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As Humans

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore

https://medium.com/writers-blokke/as-humans-dd389b12fdc4

['Raúl Güereque']

2020-12-05 10:10:34.260000+00:00

['Humanity', 'Reflections', 'Life', 'Free Verse', 'Poem']

Vizio Elevate review: This Dolby Atmos soundbar’s swiveling drivers are no gimmick

A soundbar with motorized, swiveling drivers that bounce the audio cues in Dolby Atmos and DTS:X soundtracks off your ceiling? Sounds like a gimmick, right? Well, the concept works splendidly in the Vizio Elevate, a 5.1.4-channel soundbar that delivers big, bold, and exciting sound that will thrill mainstream users, even if audiophiles might find its subwoofer be a bit over the top. Because its four front height drivers (two additional height drivers are in the surround speakers) can swivel up for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X content or down for standard 5.1 or stereo audio, the Elevate always makes the most of its available drivers. Also on board is built-in Chromecast and DTS Virtual:X (for those who want or need it), as well as three HDMI ports and eARC support. ConfigurationThe Elevate is a 5.1.4-channel soundbar, which means you’re getting left, right, center, and left/right surround channels (the “5” in the Elevate’s 5.1.4 audio configuration), two front and two surround height channels (the “4”), and low-frequency effects (the “1”). Those four height channels supply the height cues in Dolby Atmos and DTS:X soundtracks by bounding sound off your ceiling—an easier, less expensive alternative to height speakers that are actually in your ceiling. What makes the Elevate unique is that it doesn’t need to be a 5.1.4-channel soundbar at all times. If you wish, you can set those upfiring drivers to swivel (manually or automatically) so they fire forward to bolster the left- and right-channel drivers. Those, in turn, switch roles from being woofers to mid-range drivers for a more robust—and traditional—5.1-channel configuration. We’ll go into more detail about the Elevate’s swiveling height drivers in a moment. This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best soundbars. Click that link to read reviews of competing products, along with a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping. Ben Patterson/IDG The Vizio Elevate’s height drivers can rotate into forward-firing position to boster the left and right channels. In the main soundbar unit, the left, right, and center channels each get a pair of 43 x 60mm woofers, a 20mm tweeter, and a passive radiator. The rotating height drivers each get a single 44 x 99mm woofer and a 20mm tweeter. A pair of discrete surround speakers, which are connected to the wireless subwoofer by a pair of 25-foot cables, get a forward-firing 54mm driver and an upfiring 50mm driver, while the sub comes equipped with a down-firing 203mm cone. The Elevate’s various drivers are powered by a series of 13 Class D amplifiers, including 8 in the main soundbar and five in the subwoofer. Design Samsung Q90T 4K UHD TV (55-inch model) Read TechHive's reviewSee it With its anodized aluminum shell, swiveling drivers, and oval-shaped profile, the Elevate cuts a fine figure. The front soundbar drivers sit in a perforated tube that’s attached to the main soundbar housing, with the tube capped by the swiveling drivers. When the soundbar goes into “Elevate” mode (either because it has detected Atmos or DTS:X audio, or because you’ve manually set the soundbar to “Up” mode), motors in the tube swivel the height drivers into their upfiring position, revealing the Atmos and DTS:X logos on either side of the soundbar. The sight and sound of the motorized drivers swiveling into position serves as a nifty cue that you’re about to hear immersive 3D audio. Measuring 48 x 7 x 2.5 inches and weighing about 12 pounds, the main Elevate soundbar unit is a hefty piece of hardware, and it was tall enough to block a tiny sliver of my 55-inch LG C9 OLED TV. Luckily, the Elevate can be mounted on a wall (mounting brackets and a guide are included), or it can be docked underneath one of Vizio’s new OLED TVs. Meanwhile, the 6 x 4 x 2.75-inch surround speakers are compact enough to (for example) place them on shelves behind your sofa, and they’re also wall-mountable (here again, wall mounts are included). As I mentioned earlier, the surround speakers connect to the bulky subwoofer (16 x 11 x 13.75 inches) with a pair of 25-foot cables, a fact that might complicate your positioning of the sub. Because the subwoofer is wired to the surrounds, one might be inclined to keep the sub near your sofa, although doing so means you’ll be feeling some pretty serious bass (you can always dial back the subwoofer’s volume level, as we’ll discuss momentarily). Another option would be to put the subwoofer closer to the TV—low-frequency effects are much less directional than other sounds—but then you’ll need to string those 25-foot cables (hey, at least they’re plenty long) across your entertainment room to reach the surrounds. Vizio The Vizio Elevate comes a beefy subwoofer and surround speakers with upfiring drivers in addition to the soundbar itself. Inputs and outputsThe Elevate offers a generous collection of inputs: There’s an optical (Toslink) input and a pair of 3.5mm audio jacks in a rear cavity on the left-hand side of the soundbar. One of these analog inputs is intended to accommodate a smart speaker (an Amazon Echo Dot, for example, which has a matching 3.5mm audio output), while the other is for connecting to the analog stereo RCA outputs on a TV. A trio of HDMI ports, one of which supports HDMI eARC, are located in a cavity on the right-hand side of the Elevate. ARC (Audio Return Channel) allows digital audio from your TV to travel down the HDMI cable to the soundbar, and eARC is an enhanced version with higher bandwidth to support lossless high-resolution audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. You can read all about ARC and eARC in this story. Ben Patterson/IDG The Elevate comes with three HDMI ports, one of which supports eARC, making it an excellent speaker Blu-ray aficionados. Your TV will need to support eARC to take full advantage of it, however, and that applies only to TVs manufactured in the past couple of years. Vizio was therefore wise to provide two additional HDMI ports, so you can connect a Blu-ray player or a set-top box directly to the soundbar without needing to worry about passing the audio from those sources through your TV in the first place. LG OLED65E9PUA 4K UHD TV (65-inch model) Read TechHive's reviewMSRP $4,299.00See it Vizio is also generous when it comes to including cables in the box. In addition to an HDMI cable (which too many soundbar manufacturers tend to skip, even with their priciest models), you get an optical cable, a 3.5mm-to-3.5mm audio cable, and a 3.5mm-to-stereo-RCA cable. Vizio even throws in four cable ties for good measure, along with the usual power and speaker cords. SetupThe main Elevate soundbar comes pre-paired to the wireless subwoofer, and for me, the units connected automatically as soon as I powered them on. If they don’t connect, you can always pair them manually using the included remote. Next, it’s time to connect the Elevate to Wi-Fi with help from Vizio’s SmartCast mobile app. Once the app “discovers” the Elevate, it’ll step you through the process of connecting to the soundbar’s temporary local Wi-Fi signal; after that, you’ll need to pick your home Wi-Fi network from a list of available networks and enter your network password. After a minute or so of testing, the Elevate—fingers crossed—should be connected to your Wi-FI. Buttons, remote, and app controlThe Elevate has buttons for power, input select, Bluetooth, and volume up/down on its right-hand end cap. Its remote control has a four-way navigational pad and dedicated buttons for input select, power, and mute. The remote also lets you dip into the Elevate’s various EQ presets and sound modes, as well as adjust the various speakers levels. But while the remote has a one-line display, it isn’t backlit, so you’ll need to turn the lights on to dive into the menus, and clicking though all those menu trees can be tedious. Ben Patterson/IDG Vizio’s SmartCast app frequenty lost its connection to the Elevate, even though the soundbar was still connected to Wi-Fi. Besides the remote, you can also tweak the Elevate’s settings using Vizio’s SmartCast app. The sliders and toggles in the SmartCast app make it much easier to control the Elevate’s settings than the somewhat clunky remote. The SmartCast app, however, repeatedly insisted that it “could not connect to sound bar,” even when the Elevate was clearly still connected to my Wi-Fi network. Tapping the “Try Again” button once or twice generally cleared up the problem, but still, it was an annoying issue. Chromecast and voice assistant supportThe Elevate doesn’t natively support any music services or act as a Spotify Connect device, but it does support Chromecast, which means you can cast audio to the soundbar from any supported Chromecast-enabled app. I performed most of my music testing by casting Spotify tunes to the Elevate via Chromecast, although I could have also streamed music from other Chromecast-enabled apps such as Tidal or Qobuz. (I should note that despite my SmartCast app connection problems, I never had any issues with Chromecast streaming.) Another option is to stream audio to the soundbar via Bluetooth, or you can play WAV files from a USB storage drive. The Elevate isn’t a smart speaker, and it can’t be controlled with voice commands. The Elevate does let you connect a smart speaker to the soundbar via either Bluetooth or a dedicated 3.5mm audio input. Pair something like an Amazon Echo Dot or Google Nest Mini with the Elevate, and the soundbar will act as a speaker for your favorite voice assistant. Summon Alexa or Google Assistant while you’re watching a movie, and the Elevate will lower the volume while you’re chatting. Just keep in mind that you won’t be able to ask Alexa or Google Assistant to, say, adjust the Elevate’s volume or switch sources. Ben Patterson/IDG Vizio’s remote control is pretty basic and it’s not backlit. Audio modesLike most soundbars, the Elevate comes with a collection of EQ presets—Movie, Music, Game, and Direct—which make audio adjustments such as adding a bit of sizzle to the sound for Movie mode, or flattening the frequency response for Music mode. Gaming mode dials down the low-frequency effects to give gamers a better sense of spatial awareness, while Direct mode doesn’t apply any EQ at all. Adding a new wrinkle to matters are the Elevate’s swiveling height drivers, which have their own “Elevate” settings on the remote and in the SmartCast app. Three settings are available: Up, Wide, and Auto. In Up mode, the height drivers stay in upfiring mode, and all audio—from 2.0- to 5.1-channel sound—is upconverted to 5.1.4. In Wide mode, the height drivers stay in forward-firing mode; 5.1 and 2.0 content is presented as-is, while Dolby Atmos and DTS:X audio is remixed for 5.1. Finally, in Auto mode, the Elevate automatically swivels the height drivers depending on the audio content that it detects. For Atmos and DTS:X, the height drivers swivel up; for everything else, the height speakers rotate to a forward-firing position. Besides the various “Elevate” settings, there’s also a Surround Sound mode, which only serves to toggle the surround speakers on and off while remixing the sound to compensate for the missing channels (so, for example. 5.1.4 audio would get downmixed to 3.1.2). Why would you want to turn those surround speakers off? Well, it turns out that there are a surprising number of 5.1-and-up soundbar users who (for a variety of factors) don’t use the surround speakers that come bundled in the box, and Vizio wanted to give such users a setting that would mix their sound correctly. A final sound mode option is DTS Virtual:X, a mode that delivers virtual 3D sound including height cues, without the need for surround speakers or upfiring drivers. Again, why would you ever use the DTS Virtual:X setting, given that the Elevate has surround and height speakers? This is for Elevate users with ceilings that are too high, too low, vaulted, or otherwise unsuitable for the bouncing-sound-off-the-ceiling trick. Since my ceiling is adequate for upfiring drivers, and I’m not a huge fan of DTS Virtual:X (it sounds a little harsh and over-processed for my taste), I kept the setting off. It’s great to have the option if you need it. Click here to read about the Vizio Elevate’s audio performance

https://medium.com/@bruce27151856/vizio-elevate-review-this-dolby-atmos-soundbars-swiveling-drivers-are-no-gimmick-4e8d963a2d21

[]

2020-12-25 01:17:25.984000+00:00

['Internet', 'Headphones', 'Gear', 'Music']

F1 2012 — A Retrospective Part 1: Pre-Season Testing and Expectation

The 2011 season was a disappointing follow-up to an intense 2010 campaign that saw a season-long battle between three teams and four drivers for the world title. The drivers championship was won in Japan with four more races to go, and the constructors crown was won in the following race. Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull became the youngest two time champion in F1 history. At 24 years and 98 days old he earned the record previously held by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who was 25 years and 85 days old when he won his second title in 2006. Those two made up a third of the former/current champions on the grid for 2012. For the first time ever, there were six drivers who had all won the title on the same grid. Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher were the other four. Between them they had earned 14 drivers championships. They drove for five different teams all vying for the constructors crown, which Red Bull had also claimed in the previous two seasons alongside their German driver Vettel. Red Bull had really set themselves apart as the team to beat in those last two years. McLaren and Ferrari were lagging behind as part of a Big Three that dominated the front of the grid. In 2010 and 2011 they made up 70% and 79% of the total points accumulated in those years. The gap between Ferrari and Mercedes was stark. Vettel himself dominated the 2011 season. He won 11 of the 19 Grands Prix and claimed pole 15 times, with teammate Mark Webber picking up three of the other four and winning once. Following pre-season testing, the hype surrounding Vettel and the Red Bull team remained. Richard Williams, of the Guardian, spoke in their video preview of the season that they should certainly be considered the favourites again. “Well the question that everybody is thinking about of course, as we look at the start of the season, is can anyone beat Sebastian Vettel and the Red Bull, the winners of the last two championships?” said Williams. “There’s an expectation that [Vettel will] become the youngest ever triple world champion. He is phenomenal, and the car that he’s been driving is just as phenomenal, and maybe even more. “Everybody is waiting to see what [Adrian] Newey has come up with for this season to give Vettel the chance of dominating as he’s done for the last two years.” Vettel won comfortably ahead of Button, Webber and Alonso. Button came closest to Vettel in 2011, but he was still some 120 points away by season’s end. The Briton won three races that year, the most exceptional of which was in Canada. It was the longest Grand Prix event in F1 history, and he still holds the record for most visits to the pit-lane while still winning a race in F1 history — he pitted six times in victory — passing Vettel on the final lap. He finished 12 and 13 points ahead of third and fourth place in the driver standings, and picked up 12 podiums. His worst race result was sixth place, showcasing a level of consistency that set him apart from his teammate Hamilton, who only picked up half as many podiums but the same amount of race wins. Hamilton struggled in 2011, it was the most turbulent year of his career off-track, and it played a significant role in a drop-off in performance on-track. But McLaren were quick in pre-season testing and both drivers were optimistic of their chances of taking on the mighty Red Bull. Button’s consistency in 2011, as well as his immense talent at managing his tyres, meant that pundits had him the slight favourite over Hamilton in the McLaren battle. Button celebrates on the podium in Canada. “On pre-season testing, which is again difficult to judge, I would be looking at Jenson [Button] especially to be challenging Sebastian Vettel,” said Giles Richards for the Guardian. “What we have with Jenson is there were new tyres this year, still manufactured by Pirelli. They’re slightly softer compounds. We’re quite probably looking after [the tyres] a little bit better now, Jenson does that superbly. His driving style lends itself to that. “He may well work the tyres a little bit better and if he has a competitive car from the off that may put him that tiny bit closer to Sebastian over Lewis [Hamilton].” However, despite a difficult 2011, Hamilton can simply never be written off. The 2008 champion had shown many times by now that he was more than capable of bouncing back from any difficulties. “Nonetheless, if Lewis gets a big start, he’s an extraordinary driver. He gets a good start, he builds some momentum, gets some points, he will begin to feel that he can beat Sebastian Vettel,” said Richards. “Now he thinks he can already, once he sees the points on the board and he’s actually achieving it then he will have a feeling of superiority and the confidence that goes with it. That’s terribly important. “Either of those two drivers, I would expect to be there or thereabouts at the end.” Ferrari won just a single Grand Prix in 2011. Ferrari as a whole struggled to match their 2010 form throughout 2011. Alonso picked up one win in the entire season, claiming the top step of the podium in Silverstone. He achieved 10 podiums, but lacked the pace to consistently battle for the race victory. The car was still quick enough to easily finish in the top three of the constructors, but they were too far back on the Red Bull and McLaren. Alonso’s consistency made up for a difficult year for Felipe Massa. The Brazilian failed to finish on the podium all season, his best result being a fifth place he earned at six different races. Their start to the 2012 season indicated another tough year ahead. Pre-season testing went horribly, with many being surprised at their lack of pace. Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali reflected on this during the postseason calling it “the most difficult moment of the season.” “The first day that we put the car on the track it was a little bit of, more than a little bit, but a big surprise. Expectations were a little bit different. There is no reason to mask that. For sure, I remember very well that we had a problem of speed, lot of drag, lot of instability and a problem of traction. So a lot of things,” said Domenicali. Domenicali had a lot to answer for even before the season got underway in Australia. “We know that this kind of competition is a psychological game. If you shout outside the problem you have inside it doesn’t help. It was a moment where we had to regroup and try to solve. Knowing that you don’t have any magic touch you cannot solve the things from one night to the morning after.” Massa wasn’t masking his disappointment in pre-season interviews but, despite the poor performance, he maintained optimistic that things would be turned around. “In the new car you always have [unwelcome surprises], you know. It’s just the beginning of a big job to have a consistent and competitive car,” said the Brazilian driver. Since returning from injury in 2010, Massa struggled to re-find his form that saw him come so close to a championship victory in 2008. His 2011 season was marred by several incidents with Hamilton. The two collided on numerous occasions. But most damningly for Massa, it was the fact Hamilton was behind him so often for them to crash that criticism was levied at the British driver so much that year. Massa (left) and Hamilton (right) both fell off their 2008 form that saw them compete for the championship. The Sky Sports season review for 2011 dedicated an entire section to the bizarre series of incidents between the two, with Michael Wise writing: “It must be said that this so-called ‘feud’ was small fry in comparison with some of the flash points we’ve witnessed in recent years. From the McLaren/Ferrari spying controversy of 2007, to Renault causing a deliberate crash and even the relative small fry that was last year’s Ferrari team orders row, F1 in 2011 brought little in the way of scandal. “The ruckus that wasn’t started in Monaco before further skirmishes took place in (deep breath) Monaco, Britain, Singapore (during both qualifying and the race), Japan and India — more than enough to suggest something ulterior was happening and yet the reality was more mundane. “Hamilton’s approach does tend to polarise opinion and it’s easy to see why: when it works he’s brilliant; when it doesn’t, the 2008 world champion still tends to look a bit like a boy trying to do a man’s job. Alas for him, the latter has more often been the case this year. “Thus, given Hamilton’s habit of leaving himself with much ground to make up during races, he would dispense with midfield runners before happening upon the slowest car fielded by a ‘big three’ team. That car would invariably be driven by Massa, who seems more on edge than ever with his Ferrari future once more open to debate. “What tended to follow next would best be filed under the category of ‘racing incident’ and although words would be exchanged via the media afterwards, they were never particularly harsh. Indeed, each driver still insisted on the qualification of affording the other respect. “Just about the worst thing Massa could say about his rival’s gung-ho-edness was that it suggests he “cannot use his mind”. Does that really suggest a genuine loathing? When they were team-mates at Williams, Nelson Piquet called Nigel Mansell an “uneducated blockhead with a stupid and ugly wife”. Now that’s fighting talk.” In the meantime, Alonso asserted himself as the leader of the team in his two years since joining from Renault in 2010. Failure to overtake the Renault in Abu Dhabi cost Alonso the 2010 championship. He was four points off winning the championship in his first season at Ferrari and despite the team’s poor performances in 2011 he was still consistently proving himself to be one of the most talented drivers on the grid. If Ferrari were to achieve anything in 2012 it would have to be at the hands of the Spaniard. But if pre-season was anything to go by, then it would be a massive uphill battle from the start. Raikkonen was the man who Alonso replaced at Ferrari. The Finnish driver had a contract with the team for 2010 but instead the team paid that out for the following season after a disappointing 2009 campaign. Instead, Raikkonen spent the two years away from the sport and took up rallying along the way. For 2012, he returned with the Lotus Renault team — renamed to Lotus F1 team for the coming season. Renault had a disappointing 2011. They got off to a horrible start as driver Robert Kubica was involved in a terrifying rallying crash that meant he was out for the entire year — and wouldn’t return to F1 until 2019. However, their car was promising. Two podiums in the first two races was the reward for what David Coulthard described as “a great innovation” on their car. Heidfeld celebrates Renault’s second and final podium of the 2011 season. “They had a great innovation at the beginning of the year, blowing the front of the diffuser which then energised the whole under-body of the car. But for some reason they weren’t able to develop that during the course of the year so their performance stalled and they found themselves firmly at the back end of the top ten,” said Coulthard in the BBC’s 2011 season review. Renault were stuck in the midfield battle, but for 2012 were looking to chase the front of the field and grab more podiums and maybe even a race win or two. The French team ditched both of their 2011 drivers, Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov, and replaced them with Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean. The Frenchman initially joined the team in 2009 following the release of Nelson Piquet Jr. but, after two years away from F1, this would be his first full season with the team. Their rivals in the midfield in 2011, Mercedes, were also expecting to close up the gap to the front pack. Between a shakeup on their engineering side, as well as their experienced driver lineup, the hope was that the German manufacturer could start delivering consistently and compete with the Big Three. In the previous two years the team was comfortably quicker than the rest of the midfield but struggled to keep up with Ferrari, let alone McLaren or Red Bull. Two German drivers, young vs. old, with a German manufacturer. Since they returned to the sport as a constructor, they have managed just three podium finishes all of which have come from Nico Rosberg. Seven time world champion Schumacher simply didn’t have the pace he had before his initial retirement in 2006. However, there was optimism in the team. Any side led by Ross Brawn was sure to have a few engineering tricks up their sleeve. Richard Williams had high expectations following pre-season testing that the changes to the team would bring them closer to their rivals. “Mercedes is another that made big changes on their engineering side. Ross Brawn, the team principal, brought in three very experienced designers from other teams so they have a very very experienced superstructure on the technical side and Brawn is pretty confident that they’ll make the significant increase in performance that they need if they’re to justify Mercedes’ involvement in the team,” said Williams. “If the Mercedes does turn out to be a front running car, it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens because they’ve got two extremely good drivers more or less opposite ends of their careers. Michael Schumacher now coming back in his early 40’s, having had two disappointing seasons.” There was also optimism that Rosberg would be able to lead the team if Schumacher continued to struggle. “I think Rosberg is a serious talent and is a potential world champion. He’s come up quite quietly with several unspectacular seasons with Williams, but in the last two years with Mercedes he’s looked very good.” Adrian Newey is Chief Technical Officer at Red Bull and credited with their car’s stellar performance. There were also some interesting technical regulation changes brought in for the 2012 season, which Williams of the Guardian also expected to play a big role throughout the campaign. “There are rule changes practically every year and that the principle one this year is to ban the use of what are called blown diffusers. Adrian Newey made the first and best use of blown diffusers last year and that was really the fact that they gave last year’s Red Bull it’s great advantage,” said Williams. “He’s not quite going to be able to do the same thing this year. All the designers have spent the winter working out how, while staying within the boundaries of the new rules, they can use the same thing to perhaps recover some of the effect that the rule makers wanted them to forfeit. “I went to see Ross Brawn last week in Mercedes, and he admitted that loopholes are what Formula One is all about. They’ve got to find the loophole in this regulation, find a way of using the exhaust gasses to produce the downforce that they’d lost. That could be the key to the whole season, who’s got the best answer to that.” There was also a change to the driving regulations for 2012. “The change to the rules [is] around blocking maneuvers. You can make one move off the racing line in order to block another driver. However, if you then move back onto the racing line, say as you’re coming into the entrance of the corner where you’re looking to take your line again, you have to leave one car’s width between your car and the edge of the track,” explained Giles Richards. “This is incredibly complex, it’s more complex when you’re in a motor racing car and you’re trying to decide how far it is exactly one car’s width between the edge of my car and the edge of the track. The purpose of course is to leave that car’s width so that you can move back towards the racing line but that a car who is following can still overtake on that racing line.” With all of these factors going into the 2012 season, there was a lot of expectation that it would be an upgrade on the poor 2011 campaign. Not many people were thinking it could be as intense as the four-way championship battle of 2010, but there was certainly a hope that it would be a much closer contest between more teams throughout the year. The season began in Australia and ended in Brazil. Who would ultimately come out on top, and what would be the big surprises along the way? The expectation was that it wouldn’t all be wrapped up with four races spare again but could it get to Sao Paulo with the championship still on the line? Next week: Australia and Malaysia

https://medium.com/@cheesyhartepun/f1-2012-a-retrospective-part-1-pre-season-testing-and-expectation-7757aa776949

['Declan Harte']

2021-01-03 14:34:06.013000+00:00

['Sport', 'Retrospectives', 'Formula 1', 'F1', 'Nostalgia']

DUP(py) Conquered

We must agree to always say ‘no’, no to Brexit, no to free speech if it’s not ours, no to same sex marriage, no cakes for gays, no surrender. No time for Bob Marley or his like and kind, no time for papists, no time for Taigs, no time to toke a fat doobie dope no time for the Tee-Shock, he’s gay, he’s brown. Democracy happens when we have control, ten in Westminster, we held back that crowd until Boris (the bastard) the big Tory clown sold us out for a handshake with Vradker and Juncker, let’s retreat to the bunker Let’s shout, NO SURRENDER. With apologies and thanks to Bob Marley & The Wailers for paraphrasing their song, Duppy Conqueror. Duppy: https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Duppy

https://medium.com/resistance-poetry/dup-py-conquered-cdbb57858e3d

['Dermott Hayes']

2019-10-18 10:17:16.614000+00:00

['Democratic Unionist Party', 'Brexit', 'Resistance Poetry', 'Ulster', 'Duppy']

Comfort Baking

Nick Malgieri’s Real Scottish Shortbread Let’s be honest, it’s been a week. I don’t really know what day it is, what time it is, or what how to wrap my arms around all that needs to get done. I’ve melted down (and surely will again) and have also focused, eagle-eyed, on the steps necessary to keep SFCS forging ahead to the time when we can finally all be back in the kitchen again, soon. I can’t wait for that day. I’ve been checking on my people, some close and some far away. Facetime happy hour with my long-distance girlfriends has saved me and I’m not sure why it took this crisis to make that happen. I’ve had chats, driveways apart, with my neighbors and wore gloves to the market to buy groceries for people who couldn’t. I reached out to my friend Nick Malgieri to make sure all was okay with him in New York, and, if I’m honest, to see what he was baking. Turns out he has mostly been gardening so it took a bit of prodding to find out what the rest of us should be comfort baking. He penned a note about two of his favorite recipes, easy for every level of cook and made with ingredients no one is wrestling over at the store. One of the recipes, his Supernatural Brownies, are hands-down the best brownies you will ever eat. I never knew the happy accident that created these but the story made me smile. I have made them more times than I can count and have no doubt they will be in my quarantine rotation. He promised me he’d be posting the recipe here soon. The other was for a classic Scottish Shortbread. With 5 ingredients, this no-fuss cookie was ideal for today. I made the dough in about the same amount of time it took for Spotify to play the first four songs of Green by R.E.M. (digging deep these days). They’re perfect. The very soft butter gets paddled with sugar for a solid 5 minutes — this helps eliminate crunchy bits of sugar and aerates the dough just a little bit. A healthy pinch of salt and dash of vanilla go in, then you fold the flour in by hand, which keeps the cookies tender. I patted my dough between sheets of parchment and went over them once with a pin just to get an even thickness of just over 1/4-inch. While the oven preheated I threw the cut cookies into the fridge to make sure the butter was cold when I baked them (helps the cookies hold their shape). After a 15 minute bake, I had exactly the cookie I’d hoped for, the kitchen smelled incredible, and I realized I’d exhaled, unclenched, and relaxed. Whatever you’re doing to keep yourself well and healthy right now is critically important. If getting into the kitchen will help, give these a shot. You’ll be glad you did. Nick Malgieri’s Scottish Shortbread makes about two dozen 2 to 2 1/2-inch round cookies 1/2 pound unsalted butter very soft 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour 2 cookie sheets or jellyroll pans lined with parchment, sil-pats, or foil You already have all this, right? Set racks in the middle and upper thirds of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees. Beat the butter and sugar with the paddle in an electric mixer until very soft and light, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the salt and vanilla and beat briefly to combine.

https://medium.com/sfcooking/comfort-baking-654898ef621e

['Jodi Liano']

2020-03-23 17:19:19.924000+00:00

['Recipe', 'Baking', 'Cookies', 'Cooking']

The Power of Remote Usability Testing

The Project The first module that I have studied as part of my MA in Experience Design centered around assessing and designing for accessibility and usability- fundamental aspects of both digital and physical design that are often overlooked. The report investigated the usability and accessibility of an online retailer’s website, with attention focused directly towards its service as an e-commerce retailer. Amongst the series of evaluative methods used, including a psychological and Heuristic evaluation, the tests that required remote data gathering centered around performance and satisfaction. Performance An extract from the report Prior to the redesign, a performance evaluation needed to be carried out on the existing website in order to identify elements that required improvement. It was measured through a series of metrics, including Error rate, task success, and lostness. I then statistically tested the results against its four primary competitors in order to identify where the website is under-performing. A/B tests were then used to test the redesigned website against the existing website, in order to evaluate if the changes had an impact on the user’s performance. It was important for the redesign to address the weakness, as poor design and increased lostness indicate the user might be confused, this could cause the user to abandon their website and instead purchase from elsewhere. Method: During each of the sessions, the participant was given three tasks to complete. The tasks were selected as they incorporate the Top Tasks that were identified previously, allowing performance metrics from the most important elements of the website to be gathered. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test did not return a significant value (p.65753), and due to the groups not containing the same participants, an independent t-test was carried out. Due to the relatively small sample size (<20), the achieved power of each test was calculated to determine if there was a need for a non-parametric test to be conducted. How did Remote Testing Impact this? There is no denying that the tests took a little bit more planning and organization than their real-world counterparts would; setting up screen recording software and ironing out any technical issues takes a bit of forward-thinking and preparation. However, I believe that, for this scenario, it was the only disadvantage. Technical hurdles aside, the time efficiency and access to participants significantly out-weigh the required investment in planning for unforseen circumstances. Satisfaction Extract of the Satisfaction Evaluations in the report Aside from being accessible, products also need to leave the user feeling satisfied. Satisfaction and Usability go hand-in-hand, with one being directly influenced by the other; emotions are directly linked to usability, and positive emotions can leave the user with a positive user experience. Not only do they affect the user’s experience whilst using it, but they also affect their reflective memory meaning a user’s satisfaction determines whether they would return to the product. Methods: Quantitative methods allow for definite conclusions to be made which can be tracked over time and directly compared to competitors. System Usability Scale (SUS) was selected as the quantitative method as the websites tested are live and working. However, they don’t offer insights into the user's thoughts and emotions, or the problems on the page. A ‘Think Aloud’ method was used to gather this information and identify usability issues. Data Collection and Analysis Methods: Snapshot from the Thinkaloud Interview SUS- So, this is where remote testing is a necessity. Recruiting 75 participants to complete an SUS survey for the website and its four competitors, in person, is somewhat unrealistic on a tight time-scale. Whilst far from impossible, it is not time efficient, nor is it at all necessary. What remote testing allows for, that in-person methods do not so easily, is the ability for participants to complete the activity within context, allowing for their behavior to be appropriately influenced by their environment. Think-aloud- This is where remote usability testing begins to have its downfalls, but not enough to outshine its merits. Due to being a qualitative method, a far smaller sample size was required (just six in this scenario). The sessions were conducted using the rather unreliable Microsoft Teams, where the user was asked to share their screen and have their microphone and camera turned on. They were then asked to complete three tasks, and, most importantly, vocalise what they are feeling, thinking, and doing. So, what are the downfalls? Well, I believe it comes to the difficultly of creating a meaningful connection to the participants. Empathy is an undeniably powerful tool, and vital when conducting any form of research and testing. Whilst video calls and collaborative workspaces attempt to address this issue, they are unable to replace it. What have I learned for next time? Preparation is Key- Whilst all the necessary equipment was prepared, consent forms signed and process explained, I did overlook one key element of remote testing on two occasions… technical issues. Ah… the dreaded pixelated feed… not ideal when analysing performance data. Whilst seemingly a minor mistake, it certainly disrupted workflow and must be addressed. Use a backup! …or just don’t use the inbuilt record function on Teams. Whilst it appeared to work seamlessly on most occasions, it failed to save the recording of my second Think-Aloud activity during the A/B testing… something I didn’t realise until ending the session. I’d suggest using Camtasia or similar to have more control over the recording.

https://medium.com/@jameshoareid/the-power-of-remote-usability-testing-1150d3c6b189

['James Hoare']

2020-12-16 17:42:34.963000+00:00

['UX Design', 'User Experience', 'Accessibility', 'Usability', 'User Research']

Cricket Star Manager: A P2E Game Built for 2.5 Billion People

Cricket Star Manager Over the past year, interest in play-to-earn (P2E) games has skyrocketed, powered by the explosive growth of cryptocurrency and NFTs. Games industry heavyweights, such as EA and Ubisoft believe P2E games are the future of gaming and with a gaming industry that is already worth upwards of $175 billion, combined with a P2E gaming market currently worth ~$32 billion and a crypto industry valued at ~$2.5 trillion… you’ve got yourself a genuine revolution in the way people play, earn, and connect. A Cricket P2E Game? Cricket is the predominant sport in over 17 countries including India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the United Kingdom and Australia. The total addressable population is over 2.5 billion followers across the globe, making it the world’s second most popular sport. Cricket is so popular that there has twice been over one billion people simultaneously watching the ICC Cricket World Cup, in 2015 and 2019. The cricket industry has an annual valuation of ~$2 billion, with this figure increasing at a blistering pace with the further digitisation of sport and the reopening of the world, post-pandemic. The media rights for India’s IPL were recently valued at $5 billion for the next five-year cycle, a clear indication of the financial potential of the cricket industry. The Cricket Star Manager team is composed of both gaming and blockchain industry veterans, including the founders of Gold Town Games. By tapping into the experience and success of their previous title, World Hockey Manager, with over two million downloads and over 100 million matches played, our team is creating a P2E game that will target a huge, overlooked niche and a massive fan base, while giving our users not just a great gaming experience but also the ability to earn real rewards for playing. Introducing Cricket Star Manager Cricket Star Manager is a fully featured sports management simulator, built on the Unity engine. As a player in Cricket Star Manager, you create your own cricket team, starting in the lowest leagues alongside other beginners and just like in the real world, you can try to climb the divisions and compete for the highest title in your country. If you are successful in conquering your country, you can fight to be the number one cricket team in the world and enjoy all the spoils that come along with being the number one Cricket Star Manager! Players stake and earn Cricket Buck ($CRIX) to participate in the game and when a cricket match is finished, $CRIX are split and distributed among the winning team, the stadium owner, and the spectators who supported the winning team. Using your winnings, you can draft new players to your roster, acquire legendary players/items and even a stadium to host games yourself. Cricket Star Manager NFTs Players Each cricket player NFT on a team is different: speed, strength, stamina, and accuracy stats are all differentiators (the higher, the rarer), each generated as a NFT, which can level up, increasing their stats and abilities. When teams win matches, they win the game’s in-game currency which is used to evolve their players and team to higher levels (leveling up). Cricket player NFTs that reach a certain level can be bought and sold through the marketplace. Once Cricket Star Manager is launched, player NFTs showing real cricket players will also be added to the game through licensing deals with leagues, clubs and individual players. In learning from mistakes made in other NFT-games’ economies, specifically a constant inflation of game assets, Cricket Star Manager’s economy introduces elements of deflation (for example, retiring cricket players at a certain age etc.). Stadiums Skilled players in the game will have the opportunity to transform their basic cricket field into a stadium. Stadiums are issued as NFTs and owners can host games, tournaments, and special events, collecting fees from games played in their stadiums. A stadium can also be rented out to other players. Stadiums can also evolve over time, increasing their potential to host games and subsequently growing the player’s income. When not hosting games, a player’s stadium is used for training the user’s cricket players, growing their experience during idle time thus increasing their skill and value. Cricket Star Manager Tokens ($CSM and $CRIX) Cricket Star Manager utilizes two tokens, $CSM and $CRIX. $CSM is the premium and governance token with a fixed supply of 100 million. Token holders can stake $CSM to govern the community treasury, increase their asset values and affects how they earn these assets via gameplay. Owning $CSM opens access to exclusive NFT drops and sales. Early $CSM token holders will also receive $CRIX in the $CRIX Genesis drop. $CRIX is the in-game currency and players earn $CRIX, by leveling up, winning matches, watching games etc. $CRIX can be spent to draft new players, train cricket players and speed up events, such as recovery from injuries. All transactions made in the P2P market will require $CRIX and users will be able to trade $CRIX for fiat currency through exchanges. The Future of Cricket Star Manager Considering the incredible potential of P2E games and the popularity of cricket around the world, Cricket Star Manager is poised to bring the best of both worlds. Not only will this game offer players an enjoyable and addictive gameplay experience, it also enables an additional, potentially life changing income stream for thousands of people in India, Bangladesh, and surrounding developing countries where cricket is massively popular. The sports manager genre in the game industry is known for loyal players who can remain active for many years and by including P2E game mechanics, user retention will be multitudes higher as players can truly own their own teams…and receive all the benefits of doing so! The team at Cricket Star Manager is determined to become one of the top 10 employers/income providers in India by 2023, and prove that gaming is much more than just a fun pastime. More details about the game, public sale and timelines will be released soon. In the meantime we invite you to join us on this journey via our social channels listed below. Official Links for Cricket Star Manager Website: https://www.cricketstarmanager.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/CricketStarMngr Telegram Group: https://t.me/cricketstarmanager Telegram ANN: https://t.me/csm_ann Discord: https://discord.gg/RzPhVSGgd8

https://medium.com/@cricketstarmanager/cricket-star-manager-a-p2e-game-built-for-2-5-billion-people-9aef1787ecaf

['Cricket Star Manager']

2022-01-20 08:11:43.676000+00:00

['Manager', 'Cricket', 'P2e', 'P2e Game']

The Plague-Ground — What Happens When You Finally Leave Your Abuser

Every expert says this is the most dangerous time. You have crossed the man who has stolen your life. His rage is volcanic; his hurt, vast and eternal. You flinch at every sound; look back at everyone walking behind you. Is it him? This is what millions of Americans are feeling now that they have left their abuser, Donald Trump. As The Guardian noted this week: “Think about the temper tantrums, the refusal to accept reality, mood swings, fear of reprisal and a sense of looming danger: all are hallmarks of controlling and abusive behaviour. Whether we like it or not, we’re all trapped in an abusive relationship with Trump at the moment.” That same piece said it will take time for the effects to wear off. And I must say my world seems oddly silent since Trump lost on November 3rd. It took him three weeks, until yesterday, in fact, to answer questions from the media for the first time since the election, and he’s basically been in hiding, in a monumental sulk, since. Scarily silent. Back in June, I wrote about how a lockdown traps thousands of women in their homes with their abusers, and how we should treat women’s shelters as both essential services and front-line workers during the pandemic. Yes, it’s bad to have a local restaurant go under; it’s much worse to have a local women’s shelter shut its doors. But now that Toronto is into its second lockdown, with the weather ahead getting worse and not better like it was in June, the prospects for these women are even more dire. As one abuse hotline worker said: “[This time] women were calling with really limited opportunity to talk. It meant going to the bathroom to call, going into a closet.” The second lockdown is twice as hard on women’s shelters as well. Social distancing has effectively cut their number of beds in half, and the number of women calling for help has doubled. The Assaulted Women’s Helpline usually gets 4,000 calls a month; now, that’s doubled. I got on to their website to learn more and the first thing to pop up was this: “Safety Alert: Your computer can be monitored by your abuser and is impossible to clear your tracks completely. If you are afraid your internet activity might be monitored, call the Assaulted Women’s Helpline, free at 1–866–863–0511 or TTY 1–866–863–7868,” followed by advice on how to Hide Your Tracks. A national survey released this week by Women’s Shelters Canada revealed that the abuse of women rose in frequency during the pandemic. During the first lockdown which began in March, six in ten shelters reported a decrease in calls for help. From June to October, “as soon as things started up again, we see a huge increase in crisis calls and requests for admittance,” said Krys Maki, the research and policy manager for Women’s Shelters Canada. Worse still, during the first lockdown, there was a rise in both violence against women and the severity of that violence. These include more physical attacks resulting in broken bones, strangulation and stabbings. So if you’re looking for a way to help out in the pandemic, think of the women newly-trapped or re-trapped at home with their abusers and the shelters who are a desperate phone call away. Here’s a list of women’s shelters in Toronto and I urge you to donate to the one closest to you. If you’re from outside Toronto, a similar list in your city is just a Google search away. Abuse is not a problem that money alone can solve. But giving money sure beats doing nothing. Because while most of us are counting the days until the vaccine comes, for thousands of women in Canada, it won’t save them.

https://medium.com/@bob-ramsay/the-plague-ground-what-happens-when-you-finally-leave-your-abuser-28a98d26e353

['Bob Ramsay']

2020-11-27 15:39:23.226000+00:00

['Pandemic', 'Domestic Violence', 'Domestic Abuse', 'Covid 19 Crisis', 'Shelter For Women']

We are all content creators

Use this power to build your brand, your story and your connections Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash Everyday, you’re creating content, even without you knowing it. That pithy Facebook post, that’s content. That IG story of your latest food-gasm. Yup, content. Your Pinterest pin, Twitter reply, Whatsapp share….it’s all content. And it’s creating an image of who you are, or at the very least, who you want to appear to be. Oftentimes, we hear the words ‘content creator’ and we think of someone in skinny jeans and a black t-shirt, producing eye-catching, visually and audibly amazing, instantly shareable, bound-to-go-viral material that you could never hope to reproduce or even imagine. And for sure, those people exist and God bless their ability to come up with some amazing stuff. But each and every one of us is a living, breathing content creator. And the reason I think it’s so important for each of us to create content is because it’s one of the most efficient ways to build connection with another person. It’s attention grabbing in the simplest way. For example, you’re scrolling through Facebook and come across a post from someone you follow, whether a close connection or not. Something makes you stop that scroll and now you’re thinking about the right words, emojis or GIFs (or a combination of the 3) to leave your thoughts. What just happened is magical, something that everyone from the individual influencer to the largest conglomerate spends a lot of time and energy (and in some cases, billions of dollars) trying to promote and understand: engagement. I hear this word so much at work, it sometimes makes me nauseous. “What’s the engagement like with so-and-so on this workstream?” “I think we need to increase our client engagement in this area” “We’d like to acknowledge the engagement across teams to get this project across the line”. We’re obsessed. And what’s it all for? When you stopped scrolling to leave your comment, two things happened. You were inspired. And you decided to participate. That’s the holy grail of just about any human connection you can think of. When you think about romantic relationships, business partnerships, intellectual pursuits, spiritual encounters — they all centre on people being inspired and getting involved. As a social animal, we crave this. Everything that we do seems to thrive on it. Photo by Justin Follis on Unsplash So when you leave your comment, you’re saying “I see you. Now see me”. Isn’t that ultimately what we all want, to be seen, to be heard? I’m re-reading Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly and I’m at the part where she’s dissecting the reasons why we mostly fear vulnerability, one of which is that we oftentimes equate opening ourselves up with weakness. However, the central argument of her book is that we develop a better understanding of ourselves and deepen our connections with others when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. It’s the starting point of any courageous venture, whether it’s a new relationship, a new job, a difficult conversation or pursuing a passion project. So, what does any of this have to do with content creation, I hear you asking? Well, like anything else that you practice and get good at, content creation puts you in the position to build your capacity for vulnerability — your vulnerability muscle — which can only mean that you’re getting better at doing things that scare and excite you. For me, I find that when I sit down to write, I’m confronting my fears and building my ability to master them. One of the biggest challenges that I face is trusting that what I have to say is important and matters, that my perspective is good enough to be shared. “Why would anyone want to hear about this?”, I often ask myself. It’s this sense of self-doubt and questioning that often appears when I’m about to create something and share it with the world. Think about it, how often do you edit and perfect your photos, comments, posts, etc. before sharing? I check and double-check my writing for grammatical errors, for fear that any mistakes would betray some inadequacy on my part. But more importantly, it’s the idea that opening myself up to criticism and potentially negative feedback exposes me to being wounded. Then I think about my journey as a public speaker, an experience that combines content creation and vulnerability in one of the most extreme ways possible. As a public speaking coach, I usually share with people who are looking to improve their abilities as a public speaker, something that they inherently already know: most people rank public speaking even higher than death as something that strikes fear in their heart. Standing in front of a room of people and conjuring up something interesting enough and also not totally embarrassing, is a scary thing for sure. How will I be judged? What will people think? What if I fail? These were questions that I would ask myself. But every time I finished a speech, I would be met with applause, nodding heads, appreciation, admiration, respect……connection. People would tell me how they related to my stories, how they connected with my ability to share so much of myself. This response happened almost every time, without fail. As a result, I developed a brand as an exceptional public speaker, someone whose stories would leave a lasting, positive impression. This was an unintended consequence of sharing myself in a way that most people would probably shy away from. So, what this experience has taught me is that content creation can be a simple act, but also a powerful one: an invitation to let your guard down and invite connection. It has the dual effect of giving you the opportunity to develop your voice and your brand, to get out the things you’ve been longing to say and to share with the world. There is huge self-validation in doing so. But most importantly, content creation confirms that your story matters. Not so much because you want to receive confirmation from others (even though it is satisfying to know that what you’re sharing might inspire others), but mostly because the act of sharing is a proclamation that you are here, you are visible and you should be seen and heard. When you’re thinking about writing that blog post, recording that YouTube video or sharing that story, remember that you’re harnessing one of the most accessible of human powers: the act of engagement. Continue to use it and use it often.

https://medium.com/@kayusfernander/we-are-all-content-creators-8d77cc3cf17a

['Kayus Fernander']

2020-12-16 08:52:53.363000+00:00

['Self', 'Vulnerability', 'Sharing', 'Content Creation', 'Writing']

Local Magazine Editor Just Extremely, Devotedly, Obsessively Involved

New York mag editor Adam Moss finally goes on the record: he is not, contrary to the last ten years of reports, a micromanager. “I totally dispute it.” God bless!

https://medium.com/the-awl/local-magazine-editor-just-extremely-devotedly-obsessively-involved-c1c4a0658cad

['Choire Sicha']

2016-05-13 07:42:53.012000+00:00

['Self-awareness', 'Adam Moss', 'Media']

Nowhere Man 13

The Rainbow Warrior was gone. I’d never know the like of her again. I’d seen her as few ever had, lying at rest under a sinking sun, sailing through storm torn skies, when lightning was so sharp it stitched clouds together. She was not mine of course, she belonged to the world, a symbol of mans hope. Now, whenever I sit on a windy shoreline, looking out across any ocean, it all comes back, the sense of smell, long after the burning has gone, yet still lingers in my nostrils. “Lay still, lay absolutely still, Greg.” It was the voice of my friend, Steve. Tears falling down his face. “Steve, I can’t feel my legs.” He was holding my head against his knees. “You must lay still, do you understand?” Sirens sounded in far off streets. The hissing of steam filled the air. As if someone had placed a red-hot poker into water just behind my head. “What happened, Steve?” I whispered. Steve didn’t answer. My fingers were burning with cold. I saw myself in the reflective glow of a fire burning in his eyes. It occurred to me I might be dying, right there in Steve’s lap. I began to think of all the things I wanted to say, so as not to die unforgiven. “When my son has grown, Steve, tell him I love him.” “Listen,” he said, “you’re going to be all right. Don’t think about anything else. We dragged you from the water. You’ve got a chunk of metal in your back, do not try to move — do you understand?” And there was no more to be heard. I woke up in a hospital. For four months, I lay still while surgeons played around with my spine. Katie had made the long, worrisome flight to my bedside. She wouldn’t look at me. The eyes of the woman I loved stared blankly at my broken body. I was loved deeply. She could not look at me in pain. It is something I was never to forget. Katie was not going to be loved this way. No man was going to occupy a place in her life, her heart, or the lives of her children and risk himself for ideals. Philip’s birth had changed her perspectives. Her eyes were saying. ‘You have no place in my life. You are an intruder.’ This is what she would tell me when I was stronger, if she didn’t weaken. Why was I so bloody difficult? Why couldn’t I just love her like other men love their women? Adore her the way other men adore? Lust like other men lust? But that was never my way. Katie had sailed into my life like a storm-christened rigger, taking my breath away. She had shown me, proved to me that she was an by exceptional person. It was all too much. What if I never knew her smile again, her strange words, the predictability of her in my life? She would have to say something — but of course, I was all I said and my truth affected her and touched her. She placed her hand in mine, resting her head on my chest and sobbed. “Come home, Greg” She whispered. I lay still, knowing her pain, feeling her heartbeat heavy in her breast. I wanted to be with her forever, to stand at her side as real as a mountain. I wanted to hold her, fire a blue and white electricity into her hurting emotions and make them better. “You’ll walk. I just know it, Greg. I just know it, and the doctors say you will.” She kissed my cheek and turned away, tearful. I watched until she turned the corner. That disappearance broke every barrier that was holding up my dignity and pride. Sobs rose from my stomach and caught in my throat. They were there, when a minute later she walked back toward me. She took a tissue from her bag and held it to my face. “I’ve never seen you afraid before.” There was no wild fury left. I was indeed afraid. “It’s done, Greg. Your time is done. No more. We are your life now. You come home and you stay. You stay, Greg. You are a father and a husband. You will not put us through this again.” Katie had walked away without saying it but now, returning with new strength, said what she had wanted to say for a year or more. She held my hand and kissed my mouth. “No more, or we cannot make it.’” She turned and walked briskly away. I never saw her tears but I knew her heartbreak was unimaginable and fierce. The surgeons played it right. After the fourth month of treatment, I walked out of there. The French had bombed and sunk the Rainbow Warrior, killing one friend. Goliath had come for David and won. I don’t know why, when I look out to sea, it should all come back to me so vividly. Not when there are so many beautiful memories of the Warrior, so much achieved. The Rainbow had her failures, of course, but how she had handed me so many friendships and adventures. Katie and I walked out together on the bend of Tobermory. Our son was growing fast, and our second son, Daniel, was on the way.

https://medium.com/illumination/nowhere-man-13-b857a6e0b218

['Harry Hogg']

2021-03-23 18:13:18.589000+00:00

['Fiction Series', 'Life', 'Fiction', 'Writing', 'Fiction Writing']

Notwithstanding dangers, Iran proceeds with underground atomic activities

In spite of a ton of weight from the International people group and particularly the United States, Iran is ceaselessly extending its underground atomic office. As indicated by the on-location reports, Tehran has just started its tricky development on the site of its underground atomic office at Fordo. The satellite photographs got on Friday show the degree of advancement in the work. This after the nation is yet to make an official affirmation of development and the exercises going on in the region. In 2009 as well, the revelation of the mysterious development was brought into the information on the west which prompted a blacklist of the nation followed by an arrangement in 2015. The reason for existing is yet to be unveiled by the Iranian authorities with respect to whatever is going on in Fordo. The exercises in the locale will undoubtedly trigger new concerns particularly when Donald Trump is going out. This is coming after Iran perceived the development occurring at its Natanz atomic office after a baffling blast in July this year, a demonstration depicted as harmful by Tehran. One of the authorities examining and taking note of the exercises in Tehran, Jeffrey Lewis, a specialist at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies stated, “Any progressions at this site will be painstakingly looked as an indication of where Iran’s atomic program is going.” Iran was reached to affirm the news by the reaction that the United Nations was looking for was never given by the inlet nation. Indeed, even the examiners of the International Atomic Energy Agency neglected to react to this issue. These specialists are in Iran as a piece of the atomic arrangement. However, on the off chance that reports are to be accepted, at that point, it was first revealed in September when the development began at the Fordo site. The satellite pictures show that the development is occurring in the northwest corner of the site, which is near the blessed Shiite city of Qom and is only 55 miles from Tehran, the capital city. “This area was a significant staying point in dealings prompting the Iran atomic arrangement. The US demanded Iran close it while Iran’s preeminent chief said keeping it was a red line,” said Lewis.

https://medium.com/@hiramenon93/notwithstanding-dangers-iran-proceeds-with-underground-atomic-activities-39083f984744

['Hira Menon']

2020-12-18 10:28:52.313000+00:00

['United States', 'Donald Trump', 'Iran', 'Nuclear', 'Tehran']

Why was GOOGLE down ?

Google was down for about 45 min on Dec 14 2020. Photo by Mitchell Leo on Unsplash. Google was down for 45 min on Monday 14 Dec 2020.The Outage was Worldwide, But what went wrong.. It was not because of some Software developer missed Semi-colon and that bad code was deployed to server. NO that’s not what happened. There is a funny story at the end. The issue was not with YouTube Or Gmail Or Google Drive , Not all Google services were down . Users were not able to use those services which require user authentication. But some were able to use those services in incognito mode and other services which does not require user authentication. What was the Problem then. The issue was with the Google’s Central Identity Management System(CIMS). What is CIMS Google’s CIMS manages the authentication of the users who want access their services, think of it as your security guard in your building who recognizes you and let’s you go inside whichever building you want, But if he fails to recognize you then he won’t allow you inside . Same happened with the Google’s CIMS. When users wanted to visit any of the services CIMS was not able to authenticate and the users were not able to access the services and thus users were getting errors. CIMS Explanation Before accessing any of the services the users have to pass through the CIMS barrier . In System Design we call these as Single Points Of Failure(SPOF). Single Points Of Failure SPOF means it’s a point where the entire system can crashes if that one single point fails. But why did such an important system went down ? It was because of Automated Quota Management System (AQMS), which reduced the capacity of the CIMS which eventually made CIMS go down. why was the capacity of AQMS reduced as of now there is no answer from google about that. According to Google : The root cause was an issue in our automated quota management system which reduced capacity for Google’s central identity management system, causing it to return errors globally. As a result, we couldn’t verify that user requests were authenticated and served errors to our users. Many were able to access through incognito mode, How was that possible ? It was because while using incognito mode you don’t need to login and hence there is no need for authentication, So there was no part for CIMS here and users were able to access all the google services. We will go back to security guard story, When the guard is drunk and he fails to recognizes you and you plan to go from backside by jumping the wall and going inside the building. This is not the first time Google went down, it became a big outage because it was globally. This happens in Big-Tech Companies like AWS went down couple of days back and Microsoft AZURE went down. These are software's which are running on machine written by humans and Humans have tendency to make mistakes, these are bound to have errors Fun Story : There was a incident were a guy had connected all his bulbs, refrigerator and all other smart devices to Google Home, When outage happened he was not able to control his light bulbs or anything because Google Home requires Google Assistant which helps to control all the devices when you say something because google was down the Assistant was not able to communicate with the servers and it was getting error. So this guy now cannot control his bulb, smart devices because google home went down. Lesson : So we should not depend our life so much on these applications unless and until we are okay with these outages. So next time when website goes down don’t blame software engineers for missing semi-colon ;

https://medium.com/@sadathshariff/why-was-google-down-d5551dc426e1

['Sadathulla Shariff']

2020-12-24 12:06:50.255000+00:00

['Servers', 'Google', 'YouTube', 'Google Down', 'Google Search']

I hope I mess this up

Photo by Joshua Hansonon Unsplash I hope I mess this up Are not my words I am not that brave Fuck, fuck, fuck Fuck me Now, I am truly fucked, is what I was thinking when walking up to this stage when feeling the jitters in my knees I am truly fucked You must agree as I don’t dare to adjust the mike fearing to mess up before I even start feebly pointing it in my direction and lowering myself to be heard Though it would be nice to end up turning this into playful improvisation maybe even getting some laughs dream on, boy my nervousness gets the better of me so now, I am truly fucked forgetting my words hanging on to my phone I can hardly scroll properly misreading my own lines how fucked up can it get? I hope I mess this up Are not my words I am not that brave I am so in awe to what came before me to what comes after me that I am thinking how truly fucked I am how can I be so foolish thinking that my words will mean anything to anybody else but me who put me up for this but my own sense of adventure At the end of the day though I don’t really care for what you think about how simple my words are or how clever or funny or rhythmical what matters to me is that I made it onto the stage finding my voice one word at a time

https://medium.com/@peterwolfgang/i-hope-i-mess-this-up-63a9e826745c

['Peter Wolfgang']

2020-12-20 13:42:43.189000+00:00

['Performance', 'Poems On Medium', 'Storyofmylife', 'Poetry']

#MakeoverMonday2019 — Week 9. Economic value of the bicycle industry

Note: The original data set from data.world came with the wrong Date field: Tableau mistakenly recognizes the ‘month’ part of the Date field as ‘day’ part. So, I had to create a new Date field and correct the Date field. Basically, convert the Date field, use MID function to parse the year, month, and day. Then, use MAKEDATE function to create a new Date field.

https://medium.com/phat-vu/makeovermonday2019-week-9-7c5ce89df0b4

['Pat Vu']

2019-03-05 04:35:46.889000+00:00

['Data Visualization', 'Tableau', 'Makeovermonday2019']

Adaptil Collar

Adaptil Collar We all want a happy pup. No matter what the situation is, we want out dogs to be happy, calm and have a stress-free life. As odd at it may sound, there are dog collars that are made to keep our pups calm during stressful situations. Read this article and consider getting an Adaptil collar, especially during firework season. Adaptil Collar — Calm on the Go The Adaptil Calm-On-The-Go Collar is a contraption that goes around your dog’s neck to keep them calm. The collar contains a man-made version of a dog appeasing hormone that gets released into the air and into your dog as they breathe in and out. There has been many scientific studies that prove that this hormone is calming and helpful for pups of all breeds and sizes. Adaptil collar Adaptil Calming Collar These collars can be used when your dog is going through a stressful situation that happens in the world around them. The Adaptil Calming Collar is a good tool to use during celebrations when you know there will be fireworks cracking and making them feel anxious and uneasy. Keeping your dog calm with the help of science, through the use of synthetic pheromones is one of the most effective, safe ways to keep them relaxed. Adaptil calming collar Adaptil Junior Collar Other situations where the collar can be used is when training puppies. Puppies that stay calm and relaxed are more prone to socialize and stay happy. The Adaptil Junior Collar also helps them cope with staying home alone removing all those sensations of nervousness. We all know that small pups tend to cry at night when they’re adjusting to a new home, and applying this collar as a tool to help them become acclimated to the space around them is a really great way to incorporate them into daily life with their new human pals! Adaptil Junior collar Adaptil Collar — Medium to Large Dogs For some dogs, day to day life is a struggle. Dogs that suffer from behavioral issues of any sort can feel a very positive effect when they’re under the spell of the constant release of the appeasing hormone. There is an Adaptil Collar targeted towards medium to large dogs that caters to these pups that struggle with staying calm in general. This collar helps them control their fear and stay relaxed. Adaptil collar — medium and large dogs Adaptil Calm Home If adding another collar to your dog is something that doesn’t sound right to you, but you still want your pup to be subdued by the effects of this pheromone, the ADAPTIL Calm Home is the option for you. This device plugs into the outlet and similar to scented environment pleasers for humans, it releases the pheromones slowly into the air so that it perfumes the whole room. Diffusing this appeasing pheromone through the air will ensure the immediate effect on your dog. This might help with dogs that are home alone, that are constantly fearful, or that are just passing by. It is important to know that these synthetic pheromones can only be perceived by dogs and are completely scentless for humans. Adaptil calm home Whether you choose the collar or the air diffuser, it is important that you know that the use of dog appeasing pheronomes is completely safe. Many vets advice the use of products like this to help your dogs cope with outside stimulants and have a calm and happier life. Big dogs, small dogs, old ones and puppies the same. If you’re still unsure about what the best bet might be, you could get a pack of both products so that you may test which one works better with the personality and lifestyle of your pet. Your dog’s collar is a key element. Owners must look beyond the horizon and use their collars in the most creative of ways. If you’re interested to know more about different ways to use and improve your pup’s collar, you might want to read about the LED Dog Collar.

https://medium.com/@amytrumpeter/adaptil-collar-3c48264de0d1

['Amy Trumpeter']

2020-12-25 08:02:43.831000+00:00

['Animals', 'Pets And Animals', 'Pets', 'Dog Collars', 'Dogs']

Data Scientists, Training Job Description, Purple Squirrel and Unicorn Problem — Part II

This article is a continuation of my previous article posted on LinkedIn and Medium. https://medium.com/@jaganadhg/dsunicorns-8fa01b1de79 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/data-scientists-trainings-job-description-purple-gopinadhan-jagan-/ Recap In the last article, we discussed the importance of creating the right JD for hiring a Data Science professional. Two of the significant job profiles Machine Learning Scientist and Data Scientists, along with tips to write JD, were discussed. In this article, we will discuss other job roles such as Machine Learning Engineer, ML Platform Support/DevOps, AI/ML Developer, and Data Engineer for ML/Data Science. Machine Learning Engineer Machine Learning Engineer is a person who can work with Data Scientist and Software Engineers to develop and deploy scalable AI/ML solutions. An ideal candidate should have a familiarity with Machine Learning algorithms in general (not necessarily a Mathematician). The person should be familiar with Data Science process flow to work with Data Scientist in tandem. Major strength areas should be Software Engineering capability such as writing clean, modular code, writing unknit tests, incorporate architecture patterns in the end-to-end solution, and help in the deployment. Exposure to container technologies, database systems, data engineering, and familiarity with infrastructure is desirable. More weightage should be given to software engineering concepts. If your enterprise is planning for ML products and project deployments, an ML engineer is an indispensable role. At the minimum 1:10 ratio of Ml Engineer to Data Scientist will be desirable in a large busy team. Rather than the number of models or types of models developed, the number of deployed models will be the right measurement criteria to assess the candidate. Determining the tech stack for such a candidate should be governed by IT strategy. Cloud heavy AI/Ml teams should focus on cloud-specific skills. As we speak, we witness the adoption of AutoML in the enterprise. Even though AutoML is not the silver bullet in AI/Ml area, the ML Engineer role will become significant than Data scientists eventually. In a mature AI/ML strategy, the enterprise will leverage experienced Data Scientists and the AutoML platform to build models. Such models will get operationalized and maintained by ML Engineers. The focus is being shifted from Mathematician to a sound Software Engineer who can understand Data Science. ML Platform/Dev Ops There are many AI/ML platforms are available in the market. Some are cloud-based. Some are on the premise, and some hybrid solutions. Like any other IT platform, a platform governance and maintenance strategy is required for AI/ML platforms. Sometimes the platform may be as simple as RStudio or may be as extensive as Databricks or Dataiku. Each of these platforms needs its governance and controls. Installing new software packages, creating code environments, controlling limits of the user, and creating custom Docker binaries are some of the high-level tasks required. If a platform provides model monitoring and deployment, there will be additional tasks to add to the list. This job is a Data Science upskilled person with good IT platform management. The person may not create models but will sim through the process to accommodate the platform tweaks and troubles. Awareness of various popular ML libraries will be an added advantage. Getting an experienced candidate in this domain is relatively strict as this role is an evolving one across many enterprises. As discussed in our first article, for this role writing, the JD needs a vision of AI/ML IT strategy. Platforms used by the company and IT vision are critical. The person’s skill in infrastructure is very crucial, and architecture infrastructure solution is essential. Here more than a Mathematician, we could see a Data Science aware IT infrastructure professional, even though the person might have some training as a Data Scientist sometimes. AI/ML Developer Some of the popular tasks in AI/ML space are now available as ready to use API services. Chatbots or conversational agents, text insights extraction, and speech service are some of the examples. Almost all the large to small players in the space delivers excellent services. At the same time, some of the powerful AI/Ml frameworks started proving javascript frameworks such as Tensorflow.js and openCV java scripts. Such frameworks help the enterprise to create API mashup based AI/Ml solutions for various business solutions. For such a role, most of the time, enterprises rely on the best smart developer. But eventually, we would witness more API services in the space. Fundamental ideas on AI/Ml concepts will be an added advantage for developers trying to enter this space. The javascript Machine Learning world is again slowly evolving. Knowledge of Machine learning frameworks, its purpose, and underlying principle may be required. A course of AI/Ml for the business executive’s level will be a good starter for learners. When it comes to the JD part, we need to think very objectively. What we are planning to achieve in the project/program should drive the JD. Data Engineer for ML/Data Science Buy or build is an important question when it comes to an AI/Ml platform. Even though there are plenty of Data Science platforms out in the market, enterprises tend to build their platform. Some of the mission-critical Ml systems may be deepening on heavy data crunching before it goes to ML models. Creating scalable, reliable, and blazing fast pipelines are the need of the hour. Such channels will sometimes be free from the data frame puddles. A data engineer who can understand the Machine Learning/Data Science workflow is desired here. Most of the time, enterprises with mature AI strategy hire and retain such professionals. Strong software engineering skill is an added advantage for such professionals. It is tricky to craft a one size fit JD for such a case. The JD should be based on the development strategy and vision for the team. Tec stacks should be aligned with an architecture team. Unicorns or Purple Squirrel? So far, we have discussed six different job roles and JD, which falls under the modern umbrella term ‘Data Scientist.’ If you are looking for a Unicorn, we are looking for a combination of all of these six JD’s discussed so far. This makes the unicorn search difficult for an HR professional. The purple squirrel is a puzzling problem. Here the combination of education, experience, and skill meets. Sometimes the JD’s may have rigorous education and experience requirements, which one should look for tricky. Happy Hunting !!!! To be contd…

https://medium.com/the-innovation/data-scientists-training-job-description-purple-squirrel-and-unicorn-problem-part-ii-cdeb2283f1e6

['Jaganadh Gopinadhan']

2020-09-05 07:48:28.707000+00:00

['AI', 'Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science']

EEOC Issues Final Rule for Online Filing in Discrimination Cases

CanvaPro Image In a final ruling dated October 15, 2020, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) expanded a pilot program that began in 2015 to allow the EEOC and private employers to electronically submit documents and communicate with the agency online. The EEOC enforces federal laws that prohibit employment discrimination, including the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. What does the Final Rule Include? The final ruling improves communication in determination letters to charging parties and respondents about the EEOC’s decision to close an investigation. The final ruling also maintains its commitment to preserving the confidentiality of charge-related information and is bound by strict confidentiality requirements…which make it unlawful for commission employees to make public any charge-related information prior to the institution of a lawsuit involving the information. Additionally, the final rule memorializes changes that have been occurring over the past several years as the EEOC has made significant strides in providing digital services. What do Employers Need to Know? When the EEOC receives a bias claim from a worker, it sends a notice to the employer. The EEOC suggests that employers review charge notices carefully and follow directions. Employers may be asked to provide a response to the charge, which gives them an opportunity to explain why the claims may be incorrect or not illegal. The EEOC recommends that employers consider resolving claims through mediation. Once the claim is investigated by the EEOC, the agency will send a form to the charging employee if no cause for a discrimination claim was found. Employees still have the right to file a lawsuit in court after such a determination, and the final rule adds language to EEOC regulations stating that a dismissal will include notice of the employee’s statutory right to file a lawsuit. The final rule also adds language clarifying that a “no cause” determination and dismissal does not mean the claims have no merit. For more information visit, EEOC Issues Final Rule for Online Filing in Discrimination Cases. Premier HR Solutions is an Austin based HR consulting company providing human resource services to emerging companies. Whether your company employs 5 people or 500, we can provide additional human resource assistance to help you grow or manage your business. If you have any questions about this topic or any other HR or recruiting-related questions, we are happy to help. Contact us to learn more about our services and to schedule a free consultation with one of our HR Advisors.

https://medium.com/@sbubenik/eeoc-issues-final-rule-for-online-filing-in-discrimination-cases-4efc4a8c78da

['Scholley Bubenik']

2020-11-19 20:21:42.305000+00:00

['Human Resources', 'Discrimination', 'HR', 'Hrtech', 'Compliance']

TLDR Migrating a 130TB Cluster from Elasticsearch 2 to 5 in 20 Hours with 0 Downtime by Fred de Villamil

TLDR Migrating a 130TB Cluster from Elasticsearch 2 to 5 in 20 Hours with 0 Downtime by Fred de Villamil Replicate it using built-in ES capabilities, then reindex delta from your main data source. Also — it’s so cool to have everything saved in ~kafka~ a log. 77 nodes cluster, with 200TB storage, 4.8TB RAM, 2.4TB being allocated to Java, and 924 CPU core. It is made of 3 master nodes, 6 ingest nodes, and 68 data nodes. The cluster holds 1137 indices, with 13613 primary shards, and 1 replica in a second data center. 1 option — Cluster Restart: close every index, upgrade the software version, start the nodes, then open the indexes again. Downside — maintenance downtime =( Better option — expand cluster 2x times, replicate everything 2 more times, split cluster into two, then catch-up with changes: added 90 new servers with the same ES 2.3. “number_of_replicas : 1” becomes “number_of_replicas : 3" and ES takes care of copying every index and shard onto new servers. Transferring 130TB of data at up to 4Gb/s puts lots of pressure on the hardware. The load on most machines was up to 40, with 99% of the CPU in use. Iowait went from 0 to 60% on most of our servers. mitigate problems of serving clients from the busy hardware by using ES “zones” to split the data into cold and hot parts and dedicated some resources to serve the hot part to clients without reduced QoS. split the cluster: shutdown new servers, disconnect them from the cluster in terms of auto-discovery, start them separately: close all the indexes on the new cluster and now upgrade the ES to 5.0 reopen indexes and catchup with changes by reindexing the delta from kafka source. switch ES clients to use new cluster. Profit!

https://medium.com/some-tldrs/tldr-migrating-a-130tb-cluster-from-elasticsearch-2-to-5-in-20-hours-with-0-downtime-by-fred-de-65270f5ca894

['Pavel Trukhanov']

2018-03-01 13:47:06.769000+00:00

['Tldr', 'Elasticsearch', 'DevOps', 'Engineering', 'Big Data']

Stratis SRC-20 Token Issuance Contract

We are pleased to announce that the SRC-20 Standard Token Issuance contract has been voted into the whitelist by the community operated masternodes and is now deployable on the Cirrus Sidechain. This enables anyone to deploy their own token on the Cirrus Sidechain that can then be utilised to meet many different use-cases. Deploying your own token from within Cirrus Core is simply achieved via the Smart Contracts tab within the wallet. Enter the ByteCode of the approved contract, located on the merged pull request and supply the token parameters to define the Token Supply, Token Name and Token Ticker. Select Create Contract and you have successfully deployed your own SRC20 Token on the Cirrus Sidechain. More information regarding the deployment of a token and guidance for Smart Contract developers can be found in the below document. Stratis Smart Contracts Developer Guide Cirrus Core 2.0 will also be released in the coming weeks, bringing one-click token issuance and full token management allowing you to manage issued tokens with ease.

https://medium.com/@stratisplatform/stratis-src-20-token-issuance-contract-3fd5fc21d66

[]

2019-07-10 14:12:57.567000+00:00

['Smart Contracts', 'Dotnet', 'Microsoft', 'Csharp', 'Blockchain']

Getting Started on pgRouting

pgRouting is a useful tool extended from PostgreSQL database that stores geographical data in the form of edges and vertices in SQL tables which then allows for routing queries to be performed using the provided functions. This guide will walk you through a setup using a Windows machine. There are a few items required as listed below. Simply click on them and you’ll be directed to the downloads. Install PostgreSQL It is recommended to install using default selections. Otherwise, keep in mind that the command line tool is compulsory, pgAdmin is highly recommended for ease of database access and stack builder is optional. Adding PostGIS Features Unzip the PostGIS bundle file and copy the files in the following folders to the respective PostgreSQL program folders. Here, we assume that PostgreSQL v13 is installed. Otherwise the directory for PostgresSQL will change according to the version number. All .dll files in ‘bundle_directory\lib’ to ‘C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\13\lib’ All folders in ‘bundle_directory\share’ to ‘C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\13\share’ All files and folders in ‘bundle_directory\bin’ to ‘C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\13\bin’ In order to use PostgreSQL command line tool and the shp file converter tool, we will need to edit our system environment variables. Using Windows Search, enter ‘system environment’. Select ‘Edit the system environment variables’. Click on the ‘Environment Variables…’ button below. Under ‘System variables’, double click on ‘Path’, then click on the ‘New’ button. Browse to ‘C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\13\bin’, click ‘OK’ and save it. Convert, Import And Prepare Data Unzip the data folder and run the script shown below — assuming that the folder you unzipped into is ‘roads_digitized_0_0_0’, otherwise edit the script accordingly. Notice that I changed the data projection from the original 32644 to 4326 because PostGIS only provide map visualisation on data projected onto 4326 through pgAdmin. It is a really cool tool to visualise and better understand your data. Data Visualisation of Sri Lankan Roads To view the image above, open up pgAdmin and from the left panel navigate accordingly from ‘Server’ > ‘PostgreSQL’ > ‘Databases’ > ‘roads’ > ‘Schemas’ > ‘Tables’ > ‘roads_digitized’. Right click on it and and select ‘All Rows’ under ‘View/Edit Data’. Go to the geom column and click on the eye icon beside the header. Now your database is set up and ready for you to continue to learn more about pgRouting! If you like my notes, especially if it saves you some time pulling your hair out, feel free to give me a clap or even buy me a donut ;)

https://medium.com/@ongchaojian/getting-started-on-pgrouting-361bffe9feb9

['Ong Chao Jian']

2021-01-05 08:56:33.654000+00:00

['Postgresql', 'Postgres', 'Postgis', 'Pgrouting']

What To Expect From An Ecommerce Website Designing Company

Ecommerce website designing companies are the best option for small business owners that want to get their own websites up and running. There are many good reasons to consider going with a website design company and this is something you should really think about.ecommerce website designing company Ecommerce is quickly becoming one of the most popular ways to sell products online. As the competition becomes more fierce, it is important for any business to keep up with the times. This is why having a website that stands out is so important. There are many things that you will need to consider when working with an eCommerce design company. The first thing is the price that they charge. While the prices vary from company to company, it is best to compare what they have in order to see which will be the best choice. The cost is an important aspect of working with a company because there are plenty of companies that are not going to provide the best service possible. When looking for a company to work with, you will want to look at reviews and feedback. Look at the products they are able to offer and how they handle the pricing of their services. eCommerce website designing company by researching these things, you will be able to find the best company for your needs. Another thing to consider is whether or not the website you are going with can be customized. Many websites that are made with the help of an eCommerce website designing company do not offer many features and may be difficult to navigate if there are features that are not included. Make sure you have a lot of time to spend on your website and this is something that cannot be overlooked when looking for the right company. There are a lot of things to think about, and it is important that you take the time to consider all of them in order to make sure that you have found the company that will fit your requirements. When looking for an eCommerce website designing company, you will want to find someone who has worked for many companies before. This is important because you want someone that knows how to make sure that the website is user-friendly and easy to use.best website designing company traffictail Having a website that people can use easily is critical to your success online. You also want to find a company that knows the importance of giving you professional advice and guidance whenever you need it. When working with an eCommerce website designing company, you are going to find that there are a lot of advantages that come with using them. The main reason why is because they know what you are looking for and are able to give you professional advice. They can provide you with the answers you are looking for and help you create a website that will keep you successful. The other advantage that you will get when working with a professional website designer is that you will find a team of people that are willing to listen to your ideas and provide you with the advice you need. They are going to be able to give you suggestions and see things from your perspective to ensure that you get the results you want. When looking for an eCommerce website designing company, you need to make sure that you find a person that knows what they are doing. They will need to know what you want and need and help you understand how to get those results. You want someone that knows what it takes to successfully build a successful website so that you can get the ones that you have been looking for. It is important that you make sure you find someone who can answer any questions you have. and can be honest with you when discussing your ideas and needs. You need to find someone who can show you what they have done in the past and see what they are capable of doing. If you find a good website designing company, then you should be happy with the result. You want to get the right results, and that will happen when the website is professionally built. eCommerce website designing agency you will be happy with the money you are going to be spending and will feel more confident about the website as you go along. When you find the right company to work with, you will be able to enjoy working with them and enjoying the benefits that they can offer you.

https://medium.com/@rajeshprasad6211/what-to-expect-from-an-ecommerce-website-designing-company-a1c44e13809d

['Rajesh Prasad']

2020-09-22 18:09:23.922000+00:00

['Website Designing', 'Website Design', 'Website Development', 'Website Company', 'Website']

Being a coward without even knowing

One thing I can admit is that I used to be a coward. Any form of conflict or confrontation, I would avoid like the plague. Even in cases where it would have been better for me to stand up to a bully. I would still choose to cower away and take the bullying willfully. But these were just external aspects of being a coward. Even before running away from conflicts in the external world, I was already a coward. And the reason why I say that with such confidence is because I ran away from my own inner conflicts. When I say inner conflicts, I mean anything that made me uncomfortable. Like self-doubt, anxiety, depression, etc. Whenever some form of inner conflict came my way, instead of dealing with that uncomfortable emotion, I would try to distract or numb myself. I did this through obsessing over sports, obsessing over reading books, working too much, etc. Because I was too afraid to deal with my own shit, I ended up hurting myself in the long run. Because whenever there was an external conflict, I would be too afraid to deal with it. Photo by Maxwell Nelson on Unsplash As a result, I was a coward long before the external world knew I was one. Remember, how you deal with yourself internally is how you deal with the world externally. I say this quite often on this list but it bears repeating. To switch gears up a little bit. I want to talk about how when we embrace our inner conflict, we add depth to ourselves. By understanding ourselves and trying to resolve our inner conflict, we gain a better understanding of human nature and the pains of being human. Accepting all forms of conflict helps us to expand ourselves. It’s through conflict where growth occurs. It’s through conflict where self-trust occurs. It’s through conflict where courage occurs. At the end of the day, you have to realize that nobody got stronger ever by running away. So with the new year approaching, have the courage and self-trust to embrace all that comes in 2021. Happy Holidays. (If you enjoyed this short article, then click here to join my email list where you get a daily boost of confidence every morning plus the free Self-Improvement Cheat Sheet for Nerds.)

https://medium.com/@bulcha-17804/being-a-coward-without-even-knowing-c4150ecb327

['Bulcha', 'The Charismatic Nerd']

2020-12-25 21:06:09.253000+00:00

['Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Inspiration', 'Confidence', 'Personal Development']

Renewable Energy And Its Types

The energy created by wind and solar or from any other natural resources is called “Renewable Energy ”.They are also referred to called “Natural Resources”.It is also can be defined as the processes that are constantly replenished or restore. Examples of renewable energy are Solar energy, Wind energy, Hydro energy, Tidal energy, Geothermal energy.,Biomass energy. Renewable Resources are the one that can be used repeatedly and does not run out because it is naturally replaced. The main advantage of renewable resources is increasing as the human population continues to grow and it puts less strain on the limited supply of fossil fuels, which are considered nonrenewable resources. Renewable resources will lessen the burden on the country’s economy as well as give relaxation to each individual in the country because it is used in every field or sectors in the country. In order to beat other countries, we must have to adopt renewable energy resources to increase energy. For many years our country is facing an energy crisis and burden reduction remains in many regions across the country. To overcome the challenges and lack of energy situation, we need to reduce our dependence on non-renewable resources. For a clean and powerful country, we must have to shift our energy from non-renewable resources to renewable resource The details of renewable energy are as given: 1)Solar energy: The sunlight is one of the most abundant and freely available energy resources on Earth. Although it sounds like perfect renewable energy. It is very easier to install a solar panel and it also reduces your electricity bills. Solar cells are made from silicon or other materials that transform sunlight directly into electricity. It covers almost every area to produce electricity such as homes, agricultural lands as well as commercial and industrial lands. 2)Wind energy: Wind energy is an abundant source of clean energy. Electricity from wind energy is generated by turbines that is used to drive generators which then feed electricity into the National Grid. It is suitable for domestic and ‘off-grid’ generation systems but not much suitable for domestic wind turbines. 3)Hydro energy: The energy that is created in a dam or barrier water creates a controlled flow of water that will drive a turbine and generate electricity. It is more reliable and suitable than solar and wind power and can be executed when there is a lot of demand for energy. 4) Tidal energy: Another form of hydro energy but uses twice daily tidal currents or waves to drive a turbine and generate electricity. 5)Geothermal Energy: The energy that is created by the steam of plants and other sub-surfaces of Earth. it is not much suitable because many of our raw materials can be recoverable but it does not produce enough energy for peak demands in any country. 6) Biomass Energy: The energy is produced by the conversion of solid fuel made from plant materials into electricity. It mainly involves burning organic materials to produce electricity. It is cleaner more efficient and uses in all fields or sectors in any country. Our Infra Energy company aim to deliver you a consultancy in renewable energy, solar energy, clean, development mechanism, energy efficiency, environmental management, tendering/EPC support for RE Projects, BioMass/Gas Project, waste to energy projects, small hydro projects, renewable, solar energy consultants services and clean development mechanism. For more details visit our websites:https://www.infraenergy.pk/index.html or call us at(+92)306–1166046

https://medium.com/@sulamandm/renewable-energy-and-its-types-46651ebd2877

['Sulaman Dm']

2020-12-26 10:15:35.241000+00:00

['Renewable Energy', 'Renewable Energy And Type', 'Renewable Energy Consult']

The Violence Against Women Act

What is it and why is it crucial for the LGBTQ community? Image source: The National Domestic Violence Hotline Intimate partner violence (IPV) has a disproportionately adverse effect on the LGBTQ community because of the impact of societal bias in creating and exacerbating vulnerabilities and in limiting access to services. Experiences of harassment and discrimination of people belonging to marginalized groups such as immigrants, people with disabilities, youth, seniors, communities of color, and LGBTQ communities happens across their lifespans. This results in an array of identity-based experiences of violence including issues such as school bullying, health disparities, job and food insecurities, housing bias, family rejection, and systems based profiling, which in turn creates greater vulnerabilities in experiences of IPV. A 2010 survey by the Centers for Disease Control shows that intimate partner violence affects a larger percentage of the LGBTQ population than the heterosexual population. The lifetime prevalence of rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner for lesbian women is 44% and bisexual women is 61% compared to 35% for heterosexual women. For gay men the lifetime prevalence of rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner is 26% and 37% for bisexual men compared to 29% for heterosexual men. Unfortunately, research on IPV within transgender communities is sparse; however, existing data suggests 50% of transgender people will experience IPV during their life. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), originally signed into law in 1994, provides vital, lifesaving legal protections to survivors of violent crime and extends funding to service providers who support survivors and conduct prevention efforts. Congress reauthorized the law three times since 1994 with each reauthorization of VAWA expanding lifesaving legal protections for survivors and funding sources for service providers. The 2012 VAWA reauthorization is particularly meaningful for the LGBTQ community as it expanded protections to the LGBTQ community and is the only piece of federal legislation to date that explicitly includes civil rights protections for LGBTQ communities. The protections within VAWA give LGBTQ survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking additional access to supportive services. The 2012 VAWA reauthorization also provided an important funding stream to LGBTQ anti-violence service providers and prevention efforts. We see firsthand and hear from clients how VAWA funding affects LGBTQ survivors of violence. Many of the Center on Halsted’s Anti Violence Project’s clients express difficulties accessing supports. A survey conducted by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs showed that 85% of LGBTQ survivor advocates report having worked with an LGBTQ survivor who was denied services because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The U.S. House of Representatives was schedule to vote on H.R. 1585, the most recent VAWA reauthorization, during the week of April 1, 2019. The VAWA reauthorization up for vote in the House expands legal protections for survivors and increases funding for direct services and violence prevention efforts. Specifically, the VAWA reauthorization increases housing protections for survivors, increases funding for rape prevention efforts, addresses the role of gun violence in IPV homicides, seeks to provide economic security for survivors, and provides additional protections to Native survivors. Center on Halsted urges Congress to pass H.R. 1585, the first step being passage in the House. We issue a call to action to those who support its passage to please reach out to your Representatives and ask them to co-sponsor and vote in favor of H.R. 1585.

https://centeronhalsted.medium.com/the-violence-against-women-act-9c0cdaaff30b

['Center On Halsted']

2019-06-17 16:39:09.296000+00:00

['LGBTQ', 'Women', 'Womens Rights', 'Human Rights', 'Violence']

Shadows Surround

Shadows dance across the wall Sometimes they show up in plain view Standing in the hall Black illusions appear peripherally Sanity hardly Unbearably Maybe you’re the shadow Haunting yourself Dawn awakens light to no more foe That black widow that has kept you paralyzed Was nothing more than Trick of your mind emphasized Aren’t we good at telling ourselves lies?

https://medium.com/this-shall-be-our-story/shadows-surround-84de708f079c

['Kira Dawn']

2020-12-31 03:43:54.536000+00:00

['Darkness', 'Spirituality', 'Light', 'Poetry', 'Mind']

Your product backlog is not a list!

According to scrum.org the product backlog is an ordered list of everything that is known to be needed in the product. Solely responsible for the product backlog is the Product owner. Whose job it is to add items to the product backlog, assign business values, prioritize and explain the items to the “needed level”. Contrary to the definition of scrum.org I have found that after some time the product backlog evolves into a directed graph with the nodes being the product backlog items, and the edges denote the dependencies between them. A directed graph is mathematical construct, more specifically described in graph theory, it is essentially a graph where the edges have a direction associated with them. How did I come to the conclusion that something the majority view as a list is in actuality a graph? The honest answer, by simple observation. I’ve noticed how the initial lists became more and more of a graph system, as the ‘plan’ was confronted with reality. But how and why would we transition from a list to a graph? After some research, the following factors contribute to the core of it all: Product backlog items can not exist in a vacuum with zero dependencies Splitting large backlog items creates dependent items “Infrastructure” refactoring One of the characteristics of a product backlog item is its self containment. Self contained in the sense that it is independent from other items in the product backlog. From my point of view this is actually not technically feasible. Each item in the backlog relies on either the current/planed state of the application or on an item that has precedence before it. This can be visualized as a ordered list but it does not change that these dependencies exist and have to be taken into account when re-ordering items. I have seen it happen time and time again that a item was committed to a sprint only to find out that the required “groundwork” for this item has not yet been done. This happens because while reordering items in the backlog to match the business priority not all depended items were identified and reordered accordingly, an error that a graph view would easily prevent. When development teams estimate new product backlog items, it can and it does, happen that they estimate an item beyond the capacity of a sprint. In that case the product backlog item has to be split. Most of the time splitting a product backlog item will result in sub-items which are dependent on one another, a sub-graph if you will. It is further assumed that the new sub items can be done in parallel; sometimes this is true and other it sadly isn’t. Determining which is true, is hard if using an ordered list, but quite easy when using a directed graph. Bad things happen. With all the ad-hoc planning and emerging architecture some evolutionary dead ends are to be expected in the development process. When these occur, fixing them mostly requires more than just a little tweaking. In most cases these turn into lengthy refactoring stories or even complete rewrites of key components or the complete application. This will block the development of new features, features that depend on said components. If we could easily determine which stories successfully circumvent the affected components we could continue to develop at least some features. This would be easily identifiable in an graph but quite a challenge in a ordered list. Lastly some items are just dependent on other by design. A defect ,for instance, is dependent on a feature whose behaviour was found to be erroneous. The benefit is that when we fix the defect we can follow the dependencies up the graph and only test the features that are impacted by the defect, making the question of which tests to run an easy one. This evolution of a list into a directed graph over time has been witnessed time and time again, by me and other people in the field. I have been personally stuck in meetings where we were discussing what we could do next and not how we should do it. Dependencies exist, whether we like it or not and ignoring them will only make our lives harder in the long run, and time to market that much longer. A list ordered by only one key, be that business value or some other arbitrary key, will never capture the complexity that developing large scale software brings with itself. It is highly convenient to know what is possible at any given time and what the projected cost will be. For example, it is not smart doing a 3 SP item but completely miss the fact that we have to finish a 20 SP item first, just because this is not documented and the only person knowing this abstract fact is on sick leave. Tools nowadays enable us to document such dependencies without much of a fuss, but we have to be meticulous while creating and inserting new items into our product backlog. It will take some time and work, but in the end it eliminates a lot of unnecessary discussion session and guesswork out of the planning for the next sprint.

https://medium.com/@dejanfajfar/your-product-backlog-is-not-a-list-a19d075984b2

['Dejan Fajfar']

2019-06-17 20:14:02.145000+00:00

['Agile', 'Lists', 'Graph', 'Product Backlog']

Questions and Answers

Your outburst deafens and distorts What I am used to. I perceive my tongue, tied to your anger — disowning My effort to speak. I domesticate the questions I want to ask, so their answers Won’t elude me. My soul is drained numb, the fortress refusing to crumble. A battle is waged between the answers I seek, and the ones I get. ‘It takes a lifetime to die’* — a lifetime to do What falls short at last. ~*Charles Bukowski

https://medium.com/genius-in-a-bottle/questions-and-answers-dce67a1e29b

[]

2020-12-23 02:53:36.095000+00:00

['Relationships', 'Hurt', 'Writing', 'Poetry', 'Life']

4 Questions to Help You Choose the Right Online Marketplace

4 Questions to Help You Choose the Right Online Marketplace Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash There are so many different online marketplaces available for you to sell your products and you may even want to sell on all of these, however, this can be overwhelming or not appropriate, depending on what you are selling. We have put together 4 key questions to ask yourself so that you can figure out which marketplace is the best and therefore make you the most profit. 1. What type of product do you have to sell? Is it handmade, is it unique or has mass-market appeal? The product is one of the most determining features in helping you decide where you are going to sell your product. Some platforms allow you to sell without major limitations (within reason) such at eBay and Amazon, however, others have very strict conditions associated with what type of product. For example; Etsy provides a place for people to sell handmade or vintage items and supplies as well as unique manufactured products. This means that if it does not fit into this description it is not the marketplace for your product. However, if you are selling these types of products you are not limited to only selling here as Amazon has a “Handmade” section that sells handcrafted home decor, jewelry, accessories, and gifts. If you have a product that is different or unique and is something that you would not generally find walking down your high-street then Not the High Street may be the place for your products. Not on the High Street is a popular alternative online marketplace specific to the UK specialising in original articles and sells creative items from hair accessories to handmade delicacies. All sellers are handpicked before they go into this marketplace, therefore, this is a platform for a very particular seller. eBay is an online marketplace makes a wide variety of products available to customers; the range of products includes household appliances, apparel, and children’s toys, therefore, a platform open to all sellers. 2. Who do you want to sell to — who is your customer? Knowing your customer is linked to the type of product that you are selling. Understanding who the person is who is going to buy your product will help you figure out where they are currently shopping and therefore where they are more likely to buy your product. Understanding the customer is an art and a science. Generally, some basic demographics will help you understand where your customer is shopping and how they are shopping. For example, Generation Y and Millennials are looking for alternative products so are shopping on Etsy and they are also shopping on multiple e-commerce channels. 3. Why is the customer buying your product Understanding why the customer is buying your product follows from what you are selling and who is your customer. T here are multiple reasons for buying any product and answering these sub-questions will really help you know where to sell your product. Does your product address an immediate need or desire? Is it an item that is needed occasionally or on a regular schedule? Does the customer shop around every time they buy? Is the customer loyal to a particular brand or store? Are they buying the product because it is cool or trendy? Is the priority the lowest price possible or bargains? Do they need flexibility around returns? Are they looking for high-quality products? By working through this and building a picture of your customer it will help you identify where your customer shops and where you should sell the product. If they are looking for trendy, high-quality products then Etsy may be the best platform. If they shop around and need it on a regular basis then Amazon may be better; Amazon is the preferred online marketplace for many people as it is often the first one that comes to mind when you mention online sales 4. What tools and budget do you have for sales? The amount of time and resources that you have available will also help in deciding which marketplace to use. Amazon can expand your business through its popularity and accessibility to millions of customers and can assist in meeting sales goals as well as expanding sales to other countries. However, to reach the top-selling position you will need to be technically savvy or take the time to learn how to maximise the use of SEO’s (Search Engine Optimisation) and you may need the assistance of an online sales management service. eBay has some excellent tools for sellers and can help you understand the dynamics of your business through built-in tools that allow you to easily analyse your sales, track your sold products, and develop your own brand. Etsy has a lot of helpful tools for artisans looking to sell their products that have a personal touch, for example, the ability to let customers know when an item is back in stock. These 4 key questions are the beginning of unlocking the answer to where to sell your product and the differences between the different marketplaces, however, if these questions remain unanswered then an online sales management service can also be of assistance.

https://medium.com/@kemalsidar/4-questions-to-help-you-choose-the-right-online-marketplace-7988c034a0fa

['Kemal Sidar']

2020-12-19 17:03:20.577000+00:00

['Amazon', 'Retail', 'Sales', 'Ecommerce', 'Marketing']

Generalised Logistic Model (glm) vs Generalized Boosted (logistic) Model (gbm), in estimating propensity scores: An application to indirect comparison, in comparison to the Bucher naive estimation.

Generalised Logistic Model (glm) vs Generalized Boosted (logistic) Model (gbm), in estimating propensity scores: An application to indirect comparison, in comparison to the Bucher naive estimation. Laure Ngouanfo Nov 2, 2020·6 min read Introduction Following what we did here, we apply one of the recommendations about using a boosted logistic regression, implemented in the generalized boosted modeling (gbm) package in R [7]. The goal, is to get better propensity scores for a fairer balance of pretreatment covariate distributions across the two trials: the AC population is considered the control population, and the BC population is considered the treated population, just as previously set. We are interested in, what would be the anchored A vs B effect, if: The AC population + BC population were all part of the BC trial vs the AC population + BC population were all part of the AC trial?— The A vs B estimand derived here is called the average treatment effect (ATE). Only the BC population were part of the BC trial vs the BC population were part of the AC trial?— The A vs B estimand derived here is called the average treatment effect for the treated (ATT). Similar interpretation are given to the estimands ATC, ATM and ATO. Their formula are given below: Model coefficients are slightly modified from what we did previously. Survival data for the AC trial are generated following Bender et al. such that the linear part looks like this: The same coefficients bi and the ones involve in the interaction terms, are used to generate survival data in the BC trial. simple connected network of three treatments In this way, results are more generalisable, the effect of A on the outcome, compared to C, in the AC population, is the same(the true A vs C effect value is 3 as specified in the model), in the BC population. Additionally, this results to the true A vs B effect to be CA minus CB = 3–3=0, this time. Let’s review how unbalanced the covariates distributions are, across the trials, xnbin and xunif in particular: Only xnbin and xunif variables are included in the propensity score models. There are differing ways of estimating propensity scores in the literature: e.g. logistic regression, generalized boosted regression. a/ The logistic regression: glm(trial.ID~effect.modifiers, data = ., family = binomial) b/ The generalized boosted regression: gbm(trial.ID~effect.modifiers, data = ., distribution = “bernoulli”, n.trees=100, interaction.depth=4, train.fraction=.8, shrinkage=.0005) The argument values specified in the gbm() function, are default values, except “n.trees”. Kindly read [7] in the reference section, for more details about the “gbm” package in R. We employ these two propensity scores generating mechanisms, and compare results. Confidence intervals from logistic model vs gbm model results from glm scores results from gbm scores Bias plots from logistic model vs gbm model results from glm scores results from gbm scores Impact bias plots from logistic model vs gbm model results from glm scores results from gbm scores The empirical standard error plots from logistic model vs gbm model results from glm scores results from gbm scores The root mean squared error plots from logistic model vs gbm model results from glm scores results from gbm scores The type 1 error plots from logistic model vs gbm model results from glm scores results from gbm scores In summary, both propensity scores processes, yield quite different results in estimating the effect size of A vs B. The gbm technique does not balance the factors “xnbin” and “xunif”, across trials, in this base case analysis, this is probably why, the four estimands synchronize with the bucher estimand that does not account for patient characteristics. Looking at the rmse plot alone, that offers a balance between bias and efficiency, we can say that, estimands based on the gbm() perform very poorly. The type 1 error plots, tells us that, the estimands with the gbm scores, are susceptible to finding a statistical difference between A vs B, when there is actually none, except when n=60, where the type 1 error is minimal to the normal threshold of 5%. The effective sample sizes are at their maximum values in each trial, under the gbm() process. This indicates the weights from gbm do not provide a good balance between trials, the distributions of the effect modifiers remain unchanged on average across trials. Estimands from the logistic scores, are quite unstable, this may be due to small effective sample sizes yield by this estimation process. The distribution of weights should be looked at in particular, to examine other issues like lack of population overlap and overly influential individuals[*]. Effective Sample Sizes under the Generalized Boosted Model Conclusion: We recall that, a propensity score is the probability that a patient would be assigned or exposed to an intervention, with respect to a set of covarates. Rosenbaum & Rubin (1983) showed that knowing the propensity score is sufficient to separate the effect of a treatment on an outcome from observed confounding factors that influence both treatment assignment and outcomes, provided the necessary conditions hold. The five estimands measure the treatment effect differently, based on the same requirement though, which is balancing out differences across trials[2] in our context of indirect comparison. Results based on gbm show that these pooling methods may be worthless and interchangeable, in contrast to what the logistic pscores results suggest. Anyway, this is a very simple base case analysis, to derive any informative conclusion. This is just a simple guide to do such analysis. There is indeed, a lot of work done and ongoing in understanding the theoretical and statistical basis for these methods[1]. However, results from the logistic pscores, suggest that “att”, followed by “atm” and “ato”, are of good relevance compared to “ate” and the bucher estimates. Some other recommendations to achieve a good balance of measured and unmeasured factors, include: the entropy balancing, the generalized linear modeling with Difference in Difference regression estimation[6], etc. Reference

https://medium.com/@laure-17161/generalised-logistic-model-glm-vs-generalized-boosted-logistic-model-gbm-in-estimating-7f07d6b30b3e

['Laure Ngouanfo']

2020-11-02 01:57:04.827000+00:00

['Logistic Regression', 'Boosted Regression', 'Bucher', 'Indirect Comparison', 'Propensity Scores']

Bob Dylan — Profound, prophetic & a little bit magic

Bob Dylan — Profound, prophetic & a little bit magic A list of thought provoking lyrics and an awesome playlist too Photo credit Paul Townsend via Flickr “Robert Allen Zimmerman is a fuckin’ prophet”. I’ve said that a time (or twelve) in the midst of lively banter between myself and various music-loving friends. Because when music comes up, Robert Allen Zimmerman, AKA Bob Dylan, comes up. And when Bobby comes up, music lovers all have their two cents — on his sound, his muses and mentors and absolutely on the topic of his lyrical genius (or recklessness, if you prefer). I’ll be honest here, I fall into the category of folks who believe lyrics to be the soul of a song, while the music is the dressing — the smart outfit, the pretty attire, the good comfortable shoes. I believe the two dance together in a symbiotic relationship, and when it works, there is a little bit of magic let loose in the world. Some of Dylan’s songs wear dusty overalls and walk around with busted knuckles and bare feet. Others, often surprisingly, show up in formal wear with a pocket full of change — the kind that can purchase open ears in blue collar neighborhoods as well as in political arenas. His lyrics are original and raw and fearless, and more than that, Dylan’s music speaks. It tells stories, it makes you think and consider and contemplate. And really, when considering the art experiment that is our lifetimes, isn’t this exactly what we ache for in a song? Joan Baez & Bob Dylan via WikiCommons Since before humankind stood up straight, the music we make has been our connection to each other and to our world. It has also been a fantastic study of empathy in the human heart, a record of the human condition and often even the prophetic outcome of it all. When it comes to making music, Bob Dylan has “a different kind of penetrating magic” (words the writer himself used when describing lyrics in a 2004 CBS interview). And now this elusive, quiet spoken wordsmith has just been awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature — the first singer-songwriter to be given this honor since the award’s inception in 1901. This also marks the first time an American has won the prize in over two decades.* At the time of this writing, five days after he was awarded this honorable distinction, Bob Dylan has yet to respond to the Nobel Prize officials at the Swiss Academy. This doesn’t surprise many folks as Dylan has a habit of being scarce when it comes to awards and interviews. Sara Danius, Secretary of the Academy, doesn’t take offense to his standoffish nature, “It will be a big party in any case and the honour belongs to him”. President Obama, professed Dylan fan, had a similar reaction regarding his obscurity after an invitation to sing at the White House in 2013: “Here’s what I love about Dylan: He was exactly as you’d expect he would be…That’s how you want Bob Dylan, right? You don’t want him to be all cheesin’ and grinnin’ with you. You want him to be a little skeptical about the whole enterprise.” Photo credit Simon Murphy via Flickr With 500 songs and more than 40 albums, you could spend a lifetime weeding through, discussing, dissecting and interpreting Dylan’s music. It’s an impressive collection to say the least and his collective work has certainly made him a champion of human rights on a significant level - and a worthy candidate for this prestigious recognition.* There’s no way to choose favorites when it comes to Dylan’s music. But what I do have for you here are some lyric excerpts from some of his most profound and thought-provoking songs. I’ve also attached a pretty groovy playlist which features these (and more) for your listening pleasure.

https://medium.com/driftwood-chronicle/dylan-a-different-kind-of-penetrating-magic-54e29f8fa3d1

['Tauna Pierce']

2017-05-24 14:00:48.208000+00:00

['Music', 'Spotify Playlist', 'Bob Dylan', 'Making A Difference', 'Poetry And Prose']

The Universe Two Hidden Particles- The Strings and the Singularities

In this article we present the nature of the characteristics of the proposed two fundamental hidden particles (FPs) responsible for composing the entire universe. They are the spring-like strings and the point-like singularities. 1) The spring-like strings: intrinsic characteristics String Theory is a theoretical framework that suggests the possible composition of subatomic particles from strings, which are energetic pieces of threads-like objects. In a given version of string theory, there is only one kind of string, which may look like a small loop or segment of ordinary string, and it can vibrate in different ways. The strings are one-dimensional objects. On scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. According to our postulations The universe is composed of singularities and strings. Below we list the key characteristics of the spring-like strings. 1- Intrinsic velocity and momentum The strings are one-dimensional “spring-like” particles. The are in continuous forward momentum at the constant speed of light, c. This characteristic is behind the universal constant speed of light. Since the strings are in continuous motion, then they only exist in the form of momentum, mc, where m is the mass of a packet of strings. The strings have wavy characteristics - The strings undergo harmonic oscillations as they interact with the singularities. The level of their oscillations is determined by the density of the singularities composing the medium they pass through. For this reason the constant speed of light measurement can only be achieved in absolute vacuum, where the singularities/strings ratio is fixed at its minimum ratio. Any increase in this ratio, as in the case of dense gravitational fields or dense mediums, the photons’ velocity slows down below the constant speed of light. - The strings cannot be created or destroyed, hence the conservation of energy, momentum and the information they represent. 2- Intrinsic left-handed and right-handed helicities Strings’ helicities represent the spin of the strings along their axis. The strings come in two types, with either left-handed or right-handed helicity. Each type of strings’ helicity represents the reported half spin associated with fermion particles. For example left-handed strings in orbital momentum compose the waveforms of electrons’ quantum fields. - All bosons are composed of coupled strings of both helicities moving in linear momentum. They exhibit integer spin, i.e. spin-1, spin-2, etc. The coupled strings’ helicities represent electromagnetic radiation angular momentum. - The spacetime particles (assumed in this work to be the Higgs Bosons) exhibit zero spin as their orbiting strings are composed of an equal number of uncoupled strings of both helicities, hence they cancel out. - Strings’ helicities are conserved. As part of the universe’s global symmetry, it is proposed that there are equal numbers of strings of both helicities at the atoms, molecules and bosons levels; and also at the entire universe level. - The strings’ helicities cannot be made to spin faster or slower and their spins directions cannot be changed. This explains why electrons’ intrinsic spin doesn’t change, yet it has up and down spin orientations determined by the different singularities triangular trajectories, which form their nuclei. 3- Intrinsic coupling and decoupling characteristics The spring-like strings with their different helicities get coupled (intertwine) as they interact with each other. - When some of the strings with opposite helicities that compose the waveforms of differently charged fermion particles interact, they get coupled. The coupling force is the source of the current unsolved problem in physics known as the coupling constant or gauge coupling parameter, which is a number that determines the strength of the force exerted in an interaction. - The strings’ decoupling takes place when coupled strings, which compose the gauge bosons like the gluons, are pulled apart by their relevant super partnering singularities as they interact at micro distances. - The strings coupling and decoupling play an important role in many aspects of quantum mechanics. They lie behind the strong force and the other four forces of nature. 4- Linear or orbital momenta The strings assume either forward linear momentum as they get coupled and emitted as electromagnetic radiation (EMR) or as gauge bosons. A standard packet of coupled strings represents a Planck constant, which is the quantum of electromagnetic radiation. - Uncoupled strings assume orbital momentum as they interact with the singularities, which compose the spacetime and fermion particles’ nuclei. As uncoupled strings, mc, assume orbital momentum. They turn into energy, mc², by the partnering interacting singularities . The strings’ orbital momentum explains the mass-energy equivalency, hence the law E =mc². More on that when we discuss the centripetal force law generated by the singularities, F =mc²/r, where r is radius of the orbiting strings. - The strings’ momenta and their acceleration by the singularities represent the different forms of energy found in the universe. The strings transfer their momenta between different particles and energy systems as they get emitted and absorbed. - The strings create the three spatial dimensional and the fourth time-generating dimension as they interact with and orbit the singularities at the constant speed of light forming the quantum time machines. 5- Source of binary codes The two types of strings’ helicities are behind the binary values associated with all types of EMR. For this reason photons are the carriers of digital information such as TV and radio waves. Each string represents a “bit from it”, a term coined by Wheeler. Hence we are proposing the mass-energy-information equivalency. For example each planck constant represents a standard packet of coupled strings. Each photon’s energy is equal to a Planck constant, h, time its frequency, f. For this reason each photon with a specific frequency carries specific digital information. New Research which Supports that photons are composed of coupled strings - A new research published in 2016 in the journal, Science Advances, could be seen to support our postulation that electromagnetic radiation (including lights) are formed from coupled strings. The finding, as per quote below, has shown that a completely new form of light can be formed from only one type of string, where its spin angular momentum is just half of that associated with a Planck constant. “The TCD press release explains how angular momentum operates in relation to light: “A beam of light is characterised by its colour or wavelength and a less familiar quantity known as angular momentum. Angular momentum measures how much something is rotating. For a beam of light, although travelling in a straight line, it can also be rotating around its own axis (spin). Until today, it was presumed that light, regardless of form, would have a whole number for angular momentum (a constant quantity that measures how much light is spinning). It was thought that the value would always be a multiple of Planck’s constant (the physical constant that sets the scale of quantum effects). However, researchers from Trinity College Dublin are claiming to have demonstrated that a new form of light exists — one where the angular momentum is just half of this constant value.” - This means according to our postulations that they have managed to form photons of light from one type of strings’ helicity, hence the reported half spin. However we predict that such light particles would not be stable as would amount to a breach of the required universe global symmetry. Passing neutrinos would absorb the uncoupled strings as part of the universe build-in mechanism of removing this type of asymmetry. 2) The point-like singularities: intrinsic characteristics Singularities. usually refer to points of infinity, and thus a not-well-defined points. In other words, singularities lead us to a new theory of physics. The singularities act as the universe guiding particles, which govern the strings’ orbital momentum and their harmonic oscillations. They determine the fermion particles’ quantum fields’ geometry and turn them into quantum constructors and computational systems. Below are the key characteristics of the singularities. 1- Singularities are point-like particles with CW or CCW spin directions The singularities are point-like, massless and unobservable particles. They can only be recognized from the fundamental roles they play in the working of the universe. The singularities are continuously spinning at a constant speed either clockwise (CW) recognized as positive electric charge, or counter-clockwise (CCW) recognized as negative electric charge. The direction of their spins are conserved. There is an equal number of singularities with each spin’s direction in all atoms, neutrons and in the entire universe. For this reason they all exhibit zero net charge. - Their continuous spins conserve their independence from joining each other. As the radius of the singularities is almost zero, then their spin is almost infinite. - The singularities are capable of instantaneous communication with other singularities within a system boundary. A system boundary could represent an elementary fermion particle or it could represent composite particles as in the case of fermion particles forming an atom. Entangled particles also share the same boundary condition although separated by great distances. This instantaneous communication characteristic of the singularities is key to explaining the violation of the “locality principle” associated with entanglement. This is not someting we are familiar with in the real world, hence the difficulty to visualize. 2- Singularities are the source of electric charges Electric charges are quantized due the roles of the singularities responsible for generating them. The electric charge generated by each singularity is equal to + ⅙e where “-e” represents the charge of an electron with a neucleus composed of six CCW spinning singularities. A positron’s charge is equal to +e. The use of the dimensionless vacuum fine structure constant, 1/137.036, is mainly to adjust for this wrong assumption made by physicists. More on that later in chapter 21. - Singularities with the same spin direction repulse each other, while those with opposite spins’ directions attract each other. This is key to the continuous interactions between the singularities within the nuclei of the space and fermion particles. For this reason quantum mechanics of a fermion particle is continuously affected by adjacent fermion particles. The attractions and repulsion forces associated with the singularities are behind the formation of the triangular trajectories of the singularities within the nuclei of the fermion particles. Every three singularities form one of four possible triangular trajectories. - The net charge of a system of composite elementary particles is the sum of the net spin directions of all the fermion particles’ singularities in that system. - Atoms and neutrons have zero net charges as they have equal numbers of each type singularities’ spin. Removing an electron from an atom will give it a positive charge (i.e. it becomes ionized). 3- Singularities change their spins’ orientations in line with the gyroscopic effect The gyroscopic effect is defined as the ability of a rotating body to maintain a steady direction of its axis of rotation and to change only its spin’s orientation if a force is exercised on it. - The singularities’ spin orientations change in line with their interactions with other singularities. - The singularities within a given quantum boundary system are in continuous interactions with each other. The singularities also interact with those in adjacent boundary systems within a given degree of freedom. Due to this characteristic, singularities with different spins’ directions within the nuclei of spacetime particles get polarized in the presence of charged particles. This characteristic is behind the creation of the electric fields. - The singularities synchronize their spins’ orientations as they interact with moving charged particles. This is key to the formation of magnetic fields. 4- Singularities are found in groups of six It seems that the number six has a specific significance in the creation of quantum triangular trajectories’ symmetry. It is the only number where the addition and multiplication of three consecutive numbers are equal to the same number (1+2+3 =1*2*3 =6). - The singularities are usually found in groups of six or multiple thereof to interact in pairs of triangular. trajectories within their specific boundaries. The singularities form the various fermion particles’ nuclei, which are orbited by strings of partnering helicity. This postulation removes the difficulty of explaining how elementary particles like quarks have fractions of a charge. - Six singularities of different spins directions compose the nuclei of generation one fermion particles. The nuclei of a spacetime particle (and the second and third generation fermion particles) are composed of multiple of six singularities. The number “Six” is the unit of measurement when it comes to the grouping of the singularities to form the three dimensional space. For a nucleus to form a stable three dimensional waveform (as they drive the strings in orbital momentum) there must be a minimum of two interacting angular trajectory systems. - The net spin direction of the singularities is the source of the fermion particles electric charges. So the electron’s charge of -1e means it has 6 CCW spinning singularities. They form a pair of T4 trajectories, which account for the electrons’ stability. The up quarks +2⁄3e charge means that it has 5 CW and 1 CCW spinning singularities, (+5–1)/6=2/3. Its six singularities form T1 and T2 types trajectories. The down quark has 2 CW and 4 CCW singularities giving it -1⁄3e charge. Its six singularities form type T3,T3 trajectories or T2, T4. This has special significance in ensuring a full cycle of flavor changes within hadrons’ confinements. The above proposed formulation of the quarks trajectories explains their irregular (boomerang) orbital momentum which ensure the formation of the confinements six micro dimensions as postulated by string theory. The quark confinements represent the boundary conditions of their interacting singularities. - The above postulation offers a possible answer to what is known as the flavor problem: “Why are there so many flavors within quarks’ confinements? Why do we have six types of quarks and six types of leptons, and why do they have the different masses that they do? We don’t have a clue.” - It is the presence of the spinning singularities at the 3 quarks’ nuclei that accounts for the protons spin crisis. See quote below. “The proton spin crisis is a theoretical crisis precipitated by an experiment in 1987, which tried to determine the spin configuration of a proton. The experiment was carried out by the European Muon Collaboration (EMC). Physicists expected that the quarks carry all the proton spin. However, not only was the total proton spin carried by quarks far smaller than 100%, these results were consistent with only 4% to 24% of the proton spin being carried by quarks. This surprising and puzzling result was termed the “proton spin crisis”. This problem is considered one of the important unsolved problems in physics”. 5- Singularities form triangular trajectories systems Every three singularities interact at micro distances to produce four different triangular trajectory systems. Their trajectories’ geometries are determined by their electrostatic attraction and repulsion forces and by the adjacent boundary conditions. In case of generation one fermion particles, their nuclei are composed of a pair of interacting triangular trajectory systems, which determine their different geometries (waveforms). Each singularity represents a node in the triangular interactions. As the three singularities interact they change the lengths of the imaginary triangle sides and its angles. The neutrinos, with their 3CW and 3CCW singularities, their trajectories are in collapsed structure allowing them to move at the near speed of light within the spacetime matrix. - A triangular trajectory system is composed of singularities with different spins’ configurations. The length of each side is determined by the type of interactions between the triangle singularities and the speed of their interactions with those of other fermion particles. Within a quark confinement the quarks are interacting at very high speed keeping their trajectories near collapsed positions. This accounts for the small volume of the proton relative to an electron. - At the neutrino’s level, the trajectories are in near collapsed format, which make them energetic and ready to constitute different trajectories depending on the type of interactions with other fermion particles. This was discussed in some details in chapter 12. - The three singularities start their rhythmic dynamical trajectories from zero initial collapsed triangular position (observed as a collapse of a fermion particle’s wavefunction). This is an important process associated with the singularities resetting their rhythmic interactions to create new symmetry with other particles’ trajectory systems as they interact with each other. The resetting start point is located at the center of their triangular interactions, which in accordance with the law of conservation of momentum, remains in place. It can be regarded as similar to. a 3-body problem taking initial positions and velocities (or momenta). - Two interacting triangular trajectory systems (in line with their intrinsic attraction and repulsion forces) create 3-D spatial geometry specific to their spin types, spin orientations and their interactions with adjacent particles or those they are entangled with. For example, in case of electrons their pairs of T4 trajectories are responsible for their up and down spins. - As the orbiting strings follow the singularities’ dynamical trajectories. They are responsible for the formation of the fermion particles quantum fields as excitation in the local fabric of space. - The pairs of triangular trajectory systems, which form the nuclei of fermion particles, may appear chaotic but in reality they are governed by their intrinsic dynamical electrostatic attraction and repulsion characteristic. The constructed fermion particles’ trajectories determine the characteristics of the composed atoms and molecules. The dynamic trajectories’ interactions convert the atoms and molecules into computational systems. - In terms of the four types of triangular trajectories, a hydrogen atom is composed from two trajectories of each type, namely. A proton composed of two up quarks (T1T2, T1T2) one down quark composed of (T3T3) orbited by an electron composed of (T4T4). - In case of the vacuum space particles, the 12 singularities, which compose their nuclei, follow specific symmetrical interactions between their trajectory systems. Once their singularities are disturbed by adjacent loose fermion particles they change their rest state trajectories, which are at their maximum entropy. This leads to changes (stress) in their geometries leading to the creation of force fields and a drop in their entropy, hence the ability to do work. - While the strings carry information at the constant speed of light, the singularities that share a given boundary condition, communicate with each other instantaneously. Two subatomic particles, which share the same spacetime code would also share the same boundary condition irrespective of the distance between them. This characteristic would explain the violation of the “locality principle”, manifested as the spooky instantaneous communication between pairs of entangled particles - The dynamic interactions of the singularities within the nuclei of the spacetime and fermion particles represent a key feature behind quantum symmetry and explains why geometry and mathematics are the language of physics. For example an electron’s wave function collapse is due to its pair of trajectories restarting a new set of dynamical trajectories interactions (observed as up and down spin). - Each configuration of 6 singularities composes a specific fermion particles’ nuclei. The 6 singularities exhibit intrinsic preference to a specific type of triangular trajectories. The orbiting strings driven by the singularities represent the fermion particle wave function. The triangular trajectories are inclined to revert back to their rest state interactions over time. This explains why particles over time return to their maximum entropy in the absence of external force. 6- Second and third generation fermions The second generation fermion particles’ nuclei are composed of 12 singularities and the third generation fermion particles’ nuclei are composed of 18 singularities. Particles with more singularities would attract greater numbers of orbiting strings, hence their greater masses. With the increased number of interacting angular. trajectories they become unstable and break up quickly into fermion particles with dual trajectory systems. - We postulate that generation two fermion particles will have electric charges double that of generation one and generation three would be triple. The value of the vacuum’s fine structure constant would have to be adjusted accordingly to get the correct results in any electromagnetic experiment involving generation two or three fermion particles. 7- Conservation of singularities Conservation of singularities is proposed in line with the conservation of electric charges and similar to conservation of energy. The number of singularities spinning CW are equal to those spinning CCW in all atoms, neutrons and the entire universe. They are conserved in any closed system. This means that aggregate charge in the universe is zero. - The conservation of singularities law means that pairs of fermion particles with opposite charges don’t get completely annihilated into pure energy, but they also turn into lighter fermion particles, like the massless neutrinos, which are difficult to detect. This postulation is supported by the reported presence of the relatively large number of neutrinos around nuclear power stations and those emitted by stars in the process of nuclear fusions. 8- Source of binary codes The spin direction (CW or CCW) of a singularity represents the “bit from it”, as coined by Wheeler. They are responsible for giving fermion particles their unique digital codes. Since generation one fermion particles are composed of different combinations of six singularities, then we have 7 different fermion particles. However, a neutrino with 3 singularities of each spin’s direction oscillates between being a neutrino and antineutrino depending on the helicity of the orbiting strings they attract. For this reason we have a total of 8 fermion particles in line with the standard model. 9- Singularities act as the universe controlling particles - The singularities’ spinning force, attraction and repulsion forces, formation of triangular trajectories, instantaneous communications as they share the same boundary conditions, control over the strings’ oscillations and orbital momentum plus their other binary characteristics make them the universe controlling particles. - The above characteristics of the strings and the singularities are behind the creation of the quantum constructors (subatomic particles) which represent quantum information systems. This supports our proposed energy-mass-information equivalency. They are behind the manifestation of the 3 spatial dimensions and the fourth continuously generated present time dimension.

https://medium.com/@MahmoudNafousi/the-universe-two-hidden-particles-the-strings-and-the-singularities-334db6e8aa88

['Mahmoud Nafousi']

2020-12-26 14:23:40.556000+00:00

['Physics', 'Theory Of Everything', 'String Theory', 'Theoretical Physics', 'Quantum Physics']

Pete Shelley — I believe him. When I was first buying records, UK…

When I was first buying records, UK punk obviously walloped onto my radar. It’s everything a teenagers wants — obnoxious, loud, and if you had any aspirations of playing guitar, you were told it was easy as shit to play. Then you find out barre chords make your hand hurt. The first LP by Buzzcocks (always adamant that there’s no ‘The’), ‘Another Music in a Different Kitchen’, was instant love. I’d heard ‘Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)’ and it wasn’t on it. Undeterred, I threw it on and the rest of punk seemed too blokey and tuneless. Understanding the impact of band and actually liking them enough to listen to have always been two very different things to me. Aside from ‘Rock The Casbah’ and ‘Train In Vain’, The Clash didn’t do it for me. The Sex Pistols? I get it, but no — they looked insincere and sneering for the sake of it — maybe that’s exactly why some people like them, but it left me a bit cold. The only two UK punk bands I fell for are X-Ray Spex and Buzzcocks, and we’re talking about the latter. There was something about Pete Shelley that I instantly liked. I loved his Paul McCartney haircut, and that voice of his — what is it? It’s vinegary and desperate. He seemed well-read, but didn’t come off like he was pretentious. The band played fast and loud, but never forgot about melody. They’re the musical cousins of The Ramones, with that weird cocktail of heartbreak and brashness. I loved the way Pete stared right down the camera when they appeared on television. He sang energetic, repetitive songs. The albums weren’t afraid of studio trickery, because fuck it — make cool albums that aren’t concerned about being 4real. From these shores, they’re one of the best bands of any genre. Obviously, I liked the tunes on a surface level (which was always important to a band like this), and they were immense live. Lyrically, they had loads of zingers. All the best bands have you hopping around feeling glorious, but cut it with loads of sadness and yearning. ABBA, The Beatles, Madonna, The Beach Boys, all the great disco records, Stevie Wonder — they all had this euphoric melancholy, which is total catnip to me. Shelley sang: “What do I get? I only get sleepless nights — alone here in my half-empty bed. For you, things seem to turn out right — I wish they’d only happen to me instead.” The high watermark of ‘Ever Fallen In Love?’: “You spurn my natural emotions — you make me feel I’m dirt and I’m hurt. And if I start a commotion, I run the risk of losing you and that’s worse… ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn’t have fallen in love with?” Who hasn’t felt lonely or fancied someone who is a complete dick? Shelley, singing about his loathing of ‘Fast Cars’: “They’re nice and precise, each one begins and ends — they may win you admirers, but they’ll never earn you friends.” He was funny too. In ‘You Tear Me Up’, in a song that’s very obviously about getting off with someone, he sings: “All this slurping and sucking — you know it’s putting me off my food” In ‘Orgasm Addict’, Shelley goes hard: “You get in a heat, you get in a sulk but you still keep a beating your meat to pulp,” and “it’s a labour of love fucking yourself to death.” There’s even a bit where he sings about making out with “winos”, “heads of state” and “you even made it with the lady who puts the little plastic bobbins on the Christmas cakes.” In the best song about being bored: “You know me — I’m acting dumb; you know the scene — very humdrum” and “I’m the one waiting for the phone to ring -ring-a-ring-a-fucking-ding”, a two-note guitar solo and the flattest utterance of “boredom” you’ve ever heard on record. Magic. On top of all this, Buzzcocks never looked like they were in punk fancy-dress. Half the time, they were in tank-tops, shirts, and normal trousers. As old-punks moved into the cabaret scene, sticking up their thinning hair and dressing like they’d just come from fuckin’ ‘Scrapheap Challenge’, Pete & Co left all their posturing to the tunes, and stayed cool, being a more direct influence of the pop-punk came back in the ’90s and Noughties. Listen to Nirvana, Green Day, Blink 182, and Buzzcocks are right there, worn on their sleeves. Being from Bolton, the fact they met at college there was another boon. I saw Pete Shelley having a bag of crisps outside the WH Smiths, and I yelled “YOU’RE PETE SHELLEY!” and, mouth full of Golden Wonder, he yelled back “YEAHRA-KNOW!” I was made up. Finding out that he (and Howard Devoto) chose the band name after reading a review of ‘Rock Follies’ which had the headline “It’s the buzz, cock!” — a show about a fictional rock group called ‘Little Ladies’ made up of women — it just made me love him even more. Shelley & Co were hugely important too, and wouldn’t parp on about it. It was Shelley who arranged for the Sex Pistols to come and perform at the Lesser Free Trade Hall gig in ’76 that everyone goes on about (which basically gave birth to Joy Division, Factory Records, and Mick Hucknall, and there’s a whole book written about that gig if you’re inclined). They opened. No-one would sign them, so they put their own EP out (‘Spiral Scratch’), being one of the first UK bands to create an indie label. Some argue they invented indie as a thing, period. I don’t know about that, mainly because I’ve not looked into it — but if anyone’s getting the credit, I’m happy it’s Buzzcocks and Pete Shelley. He embraced synthpop and paved the way with it with the awesome ‘Homosapien’, produced by Martin Rushent. That track, heard by some honcho at Virgin Records, hired Rushent to produce the Human League’s next album, which happens to be the all-conquering ‘Dare’. So if you hear ‘Don’t You Want Me?’ at a Christmas party this year, raise your glass to Pete Shelley (but do it in the intro, as you’ll no doubt want to be singing your head off once Oakey starts singing “you were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar”). So here we are. It’s the day after the news broke that Pete Shelley passed away. There’s going to be a huge amount of tributes and emotion, and they’re all deserved. All I know is that, as soon as I heard about it, the first thing I thought was that Pete Shelley is someone who I believed when he sang. Still do. No mawkishness. Always will.

https://mofgimmers.medium.com/pete-shelley-i-believed-him-390bc5e27fb3

['Mof Gimmers']

2018-12-07 11:10:15.760000+00:00

['Music', 'Buzzcocks', 'Punk']

A Short Guide to Writing Personal Essays That Rock

The Formula I will be brief, because I did not lie when I said this was a short guide. 1. Open with a Bang Drawing your reader in is a difficult task, especially if you tend to have a dry and expositional voice. That’s why I find that opening with a beautiful sensory image helps to transition the reader into the essay — it allows them to find a peaceful and often beautiful point of entry into the tale while also giving them a good sense of your voice as narrator. Take a peak at some of these openings I’m quite proud of: The rainclouds crossed their dense arms across the bank of mountains before us, casting an ominous and stern air over our adventure, but my older sister and I didn’t care. — I Am Finally Learning to Love My Body The grocery store is ground-zero for sensory overload. The array of bright, fluorescent trays set into the ceiling lights the cavernous space with an overly-cheerful glow, casting no shadows and bathing the shiny plastic-wrapped food in an eerie, alien tint. The scuffle and shuffle of feet across the tile, the “beep, beep” of the cashiers ringing up customers, the rattle of shopping cart wheels, the enclosed and crowded spaces between the aisles heavy with noise and energy, all of it battering me over the head from the moment I step inside of the store. — COVID-19 Has Made Me More Agoraphobic Than Ever When you draw your reader in from the first moment, it’s hard for them to want to stop reading. So meaty. Photo by Alex Guillaume on Unsplash 2. Move onto the Meat Once you’ve established a sensory image that is appropriate for the story, it’s time to move onto the meat of the personal essay, where it’s okay to get a bit expositional. Explaining yourself in an almost casual way will reaffirm your voice as well as allow you to give the dry facts behind your essay without boring your readers to death. I find that speaking simply to your audience about your point makes it much easier to understand — being clear to all readers is an onerous task, but when you put forth your own points without becoming unnecessarily dense or overarticulate, it’s much easier for readers to grasp the main idea of your essay and resonate with it. 3. Sensory Image Sandwich I like to call this part the “sensory image sandwich” — after explaining your main idea/thesis, it’s time to show your readers what you mean. Here is the time go even deeper into your essay, hopefully painting a sensory picture for your reader to help keep them engaged with your narrative as well as the main thoughts behind the piece. Demonstrate your the themes and lessons of the essay in this part, as tying together those sensory images with deep truths about life is an easy way to connect all of the dots. The yummiest sandwich of all: a sensory sandwich. Photo by Mae Mu on Unsplash Oftentimes, I try to elongate this part as much as possible, filling it with lessons and epiphanies my readers might find helpful interspersed with whatever story I am painting. But no one wants an essay to go on too long, which is why it’s important to wrap up without repeating yourself endlessly. Demonstrate your most important points and paint a few pictures, but then it’s time to end on a good note so the reader can take those lessons with them without growing bored. 4. End with a Positive Punch Endings are never easy, especially if you’re like me and tend to be a bit more wordy than the average person. Don’t end the essay before its natural conclusion just because you’re feeling antsy — I find that most pieces have a natural endpoint that becomes clear once I’ve written my way to it. Punch them in the face with positivity. Photo by Ivan Pergasi on Unsplash Even if the story you are telling is not a happy one, I always think it’s important to end on a positive or at least hopeful note. While not everything in life is positive or hopeful, it’s also a concern to me if I make my readers more depressed or put them into a negative mood. That’s not to say everything is all sunshine and rainbows and needs to end happily, but it’s just what people need sometimes. If you need some inspiration, here are a few of my favorite ending lines: Inhale that pure golden magic straight into your soul. That’s the power of a novel. — Three Reasons Why Novels Are Necessary It’s never too late to begin again. — Your Ultimate Guide to Discovering Inspiration And sometimes I feel an answer, rising up beneath my skin in goosebumps or rolling through my brain like a stray thought, and I sink into that feeling: of being heard and being answered by God and knowing, despite all of the pain, I am not alone. — LSD Saved My Soul One other silly thing I try to do is end my piece with a rhyme or near-rhyme. After reading a whole page of narrative, it can be impactful to bring some rhythm into your piece to end with a positive punch. Here’s an example of what I mean: Body hair is beautiful. It’s okay if you don’t agree. You do you, and I’ll do me. — I Don’t Shave (Anywhere) Don’t be afraid to try new things with your endings. But don’t go on too long and risk alienating your readers who just want to you to get to the damn point, already. Go forth and rock, my dudes. Photo by Antoine Julien on Unsplash Now Go Forth and Write Rocking Essays This formula obviously isn’t foolproof, but nothing in writing is. Much of the writer’s life is a slog — slogging through writer’s block, slogging through editing, slogging through rejections — but attacking an idea with a structure in mind enables you to take control of your process. The road of a writer is full of bumps, potholes, and wrong turns. Tighten up your structure and you may make it a smoother, more enjoyable journey towards knowing yourself and sharing your eternal wisdom.

https://medium.com/swlh/a-short-guide-to-writing-personal-essays-that-rock-8b364bea853c

['Sam Ripples']

2020-06-28 09:57:01.368000+00:00

['Writing', 'Productivity', 'Writing Tips', 'Creativity', 'Inspiration']

Trump Signs the Relief Bill Too Late to Help Millions of Struggling Americans

Politics Trump Signs the Relief Bill Too Late to Help Millions of Struggling Americans We are suffering while millionaires in Congress bicker Image by Chronomarchie on Pixabay Trump belatedly signed the COVID Relief bill on Sunday evening. Unfortunately, the extended unemployment benefits that millions of Americans depend on ran out the day before. States are unable to update their systems to restart weekly benefits to suffering families until next week. To a wealthy man like Trump, missing one check is no big deal but for families who have exhausted all of their resources and now live week to week, it is a disaster. I’ve been there. You know exactly how much you will receive. You have budgeted accordingly. So much for groceries, so much for utilities, so much for car payments. Suddenly, 25% of that money is missing. It doesn’t matter that you will receive that money at the back end. You need it now, not later. You have bills to pay, mouths to feed. Trump held up signing the bill in hopes that he could blackmail Congress into increasing the one time payout to $2,000. Congress refused to budge. Trump had to sign the bill to avoid being perceived as a loser. Americans suffered just to satisfy Trump’s ego.

https://medium.com/politically-speaking/trump-signs-the-relief-bill-too-late-to-help-millions-of-struggling-americans-1827c8f02e14

['Caren White']

2020-12-29 00:20:42.408000+00:00

['Pandemic', 'Politics', 'Congress', 'Government', 'Trump']

Preparing Your Small Business for the Holiday Season

Preparing Your Small Business for the Holiday Season It’s the end of October and most likely your local grocery store already spots some Christmas decorations. If you are a business owner eventually you will have to get into the holiday spirit too and you will have all those heightened sales to reward you for your efforts. Keep on reading to make this holiday season your best one yet. Why Holidays are a very unique time. It’s a season when individuals, businesses and communities suddenly start to focus more on loyalty, family, gratitude, relationships and the intangible. What does it mean for your business? It means several things, the most crucial of them is that it’s a time when you can build loyalty with your customers. Sure, you might think that all those Black Friday and Boxing Day deals are primarily a way to cash in a big check before the New Year’s. But why not look at it from another perspective and think of what it means to your customers? What Among different ways to build loyalty are things like personalized newsletters (think paper mail, handwritten, glitter — the sky is the limit). I once found a letter from a CEO of a toothpaste company neatly packed into the box and I still think of it every now and then, while sticking to buying that very same toothpaste. Another thing is the giveaways. Think about rewarding your customers for sharing why they love your product, how it changed their approach to every day things or ask them to share any story they might have to share. Reward them. Make it free. Social media. Don’t use it to advertise. Use it to talk. Talk about why you do what you do, who inspires you, who takes what you do to the next level. How Right now is a perfect time for creating a strategy. One idea is to write a (bi)weekly list with your priorities up until Dec 31. For example, it can look like this: Oct 21–27 finalize Black Friday strategy. Stock up on swag and gift cards to giveaway. Nov 4–10 organize a Christmas redesign of your store/website/wrapping. Nov 18–24 finalize the Christmas discount strategy. Plan a surprise for clients. Remember to enjoy the holidays and plan everything as much in advance as possible so that on the days that matter most to you and your family you can enjoy them to the fullest while maintaining the best image your business has.

https://medium.com/@synderapp/preparing-your-small-business-for-the-holiday-season-8a008d431de1

['Synder Business', 'Accounting Blog']

2019-11-15 08:03:16.180000+00:00

['Accounting', 'Holiday Season', 'Finance', 'Quickbooks', 'Quickbooks Online']

Autonomous Vehicle as a Social Factor: History, Benefits, Forces, Problems, and Opportunities

Abstract “Technology” is a term that will pale if it is abstracted from its social context. From culture to culture, technology’s triumph is never its own triumph, because marketing interests, political decisions, social alternation, economic condition all lead to it. Massive technology itself is never an “isolated genius”. In this paper, Autonomous Vehicle is articulated through the history and evolution of Self-Driving Cars and related human involvement. The evolvement of autopilot vehicles through social relations will also be discussed with the following social problems and future opportunities. Introduction: What is Autonomous Vehicle Autonomous vehicle (AV) is also called Self-Driving car. It describes a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and moving safely with little human interference. (Taeihagh, 2019, p.39) Because of inconsistent terminology, classification, and levels proposed by different organizations, the standard for “automatic” used in the industry are varied. To be more specific, a Self-Driving Car can also be called a Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV), Driverless Car, Robo-car, or Robotic car. Combined with a variety of sensors and software, the autopilot system allows a car to operate and stay in control safely by itself. The History and Evolution of Self-Driving Cars and Human Involvement “The social and cultural context in which a work was created is an integral part of it, one that cannot and should not be slighted in apprehending the work at a later time.” (Csikszentmihalyi & Robinson, 1990, p.51) Most of the time, social and historical context should be considered a significant contributor to innovation. Although modern technology does not support us to communicate across the boundaries of time from era to era, looking back to history can give us systematic background information. In Fabian Kröger’s Automated Driving in Its Social, Historical, and Cultural Contexts, it traces central elements in the pictorial and technological history of driverless cars. (Kröger, 2016) Here are some of the turning points I capture: In the 1500s, the first blueprint for a self-propelled cart is sketched by Leonardo De Vinci, while the concept still sounds impossibly futuristic. In the 1920s, the dream begins, and experiments have been conducted, although the idea back to 100 years ago sounded abstruse or even illusory at that time. In the 1970s, the first semi-automated car was developed by Japan’s Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. However, special assistant including an especially marked environment, analog computer, and cameras is still required. In the 1980s, CMU had pioneered to steer control autonomous vehicles. Although the speed and brake had to be controlled, the vehicles can travel 2,797 miles. In the 2000s, self-parking systems began to emerge. During the meantime, the U.S. Department of Defense’s research arm sponsored a series of challenges that pushed the technologies forward. In the 2010s, Tesla’s semi-autonomous “Autopilot” with hands-free control feature was introduced in 2015. Automobile manufactories are all racing to build autonomous vehicles. Benefits and forces for the technology revolution Albert Borgmann (2010) mentions in his article “Reality and Technology” that although technology is economically precise, its cultural and moral force needs explication. Technology is a massive and seductive force. According to him, the technology revolution is propelled by two major forces: (1). the change from the provision of relief and (2). the pursuit of pleasure. (Borgmann, 2010, p33) Two forces for Automotive vehicle technology will be discussed are (1). safety consideration and (2). more pleasurable comfortable travel experiences. The innovation facilitation is not just because of the technology breakthrough and hardware improvement. The combination of economic facilitation, political decision, insurance push, traffic condition also matters. In this way, the social contexts that those artifacts are situated are also mentioned. Improved Driving Safety It is commonly believed that autonomous vehicles reduce traffic accidents and fatalities. The developers of Google states that Automotive vehicle technology will reduce casualties of traffic accidents to half compared with nowadays. (Thurn, 2010) The reasons include: (1). The reaction speed of Computers is far faster than human brains. (2). Digital algorithms are not temperamental, emotional psychological effects (3). The operating system cannot interfere with drugs or alcohol products and it never gets sleepy. However, if the self-driving services become publicly available, the economic aspects can be seen as the highest priority to both individuals, insurances, and manufactories. Then will it create safety concern, and will the standard still meet our safety expectations? If autonomous vehicles are as safe as expected, the accidents by human factors would decrease and insurance companies might rethink traditional business models that work for the novel circumstances. In the meantime, new systemic solutions to guarantee safety in organizations including regulations, authorities, and safety culture will also be altered. A new transformation of automatization markets and business models will occur. More Convenient and Pleasurable Travel Experience It is not hard to imagine that improved and more comfortable driving experience will be brought by Automotive Vehicle Technology. The boring driving process can become a relaxing trip, and the passengers are welcomed to multitask both work and leisure-related activities while in the vehicles. In other words, people inside the self-driving cars can use time doing other things and spend this time to do pleasurable and productive activities. A new socio-technological system for autonomous vehicles will be another outcome due to the new transportation plans. Although current studies show ambiguity and low predictability of long-term impact, it can assist with achieving a radical improvement in future transportation. (Aleksey & Maria, 2020) Efficient travel and ease of commuting make people care less about leaving far away from the working spaces. It can also lead to decreased urbanization and a new organization of urban space. What’s more, ownership may not be necessary. If sharing services developed and it evenly spreads out the population, the urban environment can be improved. Other potential Social Problems Intentionally or unintentionally, any groundbreaking change brings social issues and the self-driving vehicle will not be an exception. However, automotive vehicle technology should not be the ones to be blamed for. Attribute the tragedies to the hardware itself is like attributing crimes to the victims. “When designing interactive systems, it is critical to understand the social and collaborative aspects of interaction and experience.” (Forlizzi & Battarbee, 2004, p.266) When it comes to the social determinants of technology, what matters is the social and economic system it is in. Only if we stop victim-blaming and start to look at the social context of these man-made systems, the analyzation can be subjective and valuable. The following paragraphs will discuss: (1). Social Structure Changes and Unemployment, (2). Intensification of Social Inequality, and (3). Cyber-security Issue. Social Structure Changes and Unemployment Industry structure transformation comes with the evolution of self-driving cars. It is hard to tell whether it is more beneficial or harmful to our society, but to adapt to industrial innovation, factories and organizations will develop advanced routines and rules. “Success rests on the combination of people, skill sets, artifacts modes of organization.” (Matthewman, 2011, p.22) When a new industry just generates and a supply chain just launched, traditional skills and modes can no longer be used. Although new career fields will be created, people who earn their living from driving will suddenly be out of their traditional jobs. Since driving is their main skill in society, it will be difficult for such unemployed workers to quickly find new work, and the cost of giving unemployment benefits and training those low-skilled workers could be high. The domestic job loss also causes other social problems including homelessness, social isolation, increasing crime rates. Intensification of Social Inequality Technologies of transit are not neutral. “The technological deck has been stacked in advance to favor certain social interests and that some people were bound to receive a better hand than others.” (Winner, 1986). The increasing use of self-driving vehicles is also possible to lead to new forms of social difference. In other words, the new industries and products can globally cause unevenly distributed across classed and racial lines. In Autonomous automobilities: The social impacts of driverless vehicles. Current Sociology, the authors question how autonomous technology might reflect the values and preferences. (Bissell et al. 2018) Women may be marginalized in the evolution of autonomous systems, as same as what has been observed in other male-dominated fields including Robotics Engineering and Software Development. “Technologies can be used in ways that enhance the power, authority, and privilege of some over others.” (Winner, L, 1986, p.25). During the 20th century, Robert Moses embodied the social class biases in the design of his low overpasses to Jones Beach that constructed in a way to achieve some sort of social effect. Some designs are intended, and some are not, but artifacts serve a purpose to favor some social/political interests and some groups of people. Sometimes sacrifices occur. It is likely that automobility has similar impacts. What’s more, how old people and people with disabilities can use the driving service stays unknown. Cyber-security Issue The increasing scale of hardcore technological innovations also creates cyber-security issues. Matthewman argues, although technology affects history, it is not able to drive it since it cannot be distorted from human desires, needs, and passions. (Matthewman. 2011, p.9) Automotive software involves digital algorithms, while the algorithms are designed by companies, which leaves a possibility for surveillance. Any flaws in the tracking, data-receiving, and the regulating process can be exploited. Especially during the early stage of the application, the driving system might be hacked due to an abundance of digital infrastructure. What’s more, it keeps debatable about who should be accessed to the automotive data and user information under varied conditions. This leaves the self-driving innovations a great social problem about generating, sending, and generated user data more securely. Conclusion Besides technological, ethical, regulatory challenges, and legal challenges, a more advanced system and design for social alternation are still necessary. Automotive Vehicle Technology leaves not only a brand-new way to build new social order in the world but also a field for designers and researchers to explore. As designers, we are still not sure the way that self-driving car will transform their driving experience. There are three elements of technological normalization: institutional, contextual, and systemic (Matthewman. 2011, p.25) What will the Automotive vehicles be? Will machines give labor, support human, or take labor? (Automation, Augmentation, or Heteromation) How people will spend their time on the road and how to improve the experience? The emotional perceptional and expressional stage of car travel stays unknown. For the design of future automotive vehicles, first, the safety of both drivers and passengers should be the priority. Secondly, Usefulness, convenience, reliability, accessibility should be considered in order to increase the acceptance of autonomous vehicles. However, what about other aspects? There are also other factors for acceptance and many challenges on the way. Reference Aleksey Z., & Maria R. (2020). Impact of Self-driving Cars for Urban Development. Форсайт, 14 (1 (eng)), 70–84. doi: 10.17323/2500–2597.2020.1.70.84 Bissell, David & Birtchnell, Thomas & Elliott, Anthony & Hsu, Eric. (2018). Autonomous automobilities: The social impacts of driverless vehicles. Current Sociology. 001139211881674. 10.1177/0011392118816743. Borgmann, A., 2010. “Reality and technology,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 27–35, January. Csikszentmihalyi, M. C., & Robinson, R. R. (1990). The Art of Seeing. In The Major Dimensions of the Aesthetic Experience (pp. 27–72). J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Education Institute for the Arts. https://www.punyamishra.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/csikzentmihaly-dimensionsofaesthetics.pdf Forlizzi, J., & Battarbee, K. (2004, August). Understanding experience in interactive systems. In Proceedings of the 5th conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques (pp. 261–268). Kröger F. (2016) Automated Driving in Its Social, Historical and Cultural Contexts. In: Maurer M., Gerdes J., Lenz B., Winner H. (eds) Autonomous Driving. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48847-8_3 Matthewman, S. (2011). Technology and Social Theory. Chapter 1, pp. 8–28 Shubbak, M., Self-Driving Cars: Legal, Social, and Ethical Aspects (December 18, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2931847 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2931847 Taeihagh, A., Lim, M. (2 January 2019). “Governing autonomous vehicles: emerging responses for safety, liability, privacy, cybersecurity, and industry risks”. Transport Reviews. 39 (1): 103–128. Thrun, S., 2010. What We’re Driving At [online], OFFICIAL GOOGLE BLOG, available from: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-were-driving-at.html [Accessed 12 December 2013] Winner, L. (1986). Do artifacts have politics? In The whale and the reactor, pp. 19–39. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

https://medium.com/@seren980224/autonomous-vehicle-as-a-social-factor-77e1264dde7

['Qingran Ni']

2020-11-15 20:11:03.490000+00:00

['Autonomous Vehicles', 'Social', 'Robotics', 'Self Driving Cars', 'Driverless Car Technology']

Biology of N501Y, A Novel U.K. Coronavirus Strain, Explained In Detail

Biology of N501Y, A Novel U.K. Coronavirus Strain, Explained In Detail Image by torstensimon from Pixabay A new SARS-CoV-2 strain called N501Y has been spreading widely in London and south-east England. “The spread is being driven by the new variant of the virus,” the U.K. Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said in a press conference. “It appears to spread more easily and may be up to 70% more transmissable than the earlier strain.” This new strain caused about 60% of SARS-CoV-2 infections in London, reported Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer. As a result, the country was initiating a lockdown yesterday. Many other countries have also restricted travel from the U.K. Anyways, let’s see what the scientific literature has to say on this newly emerged SARS-CoV-2 strain. Its evolution Scientists believe that the N501Y strain evolved in single or a few individuals, rather than mutations accumulating slowly over iterations of virus infections in many different people. In those fighting Covid-19 for an extended duration, SARS-CoV-2 may have mutated at a high rate to keep up with the on-going onslaught by the host immune system. Indeed, sequencing SARS-CoV-2 genomes revealed a higher mutation rate from patients who did not recover early from Covid-19 and were later treated with remdesivir and convalescent plasma. This may have resulted from a sequence of events that experts in the U.K have proposed, although they cautioned that further verifications are still required: First, selection from natural immune responses in immune-deficient/suppressed patients will be weak or absent. Second, the selection arising from antibody therapy may be strong due to high antibody concentrations. Third, if antibody therapy is administered after many weeks of chronic infection, the virus population may be unusually large and genetically diverse at the time that antibody-mediated selective pressure is applied, creating suitable circumstances for the rapid fixation of multiple virus genetic changes through direct selection and genetic hitchhiking. Its emergence There’s no evidence that the N501Y strain was imported from elsewhere, so it has most likely evolved independently in the U.K. around September 2020, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported. The BMJ also named this strain VUI-202012/01, which stands for the first “Variant Under Investigation” in December 2020. Another preliminary analysis has classified this strain under the B.1.1.7 lineage. So, overall, it goes by three names for now. A similar strain has also arisen independently in South Africa, where it’s also spreading much faster, according to Tulio De Oliveira, a virologist associate professor at the University of KwaZulu Natal. He has also done work on this new strain that first notified the U.K. about the emergence of N501Y. In South Africa, this strain is called 501Y.V2. The WHO has also reported that SARS-CoV-2 with N501Y mutation in the U.K. and South Africa have evolved independently of each other. Differences between the U.K. and South Africa strains were detailed in the preliminary data that Assoc. Prof. Oliveira posted on Twitter: Credit: Assoc. Prof. Tulio De Oliveira tweet. As stated in the summary, South Africa’s 501Y.V2 coronavirus strain has 15 mutations — of which 8 occurred in the spike protein — and one deletion. In contrast, the U.K.’s B.1.1.7 (also called N501Y or VUI-202012/01) has 14 mutations (of which six occurred in the spike protein) and 3 deletions (of which 1 occurred in the spike protein). More details on the mutations are discussed below. There are also records of this new SARS-CoV-2 strain in Spain, where it was initially believed to increase Covid-19 mortality by 50%. But later, scientists realized that the data was flawed, and the new strain is not any more lethal. Evidence also exists that this new strain emerged in the Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, Italy, Iceland, and maybe other countries lacking robust SARS-CoV-2 genomic monitoring system. 1st Jan 2021 update: The new SARS-CoV-2 strain has been detected in 20 countries. A few countries reported that the strain was imported from the U.K., and others remain unsure of its origin. Its mutations N501Y means that the amino acid N (asparagine) at position 501 of the virus’s genome mutated to Y (tyrosine). However, the so-called N501Y strain in the U.K. is actually distinguished by a set of 17 mutations, of which N501Y is the defining one as it occurs in the coronavirus’s spike protein. For more information on strain vs. variant, kindly see here: In a preliminary report, titled “Preliminary genomic characterisation of an emergent SARS-CoV-2 lineage in the UK defined by a novel set of spike mutations” and researchers at the Covid-19 Genomics U.K. Consortium and other top universities have analyzed the genetic features of this move strain. And they found several mutations that may alter the coronavirus’s functions. N501Y mutation in the spike protein’s receptor-binding domain (RBD) may alter its binding capacity to the ACE2 receptor on human cells. 69–70del mutation means loss of two amino acids at positions 69 and 70 in the spike protein, which may increase the coronavirus’s ability to evade the immune system. P681H mutation near the spike protein’s furin cleavage site with unknown consequences. Since the furin cleavage site mediates cell infection, this mutation is suspected to be important. Presumably less important: 5 mutations in ORF1ab (C913T, C5986T, C14676T, C15279T, C16176T), and 1 mutation in M gene (T26801C). Its virulence Presently, only a few studies have provided hints on the biological properties of the new coronavirus N501Y strain (or VUI-202012/01 or B.1.1.7). Three separate reports have found that mutations changing N (asparagine) at position 501 to other amino acids increase the binding capacity of SARS-CoV-2 to the human ACE2 receptor, according to bioinformatics modeling and cell culture studies. To reiterate, N501Y means that the amino acid at position 501 changed from N (asparagine) to Y (tyrosine). A study published in the top-ranking journal, Science, titled “Adaptation of SARS-CoV-2 in BALB/c mice for testing vaccine efficacy,” can tell us more. Herein, researchers in China did an innovative experiment to repeatedly passage SARS-CoV-2 in mice over many generations to emulate natural evolution. Briefly, a dose of SARS-CoV-2 was inoculated into the mice's nose. After a few days, the infected mice were sacrificed to isolate the viruses from their lungs, which were re-inoculated into another mice’s nose. At subsequent mice generations, the coronavirus became more virulent with increased symptom severity, viral replication in the respiratory tract, and viral dissemination to other organs. They called this mice-adapted SARS-CoV-2 the coronavirus MASCp6. Sequencing its genome, the study discovered five key mutations, with one of them being the N501Y. More advanced data analyses showed that N501Y is responsible for increasing both the coronavirus’s binding efficiency to the ACE2 receptor and disease lethality. As the authors wrote, “the increased virulence of SARS-CoV-2 MASCp6 in mice was likely attributed to the rapid emergence of N501Y substitution in the RBD [receptor-binding domain] of SARS-CoV-2 S [spike] protein.” But thankfully, vaccinating mice with one of the Covid-19 candidate vaccines — the recombinant subunit RBD-Fc vaccine — prevented MASCp6 from causing severe disease. While this seems alarming, it should be noted that MASCp6 is not exactly similar to the new SARS-CoV-2 strains in the U.K. (i.e., N501Y, VUI-202012/01, or B.1.1.7) or South Africa (501Y.V2). Thus, MASCp6’s virulence in mice may not translate to these other strains circulating in human populations. Plus, MASCp6 evolved in mice in experimental settings and not in humans. However, clinicians in South Africa have said that they noticed a shift in Covid-19 epidemiology, where an increasing proportion of young people without medical comorbidities are getting hospitalized, said Zweli Mkhize, the minister of Health. But these are anecdotes and might be a coincidence. So, more research is definitely needed to determine the virulence of these newly emerged strains. 1st Jan 2021 update: Fortunately, preliminary data from the Public Health England (PHE) found no significant differences in the death rate among 1,769 people infected with the new strain versus the older strain. Importantly, these two groups of people were matched in terms of age, sex, location, and time of testing. Its transmissibility As mentioned initially, the U.K. primer minister said that the new SARS-CoV-2 strain is 70% more transmissible. According to the European CDC, this number was derived from mathematical modeling showing that the reproductive number (R-naught) of SARS-CoV-2 has increased by at least 0.4. Again, whether this increased R-naught is coincidence or causation remains uncertain. Mathematical modeling can sometimes be wrong. Others have argued that it’s more likely an association rather than causation, meaning that N501Y tagged along with certain superspreader events rather than directly increasing the coronavirus’s infectivity. However, the European CDC has also reported that the D614G mutation is present in the new N501Y (or VUI-202012/01 or B.1.1.7) strain in the U.K. In contrast to N501Y, the increased transmissibility of D614G in animals and cultured cells have been demonstrated. Hence, if the new U.K. SARS-CoV-2 strain is causing an increase in infectivity or transmissibility, it’s more likely the job of D614G or D614G-N501Y synergism. 1st Jan 2021 update: A pre-print study from Center for Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine estimated that the new strain is 56% more transmissible with a possible range of 50–76%. This modelling study found no evidence that the new strain is related to more severe Covid-19, consistent with data from PHE above. Its prospects Health authorities have warned of possible Covid-19 re-infection from the new SARS-CoV-2 strain in the U.K. Indeed, true cases of re-infections have occurred many times, which are usually caused by two sufficiently distinct SARS-CoV-2 strains or variants —such as the D614G vs. Wuhan strains. If Covid-19 re-infection is suspected, then the coronavirus’s genome should be sequenced and checked for any N501Y or other mutations. The re-infected person should also be followed closely to monitor any development of resistance to monoclonal antibody, convalescent plasma, or vaccine. Future research also needs to study the biological functions of the newly emerged strains. We still don’t know much about its virulence, transmissibility, and vaccine susceptibility. Notably, these things should not be looked at as a yes/no answer. For instance, its virulence may increase, but how much is the increase is the more relevant question. The good news is that little changes in the virus’s genome — as with the case of the N501Y strain — don’t usually lead to massive changes in its biological behaviors. Currently, “With this variant, there is no evidence that it will evade the vaccination or a human immune response,” said Sharon Peacock, a professor of public health and microbiology and director of Covid-19 Genomics UK. “But if there is an instance of vaccine failure or reinfection, then that case should be treated as high priority for genetic sequencing.” This emergence of another SARS-CoV-2 strain also tells us why letting the coronavirus mutates can be problematic. Although the SARS-CoV-2 mutation rate is much lower than influenza or other nasty viruses, it can happen with time and numbers of coronaviruses circulating among humans. Also, even though SARS-CoV-2 has a slow mutation rate, its pandemic scale works in its favor. Vaccines, physical distancing, masking, and handwashing are some of the effective methods that we can use to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 mutations.

https://medium.com/microbial-instincts/biology-of-novel-coronavirus-n501y-strain-in-the-u-k-explained-in-detail-3fe31a01fa59

['Shin Jie Yong']

2021-01-01 11:18:22.050000+00:00

['Health', 'Life', 'Science', 'Public Health', 'Covid 19']

PEP Network introduces two Awesome, Free-to-use Telegram bots

Going with the vision to make the world to express in a whole new way using real life emotions in digital communication, PEP Network has introduced two awesome, free to use Telegram bots for Crypto lovers. Given below is a short description of the Bots: 1. Welcome Bot (@PEPWelcomeBot) Now Telegram Admins have an awesome new tool in their arsenal to greet new users joining a group chat. With @PEPWelcomeBot it’s possible to automatically send an awesome animated message to a newly joined user and make them feel special. Once initialized and added to a group, the bot welcomes a new user with an animated GIF featuring a 3D mascot (we named him Crypto Fox) that makes a variety of crazy welcome gestures along with a welcome message bearing the name of that user. This makes the welcome message personal and visually delightful like it was specially made for that user. Welcome Bot automatically welcomes a new user with an awesome CryptoFox animation bearing the user name We have also taken care of the Marketing needs of people-in-business. You can re-brand the animations with your own LOGOs in real-time… Marketers, are you listening? This next level of personalisation is made possible through our revolutionary realtime 3D tech. And even more, the bot automatically deletes the previous welcome message once it sends a new one keeping the chat window clean and clutter free 😎 So, what are you waiting for? Claim your Welcome bot while it’s still free and welcome new users like never before! Start Welcome Bot by clicking on this link: https://t.me/PEPWelcomeBot 2. PEP Network Bot (@PEPNetworkBot) No more boring chats! This second Bot by PEP Network empowers Telegram users to chat in the coolest possible way. With @PEPNetworkBot you can create and send awesome Crypto-animations, instantly noticeable in a chat. Once initialized, a user can call the Bot, type his message and select an animation to share. These specially designed animations feature our beloved 3D mascot, the Crypto Fox, that performs a variety of gestures related to the Crypto world, making the messages very well suited for the Crypto community. PEP Network Bot enables users to type their message in any language and share a variety of animations featuring CryptoFox And with our bleeding edge tech, you can write your own messages featuring inside the animation in any language… No language barriers anymore! Like the Welcome Bot, we are offering PEP Network Bot as a free service for a limited time. Try it right now! Start PEP Network Bot by clicking on this link: https://t.me/PEPNetworkBot We will be continuously updating the Bots with more cool features, animations, mascots and loads of AWESOMENESS… So stay tuned! 😎😎😎 For any special feature requests, queries or feedback, please email us to: [email protected]

https://medium.com/pep-ico/pep-network-introduces-two-awesome-free-to-use-telegram-bots-6bf38486643c

['Sharik Khan']

2018-04-14 12:45:12.620000+00:00

['ICO', 'Blockchain', 'Bots', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin']

Vue 3 — Named Slots and Slot Props

Photo by Mohammed Kabir on Unsplash Vue 3 is in beta and it’s subject to change. Vue 3 is the up and coming version of Vue front end framework. It builds on the popularity and ease of use of Vue 2. In this article, we’ll look at how to use slots to populate content with Vue 3. Named Slots We can name our slots so that we can have multiple slots in one component. For instance, we can write: <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>App</title> <script src="https://unpkg.com/vue@next"></script> </head> <body> <div id="app"> <blog-post> <template v-slot:header> <h1>header</h1> </template> <template v-slot:default> <p>lorem ipsum.</p> </template> <template v-slot:footer> <p>footer</p> </template> </blog-post> </div> <script> const app = Vue.createApp({}); app.component("blog-post", { template: ` <header> <slot name="header"></slot> </header> <main> <slot></slot> </main> <footer> <slot name="footer"></slot> </footer> ` }); app.mount("#app"); </script> </body> </html> The blog-post component has the header, main, and footer elements. Inside each, they have their own slots. We name the top slot with the name header . And we named the bottom slot with the name footer . The main tag has the slot with no name. Then we can populate them with the template element. The v-slot directive lets us populate the slots by passing in the slot name as the argument. If a slot has no name, then we can refer to it with default . Therefore, we get the h1 displayed on top. ‘lorem ipsum’ is displayed in the middle. And ‘footer’ is displayed at the bottom. Scoped Slots Scoped slots let us make states from the child element available to the parent. For example, we can write: <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>App</title> <script src="https://unpkg.com/vue@next"></script> </head> <body> <div id="app"> <items> <template v-slot:default="slotProps"> <b>{{ slotProps.item.name }}</b> </template> </items> </div> <script> const app = Vue.createApp({}); app.component("items", { template: ` <ul> <li v-for="( item, index ) in items"> <slot v-bind:item="item"></slot> </li> </ul> `, data() { return { items: [{ name: "apple" }, { name: "orange" }, { name: "grape" }] }; } }); app.mount("#app"); </script> </body> </html> We have the items component with the items that we want to render. Instead of rendering them directly, we pass them into the slot with the v-bind directive so that we can change how they’re rendered in the parent. The argument of v-bind will be the property name in the slotProps variable in the parent’s template. The value will be the property value of the slotProps.item property. Therefore, we can add the template tag in between the items tag. The template tag has the v-slot:default directive with the slotProps value. And we can use that to customize the rendering of the properties passed in from v-bind in items . If there’s only one slot, then we can shorter the syntax for accessing the lone default slot. For instance, we can write: v-slot="slotProps" instead of: v-slot:default="slotProps" So we can have: <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>App</title> <script src="https://unpkg.com/vue@next"></script> </head> <body> <div id="app"> <items> <template v-slot="slotProps"> <b>{{ slotProps.item.name }}</b> </template> </items> </div> <script> const app = Vue.createApp({}); app.component("items", { template: ` <ul> <li v-for="( item, index ) in items"> <slot v-bind:item="item"></slot> </li> </ul> `, data() { return { items: [{ name: "apple" }, { name: "orange" }, { name: "grape" }] }; } }); app.mount("#app"); </script> </body> </html> which is slightly shorter. Photo by DEAR on Unsplash Conclusion We can add named slots to our component and access data from the child in the parent with slot props. Enjoyed this article? If so, get more similar content by subscribing to Decoded, our YouTube channel!

https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/vue-3-named-slots-and-slot-props-3e55c819f569

['John Au-Yeung']

2020-11-01 19:19:04.570000+00:00

['JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'Technology', 'Web Development']

‘Drama’ [[The Penthouse]] Series 01 Episode 18 ||(Full Drama)

In the luxury penthouse apartment with 100 floors, Hera Palace, residents with many goals and secrets live there. Sim Su Ryeon, who was born into wealth, is the queen of the penthouse apartment. Cheon Seo Jin, the prima donna of the residence, does all she can to give everything she has to her daughter. Oh Yoon Hee comes from poor family background, but she strives to enter high society by becoming the queen of the penthouse, the pinnacle of success in her eyes. ✅📺 P-l-a-y NOW JOIN US 📺: ➤ http://fullstream.online-tvs.com/series/383800/1/18 Title : The Penthouse Episode Title : Episode 18 Release Date : 28 Dec 2020 Runtime : 68 minutes Genres : Drama Networks : SBS (KR) » Watch The Penthouse Season 1 Episode 18 On’SBS (KR) « ♚ I do not own this song or the Image, all credit goes, It’s so Awesome. Subscribe and Share with your friends! to my channel. See for more videos!!. I want to say ‘thank you’ for being the friend!! Atelevision show (often simply TV show) is any content produced for broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, cable, or internet and typically viewed on a television set, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed between shows. Television shows are most often scheduled well ahead of time and appear on electronic guides or other TV listings. A television show might also be called a television program (British English: programme), especially if it lacks a narrative structure. A television series is usually released in episodes that follow a narrative, and are usually divided into seasons (US and Canada) or series (UK) — yearly or semiannual sets of new episodes. A show with a limited number of episodes may be called a miniseries, serial, or limited series. A one-time show may be called a “special”. A television film (“made-for-TV movie” or “television movie”) is a film that is initially broadcast on television rather than released in theaters or direct-to-video. Television shows can be viewed as they are broadcast in real time (live), be recorded on home video or a digital video recorder for later viewing, or be viewed on demand via a set-top box or streamed over the internet. ✨ CREDITS ✨ The first television shows were experimental, sporadic broadcasts viewable only within a very short range from the broadcast tower starting in the 202044s. Televised events such as the 202044 Summer Olympics in Germany, the 202044 coronation of King George VI in the UK, and David Sarnoff’s famous introduction at the 202044 New York World’s Fair in the US spurred a growth in the medium, but World War II put a halt to development until after the war. The 202044 World Series inspired many Americans to buy their first television set and then in 202044, the popular radio show Texaco Star Theater made the move and became the first weekly televised variety show, earning host Milton Berle the name “Mr Television” and demonstrating that the medium was a stable, modern form of entertainment which could attract advertisers. The first national live television broadcast in the US took place on September 2020, 202044 when President Harry Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco was transmitted over AT&T’s transcontinental cable and microwave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets. The first national color broadcast (the 202044 Tournament of Roses Parade) in the US occurred on January 2020, 202044. During the following ten years most network broadcasts, and nearly all local programming, continued to be in black-and-white. A color transition was announced for the fall of 202044, during which over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color. The first all-color prime-time season came just one year later. In 202044, the last holdout among daytime network shows converted to color, resulting in the first completely all-color network season. 💫 CREDITS 💫 Television shows are more varied than most other forms of media due to the wide variety of formats and genres that can be presented. A show may be fictional (as in comedies and dramas), or non-fictional (as in documentary, news, and reality television). It may be topical (as in the case of a local newscast and some made-for-television films), or historical (as in the case of many documentaries and fictional series). They could be primarily instructional or educational, or entertaining as is the case in situation comedy and game shows.[citation needed] A drama program usually features a set of actors playing characters in a historical or contemporary setting. The program follows their lives and adventures. Before the 202044, shows (except for soap opera-type serials) typically remained static without story arcs, and the main characters and premise changed little.[citation needed] If some change happened to the characters’ lives during the episode, it was usually undone by the end. Because of this, the episodes could be broadcast in any order.[citation needed] Since the 202044, many series feature progressive change in the plot, the characters, or both. For instance, Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere were two of the first American prime time drama television series to have this kind of dramatic structure,[2020][better source needed] while the later series Jujutsu Kaisenlon 2020 further exemplifies such structure in that it had a predetermined story running over its intended five-season run.[citation needed] In 202044, it was reported that television was growing into a larger component of major media companies’ revenues than film.[2020] Some also noted the increase in quality of some television programs. In 202044, Academy-Award-winning film director Steven Soderbergh, commenting on ambiguity and complexity of character and narrative, stated: “I think those qualities are now being seen on television and that people who want to see stories that have those kinds of qualities are watching television. On January 20200, 2020202020202020, WHO announced an outbreak of a coronavirus new (COVID-20204) as a Concerning Public Health Emergency World. To respond to COVID-20204, preparedness and response is needed critical nature such as equipping health personnel and facility management health services with the necessary information, procedures, and tools can safely and effectively work. health workers play an important role in responding to outbreaks COVID-20204 and become the backbone of a country’s defense for limit or manage the spread of disease. At the forefront, power health care providers that suspect patients need and confirmed COVID-20204, which is often carried out in challenging circumstances. Officers are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-20204 in their efforts to protect wider society. Officers can be exposed to hazards such as psychological stress, fatigue, mental exhaustion or stigma. WHO is aware of their duties and responsibilities this big responsibility and the importance of protecting health care facility personnel. 💫 Aim This material aims to protect health workers from infection and prevent it possible spread of COVID-20204 in health care facilities. This material contains a series of simple messages and reminders based on technical guidelines WHO is more comprehensive about infection prevention and control in facilities health services in the context of COVID-20204: “Prevention and control infection in health services when the new coronavirus (nCoV) infection is suspected “ (20204 January 2020202020202020). Further information can be found in the WHO technical manual. ✨ Readers of this material This material is intended for health personnel and service facility management health and may be distributed to other health workers and to facilities health services. The Ministry of Health can provide this material to all hospitals and government health service facilities. Copy this material needs to be provided to private physician networks, medical associations, medical, nursing and midwifery to be shared and fitted accordingly necessity. The contents of this material can be adapted into local languages ​​and placed in places in the service facility 💫 ALL CATEGORY WATCHTED 💫 An action story is similar to adventure, and the protagonist usually takes a risky turn, which leads to desperate scenarios (including explosions, fight scenes, daring escapes, etc.). Action and adventure usually are categorized together (sometimes even while “action-adventure”) because they have much in common, and many stories are categorized as both genres simultaneously (for instance, the James Bond series can be classified as both). Continuing their survival through an age of a Zombie-apocalypse as a makeshift family, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abagail Breslin) have found their balance as a team, settling into the now vacant White House to spend some safe quality time with one another as they figure out their Jujutsu Kaisen move. However, spend time at the Presidential residents raise some uncertainty as Columbus proposes to Wichita, which freaks out the independent, lone Jujutsu Kaisen out, while Little Rock starts to feel the need to be on her own. The women suddenly decide to escape in the middle of the night, leaving the men concerned about Little Rock, who’s quickly joined by Berkley (Avan Jogia), a hitchhiking hippie on his way to place called Babylon, a fortified commune that’s supposed to be safe haven against the zombies of the land. Hitting the road to retrieved their loved one, Tallahassee and Columbus meet Madison (Zoey Deutch), a dim-witted survivor who takes an immediate liking to Columbus, complicating his relationship with Wichita. 💫 ANALYZER GOOD / BAD 💫 To be honest, I didn’t catch Jujutsu Kaisen when it first got released (in theaters) back in 404. Of course, the movie pre-dated a lot of the pop culture phenomenon of the usage of zombies-esque as the main antagonist (i.e Game of Thrones, The Maze Runner trilogy, The Walking Dead, World War Z, The Last of Us, etc.), but I’ve never been keen on the whole “Zombie” craze as others are. So, despite the comedy talents on the project, I didn’t see Jujutsu Kaisen….until it came to TV a year or so later. Surprisingly, however, I did like it. Naturally, the zombie apocalypse thing was fine (just wasn’t my thing), but I really enjoyed the film’s humor-based comedy throughout much of the feature. With the exception of 202040’s Shaun of the Dead, majority of the past (and future) endeavors of this narrative have always been serious, so it was kind of refreshing to see comedic levity being brought into the mix. Plus, the film’s cast was great, with the four main leads being one of the film’s greatest assets. As mentioned above, Jujutsu Kaisen didn’t make much of a huge splash at the box office, but certainly gained a strong cult following, including myself, in the following years. Flash forward a decade after its release and Jujutsu Kaisen finally got a sequel with Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap, the central focus of this review post. Given how the original film ended, it was clear that a sequel to the 404 movie was indeed possible, but it seemed like it was in no rush as the years kept passing by. So, I was quite surprised to hear that Jujutsu Kaisen was getting a sequel, but also a bit not surprised as well as Hollywood’s recent endeavors have been of the “belated sequels” variety; finding mixed results on each of these projects. I did see the film’s movie trailer, which definitely was what I was looking for in this Jujutsu Kaisen 2020 movie, with Eisenberg, Harrelson, Stone, Breslin returning to reprise their respective characters again. I knew I wasn’t expecting anything drastically different from the 404 movie, so I entered Double Tap with good frame of my mind and somewhat eagerly expecting to catch up with this dysfunctional zombie killing family. Unfortunately, while I did see the movie a week after its release, my review for it fell to the wayside as my life in retail got a hold of me during the holidays as well as being sick for a good week and half after seeing the movie. So, with me still playing “catch up” I finally have the time to share my opinions on Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap. And what are they? Well, to be honest, my opinions on the film was good. Despite some problems here and there, Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap is definitely a fun sequel that’s worth the decade long wait. It doesn’t “redefine” the Zombie genre interest or outmatch its predecessor, but this Jujutsu Kaisen chapter of Jujutsu Kaisen still provides an entertaining entry….and that’s all that matters. Returning to the director’s chair is director Ruben Fleischer, who helmed the first Jujutsu Kaisen movie as well as other film projects such as 40 Minutes or Less, Gangster Squad, and Venom. Thus, given his previous knowledge of shaping the first film, it seems quite suitable (and obvious) for Fleischer to direct this movie and (to that affect), Double Tap succeeds. Of course, with the first film being a “cult classic” of sorts, Fleischer probably knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to replicate the same formula in this sequel, especially since the 4-year gap between the films. Luckily, Fleischer certainly excels in bringing the same type of comedic nuances and cinematic aspects that made the first Jujutsu Kaisen enjoyable to Double Tap; creating a second installment that has plenty of fun and entertainment throughout. A lot of the familiar / likeable aspects of the first film, including the witty banter between four main lead characters, continues to be at the forefront of this sequel; touching upon each character in a amusing way, with plenty of nods and winks to the original 404 film that’s done skillfully and not so much unnecessarily ham-fisted. Additionally, Fleischer keeps the film running at a brisk pace, with the feature having a runtime of 44 minutes in length (one hour and thirty-nine minutes), which means that the film never feels sluggish (even if it meanders through some secondary story beats / side plot threads), with Fleischer ensuring a companion sequel that leans with plenty of laughter and thrills that are presented snappy way (a sort of “thick and fast” notion). Speaking of which, the comedic aspect of the first Jujutsu Kaisen movie is well-represented in Double Tap, with Fleischer still utilizing its cast (more on that below) in a smart and hilarious by mixing comedic personalities / personas with something as serious / gravitas as fighting endless hordes of zombies every where they go. Basically, if you were a fan of the first Jujutsu Kaisen flick, you’ll definitely find Double Tap to your liking. In terms of production quality, Double Tap is a good feature. Granted, much like the last film, I knew that the overall setting and background layouts weren’t going to be something elaborate and / or expansive. Thus, my opinion of this subject of the movie’s technical presentation isn’t that critical. Taking that into account, Double Tap does (at least) does have that standard “post-apocalyptic” setting of an abandoned building, cityscapes, and roads throughout the feature; littered with unmanned vehicles and rubbish. It certainly has that “look and feel” of the post-zombie world, so Double Tap’s visual aesthetics gets a solid industry standard in my book. Thus, a lot of the other areas that I usually mentioned (i.e set decorations, costumes, cinematography, etc.) fit into that same category as meeting the standards for a 20204 movie. Thus, as a whole, the movie’s background nuances and presentation is good, but nothing grand as I didn’t expect to be “wowed” over it. So, it sort of breaks even. This also extends to the film’s score, which was done by David Sardy, which provides a good musical composition for the feature’s various scenes as well as a musical song selection thrown into the mix; interjecting the various zombie and humor bits equally well. There are some problems that are bit glaring that Double Tap, while effectively fun and entertaining, can’t overcome, which hinders the film from overtaking its predecessor. Perhaps one of the most notable criticism that the movie can’t get right is the narrative being told. Of course, the narrative in the first Jujutsu Kaisen wasn’t exactly the best, but still combined zombie-killing action with its combination of group dynamics between its lead characters. Double Tap, however, is fun, but messy at the same time; creating a frustrating narrative that sounds good on paper, but thinly written when executed. Thus, problem lies within the movie’s script, which was penned by Dave Callaham, Rhett Reese, and Paul Wernick, which is a bit thinly sketched in certain areas of the story, including a side-story involving Tallahassee wanting to head to Graceland, which involves some of the movie’s new supporting characters. It’s fun sequence of events that follows, but adds little to the main narrative and ultimately could’ve been cut completely. Thus, I kind of wanted see Double Tap have more a substance within its narrative. Heck, they even had a decade long gap to come up with a new yarn to spin for this sequel…and it looks like they came up a bit shorter than expected. Another point of criticism that I have about this is that there aren’t enough zombie action bits as there were in the first Jujutsu Kaisen movie. Much like the Walking Dead series as become, Double Tap seems more focused on its characters (and the dynamics that they share with each other) rather than the group facing the sparse groupings of mindless zombies. However, that was some of the fun of the first movie and Double Tap takes away that element. Yes, there are zombies in the movie and the gang is ready to take care of them (in gruesome fashion), but these mindless beings sort take a back seat for much of the film, with the script and Fleischer seemed more focused on showcasing witty banter between Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock. Of course, the ending climatic piece in the third act gives us the best zombie action scenes of the feature, but it feels a bit “too little, too late” in my opinion. To be honest, this big sequence is a little manufactured and not as fun and unique as the final battle scene in the first film. I know that sounds a bit contrive and weird, but, while the third act big fight seems more polished and staged well, it sort of feels more restricted and doesn’t flow cohesively with the rest of the film’s flow (in matter of speaking). What’s certainly elevates these points of criticism is the film’s cast, with the main quartet lead acting talents returning to reprise their roles in Double Tap, which is absolutely the “hands down” best part of this sequel. Naturally, I’m talking about the talents of Jessie Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin in their respective roles Jujutsu Kaisen character roles of Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock. Of the four, Harrelson, known for his roles in Cheers, True Detective, and War for the Planet of the Apes, shines as the brightest in the movie, with dialogue lines of Tallahassee proving to be the most hilarious comedy stuff on the sequel. Harrelson certainly knows how to lay it on “thick and fast” with the character and the s**t he says in the movie is definitely funny (regardless if the joke is slightly or dated). Behind him, Eisenberg, known for his roles in The Art of Self-Defense, The Social Network, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, is somewhere in the middle of pack, but still continues to act as the somewhat main protagonist of the feature, including being a narrator for us (the viewers) in this post-zombie apocalypse world. Of course, Eisenberg’s nervous voice and twitchy body movements certainly help the character of Columbus to be likeable and does have a few comedic timing / bits with each of co-stars. Stone, known for her roles in The Help, Superbad, and La La Land, and Breslin, known for her roles in Signs, Little Miss Sunshine, and Definitely, Maybe, round out the quartet; providing some more grown-up / mature character of the group, with Wichita and Little Rock trying to find their place in the world and how they must deal with some of the party members on a personal level. Collectively, these four are what certainly the first movie fun and hilarious and their overall camaraderie / screen-presence with each other hasn’t diminished in the decade long absence. To be it simply, these four are simply riot in the Jujutsu Kaisen and are again in Double Tap. With the movie keeping the focus on the main quartet of lead Jujutsu Kaisen characters, the one newcomer that certainly takes the spotlight is actress Zoey Deutch, who plays the character of Madison, a dim-witted blonde who joins the group and takes a liking to Columbus. Known for her roles in Before I Fall, The Politician, and Set It Up, Deutch is a somewhat “breath of fresh air” by acting as the tagalong team member to the quartet in a humorous way. Though there isn’t much insight or depth to the character of Madison, Deutch’s ditzy / air-head portrayal of her is quite hilarious and is fun when she’s making comments to Harrelson’s Tallahassee (again, he’s just a riot in the movie). The rest of the cast, including actor Avan Jogia (Now Apocalypse and Shaft) as Berkeley, a pacifist hippie that quickly befriends Little Rock on her journey, actress Rosario Dawson (Rent and Sin City) as Nevada, the owner of a Elvis-themed motel who Tallahassee quickly takes a shine to, and actors Luke Wilson (Legally Blonde and Old School) and Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie) as Albuquerque and Flagstaff, two traveling zombie-killing partners that are mimic reflections of Tallahassee and Columbus, are in minor supporting roles in Double Tap. While all of these acting talents are good and definitely bring a certain humorous quality to their characters, the characters themselves could’ve been easily expanded upon, with many just being thinly written caricatures. Of course, the movie focuses heavily on the Jujutsu Kaisen quartet (and newcomer Madison), but I wished that these characters could’ve been fleshed out a bit. Lastly, be sure to still around for the film’s ending credits, with Double Tap offering up two Easter Eggs scenes (one mid-credits and one post-credit scenes). While I won’t spoil them, I do have mention that they are pretty hilarious. 💫 FINAL THOUGHTS 💫 It’s been awhile, but the Jujutsu Kaisen gang is back and are ready to hit the road once again in the movie Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap. Director Reuben Fleischer’s latest film sees the return the dysfunctional zombie-killing makeshift family of survivors for another round of bickering, banting, and trying to find their way in a post-apocalyptic world. While the movie’s narrative is a bit messy and could’ve been refined in the storyboarding process as well as having a bit more zombie action, the rest of the feature provides to be a fun endeavor, especially with Fleischer returning to direct the project, the snappy / witty banter amongst its characters, a breezy runtime, and the four lead returning acting talents. Personally, I liked this movie. I definitely found it to my liking as I laugh many times throughout the movie, with the main principal cast lending their screen presence in this post-apocalyptic zombie movie. Thus, my recommendation for this movie is favorable “recommended” as I’m sure it will please many fans of the first movie as well as to the uninitiated (the film is quite easy to follow for newcomers). While the movie doesn’t redefine what was previous done back in 404, Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap still provides a riot of laughs with this make-shift quartet of zombie survivors; giving us give us (the viewers) fun and entertaining companion sequel to the original feature.

https://medium.com/the-penthouse-1x18/drama-the-penthouse-series-01-episode-18-full-drama-493aa7bd068e

['Barbara R. Bradley']

2020-12-27 09:00:17.481000+00:00

['Drama']

Get Cozy with 12 of the Best Christmas Mysteries

Books Get Cozy with 12 of the Best Christmas Mysteries Photo by Ben White on Unsplash Note: There are no affiliate links in this story. The author does not receive compensation for click-through purchases. Just as popular singers give their sales a boost by recording Christmas songs and albums, many best-selling authors do the same by using Christmas settings and themes in some of their novels and short stories. The cozy mystery genre has countless examples of these. Cozies go with Christmas like raindrops on roses, and many mystery readers look forward to these releases each year. But beware! Not all Christmas cozies are created equal. Some of them are so bad that their authors should be on the naughty list. So, in service to readers with discriminating tastes, here are twelve Christmas stories that deserve the Sugarplum Fairy seal of approval. Enjoy! Book cover of A Highland Christmas A Highland Christmas by M.C. Beaton Set in the tiny Scottish Highlands village of Lochdubh, the book’s protagonist, police officer Hamish Macbeth faces a quiet and dreary holiday as most of the town’s ultra-religious residents frown on Christmas merrymaking. A missing cat, a mysterious woman, and a stolen Christmas tree keep Hamish hopping as he investigates. The Macbeth series is full of charm, atmosphere, and quirky characters you’re sure to enjoy. Book cover of The Twelve Clues of Christmas 2. The Twelve Clues of Christmas: A Royal Spyness Mystery by Rhys Bowen Lady Georgiana Rannoch is 35th in line to the British throne and virtually penniless. At loose ends with her boyfriend Darcy in South America, and her actress mother keeping Christmas with Noel Coward, Georgie takes a job as a hostess at a posh holiday party. When the bodies start turning up, she endeavors to unmask a killer. This series is full of fun and details about the royal family during the Depression. There are recipes and instructions for traditional English Christmas party games at the book’s end, too! “Exceptional . . . Perry unobtrusively incorporates insights about the true meaning of the season into the engrossing plot. “— Publishers Weekly Book cover of A Christmas Return 3. A Christmas Return by Anne Perry Each year, author Anne Perry releases a Christmas novella where she features a minor character from one of her Victorian series mysteries in a story of their own. A Christmas Return is one of my favorites as cantankerous matriarch Mariah Ellison, a thorn in the side of all her relations, is called upon to play detective. She accepts an invitation from her late friend’s grandson to help solve the cold case that led to that friend's long-ago death. In the story, we discover how Mariah’s past shaped her character and see her undergo a change of heart worthy of Ebenezer Scrooge. It’s a mystery with a message: the perfect Christmas story. Book cover for Hercule Poirot’s Christmas 4. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie Written in 1938, Hercule Poirot’s Christmas is one of the earliest holiday mysteries on record. In this outing, Christie’s celebrated Belgian detective is called upon to investigate the Christmas Eve murder of tyrannical Simeon Lee. Discovering “who done it” is particularly challenging for Poirot because the victim was universally hated, and his death has made Christmas merrier for just about everyone. “If nothing else, Ms. Penny knows how to plumb the depths of people’s souls and make the reader relate.” — New York Review of Books Book cover of How the Light Gets In 5. How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny Chief Inspector Gamache lives in the picture-perfect Canadian village of Three Pines, but most of his detecting is conducted on Montréal's mean streets and in its suburbs. A bit darker than most of this list’s books, How the Light Gets In continues a plot begun earlier in the series and also tells a story unique to this book. The victim’s past is a fascinating one and is based on a true story. Book cover of Envious Casca 6. Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer Best known for her delicious Regency romances, the prolific Georgette Heyer also penned several best-selling mysteries. Envious Casca is a classic English country house mystery with a locked room murder, an inheritance at stake, a bevy of suspects with axes to grind and secrets to hide, and a delightfully snobbish butler. Inspector Hemingway arrives to untangle the perplexing mystery. “Concocting a satisfying Christmas mystery is as tricky as making a good eggnog: you want a jigger of low-proof danger to mix smoothly with a measure of sweet deliverance. Mary Higgins Clark has whipped up a portable brew. . . .” — The Wall Street Journal Book cover for All Through the Night 7. All Through the Night by Mary Higgins Clark This light-hearted suspense tale set in New York City involves a baby girl abandoned at a church just as a thief is making off with a diamond-embedded chalice. As he makes his escape, the thief sees the baby and makes off with her as well. Seven years later, cleaning woman turned amateur detective Alvirah steps in to solve the case. Book cover of The Mistletoe Murder 8. The Mistletoe Murder: And Other Stories by P.D. James This collection of stories by celebrated author P.D. James is sure to please. James regular Sgt. Adam Dalgliesh is featured in two: the first involves a reluctant murder witness, and the second delves into Dalgliesh’s family secrets. Another story is about a mystery novelist whose past comes back to haunt her. “Each of the five stories highlights English barrister Horace Rumpole’s quirky personality, his love of food and drink, and life with his formidable wife, Hilda (aka “She Who Must Be Obeyed”). But most of all, each illustrates Rumpole’s sense of justice and commitment to the law as well as his dry wit.” — Publishers Weekly Book cover of A Rumpole Christmas 9. A Rumpole Christmas by John Mortimer This collection of five holiday stories features grumpy yet warm-hearted barrister Horace Rumpole, who defends those unfortunate enough to be tried at the Old Bailey, London’s criminal court. Anxious to escape a dull holiday with She Who Must Be Obeyed (his wife), Rumpole eagerly takes on a series of cases at Christmas. Book cover of I Am Half-Sick of Shadows 10. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows: a Flavia de Luce Novel by Alan Bradley It’s Christmastime, and eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce is busy in her laboratory cooking up a surprise for old St. Nick. A movie crew arrives in town, and everyone turns out to watch the filming. Just after midnight, a body is found strangled with a length of film. As a blizzard descends, engulfing the town, Flavia draws on her considerable intellect to solve the mystery and catch the killer in their midst. “One of Andrews’ most successful balancing acts between creating a brand-new whodunit and showcasing her zany regulars.” — Kirkus Reviews Book cover of Owl be Home for Christmas 11. Owl Be Home for Christmas: a Meg Langslow Mystery by Donna Andrews Meg Langslow is a decorative blacksmith and amateur sleuth residing in Caerphilly, Virginia. Her grandfather hosts an international scientific conference on owls at a local inn in the run-up to Christmas. When a severe snowstorm prevents the conference-goers from leaving, one of the visiting ornithologists is murdered. Police Chief Burke enlists Meg’s help to catch the killer before his suspects spread out across the globe. Book cover of Christmas at the Grange 12. Christmas at the Grange by TE Kinsey This Edwardian era tale involves Lady Hardcastle and her maid Florence Armstrong. The two have an unusually democratic relationship, so when Lady Hardcastle is invited to spend Christmas with her friends Sir Hector and Lady Farley-Stroud at their country house, The Grange, Florence is also invited. Having gained a reputation as a top-notch amateur detective, the lady and her faithful retainer are called upon to help recover a valuable pearl necklace that has been stolen from one of the other guests. But theft isn’t the only mischief afoot at the Grange, and, as it usually does, the plot thickens!

https://medium.com/curious/get-cozy-with-12-of-the-best-christmas-mysteries-ffad75ad9f62

['Denise Shelton']

2020-12-27 21:10:33.481000+00:00

['Books', 'Christmas', 'Mystery', 'Who Done It', 'Reading']

People, Places, Books and Events that Hit like a Bus.

I naievely took the shot of what I thought was the Manhattan skyline on Sunday 9th September 2001. I hadn’t heard of the twin towers they were just two tall skyscrapers for me. In life there are people, places, books and events we experience that are like being hit by a bus. A plane even. Where you are stood now in life is not just a series of choices. Environment and destiny are also at work. And though you may think that you are the seeker as Rumi said “What you seek is seeking you”. In my case I’m stood in a halal abattoir where my organic livestock has just arrived and we will be doing zabiha shortly. This is the first in a series of posts looking at key influences that lead to me setting up a venture sourcing organic halal and freerange produce. The brand (to be announced) will be launched March 2022. The planes went in two days later on the Tuesday. It was 2pm I had just woken up to a load of noise outside (yes I was a late riser) a far cry from my 4am starts these last few years since working on farms and in abbatoirs. It was quite pandemic like actually. Tourists with rubble all over them having just arrived back with their lives, panic buying in the supermarket below, the army patrolling and when I looked up the sky was a ghastly thick black smog of death. I’d been living and working in between the Bronx and Harlem to catch the sights and sounds of the birthplace of hip hop. A pilgrimage of sorts. I was a big fan. Fresh out of my teens it was that age you believe you will live forever. I look back at this time and realise there were many strengths and transferable skills developed which helped me in my personal and business life thus far. I was also able to empathise with the journey my parents had took from Pakistan to the UK. The challenges of navigating in a culture that views you as an alien almost. The immigrant state of mind that kicks in for survival. But my trip was far easier than my fathers. I was a “Brit” a “Manc” from England UK. No language barrier and no climate or culture shock overall. NY was such a diverse place. You could be walking 5th Avenue and bump into all the legends. Jay Z, Pharrell, Prodigy and they were so humble in person. Kids freestyling on the street randomly and poetry open mic nights. I met a Palestinian duo called the Hammer Bros. Beards up to the waistline and a kufi was their “look”. The brothers could really control the mic. It was an all embracing city pre911 even if you were Muslim rappers nobody batted an eyelid. We became friends. Muufti was one half of the Hammer Bros he picked me up that evening and we made our way as close as we could into Manhattan. 21 blocks from ground zero had been cordoned off and you could smell jet fuel in the air. The main hospital where bodies were being taken in had all the worlds media. Muslim families were being cornered by the cameras to “explain” themselves. A lot of apologetic responses were made. We were so vulnerable as a community and it was sad seeing our elders almost bullied in front of the cameras. I was at an impressionable age and looking up to pop culture had took me to NY but I left forced to rediscover my own faith heritage and community. I had socialised with my work colleagues for months in NY before the attacks carefree. Post 911 on finding out I was Muslim there were questions like “your Muslim?” And comments like “You motherf***ers are crazy!.” 911 changed the Muslim community forever. Even if you didn’t want to be Muslim the world would remind you you were. If you didn’t practice the faith the world would remind you of what havoc those who seemingly did practice are wreaking on the news. Even if you were apolitical you had now been politicised whether you liked it or not. Every Muslim has an experience that revealed how much more visible they were to the western hemisphere post 911. All the innocent lives lost that day were truly tragic. A horrible day for humanity. In the 2 decades to come the war on terror caused casualties equivalent to 300 911’s. The last I heard in 2003 Muufti had left NY to study in Makkah. If anybody knows the Hammer Bros I’m referring to do connect us, as they say in NY “holla”. My worldview would never be the same again and over the next 15 years it set about another journey but this time within. One of self discovery and purpose that ultimately culminates so far in a venture to provide a higher standard of halal meat to the muslim community. Mohammed Kashaf Sultan Insta/twitter/Facebook @tayyibblog

https://medium.com/@kashsultan/i-naievely-took-the-shot-of-what-i-thought-was-the-manhattan-skyline-on-sunday-9th-september-2001-4bf1eb9b0f4

[]

2021-09-11 09:19:31.498000+00:00

['New York', 'Halal', '911', 'Muslim', 'Hip Hop']

The Python Standard Library — modules you should know as a data scientist

The Python Standard Library — modules you should know as a data scientist with usage examples The Python Standard Library contains a wide range of modules to deal with everyday programming and is included with the standard version of Python, meaning no additional installation is required. It provides modules for such tasks as interacting with the operating system, reading and writing CSV files, generating random numbers, and working with dates and time. This article describes 8 modules of the Python Standard Library that I am sure you will come across when programming in Python. Let’s get started! 🙌 Photo by Chris Ried on Unsplash 1. Zipfile The zipfile library provides tools to easily work with zip files. It allows you to create, read, and write zip files directly in Python, without being necessary to use an external program. Read a zip file To open a zip file in Python, we use the zipfile.ZipFile class, providing as input the file path and the opening mode. Since we want to open the file in reading mode, we provide mode=’r’. The ZipFile constructor returns a ZipFile object which we assign to the variable myzip. Then, we use the .extractall(path=None, members=None, pwd=None) method to extract all members from the zip file to the current working directory. To extract not all, but some members of the zip file, we can provide their names to the argument members. After running the code above, we can open the current directory to check that the files were correctly extracted. Alternatively, we can use the os.listdir() function (defined in the os module) to obtain a list with the entries contained in the working directory. Finally, we close the zip file using the .close() method. It is important to remember to close all files when we no longer need them to avoid running out of file handles. Since it is easy to forget to close a file when working in Python, we can use the with statement which automatically closes the zip file after the nested block of code is executed. If we want to obtain a list of members contained in the zip file without extracting them, we can use the .namelist() method as follows. Write a zip file We create and open a new zip file in Python using the zipfile.ZipFile class in writing mode mode=’w’. After creating the zip file, we call the .write() method to add a file as follows. The code above creates a new zip file (new_file.zip) in the current working directory, containing two .txt files (file_1.txt and file_2.txt).

https://towardsdatascience.com/the-python-standard-library-modules-you-should-know-as-a-data-scientist-47e1117ca6c8

['Amanda Iglesias Moreno']

2020-05-27 13:50:41.634000+00:00

['Programming', 'Python', 'Python Standard Library', 'Data Science', 'Coding']

An Honest Look At How I Failed Massively In A New Business Venture

An Honest Look At How I Failed Massively In A New Business Venture Plus, how amazing things came out of it Boredom can be a tricky area to navigate. Although, in some strange, fortunate fashion, it always seems to work out well for me. One day, in one such lazy, bored, internet browsing session, I happened to stumble across E-commerce. Me, being my usual enthusiastic self, thought why not! It’s not like I have anything else to do anyways! And so it began. My journey into establishing an International E-commerce store started just because I was bored and had nothing better to do. Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash But hold up. It wasn’t all roses just yet. I set up a cool shop with chic products, put up a nice boho theme, promoted (quite literally boasted) and was going as far to buy a domain and web hosting services. In short, shit was getting real. I was ready to get all professional about something I knew nothing about. So, zero points for guessing how it went. It did not work out. If you are bored, you watch a TV show, hang out with your friends, play games or hell, go to sleep. But you do not start a business because you have run out of things to entertain yourself. Buuut, here’s the insanely amazing unexpected goood things that came out of it. I got a paid online store for free Photo by Anete Lūsiņa on Unsplash Here’s how the story goes - While I was establishing my online store, I had to set up payments — all those things about how the customers would pay me, cards, PayPal and stuff. Now all these required having a government-approved business license which c’mon, of course, I did not have. So I chose the Cash on Delivery option just because I did not have to provide any government tax ID and stuff for that. But then it clicked. Wait, how will the cash come to me? Now, I was using external suppliers for delivery, so technically it was them who would get the ‘cash on delivery’ and why and how would they give it to me? Hmm.. Eventually, I reached out to the support team for help. Now I was new and confused af. I asked several questions and the support guy probably got annoyed. So he replied a little rudely and that kinda pissed me off. Customer support is there to help you out, and they are trained to do it in a civil polite fashion. Plus, I was already upset about how difficult the whole set up was getting. Apparently, setting up an E-commerce store is not as easy as one imagines when they are bored and looking for something fun to do. Anyways, when this dude sorta responded rudely, I ended the support chat and I got a feedback form. HEHE. You guessed it. I wrote a long angry response and decided to close the store. (because it was touughh, not because the dude was rude :P) Then I switched off my computer and went back to being a regular person who binge-watches TV shows to deal with boredom. Photo by freestocks on Unsplash After 4 hours or so of mindless binging, I got up to check my mail and WOAH! The team sent me a long apology letter and offered to pay for my store’s hosting expenses as a compensation for the earlier behaviour. SERIOUSLY? They gave me a credit voucher that took care of the shop’s expenses and I was taken aback. Now I HAD TO come back right? I mean, I had a free store that somebody else was paying for and although I had no idea what to do with it, I figured I owed it to their kindness to at least try. So, I reopened the store, tried to be a good businesswoman — I even set up the whole business license thingie whatever. Buuuut, the customers wouldn’t come. I mean how would they? They had to know about my store to come, right? So I had to find ways to promote it. Now usually, there’s social media but generating a substantial following on a promotional account isn’t gonna happen overnight. People generally avoid following these ‘ad-type’ accounts that are full of ‘buy me-buy me’ posts. I hate those. And that is exactly what I had to do now. Anyway, I tried. I set up Instagram, even learned how to open a product taggable Facebook shop, signed up for Twitter (IDK why, again, I thought why not?) But I got 3 followers and one of them was my own writing account. Hmm, this wasn’t working. The only other option was — PAID ADS. What no. I was not going to pay for those irritating ads that keep popping out of nowhere when innocent netizens are happily trying to browse the net. Hmm. What now? I tried some of the methods from ‘how to generate web traffic’ posts. But yeah, nothing worked. I was sooo frustrated by now. Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash And the thing is, I am a professional freelance writer. I have anything around 5–7 clients working with me at any given moment. Eventually, the client offers kept going up and it started becoming difficult to devote much time to an enterprise that had 0 views a day in spite of actively spending 5+ hours trying to promote it. While on the other hand, my beautiful clients were paying me loads of dollars for content writing :) This seemed better. Mainly because I AM A WRITER AT HEART. I love what I do. And it’s not entirely about money. It’s about how it makes me feel. Being a professional writer, the creative process, seeing my beautifully written content babies being displayed on major sites and publications. It’s a feeling E-commerce could never match. And no, not because writing is better than e-commerce or anything. Again, I feel so because I am a writer, not an e-commerce person. I am passionate about writing, I tried my hand at e-commerce just out of curiosity and it didn’t work out so well which was fine, because, for the hundredth time, I am a writer. Pexels This whole experience made me realise that at the core of my being, I am an artist. It inspired me to write a whole emotional rant about my undying love for art and how every one of us should honour the artist within. And every day since then, before I went to sleep, there was a certain sense of satisfaction in my heart. I felt good to finally understand what truly made me happy. I felt proud to call myself an artist — because hey, we all struggle to do that sometimes. So at the end of the day, when I look back at how this whole thing turned out, I feel a little bad that the store thing didn’t work out but I feel GREAAAT because, I said this before and I’ll say it again, and I’ll keep saying it till my last breath and beyond — I AM AN ARTIST AND NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN CHANGE THAT!

https://medium.com/indian-thoughts/an-honest-look-at-how-i-failed-massively-in-a-new-business-venture-1cf53d830bc6

['The Luna']

2020-04-21 22:31:02.371000+00:00

['Life Lessons', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business', 'Ecommerce', 'Writers On Writing']

At the Gates — Slaughter of The Soul (1995)

Ok, so we have a lot to talk about. The funny thing about At the Gates over time is that even though they were theoretically late to the party on MDM by as many as five years, their direct influence upon New Wave of American/Metalcore, especially prior to 2010, is incredibly pronounced. Basically, although Slaughter of The Soul is identified as the original melodic death metal album, and is usually categorized as the best, its sound is still totally distinct from the MDM that precedes it, and not always in ways that I prefer. While the amps and recording equipment sound basically the same as on Terminal Spirit Disease, the production is more full, with a massive, booming, dark low end that would become one of the signature elements of the Studio Fredman/Fredrik Nordstrom production, though this album is also graciously lacking any excess reverb. To get this out of the way: this isn’t the “first” melodic death metal album but it might as well be because it was the first many heard that has what I consider the essential element of the sound: whereas previous ATG albums merely had brief moments of melodicism (a feature also shown by some of the Stockholm bands, notably Dismember), 90% or more or the riffs on Slaughter are “melodic” riffs based on the natural minor scale from which most classic/traditional metal riffs are also derived. Many death metal bands had used this type of riff before, or even written whole songs in the style, but it was Slaughter that canonized focusing on those riffs as the approach. Slaughter of the Soul was 10–15 years ago the album you name-dropped on forums to get a dig in at all the supposedly derivative metalcore acts that followed in its wake (in reality most metalcore actually doesn’t sound very much like ATG despite being an acknowledged influence), and in the past decade went from being merely that to acknowledged as one of the all-time great metal records. Perhaps it is the rarified air around a reputation like that that makes me hesitant to speak on it, but it is also the fact that it represents a significant shift in what At The Gates was perceived to be. ATG’s first two records, The Red In The Sky Is Ours and With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness, were not, despite whatever you will ever hear, “Melodic Death Metal” albums. Although moments like the intro to “Windows” as well as the title track of the latter record are indeed sad and memorable in the way that would come to define their sound, these first two albums take the tuning and guitar tone of Entombed and marry it to the extreme metal tradition of a group like Celtic Frost: grim, unwelcoming, and avant-garde, and usually not particularly tuneful. The first two ATG albums are genuinely weird in a way that their material hence simply is not, and according to Tomas Lindberg that earned them some love among the few genuine extreme metal fans there were in Sweden at the beginning of the 90’s. And yet, as I mentioned when discussing Terminal Spirit Disease, I don’t think they were ever weird, unwelcoming, or avant-garde in a way that was really striking or memorable, except for the times when it was painfully funny. Perhaps it’s unfair to make a comparison like this, but whereas Slaughter is obviously one of the most influential metal albums of the past 25 years, (probably the most, in fact) I don’t see Altar of Plagues coming out to say that The Red In The Sky is Ours was a massive influence on their music. Quite frankly, the smaller sample size of post-metal and avant-garde metal compared to metalcore makes it even easier to see the general lack of impact those records have had, even after ATG was discovered by so many. Shit, even old-school death metal people don’t talk about those records. And why would you when there were so many beloved bands, Grave, Dismember, and some of them even doing a few catchy melodic riffs? All of that is to say: in a historical context At the Gates first two records are pretty forgettable, even if Burning Darkness is growing on me. Speaking on Terminal Spirit Disease and today’s subject, members of the group have referred to these records as being “focused” rather than being an alteration of their sound. To be honest, it’s hard to take that as meaning anything other than that either they or their audience had become enamored with the melodies they heard on a song like “Burning Darkness” and decided to then “focus” their sound on those ideas, which before had been used only as brief interludes or interruptions, or as in the case of “Burning Darkness”, to make that track stand out in the pack. Perhaps what I’m feeling is some sense that, instead of becoming the band that would record something like Monotheist, they became the band that would inspire countless to make records like, well, Slaughter of The Soul, and the sad truth is that in less than ten years after this record comes out at least two or three really crappy records try to recreate its magic, a magic already captured to some degree on Terminal Spirit Disease with songs that I think have aged better over time. At the Gates became way too “focused.” On Slaughter of The Soul, At the Gates gave birth to an album archetype that would come to be worshipped by the scene surrounding it to such a degree that by the year 2000, both In Flames and Dark Tranquillity became razor sharp groups focused on concise and functional songwriting and had shed much of their old-world folk and classical influences, reshaping melodic death metal into the configuration it is best known for historically. As already mentioned, a number of bands would within the decade make albums that blatantly try to ape this album’s specific Thrash-or-Die approach, and did I mention that there would be at least three of these albums recorded in Sweden alone before we ever consider the metalcore movement in the US? And since I already said it, let’s just get it out of the way, what’s wrong with thrash-or-die, weren’t you an 80’s thrash stan in high school? You bet your ass I was, but as a result of that you know what really stood out to me when I finally started getting into this MDM stuff? The dynamics. The relaxation. The lack of desire to impress me with how heavy they are. I called that article I wrote “Melodic Death Metal before Slaughter” because this album fundamentally changed the approach to the genre even for the top two bands in the genre who were doing this before At the Gates ever wised up to the idea, and while In Flames and Dark Tranquillity have both found ways to make their music more dynamic in different ways, to get where they are today they had to shed the folk and classical influences that were apparent in their sound, that gave spiritual and conceptual lyrics a powerful space to come alive in, giving them the sort of genuine sound of “spirituality” if you want to call it that, also captured in the Viking Metal records of Bathory, which is something that for me today’s folk and viking metal bands are just absolutely horrific at projecting through walls of artificial production. Slaughter in the long run didn’t even necessarily make Melodic Death Metal worse, but it made it different without necessarily making it better either, because there’s absolutely 100% a vibe that is captured on the mid and late-90’s records by Dark Tranquillity and In Flames that is virtually gone for good by the year 2001. And that does make me a little bit sad. “Blinded By Fear” opens the record in iconic fashion with one of the easiest and catchiest heavy metal riffs of all time, followed by a crushing staccato turnaround, a mild mood shift of a bridge, a simplistic and memorable guitar solo, also one of the easiest ever to play. Hearteningly, after 22 minutes of shuffle time at the same tempo on Terminal Spirit Disease, it seems the band has rediscovered how to play in 4/4. (This is a joke.) Of note as well are the lyrics that seem to describe some sort of undead creature that creates or participates in the apocalypse. The way it’s described as a creature falling from reality I get big Raziel from Soul Reaver vibes although this record predates that game by four years. Likely more memorable than the lyrics themselves is Lindberg’s energy in delivering them, but still many of these ideas begin to bore into your brain: I cast aside my chains Fall from reality Suicidal disease The face of all your fears Now covered with sores Humanity exiled Purgatory unleashed Now burn the face of the earth Then that iconic opener is over and this, of course, is where the issues start. The title track is of course the most iconic and well known. It’s also in the exact same shuffle time and tempo as all of the original material on the previous EP. That’s not a problem yet, as these are some really tasty shuffle riffs that history have proven to be iconic, but just wait. But ok, you write one song that kinda sounds like the record you did last year? Cool, fine. For a while I found the lyrics a bit strange, and I severely dislike that it took the selection from the inspiration text, Luke Rhinehart’s The Dice Man to make them make sense, but still, it does give good context. ‘Men must attempt to develop in themselves and their children liberation from the sense of self…men must be free from boundaries, patterns and consistencies in order to be free to think, feel and create in new ways’ To that end, “Slaughter of The Soul” describes an act intended to liberate one from the sense of “self” as described, while contextualized through verses that describe an exhaustion towards, theoretically, viewpoints that would oppose this one: Always the same My tired eyes have seen enough Of all your lies My hate is blind Slaughter of the soul Suicidal final art Children — born of sin Tear your soul apart To “tear your soul apart” seems to be a method to create “liberation from the sense of self.” Obviously a classic. “Cold” opens in ¾ time at a slower tempo, on one of the nastiest riffs ever actually. but then quickly shifts back up to the same tempo as the previous song. There’s a lovely clean arpeggio break before the guitar solo, both at the opening tempo, but it still returns to that same tempo as “Slaughter” and TSD. Still, an utterly gloomy and brutal verse riff carries things along. Interestingly, “Cold” has at least a few lines that carry on from the title track, whereas the title track describes the commitment to the act, “Cold” describes the act. To rid the earth of the filth To rid the earth of the lies The will to rise above Tearing my insides out I feel my soul go cold Only the dead are smiling And then the particularly well-known: 22 years of pain And I can feel it closing in The will to rise above Tearing my insides out The first minute of “Under A Serpent Sun” opens in 4/4 and in a different tempo . . . before cutting back to that same shuffle and same tempo. At this point I am trolling a little bit as it’s really the back half of the record when this gets annoying, but still. This song however might be the best on the record, as it takes that 4/4 intro riff and then recontextualizes it into the brutal meat-grinder shuffle, giving a clever key modulation between the post-chorus and the verse, making the, once again, gloomy, apocalyptic verse riff feel all the more heavy every time we get slapped with it. The solo is particularly gorgeous with the guitars laying down simple, buzzing, nasty notes that just happen to be the right notes to make the harmonized solo on top feel oh so tragic, and then the song cuts into this sweet spooky guitar interlude. I’d love to conclusively say what the song is about but I’m gonna give you my best shot: it’s a vaguely satanic thing? In the bible of course the snake represents Satan, and this song seems to describe some sort of satanic uh . . . “cleansing” I think is the most politically appropriate thing to call this. Let’s give the lyrics their space: Web of corruption thick with deceit The language of destruction, the slaughter of the meek Under a serpent sun — we shall all live as one No rest for the wicked, the children of god The final retribution, the final curtain torn Within us — the flames of the end Survival of the fittest, the hunt for the sacred game You can see the projected vibes of Satan’s Serpent Warriors razing and pillaging though yeah? Or am I off my ass on this one? Still, I enjoy the amount of relative continuity here. “Into The Dead Sky” finally comes in and offers respite from the repetitive tendencies with some calmer gloominess. It is utterly lovely, an instrumental whose aesthetic matches its imagery, sharp clean guitar tones creating a melodic and harmonic basis for the track to develop. It’s nice that in the 90’s these sorts of interludes stopped being guitar-focused showoff spots. The drums affected with the phaser effect are a particularly nice touch. The song has no vocals but in the lyric book they drop a quote from the 13th Floor Elevators endorsing the use of psychedelics, so I guess the idea is the song is taking you on a trip to the dead sky. (I hear if you eat a mushroom, put on Iron Maiden’s video for “Flight of Icarus”, mute the video, and put on this track, and everything’ll line up perfectly.) Then “Suicide Nation” comes in at . . . the exact same time signature and tempo. Granted the feel has changed since this time they come in with a slightly more DnR/blues-rock riff, which is actually a nice touch at this point, but it isn’t long before that minor scale comes back, which wouldn’t bother me as much if it wasn’t the same time signature and tempo. Metallica are not this bad about this! Doesn’t help that this is the most lyrically redundant track so far. Pulling from the William S. Burroughs quote (yes, I know) “The face of evil is always the face of total need,” the lyrics seem to convey some extremely basic concepts about how society drives our idea of “need,” but there’s absolutely zero material or revolutionary insight here to go with the lack of good imagery so this is the first track that’s basically getting a “fuck off” from me. This is when it gets funny. “World of Lies” (which opens on a riff that’s so bad it’s funny, so funny it’s bad, whatever, it makes me laugh every time) is actually in 4/4, but after the song speeds up, the tempo is exactly the same as the shuffle they’ve been using, so it’s the same bouncing drum beat just organized differently. And then they just go and use the shuffle time anyway. It’s a different feel, kinda, but we’re still ⅔ of the way through this album and the vast majority of it has been in the same tempo and time signature. You’ve probably heard the album, so I didn’t even mention bothering that also these songs are all in the same key so far except for the interlude. The homogeneity here is, in retrospect? Stunning. Utterly stunning. Pulling once again from The Dice Man the song is also repetitive in its covering of themes that have now been hammered for two straight tracks previously: evil society. Despite actually introducing a different time signature between goofy riffs and redundant lyrics, this might be the worst track on the album. I was annoyed by “Suicide Nation” but this song is like one of the more caveman-type songs from their first two records. By the time “Unto Others” rolls around I hope you’ll not be shocked to learn that hey, guess what? Same tempo, same time signature, same key. Different scales though, more diminished. At this point a welcome variation, but the weird direction that the riff travels in makes it a rhythmically awkward verse for Lindberg to rip over. Thankfully though we finally get a new song topic, and we benefit greatly for it: after spending the beginning of the album establishing an iconoclastic mood, and a hatred for society, Lindberg is finally able to get specific. I could quote the whole song but we get a great thesis statement for an opening: You hold high the banner of self-deceit Encaged in the dogmas of life, you join the elite Not to mention, right when the record needed it, like mana from Nietzsche I was gifted the riff that drops at 1:30 with this horrifically beautiful voicing of Gm9 that, especially back when I would just vibe on this whole record, this riff would just get me going wanting to destroy, right before another climactic solo that drops out intis acoustic breakdown with Lindberg screaming over it and then another amazing riff at 2:08 to bring it all back home. This track starts off a bit unconvincing but ends up being one of the record’s best. “Nausea” opens on the most different note of the record so far and actually opens with a straightforward thrash metal riff in 4/4 and E minor (exact same tempo as “World of Lies”, still), but when it’s time for a key change back to B minor, the shuffle is re-introduced. That being said, this is yet another pretty fucking iconic track between the riffs and lyrics. “Nausea” pulls a quote from Bukowski like many others demonstrating the failure of the nuclear family unit, but in the structure of the record it avoids feeling the same as some of the earlier “Society Bad” songs as it feels like there’s another perspective coming to terms with the disgusting world they’re now beginning to perceive: Release me from your world of lies I cannot bear this pain Degenerate machinery The monsters we create The monsters we create Nausea, oh sweet nausea The thrash riff that opened the song carries the verses, meaning the gloomy minor riff gets to come back in for the chorus and here we get another standout riffs with the two guitars counterpointing each other: one laying down a single chord note while the other dances around it in arpeggiation as Lindberg rips through the chorus. Other than that the song has the most weaksauce guitar solo on the album but in fairness, this band is not known for their guitar solos, they don’t have to be, and whatever, drop a bad guitar solo if you want to, it’s your record. “Need” uses the same tempo that every other 4/4 riff or song has used on this album, but I’ll spare it, as it has some herky-jerky tempo shifting and angular off-time riff endings to be spared not to mention its opening riff is just another classic headbanger, followed by another, and then the last shuffling chorus of the record, which by now has already become a cliche by repetition. Its ending on dark synth tones that I think the kids these days call “dungeon synth” make for a great transition to the ending, something that encapsulates all the great (and lame) riffs on the record into something that goes into a cold night as it fades out. Unfortunately as a lyrical ending it’s not very empowering for a record that leaves one wanting to level buildings. Its suicidal imagery is not cheesy or cringey, but it does seem like a missed opportunity on this record that quotes all this edgy shit not to drop Nietzsche or Sartre at the end and tell people about the will to power. Perhaps this is the purpose of the quote attached to the ending instrumental, “The Flames of The End.” Humanity — the living end, a walking disease Beyond good and evil, the flesh that never rests The flames of the end inside us rest “The Flames of The End”, finally, is of course something totally different, a song originally intended to be the theme for a low-budget horror film that makes a fine denouement for a ridiculously fast half-hour of music. It also comes as, in my opinion, a deeply needed palette cleanse, giving an intense thrash-paced album a reflective and almost-introspective ending. The sad part especially is that with all the ridiculous “gun and fire” aesthetics, the use of the color red, plus the album’s general discontent with the modern state of affairs, there should be a revolutionary consciousness here and there isn’t. “Austin, that seems kind of arbitrary.” Well here’s the thing: on a good day when the repetitive nature of the album becomes something closer to a black metal flow, you can get sucked into the album’s ceaseless fuel tank of energy, but then lyrically the album doesn’t really give you anywhere to go with that, anywhere to put that energy. “The Flames of The End” could very well be a new beginning if this album knew where to put its intellectual curiosities. Especially disappointing given the early album theme that the “Slaughter of the Soul” is the destruction of the self. What is the self being replaced with? Have you broken up with self-serving despair so that community anger can become your new best friend? Maybe the whole “unity” vibe hadn’t hit the hardcore scene yet. At this point in history In Flames and Dark Tranquillity both have some pretty big stoner vibes, they like abstract and fantasy imagery as a way of communicating mood. At the Gates here is at least attempting to talk about some “real” shit by contrast, but the inability to coalesce their anger into something that feels empowering is a massive failure, something this genre continues to be bad at, and given that Tomas Lindberg is probably the most vocally well-read person in the Gothenburg metal scene that’s something I’m going to hold his feet to the fire about. Terminal Spirit Disease benefits greatly from being even shorter than a full-length album in terms of original material because, much like this record, there’s a lot of homogeneity between the songs. The difference is ultimately about 12 minutes. In the interest of being positive, because I did at some point really love this record: every single song on Slaughter of The Soul has an all-time classic riff, at least one. A particular favorite of mine is this weird arpeggio turnaround they show off starting at 1:30 on “Unto Others”, a slightly weird and really beautiful riff, but there’s nothing stopping that riff from being on “Slaughter of the Soul” itself. You could’ve easily compiled this record in the fashion that St. Anger was by recording riffs into pro-tools and editing them appropriately. Obviously making-of docs have shown that that wasn’t the case and that the robotically perfect performances were the results of rigorous retakes. The riffs, the playing, the production, all of that plus the gloriously brief 34-minute runtime make this a great record, and it’s also the lack of weirdness compared to those other two that probably made it speak so clearly to those who heard it. However, I also suspect in part that the reputation of this record grew since At the Gates broke up before ever “selling out” like In Flames and Dark Tranquillity supposedly did, two groups who have now lost a significant amount of credit they deserve to regain with interest. What’s worse is that by making an album so stuck in one gear, it created a wave of albums that worship specifically at the altar of this one, because this is the more “extreme” or “death metal” way to do it, which homogenized the sound in the long run. Maybe for fans of death metal that is the proper thing to do, to only play fast, always, but even the black metal bands that pioneered blast beats knew when to lay down a chunky, yes, midtempo downpicking riff. Bathory’s Requiem is a half-hour of technical thrash mostly at the same tempo and key signature, but there are at least three tracks that represent enough of a shift for things not to become tiring and repetitive. I really can’t emphasize this enough, virtually every song on this record is the same key, same tempo, same time signature. Credit where it’s due: almost every single track on the record is a killer, but frankly I think it says bad things about heavy metal on the whole when the record most celebrated among the three classic MDM albums that dropped between 95 and 96 is the one that is least dynamic and therefore least offensive to metal sensibilities. Conclusion: Slaughter of The Soul is a stone-cold all-time classic but a lot more in the realm of an. . . and Justice for All “stone withered by time” sense where everything you remember is great and everything you may not remember is a very mixed bag. While it may have been previously viewed as perfect it could never be that to me with such a limited compositional vision. This is absolutely not the best melodic death metal record by the stretch of my imagination. It veers wildly between being one of the most cutting-edge records of the 90’s and then at times an already-stale version of itself. It is sandwiched between better albums by better bands, and even as the style grew, changed, and ultimately became stale itself in different ways, the consistency of tempo and timbre on this record aged it in a different fashion. A lot of people probably like the relentless Slayer-ness of it, and I just doooooon’t. All this being said if you’ve never heard it it could be life-changing, and I do not take back that the album is still one of the all-timers that you have to hear.

https://medium.com/@durantep/at-the-gates-slaughter-of-the-soul-1995-e9d517525621

['Durante Pierpaoli']

2020-05-20 04:57:29.151000+00:00

['Melodic Death Metal', 'Album Review', 'Slaughter Of The Soul', 'At The Gates']

What digging an outhouse pit taught a teen — and lessons that stay with me today.

What digging an outhouse pit taught a teen — and lessons that stay with me today. Photo Sourced via Canva I was 6-feet deep in an outhouse pit. (You read that right.) Swinging shovels of dirt. I was not a happy teen. My parents relocated us from Boston. We’d exchanged an inground pool for a trout stream. Modern bathrooms for… Well, I was digging that. Home was now on the Canadian border, 14 miles up a logging road. No electricity. No running water. I was soft, spoiled — suburban style. Trashcan duty was a struggle. Lots of teenage eye-rolling. Embarrassing stuff, even to type today. Dad assigned me the pit. He wanted it to be a face smack. It worked. Lotta dirt moved for a 2-seater. A big pit. Rocky terrain. Pickaxe. Shovel. Long sulky breaks. Sweat dripping. Blisters. After 2 hard digging days, it was done. We dragged the structure over the pit. Then I tried it out. I stood taller. I was tasked to “maintain” it, summer and winter. (Let’s not get into all those details.) Hauling wood and water were added. The family used it all through 2 winters before returning to the burbs. Over time I became quietly proud of that pit. (I guess I still am.) The lessons of grit and service stay with me. In subsequent years, I’ve dug other pits, in other contexts — whether with a shovel or keyboard. Now I ask you: What outhouse pits shaped you? What dirty jobs can begin shaping your kids?

https://medium.com/thinker-thursdays/what-digging-an-outhouse-pit-taught-a-teen-and-lessons-that-stay-with-me-today-b61bd35f762c

['Devin D. Marks']

2021-01-28 11:47:49.379000+00:00

['Self-awareness', 'Self Improvement', 'Parenting', 'Family', 'Fatherhood']

Die Hard

Die Hard …Because it is a Holiday Movie regardless of what anyone says.. hands down. lol Still a classic. lol

https://medium.com/@voicing-freedom/die-hard-a1acffaf3f97

['Voicing Freedom']

2020-12-24 23:52:58.996000+00:00

['Die Hard', 'Cinema', 'Christmas', 'Holidays', 'Christmas Eve']

Parasite (2019)

“Dignity. Always dignity,” proclaims Gene Kelly’s Don Lockwood as Singing in the Rain opens. As I watched Bong Joon-Ho’s latest, Parasite, I imagined Song Kan-ho’s Kim ki-Taek as a subtler Lockwood. By nature, Kim is a dignified patriarch, but in reality, he drew the shorter lot. His palace is a semi-basement, his feasts feature chips and soda, his court jesters are the neighborhood drunkards that piss too close to the window. Whenever Kim senses the incongruities between what he feels he ought to be and what he is, he rarely lashes out — he sits, cross-legged, closing his eyes monk-like, maybe he’s counting to ten. Eventually, Kim and his family rise above their station, but they cannot escape the sticky essence, the (literal) stench of their true home — a bad smell is the biggest threat to Kim’s Lockwoodian facade. Parasite presents a pretty simple microcosm of complex truths. Its plot plays like a parable: simple and even farcical, yet insightful and satisfying. Dense with shrewd wit, the movie chuckles at the absurdity of human effort in its deterministic worldview — we are born into our station, we didn’t choose it, and we can never escape it; try to plan an escape from your destiny and the film meets you with nonsensical laughter. For the Kims — who successfully infiltrate and occupy the lavish Park residence as domestic workers and tutors — possession equals ownership. That’s how the world ought to be right? The stronger, smarter conquering the naive? That doesn’t feel right, not even to the strange ethics of this film. This is why the movie actually begins when the Park’s are at their happiest: drunk, gleeful, enjoying the spoils of performance until the doorbell rings. What follows would be a great double feature paired with Jordan Peele’s Us. Both films tussle with the complications of class — the absurdity and delicacy of the constructed categories “rich” and “poor,” and how far we’re willing to go, how low we’re willing to stoop, to move into the former just because the sun seems to shine brighter there.

https://medium.com/@isauggetti/parasite-2019-67db82a2f679

['Isa Uggetti']

2019-11-15 08:20:57.866000+00:00

['Movies', 'Film Review', 'Film', 'Parasite']

I Learned the Hard Way That a ‘Breakthrough’ Treatment Isn’t Innocuous

I Learned the Hard Way That a ‘Breakthrough’ Treatment Isn’t Innocuous The FDA’s emergency authorization of plasma treatments for COVID-19 prioritizes politics over science Photo: skaman306/Moment/Getty Images By Craig Spencer In 2014, I spent 19 days being treated for Ebola in a New York City hospital. I had contracted the virus while treating patients in Guinea, and as no definitive treatments existed at the time, I received convalescent plasma based on its historically therapeutic role. After receiving plasma, however, I struggled to breathe, and my condition deteriorated. Thankfully I recovered, but my story shows that convalescent plasma isn’t innocuous. That experience, combined with my time as a physician fighting the coronavirus, leads me to find the FDA’s emergency authorization for plasma as a treatment for COVID-19 deeply alarming. The Trump administration’s declaration that convalescent plasma is a “major therapeutic breakthrough” marks this as just another example of politics getting ahead of science. Convalescent plasma may indeed have a beneficial role in treating COVID-19, but only further testing can determine whether it will work effectively for this disease. The FDA’s emergency authorization, however, may make that harder to do, and undermine the credibility of our public-health institutions in the process. Developed more than a century ago, convalescent plasma — the transfusion of antibody-rich plasma from disease survivors into others suffering with the same disease — was one of medicine’s first real therapeutic breakthroughs. It dramatically improved treatment of diphtheria, measles, and other infectious illnesses. Though side effects, such as allergic reactions or the transfer of other blood-borne pathogens, do exist, they are relatively rare. That’s one reason convalescent plasma is often used to treat infectious diseases without cures, such as Ebola. Further testing in the Ebola outbreak, however, showed that transfusing plasma was not beneficial to patients. Although my case was an outlier and no adverse reactions were associated with its wider use, treatment with convalescent plasma did not significantly improve patients’ chances of survival. After my recovery, I donated plasma as part of an FDA-approved investigation, and then returned to Guinea to work with an organization that was conducting trials in hopes of finding a cure for Ebola. The results of the trials weren’t what we wanted, but they’re what the science told us. This is why basing our treatment decisions on sound data, not political persuasion, is so important. Sadly, Sunday’s decision to authorize the use of convalescent plasma for COVID-19 only continues the Trump’s administration’s gross politicization of potential treatments in this pandemic when lives are at stake. In April, the FDA granted the emergency authorization of the antimalarial hydroxychloroquine — a drug often touted by President Donald Trump — despite the absence of convincing evidence that it could effectively treat the disease. Indeed, in June, the FDA revoked its authorization, declaring that it was “unlikely to be effective.” By then, however, the drug had become a partisan flash point, and the FDA’s rushed action raised serious concerns about whether the agency was subject to political pressure in its decision making. The reversal brought the ire of Trump, who questioned the FDA’s decision and urged the agency to “act now,” ostensibly to reauthorize the use of hydroxychloroquine. Just last week, Trump tweeted that the “deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA” is “hoping to delay” treatment decisions until after the election. The FDA had halted the emergency authorization for convalescent plasma after top federal health officials, including Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, intervened. These officials rightly argued that the data supporting the transfusion of plasma were not robust enough to warrant emergency approval. But when the FDA reversed course Sunday, deeming the authorization “another achievement in [the] administration’s fight against [the] pandemic,” it became clear that public health is taking a back seat to politics, especially in the face of an upcoming election. To add insult to injury, the Trump administration presented a twisted and rosy representation of the statistics from a recent non-peer-reviewed Mayo Clinic study to justify its decision. This study didn’t have a control group and wasn’t randomized — the gold standards for careful, credible research. Further, when FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn boasted that 35 out of 100 people infected with COVID-19 “would have been saved because of the administration of plasma,” he either didn’t understand the data or purposefully misrepresented them to overemphasize the observed impact. Scientists and statisticians quickly pointed out the mistruth on social media. The bewildered authors of the Mayo Clinic study themselves struggled to explain where this claim originated, as the true impact based on even their imperfect study would be substantially lower. At one point, a former FDA commissioner suggested that Hahn should issue a correction. And late on Monday night, he did, admitting, “What I should have said better is that the data show a relative risk reduction not an absolute risk reduction.” This confusing back-and-forth undermines ongoing trials to test whether convalescent plasma is indeed an effective treatment for COVID-19. Conducting these trials has already presented challenges, but not because convalescent plasma hasn’t been widely used to treat COVID-19. More than 100,000 people nationwide have already received it. The problem is that the majority of those received it through an expanded-access program, which was not part of a formal research study. By further expanding the use of convalescent plasma outside of clinical trials, the FDA’s action will paradoxically complicate the process of recruiting patients for those crucial studies, ultimately making it harder to understand for whom and at what point in their illness convalescent plasma may have a benefit. Many scientists and health-care providers, myself included, suspect that once we have more data, convalescent plasma will ultimately prove somewhat beneficial. It will be another tool in our treatment toolkit, but is unlikely to be a “major therapeutic breakthrough” in how we treat COVID-19. Though the existing data may indeed justify the legal standard of the FDA’s emergency authorization, by rushing its approval, this administration has again shown that political priorities take precedence over public-health prerogatives and undermined scientific research. This will have a huge impact on the credibility of our long-trusted medical and public-health organizations such as the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If people feel that the decisions around science or safety are being rushed for political points, the rollout of a vaccine could be undermined. COVID-19 is not Ebola. But the science of research during disease outbreaks and the standards for approving treatments backed by science alone do not change with the virus in question. If Trump is truly committed to finding the right therapeutics for COVID-19, he needs to back off and let scientists and the agencies traditionally entrusted with this responsibility do their job, unimpeded by political posturing.

https://medium.com/the-atlantic/i-received-convalescent-plasma-for-ebola-it-didnt-work-8afe53437bb4

['The Atlantic']

2020-08-27 19:53:24.537000+00:00

['Health', 'Plasma', 'Coronavirus', 'Politics', 'Covid 19']

The Japanese giant SoftBank will invest in the Mexican platform Kavak

The strong investments of the Japanese bank focused on technology center in Mexico. The rumor was confirmed: SoftBank will invest in the Kavak used car platform. About Softbank SoftBank is an empire of artificial intelligence companies, Internet businesses and new transport companies. Softbank will allocate more than US $ 5,000 million in different startups in Latin America. One is Kavak, the Mexican company dedicated to the sale of used cars. The car market… is it rentable? The car market is one of the weaknesses of SoftBank, the bank that founded and leads the Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son. For example, in May 2018, SoftBank injected US $ 2.250 million into the General Motors autonomous vehicle unit, Cruise. It was only a few months after he used US $ 9,000 million to acquire a 15% stake in Uber and after he bought a part of China’s leading travel firm, Didi Chuxing. In October of that year, he allied with the automaker Toyota to announce the creation of a joint venture that develops autonomous driving technologies and shared transport services. together, they formed Monet Technologies. But Latin America is a market that reveals Son and all signs indicate that it will be a key destination for its investments. This Monday, it was known that it will invest part of a US $ 5,000 million fund reserved for Latin America in Kavak, the Mexican used car platform. “We are proud to join and invest in Kavak Mexico”, Marcelo Claure, investment supervisor at SoftBank Group Corp in Latin America, posted on LinkedIn. The announcement was a rumor circulating in business asses and comes two months after Reuters reported that SoftBank was in very advanced conversations to invest in the startup. A second investment Kavak is SoftBank’s second investment in Mexico, after the Japanese conglomerate specially focused on technology invested in the Clip payment firm. They are presiding over a huge empire of artificial intelligence companies, Internet businesses and new transport companies that can collect large amounts of data on traffic patterns, passenger requests and other transport trends. SoftBank is a true international “octopus” in terms of investments At the beginning of 2018, in association with the government of Saudi Arabia, signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a solar park that will cost US $ 200,000 million and is exponentially larger than any other project of this type. In Latin America, the bank also led a financing round of approximately US $ 17.6 million in the Brazilian used car platform Volanty, where the Kaszek Ventures fund in Argentina, which is also an investor in Kavak, also participated. SoftBank also injected US $ 1.5 billion into the Chehaoduo Group in China, which has a leading used car site.

https://medium.com/@aleb/the-japanese-giant-softbank-will-invest-in-the-mexican-platform-kavak-c6c9627b44a9

['Alejandro Brega']

2019-10-28 01:28:39.450000+00:00

['Kavak', 'Mexico', 'Softbank', 'Startups', 'Japanese']

Things to Know about Corporate Style before Ordering It

Things to Know about Corporate Style before Ordering It A logo is an important and necessary thing. Almost every business have one. Even shops on Instagram with only a few thousand followers identify themselves with a particular graphic design. Then there is the need to unify posts, pack the goods in something, and manage paperwork. If you are not familiar enough with the idea of a logo, then let’s clarify the elements they comprised of and why they are needed. Brand Block Scientists refer to logos as brand blocks. “Logo” comes from the Greek root “logos,” which means “word.” That is why the company name is in the logo. Sometimes, it’s enough to have your company name written in the corporate colors and fonts. Logos generally include not only the company name but also the company trademark. They can be any image, figure, or colorful spot associated with the brand. The red target is a graphic sign, and the black word is the logo. The combination is the brand block. Sometimes, a brand block includes one more component: a motto. Intended for Life A motto is usually followed by a logo or a graphic sign, or it can be omitted from the brand block with everything intact. Therefore, a brand block (generally referred to as a logo) is an image + a name, a name + a motto, or an image +a name +a motto. It’s the main and integral component of your corporate style. Fonts Practically every company has a corporate font, and the name in the logo is written in a definite typeface. If the company intends to add a motto, it is usually i written in another font complementary to the first one. The further the business develops, the more intensive the typography work. Brands that have social media accounts or a website need two fonts to separate headlines from the main text. The difference between the fonts helps readers quickly navigate through the web page. You can make different fonts by using a single typeface and setting it in bold, regular, or italic formatting. Another option is to combine a few typefaces — it is is almost inevitable for large companies. Usually, one type of font is required for social media, another for the website, and one more for packaging. Corporate Colors Corporate colors are present in most cases but not always. Take a look at the corporate style of Melbourne (yes, the city one): The sign shape is steady, while the colors verify significantly. This technique is used when a multifunctional corporate style is necessary — for example, when it’s hard to get by with a few colors to decorate all city authorities. In most cases, there is one defined corporate color but sometimes even two, three, or four. A single corporate color is usually of medium intensity so that it can be used on both black and white backgrounds. If there are a few colors, they are generally different in tone to make logo inversions: Color is a powerful psychological weapon. Colorful spots catch customers’ attention more easily than a word or an image. However, the more colors a corporate style has, the more complicated their combination principles become. Thus, most logos are limited to two or three colors. Patterns and Textures Not every company logo has patterns and textures. Sometimes, additional graphics are required for the design of places, packaging, advertising banners, and other information carriers. Seamless patterns and textures are more popular because they are simple to use in any format and any size. Patterns consist of a few repeating elements. Textures are photorealistic images that can be used as a background. Carrier Design Corporate style carriers are merch, websites, application interfaces, social media posts, goods packaging, business cards, flyers, facility walls, and employee uniforms. All company attributes carry the corporate style one way or another. Additional graphic elements, modular grid, layouts for printing on paper or website pages: all of these compose carrier design. Sometimes, product branding is limited to logo placement only, but many carriers require an individual design based on their shape, size, and purpose. Final Thoughts Corporate style is how the company presents itself to the outside world. It can be limited to a logo with a corporate font and color or can include patterns, textures, and different product designs. Visual images help quickly identify and remember the brand, and they create a definite attitude not only for clients but for employees and company partners, as well. Need to develop a corporate style from the scratch or do a rebranding? See our portfolio and schedule a call.

https://medium.com/ninjapromoio/things-to-know-about-corporate-style-before-ordering-it-658b6536828b

['Ninjapromo', 'Let S Grow Your Business Together']

2020-05-05 15:49:24.552000+00:00

['Logo Design', 'Content Marketing', 'Corporate Culture', 'Brand Identity', 'Visual Design']

At Polar Velocity: Doug Stoup | GP Interview #20

Arctic Ocean, March 2005, skiing from Siberia to the geographic north pole. GP: You live in Tahoe City, in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. What are some of your favorite spots in the Sierras? What’s so special about this mountain range? DS: The reason I moved to Tahoe is because of the Sierra Nevadas. The biggest alpine valley in the world lies on the east side of these majestic mountains. They call the Sierra Nevadas the High Sierras, because they contain the highest peak in the lower 48 states. Mt. Whitney towers at 14,505 ft and is surrounded to the north by endless high altitude delights. The entire range has amazing rock walls, deep canyons and raging waterfalls. Yosemite sits in the middle of the range and I think is one of the seven wonders of the world. The main reason for moving to the area is that an adventurer like myself can usually find skiing 10 month out of the year and seldom do you run into another human. It offers amazing wildlife, turquoise blue lakes and giant sequoia trees. I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Skiing the Antarctic Peninsula Nov. 2017 photo: Stein Retzlaff GP: What kicked off your initial interest in traveling to the earth’s poles? DS: As a youth, I read all the books of the turn of the century explorers and was always fascinated with their stories. In 1999, I was successful in skiing and snowboarding down the highest peak in Antarctica, the Vinson Massif at 16,077ft. I fell in love with Antarctica. Two months later I chartered a Russian research vessel and travelled to the Antarctic peninsula where I pioneered skiing its mountains. My thirst has never subsided! Six months later, I found myself leading a blind man to the geographic south pole, 62 days, 787 miles on skis. I have since been to Antarctica 49 times. Including 18 trips to the South Pole. In 2003 I had my first experience on the Arctic Ocean. I skied from Siberia to the north pole in 2005 and placed weather/location beacons to help climate scientists find out more about the Arctic Ocean. Since then I have led 17 North Pole trips. It has been an honor to discover Antarctica and the Arctic Ocean but what I am most proud of is the funds and awareness that I have raised throughout my expeditions to help out mankind! Doug Stoup, Marc Cornielson, Petter Nyquist at the North Pole with location beacon that Doug designed to help climate scientists find out more about ice movement on the Arctic Ocean, April 2005. GP: How has Ice Axe Expeditions changed given all of the travel restrictions? DS: I have done some online courses and have a few more domestic ski hut trips in the west scheduled. I am hoping that restrictions will be lifted before spring. This pandemic has really affected my business. We will get through this though. December, 2000, Doug’s first south pole crossing. Doug became the first American man to ski from the coast of Antarctica to the Geographic South Pole. GP: Would you mind telling us a little more about how you weave purpose into your expeditions? How do you tether together adventure and addressing climate change? DS: I have been skiing to the poles for 20 years at this point. I needed to have more of a purpose in doing these trips for me to continue. I want our efforts to make a difference in the world, but I also want us to push the limits of human endurance, to show what’s possible if someone has true determination. In 2000, we took a blind man to the south pole. Since then, I’ve led several other handicapped adventurers (spinal cord injury) from the coast to the south pole. These trips were very fulfilling. At this point, we’ve raised over 20 million dollars for various charities. We now make it a priority for me to lead these people to the poles. I’ve also been involved with climate change as a data collector in some of these remote places and have successfully placed instrumentation to collect data for climate change scientists. Aron Anderson, a paraplegic sit-skier, at the geographic south pole. They skied about 500 miles in 24 days from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole unsupported. They also raised over 1 million Euros for childhood cancer. GP: How is your mentoring of younger people going now? Are you passing the baton to anyone in particular? You easing off the throttle yourself? DS: I have been mentoring younger generations for 6 or 7 years now. Several of these individuals I hand picked for their enormous potential, after they expressed an interest in being mentored. I’ve always said ”expeditions with purpose,” and that’s what we do. Four of these adventurers have started a Non-Profit called Do Good Shit. It’s a 501c3 that builds sustainable toilets in remote places around the world (Mt. Everest, The Torres Del Paine region in Chile and Argentina, and even on Donner Summit in California). One of the individuals has been guiding for me and will be leading his first North Pole trip next April. So yes, I really enjoy the mentorship process and we’ve been seeing great results. GP: What’s next for you? A move to Oregon? What are some of the other stunning places you might spend time? Are you considering a long sail somewhere? DS: Covid has been a time of introspection, a time to consider a potential pivot. All of my expeditions so far have involved international travel. This is not happening right now. So I’m planning some more ski hut trips in the Rockies and the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho. I’m also considering making a move to Oregon. California has been on fire every year and all indications are that this is going to get worse. I like the coast of Oregon. The mountains are not that far either. I spent several weeks in Oregon this summer and really enjoyed it. I am also considering purchasing an expedition sailboat. This would be an aluminum hull craft, one that can travel to the polar regions or equator. This has always been a dream of mine. We’ll see.

https://medium.com/good-people-dinners/at-polar-velocity-doug-stoup-gp-interview-20-d2f00a492ba

['Raman Frey']

2020-09-03 02:23:56.931000+00:00

['Interview', 'Explorer', 'Climate Change', 'Adventure', 'Environment']

Some People Just Suck — and It’s Not Your Fault

Some People Just Suck — and It’s Not Your Fault Someone else’s baggage is not your baggage. Photo by Velvet Morris on Unsplash I like to agonize over things that I can’t change. Okay, I wouldn’t say that I like it necessarily — but that doesn’t stop me from obsessing over things that are out of my control anyway. I also “like” to mull over my past actions and mistakes, retracing my errors and missteps with laser precision, thinking about all the things I could have done differently, or where I went wrong. It’s this kind of mind-trench that eventually drove me to starting therapy — and it really helped dig me out of my self-inflicted woes. Not everything is your fault “Not everything is your fault,” my therapist said to me, after listening to another one of my tearful monologues peppered with self-loathing. Her words surprised me, like a blow to the head. I stopped in my tracks. What an interesting concept. I had been telling her about a breakup that broke me in two. I agonized over every detail, over every word that was said between me and my ex. I punished myself endlessly for “screwing up” and being too open about my feelings to my ex, ultimately driving them away and ruining the relationship. Or that’s how my twisted, emotionally clouded mind saw it. My therapist opened my eyes to the fact that while I may have erred in certain things, the whole entire breakup did not rest on my shoulders. I was not entirely to blame. It takes two people to break up. It was this particular breakup that taught me that some people just suck, and it’s not my fault that they suck. Some people just suck Another more recent breakup reminded me of this — that some people just suck. I dated someone who was thoughtless and self-centered, but in such a nuanced way that it took me a while to notice. His ego manifested itself in the way where he’d withhold affection or divvy it out carefully just to keep me interested, communicate infrequently, and just generally ignore my feelings. Several of my close friends were not fans of the way he treated me, and they made their objections known, but I chose to ignore their warnings. The final straw was when I went out of my way to visit him for a weekend — a journey of several hours — and it seemed like the whole time, he didn’t even want me there. That was finally enough for me to wipe the grime off of my rose colored lenses and see the truth of who he really was.

https://medium.com/moments-matter/some-people-just-suck-and-its-not-your-fault-1a62d5a8a9b8

['Megan Boley']

2020-07-27 12:01:01.123000+00:00

['Relationships', 'Life', 'Mental Health', 'Self', 'Psychology']

A transition from Chief Growth Officer to Advisor at First Media and the beginning of a new adventure

Today marks a big moment of change in my life and the start of something very exciting. I had the privilege of joining BabyFirst (now First Media) in 2014. It was the opportunity that moved me from a life in Israel to a brand new adventure, and it was the easiest and best decision of my professional life. I have had the pleasure of working with an amazing group of people and for two incredible founders, Sharon and Guy. As an unstoppable team, these two individuals have created something really special, and I have been proud to help them bring their vision to fruition. They provided me with the infrastructure to do almost anything, and I thank them greatly for that. In my time with them, First Media has now become a powerhouse in both linear and digital content and distribution for the Millennial and Gen Z generations So, what’s next? The time has come to build again! While First Media will stay very close to my heart, I am joining an incredibly exciting company that I think will change the way we shop — Flip Fit. Though I remain within the operation of First Media as an advisor, the majority of my time will be focusing on a company where I truly believe I can apply the compounded learnings and knowledge I take with me. During my time at First Media I mastered the art of virality; setting milestones in digital content with tens of billions of views, the highest V30’s (organic views per post) time after time on the internet’s biggest social networks, and the most effective, shoppable content for some of the biggest brands out there. Spending six years cracking the algorithmic code on the world’s biggest social platforms has lead me to understand what makes people share, comment and relate and what can make video content the most engaging and thereby the most shoppable in the digital landscape. Now, I believe I have found the place that can apply what I take with me. It is the first ever vertically integrated platform where social meets commerce — Flip Fit. The innovative content format that Flip is driving, has layers of integration and data that blur the line between the digital experience and the physical world. This platform brings a new level of personalization to what you see on screen, and ultimately what shows up at your door. Flip Fit is not only a company I find extremely exciting, it is an experience that has me wanting to dive in, explore and learn. In addition, I am excited to join Nooruldeen Agha in this venture. As his personal advisor over the last year, I have found him to be the hardest working product visionary I have encountered. This forward-thinking entrepreneur will not let go at any cost and is mission driven beyond belief. Here we go!

https://medium.com/@yuvalrechter/a-transition-from-chief-growth-officer-to-advisor-at-first-media-and-the-beginning-of-a-new-3156d71b7de5

['Yuval Rechter']

2020-12-11 06:16:15.970000+00:00

['Content Strategy', 'New Beginnings', 'Flip Fit', '2021']

Five things we learned from Brazil’s winning Copa América start

Brazil beat Bolivia in the Copa América opener at the Morumbi stadium in São Paulo. But despite the 3–0 win, the performance was frustrating and the fans were not happy. Without further ado, here are 5 things we learned from the match: 1. Tite is stubborn Starting Fernandinho alongside Casemiro, two enforcers against a side that not only parked the bus but could not play a series of 3 successful passes, was wrong on so many levels. Brazil clearly struggled in terms of creativity in the first half, yet Fernandinho’s positioning mostly remained deep. It was only in the second half that the instructions clearly changed, as the Man City man was asked to make more forward runs to support the attack. Except that he’s technically limited and does not have the athleticism for it. Ironically, this is Allan’s best function, yet, Tite insisted on the City-man and ignored the other alternative. 2. Scorelines are often misleading If you look at the score and at the stats, you would think that Brazil completely dominated the game. While the truth is that despite controlling possession, the Seleção was not as comfortable as the stats would suggest. The lack of ideas in the final third was evident, and it took a penalty in the second half to break the deadlock. After that, the game would never be the same as Bolivia had to open up their defense a bit, leaving spaces for the 5-time world champions to exploit. The result was good, yet the performance was worrisome and left a lot to be desired. 3. Coutinho needs space to thrive The first half was very difficult for the Barcelona starlet, as he struggled to get hold of the ball in uncrowded areas. In their defense, the Bolivians did a very good job in closing down spaces. Other attacking midfielders are usually stronger physically and are better in retaining the ball, or even getting hold of the ball while on the receiving end of vertical passes, often with their back turned to goal. But in Philippe’s case, he often gets bullied out of challenges and loses 50/50 duels. The closer he is to the penalty box, the more dangerous he is. Luckily, Coutinho is also very proficient at creating spaces for himself (and teammates), thanks to his agility and very intelligent movement. This approach could pay dividends against less defensive sides. 4. Dani Alves can’t run like before For all his quality on the ball, there’s just no running away from the fact that Dani Alves has lost crucial yeard. He failed on numerous occasions to make the long runs and receive the pass. It’s a problem because Richarlison did not operate as a winger but rather stayed central. Against opponents that sit deep, you need to stretch out wide, take on the wing backs with pace and cross the ball in. Neither one of the 2 was able to play this role, which clearly made Brazil’s attack less effective. 5. Marquinhos and Thiago Silva are crucial in possession The back-line was one of Brazil’s best offensive assets against Bolivia. Dani Alves and Filipe Luís played interesting vertical balls, but Marquinhos and Thiago Silva were the pillars of build-up play. The PSG defensive partnership thrived in delivering the ball to the front 4. In terms of passing, this is definitely Brazil’s best back-line in a major tournament since the 2014 World Cup. Let’s just hope they don’t forget their essential job this time — to actually defend.

https://medium.com/@cricketsoccer/five-things-we-learned-from-brazils-winning-copa-am%C3%A9rica-start-4f1d9789a440

['Cricket Soccer']

2019-06-17 09:45:18.911000+00:00

['Copa América', 'Dani Alves', 'Bolivia', 'Casemiro', 'Brazil']

How to Play With Fire

If scientists could harness the material that makes up one’s closet door, they’d have an indestructible war vehicle that could blow us all to smithereens, but they haven’t yet, so you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you that the closet door, at times, feels like steel. It feels like cotton in your throat, it feels like water in your nose, and occasionally it feels like black smoke in your lungs. If that’s what it feels like, I’m sure you can imagine what it does to your spirit. The Effects of the Closet Self-Hate and Emotional Detachment In the closet, it’s difficult to be proud of yourself because, fundamentally, you feel slighted, oppressed, and unloved. When I was closeted, any time I heard the words, “I love you,” I would shut down because I knew those words meant that they loved me conditionally — that they only loved the parts of me that they wanted to see. Growing up, I was reminded of this discrepancy every day, leaving for school, and every night, when I went to bed. The cumulative result is a numbness toward anybody who — if you are not out to them — professes any semblance of affection for you. Deluded Perceptions of Healthy Relationships We were big classic film fans at my house and I grew up watching a lot of mid-20th-century Hollywood romance movies. I imagined meeting the man of my dreams in the same way Doris Day met Rock Hudson, or Audrey Hepburn met George Peppard. The glorious, Cinemascope love affairs I watched set a precedent for me — I wanted to meet Mr. Right, just like in the movies. Later, I used to go for walks in the city night after night, hoping he would be leaving a department store in a wool suit and we’d catch eyes. He’d ask me for the time and then, well, want to marry me. Cue the music. Not only was this preoccupation faulty because many classic films simply depict affairs, but people meet in all sorts of ways — not just in thematic meet-cutes. It also fuelled a delusion that drama-filled relationships were the natural mode of love and that soft-focus, teary-eyed, break-ups were necessary for a real relationship. I was lucky to have the internet, so I fervently watched the American Queer as Folk — which isn’t much help either, if I’m honest! I secretly rented Edge of Seventeen on iTunes, and I fell down the rabbit hole of high-school Tumblr. With no example of a healthy, functional same-sex relationship, and several Biblical examples — thanks to the parents — of why same-sex relationships could never work, it was extremely difficult to have any faith at all that I would eventually find a caring partner. The Question of Intimacy and a Warped Sense of Self-Image With the gay “birds and the bees” talk strictly out of the question, pornography is most likely the only example of physical intimacy that a young gay man witnesses. Unfortunately, gay pornography is extremely stimulating to a repressed young man and can become quite addictive. Despite the facts, the message becomes clear: if I want to be with another man, I have to look like that. Suddenly, our fragile, volatile, and undeveloped bodies become an even more drastic, pubescent nightmare — what happens if I don’t look like that?

https://medium.com/rainbow-a-queer-publication/how-to-play-with-fire-9f8f362ec4b7

['Jess Darnell']

2020-08-13 03:52:24.740000+00:00

['Sex', 'Recovery', 'Community', 'LGBTQ', 'Addiction']

Investigate Anomalies in Temporal Data With Machine Learning

Investigate Anomalies in Temporal Data With Machine Learning Use Python and Machine Learning to analyze time-series data and visualize it interactively. Here’s what you’ll be making: Overview In this notebook, we will be exploring Facebook’s open-source SARIMA model Prophet to identify outliers in time-series data. Here’s what you’ll learn: What is time-series data? What is SARIMA? Build a simple optimizer to auto-optimize the Prophet model How to use Prophet to forecast data Use Prophet and Bokeh to identify outliers in an interactive dashboard Use Bokeh to create a time-series dashboard layout for investigation What is Temporal Data? In my last article, we worked with spatial data — that is, data with coordinates that exist somewhere in space. Temporal data is often a companion to spatial data, and it is any data with a time or date associated with it. Temporal data is critical for overall understanding of your dataset, and being able to understand statistics associated with time — trend, seasonality, and outliers — will significantly increase your overall capabilities when it comes to working with business data. In the field of national security and defense that is my specialty, there may be no more important data type than temporal data. Temporal data helps us see patterns through time, and make predictions about the future. That’s what you’ll learn to do, too, in this article. Our Data We will be using data from the Armed Conflict Location Event Database, specifically narrowed to Iraq. The data can be downloaded from github here, or from the ACLED website. We will be analyzing the trend and seasonality of conflict event data in Iraq from 2016–2020, forecasting that data, and identifying outliers. We’ll then create a companion line chart that will allow us to drill down on specific event categories, so we can investigate outliers once they’re identified. Let’s go! Load Libraries First, let’s import our necessary libraries. We’ll be using all of Bokeh to create our interactive graphics, fbprophet for the Prophet pre-built model, sklearn for model optimization, and pandas for some data manipulation. Load the Data You can find the specific data I used in this notebook on Github. However, I strongly urge you to try using your own time-series data in this exercise! In this code block, we’ll be using the value_counts() method to get the data we need for our line chart. We want to visualize the amount of events on each day, so we apply value_counts() to our date group. Throughout the article, you’ll see a couple practices that I like to apply whenever I deal with date-time data. Firstly, I re-sort my dataframe every time I do an operation against it — this helps reduce error later on when we train our model. I also always like to have one column in my dataframe that is in datetime format and another column in string format. I use the datetime column for analysis, and the string column for labels, legends, and tooltips. Extract the Categorical Data Next, we want to get the value_counts() for each event type. The final product will be a visualization that allows users to select a time window in the line chart, then display relevant event types in a second partner visualization. We’ll follow the same steps as above, but now for each event type in the event_type field. We will do this using the groupby() method. Clean Up Next, simply drop duplicates and re-sort our values. Why Prophet? Prophet is an open-source SARIMA model developed by facebook. SARIMA is a time-series regression (read: prediction) technique that takes into account various statistical properties of a time-series dataset including moving average, seasonality, and trend. Trend is a property of time-series data that has to do with the overall positive and negative growth in the dataset. Seasonality has to do with the cyclical changes in the dataset, such as regular decreases in activity on a weekend or increases on a daily basis every afternoon. Prophet was originally developed to service Facebook’s forecasting needs, as the facebook office relies heavily on time-series forecasting for setting goals and measuring progress. You can learn more about Prophet and its origins by watching this video of a presentation given by Prophet’s developer. Prophet requires two data sources to function: ‘ds’, which stands for datestamp, and ‘y’, the target variable. If you’re following along with this notebook, then we’ve already done this — if not, then keep this in mind for your own data. Model Optimization Model optimization is a key element of any machine learning project. All machine learning models have one or two key parameters that need to be optimized for best performance of the model. In the case of Prophet, that parameter is changepoint_prior_scale. This parameter defines how flexibly the model responds to changepoints in the data set, and needs to be optimized to prevent over and under-fitting. To optimize this, we’ll use a very simple optimization model. It simply iterates through a user-defined epoch, tests each parameter, and selects the parameter that returned the lowest error. For this purpose, we’ll use the Mean Squared Error statistic. For more information on model optimization using mean squared error, see this article about mean squared error and linear regression. Train the Model Now that the model has been optimized, we train it on our data. You’ll see that, with the data I provided, the MSE (mean squared error) is around 38. This may seem high, but is perfectly fine for time-series forecasting — usually an MSE below 50 is good for these purposes. If you want to further reduce the error rate, a common technique is to apply exponential smoothing to the data before training the model. Think of it like scaling and normalization for time-series data — you can learn more about exponential smoothing of time-series data here. Plot the Data We will be using Bokeh to plot our data. Interactivity is a great way to make your data visualizations stand out and provide more use and insight to your customers. Although there are other libraries and methods for creating interactive visualizations, Bokeh is my preferred library. However, this is not a Bokeh tutorial. If you are unfamiliar with Bokeh, try their getting started guide. Basically, we will plot the original data as a line glyph inside the Bokeh plot and plot the Uncertainty Bounds, represented in the Prophet dataframe as yhat_upper and yhat_lower as an area plot. Analyzing Trend and Seasonality As discussed above, Trend and Seasonality are two of the key statistical properties of time-series data. Understanding these factors is critical for understanding the data itself. Prophet makes this easy, with the plot_components method. In the plots below, you can see that Iraq conflict events have had an overall negative trend over the past several years (as ISIS has been steadily defeated). However, you can see that there has been a slight upward trend throughout 2020 — this is due to a variety of factors including the coronavirus pandemic and US withdrawal from multiple bases in the area, which has led to an increase in ISIS activity. In regards to seasonality, you can see some interesting patterns — activity is generally low on Fridays, which is the Muslim sabbath. You can see a hump in activity in March — June, which is well known as the common western desert fighting season due to the warmer temperatures that dry out the wadis and make the terrain easier to pass; this also typically coincides with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Interestingly, the data also shows high activity in October-November, very likely due to cooler weather following the hot summer months. In the case of recent years, this has also been an annual period rife with political conflict and protesting. Plot the Outliers Next, we will identify our outliers in the time-series data. These are events that rise above the trend and seasonality identified by the Prophet model. This is critical for national security and defense data. In Iraq, for example, we know that there are seasonal rises and falls for terrorist activity. When those seasonal rises come, how can we know whether it is worse than usual? Outlier detection helps identify possible resurgences of terrorist activity, allowing us to be better prepared. We will use a simple methodology — we look for data points that rise above the upper uncertainty bound predicted by Prophet, then plot that point. In the resulting plot, we can see that nearly all of 2016 was rife with higher-than-expected terrorist activity and that the same is true of late 2019 and early 2020 — this is due to the political instability following the transition of power from Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi to the new PM Kadhimi, significant protest and riot activity beginning in October 2019, as well as above-mentioned factors like US drawdown and the coronavirus pandemic. Plotting Categorical Data I want to investigate the outlier activity more thoroughly. I want to know, in times of increased activity, what types of events make up that data — IEDs, conventional warfare battles, etc. To do this, we will make a second plot to visualize that data. Bokeh automatically links selection between plots sharing a ColumnDataSource. Because the data for both plots is coming from the same dataframe, selections in one plot will automatically be reflected in the second plot. All we need to do is visually style the elements to draw attention to the selected elements, and make it clear what categories are prevalent in different time periods. In the case of this data, we will use the selection_glyph and nonselection_glyph properties in Bokeh to make data invisible if it is not selected. This will allow us to easily see what types of data are prevalent for time windows that we select in the original plot. This code snippet only shows the plotting for one layer. See the notebook for the full code. The main plot uses a box_select tool to dynamically change the visualization. Place your mouse cursor inside the plot and drag to select a time window — watch the visualization display change! Summary Now you can analyze time-series data using SARIMA forecasting techniques with the Prophet machine learning model. You can automatically optimize your model, and use it to understand trend and seasonality properties inside your data. You can plot that information in interactive charts for later publishing in a dashboard or web application. Great work!

https://towardsdatascience.com/investigate-anomalies-in-temporal-data-with-machine-learning-b3da86793142

['Conner Brew']

2020-09-16 19:08:07.424000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Time', 'Dashboard']

Code for Boston’s Safe Drinking Water Project

My first time at a Code for Boston Hack Night was last December. It was right in the middle of the intensive data science program I was in. We had multiple labs due that week (as was the norm), and several of my classmates were taken aback by the thought of doing anything additional. But, having seen some of Code for Boston’s projects, I was itching to contribute and connect with others interested in using technology to address civic and social issues. You can see additional info about the following projects on Code for Boston’s Current Projects page: Boston Info Voice App : An Alexa skill to answer questions about municipal services in Boston. Currently supports providing an address and asking for trash/recycling pick up days. : An Alexa skill to answer questions about municipal services in Boston. Currently supports providing an address and asking for trash/recycling pick up days. Community Connect : A health resource web app that collects information about businesses and organizations that promote healthy lifestyle choices. : A health resource web app that collects information about businesses and organizations that promote healthy lifestyle choices. MuckRock : File, track, and share public records requests. : File, track, and share public records requests. Safe Drinking Water Project : An exploratory data project to predict safe drinking water violations. It uses the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Information System and the EnviroFacts API. : An exploratory data project to predict safe drinking water violations. It uses the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Information System and the EnviroFacts API. Migrant Service Map : A web app designed to assist immigrant service providers by allowing them to create a profile, update information, and share it with clients quickly. : A web app designed to assist immigrant service providers by allowing them to create a profile, update information, and share it with clients quickly. Windfall Awareness project: A tool to help retirees affected by Social Security Windfall Elimination Program (WEP), a program which can reduce SSA benefits by up to 50% for certain public servants. This tool will help affected workers better plan retirement and self-advocate with the Social Security Administration. A tool to help retirees affected by Social Security Windfall Elimination Program (WEP), a program which can reduce SSA benefits by up to 50% for certain public servants. This tool will help affected workers better plan retirement and self-advocate with the Social Security Administration. Plogalong: When you plog, you pick up trash as you go about your daily life… jogging, hiking, or simply walking down the street. Plogalong helps you track your plogs, connect with nearby ploggers, earn badges, and access local discounts. It was a tough choice, but I ended up joining the Safe Drinking Water Project because they were specifically seeking people with data science skills. I also felt connected to the issue. A story about a school A few years ago, I was at one of the first meetings for a peer leader group at a local high school. While we waited for everyone to get settled in, I asked where to find the nearest water fountain. Several of the students raised their eyebrows. “Why?” “So I can fill my water bottle.” “It’s down the hall. But you don’t want that.” “Are you being serious?” “Yeah, we don’t drink the water here.” Everyone in the room nodded in agreement. During the meeting, the students completed an activity where they identified issues in their school and communities that they were concerned about. As we wrapped up a lively discussion, I had to throw out one last question: “Nobody said water. Do any of you care about not being able to drink water in your own school?” They all shrugged. It was such a norm that it wasn’t worth mentioning. During the same week, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced $2 million of funding to help public schools test for lead and copper in drinking water. Just over a year later, in May 2017, this article popped up in my feed: The Summary Results of the tests confirmed that both of the high schools I was working with had “lead above action level.” Understanding the data This brings us back to the Safe Drinking Water Project at Code for Boston. The goal is to predict health-based violations in drinking water. We are starting with data from the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS). For me, understanding the data means more than knowing what information is contained in the SDWIS database (though we do finally have a centralized data dictionary!). It is also about understanding what that information actually tells us and identifying other factors that contribute to water safety that are not included in the database. Surprising connections While I have been actively seeking out information to grow my understanding of issues surrounding safe drinking water, some of my learning has come from unexpected places. AI in Flint In early January, this article showed up in my inbox — not because of my tracking of water issues, but because of my interest in machine learning: The TL;DR version of the article is that a team created a machine-learning model that was successfully predicting which homes in Flint were likely to have lead pipes. The City signed a contract with AECOM, a national firm, to speed up the work. Then: AECOM discarded the machine-learning model’s predictions, which had guided excavations. And facing political pressure from some residents, [Flint Mayor Karen] Weaver demanded that the firm dig across the city’s wards and in every house on selected blocks, rather than picking out the homes likely to have lead because of age, property type, or other characteristics that could be correlated with the pipes. After a multimillion-dollar investment in project management, thousands of people in Flint still have homes with lead pipes, when the previous program would likely have already found and replaced them. The seas are rising The week after that Flint article came out, I was at the Data for Black Lives II conference at MIT Media Lab. The session that has kept me thinking about it the most since then was “The seas are rising but so are the people”: Data, Disaster & Collective Power. The panelists — Valencia Gunder, Denice Ross, Lisa Rice, and Bina Venkataraman — shared their work and answered the questions: “What are the ways that Black communities are using social media, data, and technology to prepare for the next disaster? To prevent it? What are the role of data scientists and engineers in these rapid response moments and the movement for climate justice?” They talked about the ways that climate change has exacerbated problems with higher housing costs and displacement. Valencia Gunder began her story: As you do work in south Florida, climate change and resiliency is always part of the conversation, even in the most informal way. My grandfather told me as a child, “They’re going to come steal our communities because it doesn’t flood.” And I didn’t understand him until I was grown. Map created by Hugh Gladman that plots owners with 15 or more pieces of land in Little Haiti to the height above sea level of their parcels. (Source: The New Tropic) Others also talked about the connections between flooding and inequities in communities. The Data for Black Lives YouTube channel has a recording of the full panel, as well as other sessions from the conference, available to view. Farm runoff Shortly after completing the data science program, I was talking with someone who made a tangential comment about a relative who uses artificial intelligence to look at how food for cows affects their manure, which in turn affects water systems due to runoff. He waved his hand in dismissal: “But you’re probably not interested in that.” I explained that I actually was interested in the topic. This was a contributing factor that we hadn’t discussed yet in the Safe Water group. I did some digging to learn a little more about how manure and other farm runoff contaminates water. A 2009 New York Times article considered the problem in Wisconsin, where “more than 30 percent of the wells in one town alone violated basic health standards”: Runoff of waste from farm animals is said to be a source of pollutants in drinking water. At a town hall meeting, angry homeowners yelled at dairy owners, some of whom are perceived as among the most wealthy and powerful people in town. It goes on to explain that even if local environmental agencies weren’t overtaxed, “a powerful farm lobby has blocked previous environmental efforts on Capital [sic] Hill. Even when state legislatures have acted, they have often encountered unexpected difficulties.” Screenshot of EWG’s interactive map of drinking water in rural communities threatened by farm pollution. (Source: EWG) Different political and economic interests are at play. And while Valencia Gunder talked about displacement in Florida due to flooding and climate change, maps like the one above (also using SDWIS data, along with data from the USDA’s Census of Agriculture) signal additional concerns. Increased flooding in areas already threatened by farm pollution raises the risk of contaminants in the water systems. Toxic chemical sites During Harvard’s Next in Data Visualization event earlier this month, Blacki Migliozzi, graphics editor at New York Times, shared some of his climate change visualizations. One, in particular, caught my attention: a map showing 2,500 chemical sites that are in flood-prone areas across the country. This map was created using data from the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory and FEMA’s National Flood Hazard Layer. Similar to the issues raised by farm runoff, chemical sites in areas with more flooding from rising sea levels are also at higher risk of contaminating water systems, along with a host of other problems. The Poisoned City A couple of days later, another Safe Water volunteer and I went to see journalist Anna Clark speak about her book, The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy. Granted, in this case, I went expecting to learn more about factors affecting drinking water, but it still feels worth including here. After a brief intro explaining the city’s switch from Great Lakes water to Flint River water and subsequent issues with lead, E. coli, and Legionnaires’ disease, Clark asked, “What makes a city vulnerable to something like this in the first place?” Her answer: “You have to go back a few generations.” From there, her story started in the 1960s, “when Flint was the most segregated city in the North, and the third most segregated nationwide.” It included the impact of General Motors, the history of community organizing and the fight for fair housing, deindustrialization, and emergency management laws. For an illustrated essay that covers some of this, see Clark’s collaboration with graphic artist Josh Kramer: For me, two comments that Clark made during the conversation after her talk stood out: Environmental issues always end in settlements with no admissions of guilt. and This wasn’t just a technical problem. There’s a reason this happened in Flint, and it wouldn’t have happened in Ann Arbor. A copy of The Poisoned City, signed “For #water, Anna Clark.” John, the other Safe Water volunteer who came to the talk, got a copy of The Poisoned City. Clark signed it to #water (our group’s Code for Boston Slack channel), and it’s now being read and passed through the group. Notre Dame Meanwhile, this Twitter Moment was waiting in my inbox this morning: This is yet another reminder of how differing interests, values, priorities, and allocation of resources can affect drinking water (and so many other things). Invitations These were some of the connections I have made while trying to understand the data we are using. As always, I am happy to hear any thoughts on this. If you have suggestions for other data, research, or approaches for the Safe Drinking Water Project to consider, please do share! You can also check out the Safe Drinking Water Project GitHub repo and join the #water channel on the Code for Boston Slack. If you are in the Boston area and interested in getting involved with this or another Code for Boston project, learn more on the Code for Boston website and come on out to a Weekly Hack Night.

https://towardsdatascience.com/code-for-bostons-safe-drinking-water-project-8283989e647f

['Dawn Graham']

2019-04-17 21:55:07.274000+00:00

['Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Water', 'Data Science']

12-Bar Blues Block

It was the 70’s and all that that entails. I had taken a leap and landed in a place far from home. Shy, practically petrified and somehow, for the first time, I was hanging out with all of the cool kids. One night, we sat in a circle, passing wine, passing pot. What I remember is overwhelming youth, optimism, beauty and brains— scruffy guys with guitars and sly grins, pretty girls with silver rings and easy laughter. The music slid from an acoustic version of “Whippin’ Post” to a 12-bar blues riff. Someone suggested that we take turns contributing a verse to the riff, round-robin style. One by one, personal laments came effortlessly. Then it was my turn — blank, nada. Eventually — could it have been an hour? — Janet came to my rescue and took up the baton. I can feel the flop sweat to this day.

https://medium.com/fractalife/sunday-mornin-blues-582bd3831097

['Marianne Farley']

2017-08-25 16:16:19.635000+00:00

['Life Lessons', 'Poetry', 'Travel', 'Blues']

You Know What’s True

You Know What’s True A Poem 1. Justice is the grandmother on the roadside, her wares carefully staged To attract Mango lovers. She looks up to the fine young lady Who sneers with coin toss and bags fruit. Grandma does what she must. School fees must be paid — Doesn’t matter how much dust she swallows. She’ll be back tomorrow — life is never late. 2. Call me yellow. Black. Brown. Red. Hold my tongue — like ugly lead. Write my story without my pen. Only victors decide what’s to be left undead. 3. Justice caves in at the airport on the day before a holiday. She’s swamped for speed, anxious, passing tickets to angrier neighbors. Her snarl is not a maskt, it’s — Pressure built from a thousand cuts, a thousand slurs. What happens to cheeks that smile hard while being slapped? 4. Spirits on a boat. Dead yonder — dead hope. Chains heavier than heart’s load. Ebbing ink — same through media veins flow. 5. Justice stammers in the guest’s house. Language unknown, new customs rites. Should he pray, before, during or after the meal? Should he pray on the mat, at all, or on the hill? If there’s a God over this house blue, round, when should he visit? When is he not around? 6. Migrant mauling over methods to move. Myriad ways, wits ends, nothing here to choose. Desert. Sea. Air. Who planted greener pastures over there? 7. Justice can’t stay dead for too long. If you bow long enough, her ghost shrieks- her blood erupts : a thousand suns burnt, a thousand sons dead. She comes at night, at dawn, at dusk, on the street, on the living room. She’ll take what’s hers, our soul is the task. 8. “Treat others as you would want to be treated” I say persecute others as you would want to be persecuted. It starts with me. It starts with you. You know what’s true. You know what’s true

https://medium.com/an-idea/you-know-whats-true-acd198507433

['Kamga Tchassa']

2020-09-28 01:10:05.167000+00:00

['Immigration', 'Poetry', 'Justice', 'Poem', 'Race']

Exit Stage Center: Lack of Traction for Moderate Dem Candidates Signals Voters are Looking for Vision in 2020

As the Democratic debate stage narrowed to ten, the losers were largely moderate candidates who struggled to attract a base. While in years past the plethora of white, establishment male candidates would have been the traditional choice, in 2019 they formed a coterie of largely indistinguishable faces and voices. Moderates have consistently under performed in the debates. Voters just aren’t buying what they are selling. Setting aside Steyer (who suffered from his late entry into the field) and Gabbard (who struggled to meet the 2% polling threshold in recognized national polls), the eight remaining candidates struggled to differentiate themselves from Biden or gain traction against more exciting candidates like Sanders, Warren, and Harris. While Marianne Williamson was always positioned as a long shot candidate, Michael Bennet, Steve Bullock, John Delaney, Tim Ryan, Joe Sestak, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Bill de Blasio all failed to meet thresholds for both fundraising and polling. And while some are more liberal than the others (de Blasio significantly, Gillibrand certainly and Sestak who self describes as a progressive moderate arguably so), the reality is that 2019 is shaping up to be a contest of stark values without a lot of interest in the middle. And that is a good thing since the cost of those moderate positions when it comes to defending a private health insurance market, or women’s reproductive rights , are just too high. Already, a significant portion of the Democratic field has embraced some variation of Medicare for All (though with differences), and ideas that were unthinkable even four years ago have emerged as almost foregone conclusions. Not only are progressive ideas (free college tuition, sentencing reform, paid family leave) polling well enough to make their way into the national policy conversation, but they are becoming central planks in the the platforms of nearly all of the most viable candidates. Remember that Clinton famously declared that Single Payer “will never, ever come to pass,” and yet the loudest detractors on Medicare for All have largely failed to gain traction or dropped out of the 2020 race. It’s worth nothing that while Biden leads the unofficial DNC polling average with 37% of likely voters, support for Sanders and Warren together represents 41%. Add in Harris, who even though she has tried to position her campaign as more moderate than those of Sanders and Warren is considerably more progressive than Biden at 17%, and the Democratic electorate looks primed for another change candidate. In 2020 its voters want vision and bold promises, and as such moderates are as flailing and as out of touch as the 1%, which is coincidentally what most of them are polling at or under. None of this appears to put the party at odds with the general electorate, who it should be pointed out has chosen the non-traditional candidate in every single Presidential race since 2000. When it comes to open seats, voters chose Bush over Gore, Obama over McCain, and Trump over Clinton. The more cautionary tales is that this pattern holds even for challengers taking on unpopular incumbents (including those considered grossly incompetent such as Bush)or who the opposing party perceives as having overreached (Obama). That shouldn’t be dismissed as just incumbent advantage: Kerry, presented as the responsible alternative to Bush who had lied the country into the Iraq war, lost while Democratic challengers picked up House and Senate seats; Romney when he campaigned against Obama and what Republicans perceived as “too much change” in the form of the Affordable Care Act lost even as Republicans and the Tea Party won seats in Congress and the Senate. While Trump is one of the most scandal plagued and incompetent Presidents in the modern era (if not ever) the American public has made clear its distaste for the careful candidate. Now that the Democratic stage has been cleared, it’s time to narrow down and bring those choices into stark relief.

https://kkholland.medium.com/exit-stage-center-lack-of-traction-for-moderate-dem-candidates-signals-voters-are-looking-for-64aac9353005

['Kk Holland']

2019-09-01 03:13:23.934000+00:00

['2020 Presidential Race', 'Politics', 'DNC', 'Democratic Debate']

This Christmas, Celebrate the Lives of Those We’ve Lost

This Christmas, Celebrate the Lives of Those We’ve Lost Photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash Reflections of better days As the lights on the Christmas tree twinkle, I stare out the windowpane and watch the snow fall, thinking of you. The tears have drenched my face, on and off, all day. I know there will be many more days like this to come. You’re gone. There is agony in saying out loud that you are no longer here. I wish it weren’t true. Truth hurts, they say. Your death brings a new meaning to this saying. I feel the earth tremble from your loss as the soul holds a painful sadness. I can’t believe your smile has been permanently put to rest. My heart aches and I don’t know how to accept that I can’t hear your voice anymore. You remember how we talked about everything? I do — I always will. We disagreed, more often than not, but you never judged me. We’d laugh about the stupidest things, and I still remember the first time we met. You never settled for my frown, you demanded my happiness. That made me mad sometimes, but you made me happy. When you walked into a room, you were like the moon under a dark sky, lighting up the way. Now, you are in the sky. I know I’ll learn to let the time pass without you, but it’s only because I have no other choice. You taught me everything except how to live without you. Learning to live without you will be the hardest lesson I’ll ever have to learn, but I shall lean on time — one day we will meet again.

https://psiloveyou.xyz/this-christmas-celebrate-the-lives-of-those-weve-lost-fb33cf73c58e

['Melissa Bee']

2020-12-27 11:55:49.344000+00:00

['Personal', 'Loss', 'Self', 'Grief', 'Nonfiction']

What is DOM?

So have you wondered what exactly is DOM & what does it do? Since I was facing a similar question, I tried to go more in-depth and learn about DOM. Here I have attempted to summarize what I have learned. I hope it interests you. The DOM, or the ‘Document Object Model’ is an internal programmatic representation of any web page. Technically DOM is also an API that allows us to add, remove or edit elements. To understand what is DOM exactly we need to understand how an HTML document is transformed into an interactive web page. The path followed here for this transformation is known as the ‘Critical Rendering Path’. The steps in this ‘Critical Rendering Path’ can be mainly divided into two important stages, the first being — determining what to render & the second being — rendering on the browser. An important component is formed between these two stages known as ‘Render Tree’. Critical Rendering Path The structure of DOM is represented with what we call ‘node tree’. In this node tree, the <html> element forms the root node, which will have branches containing children nodes of the elements nested within it, and so on. The tree will grow in every branch till it reaches an element that has no other element nested in it. Let us understand this with an example, consider this HTML document: This document can be represented in the form of a node tree as follows: DOM Tree We need to keep in mind some important points about DOM, they being: The DOM forms an interface only for valid HTML documents. But, the browsers help in correcting the invalid HTML code. Consider the following HTML document for example: Invalid HTML document. The document is invalid since <head> & <body> element are missing from it, but the DOM tree will be formed as: DOM Tree 2. The DOM acts as a living resource, it can be manipulated or modified with the help of Javascript. The browser re-renders the DOM whenever any changes take place in the DOM. Consider our HTML document: HTML document The document is rendered in the browser as: Browser Output Now, we will manipulate the DOM of this HTML document using Javascript. We will add one more paragraph in the document which will read ‘This is paragraph 2’. i.e. adding an <p> element node consisting of a ‘This is paragraph 2’ text node in the DOM. The script for DOM manipulation: DOM manipulation script After adding this script to the HTML document, the document will be as follows: After adding the DOM manipulation script And the browser output will be as follows: Browser Output after DOM manipulation 3. What we see in the browser is the Render Tree & not DOM. Browser forms its viewport with the help of Render Tree. Render Tree is a combination of both — DOM & CSSOM(CSS Object Model). The difference between Render Tree and DOM is that the Render Tree only consists of what is to be rendered on the screen. It will exclude elements that are visually hidden using CSS. Consider the following HTML document. Here, we have added a style i.e. display: none to the <p> tag: p tag with display: none Since the <p> tag is a part of the HTML document, it will be included in the DOM tree as follows: DOM Tree But, when the Render tree is to be formed, it will consider both, the DOM and the CSSOM and that will result in excluding the <p> tag of our HTML document since it has been styled to not display itself on the browser. Render Tree I hope this blog helped you understand more about DOM. I will write in detail about DOM manipulation in my upcoming blogs. Till then, Happy Coding! 👨‍💻

https://medium.com/@yash-ghodekar/what-is-dom-15ab88e58d4b

['Yash Ghodekar']

2020-12-27 17:56:19.634000+00:00

['Web Development', 'HTML', 'Dom', 'JavaScript']

Central Sahel: the humanitarian emergency the world is ignoring

Central Sahel: the humanitarian emergency the world is ignoring Since January 600,000 people have fled violence in Burkina Faso, such as this family in Pissila camp, near Kaya. Photo: WFP/Marwa Awad “Conflict is moving forward and moving fast,” says Margot van der Velden, Director of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Emergencies division. She is describing the Central Sahel, a region in Africa including Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, where it is estimated 20 million people are living in areas affected by conflict and 2.4 million people are in need of food assistance — a figure that could rise due to continued displacements. “The Sahel is historically, structurally very poor, it does not have the major investments it needs,” says van der Velden. “It is an area that is climate-shock prone, with the highest temperature and the least natural resources for agriculture.” Parts of Burkina Faso — where conflict has spiralled all year — are in a state of freefall as the threat of violence from armed groups forces people in rural areas to flee. “In January there were about 80,000 people displaced, now there are around 486,000,” says van der Velden — a further 250,000 are displaced across Mali and Niger, with the total figure for the region set to reach 1 million in coming weeks. Zore Yusef and his family in a shelter at Pissila — WFP is operating its highest level of emergency in Central Sahel. Photo: WFP/Marwa Awad With those two countries also on the brink, in September, WFP declared Central Sahel a Level 3 emergency — its highest grade. “L3 means we as an organization think we don’t have the capacities to operate in this complex and evolving situation,” says van der Velden. In other words we need to prioritize corporate investment, fast, to support our operations on the ground. For in delivering food assistance, it is clear that WFP and other humanitarian organisations walk a tightrope. The Sahel is a tragic masterclass in how violence and extreme weather feed into each other. “It’s a harsh environment,” says van der Velden, “even more now when people have planted less due to the conflict, cattle are killed, people have lost their livelihoods.” She adds: “We haven’t had a large-scale drought in these areas but we know at some point a major drought will happen — because that is cyclical in the Sahel.” Margot van der Velden with Alexandre Le Cuziat. Photo: WFP/Peyvand Khorsandi What’s more, in these Sahelian countries 60 percent of the population is aged under 25, with limited access to job opportunities and social services. Chronic levels of malnutrition, food insecurity, and poverty and inequality are prevalent across the countries — with a population that is getting younger and younger, some are joining armed groups. Hard-won gains in resilience-building and development risk collapsing. From January until September in Niger, WFP assisted 9,700 adolescent schoolgirls with scholarships. Today schools are shutting — in many conflict-affected areas one in three children cannot attend. School buildings are one of the first spaces freed up as shelters for displaced people. This affects school attendance in host communities — which, in a further complication, WFP sometimes cannot reach because of conflict. “At the moment what we’re seeing is that people go further south in search of two things — safety and ‘keeping my kids in school’”, says Alexandre Le Cuziat, an Emergencies Division desk officer with WFP, who has just returned from the region. Children are not spared the trauma of escaping violence — a WFP-backed nutrition clinic in Kaya. Photo: WFP/Marwa Awad Among people forced to move, “there’s a sense of nightmare and often post-traumatic stress disorder,” he says. “I mean, it’s traumatic for those affected by attacks.” Le Cuziat joins van der Velden at WFP’s HQ in Rome. It’s a Wednesday morning. He describes the frustration of displaced people he’s met who for more than 30 years enjoyed peace and were on the path of “small-scale prosperity”. Then, he says, “There is an attack. They leave with the kids and that’s pretty much it.” He adds: “They leave the grains behind, they leave the animals behind, they leave the harvest behind and you suddenly have close to 600,000 people in Burkina with zero livelihoods.” WFP has assisted 2.6 million people across the three countries this year and requires urgent investment and a scaled-up response in order to protect the progress achieved in ongoing programmes, particularly resilience-building. An estimated 20 million people live in areas affected by conflict across Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, and 2.4 million people are in need of food assistance. Over a period of six months in 2018, WFP operated its first pre-emptive L3 emergency — the highest grade — across the Sahel (including Chad in the northern centre of Africa and Mauritania on the North Atlantic coast). “Then we were helping people just bridge the gap”, says Le Cuziat. “They had enough food to make it for about six to nine months out of 12. And we would help them cover the months during the lean season. Now it’s nothing — some have left with nothing … the big difference now is you have more people that not only have their livelihoods threatened but also their lives.” He says that “a very horrible violence” is driving people to move. “It’s about people coming in villages and shooting at people, women and men.” Van der Velden nods in agreement. “Every day there are people coming from their villages with horror stories that they were just able to escape,” she says — such as 25 members of a family being killed. “Some try to go back and see if they can get some of their belongings and they don’t come back, so it is assumed they’re killed … it’s really horror stories.” WFP is also focused on supporting host families, who receive displaced people — hospitality wears thin quickly when those who’ve next to nothing themselves take in dozens of guests. Both guest and host face another problem: moving to — and conversely failing to leave — a certain territory may raise a government’s suspicions of how that might be possible without alignment to, or complicity with, armed groups. Distrust and violence respect political borders no more than the next drought — the threat of which van der Velden and Le Cuziat indicate is always hanging over the Sahel (the last one was almost a decade ago). So Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger remain a worsening tangle of despair. Le Cuziat says: “People just don’t understand why this is happening: ‘Why are people doing this? How can we continue to operate? When will this end’.” Mali and Burkina had been “poster children” since the 1990s, says Le Cuziat. “It was a good example of contexts where ‘It’s difficult, not many resources, but it’s stable, on the way of democracy, people live together well, no conflict’.” In short: “We had zero problem of access, they had tourism.” The stability which set countries on course for development ended with conflicts spreading, first in Mali, in 2012, and since 2018 in Burkina Faso. In both places, violence outpaces investments and puts development and resilience gains at risk. Another problem that the Central Sahel faces is coverage: it does not feature in the news in the same way that Syria and Yemen do yet the scale of the tragedy is substantial and potentially affecting more people than Syria and Yemen together. “This area is of interest to hardly anyone,” says van der Velden. “Until it really, really hits something financial or something political that is actually a direct impact for global players — at this point nobody is truly interested and everyone just stands by watching tragedy develop in front of our eyes.” She adds: “We are trying very hard to keep on operating and scale up because that’s also giving some sense of hope to people — that they don’t feel totally deserted.” To this end, WFP is working with the Central Sahel countries, UNICEF, the Food and Agriculture Organization and many local and international humanitarian partners. What is required immediately, both van der Velden and Le Cuziat stress, is global attention, political and diplomatic efforts, and enormous support for people on the ground — saving lives, with an emphasis on sustainable development. That means, in addition to humanitarian response, we should act collectively in the buffer zones — those areas of the country as risk of slipping into violence — to avoid further catastrophe. Drought is coming. “Thankfully this has not happened this year,” says van der Velden. But it will. Find out more about WFP’s emergency response in the Sahel

https://medium.com/world-food-programme-insight/central-sahel-the-humanitarian-emergency-the-world-is-ignoring-8145a9d30ca0

['Peyvand Khorsandi']

2019-11-18 13:15:38.545000+00:00

['Africa', 'United Nations', 'Hunger', 'Humanitarian', 'Sahel']

5 Destinations to Visit in Europe if you win the Lottery

5 Destinations to Visit in Europe if you win the Lottery 5 Destinations to Visit in Europe if you win the Lottery s a regular lottery buyer, you are sure to get lucky someday. Just imagine yourself hitting the jackpot and suddenly find yourself a millionaire or a billionaire! Why not make some planning beforehand as to what you would do with so much money. How about pampering yourself with a great holiday in Europe after winning a lottery? Well, you have indeed made the right choice if you are planning a holiday in the wide continent of Europe. Milan Start your trip with Milan, a great city loaded with many attractions. It is an expensive city to holiday in, but you should not worry about your finances once you win the lottery. Here you will have endless options when looking for luxury hotels, expensive restaurants, and rooftop bars. Enjoy exploring the city in Ferraris and Lamborghinis and shop at Via Sant’Andrea, Via Montenapoleone and Via Della Spiga, once you have seen numerous museums, famous monuments and Gothic cathedrals and churches. Amsterdam Do include a visit to the capital city of the Netherlands and explore its main attractions. Van Gogh museum is a must see. Amsterdam is a charming and delightful city to be in where you will come across incredible waterways, pretty bridges and trams. There is no shortage of excellent restaurants to get a varied gastronomic experience. Enjoy dining at the Dutch brown café or a luxurious grand café in the Dutch capital that boasts of more art masterpieces than any other capital city. London Millions of visitors visit the U.K. capital each year and walk on its historic cobblestone streets and get a taste of the best of world’s culture. The capital city is teeming with music, fashion, history, and politics. Enjoy first-rate concerts and operas and explore Albert Hall or the Barbican Arts Centre, and not to miss the Kensington’s museum or the Natural History Museum and Albert Museum. Lose yourself to Kensington Gardens and stay in some of the best luxury hotels for a rejuvenating stay. Copenhagen copenhagen The Danish capital is being noted for offering top quality of life and is a popular holiday destination among the rich. This capital city is a governmental and financial center which is ranked as the third richest city in the world. Explore iconic colorful buildings and dine at top restaurants and awesome bars. Hire small fishing boats and do not forget to buy the famous Danish pastry from one of many fine bakeries in Copenhagen. Paris Why not visit the romantic capital of France that is loaded with famous tourist attractions such as the Louvre, Disneyland Paris and of course the Eiffel Tower. Paris is famous for its luxurious offers, and if you feel like, you could stay in one of the palaces that would make you feel like royalty. Plan a luxury vacation here under guided and private torus toe explore and understand the city. Paris is home to some top-notch spas and some of the finest restaurants in the world. No luxury holiday in Paris is complete without h a spa treatment or enjoying a sumptuous meal at one of these legendary French restaurants meal at one of these establishments. Every year, the legendary French company Michelin publishes a restaurant guide awarding stars to those deemed the best from read more : https://worldtravellike.blogspot.com/2020/04/5-destinations-to-visit-in-europe-if.html

https://medium.com/@worldtravellike/5-destinations-to-visit-in-europe-if-you-win-the-lottery-87453b34f42a

['World Travel']

2020-04-23 09:32:55.448000+00:00

['UK', 'Milan', 'Paris', 'Munich', 'Europe']

Logpoints in Debugger for Mainframe

Have you ever wanted to see a variable value while debugging a COBOL program without having to stop at a breakpoint? Then look no further than our Debugger for Mainframe Visual Studio Code extension, which supports logpoints. A logpoint is attached to a particular line of the code, like a breakpoint, and contains a message which is printed in the debug console when the debug session runs. Unlike a breakpoint, it does not break or stop the program. Logpoints can highlight an issue within a program while it is running, without causing the program to terminate. Let’s go through a specific example. We want to write a logpoint message that will display some text with the value of the variable TASKNUM, so every time the program flow goes through the line with this logpoint, the debugger will print the logpoint message in the debug console. How do we set up such a logpoint. First, find the variable (e.g. TASKNUM) and choose its line. In the gutter you select the line and a breakpoint will be created. Breakpoints have multiple options including logpoint — select the logpoint option and from here you define the message that the logpoint will display consisting of user-defined text with one or more variables. Any variable defined in the curly brackets ({}) will display its value at the state of the program when the message is written. It is important that the message syntax to determine which variables to display are in curly brackets, for example “{TASKNUM}”. Variables are case sensitive, so they need to be the same as defined in the COBOL program. We will use the message “tasknum = {TASKNUM}”, as in the gif below: After we define the log message, we trigger the debug session and observe the result: As you can see when the program goes through the line with the logpoint, it didn’t stop, but instead printed a log message in the console, where the variable in curly brackets was translated into its value at that given program state. In the line after the logpoint, the program stopped at an unconditional breakpoint, and we can confirm the value by looking at the left sidebar, under Variables and Locals, where TASKNUM is listed along with its value. Imagine you have a line in your code where a program goes frequently. To check the variable value every time, you can save time by using logpoints, as opposed to stopping there, finding the value and then resuming the program. Logpoints also allow you to print many variable values at the same time, to see the value of each variable, and to ensure that the values correspond to your expectations and have not been overwritten. And I’m sure you can think of many other ways to make full use of the new logpoints capability. Happy debugging! For more information on the visual studio code Debugger for Mainframe extension, visit Debugging Mainframe COBOL programs with VS Code. To add the extension to your VS Code desktop visit the VSC Marketplace and install the Debugger for Mainframe either as a separate extension or as part of the Code4z package (a complete mainframe developer solution). Stay in touch with us, join us on our Code4z Slack channel!

https://medium.com/modern-mainframe/logpoints-in-debugger-for-mainframe-b6cd3e840f6b

['Tomas Cech']

2021-03-08 11:53:16.023000+00:00

['Cobol', 'Mainframe', 'DevOps', 'Debugging', 'Vscode']

How to Implement a Linked Stack in C

A stack is a set of items stored using a last-in first-out or LIFO policy. This means that the last thing that is inserted to the stack is the first thing that is removed from the stack. Often, we might think of a stack like a stack of dinner plates. When we place a plate onto the stack, we will place it on the top, and in turn when we want to take a plate off the stack, we also remove it from the top. This is the same sort of structure we wish to implement with a programming stack. Let’s start by having a look at a visual example of a stack. Suppose I insert three values onto my stack, which are 5, 6, and 7. If they are inserted in the order specified, our stack will look like below. A simple stack The last thing that was inserted, which is 7, is the top item on the stack, and the first thing inserted, which is 5, is the bottom item on the stack. When we work with stacks, we typically implement three methods to manipulate the data on them. These methods are push, pop, and peek. Push will insert a new value on top of the stack, pop will remove the top value from the stack, and peek will return the value of the top of the stack. Using our example, suppose we wanted to now push the value 8 onto the stack. When we do this, 8 becomes the new top of the stack, and the item directly below it was the previous top, 7. Our stack after the push operation If we wanted to then pop from this stack, it would remove the current top, and update the top to be the thing that comes next in the stack. In this case, 8 would be removed and returned to the user, and 7 would become the top of the stack. Our stack after the pop operation Finally, if we wanted to peek on this stack, it would simply tell us the top value, without modifying the stack at all. In this case, it would return 7, and the stack would remain the same. When we implement a stack in C, we typically use two structs. The first struct is called a Node, and it keeps track of a single element, as well as a pointer to the next element in the stack. The second struct is called the Stack, which stores the top element as a node. Since the node has a pointer to the next element in the stack, if we ever need to get the element below the top, we can use the pointer to find it. So, in our stack example, if 7 is the top of the stack, it will have a pointer to 6, which is the next element in the stack. The node for 6 will have a pointer to 5, since 5 comes after 6. Finally, 5 will have a pointer to NULL, since there are no values that follow it. The following code shows how these two structs can be implemented in C. The node and stack structs In this implementation, our node keeps track of its value using the data attribute. It additionally has a pointer attribute called next, that points to the node that directly follows it. Our stack tracks the node that is at the top through the top attribute, and also keeps track of its size in the size attribute. When we first create a stack, we will want to initialize its attributes appropriately. To do so, we will use an initialization function, which will take in our stack struct, and set the top to NULL, and the size to 0. Doing so will ensure that when we insert our first value, it points to NULL as its next entry, rather than garbage data. The initalization funciton Now that our stack is complete, we will begin to look at how we can implement our push, pop, and peek operations. We will also create a method to display the data currently on the stack, to be able to verify that our operations are working correctly. For the push operation, we will take in any integer value the user wishes to push onto the stack. We will start by creating a new node to store the data provided by the user. Once we have added the data to the node, we will set the node’s next value to the current top of the stack and set the current top of the stack equal to the node we are pushing. Once this is completed, we increase the size of the stack by 1 so that it matches the stack after the insert is completed. The push operation For the pop operation, our first step will be to make sure that there is at least one item on the stack that can be removed. To do this, we can look at the size of the stack to check if it is 0. If the size of the stack is not 0, we proceed to pop an item off the stack. Otherwise, we will print an error message, and end the program. When popping from the stack, we start by storing the value of the top element on the stack. We then update the top of the stack to be the next available element, which is the one that the top’s next attribute points to. Finally, we decrease the size of the stack by 1, and return the value that was at the top of the stack to the user. The pop operation The peek operation is basically a simplified version of the pop operation. We do the same steps, aside from updating the top and size of the stack. The peek operation With these operations implemented, we now have a fully functional stack. To help with testing our stack, I will implement one additional method called print, which will print the elements inside of the stack. For this function, we will create a temporary node, and set it equal to the top of the stack. From here, we will print the temporary node, then move it to the next link, until we reach the end of the stack, which is a NULL node. The print operation To test this implementation, we can create a main function, and run through each of our methods. The main function There are a few things to note in how we setup our stack to be used. First, when we declare our stack struct, we malloc for the size of the stack, since it needs to be initialized in memory before we can use it. After this, we run the init function first to setup our stack with the proper initial values. Once this is done, we can run push, pop, peek, and print operations in any sequence to see what results we get. Running this sequence, I get the following output. The output of our stack test The full C code for this stack implementation is available at: https://github.com/scprogramming/The-Complete-Guide-to-C-Data-Structures-and-Algorithms/tree/master/Stacks

https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-implement-a-lstack-in-c-4c8b29fdad11

['Scott Cosentino']

2020-08-14 22:45:55.643000+00:00

['Data Structures', 'C', 'C Programming', 'Programming']

Nothing And Everything Is Wrong With You — Being Who You Are Is Like Being A Simple Raindrop (A Water Molecule)

How you see yourself is a relative flexible vision too. Imagine your thoughts are electrons, they circle around you, the center and nucleus of every atom, the basic and smallest chemical unit in. In the center, there are protons (positively charged particles) and neutrons (neutron like neutral). Electrons are charged negatively and make sure the nucleus and atom altogether remains stable. So, sometimes, when there is something from outside touching us, it confuses us and we try to remain stable, our thoughts circling around and the very nucleus of us, our mind and heart, it is touched too. I like this comparison because we have our thoughts and sometimes we need to separate from them in order to remain balanced or regain our stability and independence of the external life. Of course the composition and life of the very atom is much more complex and if you look more closely, it may make no sense to think of this related to us and our view. What I want to say is: The decision whether everything, something or nothing is wrong with you, it lies in your hands. The truth about this does, and if you are free to choose, you don’t give permission to anyone else, except for the ones closest to you, to give you feedback and tell you what you do right or wrong. The very simple conclusion is: Be who you want to be, who you feel good to be and just be you, with all your sides and shades, with all your “flaws” and wishes, dreams and ideas. Who Told You That What You Do And Feel Was Wrong? Why would you want to be anyone else but you? Why would you be anyone else when you don’t feel good being that way? Why would you want to feel bad about being yourself as well? Then you could just feel bad all the time. But how about feeling good about yourself? How about becoming aware of all that’s in you, all that completes the unique composition of the element (person) that you are? Humans are made of 70% of water, and 30% of macromolecules (bigger molecules) like proteins, sugar, genetic material, and other smaller molecules and chemical stuff. Water consists of different chemical molecules and so do we, water is flexible and adaptive, water is the way it is and it has a catalyst feature, making reactions between other chemical particles possible. Honestly, every chemical element is the way it is. They do change for one another, if you can say this (when they react). And every one of us is the way we are, we are ourselves and sometimes it is more unclear and complicated than being an oxygen pairing with two hydrogen molecules. Yeah, it’s not easy, but it is still very simple. Who told you that what you do or feel was wrong? Get to them and ask them about it. In my case, I would have to go talk to myself, haha. Honestly, we can be the biggest and most critical audience of ourselves — we judge ourselves and we decide when we did it good and when we messed it up. We correct ourselves, we evaluate how we are and we constantly think and think, we feel and we try to connect — but do we also try to connect to ourselves? Do we open up and bridge the gap between our ideals and realities? Do we separate judgement and clear explanation/reason? Not a single ounce of your value depends on how you are socially active, on how successful or productive you are. You are not a thing made for other people’s entertainment, emotional healing or empty talks. Your worth isn’t dependent on how big or small the numbers are, those may have summed up during your life (2 years of dating, 5 years in this job, 3 months of yoga practice, 2 pages of journaling every week, 20 years old, etc). They do define you in a way, but they are also just labels, categories and numbers — they have nothing to do with the emotional and mental health and well-being. You can feel anyway, and nothing and nobody in this world can tell you how to feel, how to be right and how flawless you were. You are the one knowing yourself the best, the one responsible for yourself and your well-being. So if you know, I actually like this and I actually don’t understand so I ask twice — then do it, just be yourself without labeling, without questioning how much time and action you need until it feels right for you. I have gotten to this topic through my own confusion and “struggling”. I had received a deeply heartwarming letter, confirming that I don’t have to be afraid to open up and follow my intuition. Yet, a few days later, I felt again faced with these questions: Is what I am doing enough? Is who I am being enough? Can I justify my actions and decisions? Do I have to do more in order to be seen the way I feel? Make Yourself Happier and Make Life Easier Are you happy with yourself? If your answer is yes, then keep up your work, your flow and routine of being yourself. Embrace yourself and for one day, do what you feel and what your intuition shows you, without labeling, expecting and evaluating. No rating is allowed. After all, how do you rate a water molecule? It is simply itself and that is the “right” way, and right means, it aligns with its roots, reasons and all that makes it up. If you answer is no, then change something: first your perspective, then yourself, and then the world around you. Even when we try to change the world, sometimes we are just trying to change ourselves. Try to understand what deeply illuminates and empowers you. Think of a raindrop. It is water. It can be fast or slow, it can be wet and it can be bigger and even more wet, drench your clothing and getting you a cold if you don’t take proper care. Talk about wet fish, yes, this is a very simple observation, but would you think of it? Of course fish is wet, because it is surrounded by water, and water is wet. But what does this mean? It means fish isn’t dry, raindrops aren’t dry, water isn’t dry. Overseeing the most obvious facts, we get confused. We get shaken by all kinds of ideas, doubts, fears. And we forget about our promises (“I promise to myself I’ll take better care next time and listen to myself more”), our decisions and some reasons that have driven us to that decision. We give in because we are afraid of what may happen next, maybe we can’t make it? Maybe we’ll learn it’s all even worse? Yes, but if you don’t give yourself a chance, you’ll never know if you can do more than you currently believe. And the set of beliefs we have at this certain moment, it’ll be old in a few days, weeks, months, years. You Are A Living Being Hence You Are Living — Experiencing, Collecting Knowledge, Storing Memories, Being Whoever You Think You Are You are beautiful when you smile. You are beautiful when you cry. You are beautiful when you are you. You are beautiful when you are human. I guess it is our very own problem if we create problems and barriers, as if we hadn’t enough of them already. With a little bit of humor and self-reflection, it goes easier and you’ll realize that if you had looked at it from the outside, the solution and necessary steps to be taken were right in front of you, all the time. So why overcomplicate it? Why overanalyze it? Be creative and engage entirely, feel the energy and passion flowing in you. One of our talents it to see things not as they are and then making them what we think they are. Water flows when it flows. Two sides crash when they do. And having space and energy for the things that are meant for you only, that’s when you’ll be flowing like water too. Be you and if you don’t know who you are, find it out. Be everything and nothing, and find your own middle in between or beyond the scale, outside of the box. Who is it that you believe you are? What are the things making you feel good when you are who you believe you are? What things are not the way you want them to be and why? Can you be a raindrop, a water molecule as catalyst and find something that is your energetic interconnection in life?

https://medium.com/@rebca/nothing-and-everything-is-wrong-with-you-being-who-you-are-is-like-being-a-simple-raindrop-a-86e1f2b93b0b

['Rebecca L. Auch']

2019-10-12 19:32:27.303000+00:00

['Self Development', 'Life Lessons', 'Acceptance', 'Creativity', 'Beyourself']

How Can You Drive Growth For Your Flower Delivery App?

Undoubtedly, mobile apps have become a new bandwagon across the business industry. Providing the utmost flexibility and easiness for purchasing goods, mobile apps have revolutionized the buying-selling paradigm completely. All you have to do is just add your favorite products to cart and then click on, “buy now” option. This process has enhanced the convenience for customers across the globe. For instance, the company Uber has acquired half of the market with its services. It is the first privately funded company of Silicon Valley that has achieved tremendous success. ‘That’s the reason businesses are investing significantly in mobile apps, regardless of the kind of product. You can find an array of products online, be it food, clothes, and even groceries. Similarly, mobile apps for flowers have also become revolutionary as serving your customers with fresh flowers those are in different locations becomes impossible. If ‘you’ve got a killer flower mobile app development idea, then executing it should be a hassle. Being a startup in flower delivery, you should first step into the digital world and develop a website with proper categorization for flowers. In this way, you can eliminate your flower inventory management, labor cost, purchase transactions, business invoice, and the itinerary for flowers. You can quickly develop an app like Uber for flowers as well, ‘it’s just the hard work and ambition that pays off. Before moving towards three effective ways for developing a successful flower delivery, take a look at some useful stats, industrial facts, and the best flower delivery app funding: Stats and facts concerning on-demand flower delivery app for startups: We strive our hard to keep our audience updated with the latest market trend, which is why we keep track of recently released stats concerning the same subject. The below-mentioned stats will defiantly assist you in the decision-making process of your flower delivery app startup: As per reports, the ‘USA’s retail market of flowers contributes $18billion, which is growing at an anticipated CAGR of 6%, from the year 2017–2023. Increasing demand for the floral market is also making flower gifting a common trend among people these days. Some of the leading flower apps such as UrbanStems, Farmgirl flowers, and Bouqs are raising a substantial amount of funds to expand their online flower delivery services. The venture capital of Bouqs is valued at $43.1million, whereas UrbanStems is valued at $27.2million in the USA alone. With the increasing funds, these app service providers are heavily investing in their logistics and offering one-day delivery of fresh flowers to customers. How Can You Develop A Successful Flower Delivery App For Your Startup Business? 1. Deliver flowers at the doorstep: In the flower delivery business, your primary purpose is to deliver fresh flowers to your customers on time. You might be aware of courier delivery app like Uber for flowers; it can immensely the make the delivery process seamless for you. Here are a few offerings of Uber delivery apps: With a mobile app for flower delivery app, you can seamlessly handle your deliveries and track the location as well. You might be receiving complaints concerning broken petals, or bouquet broking during transit. But a mobile app for your flower delivery startup enables you to cover up the pitfalls quickly. With constant tracking, to checking the picture of flowers from the pickup location, issues such as misguidance or miscommunication have been resolved. It has become possible with the integration of the mobile app with the maps. Uber introduced the idea of last-minute delivery of flowers, which means delivery in 30 minutes using bikes or bicycles. It offers same-day delivery to customers, boosting overall sales of your business. You can hire a third-party company or individuals through a collaborative economy across the country. In this way, an individual from another part of the country makes a delivery for you in his location, and you need to pay him according to the deliveries. Both can share their hard-earned profits, and individuals can work flexibly. 2. Partner with gifting companies to enhance your ‘brand’s visibility: As we know that mobile apps have made things quickly accessible to customers. It has become crucial that you create your brand identity and promote your brand in the online world. Modern customers have easy access to the internet and social platforms than traditional marketing platforms. To enhance your brand visibility in the ever-growing market, you should expand your business in other alike categories by utilizing affiliated partnerships. For instance, according to sources, the UrbanStems app has recently entered into a partnership with Vogue to step in the gifting app genre. UrbanStems not only offer bouquets and flowers for decoration but also provide curated gift boxes. Such partnerships open the door for more genre apps in the world. You can also provide customers with discounts, customized gifts, flower sale alerts, etc. 3. Offer online customized packages and boost your sales: Predicting customer behaviour is impossible. Some customers may like only red bouquets; some may want to add different flowers, etc. Offering variety to customers with customization will surely help you boost your brand image in the market. With the customized features, you can easily understand the likes and dislikes of customers by allowing them to choose from basket bouquets, box patterns, types of flowers and leaves, scented or natural fragrance flowers, and a lot more. By adding a payment gateway, customers will also get an idea of prices of different customized boxes or flowers. Conclusion As we are experts in flower app development, our team has shared this curate list of features that one should add in the flower app without any fail. If you still feel the requirement of certain assistance with regards to , Hybrid Mobile App Development, then get in touch with us at or drop an email at [email protected] We can help you develop a scalable, efficient, and interactive flower delivery app for your business! Originally published at https://www.concettolabs.com on September 6, 2019.

https://medium.com/@manish_41106/how-can-you-drive-growth-for-your-flower-delivery-app-5f9d0e40862b

['Manish Patel']

2019-09-06 13:58:11.315000+00:00

['Mobile App Development', 'Cross Platform Mobile App', 'Flutter App Development', 'Hybrid App Development', 'iOS App Development']

Four Useful Questions About Starting a Career in Data Science, and Their Answers

Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash There are countless discussions about getting started in a career in data science, and many young professionals and students are setting up their career path in this field. In fact the search term “Data Science Advice” gives about 1.2 billion results in Google! So this article, instead of giving direct advice, focuses on answering a few specific questions that I have repeatedly answered over the past few years being a data science enthusiast. So, without much ado, let’s start! Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash Question 1 — What are the requirements/skills/pre-requisites to be a Data Scientist? Ans: The term data scientist is used quite broadly these days. There are data scientists in business, medical sciences, genetic engineering, computer science etc. As such, one major requirement will be based on what goal you are targeting. Based on which field you want to apply data science to, the first thing you will need is Domain Knowledge. This is an advice I share based on my experience in this field. We have many tools in Data Science for understanding how different variables impact results and which variables are important for a model, but time and again, in many use cases (actually, almost all), I have found it is the in-depth understanding of the domain that sets apart a really good model and analysis! The next thing is a good conceptual idea on Statistics and Differential Calculus. Initially, when you are going to do exploratory data analysis, patterns, dimensionality reduction, imputing missing data, and pre-processing data for machine learning models, and when carrying out statistical analysis such as regression, you will need a good idea on Statistics. When you advance further, Calculus will help as well — for optimization problems, ensemble models, gradient boosting and many other advanced methods. Finally, in terms of software skills, you can start with PowerBI or Tableau, for data intelligence and insights, and quick dashboards. But then in order to actually venture into data science, you will need to learn to code. For that you will need either R or Python. There is a big debate on which one to start with, and there are pros and cons to both the languages, but frankly, I think understanding one will help you understand the other, and I end up working interchangeably between the two, based on the availability of the right package! Question 2: Does Data Science have any international certification course? How much does it cost? Ans: There are many. There are online courses, diplomas, and masters and undergraduate degrees. And the cost varies a lot. But here, I will again share my humble opinion — in the end the degree will not determine your outcome to be a data scientist. Data Science is a very applied field, and as such, for you to be employed as a data scientist or make a mark in the market, you need to have projects. It doesn’t only mean work projects. There are loads of data available in Kaggle, Google Database Search, UCI Machine Learning repository, and just take a data set, and work on it, trying to find patterns and trying to make predictions, measuring accuracy of prediction models etc. In fact, I am a huge proponent on trial and error learning — keep on trying different projects, and you will fail do initially do what you wanted to do, and then learn how to do it, and that learning will stick! Photo by Max Chen on Unsplash Since Data Science is an ever changing field, the contents and the tools are also ever changing. So to be very honest, no university curriculum or online course will be able to cover everything, especially the topics which are on the fringe or new topics. We try to keep us updated through blogs, new methods coming out, academic research and by these data projects. You can create these projects and store them in GitHub. When I am checking the ability of a data scientist applicant, I will actually prefer to go through her GitHub Repository or Kaggle Discussion! Question 3: How much does it take to become a Data Scientist? Ans: Again, no clear answer. Can’t even suggest a number range for the monetary costs. It completely depends on what path you chose. If you go for a master’s, then the costs will be higher, but you will have an accredited certification. If you base on online courses and finding materials yourself, the cost will be much less, but the value of certification will be less as well. But remember my answer to the second question — what matters more is the projects you have. When looking at cost from the perspective of time, it’s quite high. For me, I was a full time lecturer in a university, in a related topic, and so it took me almost 1 to 1.5 years, to slowly learn and dive very deeply into both the concepts and the coding. It depends on how much time you can give. I used to spend 4/5 hours per week at least. The time commitment also varies based on whether you know how to code (in which case it will be less than the time span i mentioned) and whether you have some basic background knowledge in statistics and algebra (if you don’t, the time span will be a little bit higher!) Photo by Antoine Dautry on Unsplash But a very important point here is that the learning never ends — I end up learning new stuff almost every other day, and have a certain time in the week dedicated for learning! Question 4: Where can I get proper guidelines regarding Data Science? Ans: Similar to my answer to the second question, unfortunately there is no single institution, group, platform that holistically covers all of the things that you need to know about Data Science. And that, in my opinion, is the fun with this field! You end up wandering around, and at times, you find something better! Regardless, there are many groups in social media and in places like, GitHub and Kaggle, and in Medium, where you can always interact and keep abreast with the new information. I think the best advice here is to learn and collect information from many sources. Medium has some very good articles and publications. DataCamp blog is quite good. Also Kaggle’s blog and following Kaggle competitions help a lot! Finally, GitHub has access to some really good codes, libraries and data projects.

https://medium.com/intelligentmachines/four-useful-questions-about-starting-a-career-in-data-science-and-their-answers-37fd35bf142e

['Khan Muhammad Saqiful Alam']

2020-06-28 07:40:23.433000+00:00

['Big Data', 'Analytics', 'Skills', 'Career Paths', 'Data Science']

First-Year Writing and the Gauntlet of Academic Citation

First-Year Writing and the Gauntlet of Academic Citation First-year writing expects far too much from both teachers and students. “How much we should emphasize academic citation in the first-year writing classroom has long been a matter of debate,” explains Jennie Young, director of the first-year writing program at University of Wisconsin at Green Bay. Then Young argues: “However, I’d like to take it one step further: I suggest that we stop teaching it entirely.” I taught high school English for 18 years, much of that instruction focusing on teaching writing and preparing students for college. Since then, I have been a professor in higher education, including over a decade teaching (and briefly directing) first-year writing. Young’s provocative and compelling proposal speaks to many of the problems I have experienced with teaching first-year writing as well as with providing faculty the guidance and support they need to teach first-year writing (and writing in general) — especially those faculty outside the fields of composition and English. Students typically come into first-year writing with a very narrow and distorted understanding of academic writing and citation; they have mostly written cited essays in English (and thus have very little awareness of the wide range of conventions for writing across academic disciplines) and have been inculcated into thinking “everyone uses MLA.” Faculty charged with teaching first-year writing often struggle with teaching writing broadly because most college faculty are academics who write (by necessity and often begrudgingly) and not writers who happen to teach or do scholarship (this second category is where I reside). These of course are not the only problems I have experienced, but they do serve as solid foundations for entering into a dialogue with Young’s call for not teaching academic citation in first-year writing based on four powerful reasons: • The vast majority of our students will never use an academic citation system after they graduate. Most writing is now digital and uses active links to document source material. • It hogs time from teaching the more important (and far more practical and transferable) aspects of writing, such as clarity, correctness and rhetorical effectiveness. • There are other ways to attribute credit. Journalists, for example, just write “according to” and provide the information and the date if it’s relevant. • The citation systems change from style to style and update to update. Why are we spending so much time insisting on something that’s not standardized across disciplines and is going to change the minute MLA decides to make arbitrary changes (to an already arbitrary system) in order to justify yet another new edition? As I have examined before about my own instruction in first-year writing, I seek ways to scaffold student experiences in order to first dismantle their learned misunderstandings and garbled sense of disciplinary writing/citation and then to help them reconsider evidence-based and cited writing at a conceptual level. Young’s first and third bullet above speak directly to my own teaching and assignments since I ask students-as-writers to investigate the diverse ways writers cite (I also emphasize journalism and on-line writing that incorporates hyperlinks) while introducing them to cited writing through hyperlinking so that we can focus on choosing high-quality sources and writing well instead of the tedium of formatting. For students and writing instructors, however, I have to pause at Young’s use of “teaching” and ask that all of us charged with teaching writing in higher education reconsider some key aspects of first-year writing as well as the entire writing program at our colleges and universities. Broadly, faculty must understand and also support the explicit goals of first-year writing and the writing program; obviously this assumes those goals have been decided and are available for faculty and students. Young, I think, is pushing against the purposes of first-year writing: Is first-year writing designed to prepare students as writers and informed thinkers, or is first-year writing designed to prepare students as academic writers during their college experience? These are not trivial questions in terms of whether or not we support Young’s argument about dropping citation instruction in first-year writing. One of the tensions I have witnessed in my providing faculty development for colleagues teaching first-year writing is that I tend to work big-picture in terms of fostering students as good writers (not primarily disciplinary academic writers) while also cultivating student awareness of the more narrow (and often tedious) aspects of disciplinary academic writing. Here is where I struggle with the word “teach” and also acknowledge that Young is making an excellent point about assessment and grades for students in first-year writing. So here are the conditions of first-year writing that must be addressed when considering Young’s proposal. All courses are inherently contracts between faulty and students while also being contracts among faculty. Students expect to receive identified instruction in any course, but faulty also teach each course with the understanding that students have had other courses that address content and behaviors that inform that instruction. First-year writing — like general education requirements and introductory courses — has obligations to both each student and the entire curriculum of a college or university. If we step back from Young’s specific proposal, I think the essence of her argument is one that is deeply compelling to me as a writing instructor: First-year writing expects far too much from both teachers and students. As many of those with whom I have worked to guide and direct first-year writing have come to repeat, no writing-intensive course is an inoculation. I would add, especially first-year writing. The teaching of writing, whether discipline-bound or not, takes a great deal of time and several writing-intensive courses over the entirety of any student’s formal education. All colleges and universities with first-year writing and writing programs (and ideally several writing-intensive courses designed to address the goals of that program) must confront at least Young’s argument in terms of what any first-year writing course can accomplish. Since, as Young notes, academic citation is discipline-specific and those style sheets are in a constant state of flux, it seems quite reasonable to focus on the broad elements of writing well and being well-informed during first year writing while also conceding some space and time to introducing students to academic citation (fostering awareness, not teaching and assessing it). Academic citation can and should be left to upper-level writing courses and courses in a student’s major where the tedium has at least some relevance in the moment of performing at a high level in a discipline in order to achieve a degree (and where faculty in that major can make informed decisions about what those majors need, as they say, in the “real world” after college). The great irony about first-year writing and writing programs in higher education is that they are simultaneously framed as essential since they are charged with incredibly high-stakes expectations (teach all first-year students how not to plagiarize and how to select high-quality sources to incorporate into flawlessly formatted citation guidelines while also being nuanced and well informed about the topic) but are often under-staffed or staff in haphazard and poorly supported ways while also receiving inadequate funding and allowed to exist in conditions that work against those lofty goals. First-year writing is an introduction to a next step as writers and thinkers for college students, and it is an introduction in many ways to college itself. First-year writing, again, is not an inoculation, and Young’s call for removing academic citation from what we demand of first-year writing instructors and students is the least we can do to create the sort of courses that serve well both our students and out curriculum goals. See Also On Citation and the Research Paper Technology Fails Plagiarism, Citation Tests Real-World Citation versus the Drudgery of Academic Writing

https://plthomasedd.medium.com/first-year-writing-and-the-gauntlet-of-academic-citation-cf448eaae622

['Paul Thomas']

2019-08-09 11:13:07.304000+00:00

['Education', 'First Year Writing', 'Teaching', 'Writing', 'Citations']

Maecenas Launches New Tokenisation Vehicle

Our legal, financial and tech teams have been working very hard behind the scenes, and after many months of conferring with legal and regulatory experts, we are now proud to announce that we are ready to roll out our new tokenisation vehicle. This is a big moment for us. It gives our team immense satisfaction to continue to be pioneers in the asset tokenisation space. We believe that this new tokenisation vehicle is a major step towards achieving true asset tokenisation. This new vehicle is the result of a full re-think of our tokenisation strategy, and it brings Maecenas one step closer to market democratisation and to our ultimate objective of achieving mass adoption. Under this new financial structure we are creating a new type of token that is neither utility nor security. We call these new tokens “asset tokens”. With this new framework, each artwork is represented by a unique asset token, which internally is structured similarly to how a stablecoin works. We believe that this is something revolutionary that can transform the art world. It removes the traditional barriers to investing in art as an asset class. Launching this new token type — the asset token — is a major milestone in realising our vision. New Tokenisation Vehicle The new structure is set up to ensure that newly issued tokens are NOT considered securities in the relevant jurisdictions. As sales of securities can be subject to additional compliance requirements, it creates additional overheads and places restrictions when it comes to token promotion and distribution. These effectively block our journey towards realising our vision. The new token model lifts accessibility restrictions and also allows us to lower the minimum investment amount. Not only is this model scalable with less incremental cost for each tokenised art piece (thus allowing us to grow and expand more quickly), but it also opens up the market to non-accredited investors, helping us to truly achieve our goal of democratising art investment. Successfully Disrupting Markets Cryptocurrencies have seen tremendous growth over the last ten years, since Bitcoin was first launched, because they don’t have the restrictions of traditional capital markets. A market is disrupted when technology changes the rules of the game by creating a new, better and more efficient way of doing things. Skype achieved success because they allowed people to make phone calls without needing a phone or a phone line (i.e. legacy telco infrastructure). Likewise, cryptocurrencies have been successful because they let people make and receive payments without needing a bank account (i.e. legacy financial infrastructure). We believe that for art tokenisation to be successful we have to allow people to invest and trade art without having to rely on legacy infrastructure.

https://medium.com/maecenas/maecenas-launches-new-tokenisation-vehicle-9a53de87ba6a

[]

2019-07-03 08:31:01.241000+00:00

['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Maecenas', 'Asset Tokenization', 'Fine Art']

Changing Horses in Midstream

Changing Horses in Midstream How a mentorship helped guide me through a career transition Background: Direct service to client success I started working at Code for America in the summer of 2017. Coming from the traditional nonprofit world, this was my first introduction to a tech environment. My only knowledge of this new space was whatever The Social Network and Silicon Valley taught me, and whatever Craigslist ads were looking for (you know, front-end rockstars and engineering ninjas). I knew — and still know — how to write exactly zero lines of code. I am still unsure of what GitHub really is. But I did come with a specific set of skills: talking and listening to people. My previous roles had all been direct-service related. I’ve worked with college-bound high schoolers, people looking to get connected to public benefits, and most recently, conducting SNAP (food stamps) outreach. That’s where I learned about Code for America, an organization using technology to make government services work better for everyone. While conducting CalFresh (the name for SNAP in California) outreach I used GetCalFresh.org, a website that Code for America built and still maintains, to help folks sign up for CalFresh benefits. After some time in this role, an opening became available for a Client Success Specialist on the GetCalFresh team. I got the job, and as a Client Success Specialist I responded to client questions and concerns via the sites live chat and messaging features. When I started, I felt more like an outsider than I had at any previous job. I quickly realized that while I thought I was “tech savvy,” I wasn’t. While I may not have brought a GitHub account along with me, I did bring a lot of other things over from my previous jobs. In addition to my knowledge of the rules and regulations of the program, I brought knowledge and experience from working directly with clients. I knew what language they used and I knew what language to use with them. I knew that sometimes a client isn’t looking for an answer to their problem, just an opportunity to vent. This background helped me communicate with clients as if I were speaking to them in person instead of through a computer. Although I am a Bay Area native, I never thought I would get a job in tech. But here I was in a new job, a new space, and no idea what the next steps were in terms of my career. Coming from an immigrant family of non-“professionals,” my view of the workforce was pretty limited. What role came after Client Success Specialist? Did I want to be a Client Success Manager? Conducting in-person prototyping at a UC Berkeley CalFresh clinic in my client success role Client success to user research A few months in, I found myself notetaking for a designer/de-facto researcher during a couple of research sessions. During this collaboration, she asked if I had ever thought about becoming a user researcher. I had to admit that I had never heard those two words put together. She commented on my demeanor with the participants and how I made them feel comfortable, and she praised the quality of the questions I asked. Based on my interactions with the research participants, she suggested I speak with our Head of Product because I might be a “good fit” for a user researcher role. So I did. And the more the Head of Product explained to me what user research was, the more I saw the connection between the two roles. The relationship between client success and user research seemed obvious, and the leap from one to the other more than reasonable. Both roles speak directly with clients. Both roles learn about issues with the product clients are interacting with. Both roles require a level of compassion necessary for quality human interactions. She was convinced that it would work and we began discussing how I would make the transition. It’s important to note that, at this point, Code for America did not have any staff with the “researcher” title. Those responsibilities fell on to the shoulders of the designers and product managers. An issue which proved to be a central challenge for this transition. The learning of the skills required for this role started out simply enough. I read blog posts, attended a course at General Assembly, tagged along with designers as they went out to do research, etc. But without any one person dedicated to research while I was still the only Client Success Specialist, it was difficult to be in two places at once. As the organization grew, we added another Client Success Specialist and bought more into the importance of research. Eventually a dedicated User Researcher joined the team, and then eventually another, and then a couple more. I continued helping out with projects, learning different techniques ranging from card sorting to contextual inquiry to remote usability testing. User testing at the Richmond WIC office I had been unofficially splitting my time between these two roles for almost a year at this point. And while my team was very supportive of the transition into user research, I couldn’t help but feel imposter syndrome. I felt like I was still lacking something. Looking back, I’m not sure whether it was in my skillset or my confidence — more than likely it was both. I buried that fear under the work of my two roles and carried on. Our product, GetCalFresh, grew and expanded into a service used throughout the entire state of California. During our largest period of growth, I had to temporarily revert from the 50/50 split to 100% client success to help keep up with the incoming messages from a dramatically increased number of users. Finding a mentor Around the spring of 2019, the idea of a mentorship was brought up during a 1:1 with my manager. She felt a more structured approach to the transition would prove to be valuable. Luckily enough, a user researcher from another team had been a mentor while at her previous company and was happy to step back into the mentor role. The purpose was to learn about different research methods and become more comfortable within the realm of research. There was no pass or fail, and a title change was not contingent on completion — the idea was simply to learn. The mentorship took place over the course of about six months. We agreed on a general outline of what the mentorship would look like. The outline was as follows: Ask 10–12 researchers (from both Code for America and external companies) to present about projects where they used a specific research method. Read a blog post or two about each method before meeting with the designated research presenter. Ask questions. Each researcher would present a case study using a given method, and my mentor and I would ask about what went wrong, what went perfectly, what they would have done differently, etc. Learn. Rinse and repeat. (Oh, and send a Thank You card — my mentor was insistent on this.) Since the research community is pretty new and relatively small (something I quickly learned), it wasn’t difficult — or at least my mentor didn’t make it seem difficult — to find 11 researchers who were happy to present case studies of their work. She reached out to previous and current colleagues, classmates, and acquaintances and we soon had a line-up of researchers from across the country. Some visited our office since they were just a few blocks away, others spoke with us via video call. All presentations were scheduled for an hour, leaving plenty of room for questions throughout. Due to scheduling, presentations ranged from being a day apart to being a month apart. Aside from the valuable learning opportunities, what may have helped the most was the feeling of acceptance. Everyone we spoke to was excited to have someone new join their unofficial club. Each presenter gave a similar nod of “Yeah, that totally makes sense,” when I mentioned the idea of transitioning from client success to user research. By the time we got to the last couple of presentations, it was official: I was a Junior User Researcher at Code for America. While I had been doing the work of a researcher for many months, the mentorship was the piece that helped solidify a couple of things for me. It helped me realize that I made the right decision in looking for a change, and that research was a great fit for my set of skills and interests. I’m probably not the first, and I don’t imagine that I will be the last person to make this transition from Client Success to User Research. Going forward I have a few hopes for my organization, and for others. Recommendations for supporting employees through career transitions Organizations should think beyond a career ladder. Not every move is going to be a vertical one. If there isn’t already a pathway for this, consider creating and formalizing one. This could include mentorships, professional development, and an overall sense of confidence that transition is possible for anyone. Managers should continue to encourage their teams to explore other disciplines of interest. I know we encourage inter- and intra-team exploration into each other’s roles, but this isn’t necessarily done with the purpose of transition as much as it is getting familiar with the product from various angles. It’s important to nurture curiosity. Changing your mind about a field of interest doesn’t need to stop in school. And if you’re considering a mentorship program at your organization: Remember that everyone learns differently. Provide general guidelines but allow the mentor and mentee to openly discuss and structure the mentorship to however would be most beneficial for them. If presentations aren’t beneficial then maybe the learning can be more hands-on in the field, or a combination of these options. With that being said, it would be a great idea to mix things up and use various teaching styles through the length of the mentorship. There could be a presentation one week and a mock journey-mapping session the next. Be aware of time commitments. Consider how much time goes into planning and conducting presentations and activities. A mentor and mentee should both have the capacity for the work. Go for broke. Allow mentors and mentees to do as much as they can (while still tending to their full time responsibilities, of course). My situation was different in that I was already doing the work of a researcher, but if you have six months for the mentorship, then make those six months count. Speak to as many other researchers as possible. Leave the four walls of your office and see how it’s done elsewhere. Or just go out and do real research. And if you are considering a change, whether it be vertical or lateral, then be your own advocate and say something. Talk to your colleagues and your managers and find out what you can do to help facilitate your own growth. You might just end up in a role you didn’t know was right for you.

https://medium.com/code-for-america/changing-horses-in-midstream-66f5e77d2e0a

['Cesar Paredes']

2020-04-16 13:01:01.657000+00:00

['Career Paths', 'Client Relationship', 'Cfa Research', 'User Research', 'Mentorship']

Is There A Risk You Will Overspend During Christmas?

The reason why might be another one than you think. Photo by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash I love Christmas, and I’m one of them who usually overspend on gifts. This year I started asking myself why I do it. It seems I’m not the only one. Nearly half of Americans have felt pressured to overspend during the holidays, according to a survey from Bankratefound. When I visited a store with fabulous Christmas decorations and beautiful Christmas songs, my urge to buy things went through the roof. And when I saw some other stores that seemed to have forgotten Christmas and didn’t have any decorations at all, the interest in buying went away. According to the survey, of the people who feel they need to overspend during Christmas, parents are the ones who do it the most. Our family has four kids in the age of 20, 9,7, and 4, so we are definitely in the hazard zone. I asked our nine and 7-year-old, both boys, what they wished for, and the answer was no surprise. They both want the latest phones. To make them happy about their presents, I would have to overspend. But does this mean it’s their fault? Or is it our fault who probably spoiled them with gifts earlier? Is there anything wrong with saying I can’t afford to give you these presents? “Kids, tell us what you wish for Christmas.” -” Don’t bother, dad. We can’t afford it anyway.” There’s nothing wrong with saying no to your kids. I noticed that it seems to work better when they get a couple of nos before they get a yes. Then they appreciate it so much more when you finally give them something. But, what I don’t want my kids to do is to stop dreaming and wishing. I like their wishes. Our wishes and dreams are what make our lives magic. I don’t want them to create a wish list that is a “what my family can afford to give me — list” where all their real dreams have been edited and changed. When I work as a consultant and advise on becoming more creative, one of the most significant issues seems to be that we tend to stop dreaming and wishing when we get older. Many times in my life have I noticed how often the impossible went real as long as I kept dreaming. So maybe this is the reason why parents overspend? We don’t want to steal our kids from their hopes and dreams. And especially not during Christmas. When you are the only one who can fulfill the dream of someone you love, then you got some pressure. At the same time, we already suffer from adverse effects from too much TV, computer games, and Playstation. When our kids have started playing, it’s difficult for them to keep it on a suitable level. And when you as a parent shall be the one to turn it off. The conflicts will always be present. When I was a kid, Christmas was a wonderful holiday. I remember walking around longing for the Christmas day every day during December. I want to keep on with the same joyful Christmas forever and to let our kids share the same wonder as we did. But one thing that has changed since then is that we also used to wish for gifts that weren’t that expensive. I started to read comics even before I could read. And since I was seven, I used to read everything I could get my hands on as long as it was comics. Books and comics used to be a natural part of my wish lists for Christmas. And music too. Our kids want to spend all their indoor time in front of the computer. Gadgets are the only thing they want, except for cool clothing. Humans are highly social. The primary reason we overspend during Christmas seems to be our own need to fit in and be loved. Parents are supposed to buy gifts for Christmas. We have been taught that only kids who are on Santa’s naughty list will not receive gifts. Add to this our difficulties in keeping a budget and following it and the possibilities to buy on credit and we get in serious risk. Many studies have found that we are ready to pay more if we use a credit card when we shop — 83% more, according to a survey from Valuepenguin. Here’s some more statistics: Budgets are so dull. Why do we always have to do the right all the time? Can’t we be just a little spontaneous? Yes, this is the biggest problem of them all. It feels good to shop. And often, we look for excuses to do it. We get a high doing shopping. Shopping can be an excellent way to escape reality for a while and to get some excitement in our lives. Science has found out that we can feel better when we shop. They even have a name for it, “retail therapy.” According to a survey from Clicktale, 40% of shoppers use shopping to calm down. What happens is that shopping makes us feel more in control. If we have a low mood, that mood often comes with a feeling of not being in control. And then shopping is a great way to get us a sense of control back. But it can be an expensive and unnecessary way. The good news is that we can get the same pleasant feeling of control by deciding not to buy. Summary If you believe you will overspend this Christmas, the problem is most certainly not a money problem. Or a lack of money or credit. We mostly shop to fit in, be loved, or to get some excitement in our lives during Christmas. We may say that we want to see our loved ones happy, but is it right? Of course we want to see the people we love to be satisfied, but there are so many other ways to express our love than shopping that will give us a better result. Our kids, most of all, want our attention and time. Generally, we shop to get a feeling of being in control. But you can get this feeling in other ways too. One of the best I know of is to minimize our judging in our lives. Every time we give circumstances the credit for our negative feelings, we become more and more victims in our lives. Some spiritual masters even dare to say that we have the power over everything in our lives. I’m not there yet to see it myself, but I believe they do have a point. Something I found useful is, when I experience something I would like to see different, I visualize what I would like to see and experience instead. Then I focus on enjoying that experience. It changes my feelings for the situation, and I feel more in control. It also makes me focus on what I can do instead of what other people don’t do. It usually works well, as long as a remember to do it. Another obvious way to get in control is to make sure we have a household budget and that the expenses for Christmas gifts are part of it. Remember that there will be a life also after Christmas and your kids and family will most certainly enjoy your company more if you can be present in their company. Happy and calm, knowing that you made some excellent economic decisions. And what did we decided to do with our gifts? We decided that our 7-year-old boy, Isaac, will have to wait some time for his phone. Even though he wants to do everything that his older brother is doing, he is too small for the responsibility. We also decided to repair an older phone we already had to keep expenses low for our 9-year-old, Ilias. And to balance our kids’ media time, we started to ask them to read a book or paint or do some other home activities they like before they begin to use the media. For every 30 minutes they do something else they get 60 more minutes of media. We hope that as soon as they experience, for example, the joy of reading, they will forget about time and keep on. And we have already seen some proof of this. Balance seems to be the key.

https://medium.com/@niclas-janelov/is-there-a-risk-you-will-overspend-during-christmas-618ae20e0f95

['Niclas Janelöv']

2020-12-20 18:29:31.505000+00:00

['Shopping', 'Personal Development', 'Parenting', 'Christmas']

This Week in Blockfolio Signal — Dash, Zilliqa, Solana, Elrond, Aragon

Dash Invests in CrayPay, Launching Instant Savings App to 155,000 Merchants “The Dash Investment Foundation (DIF) has announced that they have invested in CrayPay and will be launching a dedicated Dash Instant Savings App that can be used at more than 155,000 merchant locations across the United States!” Read More — Mark Mason, Dash Press Room Manager Summary Dash announces a collaboration that will enable Dash spending at over 155,000 merchant locations across the U.S. The Dash Investment Foundation (DIF) recently invested in CrayPay, a loyalty payment platform that enables users to earn instant savings at a variety of national chains. Current merchant partners include American Eagle, Autozone, Best Buy, Chili’s, CVS, Domino’s, DoorDash, GAP, Lowe’s, Staples, and over 200 more national retailers and restaurants. CrayPay is the first mobile payment platform to combine instant savings on everyday purchases with easy to use geolocation technology. Dash will have a white-label version exclusively for Dash users. Significance Users have access to more spending opportunities for their Dash and can save significantly more than they could paying with a cash-back credit card. This provides a strong incentive for using Dash as often as possible, which is likely to increase adoption. Price at the time of Blockfolio Signal: $128. View DASH on Blockfolio.

https://blog.blockfolio.com/this-week-in-blockfolio-signal-dash-zilliqa-solana-elrond-aragon-6d8fadecfc1b

['Jason Hamlin']

2021-01-15 18:59:48.268000+00:00

['Zilliqa', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Solana Network', 'Dash', 'Blockchain']

The Art of Multitasking

Ah, the “M” word. A topic of much debate in the age of information overload. Merriam-Webster defines multitasking two ways: 1) “the concurrent performance of several jobs by a computer” and 2) “the performance of multiple tasks at a time.” You don’t say… While multitasking isn’t solely a job for computers, the comparison makes a lot of sense. Think of a computer with 10 different tabs open (much like my computer at the moment). Even though all tabs are open, the computer can only focus on one at a time. Neuroscientists explain this is how our brain works when we try to tackle different tasks all at once. And oftentimes, just like our computers, there comes a point where we hit overload and freeze up. This is when our productivity takes a serious hit. As nice as it would be to focus on one task through its completion, that isn’t realistic. If I focused on my laundry and nothing else, that would eat up my entire day. As a single mother, every moment is precious in more ways than one. Parenthood will force you to multitask for sheer survival. That’s a bit dramatic, but I think every parent can attest to the fact that multitasking is an inevitable part of life. If I don’t pick up the toys on the ground with my monkey toes while feeding my infant, then they are going to stay on the floor and I will most likely step on them later. I am here to tell you that it is possible to focus on tasks and juggle them at the same time. Here are eight ways I avoid incessant task-switching and actually manage to stay on top of life. 1. To Do lists are my best friend Am I the only one that will literally lie awake trying to remember everything I have to do the following day? My mind will not stop until I get it all out on paper. Not only does it unclutter your brain, but it allows you to reflect and prioritize obligations. 2. Prioritize and minimize Lists help me look and see what tasks need to be completed immediately and which ones can be pushed back if I’m beginning to feel overloaded. Refrain from continuously pushing back the same tasks. If you keep procrastinating on a task, make sure it’s even something worth your time and energy. Don’t be afraid to say no to obligations that aren’t helping you complete your goals. 3. Multitask common tasks Save the multitasking for everyday activities and try to focus on novel tasks independently. Talking on the phone while grocery shopping may be slightly distracting, but not near as much as talking on the phone while trying to put together brand new IKEA furniture. Try listening to new music while cleaning your house, maybe not while working on that new project at work. 4. Organization is key You may have 301 things on your to do list, but something about it being typed or written neatly brings ease to my mind. I often rewrite to do lists once the scratched out writing and arrows overwhelm the actual words. You don’t have to take it to my OCD level but keeping your tasks legible and clear can definitely help ease stress. Same goes for your house and office space. Cluttered house, cluttered mind! 5. Celebrate the small victories If you’re like me, you find deep satisfaction in crossing things of your to do list. Sometimes I write small tasks like “take out the garbage” or “make the bed” or “brush your teeth” so I start the day off feeling like I’ve accomplished something. I’ve found the hardest part is getting the productivity momentum going, but once the ball is rolling it can be hard to stop. 6. Break up larger tasks into smaller goals This makes them more feasible. If I need to complete a project for a client, I separate the task into four categories: research, outline, write, and edit. This allows me to work on several projects at once without eating up time trying to figure out where I left off. 7. Don’t beat yourself up It’s okay if you didn’t get to something on your list today. The fact of the matter is there is always tomorrow. This isn’t an excuse to procrastinate but a pass to be human. Be forgiving with yourself. Humans were not made to be on-the-go all the time like society makes us believe. Negative self talk does nothing but hurt productivity. Be gentle with yourself, you are doing the best you can. 8. Take some time to do absolutely nothing We do what we can but don’t forget to relax a little each day too. Take your dog on a walk and leave the phone, eat and actually taste your food, take a shower and focus on nothing but the water. Taking five minutes out of your day to silence the noise will do wonders for your psyche.

https://medium.com/@shelbyleighbuchanan/the-art-of-multitasking-4592bd007a93

[]

2019-01-10 22:48:08.016000+00:00

['Parenthood', 'Psychology', 'Lifehacks', 'Multitasking', 'Productivity']

Naming When We’re Not Doing Well, And Tackling It For Good

Photo by Cullan Smith on Unsplash What do you do when life’s circumstances hit you hard, when you feel like crap and you’re not doing well? Two Christian therapists, Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton, recently sat down to try to record a podcast on a new topic. Unfortunately, neither of them were in the state of mind to engage in what they had in mind. Luckily, their instincts kicked in, and they decided to talk about just that: what to do when we are not doing well and started the three-part “Not Doing Well” series on The Allender Center blog. The two of them sought to answer some fundamental questions: “How can we continue to pursue the work we are called to, continue to seek healing and growth, and continue to love people around us when it feels like things are falling apart?” Rachael is used to not doing well and “just having to get through it,” as many of us are in our daily lives. Only a few lucky souls on the planet are fortunate every hour in the 9–5 work schedule, and that is just how it is. But sometimes, the feeling of “not doing well” crosses a line, and we persevere too much in circumstances that require us to halt for just a bit. “No pain, no gain” is an attitude that Rachael has had throughout her life, that urges us to just power through when he hit barriers, and is just a fundamental part of our culture. I feel this too, especially as a runner. I am a Boston-qualified marathoner, and during the race and runs of longer than 20 miles, you do not have the luxury to just stop when you want to. The other option when we’re not doing well is that we escape, isolate, hide away from the public so we don’t feel any more pain. Dan Allender acknowledges that there are few people that know when they’re not doing well. How we’re doing is not always an act of categorical perception, that we’re either well or we aren’t: we’re usually somewhere in between. But in those times that we really aren’t well, in the words of Allender, “it has to be almost catastrophic for us to know that we are not well.” For us to be able to name that things just are that bad, everything changes. “Everything begins to, in some sense, collapse on itself.” Rachael expands on Dan’s point, that it’s just so exposing when “you only get to name that you’re not well when it gets so extreme.” I know that’s how it is with me — when I actually acknowledge to my friends how poorly I’ve been doing or feeling, it makes me feel emasculated, vulnerable. And the two of them agree that when we’re in that state of despair, we have that tendency to “remov[e] ourselves from others, convinced that our absence is better for everyone when we are unwell.” The two of them agree that this is a “false nobility,” a mixture of martyrdom and well-intent that ultimately just lead to “well-worn structures of addiction and sabotage.” When we’re really not doing well, and it requires some sort of disruption, an “intersection of spirit and spirit — our spirits with the spirit of God,” that leads us to begin to change. We find new ways to go forward. Contending with the spirit of love is what happens — love from others, and love from God. When we acknowledge we’re not doing well, “it can be an incredibly vulnerable statement and a window into our most formative stories and the most deeply entrenched message about ho we are.” It disrupts us in our usual states of coping, and it makes us recognize that we need something that is different from “our spirals of sabotage and escape.” What are your venues of sabotage and escape? I know that I resort to isolation, sometimes I resort to obsession over work and surface-level accomplishments. And I know you may have different ones. But it is in those moments where we don’t ask for help and don’t reveal our personal weakness. Admitting that we’re not well allows us to do that. Rachael doesn’t want us to blame ourselves for doing so, because “when something has harmed us…what kind of decisions do we make about ourselves, about God, about the world?” We have to tackle our unwellness in “new, courageous ways, [and] it will inevitably lead us back to our earliest stories and families of origin.” So many of us come from homes where if we admitted we weren’t doing well, people would just tell us to “get over it.’ Did we have the space to be vulnerable? Rachael acknowledges that exploring these roots “are painful places.” We have to challenge our false beliefs that we have to be well all the time, “that the only options are isolation or to dissociate and fragment.” Even when we’re in this realm of battle, conflict, and confusion, we are also in this realm of hope. Think about how we feel when we hear someone say “I’m not doing well, and it’s okay if you’re not doing well too.” Sure, life sucks sometimes. It can feel like everything is crashing in, but we will not be taken down “because we are not alone.” “In not being well, my heart is well,” Dan says. This is where we become people of the Spirit, people with deep souls. We aren’t alone, now. We know “the Spirit contends with and for us, alongside the beloved community of resurrection people.” These people don’t shy away from death or minimize pain, because what we are going through now is a part of a larger story, one that is far from being finished. “There is something of the glory of God that is meant to be a gift to one another,” Dan says. So how can we move forward when life still sucks, and circumstances remain unwell? Well, if there’s one thing to learn from this article, it’s that powering through when we’re not doing well isn’t going to work. My pastor, Lisa, gave an analogy of life being floating through a river with a bunch of rocks impeding our paths. We need to flow away from the rocks, but too often we try to jump crush the rock in front of us rather than finding a way around it. Dan and Rachael then invite us to “have the courage and humility to be honest about we’re at, and to open ourselves to the care of others.” The problem is that the times we are vulnerable and the times we seek care are not always met with kindness. In these situations, we’re not only dealing with not doing well now but “with a whole history of triggers and traumas colliding.” So how do we move forward toward being well when our circumstances don’t reflect it, when “things are beyond our control.” In these moments, we need to stop our usual cycles and take a step back. We need to retreat, and we need to regather, which isn’t running away and giving way to isolation. It’s “an act of humility, maneuvering to create space so that we can work on repair.” This, Rachael says, is beautiful, an intersection between faith and hope. We don’t always believe God will be there when we take the time to stop and retreat. We sometimes think that God will only be there if we try to crush the rocks in front of us, “if we prove that we have the capacity in our own right.” Retreating and regathering are acts of surrender, being vulnerable and trusting that Jesus will be present in the overwhelming flood.” And the question Dan asks us next is whether Jesus will greet us with kindness, which is what we reject the most from ourselves and from God when things are not going well. “Kindness will change my heart,” Dan writes. “But…there’s something in me that believes both that I don’t deserve it, and that it’s not true.” When we pause and surrender, it’s not that everything in our lives is fixed. I know that when I do, there’s still that part of me that is overwhelmed by daily life’s rigors. Dan calls it rest, that we find grounding in the midst of a storm. “In that rest, we can begin to look for a new beginning, a way to move forward that is authentic, vulnerable, and courageous.” And he doesn’t stop there: once a relinquishment or surrender happens, there needs to be a new beginning. Dan calls the new beginning a consecration, where he asks himself: “what does it mean to consecrate the next 90 seconds — to life, to him, to beauty, to goodness?” I do this in a different way: I have a mantra in my head that says “trust God, no matter what,” and when I’m faced with circumstances that leave me not doing well, I ask myself “what is God telling you to do?” I’ve written before about not knowing what God wants, and that being a fundamental part of what faith is. But somehow, someway, I’ll tell myself to trust God, go to him, and make a decision and take a risk regardless, just feeling, for some reason, that it was the right one, regardless of the outcome. Rachael closes the three-part sequence talking about the reorientation of identity in a way that grows faith. It is the voice that names I am loved when we’re not doing well. It’s the voice when we feel worthless and futile, that tells us “I’m meant for more than futility and struggle.” For a lot of this past year, I have been not been doing well, but I’m grateful for that, even though circumstances are largely still the same. I’ve navigated a crisis better than I thought I could and re-chartered my identity in ways I didn’t think possible. I close this article looking no further than Maya Angelou’s famous poem, “Still I Rise.” Downtrodden, written down in history, defamed by other people’s “bitter, twisted lies,” the narrator speaks up with a tone of faith, hope, and defiance, that like “dust, I’ll rise.” When we aren’t doing well, we’re dust, but through re-orienting ourselves, through God, we will rise. Rachael puts it beautifully, that when we go through an odyssey and journey of not doing well and surrendering and consecrating ourselves, we marvel, and say look what God can do with dust.

https://ryanfan.medium.com/naming-when-were-not-doing-well-and-tackling-it-for-good-4a3e815210f9

['Ryan Fan']

2019-04-10 14:30:08.404000+00:00

['Depression', 'Christianity', 'Self', 'Spirituality', 'Life']

Getting a Job: 11 Things I Learned When Made Redundant

Image by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/geralt-9301/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=1915348">Gerd Altmann</a> from <a href=”https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=1915348">Pixabay</a> At the end of October I was given three weeks’ notice I was being made redundant. I’m in my late fifties, jobs are scarce, coronavirus restrictions and a second lockdown are hitting business hard — things looked bleak. Five weeks later I secured another job. I made mistakes and learned lessons in that time. Hopefully, this article will benefit those seeking work, saving them time and preventing them making the same errors. 1. Pin down your skills and experience. My first task was to consider what I could do. I know there’s plenty of work for plumbers because you can never get one, but that’s hardly my skill set. Think about everything you’ve done, and that includes voluntary work, clubs or hobbies. If, for example, you’re the treasurer for your local swimming club, your financial expertise could sway a potential employer. Working in a charity shop, even if only for a couple of hours a month, shows you have customer service skills. Give concrete instances when you have used your skills. I needed to not only say I could use DTP software but also list examples of publications I had produced. The National Careers Service has an online skills health check. You answer questions and take timed tests — some of which I found challenging — to assess your strengths and weaknesses. The check takes at least two hours to complete and produces a report at the end. It covers things like working with numbers, verbal reasoning and solving mechanical problems. The twenty-three-page report helped to clarity my thinking. It was time well spent. 2. Work out what you like doing. This sounds obvious but I had to go through the process. I was a secondary school teacher for over thirty years and then worked for a religious organisation for fifteen months. What gave me a buzz? And what did I do in my spare time? I figured out I liked helping people. That is the primary criteria for hundreds of vacancies. However, I don’t want to do personal or intimate care. That knocks out 99.9% of those vacancies. I also love writing so I investigated jobs in that field. Without experience in particular industries, which I didn’t have, and because I don’t live in London, the only route was freelancing. (See below.) 3. Work out your budget and your financial goals. Getting my finances pinned down kept the panic at bay. It gave me some control. My wife still has a job and I have a pension, but that isn’t enough to pay the mortgage and university fees while maintaining our lifestyle. By looking carefully at our outgoings we identified places we could cut costs and how we could offset university fees against savings. We also found out the minimum I had to earn. With online banking, you only need a piece of paper and a calculator to take control here. 4. Find the right job sites for you. Not all vacancy boards are created equal. Some specialise in particular types of careers. For example, I wanted something in the voluntary sector so I kept the CharityJob tab open. It only had a few vacancies but they were much more relevant than those on most sites. Another charities board produced reams of irrelevant ads. Surprisingly, most sites didn’t allow me to search for remote-only jobs. Indeed does. Try a variety of keywords and filters. The search engines work differently on different sites. What produces nothing on one site will produce hundreds of hits on another. I got frustrated by how badly the filters worked. Be prepared to spend hours scrolling through ads. Also, vacancies are not just posted on multiple sites, they are duplicated within sites. 5. Part-time jobs are rare. In the run up to Christmas you would think there would be hundreds of casual vacancies. There aren’t. At least not on job boards. Recruitment firms can’t make enough money from them. Instead, I looked at the equivalent of local newspapers where a company with a job will pay for an ad. You can also try the vacancy sections of the websites of large businesses. 6. A CV is not what it used to be. Job sites and recruitment agencies have changed resumes completely. Talking to an employment coach had me completely re-writing mine. Personal details come first, as you’d expect, but not the ones I’d been used to including. I deleted my middle name and my address, putting only the town I lived in, to try to reduce the chance of identity theft. I also substituted my mobile phone number for my home one because it is easier to change. Apparently, job sites, recruitment agencies and other companies aren’t always as careful with your data as you’d like them to be. Then I added a profile. This is three or four paragraphs telling the reader about you. It’s what they read first. If it makes them like you, they’ll read the rest. It says concisely what qualifications, skills, experience and qualities you have. Next comes your present (or most recent) job and a list of your main duties. I included here training courses I attended and the reason for leaving. (I was made redundant because of a financial shortfall caused by the pandemic.) I summarised my employment history as a teacher into a couple of pages. (I have worked in eight different schools in two different countries so it was hard to be more concise.) To keep the length down, I left out other jobs I’ve had, such as being an emergency tutor at a university hall of residence. If I was applying for a particular job, I might include these if they were relevant. Finally, I deleted the name and addresses of my referees. Nowadays, most companies only contact them after you have been offered a job. Recruitment companies hang onto email addresses and phone numbers for people they think might be valuable, I’m told. I also learned that references can be very bland and simply state information with no evaluation. This is to avoid the referee being sued if you don’t turn out to be suitable. 7. Spend time on your LinkedIn profile. I hadn’t ever used LinkedIn before. I hadn’t needed to, so I had no idea how it worked. It takes time, but setting up your profile and job alerts may get you the position you want. Try different keywords for alerts. If your search terms are too broad or popular, you get notifications of hundreds of positions, and I wish it was easier to filter them, but it is better than most job boards. Also, recruiters search the site and so you might get headhunted. 8. Freelancing is tough to break into at the moment. Thousands of others have had the same thought I had: I could try freelancing. I’d looked at it before, but only superficially. With the prospect of no income on the horizon, I looked at it very seriously. I tried Fiverr but the competition is tough and the rates of pay low. For example, people will edit and proofread 1,000 words for less than £4. There are over 900 ‘gigs’ in the editing and proofreading section. You can make a reasonable amount once you get established, but how do you get started? (It does make me wonder when I see ads like: ‘I will profread your english.’) I signed up to Upwork and did their test. I haven’t found anything I can do that pays a reasonable amount of money and hasn’t had a pile of people apply for it already. (What do I consider reasonable? More than £5 per hour, so well below the minimum wage.) I did find an American content mill that accepted me after I did a grammar and punctuation test. However, to then qualify to bid for work you have to do another test which involves writing several short pieces, including a description of a storage company using on a website, and answering more grammar questions. My American English isn’t bad, but having to check things like hyphenation, which is significantly different, is a right pain. Because I got another job and because the work on that site was pretty low level, I didn’t pursue it. I will if I’m unemployed again. Most content mills seem to be American. I found three that weren’t. One now only takes applications for specific jobs such as French to English technical documents translator. The application page on the second one is broken. They know about it because I emailed them and they replied, but they haven’t fixed it. The third, Textbroker, required a test followed by a piece of writing. This was a review which had to have a very specific structure. Your writing skills are rated from one to four stars. They are only taking on four-star writers at the moment. Also, once I had completed everything, I got a message saying they will take several weeks to process my application. Obviously, people are making money out of freelance work. I’m not one of them. 9. Download the details. I put in an application. Two weeks later I was invited for an interview. Great. I went back to the places I’d seen it advertised. It was gone. I felt like a right idiot. I could easily have taken screenshots or highlighted the text, copied it and pasted it into a word processing document. The takeaway? If you apply for a job, download the details. 10. Write everything in a document first. Many applications are online forms. They ask a question. You write your answer in the box. I write everything in Word and read over it carefully before checking it with Grammarly, Language Tool and Hemingway. Then I copy and paste the text into the boxes. Of course, these tools don’t always get it right but they do pick up some errors. 11. Don’t give up. This is the hardest one but it’s important. I wrote my successful application on the afternoon I found out I didn’t get another job I’d been interviewed for. I didn’t give up and it paid off. There are jobs out there. One of them has your name on it. Keep trying.

https://medium.com/@emuflatssoftware/getting-a-job-11-things-i-learned-when-made-redundant-8f41fd7f6bd4

['S. Mitchell']

2020-12-17 09:41:16.198000+00:00

['Job Hunting', 'Job Search', 'Career Advice', 'Careers']

Regulation A+ — A Token-friendly SEC Alternative

Regulation and legality are still some of the most discussed topics when we talk about cryptocurrency tokens, because of how some legislations remain cautious about a technology that has widespread so quick and allows for fund raising from non-traditional ways. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is always under the spotlight because of their regulations and, given that many projects wish to thrive in the American landscape, they must abide to these rules. Of course, many have found ways to circumvent the situation by basing their funds or offices in countries with less restrictions, but long-term planning requires considering the SEC guidelines at the moment. What we see today is a variety of projects that sell their own cryptocurrency tokens to raise funds for launch or expansions, which can either be considered utility tokens (if they serve a specific purpose within the platform) or securities, and the SEC is in charge of overlooking the latter. This is a departure from traditional models like IPOs, where a company goes public and their stock can be traded by anyone in the stock market, or Private shareholding, which is more oriented towards institutional and large-scale investors. Raising funds from tokens not only makes it viable for non-verified investors to dip in, but also open the possibility for users from all around the world to enter the sale. Of course, this seems like risks for the SEC, which is why special regulations need to be defined, and we have seen this debate gaining strength with talking points like the Bitcoin ETF or Facebook’s Libra. But one of the great opportunities the SEC has opened comes in the form of Regulation A+, an expansion to their traditional Regulation A that was adopted in 2015 and split it into two tiers: Tier 1 gives permission to raise up to $20 million, allowing for nonaccredited investors to participate in the purchase and does not require a formal audit from the state they take place, although said state may request it. Tier 2 has a higher limit, allowing for raising up to $50 million, but it also has more restrictions than Tier 1, as nonaccredited investors have a limit of 10% of their income or net worth, and require an audit from the state in which they will raise their funds, along with filing annual, semiannual and recent reports. As the conditions imply, Tier 1 is oriented towards small businesses that don’t require a very high ceiling to start operations or projects and that would benefit from having more open ways for investors to reach them. On the other hand, Tier 2 can help companies that already have a reputation or that have raised enough attention for their project and need more than the Tier 1 ceiling allows. With this comes a more arduous process to pursue a Reg A+ offering, but it’s up to the company to decide which tier is the best suit for their needs. Of course, there are some reasons not to initiate such a process, the main one being the costs that come with hiring lawyers to get SEC approval, given that the process might take up to 6 months. Other factors include the need of raising public interest to a sufficiently high level, situations in which the limits (even the lower one) are too high for the company needs and the difficulty of managing such high funds. There have been some examples of companies that pursued the Reg A+, Blockstack and YouNow. The first one is a development platform that gives users all the tools necessary to create their products on decentralized technologies which received support from big names like Winklevoss Capital, and the latter is an online broadcasting platform built on an Ethereum-based token infrastructure (Props) that are given to content creators as a reward for boosting up the engagement with the platform. Regulation A+ may not be the perfect model for token-based fund raising, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction and represents a great opportunity for startups and mid-stage companies taking course into blockchain technologies.

https://medium.com/swlh/regulation-a-a-token-friendly-sec-alternative-d2462451d23f

['Gabriel Zanko']

2019-08-09 23:43:06.584000+00:00

['Crypto Regulation', 'Crowdfunding', 'SEC', 'Token Sale', 'Fundraising']

Put The ‘Q’ Within Your DevOps

The recent industry report estimated worldwide software failure costs to be USD 1.1 Trillion. A 2018 study by the Consortium for IT Software Quality maintained that for the US alone, the cost of defective software was USD 2.84 Trillion. These relative costs of fixing errors post a software release is unarguably higher than if they were uncovered during the design phase. The 2019 Accelerate State of DevOps report maintains, “DevOps will eventually be the standard way of software development and operations.” This is indeed true as enterprises acknowledge three factors: increased demand for superior quality software, faster product launches, and better value for tech with optimized software delivery performance. However, in today’s competitive landscape, is this enough to succeed? Enterprises need something extra — the strategic integration of QA (Quality Assurance) with DevOps. While DevOps brings speed, innovation, and agility, its success lies in adopting the right QA strategy. Devising the optimal QA strategy The success of Dev-Q-Ops depends on a robust QA strategy and essential best practices to boost the rapid development and deployment of DevOps applications. Earlier, the interaction between developers and testers was minimal, and both groups relied largely on their interpretation of the written/implied requirements without largely validating their understanding amongst themselves. Consequently, this led to too many back and forth arguments, counter-arguments that compromised, not just the quality, but the speed of product deployment too. Today, most good DevOps implementations include strong interactions between developers, rigorous, in-built testing that comprehensively covers every level of the testing pyramid–from robust unit tests and contracts to API tests and functional end-to-end tests. However, the shifting of lines between what is ‘tested’ by the testers and what is automated by the developers often blurs the test strategies and approaches; thereby according a false sense of good test coverage. Testing, both automated and manual, are continuous processes that remain active throughout the software development cycles. A definite change in mentalities is required to adopt continuous testing and continuous delivery. The Dev-Q-Ops culture is expected to lay the foundations for this and serve as the much-needed value add to your business. It is then imperative to introduce a balanced and adopt a QA strategy that not only ensures the right coverage and intent of testing but also leverage automation to the maximum extent. The QA strategy should always be assessed on whether it helps attain vital DevOps metrics. Some examples of how the metrics can be effectively improved are: Lead Time for Changes, where for example, the approach is on early identification of defects through testing early; leveraging the test pyramid, and undertaking improved impact analysis leading to better identification of ‘necessary’ coverage. Deployment Frequency through facilitating the right automation spread throughout the test pyramid, deploying improved test environment and test data management, and initiating parallel testing through rapid environment deployments and teardowns. Time to Restore Services through shared monitoring of operational parameters and ensuring the ability to narrow down on change and impact, and thus regression, by leveraging AI. Change Failure Rate by ensuring, for example, risk identification, customer experience, and touchpoint testing and monitoring customer feedback and usage. Effective execution of Dev-Q-Ops also enables Continuous Testing (CT) to easily zero-in on risks, resolve them, offer feedback, and enhance quality. Therein lies the importance of a structured QA strategy. It not only lays the foundations for a consistent approach toward superior quality but also enhances product knowledge while alerting enterprises to questions that would otherwise have remained unanswered. So, to release high-quality products without expensive rollbacks or staging, it is imperative to add the ‘Q’ to your DevOps. In conclusion, new-age applications are complex. While DevOps can quicken their rollout, they may fail if not bolstered by a robust QA strategy. QA is integral to the DevOps process and without it continuous development and delivery are inconceivable.

https://medium.com/@trigentsoftwareinc/put-the-q-within-your-devops-e9e02058629c

['Trigent Software Inc']

2020-07-01 07:32:03.087000+00:00

['Agile Methodology', 'Software Testing', 'Quality Assurance', 'Quality Software', 'DevOps']

How I Raised Myself a Reader

My mother is not a reader. She might read a news article or two, but she never quite read a complete book. My aunt occasionally read a book or two years ago. I got introduced to buying books with her copy of The Broker by John Grisham. Her copy was old, and when she read, it had a final resting place between other things on a random shelf. Now, I still have it on my bookshelf, years after I first found it. My brother thinks reading is silly. You get the idea. I do not come from a family of readers. Reading has become a habit. I wake up at 7 am. On a good day, I climb out of bed, brush my teeth, and make a cup of coffee. I check my emails and Instagram and send my friends a meme — though not before reading at least a book chapter. On other days, my alarm rings around 9 am, and I wake up reaching for the phone. I scroll through Instagram before looking at my to-do list, have an instant panic attack, and then get my first cup of coffee. On these days, I forget to read. My reading habits rule book looks somewhat like this: Always read when you have a cup of coffee throughout the day. Read for at least 10 minutes a day. Read before bed and put your phone away. Have fun with it. As a kid, I started cultivating reading habits, which slowly turned into an obsession. I was soon skipping classes to read Enid Blyton and losing friends to Frankenstein. My first rebellious move was reading Stephen King’s IT. And my first prohibited teenager experience was reading Twilight after bedtime. So in all its cliches, I am the quintessential reader. My mom takes a little credit for it, my teachers some of it, and I take most of it. I never stopped reading after school. The first memory I have of picking up a book is when my mom and I took trips to the bookstore as a kid. And on Report Card Day, we went to the Scholastic Book Fair held in my school. I didn’t stop reading when I got to college, even when the schedule got stuffy. I majored in English, and my professors rocked my world. I felt my eyes sparkle while others looked like they rolled right out of bed. In fact, I still go back and read the books my English teachers suggested with fascination. Almost every year, I go back and find highlighted passages in my textbooks. I practically lived in the school library. As far as I can remember, my library card was always overflowing. The library in my school was on the first floor of the high school building. The quiet that you found there was strangely calming. The library was a place you could take a stroll with an intention. With the smell of books, and the stacks reaching the ceiling, I never knew where to begin. But my librarian always said, “Start with Matilda. Always start with Matilda.” I am always reading something. I always have a book on my desk, which I read between my Netflix binges or writing breaks. I regularly took Goosebumps books to the bathroom to read. On my bed, under the blanket, are at least two different books, and occasionally, an accidental bookmark (example: tissue paper). On a trip to the mall, my mom would leave me in the bookstore while she shopped for — well, hours. I (try to) raise my brothers and sisters as readers. When my brothers and sisters were old enough to read, I tried doing what my mother did. I give them my old collection of Enid Blyton books. I gave unsolicited advice on why reading will bring them joy. But ultimately, I fail. Kids have their phones, iPads, and Madagascar. They can’t stay still for 2 minutes to read their “interactive” storybooks. I give books as birthday gifts while the other adults give them soft toys. But let’s be real, who needs an encyclopedia when your mom can Google “black holes” for you?

https://medium.com/love-ru/how-i-raised-myself-a-reader-f77e8150a7b4

[]

2020-12-05 17:42:51.872000+00:00

['Lifestyle', 'Books', 'Life Lessons', 'Nonfiction', 'Reading']

What I learned from a year of shopping on AliExpress

AliExpress , a world of stuff only a click away on an App. Jack Ma’s baby. The funny Looking guy that by Chinese standards has a trusting face. (I don’t get it either) Jack Ma ( Wiki Commons) accessed feb 2021 It’s great for shopping on rainy days, when you don’t want to leave the house, the couch or need a little boost. Why do it when you have Amazon, Malls and stores? OK there is no perfect answer but its s combination of things. The range, its huge and stuff you would never see in a store. The price, it’s really inexpensive and play your cards right with coupons and free delivery its good value. Retail is hard work, there’s no fun in it anymore. I do my shopping for food and I’m done. I don’t need another level of store shopping in my life. The low down on the good, bad, ugly and fun sides of AliExpress. It’s slow, very slow Its fast Fashion sent to you slowly, don’t be in a hurry. That’s OK, need a winter coat, order in September. It’s all about planning ahead. Have a backburner in your mind of things you need, maybe not now but soonish. Delivery time to Europe and the States is about a month if you pay standard post , which is mostly free. Its important to note that taxes if applicable includes the postage, so go standard. Save yourself a lot of stress and learn the delivery Language There are stages in the delivery process, but they are not in plain English. AliExpress employs airlines to deliver. Theres a catch, they do it on the cheap. So stuff will wait until a plane has room in its holding bay. It’s a nice little earner for airlines to top up earnings. Here’s how to read between the lines. · Pick Up shipment Dispatched……. It left the factory · Shipment at county of origin warehouse, ……..it’s in a warehouse somewhere in China · Shipment left Country of origin warehouse,……. it left a warehouse somewhere in China · Departed Country of origin,…….. it left china · Arrived at home Country,……….. it’s in a warehouse somewhere in your Country · At Customs,…….. Do you need to pay tax? · At the post office …..at the post office, it will deliverer if not picked up How to work out the real world stuff like size, bootlegs, reviews, and tax and delivery charges Apps are not the real world, they exist on a server. Delivery, size and taxes are the real world. Don’t mix them up. This is not Amazon and Chinese Factories are not Manhattan, West London or the 16th Arrondissement . You have to use your judgment on a different level. Let’s start with Size. Chinese people are kinda small so expect sizes to be a bit smaller than you would expect. Sizes are in Chinese (usually similar to European sizes) UK and American. There is usually a table explaining the sizes. However don’t make a final judgment until you read the reviews. AliExpress gives a bonus for reviews with photos. This is a good incentive to get a few bucks of your next purchase. They are very few false reviews. Most are genuine and honest. Go with size first. If reviews say their normal size is too small for shoes or coats take it on board and go a size bigger. Quality is next, if reviewers say it bad, then that’s usually the case, likewise if most say excellent, I would go with that. Bootlegs are part of the journey I’m not condoning bootlegs, but no matter what, you will come across them. I bought a pair of “Oxford shoes” that kinda looked like Dr Martins. Guess what, they were an exact copy but at a tenth of the price. However they were just as good, if not better. Trial and error, but once you know your size stick with it It’s hard to get an exact fit on Clothes and shoes. If you get it right, stick with it, take a mental screen shoot of the size and your good to go forever. It’s feed the world, so adjust for that Its worldwide so what’s to hot for Brazil to cold for Russia might be just right for you. The product gets a bad review because it’s no good for walking in snow, but where you live has no snow, buy it. There is a complaint procedure and it’s good Goods get damaged in the post, sometimes it’s the wrong color or the quality is just bad. Try not to send it back, (hint China is far away) be honest tell the seller and asked for some compensation. I got a pair of shoes that were badly glued. Rather than send them back the seller compensated me to have them repaired in my own country. quinn, martin “Seller gave me 10 bucks back to have repaired” JPEG FILE 2021 The good stuff Have Aliexpress party Having a few friends around for drinks and food. If a birthday or Christmas is coming, you can ask your friend to choose something from the App. Works well with bags and shoes. It’s a great excuse to get back together a month later to try things on. Trust me I do it all the time. It’s traditional to joke for reviews When doing a review it’s traditional to make it funny. Not in an Amazon way, which can be quite anal. The Chinese don’t get the jokes so they slip through the censor. Finally the last mile can be eco friendly Since postage is free the last mile is usually completed by traditional post. For me its a post person on an electric bike. Amazon/Fed Ex drivers can be kamikaze at times and I like my fast fashion sent slow but delivered street friendly.

https://medium.com/@martinquinn-76249/what-i-learned-from-a-year-of-shopping-on-aliexpress-674d8ec5101c

['Martin Quinn']

2021-02-15 23:09:00.093000+00:00

['Knowledge', 'Discovery', 'Retail', 'Humor', 'Self Improvement']

Two Sides of The Same Distribution: Permutations

Two Sides of The Same Distribution: Permutations Recently, I’ve been spending more time getting to know the statistical side of the python programming language primarily in relation to visualizing certain characteristics and ideas. I thought I would share a quick tutorial on how one might go about determining whether two populations share a common distribution. The data that I will be using is NBA data sampled from the 2016 season and exhibits features such as the player’s name,the team they play for, their position, their age, their height, their weight, their salary and college attended. For this example I will be focusing on player position in relation to salary earned. First, you probably want to do an inspection of the features that you’re most interested in to get a feel for the spread of the data. Below is a boxplot showcasing the salary distribution as it relates to player position: I should also note that all missing values had been discarded from the dataset reducing the number of observations to 364 rows from 458. As you can see from the above boxplot many of the positions have similar distributions. The IQR’s for all plots seem to overlap, but there are some distinctions in that the center position appears to, on average, pay the most while the shooting guard position posesses the smallest median salary. That being said for this example, I’m interested in determining if the distributions between two groups are similar and by the looks of it the point guard position and power forward position have like distributions. We can use permutations to recreate samples of both sets of salary information as it relates to the positions and reassign the new values to assist in the creation of an empirical cumulative distribution plot which will be subsequently compared to the individual ecdf’s of our original data. First, we want to seperate salary information by each of the positions ultimately creating two seperate arrays. This is relatively straightforward using the pandas library of python Secondly, we want to construct our function that will help in the construction of the ecdf’s. then we would like to create a function that will take both arrays and combine them, permute them and then reassign them. If the salary distributions for either position are essentially the same then it shouldn’t matter if we were to freely reassign samples from either distribution . The above plot was generated by simulating fifty permutations and plotting each distributions respective ecdf. The dark blue line demonstrates the ecdf of the original point guard salary distribution while the red line denotes the ecdf of the original power forward salary distribution. The haze in between are the repeated ecdfs of the fifity permutions executed. If the two distributions were indeed similar then we would expect to see the original empirical distribution functions overlap with those of the permutations. In this graph we see just that! Implying that the distributions are indeed similar. To further illustrate that the distributions are alike we can dig a little deeper by establishing a test statistic, the mean difference between the two original distributions. If we use the same logic as above we can use permutations to reconstruct this test statistic repeatedly and ultimately compare it to the actual or observed value. Dummy function for test statistic The above plot was constructed by generating 10,000 samples of our test statistic via the pre-defined functions we assembled earlier. The dashed line represents the observed value which is $456,081.27. Where permuted_diff represents the permutation of 10,000 samples we can assess the probability of obtaining the observed value or some value more extreme, commonly known as the p-value. In this case the p-value is rather large and thus we have no evidence that suggest that the two distributions are not alike.

https://medium.com/statistical-discourse-by-phil-frederick/two-sides-of-the-same-distribution-permutations-a1548c593b3e

['Phil Frederick']

2019-10-22 18:53:14.077000+00:00

['Data Science', 'Tutorial', 'Statistics', 'Python']

Education and The Red Queen Effect: Is it Time to Worry?

Inconsistent and Bad Learning Outcomes Many students don’t even have access to the same equipment at home. In fact, nearly 20% of students don’t have reliable ways to connect to online learning. One study indicates that there is a significant learning loss associated with online education during COVID. Ie: students are more likely to forget what they learned than they otherwise would. This creates an uneven experience. “Preliminary COVID slide estimates suggest students will return in fall 2020 with roughly 70% of the learning gains in reading relative to a typical school year.” Higher Education is Breaking Under the Weight of Debt Student debt from college education is above $1.5 trillion. As classes move online during the pandemic, many students are questioning the value of higher education. Many colleges were already under pressure from ballooning student debt and negative job prospects. As job opportunities fall, students struggle to pay down their debt over their lifetimes. This is a more severe issue during a recession and the pandemic. Combining these facts with the push to exclusively online class format, the college path may no longer be desirable by many. Experimenting with New Skills & New Education Formats So what are the alternative options? The standardized education process doesn’t work for everyone but there are alternative ways of building skills. The new digital class is separating from the industrial era class structure. This group is characterized by it’s shifting preferences based on the ability to conduct digital work from anywhere in the world. Here are some examples of alternative models already in progress. HomeSchooling Pods One new method of teaching is a type of homeschooling sometimes called homeschooling pods or microschools. These schools are building workarounds for students to get good in-person instruction. But laws are inconsistent across states and many of these laws weren’t built for the reality of schooling during a pandemic. “In the DC area, for example, laws in Maryland make it illegal for homeschooling parents to hire someone else to teach kids, but not in neighboring Virginia.” Microschools present an interesting opportunity to alter curriculums and avoid online instruction. But they may not scale well and there is a fear that they offer advantages to wealthy families over low-income students. ISA’s Lambda School is another interesting method of teaching digital age skills. This program teaches programming skills through a remote learning curriculum. The goal is to provide students with the necessary skills and experience to get an entry-level programming job. It also empowers students of all income demographics to participate through its unique Income Sharing Agreements (ISA). Tuition is deferred until course completion and in the event, a student cannot afford the tuition, they can pay a percentage of their future incomes. One drawback to this model at scale is that it does not provide a well-rounded education. It focuses on providing the skills needed for a specific subset of jobs. This is significantly different from traditional models of well-rounded education. Lambda School also does not currently provide early childhood or high school level educational opportunities. The program is intended to retool adults. Certification & Vocational Programs Organizations are launching their own education programing. Examples include Google’s recent certificate program in partnership with Coursera. The program offers IT Support and Automation with Python certificates. There are also vocational and apprenticeship style programming similar to Lambda School but without ISA’s. One example is Drone Forward, a unique vocational program partnering with drone organizations to teach the technical skills required for professions in the industry. Through the program, students as young as 10 years old can participate remotely to learn core business concepts and technical skills through real business projects. Certifications and vocational programs are frequently industry-specific although they frequently provide a well-rounded education. The Bottom Line Many people are operating as if our educational needs are going to stay the same forever. This is illogical. We cannot assume that the skills students to learn now will be the same 10 years from now. The COVID-19 pandemic presents the ideal opportunity to implement drastic change. The reality is that we cannot assume that the parents won’t seek to provide alternative education for their children to maximize their future success. So I pose a question: can we use the pandemic to experiment with what we teach and how we teach it? Providing multiple options: some in the form of standardized education from the state and some tailored towards individual tools available for self-education. Or hybrid models of both. The common argument against allowing experimentation is the lack of fairness and equity. But this is a moot point because none of the current students are experiencing a fair and equitable opportunity under the given circumstances. Should all suffer? There is no one size fits all approach School districts must take a rational approach to education under an indefinite pandemic and changing societal needs. Governments should focus on building systems that allow parents to make the best choices for their children. Simultaneously they should free up resources to provide additional support to lower-income communities. Taking a one size fits all approach is a methodology that is breaking. Instead, we should assume sovereign individuals will take personal responsibility for their education and support them in making the best choices. For those not able to do the same, governments should focus on solutions that support them in making a better life for themselves. Instead of pushing harder for an average and uniform outcome, we should push harder for ideal individual outcomes.

https://medium.com/digital-diplomacy/education-and-the-red-queen-effect-is-it-time-to-worry-b21165a9bc9b

['Doug Antin']

2020-08-12 19:22:38.530000+00:00

['Education', 'Innovation', 'Personal Development', 'Society', 'Digital Life']

Elon Musk Advises ‘Stop Wasting Time With Power Point’

On Tuesday, CEOs participated in the 2020 CEO Summit , in which Tesla co- founder and leader Elon Musk provided a set of recommendations, including prioritizing the improvement of meetings with Power Point presentations. In general, he advised spending less time in boardrooms and presentations and spending more time improving the product or service. “Are top American executives focusing enough on product improvement? I think the answer is no. Spend less time on finances, less time in meeting rooms, spend less time on PowerPoint and more on trying to make your product the best it can be, ” Musk mentions in the 2020 CEO Cover interview, where he talks about future plans for Tesla and SpaceX. The international event brought together several American executives with the purpose of improving their practices in their companies. The executive expresses that his ultimate goal is to become an “absolute perfectionist about the product he makes or the service he provides.” Also, look for criticism and negative comments, more opinions about them in order to improve them. Musk points out, “If the CEO only focuses on the bottom line, he just barks up the wrong tree.” According to the employer, “The biggest problem for US companies is that there are too many MBAs — Masters in Business Administration — leading companies.” In the same way, he adds that they should be totally focused on their products and services, spend less time on finances and together. “The company does not have enough value by itself, the important thing is the sources and how they are worked”, finally the purpose of the company is to generate quality in what it offers to others adding an added value to achieve benefits. He also recommends giving customers more time and questioning whether it is something the consumer would use. This attitude is totally learnable , “spending more time visiting stores, going out on the factory floor and talking to consumers. If you don’t love the product, don’t expect others to do it, ”says Musk.

https://medium.com/@ashishbadola1998/elon-musk-24c6a8edcb18

['Ashish Badola']

2020-12-12 17:48:47.228000+00:00

['Spacex', 'Elon Musk', '2020', 'Tesla', 'CEO']

Speed up your Airflow development with Docker and tests

If you develop in the cloud or on a shared server, you might have experienced the beauty of working with your teamate relying on the same codebase and the same database! Actually, when working on the same cloud environment with other people, it happens that certain resources (files, tables…) are shared between several teammates. This means you can sometimes find yourself blocked because other people are working on the same resource. And it can become frustrating when a file/table you needed is overwritten, moved or deleted… TL;DR If you want to do most of your Airflow’s work without relying on a shared workspace and avoiding latency, use an Airflow Docker container and run syntax and unit tests in it. Nizhny Novgorod - Photo by c7dys The dream To have the cloud in your computer! Or at least a local environment in which you could check that everything is ok with Python/Airflow syntax so the only thing you need to do on the shared environment is to test you code behavior. When you have this local environment, you avoid a lot of handling to deploy your code or copy it to your environment, waiting 30s+ that Airflow understands you updated a file and refreshes it. With your local environment, you’ll see all errors faster than through the web interface or the Airflow’s logs (so you must switch to another application, like Stackdriver, to read this logs). Achieve your dream To run Airflow on your computer and in your CI, we are going to use… Docker, so it’s a bit of configuration at the beginning, but in the end you’ll be able to reproduce your Cloud configuration and share it with your teammates. You can save your Docker image in a private Docker registry to avoid rebuilding it. From my point of view, it’s easier to run an already configured Airflow with Docker than installing it on a virtual environment. Add Python packages to your Docker image You can use an Airflow Docker image from Docker hub ( puckel/docker-airflow:1.10.9 ) or add Python packages to an existing image, by creating a Dockerfile: FROM puckel/docker-airflow:1.10.9 USER root # requirements file with packages you need COPY requirements.txt . RUN pip install -r requirements.txt USER airflow If you customize your image, you need to save the Dockerfile and run this command in the Dockerfile directory (you might need to add sudo before docker ): $ docker build -t my-airflow-img:1.0 . So you can see it in your local images : $ docker images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE my-airflow-img 1.0 96696eea2641 5 minutes ago 1.89GB 2. Allow Airflow’s variable loading If you use Airflow variables in your code, you’ll need to configure a Fernet Key (cryptography key for Airflow) : # replace <img> with my-airflow-img or puckel/docker-airflow:1.10.9 $ docker run <img> python -c " from cryptography.fernet import Fernet; FERNET_KEY = Fernet.generate_key().decode(); print(FERNET_KEY) " R9mdx6wCwIb0h_GChn1-Fbcth3H_gTBAjgvf87JLgSU= And to pass this key through an environment variable : # replace <fkey> (by the one you just produced) and <img> # your Airflow's variables file is expected to be in dags directory (in your local/host machine) with name vars.json docker run -d -e FERNET_KEY=<fkey> -e DAGS_DIR='dags' \ --name airflow-web \ -v `pwd`/dags/:/usr/local/airflow/dags \ -p 8080:8080 <img> Now, you can load your variables : docker exec -it airflow-web airflow variables -i ./dags/vars.json So now you have a working space to launch tests locally and save a lot of time. It’s not exactly a cloud: no scale up, no link with other applications ; but good enough to work and understand if your code will work. The remaining tests within your cloud environment and with your data will be quicker. You can make your life much easier with a pinch of Bash, especially to run your tests in a CI/CD pipeline. Fulfill your dream You have Airflow running locally, you can see your dags loading in your browser localhost:8080 . If there are syntax errors, it will be displayed in the dags page and you can easily access the logs with docker logs -f airflow-web . Now that you have this environment, if you add a few more lines, you will be able to test the syntax of your code (it could be thought like a compilation step). We will run Python tests to check Python and Airflow syntax (ie: do tasks have task_id?) and you will know if it’s going to work within seconds. First, we must create a file dags/test_syntax.py and import Python and Airflow packages: import os import unittest # usefull to launch tests and imports from importlib import util # usefull to import a file from airflow import models as af_models We create a Python unittest class (DagsTest), with a test method (test_load_dags_integrity) that will try to load the dag files listed with dag_import method: class DagsTest(unittest.TestCase): """Validate dags syntax.""" def test_load_dags_integrity(self): """Import ml dag files and check for DAG syntax.""" root_dag_dir = os.path.join(DAG_DIR, 'load') files = ['load_mesages.py','load_users.py'] self.dags_import(root_dag_dir, files) You could easily change the files list definition to fill it with a function (that takes a directory as input) defining which files to try to import in this directory based on a name convention, so you don’t have to update test files each time your team add a new dag! The import_dags function try to import all files defined in list_dag_files , thanks to _load , and checks if it’s able to find a dag within the loaded module with _check_if_there_is_a_dag_in (function’s content was found in the first cicle of Data Testing Hell with Airflow): def import_dags(self, dag_dir, list_dag_files): """ For each file in list_dag_files, we: - try to load it to check syntax and - check if there is a dag defined in the file. """ for filename in list_dag_files: module, module_path = self._load(dag_dir, filename) self._check_if_there_is_a_dag_in(module, module_path) @staticmethod def _load(dag_dir, filename): module_path = os.path.join(dag_dir, filename) module_name, _ = os.path.splitext(filename) def _load(dag_dir, filename):module_path = os.path.join(dag_dir, filename)module_name, _ = os.path.splitext(filename) mod_spec = util.spec_from_file_location( module_name, module_path) module = util.module_from_spec(mod_spec) mod_spec.loader.exec_module(module) return module, module_path @staticmethod def _check_if_there_is_a_dag_in(module, module_path): """Look if there is at least one dag defined in the module.""" assert any( isinstance(var, af_models.DAG) for var in vars(module).values()) def _check_if_there_is_a_dag_in(module, module_path):"""Look if there is at least one dag defined in the module."""assert any(isinstance(var, af_models.DAG)for var in vars(module).values()) You can now launch your syntax tests with: docker exec -it airflow-web python -m unittest dags/test_syntax.py Beyond your dream We have integrity tests, we can easily add unit tests. First, we must create a file dags/test_unit.py and import some packages (no need of Airflow here, thanks to mock/patch!): import unittest from unittest.mock import MagicMock, patch from Training import Training Next, we create a new unittest class for a Training class (in dags/Training.py ) with a setUp (triggered before each test) to define a false dag instance and to instanciate Training (so we won’t instanciate it in each test): class TrainingUnitTest(unittest.TestCase): """ Unit test for training functions. """ def setUp(self): self.dag = MagicMock(return_value="it would be a dag obj") self.tr = Training(self.dag) We add a new test in TrainingUnitTest, to check if our method launch from Training class behave as defined and that keep working in this way : def test_launch(self): with patch('airflow.operators.python_operator.PythonOperator') \ as mock_op: self.tr.launch(usecase='topics_in_messages') mock_op.assert_called_with( task_id='training_for_topics_in_messages', python_callable=self.mi._train_model, op_kwargs={ 'usecase': 'topic_in_messages', 'number_of_clusters': 7}, dag=self.dag ) We use a patch with patch('...') to catch any call to PythonOperator , so we don’t need Airflow to test it, it’s quicker and (more importantly) we do not want to test Airflow here, we just need to test our own code. We can test our code in intercation with Airflow, but it will be less accurate and slower (around 2 times slower by my measurements), we better want having specific integration tests for it (planned in a futur post). You can now launch your unit tests with : docker exec -it airflow-web python -m unittest dags/test_unit.py Above the dream (Yes… until the end with the dream….) So you can work faster by checking if there are syntax errors in your code without dependancies to other people (if you share the same cloud) and you can manage your codebase in a safer way with unit tests. Some interesting resources found on my way : Data’s inferno : 7 Circles of Data Testing Hell with Airflow (a must read) Airflow’s Best Practices on tests : it could be interessting to look at implementing the dagbag solution for dag loader test (instead of the one from Data’s inferno) Thanks to Tiffany Souterre to read over ! Thank you for reading !

https://ulysse-hg.medium.com/speed-up-your-airflow-development-with-docker-and-tests-a8449d443174

['Ulysse Humbert Gonzalez']

2020-09-15 12:44:25.760000+00:00

['Testing', 'Airflow', 'Test Automation', 'Big Data', 'Cloud']

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO LOSE WEIGHT ON KETO?

After your first seven day stretch of following the keto diet, you will probably observe a critical drop in weight. On an “ordinary” diet with a caloric shortfall and standard exercise system, the vast majority can hope to lose one to two lbs per week, while those after a keto diet ordinarily observe a drop of somewhere in the range of two to ten pounds. While this is amazing, you should realize that a large portion of this weight will be water weight. Why? Since sugars hold water when they are put away in the body. Let's audit: Your body stores carbs as glycogen, for each gram of glycogen put away there are around three grams of put away water, so as you limit carb admission your body loses its carb stores of glycogen in addition to the water put away with it. That being stated, during your first week your keto weight reduction will generally be water as your body is drained of its sugar stores. When you’ve consumed the glycogen stores your body should utilize your fat stores for energy. <<something can help>>

https://medium.com/@rachidassibi58/how-long-does-it-take-to-lose-weight-on-keto-9ff367c114e6

['Be Cool']

2020-12-27 09:02:46.827000+00:00

['Keto', 'Weight Loss', 'Life', 'Food', 'Sports']

Who Do We Say We Are

Who Do We Say We Are By Minister Paul J. Bern I was having a casual conversation with someone just recently on the train ride home (that’s right, I use public transit to get around since I no longer own a car), and there came a point where I was asked, “What do you do?”. I replied that I was a minister, musician and a writer, as well as a blogger and political activist. “What denomination are you from?”, the lady inquired. I explained that I was nondenominational, and that I was not aligned nor affiliated with any other churches, be they virtual churches like this website or those of the brick-and-mortar variety. I talked to her about my views regarding being set aside, or standing alone, pledging allegiance only to Jesus Christ instead of ‘Religion, Inc’. By that time, it was time for me to get off the train, and we bid each other warm goodbye’s. But it got me to thinking: Who or what do I say that I am? What’s my sense of identity? Does that match up to what’s going on inside my head, or do I think one way and act another? These are not comfortable questions for anyone, but if we don’t inquire about this to ourselves, how do we measure our authenticity as human beings and Christ followers? And so I took an internal, in-between-the-ears inventory of myself. I came to the conclusion that, among other things, I want to be like Chris Mintz, who took multiple bullets at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College during the 2015 school shooting there, saving many more lives in the process. I want to be a peacemaker like Mr. Mintz’s friends and family members have called him, and I too stand against indiscriminate violence wherever it may be found. “Blessed are the peacemakers”, Jesus said at the Sermon on the Mount, “for they shall be called ‘sons of the living God’” (Matthew 5: 9). So I concluded that being a peacemaker was a good starting point regarding my own self-inventory. The apostle John wrote about this topic in his first Epistle nearly 2,000 years ago, and I quote: “If anyone says, ‘I love God’, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1st John chapter 4, verses 20–21). People who are devoid of love can never be peacemakers because they are inherently selfish individuals. But if we are true Christians and followers of Christ, we sow seeds of peace and unconditional love wherever we go. If you want to be a man or woman of peace, the first step in learning how to do that is to worship the Prince of Peace unconditionally. Let Jesus be your example to follow, your coach and your mentor. I am also a crusader for civil and/or human rights, and against social injustice and economic inequality. I have written and self-published 7 faith based nonfiction books on these topics and I have blogged extensively as well. I was formerly middle class before winding up on disability. I know what it’s like to lose everything and to have to start one’s life all over again from scratch. And I know what it’s like to wind up homeless. One of the most important lessons I learned from these experiences is that we live unfulfilled lives as long as we chase after money, material goods and the trappings of luxury and convenience. These are the things that simply don’t matter in the long run. But seeing who is in need, or what contribution can be made, or what innovation can be implemented that benefits everyone equally, it is all these things that we should strive to achieve. Cooperation, then, replaces competition when it comes to the worship of the Son of God, and this bleeds over into the life of the believer like a Spiritual blood transfusion. Competition is so 19th and 20th century! Mutual cooperation for mutual benefit, like a beehive, is the wave of the future, and it resembles God’s kingdom on earth much more closely (see Revelation chapter 20, verses 4–6). That is only part of His directions for those that followed Him concerning how they were supposed to live life in service to others. Christians call it the Sermon on the Mount, but it was lived as a lifestyle until about 300 AD by Jesus’ followers. By then some Old Testament teachings on warfare had replaced Christianity as a lifestyle and devalued it to a mere ideology. Jesus also said he came to replace the law because it had not been followed by the Jews, much to their own detriment. Just think of all the false teachers and error-laden churches that ignore these teachings. For those who do not follow His teachings I ask this: Are we all the same peoples despite color or nationality, and all the same citizens despite the unjust nature of government or of the religion we follow? Is civilization all about wars and conflict? What about the non-warriors whose gifts to us include all the advances in farming that none should go hungry? Those who devised portable or temporary shelters so that man could venture beyond the close environs of the cave or those who devised ways to bring water to the villages that none might be thirsty or crops perish from the lack of water? Who was the hero or heroine who devised the wheel? Who among our ancestors built stationary shelters that we now call houses? Who first tamed and rode horses? All of these people from our ancient past are true heroes, giving us lasting gifts that advanced civilization, even if the gifts were soon turned to warlike purposes. Is someone considered a danger because of their gender, sexuality, skin color, political ideology or personal attributes? Why is it that women in modern society earn an average of 25% lower pay for the same work as opposed to men? Why is a nurse less valued than a doctor? Why is a teacher less valued then a banker or a lawyer? How many can name one person who is not recognized by their own community for what they have given? How will we be remembered by the next generation? We are all given a choice and a say in what happens tomorrow, today. A million today’s were shaped by what a million nameless, faceless someones did yesterday. Do we go along to get along or do we stand up and demand our say-so and contribution in our future? Do you wait for Jim or Sally, Joe or Jane to take the lead, or do you begin hoping that they will say or do something you can agree with? The only person responsible for your decisions and what happens tomorrow because of them, is the one looking back at you in the mirror. Shall we become part of the solution, or remain part of the problem? We can be contributing individuals to the world of tomorrow, or the zoned-out TV watchers and self-isolating video game players of today. Which do we choose? Which brings us back to the community and the growing of support and friendship. Who are your friends? Are they just people you grew up with or work with or go to the club or church with? Are they all men or women or all the same racial background as you are? Are all of your friends the same general age or do you number the elderly and the children among your friends? In American society, friendship sometimes seems shallow, temporary and based on filling someone’s immediate needs. One different outcome and way of looking at friendship is offered in the Native American community. They look at friendship as a choice, a responsibility and that it be long lasting. Jesus said it best when he uttered these words, “Greater love has no man, than to lay down his life for his friends”. A friend is someone you choose to give your friendship to without any qualification. It doesn’t matter what they do in life, it doesn’t matter what they may or may not have done. The friendship remains not because of who we are or what we have to offer. Friendship is a mutual choice. So, go out and make one new friend this week and go back to your current friends and say you will support them, stand by them and offer advice if they ask for it. Make sure they know that you will help them in time of trouble. When times of trouble do arrive, such as mass shootings, follow through with them. Enjoy their companionship at all times. Make it your choice, it is your life. Are you starting to see being a peacemaker as something worthwhile now? Is peacemaking something of value in your family, neighborhood, community, state or nation? Are you willing to become a peacemaker or support those who do choose to become one? Will you be a Chris Mintz, or one who will actively support such uncommon and tough-as-nails individuals? Will you be part of the solution to gun violence? I, for one, vow to do so without hesitation, and I will go to any length to propagate peace, even if my personal safety is at risk. I will continue to insist that all life is precious, that all life is God’s handiwork, with each form of life having a singular uniqueness all its own. I will continue to advocate for the homeless because every human being on the planet has the fundamental human right to shelter. The cave men of 100,000 or 200,000 years ago had roofs over their heads, and none of them ever punched a time clock. I will also continue to stand up against economic inequality, social and racial injustice, and waging warfare. I would endure torture, jail or death rather then compromise any of my beliefs. Perhaps the act of enduring any or all of the above will bring others to believe as I do, knowing that I write on Christ’s behalf. I will speak out against any injustice or any war, and even use my own body to shield victims of injustice, if necessary, just like that ex-soldier in Oregon did back in 2015. I am asking you to do the same, having given you all ample reason to support my stand. No more working for the wealthy to make them richer. We work for the benefit of all humankind from this day forward, not just the top 1 or 2 percent. And we will enforce peace across America, first by our relationship with Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace, and secondly by acquiring the means to defend ourselves whenever appropriate, so this terrible cycle of violence can be stopped for good.

https://medium.com/@greatestservant62/who-do-we-say-we-are-1be6a26df4f2

['Pastor Paul J Bern']

2020-12-27 20:22:37.001000+00:00

['Who Are You', 'Real Christianity', 'Truth', 'Social Gospel', 'Christian Blogs']

Asynchronous vs Synchronous Learning

Originally published at Asynchronous vs Synchronous Learning When online education is growing with high popularity, more and more learners tend to go on this way and take the benefits of the process. This is the future of the teaching experience. To make the educational material available and accessible for the learners, we make use of different schedule-friendly formats, such as asynchronous vs synchronous learning. Have you ever heard about these methods or wonder about what is asynchronous and synchronous learning? If you have, then you are at the right place as we are going to dive deeper into this scope and learn more about the fields and approaches. Let us discuss the points separately in detail. What is Synchronous Learning? Synchronous learning happens in real-time. This means that the learners who take part in the lesson as well as the instructor interact in a specific virtual place at a set time. During such courses, education providers usually take attendance, the same way as they would in a lecture hall. Common methods of synchronous online learning include video conferencing, teleconferencing, live chatting, and live-streamed lectures that must be viewed in real-time. These days, it is possible to offer synchronous learning services with the help of a personal professional teaching platform. The teaching format may be through online webinars, engaging live training, video conferencing, virtual classrooms, instant messaging, etc. Advantages of Synchronous Learning 1. Real-Time Engagement. If it is important for you to conduct active discussions, provide immediate feedback, and personal interactions with learners, you will prefer to have a synchronous learning experience. Especially, if you just transform from traditional teaching into online, this format will be helpful and effective for you. Live videoconferencing, lecture broadcasts, and live chatting services in a messaging client can offer much of the personal engagement available in a classroom, while also allowing you the comforts of home and no commute time. 2. Dynamic Learning. Many people prefer synchronous learning as it is dynamic. This is a great improvement of classroom learning as the topics and ideas are considered more in detail. Thanks to the video conferencing features, it becomes possible to ask questions and get the answers immediately. 3. Instructional Depth. If you choose synchronous online learning, you regularly and frequently interact with your students and get an opportunity to get to know them. Accordingly, you organize face-to-face discussions, individual guidance, and mentorship without having to schedule independent appointments. Disadvantages of Synchronous Learning 1. Scheduling Issues. In the case you have chosen eLearning because of your busy working schedule, you may face some difficulties. Synchronous learning requires real-time interactions with the learners, and it is not a preferable choice for people who choose this approach to make benefit during their free time. In this case, it is required to create a schedule and conduct lessons accordingly. If flexibility is the primary reason that you have chosen the online route, having to adapt to the synchronous learning schedule may defeat the purpose. 2. Technical Challenges. If your work or life requires extensive travel and you often find yourself completing coursework in weird places like coffee shops, airport terminals, and hotel lobbies, synchronous learning might add to your stress. The constant search for a wireless signal becomes even direr when you are on the clock for a videoconference, lecture, or even an exam. For synchronous learners, technical difficulties like spotty internet, crashing hard drives, and dying batteries can become full-fledged, GPA-tanking disasters. Instead of logging in and sitting for your exam, you can end up sputtering profanities at your computer. And who has the time for that? What is Asynchronous Learning? Asynchronous learning is relatively more learner-centered. It allows the students to complete online courses without the constraints of having to be in a specific place at a certain time. In essence, asynchronous learning doesn’t hinder learners by place or time. People who rely on asynchronous learning have the freedom to complete courses always and from anywhere as long as they are connected to the internet. Although not taking place in real-time, asynchronous learning still provides the opportunity to share feedback. Learners are free to share thoughts and questions with instructors and fellow learners, though they may not receive an immediate response. Usually, asynchronous learning is based on online courses, blog articles, pre-recorded video lessons, or webinars, online forums, and discussion boards, emails, etc. Advantages of Asynchronous Learning 1. Flexibility. If your students are busy people (this is mainly about adult learning), you should probably prefer asynchronous learning. In this way, the methods and theories of teaching help to offer services that are comfortable for the learners to make use of whenever they have time. Asynchronous learning provides the materials so that the students may complete them at their convenience. Such materials may be related to text-based lecture notes; self-guided, interactive learning modules; and pre-recorded lectures or podcasts. Learners complete a module on their way to work; listen to a lecture on headphones while doing something; etc. 2. Ability to measure. One of the most empowering features of asynchronous learning is that you prepare the educational content, make it available, and set the pace (usually within set deadlines). Students read and review these materials as much as they need to, completing them based on their understanding rather than on when class time ends. As for the quick learners, they can power through materials and units that come easily. And if it takes relatively longer to absorb new knowledge, the learners may review the material, take notes, and practice retention without even worrying about falling behind their classmates or missing key points in a lecture. 3. Affordability. Probably, the greatest advantage of asynchronous learning is that this approach is cheaper and more learners can afford it. This is a motivational factor for students to choose online learning. Online learning options often carry a lower price tag because they do not require daily attention from instructors or administrators. Instead, students work through the content themselves, with only occasional interaction with the trainers through email, social media, or any other channel. Self-guided modules, video tutorials, and virtual libraries all provide the chance to pursue education with minimal oversight and expense. While most of these programs do not lead to degrees, there are some that do, and they can also include certification opportunities, that are also very essential in the learning process. There are some platforms that make it possible to attach quizzes to the online courses, and automatically generate certificates for those learners who complete the course and successfully pass the test. Disadvantages of Asynchronous Learning 1. Isolation. People who prefer learning online without active interaction with other learners and trainers are more likely to become isolated. Social media platforms or email can not provide real-time interaction. Asynchronous learning is also far less collaborative than its counterparts: Opportunities to discuss, debate and network with classmates and professors are scarce. Asynchronous learning is great for learners who want to pick up skills quickly. However, if they are looking for enrichment of discussion, feedback, and social interaction, asynchronous learning is not a good choice for them. 2. Lack of Interest. Although working in a self-guided environment can be empowering, it is also important for the learners to stay honest with themselves. They should have the drive to not only keep themselves on track and committed to their goals but also to remain enthusiastic about the subject matter without constant support and evaluation. The reality is that some learners do best with clearly stated expectations, immediate feedback, and a watchful eye. The free-form nature of asynchronous learning could be demotivating for the learners in the latter category. Asynchronous vs Synchronous Learning: What to Choose? Now when you already know what is the difference between asynchronous and synchronous learning, and identify their pros and cons as well as the preferences of the learners, you should clearly understand your actions to provide required content and meet the students’ needs and requirements. The method of learning you focus on will depend on a number of factors — learning objectives, the type and format of course content, the way of content delivery, and the availability of your learners. However, if you have the appropriate resources to use both synchronous and asynchronous learning you get the winning formula. As an alternative, blended learning is a good choice that supports both synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities. No matter which method you choose, variety is the best approach. The most essential point to keep in your mind is always the importance of eLearning and its role in the future of the educational industry. Once you prioritize this point you will imagine the steps to achieve all your career goals. In this way, the critical point is about choosing the best eLearning platform. Here you should carefully consider all the details to offer competitive teaching services. In this regard, I may offer to check out the features of Uteach. Here you may create a platform within minutes and the greatest thing is that you do not need to have tech knowledge. The 35 days of a free trial will be enough for you to try all the functions and choose the best plan for further teaching experience. Here you also get an opportunity to schedule a free webinar during which our specialist will get in touch with you, present all the features, and answer all your questions.

https://medium.com/@sunflowver/asynchronous-vs-synchronous-learning-281adcc15263

['Vera Mirzoyan']

2021-06-08 10:07:23.223000+00:00

['Asynchronousvssynchronous', 'Asynchronous', 'Synchronous', 'Synchronous Learning', 'Asynchronous Learning']

NOZZLE ANDBUILD PLATE

NOZZLE: Now we’re getting to mention the nozzle component, both the inside and the outside. Nozzles are mostly made from brass because it’s easier to machine and excellent at transmitting heat. Usage of brass also has its limitations. The qualities that make them easy to produce mean that they’re soft enough when processing abrasive materials. The materials will then decline the nozzles over time. The material exiting widens the opening because it moves out of the nozzle. The function of the nozzle is two-fold. It mounts into the thermal block and extends the melt chamber, and typically most of the melted material is within the reservoir inside the nozzle’s tip. It also limits the amount of material that comes out and mechanically influences the placement of plastic on the bill pipe. Nozzles and thermal blocks are generally suited to specific filament diameters. But the method works better if you’re using the proper internal hot in diameter to match your chosen filament. The closer it holds to the filament, the more precision you’ll have in controlling the amount of extruded plastic. The most important factor while selecting a nozzle is the size of the opening diameter. The most common size used is 0.4 millimeters. 0.4 millimeter may be a good compromise between the dimensions of the 2 commonest diameters of filament, in terms of pressing down without producing an excessive amount of backpressure, and the width of the little bit of the plastic that’s extruded from a 0.4-millimeter nozzle is somewhere pretty on the brink of 0.4 millimeters, maybe a touch bit less counting on the material, and offers enough X, Y resolution to satisfy most prototyping needs. As there are more materials and more applications for 3D printing than ever before, there’s now a variety of nozzles available. Some machines ship standard with a 0.5-millimeter nozzle or wider, typically for printing large objects, and nozzles as small in diameter as 0.25 and 0.15 millimeters are available for very fine detailing. A wider or smaller nozzle doesn’t change the accuracy of placement in the X, Y plane, but changes the diameter of the bit of plastic leaving the nozzle. Certain materials are better processed with particular nozzle diameters. For example, filaments containing wood or metal powders can clog more easily with really small openings. The powder content might pile up onto the tip of the nozzle and block extrusion. Other materials are more viscous and need an excessive amount of force to exit a little opening effectively in any case. There is a variety of various terms for features of internal geometry within the nozzle. I will use the terms external tip, cone, shoulder, and throat to describe the space while the material travels from the melt chamber to the outside. As the material moves forward, it shrinks down for matching the width of the filament to the width of the nozzle diameter. This area is called the cone. It’s essential for guiding the forward pressure while extruding the fabric, ensuring that the plastic exits the basketball shot a line and not at an angle. The external tip establishes both, the outer diameter of the extruded material and also features a shape of its own. There’s a flat ring surrounding the opening and it has an additional mechanical function. It irons down any material that has risen upon the top surface of the print. The shoulder may be a flat internal ring round the throat. The throat is that the tiny tube that extends from the sting of the cone and bends the external tip of the nozzle. A throat isn’t typically very long. But with some materials, it can be helpful while evening out the pressure as the material emerges. In the early desktop printers, the nozzle was a hard and fast part of a hot end. source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339153639/figure/fig1/AS:857192693497856@1581382072553/Schematic-and-nozzle-size-of-the-PORIMY-3D-printer-The-outline-dimension-is-380-390_Q640.jpg BUILD PLATE: Now we shall see about the build plate which is in fact one of the most important parts of a 3D printer. After the fabric leaves the nozzle, it lands on your build plate. The build plate may be a surface on which you build your part layer-by-layer. The build plate is that the final step within the extrusion system. The aspect of the build plate that factors into the extrusion system, maybe a build plane. This is the layer on which extruded material lands. When a print starts, the build plane is that the same because of the surface of the physical build plate, but because the build progresses, the build plate rises moving up higher and higher, becoming the topmost layer of the pair part. The important things to debate once we will mention the difference between the build plate and therefore the build plane, are material adhesion, cohesion, warping, elephant feet, and heated build plates and surfaces. For this whole process to succeed, the fabric must stay where you set it. This means that it has a stick to adhere to something. In order to possess an honest first layer adhesion and accurate parts, you would like to form sure that the build plane is correctly calibrated in order that where your nozzle is driven across the XY plane by the motion mechanical subsystem, it remains the same vertical distance from the build plane, everywhere and also the build plate, ie, the top surface of the plate itself, where you deposit the primary layers of the part. When a print starts, these two flat planes should be precisely parallel to each other, with just the first layer of plastic keeping them apart. When you successfully bring these two planes into alignment, the machine makes an accurate model of where the platform and gear head are located. We always get confused by the term bed leveling. We don’t care if the machine itself is on a level with the world. We actually only care about the relationship of that nozzle, its range of motion, and its distance from the build plate just below. Another term for the CNC milling and machining world that’s an accurate metaphor, is tramming. When a CNC mill trams the highest surface of a piece, it’s cutting away the fabric across the plane to ensure that the worth understood by the CNC about the work plane is perfectly reflected within the physical world, also because of the digital world. Sorting out this element first is really more valuable than most of the opposite adhesion strategies because when the build plate is badly calibrated, the probabilities rise considerably, that your part fails, and fall off. Cohesion describes materials sticking to materials, through chemical or mechanical processes. Let’s talk about the adhesion strategies you can implement in your design. The most aggressive solution is named a raft. In your design, you’ll account for one or more layers of material set down flat on the plate, and you’ll then use this as the base for the rest of your part. It finishes up looking sort of a platform you would possibly see beneath a sculpture. Think of a sculpture of a horse. You only have the hooves of the horse touching down on the bottom. If it doesn’t stick well, then the whole horse is going to be lost. The material from your print will stick with itself more easily than other materials. So by employing a raft, you’re likely ensuring a pleasant, sturdy object is fixed down. While it serves an identical function to a raft, providing a bigger base for sitting the printed part, it is also solving the extra problem of cooling and warping. As the fringe of the part is exposed to the air and cools, sooner than the remainder of the part, it shrinks slightly moving far away from the print. By using a brim, you’ve delayed the cooling and warping of the important parts of your object. Some operators will model a raft into their designs, but we will use our 3D control software to automatically generate a raft. That’s the most common. When you produce a raft during this fashion, the way the layers are printed is going to be unique to every raft, guaranteeing that it sticks to the plate and may also be pulled far away from the bottom of the thing. After you’ve finished printing the part, you ought to be ready to easily tear off the brim. A skirt is produced in an equivalent way as a brim, but the layers are offset far away from the bottom of the thing and don’t inherit contact with the final printed part. While this does not necessarily appear to be it might help with adhesion, by printing the skirt first. Without the skirt, the first layers might not adhere as properly. A skirt also can help visually guarantee that the build plate has been properly calibrated to the nozzle. If the skirt is not of even height, getting thinner and thicker in different places, then you should stop the print and re-calibrate your build plate. It’s sort of a test drive that you simply take around the block if the block is that the build plate. Mouse ears were an early strategy in 3D printing, almost like a brim. A series of flat disks were incorporated into the planning around the base of the model. After the part was printed, you’ll easily tear the discs far away from the finished product. While less frequently used than other solutions, having this feature available when designing are often helpful, especially if you encounter just one tricky edge that you simply got to fix. We will now move on to the physical measures you can take during the actual print job to ensure proper adhesion. Let’s start with the heated beds. While using a heated bed, you have a heated surface that is not hot enough to melt the printed part, but it’s warm enough to keep the base material a bit flexible and prevent it from cooling and pulling away from the plate. Common materials for heated bill plates include aluminum and borosilicate glass. For a heated build plate strategy to work, you need to have a heating element in your 3D printer and a temperature monitoring solution to maintain the perfect temperature for your part. One of the setbacks from heating the plate too aggressively is named an elephant’s foot. An elephant foot error is when the temperature is high enough, that the rock bottom layer of the print has melted and expanded around the object. It looks a lot like an elephant’s foot, wide at the base and tapering off at the edges. Not all machines have a heated bed, and it’s possible to have a good adhesion by providing a better base of material that sticks down regardless of temperature. The simplest way is to offer your prints something to grip. If your surface doesn’t offer quite enough grip on its own, then you can apply adhesives. Some people like better to spray adhesives down on the plate rather than rolling it on with a glue stick or printing down PVA material. You need little or no PVA glue to carry the part down because PVA tends to stay pretty much to most build surfaces, and most printing materials. When you use this together with a heated bed, PVA glue offers another advantage. It helps evenly transmit the heat to the base of the part, and a twisting or levering action causes it to lose its grip, making it easier to remove your part at the end of printing. There are other glues in use, either specifically created for the sector of 3D printing or for other industrial applications. One such which is used extensively is 3M blue painter’s tape. The reason that the 3M Blue painter’s tape works so well is two-fold. The adhesive is often removed without leaving a residue, and therefore the top surface of the tape has particularly good micro fishers, making it a perfect grippy material for decent plastic. Image of a build plate source: https://hackster.imgix.net/uploads/attachments/1014924/_i2VLLbHVpp.blob?auto=compress&w=900&h=675&fit=min&fm=jpg

https://medium.com/@gonellaaditya67/nozzle-andbuild-plate-e5147e222074

['Aditya Gonella']

2021-12-15 07:07:47.241000+00:00

['Innovation', 'Technology', '3D Printing', 'Additive Manufacturing', 'Tech']

Happy New Year

Each new year gives us a small foretaste of our future glory with Christ, where all is made right. Revelation 21:5 says, “And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” I’m so thankful that the Bible gives us a clear picture of what’s coming! The followers of Christ are being made new! Happy New Year from the Higgins Family at Hill Hårow!

https://medium.com/hillharow/happy-new-year-3a07b5d40132

['Dylan Higgins']

2018-03-08 18:25:50.229000+00:00

['Life']

Sending e-mails in Node.js with templates

For the purpose of this tutorial, we will be using nodemailer, handlebars, and nodemailer-handlebars packages to handle the email sending functionality. Nodemailer is a tool that uses an SMTP server, handlebars help us inject values into our Html templates and nodemailer-handlebars will compile our parts templates. We will focus more on handlebars templating. Install the above requirements with npm i nodemailer handlebars nodemailer-handlebars. My project folder structure currently looks like this Project structure Inside the views folder, we have the layouts folder which will contain the layout of our templates. The partials folder will contain parts of the general layouts such as header, footer e.t.c while the final templates will sit in the views folder directly. All our server code will be in the index.js file. sample.html We will convert the simple sample template above into a layout and partial handlebars files. My project with the templates look like this Updated project footer.hbs partial file footer.hbs layout.hbs layout file layout.hbs The partial files are included using the double curly braces with their name e.g {{> footer}} and the three braces with the name “body” will hold injected values from a template that will inherit from the layout. template1.hbs template file template1.hbs The layout will be extended as shown in the picture above and the variable “name” will be injected as we’ll see soon. The index.js above has all our server code and the email configuration. The SMTP credentials can be gotten from any SMTP provider, you can use GMAIL to test things out. We provide the paths to our templates and other configurations in the options object to be used by the nodemailer-handlebars package. In the mailOptions object, the template to be used is indicated by the filename without extension. The context will hold all values to the variables used in the provided template. Firing up the server and making two HTTP calls: localhost:3000/first and localhost:3000/second, we get two different emails delivered to the recipient's email address. email1

https://medium.com/@benedictgeek/sending-e-mails-in-node-js-with-templates-910b34bf349d

['Olushola Benedict']

2020-12-11 18:51:42.411000+00:00

['Nodejs', 'Email', 'Handlebars', 'Nodemailer']

Before #MeToo: The Dreadful Case of the State of New York v. Strauss-Kahn

The Netflix documentary Room 2806: The Accusation examines media, the criminal justice system, and the treatment of sexual assault victims. Photo by Jazmin Quaynor on Unsplash Note: This article discusses a sexual assault case and includes sensitive details that some readers may wish to avoid. Also, most people refer to the alleged assailant as DSK. This sounds a little too familiar and affectionate for me. Since I’m not a fan, throughout the article I refer to Dominique Strauss-Kahn as Strauss-Kahn. Netflix just released a four-part documentary about another shattering sexual assault case. News of an attack on an employee at Sofitel, a five-star accommodation in Manhattan with an elite clientele, shocked many around the world. Grainy footage from surveillance cameras placed throughout the hotel show the following on May 14, 2011: A hotel employee (a woman) from the housekeeping department enters room 2806 at approximately 12:06 p.m. The employee exits room 2806 around 10 minutes later. Five minutes after the employee exits the room, a man wearing a trench coat, suitcase in hand, also exits the room and enters an elevator. The same man checks out of the hotel and leaves the building. The employee speaks to a woman, her supervisor, presumably on a lower floor of the hotel. The employee enters an employee area accompanied by security personnel. NYPD officers enter the employee area and speak with the employee. Obviously, there are no surveillance cameras in guest rooms, so what happened in room 2806 in those 10 minutes became a case of he said, she said, he being Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund/popular French presidential hopeful. She being Nafissatou Diallo, employee in the hotel housekeeping department/immigrant from Guinea, West Africa. To her coworkers, supervisor, security personnel, and then NYPD Special Victims officers, Diallo alleged a sexual assault committed by Strauss-Kahn and recalled the chilling encounter in detail. CONTENT WARNING — description of assault follows (this paragraph only): Shortly after entering room 2806, which Diallo thought was empty, as per her cleaning schedule, a man attacked her seemingly out of nowhere, threw her to the floor, and assaulted her. Diallo crashed into a bathroom sink or toilet as she hit the floor, causing injury to her shoulder. While the attack was in progress, Diallo recalled “wanting or needing to vomit,” and “spitting fluid,” according to a timeline published in the Daily Beast quoting sources familiar with the case. NYPD considered Diallo account of the assault credible and, along with the Port Authority police, raced to JFK Airport to arrest Strauss-Kahn, who was about to board a flight back to France. Strauss-Kahn’s first appearance before a judge didn’t go well. He was denied bail and remanded to the NY Department of Correction facility at Rikers Island. He would later be allowed to await any potential trial in an upscale apartment in Tribeca rented by his wife, journalist Anne Sinclair. NYPD believed they had a solid witness and a strong case, but it ended with Strauss-Kahn and his family leaving New York all smiles, no charges filed. So why was justice so elusive in what appeared to be a clear-cut case of sexual assault? The Manhattan District Attorney The documentary Room 2806 doesn’t sugar coat its depiction of the Manhattan District Attorney’s team— the long and the short of it is that they just weren’t that into finding justice for Diallo. Instead of investigating Strauss-Kahn, DA investigators dove deep into Diallo’s past, and in the end, they impeached their own witness based on matters not associated with the alleged rape. Specifically, investigators found that she had lied on her asylum application. In order to gain refugee status in the United States, Diallo admits that she lied that she had been sexually assaulted in Guinea. She asserts that her attorney at the time advised her to lie. The other issue at hand — she also communicated with a family friend while the individual was incarcerated in Arizona. She shared her bank account with the person, and he deposited $60,000 — Diallo says it was the person’s earnings from selling handbags in Arizona. Prosecutors said this seemed shady. Why was the DA’s office so hell bent on impeaching the witness? Just a hunch — Strauss-Kahn hired highly successful celebrity defense attorney Benjamin Brafman, who counted high-profile clients such as Sean Combs, Michael Jackson, and Harvey Weinstein among his long list of wealthy clients. The DA’s office maybe figured they would lose a ‘he said-she said’ case pitting a powerful white man against a lowly African immigrant, impeached Diallo, effectively falling on their swords. If the DA’s office truly wanted to try Strauss-Kahn in court, investigators could have interviewed him to gauge his truthfulness with respect to the allegation, but they did not. Instead they chose to impeach the witness over things in her past that had nothing to do with the fact that she was attacked at Sofitel. The media The U.S. media shaped public perception of the case, and reporting was as simplistic as it was brutal. The New York Post insinuated — there was no way that a wealthy, prominent, French, European, white politician would stoop so low as to have a sexual encounter with an African housekeeper. So the woman must be lying. And if anything happened, it must have been consensual. So how would the leader of the IMF be caught in a compromising position with an African immigrant housekeeper? She must have been a prostitute, suggested the media. The New York Post in particular went so far as to allege that Diallo was a member of a prostitution ring run out of the largest hospitality union in the United States, Unite Here. The union provided the media with a significant amount of evidence to contradict the lie, but making Diallo sound like a prostitute sold newspapers and got clicks, so the Post published stories highlighting the allegation anyway. French media was no better when reporting on the case. Journalists played on the heartstrings of disappointed supporters only reporting the basics of the case and not facts about what was actually known about Kahn’s background and pattern of aggressive behavior against women. Has the #MeToo movement made a difference? The Weinstein and Cosby cases have been instructive in terms of understanding the impact of the #MeToo movement. A call to believe the victims, at the very least, requires prosecutors to investigate claims of the sexual assault based on witness accounts and not on extraneous information unrelated to the case. Progress has been made, but there’s still a long way to go. The victim had no choice but to move on. Eventually, she had her say As is often the case, victims of sexual assault who are denied justice have to suck it up and deal with it. There’s not enough evidence, the statute of limitations has expired, or “you’re just not credible as a witness,” are familiar reasons why assailants go free. For this reason, Room 2806 did well to set the camera as close to Diallo’s face as possible. She tells us her story. She cries. She laughs. And, she tells the truth. What moved me most was the way Diallo’s eyes light up talking about how much she liked her job at Sofitel and life in New York City. Working in a hotel can be stressful, but it can also be a lot of fun, especially when there’s a holistic workplace culture. I could just see her enjoying being in the United States, working at a cool upscale hotel, making enough money to pay her bills, and enjoying time with her family. I felt so sad as she talked about how her encounter with Strauss-Kahn took that all away in an instant. Establishing yourself in this world is hard enough as a woman, a black woman, and even harder as an black woman/immigrant. To have stability ripped away in 10 minutes by some selfish person’s primal desires is just sad and very wrong. In a civil case, Diallo was awarded $1.2 million, which she may have used to rebuild her life after the alleged assault. Another assailant got away with “it”… yet again Those in the media and politics, especially in France, knew exactly who Strauss-Kahn was and what he was capable of, but the average person on the street didn’t. Lack of facts made it easy for followers of the case to take sides and condemn Diallo’s account of the alleged assault as untruthful. Most people didn’t know that Strauss-Kahn had a reputation for forcing himself onto women. They didn’t know he was being investigated for pimping in France. But the reality of Strauss-Kahn was well known by political and media elites in France who laughed off his behavior as ultra “romantic” and amusing. At that time, the average news watcher didn’t understand what victims of sexual assault go through when dealing with the justice system. The average person didn’t know that in the eyes of the courts, victims not only must tell the truth, they must show impeccable character for their accounts to be believed. Inspired by Diallo’s courage in 2011, French writer and Paris Match contributor Tristane Banon filed suit against Strauss-Kahn for attempted rape, an alleged incident from 2003. The case was dropped due to the statute of limitations — France considers rape of an adult a less-serious crime, thus the three-year limit to bring charges. To this day, in spite of numerous investigations and several cases, Strauss-Kahn has no criminal record. He believes that he has never committed a crime. In his first television interview after returning to France from New York, he asserted that being a politician made people hold him to a higher standard, and that any sexual encounter he has ever had, in his whole life, has been consensual. Room 2806: The Accusation presents the facts. Was it the assailant’s status and privilege that has made it possible for him to evade punishment? You be the judge. Check out my bio to learn more about me. Thanks for reading!

https://medium.com/afrosapiophile/before-metoo-the-dreadful-case-of-the-state-of-new-york-v-strauss-kahn-3b66330224bf

['L. Wachi']

2020-12-22 15:55:16.467000+00:00

['Feminism', 'True Crime', 'Society', 'Race', 'Sexism']

Nonviolent Code Review

Are you left frustrated after code review? Does it feel like the reviewer is being too strict and just wants to do things his way? Or maybe you feel that you can’t really say what you think? After being on both sides of the table, I feel that I might be able to give some advice. Keep in mind that code review can be a struggle for both sides, and it helps to understand each role. Programming is often a team effort Advice For Reviewing Write a Summary Chances are there are always a few tiny things wrong in a pull request. Somewhere a variable name is unclear, indentation is off, or a line of code is too long. It is completely normal and almost unavoidable. Personally I will comment on these things, even if they feel small, as they will improve readability. Challenge is that when you comment on the little things, it easily creates a feeling that the pull request is trash, even though it might complete the given task, and may even do it well. If all you have to say is a few style errors, then the pull request is in fact excellent! To solve this mixed message, I recommend writing a summary at the end of the PR review. I don’t just click “Approve” or whatever flag there is to mark the PR as mergeable. I make sure to write at least a single sentence summary. For example, “Well done! A few small styling improvements could be made, but other than that looks good! After those have been fixed feel free to merge.” This is a good place to sneak in some positive feedback, without it sounding forced or fake. It also makes sure that a pull request doesn’t get stuck in limbo, where the PR author it isn’t sure what the reviewer wants. Does he want to review it again after I fix the issues he mentioned? Do I merge it, or does he? Was the PR any good? These are just some questions that the PR author might have, that you, as the reviewer, should try to answer proactively. Choose Your Words We have plenty of synonyms in our disposal, and we should be careful which ones we use. Synonyms transmit the same information, but are different on an emotional level. How specific words make us feel is highly individual, but I believe that at least in the same culture we can make some generalisations. Here are five positive alternatives for words that can sound discouraging. Say challenge, instead of problem. Problems just sort of exist. You complain about them, and maybe something is done about it or not. However a challenge is a chance to rise to the occasion. It is a possibility to prove that you are worth your salt, and to show off your problem solving skills. Either way you tackle the problem or challenge, but you know I’d much rather challenge myself than just fix problems. Say and instead of but. “Well done, but…”, “Well done, and…” See how different those two sentences feel? Even though I only changed one small word. Saying “but” makes the listener forget about everything that was written before the “but” word. It can completely erase any nice words, and even make them sound fake or forced. So instead of saying “Well done, BUT the indentation needs to be fixed.”, say “Well done, AND if you fix the indentation it will be even better!”. Say excessive or leftover instead of useless. Useless is a harsh word. It means that there is absolutely NO use for a piece of code. This is simply not true. Thomas Edison found 1000 ways how to not make a light bulb. Had he not recorded his 1000 attempts, he would have not remembered what he had tried and ended up repeating himself. So even code that doesn’t work is not useless. It is there to remind you how to not do things, and also creating it taught you and maybe others. We may not wan’t the code in production, so call attention to it by saying that this is leftover, excess or maybe extra code. In the end the code will be removed all the same, whether you called the code useless or extra. Don’t say “This doesn’t make any sense”, say “I don’t understand this” or “This could be more readable, because…”. Saying “This doesn’t make any sense” shifts the blame for you not understanding to the codes author not writing code that you can understand. You could have very good reason to not understand it, but nevertheless you don’t understand it. The codes author may not understand it either. All of these options end up with the author of the code explaining to you how the code works, or refactoring the code to make it more readable. However by saying “I don’t understand this” you are showing vulnerability and fully owning up to your inability to understand the code, instead of blaming the author. It also makes it obvious to the author that codes readability is not good and should be improved. I mean you are a smart guy and even you don’t understand this? Man, this code needs some refactoring. Say feature instead of bug. Actually no, don’t say feature instead of bug. Scratch that. Explain Your Feedback Proactively It might be valid feedback, and needed feedback, but unexplained it goes to deaf ears. If you say that the code is not testable, or it’s incomplete, too complicated and so on, you should also state why it is that way. Pointing out concrete examples from the pull request will help to drive your points across. People see things differently and aren’t mind readers. Unexplained feedback can also feel lazy, teasing and unfounded. The reviewee might think to himself “Why should I bother to change the code, if you didn’t even bother to explain what is wrong with it?” If you put effort into your feedback, the reviewee will feel compelled to put effort into his code. If feedback is given without proper explanation, it can get personal. The person receiving the feedback has no idea why you are giving it, so imagination sets in. “Did I look at him wrong at the coffee machine? Do I ask him too many questions?” Explain your feedback and do it proactively. Nobody want’s to be the guy to ask “Why?” on every single comment you posted on a pull request. Give the benefit of the doubt Chances are you are reviewing code that you do not understand perfectly. Often I don’t even understand my own code perfectly. This is why it is always important to give the benefit of the doubt. Do not state that something doesn’t work if you aren’t absolutely sure about it. It will save you from looking like an asshat. Instead you can ask, “Are you sure this works?”, “What happens if the value is undefined, or something else unexpected?”, or you can simply ask the person to write unit tests for the piece of code. All of these are valid points, and shouldn't be an issue. If the piece of code can be easily isolated, I will replicate the situation in an online website like Repl.it, and share it with the pull request author. Easily executable code snippets are really good at explaining things. Do Pair Programming, Instead of Doing the Other Person’s Job If you are reviewing another persons code, and the code just wont do, I would advice to resist the urge to code it yourself. If you do, what do you achieve? The task is done, but you have now given the reviewee a way out of difficulties, and likely he hasn’t learned anything in the process. Think about the long term. It is tempting, and even Bill Gates has admitted to being guilty of this in his youth. He eventually had to stop when the Microsoft grew large enough. If you are a regular human, and only have 24 hours in a day, you can only do one job well, and that is your job. If you feel the urge to recode someones code, use it as a cue to do pair programming with the person. Pair programming is a great way to share knowledge. This way two people are already familiar with the code when it’s done, and code has already been peer reviewed. The more knowledgeable person shouldn’t be coding, instead he should be conversing with his pair who does the coding. Pair programming is a huge topic and you can read more about it here. Advice for Being Reviewed Pull request review can be emotionally difficult, especially for the reviewee. You worked hard for days or even weeks for a strict deadline and for what? Just to have your code stuck in PR limbo? Maybe you had several “Aha!” moments, and maybe you did a dozen things well, but did the reviewer even notice? Remind Yourself Why Code Review Exists Reminding yourself why you are putting in effort and time into code review helps. If you think you are going through code review for no good reason, you will be frustrated. So why do we do code review? Code review helps with readability, maintenance, code reuse, finding bugs, error handling, spotting side-effects, consistency, with test coverage and so on. There are so many good reasons to do code review. The benefits are not always short-term, but whoever inherits the code will notice. Code review is a learning opportunity, that you should take advantage of. As the pull request author you also leave comments in a pull request for the reviewer to find, and share his opinion on. You can read more about why code review is important from here. Don’t Expect Positive Feedback Giving positive feedback doesn’t happen automatically to most people. Some people try to sandwich negative things with positives (aka. the shit sandwich). Pairing positives with negatives, can make you associate the positive feedback with the negative feedback. Especially if you only give them together. Whenever I hear “It looks nice, but…”, an alarm bell goes off in my head, no matter what the person is actually saying. If you feel that you did something well, you can always draw attention to it. You can ask “What do you think about this?”, and hopefully you will hear the other persons honest answer. Worst thing that can happen, is that you will have a normal conversation about it. Maybe he will notice the solutions brilliance, maybe not, but now you know what he thinks about it. Personally I believe there is value in gratitude and positivity, but even greater value in hyper realism. If something isn’t good, then I wont say it is. Forced positive feedback feels dishonest, and can make things worse. I share positive feedback when it feels natural, but if it feels forced, then I typically don’t. Seeming dishonest is worse than seeming negative, because if you seem dishonest even your positivity will be negative, and it will affect your believability across the board. Have a Conversation If the reviewer has given you feedback that you don’t agree with, you can always ask him to explain. You can ask “What do you mean?”, “How is it better?” or simply “Why?”. If you are worried about getting on the reviewers nerves, I would recommend saying: “I’m asking because I don’t understand. Could you explain it to me one more time?” It shows willingness to learn, patience and it also doesn’t have a hint of aggression or challenge. Instead it shows that you trust the other person enough to be vulnerable. No-one sane could be mad about or refuse this polite request. If the other person still gets mad, you need a different reviewer. It can also help to think what is the root motivation for the reviewer to give this feedback. Likely it isn’t personal. The reviewer could be worried about the project. Is his sense of security being fulfilled? Does he trust that the code actually works the way you promised? Both of you are responsible for the solutions you are making. When something goes wrong neither of you will take full responsibility for the mistake, instead you will share it. Your problems are his problems, and vice versa. Code review is teamwork, and the best thing you can do is keep the conversation polite and not to take it personally. After all it is you two versus the challenge, not you two versus each other. If you feel that the other person is using his position to harassing you, talk to someone you can trust. Summary There you have it! Most of these topics touch on social skills, instead of technicalities. Personally I’ve found that most issues could have been avoided by having a good conversation, rather than just having technical expertise. Both are required to be a professional software developer. What advice would you give to someone struggling with Code Review? I would love to hear from you, and feel free to share your opinion of this article, whether you liked it or not. Thank you for reading!

https://medium.com/swlh/nonviolent-code-review-bd6238fe0775

['Valtteri Laine']

2019-12-10 18:06:30.359000+00:00

['Giving Feedback', 'Feedback', 'Programming', 'Nonviolent Communication', 'Code Review']

The Key to Asking the Universe for Help? Learning How to Listen.

Photo by Aperture Vintage on Unsplash For the past few days, I’ve been wondering, “What should I write about this week?” I even asked my cerebral husband. He had some ideas, but nothing clicked. Finally, I asked for guidance from the Universe. You can call the force beating our hearts, breathing our lungs, and growing the grass whatever suits you — God, Gaia, Life Force Energy, your Guides, or even Gloria. The name doesn’t matter. For simplicity’s sake, let’s call it the Universe. I asked the Universe, “What should I write about this week?” Radio silence. My brain, on the other hand, had loads of thoughts. They felt like fireworks shooting off inside my head — one after the other, fired off before the smoke cleared from the prior! Just skip a week, no one will notice… What can you say that hasn’t already been said by countless others?!!? Why are you even writing these posts?! You’re wasting your time! You should get a real job! On and on and on… My mind continued to berate me this morning as I walked to our local farmer’s market. It’s not an obvious or brazen bully. That would have been too easy to stop. It’s more cunning. It’s the running tape, almost imperceptible, looping on replay in the recesses of my mind. I consciously looked to gratitude for relief. I am lucky to have this so-called “problem”. It’s a glorious morning; I have an awesome family; I live in Santa Barbara for crying out loud! AND…I could still hear my mind whispering its negative rant. That’s duality. Both grateful AND doubtful as I tried to tip the teeter-totter toward gratitude. As lady luck, or the Universe, would conspire, I “happened” to run into some friends who were also walking to the market. As we caught up, I learned one of them had just sold his business and was trying to figure out his next steps. He told me his dream was to become a sports trainer for kids and maybe a personal trainer for adults. Without missing a beat, he said… The thing is, I don’t have a license or certificate. Also, there are already so many gyms and personal trainers. I knew his brain was sending him an onslaught of doubts and fears, like Darth Vader trying to coerce Luke Skywalker to the Dark Side. This guy loves training, coaching, sports. He’s passionate about all things athletic! When he talked about his idea, I could see his energy light up and glow, but you didn’t need to be psychic to feel his excitement. I shared some insights. He smiled and said, “Thank you. That really helped.” The Universe brought us together at that very moment. I have just arrived home with my vegetables, and this post flowed with ease. PS I normally go to the market later in the morning so if I’d gone at my normal time, I would have missed this exchange. PPS My other friend, who normally drives home my heavy bags of produce, texted me as I was walking and said she was at the market early due to a conflict later in the morning. We “happened” to be there at the same time and she drove my heavy bags home. These “coincidences” felt like the Universe wanted it to be crystal clear that my plea was indeed being answered. The cool thing is that the Universe doesn’t care if you’re asking for help on writing inspiration, a job search, school choice, who to date, or even what to wear. There is no hierarchy in requests or responses. Practice asking on the little things so you’re ready for the big ones. The trick, of course, is learning how to listen.

https://medium.com/@ascendedpresence/the-key-to-asking-the-universe-for-help-learning-how-to-listen-f001bbb1b3d8

['Susan Moe']

2020-12-22 20:02:36.648000+00:00

['Synchronicity', 'Spiritual Growth', 'Personal Growth', 'The Universe', 'Gratitude']

Implement LINE login with Angular project

Create new app in Heroku go to https://dashboard.heroku.com/apps create new app we will connect Heroku with GitHub search repository name then click connect Automatic deploys is when you push code into selected branch so heroku will deploy your application automatically click on Enable Automatic Deploys Manual deploy is you must click Deploy Branch button then Heroku with deploy your application

https://medium.com/@por-porkaew15/implement-line-login-with-angular-project-e2e598d3c618

['Porkaew Jarusdamrongwat']

2020-11-17 13:14:30.390000+00:00

['Heroku', 'Liff', 'Line', 'Github', 'Angular']

Quantum AI in the 2020s and Beyond: What IBM Is Doing

Quantum AI in the 2020s and Beyond: What IBM Is Doing The most important investments that IBM is making in quantum AI is to build out its developer and partner ecosystem and to provide them with sophisticated tools, libraries, and cloud services. Quantum computing promises to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) faster than the speed of light. But first, this futuristic technology must prove its worth as an alternative to more mature, traditional approaches to process data-driven statistical algorithms. Achieving quantum advantage for AI apps IBM continues to take a leadership position in quantum computing. Among other efforts, it is evangelizing quantum computing to developers of AI, deep learning, and machine learning applications. Quantum computing might be capable, in its current form, of performing feats that are practically impossible for computers built on traditional von Neumann architectures. However, that has not been proven, and IBM isn’t making this claim, often known as “quantum supremacy,” pertaining to its own quantum R&D efforts. In fact, IBM has taken a practical approach that keeps expectations for the technology’s prowess in check. It has also been in the vanguard of debunking claims of this nature by other tech vendors. A recent case in point was Google’s claim in fall 2019 that Sycamore, its 53-qubit quantum hardware platform, had completed a calculation in a few minutes that would have taken 10,000 for the world’s most powerful existing supercomputer, IBM Summit. Google’s benchmark didn’t fall into any of the core use cases-including AI, optimization, simulation, or even cryptography-for which quantum computing might some day hold an advantage over classical architectures. The proof of the pudding for AI is whether a computer built on quantum principles can do data-driven algorithmic inferencing faster than a classical computer, or optimistically, faster than the fastest supercomputers currently in existence. Continue reading at https://www.rtinsights.com.

https://medium.com/rtinsights/quantum-ai-in-the-2020s-and-beyond-what-ibm-is-doing-fc8d8df1b7bd

['Rtinsights Team']

2020-08-24 07:36:00.828000+00:00

['AI', 'Quantum Computing', 'IBM']

Donald Trump Has Turned America Into a Failed State

Donald Trump Has Turned America Into a Failed State Joseph Sohm I read the news today — oh, boy. There was a terrorist attack on Christmas morning. The media has decided to call it a “massive explosion believed to be intentional,” because many of us prefer to live in the shallow comfort of denial. I’m not going to say a word to my family until we’re done opening presents, over video chat, because we can’t see each other in person. And yet, my thoughts are in Nashville and its implications. My thoughts are also with the kids who didn’t write to Santa for toys this year. They wrote for things like shoes and textbooks. I’m wondering when we’re going to wake up. I think Americans live in a failed state now, close if not identical to the “third world countries” we’ve always considered ourselves better than. https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/arima-kinen-jp-broadcast-tv1.pdf https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/arima-kinen-jp-broadcast-tv3.pdf https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/arima-kinen-jp-broadcast-tv7.pdf https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/arima-kinen-jp-broadcast-tv9.pdf https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/emperor-cup-jp-broadcast7.pdf https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/tokushima-vs-gamba-osaka-jp-tv9.pdf https://uniprint.osu.edu/sites/default/files/webform/arima-kinen-jp-broadcast-tv1.pdf https://uniprint.osu.edu/sites/default/files/webform/arima-kinen-jp-broadcast-tv3.pdf https://uniprint.osu.edu/sites/default/files/webform/arima-kinen-jp-broadcast-tv7.pdf https://uniprint.osu.edu/sites/default/files/webform/arima-kinen-jp-broadcast-tv9.pdf https://uniprint.osu.edu/sites/default/files/webform/emperor-cup-jp-broadcast7.pdf https://uniprint.osu.edu/sites/default/files/webform/tokushima-vs-gamba-osaka-jp-tv9.pdf https://www.jihlavan.cz/sites/default/files/webform/zamestnani/arima-kinen-jp-broadcast-tv1.pdf https://www.jihlavan.cz/sites/default/files/webform/zamestnani/arima-kinen-jp-broadcast-tv3.pdf https://www.jihlavan.cz/sites/default/files/webform/zamestnani/arima-kinen-jp-broadcast-tv7.pdf https://www.jihlavan.cz/sites/default/files/webform/zamestnani/arima-kinen-jp-broadcast-tv9.pdf https://www.jihlavan.cz/sites/default/files/webform/zamestnani/emperor-cup-jp-broadcast7.pdf https://www.jihlavan.cz/sites/default/files/webform/zamestnani/tokushima-vs-gamba-osaka-jp-tv9.pdf https://blog.goo.ne.jp/broadcast7/e/2f99b8a966cd231af705f26df248a616 https://note.com/shamimsb0t/n/nd1a05cba09f1 https://mujemaro94.medium.com/is-trump-having-a-nervous-breakdown-c95250f0583b https://daznlivetv.substack.com/p/hfhgjghjhkh-ryhtyuytuiy https://cox.tribe.so/home/posts http://www.wdir1.com/link/150058/https-cawp-rutgers-edu-sites-default-files-webform-arima-kinen-jp-broadcast-tv1-pdf https://apaste.info/JCdx https://bsb3823.medium.com/wonder-woman-1984-just-validated-the-hbo-max-experiment-fc377cc99d45 Right now Donald Trump, still our president, isn’t thinking about kids in poverty or victims of terrorism at all. He’s busy playing golf and casually plotting to overthrow the government. Before leaving for his private resort, he vetoed a pay raise for American troops and destroyed a stimulus bill, but not before he pardoned 26 of his most loyal allies, who basically serve as his personal mafia. Now the government might shut down. Let’s think about that for a minute. We’re in the middle of the worst health crisis in American history, and we’re facing the possibility that our own government will be temporarily unavailable. This isn’t complaining. It’s not an expression of outrage. These are just the facts Americans are all processing over the holidays, as we try to rest and spend a little time with our families.

https://medium.com/@bsb3823/donald-trump-has-turned-america-into-a-failed-state-75e88ee4b326

[]

2020-12-27 06:21:59.612000+00:00

['Opinion', 'News', 'Society', 'Government', 'Politics']

Please and No

Something changed the first time she said no. She told me she wanted to struggle, and I listened as she filled in the details. She wanted to scream and kick and bite, and she didn’t want me to stop until she changed her mind. There was to be no setup and no role to play. She didn’t want to separate it out into a world of fantasy that felt too far away. She wanted immediate and real, and I could only nod. Her conviction almost made me pause when I pushed her onto the bed. Her protests and her cries almost made me loosen my grip on her wrists, and she clenched her legs together so tightly I had to pry them open with one leg and a firm slap. As much as she struggled, her words were what finally pushed me through. When she said “please” and “no” I tore at her clothing and held her down with real force. Her hair was tight in my hand as I fumbled with my belt and zipper, and she screamed and spit as I pressed the whole weight of my body against her. She cried when I finally slid inside her, and she still kicked and scratched as she moaned. She pulled her hips away, trying to move up on the bed, and I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to watch her. In spite of her promise, she never gave in. Even as she came around me, and even as she kissed me back with lips and teeth, she whispered no over and over again. When she wrapped her arms around me and kissed my neck it took me long moments before I believed her.

https://medium.com/quickies-in-new-york/please-and-no-23025ca50f7

['Guy New York']

2020-10-16 14:31:40.505000+00:00

['Kink', 'Erotica', 'Fiction', 'Taboo', 'Short Story']