he was old enough to be drafted. Finishing high school on the hot, humid bayou offered less promise or appeal than striking out for Los Angeles. Arriving in 1946, he quickly found a gig sweeping floors, and then moved on to a more promising job in construction. There was no better time to start out in the state’s building trade. The newcomers who flocked to California after World War II were straining its infrastructure. “The stampede has visited us with unprecedented civic problems,” Governor Earl Warren explained in August 1948, “partly because even if we had been forewarned we could have done but little to prepare for the shock during the stringent war years. So we have an appalling housing shortage, our schools are packed to suffocation, and our highways are inadequate and dangerous. We are short of water and short of power.” Scarcity tends to fuel resentment. But Californians of the late 1940s could hardly turn against the young people who had just fought the Axis powers to unconditional surrender or toiled in the war industry. The period was remarkable in part because it showed that enormous influxes of newcomers could be accommodated––even in a state overwhelmed by a “stampede”––when majorities feel obligated to allow them opportunities to make good lives for themselves, in part by building up the state on their behalf. Renier did his own stint in the military. The Army drafted him to fight in Korea, then sent him to Berlin instead at the last minute. Returning to L.A. two years later, he began to master carpentry, framing doors and windows; putting cabinets in kitchens and bathrooms; installing baseboards. His wife, Doris, a fellow French Catholic from Louisiana, gave birth to two daughters. They surveyed all of Southern California trying to decide on the best place to buy a house, before settling on Orange County. With Walt Disney’s new theme park rising among Anaheim’s citrus groves, the county’s future seemed assured. One housebuilder, an acquaintance, was developing a new tract in nearby Costa Mesa. Would Renier do the finish work on the homes if he could get a double lot on the street of his choice? Starting in 1963, he designed his own house, calling on friends in the industry to help him build it. Later, his daughter, Diane, met a boy from the neighborhood, Lee, a fellow first-generation Californian whose family hailed from Indiana. Diane and Lee are my parents. Renier’s story illustrates what used to be a simple fact of life in California: With hard work, you could come here without a diploma and find an affordable place to raise a family of four on a single earner’s salary. At 41, though, I’d be hard-pressed to buy a home in the neighborhood where my grandfather built his house and where my parents bought theirs three decades later. What has changed is captured even more vividly in Venice Beach, where I rented a house for seven years. Its famed boardwalk is among the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Each day, tens of thousands traverse its singular promenade, people-watching amid a chaotic mix of pedestrians, vendors, skateboarders, weightlifters, basketballers, cyclists, transients, pit bulls, and more. Yet the population of this oceanfront neighborhood is smaller than it was back when my grandfather was a carpenter. From 1960 to 2010, as the population of metropolitan Los Angeles increased by 91 percent and the city itself grew by 53 percent, the population of the 90291 zip-code area, which contains most of Venice, shrank by 20 percent, according to analysis of population data by the urban-planning researcher Dario Rodman-Alvarez. How does one of the most desirable areas in Los Angeles experience a falling population and skyrocketing rents even as the city as a whole and the region around it explode in growth? Frank Murphy understands the situation as well as anyone. He moved to East L.A. in 1975, intending to be a potter, and began driving to Venice to help the conceptual artist Chris Burden, who wanted to build a tiny car that would go 100 miles an hour, get 100 miles to the gallon, and be compact enough to pack up for easy transport. “He would be driving this little thing up and down the boardwalk getting up to 80,” Murphy told me. “Out here in October and November, there was nobody around!” Crime was high, and even buildings near the beach were run down or vacant. “Homeless people would go and piss on the door of a guy I knew, and he would run up to the roof, where he kept these rotten cartons of milk that he would pour on them,” Murphy recalled. “Everybody had their own way of interacting that was aggressive and interesting.” Some fled straight to Manhattan Beach after visiting in those years, but Murphy was energized by Venice’s distinct vibe and wanted to make its three square miles his home. Since pottery wasn’t likely to pay the bills, he changed careers: The son of an architect decided, despite lacking business experience, to become a local developer. Several years ago, I met him on a sunny autumn morning at his office in the basement of a five-unit apartment complex on Venice Boulevard, a few blocks from the ocean. We walked together past a canal to the boardwalk. Looking north, he told stories about Venice’s oldest and tallest buildings––the ones that were built or permitted before the imposition of onerous height limits––and the impossibility of building anything today on the same scale. Then we walked south, taking note of single-family houses along the beach, including a diverting Frank Gehry design that struck him as too eccentric to win approval in today’s environment. “They’re appeasing a small group that has a vision of what Venice should be, which is more of a suburb by the sea,” he said. “Folks who see it as something different haven’t rallied and gotten organized.” He offered to drive around and show me what he meant. Murphy takes pride in having added to his neighborhood’s dwelling units, each of which offers more people access to its opportunities. Adding units might seem like a foregone conclusion for a developer. That’s the assumption of locals I sometimes overheard at Venice Beach’s Groundwork Coffee, who believed that greedy builders were making the area more crowded and dense, spoiling the bohemian community they loved. In truth, homeowners have successfully fought a years-long battle to make Venice *less* dense than it was before. And while they managed to stall population growth, they failed to preserve Venice’s culture. Limiting the neighborhood’s housing supply and the diversity of its built environment, in fact, gradually narrowed the sort of people able to live here. Venice was a working-class neighborhood in 1960. Owing largely to repressive land-use rules, its rents and median income rose *much* more sharply than those of L.A. as a whole. Venice is on course to be like Newport Beach by 2050, but less self-aware, with residents who purport to value diversity regulating it out of existence. The hardship and misery the not-in-my-backyard impulse has inflicted on vast swaths of postwar Southern California trace their origins to 1964, when a man named Calvin Hamilton began his long tenure as L.A.’s planning director. At the time, his profession was grappling with critics like Jane Jacobs, whose *The Death and Life of Great American Cities *excoriated the hubristic urban-renewal projects of the 1950s for destroying whole neighborhoods, many of them populated by disenfranchised groups. As 1965 began, Hamilton embarked on an ambitious effort to gather feedback from 100,000 Angelenos (ultimately reaching a still-impressive 40,000) on how they wanted the city to evolve. The Watts riots of 1965 and continued unrest over the next three summers underscored that the Black residents of South L.A. needed to be heard. And the turmoil stoked the anxiety of white Angelenos, many of whom harbored the racial prejudices of their day and sought greater agency over “their” neighborhoods. Come 1970, there was broad support for a portentous shift: Los Angeles would abandon the top-down planning that prevailed during a quarter century of postwar growth in favor of an ostensibly democratized approach. The city was divided into 35 community areas, each represented by a citizen advisory committee that would draw up a plan to guide its future. In theory, this would empower Angelenos from Brentwood to Boyle Heights to Watts. In practice, it enabled what the Los Angeles land-use expert Greg Morrow calls “the homeowner revolution.” In his doctoral dissertation, he argued that a faction of wealthy, mostly white homeowners seized control of citizen advisory committees, especially on the Westside, to dominate land-use policy across the city. These homeowners contorted zoning rules in their neighborhoods to favor single-family houses, even though hardly more than a third of households in Los Angeles are owner-occupied, while nearly two-thirds are rented. By forming or joining nongovernmental homeowners’ associations that counted land-use rules as their biggest priority, these homeowners managed to wield disproportionate influence. Groups that favored more construction and lower rents, including Republicans in the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce and Democrats in the Urban League, failed to grasp the stakes. The Federation of Hillside and Canyon Associations, a coalition of about 50 homeowners’ groups, was one of the most powerful anti-growth forces in California, Morrow’s research showed. It began innocently in the 1950s, when residents living below newly developed hillsides sought stricter rules to prevent landslides. Morrow found little explicit evidence that these groups were motivated by racism, but even if all the members of this coalition had been willing to welcome neighbors of color in ensuing decades, their vehement opposition to the construction of denser housing and apartments served to keep their neighborhoods largely segregated. Many in the coalition had an earnestly held, quasi-romantic belief that a low-density city of single-family homes was the most wholesome, elevating environment and agreed that their preferred way of life was under threat. Conservatives worried that the government would destroy their neighborhoods with public-housing projects. Anti-capitalists railed against profit-driven developers. Environmentalists warned that only zero population growth would stave off mass starvation. Much like the Reaganites who believed that “starving the beast” with tax cuts would shrink government, the anti-growth coalition embraced the theory that preventing the construction of housing would induce locals to have fewer kids and keep others from moving in. The initial wave of community plans, around 1970, “dramatically rolled back density,” Morrow wrote, “from a planned population of 10 million people down to roughly 4.1 million.” Overnight, the city of Los Angeles planned for a future with 6 million fewer residents. When Angelenos kept having children and outsiders kept moving into the city anyway, the housing deficit exploded and rents began their stratospheric rise. The same basic pattern unfolded in Venice: First, people who loved the neighborhood bought homes there; then, some changed the rules to keep others out. In 1958, the official plan that guided growth in Venice allowed for a maximum of 91,293 people in the areas zoned for residential use. Over the years, it was revised repeatedly, with disproportionate input from homeowners. As of 2015, the plan for the same areas allowed for a maximum of only 44,513 people. Where developers could once have built an apartment complex, now they can build only a triplex or duplex. Lots that were once subdivided among four families are now occupied by one childless couple. Those who’d like to move to Venice, buy a house, or pay less in rent each month might have been particularly frustrated on my tour with Murphy during our visit to two 8,000-square-foot lots a few blocks apart. The first, 2207 Brenta Place, was developed in 1990 and holds an eight-apartment building. The one-bedroom units are a little over 800 square feet, and the three-bedroom units just over 1,300; rents range from $2,400 to $4,800 per month. The other lot, 715–721 North Venice Boulevard, is on the corner of Oakwood Avenue. Construction on a four-unit building began in 2016 and was completed the following year. “I would have loved to put eight units there, too,” Murphy said. But even though the lot is on the corner of a main street, affects fewer neighbors, and is not far from Brenta Place, it faces much more restrictive zoning rules. Before 1980, Murphy explained, he could have built 16 units of housing on each of these properties. If he were starting the projects today, he might be able to put 10 units at Brenta Place, but just two on Venice Boulevard––20 fewer units, in total. And it’s not just the zoning rules. Aesthetic requirements, for things like varied rooflines, further limit the number of units on some parcels. The North Venice Boulevard building might sell for $6 million: $2 million each for the three market-rate units, and the final unit set aside for a low-income family. “I’d rather have built eight units and sold them for a million dollars each, getting the price point down to something a much bigger group of people can afford,” Murphy said. “Or I’d have gladly given the city two low-income units if I could do eight total.” Most anti-growth homeowners in well-to-do neighborhoods would be shocked by the damage they have done to their communities, their city, and their region. But their intransigence had this consequence: Rather than adding new housing units evenly across Los Angeles, or concentrating housing near transit or jobs, Morrow found, “density followed the path of least resistance.” Westside homeowners fought against growth. New housing was much easier to build in poorer, more heavily Latino neighborhoods, where anti-growth mobilization and resistance to construction were less pronounced, and even easier in enclaves of noncitizens, where neighborhood associations were unlikely to form. Growth in those poorer neighborhoods served many of their residents well. Newcomers with large families needed relatively cheap housing and benefited from the informal networks and services that arise when immigrants cluster, as the Angeleno chef Roy Choi wrote in his account of the neighborhood that, around 1970, became known as “Koreatown.” Recent immigrants would gather to stake each other in ventures that would have been impossible without cheap commercial real estate. Choi wrote, There had to be some trust in the group, or it was all for nothing. Every month everyone met and shared stories and dreams, and, in the course of all that, everyone decided on an amount. Then everyone anted up. Each month, one person got the jackpot and opened a business. A liquor store, dry cleaner, gas station, small restaurant, trophy shop, golf store … It was thanks to these …meetings that the ghost town came alive. But the Westside’s approach to land-use policy hurt renters and people of color while exacerbating racial segregation. From 1970 to 2000, as L.A.’s Latino population increased from 18 percent to 47 percent, the Latino population of Brentwood, a tony Westside neighborhood, grew from 1.6 percent to 2.6 percent. The ostensibly pro-environment opponents of growth wound up fueling environmentally disastrous sprawl to the north and east. Traffic grew worse, even as multiple mass-transit projects were killed by slow-growth homeowners. With much of the city off-limits to newcomers, the most overwhelmed police precincts, fire stations, and emergency rooms seemed to get even busier. Perhaps most consequentially, wealthy NIMBYs and the residential segregation they wrought pushed more students into the most overcrowded, under-performing schools. “L.A. finds itself in the strange position of having built 130 new schools for not a single new student in the system,” Morrow wrote, “because public schools in affluent areas are emptying out … while schools in poor areas are running over capacity, in part due to the underlying land use policy changes.” Throughout California, quality school districts drive nearby real-estate prices sky high, and homeowners who pay the premium are averse to allowing new apartments that would give more poor or non-English-speaking families access to what they consider “their” schools. Gloria Romero, a former Democratic majority leader in the California State Senate, has a name for the relationship between California’s dysfunctional housing policy and an educational system that is ranked among the nation’s worst. “It’s zip-code education,” she told me. “If you’re rich you can go anywhere––a good public school, a private school––but if you’re poor you can’t afford to move to a district or a neighborhood with a good public school. You’re stuck. Those five digits fast-track too many kids to the prison system, or if they’re really lucky, into remedial college classes too many don’t pass.” A recent* Education Week *ranking put California schools 23rd in the country. According to a 2017 study by GreatSchools, a national nonprofit, “African American and Hispanic students [in California] are 11 times less likely than white and Asian students to attend a school with strong results for their student group. Only 2% of African American students and 6% of Hispanic students attend a high performing and high opportunity school for their student group, compared with 59% of white and 73% of Asian students.” While in the state legislature, Romero made education a top priority, sponsoring numerous reform bills, including a so-called parent-trigger law that allows parents at a failing public school to decide how it ought to be restructured. At times, she says, Democratic colleagues lambasted her for putting them in the awkward position of taking a vote in which public opinion was at odds with the California Teachers Association, which she calls the state’s fourth branch of government. “I believe in unions,” she told me. “But public education in California isn’t run with the best interest of the children in mind. It starts with adults—their salaries, pensions, and perks––and what gets left over is for kids.” She has long called herself a pro-choice Democrat: She not only supports reproductive rights, but she’s also pro–public schools, pro–charter schools, pro-vouchers, pro whatever maximizes the options available to families in the state’s failing system. And after years of writing laws to try to reform schools, she decided to start and run her own organization, partnering with the charter-school leader Jason Watts on Scholarship Prep Charter School. (Romero has since left Scholarship Prep; she said that she had filed a gender and age bias claim against the company with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, and that it had been resolved. Scholarship Prep has not responded to *The Atlantic*'s requests for comment. She has co-founded another network of charter schools, a model she continues to champion.) Scholarship Prep opened its first campus in Santa Ana in 2016, and *The* *Wall Street Journal* reported that “about 90% of its 300-some students qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch” and “most parents walk their kids to school because they don’t own cars.” I met with Romero at a sister campus in Oceanside, a racially and economically mixed city at the edge of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, in North San Diego County. As at the Santa Ana campus, Scholarship Prep Oceanside runs from kindergarten through eighth grade and emphasizes academic rigor and extracurricular activities, like athletics, music, and dance, that help students from working-class backgrounds secure as many college scholarships as possible. Out front is a “walk of honor,” a path flanked by flags from different colleges, chosen not only for their academic rigor but also for their rate of success at graduating scholarship students. “At Cal State L.A., I taught kids who had done everything right,” Romero explained. “They took the high-school exit exam, were the first in their family to go to college. But as soon as I assigned them a report, I thought, *They can’t write!* They need remedial classes that won’t count toward their degree. Kids would take seven years to do their B.A., trying to undo 12 years of negligence in public schools, and their scholarships would run out.” At Scholarship Prep, each classroom is named after a university, such as “Room Notre Dame,” where that school’s colors, blue and gold, are everywhere. Over the course of the year, students learn where their particular college is on a map of the country, sing its fight song, follow its sports teams, and talk about its history. The next year, they’ll familiarize themselves with another school; then another the following year. By high school, rather than panic when it’s time to take the PSAT, or regret the bad grades of their sophomore year when they apply to the University of California at San Diego, they’ll have been thinking about where and how to go to college on scholarship for most of their lives. Their parents will have absorbed the nine-year acculturation, too. “Parents seek us out to escape a system where wealth, reflected in housing values, determines the education your kids get,” Romero said. She believes charter schools to be “like the Statue of Liberty: Give us those who yearn for education. I call them refugees from the public-education system. We can’t wait to change how housing works. These kids are *growing up*. They need good schools now!” To underscore the urgency, she grabbed a parent who happened by while we were talking. Jackie Howe was eight when her family fled Vietnam during the exodus of refugees after the war. They were resettled on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County. She remembers the Mendoza Elementary School in Pomona for its poor quality. “We came here with nothing,” she told me. “Education is vital to our survival. But I’ve noticed that all these years later, choices are still very limited for immigrant children like mine. I worked with the district. My friends and I volunteered and donated money. But we didn’t see the quality that should be available to our kids.” That’s how she found herself supporting Romero in trying to expand Scholarship Prep to Oceanside. As Howe remembers it, there was opposition from some local officials. “We were shocked,” she said. “They said that this is too high rigor for kids in this community. I thought, *What does that say about your dreams for these kids?*” “I was told we were being ‘too aspirational,’” Romero said. “Can you imagine?” Every blue state has red counties. In California, to drive Highway 99, which runs north from Bakersfield through the Central Valley, is to tour one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions. Highway 99 also links many of the communities in this blue state that go reliably red in presidential elections; send federal representatives like Republican Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, to Congress; and supply Sacramento with its waning supply of Republican state legislators. In *Berkeley to Bakersfield*, the concept album by the country-rock band Cracker, the frontman David Lowery evokes a California that he sees as a microcosm of America. His songs unfold like a road trip that passes through the radical-left activism of the East Bay before slowly turning inland into what he described to me as “a personal sort of right-libertarian sentiment.” This is achieved through characters, like the eponymous “California Country Boy,” who says, “Ain’t no palm trees where I come from,”* *no waves, gridlocked traffic, or movie stars. His Central Valley home is oil fields and endless farms. “I’ve got good friends out in Texas. And I got family in Tennessee,” he sings. “But this here country boy’s from California. Ain’t no place I’d rather be.” On a tour of the region to better understand its economy, and why so many locals feel that politicians in Sacramento and elites on the coast don’t understand what they do well enough to regulate it fairly and sensibly, I met Larry Starrh, a jovial former college theater professor who returned to his hometown of Shafter to be a third-generation farmer. He had about 4,000 acres of almonds and 1,500 acres of pistachios planted, more land lying fallow for lack of water to irrigate it, and a bygone grove of almond trees that had been bulldozed and left in a field to rot, a casualty of a recent drought. Earlier that week, he told me, an FM radio station had asked him to pose a trivia question on the air—the station was going to give away concert tickets to the first caller to get the answer right. Starrh asked how many pounds of almonds were forecast to be produced in California that year. “So people are calling in,” he said, “and the first guess was 25,000 pounds. Well, that’s not even close! I was amazed how long it took to get someone up to 100 million pounds. The right answer is 2.2 billion pounds of almonds. That’s how far away people are from understanding what happens in the state agriculturally.” The first time I met Assemblyman Vince Fong, a 41-year-old native of Bakersfield, he explained to me that many of his constituents feel that their interests and concerns are not well understood in the state capital, in part because legislators coming from San Francisco, Santa Barbara, or Westwood don’t know much about their way of life. “Portions of the state aren’t familiar with growing food or producing power,” he said. “These are the mainstay industries that feed and power not only our state but our entire country. It’s not just the farmers and oil workers, it’s families that buy the food and pump the gas, products many take for granted. We expect them to be at the grocery store or the gas station, but people have to produce those things. These are the perspectives that shape my decisions and that should shape policy. When the state regulates in flawed ways, hardworking families suffer.” In Sacramento, the first bill he introduced sought to force state bureaucrats to go back to the legislature before imposing any regulation that triggered cumulative costs of more than $50 million. “If an agency is going to impose these costs, we should approve or disapprove,” he said. “We’re the accountable body. The people in our community loan us the power every two years to be their voice. They didn’t loan that power to an unelected person at an agency.” Fong isn’t simply regurgitating conservative boilerplate when he says that California’s regulatory apparatus needs reform. In 2017, the Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm, released a report on barriers to work that disproportionately affect the middle and working classes. “California is the most broadly and onerously licensed state,” the report found, and is also “the worst licensing environment for workers in lower-income occupations.” The state government licensed 76 of the 102 lower-income occupations studied, surpassing all but two other states, while imposing “high average fees ($486), lengthy average education and experience requirements (827 days lost), and a high average number of licensing exams (about two).” At the other extreme of the business hierarchy, a survey of 383 CEOs by *Chief Executive* magazine, which weighed regulations and tax policy above all other metrics, ranked California the worst state for business, and *Forbes* ranked it among the worst for its high business costs and stifling regulatory environment. California’s workers’ compensation premiums are among the costliest in the nation. In its survey of corporate attorneys assessing the fairness and reasonableness of state liability systems, the Institute for Legal Reform, an affiliate of the Chamber of Commerce, ranked California 48th. The state’s landmark environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act, is so vulnerable to abuse that it has repeatedly prevented the addition of bike lanes. “Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego and San Francisco have faced lawsuits, years of delay and abandoned projects because the environmental law’s restrictions often require costly traffic studies, lengthy public hearings and major road reconfigurations before bike lanes are installed,” the *Los Angeles Times* reported. “Bicycle advocates say the law has blocked hundreds of miles of potential bike lanes across the state.” In Fong’s telling, the inability to reform even the most dysfunctional laws hurts working-class people across the state. When I asked what particular regulations were upsetting his constituents, I wondered if they were all thorny instances of competing goods, as with water needed for an endangered fish, the delta smelt, *and* a hugely productive farming region, or the trade-off between air quality and the ability of farmers to burn waste. Some of them could be characterized that way. Take Randy and Kyle Griffith, a father-and-son team who run Randy’s Trucking. Randy started the business in 1975. “I just couldn’t work for the other guy,” he told me. “I bought one tractor, one trailer, and started from there.” By reinvesting what he earned in the business, he grew his fleet over time, sold much of it off during a recession, then rebuilt again, until 2011, when he employed about 150 people and sent out 60 or 70 trucks a day, mostly on local jobs. Then the California Air Resources Board passed a rule intended to reduce particulate matter emitted by diesel trucks and buses—a rule that would require him to either replace half of his fleet or retrofit trucks built in the late 1990s with filters that cost between $15,000 and $20,000 each. The sum would be staggering to almost any small business. “With our cash flow and the work that we were chasing during the downturn,” Kyle Griffith said, “it would have been impossible.” They tried and failed to meet the deadline. Then they got a letter imposing a $1 million fine, which would have put them out of business. With Fong’s help, they were able to negotiate the fine down to $250,000, money they wanted to spend on new trucks or filters instead, though Randy insisted that the filters don’t make sense for his business. “An over-the-road driver picks up a load from Shafter out at the Target plant and hauls it to Nebraska or whatever,” Kyle said. “A filter on that truck is running at a high temperature.” But most of the jobs for Randy’s Trucking are short hauls. “A typical driver for us might leave our yard at 6 a.m., drive 25 minutes, and park at an oil field. The driving portion is done. But his truck is idling, not on a clean road, but in dirt, dust, mud, the whole thing. So it’s intaking all that nasty stuff into this filter, which is trying to burn it off and can’t––the filters are not designed for that situation, which our trucks are in for 12 hours a day.” Patrick Wade is in a very different business, but it’s also a niche within a larger industry. There are pharmacies like CVS or Walgreens, and then there are compounding pharmacies, which buy raw ingredients and make everything they sell. Precision Pharmacy, Wade’s company, compounds drugs for pets, horses, and wildlife, and never for food-producing animals or people. But like any CVS in Bakersfield, Precision Pharmacy is regulated by the California State Board of Pharmacy, a body made up of political appointees, only some of whom have industry experience. Sometimes the burdens are comical. “Imagine having to get a ‘patient name’ for a horse only identified by a number,” Wade says, “or having to list the birthday for the owner of a herd of deer.” At other times, the regulations impose bigger costs. For example, California requires its compounding pharmacies to do a test required in no other state on many of the formulas it produces. And it’s so expensive that it renders seldom-used formulas uneconomical. Wade told me he doesn’t lose that much in profit by ceasing to offer them. “But some of these formulas, like a specialty vitamin supplement for horses, we were the only pharmacy in the country that made it,” he explained. “We have to tell people, we don’t make that anymore, because not enough people would buy it at 10 times the cost, and that’s what I’d have to charge to recover the cost of the test they force on us.” In Wade’s experience, whatever benefits the regulation offers his customers are negligible—and far outweighed by the costs. In 2014, Precision Pharmacy settled a set of allegations brought by the State Board of Pharmacy by paying a $10,000 fine and entering into a three-year period of probation, which has since concluded. That experience might have colored Wade’s view of regulation, but in his telling, his primary concern is that the board, or another regulatory body, will impose a new rule or interpret an old rule in a novel way. He feels that for reasons he doesn’t understand, California is antagonistic to anyone who makes anything. “It’s funny, people in the interior of California have been complaining about overregulation for quite a while,” he said. “And now a hot topic is that a lot of top tech companies in Silicon Valley absolutely thrived in an environment of virtually no regulation. The California economy is divided between this industry that has totally transformed our lives with no regulation––maybe there’s not been enough, and that’s coming from someone who leans libertarian––and then you have people who physically make things in the rest of the state, and it’s really tough. We just need some cooperation and predictability.” Starrh, the almond farmer, had a similar complaint. “There’s an aspect of farming that you just love to be out there doing,” he said. “It is a lifestyle. And it used to be that I could just go out to the ranch and farm––start making decisions and playing in the dirt. Now you spend your time dealing with meetings on regulations. At times I just want to retire.” I suggested that the one-time college theater teacher might return to the stage. But it turned out that he had encountered similar frustrations on that front, too. A few years back, his family of drama geeks bought an old Ford dealership in order to turn it into a community theater. “We felt culture crosses barriers,” he said. “If we could have a place where different people could come together and enjoy good, redeeming stuff that everybody could participate in, we’d see we’re not that different.” He hadn’t anticipated too much difficulty building it. “Shafter is a small town, these guys wanted it, they knew what we were doing. I know the city manager. He’s a good friend. I know all the city-council members really well. I’m thinking we’ll get this done fast, it won’t cost me an arm and a leg.” He estimated that their building was big enough to fit 1,000 people in it, but early on, he was advised that he shouldn’t exceed 300 people, or he would be subject to more costly building standards. “So I told the inspector we’d build the theater for 300 people,” he said. “We ordered 300 of these really expensive theater seats that roll back. They’re being built in England. Six months or a year later, we finally have the seats. Then the inspector comes back and says, ‘Well, if you’re putting 300 seats and there’s a 60-piece orchestra, you’ve got more than 300 people. You’ve got to have that re-engineered.’” Instead, Starrh decided to put some of the pricey seats in storage. Fewer people are able to attend performances as a result. He says he doesn’t think anyone is any safer for it. Joni Mitchell once wrote a kind of postcard to California that remains among the best attempts to capture its promise. She sang that she was sitting in a park in Paris, reflecting on her travels in Europe. “Still a lot of lands to see,” she sang, “but I wouldn’t want to stay here. It’s too old and cold and settled in its ways here. Oh, but California!” She longed for its dynamism. In California, anyone could look to the future––and feel confident that they had a place in it. “Will you take me as I am?” she sang. “I’m coming home.” California is closer than it has ever been to achieving part of its dream, allowing people of all races and nationalities to seek a golden future. But older Californians, liberal and conservative alike, are too indifferent to the needs of the next generation, too settled in their ways to accommodate them. The Democrats who run the state fail all but its most fortunate residents in the realms of housing, education, and economic opportunity. And no opposition is correcting for the worst shortcomings of the Democrats, because despite the efforts of some tolerant and farsighted GOP legislators, like Fong, much of the California GOP flunks the inclusion-threshold test voters now demand, most recently by tying its fortunes to Trumpism even as the state’s voters overwhelmingly rejected it. The NIMBY impulse is not new. Carey McWilliams observed in 1949 that although Californians were fascinated by their state’s phenomenal growth, they were simultaneously “disturbed and even repelled” by it. “They want the state to grow, and yet they don’t want it to grow,” he explained. “They like the idea of growth and expansion, but withdraw from the practical implications.” But when he wrote those words, amid a severe housing shortage, policy makers in both parties still encouraged countless small developers to build houses and apartments as rapidly as possible. Today matters are much worse. The most powerful factions of residents do *not* want their state to grow and do not accept the fact that it surely will. For 40 years, they haven’t just failed to adequately plan for the housing needs of California’s current population; upper-income residents in San Diego and the Bay Area as surely as those in Los Angeles have deliberately fought to restrict the supply of housing. Even now, when housing costs are the primary reason that a majority of registered voters say they’ve considered moving, and when politicians in both parties pay lip service to the problem, there is insufficient political will to attempt a plausible solution. And the forces paralyzing the state are all the more entrenched because some of them believe themselves to be *protecting* the California Dream. I feel the pull of their backward-looking vision. Years ago, I spent two glorious seasons in the Sea Ranch, a 10-mile stretch on the rugged coast of Sonoma County where beaches strewn with mussels rise to majestic bluffs; then to meadows where deer frolic and sleep; and, just beyond, hills of redwood forest that thrive in the fogs that roll in many evenings. If 50 million people could sustainably inhabit a state where all coastal development resembled the Sea Ranch, I’d sign up. In that fantasy, San Franciscans would all live in detached Victorians and Angelenos would all reside in prewar bungalows. Central Valley farmers could use all the water they wanted on their crops without affecting commercial fishermen, who could catch all of the fish they wanted forever. There would be no lines at Disneyland. Those expectations, fantastical as they sound today, seemed plausible within living memory. *The Inexhaustible Sea* was published in 1954. Around 1970, the Sea Ranch was considered a model of sustainable development. On rainy winter days in my 1980s youth, there actually *were* no lines at Disneyland. I once went on Space Mountain 18 times in a row, finding no one in line each time the roller coaster ended. Imagine if, in middle age, I felt entitled to pass laws so I could keep doing that into my 70s and 80s, no matter how many kids never got a turn. That is the anti-growth Californian, mistaking nostalgia for justice. California must now turn away from the wishful thinking of preservationists and toward the future it could enjoy. Success will not mean perfection, nor an end to hardship or challenges. But it will have been achieved if a chronicler at California’s bicentennial can approvingly quote the summation of the Golden State that McWilliams offered to mark its centennial: This, then, is California in 1948, a century after the gold rush: still growing rapidly, still the pace-setter, falling all over itself, stumbling pell-mell to greatness without knowing the way, bursting at its every seam … California is not another American state: it is a revolution within the states. The rising generation’s charge, whether on behalf of the country, the blue-state model, or the tens of millions who’ll make their home in the state, is to make California exceptional again. *Correspondence about all matters California are encouraged. Email conor@theatlantic.com with your reactions, observations, story tips, or recommendations. * When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

The once-dynamic state is closing the door on economic opportunity.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2021-07-21 00:00:00

article

theatlantic.com

The Atlantic

https://medium.com/canonical-debate-lab/the-canonical-debate-vs-hybrid-warfare-49a13e01f3b4

https://locusmag.com/2023/01/commentary-cory-doctorow-social-quitting/

Commentary: Cory Doctorow: Social Quitting

Locusmag

# Commentary: Cory Doctorow: Social Quitting As I type these words, a mass exodus is underway from Twitter and Facebook. After decades of eye-popping growth, these social media sites are contracting at an alarming rate. In some ways, this shouldn’t surprise us. All the social networks that preceded the current generation experienced this pattern: SixDegrees, Friendster, MySpace, and Bebo all exploded onto the scene. One day, they were sparsely populated fringe services, the next day, everyone you knew was using them and you had to sign up to stay in touch. Then, just as quickly, they imploded, turning into ghost towns, then punchlines, then forgotten ruins. This didn’t happen to Facebook and Twitter. Both attained a scale and durability that exceeded the networks that preceded them. For many people, it seemed like the operators of these services had cracked the nut of making eternal social media. Maybe it was their access to the capital markets, which let them hire better engineering teams? Maybe it was the singular genius of their founders and leaders? Maybe it was luck? Today, it’s getting harder to believe that these networks will last forever. In the blink of an eye, they’ve gone from unassailable eternal mountains to shifting sands that might blow away at any time. Users are scrambling to download their data and tell their friends where they can be found if (when?) the service disappears. How did these systems go from permanent to ephemeral? How did it happen so quickly? Here’s my theory. When economists and sociologists theorize about social media, they emphasize ‘‘network effects.’’ A system has ‘‘network effects’’ if it gets more valuable as more people use it. You joined Facebook because you valued the company of the people who were already using it; once you joined, other people joined to hang out with you. Network effects are powerful drivers of rapid growth. They’re a positive feedback loop, a flywheel that gets faster and faster. But network effects cut both ways. If a system gets more valuable as it attracts more users, it also gets *less *valuable as it sheds users. The less valuable a system is to you, the easier it is to leave. When you leave a system, you have to endure ‘‘switching costs’’ – everything you give up when you change products, services, or habits. Quitting smoking means enduring not just the high switching cost of nicotine withdrawal, but also contending with the painful switching costs of giving up the social camaraderie of the smoking area, the friends you’ve made there, and the friends you might make there in the future. For social media, the biggest switching cost isn’t learning the ins and outs of a new app or generating a new password: it’s the communities, family members, friends, and customers you lose when you switch away. Leaving aside the complexity of adding friends back in on a new service, there’s the even harder business of getting all those people to leave at the same time as you and go to the same place. Each commercial social media service has two imperatives: first, to make it as easy as possible to switch to their service, and second, to make it as hard as possible to leave. When Facebook opened up to the general public – and not just university students – it needed a plan to deal with MySpace. At the time, MySpace was the largest social network the world had ever seen. It was overly complex, filled with spam, and often joyless, but for MySpace users, it had a major advantage over Facebook: all their friends were already on MySpace. It didn’t matter that Facebook had a better user interface and more features. It didn’t matter that Facebook promised not to spy on its users on behalf of advertisers (yes, this was Facebook’s pitch in 2006 when it dropped the requirement that you sign up with a .edu address). Facebook addressed this problem by giving MySpace users who switched to Facebook a bridge between the two services. Simply give this tool your MySpace login and password, and it would use a bot to login to your MySpace account, scrape all the waiting messages in your queues and inbox, and push them into your Facebook feed. You could reply to these, and the bot would log back into MySpace and post those replies as you. Facebook attacked MySpace’s high switching costs head on, lowering them for users and unleashing network effects and rapid growth. But as Facebook and Twitter cemented their dominance, they steadily changed their services to capture more and more of the value that their users generated for them. At first, the companies shifted value from users to advertisers: engaging in more surveillance to enable finer-grained targeting and offering more intrusive forms of advertising that would fetch high prices from advertisers. This enshittification was made possible by high switching costs. The vast communities who’d been brought in by network effects were so valuable that users couldn’t afford to quit, because that would mean giving up on important personal, professional, commercial, and romantic ties. And just to make sure that users didn’t sneak away, Facebook aggressively litigated against upstarts that made it possible to stay in touch with your friends without using its services. Twitter consistently whittled away at its API support, neutering it in ways that made it harder and harder to leave Twitter without giving up the value it gave you. When switching costs are high, services can be changed in ways that you dislike without losing your business. The higher the switching costs, the more a company can abuse you, because it knows that as bad as they’ve made things for you, you’d have to endure worse if you left. I think this is what’s killing the social media giants. Every social media service has costs (trolls, surveillance, ads, identity theft risks, etc.) and benefits (community, commerce, family). So long as the benefits outweigh the costs, you’ll probably stick around. When benefits outweigh costs, economists call it a ‘‘surplus.’’ The surplus is the difference between the value you get from using a service and the costs exacted by your ongoing use of that service. Companies that don’t have to worry about their users leaving – because of high switching costs and/or few competitors – can scoop up that surplus. They can spy on you more, or put more ads into your feed, or pay fewer moderators to fight harassment. Once they have taken the surplus from you, they can allocate it to the advertisers who use their platforms – they can charge less to advertise to you, make it harder for you to skip ads, and so on. This brings in revenue, which gooses their share prices and attracts more advertisers. But all things being equal, the company would prefer that *all *the surplus would end up on its own balance sheet. Once you are locked in, and once advertisers are locked in, the companies can grab the surplus away from those advertisers, too. For example, companies can create their own products that directly compete with the ones that their advertisers offer, or they can rig the ad-buying market (as Google and Facebook did when they illegally colluded on a secret project called ‘‘Jedi Blue’’). The higher the switching costs, the more the social media companies can appropriate of that surplus – that is, the worse they can make things for both advertisers *and *users. That’s what happened to MySpace and Bebo and Friendster and the other corpses in the social media graveyard: they made things worse for users and advertisers, and that meant that leaving hurt less, which meant the switching costs were lower. As people and businesses started to switch away from the social media giants, inverse network effects set in: the people you stayed on MySpace to hang out with were gone, and without them, all the abuses MySpace was heaping on you were no longer worth it, and you left, too. Once you were gone, that was a reason for someone else to leave. The same forces that drove rapid growth drove rapid collapse. The social media companies that are circling the drain today had a very long run. They figured out how to use the law (copyright, patent, terms of service, contract) to make it much, much harder for upstarts to offer a way to gracefully exit the system. Because they had so many of the people that mattered to us trapped inside them, and because they made it so hard to leave, they could really treat us like garbage without risking our departure. They cut the surplus to the bone. And then…. Stuff happened. Mark Zuckerberg got worried about losing users and decided we were all going to live as legless low-polygon cartoons in a metaverse that no one wanted to use, not even the Facebook employees who built it. Twitter got bought out by a low-attention-span, overconfident billionaire who started pulling out Jenga blocks to see whether the system would fall over, and when it did, we all got crushed by the falling blocks. These services had been shaved down to the point where most of us were only a hair’s breadth away from quitting, because all the surplus had been transferred from us and from business users to the companies. Once things got just a *little *worse, advertisers and users started to quit, and the long-delayed MySpacing of Facebook and Beboizing of Twitter began. RIP. Cory Doctorow is the author of **Walkaway**, **Little Brother**, and **Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free** (among many others); he is the co-owner of Boing Boing, a special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a visiting professor of Computer Science at the Open University and an MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate. *All opinions expressed by commentators are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of *Locus*.* This article and more like it in the January 2023 issue of *Locus*. **While you are here,** please take a moment to support *Locus* with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but **WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT** to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field. ©Locus Magazine. Copyrighted material may not be republished without permission of LSFF. The burning question is though, as users flee and businesses realise they don’t want to advertise on these platforms any more – where is everyone going, and where can we spend our digital dollars more effectively? Tiktok seems to be one answer, but sketchy is the word for that platform and many businesses don’t want to touch it. Pinterest is another option we are exploring for clients – yet to see how that will pan out, and failing that, we are left with Google and YouTube. Anyone else found anything that works? Mastodon does what Twitter does and has no incentive to get awful. I would not personally recommend Pinterest if you’re an artist of any type. It’s also been flooded with AI art related spam, which had I previously thought was an oddity about Twitter. What gets me is there is some legacy animation schools I’d like to apprentice at, but I’m not sure if that’s going to be worth it if they insist on using twitter and facebook. You’d think they would learn with the strikes happening in animation circles. Wellll, when it comes to Twitter refugees, the word I keep hearing is Mastodon. As for Facebook, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of them are headed for “You know, social media was always this enervating timesink anyway, maybe I’ll take this chance to get off the drug”. Good post. I’ve seen at least one other person expressing pretty much the same idea, although this fleshes it out a bit better. What data did you use to support your “mass exodus” opinion? Hard to leave, surplus goes to rulers, spying on everybody? GDR 2.0. I wanted to express my sincere appreciation for your insightful commentary on the dynamics of social media platforms and user engagement. Your analysis of the rise and fall of major networks like Twitter and Facebook provides valuable insights into the complex interplay of network effects, switching costs, and user behavior. Your ability to distill these intricate concepts into a comprehensible narrative is truly commendable. In light of your expertise, I’m curious to know how you envision the future landscape of social media evolving in response to these challenges, and whether there are any strategies that emerging platforms might adopt to avoid the pitfalls that befell their predecessors. Thank you once again for your thought-provoking work. Mastodon!! The Fediverse is the Future!!

As I type these words, a mass exodus is underway from Twitter and Facebook. After decades of eye-popping growth, these social media sites are contracting at an alarming rate. In some ways, this sho…

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2023-01-02 00:00:00

article

locusmag.com

Locus Online

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2023-04-27/dark-side-of-tiktok-bloomberg-investigates-episode-1-video

Bloomberg

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2024-10-12 00:00:00

https://github.com/pmq20/ruby-packer

GitHub - pmq20/ruby-packer: Packing your Ruby application into a single executable.

Pmq

*Packing your Ruby application into a single executable.* It takes less than 5 minutes to compile any project with Ruby Packer. You won't need to modify a single line of code in your application, no matter how you developed it as long as it works in plain Ruby! - Works on Windows, macOS and Linux - Windows is supported via the native Windows API; there are no MSYS2/MinGW/Cygwin dependencies - Creates a binary distribution of your Ruby and/or Rails application - Supports natively any form of `require` and`load` , including dynamic ones (e.g.`load(my_path + '/x.rb')` ) - Ruby Packer is written in Ruby and is packed and distributed using Ruby Packer itself - Native C extensions are fully supported - Open Source, MIT Licensed - Some gems that use C extensions that use libc IO to load files from your Rails application will not work with rubyc. Notably, bootsnap will not work with rubyc - On macOS and Linux, DTrace is currently disabled, see #114 Here is the latest stable Ruby Packer release: Whenever the `master` branch CI succeeded, a Ruby Packer pre-release binary would be automatically generated. Here is the latest unstable pre-release build: First install the prerequisites: - Visual Studio, all editions including the Community edition (remember to select "Common Tools for Visual C++" feature during installation). - SquashFS Tools: you might want to first install choco and then execute `choco install squashfs` . - Ruby: you might want to install it using RubyInstaller. - Perl: you might want to install it using Strawberry Perl for Windows. - Netwide Assembler: please make sure `nasm` works from your command line. Then download `rubyc.exe` from either Unstable Pre-release or Stable Releases. Optionally, put it under `C:\Windows` or any other `PATH` directories. Open Visual Studio's "x64 Native Tools Command Prompt" and execute `rubyc --help` therein. First install the prerequisites: - SquashFS Tools: `brew install squashfs` - Xcode - You also need to install the `Command Line Tools` via Xcode. You can find this under the menu`Xcode -> Preferences -> Downloads` - This step will install `gcc` and the related toolchain containing`make` - You also need to install the - Ruby Then download `rubyc` from either Unstable Pre-release or Stable Releases. Run `chmod +x` to give it execution permissions and execute `./rubyc --help` . First install the prerequisites: - SquashFS Tools `sudo yum install squashfs-tools` `sudo apt install squashfs-tools` `gcc` or`clang` - GNU Make - Ruby Then download `rubyc` from either Unstable Pre-release or Stable Releases. Run `chmod +x` to give it execution permissions and execute `./rubyc --help` . ``` rubyc [OPTION]... [ENTRANCE_FILE] ENTRANCE_FILE refers to the path of an executable ruby script from your project, e.g. "bin/rails". If ENTRANCE_FILE was not provided, a single raw Ruby interpreter executable would be produced. -r, --root=DIR The path to the root of your application -o, --output=FILE The path of the output file -d, --tmpdir=DIR The directory for temporary files --keep-tmpdir Keeps all temporary files that were generated last time --openssl-dir The path to openssl --make-args=ARGS Extra arguments to be passed to make --nmake-args=ARGS Extra arguments to be passed to nmake -i, --ignore-file=STRING Ignore file(s) from build --debug Enable debug mode --quiet Enable quiet mode -v, --version Prints the version of rubyc and exit -V, --ruby-version Prints the version of the Ruby runtime and exit --ruby-api-version Prints the version of the Ruby API and exit -h, --help Prints this help and exit ``` rubyc compiles its own version of openssl without any certifications. To be able to use ssl with rubyc it should know where to find the certifications. By default this path is set to `/usr/local/etc/openssl/` but can be overridden using the `--openssl-dir` argument. Keep in mind that users running your compiled package should have their certifications present in this directory as well. If you don't want certain files included in the build you can ignore them from the command line using -i. ``` rubyc -i ignore.file -i ignore-2.file -i "ignore*" ``` Alternatively you can create a `.rubycignore` file in the root of your project to specify which files should be ignored. I.e. packing the raw Ruby interpreter without packing any projects: ``` rubyc ./a.out (or a.exe on Windows) ``` Taking Ruby Packer itself as an example of the CLI utility to pack: ``` git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pmq20/ruby-packer cd ruby-packer rubyc bin/rubyc ./a.out (or a.exe on Windows) ``` ``` rails new yours cd yours rubyc bin/rails ./a.out server (or a.exe server on Windows) ``` To build `rubyc` you must have a C compiler and the necessary toolchain to build ruby and the libraries stuffed inside rubyc which include at least: - gdbm - libffi - ncurses - openssl - readline - yaml - zlib If you are unsure if your toolchain is complete then trying to build `rubyc` will let you know you are missing something. Unfortunately it may tell you with some unfamiliar message. Please file an issue here if this occurs. Once your toolchain is set up run `bundle` . To compile your own `rubyc` run: ``` bundle exec rake rubyc ``` Or (if you want to compile with debug symbols): ``` ENCLOSE_IO_RUBYC_ADDTIONAL_ARGS=--debug bundle exec rake rubyc ``` This will produce a single `rubyc` executable, which can be put inside any of your `PATH` locations, so that it can be directly called from the command prompt. For example: ``` mv rubyc /usr/local/bin ``` Remember that rubyc includes all the files from the current directory in the built executable. You must *delete the prior rubyc* or your squashfs will *continually grow larger* and the embedded squashfs *compile time will be very, very long*. - RubyConf 2017 (New Orleans, LA) presentation video: Packing your Ruby application into a single executable. - Libsquash: portable, user-land SquashFS that can be easily linked and embedded within your application. - Squashfs Tools: tools to create and extract Squashfs filesystems.

Packing your Ruby application into a single executable. - pmq20/ruby-packer

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2016-12-28 00:00:00

https://opengraph.githubassets.com/04e5967a0ed95824985a49e7cbd51bb49f85e8b5a506e78e8e8cc14822d43b82/pmq20/ruby-packer

object

github.com

GitHub

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2020-02-04/the-fall-and-rise-of-train-travel-in-america-video

Bloomberg

To continue, please click the box below to let us know you're not a robot. Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading. For more information you can review our Terms of Service and Cookie Policy. For inquiries related to this message please contact our support team and provide the reference ID below.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/12/instagram-is-down/

Instagram Is Down (Update: It's Back!) | TechCrunch

Greg Kumparak; Jordan Crook

RED ALERT! We are at DEFCON 1. Instagram is down. According to Isitdownrightnow.com and Twitter, and my iPhone, the service is down for everyone. According to this service status site, Instagram has been down for about an hour. Twitter is full of hilarious jokes about Coachella. Instagram has not made a comment on the matter yet, but we’ve reached out and will update as soon as humanly possible. **Update — 10:16 a.m:** Instagram says they’re aware of the issue and are working on it, but it’s still down. https://twitter.com/instagram/status/455025601553108993 **Update – 11:20 a.m.:** Instagram hasn’t confirmed that everything is back up yet, but things seem to be coming back online slowly. **Update: 12:00 p.m.:** 3 hours later, Instagram seems to be almost entirely back online. Let the narcissism commence!

RED ALERT! We are at DEFCON 1. Instagram is down.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2014-04-12 00:00:00

article

techcrunch.com

TechCrunch

https://www.monsterwriter.app/saas-waiting-list.html

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nhWK2GNjSrQ&feature=emb_title

https://www.axios.com/apple-signals-fight-over-access-to-pensacola-shooters-iphones-b98bd4f0-e21f-479c-b055-8c364f52da3f.html

http://dev.webcompat.com/

https://github.com/lovelle/jquery-chat

GitHub - lovelle/jquery-chat: 100% Javascript realtime chat like facebook/gmail web style built with jQuery + Node.js + Socket.IO

Lovelle

100% pure javascript realtime chat (client and server) facebook/gmail style web chat. To see demo please visit jquery-chat.net **Disclaimer**: This project is no longer maintained, because I do not have anymore time/interest to extend its functionality, anyway Pull Requests will be still accepted and merged ASAP. The jQuery Chat plugin can be used to add a JavaScript-based chatting system to your site, allows webmasters/developers to add a fully-working chat room on top of their site, see 'index.html' as an example. Built with these components -> Jquery UI, Socket.IO **Note:** By default the chat is configured to use an existing Heroku app, so you will not need to install Node and npm. (Skip step 3 in the installation process) **NEW:** With the latest changes we also support *python* server. So you could have python server instead Node.js if you want. Features ``` * Multi themes support (jquery-ui) * 100% javascript (client and server side) * Configuration file (fancy things and connecting stuff) * Support multiple languages * New message pop-up notifications * Multi users chat * Search users * Sounds * Browser support: (Opera, Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer) ``` Take a look at *index.html* for simple example of usage. - Install any Webserver (Apache, IIS, Nginx, Lighttpd, etc) Remember to clone the project behind a webserver, if you want to execute local file index.html it wont work. - Clone the project ``` $ cd /var/www/ $ git clone https://github.com/lovelle/jquery-chat $ cd jquery-chat ``` - Configuration ``` # Go to cloned project $ cd /var/www/jquery-chat/ # Adjust personal setting to 'server' ip or dns $ editor config.js # And the same for line 16 in index.html (the one that connect to heroku) $ editor index.html ``` - Install and run Server For **node.js** server follow these instructions. For **python** server follow these instructions. - Run Lets it, to finish remember you must have a webserver, if you dont want to install a full webserver you can do it with python server: ``` # Go to project folder $ cd /var/www/jquery-chat # Run webserver with python lib $ python -m SimpleHTTPServer ``` Finish!, go to visit http://localhost:8000/ This chat was made in my free time, please be gentle. For any doubt feel free to create an issue. Why there is a python server if all server logic allready exist in Node.js? - For fun. - For anyone who didn't know node.js and wants to understand how server works. Will be the server be supported in others languages? - Yep, ASAP. See LICENSE.

100% Javascript realtime chat like facebook/gmail web style built with jQuery + Node.js + Socket.IO - lovelle/jquery-chat

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2014-09-08 00:00:00

https://opengraph.githubassets.com/db9c1b73e5ebde31987db6bc0dd2248bfd4db76f4a9a4df6284bc3fd935cbc5e/lovelle/jquery-chat

object

github.com

GitHub

https://www.lucidchart.com/techblog/2016/08/17/wrong-java-version-on-debian/

Wrong Java version on Debian: a race condition

Lucid Software validates every pull request for its internal code base. Running over 1000 builds a day across 80 projects strains the robustness of our code, tests, and tools. For example, several times a week, builds complained about the default Java version. It didn't make much sense. Our servers are configured by Chef, which runs at boot and every 30 minutes thereafter. During each run, update-java-alternatives sets Java 8 as the default. But somehow, the build servers were occasionally using an older version. Each time update-java-alternatives ran, it reset Java to the "automatic default", which for Ubuntu 14.04 is Java 7. It then set Java back to the requested version. Any build that started a JVM in the intervening few milliseconds failed. `$ while :; do readlink /etc/alternatives/java; sleep 0.01; done` `$ sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-1.8.0-openjdk-amd64` A patch is available on the Debian bug tracker for the java-common package. ## About Lucid Lucid Software is a pioneer and leader in visual collaboration dedicated to helping teams build the future. With its products—Lucidchart, Lucidspark, and Lucidscale—teams are supported from ideation to execution and are empowered to align around a shared vision, clarify complexity, and collaborate visually, no matter where they are. Lucid is proud to serve top businesses around the world, including customers such as Google, GE, and NBC Universal, and 99% of the Fortune 500. Lucid partners with industry leaders, including Google, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Since its founding, Lucid has received numerous awards for its products, business, and workplace culture. For more information, visit lucid.co.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2016-08-17 00:00:00

lucid.co

lucid.co

https://zapier.com/learn/ultimate-guide-to-customer-support/collect-customer-feedback/

How to Collect Valuable Customer Feedback | Zapier

Megan Bannister

Getting customer feedback can be tricky. It’s not always easy to know who to ask or even the best way to phrase your questions. And even if you do manage to collect some feedback, what are you supposed to do with it? For the team behind Intercom, a product that helps companies better communicate with customers, effectively collecting feedback is second nature. But they’ve also learned that helpful customer feedback doesn’t always come in the way you might expect. For example, when the Intercom team built their product’s map feature, they were focused on allowing users to see where they were acquiring their own new users and tracking those trends geographically. But pretty quickly, Intercom co-founder and vice president of customer success Des Traynor says it became clear that wasn’t how the feature was being used. "Recently we observed a lot of our users were using the map feature, but they were screenshotting it, cutting out pieces of data and tweeting it or using it in presentations," he says. "That wasn’t really what we thought we were building, but we realized that because we were able to talk only to people using the map feature and see what they were using it for, we could get really focused feedback on what was actually valuable about the feature." So they did. The team reached out to a group of its users who’d recently engaged the map feature and asked a few simple questions, things like, "How do you use the map feature?" "What do you like about the feature?" and "How could this feature be improved?" And quickly a pattern emerged. Traynor says the users didn’t care so much about the geographic precision of the map—no one was zooming in on New York City to make sure they had engaged users in every borough—but preferred the feature for showing off the global impact of their business to would-be customers or investors. "So we learned that the better looking the map is, the more people will use it," he says. "Because ultimately it’s about vanity and helping people by making (the map) easier to share, hiding commercially significant information and even allowing customers to tweet it. "All of these things seem obvious, but you don’t get there without finding a way to talk to people using your product and seeing what they actually think." All of these things seem obvious, but you don’t get there without finding a way to talk to people using your product and seeing what they actually think. Des Traynor, Intercom co-founder The lesson? If you consistently observe a certain behavior from your users, react to it. It’s a valuable type of customer feedback. That being said, simply reacting to your customers’ behaviors and suggestions probably shouldn’t be the number one guiding factor when it comes to how you run your business. Frankly, that would be anarchy. So what feedback actually matters? And how do you know you’re collecting the right type? We caught up with Traynor to discover what’s he’s learned about feedback over the years, how the Intercom team approaches customer interactions and what you can do to start collecting valuable feedback of your own. ## Bridge the Divide Between Company and Customer When Intercom was founded in 2011, the company’s co-founders came from varied business and software backgrounds. But Traynor says that all had noticed a common trend: there was a growing disconnect between the people building the business and the customers using their product. Whereas a coffee shop owner can easily connect with customers on a personal level and establish a rapport with regulars, an engineer at a small software company isn’t afforded the same luxury. Traynor says that in his experience, the phenomenon manifested in a number of potential problems. "First in that it was hard to see new customers," he says. "We used to get a PayPal notice of subscription, but even that only carried their email address. We didn’t know what was going on otherwise to try to piece together if they were a good customer or not." The second big divide stems from a similar issue: when you don’t know who your users are or what they’re doing with your product, it’s hard to effectively communicate with them. "The hardest part was that you could either talk to everyone or no one," he says. "Customers couldn’t reach out except through a support ticket system and it was all very transactional. The only real options they had were to consider the severity or priority of their issue. "If you compare that with the level of interaction you can have over WhatsApp or SMS, they’re light years apart." And as a result, sometimes the outcome and intent of that communication is skewed. "Primarily, the only interactions there would be were with customers who were upset with shortcomings (of the product), which tends to lead you to biased view of your customer base," Traynor says. "When the only feedback you get is negative, it’s not great for organization. Your natural inclination is that if that feedback is bad, then all of your customers think that, too. And that’s not the case." So they built Intercom, a simple, lightweight way for companies to connect with their users in personal ways. And through the process, Traynor has learned a lot about the best—and worst—ways to approach customers when it comes times to seek feedback. ## Customer Feedback is Oxygen More specifically, Traynor says, customer feedback is oxygen for the future of your business. So how do you establish a stable connection to that oxygen supply? "One thing that’s very true is when people talk to Intercom, they feel like they’re having a conversation," he says. "As opposed to when you’re talking through a survey or ticketing product, it feels like they’re more freely willing to have chats when it’s an actual person. "I think it’s that there’s more of an honesty that comes when they’re talking to a person, instead of rating on a scale. I think it’s viable to extract feedback from conversations in that way." But before you even reach out to customers, Traynor says there are a few important things to keep in mind. ### 1. Start Small At Intercom, a group of trusted users serve as a testing group for new products and software iterations. After the development team and then the rest of the company finishes testing a new product, they roll it out to the team of testers. These are "good, active users who are happy to accept new features that might not end up shipping or whose behavior changes after a few iterations," Traynor says. When it comes to finding that group for your own company, what you want to do is start small. For example, Traynor suggests starting with 600 people instead of 6,000 to condense your feedback pool. "You don’t want to scale the part that’s messy, you want to do the bit that works," he says. "You’ll see things like where the documents are stored aren’t clear or users don’t know what a label means. Any of those problems, they don’t get better with size. You don’t need 100 test people and have half of them come back asking what *merge* means. You just need five. "This is where feedback is great because it helps smooth the path. People are able to just start using it straight away because you already asked 600 people who were a reflective sample." That way you won’t get hundreds of people asking, "How does this work?" come the product’s actual release because you ran through those problems with a smaller sample. "Oftentimes when you do it right, the release itself can feel anticlimactic because its been so gradual." Similarly, in an Intercom blog post titled "Start with a Cupcake", Traynor uses the analogy of baking a wedding cake to talk about the importance of starting small and approaching feedback as a constant process. The classic way people think about baking has them focussing of the individual ingredients, each of no value to the end user. You can deliver the base first, then the filling, and finally the icing. Only at the end of the final phase do you have something edible; something you can learn from. Alternatively you could start off with a cupcake. You’ll learn the flavours you like, uncover any problems in your kitchen, and in general you’ll fast forward the feedback loop. You can then step up to a regular size cake, safe in the knowledge your ingredients are all fresh, your oven works, and your flavours are nice. Only then can you deliver a wedding cake. The key difference in approaches here is how quickly you get feedback. In short, sharing specific upcoming product features with customers to garner feedback yields no value. Instead, share a lightweight version of the pending product update that gives your customers a real taste of what's to come. ### 2. Find the Right Type of User "The worst thing you can do is communicate with all of your customers at once or do something like say, ‘Hey, we’re taking feedback,’" Traynor says. "That’s unqualified feedback. You’re mixing in long-term, passionate customers with people who signed up yesterday because they saw you on Product Hunt. "As one of my colleagues says, you might as well read the comments on Hacker News for your product strategy. That type of feedback doesn’t help you think about what inputs need to drive your business." So when it comes to finding the feedback that does help drive your business, Traynor says it’s important to focus a similarly small, focused pool of users. For example, if you take a company's developer wanting to explore potential product issues, Traynor says conflicts typically stem from three main problems: There aren’t enough people using a feature People don’t know about a feature People are using a feature but it’s causing them frustration Let’s focus on the first option in the context of Intercom: "If there aren’t people using are a feature, talk to them about why they aren’t using it." Maybe a user hasn’t generated any reports using Intercom. Traynor suggests reaching out to further explain how the feature works and how the reports are generated, followed by an inquiry into why they haven’t explored the function. Not only will this help you discover problems users may be running into—"I haven’t created any reports because I need to export them as Excel files"—but it also allows you to assess any untapped consumption for your product. So in this case, maybe that user would be willing to generate reports using Intercom if they were able to export them as Excel files. "In that case, they’re ready to use the feature, but you just need to remove that barrier for them to do it," Traynor says. ### 3. Don’t Confuse Quality Assurance with Customer Feedback It’s rarely the case that companies don’t communicate with their users at all. But often, Traynor says he’s seen quality assurance emails or surveys confused for customer feedback. Though there’s still value in doing quality assurance, he says it’s not always the most important way to connect with your customers. "The bigger question is: Have we understood the job we’re trying to do well and have we designed a feature that mirrors or supports our users’ workflow?" Traynor says one of the biggest lesson he’s stressed goes back to focusing on the right users. He references a variety of objective metrics for customer satisfaction that, while they can be flattering, don’t mean much when it comes down to extracting value feedback. "They’re great ways to find out whether or not your product meets that metric, but it doesn’t tell you anything you’ve missed. There’s not any extra info on how to make a score of 8 into a 10," Traynor says. "You’ve no good data on this and its such a blended number—taking in your angriest and happiest customers with those who used your product once and forgot about it. "Product teams don’t work on a product as a whole—they work on pieces—and that’s what your feedback should be focused on, too. The biggest lesson is only talking to the right people." ### 4. Remember, Environment and Context Matter Sure, you can spend hours crafting a survey to email to your users and have it land in their inbox on Friday night. Let’s say it’s just four relatively-quick questions. Even if you phrase your questions correctly and target a smaller sample, you’re probably not going to get the responses you’re looking for. Put yourself in the shoes of the customer who just received the feedback email. Maybe you see the survey when it arrives in your inbox that evening. On Saturday morning you revisit the email. You enjoy using the product and don’t want another thing to worry about come Monday morning so you decide to respond quickly. Surely some feedback, even if delivered hastily, is better than no feedback at all, right? Traynor isn’t so sure. Let’s imagine a different scenario. This time while you’re already using the product—let’s say it’s a web app—when a sidebar with a photo and name of a real person who works at that company pops up. Instead of emailing you the survey, you’re asked the four quick questions on the spot. The difference? "Your response likelihood and response quality is infinitely better if you talk to users about something while they’re doing it," Traynor says. "If you consider me giving feedback to Google Hangouts right now while I’m using it versus me talking about it yesterday during the Seahawks game, I’m going to be much more committed to helping make Hangouts better right now." Especially if you can touch on a pain point that a user might be having, reaching out at a more opportune time could mean the difference between a thoughtful, quality response and a half-hearted answer to a survey. "Feedback should be conversations, not structured forms," he says. "Asking at the right time and in the right place is much more meaningful." ## 6 Tips on Asking for Feedback So you’ve done your research and determined the subset of users you want to ask for feedback. What do you do now? Traynor shared with us some of his most practical applications when it comes to forming questions and communicating with your users. ### 1. Start with the End in Mind "Never ask a question that no matter what way (answered) won’t help you get to your end goal," Traynor says. "Always start with the end in mind." For example, if you’re trying to figure out how to improve your product’s comment feature, don’t ask questions like, "How often do you use Intercom?" that don’t drive that purpose. Traynor stresses that when you sit down to write a set of questions you have to ask yourself, "What types of responses will help me solve this problem?" ### 2. Avoid Dead-End Questions This is a pretty easy one: Steer clear of any questions that are overly simplistic or could be responded to with a one-word answer. "For example, if you ask, ‘Are you happy with Zapier?’ It’s easy to just say ‘yes’ and there’s no future to that conversation," Traynor says. Instead, he recommends sticking to a tried and true reporter trick: ask questions that lead with "who," "what," "where," "when," "why" and "how." It’s an instant boost to quality responses. ### 3. Don’t Couple Independent Questions Traynor says it sounds innocent enough to ask, "How fast and reliable is Intercom?" But really you’re doing yourself a disservice. "On the surface it sounds like a perfect question to ask but it’s actually two questions. So both should be individual items," he says. He likens the phrasing to asking someone, "Do you eat healthy and exercise?" While those two actions are oftentimes closely associated, you can exercise and eat terribly, and inversely, you can eat great and never exercise. If you have two different features, it’s two different questions. Period. ### 4. Provide Meaningful Timeframes Going back to our exercise question, if you ask "Do you exercise?" chances are most people are going to say "yes." But that still might not be the most accurate representation of your data set. "Because no one really likes to exercise, but you’re supposed to say you do it," Traynor says. "But if you say, ‘In the past week, how many times have you exercised?’ it cuts through a lot of the bulls—t because it’s going to be zero from a lot of people." By phrasing questions around meaningful timeframes you get a better idea of users’ behaviors when it comes to using your product. ### 5. Ensure Your Users Feel Qualified to Respond "A lot of times people feel too humble to suggest they might have something valid to contribute," Traynor says. "So if you ask, ‘What should we improve?’ People will think, ‘I don’t know. You’re the expert who built this really amazing product.’ "Instead try something like, ‘In your opinion as a new user,…’ Always make users feel comfortable with what they’re trying to say." ### 6. Avoid Hypotheticals The truth? Your users don’t know what the future holds. Neither do you. So it’s really not going to benefit you if you ask them to speculate. "Say you ask, ‘If our product cost $49, would you subscribe?’ Well, our product has never cost $49 so it doesn’t matter," Traynor says. "It’s not a behavior question and to treat it like a data source doesn’t help you at all." ## Finally, Treat Feedback Like a Hypothesis Now that you’ve collected feedback, talked to users and filtered out many of the anomalies that occurred, take a deep look at that pool of data and start clustering it into groups. "Say your goal is to start providing features or support that larger companies want," Traynor says. "If that was your strategy for the month or the quarter, you would want to find slices of feedback along those parameters. You segment that data, but in accordance with your strategy, and to prioritize that you can use simple tactics." Traynor says you can find relatively informed opinions and trends within your __structured and unstructured data__ by clustering samples. "If you do all that, you’ll end up with six or seven key points, but a point I always make is a pearl of information or an anecdote is not data and data is not direction," he says. For example, if you have 20 people out of 70 say you should be able to modify something within a particular feature, Traynor says that’s indicative that a change might be to your benefit. But before you go and make it the most important project of your quarter, he says it’s important to validate it. "Sometimes it makes sense to (make those changes), but you have to realize those findings are only ever a hypothesis," he says. "You almost have to act like a detective and say, ‘It seems like this is true, how do we verify it?’" So maybe you go back and ask another 200 people a quick, focused question to see if the trend resonates with a larger segment of users. Traynor says this will help you validate that a need exists and supports your hypothesis that a change should be made. All hypothesizing aside, Traynor still believes it’s important to trust your gut too when it comes to your product’s direction. "It’s worth saying that if you really know your product and customer base you can bypass a lot of this if you have a good feel of what you’re trying to do," he says. "Inevitably as the product grows though, you’ll begin to attract people less like yourself who may not fall into that area." Even with all the improvements you could possibly make to your product, you'll still need to help some customers. But don't wait for them to contact you—get in touch first when it seems like there's a problem, and help them before they think to ask for help. That's the idea behind proactive customer support. *Image Credits: Suggestion box photo courtesy **Andrea Williams**. Des Traynor photo via **LinkedIn**. Intercom graphics from the **Intercom blog** and **Intercom.io**.*

Getting customer feedback can be tricky. It’s not always easy to know who to ask or even the best way to phrase your questions. And even if you do manage to collect some feedback, what are you supposed to do with it?

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2015-12-03 00:00:00

article

Zapier

https://www.wsj.com/articles/frackers-face-harsh-reality-as-wall-street-backs-away-11551009601

https://thenewstack.io/the-end-of-tribalism-in-software/

The End of Tribalism in Software

Marco Palladino

# The End of Tribalism in Software How many times in the software industry have you heard developers fight over which programming language is better? How many times have you heard about that *one pattern* that will fix all of our problems moving forward? We as an industry are very tribal when it comes to our technologies, programming languages and architectural patterns — it’s either our pattern or theirs; it’s either my language or yours. For a long time, it’s always been us vs. them. Finally, this is coming to an end. The end of software tribalism and the beginning of a very well-accepted hybrid world is a transformation that has been in the works for the past 30 years, but it’s only becoming a reality in its latest form since five years ago, with the explosion of new software ecosystems and the cultural revolution of enterprise open source adoption. This hybrid world is a new era, where the pragmatism and availability of multiple ecosystems finally give us a wide variety of options to build our software and design our architectures in an unprecedented way. It’s a multiprogramming language, multiplatform and multi-architecture world today. It’s a revolution — not just technological but also organizational. It’s the end of tribalism. ## A New, Hybrid World The vision of a hybrid world, where interfaces are more important than the implementations, is not novel. Looking back at the history of software architectures, we can find its roots in the 1990s when CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) was first widely adopted in the enterprise. Many of today’s modern architectures borrow ideas from that world — primarily the ideas of distributed, decoupled, remote objects. This sounds a lot like microservices, which is really what triggered the end of tribalism in software, driven by a bigger underlying trend: modern open source. Traditional open source as we know it is determined by three main pillars: the community, the ecosystem and user adoption. Taking this one step further, modern open source has a fourth pillar: enterprise adoption. Examples of modern open source products are Docker, Kubernetes, Elasticsearch, Kafka, Kong and so on. Modern open source technologies are driving a technological, cultural and organizational revolution in the Industry, leading to the end of tribalism and the beginning of a new, hybrid world. “Open source plays a different role for different players of the ecosystem, but the best one is empowering developers. In a typical company, developers didn’t make a lot of software decisions , but that has changed in a big way.” — Neha Narkhede, co-creator of Kafka. This change is reflected through three main trends: ### 1) Different programming languages will coexist. What matters is the interface — the API. Technologies like gRPC, Apache Thrift and traditional HTTP APIs have been leading this trend. We are increasingly moving into a world where different programming languages will coexist in the same architecture and communicate via an API (or event) over the network. Microservices helped with this notion by freeing the developer from the programming language of choice and allowing them to experiment. As a result, more developers will be proficient in a larger number of programming languages, and their ecosystem adoption will grow as a result. ### 2) Different architectures will coexist. Every architectural trend, including microservices and serverless, claims to be the best solution for every problem in the world. When the only thing you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Likewise, with programming languages, the industry is returning to a more pragmatic approach. We are understanding the need for hybrid architectural patterns for our systems, where monolith, microservices and serverless systems will co-exist together as a response to particular technological — or business — challenges. It’s not going to be one architecture or another — it’s going to be all of them. Even more, we are going to build software in a way that allows us to move from one architectural pattern to another relatively easily whenever the requirement arises. ### 3) Different infrastructures will coexist. A quest for running software on the latest and greatest infrastructure will always be there, and so will the need to consolidate multiple infrastructures into one. Realistically, the time it takes to migrate large systems over to newer infrastructures will always be slower than the innovation time it takes to discover better ways of doing things. As such, for most large organizations running on hybrid platforms, it’s going to be the de facto reality. It’s going to be containers and virtual machines, perhaps running on multiple clouds even. When over time the cost of switching gets lowered, instead of consolidation, we might actually see the opposite happening — likewise for programming languages, clouds become a commodity, and as long as we have the right interface in place for cross-cloud communication, departments and teams will use the right cloud offering the most appropriate set of services for their use case. ### The Cloud Wars We cannot talk about the end of tribalism without connecting it with the “Cloud Wars” between Amazon, Microsoft and Google. The end of tribalism doesn’t happen coincidentally with the Cloud Wars. In fact, they are a major driver. To acquire a larger cloud customer base and prevent incumbent players from having a quasi-monopoly in cloud infrastructure, Google has been contributing to the open source community and pushing for commoditization of infrastructures with the open Kubernetes platform by heavily investing in a new, emerging ecosystem sponsored by CNCF. Commoditization of infrastructures and thought leadership in the developer’s mindset — in a world where developers have more power in determining where production workloads should run — in turn, allows a cloud challenger like Google to attract more customers from more established cloud vendors. Developers and their mindset are becoming more critical to any modern open source player because ultimately it’s what drives enterprise adoption. Like Al Ries and Jack Trout would say, it’s the “battle for your mind.” Enterprise organizations entering the new world of modern open source, made by large emerging technologies and ecosystems, will have to adapt their process and organizational structure to reflect the reality that business units and teams are making critical technology decisions not always backed by “Central IT,” which traditionally despises a hybrid organization because of the overhead. They’ll need to find technology solutions for all of these moving parts, hybrid architectures and technologies that can help manage this new complexity. We are seeing a bottom-up approach to central IT, where technology adoption is not dictated by a “center of excellence” anymore (top-down) but rather where central IT optimizes and centralizes technology decisions that have already been made by the underlying business units and teams, making them into more manageable centralized clusters. This is fundamentally happening because the teams — that are closer to the business and to the customers — have to react and adapt to new business requirements at a faster pace than the Central IT can adapt and embrace to new technologies. Therefore, more business value will be delivered with control planes that can help get a sense of the technology running in production and the organizational interdependencies between all the parts involved, and can help over time to consolidate the most common technologies adopted by individual teams and business units into centralized clusters. So, welcome to the hybrid world driven by modern open source, where different programming languages, architectures and platforms run together alongside each other to achieve very specific business goals that every individual team is pursuing. In a world where developers get smarter thanks to the emergence of open and self-service ecosystems, where interfaces become the primary means of communication across different technical and perhaps even organizational boundaries, it becomes the quest to find the best tool for the job and less a matter of “us vs. them.” In essence, software is eating software-tribalism.* * Feature image by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash.

How many times in the software industry have you heard developers fight over which programming language is better? How many

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2019-01-25 00:00:00

article

thenewstack.io

The New Stack

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/the-most-dangerous-gamer/8928/?single_page=true

The Most Dangerous Gamer

Taylor Clark

# The Most Dangerous Gamer Never mind that they’re now among the most lucrative forms of entertainment in America, video games are juvenile, silly, and intellectually lazy. At least that’s what Jonathan Blow thinks. But the game industry’s harshest critic is also its most cerebral developer, a maverick bent on changing the way we think about games and storytelling. With his next release, The Witness, Blow may cement his legacy—or end his career. In a multibillion-dollar industry addicted to laser guns and carnivorous aliens, can true art finally flourish? Like many wealthy people, Jonathan Blow vividly remembers the moment he became rich. At the time, in late 2008, he was $40,000 in debt and living in a modest San Francisco apartment, having just spent more than three years meticulously refining his video game, *Braid*—an innovative time-warping platformer (think *Super Mario Bros.* meets Borges), whose $200,000 development Blow funded himself. Although *Braid* had been released, to lavish praise from the video-game press, on Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade service that August, Blow didn’t see a cent from the game until one autumn day when he sat down at a café in the city’s Mission district. “I opened up my Web browser and *Holy fuck, I’m rich now*,” he recalled. “There were a lot of zeros in my bank account.” Blow’s similarities to the average millionaire end right there, however, because unlike most wealthy people, he seems faintly irritated by his memory of striking it rich. When Blow told me, during a typically metaphysical conversation in a park near his Berkeley office, that his windfall was “absurd,” he didn’t mean it in the whimsical “Can you believe my luck?” sense; he meant it in the philosophical, Camus-puffing-a-cigarette sense of a deeply ridiculous cosmic joke. “It just drives home how fictional money is,” Blow said, squinting against the unseasonably bright December sun. “One day I’m looking at my bank account and there’s not much money, and the next day there’s a large number in there and I’m rich. In both cases, it’s a fictional number on the computer screen, and the only reason that I’m rich is because somebody typed a number into my bank account.” For the world’s most existentially obsessed game developer, coming into seven figures just provided another opportunity to ponder the nature of meaning in the universe. Which is not to say that Blow has forsaken his wealth. As *Braid* grew into a bona fide phenomenon in its first year—selling several hundred thousand copies, winning armloads of industry awards, and becoming Exhibit A in the case for the video game as a legitimate artistic medium—Blow made several upgrades to his austere lifestyle. In place of his old Honda, he now drives a $150,000 crimson Tesla Roadster, a low-slung all-electric automotive dynamo that offers a highly realistic simulation of being shot out of a cannon whenever Blow clamps down on the accelerator. And after a yearlong victory lap filled with lectures and laurels, he moved into a spacious hilltop condo that overlooks the eastern half of the city as it slopes down to the sapphire-colored bay. Yet aside from his electric car—the virtues of which he extols with messianic zeal—Blow displays total indifference toward the material fruits of wealth. His apartment stands mostly empty; books on physics and Eastern philosophy lie in haphazard piles, as though he has only half finished carting his belongings in from a moving truck outside. His minimal collection of furniture is almost all rented, including the springy beige sofa he got just a few months ago, after he arranged to have several video-game journalists over and realized he had nowhere for them to sit. “I’ve never liked money, really,” Blow told me. “Having a big high score in my bank account is not interesting to me. I have a nice car now, but I don’t really own that many objects, and I don’t know what else I would spend money on. So for me, money is just a tool I can use to get things done.” More specifically, Blow has decided to use his money—nearly all of it—to finance what may be the most intellectually ambitious video game in history, one that he hopes will radically expand the limitations of his chosen field. Although video games long ago blossomed into full commercial maturity (the adrenaline-soaked military shooter *Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3*, for example, racked up $400 million in sales during its first 24 hours in stores last fall), the form remains an artistic backwater, plagued by cartoonish murderfests and endless revenue-friendly sequels. Blow intends to shake up this juvenile hegemony with *The Witness*, a single-player exploration-puzzle game set on a mysterious abandoned island. In a medium still awaiting its quantum intellectual leap, Blow aims to make *The Witness* a groundbreaking piece of interactive art—a sort of *Citizen Kane* of video games. Video: Taylor Clark shows how radically Jonathan Blow’s games challenge the mainstream. | It’s a characteristically audacious plan for a man who has earned a reputation not just as the video-game industry’s most cerebral developer, but also as its most incisive and polarizing internal critic. To Blow, being labeled the most intellectual man in video games is a little like being called the most chaste woman in a brothel: not exactly something to crow about to Mom and Dad. “I think the mainstream game industry is a fucked-up den of mediocrity,” he told me. “There are some smart people wallowing in there, but the environment discourages creativity and strength and rigor, so what you get is mostly atrophy.” As a developer whose independent success has emancipated him from the grip of the monolithic game corporations, Blow makes a habit of lobbing rhetorical hand grenades at the industry. He has famously branded so-called social games like FarmVille “evil” because their whole raison d’être is to maximize corporate profits by getting players to check in obsessively and buy useless in-game items. (In one talk, Blow managed to compare FarmVille’s developers to muggers, alcoholic-enablers, Bernie Madoff, and brain-colonizing ant parasites.) Once, during an online discussion about the virtues of short game-playing experiences, Blow wrote, “Gamers seem to praise games for being addicting, but doesn’t that feel a bit like Stockholm syndrome?” His entire public demeanor forms a challenge to the genre’s intellectual laziness. Blow is the only developer on the planet who gives lectures with titles like “Video Games and the Human Condition,” the only one who speaks of Italo Calvino’s influence on his work, and the only one to so rile up the gamer community with his perceived pretentiousness that the popular gamer blog *Kotaku* used him as the centerpiece of a post titled “When You Love the Game But Not Its Creator.” Yet as harsh as Blow can be toward his industry, he applies even stricter standards to his own work. With *The Witness*, produced with about $2 million of his own money, he plans to do nothing less than establish the video game as an art form—a medium capable of producing something far richer and more meaningful than the brain-dead digital toys currently on offer. Blow envisions future games that deliver experiences as poignant and sublime as those found through literature and film, but expressed in ways distinctive to games. “If the video game is going to be used for art purposes, then it has to take advantage of its form in some way particular to that medium, right?” he told me. “A film and a novel can both do linear storytelling, but novels are very strong at internal mental machinations—which movies suck at—and movies are great at doing certain visual things. So the question is: Where are games on that same map?” It’s a question Blow intends to answer. I met Jon Blow in early 2011, when my friend Tom Bissell—a journalist and author hired to help write the script for *The Witness*—invited me along to dinner one night when Blow was visiting Portland, Oregon. Knowing Blow’s outspoken reputation, I expected a sort of fire-breathing techie-Limbaugh, wreathed in nerd rage. Instead, when I entered Bissell’s condo, I saw an intensely serious-looking man performing a slow tai chi sequence in the living room. His face, bounded by a closely cropped widow’s peak on top and a clenched jaw on the bottom, radiated quiet imperturbability. But Blow’s most striking feature is his eyes, which sit under a perpetually half-furrowed brow and seem always to be evaluating, probing, assessing. His unchangingly flinty expression makes it extraordinarily difficult to gauge where Blow is on the spectrum between enjoying your company and despising everything you stand for. I was surprised, then, when after a pleasant dinner mostly spent bemoaning the game industry’s artistic failings, Blow offered to let me play an early version of *The Witness* on his laptop. Game developers tend to be pathologically secretive, allowing outsiders access to an unfinished game only under paranoically controlled conditions, having extracted a blood oath never to reveal that, say, the submachine gun also fires plasma grenades. Blow, by contrast, plugged a controller into his laptop, told me to knock myself out, and walked away to play *LittleBigPlanet 2* with Bissell. At that point, the game was more of a three-dimensional digital sketchbook—storyless, built from antiquated ad hoc graphics, and stuffed with puzzle ideas in various stages of completion—but its core mechanics were fully functional. In *The Witness*, the player unlocks different areas of the enigmatic deserted island by solving a series of line-drawing puzzles on blue panels. The first panels are simple enough, but later ones become increasingly inventive and increasingly fiendish. I spent a full 30 minutes struggling not to put my fist through the laptop screen while working on one especially tough puzzle, as Blow periodically looked over at me with the sort of amused expression usually reserved for a house cat chasing after the glowing red dot of a laser pointer. Only later did Blow disclose that he’d decided that particular puzzle was too difficult to stay in the game. While moments like this tend to confirm Blow’s reputation as a misanthrope, he is in fact almost obsessively conscientious. It’s just that he has no patience for coddling or bullshit. At his Berkeley office many months later, as I was playing a more polished build of *The Witness*, I turned to Blow at the next desk and asked if I was missing some clue for a specific puzzle. He fixed me with a stare that could hammer a nail into a wall. “The clue is, you’re doing it wrong,” he said. In other words: don’t ask me to do your thinking for you. Even Blow’s friends choose words like *difficult *and *spiky *when describing him. “You have to approach Jon on Jon’s terms,” said Chris Hecker, his closest game-industry friend, over empanadas with Blow at an airy Oakland café. “It’s not ‘Let’s go out and have fun.’ It’s more like ‘Let’s discuss this topic,’ or ‘Let’s work on our games.’ You don’t ask Jon to hang out, because he’ll just say ‘Why?’” Friendship with Blow requires patience for his rigid, often puzzling personal codes. He enjoys talking, but abhors idle conversation and is intensely private. He goes out dancing several nights a week, yet the suggestion of visiting the same club for a beer will elicit a lengthy anti-bar diatribe. “You’re poisoning yourself with alcohol,” Blow vented, as Hecker smiled knowingly beside him. “You’re kind of socializing, but the loud music prevents you from actually communicating. It’s all set up to help people socialize who don’t feel comfortable being honest about why they’re there. It freaks me out. Just understand what you’re doing, and do it.” “Hold on,” I objected. “Are you saying people at bars should just walk up to each other and say, ‘I would like to have sexual intercourse with you’?” “I think we could live a lot closer to a truthful existence and we’d all be better off,” he replied. Blow’s relentless pursuit of deeper truth began at an early age. Born in 1971 to middle-class, emotionally distant Southern California parents, Blow says he started to “check out” from his family (from whom he remains estranged) while still in elementary school. His mother was a devout ex-nun who constantly reminded her scientifically inclined young son about the imminent return of Jesus. (When Blow’s older sister came out as a lesbian in the mid-’80s, their mother disowned her.) Blow’s father worked all day for the defense contractor TRW, then came home and spent every possible moment alone in his den, where the children were not welcome. “Early on, I detected that there weren’t good examples at home, so I kind of had to figure things out on my own,” Blow told me. “I had to adopt a paradigm of self-sufficiency.” Blow’s rigorous personal codes reached their peak severity when he was a child. Authentic spiritual self-reliance became his fixation, escapism and superstition his greatest enemies. “I didn’t want to hide from things, and I didn’t want to believe convenient things just because they felt good,” he told me. “To avoid that, you have to be willing to go stand out in the cold and not be comforted, and not take your own personal happiness and well-being as the goal of existence.” For Blow, this edict entailed countless acts of self-denial, like turning down offers for a ride home from school during a rainstorm. He also showed a compulsive secrecy, routinely lying to other children to hide what he was really thinking. “If you’re going to outsmart them, they have to not know,” he told me. Unsurprisingly, this approach won him few friends. Instead of bonding emotionally with his family or with other kids, the young Blow developed a profound affinity for computers. When he first encountered a Commodore VIC-20, in a fifth-grade computer class, Blow intuitively understood it; he saw an exhilarating purity in the logic of its internal systems. And before long, he felt the tug of his calling. “The first thing I made in that class was a game,” he recalled. “It was like a slot machine where you had to press a button at the right time to match a number on the screen, but I made the screen flash different colors and added sound effects. Really polishing the turd, so to speak—which, really, was a good education for the modern game-development industry.” Even as a teenager, Blow was looking to improve the embryonic games that were then on the market. On a clunky TRS-80 home computer, he designed an Indiana Jones–inspired adventure game from text-based ASCII graphics, in which the player dodged arrows and circumvented traps. On a Commodore 64, Blow made another game that was “objectively better than Pac-Man in a number of ways,” namely because it had a greater diversity of maps. But it wasn’t until his mid-20s that Blow took up game development as an occupation. After a five-year stint as an undergrad at UC Berkeley, where he studied computer science and creative writing but dropped out one semester short of graduating, Blow bounced between uninspiring Bay Area tech jobs for a few years. At 24, he took $24,000 he’d saved and, with a friend from Berkeley, started his own game-design company—a business that stubbornly refused to thrive. Though it produced a finished game (a “software-rendered 3-D team-on-team multiplayer-only sci-fi hovertank war game”), the tiny firm launched just as the era of small studios was ending and the dominance of multimillion-dollar corporate game projects was beginning. The business folded after four years, $100,000 in debt. By the early 2000s, Blow was in grave danger of becoming a failed game developer. He made a good living consulting for tech companies and game studios, but he struggled to maintain any enthusiasm for it. “I have a terrible work ethic when I’m doing things I don’t really care about,” he told me. “I can’t motivate myself to do stuff if it’s not *the* most important thing for me to do. So I’d do a bad job.” For years, he ran an experimental game-play workshop at the annual Game Developers Conference and wrote a monthly programming column for *Game Developer* magazine (in which his pieces bore headlines like “Scalar Quantization” and “My Friend, the Covariance Body”), while discontentedly tinkering with esoteric game projects that he’d abandon before long. Then, in late 2004, Blow had the idea for *Braid*, and all of that changed forever. There’s no nice way to say this, but it needs to be said: video games, with very few exceptions, are dumb. And they’re not just dumb in the gleeful, winking way that a big Hollywood movie is dumb; they’re dumb in the puerile, excruciatingly serious way that a grown man in latex elf ears reciting an epic poem about Gandalf is dumb. Aside from a handful of truly smart games, tentpole titles like *The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim* and *Call of Duty: Black Ops* tend to be so silly and so poorly written that they make Michael Bay movies look like the Godfather series. In games, brick-shaped men yell catchphrases like “Suck pavement!” and wield giant rifles that double as chain saws, while back-breakingly buxom women rush into combat wearing outfits that would make a Victoria’s Secret photographer blush. In games, nuance and character development simply do not exist. In games, any predicament or line of dialogue that would make the average ADHD-afflicted high-school sophomore scratch his head gets expunged and then, ideally, replaced with a cinematic clip of something large exploding. Even the industry’s staunchest defenders acknowledge the chronic dumbness of contemporary video games, usually with a helpless shrug—because, hey, the most ridiculous games can also be the most fun. (After all, the fact that the Super Mario games are about a pudgy plumber with a thick Italian accent who jumps on sinister bipedal mushrooms doesn’t make them less enjoyable to play.) But this situation puts video-game advocates in a bind. It’s tough to demand respect for a creative medium when you have to struggle to name anything it has produced in the past 30 years that could be called artistic or intellectually sophisticated. When I first met Blow’s friend Chris Hecker, at his Oakland bungalow, he rushed to his desk in a pair of duct-taped slippers to show me his favorite demonstration of this discouraging reality. “Watch this—it never fails,” he said, bending over his computer keyboard. On one of his twin monitors, Hecker pulled up the movie-trailers section of Apple.com; on the other, he loaded the upcoming-releases page of GameSpot.com. The movies, Hecker pointed out, encompassed a huge diversity of topics and approaches, from buddy comedies to period dramas to esoteric art films. The video games, on the other hand, were almost all variations on a single theme: outlandishly attired men armed with gigantic weapons, shooting things. “People think games will arrive when people start taking them seriously,” Hecker said, agitation edging his voice. “No! Games aren’t taken seriously because the stuff that comes out is shit. Why would anyone care about any of this? It’s just adolescent nonsense.” In fact, when Roger Ebert famously declared in a long (and poorly researched) essay that video games can never be art, gaming’s intellectual champions could point to only two popular titles that might refute his claim. One was the soothing PlayStation 3 game *Flower*, in which the player takes the role of the wind and swoops across bucolic landscapes pollinating plants and righting environmental wrongs; it’s a wonderful game, but it’s about as artistic as a Thomas Kinkade painting. The other, more apt suggestion, was Blow’s game, *Braid*. When *Braid* debuted, in August 2008, no one had ever seen a video game quite like it. Its aesthetics alone would have been enough to win Blow awards. Whereas most games begin with thundering music and splashy cinematics, *Braid* opens with a dark, painterly canvas of a city at night, its buildings engulfed in flames. Your character, Tim, stands in shadow in the foreground; as you move him across the screen, a sparse and mournful soundtrack eases in, and you suddenly see that this painting *is* the game. Soon, Tim emerges into view on a lamp-lit street, clad in a schoolboy suit and tie, a pensive expression on his face. When he enters his house and then opens the only available door, Tim finds himself in a room made of gently percolating clouds, and the game begins. On the surface, *Braid* is a simple side-scrolling, two-dimensional platformer (a game in which the character spends a lot of time jumping between platforms) that follows the most timeworn setup in gaming. “Tim is off on a search to rescue the Princess,” reads the first book Tim finds among the clouds, multicolored spangles radiating off its pages. “She has been snatched by a horrible and evil monster.” But *Braid* is about rescuing a princess to the same extent that Kafka’s *Metamorphosis* is about being a bug. Through the books Tim finds, Blow reveals that Tim “made a mistake” and hopes to rectify it, which ties into *Braid*’s central game-play mechanism: Tim’s unique time-rewinding ability. As Tim seeks to undo his past, he must also solve puzzles that revolve around his control over the flow of time. Inspired by the alternate realities presented in Calvino’s *Invisible Cities* and Alan Lightman’s *Einstein’s Dreams*, Blow created five main realms where time behaves in distinctly different ways. In one world, some objects aren’t affected by Tim’s rewinding ability; in another, his merely moving left and right will cause the world’s inhabitants to travel backward and forward in time. Yet perhaps *Braid*’s most startling feature is that it feels, far more than any other game, like a fully authored text—as rich with meaning and emotion as any well-crafted short story. Tim encounters many clue-stuffed books on his journey, and before long, we begin to suspect that his quest to rescue the princess is not what it initially seemed. In some parts, the princess feels corporeal, and we learn of Tim’s remoteness from her, about how “she never understood the impulses that drove him.” But at other times, the princess becomes mysteriously abstract: “If she exists—she must!—she will transform him, and everyone.” Over time, Blow sketches a portrait of a man run ragged by his pursuit of something spiritually larger than himself, a man whose uncompromising intellectual seriousness has left him isolated from a “world that flows contrariwise.” A man, in short, much like Jon Blow. This feeling of authorship was no accident, because Blow’s primary goal in *Braid* was to communicate a message, one that he has said is “important enough to me that I spent three and a half years of my life trying to express it.” Remarkably, the basic game-play programming occupied very little of that time. When Blow first set out to bring his time-rewinding game idea to life, in December 2004, he was on vacation with a friend in Thailand. “I was feeling pretty motivated,” Blow recalled in his apartment one evening. “So I said, ‘Why don’t I spend this week hanging out in the cafés of Chiang Mai and do this idea?’ And within that first week, I had the kernel of a playable game.” What consumed the next three and a half years of Blow’s life, then—as well as a lot of his money—was the refinement of his vision. By the end of 2005, *Braid*’s puzzles were finished, but Blow refused to release the game before he felt it was ready. “Jon was never stressed about time or a budget—the game always came first,” said David Hellman, the artist who created *Braid*’s painterly visuals. “I’d give Jon a bunch of ideas, and choosing quickly was not a top priority for him. Even when we got down to tiny details, he’d still be looking to change a single line if it looked a little thin.” Blow packed *Braid*’s world with small visual hints about the deeper story. And rather than pay a game-music composer to craft the soundtrack, Blow took the unusual step of licensing existing music. “The people who made those songs legitimately cared about the music they were making,” he explained. “That was rule number zero, the most important thing.” Because of the flood of deep thought that Blow poured into every frame, the video-game community at first didn’t quite know what to make of *Braid*. Many of the game’s players showered it with praise, but very few could tell you what it *meant*—a conundrum best embodied by *Braid*’s ingenious ending sequence, which has become one of the most famous scenes in video-game history. After traversing *Braid*’s five main realms, Tim finally reaches the world that holds his princess—a place where time flows continually in reverse. As the soundtrack rolls backward, we see her sliding down a vine in the clutches of the roaring, barrel-chested knight who snatched her, then slipping away from him and screaming for help. A long horizontal barrier stands between Tim and the princess. As a wall of fire closes in on them from the left, the two race back toward the point in time when they were last united, dodging enemies and springing each other from traps. Yet when Tim finally reaches the princess, there is no tender scene of lovers reuniting; instead, his arrival triggers an ominous flash. We see the princess sleeping inside a cottage. Tim stands helplessly outside. And then time begins rewinding (which makes events unfold in their “proper” sequence), allowing us to see the truth: all this time, the princess hasn’t been waiting for Tim to rescue her; she’s been fleeing him. While she appeared to be removing obstacles for Tim before, she was frantically tossing them in his path. The burly knight who carried her off was actually her savior. The “horrible and evil monster,” we realize, is Tim. Cue the whooshing sound of several hundred thousand gamers’ minds being blown. From here, things get—even by non-game standards—extraordinarily esoteric. Tim finds new books with cryptic messages: a vignette about Tim outside a candy store, unable to get in; a quotation from the moments after the legendary Trinity atomic bomb test; a description of how Tim “implanted tungsten posts into the skulls of water-starved monkeys.” *Braid*, savvy players suddenly realize, is an allegory of the development of the atomic bomb. And that interpretation seems to be only the beginning. Like any other work of art, *Braid* is dense with possible interpretations. As Tom Bissell told me, “*Braid* is a game about jumping on shit—and that Jon was audacious enough to take the platformer and make that into a grand statement about human existence is incredible.” To Blow’s unending consternation, however, the mainstream video-game community has proved uninterested in exploring *Braid*’s hidden depths. Most frequently, people assume the game is about a breakup, which Blow fervently denies; he has even left contentious comments on Internet message boards to correct misinterpretations. “Something that’s even more widespread is that people play the final level with the princess and then latch onto the interpretation that it’s like an M. Night Shyamalan surprise ending,” Blow said, with the air of one by now accustomed to bottling his rage. “Like, ‘Oh, shit—Tim was a stalker the whole time!’ But that doesn’t even make sense.” Not that Blow would ever actually say outright what *Braid* is about. Every time he’s been asked, he’s given a version of the same reply, which is that the answer is in the game, if only you’re willing to look. In other words: don’t ask me to do your thinking for you. Despite his cool and collected demeanor, Jon Blow is hardly the most patient man in the greater San Francisco area. Faced with any kind of delay, he tends to drum arrhythmically on whatever surface is nearby, or slip into a tai chi sequence. Without ever exuding the frenzied, smartphone-dependent aura of the modern businessman, Blow is a zealous maximizer of his time. He loathes watching sports, because they yield few tangible returns on the hours you invest in them. If the electric razor and the billowy tufts scattered around his bathroom sink are any indication, he appears to cut his own hair in a dozen quick swipes whenever necessary. And to make the half-hour commute from his apartment to Berkeley more constructive, Blow listens to audiobooks of literary classics in his Tesla. When I visited, he had just jettisoned *Anna Karenina* for being “too much like a soap opera.” Now he was listening to *Walden*. Throughout my visit, every time I contorted myself into his Roadster, we would immediately hear an actor doing his best Thoreau impression, declaiming in stentorian tones about the furry beasts in their burrows. This had a certain jarring quality. One day, however, after a long talk about Blow’s vision for *The Witness*, Shockingly Loud Thoreau seemed almost clairvoyant. “With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits,” he proclaimed, “all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers, for certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike.” Blow clicked off the stereo and turned to me. “I honestly didn’t plan that,” he said. In so many words, Loud Thoreau had just described Blow’s central idea for *The Witness*. Whereas so many contemporary games are built on a foundation of shooting or jumping or, let’s say, the creative use of mining equipment to disembowel space zombies, Blow wants the point of *The Witness* to be the act of *noticing*, of paying attention to one’s surroundings. Speaking about it, he begins to sound almost like a Zen master. “Things are pared down to the basic acts of movement and observation until those senses become refined,” he told me. “The further you go into the game, the more it’s not even about the thinking mind anymore—it becomes about the intuitive mind.” As such, *The Witness*’s game-world exudes a monastic sense of quiet and calm that only magnifies the great mystery at its heart. When the game begins, you find yourself in a pitch-dark hallway, your vision centered on a distant patch of light. After trekking forward (*The Witness*, unlike *Braid*, is rendered in 3-D), you emerge into what appears to be a World War II bunker as reenvisioned by IKEA, equipped with sparse modernist furniture, sunlight streaming in through the windows. Soon you discover that you are stranded in a strange complex on a small island (a setup inspired by the classic game *Myst*), whose lush grounds have been sculpted and maintained with Buckingham Palace–level care. The only clues you receive about why you’re there come from a series of audiotapes strewn around the island, narrated by an enigmatic man who claims he wants to help you. “The buildings are all locked—you’ll have to figure out how to get inside,” he says, alluding to the hundreds of blue puzzle panels scattered about. But, he adds, “you have time; you’re not in any danger—no more than I am, anyway.” From here, the game is simplicity itself (aside from the occasionally mind-destroying puzzles, of course). The player can wander freely about the island, taking on challenges in any desired order. The learning curve is nonexistent; all one does in *The Witness* is move around, interact with puzzles, and notice things. This asceticism follows a core precept in Blow’s game-design philosophy. “What I’m doing now is seeing how much you can do and how deep you can go with very minimal control elements,” he told me. “Anytime you pick up a game that has a lot of controls, you have that process of hitting the wrong buttons and wondering, *What does X do, again?* That is not the game-play experience I want.” Rather than make you fiddle with 15 buttons, Blow wants you paying attention to … well, paying attention. And he’s packing *The Witness* with enough environmental details to make mindfulness worthwhile. The first day I spent at his small, open-plan Berkeley office, Blow surveyed the carefully crafted new game-world with an architectural designer named Deanna Van Buren, whom he’d hired to design the island’s buildings. Though Blow and Van Buren had been working on *The Witness*’s architecture for more than a year, the purpose of her visit that day was to gather screenshots of the buildings for a design publication. The island was in disarray, however. Blow and his team of 3-D artists had been aggressively upgrading visuals since the last time I’d seen the game, nearly a year earlier, so while the colors now popped and the water shimmered gorgeously, things had been shuffled haphazardly in the process; trees floated 20 feet above the ground in places, and glitchy patches of grass looked like broken windows into another dimension. None of this posed a problem for Blow, who not only knew the island’s every quirk but had also coded the game’s level-editing program himself. For the first snapshots, Blow piloted himself to “The Keep,” a ruined gray tower situated among hedge mazes and fluffy autumnal trees of red, orange, and yellow. His fingers flew over the keyboard, adding and subtracting visual elements. “Oh, I love that,” Van Buren said when he locked onto a view of a staircase spiraling up inside the tower. “That really tells the story of this place.” Later, Blow sped over to “The Factory,” a spacious red-roofed building that happened to be floating over a rippling expanse of ocean. Blow’s brow furrowed. “Let’s put that on some land,” he said, summoning up a grassy plain. “The vernacular for the island is adaptively reused buildings,” Van Buren told me helpfully as we waited. Because I hadn’t the slightest idea what this meant, I asked whether this was the first video game she’d worked on. “*Pfft*. For sure. You’re not going to find a lot of architects who have done anything like this.” And how did she like designing for a virtual world? She smiled. “It’s a lot more fun than obeying building codes.” Once Van Buren left, Blow set me loose at his own terminal and flopped onto a couch with a laptop to answer some e-mails. Being left to roam filled me with the giddy feeling I had as a kid in the deserted halls of the public-radio station where my dad worked on Sunday mornings; with no supervision, I could plumb the place’s untold secrets. After clicking an editing key, I zoomed through walls and hillsides in search of clue-laden audiotapes from the game’s mysterious narrator. Yet to my surprise, I found few of the trappings of conventional narrative in those tapes—very little backstory or dramatic plotting. Instead, I encountered a series of intensely personal vignettes. In one, the narrator speaks of his lonely childhood in 1970s California; he recalls that every recess, he played alone on a tire swing, closing his eyes and fantasizing that “someday, Just the Right Girl would see me there, eyes still closed; she would walk out there to the tire swing, saying nothing, and she would kiss me lightly … I waited, but this never happened.” In another log, he describes the emotional pain he felt upon beginning to go bald at age 20, and how today “a peninsula of hair juts outward, angled toward the left side of my face.” Perhaps the most striking entry begins like this: “I could have done anything with my life, but somehow I ended up designing puzzles, not least of which are these, here on this island.” I pivoted away from the monitor to look at the man on the sofa—face bathed in the glow of his laptop, widow’s peak veering slightly to the left—and realized with a start that I was wandering around inside Blow’s own mind. Putting aside for a moment Blow’s description of *The Witness *as being based on paying attention, it’s difficult to say exactly what the game is *about*.* *In the first incarnation of its story, Blow worked with Bissell to create a conventional narrative filled with complex characters and dramatic beats—an approach that Blow soon abandoned for being “too Hollywoodized.” (“Only in Jon Blow’s world would a hyper-compressed story based on snapshots from a tormented man’s consciousness be a ‘Hollywood’ script,” Bissell chuckled.) So Blow took over the writing duties and crafted a nonsequential fictional framework that stretches the very idea of narrative in an interactive medium. To solve the mystery of your purpose on the island, then, you must piece together answers from the sphinxlike narrator’s clues. But to return to the question at the beginning of this paragraph, *The Witness* is really about two things: it’s about Jon Blow, and it’s about the meaning of life. Or, combining those two, it’s about the meaning of Jon Blow’s life. The riddle of why someone so fiercely private would decide to publicly reveal his deepest secrets in *The Witness* is a thorny one—especially for Blow, the man who refuses on principle to explain the meaning of his games. Yet answering this question helps us tunnel to the very essence of what makes his games so transformative. For in *The Witness*, Blow aims to do justice to the video game as an artistic medium, fully independent from all of its predecessors. Blow’s refusal to explain the meaning of his games, after all, stems from a profound respect for his art. Ever since modern technology first made sophisticated video games possible, developers have assumed that the artistic fate of the video game is to become “film with interactivity”—game-play interwoven with scenes based on the vernacular of movies. And not just *any* movies. “The de facto reference for a video game is a shitty action movie,” Blow said during a conversation in Chris Hecker’s dining room one sunny afternoon. “You’re not trying to make a game like *Citizen Kane*; you’re trying to make *Bad Boys 2*.” But questions of movie taste notwithstanding, the notion that gaming would even attempt to ape film troubles Blow. As Hecker explained it: “Look, film didn’t get to be film by trying to be theater. First, they had to figure out the things they could do that theater couldn’t, like moving the camera around and editing out of sequence—and only then did film come into its own.” This was why *Citizen Kane* did so much to put filmmaking on the map: not simply because it was well made, but because it provided a rich experience that no other medium before it could have provided. And so Blow, ever loyal to his code, feels it is his responsibility to defend his calling by not reducing video games to the terms we use in dissecting movies and books. This means, somewhat incredibly, that Blow doesn’t believe in even trying to communicate a game’s central message *in words*; the medium itself, he argues, is the message. “If games are just movies with interactivity, if they don’t have anything that’s their core competency, then you can’t really use them effectively,” he explained. “Now, one of those core competencies for games is a certain kind of nonverbal complex communication, right? You play a game for hours, and at the end of it, you hopefully have this somewhat sublime complex understanding of something that’s hard to verbalize, because you got it nonverbally.” To Blow, the puzzles and environments of both *Braid* and *The Witness* function as a “long-form stream of nonverbal communication”—which is why he won’t bastardize them by expressing their messages in words. In one memorable exchange after a talk he gave at Rice University, a student pressed him to explain the opening imagery of *Braid*, and Blow replied with a definitive refusal. “As far as I’m concerned, the entirety of the communication of what is happening there is contained in the game, and that’s all that needs to happen,” he said. “And that’s why I make video games. So that’s why I don’t want to tell you.” Blow’s decision to bare his soul in *The Witness* springs from this same drive to live up to the full potential of his artistic medium; a meaningful game, he believes, must be an honest one. *The Witness*s narrator, he freely admits, is a thinly veiled version of his own psyche. When the narrator speaks of his guilt over spending millions to create an island filled with puzzles instead of using that money for worthier causes, this is Blow’s real spiritual dilemma. When the narrator reflects on his feelings of empty vanity, on his alienation from others, on his “yearning for truth and deep understanding,” these are Blow’s pains and desires. “I don’t think it’s ultimately too important to humanity for me to communicate the issues of my personal life,” he explained. “I’m more interested in talking about the broader facts of existence that transcend individuals, but the way to get at that honestly and non-bullshittingly is through the personal part.” These revelations sting him, but Blow feels that his higher purpose in making *The Witness* justifies the discomfort. “If you can’t even deal with somebody knowing your personal soap-opera secrets about your girlfriend or how you felt when you were a kid or whatever, if you feel the need to keep those things hidden that are so tiny compared to the larger things we need to deal with, how could you ask someone else to go beyond that?” he asked. “It would be fake!” This is what makes Blow’s games so remarkable: at great personal expense, in ways no other developer has even attempted, he struggles to communicate a deeply authentic vision of the meaning of human existence. With both of his games, Blow strives to use the unique language of video games to impart the wisdom he has gained the hard way in his life. In *The Witness*, he hopes to help players try to “step outside their human viewpoint and see what the world is.” And in *Braid*, he sought to communicate something more personal still. One night in his apartment, with the lights of San Francisco twinkling for miles outside his windows, I warned Blow that I was about to do something that might aggravate him: I was going to tell him what I thought *Braid* was about, and he could do with that whatever he wanted. “Okay,” he replied with a half smirk, leaning back in his chair. “So obviously there’s the theme of the creation of the atomic bomb,” I began. “I think you can make a very strong case that that is an unambiguous reference,” he replied, which I interpreted as the Blovian equivalent of *Yes*. “But I think what has frustrated you about people’s interpretations of *Braid* is that the atom bomb itself is a metaphor for a certain kind of knowledge,” I continued. “You’ve been chasing some deep form of understanding all your life, and what I think you’ve found is that questing after that knowledge brings alienation with it. The further you’ve gone down that road, the further it’s taken you from other people. So the knowledge is ultimately destructive to your life, just like the atom bomb was—it’s a kind of truth that has a cataclysmic impact. You thought chasing that knowledge would make you happy, but like Tim, part of you eventually wished you could turn back time and do things over again.” Blow remained silent. “Does that make sense?,” I asked. “Yep, yep.” “So?” He smiled. “Well, I would say that I would not be frustrated at all with that interpretation.” The happiest I ever saw Blow was when we met his friend Marc ten Bosch one night at the Oakland branch of a legendarily artery-obstructing local chain called Zachary’s Chicago Pizza. Ten Bosch is a tall, serious independent developer whose grave reticence provided an entertaining counterpoint to Blow’s philosophical expansiveness. When ten Bosch mentioned that he had worked briefly at Electronic Arts on the team that developed the real-time strategy game *Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3*, I asked whether he’d found the project interesting. Ten Bosch reflected on this for a moment with the solemn intensity of a man testifying before a Senate subcommittee. “There were some cool water effects,” he finally said. “Ooh!,” Blow chimed in. “That’s the ultimate diss!” It was when ten Bosch began explaining his current game project to me that Blow seemed most in his element. Actually, I should amend that to *attempting to**explain*, because in the 20 minutes that ten Bosch spent describing his game, *Miegakure*, pretty much everything he said slid off my brain like raindrops off Gore-Tex. *Miegakure*, he said, is a puzzle-based platformer that takes place in four dimensions—four *spatial* dimensions. “But there *aren’t* four spatial dimensions,” I protested. “Well,” ten Bosch countered, “this is what it would be like if there were.” And that was about the last thing he said that I understood for quite a while, as he and Blow chatted avidly about extruding surfaces and imagining flat planes as tubes. In *Miegakure*, two spatial dimensions are constant, and the player solves puzzles by swapping between the two others with the press of a button. Even as Blow and ten Bosch grew more animated and their explanations more inventive, their words continued to bounce off my forehead like so many tennis balls. Finally, ten Bosch pulled out his iPhone and loaded a sample video of *Miegakure*’s game-play, which featured a tiny redheaded character walking over a floating island. At the player’s cue, the fabric of the game-world suddenly warped and shifted so that the landmass seemed to be refabricating itself from the inside out. The effect was spellbinding. “That’s the fourth dimension,” ten Bosch said. Jaw hanging open, I looked over at Blow, who simply grinned at me. To Blow, a project like *Miegakure* epitomizes what makes the video game a unique and exciting artistic medium. Just as he has worked to communicate something verbally inexpressible about the human condition in *Braid* and in *The Witness*, ten Bosch, in his game, gives players a new perspective on the world in a way that only a game can. “It’s a valuable contribution to human experience, right?,” Blow said later. “The games I like are ones that have shown me something I wouldn’t otherwise have seen, and Marc’s creating an experience that would not have been possible to have, had he not made it. And that’s pretty interesting.” Blow is well aware that reaching for this lofty goal through *The Witness* may make him go broke. He’d like to see the game sell well when it’s released, potentially later this year, but his primary concern is that it fit the artistic parameters he has set for it. “I can always go back to being an independent developer,” he shrugged. “Even if I have zero dollars, I’d be able to do what I did in 2005, but better. If I can just save enough for a year or two of low-budget living, that’s all I need.” Despite his wealth, Blow still thinks like a monk. Which, in a sense, is just what he is—a spiritual seeker, questing after truth in an as-yet-uncharted realm. These are the terms in which he sees his art. “People like us who are doing something a little different from the mainstream have each picked one direction that we strike out in into the desert, but we’re still not very far from camp,” he told me. “There’s just a huge amount of territory to explore out there—and until you have a map of that, nobody can say what games can do.”

Never mind that they’re now among the most lucrative forms of entertainment in America, video games are juvenile, silly, and intellectually lazy. At least that’s what Jonathan Blow thinks. But the game industry’s harshest critic is also its most cerebral developer, a maverick bent on changing the way we think about games and storytelling. With his next release, The Witness, Blow may cement his legacy—or end his career. In a multibillion-dollar industry addicted to laser guns and carnivorous aliens, can true art finally flourish?

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2012-04-02 00:00:00

article

theatlantic.com

The Atlantic

http://www.nextbigwhat.com/kerala-government-raspberry-pi-297/

https://www.benkuhn.net/lux

Your room can be as bright as the outdoors

This is my first winter in Boston after coming back from Senegal. The sun sets at around 4:15 now, and it’s suddenly become *extremely* salient how hard it is for me to focus after dark. I’d vaguely noticed this in the past, and dealt with it by shifting my sleep schedule earlier (or just being unproductive). But I’m waking up around 6:30 now and I already struggle to stay up for evening events. So finally, inspired by some blog posts, I decided to give up on chasing natural sunlight and make my own instead. I bought an extremely bright “corn cob” style bulb. It emits as much light as about 40 incandescents, and produces enough waste heat that it needs an internal cooling fan to dissipate it. I put it next to my desk, in my peripheral vision (it’s somewhat uncomfortable to look at directly). According to my questionably-accurate iPhone light meter, its reflection off the curtains in front of me is brighter than the actual sunlight coming in from the outdoors (at 600 lux), and overall light levels in my interior went from 50 to 400 lux (“sunrise or sunset on a clear day”). (source). Update 2020-11-16: For my home, I ended up switching from the corncob bulb to three 7-way splitters and 21 100W equivalent 5000K Cree bulbs from Home Depot. I found the Cree bulbs on sale so they were about the same price, the light was more diffused and they have a higher color-rendering index. There’s discussion of other alternatives in the comments. The effect was huge: I became dramatically more productive between 3:30pm and whenever I turned off the light. Instead of having a strong urge to stop working whenever it got dark out, I was able to keep working my normal summer schedule, stopping just before dinner. I estimate the lamp bought me between half an hour and two hours a day, depending on how overcast it was. To try to capture the difference, I used a manual camera app to take before and after photos of my desk with the same exposure and white balance. The phone camera doesn’t really capture the full effect since the dynamic range is so small, but hopefully it conveys a little bit of the amazingness: Everyone who’s visited my house after I installed the bulb has remarked on how cheery our living room now is, some of them before noticing the light. My partner and several friends are buying their own. For reference, here’s the stuff I bought (note that the bulb is on sale today): The cheapest-per-lumen “corn bulb” I could find on Amazon, $100 for 30,000 lumens. Note that this one has a built-in cooling fan that runs decently loud (45db at 1m according to my questionably-accurate iPhone sound level meter). These E26 to E39 adapters that will allow the bulb to be put in normal sockets. I didn’t want to mess around with my existing fixtures, so I bought a basic fixture rated for 250 watts. Notes: The clamp on the fixture does nothing with this bulb because it’s too heavy—just take it off. If you don’t want to turn the bulb off by unplugging it, consider an outlet switch like this one (I haven’t tried it personally). Originally I stabilized the fixture by wedging it inside a piece of the lamp’s packing foam (see picture), but today I realized that I could rest the metal guard inside an empty 2lb yogurt container instead, which is better because it leaves room for the power cord to run. if you want to put your bulb in an existing fixture/socket instead, make sure to check (a) that it will fit (it’s very large) and (b) that the socket is rated for 250w (many aren’t). Why doesn’t everybody do this?! All the blog posts were written by/about people who were described as having “crippling” seasonal depression. I’ve never been depressed, which is why it took me so long to give it a try (or even notice the correlation between light and productivity). In retrospect, that was silly. “Seasonal affect disorder” makes it sound like it’s a discrete thing that you have or don’t, but probably everyone has noticed they’re more lethargic on cloudy days. A better model might be that seasonal depression is just the tail end of a curve in how people respond to light: Typical indoor light levels run from 100-500 lux, which *at the high end* is about as bright as sunrise outdoors, and about 100x dimmer than daylight. Other than “we’ve been doing it for a while,” there seems to be no reason to expect that being in a 100x dimmer environment all day *wouldn’t* be awful. Indoor darkness seems to be one of those things that we don’t question only because it’s been that way forever. Until recently, though, questioning it would have been somewhat academic, because it was too expensive to buy (and power) enough bulbs to do anything about it. My bulb is an LED bulb, for which cost per lumen has been falling about 20% per year for the last 50 years (source). LEDs only passed fluorescents in efficiency recently, but they’re still dropping fast. 10 years ago a bulb as bright as mine might have cost $1,000 instead of $100. But as of recently, it’s totally practical to fill your entire house with light that’s as bright as full daylight. Ambient daylight in the shade is about 10k lux, or 10k lumens per square meter. For a 70 m2 apartment, that would be 700k lumens. The bulb I bought is $100 for 35k lumens, so $2k would buy sunlight for the entire apartment. (In another 10 years, if LEDs don’t hit physical limits, it’ll be $200!) To close, some ultra-bright-lamp FAQs: **How is this different from “light therapy lamps”?**Light therapy lamps are*weak*. They only give you a reasonable amount of light if you point them directly at your face from around a foot away. A high-power corn bulb makes your entire room much brighter, thus providing a much better simulation of daylight. See “You need more lumens.”**Isn’t this expensive to run?**It draws about 2 kWh per day (assuming 8h of usage), which costs about $0.30 at typical rates. This is comparable to one day of a modern fridge or one load of laundry. Power is cheap, folks!**Isn’t using this much power bad for the planet?**Coal has a carbon intensity of about 1 kg CO2e / kWh (source), so one coal-powered lamp-day produces 2 kg, approximately one-third to one-half of a cheeseburger (source).**Isn’t 5000K very “cold” light?**“Cold” lights (above 2700k, the typical incandescent color temperature) have a bad reputation, but 5000K is actually less cold than the sun (which is about 5500-6500K), which clearly does not have a bad reputation. My totally non-validated theory is that people don’t like cold light because most cold lights (historically, mostly fluorescents) have much worse color rendering than incandescents: that is, they emit light only in discrete parts of the visible spectrum, which changes the relative appearance of colors and makes everything look weird. For instance, compare the two example spectra of a fluorescent vs. an incandescent: **Doesn’t it make it hard to sleep?**Yup, bulbs this bright suppress my sleepiness dramatically (that’s partly the point!). I shut it off every day when I’m done working, usually at 6pm, about 3 hours before bedtime.**What are the downsides?**The lamp flickers when other current-hungry appliances turn on,1has a loud fan, looks ugly, is hard to set up a nice fixture for, doesn’t have an on/off switch (I just unplug it), and doesn’t make it easy to provide even illumination throughout a space. I’m working on building a DIY ultra-bright lighting setup that I expect to be way more effective on all these dimensions—stay tuned. One HN commenter points out that this may be a problem with my house’s electrical wiring. Thanks! ↩︎ *Some links in this post are affiliate links; proceeds go to GiveWell.* ## Comments I found it fascinating how different your experience from me. For instance: “but probably everyone has noticed they’re more lethargic on cloudy days” - no, those are the days I feel super energised, full of possibility etc. Whereas really sunny days make me want to hide. Similarly “there seems to be no reason to expect that being in a 100x dimmer environment all day wouldn’t be awful” - not for me. I pull my blinds down, wish I had better curtains, and even shut my internal doors to minimise the light leaking into my study. Anyway, I love that we are all different :) Can confirm, this is me too. I love a dark room. I’m much more productive in winter months. Work best at night. I use intense white light to wake myself up, but I prefer the evenings to be like siting by an open fire: red light, low down, Great article but yes I’ll concur with this thread - I use Philips Hue and have most of the lights fairly dim, with a candle like hue throughout winter. Great atmosphere and makes me very creative. Same here. I find the premise completely alien. I love working at night when the bright sun isn’t inviting me outside. check out https://microsunlamps.com/how-a-microsun-works/ as I believe it is a very similar (better?) version These look prettier, but are 1/5 as bright for twice the price. “cold lights”: I think there’re two things going on here. What is the CRI of the corn bulb? I noticed low-CRI LEDs are much more depressing than high-CRI lights. High CRI lights are virtually indistinguishable from sunlight. It is allegedly 80 according to the product page–not that I particularly trust CRI measurements from random no-name Amazon sellers… I do think a higher CRI bulb would be a pretty big improvement, but it seems to be hard to find the combination of high CRI, high temperature and lots of lumens. My coworker got excited by Yuji high bay lights but they are ~6x the cost per lumen of the bulb. Now that the light has transitioned from “random experiment” to “expect to use forever” it’s probably going to be worth it for me though. I’ve been playing with the concept of simulating daylight too. Repurposing the Fresnel lenses from old LCD screens allows you to create fake depth and a much more convincing daylight effect. Highly recommended for this type of project. Very curious to hear your experience with this! I’ve been thinking about this on and off for the past few months - also came across Fresnel lenses as the potential solution so was going to try to get some See also the worldwide “epidemic” of myopia, which may be caused by inadequate light during the day during childhood. Increasing artificial lighting in classrooms is a more realistic alternative to rebuilding all of them (see also this WSJ article to which I no longer have access). 250W for a light bulb is insane these days. I live “a bit” further north, at 60 degrees. By my experience, you do want a lot of lumen, but at the same time you do want to keep the light pleasant and soft, that means a large illuminating area. An example of such a light in action is a photography light box. To my knowledge you want a high lux, but rather low nit, that seems to be more important than excellent cri. One possibility is to point the high powered light to a (white) ceiling. Has your ability to fall asleep, or sleep quality been impacted at all? I always turn the light off when I’m done working, about 3h before bed usually. So far, that’s worked fine. Could you add a graph of the spectrum of non-clouded sunlight? Hi, there, I’ve tried your recipe this thanksgiving yet when the fixture arrived I found it was probably way too small for e39 core light bulb. How did you ever fix that into socket? (there’s noted e26 in its amazon item title) Oh, crap–I must have used one of the adapters I bought and then forgotten about it. Sorry about that! I’ll edit the post to reflect it. The link to the adapter seems to go to something called “JESLED Non Shunted LED Tombstones - (Pack of 50)”. Huh, no idea how that happened, but should be fixed now–thanks for flagging! Hi Ben, nice post. I’ve spent a fair amount thinking about this and experimenting with different setups. I prefer using (many) normal commercially available light bulbs. I think the light quality is likely to be higher, plus it gives you a bunch of flexible lights you can place where you want and move around the room. Placement is especially important because the amount of light that reaches your eye is proportional to the inverse square of the distance :). My suggested setup comes out the same cost per lumen as yours. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WDsxhXzwSboOFqL7xorexY0kEb5fpLIv0ko0In87OT4/edit?usp=sharing Always happy to chat more about this. Yup, that’s another useful approach! I think the main advantage of the corn bulb is easier setup (and placement, like you mention, actually–it’s easy to put the entire corn bulb 5’ from my face, and would be harder with a large mass of A19s.) If I were doing this with bulbs, especially if I were looking for higher quality light, I’d try to find ones with a higher CRI (“color rendering index”) than the ones you listed, which are not rated substantially higher than the corn bulb. Home Depot sells many Cree bulbs sporting 90+ CRI; these are noticeably cheap but require more sockets. Speaking of sockets, looks like these string lights achieve a total wiring cost of about $1.21 per bulb, vs $4.20 per bulb in your spreadsheet, which should drive the cost down a lot at the cost of even more diffuse light. Do you know if it’s possible to use dimmable bulbs in a normal socket, and get the maximum brightness the bulb is advertised for? Also, Staticman looks cool! I’ve never verified this, but I’m pretty sure it is possible–I think “dimmable” bulbs are designed to work with dimmer switches that produce normal AC power when the dimmer is at 100%. (I currently have some dimmable bulbs in non-dimming switches, and they do not look noticeably underpowered.) https://www.benkuhn.net/img/lux/sad.jpg Is this created with remarkable tablet? Just wondering. I contacted the referenced bulb manufacturer via Amazon and they are working on making a frosted cover for this bulb that should make the light more pleasant. They said they should have it ready in about a week. Wow, fast turnaround! So you contacted the “GE RUN” seller? Thanks for this post, Ben. Any ideas on how to somewhat shade the light bulb as it’s hard on the eyes in plain view? Hey Ben, Thank you for this thorough blog post. I bought everything that you did and it’s on the way. However, I just saw a 26K lumen bulb that’s on sale for $10: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L6C6RP5/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Fn-6DbN1A9XFK My question is fundamentally about safety. How do I judge that bulb from a safety standpoint? It seems like a better deal but it, and the bulb you recommend as well, is seemingly sold by a random Chinese company. Is there any concern, especially given the relatively high wattage of these giant lightbulbs? Furthermore, is there any profoundly incorrect usage that you would warn against? For example, I plan on plugging the bulb into a smart outlet which is in turn plugged into a wall outlet, and I don’t know if that extra layer would pose a hazard for whatever reason. I just don’t want to start a fire. Thanks in advance. That specific listing on Amazon looks like a pricing mistake… Just to follow up. The light bulb manufacturer that was referenced in this post created and sent me the corncob bulb with a cream cover instead of clear. The bulb is just as bright but not as intense. It is pleasant to look at. A link to the picture they sent me when they devoloped it is here: https://imgur.com/gallery/NX8WskG . After trying it out I strongly encouraged them to sell this style on Amazon as well. I’m really impressed with the amazing customer service this company has shown so far. About the “cold” light statement: I think this can be better explained by the Kruithof curve rather than CRI. Ooh, thanks for the link, that makes a ton of sense! Will update the article :) Thought you might find this interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVV_-aB1jpg They replicate natural light so perfectly people can’t tell the difference. The company is called Innerscene For any recent readers, I ended up switching from the corncob bulb to three 7-way splitters and 21 100W equivalent 5000K Cree bulbs from Home Depot. I found the Cree bulbs on sale so they were approximately equally cost effective, the light was more diffused and they have a higher color-rendering index. Thanks for the update! I just ordered. Going to use that in another part of the house. Thanks for the update Ben. Can you supply a picture of your new lighting rig? Also, are the bulbs still dimmable with the 7-way splitters? I got the corncob and I love it but I also wish it was more diffuse. Your new setup almost warrants another article. I installed them in my recessed lighting and yes they are still dimmable with the 7 way splitters. I too would love to see Ben’s new setup. Some of the reviews on 7-way splitters, including the one Ben linked, are concerning…I wouldn’t risk a house fire. The corn bulb has been working perfectly for me - I hope it is safe. I have kept it in the same wire cage and foam base that Ben suggested. For the most part I have felt that it is safe, but the setup isn’t sturdy and when the bulb falls over it really heats up on the side facing my carpet. I’m open to suggestions for a more premium base. I would also appreciate it if anyone can weigh in on the overall safety of using cob bulbs on the ground indoors as opposed to the ceiling in a commercial setting. This thing has been a real boon, but it would be great to be reassured as to its safety. Lastly, if cost wasn’t as much of a constraint, and someone was willing to spend $300-500 for the same amount of lumens, is there something better out there that is less jarring/janky for consumer use? (dimmable/more attractive/more diffuse/adjustable/no fan). It doesn’t have to be a singular device. For example, I’m fine with putting a light fixture in each corner of my room. I know that’s a lot of questions, but we’re in unexplored territory folks. I don’t know anyone playing with commercial-grade light in the household. It should be more popular! Reading this blog was the single highest return blog ever for me, and it’s not even close. I’m talking exponentially better. Major kudos to Ben. Now I’m looking at buying 3-4 of the Viltrox VL-D85T photography light: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1459194-REG/viltrox_vl_d85t_vld85t_professional_photography_led.html?ap=y&smp=y It is high CRI, dimmable, more diffuse (panel light), has adjustable color temperature, can be used closer to you (especially as a wakeup light), and seems more practical for multi-hour usage. Specs: http://viltrox.com/en/index.php?m=index&a=show&cid=153&id=189 This looks promising but I’m still open to recommendations. Hi John, I’m curious to hear where you’ve landed. I’m hoping to find something relatively “normal” looking, just REALLY BRIGHT – so I’m fishing through Ikea and West Elm floor lamp fixtures to try to find one that can fit the dimensions (and voltage) of a midrange corn bulb, like this 120W, 4000K, 17,000 lumens bulb: https://www.prolighting.com/brands/sylvania/sylvania-led-corn-cob/syl-40722.html Would love to hear about your progress. Hey Aaron, I think I’m settled on the photography lights that I linked above. I would start with one, and put it right next to my bed. Because of the proximity and directness of the light (compared to the cob bulb), I might not need as many total lumens. If I do, I can just scale up and buy a couple more. It’s not a critical purchase right now since I have the cob bulb so I won’t have an update on that for a while. The problem with the cob bulbs, other than the considerations I mentioned above, is that they evoke a sense of danger to other people in the household. Even if you are completely assured of the bulb’s safety and you never stare at it, others are still going to be wary of this device that is 30-40x brighter than a lightbulb and is meant for warehouse settings. This might not hold true for a bulb that is “merely” 20x brighter, like the one that you mentioned, but it may. Let me know if you get it though. I would certainly prefer 2 of those to 1 bulb with double the brightness. Hi! Just to update on what I’ve done in my home office, which is on the first floor and has been starting to feel dim in the late fall: A “merely” 80W corn bulb – (I got a 4000K, and will now also get a 3000K): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Z1VSH19/ And this simple but pleasant fixture: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011XV53HO/ Along with the E26 to E39 adapter that Ben mentioned: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DW260Y2/ I had to do a tiny bit of surgery on the fixture so that the wire would fit around the bulb – just snipping it and extending with a bit of stiff wire (you could probably use a wire clothes hanger), binding it back together with electrical tape. This is what it looks like: https://imgur.com/a/tNUAZ9o So far I’m extremely happy with it, and am now ordering a second fixture and a second bulb – this time 3000K, for a little warmer feel. It’s not the absolute brightest possible setup, but it is less unpleasantly “naked” than Ben’s original setup. I feel pretty good about the safety – though I’m running an 80W bulb in a fixture that says its max is 75W, and I will keep an eye on the temperature, since it’s a wide bulb in a tube fixture. There’s a good 3 or 4 inches clearance from the bulb to the shade. Hope this helps somebody! John, would love your report on the photography light – sounds like you’re going for a “blast me out of the darkness of sleep into daytime” effect, which those lights look great for. Is the 7 way splitter for putting in 4 different sockets in your ceiling, or did you make a giant lamp out of it? Im trying to figure out how to make a high cri or full spectrum lamp that is about as bright as 30k+ lumens. Since all those morning bright light lamps for 10k lux only have that at like 6 inches away. Have you tried using this type of light for the waking up cue you mention here: https://www.benkuhn.net/zero/ ? They are waytoo bright (and non-dimmable) for that! Someone turned one on while I was sleeping once and it was actually pretty scary.Wow, now you got me scared! I was imagining it would be like waking up with the sun on your face, given its brightness (and plus some noise lol). But from what you describe it seems much more intense than that. Maybe that’s a consequence of the (unnatural) abruptness of it turning on? Yes, it’s about the abrupt transition. If they were dimmable it would probably be fine. Peter, I am a former night owl and I have been using this setup in combination with the Kasa smart plug. It has been utterly life changing. I set the wakeup time the night before. Sometimes I set it as early as 4:30. It wakes me up instantly. I sit in bed for 5-10 minutes while I let the light increase my wakefulness and anchor my circadian rhythm. I am now suspicious of sleep chronotypes. I’m sure they exist, but clearly our circadian rhythm is EXTREMELY pliable. The key is bringing the sun indoors, which would have been laughably impractical before consumer LEDs came about. Let me know if you have any questions. The meaningness.com article in your post had a small update; it now links to another article about an alternative lighting solution, LED light bars. Nice Blog! I was wondering if you had an idea which light to use, maybe even to DIY that gives off enough light to turn night into day in my room against winter depression. I read a lot about safety risks, such as wrong frequencies (UV). So I would like to be sure I’m not creating a permanent health problem while trying to fix a detrimental permanent one. Any ideas? (the cheaper the better, value wins) I’ve never heard of corn light bulbs before, but I’m going to give it a try! I’m always sleepy in my work-from-home office with the poor lighting that’s in there now. test I’m curious - is anyone using bright LED strips to achieve a very bright illumination? It looks like corn bulbs have gotten cheaper since 2020, and many are now fanless: https://dragonlightstore.com/ This page is not usable on phone

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2019-11-26 00:00:00

https://www.billboard.com/pro/band-ok-go-sued-post-foods-ok-go-cereal-brand/

Band v. Brand: How Did Indie Rockers OK Go End Up in a Legal Battle Over Cereal?

Bill Donahue

# Band v. Brand: How Did Indie Rockers OK Go End Up in a Legal Battle Over Cereal? Post says the band threatened "unfounded" litigation over a new line of cereal cups. The rockers say the snack giant wants to "bully us out of our own name." If you saw a portable snack package of Fruity Pebbles or Honey Bunches of Oats under the brand name “OK Go!” on a supermarket shelf, would you think that the rock band OK Go was somehow involved? That bizarre question is at the center of a new lawsuit filed by cereal giant Post Foods against the power pop band, which is best known for its viral music videos, including a Grammy-winning video for the song “Here It Goes Again.” In a complaint filed Friday (Jan. 13) in Minnesota federal court, Post said OK Go had been quietly threatening to sue for months, claiming that the company had infringed the trademark rights to the band’s name by launching the new on-the-go packages earlier this month. “Without resolution by this court, Post will be unfairly forced to continue investing in its new OK GO! brand while under the constant threat of unfounded future litigation by defendants,” the cereal company wrote in its lawsuit. ### Trending on Billboard Post is seeking what’s known as a “declaratory judgment,” meaning a ruling by a judge that says the company did nothing wrong. Post says the trademark rights of a rock band like OK Go don’t extend to an unrelated product like cereal, and that the new cups of Fruity Pebbles and other cereals are clearly marked with Post’s own branding to avoid any confusion. In a statement to *Billboard*, the members of OK Go said they’d been surprised to learn of Post’s lawsuit. “A big corporation chose to steal the name of our band to market disposable plastic cups of sugar to children. That was an unwelcome surprise, to say the least,” the band wrote. “But then they sue US about it? Presumably, the idea is that they can just bully us out of our own name, since they have so much more money to spend on lawyers? I guess that’s often how it works, but hopefully, we’ll be the exception.” According to Post’s lawsuit, the dispute with OK Go goes back many months — and court records reveal the kind of legal back-and-forth that often precedes such litigation. Back in September, an attorney for the band sent a cease-and-desist letter to Post, saying that OK Go had been “surprised and alarmed” to see Post’s use of its name on the new products. He claimed the new brand name would “suggest to consumers that OK Go is endorsing Post’s products,” or falsely imply that the cereal company had received permission to use the band’s name on its products. Citing advertising collaborations with brands like Sony, Mercedes Benz, Google and Chevrolet, the band’s attorney argued that consumers had come to associate the “OK Go” name with consumer products across an array of industries. And he made particular mention that the band had even previously worked with Post itself, releasing a series of promotional videos for Honey Bunches of Oats back in 2011. “Our client regards this matter with the utmost seriousness and has authorized us to take all steps necessary in any venue to protect its rights,” OK Go’s attorney wrote in the September letter. “If we do not hear from you within 10 days of the date of this letter, we will assume that Post does not wish to resolve this matter amicably.” A week later, an attorney representing Post responded, saying that the company must “respectfully disagree” with the band’s accusations. The attorney argued that rock music and breakfast cereal were “clearly unrelated” products and that the phrase “OK Go” was merely a common term that had previously been used by many other companies on their products. He also flatly rejected the band’s arguments about its previous work promoting Honey Bunches of Oats. “Given the length of time that has passed since that limited collaboration over a decade ago, the very small number of views indicated on the YouTube videos you referenced, and the general consuming public’s rather short attention span, it will also have absolutely no bearing on consumer perception of Post’s mark OK GO! used with cereal or cereal-based snacks, and will not lead to any mistaken association with OK Go,” Post’s attorney wrote in the response. According to Post’s complaint on Friday, the company offered to pay the band as part of a “good faith effort” to resolve the dispute without resorting to litigation, despite its belief that the accusations lacked legal merit. The total figure that Post offered for such a “branding collaboration/co-marketing arrangement” was not disclosed in court documents. But the food company says OK Go rejected that offer last week and made no counter-proposal, leaving Post with no choice but to file a lawsuit. Citing a “clear threat of potential litigation,” Post wrote that the judge must rule that the company is “free to use the OK GO! Mark.” The case was filed in federal court in Minnesota, where Post is headquartered. An attorney for Post did not immediately return a request for comment on the lawsuit. **Read the entire lawsuit here:**

The band OK Go has been sued by Post Foods over the company's "OK Go!" cereal brand.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2023-01-17 00:00:00

article

billboard.com

Billboard

http://ibmresearchnews.blogspot.com/2011/08/this-cognitive-computing-chip-taught.html

IBM's first cognitive computing chips mimic functions of the brain

A cognitive computing system monitoring the world's oceans could contain a network of sensors and actuators that constantly record and report metrics such as temperature, pressure, wave height, acoustics and ocean tide, and issue tsunami warnings based on its decision making. Similarly, a grocer stocking store shelves could use an instrumented glove that monitors sights, smells, texture and temperature to flag bad or contaminated produce. |

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2011-08-01 00:00:00

ibm.com

ibm.com

https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/12/23400273/microsoft-adaptive-accessories-release-date-accessibility-kit

Microsoft’s Adaptive Accessories will arive on October 24

Jess Weatherbed

Microsoft has announced that its range of Adaptive Accessories will be available to purchase starting on October 25th in select markets. The Adaptive Accessories were first announced in May and are designed to address common issues that can prevent people from getting the most out of their PC, especially if they have difficulty using a traditional mouse and keyboard. The wireless system includes a programmable button, an adaptive mouse, and the Microsoft Adaptive Hub, which connects up to four Microsoft Adaptive Buttons to as many as three devices. The mouse is a small, square-shaped puck that can clip into a palm rest with a removable tail and thumb support. The mouse and button can be customized using a range of modular components, enabling users to find the best fit to suit their usability requirements. For example, the adaptive buttons let you add eight programmable inputs to your computer, allowing them to be used as a joystick or D-pad. You also don’t need to buy these custom devices from Microsoft. The mouse and button support 3D-printed accessories for a fully personalized experience, and both Business and Education customers will be able to 3D-print adaptive grips from Shapeways for the Microsoft Business Pen and Microsoft Classroom Pen 2. Community designers have previously made free printable files available for other accessibility accessories, such as the Xbox Adaptive Controller, so here’s hoping the Microsoft Adaptive Accessories can build a similarly diverse library for its user base. No price has been provided for the Adaptive Accessories at this time. We’ve reached out to Microsoft and will update this story should we hear back.

Coming to “select markets” with no confirmed pricing.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2022-10-12 00:00:00

article

theverge.com

The Verge

https://github.com/yoshuawuyts/choo

GitHub - choojs/choo: :steam_locomotive::train: - sturdy 4kb frontend framework

Choojs

**Fun functional programming** `4kb` framework for creating sturdy frontend applications The little framework that could. Built with ❤︎ by Yoshua Wuyts and contributors - Features - Example - Philosophy - Events - State - Routing - Server Rendering - Components - Optimizations - FAQ - API - Installation - See Also - Support **minimal size:**weighing`4kb` , Choo is a tiny little framework**event based:**our performant event system makes writing apps easy**small api:**with only 6 methods there's not much to learn**minimal tooling:**built for the cutting edge`browserify` compiler**isomorphic:**renders seamlessly in both Node and browsers**very cute:**choo choo! ``` var html = require('choo/html') var devtools = require('choo-devtools') var choo = require('choo') var app = choo() app.use(devtools()) app.use(countStore) app.route('/', mainView) app.mount('body') function mainView (state, emit) { return html` <body> <h1>count is ${state.count}</h1> <button onclick=${onclick}>Increment</button> </body> ` function onclick () { emit('increment', 1) } } function countStore (state, emitter) { state.count = 0 emitter.on('increment', function (count) { state.count += count emitter.emit('render') }) } ``` Want to see more examples? Check out the Choo handbook. We believe programming should be fun and light, not stern and stressful. It's cool to be cute; using serious words without explaining them doesn't make for better results - if anything it scares people off. We don't want to be scary, we want to be nice and fun, and then *casually* be the best choice around. *Real casually.* We believe frameworks should be disposable, and components recyclable. We don't want a web where walled gardens jealously compete with one another. By making the DOM the lowest common denominator, switching from one framework to another becomes frictionless. Choo is modest in its design; we don't believe it will be top of the class forever, so we've made it as easy to toss out as it is to pick up. We don't believe that bigger is better. Big APIs, large complexities, long files - we see them as omens of impending userland complexity. We want everyone on a team, no matter the size, to fully understand how an application is laid out. And once an application is built, we want it to be small, performant and easy to reason about. All of which makes for easy to debug code, better results and super smiley faces. At the core of Choo is an event emitter, which is used for both application logic but also to interface with the framework itself. The package we use for this is nanobus. You can access the emitter through `app.use(state, emitter, app)` , `app.route(route, view(state, emit))` or `app.emitter` . Routes only have access to the `emitter.emit` method to encourage people to separate business logic from render logic. The purpose of the emitter is two-fold: it allows wiring up application code together, and splitting it off nicely - but it also allows communicating with the Choo framework itself. All events can be read as constants from `state.events` . Choo ships with the following events built in: Choo emits this when the DOM is ready. Similar to the DOM's `'DOMContentLoaded'` event, except it will be emitted even if the listener is added *after* the DOM became ready. Uses document-ready under the hood. This event should be emitted to re-render the DOM. A common pattern is to update the `state` object, and then emit the `'render'` event straight after. Note that `'render'` will only have an effect once the `DOMContentLoaded` event has been fired. Choo emits this event whenever routes change. This is triggered by either `'pushState'` , `'replaceState'` or `'popState'` . This event should be emitted to navigate to a new route. The new route is added to the browser's history stack, and will emit `'navigate'` and `'render'` . Similar to history.pushState. This event should be emitted to navigate to a new route. The new route replaces the current entry in the browser's history stack, and will emit `'navigate'` and `'render'` . Similar to history.replaceState. This event is emitted when the user hits the 'back' button in their browser. The new route will be a previous entry in the browser's history stack, and immediately afterward the`'navigate'` and `'render'` events will be emitted. Similar to history.popState. (Note that `emit('popState')` will *not* cause a popState action - use `history.go(-1)` for that - this is different from the behaviour of `pushState` and `replaceState` !) This event should be emitted whenever the `document.title` needs to be updated. It will set both `document.title` and `state.title` . This value can be used when server rendering to accurately include a `<title>` tag in the header. This is derived from the DOMTitleChanged event. Choo comes with a shared state object. This object can be mutated freely, and is passed into the view functions whenever `'render'` is emitted. The state object comes with a few properties set. When initializing the application, `window.initialState` is used to provision the initial state. This is especially useful when combined with server rendering. See server rendering for more details. A mapping of Choo's built in events. It's recommended to extend this object with your application's events. By defining your event names once and setting them on `state.events` , it reduces the chance of typos, generally autocompletes better, makes refactoring easier and compresses better. The current params taken from the route. E.g. `/foo/:bar` becomes available as `state.params.bar` If a wildcard route is used (`/foo/*` ) it's available as `state.params.wildcard` . An object containing the current queryString. `/foo?bin=baz` becomes `{ bin: 'baz' }` . An object containing the current href. `/foo?bin=baz` becomes `/foo` . The current name of the route used in the router (e.g. `/foo/:bar` ). The current page title. Can be set using the `DOMTitleChange` event. An object *recommended* to use for local component state. Generic class cache. Will lookup Component instance by id and create one if not found. Useful for working with stateful components. Choo is an application level framework. This means that it takes care of everything related to routing and pathnames for you. Params can be registered by prepending the route name with `:routename` , e.g. `/foo/:bar/:baz` . The value of the param will be saved on `state.params` (e.g. `state.params.bar` ). Wildcard routes can be registered with `*` , e.g. `/foo/*` . The value of the wildcard will be saved under `state.params.wildcard` . Sometimes a route doesn't match, and you want to display a page to handle it. You can do this by declaring `app.route('*', handler)` to handle all routes that didn't match anything else. Querystrings (e.g. `?foo=bar` ) are ignored when matching routes. An object containing the key-value mappings exists as `state.query` . By default, hashes are ignored when routing. When enabling hash routing (`choo({ hash: true })` ) hashes will be treated as part of the url, converting `/foo#bar` to `/foo/bar` . This is useful if the application is not mounted at the website root. Unless hash routing is enabled, if a hash is found we check if there's an anchor on the same page, and will scroll the element into view. Using both hashes in URLs and anchor links on the page is generally not recommended. By default all clicks on `<a>` tags are handled by the router through the nanohref module. This can be disabled application-wide by passing `{ href: false }` to the application constructor. The event is not handled under the following conditions: - the click event had `.preventDefault()` called on it - the link has a `target="_blank"` attribute with`rel="noopener noreferrer"` - a modifier key is enabled (e.g. `ctrl` ,`alt` ,`shift` or`meta` ) - the link's href starts with protocol handler such as `mailto:` or`dat:` - the link points to a different host - the link has a `download` attribute :warn: Note that we only handle `target=_blank` if they also have `rel="noopener noreferrer"` on them. This is needed to properly sandbox web pages. To navigate routes you can emit `'pushState'` , `'popState'` or `'replaceState'` . See #events for more details about these events. Choo was built with Node in mind. To render on the server call `.toString(route, [state])` on your `choo` instance. ``` var html = require('choo/html') var choo = require('choo') var app = choo() app.route('/', function (state, emit) { return html`<div>Hello ${state.name}</div>` }) var state = { name: 'Node' } var string = app.toString('/', state) console.log(string) // => '<div>Hello Node</div>' ``` When starting an application in the browser, it's recommended to provide the same `state` object available as `window.initialState` . When the application is started, it'll be used to initialize the application state. The process of server rendering, and providing an initial state on the client to create the exact same document is also known as "rehydration". For security purposes, after `window.initialState` is used it is deleted from the `window` object. ``` <html> <head> <script>window.initialState = { initial: 'state' }</script> </head> <body> </body> </html> ``` From time to time there will arise a need to have an element in an application hold a self-contained state or to not rerender when the application does. This is common when using 3rd party libraries to e.g. display an interactive map or a graph and you rely on this 3rd party library to handle modifications to the DOM. Components come baked in to Choo for these kinds of situations. See nanocomponent for documentation on the component class. ``` // map.js var html = require('choo/html') var mapboxgl = require('mapbox-gl') var Component = require('choo/component') module.exports = class Map extends Component { constructor (id, state, emit) { super(id) this.local = state.components[id] = {} } load (element) { this.map = new mapboxgl.Map({ container: element, center: this.local.center }) } update (center) { if (center.join() !== this.local.center.join()) { this.map.setCenter(center) } return false } createElement (center) { this.local.center = center return html`<div></div>` } } ``` ``` // index.js var choo = require('choo') var html = require('choo/html') var Map = require('./map.js') var app = choo() app.route('/', mainView) app.mount('body') function mainView (state, emit) { return html` <body> <button onclick=${onclick}>Where am i?</button> ${state.cache(Map, 'my-map').render(state.center)} </body> ` function onclick () { emit('locate') } } app.use(function (state, emitter) { state.center = [18.0704503, 59.3244897] emitter.on('locate', function () { window.navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function (position) { state.center = [position.coords.longitude, position.coords.latitude] emitter.emit('render') }) }) }) ``` When working with stateful components, one will need to keep track of component instances – `state.cache` does just that. The component cache is a function which takes a component class and a unique id (`string` ) as its first two arguments. Any following arguments will be forwarded to the component constructor together with `state` and `emit` . The default class cache is an LRU cache (using nanolru), meaning it will only hold on to a fixed amount of class instances (`100` by default) before starting to evict the least-recently-used instances. This behavior can be overriden with options. Choo is reasonably fast out of the box. But sometimes you might hit a scenario where a particular part of the UI slows down the application, and you want to speed it up. Here are some optimizations that are possible. Sometimes we want to tell the algorithm to not evaluate certain nodes (and its children). This can be because we're sure they haven't changed, or perhaps because another piece of code is managing that part of the DOM tree. To achieve this `nanomorph` evaluates the `.isSameNode()` method on nodes to determine if they should be updated or not. ``` var el = html`<div>node</div>` // tell nanomorph to not compare the DOM tree if they're both divs el.isSameNode = function (target) { return (target && target.nodeName && target.nodeName === 'DIV') } ``` It's common to work with lists of elements on the DOM. Adding, removing or reordering elements in a list can be rather expensive. To optimize this you can add an `id` attribute to a DOM node. When reordering nodes it will compare nodes with the same ID against each other, resulting in far fewer re-renders. This is especially potent when coupled with DOM node caching. ``` var el = html` <section> <div id="first">hello</div> <div id="second">world</div> </section> ` ``` We use the `require('assert')` module from Node core to provide helpful error messages in development. In production you probably want to strip this using unassertify. To convert inlined HTML to valid DOM nodes we use `require('nanohtml')` . This has overhead during runtime, so for production environments we should unwrap this using the nanohtml transform. Setting up browserify transforms can sometimes be a bit of hassle; to make this more convenient we recommend using bankai build to build your assets for production. Because I thought it sounded cute. All these programs talk about being *"performant"*, *"rigid"*, *"robust"* - I like programming to be light, fun and non-scary. Choo embraces that. Also imagine telling some business people you chose to rewrite something critical for serious bizcorp using a train themed framework. :steam_locomotive::train::train::train: It's called "Choo", though we're fine if you call it "Choo-choo" or "Chugga-chugga-choo-choo" too. The only time "choo.js" is tolerated is if / when you shimmy like you're a locomotive. Choo uses nanomorph, which diffs real DOM nodes instead of virtual nodes. It turns out that browsers are actually ridiculously good at dealing with DOM nodes, and it has the added benefit of working with *any* library that produces valid DOM nodes. So to put a long answer short: we're using something even better. Template strings aren't supported in all browsers, and parsing them creates significant overhead. To optimize we recommend running `browserify` with nanohtml as a global transform or using bankai directly. `$ browserify -g nanohtml` Sure. This section provides documentation on how each function in Choo works. It's intended to be a technical reference. If you're interested in learning choo for the first time, consider reading through the handbook first :sparkles: Initialize a new `choo` instance. `opts` can also contain the following values: **opts.history:**default:`true` . Listen for url changes through the history API.**opts.href:**default:`true` . Handle all relative`<a href="<location>"></a>` clicks and call`emit('render')` **opts.cache:**default:`undefined` . Override default class cache used by`state.cache` . Can be a a`number` (maximum number of instances in cache, default`100` ) or an`object` with a nanolru-compatible API.**opts.hash:**default:`false` . Treat hashes in URLs as part of the pathname, transforming`/foo#bar` to`/foo/bar` . This is useful if the application is not mounted at the website root. Call a function and pass it a `state` , `emitter` and `app` . `emitter` is an instance of nanobus. You can listen to messages by calling `emitter.on()` and emit messages by calling `emitter.emit()` . `app` is the same Choo instance. Callbacks passed to `app.use()` are commonly referred to as `'stores'` . If the callback has a `.storeName` property on it, it will be used to identify the callback during tracing. See #events for an overview of all events. Register a route on the router. The handler function is passed `app.state` and `app.emitter.emit` as arguments. Uses nanorouter under the hood. See #routing for an overview of how to use routing efficiently. Start the application and mount it on the given `querySelector` , the given selector can be a String or a DOM element. In the browser, this will *replace* the selector provided with the tree returned from `app.start()` . If you want to add the app as a child to an element, use `app.start()` to obtain the tree and manually append it. On the server, this will save the `selector` on the app instance. When doing server side rendering, you can then check the `app.selector` property to see where the render result should be inserted. Returns `this` , so you can easily export the application for server side rendering: `module.exports = app.mount('body')` Start the application. Returns a tree of DOM nodes that can be mounted using `document.body.appendChild()` . Render the application to a string. Useful for rendering on the server. Create DOM nodes from template string literals. Exposes nanohtml. Can be optimized using nanohtml. Exposes nanohtml/raw helper for rendering raw HTML content. `$ npm install choo` - bankai - streaming asset compiler - stack.gl - open software ecosystem for WebGL - yo-yo - tiny library for modular UI - tachyons - functional CSS for humans - sheetify - modular CSS bundler for `browserify` Creating a quality framework takes a lot of time. Unlike others frameworks, Choo is completely independently funded. We fight for our users. This does mean however that we also have to spend time working contracts to pay the bills. This is where you can help: by chipping in you can ensure more time is spent improving Choo rather than dealing with distractions. Become a sponsor and help ensure the development of independent quality software. You can help us keep the lights on, bellies full and work days sharp and focused on improving the state of the web. Become a sponsor Become a backer, and buy us a coffee (or perhaps lunch?) every month or so. Become a backer

:steam_locomotive::train: - sturdy 4kb frontend framework - choojs/choo

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2016-05-10 00:00:00

https://opengraph.githubassets.com/03023c44fb81bf2314025db8a01bde4009e4e62ccc048f88ae7b30bf98c75e65/choojs/choo

object

github.com

GitHub

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3096659

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/python-turns-30-meet-the-man-tasked-with-keeping-the-programming-language-on-track

Python turns 30: Meet the man that helps keep the programming language on track

Mayank Sharma

# Python turns 30: Meet the man that helps keep the programming language on track A Q&A with Pablo Galindo, a member of the Python Steering Council. Last month, programming language Python celebrated its 30th anniversary. But without a team to maintain it, the language would likely have never have become as popular as it is today. To find out more about the Python community, *TechRadar Pro* spoke to Pablo Galindo, a Bloomberg software engineer and one of the five members of the Python Steering Council. He told us about the Python development model, the role of a CPython core developer, and how he sees the language progressing in the years to come. - Here's our list of the best HTML courses right now - Check out our list of the best laptops for developers - We've built a list of the best JavaScript courses available ### What led you to Python and what has made you stick with it? I have a background in Physics. As part of my Ph.D. studies in Granada into rotating black holes, I found myself doing a lot of work with computer simulations. I ended up getting deeper into the software side of things that way. Years later, I found that, in fact, physics and finance both utilize many similar high-performance computing techniques. While I had experience with C, C++, and Fortran, what led me to Python was that it is so easy to start experimenting and doing things with the language. If you learn one piece of the programming language, you can connect it to the rest very easily. You can also expose some existing programs written in C, C++, and Fortran to Python as well. As the community participates in such a close feedback cycle with the language itself, it is constantly iterating. ### What does being a CPython core developer involve? And what do you consider to be your most significant contribution to the language? Being a CPython core developer involves a considerable amount of responsibility. You are in charge of implementing new features, reviewing proposals from contributors, fixing bugs, taking care of infrastructure, and making sure that each new release is as stable as possible. In addition, you are also responsible for adhering to the values of the Python core development team and creating a diverse and respectful community. This last point is quite important and involves many “non-technical” skills in order to understand different points of view, backgrounds and cultures. In my day job, I am part of the Python Infrastructure team at Bloomberg, which helps take care of the Python experience for the more than 2,000 engineers who are using it to code a variety of functions and analytics across the company’s products. In fact, we have over 100 million lines of Python code at Bloomberg. Our engineers also participate in the Python ecosystem, contributing and even maintaining some open source projects, speaking at conferences, and even hosting events. Alongside my work at Bloomberg, I was also recently elected onto the Python Steering Council, and I serve the Python community by contributing to the future of the language that way. ### What is the job of the Python Steering Council? Does it work in tandem with the Python Software Foundation? The Steering Council’s role is to champion Python as a language, ensure its future and to make contributing to it as accessible and inclusive as possible. We are a set of volunteers, with the exact group changing after each major release of Python. Ultimately, most of our work is as a sounding board and conduit for changes and improvements that come from Python’s prominent and passionate community. In terms of the Council’s relationship to the Python Software Foundation, the PSF exists to hold and manage the Python brand, support the wider community and ecosystem through things like grants, the back-end services everyone relies on, as well as the largest annual gathering for the Python community, the PyCon US Conference. Meanwhile, the Council focuses on the current and future state and direction of the language itself. ### Briefly describe Python’s development model for someone not familiar with the process A PEP is a Python Enhancement Proposal, which is a technical design document describing new features for Python, or for its process or environment. The main audience that these are created for are the core developers of the CPython reference interpreter, those on the Python Steering Council, and those developers working on other implementations of Python’s language specification. Anyone in the community can submit these PEPs, but often vetting and discussing an idea publicly before formalizing it as a PEP can help save time and frustration. Discussions can take place on the community’s newsgroups around whether a potential idea is original, or might be rejected based on feedback given previously, for example. From there, rounds of editorial review take place and final approval sits with the Steering Council. Provided it meets minimum criteria, we will reach a verdict and, if approved, the proposed changes are included in future versions of the language. When it comes to the Council’s power in relation to PEPs, we have the broad authority to accept or reject these changes. However, we aim to use these powers as little as possible and instead focus on finding consensus where we can. We always try to gather as much information and viewpoints from the community and the core dev team as possible. In some instances, it is impossible to make a decision that will fit every viewpoint. It is therefore very important that the Steering Council consider all the available information so it can make decisions that will benefit the Python language at large, with a consistent vision for the future. ### Apart from your work with CPython, you run a lot of simulations with the language related to your background as a theoretical physicist. What do you think makes Python a good language for this? For many of these simulations, the core is normally written in a compiled language such as C or C++, usually using some accelerators such as CUDA, OPENMP, etc. Unlike compiler languages, Python doesn’t require you to wait while your code is compiled and to get feedback later. Exposing the core so it can be used in Python makes it much easier to iterate, test and experiment. The language also integrates very well with third party code libraries. For example, if you have a library that is already written with a fast language, Python will work with it so you can communicate with other tools. This integration has often led to Python being called a ‘gluing language’– it can powerfully bridge between different applications and code libraries. Python also allows you to create automatic tests, as well as visualizations in a very efficient way, which is quite important when you are dealing with numerical simulations. ### How do you see Python progressing in the future? The data science tasks performed by mathematicians, physicists, and scientists all over the world often relies on Python. The usage of Python in the back-end of web services and other service-oriented architectures is also a very popular choice, and I can only see that growing in the future. The language not only offers new functionalities to help with these kinds of tasks with every iteration, but the syntax itself also changes to adapt to these usages. A good example of this is when Python added a new infix operator to make matrix multiplication much easier. It is quite difficult to predict how usage of the language will grow over time, but it seems that the adoption of Python for science and data engineering is still growing significantly, and the ecosystem of libraries is growing as well. At the same time, it is also a very important gateway language for people who are being introduced to software development for the first time. Like any other developer community, the Python community often splits on issues. The needs and wants of different groups in relation to the language sometimes conflict with each other. An important part of my role is to understand these needs and helping to chart a course that best serves the needs of everyone – as well as the language itself. To make sure that the language stays competitive in all of these areas, is important that we, the core developers, keep the language efficient and fast and make sure that the syntax evolves in a way that makes the language flexible and expressive, without being detrimental to those users who are learning the language for the first time. We go to significant efforts to make sure that Python remains as fast as possible – a particularly challenging problem given how dynamic the language already is – by implementing different sophisticated optimizations. We must also keep in mind that the language needs to remain as approachable as possible to newcomers, which we do by improving syntax errors and documentation. - Here's our list of the best Linux distros for devs ## Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’s *TechRadar Pro’s* expert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.

A Q&A with Pablo Galindo, a member of the Python Steering Council.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2021-03-14 00:00:00

article

techradar.com

TechRadar pro

http://osmnames.org/

https://medium.com/@maxbraun/my-bathroom-mirror-is-smarter-than-yours-94b21c6671ba#.vggp5lbnb

http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-how-you-challenge-facebook-2015-6

This is how you challenge Facebook

Ian Cody

A few weeks ago we got a first look at Facebook’s *‘little red book,’* a guide handed to each new employee that describes the company's history, culture, and future through a series of images and quotes. The one page that probably stood out, like an elephant in the room in the eyes of entrepreneurs, was the following: What Facebook is trying to communicate to their new employees is that there is no such thing as permanently excellent companies, and although Facebook has been the benchmark for social media over the past decade, it is not immune to market trends and changes. In fact, Facebook has spent 23 billion dollars over the past 3 years acquiring a pair of social networking companies (Whatsapp and Instagram) and putting a 3 billion dollar bid on another (Snapchat) just to protect its social throne. The above scenarios are a dream for any social networking startup; being acquired or being in the position to turn down an acquisition offer (the latter has paid off handsomely for Snapchat). So how do you put yourself in a position to challenge Facebook’s Social Throne? Lets reverse engineer the strongest qualities of the acquisitions and bids above. **1: Challenge Facebook’s Core Features** It wasn’t too long ago that Facebook was the #1 photo sharing service in the world. Then along came Instagram, a standalone photo sharing application that helped capture the best moments in your life. One of the main reasons Facebook acquired Instagram was because it challenged one of its core features, photo sharing. The same can be said for Whatsapp, which like Instagram built a standalone of one of Facebook’s core features, messaging. Facebook’s mission statement is ‘to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected,' but how can they accomplish this if people aren’t using their platforms as a means of communication? **2: Build Single-Purpose, First-Class Experiences** Facebook was built in the pre-mobile world, therefore it was built on the ‘one does all’ approach of the web bundling different connecting and sharing features. Mobile however, changed everything from ease of access, to our behavioral habits with online services. This market shift lead to a change from the ‘one does all’ approach of websites, towards the single purpose experience of mobile. Services like Whatsapp and Instagram took one specific feature people really enjoyed (Photo sharing and Messaging), and created a first-class experience of that feature. The trend of unbundling Facebook’s big blue app will continue in the future, and they’ve given you 23 billion plus reasons to believe that, including the unbundling of their own messaging feature — now known as the separate app Messenger. **3: Target the Younger Demographic** What made Facebook successful in their early years was its appeal amongst the younger demographic. The same can be said in recent years for both Instagram and Snapchat. The younger demographic drove the success of these social networking services in their early years because of a chain reaction. Once one of the millennial age groups catches onto a service, it causes a chain reaction among the next generation of millennial age groups just coming into their own as digital consumers and so on and so forth. As mentioned above, irrelevancy can happen exceptionally fast in the digital world and the chain reaction amongst the younger demographic is where it all gets started. **4. Have a Global Mentality** Although Facebook started off as a service for only students at Harvard, it became evidently clear very early on that Facebook’s vision was to connect the world one place at a time, and they’re still on that mission. There is nothing wrong with building your product within a niche community like "The Facebook" did at Harvard, but having a future global mentality is vital to your long term success. Facebook acquired Instagram and Whatsapp not only because they challenged their core features, created single purpose apps, and targeted millennials, but because they also expanded upon its mission of connecting the world — Instagram through photos and Whatsapp through messaging. **5. Create Something People Want** Last, but not least — and probably the most important of the qualities listed above — is actually creating something people want. You want to create an experience that makes people wonder how they lived without it, a service that people communicate, share, and engage with on a daily basis. Above all else, Facebook wants and needs people to continue using their services, whether it be on Facebook, Whatsapp, or Instagram. **Whats Next?** Communication behaviors will continue to change and new means of communication will challenge the old successes. Will it be Public or Private? Words or Visuals? Feed-based or thread-based? If you can pinpoint what will be the next means of communication, you just might be able to challenge Facebook’s Social Throne. We could end this by telling you the uphill battle you would face, but we’d rather tell you to dream big because we sure are.

You can reverse engineer the strongest qualities of Facebook's acquisitions and bids to find key similarities.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2015-06-25 00:00:00

https://i.insider.com/558c18a8eab8ea265e246433?width=1200&format=jpeg

article

businessinsider.com

Insider

https://www.sociologicalscience.com/download/volume%201/february_/Time%20as%20a%20Network%20Good.pdf

2024-10-12 00:00:00

http://blog.erratasec.com/2015/03/x86-is-high-level-language.html

x86 is a high-level language

Robert Graham

I mention this because of those commenting on this post on OpenSSL's "constant-time" calculations, designed to avoid revealing secrets due to variations in compute time. The major comment is that it's hard to do this perfectly in C. My response is that it's hard to do this even in x86 machine code. Consider registers, for example. Everyone knows that the 32-bit x86 was limited to 8 registers, while 64-bit expanded that to 16 registers. This isn't actually true. The latest Intel processors have 168 registers. The name of the register in x86 code is really just a variable name, similar to how variables work in high-level languages. So many registers are needed because the processor has 300 instructions "in flight" at any point in time in various stages of execution. It rearranges these instructions, executing them out-of-order. Everyone knows that processors can execute things slightly out-of-order, but that's understated. Today's processors are *massively out-of-order*. Consider the traditional branch pair of a CMP (compare) followed by a JMPcc (conditional jump). While this is defined as two separate instructions as far as we humans are concerned, it's now a single instruction as far as the processor is concerned. Consider the "xor eax, eax" instruction, which is how we've traditionally cleared registers. This is never executed as an instruction, but just marks "eax" as no longer used, so that the next time an instructions needs the register, to allocate a new (zeroed) register from that pool of 168 registers. Consider "mov eax, ebx". Again, this doesn't do anything, except rename the register as far as the processor is concerned, so that from this point on, what was referred to as ebx is now eax. The processor has to stop and wait 5 clock cycles to read something from L1 cache, 12 cycles for L2 cache, or 30 cycles for L3 cache. But because the processor is massively out-of-order, I can continue executing instructions in the future that don't depend upon this memory read. This includes other memory reads. Inside the CPU, the results always appear as if the processor executed everything in-order, but outside the CPU, things happen in strange order. This means any attempt to get smooth, predictable execution out of the processor is very difficult. That means "side-channel" attacks on x86 leaking software crypto secrets may always be with us. One solution to these problems is the CMOV, "conditional move", instruction. It's like a normal "MOV" instruction, but succeeds or fails based on condition flags. It can be used in some cases to replace branches, which makes pipelined code more efficient in some cases. Currently, it takes constant time. When moving from memory, it still waits for data to arrive, even when it knows it's going to throw it away. As Linus Torvalds famously pointed out, CMOV doesn't always speed up code. However, that's not the point here -- it does make code execution time more predictable. But, at the same time, Intel can arbitrarily change the behavior on future processors, making it less predictable. The upshot is this: Intel's x86 is a high-level language. Coding everything up according to Agner Fog's instruction timings still won't produce the predictable, constant-time code you are looking for. There may be some solutions, like using CMOV, but it will take research. ## 14 comments: Doesn't "mov eax, ebx" mean that the same register will be known as ebx andeax (until either is modified)?Inside the CPU, the results always appear as if the processor executed everything in-order, but outside the CPU, things happen in strange order. - shouldn't inside and outside be swapped in this sentence? @richie: "inside the CPU results appear..." means "from the machine code point of view the model is sequential execution" whereas "outside the CPU, things happen in strange order" means "if you look at the accesses to the main memory for instance, then the order will not match what you could expect after having seen the machine code". So don’t do that! There’s no need to try to write constant time code… just do a random amount of extra computation, so that the variability due to the inputs is masked. > just do a random amount of extra computation, so that the variability due to the inputs is masked So now I cause you to repeat the same secret operation many times and average out your 'random' fuzzing. Congrats: Your users have just been compromised. Anyone can write a cryptosystem strong enough that they can't break it. When you have any leak at all, it's very hard to be certain that some slightly more advanced technique, or a somewhat unusual use pattern by the user won't break it wide open. Why don't you just time how long it takes and then wait enough to make the total time constant? not to mention numbers will always be pseudo-random, so the very act of generating the numbers might be revealing of system time (for the seed). not sure if it would be possible to glean, but perhaps with enough samples. 103630556429841826282 : That's a better idea, but what do you do if the computation takes longer than your "total time"? Some information will still be leaked. Where is all this stuff documented, what the instructions actually do in hardware? Just curious. Seems like one defense against timing attacks would be to schedule your reply. Regardless of how long the string compare took, you'll respond with the result x msec from now. That seems like it'd work for a remote service at least, as long as you leave enough time to actually perform the compare. Er, s/took/will take/. You schedule the reply before doing the compare. You might schedule it for (x * #chars) msec from now, so that you don't run out of time for longer compares, if that's a concern (and leaking the length of the input string isn't). So do what you'd do in a high-level language - use that language's crypto library. No? Processors already contain "hardware" (often a lesser or greater amount of µcode) AES implementations and RNGs. The requirements of crypto are quite different from those of normal code. Processors need to explicitly support it. So don’t do that! There’s no need to try to write constant time code… just do a random amount of extra computation, so that the variability due to the inputs is masked. more info Inside the CPU, the results always appear as if the processor executed everything in-order, but outside the CPU, things happen in strange order. - shouldn't inside and outside be swapped in this sentence?? Post a Comment

Just so you know, x86 machine-code is now a "high-level" language. What instructions say, and what they do, are very different things. I m...

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2015-03-25 00:00:00

erratasec.com

blog.erratasec.com

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130327-new-bus-stop-for-flexible-travel

Radically rethinking the bus system

Stephen Dowling

# Radically rethinking the bus system **Despite its daily frustrations, commuting by bus has barely changed for many decades. In the third of BBC Future’s Imagineering redesigns, Philips rethinks the bus stop and the entire service itself – creating a more flexible public transport system for the 21st Century.** Commuting by bus has changed little since our grandparents’ days – we wait in line at a bus shelter and board a bus that takes us on a set route to our destination. A digital timetable with an approximate time for the next arrival is about as 21st Century as the average bus stop gets. For electronics giant Philips, the bus stop is due a radical overhaul. Instead of buses sticking to the same old route every day, why can’t they adapt according to their passengers’ needs, asked the company’s designer Cheaw Hwei Low, who is based in their Singapore design studio. Why can’t bus stops themselves be physically transformed, and move away from the static shelters we are used to seeing on our streets? So, Low has transported the concept of the bus stop to street light posts and even the smartphone we carry in our pocket. Low’s vision has street lights becoming mini bus stops by integrating bluetooth technology, which connects with transport and smartphone apps – possibly bringing to an end the sight of empty buses ploughing along set, fixed routes. The Philips redesign has gone far beyond the physical and has completely redesigned the actual process; bus providers would be able to react in real-time to the demands of paying passengers. Using an app, passengers could mark where they want to go from and where they want to end up – with the bus company working out possible routes based on the current demand. Low talks BBC Future through the concept behind his redesign – one he thinks could radically change the way the population moves around a city. **Why choose the bus stop?** We asked ourselves what is an object that we use and come across every day but do not give much attention, yet it is something we share as a common experience? We hit upon the bus stop, a universal facility seen in all cities, be they mature, developing or underdeveloped. But public transport touches on many aspects of lifestyle, city function, societal behaviour, public-policy making and infrastructure. This makes it complicated, and at the same time interesting to look at beyond its immediate form and function. It became clear we could not look at it merely as a bus stop, but as a total function system, which led us to reframe the problem. **What are the flaws in the original design?** The bus stop is only a part of a total bus transportation system... a fixed-route bus transportation system. So it was logical to look into the system and not just the bus stop. Solving the bus-stop part will not change the system, but we knew we could use it as a trigger point to improving the fixed-route system. We discussed the benefits and limitations of the fixed-route system – it's clear such a system provided consistency in time and place (to get on and off), and to a certain extent convenience, but not completely. Flexibility is not what a fixed-route and fixed-time bus service system can offer. We have all experienced times when the bus is very empty or extremely packed, which means efficiency is best optimised at the bus-route level, but not individual bus level, since that bus is unable to respond to dynamic demand and traffic situations immediately. We all have all been in situations when there are only a few passengers in the bus and yet, the bus still has to plough through the entire fixed route, picking up no passengers along the way. The motivation was how to optimise the bus service by allowing the passengers and bus drivers to respond immediately to dynamic demand and traffic situations, not unlike a taxi that you can flag anywhere, anytime, and it will take you directly to your destination. **How did you address these flaws?** We went on various bus rides, and along the way we talked to passengers, drivers, bus-terminal-system operators and as many people we could meet across the entire system. Their inputs were all captured in verbatim, scribbles, sketches, images and video that we mapped into a huge overview in the sequential flow of a bus ride, end-to-end. It produced a very rich picture of the total activity; we felt like we were following the bus route in a helicopter at 30,000 feet, and yet were able to zoom in whenever we want. At the same time, we reached out to our global network to look into bus-service systems all over the world, to ensure we were not reinventing a problem, and learn from other similar situations that would enrich our potential solution. The view we created with the experience flow tool provided the basis for us to really dive deep and start creating ideas. **Where did the inspiration come from?** Looking at how we use smart phones today, drawing parallels with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), it's clear we don’t do much planning in our lives and yet we can be very responsive spontaneously to the world around us. The relationship of time and space has changed, where it requires us to plan less but yet enable us to be efficient and effective in real time. **What other products designs – not necessarily related – influenced your redesign?** Data visualisation formed a part of the influence. Most of us are visual learners **– **in a world where people are too busy, a concise, straight-to-the-point image and graphics is exactly what we need to get the information we need in as little time as possible… especially when it is about how to get to where we want to go. **What was the most challenging part of the process?** The design part is relatively easy, as we are free from logistical constraints. We anticipate the most challenging part is influencing a bus-service provider and its stakeholders to adopt such an approach. It requires a change in behaviour on the part of the passengers, and definitely the way a bus-service provider organises its operations. **How radically do your changes alter the design?** By dropping the bus stops out of the equation, we have completely turned the fixed-route approach upside down. Our concept disrupts the robotic regularity of a fixed-route service, perhaps creating new social situations and hopefully reducing carbon footprints in the urban-scape. **How easy will this be to produce?** This will require quite some infrastructure change, and more importantly a mind-set change. **What new technologies, if any, would it require?** The IT architecture behind this system will have to be extremely robust, plus an app system which responds real-time and is able to handle the high volume of real-time feeds. **Will you be taking your design on from here?** This is at concept level, it needs to be taken to a next level of detail to map out total architecture that will support it, but that will require the involvement of all stakeholders. We are excited by what we have proposed and may reach out to bus-service providers, city planners and policy-making institutions to generate interest. **What has this process taught you?** As with every design activity, to keep an open mind and be ready to change course if it makes sense. We started with the bus stop but ended up with redesigning the bus-service system, which was totally unexpected, but it was because we allowed ourselves to reframe the problem. *If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on Future, head over to our **Facebook page** or message us on **Twitter**.*

Commuting by bus has transformed little since our grandparents’ days. But for electronics giant Phillips, it's time the whole service had a radical overhaul.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2013-03-28 00:00:00

newsarticle

bbc.com

BBC

http://www.defmacro.org/2014/10/03/engman.html

44 engineering management lessons

Slava Akhmechet

# 44 engineering management lessons Welcome to engineering management. It’s fun, it’s exhausting, it’s rewarding — but most importantly it’s new! What worked for you before won’t work now. You’ll have to acquire a new set of skills, and shed some bad habits in the process. Here is a short guide to get you started. # Do - Attract, nurture, coach, and retain talent. Talk to engineers to tease out concerns early, then fix them if you can. - Communicate to every engineer the next most important issue for them to work on. - Be the tiebreaker when the development team can’t reach consensus. - Be the information hub. Know what every engineer is working on, and help connect the dots that wouldn’t otherwise get connected. - Provide administrative support. Schedule issues, coordinate releases, and make sure the bureaucratic machine keeps ticking. - Enforce behavioral and performance standards. Fire bullies and underperformers. # Don’t - Personally fix bugs and ship features. You have to write code to remain an effective tiebreaker, but that’s where your coding responsibilities end. - Supervise the quality and volume of people’s work. Software engineering isn’t an assembly line. If you find yourself supervising too often, you haven’t attracted the right people or given them the right incentives. # Motivation and culture - You’re the one who makes hiring and firing decisions. Everything that happens on your team is your responsibility. - Engineering is a seller’s market: people work for you because they believe in you. Access to their talent is a privilege. - Authority isn’t bestowed freely. It’s earned by making good decisions over time. - Don’t make decisions unless you have to. Whenever possible, allow the team to explore ideas and make decisions on its own. - Do make decisions when it’s necessary. Few things are as demoralizing as a stalled team. - Don’t shoot down ideas until it’s necessary. Create an environment where everyone feels safe to share and explore ideas. The folks writing the code have a lot of information you don’t. Rely on your team and you’ll make better decisions. - Building intuition on how to make good decisions and cultivating a great relationship with your team will get you 95% of the way there. The plethora of conceptual frameworks for organizing engineering teams won’t make much difference. They make good managers slightly better and bad managers slightly worse. # Emotions and people - Management happens to be prestigious in our culture, but it’s a skill like any other. Prestige is a distraction — it’s fickle and arbitrary. Guard against believing you’re any better than anyone else. The sooner you get over prestige, the sooner you can focus on doing your job well. - Management also attracts scorn. Ignore it — the people who believe managers are useless don’t understand the dynamics of building a winning human organization. - If you feel something’s wrong, you’re probably right. Don’t let anyone bully you into ignoring your feelings. - If you find yourself blaming someone, you’re probably wrong. Nobody wakes up and tries to do a bad job. 95% of the time you can resolve your feelings by just talking to people. - Most people won’t easily share their emotions. Have frequent informal conversations, and tease out everything that might be wrong. Then fix it if you can. - Your team looks to you for leadership. Have the courage to say what everyone knows to be true but isn’t saying. - You’re paid to discover and fix cultural problems your team may not be aware of. Have the courage to say what everyone should know but doesn’t. - Hire great people, then trust them completely. Evaluate performance on monthly or quarterly basis, then fire if you have to. Don’t evaluate people daily, it will drive everyone (including you) insane. - Most intellectual arguments have strong emotional undercurrents. You’ll be dramatically more efficient once you learn to figure out what those are. # Tiebreaking and conflict - Don’t judge too quickly; you’re right less often than you think. Even if you’re sure you’re right in any given case, wait until everyone’s opinion is heard. - Once everyone is heard, summarize all points of view so clearly that people say “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.” List any points of agreement with each view, and state what you’ve learned from everyone. Then make your decision. - Once you’ve made your decision, enforce it. Don’t let the team waste time going in circles to placate disproportionally strong voices. - Reopen the discussion if there is significant new information. - When disagreement gets personal or people don’t accept well-reasoned decisions, it turns into conflict. - Most conflict happens because people don’t feel heard. Sit down with each person and ask them how they feel. Listen carefully. Then ask again. And again. Then summarize what they said back to them. Most of the time that will solve the problem. - If the conflict persists after you’ve gone to reasonable lengths to hear everyone out and fix problems, it’s time for a difficult conversation. # Difficult conversations - Have difficult conversations as soon as possible. Waiting will only make a bad situation worse. - Never assume or jump to conclusions. Never demonize people in your mind. Never blame, yell or vilify. - Use non-violent communication — it’s the best method I know of to critique people’s behavior without offending them. It smells like a management fad, but it really works (I promise). - Have the courage to state how you feel and what you need. People are drawn to each other’s vulnerability but repelled by their own. Vulnerability isn’t weakness. - Expect people to extend you the same courtesy. If someone makes you feel bad for stating your needs and feelings, it tells you more about them than about yourself. # Rough edge - People will push and prod to discover your boundaries. Knowing when to stand back and when to stand firm is half the battle. - Occasionally someone will push too far. When they do, you have to show a rough edge or you’ll lose authority with your team. - A firm “I’m not ok with that” is usually enough. - Don’t laugh things off if you don’t feel like laughing them off. Have the courage to show your true emotions. - If you have to firmly say “I’m not ok with that” too many times to the same person, it’s your job to fire them. - Unless you’re a sociopath, firing people is so hard you’ll invent excuses not to do it. If you’re consistently wondering if someone’s a good fit for too long, have the courage to do what you know is right. - Don’t let people pressure you into decisions you don’t believe in. They’ll hold *you*responsible for them later, and they’ll be right. Decisions are your responsibility. - Believe in yourself. You can’t lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse. *Thanks to Michael Glukhovsky, Michael Lucy, and Alex Taussig for reviewing this post.*

Welcome to engineering management. It’s fun, it’s exhausting, it’s rewarding — but most importantly it’s new! What worked for you before won’t work now. You’ll have to acquire a new set of skills, and shed some bad habits in the process. Here is a short guide to get you started.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2014-10-03 00:00:00

article

Defmacro

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dz94x/uber-acquisition-jump-bikeshare-destroyed-thousands-of-bikes

How Uber Turned a Promising Bikeshare Company Into Literal Garbage

Aaron Gordon

One morning at the end of May, Mark Miretsky awoke in his San Francisco apartment and groggily browsed his phone. There was no rush to get up. Just a few weeks earlier, he had been laid off from his job at the bikeshare company JUMP, which was owned by Uber, along with hundreds of other people. While still lazing in bed, he opened the Slack with more than 400 of JUMP’s laid-off staff, and he saw something that hurt him even more than the layoffs. The JUMP bikes were being destroyed by the thousands and someone was posting videos of it on Twitter. ## Videos by VICE At first, Miretsky couldn’t bring himself to watch. He spent eight years of his life, often working 100-hour weeks to the point of nauseous exhaustion, to get people to ride those bikes. He did this because he believed in bicycles, and that they are worth riding. Miretsky’s family left the Soviet Union when his mother was pregnant with him. They briefly lived in Italy but couldn’t afford any mode of transportation other than a single bike. His dad pedaled, his mom rode side saddle on the rear rack, and his brother, just a toddler at the time, sat in the basket. Miretsky grew up hearing these stories, and even if he didn’t realize it at the time, he said it taught him bicycles are the cheapest, most efficient, and equitable way to get around. He would end up spending most of his adult life working with bicycles, caring about them so much he can’t even bring himself to get rid of any of his seven bikes. In one of the videos, viewers can hear the claw crunching the frames and baskets while lifting the JUMP bikes. That was enough. Miretsky didn’t need to watch a second time. “It kind of crushes one’s heart,” Miretsky said. He had difficulty putting into words exactly how he felt, but he repeated what one of his former coworkers told him. To the die-hard bike enthusiasts who worked at JUMP, destroying bikes is like burning books. “To me, and to many of us [who worked at JUMP] the bike is not an object to a means of a business. It has a soul.” Few, if any, of JUMP’s former employees were shocked by the videos. To some, it even felt like a fitting, if upsetting, coda to a troubled two years under Uber’s stewardship. Motherboard spoke to a dozen former JUMP employees about their time at the company, most under the condition of anonymity because they signed non-disclosure agreements in order to receive severance and extended health care during a global pandemic. Former JUMP employees who agreed to speak on the record did so under the condition they not talk about the time the company was owned by Uber. They described remarkably similar experiences, in which JUMP, a previously thrifty company, with a culture that had a deep commitment to a shared sense of purpose gave way to Uber’s scale-obsessed model. The early promises of bikeshare for the world and replacing ridehail trips with bike journeys only partially materialized, but it came with unsustainable inefficiencies and waste. Uber bought JUMP in 2018 and two years later sold it to Lime, a changed and broken company. To these employees, the literal destruction of the bikes was a metaphor for the destruction of the operation they’d worked so hard to build. Uber’s unrelenting pursuit of scale created all sorts of problems for those working on the bikeshare systems on the ground. In cities with high rates of theft or vandalism, the same people hired to retrieve, charge, and fix bikes were also responsible for recovering stolen ones, an occasionally dicey proposition. To address this, Uber hired private security teams, which three employees referred to as “hired goons,” to assist in getting the stolen bikes back. One employee from Providence, Rhode Island, described a scene in which one “hired goon” wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying handcuffs and pepper spray “tackled” a Black teenage girl riding a JUMP bike. The employee said it was something he would “never forget” and that “the optics didn’t look good, as people would say.” An Uber spokesperson said the company has no records of such an incident taking place and this account is “wholly inaccurate” because JUMP technicians and the security teams accompanying them were instructed not to forcibly remove anyone from the bikes or “engage in aggressive behavior.” While hardly typical of JUMP’s operations, the incident—which occurred last year during a rash of thefts enabled by a faulty bike lock design—exemplifies just how far the company strayed from its original mission of getting people of all walks of life onto bikes. JUMP used to be a company that held countless community meetings in low-income neighborhoods prior to launching in a new city to make sure they were addressing everyone’s needs and offered low-income residents virtually unlimited biking for just a few dollars a month. But JUMP’s rise and fall is not just about Uber—which only owned the company for two out of its 10 years of existence—or even just about bikeshare. It’s about the role cities play in determining their futures, how much of that role has been usurped by a handful of people with a lot of money, and the perils of trying to be the good guy. Even with everything that’s happened, many former JUMP employees still think selling the company to Uber was the right decision. Had it not, one former employee told Motherboard, “the company might have saved its soul but died much younger.” * Ryan Rzepecki became a cycling evangelist when he borrowed his roommate’s bike one summer day in 2005 when he was living in New York City’s East Village. It made getting around the city so much easier and more pleasant, even though at the time New York didn’t have anything resembling safe bike infrastructure. On a trip to Paris, Rzepecki came across the Velib bikeshare system. Although Velib has had its problems, to Rzepecki’s eyes it was a marvel: tens of thousands of bikes for Parisians to use for a very small fee. No worrying about locking the bike, storing it, maintenance, or repairs. Just unlock it, ride it, dock it, and be on your way. But Rzepecki had an idea for a different kind of bikeshare system. He wanted one without docks, where people could begin and end their rides anywhere they like. He thought this would be the key to unlocking cycling for the masses. In 2010, he started Social Bicycles. The original business model of Social Bicycles (SoBi) was different from the one it would adopt after rebranding as JUMP eight years later. Instead of going directly to people, it sold its proprietary bikes and docking stations to cities, which would then contract with another third party to operate the bikeshare system. The key to this model was SoBi’s quasi-docked model, in which every bike had a GPS unit and a built-in lock. Riders had to lock the bike to something, and were encouraged to lock the bikes to SoBi’s docking stations but could use regular bike racks if they wanted. “It’s probably good I didn’t have a technical background,” Rzepecki told Motherboard, “because if I knew how hard it would be, I probably never would have attempted it.” It was not a simple or easy business. Back then, cities would put out Requests for Proposals (RFPs) that announced they were interested in a bikeshare system, triggering a two-year process that, if all went well, resulted in a bikeshare system. The RFP process ensured a deep partnership with the city that would minimize long-term uncertainty or community outrage over bike rack locations. For both SoBi and the cities in which they worked, this trade-off was worth it, because they were in it for the long haul. SoBi hired urban planners to help cities with the expense of figuring out where new bike racks should go. This involved not only painstakingly drawing architectural renderings for hundreds of bike racks but also presenting those drawings to local community groups to hear their feedback. As a general rule, they drew up plans for about three times as many racks as they would ultimately install, knowing local community groups tended to reject about two-thirds of them. While this approach to a bikeshare system was complicated, time-consuming, and expensive, Rzepecki and his early team thought it was the best way to forge the kind of relationships between the city government, local bike advocates, and casual riders to allow bikesharing to thrive in the long run. Likewise, Rzepecki wanted SoBi’s bikes to be comfortable and fun to ride. They debated the merits of certain bolts over others, the size of the baskets, and the best distance between the handlebars for the most comfortable ride for the most people. SoBi’s designer, Nick Foley, and the other designers not only took into account the rider experience, but also that of the mechanics charged with fixing and maintaining the bikes. They standardized parts, reduced the number of different bolts and screws as much as possible, and put thought into how to make flat tires easy to replace. The bikes were not to be disposable objects, but permanent, rideable street art. “Ryan’s goal was the bicycle comes first,” another former employee told Motherboard. “He brings that kind of attitude, that I want to make my city better.” All that attention to detail notwithstanding, in the early days SoBi’s technology barely worked. One of its first clients in 2012, the San Francisco International Airport, wanted a bikeshare program for employees to use during their lunch breaks. But the bikes barely worked. Miretsky remembers having to run around the airport to reboot the bikes’ onboard computers, which he described as “super 1.0 early beta technology that wasn’t working” in which the GPS and computer unit was attached to the bike with Velcro. There wasn’t very much money in the bikeshare world then. The company was operating hand-to-mouth, people were forgoing paychecks some weeks, and everyone was working on shoestring budgets. One employee recalled the “SoBi flop houses” where six of them would live in a two-bedroom Airbnb to save on costs. The unlucky ones who didn’t get a bedroom would sleep on the floor; more than one former SoBi employee recommended if I ever find myself in a similar situation, I snag the space under the dining room table so that anyone getting up in the middle of the night doesn’t step on me. With this shared sacrifice came shared responsibility. The company structure was remarkably flat. Once a month, everyone would get on a call and make decisions together by consensus. People’s titles only vaguely aligned with their actual jobs. “Things got done because everyone wanted them to get done, not because someone was assigning them or there were super-clear expectations,” one employee described it. “You just went to wherever you could supply the most-needed help.” Over time, SoBi worked out the kinks, and each contract got slightly bigger than the last. Its big breakout came in 2016, when 1,000 of its bikes launched in Portland’s Biketown program, sponsored by Nike. It was the company’s biggest launch to date and also its most successful. It was also the first year SoBi was profitable. Things were looking up, until the people at SoBi started hearing about these bikeshare companies out of China. “Here’s where the story changes,” Rzepecki said. “Just as we were figuring out how to do bikeshare and make it work, the entire landscape changed.” * Up to that point, the bikeshare world was a small one, an industry of government contractors and their suppliers. Companies couldn’t be neatly divided between partners and competitors. Social Bicycles sold its hardware to Motivate, which operates the biggest docked bikeshare systems around the country, to operate Biketown, even though SoBi and Motivate would compete for contracts elsewhere (to complicate the dynamic, Motivate was purchased by Lyft around the same time JUMP was bought by Uber). It was a small world, in part because it had to be; there wasn’t enough money in bikeshare to make it any bigger. Which is why when two Beijing-based bikeshare firms, Ofo and Mobike, expanded to the United States right around the same time Biketown launched, it blew up everything the bikeshare world had known. Rather than work closely with cities over years, Ofo and Mobike parachuted in, got permission to launch a bike share by shoveling money at cities, and then did it. They also introduced a fully dockless model known as “free lock,” in which riders didn’t have to lock their bikes to anything after finishing a ride. They could leave them wherever they wanted, including in the middle of sidewalks and strewn across lawns. “At least initially, there was this hint of hope that this big dumb app company was actually helping push us towards a more sustainable transportation ecosystem.” This went against everything SoBi believed in. It not only was a short-sighted strategy that was sure to create conflict with city officials and communities—the very people SoBi felt were integral to any bikeshare systems’s success—but it sent the wrong message about the bikes themselves. “Freelocking turns the vehicles into trash and blocks the sidewalk,” one former JUMP employee said, “which is both bad for business and bad for cities.” It turns bikes into obstacles for people with mobility issues, the exact opposite of what bikes are supposed to be. And it sends the message that the bikes are disposable, have little value, and belong to no one. But it was not the free lock element of the Ofo and MoBike model that changed everything, at least not directly. Without the need to go through the lengthy RFP process or site docks, Ofo, Mobike, and their countless imitators could grow as quickly as their bank accounts permitted. It was catnip for the type of venture capital investors who love exponential growth charts. Suddenly, dockless bikeshare became the trendy investment. From October 2016 through July 2017, Ofo raised $1.28 billion in two funding rounds, according to Crunchbase. Mobike raised more than $800 million. In October 2017, the newly-founded Lime (then called LimeBike) raised $50 million. To Social Bicycles, this was an unimaginable amount of money. Up to 2016, SoBi had raised only a few million dollars. “It became a feeling of there is no * way* we can succeed anymore,” Miretsky said. “We were playing checkers and it suddenly became chess.” “They would go into markets we were just in with RFPs and said ‘we’ll pay you. How many bikes do you need? We’ll give you more,’” Miretsky recalled. “Cities said well great, this is no longer a problem for us to solve, the business community has solved it.” Almost overnight, Rzepecki said SoBi lost 25 percent of its revenue. For sexy startups like Mobike and Ofo, a 25 percent revenue drop would be a tough pill to swallow. For SoBi, it was poison. Thanks to overseas investors flooding the market with cheap bikes, the time of working closely with cities to build a sustainable bikeshare system was over. The RFP approach, everything SoBi had built its business around, was dead. SoBi pivoted to be a permit-based dockless bikeshare company like the others. But it resisted what it viewed as an ideological non-starter and it did not succumb to the free lock model. Just as in the SoBi days, riders would still have to end the ride by locking the bike to something. Moreover, SoBi didn’t need to compromise on its deeper philosophy because Rzepecki had an ace up his sleeve. For two years, SoBi had been secretly developing an electric bike, where a battery-powered motor helps the rider pedal, making bike riding an effortless endeavor even up the steepest of hills and longest of distances. Former employees credited Rzepecki and Foley for having the foresight to know the entire industry would eventually shift to e-bikes, and the only way JUMP could survive was to get there first. And it did. In the summer of 2017, as JUMP was looking for investors to stay afloat, Uber invited two JUMP employees in to demonstrate the e-bike, sparking conflicted feelings among the JUMP staff. This was right at the height of an Uber public relations disaster, as its co-founder Travis Kalanick floundered in the days leading up to his resignation. At this stage, Uber was virtually synonymous with spoiled rich kids flouting laws and operating solely according to their own internal code. Among the JUMP staff, Uber was regarded as wasteful and environmentally irresponsible at best and downright evil at worst. Some former employees believe JUMP ultimately took the meeting as an intelligence-gathering operation, others as an implicit admission of JUMP’s precarious condition despite the distasteful prospect of working with the company so many of them loathed. In any case, two JUMP employees rode the e-bikes to Uber’s headquarters on Market Street, where Dmitry Shevelenko and Jahan Khanna, the duo behind Uber’s micromobility and transit expansion, took them for a test ride. “This was like the first time using an iPhone.” Shevelenko told Motherboard. “It just feels magical.” He had demo’d other bikeshare e-bikes in recent months, but the JUMP bike was far superior. Instead of having a motor that kicked into gear providing an unwanted jolt, JUMP’s e-bikes sensed how hard a rider pedaled and increased the motor power to match what the rider is doing. It felt like a partnership between human and bike, not a human ceding total control to a machine. “It was almost like a superpower,” Shevelenko recalled, “like this bike is connected to your body.” Shevelenko and Khanna viewed the e-bike as a perfect complement to Uber’s ridehailing business. Insofar as it would cannibalize Uber trips, it would be shorter city trips that weren’t profitable anyways. The e-bike would not only be cheaper for riders, but also quicker during rush hours in the dense urban areas where Uber is most popular. And Uber wanted JUMP’s superior product. Shevelenko figured JUMP had a year’s head start on every other dockless e-bike. Paired with Uber’s resources, they thought it would be hard for anyone else to catch up. After some brief negotiating, the companies initially formed a partnership and Uber connected JUMP with the venture capital firm Menlo Ventures to keep the company afloat. Starting in January 2018, SoBi officially rebranded as JUMP and its bikes would be shown as a rental option in the Uber app. Four months later, Uber acquired JUMP for close to $200 million. It was, undoubtedly, an odd pair, not just in mission but in corporate culture. Many of JUMP’s staff were self-described hippies, a far cry from Uber’s bro culture and no-holds-barred approach to business. But, the acquisition made sense as one between two companies struggling to figure out what they were doing at a time when the old way was no longer going to cut it. Uber had to clean up its act and put on a good face for investors in a run up to a public offering, while JUMP had to find a model that worked in the dockless world of VC capital. On a personal level, eight years of bikeshare startup life had taken its toll on Rzepecki and the original SoBi crew. To illustrate the point, Miretsky said that when he visited the New York office where Rzepecki was based, he had stopped buying breakfast, because he knew Rzepecki would take two bites of a breakfast sandwich, vomit it up from nerves, and then give Miretsky the rest of the sandwich. When asked about this, Rzepecki confirmed his stress manifested with various physical symptoms around that time, and that “2017 was particularly hard.” “I think it’s really on the right course now and [Uber’s then-new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi] believes the way we approach working with cities and our vision for partnering with cities” aligns with Uber’s mission, Rzepecki told TechCrunch when the acquisition was announced. “That was important for me and his desire to do things the right way. This is a great outcome and gives me a chance to bring my entire vision to the entire world.” “At least initially, there was this hint of hope that this big dumb app company was actually helping push us towards a more sustainable transportation ecosystem,” a former JUMP employee said. “And then they fucked it up.” * Accounts differ on precisely how long it took Uber to undermine everything JUMP had previously been about. Some former employees said it happened virtually immediately. Others described a more gradual process that took a few weeks. But they unanimously agreed it didn’t take long at all for JUMP to stop being JUMP. Not only were JUMP employees no longer working on a shoestring budget, they barely had any budgets at all. Sleeping under the dining room table gave way to $400 per night hotel rooms. Like the Ofos and MoBikes they long decried, JUMP was now buying as many bikes it could get its hands on. For a split second, JUMP was “the hot new thing” at Uber, as one former employee put it. Khosrowshahi talked it up during company all-hands meetings and in the press. He came to the warehouse where JUMP built new prototypes. “During rush hour, it is very inefficient for a one-ton hulk of metal to take one person 10 blocks,” Khosrowshahi said at the time. With JUMP, “we’re able to shape behavior in a way that’s a win for the user. It’s a win for the city. Short-term financially, maybe it’s not a win for us, but strategically, long term we think that is exactly where we want to head.” One of the first signs that the acquisition was not going as planned came just two months after the acquisition when Uber put longtime employee Rachel Holt in charge of the New Mobility unit. In one of her first meetings with the JUMP team, Holt made it very clear that she was in charge, as multiple employees recalled. This directly undermined what Rzepecki had publicly said when the acquisition was announced, that JUMP would remain independent of Uber. Now, the employees were being told that wasn’t the case. When asked about this reversal, an Uber spokesperson described Holt as “a longtime Uber executive with experience growing a mobility business.” Holt did not respond to a list of questions sent by Motherboard. “There was also an awareness that this was no longer some private company, that it was fucking Uber now.” Holt brought an Uber 1.0 approach to bikeshare, one that mimicked what companies like MoBike and Ofo were doing (MoBike co-founder Wang Xiaofeng had previously been general manager of Uber’s Shanghai operations). They flooded the streets with bikes under the philosophy that any second a bike is not on the street, it’s losing money. They expanded to new markets and hired so many people so fast some employees spent half their time in hiring meetings and prospective employee interviews. Teams doubled or tripled in size within months, only to find they were now overstaffed. Bike mechanics at the main warehouse would have thousands of bikes to build that were just delivered from China, but local mechanics in the cities where JUMP operated didn’t have spare parts to fix the bikes on the street. In other words, JUMP employees felt Uber was applying a software business mentality to bikeshare. It was, to JUMP’s longtime employees, a fundamental misunderstanding of what kind of business they were in. Uber was running JUMP with the mindset that anything that’s broken can be patched, but, as one employee put it, “a firmware update can’t fix a bike chain.” “Like any startup (whether inside of Uber or out), JUMP’s early days can be characterized as scrappy,” an Uber spokesperson said. “JUMP was scaling very quickly. When we bought JUMP they were a very small company with a fleet of only 500 e-bikes in San Francisco. When we merged with Lime a few weeks ago, we had tens of thousands of e-bikes and scooters in 30 cities around the world.” Otherwise an impressive feat of engineering, the bikes JUMP released in early 2019 under Uber had one critical flaw. JUMP replaced the sturdy if bulky U-lock with a cable lock in order to make the bikes easier to secure. But the cable lock wasn’t robust. It was a critical oversight, one that highlighted how far JUMP had strayed from its roots, since any New York City bicyclist knows a cable lock is an open invitation for theft. All someone had to do was flip the 75-pound bike over and the cable would snap under its own momentum (there was also a method using a hammer that took more finesse). With a few well-placed blows, thieves could easily disable the GPS unit and be on their way with a (very heavy) bike. While every city experienced some degree of theft, Providence, Rhode Island experienced among the most because, for whatever reason, stealing JUMP bikes became a form of sport for the city’s teens. “We didn’t understand the magnitude of the problem until it was too late,” one former JUMP employee familiar with the situation told Motherboard. “Hundreds and hundreds of bikes were getting stolen.” In emails obtained by* the Providence Journal*, JUMP’s operations manager in Providence, Alex Kreuger, told the city that, in one weekend in July 2019, 150-200 bikes were vandalized out of a fleet of about 1,000 bikes. “Someone brandished a gun on a field tech, kids tried to steal bikes directly from our warehouse, riders reported attempts by people to steal the bike as they were riding them,” Kreuger wrote. In another instance, according to a source, an employee trying to retrieve a bike reportedly had to wield a broken kickstand to fend off some kids swinging a 2×4 at him. In the fall, Uber hired a private security firm to ride along with the field technicians in order to retrieve the stolen bikes. This didn’t strike any of the employees as especially odd, since none of them had signed up to be fighting kids in the streets. One field tech who spoke to Motherboard estimated that “five to 10” instances resulted in private security workers physically restraining people while the bikes were being recovered, as was the case with the bulletproof vest-clad rent-a-cop tackling a kid riding a bike. Among other things, the vandalism made it impossible for JUMP to have 90 percent of its bikes on the street at all times, as its contract with the city required. Sometimes, one former employee said, they’d have fewer than 300 bikes, or less than 30 percent of the fleet, on the street. In August, JUMP pulled its bikes off the streets of Providence for what it claimed was a temporary period, but the bikes never returned. In October, the field technicians, who had ridden around with the security guys for weeks, received an email at the end of their shift telling them not to bother coming in anymore; they were all fired. The security guys got an email at the end of the shift, too; their new job was to take over bike retrieval, but their first order of business was to escort the field technicians out of the building. At least one former Providence employee thinks the vandalism could not be disconnected from the Uber acquisition. “There was also an awareness that this was no longer some private company, that it was fucking Uber now,” they told Motherboard. “This is owned by a corporation that doesn’t care about bettering anyone’s fucking community or whatever, so people saw an opportunity there.” Whether or not that was the case, JUMP had bigger problems than just Providence, and Uber had bigger problems than just JUMP. After breakneck growth and an IPO in the spring of 2019, Uber was under more pressure than ever to show it could be profitable. And thanks to its growth-at-all costs approach to bikeshare, JUMP was leaking cash. But it wasn’t the financial losses that bothered JUMP employees the most. It was the gradual erosion of everything that got them to sacrifice so much for the company in the first place. Morale tanked as people slowly noticed they were busting their asses to hit growth metrics. The joy of cycling and creating a community good was not only secondary to that, it was becoming a memory. “We went from putting 45-pound steel plates with 35-pound racks down on street corners where we had paid surveyors to stand and count people riding and locking bikes and working very closely with municipal transportation services, universities, and community groups, to, from what I understand, basically offering cities as much money as they needed to launch as quickly as possible and putting as many bikes on the curb as quickly as possible wherever we could,” one former employee said. “That’s the same approach that Bird used for scooters, that Lime used for their bikes, and Ofo used for their bikes in Texas and got in so much trouble for. And that’s why they’re trash. And that’s why JUMP became trash.” In September 2019, JUMP employees were transferred to a new entity called Sobi LLC, which some employees took as an indication they were being broken off for a sale. An Uber spokesperson said it was because “As JUMP grew its footprint, so did the need for more focused business support for day-to-day operations.” Four months later, at the beginning of 2020, Rzepecki and a handful of other original Social Bicycle employees left. The following months would result in a cascading series of layoffs in which Uber let 25 percent of its staff go. At the beginning of last month, The Information reported that Uber was leading a $170 million funding round in Lime in a deal that would involve transferring JUMP to them. This was news to the JUMP staff. In an all-hands call that day, Khosrowshahi refused to directly answer a question about JUMP’s future, which both irked and worried its employees. An Uber spokesperson said, as a public company, Khosrowshahi could not discuss the transaction before it finalized. The next day, Uber laid off nearly everyone at JUMP. Because it was in the middle of the pandemic, the laid off had one hour to say goodbye to their friends over Slack. Then their computers turned off. * Whatever comes of JUMP under Lime’s stewardship, it will be without the people who made JUMP what it was. Lime was founded in 2017 by two former venture capital executives who quickly bailed on bikes to hop onto the scooter fad. It even experimented with a carsharing service. Lime obtained the intellectual property rights for the newest versions of the JUMP bikes and scooters, but, as of now, none of the people who designed or built them. The big question facing the bikeshare industry—and its scooter-share offshoots—is whether the business can ever be profitable. To date, the answer is no. Lime lost some $300 million last year while its major competitor, Bird—founded by a former Lyft and Uber executive—isn’t faring much better. While 2020 doesn’t look poised to turn industry fortunes around due to the global pandemic, it is a testament to how poorly managed the micromobility industry has been that ceasing operations may, in fact, be a blessing in disguise for companies that haven’t figured out how to run a service without bleeding cash. Unlike software, transportation is a deliberate business, sometimes painfully so. To tech executives, this appears to be a flaw, an inefficiency to disrupt. No doubt the RFP process and other regulations around the transportation industry can be improved, but there’s a reason transportation businesses move slowly. It costs too much to screw up, both in money and in reputation. Useful mass transportation doesn’t suddenly appear. It is carefully nurtured from a tiny seedling of a good idea to a fully-formed organism that breathes life into a city. It is a process that takes time and effort and patience as well as money. For all their shortcomings, this is something the SoBi people knew well. It is also something Uber could never understand, because it has always rejected the premise that it’s in the transportation business. It’s been telling itself and regulators since its inception it is merely a business-to-business software application so it can skirt employment regulations that would force it to make all of its drivers employees. But that deception became so ingrained in company culture that it conducted itself as a software company even when it was purchasing and fixing bicycles by the tens of thousands. On the most basic level, it’s impossible to succeed when you don’t know what line of work you’re in. On top of that, transportation companies have to work with the cities in which they operate whether they like it or not. To several of the employees Motherboard spoke to, this was the single biggest and most consequential culture shift after the acquisition. Whenever there was a problem with a city, Uber postured for a fight, which went against every instinct JUMP had. “We wanted to work with [the cities] and build trust,” one former employee summarized. “Uber wanted to steamroll them.” (“We disagree,” an Uber spokesman said. “JUMP worked diligently to address sidewalk riding and parking clutter through both operational changes and investing in innovative technology.”) And the whole scheme was built on a faulty premise, that putting more and more bikes on the road in more and more cities would eventually result in profits, even though the company lost money on each ride. They imitated the strategy that MoBike and Ofo used to blow up the bikeshare industry—which itself imitated the strategy Uber used to become a global behemoth—because that’s what investors wanted to see. But by the end of 2018, the very strategy JUMP would later imitate was clearly not working. MoBike was sold to Chinese neighborhood services company Meituan-Dianping and retreated from foreign markets (its European operations were spun off, so some MoBikes are still on the road there). In June of last year, a Chinese court found Ofo “has basically no assets,” according to Quartz, and couldn’t pay off its debts. Photos of mass bike graves of the erstwhile bikeshare boom went viral. But the damage was done, because the perception of what bikeshare should be had been irrevocably altered. It was no longer a transportation business; it was a tech business, and everything that brought along with it. Even at the time Ofo and MoBike were getting handed billions in cash, the JUMP people didn’t know what to think, because they were still thinking like bike people. “We didn’t believe the unit economics worked,” Miretsky recalled, “Then we heard the companies said the unit economics worked, and we thought well they couldn’t be lying, * we* wouldn’t lie. And then it turned out later they were probably lying.” * After the videos of the bikes getting destroyed surfaced, several former JUMP employees wondered if there was something they could do to save as many bikes as they could. They asked that I not disclose who they were so as not to jeopardize the NDA they signed with Uber. With some help from current Uber employees, they were able to save some. They will get donated to various groups and organizations. The Bike Share Museum in Florida got five, but an Uber spokesperson did not say who got the rest. But multiple sources told Motherboard that, in total, they saved 5,298 bikes. They each knew the exact number.

JUMP wanted to create a better, more bike-friendly world. Former employees told Motherboard how getting acquired by Uber led to JUMP bikes being destroyed by the thousands.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2020-06-23 00:00:00

article

vice.com

VICE

http://dataaddict.fr/prenoms/#

De 1929 à 2019: 90 ans de prénoms en France

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2019-01-01 00:00:00

http://blog.bignerdranch.com/4420-stochastic-profiling/

https://medium.com/boardengine-io-job-board-engines/build-your-free-full-stack-developer-resume-cv-ab1a4dcdbb90

https://news.mit.edu/2020/solar-extracts-drinkable-water-1014

Solar-powered system extracts drinkable water from “dry” air

David L Chandler; MIT News Office

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have significantly boosted the output from a system that can extract drinkable water directly from the air even in dry regions, using heat from the sun or another source. The system, which builds on a design initially developed three years ago at MIT by members of the same team, brings the process closer to something that could become a practical water source for remote regions with limited access to water and electricity. The findings are described today in the journal *Joule*, in a paper by Professor Evelyn Wang, who is head of MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering; graduate student Alina LaPotin; and six others at MIT and in Korea and Utah. The earlier device demonstrated by Wang and her co-workers provided a proof of concept for the system, which harnesses a temperature difference within the device to allow an adsorbent material — which collects liquid on its surface — to draw in moisture from the air at night and release it the next day. When the material is heated by sunlight, the difference in temperature between the heated top and the shaded underside makes the water release back out of the adsorbent material. The water then gets condensed on a collection plate. But that device required the use of specialized materials called metal organic frameworks, or MOFs, which are expensive and limited in supply, and the system’s water output was not sufficient for a practical system. Now, by incorporating a second stage of desorption and condensation, and by using a readily available adsorbent material, the device’s output has been significantly increased, and its scalability as a potentially widespread product is greatly improved, the researchers say. Wang says the team felt that “It’s great to have a small prototype, but how can we get it into a more scalable form?” The new advances in design and materials have now led to progress in that direction. Instead of the MOFs, the new design uses an adsorbent material called a zeolite, which in this case is composed of a microporous iron aluminophosphate. The material is widely available, stable, and has the right adsorbent properties to provide an efficient water production system based just on typical day-night temperature fluctuations and heating with sunlight. The two-stage design developed by LaPotin makes clever use of the heat that is generated whenever water changes phase. The sun’s heat is collected by a solar absorber plate at the top of the box-like system and warms the zeolite, releasing the moisture the material has captured overnight. That vapor condenses on a collector plate — a process that releases heat as well. The collector plate is a copper sheet directly above and in contact with the second zeolite layer, where the heat of condensation is used to release the vapor from that subsequent layer. Droplets of water collected from each of the two layers can be funneled together into a collecting tank. In the process, the overall productivity of the system, in terms of its potential liters per day per square meter of solar collecting area (LMD), is approximately doubled compared to the earlier version, though exact rates depend on local temperature variations, solar flux, and humidity levels. In the initial prototype of the new system, tested on a rooftop at MIT before the pandemic restrictions, the device produced “orders of magnitude” more total water than the earlier version, Wang says. While similar two-stage systems have been used for other applications such as desalination, Wang says, “I think no one has really pursued this avenue” of using such a system for atmospheric water harvesting (AWH), as such technologies are known. Existing AWH approaches include fog harvesting and dew harvesting, but both have significant limitations. Fog harvesting only works with 100 percent relative humidity, and is currently used only in a few coastal deserts, while dew harvesting requires energy-intensive refrigeration to provide cold surfaces for moisture to condense on — and still requires humidity of at least 50 percent, depending on the ambient temperature. By contrast, the new system can work at humidity levels as low as 20 percent and requires no energy input other than sunlight or any other available source of low-grade heat. LaPotin says that the key is this two-stage architecture; now that its effectiveness has been shown, people can search for even better adsorbent materials that could further drive up the production rates. The present production rate of about 0.8 liters of water per square meter per day may be adequate for some applications, but if this rate can be improved with some further fine-tuning and materials choices, this could become practical on a large scale, she says. Already, materials are in development that have an adsorption about five times greater than this particular zeolite and could lead to a corresponding increase in water output, according to Wang. The team continues work on refining the materials and design of the device and adapting it to specific applications, such as a portable version for military field operations. The two-stage system could also be adapted to other kinds of water harvesting approaches that use multiple thermal cycles per day, fed by a different heat source rather than sunlight, and thus could produce higher daily outputs. “This is an interesting and technologically significant work indeed,” says Guihua Yu, a professor of materials science and mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, who was not associated with this work. “It represents a powerful engineering approach for designing a dual-stage AWH device to achieve higher water production yield, marking a step closer toward practical solar-driven water production,” he says. Yu adds that “Technically, it is beautiful that one could reuse the heat released simply by this dual-stage design, to better confine the solar energy in the water harvesting system to improve energy efficiency and daily water productivity. Future research lies in improving this prototype system with low cost components and simple configuration with minimized heat loss.” The research team includes Yang Zhong, Lenan Zhang, Lin Zhao, and Arny Leroy at MIT; Hyunho Kim at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology; and Sameer Rao at the University of Utah. The work was supported by the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) at MIT.

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have significantly boosted the output from a system that can extract drinkable water directly from the air even in dry regions, using heat from the sun or another source.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2020-10-14 00:00:00

article

news.mit.edu

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52808177

Google deletes millions of negative TikTok reviews

# Google deletes millions of negative TikTok reviews **Google has deleted millions of negative TikTok reviews from its Play store after the app's rating fell from 4.5 to 1.2 stars overnight. ** The video-sharing platform was inundated with one-star reviews after an Indian creator posted a spoof video of an acid attack. Faizal Siddiqui has apologised, and TikTok has deleted copies of his clip. But Google intervened after it determined that critics had set up fake accounts to amplify their protests. Even so, the move has had limited effect, and TikTok's rating remains below two stars on the official Android marketplace. The video in question had appeared to show Mr Siddiqui threatening a woman who had decided to leave him. In the clip, he threw liquid at the woman's face. It was water, but the next scene showed the woman's face covered in make-up that resembled the scars and bruising that acid might cause. “As per the policy, we do not allow content that risks the safety of others, promotes physical harm, or glorifies violence against women," a spokesman for TikTok said. "The behaviour in question violates our guidelines and we have taken down content, suspended the account, and are working with law enforcement agencies as appropriate.” Mr Siddiqui later said that: "As a social media influencer, I realise my responsibility and apologise to anyone who was offended by the video." After TikTok became embroiled in the backlash, Google removed more than 5 million of its recent one-star reviews but left many others active. A spokesman for Google said it had taken "corrective action". "When we learn of incidents of spam abuse, we review and take corrective action to remove inappropriate ratings and comments," he added. The event coincided with TikTok's monthly revenue from in-app charges topping those of any other non-gaming app in April, including YouTube and Netflix, according to the analytics firm Sensor Tower. The figure includes sales via the Chinese version of the product, known as Douyin, Bloomberg reported. Users can purchase virtual currency to spend on supporting their favourite creators on the app. TikTok's month-on-month in-app purchases revenues increased tenfold to $78m (£63.8m), with 86.6% coming from China, followed by 8.2% in the US.

Angry users had flooded the app with one-star reviews over a controversial video.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2020-05-26 00:00:00

reportagenewsarticle

bbc.com

BBC News

https://www.whiteops.com/methbot

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-biggest-psychological-experiment-in-history-is-running-now1/

The Biggest Psychological Experiment in History Is Running Now

Lydia Denworth

The impact of COVID-19 on the physical health of the world’s citizens has been extraordinary. By April 2021 there were almost 130 million cases spread across more than 190 countries. The pandemic’s effect on mental health could be even more far-reaching. At one point roughly one third of the planet’s population was under orders to stay home. That means 2.6 billion people—more than were alive during World War II—were experiencing the emotional and financial reverberations of this new coronavirus. “[The lockdown] is arguably the largest psychological experiment ever conducted,” wrote health psychologist Elke Van Hoof of Free University of Brussels-VUB in Belgium. The results of this unwitting experiment are only beginning to be calculated. The science of resilience, which investigates how people weather adversity, offers some clues. A resilient individual, wrote Harvard University psychiatrist George Vaillant, resembles a twig with a fresh, green living core. “When twisted out of shape, such a twig bends, but it does not break; instead it springs back and continues growing.” The metaphor describes a surprising number of people: As many as two thirds of individuals recover from difficult experiences without prolonged psychological effects, even when they have lived through events such as violent crime or being a prisoner of war. Some even go on to grow and learn from what happened to them. But the other third suffers real psychological distress—some people for a few months, others for years. Even if most individuals prove resilient, the toll of the COVID-19 disruptions and the sheer numbers involved have experts warning of a mental illness “tsunami.” People face a multiple wallop: the threat of disease, loneliness of isolation, loss of loved ones, repercussions of job loss and ongoing uncertainty about when the pandemic will end. Depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress will undoubtedly follow for some. Mental health hotlines have reported surges in calls, and early surveys found high levels of concern. “This pandemic just ticks all the boxes in terms of the kinds of stressors that are going to be difficult,” says psychologist Anita DeLongis of the University of British Columbia, who studies psychosocial responses to disease. The deaths by suicide of health care professionals who had been on the medical front lines are powerful reminders of the risks. Individual resilience is further complicated by the fact that this pandemic has not affected each person in the same way. For all that is shared—the coronavirus has struck every level of society and left few lives unchanged—there has been tremendous variation in the disruption and devastation experienced. Consider Brooklyn, just one borough in hard-hit New York City. Residents who started 2020 living or working within a few miles of one another have very different stories of illness, loss and navigating the challenges of social distancing. How quickly and how well individuals, businesses and organizations recover will depend on the jobs, insurance and health they had when this started, on whether they have endured hassle or heartbreak, and on whether they can tap financial resources and social support. The pandemic has laid bare the inequities in the American health care system and economic safety net. Black and Latino Americans are dying at much higher rates than white Americans. “When we talk about preexisting conditions, it isn’t just if I’m obese; it’s our society’s preexisting condition,” says medical anthropologist Carol Worthman of Emory University, an expert in global mental health. Fortunately, the unprecedented pandemic is leading to unprecedented science not just in virology but on mental health and resilience. Behavioral scientists are measuring the psychological toll in real time and striving to identify what helps people cope. Unlike, say, the September 11 terrorist attacks or Hurricane Katrina, which occurred over a finite period even though their effects were drawn out, the open-ended time frame for COVID allows for new kinds of longitudinal studies and research directions. The sudden mass switch to virtual forms of working and socializing is expected to jump-start more nuanced investigations into what makes social interaction satisfying—or stultifying. If researchers meet the challenge of COVID, says psychiatrist Dennis Charney of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, “there will be a whole new science of resilience. We could learn how to help people become more resilient *before* these things happen.” ## Bend but Don’t Break Rafael Hasid arrived in New York City from his native Israel in 2000 to attend the French Culinary Institute. In 2005 he opened a restaurant called Miriam in Brooklyn that became a neighborhood favorite. In the first weeks of March 2020, Hasid could see what was coming. “I was following the news in Israel,” he says. “We were two weeks behind in every respect. I was saying, ‘This is going to happen here.’” When Miriam’s popular weekend brunch attracted a third of the usual crowd, Hasid did not spend much time wondering what to do: he gave away all of the restaurant’s perishable food to the neighbors. By the time the city required all restaurants to shut down, Miriam had already closed. Faced with potentially traumatic events, “about 65 percent of people are going to show minimal psychological symptoms,” says clinical psychologist George Bonanno of Teachers College at Columbia University. Bonanno, who is an expert on resiliency, studies the aftermath of hurricanes, terrorist attacks, life-threatening injuries and epidemics such as the 2003 SARS outbreak. His research and that of others consistently shows three common psychological responses to hardship. Two thirds of people follow a resilience trajectory and maintain relatively stable psychological and physical health. About 25 percent struggle temporarily with psychopathology such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder and then recover—a pattern known as the recovery trajectory. And 10 percent suffer lasting psychological distress. These results hold true across diverse populations and socioeconomic statuses. “We’re talking about everybody,” Bonanno says. On the other hand, the risk of psychiatric disorders is twice as high for people on the lowest economic rungs. But the mental health effects of a crisis so sweeping and insidious may not adhere to this paradigm. Studies show that strict quarantine can lead to negative psychological effects such as PTSD, although few of us have been under true quarantine, which refers to isolating after a possible exposure to infection. Instead much of the world is living with restrictions that Bonanno suspects amount to something more like managing constant stress. “This is the first time in living history we’ve had a global lockdown that’s gone on for such a long time,” says epidemiologist Daisy Fancourt of University College London. “We simply don’t know how people are going to react to this.” The potential scope of the impact is considerable. “This is different from other forms of stress because it’s not just one domain of your life,” says health psychologist Nancy Sin of the University of British Columbia. “People are dealing with relationship or family challenges, with financial and work challenges, with health.” Early reports were showing clear effects. The first nationwide large-scale survey in China, where the crisis hit earliest, found that almost 35 percent reported psychological distress. In the U.S., rising fear and anxiety about COVID have been found in people who already suffer from anxiety. Another study captured worrisome findings in older adults. This is surprising because previous research shows that, for the most part, older adults have better emotional well-being. “During this pandemic, older adults don’t have those age-related strengths in emotions that we would typically expect,” says Sin, who studies aging and is collaborating with DeLongis in an ongoing COVID-19 study of 64,000 individuals worldwide. “They are reporting just as much stress as middle-aged and younger people.” Sin is still analyzing the causes of the stress but suspects it is caused by older adults’ higher likelihood of getting sick and of losing loved ones. Older people are coping with their stress better than younger people, however, and reporting less depression or anxiety. They may be benefiting from the perspective that comes with having lived through more than younger people, Sin says. Adults older than 65 have also had more time to develop skills for dealing with stress, and many have retired and so are less likely to be concerned about work. Fancourt began a study in mid-March 2020 that at one point grew to include more than 90,000 U.K. residents. It is tracking depression, anxiety, stress and loneliness week by week. “We need to know in real time what’s happening,” Fancourt says. Six weeks in, they found that levels of depression were significantly higher than before the pandemic. Generally, those with previously diagnosed mental health illnesses, those who live alone and younger people were reporting the highest levels of depression and anxiety. On the positive side, there was a slight decrease in anxiety levels once the lockdown was declared. “Uncertainty tends to make things worse,” Fancourt says. Some are frozen by not knowing what is to come, whereas others find ways to carry on. After Hasid’s restaurant had been closed for three weeks, he had not yet received any of the government payments meant to protect small businesses. While his situation was rife with uncertainty, “I was thinking that we have to continue creating business for ourselves,” he says. When a few customers e-mailed to inquire if he would consider catering their Passover seders, Hasid developed a prix fixe holiday menu for delivery. Before the pandemic, Hasid was planning to open a delicatessen that would be located in an adjacent storefront. Instead of renovating the new space, he opened the deli inside the restaurant. His biggest worry was whether employees would feel safe. To reassure them, in addition to social distancing, he requires masks and gloves and has someone come in to bleach the restaurant morning and night. Hasid also looked into other sanitizing strategies involving blowers and alcohol that he heard had been used in Singapore. Hasid recognizes that his ability to adapt is not something every business can do, especially many restaurants that run on tight margins. The new operation used minimal staff, but Hasid continued to pay—out of his own pocket—any employees who were not able to get through to unemployment. Serving food via delivery brings in less than a third of Miriam’s former income, but he says it is better than nothing. Last year the restaurant also began preparing a weekly meal for a local hospital. “It is not a money maker, but it’s the least we can do.” Hasid is pleased with Miriam’s reinvention and optimistic that the restaurant will ultimately survive. “We are in a much better situation than a lot of other places in New York,” he says. ## The Components of Coping When Brooklyn resident Tom Inck developed a persistent fever and dry cough in the middle of March 2020, the psychotherapist and management consultant feared he had COVID. Because of the shortage of tests at the time, Inck’s doctor first screened for every other known virus (Inck paid for the test panel). Then doctor and patient met on the streets of Manhattan. Standing on Madison Avenue in full protective equipment, the doctor administered the test, which came back positive six days later. Successfully coping in a crisis means continuing to function and engaging in day-to-day activities. One must solve problems (whether that means getting groceries or a virus test), regulate emotions and manage relationships. There are factors that predict resilience such as optimism, the ability to keep perspective, strong social support and flexible thinking. People who believe they can cope do, in fact, tend to cope better. During nine days of isolation in a spare room, Inck filled the time with meditating and reading. In some ways, things were harder for his wife, Wendy Blattner, who was managing her husband’s care, the transition of her marketing agency to remote work, and the emotions of the couple’s two college-aged daughters, who were upset at the loss of their semesters and anxious about their father. Blattner left meals outside her husband’s door and got up every three hours throughout the night to record his temperature and blood oxygen level. She was scared but resolute. “I felt like he had excellent care, even though it was remote, and that I had the resources within myself and the support I needed,” she says. “That’s what I told my kids and what I told myself—that it might get rough, but it was going to be okay.” Most people’s coping skills can be strengthened. Several of the new studies are designed to identify successful strategies that buffer the effects of the stress. So far, Fancourt says, people are encouraged to follow classic mental health strategies: getting enough sleep, observing a routine, exercising, eating well and maintaining strong social connections. Spending time on projects, even small ones, that provide a sense of purpose helps. In previous work, DeLongis has shown that those who are high in empathy are more likely to engage in appropriate health behaviors such as social distancing and to have better mental health outcomes than people who are low in empathy. But her earlier studies of diseases such as SARS and West Nile were cross-sectional and captured only a moment in time. Her COVID-19 study followed people’s behavior and attitudes for months to capture changes in empathy and coping over time. “This isn’t just about a trait of empathy,” DeLongis says. Empathetic responses can be learned and encouraged with proper messaging, and her hunch was that increases or decreases in empathetic responding over weeks and months would be associated with shifts in health behaviors and coping mechanisms. As part of DeLongis’s study, Sin asked people to record their daily activities and emotions for a week. In the early months of the pandemic, she says, the picture was “that life is really challenging, but people are finding ways to meet that challenge.” Many reported a great deal of positive social interactions, many of them remote. Older adults reported the highest levels of positive experiences in their daily lives, often through providing support to others. It is striking that remote connections are proving satisfying. Previous research on the effects of digital technology and media focused on the association between time spent on screens and psychological well-being but revealed little about the worth of different kinds of online interaction. Now that the world is relying on the Internet to socialize, investigating those nuances is crucial. Should social media closely mimic face-to-face interaction, or can less intense forms of communication leave people feeling connected? We do not know yet, but it is likely those studies will now get funded when previously they weren’t. “I think we just skipped a decade of conversation in a month,” says psychologist Amy Orben of the University of Cambridge, who studies adolescent mental health and technology use. Social media is a factor in other kinds of research as well. Psychologist Roxane Cohen Silver of the University of California, Irvine, is assessing the impact of media exposure on people’s well-being. “Those who consume a great deal of news about a community-wide crisis are more distressed,” she says. Computational social scientist Johannes Eichstaedt of Stanford University is combining large-scale analyses of Twitter with machine learning to capture levels of depression, loneliness and joy during the pandemic. As Blattner feared, things did get rough for their family. On nights seven and eight, when Inck’s fever hovered around 103 and his blood oxygen levels dropped to 93, his doctor (via Zoom) said if the levels stayed there or got worse, Inck should go to the hospital. “I’m not going to have a patient who dies at home,” he said, a statement that alarmed the children. “The toughest thing for us was the fear,” Inck says. But Tylenol kept the fever in check, and short, shallow breaths kept Inck’s blood oxygen level in the safety zone. After 10 days, he began to feel better. The experience left Inck grateful and energized. He threw himself back into work counseling others who were sick and signed up to be a plasma donor for critical patients. But, unlike others who recovered, he did not initially venture out much. “The world felt like a vulnerable place,” he says. ## Society’s Preexisting Conditions Even those brimming with personal resilience need outside help if they face challenges on multiple fronts. As executive director of IMPACCT Brooklyn, a community development corporation that serves the historically Black neighborhoods of Brooklyn, Bernell K. Grier sees just how hard the pandemic has hit the African-American community. “Daily, I’m hearing of people who are either COVID-positive, recovering from it or have died from it,” she says. Three of those deaths occurred in apartments that Grier manages and required her to organize deep-cleaning services. Still, she pressed on. “Seniors are fearful of going out, fearful of anyone coming to their front door,” Grier says. “They also are not tech-savvy. A lot of things where they’re being told to go on the computer, they need someone to hold their hand and help them through the process.” The pandemic, Fancourt says, “is going to exacerbate the social gradient that we’re used to seeing across society. It’s crucial that [people] have interventions at a national level that can support [them].” In the U.K., such interventions include the National Health Service and a furlough program that pays up to 80 percent of the salaries of millions of Britons who could not work because of the pandemic. In the U.S., paycheck-protection packages and unemployment exist but proved difficult to access quickly. Grier’s organization provides a variety of services around housing, small business advocacy, and interaction with financial and government institutions. As soon as the pandemic hit, her staff distributed information about public health and economic resources. They introduced webinars to help businesses apply for loans. As of late April 2020, “none of the ones that we helped got anything,” Grier says. “It’s not reaching our businesses.” Only 70 percent of Grier’s tenants were able to pay rent in April 2020. “We still have to pay the supers, the porters, the heat and electricity, the taxes and everything else,” Grier says. “It’s a domino effect. If the residents can’t pay, we can’t pay.” Worthman, the Emory anthropologist, says the ability to cope with the pandemic’s reverberations is not just an individual issue but a societal one. It is also an opportunity. “People have pointed to periods of disaster in American history, after World War I and the Depression, that led to real structural change that benefited people.” Grier is advocating for positive change for her community. In her talks with public health and elected officials, she points out disparities such as the fact that the first test centers were not located in poor neighborhoods. “This is a spotlight on what has existed for too long,” she says. “When you’re looking at [solutions], make sure that income equality and a racial-equity lens is a filter for everything that’s put in place.” As Brooklyn reemerges from social isolation, Grier knows the critical role groups like hers play. “We will continue to be here to be that liaison, that credit counselor, that navigator.” Cultivating resilience though community support appears to be more important than ever. As a school nurse in Brooklyn, Marilyn Howard, who immigrated from Guyana as a teenager, worked through the early weeks of March 2020 until the public schools closed. She got sick the day after she left work. It took 10 days to get the test results that confirmed she had COVID. By then Howard thought she was on the road to recovery. But on Saturday, April 4, she awoke with labored breathing that rapidly worsened. Her brother Nigel Howard, with whom she shared an apartment, called an ambulance. But April 4 was near the peak of the pandemic in Brooklyn, and there was no ambulance available. Nigel drove them to the nearest hospital, but Marilyn’s breathing deteriorated on the way. Less than a minute before they arrived, her heart stopped, and she could not be revived. She was 53. “A couple of simple things could have saved my sister’s life,” says Haslyn Howard, the youngest of Marilyn’s five brothers. If schools had closed earlier or her colleague could have taken a sick day, she might not have gotten sick. If someone had recommended a pulse oximeter, she would have known to go to the hospital sooner. If an ambulance had been available.... The Howard brothers arranged a viewing at a Long Island funeral home to provide some closure. Haslyn permitted only three people in the room at a time, but a simultaneous virtual service allowed more than 250 people to celebrate Marilyn’s life. Nigel later tested positive for COVID and isolated at home. “My brothers and I are in the initial phases of trying to plan an organization that targets efforts to help the Black and brown community, poor communities, address some of these [issues] on a local and tangible level,” Haslyn said soon after losing his sister. It is something they can do in her memory that would have made her proud. “That’s one of the ways that we’re coping,” he adds. “How do we turn tragedy into triumph?”

What can the pandemic teach us about how people respond to adversity?

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2020-07-01 00:00:00

article

scientificamerican.com

Scientific American

https://opencollaboration.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/how-to-approach-the-interconnected-problems-of-our-world/

How to approach the interconnected problems of our world

Open Collaboration

Human evolution is at a stage where we face a wide range of interconnected social, economic, technological and environmental problems that could lead to worldwide catastrophe. These problems form what are called ‘wicked problems‘ in the sense that they are interconnected, and solving one part of the problem may lead to a worsening of another part. To approach these interconnected problems, we need an interconnected approach which taps into the distributed, diverse, co-creative, and collective intelligence of humanity and the ecological intelligence of the Earth, and which connects humanity at a higher consciousness level than the level from which our interconnected problems were first created. Bottom-up, non-hierarchical, open-sourced, networked, peer-to-peer methodologies have a great potential in creating vast global coordinated actions. And already there are frequently occurring worldwide movements begun in a matter of days and weeks. The interconnected solutions to these interconnected problems will come from moving humanity into the Empathic Age. When the amount of empathy increases in a system, solutions to many problems miraculously emerge – solutions that cannot just be rationally thought out – the solution arises out of the energy of connection with each other and with nature. Empathic communication methods and facilitation processes can help dramatically in guiding different people, demographics to understand and connect with each other. We can open-source the development and propagation of empathic communication and facilitation processes that bring people together can accelerate the oncoming of the Empathic Age. And our ability to empathise will increase as we do innerwork and become more self-aware. Science and technology hold great potential in connecting us, whilst at the same time it holds the potential for runaway problems, and disconnecting us from our beingness. Technology can become like cancer cells, replicating without communication and coordination with other cells. To balance this out, we need to reconnect to our bodies, our emotions, to our communities, to indigenous wisdom, to nature and to earth. In the Ken Wilber Integral theory approach each level of individual and social development transcends and includes the previous level. As we transcend to higher levels of rational development, we need to also include our emotions and our body awareness. We also want guide humanity to transcend the rational stage and move into higher consciousness ways of knowing. In terms of social development, humanity transcended to a global stage of development, but in the process it has broken down rather than included the hyperlocal (town block and neighborhood level) and local (town level) stages of development ; our global economic, political, and technological forces have often ripped apart our local communities and structures. Humanity can launch a vast movement to relocalize and retribalize the economic, healthcare, entertainment, justice, political, education and food production sectors of our society. This is different than returning to previous local and tribal ways of life, because our local centers can be part a worldwide evolutionary learning network and cultural laboratory which prototypes methodologies, and then shares and picks up best practices and innovations. These best practices can model more empathic, connection-based, energy-based, and less dualistic processes for the different sectors of our societies. Punitive justice becomes restorative justice, transaction economics becomes a trust and sharing based economics, command-and-control politics becomes a facilitate synergy politics, ‘soaking up information’ education becomes transformational education, and reductionist and synthetic based medicine becomes holistic and energetic based medicine. A social system works best when the social system has parts at all size scales (hyperlocal, local, …intermediary size scales…,global) which are autonomous, which can function to self-maintain, and self-heal itself (i.e. its holarchic. Relocalization helps bring about this structure. Complex systems evolve so that each part plays many functions at once (called stacking functions in permaculture). If we attempt to organize the parts in a way so that they perform one function better without understanding the whole, leading to some roles that the parts play being destroyed, then the system will emerge malfunctioning side-effects. We will then have to try and find new solutions to those new malfunctions, which will then lead to more side-effects etc.. When the parts are not organized holistically at one level, they lead to side-effects at all size scales. For instance monoculture agriculture, or mono-use zoning of how neighborhoods seem to be well-ordered and allow easier top-down management. But they lead to all sorts of inefficiencies and mulitplying problems as we attempt to remedy those inefficiencies. In a healthy system parts/actions will often be playing a multiplicity of roles at the same time, roles that may be social, economic, agricultural, educational, healthcare, and entertainment at the same time. The way to approach a complex system at the hyperlocal and local scales is not an ordered top-down plan, and a command-and-control methodology, but rather an observe, listen, grow, tend, facilitate approach. The complex system then evolves into a state where it is adaptive and resilient, and where parts play multiple roles. The effects then ripple out to all size scales. I suggest reading The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, Harvard psychologist. She suggests that her clinical work leads her to estimate that 4% of the population is sociopathic. They gravitate into positions of power. They have no conscience, no empathy and they think we empaths are ridiculous, but easy to manipulate. Until your theory includes a way to wrench power away from sociopaths and keep it away, you don’t have a chance. They will find ways to control others – money, war, propaganda, they don’t care. Why do the politicians just not care if millions of people lose their houses, their health care, their jobs, their lives. Why? Because they are incapable of empathy. Your project will founder unless you understand this and structure your ideology to avoid their power grab. Paul Palmer We are, regardless of how we organize ourselves, bound to live in a holarchic organic system. That we organize based on private property/physical ownership of land, personal privacy, objectification of the process of nature, self-interest, and according to a cubic, square, grid-like aesthetic, are all reflections of the same problematic cultural worldview, and point to a social ignorance of the fact that we live in a holarchic system. We are isolated by nationality, borders – Global North vs Global South, by social strata, by city and neighborhood, by apartment and lot; and we are also fragmented and isolated in our personal lives, in our minds, in our bodies. The same square, rigid, tense, and externalized process of objectification underwrites all of these, and the results co-reinforce each other from the level of the psyche to the level of global economics. I think you are absolutely correct that a “relocalization” and “retribalization” of our cultural expressions is the direction that we need to move. I also think that working with degenerative power will show itself to be the greatest hindrance to the institutionalization of these efforts. To “relocalize” and “retribalize” our economic institutions, for example, will require nothing short of a full blown cultural catharsis and revolutionary mobilization that is rooted in an altogether different set of linguistic-cultural categories and processes. A movement that is living from a different set of assumptions. You’re basically talking about convincing the Global Arms Industry that it should voluntarily shut down. Given the rapid genocide of indigenous people worldwide over the last 500 years, it is difficult to say – and even more difficult to demonstrate – what the requirements of such a worldview will be, in order to make it both resilient in the context of the modern world, as well as a complete embodiment of the kinds of listening and power necessary to take root even in the hearts of sheep. The good news is that time never started and won’t be stopping, and that Nature grows on trees, so when it really comes down to it, you might be able to avoid it for a while, but eventually that snake is gonna bite you. Thanks for the great article! I read about a third of the way through the text, noted perhaps a couple of times when anthropological terms were used out of context. I scanned the rest and read the comments. I suspect you would be interested in my mathematical theory of sociology. Here’s a post copied here that I made to the World Citizens Yahoo group: My recent post to the World Citizens Yahoo group sent to them 12/11/13: In 1969 I finished my last year of high school. I had college level math and science courses and better than passing grades in all classes except US Government. That meant I was officially a high school drop out as it was a required course. My high school sweet-heart and I went to Canada where we were accepted as landed immigrants and we planned to stay there if I was drafted to go to Vietnam. My draft lottery number came up as safe from being drafted and we returned to California. In that US Government class, I first had a seat near the front but asked too many embarrassing questions and was relegated to a seat in the back and my raised hand never called upon again. Seemed they did not want me in that class and I came to not want to be there either. I remember asking a question about the Bill of Rights, how does listing or declaring “rights” cause them to be respected? I could pose the same question here. I see at the bottom of the form for applying for world citizenship I am asked to send in a fee in US dollars. I suppose since nation-states are the only game in town the world citizen process must pay homage to them as real. When I was about seven years old my father published a book of his experiences in Syria working for US AID. In that book, “Foreign Aid: Our Tragic Experiment,” he informed of corruption in the agency he was working for and he was fired and not allowed to work for a government agency again. He had a degree in entomology and went back to school and attained teaching credentials as well as a degree in political science. He authored a study on the availability of research materials. That study led to the creation of the first computerized library catalog for which he is now remembered as a founding father. He was also a joint author of a study on how computers could aid urban existence. This was well before there were personal computers or the internet. He also was pivotal in stopping development that would destroy habitat of endangered species and helped found some wildlife preserves. In 1974 I read Buckminster Fuller’s book “Utopia or Oblivion” which led to my resolving to never seek a college degree. I then took the GED exam and entered college where I was free to study and conduct research as my parents had set up a trust fund that allowed me to devote full time to my studies. I composed a few major research projects that first year of college with one being “Intentional Communities: Alternative Lifestyles” where a woman twice my age and myself listed pros and cons of past and present attempts by people to drop out of conventional society and form their own. I also conducted a study “Nutritional Protection from Adverse Environmental Conditions” where I attempted to scope out what kind of dangers common disregard for our biosphere was bringing. I also conducted a study of the then proposed California Nuclear Safeguards Initiative which brought me into knowledge of how regulatory agencies do the opposite of their stated intent, control the public to protect private vested interests. My paper “Socioeconomic Abuse of Medicinal and Therapeutic Plant Products” during that first year of college focused on what caused misinformation to be spread wide and far, propaganda campaigns to squelch effective and efficient life sustaining and enhancing information. The desire for money appears as a powerful corrupting influence. In June of 1976 I resided in a cabin deep within old redwoods, far from electricity and plumbing where the quiet was more than any place I had lived before. One evening, a few days after being told and adopting methods of how one might make themselves attuned to receiving visions, with my papers before me on a table, I realized the task of figuring out how to organize people was one of survival. I remember thinking to myself that I was aware that money did not work. I saw a mathematical equation and a network diagram. It made a lot of sense to me but I questioned my sanity as no social endeavor seemed/seems to follow any chief engineering precept. I arranged a session with a psychiatrist who told me there was no evidence of insanity and that I just had an idea. I went back to college, full time for four years and then off and on since then. I studied math, computer science and sociology. Before entering college again I met with Buckminster Fuller in San Francisco at a little presentation he gave in the fall of ’76. Afterward I showed him the digraph of my idea and said I had a lot of work to do and he said “Appears you’ve done a lot already.” In 1980 I had suggested at my college in New Mexico where my step-dad was head of the math department, that we get Buckminster Fuller to speak. I chauffeured him between the airport and his hotel and he had dinner at our house. He was able to spend hours looking at some of the research I had conducted into my social theory. Before he left on the jet the next morning he told me “There appears to be a reasonable excitation.” This was shortly before he died. We corresponded once before he passed away and he shared that anything worthy would get support. In my fourth year of college I authored a research paper “Functional and Evolutionary Implications of Societal Patterning” where I looked at the descriptive statistics that resulted from historical and anthropological research into past socialization attempts. This was the deductive logic approach to researching my social theory and the trends, ever less longevity of these socializing experiments and ever greater population coverage, suggests something very akin to my social theory does appear to be what we are seeking, continual real-time dissolution and resolution of concerns for all of humanity. Study of existing characteristics of known information control systems, cybernetics, brought some hints of possible compliance with my theory, an inductive logic approach. In 2011 a major research project was reported where about a thousand people were studied using functional magnetic resonance indication, fMRI, to come upon the characteristics of the networks used by our brain cells, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3174820/ . Appears highly likely the seventy billion cells in the associative cortex of each of us use something quite similar to my social theory to share all for the good of all. Appears likely my network topology idea is used by the most successful cybernetic systems in our environment, huge populations of thinking entities acting as one in the associative cortex of mammals. I have attempted to formulate my own opinion, as directly as possible, without overt dependence on anyone’s interpretation, on the evident characteristics of climate change you can see here: http://www.transitiontownsca.org/forum/topics/how-serious-is-climate-change . I have attempted to design a business idea that could foster material and energy independence with potential greenhouse gas neutral methods that you can peruse here: http://www.viableliving.org . I have collected materials and hope to conduct some experiments that might avail the most efficient, least impact and least costly way to get electricity from wind. You can see a simple Tinkertoys(R) model of a component here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcpFqRsGU10 . William Hotine, the inventor of that wind vane idea, helped me get on my feet and back to college after my vision in 1976. His only comment on my social theory was “Everything has to start somewhere.” An independent inventor in Canada also came up with the windmill idea and you can see his video animation here: http://challenge.ecomagination.com/ideas/The-Chopper—The-next-generation-of-win . Unlike any other method, Hotine vanes allow for full use of counter-rotating magnet rotor disks within the generator component which may avail as much as eight times more efficiency than conventional current methods. They immediately orient to wind from any direction while simultaneously almost completely feathering returning vanes. Two sets of two of these vanes, each directly driving magnet rotor disks in opposite directions could be the basis of relatively small and light weight generators. Two old Quantum Bigfoot hard drives disassemble to provide two sealed but serviceable wheel bearing races that easily bolt together for at least an experimental platform of counter-rotating disks. Instead of windings I have a disk of copper to start as it seems such experimentation hasn’t occurred. If some variant of the first generator made by Faraday could be applied except with fixed electromotive material, the complication of making windings might be avoided. My first guess is that alternating magnetic fields will induce alternating current between rim and center of the disk but could be mistaken. I now have what I need to pursue this further and it wouldn’t be hard for you to acquire such too. Considering the stator windings or fixed middle disk as the main support element will help you understand that the rotors and vanes are supported by the stator. It is thought a wicker cage around the entire unit for wildlife safety would also be attached at the central electromotive material. The entire some 35 pounds could then be hung from or between existing structures or trees not requiring a dedicated support tower. Preliminary estimates suggest use of ten of these units would cost ten times less than current equivalent power producing currently commercially available schemes. People see our socializing attempts as something other than experimental, often portrayed as god-sanctioned unquestionable certitudes. We appear plagued with what Daniel C. Dennet called “a psychological aberration,” epistemological relativism. Best way to get a handle on the idea of epistemic relativism is to consider it as the opposite of the scientific method where the weight of opinion is thought to determine truth rather than vice versa. It appears to be the rationale behind disseminating propaganda as well as believing it. Some logical snafus it suggests are that might makes right, what you don’t know can’t hurt you (ignorance is bliss), killing the messenger invalidates the message and that words speak louder than actions. This psychological stance appears to be a result of anomie, our current lack of a guidance system. We are taught to recognize some things as real that are disingenuous. Check out the first sentence of the US Constitution. If maybe with “some of the people” or just removing the first “the” it could be logically true but as stated it is a false statement. Seems sort of like a Peter Playlet named after J. Lawrence Peter who recognized the Peter Principle, designed to keep people from taking it too seriously. Those founding fathers of the US were neither heartless nor mindless. You can see a Google presentation on my idea that is a bit old, from before I became aware of the fMRI studies here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18n1B4keW-EBfM-KjLtu71OOFL-Qrlc-E6pBYNsuO-IY/present#slide=id.i0 . I was considering Java as the platform but now see Clojurescript as appropriate to make an experimental social application that could facilitate people trying out my networking idea over the web. Unlike some commercial claims to having graph database tools, this idea would generate what appears as the most salient if what are edges of our networking is considered as strictly between humans, humans the only nodes considerable for sustaining. Respecting human rights is moral and logical. There within is the intelligence we need to survive the information explosion. Would be a shame for us to destroy ourselves for the sake of some relatively unreal institutions. How serious is our need for a functional society? I find we are liable to destroy our biosphere and consequentially humanity if we cannot find a way to cherish and foster integrity. One way might be through accidents climate change aggravates upon our already inappropriate uses of technology such as the worsening conditions at Fukushima that you can begin to understand through http://www.enenews.com . What now? I am 60 years old and still seem to have recourse to do things. In about 1985 I conducted an experiment, supplements and diet to aid brain functioning as well as using a rowing machine daily for 12 minutes to pursue William Glasser’s positive addiction concept. I kept it up for a month. At the end of that month I witnessed the ability to perceive conditions to the extent that I easily accomplished some quite complex tasks, multiple instances where communications between people seemed to border on mind reading. Perhaps such an ability to be in touch with perceptions caused some of the most convincing experiences of some sort of precognition that I have witnessed. Depictions of a heightened awareness state of mind is shown in the recent movie “Limitless” as well as somewhat theorized in other movies and in literature. At the end of that month I quickly abandoned the regimen. I was losing long time negative addictions, some foods, smoking tobacco. In that movie, notice that the phenomenon is shown as requiring personal totally understanding support to sustain. This is the way it is depicted in other speculations such as “The Philosopher’s Stone” by Colin Wilson or another story by Brunner. Some of the causality details show themselves in the advent of discovery such as with LSD which apparently was explored for potential consciousness expanding after inadvertent self contamination by a researcher. Exploring the evidence, the science of how various known “smart” drugs and foods operate, helps to see what needs to be pursued to increase our own information handling utility. The psychological results of various socializing patterns needs attention with steerage towards that which sustains. I reside near San Jose, California. I am very much in tune with the spirit behind the idea of there being world citizens only I think it may require some focused actions more than words. If you are near me, appreciate the scientific method as seeking least violence, get in touch and maybe we can sort of catalyze our mutual concerns. Best to all. Tom Tom that’s a very interesting story. Where else do you write and publish or post your writing? I looked for you on facebook but did not find you. Enhancing and leverageing and increasing intelligence is one of my major interests, and I also was deeply influenced by Fuller’s materials. I have applied the method he used to enhance his intelligence, and have considerable subjective and objective results from it, and sound reason to belive it could be applied by anyone with great benefits. Collective intellitgence enhancement is also a topic i study. And see it also as being of critical imporetance to the future of minds and consciousness on this planet whose surface we inhabit.

Human evolution is at a stage where we face a wide range of interconnected social, economic, technological and environmental problems that could lead to worldwide catastrophe. These problems form w…

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2012-04-15 00:00:00

article

wordpress.com

Opencollaboration's Blog

http://my.betali.st/

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-02-24/the-nightmare-scenario-for-californias-coronavirus-strain-here-is-what-we-know

The 'nightmare scenario' for California's coronavirus strain: Here is what we know

Melissa Healy

# The ‘nightmare scenario’ for California’s coronavirus strain: Here is what we know Even as California continues to see big declines in COVID-19 after the recent holiday surge, there is growing concern about another potential problem waiting around the corner. New research strongly suggests that the coronavirus strain now dominant in California not only spreads more readily than its predecessors, but also has the ability to evade antibodies generated by COVID-19 vaccines or prior infection. It’s also associated with more severe illness and death. Those attributes have some scientists worried that the homegrown variant could reverse the state’s recent progress in reducing new infections — especially if it’s able to swap mutations with other threatening strains. Experts said it underscores the need to vaccinate people as quickly as possible and to continue wearing masks, maintaining social distance and following other public health precautions as the state begins to reopen more. Five counties are now __eligible to open__ indoor operations at restaurant dining rooms, gyms, movie theaters, museums, zoos and aquariums amid a dramatic __improvement in the COVID-19 pandemic,__ Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday. Others counties are likely to follow suit soon if cases keep falling. Many pandemic indicators continue to dramatically improve. California is now recording __about 6,000 new coronavirus cases a day__, down from 45,000 a day from six weeks ago. The number of COVID-19 patients in California’s hospitals on Sunday was 6,569, down from a high of 21,936 on Jan. 6. Could the California strain undo this progress? Here’s what we know about the variant that likely emerged in the state in May: ## Is the California strain a big deal? California, along with the rest of the country, has been __bracing for an onslaught__ of a __more transmissible strain__ from the U.K. known as B.1.1.7. But the California strain is probably just as worrisome, and it has already settled in. By the end of next month, the homegrown strain — known to scientists as B.1.427/B.1.429 — will probably account for 90% of the state’s coronavirus infections, said __Dr. Charles Chiu__, an infectious disease researcher and physician at UC San Francisco. Samples collected from multiple counties using a variety of methods suggest the variant is 19% to 24% more transmissible. Chiu and his colleagues at UCSF say the cluster of mutations that characterizes __the homegrown strain__ should mark it as a “variant of concern” on par with those from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil. The Biden administration is boosting efforts to identify and track coronavirus variants to help scientists see where the pandemic is heading next. ## What makes scientists think it’s more transmissible? Researchers saw uniform patterns in the way the variant spread in counties across the state. And when coronavirus infection rates rose statewide, they typically did so alongside growing evidence of the California strain’s presence. There’s also evidence from laboratory tests. An analysis of viral samples from around the state showed that, compared with people infected with other strains of SARS-CoV-2, those who were infected with the California strain had viral loads in the nasopharynx that were twice as high. That made it highly likely that each person infected with the new strain would go on to infect more people. B.1.427/B.1.429’s genome includes three mutations that affect the virus’ spike protein, which it uses to sneak into human cells and convert them into factories for its own reproduction. One of those three mutations, dubbed L452R, affects the so-called receptor binding domain, __helping the virus attach__ more firmly to target cells. Coronavirus variant first seen in L.A. now accounts for about half of Southern California’s infections and has spread to 18 states and six countries. ## Is it dangerous in other ways? The L452R mutations seems to make the California strain more damaging to the body as well. A coronavirus engineered to have only that mutation was able to infect human lung tissue at least 40% more readily than other variants now in circulation that lacked the mutation. Compared with those so-called wild-type strains, the engineered virus was also more than three times more infectious. Dr. Bruce Walker, an immunologist and founding director of the Ragon Institute in Boston, said that while viruses often mutate in ways that make them stronger, such genetic changes often impose a new Achilles’ heel. For instance, a strain that spreads more easily often loses some of its virulence. The worrisome thing about the California variant, Walker said, is that no apparent weakness has been introduced alongside mutations that confer added strength. ## How does it fare against COVID-19 vaccines? In the lab, the California strain was more resistant to the neutralizing antibodies that are generated in response to COVID-19 vaccines or by a previous coronavirus infection. Compared with existing variants, the reduction in protection was “moderate ... but significant,” the UCSF researchers said. When the neutralizing antibodies went up against the homegrown strain, their effectiveness was cut in half. By comparison, when these antibodies encountered the coronavirus strain that’s __now dominant in South Africa__, their effectiveness was reduced to one-sixth of their usual levels. “I do anticipate over time it is going to have an effect on vaccination,” Chiu said. Though the magnitude of the effect varied from sample to sample and was less pronounced than with the South Africa strain, “it still is concerning,” he said. The emergence of new virus variants will complicate efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists say. But they’re confident we’ll still get there. ## Is this strain to blame for the state’s holiday surge? Not entirely, but it was probably one of many contributors to the surge that dogged the state through the fall and early winter. In Northern California, at least, new infections had already begun to rise dramatically by the time the new variant had announced its presence, Chiu said. Across Southern California, the overlap was closer. ## What’s the ‘nightmare scenario’ with this variant? The U.K. and California variants are each armed with enhanced capabilities, and the likelihood that they could circulate in the same population raises the specter of a return to spiking infections and deaths, Chiu said. It also opens the door to the possibility that the two viruses will meet in a single person, swap their mutations and create an even more dangerous strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Chiu called that a “nightmare scenario.” __Dr. Anthony Fauci__, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, raised a further concern: A survival-of-the-fittest contest between the U.K. and California variants could accelerate the spread of the strain that’s best able to elude the effects of COVID-19 vaccines, he said. The best way to prevent this, he added, is to stop the spread of either variant by getting vaccinated, wearing masks and limiting exposure to others.

Scientists fear "nightmare scenario" where a patient is infected by two different coronavirus strains that swap mutations and become more dangerous.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2021-02-24 00:00:00

newsarticle

latimes.com

Los Angeles Times

http://www.linuxvoice.com/download-linux-voice-issue-8/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/automobiles/wheels/with-gas-prices-less-of-a-worry-buyers-pass-hybrids-cars-by.html?_r=0

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48842750

Biased and wrong? Facial recognition tech in the dock

Matthew Wall

# Biased and wrong? Facial recognition tech in the dock **Police and security forces around the world are testing out automated facial recognition systems as a way of identifying criminals and terrorists. But how accurate is the technology and how easily could it and the artificial intelligence (AI) it is powered by - become tools of oppression?** Imagine a suspected terrorist setting off on a suicide mission in a densely populated city centre. If he sets off the bomb, hundreds could die or be critically injured. CCTV scanning faces in the crowd picks him up and automatically compares his features to photos on a database of known terrorists or "persons of interest" to the security services. The system raises an alarm and rapid deployment anti-terrorist forces are despatched to the scene where they "neutralise" the suspect before he can trigger the explosives. Hundreds of lives are saved. Technology saves the day. But what if the facial recognition (FR) tech was wrong? It wasn't a terrorist, just someone unlucky enough to look similar. An innocent life would have been summarily snuffed out because we put too much faith in a fallible system. What if that innocent person had been you? This is just one of the ethical dilemmas posed by FR and the artificial intelligence underpinning it. Training machines to "see" - to recognise and differentiate between objects and faces - is notoriously difficult. Computer vision, as it is sometimes called - not so long ago was struggling to tell the difference between a muffin and a chihuahua - a litmus test of this technology. Computer scientists, Joy Buolamwini of MIT Media Lab (and founder of the Algorithmic Justice League) and Timnit Gebru the technical co-lead of Google's Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team, have shown that facial recognition has greater difficulty differentiating between men and women the darker their skin tone. A woman with dark skin is much more likely to be mistaken for a man. "About 130 million US adults are already in face recognition databases," Dr Gebru told the AI for Good Summit in Geneva in May. "But the original datasets are mostly white and male, so biased against darker skin types - there are huge error rates by skin type and gender." The Californian city of San Francisco recently banned the use of FR by transport and law enforcement agencies in an acknowledgement of its imperfections and threats to civil liberties. But other cities in the US, and other countries around the world, are trialling the technology. In the UK, for example, police forces in South Wales, London. Manchester and Leicester have been testing the tech to the consternation of civil liberties organisations such as Liberty and Big Brother Watch, both concerned by the number of false matches the systems made. This means innocent people being wrongly identified as potential criminals. "Bias is something everyone should be worried about," said Dr Gebru. "Predictive policing is a high stakes scenario." With black Americans making up 37.5% of the US prison population (source: Federal Bureau of Prisons) despite the fact that they make up just 13% of the US population - badly written algorithms fed these datasets might predict that black people are more likely to commit crime. It doesn't take a genius to work out what implications this might have for policing and social policies. Just this week, academics at the University of Essex concluded that matches in the London Metropolitan police trials were wrong 80% of the time, potentially leading to serious miscarriages of justice and infringements of citizens' right to privacy. One British man, Ed Bridges, has launched a legal challenge to South Wales Police's use of the technology after his photo was taken while he was out shopping, and the UK's Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, has expressed concern over the lack of legal framework governing the use of FR. But such concerns haven't stopped tech giant Amazon selling its Rekognition FR tool to police forces in the US, despite a half-hearted shareholder revolt that came to nothing. Amazon says it has no responsibility for how customers use its technology. But compare that attitude to that of Salesforce, the customer relationship management tech company, which has developed its own image recognition tool called Einstein Vision. "Facial recognition tech might be appropriate in a prison to keep track of prisoners or to prevent gang violence," Kathy Baxter, Salesforce's architect of ethical AI practice, told the BBC. "But when police wanted to use it with their body cameras when arresting people, we deemed that inappropriate. "We need to be asking whether we should be using AI at all in certain scenarios, and facial recognition is one example." And now FR is being used by the military as well, with tech vendors claiming their software can not only identify potential enemies but also discern suspicious behaviour. But Yves Daccord, director-general of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), is seriously concerned about these developments. "War is hi-tech these days - we have autonomous drones, autonomous weapons, making decisions between combatants and non-combatants. Will their decisions be correct? They could have mass destruction impact," he warns. So there seems to be a growing global consensus that AI is far from perfect and needs regulating. "It's not a good idea just to leave AI to the private sector, because AI can have a huge influence," concludes Dr Chaesub Lee, director of the telecommunication standardisation bureau at the International Telecommunications Union. "Use of good data is essential, but who ensures that it is good data? Who ensures that the algorithms are not biased? We need a multi-stakeholder, multidisciplinary approach." Until then, FR tech remains under suspicion and under scrutiny.

Artificial intelligence is only as good as the data it learns from. But what if that data is biased?

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2019-07-04 00:00:00

reportagenewsarticle

bbc.com

BBC News

https://www.buzzfeed.com/lanesainty/angus-taylor-defamation-journalists

A Government Minister Has Threatened To Sue Journalists For Sharing A Twitter Thread

Lane Sainty

Government minister Angus Taylor has threatened journalists with legal action for allegedly sharing a Twitter thread that he says was "grossly and indefensibly" defamatory of him. Lawyers acting for Taylor sent letters dated April 12 to journalists Margo Kingston and Michael West, placing them on notice that the federal minister for energy may sue and seek damages and costs. The letter sent to Kingston, through her website No Fibs, says: "We are instructed that on or around 12 April 2019 you tweeted a thread posted by Ms Ronni Salt headed "Money for nothing (and your tricks for free)". "The thread contained with the tweet clearly conveys the defamatory imputation that our client has acted corruptly. That imputation has absolutely no basis in fact, and your publication of it is indefensible," the letter reads. Kingston initially told BuzzFeed News she had a "strong belief" she had never retweeted or shared the thread. After viewing a screenshot of her account tweeting the thread, provided to BuzzFeed News, Kingston said it had been posted automatically as part of a service she is signed up to called the Tweeted Times, which collates items a person's followers have been tweeting about and posts them. "It's completely automatic. It's nothing I do intentionally," she said. The tweet has since been deleted, but Kingston said she doesn't specifically recall having deleted it. She explained this by saying she deletes Tweeted Times posts as a matter of course when something is sent out that she disagrees with or doesn't want posted from her account — giving the example of when her account posted the link for subscribing to The Australian newspaper. "I'm very concerned about this and I have decided to disable my Tweeted Times," Kingston said. "I have a very firm policy of not tweeting material that is unethical or with serious legal risk." The letter sent to Kingston is signed off by Paul Svilans, a lawyer at the firm Mark O'Brien Legal, and marked "confidential" and "not for publication". Kingston posted the letter on Twitter where she is followed by more than 36,000 people. She said she understands confidentiality to be based on a relationship or prior agreement, and therefore not applicable to the letter. "Some stranger sends you a threatening email out of the blue, I thought, I'm going to post it," she said. Lawyer Adam Houda has agreed to act pro bono for Kingston in the matter. Kingston told BuzzFeed News she was not aware of anybody who had received a letter other than herself and West. Taylor's office did not respond directly to a question on how many letters were sent out. West, who retweeted the thread and added a comment of his own, confirmed to BuzzFeed News that he had received the letter. "They haven't responded to the actual claims [in the thread], they have only responded by threatening lawsuits," West said. "I've been exploring the claims and there's an issue of public interest here that needs to be addressed." West said he was not alleging corruption or illegality. The thread was originally posted by a Twitter user with the handle @MsVeruca and who goes by the name "Ronni Salt" on Twitter. It contained accusations, strongly denied by Taylor, relating to alleged corrupt activity in a government water buyback deal with Eastern Australia Agriculture (EAA) and its parent company Eastern Australia Irrigation. Taylor co-founded and was a director of Eastern Australia Irrigation prior to entering parliament in 2013. A spokesperson for Taylor told BuzzFeed News: "Allegations currently online that link Minister Taylor with EAA’s sale of water entitlements are incorrect. "Minister Taylor has not had any direct or indirect financial interest in EAA or its parent company at any time. He has never been a shareholder or held an equitable interest in either company. He severed all advisory ties with EAA well before entering Parliament." The @MsVeruca account disappeared from Twitter late last week and was reinstated briefly on Monday, before disappearing again. The thread itself has also been deleted. BuzzFeed News understands the account was not deactivated or deleted by Twitter, and that Taylor has not been in contact with Twitter about the thread.

Two prominent journalists have received legal letters from energy minister Angus Taylor.

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2019-04-16 00:00:00

article

buzzfeed.com

BuzzFeed

https://www.thelocal.se/20231104/historic-strike-called-off-after-klarna-signs-collective-bargaining-agreement

http://www.vgleaks.com/some-details-about-playstation-4-os-development/

Details about Playstation 4 OS development

Mr H

We have some details about the development of the** Playstation 4 OS**. **The Operating System is called “Orbis OS”. It is a modified version of FreeBSD 9.0.** **We aren’t sure if this will bring again the “Other OS” functions** to Playstation 4 (remember that this option enabled Playstation 3 to install other OS in the console like linux or windows). When you boot up a second-gen development kit, you will be prompted with several options, as you can see in the next captures: More options appear when you choose startup settings: As you can imagine you have either a console mode or a graphic mode (the one you will see in a retail Playstation 4). Here you can see some images of the console mode and some of the files/directories in the devkit: We’ll try to add more information in the future.

We have some details about the development of the Playstation 4 OS. The Operating System is called “Orbis OS”. It is a modified version of FreeBSD 9.0. We aren't sure if this will bring again the "Other OS" functions to Playstation 4 (remember that this option enabled Playstation 3 to install other OS in the console like linux or windows).

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2013-06-20 00:00:00

article

vgleaks.com

VGLeaks 3.0 - Leaks and Rumors about video games

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/09/BA5V1HKBD5.DTL

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/12/julian-assange-ecuador-arrests-man-with-alleged-links-to-wikileaks

Swedish man jailed in Ecuador over alleged WikiLeaks involvement

Dan Collyns

A judge in Ecuador has jailed a Swedish software developer whom authorities believe is a key member of WikiLeaks and close to Julian Assange, while prosecutors investigate charging him with hacking as part of an alleged plot to “destabilise” the country’s government. Ola Bini, 36, was ordered to held in preventive detention on Saturday pending possible cyber-attack charges and his bank accounts were frozen. Prosecutors were examining dozens of hard drives and other material he had in his possession, according to local media reports. Bini was arrested at Quito’s international airport on Thursday as he was about to board a flight to Japan. Friends say Bini who describes himself as a “programming language nerd” on his twitter account is being unfairly targeted for his activism on digital privacy. On Thursday, Ecuador’s interior minister, María Paula Romo, said they had identified a “key member of WikiLeaks” who was “close to Mr Julian Assange”. Secret visitors’ logs seen by the Guardian show that Bini was one of Assange’s many visitors in Ecuador’s embassy in Knightsbridge, west London. Others included senior staff members from the broadcaster Russia Today and celebrities such the designer Vivienne Westwood and the actor Pamela Anderson. A source who did not wish to be identified described Bini as a “personal friend” of Assange. Bini paid a three-hour visit to Assange, leaving around 9pm in June 2016, just a week after the whistleblower received visits from RT’s London bureau chief, Nikolay Bogachikhin, who is Russian, and one of its presenters, Afshin Rattansi, a British citizen. Last week, the government of president Lenín Moreno, 66, accused WikiLeaks of being involved in a campaign implicating Moreno and his family in corruption. Moreno, who has long expressed his unhappiness over Assange’s asylum status, complained that “photos of my bedroom, what I eat and how my wife and daughters and friends dance” had been circulating on social media. Ecuador’s government believes WikiLeaks spread leaked documents, known as the INA Papers, which allege Moreno and his family had corruptly benefited from offshore companies when he was a United Nations special envoy on disability in Europe. Moreno denies any wrongdoing. Bini, who has reportedly lived in Ecuador for several years, worked at the Quito-based Centre for Digital Autonomy focusing on privacy, security and cryptography issues, according to a blog under his name. It makes no reference to any link with WikiLeaks. In a statement, the Centre for Digital Autonomy said: “People working for open source and privacy should not be criminalised,” noting Bini was a “world-renowned figure in the field of free software and defender of digital rights and privacy”. On Friday, Bini was visited by the Swedish consul Ola Emberg, who told local media Bini seemed “sad and confused”. Speaking to local media on Thursday, Romo said Ecuador was at risk of cyber attack, hinting Wikileaks could retaliate for the termination of Assange’s asylum. She added the government did not want the country “to turn into an international [cyber] piracy centre”. The minister said two Russian “hackers” had been identified, telling local media later in the day: “We have sufficient evidence, this cannot be taken lightly.” Romo also alleged Ricardo Patiño, the foreign minister who granted asylum to Assange in 2012, was involved in the “destabilisation” plot and had travelled with Bini to Peru, Spain and Venezuela. Patiño denied any knowledge of Bini on Friday, tweeting: “The interior minister said the Swedish man that was arrested yesterday worked with me. I have never met him. Worse travelled with him. “Nor do I know Russian hackers. The only Russians I know are: President Putin, the foreign minister Lavrov and the Russian ambassador,” he added.

Authorities investigating whether Ola Bini was working with WikiLeaks and Assange as part of attempt to ‘destabilise’ Ecuador

2024-10-12 00:00:00

2019-04-13 00:00:00

article

theguardian.com

The Guardian

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/world/europe/bosnian-war-croatia.html?emc=edit_ne_20171129&nl=evening-briefing&nlid=46191431&te=1