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XGBoost For Time Series Forecasting: Don’t Use It Blindly | XGBoost For Time Series Forecasting: Don’t Use It Blindly
Source: Photo by Nile from Pixabay
When modelling a time series with a model such as ARIMA, we often pay careful attention to factors such as seasonality, trend, the appropriate time periods to use, among other factors.
However, when it comes to using a machine learning model such as XGBoost to forecast a time series — all common sense seems to go out the window. Rather, we simply load the data into the model in a black-box like fashion and expect it to magically give us accurate output.
A little known secret of time series analysis — not all time series can be forecast, no matter how good the model. Attempting to do so can often lead to spurious or misleading forecasts.
To illustrate this point, let us see how XGBoost (specifically XGBRegressor) varies when it comes to forecasting 1) electricity consumption patterns for the Dublin City Council Civic Offices, Ireland and 2) quarterly condo sales for the Manhattan Valley.
How XGBRegressor Forecasts Time Series
XGBRegressor uses a number of gradient boosted trees (referred to as n_estimators in the model) to predict the value of a dependent variable. This is done through combining decision trees (which individually are weak learners) to form a combined strong learner.
When forecasting a time series, the model uses what is known as a lookback period to forecast for a number of steps forward. For instance, if a lookback period of 1 is used, then the X_train (or independent variable) uses lagged values of the time series regressed against the time series at time t (Y_train) in order to forecast future values.
Forecasting Electricity Consumption
Let’s see how this works using the example of electricity consumption forecasting.
Source: Jupyter Notebook Output
The dataset in question is available from data.gov.ie. From this graph, we can see that a possible short-term seasonal factor could be present in the data, given that we are seeing significant fluctuations in consumption trends on a regular basis.
Let’s use an autocorrelation function to investigate further.
Source: Jupyter Notebook Output
From this autocorrelation function, it is apparent that there is a strong correlation every 7 lags. Intuitively, this makes sense because we would expect that for a commercial building, consumption would peak on a weekday (most likely Monday), with consumption dropping at the weekends.
When forecasting such a time series with XGBRegressor, this means that a value of 7 can be used as the lookback period.
# Lookback period
lookback = 7
X_train, Y_train = create_dataset(train, lookback)
X_test, Y_test = create_dataset(test, lookback)
The model is run on the training data and the predictions are made:
from xgboost import XGBRegressormodel = XGBRegressor(objective='reg:squarederror', n_estimators=1000)
model.fit(X_train, Y_train)
testpred = model.predict(X_test)
Let’s calculate the RMSE and compare it to the test mean (the lower the value of the former compared to the latter, the better).
>>> import math
>>> from math import sqrt
>>> test_mse = mean_squared_error(Y_test, testpred)
>>> rmse = sqrt(test_mse)
>>> print('RMSE: %f' % rmse) RMSE: 437.935136 >>> np.mean(Y_test) 3895.140625
We see that the RMSE is quite low compared to the mean (11% of the size of the mean overall), which means that XGBoost did quite a good job at predicting the values of the test set. If you wish to view this example in more detail, further analysis is available here.
Forecasting Manhattan Valley Condo Sales
In the above example, we evidently had a weekly seasonal factor, and this meant that an appropriate lookback period could be used to make a forecast.
However, there are many time series that do not have a seasonal factor. This makes it more difficult for any type of model to forecast such a time series — the lack of periodic fluctuations in the series causes significant issues in this regard.
Here is a visual overview of quarterly condo sales in the Manhattan Valley from 2003 to 2015. The data was sourced from NYC Open Data, and the sale prices for Condos — Elevator Apartments across the Manhattan Valley were aggregated by quarter from 2003 to 2015.
Source: Jupyter Notebook Output
From the above, we can see that there are certain quarters where sales tend to reach a peak — but there does not seem to be a regular frequency by which this occurs.
Again, let’s look at an autocorrelation function.
Source: Jupyter Notebook Output
From the autocorrelation, it looks as though there are small peaks in correlations every 9 lags — but these lie within the shaded region of the autocorrelation function and thus are not statistically significant.
What if we tried to forecast quarterly sales using a lookback period of 9 for the XGBRegressor model?
The same model as in the previous example is specified:
from xgboost import XGBRegressor model = XGBRegressor(objective='reg:squarederror', n_estimators=1000)
model.fit(X_train, Y_train) testpred = model.predict(X_test)
testpred
Now, let’s calculate the RMSE and compare it to the mean value calculated across the test set:
>>> test_mse = mean_squared_error(Y_test, testpred)
>>> rmse = sqrt(test_mse)
>>> print('RMSE: %f' % rmse) RMSE: 24508264.696280 >>> np.mean(Y_test) 47829860.5
We can see that in this instance, the RMSE is quite sizable — accounting for 50% of the mean value as calculated across the test set.
This indicates that the model does not have much predictive power in forecasting quarterly total sales of Manhattan Valley condos.
Given that no seasonality seems to be present, how about if we shorten the lookback period? Let’s try a lookback period of 1, whereby only the immediate previous value is used.
>>> test_mse = mean_squared_error(Y_test, testpred)
>>> rmse = sqrt(test_mse)
>>> print('RMSE: %f' % rmse) RMSE: 21323954.883488 >>> np.mean(Y_test) 35266600.64285714
The size of the mean across the test set has decreased, since there are now more values included in the test set as a result of a lower lookback period. This has smoothed out the effects of the peaks in sales somewhat. However, we see that the size of the RMSE has not decreased that much, and the size of the error now accounts for over 60% of the total size of the mean.
Therefore, using XGBRegressor (even with varying lookback periods) has not done a good job at forecasting non-seasonal data.
Conclusion
There are many types of time series that are simply too volatile or otherwise not suited to being forecasted outright. However, all too often, machine learning models like XGBoost are treated in a plug-and-play like manner, whereby the data is fed into the model without any consideration as to whether the data itself is suitable for analysis.
Therefore, the main takeaway of this article is that whether you are using an XGBoost model — or any model for that matter — ensure that the time series itself is firstly analysed on its own merits. This means determining an overall trend and whether a seasonal pattern is present.
The allure of XGBoost is that one can potentially use the model to forecast a time series without having to understand the technical components of that time series — and this is not the case.
Many thanks for your time, and any questions or feedback are greatly appreciated.
Disclaimer: This article is written on an “as is” basis and without warranty. It was written with the intention of providing an overview of data science concepts, and should not be interpreted as professional advice. The findings and interpretations in this article are those of the author and are not endorsed by or affiliated with any third-party mentioned in this article. The author has no relationship with any third parties mentioned in this article. | https://towardsdatascience.com/xgboost-for-time-series-forecasting-dont-use-it-blindly-9ac24dc5dfa9 | ['Michael Grogan'] | 2021-09-08 19:45:56.746000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Time Series Forecasting', 'Time Series Analysis'] |
The Seven Sighs | The Seven Sighs
Making space for compassion
Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash
the first
for the soft and the sorrowful,
the second
for the wide wonder
the third
for the lost and the longing
the fourth
for the rolling thunder
the fifth
for the hopeful, the harmonious
the sixth
for the journey, misbegotten
the seventh
for all I’ve forgotten | https://medium.com/scribe/the-seven-sighs-fbc9d02b540c | ['Jac Gautreau'] | 2020-11-28 21:03:06.732000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Awareness', 'Compassion', 'Reflections', 'Poetry'] |
How to Enhance Battery Life on Your Laptop | Photo by Christian Salas on Unsplash
How to Enhance Battery Life on Your Laptop
Make it through the day easily
Our working lives become more mobile every day. Many of us have already switched to a laptop as their main means of computing. Regardless of what the manufacturers like to tell us, the battery of our machines sometimes just won’t last through the day. Yes, sure, a bigger battery lasts longer than a small one and rapid-charge technology has made it easier than ever to quickly get a few hours worth of juice just with an hour of charging.
Still. Sometimes you’re dependent on making it through the day without a wall socket in sight. How you work, what you do and what software you use has a direct and ofentimes huge impact on the actual runtime of your laptop’s battery. So runtime can vary greatly between different people on the same type of machine, depending on their habits and usecase.
Here are seven pro tips to greatly enhance your laptop’s battery life.
№1 Screen
As a surprise to absolutely no one, screen brightness directly affects the power-draw of your screen. So, when possible, don’t run your screen at full brightness, when you’re away from a wall socket. Also resolution and size do play a role. When you’re buying a new computer, think about if you really need that ultra sharp 4K screen on a tiny 13 or 14 inch laptop screen. Probably not.
Go with full HD instead. It won’t make a discernable difference at a normal viewing distance but will greatly benefit the runtime of your laptop on battery.
Certain manufacturers offer “low power” screens. Just like Lenovo in their Thinkpad T series. If battery life is crucial to you, choose that kind of screen.
Also check your energy management settings on your computer. Shutting off your screen when you’re inactive can save a lot of battery. Windows 10 and Mac users will find self-explanatory settings in the corresponding system control areas (namely called “Energy” or “Power Management”).
№2 Browser
Believe it or not, but the kind of browser you use has a huge impact on your laptop’s battery life. Google Chrome is well known to be a power- and ressource-hog. The more tabs you have open, the more is going on, the quicker the battery will drain. There are more efficient alternatives.
On a Mac it clearly is Safari, the default browser by Apple and on a Windows 10 machine the latest chromium version of Edge (yes, that is still around) is really power efficient and fast. Many people also see a huge improvement when using Opera. In this case a little experimentation is required, to find the perfect balance between the features you need and the battery life you want.
Not as battery efficient, but quick as all hell and seemingly secure is the latest Firefox browser by Mozilla.
As of writing this article Google Chrome really is the worst candidate to pick if battery life is important to you.
№3 Graphics card
If your mobile computer sports a dedicated graphics card, make sure it’s only using it to accelerate certain programs or just shut it off altogether. An integrated graphics chip like Intels HD 620 or especially the new Ryzen 4000 series Radeon Vega graphics chips are more than capable of driving your operating systems user interface. No need for a dedidcated graphics card doing the “featherweight” lifting, burning precious battery life doing so.
№4 Background programs
It’s a good habit to de-clutter your open windows and programs from time to time. Especially when you’re running on battery. Having many programs open and stuff running in the background is a real drain on your battery life. Try to work as efficiently as possible, close programs when you’re done using them and try to not run your daily virus check in the background. Many of those security programs can be configured to not do a deep scan while on battery. Check out the advanced settings in the security suite of your choice.
Macs are more efficient in handling many open programs at once than Windows machines. Still, working efficiently and neatly, closing what you don’t need, is never wrong.
Extra-Tip: When you’re on Windows 10, go into Taskmanager (press the Windows Key+X and from the menu popping up select “Taskmanager”). Select “more details” and check out the now open “Processes” tab. You see a list of open and running programs and how much CPU-power they need. If you scroll to the far right of this window you can see a column for “battery usage”. If you click on it, it sorts the open programs by the amount of energy they need. This way you can identify battery-life drainers and kill the program for more endurance, if you don’t need it currently.
№5 Power profiles
Laptop manufacturers provide power management profiles. They are called “balanced”, “quiet”, “ performance” or something similar. Macs manage their energy setting automatically pretty well, but you can still make your adjustments in the system settings under “Energy”. On Windows those settings are easiest asccessed by right-clicking on the battery-icon. Select “Windows Mobility Center”. Now under the icon for the battery you should be able to select a different power plan. Choose something that sounds more “efficient” than “performance”. In the Windows 10 energy settings you can also create such power plans of your own.
Lenovo for example provides enhanced quick settings for your computer and also your battery with their Lenovo Vantage suite. It lives in your taskbar and is easily accessed by clicking on the battery icon. From there you can choose to quick charge your battery or even to enhance the general lifespan of your battery by only charging it to about 50% to 60% of full capacity. Of course, this will limit your battery runtime between charges.
Almost all manufacturers provide a similar service. Make sure to actually read your manual once you get a new computer and read about power management and how it is handled best with your machine of choice.
№6 Networking
I know it’s a weird concept to say in modern times, but if you want to conserve a little bit of extra juice, go offline. Yes, you read that right. No e-mails, no spotify, no social media. I know that many of our jobs just don’t allow to be offline. Thing is though, that your WiFi chip inside your laptop drains a lot of juice. So does Bluetooth, even if you don’t have any devices connected. So, if you don’t use bluetooth currently, switch it off. Also to try to go offline as often as possible. This has many other benefits besides improving your battery life, like being less distracted.
№7 Battery packs
If nothing else helps, you still got the option of battery packs or battery banks. Those are basically external carry-with-you-battery packs that can be connected to your laptop or other electronic device to charge it up. Depending on the size and capacity of the battery pack, you can even charge your devices multiple times. Best suited for this kind of recharge-on-the-go approach are Laptops that can be charged via USB-C port.
Make sure you know what kind of wattage your Laptop needs to fully recharge in time and provide it with as close to that wattage as you can. If your battery pack doesn’t offer enough wattage, you won’t be able to charge your Laptop in a reasonable amount of time.
You can also connect the battery pack to the laptop while you’re working on it, thus reducing the draining of your laptop’s battery a bit.
Bonus: 5 or a 7?
Usually, when you buy a new laptop, it’s the question to go with an Intel i5 or i7 or an AMD Ryzen 5 or 7. Well, as of 2020 if you want energy efficiency and long battery life, I don’t see why anyone would go for any high end Intel chip really. AMD has overtaken Intel in many markets and in my opinion also in the mobile market as their Ryzen 4000 series chips at the moment provide even thin and light laptops with plenty of cores, power and battery life. Neat!
But regardless of your choice of processor brand, what about the difference between the 5 and 7 lines of processors. The 7 ones are the stronger ones, with more cores, more performance and more power draw. So, does it make sense to go for the lesser option if you value battery life?
There is no clear answer to that because after watching many Youtube videos on that subject it seems like that it’s highly dependent on how the manufacturer of the Laptop implemented the cooling solution, the mainboard and many other factors that play into the energy efficiency of a certain processor.
Personally I believe that the 5 series chips might be a “tad” easier on the battery life, I’d still rather go with the more powerful option and in the worst case help myself out with a battery pack. But that’s just me.
In general, the further technology progresses, the smaller the processors can be manufactured, the more energy efficient they are, so if battery life is of utmost importance to you, you should always go with the latest processors.
Conclusion
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
It’s obvious, that the real battery life of your machine varies greatly with it’s specs and your usecase. But this also means that you have some sort of control over it. Times are changing and conserving ressources is a good and timely thing to do, let’s not stop at reducing our waste, but also our use of battery life. It’s really all aboout conscious living and conscious use of the ressources available to you to get your things done. Luckily efficiency seems to become the new thing to strive for and brag about, not only in mobile computers. Also, Apple will transition to their own processors for their whole computer lineup , starting later this year — I’ll keep a close eye on that, as it probably will usher in a whole new era of power-efficient computing. Cutting down on uneccessary or even toxic relationships is another wise thing to do nowadays, but that’s for another article… | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-enhance-battery-life-on-your-laptop-349abd21123a | [] | 2020-07-27 23:58:54.159000+00:00 | ['Gardgets', 'Tips', 'Tech', 'Life', 'Technology'] |
Book Review: Stanislav Andreski’s ‘Social Sciences as Sorcery’ | I recently had reason to dust off my copy of Stanislav Andreski’s 1972 book, Social Sciences As Sorcery (Penguin, 1974), which I last read in 2003, then in the early weeks of a certain pre-doctoral course on the methods and theories of social sciences. Back then, I tracked down the book following the recommendation of my always-helpful PhD tutor, who may have hoped that it would instill a healthy level of scepticism regarding purportedly ‘scientific’ academic analysis and verbiage camouflaging as knowledge. The book is now quite difficult to get a hold of, and my own copy is falling apart, but re-reading it I felt strongly that it ought to be reissued (now posthumously), as much of what Andreski says still rings true today. Until this comes to pass, allow me to share some the book’s main passages and arguments here.
In general terms, Andreski makes the case that ‘much of what passes as scientific study of human behaviour boils down to an equivalent of sorcery’ (p. 10). Writing in chapter 1 about the mushrooming of social-science practitioners, conferences, and publications, he notes that ‘pretentious and nebulous verbosity, interminable repetition of platitudes and disguised propaganda are the order of the day, while at least 95 per cent of research is indeed re-search for things that have been found long ago and many times since’ (p. 11). I do not claim to be familiar with the scholarship being knocked in the book, but I find myself agreeing with Andreski in principle, based on my own reading, rather than in the particular details (also, the book’s sardonic wit and sense of humour was always likely to win me over).
Andreski emphasises this idea of ‘re-search’ and links it to the tendency toward pleonasm in modern social sciences. Commenting on Talcott Parsons’ ‘voluntaristic theory of action’ (which I will gladly admit I am not familiar with), he notes: ‘Translated from the tenebrous language in which it is couched, this theory amounts to saying that in order to understand why people act as they do, we must take into account their wishes and decisions, the means at their disposal and their beliefs about how the desired effects can be produced’ (p. 84). As Andreski comments, ‘The emergence of this piece of knowledge amounted, no doubt, to an important step in the mental development of mankind, but it must have occurred some time during the Paleolithic Age, as Homer and the Biblical prophets knew all about it. True, none of the writers treated in Parsons’ book has made any explicit statements to this effect, but this was not because they did not know about it but because they took it for granted that no sane reader needed to be told about such an obvious thing. Nor did they specify other equally important pre-requisites of social action, such that people can remember, communicate, reason and move — which does not mean that the world must wait for another Harvard professor to discover this’ (p. 84).
Generalising from this take-down, Andreski proposes that jargon retains attraction because it is easier to dress up something old than find something new, and less risky to be obscure than to-the-point: ‘in addition to eliminating such risks, as well as the need to learn much, nebulous verbosity opens a road to the most prestigious academic posts to people of small intelligence whose limitations would stand naked if they had to state what they have to say clearly and succinctly (p. 84). Andreski cites many examples to make this point. One examples concerns the then ‘recent vogue for the letter “n”, chosen to deputize for the common word “need” because of its status-bestowing properties stemming from its frequent appearance in mathematical formulae’ (p. 64). ‘So by scribbling the letter “n” all of their pages’, Andreski continues, ‘some people have succeeded in surrounding their platitudes with the aura of the exact sciences in their own eyes, as well as those of their readers who might have seen some books on mathematics without being able to understand them’ (p. 64).
Another example is the introduction and gradual dominance of the term ‘reinforcement’, particularly in psychology, which Andreski criticises for its lack of specificity in comparison to more common terms: ‘incentive’, ‘reward’, ‘punishment’ and ‘deterrent’ (p. 72). That may sound fairly trivial, but Andreski takes the point further: ‘The problem of how to control the behaviour of men and animals through punishment and rewards has been treated in innumerable treatises on penology, legislation, education, management and animal training… To say something important and new on this subject is always possible but very difficult. But one piece of pseudo-scientific terminology can confuse and intimidate people into accepting as a significant discovery an over-simplified (and therefore less valid) version of old folk wisdom’ (pp. 72–73). A final example: ‘structure’ and ‘structuralism’: ‘it has hitherto been regarded as too obvious to call for elaborate comment that all the sciences have been, and are, studying the structures of the object of their interest; and the sole innovation of “structuralism” is a tireless persistence in repeating this word, which can be regarded either as a gimmick or a compulsive neurosis’ (p. 73).
While Andreski spends much of his book debunking the ‘smoke screen of jargon’ in qualitative social scientific research, he saves some energy for the dominance of quantitative research methods, and the related claims to greater specificity than that attainable through the use of mere words. Writing about the increase in ‘ultra-sophisticated quantitative methods’ in explaining or predicting human events, Andreski notes that ‘in nearly all instances, it is the case of a mountain giving birth to a mouse, as when, after wading through mounds of tables and formulae, we come to the general finding (expressed of course, in the most abstruse manner possible) that people enjoy being in the centre of attention, or that they are influenced by those with whom they associate… which I can well believe, as my grandmother told me that many times when I was a child’ (p. 122).
The focus on quantitative research methods bleeds into a section on the role of method in social sciences. Andreski argues that a basic insecurity about the inability to substantiate their claims has made social scientists put more effort into perfecting complex and often incomprehensible tools and models than into the research itself. This relates partly to the ‘structures of quantification and algebra’ used to explain and predict human behaviour, which as Fred Halliday put it in Rethinking International Relations, has often produced ‘banality, or obscurity, or both’. But Andreski focuses also on the tendency towards mechanical information gathering, based on the belief that ‘if we gather enough “facts” the explanatory and predictive theories will spontaneously emerge’ (p. 120). Here, Andreski is particularly critical of his own field: ‘the ability to unearth something really interesting and to present it in a lovely style demands a special gift and cannot be acquired by mechanical cramming, whereas anybody who is not a mental defective can learn to churn out the tedious door-to-door surveys which pass for sociology’ (p. 117).
This relates to a broader discussion of subjectivity versus objectivity in the social sciences. Andreski makes the point that much of the emphasis on method and tools stems from a desire to cash in the apparent neatness of the natural sciences, and endows the ensuing research findings with an air of objectivity. Yet as Andreski notes, ‘the ideal of objectivity is much more complex and elusive than the pedlars of methodological gimmicks would have us believe; and… it requires much more than an adherence to the technical rules of verification, or recourse to recondite unemotive terminology: namely, a moral commitment to justice — the will to be fair to people and institutions, to avoid the temptations of wishful and venomous thinking, and the courage to resist threats and enticements’ (p. 110).
One may not agree with all that Andreski says, and his tone belies a certain elitism that some may find grating, but this book ought in any case be at the top of reading lists for courses on ‘research methodology’ and ‘theories of social science’ whether quantitative or qualitative. I would advise any student embarking on a PhD to get a hold of a copy: as Andreski himself puts it, ‘the usage of mumbo-jumbo makes it very difficult for a beginner to find his way; because if he reads or hears famous professors from the most prestigious universities in the world without being able to understand them, then how can he know whether this is due to his lack of intelligence or preparation, or to their vacuity?’ (pp. 90–91). To me, the book has wider relevance yet, to debunk and demystify some tendencies that are still strong in academia and analysis today — the excessive theorisation, the emphasis on method over substance and the pleonastic means of expression. One final quotation from the book’s first chapter:
How can the truth prevail? The answer (which gives some ground for hope) is that people interested in ideas, and prepared to think them through and express them regardless of personal disadvantage, have always been few; and if knowledge could not advance without a majority on the right side, there would never have been any progress at all — because it has always been easier to get into the limelight, as well as to make money, by charlatanry, doctrinarism, sycophancy and soothing or stirring oratory than by logical and fearless thinking. No, the reason why human understanding has been able to advance in the past, and may do so in the future, is that true insights are cumulative and retain their value regardless of what happens to their discoverers; while fads and stunts may bring an immediate profit to the impresarios, but lead nowhere in the long run, cancel each other out, and are dropped as soon as their promoters are no longer there (or have lost the power) to direct the show. Anyway, let us not despair.
I think there is an important and difficult challenge in there, and in the book as a whole, to all those engaged with the ‘study of human behaviour’. | https://medium.com/kings-of-war/book-review-stanislav-andreskis-social-sciences-as-sorcery-62c9c6ebf0c2 | ['David H. Ucko'] | 2017-03-20 18:26:04.718000+00:00 | ['Research Methods', 'Research', 'Social Science', 'Sociology'] |
Minor League Stat Stickiness — Hitters | the stickiness of a statistic refers to such a statistic’s ability to stay consistent over time
It is really hard to predict the future, and that has always been true with baseball players. An incredible amount of money and resources goes into evaluating Minor League players to determine which ones will succeed in the Major Leagues, and which ones will not.
I’m no baseball scout. I can’t tell you the first thing about swing mechanics or player development. I can, however, do some stuff with large amounts of numbers that not a lot of people cannot — so that’s what I’m here to do.
The goal was to find which Minor League statistics are most predictive of Major League statistics at the individual player level. If we can find some statistical categories that players usually stay relatively consistent in from their Minor League career to their Major League careers, we might be able to be better at evaluating players in the future. This is especially useful for fantasy baseball purposes when you are trying to identify rookies that can contribute to your fantasy team.
Here was my process in attempting this challenge:
Retrieve all Minor League hitting stats for the last 10 seasons (2010–2019 for levels A+, AA, and AAA)
Retrieve all Major League hitting stats for the last five seasons
Loop through every player that had 200 or more at-bats at the Major League level over the 2015–2019 seasons and compare their Major League statistics with the Minor League statistics
Find the overall correlation coefficients for each category to give evidence on which categories are the most predictive
None of this was all that hard, although I did have to manually copy and paste all of the Minor League stats into Excel. That took a moderate amount of time, but nothing major. For the MLB stats, I just wrote a quick web scraping script to go get all those stats from Fangraphs.
Here is that code for anybody interested.
I further cleaned up and aggregated the data to fit my needs, and then proceeded with the analysis.
The difference between AAA baseball and A+ baseball is pretty substantial, so I decided to run the tests are each level individually, as well as all of the Minor League statistics as a whole.
To fully explain this, let’s just take a quick example using Aaron Judge.
Here are my Aaron Judge rows in my Minor League data:
Adding all those totals up we get this as Judge’s full Minor League record:
And then of course, here are Aaron Judge’s Major League statistics:
I plotted and compared Judge’s statistics at each Minor League level and his cumulative Minor League statistics with his Major League numbers for each of the below categories.
Strikeout Rate
Walk Rate
Batting Average
On-Base Percentage
Slugging Percentage
Plate Appearances Per Home Run
Stolen Base Attempt Rate (singles + walks / steal attempts)
Doing this with one player or even a few dozen players is pretty worthless given how small of a sample size that is, but doing it for every single player that has achieved 200 or more at-bats at the Major League level over the last five seasons is a pretty large sample.
It is important to note that my sample is still a bit biased, since it is not easy to get 200 at-bats at the Major League level. It requires either a high prospect pedigree, and/or a strong Minor League track record, and/or a strong start to a Major League career to reach those numbers. Lots of players since 2015 have unable to hack it in the Majors and have flamed out before getting enough opportunity to be included in this sample. That is something to keep in mind, but it doesn’t hurt us too bad for the purposes of this study.
Now let’s get to the results.
Overall Minor League Stats are Most Predictive
The most meaningful correlations in each category came from the overall minor league numbers as compared to one of the three individual levels. This came as no surprise to me just because the full minor league data is an inherently larger sample, and larger samples will always tell us more truth.
When comparing the individual levels, their significance went in order with AAA being the most predictive and A+ being the least. Again, not a huge surprise since AAA pitching is most of the time closest to the big league level.
Predictive Stats
Stolen Base Attempt rate was the winner here, with a correlation coefficient of .81. This is a very strong positive correlation. However, most of that is undoubtedly tied to the fact that players that don’t attempt steals in the Minors at a high rate (the majority of players) also don’t attempt steals in the Majors at a high rate. This should be no surprise to anybody, and the scatter plot shows that the correlation does die down quite a bit after you get past the guys that don’t run at any level
Strikeout and walk rate are the true winners here, with very strong positive correlates of .77 and .72 respectively.
I did expect these two statistics to stand out, but maybe not quite this much. This is enough evidence to feel pretty confident betting on a player to have very similar strikeout and walk rates in the Majors as he did in the Minors.
Since walk rate is so highly predictive, on-base percentage follows along, however to a lesser degree (a .53 correlation coefficient). Most of this correlation is explained by the walk rate, because as we will see — the batting average part of the on-base percentage calculation does not help much.
Home run rate was also a sorta-kinda winner, with a .59 correlation coefficient. That number certainly doesn’t make you feel great about putting a bunch of chips on a Minor League home run champ turning out to be a strong Major League power hitter as well, it is well above the “no relationship” line (which I would call .3 or so for these purposes).
Non-Predictive Stats
Batting average and slugging percentage. These two aren’t completely non-predictive, but they are random enough to just not even attempt to predict a guy’s Major League numbers based on their Minor League numbers. Batting Average came in with a .42 correlation coefficient while Slugging Percentage was the overall loser of this study with a .37.
What Do We Learn?
Firstly, we should always value the total minor league statistics over the individual level statistics. Sample size will always reign as most important — do not forget that. If you have to choose a level to prefer: the higher, the better.
Secondly, plate discipline is clearly very sticky. If you strike out or walk a lot in the minors, you will probably continue to do so in the Majors — and vice versa. If a player is torching Minor League pitching but racking up strikeout rates in the upper-20’s for his Minor League career, it’s pretty safe to assume he will be a high strikeout hitter in the Majors, which will make it that much tougher for him to have a successful Major League career.
If you are trying to predict a Minor League player’s future, focus on the plate discipline — those are by far the best predictors.
All of my code is here in my Google Colab Python Notebook. | https://medium.com/the-sports-scientist/minor-league-stat-stickiness-hitters-cbb694a11282 | ['Jon Anderson'] | 2020-05-28 23:24:41.591000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Data Analysis', 'Sports', 'Baseball', 'MLB'] |
Organizing as an Indie | Shaping an Idea
I started off using a mind-mapping tool as everyone thinks of them. That starting bubble, just one or two words that sum up the app. It usually gets changed to the app name later, but for now, you need that title to identify this mind map. A few I’ve used for apps are Countdown, Timer, Shopping List, and Barcodes. Even though you don’t know what apps they became, you know a little of what they are for already.
From that initial bubble, it’s easy to just start adding every random thought that comes into your head that you want to capture, which mind-mapping tools are designed to handle well. With that said, I do like to add a very minimal starting structure. I add three nodes immediately: Purpose, Technical, and Design. These will later be split into more nodes, but at this point, my mind is flitting between these aspects, so I need to group things very loosely.
Purpose
This is where the idea of the app is formed. They are either statements or multiple nodes in a question-and-answer format. That way, as I progress, I can add more answers. None are right — they are all options at this stage. I also chain nodes to back up a statement, which can often lead to questioning that statement later. Nodes here will often become technical items or user stories that you can either move from purpose or link to, depending on whether the idea is fully formed.
Technical
As you start defining the purpose of your app and sometimes the design, you’ll start running into things you’ve never done technically. Add them here. You’re building your research list for later and getting that worry about how hard something is out of your head.
Design
Like the technical node, this is a holding area to quickly get thoughts out of your head, allowing you to revisit them and probably iterate on your previous thoughts. Design, for me, covers everything on how I want to present the app.
I always start with Name and Icon, which are usually the last things to get finalized, but as the app progresses, new ideas keep occurring.
I’ll also start capturing thoughts on how I want the app to look, which is usually heavily influenced by the latest trends and anything I haven’t done before, so it will be nav bars, tab views, single screen. It inevitably won’t stick as the purpose and technical aspects evolve, but again, the idea is to stop dwelling on this irrelevant thought now and comforting yourself that it won’t be forgotten.
The start of an idea
After a few minutes, you’ll get a mind map you can start fleshing out with more and more detail until you are ready to create actionable items:
Photo by the author.
Every mind-mapping tool gives options to style things as much as you want, changing node shapes, colors, adding images. If it helps to add visual clues to where your thoughts are going, do so. I tend to stick to the default formatting applied. For some really big topics, I will add an icon to make it easy to identify later. | https://medium.com/better-programming/organizing-yourself-as-an-indie-developer-a7cabdcafd44 | ['Andrew Jackson'] | 2020-10-15 16:25:03.718000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Startup', 'Indy', 'Productivity', 'Programming'] |
This Gallant Will Command the Sun | Photo by Ivan Diaz on Unsplash
There’s an old phrase in fairly common use that translates as “Don’t lie to me.”
Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining.
Yet that’s exactly what Donald ‘Petruchio’ Trump did when he defaced an official weather map with a sharpie in a truly pathetic effort to ‘prove’ that he is a better weather forecaster than the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service (NWS).
If you’ve been off the grid for a week and missed the latest foray into nationwide gaslighting, the Fabulist-in-Chief tweeted on Sep 1 that Alabama “would most likely be hit [by Hurricane Dorian](much) harder than anticipated.” A mere twenty minutes later, the NWS station in Birmingham Alabama tweeted, “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian”.
But of course, Trump tweets are gospel truth, so the Copper Confabulator continued to tweet and speak ex cathedra, contradicting the nation’s top climate and weather scientists, insisting that his false weather report (which just happens to be a federal crime) was true. This particular Mr. Trump’s Wild Ride culminated on Sep 4 when he held up the now famous map that has triggered a tweet storm centered around ‘SharpieGate’.
The hurricane will go where I say it will go.
In any sane world, that would be that. Trump would be shown to be wrong, he’d go on stamping his little feet and screaming like a spoiled kid in a Wal Mart, Twitter would do that voodoo that it do so well, we’d all have a good laugh and go back to binge-watching Black Mirror.
But we don’t live in a sane world. Instead, in this world, the NOAA has issued directives to all it’s personnel, including every NWS station in the country, not to correct or contradict the God of Weather. Further, NWS stations are ordered to “only stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts if questions arise”, and to not “provide any opinion” about such forecasts, questions from media or statements, especially from the president.
It gets worse.
“Late Friday afternoon, NOAA officials further angered scientists within and beyond the agency by releasing a statement, attributed to an unnamed agency spokesperson, supporting Trump’s claims on Alabama and chastising the agency’s Birmingham meteorologists for speaking in absolutes.”
So what we have now is a national scientific organization purposely and willingly abdicating it’s role as a reliable source-of-truth regarding critical weather information, instead acting as oleaginous sycophants to a man who can lie to his own face in the mirror. The NOAA is telling us that the butter sculpture currently greasing up the Resolute Desk knows all and tells all. If he says a hurricane will hit your state, whether that be Florida or Montana, believe him and head for higher ground.
I AM THE GREAT AND POWERFUL WEATHER WIZARD!
In Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, perhaps the earliest depiction of domestic abuse via gaslighting, Petruchio claims the time of day to be 7am when it is actually 2pm. This is one of numerous ruses he employs to break the spirit of Katherine, his “shrewish” wife, and put her under his thumb. When she insists that she knows the truth, he rails on and claims the time is what he says it is:
It shall be seven ere I go to horse.
Look what I speak, or do, or think to do,
You are still crossing it. Sirs, let ’t alone.
I will not go today, and ere I do
It shall be what o’clock I say it is.
To which his friend replies, in an aside to the audience:
Why, so this gallant will command the sun!
The line is meant ironically, an in-joke between the character and the audience. But in our world, the entire national scientific apparatus charged with giving us accurate, often life-saving weather forecasts and reports, is saying the same thing without irony.
The NOAA is saying, to our faces and with no wink-and-nod, that Trump commands the sun.
Put another way, the president is pissing on us, and the NOAA is telling us it is raining. | https://medium.com/geezer-speaks/this-gallant-will-command-the-sun-37c0b4ac97a6 | ['Craig Allen Heath'] | 2019-09-09 08:38:58.599000+00:00 | ['Weather', 'Government', 'Truth', 'Climate Change', 'Trump'] |
What Was Life Like B.C? | What Was Life Like B.C?
Before Covid
Photo by Samantha Gades on Unsplash
Let us all agree to add B.C to the end of any date that was prior to 2020. Life was very different back then and it feels like it was so long ago, I can hardly remember. Now when we tell our kids stories of things that happened “Back in our day” we will actually be talking about Pre-Covid life.
Life during the B.C. Years
You were allowed to leave your home and enter establishments without a face covering.
There was a place that you could go to and pay money for a ticket, buy snacks, and then enter this dark auditorium style room and watch a movie….with other people….people that were not apart of your family. Maskless.
It was considered rude to eat birthday cake without the Birthday Honoree blowing all over the cake first.
The grocery stores had no directional signs on the floor. You could go up and down any aisle you choose and in any order. Maskless.
Every weekday morning kids would get up and go to a place where there was a teacher there to teach them and other kids were there too. Not online actually in person. Maskless.
Zoom was a platform only businesses used to hold actual meetings. It was not for family game nights.
You could go to a Sports Arena and watch your favorite sports teams play LIVE and not just on the television. You would buy a $20 hot dog and a $10 dollar coke and cheer on your team with thousands of other people around. Maskless.
There was no limit to how many people you could have at your birthday party or your funeral. You could literally invite anyone you wanted to invite. Unless it’s your funeral than you wouldn’t technically be doing the inviting. Maskless.
Oh those were the good old days!
Danita Hall is a human by day and a Humor, Parenting, Lifestyle, Ranting, Poem Writing Blogger by night. Click here to read past blog posts and stay connected on Facebook and Twitter | https://medium.com/the-haven/what-was-life-like-b-c-90b5cc7a7c99 | ['Danita Hall'] | 2020-12-29 04:21:24.250000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Pandemic', 'The Haven', 'Satire'] |
A Cliché Morning by Eldar Satymov | The voice of someone talking loudly on phone woke me up. I couldn’t move, I felt like if I were a mosquito smashed into the windshield of a fast going car. My eyes were still closed. I saw different colours. They were dancing. Green, yellow, purple, and orange, and even blue was dancing with them. How happy they were. But suddenly I remembered I was on a party previous night, and all the colours vanished. But that was all what I remembered. I didn’t know how has the party ended. I opened my eyes instantly in panic and looked around hoping to find a clue about what happened last night. I was lying on a tiny bed, my legs didn’t fit. The room was disturbingly bright and colourful. I heard a slight snooze coming out of somewhere in the room. Then I forced myself to get up, and while lifting my head the sunshine falling right on my face through the window behind the bed blinded me so unmercifully, that even after I had shut my eyes I saw a fierce radiant dot. I felt the soft warmth of the sunlight on my face. I set on the bed looking down at a girl who were sleeping on the floor. Lying there she looked quite comfortable though. She were breathing very deeply. But no lies she looked very ugly. I stared at her for awhile with my eyes half closed. Her face looked like as if it was a fat fish’s with no eyes. I couldn’t figure out if her skin was really dark green or my eyes did see her in that colour. Her ugliness awoke a nausea in my body. My palms got cold, and the bright walls and that loud voice made it even worse. All what I wanted was someone to bring me a glass of cold water. I pulled the blanket off my legs and searched my pockets for the keys, phone, and the wallet. I found them all, luckily. I pulled myself together and got up of the bed. Saying “Would you mind if I stepped over you, princess?” I jumped over the dead fish and walked out of the room.
“Yes. Okay. I understand. I’ll be there in 15 minutes.” Echoed the voice out of the kitchen. It seemed like it was her mom. “Yeah. See you, sweetheart,”-continued the voice. My shadow appeared on the wall of the kitchen, and I understood that there was no way back to the bedroom to pretend sleeping, at least until she was gone.
— Come in, young man — said she as if it was okay to sleep in one room with her daughter. I knew that I got into hot water. Oh, my eyes locked on the cooler. Was any COLD water in there? She leaned back, and turned her neck in my direction. Her venomous glance pierced me, like the nausea was not enough. To handle her glance even for two seconds was an epic clash. But I did manage it, and in the end she smiled. What the freak? But really, how could she? I wondered about her personality: was she a kind mama, like mine, or was she a master of false smiles like those clerks in shopping malls? She was wearing slim fit jeans and a turquoise jacket with a white blouse under. And heavy golden chains on her neck strangled her like it was her punishment to wear them.
— I suppose you are Çagla’s friend. — Continued she while searching in her Louis Vuitton bag. So, the sleeping wonder’s name was Çagla. Good to know.
— Aaah, yeaah, THE BEST friend! — replied I, finally revealing the sound of my voice. She looked at me silently and threw her head backwards, and then bowed. Then she took her bag and leaned towards me. She whispered:
— I’ll beat shit out of you if you have touched her. — and left no doubts about her personality.
[to be continued…] | https://medium.com/terrace-vista/a-clich%C3%A9-morning-by-eldar-satymov-5109191dbce | ['Terrace Vista'] | 2017-03-02 11:48:37.216000+00:00 | ['Novela', 'Realistic', 'Featured', 'Fiction', 'Short Story'] |
Low tech, high risk: what’s behind the biggest misinformation threats | “If someone says it’s raining, and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the ******* window and find out which is true,” Jonathan Foster, a lecturer at Sheffield University, once said.
But that is not enough anymore, according to Jenni Sargent, managing director of First Draft. At our latest News Impact Summit on “Covering Politics in a Misinformation Age”, she explained that in today’s media environment, journalists need to investigate if the rain could be fake, learn how to verify fake rain, find out who created it, if it’s part of a coordinated effort of fake rainmakers, investigate what their motives may be, and so on…
In other words, news organisations need to fight misinformation to (re-)gain trust from readers. To find out more, we turned to leading experts in the field for a full day of knowledge-sharing.
Here’s what we learned:
Misinformation is a global, growing phenomenon
Journalists worldwide are targeted by people who deliberately make up false stories. Many newsrooms are not equipped to counter their manipulation tactics — especially at critical moments, like elections, social unrest, extreme weather events, and terrorist attacks.
Example: Are these really images of the Hong Kong demonstrations?
Misinformation is a powerful weapon. It can lead to apathy, disengagement, and distrust, according to Scott Hale, director of research at Meedan. “It can interfere in democracy by suppressing people to vote or influencing public opinion, cause economic harm, and even risk of death.”
Example: The fake cancer cure that circulated in private Facebook groups.
False context is the main threat
Visual content is particularly prone to be used to mislead, as it can spread easily on social media as it tends to elicit an emotional response. That’s why politicians have been using images for a long time and will continue to do so.
Example: Nigel Farage’s provocative use of an anti-immigrant poster.
New technology has driven the proliferation of dangerously deceptive deepfakes — videos that make it look as if a person said something they didn’t actually say. While this new phenomenon is seen as a huge political threat, it’s not the main problem.
Example: You won’t believe what Obama says in this video!
“A much bigger concern is the use of low tech unaltered images wrapped in a misleading context,” said Farida Vis, director of the Visual Social Media Lab, “especially in countries where media literacy is low and where these images circulate in closed messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram.”
Example: This man wearing an ISIS (Daesh) flag in Paris is not what it seems.
De-contextualised images and videos are very easy to produce and quick to spread, according to Guillaume Daudin, who is leading AFP Fact Check. “It keeps doing a lot of damage, far more than the alleged deepfake threat, which is not having any consequence for the moment,” Guillaume said.
Example: Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau did not convert to Islam
Craig Silverman, Media Editor at BuzzFeed News at the News Impact Summit in Lyon.
Disinformation is a money-making business
“It’s not just politicians we should be worried about,” said Craig Silverman, the media editor at BuzzFeed News, explaining how the worlds of for-profit and political disinformation are intertwined. Here are some striking examples:
Spammers often spread political disinformation as it’s a very effective way to turn their spam operations into a profitable business. “If running political stories gets them clicks, they’ll do it,” said Craig.
Professional scammers and spammers offer their sophisticated media manipulation services to politicians, some even have a detailed brochure. “We’ve seen a large growth in the amount of for-hire, for-profit disinformation operations,” said Craig.
The US is seeing a surge of local news sites, run by political activists masquerading as journalists. They publish legitimate stories, but their goal is to build an audience ahead of the 2020 elections to later push political messages.
A recent NYT-article revealed Russia’s new strategy to rent people’s Facebook accounts for media manipulation. This innovative tactic is the political version of a successful money-making scam that runs fake celebrity adds on people’s facebook accounts to make money.
Jenni Sargent, Managing Director of First Draft at the News Impact Summit in Lyon.
What can platforms do?
“Platforms need to create fair and clear policies and then actually enforce them in a consistent and transparent way,” said Craig.
Platforms can warn users of content that is known to be false, limit the algorithms, take down content, ban offenders or — as Twitter recently announced — ban political ads altogether.
“These measures are useful, but we need to be aware that the platforms are incredibly connected,” said Scott, “taking the content of one platform doesn’t remove it from the conversation, it simply drives it to other places online.”
It’s more difficult to research and deal with suspicious content when it circulates on encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram, where even the platforms don’t know what is being discussed.
What can journalists do?
There are numerous tools available to make the verification process more efficient. Journalists can also go beyond fact-checking to investigate context, encourage offline debate and/or collaborate to promote accurate reporting:
Verify, verify, verify tools — AFP Factual’s InVID verification plug-in allows journalists to analyse comments, cut video into snippets, zoom in on images, do advanced Twitter searches, check for modified metadata, and see if images have been photoshopped. Additionally, you can use tools like Google’s reverse image search, TinEye, and Yandex, which is an excellent tool for facial recognition and identifying landscapes.
AFP Factual’s InVID verification plug-in allows journalists to analyse comments, cut video into snippets, zoom in on images, do advanced Twitter searches, check for modified metadata, and see if images have been photoshopped. Additionally, you can use tools like Google’s reverse image search, TinEye, and Yandex, which is an excellent tool for facial recognition and identifying landscapes. Context, please! — First Draft’s visual verification guide helps journalists run five quick checks on an image that will save time and “potentially embarrassment”: Do you have the original image, when was it taken, where, when, and why? The Visual Social Media Lab expanded this guide with a 20 questions framework that goes beyond mere verification to interrogate the context of a social media image.
First Draft’s visual verification guide helps journalists run five quick checks on an image that will save time and “potentially embarrassment”: Do you have the original image, when was it taken, where, when, and why? The Visual Social Media Lab expanded this guide with a 20 questions framework that goes beyond mere verification to interrogate the context of a social media image. Weaken polarisation off-line — My Country Talks is a Tinder for politics that brings people with opposing views together in real life to discuss societal issues. A study has shown that this experience reduces prejudice, increases empathy, trust in others, and the belief in social cohesion. ”A two-hour conversation between people with completely different political views is enough to weaken polarisation,” said one of the researchers.
— My Country Talks is a Tinder for politics that brings people with opposing views together in real life to discuss societal issues. A study has shown that this experience reduces prejudice, increases empathy, trust in others, and the belief in social cohesion. ”A two-hour conversation between people with completely different political views is enough to weaken polarisation,” said one of the researchers. Explore the dark side — DROG’s Bad News game puts you in the shoes of a fake-news creator to understand their powerful tactics. Build your army of trolls to spread conspiracies to influence the public debate. A great experience for journalists and readers to strengthen media literacy that increases “psychological resistance” to fake news, according to a study published by the University of Cambridge.
Participants of the News Impact Summit in Lyon.
There are also many opportunities for journalists to work together if and when appropriate to fight misinformation, for example: | https://medium.com/we-are-the-european-journalism-centre/low-tech-high-risk-whats-behind-the-biggest-misinformation-threats-16966ad095c3 | ['Ingrid Cobben'] | 2019-11-22 10:59:50.069000+00:00 | ['Journalism', 'Misinformation', 'Insights', 'Fake News', 'Media'] |
My iPhone 12 Experiment — Which One Will I Keep? | Apple’s focus isn’t in line with my own
The other reason it’s so hard buying a new iPhone nowadays isn’t because of the colours (I went for the blue one, if you’re interested), or the new accessories you’ll inevitably have to buy.
It’s because Apple seems to be focusing on stuff which makes it incredibly tricky for me to justify a new phone. I suspect that’s the case for other people, too.
My XS Max is working perfectly fine. In truth, it doesn’t need upgrading, even after two years of heavy use. Alas, upgrade I must, partly because I review this stuff on my YouTube channel, but also because I want to keep up with what’s going on in iPhone land.
The problem lies with the headline features Apple focused on during the launch event:
Let’s take a look at each one.
I really, really don’t care about 5G. Over here in the UK, it means literally nothing and won’t for a few years to come. We still struggle to get decent 4G in some areas, and, regardless, WiFi does a perfect job everywhere else. The amount of focus placed on 5G by Apple was nothing more than a desire to be the first manufacturer to claim they’ve “nailed it”. That bores me to tears.
MagSafe? It looks cool, sure. But I already have two perfectly decent ways of charging my phone, and I have no desire to attach my credit cards to the back of it. Let’s see what third-parties do, but it didn’t get me quite as excited as some industry analysts.
Finally — the cameras. My XS Max has a shoddy camera. I have no idea what Apple did with that generation, but it’s grainy, dull and lacking in detail. But I’ve got used to it.
However, the Pixel revealed to me just how far smartphone cameras have come; it knocks my iPhone into a cocked hat. I therefore want a daily carry phone which matches up to that performance, and have no doubt the iPhone 12 Pro will (the ultra-wide angle will certainly be a nice edition).
But the problem I have lies with one of the biggest features Apple revealed in the Pro line: 10‑bit HDR Dolby Vision video recording.
No one is going to use this. Ever.
And don’t get me wrong, it is so cool that a phone can do this. But it’s equally pointless. Professional videographers use cameras dedicated for the task, and ‘normal’ people simply choose ‘video’ in the camera app and shoot away, only to very rarely review the footage in future.
Why Apple chose to put this much effort into a feature which will be so widely ignored is beyond me. Why not, instead, give us a 120hz refresh rate display, for instance? Or invest some of that R&D time and money in removing the camera notch?
Sorry, Apple — I’m upgrading out of necessity and because of my job. I’m not upgrading because I’m overexcited about what this phone will do for me.
Although, something has got me excited. | https://medium.com/illumination/my-iphone-12-experiment-which-one-will-i-keep-8266883201d2 | ['Mark Ellis'] | 2020-10-21 05:36:54.038000+00:00 | ['Apple', 'Smartphones', 'Electronics', 'iPhone', 'Technology'] |
BEST 5 Mobile Apps For Forex Trading Which Is On Another level In 2020 | BEST 5 Mobile Apps For Forex Trading Which Is On Another level In 2020
Major currency pairs are actively traded in the Forex market, and they sometimes remained very active throughout the session. Both currency pairs react to events and their values to adjust when the news is released economically.
In your capacity as Forex investors, you need to quickly access reports, news feeds, graphs and profiles, to make full use of the possibilities for you.
When you use a Forex application on your phone, you will be able to take the opportunity presented after this news release.
A Forex trading application is a web or a smartphone device that is used to monitor the Forex market that provides useful details for the everyday business of trading for you.
It varies from trading platforms and news applications for a number of trading instruments, such as regular currency indicator and heat maps.
Forex trading applications as it offers a complete drawer to easily evaluate and trade the Forex market.
This is a great way to keep updated with key market trends, evaluating potential business opportunities directly from your fingertips.
So you need to be careful about choosing the best Forex trading application that can make a significant contribution to your profit opportunities. In this article, you will know about Top Trading Apps for Forex Trading.
1. Netdania Stock and Forex Trader
The application works very easily and offers an analysis of the financial markets. Because usability, Netdania Stocks and Forex Trader are one of the highest-rated applications and most commonly used by Forex traders.
Applications interbank rates offer up-to-date and access to real-time quotes on both stocks and commodities, such as gold and silver — more than 20,000 financial instruments.
As a personal trading assistant, this software also advises users the right time to enter or exit the market. This application is not only easy to use but also gives you news and updates on the market in real-time.
This application also helps you to share your investment ideas with other traders, and you can learn new ideas from them as well.
The application comes with a very innovative cloud technology to transfer and synchronize data across devices.
2. Trade Interceptor
If you are searching for innovative tools for Forex trading and research then you should check out the Trade Interceptor.
The best currency and stocks can be quickly identified and monitored by the application. It provides 14 specialized forms of graphs and 160 indicators of intelligence and drawing tools.
This application allows you to access software analysis tools, trading data, and price alerts. It offers a quote to broadcast all of the global Forex market, Bitcoin, indexes, precious metals, and commodities.
You can also browse the selected international news covering the Asian, European and American markets.
This application provides a variety of tools for traders, including the ability to trade a currency pair, binary options, and commodity futures through a Forex broker preferences.
This system offers a strategic analytical resource and trade, including nearly 100 technical chart indicators. Currently, the application is available on Android and the App Store.
3. Bloomberg Business Mobile App
Stay connected with financial news best with Bloomberg and supervise the financial instruments you engage in fact, this software also provides you with the tools to quickly track your investments and get updates on your portfolio to help you make the best decisions to improve financial you stand.
Bloomberg, media, financial services, and data private company based in Midtown Manhattan, providing global business and financial news.
The Bloomberg app, which is available for both Android and iOS operating systems, provides you with the latest trends in the world of finance.
4. TD Ameritrade’s Thinkorswim Mobile
TD Ameritrade is one of the largest and most advanced American trading platforms for stocks and shares, as well as Forex, and provides a wide range of investment products trading.
However, Forex traders focus on recruiting help to reduce the chances of losing money where they really excel.
This is done with his Thinkerswim platform, the National Futures Association, which provides introductory information on the future brokers.
The information is presented in a way that is clear and easy to read and it really highlights the risk on your investment. Apart from this, you can also access life, streaming broadcast CNBC trading modify commands or warnings through your fingertips.
5: Option IQ Forex
Forex trading application offers well-known business information and efficiency and some other features that demonstrate the vitality of the trading room.
Simple User Interface allows you to interact more comfortably. The most highlighted feature of the application is the negative balance protection offered by the broker.
Additionally, the Forex trading application allows significantly lowered and a smaller spread and limousine closing position. This application is available for Android and Apple users.
The highly adaptive application also allows trade cryptocurrency to investors. This allows flexibility and performance, in addition to providing in-depth knowledge of Forex trading.
Cheers! | https://medium.com/daily-finance/best-6-mobile-apps-for-forex-trading-which-is-on-another-level-in-2020-ddf00ae28dd4 | ['Don Mirza'] | 2020-02-12 17:26:21.722000+00:00 | ['Mobile Apps', 'Robot Trading Software', 'Forex', 'Forex Trading'] |
When To Reject Your Software Employer | Photo by Jakayla Toney on Unsplash
1-A failure is never time wasted. It is new learning. 2-Repeatedly failing for the same reason means you have not learned at all.
In my 20 years long software career, I have faced about 500+ rejections.
Most of them (350+) was on the CV level. Now before you think I spammed them: I received a polite No from HR email.
I don’t regret it, because, in those 350+, despite personalized cover letters, I wasted very little time per employer.
In the rest (150), I fell facedown. When I complained, my friends would say: “A failure is never time wasted. It is a new learning.”
But repeatedly failing for the same reason means you have not learned at all.
If I had wisely rejected employers, my rejection number would be far less than 150.
Why rejecting a software employer is sometimes important?
Not only to save time but self-esteem, too.
Software hiring processes have become full of subjective practices. As a result, biases inevitably creep in.
In the beginning, I believed them: I wasn’t good enough. Traditional wisdom told me I should equip myself with the rules of the profession. Craft alone is never enough.
But past following the industry best practices, when I didn’t see a noticeable change in the interview outcomes, my confidence took a shakedown. You don’t want that to happen to you in the ever-changing software industry.
The mindset of a serially-rejected candidate is much more terrifying than the time wasted. Lost self-esteem is very difficult to regain.
When I took a rational outlook, I concluded that repeated rejections without concrete information meant:
Stereotypes exist in every person’s mind. Software interviewers aren’t exempt from it. They always try to box you, no matter how harder you try.
Just like any other industry, ageism, sexism, and racism exist in the software industry too.
Sometimes you have arrived, but the world around you has not.
Irrespective of all that, there will be people who would recognize you one day. They may or may not be your future employers. You don’t want the burden to overwhelm you until that happens.
Software hiring processes have become full of subjective practices. Interviews and assignments have little objective indicators associated with candidate performance. As a result, biases inevitably creep in.
So here I list symptoms that signal when you would be better off rejecting the employer — to save your time, energy, and self-esteem.
The Job Advertisement:
AKA Job Description:
HRs do a great job sugar coating the job hassles involved, but experienced devs see through it quite easily. If the job poster is a copy-paste intern or is not smart enough, a bad job always reveals itself in the job advert:
You are an experienced developer with an exploratory mindset. In an environment which is constantly moving you must maintain a sense of structure. You are not afraid to speak your mind, here we embrace new and fresh ideas. You’re truly passionate about the tech, and doing something for a greater cause. As the rest of your future colleagues you always have the customers in mind. Culture is very important to us. We regularly take employees to Friday beer nights. Once a year, we take them on full week trip to Bali. We expect them to enjoy to the fullest with the team. Hustle is in your blood and sweat. You are a rockstar. Yet getting your hands dirty is never a problem for you.
The bold letters quite describe the underlying adversities, in the following order:
They expect you to be ready for requirement changes when half of your design is done.
Your love for tech isn’t enough. You must own the dream of the founders, though not share their assets.
You are not only tasked with programming, but also refreshment activities. You must be mentally ready all time to enjoy them with the team. The family can wait.
You have an emboldened role with a lot of respect but minimal compensation.
Also, notice that none of them include analytical thinking or problem-solving ability. There are old-time software companies that still use them, but they are in minority.
Because they are taken for granted.
In an industry that demands the picture-perfect attention of a theatre artist and the stress-survival ability of a C-level manager (minus stock options & looming layoffs), the remuneration remains unchanged for decades.
Chances are: You might survive all the interviews with flying colors, but the actual job might kill your well-balanced life.
Takeaway?
Reject them. There might be good ones waiting for you. If you don’t have choice or patience, know fully well what you are getting into. If you fit, jump in. If you don’t, be ready for a rollercoaster.
The Personality Assessment
AKA HR / Recruiter Screening Interview Round
Accepting the current interviewer as the judge of the past jobs is something one could totally avoid. Yet, we all are too vulnerable to even detect it during the interview.
A small chunk of my rejections (10–12) happened between HR and the technical level.
This meant that HR interviewed me to know about my past, reveal the company’s background, and describe the job opening. Then they rejected me.
In the earlier stages of my career, they were quite formal, and I almost breezed through them with fluent English. So I strongly believed that rejection at this stage was impossible unless my CV data was fake.
HR interview is a colossal waste of time.
However, past the 2008 market crash, I found that every recruiter vetted CVs in a highly personalized manner. The grilling grew longer. HR interviews (meant for introductions) begun to average around 40+ minutes for senior developers.
In the worst cases, they lasted about 90 minutes. Whenever this happened, I could sense a rejection.
Reason? Apart from asking me my best and the worst career moments (a thing that I wasn’t expecting yet managed to survive), they asked a lot of psycho-analytic questions about hypothetical situations.
Why do you want to join this company? What will you do when you are on the front line during a production bug? How will you act the next day if you had a heated argument with your boss during a meeting? Did you ever have delivered low-quality code (knowing it fully well) during your freelance career?
I tried answering all of them with utmost honesty but failed to provide the proper context in a short time against the surprising questions. Even when I tried, the interviewer being an HR (often 10–15 years less experienced than myself) failed to relate to it.
So many negative things happen in a software developer’s life, but for a person with an HR background, they are merely checkboxes.
Here were my realistic answers:
There is nothing so special except that it needs programming skills that I happen to have. Passion for domain matters for product/marketing/management roles, not so much for software making. Software geeks are required by everyone — porn websites, pet care organizations, booze retails & churches/orphanages included. It doesn’t mean they are passionate about any/all of them.
I had never been on the front-line during a production bug. But my capability of writing bug-free production code is what matters to you.
I had a heated argument with my boss, yes, but the situation entailed a long series of misjudgments by the boss + management combined. It is impossible to explain during this interview why I did not speak a word the next day.
I delivered low-quality code, yes, but so did my many fantastic colleagues, and they were too smart to admit it.
So many negative things happen in a software developer’s life, but for a person with an HR background, they are merely checkboxes.
In all the situations, accepting the current interviewer as the judge of my past jobs was something I despised, and I could totally avoid it. I could have simply refused to answer the question, or presented a curt, presentable lie.
I could mentally reject the employer right at the moment and would relieve myself. If the outcome was still positive, I would rejoice. Yet I was too vulnerable to even detect it. I was too engrossed in the interaction to turn on my diplomatic tongue or shrug off the question completely.
Outcome? Injury always followed insult:
- We are not sure about the proper match between you and the company’s present path of growth. We will be glad to keep you on file. - We regret to inform you that while your abilities are best, your stress handling skills are no match for our current requirements. - We regret to inform you that while you are highly talented in your tech skills, your interpersonal skills are a hindrance to the company’s current roadmap. - We regret to inform you that XYZ company believes in hiring candidates with utmost integrity.
I felt violated, not because of the rejection, but for the part of me that I had honestly exposed about my past. Those were the things that were played on against me, with my full consent!
A background check would have exposed the same details, and the rejection would be a lot more bearable.
Nowhere in the job description of an artist is the requirement that I must validate your taste. James Turrell
I understood what one of my rejected friends meant when he said “HR interview is a colossal waste of time.”
Takeaway:
Minimize your time / mental energy to fit culturally.
Too many personality questions with little bearing on the job experience? Cut short on the expectations. Minimize your time / mental energy to fit culturally.
You can’t change who you are, but you can change what you can be, by cutting the crap.
The HellHole
AKA The Coding Assignment
I am still wondering where can I find this ideal developer, and take lessons from him.
About a decade ago, soon after the great recession, employers became too wary about fake developers. Agile meant hiring those who could quickly get their hands dirty. Hands-on experience became the #1 requirement.
This directly resulted in live code-share interviews. Platforms like Codeshare.io allowed employers to witness every keystroke by the candidate during the technical assessment.
My first such encounter happened in 2015. Despite accomplishing the assignment target, I was rejected. My steps weren’t those of an ideal developer. I am still wondering where can I find this developer, and take lessons from him.
I quickly started avoiding companies that enforced live code-share sessions. They were too stressful, not unlike whiteboard interviews that are loathed throughout the industry.
Max Howell, the creator of Homebrew, was famously rejected by Google for being unable to finish a task in time during a whiteboard interview. | https://levelup.gitconnected.com/how-to-reject-your-software-employer-41caa5f33499 | ['Pen Magnet'] | 2020-11-19 03:18:16.347000+00:00 | ['Coding Interviews', 'Work', 'Discrimination', 'Software Development', 'Programming'] |
Exploratory Data Analysis on Google Play Store Apps | Data Preparation and Cleaning
Data preparation is the process of cleaning and transforming raw data prior to processing and analysis. It is an important step prior to processing and often involves reformatting data, making corrections to data, and the combining of data sets to enrich data. Data cleansing or data cleaning is the process of detecting and correcting (or removing) corrupt or inaccurate records from a recordset, table, or database and refers to identifying incomplete, incorrect, inaccurate, or irrelevant parts of the data and then replacing, modifying, or deleting the dirty or coarse data.
We saw that the dataset contains many Null or missing values. The column Rating , Type , Content Rating , Current Ver , and Android Ver contains 1474, 1, 1, 8, and 3 missing values respectively.
Will it not be better if we can define a function to get more useful information about the different attributes of the dataset, also there is one more valid point in defining a function which it will be reusable, and we are going to utilize our defined function several times in future.
Let’s call the function and see what it returns:
We have some useful information about the dataset. i.e., we can now see the missing number of values of any attribute, its unique count, and its respective data types.
Now we can start the process of data cleaning, lets start with the column Type :-
Since there is only one missing value in this column, So, let’s fill the missing value. After cross-checking in the play store the missing value is found to be Free, So now we can fill the missing value with free .
After filling the value we can check and see if that has been correctly placed.
Now, we can move on to the column Content Rating :
By, looking only at these rows it is not easy to say what's actually missing in this row. let us have a look at all of its near rows data. For this purpose, we have iloc and loc function.
We can clearly see that row 10472 has missing data for the Category column and all the prevailing column values are being replaced with its previous column. A better idea will be to drop this row from our data frame.
We are having some of the unwanted columns which will be of not much use in the analysis process. So let’s drop those columns.
Now, we can fix the Rating column which contains a total of 1474 of missing values. Replacing the missing values with the Mode value of that entire column.
Finally, after fixing all the missing values, we should have a look at our data frame, We defined a function as printinfo() . So, it’s time to use that function.
All the columns have the null_count as zero, which indicates that now the data frame doesn’t contain any missing values.
Now we are done with the data cleansing part and in a state to start the work for data preparation
Columns like Reviews , Size , Installs , & price should have an int or float datatype, But here we can see of object type, So let’s convert them to their respective correct type.
Starting with the column Reviews , converting its type to int .
We can see that the changes have taken its effect or not by calling our printinfo() function.
Now, the reviews column has been converted to int type, so now we can move to the Column: Size
Converting the Size Column from object to integer, but this column contains some of the special characters like , , + , M , K & also it has a some of the value as Varies with device . We need to remove all of these and then convert it to int or float .
Removing the + Symbol:
Removing the , symbol:
Replacing the M symbol by multiplying the value with 1000000:
Replacing the k by multiplying the value with 1000:
Replacing the Varies with device value with Nan :
Now, finally converting all these values to numeric type:
So, after performing all of these operations, we should have a detailed look at that column, so yes again we will call our useful function which we defined. i.e., printinfo()
Since we converted the Varies with device value to Nan , so we have to do something with those set of Nan values data. It will be a better idea to drop the Rows of the column Size having Nan values because it will be not an efficient idea to replace those values with mean or mode since the size of some apps would be too large and some of them too small.
Column: Installs :
To convert this column from object to integer type. First of all, we will need to remove the + symbol from these values.
and then let’s remove the , symbol from the numbers.
Lastly, we can now convert it from string type to numeric type, and then have a look at our dataset.
So, now we are only left with the Price column.
Column: Price :
Converting this column from object to Numeric type.
The values contain a special symbol $ which can be removed and then converted to the numeric type.
After fixing all the issues, we should have a final look at the data frame. | https://blog.jovian.ai/exploratory-data-analysis-on-google-play-store-apps-f1cab4d2f395 | ['Manish Kumar Shah'] | 2021-06-06 09:33:56.663000+00:00 | ['Visualization', 'Pandas', 'Data Science', 'Matplotlib', 'Data Analysis'] |
Truth / Lies | Truth / Lies
Be folded into life’s pageless autobiography,
the wheel of visions and experience is for us to steer
without any reflection in the hindsight mirrors
nor refraction from the beams of light
penetrating through our conceived darkness.
We can either powder our faces with lies
till the dust fills our mouth
and chokes us from within.
Because in the termed autobiography,
we are the author, director, and cast
in our very distinguished stage directions.
Whether we bask in the conceit from the spotlights
or be nude in the glamour that is unseen,
our limbs and organ(s) hang out their belonging sockets nonetheless
in the perforation lodged between ribs;
the beating heart —
that stays the same.
And will always be.
Either blessed by the almighty
or cursed by the cynical crackling pits of softwood,
we all have the ability
to swallow the dust
or to spit it back out.
Because when we enter what we call existence
with nothing with wails and 5 pounds of additional weight
the lenses in our eyes
start off bare.
And it is only through the mastering of the art of deceit
where we can regurgitate lies
construed by ownself
to confuse oneself.
But as we grow the extra limbs
and the supplementary hair down and up
it is our duty
to choose between the two distinct paths of
truth or fabricated crap.
Those who choose to assemble that of distraught thoughts
into that of amorphous lies
live a beautiful, fantastical life
where they leave glass heels onto stairways
kiss frogs till they transition princes
blessed into million-dollar bills.
They get it all,
but at what price?
Because as they check out from their lifetimes and
see their payment history,
find out that happiness, love, and warmth
is missing from the receipt.
Whilst those who choose truth
nothing really happens
as they continue to breathe the same old air
go home to the same old broken coffee maker
sit on rusted swings lie on uncut weeds
drinking diluted black coffee.
But somehow, in their own perception,
their own formulated dictionary,
this is what forms their allotted span —
comprised of happiness, grief, and melancholy
all blended into that one simple term;
Life.
And that.
That is beautiful. | https://medium.com/scrittura/truth-lies-2106e78d2e6a | ['Daniel A. Teo'] | 2020-12-19 21:22:54.144000+00:00 | ['Empowerment', 'Lies', 'Truth', 'Wonder Woman', 'Poetry'] |
New Study Shows Employees Seek and Stay Loyal to Greener Companies | Nearly Half of Employees Would Accept Smaller Salaries to Work for Companies That Prioritize Sustainability
With the release of major climate reports depicting alarming risks to the environment and economy, an increasing number of companies are establishing environmental, social and corporate governance initiatives. Swytch recently conducted a survey of 1,000 employees in the U.S. who either currently work for or have worked for a company with over 5,000 employees to explore their sentiments around employers’ corporate sustainability activities.
The survey results show that employees of all generations seek companies that have programs set in place to be more sustainable. Gen Z and Millennials in particular are the most enthusiastic about pursuing and staying loyal to greener companies.
When choosing a company to work for, over 70% of people surveyed are more likely to work for a company that has a strong green footprint. Nearly half of respondents are even willing to accept a smaller salary to work for an environmentally and socially responsible company. In fact, over 10% would accept a salary decrease between $5,000 and $10,000, and over 3% would even be inclined to accept a decrease of over $10,000 per year.
Younger generations feel the most strongly about their employers taking steps to increase corporate sustainability. Over a third of both Gen Z and Millennials say it would be a deal breaker for them to work for a company that does not have a strong sustainability culture, whereas under a quarter of Gen X and only 17% of Baby Boomers would agree. In fact, nearly 40% of Millennials have accepted one job offer over another because that company was sustainable.
Beyond just attracting new talent, Swytch’s study shows that creating and circulating long-term sustainability goals will also help a business retain its employees. Nearly 70% of respondents say that a strong sustainability plan would affect their decision to stay with a company long term. In fact, about 30% have left a company due to its lack of a corporate sustainability agenda and over 11% have done so more than once.
“Extreme weather events and natural disasters are serving as a wake-up call to the severe effects of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Evan Caron, co-founder and managing director of Swytch. “As a growing number of employees are eager to see corporations take a stand on environmental responsibility, employers will have to respond accordingly in order to attract and retain top talent.”
Other interesting findings include: | https://medium.com/swytch/new-study-shows-employees-seek-and-stay-loyal-to-greener-companies-f485889f9a7f | ['Dwight Sproull'] | 2019-02-14 17:01:01.413000+00:00 | ['Sustainability', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Renewable Energy', 'Blockchain', 'Environment'] |
How To Travel and Discover Your Neighborhood | I love traveling. I’ve traveled all my life on a regular basis until I came back to Japan in 2015. Since then, however, most of my holidays have been used to go back to France to see my family. I won’t lie, I miss going around the world and discovering new places.
In the last 6 months, though, I have found a way to solve this urge to leave: walking around town.
It isn’t about going far.
When we think about traveling, we always picture an exotic land, full of wonders. A place where the culture surprises us. An environment we don’t get to see often.
When I was a child, I would picture myself traveling to Japan, the US, Colombia, Australia, or Indonesia. Traveling within Europe felt like I wouldn’t be surprised. Yet, every summer, I’d go somewhere in Europe and still come back with stars in my eyes.
Nowadays, I live on the tiny island we call Japan. Sure, it’s large. But it’s still only half the size of France. There isn’t any neighboring country to go to in a few hours of train. As a result, found a solution: discovering my neighborhood.
Traveling is about novelty.
What does going to the other side of the planet bring? The bragging bonus of saying you did it. There are some other aspects too, but what stays in our mind is what is new. What feels new.
How do you feel?
Photo by the Author, enjoying the view already seen countless times.
The novelty itself doesn't have to really be new. It can also be the feeling of something new. You can be living a new experience, love it, only to go home and have a lingering sense it wasn’t the first time.
Some things are so amazing that, even after 100 times, they feel just like new.
When I was in France, I took a metro passing by the Eiffel tower twice a week for 2 years. Every time, I looked up in awe. Now, I go up the hill behind my place almost every single day to look at Mount Fuji in the far distance.
I’ve seen both countless times. Yet they still feel somewhat new. They contribute to my mind traveling far away.
Because that is what traveling in your neighborhood does. It’s about allowing your mind to wander around and see the beauty in tiny things all around.
You’re in? Alright, time to dive in the nitty-gritty.
How to prepare for a trip within your neighborhood?
Start by opening Google Maps. Look at your already-well-known neighborhood. See? That’s the supermarket you go to. There, you can see the hairdresser and the playground next to it. Over here, the coffee shop you love.
If you haven’t saved location on Google Maps, make a mental note of each spot you regularly go to. Notice you’re already seeing yourself in the street going to those.
Find one place far from your place. How long does it take you to get there on foot? 10-15 minutes? 30 minutes? 1 hour?
As a starter, you should probably stick to a place about 10 to 15 minutes away. Have one last quick look at the map, put your phone in your bag, and start heading there.
No music, no phone in hand, forget the concept of time now.
You know where you want to go. You’ve gone there before and you probably already have a sort of mindmap of the area anyway. Start walking and look around.
See the rose blossoming over here? That window up there in a moon shape? The dog sleeping in by the entrance of that house? The lights in this tower’s apartments? Oh, and what is that already?
As you walk, you discover a street you’ve been ignoring for the longest time. Go in there. Where you’ll end up won’t change. After all, this is your neighborhood. You’re bound to find your way back. But the path you’re on is about to change.
Discover the calm cul-de-sac around the corner. Appreciate how the buildings around here have a different structure from the ones in your street. See the trees in the distance? You’ve never seen them up close, have you? Now’s the time.
Keep walking, look up, feel the wind caressing your cheeks, enjoy the tiny small things around you. Find the peculiar.
Japanese people love giving French names to buildings. But they also don’t make much a difference between the “r” and “l”. While walking around, I fell upon a building with an interesting name.
“Le Gland Vert” means “The green glans” in French. They probably meant “grand” which means “big” instead.
As you walk around, make a point to go into any street you haven’t stepped a foot in until now. You’re bound to find a renewed interest in your neighborhood.
As you keep on repeating this, start going further and further, giving yourself more time. You’ll realize this might be better than traveling far, for three reasons.
You can do it any day you want.
It’s a relaxing activity good for your body.
It’s much cheaper than going to the other side of the world.
On my side, after a few months going around, I discovered a place to see Mount Fuji without too many buildings in the way.
Photo by Author. 10 minutes away from my place and yet discovered recently.
What story will you find hidden in your neighborhood? Let me know! | https://mathiasbarra.medium.com/how-to-travel-and-discover-your-neighborhood-26b49ef6305d | ['Mathias Barra'] | 2020-04-04 07:31:00.783000+00:00 | ['Discovery', 'Travel', 'World', 'Neighborhoods', 'Life'] |
The Best Way of ETH2.0 Staking, Custodial vs Non-Custodial? | Ethereum2.0 Mainnet is finally here. The first solid block on the Beacon Chain was successfully created. Have you participated in the Ethereum 2.0 staking?
If not, we’ve introduced 3 staking pools that make Ethereum 2.0 staking easy and accessible. They provide user-friendly ways for you to share the promising rewards of ETH2.0 staking.
But if you want to really stake like an expert, you need to learn more about those different ways of ETH2.0 staking. In this article, we are going to cover all of your staking options below.
DIY Staking
If you just want to participate in Ethereum2.0 individually, there are some basic yet complicated technical requirements that you have to meet. A DIY staker must run an Ethereum1.0 node, Beacon Chain node, and own a Validator.
To fully explain all of the technical steps, we might need to write another article. Basically, a DIY staker will need to be familiar with using and sending ETH on Ethereum1.0, as well as ensure an uninterrupted connection to Ethereum1.0 and the Beacon Chain. In addition, it is important for you to apply extra security measures in order to protect your private keys and all the assets on the blockchain.
So DIY staking is not recommended to normal users like me and you. What we need, is helpful staking services, who can break the technical barriers for us.
Staking Services: Custodial vs Non-Custodial
Staking services are provided by third parties. So before you connect your wallet to them, you definitely need to understand how they work and how secure they are. This is all about how staking services manage your private keys.
There are 3 different types of services: custodial, semi-custodial and non-custodial services.
Usually, the more ‘custodial’ the service, the higher the risks you may face. Because custodial services hold your private key and control your assets. Just the same as custodial crypto wallets(How to Find the Best Crypto Wallet?) or centralized exchanges (How to Find the Best Cryptocurrency Exchange?). If the service provider gets hacked, come across technical problems, or the project team just run away with the private keys, your tokens are nowhere to be found.
So you need to select carefully. Then what staking services are out there, what types do they belong to and how do they compare? To get access to these staking services, you can search “Ethereum 2.0” on dapp.com.
It’s obvious from the chart above that among all the Ethereum2.0 staking services, Blox Staking is the only open-source, fully non-custodial staking platform for Ethereum 2.0.
Staking with Blox requires no key sharing. In fact, you have a dedicated remote signer stored directly on your own cloud account. The remote signer, KeyVault holds your private validator keys and executes duties sent from the blockchain via Blox Infra nodes. You just manage your validator by using Blox’s Desktop App, where you can check a performance monitoring dashboard.
The advantage of Blox Staking: Fully non-custodial, easy to use, advanced slashing protection, security-driven.
Fully non-custodial, easy to use, advanced slashing protection, security-driven. The disadvantage of Blox Staking: Current min. staking deposit is 32 ETH. Soon to change with the release of staking pools.
Blox’s Eth2 Decentralized Staking Pools, which is scheduled to launch Q3 2021, are designed to tackle and resolve the following challenges:
Enable staking of less than 32 ETH — you’ll be able to stake as much or as little ETH as you’d like.
No coding, or technical installation processes — reduce the technical barriers to stake.
Instant liquidity and withdrawals — made available through a dedicated ERC20 token that is strictly decentralized and used solely for the purposes of staking.
Completely decentralized and trustless — no single, centralized point of failure.
When you are seeking a higher interest rate or better staking service, don’t forget that security is the essential thing.
You may also like: | https://medium.com/dapp-com/the-best-way-of-eth2-0-staking-custodial-vs-non-custodial-d7ecdec90bc9 | [] | 2020-12-16 03:52:07.844000+00:00 | ['Non Custodial', 'Ethereum', 'Eth', 'Staking', 'Ethereum Blockchain'] |
If EOS Nation Wasn’t Front Running… | …then why were more of their mining transactions signed by their own block producing node, eosnationftw, than any other BP?
2020–11–04 to 2020–10–31: Note the spike in transactions during eosnationftw’s block production rounds
Each bar on this chart represents the percentage of EOS Nation’s total GRAVY mining transactions which were signed by each BP.
Over 20% of their total mining transactions occurred in their own blocks, showing unambiguously the scale of the advantage they received when they were scheduled to produce.
And why is EOS Nations’ arbitrage robot, trader.sx, exhibiting a similar pattern?
2020–11–14 to 2020–11–02: Note well the same spike in transactions included during EOS Nation’s own production rounds.
This shows that in addition to front running GRAVY miners, EOS Nation has been front running regular arbitrage transactions as well. Put simply, if EOS Nation wasn’t abusing their own node for advantage over others, we would not see the same spike in transactions during their own block production rounds.
We can see EOS Nation has a clear advantage when they are scheduled to produce versus when other BP’s are producing. The availability of arbitrage opportunities should occur independently of which BP is currently scheduled to produce. In other words, there is no reason to expect that more arb opportunities would be available during eosnationftw’s rounds than any other BP.
Being a Block Producer (BP) on the EOS Main-net is a sacred responsibility which should not be handed to those with weak moral compasses. You can’t get robbed by a BP “a little bit.” The erosion of trust is instant. Instead of addressing our allegations of front-running, Denis and Yves of EOS Nation have conveniently forgotten to explain this data, choosing instead to talk in circles on telegram.
No amount of fraud is acceptable for a BP. They are the ultimate deciders of transaction ordering. In the legacy financial markets, participants pay billions of dollars to influence the ordering of financial transactions, so great is the value of this responsibility. The EOS Main-net cannot afford for a BP to go rogue.
If we really want EOS to become a DeFi juggernaut, we cannot tolerate any amount of predatory behavior from our BPs. They are supposed to be protectors of the community. Right now the EOS DeFi ecosystem is small, but when there are billions flowing through the main-net will we still tolerate the milking of our network? | https://medium.com/@eosoptions/if-eos-nation-wasnt-front-running-1358e1fba06c | [] | 2020-11-14 18:21:43.974000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Eos', 'Mev', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Front Running'] |
For a Good Year — Pin Your Faith on Human Connection | On the eve of a new year, the world yearns for certainty, looks for a source of security, and clings to faith that a higher power will manage and arrange everything in reality for a better future. People need to feel that there is something to hold on to, an anchor to tether to, to withstand the strong waves crashing over the planet and their personal lives. That safe harbor, the revelation of a strong force capable of restoring harmony, is attained in the connection between us
We need to believe that we are in a world that is utterly good, and if we adjust ourselves to the qualities of bestowal of the upper force, we will feel our reality as a positive one. It all depends on the way in which we relate to it. Our entire challenge is to understand what the upper force is doing with us, and for what purpose. When we start understanding, in that same measure we also start feeling and loving the upper force, the higher power, Him. Let us hope that in this new year 2021, we will discover how our reality works in total perfection.
When a year ends, a fresh new start is expected. People look to the time to come with excitement and hope that the sadness and blows of 2020 will be washed away and the sun will finally pour over the horizon. Our prospects for the future all depend only on how well we understand what is going on with us, on how we accept and process what has passed and on what we make out of what unfolds. There is nothing for us to do but to open our eyes and look a bit further ahead in a more goal-oriented manner, in complete faith that everything happens for a positive purpose.
The force of faith is a tremendous force. In fact, it can actually be divided into two ways of relating to the world around us: First, people search for the powers behind the inanimate elements of nature such as trees, mountains, sky, moon, sun, the upper force — something they do not really know or understand but have a special attitude toward something superior to them. That kind of faith is in the greatness of the unknown. A second kind of faith is where a supreme force is not perceived; there is only a sensation of fear and anxiety about things we do not know how to comprehend or handle.
In truth, we evaluate whether something is good or bad, correct or wrong, according to our egoism — our desire to receive for ourselves with no regard for what benefits others. Whether we realize it or not, we are part of a whole and perfect system of nature that is round and precise.
But a conviction in the completeness and perfection of reality does not arrive suddenly; it develops in a gradual process. Faith includes many stages. It begins as uncertainty about something higher, something we do not know how to grasp, until we develop a relationship with it, with that upper force. Special discernments are attained through that connection. We start to look at everything that happens in reality as linked to the supreme force which is perceived as good and benevolent. Then, we come to see wholeness and perfection in all the situations in every realm of life.
As a result of the pandemic and all the global problems we have endured in 2020, we have reached a new stage in our development that will propel us to a new degree of life, a new worldview of humanity as one family. The problems we face are pushing us forward, helping us to discover that the supreme power is one and is for all. Humanity is discovering the power of love that is revealed in the connection between us. When we overcome our divisions and express willingness to unite and transcend above our individual egoism — the single factor that keeps us apart — we thereby improve everyone’s fate.
We need to believe that we are in a world that is utterly good, and if we adjust ourselves to the qualities of bestowal of the upper force, we will feel our reality as a positive one. It all depends on the way in which we relate to it. Our entire challenge is to understand what the upper force is doing with us, and for what purpose. When we start understanding, in that same measure we also start feeling and loving the upper force, the higher power, Him. Let us hope that in this new year 2021, we will discover how our reality works in total perfection. | https://medium.com/@michaellaitman/for-a-good-year-pin-your-faith-on-human-connection-b8c3cffc01a5 | ['Michael Laitman'] | 2020-12-25 12:23:04.998000+00:00 | ['Hope', 'Connection', 'New Year', 'Future', 'Faith'] |
Everything I Know About React Hooks | It seems that hooks are all the rage these days. Therefore, I found it important to learn them myself. You’re probably reading this because you’re in the same shoes I’m in. Well young grasshopper, here’s what I know so far.
To start off, let’s talk about state. To get state in your functional component all you need to do is import it like so:
import React, { useState } from 'react';
It’s that easy you don’t need to download anything. When it comes implementation, it’s also pretty simple. Let’s say you had a form that had a user input information. For this example let’s say it’s an artist and a track. You’d need to store this information so that you can send it to an API, or do whatever you want with it. It’d look something like this:
const [ artist, setArtist ] = useState(''); const [ track, setTrack ] = useState('');
Let’s go over what’s happening here. You are creating a variable that’s an array? Then you’re having it assigned to useState? I’ll explain myself, if you’re familiar with class components and how you assign state in there, it’d look like this:
state = {
artist: '',
track: ''
}
With hooks you are individually assigning each part of state to its own variable. So calling ‘artist’ within your functional component it’ll return the most recent state. The ‘useState’ part is essentially what you want the initial state of that variable to be. In my case just an empty string (because that’s all the information I need.) You can set your initial state to anything you want it to be:
const [ artist, setArtist ] = useState([{artist1: 'hi'}]);
That works to, but you just need to be conscious about what kind of information you’ll be trying to store. Let’s talk about the ‘setArtist’ part, when using hooks wording does matter. Prefixing the second argument with ‘set’ lets react know what the purpose of that variable is. When using ‘setArtist’ it’ll be treated pretty much like ‘this.setState’ but just more specific. Originally we would set state like this:
this.setState({
artist: 'fergie'
});
Now it’s trimmed down to look like:
setArtist('fergie')
Boom ezpz. To give some more ideas on functionality of this here’s a random example:
Let’s say you have button with a click listener, and everytime you wanted to click it, the count would increment by one.
const [ count, setCount ] = useState(0); const incrementCount = () => {
setCount(count + 1);
}; return (
<> // These are 'fragments' aka white space
<div>{count}</div>
<button onClick={incrementCount}>click me!</button>
</>
); /// cleaner way to write this would be const [ count, setCount ] = useState(0); return (
<>
<div>{count}</div>
<button onClick={() => setCount(count + 1)}>click me!</button>
</>
);
(Fragments are used so that you don’t have a million divs in your application for no reason)
A class component it would look something like this:
state = {
count: 0
} incrementCount = () => {
this.setState({ count: this.state.count + 1 })
} render(){
return(
<>
<div>{this.state.count}</div>
<button onClick={this.incrementCount}>click me!</button>
</>
)
}
I hope that’s enough explanation about useState, if you’re still confused I’d recommend checking out this article. | https://medium.com/swlh/everything-i-know-about-react-hooks-73f6d90b480e | ['Ignas Butautas'] | 2020-12-17 17:45:45.018000+00:00 | ['React', 'Coding', 'Reactjs', 'Code', 'React Hook'] |
REALME NARZO 20 128 GB 4 GB RAM | You get confused about taking online products, So, here we will talk about the best product for you which is right for you and to buy the product from here. | https://medium.com/@bestproduct1/realme-narzo-20-128-gb-4-gb-ram-a305f518da7f | ['Best Seller Of Electronic'] | 2020-12-20 08:47:51.098000+00:00 | ['Mobile', 'Real Me', 'Online Shopping', 'Amazon', 'Realme Narzo 10'] |
Will Los Angeles Build a New Gas Plant? | “This is the beginning of the end of natural gas for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti. It was February 2019. Three coastal natural gas power plants, which the City had intended to renovate at a cost of about $5 or $6 billion, were instead being canceled.
It was a win for a grassroots coalition, led by Food & Water Action, that had been organizing against the repowering. 2019, they had argued, was too late to be building new fossil fuel power plants. For $6 billion, imagine how many solar panels could be installed, or how much energy storage built. Their argument had prevailed.
The beginning of the end was declared again in Glendale a few months later, as a plan to rebuild that city’s own gas-fired power plant, Grayson, met intense local opposition from residents, including the Sierra Club, who didn’t want their city to build the last new fossil fuel plant in California.
And yet, despite the end of fossil fuels having arrived twice, Los Angeles is still planning to build a new gas plant.
But wait… wasn’t Grayson the last new plant?
In California, yes. But not powering California.
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) has its hands in a lot of pies. Much like the way it steals water from the central valleys of California, it owns stakes in energy projects in other states. For example, energy from the Hoover Dam is sent to LA over long-distance transmission lines.
One of the distant plants that lights up the City of Angels is located in Delta, Utah, and is known as Intermountain Power Plant. Intermountain is a coal plant.
A successful Sierra Club campaign pressured the City to announce plans to shut down the coal plant in 2025. However, contrary to the Sierra Club’s hopes for renewable energy at the site, LADWP proposed that the replacement be fired by natural gas. Further opposition from the Sierra Club got the scale of the gas plant reduced from more than 1 GW to 840 MW, but after that, LADWP refused to budge.
The bottom line is that the city still planned to build a brand new fossil fuel plant in 2025.
Natural gas — methane — is not a clean source of energy. It is somewhat less awful than coal, though this is sort of like saying it’s better to crash into a brick wall at 800 miles an hour rather than 1,000. And when it leaks before it’s burned — which it does all the time — it’s 84 times as potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Yeah. Methane is bad.
The gas plant at Intermountain is supposed to come online in 2025, which is when the coal plant will retire. But this “compromise” plan to build a brand new fossil fuel power plant, which was agreed to in a different political era, has encountered fresh resistance in the last two years.
Since the compromise was brokered, SB100 was passed statewide, requiring utilities in CA to get all of their electricity from clean sources by 2045. That cut the lifespan of the planned Intermountain gas plant short by several decades. That’s a lot less time to pay off the investment in the plant. Burbank Water and Power told Burbank City Council that the plant — which Burbank owned a stake in — would be “uneconomic prior to the end of its intended life”. (LADWP, which has more leverage, ignored Burbank’s objections.)
Protestors gather outside Glendale City Hall opposing the new fossil fuel power plant at Grayson. Photo by Tom Pike.
Sunrise Rejects the Gas Plant Compromise
Though LADWP viewed their gas plant compromise as set in stone, the climate movement was changing. Sunrise Los Angeles, a new hub of the youth-led climate movement, appeared on the scene in 2019 without warning. Sunrisers did not see themselves as signatories to the gas plant proposal that LADWP pushed the City to pursue years before, and why should they? When the compromise was brokered, their organization hadn’t even existed yet.
Sunrise LA plowed forward with a last-ditch attempt to stop the new gas plant. They worked with the Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance and Food & Water Action to draft a letter calling for the plan to be changed to be 100% renewable energy at Intermountain from Day 1 in 2025.
Disclosure: in my role as a member of the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council, & a member of Sunrise Los Angeles, I wrote most of the draft of this letter.
The letter garnered a flurry of signatories: 11 Neighborhood Councils, 27 organizations, and several candidates for local office. The list contained heavyweights like the Center for Biological Diversity. More than half of the organizations that signed are actually located in Utah.
The Sierra Club sensed an opportunity to continue opposing the gas plant, and they signed the letter as well. And LA Councilmember Paul Koretz, though he did not formally sign the letter, spoke in support of its content at a LADWP board meeting.
This new resistance seemed to catch LADWP off guard. In late 2019, they offered a new compromise: on Day 1 in 2025, the plant would burn 30% green hydrogen by volume. The hydrogen would be sourced from local water sources and generated by electrolysis, which would make it the first plant of its kind in history.
Since electrolysis requires energy, which LADWP said they would get from solar and wind, that makes this portion of the new Intermountain plan an energy storage facility. It will use extra solar energy to make hydrogen when the sun is shining; when the sun goes down, it will burn the hydrogen.
LADWP also repeatedly told Sunrise LA reps that it may be possible to make the facility 100% green hydrogen on Day 1 in 2025 — but they were choosing not to.
Dr. Frederick Pickel, LADWP’s Ratepayer Advocate, whose job is to safeguard the interests of the utility’s customers, described Intermountain as “a great site for renewables and storage.” He pointed out that the salt caverns underground were an ideal place to store hydrogen, and that the transmission infrastructure could handle sending the electricity to LA.
But Dr. Pickel also quoted a notorious climate-denying frequent public commenter, and concluded, “You don’t want to be racing to be first.” Dr. Pickel’s preferred solution was to wait for unspecified other utilities to work out the hard questions of the new technology, and then swoop in and reap the benefits of the efforts of the other utilities.
But if LADWP has an ideal site — an accessible transmission line, a link to nearby wind and solar resources, an identified water source for electrolysis, and underground salt domes to store the hydrogen — and still chooses not to pursue 100% renewable hydrogen, then who will? Who else is retiring a coal plant at a site like this, and has the funds to pursue it? What if everyone reasons like Dr. Pickel did, and decides not to go first?
If Los Angeles, at the cutting edge of renewable energy deployment, declined to pursue what they describe as a perfect opportunity, what utility will attempt what LADWP did not?
So the gas plant moved forward, 70% natural gas and 30% hydrogen by volume — an 11% reduction in its carbon footprint. LADWP declined to pledge to replace more of the 840 MW with renewables, whether from hydrogen or with more proven technologies.
Sunrise LA did not accept this new compromise. But further protests stopped yielding new concessions from LADWP. The young people had reached the limit of their leverage.
So for most of 2020, an uneasy truce reigned. But again, the landscape was shifting.
Power Dynamics
March 2020 saw the election of two Sunrise letter signatories to public office. Dan Brotman and Ardy Kassakhian became Councilmembers in Glendale, a city with a stake in Intermountain. November 2020 was even more productive, with signatories Konstantine Anthony and Nithya Raman getting elected in Burbank and Los Angeles, respectively.
Another disclosure: I worked for Konstantine Anthony as a campaign consultant.
Anthony has threatened to introduce a motion to pull Burbank out of the deal if it is not changed to a 100% renewable plan. But it is Raman’s election that has the deepest ramifications for Intermountain, since Los Angeles has the most capital invested in the project.
So by November 2020, four signatories suddenly held public office in cities that were party to the deal. The floodgates opened. Other elected officials began to sign, including Burbank Councilmember Nick Schultz and California Assemblymember Laura Friedman.
Let’s pause to note that “100% green energy at Intermountain” isn’t the only demand in the letter. It also has a hefty just transition clause for the coal plant’s workers, many of whom would be laid off under the current plan.
And in what feels like it must be some kind of historic first, a sitting Assemblymember has signed a letter calling for a citizen’s dividend. That’s a kind of Universal Basic Income that would have LADWP paying every resident of Delta, Utah a dividend for the privilege of sitting a power plant in their community, using their resources. If passed into law, everyone in town would get cash every year for as long as the plant operates.
The Alaska Permanent Fund is the only such dividend in America, and that’s funded by oil money. If an Intermountain citizen’s dividend became law, it would be a historic step for green energy, and it would change the way local communities look at new sustainable infrastructure.
The Beginning of the End?
It remains to be seen whether the newfound support of elected officials will result in yet another, final, greening of the Intermountain plan.
And it remains to be seen what an all-green solution at Intermountain would look like. Though LADWP is closest to trading natural gas for hydrogen, some activists would prefer solar and wind — for them, green hydrogen is already a compromise. For its part, the Sunrise letter is technology-agnostic, calling on LADWP’s engineers to find solutions to a problem whose constraints are defined by the physical bounds of the Earth’s biosphere.
Either way, we’re in uncharted territory. Supporters of the letter are organizing for another round of public comment, and we believe an Intermountain without fossil fuels is finally within reach.
I’ll close by saying the obvious: we should have decided decades ago not to build new fossil fuel power plants. The science was clear before I was even born.
But here we are. And if nobody else is going to stop this thing, then people of my generation will.
See you at the next LADWP board meeting.
How you can help:
Tell LADWP no new fossil fuel power plants: Attend the meeting on 1/26/20 at 9:45 AM using your phone to call in, and follow the instructions here on how to give public comment.
Sign Food & Water Action’s petition against a gas plant at Intermountain by clicking here. | https://medium.com/groundgamela/the-last-new-fossil-fuel-plant-7b0dc79cf492 | ['Tom R'] | 2021-01-22 23:18:39.244000+00:00 | ['Climate Justice', 'Analysis', 'Climate', 'Climate Change', 'Fossil Fuel Industry'] |
Restaurant Website Inspiration for 2019 | January 7, 2019
A before & after look at some of our favorite restaurant website redesigns
Congrats! You’ve made it through the hectic holiday season. As things around your restaurant begin to calm down, now is the perfect time to take stock of your restaurant website and make some changes. Just like last year, we’ve rounded up some of the best restaurant website transformations to give you a creative launchpad for your own website updates in 2019.
Before: The Texas-based gourmet sandwich shop was tired of the old look on their website, which felt plain next to their newly refreshed branding. They also felt they had too much content, but were unsure how to reorganize their layout in an effective way.
After: East Hampton Sandwich Co. has been able to reinvent their website. They’ve paired their bold new branding with a much simpler layout and clearer navigation, allowing guests to quickly find the information they need. They’ve also added a Careers section to their restaurant website where potential hires can apply for a position online.
The best part: Finding each of the sandwich shop’s nine locations is a breeze with a store locator built into their website. The information for each is easily accessible and clearly displayed on one interactive map.
Before: The old website for this James Beard Award-nominated sushi restaurant was hard to navigate and felt disjointed. O Ya’s information was split between their two locations and it wasn’t clear where guests could make reservations.
After: O Ya’s new website unifies both locations on one website, providing easy access to all information, and allows guests to make reservations in Boston or New York with just one click.
The best part: O Ya now sells gift cards online, and highlights that revenue-driving offering prominently on their restaurant website’s homepage.
Before: eCommerce is really important for La Newyorkina, but the Mexican sweets company ’s old website hosted their online store on a third-party platform, which meant extra fees and less control. Their website was also difficult to read on mobile and only displayed an email signup on their homepage.
After: Now the company has an online store on their website, where they can easily edit and update offerings, selling directly to guests. La Newyorkina can manage their orders and website information all in one place and offer an intuitive and vibrant mobile experience.
The best part: The business keeps things social by featuring their playful Instagram feed on their website, showing off their daily treats.
Before: While Dominique Crenn’s three Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco often hosts events and guests chefs, their old website didn’t have a section that highlighted these exciting dining experiences. They also had no way to promote these special events or any other important updates with their restaurant website visitors.
After: Not only does Atelier Crenn now have a dedicated page for their renowned Crenn World Chef Series, but the new website also comes equipped with homepage notifications, keeping guests up-to-date about reservations, special events, operating hours and more.
The best part: The new website better matches the restaurant’s identity, conveying the feeling and atmosphere that guests experience within the actual restaurant, as well as Atelier Crenn’s connection to its sister restaurants, Bar Crenn and Petit Crenn.
Before: The old website for this Michelin-starred San Francisco restaurant wasn’t mobile-friendly, making their information small and difficult to read. Their menus were on PDF files, causing slow page load times and hurting their SEO. On top of that, making any general updates to the website was difficult and time-consuming.
After: Rich Table now has a fully responsive website, with text-based menus that not only load quickly and improve their SEO efforts but also are super easy to update on the fly with their new BentoBox backend.
The best part: The team can now promote their cookbook on their restaurant website, with a dedicated Cookbook page that shares recipes and a store where guests can buy the book online.
Before: Not much stood out on Hill Country Chicken’s old website due to small text and a subdued, traditional style. Their photos wouldn’t always load, and the operators of this Southern-style eatery found it difficult to make any updates to their website, meaning much of their information was out-of-date.
After: Their new photo-forward layout gives Hill Country Chicken’s website a more modern feel, while staying true to their down-home brand. Their new website is also built to support and quickly load high-res photography, which can be updated in a flash when they want to display new menu items.
The best part: Before, Hill Country Chicken had no way to collect contact info for their email newsletter online. Now they have a signup form accessible on every page, making it easy for guests to sign up and stay informed.
Before: The Pinewood’s old website wasn’t supporting the restaurant’s knack for hosting classes and special dinners. There was no easy way for guests to buy tickets without using a third party, and promotional graphics felt clunky and out of place on the Georgia restaurant’s homepage.
After: The Pinewood team has taken control of their special events, offering ticket sales directly on their website and building a designated Upcoming Events page on their website, all designed in a way that unifies their brand aesthetic online.
The best part: With the addition of a hospitality footer, The Pinewood now connects guests to all of the other concepts within the 10 Apart Hospitality group.
Before: Patowmack Farm’s outdated website design felt too limiting. The farm-focused restaurant had no way of selling gift cards online, and connecting with guests about private events was cumbersome, hindering their ability to take advantage of these extra revenue streams.
After: The restaurant can now easily sell gift cards to all their guests 24/7 from their new website. They have also incorporated a private event inquiry form that allows them to collect key information like time, date and type of event details from guests, offering a smooth and streamlined booking process.
The best part: Patowmack Farms can now show off their glowing reviews with a designated, clearly laid out Press page. | https://medium.com/beyond-the-meal/restaurant-website-inspiration-for-2019-24138fe3d044 | [] | 2019-07-22 17:59:32.605000+00:00 | ['Best Of', 'Website', 'Hospitality', 'Restaurant', 'Website Design'] |
How to Nurture the New Time | In this framework, these four emotional dimensions provide the support that allows us to transform the story of our circumstances and nourish our daily world with other perspectives. We cannot ignore the passage of time, but we can decide how to approach this moment that is changing the space of our lives.
Curiosity
This attitude allows us to transform uncertainty into possibilities and extend the look to design alternatives. Curiosity allows us to explore. A recent study (Dahl, Wilson-Mendenhall, & Davidson, 2020) shows that personal well-being is a dimension that must be trained to achieve the necessary plasticity to face everyday challenges. It is a powerful antidote to resignation because naturalizing the irremediable in an unalterable landscape closes the possibility of the new in our lives.
How can you wake up your curiosity? You need to create support so that the new can grow, just like some species of garden plants that cling to points on the wall to spread their branches. As Pablo Picasso said, “Inspiration exists, but it has to be found by working.”
Create a routine to surprise yourself, to catch the unexpected. Activate the chemistry of enthusiasm to explore the unknown.
Avoid words that pollute your landscape with mandates of impossibility. Do not cling to words that hurt your narratives.
Engage in conversations that can enrich your inner world with new perspectives.
Acceptance
We must accept this present to take transformative steps into the future. Do not underestimate acceptance because acceptance is not the same as resignation. Resignation is the validation of impossibility; acceptance implies the courage to stand facing life. In a recently book Freedom for All of Us: A Monk, a Philosopher, and a Psychiatrist on Finding Inner Peace, Matthieu Ricard deepens his writings on acceptance as the basis of inner freedom. Acceptance includes patience, strength, responsibility. On the contrary, denial, underestimation, resentment are functional to victimization and sustain inertia.
How can you assume acceptance? Do not confuse the emotions of the present with the emotions of the future because you can color with disenchantment and frustration the new possible landscapes.
Leave the negative emotions in the situations that generated them, do not expand them into other everyday scenes because you will miss out on lovely moments.
Accept adversity as a starting point for trying out emotional responses. Transform discouragement into curiosity.
Leave your story open to new meanings about what appears in the context. Do not force your narrative with certainties because you may get caught up in your own words.
Creativity
This is the most valuable resource for dealing with helplessness and victimization. Without clear references, we will need to disarm the certainties to recover our economic livelihood, recover emotional connections, and live with uncertainty. Creativity is different from curiosity. Curiosity allows us to explore the new; creativity leads us to shape something new (Richards, 2010). We will need creativity to go to the market, nurture our loves, heal painful scenes, and say goodbye to the inevitable.
How can you unfold your creativity? The habits that order the inner landscape are the results of our history. A subtle way to try creativity is to challenge our habits, to relativize our impossibilities.
Do not accept the impossibility of inertia; you can always try something new. The last time will never be the last.
Introduce small changes in behavior to alter the routine subtly.
Change roles in everyday situations and look for scenes where you can experience new characters and roles.
Inspiration
Without an inspiring horizon, there is no chance that something new will enter our lives. We are the architects of our destiny. What is your commitment to a new destiny? Commitment will keep inspiration from dying in the hands of discouragement. Perhaps the frontiers of the regions are opening up, but your story retains you in resentment and guilt. According to the Center for Healthy Minds research, of the four pillars of personal wellness (awareness, connection, insight, and purpose), a strong sense of purpose is associated with improved health outcomes and behaviors (Goodman, Doorley, Kashdan, 2018).
How do you draw an inspiring horizon? Hope depends on the words that draw the horizon of your landscape. The dimension of that horizon will define the possibilities of recovery and transformation in the face of new uncertainties.
Recover the inner space to silence the profound external superficiality.
Create open questions that allow you to challenge your own script. What are questions important in your life today? Where do these questions lead you?
Use everyday subtleties to transform routine into sublime moments. Do not miss opportunities to express gratitude to life and the people around you.
We live within our emotional territories that are materialized through stories, which give meaning to the events we face. The opportunities for transforming the personal landscape will depend on our explanations of what we are living. When you introduce new references in your stories, you enrich your everyday life. The options to give more brightness and color to your inner landscape are right in front of your eyes, but you may not see them because you may be looking in the wrong place. | https://medium.com/curious/how-to-nurture-the-new-time-8d6e70f33152 | ['Marcelo Manucci'] | 2020-12-20 00:49:38.433000+00:00 | ['Neuroscience', 'Psychology', 'Personal Development', 'Coaching', 'Negative Emotions'] |
Computer Vision With Python | Computer vision is a scientific field that deals with how computers can be made to gain a high-level understanding from digital images or videos. New advancements in Deep Learning have made it possible to train models much more efficiently. We can detect objects in an image while simultaneously generating a high-quality segmentation mask for each instance. The method, called Mask R-CNN, extends Faster R-CNN by adding a branch for predicting an object mask in parallel with the existing branch for bounding box recognition.
It is a convolutional neural network that shares properties with the RCNN, in that it saves time by dividing an image into regions and searching those for what it believes may be relevant objects. We can mark those objects by drawing a bounding box around any detected objects. The Mask RCNN takes this one step further by drawing what is called a mask over the object. This mask is a semi-transparent silhouette that the network draws within the bounding box to highlight the detected object. Users must first install the repository below and install the required packages with pip.
GitHub: https://github.com/matterport/Mask_RCNN
Requirements: Python 3.4, TensorFlow 1.3, Keras 2.0.8 and other common packages listed in requirements.txt .
For this project, we used the Home Objects dataset from Caltech. This and other vast datasets for computer vision can be found in their archives here. Once you have collected your dataset, it must be annotated so that it can be used for training. The University of Oxford has a handy web tool for annotating images for computer vision tasks such as this and it can be found here. The VIA tool saves the annotations in a JSON file, and each mask is a set of polygon points. Also provided is a downloadable version and tutorials on how to use the annotator for images, video, and audio. Once your model is trained, do not forget to check its accuracy. The GitHub has Jupyter notebook examples that will show you how to display your model’s detections.
Validation with Tensorboard
In summary, to train the model on your own dataset you’ll need to extend two classes:
Config This class contains the default configuration. Subclass it and modify the attributes you need to change.
Dataset This class provides a consistent way to work with any dataset. It allows you to use new datasets for training without having to change the code of the model. It also supports loading multiple datasets at the same time, which is useful if the objects you want to detect are not all available in one dataset.
See examples in samples/shapes/train_shapes.ipynb , samples/coco/coco.py , samples/balloon/balloon.py , and samples/nucleus/nucleus.py .
After you validate the accuracy of your model, then you can move on to testing the model with live and/or recorded footage. Using the OpenCV library, you can utilize your trained model and test it with your webcam or a video file on your computer.
Dogan AI provides Computer Vision Consulting to clients all around the world. If you are interested in implementing AI please do not hesitate to contact us.
E-Mail: john@dogan.ai
Website: www.dogan.ai
Written By Matthew Lopez | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/computer-vision-with-python-188b50433dbf | ['Dogan Technologies'] | 2019-12-10 06:08:50.511000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Deep Learning', 'Data Science', 'Data', 'Data Visualization'] |
What's Happening When Your Sleepy Body Starts to Jerk | Why Your Body Sometimes Jerks As You Fall Asleep
A closer look at hypnic jerks
Images by the author (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Ahh… sleep. How nice. You turn off the lights. You close your weary eyes. You sigh. You relax. Your breathing slows down. Your mind begins to wander off, fading into the nightly oblivion.
Then…
You stumble, trip, fall. Your body jolts. Your leg kicks. Your heart pounds. Huh? What happened? Did you mistakenly fall asleep on a trapdoor?
Nope. You simply experienced a hypnic jerk.
What’s a hypnic jerk?
A hypnic jerk, or sleep start, is a phenomenon that occurs when your body transitions from wakefulness to sleep. It involves a sudden involuntary muscle twitch and is frequently accompanied by a falling or tripping sensation. It’s that strange muscle spasm that happens when you’re lying in bed, trying to sleep, and are suddenly jolted awake because you feel like you stumbled over something.
Hypnic jerks are common and benign.
But what causes them? Well, no one really knows. It’s still a mystery. However, researchers have come up with several hypotheses that may explain them, with the following two being the most popular.
Hypothesis 1: Your body twitches as daytime motor control is overridden by sleep paralysis
How is it that a bedfellow of yours doesn’t wake up pummeled and bruised if you have a dream about a boxing match? Is it because they’re having a complementary dream where they’re blocking all your jabs, hooks, and other punches?
Nope. The person sharing the bed with you doesn’t get pummeled because when you’re asleep, your body is paralyzed. This is due to something called REM sleep atonia, which prevents you from acting out your dreams.
REM atonia works by inhibiting your motor neurons. It does so by raising the bar on the amount of electricity the brain must send down a motor neuron to trigger a movement. So, for instance, the little bit of electricity that your brain sends to your finger to make it move when you’re awake is no longer enough when you’re under REM atonia.
When you’re asleep, your body is paralyzed. This is due to something called REM sleep atonia, which prevents you from acting out your dreams.
Now, the thing is that there is no single on/off switch in your body that inhibits all your motor neurons at once. Instead, the subsystems of your brain that handle sleep need to wrestle control from the subsystems that handle wakefulness. And sometimes, during this wrestling match, some motor neurons are fired randomly, causing your body to twitch.
Hypothesis 2: Your brain thinks you’re a monkey falling off a tree
Image modified by the author. Illustration source: Alessandro D’Antonio/Unsplash
Imagine you’re a monkey and the last rays of sunlight have just disappeared behind the green forest canopy. It’s getting dark, and you say to yourself: time for sleep. Your brain begins to ooze some melatonin into your bloodstream and you yawn. Drowsy, you settle down on a comfortable tree branch.
Your eyelids become heavy and your breathing slows. The outside world begins to fade. Sounds become distant.
At this point, the subconscious part of your brain takes over. “Perfect,” it says, “time to boot up the dream images.” Your brain initiates the dream procedure, and just when you’re about to nod off completely, it notices that all your muscles have suddenly and unexpectedly relaxed. “Holy Banana!” your brain screams panic-stricken, “Mayday! Mayday! We’re in freefall! Dammit! Wake up! Wake up! Shit, crap! Brace for impaaaact!”
As you’re probably aware, we humans descend from primates who lived and slept on trees. This means that we’ve inherited some monkey brain routines that no longer serve any purpose. Among them, according to the monkey-fall hypothesis, is a reflex that jolts you awake when you’re falling from a tree.
You see, when a monkey is unexpectedly soaring through the air, its muscles no longer have to prop it up and so they go limp. Confusingly, however, your muscles also go limp when you’re sleeping.
So, when you drift off into sleep and your muscles relax a little too fast, your groggy brain sometimes misinterprets this for falling off a tree. As a result, your brain freaks out and triggers a reflex that startles you awake in an attempt to prepare for an imminent crash onto the forest floor. Little does your brain know, in its sleepy state—and that you no longer live in trees.
What’s clear either way
Hypnic jerks are involuntary muscle contractions that occur during the transition from wakefulness to sleep. They’re most likely to occur if you’ve been gulping down too much coffee, have been stressed or sleep-deprived, or did some vigorous exercise before going to bed. About 70% of people have experienced them. Even so, they are not well understood.
Either way, hypnic jerks are benign and nothing to worry about. The worst that can happen is probably an occasional kick against the shin of whoever is sharing the bed with you. | https://elemental.medium.com/why-your-body-sometimes-jerks-while-you-drift-into-sleep-88f8d28d643a | ['David B. Clear'] | 2020-12-18 14:12:06.127000+00:00 | ['Neuroscience', 'Sleep', 'Health', 'Biology', 'Science'] |
20 Free Traffic Sources For Affiliate Marketing — BlogyFly | When it comes to traffic, no one dislikes it more than someone who gets it organically. Those who run startups or small businesses and who cannot afford to pay for traffic rely on free sources to spread the word about their products or services. Let’s learn about Free Traffic Sources For Affiliate Marketing.
Despite the fact that free traffic sources will cost you nothing in terms of money, you will still need to put forth sufficient effort. There are plenty of free traffic sources that you can take advantage of. However, due to the fact that they are available to everyone, they tend to be of varying degrees of effectiveness.
In order to be successful, one must conduct extensive research on and mastery a variety of topics.
Today, we’ll look at 20 of the best free traffic sources that can assist you in increasing the amount of traffic to your website. But before we start, please do not forget to subscribe to our channel and hit the notification button. Here is a list of some of the best methods on how to get unlimited free traffic to any affiliate link.
1) Search Engines
Search engine optimization is unquestionably the most effective and most significant source of free traffic. Being ranked for a great and competitive keyword will have a significant impact on the traffic and conversions to your website or blog.
The fact that your website is ranked highly by search engines means that it will receive more visitors, which is beneficial to your business. However, if you want to be at the top of the rankings, you must put in the necessary effort.
You’ll need to make certain that your website satisfies all of the requirements of the search engine process. Because of this, it is important that your content is unique and of high quality in order to rank higher on the various search Engines.
2) Email Marketing
Email marketing is typically defined as the process of sending emails to a list of people who have expressed interest in your product or service with the goal of getting them to return to your website or blog. This is one of the most effective methods of increasing the number of repeat visitors to your Website.
Email marketing is a highly effective method of increasing conversions that is also one of the most targeted sources of free traffic. Using email marketing, you can quickly increase the number of visitors to new websites and blogs because all you have to do is send out emails in response to them.
Whenever you require traffic, You have to write an email and send it to your list of targeted customers. There are many major players in the market that provide such complementary services, and you should definitely take advantage of them. Some of them offer basic options even for free. Check out links in Description for more details.
You must provide a free lead magnet, which is a relatively simple method of growing your email list. You can see how I created a lead magnet in a matter of days by watching this video on my YouTube channel.
3) Social Media
In today’s world where people are constantly connected through social media platforms, social media has emerged as an excellent source of free traffic to your website.
Every day, a sizable number of people spend countless hours on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Consequently, if you are looking for free blog traffic, this is an excellent place to begin your search.
It is a fantastic platform for small business owners and marketers to interact with their target customers for free, and it is available to everyone. As previously stated, there are numerous social media platforms available, including, but not limited to, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, and others, giving you a wide variety of options to choose from.
However, you should concentrate on one that you are confident will be used by the majority of your target customers. As a result, it is critical that you first, understand your customer’s behavior patterns in order to determine which platform they are most likely to use it.
4) Direct Traffic
Depending on how you are analyzing the sources of traffic to your site with Google Analytics, you may come across the terms direct and none.
A direct, non-source of traffic is one in which the people who visit your site do so by directly entering a URL or using a bookmark to access your site directly from another website.
They don’t need to go through the search engine because they are already familiar with your site or are familiar with the content it contains. Because they are already familiar with your website’s name, they simply type it into their browsers and go directly to your website.
However, in order to ensure that your blog receives direct traffic, you must choose a blog name that is easily remembered by a large number of people. In addition, your website must be able to provide significant value to visitors in order to encourage them and their return again and again.
5) YouTube
YouTube is yet another wonderful and useful source of free traffic for your website or eCommerce store, and it is available to anyone.
Websites like this are among the most heavily trafficked on the Internet and internet marketers make extensive use of them, especially if you I am a blogger. Youtube can be a fantastic source of free traffic for your website.
Despite the fact that YouTube is not a reliable source of immediate traffic, it is a fantastic platform on which to market anything for free.
Furthermore, people can access YouTube content from their smartphones, which opens up new opportunities for marketers and website owners to reach new audiences.
When you take into account the rate at which online video is growing, the time spent creating the video content is outweighed by the time spent preparing it. As a result, online videos must be incorporated into your overall brand marketing strategy.
6) Guest Blogging on Other Websites
Despite the fact that this may appear strange to some, I assure you that it is a highly effective method of obtaining free traffic. Guest blogging refers to the act of writing and posting on another person’s website or blog.
This works by providing you with a link back to your website, which is where your post has been published. When a website gives you backlinks, it means that people who visit that website may also visit your blog if they click on the links provided. Increased traffic to your website will result as a result of this.
Furthermore, the people who come to your site through the links are most likely interested in your content, which may result in more conversions. Furthermore, the greater the number of backlinks you have, the greater your chances of becoming an authority, particularly in your niche.
When you are regarded as an authority, you not only achieve higher search engine rankings but also attract a larger audience, which may result in increased sales.
7) Post on Reddit
Making a Post on Reddit is yet another excellent method of generating free traffic for your blog. If you use Reddit correctly, it can provide you with a significant amount of free website traffic.
The platform is comprised of a large community of people who are actively seeking and sharing various pieces of information that will help them to expand their businesses and succeed.
As long as you find a community that is appropriate for your niche. Reddit can be a valuable tool for increasing traffic to your blog. When it comes to affiliate marketing, it is one of the most widely used free traffic sources.
Sign up to become a member of the community, share valuable content, build your reputation, and increase traffic to your website. However, you should avoid posting links in any case, as this can result in your account being blocked.
8) Posting on question & answer platform
Quora is the best question and answer platform where people can share and seek information on a wide range of topics.
It is a community in which everyone who participates in the platform contributes in order to provide value to others. In the case of Quora, their links appear to rank higher in search engines, which means they will generate more traffic for your website.
Quora posts, for example, are more likely than not to appear on the first page of search results. When you type a question into Google, join the community, and take advantage of the wonderful resources available to you to increase the traffic to your website.
9) Forum Marketing
Despite the fact that the majority of people are now turning to social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, forums continue to be an effective method of generating traffic for websites.
Forum Marketing is the process of promoting your company’s brand through discussion forums that are related to what you have to offer in some way.
When selling camping equipment, for example, you should target communities that are interested in outdoor activities. Get the right forum for your website one with enough posts and members, and you can see a significant increase in the number of visitors to your site.
You should make an informed decision because there are numerous online forums to choose from, and it can be difficult to find the right one. You are permitted to include a link at the end of your post, which interested readers can use to learn more about your content or to contact you.
10) Invite other bloggers to contribute to your blog, just like in guest blogging.
You can also bring other bloggers in your niche to post on your blog. This will increase the likelihood of bloggers sharing the post on their social media pages, which will increase the likelihood of your website being promoted.
Additionally, they will almost certainly link back to the post from their own blogs. If you hire people who produce high-quality content, you can be confident that your website will attract a larger number of visitors.
If done correctly, this method has the potential to be one of the most effective free traffic sources for you.
11) Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking is where you share your content on social bookmarking sites. There are various such sites which include Digg, Pinterest, Slashdot, and Delicious, among others.
This method can be an excellent avenue to share your content and attract traffic to your site through backlinks building.
12) write an E-book
An e-book is something that will only require your intellect and time. If you know you are good at it and can produce valuable content, then an e-book is a smart way to bring traffic to your blog for free. Writing an e-book will cost you nothing, but if done right, it can be a long-term solution to your website’s needs.
13) Referring Sites
This method offers a good source of free traffic, but you need to do enough work to get there. For people to refer traffic to your website, your content must be very valuable and of high quality.
In addition, you must have done a lot of networking with other websites to convince them to refer traffic to yours.
If you want people to mention you in their blogs, be sure that your content must be considered valuable. You may want to consider adding your RSS feed to directories or automated blogs that will get more eyeballs on your content.
14) Blog Commenting
Do you want a great way to network? Well, commenting on other peoples’ blogs in your niche offers just that. The wide your network is, the more backlinks you will get back to your website.
This can be said to be among the most favorite methods that marketers and bloggers use to rank in search engines, as well as build backlinks.
The method is popular since it’s easy to start and it offers a great avenue for free traffic.
15) Use of Tools Like BuzzSumo
Some tools like BuzzSumo are a great method through which you can use to rank your competition. These tools help you to spy on what your competitors are up to, as well as help you figure out how to beat them.
The tools offer both free and paid plans, but even with the free one, you can attract considerable traffic if you use it well.
However, you must create excellent content for you to gain the traffic you desire. You need to understand the topmost topics that have the most shares and make use of their keywords. This way, your content may rank higher.
16) Article Marketing
What article marketing simply means, is submitting your articles to various article directories. It is a division of content marketing whereby you can write articles and distribute them to multiple outlets. These outlets include newsletters publishers, forums, and article banks, among others.
Some of these article directories that you can use include EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, and SearchWarp.com, among others. And, although they are no longer as popular as they were some years back, these platforms can still help you a great deal.
17) Use of Social Influencers
Influencers can be a person, a company, or a group of people with social authority in the same niche as you. Usually, these influencers command sizable online following and are able to capture an audience’s attention and easily create engagement on their sites.
With influencer marketing, it entails partnering with such influencers who in turn promote your website or online business.
In exchange for promoting your brand, you can offer them things like free samples or still mention them on your platform such as social media.
However, this has to be mutually beneficial for both parties, and therefore, you also must have a certain level of influence.
18) Publishing a Press Release
Press releases refer to written communications that report brief but precise information about certain occurrences. These press releases not only generate traffic for you but also provides your website with quality backlinks.
Therefore, this is a great and free way of channeling traffic to your website.
A press release could be anything unique and catchy from your business or store. It may be about the launch of a new product, promotional offers, special prices, and more.
19) Posting on Ello
Ello is The Creators Network. Here you can post your affiliate links and reach out to more people.
20) Posting on Tumblr
Tumblr is a place to express yourself, discover yourself, and bond over the stuff you love. It’s where your interests connect you with your people. You can share your affiliate link here.
Hope this article is useful to you. If you want to share it, I will be very happy. It won’t cost you, but for me, it’s a very good gesture. | https://medium.com/@satheesh-as-affiliator/20-free-traffic-sources-for-affiliate-marketing-blogyfly-24d2f2787e70 | ['Satheesh Sankar'] | 2021-09-04 07:07:38.598000+00:00 | ['Traffic', 'Affiliate Marketing', 'Affilate Program'] |
EFFORTLESS CHANGE | For some time now, I’ve been quietly on a very deep and profound journey.
You see, I’ve struggled with my mental health all my life. The constant battle with being gay in an un-accepting world, turning to religion and all it promised to “cure” me. And on top of that, my struggles with ADHD that caused me to think I could never be “normal”. Basically, I thought I was broken in pretty much every way.
The last few years have been an incredible journey sifting through all this, and I can honestly say that life has never been so good.
But one thing that has frustrated me for so long is the whole approach around mental health. It seems that the only options for serious improvement are through professional counselors/therapists/psychologist etc, which most of us can’t afford, especially considering it can take months, if not years, to make any real progress.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not discounting their value, but it’s just not a viable option for “the rest of us”. In fact, I began to look at the entire foundation of how we regard mental health issues.
I have longed for something that doesn’t demand some preconceived ideal of “normal”. Something that brings a depth of peace without going through even more trauma trying to sort it all out.
Over the last year or so, I’ve delved more into the philosophy of the Tao (Brahma, the Field, Universal Consciousness, and many other labels). At first it helped me see a much more cohesive and rational view of the universe and life. But after a while, I had that “aha” moment where I began to get glimpses of this mysterious and indescribable force instead of intellectual understanding. I can truly say that once you “get it”, it shakes you to the core.
The problem with all this however, is communicating it in a way that is not ridiculously weird and wacky — to the point where you’ve lost all credibility.
So anyway, while all this was going on, I decided to enroll in a Life Coach course so that I had some sort of valid training I could use to help people. But this particular course referred to something they called the “three principles”, and promised a level of deep change in people that seemed too good to be true. So of course, I jumped down the rabbit hole and found that it’s basically one of the many faces of the Tao. And I discovered that there are many people using these principles (the understanding and experience of the Tao) to directly address mental health.
The last couple of months I’ve had a complete paradigm shift. The most wonderful aspect of it all is I don’t have to try to change. In realising who I really am and my place in the universe, I simply “am”. I have no need to change — and yet I have!
This might all sound too cosmic for many of you, or maybe I’ve lost the plot! But not only am I seeing massive shifts in my life, but as I talk to so many others exploring this, they all say the same — the moment it “clicks”, your entire perspective changes. You find a peace you never even knew existed. You see everyone else as “you”. Empathy becomes your natural state. You recognise that the endless fight in your mind is just “thoughts” that come and go, triggering emotions that also come and go. You watch the complexity of life and begin to see the perfect paradox of living in the middle of it all.
But the wonderful thing is it also recognises our humanity. In fact, the entire point is that our thoughts, emotions and how we embrace them is what makes us human! Am I perfect? Of course not, but then, what is perfect? I’m a human having a human experience with all it’s wonderful messiness!
So yeah, that’s me. I’m changing direction and directly addressing the subject of mental health in a radically different way. I’m shaping how I work with people to give them the tools to find all they need within themselves.
There are no gurus, no hype, no empty or unachievable promises, no expectations and no judgement. There is no work to do, it’s simply recognising who you really are in a way that undermines every single preconception and paradigm, without resorting to rituals, disciplines, endless counselling and therapy or any other form of spiritual/religious dogma.
It’s always been here. throughout recorded history there are those who live this. Religions are birthed from their teachings, which end up losing the plot (often quite quickly).
I’ll be re-branding some of what I do, so stay tuned to how all this will fit together — with the focused intention of bringing life and love to as much of humanity as possible.
NOVEMBER 12, 2020 | https://medium.com/@jim-marjoram/effortless-change-8eb2748cc990 | ['Jim Marjoram'] | 2020-11-16 00:42:04.879000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Itslifejim', 'LGBT', 'Therapy', 'Spirituality'] |
E-Residency update #4 on the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic | Employment Measures
E-residents have created around 12,000 Estonian companies, which employ about 1700 employees. These businesses may qualify for relief under the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund (the Fund) if they meet the eligibility requirements.
The Fund has approved measures to help “qualified employers” maintain jobs by the state’s support in paying salaries through temporary measures of wage reduction.
Eligibility requirements: a“qualified employer” must meet two of the three criteria:
the company’s turnover has fallen 30% (compared to same month in 2019); the company cannot provide work for at least 30% of its employees; the company has reduced employees’ salaries by at least 30%.
This measure involves compensation by the Fund to qualified employers (up to €250 million in total) to support wage reduction during the crisis. Under Estonian employment law, an employer can reduce the wage of an employee in certain circumstances and subject to procedural requirements set by the law.
Under the emergency measures, the Fund will partially compensation the salary costs of a “qualified employer” under the following conditions:
1) the compensation is used within 2 months from March to May 2020;
2) the compensation is 70% of the average 12 month gross salary but not more than €1000 per month per employee in need of the support; and
3) the employer must pay 30% gross salary to the employee (at least €150 per month) in addition. The Fund and the employer will pay all labour taxes on wages and benefits.
Only employees are entitled to the compensation, not management board members. The employer must apply for the compensation for each month separately (applications are expected to open in April), however the compensation will be paid directly to an employee. The employer must return the paid compensation if the employee is laid off within the next month.
For more information, please refer to the Fund’s website:
While some e-resident businesses may get relief under these measures, others may not qualify. For these, be aware of the strict rules and procedures around reducing wages or terminating the contracts of employees under Estonian employment law if you are considering taking action to reduce the wage costs of your business. In which case, think about other ways to save on wage costs. For example, discuss and make a mutual agreement with your employees for temporary measures to counter the financial effects of the crisis, e.g. temporarily lowering salary, changing role to take on other responsibilities, etc.
Tax relief measures
The Government has announced that tax debt late penalty fees are cancelled for two months from 1 March to 1 May (may be extended). This means that you can delay paying your taxes owing in this period and there will be no interest accruing on the delayed taxes owed. But all declarations still need to be filed on time and the taxes still need to be paid when possible.
Another tax relief measure provides businesses with the ability to reschedule tax debt repayments at lower interest rates than currently in force — if paying tax owed in instalments for example.
There is also some help for sole proprietors, i.e. “Füüsilisest Isikust Ettevõtja”, or “FIE”. Social tax advance payments don’t need to be paid for the first quarter of 2020 and can be claimed back if already paid.
For more information about COVID-19 tax relief measures or to make inquiries as to whether your business is eligible, the Estonian Tax and Customs Board has opened a special tax advice and information page on their website (in Estonian, English and Russian):
Finance Measures
So far, the Government has announced €1.55 billion in financial measures with the KredEx Foundation (KredEx) to provide relief for eligible Estonian companies. KredEx is an Estonian foundation, which was set up by the Government in 2001 to support the provision of state-backed financial solutions and services, including loans, venture capital, credit insurance and guarantees.
The emergency measures so far announced include:
KredEx loan guarantees of up to €5 million for enhancing a company’s liquidity by facilitating relaxed credit terms of existing loans, or backing new loans, with Estonian commercial banks or lending institutions (up to €1 billion in total); KredEx liquidity loans of up to €5 million for boosting a company’s liquidity (up to €500 million in total); and KredEx investment loans of up to € 5 million to take advantage of the business opportunities created by the coronavirus, and other new business opportunities (up to €50 million in total).
It’s important to note that these measures are not designed to fully replace the ability and responsibility of Estonian commercial banks or lending institutions to give relief to their business customers. It is thus important that if you foresee loan repayment difficulties for your business in the near future, you should immediately contact your Estonian commercial bank first to see if you can get relief.
Applications for the KredEx loan guarantees are processed by your Estonian commercial bank or lending institution. Applications for the KredEx loans are processed by KredEx, but applicants must be able to show that they have not been able to enhance their financing from their Estonian commercial bank or lending institution. For example, by proving that it has not provided you with relaxed credit terms or increased your overdraft.
There are eligibility conditions for Estonian companies to apply for relief under these measures, including that the company:
is registered in the Estonian business registry with all required reports submitted; is solvent as at 31 December 2019 and not in financial difficulty according to EU regulation 651/2014 Article 2(18); has no overdue debts to the tax authorities and credit institutions up to 1 January 2020; has no direct or indirect owners who are registered in low tax rate territories; is not active in non-eligible fields of activities (agriculture, forestry, financial services tobacco, gambling, real estate development, GMO, etc).
For the KredEx loan guarantee measures, there are also limits on the interest rate on the loan that can be guaranteed. For all measures, there are guarantee/loan contract fees.
For more information and to read the terms and conditions for each measure in detail, please visit the KredEx website:
Final thoughts and further resources
Earlier this week, PwC Estonia joined e-Residency in a webinar to introduce the measures discussed above and share their knowledge of crisis management more broadly. Watch it here:
At the end of the webinar, the PwC experts shared their advice to entrepreneurs on what to do right now given the current economic situation. Their advice was as follows:
Analyse the cash flow situation of your company for at least the next 6–18 months. Study your fixed costs and other outflows. Scenario-plan for various reductions in revenues/inflows over this period or longer, e.g. what happens if your business falls by 30%, 50%, 70%? Once you have performed this analysis, consider what counter-measures to put into place to protect the business. For example, look at your contract terms with suppliers, service providers, subcontractors and see whether it is possible and practical to terminate or amend them. Look at the options to re-finance or re-structure your loans and leases. Consider any potential employment measures to cut wage costs. Diversify / pivot your business to find new clients, projects, or activities.
For more information, we highly recommend that you visit the PwC Estonia COVID-19 website for advice on how to manage your business through the crisis. Other helpful resources can be found on the London Business School website, and at e-Residency Marketplace service provider Gate to Baltics’ website.
The e-Residency team also strongly recommends that if you anticipate that your business will experience financial difficulty as a result of the crisis, that you speak to your service provider for counselling and to mutually find a solution.
We also recommend that you use any downtime caused by the crisis productively, e.g. upskill, take online courses, write project and fundraising proposals, and take time for things you never have time to do, like revamping your website or writing.
And we would love to hear about your experiences. Please comment below the effects COVID-19 has had on you personally and in your business — what are the pain points, where do you need support, what are the opportunities, have you made changes to your business strategy or pivoted to take advantage of new opportunities, what information would be helpful from us to you, etc? | https://medium.com/e-residency-blog/e-residency-update-4-on-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-3a1f832f42c5 | ['Hannah Brown'] | 2020-04-06 07:50:28.067000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Estonia', 'E Residency', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
Is the Concept of the Higher Self an Illusion? | I’ve wanted to hook up with my higher self ever since I can remember. Sometimes, I imagine I’m almost there. Wisdom streams, and I think “this is it! The smartest part of me is awake.”
Later, of course, I’m back at the start of my journey and just as unenlightened as ever. Still, I continue to study religion, philosophy, science, and gather New Age gleanings, and read ancient texts, and anything else I believe could hold the key to my inner spark.
Nonetheless, I concede that if you consider the higher self long enough, you might conclude it doesn’t even exist. Here’s why.
The witness of thoughts
When I first discovered I could step out of my thoughts and witness them, I thought I was a step closer to enlightenment. Perhaps the watcher of my thoughts was my higher self and had been patiently listening from the beginning of time.
Indeed, if you observe your thoughts often, your self-understanding will increase. You’ll spot patterns of behavior and adjust so you improve.
Witnessing your thoughts is a way to gain control of your emotions too. No longer swept along by a torrent of feelings, you are better able to steer your life in the direction you choose.
Still, there’s a problem with the idea the witness is your higher self after all. It’s possible, after many witnessing sessions, to step back not only from your thoughts but from the witness of your thoughts.
Who watches the watcher?
The question then arises who watches the watcher? Is that the higher self? Probably not, since self-observation is like the old analogy of peeling an onion; you keep stripping off layers only to find another below the last one, and you never find the center of the onion, your inner core, because the peeling doesn’t end.
In his lecture about tapping into the higher self, the philosopher Alan Watts describes the conundrum as similar to thieves climbing floors in a house when the police come looking for them. Up and up they go, yet they never escape or reach the top. Chasing your higher self is much the same since you are only ever a floor above what you imagine is your ego, and the enlightened part of you is always out of reach.
Watts suggests the witness of thoughts, the so-called wisest part of you, is just another layer of the ego anyway, and attempting to be enlightened could be pointless.
His argument is we probably wouldn’t enjoy being surrounded by people with their higher selves in operation. Can you imagine hordes of enlightened wisdom-spewing gurus flocking over the hills? It might be annoying, to say the least.
What’s more, we need a variety of people in the world. Someone absorbed in self-reflection, for example, might produce useful insights. If they dropped their ego flashes of inspiration may not arise.
Also, if everyone was enlightened, we wouldn’t need to learn and grow. So what then? The meaning of life might disappear.
Evidence of the higher self seems to exist. People said to be gurus, and those who work on self-improvement with yoga, tai chi, philosophy and so on display signs of potential enlightenment. But their egos are still evident. Even nuns, monks, and sages have grouchy moments and days when their egos are in full-flood.
So, maybe my journey to the higher self is an illusion, and I’m discarding layers of my ego only to uncover fresh ones. Nevertheless, I’ll always seek wisdom because there’s an obvious advantage to doing so. When you chip away at egoism, you find greater understanding beneath. My higher self might not emerge, but at least my lower self is in a consistent state of removal. | https://medium.com/the-bolt-hole/is-the-concept-of-the-higher-self-an-illusion-e5aa231cec10 | ['Bridget Webber'] | 2020-12-11 12:42:00.961000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Personal Development', 'Self Improvement', 'Life', 'Psychology'] |
Optimize Your Payables to Maximize Cash Flow | Optimize Your Payables to Maximize Cash Flow
US businesses waste over $200B annually on antiquated, manual, paper-based, poorly controlled payment processes. In response to the extreme changes and business obstacles brought forth by COVID-19, CFO’s and other key decision-makers are searching for new ways to reduce inefficiencies and cut costs. The decision to switch over to electronic payments processes is proving to be an effective route, allowing finance teams to immediately — and often dramatically — reduce costs, improve operational efficiencies, optimize cash flow, and align finance with the company’s larger digital transformation initiatives. The result? AP departments, traditionally viewed as cost centers, are showing how optimizing their payables can help maximize cash flow while allowing the department to keep up with increasing pressures to operate more efficiently and cost-effectively.
When it comes to AP Payments as a Service solutions, no two solutions are alike. For businesses exploring AP Payments solutions, there are several factors to keep in mind. First, it should be one that is electronic first, but still has the capability to support multiple payment options, including the more traditional pay-by-check method. Even though paper checks are losing their grip on B2B payments volume, some suppliers still prefer them. Three years from now, it is expected that electronic payments via ACH will finally surpass the volume of paper checks — but in order for companies to really reap the benefits of an automated and electronic payment approach, they must find the right set of tools and processes to enable that type of meaningful transformation.
Payments as a service solutions offer a wide range of benefits, including offering suppliers multiple payment options, while helping buyers to reduce or even eliminate operational costs. Additionally, by providing key insights and real-time visibility of all payments, AP staff are unencumbered, left to focus on more value-added activities instead of being bogged down in manually driven AP processes.
So, what are the barriers to adoption keeping companies from embracing AP Payments as a Service solutions? “A lot of the time folks just aren’t asking the right questions,” stated Ernest Rolfson, Finexio CEO. In a recent presentation , Rolfson highlights some of the key questions that AP teams should ask — questions that will help to systematically identify which suppliers can be shifted over to another payment type, so your company can generate more cash flow and cut down on operational costs.
A common concern when evaluating electronic Payment solutions is ‘How will my existing AP processes change?’ With Payments as a Service, like the one provided by Finexio, you don’t have to change or alter your existing AP processes or invest in learning or adapting to new technologies. Clients can continue working in the same financial systems, using the tools they’re already comfortable working in. Finexio can connect to all the major ERP and Accounting systems to ensure that for the client, the transition is seamless and easy. Instead of AP staff spending countless hours printing, labeling, stuffing, and mailing paper checks, Finexio’s integrated technology solution and white glove customer support services will work to customize payment methods that are right for your suppliers. The result? Improved cash flow, reduced operational costs, and holistic insights via the Finexio portal customer dashboard.
To learn more about Finexio’s AP Payments-as-a-Service solutions, as well as the future of AP processes, check out a recent virtual session where Finexio CEO, Ernest Rolfson shares his perspectives on these topics and more. | https://medium.com/finexio/optimize-your-payables-to-maximize-cash-flow-6c03c0427d71 | ['Finexio Marketing'] | 2020-12-16 15:10:45.827000+00:00 | ['Payments', 'Accounting', 'Fintech', 'Finexio The Network', 'Cashflow'] |
Life in a second | Life in a second
Will you have something to see in that second when life flashes in front of your eyes?
What will it be?
Did you accomplish everything you wanted?
Did you accomplish everything they wanted you to accomplish?
Did you live your life like you wanted?
Or how they wanted you ti live it?
Once more some many questions I don’t have answers to. | https://medium.com/@gorana-bucic/life-in-a-second-92dda70484c | ['Gorana B'] | 2020-12-26 17:46:59.968000+00:00 | ['Short Read', 'Shortform Stories', 'Short', 'Short Form', 'Self Assessment'] |
Angry Women Will Change The World | MortuusSolani via deviantart.com
BBC is interviewing Jameela Jamil for her “I weigh” movement which is criticizing the self-hatred over women’s looks perpetuated by the media. The movement successfully caused Instagram banning the promotion of laxative diet products. And the interviewer asks her: “But you use very extreme language, is that necessary? I mean you said for instance of the Kardashians, “their pockets are lined with the blood and diarrhea of teenage girls” obviously referring to the fact that some of these products have a laxative effect.”
I tried to capture what in her language is “extreme” while she is only honestly communicating what she thinks is wrong. I have never seen men, specifically white men, being questioned on their language. But somehow there is always something about the way women communicate, BUT ONLY WHEN she is standing up. This is something I personally come across a lot a well. When I talk about feminism, all of a sudden, I am an angry feminist woman. To me, I am just a woman who is talking about equality in a passionate way. But then people often think, I should be less angry if I want to advocate for equality. They always leave me thinking:
I was not even angry but just excited to talk about my passion. Even if I am angry because the world is not equal, why are you so offended as long as I am not treating you (or is it treating you? Are either the idea of equality or a woman standing up treating you and your norms?)
Then I remembered the work of Liz Plan, an author and a journalist, “The transformative power of women’s anger”. And when I search more on why on earth women’s anger is so offending, not much but I have found some sources and tried to gather them to understand the issue more.
Remember Selena Williams at US Open. After a loss, she raised her voice, jabbed her finger at the umpire demanding an apology with the most mature language a one can speak with while angry and/or disappointed. Sounds about all right and even way too mature for a person who is disappointed and/or angry considering other examples. But somehow it got backlashed. “She absolutely melted down.” one journalist says. WHAT MELT DOWN? (Later Serena Williams’ claims of sexism in the US Open final have been backed by the governing body of women’s tennis.) Meanwhile some male tennis players’ anger has been perceived so passionate that they had been the theme of some advertisements.
Angry black man is viewed as a criminal; angry white has a civic virtue. Anger has a racial dynamic for sure. However, regardless of where we are, the anger is gendered, says Soraya Chemaly in her extremely resourceful TED talk. “Culture after culture, anger is reserved as a moral property to boys & men.” Dr. Britney Cooper, an author and associate professor at Rutgers University also points out how people react differently depending who the anger is coming from. When a white man gets angry, that is passionate, something we should reckon with and listen to. When a woman gets angry, she is historical, crazy, being emotional and not having a good grasp of reality. And when we add a racial piece to that, Dr. Cooper adds, that is amplified even more. Black women are seen as angry from the moment they walk into a room. Even if only because they are simply not smiling.
“People are more likely to get angry at women for being angry, whether we are at home, school, work or political arena. Anger confirms masculinity, and it confounds femininity. So, men are rewarded for displaying it and women are penalized for doing the same.” Soraya Chemaly
But why it is so offending when a woman gets angry? Is it because women’s anger is powerful? If it is so, why? Why we are discouraged taking women’s anger, marginalized, vulnerable people’s anger seriously and even teaching them to abstain from it? An author Rebecca Traister points out that all movements started with angry woman at their start and their anger have been propellant in so many social moves: Labor movement, civil rights movement, gay rights movement and so on. “It is like animal recognition”, she adds, “how powerful centuriated & marginalized people’s race can be at the situation of inequality & injustice.”
I was still thinking, but why is that. However, when we go back to gender stereotypes theory, no wonder why it is like that. Historically women are expected to show communal attributes such as caring, sensitive, honest, understanding, emphatic, while men are expected to show agentic attributes such as passionate, doer, aggressive, competitive. So, there is in fact no surprise, when a women or marginalized people get angry, which is an agentic attribute, it got backlashed because it is against society’s expectations. We women are taught to be emphatic and understanding no matter what, in our romantic, personal, work, every kind of relationships. We teach girls to abstain from anger, endure their feelings in silence. I don’t see many girls punching toys to express their anger like boys are allowed to do. Which ends up so many women carrying the emotional labor for all. Which is maybe one of the reasons why we have way more women burning out than men.
WHAT IF;
What if we simply just start listening and approach everyone’s anger with the same curiosity because everyone’s anger is pointing our what’s broken.
What if instead of telling girls to abstain from anger, abstain from the emotion that best protects us from injustice, instead we develop emotional competence for all, for both boys & girls.
BBC News HARDtalk. (2019) Jameela Jamil: Actor & activist [video] https://www.facebook.com/
Chemaly, S. (2018). The power of women’s anger [TED talk] Retrieved from: https://www.ted.com/
Iweigh. Retrieved from: https://www.instagram.com/i_weigh/
Plank, L. (2018). E11 The transformative power of women’s anger [video] Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com
Traister, R. (2018) Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger. Simon & Schuste
#gender #womensanger | https://medium.com/@dustunyagiz/angry-women-will-change-the-world-22eaacfa86ce | ['Dilan Ustunyagiz'] | 2020-01-14 21:15:25.897000+00:00 | ['Gender', 'Feminism', 'Gender Equality', 'Anger', 'Equal Rights'] |
Caeneus | Caeneus
Caeneus (in the middle) fighting the Centaurs during the Centauromachy — the mythical battle between the Human race and the Centaurs (image source: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Caeneus#/media/File:Bauer_-_Caeneus_Centaurs.jpg).
When it comes to ancient Greek heroes, we all know and love Achilles, Jason, Theseus, and of course the mythological equivalent of Superman, the man, the myth, the legend, Hercules. However, there were many other heroes in Greek mythology, whose names are forgotten and whose deeds are long lost in the sands of time. Today we will explore one of these unknown figures, who holds the title of the first-ever trans hero to be depicted in mythology. This is the epic story of Caeneus, his adventures, and his tragic death.
Trapped in a Girl’s Body
One time long ago, when pegasi roamed the skies, and the Gods ruled their subjects from the snow-covered peaks of Olympus, there was a beautiful young Nymph, named Caenis (“Καινίδα” in ancient Greek). She was the only daughter of Elatos, a forest spirit, and Hippea.
Since she was a little child Caenis was different from the other Nymphs. While the rest of them loved singing among the trees, wandering through the forests, and playing with the animals, or grooming their hair with all sorts of flowers, oils, and aromas, Caenis’ soul craved something different. She wanted to hunt, fight, and live the life of a man. Moreover, she wished to be a man and often thought that she was “trapped” in a foreign body, one entirely different from the desires of her soul. Alas, nothing could be done to transform her body. She was doomed to live the rest of her years as a woman, a perspective that she thought was extremely boring and unsuiting for her. Unfortunately, life was about to get much worse…
The rape of Caenis (image source: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Rape_of_Caeneus#/media/File:Neptune_and_Caenis_MET_DP864221.jpg).
One fateful day the young maiden was spotted by Poseidon, the mighty God of the Sea, who happened to take a walk at a beach. He immediately fell in love with her. Using all his charm, he presented himself — divine and powerful — and declared his love. Caenis was not impressed. She repeatedly turned down the fishy Romeo. No matter how hard Poseidon tried, promising her gifts, palaces, and fame, she would not give in to his desires.
At this point the myth divides itself into two different versions: The “bad version” says that Poseidon, enraged by Caenis’ rejection, rapes the young Nymph, while the poor girl is screaming in agony and pain. After he pleases his sexual desires, he realizes that Caenis remains utterly disgusted with him. To fix the awkward situation between them, he decides to grant her a wish, some sort of a “sorry I rapped you” gift. So, he swears by the Gods of Olympus that he shall grant her whatever she desires the most.
In the “good version” Caenis manages to trick the god. She pretends to give up and states that if Poseidon grants her a specific present, she will finally surrender to his open arms. Poseidon, who at the moment has more blood running to his lower head than his upper, does not think through this twice and swears that he shall give the beautiful Nymph, whatever she wishes.
In both versions, Caenis asks what her heart desires the most: to change her gender and become a man. Poseidon is enraged by this wish and realizes that he has been tricked. But he is a god and cannot take back his oath. He grants Caenis her wish and transforms her into a man. Caenis the Nymph is officialy dead, and Caeneus the Warrior is born.
Caeneus the Centaur Slayer
Having a new body and gender Caeneus has every reason to be happy. But the best part is still to come. Caenis knew that Poseidon would not take kindly the fact that he had been tricked by a lesser Nymph. As soon as the transformation ended, he would surely kill the young man in a matter of seconds. For that reason, she added one tiny, little detail to the whole new gender thing. She also wished for her new body to be invulnerable to every weapon made by Gods, Monsters, and Men. In that way, Poseidon would be unable to hurt her ever again. The god fulfilled her wish and granted her unpenetrable skin. But as soon as Poseidon mumbled the last words of the spell that transformed Caenis, a devious smile appeared on his face. For Fate has always a plan to punish the ones who dare to distort the harmony of the Cosmos and trick the Gods…
Caeneus, eager to start his new life as a man, moved to Thessaly, to the land of the famous Lapiths. He quickly impressed them with his unnatural strength, bravery, and of course his unpenetrable skin, which made every weapon on earth smash into pieces. He soon became one of the finest warriors in Greece — a true master of the art of war. He hunted down terrible beasts, joined the Argonauts on their famous journey, and defended his new home against numerous invasions. The Lapiths, admiring both his war skills and his incredible leadership abilities, decided to make him prince. He also finally found the love that he desired with his new body. He married a woman and together had one son, named Coronus. According to another version, however (and in a surprising twist), Caeneus marries a man and he delivers the baby Coronus, which indicates that his male body had also female genitals!
Caeneus is finally living his best life. He has found a new home, where is accepted for what he is. He found love and started a family. He has all that he wished and even more! But soon clouds began to darken the horizon…
One day, while the Lapiths and their king, Perithus, were busy celebrating their king’s marriage, there was a report that strange beings came into the court and demanded an audition with the king. These beings were the savage Centaurs who dwelled in mount Pelio. These half-human and half-horse creatures were known murderers, rapers, and thieves, who enjoyed nothing more than spreading pain and disaster wherever they roamed. Surprisingly, their visit did not indicate any mean intention. The Centaurs had heard that Perithus was getting married and invited themselves to his marriage. The king was not keen on his sudden guests, but at this point rejecting them might cause far more troubles than allowing them to attend the wedding. So he accepted their visit, but at the same time ordered his most trusted warrior, Caeneus, to watch them closely.
The marriage was taken place under the slopes of Pelion and a large feast was soon followed, where both Men and Centaurs joint the same tables to celebrate. Soon the savage nature of the Centaurs started to appear. They drank large proportions of wine, cup after cup. They became drunk and started to offend both the guests and the married couple. Suddenly the leader of the Centaurs, being completely drunk, tried to kidnap the king’s wife. The young woman screamed terrified as the creature, being full of lust, grabbed her and started galloping away. But after taking just a few steps, Caeneus appeared and with the strength of five men managed to immobilize the beast. Enraged by the Centaur’s act, the Lapiths cut off his nose and ears. Seeing their leader humiliated, the rest Centaurs drew their weapons and in a matter of seconds, the marrying feast was turned into a blood bath. The Lapiths emerged victorious and drove the beasts away largely thanks to Caeneus, who single-handily slaughtered five of them!
The Death of a Warrior
The remaining Centaurs run back to mountain Pelion, where they started gathering their forces to revenge the Lapiths. But no matter how great their numbers were, they dared not to cross the Lapiths’ land, for they feared Caeneus’ wrath far too much.
After the feast, the young hero hunted down the remaining Centaurs and killed without mercy any creature, unlucky enough to stand in his path. He became a legend among his people, the “Bane of the Centaurs”. Seeing his unparallel war skills, and immense strength, many started worshiping him as a God. Caeneus himself did nothing to stop these acts. On the contrary, he fully embraced them! In an act of egoism and arrogance, he placed his spear — the weapon which had slaughtered many beasts, barbarians, and of course Centaurs — in the palace and asked his people to worship it as a holy relic.
This was a fatal mistake…
Deep in the abyss, Poseidon, Caeneus’ nemesis, watched with great interest what was happening over Thessaly. His hate towards the Nymph who fooled him had only grown larger within the years. He was unable to kill the hero. But he could do something far worse to him… And now, after Caeneus’ act of hubris, he had finally the reason to deliver some good, ol’ divine punishment.
On one dark night, Poseidon appeared on mountain Pelio, in front of the surprised Centaurs. He urged them to attack the Lapiths and not fear Caeneus. When the time was right he would reveal them how to bring down the champion of Thessaly.
The Centaurs obeyed the god and prepared for battle. Thousands of them plundered the plain of Thessaly, burning villages, raping, and killing. The Lapiths gathered their army and set out to meet them in one decisive battle. One morning the beasty hordes finally met the armies of Men and a terrible fight broke out. Caeneus was fighting in the front ranks, his spear — made of fir that his father had gifted to him — was bathed in Centaur blood. In the midst of battle, a group of Centaurs, guided by Poseidon himself, managed to spot the hero and isolate him from his men. Then they put the God’s plan into action. They brought with them large clubs, made from branches and tree trunks and started clubbing the hero without mercy. Of course, due to his super-skin, Caeneus was unable to die. But he felt the terrible pain from the beating. He raised his shield to defend himself. Within seconds the monstrous swings of the clubs broke it into pieces. Unable to protect from the multiple strikes, Caeneus raised his hands. It was then that he realized what was happening:
The Centaurs were hammering him to the ground!
Strike after strike Caeneus was sinking deeper into the mud. He was unable to move, he cried for help, but no one heard him… Helpless, unable to protect himself, unable to resist, he was buried alive and left his last breath, choking in the dirt… The hero of Thessaly, the “Bane of the Centaurs” was dead and Poseidon had his revenge…
The death of Caeneus (image source: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Caeneus?uselang=it#/media/File:Piero_di_cosimo,_lotta_tra_lapiti_e_centauri,_1500-15_ca._18.jpg).
Who was Caeneus? A modern analysis
Caeneus is one of Greek mythology’s most interesting and unique heroes. His incredible life and tragic death have seen many different variations, which of course I am not able to present here. First of all, we have his unique sexual orientation, a human being who is not straight, neither gay, nor bisexual, but instead is transgender, a woman who became man, not because she wanted to live a man’s life, but because she thought of herself as a man in a woman’s body. What’s even more interesting is that after his transformation (which of course was divine since gender surgery was not a thing) no one questions his choice, neither his worth as a warrior and a man. The Lapiths not only embraced Caeneus as their companion, but they awarded him for his worth by making him a prince or king according to other adaptations of the myth. Caeneus also found a love interest and had a son, as I have already stated.
It is quite interesting to see how people of the past viewed modern-day taboos. Caeneus was a highly respected hero in ancient Greece. In Homer’s “Iliad”, king Nestor states that he knew Caeneus in his youth and that he was one of the most worthy men he knew, far greater than Agamemnon or even Achilles! No one in the ancient texts, questions the choice of Caenis, or if she was worthy as a man. No one seems to view her transformation as wrong, blasphemous, or weird. It is worth noting that even the story’s main antagonist, Poseidon, hates Caeneus because he managed to trick him, not because of the nature of his wish. When he finally punishes him, he does that because he has surpassed the natural order of the Cosmos and wants to be worshiped as a god. His punishment is due to his hubris, not his gender choice.
Regarding the worship of Caeneus, it is possible that is based on real historical elements. Modern historians believe that Caeneus was either a Mycenean hero, around whom a cult was formed, or a much older, native deity — probably a god of war — which had some association with the forests and nature and was later overshadowed by the more prominent Olympian gods. This might also explain his punishment for wanting to be worshipped together with the Olympians.
In the end, Caeneus’ story teaches us to always be proud of who we are and about our life choices. To always follow our dreams and never let anyone stop us from fulfilling our desires. Oh, and never try to fool Poseidon…
Bibliography
Greek Legends and Myths.com, Caeneus in Greek Mythology, available at https://www.greeklegendsandmyths.com/caeneus.html, (last access: 03/09/2021)
Greek Language.gr, (2012), Caeneus, available at https://www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/mythology/lexicon/metamorfoseis/page_115.html, (last access: 03/09/2021)
Ovid, Humphries., R., (1983), Ovid Metamorphoses, Indiana University Press, USA | https://medium.com/exploring-history/caeneus-257f0f1adf0c | ['Nick Iakovidis'] | 2021-09-03 19:12:37.355000+00:00 | ['Ancient History', 'Greek Mythology', 'Ancient Greece', 'History', 'Mythology'] |
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How to install & Crack Infinity Box Best Suite [Driver/Loader] | https://medium.com/@hajishakir294/infinity-box-dongle-2-15-crack-30f839e4d092 | [] | 2021-01-07 16:29:07.499000+00:00 | ['Love', 'Police', 'Flowers', 'History', 'Infinity Box Dongle Crack'] |
12 Minute Affiliate Sleep-sales Technology | Here you can see all about the 12-minute affiliate program sleep-sales technology.
Breakthrough Software Uses Proprietary “Sleep-Sales Technology” To Generate Sales While You’re Tucked Comfortably In Bed. No Experience — No Technical Skills — No Hosting — & No Product Creation Required.
They make it sound so simple on their sales page…
12 Minute Affiliate may be a Done-For-You (DFY) Affiliate Marketing system created by internet marketer Devon Brown.
Being a done-for-you system, all the diligence is supposedly done by the 12 Minute Affiliate team.
So, once you purchase this product, all you actually got to do is about it up and await your affiliate commissions to return.
a minimum of that’s how it’s being marketed. it is a claim that jogs my memory of get-rich-quick schemes like Club Cash Fund.
Right now, their system is promoting ClickBank products. ClickBank may be a reputable marketplace for ebooks, courses, and lots of other programs… some good and a few not so good. But ClickBank itself is 100% legit.
Another promise made by their sales page (and its creator) is that this is often a newbie-friendly program. It works for beginners and struggling internet marketers alike.
You can see it within the name of their program: 12 Minute Affiliate. They’re giving us the impression it’ll only take 12 minutes to line up, and… 12 minutes of labor a day are often enough. All this simplicity and you’ll get the much-coveted “passive income while you sleep” thing.
I know it sounds too good to be true… so stick with me (and we’ll get to the rock bottom of this).
Who is Devon Brown?
Devon Brown or @TheDevonBrown (the name he uses in a number of his social media accounts) is that the creator of 12 Minute Affiliate.
He’s also tons of other things — an online Entrepreneur, Blogger, Success Coach, Speaker, Emcee, and Hip-Hop dancer (just to call a few). I found those descriptions on his social media profile while checking to ascertain if he was a true person.
Needless to mention, Devon Brown is actually a true person. He features a legit social media presence with thousands of followers on Facebook, Instagram, etc. He’s also a charismatic speaker and entrepreneur — this is often an honest sign.
Steps to Using the 12 Minute Affiliate Program
Bonus:
77 Copywriting Secrets Official Guide — Click here to read
6 Best Tips To Boost Your Confidence — click here to read
20 Best Hobbies For Men That Can Only Improve Your Life — click here to read | https://medium.com/@lifestyletipbyme/12-minute-affiliate-sleep-sales-technology-c1725e05f89d | ['Lifestyle Tip Me'] | 2020-12-20 17:27:31.056000+00:00 | ['Affiliate Platform', 'Affiliate Marketing', '12minuteaffiliatesystem', 'Affiliate Marketing Tips', 'Affiliate Programs'] |
Tokyo reports 736 new coronavirus cases; nationwide tally 2,983 | TOKY
The Tokyo metropolitan government on Saturday reported 736 new cases of the coronavirus, up 72 from Friday. The number is the result of 8,727 tests conducted on Dec 16.
The tally brought Tokyo’s cumulative total to 50,890 and the fourth day in a row that infections have topped 600.
By age group, the highest number of cases were people in their 20s (207), followed by 136 in their 30s, 111 in their 40s, 97 in their 50s and 54 in their 60s.
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https://www.mcvvftrentino.it/sites/default/files/webform/moto%20club/Videos-mx-fight-vivo17.pdf
https://www.mcvvftrentino.it/sites/default/files/webform/moto%20club/Videos-mx-fight-vivo16.pdf
https://www.mcvvftrentino.it/sites/default/files/webform/moto%20club/Videos-mx-fight-vivo14.pdf
https://www.mcvvftrentino.it/sites/default/files/webform/moto%20club/Videos-mx-fight-vivo11.pdf
https://www.mcvvftrentino.it/sites/default/files/webform/moto%20club/Videos-fr-awards7.pdf
https://www.mcvvftrentino.it/sites/default/files/webform/moto%20club/Videos-fr-awards5.pdf
https://www.mcvvftrentino.it/sites/default/files/webform/moto%20club/Videos-fr-awards4.pdf
https://www.mcvvftrentino.it/sites/default/files/webform/moto%20club/Endirecto.pdf
https://www.mcvvftrentino.it/sites/default/files/webform/moto%20club/EnDirect.pdf
https://wisem.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/webform/Videos-mx-fight-vivo9.pdf
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/video-Miss-v-France-fr-direct33.html
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/video-Miss-v-France-fr-direct31.html
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/video-Miss-v-France-fr-direct30.html
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/video-jp-ekdin6.html
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/video-jp-ekdin5.html
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/video-jp-ekdin4.html
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/Videos-fr-awards3.pdf
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/Videos-fr-awards2.pdf
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/video-jp-ekdin1.html
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/canelo-vs-smith-cuando-es-vivo12.html
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/canelo-vs-smith-cuando-es-05.html
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/canelo-vs-smith-cuando-es-vivo-5.html
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/canelo-vs-smith-cuando-es-vivo7.html
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/canelo-vs-smith-cuando-es-vivo-4.html
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/canelo-vs-smith-cuando-es-vivo10.html
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/Videos-jp-marathan6.pdf
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/Videos-jp-marathan5.pdf
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/Videos-jp-marathan3.pdf
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/Videos-jp-marathan2.pdf
https://www.construct.ee/sites/default/files/webform/quote_request/_sid_/Videos-jp-marathan1.pdf
The number of infected people hospitalized with severe symptoms in Tokyo is 62, four down from Friday, health officials said.
Nationwide, the number of reported cases was 2,983. After Tokyo, the prefectures with the most cases were Kanagawa (315), Osaka (309), Aichi (230), Saitama (226), Fukuoka (134), Hokkaido (132), Chiba (128), Kyoto (81), Hiroshima (79), Okayama (60), Miyagi (47), Gifu (36), Gunma (30) and Shizuoka (30). | https://medium.com/@oliviarottshgs/tokyo-reports-736-new-coronavirus-cases-nationwide-tally-2-983-c1a702a1a0a9 | [] | 2020-12-19 19:14:02.636000+00:00 | ['Innocence Reaches', 'Arrivesomewheresolo', 'Training', 'News'] |
Do you know what this logo is? | Do you know what this logo is?
This is the first post in a series where I am sharing a walking tour I used to do about the British Empire. This is stop 1 of 8. You can read why I accidentally started doing them here ).
I would start my walking tour of the British Empire at Bank Station. I’d often show people this logo. Very few people can identify it. Do you know what it is?
I try very hard to give people clues. I mention that we are at Bank Station. And that Bank Station is named after a Bank. That we are standing outside of the Bank it is named after.
Can you name this building? (It’s the Bank of England)
Most people aren’t able to identify it. They usually get that it is a bank, but very few people get that it is the Bank of England.
You might think that, given the Bank of England controls the money in everyone’s wallet, people might know more about them. Nope.
Here is a picture of me outside the Bank of England Museum. Sorry it’s not more exciting. You can see the logo hopefully.
Most people can identify that the lady in the logo is Britannia. She is the symbol of the British Empire. But most people don’t associate her at all with banking — but they should — because banking and Britannia went hand in hand. This logo is a pretty clear example of that. It was designed when the Bank of England was founded, in 1694, and hasn’t been changed since.
Here is Britannia on another coin, note the ships in the background.
You will see Britannia in the same pose on many of our coins, but often with ships in the background. On the Bank of England logo she just has a stack of cash. This is important. Because the Bank of England raised money to lend to the King. The King spent that on building up the British navy. This first logo shows the pile of cash sowed the seeds to so many of our future wars.
It is well known that when the Bank of England was founded so too was our national debt. But few people point out what that debt was spent on. Warships. Britain was one of the first nations to figure out how to use debt to raise money for war. In many ways the Bank of England set the course of our history.
The Bank of England moved to a building on this site on Threadneedle Street in 1734. It began it’s life in a much smaller pad. It started off using the office space of the Mercers Company. The Mercers are one of the very very very old trading organisations of the City of London (they are old. very old). Many important organisations used their office, not just the Bank of England, but also the East India Company (more on them later). Perhaps this is an early example of hot desking and coworking.
Another picture of the Bank of England. You probably got the general idea.
It’s important that it was the Bank of England that raised finance for war. We always think that government is the one that has funded all our wars. But the Bank of England, then a private institution, came before parliament worked in any way like it does today. Decisions about wars were much more to do with the whims of the king. This was a time when wars were much more explicitly about getting access to trade and resources. Over time more of the conflicts of the empire began to be sold to the public to be about morality although when you look closer you see much of the same thing.
I’ve started this tour here because I’d like you to consider the link between war and the economy that most people fail, ever, to see. Most of us are able to ignore this relationship because the guns that they finance are not very often pointed at us.
The Bank of England wasn’t the only bank involved in war financing, or in funding violence. Britain was at the centre of the arms trade, has been for centuries, and still is today. Priya Satia goes into this in her book ‘Empire of Guns’. One of the things she points out is that despite our success in getting our guns into the hands of people all round the world, we’ve managed to outlaw their sale over here. So the violence unleashed by this industry stays far away, we can stay unaware of it.
There she is.
Britannia is going to come up quite a few times on the tour, so we’ll meet her again. She has also been on many coins since the Bank of England was founded, most recently on the 50p. Here is she is with a lion, that native species of Britain, that has also become one of our national symbols.
Is this too many coins now? Sorry. Here is a Roman coin. I’ve got loads more I’d like to show you.
In fact she was even on Roman coins, but that’s another story, we’ve already got a lot to cover. Let’s cross over the road to the Royal Exchange - I’ll see you there.
(I mean, I won’t, but you can read my next post here). | https://medium.com/@susesteed/do-you-know-what-this-logo-is-1bdc49dd1611 | ['Suse Steed'] | 2020-10-19 10:56:45.322000+00:00 | ['British Empire', 'Economics', 'History', 'Banking', 'Guns'] |
Why Is AMPLIFY Based On Ethereum Smart Contracts? | In today’s post we will explain our reasoning behind our choice of the Ethereum platform for the project’s needs!
The first point is the prevalence of ETH. We realize that ETH has very high adoption and popularity all over the world (after all, it is the second most popular cryptocurrency after Bitcoin). Using ETH will be more financially viable for our users since creating an ETH transaction gas cost is minimal, while the imminent launch of Ethereum 2.0 will make transactions even faster and cheaper.
Besides, it is Ethereum that is the most popular blockchain among developers: every day, dozens of new solutions and tools pop up on the network, helping projects become more technologically equipped.
Thanks to the popularity of this blockchain, we will have an easier time finding both engineers as well as various development frameworks on Ethereum. | https://medium.com/ampt-defi/why-is-amplify-based-on-ethereum-smart-contracts-bd1abc16260e | [] | 2020-12-18 09:39:29.644000+00:00 | ['Defi', 'Ethereum', 'Smart Contracts', 'Ampt Defi'] |
Tired of being told about COVID-19 Direction Changes Every 2nd Day? | Number of Deaths
The effect shown for Confirmed Cases is also valid for the Deaths. We get the same advantage in applying the Rolling Average on that metric.
What causes the Weekly Pattern?
There might be different reasons for the (mostly weekly) patterns:
Fewer tests on Saturday and/or Sunday.
on Saturday and/or Sunday. Recording delays for tests performed during the weekend.
Even if the reason for the ‘seasonality’ is another one, smoothing the data by taking the 7-day averages makes the results much more stable.
Predictions
The existence of seasonal patterns in the data should also be incorporated in prediction models. Adjusting for the seasonality effect makes predictions more accurate and its credibility (or confidence) intervals narrower.
There are already a lot of very good forecasting models out there, e.g.
Estimating the number of infections and the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in 11 European countries, 2020-Mar-30, Imperial College.
This study examines the different interventions countries have taken: event banning, school closures, lockdown, etc., and its impact measured in terms of reduction in the Reproduction Number R0 (or Rt). Very interesting read!
Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash
Final Notes
The average person has no advantage in seeing the COVID-19 numbers changing its direction every few days. It rather creates additional unnecessary panic and uncertainty.
After all, these quick shifts in direction have nothing to do with successfully implemented interventions (like “stay-at-home”) but are often an artifact of weekends. Therefore — again: | https://towardsdatascience.com/forget-daily-statistics-of-the-coronavirus-7e9bbb7349bd | ['Meinhard Ploner'] | 2020-04-24 18:09:17.152000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Statistics', 'Kpi', 'Improvement', 'Coronavirus'] |
CropBytes. Terms and fees for self withdrawal of… | Withdraw TRX from your CropBytes account | Terms
You can withdraw TRX from CropBytes to any wallet that supports ‘TRC20’.
To withdraw TRX from your CropBytes wallet follow the steps below :
Click on Funds in the top bar. Under TRX, Click on the Withdraw button. If you have already added a withdrawal address select it. If not, Add a withdraw address. (Read more — Adding your withdrawal wallet address to CropBytes) Enter the Amount & 2FA code and tap Withdraw.
How to add a beneficiary/withdrawal wallet address?
Click on Funds in the top bar. Under TRX, Click on the Withdraw button. Under Withdrawal address, click Add address. Enter the Destination Address, Beneficiary Name & Description. Enter the PIN sent to your registered email to confirm the address.
How to place a withdrawal request?
In the withdrawal screen click on the withdraw address. Enter the amount and 2FA code. Click withdraw.
Can I withdraw my entire portfolio value in TRX?
No, TRX equivalent to the value of rewards earned or any amount locked-in orders is not withdrawable.
Is there a Withdrawal fee and maximum withdrawal limit?
Yes, in order to process the withdrawals near-instantly we use Payment processors to whom the fee is paid:
Fees 💳
Withdrawal Fee: 25 TRX per transaction
Limits 🏧
Minimum withdrawal: 100 TRX per transaction
per transaction Maximum withdrawal: 25,000 TRX per transaction
per transaction Maximum withdrawable amount:
— 1 Day: 25,000 TRX
— 3 Days: 60,000 TRX
How much time does it take to transfer the funds? How do I verify my transaction?
The withdrawal amount will show up in the destination wallet after 30 block confirmations. Visit Tron Scan and enter your withdrawal wallet address.
Requirements ✅
Account verification is mandatory. Verify now
Two- factor Authentication is mandatory. Enable Now
Important notes 👨⚖️ | https://medium.com/cropbytes/withdrawal-terms-fee-9b63a8c7346d | ['Cropbytes Farmer'] | 2021-02-01 13:03:49.146000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Exchange', 'Crypto', 'Blockchain', 'Gaming'] |
四種產生 JavaScript 自訂物件的方法 | Freelancer and Web Instructor. Welcome to My Website: https://training.pada-x.com/
Follow | https://medium.com/appworks-school/%E5%9B%9B%E7%A8%AE%E7%94%A2%E7%94%9F-javascript-%E8%87%AA%E8%A8%82%E7%89%A9%E4%BB%B6%E7%9A%84%E6%96%B9%E6%B3%95-b4cb3be85f85 | ['Chao-Wei Peng'] | 2019-12-09 02:10:39.360000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Json', 'Object Oriented', 'Web Development'] |
Predict Tomorrow’s Bitcoin (BTC) Price with Recurrent Neural Networks | Wouldn’t it be awesome if you were, somehow, able to predict tomorrow’s Bitcoin (BTC) price? As you all know, the cryptocurrency market has experienced tremendous volatility over the last year. The value of Bitcoin reached its peak on December 16, 2017, by climbing to nearly $20,000, and then it has seen a steep decline at the beginning of 2018. Not long ago, though, a year ago, to be precise, its value was almost half of what it is today. Therefore, if we look at the yearly BTC price chart, we may easily see that the price is still high. The fact that only two years ago, BTC’s value was only the one-tenth of its current value is even more shocking. You may personally explore the historical BTC prices using this plot below:
Historical Bitcoin (BTC) Prices by CoinDesk
There are several conspiracies regarding the precise reasons behind this volatility, and these theories are also used to support the prediction reasoning of crypto prices, particularly of BTC. These subjective arguments are valuable to predict the future of cryptocurrencies. On the other hand, our methodology evaluates historical data to predict the cryptocurrency prices from an algorithmic trading perspective. We plan to use numerical historical data to train a recurrent neural network (RNN) to predict BTC prices.
Obtaining the Historical Bitcoin Prices
There are quite a few resources we may use to obtain historical Bitcoin price data. While some of these resources allow the users to download CSV files manually, others provide an API that one can hook up to his code. Since when we train a model using time series data, we would like it to make up-to-date predictions, I prefer to use an API to obtain the latest figures whenever we run our program. After a quick search, I have decided to use CoinRanking.com’s API, which provides up-to-date coin prices that we can use in any platform.
Recurrent Neural Networks
Since we are using a time series dataset, it is not viable to use a feedforward neural network as tomorrow’s BTC price is most correlated with today’s, not a month ago’s.
A recurrent neural network (RNN) is a class of artificial neural network where connections between nodes form a directed graph along a sequence. — Wikipedia
An RNN shows temporal dynamic behavior for a time sequence, and it can use its internal state to process sequences. In practice, this can be achieved with LSTMs and GRUs layers.
Here you can see the difference between a regular feedforward-only neural network and a recurrent neural network (RNN):
RNN vs. Regular Nets by Niklas Donges on TowardsDataScience
Our Roadmap
To be able to create a program that trains on the historical BTC prices and predict tomorrow’s BTC price, we need to complete several tasks as follows:
1 — Obtaining, Cleaning, and Normalizing the Historical BTC Prices
2 — Building an RNN with LSTM
3 — Training the RNN and Saving The Trained Model
4 — Predicting Tomorrow’s BTC Price and “Deserialize” It
BONUS: Deserializing the X_Test Predictions and Creating a Plot.ly Chart
Obtaining, Cleaning, and Normalizing the Historical BTC Prices
Obtaining the BTC Data
As I mentioned above, we will use CoinRanking.com’s API for the BTC dataset and convert it into a Pandas dataframe with the following code:
Obtaining the BTC Prices with CoinRanking API
This function is adjusted for 5-years BTC/USD prices by default. However, you may always change these values by passing in different parameter values.
Cleaning the Data with Custom Functions
After obtaining the data and converting it to a pandas dataframe, we may define custom functions to clean our data, normalize it for a neural network as it is a must for accurate results, and apply a custom train-test split. We created a custom train-test split function (not the scikit-learn’s) because we need to keep the time-series in order for training our RNN properly. We may achieve this with the following code, and you may find further function explanations in the code snippet below:
Defining custom functions for matrix creation, normalizing, and train-test split
After defining these functions, we may call them with the following code:
Calling the defined functions for data cleaning, preparation, and splitting
Building an RNN with LSTM
After preparing our data, it is time for building the model that we will later train by using the cleaned&normalized data. We will start by importing our Keras components and setting some parameters with the following code:
Setting the RNN Parameters in Advance
Then, we will create our Sequential model with two LSTM and two Dense layers with the following code:
Creating a Sequential Model and Filling it with LSTM and Dense Layers
Training the RNN and Saving The Trained Model
Now it is time to train our model with the cleaned data. You can also measure the time spent during the training. Follow these codes:
Training the RNN Model using the Prepared Data
Don’t forget to save it:
Saving the Trained Model
I am keen to save the model and load it later because it is quite satisfying to know that you can actually save a trained model and re-load to use it next time. This is basically the first step for web or mobile integrated machine learning applications.
Predicting Tomorrow’s BTC Price and “Deserialize” It
After we train the model, we need to obtain the current data for predictions, and since we normalize our data, predictions will also be normalized. Therefore, we need to de-normalize back to their original values. Firstly, we will obtain the data with a similar, partially different, manner with the following code:
Loading the last 30 days’ BTC Prices
We will only have the normalized data for prediction: No train-test split. We will also reshape the data manually to be able to use it in our saved model.
After cleaning and preparing our data, we will load the trained RNN model for prediction and predict tomorrow’s price.
Loading the Trained Model and Making the Prediction
However, our results will vary between -1 and 1, which will not make a lot of sense. Therefore, we need to de-normalize them back to their original values. We can achieve this with a custom function:
We need a deserializer for Original BTC Prediction Value in USD
After defining the custom function, we will call these function and extract tomorrow’s BTC prices with the following code:
Calling the deserializer and extracting the Price in USD
With the code above, you can actually get the model’s prediction for tomorrow’s BTC prices.
Deserializing the X_Test Predictions and Creating a Plot.ly Chart
You may also be interested in the overall result of the RNN model and prefer to see it as a chart. We can also achieve these by using our X_test data from the training part of the tutorial.
We will start by loading our model (consider this as an alternative to the single prediction case) and making the prediction on X_test data so that we can make predictions for a proper number of days for plotting with the following code:
Loading the Trained Model and Making Prediction Using the X_test Values
Next, we will import Plotly and set the properties for a good plotting experience. We will achieve this with the following code:
Importing Plotly and Setting the Parameters
After setting all the properties, we can finally plot our predictions and observation values with the following code:
Creating a Dataframe and Using it in Plotly’s iPlot
When you run this code, you will come up with the up-to-date version of the following plot:
Plot.ly Chart for BTC Price Predictions
How Reliable Are These Results?
As you can see, it does not look bad at all. However, you need to know that even though the patterns match pretty closely, the results are still dangerously apart from each other if you inspect the results on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, the code must be further developed to get better results.
Congratulations
You have successfully created and trained an RNN model that can predict BTC prices, and you even saved the trained model for later use. You may use this trained model on a web or mobile application by switching to Object-Oriented Programming. Pat yourself on the back for successfully developing a model relevant to artificial intelligence, blockchain, and finance. I think it sounds pretty cool to touch these areas all at once with this simple project.
Subscribe to the Mailing List for the Full Code
If you would like to have access to full code on Google Colab and have access to my latest content, consider subscribing to the mailing list: ✉️
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Enjoyed the Article
If you like this article, consider checking out my other similar articles: | https://towardsdatascience.com/using-recurrent-neural-networks-to-predict-bitcoin-btc-prices-c4ff70f9f3e4 | ['Orhan G. Yalçın'] | 2020-11-17 12:18:55.884000+00:00 | ['Recurrent Neural Network', 'Algorithmic Trading', 'Machine Learning', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Simple Linear Regression Using Python — An entry into Data Science World | Understanding Linear Regression is the first step towards mastering more intricate topics of Machine Learning. I have picked up a simple problem to help you understand how to write a linear regression algorithm using Python. From gathering data, to cleaning and plotting it, I have tried to explain each step in the simplest way possible. In this article, I have assumed that you already know the math behind linear regression, therefore, I have not explained the theory of regression instead just focussed on how to deal with the data.
Great! Let’s start.
The problem?
Imagine you are hired as a Data Scientist by a newly launched movie production house and your company has put a lot of money ($175,000,000) in a new movie. Being their first production, they are worried how the movie would perform at the box office. You take up the task at hand and try to predict its earnings. Now the performance of the movie depends on a lot of factors, some prominent ones being the cast in the movie, the director of the movie, genre, and movie budget. You pick the factor, movie budget and try to find if it has any sort of correlation with its earnings.
You start digging up the internet and find data of 50000+ movies which should help you to find some sort of relationship between the budget and movie earnings. Once you find the relationship, you can predict the earnings of your own movie.
Photo by @jakobowens1 on Unsplash.
Now that we have a problem at hand. Let’s use some Python to create our prediction model.
X = Budget
y = Revenue
Data downloaded from: https://www.kaggle.com/rounakbanik/the-movies-dataset?select=movies_metadata.csv
IDE Used: Jupyter
Importing required modules:
import pandas as pd
import sklearn.linear_model as sk
Importing my data:
df = pd.read_csv("movies_metadata.csv")
Viewing the first 2 rows of my dataset to understand the type of data present in the set.
Since there are 24 columns and they are not all visible on the screen, I would like to know which columns are present and then decide which one is relevant for my research. So I am going to use the below line of code to fetch the list of columns.
Now from this analysis I want to find out if I can predict the earnings through the budget so I am going to delete all the irrelevant columns and keep only the relevant ones.
I have deleted all irrelevant columns and kept only 3 columns in the dataset.
I did not delete status column just yet because I sense that there might be some statuses which could be irrelevant and might disrupt the result of my analysis, if not removed. Hence, I would, first, like to go through their types and find out which ones are relevant. I would use the below line of code to check the type of statuses.
For this research, I am only concerned with the movies that are released, hence I would be deleting all rows except those against Released.
In the above code, I have created a list of statuses which I want to remove from my dataframe. Once that list is created, I have passed it in isin method and dropped it using drop method and executed the block of code. Now let me check if I have only released statuses.
Awesome! Now let me drop this column as well and keep only two columns viz. Budget and Revenue.
Super. Now my dataset looks a little clean but is it? Let me check the datatypes of my two columns.
If you notice, the datatype of the budget column is object and this wouldn’t work in my regression analysis. I need to change that to float. This is little tricky as people would mostly use the below code to change it from datatype object to datatype float.
df['budget'].astype(str).astype(int)
But this would throw an error since there might be NaN values. Let me try a different trick to change it from datatype object to datatype float.
Convert_dtypes has changed the data to datatype string. Now I would change it to datatype float using the below code.
Wonderful. Now both the columns are datatype float and wouldn’t throw any error in the analysis. Next, I suspect that there would be a lot of junk values in budget and revenue columns. Let me check if there are any.
I want to find out if there are any rows where the value of budget is less than $10,000. A movie with a budget less than $10,000 is not really useful for my analysis, as it wouldn’t really help me in my prediction.
My fear proved to be true, there are more than 35000 movies with a budget less than $10,000. For the sake of this analysis, I will remove all such movies.
Noice! After removing movies which had their budget less than $10,000, my dataset now contains 8556 movies. Now let’s check the revenue column. For the sake of this research, I do not want any values where revenue is less than $1000.
I have repeated the same steps for revenue column and deleted 3253 movies from my dataset. My dataset now contains 5303 movies.
Finally, I will check for any null values in my dataset.
With the above line of code, I have checked for null values and it showed that my dataset indeed has some null values. I will remove all those rows where there are null values.
I have deleted all the rows which had even one null value. If you notice, my dataset earlier had 5303 rows and after removing null values the dataset contains 5300 rows which means there were 3 rows with null values.
Awesome! Now my data looks cleaned. Let me plot it and see how it looks.
I have used matplotlib module to plot the graph between Budget and Revenue. On the first view of this graph, I can see there is some sort of relationship between Budget and Revenue.
Finally, let’s write a regression algorithm to predict revenues against their budgets.
Great! Our Linear Regression model is trained by the training data and it is ready to predict values. Let us find the coefficient and intercept.
Super. Our regression line is:
y = 3.02206903*x + -3691165.1759039164
Let us draw this line on our data.
I have added the below line of code to draw the regression line.
plt.plot(df[['budget']],reg.predict(df[['budget']]),color="blue",linewidth=3)
We are doing great! Now it is time to predict how much revenue our movie will generate at the box office. Our company has put $175,000,000 into making this movie. Let us predict its earnings.
We could have also used the equation of line viz.
y = mx + c
m = 3.02206903
c = -3691165.1759039164
x = 175000000 y = 3.02206903*175000000 + (-3691165.1759039164)
y = 525170915
The predicted value of the revenue is $525,170,915. That’s quite a decent number given our first movie, right?
Let us also check the R-square value.
It is quite a good number given that we have used just one variable viz. budget and it explains almost 53% of the variations in the revenue generated by the movie. Of course, this model is extremely simple and we have just considered a single variable. There can be many variables that might affect the movie earnings but that is left for the next article. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/simple-linear-regression-using-python-an-entry-to-data-science-world-48dd260ad746 | [] | 2020-12-30 05:51:00.068000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Linear Regression', 'Python Programming', 'Data Science', 'Regression'] |
The Vikings were blown out in historic fashion against the Saints on Christmas Day. | Well, Christmas was ruined (if you let the Vikings do so, at least). Thanks to Kirk Cousins not being a god and scoring seven touchdowns while getting twenty tackles and two fumble recoveries on Alvin Kamara, the Minnesota Vikings were blown out to the New Orleans Saints 52–33.
No, I don’t actually blame Cousins. At this point, anyone that blames Cousins for the whole season doesn’t understand football. He was the only reason we were in the Saints game at all. He could have thrown for 500 yards and five touchdowns, and the Vikings would have still lost by three even if they had two successful two-point conversions.
The Vikings defense was historically horrible
We all know that the Vikings’ defense hasn’t been up to snuff this year. With rookies at the cornerback position, season-ending injuries to Danielle Hunter and Eric Kendricks, and a D-Line that’s been mediocre at best this season, it’s been a hard knock life for this team. For years was revered for its old-school smashmouth way of playing football via a decisive run game and an elite defense. But it’s apparent they’ve fallen off this season.
The game on Christmas Day was one for the record books. Saints running back Alvin Kamara scored a record-tying six rushing touchdowns on the Vikings. The last person to do this was Ernie Nevers in 1929. In other words, the Vikings let what is arguably their biggest rival outside of the NFC North tie a record that was set before the Great Depression.
Vikings franchise records also broken
The Vikings also didn’t just let the Saints tie a record. They set their own franchise records. It was such a lousy day that Mike “I have never had a bad defense” Zimmer had to admit that it was terrible. In his interview post-game, his exact words were that this year’s defense was “the worst one I’ve ever had.”
I don’t know if he’s blaming the players or himself. One can hope he’ll finally hold himself accountable instead of throwing players under the bus to save his ego.
Source: Purple FTW! Podcast (YouTube)
As shown above, not only did Kamara have a record day, but the Vikings put on a monumentally horrific performance. They let the Saints score 52 points, the most a Vikings defense had allowed since 1963 when the St. Louis Cardinals scored 56 on them. The Vikings joined the NFL in 1961.
To put the cherry on top of this Zimmer-run “defense,” the team allowed the Saints offense to gain 583 yards on them, the most allowed in team history. To compare, in the 43–34 loss against the Packers to start the season, the defense allowed 522 total yards.
The tackling effort from the defense was beyond poor
Don’t even get me started on the sorry excuse of effort on the defense tackling. All day, they sucked. Kamara had 155 yards on the ground, but 94 of those came after contact. Also, two people missed a tackle on tight end Jared Cook and let him get 44 yards.
I felt like the defense didn’t care anymore. There was no urgency to win the game on that side of the ball. Sure, the defense got two interceptions (from players getting their first start), but that’s because Brees had recently returned from breaking eleven ribs earlier in the season. He was not a hundred percent for this game.
Everything else on the defensive side of the ball was abysmal. The defensive line did nothing. The linebackers couldn’t tackle if their life (or their playoff chances) depended on it. The corners were once again getting beat (except for Harrison Hand, maybe), and the safeties…what safeties? Oh yeah, Anthony Harris, the one who struggled all game to tackle, too? Where did Harrison Smith go?
Conclusion
With this brutal blowout, the Vikings are out of playoff contention. And for the first time in his head coaching career for the Vikings, Mike Zimmer will record a losing season.
Who didn’t see this coming? Every other year, the team is mediocre and barely makes it to .500. Our “good years” are us either choking in the Wild Card or getting blown out in the second round. Just look at the NFC Championship game against the Eagles in the 2017 season and the 49ers game last year as examples of the latter.
This year was the off-year for us. But it’s looking to be a historically bad one. Hopefully, the Lions win against the Buccaneers, and we lose to them in our last game season. That way, we’ll be in last place in the division, and it will give the Wilfs no choice but to fire Zimmer. (I know, wishful thinking).
He’s been a good coach for us. But in a league that’s rapidly changing to a more offense-friendly league that favors quarterbacks that can run and pass at an elite level, he’s become a relic of a bygone era of football. His type of style could have been great in the ’90s.
But in today’s league, you must have an explosive, flashy offense, an athletic defense, and an excellent situational coach. Otherwise, you’ll have the Minnesota Vikings under Mike Zimmer: Good enough to make the playoffs every other year, but never good enough to win the Super Bowl. | https://medium.com/@mroyvh/the-vikings-were-blown-out-in-historic-fashion-against-the-saints-on-christmas-day-71a0efa3cbf0 | ['Michael Roy'] | 2020-12-26 20:11:57.806000+00:00 | ['NFL', 'Vikings Vs Saints', 'Minnesota Vikings', 'Football', 'Sports'] |
There Are No Stupid Questions In Startup | There Are No Stupid Questions In Startup
An entrepreneur is always learning. Teaching Startup is built on that premise.
It’s frustrating to me that a lot of potential entrepreneurs never get started because they think there’s too much science or too many secrets involved in starting a business.
As a 20-year entrepreneur and 10+ year advisor, I see this happen all the time. For every founder that is all head-over-heels about a crazy idea that may never work, there’s another potential founder who actually has a viable, executable, potentially game-changing idea that they don’t act on, because they think they’re not equipped to bring it to reality.
Maybe they’re not, but it kills me that they don’t even try. And nine times out of ten, it’s because they’re afraid of asking stupid questions.
Society conditions us to keep our mouth shut until we know what we’re talking about. And I can see where this makes sense. We live in an age marked by an unlimited number of platforms where anyone can spout off passionately about things they know next to nothing about.
But innovation doesn’t work like that. In fact, it thrives on the opposite. One of the quickest paths to entrepreneurship is when a person looks at something that’s been done the same way forever and starts asking why.
The person doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist.
They don’t have to have connections.
They don’t even need a background in the thing they’re questioning.
Teaching Startup is built on the premise that there are no stupid questions about becoming, being, or succeeding as an entrepreneur.
Over the last six months, we’ve answered questions as simple (and complex) as “How do I create a sales pitch deck?”
But remember too, entrepreneurship doesn’t have a linear learning path. In fact, yesterday’s issue featured a simple question about creating your first investor contact list — and I learned something from that answer. I already have investor contacts. Hell, some of them are probably reading this post right now. But I still took away something I can use.
You never stop learning to be a better entrepreneur. Any successful entrepreneur will tell you that because knowing that is what helped make them successful.
So yeah, if you’ve got stupid questions, you’re probably no different than any entrepreneur, from the newest founder to the one who’s exited a few times already.
Try Teaching Startup for free for 30 days and tell me if I’m right or wrong. It’s a premium advice newsletter and app with answers on demand for entrepreneurs at all stages. It’s affordable, at just $10 a month, and if you use invite code ASK you can get half off your first month after your free trial. | https://jproco.medium.com/there-are-no-stupid-questions-in-startup-c200bc18d904 | ['Joe Procopio'] | 2020-12-03 12:45:48.093000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Business', 'Education'] |
Ponder Token Strategy — Part II. Following the previous medium post… | Following the previous medium post detailing the pivot from dating referrals to business referrals, we’ve now decided on our token strategy. Just as a reminder, here were the previous decisions we made:
It doesn’t make sense to have a native token purely for payment purposes. The velocity is too high and any token will decrease over the long term in value For distribution of payments we will use a stablecoin, since this will create a better customer experience. We’ve decided to use the Hashgraph as our DLT of choice since it is the only platform that we believe scales effectively without running into issues of transaction speed and cost We punted down the road whether we would ever have out own native token and whether we would continue and ever have a token sale.
We’ve now decided that we will eventually have own native token. However, it would be a work-based token, where good referrers — and people that add value to the community — are rewarded with our token. The token would create status on the network, enabling them to get more referral opportunities and thereby earn more money.
Given that the token structure is so different from the original token structure we had proposed, and that it won’t be launched for several months, we don’t think it’s wise to continue with the ongoing token sale. We will be unwinding that token sale over the coming weeks. While this will come as a disappointment to many, we think it is in the best interests of the long term success of the firm.
Once our new token is launched and has some traction, we may decide to do another token sale. However, we don’t want to commit to this just yet. Our central goal in all our decisions is about whether it will help our referral community or not. | https://medium.com/theponderapp/ponder-token-strategy-part-ii-fc63c8d14d4c | ['Manshu Agarwal'] | 2019-05-01 08:43:17.644000+00:00 | ['Hashgraph', 'Referral Marketing', 'Blockchain', 'Dapps'] |
Ace any data visualization project by asking yourself these 3 questions | Photo by Metis Designer on Unsplash
As a data analyst, a significant chunk of my time is used to visualize data sets for different stakeholders. Data visualizations can take many forms. They can be a simple Google Sheets charts, some visualizations on a Python notebook, or a complex Tableau dashboard. Here are three questions that I always ask myself before visualizing any data set.
Who is your target audience?
This is undoubtedly the most important question to ask yourself. Are the stakeholders technical or non-technical audiences? What is their familiarity level with the data that you are about to visualize? Are they your peers or Executive-level managers? Are you visualizing data for a diverse group of audience or a specific team? Knowing your target audience well before thinking of visualizing data helps you achieve half of the success.
I often note down my audience profile by answering all of the questions above. I have different visualization approaches tailored to each audience type. For example, if my audience is a non-technical one who asked me to do some exploratory analyses, I’ll think of some Google Sheets charts instead of a Tableau dashboard. Doing that way, I can easily share with them the data set too. They can adjust the graphs or charts based on their needs. For example, they may realize later that they are only interested in last month’s data instead of the initial ask of 6-month data.
If I know that I am about to present some visualizations to a big and diverse group, I will pay more attention to adding more explanation into the visualization. For example, “daily active users” or “retention rate” may sound trivial at first. However, those metrics can have very different definitions across businesses or industries. I would add a short caption under my graphs or charts to explain how I calculated those metrics.
What is the objective of this visualization?
After knowing about my audience, I often initiate a quick discussion with them to learn more about their expectations. Simply asking “what is your objective?” may work, but it is not always as easy as it seems. However, I still recommend being very straightforward by asking about their needs and expectations. Then, I ask probing questions to boil down into the most important requirement that I need to meet.
For example, the Customer Success team wants to know more about customer complaints and their team performance. During the initial conversation, I would verify if they need an ad-hoc analysis or a deep-dive dashboard. In the first case, a few Excel charts should be enough to tackle their burning questions. In the second case, I need to build a dashboard showing various metrics to help them have a comprehensive understanding of historical data, current performance, and future trends.
Suppose that they want to have a dashboard. Then, we together brainstorm a list of metrics that they want to see. During the brainstorming step, I share with my stakeholder that they shouldn’t worry about feasibility or priority. Let’s just think of as many metrics as possible. After that, we rank the metrics based on priorities. If we know exactly what should be at the top of the priority list, this task is easy. Otherwise, we assign the relative scores for each metric, then choose the top three or five ones. Once the priorities are figured out, we talk about feasibility. Some metrics are easily built, some aren’t, mostly because relevant data used to build those metrics are not available yet.
The process that I mentioned might take one or two 30-min meetings. The list of ranked metrics is kept in a shared Google Docs file, which is sharable and allows others to comment. Having a clear structure about how you understand their expectations and requirements helps you navigate the data visualizing process much easier.
What is the story behind the data?
If the data doesn’t stand out to you, maybe you need to spend some time to think a bit deeper. For example, you might be very proud of a stacked bar graph showing the number of customer complaints broken down by categories. The graph looks clear with all the necessary headers and titles. The color palette looks great. However, what insights do you find by looking at this graph? You may realize that one category might dominate others. In this case, sorting the fields in descending order is the most helpful action. The audience can easily spot that dominating category in a first-place when looking at your graph.
Some types of data visualization look like the best candidate in the beginning, but not until you think about the story behind the data. When you are working with time-series data, it is very tempting to think that a line graph is a no-brainer answer. However, do you think sometimes a bar graph is a better candidate? A bar graph not only helps you see the trend, but it helps you spot outliers much faster, thanks to the outstanding strength of those bars compared to others.
Let’s go back to the Customer Success dashboard example. Suppose you are visualizing the number of customer service tickets through time with the x-axis being periods and the y-axis being the number of tickets. A line graph emphasizes your focus on the overall trend. However, a bar graph may switch your attention to a few weeks in August when there was a spike in the number of tickets. After doing some research, you may find out that the root cause was a new product launch during those weeks. Since customers were not familiar with the new product, they asked a lot of questions, which increased the number of tickets. As a result, the team realized that they should add more instructions about the new product to reduce the number of tickets for it.
Conclusion
These three questions are my self-made checklist before I do any data visualization project. That helps me navigate the process very effectively, saves time for everyone, and makes my workflow much more structured. My suggestion to you is to create your checklist. Please feel free to add more steps to the process if you find they are helpful. I hope you feel more confident when delivering any data visualization. | https://towardsdatascience.com/3-questions-you-must-ask-yourself-before-visualizing-any-data-set-85df509c81fc | ['Bao Nguyen'] | 2020-10-19 14:15:48.509000+00:00 | ['Data Analyst', 'Design Thinking', 'Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization'] |
November Edition — Editors’ Top Picks | November Edition — Editors’ Top Picks
Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash
November was another fantastic month at Scrittura! We welcome more and more talented writers each day, it seems. I am ecstatic at the quality of poetry and prose you have all been submitting. Truly, this is a stellar place to come read on Medium!
It’s hard to believe it’s already time for another one of these showcases to brag a little longer about the talent here. But, such is the plague…I mean, c’est la vie! Each month it takes me a little longer to make my picks, so much good material to choose from. You all ought to be very proud.
At any rate, please enjoy our editors’ favourite selections for November of 2020.
Zay’s Picks:
Viraji’s Picks:
J.D.’s Picks:
The Scrittura Team
Lori Lamothe Georgia Lewitt Louis Dennis Lowell Woluchem Aspen Blue Mahnoor Chaudhry MDSHall Amy Jasek Mary Jones Barry Dawson IV Ian Cunnold Patrick M. Ohana Zay Pareltheon Eli Snow Viraji Ogodapola Ema Dumitru Kristen v.H. Middleton Hannah Dziura Janaka Stagnaro Joseph Lieungh Joseph Coco Samantha Lazar Paroma Sen Mimi Bordeaux Jasmine Abbi. Camille Fairbanks Kevin E. Pittack Jr. Sydney Duke Richey Sydney J. Shipp Josh Lonsdale Isaac Dennett Jay Sizemore Vera Hadzic Victoria Ponte Charlotte Allan Debbie Miller Carolyn Riker Samuel Clarke Dermott Hayes Dr. Jackie Greenwood Gurpreet Dhariwal Ray Lobo Rosy Rane Qalam Dana Sanford Suntonu Bhadra Wendell McQuary Suzanne V. Tanner Johanna Geary Jenny Justice Tre L. Loadholt Jenine Bsharah Baines Josie Elbiry AK (Aaska Aejaz) Johannes Mudi Ana-Maria Schweitzer Ann Marie Steele Kim Cullen Sarah E Sturgis Simran Kankas C.J. Obikile The Conscious Wordsmith Jessica Lee McMillan Ronald Mathew Gerardo Rene Paz Rhonda Marrone Aaron Quist Mohan Boone Angelina Der Arakelian Amanda Dalmas Daniel A. Teo | https://medium.com/scrittura/november-edition-editors-top-picks-b5e2314e57aa | ['J.D. Harms'] | 2021-01-06 05:11:10.244000+00:00 | ['November', 'Editors Pick', 'Scrittura'] |
TV Series on Netflix Better Than its Originals? | La Casa De Papel
The recent hoopla around La Casa De Papel aka Money Heist being the most addictive series of Netflix is a hype well earned.
Without giving any spoilers away, let's say, it’s as binge-worthy as it can get. It's the video form of a book — in which every chapter builds itself up to a nail-biting event — leaving you wanting more — a real page-turner.
However, what’s surprising about the show is that it is not a Netflix Original. It is, in fact, a Spanish television series, recut into two seasons — Season 1 and Season 2. (Season 3 is also out there, but I haven’t watched it yet).
When one looks at the kind of shows Netflix is making these days, one might wonder why is it that the shows Netflix acquires are better than its original ones?
When Netflix began making its originals, it had very high ambitions which it tried to deliver with shows like House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, etc. However, as time passed, there have been very bland shows (which became famous) or shows with the same theme popping up on Netflix everywhere.
Consider the series Black Mirror. The first two seasons of the show were the most thought-provoking series anyone had seen in recent times. It messed with your head and made you actually consider the things you did in your daily life. The episodes were raw, making you feel what the protagonists were feeling — pulling emotions out of you, which you didn’t know existed and hoped you’d never have to feel in reality.
The first few seasons of Black Mirror were not for everyone, that was for sure. Its episodes were too strong for people who preferred light-hearted comedy or for someone who watched television only to de-stress themselves. It had a cult audience — small but nevertheless loyal. They knew what they were in for — and probably looked ahead for it — to be questioned, to be mesmerized and to be haunted by the reality of the world.
And then Netflix took over the series, making it as polished as possible and a parody of itself.
The thing with Netflix is that it wants to cater to a larger audience, which becomes tough with series like Black Mirror. Hence it dumbs it down and drags it for ages. And when the viewership goes down, it’ll probably cancel it.
What Netflix has to understand is that there are people out there who are watching things for the way things are. Just like The OA requires a wildly imaginative audience, Money Heist which has been accepted for its highly intelligent plot requires it to be same and for the stakes to be higher than before.
I haven't watched the third season of Money Heist yet, as I have qualms about Netflix’s take on it. However, I hope it turns it out well. Cause I look forward to seeing more of the Professor and Nairobi. | https://medium.com/@divyarthinirajender/tv-series-on-netflix-better-than-its-originals-d4edfdb9b670 | ['Divyarthini Rajender'] | 2019-09-06 12:07:42.341000+00:00 | ['La Casa De Papel', 'Money Heist', 'Netflix', 'TV Series', 'TV Shows'] |
Businesses Embrace Digital Experimentation | Businesses Embrace Digital Experimentation
Data scientists crack the CoDE to algorithmic testing at annual MIT event
Digital experimentation is going corporate. Rapid market testing tools have been a key for data scientists and programmers for some time as they seek to more accurately target marketing campaigns and test apps in real time and at large scale. With AI techniques, the practice is accelerating.
The two-day, MIT IDE Conference on Digital Experimentation (CoDE) event, held virtually with more than 300 attendees on November 19–20, proves how popular these tools have become. Leaders from academia and industry discussed how they are rapidly deploying and iterating complex social and economic problems. Academic researchers still have a head start in this data analytics field, but businesses are jumping in as they see the value of better time-to-market and consumer-demand targeting techniques. Attendance at the event reflects the rapid growth since the first MIT IDE CoDE in 2014.
“The newly emerging capability to rapidly deploy and iterate micro-level, in-vivo, randomized experiments in complex social and economic settings at population scale, is one of the most significant innovations in modern social science,” said IDE Director, Sinan Aral, a conference organizer.
“As more social interactions, behaviors, decisions, opinions and transactions are digitized and mediated by online platforms, our ability to quickly answer nuanced causal questions about the role of social behavior in outcomes such as health, voting, political mobilization, consumer demand, information sharing, product rating, and opinion aggregation is becoming unprecedented,” he said. The conference is co-organized by IDE professors Dean Eckles, Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland, and John Horton.
This year, a practitioner’s panel included platform giants, Netflix, Airbnb, and Facebook explaining how they use massive digital experimentation in their ad tracking, app design testing, and analytics. Facebook and Netflix were conference sponsors along with Accenture.
Additionally, experiments are being used to determine everything from whether Americans can be nudged to exercise more, to the best digital strategies for political campaigns, and how to monitor remote learning habits.
Watch the panel on political campaigns here.
Presentations spanned theory and practice, design and analysis, and covered a variety of applications including new ways to measure GDP. Among the new work cited were studies on social networks, the success of matching markets, and how to overcome resource constraints. Presenters also discussed when algorithms are more accurate than humans at predications and interactions.
Aral sees randomized experiments as “the gold standard of causal inference and a cornerstone of effective policy.” But the scale and complexity of these experiments also create scientific and statistical challenges for design and inference, he noted.
Moreover, different disciplines are approaching causal inference in contrasting, complementary ways. That’s why CoDE includes research in various scientific disciplines including economics, computer science, and sociology, to lay the foundation for a multidisciplinary research community. | https://medium.com/mit-initiative-on-the-digital-economy/businesses-embrace-digital-experimentation-26e4d8d5c487 | ['Mit Ide'] | 2020-12-03 19:05:52.554000+00:00 | ['Algorithms', 'A B Testing', 'Social Science', 'Data Science', 'Digital Experimentation'] |
Something About the New Decade Scares Me | There’s something about the end of 2019 that’s hit me pretty hard. I’ve talked about it a little on here before.
There’s something about the fact that, not does my birth align with the decades (I was born at the end of 1990), but I graduated from high school in 2009.
The social media retrospective at the end of each year is always kind of brutal, but this time around — the retrospective for the whole decade — is even moreso. Not only is this a retrospective of the last 10 years, but of the 10 years since I’ve graduated from high school, the 10 years that I’ve spent in my 20s.
It’s like getting your first report card for adulthood. A chance for you to see how you fall in line with the rest of your peers. Where on the bell curve of being a normal adult do you fall?
Friends, I failed hard.
I failed at the college thing. I failed at the career thing. I failed at the living on my own as an independent person thing. I failed at keeping my old friends. I’ve failed at making friends my own age. I’ve failed at the making a living thing. I’ve failed at the escaping poverty thing. I’ve failed at the not turning into my parents thing. I’ve failed at the whole falling into love / pursuing adult relationships thing.
I did, however, write a novel this decade. A novel I was proud of. And it got some really good rejections, before I had to bury it back in the ground.
Does that count as a success?
Well, all that went down in 2016, and the angel and demon on my shoulder have spent the last four years arguing about whether or not it counts as something to be proud of. So fuck if I know.
I’m leaving the 2010s with a gigantic bag of blood pressure medicine, a good 150+ extra pounds, and growing depression fed by a solid decade of see, your parents were right about you! You shouldn’t have been so uppity. You’re just a failure after all, see?
I can’t argue with my depression, when the last 10 years of data prove every bad thing my depression has said about me right.
It makes me feel like a lunatic to even try. The small, little fire of optimism that I have doesn’t have a leg to stand on. I have proven it wrong, at every twist and turn.
Imagine that you’re a small country, and you’re trying to put a satellite into space.
But you only have enough resources for one rocket. And even that requires everything you have.
You spare no expense, no effort, no extra mile into trying to get that rocket off the ground. You honestly give it your best attempt.
And there are lots of experts and friends who are willing to offer their advice. Some of them even chip in. And all of it helps. You manage to pile up everything you have, and you pour it into the rocket.
All of your hopes for the future ride on this one rocket getting into space. Like, failure is not an option. Either this makes it, or you’re never getting into space. This whole thing is do or die.
You honestly pour everything into it. And, it’s time. You’ve prepared for this. You launch the rocket.
And, 30 seconds into launch, the rocket blows up.
Every hope, every dream that you had, for all that you could ever be, has just blasted out of the sky in a big, huge, fireball. Chunks of the future that you imagined are now raining into the ocean.
In this metaphor, I am the rocket. And, now, I am the wreckage. I tried to get into college. I tried to get away from my family, and into adulthood. I used every resource at my disposal. And my every resource wasn’t enough.
And, somehow, I have to try to put something together out of the wreckage that can be gathered.
You’ve still got to have optimism. Maybe I can still put something together out of all of this. Maybe something can be saved.
But it won’t go as far as it could have. It won’t be as grand. It won’t be as special. It will never be the thing it could have been.
Here’s to the 2020s. Trying to salvage something out of the wreck. | https://medium.com/still-hurting/something-about-the-new-decade-scares-me-416c2102ea7c | ['Zach J. Payne'] | 2020-01-01 19:20:39.536000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Motivation', 'Self'] |
SOBRIETY — A JOURNEY NOT A DESTINATION | When I first started attending AA meetings, I kept hearing the same slogans over and over:
“Keep coming…”
“It gets better..”
“Stay until the miracle happens..”
“One day at a time…”
Honestly I hated them.
(Authors note: Any and all statements in anything I write are my opinion based solely on my personal experiences and observations, they are not to be considered scientific facts. Just the ramblings of a wandering soul).
Early sobriety for me was a total paradox. You see, I wanted to get better. I wanted to stop the “wash — rinse — repeat cycle” of that my life had become. I could control my drinking. Abstain for a few days or even weeks, but I would always go back.
I could not take the pain anymore.
BUT-
A part of my broken soul enjoyed the pain and misery. For years the constant ache of my misery was like the pilot light of my existence. The irony is that pain I was trying to numb had also become a companion. It was my excuse for my bad behavior and questionable choices. When my drinking was less out of control, I believed that any time I drank to excess was justified. I had a rough day/week/month. I was having fun!
This was not irresponsible binge drinking like a Frat-Boy — I was an adult.
As a responsible adult, I was able to weave a whole tapestry of stories to justify what was clearly alcoholic behaviors.
Drink a shot of hard booze then have a beer would save money. Have a drink at home before going out, save even more money. Stay home and get pissed drunk by myself? Not drinking and driving!
The hangovers got worse. The health issues got worse. The isolation got worse. The anger got worse.
I was broken and I needed help.
The problem was, the people who could help knew me already. They didn’t know Dennis the new guy who had walked in personally. But they knew ME.
I was them at one time. They knew the fear, shame, disgust and sadness that lived inside of me.
They were happy. They smiled and laughed. They knew I would smile and laugh like them one day if I did what they told me to do. I was given books and phone numbers and hugs and handshakes.
I HATED IT.
But like Richard Gere’s character from “An Officer and a Gentleman” screaming at his Drill Instructor “I got nowhere else to go!!”.
Things got better quickly. Remarkably so.
I removed booze from my life and the chaos settled. I wasn’t planning trips to sneak some drinks. I wasn’t hoarding the change from buying coffee and lunch so I could have cash only transactions with no paper trail from a liquor store. I wasn’t lying about why I smelled like booze, or more likely smelled like mints, mouthwash or any other variety of tricks I relied on to camouflage my breath.
So it got better. Until it didn’t
Shit happens. Life happens. People, places and things will let you down and test your resolve.
You fall on your face, a lot.
There is a great line I heard in a meeting once:
“There is good news and bad news with getting sober. The good news is you get your feelings back. The bad news is you get your feelings back.”
So when I fell on my face, I had to feel the emotions. I had to deal with them in a way that was very different from the way I had coped before.
My first real challenge came with 92 days of sobriety under my belt.
After three months of sobriety, you are allowed to be a speaker at a meeting. I have never been afraid of public speaking but my alcoholism had never been the subject matter before. I went to a meeting with members of my home group and shared my story to hall filled with a hundred-plus people.
I was AWESOME.
People laughed, they got teary. I was approached by so many people commending me, thanking me and telling me I had done a great job. I was saving souls!
My ego swelled my head so large; I could barely leave the hall.
The next day, I was let go from my job.
While there were several factors that led to this dismissal, the reality is I had not been a top performer when in the grips of my disease and despite three months of sobriety the damage was done.
Things felt like they were slipping off the rails rapidly. I started to isolate. I was depressed. I spoke to my sponsor and I said all the right things to keep him off my back.
I was not ok.
Two days later was my weekly meeting. I was not going to attend. I told my wife I was taking a break and would go another time. She was unsympathetic and threatened to call my sponsor if I didn’t get my ass out the door and to the meeting.
I went, but I was not happy about it.
There is another expression in AA — There are no coincidences. Everything happens for a reason. The Universe, the Great Spirit, Karma, Synchronicity, Higher Power, God, the Force…. Something will make things happen that while random align with what needs to happen in your life at that moment.
On this night, the people that were supposed to come and speak at our meeting did not show up.
A friend was called up to speak and he was to select the next speaker when he was finished.
He chose me.
I proceeded to tell the room full of people that their slogans were bullshit.
It wasn’t getting better.
The was no miracle coming.
The things they were telling me were lies.
At that moment I didn’t know if I would drink again or not — but I sure as hell wasn’t buying into this program because life sucks and I’m trying really hard and it STILL sucks.
When I was done, and the meeting wrapped up. I was approached by my new friends with open arms and an unconditional love that is truly hard to explain.
Men and women, who just a few weeks before had never laid eyes on me offered their assistance and support. They told me that my feelings were valid but that I was going to be ok. That no matter how bad it got, I had to remember that drinking was not going to solve any of the problems and most likely make them worse.
My phone number was entered and saved into peoples contact lists and the next day I was inundated with texts and calls to check on me, reminding me that I’d be ok and to tell me they loved me.
These people do not know me. They do not know my last name. They do not know where I live. They do not know my wife, kids…. NOTHING.
What they do know is that if I drink again, I am probably unemployable. I am going to be kicked out of my house and good luck being allowed to see my kids.
From that day
It got better.
The miracle happened.
And I continue to take it one day at a time. | https://medium.com/@south-of-boston-soberdad/sobriety-a-journey-not-a-destination-f4912135de5d | ['Dennis N'] | 2021-06-08 19:54:16.006000+00:00 | ['Sober', 'Alcoholism', 'Sobriety', 'Sober Living', 'Recover'] |
8 New Traditions for Enjoying Christmas with Your Family No Matter Where They Are! | In the new Christmas picture book, Always Together at Christmas, author Sara Sargent reminds readers that even though Christmas may look a little different this year, we can still enjoy the holiday with family and friends virtually.
Gorgeously illustrated by Mark Chambers, and featuring “Sargent’s lyrical reminders that Christmas is a time to cherish our families, friends, and neighbors,” according to Kirkus Reviews, Always Together at Christmas introduces readers to some great new holiday traditions they can try this year.
Whether your loved ones are all together or safely apart this year, it’s not too late to try one of these ideas Sara suggests in Always Together at Christmas— or come up with your own!
And if you’re looking for some last minute cheer, Always Together at Christmas is available now! | https://medium.com/the-reading-lists/8-new-traditions-for-enjoying-christmas-with-your-family-no-matter-where-they-are-7b3124a79606 | ['Julia Romero'] | 2020-12-22 23:04:55.427000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Kids', 'Holidays', 'Picture Books', 'Reading'] |
Markerly — Everything You Need to Know About Marketing Campaign Management | Campaign management is the foundation to running a successful marketing campaign. Taking the time to develop these campaign blueprints before releasing a new product or adjusting the brand image can be hugely impactful. Campaign management is comprised of thoughtful planning, timely execution, and a thorough understanding of the audience you are attempting to market. It’s important to keep in mind what the goals of your business or brand are overall, making it more straightforward to develop a strategy that correlates. Using Markerly’s tools, you can construct brand influencer networks with full campaign management capabilities and influencer CRM tools. Effective marketing campaign management is thorough, powered by data, and can bring your marketing campaigns to the next level.
Ø What is marketing campaign management?
Marketing campaign management is the process of planning, executing, tracking, analyzing, and optimizing such campaigns. Campaign management is always focused on a singular brand message that can be pushed across multiple channels. One great example of effective marketing campaigns are the advertisements you see on television. Nowadays, brands do a great job of keeping television ad content relevant and updated because of the large number of viewers they can reach. The purpose of a marketing campaign is to grab the attention of a potential customer regarding a specific problem and provide the solution in the form of your product or service.
Ø Why is marketing campaign management important?
Large companies will often look to ad agencies to create, design, and run entire marketing campaigns on their behalf. Whether you hire an agency or decide to manage a campaign internally, you still need a master plan. The goal of marketing campaign management is to identify which strategies are in the strongest support of brand growth through each digital channel. The data gathered throughout the campaign process is monitored and analyzed along the way, maximizing the amount of opportunity for refinement.
How well you create, execute, and assess your marketing campaign is what makes your business stand out from the competition. Even the most creative marketing campaigns do not succeed if proper marketing campaign management is not consistently implemented and evaluated. For almost a decade, Markerly has been earning the trust of over 500 companies, government agencies, non-profits, and rising companies in complete marketing campaign management.
Regardless of the scale or scope, most successful marketing campaigns follow the same process. That is, they:
Understand the business’ goals
Develop a strategy to meet these goals
Create marketing collateral for different channels based on the strategy
Distribute marketing collateral and track results
Analyze results and optimize the strategy
Ø What is the role of a marketing campaign manager?
A marketing campaign manager is responsible for planning and executing campaigns, to best achieve the goals created by the marketing team. A successful marketing campaign manager has learned through first-hand experience the importance of audience segmentation and targeted content. They would also be familiar with CRM and digital marketing automation tools. such as; Marketo, Eloqua, and Salesforce. Usually, they work closely with the sales team, sales operation, and several external agencies to execute marketing campaigns and measure their overall effectiveness.
A marketing campaign manager is responsible for managing the promotion and positioning of a brand or the products and services that a company sells. Typically, marketing campaign managers are used to draw customers to purchase products from the company and raise brand awareness through marketing campaigns.
Bottom Line:
The purpose of marketing campaign management is to grab the attention of potential customers about a specific problem and convey the message on how to solve the problem by using your service or product. Markerly is a reliable platform that provides strong marketing management plans through platforms like Instagram, Youtube, TikTok, Pinterest, and more.
Resource: http://www.allwritersdestination.com/markerly-everything-you-need-to-know-about-marketing-campaign-management/ | https://medium.com/@markerly/markerly-everything-you-need-to-know-about-marketing-campaign-management-9955c313b119 | [] | 2020-12-24 08:47:44.929000+00:00 | ['Media', 'Influencer', 'Marketing', 'Advertising'] |
Gradient Boosted Decision Trees Explained with a Real-Life Example and Some Python Code | Gradient Boosting algorithms tackle one of the biggest problems in Machine Learning: bias.
Decision Trees is a simple and flexible algorithm. So simple to the point it can underfit the data.
An underfit Decision Tree has low depth, meaning it splits the dataset only a few of times in an attempt to separate the data. Because it doesn’t separate the dataset into more and more distinct observations, it can’t capture the true patterns in it.
Bias of a simplistic (left) vs a complex model (right). [Image by author]
When it comes to tree-based algorithms Random Forests was revolutionary, because it used Bagging to reduce the overall variance of the model with an ensemble of random trees.
In Gradient Boosted algorithms the technique used to control bias is called Boosting.
In the late 1980’s and 1990’s, Robert Schapire and Yoav Freund developed one of the most popular Boosting algorithms, AdaBoost, to address underfitting and reduce bias.
But they were not alone. The field of Computer Science and Theoretical Machine Learning was riding this wave of enthusiasm and groundbreaking algorithms, and more scientists started developing Boosting approaches.
Friedman explored how Boosting can be the optimization method for an adequate loss function. While Schapire and Freund took inspiration on a question posed by Michael Kearns, Can a set of weak learners create a single strong learner?
In this context, a weak learner is any model that is slightly better than a random model, and will never efficiently achieve a training error of zero. A strong learner is the opposite, a model that can be improved and efficiently bring the training error down to zero.
Around the same time Jerome Freidman, was also experimenting with Boosting. He ended up developing several new algorithms, the most popular being Gradient Boosted Decision Trees.
The ingenious efforts of these and other scientists contributed to a vibrant new chapter in Machine Learning. It generated robust and powerful algorithms. Many of which are still relevant today.
Boosting 101
The motto with Boosting is that the result is greater than the sum of its parts.
Boosting is based on the assumption that it’s much easier to find several simple rules to make a prediction than it is to find the one rule that is applicable to all data and generates the best possible prediction[1].
The intuition behind Boosting is that you train the same weak learner, a model with simple rules, several times. Then combine its weak predictions into a single, more accurate result. The model is always of the same type same but, each time, it is trained with different weights for the observations it misclassified.
Predictions that were previously misclassified will have more weight on the next weak learner, so each weak learner focuses on the hardest observations[1].
Boosting algorithms attribute more weight to the observations it misclassified. (Image by author)
When you combine different weak learners sequentially, each one will make some incorrect predictions. But they will cover each others blindspots, making better predictions where other learners were not as good. Each model learns slowly from the errors the previous one made[2].
What’s common across all Boosting Algorithms
All Boosting algorithms are ensemble Classifiers or Regressors, depending on the task at hand, because they combine the results of several models.
An ensemble of m weak learners. (Image by author)
In the aggregation step of a Regression task you might compute the weighted sum of all predictions for each observation. While in a classification task, a majority vote decides which class to assign.
Creating a Boosting Ensemble
Most algorithms focus on parameter estimation, to find the parameters that minimize their loss function. Boosting algorithms focus on function estimation.
The ensemble of weak learners is actually a set of functions that map features to targets and minimize the loss function[3].
Each new weak learner added minimizes the ensemble’s loss function. (Image by author)
And because the optimization algorithm used to find the next weak learner is Gradient Descent, the loss function must differentiable and convex.
However, this time Gradient Descent is used in a function space.
Typically, Gradient Descent starts off at a random point in a differentiable convex function, and only stops when it finds its minimum value.
The same concept is translated Boosting algorithms with a Gradient Descent, but in the function space.
The algorithm starts off with a very simple weak learner, for instance, always predicting the class 0.
With each weak learner added to the ensemble the algorithm is taking a step towards the right targets, because it only adds weak learners that minimizes the loss function.
Loss function for the ensemble. (Image by author)
The exponential loss is typically used in Classification tasks while in Regression tasks it’s the Squared Loss.
Gradient Boosted Decision Trees vs Adaboost vs …
All Boosting algorithms share a common principle, they use Boosting to create an ensemble of learners that are later combined. But each of them has distinct characteristics that make them more suitable for particular tasks.
For instance, in Gradient Boosted Decision Trees, the weak learner is always a decision tree.
In Stochastic Gradient Boosting, Friedman introduces randomness in the algorithm similarly to what happens in Bagging. At each iteration, instead of using the entire training dataset with different weights, the algorithm picks a sample of the training dataset at random without replacement and uses that to train the next learner[4].
Adaboost is in many ways similar to Gradient Boosted Decision Trees, in a sense that you have the distribution of weights for each observation in the training dataset and, in each iteration the algorithm adjusts those weights based on how the previous weak learner performed. But its adaptive nature comes into play when, during each iteration, it chooses a new the learning rate alpha based on the weak learner’s error rate[1].
Now that you know a bit more about the different Boosting algorithms, let’s see them in practice!
🛩🏝 Reducing model Bias with Boosting Algorithms
Planning a vacation is challenging. The hardest part, picking a destination.
But you’re a Data Scientist. You’re confident that Machine Learning can give an algorithmic opinion on what should be your next vacation destination.
Whenever planning a vacation, you always take into account:
Duration of the vacation,
Personal budget,
Weather forecast,
If your extended family is joining,
If you’re feeling adventurous and want to explore new places.
When it comes to picking a classification algorithm, you know Decision Trees are said to mimic how humans make decisions. But it has limitations, just a single Decision Tree is not a very powerful predictor.
Random Forests would get you better results, if you’re focused on controlling bias, not model variance. So Random Forests is not an option.
Since using a low bias model is your goal, Boosting algorithms are exactly what you’re looking for.
The firs thing you do is to go through your old notes and collect some data on how you picked previous vacation destinations. You gather all the information like your budget at the time and the duration of the vacation, and your previous destinations, which were typically a choice between Beach and Countryside.
In the code below I’m creating a synthetic dataset to simulate that data.
Creating a synthetic dataset with 250 observations. (Image by author)
Spotting Model Bias
The whole reason you want to use a Boosting algorithm is to control model bias.
In a Regression task, where you predict numerical values, Bias is described by this equation:
In this case, you just need plug the numbers in the formula.
But you’re trying to get an algorithmic opinion on your next vacation destination, a classification task.
For this purpose, you can use the misclassification rate, i.e, average of the 0–1 loss.
(Image by author)
If your model has a high proportion of misclassified observations in the training set, it means it has high bias.
Boosting algorithms ✅ Method to calculate Bias ✅
So you start with the the simplest algorithm Decision Trees. With ScikitLearns’ Decision Tree Classifier you create a single decision tree that only splits the dataset twice. That’s why max_depth=2.
Code sample to train a Decision Tree. (Image by author)
The average misclassification rate in the training set, the 0–1 loss, is 44%. That’s almost as good as a random model! High Bias ✅
Result of 0–1 misclassification error for the Decision Tree algorithm. (Image by author)
Now you turn to a Gradient Boosted Classifier.
You set the depth of each weak learner in the ensemble to 1, using the parameter max_depth once again. In this case you’re training the smallest tree possible, what in the machine learning lingo it’s called a decision stump.
And in terms of the size of the ensemble, you picked a rather arbitrary number, 210 trees. That’s the parameter n_estimators in the GradientBoostingClassifier method.
Code sample to train Gradient Boosted Decision Trees. (Image by author)
Gradient Boosted Decision Trees did indeed reduce Bias. A 0–1 loss of 32% is much better!
Result of 0–1 misclassification error for the Gradient Boosted Decision Trees algorithm. (Image by author)
Ok, you built a model with relatively low bias. But you know there are other Boosting algorithms out there, besides Gradient Boosted Decision Trees.
How much better would Adaboost be at predicting your next vacation destination?
Code sample to train an Adaboost model. (Image by author)
In the case of Adaboost, training the same number of trees didn’t reduce bias as much. But it still brought the misclassification rate down to 38%, from the 44% observed with Decision Trees.
Result of 0–1 misclassification error for the Adaboost algorithm. (Image by author)
When it goes to picking your next vacation destination, with the dataset at hand, Gradient Boosted Decision Trees is the model with lowest bias.
Now all you need to do is give the algorithm all information about your next vacation, i.e., the duration, if you’re feeling adventurous and all that.
The algorithm will tell you if your next vacation should be a Beach vacation or on the Countryside.
Conclusion
Now you can be confident about using Gradient Boosting Decision Trees to predict your next vacation destination. Instead of training just a single Decision Tree.
What sets Gradient Boosted Decision trees apart from other approaches is:
Speed , the algorithm is memory efficient so you can make predictions much faster.
, the algorithm is memory efficient so you can make predictions much faster. No preprocessing required you don’t need to prepare the data before building the model .
you don’t need to prepare the data before building the model Data robustness the algorithm handles all types of data nicely.
Event thought it is more complex than Decision Trees, it continues to share the advantages of tree-based algorithms.
But there’s always a catch. Gradient Boosted Decision Trees make two important trade-offs:
Faster predictions over slower training,
Performance over interpretability.
Faster predictions vs slower training
Even though one of the advantages mentioned above is the memory efficiency, that is when it comes to make predictions.
The algorithm is more complex and builds each tree sequentially. It’s predictions are fast, but the training phase is computationally more demanding.
Performance over interpretability
Similarly to what happens with Random Forests, you trade-off performance for interpretability.
You’ll no longer be able to see exactly how the algorithm split each tree node to reach the final prediction. | https://towardsdatascience.com/gradient-boosted-decision-trees-explained-with-a-real-life-example-and-some-python-code-77cee4ccf5e | ['Carolina Bento'] | 2021-08-19 20:51:36.812000+00:00 | ['Editors Pick', 'Getting Started', 'Data Science', 'Supervised Learning', 'Machine Learning'] |
如何更有效率的整理閱讀筆記？使用 Readwise 彙整數位文章筆記，附帶每日 Email 幫你複習曾經畫過重點的文章 | 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/pm%E7%9A%84%E7%94%9F%E7%94%A2%E5%8A%9B%E5%B7%A5%E5%85%B7%E7%AE%B1/pmtool-productivity-readwise-48bda6acbe8b | [] | 2020-12-15 17:13:09.805000+00:00 | ['Notetaking', 'Readwise', 'Tools', 'Productivity'] |
The Journey Begins… | Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. There will be late nights, sacrifices made with relationships, and lots of failures.
Speaking of failures, I’m here because I have failed and failed miserably.
I failed when I attempted a game startup back in 2016, we were accepted into the corelabs accelerator. I met and was mentored by several people in the game industry which included Jeff Burton and Tom Kalinski to name a few. That failure stuck with me and I kept going and pushing.
Grant it, we did not receive funding as part of the accelerator program, but receiving advice on demos, pitch decks, overall development timelines proved to be invaluable.
I then began working with various studios as a narrative designer which eventually brought me to Warsaw, Poland. During my time in Warsaw, I met various CEOs and game studios and thought and felt the local work culture differed with my morals.
What was done about it?
I doubled down and decided to branch off on my own. Now mind you, there are tons of cultural differences with the Polish and Americans. There was a point in which I had an investor agreement on the table, and when it was time to sign the paperwork, the investor failed to show up! Gladly so, after doing more research on that person and due diligence, it was a blessing in disguise.
The company I founded I named Epoch Media. Epoch media is a group of trans-media storytellers with interesting and intriguing projects with a focus on strong narratives and characters (We have grand ambitions but more on that in future posts). I joined forces with my friend, Jakub, that I played American football with (more on that in future posts). Recently, I added a game designer to the team that has serious knowledge and ambitions, Roger. Currently were developing our first video game together and a prequel comic book to go along with the game. Our first Project is titled: Pensions.
Not colored yet, but from the upcoming comicbook I am writing, Pensions: The Beginning.
In March of 2020, I met with an entrepreneur from Poland that runs an accelerator program, Borys Musielak. Borys has started and exited a company and now helps other entrepreneurs achieve their dreams while building an ecosystem on this side of the world. Essentially, he’s helping bridge Silicon Valley to Poland.
He mentioned to me about an accelerator program here: Reaktorx.
The Reaktorx Team
I applied and then got an interview with some amazing people, which included Gabriel, Dorota, and Agata Kwaśniewska. Eventually, Epoch Media got accepted into the program and has recently completed the first week. As things go further I love forward to improving our company pitch, project pitch, Demo Day, meetings with Agata, meetings with our lead mentor, and learning as much information as we can.
To be an entrepreneur is to find calmness in the chaos. | https://medium.com/epoch-media/the-journey-begins-75f3e6b8071f | ['Jeffery Thompson Jr'] | 2020-04-24 08:03:45.024000+00:00 | ['Videogames', 'Comic Book Movies', 'Entrepre', 'Startup', 'Poland'] |
Understanding the New RPA: What it is, What it isn’t, and Why Ciphix Thinks UiPath Gets it Right · Ciphix | Although RPA (Robotic Process Automation) is the fastest-growing area of enterprise technology, many organizations remain hesitant to adopt it or to expand their existing RPA. The primary reason? A lack of exposure to how today’s automation technology really works. Talking to IT departments and other stakeholders, even at innovative, tech-savvy companies, you’ll hear many outdated or generalized impressions of RPA from “big deal, I heard about that ten years ago” to “this will solve everything.”
As long as this issue continues to block organizations and people from achieving greater success, our team at Ciphix will be committed to addressing it. We know from experience that practical, up-to-date knowledge about this technology helps companies unlock enormous value-and that with the right information and tools, this process can start right away.
This article will summarize three of the most important realities the business world needs to understand about the current state of RPA. I’ll then explain why, when it comes to translating the facts into action, UiPath keeps winning out as the industry’s most effective platform.
Three Facts About RPA that Change Minds and Organizations
If you’re reading this, you’re already familiar with the meaning and value proposition of RPA (or else, see RPA). Robotic Process Automation is a technology that can mimic human action, and thus automate any application that a human can interact with-has been well known for about a decade. However, while RPA has changed dramatically in recent years, many perceptions about it have not.
Several important qualities distinguish 2019’s RPA from the one we met ten years ago, each presenting new opportunities for impact. Of all these factors, the following three are particularly essential in helping businesses understand and leverage what RPA really is.
1. RPA extends far beyond GUI scripting
Current RPA technology uses GUI scripting as just one of many options, creating boundless possibilities for automation.
There is a common misconception that RPA is simply over-hyped GUI automation-that it’s just “old wine in new bottles.” However, RPA has evolved miles beyond this definition. It now gives us the flexibility to use the right technology at the right time, whether it’s GUI automation or a more robust protocol.
In addition to GUI scripting, RPA can use a range of advanced technologies such as SOAP, REST API’s, and BAPI (SAP). These or other technologies can be implemented into C# (the foundation language of UiPath) and loaded into bots, allowing for the automation of end-to-end processes.
2. The ability to reuse components has changed the game
Less time spent building components from scratch has made RPA exponentially more efficient.
Everything you do with RPA, you can do with .NET scripting. The greatest differentiator and value of today’s RPA is that processes can be built in an easily reusable manner. For example, the following are a few components the Ciphix team built for a client’s process using SAP:
SAP_System_Open
SAP_System_SelectServer
SAP_System_Login
SAP_System_NavigateTransaction
SAP_System_Commit
Because we built these components only once, the next SAP project can start right away from the specific process transaction screen (as all the parts leading up to that screen have already been created). That means while the traditional IT manager is still coding a PDF extractor, we’ve already deployed the full project. Pretty amazing, right?
3. An open platform allows for seamless integration..
Leveraging RPA doesn’t complicate your existing technology-it fits and enhances it.
Although RPA is a non-intrusive technology that runs on top of your applications and systems, it has even fuller potential when deeply interwoven into your existing landscape. Webhooks & APIs are therefore central to a successful RPA platform, as they enable full integration with your robot farm.
With today’s extremely customizable RPA, your favorite service desk tool or BPM tool can seamlessly join forces with your virtual colleague. This translates to even shorter lead times, easier deployment, and ultimately more effective solutions.
Choosing Real Tools for the Real RPA: Why UiPath is Still the Gold Standard
We can now start putting these benefits to use for your organization, starting with the right set of tools. Ciphix is highly selective when it comes to our clients’ RPA platforms, examining all angles to see how well each product aligns with the realities we discussed in the previous section. There are a number of impressive RPA development platforms available, but one consistently out-delivers across all our team’s criteria: UiPath.
An important note: While Ciphix takes great pride in partnering with UiPath and other industry leaders, we maintain an open, unbiased approach to vendor selection in order to ensure the best possible results for our clients. Stay tuned for our end-of-the-year update, where we’ll report whether UiPath has sustained its spot as our preferred platform.
So far, we’ve kept coming back to UiPath project after project because it offers:
1. The most intuitive Studio on the market.
When comparing RPA vendors, we evaluate a number of aspects-including the Robot (or “Worker”) and Workforce management component (or “Orchestrator” / “Control Tower”)-that are relatively similar across most platforms. A major deciding factor, and one of the areas where UiPath excels, is the Studio (or “Workflow designer”).
UiPath’s Studio is notable for its easy, intuitive user experience. We especially like its flexible combination of Flowcharts and Sequences. Flowcharts, designed for incorporating complex business rules, and Sequences, designed for linear, straightforward automation tasks, can be nested and intertwined to best suit your needs.
2. Access to the best of both worlds.
UiPath doesn’t build every component of their platform on their own. Taking advantage of the element of reusability we discussed earlier, they also incorporate the best pre-built components available. Whether the answer is a UiPath-built part or another vendor’s, the result is the most fitting, easy-to-integrate tool for the job.
As an added benefit, you can use your existing logging platform. UiPath uses NLOG, allowing you to use any logging platform (such as Splunk, Elasticsearch, or others). Instead of building their own scheduler, they incorporate proven technology such as Quartz Scheduler.
3. An inspiring global community.
UiPath functions as more than a tool itself; it’s a space to exchange ideas and build connections with RPA innovators around the world. Ciphix has already benefited from this community in a number of ways, from valuable components gained from UiPath Go to their best-in-class academy. We love hiring RPA developers who have experience with UiPath, which we find correlates to both a strong skill set and a sincere passion for the technology.
The Next Step in Advancing RPA Starts Now
The bottom line? The more decision-makers understand how RPA has evolved, the faster they can improve both efficiency and employee experience. Though this technology is changing every day, one takeaway remains clear to our team: especially with platforms like UiPath supporting it, RPA is on track to empower more organizations and people than ever before.
Ready to take the next step in your RPA journey? An RPA X-Ray is a great place to start. Through a deep dive into your department’s or organization’s processes, our team will uncover prime opportunities for you to build value using RPA.
Get in touch to talk about getting an RPA X-Ray, and how Ciphix can help power your enterprise in the new age of RPA. | https://medium.com/ciphix/understanding-the-new-rpa-what-it-is-what-it-isnt-and-why-ciphix-thinks-uipath-gets-it-right-236a197d2210 | ['Staf Bauer'] | 2020-07-16 13:52:30.688000+00:00 | ['Rpa', 'Uipath', 'Roboticprocessautomation'] |
Block by Block Weekly Newsletter #38 | Block by Block Weekly Newsletter #38
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News of the Week
😞 Bakkt Delays Bitcoin Futures Launch
Intercontinental Exchange’s bitcoin futures trading platform is delaying its formal launch.
Announced Tuesday via a company blog post, Bakkt’s first product, unveiled in August, has now been postponed to Jan. 24, 2019. Trading and warehouse operations are both expected to begin on that date.
The platform explained that “the new listing timeframe will provide additional time for customer and clearing member onboarding prior to the start of trading and warehousing of the new contract.”
In an announcement on Medium, Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler expanded on this statement, saying that the “volume of interest” in the company and the “work required to get all the pieces in place” contributed to the delay.
⛏️ Bitcoin Mining Firm Giga Watt Declares Bankruptcy
U.S.-based bitcoin mining firm Giga Watt has declared bankruptcy with millions still owed to creditors.
The firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy at a court in the Eastern District of Washington on Monday, revealing that it still owes its biggest 20 unsecured creditors nearly $7 million in court documents seen by CoinDesk.
Creditors include the utilities provider in its Douglas County base, having a claim of over $310,000, and electricity provider Neppel Electric, which is owed almost half a million dollars.
Giga Watt has estimated assets worth less than $50,000, whereas estimated liabilities are in the range of $10–50 million, according to the court documents.
👍 Major Swiss Stock Exchange SIX Lists World’s First Multi-Crypto ETP
Switzerland’s principal stock exchange SIX Swiss Exchange will list the world’s first multi-crypto-based exchange-traded product (ETP) next week.
Backed by the Swiss startup Amun AG, the first global multi-crypto ETP will be listed under index HODL, and will track five major cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC).
According to the article, each cryptocurrency will acquire a certain market share within the upcoming ETP, with Bitcoin accounting for around half of the ETP’s assets. The rest are set to be divided in fractions, with 25.4 percent in cryptocurrency XRP, and 16.7 percent in Ethereum, while Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin will acquire 5.2 and 3 percent of the market, respectively.
🤝 Crypto Trading Firms Teaming Up
A band of cryptocurrency trading desks is opening up their books to help institutions better understand the price of bitcoin — and they’re hoping the move will take the floundering market to the next level.
Three major cryptocurrency over-the-counter traders — Genesis Trading, Cumberland, and Circle Trade — announced they would provide data for a new index, dubbed MVIS Bitcoin US OTC Spot Index. The new product, which is run by MVIS, a division of asset manager VanEck, is a standout given it draws data from OTC desks as opposed to exchanges, such as Coinbase and Kraken. “Transparency is coming to the over-the-counter market,” Gabor Gurbacs, head of digital asset strategy at VanEck said in an exclusive interview with The Block. “Before this no one would publish the price and it happened behind the scenes.”
🤯 Ohio Becomes First State to Accept Bitcoin for Tax Payments
Starting this week, Ohio businesses will be able to register with the state government to pay some taxes with bitcoin by visiting OhioCrypto.com. The idea to pay taxes with bitcoin comes from the state’s Treasurer Josh Mandel. Mandel believes the new program is both convenient for tax filers and helps in ‘planting a flag’ for Ohio’s cryptocurrency adoption.
‘I do see [bitcoin] as a legitimate form of currency,’ Mr. Mandel said. The state of Ohio will use bitcoin payment processor, BitPay, to help process the tax payments. Ohio filers will send their tax payments to BitPay, which will convert the bitcoins to dollars for the state treasurer’s office.
⚖️ Bitcoin-Rigging Criminal Probe Focused on Tie to Tether
As Bitcoin plunges, the U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether last year’s epic rally was fueled in part by manipulation, with traders driving it up with Tether — a popular but controversial digital token.
While federal prosecutors opened a broad criminal probe into cryptocurrencies months ago, they’ve recently homed in on suspicions that a tangled web involving Bitcoin, Tether and crypto exchange Bitfinex might have been used to illegally move prices, said three people familiar with the matter.
Bitfinex has the same management team as Tether Ltd., a Hong Kong-based company that created the namesake cryptocurrency. When new coins come to market, they’re mostly released on Bitfinex.
The Justice Department’s probe adds to an existing inquiry into possible misconduct. Both Tether Ltd. and Bitfinex received subpoenas last year from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Bloomberg reported in January. The Justice Department and CFTC are coordinating their examinations, the people said.
🤔 Overstock Goes All in On Crypto
Overstock plans to sell its decades-old retail business in the next few months to make way for a full-blown bet on crypto. The previously announced sale plans could go through as soon as February.
Overstock founder and CEO Patrick Byrne — an ardent believer in the technology that underpins bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies — declined to name any of the potential buyers.
Shares of Overstock surged as much as 26 percent Friday but the stock is down 66 percent this year. | https://medium.com/block-by-block-blog/block-by-block-weekly-newsletter-38-b768bfa27534 | ['Anthony Sassano'] | 2018-11-26 10:29:25.670000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain'] |
Keep Burning Flags — I Respect Your Freedoms, You Complete Arseholes | |I like Trump, I really, really do. But he’s wrong about this:
All in for Senator Steve Daines as he proposes an Amendment for a strong BAN on burning our American Flag. A no brainer!
Let’s start with the basics: Burning the flag is an utterly disgusting and contemptible act. You are, after all, not just destroying an emblem of state-power, but also a symbol that ordinary people have fought and died for. The flag doesn’t just represent the elite — It represents all of us. Disrespecting it, therefore, disrespects us.
Flag-burning is also, it has to be said, a rather scattergun approach to political warfare — If you hate Trump, then burn an effigy of Trump. If you hate Pelosi, then burn one of her. If you hate militarism, then burn an effigy of an F16 … But burning the flag? That certainly attacks Trump, Pelosi and the military-industrial complex — What it also does is attack 327.2,000,000 other, completely innocent people living underneath that flag. It’s like wanting to murder someone and concluding that the best way to accomplish this would be by nuking the city he lives in. Effective? Sure. But also somewhat overkill.
Alright. So I hope that everyone reading this now understands I do not, under any circumstances, approve of flag-burning. Let’s move on, because what I also do not approve of are restrictions on free speech.
See, this is what Trump is at least pretending not to understand: When conservatives and populists are thrown off social media, that’s wrong. He’s right to condemn this … So why, then, is he also condemning the speech of flag-burners? Because he agrees with us and disagrees with them?
That’s not how freedom of speech, if it’s going to work, um, works.
The moral test here, the moral test that Trump has failed, is that for free speech to remain a force for good, we have to be willing to defend all speech. If the lefties at Google and Twitter just defend other lefties, and Trump just defends other conservatives, then we’re hurtling into a world where speech only belongs to the people who have the most money or wield the most power.
I, for one, don’t want to live in that world. I rather liked growing up and living in a West where people took pride in tolerating speech they hated on account of the (rather obvious) fact that this tolerance also guaranteed their own freedom to speak.
I think the kind of people who burn their own country’s flags are arseholes. The people who do it think I’m a dick for wanting to protect symbols of colonial oppression. So, fine. We get to agree to disagree. We get to grudgingly put up with each other … Which is the whole fucking point of free speech.
Take it away, and all we’re left with is a battle over money and power — Winner decides which mouths have a hand over them and which mouths don’t. Jack from Twitter, and, as it weirdly turns out, President Trump, want to live in such a world. I. Do. Not.
As always, let’s #FreeAssange who cares about free speech, and therefore needs to be allowed to keep talking. | https://medium.com/@pmgraygray/keep-burning-flags-i-respect-your-freedoms-you-complete-arseholes-f878331bb201 | ['John Gray'] | 2019-06-17 08:40:39.730000+00:00 | ['Flag Burning', 'Donald Trump', 'Julian Assange', 'Free Expression', 'Free Speech'] |
Using Travis CI for Qt projects | Step 1: Create and publish a Qt docker container
We’ll build Qt from sources, the way we need them in terms of operating system and building options for local development, inside a docker container, which we will be able to pull from Travis-CI.
There’s no single way of doing this, this is how I managed to do it. We’ll create a folder with three files:
A license file — this is not needed for the open source license, of course.
The docker image is defined by the Dockerfile:
We’ll define some environment variables that will be used inside the container.
At line 17, notice that this copies the license file inside the docker image → this is only required if you’re using a commercial license. Then the first command is a shell script that will download the Qt sources, install Qt and do some additional house-keeping for the container:
If you need to use a license, make sure to have it accessible as defined in the Dockerfile. If not, be sure to edit the getQt.sh in order to use the open source license (see lines 52 and 53).
Now we can create the docker image:
docker build -t qt-ubuntu-5.15.2 .
And then build the container:
docker run qt-ubuntu-5.15.2
This can take about an hour, depending on your system spec. You can see the newly created container by typing:
docker ps -a
You’ll see that docker has given it a random name. We’ll rename it and commit it using our docker hub username, so that it becomes a docker image, ready to be pushed to the docker hub:
docker rename <randomly_generated_name> qt-ubuntu-5.15.2
docker commit qt-ubuntu-5.15.2 <username>/qt-ubuntu-5.15.2:v1
Important: Before publishing the container, make sure that if you’re using a commercial license you will keep your docker repository private. Because otherwise someone else could use your Qt docker container to build their software, which, by way of logic, could potentially invalidate your license (for more accurate information, please contact Qt customer support).
Now the container can be push the image to the docker hub:
docker push <username>/qt-ubuntu-5.15.2:v1
Step 2: Pull the image in Travis CI
With this docker image you can build and run the tests for your Qt repository in Travis-CI using the Qt docker image. Here’s a basic travis configuration:
Here you should replace <git_repo>with your repository name. And this assumes that you have a shell which builds your application — in this case buildWithDocker.sh.
Line 11 is where the magic happens: This takes the contents of the current directory and copies it in the specified location in the docker container:
"$PWD":/root/<git_repo>
and then runs the shell command inside the docker container:
/root/<gir_repo>/buildWithDocker.sh
DOCKER_USERNAME and DOCKER_PASSWORD are encrypted environment variables defined inside Travis CI and are loaded in lines 19 and 20 (the actual content needs to be copied from the generated encryption values from Travis CI).
In order not to download the same docker image over and over again, we can use docker cahing. At lines 12 through 16, docker saves all the images inside a cache folder, so that from now on at line 7 docker loads all archived docker containers. The content of the cache can be cleared from the settings of repository in Travis CI.
A build.sh example would be:
#!/bin/bash cd /root/<git_repo>
qmake <git_repo>.pro -spec linux-g++ CONIFG+=release && make -j$(nproc)
That’s it!
Now you should be able to successfully trigger Travis CI builds.
Keep in mind!
As a side-note, I strongly recommend not to use other people’s (i.e. unofficial / unsigned) Qt docker images for building your app. Because you never know what you get. Source code can be tampered with and you might get a malware embedded in your app or get your source code exposed.
Also, if you’re using the commercial version of the docker hub, it wouldn’t hurt to enable snyk scanning for your containers in order to see if there are any vulnerabilities in them.
Reference
How to Compile Qt from Source Code on Linux
Beyond Linux® From Scratch (System V Edition) - Qt-5.15.2 | https://medium.com/@DrKaoliN/using-travis-ci-for-qt-projects-3121d723be12 | ['Mihail Mihalache'] | 2020-12-08 13:26:44.847000+00:00 | ['Github', 'Continuous Integration', 'Qt', 'Travis Ci', 'Cpp'] |
Our favourite projects from TfL’s Access All Areas event 2019 | On 19th March 2019, Transport for London (TfL) hosted Access All Areas, London’s largest accessible transport event at the ExCeL London. It showcased the latest transport innovations geared towards accessibility, looking at roads and streets, train stations and public transport, design and services, and, of course, technology. The exhibition included a packed schedule of panel discussions, workshops and tours.
Calvium’s Director for Digital Innovation, Jo Morrison , was there both as a visitor and to inform our latest project, NavSta : a mobile wayfinding solution being developed in collaboration with Transport for London (TfL), Transport Systems Catapult and Open Inclusion . The system will allow those with less visible impairments to navigate stations independently and confidently.
We’re hugely excited about NavSta, but there were plenty of other projects to be inspired by at Access All Areas. As a creative technologist, Jo naturally spent much of her time in the Future and Technology Zone, which promised to provide insight into the role technology plays and will play in creating shared, accessible, cities of the future. It didn’t disappoint.
Here are five projects that caught Jo’s eye throughout the day.
1. Aurrigo: driverless pods for the visually impaired
Just a few months after their Consumer Electronics Show (CES) appearance, Aurrigo popped up at Access All Areas with their Union Flag-emblazoned autonomous pod. The vehicle will be trialled this spring at the Blind Veterans UK rehabilitation centre, helping visually impaired veterans to move around the campus.
Featuring brighter lighting inside than most vehicles, bold colours on the seating and rails and a wheelchair ramp, Aurrigo’s Devpod vehicle can be driven from within or via remote control. The trial will also explore the importance of voice-activated controls — and if successful, the innovation could reduce isolation and improve mobility and independence amongst the visually impaired.
I’ve read so much about autonomous vehicles but never seen one in the ‘vacuum-formed polystyrene’ flesh, so it was great to see this driverless pod and imagine how it might help to transform our mobility systems.
2. AccessAble: comprehensive accessibility guide
Formerly known as DisabledGo, AccessAble gives you “the information and detail [visitors] need to work out if a place is going to be accessible for [them]”. Available as both a website and a free app, every single place in the directory is checked by a trained AccessAble surveyor, and includes toilets, shops, tourist attractions, hotels, restaurants, universities and more.
Set up by Dr Gregory Burke — himself a wheelchair user — the directory gives considerable detail about areas, including photographs, so disabled users know exactly what to expect when navigating cities. The difference between this and most other apps like it is that those with accessibility concerns can plan trips based on their individual circumstances rather than relying on “fully accessible” descriptions of places and streets.
What struck me about AccessAble is that it is built upon a well established service. AccessAble has made incremental improvements over the years, all of which are designed to provide a better quality of life for its users. Unlike the Devpod, the technology used to deliver this service is not at the cutting-edge, rather, it is mature — and this reminds us that striving to adopt the latest tech isn’t always necessary or a sensible choice.
3. Wayfindr: indoor navigation for the visually impaired
The creators of the Wayfindr app have made it their mission “to empower visually-impaired people to travel independently, through inclusive and accessible audio navigation”. They offer any indoor site — including hospitals, shopping centres and transport networks — the ability to create experiences for the visually impaired that are inclusive and consistent, using the power of audio navigation.
The app gives those with visual impairments a lot more independent freedom, but also empowers the owners of built environments to attract a larger audience and provide a better level of care to visitors across the board.
I’ve heard really positive feedback from visually impaired users of Wayfindr. I was interested to learn that there is an associated internationally-recognised standard for audio navigation as an output of this project — ITU-T F.921 . That spurs me on with my own work and gives a sense of the possibilities to influence standards.
4. PEARL: testing human interactions with city infrastructure
PEARL — the Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory — at University College London is a test facility that allows researchers to model various city-based scenarios. What impact would a new shopping centre have on tube trains, stations, streets or urban spaces, for instance? PEARL harnesses vast data sets to work out the answer.
With the vision of “creating a world where everyone can achieve a better quality of life”, PEARL assesses cities from a human perspective, measuring impact and accessibility for residents. One of its studies looks at the way people use their senses in a built environment, which gives researchers and planners the tools to design cities that better meet people’s sensory and cognitive needs.
Their models mean future infrastructure and transport solutions can be developed with all citizens in mind, eliminating bias from design and decision-making. For the companies involved in delivering projects, it means more rigorous testing that should result in less expenditure on rolling investments — a win/win for all.
Quite simply, I want to use this facility to inform my research!
5. Bikeworks: All-ability cycling clubs
There’s no denying the benefits of cycling, both to human health and to that of the environment. Social enterprise Bikeworks was founded on a belief “that cycling should be accessible and possible for everyone, regardless of age, disability or experience”.
They’ve been around since 2007, and now run All Ability Cycling Clubs across three London locations. Around 50% of the members of each club cycle with disabilities, with Bikeworks providing a variety of adapted cycles including platform tricycles, side-by-side tricycles and tandem tricycles.
Bikeworks highlight that cycling is a sport and a means of transport that is open to everyone, regardless of ability or background — encouraging people to explore the Capital in ways they hadn’t considered before.
Having watched a chap cycling around with a beaming smile on an adapted bike how could anyone not stop to find out more about Bikeworks? As such, I was blown away by the creativity, industriousness, generosity and spirit of this social enterprise. It’s serving a real need and ticks all the policy boxes — so please support this fab endeavour.
And that’s not all…
While these projects stood out, there were no winners or losers at the exhibition; it was invigorating to see so much interest and investment in a subject close to our hearts. And there were plenty of other meaningful projects too. Transport for London has created a range of travel guides in various formats and covering a variety of accessibility issues. London TravelWatch shared their “ 10 policies to keep Londoners moving “. Disability charity Livability was there on the day, too, showing how their community projects and disability care services help to tackle social isolation and its effects.
While it’s clear that plenty is being done to tackle the travel and transport problems faced by those with disabilities, the event also highlighted two critical challenges…
For those responsible for existing infrastructure, the challenge is to create solutions that will augment an individual’s experience of the space and increase the size of the audience that can use it.
For developers of new infrastructure, the challenge is to embed accessibility from the start, using a combination of technology and social and psychological insight.
We don’t have all the answers yet, but the growing focus on accessibility for all shows that we’re heading in the right direction.
To read more about our current collaboration with Transport for London on the wayfinding solution NavSta, head here. And to find out more about our indoor wayfinding project for those with sight loss, UCAN GO, take a look at our case study here. | https://medium.com/@calvium/our-favourite-projects-from-tfls-access-all-areas-event-2019-c122145e5e16 | [] | 2019-04-17 19:24:24.018000+00:00 | ['Accessibility', 'Transport', 'Innovation', 'London', 'Digital'] |
The Future is Feminist: Inside Feminist Camp 2018 | The Future is Feminist: Inside Feminist Camp 2018
In January, Fovrth Fellows Anna Welch and Shirley Nwangwa attended Soapbox Inc.’s Feminist Camp in New York City.
NEW YORK CITY, NY — After a holiday season filled with friends and family asking “so…what are you going to do once you graduate?,” I was ready to get some answers. Joining 18 other young people, I headed to New York City for Soapbox Inc’s Winter 2018 Feminist Camp.
Feminist Camp is “a front-row seat to feminist work, activism, and action beyond classroom theories.” It’s a week where young people can meet feminists in philanthropy, organizing, reproductive health and justice, and art, with the goal of exposing young feminists to career options within the many aspects of the movement. Soapbox Inc. hosts several camps throughout the year across the United States and even overseas; I attended their New York City camp, introducing me to nearly 15 speakers, 18 visionary peers (my fellow campers!), and a week-full of insight on how young people can pursue feminist public service professionally.
The Winter 2018 Campers at DemocracyNow! with celebrated journalist Amy Goodman and Amy Richards, renowned feminist writer, organizer, and co-founder of Feminist Camp
Immediately, it was apparent that I would leave with more questions than answers; however, after one of the most incredible weeks of my life, I feel enriched and inspired. I did come away with one major truth: feminism is not a linear career path, it’s a belief system that will guide me no matter what I do to pay my bills.
I prepared for Feminist Camp by reading My Life on the Road, the incredible autobiography of Gloria Steinem. This book, combined the remarkable women I met and learned about, made me feel connected to feminism in a national sense that I’ve never felt before.
Anna Welch + the Feminist Campers on the streets of NYC
With each new commute between speakers, I learned about another pocket of feminist work happening in cities and campuses from New Orleans to Los Angeles to Minnesota and everywhere in between. These women are working to abolish the injustice in the prison system, holding people’s hands while they get abortions, performing art focused on healing the trauma women and girls experience every day, and generally answering the question, “why does the world need feminism?”
The people I spent the week with showed me that moving to New York City and contributing to the exceptional feminist work there is one path to fulfilling our feminist values. Yet, they also validated to me that this important work needs to happen everywhere… And that we are the ones who need to step up to do it.
There were numerous moments during the week when I internally gasped and thought “that’s what I want to do!”, only to listen to the next speaker and think, “wait…maybe that’s what I want to do!” My eyes were opened to a myriad of possibilities, which now feels equal parts invigorating and daunting.
Amy Goodman, Host of Democracy Now!
As a Journalism and Gender and Women’s Studies double-major, Wednesday as Feminist Media Day was a personal highlight of the week. After an accidental subway detour to Queens, I arrived at the Democracy Now! Studio ready to soak in the wisdom of host Amy Goodman and her team.
I’ve seen the show, but watching a live taping was magical. At first, I couldn’t put my finger on what felt different about this type of news, but I realize now that is because everything about the program is different.
As feminist icon Jennifer Baumgardner (and co-founder of Feminist Camp) pointed out during our post-show discussion, their headlines weren’t filled with words like “should” or “what if,” but rather, they were rooted in fact and questioning the greater systems at play. Amy Goodman affirmed this and added that, while mainstream news outlets will ask questions like, “should the U.S. military employ airstrikes or boots on the ground intervention?”, Democracy Now! asks questions like “should we be engaging in combat at all?” and “can the country afford it?”
During that day’s episode, Democracy Now! interviewed Norman Finkelstein’s, a political scientist and author, on to discuss his book Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom, which details the realities of Israeli occupation of Gaza. I had two main realizations while watching Goodman interview him. The first was that I knew next to nothing about Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and the second was that this segment was perhaps the first time I felt news coverage of an issue had actually informed me well enough to allow me to form my own opinions on an issue in the scope of a single interview.
As a journalism major and a feminist, I have a love-hate relationship with the news. I think journalism is the most undervalued component of our nation’s system of checks and balances, and I will defend that belief to friends, family, and strangers. But, I also believe modern mainstream journalism is generally failing at its primary goal, which is — in my belief — to provide viewers enough information to form their own opinions. This challenge is an issue Democracy Now! recognizes and is actively trying to remedy.
I felt Democracy Now! also recognized that, although feminism is something a major news outlet might cover by reporting on the Women’s March, it is not something they would incorporate into their organizational values.
Democracy Now! both covers issues few outlets address (especially those that affect women and girls specifically) and reports on the same stories major outlets cover in totally reimagined ways. They give interviewees enough time to actually make nuanced points. They don’t fall so easily into the trap of false equivalence; they understand sometimes interviewing one person with a depth of knowledge is better than interviewing two people who will only yell at one another about why they are right under the banner of “balance.” Watching Amy Goodman report and interview with such steadfastness and genuine interest in both “the facts” and “the truth” lit a little match inside of me — it made me believe the type of journalism I want to see is still out there, and that I can contribute to keeping it that way.
The Winter 2018 Campers via Feminist Camp Instagram
Despite all of these realizations, my main conclusion was not necessarily that I had to get a job with Democracy Now!, but rather, that the changes I want to see in journalism, as well as our nation and world, are not too much to ask for. Examples of the best practices in journalism still exist, and all individual journalists can strive to uphold and emulate these standards in all of our work.
Ultimately, while the Feminist Media Day shines as my personal highlight, the week provided me with a wealth of insight into the many careers and life-paths available for young people striving to imagine and create a more just world. The camp is now over ten years old, available to college students, young professionals, and now high school kids as well. I’m grateful to have been able to experience such a unique and powerful opportunity, I want all young people to have this chance (so contact me if you’re interested or reach out to Feminist Camp directly!), and I feel prepared and excited to take my next steps in this worthy fight for justice! | https://medium.com/go-fovrth/the-future-is-feminist-inside-feminist-camp-2018-282e39a69307 | ['Anna Welch'] | 2019-10-11 17:24:44.481000+00:00 | ['Feminist', 'Womens March', 'Student Series', 'Feminism', 'Gloria Steinem'] |
How to Stick to Your Budget | There is a concept in finance called the time value of money.
The basic idea behind it is that $1 dollar today is worth more than $1 dollar in the future.
This is a generally accepted idea because you can earn more interest the sooner you put it in an interest producing account.
But what if I told you that the same amount of money can have different values even in the present?
This idea seems absurd.
After all money was created because we can all agree upon the fact that it holds the same value for you and your neighbour.
But the irony is that we don’t value money the same way even for ourselves.
Depending on how we earn it and what we want to spend it on, we put different values for the same amount of money.
This idea may well be the missing piece behind why it is so hard to stick to your budget
How to Stick to Your Budget: Mental accounting
Mental Accounting is the idea that we value money subjectively as opposed to objectively. Depending on how we earn it, spend it, and how it makes us feel, we put different values on the same amount of money.
Richard Thaler discovered the concept of mental accounting and introduced it to the public in 1999 in his paper “Mental Accounting Matters”.
It’s important to understand mental accounting because it can lead us to make irrational spending and investing decisions.
It may also well be one of the reasons why it is so hard to stick to your budget,
By understanding it and avoiding its pitfalls, we can use this missing piece to design a better budgeting process, one which makes it easier for ourselves to follow through with.
4 Ways Mental Accounting Happens
Mental Labels
The most common way mental accounting happens is by giving money “mental labels”.
The best way to describe mental labels is by imagining that you have small bank accounts in your brain for different uses.
We have Spending banks accounts for:
Coffee
Eating out
Groceries
Clothes
Etc…
And we have Earning bank accounts for:
Regular income
Work Bonuses
Gifts
Money on the street
This allows us to know where our money is going and coming from, which is a great thing when it comes to tracking our money
But it can also constrain us and make us irrational.
Take the following example:
Let’s say you are taking a walk and you find $50 dollars in the street.
You might have been out for a walk without wanting to spend on anything.But the fact that you found money led you to spend it.
Instead, you could have saved the money. But you didn’t because you did not put as much value on it as if you had truly earned it.
Framing
One other way mental accounting can trick us is through framing.
One study showed that depending on how a problem is framed, we are more likely to make irrational choices.
In the study, participants were given two versions:
A calculator that originally costs $15 is on sale for $10 at another store
A calculator that originally costs $125 is on sale for $120 dollars at another store.
The catch is that you have to drive 20 mins to get the other store.
In the first case, most participants were willing to drive to the other store while in the second case most participants would rather buy the calculator.
The difference is the same but because of the way the questions was framed the participants made different decisions.
Frequency
Frequency is another reason why it’s so hard to stick to your budget.
When you assign budgets to yourself, do you do it over days, weeks, months, years?
On the one hand it might be easier to stick to short term goals such as spending a certain amount on clothes on a monthly basis.
But on the other hand it may not always be practical.
If you need to buy a new suit or a new dress because it doesn’t fit any more, you might go over your monthly clothing budget and feel bad about it.
If you view it over a year you have more leeway and won’t feel bad about making the purchase.
Categorization
How broadly or narrowly we decide to categorize our expenditures can have a huge impact on whether or not we stick to your budget.
Do you have a category for Entertainment in your budget?
Is it further broken down into Restaurants and drinks?
Or maybe just restaurants?
It’s Important to know what we spend money on but it’s not always practical.
A narrow view might make it too hard to follow our budget but having a broad view may keep us from seeing the details and optimize our spending.
Examples of Mental Accounting
Debt vs saving
Some people have a mental account for debt and a mental account for saving for specific goals, such as buying a house.
Although it may seem like a smart thing, this can keep them from paying off their debt sooner and avoiding less interest payments.
Paying down debt as soon as possible may seem like straightforward advice, but a lot of people do not follow this principle because they view saving for a house as too important.
What they fail to realize is that they will have less money available to buy a house if they do not pay off their debt first.
I’m under budget! … But I overspent
Mental accounting can cause us to restrict ourselves in one category while we spend more than we actually need to in another category.
This is a huge think people are missing when coming up with budgeting tips.
We don’t stick to our budget because sometimes we just need things. And then we feel bad about it after.
Sometimes we will eat out more, sometimes we need to treat ourselves to a vacation before anticipated. But our budget does not allow it for this specific item.
But when you look at the bigger picture you realize that you underspent by a mile in your other categories. You could use your underspending in one category to overspend in another category.
Marketing and sales
Yet another classic example of companies and their marketing and sales teams taking advantage of our psychological pitfalls.
Especially on big ticket items, we tend to be more open to spend more money on bonuses and extras.
Marketing salespeople know this so they will frame the extra money as just a small expenditure.
You just bought a $30,000 new car?
“Why don’t you get the leather look seats with it? It’s only 5% more than what you’re already paying, and it’ll feel 10 times more luxurious.”
5% is $1500 dollars more, and you’re not even getting real leather!
But because of the way the salesman framed it, it doesn’t seem expensive. People fall for this all the time.
2 Ways to Stick to Your Budget
I’ve talked about different areas where mental accounting happens, but its biggest impact remains on budgeting.
Budgeting is a bit of a mix between science and art.
My hope is to provide you with some guidelines that will make it easier to draw up your own budgeting process.
Broaden your Categorizations
I mentioned higher up that sometimes you have a better view by looking at your whole financial picture when it comes to expenditures.
Let’s say you overspent on eating out and going for drinks for the month already. Your friend’s birthday is coming up and he or she wants to go to a fancy restaurant to celebrate.
You decide to go but you feel terrible about yourself because you are now in the red for the month and you know you are going to have to restrict yourself for a while before going out to eat again.
But you also did not spend much on other entertaining activities. You didn’t go to the movies this month nor did you go on a weekend getaway. You just didn’t feel like it.
If you had categorized restaurants and drinks in the entertainment category, you would still be way under budget for the month!
My point is not to go all out on eating out at the expense of other activities. My point is that by broadening your spending into a higher category, you have more flexibility.
Some months you will feel like going out to eat more, some months you will feel like going to the movies, some months you will want a weekend getaway every weekend.
Use Budgeting Apps
At this point you might be thinking… I still need to track my spending to see how much I am spending and on what activity.
I totally agree.
In fact I even check this myself. But I don’t obsess over it.
Nowadays, budgeting apps make it sooo easy to see what you are spending on specifically.
I use Mint to see where my money is going. This is the best budgeting app that I have found and it’s completely free.
The feature that I like the most about it is that you can decide how broadly or narrowly you want to analyze your spending:
Take the “Food and Dining” category for example.
If I click on it I can see a more narrow version that includes the below categories
If I want to see how much I spent on restaurants, I can see the details of the transactions below.
But even with those apps, you will still be missing some stuff when budgeting.
Sometimes I pay for friends, sometimes they pay for me and I send an e-transfer to pay them back
What you see on top is not an accurate picture of how much I spent on food. Some transactions are omitted because I paid my friends back and some are overstated because I paid for my friends but they paid me back.
Having somewhat of a picture is better than having no picture at all nonetheless.
And if I see an abnormally large expenditure, I can look into it.
But the bottom line is I don’t obsess about how much I spend for a specific category.
I take a broader look and as long as I spend about what I anticipated to spend for the month, I give myself some liberty.
It’s much less tolling mentally and emotionally.
How Do You Stick to Your Budget?
If you already have a budget but are finding it hard to stick with, I hope that this new perspective makes it easier to stick with.
I am far from perfect when it comes to budgeting for myself so if you have any other tips you would like to share with me please do! | https://medium.com/@mathieu-gouraud/how-to-stick-to-your-budget-656179e7b17 | ['Mathieu Gouraud'] | 2020-12-09 16:28:55.508000+00:00 | ['Money Mindset', 'Budget', 'Personal Finance'] |
PLANTS HAVE SOULS | PLANTS HAVE SOULS
I am an empath, a strong one and I have always felt others emotions in the room and I would share the sadness with others. According to high and mighty Christianity animals do not have souls, but they we should not kill them and bugs do not bleed so they do not count. I was taught every living thing has a soul. Animals could feel emotions, they have memories just like us and I could not fathom the idea of an animal being “soulless”. When I was young, in life science when I first learned that plants are indeed living, and they are the reason we are living. I felt they were kindhearted and if animals have souls who should say that plants do not. I remember when I brought up this ideology when I was in the 3rd grade to my catholic grandparents. Needless to say, they were not supportive of the idea that plants have souls like we do. There is no certain proof of Christianity, and there is no proof of plants having souls, let alone souls existing in general. I began to question what made the human mind different than mine that even simple ideas and imagination being brought up, could cause such chaos and disagreement. Why does the world take new ideologies so seriously.
I whole heartedly feel that this ideology has shaped my life and it is a metaphor of what I am today. | https://medium.com/@autumnroselingg/plants-have-souls-71373202e7e9 | ['Autumn Lingg'] | 2020-12-18 04:43:33.037000+00:00 | ['Religion', 'Autobiography', 'Soul', 'Ideology', 'Plants'] |
House rent prediction using Machine Learning in JavaScript | Some of us would be in a confusion that why Machine Learning with JavaScript and not with python. But as you’ll read this article further you will notice that it quite similar to shifting languages when we have a strong Data Structures and Algorithm hands. The Main concepts of Machine Learning and that to Linear Regression remains same with predicting a final Answer.
Firstly understanding the JavaScript concept of Machine Learning:
The Libraries used here are NodeJs( which is common for any JavaScript lover), TensorFlowJs( Sibling of TensorFlow.py ) and finally Lodash( Calculation purpose, just some common concepts with pandas and numpy). If We want, we can also add additional CSV loading libraries used in any Editor.
Secondly the Editor,
Ahh!! the most important thing( even important than libraries or concept ). So keeping expectations low, I have used VS Code and nothing else. Atom can also be used but it does not comes with a per-loaded terminal and additional support. It was just a statement and not comparison of 2 world Class JavaScript Code Editor.
Retrieving back on the topic and one of most hectic and waiting period of any JavaScript developer, which is installing libraries. So as i said above, we only need 3 libraries to be installed.
Note: NodeJS is a must which should be preinstalled on the system.
(i) TensorFlowJS
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@tensorflow/tfjs@2.0.0/dist/tf.min.js"></script>
or
npm install @tensorflow/tfjs
and also
npm install @tensorflow/tfjs-node
Please don't forget to install both the libraries (tfjs and tfjs-node). I don't want any other person to face issues like me ( Please read if you have time or else go to Lodash installation: So As being a JavaScript Developer, node modules will be your enemy throughout the journey. So without GPU you are already facing a installing time period which is 100¹⁰ times JavaScript execution time. So please install the libraries when your mind is free)
(ii) Lodash
npm i --save lodash
So that’s 40% job done WOOF!!
I won’t cover the deep understanding of these libraries although you can visit the documentation below:
tensorflowJS: https://www.tensorflow.org/js/
LodashJs: https://lodash.com/
The Dataset used in this prediction is been collected manually alongside my partner in this project( Krutarth Jaiswal ) so please do at your own risk otherwise search on Internet or use ours ( We don’t have any issue with that). The Dataset can be found or downloaded from my github repo( link at the end of Article, please do clap if you go down, Ahh just kidding your wish).
So now you have Datasets and Libraries installed lets start some Coding and predict some rents for testing.
Note: Please follow the steps for files and codes. If any problem faced please use my repo as reference( you know where the link is ??, at the end of article )
So there are basically 3 main file in this project.
index.js ( Entry point )
linear-regression.js ( Algorithms or Black box ( people from software engineering will definitely love it) )
load-csv.js ( Loading a CSV file specifically for JS purpose )
So starting from Load CSV, it is a JavaScript file which basically load the whole csv file into your JavaScript program which can be manipulated and saved just like in python. Before starting the main thing , load-csv.js is easily available on internet. So We will mainly focus on index.js and linear-regression.js. If any problem faced in load-csv.js which is in my github repo, you can comment down the error and I will get back to you in a short while.
index.js
Figure.1 (Loading Libraries)
So the above 3 line of code represent the libraries which are been included in the index.js file and now we will create the variables and inputs which are to be tested upon
Figure.2 ( Creating variable and connecting with other 2 files)
So in above line of Code we have create links to our other 2 files or libraries you can say. And if you would notice in the lines we have also included the CSV Loading thing, which as mentioned brings us to our dataset.
Another important thing to notice here is the prediction points, As we are predicting Price or rent, we can directly include the pricing column of the dataset. And for prediction as you can we have used Longitudes and Latitudes which are basically access pint which help us in Linear regression to predict the exact or near to position and tells its price. We have included only 2 attribute there are other attributes which you can use, just don’t mess the notations and syntax.
Figure.3 (Specifying things)
Here is where we decide the learning, epochs(batch size) and iteration for the Linear Regression algorithm to learn and predict upon the Model.
Figure.4 (Graph)
Now this step is all up to you. this steps make or plot a graph for us which shows us the quantities which we are working upon. And we can also print the R2 value for it.
Figure.5 ( Actual Graph)
The output would look something like this.
Now comes the final step for our index.js file which is just the prediction point which works based on the example or Longitude and latitude point provided to the Linear Regression Algorithm.
Figure.6 (Prediction)
So this was all about index.js, the rest of the stuff in the first line in above Screenshot is basically how Lodash helps us to create a variable in JavaScript which can be used in any way after executing.
This forms around 10% of our project. ( 40 + 10 = 50 )
Now 50% more to go
linear-regression.js
Figure.7 ( Including libraries )
So this comes the same way, of including the libraries of Machine Learning.
Figure.8 ( Creating class and constructor for Linear Regression )
Note: Please check the original code for indentation and brackets closing. The Original code will be in my repo whose link is mentioned at the last.
Now here we give the constructor the predefined values and labels and features are just the Longitude, Latitudes and pricing which we have provided in index.js. and on gradient descent function, for people who are new, Gradient descent is a first-order iterative optimization algorithm for finding a local minimum of a differentiable function. To find a local minimum of a function using gradient descent, we take steps proportional to the negative of the gradient (or approximate gradient) of the function at the current point. And after that we are creating matrix which would be further in form of tensor which can predict the line on graph.
Figure.9 (Training method)
So here comes the most important part which is training our dataset which are basically partitioning the datasets into training and testing dataset. Here we can see we have used much amount of Lodash function to create and manipulate matrices in the form of tensors. And we have also included gradient descent, MSE and learning rate updating methods. For people who are not aware about the training dataset , it is the most precious dataset which is been modeled upon and then predicted sing the test data.
Figure.10 ( Data normalization and Standardization)
So the above 2 methods are used to manipulate the dataset so that no error occurs when we are predicting or testing the data. What the above line of code will do is that it will eliminate the unwanted datasets and rows which would create ambiguity further.
Figure.11 ( Calculating Error and updating the Learning rate accordingly)
These are the last steps in the linear regression file which helps in solving the error percentage and updating the learning rate which we have manually provided in the index.js file. This will result in optimized output and results.
Figure.12 ( Testing Dataset )
Now comes another important step which is manipulating testing dataset and bringing it to the optimum level of training dataset which can help us predict the Rent or Pricing. testing features will work on the same dataset which we provide it with and which we split in the index.js file
Figure.13 ( Prediction )
Oh yes, Everyone was waiting for this thing which is prediction of our provided values and getting the output. So as we have seen in the index.js file the prediction function which basically this function which is been called upon.
Now this constitute around 50 % of our program.
Wait what completed the Project. Yes you are right that’s all for predicting the Rent or pricing using TensorFlow in JavaScript.
Now the question arises that how to run the program program, It is quite simple Just go to the index.js file and change your values for longitude and latitude , you can even add some other attributes if you want, its all up to you.
open a terminal in VS Code or our most valued start run terminal and write the following command:
Figure.14
typing this in the folder where you have located all the file, make sure that the node modules folder is also included in this folder otherwise it will cause an error.
And that's a wrap.
Yeah yeah I know, below is the link for my repo and my github profile.
Github profile: https://github.com/vrushit
Github repo: https://github.com/vrushit/House-Rent-Prediction
Please comment any error faced, I will surely answer them.
Thank you, Please give a clap and star my repo if you like it. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/house-rent-prediction-using-machine-learning-in-javascript-c62231a51e35 | ['Vrushit Bharucha'] | 2020-12-04 17:25:56.643000+00:00 | ['Lodash', 'JavaScript', 'Tensorflowjs', 'Predictions', 'Machine Learning'] |
How can Blockchain-Enabled KYC Solution Drive Secure Transactions | The distributed ledger technology of blockchain serves as an ideal solution for secure and trustworthy transactions. This automated platform streamlines the operations and enhances compliance procedures. Blockchain-enabled KYC solutions enable financial institutions, businesses, and individuals to address the inefficiencies of a traditional KYC process.
The traditional KYC process is time-consuming and costly. Blockchain-enabled KYC solution redefines the verification process, making it quick, transparent, and cost-efficient.
Blockchain KYC Solutions- Benefits and Barriers
Blockchain-based KYC platform delivers trust and security within the platform and enables user verification processes in a smooth manner. Blockchain in KYC space accounts for many benefits which can be specified as immutable, transparent, private, and a shared ledger which automates the mechanism.
However, blockchain-enabled KYC solution is still in a nascent stage and has various requirements for implementation.
Viability of technology: For enabling a global KYC utility solution, a blockchain-based mechanism is required which is well-efficient and able to manage a high level of business complexities and logic that would be able to accommodate numerous nodes.
For enabling a global KYC utility solution, a blockchain-based mechanism is required which is well-efficient and able to manage a high level of business complexities and logic that would be able to accommodate numerous nodes. Delivering return on investment: The cost to develop, execute, and migrate a system to a blockchain-enabled solution can be high.
The cost to develop, execute, and migrate a system to a blockchain-enabled solution can be high. Regulatory framework: It is essential to be in line with the regulators and abide by the current regulatory reforms.
It is essential to be in line with the regulators and abide by the current regulatory reforms. Standardization of data model: Proper identification and verification of common data set results in greater efficiency.
Apart from these, there are also other barriers to blockchain-based KYC solutions that include governance concerns, a common central party to regulate the transactions, establishment of an overall data storage model. There are also other concerns regarding market-wide acceptability and accessibility of infrastructure.
However, Blockchain KYC solution plays a pivotal role in accelerating client on-boarding.
A potential model for blockchain-based KYC platform
Blockchain-enabled KYC solution can offer the following:
Collection of entity data: When all the data whether government based, private, or public is made available on a single platform then all the hustle of an individual to verify this identity would be eliminated. A user need not provide his information on multiple sources as it is stored on a single authoritative source.
When all the data whether government based, private, or public is made available on a single platform then all the hustle of an individual to verify this identity would be eliminated. A user need not provide his information on multiple sources as it is stored on a single authoritative source. Verification of entity data: The data or information is made self-reliable and verifiable through the mechanism of cryptography. It removes the need for forensic validation and the need to rely on any third party for passing the information.
The data or information is made self-reliable and verifiable through the mechanism of cryptography. It removes the need for forensic validation and the need to rely on any third party for passing the information. Screening: Initially a need maybe there to have an offline ID to verify and identify the exact user. A previous unique ID or a new ID may be created to eliminate the risk of any false identity.
Initially a need maybe there to have an offline ID to verify and identify the exact user. A previous unique ID or a new ID may be created to eliminate the risk of any false identity. Monitoring: Single data storage enables the banks and financial institutions to receive regular automatic updates and reduce the chances of exposure to risk.
Single data storage enables the banks and financial institutions to receive regular automatic updates and reduce the chances of exposure to risk. Reporting: All the records are efficiently maintained on an immutable network of KYC profile which requires proper permission and access to edit and view the transactions.
Progressing towards blockchain-enabled solutions
There are two main approaches that are being considered for blockchain-enabled KYC solution and that are mentioned as below:
Utility Concept
This model is an intermediary step for blockchain-enabled solutions as it addresses many considerations such as centralization, digitization of records, and access to trusted data with the standardization policy. It facilitates higher flexibility in the model and provides a blueprint that would accelerate KYC adoption in the market.
Blockchain-enabled document exchange pilots
Another model to get started with the blockchain KYC platform is by serving the banks with the pilot KYC program. This platform secures KYC documents and distributes them to multiple counterparties from a central interface after the authorization of an individual.
Future Perspective
The integration of decentralized ledger technology with KYC automates the verification process and provides a safe and secure platform to enhance the experience of clients.
There is a huge need to harmonize the overall requirements with multiple financial institutions and their regulators, and efforts are being taken to solve the fundamental problems. Therefore if you are considering addressing the KYC problem and building trust in the market, associate with a blockchain-enabled KYC solution development company.
Schedule a call with our experts and learn how you can go ahead with the implementation of blockchain-enabled KYC solution. | https://medium.com/@antiersolutions/how-can-blockchain-enabled-kyc-solution-drive-secure-transactions-a96f726beee0 | ['Antier Solutions'] | 2020-02-20 13:10:59.866000+00:00 | ['Fintech', 'Kyc', 'Blockchain', 'Distributed Ledgers', 'Blockchain Technology'] |
Fort Collins Adapts to Drier Climate with Data-Driven Solutions | Fort Collins Adapts to Drier Climate with Data-Driven Solutions
By Hayley Kallenberg
Years of historic drought have exacted a heavy toll across the western U.S., from devastating wildfires to shrinking reservoirs. With extreme heat and dryness expected to be the new normal for years to come across the region, governments have no choice but to adapt. In more and more areas, water management has become an innovation challenge: How can cities learn to live with less?
The City of Fort Collins has a history of tackling big challenges, like developing renewable energy technologies and next-generation rechargeable batteries. Recognized in 2015 by the Smithsonian Institute as a place of innovation, and home to high-tech startups and Colorado State University, Fort Collins views ingenuity as part of its DNA.
No surprise, then, that city officials have stepped up to the challenge of 21st century water management with data-driven innovations that creatively engage and empower residents to be part of solutions. This work has flowed out of Fort Collins’ steady investment in building staff comfort and skill with foundational practices including data governance, performance and analytics, and stakeholder engagement. The City treats data as a strategic asset that can yield actionable insights and meaningfully engage the public.
“When you have a robust data program, and data is easily accessible to both staff and residents, it becomes much easier to determine how finite city resources can be used to tackle issues such as water conservation,” says Tyler Marr, deputy director of Information & Employee Services in Fort Collins.
Sharing Data to Save Water
The City’s Landscape Water Budget and Leak Alerts programs showcase how combining the right technology platforms with open data practices and performance analytics can deliver real results.
Prior to launching the Landscape Water Budget program, Fort Collins conducted commercial irrigation audits. Staff from Fort Collins Utilities, which manages the City’s water supply, would assess properties and make irrigation improvement suggestions. But many customers would request an assessment each year without having implemented the City’s previous water-saving advice. City staff often would find themselves stuck between the customer (who owns or rents the land) and a landscaping contractor in charge of irrigation.
A city staff member meeting with a Landscape Water Budget program participant. Image courtesy of the City of Fort Collins.
So the City overhauled its approach. Using hourly water usage data drawn from its new Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system, Fort Collins Utilities began providing suggested water-use budgets to both customers and contractors during initial on-site consultations. Customers can access their water accounts detailing suggested and actual usage 24/7 via the MyWater portal, developed in partnership with the WaterSmart data analytics platform.
Screenshot from the MyWater portal showing outdoor water usage. Image courtesy of the City of Fort Collins.
The overarching idea was to give end users useful insights into how they can conserve water and empower them to make adjustments without city involvement. “Fundamentally, we are better off when we can build conversations with customers and the broader community that are based in transparency, visibility, and engagement,” says John Phelan, energy services senior manager at Fort Collins Utilities.
Since launching in 2018, the Landscape Budget program has reduced water use by an estimated 73 million gallons. This represents about 1 percent of the City’s total annual treated water use. Over the same period, the number of participants — many are homeowners’ associations and customers with landscapes that cover millions of square feet — has doubled from 40 to 80.
The MyWater portal also provides individual household customers with general water use information and comparisons to similar homes. The AMI system can automatically flag continuous water use, so Fort Collins Utilities decided to use this feature to enhance its system for alerting customers about suspected leaks. On the MyWater dashboard, a household can sign up for the Leak Alerts program and select a preferred communication method. The system will send text message or email notifications if continuous water use is sensed for a 24-hour period. Previously, the City would call a customer or mail a letter if it suspected a leak.
An automatic alert message sent via the Leak Alerts program. Image courtesy of the City of Fort Collins.
Since 2017, the City has sent more than 13,300 Leak Alert notifications. Because it can now reach more customers faster and resolve leaks more quickly, the results are dramatic: an increase in estimated annual water savings from two million gallons prior to 2017 to 40 million gallons in recent years.
Fort Collins residents participating in the Leak Alert program can provide feedback to Utilities, including detailing the cause of a leak and whether it has been fixed.
Data from both the Leak Alerts and Landscape Water Budget programs are tracked by Fort Collins’ customized database known as “Bertha,” which supports the City’s big utilities goals: high-quality service and efficient resource management. (Fort Collins Utilities also manages stormwater, wastewater, and electricity.) Staff designed the database system to collect and organize data from all utility services across the City, helping staff address a range of challenges.
For example, city officials have analyzed utility data to identify residential properties that could benefit from the City’s home energy efficiency retrofit program, and then engaged those customers. And during the pandemic, staff pulled data from Bertha to identify residents who had fallen behind on payments and then reached out to them to share information about utilities payment assistance resources.
“In so many ways, data helps us make better decisions as a city and helps the residents of Fort Collins make better decisions,” says Liesel Hans, interim deputy director of water resources and treatment at Fort Collins Utilities.
Budgeting by and for the People
Data governance, metrics-driven performance management, and stakeholder engagement is evident in Fort Collins’ budgeting approach as well. The City operates a robust public engagement process. In the months leading up to submission of the biennial budget proposal to the City Council, residents can visit a budget website to read budget documents, watch videos, and participate in surveys and online forums. The feedback is considered by staff as they develop the official budget proposal.
The City’s Budgeting for Outcomes process, which prioritizes budget requests to aid decision-making, also serves to increase community participation. Fort Collins’ budget is broken into seven outcomes, each tied to specific performance metrics. For example, in the Neighborhood Livability & Social Health outcome, a key metric is Voluntary Code Compliance, which tracks city efforts to educate neighbors on city ordinances and codes. Through the budget engagement and feedback tools, residents can rank their priority outcomes, as well as which objectives should be prioritized within each outcome area.
The Budget 2021 site garnered participation from over 3,250 unique participants, despite the unprecedented year that was 2020. The Budget 2022 site is expected to have even greater engagement.
“It’s really exciting to see the process work,” shares Lawrence Pollack, Fort Collins’ budget director.
Going forward, Pollack’s team will advance its budgeting process through its Equity Indicators Project. Working with community leaders, officials will look at various equity indicators across the City to focus budget offers on actions that can help close racial and economic disparities. “Every budget request now has to answer how it advances equity in Fort Collins so that we really embed this work throughout the budget process,” Pollack says.
By intentionally engaging more diverse members of the community, Pollack and his team are hoping to get more actionable and meaningful information from residents. “We don’t want to just hear the vocal majority,” Pollack says. “The differentiation of voices is really important in this work.”
Hayley Kallenberg is a writer and organizational strategist, specializing in communications, marketing, and program design.
As a member of the nationwide What Works Cities (WWC) network, the City of Fort Collins has received technical assistance from one of WWC’s expert partners to strengthen data-driven governance capacities. The City is also part of WWC’s City Budgeting for Equity & Recovery program.
Fort Collins is one of 23 cities to achieve 2021 What Works Cities Certification, the national standard of excellence for well-managed, data-driven local government. Read stories from other certified cities here. | https://medium.com/what-works-cities-certification/fort-collins-adapts-to-drier-climate-with-data-driven-solutions-c3a541582590 | ['What Works Cities'] | 2021-07-14 12:24:26.102000+00:00 | ['Fort Collins', 'Climate Change', 'Solutions', 'Climate Adaptation', 'Data'] |
Announcing 2020 CVPR Low-Power Computer Vision Challenge — Online Track | PyTorch researchers and developers are invited to join the 2020 CVPR Lower-Power Vision Challenge (LPVC) — Online Track for UAV video. The goal of this challenge is to build a system that can discover and recognize characters in video captured by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) accurately using PyTorch Mobile and Raspberry Pi 3B+.
Computer vision technologies have been steadily improving and being built into machines for uses such as detecting oil bilge in oceans to explaining real-life surroundings for visually impaired people. The challenge is that as these computer vision technologies advance, they require a lot more energy to function due to increased computational and storage resources. This challenge presents a great opportunity for the PyTorch community to help advance on-device computer vision technology to enable many new applications.
Online submission will be open from May 16, 2020 to June 5, 2020 at https://lpcv.ai/. Visit https://lpcv.ai/20lpcvc-video-track for more details.
You can sign up for the website by clicking on the “LOGIN” button on the top right corner of the page to get the latest news.
Thank you,
The PyTorch Team | https://medium.com/pytorch/announcing-2020-cvpr-low-power-computer-vision-challenge-online-track-c1aee089a298 | [] | 2020-02-25 17:41:24.467000+00:00 | ['Computer Vision', 'Challenge', 'Raspberry Pi', 'Announcements', 'Pytorch'] |
Inside the second DataFest Kampala | We had to take a year-long hiatus as a result of the pandemic in 2020, so you can understand our excitement in putting together this year’s edition of Data Fest! It was a smashing success, and here’s everything that you need to know about what went down during the 2021 DataFestKampala event that happened on 29 and 30 April 2021.
For the first time ever, we held DataFest Kampala as a hybrid event; in the spirit of adhering to COVID-19 prevention guidelines by keeping physical attendee numbers low and allowing people to participate virtually through Zoom. We also cast a wider net in terms of locations for this year; we were active at a total of 6 locations during the course of the two-day event, with the primary location being MoTIV in Bugolobi, and satellite locations including the SafeBoda Academy in Kyebando, Laboremus offices in Bugolobi, and RAN Africa offices in Kololo.
The turnout was amazing and almost overwhelming! We had more than 120 people show up at MoTIV and other locations, while more than 300 of you participated virtually.
The theme of the event was “Living with Data” and the focus was on examining the role data plays in every aspect of our daily lives. Unmissable interaction with data in our day-to-day means that the importance of learning how to leverage that interaction for a better human experience cannot be overstated. From the private sector to public governmental organizations, from entertainment to healthcare, data holds the answers to how to make our lives better.
We kicked off with a plenary address from Neema Iyer, the Executive Director of Pollicy, the organizers of DataFest, highlighting the work of Pollicy in the areas of data and tech, specifically data feminism, skills development by training and mentoring young people into the data science space. She recommended that such topics take center stage in the conversation. | https://medium.com/@pollicy/inside-the-second-datafest-kampala-63a12342ad8c | [] | 2021-05-31 14:38:30.057000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Uganda', 'Civictech', 'Data'] |
The iOS View Drawing Cycle Demystified | The Update Cycle
Once control is returned to the main run loop, the system renders layout according to constraints on view instances.
When a view is marked as requiring a change in the next update cycle, the system executes all the changes.
The system works through the run loop, then constraints before the deferred layout pass.
Deferred layout pass
Constraints would usually be created during the creation of the view controller (perhaps in the viewDidLoad() function).
However, during runtime, dynamic changes to constraints are not immediately acted on by the system. Unfortunately, the change would be left in a stale state, waiting for the next deferred layout pass and — actually, that might never happen. The user is looking at an out-of-date view. Awful.
Equally, other changes to objects (like changing a control’s properties) can also change the constraints on other objects, potentially leading to the same problem.
The solution to this is to request a deferred layout pass by calling setNeedsLayout() on the relevant view (or setNeedsUpdateConstraints() ).
Technically, the deferred layout pass (according to the documentation) involves two passes:
The update pass updates the constraints, as necessary. This calls updateViewConstraints method on all view controllers and updateConstraints method on all views. The layout pass repositions the view’s frames, as necessary. This calls viewWillLayoutSubviews on all view controllers and layoutSubviews on each view.
The relevant methods? They are right below but explored in depth further on in the article. | https://medium.com/better-programming/demystifying-the-view-drawing-cycle-fb1f7ac519f1 | ['Steven Curtis'] | 2020-06-12 14:18:03.325000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Swift', 'iOS', 'Mobile', 'Xcode'] |
How to create Namespaces in Kubernetes in AWS? (K8s) | namespaces in Kubernetes
Kubernetes namespace is an abstraction to support multiple virtual clusters on the same physical cluster.
You can have multiple namespaces within one Kubernetes cluster, and they are all logically isolated from one another.
Namespaces provide a logical separation of cluster resources between multiple users, teams, projects, and even customers. Namespaces are how to divide cluster resources between multiple users (via resource quota).
Namespaces have below functionalities and on basis of the same we tend to use will use them.
Within the same Namespace, Pod to Pod communication.
Namespaces are virtual cluster sitting on top of physical cluster.
Namespaces provide a logical separation between the environments.
Namespaces are only hidden from each other but are not fully isolated from each other.
One service in a Namespace can talk to another service in another Namespace if the target and sources are used with the full name which includes service/object name followed by Namespace.
However, if we use the only service name and DNS internally identifies it, resolves it within the same Namespace.
Namespaces also provide the scope for names, the name of resources within one namespace must be unique.
Namespaces are intended for use in environments (Dev, QA, Test, and Prod) with many users, or projects.
default
List of namespaces:
$ kubectl get namespaces NAME STATUS AGE
default Active 1d
kube-system Active 1d
kube-public Active 1d
Kubernetes ships with three initial namespaces:
default:
The default namespace for all objects not belonging to other namespaces. The default namespace is employed to carry the default set of pods, services, and deployments utilized by the cluster. Kubernetes tooling is ready up out of the box to use this namespace and you can’t delete it.
Kube-system:
The namespace for objects created by the Kubernetes system.
Kube-public:
The namespace for resources that are publicly available/readable by all.
Create a namespace
Let’s create namespaces for development, QA, and Production.
Use kubectl create command:
kubectl create namespace development namespace/development create
kubectl create namespace qa namespace/qa created kubectl create namespace production namespace/production created
You can also create a YAML file to create namespaces as below:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
name: development
Verify the new namespace
kubectl get namespaces NAME STATUS AGE default Active 2d
development Active 3m
kube-system Active 1d
kube-public Active 1d
production Active 4m
perf Active 4m
Create objects in a specific namespace:
You can choose a namespace while creating an object/resource.
Use — namespace or -n to specify the namespace as follows:
kubectl run nginx --image=nginx --namespace development
or
kubectl run nginx --image=nginx -n development
You can also specify the namespace in the YAML file as below:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: nginx
namespace: development
List/Modify/Delete the objects in a namespace
Use — namespace or -n to specify the namespace while executing kubectl commands.
kubectl get pods -n development kubectl describe pod nginx -n development kubectl delete pod nginx -n development
Delete Namespace
Use the kubectl delete command to delete a namespace. When you delete a namespace, it will delete all the objects and resources created in that namespace.
kubectl delete namespaces development qa namespace "development" deleted namespace "qa" deleted
The above commands execute in asynchronous mode.
The status of the namespace would show up as Terminating until it gets completely deleted.
Notes
Note 1: Use — all-namespaces option for all namespaces.
Note 2: Not All Objects are in a Namespace
Most Kubernetes objects/resources such as pods, services, replication controllers, and others are in some namespaces.
However, namespace resources don’t seem to be themselves in an exceeding namespace. And low-level resources, such as nodes and persistent volumes, are not in any namespace.
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Follow us on Twitter 🐦 and Facebook 👥 and Instagram 📷 and join our Facebook and Linkedin Groups 💬 | https://medium.com/faun/namespaces-in-kubernetes-4bac49414770 | ['Kubernetes Advocate'] | 2020-12-20 14:10:23.693000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'DevOps', 'Startup', 'Docker', 'AWS'] |
AYS Daily Digest 16/04/20: Testimonies from people trapped at sea | Heart-breaking testimonies from refugees on the move // News from inside German refugee camps dealing with COVID-19 // Austria’s agreement to deport migrants and refugees // Updates from minors evacuated from Greece
“On board the #ALANKURDI, our guests are increasingly desperate. After 11 days on the ship without an end in sight, one person jumped overboard. 146 people must be brought to safety!” — @sea-eye
Feature
A heart-breaking testimony was shared from a woman who was among the 63 persons left stranded at sea for almost a week. Due to the lack of assistance from the Maltese authorities, the woman witnessed 5 people on the boat die of thirst and exhaustion and 7 more people drown. They were ultimately deported back to Libya and detained back in Tripoli’s inhumane Tariq Al Sikka detention centre.
“We have been in this place for about three years. We were registered by the UNHCR in Sikka. And we left Sikka feeling depressed and hopeless because we did not receive any assistance. We were desperate and so we tried to get across the sea. It was a pointless journey. We were at sea for about seven days. We were picked up on the seventh day and we were hopeful. However, we were deported back to Libya without being told anything. We returned to Libya and we’re back locked up in Sikka again. We have returned to the place where we found no hope in the first place. We have no idea what we are going to do. Trying to get across the sea again sounds pointless because we have tried that and we were at sea for seven days with no food or water. Our throats were so dry that we had no choice but to drink sea water. We are eight women in this place. We are all trembling. Some of us have sore bottoms. Six of us are Eritreans, one of whom is a mother with a child. The other two are, I think, South Sudanese. One of them has a young child. We are really all in a bad state of mind and our bodies are shaking because we have witnessed our brothers (friends) dying before our eyes. They died due to starvation and depression. It’s the same situation with the remaining people in this place. Returning to Libya has been very difficult on all of us. We left from this place initially because we had no hope here and we don’t think there is any hope for us here now. One help that we desperately need, please help us to get out of this place called Libya. We just ask to be moved to any place out of Libya where we can be safe, that’s the only thing that can give us peace. Apart from the seven days we had spent at sea, we had also stayed by the coast for three days. We had not eaten any food during all that time. This really had a terrible effect on us. What made us lose hope further was seeing helicopters fly over us and not helping when we were left stranded at sea because the boat was out of fuel. On top of that, strong waves made us feel seasick. It was a hopeless situation dealing with all this and the hardships of going hungry and thirsty. Everybody is feeling hopeless, hungry and thirsty to the extent that nobody has anything to say. This is why some of our friends ended up dying. There is nothing here that can make us resist, to the point that we have lost our appetite for food even though we are hungry. Please help us because we desperately need help.”
Additionally, Alarm Phone has published a press release into how malta and EU authorities left people to die at sea and returned survivors to war. The press release affirms that the inaction of authorities in Malta, Italy, Libya, Portugal, Germany, as well as the EU border agency Frontex caused the death of 12 people. Alarm phone dispels the claims from the Maltese government and shows that the boat had drifted within the Maltese Search and Rescue (SAR) zone yet all relevant failed to intervene, using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to dramatically breach the law of the sea as well as human rights and refugee conventions.
In the report, Alarm Phone offers a detailed reconstruction of the distressing case, showing clearly how it unfolded, and the ways in which Malta and other European authorities refused to rescue the people in distress. The full report can be viewed below:
Turkey
Germany
EUobserver has reported that almost half of the 600 residents from the Ellwangen refugee camp in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, have tested positive for COVID-19. In a damning example of the continued failings of the German state to protect the health of migrants and refugees, within Ellwangen camp people who have tested positive are still being forced to share facilities with everyone else. All facilities are shared including bathrooms, showers, toilets and bedrooms. The camp does not allow individuals to cook their own food and thus everyone must get their food in the canteen.
Speaking under conditions of anonymity to the EUobserver a resident said “everyone is scared to eat something because of crowds and we don’t know who has coronavirus or not”.
Speaking out against the conditions of this camp, the Wurtemburg Refugee Council has demanded the eviction of the camp, but since the demand was first issued some three weeks ago, the proposal has still been ignored. Since the facility first went into lockdown on the 5th of April after a 32-year old man tested positive, the number of infections has since skyrocketed leading the police to continue imposing a forced lockdown of all residents. In an unprecedented measure, the single WIFI hotspot had been switched off meaning that many residents are now unable to contact families, legal teams or find out more information about the ongoing crisis.
“They are seeing these people as a kind of threat and a danger, it seems to be an acceptable strategy to park the police outside and make sure nobody comes in and nobody comes out,” said Seán McGinley, a manager at the Baden-Wurttemberg Refugee Council.
Reports indicate that the camp had rented a facility to quarantine some camp residents if they fell sick, but the small size of the facility limits its capacity to 30 people and makes it useless when almost half of a 600 people camp have already tested positive. | https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-daily-digest-16-04-20-testimonies-from-people-trapped-at-sea-e74f9f892a55 | ['Are You Syrious'] | 2020-04-17 09:37:31.871000+00:00 | ['Digest', 'Migrants', 'Refugees', 'Europe', 'Frontex'] |
Deep Learning: Introductory One-Liner Glossary | Deep Learning explained in single sentences!
Supervised Learning
Supervised Learning is used to train a model when we have a set of feature X and Target Y. It is also used when we are asked to predict target outputs for new feature x_test.
There are two types of supervised learning problems: classification and regression.
Unsupervised Learning
Unsupervised learning is used when we don’t have targets in the training dataset, but want to automatically find patterns and relationships in an unlabeled dataset. It could be something as grouping data points into clusters.
Semi-Supervised Learning
Semi-supervised learning is a class of supervised learning tasks and techniques that also make use of unlabeled data for training — typically, a small amount of labeled data with a large amount of unlabeled data.
Artificial Neural Networks (ANN)
A computer system modeled on the human brain and nervous system, which consists of a number of input nodes (input data). The input nodes are passed through certain weighted hidden nodes with non-linear activation to the output node.
Deep Learning
Using neural network architectures with multiple hidden layers of neurons to build generative as well as predictive models.
Reinforcement Learning
Learning the behaviors that maximize a reward through trial and error.
Classification
To predict a categorical response (e.g. Yes or No? Blue, Green or Red?)
Regression
To predict a continuous response (e.g. Price, Sales).
Clustering
Unsupervised grouping of data into baskets.
Model
A model is a required structure trained using machine learning algorithms that stores a generalized, internal representation of a data for description or prediction.
Attribute
A quality describing an observation (e.g. Color, Size, Weight).
Feature
A feature includes an attribute + value (e.g. Color is an attribute. “Color is blue” is a feature).
Feature Vector (X)
A list of features describing an instance or observation.
Instance or Observation
A data point, row, or observation containing feature(s).
Data Cleaning
Improving the quality of the data by modifying its form or content, for example by filling in NULL values or fixing values that are incorrect.
Accuracy or Error Rate
The percentage of correct predictions made by the model, i.e. #correctPrediction / Total#Predictions.
Specificity
In binary classification (Yes/No), specificity is how accurately model classify Actual No as No. i.e. #CorrectNo/Total#ActualNo
Precision
In binary classification (Yes/No), precision is how accurate are the positive prediction. i.e #CorrectYes/Total#YesPredicted
Recall or Sensitivity
In binary classification (Yes/No), recall is how accurately model classifies Actual Yes as Yes. #CorrectYes/Total#ActualYes
Confusion Matrix
The table that describes the performance of a classification model. Source.
True Positives : We correctly predicted that they do have diabetes
: We predicted that they do have diabetes True Negatives : We correctly predicted that they don’t have diabetes
: We predicted that they don’t have diabetes False Positives : We incorrectly predicted that they do have diabetes (Type I error)
: We predicted that they do have diabetes (Type I error) False Negatives: We incorrectly predicted that they don’t have diabetes (Type II error)
Over-fitting
Occurs when a model learns the training data so well that even the minute details and noise from the dataset are not generalized.
Hint: When model aces on the training/validation set but fails on a test set, it is over-fitting.
Under-fitting
Under-fitting occurs when your model over-generalizes and fails to incorporate relevant variations in the data that would give the model more predictive power.
Hint: Generally when a model performs poorly on both training and test sets, it is a case of under-fitting.
Bias-Variance Trade-off
Statistical property of a predictive model such as a lower bias in parameter estimation has a higher variance of the parameter estimates across samples and vice versa.
Bias: What is the average difference between your predictions and the correct value for a particular observation?
What is the average difference between your predictions and the correct value for a particular observation? Variance: How tightly packed are your predictions for a particular observation relative to each other?
Training Set
A set of examples (X, Y) used for training the model.
Validation Set
To avoid “contaminating” the model with information about the test set, a mini-test set that provides feedback to the model during training on how well the current weights generalize beyond the training set.
Test Set
A set of examples used at the end of training and validation to assess the predictive power of your model. It’s also done to test the generalizability of the model on unseen data.
Backpropagation
An algorithm that computes the partial derivatives of the cost function with respect to any weight or bias in the network being trained.
Loss
Summation of the errors made for each example in training or validation sets, usually negative log-likelihood and residual sum of squares for classification and regression respectively.
Epoch
One epoch is when an entire dataset is passed both forward and backward through the neural network only once.
Batch
The total number of training examples present in a single batch.
Iteration
The number of batches needed to complete one epoch.
Learning Rate
A hyper-parameter that determine how much or how fast we are adjusting the weights of our network with respect to the loss gradient.
Regularization
Penalizing loss function by adding L1 norm (LASSO) and/or L2 norm (Ridge) to curb the weights from being too large that causes over-fitting.
Normalization
Changing the values of numeric columns in the dataset to use a common scale by subtracting the batch mean and dividing by the batch standard deviation.
Model-tuning
Selecting hyper-parameters to generate a model that best suits the objectives.
Activation Function
Non-linear functions that define the output of that node in a neural network.
Batch Normalisation
Normalizing the output of a previous activation layer allowing each layer of a network to learn a little bit more independently than other layers.
Embedding
A learned representation for text or image or other types of input in the form of a vector, where data that have the same meaning have a similar representation and are close to each other in the vector space.
Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs)
Space or shift invariant ANN, which consists of convolutional layers that apply a convolution operation to the input, passing the result to the next layer.
Convolution in CNN
Variation of mathematical convolution operation that returns the weighted summation of elements within a kernel as output as the kernel is moved through the input matrix.
Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs)
A class of ANN where connections between nodes with the internal state form a directed graph along a temporal sequence, which allows it to process not only single data points but also the entire sequences of data.
Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)
An RNN composed of cells that has memory and the three gates (input gate, output gate and forget gate) that regulate the flow of information into and out of the cell. | https://medium.com/fuse-ai/one-liner-glossary-for-fuse-ai-deeplearning-26ef7454dc5e | ['Rojesh Man Shikhrakar'] | 2019-04-17 09:53:05.798000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Supervised Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Glossary', 'Neural Networks'] |
Wake Forest Demon Deacons vs Texas A&M Aggies: Free Belk Bowl Pick, 12–29–2017 | Wake Forest Demon Deacons (7–5) vs Texas A&M Aggies (7–5)
Date: December 29th, 2017
Game Time: 1:00 pm
NCAAF Odds: Texas A&M +3, 65.5
Free Bowl Pick by ATS Expert Carmine Luzetti
The ACC and SEC will clash Friday in the 2017 Belk Bowl in Charlotte, NC as the Wake Forest Demon Deacons take on the Texas A&M Aggies. Both teams were 7–5 on the season but they both were good against the number: WF (8–3–1 ATS) / A&M (7–4–1 ATS). Oddsmakers have the Demon Deacons as -3 point favorites with the Total set at 65.5 at the time of this writing.
The Demon Deacons won their first four games but then lost their next three against quality ACC teams in Florida State, Clemson and Georgia Tech. The final five games got the fan base excited for next year posting a 3–2 record with wins over Louisville, Syracuse, and NC State. A big reason for the Demon Deacons success this season was their senior signal-caller, John Wolford. Wolford earned second-team All-ACC recognition after leading the conference in passer rating (157.5), tying for first in touchdown passes (25) while throwing just six interceptions. Wolford and company should be able to make some things happen through the air against a Texas A&M defense that ranks near the bottom of the SEC (10th) against the pass.
The Texas A&M Aggies will be coached Jeff Banks for their Bowl with Kevin Sumlin gone and Jimbo Fisher set to take over the program after the game. The Aggies grew impatient with Sumlin as they have not surpassed 8 wins since the 2013–14 season, which was the last time they won a bowl game. A&M has a history of starting off the season winning football games but losing traction when they enter the heart of the SEC schedule down the stretch.
Thanks to injuries, Texas A&M has used three different quarterbacks this season. The Aggies are 65th in the FBS in passing offense with 230.6 yards per game and stand 74th in rushing with 159 yards per contest. Texas A&M is 43rd in the FBS in scoring offense with 31.1 points per contest and 81st in scoring defense as they allow 28.7 points per game.
As with any bowl game, the biggest question is which team wants it more? A&M may be playing for Jimbo Fisher and the future but the same can be said for Wake as a dark horse ACC team in 2018. The edge at quarterback goes to John Wolford at Wake and the Demon Deacons are 4–0 ATS in their last 4 bowl games. I just don’t know which team we will see from the Aggies and it’s typically tough for teams and players to play in a bowl game after their head coach is fired. I think Wake Forest has more motivation to win this game and they are playing closer to home in Charlotte which should equate to more fan support.
Free Belk Bowl Pick: Wake Forest -3 | https://medium.com/verifiedcappers/wake-forest-demon-deacons-vs-texas-a-m-aggies-free-belk-bowl-pick-12-29-2017-e7c069083d88 | ['Ats Experts', 'Sports Professionals Network'] | 2017-12-29 13:00:49.783000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'College Football', 'Sports Betting', 'Gambling', 'NCAAF'] |
The Village I Grew up In | I guess I have more memories than photographs of this place. One doesn’t take pictures when home. But rather when on holiday on the beach or in the mountains.
I’ve got pictures from the later days. The ones when I started to build my passion for photography. But those photographs include flowers, birds, and trees. Not the town. I’ve always been an outdoor lover. As a kid already.
I’ve never watched TV except once a month “Asterix and Obelix” where the Gauls used to fight against the Romans. So if you ask me now about one or the other famous movie, or actor. Don’t bother. I haven’t watched it. I have no clue about any famous series or blockbusters.
I know which tree is good to climb on and from which angle you should capture the forest floor on camera. I know which hill is best for sledding and which mountains worth climbing.
But please don’t bother me with famous artists or celebrities. I have no clue. | https://medium.com/show-your-city/the-village-i-grew-up-in-3425ce0374d5 | ['Anne Bonfert'] | 2020-12-16 10:16:55.804000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Home', 'Growing Up', 'Village Life', 'Travel'] |
Is it too late to start building an Emergency Fund? Never. Let’s see how? | Life is unpredictable. You may have nasty surprises bumping on your head without alarming you in advance.
The ongoing pandemic- Covid 19 has reiterated many lessons to all of us: including the significance of having Emergency Funds in our hands and its value in our financial planning course.
Apparently, people have been striving to overcome the dropping economy of our country. On the contrary, those who had managed to create Emergency Funds have been subsisting with a smoother esprit.
COVID19 and its spread across the globe have threatened the entire mankind to accept the CHANGE. It made us realise that very little of what impacts our lives is actually within our control. One of the cases of this downfall is the involuntary job loss. No one’s job is protected today. Even managers who have been at the post for 10–20 years have faced the unemployment crisis during this pandemic. The country itself suffered more than 100 million job losses in 2020.
Financial Planners , Investment planners
Such disruption hurts even more if you do not have an Emergency Fund to plunge back on while your monthly cash-flows are ceased.
An Emergency Fund is the money kept aside for the unpredictable uncertainties; this money can be kept aside in very low-risk deposits or mutual funds that would be easily accessed in case of an emergency. Ideally speaking, it may include your 6–12 months of monetary liabilities or responsibilities such as your EMIs or rent.
A Contingency/Emergency fund needs to be:
★ Easily accessible at the time of emergency
★ Sufficient enough to meet 3–6 months of your expenses
★ Fully reliable for uncertainty periods
If you still don’t have that, you can plan to have it today despite your meagre income.
Tips to start building your EF from the scratch:
Tip #1: Evaluate your average monthly expenses
Tip #2: Multiply that figure by 6 and set it as your target figure.
Tip #3: Set aside a sufficient amount for the EF based on your earnings and affordability.
Tip #4: Place this amount in a separately: maybe in a savings account, a bank FD, Liquid funds or SIPs, that hold a good track history.
Tip #5: Keep supplementing this fund until you reach your target corpus that would aim to cover at least 3–6 months of your average monthly expenses.
Tip #6: Lastly and most importantly, do not touch this fund till an emergency strikes.
Investment planners , Financial planners
Conclusion:
Think about creating a personal Emergency Fund today. Set some rules that assist you in managing the funds properly. In simple words, manage to keep some cash in a safe but accessible place so as to use the same when you actually want it most. You’ll certainly be able to withstand any exorbitantly high expense that life may throw at you.
Still confused how to start an emergency fund? We are always there to help you. Take advice from domain experts today. For more info, visit: Fincart.com | https://medium.com/@fincart-financial-planners/is-it-too-late-to-start-building-an-emergency-fund-never-lets-see-how-89a7f23caa4f | [] | 2020-12-15 06:11:32.431000+00:00 | ['Financial Planning', 'Covid 19', 'Investment', 'Investing', 'Finance'] |
Chromosomes, reproduction, and queer identities: why we need to start defining science and stop letting science define us | It isn’t a surprise that religion, culture, and law have historically inflicted the most hindrance on LGBTQ+ progress. But in recent years, the notion that queer identities are somehow incompatible with science has become a vicious vehicle in driving forward anti-queer rhetoric.
The phrase ‘Science doesn’t care about your feelings’ (most likely popularized by political amateurs on Reddit) has even been printed on t-shirts, with multiple designs available on Amazon.
Many are outraged that the increasing validity of LGBTQ+ people seems to be jeopardizing or degrading our scientific understanding. Very recently, J.K. Rowling infamously tweeted transphobic remarks about sex.
In her tweet, the Harry Potter author implied that ‘sex is real’ and asserted that ‘It isn’t hate to speak the truth’.
Her tweet essentially claims that discrimination can be justified by science. But are such comments truly as harmless as a reproductive biology textbook? Or are these innocent scientific facts disguising a more disturbing social attitude? The recent invasion of LGBTQ+ identities — apparently divergent, anti-science ones — on axiomatic anatomy has uncomfortably prodded much discussion between activists and scientists alike.
In trying to reconcile LGBTQ+ rights with scientific veracity, we must come to terms with the fact that science is merely a human construct. No, I don’t mean that scientific occurrences are a human construct. The sun will rotate, organisms will evolve, and chemicals will react regardless of human observation.
However, our study of science, our interpretation of scientific observations, and, ultimately, the implications we draw from science are all under human control and influence. As anthropocentric as it may sound, scientific understanding is entirely malleable according to our humanistic needs.
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
Are the existence of XX and XY chromosomes a human construct? No, certainly not. No one is claiming we should invalidate these discoveries. No one is proposing we should tamper with the foundations of biology. At a very surface level, there are facts that are not negotiable. The truth is, some babies are born with XX chromosomes and others are born with XY chromosomes.
But that’s about where the science ends.
The rest of everything we know are artificial ornaments we have constructed around this primitive fact. Science never told us that people with XX and XY chromosomes must wear different attire or use different pronouns. In fact, science never even told us that they must intrinsically ‘feel’ different: that those with XX chromosomes must somehow feel ‘feminine’ or ‘female’ whereas those with XY chromosomes must somehow feel ‘masculine’ or ‘male’.
Gender is not so much a scientific fact as a scientific implication — a synthetic one at that. Humans dictate that everyone’s identity and expression must irrefutably adhere to their chromosomes. It has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with social conditioning.
This fundamentally short-circuits any argument against the scientific cogency of trans or non-binary genders. Simply put, it dissociates our identity from our anatomy, thereby rendering all perceived disagreement between them meaningless. A transgender woman may have XY chromosomes, but once we acknowledge that her identity and expression are not under the biological governance of her cells, science can no longer be used to invalidate her.
This way, we neither compromise on anatomical accuracy nor the freedom of self-identity. Scientists can embrace the truths of biology without doing a disservice to the LGBTQ+ community, and the LGBTQ+ community can identify as they wish, free from scientific judgment.
Photo by Fractal Hassan on Unsplash
A similar thought process can be applied to other anti-LGBTQ+ arguments too. For example, many people have rebuked homosexual relationships as ‘defying science’ since two people of the same gender cannot reproduce.
Yes, it’s scientifically correct that two men cannot naturally reproduce. Yes, it’s scientifically correct that the survival of a species, according to natural selection, relies on reproduction. However, this doesn’t conclude that homosexual relationships are wrong per se — we are unable to scientifically make that jump.
The intrinsic validity of a homosexual relationship cannot be objectively determined by their reproductive capability. These are implications that we have drawn ourselves, to dogmatically propagate the personal and unscientific belief that homosexual relationships are wrong. Such views are a moral stance and shouldn’t be framed as a scientific stance.
We often underestimate how much of our scientific knowledge is actually up for debate. The vast majority of knowledge are assumptions we make and implications we draw — these are bound to evolve in tandem with our social values. If the stuff inside someone’s cells matters more than who they actually are in the world, there’s something deeply concerning about our science.
There’s nothing inherently scientific about queerphobia. Science is never intrinsically discriminatory. Science simply describes microscopic properties within our cells, but discrimination is externally derived. Sometimes, we forget that we are the ones who define science. We mustn’t let it define us. | https://medium.com/@palispisuttisarun/chromosomes-reproduction-and-queer-identities-49b38e9e0d78 | ['Palis Pisuttisarun'] | 2020-06-08 02:27:50.066000+00:00 | ['Biology', 'LGBTQ', 'Psychology', 'Science', 'Sociology'] |
“And Now, My Beauty, I Must Pee” | Photo from Unsplash
“You’re drunk.”
“And possibly throw up as well.”
“Yes, please go before you do one or the other right here on the bar,” Angie replied. Well, one or maybe both of her replied.
Trevor tried his best to walk a straight line to the men’s room through the crowded bar. The loud music and the cacophony of people talking, as well as the massive amount of alcohol he’d consumed, were throwing off his balance.
He finally made it to the facilities and staggered through the door. Stepping up to the urinal, he initiated step one of the peeing, then possibly puking sequence.
“Hey Wallace,” sounded from behind him. He didn’t turn. Couldn’t risk pissing on his shoes. They were expensive.
“Yes? Rather busy at the moment,” he slurred in response. “Be done straight away.”
“I said, hey Wallace,” the voice chimed again, more insistent.
Trevor half-turned. “Wha — ”
White. World went white. Pain. Mouth. Nose. Intense pain. Floor. Why am I on the floor? Is my wanker still out?
He tried with all he had to focus. He was on his knees on the floor. His hand catching a stream of blood pouring from his mouth.
“Hey buddy, are you okay?” a patron asked. “That dude just cold-cocked you and walked out. I ain’t never seen anything like that.”
“Help me up,” Trevor managed.
The man put his hands under Trevor’s shoulders and helped him to his feet. “Erm, you might wanna put your junk away, there.”
With bloody hands, Trevor managed to compose himself and zip up. Another patron ran out a strip of hand-drying towel and passed it to him.
“Here you go, buddy. Your lip, and looks like your nose too, are bleeding pretty good.”
“Thank you,” Trevor managed as he took the paper towel and held it to his nose and mouth.
A large, burly man with a skin-tight t-shirt stormed into the restroom. “What the hell’s going on in here? We got trouble?”
“Erm,” Trevor began as he held the paper towel to his face. “We had some trouble, but he appears to have absconded.”
The bouncer stepped up and examined Trevor’s face. “What’d you do?”
“What did I do? I believe I am guilty of nothing further than using the loo.”
The bouncer looked at him sideways. “And some dude just came up and sucker punched you while you were taking a piss for no reason whatsoever, right?”
“Just my welcome to America, I guess,” Trevor replied as he pulled the paper towel away from his nose and examined it.
“Out of my way! Dammit, let me through!” Angie shoved her way through the crowd that had developed outside the men’s room. “Trevor? My God! No! Are you okay?”
“No worse for the wear, I suppose,” he answered through the paper towel. “But there does appear to be some damage to both my face and my dignity.”
The bouncer stepped toward the restroom door, “Y’all clear on out, there’s nothing to see here,” he shouted at the crowd. “You two,” he said taking both Trevor and Angie by the shoulders. “Come with me.”
He walked them to the front of the bar and out the door to the sidewalk. Releasing his grip on them, he took out his phone and thumbed the buttons.
“We don’t have any cameras near the restroom entrances,” he said. “So, there’s pretty much no chance that we could look at security footage and see who did this.”
“Okay?” Trevor answered, still holding the now bloodied paper towel to his nose.
“So that means there’s no sense in involving the law. I’m calling you an Uber now. He’s going to take you wherever you want to go in the city. My treat.”
“Oh, so my silence is being purchased for the price of an Uber?” Trevor’s voice sounded almost comically nasal with his nose pinched shut.
Angie physically stepped between him and the bouncer. “Let’s just go. We aren’t looking for trouble.”
“Just some medical attention, perhaps?”
“We’ll get you back to your hotel and get you cleaned up. That’s all you need,” she replied as she tentatively touched his nose.
“OW! Shit! That hurt.”
“See? He’s fine. Now, where’s that Uber?”
A car pulled up to the curb. “Silver Impala,” the bouncer said. “That’s your Uber.”
The pair got in the back seat and told the driver to head towards the Airport Holiday Inn. They rode in silence as Trevor continued to check for the bleeding to stop.
Finally, he said, “So does this happen all the time here or am I just lucky?”
Angie sighed deeply. “I probably should have told you.”
“What? Don’t tell me you know something about this.”
“I have a pretty good guess who did this to you.”
“And who might that be, Love?”
“My husband.”
Trevor coughed and then shrieked at the pain it caused. “Husband?”
“Mhm. Kevin. He’s my husband. Well soon to be ex-husband. But yeah, he’s done this before. And I saw him in the bar, making a b-line for the door when the commotion started.”
“Really? Well, I must say I’m…I’m speechless. Husband.”
They continued their ride in silence for a few more minutes.
“Airport Holiday Inn,” the Uber driver announced.
“Yes. Thank you,” Trevor answered. “Let me off here at the lobby and take this person wherever she wishes to go. Perhaps Kevin’s house. Good-bye Angie. Have a nice life.”
He exited the car and scurried into the hotel lobby, finally discarding his bloody paper towel in a waste bin near the door. | https://medium.com/lit-up/and-now-my-beauty-i-must-pee-ee843751f22c | ['Pat Link'] | 2019-06-16 23:47:16.837000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Flash Fiction', 'Relationships', 'Humor'] |
MOVIE>>> “HUSTLERS” (2019) Online Free Google Drive [mp4] | Watch or Download here : http://watch.movie4u.xyz/movie/540901/hustlers
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watch or Download here: http://bit.ly/2A9QIKx
Title : Hustlers
Genre : Comedy
Stars : Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Stiles, Keke Palmer, Lili Reinhart, Lizzo
Release : 2019–09–12
Runtime : 107 min.
Production : Annapurna Pictures
Movie Synopsis:
Inspired by Jessica Pressler’s “The Hustlers at Scores,” which details a crew of savvy former strip club employees who band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.
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SubQuery Provides Customers with Enterprise Support | As our community grows larger we are seeing hundreds of deployments and exponentially more traffic to our hosted service each and every day. The team at SubQuery are rising to this challenge however and are scaling our services to meet the unprecedented demand for our tools by our customers, while keeping our hosted service free.
Many customers now rely on SubQuery to provide mission critical data to their production apps. These customers represent some of the largest wallets (Nova and Fearless), scanners (Subscan, SubVis, and DotMarketCap), NFT platforms (Kodadot and Yuser), and more. These are huge applications that the Polkadot community use on a daily basis and must be online at all times.
The performance and reliability of our hosted service has been on the top of our priority list for some time here at SubQuery. Our sister team is OnFinality, Polkadot’s largest infrastructure provider, so we have plenty of experience in this area. As a result, today we are going to walk through three recent improvements that will make SubQuery the most reliable, scalable, and performant data platform in Polkadot.
Dedicated Databases
Initially, all SubQuery projects were deployed to shared databases in our infrastructure to save money and allow our service to remain free. However, this would cause high traffic projects with large data sets to strangle other projects hosted in the same database.
If you’re building a project that is designed for production use, we offer a dedicated database hosted in our SubQuery clusters that can give your project all the resources it needs to handle thousands of complicated queries without worrying about performance impact from others.
You should get in touch with us at sales@subquery.network if you’d like to upgrade to this. We replicate your data from your existing tables so you don’t need to spend time reindexing data you already have resulting in a migration with zero downtime.
Multiple Cluster Support
Resiliency and reliability mean everything to us at SubQuery. Having a redundant cluster in a separate part of the world means that we can quickly recover from cloud provider outages that occasionally take regions offline.
Additionally, when you make a request to a SubQuery project in our hosted service, the majority of the waiting time comes from latency. Latency is the point to point time it takes your request to circle the world to the nearest SubQuery cluster and can take up to a second or two from some remote regions. Having multiple clusters around the world allows us to reduce the most significant part of the request time (the latency).
We’ve implemented multiple clusters in different regions that provide the same service. This work also includes a tool in SubQuery Projects that allows you to deploy and manage your project across these clusters. We’ve also implemented processes that ensure that databases in different regions stay consistent, so that regardless of which cluster your request goes to, the data that you receive is consistent.
Intelligent Routing
Once we have SubQuery clusters running in different regions, the next logical step is to make this feature invisible to your users. Your users should never have to decide what cluster their requests go to, SubQuery should automatically route their requests to the closest healthy cluster. This is what SubQuery’s intelligent routing provides.
We offer a single global endpoint to each premium customer that has intelligent routing automatically applied to each and every request. This service includes considerable monitoring that constantly ping each cluster for health checks and ensure that a user is never routed to a cluster that is overwhelmed or offline. The global endpoint optimises the routing for each request to the nearest cluster to ensure your users receive the best performance from your clusters.
In summary, these services allow us to offer our premium service to more customers with confidence. We work with each customer to understand their business and goals, and then to set up a service to meet their needs. SubQuery is the largest data service provider in Polkadot, and these features show how we support thousands of community projects at the same time as the biggest projects in Polkadot. | https://medium.com/@subquery/subquery-provides-customers-with-enterprise-support-ffae61446214 | ['Subquery Network'] | 2021-12-28 08:01:12.413000+00:00 | ['Features', 'Polkadot', 'Enterprise'] |
4 Money-Saving Tricks That Actually Work | One of the hardest things about investing is finding ways to save money to invest in the first place. Even with the economy looking better and unemployment near historic lows, many workers still live paycheck to paycheck, and that makes saving a huge challenge.
Sometimes, the best way to save money is to find a way to trick yourself into doing it. If more straightforward ways of gathering savings to invest haven’t worked, then take a look at the four tips below to see if they’ll stand a better chance of getting you moving in the right direction.
1. Never let yourself see your money in the first place
The idea of paying yourself first has become a cliche in the financial-planning world, but that doesn’t make it any less of a smart move. The best way to save is never to let yourself be consciously aware that you ever had the money to spend.
Image source: Getty Images.
There are several ways to accomplish this goal. If you have access at work to an employer-sponsored retirement plan like a 401(k), then you can arrange to have money withheld from your paycheck and deposited directly into your retirement account. Many companies will even match your contributions with additional cash, boosting the positive impact. Even if you don’t have a 401(k) available, financial providers can set up automatic withdrawals from your bank account that match up with your paydays, ensuring that the desired amount of money goes in and out of your account almost simultaneously.
2. Stop wasting money on things you don’t use
Investors know that some of the most successful businesses these days rely on customers having subscriptions and regularly paying money in exchange for their services. That works especially well in businesses where customers don’t necessarily use the product or service as much as they arguably should.
From the personal perspective, paying expensive monthly fees for things you don’t use is silly. Whether it’s a membership to a gym or fitness center you never visit or an outsized cable TV or mobile service subscription plan that’s bigger than you need, scaling back or eliminating unnecessary expenses can free up substantial amounts of cash for investment.
3. Take advantage of bonus opportunities
If you’re just getting into investing, you’ll discover that the market among financial providers is particularly competitive right now. Some companies even will give you cash incentives to open accounts or otherwise start a business relationship, and there’s no reason to leave that money on the table.
You can find a wide range of bank accounts, brokerage accounts, and credit cards that offer an upfront bonus just for becoming a customer. Some deals have requirements for a minimum balance or spending amount in order to qualify for the bonus, and it’s important not to overextend yourself or change your behavior just to meet the qualification requirements. However, if those requirements fit with what you want to do anyway, you might as well take the free money.
4. Let credit cards help you build up savings
Along the same lines, there are many credit cards that offer a range of rewards for spending. Cash, travel, hotel rooms, and other perks are available, with cardholders either getting rewarded directly or earning points they can use to receive cash or other incentives.
The best rewards credit cards to use are those that have high-percentage rewards in categories where you already spend money. For instance, if you regularly buy groceries, some cards offer ample rewards for grocery-store purchases. Other cards target those who eat out by offering cash back or other rewards for purchases at restaurants.
Again, the key here is not to change your behavior just to earn a reward of a few percentage points. By focusing on making the most of your existing spending, though, you can unlock some free money that can go toward investing.
Be smart with your money
Saving isn’t easy, but it’s also not impossible. By staying aware of the many ways you can trick yourself into saving more, you’ll be in the best position you can to make more progress on your savings ambitions. | https://medium.com/the-motley-fool/4-money-saving-tricks-that-actually-work-32b886fb30b0 | [] | 2018-10-26 21:19:22.831000+00:00 | ['Financial Planning', 'Budget', 'Saving', 'Money'] |
Create More Content: Why Every Brand Needs to Think Like a Media Company | We’re used to waking up to our phones ablaze with notifications, some more meaningful than others. Rubbing our eyes and reintegrating with reality, we then do the red dot clearance dance, sifting through our emails, news, social media and texting apps to decide which messages warrant a response.
Consumers today live in what’s called the ‘Attention Economy,’ which means that we day trade our attention as if it were a commodity…
And it is.
Both in our daily lives and in the grander scheme of things, we are quite literally picking and choosing who or what we ‘pay attention’ to.
This may seem like nothing more than semantics, but consider this —
“Since there is a surplus of information, more information flowing through our society than any of us could ever hope to process or understand, the new bottleneck on our economy is attention… This is why today we are each bombarded with over 3,000 advertising messages per day. This is why these advertisements get zanier and more nonsensical — like the Geico gecko or the Old Spice guy — because the goal of advertisements is no longer information, but simply attention.” ~Mark Manson, In The Future Our Attention Will Be Sold
In the ‘Age of the Internet,’ businesses first have to compete for your eyes before they can reach your pockets… And even though Spotify, Netflix, Instagram, Peloton, Playstation, Medium, and Gmail all play different roles in our lives, they still compete for our attention every single day.
As consumers, we’re constantly coming to micro-decisions as to which brand to choose, which link to click, which post to stop scrolling on.
So how can brands incentivize people to pay attention to them? | https://medium.com/ido-lechner/create-more-content-why-every-brand-needs-to-think-like-a-media-company-92b0773d87ab | ['Ido Lechner'] | 2020-12-26 02:34:17.368000+00:00 | ['Digital Marketing', 'Strategy', 'Content Marketing', 'Business', 'Content Strategy'] |
How I end up using Machine Learning in Optics/Photonics Applications for my PhD | Like any other PhD researcher, I went to one place where everyone goes when they are not sure what they are looking for and how to find what they are looking for. Yes, you guessed it right — GOOGLE!!
Luckily for me, I already knew that I was looking for some sort of open-source codes/libraries or commercial software to get my hands dirty with photonics modelling applications.
To my surprise what I found…
Commercial softwares - Comsol/Lumerical were expensive for me to buy at that time, and I was not sure to even ask my supervisor to buy as I was not sure which one I will need.
- were expensive for me to buy at that time, and I was not sure to even ask my supervisor to buy as I was not sure which one I will need. Open-source libraries- There are some open-source libraries like Meep, but I think we need to have more. Google, Facebook, Microsoft all adopting this new trend of making their technologies open source for all to learn. But are the big companies in the optical modelling domain ready to go open-source?
There are some open-source libraries like but I think we need to have more. all adopting this new trend of making their technologies open source for all to learn. Fortran- I never bothered to learn about Fortran during my Bachelor’s, in fact, I can say that I chose not to hear or learn about Fortran as it was such an outdated language. The syntax is bad, no in-build plotting library, among other problems. Guess what? People still use it because it is fast and a lot of codes which are still being used were written in Fortran. But still Fortran…
I never bothered to learn about Fortran during my Bachelor’s, in fact, I can say that I chose not to hear or learn about Fortran as it was such an outdated language. The syntax is bad, no in-build plotting library, among other problems. Guess what? People still use it because it is fast and a lot of codes which are still being used were written in Fortran. No optical engineers/scientists community- This hurted me the most. I couldn’t find any blog/website where optical engineer come and share their work and experiences regularly. Till date, I am looking for such websites sharing regular traffic where people talk about photonics (Let me know if you know any such place!).
Machine Learning- the Buzz word…
If you are reading this then there is a good chance that you have heard about today’s technologies buzz words-
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning
Everyone is talking about it. Every new company is using it or wanting to use it. It doesn’t matter whether they need it or not, but they want to use it. Or atleast show that they are up to date with new technologies and making our life easier and better. I guess it is good marketing as well!!
Having heard these buzz words several times from Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Tim Cook, I thought there is no harm in looking for what exactly is this machine learning?
What the hell is machine learning? Then I understood machine learning is actually statistics plus a lot of other things.
What the hell is machine learning? Credit: https://www.meme-arsenal.com/en/create/meme/1868835
I started with free courses by Prof. Andrew Ng from Stanford and checking for some YouTube videos. I ended up spending more than £1000 doing courses from Udacity and Udemy. For a few months, these courses consumed my every weekend. Literally every weekend. I even had to say no to friends a few times to join for a party. Can you imagine!! I know it was stupid of me. Anyway, it is in the past now…
Machine Learning + Photonics…
First-year into my PhD, I was still looking for a topic which will become my PhD dissertation. Spent months reading various photonics research papers, understanding some initial optical modelling codes with as little help as possible and irritated with almost non-existent online optical scientist community.
And that’s when it clicked me- Shall I try to use Machine Learning for Optical/Photonics Applications?
Yeah, why not!! There is a big online community for machine learning and I had a background in optical engineering. I thought it might work. But remember I was still new in the Machine Learning field and barely scratched the surface to understand and use it efficiently. Then the questions start arising if I had to make it work-
Is it possible or not? Has anybody done it before?
I was not sure which optical application to consider to use Machine Learning with.
to consider to use Machine Learning with. Dataset- There are no open-source datasets available for any optical application. Again no big online optical community.
There are no open-source datasets available for any optical application. Again no big online optical community. Coding help- Is there any initial code available to start with? Or do I have to write everything on my own?
Is there any initial code available to start with? Or do I have to write everything on my own? The Biggest question- Is it really useful to use Machine Learning with optical, or I just wanted to use the buzz word technology in my work?
The idea lost in the wind for almost 6 months…
With the above questions in mind, I gave up on the idea of using Machine Learning in Photonics. I guess this happens to everybody when they look for PhD topics. Every day, they come up with new ideas and then move on. Same happened to me and I got busy in typical optical/photonics application problems.
It was a regular workday and maybe I was getting bored and started checking Google News. I exactly don’t remember. I saw a research paper getting published, which used Machine Leaning in some Photonic Power Splitters problem. And I remember saying this to myself- Oh Shit! You thought about it a few months back and it is possible… and it is not only about my excitement of using buzz word technology with optical applications. | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-i-used-machine-learning-in-optics-photonics-optoelectronics-9452fe332a9f | ['Sunny Chugh'] | 2020-08-14 17:04:12.897000+00:00 | ['Optics', 'Photonics', 'Optical', 'Electronics', 'Machine Learning'] |
Why & How to Change your Factory | Finding the right manufacturing partner is always difficult. The factory you work with to launch your product might not be the ideal company to help you scale and sustain a high level of production.
As your company grows, the services your contract manufacturer (CM) provides is expected to grow and expand. As you grow, your manufacturing partner is expected to scale up their own operations by growing their production, quality, engineering, supply chain and other teams to support your growth. If they are unable to or have provided poor services, a change will be necessary.
Most companies have thought of changing their factory, but usually, no action is taken. Most companies also underestimate the amount of value their contract manufacturers can add. Nowadays, your manufacturing partner is not just expected to provide production and quality but also engineering, supply chain, project management and more. Why not leverage these services?
With my experience, there are several reasons why people want to switch. The most common reasons for the change are the following:
Reason 1: My current factory can’t scale up
Some factories have no interest in growing into a larger facility. This means that if you grow, your factory will not be able to absorb these orders. On the other hand, a factory might be in the mindset to scale up, but lack the correct supply chain, space and financial position to support you. This is unfortunate but if they can’t help you to scale up, you need to transfer production to someone that can.
Reason 2: There are too many costing issues with my current factory
Price conflicts are very common in our world. Therefore, having the support of an engineering team that can launch cost down projects is key. Decreasing the price does not mean the factory decreasing margins, but instead it’s the study of decreasing your COGS. A manufacturing partner can analyze how using alternative materials and processes can affect your price without negatively affecting quality.
Reason 3: Quality issues often come up and they are unable to solve them quickly enough.
Solving a quality problem is not temporarily re-working a problem. It’s finding the root cause and finding solutions which leads to eliminating the problem. Having quality problems will lead to decreased margins, extended lead times and increased complaints. Following the proper quality practices will eliminate quality problems. Unfortunately not all factories educate their staff with proper quality practices.
Reason 4: They don’t have an adequate engineering and technical team
A main reason why brands love working with CM’s is that they can leverage their resources and expertise. One department a brand leverages most often is their engineering team. Having a factory with a strong engineering team will support you with DFM, cost down, developing additional products and more.
Reason 5: They lack proper communication skills
This reason can usually be off the list if proper due diligence was performed. Unfortunately, people still complain their point of contact lacks proper English and communication skills. Both should have been a huge red flag before you launched production. However, understand that communication is a two way street. Exercise patience when explaining key parts with your factory.
Switching manufacturing partners is not easy but working with one that lacks the size, skill sets and resources to support your growth is 10x worse. If your factory is hindering your growth by any of the reasons listed above or any others, a change will be necessary for you to pursue your ambitious dreams. Just imagine how much your profits could have been increased, how many additional products you could have launched or how much better your reputation would be if you had chosen the best manufacturing partner.
Throughout my career, I have helped a number of brands switch their supplier. Some of the time, it’s bringing production into my factory, while other times it’s guiding a friend through the process so he can transfer production to a factory that is best suited for him.
All in all, the steps are the following;
Step 1: Understand your Needs
The following questions will help you to understand your position.
What is your current financial position compared to where you expect to be in the next 12 months?
What is your future demand? Can your current supplier absorb extra orders?
How many products do you expect to launch within 12–24 months?
Is your factory providing you with services and products that can affect your brand image in a negative way? Such as poor quality, poorly engineered products, etc…
Is your current supply chain too messy?
Before proceeding to the next steps, you have to understand whether or not you need to change. The main question is: will your brand suffer financially or be unable to grow as you would like with your current partner?
Step 2: Due Diligence
Let’s take this time to see what else is out there. Sometimes when you have been doing something the same way for years it can be stuck in your head as the correct way. However, don’t let ignorance get the best of you. This is the best time to explore other options and see what else is out there. Look for the following:
Can anyone refer a factory that is suited for you?
Let’s stay away from Alibaba, Made-In-China and some of these other marketplaces for factories, unless your product is commoditized.
Once in communication, be transparent about your situation. If you tell the factory you are not looking to switch quickly, they might lose interest in you. A sign of patience is key to building a successful long term partnership.
A trip to visit them might not be practical unless your current supplier is within driving distance. If you’re in the area, why not pay them a visit?
Use a supplier evaluation checklist to audit them.
Learn from mistakes that are making you look to change.
If they are able to pass these tests, it’s time for them to sign an NDA to proceed.
Step 3: Test their Capabilities
By now, you have found a few factories that you can work with. They have passed your audit and you feel they are an improvement of what you currently have. Factories, especially those in China, are famous for saying they want to build a partnership and they will do anything to get and keep your business. However, talk is talk and taking action is a completely new game. If you want to test their capabilities, you will need to provide them with some confidential information. But if your due diligence was thorough, this should not be a huge issue.
Take these steps in order to see if they have the capabilities to make your product.
Quotation — Can they provide a competitive quote?
Samples — Can they provide you a high quality sample?
Documentation — Can they provide you with acceptable payment terms, tooling terms, lead times, quality specifications, etc…
Step 4: Analyze your Financial & Product Position
This step is when you can start to compare apples to apples. You’ll have the quotation from your new supplier and the investment needed to move, such as opening up additional tools if transferring your tools is not an option. If your move is financially driven, when is your break-even point? Take into account the investment needed, such as opening up tools and then calculate how many pieces you need to make to break even. If your move is product driven, can they help you to launch the amount of products for your 12–24 month window?
Step 5: Pre-Production
You can move to pre-production if all of the steps have been completed and the finance side of your business makes sense to switch.
Confirming the contract (confirm the price, quality and lead time for x product)
Opening up tools
Developing the golden sample — What production is based off of
Develop production line flow
Step 6: Launch, Sustain & Repeat:
After the pre-production step is confirmed, you will have the green light to buy the raw materials, and get the new supplier into production. Understand that launching a new product of anything always takes time and care. Once these early kinks are cleared up, strive for sustained production and look to continuously repeat the cycle.
Results & Benefits:
Staying with a supplier that is underperforming will hurt your business and continue to do so going forward. Carefully finding your new supplier can have positive results after the first order. You can expect the following results from the switch:
Higher profit margins
Improved engineering & technical support
Quicker development speed
Additional SKU’s
Relationships like Apple leveraging the skills and resources of Foxconn is not just for the fortune 500 companies. Companies of all sizes, even startups, can lean on CM’s and optimize themselves by using their team.
If you’re not utilizing your CM as much as you could feel free to chat with me. I will be happy to listen to your story and provide some free and unbiased advice. | https://medium.com/@jared_28422/why-how-to-change-your-factory-f8b68c3bf1ec | ['Jared Haw'] | 2020-01-14 00:06:45.332000+00:00 | ['Engineering', 'Consumer Goods', 'Consumer Electronics', 'Supply Chain', 'Contract Manufacturing'] |
How to Create a Cross-Platform Mobile (iOS and Android) Plugin For Unity | Unity is a great platform for developing VR and AR applications. When developing a cross-platform application there are often native mobile plugins that need to be leveraged or developed.
Unity’s documentation around this is limited. This article will serve as an entry point to your native cross-platform mobile plugin’s development.
This tutorial uses a new project from Unity Version 2018.4.19f1, but will also work with newer versions.
Example Plugin Layout
This plugin will demonstrate three important concepts:
Sync call to native Async call to native Call from native to Unity
To do this, we will be passing a rectangle’s height and width both sync and async to native. Native will calculate the rectangle’s diagonal, perimeter, and area passing these values back to Unity.
Required Unity Build Support Modules
Open your Unity Hub → Click Installs → Click the Three Dots → Add Modules.
Adding Modules to your Unity Installation
Make sure Android Build Support and iOS Build Support are checked. Click Done to add if not already added the build supports.
Adding Android and iOS Build Support to Unity
Required Tools for Android
Download and Install Android Studio. It is not required for Unity, but it will make building the plugin a whole lot easier.
However, Unity requires Command line tools so at the bottom of the download page make sure you download Command line tools only for your proper platform. Extract the zip and place the tools folder inside of the sdk folder created by Android Studio.
Make sure the Android SDK is set in Unity by going to File → Preferences → External Tools → Android SDK.
External Tools Preferences
Question: How do I fix this error?
Invalid Android SDK directory error
Solution: Make sure the tools folder is inside the selected Android SDK directory and is spelled properly. The command line tools folder name was changed to build-tools in newer versions of Android Studio and Unity does not recognize this new folder name.
Required Tools for iOS
Mac OS XCode If your plugin package requires capabilities not able to run on a simulator, you will need to have an Apple developer account to run on an iOS device.
Folder Structure
Create a folder inside Assets called Plugins . Inside Plugins create two folders: Android and iOS .
How to Create a Folder in Assets
The directory structure recognized by Unity for native plugins
Files that are added in the Android and iOS folders will automatically be attached to the build.
Bridging Script
Right click the Plugins folder or inside of the Plugins folder right click the empty space and create a C# script named PluginBridge . This script will be called from external scripts to send and receive data from native scripts.
How to Create a C# Script
NOTE: There must be at least one game object attached to a script to initialize this plugin. This is usually taken care of by the calling script, which we will add an example the next section.
First we will set up the plugin bridge class:
Setting up the static class to bridge native code
Quick notes:
We are using a static class to allow for easy to use calls from Unity. Make sure you take note of the Java object name as it will be used in creating the plugin. iOS requires the native methods used to be explicitly defined. The #if and #endif are required around the DllImport so Android will not throw an error and can use the same class. PlatformNotSupportedException is just used for easy debugging when implementing the plugin.
Second, we will add the game object to receive messages from native as well as initiate the Java class:
Setting up game object in static constructor
Quick notes:
The game object is added for calls from native to Unity can be received. Creating a new game object just for this plugin makes it easy to not have to create an external game object when adding the plugin. Android needs to instantiate the object. Every argument after the second argument in new AndroidJavaObject() gets passed to the Java object constructor. HandleException callback is used internally by native code to notify Unity of any exceptions. The callback handlers can only receive strings as native can only send back strings through its messaging protocol. We will be sending json and then deserializing it into our CalculationResults object.
Finally, we will add the interface methods:
Quick notes:
We are saving the callback locally to be called once we received a message from Native. This works well when there is only one callback set at a time. If multiple callbacks are needed they should be handled externally through the single passed callback.
Calling Example Script
Create a new folder under Assets called Scripts . Inside scripts create the script: CallingExample .
Example calling script for our plugin’s methods
Now we will create a game object in the scene to attach to the CallingExample script.
Right click inside the SampleScene and click Create Empty.
How to Create a new Game Object
Right click, rename GameObject to Calling Example . When left clicking it check out the Inspector tab on the right side. Click Add Component and type in CallingExample in the search box. Select the script to add it.
How to Attach a Script to a Game Object
Android
Create a new Android Project.
Android Project Template for Android Plugin
Select Empty Activity .
Android Project Configuration for Android Plugin
Fill in the configuration details. Make sure you take note of the Save location as it will be used later. Also make sure the save location does not have a space in it as it may cause problems with the NDK tools. NDK tools may be needed when compiling low level externally connected devices.
For this example we will place the Android Plugin in a neighbor folder to the Unity Project folder.
Creating the Android Library
Android studio will automatically create an app folder, but we will not be using it. We will need to create a new Android Library:
File → New Module:
Creating a new Module
Selecting Android Library
Selecting Android Library
Configuring Android Library
Make sure you use the same Package Name as used in NativeCalculations.cs . The Minimum SDK depends on the capabilities of the package you are going to build. It can be changed later so API 16 is sufficient.
After clicking Finish there will be a new Android library folder in the directory structure.
Android Dependencies
Because this library is going to be used inside of Unity, there are specific dependencies that need to be set for proper compilation and runtime.
Open the build.gradle for the library and edit the dependencies section as shown below.
New Android Library’s build.gradle
Some questions you may be having:
Why can I not find the Unity classes jar location?
You may not have the Android Build Support Module. To add this check out the first section of the article. This jar is required to send messages back to Unity.
2. Why is 'androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.1.0' set as api instead of implementation ?
The appcompat library is used for dealing with activities, among many things. A common use case would be requesting permissions. The Unity build will error out during runtime saying appcompat does not exist. Changing it to api will allow this library to be shared during runtime of Unity. This example will not go into how to request permissions, but it will be useful to keep this in mind when debugging runtime errors. For more explanation on the different types of dependencies. For official information on different types of dependencies.
3. Why can’t I just use implementation 'com.google.code.gson:gson:2.8.6' ?
Unity will error out with:
UnityEngine.AndroidJavaException: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Failed resolution of Lcom/google/gson/Gson;
The library must be including in the aar. An easy way is to just include it in libs.
Android Library Class
We can now add our implementation. Open up java, right click com.example.nativecalculations → New → Java Class. We will name it NativeCalculationsPlugin .
Creating a new Java Class
Quick notes:
UnityPlayer.UnitySendMessage requires the same game object name as well as the method name inside NativeCalculations.cs . Unity called methods can return basic types (like int, float, boolean), but not class types. Java class types are easiest sent by stringifying into json and then parsing back into a C# class.
Android Library Build
We will also be adding some code at the bottom of build.gradle to automatically copy the built Android Library into the Unity Android Plugin folder.
To build the Android Library go to Build → Make Module ‘nativecalculations’.
Android Unity Build
File → Build Settings. Click on Android and click Switch Platform if you have not do so already. Click on Player Settings. Make sure the Package Name is properly set as well as the minimum API level depending on your Android code. For this example API level 16 is sufficient.
Other Settings in Player Settings for Android
You can either click Build or Build and Run . You may get a notification that your Android SDK is outdated. In actuality it is newer than expected by Unity. This is fine however for most plugins. Just clicking Use Highest Installed will allow building.
Android SDK is outdated
Viewing Android Logs
After the build is complete and the application is running, click Logcat at the bottom. In the search bar you can filter by Regex. Type in Unity .
Android Logcat results for example
iOS
Unlike Android where we will create a library in Android Studio and built the filt to be compiled by Unity, iOS requires building/modifying an XCode project. Each subsequent build will override some of the previously edited files in XCode. Therefore any permanent edits to XCode have to be done inside Unity (unless you use my custom script in build post processor).
iOS Unity Build
File → Build Settings. Click on iOS and click Switch Platform if you have not do so already. Check Development Build to be able to see the logs.
Click on Player Settings.
2. Make sure your Target SDK is set properly. For this demo we will use the Simulator SDK.
Other Settings Target
3. Make sure the Package Name is properly set (as well as the Signing Team ID if your target SDK is the device SDK).
Other Settings Identification
Build post processor
Inside the iOS folder create a new folder called Editor . Inside Editor create a new Script called BuildPostProcessor.cs . The Editor folder is a reserved folder in Unity that will run specific scripts and this script must be inside there for the imports to work as well as the script to be executed properly.
Adding BuildPostProcessor.cs
Quick Notes:
Foundation.framework added below is not necessary for the example but a demonstration of how to add system frameworks Add specific build properties and flags
We will now add a custom script that will automatically copy back edited files in XCode to the source files in Unity.
Why? Any time a project is rebuilt, the Unity project files will override the edited changes in XCode even if the XCode changes are newer. This is prone to errors as many of the editing will take place in XCode because of its IDE capabilities. This shell script will ensure edited files in XCode will be reflected in the Unity source files once a successful run takes place.
NOTE: If there was no successful run and you want to save your changes, you will need to manually copy the changes back to the original file.
Now we can add our native plugin script. Inside of Plugins/iOS add NativeCalculationsPlugin.mm .
Quick Notes:
extern "C" are the interface methods called from Unity. These functions need to return C types and not Objective C classes. Note we are returning a const char * from copying the NSString with a helper function. The Objective C class is a singleton. The init helper method is used for initialization code similar to the constructor in Java. When sending JSON it is easiest to make dictionaries and use the utility function to stringify the dictionary.
Viewing iOS Logs
After the build is complete and the application is running, you can view the logs in XCode.
iOS log results
Check out the full code and be sure to subscribe for more programming intricacies. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-create-a-cross-platform-mobile-ios-and-android-plugin-for-unity-847b532615cc | ['Matthew Bajorek'] | 2020-06-12 19:11:34.080000+00:00 | ['Unity', 'Android', 'Plugins', 'iOS'] |
3 Billion on Facebook vs. 1 Thousand on YouTube | A few days ago I got into a heated debate with a Facebook ads coach.
He told me that scaling with Facebook is more effective than scaling with YouTube ads.
My line of thinking was: “Listen, I’ve got the numbers in front of me… And I can see plain as day that scaling on Youtube can give you a higher ROI, faster.”
But he said: “You can advertise to MORE people on Facebook… And because it has more people on the platform… it has a higher ceiling.”
He’s got a point.
After all, there are around 3 billion people on Facebook right now — YouTube doesn’t have that.
So sure, you can call that one of the “pros” of using Facebook over YouTube.
But I think it’s a con.
Because I don’t know about you… but I’m not trying to market myself to 3 billion people.
I’m trying to market myself to a thousand people who are a perfect fit for what I offer.
Besides, everybody knows the number of “cons” of using Facebook is as long as Zuck’s all-controlling arm.
- Ads that were humming along suddenly get removed…
- Successful accounts get closed down without warning…
- Costs keep climbing no matter how much you tweak and test.
Whereas YouTube offers more precise control over who you speak to and how you speak to them.
That’s why we’re getting great ROAS as a result.
Because when it comes to issues of scale…
The more directly that you can target your specific niche/market…
…and the more stable you can be as you scale…
The better you’re going to do.
— Aleric
There are other reasons why YouTube Ads Beats Facebook Ads every time — watch this video to learn about YouTube Ads Intent, Targeting, Reliability & much more.
Aleric Heck helps Entrepreneurs & Business Owners use YouTube Ads to generate Leads & Sales through his Company AdOutreach. Subscribe to this channel & join our website to learn how you can use YouTube Video Ads to scale your business!
More ways to connect:
Join the YouTube Ads for Entrepreneurs Facebook Group: http://facebook.com/groups/advancedyoutubeads
YouTube Ads Strategy Call with Aleric: https://adoutreach.com/apply
See More YouTube Ad Results: https://www.adoutreach.com/results
YouTube Ads Webinar: https://www.adoutreach.com/webinar | https://medium.com/@aleric/3-billion-on-facebook-vs-1-thousand-on-youtube-e74b0fe031a | ['Aleric Heck'] | 2020-12-16 18:02:54.951000+00:00 | ['YouTube', 'Expert', 'Online Business', 'Facebook', 'Advertising'] |
A Life Looking Back | A Life Looking Back
Photo by Kasper Rasmussen on Unsplash
I grew up in a village in Gujarat, India. When I was born, in 2020, a deadly virus swept the world. My parents would tell me later how scared people were, for their lives, for the future.
At eighteen I left to study in Europe. Many people had deserted my village or were hoping to. Monsoons and cyclones made the place almost uninhabitable.
Yet this was a time when the world began to change for the better.
The world’s population was rising steeply, along with temperatures and sea levels; dependence on fossil fuels and zero-sum geopolitics had led to dire predictions for our future.
I’m now an old man. I’ve watched power dynamics collapse; new structures forming. In 2120, nation-states are coevolving, developing, and sharing technology to reduce emissions and battle poverty; gradually growing together.
As US preeminence waned, ceding to China and India, necessity pushed leading economies to strive with one purpose — survival.
The next generation has new challenges. As cities expanded, due to migration, people lost contact with nature. The countryside, and much wildlife, has nearly disappeared.
My village, like others, is gone. But I’m more hopeful for my children’s future than my parents could be. | https://medium.com/microcosm/a-life-looking-back-ad811ef37ef8 | ['Anthony Halliwell'] | 2020-12-16 23:34:57.640000+00:00 | ['Evolution', 'Climate Change', 'Climate', 'Future', 'Fiction'] |
Study Spotlight | Sometimes you just need to get out of the law school building, and with so many study spots in Boston to explore, there’s no reason not too!
Tatte Bakery & Café
Tatte is an elevated Starbucks, with a variety of lunch and breakfast options, and a full functioning bakery with an assortment of quick snacks. There are a variety of locations all throughout Boston, including Fenway which is a 10 or 15-minute walk from campus.
Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash
Boston Public Library
In the heart of Copley, the Boston Public Library is a historical establishment. With gorgeous architecture, it makes studying even that more dreamy. There is a newer side, however, I prefer the older, more ornate side. There is also a cafe on the ground floor for quick snacks!
Photo by Daniel Brubaker on Unsplash
Caffè Nero
Another cafe is Caffè Nero, a very popular spot for law students. There are a variety of locations including one in Allston and in Fenway. Some locations even have fireplaces.
Photo by Kentaro Toma on Unsplash
Boston Athenaeum
Right across the street from the Granary Public Burying ground and just a few steps from the Massachusetts State House, the Athenaeum is located in the heart of old Boston. It is a private library and is extremely ornate.
via Yelp
Boston University Questrom School of Business
Sometimes you don’t have to go too far off campus for a new experience. The Questrom School of Business is right on Commonwealth Avenue and has a Starbucks within the building. Newly renovated, it’s definitely a spot you should check out. | https://medium.com/bu-law-student-blogs/study-spotlight-f05dc7364b2c | ['Diana Alexandra Martinez'] | 2020-03-03 16:29:55.643000+00:00 | ['Study', 'Law School', 'Students', 'Studying', 'Boston'] |
FINANCIAL FRIDAYS: What’s The Worst Mistakes You Can Make In A Salary Negotiation | I’ve been an employer. And I’ve been an employee. And I’ve been on the board of a staffing agency and advised dozens of other companies on hires. I’ve seen every salary negotiation possible.
99.9% of hires make mistakes in the salary negotiations.
That’s perfectly fine. They have a bigger vision for their careers and they are excited about the job so the tendency is to just agree and get to work. I get it.
But nobody is offended by a good negotiation. If a company is motivated to hire you and you are motivated to work at a company, then a good discussion about the job makes everyone happier.
VERY IMPORTANT: A good salary negotiation is win-win. Both sides get more motivated. The pie gets larger.
MISTAKE #1: Having a smaller list.
It’s not just about the money. The side with the bigger list of terms wins. Because then you can give up the nickels in exchange for the dimes.
Things to be negotiated: vacation time, medical leaves, bonuses, what requirements are in place for promotions, what’s the non-compete, employee ownership (in some cases), potential profit participation, moving expenses, etc.
Again, the bigger list wins.
MISTAKE #2: Negotiating at the wrong time of day.
This is a secret weapon nobody uses.
Carl Icahn, one of the greatest negotiators in business history, has a trick. Let’s borrow his trick from him.
He schedules negotiations late in the day. Then he sleeps all day.
Every human experiences “willpower depletion”. They have the willpower to avoid cake in the morning, but they run out by evening.
If you are offered a job in the morning, say, “This is great. Let me go over it and figure out logistics and family issues and call you back later.” Then SLEEP. Then call back as late in the day as possible to negotiate.
MISTAKE #3: Thinking too short-term.
You’re not going to be there for two weeks and then quit. Ask about the long-term.
What is the potential for the company? What is the potential for someone in your division to rise up in the company? Is the company doing well?
Have a vision for your career path. This directly motivates how much money and other things you might need up front.
MISTAKE #4: Saying Yes too fast
The best negotiation I ever had was when I said, “let me think about it”. And then waiting.
And really thinking about it. Making my list. Doing due diligence. Really thinking if there are other offers. Or potential offers.
Your value on the job market works like value on every other market: supply and demand. Really determine what the supply is for your services and if you can potentially be in demand.
When you first get interest in being made an offer, you have to determine immediately what the supply is. If supply is zero, you put yourself in a bad position.
But regardless, you can act like supply is great by being patient and saying first, “Let me go over all of this. It’s a lot to take in. I’m really grateful for the offer. How about we talk in a day or so.”
Trust me: this is a scary thing to say but it has worked for me at least three different times and I was scared to death each time.
[ RELATED: Using the 5/25 Rule to Learn to Say “No” ]
MISTAKE #5: Bad Math
What are people with comparable skills making in the industry?
What monetary value do you bring to the company (really your salary should be a function of that).
If you were a freelancer or a company doing the work, what would you charge? Your salary + perks should be in the ballpark.
Prepare by doing all the math.
MISTAKE #6: Pretending to be smart
Know-it-alls lose.
Always ask for advice first. “If you were me being offered this job, what would you ask for?”
Or, “You guys are the experts on how one can grow and flourish and bring the most value to your company. What should I ask for and how do you see me growing in the company? Can we outline that out?”
You can say, “Because I like this company a lot and want to accept this, I trust that you will help me figure out the right things to ask for here. Is there anything I’m missing?”
This gives them the chance to negotiate against themselves.
MISTAKE #7: People don’t ask “How”?
If they offer too little or no moving expenses or no vacation or no path to promotion, simply ask: “How?”
For instance: Other people in the industry are making $X. I know that I offer $Y in value. Can you walk me through how I can accept $Z that you are offering?”
They will keep talking and the numbers will change. Trust me on this.
MISTAKE #8: Don’t take advantage if they show weakness
Many people are powerless. But they don’t want to be. Particularly when you tell them.
If you ask for something and they say, “We can’t. This is HR guidelines”. Say, “Hmmm, are you guys powerless to do anything about this?”
Nobody wants to feel powerless [this is a good trick picked up from my Chris Voss podcast]. They will make changes or work this through HR.
MISTAKE #9: Many people don’t mirror.
If they say, “We will offer $100,000 but can’t go a penny higher” repeat back to them, “you can’t go a penny higher.”
They will continue talking. If they don’t then…..
MISTAKE #10: Too much talking.
Be silent until they talk. Nobody likes an uncomfortable silence. Be silent for as long as it takes for them to talk again. Let it be uncomfortable. DO NOT TALK.
MISTAKE #11: Using round numbers.
Assuming you’ve done your homework on what industry standards are and what value you bring and how much you think you should be making, it’s ok to start with a salary number.
But don’t say $100,000.
Say, $103,500.
Something specific. This shows you’ve done the work. Make sure you can back it up to get to that number. Round numbers are negotiated. Specific numbers, backed up by evidence, are not negotiated.
AND DO THIS:
This one was told to me by Chris Voss, the former chief hostage negotiator of the FBI. [In fact, many of these ideas can be found in my podcast with Chris].
Use Your Late Night FM DJ Voice.
Practice it right now. Pretend you’re a late night FM DJ. “And now we’re going to listen to some slooowww jazz.”
“Listen. I’d like to talk about the salary of $103,500 but also we need to talk about the path to bonuses and my potential promotion path within the company.” Late night FM DJ voice.
Do the preparation, have the bigger list, be patient, be silent, think long-term, get them to negotiate against themselves in the various ways described here, and use your late night FM DJ voice.
I promise you the pie will get larger for everyone. | https://medium.com/the-mission/financial-fridays-whats-the-worst-mistakes-you-can-make-in-a-salary-negotiation-b39f57af1b66 | ['James Altucher'] | 2016-11-21 19:05:37.197000+00:00 | ['Salary Negotiations', 'Negotiation', 'Mistakes', 'Money', 'Business'] |
Why Feeling Vulnerable Is a Good Thing | Why Feeling Vulnerable Is a Good Thing
We need to strengthen our tolerance for the unknown
Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash
We live in a highly predictable world, but it wasn’t always this way. Our ancestors faced unknowns around every corner, and they did it with grace. If tolerance for uncertainty was a muscle, they used it and built up some impressive bulk. We’ve let that muscle wither and atrophy.
How did we get so soft?
Today we have apps to predict almost everything, weather, traffic, book recommendations, music, you name it, there’s an app for it. Most of us enjoy the comfort of knowing what to expect and when. Then the pandemic hit and boom, we’re left struggling with an intolerance of uncertainty.
“Fear and anxiety many times indicates that we are moving in a positive direction, out of the safe confines of our comfort zone, and in the direction of our true purpose.”
― Charles F. Glassman
I’m writing this smack dab in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. We don’t know when it will end. Although vaccines are on the way, most of us don’t know when we’ll receive one. There is a lot we don’t know and we don’t like it.
Unfamiliar circumstances make us squirm, but I say lean in to it. Feel the burn. It means we’re growing.
And how do we react when faced with the unknown? Well, some of us buy a truckload of toilet paper, of course. That’s one way to feel like we’re a little more in control. We stock up. The danger being that if the shelves are empty, it throws us deeper into despair. I witnessed some ugly behaviour over toilet paper, or the lack of it, at my local grocery store back in March.
What would my great-grandparents have thought of it all? They would shake their heads, I imagine. Splinter free toilet paper didn’t hit the market until 1930, almost 50 years after they were born. Ouch! They had to deal with whatever they could find until then. I hear the Sears catalogue was popular.
And talk about the unknown, my ancestors and maybe yours, were moving to new territory, perhaps even new continents where they had never been before. They were pioneers with only a small inkling of an idea of what life would be like in their new digs. They didn’t have weather apps or google maps to help them find their way.
They faced unknowns regularly and head on. I imagine they felt fully alive doing it.
I don’t suggest we go back to living like our ancestors did, but I think we need to flex our tolerance for unknowns more before we lose the ability entirely.
Be stronger than this challenge, and this challenge strengthens you
Today, when we can’t predict an outcome, we fill in the blanks with worry and anxiety. Not helpful, and sometimes even dangerous.
It makes me wonder if our society's lack of tolerance for unknowns is why we’ve seen such bolstering of white supremacists recently. That, plus Trump.
At its extreme, intolerance for the unknown is a seed for racism. The word xenophobia “derives from two Greek terms: xenos, which can be translated as either “stranger” or “guest,” and phobos, which means either “fear” or “flight.” — Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Let’s call it stranger fear instead, so we really understand what we’re talking about. Xenophobia sounds too pretty a word for the ugly seed that it is. Once planted, it can grow into a belief in superiority like white supremacy. Now that’s something to fear.
Don’t be the same. Be better
Feeling vulnerable without lashing out is better, but still doesn’t feel good. It’s uncomfortable until we get used to it. We can get used to it. We should get used to it.
Wondering if you are intolerant to uncertainty? There is a tool to predict that, too. Of course there is.
There are many articles written about how to deal with our fear of the unknown. | https://bkjohnson.medium.com/why-feeling-vulnerable-is-a-good-thing-fdc154161716 | [] | 2020-12-28 19:40:17.276000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Mental Health', 'Fitness', 'Lifestyle', 'Psychology'] |
The excellent Eufy Security Wireless Video Doorbell is down to $140 | in The New York Times | https://medium.com/@jennife03222504/the-excellent-eufy-security-wireless-video-doorbell-is-down-to-140-16656575e709 | [] | 2020-12-25 00:19:41.893000+00:00 | ['Surveillance', 'Home Tech', 'Electronics', 'Connected Home'] |
Take Back Your Online Privacy With Dave z Ameryki VPN Discount | VPN is a virtual private network that encrypts your data on your way to the vast internet and back. Instead of seeing everything you do, your ISP sees only that you’re using a VPN. This is why you can bypass geographical restrictions, reach videos and news articles that were previously unavailable to you and get a lot more out of your streaming platforms.
How to use the discount code?
Go to this page here;
Type in the coupon code which is ameryki;
Input your email;
Select your desired payment method;
You will get a 2-year deal 82% off and one extra month free of charge.
Why this VPN in particular?
It offers unlimited connections and 24/7 support working to solve every problem. All plans include CleanWeb, Whitelister, Multihop, and Killswitch. They have more than 1700+ servers in 63 countries. They are strictly no-logs, are based in a privacy friendly location, and have industry-leading encryption. If you want to know more you can always visit their homepage. Or their Youtube channel here.
If you want to get back to watching Dave in America you can click here. | https://medium.com/@sandersbo796/take-back-your-online-privacy-with-dave-z-ameryki-vpn-discount-ed200e26a0da | ['Bob Sanders'] | 2020-09-10 12:30:05.939000+00:00 | ['Deal', 'Deals And Discounts', 'Discount', 'VPN', 'Coupon'] |
How to Set Up Multi Node Kubernetes k8s Cluster Using Ansible on AWS | Integration of AWS, Kubernetes, and Ansible
How to Set Up Multi Node Kubernetes k8s Cluster Using Ansible on AWS
4 Steps Easy to follow: I am going to show you how to set up a Multi-Node Kubernetes Cluster using Ansible inside AWS EC2 in just one click Moiz Ali Moomin Follow Feb 9 · 8 min read
Brief Info about Kubernetes k8s, Redhat Ansible, and AWS
What is Kubernetes?
Kubernetes is a portable, extensible, open-source platform for managing containerized workloads and services, that facilitates both declarative configuration and automation. It has a large, rapidly growing ecosystem. Kubernetes services, support, and tools are widely available.
Kubernetes (also known as k8s or “Kube”) is an open-source container orchestration platform that automates many of the manual processes involved in deploying, managing, and scaling containerized applications.
What is a Kubernetes cluster?
A Kubernetes cluster is a set of nodes that run containerized applications. It allows containers to run across multiple machines and environments: virtual, physical, cloud-based, and on-premises. Kubernetes containers are not restricted to a specific operating system, unlike virtual machines. Instead, they can share operating systems and run anywhere.
There are two kinds of Nodes:
Master Node: Hosts the “Control Plane” i.e. it’s the control center that manages the deployed resources. Some of its components are the Kube-API server , Kube-scheduler , Kube-controller-manager , kublet .
Hosts the “Control Plane” i.e. it’s the control center that manages the deployed resources. Some of its components are the , , , . Worker Nodes: Machines where the actual Containers are running on. Some of the active processes are kublet service, container runtime ( like Docker ), Kube-proxy service.
What is a Kubernetes Multi-Node Cluster?
Kubernetes multi-node cluster is a type of cluster in which there is one master node that controls all the slave nodes. There can be multiple slave nodes in a Kubernetes multi-node cluster. When we deploy any application into the k8s cluster, then it is installed in one of the slave nodes configured.
Why you need Kubernetes and what can it do?
Containers are a good way to bundle and run your applications. In a production environment, you need to manage the containers that run the applications and ensure that there is no downtime. For example, if a container goes down, another container needs to start. Wouldn’t it be easier if this behavior was handled by a system?
That’s how Kubernetes comes to the rescue! Kubernetes provides you with a framework to run distributed systems resiliently. It takes care of scaling and failover for your application, provides deployment patterns, and more.
What is Ansible?
Ansible is an open-source automation tool, or platform, used for IT tasks such as configuration management, application deployment, intraservice orchestration, and provisioning. Automation is crucial these days, with IT environments that are too complex and often need to scale too quickly for system administrators and developers to keep up if they had to do everything manually.
Automation simplifies complex tasks, not just making developers’ jobs more manageable but allowing them to focus attention on other tasks that add value to an organization. In other words, it frees up time and increases efficiency. And Ansible, as noted above, is rapidly rising to the top in the world of automation tools. Let’s look at some of the reasons for Ansible’s popularity.
Advantages of Ansible | https://levelup.gitconnected.com/how-to-create-multi-node-kubernetes-cluster-using-ansible-roles-automation-inside-ec2-instance-c539a1b1f9a1 | ['Moiz Ali Moomin'] | 2021-04-23 06:49:35.528000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'DevOps', 'Kubernetes', 'Ansible', 'Cloud Computing'] |
From the Bin, To the Bulb: Turning Household Waste into Local Clean Energy | For my final capstone project in Flatiron School’s Immersive Data Science Program, I decided to test my newfound skills and continue furthering my personal investigations into the relationships that exist between data, waste, and energy. Recently, I have been learning more about the various ways that Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) can be transformed into energy. The most promising and efficient technology that I have come across to date is Plasma Arc Gasification. In my research, I discovered that understanding specific composition details about the MSW to be used as feedstock is one of many critical steps in designing a plasma gasification facility. What I set out to do for my capstone project, was to see if I could find some MSW collection datasets and perform a Feedstock Analysis with the intent of calculating specific Waste Type Compositions, Energy Density (kWh/kg), and Total Energy (kWh) for each sample.
Plasma Gasification
Before we get into the data analysis required for calculating proximate MSW energy values, lets talk a bit more about the paradigm-shifting technology, Plasma Gasification.
“The conversion of carbonaceous material into a gaseous product for the production of energy products and by-products in an oxygen starved environment.” Municipal Solid Waste to Energy Conversion Process”, Gary C. Young , 2010
The technical definition above is quite self-explanatory, though can be even further simplified by thinking of this process as being able to take almost any material (except metals and glass) on the planet and convert it into its basic molecular components. This product is called “Syngas” and is mostly comprised of Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Hydrogen (H2). Syngas can be further processed into many different valuable chemical products, though this depends on the facilities purpose and design. I am interested in understanding how to create electricity from MSW.
Proposals for gasification facilities require revenue projections just like most business undertakings. These projections depend on understanding the energy in the fuel that one uses as feedstock for the gasification process. This is where determining the energy density, through a feedstock analysis, comes into play. I want to build one model that can take in a specific waste sample, measured by weight from a set list of items, and predict its energy density.
There is another by-product of this process, either vitrified slag, or biochar, that are created as a result of the gasification process. Depending on the specific composition of MSW feedstock, there exist different markets for revenue from this product.
All in all, using this technology as part of the solution the growing MSW issues globally is a no-brainer. Scrubbing technology is installed throughout the entire gasification process to ensure that air emissions comply with local heath and safety regulations. When one compares this with the alternative long-term solution of outdoor anaerobic digestion, releasing countless tons of harmful methane into the atmosphere, plasma gasification becomes just a matter of business, and how to make this solution sustainable and profitable for all stakeholders.
Data Scrubbing & Modeling
Image by Author
This project’s Feedstock Analysis measures Energy Density (kWh/kg) and Total Household MSW Energy (kWh) in Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) sample data collected from Belize, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu.
This data was collected by the Asia Pacific Water Consultants (APWC), commissioned by the Commonwealth Litter Programme (CLiP) with support from the Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS). The original purpose for the collection of this data was to support local governments in developing better ocean waste management strategies.
Each dataset per country had over 95,000 rows that needed to be cleaned and reformatted for my purposes. There were many repeating items in the datasets as each MSW sample was measured using 3 different methods: weight, count, and volume. To calculate the energy density, I just needed to look at the weight values (kg), and filtering for this substantially reduced the number of rows in each dataset. After removing all redundant and unnecessary values, and reshaping the dataset I was ready to model. The final shape of the dataset used for both top models was (438, 29), representing 438 different household MSW samples with a specific combination of 29 item features each. These data, combined from 3 different countries, were used to train and test my top performing model of the project.
I went through many different model types as part of my process. I started with some basic Linear Regression models using Statsmodels and Sci-kit Learn, both of which weren’t ideal as they overfit the data substantially. From there, I moved on to Decision Trees, Random Forests, and XGBoost models which all performed much better than their basic linear regression counterparts. Finally, I ended my modeling efforts with my favourite architecture, a Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), or known more recently as a Neural Network.
Fig 1. XGBoost Model Feature Importance — Total Household MSW Energy (kWh) Image by author
One noteworthy modeling feature I want to highlight is the Feature Importance method that comes standard with XGBoost models. I visually mapped this information (Fig 1) that represents the importance, or relative influence, that each specific feature had in the model.
As is clearly displayed above, we see the top 3 important features in this order:
Food Other Organics Nappies
So what does this mean? Well, since this model was trained and tested to predict the dependent variable representing total energy in kWh, we should expect to see displayed those items that contribute the most towards influencing the total energy value for each household. As it happens, these top 3 items are all organic in nature, meaning that they each contain a relatively high amount of carbon in them. Therefore, one can conclude that this model has done a good job at capturing and valuing, items with higher carbon levels rather than those with less. | https://towardsdatascience.com/using-data-to-help-turn-household-waste-into-local-clean-energy-cb06aaddad8e | ['Taylor Stanley'] | 2020-11-21 15:38:31.032000+00:00 | ['Predictive Analytics', 'Waste', 'Energy', 'Waste To Energy', 'Data Science'] |
Guess who writes the most heartwarming holiday messages ever? My 26-year-old autistic son Diego. | Guess who writes the most heartwarming holiday messages ever? My 26-year-old autistic son Diego.
This week, Diego had a Zoom arts and crafts class and the group made holiday cards. The short message for each card reflected his unique relationship with the recipient.
To Abuela, who brings him pancakes on Thursdays:
Make me pancakes. I love you, Diego
To cousin Eugenia, who lives in Brooklyn:
Hi Eu, I like your apartment. I like Facetiming you. Love, Diego
To his life-long friend and former therapist Caro:
Hi Caro, You like romantic comedies. I like Facetiming you on the holidays. Love, Diego
Diego writes the greeting and the “Love, Diego” part because handwriting is super hard for him and stuff comes out illegible. So I get to take down the middle part of the message, as you can see here:
Shared with Diego’s permission
For more on Diego’s beautiful mind: | https://medium.com/special-needs-nation/guess-who-writes-the-most-heartwarming-holiday-messages-ever-my-26-year-old-autistic-son-diego-a09cadd39070 | ['Daniella Mini'] | 2020-12-12 15:55:28.372000+00:00 | ['Disability', 'Parenting', 'Autism', 'Holidays', 'Love'] |
Polygon August Adrenaline Series — Venly! | Polygon August Adrenaline Series — Venly!
Polygon has been one of the fastest-growing Dapp platforms for Ethereum scaling, rapidly becoming the de-facto standard for DeFi, NFTs, and Blockchain Gaming with 500+ Dapps, ~7M daily txns, and 1.8M+ unique wallets.
The rise of gaming on Polygon has been especially noticeable, with more than 100,000 blockchain gamers on Polygon and top Web 3 games, and Aavegotchi is one of them, building high-quality gaming experiences thanks to Polygon’s high speed and fast confirmation times.
This tight-knit and exponentially growing gamer community is what led to the creation of Polygon Studios: a brand new arm of Polygon that is focused on growing the global Blockchain Gaming and NFT Industry, and bridging the gap between Web 2 and Web 3 gaming.
Introducing Polygon August Adrenaline: an initiative to highlight and get to know the Gaming & NFT projects on Polygon a little better!
The next project in this series is Venly!
Please tell us more about your project and your team.
Venly is a blockchain tech provider focussing on Wallet services, NFT marketplace (+ APIs), and NFT tools. Venly is blockchain agnostic, supporting the 12 biggest chains in wallet accounts and launched the NFT market on Polygon (now on 4 chains).
Where are you in the hype cycle for gaming and NFT’s?
In NFTs, Venly is in the building stage, whereas in Gaming NFTs, they are pre-mainstream in the hype cycle for gaming and NFT’s.
Who are some thought leaders you follow in the space?
There are many thought leaders whom we follow but here are a few names — Andrew Steinwold, Jon Jordan, Sebastien Borget, Bobby from Animoca, Cagyjan for game testing.
What are some best ways for newbies to get up to speed in space?
We’ll soon be launching a dedicated Notion blog for this & it will be pinned on Yan Ketelers’s Twitter Profile who is the CMO at Venly.
What is that one thing most people don’t know about your project?
We have our own Market APIs so that users can build their own NFT marketplace. We’ve also have a feature to send NFTs to email, helping to bring NFTs to the mainstream audience.
Why did you choose to build on Polygon?
We’re blockchain agnostic but decided to build our NFT market on Polygon first. For its super-efficient transactions (speed + cost) and all great projects that are already on Polygon or transitioning to Polygon.
About Polygon Studios
Polygon Studios is the Gaming and NFT arm of Polygon focused on growing the global Blockchain Gaming and NFT Industry and bridging the gap between Web 2 and Web 3 gaming through investment, marketing, and developer support. The Polygon Studios ecosystem comprises highly loved games and NFT Dapps like OpenSea, Upshot, Aavegotchi, Zed Run, Skyweaver by Horizon Games, Decentraland, Megacryptopolis, Neon District, Cometh, and Decentral Games.
If you’re a game developer, builder, or NFT creator looking to join the Polygon Studios ecosystem, get started here.
Website | Twitter | Reddit | Telegram | https://medium.com/@_polygonstudios/polygon-august-adrenaline-series-venly-c31868353cbb | ['Polygon Studios'] | 2021-08-10 12:33:17.249000+00:00 | ['Gaming', 'Polygon', 'Nft', 'Polygon Studios', 'Defi'] |
The Future is Female — Meet our Summer 2020 Female Founder Track Cohort | We’re excited to introduce you to our third Female Founder Track cohort: a group of 21 incredible women, working on 11 different startups.
When FFT went virtual this summer, we knew we had the unique chance to reach schools — and speakers and mentors — from different backgrounds, socioeconomic levels, majors and locations around the country. Our participants have founded a diverse selection of companies, ranging broadly from solutions to help tackle menopausal symptoms to material management for the construction industry. We’re ecstatic that we had the chance to help their projects scale.
Over six sessions, participants learned about building MVPs, obtaining and maintaining product market fit, hiring, pivoting and fundraising. We’re ever grateful to our guest speakers — Deirdre Clute at Rightfoot, Cissy Chen at Citizen, Jess Lee at Sequoia, Sarah Guo at Greylock, nicky Goulimis at Nova Credit, Nicole Gibbons at Clare, Olamide Olowe at Topicals, Mollie Chen at Birchbox, Ilse Calderon at OVO, Kelly Watkins at Abstract, Hayley Barna at First Round, Mar Hershenson at Pear VC, Parul Singh at Founder Collective, Amanda Johnson at Mented, and Andrea Tang at AbinBev — who shared their hard-earned insights with the cohort:
We here at Dorm Room Fund are so, so proud to introduce you to the graduating Summer 2020 Female Founder Track cohort!
Bozzy — Mackenzie Branigan, Stanford Graduate School of Business and Malika Mehrotra, Harvard Kennedy School
Tell us a bit about Bozzy: Bozzy is an on-demand virtual assistant service for busy parents to offload daily household and family tasks. Our mission is to reduce mental load to allow busy parents to thrive both at home and in the workplace.
What’s one thing FFT helped you with: Every single week I came away from our FFT sessions with new ideas, new ways of thinking about my business, and more tools to become a successful founder.
Coven Media — Alexandra Davis & Caroline Brockett, Duke University
Tell us a bit about Coven: Coven is a media platform and community for college-aged womxn.
What’s one thing FFT helped you with: Our FFT mentor didn’t just shape our positive growth throughout the FFT, but in our company as a whole. We left each Zoom meeting feeling inspired, empowered and driven to iterate or grow each week.
The Regime — Yan Lawrence, The City College of New York
Tell us a bit about The Regime: The Regime is an online beauty tech platform that automates hair regimens and product selections for kinky and curly hair naturals to rediscover self love through hair care.
What’s one thing FFT helped you with: Created a network for me where we uplifted each other. My network has now increased my net worth.
Thermaband — Markea Dickinson, Yale School of Management
Tell us a bit about Thermaband: Thermaband’s mission is to provide an equitable solution for women with menopausal symptoms through the Zone device, a smart personal thermostat with digital health data. Founded by a mother facing the burden of hot flashes and lack of solutions, and her daughter.
What’s one thing FFT helped you with: FFT has been such a diverse and inclusive environment for me to flourish this summer, personally and professionally as a first-time founder! One of my favorite sessions was on VC & Fundraising- a panelist encouraged us to “be bold and sell the dream” when raising capital, and had an empowering discussion around overcoming gender biases in the space.
Amora — Tori Seidenstein & Sarah Jacobson, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Tell us a bit about Amora: Amora is a telehealth platform that helps people with aging parents navigate the complexity that comes with growing older.
What’s one thing FFT helped you with: Helping us think strategically about early enterprise sales and partnerships
Boon — Gabrielle Finear, Vanessa Wong, MIT
Tell us a bit about Boon: Boon is a mobile platform where users can post favors to their network in a quick, easy, and personalized way. Users can optionally monetize their favors, creating a miniature gig economy for fellow students to make money fast while helping an acquaintance in need.
What’s one thing FFT helped you with: FFT contributed to our confidence! As first time founders new to the startup landscape, FFT acted as our compass for resources and connected us with industry experts who had relevant advice for everything from VC relationships to growth strategy and team dynamics.
Sherpa — Charanya Venkataramani, UC Berkeley — Haas School Of Business
Tell us a bit about Sherpa: Sherpa is a platform that allows students to try out careers before committing to them via a combination of expert masterclasses and experiential project based learning. This empowers students to make informed post-secondary education and career choices rather than wasting precious time and money “exploring” during college.
What’s one thing FFT helped you with: Gave me clarity on the next things to work on and validate; gave me clarity on what investors look for in early-stage companies.
V A T T — Arushi Somani, Crystal Wang, UC Berkeley
Tell us a bit about VATT: English is no longer the dominant language of the web, and our mission is to dub and subtitle the ever-diversifying Internet. VATT offers a way for modern content creator networks to adapt to the rapidly shifting demographics of their current and potential audiences.
What’s one thing FFT helped you with: FFT definitely helped us build our confidence in ourselves and our product. It refined the ways we originally thought about company-building and the entrepreneurial space.
Trackr — Shraddha Agrawal, UC Davis and Debparna Pratiher, Carnegie Mellon
Tell us a bit about Trackr: Tools to optimize one’s job search.
What’s one thing FFT helped you with: Business model and growth strategy
NaviWell — Nitya Kanuri, Yale School of Management and Yale School of Public Health and Salina Hum & Agnieszka Matyja-sanetra, Yale School of Management
Tell us a bit about NaviWell: Our mission is to help all college students navigate their journey to mental wellness. Our first product, the Connect to Care platform, enables students to identify resources that fit their needs and preferences best, and empowers administrators to manage student wellness, at the individual and population level.
What’s one thing FFT helped you with: By participating in FFT, particularly engaging with the speakers and the fellow FFT founders, we realized the path to a new venture is messy; so, if you’re feeling a bit haphazard and helter-skelter, you’re doing just fine.
Healthy HOP — Esi Yobo, Drexel University
Tell us a bit about Healthy HOP: Healthy HOP is a platform dedicated to healthy diet-specific food essentials. It is our mission to make healthy eating easier and more accessible for everyone including those of special diets.
What’s one thing FFT helped you with: Clarity
Acadia — Catherine Jiang, Sara Pearce-Probst, Stanford University
Tell us a bit about Acadia: Modern materials management for the construction industry
What’s one thing FFT helped you with: Providing great mentorship and resources as well as an inspiring community of strong female entrepreneurs | https://medium.com/@dormroomfund/the-future-is-female-meet-our-summer-2020-female-founder-track-cohort-87b055a1f405 | ['Dorm Room Fund'] | 2020-09-23 17:02:38.923000+00:00 | ['Venture Capital', 'Diversity', 'VC', 'Starups', 'Female Founders'] |
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